Acting and the academy
by Vincent Ciccarello
Bringing to life an historical local figure, one who left a significant legacy to the nation and whose relatives are still living, is not the kind of thing one leaves to chance.
And so in preparing to play the role of Charles Todd in the ABC documentary, A Wire through the Heart, Rob MacPherson sat in the SA State Library for days on end, poring over historic letters, speeches, journals and other documents.
Todd was the pioneering engineer who, with explorer John McDouall Stuart, built the overland telegraph from Adelaide to Darwin in the 1880s, connecting Australia to the world. The Sir Charles Todd building at the Mawson Lakes campus was named in his honour.
"Here’s a real human being, whose personality is well-known and documented throughout Adelaide. There are still living relatives of his here. Now, you can’t just ‘wing it’ when you play Sir Charles Todd," MacPherson, a lecturer in drama, communication and media in the School of Communication, said.
As for his professional acting commitments, this year will be especially busy for MacPherson. In addition to A Wire through the Heart, he directed the fight scene in Hamlet for State Theatre Company. He also plays roles in their productions of Woody Allen’s Central Park West, Caryl Churchill’s Hot Fudge and Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.
He has also recently embarked on a PhD in stage combat, a specialty he developed through his involvement in the sport of fencing at university in the US.
"It’s a field that is craftsman-like but not scholarly. There hasn’t been scholarly rigour applied much to the history, mechanics and phenomenology of staged violence," he said.
MacPherson graduated with majors in English and Philosophy and undertook formal acting studies at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
"I’ve been bouncing back and forth between acting and the academy all my life," he said. "I’ve either been teaching it or doing it. I’ve taught writing, communication, public speaking, drama courses – rhetoric in all its forms is kind of my area.
"I’d hate to think of myself as someone who could only do drama, because it really limits you. And it limits itself, really, because there is a lot about dramatic training that applies to lots of other fields.
"And life’s been far too rich and interesting to limit myself to just waiting by the phone for the next gig."
Acting is nothing if not unpredictable. In the space of a few days this month, MacPherson auditioned in Sydney for Steven Spielberg’s World War II miniseries, The Pacific Wars, and did a voice-over as a French-speaking parrot for a Montreal bank machine.
"Sometimes it’s hard not to have an existential crisis," he laughed.