Edge: The Story of Silvia Plath, Feb 22, 2006

 Edge: The Story of Silvia Plath
by Paul Alexander

Athenaeum Theatre 1, until Feb 22 to 25, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 22, 2006

Angelica Torn is mesmerising as the fractured Silvia Plath in Paul Alexander’s play, Edge. She prowls like a caged animal on the cavernous and ruined stage.  The distressed, painted wall of the theatre is a fitting backdrop to Plath’s shattered life and tormented mind.

Plath comes alive, ironically, in these her last moments, as Torn narrates Silvia’s tortured life before her suicide; in despair, she put her head in the gas oven in her dingy flat in London while her children slept upstairs.

Edge is a perfect title for this edgy performance by Torn and the fraught state in which Plath lived and wrote her poems, an autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, and countless articles and journals. She was a formidable but fragile talent.

Writer and director, Paul Alexander, puts minimal stage action into the script or the production. Torn sits, writing at her desk or perched on a chair centre stage, talking to us about the death of her father, her relationship with her mother, her marriage to the celebrated poet, Ted Hughes, her suicide attempts, her perfectionism and her own exceptional talent as a poet.

For over two hours, Torn hypnotises us, just as Hughes worked his rough magic on Plath. She is a compelling presence as the ambitious, complicated and searingly self-critical Plath.

Words tumble from her lips in a torrent, as if Plath is unable to control her thoughts turning into speech. Torn uses a haughty Boston accent, precise, clipped articulation and a rapid arch delivery, almost dodging punctuation to express Plath’s galloping recollections.

As she self-narrates Plath’s life, Torn shifts into dramatic replays of the most pungent of Plath’s memories. We are hauled back into her childhood experience of her rigid disciplinarian father’s foolish death from treatable diabetes.

We see her first melodramatic suicide attempt when she hurls herself onto her mother’s bed, demanding they kill themselves.

We witness her violent electric shock therapy by a quack psychiatrist and then the milder, talking therapist who forced her to confront her dead father’s grave.

But most rivetting is Torn’s depiction of Plath’s relationship with Hughes. Her verbal description of Ted as a lusty, brooding, cruel, emotional thug and her physical portrayal of his violence combine to conjure an unhappy picture of the marriage.

Plath describes herself as “tragically brilliant”. She can also be intensely dislikeable, selfish and, perhaps, cruel. However, Torn makes her sympathetic and inspiring, playing her with an ironic eye on Plath’s own folly and fate.

By Kate Herbert

The Cheapest Hotel in Victoria, Feb 16, 2006

The Cheapest Hotel in Victoria 

by Kieran Carroll

 La Mama, Feb 16 to March 5, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 16, 2006

In The Cheapest Hotel in Victoria, three blokes spend a stingy holiday at the Fed Up and Had It Hotel in a mythical town in Victoria. It is a disaster for all sorts of reasons –like all their summer holidays for the last 18 years.

Kieran Carroll’s central idea is quirky and has potential to be a good comedy. The writing, although not as skilful, is reminiscent of Barry Dickins’ plays, incorporating Australianisms, anachronisms, nostalgia grumpy geezers, beer and grubby claustrophobic rooms.

There is plenty of effort from the actors but the performances are uneven, often strained and sometimes out of control. The direction (Carroll & Matthew Charleston) is awkward and lacks a clear vision to make the comedy and characters consistent and alive.

Jamie Robertson has some broad, comic moments as Des, a womanising beer-swilling oaf with an inflated view of his own magnetism.

Luke Doxy plays his absurdly conservative, nostalgic and repressed mate, Ray, who although he is only 27, pines for the heyday of past Liberal Party heroes, for tomato and cheese on Savoy crackers and Reader’s Digest.

Mal, played by Charleston, is the stitched-up, miserly holiday master. Every year, he chooses the cheapest hotel, the crumbiest room and rations the lads’ food, beer and fun. The only fun he allows them is the occasional dancing to the distant strains of Cold Chisel on the jukebox.

The three share a seedy, old, double bed mattress throughout the play. It is an absurd notion that would work better with stronger direction.

The production feels undercooked and uncomfortable, the writing sometimes overly adorned and the performers unsure of the style.

Charleston uses an unfortunate, mouth-twisting characterisation that makes much of his dialogue incomprehensible. Doxy’s understated delivery is a good choice and Robertson has some broadly comical moments playing Des’s roguishness and machismo.

The fourth character, Mr. Barnstormer, (Nial Carroll) is like something from a Ionesco absurdist play, but Carroll’s timing and delivery are awkward.

The final appearance of the publican, dressed as a World Championship wrestler could be funny, but Domenic Phelan overplays the role by shouting.

The political and social references in Carroll’s script certainly have comic potential but this production needs some tightening.

By Kate Herbert

An Inspector Calls, by J. B. Priestley, Feb 9, 2006

An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley 

Royal National Theatre

 Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, Feb 9 to Feb 26, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb , 2006

An Inspector Calls is a thrilling and atmospheric theatrical production. Dirctor, Stephen Daldry’s, inspired vision elevates J.B. Priestley’s 1945 mystery to a new level of innovative, contemporary theatricality.

Priestley, a confirmed socialist, wrote a morality play that challenged the rights and pretensions of the English upper class and highlighted the powerlessness of the impoverished.

The enigmatic, dogged Inspector Goole (Pip Donaghy) arrives unexpectedly at the opulent home of Arthur Birling (David Roper), shattering their celebratory dinner party with his investigations into their involvement in the suicide of a young woman each of them exploited.

Daldry directs the virtuoso cast with attention to detail. Each moment has delicate nuances. The play is as much about the space between words as it is about dialogue. We see each thought; every pause colours the moment with emotion, questions and suspicion.

Dramatic tension rises as the ruthless inspector interrogates characters, peeling away their veneer of civility, status and control.

Ian McNeil’s startling design is a phenomenal feat of engineering. Stephen Warbeck’s music is haunting and penetrating and Rick Fisher’s lighting is evocative.

Daldry’s production is layered with metaphor. We see the cracks in the class system, both physically and metaphorically. The stately home cracks open to reveal a lavish, claustrophobic interior, echoing the shattering of the characters’ fragile outer shells.

Rain drizzles on stage, resonating with the despair of the victims. A poor child watches, peering through windows, always an outsider. A shabby group stares mutely, witnesses to the downfall of their oppressors.

The cast’s timing and delivery are impeccable. As Inspector Goole, Donaghy finds a relentless, terrier-like quality and balances blazing rage with cool irony. Emma Darwell Smith shimmers with a startled fawn naivete and a burgeoning awareness of her unwitting crimes.

The family begins to examine its formerly unseen conscience. Sandra Duncan shows the crumbling of Sybil Birling’s stately haughtiness and Roper blusters and bellows suitably as Arthur. Mark Healy portrays the decline of Gerald Croft’s arrogance into despair and Mark Field shifts Eric’s drunken giggling into outrage. Diana Payne Myers,as Edna, is the perfect silent servant.

Some audience might struggle with the subtlety, slow deliberation and allegorical nature of the play but this is a magnificently crafted piece of theatrical genius with a director’s enthralling vision alive in every moment.

By Kate Herbert

Rent, Feb 8, 2006

Rent 

Book, Lyrics and Music by Jonathan Larson 

Stella Entertainment

National Theatre, St. Kilda, Feb 8 to Feb 25, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 8, 2006

When Rent opened, it was the first new, successful rock musical for some time. It hit the New York stage with a bang in 1996, winning four Tony Awards.

Rent has a compelling rock score by Jonathan Larson who also wrote the book and lyrics. Stella Entertainment, a high-level, amateur music theatre company, stages the first major production of Rent in Melbourne since the premiere.

Larson lived a tragic life similar to that represented in his show, Half of his impoverished, main characters live with the AIDS virus. Larson himself died from AIDS shortly before the premiere of his show.

His turn of the millennium, New York Boho culture, echoes that of Puccini’s La Boheme of the 19th century. There is even an ailing Mimi (Jessica Featherby) who arrives asking Roger (Cole Rintoul), the songwriter, to light her candle.

The singing in this production is skilful and accompanied by an accomplished onstage band with musical direction by Andrew Leach.

Peter Fitzpatrick’s direction keeps the relationships and emotional journey focal There are, however,problems with some unimaginative staging of the chorus and some awkward abstract movement sequences that pull focus from the central characters.

The choreography (Roman Berry) and dancers are capable but their costuming as painted cat-like or ghostly spirits, distracts from the urban grunge style of the show. When Angel, the transvestite victim of AIDS, returns after death as a guiding spirit, his absurd, grey tutu outfit ruins the poignancy of the scene.

Paul David Watson, as the narrator and aspiring film-maker, Mark, has a simple, charming style and bright voice.. As Roger, Cole Rintoul’s voice captures the lament of the faded rock songwriter and AIDS victim,

䘀eatherby is raunchy as the young heroin addict, Mimi, and Phillip Haby gives resonance to Collins, the Philosophy lecturer. As his transvestite lover, Angel, Adrian Li Donni has a pure tone and vibrant presence. The fine voices and professionalism of Jessica Enes (Maureen) and Erin Keleher (Joanne) give substance to their roles. Keep an ear out for the soaring voice of featured soloist, Natalie Calia

Rent is sung through and, sometimes Larson’s recitative becomes dreary and awkward. The chorus numbers are effective, particularly the rousing La Vie Boheme and the very singable and moving song, Seasons of Love.

Larson’s narrative bumps along uncomfortably in the final half hour and his characters’ urban, squatter, anti-establishment attitudes pall, but the music and singing is terrific by this young company.

By Kate Herbert

Delicacy by Julian Hobba, Feb 1, 2006

Delicacy  by Julian Hobba 

 Trades Hall, Carlton, until  Feb 4, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 1, 2006

Delicacy, written by Julian Hobba, is a compelling piece of theatre for all sorts of reasons, including the performances, direction, writing and design.

However, it is the subject matter that makes it a peculiar and disturbing experience. This two-hander is based on the true story of a German man who wanted to eat another man and found a willing victim on the internet.

One would expect the cannibal to be Hannibal Lector come to life but what makes the play even more bizarre is the fact that Denny (Luke Mullins) is a passive, weak recluse and his victim, Neil (Paul Denny), is a brute.

Hodda cunningly constructs the story and dialogue so that the world of these two men seems almost banal in its domesticity prior to the moment that blood starts to run.

For most of this short play, we watch the submissive Denny preparing his mother’s special recipe as a final dinner for his belligerent companion, Neil, who sits at the dinner table slavering over internet pornography.

Their actual purpose is veiled until quite late in the play and we could be watching two dysfunctional friends in a typical evening at home. They discuss work, Denny’s late mother, Neil’s wife, the internet. There are only cryptic references to their cannibalistic pact.

Much of their interaction is funny. If one did not know the true story, or anticipate the horror, this could be a light comedy. But the atmosphere turns on a sixpence when Denny, sick of Neil’s delaying tactics, demands Neil leave which, in turn, compels Neil to raise the stakes and bring forward their bloody deadline.

Mullins is rivetting as the subservient Denny. He plays him with a dainty physicality and effete subservience, pacing like a silent servant around his kitchen. As Neil, Paul Denny manages to combine a brutish power with a charming and sensual physicality.

Hodda makes these men real and believable. We have some small insight into their fractured pasts, their daily worlds, disturbed psyches and appalling obsessions.

Director, Wesley Enoch, keeps the pace steady and the mood light until the dreadful turning point. Anna Cordingley’s design provides the ordinariness of a well-equipped kitchen but we are aware of the knives and iron pots that await their intended use.

Delicacy is a very clever play. If you are squeamish about blood, shut your eyes here and there.

By Kate Herbert

The True Amazon Adventures of Roger Casement, Jan 25, 2006

 The True Amazon Adventures of Roger Casement

by Andrew Shaw

La Mama, Jan 25 to Feb 12, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Jan 25, 2006

The True Adventures of Roger Casement, by Andrew Shaw, has an interesting central premise but the writing and production are flawed.

Sir Roger Casement (Eliot Summers) was an Irish Protestant, British Consul-General to South America and a renowned humanitarian. He investigated atrocities perpetrated by British in the Amazon then shocked the government by joining the 1916 Irish uprising.

When he was captured, his diaries, detailing his illicit homosexual affairs with Brazilian boys, were discovered. His reputation was irreparably tarnished.

Shaw’s play is based on the supposition that the diaries were forged to discredit the Irish hero. In Shaw’s version, Foreign Office officials force a young homosexual (Mike McEvoy) to write a false and lurid dairy.

Shaw’s script is at its best when spare and sardonic. It is let down with informational and expository dialogue loaded with facts about Casement, rubber plantations and British imperialism.

Speeches about the ethics and politics of homosexuality in 1916 are informative but make clumsy dialogue. Great dexterity is required to integrate fact into theatre. Less is more.

Director, Robert Reid, struggles to find a consistent style and form. His actors wear grotesque white face as well as wearing flesh-coloured half masks that are removed too frequently. The intention of the masks is unclear; do they represent the past, the reflective moments or perhaps unspoken thoughts?

Intermittent tableaux create physical imagery but the changes between them are too long. There is even a child-sized puppet that is from a totally different style.

The acting in the show is very uneven but there are a few performances worth noting. Michael F. Cahill is often commanding and comical as Smith, the Foreign Office bully-boy.

McEvoy captures a fey romanticism in the young bureaucrat, Thomson and Simon Morrison-Baldwin has presence as Pepe.

Summers is best as Thomson’s secret lover but lacks gravitas as Casement and stumbles over the wordy dialogue. Robert Lloyd seems uncomfortable as Delaney and Liz McColl, as Mrs. Potter, aims for the grotesque but ends up overacting.

Two of the better scenes come in the last moments of the play. The trio of bureaucrats checking the false diary is simple and effective and, in the final scene, the fantasies of young Thomson interlink successfully with the tale of Casement and his lover (Tobias Manderson-Galvin).

This idea has merit but the pace and style of the production need some attention.

By Kate Herbert

Seriously. Pet Shop Boys. Reinterpreted, Jan 25, 2006

 Seriously. Pet Shop Boys. Reinterpreted 
Music by Neil Tennant & Chris Lowe
Produced by David Knox, Dean Lotherington and Shaun Miller 

Chapel off Chapel, Prahran,  Jan 25 to Feb 12, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Jan 25, 2006

Seriously is just what the subtitle says: a reinterpretation of songs by The Pet Shop Boys. Director, David Knox, with Musical Director, Dean Lotherington, creates a compelling evening of cabaret, song, some drama and an excellent five-piece musical ensemble.

The show incorporates innumerable hits by The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. The musical duo always had a significant gay following but the romantic and passionate lyrics are always ambiguous, allowing the heterosexual fans to relate.

Lotherington’s inventive arrangements are interpreted by five singers: Maria Mercedes, Tania Doko, David Gould, Paul Ross and Anthony Costanza.

The list of songs is lengthy: Seriously, Flamboyant, Domino Dancing, Jealousy, You Only Say You Love Me When You’re Drunk, Miracles, Love Comes  Quickly and more.

Knox cunningly provides a simple dramatic scenario for each song. This convention allows the singers to communicate an emotional intention through the lyrics rather than simply singing the song. They play all kinds of love stories ranging from new romance to eyes across a crowded room, separations, infidelities and love lost.

The stage design (Jeremy Smith), with huge sheer white drapes and a white chaise, gives a light, open and flexible space for various moods and interpretations.

Words such as Suspicion, Reaction and Infidelity are perhaps too obviously projected onto the curtains. The lyrics, music and singers give us sufficient information.

The opening Prologue allows each singer a short solo song. Then, the quintet sings a passionate, cleverly arranged version of Red Letter Day that is reprised as a rousing finale.

Ross and Costanza do a charming duet of separated lovers in Send Me An Email To Say I Love You. Costanza and Mercedes warmly sing a parting friends story in You’ve Got A Home Here and Mercedes gives a moving rendition of So Sorry, I Said. Costanza’s bright voice is perfect for Miracles.

Gold’s consummate vocal skill and velvety bass baritone lends weight and style to the entire show and his I Can’t Say Goodnight, is a highlight. Doko’s sultry version of Rent is perfectly suited to her smoky voice.

What Have I Done to Deserve This, sung by all five, is a complex arrangement that gives a new edge to this hit song.

The show is a rich tribute to the 80s duo.

By Kate Herbert

Keating! The Musical, Jan 19, 2006

Keating!  by Casey Bennetto  

Drowsy Drivers & Li’l Gem Productions

Trades Hall New Ballroom,  Jan 19 to 28, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

(See also in this blog, review of later production Feb 13, 2008)

 

Has nobody noticed that we finally have the totally original, cunningly written and scored new Australian rock opera just begging to be taken to the main stage? Where are all the big producers?

Keating! is an inspired musical and political satire. Writer, Casey Bennetto, is not only a big-voiced rock singer, but he constructs an intelligent narrative based on the rise to Prime Ministership of Paul Keating and memorable tunes with devilishly clever lyrics.

Of course, there could be some resistance to a production that so clearly depicts Keating a social and cultural hero and John Howard as a manipulative megalomaniac.

The accomplished and versatile five-piece band plays fifteen songs ranging from ballads through reggae, blues, rap, rock and country. There is even a dark tango in which a villainous Howard (Bennetto) sings I Want Power.

A commanding Bennetto opens the show as Bob Hawke, the people’s PM, singing, “ I like beer and boots, not wine and suits.”

Mike McLeish enters singing cool jazz. I Do It In Style captures the essence of Keating’s charm, culture and Zegna suits. He even includes a Fred Astaire tap routine.

In Remember Kirribilli, a ballad of love’s betrayal, McLeish laments Hawke’s broken promise relinquish the leadership. But Keating takes Hawke’s Caesarian laurel wreath in It’s Time, a driving rock duet with Bennetto, then segues into a laid-back reggae Republican anthem, I Am the Leader of the Land.

McLeish and Bennetto rap as Keating and hapless Liberal leader, John Hewson. Bennetto incorporates scads of scathing Keatingisms, lifted directly from Hansard. I Wanna Do You Slowly is a sleazy song promising to beat Hewson in the election.

Alexander Downer appears in Frankenfurter drag in the hilarious I’m Too Freaky and Gareth Evans sings a gypsy prophet of doom then a love duet with Cheryl Curnow.

Choose Me is a funky blues duet between Keating and Howard who promises the electorate with lies and bribes that he “will make the pain go away”. Keating awaits the election result singing I’m Dreaming of the Light on the Hill.

Bennetto’s ingenious lyrics capture the fearful tenor of the country both now and then: “Give us back our bloody country, Nothing alien or scary, La di da or fairy, Just put it back the way it was before.”

Keating! is slick, exhilarating political satire. Imagine this show with a full chorus and band, choreography, a set and more actor-singers.

By Kate Herbert

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, MTC, Jan 18, 2006

 The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee 

Music and Lyrics by William Finn, Book by Rachel Sheinkin, Conceived by Rebecca Feldman

Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Jan 18 until February 25, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Jan 18, 2006

As witnessed in the documentary, Spellbound, Americans take their spelling bees deadly seriously. Australian children would never face words such as “omphaloskepsis” or “cleistogamy”. Try finding those in your spell checker.

The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is an uproariously silly and demented musical set at an annual county spelling competition. Six rather peculiar teenagers compete for a position at the national spelling bee.  

You might think there is nothing dramatic about a spelling competition but the stakes are high, emotions run out of control and the rules are ruthless. You would think their young lives depended on winning.

Of course, this very intensity is what makes it so hilarious to we non-believers. Every contestant is eccentric, ambitious, smart and a candidate for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

William Finn’s songs are diverse in style and lyrics are clever. The title song has the feel of a Broadway musical and Life is Pandemonium is a punchy chorus number. Bert Labonte’s funky voice makes The Prayer of the Comfort Counsellor a raunchy highlight.

The band, under the musical direction of Ian McDonald, plays impeccably.

Rachel Sheinkin’s dialogue is witty and in the style of a sit-com. Her best lines are delivered with relish by Tyler Coppin, as the temperamental word pronouncer and Vice-Principal, Douglas Panch.

Marina Prior proves she can play comedy as the prissy ex-champion speller, Rona Lisa Peretti.

The solo songs by each child demonstrate their insecurities, despair and ambition. It is this inner life that provides an emotional layer to the show.

We watch some of them overcome appalling parental pressure. Christen O’Leary is charming as Logaine Schwarzandgrubeniere, the lisping, left wing daughter of two gay dads. Natalie Mendoza as the multi-lingual smarty-pants, Marcy Park, delights us when she purposely misspells a word in order to escape the pressure of her perfectionism.

 David Campbell is in fine voice as Chip Tolentino,an ex-champ distracted, while spelling, by his hormones. Tim Wright is a joy to watch as weird little Leaf Coneybear.

Magda Szubanski had a field day playing the arrogant and overweight William Barfee with his nasal problems and no friends.

Don't panic, but they do invite four audience members on stage as spellers. They even got some of the toughest words right.

The show has the tension of a sporting event. Who will survive to spell another day. The Spelling Bee utterly enjoyable and completely goofy romp.

By Kate Herbert 

Dusty – The Original Pop Diva, Jan 12, 2006

 Dusty – The Original Pop Diva
by John-Michael Howson, David Mitchell & Melvin Morrow 

State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, from Jan 12, 2006 for limited season

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Dusty Springfield was not only a wildly popular 1960s pop singer, but she became a gay icon by the 1980s. Her blonde wigs, gowns, black eyes and histrionic gestures made her a perfect target for drag queen impersonators.

However, it was her rich, smoky, soul voice and emotional phrasing that made her a pop legend. This musical, directed by Stuart Maunder, is built around her tumultuous life and her impassioned songs.

Dusty was born plain, plump, myopic, red headed, ambitious Mary O’Brien, in a conservative Irish Catholic family. The nuns dubbed her Dusty, a name she re-used when she grew into the 60s blonde bombshell.

Her singing career flagged after she moved to America in 1971 and developed a love affair with alcohol. She died of breast cancer in 1999, after receiving an OBE and being inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tamsin Carroll is inspired casting for Dusty. She has impeccable timing and delivery a rich, warm, soulful voice that captures the passion and intensity of Dusty’s own sound.

Carroll inhabits Dusty, finding emotional layers and character definition in spite of the very thin dialogue.

Her tender ballad, The Look of Love, transports us a breath away from tears.

Carroll performs Son of a Preacher Man with compelling resonances of the original version. When she finally sang You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, the crowd cheered.

The supporting cast are all accomplished. Alexis Fishman is perky and provocative as the young Dusty. Mitchell Butel is hilarious as Dusty’s ubiquitous hairdresser, and Kaye Tuckerman, Trisha Noble and Glenn Butcher give strong performances. Deni Hines has a fine voice but struggles with the acting role.

The band, under Stephen “Spud” Murphy, is super, the design (Roger Kirk) cleverly incorporates scrapbook images with a huge long-playing record and the choreography (Ross Coleman) echoes the 60s.

The show suffers from the poorly constructed narrative and the often cheap and shallow dialogue.

A life does not have a natural dramatic arc. The three writers incorporate too much of Dusty’s early life and do not provide a clear plot through line. The links between scenes and songs are awkward and artificial.

Some dialogue is overly sentimental while other lines are cheap. The writers rely too heavily on camp jokes and cheap gay references and too little on character development.

Dusty’s internal struggle with her childhood self about her singing and her secret lesbian lifestyle is not sufficiently developed and there are unexplained leaps between periods of her life. We know too little about the real Dusty at the end.

However, none of this destroys the musical delight of this production.

By Kate Herbert

A Couple of Blaguards, Jan 5, 2006

A Couple of Blaguards 

by Frank Mc Court & Malachy McCourt

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne,  Jan 5 to 22, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The McCourt Brothers, Frank and Malachy, are as famous for their Irish childhood and larrikin humour as they are for their respective contributions to literature and entertainment.

Frank’s novel, Angela’s Ashes, about their early years in wretched poverty in Limerick, Ireland, won a Pulitzer Prize. Meanwhile, Malachy featured in American television and radio.

In 1984, the brothers wrote and performed a revue-style show about their life in Ireland and later years in New York City, where they found almost as many Irish as in Limerick.

Both Frank and Malachy are successful prose writers but their stage writing for Blaguards is restricted to short scenes, vignettes, gags, yarn spinning and oral history.

The McCourt’s original director, Howard Platt, directs Max Cullen (Frank) and Max Gillies (Malachy). In addition to Frank and Malachy, they play numerous other Irish and American characters inspired by the McCourt’s past.

The actors perform most of the show seated or standing at a small table and chairs at the front and centre of the stage. Two enormous banner posters of Ireland and New York City flank them.

The show might benefit from greater directorial risks with characterisation, design and staging. The production is unimaginative.

Clearly, though, the focus is on the hilarity of these snapshots of the McCourt’s lives. The early scenes are the most enjoyable and comical.

Cullen is charming as the child Frank, being berated by his pious mother and his aggressive grandmother, his prudish teacher, his fiery Catholic priest and a more liberal Jesuit, all played by Gillies.

For those of us who went through the Irish Catholic childhood and made our First Holy Communion, these scenes are achingly funny and familiar.

Gillies plays the cynical, intellectual Jesuit with a wry humour and his local parish priest is a tyrant using hellfire and brimstone to terrify the little boys into shunning “self-abuse”, the sin of lust and any other activity that might be pleasurable.

Cullen and Gillies wickedly parody two Limerick women: whining, blaming, devout and venomously critical.

There are plenty of stories about death. The saddest is about the boys dealing with the death of their little brother. The comical ones show wizened women carping at funerals and drunks revelling in Guinness and yarns at the wake.

The second half, the boys’ later years in New York, is overladen with confusing stories and too many characters, but the first half in particular is very entertaining.

By Kate Herbert

Dumb Show by Joe Penhall, MTC, Feb 2, 2006

Dumb Show by Joe Penhall 

Melbourne Theatre Company

Fairfax studio, Victorian Arts Centre, Feb 2 to 18, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 2, 2006

Joe Penhall, in Dumb Show, writes swift and relentless dialogue and has an innate understanding of a good gag.

His searing satire nips at the heels of British tabloid journalism as well as the entertainment industry. Both are seen as acquisitive, savage, cynical and uncompassionate.

Barry (Richard Piper) is a successful comedian on a television sit-com. He is invited to discuss a lucrative corporate speaking gig with two people who purport to be private bankers (Aaron Blabey, Anita Hegh). The negotiations are circuitous and secretive while the fee is evidently enormous.

Barry is oblivious to the fact that the two “bankers” are actually undercover investigative journalists from the gutter press.

Alone in a hotel room with Liz (Hegh), Barry drinks to excess, mutters unsavoury criticisms of his fans and his agent and reveals his drug use and his estrangement from his wife.

Finally he makes the biggest errors of his career: he tries to fondle Liz and offers her cocaine.

It is a clear-cut case of entrapment but, when Liz and Greg reveal themselves as newspaper hacks, Barry is well and truly cornered,

The dialogue is rapid, hilarious and delivered with consummate skill and timing by all three actors.

Piper captures the neediness, self-absorption and exhibitionism of Barry, the English entertainer. Blabey plays the deceitful editor, Greg, with a flesh-crawling unpleasantness. He will get his story by any means, regardless of the consequences.

Hegh cleverly balances Liz’s feigned concern with her insensitivity and insincerity. Liz catches flies with honey. Both Greg and Liz take the high moral ground when they are, in fact, cheap, immoral and arrogant. They manipulate facts, tear people’s lives apart and view it as good journalism.

Director, Peter Evans, keeps the play moving at a cracking pace and Darrin Verhagen’s original jazz gives the piece the feel of a spy thriller.

When, late in the play, Barry strikes back, the audience burst into spontaneous applause.

Unfortunately, the play continues with a final scene that is anti-climactic. We already suspect that Barry might not be a model human being, but he is higher up the food chain than the journos and we want him to beat them at their own game.

Dumb Show, based on real events in the UK, is a sad indictment of gutter journalism – but will anyone do anything to change this in the real world?

By Kate Herbert

Saturday Night Fever, Melbourne, Dec 31, 2005

Saturday Night Fever 

Adapted for stage by Nan Knighton

 Produced by  Robert Stigwood, Adam Spiegel Productions, ICA and David Atkins (OK)

Where and When: State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne from 31 December 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Dec 31, 2004

It's official - the Bee Gees melodic, funky tunes still have audiences donning their Boogie Shoes in 2005.

The 1977 movie of Saturday Night Fever was a rocking success for both Bee Gees and producer, Robert Stigwood who is a producer of this stage adaptation.

The show rocks. Adam-Jon Fiorentino plays Italian stallion, Tony Mareno, with a huge grin and plenty of hip grinding.   His character looks uncannily like Travolta from the white suit and the finger-pointing pose right down to the strut.

The dancing features in this production directed and choreographed by Arlene Phillips. Fiorentino is a powerful, passionate and skilful dancer. His moves are faultless and he is a charismatic leader of a very polished dance corps.

He sings as Tony too but, as a singer, he makes a fantastic dancer. His voice is competent but his upper register is shaky.

There are a couple of raunchy voices. As Annette, the teenager who will sell her body for Tony, Monique Montez sings a bold version of If I Can't Have You.

Playing Tony's hapless friend, Bobby C., Darren Tyler belts out Tragedy with rocking style.

Renae Berry (OK) warms up as Stephanie, Tony's upwardly mobile Brooklyn broad hitting her straps in her solo song, What Kind of Fool and in a rousing duet, Nights on Broadway, with Montez.

Tony's clan of Brooklyn boys (Sean Mulligan, Christopher Parson, Nigel Turner-Carroll and Tyler) are a seething mob of testosterone-soaked machismo. They make Boogie Shoes and Jive Talkin' live again.

Dale Pengilly plays D.J. Monty with hilariously predatory disco sleaziness and plenty of buttock wiggling.  

Tony and Stephanie's More than A Woman duet is charming but the dancing gets a gold star in the Disco Dance competition at Monty's Odyssey 2001 disco.

Fiorentino and Berry's duet is romantic and pretty but the pulsing Hispanic duo takes the disco cake.

The narrative is thin and much of the movie's drama is removed from this adaptation. Bobby C's despair about his pregnant girlfriend climaxes in Tragedy but the painful issues of Tony's family and brother, Frank, (Mitchell Butel) the lapsed priest, are glossed over unsatisfactorily.

The chorus numbers, Stayin' Alive, You Should Be Dancin' and Jive Talkin' are topped by the spectacular dance finale in which the entire audience gets up to jive in their seats.

Saturday Night Fever is a grand way to dance in the New Year.

By Kate Herbert

Twelfth Night, Botanical Gardens, Dec 30, 2005

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

The Australian Shakespeare Company

 Botanical Gardens, Melbourne, Dec 30, 2005 to Feb 24, 2006

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Glenn Elston’s outdoor production of Shakespeare’s comic-romance, Twelfth Night, returns to the Botanical Gardens this year with some new cast and a different location.

Yet again, the Gardens provide a beautiful backdrop for the play that is set on the twelfth night after Christmas, the eve of Epiphany, January 5.

Twelfth Night is a raunchy Shakespeare play for those who avoid the wordier tragedies. Shakespeare’s script has a dark and sometimes vengeful edge to it that Elston omits from this entertaining summer production.

In the style of Shakespeare’s other comedies, the play incorporates mistaken identity, cross-dressing, separated identical twins, a lovelorn master, a grieving mistress and plenty of bawdy, naughty servants.

A peppering of modern colloquialisms, (OK) musical references and jokes makes it accessible to all.

Count Orsino (Hugh Sexton) pines and persists with his unrequited love for the unresponsive Lady Olivia (Shireen Morris) who grieves for her dead brother.

The twins, Viola (Gemma Bishop) and Sebastian (Tony Rive), are shipwrecked on the shores of Orsino’s court, both believing the other drowned.

 For some reason never specified, Viola dresses as Cesario, a boy, and takes a position as servant to Orsino. She becomes his confidante and conveyor of his love missives to Olivia who mistakenly falls in love with the boy-girl.

The dense poetic language is made comprehensible and fun for an audience unused to Shakespeare.

There is much marvellous clowning and bawdiness on the part of Brendan O’Connor as Sir Toby Belch, the drunken lord, with Adrian Dart as the foppish wimp, Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

This duo is a highlight of the production. Their goofy slapstick antics are hilarious when they secrete themselves to observe the effect of their practical joke upon Olivia’s pompous servant, Malvolio. (Ross Williams)

Williams, as Malvolio is suitably mordant and self-important, hilarious in his yellow stockings and sympathetic when incarcerated by the fools.

Morris has an exotic and regal quality as Olivia and Peter Hosking as Feste the grim jester, makes a strong MC for the show.

Gemma Bishop is competent as Viola, playing a girl dressed as a boy falling in love with a man. Terri Braban, as her servant Maria, is lively.

Phil Cameron-Smith’s great skill with language and powerful, understated stage presence brings great dignity to the small role of Antonio.

By Kate Herbert

The Wind in the Willows, 20th Anniversary, Dec 29, 2005

 The Wind in the Willows 

adapted from Kenneth Grahame

The Australian Shakespeare Company 

 Botanical Gardens, Gate F, Dec 29 to Jan 28, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Dec 29, 2005

The Wind in the Willows in the Botanical Gardens celebrates its 20^th anniversary this season. It is still a hoot for kids and adults.

The script is adapted from Kenneth Grahame’s very English children’s story, but this version is riddled with local references and Australianisms for all ages.

We receive sticky labels entitling each of us “Rabbit” then our host, The Head Chief Rabbit (Roscoe Mathers), entertains us with gags and songs.

The Botanical Gardens play a major role. The opening scene is played before the real lake, which plays the role of the fictional River. The gardens behind us play the frightening Wild Woods.

Chief Rabbit is joined by his arch-enemy, the snivelling, twitching Weasel, (Robert Jackson) whose aim is to overrun Toad Hall with his weasel family.

Rabbit and Weasel taunt each other, tease the adults, titillate the children and teach us a song that involves waggling our ears, wiggling our noses and singing “whispering willows.”

Before we meet the infamous Toad of Toad Hall, (Andrew Dunne) we are introduced to Ratty (Ezra Bix), the amiable, picnicking water rat. He invites Mole (Charlotte Strantzen), the meek little homemaker, to join us on an adventure.

By this time the children are totally involved in the fantasy of the River animals and await the arrival of Mr. Toad.

But there are more madcap characters to meet. Badger (Alan King) is like an old, reliable army general who cannot abide noise and fuss and can lead a battle with only rabbits and assorted animals for soldiers.

Then comes Otter (James Stafford), a perky, slightly dim water creature who is looking for his errant son, Portly (Otis & Arky Elston).

When Mr. Toad appears he is no disappointment. Dunne plays Toad with a pompous presence and a marvellous singing voice.

Ratty no longer arrives in a rowing boat and Otter does not appear out of the lake in a wetsuit but the show is still hilarious, charming and has some fun participation for the kids – and adults.

The battle for Toad Hall is a riot with weasels being pummelled and tossed over the walls and the children love the songs and adventures.

By Kate Herbert