By Jason Blake
Calpurnia Descending
Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2, October 11
Paul Capsis as Beverly Dumont and Ash Flanders as Violet St Clair.Credit: Brett Boardman
After a repressed turn as Hedda Gabler at Belvoir, Ash Flanders gets to play to his strengths in this high camp vehicle co-written with partner-in-theatre-crime Declan Greene.
The place is New York City, the year is 1939, and Flanders is Violet St Clair, a small-town ingénue who throws herself into the vortex that is Beverly Dumont (Paul Capsis), a reclusive former stage star who lives under the watchful eye of her sinister personal assistant, Tootles (Sandy Gore).
Dumont is more than a has-been. Most people think she's long dead. But thanks to a late night encounter engineered by Violet, whose calculating streak quickly emerges, Dumont is rediscovered. All that remains is for her to resurrect her reputation as the greatest of Broadway's tragediennes.
Flanders and Greene's script leans heavily toward Hollywood parody at first. Gold Diggers of 1933, All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard loom large. But that is just to soften us up. Calpurnia doesn't descend so much as swan dive into a hysterical multimedia nightmare.
I won't describe what happens or how it is achieved because surprise is key to this production's success. It's enough to say that what unfolds is the result of a huge technical, choreographic and imaginative effort mated with a mischievous sense of humour.
What to make of the sudden appearance of a giant dancing rat? Or the comically long pauses between scenes? A curtain malfunction halted the show on this opening night for at least five minutes but I couldn't swear it wasn't deliberate.
Gore is richly funny in man-drag as Max Silvestri, a Broadway producer high on "vitality powder" whose fortune (and life) depends on Dumont's success. Peter Paltos brings wide-eyed comic appeal to the role of a young director who falls under Violet's spell. And why wouldn't you? Flanders' light touch and timing are a delight.
But the show belongs to Capsis as the tempestuous, fearful and spotlight-craving Dumont. There are few performers who can make such an extreme character statement seem so flesh-and-blood credible.
Until November 8