State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 19 Nov 2024
The stage is dimly lit as we enter the theatre. Actors roam the elevated space, partially clothed, performing their warmups; mouths yawn, lips flubber, bodies twist and stretch. The heaped curtain lies across the stage as pieces of the set are rolled around. It’s all a bit grubby looking. As they pull on their costumes, mud and dust appears to hold the fabric together. The heap of grimy curtain flaps and rises, the actors come to attention, the show begins.
There is quite an art in re-imagining another author’s work and using the perspective of another character to do so. Peter Carey’s novel took Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations and twisted the plot a little, turning the shadowy figure of Abel Magwitch into the primary character of Jack Maggs. In Carey’s version, Maggs (Mark Saturno) returns from the Australian penal colony and is now looking for his ‘son’ Henry Phipps (Pip), the urchin he has sponsored into London society. Unfortunately, while he has somehow managed to become a wealthy freemans, he was sentenced for ‘the term of his natural life’ so is risking all by returning to England.
Samuel Adamson’s script has turned this around again, bringing to the fore Mercy Larkin (Ahunim Abebe), housemaid to grocer made good Percy Buckle (Nathan O’Keefe). Mercy becomes the narrator in this production, declaring all previous versions of this story to be lies, and she is here to tell us what really happened.
It’s all a little odd at times, with the cast breaking into bursts of song at odd moments, and it’s not always clear where we are. However, the performances are enough to distract until we catch up; Saturno is a powerhouse from the moment he walks on stage, and O’Keefe is in his element, wavering between social climbing aristo and slightly camp, fawning nouveau riche ex-grocer.
The author Tobias Oates, a thinly disguised Dickens, is played as a self-seeking, arrogant opportunist by James Smith, and there are some delightfully farcical moments between him and O’Keefe, and there are literary easter eggs aplenty.
When Maggs, who has come across Oates and Buckle while searching for Pip, is struck by a kind of tic douloureux, Oates, as a student of mesmerism, does a deal to heal him, thus becoming privy to Maggs’ secrets while he is under the hypnotic trance. He intends to use the secrets as a basis for his next book.
Dale March, Rachel Burke, Jelena Nicdao and Jacqy Phillips take on multiple characters as the play collects all the threads of the story and ravels them into a mucky theatrical cloth: the actors work hard with what is sometimes a fairly dense script.
It's easy to characterise this as a ‘play within a play’ but that’s not really the case here. It’s more that the Director Geordie Brookman has taken various theatrical forms – the Victorian stage, vaudeville and some decidedly post-modern devices – and exposed the artifice of the play and the simple but ingenious art of production. Actors stand side of stage blowing bird whistles; changing characters move in and out of scenes with the adoption of a hat or coat, wardrobes become front doors and carriages.
Nigel Levings’ lighting appeared to work with the grit and grime of Ailsa Paterson’s set and costumes. To be fair, it was difficult to ascertain all the effects from the front row, almost under the stage (aka the nose hair seats), but the clever use of shadow play and lanterna magica was brilliantly realised.
Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs is a clever re-imagining of Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, and Samuel Adamson and Geordie Brookman have pushed that envelope out a little more, with the Macy Larkin character diffusing some of the relentless masculinity. The literary landscape is ripe for interpretations such as these; State Theatre has done well to bring this one to life.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 to 30 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
