Green Day's 2004 album represented a progression for the band - known for their fast-punching three-minute pop-punk songs since the early 90s, the album was tied around contemporary issues of youthful alienation and post-September 11th right-wing nationalism, and used longer musical suites made up of multiple songs and recurring characters to tie together these threads into a light narrative of a confused suburbanite young man lost in the world of contemporary politics and life. In 2009 they teamed with director Michael Mayer and arranger and orchestrator Tom Kitt to build a Broadway musical based on the album, creating additional material for their follow-up album, 2009's "21st Century Breakdown", multiplying the protagonist into 3 young men, all alienated and lost as they search for purpose through drugs, through music, through relationships and through the military.
Thursday, 27 June 2024
American Idiot, Queanbeyan Players, THe Q, 20-29 June
Green Day's 2004 album represented a progression for the band - known for their fast-punching three-minute pop-punk songs since the early 90s, the album was tied around contemporary issues of youthful alienation and post-September 11th right-wing nationalism, and used longer musical suites made up of multiple songs and recurring characters to tie together these threads into a light narrative of a confused suburbanite young man lost in the world of contemporary politics and life. In 2009 they teamed with director Michael Mayer and arranger and orchestrator Tom Kitt to build a Broadway musical based on the album, creating additional material for their follow-up album, 2009's "21st Century Breakdown", multiplying the protagonist into 3 young men, all alienated and lost as they search for purpose through drugs, through music, through relationships and through the military.
Saturday, 22 June 2024
Dead Man's Cell Phone, Canberra Repertory Society, 13-29 June
Sarah Ruhl's 2007 comedy is an eccentric, oddball mystery about a young woman who ties herself into the life and work of a stranger when he dies, cellphone still ringing, at a cafe, and she elects to answer the phone on his behalf. It's a play about connections - family, professional and romantic - and about how dropping yourself into the web of these connections can expose you to all kinds of surprises.
Kate Blackhurst's production is a smooth-running simply designed delight - on a set with a few levels and a beautifully framed projection screen, it dashes around the many and varied locations that the show requires with an emphasis on the eccentric characters and the propulsion of a strange magic-realist-farce plot that takes us everywhere from a cafe to a funeral to a dinner to a stationary cupboard to environments beyond with endearing charm. It's a surprisingly warm play for one that dives into some fairly dark territory in the second act, and it's a tricky tone to maintain - a little further and this would be too-cute-to-function, a little less and it would feel like all the characters are suffering from brain damage- but it captures a delightful tone just right.
Leading the story is Jess Waterhouse as our hapless protagonist, caught out by just trying to do the right thing but unable to abandon her mission to look after the dead man's phone calls even when real life is making it clear that there are better options out there to consider - you get the strong sense of empathy with her and her dilemmas. Elaine Noon as the ominous Mrs Gottleib enthralls from her entrance-eulogy, opinionated and direct, knowing just what she wants and how she'll go about getting it. Alex McPherson is suitably mysterious and outrageous as the mystery woman who clearly knows more than she's saying. Bruce Hardie scores in the double role of Dead Gordon who has a lot more to say post-mortem than you'd expect, and the warm and endearing brother Dwight. And Victoria Dixon as the dead man's widow, Hermia, is suitably contained until a drunk scene sees all her barriers come down and the vulnerabilities reveal herself.
The show is a lightly styalised wonder, on Cate Clelland's beautiful set and with Suzan Cooper's costumes moving from simple business-and-day-wear to some more outrageous outfits near the finale. Stephen Still and Neville Pye's lighting and sound provide solid support to the story, with the assistance of Glenn Gore Phillips' score that moves from muzak to funereal organ via George Michael to entrancing film-noir themes with a bit of Pink Panther drums to a grand romantic release - it's just on the right side of pastiche.
Having read this play a while ago I admit I found it a bit slight and tonally inconsistent, but in this production its blithe tone turns out to be a far sweeter tale than I'd expected, with an eccentric but endearing tone working just rignt.
Thursday, 20 June 2024
A Streetcar Named Desire, Free-Rain Theatre, ACT Hub, 19-29 June
(photo by Jane Duong)
Tennessee Williams' 1947 play is a piece that's probably always going to be relevant, alas - dealing with a relationship where lust and domestic abuse are very much intermingled, and the intervention of a family member with her own dangerous past intruding on the present. It's a long play (in this production it wanders near the 3 hour mark) but justifies that length with dense character studies of four leads all caught up between their desires for escape and their fears of what that escape might mean. This is the second production I've seen in a year (after seeing a preview of the production with Sheridan Harbridge playing Blanche at the Old Fitz last year), and it's a great text to return to for a deep dive and examination.
Primary among the cast is Amy Kowalczuk as Blanche - entering the stage and seizing attention, slightly overdressed for the working-class New Orleans two-room apartment she's in, and clearly self-medicating with alcohol to avoid past traumas. It's a performance that doesn't oversell the damage Blanche has suffered - she's just on the edge of holding on, reorienting herself constantly to keep herself in check, letting the tension bubble under for most of the play rather than releasing it. It's a role that requires her to move between snobbishness, self-righteousness, melancholy, joy, viciousness, outrage, protectiveness, fear and finally catatonia, and she strikes every note perfectly.
Alex Hoskison matches her as Stanley - this is a role wildly different from what he gave us in February in his monologue in "Queers", but whereas that role was delicate and sensitive, Stanley is earthy, practical and assertive - a simple man with rage under the surface, as he seeks to repel what he sees as Blanche's invasion on his property - alienating him against his wife, her barbs against his lack of couth, and his pride at not being taken advantage of. In the early stages of the play he sells Stanley as a dumb-guy-who-thinks-he's-smart kicking out at those around him who he can physically dominate, either through sex with his wife or through physical intimidation with the men around him.
Meaghen Stewart as Stella has the challenge of intervening between the two of them - forgiving and protective of her sister but equally in thrall of her husband - the lust between the two of them is palpable as hell, but so is the warmth between the sisters. She gives the character her own integrity - even as we know that her devotion to her husband is as big a delusion as any that Blanche suffers from, we still feel what draws them together.
Lachlan Ruffy makes a long-awaited return to Canberra stages for the first time in a fully-rehearsed play since 2018's "Switzerland", playing the gentle Mitch who turns out to be not quite the pushover he appears - there's real chemistry between him and Kowalczuk as she enthralls him, and there's a danger in the breakup scene as he shares his contempt for her then realises how close to the edge he's going and consciously steps back. His despair in the final scene is palpable.
Elsewhere the cast seizes small moments, from Sarah Hull's supportive Eunice going through her own issues upstairs of the apartment, Tim Stiles' presence as another bullish man sharing racist jokes at poker and enacting his own messy relationship dynamics at the edge of the story to the gentle reassuring presence of David Bennett at the end of the play.
There are some issues with details at the edge of the play - Blanche's collapible bed never moves from its closed position onstage, scene transitions are a little clunky and the more surreal moments near the end of the play don't entirely feel set up or followed through. But at its core this is a strong production of a classic, led by strong performances at the centre.