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. 

Every Single Thing in My Entire Life, Zoe Coombs Marr, Token Events and Triple R, Melbourne Town Hall, Powder Room, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 28 Mar-21 Apr

 Zoe Coombs Marr is a standup who’s also a performance artist – which means any show she does has a broadly theatrical approach, as well as a fair bit of “is she trying this on or not”. In this case, again, it’s a “things that happened to me recently” show, though in this case it’s expanded to cover … well, everything since she acquired self-awareness. It’s as much a show about how her brain works as it is about the titular topic – and Marr’s brain is a wild and eclectic place that touches on everything from childhood to personal pre-occupations to her long-term relationships to a particular 1999 music video. It’s a show for spreadsheet nerds, for people who have a favourite database as well as for anybody who’s lived a life and has tried to make sense of it all.

Tragedy Plus Time, Ed Byrne, Century, The Malthouse, Beckett Theatre, Melbourne International comedy Festival, 28 Mar-21 Apr

 Ed Byrne’s latest show also uses the formula – something that happened recently turned into a show- and, weirdly enough, is also about his relationship with his own fame. It’s a highly polished show – Byrne mentions throughout other places he’s performed it and how elements have gone down there – and it’s got a strong tale to tell – the 2002 death of his younger brother, and also his own slight resentment about not being a regular on BBC panel shows any more. It’s active, speedy and very heavily joke laden – his relationship with his brother includes everything from childhood bonding to adult arguments to highly inappropriate music at his deathbed – and if it feels maybe just a teensy bit too polished, that’s not the worst sin in a comedy show that you’re paying money for. And it does have my favourite joke about modern diagnostic trends for standups – “I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, which for a stand-up comedian is like being diagnosed as having skin”.

The King and I, Dane Simpson & His Dad, Janet A McLeod, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Victoria Hotel, Acacia Room, 9-21 Apr

 

Dane Simpson’s latest show uses the formula of a lot of recent standup  - take an event that happened to you recently and make a show about it. In this case, it’s largely on his short-but-sweet appearance on “Amazing Race: Celebrity Edition” with his dad Bow, and it gives him an excuse to do a show that largely consists of him talking about his relationship with his dad and his relationship with his own “Celebrity” – with his dad brought onto stage basically as a sidekick/active heckler.

It is, as Simpson says, a loose show, and it probably wouldn’t work as well outside the tight confines of the Acacia Room (one of several pop-up venues around Melbourne during the festival, it’s basically a small conference room turned into a comedy venue through the addition of chairs, a stage, microphones and a TV – which gives the show intimacy and a certain amount of “we’re all in this together”ness). But in this space, both Simpsons are delightful company for an hour – playing off each other with a mix of chaos and charm, including an end-of-show singalong that it’s impossible not to join in on.

Emma Donovan, Hit Productions, The B, 5 Apr 2024

 

Emma Donovan is an indigenous singer with a fine husky soul voice, and on her current tour, promoting her upcoming album "Til My Song is Done" (due out in about two weeks from now), she's accompanied by guitar and slide guitar in a range of songs, both the ones from the new album exploring the various aspects of love in her current life (from her love for her new partner to the love for her children and the love of her family), and older stuff both from other artists (including Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Tammy Wynette, and Simon and Garfunkel) and from family members. It's a warm, generous evening as Donovan shares personal stories and context and reaches across the stage in fine voice - if the banter isn't too polished at this early point in the tour, it only makes it warmer and more personal. 

It's a compelling night out and well worth the listen when the album comes out, or to hunt out the older ones while you're waiting. 

Awkward, Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub, The B, 27 Mar 24

(image by Ashley du Prazer)

Warning note for this review - Choreography is not really my language - I'm much more at home in standard narrative theatre, so this isn't going to be dealing with the depts of the choreographic work teh cast are doing so much as a general impression of how the show works as an entertainment. 

"Awkward" is a dance piece about a bunch of young people attending a party, from their arrival to their drifting away, showing the challenges of those early stages of social interaction, and the early stages of exposure to lust, communal dancing, and the effects of alcohol. There's some great demonstrations here - in particular, there's a solo section where a performer takes unclear dancing instructions in all kinds of wrong ways, leaping around in stunning jerky perfection, and a later trio where one girl leaps all over a guy who's very clearly interested in another girl across the floor from him - the simultaneous disengagement-and-sought-engaement is fascinating to watch. 

There are moments when focus wanders a bit - the arrival, unfortunately, is one of those, with seven separate performers trying to establish their personalities, it does become a little bit difficult to know who to look at and who to discover - and some of the narrative and characterisation becomes a bit arbitrary - there's a fight near the end which is choreographically great but doesn't reflect the characterisations established for the two characters who are fighting, and it doesn't come across as particularly motivated by anything more than the desire to choreograph a fight. 

Director/Choreographer Cada McCarthy has a good concept and a good line up of songs and choreographic moments, but focus and narrative could definitely be tighter. Her seven performers, Jordan Bretherton, Cassidy Clarke, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Romain Hassanin, Remy Rochester, and Anna McCulla, are game and skilled performers, willing to move around both levels of the set and over and around the couches and bar-benches that make up the set with remarkable agility. The music selections are a great set of party songs, from Nikki French's dance cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (sung along to by one of the cast) to Sia's "Chandalier" and a wrap up with the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties". 

This was an enteratining night out and it'd be worth seeing this team again on something a little tighter with a stronger narrative thread. 

 

After Rebecca, The Miscellany Co-Operative, ACT Hub, 19-25 March

 
Daphne DuMaurier's novel, written in 1938, was almost immediately adapted into an iconic film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Joan Fontaine, Lawrence Olivier and Judith Anderson, and has been adapted multiple times since (including two further film adaptations, most recently a Netflix one in 2020), 8 TV adaptations, for stage three times (one play by DuMaurier, one musical and one opera), and with three associated novels approved by the DuMaurier estate. It's a gothic in the style of the Brontes, with a grand country estate, a creepy housekeeper, and a leading man who these days comes across less as broodingly romantic and more kinda dodgy. Emma Gibson's update is modern, urgent, driven and uses the original cleverly, bringing out the mysteriousness and doubling down on the dodgyness of the leading man, letting the implications play through to a shatteringly powerful ending. 

Michelle Cooper is the sole performer as the unnamed narrator (keeping this feature from the original) - this time a modern young woman, uncertain of herself and brought into a situation that grows increasingly perilous. She's a skilled narrator, embodying the various figures of the story well, and we see her develop as the signs become increasingly obvious that something is deeply wrong with the man who's taken her off to his remote property, and her increasing isolation has a distinctly threatening undercurrent that eventually becomes an overcurrent. It's a well paced performance that draws you in before bringing out the dark realities that underly the story. 

Daniel McCusker's set, lighting and sound gives the space simplicity and adaptability - not-too-cluttered and not so basic that it feels bare.  

A great case for engaging with a classic story with modern eyes distinctly open to how this holds up in the modern world, making clever choices. It's a show that should absolutely be seen while it's here (or wherever else it ends up - this is a show that is strong enough that it should have a long afterlife).

Cameron Ribbons: Eulogiser Bunny, Q the Locals and Sophia Borserio, The Q, 16 March

 This is one of those standup shows where the best part of the show is probably the pun in the title. The concept has potential - the performer does a mock-eulogy of themselves - but the content is largely dad-jokes with a side order of whimsical nonsense rather than any particularly deep personal reflection, and it's also sabotaged by some unusually messy tech-work and some plot that's only just there as a bare thread to sorta hold the evening together (messed up by a lot of the plot resolution being in video that resolutely refuses to play back smoothly and kinda kills any sense of comic pace). 

Normally I write longer than this but a show that comes across as this half-arsed really isn't worth that much more reflection. 

Bring It On: The Musical, Canberra Philharmonic in association with Erindale Theatre, 29 Feb-16 Mar

 The 2000 film "Bring it On" was an entertaining teenage cheerleading comedy that looked at the sport with a slightly cynical side eye, through the perspective of Kirsten Dunst's cheerthusiast Torrance, Eliza Dushku's cheerskeptic gymnast Missy and Gabrielle Union's Isis, indignant about how her team's culture had been appropriated by a bunch of white girls. It did well enough to produce six follow-up direct-to-video sequels, all of which feature variations on the same basic setup - cheerleading rivalries and some aspect of street-dance culture infiltrating their world to a greater or lesser extent, and, in 2011, it was adapted to become a stage musical by the team of Tom Kitt and Amanda Green (fresh from the "High Fidelity" musical as a team, Kitt also fresh from getting a Putlizer as composer of "Next to Normal" and recently orchestrating "American Idiot") plus Lin-Manuel Miranda (post "In The Heights", pre "Hamilton"), with a script by Jeff Whitty, following up on "Avenue Q". Weirdly the musical doesn't directly adapt the first movie, instead being kinda a distillation of the general themes of them all into a story of another Cheerthusiast whose dreams of conquering the cheer-world seem to be dashed when redistricting means she's moved to an inner city school with, shock-horror, no cheersquad. If you can't guess that she'll learn lessons in tolerance while creating a new cheersquad with the various diverse underdog types at her new school, congratulations for missing out on 90% of pop culture tropes. 

Philo gives this an energetic production with a skilled production team assembling a strong cast to meet the physical, musical and acting demands of the show - Jessica Gowing as our heroine, Campbell, with just the right mix of ruthless determination and charm, Jess Marshall as her no-bullshit counterpart at the new school, Hannah Lance as the seemingly sweet Eva, Katie Lis as the bubbly and enthusiastic Bridget, Ashleigh Maynard as the somewhat accidentally bitchy Skylar, Emma English as the nicely dim Kylar, Diana Caban Velez as the double-act  of Nautica and La Cienega, Frank Shanahan as the dopey boyfriend Campbell leaves behind, Grayson Woodham as the brainier boyfriend she picks up along the way, Jeremy Chan as the booty-obsessed Twig, Ash Syme as the too-cool-for-this Cameron and a rich and diverse ensemble of dancers, singers and a few ring-in-cheer-people.

Isaac Gordon directs a tight ship, keeping the show ever flowing, with the assistance of CHarlotte Morphett's razor-tight choreography and Alexander Unikowski's high-energy music direction as the score various from hip-hop to balladry to traditional music theatre narrative ensembles. 

This is an energetic, light piece that feels contemporary, lively, and thoroughly entertaining. This is by no means essential viewing but if you're looking for a fun time there's certainly a lot of fun to be had here.

Happy Meals, Happy Kids, Q the locals and Sunny Productions, The Q, 7-9 March 2024

 There's been an interesting run of Youth Theatre recently, with a lot of fairly dark material dealing with teenagers facing not-too-distant future dystopias in plays like "This Changes Everything" (2022) and "The Trials" (2023). "Happy Meals, Happy Kids" continues that trend with a group of 6 teenagers in the remains of a McDonalds preparing for one climactic event as the fate of the world hovers over them. But there's also a spirit of life and of resistance from these characters as they reflect on how they'd forced themselves to grow up too quickly (academically, socially, professionally) and are now regretting how fast their youth is passing - while we see that they still have occasional moments of youth hovering within them, whether it's desire to reconnect to family, to just dance and enjoy themselves, to experience anything that isn't the pervasive doom that hovers over them. It would be easy for a play like this to be essentially nihilistic, but Jade Breen's writing and their co-direction with Ella Buckley means the play is ever-more effective for letting a varied sense of humanity through the dark situation - a humanity we can embrace even as we know, intellectually, that it's probably going to be hurt by outside forces. 

Katie Bisset plays the teenager who attempts to organise the rest with a strong sense of purpose, even as it becomes more apparent that her gestures may be futile. Caitlin Bisset, Joshua James and Phoebe Silberman play the three more disruptive members of the group, trying to divert themselves from the realities of what's coming, with jokes, games and reminiscences. Wajanoah Mascot Donohoe plays Bisson's closest partner, a supportive figure with his own neuroses and nerves. And Zoe Ross plays the isolated one, melting down in the bathroom as the pressures overwhelm her. 

Ros Hall's set and Sen McNamara's costumes evoke the chaotic times, from the trashed details of the set to the small tears and scrapes of the costumes.

Breen is a skilled writing talent, writing passionately and with care, creating a varied cast of characters in a brutal situation and taking them to a grim but inevitable conclusion. It's a confident and powerful piece and I can't wait to see how their talents are explored further.

Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Canberra Rep, 22 Feb-9 Mar

 

Neil Simon is a chronicler of a very specific era in American Comedy - his '60s comedies leaned more into the aspirational middle-aged, middle-class that was the bulk of the Broadway audience in that era, of the same ilk as writers like Jean Kerr ("Mary, Mary") and William Gibson ("Two for the Seasaw"). More prolific than either, he kept on writing til the early 2000s across plays, musicals, and movies creating quite a sizable legacy. His 1969 comedy "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" takes on the swinging cultural mores that he'd been witness to (those who have seen the miniseries "Fosse/Verdon" may remember Simon was a witness to a lot of Fosse's infidelities) and the complicated emotions those brought up in an older generation. 

In some ways, it's very much a middle-aged man's view of the era (Simon was 42 when he wrote it), and some of the attitudes of that era do pervade the play (it could be retitled "I'm scared of every woman who isn't my wife" - Simon's later play, "Jake's Women", could be retitled "I'm also scared of some of the women who have been my wife"). But in other ways, it offers a great range of roles for three actresses to get their teeth into as they each visit the apartment owned by Barney Cashman's mother for an afternoon Barney intends to be an intimate, special experience, which turns out to be more revealing of both himself and the women he's invited over than it is the carnal delights he's been hoping for. Each act of this three-act play is a two-hander between the neurotic Cashman and a different woman who each get a lot of time to create distinctive, complex characters.

First up there's Victoria Tyrell Dixon as the tough-talking Elaine, an experienced woman whose bluntness unnerves Barney but who's absolutely able to see through his blather and his self-delusion to realise that he's never going to be able to follow through on what he claims to want. It's very distinctive from the previously more poised roles I've seen her in and it's a delight to see her deadpan disappointment building as the act builds. Stephanie Bailey follows as the impulsive, goofy Bobbi, whose continual patter about her personal dramas reveals a woman whose experiences are wildly at odds with Barney's conventional nature. She also gets to sing a few bits of Bacharach and is thoroughly engaging. Janie Lawson wraps up the show with the moody, depressed Jeanette, who gets laughs from her wordless entrance all the way through (though the script slightly sabotages her by having some very 1969-style-dramatic-therapy where depression can apparently be cured by yelling at someone a lot). Playing against them is David Cannell who anchors the piece as our ironically-titled-red-hot-lover-who-is-really-more-lukewarm-neurotic - we see him get into the cycle of being a slightly more polished seducer (as his Fiona-Leach provided suits get more polished and his preparatory moves get a rhythm to them) and also how the inner Barney is still a conventionally happily married man with an abstract yearning that the afternoons with these women is never going to cure. 

This is very much what you'd expect from a Neil Simon play of the era-  it's gentle, non-threatening theatre with charm and some pretty decent jokes - but it is very much of its era and the main enjoyable quality is the performances of the three different women. 

Next to Normal, Queanbeyan Players, Belconnen Community Theatre, 15-24 February 2024

 

This is the third time I've seen a production of this 2008 musical, after a not entirely successful production at the Hayes and a much better production a year later by Phoenix players. It's a challenging show to get right - a chamber-rock-opera for a cast of 6 and  a band of 6, dealing with mental illness and family trauma in an intense two and a half hours. It's about how the struggles for mental health take their toll not only on the person suffering but on those around them as well, and it's about how the desire for normality can obscure dealing with brutal lingering aftereffects of trauma. 

Queanbeyan Players has assembled a strong cast for this production - Sarah Hull navigates a challenging score that requires her to sing the pure clarity of "I miss the Mountains" and the rock tempos of "You don't know" with aplomb, humanity, warmth and just the right amount of incipient mania. Dave Smith moves outside his normal confident heroic tenor types into a figure who's motives are far murkier and may in fact be no help whatsoever to his wife and family. Kara Murphy plays their daughter, so guarded from her homelife that a new relationship may parallel the experiences of her parents. Luke Ferdinands has the voice of an angel and the moves of a demon as the embodiment of the family's foundational trauma, insinuating himself into each of the character's lives with ease. John Whinfield as the gentle Henry gives the show its moments of pure innocence and kindness. Andrew Finegan as the doctors who try to treat Diana gives a slightly distant professionalism and, in the end, a desperate pleading for his work to have meant anything at all in the face of clear signs it's been futile. 

The creative team of Belinda Hassall, Christopher Bennie and Jen Hinton assemble a strong production, using domestic spaces as a battleground for the internal struggles of a family. 

This is not an easy show for cast or audiences - it takes us to places of hurt and pain and deals with trauma that lingers well after the end of the show. But it's a powerful experience and absolutely worth catching. 

Tiny Beautiful Things, Queensland Theatre in association with Trish Wadley Productions, Belvoir Street Theatre , 1 Feb-2 Mar

 

Nia Vardalos’ adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a small play that contains big thoughts. It takes the format of a recap of the two years from 2010-2012 that Strayed spent writing the advice column for the online literary magazine, “The Rumpus”, where she wrote responses to people struggling with issues with their family, with their love life, with surviving death of their loved ones, their own guilty past, their addictions, traumas, and hopes. She responded by drawing on her own experiences with what she called “Radical honesty”, revealing her own issues with her parents, her previous addictions, her mistakes, and her successes in ways that remain true and powerful over a decade later – because it’s about experiences we all share or will share at some point or another, and about getting comfort from another person’s experiences.

Lee Lewis’ production keeps the scale small – cast of four, one domestic set as Sugar wanders the set clearing up after a busy day with her family and three actors embodying the letter writers open their hearts to her seeking guidance. There’s an honesty and gentleness to the performances – Mandy McElhinney as Sugar carries the heart and the warmth of the story, with Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior, and Angela Nica Sullen as the three letter writers, each presenting their issues to her and listening as she discusses both theirs and other people’s issues. There’s a cumulative power to each of these conversations – it never just feels like a series of bits, each response digs deeper into Sugar and her own experiences and widens our knowledge – and by the end, we’ve felt an entire journey in the company of a warm and trusted guide.

Simone Romaniuk’s set and costumes give this a comfy home-like intimacy, with Bernie Tan-Hayes’ lighting and Brady Watkins composition and sound design defining the spaces these people live in just right.

While yes, this is a show that could feel like a set of homilies, somehow this is so much more. It’s a celebration of humanity, in our flawed, questing, confused, quizzical, and yearning nature, and it’s a powerful experience.

A fool in love, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, 6 Feb-17 Mar

 Lope De Vega's 1613 comedy "La Dama Boba" is one of an estimated 1,800 to his name (431 of which have survived to the present day), and on this presentation seems like a viable variation on commedia del arte precepts - the plot rides on the highly-controlled marriage of a heiress to a vast fortune, and the challenges to that marriage due to her foolish nature and the multiple conniving plots of various suitors to her and her intellectual sister. I'm not entirely sure it utterly survives the weight of Van Badham's adaptation in which she's inserted her own highly laboured post-modern jokes about modern culture, herself and her work as an opinion writer on the Guardian and the nature of renaissance dialogue, nor that Kenneth Moraleda's production, which like most productions of comedies of this era imposes a style I'd call "broad panto" does it a lot of favours, but there are some pleasures in this, mostly relating to design and the right central performances from the central pair of lovers, Contessa Treffone as the titular fool Phynayah and Arkia Ashraf as the central wooer, and some nice goofing on the sidelines from Megan Wilding and Alfie Gledhill as the secondary characters who's sidenline wooing is appropriately riduculous. 

Elsewhere it's over the top comedy that does a lot of nudging in the ribs to let you know just how hilarious it thinks itself - on occasion, it does almost get there but mostly it's pushing very hard and some performers in particular are not served well by this approach - it all feels a little desperate to please. Isabel Hudson's design has a nice surrealism and playfulness but, in particular in the second half when the plot seems to be reaching for something a bit more thoughtful, this feels desperate to be thought of as fluff, wheras instead it's like gorging on fairy floss ... too much turns the stomach a little.

Queers, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 14-24 Feb

(photo - Eva Schroeder)
 

I missed the run of this back in 2019, so it's a delight to have a chance to catch this in a perfectly cast revival, done with care, intimacy, skill, and gentle power. A series of 7 monologues, originally prepared in 2017 as both a TV program on BBC 4 and a series of performances at the old vic on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences act, which decrimalised homosexual acts in private, Queers has five men and 2 women telling stories from 1917 to 2016 of desire, of personal revelation, of internal torments and their public expressions, somewhat along the line of Alan Bennet's beloved "Talking Heads" series - where the subtext of what the character can't quite say out loud rings loud and true. Mark Gatiss from the comedy team "The League of Gentlemen" and occasional "Doctor Who" and "Sherlock" writer selected and curated the monologues, writing the first of them and working with the rest of the writers to find a mix of perspectives on a century bisected by a piece of legislation - about the progress we have and haven't made, and about how this has affected a range of individuals.

Steph Roberts and Jarrad West's production brings them together in a timeless pub, "The Princes Arms", with us gathered around at the various tables. The performers are scattered around the venue - at the piano, Louiza Blomfield and Callum Tolhurst-Close (no relation to me as far as I know) sing-and-play a song of the era where the next story takes place, before transitioning to an intimate monologue. Each of the performers immediately grab our attention and don't let it go for around 20 minutes (those who can do maths will realise immediately with 7 performers at 20 minutes each plus a song and a short break between performers, this is a longish evening, though it never really feels like it during any of the monologues). 

We start with Alexander Hoskinson's soldier in 1917, looking back on his youth and an early encounter, and a recent experience of near desire, told sensatively and engrossingly - his Perce is pure innocent sweetness and we take him immediately to heart. Next it's 1929 and Natasha Vickery tells of a desire that carefully conceals itself - Vickery presents as brash, not-quite-as-confident-as-she'd-like-to-appear, telling secrets about her adventures in seeking personal pleasures in a risky world. In 1957, Karen Vickery tells the story of a wife finding out things about her husband and what she's able to accommodate within her marriage, in a perfectly presented boozy yarn. In 1967 we have Geoffrey Borny sharing the secret world that is soon to pass with legalisation with regret (and those of us who remember his appearance in "Cassanova" around a decade ago get a reminder how entertaining Borny is when he's completely filthy). 1987 shows Joel Horwood as a struggling actor challenged by the nature of gay representation in the middle of a pandemic - there's a perfect mix here between the actor's personal ego and the wider political context of the world around them and Horwoods' restless performance captures it with exquisite tension. In 1994 Patrick Galen-Mules plays a young man realising the power of community and his own sexuality in the middle of a political disappointment with a mix of joy, shyness and naivete (he's also the only performer who doesn't move from their spot during the monologue - presumably because at 17, he can't go to the bar for a drink, but his endearing shyness draws you in).  In the closing monologue in 2016, Joe Dinn gives us pure queer joy as a groom preparing for his wedding day - he's a goofy charming presence. 

Introducing each act is Louiza Blomfield's perfect voice singing, first as a charming lounge singer, then later as the era gets closer adopting more the mode of an enthusiastic kareoke-er, in stunning outfits appropriate to each era. 

There's a great mix of subtly effective lighting by Stephen Still and interweaved sound effects to highten the monologues from Nathan Patrech, adding power to the evening.

This is a beautiful production of a show that is completely up my alley, both in terms of its celebration of actors and of the socio-political nature of the stories being told, and I hope it's up your alley too. 

Ode to Joy (How Gordon Got to Go to the Nasty Pig Party), Stories Untold Productions and James Ley, Sydney Festival, Neilson Nutshell, 16-21 Jan

 

This is a wild rollicking hour of entertainment, the story of a public servant investigating the effects of Great Britain leaving the European Union on Scotland, who finds himself in the middle of the wild world of debauched European sex parties. It comes with a full glossary of gay for the audience (as a practicing homosexual for over 20 years I appreciated it as it also told me about the effects of a fair few party drugs I've never gotten my hands on), an ever-present dance soundtrack, and is enthusiastically narrated by a character called Manpussy (Marc MacKinnon), who comes across like a Scottish Brian Blessed with a filthier vocabulary. 

It's a fast and furious comedy played largely on a bare stage with a few costumes up the back, and is probably the definition of special-interest-theatre, but, dammit, I was definitely interested. It's an act of queer liberation at its most primal, looking at the networks gay men build around them and how these are formed and deformed by how they react to the society around them. 

Lawrence Boothman as the titular Gordon is gorgeously gormless, goofy but also clearly game for anything. Sean Connor as Manpussy's partner in both life and in lust, Cumpig is a good foil, both playing up to Gordon's emerging lusts and endearingly amenable to any of Manpussy's outrageous suggestions.

It's a brisk, wild piece of festival eccentricity and a fine theatrical aperitif to begin the year with.  

The Hello Girls, Heart Strings Theatre in association with Hayes Theatre Company, 10 January -4 February

 One of the challenges of international travel is, occasionally you miss shows that are playing at home. Fortunately, sometimes they come back - such is the case with this production that premiered in Canberra back in September, now back for a season at the Hayes.

And it's certainly worth the trip to catch this cast, a strong ensemble who give the show powerful energy and charm. The subject, the women who were selected by the US Army to work as telephone operators in the European war, is certainly an intriguing and undertold story. There's a lot of good stylish choices in the production...

So why am I not completely enthusiastic about this? Well, largely it's the material - Peter Mills' lyrics and music rarely rise above the serviceable, and the characters mostly lack depth. While it's an unfamiliar story, the style is very familiar - empowerment ballads, the spunky competent women being underestimated then wowing everybody with little more than token resistance. We never really get a sense of anything being much of a challenge or a struggle, and there's never really a doubt that the women will win through (the historic disappointment they had post-war as the army dismissed their work is mostly confined to a footnote). 

There's also a couple of moments of direction I was not in love with - moments when the character singing wasn't given focus so I had to hunt around the stage to find them, and one moment of choreography which felt distinctly tacky. For the most part, I find it a professionally staged production of a show that is a perfectly okay Theatre In Education piece but probably shouldn't be the work of a major music theatre company looking to be the cutting edge of the form. 

Again, I enjoyed the work of the cast quite a lot. Rhianna McCourt leads with power as Grace, Kira Leiva gives good sneaky sidekick as Suzanne, Nikola Gucciardo is loveable as the naive Helen, Kaitlin Nihill is powerful as the uberfrench Louise, Joel Hutchings is toughly stern as Riser, Matthew Hearne is playful and charming as Matterson and David Hooley gives strong authority as General Pershing. But there's only so much they can do with material which is distinctly mid-level. 

Tiddas, Belvoir Street Theatre and Sydney Festival, Upstairs theatre, 12 Jan-28 Jan

 Tiddas is the story of five friends who gather to form a book group - mostly indigenous and mostly born in Mudgee but now living in Brisbane, they have professional and personal challenges that come out during the course of the various meetings as they read, reflect, and contemplate It's a warm piece, but it doesn't shy away from raising some of the challenges and tensions that can come with long-term friendships, as long-untold thoughts simmer in the background until they come out at inopportune moments. The six women, all in their early 40s, confront issues of career, family, and their obligations as indigenous women to serve their culture. 

Anita Heiss has based the script on her own novel, and there's a slight sense that the 90 minutes duration play is rushing through the incidents a little - some of the issues presented feel only lightly explored. In particular, there's a strong confrontation partway through where it feels like non-indigenous audience allies are being confronted with how performative a lot of allyship can be ... but this is allowed to dribble away with the issues hidden behind a personal failing rather than a wider social problem. The play premiered at Brisbane's LaBoite in 2022, based on a novel from  2014, and in this revival, there's obviously been an update to reference the Ocboer 2023 referendum ... but it remains just a reference rather than something really used to pursue a deeper and more urgent dramatic question about how aboriginal engagement with the white populace is even possible.  Still, the play isn't really written to deal with something of that size ... but for the seconds it's referenced, it feels like a much bigger play than it ultimately is. 

There's reasonably strong performances across the cast - Louise Brehmer's blowsy, brash Nadine; Lara Croydon's opinionated, confident Izzy; Jade Lomas-Roman's warm, emotional Xanthe; Anna McMahon's growing confidence as Veronica; and Perry Mooney's confident Ellen. Co-director Roxanne McDonald  does double duty as the somewhat underwritten Nan (who's basically there more as a visual presence for a lot of the show) and the brief cameo as Mum, and Sean Dow plays 5 different roles as a range of different men in the women's lives, easily differentiated through performance and bearing. 

Zoe Rouse's set design is beautiful though it doesn't always allow for the smoothest of scene transitions, and technically this is finely done.

My main issue is that this really isn't stretching too far beyond the "nice night out" stereotype - it's distinctly unambitious theatre, which is not really what I come to Belvoir for. Belvoir's commitment to indigenous drama has been a proud feature of their work, but I think that drama needs to be unafraid to engage in the harder questions that come up rather than just offer comfort viewing.