Highs and lows at Hanging Rock...

Adapted into a play by Laura Shamas, “Picnic at Hanging Rock” is based on the 1967 novel by Lady Joan Lindsay and was made into a film by director Peter Weir in 1977, released in N.A. in 1979.

Set in 1900 the weather is beautiful outside but everything is not always sunny inside a private boarding school for a group of Australian schoolgirls as a romantic Valentine's Day outing ends in intrigue. The girls are taken on an excursion to a picnic to Hanging Rock in Victoria’s Mount Macedon. Four girls wonder off but only one returns. A teacher also disappears. It is a mystery how they went missing and why the one survivor remembers nothing.  The constable and many of the townsfolk try to solve the mystery of what has happened to the three students and the mathematics teacher on top of the jagged peaks of Hanging Rock? A delicate look at crisis, greed and honesty at the turn of the century it is a hauntingly ironic play showing that what seems pristine and
proper on the outside may not be free of moral corruption on the
inside. The final climactic twist is shocking and bittersweet, with an impact that is unforgettable.

Directed by Barbara Kelly and acted in by Dawson’s third year Professional Theatre students.

-Website:  www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca

The 'highs' of the production are: A first act that starts off well paced and choreographed introducing the audience to the large array of characters. Mrs. Appleyard, the matron and headmistress of the college who nips brandy on the sly, is brilliantly portrayed by Stephanie Costa with a 'spot on' performance she interprets her role to perfection. The beautiful young French teacher Mademoiselle De Poitiers, who may know more than she will say to the authorities, is played by Nadia Elena Radu with a measured comedic touch and mystery. The costumes by Elizabeth Cognard are very appealing as well.

The 'lows' and there are many to enumerate: Starting with the accents used by the actors that are undefinable for the better part, and which unfortunately quickly remind the audience that they are watching a 'student' production. The blocking choices by directing the actors to endless treks through the audience, behind the upstage set, and laborously climbing up or down the stage mote to depict the distances traveled by the characters is condecending to the audience at best. And the click clack of high heels on the plywood set, echoing throughout the space, sound nothing like climbing on rocks. Finally, the endless blackouts between the multiple scene changes in act two are not only distracting but dizzying to the eye. Act two suffers from rushing to the end of the story making the audience more anxious to get the experience overwith than to discover 'who done it?'.

There is a musical version of this play, which at first inspection seems to be the right vehicule to interpret the story based on the above production that lacks content and consistency. The music could serve as the missing element needed to weave the story and enhancing the quality of the production to a more entertaining and audience pleasing play.

The musical
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGqyruGh1W0

Half Life unfortunately suffers as half a play,

MONTREAL- John Mighton's Governor General's Award-winning Half Life is set in a nursing home for the aged and deals with the ravages of aging and memory loss and the lives that the residences once lived.

The story is of Clara, softened by the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease and Patrick, a curmudgeon suffering from the effects of a lifetime of binge drinking. These two residents of the geriatric-care facility find an unlikely relationship in what might be consider the ruins of their lives. Brought together by their loneliness and their failing health, they bond, building on a shared memory that it is most likely imagined.

Half Life attempts to be more than a love story set in a nursing home by moving the action beyond the setting of the home in which most of the play is set and involving several other characters; Where by Mighton gets over ambitious by broadening the scope of the play to challenge our notions of memory and interpersonal relationships.

The four principals all give adequate performances, but stronger supporting characters are well portrayed by Maggie Huculak who brings a brisk warmth to her performance as a caregiver who actually does care, and Barbara Gordon who provides comic relief as Agnes, a crusty women determined to drag the entire world to suffer through her old age pains.

Half Life unfortunately comes across as half a play, better suited to a Fringe festival format rather than as a featured production. The space is ill suited for the intimacy required to enable the characters to properly ingratiate themselves with their audience. The lighting design, although among the best I’ve ever seen at this space, is so good that it distracts from the performances. While the limited audience that the play appeals too wait to receive the next social message being delivered by the characters salt and peppered humorous lines are sprinkled throughout the short play to ensure that they remain alert through each of the endless elaborately choreographed transitions that overshadow the scenes themselves.  The play leaves the impression that a pile of clever ideas were placed in a bag of shake and bake and a production then spilled out onto the stage but the bread crumbs didn't adequately coat and flavor those ideas.

The play would benefit from less effort to deliver socially relevant rhetoric to justify the significance for the message, and more attention to entertaining with substance in the dialogue. This would have made the delivery of the message that much more poignant. Half Life a presentation by Necessary Angel productions is playing at Centaur Theatre.