Sunday, Sydney Theatre Company/Melbourne Theatre Company, Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House, 28 Oct-12 Dec

 

Anthony Weighs's play covers about thirty years of history between a mix of characters who were all associated with the titular Sunday Reed and the art commune she created in a rural property near Melbourne, and particularly focuses on her relationship with one of the artists, Sydney Nolan - though the non-linear storytelling goes back to her initial meeting with her eventual husband, John Reed, and forward to the final parting between her and Nolan. Sarah Goodes stages it on a mostly simple stage with a gap in the back where dates are projected, as artistic and personal passions become mixed and questions become raised about who's the true creator of the work, patron or artist. 

The story is very much focussed, as the title suggests, on Sunday - to the extent that some of the other famous accomplishments of those around her, in particular, her husband John - but it's a good chance to get focus on a figure who might otherwise be backgrounded in other versions - we get a strong sense of Sunday as an engaged, passionate fighter for her opinions and right to live her life how she likes. Nikki Shiels is magnetic and compelling, witty, powerful, and with an undercurrent of instability which means you're never sure just where she's going to turn next. Around her everyone else is a bit of a bit-player - James O'Connell fares best as Nolan, emerging from a hat factory to develop his own artistic style, his byplay with Sunday becomes more sensual as the story develops until he finds the need for his own independance. Matt Day as John is witty but shows the passion hiding under the surface. Ratidzo Mambo suffers the most as Joy, a character who largely exists to serve plot functions such as to represent the multiple other artists at Heide and to deliver a plot twist late in the play. Jude Hyland as the fifth member of the cast is there largely for the intro and to setup the story to come. 

Anna Cordingly's set design is all large grand brush strokes and fine details up until a finale coup de theatre, and Harriet Oxley's costumes capture the 30s-40s-50s dress sense exactly. It's a long play, covering all the histroy it does, and yet when you research after you feel like it's somehow an incomplete introduction to a very complex character, but it's compelling while it lasts. 

A Balloon Will Pop * At Some Point During This Play, East and Under Theatre Company, ACT Hub, 8-9 November

 

This is one of those shows that's great fun to watch but a bugger to review. To even describe it is a challenge - it's sorta standup-philosophy, which as anybody who saw Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part I" know, means bullshit, but in this case it's erudite, thoughtful bullshit with an inate suspense created by the titular balloon and a visible sharp object. Andrew McMillan, fresh from playing Leo and Adam in "The Inheritance", tells a big scale story delving into some of the bigger questions of existance, while also not being above some jokes that could considered low comedy. 

McMillan switches modes in this, surfing the existential waves as he plays with a pre-recorded set of sound cues (tightly cued by stage manager Maggie Hawkins) and visual support from some slide projections. McMillan brings his Edinburgh Fringe show to Canberra in a tightly drilled, thoughtful one-man show that looks at the infinite and the personal and what living between the two of them could mean.

Nice Work if You Can Get It, Queanbeyan Players, The Q, 1-10 November

 This is another review of a show I've reviewed before, in the Hayes production in 2024 (link here), but this production uses the bigger stage of the Q and the opportunities it grabs for splashy production numbers to tell its ridiculous story of three bootleggers, an army of chorus girls and vice squad members, a carefree playboy, a wedding and a whole lot of Gerswhin classic songs squeezed into one show. The team of Dave Smith, Kirsten Smith and Brigid Cummins have assembled a fine cast, band and crew to create a fluffy November frolic for Queanbeyan Players that should delight anyone. 

Leading the cast is Luke Ferdinands, singing Gershwin so perfectly you'd swear they were recorded on a 78rpm shellac record, and performing the role of an impulsive, frivolous playboy to sweetly dimwitted perfection. Alongside him is Sienna Curnow as tough tomboyish bootlegger Billie, with a sweetly yearning singing voice and a fragility lying just under the rough surface in the sweetest of ways. Anthony Swadling as bootlegger-turned-butler is a masterpiece in frustrated rage, grumbling through multiple plot twists with aplomb. Lillee Keating as the campaigning Duchess Dulworth sings grandly operatically and finds the joy when she's finally released from her straightlaced restrictions. John Whinfield delights almost instantly as he does a muppet-like dash across the stage with bobbing head, and adds in layers of goofy idiocy as he gets entwined with Kay Liddiard's playful Jeannie Muldoon. Steven O'Mara plays just as delightfully as goofy Chief Berry, caught up in the multitudes of deceptions and nonsense. Anna Tully's Eileen is delightfully condescending, blithe and looks great whether in a an elognated bathtub specialty number or in her wedding gear with ridiculously long train. Pat Gallagher gallumphs effectively as the stern Senator/Referend/Judge Evergreen, and Fiona Hale is a fun deus ex machina at the end as Millicent. 

Dave Smith directs effectively with an emphasis on comedy but with just enough reality for us to care when boy is in peril of losing girl, and Kirsten Smith choreographs on a grand scale, filling the stage with undulating bodies in compelling patterns to Gershwin's rhythms, fascinating and otherwise. Brigid Cummings conducts a band that sounds perfectly period, taking us back into the 20s and swinging up a storm. 

In short, this is a nonsensical, big scale retro delight. If it's not quite how they wrote them back in the day (back then the good songs were split over about 5 or 6 musicals and the plot made, somehow, even less sense than this one), it's a concentrated hit of all the best things of the era and a great fun night out.