August: Osage County, Free-Rain Theatre Company, ACT Hub, 5-15 Sept

 

This production shares three cast members with the last time Free Rain ran this show, almost a decade ago (review here), all playing the same roles - but this is very far from a rote production. A modern epic American Family Drama, feeling like it summarises all the great American plays into one outsized epic, from the addiction issues of Eugene O'Neill to the weird regional activities of Sam Shepherd to the speechifying about the nature of America of Tony Kushner, this is a play that contains multitudes as three generations of an Oklahoma family gather in the wake of the disappearance of the patriarch - with three daughters returning to deal with their pill-addicted and happily-pasisng-on-the-genrational-trauma mother, the various husbands and partners, the local police, the aunt-uncle-and-cousin relations and a recently-hired live-in housekeeper. Beginning in 2007 at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf theatre, the original production transferred to Broadway and to London's national theatre and a tour hosted by the Sydney theatre Company, before the film was released (cut down to a more audience-friendly length) with a big name cast that never quite recaptured the theatrical energy of the play. 

It remains Letts' masterpiece - the plays he wrote before had a sharp incisive power (particularly "Killer Joe" and "Bug" but his later work doesn't quite have the urgency - Letts has shifted into an acting career largely made up of being senior patriarch figures in series like "Homeland" and movies like "Lady Bird", "The Post", "Little Women" and "Ford v Ferrari" - it's a very classically well made play, from the three act structure basically built into it by the uninterrupted roller coaster of act two, which takes this hothouse of a family and turns the boiler up until it explodes, with the third act remaining to pick up the pieces left behind. Cate Clelland gives the intimate Hub space an epic power, playing it longways and finding as many inches as possible of stage space to let the family sprawl all over the house. She maintains space and focus even as the various members of the Weston-Fordham-Aiken clans bicker and yell, often simultaneously across the space. There's a sense of control in among the chaos as we're always brought back to what matters, which is the emotions and tensions between family members, whether they be hostility, love, frustration or lust.

Karen Vickery as the matriarch is the mother from hell, and seizes the opportunity to ride a role that allows her to play everything from pathetic incoherence in the worst of her sedated-delusion to concentrated focussed venom as she reaches out to destroy family members one by one. Louise Bennet makes a return after a long time away from Canberra stages as the most prominent of the three daughters, dealing with her own parental frustrations, her own frayed marriage and her own ability to shoot venom at family members at the climax of the second act. Tracy Noble as Aunt Mattie Fae starts as a gossiping side figure before it becomes more apparent how great her own level of venom is, and what she's held in for years and is now finding an opportunity to release. Crystal Mahon is compelling as the somewhat crushed Ivy after long exposure to her mother, and brings hope as she finds a secret way to escape before a final brutal secret hits her like a brick. David Bennett handles Beverly's long opening monologue with aplomb, setting up the character and the nature of the family early. Bruce Hardie gives Bill a gentle generosity as he realises how deeply he's disengaged from his wife and how impossible it is to return. Michael Sparks similarly has a powerful humanity as the mostly-quiet-but-rebelllious when riled Charles. Richard Manning is suitably skin crawling as the awful Steve. Lachlan Rufffy is hapless, adorably labradorish and astonishingly vulnerable. Ella Buckley as the awkwardly prepubescent Jean draws attention as she tries and often fails to stand by her values in the face of the rest of her bullheaded family. Karina Hudson gives Karen a sense of a self that has decided to ignore as much as possible around her to avoid feeling damage, at the expense of parts of her humanity. Rob Drennan as Sheriff Deon is a warm honest presence who is clearly invested in parts of the families history they may not even remember, and Andrea Garcia's Johnna provides a strong observer figure, someone who absorbs all the tension around her without betraying too much judgment. 

This is an epic and powerful production, and well worth the three-hours-and-change of your time in the theatre - a high-tension family drama that takes us through all the darker sides of family history and leaves us wrung out at the other end happy we can leave these people behind and hoping some of them survive intact. 

English, Melbourne Theatre company, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, 5-7 Sept

 

Sanaz Toossi's play was the winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for drama - a tight comedy-drama about four students in an English-Second-Language class in Tehran, it uses a device where when characters are speaking English they use strong Iranian accents, and when not, they use the performer's natural accent. It's, as the concept suggests, a show looking at language, and how it affects how people express themselves beyond the immediately obvious - and about how the character's relationship to another culture affects them. It's a rich array of characters - all four students are learning for different reasons, and Toossi's script gives them plenty of room to breathe and explore themselves as it plays out moment by moment.

Director Tasmin Hossein gives this a naturalistic sheen as the various exercises present different challenges to the student. The set by Kat Chan is a simple small classroom with whiteboards, clicks and institutional chairs, a simple learning environment for the performers to play out their challenges, and the direction finds the meaning in small moments of tension and release.

Of the five cast members, Maia Abbas emerges strongly as the character most challenged by the English language, Elham - not because of her proficiency so much as a profound cultural identity crisis within her. Abbas gives the character wit, energy, and vigour as her challenges come more and more to the fore. Elsewhere, Osamah Sami as the english-proficient Omid has a lot of charm and handles his own counter-acting cultural issues intriguingly, and Salme Garensar as the instructor, Marjan, has a polite demeanor that proves steely when challenged, leading to a professional crisis and confession of her own issues. Delaram Ahmadi has a gentle charm to her as the hardworking student Goli who tries to stay out of the identiy issues but struggles, and Marjan Meshabi is quietly heartbreaking as the mother trying to catch up to her son who has moved to Canada but unaware how much he has already left her behind. 

This is a strong, powerful play that got a little lost in the crush of multiple productions last weekend - I saw it too late in the season for my review to do it any good, hence the delay, but it's the kind of thing I hope we see more tours of. 

Ordinary Days, Q the Locals, The Q, 5-7 September

Adam Gwon's song-cycle is inevitably going to be described as Sondheimesque by many - it's full of fast paced songs sung by four New Yorkers in various degrees of neurosis - a young couple who've just moved in together and are finding accommodating one another difficult, a grad student freaking out about his thesis and an art-enthusiast seeking for a better purpose to his life - and every song tells a mini-story all in itself, often using a device where the title takes on different meanings as it's repeated (though Sondheim doesn't have a monopoly on neurotic New Yorkers - back when Betty Comden and Adolph Green were writing them, they were considered quirky). It's a small scale story but with big feelings within it - of that point in your mid-thirties when finding the big picture of your life conflicts with just trying to live day-to-day.

Chris Zuber's production emphasises the music, fitting the action around musical director Matthew Webster at the grand piano, with the cast in constant motion on a set largely made up of milk crates (including a spectacular back wall of upside-down-skyscrapers), beautifully lit by Zac Harvey. It's an energetic production that earns its moments of still reflection in the middle of the chaos. 

The cast is made up of great musical theatre performers who, for various reasons, haven't been onstage in musicals in a while - I must admit I mentally associate Joel Horwood with plays (though they were a great lead in Urinetown only two years ago, and were in the Canberra cast of "The Hello Girls" which I missed due to being overseas) but as Warren they're a strong, open, sweet natured presence. Vanessa Valois has been away from Canberra stages for 7 years due to, presumably, the normal life things that mean people don't do stage shows, but her return is greatly appreciated as the twitchy, uptight grad-student Deb - nobody does an onstage rant like Valois. Grant Pegg and Kelly Roberts have both been on the other side of the footlights for the last few years, co-directing such productions as "Assassins", "Heathers", "Dogfight" and "Spring Awakening - their return as young couple Jason and Claire is sweet, funny and relatable as they negotiate everything from where to put his shoes to what to do on the weekend. 

It's a beautiful show full of standout moments for each of the cast members, and the energy of the production fills the big stage at the Q with delight and charm. And it's a pleaure to remake the musical acquaintance of its cast in a piece that seems sculpted on them - everybody is so suited to their roles that it's a joy to behold. The season is short, so if you blink you'll miss this and regret it, so get in fast!