When I finished watching "Death of a Salesman" last year, one of the things I thought about was the use of the Australian accent in an American play. And I said to myself, it's an interesting approach, and it works here, but I can't really see how it'd work with Tennessee Williams.
So Belvoir obviously decided to show me how it'd work. Or ... not. Or ... sorta.
Oddly enough, I don't think much of the problem with this production has to do with accents. Far more has to do with period. For me, "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" is a play about people who can't quite speak the truth about what's happened to them - the big conversation in the closet being precisely what was going on between Brick and Skipper, and why this has caused Brick to retreat into self-disgust and alcoholism.
And, due to this being a 1950's play, it's never quite said. And there are two, to my mind, equally valid interpretations. Either Brick genuinely did harbour a sexual passion for Skipper that he's unable to face, or, to my mind more interestingly, that maintaining the rules of the closet around that relationship by never talking about what was going on between them, Brick blames himself for killing his best friend.
But the largescale avoidance of talking about the topic feels very 1950s rather than contemporary - it doesn't really ring true as something contemporary characters would do or how they'd behave.
I'm not sure to what extent this is part of what's going on in the script - Williams' structure is a little odd - act one is basically a monologue for Maggie with interruptions from Brick, Act two largely consists of a long conversation between Brick and Big Daddy, and Act Three has most of the cast gathering for Brick's brother-and-sister-in-law to drop the truth about Big Daddy's medical condition on Big Momma. And Acts Two and Three work - in particular, the Brick and Big Daddy conversation plays like gangbusters, because it's the closest anybody gets to having an honest conversation. Act Three's a little odd as Big Momma's been skirted the edges of caricature during Act Two, and therefore suddenly having her as the solid voice of logic and determination causes a bit of mental whiplash. And "Cat" is a particularly odd script in the first place, with Williams rewriting Act three repeatedly for different productions (we get what appears to be roughly his first draft, with no Big Daddy appearance).
This does feel more like an exercise for Simon Stone than something he's genuinely passionate about (the way that "Salesman" felt drawn from the heart) - there's a lot of production bells and whistles (including some quite spectacular use of the revolve) going on that doesn't conceal that it isn't always hitting the emotions right. On one very shallow note, Ewan Leslie's hair as Brick is attrocious - for a character who's meant to inspire great loyalty from several people around him, making him a Jason Schwartzman-looking dweeb doesn't exactly indicate natural charisma.
The other thing to note is that this production makes clear the intense loyalty the female characters feel towards their fairly unworthy partners - Maggie towards the distant Brick, and Big Momma towards the verbally abusive Big Daddy. If the word didn't carry unfortunate connotations towards women, I'd almost say they're more dogs than cats - loyal to people irregardless of whether that loyalty is earned.
So it's an interesting night in the theatre that only really grabbed me by the heart once, rather than a completely successful one. I don't think it's by any means a failure, and there's a lot worth watching, but I don't think it's the triumph that it should be either.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Friday, 22 March 2013
Irresponsible - Civic Pub, Canberra Comedy Festival
Due to one thing and another, I got to see precisely... ONE show during the entire Canberra comedy festival (which had twenty-odd shows going). Fortunately, it had four very talented young comedians giving them all (plus one reasonable support act),
The one issue with the shared bill of four young men in their late-teens-early-twenties is that they do share a little bit of similarity of approach and subject matter - each tends towards shorter jokes, with a penchant for darker material, often about sex. There's not a lot of diversity - only the halftime song shared between Tim Noon and Harris Stuckey really breaks the rhythm of the show.
However, all four are skilled in their material. Simon Bower's the youngest, and still has a certain amount of nervous energy onstage, but comes across pretty well (he's also the only one to start aiming towards longer stories). Harris Stuckey's short one-or-two-liner pieces flow pretty nicely. Shahed Sharify gets a decent energy going, although, really, dude, claiming to not know what Argo is about really sounds weird after it won the goddamn oscar. Tim Noon is placed in the headline spot, and he deserves it. He does own the stage in a way the rest just don't quite - there's a very original comic mind going on there, and it'll be a pleasure to see how that develops in the next few months.
In short, very definately worth the $15 to see some promising young performers deliver some pretty damn good material.
The one issue with the shared bill of four young men in their late-teens-early-twenties is that they do share a little bit of similarity of approach and subject matter - each tends towards shorter jokes, with a penchant for darker material, often about sex. There's not a lot of diversity - only the halftime song shared between Tim Noon and Harris Stuckey really breaks the rhythm of the show.
However, all four are skilled in their material. Simon Bower's the youngest, and still has a certain amount of nervous energy onstage, but comes across pretty well (he's also the only one to start aiming towards longer stories). Harris Stuckey's short one-or-two-liner pieces flow pretty nicely. Shahed Sharify gets a decent energy going, although, really, dude, claiming to not know what Argo is about really sounds weird after it won the goddamn oscar. Tim Noon is placed in the headline spot, and he deserves it. He does own the stage in a way the rest just don't quite - there's a very original comic mind going on there, and it'll be a pleasure to see how that develops in the next few months.
In short, very definately worth the $15 to see some promising young performers deliver some pretty damn good material.
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Calendar Girls - Canberra Rep
Let us now praise populist entertainment. It's not necessarily deep, it's not innovative, and it doesn't change perceptions of theatre as an art form. But what it does is entertain, it keeps the audience engaged, it gives casts fun things to play and it hopefully brings nice amounts of box office to a theatre company.
Such is "Calendar Girls", which... yes, is basically a movie on stage (although it brings the scope back to one hall and a hill, rather than the international shenanigans that showed up in the film). But it's a friendly, funny piece with plenty of great roles for women of a range of ages and sizes, and just a spice of sauciness. There are plenty of laughs, just a few sad bits, and of course the nude calendar shoot centerpiece which tips it over the edge into hysteria.
Director Catherine Hill pulls together a tight company, played out on Russell Brown's adaptable set. Central are Elaine Noon as Annie, the heart of so much of the piece, and Naone Carrel as Chris, who gets a lot of the more outrageous comedy and is the source of at least two of the bigger dramatic moments. Jon Garland's role is to incite the action, which he does gorgeously sympathetically - he and Noon have that lived-in-feel of a real couple. Of the rest of the Calendar girls, most get at least part of a subplot each, although Anne Yuille's Jessie doesn't, and therefore seems to steal the show frequently by just getting all the best lines instead and delivering them devilishly well (I've not seen Yuille before, her last gig was around 20 years ago - I'm hoping she'll be snaffled up into the Canberra Theatrical regulars quick smart). The rest feel like their subplots are a tad tacked on - Megs Skillicorn's gormlessness would shine just as brightly without the tacked on straying husband, similarly Liz deTotth's Cora doesn't really need the departed daughter to bring her strength and humour, and Nikki-Lynn Hunter's monologue about unhappiness in the world of golfing clubs also feels kinda superflous.
Elsewhere in the cast - Paul Jackson's ability as a physical comedian are getting better and better - as the photographer Lawrence, his reactions are 50% of what makes the calendar shoot hilarious. Judi Crane's Marie is wonderfully imperious, with some wonderful layering, particularly in her act two showdown with Chris. Rob deFries seems to be going through an experiment where his love interests are getting older, which ... is nice, but otherwise there isn't much to his part - he's fine for what it demands, but it demands very little. Sam Hannan-Morrow's cameo is quite delightfully amoral - he's really quite brutal in a few short words, particularly "it's what you do, isn't it?"
Again, this is not theatre that reinvents the form, but it's a solidly craftsmanlike piece speckled with moments of extreme joy (the end of act one in particular) and occasional sadness.
Such is "Calendar Girls", which... yes, is basically a movie on stage (although it brings the scope back to one hall and a hill, rather than the international shenanigans that showed up in the film). But it's a friendly, funny piece with plenty of great roles for women of a range of ages and sizes, and just a spice of sauciness. There are plenty of laughs, just a few sad bits, and of course the nude calendar shoot centerpiece which tips it over the edge into hysteria.
Director Catherine Hill pulls together a tight company, played out on Russell Brown's adaptable set. Central are Elaine Noon as Annie, the heart of so much of the piece, and Naone Carrel as Chris, who gets a lot of the more outrageous comedy and is the source of at least two of the bigger dramatic moments. Jon Garland's role is to incite the action, which he does gorgeously sympathetically - he and Noon have that lived-in-feel of a real couple. Of the rest of the Calendar girls, most get at least part of a subplot each, although Anne Yuille's Jessie doesn't, and therefore seems to steal the show frequently by just getting all the best lines instead and delivering them devilishly well (I've not seen Yuille before, her last gig was around 20 years ago - I'm hoping she'll be snaffled up into the Canberra Theatrical regulars quick smart). The rest feel like their subplots are a tad tacked on - Megs Skillicorn's gormlessness would shine just as brightly without the tacked on straying husband, similarly Liz deTotth's Cora doesn't really need the departed daughter to bring her strength and humour, and Nikki-Lynn Hunter's monologue about unhappiness in the world of golfing clubs also feels kinda superflous.
Elsewhere in the cast - Paul Jackson's ability as a physical comedian are getting better and better - as the photographer Lawrence, his reactions are 50% of what makes the calendar shoot hilarious. Judi Crane's Marie is wonderfully imperious, with some wonderful layering, particularly in her act two showdown with Chris. Rob deFries seems to be going through an experiment where his love interests are getting older, which ... is nice, but otherwise there isn't much to his part - he's fine for what it demands, but it demands very little. Sam Hannan-Morrow's cameo is quite delightfully amoral - he's really quite brutal in a few short words, particularly "it's what you do, isn't it?"
Again, this is not theatre that reinvents the form, but it's a solidly craftsmanlike piece speckled with moments of extreme joy (the end of act one in particular) and occasional sadness.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
The Secret River - Sydney Theatre Company
This review should not have happened. A sold out show I hadn't booked suddenly, through great providence and the generosity of a friendly fellow-critic, opened up the chance to see this. A vitally necessary story of the horror that lives at the beginning of white Australian history and colours our past to this day, "The Secret River" brings theatrical life to a popular novel (that I've never read) and is essential theatre for anybody whether you're watching for the politics, the emotional journey or for something visually fascinating.
The story is about Will Thornhill, a recently freed convict who takes his family to establish a home on the Hawkesbury river, and what happens when he comes face to face with the Dharug people who've been living there, is a story where we can see what's going to go wrong from fairly early on (the line "he realised how easy it was for a man to have land just by standing on it and claiming it" (paraphrased as I don't have the script) perfectly expresses that grand hope that often leads to disastrous ends).
Yet this is never just lecture theatre, telling us "what our ancestors did wrong". It's engaging throughout, in that we can see the tragedy coming, but we can also see the joyous life that is under peril - the chance to live together that was lost through fear of the other. There's brilliance and intelligence at every turn here - Iain Grandage's music drives the show emotionally, Stephen Curtis' open space reveals surprsing ranges of creativity as it changes from bare land to the titular river (and is wonderfully capable of being slippery when required, while also being steady-under-the-feet for the rest of the show).
In the performances, there's some brilliant use of language, accent and design in letting us into the characters world. The Dharug speak in their own language throughout, with the audience to interpret their meanings through gesture and intonation only - but the white characters are just as distanced, both through performing in English accents (it's a mark of how thoroughly Belvoir's approach of "actors accents only" has sunk in with me that it took me a minute or two to adjust to the performer's use of english accents) and through white makeup on the white characters - it's not a blatant alienation effect, but it's enough to be noticeable and to present a slight stylisation. Similarly, the Dharug's outfits are not historically accurate either - there's a blending towards modern clothing in the design that makes it harder to treat them as "the other". The two characters who veer closest to "modernity" are Ursula Yovich's narrator and Colin Moody's Blackwood, who stand as a case where black and white are living together without fear or conflict.
Performances across the board are excellent - from familiar veterans like Yovich, Moody, Trevor Jamieson, Jeremy Sims, Bruce Spence and Judith McGrath, to the young performers like Callum McManis, James Slee, Bailey Doomadgee, and, in shared roles, Bailey Doomadgee and Kamil Ellis as Garraway/Dulla Djin's child and Rory Potter and Tom Usher as Dick Thornhill. It's very few productions that would be confident enough in its child actors to have them perform at the start of Act two as the audience came in, and ... this show was that confident, and fulfilled that confidence spectacularly.
I haven't said anything about the work of writer Andrew Bovell and Neil Armfield, except the obvious, which is to say that it sits under and makes everything that I've praised above possible. Armfield's professional career goes back almost 35 years at this point, and this is a perfect blending of his mastery of stagecraft, his deep engagement with performance and his constantly surprising vision. Bovell is one of Australia's great writers and his adaptation works to distill a complex novel into a clear, illuminating, direct and powerful show.
The story is about Will Thornhill, a recently freed convict who takes his family to establish a home on the Hawkesbury river, and what happens when he comes face to face with the Dharug people who've been living there, is a story where we can see what's going to go wrong from fairly early on (the line "he realised how easy it was for a man to have land just by standing on it and claiming it" (paraphrased as I don't have the script) perfectly expresses that grand hope that often leads to disastrous ends).
Yet this is never just lecture theatre, telling us "what our ancestors did wrong". It's engaging throughout, in that we can see the tragedy coming, but we can also see the joyous life that is under peril - the chance to live together that was lost through fear of the other. There's brilliance and intelligence at every turn here - Iain Grandage's music drives the show emotionally, Stephen Curtis' open space reveals surprsing ranges of creativity as it changes from bare land to the titular river (and is wonderfully capable of being slippery when required, while also being steady-under-the-feet for the rest of the show).
In the performances, there's some brilliant use of language, accent and design in letting us into the characters world. The Dharug speak in their own language throughout, with the audience to interpret their meanings through gesture and intonation only - but the white characters are just as distanced, both through performing in English accents (it's a mark of how thoroughly Belvoir's approach of "actors accents only" has sunk in with me that it took me a minute or two to adjust to the performer's use of english accents) and through white makeup on the white characters - it's not a blatant alienation effect, but it's enough to be noticeable and to present a slight stylisation. Similarly, the Dharug's outfits are not historically accurate either - there's a blending towards modern clothing in the design that makes it harder to treat them as "the other". The two characters who veer closest to "modernity" are Ursula Yovich's narrator and Colin Moody's Blackwood, who stand as a case where black and white are living together without fear or conflict.
Performances across the board are excellent - from familiar veterans like Yovich, Moody, Trevor Jamieson, Jeremy Sims, Bruce Spence and Judith McGrath, to the young performers like Callum McManis, James Slee, Bailey Doomadgee, and, in shared roles, Bailey Doomadgee and Kamil Ellis as Garraway/Dulla Djin's child and Rory Potter and Tom Usher as Dick Thornhill. It's very few productions that would be confident enough in its child actors to have them perform at the start of Act two as the audience came in, and ... this show was that confident, and fulfilled that confidence spectacularly.
I haven't said anything about the work of writer Andrew Bovell and Neil Armfield, except the obvious, which is to say that it sits under and makes everything that I've praised above possible. Armfield's professional career goes back almost 35 years at this point, and this is a perfect blending of his mastery of stagecraft, his deep engagement with performance and his constantly surprising vision. Bovell is one of Australia's great writers and his adaptation works to distill a complex novel into a clear, illuminating, direct and powerful show.
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Standup comedy - Dave O'Neil, 33 Things I should have Said No To, Civic Pub
Canberra Standup comedy has a pretty good repuation round town, and one of the best gigs for a while has been the Civic Pub's first Wednesday gig. Good enough that, in warmup for appearances at the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Festival, Dave O'Neil (he's been on telly repeatedly!) brought his current show to canberra for a tryout night there. Surprisingly, this wasn't one of the Civic pub's best nights - the venue, which has usually been good for a quiet night that supports the standup, let a little too much bar-noise and downstairs rattles through. Also slightly underattended, which was disappointing.
Anyway, on to the actual standup. On MC and warmup duties were Canberra stalwarts The Stevenson Experience, a musical twin-brother duo who I've been seeing on-and-off for the last couple of years. It was good to see them with a bunch of fairly new material (I only recognised one song from previous gigs), even including a bit of character acting and choreography (or at least marching in one place) in an attempted mini-musical. The Stevenson's are very polished (even when they slide off-script, they keep good solid momentum going), and kicked off and held the evening together well.
Of the support act gigs, Harris Stuckey kicked off his gig by apologising for using his notes (never a good look) and dropped a series of amusing but unstructured one-liners. Craig Harvey used his physicality and a nice set of running gags in some good suburban-dad material. Simon Bower seems improved from last time I reviewed him (as part of Kale Bogdanov's gig) but his last joke was not his best joke.
Dave O'Neil was exactly what you expect from him on telly - a nice ramble through material about Devo, bogans, a reasonable sideline in the occasionally-risky-territory of Queanbeyan jokes, being a dad, the perils of being a breakfast radio host or Tonight show location-guy and boy-scouting. It was maybe a little over-extended as a 50 minute gig (I get the feeling he's still getting the kinks out) but, for $12 a pop, it's not a bad feeling to be experimented on a bit with someone as skilled as Dave is.
As noted, Dave will be touring this all over the place (Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne comedy Festival, many other places). Harris Stuckey and Simon Bower are 50% of the Canberra Comedy Festival's "Irresponsible" which you can read more about or buy tickets to here. The Stevenson Experience will also be featuring in their show "How I met your brother" which you can read more about or just buy tickets to here.
Anyway, on to the actual standup. On MC and warmup duties were Canberra stalwarts The Stevenson Experience, a musical twin-brother duo who I've been seeing on-and-off for the last couple of years. It was good to see them with a bunch of fairly new material (I only recognised one song from previous gigs), even including a bit of character acting and choreography (or at least marching in one place) in an attempted mini-musical. The Stevenson's are very polished (even when they slide off-script, they keep good solid momentum going), and kicked off and held the evening together well.
Of the support act gigs, Harris Stuckey kicked off his gig by apologising for using his notes (never a good look) and dropped a series of amusing but unstructured one-liners. Craig Harvey used his physicality and a nice set of running gags in some good suburban-dad material. Simon Bower seems improved from last time I reviewed him (as part of Kale Bogdanov's gig) but his last joke was not his best joke.
Dave O'Neil was exactly what you expect from him on telly - a nice ramble through material about Devo, bogans, a reasonable sideline in the occasionally-risky-territory of Queanbeyan jokes, being a dad, the perils of being a breakfast radio host or Tonight show location-guy and boy-scouting. It was maybe a little over-extended as a 50 minute gig (I get the feeling he's still getting the kinks out) but, for $12 a pop, it's not a bad feeling to be experimented on a bit with someone as skilled as Dave is.
As noted, Dave will be touring this all over the place (Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne comedy Festival, many other places). Harris Stuckey and Simon Bower are 50% of the Canberra Comedy Festival's "Irresponsible" which you can read more about or buy tickets to here. The Stevenson Experience will also be featuring in their show "How I met your brother" which you can read more about or just buy tickets to here.
Monday, 14 January 2013
Peter Pan - Belvoir Street Theatre
Yes, I went to what is, essentially, a kids show. Which ... well, I don't do that often. Largely because of my hatred of children, as an audience. But given that J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" was essentially an exercise of "Theatre as spectacle", and Belvoir Street has a low celing, is essentially one room and generally focuses on the coupla-actors-in-a-room stuff ... I was intrigued to see how they'd do it.
And the answer is, of course, creatively. A lot of J.M. Barrie survives into Tommy Murphy's adaptation, which keeps the story halfway between now-and-then, with a cast of 9 playing dressups in a children's bedroom over around 90 minutes - all the essential bits are covered, with pirates, crocodile, Nana-the-dog and even the flying, all realised with maximum imagination. Meyne Wyatt has all the egocentricity and charm of Peter Pan. As his nemesis, Captain Hook, Charlie Garber is quite gorgeously ridiculous (though he falls a little flat as Mr Darling). Geraldine Hackwill's Wendy is maybe slightly sabotaged by having to be the most responsible of the characters - she seldom gets a chance to really abandon herself over to fun, but she serves the material well. As for the rest, doubling and tripling (and twinning) in various roles, there is something quite irresistable about adult actors being this playful. There's a pure sense of glee coming across the footlights.
If I have a slight resistance, it's that ... not a lot of subtext survives this version. The ending is suitably poignant (and the last word resonates massively), but elsewhere, the wider mediations on childhood and the costs of growing up don't really get a lot of space (given... well, these are adult actors, and they don't appear to be particularly unable to enjoy themselves). But that's a theatre critic's problem rather than an audience problem. The rest of it is good fun for anybody who was ever a child and wants to enjoy it again.
And the answer is, of course, creatively. A lot of J.M. Barrie survives into Tommy Murphy's adaptation, which keeps the story halfway between now-and-then, with a cast of 9 playing dressups in a children's bedroom over around 90 minutes - all the essential bits are covered, with pirates, crocodile, Nana-the-dog and even the flying, all realised with maximum imagination. Meyne Wyatt has all the egocentricity and charm of Peter Pan. As his nemesis, Captain Hook, Charlie Garber is quite gorgeously ridiculous (though he falls a little flat as Mr Darling). Geraldine Hackwill's Wendy is maybe slightly sabotaged by having to be the most responsible of the characters - she seldom gets a chance to really abandon herself over to fun, but she serves the material well. As for the rest, doubling and tripling (and twinning) in various roles, there is something quite irresistable about adult actors being this playful. There's a pure sense of glee coming across the footlights.
If I have a slight resistance, it's that ... not a lot of subtext survives this version. The ending is suitably poignant (and the last word resonates massively), but elsewhere, the wider mediations on childhood and the costs of growing up don't really get a lot of space (given... well, these are adult actors, and they don't appear to be particularly unable to enjoy themselves). But that's a theatre critic's problem rather than an audience problem. The rest of it is good fun for anybody who was ever a child and wants to enjoy it again.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
The "Well I Liked It" awards
Given that I've (probably) seen my last bit of theatre for the year, and everybody's concentrating on exciting things like awards or, probably far more important, planning Christmas with friends and family, it seems the time to celebrate the good and ignore the bad from the year in theatre.
So I'm inaugurating the "Well I Liked It" awards for things that I liked. For any recipients - you should enjoy your WILI in private. Waving your WILI around in public doesn't impress anyone. My reasons for granting a WILI are my own, and I'm not going to give my WILI to anyone who's work I haven't seen. A critic has to have some standards, after all...
And I'm aware that theatre is a ridiculously collaborative medium, and amateur theatre even more so, so there will probably be instances where I'm praising someone for their work when actually several people were involved.
And these are awards with no particular rhyme or reason - I'm not doing anything like categories or anything. Just "I think that's award worthy".
Enough pre-amble. Let's get to the giving.
First up: "Thysestes" and "Death of a Salesman" get gongs for being the outstanding two works I saw interstate this year in the professional sphere, both at Belvoir (and I'm aware my eye is limited by only seeing Belvoir of the major companies interstate). Both were inventive takes on classic stories - "Thysestes" admittedly being a much older story and a much looser interpretation, but "Salesman" also providing a creatively different vision on a familiar play centred skillfully on a strong single visual metaphor and some incredible performances.
Also interstate, a production of J. Julian Christopher's "Man Boobs" in Melbourne, a dramatic-comedy/comedy-drama about body-image, emotional failure and the effects of past trauma, done by VicBears as part of the Midsumma festival. An intimate two-man piece turned one night's casual hookup into something far more heartfelt and soul destroying.
Locally: Big praise to Jenna Roberts' performance as Roxie in "Chicago" - one of the most striking performances in a local musical was also one of the first of the year. Jenna wasn't on stage a lot this year, but she made her performance count - it had the element of surprise, never quite knowing what she was going to do next but knowing that it was going to be amazing, whatever it was.
Duncan Ley's twin directorial triumphs for the year, "Pride and Prejudice" and "Pool: No Water" beg to be looked at as a pairing, just because they applied a consistent directorial aesthetic of "for gods sake, make it interesting" to two very different scripts. P&P was a story everybody knew going into the theatre, Pool a story I suspect nobody knew - both showed great ensemble work, were visually stunning to look at, kept all kindsa surprises up their sleeves and generally dazzled.
Cynthia Jolley-Rodgers lighting for "Speaking in Tongues" made an unconventional set look amazing, with clever use of shade, colour and pools of light to enhance the emotional impact.
Lachlan Ruffy deserves an award for being everywhere, and fitting in perfectly and perfectly differently every time he was somewhere. His twin performances in "Breaker Morant" were differentiated beyond just haircut-and-accent into portraits of intimidated fear and blind arrogance respectively, his gorgeously genial Bingley in P&P was delightfully charming, his palsied-up Gus The Theatre Cat in "Cats" was heartbreaking, his lighting for "Memory of Water" was emotionally acute and kept the work intimate, his gawkily brave teenager in "Lost in Yonkers" was hilarious and moving, and his waiter-dance-moves in "Rent" were just plain gigglesome.
Euan Bowen gets an award for what he did with a cape in "Improbable Fiction". Dear god, can that man wield cape.
Jarrad West was also everywhere (to the extent I didn't see everything he did). But both as performer and director, he amazed. In particular, his Diabetes in "God" pulled the whole piece together (in a ridiculously short skirt), his direction of "Hairspray" was witty, soulful and oh-so-John-Waters and his direction of "Rent" made me see stuff in my favourite musical I'd never seen before.
Vanessa DeJaeger impressed the hell out of me in three different places - her sunnysided Rosemary in "How To Succeed in Business", her mini-bitch Amber in "Hairspray" and her touchingly damaged Mimi in "Rent".
Max Gambale also brought the gobsmackingly good in two places: The just-plain loveable Edna in "Hairspray" and the demented artilleryman in "War of the Worlds" both amazed in two very different ways.
I've undoubtedly ignored stuff that I loved but just forgot to mention. But this is a few things that sprung to mind as worthy of some form of reminder recognition.
So I'm inaugurating the "Well I Liked It" awards for things that I liked. For any recipients - you should enjoy your WILI in private. Waving your WILI around in public doesn't impress anyone. My reasons for granting a WILI are my own, and I'm not going to give my WILI to anyone who's work I haven't seen. A critic has to have some standards, after all...
And I'm aware that theatre is a ridiculously collaborative medium, and amateur theatre even more so, so there will probably be instances where I'm praising someone for their work when actually several people were involved.
And these are awards with no particular rhyme or reason - I'm not doing anything like categories or anything. Just "I think that's award worthy".
Enough pre-amble. Let's get to the giving.
First up: "Thysestes" and "Death of a Salesman" get gongs for being the outstanding two works I saw interstate this year in the professional sphere, both at Belvoir (and I'm aware my eye is limited by only seeing Belvoir of the major companies interstate). Both were inventive takes on classic stories - "Thysestes" admittedly being a much older story and a much looser interpretation, but "Salesman" also providing a creatively different vision on a familiar play centred skillfully on a strong single visual metaphor and some incredible performances.
Also interstate, a production of J. Julian Christopher's "Man Boobs" in Melbourne, a dramatic-comedy/comedy-drama about body-image, emotional failure and the effects of past trauma, done by VicBears as part of the Midsumma festival. An intimate two-man piece turned one night's casual hookup into something far more heartfelt and soul destroying.
Locally: Big praise to Jenna Roberts' performance as Roxie in "Chicago" - one of the most striking performances in a local musical was also one of the first of the year. Jenna wasn't on stage a lot this year, but she made her performance count - it had the element of surprise, never quite knowing what she was going to do next but knowing that it was going to be amazing, whatever it was.
Duncan Ley's twin directorial triumphs for the year, "Pride and Prejudice" and "Pool: No Water" beg to be looked at as a pairing, just because they applied a consistent directorial aesthetic of "for gods sake, make it interesting" to two very different scripts. P&P was a story everybody knew going into the theatre, Pool a story I suspect nobody knew - both showed great ensemble work, were visually stunning to look at, kept all kindsa surprises up their sleeves and generally dazzled.
Cynthia Jolley-Rodgers lighting for "Speaking in Tongues" made an unconventional set look amazing, with clever use of shade, colour and pools of light to enhance the emotional impact.
Lachlan Ruffy deserves an award for being everywhere, and fitting in perfectly and perfectly differently every time he was somewhere. His twin performances in "Breaker Morant" were differentiated beyond just haircut-and-accent into portraits of intimidated fear and blind arrogance respectively, his gorgeously genial Bingley in P&P was delightfully charming, his palsied-up Gus The Theatre Cat in "Cats" was heartbreaking, his lighting for "Memory of Water" was emotionally acute and kept the work intimate, his gawkily brave teenager in "Lost in Yonkers" was hilarious and moving, and his waiter-dance-moves in "Rent" were just plain gigglesome.
Euan Bowen gets an award for what he did with a cape in "Improbable Fiction". Dear god, can that man wield cape.
Jarrad West was also everywhere (to the extent I didn't see everything he did). But both as performer and director, he amazed. In particular, his Diabetes in "God" pulled the whole piece together (in a ridiculously short skirt), his direction of "Hairspray" was witty, soulful and oh-so-John-Waters and his direction of "Rent" made me see stuff in my favourite musical I'd never seen before.
Vanessa DeJaeger impressed the hell out of me in three different places - her sunnysided Rosemary in "How To Succeed in Business", her mini-bitch Amber in "Hairspray" and her touchingly damaged Mimi in "Rent".
Max Gambale also brought the gobsmackingly good in two places: The just-plain loveable Edna in "Hairspray" and the demented artilleryman in "War of the Worlds" both amazed in two very different ways.
I've undoubtedly ignored stuff that I loved but just forgot to mention. But this is a few things that sprung to mind as worthy of some form of reminder recognition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)