Musical genius on the edge

Michael Burton as the eccentric composer.

Since Michael Burton's one-man show Being Beethoven was launched just over a year ago, it has enjoyed successful seasons throughout the South Island and the lower regions of the North. Audiences and critics have agreed with the judgment of one critic that this is "compelling theatre" from a man whose "relentless energy and animated performance is at times electrifying".

When I catch up with Burton, he is gearing up for the play's Auckland season and he stresses to the musician in me that his 90-minute play has been carefully culled from Beethoven's conversation books, letters, biographies and "just listening to the music itself".

Music features prominently and inevitably, especially the great Ninth Symphony, which is the centrepiece of the second half of the programme.

Whereas Burton had found it easy, in a one-man show about Rembrandt, to present the material chronologically, he says this would not have worked for Beethoven.

"I had to search to find an angle. The Ninth Symphony was the answer, as there was quite a bit of drama connected with that."

Burton admits that Beethoven, who was "living on the edge all the time", had some bizarre outbursts such as when he poured a dish of mutton and gravy over an unfortunate waiter. Even stranger was his habit of taking impromptu showers in his living room regardless of water seeping into the dwelling below.

"Beethoven either had to take a walk or have that sensation of water all over him," is Burton's explanation. "It was something he needed and made you realise why he was evicted so often."

Yet the eccentric composer could be down-to-earth. "Beethoven was very preoccupied with money," says Burton. "This came out of a fear towards the end of his life when he realised he would be responsible for the upkeep of his nephew Karl."

As the actor talks through the composer's life, one senses that Burton's Beethoven is a poignant figure, a man fated to have thwarted relationships with women who were above his station and "although he yearned for a partner", Burton adds, "he was totally impossible and no one could have lived with him".

Being Beethoven follows on from several one-man shows that this Hawke's Bay actor has evolved.

"The advantages are that you can go anywhere with it and you have only yourself to rely on. When I was doing my Rembrandt show in Europe I had my costumes in a backpack, a projector in one big suitcase and the screen in another bag. I could push through rush-hour traffic on the underground carrying everything I needed."

There are also technical features he enjoys about this most concentrated of theatrical mediums as he likes "to approach speech as a musical activity.

"Speech is not just the communication of ideas, but the whole craft of how you say it".

For Burton, theatre is more than just entertainment. He mentions one woman who, after experiencing Being Beethoven, was inspired to create her own show about a friend who had suffered a terminal illness.

"That's what I like most of all; an audience seeing a process happen, being exposed to the greatness of a life, and then encouraging them to pick up their own creativity."

On stage

* What: Being Beethoven
* Where and when: Herald Theatre, April 20-24