Kate Herbert Arts Weekly 3MBS SAT 11 NOV 23

In this radio spot, I review Orlando by Antipodes Theatre, and the new production of Miss Saigon at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne.

Orlando REVIEW 5 Nov 2023 ***

MUSICAL THEATRE

Adapted from Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando

Music and Lyrics by Rachel Lewindon Book, Lyrics by Willow Sizer

By Antipodes Theatre

At 45downstairs until 11 Nov 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 11 Nov 2023. KH

Orlando  - Angel Leggas, 3 Fates Media

Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando, has inspired many stage adaptations and a film starring Tilda Swinton. This production by Antipodes Theatre is a small-scale musical that highlights contemporary transgender issues through Woolf’s story of Orlando’s transformation into a woman, after starting his life as a pretty, noble and promiscuous youth in Elizabethan England.

 

Five young actors (Marty Alix, Louie Dalzell, Manali Datar, Willow Sizer, Kikki Temple) play Orlando, both man and woman, sometimes individually, and sometimes as a group or chorus. The narrative evolves through layered dialogue, excerpts of Woolf’s text, and in the lyrics of the eclectic repertoire of songs (Music by Rachel Lewindon, lyrics by Lewindon &Willow Sizer).

 

On a set design (Bethany J Fellows) that has a centrepiece representing a pebbled stream, directors, Margot Fenley and Maude Davey, with movement director, Belle Hansen, and the cast, create an abstract, movement- and text-based performance. It is underscored by live music (Musicians, Lewindon, Imogen Cygler) and peppered with songs, with the most successful musical moments being the five-part harmonies.

 

The difficulty with adapting a novel for stage is that there is an inclination to include tracts of the original prose and to cram all the narrative threads into the performance. Such is the problem with this Orlando. Too many words, too many narrative threads leading to a lack of clarity in the delivery of Orlando’s story.

 

There is also an unevenness in the performance and vocal skills of the cast. Some have rich tone and fine vocal technique, but there is some awkwardness in the acting and a lack of nuance and finesse which limits the characterisations.

 

Unfortunately, the important issues of gender and identity are often overstated and didactic. The script could trust the audience to understand the intention without resorting to what sounds like preaching.

 

This production certainly has some interesting musical elements and physicalisation, but has not created the definitive, dramatised version of Woolf’s Orlando.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

CAST

Marty Alix (they/he), Louie Dalzell (he/him), Manali Datar (she/her), Willow Sizer (they/them), and Kikki Temple (she/goddess)

 

MUSICIANS

Rachel Lewindon (she/her) and Imogen Cygler (she/her)

 

CREATIVE TEAM

Director: Margot Fenley (she/her)

 Dramaturge/Director: Maude Davey (she/her)

Movement Director: Belle Hansen (she/her)

Set & Costume Designer: Bethany J Fellows

 Sound Designer: Evan Drill (he/him)
Lighting Designer: John Collopy (he/him)

 

PRODUCTION TEAM

Casting & Cultural Consultant: Kuda Mapeza (she/they)

Cultural Consultant: Chels Morgan (they/xe)
Stage Manager: Ashleigh Walwyn (she/her)
Publicist: Cameron Lukey (he/him)

Social Media Manager: Chloe Towan (she/her)

Sound |Operator: Rami Blowes
Artistic Director/ Produciton manager: Brandon Pape
New Work Manager/Producer: Cameron Steens (they/them)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orlando  - Angel Leggas, 3 Fates Media

 

 

 

 Marty Alix (they/he), Louie Dalzell (he/him), Manali Datar (she/her), Willow Sizer (they/them), and Kikki Temple (she/goddess)

 

by Kate Herbert

 

CAST

Marty Alix (they/he), Louie Dalzell (he/him), Manali Datar (she/her), Willow Sizer (they/them), and Kikki Temple (she/goddess)

 

MUSICIANS

Rachel Lewindon (she/her) and Imogen Cygler (she/her)

 

CREATIVE TEAM

Director: Margot Fenley (she/her) Dramaturge/Director: Maude Davey (she/her) Movement Director: Belle Hansen (she/her) Set & Costume Designer: Bethany J Fellows Sound Designer: Evan Drill (he/him)
Lighting Designer: John Collopy (he/him)

 

PRODUCTION TEAM

Casting & Cultural Consultant: Kuda Mapeza (she/they) Cultural Consultant: Chels Morgan (they/xe)
Stage Manager: Ashleigh Walwyn (she/her)
Publicist: Cameron Lukey (he/him)

Social Media Manager: Chloe Towan (she/her)

Sound |Operator: Rami Blowes
Artistic Director/ Produciton manager: Brandon Pape
New Work Manager/Producer: Cameron Steens (they/them)

 

Miss Saigon REVIEW 3 Nov 2023 ****1/2

MUSICAL THEATRE

Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Book by Schönberg & Alain Boublil; Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil, adapted from original French lyrics by Alain Boublil, with additional lyrics by Michael Mahler

Produced by Cameron Mackintosh

At Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, until 16 Dec 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 11 Oct 2023. KH

Abigail Adriano, Nigel Huckle-Australian production - Miss Saigon - Photo by Daniel Boud

 This new and updated production of Miss Saigon is musically electrifying, visually spellbinding and technically remarkable.

 

The story still features 17-year-old Kim (Abigail Adriano), an innocent Vietnamese orphan, whose indigent circumstances force her to become a dancer and unwilling prostitute in the Dreamland night club in Saigon. Her every move is controlled by the flamboyant Engineer (Seann Miley Moore), club manager, who pimps her out to American GIs in the days before the US withdraws from Vietnam. Here begins the romantic but doomed affair between the naive, hopeful Kim and jaded but morally upstanding GI, Chris (Nigel Huckle).

 

The book (Claude-Michel Schönberg & Alain Boublil) is loosely based on Puccini’s 1904 opera, Madam Butterfly, transposed to the 1970s. However, earlier productions attracted severe and widespread criticism of its negative portrayal of Vietnamese women as whores, its paternalistic and patronising view of the Vietnamese, and the casting of Caucasian actors as Asian characters. (Particular criticism was directed at casting Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer.)

 

Cameron Macintosh’s striking new production, impressively and imaginatively directed by Laurence Connor (Australian production directed by Jean-Pierre van der Spuy), presents a more acceptable and contemporary view of the issues: it incorporates searing criticism of US politics and invasion, its soldiers’ abuse of Asian women and of the Vietnamese in general, and its cruel abandonment of the people during the US troops’ evacuation of Saigon.

 

However, there is still no getting around it: the GIs still take advantage of these disadvantaged, desperate young  women who are eking out a living in the Engineer’s sleazy night club that is inappropriately called Dreamland.

 

Claude-Michel Schoenberg’s outstanding score soars and thrills, teases and enchants, while the lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil advance the story, illuminate the characters and challenge the audience. Like an opera, it is sung through, with memorable songs including The Heat is On in Saigon, The Movie in My Mind and Last Night of the World.

 

The American Dream is a showstopper, not only because of Avian’s choreography, but also because of Moore’s electrifying performance of the Engineer’s elaborate fantasy about life in America. Moore commands the stage with his ebullient, flamboyant and audacious performance, prowling, prancing and manipulating the clientele in his vibrant Saigon club and later, in a seedy Bangkok brothel. His voice is powerful and versatile, and he totally inhabits this provocative, charming, mischievous and deeply flawed character.

 

Adriano captures the vulnerability, passion, and hopefulness of Kim as she travels the road from shy, helpless, orphan to bold and feisty mother, determined to reunite with her lost love, and unite her son with his father and provide him with a dream life in America.

 

Huckle has a splendid voice that is sometimes heartbreakingly poignant and at others, bold and impassioned, while Chris negotiates the dangerous terrain of his abandoned love in Saigon, his new wife in America and the tiny son of whom he was unaware.  Adriano and Huckle have romantic chemistry and are credible as the tragic couple immersed in their enchanted love bubble - before it all goes wrong.

 

Totie Driver and Matt Kinley's phenomenal set is another star, with its monumental design elements, evocative and vivid locations and the famous helicopter that now appears as both a flickering projection and as an actual chopper, which is just as alarming and breath-taking as it was the first time.

 

David Avian’s choreography and musical staging is dazzling and eclectic; the scene after the reunification of Vietnam is muscular, regimented dance integrated with exceptional acrobatics with echoes of Chairman Mao exercises.

 

This production of Miss Saigon looks and feels like a completely new creature compared with that which we saw in Melbourne 16 years ago. It is a jaw-dropping spectacle that is thematically and dramatically compelling and this new production is a must-see for lovers of musical theatre.

 

by Kate Herbert

Australian production - Miss Saigon - Photo by Daniel Boud

 

Kate Herbert RADIO REVIEWS Arts Weekly 3MBS Sat 28 Oct 2023

In this show, I review Hour of the Wolf  at Malthouse,  Flake at Red Stitch and Othello, on National Theatre at Home UK. I pre-recorded this for the program so there is no chat with Nick Tolurst.

Click this link to listen:

 Kate Herbert ArtsWeeklySat28Oct2023 

I pre-recorded this for Arts Weekly 3MBS (i.e. before I fell on my head on Saturday. I think I was on air at the moment that I hit the ground!)  

Flake REVIEW 22 Oct 2023 ***

THEATRE

Written by Dan Lee, co-created by Chi Nguyen 

At Red Stitch Theatre until 5 Nov 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

 Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

 Robert Menzies-Photo credit, Jodie Hutchinson

 

When globe-trotting, 68-year-old hipster, Murph (Joe Petruzzi), visits his old mate, Bob (Robert Menzies), in his rundown hideaway in Hanoi, it becomes apparent that Bob, who is limping, feeble, unkempt and often confused, is displaying early signs of dementia. But, in Dan Lee’s play, Flake, Bob has a plan to exit this mortal coil in his own time and on his own terms.

 

A young Vietnamese woman (Phoebe Phuoc Nyugen) arrives with Murph, but it becomes clear that she has more connection to Bob’s abode than just her presumably accidental meeting with Murph can explain.

 

Petruzzi’s Murph is big, audacious, adventurous, irresponsible and unwilling to accept ageing or admit to his failings as a father of multiple children by different mothers. Menzies as Bob is cynical, reclusive, articulate, verbose and a bitter critic of Murph – and just about everyone else: “I hate people,” he quips.

 

The fun reunion that Murph expects, with fond reminiscences about their shared hippydom in Melbourne, degenerates into a series of beer-soaked barneys in which Bob and Murph trade insults and dredge up old sins. It’s difficult to understand why Murph still maintains this friendship with Bob who teases him mercilessly, patronises him and is constantly passive-aggressive.

 

The audience of mostly seniors at the Flake Sunday 6.30pm show reacted to the issues of ageing, loss of independence, forgetfulness and failing faculties with groans and laughs of recognition.

 

The entire play, directed with a light hand by Ella Caldwell, is set in a shabby kitchen (designed by Jacob Baptista) in Bob’s Hanoi haunt, and the room’s worn surfaces mirror his declining health. What becomes clear as the play progresses, is that Bob is bitter and haunted and that he has no contact with his only son in Australia.

 

Lee’s script, co-created with Chi Nguyen, is well-structured with a plot that is peppered with revelations about characters, and sharp, unexpected turns in the narrative. It not only paints a vivid picture of the world of Hanoi outside the tiny, dank kitchen, but also explores the grim life of Bob, the surly, clever expatriate.

 

Some of the longer monologues seem a little over-written and verbose, but the witty dialogue and verbal sparring gives clear voices to the characters of Bob and Murph and their relationship is well-developed. The character of Duyen, the young Vietnamese woman, is less fully drawn.

 

Some of the nuances in the text and the more subtle emotional and psychological moments may have been lost as Menzies, after an illness during rehearsal, was still using his script throughout the performance. Despite this, his intensity and technical skill carries the character of Bob and makes this grumpy old man sympathetic.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

CAST

Joe Petruzzi - Murph

Robert Menzies - Bob

Phoebe Phuoc Nyugen - Duyen

 

CREATIVES

Writer Dan Lee
Co-Creator Chi Nguyen
Director Ella Caldwell
Set/Costume Design Jacob Battista
Lighting Design Jason Ng Junjie
Composition/Sound Design Daniel Nixon
Set Design Associate/ Scenic Painter Khue Nguyen
Dialect Coach Yuanlei (Nikki) Zhao
Dramaturg Tom Healey
Stage Manager Finn McLeish
Assistant Stage Manager Finleigh Wadsworth

 

Joe Petruzzi, Robert Menzies-Photo credit, Jodie Hutchinson

Kate Herbert talks about LUNG on Behind the Scenes, 23 Oct 2023

Chris Thompson interviewed me about my play, LUNG, on his show, Behind the Scenes, on Vision Australia radio AM1179 yesterday.    

Artwork by Joe Calleri

Here's the link to the podcast:

Kate Herbert interview: Behind the Scenes 

My interview is at 19min22sec to 30min50sec. Russell Fletcher's interview starts around 47min28sec.

LUNG, play reading is at La Mama on Saturday 28 October at 2pm.  

Link here for info & bookings:

LUNG play reading 

Hour of the Wolf REVIEW 20 Oct 2023 ***

THEATRE

Written by Keziah Warner, by Malthouse Theatre

At Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse until 3 Dec 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

Jack Green & Kevin Hofbauer_photo Pia Johnson

 The premise of Hour of the Wolf is that the small town of Hope Hill is visited once a year for an hour between 3 and 4 am by a wolfwoman who visits horrors upon members of the town – perhaps only on those who deserve it?

                                                                                                                  

During this “immersive” performance, audience members can choose their own adventure. It’s a fascinating, potentially theatrically compelling idea that is not wholly successful; form is the focus at the expense of content and the concept has not quite translated into a dramatic whole.

 

Audience members are funnelled into a scarily cramped, holding corridor, provided with headphones and some cursory instructions over the earphones (Earlier instructions in the foyer over the PA were inaudible). A woman’s voice narrates into our ears that she visits this town once a year. The Wolf?

 

We are ushered into a walled off space that represent a specific location. Other groups may start elsewhere, but my journey through the story starts in a karaoke bar where three different conversations take place. We are then told, over the earphones, to follow a character, or simply move to another room through a door. I move to the scene of a car crash, a convenience store, a couple‘s bedroom, a filmset in a church, a hospital waiting room and, finally, to a small gymnasium where a woman appears to have killed a man whose body has disappeared. End.

 

Other audience members have a different beginning, middle and ending. Some wander off to explore rooms to sticky-beak in the crashed car or peer into gym lockers, scour shelves in the convenience store or peer at photos on the walls of the bedroom. You could choose to miss the entire narrative by just exploring the marvellously detailed, elaborate set design. In fact, Anna Cordingley’s set is probably the star of this production.

 

We are voyeurs on the private conversations of various townspeople, and this provides a frisson of impending drama or danger and a feeling of being where we should not be.

 

Hour of the Wolf has a lot of promise and has had a lot of time, money and personnel thrown at it. It involves 11 actors (I saw only 10), multiple story lines and a very complex set and physical structure built inside the Merlyn Theatre.

 

Unfortunately, the technology let it down at times because the actors were inaudible through the headphones, so I took mine off most of the time and may have missed something crucial.

 

There are problems with the plotting, narrative and dialogue. I kept expecting there to be a greater sense of menace in the space and genuine danger, but it was all so downplayed, that at no point did I feel anyone was in any real danger and there was little heightened drama in each scene, despite the nervy urgency of characters.

 

There is no pay-off at the end. The story just peters out and we are left with a sense that we missed something or that there is no real danger after all.

 

The Wolf was missing from our journey through these spaces. We eventually realise that she is the voice of the woman in our ears through headphones. We want more of her and perhaps need to have her give us more details of her story and her reasons for being in Hope Hill, of all places. Or perhaps she needs to be a character on stage at some point. I assume that the Wolf narrator is Natasha Herbert, who I’d love to see or hear more on stage. Perhaps I missed an entire, significant scene that featured the wolfwoman.

 

There is mention of “offerings” – that seem to be bread rolls – to the Wolf, but the origins of this practice, the history of the Wolf’s visitations, her menaces, the disappearances or deaths she seems to have been responsible for, are never clearly described for the audience so that we understand the town’s attitude.

 

The fact that all but one of the characters is young is odd because there is clearly history to this Wolf. Where are the older or old townspeople who have experienced more of this history and established the practices to avert the danger?

 

Hour of the Wolf is a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful piece of immersive theatre that favours style over content.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

CAST

Lucy Ansell

Jack Green

Natasha Herbert

Kevin Hofbauer

Keegan Joyce

Brooke Lee

Emily Milledge

Christina O’Neill

Eva Rees

Karl Richmond

Katherine Tonkin

 

CREATIVE TEAM

WRITER – Keziah Warner

DIRECTOR – Matthew Lutton

INTERACTIVE DRAMATURG / David Harris

SET DESIGNER / Anna Cordingley

COSTUME DESIGNER / Zoë Rouse

ASSOCIATE SET DESIGNER /Karine Larché

LIGHTING DESIGNER /Amelia Lever-Davidson

COMPOSITION & SOUND DESIGNER / Jethro Woodward

Othello REVIEW National Theatre 21Oct2023 ****1/2

 THEATRE 

By National Theatre at Home

Free online until 27 Oct 2023 then on National Theatre at Home online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkKYT-WwyMQ&t=0s Youtube until 22 OCT UK time

Then https://www.ntathome.com free until 27 Oct

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****1/2 (4.5)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

Othello National Theatre-Giles Terera, Paul Hilton (image from Youtube)

This National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Othello, directed by Clint Dyer, belts along like a juggernaut. It opens with Iago (Paul Hilton) leading a band of rowdy and angry men - including Roderigo who Iago has whipped into a jealous frenzy - to inform Brabantio, a Venetian senator, of his daughter Desdemona’s (Rosy McEwen) secret marriage to Othello, the Moor (Giles Terera).

 

Here begins the overt racism against Othello when Iago, Othello’s false friend, bellows, “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe”. Iago sets in motion his vile, treacherous vendetta against Othello for overlooking him for promotion.

 

Terera, who playe Aaron Burr in Hamilton, is passionate, muscular and commanding as Othello, charting a path from love, joy and power to physical and mental breakdown as Othello wrestles with Iago’s poisonous slurs against Desdemona.

 

McEwen’s Desdemona is a feisty, modern woman, equal to her new husband in energy, passion and assured opinions, and she challenges him at every turn. This is no shrinking violet.

 

As Iago, Hilton is venomous, arch and insidious as he executes his cunningly veiled plot to destroy Othello’s spirit and his trust in his precious wife, thus compelling the Moor to murder Desdemona in his misplaced jealousy.

 

A steep bank of starkly lit steps at the rear of the stage (Set, Chloe Lamford; Lighting, Jai Morjaria), leaves the forestage uncluttered for the very physical and rapidly paced action. A chorus (called System in the program) of actors, perch, prowl and posture on the steps, echoing Iago’s vitriolic soliloquys and sniping asides and deeply disguised emotions in their choreographed, abstract movement (Lucie Pankhurst).

 

By virtue of this chorus effect, Iago’s emotional and psychological manipulation of Othello is writ large, with his every dark thought resonating behind him through the chorus.

 

This Othello is inventive, imaginative and potent, highlighting the racial hate speech that is not always as evident in other productions. It shows the total physical and psychological breakdown of this powerful man who would rather kill the one he loves than be betrayed by her.

 

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

Giles Terera -Othelllo

Rosy McEwen - Desdemona

Paul Hilton -Iago.

 

Jack Bardoe – Roderigo

Tanya Franks -Emilia,

Martin Marquez - Duke of Venice

Jay Simpson- Brabantio

System & Other roles: Joe Bolland, Rory Fleck Byrne, Kirsty J Curtis, Peter

Eastland, Patrick Elue, Colm Gormley, Gareth Kennerley, Joshua Lacey,

Katie Matsell, Amy Newton, Sabi Perez, Steffan Rizzi, Ryan Whittle.

 

 

Creative Team

Director- Clint Dyer

Set Designer- Chloe Lamford

Costume Designer -Michael Vale

Lighting Designer-Jai Morjaria

Sound Design & Composition -Pete Malkin

Sound Design & Composition Benjamin Grant

Co-Composer --Sola Akingbola

Movement Director- Lucie Pankhurst

Co-Video Designer -Nina Dunn

Co-Video Designer -Gino Ricardo Green

Fight Director-Kev McCurdy

Casting -Alastair Coomer CDG

Casting-Naomi Downham

Dramatherapist-Samantha Adams

Associate Director-Mumba Dodwell