Into the Woods, Dramatic Productions, Gunghalin Theatre

James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's musical is the most obviously commercially appealing of their three shows - a plot consisting of fairy stories jammed together is always going to have much wider audience than a french painter or an italian stalker - but it still has traps for performers, including a varying tone (with some scenes playing as broad spoof, and others as deeply emotional explorations of loss and pain), Sondheim's trademark "how many words can we squeeze into three minutes" phrasing and odd rhythmic patterns, and an ending that doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny (the second act spends extensive time criticising the characters for having behaved dubiously without thinking the consequences, only to turn around and let them behave dubiously without thinking of the consequences again to resolve everything).

Dramatic Productions unevenly satisfies these requirements. There's some particularly strong performances, as well as a few lacklustre ones, but a strong sense of pace keeps the action rolling along reasonably nicely. In act two, in particular, the show develops a sense of desolation as misfortune after misfortune pile up on the characters, and there's some nice character work there. But there's also a couple of places where performers are only working on a purely surface level - playing for the laugh at the expense of playing for the truth. THere's also some wandernig accents around the cast - some play regional british, some are definately singing in an American accent (although here it might be that the songs rhyme properly in american but not in british). 

Vocally and individuallly, Grant Pegg as the Baker and Veronica Thwaites-Brown as the Baker's wife are dramatically interesting and sound wonderful - although there is a slight lack of chemistry throughout that means they seem more like buddies than a married couple. Sian Harrington's Red Riding Hood switches effortlessly between the sweet ingenue and the brattish, knife-weilding, bun-stealing child in a delightful perfomrance. Kelly Roberts' Witch has cackling, fast-moving evil in her crone form and smooth elegance in her beautiful form (although she's having problems with the sleeves of her costume, which appear a little tangled - the costumes generally are a slight hinderance-  with several of them borrowed from the Victorian Opera's performance of last year, not all of them seem to have been re-tailored to fit the new actors - there's also a slightly alarming phallus on one of the knobs on the set which I'm going to assume was Victorian Opera's attempt at pointing to the freudian undercurrents, though it remains unacknowledged by the rest of the production, and I'm not sure if I'm just seeing willies on the set in places I shouldn't). 

Elsewhere in the cast, Miriam Miley-Read has little to do as Cindarella's Stepmother but does it with wit, charm and a good evil-cackle, Brian Kavanaugh's Steward is similarly not doing very much but being delightfully supercillious whenever he is doing it. Alexander Clubb is pushing too hard in both of his roles - his growls as the wolf tend to over-ride comprehensibility and musicality, and he's overplaying for laughs as Cindarella's prince - his material is naturally funny and it needs light, airy playing, not the elbow-in-the-chest he's delivering.

Damien Slingsby's musical direction is smart, focussed and sounds good - Kathryn Jones' choreography feels kinda like unnecessary trotting about a lot of the time, but never the less if you're going to have choreography in this show, this is certainly choreography. 

All in all, this is a production that's enjoyable to watch in several places but feels a little skimped in others - it works better than the movie simply because the movie trimmed in a few too many places that started to damage sensible plotting - but there's still a sense that there's a better version of this production with a few key recastings and a little bit more focus on the undercurrents here and there.

Seventeen, Belvoir

Getting actors who are 70-odd to play 17 year olds is, undoubtedly, a gimmick. But getting very very good actors who happen to be in their seventies to play these roles is far more than a gimmick  - it's about letting us see theatre legends with their hair down, playing roles far removed from their usual work, looking at that point on the verge of adulthood where life seems to offer huge changes in the smallest gesture.

A simple story of a bunch of teens out for a party after the last night of school, Matthew Whittet's script could very easily be boiled down to the simplest stereotypes. Mike's the alphamale, tough and in charge, Tom is his bookish friend who's about to move to Melbourne, Sue is Mike's attractive and compassionate girlfriend, Edwina's Sue's nerdy best friend, Ronny the weirdo that they all try to avoid and Lizzy is the annoying little sister. Gathered in a park with some tunes, some beers and a few vodka shots for one last night out, the addition of a game of truth or dare starts getting a few more truths out there than normal.

As you can spot, there's a few devices here that feel a little stock (in particular, the truth-or-dare game and the "he's moving to Melbourne" ticking clock). But more importantly, there's the acting. Playing a seventeen year old country kid seems to have knocked off some of John Gaden's patrician airs - he's convincing as a guy who is slightly off-putting in his determination to be in control, but ultimately is subject to a helpless passion. Maggie Dence as Sue is truly embraceably real, that strange mixture of a carefree air and a slight worry that her life doesn't necessarily have an easy map to it. Anna Volska's Edwina projects a great sense of superiority that is increasingly wobbled as she gets drunker. And Genevieve Lemon's Lizzy has that great "Can I play too" attitude, but also is heartbreaking in her moment of compassion for her big brother when he starts to break. I do think Peter Carrol's Tom is slgightly under-characterised (he's sorta the default protagonist, but either Carrol hasn't found much to play in him, or there isn't much to hold onto in the role that's interesting) - and Otto's Ronny is a little familiar from other performances Otto has given in the past - it's a case where stereotyping slightly weakens the effect.

Anna Louise-Sark directs with mostly a firm hand (although her silent patch in the first five minutes is kinda offputting - Belvoir's had a couple of shows in the last twelve months which have slowed the action to a crawl, and I've tended to find the slowness has not been rewarded with depth). This is a piece with heart and soul rather than necessarily a deep think-piece about what seventeen means - but it manages to get over the slightly stock situation with some skilled focused acting and a gentle script that doesn't hit the message button too hard.

The Present, Sydney Theatre Company

It took me a while to warm to Anton Chekhov. His plays can feel like nothing very interesting is happening - people are just gathering, talking, and then wandering away, moping about their wishes and dreams but never apparently doing very much to achieve those things.

And then I got older, and the songs of failed experiences started to resonate a bit more, and suddenly I got it. It possibly also helped that I started reading translations and seeing productions that made the ennui urgent and pressing, rather than vague and ephemeral. It probably also helped that I acted in one of the plays in a really minor role so I got to watch one of his plays repeatedly and got to see the subtle ironies and structural power of his plays at work (my acting career is a long series of shows where I've spent more time getting into my costume than I have on stage - trust me, I don't write this stuff because I think I can do better than the actors involved).

"The Present" isn't entirely typical Chekhov - yes, it's set in Russia (although in this case the translation has made a vague update to the 1990s) and it is largely about frustration and lack of success - but it's adapted from a script that was never performed during Chekhov's lifetime, never had a title, and would take 5 hours to perform in its entirety. Previously adapted under titles like "Platanov", "Don Juan in the Russian Manner" and "Wild Honey", any version has to pick what to concentrate on, but all versions do centre around Platanov, a schoolmaster who holds a strange but irresistible fascination to the entire female cast (in this production, he's played by Richard Roxburgh, who largely convinces partially by more resignedly accepting their attentions rather than wildly skirt-chasing). Andrew Upton's adaptation is on its strongest ground when the action remains focussed on Platanov. Elsewhere, it can be a little diffuse - the opening ten-fifteen minutes, in particular, feel a tad aimless (despite beginning with a bang, literally, as Cate Blanchett shoots a pistol into the auditorium to bring the houselights down). Blanchett's Ana Petrovna, the owner of the estate on which all the action takes place and around who's birthday the events are timed, has some bravura sequences - in particular, some wild business with a detonator, some sexy dancing and a chance to show off some damn shapely legs, all in act two, but much of the business relating to her two older suitors and her desire to hold the estate together is rather unfocussed, while her scenes opposite Roxburgh burn with intensity and passion.

Elsewhere there is some unevenness. Chris Ryan does a great line in peevish betrayal, and Toby Schmitz is at his best in Act Four when he's been shattered (his early act one material does feel a little like Schmitz's greatest hits, as there's a lot of the familiar sarcastic ease that's been in a number of his performances - he's good at it, but it's familiar stuff). Jaqueline McKenzie doesn't seem to get a chance to transition properly onstage from aloof coldness to passionate engagement - it's like a switch was flipped backstage - which does mean she's only given half a character to work with, it's watching the transitions that is interesting. Marshall Napier is great fun to watch but does seem to have recieved the direction "play it like Brian Blessed" and siezed it with gusto. Eamon Farren's disreputable Kirill is wonderfully sleezy but seems to have wandered in from another play when he abruptly shows up in act two, and wanders out before the climax of the action.

In short, this was a production that had a lot of good actors doing good work, but in a show that wasn't always as focussed as it might be. The high point in act three (where in an exploded void, Platanov is confronted by lovers and betrayed friends in regular succession) is where the writing is most focussed on the, basically, high-class-sex farce which Chekov actually wrote (though his ending, which is one of those "the quickest way to resolve this is to shoot someone", doesn't quite ring with the best of his endings, where the worst punishment you can impose on these characters is to let them keep living with themselves. So this is sorta a case of a fine sympony orchestra playing a composer's lower-order works - you can spot echoes of the good stuff but it isn't all the best tunes.

Les Miserables, Capitol Theatre, Sydney

"Les Mis" was not the first Mega-musical I saw as a young person. That would be "Cats". But it's the first one that I can still respect as an adult, and it's probably the mega-musical I've seen the most.

Which is not to say I don't know the flaws, just that I love them as part of what makes up a grand mix of epic storytelling, iconic singing, romance, pursuit, revolution and pathos. So when a friend suggested I catch the new production playing in Sydney, it didn't take a long time to say yes.

And even up in the cheap seats near the top of the balcony, it impresses with a fair bit of big-ness. This is a different staging to the classic Trevor Nunn-directed, John Napier-designed production, but the new direction by Laurence Connor and James Powell and new set design by Matt Kinley makes interesting new choices - it's minus the revolve and the one large setpiece of the slums-of-paris-that-transformed-into-the-barricades, but with some clever spectacle added instead (From the opening moment, where the familiar chain-gang instead becomes a galley ship with the various prisoners as rowers). It's not exactly done subtly, but then again Les Mis is not the most subtle show. Up in the cheap seats I did end up alongside a ten year old seeing it, presumably, for the first time, who was a tad distractable but obviously paying enough attention to ask important questions like "who's General LaMarque" (the answer, of course, being "it barely matters, it's only important he's dead because ... plot").

The performances are a mixed bag. Simon Gleeson feels awfully young to be playing Valjean and is never really all that convincingly aged up, but he does sing well and has a nice solid presence in the monologues. Hayden Tee's Javert has the intensity but is very much a black villian rather than someone tortured by his own concept of punishment and redemption. Patrice Tipoki's Fantine is suitably touching and tortured in her twenty-minute slide into doom. Lara Mulchay's Mme. Thenardier largely steals whatever bits of the show are around when she's on-stage - she's consistently hilarous (her usual counterpart Trevor Ashley was out the night we saw it - his understudy sang well but did not quite match her in grotesqueness). Kerrie-Anne Greenland is a touchingly misguided Eponine - although Euan Doidge's Marius is so extrordinarly drippy and soppy that he does make her look a bit idiotic for being infatuated with him. Emily Langridge is the poor victim stuck with boring Cosette, and fails to do anything interesting with her, largely because I suspect there is nothing you can do with her beyond sit there and look and sing prettily (Marina Prior wasn't able to do a lot with Cosette either back in 1987, so my suspicion is it's a bloody awful role).

Elsewhere in the ensemble there's a few moments of over-enthusiastic acting (particularly among the solo lines in the opening - just because you have only one line in a show, shoving your most over-the-top-acting into it isn't going to make that one line more important). Still, the combination of score, spectacle and story holds up pretty strongly with a fair chunk of touching moments, rousing ballads and big sings.

Casanova, Canberra Rep

Just your usual advance notice - this is a rave, so go do the booking thing because I'm going to like this a lot and insist you go. And, bluntly, Canberra audiences are getting a shitty reputation for not supporting newer shows and going to see the same old stuff recycled every four or five years, and if you want to change that, you need to support the good stuff with your dollars.

Anyway. Why is this the good stuff? Well, it starts with the script. You don't often see a wild rollicking adventure on stage, but that's what this is - one man, armed with little more than his wit and his charm, out to make his fortune and find his way through Renaisasance Europe. There's comedy, dance, a duel, and rather a lot of lust along the way - plus a sweet love story and some gentle pathos as the older Casanova looks back on his youth both with enjoyment of what happened and regret for what might have been. Mark Kilmurray has lightly trimmed the 2005 TV mini-series by Doctor Who scribe Russell T. Davies (which aired in the UK a fortnight before the first episode of the Who revival) into a flowing theatrical romp.

Jarrad West's production takes that script and gives it vivid life. Playful, vigorous and ever-flowing, the production draws you in with charming energy, providing great opportunities for the leads and a large ensemble to play out these wild adventures. West also designed the detailed-yet-generous stage design - plenty of decoration but with large open playing spaces for the actors to spread across.

First among the cast are the two men playing old-and-young Casanova. I've not seen Tony Turner give a better performance in about a decade of watching him. He's playful, cynical yet able to turn on dime into a pure expression of the heart, and he's heartbreaking later in the play as regret for the darker sides of his reputation start to overwhelm him. Ben Russell as the younger Casanova (the lack of resemblance between the two actors is a delicious gag) has effortless charm, displaying a keen mind  and enthusiastic wit in true leading-man style.

As the key women in their lives, Steph Roberts and Amy Dunham bring the emotion. Roberts is practically Turner's partner-in-crime in the telling of the story - eager to hear the stories but at the same time not entirely taken in either by some of the more over-the-top details or entirely sure she approves of some of Casanova's bad behaviour (she plays a vital role here, allowing the show to not be just a celebration of Casanova's libertine ways, but to also critique the dangers of not caring for consequences) . Dunham is in more restrained style than I've previously seen her (she has a wild engaging style that's appealed in shows like "Hairspray" and "High Fidelity" which isn't seen here) but she's gorgeous, classy, with still just that touch of mischief that makes her a perfect playmate for Casanova, and makes it heartbreaking when they're unable to be together.

Riley Bell as the young Casanova's servant, Rocco, is a stealthy scene-stealer - somewhat grotty, as impulsive as his master, similarly quick-witted (I'm not entirely sure all his lines are in the script) and simultaneously supportive to his master and trying in vain to recapture him back to some vague level of rationality. Bojana Kos plays two very different phases of Bellino - both as the early arrival to Venice, proper, restrained and falling towards Casanova, and the later phase where excess has taken over and started to rot, and plays them both with aplomb. Chris Zuber as Casanova's snobbish nemesis Grimani is suitably stern, staunch and dangerous, perhaps even more so when Casanova finally unlocks his secret pain.

The ensemble is a mix of familiar and unfamiliar performers, all of whom seize great spotlight moments. Kate Blackhurst and Liz Bradley particularly score as two very-friendly-sisters in a variety of different poses, Geoffrey Borny has both his usual charming gentleness as a patron and friend to Casanova, and produces some alarmingly seedy noises during the later part of the evening (it's unlocked a whole other dimension to Borny, I would love to see him be evil for an evening). Sam Hannan-Morrow shows up all over the place as various threatening, ingratiating, seedy and delightful types (including, at one point, as a nun). Bradley McDowell is delightfully foppish, Kayla Ciceran hits the heart with an emotional speech near the end of the evening, and there's also fine moments from Alice Ferguson, Emily Ridge and Tieg Saldana.

All are costumed by Anne Kay in a clever, gorgeous, beautiful array of outfits - some beautifully in period, some delightfully not-so-much (in particular the pearly-king-and-queen outfits for the London sequence). Lighting by Kelly McGannon is precise, emotive and helps the show's verve and energy immeasurably.

If it teases you in with the promise of lust and sex, Casanova lets you go with a spirit of adventure and excitement. It's a fun, gorgeous production with surprisingly emotional moments combining with wild hilarity to let your eyes, ears and heart feast on an engrossing epic.

Mother Courage and Her Children, Belvoir

Brecht can be a tricky trap for professional theatre companies. His plays abound in parable-like simplicity, but require creative theatricality to really fly. In the case of Mother Courage, his epic about war and capitalism, they also require an ability to tell a long story covering multiple years while feeling tied together (Brecht only vaguely gestures in his script towards when and where the characters are, and there's very little information as to who's fighting who and why, just that the war is continuing throughout and that it's obviously a religious war).

Eamon Flack's production doesn't quite connect the dots as it might. There's good stuff in there (in particular, many of the performances, and some nice imagery), but this isn't something like his "Glass Menagerie" or "Angels in America" where he's found the beating heart of the play and got it moving. Michael Gow's new translation certainly feels playable and speakable, and Stefan Gregory provides some good tunes to to with the songs, but too often this stops and starts when it should be pulling the audience along with it through humour, tragedy and compelling struggle.

Part of it may be that the comedy early on doesn't land, meaning that the tragedy later can't either. The central idea of this production (making Mother Courage's cart a lightbulbed food-truck) seems clever and modern, and there is a through-line of Courage as a practical small-businesswoman whose compromises are still not enough to save her and her children from the harm of war, but elsewhere things are very vague. Neither Tom Conroy as Swiss Cheese or Richard Pyros as Elif, her two sons, make much of an impact in their scenes, therefore we don't really fell their loss when they are compromised and killed (although Conroy's post-mortem appearance in a bouncy, enthusiastic "Song of the Great capitulation" is one of the most effective moments in the evening - a great moment of darkness creeping into entertainment, which should have been a feature of more of the evening). Nevin has all the ruggedness and deviousness that a good Mother Courage should have, but too often she's not met at her own level. Paula Arundell as Yvette is suitably sultry and sings a great "Fraternization" song, but her appearances are too intermittent to really hold the night together. Similarly Arky Michael's cynical and lusty Cook has a great energy but is used too infrequently to really work. Anthony Phelan's Priest doesn't quite land - there's a certain amount of self-righteous weaselry in the role that isn't quite captured, so his scenes tend to go  a tad flat. Emele Ugavule is passionate and engaged but her death scene suffers from staging problems that mean it never quite lands as it should either.

I have had strong hopes for Flack as incoming Artistic director of Belvoir, but this isn't the best model of his talents. For whatever reason, this doesn't feel like a fully-committed full throated production the way it should, and thus it falls flat when it should grab you by the scruff and demand attention.

Jesus Christ Superstar, PeeWee Productions, AIS Arena

Jesus Christ Superstar is one of the perrenials. It will be revived as long as people appreciate the hard-rocking score (possibly Lloyd Webber's best), the incisive lyrics (Tim Rice is still Lloyd Webber's strongest lyricist), and the interesting angle it takes on the last week of Jesus' life - by telling the story largely from Judas' point of view, and by omitting the resurrection, it leaves unresolved the key question of whether Jesus was human or deity, making it a show about Christ that isn't just for Christians (it's the perfect show for an agnostic, in fact, because it decides nothing).

This Arena Spectacular version has many strong things to recommend it. The vocals and orchestra under the direction of Ian McLean with vocal coaching by Sharon Tree are key among these - the entire cast is in good solid voice and the band really rocks when the show is required to rock and are delicate and sensitive when the score gets sensitive.

Dramatically, things aren't always as strong. Key in any production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" is the dynamic between Jesus and Judas - a passionate, argumentative, engaged debate about what action they should be taking, a strong bond that falls apart in ways that leads them both to their deaths. Almost none of that lands here - Michael Falzon's Judas is vocally excellent, but too often his body-language and attitudes suggest a guy who's mildly perturbed rather than being ripped apart by his passions. Similarly, Luke Kennedy's Jesus sounds great but spends a lot of his time casually strolling around the set rather than being more and more desperate to seize his limited time to reach his followers. His fleeing from the lepers during "The Temple" is particularly dudded - there's no fear or sense that he's ever really overwhelmed. Both are strongest on their last substantial numbers - Falzon's title song has all the sarcastic, jumpy energy that is lacking everywhere else in the show, and Kennedy's "Gesthemene" (possibly because he's blocked to stand centre stage in strong lighting with no movements) lands great.

Because of the lack of tension between Jesus and Judas, there's a flow-on effect to Jenna Roberts' Mary Magdelene. Mary is meant to be the cooling, calming point between Jesus and Judas. If there's no tension, anything she does to try to produce calm between the two just feels weird and unmotivated - they're already pretty chilled out, why bother exhorting them to calm down?

Elsewhere, there's a lot of strength in the supports. Max Gambale has a great mix of imperial hauteur and an increasing sense of dread and frustration as Pilate. Gordon Nicholson is astounding as Herod - he's massively high camp, with an almost Frankenfurter vibe (Nicholson matches my imagination of what Reg Livermore did with Herod in the original Australian production).Zack Drury's Caiaphas is suitably imposing and menacing, Will Huang's Simon Zealotes gives a bounce and energy to the whole show (he's also the only soloist to join in on the choreography), and Nick Valois in the under-written role of Peter gives great energy to both his songs (although "Could We Start Again Please?" seems weirdly directed as a love song between him and Mary Magdelene, rather than two friends joining together to wonder what went wrong with the man they both love).

Phil Goodwin's lighting design is pretty goddamn spectacular - it's a bit keen on sending out the blinding-effects into the audience now and again, but there's a great sense of spectacle (in partular, the uber-gaudy title-song gives Judas' vegas-style hustling a good backrdrop, and the "tv static" crucifix during the crucifixion is a great image which it would have been great to see supported elsewhere in the production - I have a feeling this is borrowed from the recent Arena tour that used a lot more multimedia, where the static could have made a bit more of a statement rather than just be there as a nice image). Jordan Kelly's choreography is good in bigger crowd numbers like "Hosanna" and "Simon Zealotes", although I'm not in love with the Up-With-People-style modern-dress dancers in the title song - their moves seem a bit too clean-cut for what should be a bit more down-and-dirty.

All in all, this is a production with a lot of strengths but with a bit of a dramatic hole where the centre should be. There's some great work here that could have been stronger with better, tighter and more passionate direction.