Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, MTC, Feb 1995

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne until 25 March, 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert for The Melbourne Times. Reviewed late Feb 1995

 

We make of history what suits our politics and philosophy, even an earthly paradise – Arcady. Tom Stoppard's play, Arcadia, is impeccably crafted, perfectly structured, intelligent, witty and challenging. I cannot fault script, Simon Phillips production nor any individual performance.

 

In inimitable Stoppard fashion, Arcadia unravels a superb biographical-historical plot not unrelated to A.S. Byatt's novel, Possession.

 

He interweaves an aristocratic family of the late 18th century Romantic period of literature, painting, gardens and classical mathematics with the 20th century's literary criticism, computer technology and chaos theory.  The result is a mind-bending intersection of worlds charged with sex and conflict.

 

Two modern literary academics from polarised schools of academia meet at Sidley Hall. Lewis Fiander plays conservative, priggish snob, Bernard Nightingale in pursuit of Lord Byron while Helen Morse is the cool feminist, Hannah Jarvis, hunting for the more obscure Hermit of Sidley Hall.

 

History always eludes us. It is unscientific, as are natural phenomena and human nature. We cannot quantify it. The unpredictability is the rule, unlike quantum physics and relativity.

 

Under the mathematical tutelage of Byron's friend, Septimus Hodge (stylish, wickedly rakish Peter O'Brien), an inspired 18th century teenager (zesty Sarah Walker) stumbles upon a pre-computer version of Chaos Theory. Meanwhile various sexual liaisons are being played out and the 20th century theorists struggle to piece the jigsaw together.

 

In this story, as says twitty aristocrat Chloe (hilarious Sally Cooper) sex is the variable, the interferon. All the 20th century theory falls apart without knowledge of the personal details to which we are privy in the Romantic era flashbacks.

 

The play captures the "decline from thinking to feeling" which was the social norm after the Age of Reason. The Romantics created their own chaos as have the Chaos Theorists today. We discover that "everything you thought you knew, was wrong" both in life and in the drama.

 

The play is moving, passionate, analytical and inspired. It forces an audience to think, judge and feel. I could give you no greater recommendation.

 

KATE HERBERT

 

The Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy, NYID, 22 Feb 1995

 

By Not Yet It's Difficult- part of  series

At Theatreworks Wed - Sun until Feb 26, 1995

This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 22 Feb 1995. KH

 

The Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy did not give us a chair. It shuffled us around the open Theatreworks space and we figured out where to sit on the floor for the best vantage point. This challenges the audience / performer relationship which needs a bit of rattling every now and then.

 

Director, David Pledger, is accessible in the space, talking to us, instructing. He is almost reading program notes at the beginning about the physical, mobile and participatory nature of the show and the Peking Opera tale which is the basis for this adaptation.  Meanwhile, the performers enact a series of exercises in Chinese mode.

 

The consciously self-conscious opening sequences give way to a more coherent and substantial dramatic form in the second half of this one-hour performance. (It is not a play.) The actors own commentaries are interpolated between fragments of the Tiger Mountain story with its Maoist propaganda.

 

Actors give a treatise on American Imperialism, the regimentation of classical ballet, gymnastic and military training, the repetitive process of which causes rigidity of thought. All these references, plus the witty representation of the Tiger Mountain battle, indirectly criticise the Maoist ideology, its violence and its propaganda machine. Taped snippets of the Chairman Mao exercises reverberate over the final scene, suggesting an insidious presence.

 

The vignettes from the deconstructed narrative are the strongest components of the production. Maud Davey, as always, is magnetic as a grieving mother, a chanting military leader, an interrogator. Kha Viet Tran's superbly controlled physicality and natural presence make him charismatic on stage. His Maoist soldier single-handedly attacking Tiger Mountain and its insurgents was a highlight.

 

Of course having no seating makes it, by force, theatre for the young, nimble and energetic. You wouldn't want to be disabled, old, sick or have a bad back - but it's only an hour.

 

KATE HERBERT

 

 

Al Andulus, by Hildegarde, Feb 1995

 

At Theatreworks 14 Acland St., St Kilda until March 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert for The Melbourne Times.

Reviewed Feb 1995

 

Amazing as it may sound, in the 10th century, a Jewish-Arabic community thrived in harmony in Spain until that Catholic red-neck racist, Queen Isabella, ejected them as heretics.

 

Al Andulus, devised by Hildegarde with David Wicks as director, celebrates this phenomenon with an "animated narrative". Three tragic love stories from the period are performed with flamenco-inspired movement and mediaeval songs which give an added emotional layer to the fragmented text. It is enhanced by an exotic floor design (Peter Long) in gold and jewel colours seems inspired by Byzantine mosaics and Persian rugs.

 

The atmosphere is charged with sexual and violent energy. The pulsating flamenco beat, the intense gaze (Angela Campbell's Scottish ancestors must have seen Spanish invaders!) the beating of sticks and feet on floor, hand on hand, and the interspersed songs from Spanish, Arabic and Sephardic Jewish origins, create an almost elemental atmosphere.

 

There were moments when, mesmerised by the rhythms, I lost the narrative which mattered little, the focus of the piece being on form rather than story or structure. The composite of vocal and percussive sound with symbolic and abstract storytelling is the core of Al-Andalus. The vocal canon with all five voices was memorable, but accolades go to the seraphic voice of countertenor, Hartley Newnham.

 

The cast demand our attention, demolishing the fourth wall with a full-frontal and sensual performance style. The men (Wade Beed, Charlie Powells) exude both power and vulnerability, the women (Angela Campbell , Bagryana Popov) are rare, wild and sensual figures with flashing eyes and swinging skirts.

 

The most powerful and evocative images were fluid sculptures such as the very erotic seduction and the horse-riding abduction. The piece could have used more of these imagistic representations, particularly in the third story, which lost some momentum. The form was in place by then and there were no surprises left.

 

Kate Herbert

 

Napier Street 1995, Article, 13 Feb 1995

Article about the evolving programme at Napier Street Theatre, South Melbourne in 1995.

 By Kate Herbert

 This article published in The Melbourne Times in Feb 1995.

 

"You can't just make a theatre. it's something that grows. It's organic," says Roderick Poole, Venue Manager for Napier Street Theatre. The South Melbourne venue has shed skins like a chameleon and its several lives echo through its present incarnation.

 

Lavish and grungy productions of European plays by Anthill Theatre resonate in every corner and colour our experience when we enter the space now. "There is a certain continuity," says Poole.

 

Each season is programmed by a committee comprising people from independent theatre organisations such as La Mama, $5 Theatre Company and the Fringe Network. There is definitely a style / taste factor governing selection.

 

Poole says, "There is a bias toward Australian work - not necessarily Australian-written but interpretations of European or other works".  Marriage Blanc is a Polish play in English with a lapsed-Anthill style.

 

In the upcoming program is, amongst other shows, new local scripts by Chameleon Theatre and Julie-Anne O'Brian and, in March, the long-awaited return of Crying in Public Places.

 

"Napier Street is a sacred space" he says", " like La Mama. Purpose-built theatres never have that feeling." These spaces have evolved after years of experimentation, countless layers of paint on walls, makeshift dressing rooms and innovative use of a non-traditional venue.

 

It is this very evolutionary process, the time-space continuum of theatres if you like,

which has brought Napier Street to where it is in 1995. This is its sixth six-month season since Anthill left to hasten its demise at The Gasworks two and a half years ago.

 

Poole describes the aims of the venue as essentially being "about giving a home to independent groups around Melbourne. There are a huge number of them, and the vast majority are not funded."

 

It is doing something which Fringe Network, with its open-door policy, does not do; it provides both quality control through its selection procedures and a well-equipped venue to artists.

 

"The number of people practising in the field has gone up," says Poole " and the level of funding in real terms has gone down. People have either been left high and dry or driven underground."

 

Poole describes Napier Street as "cheap, high profile, with a unique funding arrangement."

Unfunded independent groups pay $500 a week rental. for a 90-seat theatre, flexible seating, equipment and a couple of personnel.

 

"It means they can virtually do a show which costs them no money. Funded groups, which are in the minority, pay a larger amount." Poole calls it "a sort of cross-subsidy."

 

Of course, the venue also houses Arena Theatre which performs mostly in schools but programs 12 weeks in the theatre per year.  Arena had been managing the venue through its own Administrator but in 1994 the roles of company and venue were split.

 

"It has been a pattern," says Poole, " for theatre companies to separate themselves from their venues", as did Anthill and as Theatreworks has now done. "The venue can take energy from the work".

 

Certainly the quality of the Napier Street product has lifted since its inception. The program looks interesting, the public profile of the venue is excellent and nobody else is doing it. Vive l'Independence!

 

By Kate Herbert

Slick, Gry Day, 11 Feb 1995

Written & performed by Gary Day

At Beckett Theatre, Malthouse – Feb 1995 extended

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

This review published in The Melbourne Times after 11 Feb 1995

 

Go and see Slick. It is worth it. It opens with Gary Day jogging on the spot and the pace barely lets up for 70 minutes of this self-written monodrama. It leaves one breathless.

 

 Tim Burns is locked in the ugly embrace of his partner for life, The Demon Drink, or "Slick", as Tim ambivalently names the grog. He jogs to escape his wretched lot and to "click in" those fabulous endorphins to save his arse from snitching another drink.

 

Slick is everybody's addiction: alcohol, heroin. Slick's wife, Cigarette, completes the menage a' trois and Tim "goes down on her forty times a day." Slick is anthropomorphised, hiding in corners, jumping on Tim's back without warning. Slick is a sly and plausible rogue who convinced Tim at an early age that he made his life rosier, which he did - for a while.

 

 Day gives a muscular and riveting performance. His jittering, frenetic withdrawals are disturbing, his pain palpable. His reminiscences about childhood, to distract himself and to make some sense of his adult self, are hilarious and witty. Day's writing is pungent, permeated by the stench of weakness and loss. Even most of the poo jokes were funny.

 

Bruce Myles' vigorous and stylish direction enhances Day's muscular performance. Day's jittering, frenetic withdrawals are disturbing, his pain palpable. Day's writing is witty, pungent, permeated by the stench of weakness and loss. Even most of the poo jokes were funny.

 

The character's evolution felt truncated at the end. He finds some peace with his abandoned child, but we have not seen enough of the adult to know how far down the tube he has travelled. I wanted to know more of this tortured soul. I loved him by the end. I would have held his hand like Jenny, his childhood sweetheart did.

 

KATE HERBERT

Homage, 10 Feb 1995

 

 by Daniel Lillford

At La Mama at the Carlton Courthouse

Wednesday to Saturday 8.15pm Sunday 6pm until Feb 5, 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 10 Feb 1995

For some unknown reason, I didn't write a review of this show but kept a short note. KH 

 

Homage is a fractured fairy-tale about tragic love and obsession.

With Nick Crawford-Smith and Simon McGuiness.

Mariage Blanc, Napier St Theatre, 8 Feb 1995

Written by Tadeusz Rozewicz

By The Mission

At Napier Street Theatre, South Melbourne

Until Feb 19, 1995 8pm Tuesday -Saturday

Reviewer: Kate Herbert early Feb 1995

This review published in The Melbourne Times after 8 Feb 1995. KH

 

The tail-end of Anthill meeting most of the $5 Theatre Company in new company, The Mission, was an exciting prospect for Melbourne Theatre.

 

The company's first production, Mariage Blanc (a Polish play, French name), has a strong cast and some striking ideas from director, Suzanne Chaundy, all of which augurs well for future projects.

 

The play is a product of the 70's "sexual revolution" as well as the political oppression and theatrical daring in Poland over recent decades. It is abstract, absurd and dark in its handling of sexual repression and awakening. Perhaps writer Tadeusz Rozewicz had read too much Freud or too much Timothy Leary.

 

It somehow felt too much like "Benny Hill goes to Poland." I have never been able to understand the European idea that incest and child / teenage sex is funny. Call me old-fashioned but Grandaddy (a wonderful cameo from Ian Scott) craving the adolescent's smelly stockings caused me to ponder the idiosyncrasies of humour and cultural perversity.

 

The second half tapped into something much darker and more challenging than the earlier sexual innuendo and childish sex play between the two juvenile sisters (Alice Garner, Nadia Coreno) one of whom is about to marry a complete stranger. Napier Street resounded with the clash of naivete against sexual robustness, of chastity with goaty old lust.

 

Suzanne Chaundy has come up with some terrific ideas which have, in part, been realised. Susan Bamford's resonant chanting gave an operatic richness and emotional texture to the play. It did, however, become a little predictable.

 

Symbols abounded: the lusty father in a bull's head, old buckets representing the bride's dowry, a toadstool shaped like a phallus, distressingly blood red walls and floor, tattered furniture. In fact there was such an overload of symbology they often seem unfulfilled, incoherent or unnecessary.

 

The production in the end has some very funny and challenging moments but its style feels fragmented as it flits from abstraction to near-naturalism to broad farce - and I got sick of the innuendo whatever its intention might be.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

Save Suvla Street by David Britton, 31 Jan 1995

At La Mama Wed -Sun until Feb 19, 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 31 Jan 1995

This review published in early Feb 1995 (in either The Melbourne Times or Herald Sun. Sorry, I don’t have the details now). KH

 

Just like the weird perfumier in Patrick Suskind's literary and olfactory novel, Perfume, I spent much of Save Suvla Street at La Mama obsessed with smells around me. My neighbour wore a cloying blend of frankincense and cigarette smoke, the woman in front exuded sweet French perfume, Carlton smelt of petrol and coffee.

 

This was not merely the result of a wandering mind but was stimulated by David Britton's solo character, Hilda Armitage, who stores her memories in jars filled with smells, stinks and aromas from her past: her husband's sweaty singlet, the bullocky scent of her first love Gunter, her daughter's lunch box. We even got to play "spot the pong" when she passed her "memories" around for sniffing.

 

The writing is swift, intelligent, witty, at times echoing almost forgotten Australian idiom then drifting into a timeless, lyrical language which creates an unexpected emotional layering to the text. Hilda is a feisty old bag with a crusade: to save her beloved home in Suvla Street from being bull-dozed and turned into a Hotel. She has called her neighbours (the audience) into her front yard (La Mama courtyard) to discuss the tragedy of a society which no longer values anything old, unless it's an antique. This includes old mums we are soon to discover.

Sue Jones works hard alone on stage for 90 minutes and there are many warm, funny and gently moving moments. She engages and entertains. Director, Catherine Hill, has taken the challenge of the monodrama, and drawn some charming moments from it.

 

The location in the La Mama courtyard was a great choice, if a shade risky during this balmy, wet January. Anna Borghese's set was evocative and attentive to the minutiae of an elderly woman's life.

 

Somehow the production, although generally entertaining, did not seem to penetrate the surface of a potentially intensely emotional piece. It was erratically paced and, at times, did not do justice to Britton's fine poetic language.

 

KATE HERBERT

Blabbermouth, adapted by Mary Morris from Morris Gleitzman, 25 Jan 1995

Adapted by Mary Morris from Morris Gleitzman's novel

By Melbourne Theatre Company & Arena Theatre

At George Fairfax Studio, Melbourne Arts Centre

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 25 Jan 1995

This review published in late Jan 1995 (in either The Melbourne Times or Herald Sun. Sorry, I don’t have the details now). KH

 

Let's face it! Kids are cruel. Just a lisp, a limp, a stammer an accent - instant victim material. When Rowena Batts (a surname designed for ridicule) arrives at a new school and can't talk "'cos she was born with missing bits from her throat", she is teased by the school bully, avoided by other girls and treated as a "community project" by her newfound friend.

 

Blabbermouth, adapted by Mary Morris from Morris Gleitzman's novel, is a play for kids 7ish upwards. It has the hallmark Gleitzman wickedness. Ro's dad is an embarrassment to her, wearing satin C & W shirts and singing Tammy Wynette songs.

 

Everybody is flawed, all are heightened versions of people we know and love - or loathe. The oafish, incompetent headmaster (Francis Greeenslade), the sympathetic schoolteacher (Sue Giles) and the kid who can't read (Carole Patullo). Some are hilarious caricatures. Mrs. Granger (Sue Giles) doles out Cheezels one at a time and the entire Peck family are Def Metal head-bangers.

 

The audience loved the cruel and the gross in the story. When Darren Peck the bully has a frog stuffed in his mouth - twice - everybody squirmed and howled in delight. However, it is Rowena (Frances O'Connor) learning to assert herself with friends, community and father and discovering something of tact and tolerance herself which provides the core of the story.

 

The direction is lively and physical, musician/singer, Tom Lycos, adds another dimension and the whole company gives gutsy, comic performances of an astounding number of characters. Patullo, Giles and Greenslade scamper on and off, each with three or four hilarious roles. O'Connor is delightfully impish as Rowena and Danny Nash as her lovable, oafish dad is charming.

 

You can still catch it after school holidays at 6.30 pm. Early dinner, late to bed.

 

KATE HERBERT

The Sandman, Hungry Ghost Theatre, 17 Jan 1995

By Hungry Ghost Theatre

 Adapted from The Tales of Hoffman

Commerce Way City 12 Midnight Sunday - Tuesday until Feb 7, 1995

This review published in Jan 1995 in The Melbourne Times (or maybe it was the Herald Sun? II don’t have the details anymore.) KH

 

According to the Hungry Ghost Theatre version of the tale of The Sandman, he does not send you happily to dozy land but throws sand in children's eyes until they pop out of their heads and then he feeds them to his children on the moon. 

 

This is no kiddy-winks company. They perform at midnight in a grungy lane off Flinders Street, employing huge shadows playing over distressed concrete walls, Actors fly down in harness, eerie children's lullabies are played on xylophone and there is a plethora of gruesome eyeballs including some giant floating helium-filled ones.

 

The impact of the location cannot be under-estimated. Who needs to design post-modern urban decay when we are surrounded by it in the city centre? The horror of the story is heightened by the chill of Commerce Lane. The stylisation of both language and movement and the fragmentation of the tale itself, add to the weirdness of the experience. The greatest horror, however, was a mouse scuttling over my feet and into the bowels of the building.

 

The performance is a little uneven with a few flat patches and an unfortunate problem with a radio mike, but it challenges conceptions of storytelling, implements some courageous stunts and imaginative visuals and investigates the dark and the mystical. Themes of vision, sight and short-sightedness are reiterated (hence the eyeball motif!) and the boy's night-horrors about the vile Sandman evolve into the tragic obsession of the man.

 

KATE HERBERT

A Flea in Her Ear, Melbourne Theatre Company, REVIEW, 14 Jan 1995

 

by Georges Feydeau

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At the Playhouse, Melbourne Arts Centre, until Feb 4, 1995

This review published in Jan 1995 in the Herald Sun (or maybe it was The Melbourne Times? I don’t have the details anymore.) KH

 

French playwright Georges Feydeau really knew how to slap together a rib-tickling farce riddled with sexual innuendo and more-obvious-uendo. His own life could have been a tragic reflection of one of his plays. In addition to his gambling and extravagance, his late nights at Maxim's, his divorce and an affair with a dancer, his syphilitic mental deterioration caused him to believe he was Napoleon!

 

In A Flea in her Ear, (1907), director Simon Phillips has gone for broke with the silliness of this door-slamming, slapstick romp with wrought iron doorways creating a virtual obstacle course on stage. Actors scamper about, peeping, sneaking, snitching and hiding behind doors and leaping in and out of beds which appear and disappear. Benny Hill had a transcontinental father in mad old Georges.

 

The cast, without exception, is superb. Richard Piper makes a feast of his double casting as both the staid Chandebise and his doppelganger, the dopey brothel porter. Robert Grubb is excellent as the philandering Tournel and Lewis Fiander plays the jealous Spaniard like Salvador Dali with an outrageous accent.

 

Marg Downey and Genevieve Picot as the plotting wives, find a joyful balance between grace and comedy while Peter O'Brien plays a sexy Camille with a very funny speech impediment. Much as I want to, I cannot mention everybody but Judith McGrath's cameo as the brothel madam was eccentric and wonderful.

 

The production gallops along, peppered with double takes and double identities, romantic deceptions, sexual games and tumbles of both kinds. There is no message, no political correctness, no tragedy in this farce. It is simply a beautifully directed, designed and acted summer romp.

 

KATE HERBERT  280 wd

Hello Dolly! REVIEW Melbourne, 9 Jan 1995

 Music by Jerry Herman; Book byMichael Stewart 

From Dec 31 State Theatre, Melbourne Arts Centre

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 9 Jan 1995

This review published in Jan 1995 in the Herald Sun (or maybe it was The Melbourne Times? I don’t have the details anymore.) KH

 

Hello Dolly! is fluff. Let nobody tell you otherwise. The plot is thin, the characters two-dimensional and the sentiments questionable. It is crammed with tacky love scenes, bad jokes and extravagant chorus routines but if you love a musical, get along.

 

Dolly Levi (Jill Perryman), a New York widow, has made a career in matchmaking since the death of her sainted husband. After years of settling other people's affairs, she has now decided to settle herself upon her abrasive, penny-pinching but unsuspecting client, Horace Vandergelder (Warren Mitchell), a "half-a-millionaire" grain dealer from Yonkers.

 

Musically, the show relies heavily on the title song. There are no other really memorable tunes. Jill Perryman's doting public applauded like seals every time she blinked, particularly during her gala promenade around the apron of the stage followed by a bevy of dancing waiters.

 

Warren Mitchell is very restrained as Vandergelder and Henshaw could afford to give this consummate performer his head to raise the comedy stakes.  Denise Drysdale's cameo as the blousy Ernestine Money, reached the ultimate degree of tacky campness. Jackie Love, with her light comic touch and fine voice, was a delightful Irene Molloy.

 

Director Christopher Henshaw probably has another commercial success on his hands after his recent production of South Pacific, Dolly is pacy and very camp, but aren't most old musicals? It is as much a fashion parade as a show and costume designer, Tim Goodchild, has had a field day designing vivid and spectacular gowns for the turn of the century. Set design by Brian Thompson has a quirky and effective cartoon-like quality which off-sets the costumes.

 

KATE HERBERT  270 wd

 

The Comedy of Errors , Melbourne Maskworks, 14 Jan 1995

 

Written by William Shakespeare

Melbourne Maskworks

At Northcote Amphitheatre from approx 14 Jan 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on or around 14 Jan 1995

This review published in Jan 1995 in The Melbourne Times (or maybe it was the Herald Sun? II don’t have the details anymore.) KH

 

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare employs that cutesy comic device of mistaken identity. Of course, it is always a tall order to find two sets of identical twins, so Melbourne Maskworks have creatively solved the problem with identical masks.

 

This may not be Shakespeare's best comedy, but it provides plenty of scope for adaptation.  In addition to its simple set (Ian McLay) and colourful costumes (Naomi Szakacs) and superbly crafted leather masks (Sylvia Rech), Maskworks' production has the advantage of the exotic natural setting of the Northcote Amphitheatre with its great acoustics, natural lighting effects at dusk, a view of the Yarra, kookaburras and a passing parade of sticky-beaks walking their dogs.

Some clever and charming slapstick routines in the style of the Italian Commedia del'Arte are the highlights of the show directed by Peter O'Donohue. In fact, the production could have been enhanced by editing some of the longer wordier speeches and focussing on the more physical aspects. There are some delightful mumming routines running parallel to dialogue which liven it up.

 

A few visual gags and character mannerisms are filched directly from The Three Stooges and other clowns. Some are over-used and become repetitive. Live music by Anne McCue is a bonus and there are some lively and very funny characterisations from Russell Fletcher, Trevor Major and Jules Hutchenson.

 

This may not be high art but it is a pleasant and entertaining night out and you can sip champagne as you watch.

 

KATE HERBERT

Kate Herbert's Theatre Picks 1994 - The Melbourne Times Dec 1994

Herbie's Theatre Picks 1994

by Kate Herbert

December 5, 1994

published in The Melbourne Times, Dec 1994

My theatrical highlights for 1994 have surprised me. Three are overseas product, three are from Melbourne Theatre Company, one is from Sydney and only one of the five shows produced in Melbourne are locally written.

Top of my top ten list must be the Canadian Opera production of Bluebeard's Castle Ewartung. The highlight was the visionary direction by Robert Lepage making his opera debut with extraordinary stage imagery complemented by dramatic lighting creating an intense psychic landscape. The surreal illusion of Bluebeard's dead wives emerging from under water, dripping blood was a blinding inspiration.

I was mesmerised by the simple, poignant beauty and deceptive naivete in the writing of Tim Winton which director- actor Richard Roxborough captured in his adaptation of That Eye, The Sky for the Melbourne Festival. I sat with my jaw on my kness at its physicality and the truthful recreation of Winton's emotional landscape, his ‘Magic Australianism’: the visions, hallucinations, poetic language and broad Australian colloquialisms stirred into the one sweet tragedy. It was thrilling  charming and a true ensemble piece.

The next eight or so on my list all rest are in no particular order but I was transported in some way by all of them. I begin at La Mama early in the year with Marguerita Duras' play, L'Amante Anglaise which is a superbly crafted piece of writing about murder, madness and mystery. It was rivetting character drama, a production of inspired simplicity with the audience in full light almost in the laps of actors, John Flaus and Brenda Palmer who talk, seated opposite each other for 90 minutes.

Director, Bruce Myles is responsible for two of my hits. Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (MTC) he directed simply and stylishly in a terrifyingly truncated rehearsal period. He coaxed magnificent performances out of Richard Piper, Melvin J. Carroll and the inimitable Frank Gallacher, as the volatile and maddening Irish wit. It is based on the real experiences of hostages by extremists in Beirut. We are voyeurs who witness their wrenching, existential pain. Myles other success was Shadowboxing by James Gaddas with a rivetting Robert Morgan. It was an emotional and physical rollercoaster, an intimate and frenetic performance about a young boxer trying to make a career and discovering, in this macho boxing world, that he is gay.

A Room of One's Own ( MTC) , a solo by Pamela Rabe, was directly adapted from the writings and lectures of Virginia Wolff about Women in Fiction. This had me weeping for the sheer power of Wolff's words and her wonderful mind. Rabe's depiction of Virginia Wolff was magnificent, revealing, energising, intelligent and witty.

 The MTC also re-staged a magnificent double of with exceptional performances and writing by Tony Kushner, which shifts from the lyrical and poetic to the stridently political to the fantastic. The mind of this man is the Eighth Wonder.

The only classical text on my list is Renato Cuocolo's adaptation of The Bacchae - but IRAA never does a traditional production. In The Bacchae: Burning by Water, Cuocolo sets the whole performance in a shallow pool. What stays with me is Robert Meldrum's rich honey voice and the sensual and lyrical reflections of light from the pool over the bodies of the actors. It left me gaping and hypnotised by the evocative atmosphere and the "psycho-physical" performances of actors.

 IRAA is also responsible for bringing Otto Lechner, an impish Austrian piano accordion player who transforms the accordion from bad talent quest material to a sexy and hilarious hour of jazz and musical satire. His send-up of Viennese waltzes is legend.

 Falling From Grace, Hannie Rayson's new play for Playbox, is uncannily accurate in representing the worlds of four modern women fighting forty who have busy, successful, complicated, often fraught professional and personal lives. The characters are never predictable but heck, are they familiar!

I must mention Phillipe Genty's Forget Me Not from France. His whimsical combination of visual theatre, movement and spectacle is extraordinary. There were moments when I could not tell the people from the puppets.

Visiting overseas shows are generally already huge hits with even huger budgets but is the Melbourne theatre scene already suffering from the low or non-existent budgets, short script development and rehearsal time and lack of sponsorship and support for local product? Here's to more local and exceptional product in '95.

Kate Herbert 5/12/1994

The Wilderness Room by Gilgul, 2 December, 1994

 By Gilgul

At 321 Chapel St. Prahran 8.30 pm until Dec 21, 1994 (not Fridays)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 2 December 1994

This review was published in th Melbourne Times in early December 1994.. KH

 

 The abstract in theatre can be riveting, illuminating and succinct and Barrie Kosky's previous Gilgul shows have had their fair share of these qualities. In The Wilderness Room, the latest production from this company, there are a few inspiring images, most of which are in the last 20 minutes of the one hour performance but a heavy symbolism disguises a lack of content .

 

The intention of the piece is noble and interesting, aspiring to represent the experience of the five Jewish convicts who were on the First Fleet. It draws cunning parallels with the Jews wandering in the wilderness for forty years after their escape from Egypt under Moses leadership and the immigrant - convict forced expatriation.

 

The Jews bring with them their rituals and conventions: Passover, Elijah's chair and cup, joyful and poignant songs which are often the most moving and atmospheric moment in the performance.

 

All five performers work very hard with Kosky vigorously playing piano and harpsichord live on stage. The company has a strong ensemble feel and a recognisable style based on the Polish and Yiddish theatre. It incorporates mask-like faces, minimalist design (by Peter Corrigan), physical, non-verbal performance, weighty symbolism and non-narrative form.

 

Some wonderfully evocative images remain with me: five figures with their heads draped in sodden white cloths; three actors stitching their eyes and mouths shut to avoid imbibing any of the Australian culture which is represented by the sudden unveiling of Hans Heysen landscapes; the new arrivals pulling tailors' tape measures from their mouths (presumably a reference to the Jewish rag trade?); five packing boxes clattering and swirling about the dimly lit space as First Fleet ships.

 

The perky Brazil '66 music during the musical-Passover-chairs scenes off-set the seriousness of other images.

 

The problem is that without the aid of the program notes the audience would have no idea about the five Jewish convicts' lives or even what the action meant. At times, the movement is repetitive and abstracted to the point of meaninglessness and tedium. When the action is supported by music, song or a rhythmic pace, the meaning is much more successfully communicated.

 

This Gilgul production lacks the icy irony and black clown quality of previous shows which prevented them from being too earnest.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

1994 Reviews Kate Herbert - The Melbourne Times

Shrew

Bell

A hard Act to Follow

Top Ten

Someone Who'll Watch Over me

Wilderness Room

Glass Mermaid

Martin & Molloy

Wong article

Women's  Circus

Shaughraun 2

Shaughraun review

Wong 13 10 94

Going Places

Picasso

That Eye the Sky

Sistergirl

Canadian Opera

Trial

Mordsgaudi Accordion

Rigoletto

Snake Pit 14 Sep

Fringe Theatre 94

Cross Arts Fringe

Fringe Draft 1

 My Body My Blood

Falling from grace

Blood Bros

Underwear

Shaughraun

Me & My Girl

Mysteries

Elocution

Hysteria

To Pave

Rosensweig

Yellow Wallpaper

Warriors

Shadowboxing

Antigone

Macbeth

Doing the Block

Love & other Sharp Objects

Grapes of Wrath

Glengarry

Last Chance Gas

Sanctuary

Cosi

Two hams

Berkoff

Berkoff 2

Physical theatre

Tania Lacey

 Circus Oz

 Telemachus

Circus Oz Storm

Hotspur

Disturbing the Dust

West Side Story

Bacchae

Unsettled

Playland

Philippe Genty

Woyzeck No Talent Savron

Woyzeck

$5 theatre

L'Amante Anglaise

The Danube

JULIA

Opa

Game of Dolls

Indian Summer

Wind in Willows

Scrooge

South Pacific

Silly season review

A Hard Act to Follow by Peter Dann, La Mama, Dec 1994

 A Hard Act to Follow

by Peter Dann 

La Mama until December 18, 1994

Reviewed by KATE HERBERT

The Melbourne Times, Dec 1994

Have you ever noticed that parents invariably have horror stories about their creche? Kindergarten councils can be a hotbed of dissent and unrest. Teachers  clash with parents, clash with Montessori, Steiner or traditional methodologists.

A Hard Act to Follow by Peter Dann at La Mama reveals an older traditional and prudish teacher, Miss Hawthorne, who has been attempting to fill the shoes of Miss Gully, the previous kindie teacher beloved by yuppie children and parents alike. Miss H. has called an extraordinary meeting of the kindie parents to tell her tale of woe which has lead to her summary dismissal by the Council.

Dann's writing is cleverly crafted, allowing Miss H. herself to slowly and unwittingly reveal her participation in the sequence of events which have relegated her to Kindie Mistress Limbo. The language is formal and complex with witty asides woven into the cynical dialogue. Dann carefully observes details of kindergarten life: the sausage sizzle, the sandpit and its place in the yard, the kinder bunny and its demise, the pedagogic speech patterns.

Anne Phelan  plays the peculiar and obsessive  Miss Hawthorne with a touch of the maternal, the tartar, the bitter and beleaguered. Her madness filters through her apparent calm and bravado as she attempts to win us, the audience-come-parents, with a lecture detailing instances of her 'devotion' to the vicar who employed her, her dubious employment references and her ongoing battle with the sceptical Council President.

This is a funny and poignant monodrama which allows us to feel sympathetically toward the unbalanced Miss H and yet to feel guilt tinged with relief as we vote her out of a job. We watch her helplessly as her apparent self-defence collapses into paranoid desperation.

KATE HERBERT

Glass Mermaid by Tobsha Learner, 29 Nov, 1994

THEATRE REVIEW

 

By Playbox Theatre

At Malthouse, South Melbourne until December 10, 1994

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 29 November 1994

This review was published in th Melbourne Times in early December 1994. KH

 

Some plays polarise audience opinion. Glass Mermaid by Tobsha Learner is such a play. There were people moved to tears by its handling of a woman dealing with the suicide of her psychiatrist husband and others who were untouched by it.

 

Whichever side of the critical fence you are, it provides some animated discussion.

 

Learner's writing style straddles the poetic and the naturalistic. At times it is successful, at others it falls off the saddle. Aubrey Mellor's direction, in conjunction with dramatic lighting by Rachel Burke and design by Jacqueline Everett, creates a brooding and mystical atmosphere to support the poetic content. Having water on stage creates a dramatic tension for the actors and audience and allows some spectacular lighting effects rippling over the water's surface.

 

There are some moving moments, some very witty dialogue and observations in the text. It is, however, a little confused in the first half with threads of story not being clearly established and a heavy reliance on discussion about an absent character. It moves more swiftly in the second half with greater emphasis on the emotional relationships between the living characters and the impact of Carl's death on their lives. The introduction after interval of a new character, daughter Cassandra, was also timely.

 

Cathy Downes' dynamic and multi- faceted performance gives range to Sarah, the widow, who is relentlessly fraught. It is a tough call to play grief, loss, anger and obsession without pause.

 

Julian and Kristin, Sarah's neighbours, often seem extraneous to the action. Kristin particularly seems underwritten, but Nikki Coghill makes the most of the part. Yanko, the Croatian gigolo, provides the most intensely moving narrative thread and the most three-dimensional character. His revelations about the death of his family at the hands of the Serbs is deeply moving writing and Dino Martiko in his Playbox debut does a superb job in the role.

 

 

KATE HERBERT 

Tony Martin and Mick Molloy, Stand-up, 29 Nov 1994

 

COMEDY

At Comedy Club until December,1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 29 November 1994.

This review was published in the Melbourne Times in early December 1994. KH

 

Tony Martin and Mick Molloy are intelligent comics - and they're really funny. Their audience at the Comedy Club may have had the attention span of a gnat but they laughed at the witty, the local, the observational and the wild even if they missed a few of the more esoteric jokes.

 

These two make a terrific double bill and a great combo. Martin's routine is relaxed, glib and laconic. He uses language with flare and intelligence and reincorporates gags beautifully at a comfortable pace. 

 

To characterise the differences in their stage personae, Molloy comes on scoffing a beer while Martin swigs Evian. Molloy is a wicked kid doing mischievous material which prompts him to say often with a mock-penitent grin, "Have I gone too far?" His persona is stronger and wilder than Martin which provides a fine balance of style for the night.

 

Their double routines are less successful than the stand-up but prevent the night becoming simply guys doing stand-up, stand-up and more stand-up. Their 70's folk duo with the awful polo necks is clever but other sketches needed a bit of polishing.

 

Compere and support act, Darren Casey, began the evening slowly but his second set was hot. Unlike many comedy shows, there is a beginning a middle and an end to the night and the three come together in a final song which may not have broken the laugh boundaries but was very charming.

 

These guys are really funny, intelligent, informed and appear to suffer less from egomania than many comics. It may not be machine-gun fire pace but who needs it? My face hurt at the end of two hours and that makes it a bloody good night.

 

KATE HERBERT    

Death: The Musical by Women's Circus, REVIEW, 21 Nov 1994

 

At 162 Macauley Road Nth. Melbourne

Thurs-Sat 8.30 pm until Dec 3 1994

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 21 Nov 1994

This review was published in the Melbourne Times in late November 1994. KH

 

One of the most exciting things about seeing the Women's Circus is seeing sixty people on stage which is generally cost prohibitive these days. The other wonderful element is that this is an ongoing community project by the very active Footscray Community Arts Centre. It offers opportunities in personal, physical and creative development to women of non-English speaking background, social disadvantage or those over the age of forty.

 

Death: The Musical makes up in commitment and energy what it lacks in technique and skill. The opening outdoor sideshow events, although a little long, were vibrant, colourful and reminiscent of old vaudeville routines. The more dangerous they were, the more excited the audience. Watching someone walking on glass at close range is terrifying!

 

The main show, Death, began in earnest as the audience followed a chanting, incense-burning procession (Scarily reminiscent of Catholic Benediction!) into the huge and impressive warehouse where we placed our herbs on the funeral pyre.

 

The show takes on an earnestness from this point which, in many ways, works against it. The main theme, a woman coping with the death of her mother and following her to the Afterlife, is unclear without program notes and somewhat melodramatic in execution.

 

The greatest impact is when the vigorous group of women of all shapes, sizes and ages is at its most physical, leaving the storyline aside to tumble, leap, juggle, hang and balance. The scene in heaven with pairs of white angels on trapezes and rope swings was a treat. The Moon Goddess was a spectacle and the finale with fifty women with flags, ribbons, juggling clubs, acrobatics and pyramids was an exciting finish to a passionate performance.

 

Musical director, Marianne Permezel, with the band, composed circus music to challenge Circus Oz' Julie McInnes. The band played riveting and atmospheric music which supported and, at times, made the scenes. Director, Donna Jackson, has taken creatively used the expansive space, taking advantage of its vastness and the plethora of roll-a-doors for entrances and disappearances of heavenly bodies.

 

Death: The Musical is a visual treat particularly if you love a broad canvas with a community feel. The kids love it!

 

By Kate Herbert