| Reviews: October-December 2007
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The Nutcracker Queensland Ballet (Lyric Theatre) Choreographed by Francois Klaus Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Professional production Give your family a Christmas treat and take them along to this wonderful journey through the innocence and beauty of childhood dreams! The principal role of Clara is danced magnificently by Rachael Walsh. She transports the audience from the playful mischief of contesting with her brother for a teddy bear into the fairy story dream of the nutcracker, rats and soldiers, while soloist Zachary Chant is in his element as Drosselmeyer, the magician, conductor and theatre director. He opens and closes the show as well as providing an accomplished partner for Rachael Walsh's brilliant tour de force. Walsh continues to show her amazing versatility. Her performance is an epiphany of fluid grace. She also combines with Zachary Chant to give a classic comic performance in the Chinese Dance sequence. The company was in fine form with many delightful performances, including that of soloists, Renee Von Stein (Clara's sister, Sophia), Nathan Scicluna (Sophia's lieutenant suitor) and Clare Morehen in the sensual Arabian Dance. Tchaikovsky's music is as familiar as it is evocative. In the second act, the audience is led through a delightful dream sequence including clowns, Russian Dance and the Waltz of the Flowers. It remains a matter of sad comment that despite the riches of the resources boom, the Commonwealth Government could not find the funds to enable the Queensland Ballet to have a live orchestra. On occasions, the richness of Tchaikovsky's stringed melodies was lost with the limitations of recorded music. Perhaps incoming Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, could put this on his list of things to do! If he cannot change everything after the election perhaps he can start with this. The costumes designed by Noelene Hill were exquisite, particularly in The Land of Snow where the shimmering white costumes took the audience into an ethereal space. David Walters' lighting relieved the mystical white with a touch of pale blue. You could almost forget you were in the midst of a Queensland summer (and don't forget that the Queensland Ballet will perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in March). At a time when Christmas has become so commodified, it is refreshing to experience such a triumph of the wonder of childhood imagination. Playing: 14 – 22 December 2007 Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes (including 20 minute interval) —
Matt Foley (Performance seen: 15th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Ha Ha Ha! Plop! Switchboard Arts in association with JWC (Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts) Pro/Am production If you're wondering what the title is all about, the JWC brochure enlightens you, "Laugh till your head falls off." Hmm. Unfortunately it appears to have nothing to do with what the show is about, except as a desired effect of the production by The Banoon Community Players of their Christmas spectacular called 25/12. So, is irony at work here? Is this the ultimate in post-modern voyeurism? Let's all laugh at the ineptitude of a typical country amateur theatre group in rehearsal. Ho hum! But there's some complexity here. 25/12 is subtitled "A Collage Drama Slash Opera Piece in Three Acts" and is the result of a collaboration with the Banoon Community Players with their professional director Jacques Weiss (Daniel Evans) who came second to Mel Gibson at NIDA and dedicates his direction (noticeably not the show itself) to Cate, Toni, Judy and Geoffrey. Monsieur Weiss, who wears a red beret and rather strange plus-fours, has included some rather laborious Director's Notes in the program which speak at length of his "intensive collaboration" with the amateur Players. A play within a play no less. I'm desperately trying to make excuses here, and I'm sad that the very talented Daniel Evans might have this as a blot (or even a plop) on his writing career. I think his style can be seen in all the program notes actually. The program is funnier than the show itself. His recent Holy Guacamole and The Reunion were both clever, very funny, and giving evidence of a real grasp of what works in theatre. Evans's monologue as Jacques Weiss about being a director, which I presume he wrote himself, was really quite absorbing, but he needs to work on his articulation (I haven't seen him actually on stage before) as indeed do some of the others. Perhaps this show is merely the result of a good idea (after all, who hasn't suffered through some pretty bad Christmas pageants at this season in years past?) being mangled by a group of workshopping egos, many of whom have worked together before, rather than being left in the hands of a single "Creator." Not a particularly appropriate allusion, given the topic, I'm sorry. Maybe that's the point though. Studio 4 at the Judy is sometimes used as a theatre restaurant and sometimes as a rehearsal space, and for this show it has a sort of transverse playing space in the middle with seats in rows and a few high tables and stools behind them. This was the Banoon Church Hall, and it was bare and grotty enough (just a couple of black boxes as a stage) to be convincing. Before the rehearsal began, two of the most annoying audience inter-actors I've encountered embarrassed people as they arrived. One was a very strangely garbed creature with a Scottish accent and a hooded fur jacket who was perhaps meant to be the resident church hall rodent. She handed out the program. The other was a Manuel-from-Barcelona-type waiter with a moustache who was selling raffle tickets. I'm still not sure whether or not the tickets and, for that matter, the moustache were for real. Manuel then brought out a ladder, climbed to the top of it with a guitar and played 5-second melodies he had composed for various members of his family who had been killed in a car accident, including the dog who had caused the accident. As a solo bit of black humour it was surprisingly unsuccessful. And so to the rehearsal, which was fittingly chaotic and became increasingly tiresome. The lighting was deliberately messy, with lots of blackouts in the beginning and torches held under chins for gruesome effect, four sexy boy singers, a smoking paedophile Santa, a voice-over Chaser-style spruiker, the Son of God (or Man?) in a disposable nappy and nothing else except reindeer antlers, the hand of God (one of those things you see being held up at football matches) which impregnated the two female "Flaps" — were these vagina substitutes? O dear, what a mess. Shock, horror. And over all this ruled the director who was desperately channelling Mr G — in fact Summer Heights High seemed to have affected the style of a number of the players. Chris Lilley, you have a lot to answer for. The centrepiece of the rehearsal drama was the late arrival of Stefanny (Daniel White) who had been having trouble choosing the right leotard to wear, and who was desperate to be the main dancer. Mind you, with the enormous phallus bulging at the crotch of her pink leotard, her ambition was always going to be difficult to achieve. Not for Stefanny (nor indeed for whoever was the unseen and unrecorded real director of the show, if indeed there was one) the rock-star, handkerchief-down-the-pants, aren't-I-a-stud look. This phallus was gi-normous, and it captivated the eyes, deliberately, of all the cast members and, of course, of the audience. Well, at least it brought some easy laughs. Just before we left at interval, we spoke to the three young Italians in the row behind who had found details of the show on the web and had come along thinking that it sounded like a good night out. They were mystified. There's enormous energy and loads of talent on display here, but it is such crass and tedious material that it all seems a waste of effort. I marked this as a pro/am production deliberately, partly because that reflects what 25/12 is supposedly about, but also because the production doesn't warrant the designation of professional, even though many of the people involved have been in professional productions and are obviously hoping to make a career out of treading the boards. I don't think production this should loom large on their CVs. Directed by several "Creators" Playing Tues 11 Dec — Wed 12 Dec, Fri 14 Dec — Sat 15 Dec at 8pm. Duration : 1hr 45mins, including one 20-minute interval. —
Barbara Garlick (Performance seen: 11th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Tim Minchin - So F@#cking Rock Tim Minchin (Visy Theatre) Professional production Early in his frenetically amazing show, Tim Minchin came to the edge of the stage, looked round at the three sides of the tiered seats of the small Visy Theatre and said quietly, "just checking out my demographic." And well he might. After battling through a Brisbane stormy night and a half-kilometre walk (or splash) to get there (the Powerhouse car park is less than adequate), when I walked in I too was struck by the "demographic". I would say that about 75% of the audience was late school-age (surely this couldn't be an organised school group?), another 20% would have been under 35, and that other 5% was a sprinkling of middle to older age. Strange indeed. Is this what adolescents do after schoolies' week? So in order to check it out during the interval, I asked the two smart young lads next to me, both in grade 11 it turned out, about Tim Minchin's appeal for high school kids. Not quite a cult figure, they said, but nevertheless something more than just a plain old rock star, cleverer, more of an edge. The stage was dark, a lone female voice called out, "I want to see him," and suddenly he was there, lone spot, a fairly small figure, long overcoat, bare feet, and that amazing face with the heavy eyeliner and back-combed shaggy hair — does he ever comb it properly? As he begins to conduct and bring on the instruments on the soundtrack in a beautifully choreographed and studied bit of mime, the face loses that startled-roo-in-the-headlights look and becomes mischievous and anarchic until three spots follow him frantically around the stage. And then he sings. It's a pleasant enough voice, and if it weren't for the material and his prodigious musicianship, he'd just be one among many. But his songs are so witty, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, rude and above all so extravagantly iconoclastic that you hang on every word. And this audience knew most of them, called out for their favourites, and swayed along with them. In the first song, "I am so rock, I am so mother-fucking rock", the anthem of a wannabe rock-star, a rock-and-roll nerd, complete with some rather strange gestures — nipple twisting no less — he then demolishes his own self-consciously structured look because, you know, it's hard for a rock star to keep up: contact lenses, three hours at the hairdressers, the affectation of no shoes, the heavy make-up, the hot overcoat. When he leaps to the piano, the audience roars with a bit of true rock-concert participation, to which he responds with some deliberate off-key bloopers as he twists on the stool, living out his fragile rock persona. In between he does brilliant stand-up, with sexist bits about ladies who say they're no good with maps, or jokes like the African-American Jewish Alaskan who asks plaintively, "What is it with you white people and ice fishing?" Duh! Or else he questions one young girl's tee-shirt slogan, "I'm so perfect, it's scary", and launches into a riff about whether it's self-esteem or irony. Or perhaps looking out of the window of his hotel in NY (he's just back from a tour in the US) and seeing the sign, "The number one deli in NY", he asks himself whether goodness in delis is a relative concept, or questions the gap between implied and literal meanings in calling Times Square the centre of the universe. He questions whether f**k is a counter-productive disguise, whether the "humble asterisk" makes f**k more about fuck than fuck spelled out, or how he likes to use finger as a verb, a doing word. Mmm, yes, it's all pretty upfront, but it might also be one of the first times school kids have even come across the concept of a verb - unless they're learning a foreign language, that is. Or his disquisition on religion and his "relative morality", so that he can change it when he pleases, "hymns have some nice chords, but the lyrics are weird". Or the value of a long-term relationship and having babies. Or evolution and the first freak to have feet, looking down, "fuck me, they're going to come in handy". Or how about the yuck factor in bumper stickers, like "Don't drive faster than your angel can fly", or "Magic happens". So does cot death, he growls. This show is a blend of Minchin's two previous shows Dark Side and So Rock, and the songs particularly are familiar to those who have been fans for some time. Why, he's even been on Spicks and Specks twice — his "Alan Brough Song" and "The Adam Hillsong" are both extras on his DVD of this composite show called So Live (not hard to see the reference) which he spruiked at the end, "I have merchandise", before he sang his new song about Christmas and commercialisation. Some of the best known songs such as the wonderful "Inflatable You", a very funny take-off of old standard ballads like Gershwin's "Embraceable You" which have taken on a new life with all the corny cover versions around now, or the ultimate in environmental rock opera anthems, "Canvas Bags", make brilliant use of pop-song clichés, and the rhymes are much cleverer and almost all multi-syllabic. If nothing else, Minchin's songs celebrate the linguistic richness of the language. "Canvas Bags" ends with him turning on a small wind machine on the floor in front of him, undoing his shirt and saving the world as he throws up his arms and the wind blows his bare chest and hair. Bono and Geldof, eat your heart out. His poem about anger ("I breastfed till I was 9") mocks the fashion for psychobabble which blends in with his crazy, uncontainable asides. How about another love song, "You grew on me like a tumour", or his peace anthem for Israel and Palestine, "You like pigs, I like pigs, why don't we like pigs together". It's not exactly PC but, on the other hand, he knows the value of a bit of dry-ice which he uses to exaggerated effect in his song about his dark side. This cheers him up no end, as he grins through the smoke. Pop cliché as therapy. And the last note he strikes on the piano is done with his heel as he leaps onto the keys and the stool tumbles to one side. There's a lovely quote from the back of the DVD: "Tim Minchin is without doubt one of the top 7 pianist-singer-songwriter-comedian-actor-pervert-wannabe-rockstars born in Western Australia in the mid-seventies." He's won some pretty prestigious awards too, in Melbourne, Edinburgh and the US. I wonder if he would think his "demographic" could include a less-than-youthful grandmother. I'd come along for the ride again, although I'm not much good at the f-word - yet. Playing Wednesday 12 Dec to Saturday 15 Dec at 8pm, Sunday 16 Dec at 6pm Duration : 2 hours, with one 20-minute interval. —
Barbara Garlick (Performance seen: 12th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Spirit of Christmas QPAC (Concert Hall) Featuring Tamsin Carroll, Jonathan Welch, Jenny Woodward and The Queensland Orchestra. Professional Production Some years it's really difficult to get the Christmas spirit. Shops start selling tinsel in October, but when December rolls around, and it's time to put up the tree, Christmas still feels like it should be months away. Fortunately for me, this year I have discovered one sure way to overcome the pre-festive season malaise: go and see QPAC's Spirit of Christmas. Spirit of Christmas is an annual event, but I haven't been before, so the level of entertainment was a pleasant surprise. I was particularly interested in seeing Jonathan Welch, the force behind the brilliant Choir of Hard Knocks, and he didn't disappoint. I especially enjoyed his performance of the beautiful 'You Raise Me Up'. And he promised to bring the Hard Knocks Choir north to Brisbane next year, something to look forward to. However, Spirit of Christmas is more than the work of one man, and a whole array of talent was on display. The other principal entertainer was Tamsin Carroll, last seen by Brisbane audiences in the role of Dusty. The other big star of the show was The Queensland Orchestra, conducted by the brilliantly energetic Nicholas Milton and they were a pleasure to listen to, as were the Brisbane Chorale, a symphonic choir of 100 voices. The Brisbane Birralee Voices, a youth choir, were another revelation for me. Their angelic voices joined Tamsin Carroll's on stage to sing the beautiful 'When a Child is Born', and later accompanied Jonathan Welch in a rendition of 'Do you hear what I hear?'. The host for the evening was Jenny Woodward, who shed her weather-girl persona for the evening and proved to be a very entertaining master of ceremonies. Resplendent in glittering blue, she rivalled the lights on the Christmas tree behind her, and her banter with the audience and the orchestra sparkled too, proving why she is such a popular media personality. A nice touch was a homily by Father Peter Dillon, who reminded us about the true spirit of Christmas, and that the season is about more than bingeing on food and consumer goods. But it was the music that we all came for, and we weren't disappointed. The songs were a varied mixture of traditional and modern carols, solos and group efforts. And the audience didn't miss out either. We had our opportunity to join in with the cast for a few numbers, including 'O Come All Ye Faithful', 'The First Noel', and my favourite, 'Joy to the World', with the lyrics thoughtfully provided in the program. While the audience seemed to be mostly grey-haired, there were also a lot of children present, and they too got their chance to perform. Jenny and Jonathan invited them all up on stage to sing 'Jingle Bells', and the filled the stage in their enthusiasm. However, it was superb didgeridoo playing by William Barton that stole the show. Barton, one of Australia's leading didgeridoo players and composers, opened the second half of the show with a beautiful and unusual rendition of 'Amazing Grace'. But it was his performance of 'Away in a Manger', accompanied by Nicholas Milton on violin, that I think most of the audience will remember. The two brilliant musicians were almost duelling with their instruments, creating one of the most unusual, and beautiful performances of the carol that I have ever heard. The evening ended on a high note, with the audience joining in for the final two popular favourites: 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing' and 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. So if the thought of Christmas leaves you cold, and you really need an injection of enthusiasm for the whole season, I strongly recommend Spirit of Christmas. It certainly worked for me! Artistic Director John Kotzas Playing until Saturday 8 December 2007: Friday and Saturday at 7pm, Saturday matinee at 2pm Duration: 2 hours, 10 minutes, including a 20 minute interval —
Donna Paichl (Performance seen: 8th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine ARJ Barker Live A-List Entertainment and Mary Tobin (Powerhouse Theatre) Starring Arj Barker (with Joel Ozborn as support) Professional Standup Comedy Production There's something about American comic Arj Barker that makes 25-35 year-old men fall in love with him. Seriously. I say this because my other half is one such young man. After we saw Arj last year at the Powerhouse, he developed a weird infatuation with the dark-haired funny-man. He bought the DVD, repeated key jokes and catch phrases beyond what was reasonable (or humorous), and finally admitted sheepishly, that yes, he had a man-crush on Arj Barker. His rapture was palpable when I told him we could go again this year because I'd be reviewing the show – he'd had it pencilled into his diary more than a month before. So I was relieved to see, as we arrived, that I was not alone. Whole groups of young men – just men – had turned out to see him. There were some women too, of course, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they'd probably been dragged along by an eager Arj-lovin' male. So, why do men in particular adore Arjie Barjie (he bemoans the fact that nickname-obsessed Australians insist on calling him this)? I guess it's because, in one way or another, they'd like to be him. It operates in the same way as a childhood crush on a teacher. Men admire Arj's wit (obviously) but they also like his charisma, his unshakeable control onstage, his intelligent irreverence, and the fact that he is unencumbered – no wife, no steady girlfriend (apparently), no kids. Oh, and he tells jokes about poo and balls – and, as Arj himself notes during the show, all men stay about 15 years old on the inside their whole lives, so these jokes will always have an audience. Don't get me wrong – I think Arj is great. I might even have a little bit of a crush on him myself. He's damn funny. A master of satire and irony, he is a consummate performer who just doesn't slip up. Even if things go awry in some way, he is always masterful in handling it, and often moments of improvisation during a crisis become standout moments of the show. Most of his material is new – and thank heavens, because there's nothing worse than being subjected to exactly the same jokes second or third time around. (I felt as though Joel Ozborn, the support act, while doing well to hold his own in the midst of the legendary Arj Barker, repeated too much material from last time.) The jokes that Arj did reuse were worked slightly differently this time round (his joke about analogue versus digital watches, for instance) and were just as funny, if not funnier. Although the demographic on the night I went was definitely weighted in the 20-30 age bracket, I reckon older people would enjoy him too (I've seen my mum laugh at his DVD). It's because he's intelligent and always one step ahead, and this draws people's respect, regardless of age or gender. And here's the other thing I've discovered: the thing that makes this comedian so appealing is that, for all his warmth and his laidback manner onstage, he remains terribly elusive as a person. His show doesn't delve into his personal or family life in any great depth, and the man is so on top of his game that he is almost aloof at times. He's cynical, and this show in particular sees him pointing out, in numerous self-reflexive moments, the mechanics of what he is doing as a comic and how it all works. He reminds his audience that he's in control and that, at the end of the day, it's all a well-crafted act. Thus, as much as we all love Arj, as much as we want to be his real-life friend, we ultimately fall short. And so, as with any addiction really, we'll all keep coming back for more. Playing until 16 Dec 2007: Tuesday – Sunday 7:30pm, except Friday 14 (9:30pm) and Saturday 15 (7:30pm and 9:30pm) Running time: approx. 90 mins —
Casey Hutton (Performance seen: 5th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Tarantara Queensland Musical Theatre (Visy Theatre) Music by Arthur Sullivan, lyrics by W S Gilbert, book by Ian Taylor Amateur production Fact: Sir Arthur Sullivan despised the comic operas he wrote in conjunction with W S Gilbert – he always considered himself a classical composer. Fact: Gilbert couldn't stand Sullivan's womanising, obsession with high society and name-dropping. Fact: Richard D'Oyly Carte spent as much time trying to make peace between these two stubborn men as he did making them (and himself) very very rich. BR> Fact: Not all the 14 works in the G&S canon were smash hits, but the duelling duo influenced most musical comedy well into the 20th century, and their works are still performed to great delight all over the world, constantly being updated now that they're out of copyright, and often sent up rotten. And even if we find the plots ridiculous and the operas themselves rather dull these days, Gilbert's wonderful lyrics which Sullivan set to unforgettable melodies remain part of the English-speaking legacy, and even people who don't know wouldn't know their Yum-Yum from their Pitti-Sing in a dark alley (not that you'd find them there, I hope) know about the three little maids from school. But do we want, instead of yet another interminable production of Patience, a tired old concert version of G&S hits, a selection of the best-of with no linking narrative? Probably not, any more, and so when Ian Taylor was looking for a newly exciting way to present some of the old favourites, he decided on a bio-documentary illustrated by the songs themselves, and so in 1975 Tarantara was born, and has remained one of the most popular biographical plays ever written. Brian and Denise Cahill, the stalwarts of the Brisbane musical comedy scene, have revived the piece as a Christmas offering, and it's as deliciously amateur as all those G&S events I saw as a child, with an odd assortment of characters who basically just want to sing and have fun, and set the audience's feet tapping. It's very much a curate's egg production, with some seriously beautiful voices, outstanding among them Louise Prickett as Josephine, Mabel and Yum-Yum, where her classical training and experience are very much in evidence. Preston Oh has a potentially fine voice, although it isn't always sustained in the longer pieces he has to sing, but he takes on a number of roles in an always genial manner - although I did find the Fu Manchu beard rather distracting. And Brian Cahill made a compulsory appearance as the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, giving the younger singers a lesson in both memory and clarity of diction. Ah yes, diction! It's always a problem with G&S, when so many of the songs are pitched very high, as was the Victorian taste, and the sopranos in particular are often difficult to understand. But they all struggled through, and we got most of the lines, and if it wasn't the most polished production of Tarantara I've ever seen, it was certainly the best-dressed. These are the finest costumes I've seen in an amateur production in Brisbane (congratulations to Doreen Omiros and her talented crew), and the production made up visually what it often lacked in musical terms. A lighter hand on the piano from William Liehr and Anita Thomas-Campbell might have helped and, in his portrayal of Arthur Sullivan, Liehr might have showed some facial expression, even if he was suffering from what, giving him the benefit of the doubt, sounded like a bad sore throat. And couldn't he have looked a bit cleaner and more stylish? Sullivan did mix with royalty, after all. Once you got past the dreadful fake beard and the jacket that was three sizes too big, Matthew Parakas made an amusingly frazzled D'Oyly Carte, and Christopher Andrews made the most of his role as the blustering W S Gilbert, and also sang very well in his other multifarious roles. The English National Opera or even Opera Australia it ain't, but it's all good clean fun, and as we don't get to see the sleazier side of Sullivan's sex life as portrayed in Mike Leigh's film Topsy Turvy, it's safe, and silly, and quite splendid in its own way. And if you laugh in the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons, I for one can find it in my heart to forgive you, because I did the same, especially as Sullivan reminded me of a certain pompous cleric I once knew, which perhaps explains why I couldn't take the character seriously. Directors: Denise and Brian Cahill Choreographer: Denise Cahill Wardrobe: Doreen Omiros Playing 28 November - 9 December 2007: Wednesday – Saturday 8pm, matinees Saturday and Sunday 1pm Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes, one interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 6th December 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Berlin Sydney Dance Company (Playhouse, QPAC) Choreographer and artistic director: Graeme Murphy Creative Associate: Janet Vernon Professional production Beautiful sordid Berlin, debauched, degraded and destroyed, home of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, bombed into nothingness but always rising again, phoenix-like, from its ashes. Graeme Murphy's balletic interpretation of the city, Berlin, was first performed in 1995, and has been chosen by Murphy as the showcase for his and partner Janet Vernon's farewell tour. It's in no way a metaphor for the journey of the Sydney Dance Company itself, but its theme of constant rebirth and dynamic defiance of adversity is as relevant in the 21st century as it was in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1987, German film director Wim Wenders made a seminal film about Berlin with the English title Wings of Desire, in which actor Bruno Ganz plays a sad shabby angel, come to earth to assemble, testify and preserve reality. Whether this film had any influence on Murphy's ballet, made seven years later, I don't know, but the angel figure in this production has the same brooding presence, watching over rather than intruding into human life in this devastated city. Today he is played by rock singer iOTA rather than by Iva Davies, the show's co-composer who performed in the 1995 production, but the effect of iOTA's huge presence and electrifying singing is spine-chilling. The show is a collage rather than a narrative, stretching across the three pre- and post-war decades that saw the Nazi rise to power, its ugly repression of what it considered decadent alternative lifestyles as well as thousands of Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, and the devastating aftermath of the Allied bombing that ended the European war. This gives enormous scope to a choreographer, and we find a magnificent mixture of sinuous gender-blurred cabaret performers, Nazi storm-troopers, and sad circus performers, who get to perform brilliant set-pieces which include gymnastics, cat-dancing and even some moments of lyrical ballet. Berlin may be 12 years old, but this production proves that it has staying power, and whether you've seen it before or if it's new to you, it remains as a shining example of the timelessness and universality of Murphy's artistic vision. It's a triumphant farewell from perhaps Australia's greatest choreographer, but leaving aside the nostalgia of goodbye, it's as exciting a night in the theatre as you could wish for. Go well, Graeme and Janet, and I'm sure all your fans hope it's au revoir rather than a last goodbye. Musical direction and composition: Iva Davies and Max Lambert Set designer: Gerard Manion Costumes: Jennifer Irwin Sound: Adam Iuston Lighting: Adrian Sterritt Live vocals: iOTA Playing 29 November to 8 December - 29 – Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, Saturday matinee 4pm, Tuesday 6.30pm —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 29th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Heroes Queensland Theatre Company (Cremorne Theatre) By Gerald Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard Professional production We all love grumpy old men, as long as we don't have to live with them. And when they're not our relatives, and are living in another country, and not in pain or bedridden, then we can laugh at them with impunity. All of which, especially when the play is by a famous French comic writer, translated by verbal genius Tom Stoppard, and acted by three of Australia's top male actors, gives Jon Halpin's production of Heroes the potential to raise at least one laugh per minute. But this is a French play, set in 1959, and underneath all the fun there's a touch of melancholy, as in the Jacques Tati movies of the same period. And Stoppard the translator is very different from Stoppard the playwright. Here are none of his own dazzling one-liners or his narrative twists and turns, but a faithfulness to the original text that allows it to remains Sibleyras's play. And there's still the sobering underlying knowledge that all these old men are doomed – Philippe (Barry Otto) is the most vulnerable, as he keeps losing consciousness and forgetting where he is and was, but Gustave has his own kind of bizarre behaviour, in that he reads and replies to Philippe's mail, while good old stolid Henri, while providing some stability as the resident who has been there the longest, sees his own frailness and fate echoed in the behaviour of his friends. So their plan to escape from the iron fist of the Matron of their Retirement Home for the Veterans of World War I is tinged with irony, because they know as well as we do that it ain't going to happen. But as the Good Book says, although the young men have visions, old men can dream dreams, and if it gives them something to live for, heaven knows nobody can begrudge them their few pleasures. It's a simple play – Gustave (Robert Coleby), Henri (Max Gillies) and Philippe, all a little dotty but not quite past it yet, join each other every day on what they have come to regard as their private sun terrace. The view of the cemetery fills their foreground, but a hill covered with swaying poplars dominates the further view. Thus symbolically they look beyond death to freedom, not quite realising that one is part of the other. The only other character on stage is a massive stone dog, which Gustave treats as a living beast, and which has its own surprising part to play in the narrative. And that's about it. They plot their escape in traditional military fashion, but forget the exigencies of their situation – where will they get the supplies, and the blankets, and the whole kit-and-caboodle, for example, and do they have the strength to clamber over the walls and carry it all through the cemetery at night, much less make their way up the hill to reach the poplars? But in dreams you can do anything and, as Browning put it, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? And so they plan, and plot, and dream a little, and go on with the routines of their institutional lives, rather like Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, although the scenario of their lives is a little richer, and there is somehow a tinge of a hope that might be realised. The format is quite different from that of most modern plays, but it suits the period and the situation to perfection. Because there's no real plot development, but just a gradual unravelling of character and motive, it's like a talking-heads piece that these days would be written for the screen rather than the stage. (Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Endgame , almost as static, were written during the same decade as this play is set.) So it depends almost entirely on the skill of the actors to bring it alive, and in the hands of lesser stars than these it could be a real butt-numbing experience, and one could be tempted to echo Estragon's heart-felt cry in (again) Waiting for Godot , "nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" But Heroes has more life than this, and as a society we have moved on from the bleak existential vision of the 1950s, of the tedium and meaninglessness of human life. For unlike Beckett's characters, who come with no past and no future, no baggage and no purpose, these three World War I veterans have all of these things, which gives their personalities depth and meaning. So it matters what they think and what they do, and their dreams matter, too, and in one sense we can be glad that they'll never be fully aware of the futility of their planned escape. I can't imagine any actors, in any country, who could play these roles better. It's not just their obvious physical differences, which helps to differentiate one from another, but the way they play off and against each other, and make their unstated roles in the triangular relationship clear. Here are three consummate actors at the height of their powers – unlike the characters they play – and they make us care about and even love them, and hope for just a minute that their deluded plans might come true. For it's the hope of freedom that gives life meaning. Director: John Halpin Designer: Bruce McKinvan Sound: David Montgomerey Lighting: Matt Scott Playing 12 November - 15 December, Monday 6pm, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm, matinees Wednesday 1pm, Saturday 2pm Duration : 90 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 23rd November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Beautiful …and moor theatre (The Loft, QUT Cultural Precinct) By Jon Fosse, translated by May-Brit Akerholt Professional production So much can get lost in translation. The subtle nuances of a phrase often disappears when it has to speak in another voice from another civilisation where the resonances are different, the meaning never quite precise. But not here, in May-Brit Akerholt's rendition of Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse's Beautiful. As Fosse's official translator and a native speaker of Norwegian, Akerholt has a deep understanding of the text and brings its melancholy and hope alive for English-speaking audiences in what is a perfect translation of an almost perfect play. There is a plot, but it's as flimsy and ephemeral as the light on the windows of the boathouse on the edge of the Norwegian fjord where the play is set. A man (Jonathan Brand), his wife (Ling-Hseuh Tang) and their teenage daughter (newcomer Melissa Howard) come back to his home village for the summer, to stay with his mother (Margi Brown Ash). He meets up with an old school friend (welcome back Christopher Sommers), an old school friend who used to play in a band with him but who, since the age of fifteen, seemed to have lost his way in the world and remained in the village doing nothing. The daughter meets a boy her own age (Kevin Spink) and young love blossoms. The wife seduces the friend, and eventually the married couple go home to the city leaving their daughter to stay with her grandmother and, we suppose, continue her first affair. The old school friend resumes his solitary existence, and the play ends not with a bang, but a whimper. Those bare bones can say nothing about the many-layered nuances of this exquisite play. Mysteries are hinted at but not explained until the end, by which time they are totally unnecessary, as we've already worked everything out, so that the final scene is a clumsy synopsis rather than a resolution. I would have liked it to end with the married couple walking off to their car. But apart from that one flaw, the structure of the play is a mirror of Bach's The Art of Fugue, where themes arrive and then leave, are introduced and forgotten until they reappear, where pairings and motivations continually weave over and under each other like sunlight on water, and where the parts eventually make a perfect whole. The text is simple to the point of sublimity, where the word unspoken is more eloquent than the hesitant phrases and stumbling monosyllables of the tongue-tied characters, for these are no self-confident Shakespearian heroes, but ordinary people playing out a timeless pattern of story almost against their will, forced to articulate things that they feel should remain unsaid. Christopher Sommers, as the mysterious almost sinister left-behind school friend, is the best example of this, and his triumph in this performance is to make his character almost seem like a bad actor who hasn't learned his lines, until we notice the utter control he has over his movement and his voice. Stage presence doesn't have to shout "Look at me acting!" – in this case, it's all done by understatement. Melissa Howard, in her debut role as The Girl, also has this instinctive stage presence. She's like every hesitant teenager on the edge of sexual break-through, but her body language is more controlled, I think, than its raw innocence seems, and when she's done more voice work, she'll be a young actor to watch. Ling-Hsueh Tang, as The Woman, her mother, is another very relaxed and perceptive actor, making the difficult change from irascible wife to flirtatious seducer in different scenes so easily that one thinks, at first, that she is playing two different women, and that this is a play within a play or else a dream sequence, so that it comes as a shock when we realise that the two characters are different manifestations of the one personality. Margi Brown Ash, in an impressive under-playing of the role of Grandmother, adds another dimension of this puzzle play, which is basically about who is doing what and why, and who knows, understands or cares. It's a gem of a play, as fragile and as multi-layered as a rose, and the sensitivity of the text, so elegantly translated by May-Brit Akerholt, is mirrored in a truly magical set, where the walls of the boathouse, especially under the lighting of the talented Jason Glenwright, echo the moods of the characters as well as the time of day. It's a brilliant start for a new theatre company, and Andrea Moor can be very proud of her first show as a professional director. Director: Andrea Moor Designer: Kieran Swann Sound: Jason Zadkovich Lighting: Jason Glenwright Audio-visual: Bec Paling Playing 29 November – 8 December 2008; Tuesday – Saturday 8pm, Monday 3 December 6.30pm, matinee Saturday 8 December 2pm Duration : 90 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 29th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Whispers of This Wik Woman Kooemba Jdarra (Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts) By Fiona Doyle (Oochunyung) Professional production "We all have a story to tell. Whispers is a story that belongs to Awumpun. A Woman of Strength, Culture and Destiny." These are the words on the front of the program to Whispers of this Wik Woman, and it is how the performance begins. There is a sacred talking and story circle centre stage which doubles as Awumpun's various houses and where her journeys and adventures take place. Props are in loose heaps at either side of the stage, so that changing clothes and, with them, personas is all part of the action. A back screen tells the historical dates of the stories and shows a stable world of sea, land and sky. However, it is a world in the process of change: the missions lay down rules for conduct and how to manage lives and families until the bauxite miners arrive and the Wik people have to fight for their own country. Through it all Awumpun is the strong matriarch both resisting and accommodating change, speaking up for the old ways and languages. Fiona Doyle plays the three parts of the storyteller, the Wik woman Awumpun, and herself, the granddaughter of the Wik woman, and she is mesmerising. She inhabits the straight-backed, indomitable Awumpun totally, moving with a dancer's grace about the circle, her rather stern face confronting all who attempt to bully or cross her, from the mission superintendents to the anthropologists and administrators, owning her story circle and her story in a dramatically intimidating way. All other parts are played by a fine cast, who move in and out of roles merely with an unobtrusive change of clothes. The two women (Roxanne McDonald and Rhonda Purcell) resemble at times a Greek chorus, gossiping about Awumpun's refusal to have her baby up at the mission, giggling at the miners. They are a wonderful foil for the strength and passion of Awumpun. As mission gossips they have their headscarves, shapeless dresses and bible, then they become various members of the community over time, and finally confrontational elders in a land rights claim who refuse to allow Awumpun's claim that her mob had has much right to the north side of the Embley river as to the south side. Their sneering (and constant in various roles) argument that she is really an Aurukun woman rather than a Weipa woman is at the heart of the story, for Awumpun has followed her country from the moment her father sent her back up to Weipa as a young bride. Her strength has never diminished throughout the years with setbacks like the absence of her husband Kelinda (Anthony Newcastle) through work and war and later through the drunkenness which followed the coming of the bauxite miners, the compulsory placing of her daughter (Fiona's mother) in the mission dormitory, the enforced exile to Thursday Island, and continual attempts by various outside influences to undermine her culture. Ben Daley, the white feller in the cast, plays various miners, anthropologists and administrators, wearing an often funny series of outfits from the boy scout khaki look to clerical collar and the obscenely short Stubbies of a Department of Community Services worker on TI. Exaggerated though his grotesque pelvic thrusting was, he summed up the whole sorry, misguided muddle of what TI had become through an administration that took no account of the difference in languages and culture of the various indigenous people who ended up there. But this is also a very funny theatre piece, beautifully directed by Steve Gration. I hesitate to call it just a play, because its fluid story line moves through dance, song, action, involvement of the audience, symbolic moments of great power like the quelling of the cyclone, and deliberate moments of quiet narrative like the granddaughter Fiona's memories of trying to look after her drunken grandfather and then the quite harrowing enactment of the memory. Even the sweeping of the story circle takes on symbolic significance, as she comes to terms with "that little red pebble." "Our way of life started to break," she says, "the mining mob either wanted something from us or that belonged to us." The fun is in the big fights, between the gossips and Awumpun, in the canteen on TI, in the kangaroo courts of local justice, and in the land claims tribunal. The granddaughter's proud recollection of her Nanna's ability to break up the goings-on at the dances with the bauxite miners (with the aid of a torch) celebrates another part of a feisty life that has never been afraid to stand up for "my country, my daughter, my house, my almond tree". Fiona Doyle is not afraid to look at the differences between tribal and language groups and thus their competing interests, which make a mockery of the policies of various governments that one solution fits all. The evening began with a short talk by Sam Watson, Chairman of Kooemba Jdarra, who gave the background to the publication of Whispers by the University of Queensland Press, after it won the David Unaipon Award, and the development into a piece for performance. He spoke about the power of the stories handed down through the maternal line, and then apologised for the slight delay in starting because of family travelling from Weipa for the premiere who had been held up on the road into the city from the airport. They finally arrived some time into the performance and were greeted warmly from the stage. The importance of family that was at the core of Awumpun's journey was thus literally realised and acknowledged. I was dismayed to read this week that Kooemba Jdarra is one of the companies to lose some or all of its funding from the Queensland Arts Council. If indeed Arts Queensland wishes to fund more regional initiatives (as one report stated was the basis for their allocations), it is hard to fathom how this decision could have been reached. As Sam Watson stated, "this production strengthens our commitment to our regional and remote communities and it is a privilege to present an original and most compelling story." This is indeed one of the most compelling and important things I have seen this year. We need to see more of such stories. Awumpun's sweeping of her story circle cannot be forced under the carpet through lack of funds. It needs to be celebrated and brought into the light of day at every opportunity. Directed by Steve Gration Playing preview Tues 13 Nov, Wed 14 Nov to Sat 24 Nov 7.30pm, matinee Sat 17, 24 Nov 1pm, no performances Sun, Mon. Duration : 1hr 40min, no interval. —
Barbara Garlick (Performance seen: 14th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine All Aboard Tomoskar Productions/Metro Arts (Sue Benner Theatre, Metro Arts) Created, written and performed by Tom Greder Professional production If you're looking for a Christmas show for all the family, from intellectually sophisticated parents to wide-eyed little train fanatics, Metro Arts has it for you in this surreal, baffling, childlike and utterly enchanting show by Swiss circus artist and clown Tom Greder. It's about trains, but not quite as you might think at first, when you're shown to your seat by a buck-toothed conductor who mutters in a generic unintelligible mitteleurope accent while he decides whether you're a first-class (paper doily on the back of the seat) or third-class (ordinary old uncomfortable Metro Arts seat) passenger. Like so many German train conductors I have known and not loved, he behaves like a mini-Hitler, gesturing towards where you have to sit, ordering you to sit still, and making you put your ticket in his strange wooden machine which often doesn't let it go — and then you're in trouble. It's audience participation with a vengeance, as tickets are examined, rejected and destroyed, people are made to change seats, and raucous laughter (Nick Backstrom, you should be ashamed of yourself!) is firmly silenced. Oskar Conductor has amiable characteristics, too, mostly in the pack of flip-cards he carries on his belt and shows to members of the audience. Somehow he wordlessly manages to make us give out a sympathetic "Aaah!" when he pulls out the laminated picture of his mother, and people were crowding to the aisle to see what other cards he had to show, and to make the appropriate noises. It's just as well the Sue Benner Theatre is a small venue, for people right at the back and sitting close to the wall couldn't really see the tiny cards, and were at the risk of being excluded, especially as this segment of the show went for a full 15 minutes. As a dedicated theatre wall-flower myself, I was getting quite frustrated, although my position did save me from being involved in the action. But Tom Greder is a pro who knows just when an audience has had enough, so after he'd handed out various noise-making devices like a moo-cow gadget, a tiny bell, a couple of blow-up hooters and a bird-call contraption, he segued effortlessly into a sad passenger with a battered suitcase and a wrapped parcel, looking for all the world like a post-war refugee, so that the mood changed and we were in the world of Sartre, Kafka and even Beckett, where there is indeed no exit from this confusing situation. The buck teeth disappeared, the costume changed and the hat morphed into a skull cap, and many people were close to tears, for it was all too close to the existential despair that those writers portray so exquisitely. But then Tom the Existential Wanderer begins to open his package, for it's his birthday (we're all cued up to sing to him, and we do), and inside the tatty box is a tiny electric engine, and four pieces of wooden track, two curved and two straight, but not enough to make a completed track. More potential disappointment and despair but, never daunted, Our Tom created his own version of playing trains that at last brought into use those strange bangs and whistles distributed among the audience ten minutes earlier. On a table he set up a little village comprising a railway station (train whistle), some trees (bird whistle), cow in a field, a church (bell) and a little house where the fat mother-doll stood (Aaah!). And for the next 15 minutes he had that little train chugging along the inadequate tracks, but by rapidly disconnecting one piece and adding it to the other end, he made the exercise into a perpetual race between his ability to detach and re-attach a piece of track, and the speed of the train. In between he played a harmonica, read a paper and consulted a miniscule dictionary, and when the tracks seem to take over their own arrangement and go off the end of the table, he simply added the last one in space and kept the whole thing going in the air. And he didn't drop it once. Quite apart from the brilliant circus-juggling skills involved in this balancing act, it had, for those who wanted it, a redemptive escape from existential doom-and-gloom, and proved the resilience of the human spirit. A standing ovation, the first I've ever seen at Metro Arts, followed his retreat into the darkness, but it wasn't over yet, and we were treated to more audience participation as the eight bells-and-whistles accomplices were dragged up front, and made to stand in a straight line and perform their own tricks with the train and the aerial train tracks. Just as Tom Greder used no words to communicate this most joyous experience, so I have no words to convey the glory of it all. Go and see it yourself, and take the kids — and, for once, make sure you sit near the front and in the aisle seats. Director: Scott Witt Designer: Jonathon Oxlade Sound: Chrischi Webster Lighting: Andrew Meadows Playing until 1 December, Wednesday – Saturday at 7.30pm Duration : about 75 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 15th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Talking Heads Andrew Kay/Tinderbox/Triumph/HVK Productions (QPAC Playhouse) By Alan Bennett Professional production I must confess at the outset that I never saw any of the two series of Talking Heads on television, even though I heard plenty about them when they were first broadcast. So popular have they been that the books are now on the A-level syllabus in English secondary schools, and individual monologues turn up regularly on stages in Britain and the US. I'm not sure whether this is the first appearance of any of them in Australia, but after this extensive tour (all states plus Canberra), I can envisage them appearing with the same regularity here with both professional and amateur companies. The Playhouse Theatre has a big stage, and initially I wondered how these two monologues — "Her Big Chance" and "Miss Fozzard finds her Feet" — would play in that space. Each has just a central minimal arrangement of furniture, and therefore the focus is unremittingly on that single spotlit area. Because of this you tend to build up that eerie single-vision sense of an aura surrounding the player, which can at times be disconcerting if you find that your mind is not as engaged as your sight, and I am not entirely convinced that they would normally be as successful on stage as they might have been on the small screen, lacking the close-ups and the different angles that the medium offers. Given all that, they are without doubt a wonderful opportunity in which top quality actors can shine. And shine both Sigrid Thornton and Brenda Blethyn do, wringing every nuance, every laugh, and every irony out of the two monologues. "Her Big Chance" with Sigrid Thornton was first with just a couch in the spotlight. She plays Lesley, the small-time (and small part) actress (the term is used advisedly) sitting rather primly and uncomfortably in the middle, looking a little like a ghoulish Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab after a bad night, not quite knowing where she has woken up. From there she ranges through a few stock characters from sophisticate and vamp to eager librarian and vicar's wife too anxious to please, all culled from her bible, the Personality Book. She's good at collecting people — even from Zimbabwe (pronounced carefully with a lingering long "a") — and listening intently with great interest to everything, and she is professional to her fingertips. She's had a small part in the Roman Polanski Tess (and Tess's shawl plays a big part in her memory of film), she's appeared in an episode of Crossroads, and apart from that, the big time is as far away as when she started. Until she goes to a party where she's offered a part in a video for the "overseas market", West Germany no less. Her audition, if it can be called that, consists of her trying to convince the makers of the video that she could make her part of Travis more interesting if there were a chess scene, or even a water-skiing scene, but all they want is for her to take her top off. After all, they just want to see her knockers. Acting is really just giving, she says rather plaintively. Before or after the night with Gunther the director? There's also an animal handler called Kenneth in there somewhere. It's rather a sad and desperate piece, because the line between naivety and self-justification is always thinly stretched, and we all know about the unpleasant aspects of the soft-porn industry. Thornton negotiates that line quite deftly, using her body to indicate her moments of attempting to inject a more "Emily Bronte" aspect into the character of Travis, and the acceptance that all they really want is yet more T&A. I am still not sure whether the hard, round coconuts of breasts under the tight red sweater were Lesley's, Travis's or indeed Sigrid's. Feet always make for laughs, and Brenda Blethyn certain milked them for all they were worth in Miss Fozzard finds her Feet. "I don't like to think of your feet falling into the wrong hands," says her retiring chiropodist, as he recommends her to a colleague Mr Dunderdale who greets her with "Allow me to shake hands with your feet". So Miss Fozzard's life continues to be regaled with the magic talk of verrucas and fungus between the toes, a glass of sweet sherry and the offer to "initiate you into the mystery of the metatarsal arch". Who could say no? For Miss Fozzard whose world has been limited by the soft furnishings department of Matthias Robinson's and the chore of looking after her brother Bernard who had a stroke and only seems able to say the word "cow" when she is in the room, Mr Dunderdale's seductive foot fetish is hard to resist. So she tries different shoes on for him, "The bronze bootees are a lovely ending to the legs," he coos. From there it's a very short step indeed to trampling on his back like a French peasant treading the grapes while he is lying on the floor (face down of course) while moaning, "Trample away, yes, yes, yes." She lets herself out, as you might expect. Meanwhile she has found a carer for Bernard, an Australian girl, that tart from Hobart, who makes him laugh and eventually steals all the money from his account, while Miss F is "monkeying around with her foot feller". And monkey around she does, eventually getting to the point where she can mark time on Mr Dunderdale's bottom for which he pays her now in a reversal of their previous arrangement. Free spirits both, as he assures her. Blethyn is a natural for this sort of broad comedy, and as she changes shoes, no longer relaxing into slippers as she had done previously, she raises the laugh quotient to wonderful heights of absurdity. And all the time, having an occasional sip of tea, and smoothing down her perm and her cardigan, and rolling those wonderful brown button eyes. Pity it's not on for longer, but the tour still has Sydney, Adelaide and Newcastle to go. Directed by Braham Murray. Playing at QPAC Fri 9 Nov to Sun 11 Nov; Fri, Sat 8pm; Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm. Duration : 1hr 54mins including 20-min interval —
Barbara Garlick (Performance seen: 9th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine A Murder Has Been Arranged Brisbane Arts Theatre By Emlyn Williams Amateur production At the risk of offending all my friends at the Brisbane Arts Theatre, I have to say that their latest production, Emlyn Williams' creaky old masterpiece A Murder has been Arranged, is at once the worst and possibly the funniest production I've seen in yonks. So bad is it, I'm glad to say, that it deserves to become a cult theatrical experience in its own right. So if you're already bored with the federal election and "The Chaser"'s coverage thereof, give yourself a treat and toddle along to Petrie Terrace, preferably with a few glasses of something convivial under your belt, a group of like-minded friends and a few packets of Maltesers, and prepare to be entertained by default. You may or may not know the plot, but briefly, imagine a murder mystery (except that it's not a mystery, because we all know whodunit, or at least who's about to do it) with a ghostly twist. Imagine Sir Charles Jasper (why am I reminded of that naughty "Do not touch me" song?) and his neurotic wife Lady J, who comes with the baggage of a sour mother and a secret lust for Billy North, who pretends to be a newspaper reporter masquerading as a gentleman. (The two professions were mutually incompatible in late 1920s London, and possibly still are today). The giveaway, which I suspect is unintentional, is that he wears the two bottom buttons of his suit jacket buttoned up but leaves the upper two undone, a social shibboleth if ever I saw one. Imagine an evil cousin who will inherit Sir Charles' $2 million fortune if Sir C fails to live beyond 11pm on his fortieth birthday, and a party for that same fortieth birthday held on the stage of the empty St James Theatre in London, where a murder has been committed just the year before. Somehow or other this has some relevance to the choice of venue, but if you can work out why, please don't bother to email me. Imagine Sir C's pouting secretary, Miss Groze, who is unofficially married (now there's a euphemism if ever I heard one) to Maurice Mullins, the evil cousin, and the thot starts to plicken. And when you add a caricature of an elderly cook with an excruciating working-class accent; a mysterious retainer called Cavendish who disappears after the first act and doesn't take the curtain call (singular); and A Nameless Woman who drifts in and out of the drawing room looking like — well, words fail me here — and is taken by all concerened, including some of the audience, to be the fabled ghost, you have a recipe for hilarious disaster. I couldn't make head nor tail of what we were supposed to believe and what was meant to be serious. Did Sir C really die when the wicked Maurice Mullins poisoned his drink and tried to make it look like suicide? Was he really resurrected just in the nick of time so that he survived the 11pm deadline, or did his about-to-be-faithless wife just prop him up at the dining table to trick the wicked MM into confessing so that she could get the filthy lucre and run away with her lover? Why was her mother wearing a fright wig when she came in fancy dress as Marie Antoinette? And was that shiny grey make-up that Sir C acquired between his murder and his reappearance meant to look as if the Monster from the Black Lagoon had been creeping all over him, or does he just need a few lessons in the use of Max Factor? And why, after the final curtain came down, was there a blood-curdling and forever unexplained scream from the stage? I dunno, and I don't care much, for it was very funny, and I disgraced myself on more than one occasion by shrieking with laughter when I suspect I shouldn't have. I'm not going to name the cast members, because I think they took themselves a little more seriously than I did and I don't want to embarrass them, but a more incompetent bunch of dedicated amateurs, straight from the Stunned Mullet School of Stage Performance, it has never been my pleasure to witness. But I did like their all-white come-as-the-ghost-of-your-choice dress-up costumes in the third act, although which of the gels was Joan of Arc, which Lady Jane Grey or one of those other unfortunate Tudor queens, and which Little Bo Peep I still can't work out. And I loved the blood-red doublet and hose of the villain when he came dressed as another unforgettable Tudor murderer whose name for the moment escapes me, and I loved the aforesaid Billy North in a yet another doublet and hose (perhaps they got them as a job lot), but white this time, with big Gold Coast white patent leather shoes that made him look like an anorexic Skimbleshanks. This was a wonderful show. Do yourself a favour and go and see it, but take some of your more frivolous friends with you, and leave your spit-and-polish expectations behind. After all, how much fun can you have for $10 an hour? Director: Philip Carney Playing Wednesday – Saturday at 8pm until 15 December; Sunday matinee 2pm Duration: 2 hours 45 minutes —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 10th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Wil of God / Hellraiser Token Events (Powerhouse Theatre) By Wil Anderson/Peter Hellier Professional productions If you only know Wil Anderson as the rather smug mud-slinger from the late and (in the case of this reviewer at least) much-lamented ABC television comedy The Glasshouse, you'll be surprised by his new show at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Yes, the language is cruder than ever, and yes, the political slant is even more obvious, but this young man has his heart in the right place, and a soul that's worth cheering for, and I can honestly say that I wouldn't hesitate to give either of my teenage grandchildren a ticket to ride – although I wouldn't embarrass them by going with them. Young Jack, bless his raggedy haircut, was at 14 the youngest person in the audience, and once Anderson had established this fact, he directed much of the show directly at him, and the young lad handled it admirably, not squirming in his seat, but laughing uproariously at the wicked jokes, of which there were many, and nodding approvingly once or twice when Anderson made a particular salient point. Jack particularly liked the jokes made at the expense of the EMOs (if you don't know who they are, check with Mr Google) who hang out at Starbucks and drink frappacinos, as did we all, but there was plenty of laughter for everyone. Visual jokes like John Howard hopping on the band wagon went down well, even more than the three Amanda Vanstone jokes, especially as he warned us about them in advance, a clever way of dealing with a joke that may not be very funny; and he turned the audience's disapproval about the Steve Irwin references to his advantage with the throwaway line "Oops! It's still too soon for stingray jokes." He's still wicked and witty and way way out, and one indication of his popularly is that, for perhaps the first time in my experience, our Powerhouse tickets were for specified seats rather than general admission. I liked the way he dealt with the drugs issue, for his audience is still comparatively young ("Hey, Jack, I'm 33, which makes me old enough to be your father"), and although nobody expected him to be po-faced about it, there was a serious message about the dangers of drugs like Ice, and he confessed that although he'd done the soft stuff, the only track marks on his arms were from being greedy at Sushi Train. You gotta love this man – he confesses to hating exercise and loving Pringles, to a passion for Cate Blanchett, and to being a vegetarian who loves sausage rolls, and I thought his dick jokes were far funnier than those of Peter Hellier, whose show was on an hour earlier. In fact for the audience, which was pretty much the same at both shows, the two men raised that perennial question about stand-up comedy – why is one show funny when another falls flat? Anderson and Hellier told many of the same jokes about the ads on Today Tonight and A Current Affair, but while Anderson's were hilarious, Hellier's didn't raise many laughs. It had something to do with the energy of the two men – Hellier seemed tired and plodded along laughing at his own jokes (well, somebody had to), whereas Anderson was razor-sharp, and only laughed when he was sending himself up, as when he improvised himself into a corner and couldn't get out of it. But we laughed with him at his embarrassment, because he didn't try to cover it up, and he had a much better sense of knowing when to stop. As always, it's horses for courses, and Wil Anderson has the advantage of being better known in Brisbane than Hellier who is, if you can believe his website, very big in Sydney. I've only seen him on Spicks and Specks, where he didn't exactly shine, and he hadn't done his homework about Brisbane for this show, for all his references fell flat, and the audience-baiting bit went sadly wrong when he couldn't remember the names of his two hand-picked victims, Kaaren and Kieran. In fact, if it hadn't been for the row of tipsy middle-aged women having their office Christmas party, who shrieked uproariously at every line, the whole show would have fallen flat on its face. But Wil Anderson was incredibly funny all the time, even at his crudest – and I'll spare you the fingering sequence. Even here, though, he was making a valid point about our pussy-footing language, where we're happy to doing something, but don't like using the vocabulary. In this he's very much with D.H. Lawrence, who despised sexual hypocrisy as much as Anderson does. By the end of the show, he let the comedian's mask slip a little and let the real passions show. It's not an overwhelmingly political show, but he made some very valid points about political clichés like Genuine Australian Values. Keeping refugees locked up? Demonising David Hicks? Not that he approves of that deluded man's behaviour, but he insists that he, like all of us, has rights. And so it goes on. I've always liked Wil Anderson, although I sometimes got cross with his self-satisfaction during his days with The Glasshouse, but this time I saw the man behind the mask and admired him enormously – although I bet that he'll never use this acclamation from a grandmother as part of his publicity material. And he has the added advantage of having a warmer-upper in the shape of Lehmo, almost as funny as Anderson himself. He's on for two weeks, so if you want some pre-election cheering up, he's worth a visit. I'm not so sure about Peter Hellier, though, who is only on until the end of the week. If you have to choose, I'd say there's really no choice. Playing: Wil Anderson Tuesday– Saturday 9.30pm, except Saturday 17 November and Sunday 11 and 18 at 7.30pm: Peter Hellier Tuesday 6 – Saturday 10 November at 7.30pm Duration: Wil Anderson 65 minutes: Peter Hellier 70 minutes Further information: www.wilanderson.com.au; (Wil Anderson); myspace.com/hellierhellraiser (Peter Hellier) —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 6th November 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Laramie Project Springboard Theatre Company /Forward Movement (Visy Theatre) By Moises Kaufman Professional production You get a free voucher for a drink at the bar with your ticket for this play, and by interval you need it. Or perhaps, if you're of a very sensitive disposition, you should have the drink before you enter the theatre. For this play will tear at your guts and make you wonder whether there's any hope for this world, and whether love, compassion and justice have any place in it. In 1998 Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay university student in Laramie, Wyoming, was beaten up by two homophobic men, tied to a fence, tortured and left for dead in the freezing cold until he was found 18 hours later by a passing cyclist. He was taken to hospital and died five days later, but during that time his story attracted world-wide interest, and he became the focus of a new concern about hate-crimes that, many people still believe, changed the way America thinks. A year after Matthew's death, a group of theatre practitioners from New York decided that this tragedy begged to be dramatised, so they visited the town and interviewed as many people as they could about their reaction to the murder. The play, which has since been made into a film with the same title, was presented by playwright Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project as a documentary and has been the cause of much discussion ever since. It's very much a think-piece, for the story isn't told directly. Matthew Shepard never appears, and the murder itself is not portrayed, except by a brief description during the trial of the perpetrators (who were later given life sentences). The interviews themselves, based on actual recordings of what was said, are played low-key and without strong emotion, with the voices sometimes dropping so that they could scarcely be heard, which added to the strain of the whole production, making us focus as intensely as if we were in a real courtroom. A whole raft of characters is here, from the members of the interviewing team to townspeople who include a homophobic preacher, the town governor, cops of various kinds, bar-tenders, doctors, university students and even a gay faculty member. They're played by a very accomplished cast of eight (Leesa Connolly, Catarina Hebbard, Daniel Murphy, Emma Pursey, Christopher Summers, Kevin Spink, Niki-J Witt and Jeremy Wood), some better-known to Brisbane audiences than others, but working as a seamless ensemble as they morph from one character to another. The interviews are the more shocking because of the way they are deliberately underplayed, and some of the revelations are like a kick in tha face - the fact that Matthew Shepard was HIV positive and the attending police officer had to be tested to see whether she had been infected by his blood; that the Baptist preacher at the trail insists that the God of the Bible is a God of hate rather than of love (twice as many references for hate, he tells us); that even the most sympathetic interviewees revealed underlying prejudices. In the end, though, what does this play achieve? In the real town of Laramie, some of the citizens came to terms with the realisation that this wasn't the happy accepting place they thought it was, and that they were somehow all responsible for this terrible hate crime. Some of them wanted to move on, while others would be racked with guilt for ever, because anti-minority prejudices still lingered, in spite of the enormous support shown to Matthew's parents all over the world, and many people were forced to look at themselves with new eyes. But what about the criticisms voiced by some people both in and outside the town? Was it true, for example, as one homophobe in the play spat out, that there wouldn't have been such an outcry if Matthew had been straight rather than gay? Was it politicised by the powerful gay lobby in New York? And what does it say about the divided voices of the Christian churches and the hide-bound beliefs of the Bible Belt? And, most of all, what right did the theatre group from New York, those sophisticated young actors, have to come to this hick little town in the mid-West and implicitly judge its citizens by making a play about them? Were they themselves playing God by treating a traumatic incident as a kind of mass-observation project? Did the process change the interviewers themselves, and did they want to help with the healing process, or were they using the experience just as a professional exercise? For me, the very best thing about this play and production was the questions it raised, and although it was a very special theatre experience in itself, I would have loved to see discussion groups forming afterwards where some of these less obvious issues could be thrashed out. It certainly wasn't simple entertainment, but it is the kind of play that should be seen by school or community groups, because it raises more questions than it answers. For if the ghastly death of Matthew Shepard is to have any redemptive qualities and the play is to be more than just another shock-horror doco, it must do more than appeal to the smug morality of the middle-class liberals who are its target audience. It must force everyone to re-examine their values and reach into their own souls – but of course, those are the people who would never be bothered seeing a play like this in the first place. There are many dangers in this kind of theatrical exercise, especially when it's confined to one small theatre. But The Laramie Project is a play that school groups should see, and with its simple set and low-budget trappings it would be an ideal play to tour – much more socially productive and stimulating than yet another production of Romeo and Juliet, for example. Director: Lucas Stibbard Designer: Kieran Swann Lighting: Keith Clark Playing 24 October – 3 November 2007 Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes with one interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 25th October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Choir of Westminster Abbey Musica Viva (Concert Hall) Professional production William Fairburn, Daniel Parr, Benjamin Turner, Julian Stocker. Names don't come any more English than this, and they're the kind we tend to associate with the choristers of the great English cathedrals, those angelic faces framed by floppy blond hair, with rosy cheeks and big blue eyes. "Not angels, my Lord, but Anglicans," as Sellars and Yeatman quipped in 1066 and All That, the book which gave many people of my generation their first taste of the delights of muddled history. But what about Hee-Rak Yang, Trojan Nakade, Maxim Del Mar and, my favourite of them all, Beans Malawi? These are the new faces of English society reflected in the youngsters of the Choir of Westminster Abbey, a cultural mix that not only demonstrates the melting pot that is 21st century England, but proves the universality of western sacred music, and the continuing attraction of choral singing. Musica Viva always offers an exciting mix of performances, but there seems to be one special concert each year that fills the Concert Hall and makes parking impossible. The Choir of Kings College Cambridge we've heard often before, but this is the Westminster Abbey choir's first tour of Australia, and they come with all kinds of special baggage, for Edward the Confessor's great cathedral has been the venue for the coronation of every monarch since 1066, and is the final resting place of 17 of them. Many royal marriages and funerals take place here, the most recent being the funerals of the Princess of Wales and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; and with the tombs of Richard II, Queen Elizabeth I, the poet Chaucer, novelist Charles Dickens and other iconic figures of English culture, the Abbey, as it's known, is a national shrine. But it's also a working church, with a full staff of priests and regular daily services, and its choir, although famous in the musical world, is central to the daily choral worship, so it is a privilege to be able to listen to them outside their normal place of work, singing some of the best sacred music of the western church. And that's why there was a full house, because it was more than just the thrill of seeing the boys and men in their red cassocks. It was a chance to hear music that's usually only performed in Brisbane's two cathedrals, although (thanks mainly to those great local musicians Christopher Wrench and Emily Cox) there are other concerts in Brisbane that give us occasional glimpses into the glories of sacred music. It was a beautifully balanced program, reflecting the full repertoire of this great choir, ranging from plainsong and early Renaissance music to works of the present day, even, in this case, two pieces by the Australian composer Ross Edwards (born 1943) . There's so much more to church music than that good old Anglican Hubert Parry (although what soul isn't thrilled by the tones of his setting of Psalm 122, "I was glad when they said unto me", with its resonances of every coronation since 1902?). The only other musical work so honoured is Zadok the Priest from Handel's "Coronation Anthems", commissioned by George II in 1727, and used at every coronation since. The choir performed both of these superbly, their voices bursting through the insistent organ introductions with a glorious bang. Real shivers-down-the-spine stuff. But the concert began with works by three great 16th century church composers William Byrd, Thomas Tallis ("Tallis is dead, and music dies", wrote the great composer's equally great pupil William Byrd on that sad occasion in 1585), Peter Phillips and Christopher Tye: all short pieces but equally expressive of fervent devotion. You can't leave out Bach, of course, who was here represented by the Toccata in C Major BWV 564i, which required some very tricky footwork from the choir's sub-organist Robert Quinney, who looked like a jerky puppet at times as the flowing lines of his cassock hid his feet from the audience so that the music seemed to proceed forth of its own accord. After Bach (the choir sang the profound funeral motet Komm, Jesu, komm BWV 229, which is capable of moving many people to tears, and did) and Henry Purcell, we jumped into the 20th century for more chills and thrills, the highlight being, for me at least, Song for Athene by the holy minimalist John Tavener, a piece which, as I immediately remembered, was played as the recessional at Lady Diana's funeral in the Abbey ten years ago. Written not for that sad princess, but for the daughter of a friend of Tavener's, this piece combines a continual vocal bass drone in low F with a melodic line which is almost unbearable in its intensity. It uses lines from Hamlet along with phrases from the Eastern Orthodox liturgy and moves from a melodious farewell ("May flights of angels wing thee to thy rest") to the final note of positive hope, "Weeping at the grave creates the song. Come, enjoy rewards and crowns I have prepared for you." More spine-tingling all round. And a final remark on the visual aesthetic of this performance. Instead of the lightening effect of the white surplices that church choirs usually wear, this time the red cassocks were unadorned with those pleated overgarments, and the phalanx of solid scarlet created an effect of deep Baroque richness which was augmented by the red lighting reflected from the burnished timber and 88 speaking stops of the great Klais Orgelbau in the Concert Hall. Was it this effect, or the deep German voicing of the organ, which made me feel that the tone of the choir was a little heavier than I expected, or was it that the youngest choristers were too small to travel, so that I missed the airy notes of their delicate soprano voices? Or was it simply, as Christopher Wrench suggested to me at interval, that there's a huge difference between the acoustic of a Gothic cathedral and that of a modern concert hall, and that I shouldn't expect exactly the same sound. Whatever the reason, this was a concert to cherish, remarkable not just for the quality of the music, which is beyond reproach, but for the mix of styles and periods in the program. And thankfully, there were no interminable encores, just one quiet Nunc Dimittis to send us all home with a sense of peace and finality. This is music programming as it ought to be. Musica Viva always offers a superb series of concerts, so if you're not already on their mailing list, check their website www.musicaviva.com.au to keep up-to-date. Organist and Master of the Choristers; James O'Donnell Sub-organist: Robert Quinney One performance only: 23 October 2007 Duration : 2 hours 15 minutes, including one 15 minute interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 23rd October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Much Ado About Nothing Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble (Roma St Parklands Ampitheatre) By William Shakespeare Amateur production In spite of the title, this play is about something, the perennial mateship game. And although there's plenty of ado here, there's not too much of it, for this is one Shakespearean comedy that's easy to take, mainly because the sharpness of the dialogue and the biting wit of Beatrice is very much in tune with modern tastes. Beatrice is the prime example of the young woman who's fooling herself, because we know from the very beginning that she and Benedick are meant for each other, even though in this casting Benedick isn't really fit to kiss her shoe. For Rob Pensalfini plays him as an amiable dolt, a kind of Falstaff-in-the-making, and it's hard to take him seriously as a suitor for such a feisty woman as Beatrice. Still, when did commonsense ever enter into falling in love? It's as pointless to complain about this coupling as it is to argue that Claudio, who rejected the blameless virgin Hero (yes, in classical literature it's a girl's name — remember Hero and Leander?) on the strength of a malicious ruse, could either deserve or be forgiven by her. For this is romantic comedy, and has about as much relevance to real life as day-time soap opera. It's entertainment not-so-pure and not-so-simple, and the only reason for intelligent people to see it is because it's 400-year-old proof that the world was ever thus. Hey-nonny-no! I haven't had time to check what liberties Rob Pensalfini has confessed to taking with the text, but I do applaud him for making the low comic business mercifully brief, and for simplifying the complex plot to a level where it isn't too brain-taxing, as so much Shakespearean comedy often be. It's sit-back-and-laugh territory, and as there's no threat of total disaster after all the derring-do at the crossroads, we can relax in the knowledge that all will be well that ends well, as it should in classical comedy. It's just that here not even the villains are punished — the suspicious Claudio is offered another girl in place of the one he has rejected, and even Don Pedro's wicked sister seems to escape whatever it is that she deserves. Many of the extraneous characters have been written out without destroying the guts of the play — the surly Don John, Don Pedro's embittered brother, has been changed into a wicked sister, Juanita. It was here that I began to get a little confused, especially as Leonato himself has had a sex change and appears as Leonata, mother rather than father of the hapless Hero (she's a girl, remember!). Never mind — it all makes sense in context and only purists will complain about this wicked transmogrification of characters. Gender-bending seems to be a penchant of the QSE, but it doesn't really matter, because we have it on the greatest authority that the play is, after all, the thing, and what a play this is. I was a little puzzled about the down-playing of the Beatrice-Benedick plot, though, because this self-deluding couple are one of the finest love creations in all western literature, and are surely the main focus of the play, and speak more convincingly to a modern audience than the young romantic lovers Hero and Claudio can ever do — except to viewers of soap opera. Director Jo Loth has set the play in the late 1930s/early 1940s, which gives "costume builder" (now there's a term) G.R. Blazley a chance to shine, and I especially liked the shoes and hair-do's that are straight out of Foyle's War. There is a little too much unnecessary stage business, fussing around with picnic rugs and unused drinks trolleys, but that's probably better than making the play static with too little action. And the cast overall are in good voice, understand their lines, and generally make sense of what could be a difficult text. They interact very well with each other, even when they have no part to play in the action, neither standing around liked stunned mullets nor up-staging the other actors. All in all, it was a good ensemble piece, with everyone displaying confident stage presence, and the young audience, who didn't seem to be school students (and for this relief, much thanks), absolutely loved it. So you could say that the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble have, between them, again given us a skirmish of good wit. Director: Jo Loth Designer: Angela Ponting Music: Gavin Edwards, Stephen Mackie, Rob Pensalfini Playing 4–28 October 2007: evening sessions Thursday – Sunday 7pm, matinees Saturday and Sunday 2pm Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes with one interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 19th October 2007) See also: Brisbane actor nobly suffers slings and harassing of outraged unfortunate www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Impractical Jokes / Three Colours Hammo Token Events (Visy Theatre) Written and performed by Charlie Pickering/Justin Hamilton Token Events Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse Professional production With its intimate but generous space and flexible stage, the Brisbane Powerhouse's Visy Theatre is one of the best venues in town for stand-up comics, and they make the most of it. Wil Anderson (ex-The Glasshouse) is coming soon, and so is Arj Baker, and Tim Minchin's new show in December is already selling fast. It's one of the greatest strengths of the Powerhouse, that it attracts a different kind of audience from the usual La Boite, QTC or even Metro Arts crowd, because the shows are cutting edge and challenging while being supremely entertaining, and seem to catch the zeitgeist of Generation Y to perfection. The latest two shows have been by relatively mild-mannered Melburnians Charlie Pickering and Justin Hamilton. The shows are not linked, but the guys are best friends, and a heck of a lot of cross-promotion goes on, which gives it all a cosy feeling. Both Pickering and Hamilton use the time-honoured technique of telling one long involved story with lots of laughs along the way, a much easier genre than an hour of rapid-fire jokes, because it gives them the opportunity to worm their way into the audience's affections without having to produce a laugh a minute. Story-telling is such a basic art that it's immediately audience-friendly, and whether the stories are about the performer's love life or family incidents, within ten minutes or so (in the hands of an expert) we're so involved in the plot that we tend not to judge too harshly. Charlie Pickering is one of those softly-spoken comedians who appeal to the mothering instinct in all middle-aged women, especially when he tells the story of how he learned to love his father. None of your melodramatic or violin-playing moments here, but an involved tale about his father's war with a neighbour-cum-friend and the way they keep playing pranks on each other. Pickering's dad is a loser, a dispensing chemist who is Mr Suburbia personified, but the saga of his long-running feud with Ian the tie-maker, who pushes him into a swimming pool at a neighbourhood barbecue, takes on wider and wider dimensions that eventually involve a parking-meter on an 8-foot pole cemented into the front drive, a plaster wrist cast painted with super glue and sprinkled with gold glitter which ends up stuck to Dad's forehead, an incident with a gas pipe that almost blows up the neighbourhood — you name it, the disasters are almost as good as those of Homer Simpson. The F-word and, regrettably, the C-word keep appearing at frequent intervals, but apart from that there's not much vulgarity in the show and, best of all, for a change it's not about sex. And Pickering is adept at handling an audience, and he had special fun with a party of tizzy 18-year-olds celebrating a birthday in the kind of frocks that 18-year-olds wear, especially when two of them decided just as the show began that they needed to go to the loo and made a great noisy parade of leaving the theatre in their tottery high heels. When they finally re-appeared 15 minutes later, repeating their clattering journey across the entire auditorium, Pickering gave them heaps, to the delight of the audience who were as annoyed by the selfish rudeness as he was. This 60-minute minor masterpiece was followed by a rather dull session from Justin Hamilton, another mild-mannered comic from Adelaide via Melbourne, which didn't give the audience enough geographical links to engage them from the beginning. The fact that his show started at 9.30pm didn't help, either, as most of Pickering's 8pm audience had decided to go home, so Hamilton was doing a very difficult follow-on act which, frankly, wasn't very funny. It was another long involved story, this time about his disastrous sex life and his final realisation that the girl he had been treating as a casual friend was really the love of his life. Duh! There were lots of Biggus Dikkus references, which soon wore thin, and not much else that I can remember. Perhaps he goes better with an audience who know and love him, but this show just didn't work, and he was greeted with modified rapture rather than tumultuous applause. But that's the nature of stand-up — you can be an instant hit, win your audience over gradually, or die on the night, and that's half the fun for the audience, that they never quite know what they're going to get. And as most shows are only an hour or so long, it's never a total disaster. So keep an eye out for the next lot of stand-up, because you never know what little gems will appear. The Brisbane Powerhouse website is www.brisbanepowerhouse.org. Played 16 – 21 October 2007 Duration : about one hour each —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 20th October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Nabucco Opera Queensland (Lyric Theatre) For many music lovers, opera is Verdi, so it's unusual that Opera Queensland hasn't staged Verdi for three years. The last was A Masked Ball in 2004. Before that it was Requiem in '03, Rigoletto in '01, Trov in 2000, Trav in 1999 and so on. But you can have too much of a good thing, and the Verdi drought hasn't been a bad idea, not least for giving a run to such other 19th century composers as Donizetti, Gounod and Humperdinck. Verdi's Brisbane come-back is in the form of an early work, famous but not often performed, Nabucco. It's an unusual piece — beautiful music to a pretty awful libretto. Not uncommon in opera, some may say, but this one is particularly silly and melodramatic. One can add little to the summary of a 19th century critic and rival of Verdi's: "rage, invective, bloodshed and murder". The storyline is all over the place, the characterisation is thin, the love story weak, the denoument unlikely. On the other hand the music is great, in good old dramatic Verdi style. Not consistently super-great, as in later masterpieces like Rigoletto, Traviata and Trovatore, but pretty damned good. Moreover, it's exciting to discern foreshadowings of greater things to come. The overture under Italian conductor Giovanni Reggioli asserts that old Verdi magic, with its strength and vitality and lots of brass. It sets the tone for a performance in which Reggioli is in firm control. There are splendid musical moments in an opera which is very chorus-centred. Often it's the lot of choristers to spend most of their time in the Green Room playing cards, but here they're hard at it, with some very extensive and challenging choral work. Newly-appointed chorus master Richard Lewis has brought out their powerful and resonant best. Director David Freeman has let his imagination run riot. You can imagine his thinking: will I set it in ancient Babylon? Or in the modern-day Middle-East? Iraq? Middle-ages, perhaps? Can't decide, let's do the lot. (He reveals he also flirted with the idea of doing it in 19th century Risorgimento Italy.) The production and Dan Potra's design are a bizarre mix of styles and genres. A besuited gun-toting Nabucco as Saddam Hussein is accompanied by soldiers in mediaeval helmets and chain mail. His daughter in high heels negotiates with heathen priests who look like tasselled lampshades. The Hebrew slaves wear cloth caps, scarves and overcoats. Monty Python beards are in profusion. At times the performance teeters on the brink of pantomime, and it's not clear how seriously we are meant to take the whole thing. The audience laughs nervously at Abigaille's couch scene and applauds a bit of stage-hand work by supernumerary soldiers. There are fabulous effects — a huge Baal effigy which disintegrates, walls which are blasted open as Nabucco invades the temple. Replacing the original story's bolt of lightning is a waterfall of blood which drops on Nabucco from on-high when he declares himself god, rendering him mad, and understandably. The great chorus of the slaves "Va pensiero" is sung from behind a wall — representing the ghetto, perhaps? (And by the way, where's the encore this chorus is supposed to get?) The principals keep in good voice despite all the lunacy of which they are part and two are especially memorable: bass Andrew Collis is consistently outstanding as high priest Zaccaria, his voice strong and powerful, while soprano Cynthia Makris thrills as daughter and would-be queen Abigaille. Her duet with Nabucco is magnificent, and we look forward to seeing/hearing her return to Queensland next October as Turandot. Baritone Michael Lewis sings confidently as Nabucco and is touchingly convincing in the way he captures the king's insanity (even when having to crawl out of a dungeon with heavy rope attached to his leg). Tenor Bernard Hull as star-crossed lover Ismaele has the odd shaky moment in higher registers but overall sings with grace, as does contralto Liane Keegan as king's daughter Fenena, although dramatically their love affair doesn't really ignite. Peter Axford as Babylonian high priest, Sarah Crane as Anna and Rafael Soler as Abdallo round out the quality ensemble. Overall it's an entertaining show, with singing of commendable quality and a lot of production elements to shock and awe. But I can't help thinking that this is one of those operas which is best performed in concert. —
John Henningham (Performance seen: 13th October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Government Inspector Bell Shakespeare Company (Playhouse) By Nikolai Gogol, translated and adapted by Roger Pulvers Professional production There's another name to be added to the list of the world's greatest chameleon actors. In their films both Alec Guinness and, more recently, Ben Kingsley, seemed to be able to transform themselves instantly into myriad characters to whom they bore no physical resemblance, and with his portrayal of 13 multiple personae in John Bell's latest production of Gogol's comic masterpiece The Government Inspector, Australia's William Zappa has joined them. Appearing first as the mayor of an insignificant Russian town during the reign of Czar Nicholas I, Zappa changes face, costume, character and even gender in this farcical but psychologically incisive tale of the power of the rumour mill. In this case, the word is out that an anonymous government inspector is on his way to the town incognito, indeed may possibly already be there, and that he'll be checking up on corruption and general skull-duggery of which there is, of course, plenty, mostly involving bribes that the mayor takes. BR> Meanwhile, an elegant but aimless drifter called Khlestakov on his way to nowhere is holed up in the local hotel, unable to pay his bills and leave town. The equally-brilliant Darren Gilshenan plays this role, as well as five others, and his interpretation of this feckless self-seeking young man, totally without integrity or conscience, is another comic masterpiece. Translator/adapter Roger Pulvers has turned Gogol's 1834 classic into a farcical two-hander, shortening the script and pacing it so that the laughs come two-a-minute, and under John Bell's inspired direction the play is one of the funniest pieces of satirical brilliance to hit the Brisbane stage in years. The action is manic but perfectly controlled, and the two experienced actors provide a lesson in the fine art of playing comedy that many of our younger practitioners should see and learn from. Even though all the characters are comic stereotypes, in the hands of Gilshenan and Zappa they are razor-sharp condensations of types that we already know, bureaucrats and minor officials who are instantly recognisable. So behind the hilarity there is, as in Gogol's other great work Dead Souls, a sense of despair and futility, and we laugh not just out of recognition, but because we know that we are seeing the truth about people and society compressed to such a state of caricature that we just have to laugh, otherwise we'd go mad. And with our own federal election coming up, the image has even more depressing relevance. In the hands of John Bell, this The Government Inspector is a model of production and performance. From the rickety cardboard box of a set to the outrageous wigs and impeccable timing of the slapstick (surely there should be a credit for the movement director on the program), it's a stylish masterpiece of pure drama, which proves that live theatre can work a kind of magic that the screen cannot. It will go down in my book as one of the most brilliant displays of the actor's art that I've ever seen, from both performers, but what still haunts me about the play itself is a sentiment echoed in Cavafy's 20th century poem "Waiting for the Barbarians", that the enemy/spy/disaster is often in our own minds, and that simply the fear itself can bring out our true nature in the way we react to the imagined threat: "What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are to arrive today. Why such inaction in the Senate? Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws? Because the barbarians are to arrive today." And, when it is clear that the barbarians do not exist, the reaction: "And now what shall become of us without any barbarians? Those people were some kind of solution." Go and see this production if you possibly can. It's a masterpiece and a master-class in one. Director: John Bell Designer: Stephen Curtis Composer: Alan John Lighting Design: Damien Cooper Playing Wednesday – Saturday 10 – 20 October: evenings at 7.30pm, matinees 11am and 2pm Duration : 1 hour 45 minutes, no interval —
Alison Cotes (Performance seen: 12th October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine The Best of Broadway and Beyond Harvest Rain Theatre Pro-am production The appeal of the Broadway musical never seems to fade. Audiences continue to flock to on-stage extravaganzas like Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King, and the movie musical even seems to be making a bit of a comeback, as evidenced by the recent success of Dreamgirls and Hairspray. In keeping with this trend, Harvest Rain Theatre Company plays homage to the wonderful world of the musical in their latest show The Best of Broadway and Beyond. The ensemble cast of ten entertains the audience with a mix of favourites, old and new, and their fine singing is complemented in various numbers by the equally impressive Velocity Dancers. The show's repertoire ranges from classic Broadway to recent film musicals, and covers many points in between. The evening begins with a Broadway medley overture performed by the orchestra, which is quickly followed by an entire cast performance of "Putting it Together" from Sunday in the Park with George and an enthusiastic rendition of "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat", from Guys and Dolls. Tim O'Connor and his fellow cast members introduce each song, and explain its origin and place in the show. They also have a bit of fun at each other's expense: the banter they exchange between songs is fun, if sometimes a bit corny, but mostly they let the music do the talking. The tone of the performance varies throughout, from serious and emotional to light-hearted and funny. For example, there is a stirring rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" by the entire cast, and a tongue-in-cheek version of "My Favourite Things", performed by the male members of the ensemble. And there are a number of stand-out numbers: Luke Kennedy's version of "Heaven on their Minds" was simply wonderful, as was Samantha Turk's performance of "Big, Blonde and Beautiful", and Luke Kennedy and Angela Cornford's "All I ask of You". I was also pleased to hear some of my own favourites. Naomi Price belted out a superb version of "Tell Me on a Sunday", and the entire cast performed "Rhythm of Life" and "We Go Together" with gusto. It was also good to hear "Come What May" from Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge. But the show also includes songs that some in the audience, including myself, are probably less familiar with. Wade Colbran Thomas and Jordan Reid give a witty performance of "Agony", from the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, a song where the princes from Cinderella and Rapunzel get to tell their side of the story. The comedy continues after the interval with the whole cast, including the Velocity Dancers, performing "I Hope I Get It" in a variety of mismatched aerobics outfits, followed by a quirky version of "Fame", sung by Alex Feifers and Wade Colbran Thomas. Apart from these numbers, the singers' costumes are generally classic formal gear: black suits for the guys and frocks for the girls in a variety of bright colours. At the show's conclusion the enthusiastic audience demanded an encore, and the cast obliged with a repeat performance of "Time Warp" and the show's final number "You Can't Stop the Beat". This is the first Harvest Rain performance I have seen, and I was impressed both by the professionalism and the quality of the performance. The audience, and the cast, all had a great time. For lovers of musicals, it was certainly a good night's entertainment. Choreographer: Callum Mansfield Music Director: Dale Lingwood Vocal Director: Maitlohn Drew Playing until Saturday 20 October 2007: Wednesday – Saturday at 7.30pm, Saturday matinees 2pm. Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. —
Donna Paichl (Performance seen: 12th October 2007) www.STAGEDIARY.com: Queensland's Online Stage Magazine Martin Martini and the Bone Palace Orchestra Brisbane Cabaret Festival (Powerhouse Theatre) Martin Martini, Xani Kolac, James Macaulay, Peter Burgess, Sam Dunscombe, Arron Light, and Nash Lee The Bone Palace Orchestra… How about I start by saying how divine I think this band name is? What sumptuous, dark visions it conjures! The Palace of Bones on a bleak and windswept hill, with all its occupants going slightly mad within its skeleton frame. There's Sam the insomniac climbing the walls, clarinet clenched between his teeth, fiery Xani in heels atop the staircase playing violin like a demon, while James prinks and preens in a black leatherette dress and fishnets before the mirror, his trombone in pieces at his feet. Open a cupboard and out tumbles Peter Burgess and his enormous tuba, climb to the attic to find the lone Nash Lee and his guitar, descend to the dank basement to see Arron Light drumming through the cobwebs. And, storming through the palace in his bowler hat, wild black hair streaming, there's Martin Martini, master of the house, ranting, cursing, growling, singing, conducting, and scrawling his discontent in red across the walls… See this bunch and you are in for a roaring show unlike anything you've witnessed before. Somewhat out of place at a cabaret festival ('Every time somebody says the word "cabaret", someone, somewhere in the world dies,' said a sardonic Marin Martini in his opening address to his audience), Martin Martini and The Bone Palace Orchestra revel in their misfit status. This handful of musically prodigious weirdos has been treating audiences in their hometown of Melbourne since 2005. Since then they've been seen at venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the St Kilda Festival, and the Famous Spiegeltent, among others. The band comes off like a carnival troupe or gypsy clan, their performance style loose and unpredictable. The brass instruments lend a circus feel, and Martin Martini—pure brawn and charisma—runs the show looking every inch the ringleader. They are theatrical, relishing the ironic, the macabre, the bizarre. Perhaps the most obvious comparison would be with fellow Melbourne dwellers The Cat Empire, but these guys have a dark side that makes The Cat Empire look kittenish. This is largely due to Martini's literal and figurative muscle, and to the biting social commentary and stinging poetry of his lyrics. Scathing of corporate culture and modern greed ('It's all just money in the hole'), Martini lashes out against political hypocrisy ('George Bush in the back of his black Chevrolet singing zippity do da, zippity-ay'), and tramples over sacred territory ('I caught Jesus sleeping in; he had a young boy sleeping next to him'). Some songs are wickedly irreverent, some angry, some joking, some darkly pessimistic, spilling forth as surreal and whimsical stories from Martini's obviously hyperactive mind. As an ensemble, the members of The Bone Palace Orchestra have fantastic chemistry onstage. In particular, violinist Xani Kolac shines. A mere 20 years old, this leggy redhead plays her instrument like a woman possessed. She is sexy as can be and the music she makes is spine-tinglingly good. Her energy and obvious love of performance galvanises the stage. Sam Dunscombe and James Macaulay are also madmen, but the show is expertly anchored by the less showy performances of Nash Lee, Peter Burgess, and Arron Light. Martin Martini and The Bone Palace Orchestra put on a show that is exuberant and magnetic. They're delightfully original. Although I appreciated the chance to sit and focus on the songs' lyrics, overall the cabaret setup for this show (with the audience at round tables) didn't really work that well. Most people didn't get up and dance, and the table that did blocked others' views and grated on my nerves! Next time I see them, I want it to be somewhere darker, seedier, more edgy, and more like them. Played Friday 12 October and Saturday 13 October, 10pm Running time: 70 mins —
Casey Hutton (Performance seen: 12th October 2007) |