THE CREDEAUX CANVAS, written by Keith Bunin and directed by Byron Kaye, is a funny and entertaining play centred around three young people dwelling on the creative fringes of art and music. The Tap Gallery, in Palmer Street, Darlinghurst, is the ideal place for this production, with its profusion of artworks on the walls and an old piano in the bookshop café.
The play opens with some very cool jazz and Winston, played by Alex Shore, wearing a Miles Davis t-shirt, in a bedroom with an easel and canvases leaning against the wall. We are in a very artistic and creative environment.
Amelia, played by Kitty Hopwood, enters the room in her dressing gown and examines the artworks. She is interrupted by the waking Winston, apologises, offers to leave but Winston and Amelia engage in awkward conversation.
Winston manages the awkward conversation with hesitancy and clumsiness, even though the dialogue seems too literary for conversation. Amelia is a little more confident and maintains the conversation. She explains she is the girlfriend of Winston’s flatmate and long term friend Jamie.
Jamie, played by Richard Cornally, arrives full of exuberance. He has been at the reading of his father’s will and had been left nothing. His father was a difficult person and he and Jamie had a poor relationship. Fortuitously, Jamie had a chance encounter with a wealthy client of his art dealing father. This encounter gave him the idea of getting Winston to paint a forgery of the obscure but growing in popularity French fauvist Jean-Paul Credeaux, and selling it to his father’s former client Tess Anderson Rose.
Jamie considers her a fool and fortunately a Credeaux fan. Credeaux had paid off gambling debts with nude paintings of prostitutes and many of these paintings had been lost as they were in the hands of atypical art collectors. It is not unheard of for a Credeaux to emerge from seedy source. Jamie’s plan includes getting Amelia to pose as a nude prostitute.
These convolutions set up the nude second act. Amelia reluctantly poses and Winston removes his clothes as he bizarrely thinks this will make Amelia more comfortable. Amelia opens up about her life, her thoughts and her relationship and soon the groundwork has been laid for a classic tragedy, and it artfully unfolds. Tess Anderson Rose, played by Jennie Dibley, turns out not to be as utterly foolish as Jamie thinks she is and her insights lead to calamitous unravelling.
Some interesting themes are explored. There is a discussion about how long to persist with your art before accepting that situations and circumstance will take you in another direction. Creative passion should not be destroyed in trying to eke out a living through creativity nor should you compromise if it is what you are driven to do so.
There is lots of humorous dialogue and wry observations in Keith Bunin’s play. The story and performances are strong. Tom Bannerman’s set design and Larry Kelly’s lighting is simple and apt. Recommended, this production, by Sure Foot Productions opened at the Tap Gallery, 178 Palmer Street, Darlinghurst opened on Thursday 21st March and plays until Saturday 6th April, 2013.
© Mark Pigott
23rd March, 2013
Tags: Sydney Stage Reviews- THE CREDEAUX CANVAS, Keith Bunin, Byron Kaye, Alex Shore, Tap Gallery Darlinghurst, Kitty Hopwood, Richard Cornally, Jennie Dibley, Tom Bannerman, Larry Kelly, Craig O’Regan, Sydney Arts Guide, Mark Pigott
