![]() ![]() Indeed, until recent times, mainstages roundly shunned Cornelius’s prolific and critically lauded work. The puzzling question is why it took this play so long to be given a mainstage production. ‘Profound human territory’ … John Gaden, Philip Quast, Vanessa Downing, Brigid Zengeni, and Peter Carroll. Set upon huge white polystyrene icebergs and glaciers – a physical manifestation of the fanciful Arctic landscape of the mind of a modern-day Scott (Philip Quast) – there are only occasional literal glimpses of reality, where this band of adventurers are sequestered in an aged care home. There is poignancy but no easy sentimentality as Cornelius mines seams of deeply human comedy, while Rattray is attuned to the play’s poetic rhythms and snappy pace. Originally premiering at Melbourne’s small fortyfivedownstairs theatre in 2010, Do Not Go Gentle excavates profound human territory: the fear we are wasting our finite time the trauma of family violence and the difficulty some men have in telling partners and children they love them. It is a richly layered work that co-opts British naval Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition of 1910-12 to the south pole as a metaphor for ageing and dementia. ![]() ![]() Patricia Cornelius’s play Do Not Go Gentle, which has opened at Sydney Theatre Company directed by Paige Rattray, takes its title from a famous Dylan Thomas poem. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |