Review: MORTIDO Is A Cocaine Fuelled Story Of Revenge

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 20th October 2015

The State Theatre Company of South Australia, in collaboration with Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre, are presenting the premiere of Australian Writers' Guild Award Winner, Angela Betzien's, play, Mortido. Directed by Leticia Cáceres, Melbourne Theatre Company's Associate Director, it features both Adelaide and interstate performers. Although fictional, there are some real characters and situations referenced in this play, which adds to the authenticity because of the horrific pasts of those people.

Monte and his wife, Scarlet, live the good life, thanks to the money he earns as a middle man in the drug distribution system in Sydney. Her brother, Jimmy, is way below them, in both the socio-economic respect and in his position as a TAFE student, at the bottom rung of the drug distribution system, selling drugs to others. Monte develops delusions of grandeur and thinks that he can move up near the top of the chain by bypassing La Madre, the woman running entire network. Detective Grubbe is close to retiring and wants one more big success before he goes. He targets Jimmy to get at Monte and, he hopes, perhaps even catch some others higher up the chain.

Monte takes Jimmy along for the ride to Bolivia to meet the man, known as The Butcher, German-Bolivian cocaine boss, Heinrich Barbie, at the source of the drugs. He is the son of real-life Gestapo officer, Klaus Barbie, one of the many Nazis who fled there after the war, aided by the USA. He was known for torturing members of the French Resistance, was directly responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people and was known as the Butcher of Lyons. In Bolivia, where he fled with his wife Regine (née Willms) and their two young children, he changed his name to Klaus Altmann. He had two children, a daughter, Ute, and then a son, Klaus Georg. Heinrich is an invention of the playwright. Monte realises quickly that he is playing a dangerous game, especially as he is cheating La Madre, who also has a most unpleasant reputation, and finds he is in above his head, a sprat trying to play with sharks.

Monte's own cocaine use does not help, nor does the rough sex that Jimmy enjoys from El Gallito (The Little Rooster), a Bolivian male prostitute. Interestingly, El Gallito's line before he dies at the end of the play, "Don't forget that I am very soft.", were actually the final words of the fifteen-year-old son of the Resistance worker, Lisa Lesevere, who was tortured and died in front of her as Barbie tried to break her. She herself was tortured for nineteen days by Barbie and died still refusing to give up the real name of a colleague. As one might expect, there is no happy ending to this play, either, although it does tend to peter out somewhat.

Sigmund Freud used and prescribed cocaine and it is his theory of the unconscious drives, or instincts that give the play its title. The love and death drives, or instincts, Eros and Thanatos, whose energies are known as the libido and the mortido, parts of the id. Where libido is the drive towards survival and reproduction, mortido is its counterpart, the drive towards death. "The aim of all life is death...inanimate things existed before living ones" (Freud 1920). This drive is associated with the negative aspects such as fear and hate, leading to acts such as bullying and murder, which we see aplenty in this play.

The first half has some wordy speeches, with a considerable degree of pontificating which, coupled with sections in German and Spanish, left some people a little lost and finding it rather slow. Going to and fro in time and, like a film, cross-fading from scene to scene, also keeps the audience on its toes. A judicious touch of blue pencil here and there would not go astray. The second half, though, picks up a lot, with more dialogue, less speeches and increased action. What really carries this production is the very fine acting, right across the board.

The play was written with the well-known film and television actor, Colin Friels, in mind for the main roles, and he plays both Grubbe and Heinrich, as well as two smaller roles, Christos Limbious, an ex-dealer, and Bratislav Ackervik, a Serbian Australian. Friels switches between roles with such skill that it seems easy, which it definitely not. Each time he switches, the character and the accent is totally consistent with the previous appearance, and all are thoroughly believable. He begins the performance by telling a Bolivian folktale, that becomes relevant later, then goes on to play his collection of characters, demonstrating, in so doing, what a superb actor he is and what a great range he has.

Renowned Adelaide actor, Renato Musolino, plays Monte, as well as Darren Shine, a brain-addled addict. He presents Monte, at the beginning, as a successful businessman but, bit by bit, we discover his cocaine habit, his sadistic bullying side, his willingness to throw Jimmy to the wolves to save his own skin, and his cowardice. Musolino progressively expands on his characterisation to reflect Monte's attempts to grow into the drug lord that he thinks that he can become, as well as the detrimental changes caused by the people and situations that confront him as he moves into Heinrich's world. Musolino turns in another of the excellent performances that we have come to expect from him.

Louisa Mignone plays Scarlet, as well as Heinrich's quirky German intermediary, Sybille, presenting two very different and equally well-constructed characters. One cannot help but wish that this scenario was not about so much of a male dominated world, and that there could have been more for her to do.

Tom Conroy plays Jimmy, a weak man, a loser, considered inconsequential in Monte's big picture, valued as little more than cannon fodder. He gives a sterling performance in the role, as Jimmy gradually unravels under the pressure from Grubbe, and the horrors of Bolivia.

El Gallito is played by David Valencia, presenting a sinister, moody, remote and sadistic young man, fulfilling both the libido and mortido for Jimmy. Valencia gives a wonderfully edgy performance in the role that will not be easily forgotten.

Calin Diamond plays the two young boys, giving good performances as Monte's and Scarlet's spoiled and protected son, Oliver, and a Bolivian boy, Alvaro, pressured into cockfighting, both being modelled into the futures that others want of them.

The set design, by Robert Cousins, has a long rear wall that can be either reflective or transparent, with a short wall the other side holding a shelf with hand basins. Under Geoff Cobham's lighting the area can be reduced to a smaller illuminated section, to full stage, and making the section behind the wall visible. The reflective wall did on occasions, though, reflect lighting into the audience. Fortunately, it was only in the odd scene here and there.

With so many marvellous performances, this is another of this year's productions that suggests that season subscriptions are well worth having. If 2016 lives up to the standards of 2015, and the programme points that way, you won't want to miss anything.

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