GIrl Talk by Patrick Edgeworth, Hit Productions, Nov, 2000

GIrl Talk by Patrick Edgeworth 

Hit Productions at Merlyn Theatre until November 17, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Theatre comes to us in many forms for many different kind of audiences. Girl Talk is a commercial and light-hearted play that will appeal to a wide audience who are not interested in high art, obscure themes or depressing issues on stage.

Playwright, Patrick Edgeworth, writes for film and television as well having written the hit West End play, Boswell for the Defence, which starred Leo McKern. Girl Talk opened in the UK in 1995.

The style and plot of Girl Talk are related to television comedy-dramas or even to sit-coms. The story deals with serious issues such as grief, abandonment and divorce, in a superficial but entertaining way.

It is directed with finesse by David Latham who keep the pace swift and funny. The design by Judith Cobb is a large square living room with an ornate rose window as its rear wall.

The Merlyn is perhaps too big for the play but the two actors are able to draw us toward them.

Performances by Jackie Weaver and Christen O'Leary , are bright and funny. Their relationship on stage is warm and they represent two very different types of single mothers in the suburbs.

Julie (Weaver ) emigrated to Australia from the north of England 23 years ago with her new husband, Brian. Now in her 40s, she finds herself abandoned when Brian runs off with a 25 year old, leaving her with two teenagers.

Gail (O'Leary) is younger and profoundly unhappy in her singledom. She chooses inappropriate men to fill her lonely days and nights: a married handyman and  a young shelf-stacker at the supermarket, to name two.

The story is a suburban fantasy. When middle aged women who spent their lives bearing children, caring for family and pandering to husbands are left alone, they generally suffer profound grief and loss. This story sees Julie whip through her pain with a few gentle tears.

She finds a new lover who is the perfect man, confidently sends her Pam Ayres-style poems to publishers and becomes a sexual athlete overnight. Pure fantasy, but very cheering to audiences who fear the end of plodding relationships.

This play by Hit Productions, is touring the country during 2000-2001 and should be a great success with the crowds.

By Kate Herbert

Escape from the Living Dead, Nov 15, 2000

by Abe Pogos

La Mama at The Courthouse, Nov 15 until December 2, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The original intention of a playwright can sometimes be obscured in the final script. This seems to be the case with Abe Pogos's play, Escape from the Living Dead.

Pogos states in the program that the play is about "the nature of racism and misogyny. It dramatises the different ways these attitudes manifest themselves amongst people who believe they are acting with the best intentions..."

However, these two issues are  dealt with in such a heavy-handed manner that the point is blunted. Pogos employs a great deal of preaching to the audience through the characters that does not allow any genuine human dimension to the issues or the characters.

The five actors (Dennis Coard, David Davies, Jane Conroy, Lisa Maza, Andrea Swifte) work very hard to make Pogos's characters come to life. Each finds moments of emotional truth or humour. They struggle to bring to life characters who speak inconsistent and repetitive dialogue.

Kathy (Maza) is a Koori actor in a country town theatre company run by Ted (Coard). She works on a Boris Karloff style zombie play with other actors, Bernadette and Travis (Conroy  Davies)

Kathy is patronised, abused and mistrusted by the actors and the deeply conservative publican at the hotel where she lives. (Swifte) She is given roles of only children or animals. Her work is criticised, her culture demeaned and her opinions ignored.

One major problem with the script is that Pogos has all the characters describing or discussing each other much of the time rather than allowing us to see their interaction or observe their characters living and breathing.

The narrative has no clear through line. It is confusing an the story is often incoherent. This is through no lack of effort or skill on the part of the actors.

The style is non-naturalistic most of the time. The schlock-horror play within a play is directed in a broad 30s movie style. This epic style spills over into the Arne Neeme's direction of the 'real' scenes.

Conroy as Bernadette tries,= with missionary zeal to teach Kathy to act. Coard, plays Ted as a dogmatic, slightly nutty priestly character while Davies as Travis is scarily obsessive about appropriating Kathy's indigenous culture. Maza manages to play Kathy's journey from child-likeness to rebellion.

The play has potential and good acting but the style and script are in the end unsatisfying.

By Kate Herbert

Wozzeck by Alban Berg, Opera Australia, Nov 11, 2000

Wozzeck by Alban Berg

Opera Australia at State Theatre

 November 11, 16, 22, 25, 28, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The score of Alban Berg's 1925 opera, Wozzeck, crawls inside the tormented mind of the soldier, Wozzeck. (Jonathan Summers)

The score rises and falls like a roller-coaster with the chaos of Wozzek's escalating madness and culminates in his murdering his lover, Marie. (Margaret Medlyn)

Berg's libretto is based on Georg Buchner's powerful but incomplete play, Woyzek, from 1837 which in turn was based on a real murder in Leipzig in 1821.

His music is extraordinary, making this one of the 20th century masterpieces. Berg, a pupil of Shonberg, worked in an atonal 12 note form but also employs eclectic musical forms and borrows from or satirises other composers.

Buchner's play has 27 episodes. Berg uses 15 scenes in three acts. Adding to his moving music is the spare language, passionate outbursts by characters in recitative and song, as well as the ridicule and oppression of the poor, simple, deluded soldier.

The outcome is a moving representation of Wozzeck's moral, physical and mental breakdown leading to the murder of his lover.

Director, Barrie Kosky, creates a visual and emotional landscape. He places the orchestra on stage and the action on a steeply raked, uncluttered floor over the orchestra pit. 

Peter Corrigan's vivid, grotesque design comprises huge German Expressionist images rising like nightmares from hell. A plastic rubbish bin is the only prop.

The music swells under the exceptional conductorship of Gabor Otvos. The score carries us along in a flood of emotion culminating in the sustained natural B crescendo when Wozzeck's mind collapses.

Summers performance and voice as Wozzeck are commanding and his characterisation is impeccable and sophisticated. As Marie, Medlyn is impassioned and sympathetic and her role is beautifully sung.

Wozzeck's tormentors, the Doctor and Captain, are sung with relish and humour by Barry Mora and Richard Greager . The featured cast is delightful and includes Adrian McEniery, Horst Hoffmann, Tyrone Landau Jennifer Birmingham , Warwick Fyfe and Roger Howell .

Kosky's beer garden party looks like an insane Sydney Mardi Gras complete with leather outfits and half-naked revellers. The children's chorus appears decked in Christmas tinsel and the Idiot (Landau) is a street clown.

There are no flaws in this production. It is relentless both musically and emotionally. The tension soars with the music and the final image of Wozzeck's tiny son crawling inside a rubbish bin after the death of both his parents, is poignant.

By Kate Herbert

The Procedure, Nov 3, 2000

by Peta Murray Melbourne Workers' Theatre

at North Melbourne Town Hall until November 18, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Actor, Jim Daly, loves a solo show and he does them superbly. In The Procedure by Peta Murray. he plays Mike, a corrupt politician who roams his office one Friday evening, drinking himself into a stupor while coming to terms with the possibility that he may have colon cancer.

Sounds serious? In fact, it is hilarious. Daly scampers about the open space of the Supper Room at North Melbourne Town Hall like an addled puppy. Peta Murray's script, even though it is based on her own experience of colon cancer, is fast-moving, witty and well-observed.

Although Daly is on stage alone for 95 minutes, Murray peoples the play with vivid and lively off-stage characters by giving Mike a series of phone calls to and from his media officer, doctor pal, wine-growing mate, his wife and son.

The audience is seated on two sides of the action as Mike, the Health Minister and ex-pharmacist, darts from several phones on his desk to a cupboard filled with pills and potions. He dives in and out doors, changing clothes, making plans, panicking and preparing his own obituary and eulogy.

The politician is called Mike, as is every other off-stage character to whom he refers, except his wife, Ellen.

The action gets wilder and more out of control as Mike gets drunker and more convinced that he has cancer. As Health Minister, he instituted  "The Procedure' which is a cheap and efficient health test for bowel cancer. He receives a cryptic message from his mate the surgeon about his own stool test and believes it is a cancer diagnosis.

Daly builds from smug, lying and composed politician at the beginning of the play, to almost delirious madness. His drunken ramblings are a riot as he tears off his suit, pops more pharmaceuticals from his hoard and prowls like a caged lion in his Health Department offices.

Murray seems to change styles in the second half, shifting from broad political satire to a more abstract and slightly confused form.

Director, Aidan Fennessy, highlights the insane roller coaster ride that Mike goes on as he faces his fate. The space is lit dramatically in strong almost cartoon-like colour (Jens Milbret) and various audio visuals provide Mike with a trip into his past and future.

By Kate Herbert

Theft of Sita, Nov 2, 2000

 by Nigel Jamieson

at Malthouse until November 4, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

This telling of the story of The Theft of Sita is distinctively Australian-Indonesian. It is told evocatively not only with Indonesian shadow puppets but with contemporary Indonesian images of environmental destruction, rebellion, mostly English dialogue with heaps of Aussie slang.

The narrative is a funny and moving portrayal of the Sanskrit epic, The Ramayana. Director, Nigel Jamieson, collaborated with composer, Paul Grabowsky, Director of Puppetry, Peter Wilson  and Dalang, (Indonesian chief puppeteer) I Made Sidia to create a rich visual and aural world.

The production's great strength is its successful parallel of the mythical story of King Rama's wife, Sita's abduction by the demon Rawanna with modern issues of ecology, power, wealth and urbanisation.

The beautiful Sita is stolen as she wanders the forest with her husband. She is kept caged in a sprawling city by Rawanna. Sita's kidnapping comes to represent the rape of the exotic landscape of Indonesia that is flooded for tourism, deforested for building and rid of native fauna for profit.

The form of the production is in the style of the Indonesian Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppetry. Jamieson uses the clown servants of King Rama, Twalen and Merdah, as the protagonists in the narrative.

This father and son duo go on a quest to rescue Sita and face forest fire, famine, wood-chipping, white water rafting and a surreal urban chaos.

The shadow puppets are innovative. Not only do we see traditional characters but there are shadow forest animals, musical instrument creatures playing rock songs, and huge electric pylons and buildings.

In addition, there is distressing film or photographic imagery of real riots and blasted landscapes in Indonesia  The images are thrown onto a small screen and then a full screen that covers the entire front of stage.

The musicians, puppeteers and actors and singers are secreted for most of the 95 minutes, at the rear of the stage .They create magical and disturbing images for us that are designed by Julian Crouch and lit by Damien Cooper

Not least of the elements is the spectacular musical composition by Grabowsky. He combines the sounds of Indonesian Gamelan music with melodic or cacophonous contemporary western music. The music is transporting.

Sita is challenging both theatrically and sociologically. It is also a hoot for the family. Kids loved it.

By Kate Herbert

Maquina Hamlet, Nov 1, 2000

by Heiner Muller El Periferico de Objetos

at Playhouse until November 4, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

El Periferico de Objetos is an unsubsidised theatre company from Buenes Aires which has a substantial reputation in Europe and the Americas.

The combination of this visual theatre company (directors: Daniel Veronese, Emilio Garcia Wehbi and Ana Alvarado) with German playwright Heiner Muller's 1979 abstract script, The Hamletmachine,  is startling and disturbing.

Muller might not recognise his play but he might be delighted with this company's extrapolation on its ideas. Maquina Hamlet  is visually compelling and resonates with oppressed cultures worldwide.

The Hamlet story is merely a vehicle for observations about totalitarianism, death, obsession, revenge, repression, suicide and incarceration.

The bleakness of the world of dictatorships from which this play comes, namely East Germany and Argentina, is present in the production. It is grim and relentless in its condemnation of man's inhumanity to man and woman. Violence is like a machine that reproduces abuse century after century.

The piece is divided into five sections. Each title and all the text translated into English is projected onto the rear wall of the Playhouse while a voice over in Spanish recites the script.

At times the lighting (Jorge Doliszniak) is grim and confined. At others, the entire stage is lit starkly in the "alienation" style of Brecht and Heiner Muller's Berliner Ensemble.

Images are often grotesque and distressing. The opening scene, A family Album, is like a banquet table at which are seated life-size mannequins and actors (Felicitas Luna, Emilio Garcia Wehbi, Jorge Onofri, Alejandro Tantanian -all) with little dolls representing Hamlet's family and playing out their gruesome tragedy.

Part Two, The Europe of Women, sees Ophelia dressed as hooker, caged and tortured by rat-men. Part three, Scherzo is a night club setting with mannequins at tables, actors dancing with and abusing women on wheels and a chanteuse singing.

Part Four contains disturbing photographic projections of massacre, war, revolution and abuse and a mannequin used as a dart board. In the final scene, a life size doll is torn limb from limb by his torturers.

 Although I was strangely unmoved emotionally by this piece, it is theatrically challenging and takes the Hamlet narrative and Muller's script to new and interesting locations.

By Kate Herbert

The Unexpected Man, Oct 31, 2000

by Yasmina Reza

at Fairfax Studio until November 4, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

When a skilful playwright meets a director and two actors of matching talent, it is a recipe for success.

The Unexpected Man combines French playwright, Yasmina Reza, Melbourne director, Simon Phillips and Sydney actors, Kerry Walker and John Gaden.Voila! Vive la recipe!

Reza's basic premise of a man and a woman sitting on a train together without communicating could make a frustrating and static play. But Reza creates their inner life by writing in a series of internal monologues as the pair travel by train together from Paris to Frankfurt.

Phillips production is innovative. The entire 75 minutes are set on a beautiful, square revolving stage designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell. Each actor, seated on a wooden chair, also revolves independently. This creates a dynamic physicality in a word-based play.

The journey is further evoked by the thud and rattle of Ian McDonald's atmospheric score, by the gravel railroad surrounding the revolve and Nick Schlieper's continual stream of passing railroad lights.

Reza makes this seemingly banal situation fascinating. Paul Parsky is a famous novelist. His fellow traveller, a middle-aged, middle-class woman, is one of his devoted readers. She is coincidentally carrying his latest book, The Unexpected Man, as reading material.

The drama arises not from their interaction or conflict, but from the tension as we wait for them to speak. She is too embarrassed, shy or polite to accost him with fandom. She will not even take out his book in case it causes awkwardness.

He is initially self-absorbed then later compelled to find out about this cool and attractive woman.

Gaden is compelling as the ageing and bitter writer. he captures his profound sense of regret and cynicism about his life, work and the world at large.

Walker is composed, amused and surprising as she shifts between being dignified and almost child-like and adoring.

Reza's writing is based in a stream of consciousness narrative style but her dialogue is laconic, poetic and witty. It echoes the bristling dialogue of her most successful play, Art. Both characters wander around in their minds, revelling in their pasts, lost friends, antagonisms, obsessions and loves.

Finally the suspense is relieved. They speak. She reveals her ardent admiration and fantasy about him. He laughs. End.

By Kate Herbert

How to Shop , Oct 26, 2000

by Bobby Baker

at Athenaeum I until  October 31, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Have you ever been scared to enter a supermarket? In her show, How To Shop, British performance artist, Bobby Baker, has handy and peculiar advice for those with shopping paranoia.

How To Shop is actually presented as a lecture complete with lectern, slides and short film images as well as a cooking-show-style overhead camera for demonstrations.

Baker is a charming, warm and funny character on stage. She is a weird blend of UK comediennes, Victoria Wood and Penelope Keith.

The first fifteen minutes are quirky, satirical and promising as unusual comic entertainment. What follows does not live up to expectations. It lacks structure and the presentation is loose beyond the point of being post-modern or funny.

The basic premise of ridiculing shopping is a good one. There are some wonderfully oddball ideas and images but it never quite hits the theatrical or comic mark.

Her style is steeped in pure English irony and she satirises not only the suburban shopping obsession but those intellectuals who raise the banal to philosophical heights. She quotes theorists on shopping. Who spends their time writing those theses?

 She feigns academic qualifications as she leads us through her bizarre and loosely structured rave. As we are taught to negotiate a supermarket we discover how to reach a state of heavenly bliss.

In order to reach such shopping nirvana, we must go on a religious quest for the seven virtues. She does so with slides of her personal journey  through The Co-op Supermarket in Croydon, London.

We seek humility in parsley, Obedience in anchovies, Patience in shaving cream, Joy in apples, Courage in olive oil, Compassion in red wine. Our final challenge is to find Love that evidently is secreted in the freshly baked bread.

Baker engages in plenty of odd on-stage action that is amusing but often directionless. She stuffs an anchovy tin in her mouth on God's command, slurps soapy water, slops shaving cream over herself, bathes in red wine on screen and sings seductively to a toffee apple.  We also hear an elderly woman sing Dance Little Fishies.

How to Shop, commissioned by the London International Theatre Festival in 1993 and developed with Polona Baloh-Brown, is the second of a series of five pieces in her Daily Life series.

By Kate Herbert

The Gilbert and Sullivan Show, Oct 22, 2000

 by The Production Company

at Regent Theatre until October 27, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The Gilbert and Sullivan Show is a light-hearted, delightful night. Director, Roger Hodgman, creates a musical salon atmosphere on the Regent Theatre stage as the exceptionally skilled orchestra and singers present songs from favourite G and S shows.

Iolanthe, Gondoliers, HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, The Yeomen of the Guard, Patience and The Mikado are all represented. The ensemble of musical and operatic stars features Dennis Olsen, Roxane Hislop Tiffany Speight and Gary Rowley.

Olsen, in his inimitable fashion, cavorts and gambols about the stage as he sings When I was a Lad and I Am The Monarch of the Sea as Sir Joseph Porter (Pinafore). He is an electrifying and comical presence on stage throughout the night. Each character, even in this truncated concert version, is fully developed and hilarious.

Tiffany Speight has a bright and moving soprano. She is magnetic and manages to be both gloriously seductive and sweetly innocent in roles including Josephine from Pinafore (Sorry Her Lot), Yum-Yum from Mikado (The Sun Whose Rays) and as Mabel in Pirates singing the sweet and compelling Poor Wandering One.

Roxane Hislop is in fine voice singing I'm Called Little Buttercup and as Phoebe from Iolanthe when she sings When Maiden Loves.

Gary Rowley is a wonderful Captain Corcoran (Pinafore) and David Gould's strong bass provides a very funny Police Sergeant in Pirates.

Other supporting roles are sung superbly by Barry Mitchell and Troy Sussman.

The orchestra captures the tone of S and S and is magnificently directed by Guy Noble.

The evening finishes with a trio of finales from Pinafore, Mikado and Gondoliers. The entire show has flair, joy and a punchy larrikin feel to it in spite of its stylish 19 century salon design ( Leon Salom) and its decorative costumes. (Hugh Colman)

Gilbert and Sullivan have reached a wider audience recently with the release of Mike Leigh's movie, Topsy Turvy which deals with the creation of The Mikado.

Popular music buffs may scoff at G and S songs as old-fashioned, elitist, silly or middle-class. However, Sullivan was a classically trained and gifted composer while Gilbert was a phenomenon in the creation of complex and comic rhyming lyrics. This pair was a match made in musical theatre heaven.

By Kate Herbert

for 2 pages:

Food of Love, Oct 22, 2000

 by Seduction Opera

at Beckett Theatre until October 28, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

"If music be the food of love play on,'" said Duke Orsino in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Seduction Opera's show, Food of Love, is a peculiar but satisfying miscellany of music, food art and political comedy.

It is an effective collision of three artists who work virtually independently on stage: actor/singer, Jan Friedl, political comedian, Rod Quantock and classical pianist, James Voss playing Bach's Partita no 4 in D.

Director, Brian Lipson, cleverly and often wittily weaves the three discrete components into a cohesive if not always coherent whole.

The piece opens with Friedl lying in her white pyjamas on a double bed under beams of stark white light. She talks to us about food, her childhood, her musical history, her parents, dreams, teaching and students.

 It is a disconnected and dislocated stream of consciousness rave that bears little direct relation to Quantock's part of the show.

Light and fascinating and evocative slides of the galaxy designed by Jens Milbret and other images, spill across her as she drapes herself upon the now upright bed.

Quantock's comic pratings are a continuation of his stream of invective directed toward the incompetence and cowardice of the Howard government and the uglification of the architecture of the city of Melbourne.

In addition to his architecture lecture, he gives a coherent and informative and funny lecture-demonstration of Pythagoras' Theorem of triangles, irrational numbers and the structure of musical notation. How he gets gags out of these is a mystery but he does.

Throughout these two intermingled raves, a laconic Voss moves from grand piano, where he plays Bach with exceptional virtuosity - then he prepares and eats a cheese sandwich or orders a pizza. All three performers shift, apparently aimlessly, from bed to telephone to desk, interjecting, cooking toast, making coffee and eating.

This is an odd-ball show which is clever, funny moving and musically superb. It is not a play but a collage of images and ideas that intersect in a novel way.

By Kate Herbert

Huge by Jez Butterworth , Oct 20, 2000

By Mossrat at Athenaeum II until October 21, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

If you've ever contemplated a career in stand-up comedy, think again. Be an accountant. be anything else. It's too hard. The two characters in Jez Butterworth's play, Huge, are proof.

Warren and Clarke (Justin Ratliffe, Mike McLeish) are two aspiring comedians who move into a flat in London, write a comedy double act and sit waiting for the phone to ring for their first try-out gig.

We never know whether their material is any good. We never hear it.We see them writing, giggling at their own jokes, bickering and despairing when their first radio try-out is edited out of the BBC show.

The fragile egos of comics are at the core of this narrative. They are liable to spontaneously combust at any moment - and their relationship certainly does.

Butterworth's writing is funny, John Paul Hussey's direction is swift and both actors are strong although they shout too much.

By Kate Herbert

Fletcher's Spontaneous Broadway, 2000

Fletcher's Spontaneous Broadway at Czech Club until October 20, 2000

Fletcher's Spontaneous Broadway, compered by Russell Fletcher,  is an adaptation of an improvised musical form devised in New York and also performed in San Francisco.

A bunch of improviser-singers, a different group each night,  take ideas from the audience, improvise songs with musical director, John Thorn, on keyboard and then create a one-act musical based on one of the improvised songs.

The audience loves this form of non-invasive participation. They get to suggest song titles for singers, they are asked to vote for the song which will be the basis of the second half of the show.

Opening night was a little muddled but the crowd enjoyed it. The musical chosen was Who Am I, with the main song being My Wife Thinks I'm Crazy but He's Wrong " (Genevieve Morris) - a gift of a title for a cross-dressing musical story.

It included songs such as: There's Worse Things, At Least He Loves You, (Christine Keogh) Who Am I and the hilarious, I Still Love You More Than Your Clothes. (Paul McCarthy)

It's a new show and cast each night so get a look at it.

Kate Herbert

Happy 1000, 1000 Bahagia & American Dreamchasing, Oct 19, 2000

Happy 1000, 1000 Bahagia by Peter Turrini

La Mama at The Black Box until October 22, 2000

American Dreamchasing by Mark Hansen

North Melbourne Town Hall until October 22, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Happy 1000, 1000 Bahagia is performed in Indonesian, English and Australian deaf sign language. (Auslan) Ironically, the play, written by Pete Turrini, is originally in Austrian.

Not only is Turrini's text demanding and provocative, but the collision of three languages, the physical style and dramatic content create a riveting performance.

The form is abstract. A man (Wawan Sofwan) decides he will kill himself when he finishes counting to one thousand. Two women (Jodee Mundy, Tiffany Ball) count with him in English and Auslan as he counts in Indonesian.

Yes, they really do count the whole way to one thousand but there are diversions into the man's last days, his memories, images of walking in the street, meeting neighbours and trying to maintain his translation job for a newspaper.

The counting becomes mesmerising. It numbers off his last moments as he marches toward suicide. The three count in rhythm, the numbers are counterpointed like a musical score. The man holds a gun to his head reminding us of his impending doom.

The performances are compelling particularly of Sofwan who is a sparkling presence on stage. Mundy has a brightness which enlivens her physical performance in Auslan and Ball provides the connection for those understanding only English.

The direction by Sandra Long is inventive and takes advantage of the abstraction of the script. She finds innumerable ways to colour what could be lifeless enumeration.

Turrini writes with beauty and conviction with a rich sense of the power of the mind in a state of depression and obsession.

Another performer who presents a potent obsessive presence is Mark Zonacat Hansen. His show, American Dreamchasing with Spirit Drive not Ego Jive, fits no mode of performance.

He chats about his Attention Deficit Disorder, his abstract random mode of thinking which he tries to fit into a linear form.

He tells stories about New Age theory, EST, self-discovery and the search for happiness in a world that thinks he is crackers.

As the only audience member, this was an oddly personal experience. It is not drama, nor is it comedy. It is not the most skilful of scripts or performances. But it is strangely compelling.

By Kate Herbert

for 2 pages:

The Small Poppies, Oct 19, 2000

by David Holman Company B Belvoir Street

at Playhouse until October 28, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Remember your first day at Big School. It can be traumatic. I fell on my head off the monkey bars. That explains a lot.

The small poppies in David Holman's play directed by Neil Armfield, are five year olds starting school.  These littlies grapple with isolation, separation from mum, loss of friends, making new mates. The story is simple. Clint goes to Big School without his best friend and must make new pals.

The school community is populated with bullies, cowards, altruists, swots, dummies, negotiators and romantics. It is a microcosm for the adult world, perhaps even for the world of international diplomacy with the prep teacher as the well-meaning but ineffectual United Nations.

The performances by this exceptional ensemble which includes Geoffrey Rush, are charming and beautifully observed. They capture the diverse and idiosyncratic qualities and behaviour of preppies.

Rush's silent, open-mouthed weeping as the friendless and frightened Clint, rings bells in everybody and his impeccable clown skills are hilarious.

Arky Michael'sbully, Shane, makes us want revenge. Debra Mailman's Cambodian refugee, Lep, twangs our hearts and David Field's Theo is needy, generous and warm-hearted. Julie Forsyth's prep teacher is hilariously goofy and recognisable while Rebecca Massey is versatile in several roles.

This show should be running early for families. It is an unusual show for the Melbourne Festival. It is uncomplicated, written originally for Theatre in Education in the mid-80s and has no esoteric content or style.

The script is made up of kids' jokes, rhymes, songs and chants. One of the funniest scenes is a mad song called Hippopotamus. Music by Alan John and Greg Sully and a prep classroom set design by Stephen Curtis, complete the atmosphere.

The play encapsulates Neil Armfield's drive to stage theatre that epitomises Australianness, as did his production of Cloudstreet. He pulls down the fourth wall of the stage so that the audience can be contacted. He steps away from theatrical artifice, vanity and elitism.

The play is superbly performed with an enthusiasm and love that spills into the audience. It does not push the boundaries of cultural commentary or theatrical convention, nor does it explore the darker areas of adult-child issues of Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills. It  is, however, a delightful night at the theatre.

By Kate Herbert

Meat Party, Oct 12, 2000

By Duong Le Qu 

Playbox at Merlin Theatre October 12 to 28, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Two differing styles meet in Michael Kantor's  production of Duong Le Quy's Meat Party. Kantor's direction is abstract, visual spectacular, drawing on the modern Japanese as well as Eastern European theatrical forms. Le Quy's text is political realism set in contemporary Vietnam.

Kantor, with dramaturg Tom Wright,  edited the script and created an atmosphere of mystery and violence. On a vast, sloping expanse of stage designed by Dorotka Sapinska  with epic lighting (bluebottle p/l) the cast of eight creates an almost mythic sense of landscape and war.

Mary, (Alice Garner) a young Australian cellist, travels to the White Sand Desert, a slightly unreal region in Vietnam. She seeks her dead father, Gabriel's (Matthew Crosby)  remains.

 He was an Australian soldier killed in Vietnam and a renowned flautist. Mary carries her own instrument with her on her quest for her father's flute lost in battle.

She enlists the aid of Quan  (Huong Nguyen) , the Chairman of the People's Council of the White Sand Desert. His father , Lam  (Tam Phan), is  a communist revolutionary war hero who is an autocrat and lives in the revolutionary Leninist past.

Mary also seeks assistance from An,  (Tony Yap) who collected belongings of dead western soldiers.

The war permeates the contemporary world in this Vietnam. Huge metal doors swing open to reveal starkly lit soldiers, smoking air and pounding gunfire.

All this is in contrast with a chanting madwoman (Yumi Umiumare) who prowls the sands, collecting whitened bones of the dead and nursing the bones of her children. This is counterpointed by the haunting song of Mai (Trang Nguyen), the dead Vitenamese girl who comforted Mary's father as he died.

The ensemble is very strong and the choral and movement basis for the style is evocative. Darrin Verhagen's  music creates a punishing atmosphere. The use of Crosby as translator in Vietnamese language scenes is an excellent device.

The stage is littered with symbolic objects: Gabriels' flute, hundreds of insence sticks, suitcases of the dead soldiers laid out like tombstones, Prisoner of War clothing dropping from the sky.

The Meat Party is a euphemism for The War. The county fed on its own flesh and its people suffered for 30 years.

By Kate Herbert