Physical Theatre / Smile: The Story of Charlie Chaplin. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, November 9. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

There is brilliance on display in this intriguing production, but there are also unsolved problems that, during its first Canberra performance at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre on Saturday night, made it feel like a work in progress.

Hailed around the country for his brilliant debut cabaret The Ukulele Man, in which he traces the life and career of British vaudevillian George Formby, Marcel Cole now reveals skills as a brilliant mime artist and accomplished ballet dancer with his show about an even more famous screen personality Charlie Chaplin.

Again directed by Mirjana Ristevski, with whom he created The Ukulele Man, Cole tells Chaplin’s story through an astute selection of filmed titles and images in the style of one of Chaplin’s silent films.

Costumed as Chaplin’s familiar Little Tramp character, complete with whiteface make-up and black toothbrush moustache, Cole made his entrance down the steep steps of the Tuggeranong Arts Centre theatre, immediately engaging the audience with his mastery of Chaplin’s signature walk and movement style, his mime clear, concise.

Assuming the persona of the little tramp he discovers a red-covered copy of Chaplin’s autobiography and begins his story, selecting incidents at random from the book, commencing with Chaplin’s 1925 silent movie The Gold Rush, filmed at a time when Chaplin’s silent screen persona as The Little Tramp was already well established as an audience favourite.

For these live re-enactments Cole selects random members of his audience to assist him by playing various supporting characters. This risky strategy depends on the ability of the unfortunate “volunteer” to be amusing.

While those selected certainly did their best to be co-operative, and there were some funny moments, the overuse of this ploy, together with the necessity for Cole to drop character to murmur instructions to his “volunteers”, detracted from the magic of his silent mime, caused the pacing and flow of the storytelling to flag.

It also led to trivialising important moments in Chaplin’s life such as the onset of his mother’s dementia and eventual death, which hardly seemed subjects for hilarity.

A stunning dance sequence later in the show for which Cole stripped to black trunks and utilised a white balloon and his impressive ballet technique to represent Chaplin’s satirical masterpiece The Great Dictator was marred when the balloon was thrown into the audience. Of course the audience had fun circulating the balloon around the auditorium, but the brilliance of the original concept became irrelevant.

Cole and his director Ristevski have created a fascinating entertainment to showcase more of Cole’s talents. But Chaplin is a far more important and complex character than Formby, and despite the rapturous reception by the capacity audience at this performance, Smile: The story of Charlie Chaplain, seems confused as to its purpose, particularly during the later sections involving incidents when Chaplin had long since left the Little Tramp behind, but Cole still presented in whiteface.

Only part of Chaplin’s long and complex life was concerned his most famous creation, the Little Tramp. By trying to compress the whole of his story into just 60 minutes, Cole does himself and his subject a disservice.

By concentrating on just the Little Tramp period of Chaplin’s career Cole would still have a captivating piece of entertainment with which to display his undoubted mime skills.

However, in choosing Chaplin as their subject, Cole and Ristevski have struck gold with a subject that both have the skills and talents to develop into something far more important. Should they choose to take up that challenge, future audiences can look forward to something very special.