Are You Evil Tonight? by Daniel Lillford, Aug 8 1997

Are You Evil Tonight? by Daniel Lillford

La Mama until August 31, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 7, 1997

Pub. Herald Sun – Robin Usher ed.

How good it is to see a piece of theatre written, directed and acted with wit, truth and subtlety.  Are You Evil Tonight? by Daniel Lillford is just such a play.

Lillford continues his love affair with the dusty Texan desert in this play that has reverberations and reprises of themes and characters from previous plays. He uses isolated locale to examine under a microscope the twin-headed god of good and evil.

Like his beloved western movies, Lillford's good guy is also a bad guy with a heart and a spirit but his guy in the black hat or, in this case, the deputy's tin badge, has a black heart.

Tammy (Carolyn Bock) runs a truck stop way off the beaten track. She has no company except for her no-hoper brother, whom we never meet, and Joe (Chris Wallace) a Comanche tracker who is hunting a rogue coyote who is eating his goats. Tammy is single and lonely but not so desperate that she would marry Dan, the redneck deputy (Simon King).

Enter Matt, (Jeff Kovski) ex-marine who arrives on a motorbike carrying a secret and destined to become the good-bad guy who falls for the good-bad girl.

Lillford weaves magic with his narrative. His dialogue is pithy and laconic. He creates an atmosphere that is both evocative and provocative with its violence, bitterness and edginess. There is sex and love and fantasy to balance the wickedness of the irrational violence of Dan. The heat and dust of the Texan day and the chill of its night are palpable.

All four performances are three-dimensional and beautifully paced. Bock is like a wild Texas rose in her brittle, vulnerable portrayal of Tammy.  Kovski's stranger is wonderfully defensive but passionate, guarding his secrets jealously. The wisdom and irony of Wallace's Joe is a delightful foil for the other characters and King is artful in his brisk characterisation of the repulsive Dan.

There is another layer that is an allegory for Australia. Writing about Texas highlights issues of abuse and appropriation of land by invaders. The Native Americans are not alone in their confusion about whites believing they can own the land.

This is Lillford's swansong before he leaves us to live in Canada. Someone should have grabbed him before we gave away one of our finest locals. Farewell!

KATE HERBERT

Samson and Delilah, Saint Saens, Aug 5, 1997

Samson and Delilah (Samson et Dalila), composed by Camille Saint-Saens, libretto Ferdinand Lemaire

Opera Australia State Theatre August 2, 7, 9, 11, 13, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on Aug 2, 1997

In Camille Saint-Saens' opera, Samson et Dalila (1857), Sam is a hero, Delilah a vengeful whore. Misogyny rules. O.K.

Samson, a lusty thug, rescues the Jews from Philistine slavery. His weakness is his taste for women – lots. The Philistine, Deliliah, disguises vengeance on her former lover as religious zealotry. Her High Priest believes she does it for Dagon, a Philistine god with a name like a pesticide.

Lindy Hume's production focuses on two marvellous voices. Georgian tenor, Badri Maisuradze (Samson) has impeccable control and a rich, subtle tone. Bernadette Cullen's (Delilah) warm mezzo is a fine complement.

Samson succumbs to the 'femme fatale' Delilah who discovers, for her High Priest (Gary Rowley), the secret of his strength. He is blinded, incarcerated, humiliated until he begs God for the strength to destroy the temple and the enemy.

Richard Divall conducts the State Orchestra with distinction. The First Act's sonorous tones echoing the enslavement of the Jews, is musically the least interesting but Hume's opening image of chorus high behind huge scarlet walls, is spectacular, if too brief.

Much of what follows remains unsatisfyingly static, relying on John Gunter's design for visual interest. The final act is more impassioned visually and musically, with focus on Philistine revelry and taunting of Samson.

Unfortunately, the static staging does nothing to enhance the limited acting. Maiduradze is not credible as the heroic Samson, although Cullen plays a stately Delilah. It is a passionless depiction of a relationship built exclusively on lust. The earth doesn't move for anybody except the delightfully sultry dancers who represent all their inner life.

KATE HERBERT  

These Foolish Things & Trapped, La Mama, Aug 3, 1997

These Foolish Things by One Toe & Trapped by Trudy Hellier

at La Mama Thursday July 31, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 1, 1997

Pub. Herald Sun – Alison Barclay

 

The second evening of La Mama's Birthday Theatre marathon was a double bill. The more successful of the two was Trapped by Trudy Hellier (from Frontline) a slick half-hour script with a clever plot and witty dialogue.

A young woman (Hellier) finds a new flat mate (Sally Cooper) for her house that has a fabulous view - of Pentridge and its inmates. The two women develop a strange mutual obsession with their two special convicts who take turns to view the women's ordinary daily activities and fantasise.

The old hand crim (Marcus Eyre) has wangled a new cellmate (Jerome Pride) who is an explosives expert. He is planning an escape to be with his fantasy girl while his bomber pal gets hooked on the new gal next door. She, in turn, eventually does not leave the house at all, in case he misses her.

This is a quirky narrative with well-observed and economical dialogue. In spite of being a reading rather than a full production, the performances by all four actors were uniformly strong. The slight adjustment in the twist at the end in this draft of the script is much more effective than the earlier version.

These Foolish Things is light entertainment that works in part because of the naivete of its style. A man has sneaked into his ex-wife's apartment to check if she has kept mementos of their life together. When she finds him they relive moments.

The two animate funny little objects, toys and memorabilia - their 'foolish things' -to tell their story. One funny scene is the toy suicide. Teddy teeters on the edge of a table then dives. A Banana in Pyjamas totters off after him followed by Barbie. A crowd of tiny footy trophies cheers.

A suburban-style slide show of their travels draws us in while we share chips and anecdotes with them.

 There are problems with an incohesive structure and a confusion of styles. The naturalistic and serious relationship form does not gel with the other more successful and wacky style and, for most of the piece, the actors remain trapped behind a table cluttered with paraphernalia.

There is a gaucheness and charm about this show's unadorned amateurism. The form and style may be scrappy and the performance level limited, but it is sweet and fun.

KATE HERBERT 

Sodomy & Cigarettes by Stephen Sewell, Aug 3, 1997

Sodomy & Cigarettes by Stephen Sewell

 Melbourne University Mudfest until Aug 9, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 2 Aug, 1997

There is a fine tradition of political theatre that confronts contemporary social issues and challenges government. Agit-prop (agitational propaganda) was an innovative and colourful form popular in Britain in the 60's and 70's but we have our own heritage.

Sodomy & Cigarettes by Stephen Sewell is such a play and its blatant criticism of the Kennett government is heightened by being performed on a university campus, once the site of heated political activism.

The term 'didactic' is positive in this context.  There are references to Casino, selling off state utilities, building deregulation, police corruption, cuts to welfare, hospitals and education. The problem in this production lies not in its intention but in the execution of its political commentary. Sewell is inclined to over-write and his political diatribes need editing.

The text is a chaotic collection of styles and scenes in a 70's patchwork. Uni revue satirical sketches (Sale of the Sanctuary) are intercut with songs, scenes and a narrative about Jeff Canute (Nick Virginis) our "much-loved' Premier and his counterpart, a corrupt Chicago mayor from 1941.

This is an unflattering portrait so it is no wonder, in these times of arts censorship, that State money was withdrawn from the project.

Evocative and provocative songs in the style of Kurt Weill and the Berliner cabaret of the 20's alternate with some wonderful cameos, a feature being Angus Cerini's John Howard who whimpers, ' I have a mandate." Helen Gagliano has a glorious voice in the chorus.

Director Kim Hanna has done a fine job with this youthful ensemble and Richard Jeziorny's epic design of a fallen temple is a visual treat.

Most scenes are satire but there was one truly theatrical scene. A woman's nightmare of cannibalism is counterpointed against voices from the stock market. This simple theatrical juxtaposition comments on a society that is devouring itself by focussing on market rather than human issues.

 In many other scenes this point is laboured.  The piece is entertaining but often incoherent and unwieldy and some scenes make no sense at all. Robespierre and Saint Juste appear twice but the analogy of the French Revolution becomes clumsy and disconnected. References to philosophers Didera, Heideger and Descartes are used but are obscure.

Sewell questions whether theatre can effect social change but I suspect this play merely reflects it after the fact.

KATE HERBERT

Footprints in Water by Matt Cameron, Aug 3, 1997

Footprints in Water by Matt Cameron

at La Mama until July 20, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 2, 1997

Matt Cameron's award-wining play, Footprints in Water, highlights prejudices and breaks social taboos by creating characters who are vile representations of all the worst 'isms' in our culture: sexism, misogyny, racism, fundamentalism, dogmatism, monotheism and a streak of homophobia.

Christian fanaticism struggles with promiscuity, Buddhist philosophy is set against the Bible and the Foreigners against the Local. As Noel the shoemaker-preacher says, 'Repression is what separates us from beasts.

The narrative involves six fraught characters who all live in a village which protects itself from outsiders. Noel's (Aiden Fennessy) church is atop the hill, closer to God. He is building a boat to escape the plague God will send. He pedals his bike and his religious pedantry down to the village daily, avoiding the brothel.

His assistant Errol (Jim Russell) is slow and is having sex with Lena, (Elise McCredie) the wife of Gunter, the brothel-keeper (Jerome Pride). The other two character are Edie, (Annie Finsterer) a virginal 'whore" and 'the Sobbing Woman' (Christen O'Leary) who is trying to empty the river. The ensemble is excellent.

Footprints is riddled with disturbing images, stark and horrible moments of abuse. Jerome Pride's brothel-keeper is, frankly, terrifying in his restrained perversion and violence.

Cameron's characters and dialogue are colourful and Peter Houghton's direction vigorous and inventive. Houghton heightens the festering darkness of the narrative with stark lighting. He keeps actors on stage throughout, lurking in corners and behind a forest of upright planks designed by Paul Jackson.

Houghton has introduced another deeply evocative layer in a live vocal soundscape that includes whistling, chanting, singing and dog's barking. It heightens the sense of impending doom and makes the space dangerous.

Cameron has explored an emotional depth that is less evident in his previous work. His characters are steeped in their own pain and prejudices. They do each other damage and they each have a wicked secret to guard.

Although it deals with dark issues of the human psyche, it is a very funny piece with a broad streak of Cameron's characteristic absurdity. On occasion he undercuts dialogue with gags but these only occasionally interrupt the flow.

Characters are manipulated like the chess pieces on Noel's board. They cannot escape their fates. They are like Jungian archetypes. What to infer from all this is not quite clear in the end but it a powerful and intense piece of theatre.

KATE HERBERT   

Legacy by Jack Hibberd, Aug 2, 1997

Legacy by Jack Hibberd

 La Mama at Carlton Courthouse until Aug 9, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert round Aug 1, 1997

Jack Hibberd has an extraordinary facility for fusing the poetic and the colloquial in language. He used this style in his masterwork, Stretch of the Imagination, and it is once again evident in his new play, Legacy, directed by Daniel Schlusser. 

Legacy is an abstract view of a family wake. Four siblings are in the family crypt to mourn the death, apparently by suicide pact, of both parents.  Mum and dad were obscenely wealthy and the pariah brothers, acting as a parody of the three monkeys, want it all.

Schlusser has kept the play contained in a space empty except for a couch, on which the men sit cramped, and armchair for Petunia, their sister. It is a study in the grotesque and the lewd: a black clown piece that attacks materialism and chauvinism, nationalism and racism.

 Hardwick (Burkett) is a racist capitalist dog, Warwick (Richardson) a mummy's boy and skirt chaser, Yorick (Hosking) a giggling follower. Petunia (Krape), as a woman and the only genuine adult, remains an outsider.

"Some families are beyond analysis" and this is one of them. They have a pecking order and Hardwick the banker is at the top. They function as a corporation and "Social Darwinism" is in operation.

Hibberd's ideas gallop and his language writhes and squirms almost out of our grasp. He interpolates literary and mythic allusions amongst the intentionally ordinary and pedestrian. The cast of four (Evelyn Krape, Michael Burkett, Peter Hosking, Damien Richardson) use his text alternately as weapon, seduction or for a rollicking good laugh. 

The simplicity of Schlusser's production allows the language and style to lead the piece. The performances are delightfully wicked and all four actors relish the naughtiness of Hibberd's earthy imagery.

Burkett plays the 'gnome", Hardwick as a vile rank-puller who governs the family 'corporation'. Richardson captures the infantile Warwick's desire for their mother's 'mummery-mammery-memory'. Hoskins' Yorick is the family pawn, the sensitive one. Krape balances the trio with a potent and 'womanly' portrayal of the betrayed daughter.

Schlusser's direction establishes a rhythm that works until it becomes repetitive, limiting the emotional range of actors and text.  Sections of short, clipped dialogue needed pacing up and the whole needed to explore a broader dynamic range. 

Moments of genuine pain and grief would heighten the comic elements but it is overall, an entertaining and well-crafted short play.

KATE HERBERT 

The Tempest by Horned Moon, Aug 1997

The Tempest by Horned Moon

Merlyn Theatre until August, 1997

 NB This review was published in The Melbourne Times in Aug 1997

Much new and interesting Australian theatre emphasises the physical and visual. When this is applied to a dense text namely Shakespeare's The Tempest,  the company needs more than acrobatic skills to make meaning of the rich imagery embedded in the language.

The program notes for this production by Horned Moon, declare that it 'deliberately foregrounds the actor's body and their (sic) skills which realise the body as the site of theatrical meaning.' There are moments when the bodies serve the narrative, the text, the magic of Prospero and the intention of the play.

The design (Douglas Iain Smith) of massive earth-coloured cloth is evocative and flexible. One memorable scene was Prospero suspended aloft, draped in this gigantic cape and actors' entrances through gaping holes in the fabric ar effective.

This is a 'courageous' production in the sense that Sir Humphrey Appleby would use the term. It takes risks but they do not quite succeed. Miranda (Kate Parker)as a rough diamond has possibilities but she is played relentlessly as a simian creature.

Comic characters Stephano (Amanda Douge) and Trinculo (Sohie Raymond) as women is a novelty. Dunstan is a sweet-voiced Ariel but playing him as a semi-crippled sprite is an odd choice. His assistants are vsually exciting but intrusive as they scuttle about. There is far too much posturing amongst the aristocrats from Italy who look inappropriately  like catwalk models.

To use the program's words, this 'deliberately eclectic production' has lost 'itself in diversity.' 

KATE HERBERT

La Mama Theatre Marathon Program 1, 30th anniversary, July 30, 1997

La Mama Theatre Marathon Program 1, 30^th anniversary

Three Old Friends by Jack Hibberd

Long Time No See by Jack Hibberd

Robert Fumes by Barry Dickins with Peter Green

The Mind's A Wonderful Thing, Margaret Cameron

At La Mama,  Wed July 30, 1997

La Mama is celebrating its 30th birthday this week with a three-day theatre marathon of twenty-three La Mama plays. The first of the lot is a re-mount of Jack Hibberd's Three Old Friends, the very first play ever performed in Melbourne's much-loved tiny venue.

This early Hibberd (1967) has all his trademarks: an absurd situation, Australian colloquial lingo, blokey characters and repetition of ideas and dialogue. A man (Richard Bligh) who assumes he is with two old friends (Luke Elliot, Nicholas Crawford-Smith), finds his reality disintegrating as they deny knowledge of each other, their own well-known habits and, finally, of him. It is funny and disturbing in an existential way with has a satisfying pay-off at its conclusion.

It is followed by the premiere of a new Hibberd monologue, Long Time No See, performed by Evelyn Krape and also directed by Daniel Schlusser. She plays a theatre 'professional' swaddled in plaster bandages and hospitalised after an attempt to fly. Krape is in fine form in this addled character and she makes a comic meal of Hibberd's cascading language and attacks on a dying theatre industry. 'Where would theatre be without psychology? Back where it belongs'.

Next is Peter Green as Robert Fumes (1985), a snobbish and superior expatriate art critic who lives in a clinical loft in New York and slags off all things Australian while decrying the "cultural cringe." Written by the inimitable Barry Dickins, this satirical portrait of Robert Hughes is relentlessly damning of the snobbery and balderdash of the critic who actually does nothing in art.

The Mind's A Wonderful Thing is another premiere. Margaret Cameron is a magnetic performer with a honey voice and a monologue of lyrical, imagistic language. She sits at a table and tells the story of Mabel living in Northcote with her stroke-ridden Alf. But this is no ordinary storytelling although it deals with ordinary people.

Cameron's fountain of words has a beauty and delicacy that feels like the ebb and flow of the tide. Images of the suburban gully trap weave among the singing trees. Mabel's 'elephant tears falling on elephant grey concrete' are inter-cut with her thoughts of smothering Alf with glad wrap. The whole program was a delight but Cameron's brief piece had a magical quality that is rare. Her mind really is a wonderful thing.

La Mama has shows running from 6-12pm every night until Friday August 1, 1997

KATE HERBERT

Life During Wartime by Keith Reddin, July 19, 1997

Life During Wartime by Keith Reddin

Soup Kitchen Theatre Athenaeum Theatre 2, until August 31, 1997

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around July 18, 1997

American society is riddled with urban warfare. Home are defended by owners with small arms caches and-or high-tech security systems. Keith Reddin's play is a generally light commentary on the moral decline of a community that fights violence with more violence or protects itself with a fortress mentality.

Soup Kitchen Theatre performs this very American text in Australian accents with one very odd exception. This characterises the many unsuccessful choices made by the writer, director (Catherine Hill) and some of the actors.

Although the basic premise of the play may work, Reddin's unsuccessfully attempts to blend naturalism and farce in his text and this creates enormous problems for any production.

The 'real' story concerns a young security systems salesman (Brett Tucker) who falls in love with an older woman (Clarissa House) who is his client. His boss (Peter Roberts) runs a dodgy show that manufactures burglaries of properties to promote sales. This all leads to grief.

The other story is an amusing moralistic running commentary by John Calvin himself, played with puritanical relish by Jim Daly. Calvin prattles on about pre-determination, Original Sin, the immorality of theatre and, with comic anachronism, violent movies and parenting in Leave it To Beaver.

Unfortunately, the naturalism collapses into daytime soap opera with platitudes masquerading as dialogue. Characterisation is thin, which is not assisted by some very wooden acting in major roles. Reddin ends the play with Calvin in an awkward dialogue with other characters who suddenly begin to talk directly to audience.

The saving grace is Daly who, as Calvin, ponces and pontificates, sneers and patronises to perfection. His other cameos, a weapon-mad homeowner and an oddball neighbour, are a welcome relief from the tedium as is Samuel Johnson (his real name!) who demonstrates great comic skill.

The design of geometric vertical household blinds is initially interesting but the blinds continually swan across the stage to provide new locations and to mask slow scene changes. This becomes predictable, annoying and fragments the stage.

Evocative lighting by Daniel Zika dapples the blinds but surprisingly did not explore the potential of any back lighting through slats which might have covered some rather obvious backstage movement of furniture and cast.

KATE HERBERT

The Mourning After by Verity Lambert, July 16, 1997

The Mourning After by Verity Lambert

Alexander Theatre & Regional Tour, July – Aug, 1997

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around July 14, 1997

'I'd like to see that again I enjoyed it so much,' said a grey-haired woman to her companion on leaving The Mourning After. She was one of the many over-50's who flocked to the Alexander Theatre at Monash to see Nancye Hayes in a mid-week matinee.

This monodrama by Verity Lambert appears to have been written as a vehicle for musical comedy star, Hayes. Belle has been a chorus-line singer and radio serial star ('it lasted three years longer than Blue Hills'). During the play she agonises whether to accept a singing role as Ned Kelly's mum.

The inimitable Hayes sings snatches of tunes and concludes the show with Ellen Kelly's melancholy song about her dead son. This echoes with Belle's grieving over the death of her cantankerous husband who was "an unfunny comedian but a born bank teller'.

 She struggles with guilt and grief. Did her insistence on taking the role cause Harry's heart attack? Did she do it accidentally-on-purpose? The script unfortunately skims the surface of notions of grief, loss and family conflict.

Hayes is engaging as Belle and the audience responded warmly in laughs and applause although her slightly mannered performance is not always comfortable.

I don't want to be a killjoy but this show is not my cup of tea. A second viewing does not enhance the show. The text is neither deftly written nor well constructed, the character lacks depth and the direction is predictable.

Director Tony Sheldon, also of musical comedy background, has set the piece on an uncluttered stage against a plain seascape (Trina Parker) that echoes traditional theatre backcloths. Its simplicity is practical and effective for a touring show.

Sheldon has allowed no interruption to the constant flow of Lambert's words. In fact, silence is a major deficiency in this production. The script is often painfully expository, repeating ideas in different words. Often the persistent self-commentary is unnecessarily duplicating the on stage action.

The treatment of the audience as beach side gulls and, in Act Two, a stormy evening is clumsy although it allows Hayes to address us directly and breaks the pattern of self-narration. The piece has a predictable rhythm, building to peppy chatter, reminiscence, suddenly interrupted by sadness followed by introspection and self-flagellation.

KATE HERBERT

Roo by Angus Strachan, July 11, 1997

Roo by Angus Strachan

La Mama until July 20, 1997

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around July 10, 1997

 'Like taking coals to Newcastle' says Sydney playwright Angus Strachan about bringing his footy show, Roo, in Melbourne. In fact we haven't seen a football play for yonks; since Bouncers perhaps  although that was Rugby, not real footy!

Roo is a short, pacey piece with some peppy dialogue. Director Peter Hayes has kept it going at a cracking final quarter pace and the three actors seem to be having fun with Strachan's blokey repartee.

It is a simple story about conflict behind the goal posts in a country town team. The Coach (Peter Carmody) is old school. He believes punishment and abuse make better players and playing 'toe to toe' will win the game.

He does not count on the disillusionment of Stevo, his team captain and son (James Manser) and his star goal-kicker and adoptive son, Blue (Theo Burns).

The emotional layer is more interesting than the actual team politics and could have been further developed. These three men have a personal history which keeps threatening to take over the narrative. Blue may be the half-cast son of the Coach. He still resents his half-brother's teenage escape to a big city school. 'You've gone soft.'

The Coach's dicky ticker looks like bursting a phoofer valve, particularly with Carmody's volatile spitfire performance. Burns is a vigorously physical Blue and Manser provides the necessary balance to the two loudmouths.

Strachan's dialogue is well observed and pungent. It reeks of the clubrooms. Characters in the team have names such as Macca, Smacka, Davo and Cactus.

Strachan incorporates a few poetic monologues that draw parallels between the human and desert landscape. He creates a metaphor of a big roo being hunted down. The buck stands his ground just like the Coach under siege or the wooden-spooners under pressure.

 There are odd moments when the text sounds a little like a Marlboro ad or becomes too expository but it is well structured with strong characterisations.

Roo touches gently on race relations and the effects of drought on a community; the team are tuckered out because they've been lugging fodder to their steers all week. If they don't beat the pack of fairy sheep farmers, they'll be history!ˇ

KATE  HERBERT

Meatsafe by Franz Docherty, July 2, 1997

Meatsafe by Franz Docherty

La Mama at Courthouse until July 19, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbrt around July 1, 1997

Franz Docherty's play Meatsafe blatantly draws parallels between the bloody activities of the slaughterhouse and the sometimes equally violent, albeit metaphorical, vivisections in our human relationships.

Meatsafe is an intense drama from the Realist school and this production of a new and expanded script boasts passionate performances. Daniel Lillford directs the show with great attention to emotional detail.

The play bubbles away in a pressure cooker country town the only local industry being the abattoir that has Union problems. Nola, a local, married Nick, an outsider, three years ago. They have one toddler and crave more but something is wrong.

As in most country towns, everybody knows more than their share of others' personal business. When history starts to catch up with the couple and the other blokes at the meatworks the temperature rises and the meat starts to stink.

Docherty's dialogue is swift and idiomatic while his characters are rich and clearly defined. During the scenes between the blokes we were flies on the meatworks' locker-room walls: an ugly image. The rawness of the men's language and their rowdy play and abuse was a peek into an unexpurgated male dominion.

The comedy arises effectively from the truth of the interactions and from characters' idiosyncrasies rather than being gag based. The action moves rapidly and the narrative holds attention with only a few hiccups here and there. The first act is stronger, interweaving the various plot lines and sustaining characters more effectively than the second.

The performances are uniformly strong. Bradley Hulme plays Nick as a wonderfully rough diamond, a well-meaning man who faces more crises in a week than one man can stand in a lifetime. It is an intensely sympathetic portrayal of a complex character.

As Nola, Margot Fenley has warmth and depth and Michael Burkett is a delightful depiction of Hughie, the young and the sexist. Damien Richardson, Terry Kenwrick, Helen Rollinson and Fiona Blackwood are all powerful presences onstage.

There were some problems that might be ironed out in the running of the new draft: some discrepancies in the chronology of the characters' relationships and too many unnecessary blackouts. Although the floor-lit wooden grille was a great centrepiece, the stage seemed cluttered by a rather clumsy set that interfered with the action. But this is a great piece of Theatre Verite'.

KATE HERBERT

Sunrise Boulevarde by Rod Quantock , June 30, 1997

Sunrise Boulevarde  by Rod Quantock

Trades Hall, June – July 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 22, 1997

I'm building a monument to Rod Quantock, the last of his species: political stand-ups.  It is a beautiful, historic construction with a bit of Victorian lacework around the top.

It harmonises with its surroundings and reminds us of the lost Paris End of Collins Street or Melbourne's terraces. It has no view of the Casino, the Grand Prix track, the new museum or the Tulla Tollway Gate.

Only hard-earned cash will be accepted: no 'speculative' or 'conservative' money. Walker cannot own it, Williams cannot invest in it, Elliott cannot sell it and Alan Stockdale will never privatise it.

It will be built by anyone who has walked up those well-worn stone steps of the Trades Hall where Rod is doing his show, Sunrise Boulevarde. It has Rod's boot firmly planted in the backsides of the 'Mates' who have uglified our city.

Quantock is heroic and angry. He chose the ugliest room in the Trades Hall to highlight the Ugliness of our political regime and its cronies. We may have bulldozed the Gas and Fuel but there is worse to come. "Money is ugliometric".

Rod is hilarious, accessible and passionate as he leads us through a disturbing chalk and talk lecture in Politics and Economics a la Quantock. His impeccable understanding of our political system is pickled in his satirical and wry point of view.

He points out the supreme irony of our 'Free-way Toll-way'. He draws comparisons between our new, thrusting 'Look at me!' architecture and Mussolini's. Our old AAA+++ Moody's rating must have been good " 'cos it's more than we got in woodwork".

He prophesies 'World Series Democracy' and proposes measuring the unemployed by weight. He decries a state slogan that can fit on a number plate and calls this paper 'The Hairoiled Sin'. Ron Walker called him 'Unvictorian', 'a terrorist' and 'a rabble'. "It's very hard to be a rabble alone" an d"name-calling is now a substitute for politics."

To overcome our helplessness he suggests three solutions, the final being a beauty. "They won't do any good but they'll make you feel better." His view is grim but must be heard. Social satire is one of the few remaining means of protest. As Rod says, " At least in Indonesia the government takes notice when you protest." Now that's depressing!

See this!

KATE HERBERT

Shorts by Soup Kitchen Theatre, June 30, 1997

Shorts by Soup Kitchen Theatre

Athenaeum II until July 11, 1997 At

12.10 & 1.10pm Mon-Fri

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 29, 1997

Does your lunch hour usually consist of jogging elbows while ordering a $10 gourmet sandwich or rushing out to buy a birthday gift at David Jones? For a change, try snack-size lunchtime theatre.

For $5 Soup Kitchen Theatre provides soup, (Rosella) bread (Pott's) and five quick, light sketch pieces. You are fed, entertained and out of there in well under an hour if you need to get back to the desk job. There is no stress, no noise and no hustle and bustle of the city at midday.

The strongest piece of writing is Igloo, a lyrical, romantic and witty monologue by Elizabeth Coleman. A woman (Amanda Armstrong) cleans her teeth and muses on the idyllic image of living in a perfect igloo where all her dreams materialise.

Another smart piece is The Message Routine that is a voiceover cleverly placed to cover the quick set changes. It satirises all those recorded message services that chew up your dollars as you wait for service.

A possibly unintentional theme throughout the pieces is romantic fantasy. Reading Between The Lines by Trudy McLauchlan is a broad comic glance at a woman's immersion in her lunch time reading matter: a Mills and Boon romance and its intrusion into reality.

Abe Pogos's Dream Girl looks at an awkward and heightened moment as a man reveals he has been dreaming about his girlfriend's sister.

Stress Management is the odd piece out being a satire on group therapy sessions. It makes a point about self-indulgent therapy junkies in a final dramatic revelation by the only silent group member.

Directors Lucy Jones and Catherine Hill have kept the style broad and light. The staging is simple, the content light and the performances competent (Steve Adams, Ariane Vrisakis, Drew Tingwell, Amanda Armstrong). At times the writing cries out for a little more depth and less effort on the part of the actors who seem to be pushing too hard with the lines.

However, you can't go wrong for $5 and the audience really enjoyed it. We don't want too much headwork for lunch, do we?

KATE HERBERT

Marty Putz, June 19, 1997

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Arthouse Theatre Universal Theatre II until June 28, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 17, 1997

It is a brave company that tackles Macbeth. Arthouse Theatre, directed by Bruce Alexander who also plays the lead, has taken the plunge but has simplified the task by whittling Shakespeare's four-hour text down to a pithy ninety minutes.

Now, this means the company of fourteen actors and two musicians can get their hands on all the meaty speeches without the filler. It is intelligent editing but it often forces the action along too swiftly and scampers over significant details such as who is playing whom.

The piece is stylised and approaches the murderous plot by abstracting scenes. This allows the cast to chant, to stylise fight scenes, feasts and murders and the musicians to provide with an evocative soundscape by Nick Livingston. Alexander has created some vivid, startling images that are enhanced by a striking lighting design by Jilly Judges.

The stage design (Mark Anstey) is a stark collection of wooden posts and metal pole construction. The witches perch precariously up poles throughout the play, emphasising their constant control and connection with the Macbeth's fate.

A great text, however, does not automatically make a great performance. The words become banal in the mouths of actors who cannot meet the challenge. Macbeth and his girlish wife might have been worrying over his running over the neighbour's dog rather than murdering the king and most of the rest of his court.

Their superficial passion for each other becomes risible. The weight of the tragedy and impact of the dark, portentous world of the witches loses potency as the minutes drip away.

Many of the cast skim the surface of the language, disconnected from the layers of meaning and with no vocal power. Nothing appears to be happening inside so they rush those magnificent speeches like shopping lists. It became a series of fairly static talking scenes strung together with physical-visual scenes.

There is some good text work from Emily Buxton as Lady Macduff and the witches are interesting if a little predictable in their mud-spattered, bare-breasted rag outfits. It was a valiant but perhaps too ambitious project.

And remember that old theatre superstition. If you say 'Macbeth' inside the theatre you have to go outside, spin around three times, cough, sneeze, spit, knock and be invited back in - or something like that. I think the witches say so just after "hubble bubble”.

KATE HERBERT 

Macbeth, Arthouse Theartre, June 18, 1997

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Arthouse Theatre Universal Theatre II until June 28, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 17, 1997

It is a brave company that tackles Macbeth. Arthouse Theatre, directed by Bruce Alexander who also plays the lead, has taken the plunge but has simplified the task by whittling Shakespeare's four-hour text down to a pithy ninety minutes.

Now, this means the company of fourteen actors and two musicians can get their hands on all the meaty speeches without the filler. It is intelligent editing but it often forces the action along too swiftly and scampers over significant details such as who is playing whom.

The piece is stylised and approaches the murderous plot by abstracting scenes. This allows the cast to chant, to stylise fight scenes, feasts and murders and the musicians to provide with an evocative soundscape by Nick Livingston. Alexander has created some vivid, startling images that are enhanced by a striking lighting design by Jilly Judges.

The stage design (Mark Anstey) is a stark collection of wooden posts and metal pole construction. The witches perch precariously up poles throughout the play, emphasising their constant control and connection with the Macbeth's fate.

A great text, however, does not automatically make a great performance. The words become banal in the mouths of actors who cannot meet the challenge. Macbeth and his girlish wife might have been worrying over his running over the neighbour's dog rather than murdering the king and most of the rest of his court.

Their superficial passion for each other becomes risible. The weight of the tragedy and impact of the dark, portentous world of the witches loses potency as the minutes drip away.

Many of the cast skim the surface of the language, disconnected from the layers of meaning and with no vocal power. Nothing appears to be happening inside so they rush those magnificent speeches like shopping lists. It became a series of fairly static talking scenes strung together with physical-visual scenes.

There is some good text work from Emily Buxton as Lady Macduff and the witches are interesting if a little predictable in their mud-spattered, bare-breasted rag outfits. It was a valiant but perhaps too ambitious project.

And remember that old theatre superstition. If you say 'Macbeth' inside the theatre you have to go outside, spin around three times, cough, sneeze, spit, knock and be invited back in - or something like that. I think the witches say so just after "hubble bubble”.

KATE HERBERT 

Panayiota & Locked In, June 17, 1997

Panayiota by Angela Costi & Locked In by Tricia Bowen

By Knock Knock Theatre

Brunswick Mechanics Institute until June 29, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 16 June, 1997

Two writers, Angela Costi and Tricia Bowen, decided to mount their own plays at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute rather than wait for someone else to do it for them. More power to them.

The two plays, Panayiota and Locked In, are unrelated except by theme.

Angela Costi's Panayiota is the second in the program and by far the more successful. Lisa, previously known as Athena, is at a watershed in her 27-year life. For ten years she has denied her Greek-Cypriot heritage, her parents' wishes, her school friends and has followed he dream to be Anglo-Australianised, to live with a dinky-di Aussie and to be an artist.

The play has a complex structure that works mostly in its favour. It shifts between "Lisa's" present and her past, layering her developing relationship difficulties with her abandonment of her school friends.

As she struggles with Pat's (Caleb Cluff) need for a more predictable and conservative life she surprisingly reunites with her two pals. Stella (Bridget Haylock) has the model Greek marriage and baby Panayiota, (the Virgin Mary) while Silvana (Daniela Farinacci)  is still unfulfilled  in her role as tart craving love.

Director Kim Baston has created some lyrical moments and slow-motion dream-like sequences set against the well-observed ordinariness of the women's dialogue. Back projections of seashore echo Lisa's drawings, dreams, memories and fears of water that reverberate with Jungian images of an emotional sea.

The actors are more comfortable and challenged in Panayiota.  In Locked In, they are confined by a rigid, simplistic structure and narrative. It is a play more for voices than action, better suited to radio.

Three women sit 'locked in’ their homes. One is young, insecure with romantic visions of her ideal man coming to rescue her. A second is a stitched-up mother obsessed with locks and air freshener. The third is a working class divorcee who mistrusts neighbours.  They are all three stereotypes.

A man knocks at their respective doors. He has forgotten where he lives. Locked In is a play about how suburbia subsumes people's identities. It smacks of 70's Agit-Prop theatre when it was novel and in vogue to comment on the facelessness of the great suburban sprawl.

Any such social observations needs, in the late nineties, to take further the argument or imagery. There is nothing substantial or new being said in this text no in the style of its production that is rather unimaginatively realised.

Locked In feels like a play from the 70's when it was new and hence in vogue to comment on the facelessness of the great suburban sprawl. Any such social observations need in the late nineties, to take the argument or the imagery further. There is nothing substantial or new being said in this text or in the style of its production that is rather unimaginatively realised.

KATE HERBERT

Effie X-Posed by Mary Coustas, June 13, 1997

Universal Theatre 1, Fitzroy, June 1997  (no closing date)

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 12, 1997

Effie's people spoke to my people saying they didn't want too many press people at her three (yep!) opening nights. It would upset the balance of laughter. Now that's paranoid - even for a Boofhead Superstar!

Effie X-Posed is the next episode in the rise and rise of Effie Stephanides, altered-ego of the more benign and eminently more talented Mary Coustas. Effie stimulates the laugh glands of her predominantly "wog" (her word and theirs) young audience.

She begins by goofing about with a front row Sicilian. "Geez, a yuppie wog from Port Melbourne." What follows is a journey round Effie's return from her US tour, media coverage by Ray Martin (on huge screens) and her subsequent fall from Tall Poppy grace when Ray rolls footage of a naked Effie in soft porn, "Dean Man Bonking."

There are lots of laughs. Effie attacks everybody sometimes with a real nasty streak which can tip from funny into unpleasantness. She does a lot of Anglo-bashing, wog-smacking and American star taunting. Comparisons with our icons, Edna Everidge and Norman Gunston are inappropriate. Effie lacks their highly developed sense of satire, irony or subtlety.

The last clip is one of the most successful parts of the show. T.V. comedy director, Pino Amenta is no stage director but his Current Affair footage, shot mainly in New York, is hilarious.

Effie highjacks Dennis Hopper, who calls her "Iffie". Micky Rourke tries her on the casting couch. A real gem was the Method acting class where Effie plays opposite a Bronx Brando look-alike.

Coustas has a couple of secondary characters. Her sleezy old velvet-suited stalker, Vasili, has potential but Tammy the cocaine-freak club dancer is a clever study in phobic speed hallucinations.

She is supported by Annie Jones, who plays Sara, club owner and Blond Bitch, and Geoff Paine as Phil the woossey bartender. Paine's irrepressible comic persona intermittently busts out of straight man mode. A high point was his silly podium dance routine and "cheer up Effie" love song medley.

Writing by Coustas and television writer, Chris Anastassiades, is appropriate for TV sketches but lacks the form and narrative required of theatre or the joke quotient of stand-up. Maybe the character is best suited to the box. But the crowd seemed to go for it. Go Boofhead!

KATE HERBERT

Hideous Portraits by Tom Wright, June 11, 1997

Hideous Portraits by Tom Wright, by Mene Mene Theatre

at La Mama until June 29, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 10, 1997

The unexpurgated observations of the deranged can shed a glaring and unflattering light on a family's neurotic relationships. Such is the case with Burchett, (Ben Rogan) in Tom Wright's Hideous Portraits.

Burchett, youngest and maddest brother of three, is ripped untimely from his psychiatric institution and whisked away by his sentimental oldest brother Moncrieff (Christopher Davis) to the family home and middle brother, dilettante actor, Melba (Jerome Pride). The Australian diva references may reflect the pretensions of this family to high art and "Anglo-Saxon good taste."

The paranoiac Burchett is not alone in his madness. Moncrieff rehearses playing a blind woman in front of the mirror and irons Burchett's special underwear. The histrionic Melba is passionate about his youngest brother.

It is evident immediately that the bosom of brotherly love is not Burchett's ideal haven. he hates Moncrieff's dullness and Melba's histrionics. They pander to him and perch nervously on chair-edge awaiting his next peculiar outburst.

The play, which is based heavily on Austrian Thomas Bernhard's 1980's play , Ritter, Dene, Voss, is swiftly written and directed by Wright in a broad black clown style. Its stark green-black and white design combined with its stop-frame action echoes its central image of photographic portraiture.

The text is riddled with literary and philosophical allusions, witticisms and grim observations about anything that niggles the writer. It slings abuse at wealthy arts patrons, psychiatrists, anything American, pretentious photographers but, most significantly, it attacks "insipid boulevarde plays" and dilettante artists. Occasionally it is too glib.

The three actors give vigorous and intense performances. As Moncrieff, Christopher Davis prattles and mothers the young 'uns and Pride is supremely arch and prissy as Melba. Rogan grabs with both fists the challenge of Burchett, the "humanist-megalomaniac", and wrestles a nervy, pungent and hilarious character infested with quirks and staccato tics, gasps and double takes.

It is a superbly timed comic piece but it lets itself down by playing too lightly the darkness. It skims too easily across the surface of the dark psychological pond. It is so frenetic and mannered at times it undercuts its own power.

The opening night friendly crowd may have skewed the laugh response but there is a deeper resonance to this play.

KATE HERBERT