Flake REVIEW 22 Oct 2023 ***

THEATRE

Written by Dan Lee, co-created by Chi Nguyen 

At Red Stitch Theatre until 5 Nov 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

 Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

 Robert Menzies-Photo credit, Jodie Hutchinson

 

When globe-trotting, 68-year-old hipster, Murph (Joe Petruzzi), visits his old mate, Bob (Robert Menzies), in his rundown hideaway in Hanoi, it becomes apparent that Bob, who is limping, feeble, unkempt and often confused, is displaying early signs of dementia. But, in Dan Lee’s play, Flake, Bob has a plan to exit this mortal coil in his own time and on his own terms.

 

A young Vietnamese woman (Phoebe Phuoc Nyugen) arrives with Murph, but it becomes clear that she has more connection to Bob’s abode than just her presumably accidental meeting with Murph can explain.

 

Petruzzi’s Murph is big, audacious, adventurous, irresponsible and unwilling to accept ageing or admit to his failings as a father of multiple children by different mothers. Menzies as Bob is cynical, reclusive, articulate, verbose and a bitter critic of Murph – and just about everyone else: “I hate people,” he quips.

 

The fun reunion that Murph expects, with fond reminiscences about their shared hippydom in Melbourne, degenerates into a series of beer-soaked barneys in which Bob and Murph trade insults and dredge up old sins. It’s difficult to understand why Murph still maintains this friendship with Bob who teases him mercilessly, patronises him and is constantly passive-aggressive.

 

The audience of mostly seniors at the Flake Sunday 6.30pm show reacted to the issues of ageing, loss of independence, forgetfulness and failing faculties with groans and laughs of recognition.

 

The entire play, directed with a light hand by Ella Caldwell, is set in a shabby kitchen (designed by Jacob Baptista) in Bob’s Hanoi haunt, and the room’s worn surfaces mirror his declining health. What becomes clear as the play progresses, is that Bob is bitter and haunted and that he has no contact with his only son in Australia.

 

Lee’s script, co-created with Chi Nguyen, is well-structured with a plot that is peppered with revelations about characters, and sharp, unexpected turns in the narrative. It not only paints a vivid picture of the world of Hanoi outside the tiny, dank kitchen, but also explores the grim life of Bob, the surly, clever expatriate.

 

Some of the longer monologues seem a little over-written and verbose, but the witty dialogue and verbal sparring gives clear voices to the characters of Bob and Murph and their relationship is well-developed. The character of Duyen, the young Vietnamese woman, is less fully drawn.

 

Some of the nuances in the text and the more subtle emotional and psychological moments may have been lost as Menzies, after an illness during rehearsal, was still using his script throughout the performance. Despite this, his intensity and technical skill carries the character of Bob and makes this grumpy old man sympathetic.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

CAST

Joe Petruzzi - Murph

Robert Menzies - Bob

Phoebe Phuoc Nyugen - Duyen

 

CREATIVES

Writer Dan Lee
Co-Creator Chi Nguyen
Director Ella Caldwell
Set/Costume Design Jacob Battista
Lighting Design Jason Ng Junjie
Composition/Sound Design Daniel Nixon
Set Design Associate/ Scenic Painter Khue Nguyen
Dialect Coach Yuanlei (Nikki) Zhao
Dramaturg Tom Healey
Stage Manager Finn McLeish
Assistant Stage Manager Finleigh Wadsworth

 

Joe Petruzzi, Robert Menzies-Photo credit, Jodie Hutchinson

Kate Herbert talks about LUNG on Behind the Scenes, 23 Oct 2023

Chris Thompson interviewed me about my play, LUNG, on his show, Behind the Scenes, on Vision Australia radio AM1179 yesterday.    

Artwork by Joe Calleri

Here's the link to the podcast:

Kate Herbert interview: Behind the Scenes 

My interview is at 19min22sec to 30min50sec. Russell Fletcher's interview starts around 47min28sec.

LUNG, play reading is at La Mama on Saturday 28 October at 2pm.  

Link here for info & bookings:

LUNG play reading 

Hour of the Wolf REVIEW 20 Oct 2023 ***

THEATRE

Written by Keziah Warner, by Malthouse Theatre

At Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse until 3 Dec 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

Jack Green & Kevin Hofbauer_photo Pia Johnson

 The premise of Hour of the Wolf is that the small town of Hope Hill is visited once a year for an hour between 3 and 4 am by a wolfwoman who visits horrors upon members of the town – perhaps only on those who deserve it?

                                                                                                                  

During this “immersive” performance, audience members can choose their own adventure. It’s a fascinating, potentially theatrically compelling idea that is not wholly successful; form is the focus at the expense of content and the concept has not quite translated into a dramatic whole.

 

Audience members are funnelled into a scarily cramped, holding corridor, provided with headphones and some cursory instructions over the earphones (Earlier instructions in the foyer over the PA were inaudible). A woman’s voice narrates into our ears that she visits this town once a year. The Wolf?

 

We are ushered into a walled off space that represent a specific location. Other groups may start elsewhere, but my journey through the story starts in a karaoke bar where three different conversations take place. We are then told, over the earphones, to follow a character, or simply move to another room through a door. I move to the scene of a car crash, a convenience store, a couple‘s bedroom, a filmset in a church, a hospital waiting room and, finally, to a small gymnasium where a woman appears to have killed a man whose body has disappeared. End.

 

Other audience members have a different beginning, middle and ending. Some wander off to explore rooms to sticky-beak in the crashed car or peer into gym lockers, scour shelves in the convenience store or peer at photos on the walls of the bedroom. You could choose to miss the entire narrative by just exploring the marvellously detailed, elaborate set design. In fact, Anna Cordingley’s set is probably the star of this production.

 

We are voyeurs on the private conversations of various townspeople, and this provides a frisson of impending drama or danger and a feeling of being where we should not be.

 

Hour of the Wolf has a lot of promise and has had a lot of time, money and personnel thrown at it. It involves 11 actors (I saw only 10), multiple story lines and a very complex set and physical structure built inside the Merlyn Theatre.

 

Unfortunately, the technology let it down at times because the actors were inaudible through the headphones, so I took mine off most of the time and may have missed something crucial.

 

There are problems with the plotting, narrative and dialogue. I kept expecting there to be a greater sense of menace in the space and genuine danger, but it was all so downplayed, that at no point did I feel anyone was in any real danger and there was little heightened drama in each scene, despite the nervy urgency of characters.

 

There is no pay-off at the end. The story just peters out and we are left with a sense that we missed something or that there is no real danger after all.

 

The Wolf was missing from our journey through these spaces. We eventually realise that she is the voice of the woman in our ears through headphones. We want more of her and perhaps need to have her give us more details of her story and her reasons for being in Hope Hill, of all places. Or perhaps she needs to be a character on stage at some point. I assume that the Wolf narrator is Natasha Herbert, who I’d love to see or hear more on stage. Perhaps I missed an entire, significant scene that featured the wolfwoman.

 

There is mention of “offerings” – that seem to be bread rolls – to the Wolf, but the origins of this practice, the history of the Wolf’s visitations, her menaces, the disappearances or deaths she seems to have been responsible for, are never clearly described for the audience so that we understand the town’s attitude.

 

The fact that all but one of the characters is young is odd because there is clearly history to this Wolf. Where are the older or old townspeople who have experienced more of this history and established the practices to avert the danger?

 

Hour of the Wolf is a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful piece of immersive theatre that favours style over content.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

CAST

Lucy Ansell

Jack Green

Natasha Herbert

Kevin Hofbauer

Keegan Joyce

Brooke Lee

Emily Milledge

Christina O’Neill

Eva Rees

Karl Richmond

Katherine Tonkin

 

CREATIVE TEAM

WRITER – Keziah Warner

DIRECTOR – Matthew Lutton

INTERACTIVE DRAMATURG / David Harris

SET DESIGNER / Anna Cordingley

COSTUME DESIGNER / Zoë Rouse

ASSOCIATE SET DESIGNER /Karine Larché

LIGHTING DESIGNER /Amelia Lever-Davidson

COMPOSITION & SOUND DESIGNER / Jethro Woodward

Othello REVIEW National Theatre 21Oct2023 ****1/2

 THEATRE 

By National Theatre at Home

Free online until 27 Oct 2023 then on National Theatre at Home online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkKYT-WwyMQ&t=0s Youtube until 22 OCT UK time

Then https://www.ntathome.com free until 27 Oct

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****1/2 (4.5)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

Othello National Theatre-Giles Terera, Paul Hilton (image from Youtube)

This National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Othello, directed by Clint Dyer, belts along like a juggernaut. It opens with Iago (Paul Hilton) leading a band of rowdy and angry men - including Roderigo who Iago has whipped into a jealous frenzy - to inform Brabantio, a Venetian senator, of his daughter Desdemona’s (Rosy McEwen) secret marriage to Othello, the Moor (Giles Terera).

 

Here begins the overt racism against Othello when Iago, Othello’s false friend, bellows, “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe”. Iago sets in motion his vile, treacherous vendetta against Othello for overlooking him for promotion.

 

Terera, who playe Aaron Burr in Hamilton, is passionate, muscular and commanding as Othello, charting a path from love, joy and power to physical and mental breakdown as Othello wrestles with Iago’s poisonous slurs against Desdemona.

 

McEwen’s Desdemona is a feisty, modern woman, equal to her new husband in energy, passion and assured opinions, and she challenges him at every turn. This is no shrinking violet.

 

As Iago, Hilton is venomous, arch and insidious as he executes his cunningly veiled plot to destroy Othello’s spirit and his trust in his precious wife, thus compelling the Moor to murder Desdemona in his misplaced jealousy.

 

A steep bank of starkly lit steps at the rear of the stage (Set, Chloe Lamford; Lighting, Jai Morjaria), leaves the forestage uncluttered for the very physical and rapidly paced action. A chorus (called System in the program) of actors, perch, prowl and posture on the steps, echoing Iago’s vitriolic soliloquys and sniping asides and deeply disguised emotions in their choreographed, abstract movement (Lucie Pankhurst).

 

By virtue of this chorus effect, Iago’s emotional and psychological manipulation of Othello is writ large, with his every dark thought resonating behind him through the chorus.

 

This Othello is inventive, imaginative and potent, highlighting the racial hate speech that is not always as evident in other productions. It shows the total physical and psychological breakdown of this powerful man who would rather kill the one he loves than be betrayed by her.

 

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

Giles Terera -Othelllo

Rosy McEwen - Desdemona

Paul Hilton -Iago.

 

Jack Bardoe – Roderigo

Tanya Franks -Emilia,

Martin Marquez - Duke of Venice

Jay Simpson- Brabantio

System & Other roles: Joe Bolland, Rory Fleck Byrne, Kirsty J Curtis, Peter

Eastland, Patrick Elue, Colm Gormley, Gareth Kennerley, Joshua Lacey,

Katie Matsell, Amy Newton, Sabi Perez, Steffan Rizzi, Ryan Whittle.

 

 

Creative Team

Director- Clint Dyer

Set Designer- Chloe Lamford

Costume Designer -Michael Vale

Lighting Designer-Jai Morjaria

Sound Design & Composition -Pete Malkin

Sound Design & Composition Benjamin Grant

Co-Composer --Sola Akingbola

Movement Director- Lucie Pankhurst

Co-Video Designer -Nina Dunn

Co-Video Designer -Gino Ricardo Green

Fight Director-Kev McCurdy

Casting -Alastair Coomer CDG

Casting-Naomi Downham

Dramatherapist-Samantha Adams

Associate Director-Mumba Dodwell

 

 

Kate Herbert Interview about LUNG on -Intermezzo-3MBS- Fri20 Oct2023

Here's a 6-minute interview with me about the upcoming staged reading of my radio play, LUNG, at La Mama HQ, Sat 28 Oct, 2pm. 

Julie Houghton is the interviewer. It aired on Intermezzo at 6.25pm on Fri 20 Oct 2023.

 

Kate Herbert Arts Weekly 3MBS Sat14Oct2023

Listen to my radio review spot today on Arts Weekly, 3MBS, Sat 14 Oct 2023. 

Click link below.

In this show, I review Mamma Mia! The Musical and two Melbourne Fringe Festival show: Zaffé an immersive, Middle Eastern wedding celebration, and The Forever Wave a radio play by Nicole Gluckstern, inspired by Under Milk Wood. Nick Tolhurst, Arts Weekly producer, joins me for a chat and mentions NICA’s end of year Circus production.

 

LUNG Play Reading Sat 28 Oct 2023

Artwork by Joe Calleri

Come to hear/see the Staged Reading of my Radio Play, LUNG.

See booking details on this La Mama website:

LUNG: Radio Play Staged Reading 

There will be a season of LUNG at La Mama from 6 to 19 May, 2024. 

Stand by for more info in the new year.

Description

LUNG is a radio play about a woman awaiting a lung transplant. Anna and her Lungs – her valiant, cheerful and constant companion – live with a serious lung disease. With grim determination and moments of humour, Anna and Lungs contend with the daily struggle to survive on the Waiting List – awaiting the call from the transplant team to inform Anna that they have an organ match for her. There is lightness amongst the dark periods for Anna, Lungs, her partner and mother as Anna faces challenges, setbacks and a parade of respiratory specialists.

The cast of professional actors will create a live soundscape and effects for the radio play.

LUNG was originally commissioned by the Victorian Seniors Festival for Radio Reimagined.

Writer /Director: Kate Herbert

Cast: Nikki Coghill, Carole Patullo, Geoff Wallis, Geraldine Cook, Maureen Andrew    

Artwork: Joe Calleri

The reading will run approximately 45 mins with 30 mins for post-show feedback.

 

Zaffé REVIEW 8 Oct 2023 ***

 THEATRE

Conceived & directed by Stéphanie Ghajar

Melbourne Fringe Festival

At The Tower, Malthouse, until 15 Oct 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 14 Oct 2023. KH

image supplied

Zaffé is a delightfully chaotic celebration of love and joy, as well as the loss and grief experienced by the show’s creators who are all artists part of the Middle Eastern diaspora in Australia.

 

Conceived and directed by Stéphanie Ghajar, Zaffé invites the audience to participate as guests in what appears to be a wedding celebration that takes place is an abandoned building in Beirut, but the wedding table remains unoccupied throughout – an ominous detail.

 

During this immersive theatre work, the audience is seated at tables decorated with flowers and place cards bearing secret messages, visited by cast members for a one-on-one chat, served with pomegranate and soda beverages and entertained with traditional and modern music by the musicians and singers.

image supplied

As the 80-minute show progresses, we meet other performers from the Middle East via long-distance video calls, one of whom teaches us to make tabouli and the other who demands we all stand up while he teaches us to belly dance. The party has now started in earnest; there is dancing, games and stories ,both joyful and tragic, about life in war torn countries and life lived in this new country without loved ones who remain in those countries.

 

Zaffé is an experience like those much earlier Community Theatre performances that celebrated immigrant communities; I’m thinking of Emma: A Celebrazione, everything created by Brunswick Women’s Theatre, and multi-lingual company, Sidetrack, in Sydney in the ‘80s. And for immersive, participatory theatre, you can’t go past Jack Hibberd’s Dimboola that did it decades ago.

 

The intimacy and authenticity of these performers telling their personal stories and the joyous dancing, ululation and partying makes Zaffé a special and memorable event.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

Conceived and directed by Stéphanie Ghajar
Produced by Lara Week and Stéphanie Ghajar
Created by Taj Aldeeb, Jean Bachoura, Rawya El Chab, Camille El Feghali, Stéphanie Ghajar, Ayman Kaake, Julia Landberg, Hadi Moussally, Meena Shamaly, Mia Shouha, and Lara Week
Scenic design by Ayman Kaake and Lara Week
Lighting design by Giovanna Yate Gonzalez
Stage managed by Julia Landberg

 

The Forever Wave REVIEW 8 Oct 2023 ****

RADIO PLAY

Written by Nicole Gluckstern, by Estrella Suerte Productions

Melbourne Fringe Festival

At Digital Melbourne Fringe Festival until 22 Oct 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **** (4)

Tickets here: https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/the-forever-wave/  $10

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 14 October 2023. KH

The Forever Wave radio play by Nicole Gluckstern, is a beautifully wrought, mesmerising journey through a day in a fictional world, some decades in the future, that once was San Francisco before a great wave submerged that fair city – apart from the very tips of its famous hills.

 

Gluckstern’s inspiration was Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, and The Forever Wave is similarly populated by eccentric characters. There is no linear narrative plot, but rather a series of narrated scenes set in this waterlogged city.

 

 In lyrical and imagistic language, the narrators seem to stroll this world, introducing the listener to the remaining residents who eke out an existence by scavenging from the water, providing services and sustenance, or simply living in isolation, in garden sheds or houses in disrepair or on top of tall edifices that are still visible above the waterline, such as Coit Tower.

 

These survivors are from a vast range of cultures, social groups, walks of life, genders and languages. Some deliver food, some deliver babies and attend the sick, while others wait in their isolation for supplies to arrive by boat or to be delivered in buckets attached to fly lines. Others dream of lost loves, some sing or preach. Some live in a house for feral children, or in a community of artists in an abandoned park.

 

 Some mix with other survivors, talking and sharing stories and supplies. Meanwhile, others remain mute, live in isolation. Some do not remember the world before the forever wave while some live in that past before their homes were submerged and their loved ones lost, although those lost souls still live in the thoughts and hearts of the survivors.

 

The storytelling has a gentle rhythm and slow pace that resonates with the slow-moving water and the silence of a non-industrialised world. Narration and dialogue sit against a background of a soundscape that incorporates lapping waters, music, siren songs, and strange and ordinary voices. This new world comes to life painted in word pictures and sounds. It is a beautiful, lovingly conceptualised and created  90-minute experience.

 

If you want to experience of Fringe Festival show and you’d like to do it from home, book a digital ticket for The Forever Wave.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

Written and Directed by Nicole Gluckstern.
Performed by: Roy Conboy, Jerikka Gamboa, Aaliyah Gilliard, Peter Griggs, Nathaniel Justiniano, Julia Letzel, Mia Paschal, Krystle Piamonte, Edna Mira Raia, Patrick Simms, Megan Trout, and Lluis Valls.
Audio engineering by Patrick Simms and sound design by Cliff Caruthers.
Featuring music by Mark Growden and Banda Sin Nombre, and poetry by Roy Conboy.

Estrella Suerte Productions