It feels like a long time since I've been to see a Philo show. It's not really (the last one I saw was "42nd Street" in Feb/March 2011), but between them cancelling one show and me missing another, a year and a half away is a long time in theatregoing.
I'm pleased to say that with "Hairspray", they're back in the swing of things. The show itself is a delightful pop piece of 60's nostalgia fluff with a bubbly fun score and just a small spicing of John Waters' signature bad-taste. There is a bit of "well, we're supposed to care about racism because one white girl happens to care about racism" but ... feh, I can't stay angry about a show as loveable as this.
First thing to note is that the orchestra is back in fine form. Philo's orchestras have been a mixed bag lately (I HATED HATED HATED the synthesizer noises from the pit during "West Side Story" and "Boy From Oz" which were blemishes on otherwise skillfully done shows), but this time either I didn't notice them or the orchestra actually has musicians that can play every part. Big thumbs up to Rose Shorney's fine orchestra work.
Second - Jarrad West directs a gobsmackingly good show. The staging rarely stops - there's gorgeous inventiveness throughout (particularly the ever-so-slightly-creepy staging of "I can hear the bells", which makes the entire thing 10 times as funny) and the cast and crew keeps a cracking pace. There is a slight tendency to let a little too much scene-stealing at the edges go through (there's a moment late in act one with Stephen Barwell's Wilbur and a few chorus member that takes scene-stealing to new heights). But if a show sins by entertaining its audience too much, can that really be said to be sinning? My answer is "naaaah"!
This review could be a love-letter to Amy Dunham's Penny and Vanessa De Jaeger's Amber, both of whom stand out in an "everybody's great" cast - both are, in their separate ways, complete hilarity and, in the best possible way, scene stealers.
As a longtime admirer of Max Gambale's work ... I have slight issues with his Edna Turnblad. Great in dialogue, the decision to sing Edna in a falsetto was something I'm not entirely in love with. This could just be me listening to Harvey Fierstein on the original cast (who, yes, can't sing, but the not-singing he does is wonderfully characterful). Still, if it's a choice to go for "more loveable, less funny", I'll live with that. His joy at bursting out in better and more beautiful dresses as the show goes on is a delight to behold. So maybe that means I'm wrong, he's right, and it works.
Anyway, I'm getting to the point where I'm going to comment on all the cast and ramble on for ages which is going to be boring fast. Let's just say "yeah, its awesome, go see it, you'll be glad you did"
Friday, 17 August 2012
Friday, 3 August 2012
Memory of Water, Canberra Rep
The "three sisters" play is a mini-genre unto itself. Offering the combination of sibling rivalry, generational drama, a couple of well-buried secrets and that all-too-rare opportunity of a range of good parts for actresses, a good example of the genre provides laughter, tears, and a vehicle for skilled performers to deliver both.
And fortunately, that's just what Shelangh Stephenson's comedy-drama "The Memory of Water" is - as three sisters gather for their mum's funeral, the bickering and secrets start bounding out soon enough, with the assistance of those-long-enjoyed dramatic devices, a joint and a bottle of whisky, to help everybody become a bit less uptight-English and a bit more "move-the-plot-along". I think it succeeds more as a vehicle for the actresses than it does necessarily as "great drama", whatever that is.
But fortunately, the three actresses playing those sisters are up with Canberra's best. Andrea Close as the eldest, Theresa, is a study of anal-obsessive-resentment, with not a hint of actorly ego as Theresa continues to be the butt of a lot of the jokes. Lainie Hart as the middle daughter, Mary, has all the brittle edge and intelligence, together with a great line in sardonic quips, as well as being truly heartbreaking when the facade finally falls. And Eliza Bell as Catherine provides a whirlwind of insane shambolic brilliance, her ditzy free-associating brain ("it's often shoes, except sometimes it's underwear") and perpetual energy making her simultaneously delightful and frustrating.
Sally Rynveldt in the small role of the departed Mum also fascinates - in her brief time on stage we get to find out a lot about a woman with her own wishes, desires and resentments, with a very definite opinion on the daughters she's left behind. The two men are slightly less well written, perhaps - David McNamara does well as the trying-to-be-supportive-but-not-quite-managing-it-completely Mike, while Rob DeFries' Frank occasionally goes a little too much for the laugh at the expense of both the character and a reliable single regional accent - he does slip around the counties a little.
Ed Wightman's direction is tight and focussed, bringing out the reality, humour and drama in the script. Quentin Mitchell's set helps keep the action contained on the large widths of the Theatre 3 stage. Lachlan Ruffy's lighting, Jonathan McFeat's music and Neil McRitchie's sound design all add beautifully to the mood and soul of the piece, including some quite gorgeous transitions into and out of scenes.
This isn't quite theatre that grabs me by the heart and the brain and makes me stare in astonishment (it's a play that works better as "great entertainment" than "serious art", which makes my overly-analytical critic nerves twitch a bit - it's when the play is reaching for "serious art" that it loses me a little, including some of the dialogue about memory that gives the play its title). But it's funny, modern-leaning (although modern-leaning in this case is still the late 90s ... it'll be delightful when Rep catches up with the millennium one of these days...) theatre with heart to it. And that's pretty damn good.
And fortunately, that's just what Shelangh Stephenson's comedy-drama "The Memory of Water" is - as three sisters gather for their mum's funeral, the bickering and secrets start bounding out soon enough, with the assistance of those-long-enjoyed dramatic devices, a joint and a bottle of whisky, to help everybody become a bit less uptight-English and a bit more "move-the-plot-along". I think it succeeds more as a vehicle for the actresses than it does necessarily as "great drama", whatever that is.
But fortunately, the three actresses playing those sisters are up with Canberra's best. Andrea Close as the eldest, Theresa, is a study of anal-obsessive-resentment, with not a hint of actorly ego as Theresa continues to be the butt of a lot of the jokes. Lainie Hart as the middle daughter, Mary, has all the brittle edge and intelligence, together with a great line in sardonic quips, as well as being truly heartbreaking when the facade finally falls. And Eliza Bell as Catherine provides a whirlwind of insane shambolic brilliance, her ditzy free-associating brain ("it's often shoes, except sometimes it's underwear") and perpetual energy making her simultaneously delightful and frustrating.
Sally Rynveldt in the small role of the departed Mum also fascinates - in her brief time on stage we get to find out a lot about a woman with her own wishes, desires and resentments, with a very definite opinion on the daughters she's left behind. The two men are slightly less well written, perhaps - David McNamara does well as the trying-to-be-supportive-but-not-quite-managing-it-completely Mike, while Rob DeFries' Frank occasionally goes a little too much for the laugh at the expense of both the character and a reliable single regional accent - he does slip around the counties a little.
Ed Wightman's direction is tight and focussed, bringing out the reality, humour and drama in the script. Quentin Mitchell's set helps keep the action contained on the large widths of the Theatre 3 stage. Lachlan Ruffy's lighting, Jonathan McFeat's music and Neil McRitchie's sound design all add beautifully to the mood and soul of the piece, including some quite gorgeous transitions into and out of scenes.
This isn't quite theatre that grabs me by the heart and the brain and makes me stare in astonishment (it's a play that works better as "great entertainment" than "serious art", which makes my overly-analytical critic nerves twitch a bit - it's when the play is reaching for "serious art" that it loses me a little, including some of the dialogue about memory that gives the play its title). But it's funny, modern-leaning (although modern-leaning in this case is still the late 90s ... it'll be delightful when Rep catches up with the millennium one of these days...) theatre with heart to it. And that's pretty damn good.
Friday, 20 July 2012
God and Pool/No Water - Everyman
The glorious triumvirate that is Everyman is back with their first-ever double bill. Both comedies, one wild and frivoulous, one black of soul and heart.
Wisely, they kick off with the frivolous fun of Woody Allen's "God" - a wild comedy about theatre, creativity, fate and the baser instincts of lust. Jarrad West in the central role of the actor "Diabetes" lets forth with all manner of clowning and foolery in a somewhat skimpy tunic, and he's backed up with solid hilarity from the rest of the cast - Duncan Ley unleashes his portentous serious-actor-tones for goofing, Euan Bowen provides a variety of different silly accents in a variety of different silly roles, and ... well, it's difficult to review everybody without spoiling who does what, but let's just say, you will giggle and guffaw and have a fun time. Duncan Driver's direction allows the piece to remain (mostly) under firm control and accelerating towards the dramatic/comedic conclusion (including a masterclass in that difficult art, Very Bad Acting). Wayne Shepherd's simple Grecian-column set nicely complements the fun.
After interval, it's the darker comedy of "Pool/No Water" by In-Yer-Face-Theatre veteran Mark Ravenhill. The only other production of Ravenhill I can think of in Canberra is Elbow's "Shopping and F**cking" back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and this is, in its way, equally confronting theatre. A tight quartet of actors (Amy Dunham, Zac Raffan, Steph Roberts and Jarrad West) provide nonstop energy, supreme physical acting, precise vocal control and attention in a one-hour tale of ambition, jealousy and conspicuous bad behaviour. The beautiful simplicity of the staging (backed by a more-than-usually fantastic lighting design) keeps the focus, as it should be, on the actors and the text. This is not going to be a show everybody takes to their heart (the doings are very very dark indeed and it's pretty confrontational stuff), but I doubt that I'll see better ensemble acting this year anywhere.
Yes, Everyman get a lot of good reviews. They richly deserve all of them. This is an A Grade company presenting A Grade Theatre. Don't miss it.
Wisely, they kick off with the frivolous fun of Woody Allen's "God" - a wild comedy about theatre, creativity, fate and the baser instincts of lust. Jarrad West in the central role of the actor "Diabetes" lets forth with all manner of clowning and foolery in a somewhat skimpy tunic, and he's backed up with solid hilarity from the rest of the cast - Duncan Ley unleashes his portentous serious-actor-tones for goofing, Euan Bowen provides a variety of different silly accents in a variety of different silly roles, and ... well, it's difficult to review everybody without spoiling who does what, but let's just say, you will giggle and guffaw and have a fun time. Duncan Driver's direction allows the piece to remain (mostly) under firm control and accelerating towards the dramatic/comedic conclusion (including a masterclass in that difficult art, Very Bad Acting). Wayne Shepherd's simple Grecian-column set nicely complements the fun.
After interval, it's the darker comedy of "Pool/No Water" by In-Yer-Face-Theatre veteran Mark Ravenhill. The only other production of Ravenhill I can think of in Canberra is Elbow's "Shopping and F**cking" back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and this is, in its way, equally confronting theatre. A tight quartet of actors (Amy Dunham, Zac Raffan, Steph Roberts and Jarrad West) provide nonstop energy, supreme physical acting, precise vocal control and attention in a one-hour tale of ambition, jealousy and conspicuous bad behaviour. The beautiful simplicity of the staging (backed by a more-than-usually fantastic lighting design) keeps the focus, as it should be, on the actors and the text. This is not going to be a show everybody takes to their heart (the doings are very very dark indeed and it's pretty confrontational stuff), but I doubt that I'll see better ensemble acting this year anywhere.
Yes, Everyman get a lot of good reviews. They richly deserve all of them. This is an A Grade company presenting A Grade Theatre. Don't miss it.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Cats - Free Rain
"Cats", notoriously, ran forever in the West End and Broadway (although it's now closed in both - its West End home now hosts "War Horse", its Broadway home has "Mamma Mia") and launched the solo career of Andrew Lloyd-Webber as a composer (also marking his break with Tim Rice after arguments about an alternate lyric for "Memory"). With lyrics coming from the safely-dead poet T.S. Eliot, direction from Royal Shakespeare Company regular Trevor Nunn (who also got credit, and royalties, for the "Memory" lyrics), choreography from Gillian Lynne and an oversized junkyard set from John Napier, it stuck around 21 years on Broadway and 18 in London.
And now, it's on at ANU Arts in a production by the increasingly Musical-Minded Free Rain company. How is it?
Well... it's "Cats". Which means, a disjointed series of solo spots dragged together by a bare semblance of a story, some incredibly cutesy rhymes, a lot of tune repetition, and a whole heap of nothing-very-much.
No, I don't love the material, how did you guess?
So with that dismissive comment about one of the longest running shows ever, how'd this production go (why did it run so long? Well, the logo is a very good looking logo indeed, plus it's probably a show that's equally incomprehensible to english speakers and non-english-speakers alike, thus making it a popular choice for tourists. and Memory is a damn emotional little earworm of a song)
Mostly, pretty reasonable. There's some quibbles (the choreography during the Jellicle Ball is a bit samey leading to it dragging, Roy Hukari's narrator "Munkustrap" doesn't appear to have an actual character to play beyond "I own a leather jacket and like telling stories about other cats", a couple of Mr Miestoffele's magic tricks are a bit obvious, and Dave Collin's Growltiger costume shows off his genital region alarmingly...), but the cast is in good voice, the movement is pretty nice, the orchestra appears to know what the hell they're supposed to be playing , and generally the impression is made of a theatre company who can put on a show that is what it's supposed to be.
Do I think it's the greatest thing seen in Canberra this year? No, of course not, it's still "Cats". But it's a nicely done version of "Cats".
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Hiya
Because a certain Canberra Critic has decided to be very lazy and not write particularly many posts about productions, instead wanking on with interviews most of the time, I thought.. you know what, starting a blog isn't that hard, why not give it a go yourself. I'm probably going to find out exactly why I shouldn't give it a go shortly, but never mind.
I won't see everything. I don't get comp tickets to everything, I have a limited budget, and I don't always have the time and inclination to see everything just because it's playing.
And opinions are like arseholes. Everybody has one, and you don't take one out in public unless you want it to be kicked around a little. And I think Canberra Theatre could use a little active conversation. I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinions, nor do I think my opinions are necessarily the best or right ones, and I'm possibly persuadable by a good argument here and there.
Anyway, here goes nothing.
I won't see everything. I don't get comp tickets to everything, I have a limited budget, and I don't always have the time and inclination to see everything just because it's playing.
And opinions are like arseholes. Everybody has one, and you don't take one out in public unless you want it to be kicked around a little. And I think Canberra Theatre could use a little active conversation. I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinions, nor do I think my opinions are necessarily the best or right ones, and I'm possibly persuadable by a good argument here and there.
Anyway, here goes nothing.
Sunday, 20 March 2005
History Boys, Sydney Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, 2005
A piece of the pre-history of the blog - wrote this in 2005 on a blogger account and was recently reminded that it existed with Blogger closing the account due to inactivity since 2007. So here's a bit of a blast from the past.
"The History Boys" is a play about a class of students in a small high school 80's England, applying to go to Oxford and Cambridge. The principal decides it'd be worth it to bring in a new History teacher to groom them appropriately for their Oxford and Cambridge interviews - to sell themselves better. And thus the conflict begins between the new teacher, Mr. Irwin, and Hector, the boy's general studies teacher, who believes in knowledge for its own sake...
Yeah, I know, sounds very dry, but it ends up being quite fascinating - well, to me, anyway. The boys are a deliberate mix - Posner, the anguished gay one who hasn't quite matured yet (gosh, how could I empathize with him, I wonder); Dakin, the self-confident one who's been conducting a campaign on the principal's secretary; Scripps, the religious one who's mostly religious to annoy his parents; and Rudge, the plain-speaking one who really prefers Rugger and Golf, and who describes history as "one fucking thing after another". And Irwin's "selling yourself" techniques are shown in an early flashforward to serve him all too well in his future career in Government ("take refuge in paradox - restriction is the price of freedom, that kind of thing").
The performances are uniformly excellent- the Sydney theatre company's selling it with a big picture of Richard Griffiths (who used to play the Chef in "Pie in the Sky" on the ABC, showed up as a brilliant professor and his evil duplicate in "Naked Gun 2 1/2", and is probably going to be back a few times as Mr. Dursley in the rest of the "Harry Potter" series), but the stars of the show are undoubtedly the boys, in all their variety. Well-recommended - if you can get a ticket...
(Incidentally, among the boys who were part of the touring company were Russell Tovey, Dominic Cooper, Samuel Barnett, Sacha Dawan and James Corden - also unmentioned in this is the fantastic Frances DeLa Tour).
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