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12 April 1984
CARMEN GIVES LEWIS FREEDOM TO EXPLORE
Carmen is again stirring imaginations, her passionate story inspiring a remarkable new wave of sympathy from film and theatre producers around the world.
Within the current outbreak of Carmenophilia has come Jean-Luc Godard's First Name Carmen, Peter Brook's The Tragedy of Carmen, Francesco Rosi's movie of the opera, and Carlos Saura's pomular film based around a flamenco dance company that is rehearsing a stage production.
And now an Australian interpretation! From tonight, at the Russell Street Theatre, the Melbourne Theatre Company is presenting Carmen: Another Perspective, which, as the title suggests, takes yet another view of the classic Bizet opera focusing, as does Prosper Merimée's original novella, on the central characters of Carmen and Don José.
The MTC's production features singer Jeannie Lewis, dancer Andris Toppe and actor Philip Quast. Together with the director Bruce Myles and musical director Robert Gavin they spent six weeks "workshopping" the project before rehearsals.
Jeannie Lewis told me she felt she must have seen the opera at one time or another, because the story and music were absolutely familiar. It surprised her when she realised she had not seen it. She does believe she has seen Carmen Jones, knows she thoroughly enjoyed the levels of acting in Saura's Carmen. "There are only three of us doing it, but we're hoping to create some magic," she said. "We have tried to capture the essence of that terrific, passionate story and the theme, which, I suppose, is freedom against oppression.
"The pint about freedom is the thing that we try most strongly to get across.
"One of the things that drew me to Carmen was that she was the one who chose her men, and it was not the men who were choosing her. We've explored it a lot more deeply now. But it is very much about a woman's freedom… there is a feminist aspect to it."
Carmen: Another Perspective was first mooted in 1980, after Jeannie received a script from Andris for her birthday. They planned a two-person version, but could not get backing. A year ago, they resurrected the project.
Part of the stimulus for Carmen: Another Perspective was a Michael Leunig cartoon, a "strip" that began with a man asking a bird in a cage to sing for him. The bird remains silent and the man becomes furious. Eventually, the bird is a victim of the rage and lies splattered across the floor. "And you used to sing so sweetly", says the man.
Jeannie Lewis feels it captures one aspect of Carmen. "If you love something, love what it does well caging it and imprisoning it and wanting it to perform on demand, just does not work," she said
For the singer herself, Carmen: Another Perspective offers yet another chance to explore. Her career of almost 20 years has seen astonishing diversity; she has blurred the barriers between rock, blues and jazz, performed in Hair as well as Winnie The Pooh, and recorded such impressive albums as Celluloid Heroes and Tears of Steel.
In 1980 she starred in Piaf at Melbourne's Comedy Theatre, probably her biggest commercial success to dat. But it is Tears of Steel of which she is most proud.
"That was something I had to do for emotional reasons as much as anything," she said. "I always think the best works of art come out of something you have to do, rather than something that you want to do."
