21 Foster Street, Steps & Holes, The Q, 26 May-4 June 2022

 I must admit, this is a show I felt a little trepidatious about - the synopsis available in the publicity was vague about plot, talking more about how it looked at the heritage of a home in Bungendore, and using the term "multidisciplinary theatre work", which sounds awfully like an academic term for "self-indulgent wank". With director Kate Walder mentioning her qualifications from Ecole Phillipe Gaulier in her bio, my brain immediately turned to Zoe Coombs Marr's show "Dave: Trigger Warning", which spoofed a certain type of uberfrench mime to brutal perfection. 

In this case, though, "multidisciplinary theatre work" means "a collage using bits of mime, dance, comedy, and drama in a gorgeous impressionistic look at history and time", using three skilled performers in a show that is astonishingly beautiful to see. There's not really a strong central narrative, but this is not a show that is about telling a story so much as showing a feeling. 

Performers Kate Walder, Damien Warren-Smith, and Poppy Lynch create moments of connection, comedy and deep emotion as they explore simple things like daily household tasks in the late 1800s, unconventional surgery, a surprisingly fertile expanding family, a montage going through the 60s-80s eras with musical backgrounds like "Have you Ever Seen the Rain", "Space Oddity", and "Boys Light Up". There's blithe romantic shuffles, pratfalls, surprises, and cosmic beauty throughout.  

John Shortis' score is beautiful, romantic and yearning, giving the show an air almost of a silent movie, with the score reinforcing the emotions of what we see on stage. Stephanie Howe's extraordinarily adaptable set and costumes cover several eras and configurations wonderfully, filling the Q space in ways I've not seen before, assisted by Benjamin Brockman's tight and well-focussed lighting design, and Claire Hennesy's sound design, mixing music and recorded personal history in intriguing manners.  

This is innovative, cutting-edge theatre unlike much you've ever seen before, and it should be approached with a receptive mind and an eye for something spectacular and beautiful. It's also a show that is a nightmare to criticise in words because it's utterly theatre - any attempt to describe it in words is only going to diminish and pin down something that is elusive and beautiful. But it's definitely recommended, it's worth your dollars. 

Jane Eyre, Shake and Stir Theatre, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre 17-21 May 2022 (subsequently touring Qld, Vic and Tasmana til 6 Aug)

 Adaptations of classic novels are frequently good box office - the combination of a familiar story and being out of copyright is very attractive as a package.  But with older narratives come older values, some of which may be outdated and requires reconsideration and recontextualisation in your new material, and if, say, you decide to do the material without thinking about why this story and why now, you can run into troubles....

In the case of this adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's fairly rambling novel, Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij's adaptation places a distinct emphasis on the central relationship between put-upon-orphan governess Jane and the somewhat Byronic Mr. Rochester (even down to the "when your personal life is screwing up, flee to Italy" impulse displayed during act two).  This is, to use modern parlance, a relationship that is overflowing with red flags but it's a strong centre to the work, as the two find themselves pulled together, and it's also where a lot of the stronger material in this production stands, as Nellie Lee's Jane and Julian Garner's Rochester find themselves pulled together despite the power imbalance and the dirty little secret that Mr. Rochester's been hiding in the attic. The adaptation is an attempt to capture the whole novel, but it has a tendency to rush everything that isn't Jane and Rochester or move it to caricature, such that elements of Jane's childhood and the chapters of her post-Thornfield life seem underserved - the adaptation doesn't seem to really have time to give these sections any life beyond an obligatory "well it was in the novel". 

Fortunately, it's in the performances that this relationship really works. Nelle Lee as Jane is narrator and protagonist throughout and keeps the attention even when elements of the adaptation are going a little wonky around her, and Julian Garner gives Rochester his grandeur and impressiveness. Elsewhere Jodie Le Vesconte picks up a number of small roles well, giving clear characterisations to various friends and foes of Jane, from a frustrating aunt to a kindly servant to a snobby socialite and a repressed potential sister-in-law. Sarah McLeod has mostly been hired to do the music and the brief attempts to have her play roles mostly feel either silly (in the case of her monotonously goofy Adele) or underdone (her Helen) although she's a reasonable presence as the somewhat feral Bertha. 

The songs aren't really integrated into the show very well either - either they provide generic reflections of Jane's emotions which are more apparent in the scenes, or else they restate things that are already in the script - while they're perfectly fine melancholic ballads, they don't really heighten the action or do anything other than stretch the show over the two and a half hour mark. Michael Futcher's direction does move the cast around Josh McIntosh's impressive set pretty effectively but sometimes struggles to find a consistent tone between drama and giggles. I will say the dramatic flame effects in the finale do give the show a sense of the epic, and it's a pity that the rest of the show around it doesn't quite match that power. 

So this is a mixed blessing - some decent moments but not an adaptation that really interrogates why this story needed to be retold or worked out a consistent way of presenting it in a modern context. 

The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes, Back to Back Theatre, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre

 

A public meeting is held for three people to present themselves and their situation to us, and to introduce their challenges to us, interpreted by a constant computer readout on an overhead screen which the trio interact with as the show continues. There's frustrations, conflicts and disagreements along the way as the trio can't agree on a common way to describe themselves - are they intellectually disabled? Neurodiverse? Something else? And should they really need to be interpreted for the audience or should they be allowed to speak in their own voices? And how will this affect everybody in the future? 

"Back To Back" has been acclaimed internationally for previous productions and for this one - previously I've heard great things about "Ganesh versus the Third Reich", "Small Metal Objects" and "Food Court". Simon Laherty, Scott Price and Sarah Mainwaring, all longterm members of the company (Mainwaring and Price have been with it 15 years, Laherty 22 years) have an absolute trust and give and take between them, and present a show that is pure and stripped down to its basics - a couple of chairs, two trolleys, a ladder, a large chunk of foam and some gaffer tape is all that's required to engross an audience. Intriguing, intelligent and provocative. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer Theatre, 28 Mar-14 May 2022

 

Oscar Wilde's tale of images, concealment, and reality gets its perfect production in this one-woman version adapted and directed by Kip Williams, and performed and dramaturged by Eryn Jean Norvill. Like all the best magic tricks, it starts with a bare stage, Norvill entering surrounded by a team of camera people and stage crew, starting Wilde's story as it begins with a conversation between the dandyish Lord Henry Wooton and the artist Basil Hallward. Norvill gets handed a cigarette into her left hand and at one camera angle (projected on a giant screen) she becomes the waspish Wooton. With a camera-change, she picks up a paintbrush with her right and becomes the diligent, moral Hallward. After maintaining these two personas for a while, with a bustle of costume assistants, a coat, and a wig, she becomes the dazzling youth Dorian Gray, the subject of Hallward's latest painting. Subsequent scenes involve her playing multiple roles simultaneously, some inserted into pre-filmed footage, sometimes playing one character at a dinner party with five others (also Norvill, all immaculately performed), and flowing through Wilde's tale to the horrific finale. It's a triumph of performance, of choreography, of stagecraft and of spectacle. 

Everyone involved is in top form - the stunt-like nature of the one-woman performance and the extensive use of video is overwhelmed by how clearly the narrative holds the audience and keeps us engaged through two hours of storytelling - this is compelling, alive theatre, not just empty virtuosity (though it shows off every element of Norvill's skills, never mind the massive skills of the technical team around her and behind the scenes. It's an astounding, gripping experience whether you know the source material well or are being introduced to it for the first time - capturing Wilde's tale of beauty and the darkness underneath, of the way art lies and the way it tells greater truths. It's a compelling story told engrossingly and it's absolutely not to be missed whenever it comes near you. It almost begs a rewatch, like all good magic tricks, to see just how it was pulled off, and like all good magic tricks, the answer is that you're in the hands of a skilled performer and their many assistants, and you'll only be able to glimpse how they achieve their effects, but be suitably gobsmacked that they were pulled off.

Already a major event in Australian Theatre History, I cannot imagine this production will do anything other than go from strength to strength.  

Wayside Bride, Belvoir Street Theatre, 2 Apr-29 May 2022 (in rep)

 

Alana Valentine is probably one of Australia's most performed playwrights - certainly she's one of the most programmed. Most of her work is drawn from research and interviews with people, dealing with an element of Australian life, whether it be common or specific, personal or social. She's been called in to assist with an number of plays (she's credited with three works so far this year, this solo and the libreto of the Opera "Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan" for Adeliade Festival with Christos Tsolkias, and the script for "Wudjang: Not the Past" for Sydney Theatre company with Stephen Page), and shows a strong practical theatrical sense in telling community stories in a wider context.

"Wayside Bride" has been at least two years in the making, looking at the work of the Wayside Chapel through their performance of weddings. It's unusual in that Valentine has written herself into the play (the only other time I've noticed this appearing in her work was "Ladies Day", which revolved around whether the story being told to her was actually true or not. This time around, it's because her way into the story is to talk about how her mother had her second marriage at the Wayside (due to the Wayside having a more liberal approach to who it would marry than other church institutions in the 60s, 70s and 80s). There's a loose structure of us seeing the work through the course of a typical day, as people come in to get hitched and tell their stories, meanwhile there's an undercurent of the conservative church reaction to the Wayside's work as Ted Noffs faces the possibility of being removed as a heretic. Valentine keeps it fairly tight and not too anecdotal, though it's clear that the strongest material is where it's closest to Noffs - the individual wedding stories feel a little incidental to the main power of the work by the end. 

At this performance, Christopher Stollery was playing the role of Noffs - filling in for a covid-isolated performer, and still on book. Surprisingly he was quite effective, even handling most of his props one-handed while the other arm was wrapped around the script. Emily Goddard plays Alana, inquisitive and fully aware she's a writing device but still respectful of the rest of the cast, and brings life to something that could have felt quite clunky. Elsewhere Sacha Horler does double duty as Alana's sarcastic mum and Ted's loving wife, both right in her wheelhouse as rough and charmingly edgy characters; Rebecca Massey moves from church lady to prostitute, Marco Chiappi moves from Gay Barfly to Church Elder, Sandy Greenwood provides a good weeping bride and the rest of the company all fill in the show with differing interesting personalities.

Designing a set that fits into a repertory season can be a challenge, but Michael Hankin's bare and slightly run down church hall gives a style to the place. There's effective work throughout the cast and crew in bringing a gentle community story to life.

I was meant to see this in repertory with "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire", but unfortunately that was cancelled due to cast illness and I won't be back in Sydney to see it. It's unfortuante as this is a solid company doing strong work in this play and I'd like to see how they work in another context, but never the less, as a standalone piece this very much works as a warm look at a piece of Sydney History that isn't necessarily as widely spoken about as it should be.

Blithe Spirit, Sydney Theatre Comany, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 21 Mar-14 May 2022

 Noel Coward's comedy of post-mortem marital reconciliation is probably the acme of safe traditional theatre. But by casting four women of colour and applying cross gender casting to two other roles, Paige Rattray remixes the work in interesting manners. Most of the cast would not get these roles in a conventional production, and while this is, in many ways, still a fairly conventional production, opening up the casting to the best person for the job helps this to break out of the mould a little more. 

In some ways this is a production that breaks many of my preferences for comedy - I like actors not to be pushing too hard for their laughs, to play this reasonably straight, to let the script be the star and to let the audience work out where the jokes are. This production does feature some fairly large Capital A Acting going on, and surprisingly I really liked how it worked - pushing the extremes to drive the show into deeper hysteria helps to take away the risk of confusing any of Coward's somewhat 1940s approach to sexual politics for anything approaching realistic observation.

The most publiscised of the castings is drag performer Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act as Elvira, the titular spirit - casting a drag queen emphasises exactly how much the character is performatively female, using seduction and charm to get her way as much as possible. Act really enjoys swishing her diaphonous robe around as much as possible and showing off her quite stunning legs to devestating effect. Matt Day as the writer protagonist is suitably stuffy and, more importantly, frantic as things get out of control - there's a reason Coward called the play an improbable farce and the play does require some elements of freneticism to it. Bessie Holland as Ruth is a revelation - dominant, imposing, absolutely not to be messed with, so it's delightful when circumstance keeps on messing with her. Brigid Zengeni's Madame Arcarti is a great mix of rural eccentric and inspired spiritual investigator, someone we really beleive has secret knowledge she's only sharing with us because she likes us. In the more minor roles, Megan Wilding is the one we take most to our heart as the put-upon Edith - her exit from the play is delightfully indignant at what she's been put through. Tracy Mann's Dr Bradman (in man-drag) is suitably bluff and hearty, and Nancy Denis's Mrs Bradman has a delighfully light manner that plays into the general goofy vibe of the show.

I liked David Fleischer's costume designs more than his set design - the set design feels a little too busy, with a few too many elements there for no particularly good reason except that the STC has budget to have them (the imposing fountain in the lobby, for example). Adam Mada's magic and illusions provide a few unexpected hilights, not just in the finale but even in the prologue. 

In general this was a classy delight, playing with a familiar text in delightful ways. If it didn't really illuminate anyting particularly new, it gave a great cast of clowns a good chance to play around in a nonsensical environment, and that's certainly worth it. 

Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Free Rain, The Q, 26 Apr--22 May, 2022

 

Stephan Elliot's 1994 film is probably the one that will wind up on his gravestone, for better or worse - his subsequent works have all fallen victim to the "Not as Good As Priscilla" curse, so he remains attached to one vibrant, exposing film about Australia in all its aspects, from innercity bitchery to the wide open spaces of Australia and the brutal prejudices that roam free out there, about personal connections that thrive despite the rough circumstances, and about the power of tinsel and feathers. 

The 2006 musical streamlines the plot, throws in more jokes and music from a wildly eclectic jukebox of popular culture (everything from Kylie and 70s disco divas to Grand Opera, Jerome Kern, and an outbreak of John Denver to kick off act two). It somehow all works reasonably well, if somewhat more crudely than the pretty crude original - there's a sense that whatever subtleties were in the original are being thrown out for more glitz and gags. But it certainly works as its own thing, bringing back memories and finding its own moments of warmth and even intimacy. 

Free Rain's production suffers very slightly from not having the mega-budget of the professional productions - drag on a budget is always a little rough (look at any design challenge on Drag Race) and when you're having to change costumes and makeup as frequently as this show does, even the most organised amateur company is going to get stretched (even if 75% of Adam's costumes are just sparkly hotpants). Still, this is a major achievement in production - Fiona Leach's costume team, Cameron Walter's Technical Direction, and the undoubted small army of dressers and assistants backstage mean the show flows almost flawlessly, assisted by a nicely varying set by R James Entertainment and great Projection Design from Arran McKenna of Happydance Creative.

The company are a skilled team - Jarrad West, despite doing the double-dipping of both directing and performing a lead role, never makes this feel like an act of ego run amuck or like he's been overdoing it - he's engaged, sings wonderfully, gives Bernadette the right mix of acid and integrity and is a solid mature centre to the team. Joe Dinn as Tick is polished and skilled. Garret Kelly as the bitchy twinky Adam is carelessly delightful, aggressively assertively claiming his space on stage. The three divas of Janie Lawson, Hanna Lance and Chelsea Haney sing up a storm in powerfully voiced classics across all of the score (even if there's a couple of points where they slip out of lighting). Dave Collins' Miss Understanding is a great old-style drag queen, rough yet glamorous. Pat Gallagher's Bob has a rough-as-guts gentle charm to him, and the guest appearance by Manny the Meerkat in the finale is appreciated. The powerfully voiced Steph Maclaine letting forth with a solo from "La Traviata" also deserves much acclaim, as does Steph Roberts for her twisted version of a disco classic and Cameron Taylor for leading the ensemble back into Act Two with a rousing hoedown.

Alexander Unikowski's band gives a polished power to the show, navigating the shifting genres of the score with aplomb. Michelle Heine's choreography combines class and cheese in abundance, as the show needs, never feeling like dance-for-dance's sake but always finding a reason to get the bodies moving.

In short, this is a fun, spectacular effort that rewards the watch with a lot to see, hear and enjoy. Great to see it finally happening.