I have a confession to make. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually wanted to go and see an STC production that involved the STC Actors Company. On paper it’s a great idea – a group of talented individuals honing their skills and producing for the audience better performances for it. There are some brilliant performers involved, notably Pamela Rabe and John Gaden who never disappoint. For the actors involved, it’s the job others would kill for. But for the audience? Watching the same ensemble of actors over and over has personally, become tedious, and with the extremely low-key extension of their two year contracts, the Actors Company are performing together now until 2009. As a theatre patron I want difference, change, new combinations. The result, as evidenced in the Actors Company’s latest work Tales From The Vienna Woods, is that the company seems to be coasting, rather than seeking to excite their audiences.

Tales From The Vienna Woods by Hungarian playwright Odon von Horvath, was written in 1930 and has been translated by STC Artistic Associate, Tom Wright, and directed by Jean-Pierre Mignon (known for his French Restoration pieces for STC). The play seeks to attack the self-righteousness of the common townspeople, oblivious to the realities of facism’s ascent. There are smatterings of plot, however the only solid storyline revolves around Marianne (Hayley McElhinney) and her journey from innocent bride-to-be, to complete disaster in her father Leopold’s (John Gaden) and society’s eyes. The script calls for many characters, so much so that extra cast members have been called in to fill the roles. Amongst the new arrivals, STC favourite Robert Menzies joins the cast as the Captain, and Paul Capsis takes to the stage with expected brilliance in a few exceptional cameo roles.

Unfortunately for Vienna Woods, there just isn’t much drama to get excited about. Because the play focuses on commonplace townspeople and their own problems, which are hardly anything to write home about, the play ambles along at a slow pace. With an abundance of characters there is little opportunity to connect with any of them in a meaningful way, so as an audience member watching characters you don’t care about whining about their little lives when bigger things are going on around them, is hardly a pleasurable experience. The plot only gets cracking halfway into the second half when McElhinney’s Marianne starts to cause real commotion, and the play ends with some genuinely moving, tragic and poignant scenes. However having to wait this long for the real action is simply irritating. Whether it was the character’s themselves, Mignon’s direction or the complacency of the actors themselves, the performers didn’t seem to really be ‘trying.’

Of course this is not true of all. Deborah Mailman is excellent as Valerie, the feisty newsagent with more than a few men on the cards. Gaden is as good as ever as Leopold, Marianne’s frivolous yet hard-hearted father. Steve Le Marquand is positively awkward as Marianne’s well-meaning but out of touch fiancée. Capsis is stunning in his usual quirky roles, especially hilarious and cruel as Grandmother. McElhinney does her best to ignite passion and vigor into the stage space, but cannot lift the generally unexciting plot. The production aspects are high quality. Kimm Kovac and Andrew Hays’ set design is the real star, structured with red walls and doorways to become butcher shop windows, apartment balconies, picnics in the woodlands, even the top of a castle. Alan John has created some lovely lilting music characteristic of Austrian and Hungarian tradition, while Nigel Levings’ lighting shifts and heightens emotions when the stage seems to lack the punch. There is no doubt that Tales from the Vienna Woods ends with the much needed blow of intensity and sentiment that it was heading for. Although from such a qualified team with such ample resources compared with other companies, I wanted a great deal more.