BWW Reviews: ONASSIS, Novello Theatre, October 2010

The Nancy Meckler-helmed production, based loosely around Peter Evans's book Nemesis, begins shortly before the assassination of US President John F Kennedy and largely focuses on "scoundrel" Aristo's desire for, and subsequent relationship with, Kennedy's widow Jackie. There are also nods to first wife Athina Livanos, mistress Maria Callas and even his children's nanny; however, there is notably little reference made to his daughter Christina. Instead Sherman chooses to base the rocky familial interplay with his heir apparent, Alexandro.

With minimal fuss or distraction in terms of set design, passion and control are dominant central themes - and Onassis is undoubtedly a man preoccupied with both. The corresponding power and corruption that he experiences serve to be a continual reminder that a man of his elevated stature will only become more determined to play the game, and ultimately succeed at it, as he reaches ever higher.

Robert Lindsay, who reprises the role he originated at Chichester, successfully captures the essence of such an homme célèbre, effortlessly switching from menacing to passionate in a heartbeat. This lends the character a likeability that isn't altogether synonymous with your average strong-willed multi-millionaire, especially as Ari so clearly sees everything, including women, as sport. Certainly for him, the overriding goal here is to win, and win well, regardless of the game he is playing. However at points Lindsay's lilting Greek accent, echoed across the rest of the cast, suffers, as they lose themselves in the dialogue.

Gawn Grainger is stand-out in his role as Onassis's chief confidante Costa, an omnipotent Zeus to Onassis's Achilles, both accurately contextualising the narrative and providing a thoroughly believable chemistry with Lindsay.

In the years between the play's initial debut and its current incarnation, Sherman reportedly took pains to refine his work. While it's clear that there have been some important alterations, the most glaringly absent is a real lack of character development. Throughout the entirety of the play, there are only brief glimpses into the darker side of Onassis's psyche, and each time we start to look a little more deeply into what he is capable of, Meckler's Greek chorus is quick to diffuse it with a semi-contrived joviality.

Where this carousing bunch of associates does succeed is in the layering of ideas, invoking the mythical both in terms of their taverna as a limbo between Gods and men and the psychological impact of this devil/angel scenario. Indeed Sherman deftly combines Onassis's well documented fascination with the Olympian deities and the Oedipal ideas of fate and free will with the conspiracy theories surrounding the deaths of John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby, to continually challenge these fatalistic ideas.

Whether the assertions that Onassis was more pivotal in the plots against the politicians' lives than commonly noted is down to individual interpretation, yet layering this into the play works well to tie these ideas together in a thought-provoking way.

Passion, sex and violence are all intricately packaged together with the characters' 'Greek-ness', perhaps none more so than Anna Francolini's Maria Callas. She is the only female character capable of equalling that of her lover Ari and for the little time she actually spends on stage, her raw yet powerful character is far more developed than her male counterpart.

If nothing else, the play successfully postulates whether passion and power can ever be mutually exclusive in modern society - and ultimately that if you fall prey to both, you will eventually be consumed by them. Put quite succinctly by Dimitra, "nothing is certain except for this; the Gods will f**ck you up."

 

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