The 2021 Well I Liked It Awards (WILIs)

 

Another year, another chance for Canberra's Fourth-Most-Popular-Theatre-Awards. And, yes, it's been another year where the full roster of productions didn't happen, but dammit, there was still award-worthy stuff this year that's worth talking about, so this is an excuse to talk about it at some length. 

First of all, in local theatre, Canberra Youth Theatre had a generally stellar year, with three strong plays for their teenage cohort, their under 13s and their twentysomethings - the teenagers with the chilling and revealing "Little Girls Alone in the Woods", the under 13s with the gripping "I've Been Meaning to Ask you", and the twentysomethings with "Two Twentysomethings...". In each case they were modern, relevant choices, given clear productions full of entertainment and insight. The best of these may have been the one for the under 13s, "I've been meaning to ask you", a show very much about how young people view the world they're growing up with - a distorting and somewhat disturbing mirror of the current world as it is. A lot of youth theatre feels more like training exercises than theatre, and often exercises that mean more to the 30-and-40 year olds that are running the groups than to the young people involved in making the shows. These are unapologetically shows generated by and from young people talking about their concerns, and bringing us into their point of view - it's fully-grown-up-theatre that just happens to have a cast of young people, developing true ensembles out of their casts. It's an impressive achievement, and I hope to see CYT duplicate it in future years and grow accordingly.

 Elsewhere, I was also impressed by "Wolf Lullaby" by Echo theatre at Queanbeyan - director Jordan Best revisited a play she'd directed impressively fifteen years back, and brought out a production that was just as terrifying and just as insightful while absolutely being its own thing. Also Papermoon's "The Penelopiad" took a different view of foundational Greek Myths in a production of life, spectacle, and engagement, making Margaret Atwood's somewhat dry script a very lively and visceral exercise.

Touring, two that most impressed me were "The Appleton Ladies Potato Race" with a killer all-female cast of theatre legends both old (Valerie Bader and Merridy Eastman) and younger (Mandy McElhinney and Amber McMahon) and brand new to me (Sapidh Khan) telling a great Australian Story with speed, clarity and entertainment, never lingering on the obvious moral dimension to draw from the production; and "Grace Under Pressure", a fascinating docu-drama about the pressures that the medical profession places on its staff, again done with clarity and style in a simple yet effective production. 

In the "special Theatrical event" category sits "You're Safe til 2024: Deep History", David Finnigan's narrated story of his personal history, the history of the planet, and the possible places it's going to, which combined strong visuals and musical aspects with an urgent impassioned narrative and a strong personal style - a gripping night in the theatre showing Finnigan to be a figure absolutely worth keeping an eye on as one of Australia's more visceral voices.

Interstate, of the plays I saw I ultimately fell most head-over-heels in love with Sydney Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" - this had the potential to land flat on its face with a large cast play done by three actors, extensive use of video, migrating time periods, use of the round and inclusion of additional text to add clarity or context to the play, all things that could have felt empty or gimmicky or ridiculous, but which instead gave active urgent flight to a play about the power of political movements, of propaganda and about how it burns the people around it. In particular, the central section of Geraldine Hakewill's "Friends Romans Countrymen" speech is goddamn amazing theatre, using one of the most familiar texts of all time and showing anew why it holds up, what it's doing in this play and how it's the pivot point around which everything else turns, giving it insight and dramatic urgency. 

In local music theatre, I only got a chance to see the two local Jukeboxes musicals, and by default, the jukebox I liked more was, inevitably given I'm who I am, the one playing Abba. "Mamma Mia" absolutely rewarded the waiting, premiering about a year after it was supposed to, and giving joy, emotion and drama to the goofy plotline tying all the Abba songs together, with the usual kickass performances from Louiza Blomfield and Helen McFarlane complemented by a rich supporting cast giving their all in the creation of joy and happiness and the illusion of Greek Island Summer during late April in Queanbeyan.

Interstate there were two musicals I absolutely loved, both of which will be playing more widely next year - the Finally At Last Australian Premiere of "Fun Home" gave a great production of one of my favourite musicals of the last decade, filling the large Ros Packer theatre with emotion and drama as it told Alison Bechdel's coming-of-age-and-sexuality in a funeral home dominated by her closet-case-father (and will get a reproduction as part of Melbourne theatre company's season next year in Feb-Mar); and "Moulin Rouge" was the big-scale musical writ very large, giving the sense of all that theatrical energy which has been locked up for the last two years of lockdown and releasing it with romance, fun, glamour, ridiculousness over-the-top-ness and a pure go-for-broke style that entranced me the whole runtime. 

So, in short, somehow theatre survived 2021 and gave us lots of awesome to see. 2022 will hopefully have more and greater spectacles for the eyes, ears, mind, and heart to enjoy, and I hope to see and enjoy lots of it.

Two twentysomethings decide never to be stressed about anything ever again, ever - Canberra Youth theatre, Canberra Theatre Courtyard Studio, 9-14 Dec

 

It's a familiar enough premise since the New Wave of Australian drama in the late 60s/Early 70s - the foibles and neuroses of 20somethings, presented with gentle humour as they work their way around the challenges of early adulthood. It's how writers like Alex Buzo, Jack Hibberd and David Williamson got their start. And in Michael Costi's comedy, it's a great end-of-year tonic to a year that has been fairly damn stressful.

Of course the titular premise has a big hole in it, because stress can't be disposed of by just deciding not to be stressed, and the two main characters, Boyfriend (Elliot Cleaves) and Girlfriend (Martha Russell), are both hilarious as they attempt to bottle and deny their gathering angst, through ASMR podcasts, work and impromptu Kombucha parties with their New Best Friend (Blue Hyslop). There are gags a-plenty and Luke Rogers' production gives it a smooth, stylish gleam, on Aislinn King's modern wire-diagram set. 

Costi's script is joke-filled but also has a reasonable amount of soul to it, and gives the performers plenty of space to shine. True, this isn't the most exciting of the three big offerings that Canberra Youth theatre gave us this year, but that's only because the first two kinda blew my mind while this one just amused me a fair bit. Still, light relief after the 2021 we've had feels kinda worth it

Moulin Rouge, Global Creatures and 38 other producers, Regent Theatre Melbourne til April 29 2022, Capitol Theatre Sydney from 28 may 2022 to 4 Sept 2022.

 

Baz Luhrman's film of "Moulin Rouge" is a cinematic overwhelming of romance, music, dance and drama, constantly going over the top in somewhere between cinematic throwback and ultra-modern split-second editing, with Ewan McGregor's most endearing grins, Nicole Kidman's most smoldering glances, Jim Broadbent's most ebullient glee, Richard Roxborough's silliest accent and a glorious amount of pizazz. Two decades later, it hits the Australian stage as a show with just as much energy, with most of the notable songs from the original film plus hits of the last two decades (mostly divas like Sia, Beyoncé, Pink, and Rhianna - as I said to a friend afterwards, artists beloved of gay men and teenage girls), in a production that brings glamour, energy and spectacle back to musical theatre. 

There's some sensitive rearrangements of the material to adjust for the requirements of the stage and to rebalance the central love triangle to be more of an actual triangle and less a love story with an idiot off to the side. It brings the audience in by spreading the set across the whole proscenium, including rotating windmill and be-trunked elephant, plus having much of the action occur on a ramp going out into the audience, bringing us into the action. The direction by Alex Timbers, choreography by Sonya Tayteh, set-design by Derek McLane, Costumes by Catherine Zuber, Lighting design by Justin Townsnd and Sound by Peter Hyelinski are all done to the hilt, landing the show between late 19th century Paris and Right Here, Right Now. It is lavish, spectacular and completely engrossing in a "what are they going to do next" kinda way

The cast are, astonishingly, not outshone by the show going on around them but match and surpass it. Anita Chidzey launches to the theatrical stratosphere as Satine, with a performance of power, strength and emotion that makes me wish I wasn't boycotting Free-Rain productions in the last decade or so because I wanted to see people I knew from the local theatre in lead roles, because then I woulda been able to say "I knew here when she was playing Mary Poppins". Des Flanagan gives charming romanticism to the role of role of Christian. Simon Burke is having the time of his life as the pandering Harold Ziegler, enjoying taking the audience in the palm of his hand and playing them like a symphony orchestra. Tim Omaji as Tolouse-Lautrec is even less Lautrecian than John Leguiziamo was but gives passion and energy to the role, Andrew Cook sleazes suitably as the reengineered role of the Duke. Ryan Gonzalez smoulders and struts as the tango-dancing Santiago, and Samantha Dodemaide impresses as the independent-minded Nini. 

This is big, impressive, overpowering spectacle that produces pure joy and gives the audience everything it possibly can. It's a spectacular and fun night out.

Wherever She Wanders, Grifin Theatre, Stables - 5 Nov-11 Dec 21

 

If you've wanted to outrage people, "what's going on in our university campuses" has been a go-to target for centuries - the places where young people start to experiment with new ideas and each other, where theories start to become horrendously  practical, where teenagers become adults and where those in charge find themselves questioned by those supposedly there to learn. And for elite universities where young mem and women go from being hothoused in single-sex private schools to suddenly engaging each other and alcohol away from family and control, things get heated very quickly.

Kendall Feaver takes these circumstances and brings them into a world where instant social media commentary serves to inflame things and get outrage to speed ahead of any attempts to deal with the real-world issues, where brutal things happen in the names of real justice and when people can find themselves in over their head before they're ready. It's a play full of ideas, without easy answers, heated and thoughtful and about the penalties everybody suffers when they let their actions get ahead of care and intention. 

Leading as two key combatants are Emily Halvea and Fiona Press - Halvea the young activist full of passion and unsure what should happen, just that someone should do something, Press as the older member of the system who finds herself trapped between an institutional role and her own human integrity. Both give passionate engaging performances that force the audience to understand them even as they both make choices that cause more trouble for them. Julia Robertson as the centre of their arguments, the victim who's being further victimised as her life becomes a cause of contention, keeps focus as a character whose marginalisation is almost the point. Jane Phegan plays two different mothers with emotional truth and Mark Parugio and Tony Cogan play two different men from different eras both caught up in the course of events. 

Director Tessa Long uses the small Stables stage well in moving the story forward with speed and clarity, using some creative stylisation for a few moments to bring the wider world into a simple room with two chairs, and gives the play suitable scope. It's an engrossing thought provoking ride into the frontlines of feminist debate that manages to deal with hot topics in a way that never lets rage take over from thought. Kendall Feaver's debut play "the Almighty Sometimes" a few years ago was an accomplished debut - this is a development of skill that's surprising but very much appreciated.

Happy Days, Red Line Productions, Old Fitz Theatre - 5 Nov-30 Nov 21

 

This is only the second Samuel Beckett I've seen on stage (after seeing a "Godot" sometime in the 2000s) - which is probably enough to write me off as a theatrical dilettante if by some reason you hadn't done so already (I have at least read "Endgame" at some point).  He's one of those playwrights who's a bit of a monolith and an epitome of a certain kind of tragi-comic-life-in-the-time-of-apocalyptic-despair-type of play. In this case, it's an almost-monologue (one bonus performer makes brief appearances and unrevealing grunts from time to time) of a woman stuck in a mound of, in this production, black slag and detritus, trying to keep going through days that seem from the outside increasingly purposeless and doomed. We're confronted with the shallow rituals and the choice to survive just a bit longer, and how these rituals serve her or don't serve her, and her just-over-the-slag-heap-partner.

It's an ambiguous text which partially feels like a tribute to resistance and partially feels like a pure exploration of surviving in hellish circumstances, and this production plays into the ambiguity, Belinda Giblin a shiny positive face who only occasionally lets the stresses blink through and who maintains strength even with half, then later, almost of her body language eliminated.  In the intimate location of the Old Fitz you can feel every breath, see every glance, and it's an exposing piece of drama. all the way thorough to the unsurprisingly grim ending. For obvious reasons, it's not necessarily going to be many people's idea of a good night out, but as an experience of a major writer's work it's a very strong example of how it works.

The Boomkak Panto, Belvoir Street Theatre - 20 Nov-23 Dec 21

 

A big goofy piece of crowd-pleasing nonsense for the end-of year slot, this is at the same a lot of good fun and a little bit of a monstrous elephantine empty creature of self-indulgence, depending on how you look at it. Simultaneously a spoof of panto-values and a celebration of them, while telling an old-as-the-hills tale of small-town people standing up to a big out-of-town-developer and discovering their own values while that happens, taking all this all on has meant this stretches to around two-and-a-half-hours, while probably having about half that time worth of workeable content. Admittedly this is a show that admits all its flaws as it goes, but somehow it seems some of this stuff really should have been dropped during rehearsals to give a tighter show rather than a bundle of loose-ends that only manages to be as delightful as it thinks it's being about 50% of the time. 

Virginia Gay has certainly written herself a hell of a role as the weary stage-manager and person-who-actually-knows-about-pantos-but-fears-them. And in her two set pieces, one per act, she goes to town and makes them work. What comes between them, though, is a lot of loose plotting that doesn't quite distract -would-be-charming-fumbling ends up feeling a bit strained. Around her is a varied mix of performers far too often having to do the heavy-work of carrying the over-familiar plotting only occasionally getting to reach moments of transcendance (the act two performance of a familiar Tina Arena classic being one of those). There are also a few too many jokes that are going for a big audience "woo" of "we agree with the sentiment behind this joke", rather than, you know, the think a joke is meant to go for, which is "ha". 

I'm being probably a little grinchy about this-  there is some very good fun in here. There's also stuff that goes on way too long for too little effect and could have been trimmed in week 2 of rehearsals. I think light-entertainment deserves more care and precision than this has. 

Julius Caesar, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre - 15 Nov - 23 Dec 21

 

Julius Caesar was, for me, like most people, one of the first Shakespeare plays I studied at high school. I must admit it's still not one of my favourite Shakespeares, largely because it's got messy structural issues - the play peaks in Act III (out of 5), with the ending being a series of battles largely lead by a character who only shows up in Act IV (Octavian) - the kind of annoying lack-of-dramatic-development-of-key-characters thing that actual history tends to hand playwrights but  which can be massaged out more stylishly than Shakespeare particularly manages. As it happens, this is the first time I'd seen a production of it, in Kip Williams' somewhat bells-and-whistles filled production (with a cast of three playing multiple roles, in the round with a box of video screens projecting a lot of the action in close up, filmed largely by the cast). 

Surprisingly, this is a production that brought me closer to the play and made me love it more. The actors do stirling work, swapping between multiple roles smoothly and effectively giving performances scaled to both close-up and opposite-side of the stage, with clever transitions and choices defining when the screens will take precedence versus when the actor-on-stage is the focus. The costumes move between period and style in clever ways, with different sections having different emphasis. The central forum speeches of Brutus and Antony are a particular highlight, with the play very much pivoting on this point, but the show doesn't lose momentum after these moments, springing creative choices that keep the action constantly engaging.

Standing out in the centre of much of the action is Zahra Newman, largely playing Brutus. the moral centre of the play, as the one caught between family history, personal loyalties and honour as he chooses to buy into a murderous conspiracy to prevent tyranny and lives to see the results. She has the intensity right where it should be, emotionally true and engrossing (she also seems to be required to do a pretty large piece of crew-work that is, as all good big-scale-crew-work should be, completely invisible and looks like magic). In the showy trio of Caesar, Cassius and Octavian, Ewan Leslie knows just how to individuate all three with a voice, a piece of body language and a change of the angle of the sweater hanging over his shoulders. Geraldine Hakewill has Mark Antony's killer setpiece of a speech in the centre of the play and absolutely makes it her own, even at the slightly extended length it gets here (as she begins to channel other pieces of familiar rhetoric and drag them into the increasingly demagogic speech, as we see how political gamesmanship is played. 

It's a production that makes big bold choices and commits to them strongly, knowing just when to use a particular device and when to let it go. There's distinct transitions between design aesthetics here that know just when they have to happen and makes them appear smooth and effortless, such that you arrive at a point thinking "how did we get here" rather than anything feeling laboured or rough. This is a production that feels speedy and loaded with ideas yet never feels overwhelming or incomprehensible. It's a major achievement that serves performers and audiences well. It opened my eyes to a play I used to consider the safe choice for high school students because it was the Shakesperare play wit the fewest obvious sexual references. I'm deeply happy I made time for this.