Neandellus: Theatre: Melbourne Theatre: Quartet: The Razor

25 August 2009 8:07:38 PM

Quartet, by Heiner Müller (aft. Laclos) A is for Atlas @ J-Studios, Drama Studio Wed. 12 Aug. to Sat. 29 Aug. And so this is what it is: A is for Atlas, led by director Xan Coleman, have made the marriage of Müllerʼs Quartet, translated from the German by Carl Weber, itself an adaptation—or creative re-organisation—of Choderlos de Laclosʼs Les Liaisons Dangereuses, to an original composition (duo for violin and cello), Music to Quartet: The Razor, an adaptation, in its turn, from Joseph Haydnʼs Op.55 No.2, a string quartet better known as “The Razor”, re-imagined by recent University of Melbourne Masters graduate Annie Hsieh. All of which leads us to, at last, the full production title: Quartet: The Razor. The result, perhaps belied by the imbrications outlined above, is the most elegant sixty-odd minutes of theatre seen this year. At least, that was what I told Wilma as we cycled back from J-Studios toward the city, taking advantage of Canning Streetʼs ample width to deal the night abreast and at an easy pace. “But was it elegant? Is that what you call elegant? For I didnʼt think it smooth,” she said, in response. “It was squeaky, creaky, grungy; definitely intelligent, in a cold way, but not elegant.” [...] “Elegance, as I think it, is that which delights by smaller beauties. And the details of this production did, I say, strike me as beautiful. Although in poetry and prose my preference is for polished Roman, in matters haute couture my tastes are less affected, or, at least, express a different kind of affectation, one more typical of a Spike Jonze music video, circa 1992, which is perhaps to say they are undeveloped. The many details of costume and set design in Quartet: The Razor therefore appealed immediately to my sensibilities and were a delight to my eye: unravelled gold brocade, worn trim, shredded jacket linings, frayed hems, plastic barrette combs swinging loose, scuffed-up, low-heeled zip-up ankle boots (tongue turned down to show the white lining against the black leather) and rustic whitewashing on the walls and furnishings.” “Ah, then, while we are in 1992, you would also call Dazed and Confused an elegantly made film?” “No,” I said, “for, as I say, elegance is a question of smallness. These beauties were but details embroidered on the eighteenth-century costumes and furnishings, which here were not the full-blown Draughtsmanʼs Contract, wig-and-waterfall, but were tailored to give an elegant—which is as much to say, in all things correct—balance to the crucial ideas of decadence and doubling.” We here dismounted, being at the lights on Alexandra Parade. The wait would be a long one. I continued: “Taken with Müllerʼs own description of the playʼs setting as a bunker after World War III,tThe hints toward doubling, the matching salmon pink and bottle green ensembles, the matching translucent chemises, the matching of pitch as between Andrew Gray and Felicity Steel, the television screens built unobtrusively into the wall where mirrors might have been and the strawberries and rose petals, red wine and lipstick put me all in mind of cloning and, together with the details of deterioration, the degeneration of DNA across multiple replications. What then did we have here? A compound, perhaps, to secure the wasted specimens of a declining humanity, incapable of real passion or true frenzy, capable now only of play acting.” “Would you then say,” said Wilma, persisting with facetiousness, not meeting my extravagance, but keeping her hand open, as it were, “that the musical accompaniment was but a detail? For the music was without doubt grungy.” “Its colour, if I can speak that way of the compositionʼs overall tone and of the playersʼ technique (Larissa Weller and Jonathan Tosio, violin and cello accordingly), was, I agree, mottled. But its loose character may only be a reflection, albeit cloudy, of Haydnʼs own accent on solo technique in Op.54/55. But, anyway, besides this, its form was not so loose. The composition indeed gives even bolder shape to a text which is already formally quite strict, finding new edges not immediately apparent in Müllerʼs dense script. Instance the introduction a dance movement that brings the protagonists together, a wonderful device to enact something only hinted at in the vague and final, I will dance for you, choking on the rope, but which is consistent with Müllerʼs emphasis on play and playacting.” “All right, but let us leave the art of composition; our intelligence on such matters will lead us to nothing; of things musical our knowledge is but a page impression, a fleeting google shade. And let us also leave this dispute over elegance. Like all such nice disputes, it leads one to ramble. Let me simply put to you that the quality which this performance had, whatever it was, whether we call it elegance or not, was not visceral enough.” “What do you mean, visceral, Willie?” I asked. The lights went green, we were off again. “I mean that it was not disconcerting. It did not move or disturb my intuition. It was too cool; too intellectual. Which is not what it should be. It needs a more brutal emphasis on the viciousness and the debasement, otherwise it lacks.” “I think that at a different time, in a different context, perhaps in one closer to Müllerʼs own, something specifically disconcerting would have been essential, but not any more. I think the effort here, now, which is, I agree, concerting and unifying, was entirely appropriate.” “But how, Neandellus, can one talk—which, talking, is all Valmont and Merteuil are really allowed in this production—oneʼs way through the politics and erotics of gender, desire, depravity and hypocrisy, all of which are central to the text. It canʼt be done. You have to attack the audience; touch them with some of the humiliation or the desolation; bring them to the despair and the obliteration. For that, you need something more definitely confronting in the way of absence, excess or dissonance, something which the frayed edges and squeaky innards of this production did not provide, being as it was too concerned with pointing the cleverness of the text.” “The politics and erotics are definitely there” I said. “Of course their interrogation could have been more extravagant, more visual. But there is something else in this play which is even more exciting, culturally, not sensuously, and which I was pleased to see in this production. What I like best about Müllerʼs work, compared with that of certain other late-twentieth century eurocanons, is that it is always looking forward. He, Müller, was

always looking, so to speak, over the wall. He was never immured in the present, never limited to deconstructing the now, never, that is, interested only in smashing up his own house. I find Müller the most hopeful of playwrights because his work, at least from the early eighties, reveals to us the potential for new and internally coherent beauties in the re-synthesis of cultural fragments. This production is strong because it puts great faith in Müllerʼs text and invests itself in Müllerʼs hope.” “Or,” said Wilma, speculatively, as we approached Elgin Street, “they instead put their trust in the pretty grammar of eighteenth century convention. The action in this play should not all be a textual hyper lucidity. Let us consider the aftermath of this production: after the applause, in the world created by A is for Atlas, what will Valmont and Merteuil do next? Valmont gets up, brushes himself off. Together, on haunches, they collect the fallen rose petals and carefully replace them in the drawer. Then, perhaps, they repeat this exchange from earlier in the evening: Valmont: What now. Should we keep playing? Merteuil: Weʼre playing? Keep playing what? Must they start again—from the beginning—ever again—for eternity? How depressing it must be for those two, to find the taste of their depravity made so bland by endless game playing, and how empty must they feel when they emerge from the playfulness of their performance and find that, again, real passion, as you described it earlier, has escaped. Well, that emptiness is mine, too, as a member of the audience. That taste of grey is what I taste. This is what I meant when I said earlier that the play lacks.” “Oh,” I said as we rolled to a halt at the Carlton Street intersection, “but that is pure pessimism! Perhaps the problem is that you go too far with the foiled carnality of these characters. For these two, yes, the endless replaying of desire and frustration may be terrible. But we are above them. Our vantage is that of the Olympian gods. Our entertainment is like that of the Gods: we my take an interest, even a moral interest, but we shouldnʼt reduce ourselves by feeling empathy in any degree for them. The game playing should be for us, as it was for me, a source of intellectual delight, requiring no overt extravagance or decadence.” And here, before the gloom of the Carlton Gardens, our ways diverged: I to the left, she to the right. Text by Heiner Müller, after Laclos Translated from the German by Carl Weber Music by Annie Hsieh, after Haydn Directed by Xan Colman Performed by Andrew Gray, Felicity Steel and Duo Hesperides: Larissa Weller (violin) and Jonathan Tosio (cello) Designed by Grant Cooper (stage) Julie Renton (costume) and Suze Smith (lighting) Stage Manager Rita Verocchi Produced by Xan Colman and Grant Cooper

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