The Effect, NUTS, Kambri Theatre, April 24-27

 

I enjoy watching performances by NUTS - there's a certain power and passion in what they do, plus a more experimental range of programming (NUTS has done two productions of "When The Rain Stops Falling", two Martin McDonagh plays, plus plays like this and "Mr Burns" while a lot of Canberra's other companies have been doing more familiar work). You do have to bring your expectations of student-level theatre (low production budgets, occasional less experienced actors, all cast members being student-aged, losing the effect of some characters clearly being older than others) with you but it's often worth it to see productions with this kind of passion, both in the cast and in the audience (it's also a nice surprise to be one of the older people in the audience at 50 years old, something I don't really experience much anywhere else). 

In this case, Lucy Preeble's "The Effect" is a play that's had a strong production history elsewhere - it's a small cast play hitting on hot-button topics of mental health and medication, with a powerful love story at the centre along with powerful questions of medical ethics. Paris Scharkie directs a strong production in the round, with simple staging that lets the script and performances carry most of the challenges of the play, along with two projection screens to track the medical trials that make up the course of the story. There's a clear deliniation in costumes - the two patients in grey tracksuits, the two doctors in black scrubs and the crew and ushers in medical lab coats - that helps with immersion, and some tight lighting design from Charlotte Harris to isolate the stage into sections and serve the mood. 

The quartet of actors are all strong presences - Tash Lyall as Connie, thoughtful and concerned; Eli Powles, impulsive and creative; Amy Gottischalk, sensitive and engaged; and Isaac Sewak, bold and full of bravado - and it's a delight to watch them play against each other. There's a couple of moments of weakness which is partially in staging - theatres in the round with no or limited raking in the seating have to be very careful about sightlines and projection and there's a couple of moments that are lost either due to dialogue not being heard or moments not being visible, but mostly the show is captured very strongly. 

It's certainly worth catching this strong script being given a  powerful and effective production - and to wrestle with the questions it raises. 

Seagull, Chaika Theatre, ACT Hub, 10-21 April

 

This is my third time seeing a production of "Seagull" in the theatre (plus seeing the 2017 film, which I'd almost forgotten and I suggest the rest of you do too). Like most Chekov, it gets deeper each time you see it, with different takes widening the rich characters and their self-destructive choices. Of the four major plays, this is the one where the four lead characters are all artists (two writers, two actresses), and where there are a lot of discussions about what the theatre should be, along with a lot of misaligned love, petty jealousies, the challenges of running a country estate and a pervasive sense of gloom. 

In this production, it begins with the Hub's first outdoors performance for acts one and two, as we are on the gardens of the estate owned by Sorin and managed by Shamrayev, to join the audience for Konstantin's play, as Masha and Semyon set up the small stage during the pre-show and suddenly elide into Chekov's dialogue naturally - as the various arrivals bring with them their desires, whether it be escape from an impossible family situation for Nina, to form a new family unit for Polina, to disturb the compacency of his mother for Konstantin, or simply to do a little fishing for Trigornin. The clash of these desires will serve them for the next two and a half hours until a dramatic climax as some are shattered and some accommodate what's coming to them as best they can.  

It's a rich cast, led by Karen Vickery as the egotistical yet also concerned mother Irina, aware of the distance between her and her son yet trying to find a way to bridge it. Joel Horwood as Konstantin makes the frustrated young writer a bundle of misdirected passions, acting out in all kinds of inappropriate ways, whether to their mother or to the girl of their affection. Natasha Vickery as Nina shows desire and naive wonder in a quest to get away from her family and into the world of ideas and art. Michael Sparks gives Dorn as a man whose gentle compassion is messily comingled with his inability to take responsibility for anyone around him. Meaghan Stewart is a marvel as the mixture of rage, cynicism, self-harming practicality, determination and sudden puppy-love that is Masha. Amy Kowalczuk projects gentle melancholy and yearningness as Polina. 

Chekov only gets richer each time you see a production, so if you haven't started the habit, this is the time to start, and if you have, this is a good time to expore deeper. 

Billy Elliott: The Musical, Free Rain, The Q, April 9-May 5

 

"Billy Elliot: The Musical" poses a challenge to most musical companies. First you need a lead boy who's around 13 who is a highly capable dancer, singer and actor. Then you need another one to balance the pressure of pulling the performance off nightly. Surrounded by a cast playing out the drama of the 84-85 UK miners strike, he has to play out the story of a boy discovering his true passion for dance against the pressures of a family in crisis, as his father deals with his bereavement about both his wife and his career, his brother invests in a political struggle with the odds loaded against him, his grandmother drifts into dementia and the world around him erupts into chaos. Mitchell Clement has the skill and ability to pull this off with aplomb, dancing impeccably but also giving us a Billy who is anxious, hopeful, connected and strong. 

Surrounding him are a range of strong performers, from Alice Ferguson, touching and gloroius in her solo "Grandma's song", to Joe Dinn shifting from intimidating dad to the lost figure in "Deep in the Ground" and the father who realises what he needs to do for his boy. Janie Lawson enjoys the chance to showbiz it up and delights from her introductory "Shine" to her ongoing unwavering support of Billy, showing real heart throughout. Jo Zaharias's appearances as Mum are desperately cherished as moments of warmth. Blake Wilkins has a cheeky glee and charm as Billy's irreverent friend Michael, playing gleefully with infectious enthusiasm.

Cate Clelland's set as a miner's union hall gives us a strong sense of place and reality, and adapts well to the multiple alternate locations it requires. Jacob Aquilina's lighting is precise and skilled. The music is well presented by directors Katrina Tang and Caleb Campbell, mixing the sound of Miner's choruses, the gentle ballads, the showbizzy dance moments and the rageful clatterings during "Angry Dance". 

This is a strong production of a heartfelt, powerful musical and well worth the catching. 

RBG: Of Many, One, Canberra Theatre Centre Presents a Sydney Theatre Company Production, Playhouse, 11-21 Apr(subsequently touring Melbourne, Brisbane, Paramatta and Perth to 23 June)

 This is a tour de force, with Heather Mitchell expertly playing Ruth Bader Ginsberg at stages throughout her life, narrating through the lens of three key encounters with American Presidents but flashing backwards and moving forward, engaging with her as a lawyer, judge, mother, grandmother and elder statesperson of American law and ethics. It's incredibly comprehensive and places many demands on Mitchell, from aging to medical issues to rhapsodic enjoyment of opera to the simple home life enjoying time with her husband and family, and Mitchell meets every one of those demands, creating a complex portrait at once engaging and occasionally slightly critical of moments of Ginsberg's hubris and human failings. Priscilla Jackman's production is elegant and ever-flowing, using David Fleicher's monumental design and Alexander Berlarge's lighting to give the show depth and strength across the 100 minutes of stage time.  Writer Suzie Miller, after her triumph of "Prima Facie" and her recent "Jailbaby" is a writer who clearly knows both humanity and the law and is able to bring knowledge of one aspect to the other in ways that are illuminating and powerful. 

There is a slight oddity here that this is an Australian actress and an Australian production team diving very deeply into a figure and circumstances that are fundamentally American - I can't imagine that there's an American production of a play about Mary Gaudron currently going on - but never the less this is powerful theatre and shows Mitchell as one of our strongest actresses, giving us time to relish in her skill and care. 

Unlikely Friends, Damien Callinan, Hey Dowling, Comedy Republic, 30 Mar-21 Apr

 

Unlikely Friends takes the form of a structured improvisational chat show where two comedians are given a celebrity to research and perform as – at this performance the comedians were Australian Kirsty Webeck and the UK’s Elf Lyons, performing respectively as Phar Lap and Pegasus. Damian Callinan as moderator has a good ability to set a prepared path and to let the performers go loosely away from that, creating their own goofy personas with a firm bedding. It’s a clever concept that plays well, with Lyons particularly enjoying the chance to give Pegasus lingering trauma from the usual stuff that most Grecian mythical figures go through and Webeck giving Phar Lap a gently supportive manner, and the trio play well together. Apparently the intention is to let these run as a podcast, and it’s the kind of thing that would work well as a comfy set of giggles.

 

Little Aussie Battler, Daniel Connell, A List Entertainment, Rydges One, 28 Mar-20 Apr, Melbourne international Comedy Festival

 Daniel Connell has been working solidly as a standup for a few years, and this latest show is a solidly professional show that I must admit I kinda bounced off – it’s a mixture of whimsy and observations about fairly common subjects –dealing with disinterested shoe clerks, the police, spicing up his relationship, a theft and performing on a boat – it’s the kinda show that is diverting in the moment but didn’t for whatever reason, really hold my attention or have a point for being beyond “it’s comedy festival time, I need to put together a show”, and while it’s professionally done it feels a little insubstantial.

 

Groundhog Day The Musical, Whistle Pig Productions with GWB Entertainment, Princess Theatre, Feb 2-20 Apr

 A reunion show for director Matthew Warchus and composer/lyricist Tim Minchin following the wildly successful "Matilda", "Groundhog Day" has had a slightly rougher time since premiering at London's Old Vic in 2016 - the initial London run was a hit, but the transfer to Broadway fell afoul of being in the same season as juggernauts "Come From Away" and "Dear Evan Hansen", losing all of the 7 Tonys it was nominated for. A recent London revival also sold like gangbusters and finally Michin has had his second musical come home in a grand production, carrying the lead of both London and New York runs, Andy Karl, with it. 

There are a few challenges to a musical of a film as beloved as this - is it just revisiting the hit moments from the movie or is it doing something new, and does it translate to song well? For the first ten-fifteen minutes, the musical tends to feel a little by the numbers, with the show very much following the tracks laid down by the original - cynical weather reporter goes to small town, finds himself trapped by bad weather and then by a strange case of living the same day over and over again - but then Michin's songs take flight with a run of songs that take on different angles of the story - a group of medicos and healers looking into Phil's situation in the song "Stuck", deeper analysis of minor characters in "Night will come" and "Playing Nancy", a fun drunken rollick with "Nobody Cares" and a powerful montage of suicide attempts. While Rob Howell's set design has a lot of bells and whistles it holds a simple small-town aesthetic throughout, and Warchus together with choreographer Lizzi Gee gives the show an efortless flow that keeps things moving. 

Lead Andy Karl has one of the bigger roles in the music theatre canon - he's rarely offstage and is constantly in motion for most of the run of the show, and he executes it with integrity - from the sarcastic asshole at the beginning of the show, into spiralling depression and an eventual emergence to engage with the world around him. Elise McCann takes the female lead and gives it width and depth as a character who starts out glimpsed and is expanded throughout as she provides a strong positive force within the narrative. The energetic ensemble of sixteen are kept busy bouncing between various roles as they variously antagonise and pal up with Phil along the way, and all do it with relish. 

There's one or two moments that land tonally oddly - in particular the power ballad "Hope" which combines the deepest depression with the biggest of power notes, and therefore had members of the audience emitting grand "woos" right when the story is at its darkest - but mostly this is a strong, entertaining show which absoultely deserves to be sween.