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.
Wednesday 11 September 2024
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.
Saturday 7 September 2024
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.
Friday 6 September 2024
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.
Thursday 5 September 2024
Ordinary Days, Q the Locals, The Q, 5-7 September
Sunday 25 August 2024
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.
Friday 23 August 2024
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.
Tuesday 20 August 2024
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.
Thursday 8 August 2024
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.
Tuesday 6 August 2024
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).
Saturday 3 August 2024
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.
Wednesday 31 July 2024
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.
Wednesday 24 July 2024
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.
Friday 19 July 2024
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.
Thursday 18 July 2024
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.
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)
Thursday 27 June 2024
American Idiot, Queanbeyan Players, THe Q, 20-29 June
Green Day's 2004 album represented a progression for the band - known for their fast-punching three-minute pop-punk songs since the early 90s, the album was tied around contemporary issues of youthful alienation and post-September 11th right-wing nationalism, and used longer musical suites made up of multiple songs and recurring characters to tie together these threads into a light narrative of a confused suburbanite young man lost in the world of contemporary politics and life. In 2009 they teamed with director Michael Mayer and arranger and orchestrator Tom Kitt to build a Broadway musical based on the album, creating additional material for their follow-up album, 2009's "21st Century Breakdown", multiplying the protagonist into 3 young men, all alienated and lost as they search for purpose through drugs, through music, through relationships and through the military.
Saturday 22 June 2024
Dead Man's Cell Phone, Canberra Repertory Society, 13-29 June
Sarah Ruhl's 2007 comedy is an eccentric, oddball mystery about a young woman who ties herself into the life and work of a stranger when he dies, cellphone still ringing, at a cafe, and she elects to answer the phone on his behalf. It's a play about connections - family, professional and romantic - and about how dropping yourself into the web of these connections can expose you to all kinds of surprises.
Kate Blackhurst's production is a smooth-running simply designed delight - on a set with a few levels and a beautifully framed projection screen, it dashes around the many and varied locations that the show requires with an emphasis on the eccentric characters and the propulsion of a strange magic-realist-farce plot that takes us everywhere from a cafe to a funeral to a dinner to a stationary cupboard to environments beyond with endearing charm. It's a surprisingly warm play for one that dives into some fairly dark territory in the second act, and it's a tricky tone to maintain - a little further and this would be too-cute-to-function, a little less and it would feel like all the characters are suffering from brain damage- but it captures a delightful tone just right.
Leading the story is Jess Waterhouse as our hapless protagonist, caught out by just trying to do the right thing but unable to abandon her mission to look after the dead man's phone calls even when real life is making it clear that there are better options out there to consider - you get the strong sense of empathy with her and her dilemmas. Elaine Noon as the ominous Mrs Gottleib enthralls from her entrance-eulogy, opinionated and direct, knowing just what she wants and how she'll go about getting it. Alex McPherson is suitably mysterious and outrageous as the mystery woman who clearly knows more than she's saying. Bruce Hardie scores in the double role of Dead Gordon who has a lot more to say post-mortem than you'd expect, and the warm and endearing brother Dwight. And Victoria Dixon as the dead man's widow, Hermia, is suitably contained until a drunk scene sees all her barriers come down and the vulnerabilities reveal herself.
The show is a lightly styalised wonder, on Cate Clelland's beautiful set and with Suzan Cooper's costumes moving from simple business-and-day-wear to some more outrageous outfits near the finale. Stephen Still and Neville Pye's lighting and sound provide solid support to the story, with the assistance of Glenn Gore Phillips' score that moves from muzak to funereal organ via George Michael to entrancing film-noir themes with a bit of Pink Panther drums to a grand romantic release - it's just on the right side of pastiche.
Having read this play a while ago I admit I found it a bit slight and tonally inconsistent, but in this production its blithe tone turns out to be a far sweeter tale than I'd expected, with an eccentric but endearing tone working just rignt.
Thursday 20 June 2024
A Streetcar Named Desire, Free-Rain Theatre, ACT Hub, 19-29 June
(photo by Jane Duong)
Tennessee Williams' 1947 play is a piece that's probably always going to be relevant, alas - dealing with a relationship where lust and domestic abuse are very much intermingled, and the intervention of a family member with her own dangerous past intruding on the present. It's a long play (in this production it wanders near the 3 hour mark) but justifies that length with dense character studies of four leads all caught up between their desires for escape and their fears of what that escape might mean. This is the second production I've seen in a year (after seeing a preview of the production with Sheridan Harbridge playing Blanche at the Old Fitz last year), and it's a great text to return to for a deep dive and examination.
Primary among the cast is Amy Kowalczuk as Blanche - entering the stage and seizing attention, slightly overdressed for the working-class New Orleans two-room apartment she's in, and clearly self-medicating with alcohol to avoid past traumas. It's a performance that doesn't oversell the damage Blanche has suffered - she's just on the edge of holding on, reorienting herself constantly to keep herself in check, letting the tension bubble under for most of the play rather than releasing it. It's a role that requires her to move between snobbishness, self-righteousness, melancholy, joy, viciousness, outrage, protectiveness, fear and finally catatonia, and she strikes every note perfectly.
Alex Hoskison matches her as Stanley - this is a role wildly different from what he gave us in February in his monologue in "Queers", but whereas that role was delicate and sensitive, Stanley is earthy, practical and assertive - a simple man with rage under the surface, as he seeks to repel what he sees as Blanche's invasion on his property - alienating him against his wife, her barbs against his lack of couth, and his pride at not being taken advantage of. In the early stages of the play he sells Stanley as a dumb-guy-who-thinks-he's-smart kicking out at those around him who he can physically dominate, either through sex with his wife or through physical intimidation with the men around him.
Meaghen Stewart as Stella has the challenge of intervening between the two of them - forgiving and protective of her sister but equally in thrall of her husband - the lust between the two of them is palpable as hell, but so is the warmth between the sisters. She gives the character her own integrity - even as we know that her devotion to her husband is as big a delusion as any that Blanche suffers from, we still feel what draws them together.
Lachlan Ruffy makes a long-awaited return to Canberra stages for the first time in a fully-rehearsed play since 2018's "Switzerland", playing the gentle Mitch who turns out to be not quite the pushover he appears - there's real chemistry between him and Kowalczuk as she enthralls him, and there's a danger in the breakup scene as he shares his contempt for her then realises how close to the edge he's going and consciously steps back. His despair in the final scene is palpable.
Elsewhere the cast seizes small moments, from Sarah Hull's supportive Eunice going through her own issues upstairs of the apartment, Tim Stiles' presence as another bullish man sharing racist jokes at poker and enacting his own messy relationship dynamics at the edge of the story to the gentle reassuring presence of David Bennett at the end of the play.
There are some issues with details at the edge of the play - Blanche's collapible bed never moves from its closed position onstage, scene transitions are a little clunky and the more surreal moments near the end of the play don't entirely feel set up or followed through. But at its core this is a strong production of a classic, led by strong performances at the centre.
Thursday 6 June 2024
Highway of Lost Hearts, A Lingua Franca, The Q, 6-7 June and subsequently 14-15 June at Riverside Theatres Parramatta
Saturday 18 May 2024
& 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.
Friday 17 May 2024
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.
Nayika: A Dancing Girl, Belvoir St Theatre, 30 Apr-19 May
Thursday 16 May 2024
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.
Tuesday 14 May 2024
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.
Saturday 11 May 2024
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.
Wednesday 8 May 2024
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 8-18 May
Friday 26 April 2024
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.