THIS spring, performing arts company the Bard in Buninyong is moving away from Shakespeare to perform an Australian children\u2019s classic, and an adaption of an eighteenth-century French novel.<\/p>\n
A small cast of six actors are bringing an open-air version of Norman Lindsay\u2019s The Magic Pudding<\/em> to the Buninyong Gift House Garden across five performances this Saturday 28 October.<\/p>\n Then, between Friday 3 and Sunday 12 November, Melissa Lawrence and Scott Jackson will embody Marquise de Merteuil and Viscount de Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons: Duets<\/em> at the Old Buninyong Brewery.<\/p>\n \u201cDangerous Liaisons<\/em> is based on a series of letters,\u201d artistic director Susan Pilbeam said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a completely new telling of the story, which is very famous, and was made into a film starring John Malkovich and Glenn Close.<\/p>\n \u201cActors love to play these characters because they behave very badly, and they look beautiful.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a decadent world, full of entitled people who are wealthy and bored, and nobody is immune to their viciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n The Marquise de Merteuil is one of the earliest women in literature to be empowered, written in 1782, and Lawrence said she is enjoying bringing the character to life, who is still relevant in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so extravagant, but the text still translates to modern day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time there was a strict idea about women, and the Marquise is the opposite of that, purposefully making herself completely different.<\/p>\n \u201cShe refuses to me a meek, polite woman, and it\u2019s really fun to play that strong, bold, independent character in a historical context where she was pushing the boundaries a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Dangerous Liaisons<\/em> is Jackson\u2019s first show with the company, and he said he\u2019s loved the way the script has been adapted.<\/p>\n \u201cIn rehearsals, Melissa and I have been playing and using our impulses to try things that are fresh,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun to play those really quick emotional changes.\u201d<\/p>\n Baroque music, performed live by Lyndon and Miriam Kriss on cello and guitar, will accompany the play.<\/p>\n Pilbeam said the Old Buninyong Brewery is a great venue for an historic theatre piece, taking audiences to another era with its heritage character.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all pretty excited,\u201d she said. \u201cAcoustically, it\u2019s fabulous, and the actors can enjoy intimate performing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe audience will be sitting on couches and things right on the stage, hearing and seeing everything with a glass of wine and chocolates.\u201d<\/p>\n