3 Franks
About the year 1580 a group of Florentine scholars and musicians made a conscious effort to revive the theatrical art of Musical Declamation. This association of humanists known as The Camerata, developed a style of reciting verse accompanied by music. They named this style of vocal and musical delivery recitativo (recitative), and it created an immediate appeal. This technique heightened the theatrical mood and intensity; it was a musical accompaniment to emotionalised speech and was the beginning of modern opera. Many developments were to follow; orchestration became more complex, the aria, or song, emerged as an opportunity for the singer to showcase their distinctive abilities and for the interior dramatic world of a character to be revealed.
On the eve of the premier of 3 Franks I found myself reflecting upon the origins of our most complex and satisfying performing art, and in doing so I seek an understanding for myself of the intentions of the Florentine Masters. It was from the ancient Greek theatre arts that they drew their inspiration, there at the dawn of modern drama actors sang and danced, declaiming there passions under the auspices of the gods, and the Camerata, seeking this union of story telling and spiritual praise, revived and embellished this most fundamental of techniques. Nothing has changed. We have chose three of the best from our own master storyteller and David Griffith’s composition lifts Sargesons steely eyed prose and turns it in the light like a small gemstone. In the flashes and reflections we see ourselves, as people, but also as people of Hamilton. The house where the costumes for 3 Franks were assembled stands opposite the buildings which served as a munitions factory during the Second World War. Frank Sargeson lived here then, and last week as I stood under the trees looking at these robust functional buildings I wondered about an explosion on a sleepy afternoon in a provincial town, and if this had happened, did this bang resound once again in the mind of our author to become the central incident in They Gave her a Rise? We can only surmise, but one thing is certain; be we in Greece in the age of Sophocles or renaissance Florence with Monteverdi, by creating work told from our own story tellers we sing the drama of our lives and in doing so join with you our audience in an act of creation.