Hotel Sorrento, Canberra Rep, Theatre 3, 28 Apr-14 May 2022

 

"Hotel Sorrento" tells the story of three sisters split up by traumatic personal history to the three ends of the earth, reunited under tense circumstances when the frenzy over the novel one wrote drawing on their mutual past brings up plaudits and tensions. It's written in a filmic style, flitting between multiple locations over a series of short scenes, with extensive quotations from the book and articles about the book in the script, and it would be easy for a production to feel static or dry.

Largely Alexandra Pelvin's production avoids those traps- both from using the width of Rep's stage to compare and contrast the characters in their seperate spaces, and from keeping the characters active while they debate, discuss and commiserate on themes like Australian Identity, Familial Loyalty and Modern Feminism. There's a beating pulse as the three sisters deal with themselves and those around them, trying to find their place in the world with a mix of sarcasm and insight. 

Performances across the board are strong - Veronica Tyrell Dixon exudes decency and decorum and makes both fascinating and enthralling. Rachel Howard as stressed author Meg is witty, honest and compelling. Jess Waterhouse as powerhouse executive Pippa gives layers of someone who is clearly playing the little-sister role in her family even as the wider world sees her as a lot stronger. Elaine Noon as the contempaltive Marge is often on the recieving end of rants from other characters but still finds her own space to state her own case and find her own comfort in her place. Ryan Erlandsen as the rant-heavy Dick is, well, a bit of a dick, but we get the sense from his performance that a lot of this is covering for a career that never quite took him where he wanted it to. Saban Lloyd Berrell as patriach Wal has an endearing way with his dad-jokes and charm. Nick Dyball as the teenager Troy is inquisitive, emotionally open despite his mum and aunt's teasing, and draws us in to his own troubled story. Peter Holland finds a little bit of heart underneath the pompusness of Edwin. 

Michael Sparks' set design is a perfect beach getaway in the off-season, allowing space for the four different areas to have their own impact withot ever feeling cramped upon one another. Stephen Still's lighting design and Andrea Garcia's sound design both lend atmospherics to the show. 

This isn't a perfect evening - some of Rayson's dialogue rambles a bit and there are probably two or three too many hobbyhorses covered in the material for the show to really find its focus clearly. But it's a solid production of a mildly flawed work.  

White Pearl, Sydney Theatre Company and Riverside's National Theater of Paramatta, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre

 

Anchuli Felicia King's comedy takes a Mamet-like look at high-powered business in a modern era where every corporate misstep can become a global social media crisis in seconds, and where a viral video can bring formerly powerful people to their knees. The fact that the cast is largely female and Asian (from various parts of Asia, from South Korea to India to China) changes the cultural context but not the ambition, ego and venom as the team tear themselves and each other apart in a chase for supremacy. 

This is a pretty nihilistic evening  -there's not a lot of hope or inspiration in here, unless you're somehow inspired that those making ruthless decisions can now be female and racially diverse rather than just stale white men. It's a very polished production by Priscilla Jackman, from Jeremy Allen's set and costume designs to the sharp technological soundscape of Michael Toisuta and Mee-Lee Hay, but it's a cold kind of polish, glittering but ruthless. 

Most of the oomph of the show relies on the six female leads (with a little on the one male side character) - Manali Datar's snobby Pria, Deborah An's analytical Soo-Jin, Nicole Milonkevic's fashionably dismissive Built, Shirong Wu's sensative Xiao, Melissa Gan's goofy Sunny and Kaori Maeda-Judge's  stoic Ruki. Stephen Madsen as the token male presents an egocentric bastard without care, but is largely sidelined from the main action. 

There's some intriguing ideas here, in particular the way that Asia as a concept acts to smooth over some fairly different cultures, about the beauty industry's exploitations, about the pandora's box of social media (sans Hope), and about capitalism trumping all other human concerns. But, much like Mamet, there's a nihlism here that makes this difficult to embrace.  

Six, Withers, Coppell and Berwick, Canberra Theatre, 23 April-15 May 2022, Adelaide, Melbourne, New Zealand and Brisbane to follow

 

The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth have recieved a lot of pop culture attention, whether singiularly or collectively, appearing in material as variable as a Rick Wakeman song cycle, a popular BBC series of the 70s with Keith Michell as Henry and, inevitably, a jingle in "Horrible Histories". But this version, reconfiguring the wives as a somewhat competetive girl group in concert, has caught fire playing productions around the world from modest beginnings as an Edinburgh festival piece.

Writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss give the cast a simple structure - big intro, big outro, one solo each and a mid-show romp with a megamix at the end, and use it to play with the preconceptions of the six women usually eclipsed by the man they had in common - allowing them to present themselves in pop ballads and bangers that give each the spotlight to show how they were wronged by the world around them. It's a lively, quippy show with occasional deeper moments, and uses the concept of the pop concert well with plenty of callouts for the audience to celebrate the performers talents - for a show as franchised as this, none of the performers feel like they're going through other people's motions - their roles sit on them in personal and particular characters outside of other people's outlines.

Each of the performers sieze their moments - Phoenix Jackson Mendoza as the tough-cookie Aragon, Boleyn as the bogan party girl Boleyn, Loren Hunter as the nice-girl-baladress Seymour, Kiana Daniele as the punkish Cleves, Chelsea Dawson as the party-girl-with-a-dark-secret Howard, and Vidya Makan as the clued-in Parr. 

The combination of Emma Bailey's set design and Tim Deling's very active lighting design gives the show fantastic enegy and charm, combined with Gabriella Slade's ultra-modern take on traditional Tudor outfits. 

A great little spectacle (small cast, 75 minute show) but with a lot to chew on post-show, there's no wonder this is an international sensation, and it's absolutely worth catching on tour as soon as you can. 

An American In Paris, GWB Entertainment and The Australian Ballet et al, State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, 18 March-23 April 2022 (Sydney and Perth to follow)

 I must admit I've never seen the 1951 Gene Kelly musical that is noted as the inspiration for this production - however from the sound of it the premise is vaguely familiar - an artistically inclined US Soldier elects not to return home after the war but instead to try his luck as an artist on the streets of Paris, leading to romance, friendship and an awful lot of singing and dancing to Gershwin songs and orchestral piece. 

This version, brought to the stage in 2015 in New york and now touring Australia, pushes a dancy piece even closer to full ballet, with a light slither of plot holding everything together. Director/Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon combines pefromance and staging in a whirling production that provides beauty, style and glamour in a rich cavalcade for the senses. The set design by Bob Crowley uses a combination of small setpieces and styalised projections (by 59 Productions) that capture the art styles of the lead as he attempts to capture Paris on paper. The opening alone, performed to Gershwin's Concerto in F, captures the period and the city, introducing our hero to the town and getting us a quick tour of the world we'll be in for the rest of the show - a town that's just recovering from World War 2 and recovering its soul. 

There's strong performers in the show - imported leads Robbie Fairchild and Leanne Cope bring back memories of Gene Kelly's bullish masculine dancing and Leslie Caron's french gamine style, while locals like Jonathan Hickey as the melencholic composer Adam, Sam Ward as the businessman-who-wants-to-be a cabaret singer, and understudy Rachael Ward as the stylish socialite Milo all pulling their weight admirably. Anne Wood steals scenes as Henri's snippy mother with minimal material, and the ever-active chorus provide strong support.

Craig Lucas's script feels a little stripped to the bone - even at 2 hours 45 minutes, none of the characters really acquire more depth than your initial impressions of them, and it adds up more to an exercise in style than substance. But wow, what a lot of style!

Josh Earl: Modern Contemporary, Westin 2, Melbourne international comedy festival, 12-24 April 2022

 You probably know Josh Earl either from the short-period he was host of "Spicks and Specks" when someone tried to replace the origional cast, or from his podcast "Don't you know who I am". This is a show that's largely about the ever-popular topic of his childhood, and in particular the period when he was a college dance student and involved in a grand production for the Tasmanian Dance company "TasDance". There's weird family behaviours, awkward teenagehood, a dance tribute to Wendy Matthews, near-nudity and a generous sense of sharing something deeply personal. Earl is a great storyteller with a great story to tell and it's a delightful 50-odd minutes of watching. 

Zoë Coombs Marr - Dave: The Opener, Arts Centre Melbourne - Fairfax Studio, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 31 Mar-24 Apr 2022

 

It's been 6 years since Coombs Marr last performed in the persona of Dave, a try-hard standup comedian. In his last show, "Trigger Warning", Dave attempted to widen his skills as a mime only to hit his head on an invisible glass celing in an invisible glass box, and slip into a coma until now. He's back to look at what's happened to the world in the last half dozen years, and to rant semi-inchoerently about cancel culture.

Of coure, behind Dave, the idiot-savant standup, is Zoe Coombs Marr, the post-modernist lesbian with more than a few ideas of her own to get into. After two previous shows, Marr has clearly developed a sideways affection for Dave - his incompetence only ever really hurts himself, and ultimately in this show he manages to make a breakthrough that means he's not standing in the way of his own joy any more. There's a clear intellegence and well-formed structure to this piece that means even at the most out-there the show is clearly something that's been thought about and knows where it's going. It's provocative, clever and delightfully full of nonsense, beauty and occasional vomit.

Chris Ryan: Can't Compain, Town Hall Portico Room, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 31 March-24 Apr 2022

 Chris Ryan has developed from a Canberra Comedy institution to someone well on the way to being a national institution. She's got a quick wit, and in this show has shaped her show thematically around generational comparisons between herself, her father (with readings from his drafted memoirs) and dealing with her own teenagers. There's an honest truth to her material, and a generosity that brings us into the show - it's not a painful scream of rage or angst, it's fifty-odd minutes of material that feels like hanging around with a particuarly amusing wise friend. 

The Boys, Alchemy Productions, Act Hub, 13-16 April 2022

 (disclaimer, I'm thanked in the program on this one, I think largely for lending the director some of the scripts that I own as part of her ongoing studies, and this production forms the major project for her studies. Also she sang at my wedding. For those who want to read this as immoderate bias, feel free to do so, comments are monitored which means I'll probably read them and delete them unless they're particularly thought-provoking).

Gordon Graham's "The Boys" is a play that I'd read but never seen up until now - despite both play and film being recognised classics. Loosely using a historical murder for a deeper look into misogyny, violence, and the way that groups fail to deal with or build that into a central plank of a personality and lifestyle, it's confronting, raw stuff, cutting right to the bone in how it presents its case study of three brothers and how the women in their life are affected by the self-reinforcing loop of toxic misogyny. It's ostensibly based on the Anita Cobby case but reduces it down to the three brothers charged, omitting the actual ringleader and another man who were involved - and in any case, the circumstances of the case are so sadly familiar that it could have happened yesterday with no particularly significant updates.

Amy Kowalczuk's production strips the play raw down to an in-the-round space with minimal props and setpieces (milk crates, a couple of platforms to make a bed, a bucket for beers). The round is incredibly exposing to performers and will not abide a single moment of falseness, and mostly the performances and realisation serve that well - from the tense dramatic scenes to the between-scenes movement pieces by Michelle Norris that show the tensions against a backdrop of female singers singing songs largely identified with men (in particular, a piece focussed on Cole Hilder and Indy Scarletti as the pulls of his family are shown against her tight embrace).

Some of this play felt incredibly familiar to me - particularly how young people try to make the leap to adulthood too soon through couplehood and pregnancy, seeking out a partnership in the worst way and, inevitably, that's how they get it - and how people try to create an in-group and an out-group, and deflect any criticism of their in-group with "oh, but if you really understood him, that's not like him" etc - it's unnervingly familiar in any encounters I've had with abusers.

(note, this paragraph has been revised as I've been ruminating on what I said about the acting) This is an interesting wrestle with a challenging script - this is not a play about making audiences comfortable, and it does its job at that - it's not a perfect production (there's a couple of moments where the Brechtian desire to do abstract types plays a little too much against the more realist script - in particular Indy Scarletti's performance as Jackie falls a little too much into the stereotypical "nag" rather than the more complex character written, with aspirations and wrestling with how to transcend her and her partner's situation) but it's a compelling watch. 

Dags, Canberra Youth Theatre, Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, 8-13 April 2022

 Debra Oswald's young adult comedy has been delighting teens and people who used to be teens for twenty eight years since 1984 - originally written as an easily tourable small-cast-with-plenty-of-doubling (two women playing single roles, two women playing two roles, one guy playing four roles). Exploring life as a sixteen year old, complete with crushes, social confusion and using food as quick-fix therapy, it's remained popular because mysteriously the process of finding out who you are, what you want and how to deal with misplaced desires and internal self-hatred has not become a whole lot easier during the last few decades. 

Luke Rogers has developed an enlarged-cast production that adds a five-member ensemble to the cast and breaks up most of the doubling (except for keeping one of the male doubles). Played out on a silver reflective set and giant foam-rubber shapes as setpieces (designed by Aislinn King, along with the ultra-colourful costumes), the show is constantly moving while still keeping the emphasis firmly on protagonist Gillian and her struggles to self-acceptance - perhaps getting a bit too enthusiastic with flashy 80's-referencing-dance-moves during the set changes, but ensuring the cast has lots to do to show time, place and mood. The decision to keep it in the 80s is probably the right one without serious script changes (a "going to the movies" sequence references the largely-dead genre of teen sex comedy and there's a line about using personal computers that suggests this is just a nerdy minority pre-occupation rather than part of ongoing social existence).  

Jade Breen carries most of the action as self-confessed drama queen Gillian, just on the right side of being inquisitive and thoughtful rather than overly irritating and navel-gazing.  Jess Gooding gives strong confident older sister vibes as Bronwyn, Lily Welling is a shallow delight as former-friend Wendy, Breanna Kelly is a great bitter-and-twisted confidante as Monica, Hannah Cornelia gives great "wanna be with the popular kids" as Lynette, Eliott Cleaves does double duty as the somewhat sleazy Tony and the enthusiastic future-brother-in-law Biggles, William Best is an endearing not-quite-right date as Derek, Sophie Blackburn captures both the outer-beauty-and-inner-turmoile of Karen, and Matthew Hogan is suitably self-involved as Adam. 

Keeping the CYT tradition of being great productions performed by young performers that can appeal to people of any age, this is fun stuff and a great way to spend an evening.