Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Canberra Rep, 22 Feb-9 Mar

 

Neil Simon is a chronicler of a very specific era in American Comedy - his '60s comedies leaned more into the aspirational middle-aged, middle-class that was the bulk of the Broadway audience in that era, of the same ilk as writers like Jean Kerr ("Mary, Mary") and William Gibson ("Two for the Seasaw"). More prolific than either, he kept on writing til the early 2000s across plays, musicals, and movies creating quite a sizable legacy. His 1969 comedy "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" takes on the swinging cultural mores that he'd been witness to (those who have seen the miniseries "Fosse/Verdon" may remember Simon was a witness to a lot of Fosse's infidelities) and the complicated emotions those brought up in an older generation. 

In some ways, it's very much a middle-aged man's view of the era (Simon was 42 when he wrote it), and some of the attitudes of that era do pervade the play (it could be retitled "I'm scared of every woman who isn't my wife" - Simon's later play, "Jake's Women", could be retitled "I'm also scared of some of the women who have been my wife"). But in other ways, it offers a great range of roles for three actresses to get their teeth into as they each visit the apartment owned by Barney Cashman's mother for an afternoon Barney intends to be an intimate, special experience, which turns out to be more revealing of both himself and the women he's invited over than it is the carnal delights he's been hoping for. Each act of this three-act play is a two-hander between the neurotic Cashman and a different woman who each get a lot of time to create distinctive, complex characters.

First up there's Victoria Tyrell Dixon as the tough-talking Elaine, an experienced woman whose bluntness unnerves Barney but who's absolutely able to see through his blather and his self-delusion to realise that he's never going to be able to follow through on what he claims to want. It's very distinctive from the previously more poised roles I've seen her in and it's a delight to see her deadpan disappointment building as the act builds. Stephanie Bailey follows as the impulsive, goofy Bobbi, whose continual patter about her personal dramas reveals a woman whose experiences are wildly at odds with Barney's conventional nature. She also gets to sing a few bits of Bacharach and is thoroughly engaging. Janie Lawson wraps up the show with the moody, depressed Jeanette, who gets laughs from her wordless entrance all the way through (though the script slightly sabotages her by having some very 1969-style-dramatic-therapy where depression can apparently be cured by yelling at someone a lot). Playing against them is David Cannell who anchors the piece as our ironically-titled-red-hot-lover-who-is-really-more-lukewarm-neurotic - we see him get into the cycle of being a slightly more polished seducer (as his Fiona-Leach provided suits get more polished and his preparatory moves get a rhythm to them) and also how the inner Barney is still a conventionally happily married man with an abstract yearning that the afternoons with these women is never going to cure. 

This is very much what you'd expect from a Neil Simon play of the era-  it's gentle, non-threatening theatre with charm and some pretty decent jokes - but it is very much of its era and the main enjoyable quality is the performances of the three different women. 

Next to Normal, Queanbeyan Players, Belconnen Community Theatre, 15-24 February 2024

 

This is the third time I've seen a production of this 2008 musical, after a not entirely successful production at the Hayes and a much better production a year later by Phoenix players. It's a challenging show to get right - a chamber-rock-opera for a cast of 6 and  a band of 6, dealing with mental illness and family trauma in an intense two and a half hours. It's about how the struggles for mental health take their toll not only on the person suffering but on those around them as well, and it's about how the desire for normality can obscure dealing with brutal lingering aftereffects of trauma. 

Queanbeyan Players has assembled a strong cast for this production - Sarah Hull navigates a challenging score that requires her to sing the pure clarity of "I miss the Mountains" and the rock tempos of "You don't know" with aplomb, humanity, warmth and just the right amount of incipient mania. Dave Smith moves outside his normal confident heroic tenor types into a figure who's motives are far murkier and may in fact be no help whatsoever to his wife and family. Kara Murphy plays their daughter, so guarded from her homelife that a new relationship may parallel the experiences of her parents. Luke Ferdinands has the voice of an angel and the moves of a demon as the embodiment of the family's foundational trauma, insinuating himself into each of the character's lives with ease. John Whinfield as the gentle Henry gives the show its moments of pure innocence and kindness. Andrew Finegan as the doctors who try to treat Diana gives a slightly distant professionalism and, in the end, a desperate pleading for his work to have meant anything at all in the face of clear signs it's been futile. 

The creative team of Belinda Hassall, Christopher Bennie and Jen Hinton assemble a strong production, using domestic spaces as a battleground for the internal struggles of a family. 

This is not an easy show for cast or audiences - it takes us to places of hurt and pain and deals with trauma that lingers well after the end of the show. But it's a powerful experience and absolutely worth catching. 

Tiny Beautiful Things, Queensland Theatre in association with Trish Wadley Productions, Belvoir Street Theatre , 1 Feb-2 Mar

 

Nia Vardalos’ adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a small play that contains big thoughts. It takes the format of a recap of the two years from 2010-2012 that Strayed spent writing the advice column for the online literary magazine, “The Rumpus”, where she wrote responses to people struggling with issues with their family, with their love life, with surviving death of their loved ones, their own guilty past, their addictions, traumas, and hopes. She responded by drawing on her own experiences with what she called “Radical honesty”, revealing her own issues with her parents, her previous addictions, her mistakes, and her successes in ways that remain true and powerful over a decade later – because it’s about experiences we all share or will share at some point or another, and about getting comfort from another person’s experiences.

Lee Lewis’ production keeps the scale small – cast of four, one domestic set as Sugar wanders the set clearing up after a busy day with her family and three actors embodying the letter writers open their hearts to her seeking guidance. There’s an honesty and gentleness to the performances – Mandy McElhinney as Sugar carries the heart and the warmth of the story, with Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior, and Angela Nica Sullen as the three letter writers, each presenting their issues to her and listening as she discusses both theirs and other people’s issues. There’s a cumulative power to each of these conversations – it never just feels like a series of bits, each response digs deeper into Sugar and her own experiences and widens our knowledge – and by the end, we’ve felt an entire journey in the company of a warm and trusted guide.

Simone Romaniuk’s set and costumes give this a comfy home-like intimacy, with Bernie Tan-Hayes’ lighting and Brady Watkins composition and sound design defining the spaces these people live in just right.

While yes, this is a show that could feel like a set of homilies, somehow this is so much more. It’s a celebration of humanity, in our flawed, questing, confused, quizzical, and yearning nature, and it’s a powerful experience.

A fool in love, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, 6 Feb-17 Mar

 Lope De Vega's 1613 comedy "La Dama Boba" is one of an estimated 1,800 to his name (431 of which have survived to the present day), and on this presentation seems like a viable variation on commedia del arte precepts - the plot rides on the highly-controlled marriage of a heiress to a vast fortune, and the challenges to that marriage due to her foolish nature and the multiple conniving plots of various suitors to her and her intellectual sister. I'm not entirely sure it utterly survives the weight of Van Badham's adaptation in which she's inserted her own highly laboured post-modern jokes about modern culture, herself and her work as an opinion writer on the Guardian and the nature of renaissance dialogue, nor that Kenneth Moraleda's production, which like most productions of comedies of this era imposes a style I'd call "broad panto" does it a lot of favours, but there are some pleasures in this, mostly relating to design and the right central performances from the central pair of lovers, Contessa Treffone as the titular fool Phynayah and Arkia Ashraf as the central wooer, and some nice goofing on the sidelines from Megan Wilding and Alfie Gledhill as the secondary characters who's sidenline wooing is appropriately riduculous. 

Elsewhere it's over the top comedy that does a lot of nudging in the ribs to let you know just how hilarious it thinks itself - on occasion, it does almost get there but mostly it's pushing very hard and some performers in particular are not served well by this approach - it all feels a little desperate to please. Isabel Hudson's design has a nice surrealism and playfulness but, in particular in the second half when the plot seems to be reaching for something a bit more thoughtful, this feels desperate to be thought of as fluff, wheras instead it's like gorging on fairy floss ... too much turns the stomach a little.

Queers, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 14-24 Feb

(photo - Eva Schroeder)
 

I missed the run of this back in 2019, so it's a delight to have a chance to catch this in a perfectly cast revival, done with care, intimacy, skill, and gentle power. A series of 7 monologues, originally prepared in 2017 as both a TV program on BBC 4 and a series of performances at the old vic on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences act, which decrimalised homosexual acts in private, Queers has five men and 2 women telling stories from 1917 to 2016 of desire, of personal revelation, of internal torments and their public expressions, somewhat along the line of Alan Bennet's beloved "Talking Heads" series - where the subtext of what the character can't quite say out loud rings loud and true. Mark Gatiss from the comedy team "The League of Gentlemen" and occasional "Doctor Who" and "Sherlock" writer selected and curated the monologues, writing the first of them and working with the rest of the writers to find a mix of perspectives on a century bisected by a piece of legislation - about the progress we have and haven't made, and about how this has affected a range of individuals.

Steph Roberts and Jarrad West's production brings them together in a timeless pub, "The Princes Arms", with us gathered around at the various tables. The performers are scattered around the venue - at the piano, Louiza Blomfield and Callum Tolhurst-Close (no relation to me as far as I know) sing-and-play a song of the era where the next story takes place, before transitioning to an intimate monologue. Each of the performers immediately grab our attention and don't let it go for around 20 minutes (those who can do maths will realise immediately with 7 performers at 20 minutes each plus a song and a short break between performers, this is a longish evening, though it never really feels like it during any of the monologues). 

We start with Alexander Hoskinson's soldier in 1917, looking back on his youth and an early encounter, and a recent experience of near desire, told sensatively and engrossingly - his Perce is pure innocent sweetness and we take him immediately to heart. Next it's 1929 and Natasha Vickery tells of a desire that carefully conceals itself - Vickery presents as brash, not-quite-as-confident-as-she'd-like-to-appear, telling secrets about her adventures in seeking personal pleasures in a risky world. In 1957, Karen Vickery tells the story of a wife finding out things about her husband and what she's able to accommodate within her marriage, in a perfectly presented boozy yarn. In 1967 we have Geoffrey Borny sharing the secret world that is soon to pass with legalisation with regret (and those of us who remember his appearance in "Cassanova" around a decade ago get a reminder how entertaining Borny is when he's completely filthy). 1987 shows Joel Horwood as a struggling actor challenged by the nature of gay representation in the middle of a pandemic - there's a perfect mix here between the actor's personal ego and the wider political context of the world around them and Horwoods' restless performance captures it with exquisite tension. In 1994 Patrick Galen-Mules plays a young man realising the power of community and his own sexuality in the middle of a political disappointment with a mix of joy, shyness and naivete (he's also the only performer who doesn't move from their spot during the monologue - presumably because at 17, he can't go to the bar for a drink, but his endearing shyness draws you in).  In the closing monologue in 2016, Joe Dinn gives us pure queer joy as a groom preparing for his wedding day - he's a goofy charming presence. 

Introducing each act is Louiza Blomfield's perfect voice singing, first as a charming lounge singer, then later as the era gets closer adopting more the mode of an enthusiastic kareoke-er, in stunning outfits appropriate to each era. 

There's a great mix of subtly effective lighting by Stephen Still and interweaved sound effects to highten the monologues from Nathan Patrech, adding power to the evening.

This is a beautiful production of a show that is completely up my alley, both in terms of its celebration of actors and of the socio-political nature of the stories being told, and I hope it's up your alley too.