Dirty Butterfly, Red Stitch, July 25, 2012

By Debbie Tucker Green

Red Stitch Actors Theatre Rear 2A Chapel St. St. Kilda

July 25 to August 17, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on July 25, 2003

 There is an ominous feeling from the very start of Dirty Butterfly. We sense that someone is to be damaged irreparably.

English playwright, Debbie Tucker Green, tells her story about violence and voyeurism in two parts. The first peers into the world of the three young neighbours from an apartment block with very thin walls.

Jo (Kat Stewart) Amelia  (Ella Caldwell ) and Jason (Vince Miller) live adjacent to each other. Jason suffers with a stammer and is socially isolated. He spends hapless hours with an ear pressed to his dividing wall listening to Jo's sexual activity with her abusive boyfriend.

The opening act is abstracted. We see all three in the space as if in their own apartments but communicating directly as if in the same room. Jo tells that, in the early morning, she crept from her bed to crawl to the toilet, afraid to wake her volatile lover. She taunts Jason with her sexual exploits, knowing he is obsessed with her.

Amelia has already moved downstairs from her bedroom to sleep on her sofa to avoid the sounds of lust through her wall. She wants Jason to do the same. We wonder, are Amelia and Jason friends or ex-lovers? Do they know Jo or not?

Jo wakes up every morning feeling as if it is going to be her last. Each day she could be right but we do not know if we are about to witness her final hours.

The second act is shorter and more realistic as Jo arrives, early in the morning, bloody and beaten in the café Amelia cleans.

Kat Stewart is compelling as the beleaguered Jo. She explores a range that runs from the seductive to the shattered and victimised. Caldwell is sympathetic as Amelia, the young Cockney who wants to avoid all the horror of Jo's life but cannot seem to separate from her.

Miller plays the repressed and trembling Jason as an obsessional but sad young man. Martin White's direction accentuates the strangeness of the play and the fragmented nature of Tucker Green's dialogue.

The play intrudes on these miserable and fallible individuals' lives, peeling back the layers of their raw humanity. The lives of these three are as flimsy and vulnerable as the walls that separate their flats.

By Kate Herbert

Call me Komachi by Christie Nieman, July 22, 2003

Call Me Komachi by Christie Nieman  

fortyfivedownstairs, July 22 to August 3, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The global social phenomenon of women's beauty as a commodity is the subject of Call me Komachi.

Although the three women written by Christie Nieman and played by Kaori Hamamoto  are Japanese, we recognise similarities to our own culture. Kinu,  a sweet innocent schoolgirl, finds a new best friend, Reika , in a new city at her new school. Reika has already lost her innocence. She has chosen "Enjo Kosai",  a sponsored relationship with an older businessman.

This distressing form of sexual usury of young girls became common in the mid-90s in Japan. Young girls leave their details on a message line and men call and select one to be their protegee  - or victim.

Reika is cheeky and charming. Her daddy adores her and calls her Komachi, the name of a great beauty, a famous Japanese courtesan. Reika can indulge her obsession with Valentino  and Vivian Westwood   haute couture  with finance from her middle aged sponsor.

Reika's attitude alters when she realises she can no longer avoid sex with her sponsor at one of Japan's Love Hotels.  He pays for her time and company. That means sex at lunchtime.

The third character is a traditional Geisha.  "I was born a hundred years to late," she pines. She paints her face in the mask of the Geisha, performs her Tea Ceremony.  and reveals her sad, secret love.

This woman is an object, the manifestation of "iroke", man's sexual fascination with woman. Iroke focuses on the fragile impermanence of "beauty on the point of collapse."

Kinu is the child yet to become the object or victim of the male gaze that Reika and the Geisha are. Kaori Hamamoto, a Japanese woman who studied acting in Australia, plays all three characters consecutively. She is convincing, particularly as Reika, the naughty provocative fashion victim.

First time director, Miki Oikawa  allows Nieman's monologues to take the focus. The problem is that there is little stage action and sometimes too much talking. Unfortunately, when the Geisha paints her face we are unable to see her or hear her clearly.

Although Call me Komachi is theatrically limited, it is a fascinating glimpse into one part of the world of women in Japan.

By Kate Herbert

All Het Up, John & Fiona Thorn, July 17, 2003

Music by John Thorn,  Fiona Thorn  
Story & lyrics by Guy Rundle  John Thorn, Fiona Thorn

Chapel off Chapel, July 17 to until August 3, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

If you have ever been hyped up about a new love affair - and let's face it, who hasn't? - All Het Up will be a very entertaining night of song and humour for you.

Most of us have listened to songs that touch a chord or tell our own story, particularly when they are about love. We identify with the universal story of love requited and unrequited.

All Het Up is delightful identification music theatre. The audience relates to the relationship disasters and character foibles of the four protagonists.

Will  (Colin Lane) is an emotional jellyfish goes on a blind date to meet Kate,  (Fiona Thorn) a bit of a loony who talks marriage on the first date.

Kate's friend, Tash, (Jane Badler) is a one of those hippy fascists who demand everyone believe in their flaky ideas and is sexually adventurous. She meets Jack  (Jeremy Stanford) in a club. He is vain but groovy and good looking.

The love stories go awry when the two couples finally get together and their sexual histories slap them in the face.

The show is ninety minutes of original songs with some hilarious lyrics that rival Gilbert and Sullivan,  Cole Porter and Rogers and H.  for their cunning rhyme structures.

The songs cover a range of styles from perky forties tunes, Cha Cha , romantic ballads, duets, quartets and even one called Sex, the Madrigal - don't ask.

Titles include the Chat Up Cantata, sung by all four, What Goes on inside Their Brains, What About Those Pies  sung by the men trying to avoid talking abut being in love, Ring You Bastard  which most women will recognise.

Thanks for the Angst  is a peppy number followed by When the Bastard Becomes Tender Then I Melt. All are seamlessly linked by some smart and witty direction by Wayne Hope.  

The other linking factor is the café waiter, played by Patrick Cronin.  He is the chorus, the objective observer on the burgeoning relationships of the two couples.

John Thorn, Musical Director on piano, leads a small but exceptional ensemble of double bass, (Eli Firestone OK) drums (Jeremy Hopkins) and Patrick Cronin joins them on trumpet and percussion.

This show is clever, funny, musically delightful and a whole load of fun for anyone who ever fell in or out of love.

By Kate Herbert

Below by Ian Wilding, July 16, 2003

A CIA(2)  production

La Mama, July 16 to  27, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Book a ticket now for Ian Wilding 's play, Below, by at La Mama. It has not only an exceptional script but superb acting and skilful direction.

Below was part of the 2000 Griffin Theatre  program in Sydney but in Melbourne it is to be seen at in the intimate space of La Mama in an evocative design by Peter Mumford. It is a gripping, gritty and often funny tale about Dougie  (Joe Clements) and John,  (Stewart Morritt ) two men from the North of England, and Dougie's rather simple Aussie wife, Sarah  (Lisa Angove ).

The two men work in a coal mine in an unnamed Australian town. The labour is gruelling, the mine dangerous and their spirits and health are failing.

Wilding peppers the darkness of their world with some uproarious humour. It highlights the tragedy of their relentlessly awful lives and the spider web in which they find themselves. Wilding unwraps the story like a Russian doll. Each time we think we know their lives we are  surprised by yet another snippet of information, another secret that one or other of the trio has withheld.

Dougie is a likeable spiv who likes to visit the whorehouse and the pub at night. John is more reserved and stays home with Sarah. There is more to this than Dougie knows. Their despair, ignorance and desperation lead to a series of fatal choices on all their parts. These people are doomed from the moment we see them kick off their shoes and suck back a glass of stout.

Clements brings a warmth and haplessness to Dougie, who, ironically, seems to hold the power in his home but is victimised at the mine.

Morritt plays John with a calm dignity and passion. He makes us hope John can achieve his dream to leave the mine and the horrid town. As the submissive and uncomprehending Sarah, Angove is sympathetic.

Director, Phil Roberts,  allows the characters, dialogue and relationships to do the work. He directs with a slick hand but does not impose any unnecessary colour on this already vivid story.

The pace is cracking and allows the natural dynamic range of the play to lead us on a helter skelter journey with these maddening, lovable and damaged people.

By Kate Herbert

The Visit by Durrenmatt, MTC July 3, 2003

The Visit  by Friedrich Durrenmatt  Melbourne Theatre Company

Playhouse, July 3 to  August 2, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Simon Phillips'  production of Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit is a theatrical feast marking the return to the Melbourne stage of theatrical luminary, Zoe Caldwell.  after a nineteen year absence. It is vibrant, funny and dark, capturing impeccably Durrenmatt's grim cartoon style.

An ailing and aging woman, Claire Zachanassian,  (Caldwell) the wealthiest woman in the world, returns to Gullen,  her poverty-stricken village, to offer financial assistance in return for vengeance against her unfaithful former lover, Schill. (Alex Scott)

 The village initially abhor her request to kill Schill for her billion Deutschmarks but self-interest and greed rapidly overcome their moral dilemma. The play is a fine example of this 20^th century Swiss playwright's "theatre of grotesque paradoxes."

Phillips directs it with theatrical vision, rhythm and pace. He invites us in to a bizarre and compelling world of absurd humour, quirky characters, dramatic tension, intrigue and moral dilemma.

The cast of eighteen is a well-oiled ensemble that draws together Australian actors of high calibre. In the foreground stands Caldwell in vivid colour. Her presence is statuesque and riveting, her timing precise and her voice fills the Playhouse.

Opposite her, playing Schill, Alex Scott returns to the MTC stage having been in the company's first production in 1953 with Caldwell. Scott seems almost not to be acting. His style is so subtle as the besieged old villager who must pay with his life for his youthful negligence.

The entire ensemble is exceptional playing eccentric characters but we cannot mention all eighteen here. Lewis Fiander  Kim Gyngell  Tony Llewellyn-Jones  Robert Menzies  and Alex Menglet play marvellously heightened characters.

Julie Forsyth  and John-Paul Hussey  provide a delightful clown pair and the children of Schill.  A high point is Jim Daly  and Bruce Kerr  as the blind eunuch musicians.

Gabriela Tylesova  designs the stage like a giant comic book. All is black and white - until Madame Zachanassian arrives in full technicolour. The stage landscape is lit evocatively by Nick Schlieper.

Ian McDonald's composition is a clever twist on Germanic music incorporating accordions and brass and beer house songs and dances.

The Visit is a fine example of Durrenmatt's play shaped by the hands of a contemporary director and a truly exciting ensemble.

By Kate Herbert

Falling Petals by Ben Ellis, July 2, 2003

Falling Petals 
 by Ben Ellis  by Playbox Theatre  

 Beckett Theatre, Malthouse, July 2 to 19, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on July 2

Ben Ellis's writer's note states that the role of Falling Petals is "to make reality of metaphor" and suggests he wants to dispel stereotypes of the Bush.. He is unsuccessful in many ways.

The script is clumsily constructed, repetitive, inconsistent and often ridiculous. Its style flip-flops  between realism, cartoon, social satire, parody and contemporary grotesque. Its repeated attempts to shock us with explicit sexual action fail perhaps because we are jaded or unshockable.

There is little to recommend this play apart from a valiant effort by director, Tom Healey,  to make it up beat, interesting lighting by Daniel Zika,  a simple graffiti littered set (Anna Borghesi), chaotic sound (David Franzke) sand traverse staging.

The story is incoherent and characters are relentlessly dislikeable. Very quickly we care about no one and nothing.

Initially, there is potential for compassion or even a clear narrative intention. We hear about the undiagnosed death of a child. More mysterious deaths and panic ensue amongst the townspeople.

Teenagers, Phil  (Paul Reichstein) and Tania  (Caroline Craig) are desperate to do well in Year 12  escape the small town life to go to university in Melbourne. Their schoolmate, Sally,  (Melia Naughton) is uninterested in change. To save themselves and their tourism, the adults banish their children to bungalows or the elements.

The falling petals too obviously represent the deaths. Dying children may be a metaphor for the death of the rural sector but the parallel is laboured and awkward.

Characters are inconsistent. Phil tilts between blind ambition, weakness, obscenity, naïve virginal prudery and outright violence and verbal abuse. We see them travel no logical journey.

Sally goes feral and insane for no apparent reason. No other children seem to have had these symptoms. The panic provides an excuse for a lot of shouting and emoting. Tania is a shrieking, sexually driven harpy. None of these people have any redeeming features. 

The actors do their best with a shabby and thin script and repetitive dialogue.

Melita Jurisic  and James Wardlaw provide a range of adult characters but they are written with no depth or style so it is impossible to do much with them.

The message we are left with is that the most self-centred, arrogant, abusive and angry person will survive. This is an expensive piece of bad theatre.

By Kate Herbert

Scaramouche Jones by Justin Butcher, June 18, 2003

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Scaramouche Jones by Justin Butcher  

With Pete Postlethwaite

Athenaeum Theatre I, June 8 to 29 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on June 18

Pete Postlethwaite  is exceptional as the ancient clown, Scaramouche Jones in Justin Butcher's play, of the same name.

He is alone on stage for ninety minutes and his performance is rivetting. The warm, honeyed tones of his voice compel one to enter the world of this eccentric, tragic old entertainer. Postelthwaite leads us on a picturesque journey from the birth of Scaramouche on a fish monger's table in Trinidad  at the end of 1899 to his swan song on the eve of 2000.

The irony is that this silent clown is portrayed through a torrent of poetic language. His inner world is flooded with language. His public world is stony silent. Butcher's script is vivid, painting elaborate word pictures to evoke the world of Scaramouche.

Butcher's language is lyrical and rich, colourful but sometimes unnecessarily convoluted. Its complexity sometimes interferes with the character and his action. Because the language is so dense, there is very little stage action.

The play is set inside a circus dressing tent, designed by Ashley Martin-Davis.  Director, Rupert Goold  punctuates Postlethwaite's self-narration with moments of captivating clown mime. His all too brief dumb shows portrayed his mother receiving her brothel clients, a hanging and even his own death.

The most significant mime occurs when Scaramouche, as a grave-digger in a Nazi concentration camp, parodies the German guards for the children about to die by their grave-side. He creates for them in silence, their own execution scene. It is tragic, funny and moving.

Scaramouche Jones tells the politics and history of a century through the eyes and life of one outsider. He is born in poverty and love of a West Indian gypsy mother and an unknown Englishman.

When his mother is murdered, he is sold to a sailor then finally sold to a snake charmer with whom he works until adulthood. He has vague understandings of both wars, is almost seduced by an Italian prince, is rescued by his beloved Gypsies  and ends up incarcerated in Spandau prison  convicted of war crimes.

His eerily white face is his trademark. As he ages and moves from one episode of his life journey to another, he changes one white mask for another. His seventh is on arrival in England, a free man finally. He puts on a clown white face and never takes it off.

This is a poignant and absorbing theatre performed by a consummate actor.

By Kate Herbert

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster ...Sewel, June 4, 2003

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America

By Stephen Sewell  by Playbox Theatre  and State Theatre Company of south Australia

Merlyn Theatre, Playbox Theatre, June 4 to 2, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

In Stephen Sewell's new play, the protagonist, Talbot,  (Nicholas Eadie), may draw a long bow with his comparison of the current American government with fascism.

The title of Talbot's book is the title of the play: Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America. Talbot claims it is an academic essay not a criticism of the American government. Unfortunately secret powers disagree and his life is radically transformed.

The play is an overtly political statement on the new conservatism in Australia and America arising out of recent issues in the Middle East and the so-called New World Order  since September 11. Sewell uses the world of an American university as the vehicle to explore the fear, paranoia and racism that propel governments into increased security and intelligence seeking.

The play is essentially a witch-hunt, echoing McCarthyism in the 1950s. Somebody must be blamed. Let's make it the leftists and liberals.

Talbot, an Australian professor, teaches Politics in an MBA (Master of Business Administration). His fraught wife, Eve,  (Alison Whyte) writes scripts for the Hollywood machine while his Aussie mate (Tom Considine) wants a teaching job in the USA. Talbot's conservative department boss, Jack,  (Michael Habib) is manipulative and self-seeking. Jack's wife (Jacqy Phillips) is a whisky soaked rich tart.

The play is a thriller in part. A dangerous stranger (Greg Stone) with uncanny knowledge of Talbot, invades Talbot's office and home. Talbot is beaten, incarcerated and finally tortured. Is the invader real or a paranoid delusion? Is he being punished for talking to a student (Ming Zhu Hii  alone in his rooms?

The acting from the entire ensemble is intelligent and rivetting.  The production, directed by Aubrey Mellor,  is compelling with a striking, clinical design by Shaun Gurton  and stark lighting by Mark Shelton. The rising panic and frenzy is accentuated by David Franzke's  sound design.

Sewell's script is ambitious and effective in the most part. The first half is the more coherent. The later half becomes verbose and focuses on too many characters and minor story threads. All the characters are markedly dislikeable and they function generally as ciphers for particular views.

Some incidental characters seem extraneous, such as the psychiatrist (Phillips) and Jill,  (Martha Lott) the wife of the university lawyer. (Robert Macpherson) The rising tide of right wing activity in America and Australia's support of Bush is the target for this piece.

The outcome of this grim and gripping tale may appear unlikely, but are we so far from the secret service running clandestine agendas?

By Kate Herbert

A Tree, Falling by Ron Elisha , May 22, 2003

A Tree, Falling  by Ron Elisha  

Chapel off Chapel, May 22 to  June 7, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Jonathan Hardy  is exceptional in Ron Elisha's witty, moving and beautifully observed new play, A Tree, Falling. He portrays Lenny Riefenstahl,  a confused old man suffering Alzheimer's and, finally, a stroke. Lola,  his 'friendly visitor' sent by the council, is played sympathetically by Kirsty Childs.

The play has a simple but effective structure. It comprises a series of visits by Lola to Lenny's home over a short period of time.  Lenny's health deteriorates and Lola's maddeningly cheerful patience degenerates into frustration, pain and a desperate need for Lenny to recognise her.

Lenny's very muddle-headedness and the collision of his and Lola's realities are the core of Elisha's wry, black humour. Lenny behaves as if Lola is lonely, deluded and a total stranger - every time she visits. It is enough to drive Lola to distraction. Lola becomes almost as confused as Lenny although he is completely oblivious to his own confusion or hers.

For anyone with experience of an aged parent suffering dementia or a stroke, this will be painfully and humorously reminiscent of that wild ride. We laugh at the recalcitrant old fella  who finds simple pleasure in 'the joy of forgetting'. Hardy is completely believable, entertaining and touching as Lenny. He is the focus and Child's as Lola is his satellite in the play.

Director, David Letch,  stages the play on a simple, abstract set. This stylisation allows their colliding worlds to take on a surreal quality. Letch's clever theatrical conceit has an anonymous stage assistant to shift props and removes clothing from Lenny in almost ritualised slow motion. The lighting design by Kerensa Diball  crates a sense of anticipation on stage. The dramatic environment is enhanced by music composed by Marc Chesterman.

We come to know and love Lenny as we would a friend. However, we know him only by report. We never see the man who was Lenny when he was in full possession of his faculties.

Elisha cleverly reveals, through the fragmented conversations of Lola and Lenny, snippets of information about his life and character, his skills, his family, schooling, his two wives and his German background. A Tree, Falling, is a delightful and poignant piece of theatre about a magnetic character diminished by age and illness.

By Kate Herbert

Hair (The Musical), Her Majesty's, May 20, 2003

Book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni & James Rado   
Music by Galt  MacDermot

Her Majesty's Theatre, May 20  until July, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 20, 2003

David Atkins'  production of Hair, the 60s musical, is peppy and jam-packed with effervescent youthfulness. It is, however, a very squeaky clean version of the hippies of that drug taking, promiscuous, militant decade.

 The first half is the stronger although there is little narrative. The second stalls with a series of LSD hallucinations unlike any old hippy ever experienced.

The show is an excuse for plenty of lively choreography, (Jason Coleman) a vivid design (Eamon D'Arcy) and retro costumes. (Laurel Frank). Essentially, it is an excuse for a bunch of memorable songs played by a fine nine-piece rock band. Hair boasts Aquarius,  Donna , Frank Mills,  Good Morning Starshine,  Let the Sun Shine In  and the title tune, Hair.

Some songs were controversial in the 60s but  are pretty tame in the naughty noughts. Sodomy is a sung list of sexual practices that probably shocked middle America forty years ago but an eighty-year-old couple beside me did not flinch. Hashish  similarly, is a list of recreational drugs that has changed little apart from the omission of Ecstasy  and Crack.

Atkins includes updated references, including an anti-war placards saying No HoWARd. Mitchell Butel's bogus audience member is an Aussie mum  not a New Yorker.  The play is known as an anti-war piece. This is not detectable until a moving moment at the very end when Claude (Kane Alexander) enlists, dons a uniform and comes home in a body bag.

The Tribe  of Hippies is like Ferals of our decade. Every generation thinks it started the revolution. The Tribe lives as outsiders, abusing drugs, big business and government, defying their parents, avoiding work and hating war.

Several characters are central to the loose narrative. Sassy Matt Hetherington, plays Berger,  the apparent leader, while the confused Claude is played charmingly by Alexander. Tamsin Carroll  plays Sheila,  the political radical of the Tribe, with  great strength both in voice and character, while Butel  is hilarious as the high camp Woof.

A highlight is Patrick Williams as Hud  the African-American.  His voice is rich and his presence compelling - even in a sequined gown during Black Boys, and Dead End, which he sings with the black cast members, is a terrific, funky blues.

At the close, we are left with the poignant message that naïve, young men died in Vietnam. Given our current place in the world order, this show is timely.

By Kate Herbert

Waiting by Dina Ross, May 16, 2003

Waiting  by Dina Ross  

fortyfivedownstairs, May 16 to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 16

Waiting, written by Dina Ross and directed by Greg Carroll, comprises three short monologues about three different women in Melbourne.

Petra Schulenberg.  plays all three characters. The monologues are not connected, each being a discrete snatch of one woman's life. They are character sketches rather than short plays because they have less theatrical action or dramatic tension than a play.

In Maybe Bach,  Schulenberg is Andrea,  a 36 year old woman desperate for love, waiting in a Carlton café for the arrival of a blind date from the personals column. Andrea shifts between passionate and romantic fantasies about love and lust, music and novels until she finally  reaches the grim realisation that the man is not coming.

MRI  sees Fran,  a younger woman, in a hospital gown dealing with the terror of neurological tests and a potentially fatal prognosis. Intercut with her own trauma is that of her Jewish grandmother in Dachau.  

Both Andrea and the grandmother are interesting but the link between the two threads is not quite resolved in this story. The flashbacks to grandmother are repetitive and do not move Fran's story forward.

The final monologue, Boo Boo Be Do,  is entertaining. Schulenberg plays Courtney,  a Marilyn Monroe  look alike complete with Marilyn's sexy, white pleated dress and platinum wig.

Courtney whispers, pouts and wiggles her bottom at us in order to win a look alike contest. We are part of their inner world and part of Courtney's audience. The staging is sometimes awkward and the placement of the other contestants is unclear.

There is potential for this last to be a poignant piece. It could delve deeper into the degradation of being an out of work actor, failures in her personal life and losing the look alike competition.

 Schulenberg gives a strong performance in all three roles although there are moments when she looks uncomfortable in Maybe Bach and Boo Boo Be Do.

Some of the script feels more like prose than theatre but they are interesting if not compelling.

By Kate Herbert

Twelfth Night, Chambers TC, May 15, 2003

Twelfth Night  by William Shakespeare  Chambers Theatre Company  

 Theatreworks, May 15  to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 15

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night  is a comedy with a dark edge. It incorporates all the tasty elements of Shakespearean comedy.

There is confused identity, pretty twins, cross-dressing, unrequited love, a naughty drunk, (Joe Clements) a witless aristocrat, (Phil Roberts) a sour servant, (Geoff Wallis) and a wise fool. (David Adamson)

This play invariably works at its best when the darkness and irreverence are highlighted. Alex Pinder,  director of this Chambers Theatre production, allows the grimness to surface only occasionally and more particularly, in the later scenes.

 He focuses more on the comic and romantic elements in the first half.

Shakespeare's jester,  Feste,  (Adamson) is witty and often vicious. Much of his cynical commentary is in verse, riddles and songs. Pinder keeps Feste on stage as a silent, objective observer of the shenanigans of the other characters. This works in part but leaves Feste with little to do but sit and watch much of the time.

The stage is almost bare. The cast, when off stage, remains seated on the sidelines, reminding us that they are actors and this is a play.

There are several fine performances. Julia Zemiro  gives an intelligent, detailed, truthful and witty interpretation of Olivia,  the grief-stricken lady of the house. When Olivia falls in love with her female servant, Viola/Cesario,  (Kate Doherty) her transformation is completely believable.

As Malvolio  the sneering supercilious servant to Olivia, Geoff Wallis almost steals the show. His comic timing is impeccable. He colours the character with detail and plays it for truth giving Malvolio both depth and enormous comic value.

Joe Clements  and Phil Roberts  make a good comic duo as the inebriated Sir Toby Belch  and his hapless sidekick, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Arabella Davison  plays Maria as worldly and witty. Paul Canlan  is stately and credible as the lovelorn Count Orsino  and Jeremiah Tickell  is charming as Sebastian.

The music is an asset. The a cappella songs from Adamson and the cast are a delight. The final song provides some polish to the final rather lack lustre scene. This is an entertaining production with some excellent individual performances.

By Kate Herbert

The War Against Short Trousers, May 9, 2003

 The War Against Short Trousers  by Lisa Dethridge  

Where and When: Chapel off Chapel, May 9 to June 1, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Playwright, Lisa Dethridge, worked as an analyst for NASA  and the United Nations.  In a response to working on such weighty analysis she wrote this political satire about the world order.

The War Against Short Trousers, directed by Kaarin Fairfax,  parodies corporate power, western governments and their corrupt leaders. Coming in for particularly virulent criticism is George Bush and the USA. Close behind come England, Australia and the Middle East.

Despite its concerns with world issues, the play is not a drama. It is a broad comedy with cartoon-like characters and a superficial commentary on issues of globalisation, invasion, alliances and covert operations. The style is reminiscent of the 1960s Agit Prop  (Agitational Propaganda) political theatre in England. Its message is blunt and its form is intended to communicate to the broader community without any depth.

The story reflects the Middle East war and America's role as Big Brother and Australia's as Little Brother. A major world power resembling USA, is led by The Chairman  (Tom Stringer) who is a dead ringer in behaviour for George Bush. The Chairman appears to represent Her Royal Majesty, The Queen  (Chris Bunworth) but is in fact using her in his plot to control the world.

In an outlying island state called, rather too obviously, Kickembutt,  a bumbling big baby of a leader bears a striking resemblance to John Howard. The action is rapid, deals are made, lovers lost, wars started during an eighty minutes romp. The script is thin and old-fashioned in style with many predictable, even adolescent jokes peppered with some clever satire.

There are some strong performances particularly from David Lennie  as the John Howard look-alike, Murray McMurray. His impersonation and timing are impeccable. Kat Stewart  as his ethical daughter, Kelly  is lively and makes the most of the style. Boc  and Choi  (Tarn Vu, Penelope Bartlau) provide some entertaining moments as a duo of islanders.

The show is light, warmly received and a bit of fun. The staging is rough and the cast too big for comfort but it takes the mickey out of our world leaders. What more can we ask?

By Kate Herbert

Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, REd Stitch, May 9, 2003

 Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train 
By Stephen Adly Guirgis  Red Stitch Actors' Theatre

Where and When: Rear Chapel St Prahran, May 9 to June 1, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

There are three exceptional elements in Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train: Kenneth Ransom's, Peter Evans' direction and Stephen Adly Guirgis' script.

Ransom plays Lucius,  a genuinely likeable and charming serial killer and psychopath who awaits extradition from a New York jail to Florida where he will be executed.

After killing eight people because they forced him to see the sun, he discovered Jesus. Lucius is alone in a twenty-three hour lock down security area of the jail until the hapless accidental young killer, Angel,  (Vince Miller) arrives in an adjoining cell.

Ransom plays Lucius's religious mania, warmth and charm with relish. He inhabits the role seamlessly, his timing is impeccable and his characterisation flawless.

Peter Evans directs this gritty piece with great sensitivity. He maintains a swift pace but allows the dense dialogue to remain clear. Evans uses to advantage the tiny space at Red Stitch's new premises. Christine Smith's  design creates two claustrophobic cells with lines of yellow paint and Dans Sheehan's  lighting design adds to the murky gloom. Guirgis is an actor writer and director with LAByrinth  Theater  in New York.

This award winning script challenges issues about the value of life, justice and the law, preconceptions about killers and the underclass in America. His language is complex and intense but there is no blurriness in his message nor in the development of his characters. It is a passionate and important piece of writing.

Kate Cole  is sympathetic and believable as Mary Jane,  Angel's jaded lawyer who rediscovers her vocation in defending Angel. Richard Cawthorne  and Dion Mills  play the two prison guards. Cawthorne gives Valdez  a violent, inhumane edge that is diametrically opposed to the humanity of Mills' character.

The play is structured around the two inmates. Slowly, Guirgis unfolds their stories through their solo scenes, monologues by Mary Jane or the Guard, their scenes with guards or lawyer and finally with each other. The power of Lucius's personality is the core of the play and Ransom makes a feast of it.

By Kate Herbert

The Paragon, Sidetrack, May 8, 2003

By Adam Hatzimanolis

 Sidetrack Performing Group  for Theatre in the Box

 Black Box, Victorian Arts Centre,  May 8 to 18, 2003

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Theatre in the Box at The Black Box is an initiative of the Victorian Arts Centre designed to present culturally diverse, innovative contemporary Australian theatre.

The brief is that the program will include work that would not normally be seen at the Arts Centre but that it will challenge the boundaries of contemporary theatrical form.

The Paragon is interesting as a story-telling exercise by Sydney-based writer-actor, Adam Hatzimanolis. However, it is by no means innovative or challenging in its themes or form. This is surprising from Sidetrack Performing Group which has, since the 1980s, been a company that experiments with form.

Director, Don Mamouney,  creates some short, evocative physical transitions between Hatzimanolis's personal stories. Mamouney creates a strangely fascinating dehumanised opening scene with a printer on stage spewing out pages of Hatzimanolis book from a laptop to the sound of an interviewer's voiceover.

The problem is that Hatzimanolis writing style is predominantly narrative and the structure of the writing is unwieldy. Hatzimanolis tells rather rambling, poorly structured tales of his family and professional life. They are not connected apart from being from his life.

There is potential here for identification theatre for a particular audience. His childhood in a Woolongong fish and chip shop with his Greek parents will be familiar to many. Snippets are memorable. As a child, he struggles to tie his shoelaces and to understand the death of his Uncle.

 He causes a fire in the dad's chip shop then is ripped off by a dodgy mechanic who is restoring his EJ Holden. Even his fantasies about Nicloe Kidman being in his stars will be recognised by some.

Hatzimanolis plays dialogue between characters but there is minimal transformation into or inhabiting of these characters. There is no form to the stories and his casual presentational style and lack of eye contact with us is often unengaging.

 The story teller needs to find a form of presentation that engages and challenges an audience whether by exceptional writing, incredible stories or extraordinary form and style.

By Kate Herbert

Claustrophobia by Barry Dickins , May 7, 2003

What: Claustrophobia  by Barry Dickins  

Where and When:  La Mama, May 7 to 25, 2003 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Barry Dickins, in Claustrophobia, writes a backhanded look at deaths in custody. It is not what we expect.

John White  (John Francis Howard)  is country cop in the Wimmera.  At the start of the play, we presume that he is the jailer of Bob Black,  (LeRoy Parsons) an aboriginal man who sleeps in the corner of the cell.

White is resentful, menacing and we fear he may be a danger to the sleeping Black. What transpires is that both a inmates in this gloomy country jail but Black is in for a harmless unpaid car registration while White is the one at risk of hanging.

White is frenetic, overcome with fear and claustrophobia and about to be lynched by a mob for drunkenly strangling his wife.

Dickins slowly unfolds their story. Not only are they cellmates they share memories of their childhood friendship.

Black is a cheerful positive and easy-going man - a good foil for White's surly misanthropic attitude.

Dickins resists writing for laughs although the script is still funny. James Clayden's direction seems to miss Dickins' irony on occasion because he often has the actors play the dialogue for truth.

Clayden's pacing of the play does not highlight the richness and balance of humour and poignancy in Dickins' writing.

Parsons is charming s Black, bringing a brightness and openness to the character and the play. There are moments when he is nto quite connected to the style of Dickins' writing but he carries the role successfully.

John F. Howard plays White with an appropriate sense of restrained menace. He seems always on the edge of exploding and we cannot predict whether he is a danger to himself or Black.

The actors are trapped behind a fence of horizontal wire strung across the tiny space at La Mama. The sense of claustrophobia is potent in this production.

Dickins' unusual ironic angle on the topic may not challenge the politics of deaths in custody but it is an interesting piece of theatre.

By Kate Herbert