Whitefella Yella Tree, Griffin theatre company, The Stables, 19 Aug-23 Sept (and Canberra Theatre 28 Sept-1 Oct)

 

Two young men meet under a strange new tree. They're from seperate tribes - one's from the River Mob, one's from the mountain mob. They're there to exchange information about the white people who have started setttling in their neighbourhood. We get to learn more about the young men - how they're being raised to take part in their seperate tribes. And as they meet more times, it becomes apparent there's an attraction between them. But the tree's fruit hints at how bitter things are going to become. 

A simple story looking at our colonial history from a different angle, this plays out stylishly and simply on a  set showing the mountain ranges and an impression of a tree (branches on the roof, stump on the ground, middle area clear to stop it blocking the audience's view. Writer Dylan Van Den Berg drops in the changing situation both in the boys lives and in the wider world, interweaving them to illuminate the way colonialisation inevitably seeps into their lives at the expense of their individual desires. The dynamics between the two characters are never fixed - both change and are changed by their circumstances. 

Guy Simon has been a regular on Sydney stages for a few years now, and he shows why with this performance - as the more serious of the duo he finds himself trapped by his own good intentions, unable to recognise how over-his-head he's gotten. This is the first time I've seen Callan Purcell in anything and he matches Simon, as the supposedly less street-wise of the pair, your heart goes out to him as you see the journey he takes trying to hold onto his identity as everything that defines it is stripped away. 

Co-directors Declan Greene and Amy Sole give the show a clean, respectful production that serves the performers and the script very well - it's good clear storytelling that feels essential in showing human connection in the face of potential brutal opression. 

I'd absolutely recommend people catch this while it's out there, either at Griffin or on the tour. It's heartbreaking, funny, wise and true.  

Tell me I'm here, Belvoir Street theatre, 20 Aug-25 Sept

Adapting a non-fiction story can be filled with challenges. Particularly when it's 30 years old story of a mother dealing with her son's schizophrenia in the face of a medical establishment which can't help her or him,legal and emotional challenges, and the impacts on her partners and her other children. Veronica Nadine Gleeson's adaptation attempts to capture all of Anne Devenson's story of her relationship with her son Jonathan, from his birth to his far-too-soon death, in a way that feels episodic yet connected as her stable intellectual life gets disrupted by a young man who has no control over what his own mind is telling him. There's a deliberate attempt to keep Jonathan's perspective as apparent as Anne's, down to Stephen Curtis'  set which is an apparently simple orderly dining room with shelves and large table, all surrounded by white, which Jonathan continously draws graffiti on. It's a spectacular demonstration of both the beauty and the disruption which Jonathan brings into Anne's life, and it's told compassionately and carefully, accumulating detail over the two-and-a-bit hours of the show. 

Nadine Garner narrates as Anne, balancing the rational journalist and the compassionate mother attempting to help her son in a performance full of warmth and intelligence. Tom Conroy as Jonathan has a role that allows him to disturb and invite empathy, as we see how his own mind tears him apart and leaves him desperate and isolated even when surrounded by friends and family. Elsewhere, Sean O'Shea plays two different husbands with different approaches, Deborah Galanos plays various friends and advisers with just the right amount of detached engagement, and Raj LaBade and Jana Zevedeniuk play Anne's other children whose own journeys are inevitably sidelined by the chaotic Jonathan.

I don't know that this adaptation exactly brings out why we need this story now, which is what, for my mind, an adaptation needs to do - yes, mental health continues to be a challenge our medical system is woefully incapable of handling well and the family bond is ever green, but despite a few spectacular coups-de-theatre, I found myself not entirely captured by this one - not sure whether it's the grab-bag distallation of the book, whether it's the attempt to tell both Anne's story and superimpose Jonathan's in it, or whether it's simply that I'm not a parent and I probably never will be. I was pleased to get a chance to see Garner on stage as she normally works out of Melbourne, and I was never bored, but I don't think I came out particularly enlightened either. So this works out for me as "well done for what it is, but I'm not sure I'm a big fan of what it is". 

The strange case of Doctor Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer Theatre, 8 Aug-10 Sept

On paper, this looks like a trip back to the same well that gave us Picture of Dorian Grey - a victorian-era short novel about concealed identity, played out on a bare stage with multiple moving screens projecting footage captured by multiple camera people on stage, mixing it live with pre-filmed footage. This time performed by two men rather than one woman, so the stunt is diluted. 

Yet it still works and it doesn't feel all that derivative. Part is that Robert Louis Stevensen and Oscar Wilde are very different writers - while the stories were writtien 4 years apart, and both are set in a London full of secrets, hypocracies and death, Wilde is a relentless stlyist, viewing Dorian through an aesthetic lens moer than he's viewed through a moral or emotional one - he's profoundly uninterested in why Dorian's transformation takes place so much as what it allows Dorian to get away with. Stevenson, on the other hand, is best known as an adventure story wroter, and he's ultimately interested in the investigation of the two different personalities of the title and the strange connection between the two of them.

Kip Williams' adaptation keeps the investigative frame around the work (even though the solution to the investigation is probably one of the better-known tropes of literature) with Matthew Backer playing Utterson, the solicitor surprised to hear abotu the abohrrent Hyde and how he seems to have strange connections to his friend Jeckyll. Backer gives this literary device life and intellectual curiosity, obsessed with something he doesn't quite understand up until the point at which it's all spelled out for him and he's left carrying a terrible secret. Ewan Leslie plays pretty much everyone else, whether it be an external narrator figure, various confidantes, victims, or the titluar duo, and gives them all separate life, without ever makign the show look like it's a one-man-show-with-a-bonus-performer. It's a busy show for both leads, without ever quite being the virtuoso performance Erryn-Jean Norvill had for Dorian Gray - the give and take between the two performers is too generous for that.There's a sense of an arc for Utterson as he falls deeper and deeper into his friend's story, obsessed with finding an answer. 

This is just as filled with showy effects as Dorian was, but in a different, more gothic way - where Dorian was ornate and rich, this is austere and darkly surreal. It's a play of shadows and creeping dread, and it's gripping for the full 1 hours and 50 minutes. The two actors and the army of crew, cameramen, dressers and props people move around each other in creating stage pictures that support the narrative strongly. It's a show that uses all the most modern bells and whistles to bring out a drama as effective as the melodramas of Henry Irving were in their day - using scale and sensation to capture an audience in its palm and serve them well. 

It's a strange case indeed where this doesn't lose by comparison against one of the most celebrated works of the same artistic team - applying its techniques to diferent but equally spectacular ends. 

Demented, Ruth Pieloor in association with Rebus Theatre, The Q, 17-20 Aug

 Ruth Pieloor's new play explores the path of dementia in a way that's all-too familiar to those who've had a family member slowly drift away - the distractability, the argumentativeness, the frustrations and the fleeting joys of reconnecting. As someone who's last experience was almost two decades ago (when my grandmother passed) it feels true and deeply felt. And there's a strong central thread of four generations of women trying to handle caring for one another in the face of tragedy. 

There's a lot of bonus meta-theatre thrown in here that doesn't always connect cleanly to the main thread - in particular, elements of clowning (which mostly serves to make the scene changes go a little longer, and always feels like it's leaning on the side of cute rather than anarchic), and elements of Japanese bunraku puppetry (which is beautiful but never quite achieves the "angel of death" feeling that the published script seems to think the figure should). It's a show that works better in the second half than the first - the first seems full of day-to-day scenes that mostly restate the same set of frustrations between Maggie, a former circus performer living with dementia, and Rachel her mature adult daughter who finds herself having to guide her mother through a second childhood, while the second is where the rubber hits the road and the downward spiral starts working outwards across the rest of the family.

The four performers all have strengths to them - Chrissie Shaw's strength as the often-frustrating Maggie sticking to her guns in the face of everything her family tries to help her feels infused with truth, though there's a tendency for her to play cute to the audience more than is strictly necessary. Heidi Silberman does a fair bit with a role that could be stuck in a rut of frustrated sighs and general irritation - playing in the space between frustration and love. Rachel Pengilly gives young widowed mother Kat a very real sense of conflicted loyalties between her cyclone of a daughter and the emotional labour of her mother and grandmother. And Carolyn Eccles gives 5-year-old Emily a sly sense of chaos and wild enthusiasm - physically giving herself over to the disruptive nature of a small child pushing their boundaries.

Ali Clinch's staging feels a tad too busy for the material, splaying across the width of the Q's stage with multiple moving elements when a bit of stillness and focus may have served it better - allowing a steady sense of place to be disrupted by chaos more often, rather than having the disruption just be part of the usual style of the presentation. Bret Olzen's Auslan interpretation is an interesting addition, though having him isolated to a single point on the stage does make me doubt how useful this is for Auslan users when performers are on one far side of the stage and he's far on the other - are they able to follow both the physical action of the actors and the interpretation? 

This piece is clearly a labour of love for its production team, and there's a lot to appreciate. I do think there's a deeper play here that's lost a little in the accompanying decoration and busyness of the production, but you can still see the heart and soul of it. 

Hand to God, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 27 Jul-13 Aug 2022

 I rarely go back and rewatch shows. Seeing the same show twice in one year is pretty much verboten. So .. given I saw the Old Fitz version of this play back in March (link here), why did I come back for more? Well, partially it's that I have historically kinda been Everyman's bitch (see reviews from here to here), and partially that my husband expressed an interest in coming to see this and he very rarely wants to see anything. 

So in the grand competition of the big-name indie Sydney darlings and the local heroes, how did the locals do? Surprisingly well. There are some different choices, partially driven by the nature of the venues and partially by the performers, but Robert Askin's twisted comedy about desperation, religion, lust and puppets holds up well to this different interpretation. Strangely, the local production feels a little less intimate (the Old Fitz is a tiny venue while the Hub, in the configuration used for this show, feels larger), leading to a larger-scale, slightly more professionally-constructed looking Tyrone puppet (rather than the sock used at the Old Fitz, which is admittedly more realistic for the young teens who are meant to have constructed them, but the professionally constructed Tyrone is more able to reach the back row of the Hub).  

Michael Cooper in the dual role of Jason and  Tyrone gives a very physically committed performance, dividing between the bashful, suppressed Jason and the exuberant monstrous id of Tyrone, who seems to literally enlarge and take more control of the play every time we see him. The final battle between the two of them is probably the biggest physical action I've seen from a performer this year and I can't imagine the bruises after yesterday's two-show-day. As his mother Margey, Steph Roberts carries all the nervous tension in the role and lets it out exuberantly when the character suddenly gets a chance to go wild. Aaran McKenna as Pastor Greg combines a disturbing hairstyle, shorts-and-socks combo, and a manner that takes obsequious to a whole new level. Holly Ross as Jessica gives the character a hilarious disassociation, plugged into her own alternate reality. Josh Wiseman as Timothy gives the sullen moody teen a growing enthusiasm as he gets to unleash his own brand of mayhem, leading to the inevitable crash of pain when the consequences catch up with him.

This is an enjoyable skilled production with great performers giving their all to a text that kinda plays a little like Sam Shepard Meets Avenue Q with a little of John Milton thrown into the mix. It's fast, furious, funny, faith-questioning, felt-based, philosophical, theological, psychological, and parapsychological entertainment that will get you buzzing. 

The Year of Magical Thinking, Critical Stages Touring, The Q, Aug 5-6, 2022

 Joan Didion's 2005 memoir was adapted for the stage in 2007 and has played with actresses like Vanessa Redgrave and Robyn Nevin. Stripped back to a monologue, telling the story of Didion's dealing with the grief after the death of her husband and the hospitalisation of their daughter. It's a deep meditation on how those left behind negotiate the life after - the bargaining, the ritualistic behaviour to avoid provoking memories, the evasion of your shared past and the reinterpretations of events in the light of the loved one's departure. 

Jillian Murray plays this with care - deliberately not taking on the persona of Didion and eschewing the American accent in favour of her own RP voice, but using her words as a Malibu-and-Upper-West-Side-abiding American writer of novels, non-fiction and screenplays, an immensely priveleged person who can dash off with her husband to Paris with very little effort, whose life becomes suddenly undone in the wake of twin tragedies as those she's closest to suddenly slip away. It's a confronting tale that Murray gives with compassion and feeling, with the support only of a chair and a table with a glass of water on it, and some sensative light choices from Andy Turner and a little bit of sound background from Darius Kedros. Murray has a natural sharing, gentle way that brings the audience to her, filling the large Q stage with her presence and bringing us closer in to listen to the details of the story she's carrying to us. It's a radically simple performance, with Didion's self-analytic narrative delivered cleanly in ways that draw the emotions from the audience, dealing with the fear and insights that grief may bring, without feeling like a relentless dirge. 

It's an impressive addition to the Q's season, and makes the venue feel intimate and warm.

Romeo and Juliet, Canberra Rep, Theatre 3, 28 Jul-13 Aug 2022

 Shakespeare has a large presence on Australian stages, due partially to having well known stories with rich dialogue for actors to wallow in, and partially due to being well out of copyright. This does mean that there's a risk of this work becoming overly familiar and productions going well out of their way to make themselves unique and different in a way that doesn't really serve the text so much as directorial ego.

This is not one of those productions - it's very much a back-to-basics version played out on an adaptable set designed by co-director Christopher Zuber of arches and a wall, using Rep's revolve very effectively in creating scene pictures of an earthy, brutal Verona where heat and passion can run rampant and where Romeo and Julet can escape the conflict on the top of the wall.  The directoral team of Kelly Roberts and Zuber make some unusual choices in cutting the text to meet a two-hours-plus-intermission timeframe -  favouring the older supporting cast (particualary Capulet, Lady Capulet, the Nurse and Friar Lawrence) over the younger supporting crew, though there's still enough material to allow Romeo, Juliet and Mercutio to make an impact (Tybalt is more defined by flashy costuming and contemptuous attitude than by anything he says in this edit). 

There are a lot of elements here, some of which work better than others. There's a 70s grunginess to this production with a lot of the musical elements drawn from the CBGB's lineup of the mid-to-late 70s (Patti Smith, The Ramones), plus composer/performer Richard Manning's raw guitar sounds, though the costuming is mostly modern dress. The early presence in the first fight scene of dance elements isn't really followed through for the rest of the production, and the lack of a stage-combat expert is slightly felt - the confrontation at the top of act 2 could use a little bit more focus to sell the danger of the moments. There's some overlapping of dialogue which helps accelarate the telling but with some loss of focus. 

At the centre are Pippin Carroll and Annabelle Hansen as the titular pairing. The show very much gives them space from the first time they meet, isolating them in a large party scene and breaking up their shared-sonnet meeting scene into two parts, giving us the urgent love story racing towards marriage and death - pretty much every moment the pair spend together in the narrative is on stage in front of us, and we realise how little time that is. We see Romeo transformed by his passion from the early callow youth to the passionate lover, and Juliet taking ownership of her emerging adulthood over the course of the story with the pair constantly moving forward to the next step. Elsewhere Tracy Noble is a delight as the gossipy nurse, Crystal Mahon is a suitably haughty Lady Capulet, Richard Manning gives weight to Capulet, Ryan Street has authority as the Prince and makes some unusual Peter-Cundall-esque noises during Friar Lawrence's gardening lecture, and Anneka van der Velde gives her Mercutio a true lust-for-life that is sorely missed after the character's death. 

This is a solid modern take on one of Shakespeare's most well known tales, giving it life, energy and passion.