News location:

Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: Szeps in perfect control

Henri Szeps as Sakini
THEATRE

“I Wish I’d Said That”

Written and performed by Henri Szeps, at The Street Theatre until April 21. 

Reviewed by Helen Musa

 

AN actor is usually meant to be an interpreter, not an author, but Henri Szeps takes on both roles in this little one-hander, which ruminates in both comic and serious ways on the missed opportunities of an aging actor.

Szeps, best known to the general public as the manipulative dentist brother in the TV series “Mother and Son,” is fairly brimming with roles he never got to play, like King Lear, or Don Quixote in “Man of La Mancha,” or Edmund Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” or the wily Okinawan character Sakini played by Marlon Brando in “Teahouse of the August Moon,” with which he concludes his reminiscence.

Szeps has claimed that this is not an autobiographical play, but it is strangely revealing of his own life, even as he pretends to be the mediocre retired actor Joe Bleakly, now consigned to a retirement home.

There are some good jokes and some bad jokes, but rippling underneath the humour is a serious motif as Szeps looks at what might have been.

Along the way we learn of his childhood inParis and his sympathy for the novelist Emile Zola, whose defence of Jewish prisoner Alfred Dreyfus in the newspaper article “J’Accuse” led to his untimely death.

Performed in the intimate surroundings of Street 2, this is a rare opportunity to see a truly professional actor at his peak interacting with an audience close-up. His voice is beautiful, his manner informal as he undercuts the grandeur of the King and the Don, and he is in perfect control.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Helen Musa

Helen Musa

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews