Keene/Taylor Theatre Project, Season 11, April 2000

The Funniest Man in the World 
Keene/Taylor Theatre Project, Season 11
Grant Street Theatre, April  until May 13, 2000
Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Watching Daniel Keene's  short plays is like peeking into people's underwear drawers. They are intensely personal and we feel like intruders.

In Season 11 of the Keene/ Taylor Theatre Project, we crawl through the windows into five lives. We witness the despair and anguish, the fantasies and poetry of these marginalised characters.

Director, Ariette Taylor,  has once again skilfully woven together a program of five discrete plays. Characters stroll or scuttle through each other's stories. The performance style and design (Adrienne Chisholm) is consistent throughout and Taylor colours the text with choreographic detail. Atmosphere is enhanced by sound (David Chesworth) and lighting. (Daniel Zika)

The very stylised vivid red costumes of "A Three-Legged Chair" shift an otherwise earthy dialogue into a peculiarly abstract world. Three homeless men (Lewis Fiander, Marco Chiappi, Stewart Morritt) called Tom , Dick and Harry, bicker, struggle and admire each other with intermittent references to Shakespeare.

The Funniest Man in the World is a reference to master clown, Buster Keaton. This piece is a lyrical blend of exceptional narration by the honey-toned Helen Morse, with Jonathan Taylor's silent movie solitary clown and his quirky habits.  Taylor's mimetic, balletic movement is delightful as he scampers about like a nervous mouse. This piece is sweet and charming.

We shift tempo to a rougher, more dangerous episode of street life in Duet. (Chiappi, Morritt). Two men living in a drainpipe, share not only space but stories and even a cheap whore. They drive each other to distraction and eventually to violence.

The mildest play features Morse as a fragile and vulnerable mother whose 15 year-old daughter returns to her after many years in foster care. Chloe Armstrong is sweet and credible as the daughter trying to connect with the stranger who is her mother.

Two Shanks is a potent piece of self-narration with Lewis Fiander as a rambling old geezer who finds an infant on a dust heap. This is a compelling small tale which has epic resonances. It speaks of ancient archetypes in its journey from birth to ritual death and funeral pyres.

This season is a strong mixture of the poetic and the grisly which has a tender heart.

by Kate Herbert

Portrait of Dora, April 30, 2000

by Hélène Cixous at La Mama, April 30 until May 14, 2000

Bookings: 9347 6142

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The directorial works of Laurence Strangio are always a treat at La Mama. He takes complex, poetic texts, generally by French women, and stages them in abstract, deceptively simple form.

After tackling pieces by Marguerite Duras and recently Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, Strangio stages Portrait of Dora. This is a chamber piece by Hélène Cixous, a French theorist and playwright who wrote for Ariane Mnouchkine's  Companie Theatre du Soleil.

Strangio casts carefully, employing intelligent actors who penetrate the dense, psycho-analytical text of Cixous. This intensely intellectual play is based on Dora, an 18 year old "hysteric" treated by Sigmund Freud during 1899. It focuses on Dora's relationships with Freud, (Richard Bligh) her father (Bruce Kerr ) and Mr. and Mrs. K (Peter Finlay, Natasha Herbert), Dora's neighbours in Vienna.

Dora (Caroline Lee) reveals her dreams, fears and desires to Freud until she announces, on the first day of the 20^th century, that she will not return.

But can we believe her stories? She accuses Mr. K of attempting to seduce her by a lake on a family holiday. She says her father has a long-standing affair with the glamorous Mr. K, that she herself idolises Mrs. K but resents the affair.

Strangio avoids naturalism like the plague, as does Cixous. He seats all five characters around a large metallic table. They slip in and out of light and in and out of each other's realities. Episodes, dreams, and time periods dissolve and merge. It is enhanced by wonderful lighting (Paul Jackson) and soundscape (Roger Alsop).

 There is a sense of a mystery unfolding as Dora reveals snippets of her psyche through memories and dreams. There is a mesmerising atmosphere that is Strangio's trademark although the piece is peculiarly emotionally unengaging.

In a contemporary context, we must question Freud's capacity to understand this young woman. He feels obliged to lay his patterns of psycho-analysis over her complex and muddy neurosis.

The performances are excellent. Lee, manages to play the complexity of Dora, who is fragile, mean-mouthed, manipulative and often dislikeable child-woman. Bligh captures the quality of outsider/voyeur in Freud and Kerr portrays the dignity of Dora's father. Finlay uses his haunting voice and impeccable timing to great effect and Herbert is luminous and ethereal as Mrs. K.

But please, stop smoking on stage. It is distressing in an unventilated environment.

by Kate Herbert

Bob Downe- Whiter! Brighter! April 4, 2000

By Bob Downe (Mark Trevorrow)

at The Capitol Theatre, April 9 to 23, 2000

Bookings: Ticketmaster 136 100

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The glare from Bob Downe's whiter than white teeth is enough to wake the dead. So is the reflected light from his lime green crimplene.

Bob Downe has yet another hit show in Whiter! Brighter! which is part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. His inimitable style uses a Magimix blend of toothy TV show host, schmalzy cabaret acts, excruciating jazz dance routines and painfully recognisable 70's disco tunes including "Love is in the Air" and "I Love the Night Life."

His parody is always dangerously close to the edge of reality that makes it impossible to take a regular club act seriously ever again. Go into any Gold Coast club or casino cabaret room and you will see even the audience is wearing cheap lamè and a bad toupeè.

His act is impeccable, right down to the details of Bob's fictionalised character and personal life story.  He is cheap, camp, crass, suburban and conceited: Mr. Amateur talent show from Murwillumbah makes good.

The Bob Downe character becomes more of a male Edna Everage as years pass. His stories of the family caravan park with mum, Ida Downe, and his slatternly, drunken Auntie Bev, are hilarious. Bob is definitely white boy trailer trash of the first order.

Bob Downe, AKA Mark Trevorrow, moves almost as well as his Apple Fresh Dancers (Ashley Evans, Amber Field) for whom he cunningly enlisted jazz dance legend, Tony Bartuccio as choreographer. The routines makes the 1970's Channel Nine dancers look classy.

The show takes place in the striking Burleigh Griffin Capitol Theatre which, quips Bob, "was designed by Frank Burleigh Thring." Bob's material, which is cleverly tailored for a Melbourne audience, ranges from the disaster of Swanston Walk to Chadstone, Barbra Streisand and the Sydney Olympics.

The songs get tackier and the dances cheesier while the costumes changes continue with cuffed trousers, fringed flares and loud shirts in a fiesta of synthetics. (costumes by Rose Chong and Ida Downe)

It is much more fun to be close to Bob. The back block in the Capitol is too far away from the stage to get the full glare of Bob's rolling eyes, his insincere grin and naughty asides. This is masterly parody.

by Kate Herbert f

Wil Anderson, Wilionnaire? April 5, 2000

TWO REVIEWS:

Who Wants to be a Wilionaire? by Wil Anderson  at Victoria Hotel until April 23, 2000

Melbourne International Comedy Festival 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

How many more plays on Wil Anderson's name are still to come? Lost in the Wil-derness; Ready, Wil-ing and Able; Wil-come to my Nightmare. This could be interminable.

Fortunately, he is funny as well as being committed to idiotic puns on his name. Wil lopes on stage wearing a pin-striped jacket and a deceptive grin covering his cynical soul. He wears trousers too.

The material is less acerbic and political than the previous show, Terra Wilius. (pun!) He shoots barbed arrows at Eddie Maguire, who is, admittedly, an easy target, then slams the TV show, Pop Stars.

He gets mileage out of audience members' jobs. He improvised around a woman who was weary of being an air traffic controller, a young table tennis coach. Even this writer for the Herald-Sun was fair game. Foolish man, Wil!

He cleverly reincorporates gags and is hilarious when improvising on a casual audience remark. He takes a leap into interesting and more challenging areas (a novelty with most stand-up comics) when he questions the rationality of a GST on tampons or the political correctness of the Windsor Smith shoe poster.

With such a smart comedian, there is plenty more scope for this area to be developed.

Wil Anderson is charming but somehow he seems hampered by his very charm. If he stopped wanting to be cute and lovable, (No offence Wil) he could be a biting social commentator. Let's hope his breakfast radio gig does not make him just like all the other comics.

By Kate Herbert

Billy Possible, April 2. 2000

by Neil Cole La Mama at Courthouse until April 15, 2000

Melbourne International Comedy Festival 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Billy Possible is a funny play from another lefty - Neil Cole, ex-Labour politician. It is a comic exposè of the machinations of Labour Party branch politics during an election.

 Billy, the dummy candidate, is played with expert comic timing and delivery by Ross Williams who has recently made a long-awaited return to stage from television.

The dialogue is fast-moving and witty, with jibes at all sides of politics. Everybody is corrupt, self-serving and human.

 Joy Mitchell's direction is swift, maintaining the comic drive. The acting is uneven but Abbe Holmes as the abrasive Joanna is delightful and Margot Knightis credible as the feminist candidate.

by Kate Herbert

Utopia Rod Quantock, April 2, 2000

At Assembly Rooms, Collins Street until April 22, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Rod Quantock performs his new show, Utopia, in the superbly designed Scots Church Assembly Rooms in Collins Street. The church contract demands that anything performed there must be "right, noble, pure and admirable" in intent.

Of course, it also demands that it not condone immorality or religions other than Christianity. Quantock gets a good five minutes of comedy out of the contract itself without demeaning its writers. We draw our own conclusions.

He is renowned for his low-tech shows which feature a blackboard and chalk. This time the blackboard, an escapee from the Trades Hall, is on stage but unused. Rod squeezes another five minutes out of the chalk scrawl on it: "Free Timor Campaign."

His delivery is so easy and effortless that it is difficult to discern when he is improvising. The gags come thick and fast. Content which superficially seems to be innocuous and uncontroversial, tilts imperceptibly into incisive socio-political commentary. Even the demise of chalk is a vehicle for social observation.

No sacred cows are exempt from his sharp tongue and witty repartee. He paces the stage in his inimitable ungainly gait and trashy, multi-coloured shirt, pointing out to his predominantly left-wing audience the irony of Jeff Kennett running an institute for depression.

He slaps Peter Reith, John Howard, Bronwyn Bishop, all of the newspaper magnates, the Sydney Olympics, the internet, the millennium celebrations, genetic manipulation, virtual reality, E-tag and Macdonalds.

Essentially, the message is that the "bloated, evil, capitalist monster invades our homes" in myriad ways but Rod's material never seems vicious or fanatical. It is always funny, intelligent and socially responsible - whichever side of the political fence one sits. This show is my first in the Comedy Festival and probably will be my favourite.

By Kate Herbert

The Sound of Music, March 25, 2000

 Music and lyrics by Rodgers & Hammerstein, book by Lindsay & Crouse

 at Princess Theatre from March 25, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

For 40 years, The Sound of Music has been breaking box office records. This Australian remount of a new Broadway production, starring Lisa McCune, will be no exception.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein songs are inspired, despite Oscar being seriously ill when he wrote the last song, Edelweiss.  Will we ever again see the likes of such musical collaborations ?

It is almost impossible not to sing along with the title song, with the nuns solving "a problem like Maria" or the children singing "a few of my favourite things." R and H created the hilariously silly yodelling song, "Lonely Goatherd", and the youthful love song, "Sixteen going on Seventeen."

Howard Lindsay  and Russel Crouse,  who wrote the book, strike a delicate balance between humour and drama. They incorporate into the simplicity of the alpine life of the Von Trapp family and the nuns of the Abbey, the insidious march of Nazism into peaceful and fun-loving Austria.

The moment three enormous red flags, emblazoned with swastikas, drop from the roof and spotlights search the auditorium, the horror or Nazism is palpable.

My musical highlight was always "Climb Every Mountain". International opera singer, Eilene Hannan as Mother Abbess, with her rich, mellow voice, gives it the poignancy, dignity and drama it demands.

Lisa McCune is delightful as the ebullient Maria and the crowd applauded like seals her every move. Her voice is light with a good upper register but it is her charming persona which carries the role.

The fine cast includes John Waters as the stoic Captain, musical theatre celebrity, Anne Wood  as lovelorn Frau Schraeder, June Salter  as Frau Schmidt and ever-popular Bert Newton as the cheeky Max Detweiler.

The children charmed the pants off the audience with their fresh unaffected naivete as they learn to sing "doe, a deer or in the sweet "So Long, Farewell" But it is the nuns' chorus which wins the award for vocal beauty.

The orchestra, under Peter Casey, is impeccable and direction by American Susan H Schulman, balances comedy and drama perfectly and is complemented by Michael Litchefeld's  choreography. Heidi Ettinger's set captures the majesty of Salzburg, the Abbey and home and its alps which lower over the entire story.

See the show, hire the movie, buy the music - then sing it around the piano all night.

by Kate Herbert

Butcher, March 22, 2000

By Matthew Crosby 

Actors' Furniture Group at Theatreworks until April 1, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Is it possible that a newborn infant bears the taint of original sin? Ar humans innately evil? Mat Crosby's play, Butcher,  is an abstract study of guilt and innocence, love and death, good and not-so-good.

Actors' Furniture Group works in the style of Tadashi Suzuki, a Japanese director with whom most of the company have studied either here or in Japan.

The method is to make both physical and vocal demands on actors and to focus on the internal "animal energy" rather than the intellectual exterior.

 There is, though, a surprising dichotomy in the play. The text is often confusing and intellectually demanding. There is little action on stage and limited dynamic or emotional range. The animal energy is still trapped in its cage at this stage.

The narrative involves Milos (Dean Linguey), a butcher, and his wife, Maeve (Lynne Santos) who run a butcher's shop during a war, probably somewhere in Europe in World War Two.

Maeve and Milos tilt in and out of vaudevillian comedy.

The story is linear but abstract with interjections from the devil (Glynis Angell)  and a Stage Manager (Ben Rogan). The SM is testing the thesis that humans are innately evil.

Crosby's text is poetic, often rich but also obscure in meaning. He incorporates purposely unfunny jokes. Life is comic-tragic. Music by Robin Cuming is evocative and well placed. The show could benefit from even more. A single song seemed too little.

The sparse set is barely lit. Actors emerge in slow motion from dark recesses of the cavernous space of Theatreworks.or appear in torchlight.

This is a confusing production that could benefit from a hefty edit. It could make a tight one hour play.

by Kate Herbert

Face to Face, March 1, 2000

by David Williamson

Playbox at Merlin Theatre until March 18, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

If you have never participated in a "facilitated conflict resolution workshop", David Williamson's new play, Face to Face, may be a challenge and a surprise.

Ten people sit in a circle. One is the "facilitator". He is probably a psychologist. The other nine are all party to a problem. They may be victims or perpetrators. The conflict may be a workplace issue about harassment or pay claims. Or it may be a crime.

Whatever the issue to be resolved, the person on the outside, the convenor, needs to be exceptionally skilful at interpreting behaviour, diverting or channelling emotion and creating pathways of communication between those who are sworn enemies.

In Face to Face, Williamson has combined community conferencing, which is used in dealing with victims  and perpetrators of crime, and workplace conferencing. It is a happy dramatic marriage.

As Jack Manning, Guy Pearce is a cool, still point between nine personalities. He strikes a fine balance between observer and participator. Williamson's script compels Jack to comment on the procedures as well as steer the action. He is almost an onstage director.

Glen (Damien Richardson) is a slow-witted but cheerful young man who loves his job as a scaffolder even though all his workmates hate it. He is any easy target for teasing from his bored mates. However, Glen has a quick temper and, when he discovers he has been ridiculed by his workmates, he lets loose on Richard, (Chris Connelly) his foreman.

His boss (DJ Foster) sacks him. Glen goes berserk and rams Baldoni's Mercedes. Thus begins this juggernaut that could well drop him in prison.

This is a very strong ensemble.  In addition to Pearce's fine work, Richardson manages to be both engaging and maddening as the distressed and confused Glen. Greg Ulfan as the Serbian scaffolder, Luca, shifts imperceptibly from rigid negativity and anger to compassion. As Glen's mum, Gina Gaigalas is sympathetic.

Director, Aubrey Mellor, (OK) has kept the stage action simple and concentrated on emotional action. He places the single scene in a suitably scruffy, large room, designed by Judith Cobb (OK) with stark lighting by Michele Preshaw.

The justice system has warmed to community conferencing during this decade. There is increasing disenchantment in workplace and community. The only way out of the mire of human anguish is talk. Keep talking.

by Kate Herbert

Antony and Cleopatra, Feb 21, 2000

By William Shakespeare 

at Gasworks until March 12, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Love and war: these are two of the great passions of the human race.

In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the two collide when the obsessional love of Antony and Cleo coincides with the battle between rulers of the Ancient Roman world.

This is one of Shakespeare's last tragedies and a long, complex and difficult play to stage. Director, James McCaughey, presents it unedited in the broad space of Gasworks Theatre with audience seated on two sides in promenade formation.

The production emphasises differences between the steamy, sensual, female environment of Cleopatra's Egypt and the dry, intellectual, male world of Rome. Antony (Ian Campbell) is caught between the two. His overwhelming desire for Cleo (Mary Sitarenos) when he is in Egypt, is obscured by his craving for power on his return to Rome.

Battles are psychological as much as physical. Octavius Caesar, (Grant Moulday) as yet only one of three rulers of Rome, portrays a cool control and ability to negotiate peace while Antony flounders and succumbs to passion.

McCaughey stylises the action, particularly battles, utilising fabric and rope to create location, atmosphere and costume. The evocative soundscape by Graeme Leak (creates music from industrial sound.

Alice Nash's visually simple and effective design, drapes bolts of deep red fabric from the ceiling at Egypt's end of the corridor. Tough marine ropes hang at the opposing end to represent Rome. Costumes by Ella Sawtell juxtapose jewel-coloured gowns with suggestions of armour. John Bennett's inventive metallic trolley provides a mobile war machine.

This ensemble, playing multiple roles, creates a cohesive and coherent production. Sitarenos as Cleopatra is silky, unpredictable and often funny in her seductiveness. As Antony, Campbell shifts from vulnerable lover to steely general. Unfortunately, at times he is inaudible in this cavernous space.

Moulday as Caesar maintains the haughty voice and demeanour of those born to rule and Stephen Costan as Antony's companion Enobarbus, has warmth in both character and voice.

As Cleopatra's two serving women, Genevieve Morris and Miria Kostiuk create a fine triptych with Cleo while Kurt Geyer and Richard Bligh provide a range of strong characters with other cast members, Steven Smith, Steve Gome and Nield Schneider

This is a vivid and intelligent interpretation of the play although the pace seems to drag after interval.

by Kate Herbert

The Beauty Queen of Leenane, MTC, Feb 21, 2000

by Martin McDonagh; Melbourne Theatre Company

At Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne until April 1, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

There is no beauty pageant in Leenane. 

There is little beauty left in the barren landscape of Connemara, Ireland, nor in its deprived and battered people. Martin McDonagh's play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, tears away the romantic shroud of the Emerald Isle.

The said beauty queen (Pamela Rabe) is a 40 year old virgin with a shadowy past, who lives with her harridan mother (Maggie Kirkpatrick OK) in an isolated cottage in an isolated village in Galway. She might have been called a spinster years ago.

Directed with sensitivity and humour by Garry Hynes from the Druid Theatre of Galway, this is a funny, tragic piece telling a personal story with the backdrop of a decimated land.  This first of McDonagh's award-winning Leenane Trilogy, written when he was 26, has the wry wit of the Irish as well as their violent passion, Catholic superstition, guilt and manipulation.

The tragedy of Ireland is not only its occupation by its colonial neighbours who determined to eliminate the Irish language, culture, pride and to take even their last potatoes. It is also the fact that dire poverty forced Ireland's youth to depart in droves seeking work in England, America and Australia.

Rabe is magnetic as the tragic Maureen Folan, trapped not only in her cottage with her mother but inside her confused and frightened head. Rabe captures the despair and frustration of this erratic, disturbed woman. A mere glimmer of hope destroyed by her mother's selfishness is enough to send her haywire.

Kirkpatrick as Mag Folan, embodies superbly the physical and emotional burden which Maureen endures. She is dependent, lazy and vindictive, resenting and sabotaging any hint of joy for her daughter in case it leaves her without a slave. Their attachment owes more to duty and compulsion than to love.

Mother drives Maureen to distraction. She drives us to the very brink ourselves. When Pato Dooley, played with sympathy and naivete by Greg Stone, returns from England and wants to take Maureen to Boston, all goes horribly wrong.

This play may not be the masterpiece it is purported to be but it is a damn good yarn. It evokes a powerful emotional response and a potent sense of tragedy and anguish.

One textual problem is that significant character traits are omitted or obscured early in the play in order to allow later plot twists to be a surprise. But works as theatre.

by Kate Herbert

The Elephant's Tusk, Feb 18, 2000

 by Rosemary Johns

La Mama at Courthouse until March 4, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The art of story-telling is a subtle and complex one and the creation of a new morality tale is not an easy task. 

 In The Elephant's Tusk, writer Rosemary Johns attempts to create a morality tale about love. The outcome is uneven.

The story is set in India. Julie (Helen Doig) and Sara, (Natalie Carr) two young, single Australian women, are on a journey not only to discover the beauty of India. They are searching for the answers to profound questions about their life choices and their futures.

In the inimitable fashion of Westerners clinging blindly to Eastern philosophy and culture, they seek the solutions to their problems from visions, temples, spinning crystals and, finally, from a fortuneteller or diviner.

The Diviner creates visions of the women's lives at home in the future as well as telling a story of a young Muslim man (Sunil Daniel) who falls in love with an Australian girl. There is some lesson to be learned from this tale. Perhaps that true love always prevails in spite of family differences and other insurmountable obstacles.

Of course, the stories juxtaposed against this are those of Sara's ill-fated love for two married men. She seeks a father figure, a protector, a romantic older man. She learns that she does not really love Stan, her lecturer, (Mark Oddie). How she comes to this moment of revelation is unclear. There has been no real journey for her or for her friend.

Julie is pushy, frustrated and despairing about being overweight and never being in love. Sara is naive, unrealistic and attracted to married men. The two characters never really come to life because the characterisations are shallow and sketchy.

 The thin text is unaided by clumsy direction (Jools Gardiner) and some unconvincing performances .The strongest performance is from Alex Pinder as Ganesha's Mouse. He narrates the very confused story with panache and plays very capably a series of other roles, including the Diviner.

The Courthouse is a cavernous space that needs closing down with light or set. The design by Peter Mumford (is an interesting monument to Ganesha but it does not serve the play. The actors rattle around uncomfortably in the space.

This script lacks layers of meaning and complexity of character to make it work as theatre.

by Kate Herbert

Skin Flick, Feb 17 2000

By Vanessa Rowell, Kate Ellis

at La Mama until Sunday February 20, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The audience's physical position can dictate the form and content as well as the resulting impact of a performance. The audience at Skin Flick sit with their eyes at floor level.

Chairs are set under the false stage floor and viewers heads poke through slots in the stage to watch the actors' feet go by.

Skin Flick is a collaboration between two performers, (Vanessa Rowell, Kate Ellis) a designer/director, (Anna Tregloan) lighting designer (Jen Hector) and sound artist. (David Franzke's) It is a novel idea which works only partially.

Franzke's  soundscape is a highlight. It combines  music, sound effects and voice to create an evocative sound environment.

Anna Tregloan's set design intentionally restricts the audience's view, making them a part of the design. It is cleverly lit with light spilling from below floor level, from vertical ultra-violet fluorescent tubes and tiny floor lights.

The two performers, in a series of vignettes, take advantage of the audience's limited perspective. They walk on their hands or on stilts, crawl along the floor, whisper in ears, black out parts of their bodies with lighting or costume.

Each vignette begins with a good idea but none fulfils its promise. They are short but repetitive and so they wear thing quickly. Much of Skin Flick looks like a drama class exercise.

Strangely, the greatest theatrical impact came from the surprise appearance of tiny, quirky objects. Wind-up toy fish suddenly toddle across the floor at eye level, bumping into audience.

A hailstorm of coloured ping-pong balls rains from the roof only to bounce into silence. A bevy of tiny plastic steering wheels are catapulted in the space through a curtain of telephone book pages.

This is a collaborative piece of performance that has no narrative. It is an exploration of body, space and perspective and the relationship between the audience and actor.

Skin Flick fits into a contemporary performance style that abandons the word, story and other actorly pretensions. It relies on the collision of images and resonances arising from actor so very close to audience.

It needs work to give it more substance but the design , as long as you are not claustrophobic, is inspired.

by Kate Herbert

It's A Dad Thing by The Dad's Theatre Group

 at Darebin Arts Centre until March.

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Sleep deprivation, screaming, noises in the night, excrement, incarceration, feelings of incompetence, forgetfulness. No, these are not abuses of prisoners of war but symptoms of new fatherhood.

Daddy walking with zombies is the subject of one scene in the very funny It's a Dad Thing. Dads get no sleep and feel guilty if they do. In fact, much of the content of the show is about feeling guilty and incompetent as a parent.

It is honest, personal and funny. These five 30-something dads, directed by David Lander (OK), wrote the show from their own experience that gives it credibility and guts.

Modern dads are still finding their role. Their models were dads who worked, provided and were absent. "Mother does the nursing, thy father will provide." These young dads are searching in the dark for the rules of being a good dad.

The show is a series of sketches, songs and monologues that reveal the hilarious, painful and poignant moments of fatherhood.

All five attend ante-natal classes in which the fascist midwife torments them with their gender, their ignorance and the impending bloodbath which is childbirth.

Geoff Paine is hilariously accurate in his portrayal of a dad who spends hours patting baby to sleep only to hear the traitorous floorboards creak and wake bub as he creeps out.

Michael Fry forgets his son's birthday then loses one child in the park. Colin James, living the isolated life of a house-husband, must admit he cannot cope alone. Matthew Green sings a beautiful song to his own father and Lliam Amor plays Superdad and makes a list of adorable things about babies.

The impact of children on relationships is highlighted. Sex, or rather the absence of it, features.  Mum feels fat and exhausted. Dad can never say the right thing. When he falls into a "fat trap" or makes the mistake of telling the truth about looking at other women, he calls "Bloke Line" for advice.

The show has variety and skill .It is a far better written and more theatrical piece than Mum's The Word and should haul in a huge audience of dad and mums. Perhaps blokes will go to the pub for a beer then to the theatre for a blokes night out to chuckle over their fatherly foibles.

by Kate Herbert

The Torch, Feb 12 2000

by The Torch Company

at North Melbourne Town Hall until February 20, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The last fifteen minutes of The Torch are filled with potent images and powerful, passionate social commentary. Even after the curtain call, the poignancy continues with Uncle Emanuel Cooper, elder of the Yorta Yorta tribe, singing "In the Sweet By and By".

The Torch is community theatre at its most engaging and effective. It combines professional artists with members of the community, most of whom are non-Anglo Australians, either Kooris or immigrants from all continents. The result is a vibrant, colourful and heartfelt production.

The issues arising are those inherent in our multicultural country. We confront racism, poverty, abuse, conservatism, homelessness and despair. But we also see a growing sense of community and acceptance, some steps toward reconciliation and a pride in our past, wherever it was.

Director, Stefo Nantsou has a deft hand. He devised a clever and socially challenging script with input from the company of actors. He cultivates a fine level of performance in a group of largely non-professional actors.

There are several threads to the story. In Tidy Town in country Australia, the community prepares for the Olympic Torch to be carried through the town. Local resident, Rose (Andrea James) attends her mother's funeral with her father, Bill. (Steve Payne)

Her journey through grief takes her to the city where she confronts hostels, housing commission flats and the ethnic diversity that was absent from her rural life.

The most significant meeting is with an old Koori, Uncle Shady, (Tony Briggs) who knows more about Rose and her past than Rose herself. Rose must reassess who she is, here she fits in and how to live her life.

Nadja Kostich is luminous as the persecuted Serbian immigrant and Sally Mwangola has great dignity as the wife of a Kenyan doctor. Jim Daly is versatile in several roles.

Nantsou creates some truly magical and painful images amongst a stage set of grey boxes. Cultural icons, such as the Unknown Soldier, collide with aboriginal ghosts. A settlement of Kooris are violently moved from their land. Tidy Town residents mass to watch the Torch run .

The international Olympic coverage cameras capture Rose's exceptionally creative no-violent protest action in Tidy Town. It makes a gloriously poetic and admirable ending to this delightful and emotional play.

by Kate Herbert

Killing Time, Feb 12 2000

by Richard Stockwell

Young Roy at Chapel off Chapel until February 27, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Killing Time. If you place the emphasis on the first word it means one thing. If it is on the second the whole meaning alters. This is the intention of English playwright, Richard Stockwell, in his clever thriller of the same name.

The layers keep peeling away as the action advances in Killing Time. The two characters, Rick (Stephen Hayden) and Jane, (Teresa Duke) initially appear simply to be involved in an afternoon seduction. Slowly, the story becomes more complex and the onion layers more numerous as the two reveal one murky secret after another.

The play begins at Rick's rented furnished apartment. He accepted a lift home from Jane after he 'rescued' her at the check-out in the supermarket when she is caught without her wallet.

Rick reveals little until his temper flares. He is dangerous, she is fascinated, or perhaps just bored or angry with her husband and ready to punish him with an affair with some 'rough trade'.

The tension is relentless in Stockwell's script. It smacks of 40's film noir: the rich vamp with a rough husband accused of murdering his mistress meets a rough trade ex-convict masquerading as a corporate executive. Bacall and Bogart could play it with panache.

This competent production, directed by Hayden and Marco Lawrence, is interesting but such a classic murder mystery should be compelling.

The stage craves a more subtle design, atmospheric soundscape and deep shadows thrown against the walls to provide a brooding, secretive tone. There is simply too much light and too little atmosphere on stage.

Hayden plays the attractive but oafish Rick with a roughhouse charm and Duke is credible as the bored, rich wife. The two actors find something of the thriller in the performance but the space is never genuinely dangerous, even when some very violent action takes place.

Stockwell's writing is rhythmic, dramatic and well crafted as a mystery. They need to let go the reins and play the style to give the piece its dynamic range.

by Kate Herbert

Satellite of Love, Feb 10, 2000

 by Ross Mueller

at Trades Hall  until February 26, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The joys of camping are a mystery to me. There you are, incarcerated in a tiny, steamy, plastic teepee: no room to move, no air to breathe, a long sprint to the loo, loud, drunken neighbours, mud when it rains, mozzies when it's hot. Where's the fun in that? Give me hot running water and a comfy bed any day.

Satellite of Love is close to camping hell.  The play, by Ross Mueller, is set in a cruddy camping ground forty kilometres from Adelaide. Jake (Chris Uhlmann) and his partner Peta (Carmen Mascia) stay there to save money while working the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Proximity, poverty, heat and Adelaide are like dynamite for their relationship. It needs only a detonator to blow it.

Then a child, Damien, five years old, appears in their tent and stays. With little or no evidence, they believe he is abused by his 'Uncle' so they decide to 'save' him. In fact, they kidnap him.

There are some good moments in this play, particularly in the first half. The premise has potential. The actors narrate the story as well as playing all the ancillary characters. Peta and Jake play car games to stay awake, test each other's knowledge of song lyrics, but mostly they get on each other's nerves.

Both actors play the child who talks a lot for a child described as uncannily quiet. Mascia has a naivete and warmth. Uhlmann is lively although his various characters lack clear differentiation.

The script shifts between narration, short poetic monologues, clipped word plays and more naturalistic scenes.  It rambles and does not settle on a style. The writer's intention is not clear in the end.

The theme of violence exacerbated by claustrophobic heat is interesting. However, the true story of the boy's family life as well as his relationship with the Peta and Jake are abandoned when they takes him on the road.

The narrative goes off on a detour that obscures the issues leaving threads of story incomplete. It hurtles too quickly to an unsatisfying ending.

Elissa Anson's canvas design is simple and effective and Kim Baston's soundscape is unobtrusive. Director, Lyn Coleman, uses a style reminiscent of Theatre in Education. It is peppy and light but it loses much of the darker side of the kidnap and what follows.

by Kate Herbert

Transporting Art (Tramsporting Art) Feb 10, 2000

Transporting Art (Tramsporting Art), Article

Feb 5, 2000

Writer: Kate Herbert

Whatever happened to those bizarre and controversial painted trams that livened up our roads in the 80's?

The trams, decorated by major artists, were valuable cultural and financial assets to our community but they disappeared off our roads without even an annoying ding of a tram bell to herald their mass exodus.

Norm Cross, tram afficionado and supervisor at Preston tramways depot, has the answer. The first 16, painted in the late 70's, were lost to us when they were sold at public auction to Jim Johnston, an individual who proposed to make a public display of them .

This group were wooden body trams which deteriorated from neglect and exposure.

"They were parked on a site, sitting on blocks and they started to crack and bend and twist and windows were broken," Cross recalls.

For financial reasons, they were sold on again but, this time, they started to leave the country - until the government and National Trust stopped their passports.

The painted tram history started in a restaurant in Collins Street in the late 1970's. Clifton Pugh, who was an ALP supporter, had lunch with Sir Rupert Hamer An all-over advertising tram passed by and Pugh suggested painting one himself. Hamer put it to parliament where both sides of the house supported the idea . The rest is art history.

Six trams were painted by major Australian artists as part of the first campaign. In August 1978, Mirka Mora painted the first tram, followed by Andrew Southall, Mike Brown, Les Kossatz then, in November, Clifton Pugh and Peter Corrigan.

The six were the beginning of a revolutionary form of public art known as Transporting Art. Another ten were commissioned by The Victorian Ministry for the Arts (now Arts Victoria) and Ministry of Transport through the Tramways. By 1982, there were 16 rolling artworks on our tram tracks.

Another 19 were commissioned by government in the early 80's and sponsors were attached to help maintain them. This entire second set was conserved. They are now hibernating in the Newport Tram Workshops, safe from marauding foreign buyers but unappreciated by all but tramway workers.

The first group was less fortunate. Four escaped to the USA- two to Memphis, one to Seattle and another to an unknown destination. Two are owned by a Perth hotel, one is running in Bendigo. A couple were rescued and preserved in back yards of art lovers.

Mirka Mora's angel-covered tram is the happiest. She is nestled in a beautiful garden in Mt Eliza with a foster family. Her natural mum is still in contact.

Howard Arkley's tram now resides in Seymour. Cross recalls it was in a head-on collision. "One end was bashed in and it was never repaired."

Clifton Pugh's tram still sits at Preston awaiting a facelift by one of Pugh's apprentices. One side was wiped out in an accident, says Cross. Sponsors agreed to pay for maintenance and upkeep but many were less than reliable foster parents. Pugh agreed to repaint it himself for nix when he returned from Paris but he died before he could finish it.

Michael Nation, Acting Visual Arts Executive when Transporting Art began recalls one of the great assets of the project.

"There was a wonderful interface between the artists and the tramways apprentices."

Some young signwriters were even invited to help with the paintings in the mode of the Rennaisance schools

Brian Carter supervised the tramways painting workshop and was part of the panel which judged the fist competiton for designs. Each artist did a painting for him, based on the pallette used in his or her tram.  He has thirty mementos of the project. Lucky Brian!

There are some tram horror stories too. One sad little car was hacked in half and attached to Hungry Jack's in Melton. It has disappeared, according to a young burger manager.

Several were broken up or damaged. The funky tram by pop band Mental as Anything was painted over. "It was out of their hands", Cross remembers. The cars were no longer the property of the Tramways or Arts Victoria, so no more could be done to reclaim them.

Peter Corrigan's tram was the most controversial and was taken of the road when it caused a furore in 1979. It flew Japanese flags. One side read, "Sayonara Koala" the other, "Mother Knows". The tramways Union and the public saw this as a swipe at Australian World War Two veterans.

From the 21st century, the uproar seems an overreaction  Bring back the painted trams- even the naughty ones! Melbourne loved them!

by Kate Herbert

Song For A Siren & Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl, Feb 4, 2000

Two Shows:

Song For A Siren by Santha Press

Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl  by Yumi Umiumare

 at Gasworks until February 13, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Sirens may be divinely beautiful and sing songs to melt the hearts of men but let's face it. They are nasty baggages that lure men and their boats onto the rocks to drown.

In Santha Press's musical theatre show, Song For The Siren, Flo dreams of being a siren as she luxuriates in her 30's style iron bath. On the outside, in the real world, she's just some chick with low self-esteem who stammers idiotically when flirting with "petrol station man".

Unfortunately, fantasy does not meet reality. When the romance with petrol boy develops, he is dull, dull, dull.

Original music is played by Lliam Freeman who is also a co-writer of some songs. Some tunes, such as Song For The Siren, have a lyrical quality while others are more bluesy. Press is best when singing in her upper register.

The show integrates the two threads of story and adds some striking visual images on a shadow screen. There is however, something uncomfortable in Press's performance.

The more bizarre, colourful and compelling of the two shows in this season, is Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl by Yumi Umiumare with Matt Crosby and Ben Rogan. 

Tokyo Shock Boys are a Japanese trio of loud annoying boys who think it's hilarious to wrap yourself in a plastic bag on stage till you go blue. The satire of Yumi's title is obvious. 

"DasSHOKU" means "bleached" but is also a pun on a Japanese word meaning approximately "unemployment".

Yumi is a skilful Japanese Butoh dancer interested in the collision of the grotesque and the suburban which creates the ridiculous.

Some of the vignettes are beautiful, stylised physical theatre enhanced by industrial or pop music and Japanese theatre forms. Others are absurd takes on fashion, cuteness in Japan, obsessive priest-like characters, geisha, karaoke and sumo wrestlers.

There is even some kooky audience participation. It seems Yumi did not recognise this theatre critic who was dragged on stage with a man and a cockroach for company, only to be gargled on from on high.

This is pretty bent cabaret, but good entertainment.

by Kate Herbert