At the Adelaide
Festival in 2014, a new play by Matthew
Whittet was premiered. Forming
the third part in a trilogy for Windmill
Theatre Co. (what is now known as the The
Windmill Trilogy), the play was the story of fourteen year old Greta
Driscoll, her dreaded fifteenth birthday party, and everything that happened on
that night. The play was Girl Asleep, and it
went on to become an internationally successful
film. When it premiered in Adelaide
Set on Jonathon
Oxlade’s wallpapered and ingeniously disguise-filled set, the play starts
with Greta telling us about the night everything changed. The first half hour sets
up the story and the world, switching between scenes and Greta’s direct address
to the audience, but the focus suffers as a result – is this framing of the
story necessary, is there another way to do it, and why doesn’t it continue
throughout the play, or return at the end? As Greta’s birthday kicks into gear,
and the play shifts into the extended dream sequence – itself a series of
vignettes loosely-connected with strands of dream-logic – the story gains
momentum but not too much focus, until we land back in the real world with a
scream and the bass from the party pulsing through the floor. It’s then only a
quick change to the end of the play, but the ending feels unresolved, a little
too neat and unearned, the final image a little too cute and clunky. Director Rosemary
Myers (who also directed the film), keeps the play moving with enough chutzpah, whimsy, and energy to sustain
an entire trilogy, but sometimes it’s not enough to disguise the unfinished
feeling of the story. The other key player in Myers’ production is Luke Smiles’
soundtrack, courtesy of his professional moniker, motion laboratories. Filled
with tracks by Serge Gainsbourg, Fleetwood Mac, Brian Eno, Supertramp, The
Sweet, and Donna Summer, we are placed firmly in the 1970s world of Greta, and
it is an absolute joy.
If you’re paying
attention at the beginning, everything in the dream sequence is referenced at
least once – if not by directly by name, then in spirit or by association – but
sometimes it feels as though the parallels are too neat, a little too obvious,
and not developed enough once we enter Greta’s subconscious. Greta’s family
appear in altered forms – her sister becomes a smart-mouthed firebird (and
firebrand), her father a farting goblin, her mother a distant ice-queen – while
her best friend Elliott appears ala Serge Gainsbourg, and the school bullies
Jane and Umber are ferocious dogs (get it?). Greta’s penchant for plastic
horses is also checked, as is her Finnish pen-friend Greta, and some of these
associations are more successful than others (Firebird, horse, and dogs in
particular). It’s interesting to see how little character development and/or
contrast there is between her mother and the ice queen, and her father and the
goblin – they both feel like and read very much as the same characters in two
different locations, rather than one being an exaggeration of the other as you
would find in Grimm’s fairytales. The only terrifying aspect of this sequence
is the Elliott-Serge Gainsbourg association, and the resulting scene has a
menace to it which I don’t think is fully explored, or rather could be explored
more; is the association in Greta’s head only, or is there something in Elliott
himself which makes this link obvious to her, why is the link made (other than
her sister’s obsession with the music, and an instance with Elliott near the
beginning), and how could its impact be felt more keenly? At the end of the
dream sequence, the fight with the dogs is well-handled, and dramatically
necessary, but there isn’t enough physical contact or interaction between Greta
and the ‘dogs’ for the fight to be entirely credible and/or dramatically
satisfying. As for the ‘Maiden with the Tiny Hands,’ who kicks off the whole
dream sequence, I wonder why she isn’t made more of, why she doesn’t appear
more than at the end of the play, as a kind of benevolent force, a kind of
coda?
Myers’ cast are
all adept at the art of the quick-change, and their characters are as wacky as
the story itself, but there’s also heart to the story, even if it is sometimes
a little misplaced. Ellen Steele’s Greta is awkward and shy, but there’s an
unchecked fierceness and volatility to her which, when unleashed, is worth
waiting for, and hers is perhaps the most fully-formed character in the piece,
but also the most elusive – we only really learn about her once we leave the
theatre, when we look at ourselves at age fourteen or fifteen. Dylan
Young’s Elliott is the geeky best friend, as socially awkward as Greta
herself is, and there’s something touchingly naïve about his character which
works nicely with Steele’s Greta; Young’s Gainsbourg is very much the dark
mirror to his Elliott, but this could be played with in more depth. Sheridan
Harbridge’s Genevieve, Greta’s older sister, is "a Jean
Seberg-esque figure who will more than likely punch you if you speak to
her"; she has a very fine line in fast-mouthed comebacks which puts her in good
stead as the beaky Firebird, while her bully Jade is frighteningly silent and
aloof. Whittet’s portrayal of Greta’s father Conrad is "a vision of 1970s beige," and has a terribly corny line in (bad) dad jokes, while his Goblin reads like a
PG-rated version of Old
Gregg from The Mighty Boosh. Amber
McMahon’s flawless comic timing puts her in good stead for her smorgasbord
of roles: Greta’s mother Janet (a snappy vision in purple and auburn beehive
hairdo); Ice Queen (a frosted mirror to Janet); Umber, a similarly aloof mirror
twin to Harbirdge’s Jade; a batty crazy-eyed classmate of Greta’s; and a
veritably bonkers Finnish-Greta. Oxlade’s costumes are spot-on, capturing the
right mixture of period detail, childhood whimsy, and unchecked dreams, and the
cast play with them to pitch-perfect effect, particularly in the party sequence
where McMahon, Whittet, Young, and Harbridge become a who’s who of Greta’s
year, and every 1970s school stereotype you could imagine (even if the
necessity of the quick-change does draw this sequence out a bit).
*
I wouldn’t
normally do this, compare two different versions of the same story, but with
the film of Girl
Asleep now widely available, it’s interesting to look at how the play
was shaped into the film. When the play premiered in 2014, Myers, Whittet and
the Windmill team knew they would be making the film, so a lot of the design
and structural narrative decisions were made with one eye on the stage version
and another on the film version, and how they could be changed and adapted to
suit the different mediums. With the production and sound designed by Oxlade
and Smiles respectively, directed by Myers, and written by Whittet, with
Whittet and McMahon reprising their roles from the play, the film is in
incredibly safe and assured hands, considering this is Myers’ debut feature
film. It’s theatrical roots are apparent, a little too visible at times, but
they are embraced with gusto, along with the limitations of budget, scale, and
length of the shoot, and it actually works to the film’s overall advantage.
The film still
suffers from the structural problems inherited from the play – overlong setup,
slightly disjointed dream-sequence, slightly-too-neat ending – but in many
cases, the film actually makes a tad more narrative sense. Yes, Greta’s
subconscious associations are still checked, but here they are visual rather
than established through dialogue. The horse still remains, but it really is a
plastic horse that they are riding, and the Goblin is even more Old Gregg-like
than on stage. Gone is the Firebird version of Greta’s sister, but in her place
we get the Huldra, a powerful Scandinavian warrior (in mythology, the Huldra
are Scandinavian forest-dwelling
nymphs or mermaids, but there is a Germanic version – Frau Holle – who resembles
the film incarnation more closely), who helps Greta fight the dogs, keeps watch
over her, and rescues her from the various demons when they start to overpower
her. The fight with the ‘dogs’ at the end of the dream sequence is visceral and
empowering, a masterstroke of foley, choreography, and editing, and the Serge
Gainsbourg element is well-handled.
Part of these
improvements are due to the nature of the filmic medium – you can cut to
different locations and points of view in an instant, can juxtapose images and
sounds and moods visually in a heartbeat, and can use the camera itself as a
character or a point of view as much as those of the characters themselves. But
part of it is also due to Oxlade’s designs, Andrew Commis’ cinematography, and
Karryn de Cinque’s editing, which give the film a Wes
Anderson-David Lynch vibe, with a dash of Puberty
Blues.
*
While Girl Asleep is perhaps not
as narratively strong as School Dance (which
starred Whittet, Oxlade, and Smiles as themselves, alongside McMahon as
nearly everyone else), nor as adrenaline-fuelled as Fugitive, it is a welcomely feminine and emotional addition to the
Windmill Trilogy, and a clear evolution of the Windmill style, a development of
a particular (and inventive) theatrical voice which has found a strong foothold
in the Australian theatre scene. As a piece of theatre, Girl Asleep could benefit from a sharper dramaturgical eye on the
script, a filleting down of the story’s set-up and dream-sequence, along with a
stronger ending, but as an experience and as a trip back to the 1970s, complete
with flairs, killer tunes, and outrageous wallpaper, it is almost unbeatable. Alongside
Wes Anderson’s gorgeous Moonrise Kingdom,
both incarnations of Whittet-and-Myers’ Girl
Asleep serve to remind us that teenage-ness and growing up are not new, nor
is the psychological and physical bullying and violence that often accompany
them, but rather something we all share. It also serves in a way as a
corrective to Kip Williams’ recent A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, where – in
Jane Howard’s words – the liminal space of dreams and the subconscious is a
dark place, even for children who grow up in nurturing families and comfortable
suburbs; fathers are always embarrassing and perhaps overbearing, while mothers
are tough; the schoolyard is a battleground, and romantic relationships are
equal parts dreamy and full of dread.
Teenage-ness is terrifying, but
it’s also a time for discovering who you are. Even if it means wearing someone
else’s clothes.
No comments:
Post a Comment