Maria Mercedes and Teresa Duddy in Master Class; Photo Clare Hawley
If you have ever performed for an audience you will know the feeling that gnaws away at the bottom of your stomach, telling you, in that split second between inhaling and uttering your first word, that you are nervous. Uncontrollably nervous.
Now, add to that the knowledge that you are being watched, observed, judged ​by one of the best performers in the history of your art form. The result? Absolute terror.
This is the setting for Terence McNally’s Master Class. The audience is invited to a fly-on-the-wall experience in which three aspiring opera singers find themselves in a workshop with opera great Maria Callas (Maria Mercedes). However, this account of Callas’ 1971 workshops at New York’s Julliard School of Music is less about the students than it is about the grand woman herself. Mercedes steals the show as adorably delusional Callas, constantly maintaining that ‘it’s not about me,’ while making it all about her.
The play is a fascinating insight into the woman that was Maria Callas, a supremely talented singer with a tragic and complicated back story and failed love affairs enough of her own to fill the plots of several overly dramatic operatic works. Mercedes plays Callas as though the woman herself were in the room, maintaining a compelling presence throughout. She masterfully embodies the role of the diva tortured by a painful and inescapable past, to which she frequently refers throughout the class. The class that is about her students and not herself, of course.
Callas’ protégés are played by Australian opera singers Georgia Wilkinson, Teresa Duddy and Blake Bowden. Each masters the art of ‘organically’ improving their performance skills thanks to Callas’ coaching, a skill that must be difficult to achieve convincingly night after night.
Wilkinson’s Sophie De Palma is likeably timid, while Bowden’s Tony Candolino is disgustingly full of himself, just the way he’s supposed to be. Tony is a singer with real goose bump-raising talent, one of the sort you hate to love but love anyway because they hit the notes that make your heart soar. Bowden brings just the right touch of testosterone-fuelled cockiness to his portrayal of the role.
Duddy’s Sharon Graham delivers the ultimate diva-in-the-making dose of a reality check for our beloved Callas. Duddy oscillates from being receptive and even appreciative of Callas’ tuition to being openly obnoxious. She performs with such conviction that the audience is left feeling sorry for both Sharon Graham and for Callas. Opera, it’s a complicated business!
The lighting and set are appropriately minimal, allowing the actors to weave their stories through the dense fog that is Callas’ own story, replete with flashbacks that are perhaps a little too dramatic for this already dramatic tale.
Cameron Thomas as accompanist Manny Weinstock is playful yet unobtrusive, skilfully navigating the fine line between being invisible and being annoying.
Master Class is effective at showcasing the dramatics of performance (both on and off the stage) and at highlighting the decades of hard work that go into every effortless-looking artistic career. In these times of reduced government funding for the arts, this piece delivers some heavy hitters in favour of the value of the arts and the artist in society.
This is a must see for anyone who’s ever trained to become a singer, actor, dancer or musician. You will spend the evening on the edge of your seat, desperately hoping that Callas won’t pick you as her next ‘victim’. She’ll leave you be, luckily, but that won’t stop the butterflies from circling.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
fortyfivedownstairs
Until 13 September
Director: Daniel Lammin
Writer: Terrence McNally
