Review by Lisa Lanzi
Just as the audience beholds Jack Maggs as a play within a play on the Dunstan stage, the lineage of the work is also an intertwined tale. State Theatre SA presents the world-premiere of a play from Adelaide born/London dwelling writer Samuel Adamson based on the Miles Franklin award-winning novel of the same name by Australian Peter Carey. In its turn, the 1997 novel was a re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations so that minor characters, like Abel Magwitch / Jack Maggs, are elevated as central to the contemporary novel. Dame Hermione Lee (British biographer, literary critic, and academic) called Carey’s novel "an imaginative and daring act of appropriation". Adamson has kept the Carey spirit but concentrated the complex story to fit into two hours and forty minutes of stage time.
A sparse, stripped back ‘poor theatre’ style stage greets the audience upon entry and a centrally placed ghost light picks out various cast members warming up, both vocally and physically. We spy a piano in the shadows upstage plus various indistinct pieces of furniture, reminiscent of any musty backstage area within any typical community hall.
The moment the lighting shifts and a decorative-but-shabby draped surround whooshes high into the proscenium it is obvious that Ailsa Paterson’s inspired design work on set and costumes is key to the placement of the story, and arguably, could overshadow the performances if the ensemble wasn’t so talented. A grimy, patched together, slightly askew calico backdrop frames various scenes and complements the quirky costuming. As the narrative proceeds, era-appropriate sets are flawlessly manipulated by the actors, seeming to float into and out of position denoting place or occasion. Nigel Levings has created a subtle but beautiful lighting design where darkness and shadow are just as important as ‘lit’ spaces. The action is also punctuated at times with the use of clever, fittingly Victorian-era shadow puppetry and other devices. Composer Hilary Kleinig and Sound Designer Andrew Howard have contributed much to the tenor of the whole with their exquisite and thoughtful works, some of which are sung or played live by the cast. The evocative sound design and songs, that exist somewhere between English and Australian folk, become a connective device throughout.
The cast give their all to this work led by the very able Mark Saturno in the titular role. Recent NIDA graduate Ahunim Abebe also sparkles as Mercy, a young woman sold off by her mother, yet still with the capacity to love and find joy in life. Mercy is also our narrator as scenes shift and the story unfolds. James Smith shines as the author and ‘mesmerist’ Tobias Oates who slides through life displaying an obsessive, selfish pursuit of success to the detriment of his loved ones. Nathan O'Keefe gives us the obsequious Percy Buckle (and briefly the Doctor), with his usual spirit and veteran Jacqy Phillips takes on multiple roles. Jelena Nicdao, Rachel Burke, and Dale March round out the cast taking on various characters throughout denoted by small costume, gender, or accent changes.
Although I was not entirely convinced by the rendering of some queer personas, perhaps a nod to the vaudevillian or Kabarett influences from the era, I was impressed by the inherent physicality displayed in other characterizations. For example, the 'tic doloureux' endured by Jack Maggs (a particular form of neuralgia that manifests as a sudden stabbing facial pain) was cleverly set up by Saturno’s precise physicality accompanied by a piercing, disturbing whistle-like sound. Another directorial choice was the use of perfectly staged tableaux emerging from shadow like a Gericault painting, where a group of characters might frame a moment with dramatic stillness accompanied by song.
Geordie Brookman is a director with a sure hand and a creative but incisive eye. His inventiveness organized the actors, as they moved the set to become statue-still lurkers who listen at doors, or physically merged as part of the ‘furniture’ so there is rarely extraneous exiting and entering. The choreographic nature of the work extends to expert use of levels, idiosyncratic movement, and grouping non-speaking actors to focus the action.
There is an abundance of thematic philosophies to unpack in this play, not an easy task on one viewing. Though the setting is Victorian London, a strangely dystopian air pervades the narrative, reminding me somewhat of the book (by Emily St John Mandel) and television series Station 11, perhaps because the costuming is impressionistic and grungy rather than faithfully of the era. Without the Dickens and colonial references, we could be watching a decaying future society, such is the strange combination of generational trauma, emotional isolation, male camaraderie juxtaposed with competitiveness, trickery and deceit, a sense of regulated destiny as opposed to true freedom, the sense of a quest (or ‘hero’s journey’), and societal or class divisions. The tale is rife with loss, death and murder, dispossessed and traumatized women and children, as well as a mix of individual weaknesses and determination.
All the elements in this State Theatre offering are of a very high quality indeed: the performances, the creative team’s contributions, the superb direction. Somehow though, I found I wasn’t drawn in to the drama as much as I expected and though I could sit and admire what was before me, I found I didn’t care about the fate of the characters - it felt more like examining their fate in a distant, scientific way. I found myself reflecting that so much work on our contemporary stages is focussed on the power, adventures, and supremacy of males, flawed though they may be. Yes, there was a female presence within this work and the twist at the end shifts it, superficially, into more of a woman’s tale but the male story was still at the heart of the matter.
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