STC The Histrionic

A fabulous production ! Bille Brown is tremendous
here's what I said for artshub
http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/the-histrionic-190175
A co-production between the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, where it has recently finished a very successful season, and the Sydney Theatre Company, The Histrionic is one of those plays that sharply divides critics and audiences. I thought it was fabulous.
As the play opens, faded theatre icon Bruscon and his bedraggled troupe have arrived in the small rural village of Utzbach (population 280) , to perform Bruscon’s monumental epic, The Wheel of History , an allegory of timewarped meetings between Madame Curie, Churchill, Einstein, Hitler, Metternich, Napoleon , Stalin and others .
Bruscon’s Wheel, like the unwieldy giant cheese wheel he lugs around, isn’t really wanted, but that isn’t really important to him. Nor is the fact that everyone in the potential audience is rushed off their feet as it is ‘blood sausage Tuesday’. What is important to Bruscon is that the performance proceeds.
Though little known in Australia, Thomas Bernhard is regarded as one of Austria’s most significant writers of the 20th century. His play is an analysis of life as theatre, theatre as life, as (un)reality, as the actors struggle and prepare in rehearsal in the lead-up to the performance. This translation by Tom Wright features in-jokes about theatre life, art, suffering and Austrian history. The audience laughs in appalled recognition, horrified yet enthralled.
Bille Brown plays Bruscon, one of the ‘roles to die for’ in contemporary theatre, and he is superb, pulling out all the stops. The character is played as one of the last larger than life Shakespearean/Dickensian actor-managers. He is cruel and taunting to his family and others, overbearing, bombastic and blustering. A total Man of the Theatre, with searing command of language, Bruscon rails against the world and against the life he leads.
The play is in effect a monologue for Brown’s tumultuous, whirling, spitting performance as Bruscon – all the other characters are eclipsed, working as a counterpoint chorus to Bruscon’s solo. There’s Barry Otto’s tremulous, cringing, timid landlord who delights in the hassles Bruscon has about permits for blacking the exit lights; Jennifer Vuletic as Bruscon’s tall, dryad like consumptive wife, with oxygen tank; Josh Price as Bruscon’s injured, disaffected, put-upon son Ferruccio, who seemingly can do nothing right (no wonder he suddenly snaps); the harassed landlady (Kelly Butler) trying to get everything done; and Erina (Katherine Tonkin) and Sarah (Jennifer Wren).
Marg Horwell’s semi-surrealist set is full of fallen columns, huge bits of broken oversize statues, a giant, decapitated black, all cluttered around a raised stage with both cloth and plastic curtains. All this has echoes of the downfall of a great empire.
Will Bruscon’s troupe succeed in getting the play on, despite the landlord’s obstructions? Will Bruscon be able to take curtain calls? You will have to see this extraordinary performance to find out.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Histrionic
By Thomas Bernhard
Translated by Tom Wright
Director Daniel Schlusser
Designer Marg Horwell
Lighting Designer Paul Jackson
Composer and sound designer Darrin Verhagen
Cast: Bille Brown, Kelly Butler, Barry Otto, Josh Price, Katherine Tonkin, Jennifer Vuletic and Edwina Wren
Running time: one hour 40 mins (approx) no interval
Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1
June 15 – July 28