Review: Elling

(Ambassador Theatre Group & Sydney Theatre Company | Wharf 1, Walsh Bay, Sydney | Until 18 July)

Maybe it’s the cynicism of half a lifetime in journalism that initially engendered a too-good-to-be-true feeling when watching Elling. When was it all going to go completely to custard? When was the childlike innocence of Elling and his mate Kjell Bjarne going to be stamped on and completely rubbed out?

For reasons that probably only a bureaucracy can explain, the pair have been institutionalized, obviously for some years. They’re certainly socially inept, but equally certainly not mad ... perhaps just a little bit crazy.

Now they’re going to be cut loose, be given their own apartment in Oslo and be asked to make their own way ... even if it is under the reasonably sardonic eye of their state guardian Frank Asli.

Elling has taken a somewhat circuitous route to Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf 1.

It started as Brødre i blodet (Blood Brothers), the second book of an Elling quartet by Norwegian novelist Ingvar Ambjornsen, and was then adapted into a hugely successful stageplay by Axel Hellstenius and Petter Naess.

Hellstenius turned the play into a successful movie which gained an Oscar nomination for best foreign film in 2002. English actor and playwright Simon Bent then re-adapted the movie into a new stageplay, which is the version produced by STC in conjunction with London’s Ambassador Theatre Group.

And at some stage there was a translation from Norwegian into English by Nicholas Morris!

But enough background. Director Pamela Rabe has done a wonderful job with a very skilled cast headed by Darren Gilshenan in the title role.

Gilshenan is absolutely convincing as the meticulous, nervous, overly anxious Elling, who’s never quite been able to cope with the challenges of everyday life since the death of his obviously overprotective mother.

Fans of The Hollow Men will have to look hard to recognise Lachy Hulme who plays the snappily dressed, well groomed, dark-haired Murph in the ABC television show.

As Elling’s buddy Kjell Bjarne, he’s seriously unkempt and absolutely under-dressed — long, straggly ginger hair and beard, ill-fitting shirts, occasionally a very silly hat, saggy trackpants and underpants that represent a serious threat to humanity.

Hulme is — “holy shit!” — brilliant as an absolute, but highly likable buffoon (“orangutan” in Elling’s terminology), interested principally in losing his virginity and eating. Often outwardly loud and vulgar, he can also find some neat psychological holes to hide himself in.

They’re an ultimate odd couple ... so different and so capable of annoying each other, yet very mutually dependent and full of brotherly love for each other.

Having someone of the theatrical experience and status of Glenn Hazeldine in a supporting role — in this case that of Frank Asli — must be luxury for a director. He is exactly what is required — officious, overbearing, sarcastic, yet ultimately caring.

He also plays a superb cameo as a beatnik bard in a wonderful scene where Elling discovers he’s “committed an act of poetry” and the possibility of a new life dawns.

Yael Stone shows great diversity — and deft management of comedy — in roles ranging from nurse to waitress to trendy poet to, most importantly, the abandoned mother-to-be who lives upstairs and wins Kjell Bjarne’s heart and virginity.

Frank Whitten completes the quintet as Alfons Jorgensen, the once-famous poet whose friendship marks a real turning point for Elling — a solid performance but in a role that provides few opportunities to match those afforded the other four.

“The main object was to stay faithful to Elling and Kjell’s friendship,” noted Simon Bent.

“They should never be held up to ridicule or just become figures of fun for the sake of it. Similarly, neither should they become mawkishly sentimental. It was my aim to tread the fine line of tragi-comedy.”

Well Simon, you’ve walked that line bravely and successfully. And so, too, have the entire production and acting teams. Elling is delightful feel-good theatre about a couple of blokes coming to grips with the world — a show that leaves you rather pleased to be a human being.

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