& Juliet, Michael Cassel Group in association with MTM/LeyLine, Sydney Lyric, to 12 July

 

This is a big budget, flashy, tacky jukebox musical using the work of Max Martin (co-writer of about 50% of the songs you've listened to on FM radio from 1996 until now) to tell a continuation of the story of Juliet if she hadn't committed suicide at the end of Shakespeare's play, with a metatheatrical twist as Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway rewrites the plot and Shakespeare makes his own contributions along the way to try to bring the plot back to how he envisaged it. The plot is largely an excuse to introduce the next pop banger into the show, the show uses all the bells and whistles of staging including two lifts, a revolve, pyrotechnics, confetti, lighting to blind the audience and sound to dominate them. And I love it.

I've heard the arguments against jukebox musicals before, their re-use of existing tunes lacks creativity and diminishes the art form. This kind of re-use has been around since at least 1728's "Beggars Opera", and includes such forms as Handel's pasticcio operas Oreste, Alessandro Severo, and Giove in Arg, which all rearranged existing tunes into new forms for the delight and entertainment of the audience. And that's exactly what this show does - delights and entertains, doing the familiar in remixed form to bring delights to a mass audience. 

Having suitably snob-protected this review, let's move onto the cast. The risk of reviewing a show this far into its season (it's been running since March) is that, particularly early in winter, some of the cast may be out, and in this case, I had 4 of the eight leads replaced by covers. However, I can report Georgia Kennedy, filling in for Lorinda May Merrypor as Juliet sang like a diva, and was a suitable mix of confused young girl and strong woman as the plot turns required. Similarly, Sarah Murr filling in for Amy Lehpamer as Anne gave the role playfulness and integrity, Jade Delmiguez filling in for Casey Donavan as servant Angelique had killer pipes and a fine sense of comedy, and Sean Sinclair filling in for Hayden Tee as Lance was suitably ridiculous and autoractic as a demanding dad. I will be honest and say that I wasn't exactly pleased to see that Rob Mills was still in the show (he's one of the reasons I find musical theatre casting in Australia sadly limited as I'm not entirely convinced he's particularly talented and he still retains my prejudice against him being a cocky little shit on "Australian Idol" two decades ago), but furtunately he's found a role that can accommodate his cocky-early-40s-personality these days and he does give it his all. Blake Appelqvist as Romeo is suitably ridiculous as the cocky serial-lover, self-centered and yet vulnerable in all the right spots. Jesse Dutlow as sweet-natured May is suitably loveable and rootable for (even when the character's name is a setup for an obvious song drop in act two), and Yashith Fernando gives the dopey Francois a gentle vulnerability which makes the audience buy into the character's goofiest plot developments.  

It's flashy, it's jukebox down to its very soul (including having a jukebox onstage during the preshow and intermission) and it's in no way to be confused with deep important drama, but it's a great night out with a score that is all-bangers-all the time, and I must admit I found it highly irresistable. 

The President, Sydney Theatre Company and Gate Theatre, Ros Packer Theatre, 13 Apr-19 May

 

Thomas Bernhard is regarded as one of Austria's great writers - a novelist and playwright, his examinations of power and political criticism saw him develop quite the following there. However he's rarely been performed in English, so this was a rare opportunity to engage with his work.

I have to be honest, this didn't quite enthrall me. The play consists of two interrupted monologues broken into scenes, before intermission mostly dominated by the first lady (Olwen Fouéré) and by the titular president (Hugo Weaving) afterwards - both are narcissists, reflecting on themselves and their situation as besieged rulers of an unnamed country to servants, lackeys and (in the president's case) a lover - never really reflecting on what they may have done in their roles as rulers to become besieged. At two hours twenty it becomes a bit of an endurance test - I'm not entirely sure whether it's just Bernhard's writing or particularly in Gitta Honebegger's translation that this rarely becomes particularly compelling as neither is really saying anything particularly interesting - nothing really develops or deepens over the length of the show. There are attempts at absurdist comedy with the various lackeys - Julie Forsyth as the aid, Mrs.afterward Frolick, gets the best of this as she scampers around preparing an outfit for the robed Fouéré - but this ultimately becomes repetitive with too little payoff. In general, Fouéré slightly gets the worst of it - her half has less variety in it than Weaving's, but neither are really working with the strongest text, and Tom Creed's stately pacing and static staging never really lets this get out of first gear.

Weaving is one of Australia's living legends as an actor but, whether due to the flattery of performing this on two continents (as a co-production having a run in both Dublin and Sydney), or in the hope of introducing a european success story into the English Language repertoire, he's carrying a play that really doesn't say very much that's partiularly deep about politics, rulers, or the human condition - beyond knowing that those in power are often narcissistic bores, it features a lot of talk but doesn't really have a lot to say. It's a disappointment. 

Nayika: A Dancing Girl, Belvoir St Theatre, 30 Apr-19 May

 

Nayika tells a very personal story told by a single dancing performer in a simple but beautiful staging - moving back and forth in time between the narrator's present-day self in contemporary Sydney, and her reflections on her 13-year-old self growing up alone in Chennai, India, learning Bharatanatyam dance and experiencing her first relationship. Co-directors and co-writers Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell create a strong vehicle for performer Vaishnavi Suryaprakash who is endearing, and hilarious and presents the traditional dance with power and control, drawing us further into her tale The flashback structure ensures this is a story of survival, not just of trauma, and allows Suryaprakash to transation effortlessly from adult to early teenhood and back again with nothing more than a slight lighting adjustment. 

It's a beatiful physical production too, from the design by Keerthi Subramanyam (the essentials of the floor and the backdrop are shared with another production in the theatre, Mandela Mathia's Sudanese immigrant tale "Lose to Win", but the circles of shaded lamps in the roof are specific to this one), to the spot-on lighting by Morgan Moroney. The two musicians visible through the back wall,  Bhairavi Raman on strings and Marco Cher-Gibard doing live sampling and keyboard work, give a propulsive soundtrack to the action. 

This is a powerful production combining beauty and grace with depth and emotion in the most complementary of ways. This is the kind of thing that is built for easy touring to the international festival circuit (with a small cast and simple setting), and hopefully will be a signature piece for many years to come. 

Into the Shimmering World, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1 Theatre, 2 Apr-19 May

 

Angus Cerini's latest play is the third in a sequence of three plays that could be considered "rural gothic" - starting with 2016's "The Bleeding Tree", considering in 2020 with "Wannagatta" before concluding with this story of a rural couple at the end of a drought and the beginning of a flood season, as bad luck turns worse and crushes them casually through the passing of time. Cerini uses a simple poetry of expression in a series of short scenes that have a cumulative power. It's a play that is very much focussed on its two leads - Colin Friels as the reticent Ray and Kerry Armstrong as the warmer Floss - and the support they give one another even in the worst of times. Somehow the combination of Friels and Armstrong's performance, Paige Rattray's beautiful staging, the combination of David Fleischer's design, Nick Schlieper's lighting design and Clemence William's composition and sound design means that it never falls into being a glum monotony, but instead acquires a powerful beauty. There's a power to this accumulating simplicity that works well. The supporting cast don't have a lot to do, but Renee Lim provides strong support as two characters brought in to help our leads, ex-canberran James O'Connell plays three different roles with strong differentiation even as each brings further unwelcome news, and Bruce Spence is a welcome presence, morose yet hilarious in his grim certainties. 

I hope this season isn't the end of the road for this play or this production - Friels, in particular, gets a chance to show vulnerabilities he's rarely shown previously, and the visual power of this production is something that's difficult to capture without seeing the whole thing live. And i hope more people do get a chance to see it. 

The Trojan War, Nicholas Clark Management, The Q, 14-15 May (and subsequently to Bathurst, Caloundra and Townsville to 1 June)

 

The Kiwi team that brought us "Don Juan" in 2021 (review here) is back to do their thing with another classic out-of-copyright narrative - last time it was lust and love, this time it's war (though still with plenty of lust and love going on, they're a lusty company). The fivesome enlist the aid of audience members, some very sharp sound and lighting, some stylish costumes (including buckets on heads to be the helmets for Achilles and Hector), a few familiar songs and a couple of cardboard boxes to summarise a large chunk of Homer's "The Illiad" (and the tag end of the war that ended up in "the Odyssey") into 80 minutes with a whole lot of charm, with and physical nonsense.

The show begins with the cast bursting into the foyer to greet us all in an ebullient French manner (why French? well, why not, it's a fun accent to do and at least one of the cast members has done the proper clown training with Ecole Phillipe Gaulier which seems to be compulsory if you want to make a career out of nonsensical goofing about). For those who saw Don Juan, a lot of the essential elements remain - the cast is friendly and flirty and generous, and gentle in how they draw out audience participation, they achieve remarkable physical effects with minimal resources, they share roles with a simple iconic outfit choice (a veil for Helen, a blonde wig for Paris, the aforementioned bucket-helmets), and they touch on the essential themes of the story in amongst all the frolics. Part of their website describes their work as "party shows", and that's a pretty reasonable way to describe it - a party with fascinating friends telling you a powerful story. They fit into the more formal space of the Q as well as they fitted into the intimate traverse used in the B, still bringing the audience into their company and making them happy willing playmates. 

For such a small scale touring show, the sound and lighting is remarkably skillfully done - tight and effective, with a couple of clever choices giving it power. As a touring unit, the quintet of Susie Berry, Jack Bucannan, Andrew Patterson, Jonathan Price and Comfrey Sanders are a remarkable set of individuals and a powerful collective, under the direction of Lee Gene Peters giving the cast room to play within a strong overall structure. Sam Clavis is the technical wizard behind the expert sound and lighting. May the Dogs of War go on to conquer further and wider, and hopefully return with more mayhem and delight.  

The Actress, Canberra Repertory, Canberra Rep Theatre, 2 May-18 May

 Peter Quilter has had his greatest success with a pair of bio-plays, "End of the Rainbow" about the last days of Judy Garland and "Glorious!" about the career of notoriously-awful Opera Singer Florence Foster Jenkins. So in this play, he creates a fictional star actress, Lydia Martin, on her farewell performance, as family, her agent, her new lover, her company manager, and her dresser come in to prepare her, recriminate, settle scores, and look at what lies ahead for them. It's not the smoothest of scripts, as there are some emotional lurches as characters suddenly spill their anxieties or make sudden changes of mind, but the production largely smooths over these lurches and makes them feel believable.

As the lead, Liz St Clair Long has the diva-esque power down, drawing all attention to herself and her issues, relishing in the spotlight, and suitably snippy when anyone else draws focus from her. There are moments of gentleness here and there between her and her daughter (Kate Harris in a performance that manages to show disgruntledness without being overly whiney), or between her and her dresser (Sally Rynveld giving a controlled, gentle performance that shows affection without indulgence), but elsewhere there's her slight impatience with her new fiance Charles (Saban Berrell, gentle and keen but a little naive), the fiery relationship between her and her ex Paul (Rob de Fries in a role that is his specialty as the sarcastic and suave lover with a way of being hostile while grinning), the passive-aggression of her agent (Jane Alhquist barely concealing the emotional mess the character is), and flatout aggression-aggression between her and her the company manager (Jazmin Skopal showing youthful petulance and giving not-quite-as-good-as-she-gets). 

Andrew Kay's set gives us a dressing room filled with clever little details (including a plethora of fake-posters that I'd love to examine closer), solidly lit by Mike Maloney, and a view of the stage from behind the scenes which allows us to feel in the space with the performers. Neville Pye's sound design supports without overwhelming, and Anna Senior's costume design gives fancy flourish to the leading lady and realistic support to everyone else. 

An affectionate tribute to leading ladies with a side-eye at those around them, it's a light drama with a few spiky edges here and there. 

Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 8-18 May

 

Alan Ball's 1993 comedy-drama was one of the first works in his professional career, before moving on to write for sitcoms "Grace Under Fire" and "Cybill", then getting wider success as writer of "American Beauty", creating the drama series "Six Feet Under" and adapting Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries into the long-running "True Blood". Like a lot of emerging writer's work, it works almost as a sample of everything he's capable of - using the premise of five bridesmaids hiding from a lavish wedding reception in the bedroom of the bride's younger sister as an opportunity to explore a whole lot of stories about female frustrations, desires, friendships, and rages. For the first act as we're introduced to the characters, this moves briskly and often hilariously - in the second, the resolution feels a little whiplashy as multiple tones bash up against each other in fairly quick succession, leading to a dramatic situation setup but not quite resolved and the odd interpolation of a bit of light rom-com dialogue near the end as the sole male character makes an appearance. But for much of it's length, it's a fun vehicle for five women in a tight tense situation to develop powerful, intriguing characters. 

Everyman's production hits each of the varied tones that are required in the play really well - while analysing afterward, it does slightly feel like five plays bumping up against each other, in performance, the production flows very well. There's strong performances from the titular 5 women - Hannah Lance as the endearingly naive fundamentalist Frances, Winsome Ogilvie as the rageful younger sister of the bride, Kelly Roberts as the kindest of the lot, supportive and yet cynical and quippy, Charley Allanah as the unhappily married one looking for a chance to have a fling, scatterbrained and yet sharp enough to see through the nonsense, and Kristy Griffin as the lesbian sister of the groom, lively and engaging but willing to stand up for herself. Joel Horwood as the token male does well with the brief material they have but it's slightly apart from the energy of the rest of the play - the issues with their character are largely structural, not performance-based. 

Steph Roberts gives the action a cracking pace and finds lots of space for physical comedy in among the action - staging the play in the round (or more precisely, an octogon), finding intimacy without ever losing audience connection. Chris Zuber's set looks great at all angles and keeps the women confined while giving them enough space to play up against each other. Nikki Fitzgerald's sound and lighting supports the mood admirably, letting the space feel warm and comfortable. Fiona Leach's costumes are suitably bridesmaid-hideous with all sorts of ruffles and variations to let each woman express herself slightly differently.

This is a fun night out with a great range of Canberra actresses both familiar and new-to-me, all given plenty of room to show their skills, in an intimate production full of laughs and emotions. If the play itself is a little bit more of a bumpy ride, the cast are there to smooth the transitions and create a great hang-out vibe for two hours. It's a pleasure to be in their company.