THEATRE

Cloudstreet's ticket to cloud nine

Cloudstreet
By Tim Winton. Dir: Nick Enright.

by Cate Blanchett

England is extremely lucky to be seeing Australia's leading theatre company, Company B, for the first time. I've worked with them quite a bit in Sydney, in productions such as The Seagull and Macbeth, and they are a little like the Almeida here. There's a sort of a loose ensemble of actors, including Geoffrey Rush, but the point is the people on the bar earn the same as the actors. That's good. You feel like everyone in the building is really intimately involved. Non-hierarchical.

I believe the building they are based in is a converted tomato-sauce factory in Sydney. It has a lot of character. Artistic director Neil Armfield is an inspirational figure and, over the years, has built up Company B into a wonderful organisation. He lets people play, lets them go. You end up watching these actors playing so beautifully together.

That's what is so special about this production of Cloudstreet Company B are bringing over. I saw Cloudstreet in the Docklands in Sydney and I still get tingles from it. I was sitting right at the back thinking, "How am I going to sit through this?" - but you are transported, it's such a sprawling, magical thing.

The story is sort of like a domestic Mahabharata. It's about two families in Perth. I'm not going to tell you the plot but these two families have to share a common wall to their houses. I think the production really captures that air that exists in Australia which doesn't exist in any other country. Also what I love about Cloudstreet is that often theatre tries to replicate film, but Cloudstreet celebrates what theatre is actually about, and that's why I loved the night so much. It couldn't have been produced in any other form.

Now Playing
Riverside Studios From Sep 9, Tue-Sat 6.30pm, Sun 3pm, ends Oct 3 £22-£25, concs £16-£18

© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 02 September 1999

Aussie Cate Online © 1999 Lin, Dean, Lance
800x600 screen size recommended.

.