Optimism

Review by Ben Judge | 18 Aug 2009

There’s a point, just as the opening act is coming to a close, when Optimism brings to mind the wickedly snobbish joke: What’s the difference between a yogurt pot and Australia? Leave a yogurt pot out in the sun for two hundred years and it develops a culture.

After all, who but the Aussies would feel comfortable jigging along to The Hamster Dance Song at the theatrical opening of the world’s most prestigious arts festival? Indeed, the dozen or so spectators who didn’t return for the second act may well have found the clash between classical 18th century French literature and Malthouse Melbourne’s bold, brash and spectacular production somewhat irreconcilable.

Optimism is one of the focal points of the International Festival’s celebration of Scotland’s Age of Enlightenment. And in line with the EIF director Jonathan Mills’ desire to attract a younger and more vibrant audience to the traditionally highbrow event, this quasi-contemporary reimagining of Voltaire’s classic satire, Candide, is anything but staid – even if most of the audience remain resolutely on the wrong side of forty.

Starring the Perrier-winning physical comedian Frank Woodley as Candide, Optimism is a transcontinental adventure in which tragic events of ever-increasing horror and plain old-fashioned bad luck befall our hero and his band of less-than-merry friends. Candide, the wide-eyed innocent, finds with each passing misery that his positive outlook on life is rather ill-judged as he is regaled with tales of murder, torture, rape and enslavement.

Optimism is a deliberately accessible, somewhat superficial production. Indeed, it often feels more like a light-entertainment variety-show than serious theatre – yet the results are surprisingly captivating.

But this superficiality is Optimism’s great failing. Voltaire’s subversive message is too often overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of the production, while the force of his notion that people should strive to improve the world is almost completely lost.