Nine minutes may not seem like a long time but for adman Harry Joy, resuscitated after being dead for nine minutes, it is a time of epiphany. He finds himself at the crossroads of heaven and hell and then heart surgery sends him to the bad place (or so he thinks). Harry has questions and the answers will lead him to bliss. An original and inventive black comedy, Peter Carey’s Miles Franklin award-wining novel Bliss is a no-holds barred exploration of the 1980s, a decade dedicated to excess. It is a warm, funny, colourful, character driven story and has quickly moved into the realm of a beloved classic. There was a rambunctious film with Barry Otto and an opera directed by Neil Armfield. So it is no surprise that it should make its way to the stage.
It is the 1980s – a time of big hair, big shoulder pads and big personalities. Everything was faux and greed was good. Working against the idea of abundance and hedonism, the Belvoir production of sets this story on a minimalist revolve. On the revolve is a light box which offers all sorts of magical illusions. Harry’s world view is illusory and centres on himself. Depending upon your point of view, this either serves as a foil for the richness of Carey’s language or strips it of its lushness. Stripped, it lacks the buoyancy of the original. Adapting a novel to the stage is always a challenge, for what the reader experiences with the book does not necessarily translate to audience experience. They are very different mediums.
Tom Wright has so fallen for the beautiful words of Peter Carey that he has not been able to part with them. Consequently, characters deliver lengthy monologues that are lifted passages from the book and which lack theatricality. On stage, it does not advance the action which, although frenetic at times, does not serve the story in a meaningful way. We have a plot with actors delivering passages from the book – they may as well have done a book reading. This is a shame from an author who delivered such brilliant work on The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at STC.
Performances flirt with different styles. Harry (Toby Truslove) begins naturalistically. His Harry, however, is not as large as I remember the personalities of the 80s – the Bonds, Skases and Hawkes. Other characters take us through Brechtian-like epic theatre moments but then there are also elements of Expressionism, Post-modernism and Absurdism. Must have looked like a good idea on the drawing board for Matthew Lutton (director) but there is no pay-off theatrically. Marco Chiappi offers some delicious moments as a range of characters and the rest of the cast do their best to keep the play turning (or churning). But they lack connection with each other and the audience. And Belvoir is not Qudos Arena – so why on earth were the actors miked?
Okay, so Bliss is a fable but even a fable has to have a logic of its own. Some might argue that the original structure was discontinuous anyway with so many stories being told, so the uneven energies and weightings are reflective of this. But Bliss is a brave story with an important and terrible message about the world we have created for ourselves. This message should not be lost.
The blurb promised a “terrifying and hilarious vision of Australia”. One out of two ain’t bad. The production certainly frightened me.
Kate Stratford – Theatre Now
Photographer Pia Johnson (Malthouse production)
Bliss
By Peter Carey Adapted for the stage by Tom Wright
8 Jun – 15 Jul 2018
Tuesday & Wednesday 6.30pm
Thursday & Friday 8pm
Saturday 2pm & 8pm
Sunday 5pm
Unwaged Performance
2pm, 12 July
Audio-described Performance
2pm, 14 July
Belvoir Briefing
6.30pm, 14 June
