Tell Her that I Love Her, June 25, 1998

Tell Her that I Love Her by Somebody's Daughter Theatre
Beckett Theatre until July 11, 1998
Sacred Promise opens July 8, 1998
Reviewer: Kate Herbert 
Reviewed round June 25

A child's voice in the audience whispered, "What's dope?" You can bet that the characters and some of the actors in Tell Her That I Love Her wish they had never found out the answer to that question themselves.

Somebody's Daughter Theatre has remounted its 1991 production which was developed, under the direction of Maud Clark, in workshops with women in Fairlea prison. The play incorporates the painfully real stories of those women, some of whom are still in the cast.

Within a loose narrative built around Jessie's (Tracey Forward) release from prison, we hear disturbing stories of childhood sexual abuse, abandonment, adoption, foster homes and drug-fazed mothers.

Live music by Greg Sneddon on upright piano underlines dramatic moments but is essentially used for songs which pepper the scenes. John Beckett's beautiful design is evocative of St.Kilda pier with crisp white sails and rough wooden decking embedded in sand.

The structure may be predictable, the gestural language awkward, the writing sometimes melodramatic and the acting limited, but the intention of this community theatre company is not to compete with a Melbourne Theatre Company production.

Rather, it is to give these women a voice, a channel of communication by which they can shout the stories of their lives from the ramparts. The truth of what they tell us and their commitment to their stories carries the play and gives it a resonance not found in fictional piece.

We see a series of scenes begining with Jessie's first day out and her meeting with her old friends, (Maud Clark, Helen Barnacle, Nicol Morrow) some of whom have have kicked their habits and are struggling to survive, another has overdosed and a third, Tuesday, (Kharen Harper) Jessie's lover, is unable to stop using.

The tragedy is in the relentlessness of Tuesday's decline, the insidiousness of the lure of the drug for Jessie and the ease with which the addict can acquire it on the streets in an underworld which few of us encounter.

The play reaches a poignant and tear-wrenching ending which is heightened by the women tossing roses onto the sand-covered ground as they call the names of their dead friends. The list is distressingly long.

KATE HERBERT

Amy's View, MTC, June 21, 1998

Amy's View by David Hare

MTC at Playhouse until July 18, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed around 20 June 1998

Since the late 60's, British playwright David Hare has written full and layered roles for women. Hare’s roles on stage and screen have been played by Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep.

The central role in Amy's View, directed by Simon Phillips, is, ironically, not Amy but her bohemian actress mother, Esme Allen, She is played with dignity and empathy by the virtuoso Robin Nevin who demonstrates what Hare describes as the great gift of actors to not only do the line but play the interior thought with layered detail.

There are fine cameos from seasoned performers, Patricia Kennedy and Donald Macdonald.

This naturalistic, quite conservative play is staged on a realistic set by Dale Ferguson. In four acts, it maps the life of Esme from 1979 to 1995, beginning in her comfortable middle-class Berkshire living room and ending in the dressing room of a scruffy West End alternative theatre.

The play, astonishingly for an originally political writer such as Hare, makes no overt reference to Thatcher's economic rationalism although it shows Esme as a victim of the financial collapse of the late 80's and the unlimited liability of the wealthy "names" who underwrote Lloyd's of London.

The third and fourth acts are more dramatic and dynamic with the focus on Esme. The first half concentrates on Amy (Vivienne Walshe), Esme's dull, decisive, albeit successful daughter and her deceptively positive relationship with her widowed mother. Esme secretly does not approve of Amy's new partner, Dominic, (Simon Bossell) an angry and rising TV arts critic. In these two acts, the younger actors look uncomfortable and Walshe's acting is often mannered.

At this stage the play is about the backlash of youth against conservative art and the irrelevance of the theatre in a culture obsessed with rapid screen imagery Dominic and Esme stand at opposite ends of the battle field, Esme fighting with her refined and tasteful aloofness and Dominic with his vitriolic and resentful tongue.

After interval the dramatic tension increases and the stakes are raised. It is now about the declining fortunes of a well-heeled and successful actress, the irresponsible actions of major financial organisations and the refusal of the English upper-class to accept that its fortunes have altered irrevocably.

Finally, there is some sense of resolution for Esme and her family after all the betrayal and loss and misunderstanding and love. It is the personal lives of the characters that are important. In the end, the rest is just theatre, not life and death.

KATE HERBERT

Chicago Chicago System 98, NYID, June 20, 1998

Chicago Chicago System 98 by Not Yet It's Difficult

 Athenaeum II until July 4, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed around 19 June 1998

Making an 'old' play relevant is a popular pastime. John Bell dragged Henry IV into soccer-mad England. The Club recently translated easily to our 90's corporate sport era. Such productions generally adhere to original text; not so David Pledger's adaptation of John Romeril's Chicago Chicago with contemporary performance company, NYID.

Not Yet It's Difficult creates challenging, physical theatre that incorporates new media and deconstructs text, attacks social norms, and political systems. Chicago Chicago System 98 is no exception.

The original Romeril play was much longer with 20 scenes. NYID has nipped, tucked and reconstructed the old dame, scaling it down to 75 minutes. The audience, seated initially on rough benches on two sides of an almost empty space was subsequently moved twice more..

Video footage by Paul Hosking is projected onto a scruffy wall. It uses a complex collage of wry imagery filched from television journalism, game shows and CD Rom. Characters are under constant surveillance by hidden cameras. The space remains 'live', unpredictable and constantly questions the relationship of audience to actor and character to state. Romeril wrote "a protest against the American way of life" which is now also an indictment of contemporary Australia.

There is a narrative about a man "who will later be known as 'The Victim' (Greg Stone) who appears to be a politician on the campaign trail. Two mock audience members (Carole Patullo & Tom Considine) voice our own confusion as it is revealed that George may be undergoing rehab and is suffering delusions.

NYID's ironic take on theatre is never far from the surface. Considine's character grapples valiantly with the sub-text of the play. His wife is distracted by worries about their front light being left on. Pledger appears on screen as a pretentious American critic commenting on Romeril, with a portrait of the artist as backdrop.

 Any whiff of self-indulgence is undercut by such cynical representation. There is no program to assist us, which is a relief. Too much contemporary performance relies on notes to make itself comprehensible.

The chorus of performers (Paul Bongiovanni, Danielle Long, Kha Tran Viet, Tamara Saulwick) wear suits and sunglasses and employ the NYID's signature style of crisp, abstracted gesture and choral vocalisation.

The piece requires enormous concentration, as this is no simple narrative with pretty costumes. Although not as cohesive, stylish or expensive as NYID's 1997 Austral-Asian Post Cartoon Sports Edition, it challenges one's view of the theatre space, action, audience and narrative.. That can only be a good thing.

KATE HERBERT

Double Disillusion, June 13, 1998

Double Disillusion By Rod Quantock
Trades Hall from  June 10, 1998
Reviewer: Kate HerbertReviewed around 12 June, 1998
 
Yet again we must declare our bias. Rod Quantock is this reviewer's local god of comedy. He is not, he declares, a political satirist but a "political vitriolist" and the Kennett and Howard governments take a beating - which is how we keep 'em honest, isn't it?

The new show incorporates material from his successful Comedy Festival show, Crown of Thorns but, after interval ("It's a proper show. We have an interval.") Quantock moves on to newer, more recently topical subjects such as tax reform and the GST with asides about One Nation.

Quantock shatters theatrical illusion and conventions in his "mono-media" production. Instead of funky computer graphics, slides, light show or soundscape, he uses blackboard and chalk to illustrate his political points and statistics. He relies on his charismatic, idiosyncratic personality and ironic delivery to captivate an audience.

He ushers, tears tickets, greets audience members by name then feigns a grand entrance after flicking off the fluoros. The stage is a rough platform lit by a couple of coloured lights which he kindly redirected away from the eyes of the front row. "You wouldn't get this in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical."

Quantock's wry, intelligent style and venomous attack on government are balanced with his warmth, generosity and genuine care about the community. he says it gets depressing talking about unemployment, poverty, company tax dodges, lying politicians, labour reform, advertising, foreign ownership, privatisation and the media dynasties of Murdoch and Packer. In short, he analyses "Power": "moral, political and economic.

He pines for the 'good old days" and postulates that for younger listeners, these days will be their good old days. Isn't that depressing? "Our history is written in our biscuits.". Teddy Bears are different since Campbell's took over Arnott's  Their legs no longer fall off when dunked. Economic rationalism has even affected our bikkies.

We are blessed with a local hero such as Quantock who never allows us to become complacent about our social and political environment. Jokes arise from significant (albeit scribbled) statistics about wealth and the GST or from laconic references to the irony of the naming of Bayswater or the silliness of selling electricity from supermarkets.

Quantock is the darling of the press at present, since he declared again that he would stand against Kennett in the seat of Burwood. He promises he won't win. But if the Witch from Ipswich can get a seat, you never know.

Kate Herbert

Henry IV, by Bell Shakespeare, June 11, 1998

Henry IV by William Shakespeare by Bell Shakespeare Company

 at The Merlin Theatre Malthouse until June 27, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed around June 10, 1998

Shakespeare's Henry IV is a study of the quest for power. It reveals the corruption of rulers, the folly of princes, the vanity of power-seekers and the myriad weaknesses of humankind. To paraphrase Falstaff, honour is for the dead.

In the Bell Shakespeare Company production, director, John Bell pares Parts 1 and 2 down to a rollicking 3 hours that happily and anachronistically skip in style from merry mediaeval England to contemporary Bovva-Boy troubled UK.

Henry IV (Richard Piper) replaces his deposed cousin, Richard II, only to be hounded by the ungrateful and hotheaded Hotspur, (Darren Gilshenan) who joins Wales and Scotland in rebellion. Henry's son, Prince Hal (Joel Edgerton) is engaged in revels with his bawdy acquaintance, Falstaff (John Gaden) until Part 2 when he inherits the crown and must give up childish things, which evidently include his 'friends'.

Part One travels at a cracking pace with battles and jokes coming thick and fast. Bell contrasts the pomp of the court with the raucous ribaldry of the inn where Falstaff rules as the clown prince. Clear parallels are drawn between crimes wrought by Henry and the petty thieving of the inn-fellows. Shakespeare did not present a pretty picture of the ruling house for his Queen Elizabeth.

Part Two is slower and theatrically less interesting because all the action has already taken place. Essentially we wait for Henry to die and Hal to discard Falstaff like a used rag.

With fight director, Steve Douglas-Craig , Bell has created colourful battle scenes reminiscent of marauding soccer hooligans. They chant "Harry Percy" and sing choruses of Liverpool's theme song, "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Gaden demonstrates his incomparably stylish delivery as Falstaff, the lovable rogue and the versatile Gilshenan is superbly overwrought as Hotspur and over-sexed as Pistol. Edgerton is capable as Prince Hal but seems more comfortable in the lighter first part.

Bell's fine ensemble, all of whom play multiple roles, revel in the blokiness of the play - even the two women (Carole Skinner, Rebecca Massey) Highlights were Tony Llewellyn-Jones' Welsh rebel, Glendower , Edwin Hodgeman as the raffish old legal eagle, Justice Shallow and cameos from Tony Taylor and the inimitable Duncan Wass.

The production is better-served by the Merlin after years at the cramped Athenaeum. Justin Kurzel's design is reminiscent of a nightclub alley. Its steeply raked stage is surrounded by cyclone wire, scrap metal and rock-and-roll detritus Alan John has created a thumping musical score which underscores dramatic tension.

This is an exciting and innovative production with broad appeal to a modern audience.

Kate Herbert

Keene /Taylor Theatre Project 3, June 2, 1998

By Daniel Keene & Ariette Taylor

Brotherhood of St Laurence Warehouse 97 Brunswick St Fitzroy 

until June 21, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

In this third series of the Keene/Taylor Theatre Project, the three short plays rely not on technology, but fine performances and dialogue to affect us.

 We are drawn closer to the plight of our underclass that has been created by our social and moral vacuum and loss of community.

Director, Ariette Taylor, uses four actors, a dancer and18 extras. Performances are all versatile and detailed. Once again, the pieces are set in the raw and real environment of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence furniture warehouse and staged simply by Taylor with very few theatrical devices. The design uses the actual welfare furniture and Paul Jackson's lighting is simple with bare globes and plastic light fittings

Daniel Keene's playwriting falls into two distinctly different styles: social realism and a more elusive poetic form In this series, both styles are represented.

To Whom It May Concern is a poignant, intimate tale of an ageing and ill father's struggle  (Malcolm Robertson) to solve the future of his 40 year old intellectually disabled son, Leo, (Phil Sumner) after father is gone. It is sweet and tragic with dad trying to be practical and Leo remaining frightened and uncomprehending. These are the disenfranchised of our inner city. Information is power and this father and son have none so they wander alone in the urban wilderness.

Custody is a grittier slice of life about a police cover-up of a death in custody. The young buck cop (Dan Spielman) is responsible but his volatile senior officer (Phil Sumner) engages in an elaborate deception to avoid discovery. It is violent and terrifying in its emotional brutality, overt racism and the characters complete lack of accountability for their actions. It is an indictment of the justice system.

Keene's poetic form appears in What Remains of Dying that is a moving, fraught monologue by Paul English as an unnamed, unspecified man, distressed and despairing when his wife and son disappear. Rows of silent people sit as if in a waiting room. Intermittently, a woman (Meredith Blackburn) who may represent his wife or his fate, dances through the space..

 He speaks directly to us, reading from what could be a police statement. Is it a confession? A breakdown? Is his family alive or dead? This piece the most difficult and remains a little too obscure. But it deals with irrational or unresolved fears and the desperate needs of humanity when it hits rock bottom.

By Kate Herbert

A Cucumber Called Rebecca , May 30, 1998

A Cucumber Called Rebecca by Five Square Metres

at Matteo's until May 31, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

 Reviewed around May29

Restaurateur, Matteo Pignatelli of Matteo's, is known for navigating a creative course in food service and his contribution to the Arts 2000 Dine Out week is no exception.

He wanted to stimulate all five senses of his guests so he called on Five Square metres, a theatrical improvisation group and Cosmo Cosmolino, a musical trio to accompany his stupendous five-course degustation luncheon menu.

While we plunged headlong into gloriously prepared and presented taste sensations cooked by chefs Raymond Khalil and Brendan McQueen, the 'theatrical 'chef, Michel-Pomme Hollandaise (Andrew Morrish) abuses his customers for their lack of style.

He berates his recalcitrant waitress (Sandra Pascuzzi), embarrasses a frumpy solo diner who awaits her tardy blind date (Clair Bartholomew) and keeps one eye on the seductive methods of his sultry wine waiter (Michael Hurwood).

Classical and gypsy strains of violin (Hope Csutoros), Cello (Helen Mountford) and accordion (Judy Gunson) accompany all of this.

The performers are improvising on a loose scenario that takes place, not on a separate stage, but amongst the real diners at table. The dining room drama escalates when the waiter does his sexy, latin dance and smears cream all over the dowdy object of his desire only to lick it off to a Piazzola tango.

Other diners were spattered with stray clots of cream. Matteo wanted us to be touched, to feel close, to be reached but not to feel invaded.

The unexpected guest at our table – a sharp-witted Q.C. with a taste for good wine and naughty stories – provided further entertainment.

The set menu, served with God's gift to wines, was divine. We began with a light sardine and smoked salmon terrine, then delicately flavoured sauteed prawns on a giant gnocchi with pesto, rich squab breast with duck liver, finely-textured saddle of white rabbit with olive and truffle tapinade, all followed by a cherry tartlet and coffee. Oh happy Sunday afternoon!

Matteo hopes to continue his crusade to bring fine art and food together with a possible monthly luncheon. He runs  "The Endless Lunch' annually with a debate on food issues, trivia contest and food and wine from lunch to the wee hours. What an innovative and personable host he is. Eat at Matteo's.

By Kate Herbert

Tear from A Glass Eye, May 27, 1998

Tear from A Glass Eye by Matt Cameron

Playbox Beckett Theatre until June 20, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed around. May 26, 1998

"I'm sorry. I seem to have lost myself," repeats Titus Petra, (Peter Houghton) the lead in Matt Cameron's new play, Tear from a Glass Eye.

He is a sketchy character who is notable for his inability to feel. His portrait is empty. He is invisible.

The text is riddled with metaphor to colour his emotional numbness. Titus 'lives in his head' then discovers he doesn't have one. He cannot tolerate anyone 'getting under his skin' then he loses layers of tissue after severe sunburn. He awaits the impossible tear from a glass eye.

Cameron has experimented with an interesting abstract form that incorporates both the comic and dramatic. Scenes are introduced with repeated projected titles such as "The Mood Swing" and Lament of the Numb" and the ominous "Black Sun, White Sky".

Simon Phillips directs the production seamlessly and stylishly, capturing the dark foreboding of the literal and psychological landscape. It is enhanced by a sterile metallic environment designed by Shaun Gurton, dramatic lighting by David Murray and evocative original music by Ian MacDonald which shifts effortlessly from the whimsical to the forbidding.

The cast of five are a strong ensemble although Houghton seems, at times, a little constrained by the text and the limits of such an unemotional character.

The narrative is non-naturalistic. Both ex-girlfriend Iris (Christen O'Leary) and his parents (Monica Maughan, Bob Hornery) believe Titus has escaped on a plane after he ruthlessly set Iris alight with turpentine and a match. She lives with horrendous burns and somehow intuits that Titus' plane is about to crash and feels responsible.

But he lives, having avoided the disaster by giving his seat - 42A- and boarding pass to a Mystery man who is known now as "Mr. Petra", (Alex Menglet). Eerie disassociated scenes take place in the desert where the amnesiac Titus wanders aimlessly and meets Petra, his alterego.

Cameron's writing has a lovely ironic twist and poetic, rhythmic quality which gives texture to the dialogue. However, the metaphorical narrative is never quite resolved or clarified. The mystery man is not the only "mystery wrapped in a riddle."

Although it begins well, the script, like Titus, loses its way in the second half. Themes of indifference, rejection, abandonment, violence, absolution and punishment remain unclear and under-developed. It lacks the complexity and fully developed characters of Cameron's last play, Footprints on Water.

Kate Herbert

Killer Joe, May 25, 1998

Killer Joe by Tracy Letts

Universal Theatre until June 14, 1998

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed on or around May 24, 1998

Would you kill your mother for the insurance? This family would.

Well, they would pay Killer Joe to do the deed then take the remainder that, we assume, could not be much more than $6,000 each; probably not even enough to buy a new annexe for their caravan home.

US playwright, Tracy Letts, created a seriously dysfunctional Southern White Trash family which director Adrian Butcher has successfully translated to the deep north of Australia. The design by Alan Surgener is a fine replica of a trashy trailer park site.

The production is compelling viewing and the style has a gritty realism that is offset by some very funny dialogue, absurd situations and troubled characters. It is unusual to see such realistic and disturbing violence on stage. Bloody make-up and clever stunt fighting are generally the realm of screen these days.

These are people who live in a moral vacuum, a world in which life is cheap, where you can sell your sister to pay your debts, hire a killer, demean your wife and beat your son.

 Surprisingly, Letts has written sympathetic characters, apart from Killer Joe (Steve Turner) who looks like a bank teller but is  a slimy and heartless misogynist looking for a virgin who is too dim to be manipulative. This he finds in Dottie the simple daughter of the family, played with sensitivity and humour by Kate Mulvany.

The production moves swiftly under Butcher's skilful direction. He has paid great attention to detail of characters and relationships and has accentuated the comic elements that heighten the shock value of the violence.

Performances are uniformly strong and actors work in a broad style. Jim Shaw is hilarious playing the father, Ansel as a gormless idiot. Jona Zeschke, as his son Chris, is credible as the classic loser who lost the farm literally and is now pursued by drug dealers. As his stepmother, Jo Wyndham as Sharla is suitably tarty.  Turner, as Joe, is ominously well mannered and dispassionate.

Letts has written a hit play reflecting his home state of Oklahoma. It has been performed in his new home of Chicago, in Sweden, Norway and London. The Australian production is produced by Diana Bliss and originated in Perth. It is a gripping night of naturalism.

KATE HERBERT 

Lucrezia and Cesare, May 23, 1998

Lucrezia and Cesare by Raimondo Cortese

 Ranters Theatre Theatreworks until June, 1998

Reviewer; Kate Herbert

Reviewed around May 22, 1998

A dubious fascination with sex and violence is the pivot of Raimondo Cortese's early play, Lucrezia and Cesare.

His character, Cesare, describes sex as "a despicable blend of tenderness and brutality." However, the play explores sado-masochism further than this.

This re-worked script, directed by Adriano Cortese and performed by Zoe Burton and David Tredinnick, is the fourth production of the play since 1992. Trapped in a half-lit cell riddled with bugs and vermin and without food or water, these two distant echoes of the mediaeval Borgia siblings rant, seduce and indulge their shared obsessions and sexual fantasies related to murder and suicide. The space is dangerous, their behaviour unpredictable and irrational.

Their relationship is built on repeated rituals in which they spit venom, abuse and curse one another. The opening, taunting monologue is reminiscent of Genet's The Maids who daily role play the demeaning and murder of their Mistress. The incest

Cortese's writing often wittily counterpoints poetic and the conversational language. It is often lurid in its imagery and he is faint-hearted about using the graphic and scatological.

Others of Cortese's works have been more successful: Features of Blown Youth has a raw, contemporary inner urban angst and Petroleum is a poignant study of two women who are strangers. Lucrezia and Cesare lacks the complexity of character development or narrative of these later plays.

The problems arise in the repetitiveness of its action. The two characters seem to go on no journey. Of course, it is cyclic and their days repeat themselves but this provides limited dramatic tension and dynamic range in the characters.

Burton is seductive and sensual as the tigress, Lucrezia. Tredinnick, in his inimitable way, finds a fine balance between the absurd and the terrifying in the Jack-the-Ripper-like Cesare. The design by Jaqueline Everitt complements the interesting abstraction of the direction.

In spite of its wild fantasies, its blatant seductions, its challenge of taboos and attempts to shock us with urination and excrement, the piece remains oddly cool and passionless.

KATE HERBERT

Horizons & Kickin' up the Dust, May 21, 1998

Horizons & Kickin' up the Dust

David Williamson Theatre Swinburne University until May 30, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around May 20, 1998

In recent years, Australia has seen the rise of numerous successful aboriginal artists and companies in the mainstream theatre: Jack Davis, John Harding and Black Swan Theatre in Perth to mention some.

Until recently there has been no formal training in Melbourne for indigenous theatre workers but we are now seeing the first graduates emerging from the Swinburne University TAFE Small Companies and Community Theatre course designed specifically for aboriginal students.

With sponsorship from Next Wave, City of Melbourne and Australia Council, Horizons has been developed, under the direction of Peter Oyston, with continuing and graduate students .It is programmed in a double bill with Kickin' up the Dust by REM, an indigenous company from Wollongong.

The whole evening is memorable for its warmth and truthful storytelling. Horizons draws an interesting parallel between the First Settlement invasion of 1788 and a young aboriginal group who are illegally evicted from their house in 1998 to make way for a car park.

The cast's commitment to their story and the naturalness of their performances are the show's greatest strength. The level of skill is uneven and the structure very loose but the personal nature of the dialogue and the joy and ease with which it is delivered are more important in this context.

There are lively performances from Greg Fryer and Pauline Whyman but the highlight is a riveting monologue by 1996 graduate, Henry Goodwin. He speaks with great passion and eloquence to an aboriginal youth arrested for demonstrating. "We will take one day at a time, change one law at a time, reveal one crime at a time."

Kickin' up the Dust, directed Roger Rynd, features Maureen Watson as herself telling stories as an aboriginal woman coming to terms with her lot. She is supported on stage by Tanya Ellis who chats, prompts and paints, and by musician Mark Atkins who performs an exceptional didgeridoo piece, "Hitchhiker', which is a feast of uncanny sound effects.

This show has the same casual warmth as Horizons as it wanders through Watson's opinions and memories. She makes gentle political statements about women, aboriginals and power that only occasionally become didactic. Watson is hilarious and immediately creates an intimate relationship with the audience .her style is that of a stand-up comic and her gags are smart and funny.

The program of two shows is too long but it is a stimulating and colourful evening.

KATE HERBERT

The Club, MTC, May 18, 1998

The Club by David Williamson, by Melbourne Theatre Comany

 at Playhouse until June 13, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around May 17, 1998

If you can get the right blend of footy, jokes and blokes in the one piece of entertainment, you should have a sure-fire hit in Melbourne. Bruce Myles production of David Williamson's The Club has all the ingredients and a bloody good product.

The script, written in 1978, seems strangely contemporary. Its reference to "more than enough industrial strife out in the community" could be about our wharves. The central issue of buying and selling players has not changed, although the dollars may have increased.

The play may appear to be about football but it essentially exposes the power games played by men in their assumed positions of power: coach, president, vice-president and top player. The horror for the purists lies in the realisation that the real power lies with the general manager with his early rational economics principles and 'pragmatic', albeit secretive, purges of the club.

The play is a rollicking good night out. It is a laugh a minute with a cast including great comic actors such as Max Gillies and John Wood who does some wild, goofy clowning as Jock, a vain old hypocrite who unwittingly smokes hashish.

Williamson's earlier plays were better structured than many later works. The Club has a clever rhythm that keeps characters moving on and off stage in various duos, trios, quartets etc. The play demonstrates the worst of machismo, male bravado and vanity.  Characters shift alliances and status like the wind and Myles maintains the pace in spite of the odd patch of banal dialogue..

Rather than fully-rounded personalities, Williamson writes caricatures This allows recognisable footy-world stereotypes to romp unchecked. Some suffer from such two-dimensionality but generally the satire is effective. Many reflect real players who will be recognised by footy followers: the expensive recruit, the doped-out full forward. Others are just great football anecdotes told by ex-players.

Gary Sweet is both rugged and vulnerable as Laurie, the humourless coach whose job is under threat. In fact everybody is under threat from Gerry, the "oily weasel" manager, played with insidious plausibility by Jeremy Stanford.

Richard Roberts’ design depicts realistic clubrooms, complete with old players' photos and views onto the ground at dusk with clever lighting by Jamieson Lewis.

Anyone who pines for the days of football for football's sake will warm to the play's condemnation of money ruling sport - and you'll also get a laugh.

KATE HERBERT

Australian National Playwrights' Conference 1998 -May 18, 1998

Australian National Playwrights' Conference

 Canberra

 1998 April 12 -26, 1998

 Reviewed on May 8, 1998 by Kate Herbert

It is bitterly disappointing to discover that you have been at the only Australian National Playwrights' Conference that has not had a memorable squabble. 

The April 1998 event in tidy and uninspired Canberra was a very tame affair compared to previous years in which the summing-up sessions, forums and dinners often deteriorated into a bun-fight. One young writer admitted demanding that Stephen Sewell and all the other domineering 'oldies' be pushed off in a boat.

Questions were, however, being raised in corners under cover of darkness and influence of red wine, about the direction the conference is taking. These included queries about a lack of consultation on the plays selected, the appropriateness of programming of incomplete scripts, the wisdom of selections based on regionalism or multiculturalism and the insufficient formal feed-back for the playwrights.

Previous years were more of a showcase for scripts that were in an advanced stage of development show promise or were by major playwrights who were commissioned by main stage companies. Each play is presented at the end of the fortnight as a rehearsed reading having been tweaked and re-written during the process of development with actors, director and a dramaturg to make suggestions for development of text.

Most years, at least one or two plays have subsequently been staged by a major organisation. This year demonstrates a new position that has its own problems.

Nine writers were selected in 1998. This year, several incomplete scripts were to be developed during, rather than before the conference. According to a visiting Australia Council representative, script development is a priority of the Literature Board.

Owen Love, an aboriginal writer (South Australia), came with a pile of research and a good idea about an aboriginal activist in the 60's. 

John Marshall's (Wagga Wagga) The Art of Straying was selected, but he and director Neil Armfield, switched trains on day two to work on a first draft of a wacky little farce.

Jill Shearer, the Brisbane playwright who wrote the very successful Shamada that went to Broadway, brought her prize-winning play Georgia about US painter, Georgia O'Keefe. It was re-worked but only the first act presented. 21 year-old Suneeta Peres da Costa presented a 10-minute radio play and an excerpt from a play in progress. Susan Rogers, a visual artist who, like da Costa, writes in prose-poetic form, arrived with a trilogy and left with a duology.

Sydney-based Australian-Vietnamese writer, Duong Le Quy, was the only writer who came with a completed written script that was rehearsed and presented in full to an audience of peers.

The marvellous and successful exception to the norm was Crying in Public Places, a group of four Melbourne women actor-singers who worked with dramaturg, John Romeril. This was a first for the conference. Group written work has not been part of its brief but so much of our theatre is now developed with ensembles or with an auteur-director, it would be a mistake not to define this as a contemporary play writing method.

Some clandestine queries pertained to the efficiency of play selection. Why have an aboriginal consultant on the board of directors (Noel Tovey) if he is not to be consulted on selection of appropriate indigenous material for development? Why does one need actors for unfinished or unwritten scripts? Would it not be more efficient to provide script development money for a writer to complete a draft before expecting actors to rehearse it? Of course, there will always be changes to text in rehearsal or script workshopping, but actors need to brought in at an advanced stage of writing.

Forums were productive with guests from Australia, Japan, USA and India haggled over writers' issues. But, unlike the Melbourne Playwrights' Conference, no resolution for political action was proposed. There is no formal forum for post-presentation feedback for writers and, although there is a Studio for new writers, there is no provision for experienced writers, other than the core nine, to develop work.

The conference is limited in the number of playwrights it serves. Perhaps more could be made of its national status and activities provided to encourage more middle-upper level writers to attend.

Perhaps playwrights and actors are all too accustomed to bad food and boarding school accommodation. Even this combined with the bland and bureaucratic capital city., were insufficient to stifle the muse. Writers still tapped away till the wee hours and actors kept on performing up until the traditional, last night satirical cabaret. Wish we'd seen a bun-fight though!

By Kate Herbert

Bonehead by Chunky Move, May, 1998

Bonehead by Chunky Move 

Merlin Theatre Malthouse until May 30, 1998

NB This review was published in The Melbourne Times in 1998

You can bet Luke Smiles felt a bit of a bonehead when he tore his metamucil-something ligament four hours before the opening night of Bonehead last Wednesday. But heck, nothing was going to stop Artistic Director Gideon Oberzanek launching Victoria's new contemporary dance company, Chunky Move.

In a courageous and very successful last minute dash, he selected three fragments of Bonehead: Nightmare, Soap and another, and presented an edited highlights show. Oberzanek introduced segments and with Byron Perry and newcomer David Tyndall danced Smiles'  roles.

Chunky Move is known for its innovation and fresh energy but this takes the cake. This season is a reworking of the company's original narrative-based show  but not even the ever-inventive Oberzanek could have anticipated this kind of restructure. It was exciting to see how he solved the problem.

[1]y

His choreography is characteristically rigorous, vigorous and punishing. The distortion and contortion of bodies celebrates the ugly made beautiful. As Jeff Kennett said in his speech to launch the company, the work is always "provocative, innovative, daring and very, very physical." These bods are toned. Have you ever seen women with six-pack stomach muscles?

Nightmare is just that: a scary dream sequence. Women in underwear are tossed about like baggage and abused. A bizarre Frankenfurter creature of the night prowls about draped in fairy lights carrying a lamp perched over his head. Two men wrestle.  This is Punky Move.

†

Soap is a wildly funny comic book routine complete with "Thwack, Blam" foley effects and a remote-controlled knife-weilding Go-Go dancer. The soundscape by Supersonic is a knock-out. The last piece contains a graphic, often violent struggle between a man and woman to an almost pop sound track. This is Funky Move.

It was a treat to see this bare bones Bonehead. I'm looking forward to more.

KATE HERBERT 

---

Who's Afraid of the Working Class? May 1, 1998

Who's Afraid of the Working Class? written by Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves, Patricia Cornelius

Melbourne Workers' Theatre

Trades Hall Theatre until May 23, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around April 30, 1998

In an era when our definition of 'neighbours' is a television soap, a play about human isolation, self-absorption and the loss of community support is a tragic indictment of our system. The disintegration of the family and the 'every man for himself' behaviour has all but decimated our sense of community.

Who's Afraid of the Working Class? is a grim portrayal of contemporary urban life. It comprises a collage of loosely connected stories by four commissioned writers (Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves, Patricia Cornelius) for Melbourne Workers' Theatre.

Of the 18 characters only four have jobs: two police, one prostitute and an insurance salesman. It might better be called Who's Afraid of the Workless Class?

MWT has generally developed light, funny, brazen shows that celebrate adversity with music and satire. In this moving and provocative production, there are laughs and music but the writers work on common themes about the disenfranchised underclass created by insensitive government policies and shrinking job market

We witness a desperate family who steal from each other and have secret lives.(Money: Cornelius) Two child runaways, whose mother has endangered their lives in order to keep her abusive boyfriend feature (Trash: Bovell). Two teenage of migrant families disguise themselves as private school girls to shoplift glitzy dresses. (Dreamtown: Reeves)

The most disturbing and potentially offensive characters are from Tsiolkas, a novelist now writing for theatre. The show opens with another grotesque monologue by a youth who has obsessive sexual fantasies about Jeff Kennett. (Bruce Morgan) Tsiolkas defies political correctness, making an aboriginal salesman the racist. (Glen Shea)

The writing is rich, provocative and often poignant and the splendid ensemble plunge into the emotional pond with commitment. As Reeves' shoplifters Daniela Farinacci, Maria Theodorakis are hilarious. As Bovell's runaways Farinacci and Morgan are a sweet and doomed pair of step-siblings yearning for a loving home.

Theodorakis, as the fraught mother, provides a bitter-sweet monologue about caring for a dying man. A cameo highlight was David Adamson as Reeves' pathological radio caller.

Director, Julian Meyrick has skilfully interwoven 21/2 hours of engrossing material with stylish cross-overs and swift scene changes. To suggest some editing would be picky. The whole is enhanced by discreet  lighting (Paul Jackson), simple design (Greg Clarke) and evocative music  by Irene Vela played by double bassist and cellist. This really is a fine and challenging work from the working class.

KATE HERBERT

Miracles by Tobsha Learner, April 29, 1998

Miracles by Tobsha Learner

Playbox until May 2, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around April 28, 1998

We have no Aesop but we live in a time that cries out for contemporary fables. We must leave it to our novelists, filmmakers and playwrights. Such is the style of Tobsha Learner's latest play, Miracles.

Learner draws her characters with broad comic strokes as stereotypes. Trinity Supermarket, a Flemington family business, is stocked with as colourful a range of people as the goods going out of date on its shelves. Ida (Heather Bolton) is a brassy shop-owner whose husband Clive (Greg Stone) is a dodgy small-time crook and gambler. Sparks (Sophie Lee) is a tacky, loud-mouthed checkout chick.

The feature act is the virtuously named Immaculata (Laura Lattuada). She has worked the cash register for 20 years without complaint about her oppressive Italian father, Irish priest, Aussie bosses or Catholic God who seems to have abandoned her.

This is Immaculata's journey from excruciatingly shy, illiterate cripple to star status as a miracle worker. She has a visitation from God (or Mary) who appears to her in a cash register and gives her healing powers. Lattuada plays her with great warmth and humour without stepping into the dangerous territory of mocking a 'cripple'.

Kate Cherry, who was responsible for the recent stylish production of Woman at the Window for MTC, has directed Miracles with a deft hand. Scenes and characters move swiftly, the comedy is broad and clown-like and, in the second half when Immaculata's sainthood becomes martyrdom, the shift of gear is effective.

Learner is a good gag writer; consider SNAG and Mistress. She makes the most of the jokes in Miracles. There is little subtlety in the dialogue or narrative. This is addressed in the second half to some extent when the dialogue necessarily becomes more introspective as Immaculata faces stardom, her demons and incarceration. .

With new work there is always the need for editing or re-writing during rehearsal. But with the writer not only out of the rehearsal room, but out of the country (Learner lives in in LA), it may be impossible.

The Torres Strait Islander narrator (Maryanne Sam) who observes Immaculata's journey and draws attention to the relationship between indigenous spirituality and Christian faith, seems extraneous. The sub- plot about the policeman and his junkie sister, serves the narrative little.

The play could be a fast, funny and perhaps poignant one-acter in its next life but it is an entertaining piece simply exploring a woman's journey of self discovery.

KATE HERBERT

She'll Be Right by Lynda Gibson, April 12, 1998

She'll Be Right Lynda Gibson

Melbourne Town Hall until April 26, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around April 11, 1998

Lynda Gibson is a yard of stump water. Part of her comedy is built around her leggy, awkward physique and quirky wriggling. Either that, or her wacko face-pulling.

The rest of her new solo show, She'll Be Right, is an idiosyncratic telling of Australian history through a melange of stories about Oz politics, pop music and her life in the theatre.

She was born in 1956. "Land of the Long White Liberal...John Howard's Dreamtime." In the first minute we know she is unhappy with our conservative government but she is not about to lose any blue ribbon lib voters by getting too serious.

Her material has broad appeal and her manner is charming and cheerful. She declares she has never been able to fight for her rights and craves some larrikin chutzbah. However, she has a disarmingly warm but confronting style.

She questions Menzies Order of the Thistle. "Is there an order of the cooch grass?" She praises Holt's referendum on the Aboriginal vote and says McMahon looked like a koala.

In her youth she failed sewing, over-acted in drama class, couldn't understand her film director and was booted from a TV commercial because of a pimple. She wore an afro, a poncho, Amco V-knees and looked like "a long, thin, white Chuppa-Chup on legs."

The skill in this satirical show is in Gibson's ability to sharpen her political point then break the tension with a gearshift into pop music, bad hippy dancing or schoolyard remniscences.

Her commentary on Australian music since the 60's is very funny. We travelled in a short period from Slim Dusty's "A Pub with No Beer" to sexy old rock legend, J O'K, The Wild One and then back to Englishman Charlie Drake's racist, blackface rendition of "My Boomerang won't come back."

We watched Denise Drysdale dancing in Happening 70 then turned to Countdown for inspiration. For culture we watched Skippy and Homicide while some bizarre real murders went unsolved in South Australia. We valued Kelvinators, Axminster, venetians and veneer.

Her running personal tale of woe is her slow journey to acting fame. For a while she realised she 'had tickets on herself", a dire sin in our tall-poppy-lopping culture. But she continued to practise her Oscar acceptance speech and, in the show, you'll hear it. Only an hilarious dinkum Aussie like Lynda (named after the electric blanket) could sell it.

KATE HERBERT

Rod Quantock, Crown Of Thorns, April 12, 1998

Rod Quantock, Crown Of Thorns

 Melbourne Town Hall until April 26, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around April 11, 1998

It's already public knowledge: Rod Quantock is my comedy hero. He is smart, informed, articulate - and seriously FUNNY. What makes him so different from everybody else is his overtly political agenda.

His material slaps both state and federal governments and, although he is blatantly critical of Kennett and Howard, he takes swipes at naughty Labour Party PMs too. Crown of Thorns follows in the footsteps of his two shows from 1997: Sunset Boulevard and Merry Christmas Jesus.

In the former he deconstructed the secret machinations of our economy, in the latter he launched Kennett's plan to promote Jesus' Second Coming as part of Victoria's "event-led recovery." Both of these issues rear their ugly heads in Crown of Thorns.

 The title resonates with criticism of Crown Casino bosses although he avoids direct references except for a smirking, "Haven't the last two weeks been fun?"

It is his easy manner and relaxed delivery that lull us into a false sense of comfort. Quantock forces the audience to look at hard questions: unemployment, poverty, economic rationalism, media monopolies, corruption, WIK, wharfies and - at the base of all of these - Power.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely and Quantock is not letting any villainous social cockroach slide under the carpet. He is courageous, even suicidal, in his frontal attack on Kennett who is not known for his tolerance of criticism.

The show is filled with witty and laconic yarns. He wanders off on satirical detours about doing gigs for a Plants Plus convention or at a Ringwood nightclub where the only thing he has in common with the 18 year-old audience is breathing. He reminisces about the days of the Vietnam draft when he was not yet a real radical.

But even what appear to be his most innocuous diversions pertain to our political and social environment. This comic has a clear moral and political philosophy. "Whenever I say 'democracy' people get nostalgic." .He bemoans Arnotts’ being sold to US concerns  "The history of Australia is written in its biscuits."  He declares there are advantages in being poor. "You never have to worry about what to wear to the opera."

Quantock never lets us forget what we have lost since privatisation of public utilities, bulldozing of our heritage, selling of our assets etc. etc. Lest we forget.

KATE HERBERT

Jenny Eclair, April 4, 1998

Jenny Eclair

Supper Room Melbourne Town Hall until April 26, 1998

Melbourne International Comedy Festival 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around. April 3, 1998

If you have delicate sensibilities, or pride yourself on maintaining the high moral ground, then Jenny Eclair (or "that cake woman" as she is now known) is not for you. Rude words and naughty bits are her forte.

Eclair is a brassy blonde. There's absolutely nothing prissy prim and natural about this bouffant. "I'm blonde by choice". Her rapid wicked unapologetic Northern England babble has something of Ben Elton's style while her bizarre, perpetual motion physicality conjures up some insane alternative Playschool host.

She gabbles hilariously and provocatively about 'shagging', body parts, misspent youth, ageing ungracefully, the gravitational damage of childbearing and the 'shagless' long-term relationship.

Eclair on age: "A personality is the last refuge of a woman on the decline". On make-up: "I love the way it makes my face look ten years younger than my neck." On lasting relationships: "The secret is lies and deceit." On children: "You're not allowed to slap 'em, so give 'em a crap haircut." On going to the country: "I feel nervous if I can't see a sock shop out the corner of me eye."

Of course, these are only her printable quotes. Eclair is a "blue" comic. With a great deal more style and wit, she has keyed into an arena that was reserved for crass male comics. You know, the ones who do sex and fart jokes of which we have seen far to many behaving as if they are doing some male liberation routine. Remember that awful yobbo Brit TV footy comic, Frank Skinner last year?

Eclair is honest, never apologises for anything except a routine she thinks isn't funny enough. She simultaneously appals and entertains, astonishes and outrages the audience. It seems most of her staunchest critics are men who cannot deal with her raw sexual honesty. "I've been described as a 'hard-faced cow," she says.

She is vulgar but achingly funny. Her whippet-thin body and raspy smoker's voice are reminiscent of a bar girl in an episode of "The Bill". She alternately props her bones in a chair or prowls about the stage, leaning over the front rows with a leering red mouth and warm grin.

If you're up for some totally trashy and clever content, see the cake woman.

KATE HERBERT