Thursday 29 May 1997

The Art of Success, Nick Daar, VCA, May 28, 1997


Written by Nick Dear
Company 97 V C A Drama School Grant Street Theatre until May 31, 1997
Reviewed by Kate Herbert around May 27, 1997

The most striking element of The Victorian College of the Arts production of Nick Dear's The Art of Success is its extraordinary design in the newly re-opened Grant Street Theatre. New Zealand director, Colin McColl's vision, in conjunction with his costume and set designers (Julie Renton) provides a provocative and innovative concept for an ordinary play

Dear is a contemporary British writer who uses the collision of social and linguistic anachronisms and modernisms to highlight the commonalities between our generation and that of 18th century English decadence. He has a great facility for pithy quips and rapier-sharp ripostes and he can sling together an epithet or a bawdy reference about any old thing.

The Art of Success is about engraver, William Hogarth (Justin Smith) who dragged himself out of poverty to become one of Britain's favoured artists. The narrative has two threads. One focuses on his relationship with the political nepotist, Prime Minister Walpole (Christopher Brown) and Hogarth's inner circle of roustabout friends: one a peer of the realm (Oscar Reding), another in the House of Commons (Brown again) and the third being Henry Fielding (Simon Oats).

The second story follows the various women in his life: his sweet, virginal wife (Alexandra Schepsi) who lives in blissful ignorance of Louisa, his favourite harlot (Miria Kostiuk) and the murderess Sarah (Sophie Gregg) who he draws in her death cell. Hogarth is a charming devil who, in his naivete, abuses all three. He deceives his wife, enacts gross perversions on his mistress and uses Sarah's notoriety for his own material gain.

The entire cast of this graduate production are strong but there are some notable performances. Smith brings warmth and a youthful charm to the rather distasteful Hogarth. Brown is a stately and rich-voiced Walpole while Kostiuk is divinely sexual as the whore. A cameo by Rachel Tidd as the titillating Queen Caroline was a delight.

The play itself is light and inconsequential, its visual components, set (Julie Renton), make-up, costume (Katherine Peters), dramatic lighting and distressed violin soundtrack (Bronwyn Dunston) featuring. Costumes are constructed entirely from plastic materials. Gowns are provocatively transparent and morning coats shimmer and reflect: Plastic Gothic.

The slatted floor has nine "conversation pits" inset. Each is a location for a scene: brothel filled with pink cushions, the boudoir with white, pub littered with empty beer cans, the riverside with mud. It is all ˆwell-conceived if a little over-designed.

KATE HERBERT

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