It's A Dad Thing by The Dad's Theatre Group

 at Darebin Arts Centre until March.

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Sleep deprivation, screaming, noises in the night, excrement, incarceration, feelings of incompetence, forgetfulness. No, these are not abuses of prisoners of war but symptoms of new fatherhood.

Daddy walking with zombies is the subject of one scene in the very funny It's a Dad Thing. Dads get no sleep and feel guilty if they do. In fact, much of the content of the show is about feeling guilty and incompetent as a parent.

It is honest, personal and funny. These five 30-something dads, directed by David Lander (OK), wrote the show from their own experience that gives it credibility and guts.

Modern dads are still finding their role. Their models were dads who worked, provided and were absent. "Mother does the nursing, thy father will provide." These young dads are searching in the dark for the rules of being a good dad.

The show is a series of sketches, songs and monologues that reveal the hilarious, painful and poignant moments of fatherhood.

All five attend ante-natal classes in which the fascist midwife torments them with their gender, their ignorance and the impending bloodbath which is childbirth.

Geoff Paine is hilariously accurate in his portrayal of a dad who spends hours patting baby to sleep only to hear the traitorous floorboards creak and wake bub as he creeps out.

Michael Fry forgets his son's birthday then loses one child in the park. Colin James, living the isolated life of a house-husband, must admit he cannot cope alone. Matthew Green sings a beautiful song to his own father and Lliam Amor plays Superdad and makes a list of adorable things about babies.

The impact of children on relationships is highlighted. Sex, or rather the absence of it, features.  Mum feels fat and exhausted. Dad can never say the right thing. When he falls into a "fat trap" or makes the mistake of telling the truth about looking at other women, he calls "Bloke Line" for advice.

The show has variety and skill .It is a far better written and more theatrical piece than Mum's The Word and should haul in a huge audience of dad and mums. Perhaps blokes will go to the pub for a beer then to the theatre for a blokes night out to chuckle over their fatherly foibles.

by Kate Herbert

The Torch, Feb 12 2000

by The Torch Company

at North Melbourne Town Hall until February 20, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The last fifteen minutes of The Torch are filled with potent images and powerful, passionate social commentary. Even after the curtain call, the poignancy continues with Uncle Emanuel Cooper, elder of the Yorta Yorta tribe, singing "In the Sweet By and By".

The Torch is community theatre at its most engaging and effective. It combines professional artists with members of the community, most of whom are non-Anglo Australians, either Kooris or immigrants from all continents. The result is a vibrant, colourful and heartfelt production.

The issues arising are those inherent in our multicultural country. We confront racism, poverty, abuse, conservatism, homelessness and despair. But we also see a growing sense of community and acceptance, some steps toward reconciliation and a pride in our past, wherever it was.

Director, Stefo Nantsou has a deft hand. He devised a clever and socially challenging script with input from the company of actors. He cultivates a fine level of performance in a group of largely non-professional actors.

There are several threads to the story. In Tidy Town in country Australia, the community prepares for the Olympic Torch to be carried through the town. Local resident, Rose (Andrea James) attends her mother's funeral with her father, Bill. (Steve Payne)

Her journey through grief takes her to the city where she confronts hostels, housing commission flats and the ethnic diversity that was absent from her rural life.

The most significant meeting is with an old Koori, Uncle Shady, (Tony Briggs) who knows more about Rose and her past than Rose herself. Rose must reassess who she is, here she fits in and how to live her life.

Nadja Kostich is luminous as the persecuted Serbian immigrant and Sally Mwangola has great dignity as the wife of a Kenyan doctor. Jim Daly is versatile in several roles.

Nantsou creates some truly magical and painful images amongst a stage set of grey boxes. Cultural icons, such as the Unknown Soldier, collide with aboriginal ghosts. A settlement of Kooris are violently moved from their land. Tidy Town residents mass to watch the Torch run .

The international Olympic coverage cameras capture Rose's exceptionally creative no-violent protest action in Tidy Town. It makes a gloriously poetic and admirable ending to this delightful and emotional play.

by Kate Herbert

Killing Time, Feb 12 2000

by Richard Stockwell

Young Roy at Chapel off Chapel until February 27, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Killing Time. If you place the emphasis on the first word it means one thing. If it is on the second the whole meaning alters. This is the intention of English playwright, Richard Stockwell, in his clever thriller of the same name.

The layers keep peeling away as the action advances in Killing Time. The two characters, Rick (Stephen Hayden) and Jane, (Teresa Duke) initially appear simply to be involved in an afternoon seduction. Slowly, the story becomes more complex and the onion layers more numerous as the two reveal one murky secret after another.

The play begins at Rick's rented furnished apartment. He accepted a lift home from Jane after he 'rescued' her at the check-out in the supermarket when she is caught without her wallet.

Rick reveals little until his temper flares. He is dangerous, she is fascinated, or perhaps just bored or angry with her husband and ready to punish him with an affair with some 'rough trade'.

The tension is relentless in Stockwell's script. It smacks of 40's film noir: the rich vamp with a rough husband accused of murdering his mistress meets a rough trade ex-convict masquerading as a corporate executive. Bacall and Bogart could play it with panache.

This competent production, directed by Hayden and Marco Lawrence, is interesting but such a classic murder mystery should be compelling.

The stage craves a more subtle design, atmospheric soundscape and deep shadows thrown against the walls to provide a brooding, secretive tone. There is simply too much light and too little atmosphere on stage.

Hayden plays the attractive but oafish Rick with a roughhouse charm and Duke is credible as the bored, rich wife. The two actors find something of the thriller in the performance but the space is never genuinely dangerous, even when some very violent action takes place.

Stockwell's writing is rhythmic, dramatic and well crafted as a mystery. They need to let go the reins and play the style to give the piece its dynamic range.

by Kate Herbert

Satellite of Love, Feb 10, 2000

 by Ross Mueller

at Trades Hall  until February 26, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The joys of camping are a mystery to me. There you are, incarcerated in a tiny, steamy, plastic teepee: no room to move, no air to breathe, a long sprint to the loo, loud, drunken neighbours, mud when it rains, mozzies when it's hot. Where's the fun in that? Give me hot running water and a comfy bed any day.

Satellite of Love is close to camping hell.  The play, by Ross Mueller, is set in a cruddy camping ground forty kilometres from Adelaide. Jake (Chris Uhlmann) and his partner Peta (Carmen Mascia) stay there to save money while working the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Proximity, poverty, heat and Adelaide are like dynamite for their relationship. It needs only a detonator to blow it.

Then a child, Damien, five years old, appears in their tent and stays. With little or no evidence, they believe he is abused by his 'Uncle' so they decide to 'save' him. In fact, they kidnap him.

There are some good moments in this play, particularly in the first half. The premise has potential. The actors narrate the story as well as playing all the ancillary characters. Peta and Jake play car games to stay awake, test each other's knowledge of song lyrics, but mostly they get on each other's nerves.

Both actors play the child who talks a lot for a child described as uncannily quiet. Mascia has a naivete and warmth. Uhlmann is lively although his various characters lack clear differentiation.

The script shifts between narration, short poetic monologues, clipped word plays and more naturalistic scenes.  It rambles and does not settle on a style. The writer's intention is not clear in the end.

The theme of violence exacerbated by claustrophobic heat is interesting. However, the true story of the boy's family life as well as his relationship with the Peta and Jake are abandoned when they takes him on the road.

The narrative goes off on a detour that obscures the issues leaving threads of story incomplete. It hurtles too quickly to an unsatisfying ending.

Elissa Anson's canvas design is simple and effective and Kim Baston's soundscape is unobtrusive. Director, Lyn Coleman, uses a style reminiscent of Theatre in Education. It is peppy and light but it loses much of the darker side of the kidnap and what follows.

by Kate Herbert

Transporting Art (Tramsporting Art) Feb 10, 2000

Transporting Art (Tramsporting Art), Article

Feb 5, 2000

Writer: Kate Herbert

Whatever happened to those bizarre and controversial painted trams that livened up our roads in the 80's?

The trams, decorated by major artists, were valuable cultural and financial assets to our community but they disappeared off our roads without even an annoying ding of a tram bell to herald their mass exodus.

Norm Cross, tram afficionado and supervisor at Preston tramways depot, has the answer. The first 16, painted in the late 70's, were lost to us when they were sold at public auction to Jim Johnston, an individual who proposed to make a public display of them .

This group were wooden body trams which deteriorated from neglect and exposure.

"They were parked on a site, sitting on blocks and they started to crack and bend and twist and windows were broken," Cross recalls.

For financial reasons, they were sold on again but, this time, they started to leave the country - until the government and National Trust stopped their passports.

The painted tram history started in a restaurant in Collins Street in the late 1970's. Clifton Pugh, who was an ALP supporter, had lunch with Sir Rupert Hamer An all-over advertising tram passed by and Pugh suggested painting one himself. Hamer put it to parliament where both sides of the house supported the idea . The rest is art history.

Six trams were painted by major Australian artists as part of the first campaign. In August 1978, Mirka Mora painted the first tram, followed by Andrew Southall, Mike Brown, Les Kossatz then, in November, Clifton Pugh and Peter Corrigan.

The six were the beginning of a revolutionary form of public art known as Transporting Art. Another ten were commissioned by The Victorian Ministry for the Arts (now Arts Victoria) and Ministry of Transport through the Tramways. By 1982, there were 16 rolling artworks on our tram tracks.

Another 19 were commissioned by government in the early 80's and sponsors were attached to help maintain them. This entire second set was conserved. They are now hibernating in the Newport Tram Workshops, safe from marauding foreign buyers but unappreciated by all but tramway workers.

The first group was less fortunate. Four escaped to the USA- two to Memphis, one to Seattle and another to an unknown destination. Two are owned by a Perth hotel, one is running in Bendigo. A couple were rescued and preserved in back yards of art lovers.

Mirka Mora's angel-covered tram is the happiest. She is nestled in a beautiful garden in Mt Eliza with a foster family. Her natural mum is still in contact.

Howard Arkley's tram now resides in Seymour. Cross recalls it was in a head-on collision. "One end was bashed in and it was never repaired."

Clifton Pugh's tram still sits at Preston awaiting a facelift by one of Pugh's apprentices. One side was wiped out in an accident, says Cross. Sponsors agreed to pay for maintenance and upkeep but many were less than reliable foster parents. Pugh agreed to repaint it himself for nix when he returned from Paris but he died before he could finish it.

Michael Nation, Acting Visual Arts Executive when Transporting Art began recalls one of the great assets of the project.

"There was a wonderful interface between the artists and the tramways apprentices."

Some young signwriters were even invited to help with the paintings in the mode of the Rennaisance schools

Brian Carter supervised the tramways painting workshop and was part of the panel which judged the fist competiton for designs. Each artist did a painting for him, based on the pallette used in his or her tram.  He has thirty mementos of the project. Lucky Brian!

There are some tram horror stories too. One sad little car was hacked in half and attached to Hungry Jack's in Melton. It has disappeared, according to a young burger manager.

Several were broken up or damaged. The funky tram by pop band Mental as Anything was painted over. "It was out of their hands", Cross remembers. The cars were no longer the property of the Tramways or Arts Victoria, so no more could be done to reclaim them.

Peter Corrigan's tram was the most controversial and was taken of the road when it caused a furore in 1979. It flew Japanese flags. One side read, "Sayonara Koala" the other, "Mother Knows". The tramways Union and the public saw this as a swipe at Australian World War Two veterans.

From the 21st century, the uproar seems an overreaction  Bring back the painted trams- even the naughty ones! Melbourne loved them!

by Kate Herbert

Song For A Siren & Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl, Feb 4, 2000

Two Shows:

Song For A Siren by Santha Press

Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl  by Yumi Umiumare

 at Gasworks until February 13, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Sirens may be divinely beautiful and sing songs to melt the hearts of men but let's face it. They are nasty baggages that lure men and their boats onto the rocks to drown.

In Santha Press's musical theatre show, Song For The Siren, Flo dreams of being a siren as she luxuriates in her 30's style iron bath. On the outside, in the real world, she's just some chick with low self-esteem who stammers idiotically when flirting with "petrol station man".

Unfortunately, fantasy does not meet reality. When the romance with petrol boy develops, he is dull, dull, dull.

Original music is played by Lliam Freeman who is also a co-writer of some songs. Some tunes, such as Song For The Siren, have a lyrical quality while others are more bluesy. Press is best when singing in her upper register.

The show integrates the two threads of story and adds some striking visual images on a shadow screen. There is however, something uncomfortable in Press's performance.

The more bizarre, colourful and compelling of the two shows in this season, is Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl by Yumi Umiumare with Matt Crosby and Ben Rogan. 

Tokyo Shock Boys are a Japanese trio of loud annoying boys who think it's hilarious to wrap yourself in a plastic bag on stage till you go blue. The satire of Yumi's title is obvious. 

"DasSHOKU" means "bleached" but is also a pun on a Japanese word meaning approximately "unemployment".

Yumi is a skilful Japanese Butoh dancer interested in the collision of the grotesque and the suburban which creates the ridiculous.

Some of the vignettes are beautiful, stylised physical theatre enhanced by industrial or pop music and Japanese theatre forms. Others are absurd takes on fashion, cuteness in Japan, obsessive priest-like characters, geisha, karaoke and sumo wrestlers.

There is even some kooky audience participation. It seems Yumi did not recognise this theatre critic who was dragged on stage with a man and a cockroach for company, only to be gargled on from on high.

This is pretty bent cabaret, but good entertainment.

by Kate Herbert

Three Hotels, Feb 3 2000

 by Jon Robin Baitz

 at La Mama until February 13, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Remember the uproar in the western world when Nestles sold baby formula to the third world? Women in Africa had no clean water, could not read the directions, did not understand how to prepare it, diluted it to make it last longer. Children died.

Three Hotels, by US playwright Jon Robin Baitz, is a play with this issue at its core. Kenneth Hoyle (Jeff Keogh OK) is marketing manager for an American company selling formula to developing nations. The problem is that US companies have not helped them develop very far.

Ken became hardened and unscrupulous after a tragic incident in his family. His wife, Barbara, (Susan Gorence) is shattered by the deterioration in her husband's ethics. The couple used to be in the idealistic Peace Corps that offered truly unprejudiced and non-profit aid to countries in need.

Ken and Barb - the resemblance to that similarly named plastic couple must be intentional - are seen in three hotels in three cities: Morocco, The Carribean and Mexico. At each point, the marriage has collapsed a little further while Ken's career seems to be rising - or is it?

The corporate world cares nothing for loyalty. Sales figures, corporate image and the matching designer wife mean everything. Redundancy is a mere slip of the tongue away.

The play raises harsh issues about capitalism and America's relentless abuse and exploitation of third world markets. "People are not real "to these corporate raiders. Community does not exist. Christianity is what we do on Sundays and donations are what we give to presidential candidates.

This production, directed simply by Ezra Bix, maintains an intimate style. Voices are low, actors talk to the audience. Keogh plays Ken as "the gentleman farmer" who lulls clients and staff into a false security. Gorence, as Barb, provides the heart and a sense of anguish.

 Often, the performances are so restrained that the voices are inaudible However, the main drawback in this style is that the dynamic range of this dark and emotional drama is lost. there is passion in both of these characters: love and anger need to be given their heads at some time.

The results of the western world's greed is not merely damage to the third world. Our ethics and our relationships suffer too.

by Kate Herbert

Miles Franklin and The Rainbow's End, Feb 3, 2000

Miles Franklin and The Rainbow's End  by Julia Britton

at Theatre Works until February 12, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

People's lives do not have a dramatic arc; they do not have a climactic event at the appropriate moment to make good drama. It is essential then to take liberties if we do not want to see a play that simply rises and falls until - well, until it stops.

Julia Britton has written a number of literary adaptations for stage, many of which have been directed by Robert Chuter. The latest is Miles Franklin and The Rainbow's End which strolls through the entire lifetime of the Australian writer from 1879 to 1954.

Rebecca Davis is a pretty and engaging Miles who is known as Stella. She talks to the audience and other invisible characters including family, publishers, writers and artists. She is flirted with by Norman Lindsay and Banjo Patterson, befriended by Henry Lawson and his wife.

Davis gives life to Britton's dialogue and effectively creates Stella, a resilient, progressive early feminist. Stella lives in a constant tug-of-war between pursuing a writing career and the pressure to marry that she knows will destroy any hope of a future as a writer.

The performance is set on a very restricted space, which this show shares with Chuter's other production, Homme Fatale. Davis sits at a writing desk, prowls around it as if caged in her various abodes in rural New South Wales, Sydney, Europe or America.

The action is episodic. She fights off unwanted attentions in Chicago, marches for women's suffrage in London, battles the malaria mosquito and war in Macedonia.

It is a courageous life but Franklin failed to succeed in publication after her first novel, My Brilliant Career, which she wrote as a teenager. After she was found to be female, little she wrote reached the printed page.

Ironically, she was published later in life under yet another male pseudonym, Brent of Bin Bin. Her battle to change the prejudice about women as writers was still unsuccessful.

The lack of dynamic development in the narrative leaves the ending of the play an anti-climax. Such a densely written text leaves little room for action or innovation on stage.

 by Kate Herbert

Homme Fatale , Feb 1, 2000

by Barry Lowe

 at Theatreworks until February 12, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Joey Stefano was famous for his bottom. We have to presume his bottom was spectacular because it made him a porn star and a sexual icon for both gay men and straight women. Some bottom, I say.

Of course, "bottom" was also a deprecatory term for the passive partner in anal sex. Joey, who was born just plain old white trash, Italo-Americano, Nick Iacona, craved attention - and sex. The ideal way to satisfy both needs was to make porn movies. His mother called him "an old whore with a drug problem". She was right too.

Barry Lowe's play, Homme Fatale, is a solo play performed by Stuart Halusz . Halusz's bottom features quite prominently too. He is naked at least fifty percent of the 90 minutes which probably roughly equal to Joey's own nakedness-to-time ratio.

This outer perimeter of the gay scene is always an eye-opener for those, like me, who live a sheltered existence in ordinary-land. If this were a television movie it would say, "Sex scenes, language, violence, drugs." Wear your sunglasses.

Halusz is a good actor with an exceptionally sinewy body and sweet face. His is a valiant performance as the beautiful and desperate joey as he overdoses on celebrity, degradation, lust and drugs - lots of drugs.

It is Halusz's sweetness that separates him from Joey. Joey was pure sex on screen and stage. He was fleshy, rough-edged with that inimitable Latin, seductive raunchiness. Halusz is good but he is not quite Joey.

Joey talks constantly, apart from a couple of awkward dance routines. Lowe makes him talk about every thought, every move across the country, every action, every sexual act. The production would be enhanced by some liberal cutting of text

Director, Robert Chuter, keeps the pace cracking, which is the way Joey lived until he died from an overdose in an LA motel room at the age of twenty-six. He killed himself with  "Special K", an animal anaesthetic.

Chuter has Halusz trapped on a narrow film set. Only his clothes and props are tossed out of frame. It is claustrophobic. After ninety minutes, we need some other dramatic action. Couldn't he climb the ladders at the edges of the set?

by Kate Herbert

Secret Bridesmaids' Business, Jan 29, 2000

 by Elizabeth Coleman

at Merlin Theatre, Malthouse until February 19, 2000

 Further Melbourne and regional shows in August

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The bridesmaids are back and this time they are going on tour!

Secret Bridesmaids' Business was a box office hit last year for Playbox and writer, Elizabeth Coleman. It is a light comedy that appeals to a wide audience because it deals with a topic everyone knows: love and marriage, or more specifically, weddings.

Enormous weddings may seem to be out of vogue but look around Parliament house on a Saturday afternoon when the photographers are hunting the perfectly memorable wedding snap. Everybody wants the perfect photo album and idyllic memories of a sunny day with no hitches.

Meg Bacon (Jane Hall) , at thirty-three, wants a white wedding, with matching bridesmaids' shoes and the ideal husband. Of course, the wedding is really her mother, Colleen's, dream. (Joan Sydney) and nothing will stop her getting the wedding she wants for her daughter. What would the neighbours think?

Meg is facing disaster on her wedding eve. Her two girlfriends, the thoroughly modern and promiscuous Lucy (Kate Jackson) and suburban mum, Angela, (Roz Hammond) have an awful secret.

They must decide whether to tell Meg that her fiance, James (Scott Irwin) is having an affair with another girlfriend, Naomi (Nicole Nabout).

What would you do? Check that it is true first, of course. Then panic? To tell or not to tell. Angela values discretion as the better part of friendship, Lucy prides herself on her honesty.

Neither can protect Meg who will be damaged by knowing or not knowing. Essentially, they can't win. James has betrayed their beloved friend and they can't change that.

Nobody thinks of forcing the groom to admit his sin himself. That's odd.

This show, directed by Catherine Hill  and designed by Shaun Gurton, is a remount with only two of the original six cast. Joan Sydney is still sensationally funny and poignant as the demanding, sulky Colleen. Jackson captures the provocative directness of Lucy.

After only two weeks rehearsal, the new cast members look very uncomfortable and the characters are not fully developed yet. Comic timing is essential to this play. it is a series of very funny gags which need strong characters to deliver them with precise timing.

The production has a long run coming so it will certainly tighten up but something of the wicked playfulness of the original ensemble is missing in this remount.

by Kate Herbert for 2 pag

Company, Jan 26, 2000

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim book by George Furth

 Melbourne Theatre Company at Playhouse until February 26, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stephen Sondheim grew up next door to Oscar Hammerstein; any wonder he writes such terrific musicals?

The difference between Sondheim and other major musical theatre writers is that his songs are less recognisable, less hummable, less critically accepted in their time.

He broke the mould of conventional musical by choosing a non-linear narrative. They focus on ideas and emotion rather than romance - which is not to say that Company is not about love.

Sondheim dives into the mind of Bobby, (Peter Cousens) an attractive, single New Yorker who yearns for a marriage which equals those of his coupled friends. We see Bobby on his thirty-fifth birthday when he discovers that his married friends are throwing him a surprise party that night.

Bobby's memories about the couples, and his relationships with them, are the core of the show. The musical, first produced on Broadway in 1970, is based on Playlets, a series of vignettes about relationships written by George Furth.

 Bobby visits friends, all of whom adore him, want him to be happy, to marry, to remain single, to be theirs, (even the men) to be what they can no longer be. No wonder he's confused and commitment-shy.

Cousens is charming and in fine voice as Bobby. The show is directed stylishly by Simon Phillips on a glass-walled design. It is as if we are looking into mirrors: at ourselves, our friends, our own lives.

Sondheim's music is delightfully interpreted by a nine-piece band under musical director Ian McDonald.. Company boasts the haunting song, Being Alive,  sung with bitter-sweetness by Cousens, and the witty and poignant Ladies Who Lunch which is sung with exceptional warmth and anguish by Caroline Gillmer.

You Could Drive a Person Crazy is rendered with colour and pizzazz by Helen Buday, Paula Arundell, and Charmaine Clements playing Bobby's  =three lovers. The tongue-twisting Getting Married Today, sung with hilarious marriage phobia by Christen O'Leary, was a huge hit.

All members of this versatile, vibrant cast, sing as well as they act. Nicki Wendt, Annie Wilson, Rachael Tidd, Gillmer and O'Leary play the wives. Jeremy Stanford, Colin Lane, Robert Grubb, Philip Gould and Gary Down, play the husbands.

Sondheim touches hearts, challenges lives and musical traditions. It is a joy to watch this production.

by Kate Herbert

In a Soul, Jan 25, 2000

 by Four on the Floor

La Mama at the Courthouse until February 12, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Have you ever had a week when every event, conversation, movie and book seems to be about the same idea? This week, everybody and everything is talking to me about the soul;

Well, its not only about the soul, but notions of change, living in the present, life not being a rehearsal, moments of bliss and "carpe diem". Get the picture?

The most recent bubble of such philosophy was In A Soul by Four On The Floor. (Rosina Gannon, Charlie Laidlaw, Georgia Power, Kim Leeanda Wilson) It is an engaging toddle around the human soul.

The soul always looked, in my imagination, like a whole peanut. It was cloudy with patches of grey, depending on how naughty you were.

The charm of Four on the Floor is twofold. They combine honest and unpretentious personal stories with very neatly crafted form.

Greg Dyson directs them stylishly, keeping the show bouncing along with few hiccups, no dull spots and lots of satisfyingly crisp stylisation.

Snatches of text are drawn from sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss, Carl Jung and Emily Dickinson (queen of the death poem).All of the writers are concerned with concepts of self, dreams, visions, death, the bizarre, joy and despair.

Four strangers travel on a train. The beginning of their journey is repeated. They each have long tracts of boredom. They also have moments of insight which are actually when our souls "drop in".

Actually, they are dropped in by soul droppers who hover over us, pick the moment. Then they celebrate their success in giving us heightened experiences, startling visions and spontaneous joy.

We see the women sleep and dream. We see them die and witness the retrieval of the "black box" which records our lives and is replayed in our final moments.

Four on the Floor capture in clown, movement, song (Chris Falk) and story, the sheer ridiculousness and beauty of our lives and the incredulity with which we face each magical crazy day.

Life is a gift, isn't it?

by Kate Herbert

New Work in Australian Theatre Writing, Jan 22, 2000

New Work in Australian Theatre Writing: themes, content and style

Writer: Kate Herbert

Jan 22, 2000

It has always been the responsibility of artists to reflect and critique the society in which we live. Playwrights observe our political, historical and psychological behaviour, often with devastating accuracy.

Theatre, it may be argued, is in the vanguard of social change. Some argue that radical theatre merely reflects change immediately after it has occurred.

In Eastern Europe, writers were compelled to disguise their political concerns. In order not to be arrested for treason, they buried their arguments for social change within allegories. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Eastern bloc artists were left with no beast of conservatism to fight. Theatre companies disintegrated.

Last year, nine years after the Berlin Wall came down, the leftist Berliner Ensemble, fonded by Bertolt Brecht, closed its doors. The older artists just stopped wanting to fight.

So what are the themes and styles that are preoccupying our own playwrights in this rapidly changing world? It seems that the future, the economy, technology, feminism, history, families and relationships are on the top of our playwrights’ lists of topics.

Kate Cherry, Associate Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, suggests there is a plethora of styles but she observes three main themes prevalent in new writing by major playwrights.

Firstly, Cherry observes writers "re-examining our place in Asia". Louis Nowra's Language of the Gods set in Indonesia, queries the impact of Dutch colonisation. Adam May's Rising Fish Prayer criticises Australia's role in New Guinea

Secondly, Cherry sees writers "examining the effects of economic rationalism and what happens if our world becomes more technological." The corporatisation of universities features in Hannie Rayson's play, Life After George. In Woman at the Window, Alma de Groen postulates a world in which poetry is a dangerous but marketable commodity.

Finally, says Cherry, playwrights are questioning "what it is to be in a post-modern family ... and how families are breaking down and re-forming" into non-traditional groups.

"Is it mum, grandpa and children?", Cherry asks. The Sick Room by Stephen Sewell, Burnt Piano by Justin Fleming and Joanna Murray-Smith's Nightfall, all attempt to penetrate the dark morass which is the family in crisis.

In the first, a daughter dies, the second a mother obsesses about a famous man while ignoring her child's needs, and in Nightfall, parents struggle with their daughter's accusations of incest.

Liz Jones, Artistic Director of La Mama describes the content in fringe writers' work similarly. She sees many new writers expressing "concerns about the future (and) what kind of society we want."

They ask, Jones says, "How a community relates to its history, how the future relates to the past, how we can have a caring sharing society, how the personal relates to the technological."

Sam Sejavka's Eaters of Filth challenges our obsession with youth and longevity. Raimondo Cortese, in Features of Blown Youth, examines the inner-urban angst of young people as does Christos Tsiolkas in Viewing Blue Poles.

Jones also sees "a strong feminist thrust which is not overt... Both men and women are considering the position of women in history". A few years ago, according to Jones, women were writing about relationships and doing solo shows.

"They are writing more broadly now, which is a statement of their confidence. They are not writing just for themselves now and not just for women."

Tom Healy, Artistic Associate at Playbox Theatre, sees two categories of styles in the unsolicited plays arriving at Playbox.

"palys by young writers in their 20's to early 30's, have a filmic influence, are naturalistic in style, with chopped up scenes, out of order but not abstract.". Their content, observes Healy, is often "grungey, drug-ridden, nihilistic, expressing a high level of despair."

The other prevalent style Healy describes as "aren't we quirky". situation-based naturalism.

The younger writers are not focussed on the political, Healy and Jones agrees. Whereas established playwrights such as Nowra, Hall, Rayson and Williamson, investigate political issues.

The major playwrights are also using naturalistic dialogue accompanied by broader metaphorical stories visions and language Healy believes that "the prevailing critical attitude is that naturalism is somehow less worthy than the larger landscape." 

.

Healy sees four of the major plays in the Playbox 1999 season,

as having "a sense of disease.... They reflect a fractured and uncertain society."

Tom Consadine at MTC, also reads unsolicited plays. Many, by middle-class, middle-aged white writers, voice concerns with aboriginality and reconciliation.

This is also true of Return to the Brink by Rodney Hall. It has elements of naturalism in the Australian historical and political landscape. It investigates the Mile creek massacre.

The other area that is very successful is drawing on television comedy. Secret Bridesmaid's Wedding by Elizabeth Coleman is a very funny situation comedy.

The content of our new work seems mainly concerned with social change and has a distressed rather than joyous quality. We are riddled with questions about the rightness of our journey into the 21st century.

Perhaps we need more Secret Bridesmaid's Weddings, which is a comic island in a sea of pain. I mean, you've gotta laugh!

By Kate Herbert

Midsumma Night's Scream, Jan 21, 2000

Midsumma Night's Scream by Lieder of The Pack

at Chapel off Chapel, Jan 20  until Feb 2000

Midsumma Festival

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The gay culture certainly stakes a claim on particular icons of the music and music theatre world. Streisand, Diana Ross, Madonna, Shirley Bassey and both Minogues are the property of the gay world.

Such blatant appropriation and obsession cries out loud to be ridiculed. Ron Bell's satirical lecture is undiscovered treasure. In Midsumma Night's Scream he presents a sardonic and often vitriolic  analysis of gay icons and pop music.

Bell presents his glib and hilarious opinions as pseudo-academic links between songs by cabaret group, Lieder of the Pack. (Renee Cash, Connie Panagakis, Ian Sequeira, Matthew Richardson).

Songs are bastardised for comedy. I Go To Rio is sung to the tune of Don't Cry Out Loud. Torn Between Two Lovers becomes a renaissance madrigal. Locomotion is sung backwards to reveal itself as Kylie's satanic plot to recruit lesbians. He subtitles her songs to reveal that her real sentiments are mere moneymaking ploys.

Bell uses low-tech projections to illustrate his point. He demonstrates the continuum of gay musical tastes from bisexual to university educated opera queens, from techno to Celine Dion. His flow chart is a comedy highlight.

The voices of the four singers carry the pop tunes commendably. This is a very entertaining show. However, opening night felt awkward and under-rehearsed. The singers badly need some 'attitude'. They seemed uncertain how to deliver the comedy.

The satirical edge was left to the deadpan Bell who delivers his gags tongue-in-cheek. His theory, which blows the lid off myths surrounding The Carpenters, is a treat. Bell is a truly gifted comedy writer.

With pianist, Warwick Sharpin they do fine renditions of ABBA songs, musical comedy tunes, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, YMCA, Carpenter and Minogue songs.

Director, Luke Gallagher, keeps the pace moving. However, the segues between Bell's jokes and songs are clumsy. The most successful moments are when the songs overlap and collide with the dialogue and gags. Otherwise, the format is fragmented. Songs and jokes were disconnected and links were tenuous.

There are moments when they try to do songs seriously that is out of step with the tone of the evening. With some smart restructuring, tight changes and slick technology, this could be a fabulous cabaret evening.

by Kate Herbert

Prodigal Son, Jan 19, 2000

 Music by Mathew Frank, lyrics  & book by Dean Bryant 

at Chapel off Chapel until February 5, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

New Australian musicals are thin on the ground. The reason is not lack of talent but a lack of courage on behalf of producers and audience to take a punt on a no-name show. Lloyd-Webber, vapid as his work is, gets the hype and the ticket sales. More shame us.

Prodigal Son, with a cast of five, is the product of two 23-year-olds with a pack of skills, both of whom were trained at WAAPA musical theatre course in Perth.

 Composer, Mathew Frank, the sole musician on stage, draws on a number of musical theatre traditions. His tunes are singable and diverse.

Dean Bryant's lyrics are clever, often witty and tell the story clearly and succinctly through song.

In fact, the lyrics develop characters and narrative more effectively than does the dialogue. The spoken scenes lack emotional depth and range. This could be the area which needs attention in any reworking before a major season.

The story addresses the tumultuous changes experienced by Luke, a young man who leaves his family home in Eden, a paradise on the coast.

He goes to university in Sydney and there finally admits he is gay. In his confusion he parties too hard, fails his course, takes too many drugs and finally overdoses.

The voices are uneven in quality but the strongest is Barry Mitchell as dad. He brings great warmth to the role. Bryant is credible as the naive Luke. As mum, Jules Hutchinson is a perfect anzac-baking CWA mother.

Graham Pages is versatile in two roles: lover and brother. Amanda Levy as Maddy has a very light but peppy show-tune voice.

Director, Kris Stewart, has kept the style simple and the pace swift on an almost empty stage.

The show is a coming-of-age, coming-out story but it is primarily a tale about family. How does a young man deal with his "difference"? How do mum and dad from a conservative country town, cope with a gay son? What is maleness? How do we protect our children and still give them the freedom to be different from us?

Some of the messages are clumsily rendered but it is redeemed the honesty and commitment of the writers to the material, as well as its fine musicality..

by Kate Herbert

Judy Garland Slept Here & Full Frontal Male Nudity , Jan 16, 2000

 by Mark Dunn 

Midsumma Festival

at David Williamson Theatre until Feb, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Mark Dunn is a very clever playwright. His short plays cunningly address issues surrounding homosexuality in our presumably tolerant society.

Judy Garland Slept Here is the more sophisticated of the two plays in this program, which is part of the Midsumma Festival. Surprising events take place in Blythe Corners, a small town somewhere in the profoundly conservative and hypocritically religious southern states of America.

The premise is hilarious. All the men in town are suddenly coming out of the closet. All admit to being kissed by Judy Garland immediately before their first homo-erotic tingling. It had to be Judy who kissed them. No other Hollywood star has quite the same gay icon status.

Dunn has crafted the narrative skilfully. It is a satirical social commentary disguised as fluff. The denouement arising out of the bizarre story, is credible and carries a clear message. Dunn is committed to informing the broader community and shattering gay stereotypes. He is not telling us all to come out.

The second play is a meringue after the main course but, nonetheless, makes a clear point about gay male behaviour. Four anxious and under-confident gay men want to protest the closure of a nude gay beach but are too coy, closeted or embarrassed to march naked through the streets.

Their journey to confident, full-frontal nudity in the privacy of an apartment is a journey towards understanding that not all gay men are pretty exhibitionists with tight bottoms and sleek pecs. The gay club world makes these men invisible and insecure because they do not fit the cover-boy image. Sound familiar?

The performances are uneven in quality but the plays are no less enjoyable. Director, William Prior, (OK) has kept the pace swift and the characters broad. It is a pity he did not transpose the stories to Australia.

Christopher White (is versatile as the interviewer in Judy Garland and the geek in Full Frontal. Peter Montgomery has fun with multiple roles in Judy, particularly the motel owner, Duke. Sean Ladhams is entertaining and credible as the "outed" town copper.

It is a relief to see some strong writing in the Midsumma Festival which addresses more than the drag shows or innuendo-ridden comedy which often flood the gay entertainment scene.

by Kate Herbert

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Jan 8, 2000

Adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Avon Productions at Rippon Lea

Wed to Sun until January 30, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Several elements keep an audience interested in this production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Not the least is the stately and beautiful gardens of Rippon Lea. Another is Conan Doyle's clever careful disguising of the real murderer.

This theatricalised version of the novel is adapted and directed by Gerard Cogley who also plays Sherlock Holmes' assistant, Dr. Watson.

Cogley's production take advantage of the lush environs without wheeling us around like supermarket trolleys to different sites. Three sites are sufficient.

The finals scene casts the lake as Great Grimpen Mire into which the villain plunges to his gruesome death. Conan Doyle, and indeed Holmes, enjoyed natural justice.

Interiors at Baker Street, London and of Baskerville Hall, are represented simply with a couple of pieces of furniture. The atmosphere is enhanced by live violin and simple but effective lighting (Andrew Casey).

In case you do not know the tale of the hell-hound, here it is. Holmes is employed to solve the death of  the head of the Baskerville family. He appears to have been frightened to death by a giant, supernatural hound.

Surprisingly, he sends Watson to investigate a threat against the new lord of the manor, a young American, Sir Henry Baskerville.

The servants, the locals, an escaped convict are all suspects but the eerie howl of a hound on the moors keeps the myth of the monster alive.

The denouement is played out very effectively in a dense (artificially induced) fog by the lake.

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The performances are uneven in quality and the two women's voices (Fiona Harris, Niniane Le Page) are inaudible outdoors, a problem which could easily be solved.

Cogley captures the gentle blustering and warmth of Watson and Donald Baigent is a dashing and intense figure as the smug Holmes. Christopher Broadstock is versatile in a number of roles as is Dennis Manahan. Mike McLeish is credible as the youthful Sir Henry.

The show could tighten up its scene changes enormously and some pauses within scenes could happily cut fifteen minutes off it. However it is good, light summer outdoors entertainment for the family.

by Kate Herbert

Life After George, Jan 7, 2000

 by Hannie Rayson Melbourne Theatre Company

at Fairfax Studio until February 12, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Hannie Rayson's play, Life After George, sneaks up on you. It begins as a political-sociological analysis then segues into the deeper personal-psychological mire of a dead man and the women in his life.

Peter George, (Richard Piper) a radical Marxist historian, dies in a light plane crash. His three wives Beatrix, (Julia Blake) Lindsay (Sue Jones) and Poppy (Mandy McElhinney) and his daughter, Ana (Asher Keddie)  attend his funeral with George's close friend, Duffy. (Rhys McConnochie)

Rayson's play has a complex construction which shifts in time through George's chequered academic and emotional life. His politics are the focus of the first half. We move between his early radicalism in Paris during the 1968 riots, his academic rise in Melbourne in the 70's and his opposition to the corporatisation of universities in the 90's.

George is a charismatic and romantic academic. He is reminiscent of those heady 70's university days when lecturers slept with students uncriticised and sex was part of the curriculum.

The play considers the despair of abandoned wives and their children. It confronts the anguish wrought by a self-centred man who supported the world but not those he loved.

It questions whether it is a feminist action for Lindsay to surpass men in her academic career and whether the post-modern detachment of the 90's young woman is a betrayal of feminism.

It criticises the demise of our academic institutions as they fall victim to sponsorship deals and turn to vocational training. We are producing business fodder, not educated citizens.

Kate Cherry's direction is swift, simple and seamless and design  (Richard Roberts) lighting (David Murray) and music (David Chesworth) support her choices unobtrusively.

Blake is luminous, charming and funny as Beatrix, shifting effortlessly between decades. Jones' edgy and ambitious Lindsay, is compelling while Keddie is deeply sympathetic as the self-absorbed Ana. As Poppy a less-fully developed character, McElhinney is both vulnerable and irritating.

Piper is riveting, attractive and maddening as George and McConnochie, as the relative outsider, seems to be the only one truly forgiving and completely loving of George.

By the final, profoundly moving scene, we know these people in a peculiarly intimate way. We have been witness to their anguish and pain, joy and love and the conversion of their politics to suit the 90's.

This is a thought-provoking play, on both the personal and societal level.

by Kate Herbert