Melancholia

Here is a production that starts with terrific aesthetic beauty and with a lovely energy from its performers.  Superbly realized and splendidly cast  - Melancholia is a feast for the senses.

Unfortunately as the evening progresses the energy wanes and it feels a little under-rehearsed.  Or is it the weight of Melancholia and the strange ambiance, like a vortex, sucking us all in?  Or perhaps it is the mark of a highly successful production - to be unsure if the supernatural lure of melancholia has not actually taken an inactivating grip on its audience.

The film Melancholia by Danish Screenwriter and Director Lars von Trier is adapted for stage by Declan Green and directed by Matthew Lutton – an especially challenging and no doubt rewarding undertaking for the two. 

But was the play as good as the film?  Well I can’t say because I remember, years ago, trying to watch a DVD of the film and not managing to adequately engage with it.

There are some startling moments of elucidation that somehow seem to reduce the whole to a domestic drama.  In that particular take the suggestion is that psychological cruelness and brutality can set individuals on the road to desperate despondency.  And the superficiality of the Advertising Industry, for its ability to generate instability, is an identifiable target.

In the midst of a grey day in a Melbourne winter – it is hard to imagine how one would survive a Danish winter without feeling despairing even if surrounded by very loving family and friends.

State of the Art Design (Marg Horwell), Sound (J. David Franzke) and Lighting (Paul Jackson) do much to create the pervadingly disturbing environment. Horwell’s costumes and set are stunning. Her silk wedding dress very gorgeously adorns actress Eryn Jean Norvill and the stage, with a circular opening, speaks of alien landings and unsettling lack of bounds and limits.

I once heard someone say that depression in contagious.  I imagine as an actor it is very difficult to work with melancholia, even in this rarefied exaggerated Theatrical sense, without feeling downcast.

It is Maude Davey who shines.  I know that I am not alone in this sentiment because I listened to a number of people confer in the auditorium.  Her wacky drunken speech as the Mother of the Bride is most engaging and captivatingly real.

Likewise Steve Mouzakis’s brother in law’s wedding speech is riveting, although more for the reason of the shocking twists and turns in what he is actually saying.

Leeanna Walsman brings us the confident and controlling Claire.  As the, initially exquisitely dressed, sister of the Bride, she works with poise and clarity throughout.

Gareth Yuen plays a sincere and genuine bridegroom and is finely cast.

Eryn Jean Norvill brings a lovely vulnerability to the pivotal role of Justine.  She is The Bride of the opening and the psychologically fragile ‘free spirited’ younger sister to Claire.

The dense academic treatise, in the form of program notes by Greene and Lutton, provides fascinating elucidation.

Certainly a must if you are a Lars von Trier fan.

Suzanne Sandow

Photographer: Pia Johnson

Credits

Cast

Alexander Artemov

Maude Davey

Steve Mouzakis

Eryn Jean Norvill

Liam Smith

Leanne Walsman

Gareth Yuen

Set and Costume Design – Marg Horwell

Lighting design – Paul Jackson

Sound Design and Composition – J. David Franzke

Stage Management – Hristina Tsingas