It's '80s Old School Fun
Newcastle Herald
Thursday February 7, 2008
A generation's classic looks different on stage, writes Ken Longworth.
MARK Coles admits that he's watched the film The Breakfast Club "at least 50 times", while Carl Young said he was once booed at a party when he revealed that he'd never seen it.While those statements might have older readers scratching their heads, anyone who was at high school from the 1980s on will empathise with Coles and Young.The Breakfast Club was ranked No 1 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 best high school movies, and it has had a tremendous impact on teen films and popular culture since it was released in 1985.The film has now been adapted for the stage, and Mark Coles and Carl Young are in the cast of a Newcastle production opening at the Civic precinct's Playhouse on February 22.The Breakfast Club takes a fly-on-the-wall look at five senior high school students, each from different school cliques, who are put on detention from 7am to 4pm on a Saturday.The school principal, Mr Vernon, has ordered the detention, with the support of the students' parents, for what he regards as serious transgressions of the institution's rules.Claire Standish (played by Jade Hillard) is a wealthy, popular and spoiled girl; Andrew Clark (Nicholas Stabler) is one of the school's top athletes; Brian Johnson (Carl Young) is a brainy student under pressure to succeed; John Bender (Mark Coles) is a troublemaker who is out of class as much as he is in; and Allison Reynolds (Jessica Tanner) is a misfit and self-described "compulsive liar".They are occasionally visited in the locked room by Mr Vernon (Barry Shepherd) and the school janitor, Carl (Timothy Blundell).Young people who have grown up with The Breakfast Club can see themselves in one or more of the five detainees, who initially try to keep their distance from each other but discover, as the day goes on, that they are not so different after all.And the conversations they have, especially about their relationships with parents, help older people to see the young with a different eye.It was inevitable, given the iconic status of writer-director John Hughes's film, that it would make a move to the stage.With its mainly one-room setting, The Breakfast Club is perfect for live performance.At the same time, the change of medium puts pressure on actors and the guiding hands, in this case those of two early-20s performers, Jacquelyn Brown and John Shearman, who are making their directorial debuts after winning CONDAs in Blood Brothers last year.Jessica Tanner said that on stage the actors did not have the help of close-up shots and film editing.Jade Hillard took up that point."You mightn't have dialogue for five or six pages," she said, "but someone in the audience could be looking at you, so you have to be in character all the time."Does familiarity with the film colour the actors' performances? After all, Mark Coles knew the dialogue before he even opened the script."No," said Coles, "the relationships are in the text and you develop them from that, as well as building up your relationships with the other actors."That has been an interesting part of the rehearsal process.The actors either knew each other or were familiar with their soon-to-be-colleagues' stage performances.But as they have worked together, they have learnt a lot about each other, just like their characters in The Breakfast Club.The Breakfast Club, from JJK Productions, can be seen at The Playhouse from February 22 to March 1, with performances nightly (except Sunday and Monday) at 8pm. There will be Saturday matinees at 2pm and a Sunday matinee on February 24 at 5pm. Tickets: $17 to $22. Bookings: Civic Ticketek, 4929 1977.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald