Rebel
Without a Cause by James Fuller, based on the screenplay by Stewart Stern from
an adaptation by Irving Shulman from a story by Nicholas Ray. Free-Rain Theatre directed by Anne Somes. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, May 1-17,
2008,
Thursdays-Saturdays 8pm, Pay What You Can Wednesdays 6.30pm, Matinees Saturdays
May 10 and 17 2pm. Bookings 6275 2700.
The
stage adaptation of this 1955 film is a comic strip version, a storyboard
designed to show the key bits of the plot and make sure we get the message that
teenagers must break parental bonds. In
an America where mothers keep handguns and classmates sport flick knives as a
matter of course, young men’s lives are at risk as they establish their independent
pecking order. Jim wins his Judy, while
gangleader Buzz and oddball Plato die.
Director
Somes rose to the challenge of making this unlikely material work. Avoiding naturalism, stylising the action -
down to almost choreographed staccato movement even including scene changes,
using exaggerated New York accents, projected images and dramatic background
music, set in lots of symbolic black and contrasting red, Somes stirs our
emotions and builds a surprising level of tension in the final scene despite
the absurdity of the situation as, next to Plato’s dead body, Jim hugs his
reconciled parents and introduces Judy to them.
With dancing and singing, it could almost have been West Side Story,
except that would have made it a parody.
Is the
play still relevant? Perhaps. The simple clarity of this production makes
us think. Rebel Without a Cause could
mean that Jim and Judy had no real reason to reject their parents’
behaviour. Yet we see parents who reject
their children’s behaviour, or can’t talk to them sensibly about social
realities. Or the title could mean that if you are going to rebel, you should
have a definite aim to achieve - a cause celebre. But all Jim can say is that although he has
everything and is “well fed”, he just feels like a “tiger in a cage” and has to
escape. Is this all that a wealthy
society can offer? To escape with no
idea of what to do next, except fall in love, become parents and go round the cycle
again, is a bleak view of life.
Or
maybe to binge-drink or, tragically, take 14 people out on Sydney Harbour in a
stolen unsuitable runabout at 2am? Is
that the best we can offer fifty years later? Maybe Free-Rain’s showing us
Rebel Without a Cause does have a point.
It makes us think.
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