Monday, December 3, 2012

Street Two: The Polyphonic Bard

I am a big fan of Caroline Stacey's Made in Canberra initiative at the Street Theatre, even if I haven't always been 100 per cent enthusiastic about some of the individual projects. So it's nice to be able to close out the year with one which I unequivocally enjoyed.

Tamzin Nugent's The Polyphonic Bard is a sort of Baroque revue, with music by Tallis, Purcell, and others of the era impeccably sung by the Pocket Score Company, and interspersed with readings and scenes from Shakespeare. Gillian Schwab's lighting design is wonderful, often seeming to create whole new spaces, though I was less certain about the set, hung about with nooses of thick rope.  

Seth Edwards-Ellis does an equally fine job on sound, most notably in the finale, where the Pocket Score guys sing over building loops of recorded choirs, to quite mesmerising and moving effect. Gorgeous voices all: David Yeardley (counter-tenor, and harpist, so clearly unafraid of stereotypes), Paul Eldon & John Virgoe (tenors), Daniel Sanderson (baritone), and Ian Blake (bass).

Of the cast of CADA students performing the Shakespearean excerpts, the sole female, Crystal Rose, despite an unfortunate blonde wig, was a clear standout, especially in her scene from Taming of the Shrew. And Nick Beecher deserves a mention, if only because he doesn't appear to have got one in the programme, and for sheer versatility - this is the fourth stage I've seen him in this year, and all in wildly diverse roles.

The music is the reason to come to this, though, and it's a shame that only four performances were scheduled - with luck perhaps we may see a reprise in the New Year, or perhaps other explorations complementary music and literature from other eras (the Victorians would be a thing of beauty, for example!)  In any event: this was well worth the pittance of a ticket price.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Street Theatre: Finucane & Smith's Glory Box

This is hard to review, basically because I thought my ears were bleeding for most of it - despite my wearing the earplugs recommended by Frank McCone - which was a tad distracting.  Some of the show was fun (some just puzzling), but most of it was ruined by stupidly, pointlessly, painfully, harmfully high-decibel canned music.  Lots of complaints from fellow patrons at interval about the volume - and quite a few people left (one whole table on the stage was abandoned for Act Two). I am not a wuss about loud music, but this literally hurts.

So if you value your aural health, don't go. I am really not exaggerating, and if the Street is not willing to moderate the volume then they must certainly be hoping that Mark McCabe doesn't have a free evening during the run.

With the exception of the always astonishing Maude Davey, and faultless performances on trapeze and hula hoop from circus artiste Anna Lumb, Glory Box lacks the novelty and subversive edge Finucane & Smith gave us in their original Burlesque Hour. Demi-monde darling Moira Finucane essentially reprised a food-based repertoire we've mostly seen before. An attractive young man in swimming trunks did a very silly and unrevealing quasi-strip-tease, and a couple of dancers krumped in vintage lingerie, but these acts are hardly cutting edge. Worst in show was an ingenue in a few strategic diamante strands who offered an unedifying karaoke rendition of "Feelin' Good" (NB: Ladies, if you are nubile and naked, it may not be your singing that is getting the applause). There is a novel wettish-fetish scene, but I'm not sure it was worth  the elaborate set up we had to wait through in order for it to proceed.

There's lots of audience participation, and plenty of people seemed to be swilling the Kool-Aid along with their champers, so rusted-on fans of burlesque - and Finucane - may well enjoy this.  If you buy table seating on the stage, you will be sitting behind the speakers, which may help - unless you're shy.  If you're sitting in the theatre proper, invest in really good earplugs and sit as far back as you can.  It will still be too loud for comfort, but may not actively rupture your eardrums.

Good luck.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

Canberra Critics Circle Awards 2012

The Canberra Critics Circle met a few mights ago to announce the recipients of its 2012 Awards for excellence.  The full list and details of awards can be found on the Circle website.

I was particularly pleased to see recognition for Everyman Theatre's production of pool, no water, Rose Shorney's excellent musical direction of Titanic and Hairspray, and Caroline Stacey's many, varied and innovative projects at the Street Theatre.  I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a nod in the Visual Arts category for Vivienne Lightfoot's exhibition Substance at ANCA - and it would have been nice to have seen a valedictory mention of Jorg Schmeisser's posthumous exhibition at Beaver Galleries.  And though a gong for the Rugby Choir is probably well due, it's a shame that it didn't arrive until after the departure of long-time musical director Andrea Clifford, who laid so much of the groundwork for the Choir's success.

I like the CCC Awards.  I don't always agree with them - there are a couple this year that I thought were downright naff - but that only goes to show that any "critic" who claims to be truly objective is either a fool or a charlatan. The Circle has credibility and gravitas, the awards are genuinely local, and open to all, and no award may be made at all in a category unless the Circle members consider the quality justifies it.

Congratulations to all those who were recognised, and thanks to the Canberra Critics Circle for taking the time and investing in the effort required to acknowledge the work of our local artists and performers.


Monday, November 26, 2012

Canberra Rep: Improbable Fiction

You can always trust Alan Ayckbourn for something to watch in the Festive Season - and this is another Christmas cracker from Rep.  Lighter even than the average Ayckbourn, the second act in particular ascends into a farce that rivals Noises Off  for frenzy, timing and busy-ness, and exceeds it for absolute synergy of cast and crew (it's the first time I've seen a cast bow to the backstage, and truly the crew deserved a curtain call of its own). Director Corille Fraser has out Learninged (Walter) Learning with this production of Improbable Fiction.

The action is framed by yet another unbelievably good set, this time designed by Wayne Shepherd (who also wrote the original music), and constructed by Russell Brown and his henchmen to an extremely high standard - it's a large Tudor interior, with staircase and second floor corridor - and people were thundering up and down and along them all night.  I've worked in flimsier offices. Actually I've lived in flimsier accommodation, especially in my student years.

This space hosts a meeting of the Pendon Writers' Circle, as dysfunctional as any small committee - and as entertaining to observe, provided you're not a member.  There a few blocking issues which may already have been remedied, with some members of the circle facing away from the audience and occasionally hiding each other (from some places, Vivvi, Jess and Brevis are all in a line, and only Vivvi can clearly be seen - but she faces the back, so can't as easily be heard).  Unnecessary, as the story provides for some members not to turn up, presumably in order to make a semi-circle arrangement possible without looking contrived. It's also true that this first act drags a little, but not a lot (the tea-pouring scene is deliberately excruciating), but it's all a set-up for the fabulous, frenetic payoff of Act Two, in which ... No, that would be a spoiler. Pretty much any description of Act Two will be a spoiler, damnit.

Jerry Hearn anchors all of the action as part-time author of instruction manuals, Arnold, whose house this is. Anyone who caught Hearn's wonderful performance a few years back in Rep's production of Stoppard's On The Razzle can only have been longing to see him in another farce, and he does not disappoint (this is also the nicest character he's played in years, I think!). He's a perfect Arnold, and as Act Two wears on, increasingly hilarious. Another standout was Euan Bowen as master of the malapropism, sci-fi wannabe Clem (and a host of other distinctly less insipid characters), who I think garnered more spontaneous applause on several of his exits than I've ever heard before in a Canberra theatre.

New Canberran Kate Blackhurst is impressive as Jess: farmer, lesbian quasi-separatist, and aspiring writer of florid gothic romances. (She and Hearn had flawless accents, and we know by now that I care about this). Christa de Jager, as Grace, the meek executrix of risibly execrable children's illustrations, seemed to struggle a little with her North Country accent in Act One, but was quite excellent in her variety of arguably tougher roles in Act Two. Heather Spong, introduced in Act one as the prolific but inexplicably unpublished crime writer Vivvi, nailed all of her characters from the outset but was the most fun to watch as the spontaneously lachrymose Sergeant Fiona. And Madeline Kennedy, as Arnold's mother-sitter Ilsa, has come a very long way since her (perfectly good) Chava in Fiddler back in February; she shows lovely depth and versatility, as well as admirable stagecraft for a relative neophyte.

Special mention must also be made of Andrew Kay, who stepped in at only two or three days notice to understudy for Jasan Savage* in the assorted roles belonging to Brevis, retired schoolteacher and curmudgeonly composer of small-scale musicals. (His Treasure Island for the local school garnered ten curtain calls. Says the encouraging Arnold: "They often don't even get that on the West End!"  I LOL'ed). We were warned in an opening announcement that Kay was a last-minute substitute and might have to refer to the script here and there. And he did - though beautifully covered by clever use of props - but still, what a quite remarkable feat. The dialogue in this play is highly complicated, and the physical action (trust me) considerably more so, and Kay was an entertainment in himself.  In fact, while it is easy to imagine the veteran Savage as blustery Brevis in Act One, by Act Two it was hard to see how anyone other than Kay could have taken on the role given the versatility - and physicality - the second half requires. This is one occasion when getting the understudy will not, I promise you, detract from your enjoyment by the smallest iota.

But back to the crew - Shepherd's set is revealed in Act Two to be as cunning as it is attractive, and ought to sprint away laughing with the CAT this year; the timing of those operating it is just as exceptional. Chris Ellyard's lighting is precisely perfect, and  Michael Moloney's sound nicely complementary (with a minor early misfire neatly fielded and milked for a laugh by Jerry Hearn). Miriam Miley-Read's costumes must be as cleverly constructed as they are appealing, as innumerable lightning-fast costume changes were executed without the faintest hint of effort from the audience's perspective - there must have been a small army of dressers in the wings.  Actually, there must have been an army of every sort of backstage crew contributing to this extraordinarily smooth delivery of a very technically demanding and complicated play, and its members - led by highly experienced Stage Manager Joyce Gore, and Hazel Taylor on props -  should be very proud of what they've achieved here.

This may be the best farce we've seen from Rep since their 2007 production of Noises Off.  It deserves to sell out, especially at Rep's ridiculously low ticket prices, so get your seats ASAP and enjoy.



* Word is that Jasan Savage is hospitalised and quite seriously unwell, and all possible positive thoughts and wishes are with him and his family for his speedy and complete recovery.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Playhouse: Private Lives (Belvoir)

I've been looking forward all year to this: Noel Coward, the Tobies Schmitz & Truslove, a smart modern perspective from the Belvoir team - what's not to love?  I thoroughly enjoyed this - and yet I'm not quite persuaded they entirely pulled it off.

Toby Schmitz is an outstanding Elyot - attractive, charming and underneath it, a deeply awful human being. Zahra Newman, cast against type, didn't totally convince me as Amanda until about two-thirds in when a costume change transformed her at last into the cool femme fatale of Coward's original vision. She seems too tomboyish to be the woman the dialogue is describing (and the jokes about getting a tan don't sit comfortably).

Eloise Mignon, on the other hand, is cast utterly to type as the seemingly insubstantial Sybil, and so is man-of-the-moment Toby Truslove as stolid Victor. Truslove seems to have injured himself, appearing throughout with a leg-brace and cane, and I was impressed by the way in which this was used to actually enhance his character and actions; in fact it worked so neatly that I wasn't sure it was a real injury until he hobbled on for curtain call (and I turned up this photo from backstage at Belvoir). And there's some lovely schtick from Mish Grigor as the French Maid of nobody's fantasies.

Schmitz's fabulous Benedick in Bell's production of Much Ado About Nothing last year showed that he excels at divesting a classic role of its baggage and giving it a fresh and contemporary inflection. In this production, director Ralph Myers has done a stellar job in eliciting the same from the whole cast - but there are still a few places where Coward's language is just too affected or dated to be delivered convincingly in a present-day voice. On the whole, though, there's almost no echo of the usual Round the Horne Fiona & Charles stuff - it's almost a reinterpretation, and without the veneer of Fraffly, Elyot and Amanda recover their edge (and nastiness).

It's very, very funny stuff. But there are a number of things that in my view did not work well, and one of them was a terrible set. It's a stark white, inexpensive looking hotel corridor, featuring two numbered doors and a lift.  (A hall table would have come in very useful.) Even leaving aside the question of why these four clearly moneyed and self-indulgent quasi-aristos are apparently honeymooning at the Queanbeyan Formule 1, why are they drinking their cocktails and squabbling in the hotel corridor? Yes, the convention of adjoining balconies might be annoyingly trope-ish, but it does actually work (beautifully, for example, in the Frasier homage episode Adventures in Paradise). This design choice smacks of heaving out the baby with the bathwater, and it isn't helped by oddly dim and inconsistent lighting. Nor is it improved in the second act, when instead of Amanda's apartment being the usual art deco dream, she and Elyot inexplicably haul a mattress into the cheap white living room and flop it down in front of the now equally inexplicable lift.  

The musical choices are wildly varied, and entertaining, but also not entirely a comfortable fit. A scene where Amanda and Elyot hurl themselves into an air-performance of Phil Collins is great fun to watch, but I found it discordant in the context of the play. On the other hand, the lovely Some Day I'll Find You, which Coward wrote especially for this play, was sadly conspicuous by its absence.

These snipings are, of course, quite trivial - but then so, often, was Coward. In any event they should not deter you from a very enjoyable production, especially as Schmitz spends most of it in a terry-towelling robe. Recommended.

Addressing the Backlog (the method in the madness)

I've had a tough couple of weeks and am hideously behind with these reviews.  I have ELEVEN to write, in fact, aargh.  So here's the plan: I'll get on with the latest review (Private Lives) while it still has some relevance, and finish the ten missing ones behind it as opportunity arises. I'll backdate them so they still show in chronological order of viewing. So if you're looking for something in particular*, it will be worth checking back for it earlier in the thread, if that makes sense.

Still to write:

Bare Witness , by fortyfivedownstairs, at the Street  (DONE!)

Sheila Diva, the Eco-Diva by Kate Hosking at Street Two  (DONE!)

Les Ballets Trockadero at the Canberra Theatre

South Pacific at the Princess, in Melbourne

Jesus Christ Superstar, the broadcast of the new stadium production with Tim Minchin in it

Music, the new Barry Oakley play, Melbourne Theatre Company

Elling, also MTC, with Darren Gilshenan reprising the eponymous lead

Margaret, Queen of the Dessert, TheatreWorks (actually, this can't be a review per se, as I only saw a preview)

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum at Her Majesty's in Melbourne.  Don't wait for me to review it, though, just book your tickets and get yourself there by whatever means possible.

The Idea of North Christmas Concert at the Street.

and next off the blocks, as it's still showing here in Canberra:

Private Lives (Belvoir), at the Playhouse.  (DONE!)

In the interim, for those who claim, albeit with some justice, that there's pretty much nothing I won't watch,  a review by someone else of a show I have absolutely no desire to see  (though I've developed a morbid fascination for reading the remarkably uniform critiques.)

A bientot.

Friday, November 16, 2012

CYTC: 4:48 Psychosis

Wow, am I behind. For various reasons I haven't finished reviewing anything I've seen for the last two weeks, and that's a bit of a backlog. There are at least five reviews on their way, but in most cases it's too late to make any difference, so in the meantime I'd like to draw your attention to something there is still time for you to see. (Not me, though, unfortunately - I'm away).

I've mentioned before that I'm a little afraid of the work of Sarah Kane, but there are two of her plays on my "to see" list, and one of them is 4:48 Psychosis, which Canberra Youth Theatre Company is staging at the Courtyard until 21 November, directed by Karla Conway.

This is a brave choice for a youth theatre company, dealing as it does with suicide - although this is not a company of children, but young adults.  And in fact the play does more than "deal" with suicide - it's widely regarded as Kane's suicide note.  It's named for the time in the morning when she most often woke despairing, and she took her own life three days before the premiere. So this is no confected, empathised, fictional take on suicide; this is the real deal, a play once described by Ben Brantley in the New York Times  as "charged with the raging verbal energy of someone trying to make sense of a situation long beyond the reach of rational thought".

I think this will be very tough viewing, but if well done, also very valuable, and I'm impressed that CTYC is taking it on.  If anyone reading this does get along, let me know what you thought.


Friday, November 9, 2012

Street Two: Diva Sheila, the Eco-Diva

Kate Hosking is a very talented woman. Fabulous voice, great chops on a double bass, and gorgeous to boot. But this show just doesn't work.
There are three separate elements at work here, and they don't marry up. First is Hosking's "Diva Sheila" persona. Second is the script, and third are the songs interspersed throughout, in which Hosking accompanies herself (beautifully) on double bass.

The Diva persona is a puzzle. It seems to be intended as a kind of larger-than-life drag-type character who will allow Hosking to get away with some outrageousness, but there really isn't any material in the script that needs or benefits from that. And while Hosking looks ravishing in a slinky black evening dress with a dominatrix spiked leather collar and matching sky-high Louboutins, none of that matches the "Eco" image she was trying to create - actually the "Eco" thing was never adequately explained and ultimately went nowhere in particular.  Hosking would have done much better to discard "Sheila" and just been an exaggerated version of herself.

Another reason for that is that the stories she tells - varied and interesting, about her experiences as a folk musician in Europe - are clearly her own. They're not exaggerated, or hammed up for comic effect. They're perfectly worthwhile stories, and disowning them as the Diva's oddly detracts from their persuasiveness.

Finally, there are the songs, which as I've already said, are beautifully sung and performed. Hosking is magic on the bass and sings with a rich bluesy voice that reminded me a little, at times, of Michelle Shocked. But the choice of songs was another disconnect. The segues from anecdotes seemed slight and and forced, and several songs involved the adoption of additional personae (I Was Only Nineteen belongs to an older man; Strange Fruit is a black woman's song, and I'm uncomfortable with its appropriation, though obviously very well-intentioned). The songs seemed to be chosen for a sort of social justice edge, which might have gone with the purpose of the Diva, but wasn't often reflected in the stories leading into them.

I found Kate Hosking very likeable, and impressive, and I really wanted to like this show.  And this certainly wasn't the worst hour I've spent in a theatre. There's a lot to enjoy here, but it just doesn't all go together. If Hosking ditches the "Diva" and matches her songs to her stories, I'd go see her again in a heartbeat.


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Street: Bare Witness (fortyfivedownstairs)

Mari Lourey's script about war correspondent Dani Hayes is transcended by its execution at the hands  of a talented cast, innovative director Nadja Kostich, and the lighting design by Emma Valente.

I wasn't that crazy about the script, taken alone. The story of a photojournalist learning her craft in assorted war-torn hells on earth isn't all that new (think of the various incarnations of the Daniel Pearl story), and at times is even a little patronising (vide a somewhat self-righteous claim that no one in Australia knows or cares about the Balibo Five). However it does bring a finely-crafted consciousness of the moral issues of whether it's OK to grow rich and famous from other people's tragedy, especially given that those people desperately need to have their tragedy known. Is it OK, we're asked explicitly, to re-pose a corpse for a photo shoot: is that fakery, or a way to get the truth across more urgently?  The answer remains ambiguous -well, of course it does.

The play told in a stylised and precisely choreographed fashion, anchored by a remarkable physical performance by Daniela Farinaci as Dani. The story is told in vignettes framed by photographs Dani has taken, projected on the wall; other video is also used, notably of running wolves. The whole cast is versatile, everyone but Farinaci playing multiple roles at breakneck speed, and completely committed, physically and emotionally.

This is a powerful production with a lot to say, and even if not all of it is new, it is impressive in the telling.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Playhouse: Batman Follies of 1929

What an irresistible concept this seemed when I first saw the posters and grabbed my tickets. Imagine Batman and his associates doing vaudeville / cabaret / burlesque in 1929: who wouldn't want to see that?  Alas, the rhetoric-reality gap strikes again.

Master of Ceremonies was a bloke in spectacles and a suit who called himself Alfred Penniworth, Wayne family retainer, and who read most of his bad jokes in an Australian accent from a bound script (with a bat sign on it, of course). This show has been playing at Sydney's Vanguard for months; there's really no excuse for not knowing the lines (or the limited set list) by now - but really, for a show of this sort a bit of ad-libbing's the least we ought to be able to expect.

There's some very ordinary burlesque from "Catwoman" and "Poison Ivy" (who really just stands on stage in a caftan and writhes a bit) - "Batgirl" improves on this with some genuine contortionist work; impressive, if that's your thing, and certainly in line for the era.  A pretty unfunny (and anachronistic) set of stand-up from "The Scarecrow" can only be holding its place in view of an even unfunnier (in fact, quite nasty) performance from "the Joker", which seemed to draw more from the "Saw" franchise than the Batman one. There's some reasonably entertaining old-fashioned magic from the same bloke in different costumes ("The Riddler" and "Two Face"); some acceptable singing from "Harley Quin", and some really good singing from "Mr Freeze" and a lady "Penguin" - who was frankly wasted on just one number and should have been brought back for the finale (which used a recording instead). The closer was a rather Cro-Magnon-looking tap-dancing Batman, but the highlight for me was the introduction of Robin, a tiny tiny child who performed some very 1929 feats of acrobatics to deafeat a classic henchman-type.

The two best things about Batman Follies are, first, the incredibly detailed and beautiful costumes, and second, the Gotham City big band, a really top-notch ensemble that provided live music for almost all of the acts. I would happily have paid my ticket price just to watch and listen to these guys.
 In fact, I probably would have preferred it. Batman Follies of 1929 is a great idea - now it just needs to invest in acts that live up to it.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Free Rain: To Kill A Mockingbird

There was doubtless some sort of irony in finding myself for this show seated next to, apparently, Prue & Trude , bitching over their chardies about the temerity of the "usherette" asking them to move up a seat to make room for other paying customers at this sold-out performance. Though Christopher Stergel's adaptation of Harper Lee's legendary novel To Kill A Mockingbird is not the best page-to-stage translation around, the power of the story undeniably remains, and so does the petty snobbery of some middle-class townsfolk in this production directed by Liz Bradley.

Cate Clelland's design of lattices and trellises works very well to give the impression of a whole small town, but the decision to have almost all of the large cast on the tiny Courtyard stage for much of the time makes things messy and crowded, and while this serves to build a sense of claustrophobia, a place where everyone's all up in everyone else's business, it is also at times hard to follow. Similarly, having the courtroom spectators in Act 2 chatter audibly through procedings might have been realistic, but was also incredibly distracting and deeply irritating (I kept wanting to ask Trude & Prue to shut the hell up, but it wasn't them).

Michael Sparks has done an excellent job as accent coach.  Steph Roberts, in an anchor performance as Miss Maudie, gets to recycle her already sound Southern accent from Streetcar a few years ago. Colin Boldra, while not the most charismatic Atticus Finch ever, is solid, and all three children (Maddison Smith-Catlin as Scout, Martin Hoggart as Jem, and Ben Burgess as Dil) are remarkably good, at least once Smith-Catlin finds her pitch.  It's a relief, too, that Bradley has found some genuine talent for the black roles, and Joyce Waweru (a lovely Calpurnia), David Kinyua (Tom Robinson) and Ewem Etuknwa (the Reverend) are all welcome additions to the Canberra theatre scene.  The whole cast does well, but I was especially impressed by Tony Falla, who gets his Jud Fry on as redneck supreme Bob Ewall, and by Megan Johns, an actor new to me, who is absolutely outstanding in the role of his daughter Mayella.

To put that in better context: I have never been one of the legions who number To Kill A Mockingbird among the greatest novels of all time, or even among their personal favourites. For me, the powerful messages against racial prejudice are too badly tainted by the fact they are rooted in another dangerous prejudice: that women lie about rape (and that a poor white trash woman is more likely to lie than her middle-class "betters"). 

Watching Johns' brilliant performance through this lens was almost unbearable. Conventional wisdom - though this is never actually established in either book or play - is that Tom Robinson is a victim of racial prejudice, innocent of raping and beating Mayella. But Johns is completely convincing as a rape victim on the witness stand, and watching her harangued and patronised by a courtroom full of men (Boldra's Finch, Peter Holland as the prosecutor and Brian Daly as the Judge) is deeply uncomfortable viewing.

Finch's contention is that shy, poor, downtrodden 19 year old Mayella has been plotting and saving all her money for a full year, in order to bribe her siblings to go out for ice-cream, solely to create an opportunity to seduce an unwilling Tom Robinson. (This is never supported by testimony, incidentally - Finch could call evidence to prove the ice-cream story, if it were true, but never does.) Does that hypothesis sound likely to anyone Mayella's father catches them, and it's suggested that he beats her as a result. There is good evidence for this bit of the claim - but it's a red herring. Even if it was her father who beat her, not Robinson, that's no evidence that Robinson did not rape Mayella.  Bob Ewall would not be the first father to blame his daughter for being raped, or to beat her for it, either.  

I wish Harper Lee had written this story about a black man wrongly accused of killing a white man, or robbing a bank, so I could invest unequivocally in her moral position. But to ask me to believe a 
diffident, brow-beaten, and almost certainly abused teenaged girl would scheme and scrimp for a year and spend every cent she could scrape together just to have the opportunity to coerce a reluctant older man into having sex with her has never sat easily with me.  Neither does the way she is treated in court, by men later lauded for their great and nuanced moral sensibility.  Watch Megan Johns' performance, just for a few minutes, without the conventional assumption of Robinson's innocence, and let me know if it doesn't make you uncomfortable too.

Monday, October 29, 2012

NT Live: The Last of the Haussmans

What a gem of a thing this is!

I've raved on before about NT Live, so won't bore you again with that palaver, but I will reiterate: the UK National Theatre is the best of the best, and in choosing which of its productions will be broadcast via NT Live, it doesn't have to settle for anything less than the best of the best of the best.  Whatever you see through this programme, therefore, you can be sure it's an absolute corker.

So it is with The Last of the Haussmans, a remarkably assured and "finished" first play from Stephen Beresford, with probably the most universally outstanding performances from an entire cast that it's ever been my privilege to witness. 

There's not a thing here that's not to rave about. The set consists of a wondeful, if slightly worse for wear, art-deco beach house which was so real I felt physical longing for it. I've spent the last few days trawling through real estate websites looking for something similar and wondering what I'd have to do to afford it. (Maybe in Detroit?)

Julie Walters plays Judy Haussman, who abandoned her offspring to her own vicious parents in her flowerchild youth, and has now considerately returned to them - tightly-wound, disastrous-in-love Libby (Helen McCrory), and histrionic, ruined junkie Nick (Rory Kinnear) - so they can nurse her through her final days with cancer, in the hope of inheriting the wonderful house. Which would clearly be the only thing she's ever done for them. On the way, Judy has accumulated a somewhat dodgy GP, Peter (Matthew Marsh), who covets both Libby and the house, and who sucks up to the adoring Judy with pot-fuelled Bob Dylan marathons and OTT flirtation, and a gorgeous but cripplingly shy neighbour boy Daniel (Taron Egerton).  The menage is completed by Isabella Laughland as Libby's 15-year-old daughter Summer, her every breath seething with adolescent fury and contempt.

Judy is an appalling old narcissist, whose breathtaking selfishness has wrecked the children whose ingratitude she now rails against. It's a fascinating study of how a Sixties' "Me Generation" culture has been in many ways as harmful when directed toward hippy-dippy voyages of self-discovery as towards the sort of Randian social Darwinism of Thatcher (or modern hard-right US Republicans).

If that sounds bleak, it isn't. The play is funny, witty (Kinnear has some wonderful lines) and ultimately uplifting. And very, very worthwhile viewing.


Thursday, October 25, 2012

The Wharf Revue- Around the Rings of Satire

DO. NOT. MISS. THIS!!

Every Wharf Revue is brilliant.  The only distinction that can be made in respect of the level of genius from year to year is in how long it takes me to turn to my companion and say that I already want to come back and see it again.  Last year it was only about ten minutes in, as the voices of Julia Gillard and a masked Kevin Rudd soared through an Andrew Lloyd Webber pastiche ("Rudd Never Dies"!).  This year it was only a few minutes longer, when Josh Quong Tart (replacing auteur and regular Jonathan Biggins in the cast) tore off his Lord Vader Helmet to reveal an uncannily convincing impersonation of Tony Abbott singing "I Will Survive".

Honestly, this show is funny and clever on so many levels it warrants several viewings just to be sure you've got it all.  Last year we were lucky: the ABC broadcast a recording of Debt-Defying Acts (ooh, still available on iView?!) a couple of times around Christmas, and I deeply hope they'll do the same for this one.  There is a quite staggering sketch written by Drew Forsythe and performed by Josh Quong Tart, which is Alan Joyce addressing Qantas shareholders as James Joyce - the sheer cleverness of it was, I swear, physically exhilerating.  And I could probably see that sketch three more times without fully grasping everything that was in it.

Another joy of the Wharf Revue is the musical direction by the marvellous Philip Scott - there's some recorded music, but most is played by Scott himself on the keyboard (here disguised as a the console of a spaceship).  There's huge fun to be had picking out the sources of the musical numbers - though the extended sequences from Guys & Dolls (concerning James Packer's deal with the NSW government for a casino at Barangaroo) and Mary Poppins were a doddle. In the latter, Julia Gillard (played again by the extraordinary, and serendipitously named, Amanda Bishop) and Bill Shorten (Tart again) look for ways to get traction with the punters; it's funny because it's trooooooooo!!

A harder sell was a sketch set in a gun shop - call it an unspoiler alert, but if you don't recognise this as a parody of the Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch right at the start, you're not going to find it nearly as funny as it should be.  And because the show launched six weeks ago and has been touring regional NSW, it's missed some opportunities offered by recent parliamentary shenanigans; though Drew Forsythe has shoehorned in a very funny (and slightly breathtaking) race call of the Golden (Peter) Slipper Stakes.

With Jonathan Biggins' Australia Day commitments limiting his Wharf Revue involvement to a video of Paul Keating's head in a jar, his usual collaborators Scott and Forsythe have done him proud with the addition of Josh Quong Tart, who like returning guest Amanda Bishop, sings beautifully, dances fabulously, and can impersonate pretty much anyone. Bishop didn't get as much star material as last year, but does get to show off a bravura soprano in "The Gay Marriage of Figaro".

There are still performances left on Friday and Saturday night plus a Saturday matinee. So you have three more chances to see it. Or, as I prefer to think of it, a chance to see it three more times. Do it! Laugh til you cry! Thank me later!


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

NUTS: Harvey

A student production for $15 a head? I wasn't expecting much, but Harvey has long been a favourite film of mine, and I'd crawl over broken glass for a ticket to the new Broadway version starring Jim Parsons. So I figured this NUTS production at the ANU Drama Lab would be worth a shot. I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. Subject to the usual caveats - in particular, that nearly every actor is having to play much older than their tender undergraduate years - this was pretty good.

The script, really, is far too long (the first Act alone is around 90 minutes), but there's not much that drags. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, it concerns one Elwood P Dowd, a rich, eccentric and sunny-natured bachelor who claims as his best friend a six-foot invisible rabbit named Harvey.  His embarrassed family seeks to have him committed. But who is really crazy here?

Watching this I wished I were a talent scout; if I were I'd have been lurking at the stage door with business cards for some seriously promising young thesps.  First call would be Jessica Symonds, who played Nurse Kelly: one of the best performances I've seen this year. She's gorgeous in a really interesting way, and her acting was incredibly natural and unaffected. Loved her. Also great as character actors were Tom Westland as Elwood P Dowd, pitched very endearingly somewhere between John Alderton and Chris Lilley; and Dylan Van Den Berg, (Dr Chumley) who played middle-aged and venal with alarming verisimilitude, and who either is actually American, or has nailed the accent better than almost anyone in town. These three were absolute stand-outs, but in a town a bit short of leading men I'd also be signing up Will Morris, a very competent and appealing Dr Sanderson.

Robin Whitby's costumes were excellent; the programme doesn't name a set designer (Willy Weijers gets the construction credit) but again, it was first-rate, with props used to add considerable detail, and wonderfully choreographed set changes.  And if I were a talent scout, or with one of the local theatre companies, I would be getting Shaun Wykes's phone number pronto. His direction shows a lot of potential; timing was impeccable, blocking was exemplary, and it was evident that some less experienced performers had been very capably coached.  Everyone coped very well with the faint reverberations of War of the Worlds filtering through from next door (in what I'm tempted to call War of the Dowds, but can't as my impression is that each production made genuine efforts to accommodate the other).

I was also impressed with a nuance I didn't remember finding in the movie (though admittedly it's been a while) - is Harvey a force for good or ill? Elwood is a cheerful, generous soul, but hints filter through that his life has changed since Harvey, and in ways not for the better. There are a couple of genuine frissons in the second Act, and I left with a new perspective that perhaps Elwood's big fluffy friend might be more sinister than I once thought.

I haven't seen much of NUTS's work before, but if this is typical of the current standard, I will certainly be back.  And a few local companies should get themselves down here and scope out some next-gen talent.


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Supa Productions: War of the Worlds

Wow.

If you're a regular theatre-goer, then throw away everything you thought you knew about musicals and come to see this with a fresh eye and a willingness to immerse yourself in a multimedia experience which is more of a rock concert than a stage show.  And if you're not a regular theatre-goer, then this is the show that could make you one.

This is an ambitious project for Ron Dowd and his collaborators (not to mention Supa Productions) - not only because of the scope and novelty of the undertaking, but because the one line I heard in the foyer more often than any other was "I grew up with this record!"  I don't think I'm aware of a single other production in recent years which has carried a greater weight of expectations - especially since Supa has done a rare and valuable thing here, which is to bring to the theatre an audience that does not necessarily consider itself as interested in theatre.

Almost the whole of the stage is taken up by a massive orchestra of 20 string players and a rock band that seemed nearly as big (with no fewer than four keyboards). Above them is a long wide strip of screen showing CGI footage.  There's only a narrow strip of stage left at the front for the singers, which reflects the "concert" nature of the show, but given that in this version the singers are also actors, it's possibly not really enough room; at one point they noticeably had to dodge the conductor.  The narrator (the "old" Journalist) Joseph McGrail-Bateup, in a significant departure from his usual comic turns (the second for the year, after Titanic), sits at a desk to the side as he describes, with chilling gravity, the inexorable overthrow of Earth.

The graphics, though clearly a bit dated in style, are gripping, and the care that has been taken by James MacPherson to sequence them with the sound is evident; there's also an impressive lighting design by Chris Neal, including a searchlight that rakes the audience as the on-screen Martians do, and fire effects behind the stage.  Sharon Tree manages her orchestra very effectively, though there's not really much opportunity for dynamics; she did not appear to directing the rock band much, but it was fantastic, so whatever call she made there paid off handsomely.

The singers are all very good (though Steve Herzog, not usually a theatre perfomer, does struggle a little as the Voice of Humanity). Roy Hukari's attractive voice works well in a role (the "young" Journalist) that suits his naturally serious style. Sarah Golding and Simon Stone continue a year of strong performances as the mad parson and his desperate wife, but it is Max Gambale as the Artilleryman who is outstanding in an impassioned performance of power, conviction and amazing vocal range. The back-up singers were also good, though one of them smiled widely throughout, which was a bit distracting considering the characters on screen were having their blood sucked dry by Martians while the Earth succumbed to a plague of red weed.

This is a genuinely exciting, immersive and high-quality production that was well worth leaving my comfort zone to see.  And those friends of mine who went because they loved the album have come away truly thrilled, which is a much bigger recommendation than anything I can offer.





Friday, October 19, 2012

Canberra Theatre: Tim Ferguson - Carry A Big Stick

Oh, I miss The Big Gig.  And The Late Show. And The Money or the Gun. And  Fast Forward /Full Frontal/ Big Girl's Blouse.  Or possibly I just miss being 20 years younger ... Whatever the reason, I wasn't going to miss Tim Ferguson's one-man show Carry A Big Stick at the Playhouse on Friday night - and I can only be grateful that he didn't adhere to the rest of Teddy Roosevelt's injunction.

There have always been rumours around the break up of the Doug Anthony Allstars, most of them hinting, albeit sadly, that "Tim was behind it". There has been bewilderment and disappointment that he'd have lent himself to the crass commercialism of Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and Unreal TV, and then, most recently, there has been concern, and curiosity, as he was seen in public more often than not with a cane.  Tim Ferguson "outed" himself a few years ago as having MS, and this is his story.

Ferguson has been doing this show for a little while now, but occupied that happy space in which he is both completely familiar with his material, and it's still new enough to be fresh. He quickly built up a strong rapport with the audience.  Something that jarred quite a lot, however, was his constant (albeit fond) jibes at his fellow All-Stars by calling them "girls" (plus a transphobic reference here and there to their "operations").  The politically incorrect humour of DAAS always had an iconoclastic edge; but this was just weirdly reactionary and unfunny.

That aside, Ferguson was immensely likeable, his story was more interesting than perhaps I had expected, and I laughed a great deal too.  It was nice to hear his reasons for leaving DAAS, and there is clearly still considerable affection between him, Paul McDermott and Richard Fidler ("a tough name to have in high school").  It was also good to hear his own take on the abomination that was Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and his reasons for accepting the job - his description of the state of his health during the Logies appearance that led to it was compelling (and the exhange that followed with Elliott Goblet, priceless).  And it confirmed everything I've ever thought about how Channel 9 does business.

Verdict: money well spent, especially for anyone nostalgic for the great days of Champagne Comedy. Or even Funky Squad.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Street Two: Our Shadows Pass Only Once

Well... This is bleak.

The script, by Canberra writer David Temme, is well crafted, poetic and powerful. Two couples are involved in fraught relationships; the younger couple's new and volatile (marked by violence); the older couple's exhausted and anxious (marked by mental illness).

Gillian Schwab's design is highly effective: a black floor between two raised rostra is littered with index cards, each with a word or two on them; the actors select one to hang on the wall to mark each of 15 vignettes. Each card is projected onto the back wall for a few seconds, occasionally so are angles and close-ups of the actors.

Music, by Shoeb Ahmad, is subtle and precisely complementary.

Andrew Holmes' direction is finely-honed, bringing the most out of each phrase and movement.

The performances are excellent: Caroline Simone O'Brien is luminous; Raoul Craemer more emotional than I've ever seen him; Sarah Nathan-Truesdale fresh and raw; Josh Wiseman shows a depth previous roles have not offered him.

But geeze, it's grim.

By all means see this; there is much to admire in the performances, language and production values. But if anything in it reminds you of your current relationship - get out now.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Street: Katie Noonan & Karin Schaupp "Songs of the Southern Skies"

What a beautiful concert this was.  Karin Schaupp played beautiful classical guitar.  Katie Noonan sang beautiful arrangements in that incredibly beautiful voice.  They both wore beautiful frocks, had beautiful cascading hair, and the stage was beautifully decorated in beautiful roses.

I'm not being sarcastic - it truly was beautiful.  But I also found it a bit too crafted, and as it went on, felt that I could have used a bit of an edge. Full disclaimer: talking to other audience members, I'm pretty sure I am completely on my own here.  Dilettante's privilege. 

Noonan's is a voice to wonder at - the second great coloratura of the week.  Absolutely flawless, controlled and truly lovely. These gentle, pure and pretty arrangements of Antipodean songs were perfectly chosen - my one regret in that regard is that I'd have loved to hear her sing Tim Finn's I Hope I Never, which was nevertheless gorgeous rendered by Schaupp's equally virtuosic solo guitar (one of several heavenly arrangements by Richard Charlton). 

The relentless beauty continued through pieces by Bic Runga, Nick Cave, Gurrumul, Vince Jones, Gotye and even Cold Chisel, plus one of Noonan's own works and newly commissioned pieces by Andrew Georg and Elena Kats-Chernin.  It's clear from the way that Noonan speaks about her material that she is genuinely passionate about the songs she and Schaupp have selected, but at times they were so perfect that I found myself standing outside the music, marvelling at the craft, rather than being drawn in.  This is in no way a criticism of wonderful performances and extraordinary talent, it really isn't. It's more like being served plate after plate of gorgeous cakes when you tend to have a savoury palate.

Noonan's between-song patter was spontaneous and totally charming, engaging the audience with candour, warmth and humour. She's very easy to love.

And I did love the final number (not counting the encore of course - for which I stamped and whistled as hard as anyone else) - the Easybeats' Friday on My Mind.  Noonan finally cut loose, which was glorious, and the rest of us got to go "La la la la la la la la LA" at the top of our voices.  Any evening where I get to go "La la la la la la la la LA" at the top of my voice is a good one for me.  And judging from the crush of fans waiting for signed CD's (I understand they sold out), "too beautiful" is hardly something to be avoided.



PS  (added 20 Oct): it's been pointed out to me that I totally failed to mention the choir of small boys who joined Noonan & Schaupp for the last song of the first bracket. They were, indeed, very sweet.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Restaurant: Hako (Melbourne)

Nom, nom, nom.

Have I mentioned I love Japanese food? So I was pretty pleased to find this gem across the street from my Flinders Lane hotel, a mere block from the Tuxedo Cat.  It's a spacious room with a dark wood fit-out lifted by a high ceiling and plenty of windows, a long bar with some interesting bottles behind it, and just enough light over each table for a lone diner with a Kindle.

Outstanding service (beware the subtle upsell, but it's so charming you feel grateful), and lovely food. The specialty of the house, a mouthful of blue swimmer crab meat topped with tobiko and a squeeze of lemon and wrapped in a shiso leaf, is so unbelievably good that I ordered a second. It still left me enough room for a single beautiful scallop poached in a perfect savoury custard, but not quite enough to finish a tapas-sized serving of meltingly sticky slow-cooked beef ribs in a sauce of sweet soy, dashi and peppercorns.  Everything is delicious. Highly recommended.

Melbourne Fringe: The Trial & Death of Socrates (No Relation) - Joel Tito

... And back to the Tuxedo Cat it was for a piece I really did want to see: Joel Tito's The Trial and Death of Socrates (No Relation). As an impatient queue formed in the corridor outside the former office space, Tito suddenly burst out into the corridor in full Japanese regalia, shooing us into the performance space and then delivering a diatribe in Japanese that went on for some time. Of course, it was the old joke about the wrong warm-up act being booked (alas, there's nothing much more to be wrung from this gag since the brilliant Martin-Molloy series of botched musical finales on The Late Show in the early 90's). This got good, though, when our sanmaime had the bright idea of plugging his observations into Google Translate and allowing his tablet to read the English version back to the audience.

Anyway, this was over soon enough, and the imaginary curtain rose on Socrates, a shut-in loser, whose faults are enumerated by an invisible voiceover which insists, in respect of each,  that "for this, he must die". Along the way there is a good deal of absurdist adventure - Tito is convincingly pathetic and lonely (so desperate for affection that he orders pizza in the hope he can persuade the delivery guy to give him a hug) - and some audience participation, especially in a lengthy sketch where Socrates is welcomed to a new church by an evangelist minister feuding with his sound guy.  And there's a highly amusing auction sequence culminating in the attempted sale of an entirely plagiarised manuscript  (inspired by the strange tale of Quentin Rowan, perhaps?) 

The premise is slight, and the "twist" ending somewhat telegraphed, but it's still pretty funny stuff. Tito works his audience hard, but rewards us with a lot of laughs as well.  Worth catching, if it returns at a comedy festival near you.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Melbourne Fringe: Trying Hard (Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall)

The beauty and the terror of Fringe Festivals everywhere is the sheer volume and variety of what's on offer.  I've often thought it would be great to take a week off (with the weekend on either side) and just go and gorge myself at the Melbourne Fringe, but four shows a day for nine days is still only 36 shows, which is only about one-tenth of the programme.  So choosing what to see is either vitally important or virtually irrelevant - I went the latter route and aimed for (a) what fit around my work schedule and (b) was near my hotel.

And thus I squeaked in to the Tuxedo Cat just in time for Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall's one-man show Trying Hard. A room in a barely-converted office space was nearly full with a very friendly crowd when Tremblay-Birchall hopped on to the stage in a giant amoeba costume. Yes, the first part of the show was about evolution - and the continuing layers of costume, one beneath another, were crude but clever (and the retro-style sign his friend made him was very professional). Tremblay-Birchall's material here was not entirely comfortable, it seemed to me: the theme was how each character badly wanted to become something else, became that thing, and regretted it (despite still loving that thing); the awkward but unavoidable subtext appeared to be that he regrets leaving engineering for comedy. An easy thing to understand for anyone who's tried to make a living from their bliss only to find commerce sucks the joy out of it.

His second half was more conventional stand-up, and funnier, though he fell back on some very well-used tropes (yes, male genitalia is HILARIOUS!). He clearly had a lot of supporters in the room, but he got some genuine laughter from me too. If I happened to be passing his next gig I might well stick my head in, but I probably won't prioritise it at my next Fringe foray - there's just too much else to choose from!

Friday, October 12, 2012

At the Q: Ladies Night (Jally Productions)

Ooh, this is a hard one - no pun intended.

And that was pretty much the standard for the evening. Ladies Night is famously the Kiwi play it's claimed was ripped off by The Full Monty, about a group of unemployed guys who decide they can make some quick cash by putting on a charity-case strip show (hey, it's not as if the ladies are very discriminating - after all, look who they've married, amirite, girls?). Though the authors lost their case on a technicality (they sued in the wrong jurisdiction), on watching this it was hard to drum up much sympathy for them. The play lacks the heart, character development and emotional resonance of Monty - we don't know why these guys are broke, we know next to nothing about their relationships, and personal growth seems to consist of one guy getting unexpectedly laid (and skiting like a lout about it) and another suddenly turning up in a frock. We're given no reason to like these guys or care about their futures: it's an unsatisfying text.

There's still fun to be had, largely from watching the lads make total fools of themselves, but this incarnation of the play by Jally Productions has a curiously amateur feel about it; while featuring a few notable veterans like Alli Pope and Ken James, it also features a bunch of slightly miscast hopefuls whose CVs seem to consist of no-brand local pantomimes. That's not to say they're bad (they're not), but they're clearly not professional, and they don't quite match their characters. And direction is also a little off, with some lengthy set changes and a few other odd decisions, such as giving a Sunshine Coast local radio host a smarmy American accent.  Not that most of the audience cared much, especially when the lads got their gear off (yes, all of it).

Me - I was disappointed.  Though possibly not as disappointed as the sweet young thing in ridiculously optimistic shoes who struck up a conversation with me at interval, confiding with shining eyes that she was meeting up with a member of the touring crew after the show. As I went in for the second act, I saw the gentleman in question leaning back with his feet up on the chairback in front, chatting up a blonde. La plus ca change...

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Canberra Theatre: Sasha Regan's Pirates of Penzance

It's a bit unfashionable to like Gilbert & Sullivan. Long out of copyright, familiar, tuneful and funny, the Savoy Operas are a mainstay of every amateur company from your local primary school to the retirement village down the road. And, as the glorious Anna Russell observes, at any given time, in any given place, someone is putting one on.

But, I frankly confess it, I adore Gilbert & Sullivan, know great swathes of the dialogue by heart, and lulled myself to sleep through many an adolescent trauma to an ancient cassette tape of the collected Overtures. They're so familiar that it's easy to forget how witty and pretty the words and music are, and to wonder if there's anything that could really make a chestnut like Pirates fresh again.

Well, brava! Sasha Regan - because she's done it, and in spades, in this quite irresistible all-male production.

Given recent events in gender politics, I wasn't sure a drag show was going to be quite the thing, and when a sole piano player (MD Michael England) started to push out some spare-sounding drawing-room chords in a venue more accustomed to orchestras, my doubts deepened.  But I was converted almost immediately: it was the perfect accompaniment to the unamplified voices of a crew of handsome young pirates, in costumes reminiscent of a gym class at an Edwardian boys' public school.

The resemblance was only emphasized when they re-emerged in white skirts and a few corsets, as the Major-General's daughters. This isn't drag, it's not even camp; it's just young men, not really pretending to be women, without wigs or makeup, playing the roles as they might at an all-boys school. It's wholly delightful, and some of the voices, in particular Alan Richardson as the coloratura Mabel, were nothing short of amazing.  Other performances of note were Joseph Houston as Ruth (uncannily like David Marr when made up as middle-aged; the image of the young Rupert Everett when not), Adam Vaughan as the Sergeant, the dashing Nic Gibney as the Pirate King.  Stewart Charlesworth, in Velma haircut and specs, was utterly convincing as Edith, the willowy Dale Page was quite mesmerising as Kate; and Matthew Gent, with his handsome face and gorgeous tenor, was a perfect Frederic.

This is a very funny, fresh and endearing production, and the Canberra audience very clearly could not have loved it more.  It's touring all over the place - in fact, some quite unexpected places - and if you can possibly get yourself to one of them, I urge you to do so. Years from now you'll still find yourself smiling when you think of it.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

NT Live: The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night Time

NT Live is a glorious, glorious thing.  For the fraction of the price of a normal ticket, one can go to the Dendy and see a live (or nearly live) broadcast of the best productions the UK National Theatre has to offer (which is to say, some of the best in the world). What's more, you get to see them from the best possible angles, and you get to sit in comfy cinema seating with your drink and choc-top.  You also get a bit of a pre-theatre talk, credits, and even an interval in which to refresh your glass of bubbles.  If you could buy a programme it would be practically perfect.  Sod the sunshine, this is how I like to spend a weekend afternoon!

Mark Haddon's Whitbread-award-winning novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of my favourite books (as one might expect, with the title referencing one of my favourite stories).  But I was curious to see how dramaturge Simon Stephens would translate it to the stage, with some challenging logistics (such as a seminal train trip from Swindon to Wilston) and, more importantly, a narrative told in a peculiarly introspective fashion, in the first person POV of Christopher, a 15 year-old autistic boy (a heart-stopping, wonderful performance by Luke Treadaway), who has discovered his neighbour's dog "murdered" with a garden fork, and sets out to uncover the killer.

When done well, the device of the "unreliable narrator" in fiction is one of my favourite things.  But how do you translate that to stage, when you only have the boy's actions to observe, and can't connect the dots of the internal monologue?

As it turns out quite well, by having the boy's story read back to him by the schoolteacher Siobhan (the warm and persuasive Niamh Cusack), an excellent device which allows her to stop and engage with Christopher about what he means by the words he's written.  The script is a very faithful translation of the original novel; my only tiny kvetch is that a couple of deeply moving scenes in the book are portrayed nearly casually here - a character in Act Two reaches out to Christopher who is entirely unable to appreciate what that means to her; in the book this almost broke my heart, in the play it seems almost brushed aside. But these exceptions are rare.

The cast is outstanding - well, of course it is, it's the NT. There's no point in singling out anyone apart from Treadaway, because every performance, from veteran Una Stubbs to an extra eating a chocolate biscuit, is pitch perfect.  But if there is another star in this production, it's the set, an electronic grid by Bunny Christie which is also a chalkboard, and which serves brilliantly as everything from an escalator to the seats of a railway carriage), supplemented by Paule Constable's exceptional lighting design.  The in-the-round, steeply raked seating of the Cottesloe Theatre means that on occasions the actors can lie on the floor against patterns on the grid, and form an aerial picture (wonderful movement direction from Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett) - very clever, but something likely to be very difficult to replicate in other venues. It's also where NT Live really shines, because you could not get a view this good from any single spot in the actual theatre (I felt it was a bit of a cheat, to be honest, to be able to view this from so many angles when the live audience could not).

There's a slight mawkishness at the end, but it brings the optimism that's needed - and make sure you stay on after the curtain call for an extra treat, especially if you're mathematically minded. I'd love to see this live in a theatre if it ever tours Australia, and I'll be fascinated to see whether the design can be replicated in a venue other than the Cottesloe.


Sunday, September 30, 2012

ANU SoM/The Street: Albert Herring

I was completely charmed by this production.

My feelings for Benjamin Britten vary as widely as his music does; I will confess it: I'm an old-fashioned type, and I like a nice tune. There are a few nice tunes in Albert Herring, but most of the score is post-romantic and not particularly melodic. It's nevertheless pleasing, and the facility of the (mainly) young cast in singing to the sometimes counter-intuitive orchestral score is admirable.

In the English village of Loxford, assorted worthies are assembled to recommend suitable prospects for the title of Queen of the May to the Lady (Billows) of the Manor (a fabulously horsey Rachael Thoms, embodying every Aunt in the Wodehousian canon, and sounding splendid). But her factotum, Florence Pike (Julia Wee is gender-bendingly good), has dirt on every girl in town.  And so presents the idea of a May King - blameless mother's boy Albert Herring, the greengrocer's clerk. Albert's friends Sid and Nancy (I kid you not), who must have missed the awful fate of Gussie Fink-Nottle some 13 years earlier in  "Right Ho, Jeeves"spike his drink so that he's not too nervous to speak in public, and Mayhem Ensues.

What a great choice of vehicle this is for a student production. The music is challenging, but the scale is small, and very clever direction from Caroline Stacey means that any weaknesses (and there really aren't many) are easily submerged in comedy. The small group of village worthies (stand-outs are Jessica Westcott as Miss Worthington the headmistress, and Norman Meader as the self-important mayor) is beautifully choreographed, and the three children (particular props to Laura Griffin, adorable as Emmie), zoom about the stage like giggling Pac-Men.  Imogen Keen's costumes are inspired, and there's great use of props; a simple but clever and highly utilitarian set from Gillian Schwab, and an effective lighting design from PJ Williams.

The chamber orchestra, conducted by Rick Prackhoff, is faultless - my only gripe was that they seemed very badly dressed, but this was amusingly resolved in Act Three. (Though I still think they could have scrubbed up a little better without ruining the joke).

As the eponymous hero, Robert Shearer fits the bill (or Albert) so perfectly I wondered fleetingly if this production had been tailored around him. Also deserving of mention are Rohan Thatcher as the dashing Sid, and Elora Ledger as the kind and lovely Nancy. And Krystle Innes, fresh from her star turn as 15 year old Tracey Turnblad in Hairspray, stacks on 30 years with disconcerting ease to play Albert's overbearing mother in a performance just as excellent.

I should note that I saw this production on Saturday night, and some of the roles are alternating, so I will have missed some performances that were probably noteworthy. I'm only sorry that it's been such a short run - five performances in three days. There's one more chance to catch it, tonight, and at such a ridiculously small ticket price, it's really worth the effort.


Bell Shakespeare: School for Wives

I've had seriously varied reactions to Bell Shakespeare productions lately; a bit like the Star Trek movie franchise: great and awful in turns. Loved the 2010 King Lear. Absolutely loathed Julius Caesar. Thought Much Ado About Nothing was a glorious and unalloyed delight. Was alternately irritated and bored by this year's Macbeth. So I was due to enjoy School for Wives, and am happy to report that I did.

The opening scene reminded me strongly of Patrick Barlow's adaptation of The 39 Steps (ie, the insanely funny four-hander), while the close-out felt like a hat-tip to Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors. Auspicious influences indeed, even if this production isn't quite in that league.

John Adam puts in a massive rollercoaster performance as Arnaude, a chauvinist so extreme that he bought a girl at age 4 and has kept her locked in a convent for 14 years to make certain she will know nothing but her place - and naturally will also be too ignorant to know what she's missing when he finally marries her. Hilarious, non? (It ought to be; it's not Moliere's fault that current conservative voices have rendered Arnaude's more outrageously misogynistic pronouncements less absurd than some presently befouling the airwaves.)  But of course the path of twisted and inappropriate love runs no more smoothly than that of the true variety, and Arnaude's bonsai bride-to-be Agnes (an absolutely brilliant Harriet Dyer) promptly falls for Horace, the first other man she meets (not so surprising when it's Myene Wyatt, who moves like an angel).

Justin Fleming's translation is pacy and witty but possibly suffers from being a little too true to the original; some scenes - such as one where Arnold's doltish servants insult and abuse him - seem a bit pointless and might have been better cut. The rhyming script is a remarkable piece of work, but sometimes it feels a little forced.

Costumes were excellent, and one lovely subtlety was seeing Agnes come on in similar yellow frocks  which increased in brightness as her awareness grew too. The 1920's Paris setting added freshness and comic opportunity; though I did wonder at one point what a Frenchman might be doing with a cricket bat.  The moveable set had some advantages - one might be recycling: I swear that was the same scaffolding and stage lights that Bell used in Julius Caesar last year - but I think will work best when viewed squarely front on. I was seated to the side, and suspect I missed the full effect of having assorted screens and frames lined up to best advantage.

Finally, a special mention has to go to Mark Jones, the Bill Bailey doppelganger who provides brilliant comic support on piano, kazoo and assorted percussion (I was deeply impressed with his ability to articulate unmistakeably the phrase "WTF" using only a kazoo. It's all in the intonation). Jones is hilarious and I don't know if the decision to add this accompaniment came from Fleming or director Lee Lewis, but it's inspired.

I hope Bell keeps bringing us more of this stuff; I sense rich opportunity in next November's A Comedy of Errors.  Recommended viewing.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

The James Morrison Big Band @ Top of the Cross

James Morrison in concert is always a wonderful thing, and so despite a headache, a long hard day, and absolutely foul weather, the scales still tipped in favour of making the effort to leave my nice warm house and venture out to Top of the Cross to hear him perform with his Big Band (of varying membership, one assumes, as I spied a few local talents in the lineup).

It was a good call; Morrison is always hugely entertaining, and never more so than when his brother John, the drummer, sits at the fore and shares the schtick. Of which there was almost more than the music. An added, and considerable, bonus was the inclusion of two vocalists, the truly fabulous jazz singer Emma Pask, and Liam Burrows, whose vocals are more of a lounge style, but with an amazing Buddy Greco/Sinatra/Matt Munro sound from a disproportionately slight frame.

Sound (this seems to be a recurring theme of late) was a bit of a problem, especially for Pask, with the Cross' guy forgetting to turn on her mic, and increasing the speaker volume to ear-splitting levels when she actually was asking for more foldback.  But she's much too good to let that bother her.  And it wasn't until I recognised a riff being played unexpectedly on piano that I realised they were short a guitarist, too.

Really, the only disappointment for me was that the charts were so familiar - and I do recognise that it must seem odd, when listening to a big band programme, to complain about hearing standards. But  the only arrangement of the evening I hadn't heard before was a lovely update of the Tommy Dorsey classic "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You". Pask's arrangements, though familiar, were at least wriiten for her and popularised by her. Burrows' were numbers we've heard everyone from Matt Rivett to Michael Buble to David Campbell sing over the last couple of years, and I confess I felt let down - while the average non-jazz-fan can't wait to hear New York, New York again, this was an audience of aficionadi, and it would have been nice to get something new.

Still - if you just wanted to hear some world-class perfomers and great jazz musicians at the top of their game, with a healthy dose of stand-up comedy, this was a great evening out, and all kudos to the Southern Cross Club for bringing us entertainment of this calibre.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Canberra Theatre: Side By Side By Sondheim

Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns... Don't worry - they're on the sound desk.

Before I go on, I should say that none of my quibbles should get in the way of you going to see and hear three stellar artists performing songs by one of the greatest lyricist-composers ever - especially when you may still be able to get half-price tickets here.

Rachael Beck was as charming as her soprano was lovely and agile; Michael Falzon's cheeky game-show-host grin and delicious baritone were thoroughly endearing, but the evening belonged to Geraldine Turner; heartbreaking and hilarious in turn, from Sondheim's best-known ballads to his most obscure cabaret numbers.

The arrangements, for piano and an electric keyboard, were exactly right, and MD/pianist Craig Renshaw and the keyboard (not named in the programme) deserved better than Jessica Rowe's perfunctory introduction in the second act.

I do have quibbles. Though apparently this show has already had a night in each of Dubbo and Orange (not to mention a larger scale production at Sydney's Royal Theatre in April), the performers seemed under-rehearsed. Both Falzon and Turner - a Sondheim expert- forgot lines, and Rowe seemed quite unfamiliar with her script, even as she read it from a large book (which raised a separate question of why she could not have used that to prompt from instead of the performers having to walk back to the MD on piano for the line).

The script was also just dull, even without Rowe's hesitation. She did not seem at all comfortable, frequently referring to reading the news and naming her husband as if she needed to make sure we knew who she was, and then making a misplaced joke about getting us home in time for the football (Hello? Sondheim fans?)

I also think this was the worst sound I've ever heard in a professional production. Mics dropped out, had to be handed around, interfered with what mild choreography there was, were far too loud and bright (remedied somewhat in the second Act). Worst of all, mics were left on backstage, with snatches of conversation coming through over - of all things - an otherwise spellbinding rendition of Send In the Clowns. Though the basilisk glare Ms Turner directed to the back of the theatre was a treat to behold.

Lighting choices were also odd, and the book containing the boring script had a gilt edge which caught the light repeatedly and was distracting (on occasion, blinding). These are stupid and basic production errors which should not have occurred in a professional show.

I was also surprised to see a credit for "set and costume design" on the programme, as there was no set, and the performers were all dressed in plain black evening clothes. Surrounded by black curtains and in front of a black grand piano, it looked disappointingly drab.

I stil say: if you like Sondheim, do go to this, because the songs and performances more than make up for the very poor production values - most of which really ought to be fixed by tonight's performance. Just also be aware that this show was put together in 1976, and for whatever reason has not been updated - so there's 36 years' worth of material missing.  But there are also some very rarely heard numbers that are worth the price of admission alone - especially if you score the discount.

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Q: HAIR

Well, what a year it's been for drag acts, naked people, and flutes on stage*!

Anything sub-titled "The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" was never going to appeal to me much, but then I had never seen Hair on stage, and I am a completist.  So I suppose it is not surprising that I have quite mixed feelings about this one.  Like Cats, I have to separate the production from the content - except it's even harder here, because while I am quite fond of cats, I am not a fan of hippies.

This production compounded that dislike [Editor' note: that's dislike of hippies, for those lacking basic reading comprehension skills], because while in the original Broadway production (as I understand it) and the film, there seemed to be much greater emphasis on the political side of the Tribe, both on resistance to the Vietnam draft, and on the issue of racial discrimination; in this production, the characters burn their draft cards like it's a game, and it's sort of hard to emphasise discrimination against black people when there are no actual black people in the cast.  These hippies aren't activists - even Sheila, their "Joan of Arc", returns from a protest at the Pentagon (it's not clear against what), and talks about how she saw it levitate. These hippies are mere vague, aimable nutters who spend their time getting stoned, making love and sponging off their parents.  So it's hard for me to feel all that sorry when one of them does, at last, get a haircut and a job.

That said - let's get to the pros and cons of the production, as opposed to the vehicle (with its negligible plot, uninteresting songs and bodgy lyrics).

PROS:

1.  Pete Ricardo is both perfectly cast and completely at home in the role of Claude.  He owned that stage from the beginning.  His voice is beautiful, he delivered his songs with conviction and ease, and he looked totally right for the part. His Claude was more wistful than dynamic, but it worked.

2.  There are an extraordinary number of list songs in this show, or nonsense lyrics, or non-sequiturs. Stuff that is hard to remember, especially when the music is not particularly tuneful.  I was very impressed at how well-rehearsed the cast was - I did not detect a single fumble on lyrics or dialogue, which is no mean feat for an amateur company on opening night with difficult material.

3.   A lovely, endearing, convincing performance from Maigan Fowler as Jeannie.

4.    The pyschedelic sign nodding to Occupy Wall Street.

5.    Two smashing drag acts - first Ben Kindon as Claude's mother channelling Max Gambale channelling Marge Simpson; then a truly hilarious turn from Greg Sollis as "Margaret Mead".

6.    Strong perfomances from some relative newcomers in the supporting and chorus roles - nice to see a new generation of young performers moving up through the ranks.

7.    Good costumes from Christine Pawlicki and some innovative choreography from Jordan Kelly.

MIXED

1.    Pete Ricardo might have owned it, but Will Huang certainly brought it.   I'm always happy to see Will Huang in a show, and he pulled out all the stops here - but he was just miscast as Hud, who's a black man.  Huang's still one of the best dancers in the cast; nailed the voice; that gorgeous baritone was even deeper and richer than usual - but he's still not a black man. Sorry, Will - you were as great as always, and couldn't have done more.  (If I'd shut my eyes it might have worked, but I couldn't, as I was waiting til the end of Act 1 to see if you lived up to your name...**)

2.     Similarly - everyone loves Tim Stiles, right? Including me.  But again, he's miscast here.  Berger is the comedian of the group, but that's not all he is.  Stiles is 20 years too old for this part and Berger and Claude had none of the sexual chemistry the script kept telling us about.  At one point, Berger says to the audience: "I know what you're thinking- is it a boy or a girl?".  Dude, nobody was thinking that.  Stiles is hugely entertaining, but just not the right man for that particular part.

3.    The band, led by Geoff Grey, was pretty good for the most part, but I'm not sure there were good enough reasons to have them on stage (though they certainly dressed for it!) instead of the perfectly good Q orchestra pit.  Must have been awkward for those in the nude scene.  And they drowned out the singers quite often, even big voices like Tim Stiles'.

4.     The bloody singalong at the end.  I know Stephen Pike loves a good singalong, and I know that this a show which has always encouraged that participation at the finale, so I have no right to complain. And much of the audience got right into it. So probably the right choice, but it still made me cringe.

5.     The famous nude scene - I suppose I would have whinged about this had it been omitted, and it was very discreetly lit and so forth, but it's pointless.

CONS

1.     Seriously, if your show really needs people with certain characteristics for the script to make sense, make sure you have those people in your cast. Having a bunch of people who aren't black singing about being black is, at the least, uncomfortable.

2.     Some of the cast didn't quite have big enough voices for the roles (while a couple who did were wasted in second-tier roles).

3.      The  farewell to Claude scene was insanely drawn out and dull.

4.      Ditto the most lengthy and self-indulgent curtain call I've ever had to applaud through.

CONCLUSION:  This particular show will never be my personal cup of hash tea.  But this production still has much to recommend it, and, as I've said elsewhere, if you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you will like.

* Drag Acts - We started the year with Matt Chardon O'Dea's impressive falsetto in Chicago, then the touring Men In Pink Tights, followed by the two Ednas - Everage, in the Barry Humphries' putative Farewell Tour, and Max Gambale's Mrs Turnblad in Hairspray.  Now a double feature in Hair with Ben Kindon reprising Gambale's Marge Simpson voice as Claude's mother, and Greg Sollis quite outstanding as Margaret Mead.  And still to come are the all-male Pirates of Penzance and Les Ballets Trockadero.

- Naked people - Everyman's Pool (no water), off-Broadway cult sensation Naked Boys Singing (I had a ticket in the middle of D row, and then they cancelled the Friday night show, boo!), Act 1 of Hair, and Ladies' Night in a couple of weeks. 

- Flutes on stage: Hair,  Cats,  The Venetian Twins, and two very different productions of The Magic Flute (AO and COW).  And there should by rights have been a couple in Iolanthe, except Q Players used the updated libretto, sans Arcadian shepherds etc.

 ** Cheap joke, but you were all thinking it.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Canberra Rep: Lost in Yonkers

Oh, this is really good.

But first things first: as the lights went up on a a gorgeous art-deco shop-front a couple of miles north of Manhattan, I could only think: geeze, but Rep does a good set.

Actually, Rep does consistently outstanding sets - easily better than any other local company; and often much better than professional touring productions, too (I'm looking at you, HIT Production's Let The Sun Shine, and I hope you're ashamed of yourself).  There are rare mis-steps (cough cough Life x 3 cough cough), but there have significantly more often been some absolute crackers, including the town house in Pygmalion, the astonishing street of terrace houses (complete with Valiant) in Pig Iron People, the stunning garden setting for Humble Boy, and the clever clever clever set of books earlier this year in Pride & Prejudice.  This lovely construction by Andrew Kay is well and truly up to standard.

And the rest of this production lives up to the set.  Neil Simon won a Pulitzer for Lost In Yonkers in 1991, a year that also brought us La Bete, Angels in America and Death and the Maiden, so it can get by without any praise from little me, but it is warm and funny and touching.  It's 1942, and Eddie Kurnitz (Colin Milner) has just lost his wife to cancer; he's hocked himself to the eyeballs to loan sharks to pay for her care, and the only way to make enough to pay them back is to hit the road selling scrap metal. The only place to leave his two sons, Jay (Lachlan Ruffy) and Artie (Pippin Carroll) is with their deeply unpleasant grandmother (Helen Vaughn-Roberts), who won't take them until their sweet, child-like aunt Bella (Bridgette Black) threatens to leave. Life with Grandma is pretty grim, but leavened by the occasional appearance of their Uncle Louie (Paul Walker), a C-grade mobster. There's another aunt, Gertie (Elaine Noon); two other siblings died in childhood, and Grandma has damaged all the survivors in different ways.

Lighting, sound and costumes are all spot on, and for the most part, direction from veteran Angela Punch-McGregor brings the best out of both script and cast.  And my bete noire, the dodgy accent, makes only the most fleeting of appearances.

The performances are uniformly strong. What I thought was looking like the Year of Simon Stone is turning out to be the Year of Lachlan Ruffy; his performance as fifteen-year-old Jay is funny and touching, a kid trying hard to be a man. Pippin Carroll, thirteen and playing thirteen-and-a-half, is an absolute joy. Vulnerable and cheeky and just a total pleasure.  The other standout in the cast is Bridgette Black as the excitable and helpless Bella. Her performance - confused, joyful, frightened - was heartbreaking.

Paul Jackson as Louie put in the best performance I've ever seen him give; animated and convincing. (I really want to make a joke about "the most animated I've seen him since Out of Order", but it would be sacrificing truth for a cheap laugh - and in fact I loved him in Out of Order).  Colin Milner was solid, warm, and desperate as Eddie; Elaine Noon has only a cameo, but it's a jewel. And Helen Vaughn-Roberts anchors it all with a grim relentlessness; by the time you're ready to pity Grandma Kurnitz, it's simply too late.

Something that especially moves me about this play is that while it is quasi-autobiographical, when Neil Simon's father abandoned his sons to the mercy of relatives for months on end, it was for no very noble reasons; in Lost inYonkers Simon goes to great lengths to make sure we know that Eddie's motivation is the most selfless possible.  He's right; had Eddie just dumped his sons on his mother and bunked off for a good time, the warmth and optimism that underpins this story would be lost.

This is a lovely play, beautifully staged and performed, and every bit as good as something you'll see from STC or MTC. Except you can see it right here in Canberra, and I hope you will.