LOVE FIX - 2 Plays on Tristan und Isolde
A 2000 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras event
In this Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras event, both
Terrence McNally and Tim Benzie have taken Wagner's opera as their
starting point for one act contemplations about the nature of human
relationships and the role of the ecstatic experience in people's
lives.
McNally's work, Prelude and Liebestod, is the
more conventional, a little surprisingly given that McNally's most
recent play is Corpus Christi (1998) which has scandalised
some people by suggesting that Jesus may have been homosexual. The
play features a conductor (Nicholas Eadie in a powerful and convincing
performance - except for his lack of conducting technique), who is
increasingly revealed as selfish and immature, and who takes his orchestra
not once, but twice through Wagner's music because he could not adequately
convey to the orchestra the meaning of the music for him. Or, more
prosaically, because he couldn't keep his mind off the attractions
of his wife and the young man in the fifth row.
The second time round, the conductor reveals his thoughts
and feelings to the audience in more and more detail while taking
sideswipes at the Leader of the Orchestra (Ronald Falk) and the soprano
(Shayne Francis). During this repeat, the conductor returns to his
earliest sexual encounter at the age of 24 in Italy which resulted
not only in his most powerful sexual experience (based on the recent
memory of the couple - perhaps twin brother and sister - who have
aroused him then left him tied to the bed), but also a major moment
of embarrassment when the elderly owners of the flat return to find
him in a sticky mess on their marital bed and call the police. Each
of the conductor's recalled orgasmic moments is timed to match the
two final climaxes of the "Liebestod".
I suspect that McNally actually wants us to believe
that it is such intense sexual experience that Wagner's music is intended
to recreate in its audience. The conductor spends quite some time
philosophising (perhaps post hoc rationalising) that any kind of intense
experience will enable one to get to the true heart of Wagner's music
- hence the repeat; the first was not passionate enough to enable
the conductor to access his appropriate feeling. This suggests that
there is a strong masturbatory rationalisation for enjoying Wagner's
music.
To balance the picture, one could interpret the play
with heavy irony. Eadie's performance indicated that the conductor
was certainly capable of sarcasm, but not necessarily the more complex
stance of irony. So does McNally give us any sense from other sources
that one should treat the conductor's musings ironically? The Leader
frequently utters, sotto voce, the word "asshole" and the
soprano whinges about having to sing herself to death again, but this
is slight evidence for taking the play as an ironic comment on people
who take music such as Wagner's and use it for their own erotic (or
political or social etc) ends.
Nonetheless, the play was thought-provoking and had
the advantage of a small orchestra and a real soprano (who was required
to sing flat for most of the first "Liebestod") which gave
the play more atmosphere and impact than recorded music would have
done.
The Australian writer, Tim Benzie, confesses to having
written Aria Di Mezzo Carattere ("more passionate and
with orchestral accompaniment, this latter often elaborate" -
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music) as a response to McNally's
play. The conceit for this play is again Tristan und Isolde.
In this case, Tristan is so moved by the reaction of one of the audience
members, Peter (Nicholas Eadie), that his spirit leaves the "dead"
Tristan and talks to Peter about passion and the pain of love, while
Isolde again sings herself to death in the background.
Benzie builds on this idea by having the opera performed
on the same day as the Mardi Gras party, to which Peter is going and
to which he invites Tristan to see other kinds of ecstasy and passion.
Peter and his three companions - his daughter, his lover and a female
friend from many years earlier - agree to meet on the hour to check
on each other and to report on their experiences.
In these scenes, Benzie manages to suggest among others
of Shakespeare's plays, his A Midsummer Night's Dream, particularly
in the forest scene in which drugs are administered, costumes are
donned, relationships become totally confused and music plays a major
role in ensuring the characters rapidly drop their inhibitions and
do things they ordinarily would not.
Tristan provides a nice comedic counterpoint to the
increasingly complex and tense relationships developing between the
other characters. Benzie quite legitimately has Tristan ask at strategic
moments for the meaning of various sub-cultural terms leading to his
increasing bemusement, and enjoyment Also at strategic moments, Benzie
has Tristan appear to other characters because they feel the pain
of love. (I must admit I had to keep forcing Liza Minnelli's 1980
pop song "Love Pains" from my mind whenever Tristan mentioned
them!) Like a Shakespeare comedy, too, this play ended with a satisfying
resolution in which each of the characters had found a better understanding
of themselves and the other characters, and were already moving into
new relationships with each other.
Altogether, I found Benzie's play more enjoyable, better
constructed as a comedy, and more thought-provoking than McNally's
about the relationship between Wagner's music and the kind of saturnalia
which Mardi Gras (in both its Catholic sense and its local Sydney
sense) represents. Sydney Mardi Gras certainly provides the environment
in which people can achieve a form of ecstasy (Greek - ek stasis -
standing outside of oneself) which is heightened by the party music.
The performers were all working at a high standard.
Eadie's two performances amounted to a tour de force. Ronald Falk
seemed to hugely enjoy his three roles (the third as a retired drag
queen moonlighting as everyone's favourite uncle) and the pleasure
came across in his performances. Tamblyn Lord made the most of his
debut as the young drag queen, Tina Turnover, who is also 30 years
younger than his lover and worried about their future together.
TERENCE WATSON March 2000
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