Cantwell raises the bar
t is a literary cliche that a writer finds their next piece after hearing a story in a bar. But that is precisely what happened to the Perth Theatre Company’s artistic director Melissa Cantwell several years ago during a trip to Vietnam.
While Cantwell was enjoying a drink with a Vietnamese friend in a Ho Chi Min City bar the pianist told her a tragic love story about another pianist that unfolded during a period of French occupation (no, this is not a story from Joseph Conrad or Jorge Luis Borges but actually happened to the artistically restless PTC boss).
The earlier ivory tickler was deeply in love with a French woman who left him, plunging the pianist into such deep grief he went blind.
“It was only a brief tale but it sowed a seed within me. The idea of a pianist being so heartbroken that he could no longer see opened up a world of muses and music and art and creativity,” Cantwell recalls.
The play that blossomed from Cantwell’s brief encounter in South-East Asia is The Song Was Wrong, a romantic drama involving two artists, a pianist and his French photographer-lover, who he meets while she is holding an exhibition in Australia.
“While The Song Was Wrong is basically a love story it moves into a surreal and interesting world powered by music, by the desire to create art, by the musician to his muse.”
The role of the pianist is played by WAAPA graduate Felix Jozeps, whom Cantwell has wanted to work with for some time. Indeed, Cantwell had the actor in mind while she was writing The Song Was Wrong.
“There is something special about being able to write a role for an actor, imagining them in a particular space. It’s a magical fusion. Fortuitously, Felix is also a very fine pianist and he will be playing the music live on stage.”
The role of the photographer is taken by another WAAPA graduate, Astrid Grant, who soon after leaving the academy received an offer to join Theatre du Soleil, the famed Paris-based theatre company founded by Ariane Mnouchkine in 1964. (It was born “in the midst of the cultural turmoil that was sweeping the Western world,” says the lovely entry in Wikipedia).
“Ariane is one of the world’s greatest living directors. It is an extraordinary company that makes extraordinary work. Astrid has been with the company for 12 years and she has absorbed so much working with that process.”
A key element of that Theatre du Soleil experience is physical movement which is also integral to The Song Was Wrong. “Lisa Scott- Murphy, who is working with me on movement, has kept in touch with Astrid,” Cantwell says. “The planets lined up and Astrid was able to return to be a part of the production.”
While Perth Theatre Company does not have the resources of State Theatre Centre co-tenants, Cantwell has always had a large vision, with The Song Was Wrong bringing together talents from all over the country and the world (Helpmann Award-winning composer Nick Wales is providing the music).
Indeed, that ambition has seen Cantwell pull off arguably the biggest coup of her career in persuading another WAAPA graduate, Hollywood star Jai Courtney, to return to Perth for PTC’s end-of-year production of Of Mice and Men.
Since graduating Courtney has become one of the world’s hottest, most in-demand young actors, starring alongside Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher, Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard, and Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner.
He will next be seen playing Kyle Reese in the new Terminator movie and is completing Suicide Squad in which he co-stars alongside Jared Leto, Will Smith, Ben Affleck and Margot Robbie.
“I was doing a postgraduate degree at WAPAA while Jai was in the acting program. We formed a good friendship and we had always planned to worked together,” recalls Cantwell, who took the reigns of PTC after the death of Alan Becher in 2008.
“We have both been very committed to doing (Of Mice and Men) for a long time but it’s been a case of dealing with his schedule. When you get cast in the Terminator there is not a lot you can do,” laughs Cantwell. “It’s worked so I am thrilled.”
The Song Was Wrong is at the Studio Underground in the State Theatre Centre from June 4 to 20.
