Banshee, May 15, 1996

Written by Jodi Gallagher

La Mama/ Courthouse Theatre until June 1, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around May 14, 1996

When a banshee, a female spirit, screams it portends a death in the household. In Jodi Gallagher's play, Banshee, two die: father, Collum and daughter, Imogen (Caroline Bock, Kirk Alexander).

 However, it is not an outside force screaming but the daughter, who has been shrieking in both pleasure and pain for sixteen years. The adult child  at twenty-six, fights a perverse battle between her love and loathing for her drunken, boorish, incestuous father.

Being a 1920's-30's poet and academic, "He doesn't behave conventionally," chorus his wife (Liz Jones) and older lover (Vanessa Ready). "He's an artist," and his poor, ravaged daughter is blamed and guilt-ridden to the point of prostituting herself, slashing her wrists and finally attempting to force her abuser to advertise their love to the world.

As in most incest and rape cases, it is not about love, but power. This case-book narcissist cares nothing for her, allowing her to die 'so he can live'. She wreaks her hollow vengeance after death, interfering with his already failing muse.

Banshee, the text, teeters on the brink of melodrama but holds the line. The first half particularly is a clever conjunction of witty amongst dark moments. Imogen's opening monologue, played with bleak and helpless intensity by Caroline Bock, is a delicately rendered piece.

A few scenes interrupt the flow of the narrative. The entire funeral scene could be lost and some savage edits in the 160 minutes could serve. At times the banter undercuts any genuine sense of danger.  The poetic might have been re-introduced later. It reverts to an essentially naturalistic style which is not assisted by the often mannered acting and over-enunciating of some cast who are not quite connected with the text and a couple of awkward scenes changes.

The forbidden passion between these two is most horribly real in the overtly sexual moments. I found myself repeating as they kissed, "He's not really her father." I was made uncomfortably aware that, one in four women being incest victims, somebody in the audience was suffering.

It is satisfying to see this dreadful creature suffer after ruining the lives of three women: wife, lover, daughter. The incest is almost a vehicle for highlighting the hideousness of his exertion of will over them. "It is essential to be doomed to be a poet", says Collum and the scream of the banshee seals his fate.

KATE HERBERT

A Cheery Soul, May 7, 1996

Written by Patrick White

MTC, at Playhouse until June, 1996

NB: This is not a full review. Notes only remain from my review (around May 7, 1996)

A Cheery Soul, by Patrick White,  is dark comedy but there are moments of hilarity when the actors were waiting for laughs to die to get lines through. But it has a ghastliness fatalism, an intense and dreadful poetry which makes it painful and excruciating.

Neil Armfield's production is in the best Brechtian heritage acknowledging the audience who are complicit in the whole plot, revealing the lighting, the musicians, the staging and furniture removals. Even the rolling walkway is a feature recognised and stumbled over on purpose.

Robin Nevin brings a palpable enjoyment to the role of Miss Docker. She grins wickedly, almost a female Steptoe. Her maddening criticisms, her grotesque insidious interference, kindly advice are made poignant by her utter desolation when she feels God has judged her.

Strangely she is only touched or affected by creatures: the swaggie and astray blue heeler who pees on her old nylons.  She drives people to distraction so that their own Christian charity is taxed to the very limit to the point where the vicar dies from trying to teach the error of her "militant virtue" from the pulpit.

Melita Jurisic is luminous as the vicar's wife and Ian Scott is sympathetic as the inarticulate parson.

___

Director- Neil Armfield

Margaret Mills

Robyn Nevin

Melita Jurisic

Ian Scott

Damien, May 1, 1996

Written by Aldyth Morris

Napier Street Theatre until May 12, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around May 1, 1996

A monodrama is probably one of the most testing forms for an actor. Damien, performed by Daniel Kyle, is a solo piece of theatre based on the extraordinary life of a Belgian priest.

Father Damien, who was beatified in 1995, single-handedly, with little support from the church or state, ran a leper colony on the island of Moloka'i during the late 19th century.

Kyle, directed by Blair Edgar, does a valiant job as Damien without the assistance of other actors, music or an elaborate design. He struggles with the difficult role of an older man and the enormous task of carrying a two hour show. He is most successful during the second half where the script is more visual and the story gallops on at a pace, telling the tale of his life on the island.

Much of the early text is monotonous and uninspiring, which is surprising given this exceptional man's life. The play comes to life as he watches a leper crawl into a doorway to die then hears pigs dig up the shallow grave to devouring the flesh in the night.

Kyle really becomes Damien as he talks of the beautiful young island girl who attempted to shatter his vow of chastity. Perhaps the desires of a young man were closer to home. His voice fell into its natural rhythm and texture and the performance felt less mannered and earnest.

At other times the character lacked credibility. The nuggetty peasant described as "coarse", "bad- tempered", rough, rude and scruffy, is inappropriately well spoken.

The lighting design sets the self-narration in four distinct areas of the stage one being an evocative rustic table littered with lit church candles.

The play was most effective when it  peopled the stage with characters. The text might have been more dynamic if more emphasis had been given to the roughness of the man and the lighter edge of this indomitable spirit.

KATE HERBERT

Miss Bosnia, April 30, 1996

Miss Bosnia by Louis Nowra,

Budinski’s Brunswick St Fizroy

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around April 30, 1996

Try to remember the precise moment that Louis Nowra became a gag-meister and not a creator of poetry.

Sure, there were jokes and wacky characters in Louis Nowra's early works, but try to pin-point the precise moment that he became a gag-meister rather than a poetic dramatist. Whenever it was, he seems to have peaked in Miss Bosnia, which is a three-hour, eight-handed stand-up routine set in a war zone.

This is a grotesquely and grossly funny play with exceptional performances. The faultless cast includes a tour-de-force by Genevieve Picot as Mira, the Former Miss Former-Yugoslavia. She brings together six women and - Oops! - one man for a beauty pageant: first prize a trip out of Sarajevo on a U. N. truck with Mira as chaperone.

But war being what it is nothing goes to plan. The generator fails, the band plays Prince medleys, bombs hit the theatre, the general falls in love with a bloke and nobody has leg-wax strips.

The contestants are: a bitter dentist, an exotic sniper (female), a sexy soldier (male), a drunken zookeeper who has a love affair with a lion, a fundamentalist Muslim who wants to be in a Broadway musical, and a beauty has-been whose career has been following the beauty pageant trial.

The gross, often offensively sexist humour is somehow poignant set amongst the ruins of these tragic lives. The tits and bum, dick and fanny jokes are tiring and adolescent but, in some perverse way only Nowra is capable of, the whole remains entertaining - silly and outrageous but hilarious.

It is worth seeing just for the insane talent quest: Peter O'Brien doing a drag dance routine to "Xanadu", Deborah Robertson doing tacky Marilyn, Jane Borghese, a one woman Waiting for Godot. But most gut- wrenchingly absurd and shriekingly funny was Kaarin Fairfax doing crappy ventriloquism with a purple sock. Nikki Wendt's song was the singular moment of real beauty and delicacy.

There are fleeting moments of political commentary but essentially the piece rollicks along relentlessly with little respect for - well really for anything.

The most intense reminder of our mortality and was when Andruszko recklessly waved a rifle only 24 hours after the Port Arthur siege.

KATE HERBERT

Pursuing Passion, April 28, 1996

 by Evan Watts

At La Mama until May 12, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around April 28, 1996

Some would say a finite number of stories exist which are told generation after generation by innumerable artists in infinite formats. Count the myriad "boy meets girl" scenarios.

 Evan Watts' play, Pursuing Passion, would suggest that there are infinite potential permutations of dramatis personae. A young journalist visits an ex-psychiatrist turned forensic psychiatrist. They have a common past. A photographer visits and takes pictures.

Passion has four discrete plays within the piece, which Watts calls  "a play in series". Each time the scenario restarts the general description of personae remains the same but the story and specific characters alter radically.

Watts has created an interesting dynamic which works best in the final scenario when the dramatic tension is at its peak. It has a more complex and multi-layered plot, is more intensely emotional with more finely drawn characters. All scenes involve violence, voyeurism, obsession and this experimental theatrical device which works in part.

The play is part of a popular fascination with serial killers and victims. References to particular killers and their gruesome crimes seem gratuitous to one who has nightmares after The X Files.

It is all set amidst a compelling design by Paul Jackson with a claustrophobic office-mortuary feeling.

Director, Marcia Ferguson, has a fine cast. Tammy McCarthy plays four distinct young journos, Kevin Hopkins an array of psychiatrists all hooked on Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs or its writer. David Tredinnick is a bevy of peculiar and familiar photographers.

Somehow, finally, the structure interferes with the drama. It is an interesting idea but not always successful. The repetition of scene and dialogue within scenes becomes a little laboured. Many responded, " I didn't understand" but the intention seems to be not to define but to draw the real and the unreal into alignment.

KATE HERBERT

300 wds

The 8.16 Vodka Syndrome, April 21, 1996

Adapted by Jim Daly & Grisha Dolgopolov from novel Moskva-Petushki by Venedickt Erofeev

At La Mama at Carlton Courthouse Theatre

8.15 Wed-Sat 6.15 Sun until May 11, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around April 21, 1996

The 8.16 Vodka Syndrome is 2.5 hours of Russian boozing, delusion and mayhem set on the Moscow to Petushki train. On opening night, Anzac Day, several drunken Anzacs reeled onstage from Drummond Street, to actor, Jim Daly's astonishment and our confusion.

Vodka  is a vigorous, entertaining show, epic in both length and style.  The thirty-odd characters are played by Jim Daly, who has multiple personalities and oodles of energy.

The script was adapted by Daly and Melbourne-based Russian scholar, Grisha Dolgopolov from the novel Moskva-Petushki by Venedickt Erofeev who died in 1990; should we assume from alcoholism, as the lead dipsomaniac bears his name?

Erofeev is a much-quoted  hero of Moscow's intellectual boozers. To quote him: "'Drink more, eat less' is the best protection against hubris and artificial atheism" and "Unrefined vodka replaced Veuve Cliquot. That was the beginning of classlessness."

It is difficult to resist using such impeccable dialogue as, "Women are different - because they have a waist - and they killed Marat with a pen-knife." However, theatre tolerates fewer words than prose and this adaptation has retained too many. The show could be sensational with twenty minutes nipped from both top and tail, making it tighter without losing its rich language and myriad characters.

And they are myriad. The inimical Daly scuttles about the stage, transforming body, voice and face in a split second. The train scene with Erofeev, "Black Moustache", "The Decembrist" and "Old and Young Mitrich" was a tour-de-force of comic timing, characterisation and philosophy. Throughout the play, he reels from misery to joy, delusion to stark sobriety.

Dolgopolov has taken artistic risks, many of which succeed. Nina Danko's  blasted urban landscape design clutters the stage with travellers' detritus, echoing the chaos of Erofeev's alcoholic stupor.  Absurd slides flash onto corrugated iron, depicting Russian images. The lighting, effectively tawdry at moments, at others leaves Daly in frustrating near-darkness.

Live music by Faye and Dan Bendrups supports the action evocatively, although a little too loudly early. Daly's sonorous songs in Brechtian style, were an inspired addition.

One cannot but be fascinated and astounded by the Russian's see-saw affair with both melancholy and ecstasy which seems, in turn, to be married to their continuing obsession with vodka and an ability to write exceptional prose.

KATE HERBERT

Verona by Magpie Theatre, April 21, 1996

 At Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 20 April 1996

How do you make Romeo and Juliet a clown show?

Ask Neill Gladwin, Artistic Director of Magpie, Adelaide's young people's theatre company. He brings his own clown history (Los Trios Ringbarkus) and a cavalcade of multi-skilled performers together to create a delightful slapstick, acrobatic, visual and often poignant show.

Few words are spoken in the 90 minutes and two of these are "Romeo" and "Juliet". Actors walk on fence tops, scale Verona's walls (design Shaun Gurton), slide down poles and dive through windows and they play instruments.

Teresa Blake and Daniel Witton as R and J employ their exceptional acrobatic skills, honed in Circus Oz and their own duo, De Soxy, to create  the sexiest love scene for teenagers.

 In the opening vignette, the ensemble, as one, approach the audience, picking up on any nuance, sneeze, cough, flutter or late arrival and using it to tease and play.  The whole company is outstanding but Nick Newbold was a standout for me, playing Mercutio as a genuine French school clown.

What stands out in this re-telling of the tragic young romance is children being victims of family feuds. It is the young who die as a pay-back for the battles of their elders. The stripping away of language heightens the poignant moments as much as the comic and reveals the bare bones of rivalry, bitterness and irrational hatred.

Love and death always provide great copy for theatre.

Verona is here for a few performances during the Comedy Festival.

END

Lucia di Lammermoor, April 21, 1996

By Giuseppe Verdi, by Australian Opera (Opera Australia)

 State Theatre April 27, 30, May 3, 6, 9, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert round April 21, 1996

Funny that I should see, in one week, two such different renditions of doomed children of political conflict.

Verdi's Lucia di Lammermoor weeps over the clandestine Romeo and Juliet-esque romance of Lucia and her consort Edgardo from the wrong side of the Scottish political fence.

Unrequited love crosses cultural boundaries. Lucia is based on an English novel, set in Scotland and written in Italian. R and J is set in Italy written in Elizabethan English. Love knows no language. Lucia with her passionate immediate love, betrayal, abandonment, madness and suicide, echoes Ophelia, Karenin, Lady Macbeth. The terrifying thing is that this story of "violent love" is based on a true story. Beware love! One can die from it.

Gregory Tomlinson as Edgardo, is an impassioned romantic lead with a sublime tenor. Jennifer McGregor's coloratura is delicate and expressive, sending a frisson down the spine during her mad scene. In Il dolce suono mi colpi she virtually sings a duet with the piccolo. It is this scene which has made Lucia the "touch-stone of the bel canto repertoire".

The excellent cast surpassed itself in the six part Chi mi frena at the wedding contract scene. Bruce Martin was a powerful subtle presence and voice as Lucia's tutor, Raimondo and Michael Lewis as her brother Enrico was a dark force.

Conductor Richard Gill and the VSO were, as ever, excellent. Henry Bardon's stage design of a dank, grand Scottish castle was made atmospheric by Donn Byrnes' lighting.

This is a conservative production by John Copley and we travelled from the ridiculous to the sublime after Nabucco the previous night. However, such a production concentrates on the music and voices which is not a bad thing for opera.

KATE HERBERT

Nabucco, Australian Opera, April 16, 1996

Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi, by Australian Opera

 State Theatre Arts Centre Melbourne

April 16, 19, 22, 24, 27, May 1, 4, 7, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on April 16, 1996

Sydney must be sniffy about its Verdi. It booed Barrie Kosky's Nabucco last year. The production is a hoot - not that I've ever thought of Nabucco as a hoot before but it makes Verdi accessible to a new, funkier audience - if they could afford the $96 tickets.

It takes enormous risks, some complete clanger, others gems.  The Babylonians are represented by the bestial and the Israelites by the Word of God. Hence the Assyrians worship giant idols (A lime green Mighty Mouse with orange earrings and video screen eyes??) and are decked with dead animals ( a stuffed monkey, three tiger heads, a coat is riddled with scorpions) The Israelites tote words from biblical sentences or wear them as captives' yokes.

The stage picture is derivative of a 19th century melodrama blended with pop iconography. Peter Corrigan's design and Jane Hyland's costumes are striking and at times hilarious. The chorus is enhanced by a corps of extras who are suspended like hanged men, shovel piles of slaves' abandoned shoes and move in militaristic formation.

Carlo Felice Cillaurio conducts the VSO impeccably. Jonathon Summers as Nabucco, with his velvet-smooth and rich delivery, is delightfully playful and sympathetic, managing the vagaries of both role and style.  Elizabeth Connell entered the comic spirit of Kosky's style with zest and sang Abigaille, adopted slave daughter of Nabucco, with passion and skill. They were supported by a strong group of leads.

Accolades went to Bruce Martin who replaced an ailing Donald Shanks as Zaccaria at the eleventh hour. His fine voice, humility and effortless performance were charming.

It would not be a review of Nabucco without a comment on the Slaves' chorus, "Va pensiero" which seems to send audiences (particularly in Italy) into paroxysms of ecstasy or anger depending on its quality. This rendition was fine enough but somehow lacked the delicate dynamic range which is possible in this superb piece.

Go see this if you've got the bucks.

KATE HERBERT

SPITFIRE 123 APRIL 14,1996

by Lyndal Jones

At The Power Station Lonsdale St until April 27, 1996

Spitfire: the remote miaou of a cat (Spitfire 1), the long auburn tresses of a woman talking seductively into a microphone (Spitfire 2) and a World War Two pilot dressing in leathers and goggles on camera (Spitfire 3). Rooms one, two and three.

Lyndal Jones' theatre is never obvious, always challenging and is sometimes gaspingly evocative. As we moved from room to icy room in the desolate old power station, images float in and out, some demand attention, others allow us to muse on the space, the concept, the artist.

 Room One has multiple video screens showing the remembrance poppies "in Flanders field". In Room Two there is a "noise concert" with vocalising, rock guitar and video all overlaid with film footage and a soundscape of flying. It is difficult to engage with, but interesting to watch.

Room Three was my favourite probably because it was more theatre than performance art and more emotionally engaging than observational. Here ten actors shift from couple to couple, following the ebb and flow of sexual attraction, relationships and alliances.

They speak about sex, they kiss, they touch, they walk in unison, move in canon, gaze and tease. It is titillating without being crass, sexual without being seamy, provocative not exhibitionistic.

The company works in ensemble but there were exceptional presences on stage (Milijana Cancar, Nadja Kostich, Boris Rotan) while Deanne Flatley's soprano is transporting.

The finale is in the lane. After waiting to escape through a cyclone wire gate, ten actors (plus extras) run up the lane, stop in tableau then return slowly for a curtain call. I was moved by the despair of their failed escape, perhaps influenced by the body of Slavic actors and audience members.

 It felt like a war zone in this desolate environment of the Power Station.

KATE HERBERT 14.4.96

Melbourne Comedy Festival 1996

Comedy Festival 3 reviews: 
Brian Lohmann, Debra Oswald, Luke Elliot

Johnny Lonely's Unhappy Hour by Brian Lohmann USA until April 21, 1996

Another solo where comedy meets theatre in a cleverly written, witty 70 minutes with the professionally love-lorn Johnny, terrific original jazz numbers  (eg Welcome to Lonelyville, Population One) and deeply self-indulgent stories about screwing up relationships.

***

Gary's House Debra Oswald Playbox until May 11, 1996

The comedy in this play is inversely related to the degree of relentless anger of the characters: all losers who crave some peace from their joyless, cruel world. It's comic-tragic. Particularly good first half in a well-crafted play with a wild performance from Shane Feeney-Connor.

In the Belly of the Whale by Luke Elliot, Damien Richardson until April 21, 1996

Delightful, devised two-hander about two blokes going fishin' an' that. It uses sharp physical comedy and crisp pacing and is utterly charming and very funny.

***

The Black Sequin Dress, March 26, 1996

by Jenny Kemp

At Playbox Merlin Theatre until April, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 26 March 1996

Jenny Kemp is an angel in our theatre and in The Black Sequin Dress we hear her wings fluttering. It is a hypnotic exploration of the Jungian landscape of a woman's mind.

 A woman of 40-something wearing a black sequin dress walks into a night club, crosses the polished ebony floor, experiences a sense of dread, looks back, turns and falls.

Nothing happens but everything is revealed. It is all strangely, sublimely, distressing. She is damaged, alone, venturing out at "that confusing age", luminous on the outside but inside, a "cess pool" of terrifying images.

We revisit the fall over and over. Each female actor re-enacts it. She is all four women . One memorable moment is when the man (Ian Scott) who is attracted to her in the club, sits with all four women who speak for one.

This is a visually striking show. Film footage accompanies voice-overs of the life of Undine and her daughter in her brick-walled suburban home.  The stark grandeur of Jaqueline Everett's stage design and Ben Cobham's evocative lighting are intrinsic components in the atmosphere of this beautiful production.

The ensemble (four women, two men) is exceptional, with a particular accolade for Margaret Mills who glitters with a strange ethereal light on stage. They work in an abstract foundation of movement and impulse and the outcome is rich, disarming and moving.

There is something profoundly female in Jenny Kemp's concept and realisation - and I do not mean humourlessly feminist or prettily girlish. It has a purity of vision which simply touches womanly ideas, sensitivities, images, sexuality and dreams. It almost bypasses the intellectual process to reach one's core.

Its penetration of the psyche was complete. My companion slipped and fell to the floor on leaving the theatre. Subliminal messages? It somehow completed the evening.

KATE HERBERT

The Blue Hour, March 23, 1996

 By  IRAA Theatre (Renato Cuocolo)
7 Lowther St Alphington 
March to until April, 1996

Generally, one advantage of being a theatre director is that you do not have to be on stage every night. In The Blue Hour by IRAA Theatre, director Renato Cuocolo is on for the duration.

This show, which is the Part One of his first Melbourne production, Far From Where in 1988, is based on his own recollections, images and photos of his family in Italy. It is about memory and attachment. "Is memory something we have or something we have not?" It begins at 8.20 pm, twilight which is close to the peculiar mood of memory.

 Cuocolo controls his past by snapping his fingers, calling up his father, aunt and uncles and Nonna and using them almost as puppets in his mind's eye. We watch them relive episodes in their lives before he was born. We see their grievances, jealousies, resentments and joys and it all ends with a family Last Supper.

There is text taken from Joyce, Kis, Kantor and a chunk of Chekhov towards the end. The style is a homage to Tadeusz Kantor, the Polish director who died in 1990. The action is repetitive, stylised and rich with both humour and anguish. The appearance of the family is repeated in the blue light of the sliding upstage doorway.

They leap or stroll, glide or rush into Cuocolo's present to begin anew each scene. They fall, he moves them about, they try to decide where they belong, where they were all situated. Memory is a fickle lover.

The design (Jorge Merjer) is simply chairs, table, and bed: domestic images of childhood memory. Costumes (Kate Pitman) owe a great deal to Kantor's originals.

There are repetitive actions which typify each character: the moving and stilted march of Georgio Cuocolo (David Pledger), the wafting hands of Melita Jurasic as mother Maria, the hysterical photography of the inimitable Catherine Simmonds as Aunt Stefania. The ensemble is excellent and the whole piece is poignant and crisply directed.

KATE HERBERT

Inja by Hildegarde, March 23, 1996

At Theatre Works until March 30, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on March 23, 1996

Folk tales and myths are the stuff on which we build a culture, raise our children and feed our common psyche.

Inja is a Bulgarian folk tale about a violent man who becomes an heroic leader of his people only to face karmic retribution for his previous sins. It is a passionate tale told through repetitive physical imagery by Hildegarde in its Australian-Bulgarian co-production under the co-directorship of David Wicks and Vaskressia Viharova.

Zarco Ouzunov's design uses matchstick screens set askew, giving us glimpses of characters from village life. Actors chant, stamp and sing resonant Bulgarian songs. We are witness to women water-carrying, bathing and mourning Inje's death and his son's childhood mutilation.

The simplicity of moving buckets of water, the stark horror of raw clay as mutilated flesh and the child-like joy of the village women playing and splashing, give this show a lyrical earthiness.

Bagryana Popov and Angela Campbell from Hildegarde perform with commitment and warmth while the Bulgarian actors were characterised by wit, charm and poignant performance.

Communication problems arise because the tale is not ours and the significant use of language is Bulgarian - a surprising choice in a bi-lingual show. This is not to suggest that a foreign language production cannot communicate volumes. The intention can be clear with foreign language or no language at all.

 Rather, the problems arise from breaking down the tale into snatches of narrative, moments which are not highlights of the story, making it too cryptic. The images are attractive but not so powerful as to compensate for the obscurity of the narrative. Perhaps having two directors with language, cultural, or theatrical differences is a tall order.

This is an interesting and evocative piece of theatre which lacks some of the usual clarity and definition of Hidegarde. See it anyway.

KATE HERBERT

My Father's Father, March 19, 1996

 Written by Janis Balodis

 Melbourne Theatre Company, at Fairfax Studio, until March 30, 1996

There is a company of very fine actors on stage in My Father's Father by Janis Balodis. Unfortunately, they are speaking words of clay in a text begging for a savage edit.

This is the third in Balodis' trilogy about the experience of Latvian migrants which is based on his family experience. The parents with an adult Australian-born son, return to Latvia to face their pasts.

It began on a light, accessible note but quickly lapsed into the portentous and turgid.  Relationships were contrived and narrative confused. There were occasional jokes but generally the humour was lame and almost embarrassing.  At times it collapses into near melodrama.

The script is a tangle of disorderly threads which create a messy narrative. There are too many plot lines: the family's return to Latvia, Carl's father's death, Uncle Edvards death, the ghosts of his drowned wife and her lover, Ilse and Edvards affair, Carl's sister and nephew's poverty, cousin Anita's acquisition of their land. Finally, there is the Leichhardt story.

Why Balodis has persevered with this oblique, irrelevant and incomprehensible sub-plot of the explorer's final doomed journey is a mystery. It was out of context and unsuccessful in the previous play and is completely disconnected here.

The dialogue is awkward and informational with no distinctive character voices. It became unbearably repetitive. Emotion is described and dramatic tension is completely absent.

The actors have an uphill battle with this text. Paul English makes a fine fist of the role of the son even though there is no development for him. Peter Adams is forced to play a drunken boor all night. Others have to struggle with dialogue riddled with platitudes and repetition. The whole production is static and lacking any dynamic drive. Even the design does not serve them well. These actors should be commended.

This was a very long night in the theatre.

By Kate Herbert 19 mar 1996

Stowaways by Compagnie Phillipe Genty, March 19 1996

By Compagnie Phillipe Genty

Playhouse Arts Centre Melbourne until April 6, 1996

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 19 March 1996

In every production by Philippe Genty, I cannot help gaping at the sheer audacity of his illusions. It is as we are children again in state of wonder at the pleasures and miracles of this world. His Australian show, Stowaways is no exception.

The stark stage space is transformed by superb lighting design (Phillip Lethlean) and the impeccable visual images conjured up by the company under the auspice of the deity, Genty. People disappear down invisible holes in the floor, are eaten by a huge sea-brain monster or are transmogrified into cardboard cut-outs to be folded up and carried away. 

Images are mutable. As in Drifting two years ago, puppet-people are interchangeable with real people. Grotesque clowns mutate into able-bodied people, faces turn to clay, legs are ripped off, a tiny man grows like Topsy. Two puppeteers/stage hands inhabit a nether-world beneath the stage space, forcing creatures up to the surface and dragging them back down again.

Admittedly, the opening segments are so startling they are almost too consistently miraculous to beat. Stowaways is somehow less consistently powerful than previous Genty productions but no less magical.

The more lyrical section on the ocean bed, rocks and shore comprised less illusion and more dance which at least allowed me to give my gaping mouth a rest.

This Australia ensemble has an astonishing array of physical and manipulatory skills, but my eye was constantly drawn by Meredith Kitchen, dancer. She is magnetic.

There is a great joy associated with abandoning oneself to illusion and astonishment. Genty gives our child-like selves freedom to roam about in an animated world.

Some recommendations, March 1996

Emma: Celebrazione from Playbox Theatre, is more an event than a play with a 40-voice choir of Italian women and a warm, engaging performance from Laura Lattuada as Emma who makes us all her family as she cooks (on stage) for her daughter's wedding.

It is based on the life of Emma Ciccotosto, a post-war Italian migrant, one of the women who found themselves stranded in a strange culture.

 

Emma is truly a celebrazione of their survival. It's a great night out!

 

Kidstakes (MTC: Playhouse) is a lovely piece of 1930's Australian nostalgia. It is the first part of The Summer of the 17th Doll Trilogy and        has wonderful performances and direction.

 

Happy as Laundry, La Mama at the Courthouse is a very sweet and charming little clown duo.

Coming to Melbourne in March after The Adelaide Festival are two beauties if you like non-traditional theatre.

 

Inje by Hildegarde (At Theatreworks) is created in conjunction with actors visiting from Bulgaria and Black Sequin Dress from Playbox is directed by Jenny Kemp one of our best experimental directors.

 

If you like radio plays, listen to Radio National Sundays 3pm or nights at 9.30pm.

Berlin by Sydney Dance Company, 5 March 1996

 

Berlin by Sydney Dance Company

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, during March 1996

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 5 March 1996

 

Berlin is a stark, often overwhelmingly angst-ridden collage of choreographic scenes piercing the core of war-time Berlin.

 

Graham Murphy's latest production for Sydney Dance Company drags together the threads of brutality and tenderness which epitomise human behaviour in its most intense moments: moments such as sex and war. Murphy's choreography is gloriously imagistic, combining Grunge with class.

 

Berlin is blindingly beautiful and poignant, incorporating so many simple, evocative and unexpected physical images. I loved the unity of the show which runs 80 minutes without interval. Without being linear or literal it integrates a narrative built on characters. It utilises the characteristics of dance and its intense physicality and rigour in addition to the richness of a text-free theatricality and characterisation.

 

There are the stereotypical Berlin characters: the cabaret singer, the drag artist, but there are also the street people, the lovers, the circus performers, the tough child and his father, the waif and her mother. There is corruption, decadence, loss and confusion. The people are in pain, they are ragged, degraded, tormented and seduced by soldiers but somehow, in all this pain, they maintain some dignity which is the only way to survive.

 

All this can be done in theatre, in documentary footage on war-time Berlin but the pure passion and excitement of Murphy's choreography cannot but make it all the more confronting, desperate and challenging.

 

The musician, Max Lambert and singer Iva Davies are inserted into the design amongst the dancers and the detritus of the ravaged city.

 

The company of dancers has great skill and a rich cultural and physical diversity which gives breadth to the images. The musician, Max Lambert and singer Iva Davies are inserted into the design amongst the dancers and the detritus of the ravaged city. lambert's striking music and Davies songs are well-placed in the context both physically and emotionally.  The design by Andrew Carter is powerful and John Rayment's lighting was striking and often frightening.

 

Berlin is steeped in imagery and humanity. It is passionate, intense and speaks clearly with a physical voice. It is truly Dance Theatre.

 

By Kate Herbert

My Father's Father by Janis Balodis, 5 March 1996

 

My Father's Father by Janis Balodis

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At Fairfax Studio until March 30, 1996

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 5 March 1996

 

There is a company of very fine actors on stage in My Father's Father by Janis Balodis. Unfortunately, they are speaking words of clay in a text begging for a savage edit.

 

This is the third in Balodis' trilogy about the experience of Latvian migrants which is based on his family experience. The parents with an adult Australian-born son, return to Latvia to face their pasts.

 

The script is a tangle of disorderly threads which create a messy narrative. There are too many plot lines: the family's return to Latvia, Carl's father's death, Uncle Edvard’s death, the ghosts of his drowned wife and her lover, Ilse and Edvard’s affair, Carl's sister and nephew's poverty, cousin Anita's acquisition of their land and, finally, there is the Leichhardt story.

 

Why Balodis has persevered with this oblique, irrelevant and incomprehensible sub-plot of the explorer's final doomed journey is a mystery. It was out of context and unsuccessful in the previous play and is completely disconnected here.

 

The dialogue is awkward and informational with no distinctive character voices. It became unbearably repetitive. Emotion is described and dramatic tension is completely absent.

 

It began on a light, accessible note but quickly lapsed into the portentous and turgid.  Relationships were contrived and narrative confused. There were occasional jokes but generally the humour was lame and almost embarrassing.  At times it collapses into near melodrama.

 

The actors have an uphill battle with this text. Paul English makes a fine fist of the role of the son even though there is no development for him. Peter Adams is forced to play a drunken boor all night. Others have to struggle with dialogue riddled with platitudes and repetition. The whole production is static and lacking any dynamic drive. Even the design does not serve them well. These actors should be commended.

 

This was a very long night in the theatre.

310 wods

 

Berlin by Sydney Dance Company, 5 March 1996

Comedy Theatre until March 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on March 5, 1996

Berlin is a stark, often overwhelmingly angst-ridden collage of choreographic scenes piercing the core of war-time Berlin.

Graham Murphy's latest production for Sydney Dance Company drags together the threads of brutality and tenderness which epitomise human behaviour in its most intense moments: moments such as sex and war.

Berlin is blindingly beautiful and poignant, incorporating so many simple, evocative and unexpected physical images. I loved the unity of the show which runs 80 minutes without interval. Without being linear or literal, it integrates a narrative built on characters.

It utilises the characteristics of dance and its intense physicality and rigour in addition to the richness of a text-free theatricality and characterisation.

There are the stereotypical Berlin characters: the cabaret singer, the drag artist, but there are also the street people, the lovers, the circus performers, the tough child and his father, the waif and her mother.

There is corruption, decadence, loss and confusion. The people are in pain, they are ragged, degraded, tormented and seduced by soldiers but somehow, in all this pain, they maintain some dignity which is the only way to survive.

All this can be done in theatre, in documentary footage on war-time Berlin but the pure passion and excitement of Murphy's choreography cannot but make it all the more confronting, desperate and challenging.

The company of dancers has great skill and a rich cultural and physical diversity which gives breadth to the images.

Musician / Composer, Max Lambert and singer Iva Davies are inserted into the design amongst the dancers and the detritus of the ravaged city. Lambert's striking music and Davies songs are well-placed in the context both physically and emotionally. 

 The design by Andrew Carter is powerful and John Rayment's lighting was striking and often frightening.

Berlin is steeped in imagery and humanity. It is passionate, intense and speaks clearly with a physical voice. It is truly Dance Theatre.

KATE HERBERT  310 wds