Suddenly Last Summer

It’s certainly not uncommon for directors to merge new technologies with old plays, but Kip Williams’ Sydney Theatre Company production of Tennessee Williams’ claustrophobic and oppressive Suddenly Last Summer is almost more live film than theatre.

Filmed with high definition cameras that project the actors’ faces onto the stark white set, a lot of the action happens either behind the walled set or in the wings of the Drama Theatre. The acting chops of grand dame Robyn Nevin as family matriarch Mrs Venable and Eryn Jean Norvill as her committed niece Catherine would easily have carried the melodrama of this story of a mother’s overbearing love for her closeted gay son, and the lengths she’s prepared to go to silence her niece who witnessed his death. Instead we get cameramen drifting in and out of the ferny garden set, glimpses of wig attachments and a soundtrack that practically turns the production into a midday movie. England’s Royal National Theatre has had great success taking their productions into cinemas around the globe but when an audience pays to see theatre, surely that’s what they deserve to get.

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House to 21 Mar