It's unsurprising that Voltaire's bracing cynicism seems so apt for the 21st
century. In a world where our politicians are disgraced, misanthropic
tendencies and doubt, accompanied by ever increasing scenes of civil war and
violence, seems to have ensured the glass is half empty for the majority.
Voltaire's work was a chief adornment of the Enlightenment, when many
unlocked the manacles of religious superstition and began thinking for
themselves. So it's fitting that Voltaire's famous rebuttal Candide (written as an
anti-philosophical satire to challenge philosophical figures such as Leibniz
and Rousseau) undergoes a modern adaptation entitled Optimism, a co-production with Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Festival and Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre (The
Tell-Tale Heart). Optimism is showing at the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of this year's Edinburgh International Festival.
Michael Kantor, Malthouse's Artistic Director
since July 2004, explains the piece is "A play that is inherently depressed, but its core message is how do we remain optimistic when every indication in the world, from climate change to
global financial meltdown, can make us thoroughly depressed. It's a modern
version of Volatire's Candide at heart,
using the central character as a case study on how we can remain inherently
optimistic."
We follow Voltaire's wide-eyed hero Candide (played by Australian comedian
Frank Woodley) as he journeys over five continents and a multitude of
situations that challenge his doctrine to the core: depressive scenes highlighting human mortality, gluttony, deceit, sexual desire, stupidity and
the wrath of mother nature.
Tom Wright adapts Voltaire's classic for suburban Australia
but it promises to astutely focus on the core message and still relates to a
modern audience as Kantor highlights.
"It's a fantastic piece that remains quite timeless as all Voltaire's
satire was pointed at a world that was rife with greed, adversary and short-sighted
people only responding to immediate things in that timeframe, which is very
much what politics does now. We are fully aware that we're facing a huge
climate disaster and yet we're not doing enough about it," says Kantor.
Voltaire's effervescent and persistently jolly prose is presented by Kantor
in a charming world of circus-esque spectacle and song, with the set dominated
by an airline fuselage, designed by Anna
Tregloan.
Kantor's inspiration for the design was to use the allegory of
flight for its dual notions of bounty and destruction.
"The play's a great metaphor for progress and
the supposedly great heights humanity has managed to create - these huge birds
of steel that we use to journey with - and it's that human endeavour that‘s producing
mass amounts of carbon that's damaging the planet. A lot of the piece is set
inside airplanes and outside airports because I wanted to represent the
physical journey that Candide goes through but also the personal journey itself,
inside. The way we travel round the world today, we spend more time in airports
and planes than the places we are travelling to."
The notion of opportunity that
leads to disappointment highlights the futility of modern living, echoing back
to Voltaire's supposedly contemptuous message on hypocrisy and corruption.
The representation of the characters as a bunch of clowns draws ideas into
Kantor's approach.
"The role of a good clown is to cheer everyone up around
them, but often they fail so I wanted to play with the notion of the naïve clown," says Kantor.
Clowns are not only terrifying to some, but often seem to embody the dual
notions of happiness and sadness, the circus aspect adding dimension to an
exploration of a theme that will constantly be in flux in contemporary society.
The intrigue with this piece is exploring Voltaire's challenge
to the claim that optimists follow unassailable forces which rule life and the
individual can do nothing about it. This concept of fate and acceptance wasn't
necessarily an argument in favour of being pessimistic but highlighting that if
this uncontrollable notion is followed and you accept your lot, in Voltaire's
vision that is another form of pessimism.
This idea is explored further by composer Iain Grandage, known for adapting
cheesy, Eighties pop, who intercepts the action with such classics as Devo's Beautiful World and I Could be Happy by Altered Image.
"These are songs of ridiculous optimism that actually have a
darker resonance underneath", says Kantor. "We use the lyrics and tunes to show
if you look closely, Beautiful World is
about a world that's falling apart and is beautiful for others not for the
singer. If you listen closely to Altered Image's song that is deeply depressing,
so we're trying to point out that underneath this music we use to cheer
ourselves up, they actually offer profound statements of pessimism."
As for the perception
of meaning in Voltaire's original, many arguing the piece is inherently
optimistic amid the writer's cynicism, Kantor wants to challenge the audience
to make their own assumptions.
"We end the play very centrally with that
central issue - ‘We must cultivate
our garden' - and we present that to our audience. Do we
cultivate our garden now? That's a worthy position as it seems the only way we
can save this world is to focus on what we can do in our local community. I
think that's a very weighty statement that Voltaire made 250 years ago and it's
just as profound and radical now."
Although at first glance Voltaire's piece seems to fly in the face of these
pessimistic times, like the protagonist Candide, Optimism guarantees to be a gambol that, beneath its evident
callousness, unlocks a surprisingly compassionate vision, as summed up by
Kantor: "It's insanely
silly but hopefully sits in the back of the mind for weeks afterward."
Optimism At the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Sat 15 Aug - Mon 17 Aug (8pm), Sun 16 Aug
(2.30pm)
Tickets and info available from
Edinburgh International Festival
© Lindsay
Corr - July 2009