Anything Goes, Australian Opera, Sydney Opera House

It's a weird choice for the Australian Opera to do this particularly jazzy 1930s musical - this is a very silly light show with very little use for the kind of voices the Australian Opera usually uses (only soprano ingenue Hope Harcort (played by Claire Lyon) requires legit voice). But if they're going to do it, they're going to do it with a lot of pizzaz and style.

Most of this works in Dean Bryant's production. The action, largely taking place on a cruise ship between New York and London, is largely comedic shenanigans as multiple identites, misdirected love triangles, billionaires, criminals and revivalist singers all collide repeatedly, and is basically an excuse to get through a truly stunning set of Cole Porter songs. There is a slightly mismatch between the tone of the script and some of the performances - the songs in particular are sophisticated wit, while the performances do include a few "punch in the crotch" jokes that seem awfully unnencessary - I know the title is "Anything Goes" but you don't need to throw in everything and the kitchen sink.

Leading the cast is Caroline O'Connor, who is in good voice but whose acting occasionally feels over-indicated - while singing, there's an awkward tendency for her to over-illustrate the lyrics, which works okay in the comic material, but has issues in the more sentimental (in particular, her opening "I get a Kick Out of you" sets things off on a bad footing - it's not a song that needs to be mugged for comedy, although it is strangely placed in the script - it's a charming love ditty delivered to a guy who shows no interest whatsoever in her and who spents the rest of the show chasing someone else). She does lift the roof off the joint for the two big production numbers, the title song at the end of act one and the practically blasphemous revival meeting for "Blow Gabriel Blow", which is what's required.

As the romantic lead, Alex Rathberger has a pleasantly winning air, even when indulging in multiple impersonations to win the girl, and also a charming tenor. He has that 1930's "full of pep, energy and wit" attitude that sets the period right. Wayne Scott-Kermond has most of the low comedy of the show as the goofy crook Moonface Martin and lands it right down the middle of the theatre in broad, wildly appealing strokes.

Claire Lyon has the weakest role of the principals but a nice soprano voice - it's not her fault that Hope's "why I can't get the guy" excuses are so very underwritten. Todd McKenny has over-inflated billing but is amusingly foppish in his silly-british-lord role (though the "improvised" shenanigans in his big scene do go on a bit and are very probably not improvised). Debra Krizak's Erma is largely a loud broad at the edges of the plot but she's a knockout in her one big number, "Buddy Beware", as a closing number. In the minor roles I'll put a particular shout out to Nicholas Kong who drew attention in the STC's ill-fated "Spring Awakening" a few years ago and is still just as "why hasn't this guy played a major principal role" 5 years later.

As big-broadway-musicals go, this is worth it for the big production numbers, which are staged big and broad and are blockbustingly good (Andrew Hallsworth's choreography uses props and a skilled dance ensemble with apomb), though it is ultimately a very silly evening (with not all of the comedy landing as firmly as it might). Still, the positives do outweigh the negatives just enough to give this a recommend.

A Rabbit for Kim Jong Il, Griffin Theatre, The Stables

This is a sweet little play that ultimately kinda doesn't work. Partially because ... in the end, it's about North Korea. Well, it's not about North Korea. It's the age old story about an innocent who goes abroad and ends up out of their depth. Except that the abroad is North Korea. And it kinda doesn't work to be sweet and innocent and little about North Korea. North Korea isn't a country where sweet and innocent things happen. It's a place where there's a brutal dictatorship that has been going on for quite some time. And a play that takes place against that backdrop without really engaging in it tends to feel kinda feeble.

Kit Brookman's script is taken from an anecdote about a German rabbit farmer whose specially bred giant rabbits were traded to the North Koreans, allegedly as part of a potential breeding program to break a famine. There's significant expansion of this (sending the German rabbit farmer after his rabbit, letting the rabbit have a voice, enlisting the surprising assistance of a friendly pet shop owner, and letting the two Koreans have their own contrasting agendas), but none of this really serves to widen the appeal of the original anecdote.

Steve Rodgers as the farmer is at the centre of the story is firmly sympathetic throughout. Kate Box has a messier time of it (her character twists are never entirely convincing) but she plays whatever her characcter is meant to be in the moment with conviction. Kaeng Chan's Chun is underdeveloped as a functionary who appears to have bigger plans - there's a nice sense that he's uncertain how his plans will play out and just as bewhildered as everybody else, but his character doesn't quite get that third dimension for full buy-in. Meme Thorne's Park Chun-Hei is a firmer martinet with some of her own oddities, but again, she isn't really fully dimensionalised as anything other than a threat. Brookman plays the rabbit with sweet naivete but appears a tad out of his depth when asked to play anything beyond happy hopefulness (when worries start applying, they don't appear to fully land in his performance - and in any case, I'm not entirely sure that the choice to give the rabbit more of a personality than the Koreans was a wise one).

Lee Lewis' production doesn't avoid the sentimental and too-damn nice pitfalls of the script, though it does move reasonably through the international action. It feels almost like it's trying to be a parable, but parables do need simplicity to work, and this doesn't quite get a firm sense of why it's telling the story it's telling. So unfortunately I can't quite recommend this.

Company, Everyman Theatre, The Q

"Company" is a rich theatrical meal - looking at love, friendship and life through a distinctly New York lens, it revolves around one single man on his 35th birthday as he reflects on his friendships with five different married couples and three significant romantic relationships. The songs are teeming with witty observations ("It's the little things you do together"), reflective ambivalence ("Sorry-Grateful") and sometimes just plain flat out insanity ("Getting Married Today")

Everyman's production features a ridiculously talented ensemble cast under some spectacular, tight direction from Jordan Best. Leading the way is Jarrad West, who is the perfect sardonic observer - somewhere between engaged and amused by his friends and terrified as their various insanities manifest. His quest to understand relationships and himself is the thread that ties the show together, and he is a great audiences-eye-view character, as well as opening up in great voice for the yearning "Someone is Waiting", the cavalcade-of-bullshit-false-epiphany "Marry Me a Little" and the climactic, emotive "Being Alive".

Through the various couples, we get Jordan Best and Will Huang as a strangely functional-dysfunctional couple, showing off all kinds of worrying tics, from the constantly correcting one another, to the mutual addictions, to some hysterical physical comedy as the battle gets hands on. Max Gambale and Helen McFarlane are the domestic types, taking a mild walk on the wild side with a little reefer - McFarlane's stoned gabbling is hysterical, and Gambale plays both the wild fun with McFarlane, and the more sober side as they lean back towards being responsible parents. Phillipa Murphy and Tim Sekuless are the swinger-inner-city couple who wildly celebrate their divorce, but are happy to stay living together (with maybe the occasional play-around on the side) - both have an enthusiastic, open friendly nature, and both also do great stuff in the ensemble, Murphy as the lead chorister in "Getting Married Today", and Sekuless with great physical work during "Have I got a Girl for You". Riley Bell and Laura Dawson are the preppie types whose disastrous wedding morning we sit in on (as Dawson delivers the flat-out-best-version of "Getting Married Today" I've ever seen - capturing every bit of rambling psychosis with crystal clarity to hysterical effect, and with Bell providing stable, emotive, everloving support - there's a great sense that here is a sensible, loving guy that Dawson could not be without). Jerry Hearn and Karen Vickery are the older friends with money - aware they're slightly over the hill but still out in the nightclubs -  Hearn has some great silly-duffer dancing and a few moments of barely suppressed emotional pain at his not-quite-right relationship, while Vickery epitomises blousy, sophisticated, bitter self-hatred with a cocktail and a sneer.

As the three girlfriends, Amy Dunham is sweetly naive and also brings her A-game in wild insanity. I don't think I've previously seen her play a dumb blonde, but this one is dumb like a fox - fascinating, eccentric, bewildered but somehow getting where she's going anyway. Vanessa DeJaeger gives Marta some downtown cool - her "Another Hundred People" manages to be both bitter and yearning, and in her scene with Bobby, she has that great ability to make you feel like you don't know where her character's going to go next, but make you always delighted when you get there. Michelle Norris is practical, sweet, kind yet determined in her scene and her dancer's body unleashes wildly unconventional erotic moves during "Tick-Tock".

Jordan Best's direction is tight as a drum, keeping every emotional moment on track and swerving the scenes into each other in glorious mixes that can switch from laughter to drama in seconds. Tim Hansen's musical direction gives us a band that nails a tricky, complicatedly rhythmic score. James Batchelor's choreography has a great range of movements that feel both characterful and true. Michael Spark's set takes one lyric ("All those pictures up on the wall") and makes it glorious reality with a series of frames and squares, while keeping an open, adaptable space that can, and does, go anywhere within Manhattan's limits. Lighting by Kelly McGannon is spot-on, whether it's the small picture-frame moments or the green-zombie glow during "What would we do without you", and Steve Allsop's sound design works perfectly on opening night, barring one bumped microphone (that should be a standard, but ... honestly, with musicals, I've seen so many messily spotty sound cues as actors are picked up three bars into a song that it's almost turned me off seeing shows in their first week).

In short - this is a show I love. Done by a company I love. Full of actors I love. Directed by a director that I love. Is there any surprise that, yes, I love the everloving hell out of this show. Go see it.

Ivanov, Belvoir

Anton Checkov's other rarely-performed piece bears a few similarities to the first one (recently reviewed as "The Present"). Both centre around a married man of low income and uncertain future who engages in casual love-making with the neighborhood rich people, both feature an out-of-control party in their second acts, and both end broadly similarly. "Ivanov" does have the distinction that it was performed during Chechov's lifetime, though, and extensively revised a number of times. And that level of testing means that it's a tighter piece, more focussed. And in Eamon Flack's adaptation, it manages to be both heartbreaking and wildly funny, often within seconds of one another.

There's a rich array of characters, though everything centres on Ewan Leslie's Ivanov, a man who is aware of his personal failures and inabilities yet struggles to do something vaguely decent with himself while surrounded with absurdity and grasping need. Leslie shows a remarkable range and depth of emotion - from detached observer to romantic, even loving husband, to tormented thinker. Even when he's drawn into making a mistake all over again, you can't help but emphathise.

Elsewhere there's strong support - whether it's Zahra Newman who's a delightfully sunny presence as his wife up until the point at which she's not sunny any more, Blazey Best being the most nouveau of the nouveu riche, John Bell giving great Curmudgeonly Uncle work, John Howard as a man bored and exhausted but somehow continuing to go on, Mel Dyer giving deathstares as the maid, Fazzal Bazi a lord of misrule as Ivanov's cousin, Airlie Dodds innocently deluded as a pure force of passion, Helen Thompson luxuriating in wealthy crapulence and Yalin Ozucilek, magnificnetly offended that nobody realises how badly everybody is behaving.

Flack directs to perfection - it's a play that's both personal and yet wildly political - the inner angst is just as much driven by money and class and who has power as it is about who's lust is leading them where. Michael Hankin's set modulates beautifully and entirely suits the belvoir space (and the set changes are highlights), while Mel Page's costumes are led by and reflect their characters down to the ground.

A lot of Belovir this year has felt strangely tenative - not fully going into the works presented, at a slight remove. But this is the full meal-  rich, whole hearted, great theatre. Absolutely worth the watch.

Of thee I sing, Squabbalogic/Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

The biggest musical of 1932, "Of Thee I sing" has slightly slipped into being a trivia answer since ("the first musical to win the Putlizer Prize"). With a script by Morrie Ryskind and George Kaufman, who, among other things, co-wrote a number of early Marx Brothers hits, it's inevitably wildly silly, and while the Gershwins wrote the score, it isn't a score that produced any standards that have had a big life outside the score (unlike, say, the other big musical of the 1930s currently playing in the Opera Theatre, "Anything Goes" - which oddly enough, shared two of its original leads with "Of thee I sing").

A spoof of American Presidential politics, "Of Thee I sing" tells of the adventures of John P. Wintergreen - "everybody loves him, and they'll vote for him whether they want to or not". The party machine decide they need a cause, and after consulting a grouchy chambermaid, they decide their cause will be Love - their candidate will find true love on the campaign trail with the assistance of a national beauty pageant. It sounds like it should work wonderfully, until, of course, Wintergreen finds affection instead with a campaign worker, Mary, who just makes great corn muffins. But the deposed beauty queen, Diana Devereux, isn't going to take this lying down, and she has some surprising connections...

In all honesty, Kaufman and Ryskind's book is the kinda script that could use a little creative editing around the edges. It does have a reasonable mount of wit to it, but there are some longeurs that coulda been trimmed (in particular, Mary has a conversation about White House catering that goes nowhere, and in a show that lasts two hours fourty-five minutes, perhaps a parody of Senate tedium is not what you want to introduce at the two hours twenty mark). The Gershwin's score is bouncy though reprise heavy, with plenty of opportunities for big choral work which the couple of hundred members of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs launch into with gusto (although some sections needed tighter diction as witty lyrics disappeared in a vocal muddle). If the score does feel a little like they're imitating Gilbert and Sullivan without bringing a lot new to the table, it does at least have a reasonable pep to it.

Squabbalogic's casting is, as usual, impeccable. David Berry's Wintergreen has that all important combination of smarm and charm - you know he's a shifty bastard but you like him anyway. Courtney Glass' Mary is loving without being a complete doormat, Jaimie Leigh Johnson's Diana gives good quality indignant rage, and James Jay Moody's Throttlebottom is dweebishly ridiculous. Sharing fourteen of the other roles between them, Blake Erikson, Nathon Farrow and Rob Johnson morph gracefully between whatever is required of them, often in mid-scene.

If it's not the greatest musical ever written, "Of Thee I Sing" is never the less an entertaining artefact of 1930s Americana that pleasantly diverts

Much Ado about Nothing, Canberra Rep

Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" has a classic rom-com premise at its centre - a bickering man and woman keep on bickering until it's obvious that the only thing to do is for them to fall in love. But the play around it has some interesting angles - in particular, there's real darkness in the subplot as the sweet-young-things, Hero and Claudio, are torn apart by a vicious trick, with Claudio's reaction making the earlier light fluffy giggles turn nasty. What started out as light jesting suddenly turns deadly serious - these jokes hurt.

At the centre of this production are Jim Adamik and Lainie Hart as Benedick and Beatrice, the squabbers who will, inevitably, find themselves together. There's rich performances from both - Adamik has always been a delightful clown (and is again here, particularly in his broad physical manouvres round a trellis during the "overhearing" scene), but there's also a serious, gutsy actor who shows his mettle when the games are over and the jokes aren't funny any any more. Lainie Hart manages to achieve great comic effects from the most minor of movements - there's a moment when she manages to get a laugh as she breaks her stride and her collar suddenly stops bouncing - as well as immaculate vocal work tossing quips hither and yon.

In the secondary romantic roles, Vivek Sharma has a sweet dopey romanticism, is quite delighfully comic in his fooling of Claudio, is suitably despairing and cruel in his rejection, and moves into dejected sorrow as he realises what he has lost. Marni Mount's Hero is pretty but ... this is one of those "is it the part or is it the actor" things - I can't remember a really good Hero from any other production, and I get the feeling there is not much more to do than stand there and look pretty. Which she does very well.

Elsewhere, there's a mixed bag of performances. Tony Turner doesn't appear to be pushing himself very hard - even in the despair of the rejection scene, we get more "gestures towards emotion" than actual emotion. It's a pity after his strong performance in "Casanova". Riley Bell's Dogberry is probably going to split audiences - for mine, there's some great physical comedy in there (in particular one very dramatic pratfall) but it does come at the expense of sacrificing some of the great spoonerisms in the script, which kinda get buried under all the physical business. There is, however, a great comedy-team-up look between him and Liz Bradley (as Verges) - when he's next to her, with his rubbery face and her stone face, his height and her .. not-height ... it definitely provokes grins.  Fraser Findlay steals scenes effortlessly with a strong singing voice, witty gestures and a strong solid presence. David Kavanaugh gets in some high-quality brooding as Don John, Ben Russell is impishly pleasurable as Don John, Joshua Bell's Borachio and Bradley J. McDowell do great slimy-creep work as Don John's toadies.

The 1920s settting means costume design is rich and gorgeous throughout - the set design does feel a little bit static and Cynthia Jolley-Rogers lighting is a little samey (though the foggy mourning scene does induce a great lighting moment). There is also a slightly weird placement of the interval - it doesn't quite feel like the right moment in the action (maybe a scene earlier?) to be taking a break.

This is not a perfect production, but there's great work in the centre of it between Adamik and Hart, and it is certainly worth the catching.

Storytime 2015, Civic Pub

Okay, this isn't really theatre, but it's never the less one of the events that happened round town that I went to that I think kinda deserves a review anyway. It's not really standup (though it's hosted by one of Canberra's best standups, Jay Sullivan), and it's not really a music show (though it had a damn good music act in the middle). It's sorta a chat show, live and in person, with a simple format - Jay has four guests, who he interviews then invites to tell a story about their lives. The guests are wide and varied but all have a story to tell of some type or another. After the second guest's story, there's a musical act, who plays us to interval, and plays again just after interval. And after the final guest, it's done.

This time, the four guests were Emma Markezic (a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan), Tony Brennan (Deputy high Comissioner for the UK), Matt Nightingale (a bass player for a ridiculous number of local bands) and "Andrew" from the band "Glitoris (an all female band that plays punk songs while bare to the waist and covered in glitter). All had wild and wooly stories to tell about their lives and adventures, both capably interviewed by Sullivan, and solo. It's a remarkably human evening - these are regular people with their own interests and they share them beautifully and generously. Midshow act "The Here and Now" sounded absolutely bloody gorgeous, too.

The nature of the event, of course, means that it's as good as its guests, but if the curated selection of human beings is as good as this again on October 20th when the second Storytime happens, it'll be awesome indeed.