| Venus and Adonis |
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| Written by Dark Lord |
| Wednesday, 23 April 2008 22:44 |
 Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse113 Sturt St, Southbank (Until May 4) This co-production between Mind’s Eye (Bell Shakespeare’s research and development arm) and Malthouse is a music theatre interpretation of Shakespeare’s earliest work: a long narrative poem in which Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love, seduces the mortal Adonis but is unable to make him love her. She begs him to return after a hunt, but he is killed by a wild boar. The poem is rich in allusion; Shakespeare set it in the forest, using floral and animal imagery in his sensuous verse. Director Marion Potts sets the story in a hotel room, where the goddess appears trapped by her own desire. And instead of Venus and Adonis, it is told instead by two Venuses (Melissa Madden Gray - of Meow-Meow fame - and Susan Prior) sporting floor-length ponytails and dressed in 1940s-style clothes. Andrée Greenwell’s music score conjures up a wide range of sounds and styles. A recorder features throughout, giving it an Elizabethan flavour but allowing it to sound modern, like pop music or cabaret. A female and male actor might have given the story more tension. Instead, the mostly unfamiliar poem becomes a series of highlights; such as when Madden Gray fixes the audience with a big-eyed stare and, in a Marilyn Monroe-esqe voice, invites Adonis to “graze on my lips,” then runs her hands over her breasts and suggests that “if those hills be dry” he “stray lower” as her hands descend suggestively. The strangest section of the production is done as mini film presentation. In the poem, Adonis needs maximum coercion but his horse, seeing a pretty filly, launches on her with a sexual frenzy that’s described like a sex-education lecture by the Venusian twins. Despite a few confusions this is a lovely entertainment and an imaginative piece of music theatre. Photo: Jeff Busby www.malthousetheatre.com.au
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 22:44 |
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