The Way of the World, by William Congreve, VCA, Aug 26 1997

The Way of the World, by William Congreve

Victorian College of the Arts, School of Drama, until Sep 6, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 25 Aug, 1997

After Charles II returned from France post-Cromwell, London was one big party. The latter part of the 17th century heralded a new era in entertainment during which theatres were reopened and plays became bawdy and satirical again and women performed.

Audience members could sit on stage and wreak havoc: heckling, smooching with their paramours and tossing tomatoes. Some even participated extemporaneously.

The VCA production of William Congreve's The Way of the World, directed by Robert Draffin, designed by Libby O'Brien, draws on these conventions but cunningly blends 17th Restoration Comedy and 20th century styles.

Congreve's characters are named for their follies. Lady Wishfor't (Rachael Tidd) plays the adolescent coquette at fifty and wishes for love. Her niece Millamant, or 'thousand lovers' (Miria Kostiuk) tantalises her retinue of lovers while Petulant is sullen and silent and Witwoud (Oscar Reding) a foppish wit.

The audience surrounds the performing space and is invited to dance to the live band prior to the show and is served champagne between acts. One witty inclusion is Petulant being a ventriloquist doll.

The ensemble of graduating students tackles a difficult period piece with relish under Draffin's capable direction. Some of the men just missıng the raw comic potential in the characters but the women are particularly strong.

Tidd is the highlight in a gem of a portrayal of Lady Wishfor't that is like Joanna Lumley meets Lady Diana. Kostiuk has 'Va-Va-Va-Voom!' as Millamant and Sophie Gregg prowls like as cat as Mrs. Fainall. Justin Smith is a great comic presence as the yokel nephew, Wilfull, and in a cameo as the maidservant Mrs. Mincing.

Draffin has injected a couple of modern songs into this Club Lounge environment that reeks of gaming dens and the superficial, delusory glamour of nearby Crown Casino. Actors engage directly with the audience in a way that was a convention of the period.

The world of the Restoration was decadent. England reacted like naughty children to its newfound freedom and the Restoration comedies revel in the conflict between intellect and desire. Congreve's Comedy of Manners deals with adultery, cuckoldry and plays with deception and affectation in his characters.

All present a false self to the world and are revealed to be duplicitous either for gain or as protection against their sneering aristocratic 'friends'.

Kate Herbert

Visions of Poe by Michel David Treloar, Aug 26, 1997

Visions of Poe by Michel David Treloar

 Christ Church St. Kilda until Sept 20, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 25, 1997

 The master of Horror long before Stephen King was American poet and short-story writer, Edgar Allen Poe. His style was Gothic, spine-chilling imagery provoked by sublimely colourful and evocative language.

Michael David Treloar, a graduate of the VCA Drama School, has leapt, polished boots and all, into Poe with a solo performance integrating his writings. Treloar locates the piece in a church that provides an immediate design concept and other-worldliness impossible to achieve with a theatre set.

The design elements he does introduce are effective. Ceiling-high scarlet velvet curtains, a bolt of red taffeta, a heavy Victorian chair, table and candles all enhance the sense of impending doom inherent in Poe. The delicate life-size doll adds a surreal edge to images of loves lost or murdered.

Treloar selects two poems, a ballad 'Annabelle Lee' and 'The Black Cat', a horror story of the drunken husband who entombs his wife's murdered body in the wall of his house with the couple’s tell tale cat.

He punctuates the performance with verses of 'The Bells', accentuating the onomatopoeic language that reverberates with the increasingly tormenting bells. His least successful selection was the story of a masquerade ball but he follows with the skin-creeping gruesomeness of 'The Black Cat'.

Poe's rhythmic form and percussive rhyming style is never more insistent and successful than in 'The Raven', that infamous bird of doom "which quoth 'never more' " as it perched on the door of the narrator, mad with grief for his lost love.

Treloar has excellent technique that supports his performance in the not inconsequential task of creating a solo show without the aid of a director - or a net.

He creates compelling images with his body in conjunction with Kathryn Anderson's dramatic lighting and has almost flawlessly mastered Poe's blindingly difficult Virginian accent and uses his resonant voice to great melodramatic effect with Poe's language.

Treloar takes his performance seriously. His playing is relentlessly fraught, intense and tortured which sometimes tilts into the earnest and indulgent. There is little irony in his use of Victorian histrionics and posturing and, particularly early, the focus is on his technique leaving one strangely unmoved by the horror and preoccupied with his method as an actor.

However, it is a commendable and generally absorbing production from a talented young artist with some spectacular text by Poe.

KATE HERBERT

Mass by Arena Theatre , Aug 23, 1997

Mass by Arena Theatre 

Universal Theatre 1 until Aug 30, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 22, 1997

 If Mass were on TV, it would be preceded by warnings, 'Some violence, Sex scenes, Language, Adult themes.'

It is titillation for teenagers. Director, Rosemary Myers, in the second of Arena Theatre's anthroPOP trilogy, stimulates the senses with huge screen video projection, amplified live techno-music, verbatim Vox-Pops and snap-shot characterisations.

 All elements are designed to key into the sensory and social context of the 90's teenager. One can hear the echo of teenage voices: 'The videos were grouse.' 'A giant inflatable baby. Cool!' 'Excellent techno-music.'  'Sex in a photo booth. That's gross!'

The narrative, thin as it is in a production that focuses on other dynamics, derives from an interviewee's answer to the random survey question, 'When have you most felt like an animal?' She describes a casual sexual encounter with a complete stranger in a photo booth on a railway station.

What follows, we must presume, is intended to demonstrate that random actions have far-reaching consequences. In this case, pregnancy, fraught relationships and a custody battle over an unborn child.

 Daniel Crooks video is a potent, frenetic collage of images, data and text that parallel the dialogue.  Stylish visuals by Myers and funny dialogue from characters portrayed by Fiona Todd and Bruce Gladwin are effective and Band of Hope's music provides an edgy background.

Mass runs at breakneck pace but reaches no clear destination. It proposes to investigate mass communication and conformity but inadvertently celebrates the juvenile communication of two adults behaving like tantrum-throwing children. Perhaps other survey questions, "What is the most important relationship in your life?' and 'When have you felt most alone?' might have provided more substantial content. 

This hack may be hooked on old Theatre-in-Education philosophy but what message is this sending? Younger teens might miss the metaphoric and ironic. Older youth could handle more complex analysis of character and theme.

They may simply hear, "Greed is good. Casual sex is hilarious.  Anything and anyone can be bought.' This is not Arena's intended statement but the primary message is blurred. "What happened?" said the 8-year-old behind me at the end.  I didn't know either.

KATE HERBERT

The Three Sisters, Hildegard, Aug 21, 1997

The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

Hildegard at Theatreworks until Sept 7, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 20, 1997

Oh happy days for Chekhov lovers! This week Melbourne-Moscow hosts  – accidentally – twin productions of his classic, The Three Sisters, A.K.A. The Six Sisters or Three Sisters Squared.

Hildegard Theatre Company has a reputation for doing exotic theatre integrating text with music and dance but, in this version of the Sisters, the movement and music are, rather, interpolated amidst the text that is primary. This was surprising but not disappointing.

The sisters Olga, (Angela Campbell), Masha (Bagryana Popov) and Irena (Samantha Bewes) spend their trivial lives in a rural army town in Russia, grieving for their dead father, pining for Moscow where they lived happily until their father removed them to the country after mother died.

Director, David Latham highlights the sense of 'open house'. Officers, civilians, family and friends trail through their museum-like rooms and miserable lives day and night, winter and summer. Everybody 'philosophises' and carps about lost dreams and broken promises. They live in the golden past, complain about the present and hope for a better future in Moscow - or in love. Years pass. Nothing changes. Nobody leaves.

This is a fine ensemble of actors. Campbell brings a vibrancy and stillness to the often stolid Olga and Bewes allows Irena's naivete' and brightness to tarnish as she becomes more jaded. Popov is appropriately languorous as the self-centred Masha. As the manipulative and tasteless Natasha, Caroline Lee is delightfully shrewish and hateful.

Latham keeps the play bouncing along at a cracking pace, always maintaining a state of dissatisfaction and discomfort amongst the population. The humour of Chekhov that glitters amongst the melancholy, is honed to a playful or satirical edge.

Jim Daly as the drunken old Chebutykin, the laconic Greg Ulfan as the stirrer, Solyony and David Wicks as Kulygin, the pedantic school master, all play the dialogue the jokes with excellent comic timing and delivery.

The dialogue emphasises the ecstatic and the melancholic in the Russian temperament. Chekhov had a cruel honesty and a warts and all gaze on all his characters.

The piano (Izabella Mougeraman) and balalaika (Yuriy Mougerman) and strains of Russian song provided a lyrical atmosphere and Peter Long's gorgeous painted scrim is a gift for Paul Jackson's evocative lighting.

The piece could have allowed more silence, pauses and further detail in the characters or relationships. It skipped like a stone over the surface in parts. But I'm being picky.

By Kate Herbert

I Only Want to Be With You- The Dusty Springfield Story, Aug 16, 1997

I Only Want to Be With You- The Dusty Springfield Story
 devised by Terry O'Connell Comedy Club 

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 15, 1997

My neighbouring table at The Dusty Springfield Story had travelled from Adelaide especially for the show and a Melbourne weekend. Now that's dedication.

 The eight of them had a ball, doing the Hitchhiker, the Swim, clapping in time and singing along with Wendy Stapleton and The Stayawhiles.

 Stapleton plays the Diva Dusty in a 60's wig- and costume-fest, the wackier outfits being designed by Laurel Frank. The list of hits is peppered with self-narration, some schmaltzy filler and interesting anecdotes about her childhood, early career with her brother (who wrote 'Georgie Girl') and her eventual image change.

Dusty's hits were manifold and Stapleton gives them new life with her rich and powerful voice. Hers is not an impersonation of Dusty's voice but the tone and style are accurate. She is engaging and warm to the audience who loved her. Her performance is relaxed as only a seasoned professional can be. This show has toured for two years and still has energy and life.

Dusty's hit song list is formidable but the Bert Bacharach/Hal David songs are my favourites: 24 Hours from Tulsa, The Look of Love, This Girl's in Love with You, Anyone who had a Heart. If a song made her weep, she recorded it.

She reveals her struggle to overcome her past as little Mary O'Brien, who looked like a librarian, and to maintain her stage persona as 'the blue-eyed soul singer' as the U.S. dubbed her.

Gossips will relish snippets about Dusty's alcoholism and drug abuse and reputed homosexuality.  She is an icon for gay men and women. The patter has oblique references to lesbianism: "I followed the women's tennis circuit", and later more specific references to her sexual preference.

Musical director, Robert Gavin has wonderful arrangements and is a significant, unobtrusive presence at the grand piano. Backing vocalists, The Stayawhiles, choreographed by Alana Scanlan, have fab voices, lame' minis and the best legs outside Carnaby Street.  Their medleys set the context for 60's U.K. and U.S.

Director, Terry O'Connell, keeps the pace up apart from some dull early patter and utilises Alistair Fleming's set that includes slides of Dusty at various stages of stardom and decline.

If you were there in the 60's or you're a retro aficionado you'll love this show. The Finale, 'You don't have to say you love me' is hot.

By Kate Herbert

The Popular Mechanicals, Aug 8, 1997

The Popular Mechanicals by Keith Robinson, Tony Taylor
 Shakespeare Mudfest

At Dancehouse until August 16, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Hebert around Aug 7, 1997

Acting badly is easy. Pretending to act badly is really difficult. Performing a parody of a Shakespearian comedy that requires comic actors to satirise bad acting is near insanity. Such is the bravado of a group of Melbourne University students as part of the Mudfest.

The Popular Mechanicals is a witty send-up of the "mechanicals" or tradesmen   who rehearse and perform 'the very tragical story of Pyramus and Thisbe' in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.ˇ

Writers, Tony Taylor and Keith Robinson have integrated the original scenes from The Dream with some hilarious backstage Amateur Dramatic Society antics of the characters from the play. They draw on numerous comic styles ranging from Flanagan and Allan vaudeville routines and stand-up comedy to musical comedy chorus lines and puppet play.

The Am-Dram references abound and anyone who has ever rehearsed a classic with an amateur drama club will recognise the rigid artistic hierarchy, theatrical ignorance, waspish behaviour and poor acting of its members. The group's mindless adoration of a ring-in professional artiste from London is a scream, particularly when he is revealed to be a drunken hack with an ego the size of the MCG.

The text is fast and funny if a bit too camp for some tastes. It emphasises word plays and confusions, utilises linguistic and theatrical anachronisms and gives an after-life to these well-loved characters in a simpler manner than does Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but he was adapting from a tragedy, not a romantic comedy.

This student cast, directed by Simon Day who also performs, give the play their all. They are enthusiastic, lively and obviously having a great time that is the whole point of student drama.

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There are a few moments that are in tune with the fast and furious slapstick of the play. The shark puppet aqua-ballet to Strauss is one and the comic business in the background of the Pyramus and Thisbe story is a hoot.

The problem is that the whole piece needs to pace up and cues need to be tightened. Much of the comic 'lazzi' or slapstick is laboured. The cast miss so many of the stylistic allusions and have such limited clown skills that the production is no longer a parody but an example of its comic target.

KATE HERBERT

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