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.