Uncle Vanya, Ensemble Theatre, 26 Jul-31 Aug

 Why does Chekov keep on coming back? It might be a combo of some dense, rich roles for actors to get their teeth into, the themes of a society on the verge of breaking down, of frustrated lives and failed interactions, of a lost generation at a turning point in history, all combine to maintain interest about 120 years after his plays were first performed. 

This small scale production at the Ensemble uses one simple set and a smaller-than-usual cast (with Vanessa Downing doubling in two small roles) to pour the drama directly onto our laps, as a long summer on a remote russian estate begins to boil over as Vanya begins to act out his frustrations, simmering romantic tensions build between his niece Sonya, the local doctor Astrov and the owner of the estate's wife, and the professor cannot help himself from boring everyone. Joanna Murray-Smith's translation occasionally gets a little too excitable about leaning towards the contemporary in the language (Yelena at one point calls Vanya a little bitch, which... is not inaccurate but it's a little out of 1890s Russian vocab), but otherwise mostly slips onto serving Chekov's original text, keeping things tight and moving. 

It's a strong cast - Yalin Ozucelik as Vanya is the centre of our attention, frustrating, needy, broken and oh so sympathetic when he finally breaks and unreels his frustrations. Tim Walter as the doctor is a little too flat in aspect - the production kind of suggests the reason two different women are drawn to him is more due to him being the best prospect in the region rather than anything particularly magnetic about him. Chantelle Jamesion as Yelena drags us into her dilemma - having obviously made a wrong choice when young she's determined not to make it worse but is drawn towards other options.  Abbey Morgan is a young and bright Sonya with a yearing heart. David Lynch as Serebrykov sells the self-important mediocrity of the man, and John Gaden as Telyehgin gives his character a few strong moments of focus. Vanessa Downing's double casting unfortunately plays a little as a stunt - she distinguishes the roles well but it's always clear that it's the same actress playing both for no real benefit. 

This is a bit of a mixed bag of a production but for those who like to wallow in their Chekhov it's a nice chance to wallow again. 

The Turn of the Screw, Craig Baldwin in association with Hayes Theatre Co, Hayes Theatre, 16 Aug-15 Sep

 

Benjamin Britten's 1954 chamber opera takes Henry James' 1898 ghost story and tells it intimately, with a cast of six telling the story of a governess, entrusted with two children who seem caught up in something strange and ominous. Given James' era, the exact nature of the ominous doings are kept at the implication level rather than blatantly spelled out and Mfanwy Piper's libretto doesn't really try to make things very much clearer, and Britten's atonal score means it's not exactly a comfortable listen, but there is a spooky power that builds up within it.

Craig Baldwin's staging strips the Hayes back to its essentials, with the walls peeling and with minimal set pieces, and the two children played by adult performers carrying puppets, lending a suitably eerie aspects to the children. It also reduces the score to a pianist and a keyboardist and lets the cast's voices reverberate off the walls of the tiny theatre. Emma Vine's simple setpieces have occasional powerful moments (as a frame turns the governess's chair into a coach) but occaisonally spend too long getting moved around the stage to convey different locations that could as easily be conveyed with a lighting change. Addy Robertson and Sandy Leung as the two children are nicely unnerving, as it becomes increasingly clear Miles has fallen deeply under the influence of one of the ghosts while Flora denies any knowledge of what's going on. Sophie Salesveeni as the governess has a clear singing voice and a modest demeanor which is stressed more and more as time passes. Benjamin Rasheed as the sinister Quint is compellingly offputting, as is Georgia Cooper as his accomplice/victim Jessell. Margaret Trubiano as the observant housekeeper, Mrs Grose, is suitably offputting too.

This is not the easiest show to take - Britten's pacing is a tad slow, his atonal music unconfortable and even though the cast is singing in English it can be difficult to make out lyrics sung at high varying pitches of intensity. This felt like a strong staging of material I was never really going to love, though there are moments in the setpieces which have distinct power. It falls into the space of something I admire rather than love. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Belvoir Street Theatre, 17 Aug-22 Sep

 Simon Stephen's adaptation of Mark Haddon's book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was an instant hit when it hit the london stage in 2012 - Marianne Elliot's production using all the bells and whistles of the Royal National theatre, including high-tech lighting, sound and lighting. But Stephen's adaptation is a relatively simple piece using its ensemble to assist in telling the story of Christopher, our neurodivergent protagonist who attempts to solve a mystery in his backyard only to find one inside his own household. Belvoir's production, directed by resident directer Hannah Goodwin, strips back a lot of the bells and whistles, using a simple set with a clock and a lot of chalk to tell the same story, keeping the ensemble focus. She also includes a short warning section at the beginning for the neurodivergent concerning bright lights and loud noises, and adds a continuing device to maintain these warnings. 

There's still the same amount of spectacle, with the journey at the beginning of act two being a particular highlight, but the human focus keeps us inside the story and engrossed in it - while it's a long-ish night at two hours 40, the time races by as the plot twists and the relationship dynamics emerge in a way that reaches across the stage. Even when the driving mysteries of the first act are resolved before intermission, the personal challenges that have been revealed by the solutions drive the second act quite remarkably. 

There's not a dud performance in the cast - Daniel R Nixon as Christopher is the centre, slightly snobbish and intellectually self-possessed but aware of his own limitations, brave and powerful and yet desperately in need of comfort. Bridgit Zengeni as his supportive teacher Siobhan is a warm presence at the heart of the play, interrogating Christoper to get a better sense of his story and to find the things that he's not able to tell. Brandon McClelland as his dad manages the tricky path of a character who tells very little directly but clearly feels a lot. Matilda Ridgeway's appearance is one of the surprises of the story, but she's a warming presence as soon as she arrives. Tracey Mann is one of those actresses who is always welcome and here she's delightful in a range of roles, most specially as neighbor Mrs Alexander. Ariadne Sgouros is also a pleasure to see both as the grim Mrs Shears and the gleeful Mrs Gasgoyne. Nicholas Brown gets to play warm and rough in his various roles, while Roy Joseph has a nice line in confusion and frustrated authority. 

There's skilful use of movement throughout by Nigel Poulton, Tim Dashwood and Elle Evangelista, and Kelsey Lee's lighting is tight and direct and plays significant roles in the storytelling. 

In short this is a powerful telling of a classic show, which goes beyond being a replica of the much-seen National Theater version (rerun several times by NT Live)  to find its own ways of telling the story with skill and passion. 

Every Brilliant Thing, ACT Hub, 20-25 Aug

 Duncan McMillan built his play "Every Brilliant Thing" with the performer Johnny Donohoe. It's basically a monologue with extended audience assistance - the story of the show is of how a young person deals with their parent's depression by trying to find all the good things in life and making a list of them, and the show gives audience members numbered sheets which they're asked to read aloud at the point when their particular thing shows up on the list ... among other requirements which it would be a shame to spoil. But the show becomes a true collaboration between audience and performer, a rapport and comfort between us. In Australia, it's been performed by some skilled actors  - Kate Mulvaney did half the original Belvour Street season before being called away by international filming duties for an Amazon TV series, with Steve Rodgers taking over the second half, and in Adelaide it was picked up by Jimi Bani for a run at the State Theater Company of South Australia. It's a very open text that requires the actor to age from around 7 to around 40 in front of us and to drive the evening with little more than their personality, a couple of pieces of cardboard and the audience's assistance.

Jarrad West is more than up to the challenge. One of the downsides of him being a directorial powerhouse is that he doesn't get on stage as frequently as we'd like - but between definitive performances in "The Normal Heart", "Company" and "The Boy From Oz", and some great supporting work including his recent run in "Mary Stuart", he's always a welcome presence, but this show requires a lot of him in terms of energy, warmth, compassion and emotional tension. And he delivers in bucketloads, warm, sly, playful, charming, daggy, endearing, vulnerable and transcendentally joyous. It's a performance fully worthy of any number of positive adjectives and these are the ones I've come up with this morning - there are thousands more to throw at this and they would all be richly deserved. 

This is a very short run and deserves the full and undivided attention of every serious theatregoer in town (plus all the people who don't know they want to be serious theatregoers yet, but who should become one). It's a thoughtful heart-filling show that you would be foolish to miss. 

Julia, Sydney Theatre Company and Canberra Theatre Centre, Playhouse, 3-11 Aug (and subsequently touring to Adelaide 16-31 Aug and sydney 5 Sep-12 Oct)

 Yes, I admit it, I'm a latecomer to Joanna Murray-Smith's theatrical exploration of Julia Gillard, but Sarah Goodes' production, and the performance of Justine Clarke in the central role, captured my imagination in a way that's rare. It's a bold production - few playwrights would be willing to take on a bio-play where the climax and centrepoint is 15 minutes of someone else's writing, nor would many directors choose a simple setting of a carpet, a few chairs and two mirrors by Renee Mulder - indeed, the mirrors are a challenge to any lighting designer, which Alexander Berlarge lights to pinpoint perfection -  and few actresses would choose a role where for much of the show there's no real attempt at a physical resemblance to the subject, and only intermittent attempts at vocal resemblance. 

But the strength of this show is that it dives deep into an individual and a moment, into modern political history, into something that captures the internal challenges of a strong capable leader in the middle of a firestorm. Murray-Smith recently had her mastery of the monologue shown off in "Bombshells", but here she's taking one particular life and one particular story from multiple angles - introducing us with an almost third-person narrative before moving the lead actress into a direct-address approach that gives as much priority to Gillard's internal turmoil as to her words and public thoughts. While the publicity is careful to state this is a play of developed surmise based on Gillard's statements and written words, there's a strong sense of empathy here. 

Clarke owns the stage in a performance that is deliberately rarely an impersonation - it's a personal, human take on a figure that became iconic and boiled down to a couple of key components (the voice, the hair, the jackets) - humanised, internalised, and then in the final moments captured in her own words, given full invective in a moment that is thoroughly prepared, contextualised and captured. 

It's a rich and powerful show that demands to be seen, essential modern Australian theatre. 

Trophy Boys, Soft Tread Productions in association with The Maybe Pile, Canberra Theatre, Courtyard Studio, 5-10 Aug

 

Emmanuelle Mattana's satiric black comedy is a masterful look at modern masculinity from multiple angles - as four year 12 boys at an expensive private school prepare for their final debating competition, doing the affirmative case for "That Feminism has Failed Women". It's a look at how the modern language of inclusivity has become a shield for people whose have no real understanding and empathy for the causes it claims to espouse, about how underlying privileges really work, and about how tensions build in a hot box situation as we spend the hour before the debate in a room with these four young men (who, as the title suggests, are nowhere near maturing beyond boyhood yet but are already involved in adult activities in a mostly damaging way). 

Essential to the play is that the four boys are played by 4 women in their twenties - all performing different types of masculinity, from Mattana performing an intensely nerdy self-described male feminist to brutal perfection, to Leigh Lule's ultra bro with a softer underside that is painfully obvious to see, Gaby Seow's fourth speaker who tries to get out from their low spot on the totem pole and a fourth actress (named briefly in a pre-show announcement as filling in for a cast member out with illness) who fits in perfectly with minimal reference to an onstage script as the Girlfriend Guy who can't stop talking about her even as it appears he knows very little about her.

Marni Mount's production makes the show a pressure cooker, tight and vigorous, as the boys prowl their preparation room, eventually turning on each other as tensions are ratcheted up. There's a strong sense of physicality in the performances as the balance between insecurity and confidence in these princes of privilege try to weasel their way around the consequences they might be facing. It's a sharply observed piece which is as funny as it is bitter, and it's a throroughly engaging night. 

The Courtyard studio is the last produciton of the current tour of this show - but given the nature of the show (70 minutes long, one set, perfect for festival slots on a regular basis) and the sold out productions both here and at previous tour venues, there's no doubt this is a show that has a lot more mileage in it - and should be staged and examined everywhere. 

William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Canberra Repertory, Canberra Rep Theatre, 25 Jul-10 August

 

William Golding's novel celebrates its 70th anniversary this year but in many ways, it's the kind of story that, in our current era, can never really feel that old - it's about the centre of collective human experience as a group of boys, stripped suddenly of parental control and the civilisation around them, their struggles to form their own society doomed by the petty snobberies they bring with them and their fears of the world they have arrived in. It can be seen very easily as a view on the British Original Sin of colonialism, on how the subjugation of the other ultimately rots those inside, but also a view on the flaws of liberalism in the face of fascism, as fascism's irrationality ultimately resists any engagement from those who wish to explore the world through reasoned debate. It feels like now because it will always feel like now as long as political debate has any engagement with the irrational parts of human nature. 

In Rep's current production, directed by Caitlin Baker and Lachlan Houen, a cast of 13 tells the tale on a multi-level jungle set by Michael Sparks, giving us areas of focus to represent the hills, the shelters, the beach and the wild woods, as the boys first come together before splitting, finally irrecovably, into factions. Leading the cast as our flawed protagonist Ralph is Joshua James, our naive hero who is appointed leader before he's ready, and struggles with the requirements it has for him. Opposing him for much of the evening is Ty Mckenzie's Jack, at first a ridiculous petty snob holding on to his one ridiculous point of power (as Choir Prefect) before finding a position in the hunters that allows him to use his supposed authority on those around him. Winsome Oglvie as Piggy is the heart and wisdom of the play, but carefully maneuvered to have Ralph standing between them and the others to represent those ideas to everyone else so they won't be blamed for coming up with them - it's a display of emotional power and physical weakness that is ultimately heartbreaking. Around this trio are Lilly Willmott as the doomed inquisitive Simon, Robert Kjellgren as the disturbed Roger, and Brandon Goodwin and Zoe Ross as the paired naifs Sam and Eric, reaching for one another even as everyone else splinters around them. 

Chris Ellyard's lighting is evocative, moody and tight, and Neville Pye's island soundscape throughout feels threatening and alarming. Costumes by Antoina Kitzel look suitably polite at the beginning and disintergrating at the end. 

It's a powerful story to experience in real-time, played out in front of us - but it's a compelling evening too, with rich performances and production conveying it with all the power and intelligence of the original.