| Reviews: January-March 2006
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www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Our Country's Good QUT Precincts: Graduating Actors - Company 06 (Gardens Theatre) Based on Thomas Keneally’s historical novel The Playmaker and winner in 1988 of major Best Play awards on both sides of the Atlantic, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good explores the redemptive power of theatre performance through the experience of convicts in Sydney Town in 1789. Both novel and play draw on letters and journals of First Fleet officers, for it is a matter of historical record that under the direction of Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark a ‘troupe’ of convicts performed the first Australian production of any play — Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. Clark’s choice of Farquhar’s play was apt. Its plot involves a captain and a sergeant, travelling the English countryside ‘recruiting’ simple country folk for the war against France and looking for women for their beds. In one-year-old colonial Australia, convict (and aboriginal) women were the only women. As captive as the convicts to the settlement’s climate and arid soils, lack of supply, disease and marauding aborigines led by Pemelwuy, the troops vented their frustrations on their hapless charges through their loins, the lash and the noose. A nation being progressively deprived of its founding history should also be reminded that none of men, among the 736 convicts first transported, had been convicted of murder or rape. None of the women had been transported for prostitution. It was not a transportable offence. Most convicts, men and women, were petty thieves whose hanging sentences had been commuted to seven years transportation. Some small appreciation of the brutality and inhumanity of convict life one year after white ‘invasion’ might be gained by comparison with the worst excesses of the American military’s treatment of its Abu Ghraib detainees. These are the ingredients of cruelty and abuse central to Ms Wertenbaker’s play, and the savage background against which Farquhar’s comedy is, with unintended irony, planned and rehearsed. Regrettably this production by QUT Precincts (so precious), featuring the graduating actors of Company 06, fails to capture either the barbarity of the time and place and circumstances, or the redemption and self-actualisation that the participating convicts achieve through their theatre experience. Primary responsibility for the failure must be attributed to the director, MTC’s Kate Cherry, who has rendered a static, sit-(or stand-)and-deliver portrayal of volatile characters in volatile circumstances in an open setting (by ‘Design Creative’ Adam Head) that begged for volatile choreography to fill it. The last-supper staging of the vote on ‘to play or not to play’ was a standout sit-down in this regard. As written, the play calls for a cast of 20; 10 officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and 10 convicts. Twelve graduating actors and two 12th men carry the burden here. Program role identification equivalent to the ‘Creatives’ and ‘Crew’ would have assisted. While all attempted the diverse accents of the period, the director might have ensured intelligibility took precedence over accuracy. The energy of the actors was admirable but, for most of them, lack of life experience was apparent. Hamstrung by the direction, few delivered performances which provided dramatic access into the tenuous daily lives of first settlement keepers and convicts, which meant that our experience of the redemptive power of ‘drama and self-expression’ was neutered. Best performances came from Duncan Pattle, Marcel Baum and Karen Bowen. Directed by Kate Cherry Playing 23 March to 1 April at 7.30pm Running time; 2hrs 20mins app.(incl. interval) —
Ron Finney (Performance seen: 29th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine A Streetcar Named Desire Queensland Theatre Company By Tennessee Williams Professional production Comparisons are odious, for the play’s the thing, and that’s the last cliché I’ll use in this review. Nor will I mention the sacred names of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, for their iconic performances go back more than 50 years, and Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece has to be judged for what it is, and how it is interpreted today. And in spite of numerous flaws in Jon Halpin’s production for the QTC, the play remains a touchstone of our theatre. I suppose there must be people in the western world to whom the words “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” mean nothing, and have never had their hearts break as Stanley bellows “Stella!” to the world. The theme of sexual tension and the destructive nature of love/hate relationships is nothing new, but it’s never been as powerfully displayed as Tennessee Williams did it in the slums of New Orleans in the 1940s. From the shabby wood-and-metal shanty to the steamy undertones of unfulfilled desire, this play throbs with vitality and sexual energy as the rack is stretched to breaking point, and for the audience this play should be almost unbearable as they await the inevitable bursting forth of violence and raw emotion. Why did this not happen on the opening night in Brisbane? Bruce McKinven’s set is a potential award-winner, with all the details down to the cut-moquette lounge suite and the chenille bedspread just perfect (although domestic hairdryers didn’t come onto the market until 1951, so why was Blanche drying her hair with one?). Matt Scott’s lighting was super-dramatic, although not very subtle, often drawing attention to its own technical brilliance rather than being integrated naturally into the action, and the costumes were perfect although — another quibble coming up! — would the men have been wearing Hawaiian shirts in the mid-forties? I’m only asking. It’s a big ask for any actor to take on this masterpiece, and much as I admire Jason Klarwein and Melinda Butel in general, they’re just not up to the demands of the iconic roles of Stanley and Blanche. Perhaps it’s his undisguisable genial face, but Klarwein doesn’t have the smouldering angry sexuality that drives Stanley’s obsessive behaviour, nor does he build up suitably to the violence that inevitably ensues. He’s more Labrador than German Shepherd, as a friend suggested at interval, and it was hard to feel afraid of him, even in the middle of his rages. The accent didn’t help, either, being more Bronx than Deep South, and all in all the brooding passion that drives his tortured soul just didn’t come across. This could be put down to first night nerves, for the whole production was very slow, possibly because the cast were concentrating too much on getting their accents right. Southern American accents are very hard to master, and unless they become second nature so that they can be produced automatically, they can create a barrier between the audience and the real meaning of the text. Both Melinda Butel as Blanche, and Leeanna Walsman as Stella, were working so hard on their high-pitched Southern Belle voices that they fell into an irritating flatness of tone and rhythm, and whether it was the acoustics in the Playhouse or their inability to project, I (and many other people whom, in the interests of fairness, I asked after the show) found them almost impossible to understand. The role of Blanche is one of the most difficult in the 20th century pantheon. She has to be vulnerable as well as irritating, but the vulnerability must only be hinted at until she falls apart at the end. Butel on the opening night teetered on the edge of hysteria rather too often, although she was magnificent in the closing scenes and became the Blanche that Williams had written, maintaining her dignity while she was being humiliated, and breaking our hearts with her famous final line. Of the other actors, Hayden Spencer as Mitch, Blanche’s potential lover, reigned in his natural exuberance and gave us an awkward and equally vulnerable character, one of the few people in the play who comes anywhere close to self-knowledge. He captured to perfection the contrast between the stifling small-town morality and the pulsating repressed sexuality that underlines the whole play, and it is his bitter understanding of what he has lost that is most moving, rather than Klarwein’s easy shrugging off of the moral chaos he has brought about. Veronica Neave, in a welcome return from our own Deep South, was a warm and compelling Eunice, the upstairs neighbour, and I really liked Nick Backstrom as her amiable, easily-led boofhead husband. So it’s pluses and minuses all the way with this production. Possibly it’s not quite ready yet — the actors aren’t comfortable in their roles, they haven’t got the timing and the pace down pat, and they seem over-awed by the magnitude of their task. I‘d give it a week to settle down, by which time it should flow better and the awkwardness may have gone. But in spite of all the production flaws, A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic of the stage that should not be missed, for it exposes the rawness of human emotions, and reminds us that perhaps all of us are Blanche and Stanley at heart. Directed Jon Halpin Playing until 8 April 2006: Tuesday 6.30pm, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, matinees Wednesday 1pm, Saturday 2pm Duration : 3 hours with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 23rd March 2006) Comment: I’ve just received a very polite email from Jason Klarwein, who plays Stanley in the current QTC production of A Streetcar named Desire, in which he takes issue with me on a number of points in my review. As I want www.stagediary.com to be an interchange between readers and writers rather than just a reviewer-as-god experience, I’d like to share with readers what Jason said to me and what I replied — which was with the utmost respect and good humour on both sides. He wrote, among other things, “There are a few other mistakes in the review I would like to bring to your attention. One is the surname of the leading actress Leeanna Walsman. Her last name is not Watson.” (Point taken, and I apologise to Leeanna. Review text corrected.) “Secondly Hawaiian shirts did exist and I think were even used in the original film by one of the characters.” (I was writing from my own memory of the 1940s, when Hawaiian shirts were hardly known, but I’m happy to be corrected on this historical fact — although, as I said in the review, I was only asking.) “Thirdly hairdryers were invented in the 1920s and were in domestic use in the States in the 1940s.” (This I still take issue with, as I looked it up on the Web and learned from two separate sources that the hairdryer was not in domestic use until 1951. This affirmed my own observation from my youth that hairdryers were not used, in metropolitan Melbourne at least, until the late 1950s. The first one I saw was in a hairdressing salon in 1956, but they were not used by women at home. I remember how excited I was when I got my first one in 1963.) “And lastly the accent is not from the Bronx; it is from New Orleans. I understand how you would be confused as there is a relationship between the accents due to immigration. New York and New Orleans were cultural melting pots and the dentalised ‘T’s in the accents are similar. Some poorer parts of New Orleans have more in common with the north than the white broad southern accent.” (Again, I’m happy to be corrected on this matter as well. My point remains that it’s confusing for an audience to hear what sounds like a Bronx accent in a play set in the Deep South — perhaps the origin of Stanley’s accent should have been pointed out in the program notes.) I really welcome objective letters like Jason’s, pointing out errors of fact, and I was glad to have it, so don’t feel afraid to send them to me. It’s personal abuse that I, like most other people, don’t appreciate, and as I never use it in my own reviews, any comments on my lack of education, experience and motivation won’t get the courtesy of a reply. But please keep your comments coming in, because I’m trying to work out a way Stagediary can have an interactive page where readers, theatre workers and reviewers can all have their say. — Alison Cotes [acotes@tpg.com.au], 3 April 2006 www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Heavenly Bodies / Beautiful Souls Springboard Theatre Company (Metro Arts) Two plays by Sven Swenson Sven Swenson continues to bid fair as one of Australia’s leading playwrights, and his latest two plays, currently showing at the Metro Arts, show the scope of his interests and the depth of his probing intellect. This doesn’t mean that Heavenly Bodies and Beautiful Souls are flawless, or even perfectly directed and acted, but with their authentic use of language and Swenson’s ability to tap into the Zeitgeist , however fortuitously, makes them as powerful as anything I’ve seen on stage this year. Heavenly Bodies is set in a whorehouse in Singapore just before the country falls to the Japanese in 1942. Cutty (Damien Cassidy) is your ordinary average Aussie bloke from the bush, devoted to his wife Ruby, and not quite sure what he’s doing in this strange new world. His mates drag him along to the brothel where he, determined not to look like a fool, goes along with the enterprise but secretly decides just to pay the money and just talk to the whore for an hour. So naïve is he that he doesn’t realise for a full twenty minutes that he’s been pushed into the room of drag queen Laidie (Andrew Corry), who plays him along by pretending to be deaf and dumb. Once she’s sussed him out, that he’s genuine about not wanting to have sex with her, she reveals her truth, that she’s an unhappy transsexual from Adelaide whose one desire in life is to be somebody’s wife and live in cosy domesticity. They talk for over an hour, during which each reveals his heart to the other, and then the inevitable doesn’t happen, much to our surprise (and, in my case, delight). So it’s a kind of happy ending, this retreat from the horrors of war and attack, and each of them finds some comfort in the brief relationship. Damien Cassidy as country boy Cutty is superb in this role. He gets the mix of bravado and embarrassment just right, like a teenager trying to come to terms with life — which is what, emotionally at least, he still is. He’s helped, of course, by Swenson’s sharply-honed use of idiom — “Jeez, you’re tall,” he says as the high-camp Laidie looms over him. “If you fell over you’d be half-way home.” It’s a joy to watch Cassidy fumbling, making a fool of himself, leading with his chin, and never managing to hide his tenderness under the façade of bravado. I’m not quite sure how to rate Andrew Cory’s performance as the diffident drag queen. His is the beautiful body (we get to see them both in the last five minutes), but until it is unveiled his body language doesn’t ring true, although this is whether he’s really catching the characterisation of an awkward trannie with all her insecurity, or whether he’s just a little self-conscious as an actor I still can’t decide. Let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt, although I think he does need tighter direction, as his mannerisms become very irritating. The theme of this short play is neither war nor sexuality, but how lonely people cope when they’re out of their comfort zones, and in this sense it’s very impressive. The second play, Beautiful Souls, is also concerned with loneliness and non-communication, although this time the characters are two brothers and the girlfriend of one, whom we find in their individual cells on Death Row in Singapore. Swenson is at pains to point out that this is not a band-wagon play, as it was written three years ago, and produced just a few weeks before the arrest of Schapelle Corby. But its closeness to reality makes it all the more poignant. Again, it’s about people needing to connect but not always wanting to, about the necessity of being loved and comforted, but here it’s also about the failure to take responsibility for one’s actions. Leaving the abomination of the death sentence out of the equation, the problem with these three is that none of them is willing to face up to what they have done, even though their guilt is no way in doubt. Both Beth (Leesa Connelly) and David (Luke Wright) knew exactly what they were doing, but David’s brother Justin is a big dumb ox, brain-damaged, as we learn later, when David pushed him off a balcony when he was five. Beautiful soul is a common euphemism for people like this, and Swenson here has the opportunity to give him the outsider’s objective voice, but it’s a theme he fails to take up, dwelling instead on the internal traumas of all three characters as they face death. I think this weakens the impact of the play, making it very one-sided, because there is no hint that the three care about the damage they’ve done by their drug smuggling, and Swenson lets them get away with it. Luke Wright is outstanding as Justin, a kind of idiot-savant who is the only one we can care about, and he doesn’t overdo the hand-wringing and ceaseless unrest that’s characteristic of many people with this disability. The others aren’t quite as convincing, mainly because they’re often too shrill, and gabble their lines so that they are sometimes unintelligible — although I must say that if I were given some of the flowery prose that Swenson puts in their mouths, I’d want to get through it as fast as possible, too. There’s some over-writing in this play particularly, which adds a sentimental veneer to what is basically a tough inner core. These quibbles aside, however, both plays are immensely powerful, and the musical score adds even more depth and pathos to situations which, much as we may cavil about some inappropriate phrasing, will live in my memory for a long, long time. And that’s about as much as you can ask of any play, so I’d put them in the must-see category. Directed by Sven Swenson Playing until 25 March: Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 7.30pm Duration : 2 hours 15 minutes, including 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 15th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Tower Front Row Theatre (Hamilton Town Hall) Amateur production The Tower is one of the most unusual plays I’ve had the pleasure of watching in a very long time. It’s so unusual that it wasn’t until half way through the play that I recognised it for what it was, a classic gothic melodrama. Which just goes to show that you should always read the program before the lights go down! What threw me was the setting and the language. Most gothic melodramas, which were written by British playwrights in the 19th century, are set in England and use the language of their period. But this play, although set in the mid 1800s, is very modern in its use of language, and is set in Australia rather than England. The Tower was written by Australian playwright Hal Porter in the 1950s, and watching the play I was struck by the sheer effrontery of the man. Why was he writing a gothic melodrama some 70 years after they had gone out of fashion? Unfortunately for Front Row Theatre, it seemed at first the audience on opening night were just as puzzled as I was. Perhaps we all should have read the program before we went in, for once I got the hang of it I realised just how good a job Front Row has done. I’m struggling to remain objective about this production, as by the end of the show the solid direction by Anne Lyons, the strong performances from all cast, the simple yet elegant stage setting and terrific score had me completely won over and as I left I wondered why we don’t see more of this kind of theatre on Brisbane stages. In my experience, this play is a one-off, and for that reason alone I encourage you to go see it, for I can almost guarantee that you’ll have a great time. The story follows the upwardly mobile Sir Rodney Haviland in his relentless pursuit of aristocracy and influence. As the play opens we see his sister Hester, step-daughter Amy, and son Edwin, contemplating his arrival home with his new wife, this one apparently to secure some business arrangements in Sydney. Amy in particular is none too happy about the forthcoming circumstances and we soon learn why, for Amy has been having an affair with Sir Rodney’s man servant, ex-convict Marcus Knight, an affair that if found out could put paid to Sir Rodney’s plans for advancement. As the tension builds so does the tower that stands at the centre of this play, casting a dark shadow over the events to follow, for Sir Rodney is in the midst of building the tallest tower in Tasmania, all in honour of himself. I won’t give too much more away, for everyone has secrets in this play which is as much about learning whose deceit and trickery will win out as it is about unearthing any great psychological truth. It’s hard to make special mention of anyone for everyone does such a good job. Rochelle Fisher as Megan, a young Irish maid servant, is particularly good, but so is Steve George as Marcus Knight. The biggest triumph, though, is from composer Lee Crockford, whose ominous score really helps create the darkly gothic world. The only real problem with the show isn’t with the production but with the space, which tends to swallow the sound, thus making the actors work extra hard to be heard. This problem, however, seems to be impossible to fix, as the building is heritage listed. The Tower has wide appeal, and the production values are of a high quality, so it’s well worth a visit. But do sit near the front, and read the program before the show. With this production Front Row have proven themselves to be one of the pre-eminent amateur theatre companies in Brisbane, and I look forward eagerly to their next production. Directed by Anne Lyons Playing until 31 March 2006: Fri-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 2:00pm Running Time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval —
Glen J. Player (Performance seen: 11th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine An Inspector Calls National Theatre of Great Britain (Lyric Theatre, QPAC) By J.B. Priestley Professional production Perhaps I’ve been watching too many sharp out-there British crime dramas on television. Perhaps Inspector Morse and his successors have beguiled me with their cool laid-back style, or perhaps J.B. Priestley’s 60-year-old play is simply outdated, but I was alternately irritated and bored witless by the National Theatre production of this old chestnut that is currently touring the colonies. An Inspector Calls was written in 1945, but it’s set in 1912. The dates are important to an understating of the play, which reflects Priestley’s social concerns about what Disraeli had called a century earlier the Two Nations, the rich and the poor. Priestley’s belief was that the ruling class’s disregard for working people had set up the conditions for World War I (the play is set just two years before the outbreak of that war), and also for World War II (which explains the silent chorus of 1940s character who act as silent spectators to the action). So underneath the standard 1940s plot is a powerful sub-text of social criticism, and unless you understand this the play will seem very dated and creaky indeed. No, let me change that. The plot is dated and creaky, and in spite of its rapturous PR it’s very old-fashioned. The big problem for a modern director is to make it palatable to 21st century audiences, who after long exposure to the subtlety of writers like Lynda La Plante et al are much cleverer at solving this kind of mystery than their grandparents were. BR> Stephen Daldry has chosen to play it over-the-top, almost in music hall style, accompanying the dialogue with a suitably melodramatic musical score from Stephen Warbeck. These elements, along with a very effective set (although we’ve seen it before, when the play toured Australia with a different cast in 1995), make it very spectacular, but the ideas don’t have much resonance in our more egalitarian society. One of the actors remarked in an interview that she was surprised how easily Australian audiences laughed at some of the characterisations, and that we didn’t seem to take it nearly as seriously as British audiences did. But how can you not laugh as Sybil wanna-be Lady Birling (Sandra Duncan — like the rest of the cast, not a name well-known to Australian audiences) morphs from Lady Bracknell into the Red Queen and finally Polly Adler, her elaborate wig falling apart and her Queen Mary-like bosom heaving sobs as she grovels in the rain? Or as her husband, the bluff bourgeois bully Arthur Birling (David Rope), carries on as if he’s escaped from a Dickensian melodrama? How can you take the shrieking Emma Darwall Smith seriously when, as the debutante Sheila, her white gown is grubby right from the beginning, well before she drags it into the mud, and her hair (is it a wig?) is tatty enough to have come from the props box of an amateur rep company? What are we to make of Edna, the ancient housemaid to this nouveau-riche Edwardian family, who totters about placing chairs, giving tin mugs of tea to the inspector, posing her employers in what can only be called “attitudes” and never saying a word? And, most disturbing of all, why oh why is Pip Donaghy allowed to over-react to every situation, showing no restraint and acting more like a bullying prosecuting barrister? Inspector Goole he may be, but Inspector Cool he certainly isn’t. Where is Alec Guinness or even Alastair Sim when you really need him? It’s really hard to take this play seriously any more. Even the ending, which opens up another mystery — which I won’t reveal, for it gives the play another level of meaning — we’ve seen before. It may suggest the metaphysical depth of a Day of Judgment, but even that’s been done better in later plays. One thing it did manage was to raise my patriotic ire. This may be a production of the National Theatre of Great Britain, but the standard was no better than, and probably well below, any good professional Australian company could offer. It was more like solid British repertory theatre, doing a good job in the provinces, but very much the B-team. Frankly, I’m tired of being patronised by overseas theatre companies giving us tired old plays with very ordinary casts. This production didn’t even have a name star — at least the RST touring production of Richard III in 1986 had Anthony Sher in the lead, with brilliant actors like Pete Postlethwaite and Patricia Routledge in minor roles. I’d willingly pay $75 to see world-class actors like Alan Howard, Brian Blessed or Margaret Tyzak in some of these roles, or even familiar faces from BBC television. At least there would be the thrill of recognition. But I’ve never seen any of this lot even in a bit part in The Bill! Second-rate play, second-rate cast, second-rate direction, but a first rate set and special effects. It all adds up to great spectacle, but it doesn’t necessarily make great theatre. Directed by Julian Webber Playing until 16 March 2006: Tuesday to Saturday 7:30pm, matinees Saturday and Wednesday 1.30pm, Sunday 3pm Duration : 1 hour 45 minutes – no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 16th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Jesus Christ Superstar Savoyards (Iona Performing Arts Centre) Amateur production Jesus Christ Superstar played 711 performances on Broadway from 12 October 1971 and 3358 at the West End from 8 August 1972. With lyrics by Tim Rice it was the first of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long succession of super hits. Clothed in a musical coat of many colours — harsh discordant rock, cryptic cabaret, haunting ballads — Superstar presents the last seven days of the life of Jesus the man, seen essentially through the eyes of Judas, who opens the show. As the musical director of this production, Jacqui Cuny, notes “the music is filled with an intensity and drive that carries its audience on a passionate journey”. To realise the passion, this journey to the Cross demands singers who can act, and can draw us into its tragedy of very human love, devotion, betrayal, denial and death. It also demands staging that complements the energy and intensity of the music and lyrics, and avoids the pitfalls of tortured, mystical melodrama. Musically and vocally secure, Savoyards’ production by Liz Quinn succeeds in its choreographed (Philippa Hall) ensemble elements. In these we feel the energy released and travel with it. In its dramatic sequences the production lacks complementary action and lapses into static, often overcrowded tableaux. It traps itself between the man and the Messiah and condemns Jesus (Ross Muirhead) to a night in the dramatic wilderness where we admire his vocal ability without experiencing Christ’s three years’ profound uncertainty about God’s meaning and purpose for his life and death. As his kissing nemesis, Judas (Greg Quinn) often appeared too intent on vocal gymnastics to fully realise the character’s complex and confused motivations of love for the man and fear of the emerging Messiah’s cult status among his followers. Until the Last Supper, the other disciples were lost in the crowd. Greg Toohey’s dream-haunted Pontius Pilate was regrettably upstaged by his ever-present and silently busy co-pilot wife. As the historically intriguing Mary Magdalene, Kathleen Lamont offered sensitivity but lacked the sensuality latent in her ballad, ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him.’ Overall, the production’s failure to distil the human essences of this ‘monumental piece of theatre’ left the stage open for Andrew Scheiwe’s totally rounded Herod cabaret show-piece to steal the night. Directed by Liz Quinn Playing March 17 (8pm),18 (1.30 and 7.30pm), 19 (1.30pm) Running time: about 2 hours 20 minutes, including interval —
Ron Finney www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Comedy of Errors USQ Performance Centre (Queens Park, Toowoomba) Amateur production “Shakespeare was a performance poet — he gave them what they wanted.” Those are the words of Melbourne poet Lauren Williams, which I heard on the radio as I was driving back from Toowoomba last week, after seeing the latest production in USQ’s Shakespeare in Queen’s Park series. I found them helpful in re-forming my thoughts about this production, which I had left at interval because (a) it was the third version of this comedy I’d seen in six months, (b) the audience were noisy and laughed in all the wrong places, (c) the play is difficult enough to follow in the best of circumstances and (d) these were definitely not the best of circumstances. Sixteenth-century comedy is notoriously difficult to produce effectively, because fashions in humour, especially the language, change very quickly, and what might have been excruciatingly funny to the groundlings at The Globe may leave a modern audience cold, even uncomprehending. The response of most directors these days is to play up the physical comedy and play down the verbal jokes. After all, the wink-wink nudge-nudge approach always works, even in an impenetrable text, so why not give it a go, and let the public have what they want? And to make the text more approachable, what’s wrong with the time-honoured technique of localising the references? You can argue that even the D’Oyly Carte Company do it with the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and if language up-dates make the play or musical work more relevant to modern audiences, that just proves their universal appeal. But when does modernising become taking unjustified liberties? Transposing the ancient sites of Ephesus and Syracuse to Toowoomba’s Grand Central and Vacey Hall is one thing, but why not be consistent and use modern place names throughout, instead of some scenes taking place in Ephesus and some at Vacey Hall? The plot is complicated enough without having two layers of physical settings to contend with. And I have to wonder about some of the modern references. Colostomy bags, with all the accompanying gestures? Tim-Tams? Budgies? I suppose you could use the old line that “if Shakespeare were alive today …”, but does it add anything to our understanding of the text? The use of caricature was another problem. There seemed to be an attempt at Commedia del Arte characterisations, but they soon degenerated into clumsy farce, with very little good comic timing, and the boom-boom gestures growing stale very quickly. Director Scott Witt, whose talents have hitherto shone bright, seems to have let his own philosophy take over, that Shakespeare should be “accessible, fun and not too long”, without adding that it should also make sense, and not be full of self-indulgence. And I’m not even sure that the production gave the audience what they wanted, unless it were cheap laughs — the local place names were the only things they responded to. Performance poetry it was not, either, as the text had been chopped to pieces and rearranged, very much to its detriment. If this were a self-selected group of rank amateurs the production could be forgiven, but these are final year students from the USQ’s Theatre Department. I was gravely disappointed, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of our professional theatre. Directed by Scott Witt Played 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 March at 7pm, with a matinee on Sunday 5 March at 5.30pm Duration : 2 hours, including 30 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 10th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Bell Book and Candle Centenary Theatre Group Amateur production The story of Bell Book and Candle is a cute, bewitching, romantic comedy and should make for a rather fun night at the theatre. Main character is a, rather powerful yet youthful modern day witch, Gillian Holroyd, who sub-lets some apartments in New York City. In the world of this play, witches can’t feel in the same way that we do and although they can laugh, they don’t cry and they don’t love. In fact it is implied that if they do ever fall in love they will lose all their powers. This wouldn’t be such a big deal except that poor Gil (as everyone calls her) has a crush on her new tenant, Shepherd Henderson, and to make matters worse she has a long running feud with Shep’s fiancée. Partly out of revenge, and partly out of curiosity, she enchants poor Shep to love her instead. Oh, if only it were that simple! As a result, Gillian now finds herself with the perfect guy. The only trouble is that trouble is a-brewing in the form of her brother Nicky Holroyd, who doesn’t like the idea of his sister marrying a normal. What will happen to our heroine when Shep (now fiancé) finds out that he has been tricked into loving her? What will happen when despite herself she finds herself falling in love with him? Will she lose her powers? Will she keep the man she loves? Does any of it matter? Actually it does, for although this play was written in 1950 the theme of the relative difficulty and ease some people have falling in love is not only universal but just as vital today as it was when the play was written. One of my biggest gripes with amateur theatre in Brisbane is with the unsuitable plays they choose, but thankfully not this time, for the Centenary Theatre Group have picked a really neat play to kick off their 2006 season. Unfortunately, though, they seem to have had a struggle to get it right. A lot of work has gone into the production, but it was misplaced, making what should have been a fun and breezy evening into a far too serious attempt at high drama. It was a shame more than anything for this seriousness invaded all aspects of the production making the play drag, particularly in the second act. Even the attempts at comedy fell well short of the over-the-top playfulness inherent in the script. The good news for Centenary Theatre Group is that they have done all the hard work already, and to set the production in motion they just need to re-jig its direction. By quickening the pace, lifting the energy of the cast and really playing for and trusting the jokes in the script they could really make this show into something special by closing night. Directed by Barbara Granato Playing until 25th August 2006: Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval —
Glen J. Player (Performance seen: 4th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Speaking in Tongues Brisbane Arts Theatre By Andrew Bovell Amateur production Have you ever been tempted to cheat on your partner? Perhaps you’ve wondered if low self-esteem might be reassured by a one-night-stand? Has infidelity shattered your ability to trust relationships? Speaking in Tongues tackles such questions and themes of guilt and innocence, of injured parties facing adulterous ones. It asks whether there is any real difference between cheating and nearly cheating? How can one predict or judge if a partner is unfaithful? Seemingly telltale signals can prove wrong, as we see in this play; what of the man (Nick) who sneaks home late at night with blood and scratches on his arms? In his car is one single shoe, which belongs to a missing woman. Should he be convicted of her murder? Yet what of another husband (John) who also comes home late — but with clean hands — from the arms of his mistress; he has committed sins of omission by not picking up the phone to his wife’s distress call from a phone-box near a lonely dark road. We’re caught up in a tangle of the sexual relations from the outset; the opening scene shows two couples dancing, silhouetted against sunset-like lurid colours, which immediately gives a sense of foreboding. The staccato simultaneous dialogue between each couple reveals that both women, Sonja and Jane, are unused to one-night stands — “It’s so long since I’ve been with another man” — but both admit to fears of ageing and “I have to know if I’m still attractive.” The dialogue is crisply telling, baring the insecurities, frustrations and boredom of their marital relationships: “Tell me about your wife, is she happy? I want to know something about the woman I’m hurting.” Sometimes the same line means two things, even though the words are identical, revealing the varied situations the characters face. As relationships tangle and intertwine like lantana, we understand why the film that derived from this play was so named. Whether temptation results in intercourse or not, marriages are shattered as their partners smell and sense betrayal. The first half sees characters yearning for love while struggling to rescue or escape from their disintegrating relationships. In the bar scenes, first the men and then the women share confidences and marital philosophies through an alcoholic haze; the wives admit their fears of wrinkles, of being abandoned or bored in their maternal/spousal roles. The second act, which explores the results of fractured relationships, is more dramatic and arresting. Characters share imagery of cliffs, of falling, of being trapped by incoming water. We hear Valerie’s panic-stricken voice-mail messages from a deserted phone-box; Nick feels helpless as he tries to help a stranded woman on an unlit road and faces a likely murder conviction for his reluctant efforts. In a concluding twist John discovers the truth of the adage: “What you give out comes back to you.” The four actors play nine roles, showing a wide range of characters. The female actors express their changing roles especially well through vocal pitch and nuance, swapping status from strong/weak in the first half to weak/strong in the second. The characters are well defined, given that they rely on just a few changes of hair and clothing to create quite different personas. Ali Kerr’s contrast is stark as she transits from red-clothed power woman (“I’ve got two degrees, a great job and two kids… and lines around my eyes… Two teenage boys, who eat, sleep and create lots of laundry. I needed distance …”) into the immature Sarah of the second half, all fluffy hair, girlie voice and escapism. The other female roles are played by Catarina Hebbard, first as the middle-aged Jane (“I’m scared of change – and the lines around my stomach”) then as Valerie, a rather rigid psychotherapist who – according to John – tends to project her own experience of abuse onto her clients. Julian Fanning’s three roles are less distinctly drawn, perhaps because his characters all show weak and self-indulgent traits, expressed through self-conscious hand movements. This contrasts with Leon (Norman Doyle) whose economy of movement reveals his more powerful status as a detective. His second role is also strong, if challenged; Nick has lost his job, he’s drinking heavily, he admits to not getting on with his wife: “I take it out on her a bit because I want her to worry about me.” So while relieved that his wife is asleep when he returns home late, he’s annoyed because he’d hoped she cared enough to worry. The direction is deft, giving seamless interplay between the characters, well timed and effective. The set and props are minimalist in this naturalistic setting; a few boxes and chairs, a whisky decanter and beer glasses. Thus the actors’ clear articulation and expressive range are all the more creditable. The use of space is simple, highlighting similarities between the couples. Andrew Bovell’s script is tight and punchy, with razor-sharp wit and perception of human feelings and situations. He propels the action along a lateral plane rather than linear one, using multi-narrative forms. “For me,” Bovell says, “Speaking in Tongues reveals something about the moral weakness to which we are all susceptible simply by virtue of being human.” The plot reveals tragic consequences of such weaknesses. Random connections between people in an “emotional labyrinth” show how we try to make sense of our lives through encounters with others. This performance flows well and is well acted. Above all, it’s engrossing. It resonates with our lives, progressing through a wide spectrum of issues that confront modern relationships; fear of ageing; betrayal; will a vasectomy reversal save the relationship? Does a “successful” life bring contentment and happiness? As Bovell says: “I really just set out to tell a compelling and haunting story about human fallibility.” This cast realises his goal. Certainly they deserve to play to full houses. Don’t miss it. Directed by: Shellie Bahlow Playing until April 1, 2006: Thu-Sat 8pm, Sunday matinees 12 & 26 March 2pm Running time: 140 minutes including 15 minute interval —
Ruth Bonetti (Performance seen: 10th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Beauty and the Beast Harvest Rain Theatre Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice , music by Alan Menken Amateur production Mention the word Disney and most of us recall the syrupy smiles of wide-eyed hopeful child-starlets mixing it up with the squeaky-clean Mouseketeers, while flashing back to Tinkerbell, Snow White and wishing upon a star... Some talented Australian musical performers have come together to perform one of those (in)famous Disney musical fantasies — Beauty and the Beast, which has found its way across the Pacific to New Farm’s Harvest Rain Theatre. But beware — the rich vocals, precision performances and design excellence of this first-ever Queensland production are anything but fantasy, for they are very real and very good. The reality of this achievement gave even this dedicated Disney cynic a few pleasant surprises. Far away from the monotonous average of today’s social life, the first scene of this musical theatre production delivers the audience into the heart of a vibrant bunch of French village folk, including frocked maids and fresh-faced lads, singing their hearts out and dancing over cobbled lanes framed with stone house-fronts. The first surprise is the striking harmonies. The second is the set. And then the audience is further captivated by the singular beauty and fine voice of Angela Cornford who plays Belle. Yes, it’s almost unbelievable. She really does look like Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she performs just like her too, and amazingly enough it’s not nauseating. But an Australian audience may not be familiar with the story, or its history, because this musical has spent its last decade dancing on the Broadway stage. Just after the Second World War, a French woman, Madame Leprince de Beaumont, wrote a fairytale called La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and the Beast). After translation, and as with most fairytales, it reveals a stern moral message: virtue always triumphs over beauty. A very Western attitude, perhaps. The story begins with an old woman who visits a prince at his castle and offers him a single rose. The prince, played in this case by Luke Kennedy, is so revolted at the sight of the old beggar woman that he rudely sends her away. The old woman, who is really a beautiful enchantress, then casts an evil spell on the prince and anyone else in the castle, turning him into an ugly beast, and the castle dwellers into objects, even after the prince apologises. So he locks himself away in his castle and is told the only way to break the spell is by loving another person and being loved in return. In 1946 French director Jean Cocteau spun the story into a stage musical and it became a hit. Forty years later, Disney borrowed the tale and turned it into a feature film, and the original Broadway musical boasts some amazing statistics, although none of them included an award: it allegedly took 10 kilos of human hair and over 400 man-hours to create the very first American Beast. And the Broadway cast, we are told, consumed 460,500 cough drops. Was that from coughing, or gagging at the script? The first obstacle for the Queensland production crew was the legal one. It took them four years to get the rights to the show. And the next obstacle was to get audiences to warm to this strictly European/American, potentially out-of-touch, musical. But they’ve done it. Director Tim O’Connor, artistic directors David and Robbie Parkin, and designer Joshua McIntosh combined talents and created a show guaranteed to charm Australian audiences and even the most hardened cynic. It is hard to imagine how the crew managed to design and stitch together nearly thirty individually-designed elaborate costumes in seven weeks. Latex and polyurethane producers must have been in overdrive! The costumes play a pivotal role in the story and are outstanding. From the figure-hugging sparkling gold-and-cream tapered gown worn by Belle, to the candle outfit worn by Sean Pollard as Lumiere as a kind of prosthetic limb, to Madame de la Grande Bouche ( the lady with the big mouth), the costumes are clearly individually tailored, accommodating body shapes, personality quirks and characters, and even add a touch of humour. The costuming of the dishes, forks and salt-and-pepper shakers is also well done. I particularly liked the costume worn by Sharon Stoodley as the cheese grater. The Beast, however, is the least convincing in terms of his outfit, which is out of sync with the other characters. He wears only a headpiece and cape and this contrasts with the sophisticated full body-suits worn, sometimes with a struggle, by the rest of the cast. Additionally, the headpiece looks more like a $5 Toystore mask rather than a custom-made headdress. Angela Cornford as Belle the Beauty has it all — good looks, great acting ability, an admirable stage presence and a keen interpretation of the tragic. And did I say a magnificent voice? Her deep love for the Beast and her father is believable and assisted by great makeup, her natural good looks accompanied by a peony mouth and large innocent eyes. What is most noticeable about Cornford, however, is the unusual trill in her voice and her enchanting delivery. Lumiere was another name whispered frequently at intermission by various members of the audience. Sean Pollard plays this tricky role where he must dance, sing, hang on to his cumbersome costume and deliver lines while employing a French accent. Lumiere, French for light, is really a man who has been changed into a candle to light the way for the beast after the curse placed on the prince turns everyone in the castle into a piece of furniture, food, crockery or cutlery. Pollard’s performance includes critical attention to facial expression and an intuitive sense of the comic. Wizardry of a different kind is also at work this musical. Revolving stages and reversible sets combine to allow a seamless evolution between scenes. This provides a mark of distinction between the usual crude stage devices of amateur theatre and professional staging. And that rose! I still can’t work out how the single rose, illuminated on one side of the stage, loses its petals gradually during the show. Three staircases are used to assist the action and the fact that they actually go nowhere is cleverly disguised by the use of curtained doorways, smoke screens and strobe lighting. The final song of the evening, obviously the theme song, repeats the title of the musical and was the only one I vaguely recognised. I must confess I found myself humming it in James Street later on. Very uncool. But now as I try to remember it, I get it confused with the theme song from Phantom of the Opera , or was it Chess ? They all sound the same to me after a while. It’s a pity that the other songs in this musical by Tim Rice are not as memorable, but nonetheless they’re beautifully performed in this production. This production of Beauty and the Beast is a great show for the entire family, nuclear or non-nuclear, as well as other minority groups. A warning, however — get there early as there is no allocated seating and on Saturday night there were traces of seat rage, even among Harvest Rain’s usually polite audience. Directed by Tim O’Connor Playing until 8 April 2006, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, Saturday matinees at 2pm Duration: Just over 2 hours with a 20 minute interval —
Daphne Haneman (Performance seen: 4th March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Operator La Boite By David Williamson Professional production Yes, Virginia, there are people in the corporate world as slimy, back-stabbing, dishonest, amoral and positively evil as Jake in this play, and somewhere along the line you’re going to meet at least one of them, no matter what your workplace. If only we could avoid them, if only the world of small business could manage without them, if only there were some justice so that low-lifes like Jake could get their just reward. But it seems that slippery corruption rules the corporate world, as we know only too well in Australia at the moment. Operator is one of David Williamson’s best plays of the last few years, for he sets up the situation nicely in the first act, makes sure we are firmly on the side of the good guys and that we hate the villain, then keeps us dangling until the last five minutes with an answer to the “will he/won’t he?” question never clear-cut. I’m not going to reveal the ending, because it’s what gives the play its strength, but it’s no moral cop-out and, although there are tears before bedtime, some of them get dried, and some people manage to sleep peacefully, even if they’re not the ones you expect. The play has had so much pre-publicity that most people already know the scenario, but for those who don’t, it’s set in a small manufacturing business that makes exercise machines of various kinds. The CEO, Douglas, is played by Chris Betts as the kind of bluff bullying bastard (I’m tempted to use capital letters because, he, like all the other characters, is an archetype, and more about that later) we love to hate. Betts has the time of his life here, and he gets this obnoxious boss down pat – always with an opinion but never willing to listen to anyone else, never following his own advice, unable to see through the slick veneer that masks the evil intentions of the new employer, Jake. At first I wasn’t sure that Bryan Probets could overcome his own essential niceness to play the villain, but he soon warms to the task, and although personally I would have liked him to be a bit smarmier on the surface, he makes a great transformation to the damned smiling villain, almost Iago-like in his hatred of his superior. Proberts’ wild hair is always a useful stage prop, and as he begins to show his inner vileness, it stood more and more on end (lots of hair gel, he admitted later) until he looked like a Uriah Heep, if I may change the literary reference. The play begins with Paul Bishop as Alex, amiable 2-i-c of the firm, mucking around in his plant nursery and being at once narrator and direct participant in the narrative. It’s an economic way of transmitting background information, rather like a Shakespearian Chorus (why do these classical comparisons keep springing to mind?), and if the narrator doesn’t always morph smoothly into the participant role, I personally can forgive Bishop (whom it’s great to have back in Brisbane after ten years away) almost anything because of his steady performance, which rarely goes over the top, as some of the others have a tendency to do. I saw the show on opening night when the Great Playwright was in the audience, and whether this was an inhibiting factor, or whether there had only been two previews for the cast to get used to audience reaction, or whether it was because of the direction, there was a tendency to overplay, to teeter on the edge of caricature, to miss the subtlety that seems to be in the script. I don’t see this as a major issue because Operator is, like much of Williamson’s later work, very much a morality play, but it can become a distancing device, almost Brechtian in its effect, which sets up an uncomfortable tension between matter and manner. The three women in the cast did more of this over-playing than the men. Liz Buchanan as Francine, PA to the CEO (don’t you love all this office-speak?), had the smallest and least interesting part, having very little input into the machinations of the plot. A pity this, because she’s such a cool actor, and given a more interesting role could have made it soar. Kerith Atkinson had nothing much to do except play Miss Negativity, which she did well until she went right over the edge in some of her outbursts. I’m not sure that we needed all the bleeding-heart rejected-lesbian sub-plot, except that it did make her seem more vulnerable and an easy victim for Jake’s machinations, but it was a step sideways into sentimentality that I don’t think the play needed. The main female character is Melissa, fresh out of business school, idealistic, clever, full of bright ideas, but naïve to the nth degree, with no clue about office politics, which is the theme of this play. Yes, of course she gets done down, because she’s the obvious Easy Victim, but she could have pulled her performance back two or three notches rather than letting it all hang out like a neurotic teenager. The reason is her sexual obsession with one of the men, which becomes clear late in the play, but I don’t think it justifies the strength of her outbursts, and the melodramatic gesture she is required to make at the end weakens the play’s stern unsentimental view of the issues. < BR> All that said, I liked the play very much, and designer Clare McFadden’s set of magic boxes which were office furniture and nursery garden at the same time fitted the space beautifully, easily moved about without distraction. There was a subtle soundscape from Tyrone Noonan, unobtrusive lighting from Jo Currey, and director Sean Mee had a clear vision of the play that he manifests with integrity. This one deserves to be a winner for La Boite. Directed by Sean Mee Playing until 25 March: Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.30pm, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, matinee Saturday 25 March at 2pm Duration : just over 2 hours, with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 2nd March 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Cloudland Queensland Ballet (Playhouse, QPAC) Professional production Cloudland is a knockout! If, like this reviewer, you were silly enough to miss it at the 2004 Brisbane Festival, don’t make the same mistake again. It’s a local story which speaks to the universal themes of love and loss, and celebrates the great iconic Queensland ballroom which was savagely destroyed in the middle of the night in 1982 during the excesses of the Bjelke-Petersen regime. Baby boomers will love it, for it brings back memories of balls, enchantment and young love. The live dance band Blackwood, led by clarinet–playing music director Sean O’Boyle, sweeps the evening through a blend of Latin, swing and rhythm and blues. The story turns around the life of Christina, brilliantly danced by Rachael Walsh. As Christina, Walsh captures the exuberance of wartime romance, the tragic loss of a lover killed in the war, and the quiet beauty that comes with resignation. She is a truly gifted artist who evokes a flood of feeling through her sensitive and passionate treatment of her work. Zachary Chant is a worthy partner for the pas de deux. The corps de ballet looked as if they were enjoying themselves. They had plenty of material as Sean O’Boyle and his musicians beat out the classics from Take the ‘A’ Train and Begin the Beguine through to Rock Around the Clock and Let’s Twist Again. Very enjoyable, you may say, but is it ballet? This reviewer humbly thinks so. It is a vibrant local story told with a passion that transcends time and place. No wonder the audience’s response to the excerpts performed in Germany and Switzerland in January this year was extraordinarily welcoming. It looked, too, as if costume designer Noelene Hill had fun designing the ball gowns. The costume change where cleaners were transformed into dancing queens was a nice touch. The Queensland Ballet continues to make original local works to help us understand and celebrate our community and ourselves. The company is to be congratulated for ensuring that ballet is a living art, not just a repetition of steps and stories made long ago and far away. For a night of spectacularly beautiful dance and great live music, this is the show to see. Choreographed by Francois Klaus Playing until Saturday 11 March 2006, with performances on Friday 3 March at 7.30pm, Saturday 4 March at 2pm & 7.30pm, Sunday 5 March at 3pm, Friday 10 March at 7.30pm, Saturday 11 March at 2pm & 7.30pm. Duration : 2 hours including one interval. —
Matt Foley (Performance seen: 24th February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Gorilla Theatre Edge Improv Kookaburra Café, Given Terrace, Paddington I have to begin with a question. If this show is called Gorilla Theatre, what was the significance of the kangaroo hops accompanied by whooping corroboree noises from the cast? If it was meant to be an ape impersonation, it didn’t really work. Perhaps it could have been improved with even more monkey business, more jest as well as zest. As it was, the performance has a rather serious, well-meaning feel that will hopefully loosen up after first-night. Director and front-man Brad Daniels explains the format — the five actors each have five minutes to improvise segments, though the actual timing seems something of a mystery, given that they work in teams. As audience, we become too aware of the time element, rather than being so caught up in the drama that we forget it. It must be our game as well as the actors’ if it’s going to absorb us completely. After each segment the audience judges the actors’ success or otherwise by yelling “banana” (thumbs up) or “forfeit” (thumbs down). If it’s thumbs down, losers take a slip of paper from a hat which orders them to “phone your Mum and explain your failure” or “perform a ballet version of the story” or “perform the events in fast-forward.” A banana pic sticker is slapped onto winners’ T-shirts and counted up at the end of the night to proclaim who wins the prize — that is, the winner gets to keep a stuffed toy ape until next week’s performance. It’s really only at the end of the night — about 90 minutes later — that we discover the relevance of the title. This random vote-counting offered some surprises at the end, because I’m sure the audience laughed more often for some of the so-called losers. This is how it works. The players — Brad, Colin, Ash, Jenny and Louise — take it in turns to direct a segment. “You work at Centrelink. You must speak with clients in Shakespearean style.” Or: “Give me the first word that pops into your head,” the audience is directed. “Monopoly.” So we are treated to a song about “Wanna play monopoly?” — “No, I don’t wanna play monopoly or boggle or star wars or trivial pursuit with you.” “Give me a word.” “Croquet.” So Colin sings an improvised song about croquet in a pleasant well-projected voice. The challenge is for actors to respond on the spot, and as audience input will vary each night, no two shows can be the same. Sometimes, though, there was a little pre-arranged nudging into possibly practiced directions. “Give me a name,” we’re asked. “Michael,” we reply. “No,” decides the director, “let’s have Mary.” So much for improv! The cast launches into a “Do run run” song, in ten-green-bottles style, where each actor must sing a line that rhymes with Mary, or else drop out of the game. (The name Michael was allowed into the third verse, however.) Given that it was their first night, that it’s amateur theatre, and that some actors seem more experienced than others, the evening worked quite well. Some of the most successful segments involved singing, accompanied by sympathetic strummings from guitarist David Pechey. But they could consider more cohesive costuming to create a sense of unity. Why, for example, did only some of the cast some wear matching brown T-shirts? With its simple and inviting format, the theatre sports concept works reasonably well for a relaxed night out, especially for those who like involvement. Yet it could be improved with more sense of inviting the audience into the actors’ space, of presenting a show rather than a performance. The actors would involve people more if they worked in the round — even sitting at a table close to the front, my view was often blocked, while the lighting meant that actors tended to be blinded by the spotlight rather than caught in it. The show could also be improved with some thought to create powerful, memorable first and last impressions. Skippy hopping onto the small stage area at least drummed up some energy, but the rather limp “That’s the end of the show” hardly sent people out wanting more, especially as it was preceded by a birthday song which was one of the least convincing. Yet the singer was pronounced the winner. As theatre restaurants go, the canvas-covered space with trestle tables is basic, but was a useful venue for tight budget fledgling performers. Overall, it was a brave attempt, with some imaginative moments. A little more polish could have improved it, but how do you polish improvisation? And more positive attempts to engage the audience would have lifted the performance. But at $10 a ticket with pizza ranging from $10-$18 it’s not a bad deal. Basic spirits cost $4.50 a glass, beer and wines are $4. Playing Thursday nights at 7.30pm, for as long as the enthusiasm lasts. Duration: About 90 minutes with a 15 minute interval. —
Ruth Bonetti (Performance seen: 23rd February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Rehearsal Powerhouse Theatre Devised and performed by The Umbilical Brothers (David Connors and Shane Dundas) Professional production The audience sat there, hands clasped, repeating the following prayer as dictated by Shane (or possibly Dave – I forget): “I pray that nobody finds out that I am not totally 100% committed to this prayer.” If you can make sense of that, then you can make sense of this show, where the manic Umbilical Brothers try out on a gob-smacked but totally appreciative audience the rehearsal process for a show that may or may not come together one day. The point is that nobody can make sense of it, and there’s the joke – a very funny joke, which had the audience guffawing at the sheer stupidity of it. You don’t need to understand it, because it appeals to the anarchic streak in all of us, where nothing much matters, nothing really happens, and there is no message or narrative of any kind. That may, of course, be the meaning. “What level are you aiming at?” Dave asks Shane (or is it the other way around?) as they mime their way up and down in a lift, exiting to stare at the dumbfounded audience on level 1 (us), and then going up to regard an equally dumbfounded lot on level 7 (also us). “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it,” as the Duchess said to Alice, and Wonderland is where we are with this show, because there’s a moral/meaning for everything/nothing, depending on how you look at it. Most of the audience just looked, rather than thought, for the twisted logic and physical zaniness of this talented pair demand nothing except that you relax into the show and forget about what it means. This a frenzied reason, the world of the small child where everything is funny as long as it doesn’t happen to them, the world of technology gone mad. This is not to suggest that there isn’t great creativity and skill behind all the mayhem. The control the performers have over their physical behaviour and the technology belies the surface chaos. It’s not easy to put your face in front of a camera and have yourself, and your wombat glove puppet, become King Kong, the rising moon, or a snow mountain, especially when the other half of you is interacting live in front of the screen with the projected images. You’ll never look at those soft furry glove puppets from the toy shop in quite the same way again. It may seem like anarchy, but these boys are in total control. They also manage to send up an entire tradition of comic routines. The woman in the audience who keeps interrupting – is she a plant, or what? When they come and hit her over the head with a soft loaf from Brumby’s, is she really hurt, and is she going out to consult her lawyer? She leaves, talking loudly on her mobile, and we still aren’t sure what this is all about until later in the show when she calls in from the Boondall Entertainment Centre (another running joke) to complain again. “I don’t know!” says Shane. “You pay someone to disrupt your show, and what do they do ? …. Disrupt your bloody show.” Most of the time I had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t matter. How long since you’ve had an experience in the theatre where you didn’t have to think at all and where, if you tried to make sense of it, the experience was ruined? Quite simply, The Rehearsal is totally mad, and I can only return to Alice, this time in conversation with the Cheshire Cat. “They’re both mad,” said the Cat. “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I'm mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn't have come here.” ‘Nuff said. If you’re young and anarchic, or even middle-aged and unprejudiced, go and see it. And all you freshers out there at Orientation Week, just remember that creative anarchy like this is far more fun than burning flags. Enjoy already. Directed by the performers Playing Tuesday to Sunday at 7.30pm until Saturday 4 March 2006 Duration: 80 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 21st February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Absurd Person Singular Queensland Theatre Company By Alan Ayckbourn Professional And you thought you had the Christmas from hell! Welcome to successive Christmas Eves at the Hopcrofts’, the Jacksons’ and the Brewster-Wrights’, where you will look back on last December and thank whatever gods there be that this wasn’t your experience, and that there are worse things than a minor tantrum about who got the best presents. < BR> Absurd Person Singular is set in the early 1970s, and those of us who lived through that period can’t bear even to think about the back-combing, the bouffant (read angry beehive) hair, the cans of lacquer and the cards of bobby pins. How could we have done that to ourselves? And that’s just the hair. Let’s not even mention the unflattering mini-skirts, the ghastly paint-box colours, the face-flattening make-up, and the clumpy shoes. Forget nostalgia — stylistically this was the worst of all possible worlds. So just by living in this era, the Hopcrofts, the Jacksons and the B-Ws are at a great disadvantage. Add to that the social distinctions, for it’s set in the UK after all, and the tensions of inviting the bank manager for Christmas drinks to meet people equally awful, and you have a recipe for disaster — which is, of course, what we get, this being an Alan Ayckbourn play. Over three consecutive Christmas Eves everything that can possibly go wrong does, and although the results are hilarious, our laughter is the classic reaction of the survivor, the thank-goodness-that-never-happened-to-me syndrome, the banana skin gag, which is one of the classic bases of comedy. While we laugh, we cringe, because the pink laminex with matching cupboards and curtains was really happened, along with the relentless invocation of the spray-on furniture polish (“Oh Mr Sheen, oh Mr Sheen!”) and the importance of having exactly the right mixer for the gin. We begin at the Hopcrofts, where houseproud Jane (played to almost irritating perfection by the wonderful Helen Cassidy), the stay-at-home neurotic perfectionist, is revealed to be completely insecure and under the thumb of her upwardly-mobile small-time developer husband Sidney, a role that Mark Conaghan develops with such subtle truth that he almost transforms the caricature that director Michael Gow has decided should be the style of the production. This first act is by far the funniest, with sight gags about running out of bitter lemon, being shut out of your own house in the pouring rain, absorption in the wonders of the new washing machine and all the horrors of this kind of drinks party, which ends up in the kitchen, of course. Among the invitees are Eva and Geoffrey Jackson. She is a potential alcoholic and an actual undermining bitch-wife — Helen Howard in the first act gives us just enough of a hint as to what’s going to happen to her later in the play, while Peter Marshall as her easy-going sloppy architect-husband also offers surprises in the second act, surprises that we recognise in retrospect, but not at the time, as being inevitable. Last but not least (the clichés keep springing inevitably to mind to match the seemingly clichéd people in the play) are the Brewster-Wrights, the guests you wish you didn’t have to invite. Robert Coleby is the bank manager Ronald, his pinstripe suit concealing the latent weakness of character that his ever-so-slightly too long haircut hints at; and Andrea Moore is his booming artificial wife, Marion, the kind of woman you should never, ever, choose as a friend. So that’s the cast, a perfect sextet who work off each other’s weaknesses and foibles until the whole thing ends in tears, as it is bound to. For this is not one of Ayckbourn’s more predictable farces where, in spite of misunderstandings and people going through the wrong doors at the wrong time, all’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Here, what is potentially funny teeters on the edge of tragedy, which makes us care too much about the fates of these characters who are all, no matter how awful, doomed to misery of one kind or another. In Absurd Person Singular Ayckbourn scratches uncomfortably deep beneath the veneer of comedy and reveals awful truths that we prefer not to think about. And that, I think, is the strength of this production, that it deliberately operates on two levels at once. Those Women’s Weekly kitchens, moving from Think Pink to Olive Drab to Grey Classic, may be caricatures of '70s design, but their colours mirror the personalities of their owners as well as the mood of the play in each of the three acts. Designer Greg Clarke’s cunning sets are comic strip and deep social comment at the same time, as is Michael Gow’s vision for the production, that underneath the superficial blandness lie dreadful truths. Technically it’s flawless, and all six actors (with the voices of Barbara Lowing and Nick Backstrom providing the background hum in the unseen drawing rooms) give the kind of performances we expect from fully professional actors in the state’s flag-ship theatre company. The production is as polished as the performances, and although it may seem a little slippery, that goes with this kind of farce, for which no excuses need to be made. Even when we begin to question the matter of timing, so soon after last Christmas, we realise that under the farcical surface it’s too dark for a pre-Christmas season, and perhaps we can only cope with its suburban truths through the objectivity of distance. Directed by Michael Gow Playing until 18 March 2006: Tuesdays at 6.30pm, Wednesday–Saturday 7.30pm, Wednesday matinees 1pm, Saturday matinees 2pm Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 18th February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine 3 X 11 Playhouse, QPAC By Mummenschanz Company Playhouse QPAC Professional production How do you describe in words a production which is totally silent, without even a music track? How can a reviewer explain how four middle-aged people, who no longer have the honed bodies of dancers, can enchant a whole theatre of adults and children simply by making physical patterns? For two hours we sat entranced, mesmerised, uplifted, as sheets of fabric blew in the wind, a mammoth-sized lump of mud (or worse) rolled slowly and deliberately onto the people in the front seats, and rolls of pink and blue toilet paper performed an elaborate courting ritual. Mummenschanz have now been performing for more than 30 years — I suppose that explains the title of the show — and now return to Brisbane after almost 20 years: they were last seen here at World Expo 88. So there’s a whole new generation to be won over by this transformative kind of mime, where plasticine, paper, felt and parachute silk become anything the performers, and the audience, want them to be. The first half used the more elaborate costumes, so that the human bodies behind them were almost irrelevant, and it was the sheer technical brilliance that absorbed us. How were those two long pieces of board that became stick figures manipulated? Where did the air that kept the Leunig-like balloon faces come from, and how did they turn inside out as the creatures moved, so that the longed-for kiss seemed impossible to achieve? How many people were inside that Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon blob, and how could the two performers who teased their head-defining luminous wires into different expressions possibly know whether they were achieving the effect they desired? It was like watching magic tricks — when at last you become exhausted from the mental effort of trying to understand the techniques, you just sit back and let it wash all over you, appreciating the emotional beauty of what was happening on stage. My very favourite was the Michelin Man, whose tubes of flexible wire and paper allowed him to become Mr Slinky and the Elephant Man at the same time, while the giant white hands (actually huge headdresses on human bodies), that pulled back the curtains and then applauded each other, had everyone in stitches from the beginning. In the second half the creatures became more human, and were all about relationships, often with sexual innuendoes, but nothing so obvious as to be grubby. These segments were mostly done with different heads on the actors’ black-clad bodies, so that a twin-plug eventually united with its appropriate socket and the stage lit up. But the joke continued after they waltzed off-stage together, with bursts of light continuing to flash on and off for a minute afterwards. Another couple, eyes and mouths depicted by pads of tear-off paper sheets, conducted a whole relationship, from courtship through arguments to reconciliation, simply by tearing off sheets of paper and revealing different eye movements and happy or sad mouths. It sounds very simple, but when you see how fast they are doing it, and that they can’t see exactly which mouth/eye pattern they are revealing, the skill becomes apparent, and again you’re forced to contemplate the technical mastery of it all. That’s what so wonderful about Mummenschanz. Their technical skill spills seamlessly over into pure emotion, rather like the edge of an infinity pool. One minute you’re puzzling about which way the body inside the costume is facing, and the next you’re ooh-ing and aah-ing with delight or pity. My friend (admittedly it was Valentine’s Day and he was feeling a bit emotional anyway, because the love of his life wasn’t with us) was close to tears a couple of times, while the five-year-old behind us was squeaking with joy, and even the bored teenagers in the front row showed some emotion as the mud-shaped blob rolled slowly but inexorably towards them. And, as someone who no longer has the flexibility or the shape of a 20-year-old, I was delighted to see, at the curtain call, four very middle-aged people who were able to demonstrate that just because performers are over 50, they don’t have to sit in rocking chair and bemoan their lost youth. So it’s back to the gym for me! Technical Direction by Ueli Riegg Playing until Saturday 18 February – Thursday at 6.30pm, Friday 7.30pm, Saturday 1.30pm, 7.30pm Duration: 2 hours, with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 14th February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine I Don't Want to Die in Melbourne Sue Benner Theatre, Metro Arts By Lorna Bol Profit share – Forgetting of Wisdom Collective Cast: Kaye Stevenson, Bev Langford, Penny Everingham, Bob Newman Of course nobody wants to die in Melbourne — that’s the main reason for the rush of southern immigrants to Queensland! But nobody wants to die separated from the people they love best, either, and the theme of this new play, which on the surface deals with the aging process, is really about the power of love. There’s no doubt that Wilma (Penny Everingham) and Ken (Bob Newman), love their increasingly forgetful mother Nette (Kaye Stevenson), but she has become a problem to herself as well as to them, and like so many well-meaning middle-aged children they want to do the best for everyone. This best doesn’t include having her coming to live with either of them, of course, for that isn’t the modern way, but who wants to put their mother in a nursing home just because she keeps forgetting where her handbag is, and refuses to have deadlocks put on the front door? It’s the modern middle-class social dilemma, and one of the hardest decisions anyone has to make. People go rapidly downhill in nursing homes, they lose their interest in life and miss their familiar surroundings, but the time does come for anyone who hasn’t been lucky enough to die of a heart attack at a respectable age. With the proportion of seventy-pluses in our society growing rapidly, it’s a subject that theatre and television haven’t yet come to terms with, but the impressive theatre collective, The Forgetting of Wisdom, have clearly struck a chord, for the Sue Benner Theatre (so-named after the retiring GM of Metro Arts) was packed on Saturday night, and that was before any reviews had come out. They weren’t all middle-aged people, either, although from the look of the audience it was clear that the problem of the play was one that many of them would face very soon, or were perhaps facing already, and I was deeply moved by the 60-something woman who had brought her aging mother along to see the show, something I wouldn’t be game to do. There were also plenty of young people, though, who seemed to appreciate what the play was saying, that just because people get old and doddery, they don’t lose their rights, and that independence can be as fiercely desired by the old as by the young. It’s called a modern morality play, and so there’s the moral. But a play has to be more than an animated sermon, and it relies on the skill of both playwright and actors to bring it alive as a human drama. Playwright Lorna Bol has done this in a very subtle way, by giving her characters language so simple that it appears to be clichéd, until you realise that’s how most people do talk to each other. Most people aren’t very articulate, can’t express their deepest needs and thoughts, and most of us skid along the surface of understanding like a gnat on still water, only occasionally breaking the surface. But when that surface breaks, deep currents can be released, and this is what happens in this play, with a devastating but ultimately satisfactory denouement. I’m not going to reveal the ending, but it justifies the whole play, and lifts it above what could be seen as a bland sociological treatise into a passionate vindication of love and friendship, and it’s going to kick you in the guts. This kind of script, though, creates a problem for the director. Is he (in this case) going to attempt complete naturalism, so that it becomes like the everyday reality of Home and Away , with an unexpected ending that is absolutely devastating, or should he create the rather stilted unreality of a morality play, with characters playing Everyman-type stereotypes? Director Leo Wockner doesn’t seem to have made his mind up about this — or perhaps his four very strong-minded experienced had ideas of their own! — because the characterisation treads both sides of this wobbly line. I hesitate to call Kaye Stevenson and Bev Langford (Nette’s best friend Shirl, whose unappreciative daughter lives in Melbourne) old troupers, because I must admit here to my friendship with both of them, and they’d have me on toast if I dared to brand them thus. They both give real life to their roles as two old widows, who’ve lived side by side in tiny houses since they were new brides, and who have seen their children grow up, their husbands die, their suburb become gentrified and their area more dangerous. Here we don’t have a couple of featureless old biddies, but two feisty women who were feminists long before the term became fashionable. Each is a person in her own right, not just a social worker’s case study; each relies on the other; and each is determined that life in a nursing home (in Nette’s case) or with her daughter in far-away Melbourne (in Shirl’s) is not for her. There comes a time, as Shirl says, when you have to stop being a problem. Physically weak they may be, but mentally they are tougher than their children, and their personal final solution is one we can only applaud. Penny Everingham and Bob Newman, as Nette’s son and daughter, seem sometimes to be in a different play. Their life clichés are more obvious ones — their own children, their upwardly-mobile status, even (although this is barely hinted at) the fact that they’d both come into a lot of money if the old family home were sold. And as characters they aren’t individualised, never hinting at a sub-text to what they say and do, often speaking in the deliberate jerky manner of the 15th century morality play, so that they become Selfish Son and Determined Daughter rather than flesh-and-blood Ken and Wilma. Whether this is a deliberate ploy on Wockner’s part I’m not sure, to emphasis the generational divide, but for me it made the production unbalanced, and I found the two elderly widows easier to acknowledge as genuine human beings than I did the stereotyped son and daughter. But in the end, the play’s the thing, and it’s a good play, because it fulfils that ancient requirement of drama, to hold the mirror up to nature but, by reflecting it, to transcend it, rooting the universal in the particular. It deserves to do well not just in Brisbane, but nationally. But before it travels, which I hope it does, I think the director should make up his mind about what kind of play he is giving us, and somehow achieve a better balance between the generational styles. Directed by Leo Wockner Playing until 25 February 2006. Morning matinees Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at 11am; afternoon matinees Saturday 2pm, Sunday 4pm; evenings Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday 8pm. Duration: 70 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 11th February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Monkey and his Magic Grin & Tonic (Roma St Parklands) Concept by Bryan Nason, with inventive contributions by the GNT2 team Profit share production “It is with our thoughts that we shape the earth”, as Kuan-Yin, the glorious Goddess of Mercy, says in GNT2’s latest interpretation of the immortal story of the Handsome Monkey King, which has bewitched hundreds of generations of Easterner and Westerners alike. If the world were to be shaped by the thoughts of the naughty but charming Monkey, with his lack of discipline and bad manners, and his friends Pigsy the pig-monster (food and sex) and Sandy the river monster (anger and violence), it would be a sad place indeed, but the moral of this metaphorical 16th Chinese story is that by travelling westwards to India to find the sacred scriptures, they will be reformed and reshaped into creatures of goodness and compassion. So it’s an archetypal tale of the need for right behaviour and reformation, but the story is anything but dull and moralistic. Many of us grew up on the television series of the same name, and Bryan Nason and his GNT2 team have made it their own, having given us three versions over the years. The 2006 version, as performed on stage in the Roma Street Parklands, is perhaps not as colourful and energetic as the award-winning performances at the 2006 Brisbane Festival, but it’s still drawing enthusiastic crowds, and not just of young families. Whether it’s the immortal appeal of the story, the loyalty that GNT2 have built up over the years since they were the Grin’n’Tonic Theatre Troupe, or simply the chance to rejoice at the sheer physicality and ingenuity of a very talented team I don’t know, but there’s no denying the show’s appeal. Monkey, the self-proclaimed Handsome Monkey King, Great Monkey Sage, Equal of Heaven, and Guardian of the Five Peaches of Immortality (and he’s modest, too!), is now played by Ross Balbuziente, with the engaging smile and capacity for naughtiness that make this character so easy to love and forgive, and his physical tricks, like those of all the GNT2 troupe, are breath-taking. The young priest Tripitaka, a Holy Fool chosen by the Buddha to lead them on their journey, is now played by Niki-J Witt, and although she’s not as ethereal and androgynous enough to convince me that she’s a timid boy, she interacts to perfection with the three nuisances she has to put up with. Ross Lowe’s Pigsy is very funny indeed, especially when his lustful desires refuse to be suppressed, and he keeps breaking away to chat with the audience, to the uproarious laughter of his victim and various young kids, who were enjoying it all hugely, even the bits that they (thankfully) didn’t fully understand. Vanja Matula is as brilliantly multi-faceted as ever, first as Sandy the fish-monster, then as the Old Baboon with his bright red buttocks (there are lots of bum/fart/piss jokes in the production, all harmless and very funny), and finally as Tripitaka’s high-stepping horse – although I noticed that he didn’t carry her on his back for more than a minute at a time. The cast have updated the story with lots of modern references, much as Gilbert and Sullivan scores are re-invented today, so that the Spider Queen is accompanied by a dragon-like raptor toy, and Tripitaka, in danger of being boiled alive, has a dash of soy sauce added to the cooking liquid. Even Amada Vanstone gets a passing reference, to the delight of the audience. The production is alive with the usual GNT2 touches — Kuan-Yin, the Eternal Goddess of Mercy, is played by Bryan Nason in her manifestation as an ancient gardener who reads the narrative aloud from a pop-up book, while the Panther Demon (Ronny McKenzie with all his impressive tats on full display) does a very erotic strip-tease, which quite thrilled the elderly ladies sitting next to me as he came up and unrolled his ankle-bands under their noses. As usual, miracles are achieved with the simplest of sets and costumes, and nobody could call this a spit-and-polish production in the style of Cats or The Lion King , but that surely is its triumph. It’s proof again, if we needed it, that it’s the story that matters, not special effects, and that if the narrative is strong enough, and a production can demonstrate commitment to the ideals the story espouses while having lots of fun along the way, simple story-telling in the park can give children and adults alike joy and enlightenment. These are troubled times — the people of the world are greedy and quarrelsome, awkward and lacking in grace, as the Goddess of Mercy tells us. We need Monkey and Tripitaka to show us that there is a way, and that even if the writing on the sacred scriptures has faded, we can write our own story and help to save the world. Designed and directed by GNT2’s collaborative directorial team Playing until the end of April — Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays at 4pm and 7pm, Sundays at 4pm Duration: 90 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 5th February 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Omon Ra Visy Theatre Adapted by Marcel Dorney from Viktor Pelevin’s novel Into the detritus of '50s suburbia – wire bed frames, dead refrigerator, battered radiogram, rusting hand-mower, folding wheelchair – explode two thirteen-year-old boys, holding toy aeroplanes and playing nuclear war. Flash (literally) to the same young men some years later, enrolled in a Russian space school for the first steps of their training as cosmonauts. It’s just after the American moon landing, and the Soviet authorities are very angry at being pipped at the post - even though they had no serious plans in hand for a similar project - and are about to up the ante. And the young men who enter the training program ain’t seen nuttin’ yet, because not only are the training staff tougher than the Marines, they’re all totally crazy, and most of them have steel rods where their knee-caps used to be. The very talented team of playwright Marcel Dorney and director Nic Dorward, founder of Restaged Histories, have come up trumps with their acerbic comic-book rendition of the Soviet side of the space race. The idea behind the Restaged Histories project is to retell vintage stories using modern theatrical techniques, and the result is a slap-stick Russian version of Hogan’s Heroes with a chilling undertone because, for all of its clowning around, it’s deadly stuff they are dealing with here, and the ambitious young cosmonaut is doomed to die 15 seconds after he sets the tracking device on the moon. But is he really on the moon? Did the American really land there in 1969, anyway, and was the whole enterprise just a glorious hoax? These were relevant questions for the time, and there are still conspiracy theorists around who believe it ain’t necessarily so, all of which gives the play a nice satirical sub-text as the actors go through their various changes from one manic character into another. A lovely romp, therefore, and a chance for these four very fine young actors (there was no program, so unfortunately I can’t tell you who they are) to explore their own possibilities as half-blind war hero, cynical opportunist, wide-eyed gullible child and increasingly disillusioned volunteer, making their way through, and playing around with, the magnificent clutter of Kieran Swan’s retro-grunge set.< BR> There are deeper existential issues lurking here, though, and one of the greatnesses of the play is the way it makes the audience swing from raucous hilarity to kick-in-the-gut silence. “What is truth?” asked jesting Pilate, and that immortal question raises its ugly head again here, for how can we believe in these idiot characters, and their space shuttle made of a flash-light, an old ironing board and a bakelite telephone? Is this really happening, or are they (as is suggested in the text) just an idea in the mind of the universe, who can disappear at the blink of said Universe’s metaphorical eye? Even worse, are they (as they appear to us in the audience) merely an idea in the mind of the novelist and playwright, who are using them (and us, as audience) as tools in an elaborate and spooky game? Omon Ra has a far greater depth of metaphysical understanding than its frenetic surface comedy would suggest. Tangentially it plays with the idea of the hero and his (in this play at least) heroic act – are they really at the heart of the universe, or are they both futile attempts to fight what is in reality cosmic chaos? Does “a single heroic act at the centre of the universe” become the centre of the universe, or is it only in the eye of the beholder? We’re not allowed to ponder too deeply on these questions, however, for the action rollicks from one crisis to another, and the story pulls us along with its own velocity. - So enjoy it as a clever but ultimately meaningless romp, or be very very afraid – it’s a great little piece of inventive theatre, and I hope we see a lot more of Restaged Histories and their shrewd retellings of events in the past that make us think about the blackness of our own present. Directed by Nic Dorward Playing Tuesday – Saturday until 4 February at 8pm, with Saturday matinees at 2pm Duration: 85 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 25th January 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Dirty Dancing QPAC by Eleanor Bergstein and Jacobsen Entertainment Professional production I gather that over the past few weeks video store owners have been taken aback by the number of people asking for copies of the hugely popular 1987 film of Dirty Dancing as potential audiences for the current stage show sought to relive old memories or find out what all the fuss was about. < BR> For those of you who don’t know, or don’t remember; the film’s story, set in 1963, concerns the social and sexual awakening of a young woman, nicknamed Baby, on holiday with her privileged family at an exclusive resort. Straying into the forbidden territory of the staff quarters, she witnesses the uninhibited and suggestive dancing with which the hired help fill their evenings. Attracted by the machismo of the lead dancer Johnny (Patrick Swayze in the film), she becomes involved in the troupe’s problems and volunteers to step into his incapacitated partner’s shoes for a performance that will save the dancers from being sacked by an uncaring management. Coached and bedded by the increasingly captivated Johnny, she is transformed; the crucial performance is a success and Baby learns to stand up to her family and defy society’s expectations. At the concert held to mark the end of the summer holiday Johnny makes an unexpected entrance and together he and Baby reprise their sizzling dance routine. Inspired by her example, all the guests in the resort let go of their inhibitions and enthusiastically shake their asses having the time of their lives in a rousing finale. Devoted fans of the film will have booked their tickets long ago. Those heretics who, like me, found the film mind-numbingly dull, Patrick Swayze faintly repellent and the chorus’s insistent pelvic-thrusting and groping no substitute for real dancing (or sex) - might need a bit more persuading. Certainly, since 1987, audience expectations of this genre have risen enormously. Buz Luhrmann in Strictly Ballroom showed what can be done with similar material, and we have all become used to the unlikeliest candidates (think Pauline Hanson and Darryn Hinch) being glamorously made-over and drilled into managing passable dance routines every week in Dancing with the Stars. Screen performances, however, offer one kind of experience, live performance entirely another. This adaptation of a film for the stage exemplifies the fact that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that compares with the thrill of live theatre. From the moment the curtain rises on the clever set with its versatile platforms, sophisticated lighting and effective back-projections it is possible to ignore the banal storyline and enter uncritically the world of the musical. The director’s treatment of the rain sequences, the car trips and the rehearsal in the river remind us of the magic that only theatre can achieve, and the increasingly manic appearances of the entertainment director make real as nothing else could the horrors of the family resort. While staying very close to the original script, the stage conversion includes some new scenes which make the piece more suited to the theatre (I particularly liked the Pirate King’s song) and allows the cast more opportunities to display their versatility. And it is, indeed, a very talented cast. Kym Valentine is engagingly gauche as Baby and she makes her gradual mastery of dancing both convincing and very funny. Her look of glazed terror which gradually changes to one of vast relief as she completes her first public performance is matched only by the growing delight she displays in her triumphant final dance with Johnny at the end of the show. As Johnny, a character that could all too easily appear sleazy, Josef Brown is as attractive and sensitive a piece of rough trade as one could ever ask for. A brilliant dancer, he consistently draws gasps from the audience with his technically demanding leaps and lifts. Not much is demanded of the minor characters, though Emma Langridge as Baby’s sister has a lot of fun with her dreadful talent show performance, and there are some strikingly good vocalists (Philip Darley, Ben Mingay and Christina Tan). It is on the dancers, however, that a show such as this ultimately depends. Trained to make everything appear effortless, it is they who risk sprained ankles, twisted knees, torn ligaments and damaged backs every performance – and all with a smile on their faces. In the theatre it is their courage, energy and commitment that stirs the audience into a lively response and, if the performance I saw was typical, these dancers certainly succeed. In particular, Nadia Coote as Johnny’s professional partner is stunning, lighting up the stage whenever she appears. Dirty Dancing in its latest manifestation will continue to attract fans if only because, like Dancing with the Stars , it taps into one of our deepest fantasies: that in the arms of the right partner we could all become gorgeously sexy movers. There may well be scores of men secretly convinced that, with a leggy blonde wrapped round them, they too could come across like Tom Williams. Women have always had a wider choice of fantasy partners (and Josef Brown looks set to join the stable). As for me, I’m with Princess Diana – John Travolta would do it every time. Directed by Mark Wing-Davey Playing until 5 March 2006: 7:30 pm, Saturday matinees 1:30 pm Running time: 2hrs 45 minutes including interval —
Maureen Strugnell (Performance seen: 21st January 2006) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine |
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