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Geoffrey Rush: Long Live The King

July 2013

  • Wendy Cavenett

The Arts Centre Melbourne presents The Extraordinary Shapes of Geoffrey Rush, an exhibition of costumes and artefacts celebrating the life and times of our much-loved, character actor.

IN 2009, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote of the “moribund majesty”, King Berenger: “This has to be the liveliest death on record.” And what a death it was. Geoffrey Rush as Eugene Ionesco’s lead in the rarely performed absurdist drama, Exit The King, embodied more timeless truths Rush’s characters often epitomise, for within Berenger’s jaunty protestations about his impending death, we see in him ourselves literally hanging on for dear life. As Ionesco once wrote, “we’re all of us dying men who refuse to die”.

For more than four decades, Rush, who discovered he was a character actor in his early 20s, has made us think, laugh, and wriggle uncomfortably in our seats, illuminating our lives with his distinct interpretation of some of theatre’s greatest players. Who can forget his Lady Bracknell (The Importance of Being Earnest), his Berenger, his Lear’s Fool, or his clowning, chaotic brilliance as Poprishchin (Diary of a Madman)?

In film, too, the man who once thought he was “heading towards a career in astronomy” says he’s happy with the diversity of roles. He mentions his fondness for David Helfgott (Shine), the “cunning rogue”, Barbossa (Pirates of the Caribbean film series), the “ratty little Elizabethan stinkbug”, Sir Francis Walsingham (the Elizabeth films) and “the very interesting, and completely obscure”, Lionel Logue (The King’s Speech).

Today, Rush is discussing his latest project, The Extraordinary Shapes of Geoffrey Rush, an exhibition that uses costume, photography, moving image and many items from Rush’s personal collection, to honour and celebrate his career through some of the many characters he has played on stage and screen.

Rush, 62, says working on the exhibition was like seeing his life flashing before his eyes “without having to do the dying bit”. He laughs a rich, hearty laugh. “I said I don’t want it to feel like a tomb. I want it to be entertaining on some level – more like a sideshow than a museum or gallery.” Such was his trepidation, Rush said to Neil Armfield before he delivered the opening night speech: “Keep it very anecdotal. I don’t want it to feel like a eulogy. I’m still here.”

Rush says he’s blessed to have the services of Melbourne-based designer, Anna Cordingley, who has, he says, created a “rather boisterous space”. The exhibition team that also includes curator, Margaret Marshall and project manager, Sarah Caldwell, has worked closely with Rush, developing six fundamental themes of characters: Clowns, Fools and Ratbags; Antagonists; Dames and Dandies; Harried Men; Fantastical; and Famous, Infamous and Forgotten. Highlighting the transformative effect of the costume, and Rush’s own creative relationship with character, these themes offer audiences a unique chance to engage with an important part of Australia’s performing arts history in a way that explores identity, performance and the literary canon.

“I’m hoping that the bigger theme that might emerge as a subtext,” Rush says, “is that it’s not only my story – I’m one sentence in a bigger Australian story from those early days of subsidised theatre, through the rebirth of the Australian film industry in a very minor way for me, and then becoming much more part of it in the 1990s.

“And now, theatrically, being part of a movement where people are starting to take our theatre seriously. You know, we took Exit The King, the subsidised Malthouse Belvoir production, into the crazy, wild, commercial arena of Broadway to great success, with I think, a very… there’s an Australian vaudeville energy that we brought to a French Romanian absurdist play that is uniquely our own, and I’m very pleased that we were able to achieve something like that.”

Highlights of the exhibition include costumes worn by Rush as Barbossa, the Marquis de Sade (Quills), Philip Henslowe (Shakespeare In Love), Poprishchin, Lady Bracknell and King Berenger.  The exhibition also features two smaller sections – ‘Introduction’, which focuses on Rush’s childhood influences and his theatrical years in high school and university, and the ‘Triple crown of acting’, celebrating his Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award wins.


The Extraordinary Shapes of Geoffrey Rush shows at the Arts Centre Melbourne, Gallery 1, until October 27.
 

artscentremelbourne.com.au

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