Rupert Goold radical restaging of Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 classic play ‘Six Characters In Search Of An Author’ stands out as one of the highlights of this years’ Sydney Festival.
The play has been substantially reworked by Rupert Goold and Ben Powers new interpretation. Pirandello originally set the play in a theatre rehearsal room, the play has been reset in a film set. The play with a play structure of the original play has been replaced by a documentary within a documentary format, with the documentaries running as separate storylines that come together at the end. The changes gave Pirndello’s play a fresh, contemporary edge.
Catherine McCormack gives a great performance in the leading role as the Producer, a passionate, intense documentary filmmaker. The piece starts with her, embroiled in her latest project, a documentary on a terminally ill young man facing his last days at a clinic that offers patients the option of assisted suicide. A tormented middle man barges in on her film set, together with five members of his family. The father rushes up to the Producer and tells her that his family’s unusual story has to be told and that he is convinced that she is the best person to tell their story. In the end, the Producer agrees to take on their ‘project’ on top of her current work.
It is the Producer’s struggle, her journey, to make powerful, authentic stories from her material, and her characters, that is at the heart of ‘Six Characters’.
Rupert Goold’s production uses all the resources of contemporary theatre to create a rich, provocative experience. Goold wins strong performances from his cast with highlights being Ian McDiarmid’s portrayal of the troubled, pushy Father, and Denise Gough was striking as the disturbed, volatile stepdaughter, marked by her manic laughter as she skated around the stage with one roller skate.
The cast move around well on Miriam Buether’s impressive set. The production integrated video footage, a leap into opera in the play’s most dramatic scene, and included a dark soundscape by Adam Cork.
A production from Britain’s Headlong Theatre Company production, ‘Six Characters In Search Of An Author’ plays the York Theatre, the Seymour Centre until January 31.