Your Name Means Dream REVIEW 31 Oct 2024 *****

THEATRE

 

 Written by José Rivera, by Red Stitch Theatre

At  Red Stitch until 24 Nov 2024

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***** (5)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly, 3MBS on Sat 2 Nov 2024. KH

Lucy Ansell, Caroline Lee - Your Name Means Dream - image James Reiser

 

Your Name Means Dream is that rare thing in theatre: a production in which all the parts create a cohesive, compelling and totally creatively successful and satisfying whole.

 

US playwright José Rivera’s script is complex, intelligent, witty and disturbing; Kat Henry’s direction is meticulous and seamless; the two performers, Caroline Lee and Lucy Ansell, make a perfect duo, with impeccable timing, perfect balance, sensitivity and exceptional chemistry.

 

Lee plays Aislin, a stroppy, hard-drinking, ailing 65-year-old. She fully inhabits Aislin and is completely credible as this belligerent, mouthy, determined, resentful and desperately lonely woman. Her son, Roberto, rarely sees or speaks to her since her husband’s death years earlier and she feels abandoned and guilty.

 

In order to keep his distance, Roberto has organised the ideal carer for his mother: Stacy (Ansell) is efficient, skilful, obliging and a perfect physical specimen. She is also a robot!

 

Ansell makes this non-human creature a living, learning, feeling, almost-human being. It is remarkable to watch the complexity and easy athleticism of Ansell’s physicality, and her total immersion in Stacy’s character, her initially childlike responses, seemingly emotional reactions and her commitment to learning to be human-like and to be the best possible carer for Aislin.

 

Rivera’s play is set in one room in an apartment in the East Village of Manhattan. In this enclosed and isolated space, the powerful relationship between Aislin and Stacy develops in waves, shifting from combative and resistant, through needy and independent, to warm and familial and finally into what seems to be love.

 

Henry’s production is swift-moving, and her direction is imaginative and richly layered, exploring and exposing the nuances of the two characters and their burgeoning relationship. Your Name Means Dream is as much about the inhumanity of society and the way it treats its ageing population as it is about the potential humanity and emotionality in the inhuman.

 

This may be the future for aged care, or even for social networks, friendships and families.

 

See this!

 

By Kate Herbert.

 

Cast

Caroline Lee

Lucy Ansell

 

Creative Team

Writer: José Rivera
Director: Kat Henry
Set & Costume Design: Hahnie Goldfinch

Lighting Design: Amelia Lever-Davidson

Assist. Set/Costume Design: Louisa Fitzgerald

Stage Manager: Finn McLeish.

 

Caroline Lee - Your Name Means Dream - image James Reiser

 

Golden Blood REVIEW MTC 30 Oct 2024 **1/2

 THEATRE

Written by Merlynn Tong, by Melbourne Theatre Company

At  Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne until 30 Nov 2024

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2 (2.5)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 2 Nov 2024. KH

Golden Blood.- Merlynnn Tong, Charles Wu- Image Credit Prudence Upton

 

 

 

 

Golden Blood is a two-hander written by Merlynn Tong and performed by Tong with Charles Wu.

 

In a series of episodes, the play tracks a Singaporean girl and her older brother as they renegotiate their relationship after the death of their neglectful, alcoholic mother which leaves them orphaned.

 

The Girl believes her mother left her a significant inheritance, but her brother pressures her into accepting him as her guardian, and he remains her guardian until her 21st birthday.

 

The rituals of traditional Chinese funerals are dotted throughout the play: burning cash and offering gold. Bad omens and unlucky actions or words are woven into the narrative.

 

The play does not glamorise their lives or their culture. These are not the privileged middle class of Singapore. The brother and sister, known only as Girl and Boy, are born of criminals and live the life.

 

The Boy is a criminal working for a crime gang and living a tough life trying to make millions out of lame projects and getting beaten for every failure.

 

Tong’s script has some funny exchanges and some compelling ideas and imagery. However, the dialogue and story are repetitive and laboured in this 100-minute play. It could be done in 30 to 45 minutes.

 

Wu’s performance is animated and charged with anxiety and bravado of a young man living on the edge of a danger with a criminal gang. He manages to give the character more layers than the script provides and bring an edge of danger to the stage when he sees and hears his mother’s ghostly presence.

 

Tong’s performance is more convincing in the latter part of the play when Girl is older and wiser and develops into a wily, 21-year-old businesswoman. However, Tong’s characterisation lacks range and nuance as the young, teenage Girl.

 

Director, Melissa Leong, sets the production on an almost empty stage and focuses on the rapid interactions between the pair. She uses evocative lighting (Fausto Brusamolino) and atmospheric sound (Rainbow Chan) to establish the chaotic, drug-fuelled, anxiety-driven lifestyle of this odd couple of siblings.

 

Golden Blood has potential as a play but the script needs significantly more development.

 

By: Kate Herbert.

 

Cast

Merlynn Tong – Girl

Charles Wu – Boy

 

Creative Team

Melissa Leong – Director

Set & Costume Designer - Michael Hankin
Lighting Designer - Fausto Brusamolino
Composer & Sound Designer - Rainbow Chan
Dramaturg - Jennifer Medway
Effects Consultant - Emily Parsons-Lord

Stage Manager - Jennifer Jackson
Assistant Stage Manager - Liz Bird.

Golden Blood- Charles Wu- Image Credit Prudence Upton

Made in China 2.0 2023 REVIEW (NB: Re-posted review from 2023)

NB: This is a review of the production from 2023 season. 

The 2024 season in At Arts Centre Melbourne from 6 to 16 Nov 2024.

(I may be able to mention it on Arts Weekly on 2 Nov or 16 Nov 2024).

THEATRE

Written, co-directed and performed by Wang Chong

Malthouse Theatre

At Beckett Theatre, Malthouse, Southbank until 19 March 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****
This is not a review in the traditional sense, although I've given the production stars.

This print comment will be published only on this blog. . KH

 

Wang Chong_Made in China 2.0_credit Tamarah Scott

 Made in China 2.0 is the second production presented in Australia by Wang Chong, a Chinese theatre director, writer and performer. The first was Little Emperors in 2017, also at the Malthouse, written by Chong with Lachlan Philpott.

In this unusual, solo performance, co-directed by Emma Valente, Chong begins with a casual, direct address to the audience that reveals him to be, a charming, ebullient performer as he talks engagingly about his development as a theatre artist and his life in art. 

What follows is a sometimes surprising, often harrowing but always enlightening representation of his risk-taking theatre style and his personal views on art and life.

Chong is magnetic and his theatrical style is challenging and will leave you with plenty to think and talk about on the trip home - and perhaps for days after.

I am unable to discuss the specifics of this production, so this is not a review as such. You’ll have to see Chong's charismatic performance to judge it for yourself.

By Kate Herbert

 Credits

Wang Chong – writer performer, co-director

Emma Valente -co-director, production designer

Emma Lockhart Wilson – co-designer

Wang Chong_Made in China 2.0_credit Tamarah Scott