(`lady Chatterley's Lover' In A Romp At Rippon Lea)
The Age
Monday August 8, 1994
`Lady Chatterley's Lover' in a romp at Rippon Lea.
FANCY A ROMP amid the well-manicured gardens of Rippon Lea? Not at this time of the year, of course, but in early January, when the weather is more conducive to outdoor activities.
The Performing Arts Project, the very imaginative theatre company that has made a name for itself with period productions such as `Indian Summer' and `Loving Friends' by using the National Trust estate at Ripplon Lea as an expansive and stylish set, is staging an outdoor version of `Lady Chatterley's Lover', but can't find a suitable leading lady.
What is desired, I am told, is an actress with an English-rose complexion, who is not afraid to show it off. How much is to be shown, no one is saying. This, no doubt, will be negotiated between aspiring Lady Chatterleys and the director, Robert Chuter. At this stage, there is no news on who will play the role of the gamekeeper, Mellors, or what special attributes are required of him. We can only surmise.
Likely Lady Chatterleys should call Jason Buesst, 5963756.
Melbourne Festival signs up top Canadian director.
THE BIG COUP of the Melbourne Festival has been signing up the Canadian Opera Company and its brilliant director, Robert Lepage, regarded by many as the successor to the great Peter Brook. The latest news from Lepage is that before heading this way he will present a new work, `The Seven Streams of the River Ota', at the Edinburgh Festival next week.
`Ota' is the latest in Lepage's continuing series of ensemble works that sets out to uncover connections between major cultural and political events of the 20th Century. The estuary of the River Ota runs beneath the city of Hiroshima. The production is what Lepage calls a monodrama and features only one singer, Rebecca Blankenship, who will also come with Lepage to appear in the Canadian Opera Company's productions of Bartok's `Bluebeard's Castle' and Schoenberg's `Erwartung'.
Success of `Last Supper' lifeline for Theatreworks.
AS ONE THEATRE closes its doors, another struggling company finds a lifeline. With the probable demise of Anthill, that other performing group residing in the newly amalgamated district of Port Phillip, Theatreworks, has just enjoyed a successful season with its production of `The Last Supper'. The season culminated with a special `St Kilda Night', at which the company declared its determination to stay in the beachside suburb.
Theatreworks is in the throes of a legal battle with its landlord, the Anglican Church, which is reluctant to extend the company's lease for the theatre, which happens to stand on prime real-estate. Theatreworks manager, Paul Monoghan, says support from local traders and residents was so strong that it convinced them to continue the fight to stay put. Monoghan says the company hopes that an agreement can be reached with the church before the matter gets to the courts.
In the meantime, Theatreworks is busily planning its next production, an adaptation of `Rigoletto' for the Melbourne Fringe Festival in October.
Post-structural literary theorists feel the sting.
DAVID WILLIAMSON flew into Melbourne on Friday night on the way back from visiting his ailing father in Perth. Before heading home to Sydney, he delivered the third annual Stephen Murray-Smith memorial lecture at the State Library where he launched a stinging attack - no, not on theatre critics - but the post-structural literary theorists.
Williamson charged them with destroying the relationship between language and humanism in their quest to push their own fashionable ideology. We hear that this high-brow academic debate will be thrashed out in Williamson's next play, which he is now writing. So much for Williamson pandering to the comfortable middle classes.
© 1994 The Age
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