Short Circuit, May 19-30, 2004

Short Circuit 

Crying Shame by Kamarra Bell-Wykes; Looking Back by Janaya Charles; Soil by Earl Rosas

Next Wave Festival
fortyfivedownstairs, 19 to 30 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on MAy 19

At fortyfivedownstairs, during the two weeks of the Next Wave Festival, nine short works will run in a mixed program of three pieces per evening.

The Short Black Program comprises three aboriginal artists in three solo works written or choreographed by the performers.

Crying Shame features Kamarra Bell-Wykes, a Jagera and Dulingbara woman from South East Queensland.

The half-hour monologue explores the hapless and helpless life of a young single mother.

Susan is trapped in her room with her crying newborn baby.  In almost poetic language, she describes in the third person her hollow life, as if narrating her own pain.

She then shifts into first person when her emotional predicament escalates and the stakes are raised.

Single mothers will recognise with compassion Susan's social isolation, frustration, emotional deprivation and the damage a baby does to a young body and young life.

The metaphoric language is often compelling. Bell-Wykes describes the baby's face as "graffitied with your thoughts".

The piece is interesting but too long. Some repetitions and elaborate language could be edited.

Looking Back is a swift piece written and performed by Janaya Charles and directed by Tammy Anderson.

This ten-minute monologue sees a young woman packing up her recently deceased mother's kitchen.

Charles' character talks to her dead mother as she angrily tosses mum's plates in the rubbish bin.

She flashes back to the dinner table with mum telling her she is marrying the recycling man.

This piece leaves us wanting more of the story of this angry young woman, her sense of abandonment and her fraught relationship with her drug-addicted mother.

The final piece on this program is Soil, a short dance work by Earl Rosas, a Gugu Yimitherr and Yidinji man from North Queensland

His well-trained physique is in constant motion in this fluid choreographic work in three parts: Father, Sun and Autumn.

Rosas seems to spiral from his feet to the floor with much of the action in the upper body.

As he dances, he runs red sand through his fingers or over his body. The title, Soil, refers to the relationship to earth and also to soiling or dirtying.

Each night there is an alternative program in Short Circuit.

LOOK FOR: Variety.

By Kate Herbert

DiaTribe by Angus Cerini, May 19, 2004

DiaTribe by Angus Cerini

Melbourne Workers Theatre

Next Wave Festival
  Croft Institute 21-25 Croft Alley, 19 to 29 May; The Laundry, 3 June; Revolver; The First Floor, 4 & 5 June

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 19, 2004

Melbourne Workers Theatre makes a leap into the world of hip hop artists in this play by Angus Cerini.

This is not a conventional theatre work. The main venue for two weeks is The Croft Institute, a seedy, cramped upstairs bar in a lane off Little Bourke Street. The play has sections of dialogue but is in great part is sung in hip hop style with the performers on radio microphones.

This convention works in part. The three characters are played by real local hip hop artists who clearly have a handle on the style and form. However, they are less comfortable as actors and this leaves the characters and relationships a little hollow.

The story revolves around Shannon, (Borce Markovski AKA Vulk Makedonski) a typical messed up young guy with an absent father, promiscuous mother and no prospects of any kind.

What is charming is that Shannon stays positive most of the time even as he is being condemned to death for his petty crimes and misdemeanours. Shannon represents the underdogs, workless class, indeed any underprivileged of our society. He has no control over anything that happens to him and all he wants is to find his real dad and be loved.

Enter Ace (Gina Chrisanthopolous  AKA Litle G) his upwardly mobile community lawyer who seems to be on his side but is as much of a sheister as we expect. She battles with Death, (Marlon Porter AkA Elf Tranzporter) a sleezy, Las Vegas type, is determined to take Shannon to his doom down below.

The trio travel downward in an elevator. At each level another of Shannon's lifelong screw-ups is highlighted.

We see his hopeless attempts at friendship as a child, his fantasies about his real father being a Nazi scientist, his failure in the Youth Traineeship program. Shannon is just a statistic in our social framework and no one can solve his problems.

The hip hop poetic song are a collage of urban poetic imagery and political diatribe. The language is fast, percussive, alliterative and rhyming. Hip hop's rhythmic style incorporates a stream of consciousness spoken word form that is reminiscent of scat singing and jazz jamming. It has a relentlessness that requires constant attention.

DiaTribe may not be conventional theatre but it uses language in a contemporary way and challenges theatre to assimilate a contemporary art form.

LOOK FOR: The references to current political issues.

By Kate Herbert

Spacemunki by Jean-Paul Hussey , MAy 18, 2004

Spacemunki by Jean-Paul Hussey 

by The Amazing Business

 The Store Room 18 to 30 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Jean-Paul Hussey sails very close to the edge of the sea of lunacy in his second monkey play, Spacemunki.

Hussey is a compelling performer who manages to balance impeccably a torrent of poetic language, a bevy of eccentric characters and physical story telling.

He peoples the stage with a parade of personages. Throughout, he is the narrator, our guide through the maze that is Hussey's whirlpool of astro-science.

He shifts effortlessly between the German inventor of the Spacemunki, the astronaut's pregnant wife, her peculiar doctor and Albert, the American space program director.

And there are more.

An impressive visual media design (Dean McInerney) projected onto white screens accompanies the marvellous antics of Hussey on the empty white stage.

Kelly Ryall's soundscape and Shane Grant's vivid lighting complete the cosmic atmospherics.

Spacemunki is a futuristic and satirical vision of what may come in the field of space exploration.

The Inventor creates the Gestalt Breast Plate that is worn by the poor, ordinary little man know as the Spacemunki as he rides the sun's path above the earth's atmosphere.

The vision is this: the Plate and even the very cells of the Spacemunki should absorb all possible information from the sun.

This will then allow humans to control information, space and the world in some undefined manner.

It feels like ramblings of a lunatic scientist and of science gone mad but is somehow not unbelievable given the advances in science we see today.

Hussey's energy and enthusiasm are phenomenal. He is like a dynamo with volts of electricity flashing through him.

 He is, indeed, the Spacemunki, generating sparks and currents as he flies between characters and spouts theories of the future.

His presence is clown-like and his comic timing is a delight.

This is not merely a rant or a joke fest. Hussey finds a poignant tone by the end of his solo performance.

 The program goes awry and he discovers the Harvest Fields of Potential Personalities in the heavens somewhere.

Spacemunki's wife goes into labour,a sonis born and, concurrently, two souls are swapped. Spacemunki is now the eternal child.

 Science has no answers for any of this but we lap it up. Spacemunki is a treat.

LOOK FOR: The interplay of visual and physical imagery.

By Kate Herbert

Gilgamesh by Uncle Semolina & Friends, May 17. 2004

Gilgamesh

by Uncle Semolina and Friends

Next Wave Festival

Federation Square car park, in a shipping container, 17 to 29 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Put a superhero action movie in a blender with grunge music, a bunch of toys and eight-year old boys' games in a muddy playground and you have Gilgamesh.

Christian Leavesley's production digs up the ancient Sumerian myth of the tyrannical ruler, Gilgamesh, (Richard Pyros) and gives it a thoroughly modern treatment.

It takes place inside a 40 foot shipping container nestled on the top floor of the Federation Square carpark.

The performance end of the container is filled with real dirt and the three actors are smeared in sweat and mud after the hour is over.

The Gods seek to balance Gilgamesh's brutal domination of his world.

They model from clay, Enkidu, (Mark Tregonning) a man who becomes Gligamesh's rival and eventually, his comrade in a litany of reckless and dangerous adventures.

Their antics are violent, macho and blasphemous. They even kill the Bull of Heaven sent by Ishtar (Katherine Tonkin) which action leads to Enkidu's demise.

What makes the show such good entertainment is the interplay of childhood rough-house games and toys with the physical live action of the actors.

Action hero dolls about ten centimetres high represent both Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

The battle between the two superheroes is fought both in the flesh and between the dolls.

At times, it is like two eight-year old boys scrapping in the schoolyard unaware of the filth they wear home for mum to wash.

The eclectic mix uses matchbox cars, plastic chain saw,  even a barbie doll as a goddess.

It uses hip hop, a gospel tune and references World Championship Wrestling, Sci-Fi movies, Marvel comics and contemporary theatrical conventions.

The three actors are skilful and work beautifully as a team.

The show is mostly a hoot and very entertaining but it also has some moments of strange beauty such as when Gilgamesh's mother's lament  (Tonkin).

By the last fifteen minutes the pace gets a little tired and the story wears thin as we watch Gilgamesh seeking immortality. The ending scenes need work.

This is a great opening show for the Next Wave Festival of Unpopular Culture. Funny how young people love doing things about dirt and perversity.

LOOK FOR: The dolls superheroes.

By Kate Herbert

Last of The Red Hot Lovers, Neil Simon, HIT Productions May 11, 2004

Last of The Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon 

HIT Productions

Beckett Theatre to May 11, Karralyka, Ringwood May 12 & 13,  Clocktower Moonee Ponds May 14 & 15, South Morang May 24, Nunawading, July 12. until July 12, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert Beckett Theatre on May 1, 2004

There is probably nothing more excruciating to watch than a middle-aged man looking for an affair. This is the topic of Neil Simon's play, Last of The Red Hot Lovers.

Max Gillies plays Barney Cashman, an awkward, conservative, sexually dissatisfied and hungry New Yorker, desperately seeking his Aphrodite.

The title is, of course, ironic. There is nothing hot about these fumbled attempts at extra-marital infidelity. Nor is there anything remotely romantic about his fingers smelling of the clams he shucks daily for his seafood restaurant. He makes three vain attempts at secret liaisons in his mother's rosy pink bedsitter.- nothing sexy there either.

Gillies is engaging as Barney, playing him as a gauche, clumsy but keen seducer. Each liaison sees him more confident, if not more skilful, as the clandestine lover. Having been married and faithful to Thelma for twenty-nine years, Barney is astonished by each of the three women he invites for a two hour tryst before his Mom arrives home from charity work.

Jackie Weaver plays all three love interests with gusto. Her choices are bold which suits the characters. Number one, Elaine, is a brassy, experienced deceiver who has cravings for food, cigarettes and secret, anonymous sexual encounters.

Elaine is just too forward and risque for Barney's romantic notions - and there's also the matter of her repulsive, hacking smoker's cough. Bobby is number two. She is a ditzy, Californian wannabe actress to whom Barney lends money to help her pay an accompanist for an audition.

Weaver makes Bobby cute and endearing as well as a manic dope head with paranoid tendencies. She hilariously and sporadically breaks into old songs or hysterical laughter. The final woman is Jeanette, a depressive, guilt-ridden friend of Barney and Thelma who suffers, she says, from melancholia.

Judith Cobb's lollypop pink set highlights the cheesy suburban nature of these three encounters. Jennifer Hagan directs the play with an eye for the gag and a focus on the recognition factor for the audience.

The outcome of the story makes it a modern morality tale. Barney is a good man who sought some excitement in his humdrum life but finally turns back to his wife. C'est la vie.

LOOK FOR:  The transformations of Jackie Weaver.

By Kate Herbert

The Art 'n Death Trilogy, May 8. 2004

The Art 'n Death Trilogy

Fainting 33 Times by Adam Cass
Trades Hall Ballroom, May 8 to  23, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 8

Fainting 33 Times is the first play in an evening called The Art 'n Death Trilogy. It is based loosely on Meyerhold, the post-revolution Russian theatre director.

The strongest component of this collaborative piece is the cunning direction by Bob Pavlich.

Cass's script is unmemorable, apart from those parts plagiarised from Chekhov and Shakespeare.

What links these scenes is a series of vignettes about Meyerhold, his actress wife, Zinaida Raikh  (OK) and his acting company.

Meyerhold prepares a performance for Stalin's upcoming visit. He is afraid to present his version of Hamlet as he feels he is not ready.

He rehearses instead, Chekhov's The Bear and another play, A List of Benefits, by Yury Olesha. (OK)

After Stalin's long awaited visit, Zinaida is murdered, and Meyerhold is imprisoned and tortured as a traitor to the Revolution.

Stuart Crawford and Sarah Wright are both capable as Meyerhold and Zinaida.

Hey are supported by Joshua Ryan playing Dappertutto, (OK) the pseudonym Meyerhold used for controversial projects.

An ensemble of nine allows Pavlich to play with the staging and interpretation of the text. This is where the show gets interesting.

In the first section, The Bear, the combative lovers become multi-voiced as the ensemble speaks with them and for them. The characters' thoughts and feelings become more complex and compelling.

Pavlich creates moving human sculptures as the ensemble forms tableaux of moments in the story. 

The actors move and freeze in sync or fall to the floor in canon.

The title, Fainting 33 Times, cites an observation by Meyerhold that characters in Chekhov's plays faint or swoon frequently.

Picturesque lighting by John Ford enhances the atmosphere. He fills the empty space with colour and highlights the clownish quality of the actors. The eclectic and evocative music ranges from circus tunes to clattering Eastern European brass. There is virtually no set but the costumes (Paula Levis) are vivid and clown-like creating a burlesque feel to the production.

There are two additional plays each night. After Fainting comes Have Dreamed of Time at 8pm. At 10pm is The Anniversary of the Death of Sarah Kane, which deals with the young playwright who suicided as her play writing career succeeded.

LOOK FOR: The multi-vocal declaration of love in the opening section.

By Kate Herbert

Much Ado About Nothing, Chambers Theatre, May 6, 2004

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare 
by Chambers Theatre 

Theatreworks, St. Kilda, 6 May to 22 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 6, 2004

Much Ado About Nothing is a study in confused love, mischief, wit and rumour. All the fuss is finally overcome and it ends happily for all but the villains.

Alex Pinder's production for Chambers Theatre focuses on the verbal and physical comedy some times more effectively than others.

There are two couples central to this comic romance.

Beatrice (Patti Stiles) and Benedick (Geoff Wallis) are verbal sparring partners both committed to singledom in a world obsessed withmarriage.

Stiles and Wallis revel in their battle of wit. Each exchange is a rapid thrust and parry of witty repartee.

Both play their characters with a layer of genuine warmth and truth below the veneer of acerbic banter. This allows us to believe their swift turn to love from confirmed bachelorhood.

Stiles is a playful and feisty Beatrice with a tender heart. Wallis's Benedick is a soldier, a man of principle, wit and cool dignity.

Simon Wood is a fine Don Pedro, giving him a noble authority, cheerfulness and rich, commanding voice.

The second couple, are Claudio, (Andrew Gillard) soldier and friend to Benedick, and Hero, (Bridgette Burton) sweet and shy cousin to Beatrice.

Gillard finds a balance between Claudio's tongue-tied lovelorn scenes and his reckless over-reaction to Hero's supposed infidelity.

Burton is most successful when Hero is lamenting her false accusations.

Joe Clements plays three roles, Don John he portrays delightfully as a camp melancholic villain wearing rather overstated make up.

The scenes between the enthusiastic and incompetent policeman, Dogberry and his goofy subordinates (Anthea David, Burton) are funny but could be neater.

Randall Berger is rather melodramatic as Hero's father, Leonato, and Paul Bugeja sings charmingly as Balthasar.

Shane Thompson's design is interesting but far too busy for the stage. Its multiple floral patterns distract the eye from the action.

This production has some charming performances and comical moments. Its weakness is a lack of cohesive style and some awkward staging.

There are clumsy scene changes with actors changing on stage when this convention has not been established earlier.

Much Ado makes sense of Shakespeare's dense and witty dialogue and is a diverting night in the theatre.

LOOK FOR: The rapid word play battle between Beatrice and Benedick.

By Kate Herbert

I'm Me…and I'm OK! by Sarah Mainwaring, May 6, 2004

I'm Me… and I'm OK!  

by Sarah Mainwaring and Lloyd Jones.

Where and When: La Mama) 6 to 23 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

"My Inner Anger," reads the slogan in Sarah Mainwaring's painting.

On the canvas, a large ghostly figure looms menacingly over shattered fragments of blood red. This was  Sarah's VCE painting.

It captures the essence of her frustration and rage at being the victim of a brain injury acquired in a car accident when she was six.

She performs her monologue, I'm Me… and I'm OK, pacing like a caged tiger in front of the painting.

The phantom, anger, is ever present on the backdrop behind her.

The content of the play, directed by Lloyd Jones, is snatches of Sarah's life as she contended with her injury, therapy, her parents' grief and wanting to be "normal".

She writes in poetic form so it is no surprise that Sarah published four anthologies of poetry.  She also studies Performance Studies at V.U.T.

Sarah struggles to speak the words and to control her body's movements.

Her tale may be slow and may lack some of the usual theatrical conventions, but it is compelling and moving.

We hear her agonise over guilt and blame. She battles with notions that her parents' separation was her fault.

She says of her past, "I was humiliated frustrated, burning inside with anger."

Now, years later, what she sees is a courageous, talented and much loved young woman. She shows us someone who has overcome terrible adversity.

She waxes lyrical over her love of her horse on which she won equestrian events.

She tells of the darkness of her survival and describes her therapists as 'helpers and hurters'.

She mourns the loss of her childhood to years of hospitalisation and painful treatments.

She rages at the unfriendliness of hospitals and at being disadvantaged in her education, being pulled from classes for treatments.

This is a long show for one actor but an assistant supports Sarah on stage each night.

A woman sits at a table flipping through a women's magazine - a thinly disguised script - and is prompted when she loses her lines.

This is not conventional theatre. The story could be told in many ways. Sarah is determined to be heard and this is her way of telling her story.

LOOK FOR: Sarah's marvellously evocative painting

By Kate Herbert

Talking Heads by Alan Bennett, Maggie Smith & Margaret Tyzack, May 5, 2004

Talking Heads by Alan Bennett 
With Maggie Smith & Margaret Tyzack 

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, May 4 to 16. 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 5, 2004

To see, in the flesh, virtuoso actors, Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack, is to peek through the gates of theatre heaven.

They appear here in two monologues from Talking Heads, written for English television in 1987 by the irreverent and masterly Alan Bennett. Bennett writes incisively with piquancy and shrewdness, allowing these accomplished and distinguished artists to conjure comical and moving portraits of two ordinary women in crisis.

Both characters are painfully unaware of crucial details in their predicament. Both have a wry eye on the world around them. Each is seen in her home environment and each becomes increasingly uncomfortable for differing reasons. In both plays, vivid off-stage characters play significant roles in the characters' journeys.

Tyzack is warm and compelling in Soldiering On, a poignant monologue about Muriel, a stoic and initially wealthy widow.

The competent, socially active Muriel is dealing with the aftermath of her husband's death. Muriel relates the entire funeral coolly, as if it were a Country Women's Association afternoon tea. Bennett presents Muriel's escalating disaster in several scenes. All too quickly, her circumstances alter dramatically but Muriel 'soldiers on'.

She manages her mentally ill daughter with a tablet here and there and naively accepts her son ruining her financially. Finally, she is reduced to living in a bed-sit outside town.

Tyzack gives Muriel dignity, determination and warmth. Although she cannot bear to be seen as tragic, we feel for her the frustration and rage to which she refuses succumb.

Maggie Smith is delectable as Susan, a tipsy vicar's wife, in A Bed Among the Lentils. Bennett's wicked humour about churchgoers and Jesus is a gift for Smith. She plays Susan with a wry and laconic eye on the fawning women who flutter around her holier-than-thou husband, Geoffrey.

This is a consummate performance with impeccable comic timing. Smith perches on a kitchen chair, sipping sherry secretly from a mug all the long and arduous day.

She is incarcerated in a dusty, sexless marriage to a self-absorbed man and she is incapable of playing the role of vicar's wife. Her flower arranging is messy and her cooking forgettable. But her silent observations of her husband and his churchy followers, are acerbic and hilariously accurate. Susan delicately and drunkenly verbally vivisects the parishioners.

These actors breathe air into Bennett's skilful words. See this.

LOOK FOR: Maggie Smith's impeccable comic timing.

By Kate Herbert

Traitors by Stephen Sewell, May 2, 2004

Traitors by Stephen Sewell

 La Mama, Courthouse Theatre, 2 to  15 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on may 2

We could be forgiven for thinking Stephen Sewell's 1979 work, Traitors, a play of the new millenium.

Although it is set in the 20s in Post-Revolutionary Russia during Stalin's reign, its political themes are relevant today. What makes it most obviously a play of the 70s is its didactic quality. The script is laden with information about the revolution, Communism and Stalin's brutal regime. At times it feels like a lesson in Russian history.

The content has a great deal in common with Sewell's 2003 play, Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany that dealt with paranoia about terrorism in the USA, post September 11. The majority of the play is during 1927 with prologue and epilogue in 1941.

 Anna (Daniela Farinacci) travels from Moscow where she is a Party member opposed to Stalin's regime. In Leningrad she meets with Rubin (Jay Bowen) to form a faction combining Oppositionists in both cities. She justifiably suspects spies everywhere.

On her return train journey to Moscow, she begins a sordid, secretive affair with Krasin, (OK) (Neil Pigot) who, unbeknowns to Anna, is an Army Officer for the Party.

Krasin, is appalled by the escalating violence of Stalin's regime since his six month absence in London. Party officials are murdered, oppositionists tortured and demonstrators gunned down. If he does not toe the party line, he too will be suspect.

Melanie Beddie directs this 25^th anniversary production of the play with great sensitivity and style. She focuses on the story and performances. She links scenes seamlessly with inventive, simple and unobtrusive scene changes.

Farinacci is both passionate and vulnerable as Anna. Neil Pigot strikes an impeccable balance between wit, warmth, moral dilemma and violence as the besieged Krasin.

Bruce Myles makes credible the immoral pragmatism of Lebeshev, Krasin's superior officer. Ming-Zhu Hii, Beth Child and Jay Bowen are very strong in support roles.

Kathryn Sproul's stark design accentuates the chilling environment and is lit atmospherically by Daniel Zika.

Sometimes, the weight of off-stage characters, historical facts and political philosophy is overwhelming. However, the story is compelling and the horror of the Stalinist period is highlighted in an intimate narrative.

LOOK FOR: Backlit portraits of Russian Communist leaders in the design.

By Kate Herbert

The Frail Man by Anthony Crowley , Playbox, April 28, 2004

The Frail Man by Anthony Crowley 

Playbox Theatre

 Merlin Theatre, CUB Malthouse, April 28 to  15 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The Frail Man, by Anthony Crowley, is an ambitious play with many interesting ideas that are not fully realised in the script.

This premiere production succeeds in great part because of its fine acting ensemble, director (Aubrey Mellor) and creative team.

Crowley makes a commendable attempt to explore notions of denial in the Australian psyche.

We consistently avoid confronting issues of refugees, aboriginality and disability and we will suffer for this cowardice, the play suggests.

Stephen Saken (Paul Bishop) CEO of a major corporation is struck down with a mysterious and aggressive illness.

Meanwhile, he plans a merger with an Asian company, loses then wins seven million dollars while gambling with his wealthiest shareholder. (Tim Robertson)

Saken immediately and incomprehensibly donates the lot to his mate at the local church.

He is then accused of witnessing the murder of a Muslim woman outside his house and taking no action.

Awkwardly woven through this contemporary tale are two 18^th century convicts (Colin Moody, James Brennan) later revealed as the precursors to the modern Ugly Anglo-Australian.

Their names, Gristlefuck and Cockwit are grotesque and Dickensian. Other characters also go my names reflecting their characters: Frost, Steel, Frail.

Shaun Gurton's stark, clinical design is suitably claustrophobic and Paul Jackson's lighting atmospheric and inventive.

Bishop is superb as Saken. His presence is compelling and his character credible.

Robertson is delightfully malevolent as the rapacious Arnold Frost and Sue Jones revels in her performance as the heartless Chairperson, Jennifer Steel.

There were other strong performances from Margaret Harvey as the cop, James Saunders as her disabled husband and Nikki Coghill as Saken's supportive wife.

Brennan and Moody are both dangerous and comical as the two convicts.

The metaphors in the play seem over-simplified and the script often confusing, cluttered with three unsatisfactorily linked story lines.

The CEO's mysterious fatal illness is finally revealed as a metaphor for the malaise in our culture and our denial of the Muslim world, refugees and other social ills. So many issues are jammed into this story that it is difficult to discern its intention.

The problem is generally that Crowley's dialogue is unconvincing and characters are not three-dimensional. The play is like a parable but it lacks clarity.

LOOK FOR: Tim Robertson's beautifully underplayed detective, Henry Frail.

By Kate Herbert

3 Headed Dog, April 21, 2004

  3 Headed Dog 
by 3 Headed Dog 

 Theatreworks, April 21 to May 1, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

3 Headed Dog is the name of a collective of performers and their first program of short works. All three pieces are charming, inventive and poignant.

Homebody, by Kate Hunter, directed by Merophie Carr,  portrays an exuberant, engaging physical clown. Hunter, dressed in a floral frock, pinny and cap, resembles a timid servant from Gosford Park.

Her entire piece involves a quirky, jerky little character setting up house. She carries, drags, pushes and wheels all sizes and shapes of suitcases. The cases become her little home. As she fusses and arranges them, she opens several to reveal not only her silky white undies and nighties, but entire rooms.

Inside one is a bed, another a bathroom and toilet and then the appliances and decorations start to appear: a broom, flowers, telephone, a soft toy for the bed.

Hunter's physical work is joyfully reminiscent of the French school of comic character.

David Wells uses both dialogue and contemporary dance in Corridor, a compelling examination of his visit to a hospital corridor. He accompanies his abstract movement with self-narration about his father's near fatal operation in a room at the end of a long corridor.

His verbal version of the story is inter-cut with his inventive physical interpretation of the same actions. Wells cues the music on and off at will with a brisk gesture to his technician.

After a sweet and funny beginning that explores the history, shape and line of the corridor, Wells takes us to a more sensitive place. He recalls the family pet, conversations with his father ad finally the dreadful and painful moment when a doctor walks down the corridor bringing bad news.

The last work. Lost in Tokyo, by Jo Davidson and Fiona Roake is perhaps the least successful theatrically albeit charming. Roake plays ukulele, electric bass, drum. They sing peculiar, amusing songs and Davidson relates poetic stories.

The high point is when two suitcases reveal shadow screens concealed inside their lids. The ensuing miniature shadow puppet piece is clever and enchanting.

LOOK FOR: Roake's bedroom and bathroom in a suitcase.

By Kate Herbert

Urinetown , MTC, April 17, 2004

Urinetown 

Music and Lyrics by Mark Hollmann, Book and Lyrics by Greg Kotis

by Melbourne Theatre Company

Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre,  17 April to 15 May, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on 17 April

 Simon Phillips directs a cheeky, irreverent and funny production of the bladder-teasing Broadway musical hit, Urinetown.

The ensemble is skilful and adorable, the band exceptional under the musical direction of Ian McDonald and the whole is a cute parody of Broadway musicals.

During a drought, the water table is so low it is illegal to flush toilets.Caldwell B. Cladwell, (Gerry Connolly) a ruthless businessman, makes millions by compelling people to pay to use public conveniences on pain of exile.

After his father's exile to the grim, unknown Urinetown, heroic young Bobby Strong, (Kane Alexander) leads the rebellion to pee without paying. The obligatory musical romance is between Bobby and Hope, (Lisa McCune) the painfully optimistic daughter of villainous Cladwell.

Urinetown is a light-hearted, satirical jibe at government corruption and corporate greed. Nothing is taken too seriously. The vulgar title is meant to offend but the show is surprisingly inoffensive. This explains its huge Broadway success. Urinetown is stuffed full of blatant references to musical styles.

The opening number, It's a Privilege to Pee,  is pure Kurt Weil. The rebellion of the townspeople (should that be 'pee-ple'?) is a rip-off of Les Mis. There are echoes of West Side Story, Yiddish Klezmer music and a rousing gospel number, Run Freedom Run. The show constantly reminds us we are watching a musical.

Narrator, Officer Lockstock played with laconic wit by Shane Bourne, intermittently pre-empts the action with a wry aside.  He heartlessly convinces naïve Little Sally (Christen O'Leary) it is not a happy musical. Alexander has a powerful voice and compelling presence and McCune is the ideal sugar-sweet optimist.

Connolly is a wild, nutty villain and Rhonda Burchmore is raunchy as Miss Pennywise, the keeper of the loos. O'Leary is masterly as Little Sally and Mitchell Butel appropriately weaselly as McQueen.

Given the shows opened the same night, comparisons with The Producers are unavoidable but perhaps unfair. Who can compete with the comic genius of Mel Brooks and his unforgettable songs?

Urinetown has clever lyrics, jaunty music and an eccentric idea but the music, lyrics and book are not memorable like other musical hits.

This diverting production is beautifully directed and exuberantly performed.

LOOK FOR: The gospel chorus of Run Freedom Run.

By Kate Herbert

The Ideas Men by Ridiculusmus, April 1, 2004 *****

The Ideas Men by Ridiculusmus

Melbourne Comedy Festival 

Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre,  1 to 18 April, 2004

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *****

Ridiculusmus make me ache with astonishment each time I see them. Their lateral view on language, comedy and human nature is inspired.

David Woods ( and John Hough bring a welcome breath of imagination and theatricality to a Comedy Festival dominated by predictable stand up comedy.

The Ideas Men differs from the English duo's previous show, Say Nothing but it has the same compelling characterisation and leaps of logic.

Say Nothing dealt with the insanity of the Northern Ireland conflict.

The Ideas Men is a satire on overpaid corporate ninnies who construct seminars about nothing much - from even less.

Liam Brady (Hough) and Mike Mullet (Woods) are two idiotic ideas executives who are brainstorming plans for "a creativity role play seminar".

Not only do Liam and Mike have no ideas, they have no skills, no plan or strategy, no outcomes and even less hope.

Their day begins at nine with a rambling discussion about when and where to have lunch.

What follows is a desperate scrambling for creative outcomes - that one great idea that will break through all others.

What is fascinating is the total immersion of the pair in these mad characters. Mike (Woods) is an insecure, ineffectual man with scruffy hair, an irritating voice and bad breath.

Liam (Hough) is a reserved, critical and occasionally weepy little man. He plays with his Lego blocks as if his life depended on them and attacks Mike at random with personal slights.

Mike and Liam, in their desperate attempt to role play their way to a new idea, shift into other characters who may or may not exist in their corporate world.

They both role play Sue, their mythical secretary, who has a pronounced limp and tries to seduce both of them.

John McLouchlin is their oily boss who slides in irregularly looking for a product.

It is a fascinating and complex piece of absurd theatre.

 Hough and Woods confuse us by interrupting Liam and Mike's role play reality.  We are never certain whether the trouble Liam and Mike get into is real.

In Say Nothing, they performed standing on a suitcase for one hour. Here they ere either seated at two ends of a huge desk or galloping  around the entire Fairfax Studio.

The Ideas Men is unpredictable, crazy, intelligent, inventive and hilarious. Ridiculusmus is a jewel in the Comedy Festival.

LOOK FOR: Mike's brutal attack on his computer keyboard.

By Kate Herbert