The Trial

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

02/12/20

Netflix

With David Fincher’s Mank due to appear on Netflix any day now, this seems like the perfect moment to have a closer look at the maverick genius, Orson Welles. Mank is all about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, and the making of Citizen Kane. For many decades consistently referred to as ‘the best movie ever made,’ it certainly was an absolute game changer when it appeared in 1941. Welles was only 24 years old at that point – but, mostly due to the awful treatment he subsequently received from his peers in Hollywood, he would never achieve such dizzy heights again.

Also on Netflix is this gem – a documentary about the great director’s long (and ultimately doomed) attempts to create one final movie, The Other Side of the Wind. The film, as meticulously reconstructed from a series of outtakes by Welles’ old buddy, Peter Bogdanovich, can also be found on Netflix if you look hard enough, but it’s this vivid documentary that makes for the better watch. Narrated by Alan Cummings, directed by Morgan Neville and starring a whole cavalcade of Welles’ former friends and acquaintances, it gives an all-too-clear indication of the kind of mayhem that ebbed and flowed around the great man during the film’s troubled shoot. (You can almost smell the hashish blasting around the likes of Dennis Hopper, John Huston and Rich Little as they stumble around the set, vainly trying to work out exactly what Welles is attempting to do.) But TOSOTW had other problems to contend with, not least having the movie’s master print seized and locked up by the Shah of Iran – one of Welles’ shady backers.

Did Welles deserve to be regarded as a cinematic genius? Oh, yes, definitely. Was he treated abominably by the country that spawned him? Most assuredly. Hollywood may belatedly have offered him a trumped-up award for cinematic achievement, but nobody was ready to back up any of his enterprises with hard currency. In retrospect, it seems that they were simply trying to absolve their own collective guilt.

But it’s important to point out that, through a career plagued by adversity, Welles did somehow manage to create some astonishing films. Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Trial, A Touch of Evil… and also, some of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever committed to celluloid – Chimes at Midnight is frankly extraordinary. This is a decent legacy for any director to leave behind, let alone one who started so promisingly and thereafter had every kind of shit heaped on his shoulders. He developed a reputation for being hard to get on with, but is it any wonder?

If you haven’t seen this, do take the opportunity to catch up with it and, if you’re feeling brave, move on to The Other Side of the Wind. Sure, it’s a tad incoherent and I’m really not sure about the film within a film – the one that clearly sets out to rubbish the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini, but… imagine how good it might have been if only Welles’ had the budget he needed to do it properly.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Liberty Equality Fraternity

21/04/20

Digital Theatre

The worldwide pandemic is leading us into some unexpected waters. My previous knowledge of Australian Theatre would best have been described as ‘very minimal’. But after recently watching and enjoying Emerald City on Digital Theatre, we’ve been prompted to seek out another production by the National Theatre of Australia.

Liberty Equality Fraternity is a tight little three-hander that plays rather like a witty update of Kafka’s The Trial, demonstrating how, in the age of social media, it’s impossible for anyone to have secrets. Whatever we do, whatever we say, it seems that somebody is always watching us.

Orlagh (Caroline Brazier) sits alone in a tiny room in front of a blank screen. She’s been at work on what seems like a normal day, when she finds herself unceremoniously bundled into isolation, with no real explanation of what’s happening to her. Has she broken some obscure law? Is she about to be accused of something? Then in comes ‘Arkie’ (Andrew Ryan). It’s not his real name, he explains, but refers to an extinct bird that he’s rather fond of. Arkie, it turns out, knows a lot about Orlagh. He has intimate details of every aspect of her life, including incriminating photographs which soon start to appear on the screen behind her – and, it transpires, he’s trying to establish connections between her and other people, some of whom she knows, and some she has never heard of.

As the interrogation continues, Orlagh’s fears start to mount and they are not exactly assuaged with the appearance of Walter (Helmut Bakaitis), whose suave and effortless dismissal of all that has gone before seems, if anything, even more sinister.

This is a dark and often caustically funny piece, written by Geoffrey Atherden and featuring sterling performances from the cast. Ryan is particularly good as the boorish Arkie, frantically trying to maintain control but subject to to his own fears and inadequacies, as Orlagh gradually begins to get the measure of him and turns his techniques back on him. It soon transpires that Arkie too has secrets he’d rather not share with the world.

The play asks some pertinent questions about the perils of contemporary living. Why are we so ready to share every detail of our lives on social media? Do we honestly believe that such platforms are harmless… that they might not one day be used against us?

Liberty Equality Fraternity may not provide any answers but it certainly asks some highly relevant questions.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

The Trial

People-Zoo-The-Trial-Image

08/08/16

Summerhall, Edinburgh

Adapted by People Zoo Productions, as part of the Rose Bruford College season at Summerhall, Franz Kafka’s ultimate tale of paranoia and alienation is presented here as an absurd farce with the volume cranked up to eleven. On his 30th birthday, Josef K (William J Holstead) wakes one morning to find himself under arrest. He has no idea what his supposed crime is or even exactly who is accusing him, but he has embarked on a slippery downward path that will eventually lead him to his own destruction.

This stylish and thought-provoking production has already won a couple of prestigious awards at this year’s Manchester Fringe Festival and it’s easy to see why. There are elements of physical theatre here (the stage combat is particularly assured) and characters are played in a grotesque, almost cartoonish fashion. The scene in which K is instructed to beat three teenage girls in order to prove his innocence is particularly chilling. I liked the simple but effective staging of the story and the way in which the six strong cast switched effortlessly from character to character, providing their own musical accompaniment along the way.

It’s always daunting to take on such a famous work but People Zoo rise to the challenge. This powerful and effective play, ably directed by Craig Sanders, is definitely one to watch at this year’s fringe.

4 stars

Philip Caveney