The Burlesque Hour Legends , June 25, 2009 ****

The Burlesque Hour Legends 

by Finucane and Smith

At  fortyfivedownstairs, June 29 to August 2, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

BEWARE! The Burlesque Hour will knock your socks off - and probably a lot of other clothing too. The five extraordinary women in this gob-smacking cabaret spend much of the show in varying degrees of undress ranging from kimonos to underwear and, well, nothing at all.

But burlesque is not only about feather dances and sassy strip teases. The cast teases us with their idiosyncratic and modern, almost satirical version of burlesque that blurs the lines between cabaret, vaudeville, sex shows, performance art, physical theatre and a rock concert.

Creators of this and previous Burlesque Hours, Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith, say that they want to “cherish and challenge their audiences”, and they do exactly that. The crowd is excited, cheering and whooping, grinning ear to ear and gaping with astonishment and sometimes shock at the visual, physical and verbal content of the acts.

Finucane has a penchant for drenching herself and the crowd with fluids, to the degree that the front row is given plastic ponchos to protect them from spraying milk. Her final act, Queen of Hearts, is a marvellous new take on the burlesque artiste who wears nothing but balloons. 

Maude Davey gives a riveting, brazen and challenging rave about the female body, while displaying her own lithe frame. She later slouches on wearing an extravagantly feathered headdress and sings You Don’t Make Me Feel Like I’m A Woman Anymore while dancing like a 70s skinhead.

Yumi Umiumare brings the precision of her Japanese Butoh dance background to Mouth Piece, a compelling

Physical performance that is as shocking as it is beautiful and her martial arts strip is inspired.

There is a hilarious drunken trapeze act by Jess Love that makes swinging trapeze interesting again and Harriet Ritchie and Holly Durant’s sexy big-bosomed dancers are a riot. The first fortnight features special guest, Ursula Martinez, who prattles rapidly in Spanish, plays Spanish guitar, sets her bikini on fire and does magic involving a hankie disappearing into unexpected orifices. Upcoming special guests will be Paul Capsis and Toni Lamond.

The Burlesque Hour leaves you gaping and cheerful. If you are sensitive about language or uncomfortable with nudity, this may not be your show. But it is confrontational, impudent and disrespectful for all the right reasons.

By Kate Herbert

Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story, June 27 ****

Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story 

Written by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson

The Palms at Crown, June 27 to July 23, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Jun e27, 2009

Stars:****

BUDDY HOLLY DIED in 1959 at 22 after producing dozens of hit tunes in a couple of years. In a strange confluence of events, the opening of this 50^th anniversary production coincides with the death of Michael Jackson. 

Both are credited with changing popular music in their time. A chilling coincidence is that Buddy was the first white singer to appear at the Apollo Theatre, Harlem, the place that launched Jacko.

Another formidably talented 22 year-old, Scott Cameron, plays Buddy. Cameron started playing guitar at 5 and his playing surpasses Holly’s own skill.  He reproduces Buddy’s unusual vocal quality, his leaping stage antics and peculiarly attractive geek appearance. He may not be the most experienced actor, but Cameron does not disappoint as Buddy.

Cameron is supported by a superb cast that includes: Luke Tonkin as the booming Big Bopper, Flip Simmons as writhing Ritchie Valens and James Nation-Ingle and Simon Bentley as The Crickets. The stage band is tight and versatile directed by Peter Laughton, and the chorus is impeccable. One star turn is rich-voiced Clare Chihambakwe (OK) as Ruby at the Apollo.

The show tells the story of Buddy’s rise from Country and Western singer in Lubbock, Texas to a Rock and Roll star. He dumps a lucrative contract at Decca to record with Norman Petty (Gerard Carroll), in New Mexico. After ten hit songs, he marries Maria Elena (Laura Bunting) and goes solo.

The finale is an exhilarating rock concert, Buddy’s final performance in Clearlake, Iowa. Knowing that Buddy, Big Bopper and Valens died that night in a plane crash heightens the excitement and tragedy for the audience who are on their feet bopping and singing by the end.

It is a treat to hear Buddy Holly’s hit songs, including love ballads It’s So Easy, Think It Over and Words of Love, Raining in My Heart and Heartbeat. But it is the rockin’ numbers that hit the spot: Peggy Sue, Maybe Baby, Oh Boy. The finale includes the Big Bopper’s Chantilly Lace and Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba and finishes with Johnny B Goode and Oh Boy. 

What would Buddy Holly be producing now if, in two short years, he made such a mark on rock and roll history?

By Kate Herbert

The Birthday Party , MTC, June 24 ***1/2

The Birthday Party 

By Harold Pinter, Melbourne Theatre Company

 Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre, June 24 to August 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on

Stars: ***1/2

The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter’s first full-length play, was written in his youth in 1958, but it established Pinter’s idiosyncratic style. 

Although it is not the best of his plays, it has all his hallmarks: barely masked violence, male aggression, tense pauses that heighten both the comedy and menace; sudden changes of topic and comic non-sequiturs in his dialogue; and the sense that his characters are trapped in a claustrophobic environment. He may have loathed the term, but Pinter was already “Pinteresque”.

Julian Meyrick’s production captures the threatening atmosphere and the playful silliness of the script. Pauline Whyman is particularly delightful as Meg, the child-like landlady who asks only for a simple compliment for her Corn Flakes and fried bread.

Gregory Fryer plays Meg’s husband, Petey, with a quiet and obliging air. The pair runs a boarding house by the sea with only one lodger. When Isaac Drandic, as the secretive Stanley, first appears for his breakfast, the trio engages in teasing banter. But Stanley’s acerbic retorts and lack of courtesy to Meg provide a hint of impending darkness.

And danger is looming. Two thugs arrive to take a room for the night and it is clear that they are here for Stanley. Meyrick’s production shifts positions at this point. Stanley is afraid, the atmosphere becomes ominous, Louise McCarthy’s heavy, grey interior looms and Darrin Verhagen’s music becomes unsettling.

Marshall Napier is chilling as Goldberg, the smug boss thug. He is a bragger, an abuser, a smiling villain who steps through the door, taking control like a Mafia boss. Glenn Shea, as his offsider McCann is the muscle of the duo, and he has the bulk and the scent of violence of a killer. The two embody the simmering brutality inherent in this play.

Meyrick’s production explores the variations in rhythm of Pinter’s dialogue and narrative, shifting pace rapidly and changing gears frequently between comedy and drama. The rhythm falters a little in the second half but rights itself by the end of the play.

The setting is moved from coastal England to Australia and the casting of indigenous actors accented this choice. Initially the casting appeared to be what is known as “colour-blind”, but there was a fleeting reference to aboriginal language in McCann’s poem. The play didn’t need it. The actors spoke for themselves.

By Kate Herbert

Lobby Hero , June 12, 2009 ****1/2

 Lobby Hero 
by Kenneth Lonergan, Red Stitch Actors Theatre

 Red Stitch Theatre, Chapel St, St. Kilda, June 12 to  July 11, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

There is something compelling and profoundly moving about Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero. Four ordinary people struggle to live according to their own moral code. How do we decide what is right and wrong, how to serve ourselves while not damaging others, or how to make the best of what we are given?

The Oscar winning screenwriter sets his play over several nights in the claustrophobic lobby of an American city apartment block. Jeff (Tim Potter), the night shift security guard, spends his time reading and waiting for his mentor and boss, William (Christopher Kirby), to visit on his rounds. Bill, (Daniel Frederiksen) a successful city street cop, and his rookie partner, Dawn (Eryn-Jean Norvill), drop by each night.

Lonergan’s script is beautifully crafted, with an impeccably structured narrative and sensitive, funny and vividly observed dialogue. Each character springs to life fully drawn, complete with complexities, contradictions and mistakes.

Denis Moore’s production is delicately wrought, balancing comedy with drama, and creating deceptively simple rhythms in both the story and characters. Shaun Gurton’s design provides two stark spaces: the cold, grey, apartment lobby and a cage-like exterior doorway.

Potter is on stage almost the entire two hours and he is riveting, capturing the vulnerable boyishness of Jeff, his playful humour and his moral dilemma when faced with telling the truth about his friend’s lie. Potter has an impish quality but balances this with Jeff’s soul-searching and grappling with right and wrong.

As William, the fine, upstanding citizen who takes seriously his role of Security Captain, Kirby is dignified and captivating. His entire physicality embodies the anguish that William experiences as he faces his demons and tries to protect his family.

Frederiksen as the hero-cop, Bill, has the brittle quality of a grimy, jaded, street cop accustomed to getting his own way. He is smarmy, dangerous and fiercely loyal to his friends and colleagues – when they play his game.

Norvill captures the girlishness and dogged ambition of the young officer, Dawn. She is desperate to be a good cop and to please her partner, She is faced with the decision to save her own skin or hurt others, and who can tell whether her actions were on the side of the angels?

Nothing is simple in this life that is riddled with moral choices – not even in the lives of simple people.

By Kate Herbert

Busting Out! June 11, 2009 ***1/2

 Busting Out! 

Written by Emma Powell, AG Productions

Athenaeum Theatre, June 11 to July 4, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

Boobs are bustin’ out all over in Busting Out! This is the new, improved, lifted and separated show about bazookas, norks, jugs and fun bags. D-Cuppetry, the first incarnation in 2006, was women’s answer to Puppetry of the Penis.

Writer-performer, Emma Powell, with her bosom buddy (sorry), Bev Killick, revamped the show. It now has a glossy design, a bigger sound and a huge video screen to enlarges a double-D cup to something inexplicable. Many original visual gags are still present but seen through the lens of a camera in technicolour and 3D – or 36D (sorry).

The 2006 show was cute, a bit naughty and very daggy and the women have maintained its simple charm for the second half of this show. The start of the evening almost steers it up a very wrong path. It opens with no boobs at all, but with Killick’s bold and crass stand-up routine that would sit better in a late-night, boozy, comedy bar. Her fast patter dragged shrieks from the audience and was peppered with colourful language and more references to genitalia and bodily fluids than a rugby locker room.

After a rather premature interval, the charming, goofy bosom gags come thick and fast. The girls get their girls out and manipulate them like putty into hamburgers, doughnuts, stubby holders, crying babies and even a wide mouth frog. Ah, the versatile mammary. They even have names for each breast.

The singing gives this show pizzazz. Powell has a rich, powerful voice while Killick does a mean Tina Turner.  The show is filled with music featuring various female singers fashioned out of bosoms and blown up on screen.

Powell’s breast appears as Roberta Rack singing Say A Little Prayer For You. Killick’s does afunny rap about mammograms. Two boobs do a parody of Anni-Frid and Agnetha from ABBA singing Mamma Mia –ironic because Powell toured in the musical, Mamma Mia.

They could skip the stand-up and go straight to the boobs if they are not performing in a grog-soaked bar – but then, maybe I’m just a bit prissy these days. The crowd laughed, roared and applauded. They even got on stage and took their bras off. And that was the blokes. Seriously.

By Kate Herbert

Avenue Q, June 4, 2009 ****

 Avenue Q 

Music & Lyrics by Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx, Book by Jeff Whitty

Where and When: Comedy Theatre, from June 4 , 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

AVENUE Q is the Tony Award winning love child of a threesome between Sesame Street, wicked South Park and urban grunge musical, Rent. Picture Muppets with booze and sex and you have Avenue Q. 

This slick, funny Australian production is deftly directed by Jonathan Biggins and set in a shabby, low-rent, tenement block designed by Richard Roberts.  The versatile cast of singer-actors is exceptional. All but three also manipulate puppets, which makes a fascinating performance challenge.

It is a mystery how writers, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, got away with blatantly ripping off Jim Henson and portraying Gary Coleman (Cherine Peck). But Marx is a lawyer so he must have dotted his i’s The street, songs, cute lessons and the characters all echo the Muppets. There is a Trekkie Monster (Luke Joslin) instead of Cookie Monster, Lucy T. Slut (Michala Banas) replaces Miss Piggy and Rod, the gay banker (Butel) and his scruffy, room mate, Nicky (Joslin) parallel Bert and Ernie.

And here the show departs on its own adult tracks. Bright-eyed college graduate, Princeton (Mitchell Butel), laments his unemployability in his song, What Do You Do With a BA In English. He meets his low rent neighbours on Avenue Q, including soon-to-be-lover, the furry geek, Kate Monster. Everybody feels like a loser in this street when they sing the very funny, It Sucks To Be Me.

A very tight, off-stage band plays the vivacious, poppy tunes. The lyrics are cunning and cheeky rather than wicked. Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist is a simple but insightful commentary on contemporary racism and political correctness.

There are several poignant songs. There’s A Fine, Fine Line, sung by Banas, is about love and friendship while Nicky’s buddy song to Rod, If You Were Gay (but I’m not gay), is a sympathetic acceptance of his gay friend.

But there are plenty of rollicking numbers. The Internet Is For Porn is a big, raunchy rock tune. One of the wildest scenes involves the entire cast singing You Can Be As Loud As You Want (When You’re Makin’ Love) while Kate Monster and Princeton get down and dirty in a puppet way. It’s the funniest puppet sex scene since Team America. Another highlight were the sweet-faced and devilish, Bad Idea Bears.

Butel is compelling, funny and multi-talented playing Princeton and Rod, and is perfectly matched by Banas who plays Lucy T. Slut as well as Kate Monster. They perform some extraordinary acting feats by simultaneously playing two characters each.

 The show is a riot albeit a bit too long.

By Kate Herbert

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