A Tree, Falling by Ron Elisha , May 22, 2003

A Tree, Falling  by Ron Elisha  

Chapel off Chapel, May 22 to  June 7, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Jonathan Hardy  is exceptional in Ron Elisha's witty, moving and beautifully observed new play, A Tree, Falling. He portrays Lenny Riefenstahl,  a confused old man suffering Alzheimer's and, finally, a stroke. Lola,  his 'friendly visitor' sent by the council, is played sympathetically by Kirsty Childs.

The play has a simple but effective structure. It comprises a series of visits by Lola to Lenny's home over a short period of time.  Lenny's health deteriorates and Lola's maddeningly cheerful patience degenerates into frustration, pain and a desperate need for Lenny to recognise her.

Lenny's very muddle-headedness and the collision of his and Lola's realities are the core of Elisha's wry, black humour. Lenny behaves as if Lola is lonely, deluded and a total stranger - every time she visits. It is enough to drive Lola to distraction. Lola becomes almost as confused as Lenny although he is completely oblivious to his own confusion or hers.

For anyone with experience of an aged parent suffering dementia or a stroke, this will be painfully and humorously reminiscent of that wild ride. We laugh at the recalcitrant old fella  who finds simple pleasure in 'the joy of forgetting'. Hardy is completely believable, entertaining and touching as Lenny. He is the focus and Child's as Lola is his satellite in the play.

Director, David Letch,  stages the play on a simple, abstract set. This stylisation allows their colliding worlds to take on a surreal quality. Letch's clever theatrical conceit has an anonymous stage assistant to shift props and removes clothing from Lenny in almost ritualised slow motion. The lighting design by Kerensa Diball  crates a sense of anticipation on stage. The dramatic environment is enhanced by music composed by Marc Chesterman.

We come to know and love Lenny as we would a friend. However, we know him only by report. We never see the man who was Lenny when he was in full possession of his faculties.

Elisha cleverly reveals, through the fragmented conversations of Lola and Lenny, snippets of information about his life and character, his skills, his family, schooling, his two wives and his German background. A Tree, Falling, is a delightful and poignant piece of theatre about a magnetic character diminished by age and illness.

By Kate Herbert

Hair (The Musical), Her Majesty's, May 20, 2003

Book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni & James Rado   
Music by Galt  MacDermot

Her Majesty's Theatre, May 20  until July, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 20, 2003

David Atkins'  production of Hair, the 60s musical, is peppy and jam-packed with effervescent youthfulness. It is, however, a very squeaky clean version of the hippies of that drug taking, promiscuous, militant decade.

 The first half is the stronger although there is little narrative. The second stalls with a series of LSD hallucinations unlike any old hippy ever experienced.

The show is an excuse for plenty of lively choreography, (Jason Coleman) a vivid design (Eamon D'Arcy) and retro costumes. (Laurel Frank). Essentially, it is an excuse for a bunch of memorable songs played by a fine nine-piece rock band. Hair boasts Aquarius,  Donna , Frank Mills,  Good Morning Starshine,  Let the Sun Shine In  and the title tune, Hair.

Some songs were controversial in the 60s but  are pretty tame in the naughty noughts. Sodomy is a sung list of sexual practices that probably shocked middle America forty years ago but an eighty-year-old couple beside me did not flinch. Hashish  similarly, is a list of recreational drugs that has changed little apart from the omission of Ecstasy  and Crack.

Atkins includes updated references, including an anti-war placards saying No HoWARd. Mitchell Butel's bogus audience member is an Aussie mum  not a New Yorker.  The play is known as an anti-war piece. This is not detectable until a moving moment at the very end when Claude (Kane Alexander) enlists, dons a uniform and comes home in a body bag.

The Tribe  of Hippies is like Ferals of our decade. Every generation thinks it started the revolution. The Tribe lives as outsiders, abusing drugs, big business and government, defying their parents, avoiding work and hating war.

Several characters are central to the loose narrative. Sassy Matt Hetherington, plays Berger,  the apparent leader, while the confused Claude is played charmingly by Alexander. Tamsin Carroll  plays Sheila,  the political radical of the Tribe, with  great strength both in voice and character, while Butel  is hilarious as the high camp Woof.

A highlight is Patrick Williams as Hud  the African-American.  His voice is rich and his presence compelling - even in a sequined gown during Black Boys, and Dead End, which he sings with the black cast members, is a terrific, funky blues.

At the close, we are left with the poignant message that naïve, young men died in Vietnam. Given our current place in the world order, this show is timely.

By Kate Herbert

Waiting by Dina Ross, May 16, 2003

Waiting  by Dina Ross  

fortyfivedownstairs, May 16 to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 16

Waiting, written by Dina Ross and directed by Greg Carroll, comprises three short monologues about three different women in Melbourne.

Petra Schulenberg.  plays all three characters. The monologues are not connected, each being a discrete snatch of one woman's life. They are character sketches rather than short plays because they have less theatrical action or dramatic tension than a play.

In Maybe Bach,  Schulenberg is Andrea,  a 36 year old woman desperate for love, waiting in a Carlton café for the arrival of a blind date from the personals column. Andrea shifts between passionate and romantic fantasies about love and lust, music and novels until she finally  reaches the grim realisation that the man is not coming.

MRI  sees Fran,  a younger woman, in a hospital gown dealing with the terror of neurological tests and a potentially fatal prognosis. Intercut with her own trauma is that of her Jewish grandmother in Dachau.  

Both Andrea and the grandmother are interesting but the link between the two threads is not quite resolved in this story. The flashbacks to grandmother are repetitive and do not move Fran's story forward.

The final monologue, Boo Boo Be Do,  is entertaining. Schulenberg plays Courtney,  a Marilyn Monroe  look alike complete with Marilyn's sexy, white pleated dress and platinum wig.

Courtney whispers, pouts and wiggles her bottom at us in order to win a look alike contest. We are part of their inner world and part of Courtney's audience. The staging is sometimes awkward and the placement of the other contestants is unclear.

There is potential for this last to be a poignant piece. It could delve deeper into the degradation of being an out of work actor, failures in her personal life and losing the look alike competition.

 Schulenberg gives a strong performance in all three roles although there are moments when she looks uncomfortable in Maybe Bach and Boo Boo Be Do.

Some of the script feels more like prose than theatre but they are interesting if not compelling.

By Kate Herbert

Twelfth Night, Chambers TC, May 15, 2003

Twelfth Night  by William Shakespeare  Chambers Theatre Company  

 Theatreworks, May 15  to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 15

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night  is a comedy with a dark edge. It incorporates all the tasty elements of Shakespearean comedy.

There is confused identity, pretty twins, cross-dressing, unrequited love, a naughty drunk, (Joe Clements) a witless aristocrat, (Phil Roberts) a sour servant, (Geoff Wallis) and a wise fool. (David Adamson)

This play invariably works at its best when the darkness and irreverence are highlighted. Alex Pinder,  director of this Chambers Theatre production, allows the grimness to surface only occasionally and more particularly, in the later scenes.

 He focuses more on the comic and romantic elements in the first half.

Shakespeare's jester,  Feste,  (Adamson) is witty and often vicious. Much of his cynical commentary is in verse, riddles and songs. Pinder keeps Feste on stage as a silent, objective observer of the shenanigans of the other characters. This works in part but leaves Feste with little to do but sit and watch much of the time.

The stage is almost bare. The cast, when off stage, remains seated on the sidelines, reminding us that they are actors and this is a play.

There are several fine performances. Julia Zemiro  gives an intelligent, detailed, truthful and witty interpretation of Olivia,  the grief-stricken lady of the house. When Olivia falls in love with her female servant, Viola/Cesario,  (Kate Doherty) her transformation is completely believable.

As Malvolio  the sneering supercilious servant to Olivia, Geoff Wallis almost steals the show. His comic timing is impeccable. He colours the character with detail and plays it for truth giving Malvolio both depth and enormous comic value.

Joe Clements  and Phil Roberts  make a good comic duo as the inebriated Sir Toby Belch  and his hapless sidekick, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Arabella Davison  plays Maria as worldly and witty. Paul Canlan  is stately and credible as the lovelorn Count Orsino  and Jeremiah Tickell  is charming as Sebastian.

The music is an asset. The a cappella songs from Adamson and the cast are a delight. The final song provides some polish to the final rather lack lustre scene. This is an entertaining production with some excellent individual performances.

By Kate Herbert

The War Against Short Trousers, May 9, 2003

 The War Against Short Trousers  by Lisa Dethridge  

Where and When: Chapel off Chapel, May 9 to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Playwright, Lisa Dethridge, worked as an analyst for NASA  and the United Nations.  In a response to working on such weighty analysis she wrote this political satire about the world order.

The War Against Short Trousers, directed by Kaarin Fairfax,  parodies corporate power, western governments and their corrupt leaders. Coming in for particularly virulent criticism is George Bush and the USA. Close behind come England, Australia and the Middle East.

Despite its concerns with world issues, the play is not a drama. It is a broad comedy with cartoon-like characters and a superficial commentary on issues of globalisation, invasion, alliances and covert operations. The style is reminiscent of the 1960s Agit Prop  (Agitational Propaganda) political theatre in England. Its message is blunt and its form is intended to communicate to the broader community without any depth.

The story reflects the Middle East war and America's role as Big Brother and Australia's as Little Brother. A major world power resembling USA, is led by The Chairman  (Tom Stringer) who is a dead ringer in behaviour for George Bush. The Chairman appears to represent Her Royal Majesty, The Queen  (Chris Bunworth) but is in fact using her in his plot to control the world.

In an outlying island state called, rather too obviously, Kickembutt,  a bumbling big baby of a leader bears a striking resemblance to John Howard. The action is rapid, deals are made, lovers lost, wars started during an eighty minutes romp. The script is thin and old-fashioned in style with many predictable, even adolescent jokes peppered with some clever satire.

There are some strong performances particularly from David Lennie  as the John Howard look-alike, Murray McMurray. His impersonation and timing are impeccable. Kat Stewart  as his ethical daughter, Kelly  is lively and makes the most of the style. Boc  and Choi  (Tarn Vu, Penelope Bartlau) provide some entertaining moments as a duo of islanders.

The show is light, warmly received and a bit of fun. The staging is rough and the cast too big for comfort but it takes the mickey out of our world leaders. What more can we ask?

By Kate Herbert

Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, REd Stitch, May 9, 2003

 Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train 
By Stephen Adly Guirgis  Red Stitch Actors' Theatre

Where and When: Rear Chapel St Prahran, May 9 to June 1, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

There are three exceptional elements in Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train: Kenneth Ransom's, Peter Evans' direction and Stephen Adly Guirgis' script.

Ransom plays Lucius,  a genuinely likeable and charming serial killer and psychopath who awaits extradition from a New York jail to Florida where he will be executed.

After killing eight people because they forced him to see the sun, he discovered Jesus. Lucius is alone in a twenty-three hour lock down security area of the jail until the hapless accidental young killer, Angel,  (Vince Miller) arrives in an adjoining cell.

Ransom plays Lucius's religious mania, warmth and charm with relish. He inhabits the role seamlessly, his timing is impeccable and his characterisation flawless.

Peter Evans directs this gritty piece with great sensitivity. He maintains a swift pace but allows the dense dialogue to remain clear. Evans uses to advantage the tiny space at Red Stitch's new premises. Christine Smith's  design creates two claustrophobic cells with lines of yellow paint and Dans Sheehan's  lighting design adds to the murky gloom. Guirgis is an actor writer and director with LAByrinth  Theater  in New York.

This award winning script challenges issues about the value of life, justice and the law, preconceptions about killers and the underclass in America. His language is complex and intense but there is no blurriness in his message nor in the development of his characters. It is a passionate and important piece of writing.

Kate Cole  is sympathetic and believable as Mary Jane,  Angel's jaded lawyer who rediscovers her vocation in defending Angel. Richard Cawthorne  and Dion Mills  play the two prison guards. Cawthorne gives Valdez  a violent, inhumane edge that is diametrically opposed to the humanity of Mills' character.

The play is structured around the two inmates. Slowly, Guirgis unfolds their stories through their solo scenes, monologues by Mary Jane or the Guard, their scenes with guards or lawyer and finally with each other. The power of Lucius's personality is the core of the play and Ransom makes a feast of it.

By Kate Herbert

The Paragon, Sidetrack, May 8, 2003

By Adam Hatzimanolis

 Sidetrack Performing Group  for Theatre in the Box

 Black Box, Victorian Arts Centre,  May 8 to 18, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Theatre in the Box at The Black Box is an initiative of the Victorian Arts Centre designed to present culturally diverse, innovative contemporary Australian theatre.

The brief is that the program will include work that would not normally be seen at the Arts Centre but that it will challenge the boundaries of contemporary theatrical form.

The Paragon is interesting as a story-telling exercise by Sydney-based writer-actor, Adam Hatzimanolis. However, it is by no means innovative or challenging in its themes or form. This is surprising from Sidetrack Performing Group which has, since the 1980s, been a company that experiments with form.

Director, Don Mamouney,  creates some short, evocative physical transitions between Hatzimanolis's personal stories. Mamouney creates a strangely fascinating dehumanised opening scene with a printer on stage spewing out pages of Hatzimanolis book from a laptop to the sound of an interviewer's voiceover.

The problem is that Hatzimanolis writing style is predominantly narrative and the structure of the writing is unwieldy. Hatzimanolis tells rather rambling, poorly structured tales of his family and professional life. They are not connected apart from being from his life.

There is potential here for identification theatre for a particular audience. His childhood in a Woolongong fish and chip shop with his Greek parents will be familiar to many. Snippets are memorable. As a child, he struggles to tie his shoelaces and to understand the death of his Uncle.

 He causes a fire in the dad's chip shop then is ripped off by a dodgy mechanic who is restoring his EJ Holden. Even his fantasies about Nicloe Kidman being in his stars will be recognised by some.

Hatzimanolis plays dialogue between characters but there is minimal transformation into or inhabiting of these characters. There is no form to the stories and his casual presentational style and lack of eye contact with us is often unengaging.

 The story teller needs to find a form of presentation that engages and challenges an audience whether by exceptional writing, incredible stories or extraordinary form and style.

By Kate Herbert

Claustrophobia by Barry Dickins , May 7, 2003

What: Claustrophobia  by Barry Dickins  

Where and When:  La Mama, May 7 to 25, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Barry Dickins, in Claustrophobia, writes a backhanded look at deaths in custody. It is not what we expect.

John White  (John Francis Howard)  is country cop in the Wimmera.  At the start of the play, we presume that he is the jailer of Bob Black,  (LeRoy Parsons) an aboriginal man who sleeps in the corner of the cell.

White is resentful, menacing and we fear he may be a danger to the sleeping Black. What transpires is that both a inmates in this gloomy country jail but Black is in for a harmless unpaid car registration while White is the one at risk of hanging.

White is frenetic, overcome with fear and claustrophobia and about to be lynched by a mob for drunkenly strangling his wife.

Dickins slowly unfolds their story. Not only are they cellmates they share memories of their childhood friendship.

Black is a cheerful positive and easy-going man - a good foil for White's surly misanthropic attitude.

Dickins resists writing for laughs although the script is still funny. James Clayden's direction seems to miss Dickins' irony on occasion because he often has the actors play the dialogue for truth.

Clayden's pacing of the play does not highlight the richness and balance of humour and poignancy in Dickins' writing.

Parsons is charming s Black, bringing a brightness and openness to the character and the play. There are moments when he is nto quite connected to the style of Dickins' writing but he carries the role successfully.

John F. Howard plays White with an appropriate sense of restrained menace. He seems always on the edge of exploding and we cannot predict whether he is a danger to himself or Black.

The actors are trapped behind a fence of horizontal wire strung across the tiny space at La Mama. The sense of claustrophobia is potent in this production.

Dickins' unusual ironic angle on the topic may not challenge the politics of deaths in custody but it is an interesting piece of theatre.

By Kate Herbert

Frozen by Bryony Lavery, MTC, April 30, 2003y

 Frozen by Bryony Lavery  Melbourne Theatre Company

 Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre, April 30 to June 7, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Julian Meyrick's  production of Frozen is compelling for myriad reasons. It features three of our best actors: Helen Morse,  Frank Gallacher  and Belinda McClory.  

English playwright, Bryony Lavery's, script is impeccably researched, intricately crafted and profoundly moving. The content about a serial child killer is frightening but important and Lavery explores the humanity in an issue that is so inhuman. It challenges views on forgiveness, revenge and humanity.

Direction by Meyrick is stylish, intelligent and often witty. He focuses on characters' emotional landscape and create an evocative theatrical space. Meyrick uses changing two silent prison guards (Dan Quigley, Kevin Maxwell) in a satisfying and novel mode of scene changing.

The creative team provides a beautiful and unusual environment for the play. Ralph Myers'  set design is stark and almost institutional, accentuating the claustrophobic lives of the three characters. Paul Jackson's lighting design accents the architectural elements of Myers' set. The lighting manages to be both sculptural as well as poetic. Music composed by Tim Dargaville  is a resonant and complex sound landscape of vocal and instrumental music.

The story travels twenty years in time but it is the internal lives of the three protagonists that are focal. All are frozen in their own emotional world. Initially, we witness each speaking in monologue as if confiding only in the audience. As the horrific story unfolds, they draw closer to their inevitable meetings.

 Ralph  (Frank Gallacher) is a seriously disturbed loner, driven by his need for order and his warped desire for little girls. When Nancy's  (Helen Morse) ten-year-old daughter, Rona  disappears, we know Ralph is responsible but twenty years pass before Nancy knows the truth.

Agnetha, (Belinda McClory) an American forensic psychiatrist, presents a credible case for serial killers being the product of brain damage and abuse.

The play is thrilling and inspired, each character driven by obsession. Morse is luminous, passionate and often funny as Nancy, the grieving mother. Gallacher is terrifying as the irrational, the personification of our fears. He captures the dysfunction of Ralph without dehumanising him. 

As Agnetha, McClory balances the fine intellect of the psychiatrist with her unpredictable and profound inner turmoil and despair.

My only quibble is that the show slows down toward the end. Scene changes need to be slicker as the story escalates to its inevitable tragic ending.

By Kate Herbert

Breath by Breath, by Peta Tait & Matra Robinson, April 24, 2003

Breath by Breath by Peta Tait & Matra Robinson  

La Mama at The Courthouse,  April 24 to May 10, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

There is something haunting about Breath by Breath written by Peta Tait and Matra Robinson. The play fabricates a collision of two periods of time and two events during the later life of Anton Chekhov,  the Russian playwright.

In 1900, Chekhov lives in the Russian provincial town of Yalta.  A company of actors rehearse a play and Chekhov falls in love with actress, Olga Knipper.  The second more ethereal story is set six years earlier. The past bleeds into the present as the actors prepare their play.

In 1894,  in Yalta, there is unrest. The men of the town council want to evict all Jews from the town. Their violent expulsion from the region is based in fact.

Malak  (Robert Jordan) is both a member of the Jewish tribe and Chekhov's mus in the play. He drifts like a wraith into Chekhov' vision during 1900 and compels the playwright to see the horrors of 1894.

The play draws on the style of Chekhov's writing and the revolutionary acting style of Constantin Stanislavski's   Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov wrote plays about ordinary lives and people of his era. But ordinariness can also produce heightened emotion, real pain and horror.

The ensemble gives fine performances. As Chekhov, Neil Pigot  finds a balance between the vulnerability of the consumptive playwright and his passionate nature. Anastasia Malinoff  plays Olga, his lover, as delightfully erratic and loving, a modern woman who wants both love and a career in the theatre.

Adrian Mulraney  is compelling as the unpleasant mayor who seeks racial cleansing for his town. Bruce Kerr  plays the oppressed Jewish workman with warmth and bob Pavlich creates a frightening truth in the mercenary who murders the Jewish men in the local quarry.

The production is designed and directed with simplicity and sensitivity by Meredith Rogers.  The stage is almost empty but for a few chairs and an abstract metal and stone water well.

A scrim of sheer white and lacework provides not only a sense of the period but a vehicle fro projections of Chekhov's home in Yalta.

Evocative live music ( Madeleine Flynn, Tim Humphrey) echoes gypsy tunes and classical music.

This is a mysterious and interesting play that deserves seeing.

By Kate Herbert

Birthrights by David Williamson , April 16, 2003

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 Birthrights by David Williamson  

Playhouse, Arts Centre, April 16 to May 17, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 16

David Williamson's new play, Birthrights, is pregnant with issues of contemporary life. It is stuffed so full of issues that characters become mouthpieces rather than individuals.

Their dialogue too often sounds like speeches on social topics. The play becomes didactic. We are lectured on surrogacy, IVF, feminism, aboriginal issues, capitalism, refugees and migration policy, the political Left and the Right, Australian-American relations and even euthanasia. When characters speak so unnaturally, it is almost impossible to empathise with them.

The story deals with two sisters, Helen (Doris Younane) and Claudia (Maria Theodorakis).  Helen, the conservative, suburban wife of Mark,  (Kevin Harrington) a shonky businessman, is infertile and desperately wants a baby.

 Claudia offers to bear a baby fathered by Mark out of love for her older sister. She does so despite the interruption to her career as a lefty lawyer, potential damage to her relationship with Martin  (Peter Houghton) and her own lack of interest in children. 

What transpires is years of competing for the love of Kelly,  (Asher Keddie), the child we do not see until she is eighteen. Their radical lawyer mother, Margaret.  (Deidre Rubenstein) mediates the sibling rivalry for years.

The play is topical, often funny and argues many points relevant to our modern society. The entire cast works very hard to invest these characters with life and emotion. The problem is that the script lacks any true emotional engagement with characters or issues. These sisters do not communicate like women.

It is difficult to engage partly because this family is so relentlessly dislikeable and also because the story stretches over decades which disallows our knowing them fully. Scenes and dialogue are repetitious. In real time these reiterations are years apart but in stage time we hear them within two hours. Family members may obsess over things for a lifetime, but on stage it is simply unnecessary repetition.

Tom Gutteridge's direction is swift and slick. There are too many scenes but Gutteridge keeps changes moving quickly.

David Franzke's  soundscape is unobtrusive but evocative. Lighting by David Walters  creates atmosphere and the passing of time.  Louise McCarthy's spare stage design echoes the emptiness of the lives on stage and allows the space to be transformed easily.

This is a disappointing script that could be cut by half without losing anything.

By Kate Herbert

Slide Night by Simon Hughes, April 16, 2003

Slide Night by Simon Hughes  

La Mama, April 16 to May 4, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Slide Night is only Simon Hughes second play but it is written with intelligence, wit and sympathy.

Hughes may not have written other plays since his first nineteen years ago, but he had an eclectic life as an actor in Shakespeare in the Botanical Gardens, the face of Bendigo Bank and as television critic for The Age.

Michael Carman  plays Edward, a pompous, patronising psychotherapist, with exceptional colour and detail. .Edward's masks his mounting despair at his hollow life with wild intellectual, cynical wit and heavy drinking. Carman inhabits Edward fully and is compelling and believable at every turn.

Edward's cynicism reflects his deeper dark thoughts. Christine Mahoney  plays his shrill and generally tolerant wife with a desperation suited to such a complex and fraught relationship. The fissures in Edward's psyche widen when he meets a new patient, Nick.  (Damian Howling-Walshe)

Howling-Walshe finds more in the performance of this character than is even written by Hughes. He builds a complex inner world that we see flitting across the face of Nick, an attractive young man who admits being a sex addict. Edward's dreams, both waking and sleeping, seem to escalate after encountering Nick. He succumbs to his lethal charm like myriad other before him.

This is an unusual story with anticipated surprises and twists. However, there are some elements that need tweaking in the script. The multiple off-stage characters can become awkward in the playing, particularly in a small venue like La Mama.

The climax of the story is unclear. Nick's appearance at an election night party and the events that lead to Edward's complete disintegration, are confusing. Director, Denis Moore,  sets a cracking pace and allows the actors to truly penetrate the characters.

This play may have a few chinks but it is intelligently written, characters are well observed and it is genuinely entertaining and challenging.

By Kate Herbert

Defending the Caveman, with Russell Gilbert, April 15, 2003

Russell Gilbert
Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker  

 Forum Theatre, April April 27, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Russell Gilbert has taken a leap from his role as a stand-up comic to a more theatrical form of comedy. It is a courageous move as the show calls for significant acting skills that differ from those of a comedian.

 Gilbert is, for the most part, successful in his new role although he seems uncomfortable in the opening monologue and with the more 'actorly' elements. He comes into his own when he relaxes and integrates stories of his own. He becomes more animated when he gets on a roll defending male behaviour.

Defending the Caveman was created and performed on Broadway  by Rob Becker. It is a solo show about the differences between male and female behaviour. It is a show perfect for couples so you can nudge each other in the ribs or whisper, " See? Other people do that. It’s not just me!"

Gilbert begins the performance with a home video of his fiancee and himself at home. He lies on the couch watching television as she parades her new clothes. He wipes the bathroom floor with her towel, mows over her newly planted flowers.

However, the intention of Becker's script is not to belittle men. He wants to explain the differences in communication and thought processes between men and women.

It is recognition theatre in the form of potted relationship therapy. It smacks of the psycho-babble book, Men are from Mars Women are from Venus.

Director, Wayne Harrison  keeps the show simple. There are a few lighting changes that heighten the drama when the mythical Caveman appears to Russell in his circle of sacred underwear in his bedroom. The pace flags at some moments and could be stepped up. The dynamic range is too narrow.

Gilbert seems to enjoy himself by the middle of the show when he is able to demonstrate male behaviour. He wants us to understand his message. He takes us back to the theory of men being hunters and women gatherers. From this, he says, stem all modern gender differences and confusions.

Men have narrow vision based in the need to hunt the prey. Women have a broader focus because of their gathering past. Men like action rather than words. Women are cooperative - they work on group decision-making. Men are negotiators. They bargain in order to win.

The show is fun and, from the groans of recognition, the audience identifies with most of it.

By Kate Herbert

This is a True Story, April 10, 2003

This is a True Story  
 by Tom Wright and Nicholas Harrington  

Courthouse Theatre, April 9 to 19, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 10, 2003

It is a very peculiar feeling to be drawn inside the heart and mind of a man whose understanding of himself and the world is dim and confused. This is a true story, as the title of this play declares. It is also one of my most extraordinary theatre experiences this year.

Tom Wright is mesmerising in this monologue told by a hapless man on Death Row in Mississippi. As Wright trails between pools of pallid light in the cavernous, empty space, he tells his desperate tale.

It is the story of Howard Neal,  a child-like, ignorant and uneducated man from the Deep South -  Deliverance territory. His history is tragic, littered with episodes of abuse, abandonment, homelessness, imprisonment and finally conviction for multiple murder.

Over Wright's face flicker myriad sensations: confusion, incomprehension, despair and pain. Intermingled amongst the horrors of which he speaks, is a mild warm smile. He smiles incongruously as he tells us his Daddy beat him.

In this theatricalised version of Neal's scribbled, nearly illiterate diaries, we believe he is innocent. Whether this is true in the real world we cannot know. Neal's last appeal was denied in January, 2003. Our intimacy with this child-man compels us to care about his fate.

The stage adaptation of the diaries is by Wright with director, Nicholas Harrington who is also a Melbourne barrister. The text is intelligently edited and the direction is simple, allowing the performer and the words to do the work.

Wright looks vulnerable in only a shaggy pair of underpants. He shuffles, as if chained at the ankles, from place to place on the stage and in Neal's life.

We lean forward in an effort to understand his broad and totally credible deep Southern accent and his peculiar syntax. Wright is compelling. Words cannot describe this experience. You need to be there.

By Kate Herbert

The Fat Boy by Tony Ayres, April 9, 2003

 The Fat Boy by Tony Ayres, by Playbox Theatre

Merlyn Theatre, April 9 to 26, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 9

There is a precarious balancing act going on in Tony Ayres new play, The Fat Boy. The script teeters awkwardly between moments of tragedy and high camp comedy. The mix is not quite successful.

The opening scenes in this production directed by Tom Healey  were exceptional but the rest was a disappointment. The Fat Boy is uncertain of its genre. It is not really a black comedy although it makes light of dark moments in people's lives. The rather obvious gags come after the tragic events rather than arising out of them.

The comedy in these instances merely undercuts the tragedy, pulls the rug out form under them so that we are not permitted to feel anything.   It is disappointing. A woman's (Carolyn Bock) baby dies of cot death, another woman (Melia Naughton) loses her pregnancy after a car accident, a gay lad (Tim Richards) is beaten, a woman (Kate Fitzpatrick) goes blind from diabetes.

The opening night audience laughed - a lot.  It is difficult, though, to gauge how satisfying the theatrical experience was for them. The play lacks substance. It shifts genres like a far shifting gears but never settles into a style.

Three stories are tenuously and artificially linked through Trevor, (Richards) the fat boy of the title. Although he is the titular character, the story is not necessarily about him. His tragedy is far less dominant than the other characters'.

Trevor  is a 24 year old gay man who cannot find love because his surrounding shallow gay scene is prejudiced against fat and demands thinness and beauty. Richards is lively and charming but the limited dialogue forces him to play one note most of the time.

Kate Fitzpatrick is very funny as his trashy, palm-reading harridan of a mother. Joseph Manning  makes the young country lad and his coming out story credible.

One great asset on stage is the design. Paul Jackson's  lighting design is superb filling the stage with colour or steeping Leon Salom's  startlingly stark set in a cool, ominous blue glow. Soundscape by David Franzke  is evocative and challenging.

The problem in this production is not the acting or direction but the stereotypical, two-dimensional characters and predictable gags.

By Kate Herbert

Sideways, Aaron Smith & Hamilton Moore , April 4, 2003

By Aaron Smith  & Hamilton Moore 

Demolition Theatre  

Melbourne Comedy Festival

 La Mama, to April 13, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 4

Sideways is about two low life drug dealers, Shane (Hamilton Moore) and Madog  (Aaron Smith  who want to move up the ladder of drug dealing.

 The play suffers from too many words. The characters rarely stop talking so there is little space for visual comedy or much silent stage action. Shane and Madog try to set up a relationship with drug dealing real estate agent and part-time house breaker, Eddie, (Paul Farrell) but it all goes awry.

Meanwhile Eddie's naïve real estate colleague, Michael  (Jim Koutsoukos) is having a crisis of faith in real estate and seeks self-knowledge. This journey is evidently triggered by his unwitting consumption of drugs.

There is a great deal of 'suit' bashing. That is, a man in a suit can get away with anything because we trust him - probably true. The story lacks coherence although the writing is clever at times. However, the dialogue becomes convoluted when it attempts to make sociological or philosophical points.

The voice of the writers (Moore and Smith) overrides the voices of the characters. They all seem to speak the same language with little differentiation between characters. There is too much explication. In some scenes characters speak in speeches making the play didactic and preachy. We hear attacks on the establishment and issues such as the deadening quality of the acquisition of wealth.

This not only interrupts the narrative but it becomes tiring and patronising eventually. The humour is adolescent in the scene about a doctor treating a patient for haemorrhoids.  The performers work hard and are committed to their task but their handling of dialogue, relationship and character is weak.

The characters have no journey. The story is predictable and the handling of senseless violence is clumsy. The jokes are laboured and wordy. This is a valiant attempt for the Comedy Festival but it lacks originality and style.

By Kate Herbert