Sydney Theatre Company - Gossip
David Aitken Design Stage theater Set
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David Aitken Stage set Design
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Image of wartime – 20 years before Schindler
by Tony Horler.
Thomas Keneally is beginning to look not so much a hot property as the only show in town.
Barely stopping for breath after the international success of Schindler!s Ark, the author has adapted his earlier novel Gossip From the Forest into a play, which will be world premiered by the Sydney Theatre Company at the Opera House on Thursday.
His search through the ashes of Europe takes us back more than 20 years before Schindler. Back to a misty railway siding in a forest near Compiegne, France, where the men come to sign the Armistice to end the war to end all wars.
Through its chiefs, Richard Wherrett and Donald McDonald, the Sydney Theatre Company began negotiations on an adaption in early 1982, encouraged by the playscript form of the original novel.
Gossip is the first of two war dramas planned for 1983. The second, The Portage To San Cristobal, dealing with aspects of World War II , will follow immediately in late June.
Europe never recovered from World War I. Compiegne was a rehearsal for Versailles , a preposterous event. It virtually guaranteed the Third Reich.
We remember the winners, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Marshall Foch who led the Allied delegation to that bizarre oasis. A delegation pumped up with the arrogance of a divine mission.
But who remembers the German signatories, the forgotten men of history? Men suing for peace, praying for mercy. Men who would later be branded at home as "the November criminals". Hounded and persecuted on their return, one vanished, another was assassinated.
Matthias Erzberger will sign for Germany – a lower class, socialist and pacifist, he carries the hopeless brief for a saner Europe. Facing this hapless, pudgy democrat sits the supreme autocrat with a long memory for Prussians, Marshall Foch.
Is Erzberger doomed from the outset? Will the Allies exact their pound of flesh from a Germany already in chaos, a country crumbling under revolution, famine and death?
"He's pursued by the vanity of the idea of a united Europe,” said director Aarne Neeme.
"A cataclysmic event, a confrontation, a clash of wills. But we’re more interested in the process than the larger events. We're bringing to life an unknown, a moderate, sold out by the new republic.”
The music for the 6 new songs has been arranged by Allan McFadden-inspired by Brahms for the Germans, and Debussy for the French.
The Sydney Theatre Company has no need to ship in the mud and duckboards or the stench of rotting corpses. History at a distance has already provided the real and created images.
Their recent Way of the World, with its huge revolving sets, confirms their technical ability. Aitken’s set will tax their resources and elbow grease even further.
Two sets of life-size railway tracks will mobilise both sets and props throughout, as well as the two carriages which house the opposing delegates. The bleak mist of sombre winter is only relieved by the irony of Erzberger’s sunny, lyrical dream. The cast of 16 is headed by Allan Cassell, Ron Haddrick and Dennis Miller. "The STC is confident, and at this stage I’m delighted. The actors have already developed the comic touches,” said Keneally.
But still there's a hint of nervousness. “There are plenty of ideas. Major events which are dramatically true are always entertaining. I just hope it bloody works.”
Thomas Keneally is beginning to look not so much a hot property as the only show in town.
Barely stopping for breath after the international success of Schindler!s Ark, the author has adapted his earlier novel Gossip From the Forest into a play, which will be world premiered by the Sydney Theatre Company at the Opera House on Thursday.
His search through the ashes of Europe takes us back more than 20 years before Schindler. Back to a misty railway siding in a forest near Compiegne, France, where the men come to sign the Armistice to end the war to end all wars.
Through its chiefs, Richard Wherrett and Donald McDonald, the Sydney Theatre Company began negotiations on an adaption in early 1982, encouraged by the playscript form of the original novel.
Gossip is the first of two war dramas planned for 1983. The second, The Portage To San Cristobal, dealing with aspects of World War II , will follow immediately in late June.
Europe never recovered from World War I. Compiegne was a rehearsal for Versailles , a preposterous event. It virtually guaranteed the Third Reich.
We remember the winners, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Marshall Foch who led the Allied delegation to that bizarre oasis. A delegation pumped up with the arrogance of a divine mission.
But who remembers the German signatories, the forgotten men of history? Men suing for peace, praying for mercy. Men who would later be branded at home as "the November criminals". Hounded and persecuted on their return, one vanished, another was assassinated.
Matthias Erzberger will sign for Germany – a lower class, socialist and pacifist, he carries the hopeless brief for a saner Europe. Facing this hapless, pudgy democrat sits the supreme autocrat with a long memory for Prussians, Marshall Foch.
Is Erzberger doomed from the outset? Will the Allies exact their pound of flesh from a Germany already in chaos, a country crumbling under revolution, famine and death?
"He's pursued by the vanity of the idea of a united Europe,” said director Aarne Neeme.
"A cataclysmic event, a confrontation, a clash of wills. But we’re more interested in the process than the larger events. We're bringing to life an unknown, a moderate, sold out by the new republic.”
The music for the 6 new songs has been arranged by Allan McFadden-inspired by Brahms for the Germans, and Debussy for the French.
The Sydney Theatre Company has no need to ship in the mud and duckboards or the stench of rotting corpses. History at a distance has already provided the real and created images.
Their recent Way of the World, with its huge revolving sets, confirms their technical ability. Aitken’s set will tax their resources and elbow grease even further.
Two sets of life-size railway tracks will mobilise both sets and props throughout, as well as the two carriages which house the opposing delegates. The bleak mist of sombre winter is only relieved by the irony of Erzberger’s sunny, lyrical dream. The cast of 16 is headed by Allan Cassell, Ron Haddrick and Dennis Miller. "The STC is confident, and at this stage I’m delighted. The actors have already developed the comic touches,” said Keneally.
But still there's a hint of nervousness. “There are plenty of ideas. Major events which are dramatically true are always entertaining. I just hope it bloody works.”
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