‘Wild Violets and Honesty’

Press, 24 July 1987, Page 4

‘Wild Violets and Honesty’

“Wild Violets and Honesty,” a live portrait of Frances Hodgkins, a solo performance by Shaquelle Maybury, directed by June Harvest, at the Court Two Theatre, from August 22. Running time: 8.15 p.m. to 10 p.m. Reviewed by John Farnsworth.

To call this production a live portrait of Frances Hodgkins is almost an understatement — if anything, it is a vital portrait. Strangely, this is in strong contrast to the cool, delicate Post-Impressionist paintings with which she is most commonly associated. If this is a live portrait, it is also a picture of Hodgkins the expatriate artist. In particular, it underlines the strain of being driven to fulfil her artistic ambitions only at the heavy cost of living isolated from her family. However true an image that may be it certainly conforms to the romantic one of the artist pursuing attgpnely vision. Perhaps & that it re£

ceives ' a noticeably Romantic treatment in production. This Frances Hodgkins is drawn entirely from her own writings, spliced with contemporary reviews. Shaquelle Maybury breathes life into them with a performance which captures the spontaneity, warmth and effervescence reported of Hodgkins’ personality as she ages from a New Zealand amateur to an established British artist.

Throughout, it is a thoroughly sustained performance as she dabs at sketches and half-finished canvasses, enthuses with the audience, writes and reads correspondence and debates over the merits of reviews. This she does as she changes costume, hats (sometimes perilously with a teetering hat-stand) and countries.

Structurally, it suffers from being too episodic in places, which fragments the narrative drive and focus. Also, for such a gregarious personality, she appears oddly alone, which is really a problem

of the solo format of the piece. Nonetheless, there is a warmth and enthusiasm which results both from the performance and from June Harvest’s direction in shaping and pacing the script. It is also enhanced by the cluttered set and intimacy of the Court Two setting. What this production emphasises are the twin poles of work and family. There is little time devoted to friends, none to relationships, nor much to clarifying the meaning or changes in her painting. Yet, interestingly, one of the pleasures of the production is to view again the astonishing stylistic variety of this very considerable artist’s work in the overhead slides.

In the end, this presentation succeeds in bringing Frances Hodgkins vividly to life and creating a sense of empathy between her and her audience. On that score alone, the real Hodgkins would have beeitikintrigued to meet her (ctional counterpart