The Well I Liked It awards 2022

 2022 was sorta the year we came back - in my world, I saw (and reviewed) more theatre than I have in any year I've been blogging, and there were a lot of intriguing trends out there to be keeping an eye on in hopes they continue.

First of all, the musicals seemed to have discovered that Small Is Beautiful - my three favourite local musicals of the year were "Ruthless", "Keating" and "Urinetown" that all utilised skilled small casts to tell passionate stories up close and personal, whether it be dealing with egos and motherhood, the clash of politics or the dark truths of modern existence. Musically and dramatically skilled and filled with talented performers used to the best of their abilities, these were memorable highlights of the year 

My performer of the year was Josh Wiseman - a great adaptable performer who popped up in four great performances - as the more inquisitive 50% of the title pair in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, as the egocentric teenager Timothy in Hand to God, as a surprisingly evenly matched sparring partner in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and as perhaps the most infuriating of the squabbling foursome in God of Carnage. There's nothing standard or rote about his performances - they're all perfectly pitched for the material he's working on, with strong theatrical intelligence and physical verve. I'll be keeping my eye out to see where he shows up next year. 

Interstate it was great to finally have the state theatre companies start to explore the canon of New African-American and African-English writing - whether it be Sydney Theatre Company's great "Raisin in the Sun" (which I saw at a preview and hence didn't review, but I loved the hell out of) or Darlinghurst's "Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner"- both used performers of African heritage in strong ways to illuminate texts that haven't normally shown up on our (fairly anglo) stages before. It's a rich canon and I look forward to seeing more of it.

It was a bumper year for new writing too, whether it be interstate with "Triple X" giving the Rom-Com a huge reboot with its exploration of gender and power or "At What Cost" deeply delving into the dirty laundry of indigenous politics; on tour with "King of Pigs" giving a sharp look at domestic violence and "The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes" looking at what disability really might mean in the 21st century; or locally generated with the Q and Canberra Youth theatre both giving opportunities for new writers to explore engagement with their audience, with shows like "Smokescreen", "21 Forster street" and "How to Vote" exploring big issues through local eyes.

Two examples of great overseas writing that got exposure locally were "This Changes Everything", a large-youth-cast exploration of the big issues of dealing with a society that seems overwhelming, and "Six" which took well-established history and gave it a modern lens that was intellectually rigoruous, energising and a complete goddamn bop. 

My personal "show I wish got wider exposure" for the year was "Dubbo Championship Wrestling" at the Hayes - it was a goddamn great Australian Musical that engaged the soul and senses in a rough-as-guts production that played straight to the heart and the funnybone. 

I also hope that Everyman finds a way to expose more audiences to their "Importance of Being Earnest", which was a great way of presenting a classic play without the mustiness or layers of tradition that often accumulates. This is the kinda production that could very easily find a place touring Pride festivals for the next decade or so should the performers be inclined, delighting audiences with its irreverence, sass, and charm. 

Thanks to the WILI class of 2022 - may you return to kick theatre in the dick even more in 2023.

The Importance of Being Earnest, ACT Hub. 8-17 December 2022

 I'm not sure what it is about late 19th century English theatre that its most frivolous works, the plays of Oscar Wilde and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, are what's most frequently revisited - but certainly, they're constantly being rediscovered and re-explored. Between last year's run at Smiths alternative and the Sydney Theatre Company doing a season next year, Earnest is an evergreen, brisk comedy of egos, love, money, and deception, always welcome (and, for the enterprising theatre company, possessing both name recognition and the benefits of being out-of-copyright). 

The Hub's end-of-year production plays delightfully with Wilde's text, relocating the action to a somewhat-then-somewhat-now cabaret where modern songs get Post-Modern-Jokebox-style remixes into cabaret standards, sung largely by two not--in-Wilde performers, The Downlows (Louiza Blomfield and Dave Collins), though with assistance from some of the more musically-inclined other performers in the show.  Utilising the cabaret setting to the fullest with the audience scattered around at tables (and occasionally moved on from act-to-act to allow the performers to occupy a new area) it's great to feel immersed in the nonsense as the young attempt to get attached and stay together in the face of a terrifying Aunt, confused identities and the lack of a particularly-vibrations-yielding-Christian-name. 

This is an absolutely top-level cast fully game for anything - whether it be Joel Horwood as the slightly-more-self-important-dandy John Worthing, a particularly impish Steph Roberts as Algernon, a gloriously hairy-legged Shae Kelly as an eccentrically sharp-witted Gwendolyn, a bubbly-and-goofy Holly Ross as more-cunning-than-she-appears Cecily, an ever-distractible Victoria Dixon as Miss Prism, a soft-spoken-but-loud-feeling Janie Lawson as Canon Chasuble, a force-of-nature-and-her-own-self-satisfaction Lainie Hart as the utter pinnacle of Lady Bracknells and an impishly scene-stealing Blue Hyslop as Merrilane (a merger of two separate-but-kinda-similar Butler characters in Wilde's original). 

With such a minimal set, a lot of the effect is produced by sharp lighting by Nathan Sciberras and, in particular, some gorgeously fashionable outfits from Fiona Leach (Lady Bracknell's coat, in particular, gives me coat-envy of the kind I haven't felt since the Good-Coat version of Pride and Prejudice in the 2000s), which manage to combine modernity, a nod to victorian values, and some indication of the non-binary nature of this production. 

Hilarious, ridiculous, and performed at full pitch and skill, this is a delight for any audience, whether familiar with Wilde or not. Recommended for anybody with even the slightest sense of humour or style. And for everyone else too.

The Tempest, Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer theatre,15 Nov-21 Dec

 Shakespeare's late play is a mixture of elements - it's a comedy that sets itself up as a revenge tragedy, as a wronged man gathers his enemies around him, at the height of his powers, only to eventually forgive them. There's also a love story between true innocents, a farce as a drunken butler and a clown attempt to ferment rebellion themselves, and some planned murders that manage to be averted in the nick of time.It's about finding your way to forgiveness in the roughest and direst of circumstances, and it's a story of beauty and power.

In this version, it's also a chance for Kip Williams to show off his directing skills without the screens he's used for the last few shows he's done (Dorian Gray, Julius Caesar and Jeckyl and Hyde) - having the action take place on and around one giant rock in the centre  of the stage - which is a grand location for Richard Roxburgh to make his entrance and most of his declarations, as he and the rest of the cast climb up and down it and moving around as the rock rotates - occaionally embelished by fire, smoke or drops of glitter from the sky. It's a place both desolate and beautiful, and, in this version of the text, it's a contentious ground where Prospero can work out his personal demons through treating everyone around him as, essentially, puppets to his will - while he undoubtedly has some affection for his daughter, the rest of the cast are there to be either ordreed around or tortured.

Roxburgh uses his abiltiies as a somewhat jaded ringmaster to other people's crazy as seen in things like "Rake" and his performance in "The Present" to be a strong centre, whether invoking the weather, ordering around the sprite Ariel (played surprisingly lightly and powerfully by Peter Carroll, looking very ripped in a set of leather pants emitting smoke and long white hair), or raging against his enemies. The production suffers slightly from attepts to resolve Shakespeare's 16th century sense of colonialism in dealing with the character of Caliban - it's aware that Caliban is clearly wronged and while his attempts to right the wrongs sees him fall into companionship with a pair of ne'er do-wells who will betray him as soon as possible, the conclusion with Prospero handing over his powers never quite lands as strong as it might - while Guy Simon gives him justified rage and hurt, the attempt to update his arc and to land on a resolution acceptable to 2022 remains a worthy attempt rather than an unabashed success. 

Elsewhere, Mandy McElhinney provides nobility as Alonso, Megan Wilding rambles charmingly as Gonzalo, Jason Chong and Chantelle Jamieson are suitably dodgy as the plotters Alonso and Sebastian, Shiv Palekar and Claude Scott-Mitchell have a gentle adoring chemistry as the lovers Ferdinand and Miranda, and Aaron Tsindos and Susie Youssef are suitably chaotic as the two clowns of the piece. 

This nver quite lives up to my memories of the 90s Belvoir production with Barry Otto as a distinctly cracked-in-the-head Prospero and a fresh-faced Cate Blanchett as a gobsmacked Miranda, but it provides strong spectacle and an intriguingly different reading of the play, making it well worth the watch. 

Nice Work if You Can Get it, Michelle Guthrie in association with Hayes theatre, 18 Nov-20 Dec

 The Gershwins combine a song stack of truly great songs often stuck attached to shows with scripts that simply aren't revivable without major surgery - leading to a number of newly compiled shows over the last 40 or so years from "My One and Only" to "Crazy For You" to the recent "An American in Paris" which combine highlights of the Gershwin song stack with plots vaguely reminiscent of previous shows. In this case, the work credited "Oh, Kay!", the work of Guy Bolton and PG Wodehouse, who worked together on a vast number of 1920s and 30s shows (up to and including the original unused script for Anything Goes), themselves adapting a french play by the prolific Pierre Veber, farceur of the late 19th-early 20th century, and grandfather of Francis Veber, author of the original french farces "La Cage Aux Folles", "The Dinner Game" and "The closet". Which is to say, this comes from experienced stock. Jo DiPeitro's updated script keeps the material firmly in the original 1920s period with bootleggers, a wealthy privileged idiot, madcap flappers, modern dancers, and censorious relatives all combining to set up a nonsensical farce that only makes sense while you're watching it.    

The Hayes has treated this material with appropriate respect, which is to say it keeps everything light as a souffle. The mood's set early as the bar serves some very delightful Hard Tea with a hint of Long Island in it, and improves as you settle down in front of Simon Greer's stylishly adaptable Art Deco set, only for the cast to burst out into energetic song and dance. The plot unfolds smoothly and ridiculously, getting more complicated as it goes, and director/choreographer Cameron Mitchell finds maximum opportunity to fill the stage with dance and energy. The evening whizzes by as a spectacle of delight, knowing that it has no deeper purpose beyond showing off romance, glamour, and nonsense in speedy spectacle, played to perfection. 

As the leads, Ashleigh Rubenach gives her heroine tough spunk and charm, while Rob Mallet is just the right kind of empty-headed nitwit to be likable as he throws himself into a variety of preposterous situations. Grace Driscoll as wanna-be dancer and prudish fiance Eileen takes a character who could easily be a one-note-dismissable-nitwit and gives her her own independent drive. Andrew Waldin as a co-plotter is great at playing the straight man to a lot of the nonsense, and Octavia Barron Martni and Sal Sharrah team up as the two largest nemeses to our heroes. Anthony Garcia dances up a storm as the third conspirator, and his impromptu hookup with Catty Hamilton's madcap flapper delights. Adorah Oloapu as the police chief looms with just the right mix of threat and her own sideways goofyness. 

Damon Waede leads a great 5 piece band that sounds great throughout. There's a true sense that this is just the right energy for this show - a tight goofy comedy played full-out for everything it's worth, with exhilarating songs and dances. It's the kinda plot that you could nitpick later if you were feeling so inclined, but it works just well enough to remove all inclinations to do anything other than grin from ear to ear.   

The Jungle and the Sea, Belvoir with Lingaylayam Dance company, 12 Nov-18 Dec

 

A reunion of the team who produced "Counting and Cracking" back in 2019, this is another story epic in length and scope dealing with recent Sri Lankan history and the traumatic recent history of that part of the subcontinent. Again dealing with a family split between Australia and Sri Lanka, about love in the middle of bigger poltical circumstances and about deeply human stories, writers and directors S. Shakthidaran and Eamon Flack push the narrative through an ever-moving revolve through cross-country and international journies, with confrontations with their own moralities and

Much like "Coutning and Cracking", the scenes set in Australia feel almost tacked on - the heart of the play is clearly in Sri Lanka. There's a building sense of tension from early on as Sri Lanka falls into civil war and simple decisions to help save others backfire and cause harm in ways unintended - when the family is split asunder and the quest to reunite begins. There's additional tragedies to come, and there's a true power in them as communicated by a cast of eight plus two ever-present musicians providing live backing. If it falters slightly in the third act with a recreation of Sophacles' "Antigone" (a fairly static debate play coming after two acts of movement and action) it gives new context to the classic by having those arguing the points be characters known to us so that we know exactly where they are coming from and why the intransigence between them cannot be easily resolved. 

It's a simply staged epic, letting the feelings lead the action as much as possible, and it's a cumulativly shattering experience with moments of beauty and power throughout. It's not often we get to see big new dramas make their premiere on Australian stages, but this is definately one to catch. 

Hamilton, Michael Cassel et al, Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne til 15 Jan 2023, Brisbane from 27 Jan 2023, Aukland in May 2023.

 

... so sometimes I see shows late in their run. Sometimes VERY late in their run. And of course this is not my first meeting with this show - I've been listening to highlights of the cast album since it came out, I've seen the Disney+ presentation and I've even got a copy of the Hamilton mixtape covers-and-extras album. This is undoubtedly an important show that's brought a younger audience into the theatre, telling a tale of the American Revolution and what came after in a bold contemporary style. And like most incredibly contempoary shows (Hair, Rent), some of that contempoary sheen starts to tarnish a little after a few years. This is, however, a show with great central bones - the simple structure (borrowed from "Jesus Christ superstar" and "Evita") of making the antagonist both narrator and co-lead gives the narrative that covers some 30 years of history focus and a central drive. There are undobutedly flaws - it's undoubtedly history told from a very New York perspective, and despite some attempts at striking some gender balance, it's still largely the men's show. And it undoubtedly ellides some of the history it's telling in the interest of keeping the show under 3 hours. But that history it does tell is illuminated boldly and strongly. 

The local production rises above being a mere reproduction of an overseas model largely on the back of Jason Arrow, the striking lead. After a year and a half in the role you'd expect some ebbing of energy but he's electric in the role - conveying both the youth of the upstart attempting to ingratiate himself at the beginning of the show, and the slow maturing as politics and personal mistakes in the second act chip away at him. He's a compelling lead and watchable in every moment. Elsewhere Lyndon Watts delivers a slow-burn performance-  starting out smug and cynical at the sidelines, the urge to be at the centre of things excercies a stronger and stronger pull on him until the invitable final confrontation; Martha Berhane is a warm presence as Eliza, seeing us through even the worst of moments in her relationship with Alexander; Akina Edmonds is electrifying when allowed to cut loose as Angelica (one of the flaws of the show is that Angelica seems so very central in her first two showcase numbers, then largely slips into the background for the rest of it); Iosefa Laga'aia gives centralising calm as Washington, Victory Ndukwe lights up the stage in double roles as Lafayette and Jefferson, and Rowan Witt is suitably impish as King George.

Thomas Kail directs a visceral, fast moving production which manages the shifts of location and time clearly and appealingly. There's great support from Andy Blankenbueller's choreography giving the ensemble clear involvement in much of the action, and Howell Binklely's gorgeous lighting design pinpointing areas of the stage with precision and care. Also David Kopin's set, half colonial builidng, half run-down rap club, proves ever adaptable to wherever it needs the cast to be at any one second (including a highly active double-revolve). 

In short, yes, this really does still live up to 7 years of hype. If you happen to be anywhere near where this production is playing, you should definately be there.  

God of Carnage, Echo Theatre, The Q, 23-26 Nov

 Image credit: Photox - Canberra Photography Services

Yasmina Reza's 2006 comedy is a challenging piece - it's a real-time one-act comedy with no obvious jokes in any of the dialogue, which seems to go out of its way to start after the most obviously dramatic events of its premise have passed (two couples meet after the son of one has injured the son of another in a fight - by the time we meet them, they've already come to an agreement and are fine tuning the final wording on a joint statement). What follows is coffee, Clafoutis and a degeneration into chaos as small differences escalate into major battles and the seemingly sophisticated parents are reduce to their most savage instincts. There's all varieties of bad behaviour, from incessent mobile phone interruptions through petty snobbery to a few violent interractions, as the veneer of civilization is shown to be perilously thin.

Jordan Best directs this in a fine manner, managing the pace between the slow builds up of tension and the sudden explosions into violent outbursts. All four performers are at the top of their game - Lainie Hart as the wife nursing long-held grudges, Jim Adamik as the one preoccupied with his mobile phone, sublimely dismissive and arrogant, Carolyn Eccles as the most precious of the group, self-confessedly utterly humourless (and all the funnier for it), and Josh Wiseman as the solicitously friendly one, infuriatingly capable of seeing all sides of the argument. There's not a wrong note in the under 90 minute running time - the quartet plays this material to perfection, bringing out the character's foibles, agressions, defensiveness and pretentiouns in full glorious display. 

This is a great wrapup to the year, seeing a quartet of great actors getting a chance to play with material that allows them to play the full gamut from genteel politeness to mind-boggling rage, and it's a capstone on a great year of local theatre. Catch it while you can!

Sense and Sensibility, Canberra Rep Theatre, 17 Nov-3 Dec

 Kate Hammill's adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility" uses most of its cast as a gossipy-greek-chorus, forever commenting on the romantic trials and travails of the Dashwood sisters, the rational, restrained Elinor and the more emotional Marianne. It's an interesting approach, situating the characters very much in a society where everyone has too much time on their hands and concerns themselves with other people's peccadillos, as the sisters struggle to find an eligible match among the various single gentlemen around them - whether it be the bashful Edaward, the stoic Colonel Brandon or the dashing Willoghby. 

There's a charm and verve in the story, particularly in the second act as the women face increasing challenges to their happily-ever-after and the stoic Elinor comes closer and closer to breaking point, in the face of the ruthlessly chatty Lucy Steele, though the production doesn't always take advantage of the fleet-of-footness that the script provides -there's a lot of setting-and-resetting of the minimal furniture rather than prsenting a seamless rush of story which would enable us to be driven forward and caught up in the narrative. There's a fine sense of period style in the costumes, the set, and the country dancing, and the entire production has a romping energy to it which is interrupted by those set changes dragging the energy down. 

Still, there's a lot of skill in the performances. Karina Hudson as Elinor keeps us clear on what's going on underneath the stiff-upper-lip demeanor, as we can see the buried passions become more and more not-at-all buried. Anabelle Segler as the more demonstrative Marianne certainly enjoys her chances to demonstrate, and is suitably chastened near the end when the chickens return to roost. Elsewhere, the three love interests are suitably bashful, stoic and dashing respectively,  Kayler Ciceran gives wicked sister-in-law Fanny a ruthless bitterness, Kate Garrow is stupendously slappable as you constantly wish Lucy would put a sock in it, and Sienna Curnow as her brash sister is similarly sock-worthy. 

In short, this is a romp that I slightly wish was a little tidier around the edges than it is - but a romp it remains, leaving us with a super-happy ending and an expression of pleasure at the end. 

Chalkface, Sydney Theatre Company, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre, 9-12 Nov

 

Angela Beitzen has been working fairly consistently n Australian theatre over the last few years - plays like "Mortido" and "The Dark Room" exploring the darker sides of human nature. This year she's apparently flipped the switch to something lighter, with a comedy set in staff room of a public primary school, taking place over a school year as the teachers battle with overly sensative parents, officious admin staff, the overly-enthusiastic new staff member and the still-developing brains they're meant to be instructing. It's a slightly exagerated farce with runs speedily throgh triumps, disasters and an eventual explosive ending (with a slightly overly-long denoument) - fortunately it moves fast enough that you can't think too much about some of the more absurd contrivances (including a 12 year old who develops nuclear fusion in class). I'm usually a little bit of a nitpicker about writers who don't normaly write farce dabbling in it (it's a challenging form to get right) but this didn't trigger my nerves too badly. 

The cast of six mesh well into an ensemble. Ana Maria Bello (stepping in for an unwell Catherine McClements) is our point-of-view character, combining cynicism with engagement in a way that helps her grow on us thorughout the show. Stephanie Somerville as the newbie is suitably suniny and goofy up until the point where she inevitably cracks - she manages to avoid the risk of making her character appear too dumb to live. Ezra Juanta and Susan Prior are sorta playing one-joke characters but they play those one jokes well. As the two nemeses, Nathan O'Keefe and Michelle Ny provide suitably uptight prickliness for the rest of the cast to push against. 

Jessica Arthur directs with pace and clarity, giving the show a good running energy. Alisa Paterson's set is suitably grotty and run-down, whle her costumes give her lots of room to manouvre, from the teacher's regular daily gear to the explosion of ridiculou Book-week outfits. All in all this is a good solid Australian comedy to see out the year.

Sunshine Super Girl, Performing Lines, The Q, Nov 2 - 5

(photo provided by the Q- Credit: Paz Tassone)

 Andrea James' interpretation of the career of Evonne Goolagong, from her youth in a small country town to touring the world as a wildly successful tennis player, is visiting Queanbeyan towards the tag end of a yearlong tour that's seen it play everywhere from Adelaide to Brisbane (with a run at the Melbourne Theatre Company yet to come). Using a cast of five to tell the story (one actress playing Goolagong, everybody else playing multiple roles, from family to mentors to rivals), it plays out on an apparently simple set (designed by Romanie Harper, it's laid out like a tennis court with net, umpires chair and benches surrounding the stage, performing multiple duties with the assistance of the beautiful projections of Mic Gruchy). It's a beautiful production celebrating one of our most skilled athletes and is absolutely worth watching - it's charming, expertly summarising a long career into a 90-odd minute runtime, and contains great evocative choreography from Vicki Van Hout and Katina Olsen stylising the tennis matches into pieces that grab the eye. 

It also left me feeling a little disconnected - as a biography, it's definitely at the "respectful" end of the spectrum, which means that James has elected not to get particularly intrusive into Goolagong's feelings and motivations beyond what's clearly visible. And while I respect that's a good and generous impulse, it does mean that I did miss much of a sense of Goolagong's inner life - she does come across as almost an enthusiastic bystander to her own life, curiously detached. And while there's something to be said for that - the alienating way that fame and the media feels like it's creating a public figure who isn't quite you - the overall effect is that, though Goolagong is presented as narrating the story throughout, I don't emerge feeling like I know her more than I did when I entered the theatre. James stages a great play but she's written a somewhat distanced one - though it brings up all kinds of intriguing angles (the flat-out racist and sexist media coverage of much of her career, the distancing effect that her career has on her family, the exploitative nature of her mentor and coach), in the desire not to be exploitative it feels, instead, a little underwritten. 

I do recommend seeing this - Ella Ferris as Goolagong gives a bright, charming performance as Goolagong, and the support work by Jax Compton, Lincoln Elliot, Katina Olson and  Sermsah Bin Saad is funny, beautiful, emotional and generous. As a demonstration of theatrical and choreographic skill, it's astonishingly good work. I just wish the writing hit me harder. 

Collected Stories, Chaika Theatre, Act Hub, 27 Oct-12 Nov

 This two hander is skilled at creating a small world with big implications- examining the push and pull between mentor and mentee as over the years a young writer and her tutor undergo changes as insecurities emerge and secrets are betrayed. Donald Marguiles script is very much of its era and it's location - the 1990s New York news bleeds off its every pore, and there's certainly some limitations in its slightly condescending writing of the younger woman (I'll be honest and say this is a fairly common trait of baby-boomer writers, shallow writing of anybody not in their generation). It also doesn't really examine the fundamental contradiction that it seems to suggest writers should not appropriate other people's stories as their own, except that Donald Marguiles is very much a male writer telling the stories of two women (and as such he tends to fall into traps like suggesting that most important experience of a woman's life would be her relationship with a man). 

However it's a great vehicle for Karen Vickery to have long monologues about literature, about love, about betrayal and about life. She siezes the chance that a wide-ranging role has to take the forefront of our sympathies, without ever obviously begging for them, as an opinionated, wise but surprisingly vulnerable mentor seeing her young protoge push away from her as the years go by, She also plays very well with Natasha Vickery as the protoge - while the role isn't quite as developed (and to a certain extent is hung out to dry - I'm never quite sure whether Marguiles believes she has any signifiant talent or not), she gives the character slightly more dimension as a young woman seeking to find her place in the world with a little bit of essential writerly ruthlessness about herself and others. 

The simple design, using the traverse style with the audience on two sides of the action makes the stage a laboratory interrogating these two people, drawing out every scripted nuance plus finding a couple that sit between the lines. Luke Rogers directs a tight production that finds both the laughs and the drama. Stephen Still's lighting design has some clever shifts in focus to bring the show together, 

In short this is a strong production of a play that isn't quite as strong, but is worth it primarily for a really great Karen Vickery performance. 

School of Rock, Dramatic Productions, Gunghalin College theatre, 7-22 Oct

 In signs that I'm getting older, it's now 19 years since Jack Black starred in Richard Linklater's film of Mike White's script, "School of Rock". A simple family friendly comedy and the perfect use of Jack Black's skills as a leading man, it turned out to be Andrew Lloyd Webber's return to writing popular musicals after about two decades in the wilderness (unless you're a huge fan of "Whistle Down the Wind", "Woman in White", "The Beautiful Game", "Love Never Dies" or "Steven Ward"), and his first largely Rock musical in roughly 45 years (since "Jesus Christ Superstar"). The combo of flat out comedy, showing off talented children in roles that require singing, dancing, acting AND playing instruments has proved broadly appealing to a fairly wide audience. If, yes, giving this American-set high school comedy to two members of the House of Lords (Lloyd-Webber and book writer, Julian "Downtown Abbey" Fellowes) does sound a little nuts, it seems partially like a product of the same insane logic that got Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein writing a Northampton-based industrial-shoe-manufacturing musical, and that decision worked out pretty well. 

In all honesty, the success of the material owes far more to the stuff transferred from the film than it does to any of the embelishments by the two noblemen and the not-a-noble lyricist Glenn Slater - Lloyd Webber's tunes rarely stretch beyond the familiar (occaisonally borrowing, acknowleged from Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria from "The Magic Flute", unacknowledged from the bit in "If Only You Would Listen" that sounds like "Someone Else's Story" from "Chess"). The performers give it guts and energy in ensemble numbers like "Stick it to the Man", "When I climb to the top of Mount Rock" and the title song, but the deeper delvings into the teen-and-pre-teen angst here are never really given anything more than the most cursory of treatment. You can kind of smell the old-straight-white-man-ness off the show too from the treatment of women and homosexuals in the show who are both broad-brush caricatures (the two gay parents dash on and off stage screaming, the young gay kid is into Vogue and Barbra Streisand and wants to be a stylist, the women are either shrewish (Dewey's nemesis Patti) or mother figures (principal Rosalie)). 

Fortunately, Marty King's directed one hell of sttrong, constantly-flowing show, with clever use of an adaptable set - well built under the supervision of John Nicholls to adapt from rock stage to apartment to classhroom to dive bar, flowing back and forth easily and standing up to some fairly vigorous performer interraction. Katrina Tang gets great sounds out of the 7-piece band plus the onstage cast, including five musician-actors. Nathan Rutrups also gets great simple rock choreography which adds spectacle when it's needed without ever feeling like dancing-for-the-sake-of-dancing.

There's strength too in the cast - Max Gambale would seem the most obvious casting ever for the role (having previously played a great Jack Black role in "High Fidelity", plus having demonstrated his rock vocal credentials in everything from "War of the Worlds" to "Jesus Christ Superstar") but here is another chance to show off just how skilled he is in a role that has him centrestage pretty much continuously, constantly energetic as the somewhat-selfish-but-still-somehow-loveable Dewey. Taylor Paliaga as principal Rosalie is given some of the bigger singing burden, carrying both the aforementioned Mozart Aria and the sentimental "Where Did The Rock Go", as well as being a somewhat sensible straightwoman to Dewey's antics. The rest of the adult and kid cast have great energy dashing around as parents, rock musicians, bar patrons and faculty or as members of the class, with special mention to Edith Baggeley's officiousness as Summer and Hester McDonald's fine rock voice as Tomika.  

In short this is a surprisingly fun show, built on thinnish material but making great use of it to show off an entertaingly stacked cast. It's a straightforward crowdpleaser that did its job of pleasing a crowd well.

Let the Right One in, Darlinghurst Theatre, 12 Oct-20 Nov 2022

 John Ajveide's novel has been around the adaptation route a few times - filmed, adapted to a US context, currently a TV series and this stage adaptation originally written in 2013. It's a simple story of a child meeting something strange but protective, about a bond formed in harsh conditions, about alienation and acceptance. It's also, in this production, tense and terrifying. 

On a simple industrial looking set (designed by Isabel Hudson), we get the slowly warming relationship between bullied Oskar and the unusually confident Eli, interspersed with scenes of Oskar being bullied at school, dealing with his distant parents, and the background of a series of mysterious deaths being enacted by Eli's guardian. The revelation of Eli's true nature comes slowly but surprisingly, with a few intriguing departures from popular lore, and the true horror turns out to be social rather than an individual monster. 

There are a few inconsistencies in the production - in particular, the choice to use Swedish accents throghout does distance the production more than is strictly necessary - and at least one early murder feels a little under-bloody. But in the core, as it tells the blossoming relationship between Will McDonald's freshfaced Oskar and Sebrina Thorton-Walker's disconcertingly calm Eli, it blooms as a very unconventional love story of enforced co-dependence.

Alexander Berlage's production is full of sudden blackouts and large industrian rock noises throughout transitions,throwing us off-centre and building audience tension to explode when necessary. I do feel it meanders a little when the attention is off Oskar and Eli, but part of that is the nature of the material - the story is intent on isolating them as much as possible to strengthen their bond, and anything that moves away from them does feel like a distraction. But all in all this is a successful, intriguing thriller. 

The lifespan of a Fact, Sydney Theatre company, Ros Packer Theatre, 20 Sept-22 Oct 2022

 

Having one of Sydney's larger auditoriums may feel like a blessing for the Sydney Theatre Company, but occsionally what they really want to do in that venue is an intimate three person philosophical comedy looking at the gap between facts and truth, dealing with a real-life exchange between a magazine essayist and the intern assigned to fact check his essay. And while Paige Rattray's production pulls out all the bells and whistles (plus a clarinetist), in the end I'm not sure that smaller wasn't the better way to go for this story. 

Admittedly, there are compensations here. Marg Howell's stage-filling sets and Cameron Smith's AV choices make the stage pop and moves us efficiently from Manhattan to Vegas, creating strong visual pictures. And the three performers, Charles Wu, Gareth Davies and Sigrid Thornton, also give performances that are scaled up to the venue - the increasing passions betwen Wu and Davies as they argue through the finer points of detail are hysterical and yet emotionally engaing, with Thornton as the editor mdediating between the two of them. The three archetypes - Wu's entusiastic intern, Davies' prickly writer and Thornton's efortlessly powerful boss - are well deliniated and given space to have arias of pesonal expression.

The fourth performer on stage, musician/composer Maria Alfonsine, is where things get a little trickier. She provides a live jazzy soundtrack, pushing the show towards the 30s/40s newswroom comedies that this superficially sligtly resembles (though the finer points of journalistic ethics are somewhat more evolved than that model). The intention, aparent in program notes, to have her represent the person the essay is actually about never really seems fully thoght out - it's a concept that never really becomes staged in any real sense. Yes, she's there throughout, but there's never really a sense that her prescence has been thought out or makes any real sense beyond a directorial intention that isn't quite realised. The music itself is fine - it's the idea that it's meant to represent anything other than just mood and decoration that kinda falls apart.

This is still a fairly engrossing story, and the three performers are fine skilled performers. But I feel like the depths and nuances may have been better suited to a smaller more intimate venue, rather than being drawn to the flash and spectacle which the Ros Packer slightly demands. 

Looking for Alibrandi, Belvoir Street theatre co-production with Malthouse theatre, 1 Oct - 6 Nov 22

 

An adaptation of a classic novel that's had a hit movie adaptation and has remained on school reading lists for the better part of three decades, this is a good old populist hit. Some interesting choices make this more than just a simple regurgitation of all the classic bits, though - starting with the casting of Chanella Macri as Josie - the Italian girl coming of age in the 1990s, third of a series of three women whose emergence into sexuality and adulthood has disrupted their lives and those around them. Macri is not your standard wish-fulfillment teen - she's a very realistically sarcastic, moody, and tough in a way we don't normally see. Vidya Rajan's adaptation feels funnier than I remember the 2000 film being, letting Josie narrate her story and be at the centre at all times. It does mean some elements get sidelined - the story of John Barton, the rich white boy who Josie loves from afar whose personal issues end tragically no longer feels as centred, possibly partially because it's difficult these days to have much sypathies for the rich white boys no matter how much personal angst they might be carrying. 

The two males of the cast play single roles - Ashley Lyons as the returning Michael, rediscovering his daughter and the woman he left behind and realising how far they've both moved beyond him, and John Marc Desagno as the goofily working class Jacob Coote, giving surprising wisdom in the second half of the show. All the other women double-or-triple - Hannah Monson embodying Anglo Privilege both as Barton and as his female equivalent, bitchy Ivy; Lucia Mastrione giving great supportive mum as Christina and enjoying the chance to steal large amounts of scenes as Josie's ebullient friend Sera; and Jennifer Vuletic playing both imposing Nonna and the stern-but-compassionate Sister Bernadette.

Stephan Nicalozzo directs on a simple staging that combines transitioning the scenes with letting the characters make passata - flashing around the various locations and keeping Josie's experience central (including on-stage costume changes). It's a very audience-pleasing production that only in the second half really starts to engage in the darker undercurrents of the material but it does the job of engaging the audience with an emotionally rich story of identity, humanity, and growing up.

How to Vote! or, the repercussions of political ambition and personal rivaries within student leadership and media organisations in the context of the Post-Covid-19 Liberal University Institution, Canberra Youth Theatre, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre, Sept 7-10

 

For Canberra Youth Theatre's older student piece, this year they've picked an epic, in staging and cast size, featuring 26 cast members taking the Playhouse stage for a two-hours-fourty-five minute comedy about student politics (featuring sidelines taking in student journalism and student theatre). As part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, it's a little indulgent, a little rambling but very funny and reasonably insightful in showing how the demographics of a simple student election may play out.

We see the election from various angles -the ex-president who is clearly playing some kind of angle but keeps her cards close to her chest, the journalists chasing a scoop and the potential for a career afterward, the exhausted vice-chancellor, and the three candidates and their teams and friends. There's a lot to cover (maybe a little too much, leading to that two hour forty-five minute running time) and Luke Roger's production does it with reasonable speed, playing with the resources of the playhouse including video elements, parallel scenes, interactive elements and a couple of jokes about certain popular European directors.

I will say that the sprawling nature of the narrative does mean that it inevitably gets a little shallow - none of the characters really goes particularly beyond two dimensions for very long, and the plot does tend to rely a little too much on people being led or bullied into choices that they wouldn't naturally have made, and by setting up an obvious manipulator figure then having her disappear for about an hour of stage time only to come back at the end doesn't make the fact she's been manipulating all that we've seen in the missing bunch of time particularly more surprising - Joanna Richards is great in the role but I feel like it'd be more surprising if the show had more confidence in keeping her offstage for as long as possible so we get surprised by how much she's gotten done, rather than "oh, she just did a little bit more than you were told" at the end. It does get a little bit fond of its montages which don't always have a short sharp gag delivery system to justify their length - there's a certain fondness for generalised cast movements around the stage that don't hit as precisely as they should. 

Still, this is a great chunk of raw material that is relevant, funny, cynical, and fairly strongly performed

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, Free Rain Theatre Company, 2-17 Spetember

 

If there's a fundamental rule in Canberra theatre, it's that you Do Not Miss A Chance To See Andrea Close On Stage. It took me a while to realise this, which is why I was rudely out of the country when Andrea Close and Michael Sparks performed "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf" in 2010 at the Courtyard Studio. Fortunately, time sometimes allows second chances, and I wasn't going to miss this one as soon as the casting was announced. 

This is not my first time around with this play - I previously saw the 2007 West end production with Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Harbor, and Michelle Enos, in which Turner's husky vocals, Irwin's physical skills, Harbour's all-American square-jawed determination and Enos's confusion brought Albee's drama across in a skilled production that hit all the notes brutally. Albee's play is a close-up view of an American marriage circa 1962, pre-feminism when wives determined their status by the status or lack thereof of their husbands, and in private marriages were battles of attrition as the disappointments were given full air. It was controversial at the time (being selected for the Pulitzer prize by the drama jury board but overruled by the awards advisory board due to the obscene language and sexual references), and it's still startling to see characters be this vicious with one another. It's a surprisingly balanced four-hander too - Nick and Honey are not just the victims set up to be baited, mocked, and discarded by George and Martha - they're independent players with their own complexities in their relationship emerging over the course of the show. 

Close is, of course, perfection - able to turn on a dime from angry sarcasm to genuine hurt, boozily sarcastic but still able to aim her quips so caustic you could scour a pan with them with precision. You feel every inch of her frustration at living in the shadow of her father, at being trapped with her professionally disappointing husband, at her possible liberation with the hunky new biology teacher, and eventually her shattering in the finale. Sparks is every bit her equal, building from his initial exhaustion and mild-mannered nature to a truly demonic smile at the end of act one, very much willing to join battle and play the game to its only possible finish. Josh Wiseman gives a Nick who starts as a slightly off-centred guest before proving himself arrogant enough to think he's able to match with George and Martha, only to realise just how far they're willing to go. Karina Hudson's Honey is a delight with a Disney Princess voice (it's almost Snow White, sunny and optimistic), drunk out of her mind most of the time but with occasional hints that she's not quite as naive as the world's led her to appear. 

Cate Clelland directs on a 3 sided thrust (along the lines of the Ensemble stage in Sydney), bringing the audience ringside for the battle, allowing an intimacy which allows every breath and eye-glance to register. It's a shattering long-night-of-the-soul for the cast and audience, and one where, well, you should not miss a chance to see Andrea Close, Michael Sparks, Karina Hudson, and Josh Wiseman, playing at this level of intensity in a classic that feels immediate and intense.  

Whitefella Yella Tree, Griffin theatre company, The Stables, 19 Aug-23 Sept (and Canberra Theatre 28 Sept-1 Oct)

 

Two young men meet under a strange new tree. They're from seperate tribes - one's from the River Mob, one's from the mountain mob. They're there to exchange information about the white people who have started setttling in their neighbourhood. We get to learn more about the young men - how they're being raised to take part in their seperate tribes. And as they meet more times, it becomes apparent there's an attraction between them. But the tree's fruit hints at how bitter things are going to become. 

A simple story looking at our colonial history from a different angle, this plays out stylishly and simply on a  set showing the mountain ranges and an impression of a tree (branches on the roof, stump on the ground, middle area clear to stop it blocking the audience's view. Writer Dylan Van Den Berg drops in the changing situation both in the boys lives and in the wider world, interweaving them to illuminate the way colonialisation inevitably seeps into their lives at the expense of their individual desires. The dynamics between the two characters are never fixed - both change and are changed by their circumstances. 

Guy Simon has been a regular on Sydney stages for a few years now, and he shows why with this performance - as the more serious of the duo he finds himself trapped by his own good intentions, unable to recognise how over-his-head he's gotten. This is the first time I've seen Callan Purcell in anything and he matches Simon, as the supposedly less street-wise of the pair, your heart goes out to him as you see the journey he takes trying to hold onto his identity as everything that defines it is stripped away. 

Co-directors Declan Greene and Amy Sole give the show a clean, respectful production that serves the performers and the script very well - it's good clear storytelling that feels essential in showing human connection in the face of potential brutal opression. 

I'd absolutely recommend people catch this while it's out there, either at Griffin or on the tour. It's heartbreaking, funny, wise and true.  

Tell me I'm here, Belvoir Street theatre, 20 Aug-25 Sept

Adapting a non-fiction story can be filled with challenges. Particularly when it's 30 years old story of a mother dealing with her son's schizophrenia in the face of a medical establishment which can't help her or him,legal and emotional challenges, and the impacts on her partners and her other children. Veronica Nadine Gleeson's adaptation attempts to capture all of Anne Devenson's story of her relationship with her son Jonathan, from his birth to his far-too-soon death, in a way that feels episodic yet connected as her stable intellectual life gets disrupted by a young man who has no control over what his own mind is telling him. There's a deliberate attempt to keep Jonathan's perspective as apparent as Anne's, down to Stephen Curtis'  set which is an apparently simple orderly dining room with shelves and large table, all surrounded by white, which Jonathan continously draws graffiti on. It's a spectacular demonstration of both the beauty and the disruption which Jonathan brings into Anne's life, and it's told compassionately and carefully, accumulating detail over the two-and-a-bit hours of the show. 

Nadine Garner narrates as Anne, balancing the rational journalist and the compassionate mother attempting to help her son in a performance full of warmth and intelligence. Tom Conroy as Jonathan has a role that allows him to disturb and invite empathy, as we see how his own mind tears him apart and leaves him desperate and isolated even when surrounded by friends and family. Elsewhere, Sean O'Shea plays two different husbands with different approaches, Deborah Galanos plays various friends and advisers with just the right amount of detached engagement, and Raj LaBade and Jana Zevedeniuk play Anne's other children whose own journeys are inevitably sidelined by the chaotic Jonathan.

I don't know that this adaptation exactly brings out why we need this story now, which is what, for my mind, an adaptation needs to do - yes, mental health continues to be a challenge our medical system is woefully incapable of handling well and the family bond is ever green, but despite a few spectacular coups-de-theatre, I found myself not entirely captured by this one - not sure whether it's the grab-bag distallation of the book, whether it's the attempt to tell both Anne's story and superimpose Jonathan's in it, or whether it's simply that I'm not a parent and I probably never will be. I was pleased to get a chance to see Garner on stage as she normally works out of Melbourne, and I was never bored, but I don't think I came out particularly enlightened either. So this works out for me as "well done for what it is, but I'm not sure I'm a big fan of what it is". 

The strange case of Doctor Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer Theatre, 8 Aug-10 Sept

On paper, this looks like a trip back to the same well that gave us Picture of Dorian Grey - a victorian-era short novel about concealed identity, played out on a bare stage with multiple moving screens projecting footage captured by multiple camera people on stage, mixing it live with pre-filmed footage. This time performed by two men rather than one woman, so the stunt is diluted. 

Yet it still works and it doesn't feel all that derivative. Part is that Robert Louis Stevensen and Oscar Wilde are very different writers - while the stories were writtien 4 years apart, and both are set in a London full of secrets, hypocracies and death, Wilde is a relentless stlyist, viewing Dorian through an aesthetic lens moer than he's viewed through a moral or emotional one - he's profoundly uninterested in why Dorian's transformation takes place so much as what it allows Dorian to get away with. Stevenson, on the other hand, is best known as an adventure story wroter, and he's ultimately interested in the investigation of the two different personalities of the title and the strange connection between the two of them.

Kip Williams' adaptation keeps the investigative frame around the work (even though the solution to the investigation is probably one of the better-known tropes of literature) with Matthew Backer playing Utterson, the solicitor surprised to hear abotu the abohrrent Hyde and how he seems to have strange connections to his friend Jeckyll. Backer gives this literary device life and intellectual curiosity, obsessed with something he doesn't quite understand up until the point at which it's all spelled out for him and he's left carrying a terrible secret. Ewan Leslie plays pretty much everyone else, whether it be an external narrator figure, various confidantes, victims, or the titluar duo, and gives them all separate life, without ever makign the show look like it's a one-man-show-with-a-bonus-performer. It's a busy show for both leads, without ever quite being the virtuoso performance Erryn-Jean Norvill had for Dorian Gray - the give and take between the two performers is too generous for that.There's a sense of an arc for Utterson as he falls deeper and deeper into his friend's story, obsessed with finding an answer. 

This is just as filled with showy effects as Dorian was, but in a different, more gothic way - where Dorian was ornate and rich, this is austere and darkly surreal. It's a play of shadows and creeping dread, and it's gripping for the full 1 hours and 50 minutes. The two actors and the army of crew, cameramen, dressers and props people move around each other in creating stage pictures that support the narrative strongly. It's a show that uses all the most modern bells and whistles to bring out a drama as effective as the melodramas of Henry Irving were in their day - using scale and sensation to capture an audience in its palm and serve them well. 

It's a strange case indeed where this doesn't lose by comparison against one of the most celebrated works of the same artistic team - applying its techniques to diferent but equally spectacular ends. 

Demented, Ruth Pieloor in association with Rebus Theatre, The Q, 17-20 Aug

 Ruth Pieloor's new play explores the path of dementia in a way that's all-too familiar to those who've had a family member slowly drift away - the distractability, the argumentativeness, the frustrations and the fleeting joys of reconnecting. As someone who's last experience was almost two decades ago (when my grandmother passed) it feels true and deeply felt. And there's a strong central thread of four generations of women trying to handle caring for one another in the face of tragedy. 

There's a lot of bonus meta-theatre thrown in here that doesn't always connect cleanly to the main thread - in particular, elements of clowning (which mostly serves to make the scene changes go a little longer, and always feels like it's leaning on the side of cute rather than anarchic), and elements of Japanese bunraku puppetry (which is beautiful but never quite achieves the "angel of death" feeling that the published script seems to think the figure should). It's a show that works better in the second half than the first - the first seems full of day-to-day scenes that mostly restate the same set of frustrations between Maggie, a former circus performer living with dementia, and Rachel her mature adult daughter who finds herself having to guide her mother through a second childhood, while the second is where the rubber hits the road and the downward spiral starts working outwards across the rest of the family.

The four performers all have strengths to them - Chrissie Shaw's strength as the often-frustrating Maggie sticking to her guns in the face of everything her family tries to help her feels infused with truth, though there's a tendency for her to play cute to the audience more than is strictly necessary. Heidi Silberman does a fair bit with a role that could be stuck in a rut of frustrated sighs and general irritation - playing in the space between frustration and love. Rachel Pengilly gives young widowed mother Kat a very real sense of conflicted loyalties between her cyclone of a daughter and the emotional labour of her mother and grandmother. And Carolyn Eccles gives 5-year-old Emily a sly sense of chaos and wild enthusiasm - physically giving herself over to the disruptive nature of a small child pushing their boundaries.

Ali Clinch's staging feels a tad too busy for the material, splaying across the width of the Q's stage with multiple moving elements when a bit of stillness and focus may have served it better - allowing a steady sense of place to be disrupted by chaos more often, rather than having the disruption just be part of the usual style of the presentation. Bret Olzen's Auslan interpretation is an interesting addition, though having him isolated to a single point on the stage does make me doubt how useful this is for Auslan users when performers are on one far side of the stage and he's far on the other - are they able to follow both the physical action of the actors and the interpretation? 

This piece is clearly a labour of love for its production team, and there's a lot to appreciate. I do think there's a deeper play here that's lost a little in the accompanying decoration and busyness of the production, but you can still see the heart and soul of it. 

Hand to God, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 27 Jul-13 Aug 2022

 I rarely go back and rewatch shows. Seeing the same show twice in one year is pretty much verboten. So .. given I saw the Old Fitz version of this play back in March (link here), why did I come back for more? Well, partially it's that I have historically kinda been Everyman's bitch (see reviews from here to here), and partially that my husband expressed an interest in coming to see this and he very rarely wants to see anything. 

So in the grand competition of the big-name indie Sydney darlings and the local heroes, how did the locals do? Surprisingly well. There are some different choices, partially driven by the nature of the venues and partially by the performers, but Robert Askin's twisted comedy about desperation, religion, lust and puppets holds up well to this different interpretation. Strangely, the local production feels a little less intimate (the Old Fitz is a tiny venue while the Hub, in the configuration used for this show, feels larger), leading to a larger-scale, slightly more professionally-constructed looking Tyrone puppet (rather than the sock used at the Old Fitz, which is admittedly more realistic for the young teens who are meant to have constructed them, but the professionally constructed Tyrone is more able to reach the back row of the Hub).  

Michael Cooper in the dual role of Jason and  Tyrone gives a very physically committed performance, dividing between the bashful, suppressed Jason and the exuberant monstrous id of Tyrone, who seems to literally enlarge and take more control of the play every time we see him. The final battle between the two of them is probably the biggest physical action I've seen from a performer this year and I can't imagine the bruises after yesterday's two-show-day. As his mother Margey, Steph Roberts carries all the nervous tension in the role and lets it out exuberantly when the character suddenly gets a chance to go wild. Aaran McKenna as Pastor Greg combines a disturbing hairstyle, shorts-and-socks combo, and a manner that takes obsequious to a whole new level. Holly Ross as Jessica gives the character a hilarious disassociation, plugged into her own alternate reality. Josh Wiseman as Timothy gives the sullen moody teen a growing enthusiasm as he gets to unleash his own brand of mayhem, leading to the inevitable crash of pain when the consequences catch up with him.

This is an enjoyable skilled production with great performers giving their all to a text that kinda plays a little like Sam Shepard Meets Avenue Q with a little of John Milton thrown into the mix. It's fast, furious, funny, faith-questioning, felt-based, philosophical, theological, psychological, and parapsychological entertainment that will get you buzzing. 

The Year of Magical Thinking, Critical Stages Touring, The Q, Aug 5-6, 2022

 Joan Didion's 2005 memoir was adapted for the stage in 2007 and has played with actresses like Vanessa Redgrave and Robyn Nevin. Stripped back to a monologue, telling the story of Didion's dealing with the grief after the death of her husband and the hospitalisation of their daughter. It's a deep meditation on how those left behind negotiate the life after - the bargaining, the ritualistic behaviour to avoid provoking memories, the evasion of your shared past and the reinterpretations of events in the light of the loved one's departure. 

Jillian Murray plays this with care - deliberately not taking on the persona of Didion and eschewing the American accent in favour of her own RP voice, but using her words as a Malibu-and-Upper-West-Side-abiding American writer of novels, non-fiction and screenplays, an immensely priveleged person who can dash off with her husband to Paris with very little effort, whose life becomes suddenly undone in the wake of twin tragedies as those she's closest to suddenly slip away. It's a confronting tale that Murray gives with compassion and feeling, with the support only of a chair and a table with a glass of water on it, and some sensative light choices from Andy Turner and a little bit of sound background from Darius Kedros. Murray has a natural sharing, gentle way that brings the audience to her, filling the large Q stage with her presence and bringing us closer in to listen to the details of the story she's carrying to us. It's a radically simple performance, with Didion's self-analytic narrative delivered cleanly in ways that draw the emotions from the audience, dealing with the fear and insights that grief may bring, without feeling like a relentless dirge. 

It's an impressive addition to the Q's season, and makes the venue feel intimate and warm.

Romeo and Juliet, Canberra Rep, Theatre 3, 28 Jul-13 Aug 2022

 Shakespeare has a large presence on Australian stages, due partially to having well known stories with rich dialogue for actors to wallow in, and partially due to being well out of copyright. This does mean that there's a risk of this work becoming overly familiar and productions going well out of their way to make themselves unique and different in a way that doesn't really serve the text so much as directorial ego.

This is not one of those productions - it's very much a back-to-basics version played out on an adaptable set designed by co-director Christopher Zuber of arches and a wall, using Rep's revolve very effectively in creating scene pictures of an earthy, brutal Verona where heat and passion can run rampant and where Romeo and Julet can escape the conflict on the top of the wall.  The directoral team of Kelly Roberts and Zuber make some unusual choices in cutting the text to meet a two-hours-plus-intermission timeframe -  favouring the older supporting cast (particualary Capulet, Lady Capulet, the Nurse and Friar Lawrence) over the younger supporting crew, though there's still enough material to allow Romeo, Juliet and Mercutio to make an impact (Tybalt is more defined by flashy costuming and contemptuous attitude than by anything he says in this edit). 

There are a lot of elements here, some of which work better than others. There's a 70s grunginess to this production with a lot of the musical elements drawn from the CBGB's lineup of the mid-to-late 70s (Patti Smith, The Ramones), plus composer/performer Richard Manning's raw guitar sounds, though the costuming is mostly modern dress. The early presence in the first fight scene of dance elements isn't really followed through for the rest of the production, and the lack of a stage-combat expert is slightly felt - the confrontation at the top of act 2 could use a little bit more focus to sell the danger of the moments. There's some overlapping of dialogue which helps accelarate the telling but with some loss of focus. 

At the centre are Pippin Carroll and Annabelle Hansen as the titular pairing. The show very much gives them space from the first time they meet, isolating them in a large party scene and breaking up their shared-sonnet meeting scene into two parts, giving us the urgent love story racing towards marriage and death - pretty much every moment the pair spend together in the narrative is on stage in front of us, and we realise how little time that is. We see Romeo transformed by his passion from the early callow youth to the passionate lover, and Juliet taking ownership of her emerging adulthood over the course of the story with the pair constantly moving forward to the next step. Elsewhere Tracy Noble is a delight as the gossipy nurse, Crystal Mahon is a suitably haughty Lady Capulet, Richard Manning gives weight to Capulet, Ryan Street has authority as the Prince and makes some unusual Peter-Cundall-esque noises during Friar Lawrence's gardening lecture, and Anneka van der Velde gives her Mercutio a true lust-for-life that is sorely missed after the character's death. 

This is a solid modern take on one of Shakespeare's most well known tales, giving it life, energy and passion. 

This Changes Everything, Echo Theatre, The Q, 22-30 Jul 2022

 

This is big-thinking theatre. A cast of 18 take on a dystopic story of dealing with the big questions of dealing with an increasingly overwhelmingly pressured world, of flawed idealism, of the ways communities form and organise themselves, and about how we fall prey to charismatic leaders through fear, inertia, ego, and groupthink. 

Writer Joel Horwood introduces us to a small remote community of teenagers through the eyes of three new arrivals. We see the hope that inspired the project, but also glimpses of the issues, from directionless meetings that require complete agreement to decide anything, to the limited resources, to the mysterious departure of one of the group. And as the days progress, the trio get more enmeshed in the building tensions until everything boils over into a somewhat familiar scenario to anybody aware of revolutionary politics of the French or Russian varieties, or Orwell's "Animal Farm" or Golding's "Lord of the Flies". With a cast this big, there's a little bit of a limitation in that no one character gets a deep dive inside - most of the characters are given one or two characteristics for the duration, but the interactions of all these personalities is where the work gains its strength as we see egos, fears and ideals clash in escalating dangers.

Jordan Best directs with clarity and clear intention, whether it be the crowd scenes with a sea of voices arguing their way towards consensus, or the smaller two-and-three-character scenes that highlight elements of life among the team. She has a strong way with a striking image, using the various areas of the set (designed by Best and Ray Simpson) to give power to particular moments. Jacob Aquilina's lighting design picks out spaces and helps with the paranoic mood that develops over the course of the story. 

There's a lot of strong work in the ensemble, but it would be unfair to pick out individuals - partially because part of the pleasure of the play is the developments as various characters shift into prominence and power while others are cast aside brutally. But all are passionate, committed performers who give themselves over to the drama well. 

William Best's original music gives the narrative a moody underpinning, building our sense of tension and imminent doom. There's also strength in the costumes and makeup choices, with boilersuits and a simple bit of facepaint giving the cast a sense of unity and belonging that frays as the story goes on. 

This is, in short, the reason I come to serious theatre - to engage in strong ideas expressed strongly, with passion and devotion.  It's well thought out and a great addition to the theatrical landscape of our region, and should be watched by anybody interested in the world around them. 

Urinetown: the Musical, Hearts Strings Theatre Co, Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, July 15-23 2022

 A couple of years ago the Canberra area was overflowing with active musical theatre companies. Between Philo, Queanbeyan Players, SUPA, Dramatic Productions, the ANU Musical Society, Phoenix Players and Free rain we had seven companies regularly providing solid productions of a widish variety of musicals (though most of them still did runs of "Grease", "Les Mis" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"). COVID and time has narrowed the field a little, so there's now space for a new entrant - Heartstrings Theatre Company. On their first appearance, long may they reign.

The selection of show, the venue, and the production methodology shows this is a little bit different - choosing a modern satirical musical with sharp takes on capitalism, optimistic thinking, environmental collapse and social revolution is a very different choice to the more familiar repertoire we've seen lately. Using the small confines of the Courtyard Studio means that we get a production with more-than-usual emphasis on the performers and the storyline rather than spectacle and stage-filling choruses. And that follows through into the set design and the performance style - a set of ladders, some sawhorses, and a short scaffold, plus a few cloths make up the entire set, with the performers lending credibility to everywhere from public street to secret hideout to top-floor-office-building. Helen Wotjas' costumes have a distinctly homemade, patchwork look which gives the show a friendly embracing style, with performers swapping characters and sometimes gender with the addition or subtraction of a coat and, now and then, a hat.

Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis' show is a weird contradiction - a cynical show that's also deeply charming, a bitter social message that's seductive and constantly refuses to take itself as realism, and a score that combines the discordances of Brecht-Weill with the celebratory gospel and romantic yearning songs of the contemporary American musical. It's clever without being smart-alecky, and able to be simultaneously emotionally resonant and ridiculous. Ylaria Rogers directs with a clean style, using the limited space of the Courtyard to maximum effect and giving a show that plays to both the heart and the brain, allowing for a beautifully silly, apparently-simple-while-the-cast-is-clearly-working-their-butts-off show to land with full effect on the audience. Leisa Keen's control of both a four-part band and the harmonising of an 11-strong cast makes beautiful sounds come from the stage, and Annette Sharpe's choreography is fun, and varied and always feels like a logical evolution of where the show is going at that particular moment.

There's so much strength in this cast, from Karen Vickery's ingratiatingly cynical narrator, Lockstock, to Petronella Van Tienan's bubbly classic-musical-theatre-heroine Hope, even able to dance along while bound-and-gagged in act two. Joel Horwood's Bobby Strong combines classic musical-theatre-hero integrity and earnestness with goofy idiocy. Max Gambale plays evil capitalist with enthusiasm and verve, particularly his bloodthirsty "Don't Be the Bunny". Deanna Farnell gives bitter cynicism and emotional outpourings as required in the inevitable surprise revelations. Natasha Vickery enjoys the hell out of playing the ultimate hopeful-little-girl, Little Sally, bantering gormlessly with Lockstock. Joe Dinn switches easily from cynical Senator Fipp to desperate emotional Ma Strong, adding to the joy. Glenn Brighenti's dopey sidekick Barrell and psychotic Hot Blades Harry both register strongly.  

This is not really a go-buy-tickets kinda review because, as I understand it, the show has found its audience and is very much on its way to completely selling out, so much as a "buy early for the next thing Heartstrings does because judging by this level of quality you won't be disappointed" kinda review. Long may they sail.  

10 years later

 

"If I've made a fool of myself, I have at least made of myself the kind of fool I want to be. That is the Virtue and Power of Pretentiousness" - Tony Kushner, opening quote from "The World only spins Forward", an oral history of the creation of "Angels in America".

So, a decade ago today, or nearly 300 posts ago, I started up this exercise of logging my experiences in theatres around the region and beyond (with reviews in here from London, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Sydney, and Melbourne). It's been an interesting ride, starting out anonymous and getting less and less so to the point where, in late 2018 after certain interactions, I put my name in my bio and decided to live with this being my public shingle. I've attempted to be fair to productions and to meet them at their level of production and talk about what I saw and whether I enjoyed it. 

It's not always been easy - there's been one point where a particular e-mail had me talking to two lawyers - but I've tried to be fair and honest in my opinion, and only harsh where I felt the target was big enough to take it. There's been missteps, and reviews I probably wouldn't write today (in particular, one preview I was unduly harsh on for a show that was clearly on its first rehearsal in the venue), and there's been cases where I've got to express my love for a particular production when it has captured my heart. 

There are things I wish this blog could have been which it hasn't really had a chance to do. I'd kinda hoped the comments section would be more active than it has been - these entries are not meant to be holy writ, they're meant to indicate my thoughts on the production and open up the floor to further discussion. But apart from the occasional private message telling me I've been too easy on something or too harsh, it's been pretty quiet. 

So this will continue to be a personal record of local theatre history, one inevitably affected by the biases and preconceptions of its writer, only covering stuff where I've either been comped (rarely) or where I've decided I'm interested enough to pay for my own ticket. There are some shows where I feel I've seen them enough and don't need to give them another run (so the next few revivals of "JC Superstar", "Les Mis" and "Twelfth Night" are probably not getting a review), and there are genres where I don't feel I'm particularly knowledgable to give a useful review (which is why I've not reviewed Canberra's very active modern dance scene at all). But hopefully, a couple of you will continue to find it interesting and worth the read.

Arsenic and Old Lace, Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3, 9th June-2 July 2022

 Joseph Kesserling's 80-plus-year-old plot boiler has a core to it that's instantly engrossing - two gentle sweet little old ladies who's principle hobby is mass-murder with their own special concoction of wine with a couple of doses of Arsenicc, strycnine and cyanide. Otherwise dedicated to the utmost proper behaviour (to the extent that they gasp at the possiblity of ever fibbing about their hobby), they're part of a charmingly eccentric milleau - the brother who thinks he's a former political figure, regualar visits from the reverend and his eager-to-marry daughter, the nephew who's an uptight drama critic and the other nephew who's eccentricities lean distinctly sadistic. Their story has been delighting audiences on-and-off ever since, a rare case of American comedy embracing light toned lunacy rather than sledgehammer go-for-the-gut bellylaughs. 

For this production, Ian Hart has modified the script in some interesting ways to attempt to bring the play into the modern era (though it does end up feeling a little stranded between now-and-then, with characters having attitudes and making references that live more comfortably anywhere between 1942 and 2022), and a local context rather than the original's Brooklyn (though the geography of the adaptation's imaginary Queanbeyan is somewhat eccentric and involves some fairly speedy travel back and forth to various Canberra institutions). To nitpick in a couple of places - both Teddy Brewster (now Bobby Brewster for this adaptation) and Jonathan Brewster require impersonations of particular American types - Teddy obsessed with Theodore Roosevelt, Jonathan bearing a resemblance to Boris Karloff - the chages to Robert Menzies and Freddie Kruger, despite the best efforts of the actors involved, Robbie Matthews and Rob de Fries, don't quite land with full context - Bobby is still doing Teddy's enthusiastic "Charge!" and bugle calls that don't really sit as well with Menzies (besides which Menzies is not a particularly easy PM to hook an impersonation on - why not Hawke?); and De Fries' Kruger impersonation is down to a couple of light scars (rather than the all-encompasisng burn marks), a stripy shirt and a lurching manner (to be fair, Kruger is pretty much the only horror icon of the last several decades that doesn't wear a mask - though the reference to having the little-old-ladies recently having gone to see a movie with him accompanying a bloodthirsty young boy wears out as soon as you realise that the last "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie came out a dozen years ago).  

There are other slight indulgences with the script - it's a longish show played in three fairly full acts, which get slightly longer when Andrew Kay's delightful set proves adaptable to give us both an exterior AND an interior rather than the all-in-one-location original - the insistence on inserting bonus scenes outside the house drag out the evening a little too much for material which rarely has anything to add after the opening exposition dump. 

Fortunately the core of the show is well cast. Alice Ferguson has the slightly larger of the two central roles as Abby, the one who gets the big exposition scene where she explains and justifies why she's been so generous with the poisoning, and sells the character's self-justifying morality wonderfully - she sells the show's big leap-of-faith that she and her sister can be so convinced they're just doing the right thing. Nikki-Lynn Hunter forms a good double-act with Ferguson as the goofy chef of the pair, with an infectious grin and enthusiasm (and matches accents to Ferguson's native Scottish). Jack Shanahan has the hyperactive role as Mortimer, the figure who has to have everything explaind to him and who gets to run around trying to fix everything, and gives it a spin of massive-young-man-ego and utter disregard for anybody else that's going on around him - while he's theoretically the straight-man of the show, his normality is exposed as just as nuts as anybody elses. Robbie Matthews makes the slightly script-muddled character of Bobby somewhat endearing as he's eagerly led as long as people play into his fantasy. Rob de Fries has an enthusiastically sadistic creepy manner as he lurches across the stage threatening doom to everybody. Natalie Waldron gets the role that is most clearly 1940s - a girl who's biggest feature is to whine in the middle of the stage about how she wants to get married while the man in her life either ignores or berates her, and while she doesn't exactly modernise the cliche, at least she commits to it. Kayla Ciceran is suitablly weirdly drugged-out-of-her-mind as the sinister Dr Swan. David Bennett in a triple role gives good effect to each part that makes you not wonder very much why Queanbeyan has so many Oklahomans in it. Mae Schrembi gives enthusiasm to the Police Officer Who Has Written A Play and is very enthusiastic to explain all of it to people. 

All in all this is a production that hits most of the key delights of the play, even while inserting some slightly unnecessary tampering with the material.