Review: The Middle Class Excesses Of The Early 1980's Is Expressed As BLISS Tries To Connect To A Contemporary Audience
Wednesday 13 June 2018, 8pm Belvoir Theatre
Tom Wright's stage adaptation of Peter Carey's Miles Franklin Award winning novel BLISS struggles to find a place in the 21st century. Pitched as a dark comedy, Belvoir Theatre and Malthouse Theatre's co-production of the fable falls flat amid the chaos created on stage.
The story, that has also been adapted into a movie in 1985 and an opera in 2010 before Wright gave it a stage treatment, follows advertising executive Harry Joy's existential crisis after a heart attack. The world that he once thought was wonderful, always being lucky and comfortable, is now seen as a hell that he refuses to believe is real. His family is a shambles of unethical behaviours and his work promotes equally despicable products to a world driven by success and corporate greed with no consideration of accountability. Escaping the perceived hell, he gets a taste of a utopia in the form of a hippie prostitute who preaches the purity of nature but still ventures into the consumerism of the city to sell herself and benefit from Joy's world.
In a more aware world which has recognised the need for ethics and accountability for some time, BLISS is more a snapshot of a bygone era that the modern world is striving to fix. This increase of social and corporate awareness over the past 4 decades since Carey first wrote BLISS raises the question of the relevance of the work as it does not seem to raise anything new.
Wright's adaptation is monologue heavy which disconnects the audience from the characters even further than the rapidly revolving bare board stage already achieves. The lengthy work that could do with some serious cut backs suffers from a unfinished feel, partially by design but also unfortunately possibly also unintentional. Marg Horwell's set comprises an unfinished timber stage and backdrop with a large revolve on which a greenhouse with mirrored windows occupies part of the outer edge. The degree of mirroring however is not dark enough to completely mask the contents of the box when unlit, greatly reducing any possibility of suspense for the reveals of the contents. The economy of Horwell's set and costume design does however work to reinforce Joy's belief that the world he has found post medical event is not real with ill-fitting costumes that at times are just absurd and minimal props with little to no attempt at realism.
The cast of Marco Chiappi, Mark Coles Smith, Will McDonald, Amber McMahon, Charlotte Nicdao, Susan Prior and Anna Samson lead by Toby Truslove in the role of Harry Joy do the best they can with the longwinded script and convoluted storyline. The cast handle the physicality of the work incredibly well, but the comedy of the work wears thin relatively fast due as events are already foreshadowed with the inability to mask the greenhouse contents and other physical gags are predictable.
Belvoir St Theatre
9 June - 15 July 2018
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