Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Green Door Theatre Company, Darlinghurst Theatre, 25 Jan-20 Feb 2022

A modern tale of social media spiraling out of control, about social and economic outrages, about privilege and despair, and a hilarious tale of friendship and individual power, it's no wonder this comedy is getting a sold-out return season. Like all the best comedies, Jasmine Lee-Jones's script has a serious question at  its heart, about how we engage with one another in an increasingly fragmented world, about how we stand up against the ludicrous entitlement of the billionaire class, and how the cyberconversations we have impact on our lives.

Directors Shari Sebbens and Zindzi Okenyo keep the pace fast and furious, keeping a dense and intelligent script crystal clear for the audience. Moreblessing Maturure as Cleo is the cocky, rageful centre of the story, staking her clam as sarcastic narrator, arbitrer and ultimately the vulnerable figure finding the backlash to her opinion too much. As her offsider, Iolanthe holds her own both as interlocutor and later as interrergator as revelations about Cleo's past come to light. 

Keerthi Subramanyam's design is clean and simple, a private space with the social media projections looming over it, and gives just enough space for the various surprises to show up. This is a production that undoubtedly still has life in it (it's already announced a tour to LaBoite in Brisbane, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the road further), and it's a right-to-the moment contemporary comedy that will delight anyone whether or not they have any idea who the hell Kylie Jenner is. 

At What Cost, Belvoir St Theatre, 29 Jan-20 Feb 2022

 

Nathan Maynard's play confronts the nature of Indigenous identity and the internal politics of a small community building up pressure on the protagonist until he makes an irrevocable decision. It's very much a personal story (Maynard is himself very much involved in Aboriginal politics in Tasmania) and there's true pain and passion in this that make it a powerful evening in the theatre, even if the play does feel slightly loaded to express Maynard's side of a complex argument rather than to give a rounded view - it's more a great part for a leading man than it is a fully rounded four person play. 

Luke  Carroll as that leading man is compelling and fascinating throughout, as his character turns to the more paranoiac and protective, angrier and more defensive, he balances his character's indignation with emotional truth that anchors the production. Alex Malone does a lot to make the antagonist more than just a monster, making her twisting, defensive nature on the edge of being understanding before the stack of lies and half-truths collapses towards the end. Ari Maza Long and Sandy Greenwood's roles are slightly underwritten but we do get a sense of their histories with Caroll and Malone, and of why they both end up where they are in the middle between them. 

Isaac Drandic presents a smooth flowing production that builds wonderfully to the climax, using the space to flow the action onwards in a tightly paced show that moves from early geniality to final starkness. Jacob Nash's set design gives the space visual interest, as does Keerthi's realisation of the set and costumes. 

For all that I'm a little tough on the writing here, I did find this a compelling night in the theatre, as well as a presentation of some interesting ideas. But in the end it doesnt' feel so much as a fully rounded play as a great part for an aboriginal actor with three supporting actors doing different levels of lifting to cover for the rest. 

 

Girl from the North Country, GWB Entertainment etc, Theatre Royal Sydney (til 19 Mar), Her Majesty's Theatre Adelaide (25 Mar-10 Apr), Comedy Theatre Melbourne (from 29 April)

 
This is an odd show to become an international hit - an irish playwright telling a story set in 1930s Duluth, with 19 songs by Bob Dylan crossing 49 years of his career across 14 of his albums. But since opening at London's Old Vic, this has drawn audiences in London and New York to a distinctively different musical production, as much about the drama as it is about the songs, with soul and heart and unexpected beauty. 

Conor McPherson is probably best known for theatre with a distinctly horror edge, whether it be the ghosts with plays like "The Weir" and "Shining City", demonic forces like in "The Seafarer" or the horror of a theatre critic among vampires in the monologue "St Nicholas". This play (also directed by McPherson) has its own discomforting edges as madness and misery consume the residents of a Duluth, Minesotta boarding house during the depression, as people are confronted with desperation and their need to escape, often expressed through those self-same Dylan songs, given gorgeous period-appropriate arrangements with a rich band made up of four onstage musicians with assistance by the rest of the cast.  It's paced in such a way that there's never really time for an applause break after each song, so we're carried by the narrative as things proceed to their inevitably grim fate in a tale that borrows a little from some of Dylan's songs and a little bit more from the works of John Steinbeck. 

The cast is a mixture of familiar strong hands, some in interestingly different roles - Lisa McCune has never seemed more eager to break away from her popular conception as a TV sweetheart, into the disturbed and bitter Elizabeth Laine seen here, full of recriminations and disturbance, while Peter Carroll and Grant Piro both channel the more menacing parts of their repertoire, Helen Dallimore is earthy and compelling (and also plays a mean drum kit), Zahra Newman shows her seemingly endless versatility in a role that's miles away from most of what I've seen her do before, and Callum Francis gives a role miles away from his acclaimed Lola from Kinky Boots. Greg Stone has maybe the most difficult monologue in the entire show and makes it compellingly painful, and Terrence Donavan provides narration as the town doctor with suitable forboding. There's not a weak link anywhere, and it's a pleasure to see Dylan songs sung so well (it's a cliche to say Bob is not the best singer of his own work, but it's also true). 

Rae Smith's set designs combine simple furnishings with gauzy backdrops to provide interesting settings for the intimate confrontations, with singers seen through the gauze providing backup to the action.  

This is a brave experience for commercial theatres to be trying - it's nothing like you might expect a Bob Dylan musical jukebox musical to be, but it's compelling and dangerous and heartfelt. Canberra Theatre Centre is listed as a co-producer so hopefully the tour will pop up here sometime, but if not it's worth the trip to Sydney to catch a show that's raw and compelling. Recommended. 

Smokescreen, Bare Witness Theatre Co, The Q, 2-5 Feb 2022

Back in theatres for 2022, the first of the "Q The Locals" mini-season sees rising performers Christopher Samuel Carroll and Damon Baudin in a two-hander about marketing, society, personal ethics, psychology and the ways that capitalism may very well have doomed us all - ambitious perhaps, but also insightful, intelligent and incredibly pertinent. It's a simple production - two actors in suits, a long table with an ashtray and a drinks cabinet, talking for about 105 minutes, Carroll chain-smoking herbal cigarettes for most of the night. )

Carroll has triple-tasked himself with playing one of the leads, directing and writing (noting that was not the original intention - he's taken on the role after Covid upended some of the rehearsal process) - I'd hope in further productions he brings in a separate eye, because at present the play is a little over-written with long arias, particularly from Glenn, the character he plays, about the subtle arts of convincing people to do things that aren't necessarily in their best interest. He's clearly done his research (the program credits George Monbiot, Naomi Klein and Adam Curtis as key influences) but a little more shaping may have made this a slightly tighter evening - there's a little bit of a sense that some of the points are being belaboured as the play currently stands - the writing is smart and witty and absolutely makes an impact, but tightening the points would pay off wonderfully. It's also no discredit to Carroll as an actor, who plays the more sympathetico of the pair, as the character who has to face up to his own moral compromoses.  Initially brash and bold, we see his emotinoal deconstruction as he realises the trap he and the world he's in and how unlikely it is that he'll be able to work his way out again. Again, possibly as a result of the Covid recasting, there's a slight sense that the writing hasn't been adjusted to account for him being roughly the same age as Baudin- they're clearly meant to be of two different generations, and just as clearly they aren't, though Carroll does good work to try to sell the older character's gravitas. 

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Damon Baudin plays the more shifty, intelligent, precise, professional character in all his lizardly-fascination - a creature of pure intellect who presents some uncomfortable truths as we drive home in our oil-powered vehicles. He's got the longer arias on psychological manipulation and the techniques which sell fear and doubt to the general public and gives them an insinuating charm that makes it just that bit more shocking as you realise what he's really trying to sell you.

Anthony Hately lights the show as a sharp arena for the two men to prowl and prey on each other - with Carroll's herbal cigarette smoke forming a haze above them all that is as much symbolic as it is visually interesting.  

In short, this is a sharp, effective night in the theatre featuring two strong performers that is absolutely worth catching, which I hope has a long life and can build to be the short sharp shock to the jugular that this absolutely deserves to be.

(Note, an earlier version assigned the actors around the wrong way - to be mildly fair to the morning self who wrote the review, the program photos of the two actors have Baudin with a proto-beard and Carroll without, while in the show Carroll has a full beard and Baudin doesn't - this has now been amended)

The 2021 Well I Liked It Awards (WILIs)

 

Another year, another chance for Canberra's Fourth-Most-Popular-Theatre-Awards. And, yes, it's been another year where the full roster of productions didn't happen, but dammit, there was still award-worthy stuff this year that's worth talking about, so this is an excuse to talk about it at some length. 

First of all, in local theatre, Canberra Youth Theatre had a generally stellar year, with three strong plays for their teenage cohort, their under 13s and their twentysomethings - the teenagers with the chilling and revealing "Little Girls Alone in the Woods", the under 13s with the gripping "I've Been Meaning to Ask you", and the twentysomethings with "Two Twentysomethings...". In each case they were modern, relevant choices, given clear productions full of entertainment and insight. The best of these may have been the one for the under 13s, "I've been meaning to ask you", a show very much about how young people view the world they're growing up with - a distorting and somewhat disturbing mirror of the current world as it is. A lot of youth theatre feels more like training exercises than theatre, and often exercises that mean more to the 30-and-40 year olds that are running the groups than to the young people involved in making the shows. These are unapologetically shows generated by and from young people talking about their concerns, and bringing us into their point of view - it's fully-grown-up-theatre that just happens to have a cast of young people, developing true ensembles out of their casts. It's an impressive achievement, and I hope to see CYT duplicate it in future years and grow accordingly.

 Elsewhere, I was also impressed by "Wolf Lullaby" by Echo theatre at Queanbeyan - director Jordan Best revisited a play she'd directed impressively fifteen years back, and brought out a production that was just as terrifying and just as insightful while absolutely being its own thing. Also Papermoon's "The Penelopiad" took a different view of foundational Greek Myths in a production of life, spectacle, and engagement, making Margaret Atwood's somewhat dry script a very lively and visceral exercise.

Touring, two that most impressed me were "The Appleton Ladies Potato Race" with a killer all-female cast of theatre legends both old (Valerie Bader and Merridy Eastman) and younger (Mandy McElhinney and Amber McMahon) and brand new to me (Sapidh Khan) telling a great Australian Story with speed, clarity and entertainment, never lingering on the obvious moral dimension to draw from the production; and "Grace Under Pressure", a fascinating docu-drama about the pressures that the medical profession places on its staff, again done with clarity and style in a simple yet effective production. 

In the "special Theatrical event" category sits "You're Safe til 2024: Deep History", David Finnigan's narrated story of his personal history, the history of the planet, and the possible places it's going to, which combined strong visuals and musical aspects with an urgent impassioned narrative and a strong personal style - a gripping night in the theatre showing Finnigan to be a figure absolutely worth keeping an eye on as one of Australia's more visceral voices.

Interstate, of the plays I saw I ultimately fell most head-over-heels in love with Sydney Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" - this had the potential to land flat on its face with a large cast play done by three actors, extensive use of video, migrating time periods, use of the round and inclusion of additional text to add clarity or context to the play, all things that could have felt empty or gimmicky or ridiculous, but which instead gave active urgent flight to a play about the power of political movements, of propaganda and about how it burns the people around it. In particular, the central section of Geraldine Hakewill's "Friends Romans Countrymen" speech is goddamn amazing theatre, using one of the most familiar texts of all time and showing anew why it holds up, what it's doing in this play and how it's the pivot point around which everything else turns, giving it insight and dramatic urgency. 

In local music theatre, I only got a chance to see the two local Jukeboxes musicals, and by default, the jukebox I liked more was, inevitably given I'm who I am, the one playing Abba. "Mamma Mia" absolutely rewarded the waiting, premiering about a year after it was supposed to, and giving joy, emotion and drama to the goofy plotline tying all the Abba songs together, with the usual kickass performances from Louiza Blomfield and Helen McFarlane complemented by a rich supporting cast giving their all in the creation of joy and happiness and the illusion of Greek Island Summer during late April in Queanbeyan.

Interstate there were two musicals I absolutely loved, both of which will be playing more widely next year - the Finally At Last Australian Premiere of "Fun Home" gave a great production of one of my favourite musicals of the last decade, filling the large Ros Packer theatre with emotion and drama as it told Alison Bechdel's coming-of-age-and-sexuality in a funeral home dominated by her closet-case-father (and will get a reproduction as part of Melbourne theatre company's season next year in Feb-Mar); and "Moulin Rouge" was the big-scale musical writ very large, giving the sense of all that theatrical energy which has been locked up for the last two years of lockdown and releasing it with romance, fun, glamour, ridiculousness over-the-top-ness and a pure go-for-broke style that entranced me the whole runtime. 

So, in short, somehow theatre survived 2021 and gave us lots of awesome to see. 2022 will hopefully have more and greater spectacles for the eyes, ears, mind, and heart to enjoy, and I hope to see and enjoy lots of it.

Two twentysomethings decide never to be stressed about anything ever again, ever - Canberra Youth theatre, Canberra Theatre Courtyard Studio, 9-14 Dec

 

It's a familiar enough premise since the New Wave of Australian drama in the late 60s/Early 70s - the foibles and neuroses of 20somethings, presented with gentle humour as they work their way around the challenges of early adulthood. It's how writers like Alex Buzo, Jack Hibberd and David Williamson got their start. And in Michael Costi's comedy, it's a great end-of-year tonic to a year that has been fairly damn stressful.

Of course the titular premise has a big hole in it, because stress can't be disposed of by just deciding not to be stressed, and the two main characters, Boyfriend (Elliot Cleaves) and Girlfriend (Martha Russell), are both hilarious as they attempt to bottle and deny their gathering angst, through ASMR podcasts, work and impromptu Kombucha parties with their New Best Friend (Blue Hyslop). There are gags a-plenty and Luke Rogers' production gives it a smooth, stylish gleam, on Aislinn King's modern wire-diagram set. 

Costi's script is joke-filled but also has a reasonable amount of soul to it, and gives the performers plenty of space to shine. True, this isn't the most exciting of the three big offerings that Canberra Youth theatre gave us this year, but that's only because the first two kinda blew my mind while this one just amused me a fair bit. Still, light relief after the 2021 we've had feels kinda worth it

Moulin Rouge, Global Creatures and 38 other producers, Regent Theatre Melbourne til April 29 2022, Capitol Theatre Sydney from 28 may 2022 to 4 Sept 2022.

 

Baz Luhrman's film of "Moulin Rouge" is a cinematic overwhelming of romance, music, dance and drama, constantly going over the top in somewhere between cinematic throwback and ultra-modern split-second editing, with Ewan McGregor's most endearing grins, Nicole Kidman's most smoldering glances, Jim Broadbent's most ebullient glee, Richard Roxborough's silliest accent and a glorious amount of pizazz. Two decades later, it hits the Australian stage as a show with just as much energy, with most of the notable songs from the original film plus hits of the last two decades (mostly divas like Sia, Beyoncé, Pink, and Rhianna - as I said to a friend afterwards, artists beloved of gay men and teenage girls), in a production that brings glamour, energy and spectacle back to musical theatre. 

There's some sensitive rearrangements of the material to adjust for the requirements of the stage and to rebalance the central love triangle to be more of an actual triangle and less a love story with an idiot off to the side. It brings the audience in by spreading the set across the whole proscenium, including rotating windmill and be-trunked elephant, plus having much of the action occur on a ramp going out into the audience, bringing us into the action. The direction by Alex Timbers, choreography by Sonya Tayteh, set-design by Derek McLane, Costumes by Catherine Zuber, Lighting design by Justin Townsnd and Sound by Peter Hyelinski are all done to the hilt, landing the show between late 19th century Paris and Right Here, Right Now. It is lavish, spectacular and completely engrossing in a "what are they going to do next" kinda way

The cast are, astonishingly, not outshone by the show going on around them but match and surpass it. Anita Chidzey launches to the theatrical stratosphere as Satine, with a performance of power, strength and emotion that makes me wish I wasn't boycotting Free-Rain productions in the last decade or so because I wanted to see people I knew from the local theatre in lead roles, because then I woulda been able to say "I knew here when she was playing Mary Poppins". Des Flanagan gives charming romanticism to the role of role of Christian. Simon Burke is having the time of his life as the pandering Harold Ziegler, enjoying taking the audience in the palm of his hand and playing them like a symphony orchestra. Tim Omaji as Tolouse-Lautrec is even less Lautrecian than John Leguiziamo was but gives passion and energy to the role, Andrew Cook sleazes suitably as the reengineered role of the Duke. Ryan Gonzalez smoulders and struts as the tango-dancing Santiago, and Samantha Dodemaide impresses as the independent-minded Nini. 

This is big, impressive, overpowering spectacle that produces pure joy and gives the audience everything it possibly can. It's a spectacular and fun night out.