Rupert
August 2013
One of the most powerful, influential, feared but also fascinating figures in the world is portrayed by Melbourne Theatre Company from this week, charting media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s life from the early days until the most recent, ever more bizarre developments. Mapping out the personality from his student days at Oxford, to his divorce from second wife Anna Maria Torv, his most recent marriage to Wendi Deng, and the 2011 News International phone hacking scandal, Rupert gets a unique spin from multi award-winning playwright and one of Australia’s Living National Treasures, David Williamson.
Furthermore, the production is set to captivate not only Australian audiences when it premieres at the Arts Centre Melbourne, but for the first time also American theatre-goers when MTC takes Rupert to Washington in 2014. This is a first in the company’s history. According to actress Marg Downey, who plays Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, the newspaper titan has dominated the US press just as much as in the UK and back home in Australia.
“When we found out we were taking it to Washington as well, I said, ‘You beauty! That’s exciting!’,” Downey says. “Because Rupert Murdoch is a global figure and I know he was featured on the cover of Time magazine as this King Kong-like figure scaling a building and holding big wigs in his hand as though he is controlling them. He’s very well-known in America, particularly in Washington. There would be people there who have rubbed shoulders with him, opposed him, supported him, worked with him… I’m certain there are many people there whom Rupert can make or break.”
Cast member Daniela Farinacci, who plays Murdoch’s long-suffering second wife Anna Maria Torv, says the production digs deep under Murdoch’s skin in an attempt to discover what makes him tick. In control and composed on the surface, Rupert reveals the human being underneath the facade.
“David Williams has made a grand effort to let the audience make their own judgement of Rupert,” Farinacci says. “He’s simply laying it out as a biography. Most people will have some kind of preconceived notions and opinions of him already so we’re making room for people to question those ideas and look at him from another angle. David has posed the question, ‘Who is this man? What makes him tick?’ As actors, playing characters who are real people, it’s so interesting doing the research beforehand. Playing the role of Anna, I’ve tried to understand what she saw in him. I think they did have a genuine love; she is a woman of absolute integrity, which means he can’t be this evil being that people imagine he is. Ultimately, we strip him back to a person with feelings and connections to other people. He’s so complex.”
And the method by which Williamson presents each decade of Murdoch’s life is an especially unique one, and as both Farinacci and Downey point out, quite unexpected and far from the playwright’s traditional style. Employing choreography, singing and even puppets, actors are required individually to take on multiple roles, making Rupert a significant challenge even for the veteran actors.
“When they first told me it was a Williamson play, I had a vision in my head of the sort of thing he normally writes and the way he presents his ideas,” Downey says. “But this is a totally different offering from him. We’re using lots of different devices, anything goes! We all play many different roles too, I’m playing someone in her 40s, I’m playing Rupert’s daughter Elisabeth, I’m playing a 90 year old woman at Lachlan [Murdoch’s] wedding – other people might have to play 15 characters – so it’s very fast-paced and quite challenging. Sometimes we transform through very subtle changes, such as putting on a scarf and switching roles, other times it’s an entire costume.”
“It’s so much fun working this way,” Farinacci adds. “We turn into a different character just by turning our bodies to face in a different direction or just putting on a jacket. We’re asking the audience to use their imagination and let us take them on this ride of pretend for a few moments. Sometimes a puppet would represent a character. There is a multitude of recognisable political figures, from Thatcher to Bob Hawke, to Whitlam. It’s definitely far from traditional story telling.”
Melbourne Theatre Company’s Rupert by David Williamson shows at the Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse, from August 24 to September 28.
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