Awkward, Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub, The B, 27 Mar 24

(image by Ashley du Prazer)

Warning note for this review - Choreography is not really my language - I'm much more at home in standard narrative theatre, so this isn't going to be dealing with the depts of the choreographic work teh cast are doing so much as a general impression of how the show works as an entertainment. 

"Awkward" is a dance piece about a bunch of young people attending a party, from their arrival to their drifting away, showing the challenges of those early stages of social interaction, and the early stages of exposure to lust, communal dancing, and the effects of alcohol. There's some great demonstrations here - in particular, there's a solo section where a performer takes unclear dancing instructions in all kinds of wrong ways, leaping around in stunning jerky perfection, and a later trio where one girl leaps all over a guy who's very clearly interested in another girl across the floor from him - the simultaneous disengagement-and-sought-engaement is fascinating to watch. 

There are moments when focus wanders a bit - the arrival, unfortunately, is one of those, with seven separate performers trying to establish their personalities, it does become a little bit difficult to know who to look at and who to discover - and some of the narrative and characterisation becomes a bit arbitrary - there's a fight near the end which is choreographically great but doesn't reflect the characterisations established for the two characters who are fighting, and it doesn't come across as particularly motivated by anything more than the desire to choreograph a fight. 

Director/Choreographer Cada McCarthy has a good concept and a good line up of songs and choreographic moments, but focus and narrative could definitely be tighter. Her seven performers, Jordan Bretherton, Cassidy Clarke, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Romain Hassanin, Remy Rochester, and Anna McCulla, are game and skilled performers, willing to move around both levels of the set and over and around the couches and bar-benches that make up the set with remarkable agility. The music selections are a great set of party songs, from Nikki French's dance cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (sung along to by one of the cast) to Sia's "Chandalier" and a wrap up with the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties". 

This was an enteratining night out and it'd be worth seeing this team again on something a little tighter with a stronger narrative thread. 

 

After Rebecca, The Miscellany Co-Operative, ACT Hub, 19-25 March

 
Daphne DuMaurier's novel, written in 1938, was almost immediately adapted into an iconic film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Joan Fontaine, Lawrence Olivier and Judith Anderson, and has been adapted multiple times since (including two further film adaptations, most recently a Netflix one in 2020), 8 TV adaptations, for stage three times (one play by DuMaurier, one musical and one opera), and with three associated novels approved by the DuMaurier estate. It's a gothic in the style of the Brontes, with a grand country estate, a creepy housekeeper, and a leading man who these days comes across less as broodingly romantic and more kinda dodgy. Emma Gibson's update is modern, urgent, driven and uses the original cleverly, bringing out the mysteriousness and doubling down on the dodgyness of the leading man, letting the implications play through to a shatteringly powerful ending. 

Michelle Cooper is the sole performer as the unnamed narrator (keeping this feature from the original) - this time a modern young woman, uncertain of herself and brought into a situation that grows increasingly perilous. She's a skilled narrator, embodying the various figures of the story well, and we see her develop as the signs become increasingly obvious that something is deeply wrong with the man who's taken her off to his remote property, and her increasing isolation has a distinctly threatening undercurrent that eventually becomes an overcurrent. It's a well paced performance that draws you in before bringing out the dark realities that underly the story. 

Daniel McCusker's set, lighting and sound gives the space simplicity and adaptability - not-too-cluttered and not so basic that it feels bare.  

A great case for engaging with a classic story with modern eyes distinctly open to how this holds up in the modern world, making clever choices. It's a show that should absolutely be seen while it's here (or wherever else it ends up - this is a show that is strong enough that it should have a long afterlife).

Cameron Ribbons: Eulogiser Bunny, Q the Locals and Sophia Borserio, The Q, 16 March

 This is one of those standup shows where the best part of the show is probably the pun in the title. The concept has potential - the performer does a mock-eulogy of themselves - but the content is largely dad-jokes with a side order of whimsical nonsense rather than any particularly deep personal reflection, and it's also sabotaged by some unusually messy tech-work and some plot that's only just there as a bare thread to sorta hold the evening together (messed up by a lot of the plot resolution being in video that resolutely refuses to play back smoothly and kinda kills any sense of comic pace). 

Normally I write longer than this but a show that comes across as this half-arsed really isn't worth that much more reflection. 

Bring It On: The Musical, Canberra Philharmonic in association with Erindale Theatre, 29 Feb-16 Mar

 The 2000 film "Bring it On" was an entertaining teenage cheerleading comedy that looked at the sport with a slightly cynical side eye, through the perspective of Kirsten Dunst's cheerthusiast Torrance, Eliza Dushku's cheerskeptic gymnast Missy and Gabrielle Union's Isis, indignant about how her team's culture had been appropriated by a bunch of white girls. It did well enough to produce six follow-up direct-to-video sequels, all of which feature variations on the same basic setup - cheerleading rivalries and some aspect of street-dance culture infiltrating their world to a greater or lesser extent, and, in 2011, it was adapted to become a stage musical by the team of Tom Kitt and Amanda Green (fresh from the "High Fidelity" musical as a team, Kitt also fresh from getting a Putlizer as composer of "Next to Normal" and recently orchestrating "American Idiot") plus Lin-Manuel Miranda (post "In The Heights", pre "Hamilton"), with a script by Jeff Whitty, following up on "Avenue Q". Weirdly the musical doesn't directly adapt the first movie, instead being kinda a distillation of the general themes of them all into a story of another Cheerthusiast whose dreams of conquering the cheer-world seem to be dashed when redistricting means she's moved to an inner city school with, shock-horror, no cheersquad. If you can't guess that she'll learn lessons in tolerance while creating a new cheersquad with the various diverse underdog types at her new school, congratulations for missing out on 90% of pop culture tropes. 

Philo gives this an energetic production with a skilled production team assembling a strong cast to meet the physical, musical and acting demands of the show - Jessica Gowing as our heroine, Campbell, with just the right mix of ruthless determination and charm, Jess Marshall as her no-bullshit counterpart at the new school, Hannah Lance as the seemingly sweet Eva, Katie Lis as the bubbly and enthusiastic Bridget, Ashleigh Maynard as the somewhat accidentally bitchy Skylar, Emma English as the nicely dim Kylar, Diana Caban Velez as the double-act  of Nautica and La Cienega, Frank Shanahan as the dopey boyfriend Campbell leaves behind, Grayson Woodham as the brainier boyfriend she picks up along the way, Jeremy Chan as the booty-obsessed Twig, Ash Syme as the too-cool-for-this Cameron and a rich and diverse ensemble of dancers, singers and a few ring-in-cheer-people.

Isaac Gordon directs a tight ship, keeping the show ever flowing, with the assistance of CHarlotte Morphett's razor-tight choreography and Alexander Unikowski's high-energy music direction as the score various from hip-hop to balladry to traditional music theatre narrative ensembles. 

This is an energetic, light piece that feels contemporary, lively, and thoroughly entertaining. This is by no means essential viewing but if you're looking for a fun time there's certainly a lot of fun to be had here.

Happy Meals, Happy Kids, Q the locals and Sunny Productions, The Q, 7-9 March 2024

 There's been an interesting run of Youth Theatre recently, with a lot of fairly dark material dealing with teenagers facing not-too-distant future dystopias in plays like "This Changes Everything" (2022) and "The Trials" (2023). "Happy Meals, Happy Kids" continues that trend with a group of 6 teenagers in the remains of a McDonalds preparing for one climactic event as the fate of the world hovers over them. But there's also a spirit of life and of resistance from these characters as they reflect on how they'd forced themselves to grow up too quickly (academically, socially, professionally) and are now regretting how fast their youth is passing - while we see that they still have occasional moments of youth hovering within them, whether it's desire to reconnect to family, to just dance and enjoy themselves, to experience anything that isn't the pervasive doom that hovers over them. It would be easy for a play like this to be essentially nihilistic, but Jade Breen's writing and their co-direction with Ella Buckley means the play is ever-more effective for letting a varied sense of humanity through the dark situation - a humanity we can embrace even as we know, intellectually, that it's probably going to be hurt by outside forces. 

Katie Bisset plays the teenager who attempts to organise the rest with a strong sense of purpose, even as it becomes more apparent that her gestures may be futile. Caitlin Bisset, Joshua James and Phoebe Silberman play the three more disruptive members of the group, trying to divert themselves from the realities of what's coming, with jokes, games and reminiscences. Wajanoah Mascot Donohoe plays Bisson's closest partner, a supportive figure with his own neuroses and nerves. And Zoe Ross plays the isolated one, melting down in the bathroom as the pressures overwhelm her. 

Ros Hall's set and Sen McNamara's costumes evoke the chaotic times, from the trashed details of the set to the small tears and scrapes of the costumes.

Breen is a skilled writing talent, writing passionately and with care, creating a varied cast of characters in a brutal situation and taking them to a grim but inevitable conclusion. It's a confident and powerful piece and I can't wait to see how their talents are explored further.