 |
| Toby Truslove & Anna Sampson in Bliss Photo: Pia Johnson |
Harry Joy is dead but not for long. He’s quickly revived into
a new life, one that resembles Hell or an advertising company pitch meeting. Or
maybe it was like that all along?
Based on Peter Carey’s debut novel from 1981, playwright Tom
Wright and director Matthew Lutton have teamed up again – after Picnic at Hanging Rock – to adapt a
classic Australian book to the Malthouse stage.
But where Picnic
was sleek, sharp and focused, Bliss
is leaden and long.
The early introductory scenes felt like Wright and Lutton
were aiming for a poetic companion piece to their Gothic melodrama, with interlocking
monologues picking apart the kind of Australia that is only reminisced about. Bliss is set in the 1980s, in the
suburbs of Sydney. The costumes allude to the decade without being a parody of
it. The local references evoke the era.
As Harry stumbles through this newly recognised Hellish existence,
we’re treated to some wryly amusing meta-theatrical nonsense; he thinks his
family are actors and he’s trapped on a revolving set. But embracing a Brechtian
approach to Harry’s new life doesn’t gain the production much after a while.
The trouble with Harry is – he and his family are hard to like. And their
stories are mostly flat.
Which is a pity, because Lutton has assembled an exceptional
cast to bring the Joy family and others to life. Toby Truslove brings a kind of
dignity to Harry that is at odds with his wife Bettina’s wish that he had
stayed dead. Amber McMahon is wild as Harry’s wife, injecting much energy each
time she steals the spotlight.
Wright’s approach to the material seems to regard the
original text with such reverence, for much of the three-hour running time it
felt like the actors were reading the book to me, suggesting that I should have
just read it.
There are moments of satire in this show but they are not
sustained or built upon. I worried for Harry’s well-being for a while and then
I stopped. I wanted something more for his family and then I found it difficult to
care.
Late in the play, I was wondering how the rest of the audience
was doing. I was concerned for them. I looked around, thinking about that regular
criticism of critics – you hated it, but what did the rest of the audience
think? I didn’t do a poll, but I did note that several people didn't return after interval and that for a supposed comedy, there was only a scattering of
laughs the whole night.
I got some food stuck in my throat at dinner before I saw Bliss. Maybe I died and woke up, much
like Harry Joy, in Hell. The only way for him to resolve his dilemma was to die
again. At least I got to get up and leave the theatre.
 |
| The cast of Bliss Photo: Pia Johnson |
Comments