August: Osage County, May 28, 2009 ***1/2

August: Osage County 

by Tracy Letts, Melbourne Theatre Company

Playhouse, Arts Centre, until June 27

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 28, 2009

Stars:

Tracy Letts’ award-winning American play, August: Osage County, is what could be described as a comedy with tragic undertones. To quote the English comedy playwright, Alan Ayckbourn, “The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter.”

There is plenty of scathing humour in Letts’ play about a bickering, dysfunctional family as they return like homing pigeons to the family home in the barren, hot and soulless Midwestern town of Osage County, Oklahoma. At times, the uproarious laughter Letts’ cunning dialogue elicits undercuts the tragedy, interrupting the dramatic tension he so painstakingly builds.

For this reason, the play cannot compete with the great family dramas of American theatre that include Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Miller’s Death of a Salesman or O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Letts’ play has less universal resonance or consistent tragedy. It is more focussed on its entertainment factor – and it is very entertaining for three and a half hours.

This play, with a huge cast of thirteen, is set during a stinking, hot August in the un-airconditioned home of the Westons. The alcoholic poet, Beverly Weston, played with dignity and restrained humour by George Whaley, is the patriarch of the Weston tribe.

The inimitable Robyn Nevin is deliciously wicked as his pill-popping wife, Violet, who is drug-addled from morning to night. Nevin one moment totters around like a dazed child in pyjamas and, the next, snipes at her benighted daughters whom she holds hostage with brittle humour.

When Beverly disappears mysteriously, the three middle-aged daughters arrive en masse to prop up Violet. Long-suffering, divorced Ivy (Rebekah Stone) is the butt of Violet’s constant criticism. Karen (Heidi Arena) is relentlessly cheerful and brings a dubious fiancé (Sean Taylor). Barbara (Jane Menelaus), the sensible daughter, is in the throws of a secret separation from her smug, academic husband (Robert Menzies) and struggles with her rebellious daughter (Kellie Jones).

Violet’s blousey sister (Deidre Rubenstein), her tolerant husband (Roger Oakley) and hapless son (Michael Robinson) make up the rest of the clan. A silent Native American housekeeper (Tess Masters) lurks in the background.

The ensemble is consistently strong and compelling with particularly powerful performances from Nevin, Whaley and Menelaus. Simon Phillips’ production highlights the comedy of the script that he stages on Dale Ferguson’s vast, naturalistic set.

By Kate Herbert

Melburnalia No. 2, May 22, 2009 **1/2

Melburnalia No. 2, by White Whale Theatre

fortyfivedownstairs, May 22 to June 6, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 22, 2009

Stars: **1/2

There is certainly potential in the plan to commission and stage a program of short plays based about the suburbs of Melbourne. Several of the five plays in Melburnalia No. 2 have incorporate a coherent style, structure and intention but the program is inconsistent with a couple of plays struggling to find dramatic merit.

One of the more successful pieces is Maribyrnong: I Could Be You, by Hoa Pham (OK), is a telling observation of the despair of three detainees of the Maribyrnong Detention Centre and the diverse reasons for their incarceration. A young Greek man (Grant Foulkes)  who has lived in Australia almost his entire life, is stripped of his residency and deported to Greece because he committed a crime. A Vietnamese student (Fanny Hanusin) worked more hours than her student visa permitted and a disoriented Eastern European woman (Margot Fenley) remains a mystery to us.

Mentone: Song #1 is an almost choral play for voices written by Aidan Fennessy. Five actors create a suburban landscape with snatches of dialogue from multiple characters. We hear families arguing, old friends reminiscing, schoolchildren chattering, footy players training. Finally, the entire chorus of voices makes sense when an old woman emerges, waiting for her husband to return from the war on a train. We have witnessed the scattered scraps of her memories. It is a well-executed and revealing poetic play.

On a lighter note, Danny Katz’s Caulfield: Motherfathers, portrays three couples of parents at a wine-soaked dinner party in middle-class Caulfield. They tease each other, taunt their partners and one wife reveals her husband’s naughty, little secret. Katz’s couples unmask their sulky, inner toddlers as their evening disintegrates.

Less successful is Andrea James’ play, Birrarung: The Forever Zone which muddles two completely different styles. The start is an almost cartoon-like representation of fascistic tram ticket inspectors (Shane Lee, Hanusin) who interrogate an unusual fare evader (Bryan Andy), a silent aboriginal man wearing a possum skin cloak. The angel of tram conductors (Shiralee Morris) appears to remind them of the past and the style shifts to an historical commentary by this modern, aboriginal warrior.

The least effective script is Preston: Porktown, by Kit Lazaroo. It is a very confused allegory about the takeover of the pig farms around Preston by real estate agents over the last century. The language is awkwardly pseudo-poetic, the characters are annoying and unclear in their intentions and there is a baby pig puppet with an illusive metaphorical meaning. I still don’t understand it.

David Mence’s direction is inconsistent and loose but two or three plays make it an entertaining, albeit not theatrically innovative evening.

About Face, May 19, 2009 **1/2

About Face 

By Tony Perez

La Mama Carlton Courthouse

May 19 to May 30, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

About Face is a peculiar theatrical beast – a series of six, short vignettes for a man and a woman (Bruce Hughes, Karen Lawrence). Each story is about a different couple but has the same premise: a married couple takes a long drive and talks about the marriage and the man’s affair with another woman.

Tony Perez’s script is not particularly insightful about marriage or communication nor does it take theatrical risks. However, it manages to conjure six totally different married couples, five of which seem to be totally dysfunctional and bonkers. This provides some laughs for the audience.

The first story is Tony and Charmaine’s Contract. Tony is almost silent and cowed by his wife’s antics as they drive the highway somewhere outside Melbourne. Charmaine is annoying and pedantic as she demands honesty at all costs. She gets more than she bargains for, but accepts Tony’s choice to maintain his love affair.

In Smaramaloola, Hughes plays a smarmy, lying Latin lover who spends the entire drive talking vivid, poetic drivel in order to convince his childish, weeping and histrionic wife that his affair was a mistake and is his one and only love.

Last Ride is a suicide drive in which the couple, a geek and his over-dressed wife, dress up and drive over a cliff into water at the end. They invite their friends and his lover to watch their end – and film it.

In the crazy dumb show, Roar Hide, the woman taunts her husband as he drives until she finally calls him a two-timer. The two loud, aggressive bogans in Gunbarrel Highway abuse each other with colourful language that is almost grunge poetry.

The final, poignant scene is between Tony and May, the only couple who seem to genuinely love each other and have a positive relationship. He quietly weeps and we slowly realise that May is dying.

Hughes and Lawrence, seated in a cartoon-like car, execute quick costume and character changes between scenes. Hughes is charming and versatile in his six roles and has great comic timing. Lawrence’s performance is strongest in the final, more realistic scene, but seems uncomfortable and forced in earlier scenes.

Speed-The-Plow, May 8, 2009 ***1/2

Speed-The-Plow 

By David Mamet by Human Sacrifice Theatre

Chapel off Chapel, Prahran,  May 8 to 24, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 8, 2009

Stars:  ***1/2

Everyone wants to be a maverick in Hollywood but nobody ever actually risks being a maverick, says the movie producer in Speed-the-Plow. They are too afraid to break the rules, too unwilling to make an arty film with a limited audience and too greedy to make a movie that loses money.

David Mamet’s play is a snapshot of two movie producers as they wrangle over the respective merits of doing good or making money. Bobby Gould (Mark Diaco) is the successful, newly appointed executive producer for a major movie studio. The world is his oyster. He now has licence to “green light” any project under $30 million or to pitch it to his studio boss.

His old pal, Charlie Fox (Colin MacPherson) is not so charmed but he thinks his luck is about to change when he brings to Bobby a sure-fire hit, action-packed, blockbuster script with a major star attached. What Charlie cannot predict is the impact of a pretty woman with a strong view on Bobby’s judgement.

Mamet’s signature of pithy, clipped dialogue, aggressive male characters and themes dealing with the emotional wasteland of our modern world are evident in Speed-The-Plow. The characters argue in short, sharp phrases, interrupting each other and repeating themselves in characteristic Mamet style.

Diaco is a boyish producer, which is probably accurate in the Hollywood world that favours youthfulness. As Bobby, he travels a journey from bravado to vulnerability. MacPherson vibrates with the anxiety of the unsuccessful producer teetering on the brink of disaster. As Bobby’s temporary secretary, Kasia Kaczmarek  balances naivete and manipulation.

The stage is sparsely decorated and the focus is on the actors. What is missing from Matt Emond’s production is the menace and boldness that is inherent in Mamet. Diaco and MacPherson spar with words but only occasionally reach the heightened, bold bullishness and implicit and explicit violence that give Mamet plays their edge.

Charlie says, “Sex, titillation and violence; people want it. No, they require it.” From the huge box office takings and queues outside cinemas, we have to believe he is right – sadly.

Kate Herbert

Optimism , May 27, 2009 ***1/2

Optimism  

Adapted from Voltaire by Tom Wright

Produced by Malthouse Theatre 

Merlin Theatre, Malthouse, until June 13

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 27, 2009

Stars: ***1/2

OPTIMISM is a charming, shambolic and peculiar adaptation of Voltaire’s 1759 novella, Candide. Tom Wright extracted and adapted 19 scenes from the book then director, Michael Kantor, tossed them into a blender with pantomime, vaudeville, slapstick and musical comedy. Violent war scenes are juxtaposed against cheerful, contemporary songs about joy. The result is chaotic – in a good way.

Frank Woodley plays the naïve servant, Candide, who is evicted by his master after Candide has a fling with the pretty daughter of the house, Cunegonde (Caroline Craig). Candide embarks on a journey across the globe, remaining relentlessly optimistic in the face of human suffering and violence. This is Voltaire’s satirical attack on the unrealistic and optimistic philosophies of the Enlightenment.

Woodley’s engaging, childlike style brings a whimsical quality to Candide. He looks like a bemused and leggy Harlequin in his polka dot jump suit and clown’s white face. Woodley often addresses the audience directly improvising on both his own thoughts and the musings of Candide. His Candide stumbles like a toddler from one human disaster to the next, seeking advice from mentors and chasing his one true love, Cunagonde.

The madness of Candide’s journey and the silliness of the songs (e.g. Shiny, Shiny, by Haysie Fantazee), highlight the inhumanity and horrors of war, torture, mutilation and rape that he encounters on his epic journey. Kantor sends Candide travelling in aeroplanes. Overhead projections, like huge airport signs, indicate his country of destination: Lisbon, Paraguay, Eldorado, Venice.

The action takes place on Anna Tregloan’s clever design. It is a multi-textured blend of the cold, metallic curves of an aeroplane shell, glittering curtains of the music hall, huge plastic shower curtains and a vivid and anachronistic mix of classical, clown and contemporary costumes. Paul Jackson’s lighting shapes the landscape and boldly conjures jet planes and war zones.

The ensemble is exceptional, employing their impeccable comic timing and characterisation to play multiple roles to create the parade of people in the complex landscape of Candide’s travels. David Woods is versatile playing various roles in his inimitable comic style and Barry Otto uses his “Ottoisms” to create the eccentric Pangloss, Candide’s mentor.

Alison Whyte is delectable as the aristocratic woman with only one buttock and the histrionic actress playing Queen Elizabeth. Francis Greenslade, Hamish Michael, Caroline Craig and Amber McMahon play with pizzazz various cross-dressing air hostesses, lovers, whores, apes, soldiers and villains. Iain Grandage fills the space with his live music.

Optimism reminds us that believing that all will be well if we just stay positive, is foolish in our world.

By Kate Herbert

Haul Away, May 5, 2009 ***1/2

Haul Away by Glynis Angell & Vanessa Chapple

May 5 to 16, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 5, 2009

Stars: 3 1/2

At the end of Haul Away, for a few moments the audience is still, silent and holding its communal breath. The play is comic-tragic and our journey bounces us between the poignant and the hilarious. We know from the beginning that the central character, a 38 year-old mother of two, will die by the end.

Glynis Angell tells the entire story through the eyes of her clownish, eccentric narrator who speaks with a broad Scots accent as he/she relates the tale of Kaye. The bright-eyed and engaging Angell rapidly shifts persona from her capering, gesticulating narrator to the languid figure of Kaye, supine on her bed.

Angell capably plays all the characters that surround Kaye allowing us to witness their pain and grief. Her mother cannot cope so she avoids her daughter’s sickbed, privately mourning and saying that parents should go first.

Kaye’s sister, the Gatekeeper, returns from abroad to take almost total responsibility for her dying sister and two bewildered children. We hear about, but do not see Kaye’s Beloved, her grieving husband. The only person who maintains some coolness is an efficient carer who buzzes about changing Kaye’s socks and incontinence sheets.

Marg Horwell’s set for this revised production, directed by Vanessa Chapple, provides multiple levels and secret compartments representing elements of Kaye’s life.  The idea has potential but the black rostra are bulky and almost dwarf the performer. Richard Vabre’s lighting is dramatic and evocative and establishes location and time more clearly.

Singer and musician, Fiona Roake, perches high above the stage underscoring scenes with electric bass and percussion. Her moving songs are sung simply but are repetitive in style and are sometimes not well integrated into the story. The relationship between musician and performer is not clear and the focus on the characters and action is at times lost.

Haul Away successfully blends a cheerful acceptance of death and dying with a recognition of the aching despair and searching for meaning that surrounds it. It is a gentle but touching experience.

Murder By Chocolate, April 1, 2009 **1/2

Murder By Chocolate 

By Phil Ormsby & Alex Ellis

La Mama, Carlton until April 1 to 12, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ** 1/2

There is enough chocolate devoured during Murder By Chocolate to give the entire audience a migraine. During the 80 minute show, Phil Ormsby and Alex Ellis gorge on the dark and the milky, hand-made chocky titbits and rich cakes. How will they survive the nightly caffeine and sugar overdose?

The play, written and performed by the pair from New Zealand, is a comedy murder mystery. Ellis plays acclaimed romantic fiction writer and chocolate addict, Felicia Fargo, who writes under the pseudonym of Dorothy Doyle. She changes literary genres by writing a murder mystery under her real name, but her fictional murder comes true when her grumpy, wheezing, old publisher is murdered with a frozen stick of chocolate. Of course, Felicia is the prime suspect.

The primary vehicle for the comedy is a parade of wacky characters, all played by Ormsby. Dorian is Felicia’s camp and acerbic research assistant and her amateur chocolate addiction counsellor. Margot Fargo is Felicia’s brassy, rude mother who is a celebrity dessert chef and the cause of Felicia’s choco-addiction.

Ormsby also plays Fesley, the grotesque, asthmatic publisher with a secret attachment to Felicia, and Detective Inspector Constable, the aspiring writer and hapless policeman. He performs one really hilarious scene in which he switches rapidly between Madam Mulvania, the blousy TV psychic, and her entourage of spirit guides.

The script has an arch and old-fashioned style that works in part and the acting is sometimes rather tense and awkward and there is a very out of place musical number in the middle.

 Felicia’s crazy chocolate obsession provides some slapstick that involves plenty of rough and tumble as she claws her way over furniture and bodies to get to her chocky treats. The audience enjoyed bodies disappearing mysteriously and were perversely entertained by the actors stuffing chocolates into their mouths.

Murder By Chocolate is certainly a fun idea for a comedy murder mystery.

So You Think You Can Cow, March 31, 2009 ****

So You Think You Can Cow 

By Margaret Cameron & David Young

Carlton Courthouse,  March 31 to April 11, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on March 31, 2009

Stars:****

So You Think You Can Cow is mad: actors in cow suits, audience shouting “Moo” and doing the Clip Clop dance, conceptual cows and buckets. It’s a performance like nothing you’ve ever seen – and it’s a riot. 

When we enter, Margaret Cameron and David Young greet us, dancing like cute lunatics and wearing suits of black and white Friesian cow fabric.

You can choose to be in the show.  In fact, audience members do most of the performing. Cow participant number one is dressed in a flashy suit of cow fabric, puts on sunglasses and headphones and responds to absurd, recorded instructions. “Wave your arms...Say cow like wow…Say moo like boo.”

We are fascinated to watch the unfolding madness. When cow numbers two, three and four emerge wearing the suit and headphones only they can hear their instructions. Each cow dances, shouts “Moo” and “Boo” to us, does the “Clip Clop” dance. One giggles and picks a man from the audience to join her. Another shouts and dances joyously calling out nonsensical phrases that begin to make sense to us as we enter the world of cow.

The madness continues with projected lines of dialogue and photos of someone in a cow suit complete with cow’s head standing on street corners, posed beside landmarks or lazing under trees or photos of dozens of little cow-shaped milk jugs.

This show is bonkers but it is worth it to be able to risk being hauled on stage to “Cow”, to shout out “moo” and to do the Clip Clop. I can’t explain all the ways this show is fun. Just go and see if you think you can cow.

The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina by Moira Finucane ***

 La Mama, until March 14 to 29, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Moira Finucane never fails to amuse and amaze audiences. Her wild, contemporary burlesque performances are notorious and The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina is no exception. Her creation, the vivacious and heavily accented Argentina Gina Catalina, is the central character and narrator in this intimate theatrical spectacle that incorporates storytelling with food.

Finucane tantalises us with her original brand of magical realism, sensual and passionate characterisation, religious references, extravagant costumes and simply delicious platters of food (by KT Prescott) delivered with a flourish by waiters between stories.

Her performance, directed by Jackie Smith, is almost as edible as the food.  Her style is histrionic, riddled with broad gestures, an hilarious Spanish accent and oozing sensuality. The earthy sensuality is underscored by music including La Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen, a tarantella, a mazurka and Bolero.

The first colourful story, The First Temptation: Heat, is accompanied by glasses of Sangria. The ebullient Argentina, dressed like a sexy, Spanish peasant, tells about her ardent pursuit of an operatic diva who she seduces by dropping from a chandelier over the stage during an opera.

Following Heat is The Second Temptation: Meat, and we are indeed tempted by plates of cured meats, olives and breads. Argentina, now writhing and pouting in only a silky black slip, gnaws ravenously on slivers of prosciutto.

Wearing a flamboyant, red, flamenco gown, she spins her tale of Argentina’s oceanic encounter with The Pirates. In Miracle of the Markets she meets a toothless, old woman and is transformed into a bird by a little cake made of “fire and the love of the Virgin”. Of course we, too, eat chocolate cake.

In Ice, Argentina, dressed in a glorious, white bustier and long-trained skirt, is abandoned to the icy landscape by her trapeze artist mother and then raised by a she-wolf. And yes, ice cream follows, drizzled with raspberry coulis. Mmm.

Finucane’s gnashing teeth, swirling skirts and piercing gaze combined with the tasty morsels, make this a feast for all the senses.

By Kate Herbert

And When He Falls, March 11, 2009 ****

And When He Falls 

By John Stanton

fortyfivedownstairs, until March 11 to 29, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on March 12, 2009

Stars:****

John Stanton has a voice like dark chocolate and his rich tones give resonance to the language of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Stanton investigates the Plantagenet Kings of England through historical narration and monologues extracted from the plays of these masters of Elizabethan theatre. The evening resounds with tales of bloody conflicts and inner turmoil that plagued the English Kings for centuries.

The title is taken from Cardinal Wolsey’s monologue in Shakespeare’s play about Henry VIII, a Tudor King. Wolsey captures pithily the collapse of reigns and the lost power of Kings when he says, “And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.”

Stanton, directed by Jill Forster, gives a potted version of the history of each King’s reign between the speeches. The tone of these narrations is sonorous, even portentous, with only an occasional quip to lighten the mood and provide balance to the weighty speeches. There could be a little more light and shade.

Stanton begins with a lighter speech from Marlowe and has fun playing the overtly homosexual King, Edward II, as indignant, camp and slightly petulant. Edward III began the 100 Years War and we hear of the outcome of his exploits from a French mariner who reports to Phillip of France.

Speeches from Shakespeare’s Richard II are a substantial part of the evening. We see the stately John of Gaunt, who Shakespeare portrayed as noble and well loved although, historically, he is remembered as cruel and hated. His son, Henry Bolingbroke, usurped the throne and became Henry IV.

The speeches written for Gaunt’s son, Henry V, are some of the greatest in Shakespeare’s historical plays. Stanton delivers Henry’s famous address to his troops at Hafleur (“Once more unto the breech dear friends…”) with passion and royal commitment. He follows this rousing monologue with Henry’s more intimate St. Crispian’s Day speech to his soldiers.

Richard III usurped the throne several generations later and Shakespeare’s famous character is richly represented in the last speeches. Stanton does not attempt to create the lame walk or hunchback but simply tucks his left arm into his chest to depict Richard’s withered arm. He creates a potent sense of Richard’s resentment and ambition when he speaks about his brother, Edward IV.

Stanton’s performance is strongly supported and enhanced by pianist Tony Gould’s evocative but unobtrusive live music. This is a simply staged but vivid depiction of the Plantagenet Kings and their bloodthirsty reigns.

By Kate Herbert

Salon de Dance, March 11, 2009 ****

Salon de Dance by Finucane & Smith

 La Mama, Wed to Sun until March 29

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on March 11, 2009

Stars:****

Salon de Dance, created by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith, is not merely a show; it is a place, an experience, a salon in the French style filled with the flavour of cabaret, burlesque, and all sorts of dance and music. It is a sweet bag of mixed lollies to tantalise the tastebuds.

Following the shy hula-hooper (Jess Love), is our wry, cool hostess (Maude Davy) who introduces, with a recitative song, the Salon and its sultry dancers and proceeds to speak to us using slow, hilarious French. “Le Francais est mauvais mais les jambes sont belles”. (“The French is bad but the legs are beautiful.”)

In a satirical, sensual striptease, Paul Cordeiro, dressed (and undressed) as an exotic priest, peels off his vestments right down to the skin. Rob McCredie charms us with his naïve, open quality and his abstract dance, Here We Go, with its almost clown-like gestures.

In The Saints, Finucane appears in a dim light as a punk who drizzles cigarette smoke from her mouth while she circles in ultra-slow motion. Her movements are all based on various saints and martyrs such as St. Sebastian, although this is not evident to an audience.

Yumi Umiumare is a well-dressed woman who is trapped in a coat with a mind of its own. Two women wearing kitten masks (Holly Durant, Harriet Ritchie) perform a cute and peppy, rhythmic dance that ends up a competition to the death.

During interval, in the courtyard, audience members can buy a waltz with one of the dancers. What follows is The Banquet Room, a bizarre dance macabre by Finucane  and Umiumare. It is a slow and tortured dance of struggle that draws on the Japanese Butoh dance style.

Maude Davy sings the jazz ballad, Sugar, draped languidly on the stair banister. Durant and Ritchie do a comical dance in blonde wigs and fake boobs and Cordeiro’s Bollywood dance is delicious. Finally, we all get to dance to ABBA when the show ends.

Salon de Dance really knows how to show an audience a good time with a program of delectable and unusual acts.

By Kate Herbert

Copenhagen, PMD Productions, March 5, 2009 **1/2

Copenhagen  

By Michael Frayn, Produced by PMD Productions

Chapel Off Chapel,  March 5 to 28, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on March , 2009

Stars: **1/2

Two theoretical physicists in a social situation will discuss particle physics, just as two parents at a barbecue talk about their children. When Michael Frayn wrote about the 1941 meeting in Copenhagen between Danish physicist, Niels Bohr (Matthew Kenny), and his German former protégée, Werner Heisenberg (Tristan Lutze), he had no choice but to make Quantum Physics the main topic.

Frayn’s dialogue is built around the brain-addling notions of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Bohr’s theory of Complementarity. This play requires an attentive audience and actors willing to get their tongues around the concepts. It demands intellectual acuity to process elaborate explanations of physics, historical and political facts and the philosophical debate.

We learn plenty about the behaviour of particles, nuclear fission and nuclear research during World War Two. Frayn’s conceit is to replay Heisenberg’s visit to Bohr in an attempt to understand why the younger scientist made this trip to occupied Denmark to visit Bohr, a Jew, when he, Heisenberg, was working for the Reich.

After the visit, each gave differing accounts of their discussions. We know they went for a walk after Margrethe Bohr (Andrea McCannon) cooked dinner and Heisenberg departed soon after. Their friendship was over.

Frayn depicts four consecutive versions of the meeting. The first is dry, superficial and uninspiring. The characters are uncomfortable and their discussion awkward. Each ensuing replay of the evening challenges the characters to reveal their motivations, justifications and complicated secret attitudes about their shared history. They behave like the particles they study: unpredictable, illusive and framed in Uncertainty and Complementarity.

The performances in Paul Knox’s production are competent. Kenny is aptly shambling and old-fashioned as Niels, Lutze is boyish, earnest and needy as Heisenberg and, as Margrethe, McCannon is brittle and polite. Copenhagen is a difficult play to make emotionally engaging, but, by the final scene, the actors are comfortable with the more personal and volatile interactions of the characters.

There is no escaping the fact that the play is didactic, the dialogue informational and the characters mouthpieces for political, philosophical and scientific views. However it is fascinating, even compelling, to see their struggle to come to terms with their clash of opinions, their egotistical head butting and their childish need to be right. Only Margrethe, the outsider, finally has a credible explanation of their behaviour that night.

By Kate Herbert

With The Dark, Feb 28, 2009 **1/2

With The Dark by James Adler

Eagles Nest Theatre Northcote Town Hall, Feb 25 to March 7, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

The first half of With The Dark, by James Adler, is a play about a writer struggling to overcome depression and lack of confidence. In the second half it transforms into a different play – an allegorical, Grimm-style fairytale.

Rosemary Johns directs this production with an emphasis on the comical elements, despite it being about the black dog of depression and the dark inner reaches of the human psyche. James Shaw is Mann, the young, angst-ridden writer who doubts his talent, his life choices and his sanity. Shaw has a strong raw energy but performs with a little too much stress and anxiety, causing him to shout and sweat more than is comfortable.

Mann tumbles often into bed to sleep and avoid his psychic angst but is haunted by his inner ghosts (Alicia Benn-Lawler, Joanne Davis) that lurk under his bed. The most telling and possibly interesting characters is the Voice (Geoff Wallis) who lounges around Mann’s home, sipping tea and mouthing cheerful platitudes and making optimistic suggestions. Wallis delighted the audience with his wry humour, deft comic timing and surprising choices with what is sometimes limiting dialogue.

Then we embark on the allegorical hero’s journey into the dreamlike, dark forest where Mann encounters a wacky, royal court (think Alice in Wonderland) with a very funny and pompous, accented King (Phil Zachariah) and a roller-skating Queen (Belinda Di Vito). Mann must help a lost child (Davis) find her grandma (Benn-Lawler) who was taken by the wicked dark beast. Wallis, wearing a loud shirt and jokey devil’s horns and looking like a Las Vegas comedian, balances menace and comedy as the beast-demon.

At times Adler’s dialogue becomes florid or predictable but the production is engaging and entertaining. The self-referential story about a writer struggling to find his art does not break new ground but it keeps us interested.

By Kate Herbert

Moonlight and Magnolias, MTC Feb 26, 2009 ***

Moonlight and Magnolias 

By Ron Hutchinson, Melbourne Theatre Company

Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Feb 26 to March 28, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 26, 2009

Stars:***

Ron Hutchinson’s play, Moonlight and Magnolias, takes its title from a description of the American South in Margaret Mitchell’s gaspingly long and hugely popular 1930’s novel, Gone With The Wind. Although the movie with Vivien Leigh was enormously successful, its inception was fraught with conflict.

Producer David O. Selznick (Patrick Brammall) famously stopped the movie three weeks into shooting, sacked the director and the script then hauled screenwriter, Ben Hecht (Nicholas Hammond), and director, Victor Fleming (Stephen Lovatt), into his office, with only a Remington typewriter and a stash of bananas and peanuts, to rewrite the biggest movie ever made – in five days.

The play peers through an MGM office window to witness the agonising rewrite. The creative chaos, haggling and total exhaustion of the characters, and the unbelievable mess they create, provide plenty of material for verbal and physical comedy. The trio alternately snipe, praise and blame. They attack each other’s credentials, skills, politics, relationships and values as they struggle to overcome fear and panic at their seemingly unachievable task.

Some of the funniest scenes depict Brammall and Lovatt re-enacting the entire movie for Hecht who, to the astonishment of Selznick, has not read the book. Brammall portrays a pert and pouting Scarlett O’Hara while Lovatt recreates hilarious characters including Prissy the black maid, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard. The audience’s recognition of characters and scenes stimulates much laughter.

The actors make the most of Hutchinson’s dialogue that captures the acerbic language and one-line “zingers” that characterised the American movies of the 30’s. Bruce Beresford’s production is tightly directed and set in an opulent Hollywood office (Shaun Gurton).

The acting is accomplished. Brammall embodies the brash rudeness and manic energy of Selznick, Hammond portrays Hecht with a supercilious and cynical humour and Lovatt finds comedy in the macho arrogance of Fleming. Marg Downey provides an hilarious cameo as Selznick’s beleaguered, obliging and endlessly patient secretary, Miss Poppenguhl (OK).

Despite the audience’s obvious enjoyment and the apparent success of the play in other countries, the script repeats itself, returning to the same arguments about Jewish politics in Hollywood, writers being castigated, attacks by Fleming and Hecht on each other’s movies, snipes about Selznick’s marriage and his father -in-law.

There can be no dramatic tension in this play because we know the outcome. The script is completed, the movie is made and it goes down in history. It feels more like a long, comic sketch than a play – but it is funny.

By Kate Herbert

Wretch, Feb 19, 2009 ***1/2

Wretch by Angus Cerini

La Mama, Carlton, Feb 19 to March 8, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

In Wretch, winner of the 2007 Patrick White Playwright’s Award, Angus Cerini and Suzie Dee are both compelling and repellent as the damaged and almost demented mother and son. Cerini often writes about male violence in our community and this play is a prime example.

Wretch focuses intensely on the two characters and their fraught and dysfunctional relationship. Their interaction takes place when the mother (Dee) visits her son (Cerini) in a juvenile detention centre where he serves a sentence for beating a man and rendering him a quadriplegic. Their meeting is tortured and confused as the pair attempts to understand each other, their past, his crimes and her illness.

The actors perch on chairs facing the audience, the awkwardness of their meeting emphasised by the stark white cube (Marg Horwell) within which they sit. Their faces are mask-like, frozen in grimaces that echo the screaming pain of their lives. The white walls and floor are illuminated with harsh fluorescent light (Richard Vabre) that makes the couple look like human exhibits in a museum. Underscoring their relationship is an eerie sound scape (Kelly Ryall).

Cerini’s writing blends coarse, realistic dialogue with a rough, fractured, poetic language. Mother and son scramble to communicate in broken sentences that express their muddled thoughts, clumsy love and desperate need for connection.

Dee’s portrayal of the mother is sympathetic and delicately wrought. Sporting pink tracky-dacks and tee-shirt, she is the epitome of a down-market bogan. But her naivete and tentativeness, combined with her fierce desire to protect and love her son, invite our sympathy and attention. She slowly reveals her past as a cheap hooker who does not know the identity of her boy’s father then hesitantly tells of  “the sick” that riddles her body and claims her cancerous breast.

As the loutish boy, Cerini vibrates with the barely repressed rage of a young man who has only ever known insecurity, violence, poverty and despair. His presence is magnetic and sometimes frightening, but Cerini manages to find the tender underbelly of this uncouth man-boy who struggles to understand his own violent crimes and his fear of losing his mother to her illness.

Both actors are powerful throughout and Dee’s direction is taut, keeping the physical action to a minimum but the dramatic tension on full. The script has a few false endings in the latter half and seems to repeat itself, but the strong acting sustains the play making it a vivid depiction of two members of an underclass fighting for survival.

By Kate Herbert

ABBAMANIA, Crown Casino, Feb 18, 2009 ***1/2

ABBAMANIA

When & Where: The Palms, Crown Casino, Feb 18 to March 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

Whether you are a fan or not, there is no denying that the songs of Swedish pop group, ABBA, are catchy. They pass “the old grey whistle test”. (i.e. Ii you play them to old blokes, they’ll be whistling the tune the next day.)

The tunes also trigger the get-up-and-dance impulse and that is just what the crowd at ABBAMANIA did. They swayed, bumped, clapped, waved and did the finger-pointing dance to Mamma Mia. ABBA attract a seriously daggy crowd but they certainly know how to have a good time and they know all the lyrics.

ABBA generated myriad tribute bands and this English show has been running since 1999. On stage are look alikes for the quartet. Bjorn (Mark Thomas) plays guitar and Benny (Phil Hawkes) piano. Although four singers alternate in the roles of Agnetha and Frida, I saw the sassy and rich-voiced Katy Summer as Agnetha and Carly Broom playing a rather under-stated Anni-Frid.

Two backing singers (Lydia Griffiths, Laura Chapple) and 11 musicians including eight string players support them with a big orchestral sound based on Bjrn and Benny’s original arrangements.

The hit tunes kept coming. The crowd went wild over peppy tunes such as Waterloo, Mamma Mia, Money Money Money, Super Trouper and Summer’s version of the raunchy Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! They leapt to their feet for the deliciously twee Dancing Queen and popular SOS.

 They sighed and moaned at the recognisable first chords of romantic ballads such as I Do, I Do, I Do and Fernando then Summer knocked their socks off with a haunting solo of The Winner Takes It All. The original ABBA harmonies are featured and the swelling sound and emotional lyrics still affect the audience.

Of course we can’t ignore the cheesy, designed-for-non-dancers 70s choreography and retro costumes that boast more silver knee-high boots, lame’, lycra and white jump suits than should be legal.

ABBA is never going away. They won Eurovision in 1974 and they keep having revivals so, if you loved them then, you’re gunna love ABBAMANIA.

By Kate Herbert

Friday Night, In Town, Feb 12, 2009 ***1/2

Friday Night, In Town by Kieran Carroll, La Mama

Carlton Courthouse, La Mama, Feb 11 to  Feb 21, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 12, 2009

Stars: ***1/2

If you peered into a home, a bar or a laneway on a Friday night in Melbourne, you might witness scenes such as those in Kieran Carroll’s Friday Night, In Town. The play is a patchwork made up of multiple stories, each with discrete and separate characters. All of the relationships and stories have merit as snapshots of people in the city although some are more effective or absorbing than others.

The most compelling theatrical element of the entire evening is a monologue performed with passion and sensitivity by Jeremy Kewley at the end of the second half. Our interest is piqued when his agitated character walks into an inner city bar then downs a beer, a whisky and a vodka chaser in quick succession. We are captivated by the story he tells about his confrontation with his womanising friend, and his revelations about his teenage daughter are chilling.

There is an edge of danger and suspense in the tale of a Brighton boy (Alex Marriott) who finds himself trapped on a bar stool between a sneering, tattooed petty crim (John King) and his giggling and drunk girlfriend (Alison Bennett).

While waiting for a cancelled train (sound familiar?), an elderly man (Lex Ross) meets an anxious young woman (Kristy Barnes-Cullen). There is a melancholy charm in this story as they strike up an unusual friendship that is healing to both.

The other stories involve a couple of builders chatting up two birds in a pub before a footy match, a drunk Russian woman swilling merlot and her lonely, divorced neighbour and a man and woman who both love the same man.

It is rare to see 16 actors on stage anywhere other than a major theatre company. Director, Noel Anderson, keeps most actors onstage throughout the two hours that sometimes provides depth to the space and volume to the vocal quality. However often, the stage simply looks crowded for no reason.

The scene changes are slow, the languorous pace of the show needs variation and the acting is inconsistent with a few highlights. But this collection of city stories is strangely fascinating.

By Kate Herbert

I Love You, Bro, Feb 11, 2009 ****

I Love You, Bro  

By Adam J.A.Cass, Malthouse Theatre

The Tower, Malthouse Theatre, Feb 11 to 28, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

Ash Flanders, in I Love You, Bro, is like a taut wire waiting to snap. He is magnetic as the isolated, disturbed and disturbing 14 year-old English boy who lives and loves through internet chat rooms while downstairs his single mother is beaten by his step-father.

 “Johnny-Boy” (his chat room name) creates an eccentric and profoundly theatrical world in which he inhabits multiple characters including a teenage girl, her vulnerable younger brother, a young thug and two female secret agents.  The extraordinary thing is that Adam Cass’s play is based on a true story that occurred in Manchester in 2003, although the real boy created an even more elaborate and unbelievable web of deception. The story ends in violence, despair and shame.

Flanders peoples the stage with a parade of characters. We watch Johnny-Boy fall in love on line with “Marky-Mark”, a muscular and obviously gullible 16 year-old footballer who lives in the same town. In the chat room, Johnny-Boy role-plays a cute girl called “AlbaJ” (Jessica Alba) and dupes Mark into internet sex with him/her.

The entire story escalates out of control as Johnny-Boy’s lies and fantasies become more and more convoluted to keep Mark interested in “this fag love of two non-fags”. It is astonishing that Mark never questions the crazy story. Maybe teenagers in Manchester are so bored they will believe anything.

The sparse design (Jason Lehane) incorporates projected snatches of cyber-text and dim lighting isolates Johnny in a bleak, otherworldly environment that reflects his fragile mental state. He inhabits anonymous cyberspace where he is only limited by his imagination – and that seems limitless.

Yvonne Virsik’s direction keeps the focus firmly on Flanders and his compelling characterisations. Cass’s play has the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, complete with flawed hero. I Love You Bro is a treat.

By Kate Herbert

Zanna Don’t! Feb 4, 2009 ***

 Zanna Don’t!  

Book, music, & lyrics by Tim Acito; additional book & lyrics by Alexander Dinelaris, by Quirky Productions

Chapel off Chapel  Feb 4 to 14, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 4, 2009

Stars:***

The 2003 Off-Broadway production of Tim Acito’s, Zanna Don’t! launched the career of Jai Rodriguez of Queer Eye fame. It won the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Anti-Defamation) award which tells you something about the content.

Zanna Don’t! is a funny and warm musical about young love. Although the show is not overtly political, Heartsville High exists in an alternative universe in which homosexuality is the norm and chess-players, not football stars, are sex symbols. Zanna (Samuel Kitchen) has magical matchmaker powers; he waves his sparkly wand and students fall in love.

He matches lonely quarterback, Steve (Nic Riley), with Mike (Chris Buchanan), the Chess Club star. Then he weaves his spell over tough Roberta (Jessica Carbone) and mechanical bull rider, Kate (Kate Williams). But Zanna’s plans go awry when Mike writes a controversial school revue about heterosexuals in the military and Steve and Kate kiss on stage then fall in love.

This Melbourne ensemble is cute, charming and energetic as the spunky teens. Luke Gallagher’s direction is slick and choreography by Tamara Finch and James Rooney is sassy. The five-piece band, lead by Julia Buchanan, does justice to Tim Acito’s music and its mix of popular styles including rockabilly, disco and lyrical love ballads. Andrew Bellchambers backdrop is sensational.

Apart from the title’s allusion to Xanadu, there are satirical references to musicals including Grease and Godspell. All the songs are about aspects of love (another musical title?). It opens with the vivacious Who’s Got Extra Love? by Zanna and cast, its lyrics cleverly establishing the story and characters in the first five minutes.

 Buchanan and Riley’s voices blend well in the duet, I Think We’ve Got Love. The narrative changes when, later, Buchanan and Williams sing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a more poignant duet about heterosexual love. The pain of illicit love is even more potent in the quartet, Don’t You Wish We Could be in Love?

There are several rollicking tunes. Carbone belts out with zest her song about wasting time on unfaithful lovers, I Ain’t Got Time. When she falls in love with Kate at the mechanical bull practice, the ensemble sings, Ride ‘Em, a country-style hootenanny.  Luke Taylor and Drew Downing are a riot singing Fast, a rapid-fire, rockabilly patter duet.

Zanna Don’t! takes the standard musical “boy meets girl” narrative by the scruff of the neck and gives it a good shake. This production is worth a look.

By Kate Herbert

The 39 Steps, Jan 22, 2009 ***1/2

Adapted by Patrick Barlow from Alfred Hitchcock

Playhouse, Arts Centre Jan 22 to Feb 15, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

An action thriller, espionage, murder, police pursuits and a beautiful blonde sound like ingredients of the Bourne or Bond movies of our decade. 

However Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps was made in 1935. Hitch knew how to titillate an audience with action, suspense and sex so he adapted John Buchan’s 1915 novel, stripping away the British Imperialist blather and adding a sexy blonde and rapid-fire action.

Now we have Patrick Barlow’s satirical stage adaptation of Hitchcock, using physical comedy to replicate the movie thriller style in stage action. It is a physical comedian’s dream and the audience claps like seals at every sight gag.

The dashing hero, Richard Hannay (Mark Pegler), visits a performance by Mr. Memory where he meets Anabella (Helen Christinson), “a beautiful, mysterious woman pursued by gunmen,” who is later murdered in his London flat. Hannay flees when he is accused of her murder and becomes embroiled in the hunt for a villain who is stealing British military intelligence.

Barlow and director Maria Aitken employ every comic trick to translate the rollicking tale to the stage. The comedy arises from the sheer inventiveness of using four actors to play dozens of characters with mad accents. It also gets laughs from the idiocy of trying to create film reality on stage (the train chase is a riot) and by repeatedly referring to the failure of theatrical devices: late lighting cues, dropped lines, actors playing objects or dragging on props to create a location.

The audience is tickled when two actors (Russell Fletcher, Jo Turner) playing multiple characters switch rapidly between characters with the twitch of a hat or change of accent – a classic clown routine. Turner and Fletcher relish playing characters including Scottish police, villainous spies, farmers, station masters, paper boys, milkmen, landladies and an entire bagpipe parade.

Hitchcock’s style is so ripe for satire and the surprising simplicity of comic invention makes us laugh, as does the wry, English humour. Barlow incorporates references to Hitch’s movies: “I have vertigo”, says Christinson as Pamela, the perky and petulant blonde to whom Hannay is handcuffed.

Pegler captures the toffy-nosed voice and earnest posturing of the heroic, pencil-moustached Hannay. Christinson is charming and funny as a German spy, pretty Scottish farm girl and delicate English rose.

But without the versatile and hilarious Turner and Fletcher to create the entire landscape and parade of characters, this uproarious comedy could not succeed.

By Kate Herbert