We are thrilled to have our final show for 2011, Gross und Klein (Big and
Small)finally up and running in Sydney Theatre. A
mammoth effort on the part of all departments of STC, and
particularly the amazing cast (including our Co-Artistic Director
Cate Blanchett) and creative team, all lead by the stunningly
talented Benedict Andrews, has resulted in a spectacular production
of which we are all extremely proud.
Here we share with you a glimpse of the production in
performance...
(All photos by Lisa Tomasetti)
What the critics are saying:
"Strauss's play is an obscure one and at three hours, it's not your
typical silly season theatre fare. But Blanchett gives the
performance of her career. Smoking and nervously pulling at her
underwear, she is goofy and wildly enthusiastic as the young
abandoned wife." (Sun Herald)
"Directed by Benedict Andrews and designed by Johannes Schutz, it
is now presented in the context of a post-GFC Europe that is amid
yet another crisis. But the great artist who guides us here through
Lotte's odyssey is Cate Blanchett. This is a stunningly expressive
performance, supported by an excellent cast. Her extraordinary
vocal and physical skills as an actor have never been in doubt, but
here she is magnificent. Her Lotte dances frenetically across this
vast blackness. She falls to the ground and then springs up again.
Vernacular humour and farcical comedy are interspersed with
gloriously ironic visions of the transcendent and sudden moments of
anguish. Blanchett plays this abject, increasingly deranged but
ultimately innocent character with a mixture of vulnerability and
luminosity that is heartbreaking." (The Australian)
"With Blanchett's exquisite comic timing, director Benedict
Andrews' brilliant vision and a strong ensemble cast, this is a
ripper." (The Daily Telegraph)
"In Benedict Andrews' jaw-dropping production by the Sydney Theatre
Company, Strauss's brave experiment in anti-narrative succeeds
powerfully in one of the greatest functions of art: to make us look
afresh at ourselves and our surroundings…When played by an actor of
the extraordinary emotional agility and range of Cate Blanchett,
the role of Lotte dazzles as a star vehicle, reverberates in the
ear as a prose poem, and touches us deeply as a meditation on the
squirming position of a single human being." (Time Out Sydney
Online)
"Against the odds and the run of play, Lotte's predicament is very
funny - thanks to the extraordinary performance of the
extraordinary Blanchett. And the outcome is scorchingly, painfully
sad as dreams and possibilities crumble; are seen to be ridiculous,
unattainable or simply never there in the first place."
(Stagenoise.com)
Gross und Klein (Big and Small), Sydney Theatre, 19
November - 23 December, 2011.