| Reviews: January-March 2007
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www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Lotte's Gift Ensemble Productions & Christine Dunstan Productions (Roundhouse Theatre) By David Williamson Written for and performed by Karin Schaupp Professional production At first I thought it was going to be a kind of William Yang slide show, a long autobiographical set of photographs with a flat narrative. That’s certainly the format, but there’s lots more colour and movement here, especially when you add professional guitar solos of concert standard, a script by David Williamson, a gently Australianised Mittel-Europe set, and so much emotion and over-welling love that you may want to weep. The show is Karin Schaupp’s homage to her grandmother Lieselotte Reinke (the Lotte of the title), who was born in Germany, lived through World War II and the 1945 bombings, and eventually migrated to Australia to live with her daughter and granddaughter. The physical and emotional closeness of the relationship has meant that Karen got to know her grandmother better than most grandchildren have the opportunity to do, and David Williamson has crafted her unremarkable story into a charming but ultimately undemanding script, that allows Schaupp free rein to expose her own undoubted musical talents and to indulge in some unashamed self-promotion as well as express her love. For my money, the slides were the best part of the show – I’m always a sucker for family photographs, especially when they’re of people we know as well as we come to know Lotte through the narration. Williamson/Schaupp make no attempt to tone down Lotte’s unashamedly high self-esteem, and although granddaughter Karin insists that she’s the very opposite of Lotte in this way, the fact that she herself approached Williamson with the desire for him to write a show where she could act as well as play the guitar, and her own self-promotion in the second half, make me wonder about the truth of such an insistence. At more than 2½ hours it’s a very long show for a solo performer, and although Schaupp is a very talented musician, she’s not yet an actor. There’s a certain monotony in her bodily and facial expressions that she probably could have got away with in a 60 minute show, but this production was far too long, basically because nothing much happens, and there’s no attempt made to dramatise the trauma of the bombings, for example, or the genuine emotional conflict that Lotte had to go through when she realised the man she had thought was lost came back to claim her after she was married. Giving up her career, which would have probably led to fame and fortune, for the sake of her marriage, was another issue that could have been rendered more dramatically, but it’s all relayed in a kind of sweetness-and-light manner that ultimately becomes cloying – in both of Schaupp’s voices, the quaintly accented one of Lotte and her own Australian voice. The fact that both Lotte and her daughter Isolde (Karin’s mother) were in the audience on opening night made it even more suffocatingly cosy, and with all due respect to the three women, the show would have been more dramatic if there had been some kind of ending, rather than just the tender fade-to-contentment which has been Lotte’s fate. That’s the trouble with biographies of living people, that there can be no concluding drama, and I have to say that this was more like a Women’s Weekly feel-good story than an exciting journey through a tumultuous historical period. If it hadn’t been for Williamson’s redemptive script I would probably have left at interval. But even with those reservations, I found it a very sweet show, and if my own grandchildren grow up relating to me like that, I’ll die a happy woman. Director David Williamson Designer Graham McLean Playing until Saturday 5 May 2007: Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.30pm, Thursday – Saturday at 8pm Duration : 2 hours 15 minutes, with one 20-minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 29th March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Genesis Grainger Quartet (Conservatorium Theatre) Professional production Performers: Natsuko Yoshimoto – Violin 1, James Cuddeford – Violin 2, Jeremy Williams – Viola, Patrick Murphy – Cello Genesis: a new beginning. The program title relates to the formation of a string quartet that shows rich promise of injecting fresh life into Australia’s music scene. In this game of musical chairs, three of the members of the new Grainger Quartet evolved from the Australian String Quartet. The former Australian String Quartet members were based in Adelaide, birthplace of Percy Grainger; this new Grainger Quartet gravitates for their national and international tours from the more cosmopolitan Sydney. A driving force of the quartet, James Cuddeford, is Brisbane born and raised, a credit to Queensland’s Education Department policy of making instrumental music studies accessible to all and sundry, regardless of background. With non-musical but supportive parents, young James was given a violin and showed such promise that the teacher recommended individual tuition to supplement the school’s classes. James flourished under the guidance of Dr. Tony Doheny at the Queensland Conservatorium, then studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he met his future wife, Yoshimoto, and at the Royal Northern College of Music. (His sister Tara proved a similarly talented cellist, following him to the Yehudi Menuhin School and eventually becoming a member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.) Congratulations to state governments of yesteryear who founded the country’s premier music education program. Without this primary school opportunity, the lanky and likeable James might have become a public servant instead of a prize-winning international artist now giving Australian and international audiences pleasure through his sensitive and yet strong musicianship. Memo to present governments who consider penny-pinching from the arts and education budgets: such a success story warrants pouring yet more tax payers’ dollars into the arts; rather than squeeze funding, it should be multiplied. Yoshimoto and Cuddeford go back a long way to their studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School and a delight of the concert is hearing them speak as one, meshing tone and sensitive phrasing, their bow changes almost imperceptible. Both violinists are such strong performers that the lower strings rather pale beneath their vitality; the violist and cellist, though fine players, could have projected with more flair, though overall the balance was good. These musicians are highly professional and brilliant players and the quartet performed with impeccable tuning, especially in the upper strings. The program opened with the vitality and wide dynamic range of the Barber String Quartet Opus 11, with its delicious floating Adagio, made popular as the theme music from the films Platoon and Elephant Man. They projected the contrasting moods and timbres from tempestuous to heart-felt lyricism with subtlety and deliciously romantic tone. This was followed by Beethoven’s “Harp” quartet, Opus 74, so called because the pizzicato passages pass between instruments as facilely as a sweep of hands across harp strings. The expansive broad phrasing and subtle textures were effectively portrayed with fine detail and rich timbres. However, the Brahms Quartet in A minor, Opus 51 No. 2, occasionally lost momentum and concentration. The viola needed more fire to match the resonance of the upper strings. Perhaps a radical concept might be to seat the violins opposite each other because second violinist James Cuddeford’s huge sound resonates with such impact. As was fitting, Grainger played Grainger; this oddly titled Arrival Platform Humlet. I confess the meaning still escapes me, in spite of an introduction by James Cuddeford who arranged it for string quartet from a score for solo viola or massed violas. This piece was too short to be engrossing but filled out the program with some charm and vitality. It would have made a better encore – the half-capacity but proud audience clapped enthusiastically but to no avail – after the inclusion of a more cutting edge, contemporary work. This would have made a positive statement from a young, fresh ensemble. The “Genesis” program has performed in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne and aired on ABC radio so the country at large could enjoy the benefits of a state government’s investment in Australia’s musical talent. This delightful evening’s thoroughly enjoyable initial program bodes well for the future of the Grainger Quartet. Played in Brisbane Saturday 24 March Duration: 120 minutes, 20-minute interval —
Ruth Bonetti (Performance seen: 24th March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine John Gabriel Borkman Queensland Theatre Company (Bille Brown Studio) By Henrik Ibsen Professional production Although it’s a French composition, Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre (The Dance of Death) mirrors perfectly the frenzied atmosphere of this shivering Norwegian play, Ibsen’s second-last but largely neglected study of hatred and failed ambition. In Michael Gow’s production for the QTC, the piano piece is played by the tender young virgin Frida Fodel (Georgia Harrison) to her music teacher John Gabriel Borkman, who has immured himself in the upper reaches of the house ever since his release from prison eight years before. As cold as the unheated rooms he inhabits, Robert Coleby sends shivers down the spine in his characterisation of the obsessed white-collar fraudster, with just enough hints of sexual predation to add another edge to this already unbearably edgy play. Famed Polish critic Jan Kott called this the greatest of Ibsen’s plays, on a par with King Lear in the way that its larger-than-life characters, and the audiences, are driven to unbearable emotional extremities, but for my money Borkman has neither the nobility of character nor the pathos of the old king, for Borkman is an out-and-out crook, the Alan Bond of his day, who ruined many innocent investors and was made to serve his time. Since his release, a ruined and broken man himself, he has remained alone upstairs in the house lent to him by his sister-in-law Ella (Judi Farr), while his bitter and unforgiving wife Gunhild (Penny Everingham) remains downstairs, refusing to have contact of any kind with him, and resenting everyone, even her twin sister, whose charity she is forced to accept. That’s the background to the plot, but the situation of the play is the fate of Gunhild and John Gabriel’s son Erhart (Daniel White). After his father’s disgrace he had been sent to stay with his aunt Ella, who brought him up and has invested all her frustrated emotional life in him. For she had also been in love with John Gabriel, but because her twin sister Gunhild stole his love from her, Ella is determined to steal the young man's love from his real mother. And as Ella has the money (she alone escaped ruin during the financial crash of Borkman’s bank), she’s in a winning position. The melodramatic plot thickens when Ella, terminally ill, comes back to her old home to die, demanding that Erhart must take her name home and inherit her considerable wealth. The question, then, is whether the old people, frozen in their thwarted expectations, can keep the next generation similarly entombed in the chilly north, or whether the gormless young man will have the courage to break away and flee to the sunny south, for the great escape into warmth and love. He’s encouraged to do this by two young women, the rich and oversexed Fanny (Helen Christinson) and the aforesaid Frida, lured both by her admiration of Fanny and her own desire to escape from her pathetic failure of a father. Steven Grives in this small part almost steals the show, his abject acceptance of a life of total humiliation contrasting with his irritating good nature as he seeks out and tries to help Borkman. His passive acceptance of his daughter’s flight, even when he is run over by the carriage in which the three young people are escaping, is one of the best scenes I’ve seen for a long time. May-Brit Akerholt’s translation is almost perfect in the way that it draws attention away from itself and lets the text do the talking. There’s barely a false note here, and as she had the advantage of working with the actors, any infelicities could be ironed out during rehearsals, so that the text remains fluid and accessible in a way that many translations never achieve. On the whole, Michael Gow’s production captures every nuance of the caged frustration of all Ibsen’s characters, and he’s helped by Jonathon Oxlade’s clever set, which uses the daunting width of the stage in the Bille Brown theatre to enhance rather than distract from the action, as it has a tendency to do. As Borkman paces up and down his upstairs prison like a caged animal, the snow falls relentlessly outside the house, and this restless movement contrasts with the icy stillness of his wife Gunhild, a role to which Penny Everingham gives her formidable best. Her bitter anger is always there, but it simmers rather than explodes, and only her endless knitting suggests her inner turmoil, which has its own rhythms. Her estranged twin sister Ella, by contrast, is edgy in a more neurotic way, and in Judi Farr’s very impressive interpretation of the role is shown to be as selfish as any of the others, and as much in search of revenge, albeit with a more genuine reason, which softens her hard edges. And Robert Coleman – well, what can one say? One would think the role was written specifically for him, so much does he make it his own. The tiger is tamed but not pacified, and he has learned nothing from his crime and punishment except resentment and an ever deeper hatred of a world that he thinks neither understands nor deserves him. His megalomania remains intact, so his inevitable death is neither heroic nor tragic, like Lear’s, but fitting. There are aspects of the production, though, that are puzzling, and detract from the power of the whole. One is the costume design, which is not so much universal as irritating. We’re in Norway in the 1890s, in the depths of winter, and while Ella appear rugged up in deep furs and a taffeta dress from the late 1940s (but too short to be authentic), the temptress Fanny appears first as a '30s vamp and then in a short strapless shimmering sheath. There’s no continuity here at all, and the appearance of Georgia Harrison doubling as the maid Malena in dowdy 21st century trackies is another anomaly. And why do some of the women wear seamless stockings and some with seams? Once seamless stockings became fashionable in the late 1950s, the seamed variety were worn only by old women – it’s just recently that they have come back as a fashion statement. And why, while I’m being picky, does Gunhild keep all her knitting wool (in very modern pre-rolled balls rather than the skeins of the period) piled up under her chair rather than in a basket? It may look good as a design device, but it’s not how things were done, whatever the period. The costuming, as appealing as it is, is all over the shop and detracts from the play’s integrity, and this disjunction is also apparent in the characterisation of the younger members of the cast. No maid would have dared to speak to her mistress as Malena speaks to Gunhild – she acts as if she were in a cheap soapie like Home and Away, and uses the intonations of a sulky modern teenager. Daniel White shows no spark at all, being as passive and malleable in Fanny’s hands as he presumably was in his mother’s and aunt’s, while Helen Christinson seems to think she’s still in a Noel Coward play. I really can’t understand why Michael Gow let this happen, when the four older actors have grasped Ibsen’s emotional idiom so convincingly. If it’s meant to emphasise the universality of the theme it doesn’t work, and I think does a disservice to the play’s integrity. But luckily it’s the four adults who make the play work, and for them alone the flaws in the production can be forgive. Gow knows who he’s working with here, and this is as good a four-handed ensemble as you could wish to see. They understand the text and live it out with utter conviction, and it’s their performances which emphasise the truth that this play tells, that obsession is no defence for ruthless selfishness, and that no person can possess another’s soul. Directed by Michael Gow Translated by May-Brit Akerholt Designer Jonathon Oxlade Playing until Saturday 21 April 2007; Monday 6.30pm, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, matinees Wednesday 1pm, Saturday 2pm Duration : 2 hours 10 minutes, with one 20-minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 29th March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks Queensland Theatre Company, in association with the Ensemble Theatre, Sydney (QPAC Playhouse) By Richard Alfieri Professional production With a show and a cast like this you can’t lose, and that QTC has a ready-made hit on its hand was apparent from the moment Nancye Hayes steeped onto the stage to rapturous applause. A few minutes later Todd McKenney got the same reception, and then everyone settled back confident that they were in for a Nice Night’s Entertainment, which is exactly what they got. In the hands of lesser performers and a bitchier director this could have been a different play altogether – a fag-hag send-up, for example, or a satirical look at rich old women. For the set, the situation, the plot and the characters are entirely predictable, from the rich lonely older woman to the sad gay failure who now earns his living by giving dance lessons to the LOW brigade. When I say that everything is predictable, I include the set of the perfect beach-front Florida retirement unit, the LOW’s many different outfits, and the revelations made in what little there is of the plot, but that’s not a criticism. The show is simple good fun, with a few heartstrings tugged along the way, a few confessions of failure and self-doubt, and a cosy but not-too-optimistic resolution. It’s as true to this kind of life style as you could ask, right down to the slightly dated cane furniture. (But surely a widow as rich as this would have had antique furniture, even if it was fake. And while I’m on glitches, how did the LOW’s dead husband make all that money if he was a Baptist minister? Is there a sub-text here about the Jerry Falwell syndrome?) Don’t you worry about that. You’re not here to tax your brain or to deconstruct what is a perfectly written Women’s Weekly script. You’re here to admire pure professionalism, for a demonstration of how things can and ought to be done, from Nancye Hayes’s subtly bandy old-lady walk to Todd McKenney’s beautifully-modulated gay man too afraid to come out in the Deep South. Even if you just go for the dancing and the clothes, you’ll get real value for money. These two dance beautifully together and, for those who remember the foxtrot, the tango and the Viennese waltz (and are generous enough to forgive the basic spelling mistake in the program notes), it’s an exercise in pure nostalgia. And for those who are too young to have known those popular dance forms, it’s an indication of what they’ve missed out on, and will, with any luck, lead to a retro revival. Cha-cha-cha, anyone? There’s nothing much else to say about Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, except that it’s a perfect show for what it is. It’s not to my personal taste, but I enjoyed it in spite of myself, as I think anybody would who went with an open mind and an ability to switch off the Deep-and-Meaningfuls for a couple of hours. So I recommend it highly, and not just to the LOW brigade – although I bet the matinee crowd will think it’s the best thing since sliced bread – or should that be frozen daiquiri packs? Directed by Sandra Bates Playing until Saturday 31 March 2007 Duration : 2 hours, with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 15th March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Mack Kooemba Jdarra (Judith Wright Centre) By Sam Watson Professional production It’s the set that gets you in first – naturalistic but deeply symbolic, with a huge bunya pine in the background, out of which flows a creek that gradually transforms into the tail and body of a sand goanna, the big sculpture that sits at the corner of Boundary and Russell Streets in West End. The next blow-your-mind effect is the lighting, when we meet four Murri people deep in the bunya forest, in what is for them forbidden territory. The spiritual power of the land, as manifested by the spirit figure Moogi Man, is intensified by the subtle shadows and the bursts of red lightning; while the soundscape of clap-sticks, didgeridoo and the raucous cries of the kookaburra, drowning out the softer birdsong, adds to the as-yet-unidentified terror. The Mack, Sam Watson (senior)’s first play, takes Kooemba Jdarra into new territory, for although there are still the inevitable glimpses of police harassment against the Musgrave Park mob, the real issue is the need for urban Murris to discover their own links with the land, the ancient mysteries which have been lost through one or two generations of city living. So Bullocky Mack (George Bostock) and his wife Nana Mack (Rhonda Purcell), who have been the tribal elders in West End for many years, realise that it is time for them to go back north to country, and leave their wheelchair-bound son Peacy (Sam Conway) in town to become leader of the clan, The Mack, and take his problem nephew Corowa in hand. There are the usual Musgrave Park troubles, of drunkenness and drug addiction, lawlessness and even homelessness, and the white police, however they seem to try, eventually revert to stereotype and do the thug thing. (And here I must mention that I saw the play on opening night, when Sven Swenson, playing Sergeant Mick Davies, seemed a little under par, and had to retire from the show on the third night because he was suffering from a serious ear infection which affected his balance. His place has now been taken, at one day’s notice, by Chris Baz, whom I haven’t seen.) Watson captures very well the ambiguous relationship between the Murri mob and the white police, the attempts at rapport on both sides which try to overcome the initial barriers of race and mistrust. Sergeant Mick Davies is written as one of those jovial local policemen who have established an understanding with some of the good-fella Murris, but who have no real understanding of or patience with the rascals like rootless young Corowa (Stephen Geronimos). And although he tries to sympathise with Corowa’s sad drug-affected mother Birdie (doubling with her role as Nana Mack), when push comes to shove his official persona takes over from his human one, and he can be as rough as any other cop. I liked the construction of this play very much, with its discontinuous narrative and its shifts from town to country. For whitefellas like me, it explained in an accessible way the deeper spiritual meaning of blackfella business, and the importance of not transgressing sacred customs or trespassing on sacred land. The idea that urban Murris have much to learn about their own culture was especially powerful, and the use of the Moogi Man (Simon Hapea) as the Death Bird, with the lighting and music intensifying the threatening nature of the landscape, sent shivers down many spines. My main concern was with the director’s decision to play many of the urban scenes as comic-strip farce. In her role as Nana Mack, Rhonda Purcell’s mumblings and lolling tongue business detracted from her importance as an elder, and she appeared at times as if she’d just been let out of the loony bin. Similarly Simon Hapea, who was incredibly effective as the spooky Moogi Man, over-played his other role as the urban fall guy Goori in the West End scenes and, especially in the court scenes, was a disruptive influence on the intensity of the legal procedure, totally undercutting the seriousness of the moment. His performance here was plain silly. Paula Nazarski puts in solid performances both as the down-to-earth Rone, the only person to whom Peacy Mack can turn, and doubles quietly but effectively in her other roles as Big Bertha and the doctor. But it’s Sam Conway, playing Peacy Mack, who holds the play together, just as he tries to hold his mob together in West End. His role and character are very like those of Porgy in Porgy and Bess, the crippled hero whose resilience is severely tested but whose character and perseverance demonstrate his right to become the next tribal elder of the Mack clan. Conway’s performance is firm and convincing, and he carries one of the basic messages of the play, that although things can fall apart, a leader who is firm in his own cultural heritage can bring his people together. It’s in people like Peacy Mack that the successful future lies, and Conway is an actor worthy of the role. This is story-telling of the highest order. Directed by Ian Brown Designer Tanya Beer Playing until Saturday 31 March, Tuesday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Saturday matinees 17, 24, 31 march at 2pm. Duration : 80 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 14th March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Children of Eden Harvest Rain Theatre Group Book by John Caird, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz Pro-am production In the red corner, God, Adam and Noah. And in the blue corner Eve, Cain and Japheth (although it should really be Ham). Who are the heroes and who the villains in this little line-up? Conventional believers will say it’s the former trio who are the heroes, but more liberated readers of the bible, and those with a modern ethos, will realise that the winner’s belt should go to the other three, the rebels and the thinkers. For who would want (or could worship) fathers like these? They’re all dogmatic, capricious and unforgiving; they make rules for the sake of it and allow no questioning; they can’t see past their own power or accept any reaction except humble obeisance. “Don’t touch this tree,” says God, without giving any reason except that to do so will bring death. It’s the worst thing a father can do to a child – to make a prohibition even more tempting by drawing attention to it, and then demanding that the transgressors make impossible choices when they are being punished. He wants to keep his children submissive, innocent and, above all, ignorant, for the forbidden fruit is from the Tree of Knowledge. This is where biblical purists like me get very annoyed, because in Genesis it’s the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that’s out of bounds, not knowledge in general. But why let accuracy get in the way of a good story? And while I’m on the subject, why does writer John Caird put another, equally different gloss on the story of Cain and Abel? He makes us think that the milksop Abel, who gets the chop from his feisty brother Cain, brings nice gentle offerings to God like fruit and veg, whereas in the real Genesis story it’s Cain who is the agriculturalist, and Abel the hunter, whose burnt offerings this bloodthirsty God prefers to Cain’s vegetarian diet. Why can’t people who write musicals based on the bible at least get the facts right? And why, while I’m in this mood, does Caird make Noah’s son Japheth the rebel and sends him south, whereas biblically it’s really Ham who gets the rough end of the stick? No wonder people are confused, if they’re being fed these kinds of self-serving misreadings. But never mind the theology, look at the show. It’s loud, brash and boisterous, the kind of thing that Harvest Rain does so well, and Josh Mcintosh’s designs are a delight, from the colour-co-ordinated sons of Noah to the enchanting animal heads as the creatures go into the ark (I especially liked the aardvarks). But kids will still not be able to find out whether Adam and Eve have belly buttons, which was the great theological question of my childhood, for the tough feminist Eve and her wimpy daddy-obsessed brother/friend/husband (it’s a little coy here about whether they actually have sex in the Garden of Eden) are clad in painted floaty bodysuits which reveal nothing, not even Penny Farrow’s pregnancy. “Will she make it to the end of the five-week run?” is the question on everyone’s lips. As usual, it’s a strong cast. Jack Bradford makes an irritating but effective God, in fine voice and changing moods as easily as a manic depressive; Penny Farrow as Eve made the feminists in the audience cheer (even though I was probably the only one) when she defied him and stood up to Adam-the-Wimp, played and sung to perfection by Michael Balk. Grant Couchman again excelled as Noah, so solid and irritating that I wanted to kick his staff away and teach him a lesson in basic human-kindness; but for me the pick of them all was the spunky Luke Kennedy doubling as heroes Cain and Japheth. He has a voice, a personality and an enormous stage presence, and is perfectly cast as a hero. Stephen Schwartz is probably best known for his 1971 smash hit Godspell, and although Children of Eden was composed 20 years later, it still has a very seventies feel to it – or is it just the production? Lots of mass singers on stage flashing eyes and teeth like graduates fresh from dancing school; lots of coloured lights and wafting cloaks in rainbow colours (but why no rainbow at the end of the Flood?); lots of thrilling chorus work and, interspersed with all this colour and movement, three stories from Genesis – the Creation and Fall, the Cain and Abel story, and Noah and the flood that wiped out all the population except eight human beings and a breeding pair of each animal, bird and insect. (We presume the fish didn’t need rescuing.) God, Adam and Noah are all very bad fathers, irrational bully-boys at best, but by the end of the show it’s only Adam and Noah who see the error of their ways. God, who caused the horrible stuff-up in the beginning, never has to apologise or even explain, but goes about being sad and wussy because he’s all lonely, for even though he invented Man (no gender-free vocabulary here) to worship him, the beastly creature won’t even do this. Oh, grow up, God! Have you ever seen a genuine family? Whereas Eve is the one with guts, who is impatient to go Beyond, to break through the barriers, to find out things for herself rather than being passively submissive at the feet of her father and husband. Go, Eve, you good thing! Her son Cain has inherited her feistiness, and although he kills his soppy younger brother Abel, and is condemned (with all his progeny) to carry the mark of sin on his brow, tastefully rendered here by a red headband, he’s the one who attracts our admiration because he has the courage to stand up for what he believes and take his punishment like a hero. And in the third story, Noah’s son Japheth breaks through the class and race barriers to insist on bringing on board his girlfriend, a daughter of Cain and a humble maidservant, because he lervs her. How lovely, especially when it all works out in the end, and they end up as three different tribes with the implication that they’ll all live in peace and harmony for ever. Dream on! Perhaps there should be a sequel featuring the Tower of Babel and Joseph and his brethren and the exile in Egypt to show it like it really is. But, as in all good musicals, the ending echoes Pangloss’s philosophy in Candide, that all’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and there’s a new baby called Eve to carry on the human race (cute, eh, but where’s her husband going to come from if her parents journey to the west?), and everyone is forgiven and all are going to live happily ever after until they die. Except God, that is, who in this musical is totally beyond redemption as far as I’m concerned. Directed by Tim O’Connor Designer Josh Macintosh Playing until 31 March 2007, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, Saturday matinee 2pm Duration : 2 hours 45 minutes, with one interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 2nd March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Narcissist La Boite (Roundhouse Theatre) By Stephen Carleton Professional production It’s all about him, one of those smug upwardly-mobile types you see in the inner suburbs these days, who live in flash flats with no kitchen but a very elaborate drinks cabinet and bar fridge. I don’t know if SINK (single income no kids) is a recognised acronym anymore, but it’s entirely appropriate for Xavier, who really is the pits. And if you say his name very quickly after a few drinks you’ll work out who he really thinks he is. As played by Sandro Colarelli, he is a totally obnoxious gay man (and that shouldn’t be taken as a tautology) with shifting allegiances and no loyalty to anyone except himself. Xavier’s only redeeming feature is that he knows this and doesn’t care about it – if he added hypocrisy to the slimy mess that he is, the only thing worth doing to him would be to flush him straight down the gurgler. He flats with another guy called Satchel, a charming illiterate who is played by Jonathan Brand like a grown-up Calvin from the popular comic strip. Or maybe it’s just the hair. Satchel has won the Most Eligible Barista in Brisbane for three years in a row, and his burning ambition is to be selected as a contestant on Big Brother. His current crisis, though, is about which persona he should use – but he has to invent one first. He’s straight (I think), so he and Xavier are not lovers, which makes their later tongue kiss (don’t ask) very funny, and Xavier has a fag-hag friend (that’s if people like Xavier actually have friends) called Bronwyn who, in Andrea Moore’s rendition, is ever so slightly sexually ambiguous. But she wears the most wonderful clothes. (Greg Clarke, do you take private commissions?) Enter Xavier’s pathetic ex-lover (Scott Parmeter as Jesse) who has found God and is seeking to redeem himself by marrying a born-again Christian neurotic. Jesse brings the appalling Y’landah (“pronounce it as it’s spelt, please!”) into the mix, and with her tendency to projectile-vomit if anyone mentions anal sex, and to scream like a banshee whenever the word brown is mentioned, and exhibit every bitchy trick that a smug Christian control freak with a bible in her pocket can get away with, the quintet becomes what can most kindly be described as a nest of vipers, except that nobody’s getting into anyone’s bosom. The odd gay tongue kiss, as above, yes, but nothing more than that. And forget all about anal sex. The challenge that desperate and dateless Xavier and Bronwyn have set each other is to land a guy before New Year’s Eve, six weeks away, and there’s a carton of Moet plus a week at Port Douglas at stake. But Jesse wants Xavier to be best man at his wedding, booked for exactly the same time, and so our narcissist has a problem on his hands. And that's the basis of the plot, as far as it goes. The big question is, how are we to read it? The playwright suggests in the program notes that this a farce, but I don’t think it’s slick enough or witty enough to justify such a claim. The dialogue and the jokes, and even the situation, I suggest, are curiously old-fashioned, and my problem was, and still is, whether to damn it as a 1980s “Greed is Good” throwback, or applaud it as post-post modern comic strip art, a genre which is becoming increasingly trendy, if the Arts pages in The Australian are to be believed. There’s certainly nothing subtle about it, and the characters are all caricatured to the point of tedium as they spout their dated jokes, but the Generation Xs and Ys in the first night audience thought it was hysterically funny. I honestly don’t know whether their expectations have been lowered by watching too much Virtual Reality on television (they certainly didn’t get the running joke about grammatical correctness) or whether I’m so old and jaded that I’ve lost my sense of humour, but I couldn’t find much to laugh at in this production, and neither could my Baby Boomer friends. Greg Clarke’s clever set cleverly conveys the two-dimensional aspect of the play, with lots of red and black echoing the theme on even deeper levels, and the '80s disco music also contributes to the old-fashioned feel, for surely the '80s haven’t become retro yet. Please? (I’m only asking as a Boring Old Fart, you understand.) My real worry, though, is about the direction in which La Boite is heading. Whether it’s part of a desperate attempt to attract younger audiences I don’t know, but both last year and this year most of the productions have been coming-of-age-in-Brisbane sagas, mostly adaptations of very flimsy local novels. What about expanding people’s horizons? What about suggesting that there’s a big world of situations and ideas out there just waiting to be explored? What about giving talented experienced actors like these something worthwhile to do? What about some plays for grown-ups? And at this point I shall put on my fluffy slippers and settle down with a cup of hot cocoa in front of a DVD (yes, at least I’ve reached that stage of modernity) and watch Brideshead Revisited for some gay comedy that gives me something worth thinking about. Directed by Ian Lawson Designer Greg Clarke Playing 1 – 17 March 2007, Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.30pm, Thursday – Saturday at 8pm, matinees Tuesdays 6 and 13 March at 11am, Saturday 17 March at 2pm Duration : 2 hours 45 minutes, one interval at 9pm —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 1st March 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Con's Spire XYZ Theatre CON’S SPIRE Written by Errol Bray Judith Wright Centre The emerge Project for Switchboard Arts (NB sub: emerge has no initial cap) Amateur production Errol Bray is a very talented writer – witty, well-read, and with an assured control of his material. His latest play, Con’s Spire, shows off all his verbal and theatrical tricks to perfection – or would, if we could understand what the actors are saying. That’s one problem, I suppose, when playwrights direct their own work, that they aren’t able to step back far enough to see what’s going wrong. For although the show promised “slow singing and fast speaking”, when a concept gets out of hand it can lead the audience mystified. The parts that I did get were very clever indeed, but the pace at which the soliloquies (if I may use an old-fashioned term for a post-modern technique) were delivered left me unsatisfied and frustrated. And I don’t think this was intentional, for I’ve read the program notes explaining the difficulty of getting the mile-a-minute speeches in sync with the physical movement and, with the best will in the world, I can’t say that they’ve achieved it. This is a great pity, because it’s a work with enormous potential. The punning title, Con’s Spire, allows for verbal word plays about inspire and expire as well, and the play’s central thesis, that live-and-let-live is a concept not understood by the upwardly mobile, is worked out beautifully. Poor sad amiable Con (David Rendall), whose dream to build a huge spire in his backyard is of course doomed to failure, has to contend not only with his gender-confused daughter (Jessamy Ross is a young actor with great stage presence), but with the neighbours from hell, Del and Mike (Nick Dale and Ingrid White seem more intent on their body image than the credibility of their characters). These pushy neighbours come over to complain that Con’s welding machine is spoiling their sybaritic lifestyle, and the usual neighbourhood fight takes on a nasty note, stretching our credulity to the utmost. What finally happens you don’t really need to know, but be assured that all’s not for the best in this best of all possible worlds. I liked Jazz Miling’s pared-back set, especially the sparks from the welding machine; I was very impressed by the a capella singing; and some of the physical movement (thanks to Ben Cornfoot) was most impressive. And credit must also go to the actors who had their fiendishly rapid speeches (think Gilbert and Sullivan’s patter songs) off pat, and barely missed a beat. What this play needs is more work – a savage dramaturg, more accomplished actors, and a more objective director. As a finished product it’s nowhere near ready, but as a work in progress it’s quite impressive. Directed by Errol Bray Designer Jaz Muhling Played 27 February – 1 March 2007 Duration : 75 minutes, no interval - Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 27 February 2007) ENDS —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Don Quixote Australian Ballet (Lyric Theatre) Professional production The Australian Ballet’s production of Don Quixote is a triumph of beauty and idealism. In a world weary with cynicism, the power of the crazy old idealist wins out! Don Quixote is a figure of fun - a silly, ageing man with delusions of grandeur as a knight errant. Yet in the course of this dance of the mind he somehow helps the cause of young love to prevail against a rich nobleman’s scheming and a father’s determination to force an arranged but profitable marriage for his daughter. The legendary Rudolf Nureyev produced and choreographed this piece for the Australian Ballet back in 1970, when he danced the role of the young lover Basilio, and in 1972, he and Sir Robert Helpmann made their acclaimed film version of the ballet in Melbourne’s Essendon Airport hangar over 25 days in 40-degree heat. This helped to establish the Australian Ballet’s reputation among the Olympian heights of the world’s great dance companies - more than a decade before Nureyev went to become the artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet. The romantic splendour of old Spain is a colourful backdrop for this ageless story conceived by Miguel de Cervantes four centuries ago. Lucinda Dunn is outstanding in the role of Kitri, the innkeeper’s daughter. While her father Lorenzo wishes to marry her off to Gamache, a rich nobleman and dead-set fop, she wants to marry her beloved Basilo, a young barber danced courageously by Robert Curran. Rudolph Nureyev is a hard act to follow but Curran acquits himself well in this study of youthful ardour. Lucinda Dunn dances exquisitely and with utter confidence. Her beauty enthrals Quixote (danced by Joseph Janusaitis) who sees her as his Dulcinea whom he vows to protect. Mind you, this Dulcinea does not look as if she needs a lot of protection, and the strength of her character was reflected in the artfulness of her dance. There’s nothing like a few Spanish bullfighters to allow for lavishness in costumes, right down to the hair-nets on the matadors. Against a set full of the sky and sea of a port city, the crazy old Don is catapulted into the struggle of young love against a would-be arranged marriage. The corps de ballet take the audience through a tour of Iberian richness, as they become in turn townspeople, matadors, gypsies and Dryads. There is a vibrancy and passion for life coming through the story as it unfolds in dance. In Act 2, the would-be knight errant Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza (Mark Kaye) find shelter under a windmill but are captured by a troop of gypsy players. Don Quixote is distracted by the windmills which he mistakes for monsters. He attacks them, thereby ensuring that “tilting at windmills” is forever the sport of noble idealists. Artistic director David McAllister is to be commended for keeping the traditions of the Australian Ballet while commissioning new, original works. It is terrific that he was able to secure the services of Lucette Aldous (who danced Kitri with Nureyev back in the '70s) to share her knowledge of this magnificent ballet with current members of the company. Brisbane audiences love to see the Australian Ballet (unlike the Sydney-focussed Opera Australia which never comes here). The Australian Ballet chair David Crawford and his board are to be applauded for maintaining the touring traditions of this great Australian cultural institution. Why does Cervantes’ tale echo so strongly through the generations? The tragic image of a crazy old man is dominated by King Lear; but the comic image of the Don ennobles the madness of idealism. Our world could do with more such crazy old men. If you believe in an ordered world where windmills will never replace coalmines, this is not the ballet for you. If, however, you entertain the lunatic notion that idealism can allow love to triumph in a wicked world, then this ballet will enable you to glimpse a dazzling truth only a pas de deux away. Choreography by Rudolph Nureyev after Marius Petipa Music by Ludwig (Leon) Minkus arranged by John Lanchberry Concertmaster Warwick Adeney and the Queensland Orchestra Concertmaster Until 27 February 2007 at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC, then 16 to 27 March 2007 (Melbourne) and 5 to 26 April 2007 (Sydney) Duration: 2.5 hours with two intervals (20 minutes and 15 minutes) —
Matt Foley (Performance seen: 24th February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Dags and Divas X-Collective with Sirens of Song (Brisbane ABC Studios, West End) Professional production Cast: Leisa Barry-Smith, Craig Allister Young, Jacqueline Mabardi, Shelli Hulcombe, Hugh Ponnuthurai Timed for Mardi Gras, X-Collective’s edgy Cinderella revamp, is a mix of frocked-up cabaret, classics and comedy, designed to resonate and hit high notes with the Brisbane and Sydney scenes. The 13-piece cabaret ensemble, largely derived from members of The Queensland Orchestra, blurs the line between classical music and the cabaret stage. Programs stir a mix of jazz, Broadway musicals, techno and camp-comedy with popular classics, including Carmen, the Ponte Vecchio aria from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and lesser-known excerpts from Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella. The versatile musicians (string quartet, single woodwind and brass, percussion and piano) double electric bass, flugel horn, cor anglais, piccolo and bagpipes, and relish their additional roles as actors, singers, dancers and comedians. Given this production’s collaboration with Sirens of Song, there’s less scope for all musos to score a comedy or vocal spot, though flautist Karen Lonsdale projects a well-trained soprano. Violinist Gail Aitken embraces her anti-heroine character parts with gusto, adding to her duelling violins with Brynley White and dubious bagpipe solo a running gag as a leper. Yesterday becomes Leprosy (“I’m not half the gal I used to be”) and later there’s “You’ve gotta use what you’ve got to get what you want before what you’ve got falls off.” The classic fairy tale has been vamped and revamped for centuries, so what’s new with this Cinderella for the 21st century production? Cinders gets the cutting-edge treatment in this collaboration with Sirens of Song, a group of professionally trained and experienced comic opera singers formed in 2004 by the show’s producer, Tarita Carbo. Jacqueline Mabardi and Shelli Hulcombe play the Ugly Sisters in full operatic diva mode. Their glitter contrasts with the opening scene’s ultimate orchestral “dags” in loud floral shirts, socks and sandals, and a red leather jacket. Oboist Bernard Girard’s thin legs in short shorts is an unforgettable sight. With his rubber lips, fairground coconut-shy toothy grin and mobile tongue action, vocalist/bassoonist Hugh Ponnuthurai is always a show-stealer. He’s been deputising in Orchestra Victoria as Principal Contrabassoonist so the lack of rehearsal shows in some script cribbing and lack of vocal confidence, but once he hits his stride his comic range has flashes of Peter Sellers’ sheer manic genius. His Bollywood-style cross-dressing Fairy Godfather is a highlight of the evening. As the gay director with control issues, Craig Allister Young projects a secure rich voice and assured over-acting. A running gag sees his hissy fits muffled in the Ugly Sisters’ pneumatic bosoms. Leisa Barry-Smith injects super-dag into her chrysalis of wardrobe dogsbody who stutters when nervous or when she’s around the Ugly Sisters. Her song “I feel p-p-pretty” is surely more witty and gay than Leonard Bernstein ever envisaged and the accompanying musicians mostly catch her disjointed rhythm. She further rises to a challenge to play Cinderella as an alcoholic crack-whore with Tourette’s syndrome and a limp. Her soaring voice creates a true metamorphic miracle in her final bouffant butterfly scenes. Gags fly about botox, collagen, silicone, wax and haemorrhoid cream (to defy crows feet), while suitably camped up gowns are by award-winning designer Richard de Chazal and Leivi Jones. Choreography is generally tight, the cast move well, and singers and instrumentalists project with fluent professionalism. Apart from a rather untidy anti-climactic end to the first act (a sense of “Hey, it’s time for an interval, how do we get off stage without a curtain?”), the show’s energy maintains high voltage, and the cast have another week to fine-tune minor glitches before their Sydney performances on February 25. A rousing finale “I am what I am … need no excuses” proves a heartfelt mantra to send the home crowd Brisbane audience out on a high. X-Collective’s fast-paced performance, full of energy, groan-out-loud puns, sheer professionalism and talent make it quite clear that they’re having as much of a ball as the audience is. Directed by Leisa Barry-Smith Performances: Brisbane: Sunday 18 February 6pm Sydney: Sunday 25 February - 3.00pm & 7.00pm at the Downstairs Theatre, Seymour Centre. Duration: Two hours and 15 minutes, 20 minute interval —
Ruth Bonetti (Performance seen: 18th February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Private Fears in Public Places Queensland Theatre Company (Cremorne Theatre, QPAC) Written by Alan Ayckbourn Professional production What a wonderful way to begin the theatrical year! Six of Brisbane’s finest actors (make that nine if you include the off-stage voices) in a recent play from Alan Ayckbourn that shows there are new tricks in the old dog yet, with a wickedly witty production from Michael Gow. I left the theatre glowing with enthusiasm, and so did the second-night audience. I like going to second nights, because they’re a real test of a production. The hype of opening night is over, the actors’ adrenaline may not be as strong, and the audience is not the invited list of the usual freeloading suspects (I admit I’m usually one of them), but real people who have paid real money for their seats. They’re not necessarily going to be swept along by the hype, but want to get their money’s worth, and they certainly got it on Friday night. One has the right to be a little suspicious of a stage play that contains 54 scenes in 110 minutes playing time. Surely it will be too jerky, too difficult for an audience to catch the resonances and interconnexions and, worst of all, there is always the suspicion that it has actually been written with the silver screen in mind, a trap that a couple of Australia’s playwrights have fallen into in the last few years. No, we feel, this is going to be too slick, too facile, and just too hard. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The play is a stunner, and the only times in its furious intensity when I got lost were when the various locations in the set (six of them on a staircase cleverly sketching out in visual shorthand the cultural backgrounds of the characters) became multi-functional, so that somehow characters became trapped in the wrong table/drawing room/office. This may have been a post-modern way of suggesting that we are all the same under the skin, but if it was, it was far too subtle for a play with such a firm insistence on social hierarchies. The six characters are not so much in search of an author as solutions to their sad lives, for they are all losers in their own way. The brittle Nicola and dishonourably-discharged soldier Dan (Sarah Kennedy and Paul Bishop) are unhappily engaged and looking for a new flat; emotionally awkward real-estate salesman Stewart and his desperate and dateless sister Imogen (Bryan Probets and Louise Brehmer) keep their real needs and behaviour hidden from each other; Ambrose (Chris Betts) divides his time between tending the bar in a posh hotel and at home catering to the impossible demands of his horrible bed-ridden father (voiced by Bob Newman); while pious Christian Charlotte (Helen Howard) alternates between doing marshmallowy good and living a private life that literally shocks the pants off – well, let’s leave it there. Let’s just say that the videotape (Barbara Lowing and Daniel Poole do brilliant multi-voicing here) that she lends poor simple Stewart starts something that triggers emotions and consequences that are never resolved. That’s one of the cleverest things about the play, that although it seems to be such a set-piece that you can see all the twists of the plot coming fifteen minutes in advance, the big surprise is the ending which, rather than typing up the strings neatly, leaves these people as the losers they always have been and will be, who have learned nothing from their convoluted adventures. The cast is so good that it would be impossible to praise them individually, for this is one of the best pieces of ensemble playing that I’ve seen in Brisbane for a long time. It’s not just the writing that encourages this, but the tight-knit team that the six actors have developed into, and it shows Michael Gow’s mastery as a director. So rather than single each one out, I’d like to mention some of the scenes that I found particularly impressive, which will also give you a flavour of the play. Middle-class house-hunters (and long-suffering real estate agents) will recognise immediately the uneasy balance between real estate lies and impossible customer demands, and both Sarah Kennedy and Bryan Probets bring these clichés to squirming life. We’ve all seen the single woman in the frumpy frock (if I were Louise Brehmer I’d never forgive Bruce McGiven for that design) sitting impatiently at the café table waiting for the blind date who doesn’t show; and Helen Howard’s transformation from the drab bible-bashing Charlotte into something completely different is no less funny for being so predictable. The middle-aged man sitting next to me was practically wetting his pants. For me, probably the funniest scene was Bryan Probets (the hapless real-estate salesman) watching what he and we know is an excruciatingly dull religious program about Songs that Changed my Life (think Songs of Praise on the ABC, but 15 times more sentimental), which suddenly morphs into its polar opposite. The effect this has on him as he eats his TV supper has to be seen to be believed. The domestic trials of bar-tender Ambrose made me weep, while Paul Bishop self-deluding himself into an importance he neither has nor deserves caught this flashy type to exquisite perfection. There’s a undercurrent of pain running through the script, for these six people are some of life’s tragics, and there’s been some criticism that the play and this production make light of them. But I think that adds a bitter edge to the humour, because we’re all losers, after all, and if you can’t laugh at life’s minor tragedies, what’s it all abart then, Alfie? There are enough resonances with real life to bring home the sub-text powerfully, if that’s what you want. Otherwise, just sit back and laugh at some excoriating social comedy in as fine a production as you’re likely to see. Directed by Michael Gow Designer Bruce McKinven Playing until 17 March 2007: Monday & Tuesday 6.30pm, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, matinees Wednesday 1pm, Sunday 2pm Duration : 1 hour 50 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 16th February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Cats Ignatians Musical Society (Schonell Theatre) From T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber Amateur production I can’t understand why Hollywood didn’t snap up Simone de Haas years ago. Director, costume designer, choreographer and producer, she brings her many talents to the stages of Brisbane with a professional flair that makes everything she does appear easy. But it’s not easy, of course. Her Mixed Company productions were always done on a shoestring budget, yet managed to look totally professional, and when she was approached by the Ignatians Musical Society to direct Cats, apparently her jaw dropped when she heard how little money she had to play with to get this elaborate and demanding musical on stage. Not for her the lavish budget and the transformation of a commercial theatre into an in-the-round rubbish heap, as happened in the original London production. She and designer Scott Bagnell had to make do with cardboard and papier-mache, and leotards for the Jellicle costumes, but with the addition of face-painting skills to match those on display at the Riverside Markets, wigs-a-million teased into bouffants that must have cost half the budget in hair gel and spray, some timely swipes of colour on the leotards and judicious use of foam rubber for paws, they have conjured up another minor miracle, and I defy anyone to find defects in the design. Cats is one of the world’s favourite musicals, but the rights have only just been released to non-professional companies in Australia. Whether by accident or design, Harvest Rain have also secured the rights, so those who can’t get enough of these ferocious fidgety felines will have another chance to see them in August. But that’s no reason to miss this production, which brings laughter, amazement and tears in copious quantities, and where you can actually distinguish every word of St Tom Eliot’s immaculate but difficult text. That again is no easy achievement, but everyone, from the distinctive soloists like Grizabella (Alice Barbery) and the over-sexed Rum Tum Tugger (Robert Butterworth at his ebullient best) to the humblest member of the chorus line, belts out their numbers with clarity as well as gusto, all the while performing impossible feats of physicality on the crowded stage. All our favourites are there, of course - Skimbleshanks (Craig Anderson living up to his character’s name), Brad Ashwood delightfully pompous as Mr Bustopher Jones in spats, the fast-footing Janet Devlin as a tap-dancing Jennyanydots, and John Smiles as Gus the Theatre Cat. I could mention Dean Prangley (Old Deuteronomy), David Griffiths (Mungojerrie), George Canham (Mr Mistoffelees), Jennifer Ashley and Jessica Havens sharing the roles of Electra and Rumpleteazer, and the off-stage chorus known as The Booth, but if I kept going there’s be no room to mention the big stage numbers such as the almost unbearably cute Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, or Growltiger’s Last Stand, or the iconic Jellicle Ball. In fact, even thinking about it again I go all breathless, so what it must be like for the cast of thousands (well, nineteen of them, actually, but it looked as if there were lots more) after five shows a week for a five-week run I shudder to think. That’s where the venerable Dean Prangley as the equally venerable Old Deuteronomy must render up prayers of thanks for a role where all he has to do is stalk majestically around and sit on an over-stuffed sofa-throne. This is a very good production of a top-rate musical, and even if there’s no real love interest (what do you expect from T.S. Eliot?), and there’s no plot as such, as an all-singing all-dancing riot of colour and movement, you won’t get a better bang for your buck in Brisbane this year. Three cheers for the Ignatians, and an extra cheer-and-a-half for Simone de Haas, without whom this would never have been such a triumph. Directed by Simone de Haas Musical Director Harmony Lentz Choreography Cathy Gunton Designer Scott Bagnell Playing until 17 March 2007 – Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Saturday matinee at 2pm, Sunday 25 February and 11 March at 5pm Duration : 2 hours 15 minutes including interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 9th February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Sideshow Alley Playhouse, QPAC Written by Gary Young Composer and musical director Paul Keelan Professional production Behind every laughing clown is a human tragedy, they say, and travelling sideshows and circuses, especially when presented in film and literature, often have a sinister underbelly. Think of early musicals like Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1945 Carousel with its cast of wasters and petty criminals, and Kern and Hammerstein’s even earlier Showboat of 1928 which, under its sentimental exterior, is a tragedy with shifty villains and a wretched heroine. And in 2003 the seriously spooky Carnivale hit our television screens, sending many of us terrified to bed every Sunday night to dream of the creature of the light and the creature of the darkness. It’s all a long way from the frivolity of the Ekka, and although Young and Keelan’s new Australian musical Sideshow Alley doesn’t have supernatural undertones nor specifically evil characters, it does have its full measure of sadness and despair, for Tiny’s (Michael Bishop) troupe is a refuge for freaks, misfits and escapees from real life, and each one has their own sad secret past. The androgynous Lady Chiang (Darren Natale) is the most inscrutable of them all, and never discards her half-male half-female attire (the Japanese-lady half-wig is a triumph of design), and the only really cheerful member of the troupe is the brilliantly energetic Emma Hawkins, a Little Person (or, as the crew call her, the Tiny Miniscule Marvel) who, both in her role as Dolly Dot the shepherdess and in her good-natured joshing around the fire, provides a genuine note of cheer among a miserable lot of losers. Young seems determined to make this musical as up-to-date by using every possible sexual combination and permutation, from cross-dressers to trannies and even - shades of Brokeback Mountain! – a homosexual encounter between the two tough-as-guts boxers in the troupe (Christopher Parker and Alex Rathgeber have the grace to look a little awkward here). I thought this was overkill, for there are enough alternative characters in the show to satisfy anyone’s need for variety, like Fag Ash Lil the bearded lady, so wonderfully played by Sally-Anne Upton that I had to consult the program to determine whether she was a man or a woman. The script is quite good, making full use of every Australian cliché, although surely a dictionary of Australian slang could have come up with something more original than phrases like “flat out like a lizard drinking” or “she’s off quicker than a bride’s nightie” – if the playwright wants, quite rightly, to give the text modern resonances, then he could have looked at something a little more recent than The Adventures of Barry McKenzie for inspiration, even if the show is set in the 1950s. I really like the concept and, on the whole, the music, although I didn’t come out humming any of the songs, but in spite of the energetic physicality of the cast the show was a little lacking in pace – too many scene changes from short scene to short scene, too many characters wandering enigmatically around, and altogether a casual approach that sometimes lacked real passion. Sometimes in theatre the parts can be greater than the whole, and although I can’t quite put my finger on the reason, this is one of those shows. On paper it gets everything right – plot, cast, music, set and script – but in performance there’s something missing. Maybe it’s a bit too long, maybe the love triangle is given too much focus, maybe the whole thing just needs to be snappier and tighter. It’s a hard one to call, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it just needs to settle in. The Brisbane season is the world premiere, and I’ll be interested to read the southern critics’ reaction when it goes on tour later this month. Directed by Gary Young Designer Richard Jeziorny Playing until Sunday 18 February: matinees at 2pm on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; evening performances Tuesday at 6.30pm, Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm Duration : 2 hours 15 minutes, including interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 3rd February 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Candi Bentar Brisbane Arts Theatre Written by Jill Shearer Amateur production Playwright Jill Shearer is full of surprises. I’d never have picked her as a surfy chick, but in her latest play she gets the surf culture down to a T. (“Sometimes I have to get by with a little help from my friends,” she confessed afterwards.) This uncanny ability to get inside a culture is what makes her an enduring playwright, as well as one of Australia’s best, because she can understand the mind-set of the Great Aussie Loser, the Ugly Tourist, the Angry Terrorist and the Passive Sufferer better than any newspaper journalist or film maker. Time and again, through her twenty plays, she has tackled new themes that are topical but strictly focussed, achieving that difficult task of approaching the universal truth through the individual experience, so that in this instance we see the horrors of the Bali bombing not through the lens of a camera, or even up close, but as the natural culmination of a failure of relationships on a personal as well as an ethnic and religious scale. Tourists go to Bali for many reasons, not all of them for illicit drugs and forbidden sex. They go to ride the waves, get cheap beach massages for a tenth of the price they’d pay at home, work on their suntans, play all day and night and, in some cases, to try to understand rather than exploit the local culture. Kate and Steve (school principal and out-of-work salesman) are there at Kate’s father’s insistence and expense to patch up their failing marriage. Steve (played by Lucas Hickey as if he had come straight from the set of Home and Away), instead of immediately bedding his gorgeous wife Kate (Jacki Mison with perhaps a touch too much of the catwalk about her), goes to the beach to do what Aussie boys do, and falls in with a seemingly gentle Javanese man (Peter Kattach gets this complex character very well) who wants to learn to surf. Caveat Emptor! (Buyer beware!) we immediately think – or do we? Are we as ready to believe in his cross-cultural innocence as Steve is? Is there a sub-text to his friendly demeanour? You have to know something about the difference between Bali and Java to understand this man Ketut, and here Jill Shearer has done her homework well, for it’s only when his retiring Balinese girlfriend Made (a quiet and powerful performance from Indra Ryan here) drops a hint about his background that we begin to understand his flashes of anger, his hot temper and his unwillingness to listen and, of course, the terror he inevitably unleashes. This is a play about irreconcilable differences, and the title itself is a hidden warning, for Candi Bentar is a kind of split gate, of a type found only in Bali. On every level the play subtly uses this metaphor, mostly unspoken and often ironically, and it’s only when we reach the end that we recognise its ultimate truth. For the world ends here with both a bang and and, for the survivors, with a whimper, and there are no happy endings for anyone. Sandra Hines has given this play everything that she and the Arts Theatre have to offer, and it’s far more than just the valiant effort that many of their productions are. More natural cadences and better projection of the voices would have helped the text, I think, which was often drowned by the overwhelming noise of the soundscape, and I wasn’t the only one in the audience to agree with the characters when they told the incessant gamelan music to shut the f… up, but when the sound operator learns to get the balance right, the text will be allowed to speak in its own right. . It’s a good production but, with all due respect to the Arts Theatre, a new Australian play as good as this one, and a playwright as distinguished as Shearer, deserves a professional production, and I can’t think why La Boite, for example, which prides itself on encouraging new Australian drama, let it go. I hope it has a life beyond the amateur stage, but until that time, you won’t be disappointed by this production, and it’s a chance to see an Australian play which is neither formulaic nor blatantly exploits the zeitgeist. Jill Shearer is one of Brisbane’s living treasures, and any of her plays is a treat, but for my money, Candi Bentar is one of her very best. Directed by Sandra Hines Designer Una Hollingworth Playing until 3 February 2007, Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm Duration : 2 hours, with a 20 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 27th January 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine |
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