Red Stitch Shows Its Seams
The Age
Saturday October 18, 2008
MARIE ANTOINETTE: THE COLOUR OF FLESH
By Joel Gross, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, October 10. Until November 8. Running time: 140 minutes. www.redstitch.netONE of the many impressive achievements of Red Stitch Actors Company has been their ability to obtain rights to new works from London and New York, enabling Melbourne audiences to sample what's making waves on the international theatre scene. Joel Gross' Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh was an off-Broadway hit in 2007, and revived this year.But it's a significant departure from Red Stitch's usual fare; it's neither a gritty drama nor a satirical farce but a historical romance with all the trappings of a Hollywood costume drama. This genre is not the company's strength.A love triangle is played out against the backdrop of the impending French Revolution. On one side are the historical figures, Queen Marie Antoinette and the painter Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun; onthe other is the lover they share, a fictional nobleman with progressive pretensions, the Comte Alexis de Ligne.The action ranges from 1774, when the women are both 19, to 1793, the year of the Queen's execution. This sweeping time period allows great development in character, from the innocence and frivolity of youth, to the resignation and regret of maturity.The actors handle these transitions with varying degrees of success. Olivia Connolly seems miscast as Marie, her tone often at odds with the script's scenario. There is terrific grace in her final scene, however, and her coiffure is something to behold.Brett Cousins is sufficiently charming as Alexis, though he is never quite the leading man that the play demands. Erin Dewar is the most successful, bringing vitality and vigour to the role of the portraitist Elisa.Director Denis Moore creates some fine scenes, and there are lots of comic lines well delivered but the production struggles to find its centre. The tone swings unsteadily between aristocratic dignity and vernacular banality. Some of this reflects problems in the script, but more so an inexperience with the genre. "Sink me," as the Scarlet Pimpernel might say.
© 2008 The Age