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.