Sydney’s more adamant theatergoers have been waiting with bated breath to see Australian acting legend Hugo Weaving tread the boards with the great Irish actor Olwen Fouéré (Terminus). A first-time co-production between Sydney Theatre Company and Dublin’s renowned Gate Theatre, you could say that the Australian premiere of the late Austrian playwright Thomas Bernhard’s dark comedy, The President, has a lot riding on it.
However, considering that Bernhard’s plays are rarely staged, in part due to the known fact that they’re considered a notoriously hard sell, it calls into question: what is the motivation for mounting a new adaptation of The President in 2024?
We find ourselves in an unnamed European country at an unspecified but tumultuous time – although the play’s initial production date of 1975, a period of political unrest and bloodshed, offers some context. Following a failed assassination attempt on the titular President (Weaving) that instead slew a faithful Colonel, The First Lady (Fouéré) prepares for a night out. She harangues her maid, Mrs Frölich (Julie Forsyth) over the selection of eveningwear and frets over the state of the country – emboldened anarchists are striking at the establishment – but especially the death of her beloved dog, struck down by a heart attack triggered by the assassin’s gunfire.
...although The President improves in the back half, it never quite recovers from a punishing first act.
Bernhard’s work certainly contains themes that draw parallels with the world’s current turmoils, and in theory, this should be an engaging premise. However, come opening night in Sydney, the intermission attrition rate was unmistakably higher than usual – and perhaps that would have pleased the late iconoclast. Hugely controversial in his own country, Bernhard took savage delight at skewering the pretensions and hypocrisies of the powerful, and took such a dim view of Austria’s cultural and political institutions that he stipulated in his will that none of his works should ever be published or performed there after his death.
With that in mind, alienating at least some of a Sydney Theatre Company opening night crowd – certainly a concentration of cultural power – not to mention leaving the city’s theatre critics totally divided, might have tickled him. In which case, at least somebody was having fun.
In structure, The President is a series of what we might call interrupted monologues, with one character holding court while others occasionally interject (or try to). In Act Two it’s the President’s turn, as he rambles about beauty, love, lust, potential, but most of all power to his mistress, the Actress (Kate Gilmore). The scene has changed to a resort in Portugal, but Elizabeth Gadsby’s minimalist, glass-walled set is barely redressed – each space is dominated by the egomaniac delivering the lecture at hand.
It’s a look, I suppose, at the venality at the heart of power, and how we are led by people almost wholly consumed by their own petty desires. We know that there’s a revolution brewing, but it’s referred to elliptically, as a thing happening somewhere else, to other people. The possibility that the President and First Lady’s son has joined the anarchists is repeatedly raised, but not interrogated deeply. We must parse the plot by piecing together allusions and asides.
As the President, Weaving gives us a very particular stripe of despot: boorish, bragging, lecherous, uncouth, and often red-faced, roaring drunk – an archetype that will be instantly familiar to anyone who keeps half an eye on Australian federal politics. It’s a fun performance, with the President’s hectoring braggadocio complemented by the countless medals on his dress tunic.
Unfortunately, Olwen Fouéré seems to visibly struggle with the material, which is a problem when the entire first act consists of her monologue. There’s a palpable and distracting disconnect between the cadence of the lines and her delivery, and it completely robs her speech of any sense of spontaneity. Bernhard’s language is repetitive. Thoughts trail off, older conversation forks are suddenly revisited – it has a stream-of-consciousness rhythm. As delivered by Fouéré, it only ever sounds like someone reciting words on a page.
Now, perhaps that’s deliberate? Fair enough, and with veteran Irish director Tom Creed at the helm, a reasonable assumption. But it felt like early-season wonkiness, which doesn’t fly when we consider that the same production already had a successful run at Dublin’s Gate Theatre. The better question to ask is “Is it successful?”, and I’d have to say no – although The President improves in the back half, it never quite recovers from a punishing first act.
Is the point to punish us? Maybe, but that doesn’t make it fun, or particularly illuminating. It’s a failure of execution rather than material. Certainly we’ve seen more challenging and oblique productions from STC before, and if anything the current political climate makes Bernhard’s work more resonant than ever. But is anything getting through when the audience is so clearly alienated?
At the play’s close the audience is made to (well, I didn’t see an alternative exit) file past the President’s body as it lies in state, and while in that moment you could certainly empathise with the citizens of The President’s unnamed country as they go through the motions, maybe a night at the theatre shouldn’t evoke the same sense of grudging duty.
The President is playing at Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, until May 19, 2024. You can find tickets and info over here.
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