Slap. Bang. Kiss., Melbourne Theatre Company, The Q, 11 Sept

 Dan Giovannoni's play looks at three events that spark activism - a slap, a bang and a kiss - and how this activism spreads. The three actors share narration - while each primarily carries one of the events, there is trade off between them at various points. The plotting gets a little schematic as the activism spreads for each of the characters, and it does tend to lean towards inspirational positivity rather than dwelling into the deeper questions of carrying on an activists life, of keeping dedication in the face of challenges and in remaining inspired, but it's well directed by Katy Maudlin, giving the stage activity and liveliness in the trade off between the three performers.

Sarah Fitzgerald, Tomas Kantor and Tsungirai Wachenuka give the material their all, whether in the static opening areas or the more physically active later developments, and are passionate and intriguing speakers - combining passion with their youth in ways that completely captures the attention. Kate Davis' set incorporating small apparently concrete blocks which can be rearranged with ease, giving it variety and versatlity as the story moves around and building conclaves for the actors to move towards. Amalia Lever-Davidson's lighting design is almost part of the set, varying from tight closeups to larger sprawling sequences using the whole space, and never wavers in giving us something interesting to look at.

I must admit I think this is a really well produced and directed production of a play that feels a little rudimentary - the ideas never really stretch much further than "activism Yay". But I also suspect as a 50-something year old man this won't hold the appeal for me that it might for the teenagers it's clearly written for. In any event, this was a one-night-and-one-afternoon stand at the Q, and I suspect it may have an appeal to a wider audience than that suggests. 

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! 

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. 

The Sunshine Club, Hit Productions, The Q, 31 Jul-1 Aug

 Wesley Enoch wrote "The Sunshine Club" in 1999, after his collaboration with Deborah Mailman on "7 Stages of Grieving", and it played seasons at the Queensland Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company, before, as a lot of Australian musicals do, disappearing back into the memory hole. 25 years later, it's back touring the regions, following a recent Queensland Theatre Company revival, to reconsider its status as a work as part of the national canon.

For me, for whatever reason, this only sporadically realises its potential - the idea at the centre is not a bad one - looking at an Indigenous soldier, returning after World War 2 into a country that doesn't quite accept him, creating a place where he and his friends can gather, dance, listen to music and enjoy themselves in a church hall, and the threats that come when it becomes apparent those around them will never entirely see him as an equal. And certainly, it's a topic that's made for music - the sounds and the styles of the post-war years being a key part of the presentation. But John Rodgers' music rarely stretches beyond serviceable pastiche of the era, and the lyrics feel very much like a first draft - never really carrying an idea longer than the title until the penultimate number in the show. The show feels very much like it could have been a forgotten piece written in the 40s - which is nice in terms of matching style to subject, but not so much in that every beat is familiar and wanders into the territory of the cliche. There's some liveliness in some of the performances - Roxanne McDonald in particular brings life to the supportive aunty, Tehya Makini gives sister Pearl resentful energy and a sense of joy as she finds her own space, only to have her hopes cruelly dashed - but there's a lot of performances that feel more generic music-theatre acting, broad smiles and emphatic gesturing, than anything more real. There are devices that had to have felt old-fashioned in 1999 (in particular, the guy whose enthusiastic pursuit of the girl he loves looks, from 2024, a whole lot like stalking as he refuses to take emphatic "No"s for an answer) that haven't really been reconsidered for the revival, 

The set is quite a substantial one for a touring show, and the live 5 piece band are a tight unit. And the intentions of the show are honourable - exploring a moment when reconciliation could and should have been possible and enjoying it for as long as possible rather than recreating Indigenous trauma for a largely white audience. But it also means we end up with a show that, for much of its length, is awfully mild fare. The ending when it comes asks the right questions - "If not now then when" - and post-another-false-start in the history of our false starts in the process of reconciliation with the loss of the proposed voice to parliament, it hits home. But the path leading to that point doesn't cut nearly as deep - and the same ruthless eye that directed the last 10 minutes needed to work on the two hours and twenty minutes that lead up to that, to make the preparations charming and beguiling rather than just pleasant and nice. 

I don't mean to berate this show too much - in many ways it's very well put together - but the threat of making "don't frighten the horses" theatre is sometimes you instead fail to enliven them - and for too much of its running time, this didn't really enliven me. 

Mary Stuart, Chaika Theatre, ACT Hub, 24 July-3 Aug

 

Friedrich Schiller is Germany's foremost classical playwright, but his work has only recently started hitting the English language repertoire (outside of the many operas based on his work, and Beethoven's setting of his poem "Ode to Joy" in his 9th Symphony). But in the early part of the current century, his 1800 play has experienced a fair number of different productions, with adapters like Scottish playwright David Harrower and English playwrights Peter Oswald and Robert Icke giving different takes on the material. Kate Mulvaney's 2019 version considerably restructures the play and invests deeply into the two queens at the centre of a story of religious and political rivalry, and of the role their gender plays in their circumstances.

Luke Roger's production uses a central raised crucifix as the stage for the action, as Mary waits in her long imprisonment and Elizabeth holds court and decides what to do with her prisoner, under pressure from her lords and counselors to take decisive final action. In act one we see Mary's gentle give-and-take relationship with her jailer, Paulet, her confrontation with her chief accuser Burleigh and a possible sympathizer in young Mortimer, followed by time in Elizabeth's court as the rising religious tensions exacerbate tensions between her and her courtiers, including the amorous Earl of Leicester. Act Two has a surprise at one of Leicester's parties as Mary and Elizabeth (ahistorically) come face to face, and then the inevitable fate of Mary is played out. Using a mix of modern-and-classic dress, it's a stylish, strong production that asks big questions about power, access, and realpolitik. 

In the title role, Steph Roberts is magnetic - sardonic, emotive, full of lived-experience and occasional hope for better - she's a fascinating figure to watch - never quite a heroine and never really villain either, but deeply human and with a sense of her own power. Matching her as Elizabeth is Karen Vickery at her best, giving an Elizabeth fully aware of both her power and her limitations, impulsive, thoughtful, wrathful and compassionate in turn. Surrounding them is a group of men, from Cameron Thomas' gentle jailer Paulet to Jarrad West's stylishly grand Earl of Leicester and Lachlan Herring's sheepish secretary, Davison. 

Kathleen Kershaw's design combines form and function, stylish, modern yet classic, and is lit tightly by Disa Swifte. There's some great music to, from original works by Rachel Dease and Georgia Snudden, to a smart choice of dance track at the opening of act two. 

This is a fine production of the best kind of classic, an unfamiliar one, that you can come to with no preconceptions and bask in the presentational power of it. 

44 sex acts in one week, Club House Productions, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre, 18-20 July

 A combination of Rom-Com, cultural satire, and apocalyptic thriller, this is a truly wild ride full of spectacle, disturbing sound effects, ideas and a couple of surprising visuals, played by a game-for-anything cast of 4. 

David Finnigan's recent work has shown this skill in abundance - between "Kill Climate Deniers", "Scenes from the Climate Era", "You're Safe til 2024" and this, he's been providing lively, intriguing examinations of modern predicaments for a while now. This is possibly the flashiest of them (even outflashying "Kill Climate Deniers" combination of Action Movie and cultural lecture), using Steve Toulmin's pulsing sound design as a backdrop moving us from high-level influencers to grotty loft apartment with live sound effects played by the cast on everything from a guess-who rack to an ironing board. 

The plot has a minor issue that ties into an unfortunate trend in modern Rom Coms - it doesn't seem to  spend much time making either lead particularly likeable, meaning we don't really care very much if they get together or not. The 44 Sex Acts of the title relate to a self-help-guru's evangelical statement about the liberating power of uninhibited sex (Rebecca Massey gives this guru everything she's got, moving sleekly around the stage rousing the audience with her passion). A journalist, Celina, on a click-bait women's issue blog (Amber McMahon, full of realistic frustration and  rage) agrees to re-enact those acts and review them for the blog in exchange for money that will allow her to upgrade her living situation. Helping her out, reluctantly, is part-time-office-boy, part-time-environmental-warrior Alab (Aaron Tsindos, similarly frustrated but impassioned), who is inspired by the acts to undertake his own big-scale action. Helping them out is Celina's frined Remely and Alab's friend Kalil (both played by Nancy Denis with enthusiasm, even down to the point where both of these characters are involved in an all-in-inflatable-pool-orgy). All played out with clothes on and with the assistance of various objects of fruit (what the cast does with a banana and a rockmelon is truly thrilling).

If Finnigan's biting off slightly more than he can comfortably chew (the ending when it comes feels like a hastily imposed moral reckoning on an otherwise hedonistically enjoyable evening), Sheridan Harbridge's direction stretches out to cover every mode of the play from the serious ideas hiding behind everything to the joyous nonsense around the rest of it, and holds the 75-odd minutes together well. 

Bombshells, Echo Theatre, The Q, 18-27 July

Joanna Murray-Smith is one of the busier Australian writers at the moment - she's in a bit of a boom time, between the ongoing touring season of "Julia" in various places around the country, the recent revival of "Switzerland" and her adaptation of "Uncle Vanya at the Ensemble, plus this production of her 2001 set of monologues, originally written as a virtuoso piece for Caroline O'Connor to play six seperate women from teenager to sixty-something-widow, all facing various levels of crisis. 

In this production it's played by six actresses, all giving powerhouse performances making it impossible to pick a favourite section - from Amy Kowalczuk's Beckettian stream-of-consciousness as an exhausted mother overwhelming herself with guilt to Kate Harris' speech about cacti where her personal subtext inevitably takes over, to Sally Taylor's enthusiastic competitive teen performer at the school talent show, Ella Buckley's bride on her wedding day realising increasing desperation as the big moment arrives, Alice Ferguson's widow finding her highly structured life after bereavement interrupted by a surprising encounter and Lainie Hart's visiting Cabaret star, barely aware where she is but preoccupied by her own personal crises.

Jordan Best's production keeps all 6 in view at all times, all in their separate zones of the stage, perfectly designed for them each by Roz Hall, with careful lighting by Jacob Acquilina - and between scenes we glimpse all six women as William and Jordan Best's music plays easing us between scenes, in Jens Nordstrom's witty, appropriate costumes. It's a fine presentation of the material - elegant and intimate, as we get full access to these women's individual spaces and dilemmas. 

Intriguingly, the scripts for each of the pieces have been localised but not updated - references to Laura Bush and returning videos keep these in the early 2000s when the plays were first written - though the emotional issues of different ages of women chasing contentment in relationships, in parenthood, in public acclaim, and in their personal rituals, still rings very true. 

This is a beautiful production showcasing 6 extrordinarily talented women, and is absolutely to be embraced - it's funny, emotional and rings deeply true. Murray-Smith's explorations of the challenges of contemporary women of all ages is a delightful, rich experience absolutely to be embraced and taken to your heart. 

 (Photos by Photox Canberra Photography Services)

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. 

It's a musically powerful show, from the thrashing title song to reflective songs like "Wake me up when September Ends" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", with Kitt's arrangements building the songs from their guitar-bass-a-vocalist-and-a-drumkit origins to embrace the power of the whole cast singing in harmony, with a string section joining the arrangements for added power. And musical directors Jen Hinton and Bridgid Cummins absolutely capture the mood and the sound, from pure thrash to delicate intimacy to powerful massed balladry. Dramatically the storytelling is a little rudimentary, with the three male protagonists largely disappointing the women in their life (two of the three female leads aren't given real names - one is "Extraordinary Girl", one is "Whatsername") - the women do have musical moments but the show, like the male characters, is never really willing to centre them for very long.  

The material is well performed, though - John Winfield as the central protagonist, Johnny, has a mix of cynicism and wounded innocence, aware that his rebellion is more talk than action. Darcy Kinsella as Will, the one who joins the army, has a sweet innocence to him that gets damaged over the course of the tale,, and Zac Izzard disappears into his inner-loss as he refuses to engage with the mother of his child. Shelby Holland as Whatsername and India Cornwell as Heather both show self-determination and power as they push the messed up men in their life away, and Abigail Dunn's dancing as Extrordinary Girl is, well, suitably extraordinary. Declan Pigram as the rock-legend-tempter St. Jimmy struts with the power required to draw us all in.

The ensemble are a vigorous physical presence throughout, throwing themselves into Nathan Rutrup's energetic choreography, releasing tension and belting out the tunes with power. It's a strong, energetic production of a show that works as long as you don't think about the plot too much (and alas, I'm a reviewer so I have to think about the plot a bit). 

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.   

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. 

Highway of Lost Hearts, A Lingua Franca, The Q, 6-7 June and subsequently 14-15 June at Riverside Theatres Parramatta

 

(photo by Hannah Grogan)

The Road story has a long and proud tradition - you could say it dates back to Homer's "The Odyssey", via such material as "It Happened One Night", Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie", Kerouac's "On the Road", up to "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" and beyond. It's a genre that lets protagonists encounter all sorts of people and events along the road, discovering fundamental truths about their society and themselves. Mary Anne Butler's play is a fine continuation of that genre, as a protagonist hops into a van with a dog and travels from the far north of Australia through various remote country towns, dealing with her own internal demons and the brutality of both the external environment as well as other people and her own turmoils. There's a risk in this kind of material that it can become very much a series of incidents, particularly in this case with a protagonist who doesn't go in for a lot of exposition about what's brought them to this point, but a combination of Butler's versatile writing, capable of both the height of poetic celebration and the depths of brutal realism, performer Kate Smith and musicians Abby Smith and Sophie Jones, a simple set of three drapes, three seating areas and a bit of spinifex by Annemaree Dalziel and Bekcy Russell and some powerful lighting effects by Becky Russell ensures that this is a beautiful and resonant experience, a personal story that is also universal - wide in scope but intimate in experience.

Performer Kate Smith is an engaging, strong presence, able to handle the shifts in script from joy to rage to sorrow to introspective, and from rhapsodic to starkly dramatic. We feel as she feels, and are completely drawn into the experience. Musicians Smith & Jones weave in and out of the story too, sometimes remote presences to the side, sometimes moving in close as observers, as companions, and as contributions to the mood and energy, sometimes reflective, sometimes driving the action.

This is a powerful new Australian play given a beautiful production and should be seen by anybody interested in exploring human nature, the world around us and the spaces within us. 

& 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. 

12 Hour Hub-A-Thon, ACT Hub, 27 April

 

A fun afternoon-to-evening out, this was six-and-a-half plays over exactly 12 hours (with the final play ending right on the dot of midnight) - with tag-teams of actors flowing across the day, covering everything from Panto to modern takes on the last classic at the Hub to Irish domestic tragedy to Australian family saga to greek revenge to 50% of an Oscar Wilde classic to a modern Edward Ablee comic-tragedy about desire. Staged minimally with a few fill in props (a bucket served for a whole lot of things, as did a spread of tinsel), there was a range of powerful performances. 

Lachlan Ruffy finally returning to canberra stages after five and a half years away to give a definatively woulda-devoured-the-scenery-if-there-was-any Captain Hook and a reserved but still sinister Trigornin, normally-directors like Jordan Best and Caitlin Baker showing how good they are on the other side of the stage, familiar faceslike Lainie Hart, Karen Vickery, Amy Kowalczuk, Azza McKazza, Megan Stewart, Cole Hilder, Steph Roberts and Joel Horwood showing off their skills, actors normally seen in small parts like Blue Hsylop and John Whinfield getting a chance to shine in roles with bigger substance, and a real stunner of a performance from Seb Winter who I'm pretty sure I've never seen in anything before but want to see again ASAP.. 

Not everything was perfect, there was definitely a sense that, for instance, "An Ideal Husband" suffered from not editing the script down, leading to having to cut things off at the end of act two of a four act play,  but it was a great chance for the true theatre tragics to luxuriate in great scripts, great acting and a whole lot of enthusiasm.