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Sleeping Beauty
Queensland Ballet
The ballet version of the Grimm Brothers' fairytale Sleeping Beauty has played a significant role in the musical education and inspiration of young people.
A 7-year-old Igor Stravinsky witnessed the first public performance of the Tchaikovsy/Petipa production in January 1890. Igor went on to make his fame as a composer of great ballet music such as The Firebird. That first 1890 production was also seen by a sickly 8-year-old St Petersburg child whose parents despaired for her health and future. That night, her life was transformed. Within two years, Anna Pavlova had been accepted by the Imperial Ballet School and went on to make her name synonymous with classical ballet (and meringue pie with fruit and cream!). Another for whom that production was his first taste of ballet was an 18-year-old student, Serge Diaghilev, who was to become the world's first great impresario, and a specialist in ballet productions (his Ballet Russe introduced Sleeping Beauty to the west in 1921).
So this is a splendid and historic work to introduce children to the great art form of dance. It's a shame that many performing arts companies take a defensive stance when producing classics, anticipating criticism from those who see good only in the creation of entirely new works. Audiences, however, continue to love the classic repertoire, and it's good that the ticket-buying public finally call the tune. No generation should be spared Sleeping Beauty. There can be few more sublime moments in ballet than the dramatic concluding section to Act I, with Tchaikovsy's gorgeous swirling music powerfully matching the horrifying build-up to the wicked fairy's perfidious strike against Aurora and the court.
Queensland Ballet do this work great justice, with an enchanting mixture of old and new, complete with dazzling displays of virtuosity. Artistic designer Francois Klaus has built on and extended the original choreography of Marius Petipa, with a great deal of original work which blends well with the traditional style.
The production as a whole takes a little while to engage the audience, but has the audience firmly under its spell by the birth of Aurora. The opening is suitably creepy, with the evil fairy Carabosse (Ilja Louwen) working wicked magic in the forest until confronted by the good Lilac Fairy, Hayley Farr, dancing throughout with grace and sweetness. (Farr alternates as Aurora, when Claire Phipps dances the Lilac Fairy.)
Louwen gives an excellent performance, especially as she has had only a few weeks to prepare this role, which had to be rechoreographed following the talented Anthony Lewis's unfortunate accident. With her long slender limbs and black costume she is at times evocative of a tarantula. I couldn't quite take to her spiky black headdress, and overall would have preferred a less stereotypally wicked fairy, which may have made the evil versus good dichotomy more real.
Tracey-Lee Heilbronn depicts Aurora's mother the Queen from early yearnings for a child to a stately mature regent. Klaus has given her some nice steps which subtly show her desire for the experience of childbirth, and even has the suggestion of a phantom pregnancy. She is ably supported by a dignified David Semple as the king.
Rachael Walsh is a convincing Aurora, dancing the joyous 16-year-old who is the idol of the court but suffers from the malice of Carabosse. Walsh does challenging pointe work, sometimes a little unsteadily, but interacts marvellously with the corps and her bridegroom. She is matched perfectly with Jens Weber as the prince whose stately leaps have the audience in raptures.
He seems to have no problem with marrying a 116-year-old. (Tama Barry also dances the prince's role.)
The court's master of ceremonies, Paul Boyd, is unequivocally splendid. This old trouper, having apparently drunk deep from the fountain of eternal youth, dances with vigour and precision. And Klaus has him in every bunfight, his character repeatedly organising court dancers while taking a leading position in set pieces, while also developing character in interactions with courtiers, servants and royalty. The corps give a disciplined and lively performance throughout.
Varied and entertaining solo work from godmother dancers Simone Webster, Alison Spink, Claire Phipps, Nicole Galea and Angela Kenworthy make Aurora's christening a colourful event in Act I, while Kimberley Davis and Michael Braun, are a "dynamic duo" whose energy is palpable in the Act II Bluebird pas de deux. (Other dancers in these roles on other nights are Renee Marriott, Kelly Edwards and Tama Barry).
Selene Cochrane's costumes are a rich display of variety and colour, suitably complemented by Graham Maclean's grand sets depicting indoor palace scenes and outdoor woods and gardens with equal splendour. The total effect from costumes and sets, superbly lit by Andrew Meadows, is a dazzling and multi-hued tapestry of colour, light and movement.
The Queensland Orchestra under Thomas Woods capably add to the magic. A pit orchestra can never be big enough to do justice to Tchaikovsky's rich orchestration — there is always an element of thinness — but for the most part the orchestra provides a satisfying performance.
The most charming part of the ballet is the appearance of talented 11-year-old Talia Fowler as the young Aurora. Under the critical eye of Paul Boyd's MC, she engages in all kinds of mischief, including one very naughty thing, only to be instantly forgiven by her indulgent father. She receives good back-up from fellow Junior Extension Program dancers Nicola Leonardi, Sarah Bakker and Romy Poulier.
Sleeping Beauty is a ballet strongly recommended for all who love dance, especially at its classic best. And don't leave the kids at home — who knows what budding Pavlovas, Stravinskys or Diaghilevs will have their lives transformed by seeing this wonderful performance.
— John Henningham
(Performance seen: 13th March 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Summer of the Aliens
Arts Theatre
Summer of the Aliens is one of a set of Louis Nowra’s plays that have a semi-autobiographical story to tell. The sparklingly original Cosi is another one of that set, and so I was looking forward to seeing Aliens which I didn't know, although it is apparently regarded as one of his best plays. It has not only won the 1990 Prix Italia for Fiction (as an ABC radio play), but is also a text regularly set for school study.
But for me it comes too close to being a coming-of-age play by numbers to be totally absorbing. Act I sets up a number of situations with predictable outcomes — out they come in Act II, overlaid with clunky metaphors that play on the double meanings of aliens and angels. All of this however is tempered by a workmanlike production under the direction of Fred Wessely and co-director Jo Pierce.
The struggles within and between various generations are played out with style by a cast ably headed by Julian Curtis as the young, alien-obsessed protagonist, Lewis, and Bree Pickering as his tempestuous and tormented girl friend and would-be girlfriend, Dulcie. Again, as a matter of taste, I found the character of Lewis a bit too bland. However the talented Curtis makes the most of his role, as does Glen Male, who plays the older, reflective Lewis, the Narrator of the events that took place in the summer of ’62. And they are certainly offset by some very abrasive personalities, particularly Lewis’ friend Brian (played by Gerrard Woodward), who bullies others as a way of masking his own insecurities, and Dulcie’s stepfather Stan, whose brutality is akin to that of the other Stanley, his American namesake in A Streetcar Named Desire. James Fitzgerald is both an extremely unpleasant Stan and — slightly confusingly at first — also Lewis’ more complex and itinerant dad Eric.
Other dual roles are played by Mark Tsang and Julie Bray. Tsang brings a light touch to both his parts, the sharply-etched Mr Pisano (an increasingly mad and sad migrant postman), and the Aussie uncle with a penchant for Oriental women, while Bray is the most successful in drawing the distinctions between her two parts, both in performance and appearance. While a rather young Grandma, she gives the requisite anxiety and anguish to the part of an elderly person in fear of loosing her mind; and her portrayal of a wife (Stan’s) and mother (Dulcie’s) in denial is a consummate one.
The cast is rounded out by Carol Baker as Lewis’ careworn mother, Leila Rodgers as his somewhat distanced sister, and Melinda Buttle as Beatrice, the other sort of alien on a couple of counts: a non-English speaking Dutch migrant student with a vestigial arm hidden under her jumper. Flitting through is the non-speaking Oriental exotic, played by Fran Smith.
As a production there are some inconsistencies which are mildly intrusive. While Graham McKenzie’s basic stage setting is, for example, a clever evocation of the era in which the play is set, it is divided into three locations (two indoor and one garden) where some, but not all of the action takes place. And it is a bit confusing to find from time to time that the actors are actually in a field far away from any buildings.
Similarly, at times the actors are given props with which to perform bits of business while at other times — and somewhat unnecessarily — they are not, and are reduced to a form of mime that is more than a bit distracting. Then there is the matter of dress. While some of the females get to change their clothes, others don’t. This impacts most significantly on the part of Lewis’ sister, Bev, who has to stay in the same bright dress throughout events covering quite a protracted period of time, and through a role that could grow a little more than it's allowed to, in this and other ways.
Such quibbles aside, this play — with its pointed insights into vintage Melbourne suburbia — has a lot to offer, especially for those who feel that Nowra can write no wrong, and for students who have been set this play as a school text.
— Anne Ring
(Performance seen: 8th March 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Emma's Nose
La Boite
Ven I vent to La Boite to see Emma’s Nose I vas completely in the darkness as to vot dis play vas to be all about. Ven I left the theatre vun hour unt forty minutes later I vas vundering if vot I had just vitnessed vas a masterful sneeze of post-post-modern fluid-form (or formless fluid) drama, or simply a self-indulgent, snotty Freudian sniffle.
To appreciate the conclusion reached some history is necessary.
In essence Emma’s Nose concerns itself with the professional and personal relationship between the Freud (Sigmund 1856–1939), and Fliess (Dr Wilhelm 1858-1928) and their diagnosis and treatment of Freud’s patient Emma Eckstein.
My immediate post-performance question was, “Who in psychoanalytical hell was Fliess?” Near the end of the evening author Paul Livingston’s alter ego Flacco, playing Hitchcockian voice-over bits, informs the somewhat stunned, and I suspect divided full house that while Freud went on to fame, Fliess just went on… — or words to that effect.
Fliess does not feature in any Biographical Encyclopedia located and appears on the www essentially in relation to Freud’s letters to him in the period 1887-1902. The play draws on this correspondence which began early in Freud’s medical career. He graduated from the University of Vienna 1882, practised initially in neurology but during further study in Paris in 1883-85 shifted his interest to psychopathology, and the rest as they say …
But the forgotten Fliess features significantly in the beginnings of the rest.
At the time the correspondence began, Fliess was ein Berliner otolayrngologist (read ear, nose and throat specialist) who nurtured the notion that the roots of sexual dysfunction were masturbation, coitus interruptus and condoms. For brevity I will now refer to these as the awesome threesome. His theory proposed that indulgence in, or use of the awesome threesome in sexual life set in train a process which damaged the nervous system and dislocated certain “genital spots” in the body, with the hottest of these hot spots located — yes!! — in the schnoz!! In turn the genital spots in the nose passed their bad blood to other organs and therein lay the diagnosable causes of aliments acute or chronic, wherever located.
Fliess was also enamoured of peculiar notions of bisexuality related to psychic periodicity - but if you wish to follow this aspect from the rapid fire dialogue of the play, go armed with a calculator. And it may have been Fliess who introduced Freud to the therapeutic benefits and other perception-altering advantages of cocaine.
Freud, it would seem bought the Fliess’ proboscis theory Mrs Palmer, tactical withdrawal and the adverse effects of the average propholactic of the day and all, much to the ultimate discomfort and disfigurement of Ms. Emma Eckstein.
Emma is recorded as having consulted Freud in 1895 suffering stomach ailments and menstrual problems. By then Freud had been regularly referring patients to Fliess for corrective nasal surgery to cure bodily disorders originating from the awesome threesome. Freud’s diagnosis traced Emma’s problems to masturbation with resultant nasal disruption causing the problems in her stomach and uterus.
He sent for Fliess to operate.
The prelude to, performance and consequences of the surgery provide the plot-line of the play.
In the pre-action stillness Greg Clarke’s design, with its reflective pools, couch-train on its bridged track with a terminus somewhere inside an extra-outsized proboscis (complete with nostril access) suggested we might be in for an evening of surprises and contradictions.
From the moment the intellectual absurdity of the psycho-physical consequences of the awesome threesome begins to explode, the design provided a wonderfully symbolic forum for the frenetic insanity of the antics of Freud (Jonathan Turner) and Fliess (Eugene Gilfedder).
The still pool is potently narcissistic and when disturbed by either of these eclectic, mutually-masturbating theorists, conveys their belief in their ability to walk on the waters of psychopathology in their treatment of the hapless Emma (Kylie Morris).
The production and performances carry the play, the essence and essentials of which do not require the time allotted. The play is structured as a series of Goon-like discourses and suggests intercourses between the great pretenders. But the structure and the slick and sometimes incisively funny dialogue, plateaus early, doesn’t peak and never lets us feel for the victim of their snake-oil ego driven psycho-pedantry.
It did not surprise me to find that other letters of Freud are reportedly locked away in the Library of Congress until the end of the 22nd Century.
Is it a sneeze or a sniffle?
Under Mark Bromilow’s direction, which optimises the design, Emma’s Nose is a play for players and Gilfedder and Turner, ably assisted by the often masked and muffled Kylie Morris, save Livingston’s play from its essentially shallow and repetitive self with sharply timed performances and the energy output of sneezes exploding from a couple of hyperactive snort freaks.
— Ron Finney
(Performance seen: 22nd February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Your Dreaming
Optus Playhouse
If timing is all, then there certainly couldn’t be a better time than now to see Your Dreaming, with the very artful Max Gillies imitating the real life of clichés, pontifications and rambling "explanations" that are swirling around what he calls the Sta-yan Nation, as it tries to grapple simultaneously with the quite different sets of he-did-he-didn’ts-and-what’s-been-hidden issues of Tampa and the G-G. Particularly since the beginning and end of this show feature the prime factor, sorry, prime minister, who is the common (some might say very common) element that links the two. And if you find the previous sentence disturbingly irreverent, this may not be the show for you.
Gillies and playwright Guy Rundle make no bones about the fact that their humour is drawn from a political perspective that has variously been labelled, in very recent times, as the chattering classes, the chardonnay elite and other such sobriquets as may be pinned onto small-l liberal literates, of whatever political persuasion. Which is not to say that some of the most distinguished members of that group escape a ribbing. Most brilliantly, it has to be said, in the figure of Bob Ellis. If this hadn’t been billed as strictly a one-man show, you would have no problem in believing that Ellis had been persuaded to stand up and take the micky out of himself.
But Ellis is only one of a series of remarkable characterisations that Gillies has assembled with the able assistance of wigmaker and make-up artist Laura Morris, and special prosthetics effects creator Nik Dorning. With one exception, the visuals provide an eerily effective context for Gillies’ astute, acute but never cute takes, on the personas he takes on. The exception is John Howard’s lip as seen on the video clips that were used, and so — depending on when they were made — may well have been the work of somebody else. I have no problem with a bit of Donald Duckery in that department, but it was a case where a bit less would have been more in keeping with the subtler emphasis of defining features used on each of the other individuals selected as targets.
And those who were chosen form a very select group. To be included you’d have to have contributed something to Australia’s post-war culture or history in some way, either as an icon or an embarrassment, or both; and you need to have been able to stay the distance, from your time in the limelight up until now. I’m not going to list all the luminaries who made the cut, because one of the pleasures of this production is the surprise of seeing who is next in the steady stream of whom Gillies does, and how. What I can reveal is the stunning lack of a Queensland presence. With Joh having faded into obscurity, the only one to rate a mention — and appropriately in view of the title of the show — is Henry Reynolds. So there is a sense in which we’re being spun around the Melbourne-Sydney axis (with a manic side-swipe that takes in Adelaide). But almost all of the figures have well and truly made it onto the national stage, either as local identities or as expatriates. And if we’re talking about expatriates, I do have to say that Gillies does a simply wicked Germaine Greer.
Knowing that Gillies would need some time to change into gear for each character, I wondered, at the outset, what would happen in the dead time in between. In repatriated director Aubrey Mellor’s production, this proved to be very undead, with a smooth series of clever linking video segments featuring — exclusively — pre-recorded Gillies in a rich variety of guises.
There is also an excellent set of images projected onto a screen to complement each of the staged characters. Some of these are of Aboriginal paintings, to back up the title of the show, but Your Dreaming has more than one meaning, and each of them is exposed in a show that rests on the shoulders of one man for two and a half hours including interval. Over that time, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were some comedic misses among the hits. But the misses are remarkably few — and tend to be the result of being almost too close to the target to be funny.
Overall, Gillies brings you to your knees with laughter at the abyss of Australia’s most public inadequacies and foibles, while encouraging you to look deep down into it. It all adds up to a thought-provoking experience.
— Anne Ring
(Performance seen: 20th February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Blackrock
Brisbane Arts Theatre
"Fresh" is the name of the Brisbane Arts Theatre’s new series of plays (previously Early Week): a program aimed at promoting young and new talent in the theatre community. Nick Enright's Blackrock kicks off Fresh and also marks the directorial debut of Natalie Bochenski. The new program achieves its goal in providing a supportive platform for budding theatre enthusiasts but the end result is a rather mixed affair.
The plot centres on teenager Jared Kirby and events on the night of Toby Ackland’s 18th birthday party at Blackrock beach. When the body of a girl is found raped and bashed on the beach after the party, the whole town goes into shock and panic, as they try to discover those responsible and find out exactly what happened on the night of the party.
The cast as a whole gel fairly well, although the obvious disparity between the implied (teen) ages of a few characters and the actors playing their roles makes the suspension of disbelief a little hard. Some of the dialogue in the first half tends to run together, and the scenes move a little too fast to be easily understood, especially the shorter ones. The numerous blackouts between scenes only add to the confusion, and despite the strangely sporadic use of music as a distraction, the play loses some of its impact. The drama of the plot carries the action along during the second half, and the pace of the dialogue is generally smoother and more comprehensible, although some of the scenes fizzle out towards the end.
Scott Drummond is reasonably well equipped, if perhaps a little too old in the lead role of teenager Jared and Michael Coughlan is satisfactorily loutish in his debut theatre performance as Jared’s best friend Ricko.
Tammy Reid is excellent as Jared’s exhausted and worried mother Diane, demonstrating a convincing sincerity and sense of insight into the role. Also impressive is Anthony Coyne in his three roles, injecting the necessary doses of humour into the play in the roles of Stewart Ackland, Len Kirby and Roy. The standout in the cast is Miranda Deakin as Jared’s young cousin Cherie. Her believability in the role and seeming ease in moving between the comic and dramatic points of the storyline guarantee her an instantly empathetic connection with the audience.
The Fresh Theatre series is aimed at the under-35 age bracket, and while a good percentage of the audience seemed to be in the 40+ category, Blackrock also had its fair share of young theatregoers, which suggests that there is indeed a market for this brand of theatre. Fresh Theatre’s version of Blackrock may not be the most polished of pieces but it is by no means unwatchable either. Rather it should perhaps be seen as the starting point and learning grounds of a new generation of theatre devotees, worthy of public support and therefore worth the admission fee.
— Jasmine Green
(Performance seen: 17th February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Jake's Women
Stagewise
Jake’s Women is billed as a comedy. It does have some laughs, but it’s actually a far more complex — and apparently semi-autobiographical — reworking of attempts to manage the tragedy of loss, a theme that Simon has played out before, in Second Chance (another play that didn’t quite work because it was too close to his bone).
And it helps to understand Jake’s Women if we know that Joan, Simon’s first wife and the mother of his two daughters, not only died of cancer, but has been described as the great love of his life. Especially if we realise that she died more than 20 years before Jake’s Women was written in 1995; and that that play reprises the feelings he first exposed in Second Chance, written in 1977 based on what appears to have been Simon’s too-hasty remarriage in 1973, the year of Joan’s death. Three divorces later, it is clear that Simon — who has described himself as "a marrying man" — is still struggling to resolve his need for a present wife with his yearning for his great love, frozen in his past, and encapsulated in one of his earliest and best-known plays, Barefoot in the Park.
I have to admit that I didn’t know all of this before I saw the play. But I felt it. So I wasn’t surprised with what I found when I went on the net and looked at some of the more than half a million items that Google brings up for "Neil Simon". Out of them, also, came the following quotes, which — between them — say a lot about what you’ll see in Jake’s Women. Simon has described his development as a playwright as going from asking himself "What is a humorous situation?" to asking "What is a sad situation and how can I tell it humorously?". And his answer may lie in what a critic has summed up as plays comprising an oeuvre that is known for having "family-based New York settings, where world-weary characters use one-liners to hide often-fractured psyches".
So, how well does all this work in practice? In the case of this production from Stagewise and directed by Len Granato, something like the curate’s egg. That is, good in parts. The unevenness comes from two sources: the play and the players. The play divides Jake’s women into two groups: those in and those out of his head. In other words, we see his internal dialogues — scripted by himself, as one does in such conversations — with key women in his imagined scenarios; and we also see his interchanges with two of the same women, in his real life. And the words he gets to put into the mouths of the women in his imagination work better than what the real women have to say.
In particular, when it comes to trying to write for a youngish woman in her own right, Simon shows the difficulties that one could expect from a gentleman of the old school (he was born in 1926), trying to express the perspective of a post-feminist female. As delivered by Samantha Rice, playing Jake’s current wife Maggie, it comes across as a stilted and somewhat perfunctory litany of politically correct woes.
And this is partly due to the other reason for the unevenness of this production: a division of the players into those who are able to give their one-liners the crisp, clear snap that makes them work, and those whose voices sometimes get swallowed up and trail away into the nether regions of the stage. Both Rice and Rachel Lester, the young adult daughter Molly-in-the-mind, have some problems in this area. At the same time, however, Rice does a neat act of switching between the demands of her two-hander, as the in- and the-out-of-mind Maggies, while Lester’s Molly comes across as a warm and loving support for her Dad.
Of those with a zippier approach to their parts, for me the standout is Judy Hainsworth, who plays 12-year-old Molly with a bright, juvenile preppiness that belies the years she must actually carry as a university drama student. Canadian Laura Wilde adds another string to her versatile bow of performances and is able to use her accent to advantage in this play, as Karen, Jake’s bossy but loving sister. And Sue Nye brings a brisk Englishness to the role of his psychiatrist, Edith. Sandra Harman gives first wife Julie a troubled sweetness as the central figure with whose memory Jake is struggling to break out of the idealised image in which he has cast her (and if that sounds complicated, it’s because it is). Annett Wallace's Sheila, a girlfriend of Jake’s, plays a pivotal role in drawing together Jake’s inner and outer worlds.
And what of Jake himself? As played by Cameron Castles, who brings the grumpy charm of a youngish Charles Laughton to the part, he works hard and often effectively, but does flag sometimes in a demanding role that requires him to be on stage virtually all the time, for obvious reasons. And his state of mind is very capably mirrored by Anne Lyon’s stage set: with packing cases of all sizes to show a man on the move, but so indecisive that he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going from his life, as his women are repeatedly unpacked and repacked into their boxes.
Overall and bottom line, however, I’m not sure that Jake’s anguish works well as comedy; and funny as this production is in parts, it does highlight the horns of that dilemma.
— Anne Ring
(Performance seen: 8th February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Road to Mecca
Queensland Theatre Company
Athol Fugard is little known in Australia: we should be grateful to QTC for introducing his 1984 Road to Mecca to Brisbane with a top-rate production.
Centred on the true story of the charming and somewhat eccentric Miss Helen (Julia Blake), whose reclusive but satisfying existence as a folk artist is challenged by failing health and by those who care for her, it sets up a fascinating triangle of emotions and conflicts. While pastor and long-time admirer Marius Byleveld (Phillip Hinton) tries with good intent to manipulate Helen into signing herself into a nursing home, young and liberated friend Elsa (Caroline Kennison) counsels a path of independence.
The interrelationships between the characters as they struggle to
impose their individual wills, while revealing more and more of their own turmoil and problems, are touchingly handled by the cast of three, under the imaginative directorial hand of Carol Burns.
The script is spare and to the point, the verbal joustings between the characters realistic. It perhaps flags a little in the latter part of the first act, which is particularly intense as it is carried entirely by two characters, but Act II maintains a strong focus.
An appropriately cluttered set features Miss Helen's lifetime of sentimental bric-a-brac — lots of glassware and other ornaments, candles and mirrors jostling for space on and around her aging and down-at-heel furniture, while her garden (in front of the stage) is crowded with her strange concrete castings of animals. The set is beautifully revealed when Miss Helen opens the play by opening her curtains (the stage curtain) to let in the light.
Julia Blake sensitively captures a lively and radical woman not ready to face the consequences of her aging, while Caroline Kennison is convincing as the intense young teacher from Capetown who has made a 10-hour dash by car in alarm that her childhood mentor is on the verge of suicide.
For me the best performance is from Philip Hinton as the well-meaning fundamentalist Dutch Reformed pastor hiding his own hurts. His voice, mannerisms and body language perfectly capture the type of person his character is, entirely the unthinking prisoner of his background and environment, absolutely certain of his views, puzzled at Helen's obstinancy, scandalised by Elsa's attitude and foul mouth, and not even aware that one of his motives is a desire that Helen leave her money to his church rather than to her friend.
Accents are always a perilous thing in theatre. Some form of South African accent is now reasonably well-known to Australians, thanks to cricket commentator Tony Grieg, and issues of regional variation or Afrikaner/Anglo distinctions are probably of little interest to a local audience. In any event, voice consultant Melissa Agnew seems to have worked her charges well. Hinton's Afrikaner accent sounds perfect, as does Kennison's with its big city influences, although Blake seems rather more Anglo than Afrikaner.
It is fin-de-siecle South Africa but there is little to indicate the social and political revolution just around the corner. Fugard has one of his characters voice this, comparing their situation to Chekhov characters worrying about the cherry orchard while czarist Russia disintegrates.
Yet there is a lingering recollection of the young black mother carrying her baby on her back and patiently enduring an 80-mile walk after the white boss threw her off the farm when her husband died. Her problems are a world away from Miss Helen's and her friends.
The production's program notes are excellent, with a lot of helpful and digestible background about the playwright and the South African context.
— John Henningham
(Performance seen: 7th February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Friday Night Drinks
Borderline Defamation Productions
This is not the first time director Paul Osuch has taken on a uniquely Brisbane-based Stephen Vaag script, nor the first time he has managed to score a hit with the audiences. Friday Night Drinks is the latest to come from the Borderline Defamation Productions team, and like past Stephen Vaag plays (All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, Dirty Caff) Osuch seems to have found himself a production with all the hallmarks of another Cement Box hit.
Friday Night Drinks comprises four short plays, all centred around well-known Brisbane drinking holes and all taking place on a Friday night. All four have a romantic context or sexual sub-theme, involving relationship break-ups, start-ups and renewals with a bit of sex for the sake of sex thrown in for good measure. The four stars of the show each play three or four different roles, presenting them all with the opportunity to shine. Not to mention the diverse assortment of characters, such as drama-queens, "fag-hags", Christians, lawyers, social workers and jealous ex’s that ensure that the laughs keep coming.
The four plays all have their roots in comedy, some achieving this with more success than others. The first of the four, centering on Jonathan Brand as Terry, provides plenty of laughs and familiar names and places to get the audience hooked, but unfortunately fails to cash in at the end, finishing rather unsatisfyingly on what seems to be an unfinished note. Likewise, in the third play the transition between drama and humour gets a little bumpy and instead feels more like an awful lot of ups and downs. The sexual tension between the two characters burns and at the end of the long dramatic build up of the relationship, the flippant "comic" conclusion leaves the audience feeling, if not cheated, then at least disappointed and certainly confused as to the point of it all.
The set design is simple; just enough to indicate the change of location, and the synchronised music and floor lighting sequence between the scenes give the production a subtle professional touch. Between scenes the changeovers seem to drag on a little (although out of necessity I imagine) and watching crew members rearrange props is a little distracting, but otherwise the technical side of things seems to run smoothly and efficiently.
Jonathan Brand gives consistently solid performances across the four plays; Alex McTavish really hits the mark in the final play of the show as the cigarette-rolling Caro, while Greg Eccleston is adequate if not especially groundbreaking in his four roles. Cindy Nelson steals the scene more than once, showing a talent for comic timing and characterisation as lawyer Chris in the second play and drama-queen Janine in the last. But by far the most admirable feature of the cast is their ability to work as an ensemble, demonstrating a rare talent for maintaining believable character interaction even in different roles and different scripts.
All in all, Friday Night Drinks is an enjoyable and very watchable piece of theatre. Brisbaneites will appreciate the little local idiosyncrasies Vaag litters throughout the script and the self-deprecating sense of humour that goes with it, while for the outsiders out there, the universal theme of having one too many ensures it will be a memorable night out for all.
— Jasmine Green
(Performance seen: 6th February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Play It Again Sam
Brisbane Arts Theatre
You either like Woody Allen, hate him, or don't
actually know that much about him beyond all that ugly
Soon-Yi business. It may be my relative
youth or it may be my relative
lack of
interest, but I fall into the latter category. I
had always heard that Woody Allen's earliest work was
his cleverest and funniest, but all I knew was that he
was a neurotic New York Jew with a penchant for
talking to himself — and I got that from a sketch on
the old D-Generation Late Show.
So it came as a pleasant surprise to find that yes,
Woody Allen was a clever and funny writer before he
was a dirty old man. (OK, that's the last I'll mention
Soon-Yi). The Arts Theatre's production of Play It
Again Sam was the eye-opener.
The play is about Allan Felix (Brad Turnbull), a
neurotic New York Jew with a penchant for talking to
himself. He writes for a film magazine, and loves old
movies, particularly if they have Humphrey Bogart in
them. Bogart is tough, straight-talking, hard-drinking
and cool — everything Allan is not. And because
Allan's been dumped by his wife ("She left me to go be
a swinger"), he needs help picking up women —
enter Bogie (Rod Seel) into his consciousness.
Without wanting to give too much more of the plot
away, I will say that Allan's best friend Dick and his
wife Linda (Stephen Davies and Frances Marrington) try
to set him up with girls — with disastrous/hilarious
results — and it's no surprise whom he ends up falling for.
Bogart's role through this is to give
advice to Allan, to help him become the Bogart we all
secretly want to be.
Woody Allen expert am I not, but Bogie I get. The
African Queen is one of my all-time favourite movies,
and I think you'd be hard up trying to find a cooler
character anywhere in cinema than Sam Spade from The
Maltese Falcon. This play is littered with Bogie
references and in-jokes, and it's a joy to watch them
come out. Allan is also haunted by his ex-wife Nancy,
and
scenes between her and Bogie as angel/devil are
fabulous.
Allan's disastrous dates and his fantasies are by far
the funniest elements of the play. All the cast
take part in a fantasy sequence here or there and manage
to pull them off. The scene where Dick turns into a
jealous Italian husband wielding a spatula and
threatening to kill Allan had me in absolute stitches.
Fantasy elements aside, the rest of the play is no
less engaging. Frances Marrington is extremely
watchable as the fun but emotionally fragile Linda,
and Stephen Davies as Dick is hilarious with his
constant business bungling and telephone calls. Rod
Seel looks nothing like Bogart, but it doesn't matter,
as shadows and a hat covered everything. He has the
voice and mannerisms down to a tee. And
Brad Turnbull as Brad does a highly commendable job in
taking on Allan's neuroses. A vertically challenged actor himself (no
offence meant!), he looks perfectly dwarfed in his
big apartment — a nice reflection of Allan's own feelings
of inferiority. Angie Whitely and Kathleen Lawton as
Nancy and all other female characters round out the
cast, bringing to life Allan's disastrous dates with
gusto.
The criticisms I have are all technical. They
will either sort themselves out or be easily
forgiven. Some of the timing is a bit
off, and in a play like this you can't afford to
lose a single bit of hilarity. Time and regular audiences
will deal with this problem. Some of the New
York accents — though commendable — drop somewhat in
places, but as Australians it can never be possible
to do a genuine New York accent without a fair degree
of rigorous training not really possible in community
theatre. A more subjective criticism is that of Woody
Allen's personal appeal to the individual. Not knowing
much about him I can understand why those who hate Woody Allen
would find the monologues irritating. I
would, however, encourage such people not to
lose interest on those grounds alone, as the
interaction between the characters is most engaging
and worth the entry fee.
In sum, director John Boyce has brought us a
fast-paced, entertaining comedy that appeals to the
Bogart in us all. Here's looking at you, kid. (What
are those sirens? Oh no! It's the cliché police coming
to get me!!!)
And as a footnote, Bogart
of course never did say "Play it again Sam", just as
Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary my dear
Watson". However, it's almost as much of a cliché to
say Bogart never said "Play it again Sam", as it is
to say "Play it again Sam", if you know what I mean.
— Natalie Bochenski
(Performance seen: 1st February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Singin' in the Rain
Lyric Theatre
Gene Kelly’s stylish dancing in the MGM classic Singin’ in the Rain inspired director/choreographer David Atkins to become a professional dancer. It seems Atkins has been able to repay the debt, for his sense of delight is revealed in every aspect of this wonderful production.
Singin’ in the Rain, set in Hollywood during the transition from silent movies to the “talking pictures”, follows movie star Don Lockwood as he falls in love with aspiring actress Cathy Selden. Betty Comden and Adolf Green's screenplay provides a plethora of comic situations and opportunities for the cast to burst into the marvellous songs of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. The musical also showcases Gene Kelly’s extraordinary choreography in numbers such as the famous Broadway Melody Ballet.
I must admit I was sceptical about Atkins’ vision to produce a ‘faithful recreation’ of the choreography, costumes, set, and performance style of the famous movie. But this production succeeds in recreating the key ingredient of the film — a sense of joy — and transfers it to stage with theatricality and polish.
In particular the principals give a fresh, captivating emulation of the MGM stars’ performances. As Lockwood and his side-kick Cosmo, Todd McKenney and Wayne Scott Kermond capture the elegance and charm of Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. Most importantly, they succeed in playing to their audience. Scott Kermond’s comic virtuosity in “Make 'em Laugh” and McKenney’s stylish rendition of the famous title song has the audience eating out of their hands. Unfortunately an injured Racheal Beck is unable to perform the role of Cathy Selden in the first two weeks of the season but her understudy Pia Morley confidently fills her shoes. Morley’s effortless grace and lovely singing voice mark her as a talent to be watched. Jackie Love also shines as the screechy-voiced star of the silent screen, Lina Lamont, with a brash performance style and impeccable sense of comic timing.
At heart this is a Hollywood musical: full of over-the-top theatricality, spectacle and entertainment where everything is just an excuse for a song. The opening night audience was encouraged to interact in the performance and rewarded the performers with spontaneous applause and a standing ovation.
As you would expect of Atkins (one of the talents behind the Sydney Olympic opening ceremony), the show is technically flawless. Superb lighting illuminates automated sets as they whiz on and off stage, and the much hyped rain scene fulfils all expectations. The production’s costumes embrace the flamboyance of Hollywood musicals with bold colours, caricatured images and glamorous gowns. Unfortunately the costumes in the “Beautiful Girls” number err on the side of tacky, appearing
oversized and awkward. (However they do improve when they light up!)
True to the spirit of the film without being predictable, this is one Hollywood musical not to be missed!
— Joanne Loth
(Performance seen: 1st February 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
Masterclass
Optus Playhouse
It's hard to believe that this is the same Amanda Muggleton who last played in the QPAC complex in May 2001 as the tipsy orphanage boss Miss Hannigan in Annie.
She didn't do a bad job in that show, but in this she is absolutely superb. Her Callas is a perfect piece of performance in which she takes to heart the messsage of Masterclass
by totally entering the persona of her character.
The play centres on fading diva Maria Callas's series of public singing lessons to a group of young performers at New York's Juilliard School of Music in 1971-72. Thirty years later, Brisbane's Optus Theatre audience become the masterclass observers, and we are variously lectured, scolded and confided in by a confident and imperious master of her art who dominates the stage for every second from her first dramatic entrance.
Beautifully made up to look the part, Muggleton brilliantly captures the Callas voice with a deftly combined Mediterranean and US accent. Her deep throaty sound and rolling r's when repeating the Italian text of Verdi and Bellini arias is uncannily like the recordings of Callas in song.
The supporting characters are totally overwhelmed by the neurotic, bitchy diva, and each actor does well in portrayals of what Callas calls her "victims". Melissa Madden as the gauche Sophie de Palma who lacks "the look", Natasha Hunter as the all-American, feisty Sharon Graham and Mark Cinque as the chirpy little tenor Antonio Candolino, even accompanist Manny (a talented Tyrone Landau) — all are humiliated by the merciless Callas, whose neurotic poses and self-absorption prevent her seeing any virtue in her pupils.
Yet her instruction and example are indeed masterful, each fragment worth gold in assisting hopeful opera performers become more than "just singers".
The journey in Callas's mind from New York classroom to the Milan opera stage in her glory days is breathtakingly effective via highly focused spot lighting, the recording of Callas's voice and projection of La Scala's famous ascending rings of boxes and a Macbeth castle setting onto the semicircular set.
We really do feel we are there, with her.
And in her journey we are drawn into Callas's "stab of pain" world to share the passion of her relationship with the foul-mouthed trophy-collector Onassis and the tragedy of her being dumped for Jackie Kennedy.
She vests her personal sufferings into her character interpretations of the arias which her hapless students attempt, and on whom is lost such riches as "vowels are the inarticulate murmurings of the heart".
The first night audience's standing ovation was richly deserved by a Muggleton who was obviously emotionally wrenched by the performance.
Masterclass is really a homily on the nature of performance, on the demands on performers of whatever genre to identify absolutely with character and to give more than their all. Anyone who loves Verdi or Bellini or Shakespeare or, let's face it, Art in any form, will love this Callas.
— John Henningham
(Performance seen: 31st January 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
A Sting in the Tale
Brisbane Arts Theatre
The local theatre landscape is particularly bleak in January. Queenslanders look enviously at the bountiful choice enjoyed by their Sydney cousins, who can pick from a raft of professional and amateur plays, operas, musicals and dance, much of it under the umbrella of the Sydney Festival. Why does the performing arts industry in Queensland take its holidays just when people have the time on their hands for cultural pursuits (not to mention a predilection for finding airconditioned refuges)?
A beacon in this gloomy interval is the Brisbane Arts Theatre, which has made a tradition of opening its season starter on New Year's Eve and running it four nights a week throughout January. The amateur cast and crew who give up their Christmas holidays for rehearsal deserve applause.
A Sting in the Tale is an amusing diversion, particularly if you're an aficionado of the detective genre. The play is not so much littered with corpses as with references to the 20th Century's better-known theatrical murder mysteries, which two down-and-out writers hope to emulate to restore their financial fortunes. Their plot-in-progress of a sympathetic murderer and unlikeable victim is transformed into a plan of action to rid the world of a nagging wife and claim insurance money. The two use their dramaturgical wits in laying a trail of clues to divert the investigating detective. Inevitably all is not as it seems, and there are twists and turns aplenty (with ever-decreasing credibility).
The program notes tell us the play is set in "the present", but the setting is clearly a generation earlier, as it must be when a typewriter becomes an important prop.
The cast do a good job and work well together, but need to lift the pace in the first act. Jude Eakin's languid writer Nigel is perhaps too diffident. Sandra Harman as his wife Anne is believably strangleable, if only for the garish sequined vests she sports, but should be more affected by the gallons of gin she quaffs. Judith Barbeler's Jill could have been dressed somewhat more sexily. Paul Careless as writer Max communicates the excitability and nervous tension of his character: a highlight is his explosion of stifled passion and confusion when the victim of his bullet is revealed under the gaze of the detective. (This sequence also shows a deft directorial hand.) Veteran Peter Settle revels in the role of a policeman who is himself an amateur thespian dedicated to murder mysteries: he is splendid at representing a detective shifting constantly between doing his job and playing at being a detective.
For a play where much of the plot centres on the consequences of total darkness, it was a pity that the belated drawing of the french windows curtain during a scene change permitted backlighting to steal the surprise from the subsequent scene, as the actors' changes of position were revealed. No doubt this glitch sparked some drama backstage but not, we hope, a murder.
— John Henningham
(Performance seen: 9th January 2002)
www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine
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