The Mayne Inheritance
I went to see the Mayne Inheritance at the new La Boite Theatre last night. It's a play about an old Brisbane scandal where one of the forefathers of modern-day Brisbane allegedly admitted on his deathbed to commiting murder to get his start in life. His five children all died without marrying or having children (one of them went mad and another joined a convent) and the money (a substantial fortune) all went to various causes around Brisbane, including building parts of the current University of Queensland (the biggest public lecture hall is still called Mayne Hall).
It was a fascintating play - I knew of the legend, but not the details. Although the play assumed that Patrick Mayne had in fact killed the man (Cox), this was always one of the "rumours" of Brisbane and not as cut and dried as it was in the play. I thought the actors all did a great job, except possibly the character of Patrick, who seemed a little one dimensional. However, much of that probably came from the fact that he had quite a strong Irish accent (which I this was natural) - it wasn't a problem for me when he was speaking normally, but the beginning and end of the play, he's yelling and mumbling as he's supposed to be in a fever just before he died. Unfortunately, even me with my experience of trying to decipher real Irish accents on dictation tapes, had trouble trying to understand him then. It did detract from the play somewhat.
La Boite Theatre is also a Brisbane institution. It's been around for ages but has recently moved from its old venue to a new one. And this is the first time I've been to the new venue. The weird thing is that the new venue seems exactly the same inside as the old one did! It was a little disconcerting. Like walking into a modern government building and encountering the lush surroundings of the Louvre, or something like that. The La Boite isn't lush, it's just that it doesn't seem to belong in the building it's in - probably because it retains that sense of an alternative theatre that it had in it's old building (which it fitted like hand and glove).
Anyway, it was a good night. My friends (I'll call them the K couple) were good company as per usual. The surrogate daughter (female part of the K couple, she was surrogate daughter to my folks while I was away) was casually playing with the tall guys's (the male part of the K couple) jeans (near his knee - it wasn't gross!) during the 2nd part of the play - very cute! And very unusual for her - she's not generally very touchy feely. She's obviously really comfortable with him which is lovely to see as they were both my friends for years before they ever became a couple. I also caught up with the tall guy's sister which was great. I haven't seen her in months and she's always good value - very observant and very witty with it.
I'm off to the gym again tonight (only got time to do about half my weight routine before yoga last night) and then I've got another date tonight. We are having coffee at the Coffee Club at Stones Corner. I'll have to SMS him today and check it's still on - I didn't get to check my email last night and probably won't have time to tonight either before I have to head off. I'm not sure how this one will go - he's been a little more circumspect that the movie guy about himself. But then, this one's in IT, so maybe he's not good with language that involves letters and words rather than 1s and 0s... he he.
Listening to: Guy Webster (eponymous EP)
It was a fascintating play - I knew of the legend, but not the details. Although the play assumed that Patrick Mayne had in fact killed the man (Cox), this was always one of the "rumours" of Brisbane and not as cut and dried as it was in the play. I thought the actors all did a great job, except possibly the character of Patrick, who seemed a little one dimensional. However, much of that probably came from the fact that he had quite a strong Irish accent (which I this was natural) - it wasn't a problem for me when he was speaking normally, but the beginning and end of the play, he's yelling and mumbling as he's supposed to be in a fever just before he died. Unfortunately, even me with my experience of trying to decipher real Irish accents on dictation tapes, had trouble trying to understand him then. It did detract from the play somewhat.
La Boite Theatre is also a Brisbane institution. It's been around for ages but has recently moved from its old venue to a new one. And this is the first time I've been to the new venue. The weird thing is that the new venue seems exactly the same inside as the old one did! It was a little disconcerting. Like walking into a modern government building and encountering the lush surroundings of the Louvre, or something like that. The La Boite isn't lush, it's just that it doesn't seem to belong in the building it's in - probably because it retains that sense of an alternative theatre that it had in it's old building (which it fitted like hand and glove).
Anyway, it was a good night. My friends (I'll call them the K couple) were good company as per usual. The surrogate daughter (female part of the K couple, she was surrogate daughter to my folks while I was away) was casually playing with the tall guys's (the male part of the K couple) jeans (near his knee - it wasn't gross!) during the 2nd part of the play - very cute! And very unusual for her - she's not generally very touchy feely. She's obviously really comfortable with him which is lovely to see as they were both my friends for years before they ever became a couple. I also caught up with the tall guy's sister which was great. I haven't seen her in months and she's always good value - very observant and very witty with it.
I'm off to the gym again tonight (only got time to do about half my weight routine before yoga last night) and then I've got another date tonight. We are having coffee at the Coffee Club at Stones Corner. I'll have to SMS him today and check it's still on - I didn't get to check my email last night and probably won't have time to tonight either before I have to head off. I'm not sure how this one will go - he's been a little more circumspect that the movie guy about himself. But then, this one's in IT, so maybe he's not good with language that involves letters and words rather than 1s and 0s... he he.
Listening to: Guy Webster (eponymous EP)
posted by OLS |
Friday, June 11, 2004 | 9:22 am
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