Singing in the Rain, Oct 6, 2001

 by Betty Comden and Stanley Donen music by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed

Venue: Regent Theatre Collins Street, Oct 6, 2001 until....?

Producer: RSL Com

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The opening night crowd at the Regent Theatre burst into spontaneous applause as the onstage rain fell from the theatrical sky. My witty guest quipped, “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen an audience applaud plumbing.”

It is spectacular plumbing and what fun to see water soaking Todd McKenney’s perfectly gelled hair as he kicks water at the front row. The miniature brollies prvided were no protection.The finale has the entire cast in Paddington Bear yellow macs under big yellow umbrellas.

 “Gotta dance” is exactly how that toe-tappin’ number, Singing in the Rain, makes one feel. David Atkins with stars McKenney, Rachel Beck, Wayne Scott Kermond and Jackie Love provide us with a welcome relief from the trials of the ravaged real world.

It is a boy meets girl tale. Vaudevillian makes good in silent movies.When the first talkie changes the face of movie making forever, his career is in jeopardy.

McKenny is charming in the lead as Don Lockwood, the role made famous in the film by Gene Kelly. McKenney is all delightful teeth and smiles, dancing like a 40s hoofer.

There are moments when his singing is not note-perfect,  but Gene Kelly was no Pavarotti. McKenney is a musical theatre star since his success in Boy from Oz.

As his onstage love interest,  Rachael Beck has plenty of voice and talent to burn in the role of the pert wannabe actress, Kathy Seldon. Her solo, You Are My Lucky Star, was superb.

A major drawcard is the recognition factor. We recognise Kelly’s exceptional choreography and many songs and scenes from the movie.

Wayne Scott Kermond’s  plays Don’s vaudeville partner, Cosmo Brown, Donald O’Connor’s role.   Kermond is a skilful, seasoned and lively music theatre performer. With Atkins,he recreates the  ‘climb the wall’ dance sequence, sending the audience into paroxysms.

The “Good Morning” routine  is another recognised number in which the trio dance over the back of a couch. We sing along with Make ‘Em Laugh, Beautiful Girls, Broadway Melody and the classic word play song, Moses Supposes.

What is less successful is the slapstick and clowning. None of the three leads is a natural clown so the comedy often feels manufactured.

Which brings us to the crunch. This production feels tired. It is flat and at times lacks the intense energy required to make this kind of huge, light entertainment work at optimum level. Perhaps six months running in Sydney, getting soaked every night, has worn the cast out sooner than expected. It needs an injection of high octane pep juice.

Jackie Love’s bimbo, Lina Lamont, is a highlight. She squeaks as the vengeful, stupid silent movie actress whose shrill voice is unsuited to talkies. Her solo, What’s Wrong With Me, is sparkling, vivacious and hilarious.

Another high point was Sheree da Costa’s fantasy scene. Her dance is is sexy, lyrical and provocative.

The designers and technicians are also stars. Michael Anania’ s  set creates miniature versions of New York cityscapes and Trudy Dalgliesh’s  lighting is evocative and is echoed by whimsical fairy lights on headdresses in Paula Ryan’s wild 20s costumes.

Conrad Helfrich’s musical direction is well-supported by the band of seventeen.

This show is all bells and whistles. Take a break from your real life.

By Kate Herbert

Aussie plays in USA, Sept 29, 2001

Article: Aussie plays in USA, Sept 29, 2001

Writer: Kate Herbert

Australian artists are still gasping to have their work recognised abroad. in the theatre world, it was impossible to be taken seriously as an actor during much of the  last century unless you travelled, studied and were employed in London or New York.

Although we have overcome the worst of the ‘cultural cringe’, Australians still think that an actor or a playwright is not a success until they make a name in the US or UK.

We have movie actors succeeding in Hollywood but it still a struggle for our playwrights to get a gig overseas.

In San Francisco recently, I discovered that not even people in the theatre know a single Australian play. Ask yourself how many Aussie playwrights’ you know.

The Australian National Playwrights’ Centre, (ANPC) is trying to redress this. This week, the Artistic Director, May-Brit Ackerholt, Sydney, announced six play scripts to be sent to New York.

The plays are: Nick Enright’s A Man with Five Children, Stephen Sewell’s The secret Life of Salvador Dali, Duong Le Quy’s Meat Party which was seen at Playbox in 2000, Catherine Ryan’s Gravity and John Upton’s Men of Honour.

One will be selected as winner of The New Dramatists Exchange award.

Sadly for this black duck, my own play, Hit and Run, was in the long-short list of ten and was knocked off the short-short list. Ho hum.

Each year, a lucky Australian playwright spends three glorious theatre-drenched  weeks with New Dramatists on 44th Street near Time Square. As part of the Exchange program,  a New Dramatists US playwright participates in the workshop program at the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference in Canberra.

 I think we get the better deal - Canberra or the Big Apple? No comparison.

The prize includes an airfare, accommodation and the playwright is treated to nights at the theatre on Broadway. Some shows may have closed due to the recent events, but New York is still a smorgasbord of live theatre.

 Says Ms Ackerholt, “The winning play gets presented in a rehearsed reading to an audience of theatre people, and a play in development ( by the same playwright)  is extensively workshopped with American directors and actors before it, too, is presented to an audience.“

Playwrights submit their best play. It must be no more than 8 years old and can be previously published or produced.

 Playwrights  must have had at least one play produced and have a thorough  knowledge of Australian theatre. The winner's body of work and ability to represent the theatre industry play a significant part in the judging process.

It may seem odd to some that established playwrights such as Enright and Sewell are in a New Dramatists category, but the criteria focus on new plays rather than emerging writers.

Very few of our plays have made it over the Pacific. In January 2002, Hannie Rayson’s award-winning play, Life After George, will open on the West End in London and may travel to Broadway.

HIlary Bell’s play, Wolf Lullaby,  and Timothy Daly’s play, Kafka Dances, were produced in the USA.

Of the  eight winners since 1993, four were Melbourne writers: Sam Sejavka’sAll Flesh Is Glass (‘93), Matt Cameron’s Mr. Melancholy (‘95),  Daniel Keene’s Because You’re Mine (‘96) and Peta Murray’s Salt which was seen this year at Playbox.

The New York readings are not fully-fledged productions but, at the very least, our new Australian works are being seen in the theatre capital of the USA and our two countries are exchanging cultural capital.

By Kate Herbert

Improvisation Across the Pacific, Sept 9, 2001

Article

Improvisation Across the Pacific, San Francisco, Sept 9, 2001

Writer: Kate Herbert

Improvisation is an elaborate form of lying. I have been lying elaborately in Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand since 1985.

Most recently, I visited San Francisco for the  BATS ( Bay Area Theatresports) Improvisation Festival. it ran throughout August with classes and shows day and night.

 BATS has its own theatre overlooking Golden Gate Bridge. It's improvisers' heaven.

The good news is that plans are afoot for the Melbourne Theatresports Inc. to host its own improvisation Festival in April 2002 to rival  BATS bacchanalia.

 The plan is to bring impro guru, Keith Johnstone,  to Melbourne during the Comedy Festival in April 2002 to teach workshops with both beginners and advanced improvisers.

Johnstone, an expatriate Englishman, is Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Calgary University, Canada.

In addition to Johnstone's visit, the San Francisco companies, BATS, True Fiction Magazine and LATS from Los Angeles as well as other companies, are planning to bring their long form improvised plays to the Comedy Festival.  Members of the companies are invited to teach on the course with Johnstone.

Classes in Melbourne may reflect the range of those offered at the BATS Festival: Narrative, Improvised Song, Shakespeare Improvised, Masked Improvisation and full-length improvised plays .

We may import a class from BATS which is known by its inventor, Diane Rachel, as ‘Sex and Violence’. It was originally called  "finding emotional intensity on the improvised stage," but the students called it Sex and Violence.

 The focus is on stage intimacy, stage combat and improvising in movie genres such as Film Noir,  Romance and Horror.

 Discussions are proceeding with The Victorian College of the Arts and The Melbourne International Comedy Festival to bring the Improvisation Festival plans to fruition.

Johnstone, who is an international improvisation leader, would be the greatest draw card for the festival. He wrote world-wide best-sellers, Impro and Impro for Story Tellers.

 He established Theatre Machine, an English improvisation company that travelled Europe. He settled in Calgary where he set up Loose Moose Theatre Company.

 Johnstone teaches all over Europe and North America, Asia. 2002 will be his first visit to Melbourne although we have been performing his formats since 1985.

Johnstone's is a genuinely eccentric character. He  combines the wisdom and presence of Peter Ustinov with the wackiness of Morecambe and Wise.  His classes are a labyrinth of weird information, anecdotes and his catch cry, "be average guys."

He rails about the damage schools did. We are expected to get things right and these demands ruin our ability to be spontaneous and to make mistakes.

Johnstone asks, " Have you done this before? No. Should you be good at it then? No. So get it wrong,.” Students’ eyes light up, their faces relax and they create astounding stories.

Johnstone is the inventor of the trademarked Theatresports,  which is enormously popular with audiences in Australia since 1985 and even had a TV series in 1987. He also created and trademarked Gorilla Theatre, Micetro and the Life Game (now a US TV show) which may be seen performing in Melbourne through Melbourne Theatresports Inc.

Melbourne is a hotbed of improvised theatre. All over you'll find improvisers telling stories, playing games and pretending to be other people. Sounds like psychosis but it's heaps more fun!  Improv rules!

Theatresports Grand Final is on Saturday September 22 at the National Theatre

By Kate Herbert

Aus Stage: website for Australian Performing Arts, July 25, 2001

Aus Stage - a website for Australian Performing Arts

July 25, 2001

Article by  Kate Herbert

Ever needed to settle a pub bet about Mel Gibson’s early Shakespeare work or Geoffrey Rush’s life before Shine?  Now you can check old reviews and prove to your mates that Nicole Kidman could never act.

Aus Stage is a website in development to be launched publicly early 2002. It does what no-one has done before - records all events on the Australian stage. This  includes professional and some amateur theatre, musicals, opera, hybrid arts, new circus, dance - everything but pure music which is huge, requiring its own specialised project

 “The seed for Aus Stage was sown after the Australian and New Zealand Theatre Record ceased publication in 1986,” says  Geoffrey Milne, Chair of Drama and Theatre at Latrobe University .

Milne’s personal archive is the main source of current and recent Victorian data for the website.  His office is littered with piles of material. Programmes, reviews and press releases, collected by Milne since the ANZTR ceased, are collated into monthly groups. It is like a huge sandpit for theatre obsessives like me to frolic in.

Joh Hartog  was the primary initiator of the project. He is Head of the Drama Department at Flinders University which, with our Latrobe Uni, is one of eight universities in a national Aus Stage consortium.

“Aus Stage came from my post-grad work on the Performing Arts Collection of SA. The actual idea to take it further came from the ADSA (Australian Drama Studies Association) executive.”

It will be “a pathway from event, to potential sources of further information, to the actual source material.,’ says Hartog. It will also link to other performing arts sites. On it, you will find performers, directors, designers, producers, venues, lists of reviews and articles.

"The site can be used as a pub bet settler,” quips Milne. Visitors to the site, according to Hartog will be, “ Researchers, reviewers, students and staff from educational institutions, the General Public.”  Milne suggests it has already saved one of his PhD students six months of research.

A partial grant was received in 1999 from DEETYA (Department of Education and Training). “With contributions from individual universities, the total exceeded a quarter of a million dollars over two years, “ says Milne with a gleam in his eye.

,Hartog anticipates the number of individual entries to be “ 5000 from 1/1/01 and a further 20,000 from before 1/1/01, but it is a bit of a guess.”

 ‘We are in the process of extending the coverage of events into the past ,”  he says.

Private collections are gold mines for this project and a recently discovered JC Williamson archive will provide material for decades of shows in Melbourne.

Company archives including those at La Mama, MTC, Playbox, Opera Australia,  Australian Ballet will be invaluable. The Wolanski collection in Sydney is enormous. “It fills a room, “ says Milne.

“The website is not merely a duplicate of the ANZTR, says Milne. The record was a monthly publication compiling reviews from 1987 to 1996. From 1988, it included New Zealand.

Noni Bousfield, graduate of Latrobe Drama, is a researcher for Aus Stage. Her task is to log Australian shows reviewed in ANZTR.

“In ‘87,’ she observes, “it had about 50 shows per month. By 1996 it held from 100 to 150.”

According to Milne, “The crucial decision was to aim for comprehensivity - a little information about a lot of events.”

 But the plan is to add  detail.  "We can append sound and video clips,,"Hartog says, "still photographs, reviews, articles, etc. to provide much more comprehensive information on some events.” He describes this as adding “vertical information” to existing “horizontal information.”

 According to Bousfield, “ It is fascinating charting the journey across Australia of a play such as Strictly Ballroom which began on stage at NIDA then became a major film.”

So get those trivia quizzes ready and lay down some bets on what Kate Blanchett was doing in April 1980. High School probably.

by Kate Herbert

Theatre Safety in Australia, July 11, 2001

Theatre Safety in Australia

By Kate Herbert

July 11, 2001

Accidents will happen anywhere, any time. Theatre may be all artifice but the accidents that happen on and off-stage are all too real. Julie Nihill cut her hand on broken crockery n a  Playbox show. Dan Spielman cut his had on a broken beer bottle just last week in KTTP 's The Share. Anni Davey fell from circus rigging during a Circus Oz show in Perth ten years ago and Heather Tetu circus performer broke both ankles at Jupiter casino some years ago.

there are candles cigarettes, electrical cables and lamps, pyrotechnics, guns, knives, high stages, scaffolding,  ladders, ropes, stage fights, choreography, acrobatics, concrete floors , unconventional venues, movable seating, stairs to climb, dark backstage space, furniture to negotiate, tricky props to manipulate, flammable costumes, and the list goes on and on and on...

Actors are dropped down trap doors (Ross Williams in Man the Balloon), work with knives (Julia Blake and Victoria Eagger in Salt Playbox) they climb up stacks of chairs (Julie Forsyth and Paul Blackman in the chairs MTC) or perform on very steeply raked stages wearing corsets and high heels (Trelawney of the wells MTC) or hang from harnesses above the stage (Margaret Mills in Angels in America)

No wonder the MTC has a consultant physiotherapist on call to advise on health and safety issues for actors.

If the actors do not do the warm up advised for them when working on a raked stage, then the production manager cannot control the damage to their backs, says Louise McRoberts.

The Melbourne Theatre Company has a rigorous safety procedures which were developed over the last few years by Ian Cooksley with Mc Roberts. it is clear that much of this material is now part of the new Safety Guidelines for the Entertainment Industry produced in draft plan by the MEAA (Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance).

Risk assessment, says McRoberts, is the first step in protecting actors against injury. When working in the Arts centre, when any hazardous activity is proposed the VCA requires a risk assessment.

When NYID performed in a city car park this year, an occupancy permit was requited. Jackson says that the City of Melbourne is particularly rigorous about safety unlike some other councils. "They require a detailed evacuation plan. They give a provisional permit until they check whether the plan complies with their regulations.

"We traded off on safety lights by providing five trained fire wardens for each show"

In theatre, there is says Production Manager of NYID, Paul Jackson, there can often be a split between the production workers and the creative team in relation to safety procedures. The creative workers may think the production people obstructionist when they raise safety issues. The production team may think the creative personnel don't know how to realise their vision.

Louise McRoberts, lecturer in production and stage management at VCA and former Stage Manager at Melbourne Theatre Company, says that the practical solutions need to be provided by the production manager in order to meet the needs of the director or other creative personnel.

In the draft plan, almost every contingency is covered although I could not find anything specifically related to use of glass on stage. McRoberts says that sugar glass can be obtained in Melbourne bout hat it is very expensive. Small companies on smaller budgets cannot afford to sue it. In A Little Night Music a sugar glass champagne glass was smashed every night.

Jackson says that budget is often the constraint for small companies. It compromises safety al the time.

Venues such as La Mama and the Carlton Courthouse are death traps, says Jackson. He believes that profit margins compromise safety.

"In the end the concern about safety has to be balanced by the fact hat very little does go wrong." " You cannot legislate on every possibility in the theatre because theatre is about pushing the boundaries. "  "We all have horror stories in the theatre but more accidents happen on building sites and that is the most heavily regulated industry."

"The most I can do is bring in a specialist," which is what he did with Front (Melbourne Workers Theatre) The scaffolding was signed off by a certified rigger. However, Jackson says, he checked every bolt himself every night of the season just to be sure.

Says Jackson, "The reality in the theater is time line versus budget versus creative drive."

Jackson believes that the major impact of the safety guidelines will be on the major organisations and venues. What we need is qualified production managers working in each company.

MEAA's representation of production workers in theater is appalling he says.

In Canada all production crew wear hard hats. The rules are different not only in different councils but in each state. Hopefully this plan will regulate to some degree the variables between companies, states and ...

By Kate Herbert

Theatre Safety - Article, July 11, 2001

Writer:  Kate Herbert

July 11, 2011

Accidents will happen anywhere, any time. Theatre may be all artifice but the accidents that happen on and off-stage are all too real. Julie Nihill cut her hand on broken crockery n a  Playbox show. Dan Spielman cut his had on a broken beer bottle just last week in KTTP 's The Share. Anni Davey fell from circus rigging during a Circus Oz show in Perth ten years ago and Heather Tetu circus performer broke both ankles at Jupiter casino some years ago.

there are candles cigarettes, electrical cables and lamps, pyrotechnics, guns, knives, high stages, scaffolding,  ladders, ropes, stage fights, choreography, acrobatics, concrete floors , unconventional venues, movable seating, stairs to climb, dark backstage space, furniture to negotiate, tricky props to manipulate, flammable costumes, and the list goes on and on and on...

Actors are dropped down trap doors (Ross Williams in Man the Balloon), work with knives (Julia Blake and Victoria Eagger in Salt Playbox) they climb up stacks of chairs (Julie Forsyth and Paul Blackman in the chairs MTC) or perform on very steeply raked stages wearing corsets and high heels (Trelawney of the wells MTC) or hang from harnesses above the stage (Margaret Mills in Angels in America)

No wonder the MTC has a consultant physiotherapist on call to advise on health and safety issues for actors.

If the actors do not do the warm up advised for them when working on a raked stage, then the production manager cannot control the damage to their backs, says Louise McRoberts.

The Melbourne Theatre Company has a rigorous safety procedures which were developed over the last few years by Ian Cooksley with Mc Roberts. it is clear that much of this material is now part of the new Safety Guidelines for the Entertainment Industry produced in draft plan by the MEAA (Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance).

Risk assessment, says McRoberts, is the first step in protecting actors against injury. When working in the Arts centre, when any hazardous activity is proposed the VCA requires a risk assessment.

When NYID performed in a city car park this year, an occupancy permit was requited. Jackson says that the City of Melbourne is particularly rigorous about safety unlike some other councils. "They require a detailed evacuation plan. They give a provisional permit until they check whether the plan complies with their regulations.

"We traded off on safety lights by providing five trained fire wardens for each show"

In theatre, there is says Production Manager of NYID, Paul Jackson, there can often be a split between the production workers and the creative team in relation to safety procedures. The creative workers may think the production people obstructionist when they raise safety issues. The production team may think the creative personnel don't know how to realise their vision.

Louise McRoberts, lecturer in production and stage management at VCA and former Stage Manager at Melbourne Theatre Company, says that the practical solutions need to be provided by the production manager in order to meet the needs of the director or other creative personnel.

In the draft plan, almost every contingency is covered although I could not find anything specifically related to use of glass on stage. McRoberts says that sugar glass can be obtained in Melbourne bout hat it is very expensive. Small companies on smaller budgets cannot afford to sue it. In A Little Night Music a sugar glass champagne glass was smashed every night.

Jackson says that budget is often the constraint for small companies. It compromises safety al the time.

Venues such as La Mama and the Carlton Courthouse are death traps, says Jackson. He believes that profit margins compromise safety.

"In the end the concern about safety has to be balanced by the fact hat very little does go wrong." " You cannot legislate on every possibility in the theatre because theatre is about pushing the boundaries. "  "We all have horror stories in the theatre but more accidents happen on building sites and that is the most heavily regulated industry."

"The most I can do is bring in a specialist," which is what he did with Front (Melbourne Workers Theatre) The scaffolding was signed off by a certified rigger. However, Jackson says, he checked every bolt himself every night of the season just to be sure.

Says Jackson, "The reality in the theater is time line versus budget versus creative drive."

Jackson believes that the major impact of the safety guidelines will be on the major organisations and venues. What we need is qualified production managers working in each company.

MEAA's representation of production workers in theater is appalling he says.

In Canada all production crew wear hard hats. The rules are different not only in different councils but in each state. Hopefully this plan will regulate to some degree the variables between companies, states and ...

By Kate Herbert

Salt, March 23, 2001

Salt by Peta Murray

Playbox Theatre at Beckett Theatre March 23, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Mothers and daughters. Food and kitchens. They seem part of the same picture. Mothers teach daughters to cook. They fight and make up over the kitchen table and pots of tea.

In Peta Murray's new play, Salt, it is, ironically, the daughter, Meg, (Victoria Eagger) who is the devoted, pernickety, innovative cook and her mum, Laurel (Julia Blake) who cooks meals from Heinz cans. It is a pity we in the back rows miss the aromas of the on-stage cooking.

The play is directed effortlessly and seamlessly by Aubrey Mellor a on a sleek design by Trina Parker.

The history and relationship of these two women is played out in their kitchens. They cook, argue, reminisce. We very quickly realise that memory is unreliable, particularly for Laurel who is losing her grip on her past. She is fearful of the unspecified 'tests' that will name her dementia.

Julia Blake's Laurel is a complex characterisation of the unravelling of a woman who has always been narcissistic, flirtatious and abandoned. It is a movin portrayal of the fear and despair that accompanies Alzheimer's. Roles are swapped. The mother becomes the mothered, the baby bird feeds the mother bird.

Victoria Eagger plays Meg, the brisk, practical 'kitchen fascist' who has missed her final chance at relationship and children. She now devoted herself to her mother.

Vegetables and fruit feature throughout. Fresh specimums are displayed in spotlights in the set. Tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, rhubarb are paraded like celebrities by Paul English who plays an anonymous Man/Narrator. He provides us with scientific details of their origins and poisonous properties. He is charming and witty as the representation of all men in their lives.

Murray splices warm, naturalistic scenes between the women with their internal monologues, memories, recipes and readings from famous foodies: "Fulton, Margaret."

It is a study of the mother-daughter relationship and the deterioration of a mind with age but it is also about lost dreams.

Mysteries are suggested early in the pasts of both women. The revelations of these in the final scene are disappointing in the script. They seems contrived and arch, lacking any genuine significance in the greater scheme of things, in the face of dementia.

It is an enjoyable meal of a play.

By Kate Herbert

Scenes of the Beginning from the End , NYID

Not Yet It's Difficultat Public Office Car Park

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

March 20, 2001

We are meaning makers. Our little synapses go mad hooking up seemingly disconnected images or sequences and making meaning of them.

Contemporary performance groups such as Not Yet It's Difficult, demand an audience some intellectual work to pull the threads of themes together.

In their latest work, performed in the still active car park of the Public Office in West Melbourne, audience participates in an event that combines video installation, performance art, contemporary dance and  a parody of Neighbours.

The themes forming the glue for all these forms revolve around notions of how and why we live where we do. We begin our video and movement journey in the desert then travel via images and dialogue to the suburbs. Then we take a video train to the city and end up right back in the Public Office building again.

The opening sequence is clearly the most successful component of the performance. It is the scene in which the various elements of performance are most cohesive and most creatively combined by director David Pledger, dramaturg, Peter Eckersall and the ensemble of seven actors.

We are guided upstairs, warned about safety issues and exits, ushered to surprisingly comfortable seating. Images of the outback are set behind a complex and fascinating movement sequence that conjures thoughts of desert creatures, lizards and birds. Evocative sound design (Roger Alsop) and stark lighting completes the picture.

The very end of the final sequence , after we return to the screen after out journey around the suburban stereotypes and soap opera, is also effective linkage of forms.

The performers (Paul Bongiovanni, Greg Ulfan, Tamara Saulwick, Louise Taube, Tony Briggs, Natalie Cursio, Cazarine Barry) appear on screen via live video cameras, mocking and mimicking the office workers who are trailing past us out of the car park in their cars.

There are some very entertaining moments in the suburbs with teenagers and adults arguing, families living out the Neighbours dream and even a Japanese and Vietnamese video version of Charlene and Scott in Ramsay Street.

However, the critique of lifestyle, city and suburbia lacks depth. Some of the acting is limited but the physical work and choreography are delightful.

By Kate Herbert

Design for Living, MTC, March 15, 2001

by Noel Coward

MTC at Playhouse, Mar 15 to  14 April, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Noel Coward was a prolific playwright and song-writer. His plays are stuffed with witty dialogue and smart, urbane, often glib characters. Design for Living written in 1932, is no exception.

It was controversial in its time. It is not, however, his best or funniest work. Nor does it have the poignant edge of his play, Private Lives, nor its level of incisive commentary on the immoral middle classes and their petty squabbles and concerns.

Design for Living is directed with style by Rodney Fisher at a swift pace appropriate for Coward.  It is a co-production for the State Theatre Company of South Australia and the MTC. Dale Ferguson's design is exceptionally rich. His New York apartment drew gasps of pleasure from the audience.

It focuses on three self-centred and privileged people who love each other but are careless with each other's affections and with their mutual friendships. It is social farce about love and lust in the 1930s. It may be out of date now to be horrfied at couples living together unmarried but it is still awful to watch such blatant selfishness in action.

In Act One, Gilda (Josephine Byrnes) lives in Paris with Otto (Rhys Muldoon), a young portrait painter. Their mutual friend Leo (Nathan Page) arrives and Gilda and he fly off together.

In Act Two, Otto interferes with their little love nest in London when he arrives as a successful painter. Leo meanwhile has another hit play. Gilda runs off with their older conservative friend , Ernest. (Dennis Olsen) Yes, Gilda marries him and escapes from her two lovers to live in benign boredom in New York .

Byrnes is a bright presence on stage and creates a nervy, deceitful and  immoral creature of the period. Her journey to conservatism and back again is credible.

As Ernest, Olsen creates a powerful and substantial character. Ernest is the only character who deserves our sympathy when he is dumped unceremoniously by his wife.

Muldoon gives an arch and witty portrayal of Otto . Page seems uncomfortable in the style but relaxes in the very funny drunk scene between the two men.

There is much unresolved sexual tension between all three characters. It is surprising that Fisher did not exploit the homo-erotic layers of Otto and Leo's relatiionship. It is palpable in Coward's script.

By Kate Herbert

Mothballs, March 9, 2001

By Jack Hibberd

Chapel off Chapel, March 9 until 1 April, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Jack Hibberd's style is recognisably idiosyncratic even after thirty or so years of writing for the Australian theatre. Mothballs, his latest monologue in a series of new plays, is performed with zest by his partner, Evelyn Krape. It has his signature written all over it.

The language is complex, witty and littered with literary references and local colour. Krape is a woman in mourning after the death of her husband, Ashley Smith. She is called Jocasta which is an allusion to the ancient Greek character and her fraught marriage. Attaching the surname Smith to such an epic name as Jocasta, is a typical Hibberd tilt.

He gets laughs from purposely misusing words, misquoting proverbs or cliches, poems or philosphers or placing anachronistic ideas together. Hibberd's writing is like a quick flit around the intelligentsia while simultaneously cocking a snoot at them.

This monologue is not quite as successful as Lavendar Bags Hibberd's previous piece performed by Krape last year. It is not as cohesive and has less of the relentless fury and hilarity.

However, it is clever and delightfully wicked and irreverent, with both poignant and funny moments. HIbberd's direction of his own play is cheeky and anarchic. Krape cavorts and capers in a parody of joy and despair. She is warm and charming as she leaps from mania to weeping, ecstasy to angst in a moment.

There is the opportunity for her performance to plumb the depths of anguish further. Her two styles of deep penetration of an emotion and hilarious parody of human pain are well-suited to this production but both could be a little sharper.

Even the choice of recorded music is funny. Mozart's Requiem is counterpointed with Chubby Checker and African drum music.

The presence of the corpse in a body bag on a marriage bed in the space is grotesque and funny. This epitomises the Hibberd humour. If it's sacred or serious, let's treat it irreverently. Now, there's a sound philosophy!

By Kate Herbert

Betrayal, MTC, Feb 28, 2001

 by Harold Pinter

 MTC at Fairfax Studio, Feb 28  until 12 April, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

There is a creeping fear in us all of betrayal by a lover, a partner, a friend. In Harold Pinter's 1978 play, Betrayal, a wife's affair with her husband's best friend for seven years is not the only treachery.

Emma, played with great composure by Sigrid Thornton, sets up a little secret love nest with Jerry (Richard Piper) unknown, or so we think, to her husband, Robert (Martin Jacobs).

The beauty of Pinter's structuring of this deceptively simple play, is that we know everything from the first scene. He runs the play backwards chronologically and we see the last meeting of Emma and Jerry at the point of Emma and Robert's separation.

We all know the destructive power of deception and infidelity. We recognise, even predict, the ruin in others. We are blind to our own spiral into self-destruction through love.

This is a strong production of an exceptional play directed unobtrusively and intelligently by Kate Cherry, designed stylishly by Anna Borghesi with music by Ian McDonald.

My only quibble is that it lacks some of the necessary passion and sensuality seen in other productions or in the English film starring Jeremy Irons.

Thornton is well known and highly regarded for her screen work but this is her first stage appearance and she demonstrates that she possesses the vocal and emotional range for this part.

Piper is suitably chipper and anxious as Jerry while Jacobs gives a delightfully muscular performance as the abrasive and brusque Robert.

Pinter, by running the story in reverse, allows us to view not the breakdown of the relationships but where they have come from and how they have bren.

He explores the fickleness of not only love but of memory. Even the characters' most precious memories are questioned. This play was based on Pinter's own experience of a triangle of love with Joan Bakewell.

Betrayal was a departure from Pinter's obscure, ambiguous and oblique earlier plays such as The Birthday Party, The Homecoming and The Caretaker. However, he retains the crispness of the dialogue, and the subtle representation of misunderstandings and unspent thoughts of the early works.

By Kate Herbert

Miss Tanaka, Feb 21, 2001

Miss Tanaka by John Romeril 

Playbox Theatre

at Merlin Theatre, Feb 21 until March 10, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

John Romeril's new play, Miss Tanaka is charming, witty and pretty. It is, in myriad ways, a mixed-media production. Not only does it integrate puppetry, video, original composition and choreography, it has strong inter-cultural themes.

David Bell , Artistic Director of Handspan Theatre, worked with John Romeril on developing this script from a Xavier Herbert short story from 1997.

Mott, a young Englishman, played with style and charm by Jeremy Stanford, arrives in Broome in North West Australia in 1939 just as the war with Japan begins. He takes over his father's pearling company which, of course, employs many Japanese as pearl divers.

The story is simple. Mott is bemused by the rough and ready behaviour of the locals. He is met by a young Japanese-Torres Strait Islander, Kazuhiko (Bradley Byquar) whose father, Mr Tanaka (Tam Phan) is a swindling but lovable rogue who runs cock fights and Sumo wrestling.

Tanaka compels his son, Kazuhiko, to dress as a naive Japanese girl,  the Miss Tanaka of the title. His two betting friends, Hanif ( Tony Yap) and Sakamoto ( Yumi Umiumare) offer dowries of pearls for her hand in marriage. This beauty in drag also catches the eye and the heart of young Mr Mott.

As Mott, Stanford is a warm and magnetic presence on stage. He does a delightful crowd-pleasing Fred Astaire song and dance routine to Things are Looking Up.

The design by Greg Clarke is a broad white stage lit by David Walters. The design is projected onto the white screens with images, slides and shadow puppetry. The entire bar-room opium and card-game sequence is played in stylish video footage with a peppy 1930s atmosphere.

Yap and Umiumare create a clever comic double act and their dance skills are exploited effectively by choreographer, Andris Toppe . Live drummers, Junko and Toshi Sakamoto, provide live performance of Darrin Verhagen's percussive music.

Puppeteers, Heather Monk and Megan Cameron, manipulate Rob Matson's hilarious and provocative puppets with great skill and impact.

This is a sweet show that leaves one smiling. It does not challenge major issues but it looks beautiful, is wittily written and technically ambitious .

By Kate Herbert

My Brother the Fish, Feb 15, 2001

by Dan Scollay and John Bolton

Feb 15, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

We are still charmed, even as adults, by a simple, well-told story. My Brother the Fish is just that; a poignant, evocative and sweet Irish tale performed by Dan Scollay and directed by John Bolton.

Scollay is a magnetic performer who trained with Bolton in clown and physical theatre. Together they take Helen Luke's story, Salmon Fisher Boy, and transform it into a delightful, entertaining and skilful theatrical journey.

Rosie is an Irish peasant girl who works gutting fish. She was born with a twin brother who is less than clever in school but has a magic touch with fishing. He is raised by their granny, drawn to the water, fails at school but fills his trawler with fish.

Scollay, dressed quaintly in a pair of Bond's knickers and a jumper, perches on a tin can and guts two fish in a bucket. Yes, really! As he creates Rosie, her brother, granny and the morose old fisherman, we catch the real scent of fish in the air. It is both disturbing and atmospheric.

Her vocal and physical versatility enhance the characterisations. She does not so much transform into the characters as sketch them with her voice and body. Her depiction of Sister Finnegan, the mean religious maniacal nun, is masterly.

Her comic and dramatic timing is impeccable. Scollay is relaxed as well as poised like a cat for every movement, every subtle shift of emphasis.

Of course, much of the strength of the piece is in the direction and co-writing of John Bolton. His hand is evident in the show's eccentric twists.

An extraordinary and unrecognisable style of musical squeeze-box features in two songs. Tiny objects, representing an eye and a human finger, are pulled from a bucket. A miniature train makes an epic journey and a giant salmon is filled with the moon and memorabilia.

A sensitive and subtle lighting and set design by Phil Burns completes the picture.

Scollay grabs us in the first moment and holds our attention for fifty minutes. She has a sweet singing voice and manages to people the stage with characters in this engaging and joyful tale.

By Kate Herbert

The Singing Forest, Feb 11, 2001

 by Julia Britton

at Theatreworks from February 10 (no closing date), 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Auschwitz is not unknown to us. We see documentary footage of the bodies, furnaces, gas chambers, graves and sheds in which Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other enemies of the Third Reich were incarcerated and murdered.

The real footage is horrific. To attempt to replay that horror on stage in the theatre is courageous and nigh impossible.

What makes The Singing Forest fail in this attempt is the expository writing of Julia Britton and the graphic violence shown in scenes by director Robert Chuter. We become desensitised to the violence by the constant beatings, rapes and violations of prisoners in a semi-realistic manner.

The repetition, in both dialogue and monologues, of descriptions of violence similarly inures us to pain. If the writer stopped preaching and telling us how the characters feel rather than showing us, used silence instead of a torrent of words, edited ruthlessly from three hours, we might feel something.

If the director had used theatrical devices, subtlety and suggestions of violence rather than attempting to recreate real beatings, we might have felt more.

 Three central characters, a female Jewish doctor, a homosexual German youth and an Aussie soldier, speak in prolonged monologues between scenes.

There are several strong performances amongst a cast of fortyish that seems to be mostly inexperienced actors. As a German officer, Peter Heward finds a balance between compassion and brutality. 

John Morris is credible as the Aussie digger. Jenny Lovell is the only actor who makes the monologues work. As the Jewish doctor assisting Mengele in his awful experiments on children and twins, she is warm and believable.

The relationship between her and her fellow  prisoner-doctor, (Carmen Warrington) is filled with sadness and human compassion.

Playing Heinz, the German homosexual, Jonathan Kovac shows promise.  John Tarrant as the murderous Dr Mengele, plays low-key villainy which could work if he were audible.

The structure of the play is clumsy. The three stories need editing and more complex linking. The entire first half hour could be eliminated by starting at the Auschwitz station. Any information could be incorporated into dialogue.

The too numerous scene changes involve unnecessary movement of furniture which is covered, but not excused, by music. Too many short scenes are not compensated for by those that are too long such as that in which three men hoist bodies into the furnaces of the crematorium.

Kate Herbert

Lest We Forget, Feb 10, 2001

t by Rod Quantock Trades Hall until March 3, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Rod Quantock was at the S11 demonstration at Crown Casino on September 11 , 2000. He was also a victim of the baton charge by the police that day.

In his new show, Lest We Forget, Quantock is doing his bit for the State Government inquiry into the police violence. On February 28, the Steve Bracks, will hand down the findings of Mr. Perry, Victorian Ombudsman.

Quantock's shows are never simply stand-up. In fact, initially he looks like doing a "kneel-down" show with a very short microphone.

His material is focussed on the demonstration. Usually the shows are very low-tech using chalk and blackboard. He graduates to VHS video footage of the demonstration and some odd props including a gas barbecue that was to cook up some honey and beef snags for us just like Brack's barbie for the coppers after the demo.

His rambling commentary and deceptively silly detours from the topic cannot disguise his disgust at the behaviour of the police and Bracks who he now calls "Jeff Bracks", to condemn Steve with the name of Quantock's former nemesis, Jeff Kennett.

He manages to find jokes about the young demonstrators mangling a John Farnham song, about fresh-faced policemen playing badminton with their batons and then illegally ripping off their velcro name tags before charging the demonstrators.

The show lacks the usual frenetic scribbling and detailed political and economic commentary of the previous shows about Kennett's government amongst other things.

It is funny and disturbing as always. The most distressing images apart from the beatings, are the internet ads for batons and baton beating techniques.

The material could be enhanced by further details about the World Economic Forum, globalisation and the reasons these kids were demonstrating in the first place. Many of the audience were ignorant of the specifics.

There must be plenty of gags to be had from the image of tetchy international delegates scuttling from the casino in limos and hiding in hotel rooms to avoid children with a few marbles to toss at them.

Quantock is our smart comedian and even if you disagreed with the S11 protest or thought the demonstrators were a bunch of scruffy feral drop-outs, you might find this enlightening - and maybe score a snag into the bargain.

Keep an ear out for the inquiry findings on Feb 28.

By Kate Herbert

It's a Dad Thing! Feb 8, 2001

 at Athenaeum Theatre. From Feb 8, 2001

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

This is the third incarnation of It's a Dad Thing! and the best by a long shot. Five men tell tales of the highs and lows of being a dad. They range from the hilarious to the poignant and schmaltzy.

Identification theatre hauls in a huge crowd who never go to the theatre. The idea is that out-of-work-artists find a topic with which a large percentage of the community identify - and then they milk it for laughs.

Wogs out of Work did it for the ethnic community. Mum's the Word did it for mums. Now It's a Dad Thing is doing it to modern fatherhood.

The company comprises five comic actors: Geoff Paine and Matthew Green were part of the original group who co-wrote and performed the show in 1999-2000. Joining them on stage and adding new material are Michael Veitch, Brian Nankervis  and James Sherry.

The laughs are frequent as are the groans of recognition. We see the sleep-deprived dad (Paine) painstakingly patting his baby to sleep then stepping on a creaking floorboard. We witness the fathers' class with a midwife like a sergeant-major who scares them into submission.

Veitch performs  a very witty " whingeing father" political speech and Green plays the father waiting patiently for his wife to want to have sex again. There is even dancing and singing.

There are real stories of the newborn baby is distress (Nankervis) and of the house husband who feels inadequate. (Sherry) and of fathers making disastrous mistakes with their babes. The gasps from the audience were audible as Veitch describes his bubs tumbling off the verandah.

One of the most satisfying sketches, both comically and theatrically, is Paine's farewell to his 1963 EH Holden. The other actors create the car as a cool talking, smooth guy in sunglasses. Who could sell it for a family car after all the fine times it gave him?

Kaarin Fairfax's direction is competent although there are still some bumpy patches. Some scenes are uncomfortable. The fathers' building of a playground acts as a link but works only in part.

The shifts into more serious monologues are not always successful. The material needs some culling still and some of the groups scenes feel awkward.

This is a romp for two hours. It will cheer you up and the theatre is air conditioned for a hot night.

By Kate Herbert