Camerata - The White Mouse

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Sun 03 Dec 2017

Wars breed larger than life characters – like Blair Mayne, David Sterling's second in command at the SAS, who solved a problem with a senior officer by knocking him over a wall, and Nancy Wake, whose response to a similar problem was to remove the officer's trousers and run them up a flagpole.

Wake was unremitting, unrelenting, unstoppable, a force of nature capable of killing an enemy soldier with her bare hands, and of using her alluring face and figure to deadly effect."Lady-like" was not a description that would have applied to her – or that she would have appreciated. Verbally and sometimes actually she took no prisoners.

She was awarded the US Medal of Freedom and the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honour. Australia was less impressed and turned awards down, taking decades before offering her recognition. She reacted by saying "I told the government they could stick their medals where the monkey stuck his nuts".

It is a larger than life story of a larger than life personality.

But your aged reviewer was wondering whether one of the world's finest classical music ensembles fitted in such a saga. While admiring Tama Matheson's approach to Tchaikovsky and Byron he wondered how the marriage of classical music and anecdote would work for this story and his heart sank when he saw the potentially clichéd "Non, je ne regrette rien" as the closing song.

Wrong on all counts, I'm glad to say.

Tama Matheson's script worked brilliantly – possibly his best yet. As did his taking on the numerous persona needed to tell this tale, ranging from Nancy's wealthy husband through her British army "trainers" who while admiring her spirit, were glad to see her gone albeit into enemy France.

Veronica Neave was excellent as the foul-mouthed irreverent Wake, catching not only her in dominance but also her despair.

And Meg Hamilton made "Non, je ne regrette rien" a fitting leitmotif for the whole enterprise, catching both Wake's intransigence and her tragedy.

Good music, like good poetry, should communicate before it is understood and Camerata added depth beauty and emotion to the celebration of the unique human being who was Nancy Wake.

One only hopes that a production as good as this has a long shelf-life and can tour extensively.

It is very good, and very memorable.



#music
#theatre
#december
!date 03/12/2017 -- 03/12/2017
%wnbrisbane