What – LOVE
IS MY SIN.
Where and When – La Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton,
Victoria – May 09, 2013 – May 19, 2013.
Reviewer - Joe Calleri.
Theatre audiences more accustomed to seeing productions of William
Shakespeare’s famous plays will in equal measures be intrigued and seduced by Love
Is My Sin, a refined, elegant production, that highlights 29 of
Shakespeare’s love sonnets deftly directed by Melbourne theatre director and
playwright, Kate Herbert.
Herbert’s interpretation of director Peter Brook’s adaptation,
possesses no narrative as such, and her two performers, Jenny Lovell and Geoff
Wallis, do not portray characters. They are simply, the woman and the man.
Herbert respectfully, carefully, skilfully structures the sonnets in
such a way that they provide the audience with an imagined timeline and uneven
trajectory of a long love affair between the man and the woman.
All the powerful emotions that you expect in a relationship -
infatuation, love, hate, jealousy, indifference, rage - are represented in
Shakespeare’s words which, while written in the 17th century, bear equal weight
and import in the 21st.
The relationship between the man and the woman, spoken through the
sonnets, starts off playfully, lovingly, as most relationships do. But, as the
years pass, first cracks, then deep fissures begin to appear, and doubts,
misunderstandings, arguments, and separation ensue.
This performance requires you pay close attention to each word
that Lovell and Wallis speak and every nuance of their performance.
Reminding us that Shakespeare wrote the
sonnets to be read, the two performers alternate between reading directly from
books and scripts and performing the sonnets – admirably memorised – as
impassioned dialogue.
Intriguingly, unexpectedly almost, you feel yourself being drawn
in and beguiled by the beauty of Shakespeare’s language, like bees to honey.
Herbert places Lovell and Wallis in a simple, sparse space furnished
with only a table, whiteboard and butcher’s paper. Each actor take turns in
either writing the theme of a block of sonnets – Devouring Time, Separation,
Jealousy and Time Defeated – on the whiteboard, or writing lines from the
sonnets on the paper. This is an interesting device adopted by Herbert to
ensure that the production does not become overly static.
Herbert also casts talented, young cellist, Helen Barclay, who skilfully,
passionately, plays either entire or parts of nine suites and sonatas for cello.
The evocative cello provides the musical equivalent of chapter headings to the
various sections of the sonnets.
This production does everything right, and deserves both a larger
performance space and audiences who can truly appreciate not only the Bard’s
exquisite language, but also the fine, thoughtful performances from Lovell,
Wallis and Barclay.
L to R - HELEN BARCLAY (CELLO), JENNY LOVELL, GEOFF WALLIS. |
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