The Nero Show - ‘Lights, action, ego...’

Jun 16th, 2010

The Nero Show, the latest music theatre show written and directed by Paul Jenden with music by Gareth Farr, concludes its debut five-week season at Circa Theatre, Wellington, New Zealand this week with enthusiastic reviews (15 May – 19 June).

The Nero Show is the fourth collaboration between Jenden and Farr, following on from hit shows Troy, Monarchy: The Musical, and Rome. ‘It is 1963, and a live TV show is about to be broadcast from Nero’s mansion, hosted by Seneca, the well known philosopher and TV personality. Rome’s most infamous Emperor has been dropped squarely into the life and times of the glamorous 1960s and the story of his rise and fall begins to look all too familiar… Paul Jenden and Gareth Farr combine Roman excess with ‘60s cool in their totally modern take on this ageless story of preening politicians, upstaging wives, inconvenient mistresses and explosive enemies.’
Circa Theatre: www.circa.co.nz

Describing the creation of this story, Jenden notes: ‘Nero is a figure famous for his excess and cruelty, as well as for fiddling while Rome burned. While I was researching Rome, I was interested to discover that some of this might not be true. I was particularly struck by the fact that for years people would bring flowers to his tomb and that Nero’s popularity with the general population survived long after his death.’

Jenden describes his inception of the show further: ‘This curious tension between fact and fiction started me thinking about political figures of our own times. Wondering about how Nero would have survived in our modern world led me to other iconic figures, particularly John F. Kennedy.’ Jenden reflected on his own memories of the death of JFK and how this happened before the modern and ubiquitous existence of tabloids, TV and political spin. ‘In light of later revelations and discoveries, it is clear that things were not necessarily as innocent as we believed, and that the JFK legacy is as much a mix of myth and fact as Nero’s.’ From this basis, Jenden recreated the story of Nero embedded in 1960s America with some additional creative fiction, such as including the character Boudicca, the Celtic warrior queen and Nero’s contemporary, but -here in 1963 - appears as the Queen of England.

The music Farr has written for The Nero Show draws much from the flavour of the 1960s, including Latin grooves and bossa nova, as well as original show tunes and ballads; the actors sing throughout without dialogue and the music is written for four instrumentalists and music director including harp, percussion, cello and woodwind. Farr describes the process for writing the music of this show as being different from his previous collaborations with Jenden, in that the whole story and script was complete before he began to write the music. Farr comments, ‘Paul and I had developed a fairly streamlined process for creating vocal music - and when we embarked on The Nero Show we thought we would try something a little different. Instead of a chronological approach to writing the music - i.e. write each song one by one, in order of their appearance in the show - we decided to look at the whole show at once, and put down a basic rhythmic skeleton of it all in one big workshop session.’ With certain rhythmic ideas that Jenden had in mind for the lyrics, Farr notes ‘I could use [these rhythms] verbatim, or work against [them] to create new rhythms. After this rhythmic stage was completed, the more solitary process of putting melodies and chord structures on top felt somehow more unified and organic, and I feel the result is possibly our most tightly woven work yet.’ Garth Wilshere, agrees in his review of The Nero Show ‘Don’t Miss it’, Capital Times, 26 May – 1 June 2010, writing: ‘The Nero Show is Paul Jenden and Gareth Farr’s most clever and sophisticated collaboration.’ (see the complete review here). John Smythe, Theatreview, 16 May 2010 notes, 'A splendid artistic and theatrical achievement.'(see the complete review here).

This debut season features the talents of actors: Jason Chasland (Nero), Christina Cusiel (Agrippina), Paul Harrop (Britannicus), Joanne Hodgson (Octavia), Emma Kinane (Boudicca), Lyndee-Jane Rutherford (Poppea) and Louis Solino (Seneca); with music direction by Michael Vinten and musicians: Fraser Bremner (percussion), Tui Clark (woodwind), Charles Davenport (cello), Natalia Mann (harp) and Debbie Rawson (woodwind); design: John Hodgkins (set design), Paul Jenden (costumes) and Jennifer Lal (lighting).

For more information, visit the the Circa Theatre website; and
‘World Premiere of The Nero Show’, www.scoop.co.nz;