I have mixed feelings about this latest Sydney Theatre Company production. It is a revival of Australian playwright Patrick Cornelius’ 2010 play, DO NOT GO GENTLE.
Breaking it, I loved, really loved the production, helmed by Paige Rattray, however I didn’t really like the play all that much.
Cornelius’ play juxtaposes British explorer Randolph Scott’s and his team’s trek to the Antarctica to be the first to make it to the pinnacle of the South Pole with the ‘same team’ as elderly patients in a nursing home.
The primary theme intersecting the two narratives is to live life to the full, especially as one is in the final journey of one’s life.
I wasn’t persuaded by the analogy. True, Captain Scott’s trek to the South Pole was unsuccessful, in that he made it the zenith of the South Pole, only to find out that another explorer Roald Amundsen had made it there first. True, that he died, along with others in his team, on the trek back.
Still, I don’t ‘buy’ how Scott’s trek can be seen as a ‘rage against the dying of the light’, as per Dylan’s famous, quintessential poem. By any account, Scott was in, as one says, a good place, when he led the trek, and that he did not see himself in the final journey of his life. His goal was to make it to the South Pole first and to be praised around the world as the greatest explorer/adventurer of his time.
Rattray’s finely tuned production is just awesome. It is laden, literally bursting with atmosphere. There’s Charles Davis’ brilliant set and costume design, especially the set with its snowscapes and the multiple uses of the sliding door at the back of the stage, Paul Jackson’s great lighting design using different vantage points, and James Brown’s eclectic, always apt and appropriate soundscape,
With this production Rattray is blessed with one of the finest casts ever put together for an STC production. Oh, to have been in the rehearsal room and being able to see first hand how these great artists work.
We are talking – Peter Carroll, John. Gaden, Phillip Quast, Vanessa Downing , Josh McConville, Brigid Zengeni and even Australian Opera singer, Marilyn Richardson.
My favourite performances, from this dream cast, were by Phillip Quast, with his enormous stage presence, the luminous Vanessa Downing who played the most ‘out there’ character to perfection, and the pitch perfect, seemingly effortlessly vocals of Marilyn Richardson.
A production to die for, of a play that I couldn’t take to, Patricia Cornelius’ DO NOT GO GENTLE is playing the Roslyn Packer Theatre until June 17, 2023.
http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au
Production photography by Prudence Upton