The House of Bernarda Alba, Chaika Theatre, ACT Hub, 19-29 Mar

Photo from Jane Duong Photography

Frederico Garcia Lorca's 1936 Spanish tragedy of five sisters trapped together under a domineering mother where their own desires tear them apart is a masterpiece of tension and dramatic release - set during a long hot summer, the emotions are palpable and the tensions can be cut like a knife. As oldest sister (and inheritor of the family fortune) Angustius prepares for her wedding day, the other sisters develop their own plans, building to a crashing climax. Karen Vickery's production embodies this tension, makes it palpable in the glances, in the tones of voice and in the movements of the actresses. 

Leading the cast is the dominating Zsuzsi Soboslay, imperious and upright as Bernarda - a stiff reed in the changing winds. Sophie Bernassi as Angustius sells the frustration, the release and the crashing loss as she tries to mould herself to her mother's expectations and comes against her sisters' own needs. Karina Hudson as Adela, rhapsodic in her lusts, is so wonderfully selfish and possessed by her ambitions that you can see the disaster ahead without being able to stop it. Yanina Clifton as Martirio has a great, scheming undercurrent of rage and demand for her own satisfaction, hoarding her hidden knowledge of what's going on to release it at a time when it'll cause the most damage. Amy Kowalckzuk is beautifully able to sublimate her own desires with emphatic embroidery, sudden glances or an inappropriate snort as Magdalena. Christina Falsone as the housekeeper Poncia watches and attempts to advise, knowing she can't stop the disaster that is coming down the line towards all of them. And Alice Ferguson's Maria Josefa falls into revelries of her own desire for freedom, now long gone with her youth. 

Vickery's production uses the in-the-round stage as an arena for us to examine these women's struggles, on Marc Hetu's simple red-brick stage. Fiona Leach's costumes capture the mood and the heat as the women move from confining mourning wear to lounging slips and sleepwear. It's a true steam-train of a prodction, relentlessly moving to its inevitable conclusion, a sultry, tense evening of tragedy and power. This is a classic given form and power in a strong, intimate production driven by its actresses. It should be seen and savoured. 

The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty, Hayes Theatre Co in association with the Art House Wyong, Hayes Theatre, 14 Feb-16 Mar (and subsequent tours to Wollongong and Canberra)

 

photography John McCrae

For a show that's 145 years old, "Pirates of Penzance" certainly has held pretty solidly in the repertoire. Of course since Gilbert and Sullivan's work went out of copyright it's had a few strategic revisions (the 1980 Public Theatre adaptation starring Linda Rondstadt and Kevin Kline was the model for a lot of changes, some of which got ported across into the popular Essgee version with John English and Simon Gallagher, though the Australian Opera's last go-around also imported a lot of design elements from "Pirates of the Caribbean"). For this version, the second Gilbert and Sullivan done by the Hayes (following the HMS Pinafore which toured to Queanbeyan in 2020), it's cut down to a cast of five, letting everybody double all over the place as well as playing instruments throughout to bump up the sound. To allow for this, director Richard Caroll has indulged in the post-copyright tradition of fiddling with the lyrics and the script, doing some slight streamlining of some elements of the plot while also throwing in some bonus extraneous gags. 

For the most part the storytelling is left pretty much intact, as are most of the songs (with one interpolation from "Patience"). A simple small stage area with some wandering allowed into some of the audience gives our cast plenty of room to manouvre, with Jay Laga'aia a boisterous Pirate King, a suitably humble Chief of Police and a titteringly charming daughter of Major General Stanley; Brittanie Shipway enjoying both the innocent virgin soprano Mabel and the somewhat more bitter (particularly in a Brecht-Weill-inspired "When Frederic Was a Little Lad") contralto Ruth, in fine voice in both of them. Maxwell Simon is our slightly-dimwitted hero Frederic, who beams innocent charm throughout, and Billie Palin fills in as everything else like a troubadour. And Musical Director Trevor Jones also covers as Major General Stanley taking his patter song at a rate of knots and filing in mutliple other roles with gentle skill . The cast members are rarely off-stage for long before charging back on in a different persona (or occasionally switching mid-scene without exiting) and it's a very lively production.

There are a couple of points where the rewrites do bow a little more to modern sensabilities than they really need to (the ending, in particular, is a little shaky, dragging out the ending to give justice to one of G&S's much abused contralto roles), and it's all very rompy - I do feel fortunate that Queanbeyan Players is bringing in a full-orchestra version of the show in a few months so I can get a proper Pirates alongside this somewhat sillier version - but Pirates in any version is always going to be a light piece of nonsense, and this keeps the spirits up nicely. 

Song of First Desire, Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre, 13 Feb-23 Mar

Photo: Brett Boardman
 

Andrew Bovell's latest play was written on commission for the Spanish theatre collective Numero Uno, after two of his previous works had been hits in Madrid - "When the Rain Stops Falling" and "Things I know to be true". Two years after its premiere there, he gets his Australian debut at Belvoir, in a beautifully simple production. 

Some of Bovell's usual techniques are here again - the strategic bending of time and character (as all four actors play double roles across two different time schemes) and the unburdening of personal traumas - in this case, connected to the wider national trauma of Spain's emergence from forty years of fascist rule, and the damages it left behind on two families across years. The quartet of actors is gathered from two men from the original Madrid production and two New Zealand actresses who have both worked in Australia before - the set a mound of earth with a little bit of a garden on the edges, suggestive of buried secrets and the wastage they leave behind. There's strength in all four performers - Sarah Pierce as the damaged elderly Carmelia and the more immediately active Margerita - Kerry Fox as both the bitter sister and the wife of a senior facist leader - Borje Maeste as a migrant carer and as a young man about to be sent overseas - and Jorge Muriel as two men ultimately driven by lusts they barely understand. 

Morgan Maroney's lighting design is precision-close, creating corridors and shadows that suggest the locked-down world that these characters exist in, bringing to mind the ghosts of the past that underlie the play.  Mel Page's muddy, adapatable design is probably pure hell for the crew (the footprints having to be raked back out again after every performance) but it's a powerfully real location. It's a raw, emotional piece, delving deep into unpleasant truths in a way that feels uncomfortably familiar as we see history seeming to arc back towards this kind of darkness again. It's a play that's far more topical than anybody in the play wants it to be, and it's absolutely worth experiencing. 

4000 Miles, Wharf 1 Theatre, Sydney Theater Company, 17 Feb-23 Mar

 

(photography Daniel Boud)

Amy Herzog's 2011 play tells the story of a grandson and his grandmother -of him coming to her apartment in desperation after a personal disaster and the weeks that follow which map out the nature of the relationship between them. It's a prickly relationship with the somewhat-deaf and prickly Vera and her reticent grandson Leo resolving some but not all of their issues over the course of a hundred minutes in stage time - for the boy, a first encounter with mortality, the dissolution of a relationship and his choice of a path ahead, for Vera, a reflection on her own past relationships and what mattered in her life. Along the way we meet two young women Leo's connected with - his long term girlfriend Bec and a one night stand, Amanda - both of which bring fresh perspectives on the pair. 

A lot of the narrative drives from Leo - we're given an arc of his escape from responsibility into an emerging sense of him accepting new ones - Vera comes across as a little underwritten (which is ironic given 90% of Herzog's writers note is about how the character is based on her own grandma) - we get elements of her past and present but I don't sense that Herzog has fully thought through how a woman in her senior years finds purpose outside of family. There are some intriguing thoughts on the complacency of the comfortably well-off leftists who imagine themselves better people because they've been standing up against bad behaviour in their own country, never reflecting on how leftist policies have damaged people in other countries - but again, this examination never gets particularly deep. It's largely an attempt at comfortable warm vibes rather than a lot of thought on the issues it produces, and Kenneth Morelada's production largely produces those vibes well, with Jeremy Allen's comfortable West Village apartment giving us a stylish, intellectual retreat. 

Nancye Hayes as Vera anchors the evening well - giving Vera a lot of sharp, cantankerous edges combined with vulnerability. Shiv Palekar as Leo gives the combination of youthful enthusiasm and sudden damage from recent traumatic events palpable power - we know immediately something's going on behind his actions and the unravelling as it proceeds is powerful. Ariadne Sgouros relies a little bit too much on a self-protective smile to barely conceal the concerns Bec has underneath - she should have been assisted to find other ways of expressing the uneasy relationship she has with Leo than just one facial expression. Shirong Wu has one scene but makes it count, giving her character variety and life and presenting a strong contrasting viewpoint into the otherwise cosy environment. 

Kelsey Lee's lighting design shifts moods well, giving a sense of different times in the same room - and Jessica Dunn's composition and sound design adds to the mood as we transition between times.

This isn't the strongest season opener of STC's recent seasons - it's a little too eager to be gently ingratiating for that - but it's a good opportunity to see a theatrical legend like Hayes and to observe a human connection across the footlights. 

Baby Jane, Canberra Rep, Canberra Rep Theatre, 20 Feb-8 Mar

Photographer: Antonia Kitzel.

Henry Farrel's 1960 novel "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" became a sensation when filmed in 1962 - the combination of aging divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in a story about two mutually dependent sisters, aging and squabbling while one slips into dementia caused a box office smash and defined the rest of their careers in a series of somewhat lurid shockers. But Ed Wightman's adaptation of the novel takes it back to the original - much of the high-camp is removed and we're returned to a brutal drama about frustrated dreams, childhood exploitation and desperation. This isn't just a tour of memorable moments of the movie - there's no rat and there's no "but you are in that chair, Blanche" - instead we get a stronger look at what made Jane the cracked person we see and the consequences of decades of neglect.

Locking down this more realistic tone is Louise Bennett in the title role - the child within Jane is never far from the surface, including the immaturity and capriciousness of a child, as well as the strong sense of carrying around foundational pain. The role gives her plenty of room to move - there's a moment when she sings when it becomes apparent that if Jane could only learn how to function as an adult she could have a rich and powerful career as a singer, but her stunted expectations of herself as a child performer keep her a disturbing freak - and she seizes every opportunity to explore the range from broken child to bitter monster. Matching her is Victoria Tyrell Dixon as wheelchair-bound sister Blanche - you get the sense of the vain and pampered actress and she's not just a simpering victim to Jane's rages-  she rages back with equal strength. Elsewhere, Andrea Garcia makes her moral, certain maid into something compelling - we empathise with her efforts to help Blanche. Tom Cullen as Edwin Flegg is a character with his own complications-  his attempts to play along with Jane's delusions incresasingly strained as she she presents more and more bizzarely. Michael Sparks as The Man has a role where the pencil-thin-moustache and brylcreamed hair sell 90% of the role - his sleazy approach of providing then ripping away support to Jane's delusions shows how far she's damaged by her past.

Andrew Kay's set is a grand Hollywood mansion with rising mould on the wall - it looks truly lived in and sells the dilapidated grandeur of the characters well. Anna Senior's costume designs match a 60s modernism with the slightly more grotesque look of Jane's throwback performing outfit, without having the throwback outfit look too over the top. Nathan Sciberras' lighting manages the shift from strict reality to the more abstract fantasy situations, and Neville Pye's sound design uses disconcerting echoes and rumbles to heighten the tension.

This is a tense drama of bitterness and rising tension, until the brutal resolution, and is absolutely worth catching. 

Hub Fest 2025, ACT Hub, 16-22 February

 ACT Hub's latest exercise is a new writing presentation doing short plays in repertoire (though in the event one play is genuinely short at 25 minutes and one at 70 minutes is pretty much a full length festival work) - it's as much an exercise for the writers to get their work performed in front of an audience to see what works and what doesn't as it is something for audiences. Both works picked are very much raw material rather than something that feels fully finalised, both are directed by their authors and both feature a mostly young cast with one older performer in a key role for them to play against. 

In the case of "The Beastiary", we get the story of a group of artists in a not-too-distant future fighting back against a government that has blanded out and persecuted political artists (something that feels a little ripped from recent headlines with the Venice Biannale and National Gallery incidents in the news this week). They've managed to kidnap the responsible minister, who's defiant against them, and they confront her using the terms, approaches and language of their given artform. It's an angry young work by Hannah Tonks, and while it moves briskly in her production, and the cast of performers give it a strong and clear production (Kat Dunkerley with the larger load of exposition as Fox, Ariana Barzinpour as Badger, Quinn Goodwin as Donkey and Jennifer Noveski providing nervous, urgent backup as the other artists and Carole Wallace selling both arrogance and fear as the minister), there is some sense of special pleading here - this is artists complaining about being artists in a way that doesn't always find a good way of bringing in the rest of the outside world. The animal masks are well executed and it definitely knows how do to a beginning, middle and end but I would have liked to see a sense that a wider world existed outside the four walls of the bunker the characters exist in. 

For "The Forsaken", we centre on an isolated retiree, Leonard, lost in regret and frustration, who's acquired some sophisticated spyware to listen to the activities of his neighbors - two young parents in one flat and two young male friends in the other and using those to channel his reckoning with his own past. Pat J Gallagher is strong in the role of Leonard, handling some fairly long monologues with clarity and directness, and in support there's good skills shown by Callum Doherty in a dual role as the more easygoing of the two friends and as Leonard's high-energy visitor who brings him various things to interract with, from a parrot to a truly alarming amount of psychedelics, Kara Taylor as the easygoing friend's girlfriend who gets concerned by what's going on with her boyfriend's flatmate, Ryan Hedges as the nervy flatmate working on desperate schemes, Marco Simunec as the young husband resenting his responsibilities and Ashleigh Butler as the wife who feels forever placating him. But Oliver Kuskie's script is very much a mood piece and feels underplotted - there's incident, sure, but it never quite pulls together and comes up with a satisfactory ending - although he does direct strongly to keep sightlines clear in the complex three-location set. 

In short, this is an interesting experiment, though in some ways I would have liked both writers to swap directing duties - I suspect there would have been benefit to both from having an outside eye explore the work and for both to apply their directing strengths to another person's play - and both feel a little under-workshopped. I hope next time ACT Hub tries something like this they either find a structure that allows for more development time or a structure that allows for more outside eyeballs before it hits a paying audience. 

Bubble Boy, Queanbeyan Players, Belconnen Community Theatre, 14-23 Feb

(photo of Rylan Howard by Damien Magee)

Cinquo Paul and Ken Daurio's screenplay for the 2001 movie "Bubble Boy" led to a film that didn't exactly set the world alight, but did have an early lead role for Jake Gyllenhaal. It's a simple comedic premise of an isolated innocent forced to travel through the world when the girl-next-door he loves goes to Niagra Falls to marry someone else, and by most standards, it would have died there. Except Paul and Daurio wound up writing the "Despicable Me" franchise of movies, allowing their pet project of a musical with songs by Paul to get recorded and have further professional development opportunities. Along the way Paul also got to run the TV show "Schmigadoon" and write all the songs for that spoof of popular musicals - alas the "Bubble Boy" score isn't quite as strong - while those spoofs are specific and delightful, these are more generic and time-serving.

And they have produced a bright bubbly musical, albeit one with two issues - one structural, one character-based. For a story that is really a road story with the titular bubble boy meeting all kinds of eccentric characters on the road, it takes until the end of act one for him to actually get on the road, meaning there's an awful lot of plot squeezed into the second half (on the plus side, it's a show that doesn't suffer from the usual act two problems where there's not enough plot to get to the end). The second is that the female lead really feels very very undefined - she clearly likes our leading man but there's never really a rational explanation for why she agrees to get married to someone else beyond providing motivation for him to finally leave his house and go on the road after her - she is the definition of the "sexy lamp" problem, and while Kay Liddiard is indeed sexy and illuminating in the role, she can't overcome the non-existent motivations in the script. 

Still director Tijana Kovac, musical director Tara Davidson and Choreographer Sally Taylor have produced a bright, fluffy, cartoonish production that skates over most of these issues in the moment with a free-flowing production. Remus Douglas' Costumes, sets and props give a cartoon aesthetic with three periaktoids rotating to give different backgrounds depending on if we're inside, outside or somewhere slightly more specific. And the six-member band plays tightly and skilfully, particularly Lauren Duffy on multiple reeds. 

The cast are a charming lot too - from Rylan Howard's innocent but not entirely naive Jimmy, to Kay Liddiard's tough-on-the-outside-but-tender inside Chloe, Aleisha Croxford's obsessive Mrs Livingston, Andrew Taylor's goofily brutish Mark and Sam Thomson's just-goofy Shawn. The ensemble are a charming bunch of weirdos on the road and sing and perform the choreography with a sense of fun and joy. 

This is a perfectly amiable show - if it doesn't quite live up to the last 3 QP shows which played Belconnen Community Theatre (Keating, Downtown and Next To Normal) it's still a nice night out with a young cast giving joy to the audience