Playing the Victim, by The Presnyakov Brothers, April 29, 2005

Playing the Victim 

By The Presnyakov Brothers translated by Sasha Dugdale 

Red Stitch Actors Theatre

Red Stitch, Rear 2 Chapel St, St. Kilda, April 29 until May 21, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 29 , 2005

Playing the Victim, by The Russian Presnyakov Brothers, is like a satirical version of current Crime Scene Investigation television shows.

A laconic young man called Valya, (Angus Sampson) has a job playing the role of victims in the reconstruction of violent crimes. Running the investigations is the disillusioned Inspector Shnurov (Jim Daly) assisted by his doting Constable, Lyuda, (Olga Makeeva) and lackadaisical Sergeant, Seva (Anthony Rive).

The TV show parallel is obvious. The play begins with a screenwriter (Glenn Perry) meeting his director (Rive) to discuss the very same scenario of a man playing the victim. The series of bizarre crime reconstructions follow.

Director, Alex Menglet, accentuates the absurdity of the writers' style and the grim comical elements. This has the edge of a contemporary Chekhov play without the poignant characters and tragic inflections.

There are some really delightful scenes such as Valya's father and mother (Daly, Makeeva) giggling in their bed.

Sampson revels in Valya's cheeky diversionary antics and rambling monologues such as the rave about urine and Russian toilets. His distinctive rhythm and delivery blends well with this quirky character whose main objective is to avoid doing things he does not like such as dishes or swimming.

There are times when the ensemble seems uncertain or uncomfortable in the style but the play is definitely entertaining with its mad, grim humour.

Daly, as the Police Inspector, diverges hilariously from his task to solve the crime to bemoan the behaviour of the younger generation and the ailing performance of his football team.

A mysterious waitress in Japanese restaurant (Verity Charlton) dances and sings a peculiar version of Madam Butterfly story.

A criminal (Tomek Koman) struggles to explain how he stayed underwater to drown his victim. Another (Perry) escapes when the coppers forget he is in the toilet.

The little Red Stitch space is cunningly designed by Tomek Koman with a few simple items to locate scenes: two wooden chairs, a strip of lino as a swimming pool, a barn door as a café kitchen and an orange blanket as a bed.

The Presnyakovs' script is strange and funny but leaves us unmoved. The most entertainment comes from Sampson's shambling and ironical observations as Valya.

By Kate Herbert

Monologues by Asa Gim Palomera, April 28, 2005

Monologues  by Asa Gim Palomera 

Women of Asia

 Chapel off Chapel, April 28 to May 7, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 28, 2005

It is heartening to see a stage filled with so many Asian women in Monologues, by Asa Gim Palomera.

Six women of diverse Asian backgrounds, plus two from Mediterranean cultures, perform a series of vignettes about the various predicaments of women from Asia.

All are based on true stories an were originally part of a larger project called Women in Asia.

The women are all versatile and skilful performers, both physically and vocally. Director, Asa Gim Palomera, underlines the emotional dialogue with abstract and evocative choreography.

Some of the characters are comic while others are grim and disturbing. Many depict the women in their role as sexual objects or as abused by or subservient to men or to other women.

Strangely, the stereotypes of Asian women are reinforced in many stories, although the reasons for such stereotypes are investigated to some degree.

In Virgin Sale, (Shireen Morris, Kaori Hamamoto, Janette Hoe)  an 11 year old girl is sold into prostitution by her parents and lives a life of sordid sexual exploitation.

S.S.S. - Retired Prostitute (Janette Hoe, Shireen Morris) depicts a young woman who uses sexual wiles to manipulate the 2,000 men she "loves'.

A more disturbing tale is The Dowry, (Mandi Sebasio-Ong, Shireen Morris, Daniela Lucchetti about an Indian bride who is abused and starved by her mother-in-law.

Milking Madam Butterfly (Yet Again) features an opera diva (Shireen Morris) commenting ironically upon the tragedy of Puccini's Madam Butterfly, a victim of her own dreams.

An overtly tragic story is Japanese Medea, (Miki Oikawa, Diane Stathis OK).

A young Japanese mother, isolated, humiliated and finally abandoned by her husband, drowns her children.

Woman on Top changes the pace. The wife of an Asian Prime Minister (Kathleen Baguio OK) revels in the wealth and power she has bought with her marriage.

Two comedies involve food and marriage. An Italian woman, (Stathis) married to a Japanese, bemoans the meagre portions of food in Japan. Then a Japanese wife (Oikawa) of an Aussie bloke, appears docile but uses commando-like tactics to compel her man to eat seaweed and rice.

There is a little too much emphasis on Asian women as victims and the finale of naked women grasping at kimonos in the half-darkness, was confusing and awkward.

However, Monologues is lush, entertaining, challenging and passionately performed and directed.

By Kate Herbert

Smashed by Lally Katz , April 27, 2005

Smashed  by Lally Katz 

Store Room, April 27 to May 15, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 27, 2005

Two enchanting features of the production of Smashed are the magnetic performances (Katherine Tonkin, Suzannah McDonald) and the magical set design (Rainbow Sweeney).

Lally Katz's play revolves around two teenage girls and begins with Hazel (McDonald) lying prone in Ruby's arms (Tonkin).

Something horrid, they tell us, has just happened but they postpone their inevitable confrontation of this awful experience.

The pair retreat into their common past: their childhood, adolescence and budding maturity. They even tilt time to drift into 'memories' of their unlived futures.

Katz's script bends time as the girls comment upon or relive their experiences.

The two young women play out this entire series of fantasies and memories amongst a miniature set built of dolls' houses.

They tower over the buildings like giant angels walking through an unwitting city.

They relive their intimate childhood games, dancing to pop songs, discovering Hazel's mother is ill, their first kiss and sitting bored in Hazel's bedroom.

They creep back to the demolition yard where they make up stories about the redneck owners. They walk through the countryside, remembering a hill or a lake then they go for a drive in hazel's mother's car, singing at the top of their lungs.

Many elements of the text are successful. The notions of time and matter, love and friendship, memory and reality, loss and grief, create some interesting material, particularly in the first half.

However, the ideas, form and language run out of steam in the second half. The dialogue becomes overly poetic and the themes are repeated.

What makes the show work well is the lyrical direction of Clare Watson and the particularly compelling performances of Tonkin and McDonald. The pair are as unalike as black and white.

Tonkin is dark, statuesque and smouldering while McDonald is tiny, pert and blond and absolutely luminous.

The two accomplished young actors have enormous range and skill both vocally and physically.

Although it is not spoken in the play, it is obvious to us from the outset that hazel has died and Ruby is grieving. What we do not know until the end is how this horror occurred.

By Kate Herbert

Journal of the Plague Year by Tom Wright, April 19, 2005

 Journal of the Plague Year by Tom Wright
Adapted from Daniel Defoe, by Malthouse Theatre

Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse  April 19 to May 8, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Journal of the Plague Year is a series of theatrical images, often inspired, exploring a year in the bubonic plague ridden London.

Defoe's fabricated journal of a man living the year 1665, is the foundation for Tom Wright's vividly composed text. The book is a pseudo-documentary and the voice of its central character becomes the narrator, a man who is witness to, and survivor of, the plague year.

The narration, by Robert Menzies, is the thread upon which the images of the plague are strung.

The production is a grim but often comic vision that combines the grotesque style with the vaudevillian.

Director, Michael Kantor, allows the gruesome realities of the plague to collide with the music, commentary, style and, perhaps most significantly, the hindsight, of the present.

It incorporates slapstick, satirical dialogue and slabs of text from Defoe. These weighty and awkward tracts of text are the weakest element of the production.

Printed titles, in the style of Victorian melodrama, introduce the horrors of each new month of the Plague Year.

Kantor uses a powerful and consistent theatricality. With one startling image following another.

A disembodied hands grasp at a dying man, huge balloons inflate overhead with an ominous hissing, a group of dissolute aristocrats fan themselves on a balcony (Ross Williams, Julie Forsyth, Marta Dusseldorp), a demented doomsayer shouts prophecies. (Mathew Whittet)

A leather-masked man (Dan Spielman) disposes of bodies in a yawning pit, ghoulish skull masks cavort through the streets and a giant rubber head appears over a fairground.

The atmospheric quality of the play provides a provocative and disturbing depiction of the plagued city.

The Dance of Death, typical of the bubonic plague victim, is distressingly portrayed in the convulsive death of a young woman. (Lucy Taylor)

The ensemble is compelling as they balance cruelty and comedy. Their awkward twitching bodies, white faces, blackened eyes, inky stained costumes and naked limbs give an awful sense of humanity stripped bare in a city laid waste.

Paul Jackson's lighting creates a complex, sculptural landscape with Anna Tregloan's constantly moving physical design. Max Lyandvert's live music blends an evocative soundscape with anachronistic contemporary songs.

This is a bold and irreverent production that augurs well for the new Malthouse.

By Kate Herbert

Two Brothers by Hannie Rayson, April 13, 2005

 Two Brothers by Hannie Rayson 
Melbourne Theatre Company

 Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, from April 13, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 13, 2005

Although the brawling brothers in Hannie Rayson's play are not the Costellos, there is a passing jocular reference to those real brothers who sit on opposite sides of the political fence.

Two Brothers makes its socio-political attitude crystal clear: Australia has done a great disservice to its refugees with its Pacific Solution and introduction of Temporary Protection Visas.

Brother number one, James "Eggs" Benedict (Garry McDonald) is a conservative politician, the Minister for Home Security who aspires to be Prime Minister.

His brother, Tom, (Nicholas Eadie) is a socialist human rights activist and lawyer working with an Aid agency for asylum seekers.

In the first half, the story is more credible and politically accurate. As Eggs' corruption and ambition escalates on a Macbethian scale, so the story deteriorates into an unbelievable soap opera.

The opening scenes zip along at a rapid pace. Relationships and characters are introduced swiftly, although with limited depth. The narrative was compelling, the jokes frequent and clever and the audience greatly entertained.

Director, Simon Phillips, uses a revolving stage to move quickly and effectively between the short and lively scenes. Dialogue is witty and credible in the first half.

An Iraqi refugee, Hazem Al Ayad, (Rodney Afif) is a client of Tom's and a survivor of the sinking of an Indonesian people smuggling boat on Christmas Day. His entire family drowned and Tom attempts to obtain residency for him.

The pivot of the story is that Eggs is responsible for an Australian Navy boat not saving the refugees. All this is complicated by the fact that Eggs' son, Lachlan (Ben Lawson), was a Gunnery Officer on the ship.

It is difficult to engage with the characters in the second half because of the chaotic and unrealistic situation. The dialogue becomes didactic and characters become ciphers for the play's political statement. Eggs and his assistant, Jamie (Caroline Brazier), become two-dimensional emotional thugs.

The performances are strong from the entire cast, particularly from the leads, Eadie and McDonald and from Afif as the passionate Hazem. Strangely, Hazem is the most believable and certainly the most sympathetic.

The stark chrome and glass design (Stephen Curtis) reflects the steely coldness of the plot and is lit effectively by Nick Schlieper.

A new play inevitably has some glitches. Although Two Brothers is entertaining, its narrative and dialogue need some reworking to give it the punch this topic warrants.

By Kate Herbert

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, April 12, 2005

 Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story 

Book, Lyrics and Music by Stephen Dolginoff

Theatreworks, 14a Acland St. St. Kilda, April 12 to 23, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The story of Leopold and Loeb, two teenage killers, shocked America in 1924 and entered US crime history.

American writer of musicals, Stephen Dolginoff, transforms this tale of murder, homosexuality, obsession and thrill seeking into a fascinating and disturbing musical for two men.

Two wealthy, educated and intelligent 19 year olds, Richard Loeb (Adrian Corbett) and Nathan Leopold (Nathan Butler) kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy in Chicago. They were caught and imprisoned for life plus 99 years.

Most of the details of the story are cleverly woven into the lyrics of the 15 songs. The rest is in the narration provided by Nathan Leopold, 35 years after the crime, as he addresses the Parole Board.

Butler and Corbett are appropriately cast as the two boys who seem such unlikely candidates for the horror they perpetrate.

This is an unusual story for a musical but it is strangely effective and affecting. It is not harrowing to watch but there are some distressing revelations in the story.

Dolginoff's songs draw on classic musical form and the music underscores the dialogue.

Pianist, Vicki Jacobs, the only musician on stage, brings passion and skill to the score.

 One drawback with the music is that the songs sound too much alike with repetitive tunes and little variety in style

However, the songs are well sung by Corbett and Butler who both have clear, bright voices that blend tunefully in their duets, particularly in the impassioned My Glasses/Just Lay Low.

The staging is sparse with only a couple of boxes and a single chair on stage. Director, Martin Croft, keeps the action simple and the focus on the characters, relationships and songs.

Cunning lighting by Katelyn B., (OK) closes the cavernous space to create discrete and intimate locations for the scenes.

Leopold and Loeb were lovers at High School who reunited before beginning Law School. Loeb was bisexual and charming. He manipulated the lovelorn Leopold to be his accomplice in a crime spree, seducing Leopold into a sexual contract written in blood.

Loeb became obsessed with Nietsche and believed that he and Leopold were superior men who could outwit anyone. He was wrong.  

This volatile fusion of compulsions led the pair to the kidnap and murder.

The show is diverting and capably performed with a very satisfying twist at the end.

By Kate Herbert

Mannix by Rod Quantock, April 8, 2005

 Mannix by Rod Quantock  

 Kingston Arts Centre, April 8 to 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 8

Dr. Daniel Mannix was the controversial Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne from 1913 until his death at 99 years in 1963.

Mannix was an intelligent, fiercely independent and vocal Irishman, a spokesman for the underclass, the workers. His constituents were the Irish Catholics of Melbourne who, early in the 20^th century, were still considered dangerous outcasts.

Rod Quantock uses as research for this one-man show, performed by Terence Donovan, the early period of Mannix's reign.

Donovan plays Mannix as well as the feisty Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, and several other characters of the period.

This intimate and small scale play begins with Donovan playing a 10-year-old naïve and poverty-stricken Irish Catholic boy who witnessed the arrival of Mannix in Melbourne in 1913.

Through they eyes of this child, we hear of Mannix's compassion, generosity and fortitude. The Doc, as he became known, tried to follow the motto he assumed on ordination as a Bishop: "All things to all men."

Quantock's script is a series of monologues direct to audience, recorded quotes from the Argus of the time and of Mannix's critics and some delightful Irish ballads sung live by Donovan in a warm and sweet voice

Donovan portrays the dignified Mannix at the pulpit and in the street. He rails against injustice and speaks out, to his detriment, against Hughes' planned referendum on Conscription during The Great War.

Mannix's efforts attracted enormous criticism and paranoia. He was called "belligerent" and "provocative" and then accused of being associated with "reckless extremists, pacifists and pro-Germans.".

 Mannix became the target of every bigot in the country - but he marched on relentlessly with his quest for fairness.

Donovan plays Mannix with warmth and his opponents with a gentle criticism. Although he was a little under-rehearsed on opening night, the show has legs.

Quantock wisely chose a short time span of Mannix's career on which to focus. The verbatim speeches and quotations are effective in telling his story and expanding our understanding of the man.

The show leaves us wanting more. In its next incarnation, the play could expand further on Mannix's dynamic and forthright personality, the characters around him and the view of the Australian press of this historic figure.

By Kate Herbert 

By Night We Tremble by Susan Alexopoulos, Feb 24, 2005

  By Night We Tremble  by Susan Alexopoulos 

 La Mama, Feb 24 to March 13, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It seems safe to assume that By Night We Tremble is based in the personal experience of the writer, Susan Alexopoulos.

The story is told from the point of view of a young woman (Alexopoulos) who, for the first time in her short but colourful love life, is dumped by her lover. (Tim Stitz)

The style is abstract and absurd and is written in an almost stream of consciousness style. It is an outpouring of grief and pain about loss of love.

It is more successful theatrically when it does not take itself seriously. Much of the time the dialogue is indulgent and immerses itself in platitudes and introspection that have little theatrical impact.

Two other actors portray the young woman's mother (Georgina Capper) and father (Stitz) but they also shift into playing the young woman and her lover.

Capper is quirky as the young woman's mother and suitably provocative as the young woman in love.

The direction (Julie Waddington & Thomas Papathanassiou OK) provides some imaginative physical representations of the sexual antics of the young lovers both in love and in separation.

The broad caricatures of mum and dad become repetitive and smack of the 1950s. Both parents live in a state of rage at the loss of their youth and sexuality and loss of control over their recalcitrant daughter.

Dad wears a daggy, old cardigan and constantly sprays a can of Air deodoriser. Mum wears an apron made of mothballs and her despair drives her to continually throttles.

Their aim is to make their daughter grow up to be sensible and responsible, just as they have had to do

The entertaining moments come with the inermittent sardonic reflections on the uncontrollable behaviour of those who are left by lovers.

The young woman comically bemoans the fact that she succumbed to begging her partner to stay, a behaviour that she always loathed in others.

"Loneliness is a great repellent," the actors intone ironically and repeatedly.

Lighting designed by Peter Heward provides an evocative atmosphere of murky blues and mauves.

The show is underscored with eclectic music including an impassioned tango.

There are certainly some interesting images and ideas in At Night We Tremble. but in the end, it feels less like theatre and more like private therapeutic  writings.

By Kate Herbert

Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler, March 22, 2005

Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler 

 CUB Malthouse, March 22 until April 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The horror of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia is brought home to us again in Necessary Targets, a play by Eve Ensler.

It is a moving, chastening and at times funny play that penetrates beneath the surface of statistics and horror stories, revealing the humanity of the survivors. 

Although both men and women suffered in this conflict, it is the women who are the focus. It is a story about not only the Bosnian women but about the two American therapists who travel to Bosnia to work with traumatized female victims of war.

J.S. (Vivienne Garret) is a psychiatrist who is out of her depth with war trauma. She wears Christian Dior in a war zone.  Her initial, comically patronising attempts to engage the women in arm's length psychotherapeutic sessions fall flat. When she engages with and feels for them, she is far more successful.

In competition with J.S. is Melissa, (Caitlin Beresford-Ord) a tough young woman counsellor experienced in war trauma but who is more concerned with recording the women's stories to include in her new book than with genuinely helping them.

Ensler highlights the ordinariness of the women who are damaged by war. It could be one of us. Their homes, families, work and play are destroyed by the conflict.

The diversity of the Bosnian women reflects how the war impacted on all levels of society.

Zlata ( Rosie Lalevich) is a successful and wealthy paediatrician who is vehemently opposed to these American outsiders pillaging the women's hearts and minds.

Nuna (Bojana Novakovic) is a youthful girl, interested in fashion, music and having fun. Jelena ( Danielle Antaki) is boisterous and cheerful despite the violence she experiences at home by her husband.

The oldest woman is Azra, (Jill Mc Kay) a farmer who pines for her cow and wishes to be buried on her farm.

Each woman slowly and unobtrusively reveals her own harrowing story but it is Seada (Kym Vercoe) whose story is the climax of the play. Seada carries a bundle of rags that she treats as a baby. Her denial and disassociation are painful to witness. The cruel revelation of her story is achingly tragic.

Pete Nettell directs the play with a deft hand using a multi-purpose and spare set design by Wayne Harris. Recorded Slavic music and dim lighting evoke an exotic but dangerous atmosphere.

The cast is all capable but several performances stand out. Lalevich as the indignant Zlata is a potent presence and Antaki is delightful as the drunken Jelena. Novakovic, as Nuna, is charming and joyful. But it is Vercoe's moment of revelation as Seada that breaks our hearts.

By Kate Herbert

Shakespeare's Villains by Steven Berkoff, Melbourne, Feb 17, 2005

 Shakespeare's Villains by Steven Berkoff

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, Feb  17 to Sun Feb 20, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 17, 2005

If you are an Oxford Shakespearian purist or, as Steven Berkoff describes it, "an iambic fundamentalist", you might be offended by Berkoff's unconventional playing of the Bard.

His performance of Shakespeare's Villains is irreverent, unpredictable and delicious. His style is witty, impulsive, indulgent and profoundly entertaining.

The stage is empty of set and props but he fills it with substance using his potent physicality.

He colours Shakespeare poetry with his vocal acrobatics, the rich velvet of his voice soaring and resonating.

Dramatic moments are inflected with comedy. Her rolls Macbeth's Scottish "r' with relish and playfully portrays Hamlet marching the endless corridors of Elsinore, calling to his mother. He conjures images of Gertrude and Lady Macbeth with sensual, visual descriptions of their femaleness.

The choice of villains is not obvious. Hamlet and Shylock, both often played as victims, are amongst them. 

Villains, Berkoff suggests in his impassioned commentary that links scenes, may be deformed or starved of love, (Richard III) jealous of others' love, (Iago) crave power in addition to love, (Macbeth) or be overwhelmed by mother's love (Hamlet).

Iago, Othello's subversive adviser, is "a mediocre villain" because he merely fiddles with the lives of people close to him, not even doing the killing himself.

Richard III is "a genius villain". He is proud and confident as he plans his villainy, covers his sins and murders many powerful and powerless royals.

The soldier, Macbeth, is "a wannabee villain". The fact that he has love in his life from his ambitious and manipulative wife, Lady Macbeth, gives him pause. She is the catalyst for his villainy.

Shakespeare's Jewish moneylender, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice, Berkoff tells us, has been sanitised in the playing over the year to accommodate the 20^th century delicacy about racial stereotypes. Berkoff depicts him as a vengeful cur that has been kicked too many times.

Hamlet is "an intelligent villain." He is erudite, a student of philosophy, so he can pontificate and procrastinate in his seething vengeance until he kills Polonius.

The King of the Fairies, Oberon, is more charmingly naughty than evil in his plans to make his wife fall in love with a wild beast.

The evening is stuffed with ironic and acerbic references to critics, famous actors, academics and politicians. It reveals a great deal about Berkoff's magical technique and charismatic, if slightly dangerous, personality.

By Kate Herbert

SubClass 26A, February 16, 2005

 SubClass 26A

 fortyfivedownstairs  February 16 to 27, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on February 16, 2005

SubClass 26A is an evocative representation of the plight of refugees in Australian detention centres.

Six performers, directed by Bagryana Popov, depict the refugees' experience using abstracted movement, repetition, fragmented dialogue and extracts from government document.

Stark lighting (Richard Vabre) includes fluorescent overhead lights to create a clinical environment for these isolated and desperate figures in the almost empty white space. (Anna Tregloan)

Percussive music (Elissa Goodrich) creates a simple soundscape to enhance the hollowness of the atmosphere.

This is not a narrative-based work but, rather, a series of oblique reflections upon the experiences of our refugees.

We witness them being moved about meaninglessly, forced into chairs, trying to understand incomprehensible and foolish instructions from three warders. (Simon Ellis, Nadja Kostich, Natalie Cursio)

Their days are regimented. They are called to meals, English lessons and interviews. Much of their time is spent waiting. They wait for news, information, answers, letters and for notice of their next visa interview.

Mostly, they wait for someone to believe them and not to treat them as criminals.

Although there is no single narrative thread, there are three detainees we come to know.

One is Abdullah Abdullah from Afghanistan, (Rodney Afif) the second is an Iraqi refugee (Majid Shokor) and the third a despairing young woman who suffers profound grief. (Ru Atma)

They are interrogated, never abused but abandoned, ignored, pushed from place to place, disbelieved and mistrusted.

There are some charming and funny vignettes. The two men (Afif and Shokor) play soccer and are joined by the male warder (Ellis). However, it turns into a power battle.

There are ironic references by the female warder (Kostich) to the movie, Pretty Woman, which seems light years away from the experience of the refugees.

The final images of Abdullah are poignant when he is demanding to be heard, fighting for his dignity and finally giving up when he hears his visa is rejected.

The piece becomes a little repetitive and is perhaps longer than it can successfully sustain but it is definitely an interesting if not penetrating view of the refugee situation in Australia.

By Kate Herbert

Tyranny by Barry Dickins, March 16, 2005

Tyranny by Barry Dickins 

The Builders Initiative

La Mama, March 16 to April, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Many of our successful playwrights, including Barry Dickins, began their writing in the late 60s and 70s at the Pram Factory.

Robert Reid's project called The Builders Initiative is founded on the commendable am to invite those playwrights to write new scripts to be directed by artists from the current theatre generation.

Ironically, Dickins seems to have incorporated something of this notion of old and new artists into his new absurdist play, Tyranny.

An elderly writer and intellectual, Eros Clare (Sharon Kershaw) nurtures a clutch of young wannabe artists who call their group, Dyspathy. She provides them with writing workshops, stimulating discussion and access to her rambling old mansion.

She is eccentric, decorative, successful and generous to her protegees, particularly the two boys, Henry (Mike McEvoy) and Johnny (Gareth Davies).

Eros is painfully unaware of their secret contempt for her and their clandestine plans to murder her and take all her money nor is she aware of the power of their girlish leader, Sandy. (Frances Marrington)

When they do attempt to kill her, she believes she should forgive such "fascist indiscretions of the younger generation."

Of course, in typical Dickins style, all of this horror is embedded cunningly in elaborate linguistic meanderings and hilarious social and political commentary.

His characters speak in Dickins own version of urban Australian poetry. He melds the suburban image with the exotic or the lyrical.

We meet a Zulu on Heidelberg Road; Mr. Richards, (David Pawsey) the grocer-butcher, quotes World War one poet, Wilfred Owen; the Bible and the Australia Council are in the one sentence; and Manet's Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe features during a picnic.

Dickins' writing obsesses about education, language, thought, politics, art and youth. He challenges our crumbling world and loss of faith and values. These young people are morally bankrupt, acquisitive and self-obsessed. Tyranny is a scathing attack on youth.

The set design (Jamie Clennett) of white painted junk clustered up the back walls is inventive.

The cast and director work courageously with this chaotic and intense script. The problem is that they do not seem to understand Dickins' style and are not quite in control of his language and intention.

The dialogue is complex, requiring clear articulation. At times, the actors are inaudible or incomprehensible. It also lacks his signature slapstick and satirical quality.

However, it is delightful to see a new Dickins with all its shambolic glory.

By Kate Herbert

The Yellow Wallpaper, from Charlotte Gilman Perkins, March 15, 2005

The Yellow Wallpaper  by Charlotte Gilman Perkins 

Adapted by Anita Hegh and Peter Evans

Where and When: Store Room, March 15 to April 3, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The confined, empty black space of The Store Room echoes the claustrophobic feelings of The Yellow Wallpaper.

Anita Hegh portrays a woman in an escalating psychological crisis. She is virtually incarcerated in an upstairs nursery in a crumbling country house.

Her isolation from friends, society and her beloved writing, enforced by her loving husband, is intended to speed her recovery but, instead, triggers a terrifying fall into delusion and paranoia.

Director, Peter Evans, with Hegh, adapted this electrically charged performance from Charlotte Gilman Perkins' 1892 novella of the same name.

Evans and Hegh use cunningly simple theatrical devices to create the layers of the story.

Hegh, dressed in a battered bridal gown, tells the woman's tale in the first person in a direct address to the audience. Her controlled narration is punctuated by random gasps that highlight the woman's rising panic and barely masked hysteria.

The woman enters and re-enters through the doorway as if she is re-enacting a contrived or rehearsed version of herself and her story for us.

She walks and speaks with dignity and rigid control, smiling awkwardly to deceive her husband and herself. Each day that passes we see her initial control of her demeanour and speech degenerate.

The peeling yellow wallpaper in her nursery prison obsesses her. Its pattern shatters all aesthetic rules. Perkins' poetry is vivid and compelling. It is "a smouldering, unclean yellow," with a pattern of "lame, uncertain curves that suddenly commit suicide."

The woman describes the pattern as being like fungus, revealing strangled heads and bulbous eyes. But beneath the surface pattern she sees a creeping woman, trapped and trying to escape. It is this image that eventually takes over fragile mind.

Hegh is rivetting, vibrating with the despair and uneasy control of a shattered psyche. It is this desperate vocal and physical control of language and delivery that exaggerates the delicacy of the woman's mental state.

Evocative lighting by Luke Hails creates a series of dramatic spaces that highlight the feelings of entrapment and the vocal brightness of the woman's voice overs lend an eerie childlikeness to her plight.

By Kate Herbert

Menopause-The Musical by Jeanie Linders, Feb 10, 2005

Menopause - The Musical by  Jeanie  Linders 
Produced by  G4 Productions, Lascorp, ICA and McPherson Touring

Where and When: Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, from Feb 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 10, 2005

Menopause - The Musical, written by Jeanie Linders, boasts a title that makes people laugh and wonder how one can write a musical about women's hormones.

Well, it is identification theatre. The audience, mostly women over 55, cheered at every reference to a menopausal symptom and danced on stage for the finale.

They identify with the characters who are all in their 40s or 50s. They are an executive, (Caroline Gillmer, a soap star, (Jane Clifton) a rural housewife, (Deidre Rubenstein) and a hippy. (Susan-Ann Walker OK)

These menopausal women meet in a department store then compare menopausal symptoms in song.

Despite the quality of the writing being limited, there being no narrative, nor any dramatic tension, the show is entertaining to its target audience - and perhaps their husbands.

The set is a wall of department store doors. There is simple 60s choreography and a few costume changes but essentially the show is a series of clever song parodies hooked together with daggy dialogue.

The Australian production is directed by Gary Young and choreographed by Andrew Hallsworth .

The four actors make a meal of the witty songs that puts new words about symptoms to classic tunes.

Gilmer belts out the opening parody to that Soul classic, Chain, Chain, Chain, which transposes into "Change, Change, Change- Change of Life".

There are songs about memory loss, over-eating, lack of fitness, fatness, sex, vibrators, face lifts, cosmetics, incontinence and confusion.

Gilmer sings, "I've got the night sweats baby this evening" and Clifton vamps with, "I'm having a hot flush, a tropical hot flush."

Walker bemoans her sleeplessness to the tune of I Will Survive, singing, " I -  I am awake." The audience shrieks.

Husbands not able to cope with the stress of the wife's mood swings are lyrics to the tune of In the Jungle: " In the guest room or on the sofa my husband sleeps tonight."

My favourite was sung to the tune of "Bill" and about anti-depressants: "Pills! I love you so I always will."

Menopause is fun - really daggy and little preachy, but fun.

LOOK FOR: Gillmer's Chain, Chain, Chain.

By Kate Herbert 

Mamma Mia! (The Musical) March 9, 2005

Mamma Mia! 

Music by Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus Book by Catherine Johnson

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, March 9 to  June 9, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The vibrant musical Mamma Mia! returns to Melbourne after four years with its nostalgic and eminently singable repertoire of ABBA pop tunes. Each song is a potential Eurovision Song Contest winner.

The opening night audience bopped and bounced in its seats to every beat and sang along with the catchy lyrics of Benny and Bjorn's immortal songs.

The beginning of the show felt a little uncomfortable. Some dialogue was too expository and there were occasional vocal pitch problems. These were overcome quickly.

The show hit its straps with the memorable Money Money Money, then Mamma Mia and Super Trouper.

The audience was delighted by every cunning segue from a line of dialogue into the opening lyric of a song.

Writer, Catherine Johnson, takes advantage of the impassioned, romantic lyrics, sung originally by Agnetha and Anni-Frid. Many ABBA songs are about relationships and lend themselves to a play about falling in and out of love.

The story is simple. Donna, played by the warm-voiced and passionate Silvie Paladino, (OK) runs a taverna on a Greek island. Her 20-year-old daughter, Sophie, (Kellie Rode) is to be married the next day.

The hitch is that Sophie, unbeknowns to her single mother, invited three of her mum's ex-lovers (John O'May, Bruce Roberts and Peter Hardy) to her wedding, hoping one of them is her unacknowledged dad.

Rode is perky and engaging as Sophie and her three "fathers" have fun with their goofy roles.

The show is stolen by the three older women on stage. (Paladino, Jenny Vuletic, Emma Powell) They appear together as Donna's old girl group, Donna and the Dynamos, decked out in Shiny Elvis suits singing Super Trouper and, in the finale, You Can Dance and Waterloo.

Jenny Vuletic is unbelievably sassy and magnetic singing Does Your Mother Know. Paladino's The Winner Takes It All is compelling and the final of I Do I Do I Do is delightful.

There are two huge dance numbers. Voulez Vous is a big chorus number in the taverna and under Attack is a marvellously quirky underwater dream sequence in wet suits, fluorescent goggles and snorkels

The second half is a musical rocket.  The audience stood and danced and sang in their seats during the finale. So should you.

By Kate Herbert for 1 pages: