Journal of the Plague Year by Tom Wright, April 19, 2005

 Journal of the Plague Year by Tom Wright
Adapted from Daniel Defoe, by Malthouse Theatre

Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse  April 19 to May 8, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Journal of the Plague Year is a series of theatrical images, often inspired, exploring a year in the bubonic plague ridden London.

Defoe's fabricated journal of a man living the year 1665, is the foundation for Tom Wright's vividly composed text. The book is a pseudo-documentary and the voice of its central character becomes the narrator, a man who is witness to, and survivor of, the plague year.

The narration, by Robert Menzies, is the thread upon which the images of the plague are strung.

The production is a grim but often comic vision that combines the grotesque style with the vaudevillian.

Director, Michael Kantor, allows the gruesome realities of the plague to collide with the music, commentary, style and, perhaps most significantly, the hindsight, of the present.

It incorporates slapstick, satirical dialogue and slabs of text from Defoe. These weighty and awkward tracts of text are the weakest element of the production.

Printed titles, in the style of Victorian melodrama, introduce the horrors of each new month of the Plague Year.

Kantor uses a powerful and consistent theatricality. With one startling image following another.

A disembodied hands grasp at a dying man, huge balloons inflate overhead with an ominous hissing, a group of dissolute aristocrats fan themselves on a balcony (Ross Williams, Julie Forsyth, Marta Dusseldorp), a demented doomsayer shouts prophecies. (Mathew Whittet)

A leather-masked man (Dan Spielman) disposes of bodies in a yawning pit, ghoulish skull masks cavort through the streets and a giant rubber head appears over a fairground.

The atmospheric quality of the play provides a provocative and disturbing depiction of the plagued city.

The Dance of Death, typical of the bubonic plague victim, is distressingly portrayed in the convulsive death of a young woman. (Lucy Taylor)

The ensemble is compelling as they balance cruelty and comedy. Their awkward twitching bodies, white faces, blackened eyes, inky stained costumes and naked limbs give an awful sense of humanity stripped bare in a city laid waste.

Paul Jackson's lighting creates a complex, sculptural landscape with Anna Tregloan's constantly moving physical design. Max Lyandvert's live music blends an evocative soundscape with anachronistic contemporary songs.

This is a bold and irreverent production that augurs well for the new Malthouse.

By Kate Herbert

Two Brothers by Hannie Rayson, April 13, 2005

 Two Brothers by Hannie Rayson 
Melbourne Theatre Company

 Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, from April 13, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 13, 2005

Although the brawling brothers in Hannie Rayson's play are not the Costellos, there is a passing jocular reference to those real brothers who sit on opposite sides of the political fence.

Two Brothers makes its socio-political attitude crystal clear: Australia has done a great disservice to its refugees with its Pacific Solution and introduction of Temporary Protection Visas.

Brother number one, James "Eggs" Benedict (Garry McDonald) is a conservative politician, the Minister for Home Security who aspires to be Prime Minister.

His brother, Tom, (Nicholas Eadie) is a socialist human rights activist and lawyer working with an Aid agency for asylum seekers.

In the first half, the story is more credible and politically accurate. As Eggs' corruption and ambition escalates on a Macbethian scale, so the story deteriorates into an unbelievable soap opera.

The opening scenes zip along at a rapid pace. Relationships and characters are introduced swiftly, although with limited depth. The narrative was compelling, the jokes frequent and clever and the audience greatly entertained.

Director, Simon Phillips, uses a revolving stage to move quickly and effectively between the short and lively scenes. Dialogue is witty and credible in the first half.

An Iraqi refugee, Hazem Al Ayad, (Rodney Afif) is a client of Tom's and a survivor of the sinking of an Indonesian people smuggling boat on Christmas Day. His entire family drowned and Tom attempts to obtain residency for him.

The pivot of the story is that Eggs is responsible for an Australian Navy boat not saving the refugees. All this is complicated by the fact that Eggs' son, Lachlan (Ben Lawson), was a Gunnery Officer on the ship.

It is difficult to engage with the characters in the second half because of the chaotic and unrealistic situation. The dialogue becomes didactic and characters become ciphers for the play's political statement. Eggs and his assistant, Jamie (Caroline Brazier), become two-dimensional emotional thugs.

The performances are strong from the entire cast, particularly from the leads, Eadie and McDonald and from Afif as the passionate Hazem. Strangely, Hazem is the most believable and certainly the most sympathetic.

The stark chrome and glass design (Stephen Curtis) reflects the steely coldness of the plot and is lit effectively by Nick Schlieper.

A new play inevitably has some glitches. Although Two Brothers is entertaining, its narrative and dialogue need some reworking to give it the punch this topic warrants.

By Kate Herbert

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, April 12, 2005

 Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story 

Book, Lyrics and Music by Stephen Dolginoff

Theatreworks, 14a Acland St. St. Kilda, April 12 to 23, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The story of Leopold and Loeb, two teenage killers, shocked America in 1924 and entered US crime history.

American writer of musicals, Stephen Dolginoff, transforms this tale of murder, homosexuality, obsession and thrill seeking into a fascinating and disturbing musical for two men.

Two wealthy, educated and intelligent 19 year olds, Richard Loeb (Adrian Corbett) and Nathan Leopold (Nathan Butler) kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy in Chicago. They were caught and imprisoned for life plus 99 years.

Most of the details of the story are cleverly woven into the lyrics of the 15 songs. The rest is in the narration provided by Nathan Leopold, 35 years after the crime, as he addresses the Parole Board.

Butler and Corbett are appropriately cast as the two boys who seem such unlikely candidates for the horror they perpetrate.

This is an unusual story for a musical but it is strangely effective and affecting. It is not harrowing to watch but there are some distressing revelations in the story.

Dolginoff's songs draw on classic musical form and the music underscores the dialogue.

Pianist, Vicki Jacobs, the only musician on stage, brings passion and skill to the score.

 One drawback with the music is that the songs sound too much alike with repetitive tunes and little variety in style

However, the songs are well sung by Corbett and Butler who both have clear, bright voices that blend tunefully in their duets, particularly in the impassioned My Glasses/Just Lay Low.

The staging is sparse with only a couple of boxes and a single chair on stage. Director, Martin Croft, keeps the action simple and the focus on the characters, relationships and songs.

Cunning lighting by Katelyn B., (OK) closes the cavernous space to create discrete and intimate locations for the scenes.

Leopold and Loeb were lovers at High School who reunited before beginning Law School. Loeb was bisexual and charming. He manipulated the lovelorn Leopold to be his accomplice in a crime spree, seducing Leopold into a sexual contract written in blood.

Loeb became obsessed with Nietsche and believed that he and Leopold were superior men who could outwit anyone. He was wrong.  

This volatile fusion of compulsions led the pair to the kidnap and murder.

The show is diverting and capably performed with a very satisfying twist at the end.

By Kate Herbert

Mannix by Rod Quantock, April 8, 2005

 Mannix by Rod Quantock  

 Kingston Arts Centre, April 8 to 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 8

Dr. Daniel Mannix was the controversial Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne from 1913 until his death at 99 years in 1963.

Mannix was an intelligent, fiercely independent and vocal Irishman, a spokesman for the underclass, the workers. His constituents were the Irish Catholics of Melbourne who, early in the 20^th century, were still considered dangerous outcasts.

Rod Quantock uses as research for this one-man show, performed by Terence Donovan, the early period of Mannix's reign.

Donovan plays Mannix as well as the feisty Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, and several other characters of the period.

This intimate and small scale play begins with Donovan playing a 10-year-old naïve and poverty-stricken Irish Catholic boy who witnessed the arrival of Mannix in Melbourne in 1913.

Through they eyes of this child, we hear of Mannix's compassion, generosity and fortitude. The Doc, as he became known, tried to follow the motto he assumed on ordination as a Bishop: "All things to all men."

Quantock's script is a series of monologues direct to audience, recorded quotes from the Argus of the time and of Mannix's critics and some delightful Irish ballads sung live by Donovan in a warm and sweet voice

Donovan portrays the dignified Mannix at the pulpit and in the street. He rails against injustice and speaks out, to his detriment, against Hughes' planned referendum on Conscription during The Great War.

Mannix's efforts attracted enormous criticism and paranoia. He was called "belligerent" and "provocative" and then accused of being associated with "reckless extremists, pacifists and pro-Germans.".

 Mannix became the target of every bigot in the country - but he marched on relentlessly with his quest for fairness.

Donovan plays Mannix with warmth and his opponents with a gentle criticism. Although he was a little under-rehearsed on opening night, the show has legs.

Quantock wisely chose a short time span of Mannix's career on which to focus. The verbatim speeches and quotations are effective in telling his story and expanding our understanding of the man.

The show leaves us wanting more. In its next incarnation, the play could expand further on Mannix's dynamic and forthright personality, the characters around him and the view of the Australian press of this historic figure.

By Kate Herbert 

By Night We Tremble by Susan Alexopoulos, Feb 24, 2005

  By Night We Tremble  by Susan Alexopoulos 

 La Mama, Feb 24 to March 13, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It seems safe to assume that By Night We Tremble is based in the personal experience of the writer, Susan Alexopoulos.

The story is told from the point of view of a young woman (Alexopoulos) who, for the first time in her short but colourful love life, is dumped by her lover. (Tim Stitz)

The style is abstract and absurd and is written in an almost stream of consciousness style. It is an outpouring of grief and pain about loss of love.

It is more successful theatrically when it does not take itself seriously. Much of the time the dialogue is indulgent and immerses itself in platitudes and introspection that have little theatrical impact.

Two other actors portray the young woman's mother (Georgina Capper) and father (Stitz) but they also shift into playing the young woman and her lover.

Capper is quirky as the young woman's mother and suitably provocative as the young woman in love.

The direction (Julie Waddington & Thomas Papathanassiou OK) provides some imaginative physical representations of the sexual antics of the young lovers both in love and in separation.

The broad caricatures of mum and dad become repetitive and smack of the 1950s. Both parents live in a state of rage at the loss of their youth and sexuality and loss of control over their recalcitrant daughter.

Dad wears a daggy, old cardigan and constantly sprays a can of Air deodoriser. Mum wears an apron made of mothballs and her despair drives her to continually throttles.

Their aim is to make their daughter grow up to be sensible and responsible, just as they have had to do

The entertaining moments come with the inermittent sardonic reflections on the uncontrollable behaviour of those who are left by lovers.

The young woman comically bemoans the fact that she succumbed to begging her partner to stay, a behaviour that she always loathed in others.

"Loneliness is a great repellent," the actors intone ironically and repeatedly.

Lighting designed by Peter Heward provides an evocative atmosphere of murky blues and mauves.

The show is underscored with eclectic music including an impassioned tango.

There are certainly some interesting images and ideas in At Night We Tremble. but in the end, it feels less like theatre and more like private therapeutic  writings.

By Kate Herbert

Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler, March 22, 2005

Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler 

 CUB Malthouse, March 22 until April 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The horror of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia is brought home to us again in Necessary Targets, a play by Eve Ensler.

It is a moving, chastening and at times funny play that penetrates beneath the surface of statistics and horror stories, revealing the humanity of the survivors. 

Although both men and women suffered in this conflict, it is the women who are the focus. It is a story about not only the Bosnian women but about the two American therapists who travel to Bosnia to work with traumatized female victims of war.

J.S. (Vivienne Garret) is a psychiatrist who is out of her depth with war trauma. She wears Christian Dior in a war zone.  Her initial, comically patronising attempts to engage the women in arm's length psychotherapeutic sessions fall flat. When she engages with and feels for them, she is far more successful.

In competition with J.S. is Melissa, (Caitlin Beresford-Ord) a tough young woman counsellor experienced in war trauma but who is more concerned with recording the women's stories to include in her new book than with genuinely helping them.

Ensler highlights the ordinariness of the women who are damaged by war. It could be one of us. Their homes, families, work and play are destroyed by the conflict.

The diversity of the Bosnian women reflects how the war impacted on all levels of society.

Zlata ( Rosie Lalevich) is a successful and wealthy paediatrician who is vehemently opposed to these American outsiders pillaging the women's hearts and minds.

Nuna (Bojana Novakovic) is a youthful girl, interested in fashion, music and having fun. Jelena ( Danielle Antaki) is boisterous and cheerful despite the violence she experiences at home by her husband.

The oldest woman is Azra, (Jill Mc Kay) a farmer who pines for her cow and wishes to be buried on her farm.

Each woman slowly and unobtrusively reveals her own harrowing story but it is Seada (Kym Vercoe) whose story is the climax of the play. Seada carries a bundle of rags that she treats as a baby. Her denial and disassociation are painful to witness. The cruel revelation of her story is achingly tragic.

Pete Nettell directs the play with a deft hand using a multi-purpose and spare set design by Wayne Harris. Recorded Slavic music and dim lighting evoke an exotic but dangerous atmosphere.

The cast is all capable but several performances stand out. Lalevich as the indignant Zlata is a potent presence and Antaki is delightful as the drunken Jelena. Novakovic, as Nuna, is charming and joyful. But it is Vercoe's moment of revelation as Seada that breaks our hearts.

By Kate Herbert

Shakespeare's Villains by Steven Berkoff, Melbourne, Feb 17, 2005

 Shakespeare's Villains by Steven Berkoff

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, Feb  17 to Sun Feb 20, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 17, 2005

If you are an Oxford Shakespearian purist or, as Steven Berkoff describes it, "an iambic fundamentalist", you might be offended by Berkoff's unconventional playing of the Bard.

His performance of Shakespeare's Villains is irreverent, unpredictable and delicious. His style is witty, impulsive, indulgent and profoundly entertaining.

The stage is empty of set and props but he fills it with substance using his potent physicality.

He colours Shakespeare poetry with his vocal acrobatics, the rich velvet of his voice soaring and resonating.

Dramatic moments are inflected with comedy. Her rolls Macbeth's Scottish "r' with relish and playfully portrays Hamlet marching the endless corridors of Elsinore, calling to his mother. He conjures images of Gertrude and Lady Macbeth with sensual, visual descriptions of their femaleness.

The choice of villains is not obvious. Hamlet and Shylock, both often played as victims, are amongst them. 

Villains, Berkoff suggests in his impassioned commentary that links scenes, may be deformed or starved of love, (Richard III) jealous of others' love, (Iago) crave power in addition to love, (Macbeth) or be overwhelmed by mother's love (Hamlet).

Iago, Othello's subversive adviser, is "a mediocre villain" because he merely fiddles with the lives of people close to him, not even doing the killing himself.

Richard III is "a genius villain". He is proud and confident as he plans his villainy, covers his sins and murders many powerful and powerless royals.

The soldier, Macbeth, is "a wannabee villain". The fact that he has love in his life from his ambitious and manipulative wife, Lady Macbeth, gives him pause. She is the catalyst for his villainy.

Shakespeare's Jewish moneylender, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice, Berkoff tells us, has been sanitised in the playing over the year to accommodate the 20^th century delicacy about racial stereotypes. Berkoff depicts him as a vengeful cur that has been kicked too many times.

Hamlet is "an intelligent villain." He is erudite, a student of philosophy, so he can pontificate and procrastinate in his seething vengeance until he kills Polonius.

The King of the Fairies, Oberon, is more charmingly naughty than evil in his plans to make his wife fall in love with a wild beast.

The evening is stuffed with ironic and acerbic references to critics, famous actors, academics and politicians. It reveals a great deal about Berkoff's magical technique and charismatic, if slightly dangerous, personality.

By Kate Herbert

SubClass 26A, February 16, 2005

 SubClass 26A

 fortyfivedownstairs  February 16 to 27, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on February 16, 2005

SubClass 26A is an evocative representation of the plight of refugees in Australian detention centres.

Six performers, directed by Bagryana Popov, depict the refugees' experience using abstracted movement, repetition, fragmented dialogue and extracts from government document.

Stark lighting (Richard Vabre) includes fluorescent overhead lights to create a clinical environment for these isolated and desperate figures in the almost empty white space. (Anna Tregloan)

Percussive music (Elissa Goodrich) creates a simple soundscape to enhance the hollowness of the atmosphere.

This is not a narrative-based work but, rather, a series of oblique reflections upon the experiences of our refugees.

We witness them being moved about meaninglessly, forced into chairs, trying to understand incomprehensible and foolish instructions from three warders. (Simon Ellis, Nadja Kostich, Natalie Cursio)

Their days are regimented. They are called to meals, English lessons and interviews. Much of their time is spent waiting. They wait for news, information, answers, letters and for notice of their next visa interview.

Mostly, they wait for someone to believe them and not to treat them as criminals.

Although there is no single narrative thread, there are three detainees we come to know.

One is Abdullah Abdullah from Afghanistan, (Rodney Afif) the second is an Iraqi refugee (Majid Shokor) and the third a despairing young woman who suffers profound grief. (Ru Atma)

They are interrogated, never abused but abandoned, ignored, pushed from place to place, disbelieved and mistrusted.

There are some charming and funny vignettes. The two men (Afif and Shokor) play soccer and are joined by the male warder (Ellis). However, it turns into a power battle.

There are ironic references by the female warder (Kostich) to the movie, Pretty Woman, which seems light years away from the experience of the refugees.

The final images of Abdullah are poignant when he is demanding to be heard, fighting for his dignity and finally giving up when he hears his visa is rejected.

The piece becomes a little repetitive and is perhaps longer than it can successfully sustain but it is definitely an interesting if not penetrating view of the refugee situation in Australia.

By Kate Herbert

Tyranny by Barry Dickins, March 16, 2005

Tyranny by Barry Dickins 

The Builders Initiative

La Mama, March 16 to April, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Many of our successful playwrights, including Barry Dickins, began their writing in the late 60s and 70s at the Pram Factory.

Robert Reid's project called The Builders Initiative is founded on the commendable am to invite those playwrights to write new scripts to be directed by artists from the current theatre generation.

Ironically, Dickins seems to have incorporated something of this notion of old and new artists into his new absurdist play, Tyranny.

An elderly writer and intellectual, Eros Clare (Sharon Kershaw) nurtures a clutch of young wannabe artists who call their group, Dyspathy. She provides them with writing workshops, stimulating discussion and access to her rambling old mansion.

She is eccentric, decorative, successful and generous to her protegees, particularly the two boys, Henry (Mike McEvoy) and Johnny (Gareth Davies).

Eros is painfully unaware of their secret contempt for her and their clandestine plans to murder her and take all her money nor is she aware of the power of their girlish leader, Sandy. (Frances Marrington)

When they do attempt to kill her, she believes she should forgive such "fascist indiscretions of the younger generation."

Of course, in typical Dickins style, all of this horror is embedded cunningly in elaborate linguistic meanderings and hilarious social and political commentary.

His characters speak in Dickins own version of urban Australian poetry. He melds the suburban image with the exotic or the lyrical.

We meet a Zulu on Heidelberg Road; Mr. Richards, (David Pawsey) the grocer-butcher, quotes World War one poet, Wilfred Owen; the Bible and the Australia Council are in the one sentence; and Manet's Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe features during a picnic.

Dickins' writing obsesses about education, language, thought, politics, art and youth. He challenges our crumbling world and loss of faith and values. These young people are morally bankrupt, acquisitive and self-obsessed. Tyranny is a scathing attack on youth.

The set design (Jamie Clennett) of white painted junk clustered up the back walls is inventive.

The cast and director work courageously with this chaotic and intense script. The problem is that they do not seem to understand Dickins' style and are not quite in control of his language and intention.

The dialogue is complex, requiring clear articulation. At times, the actors are inaudible or incomprehensible. It also lacks his signature slapstick and satirical quality.

However, it is delightful to see a new Dickins with all its shambolic glory.

By Kate Herbert

The Yellow Wallpaper, from Charlotte Gilman Perkins, March 15, 2005

The Yellow Wallpaper  by Charlotte Gilman Perkins 

Adapted by Anita Hegh and Peter Evans

Where and When: Store Room, March 15 to April 3, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The confined, empty black space of The Store Room echoes the claustrophobic feelings of The Yellow Wallpaper.

Anita Hegh portrays a woman in an escalating psychological crisis. She is virtually incarcerated in an upstairs nursery in a crumbling country house.

Her isolation from friends, society and her beloved writing, enforced by her loving husband, is intended to speed her recovery but, instead, triggers a terrifying fall into delusion and paranoia.

Director, Peter Evans, with Hegh, adapted this electrically charged performance from Charlotte Gilman Perkins' 1892 novella of the same name.

Evans and Hegh use cunningly simple theatrical devices to create the layers of the story.

Hegh, dressed in a battered bridal gown, tells the woman's tale in the first person in a direct address to the audience. Her controlled narration is punctuated by random gasps that highlight the woman's rising panic and barely masked hysteria.

The woman enters and re-enters through the doorway as if she is re-enacting a contrived or rehearsed version of herself and her story for us.

She walks and speaks with dignity and rigid control, smiling awkwardly to deceive her husband and herself. Each day that passes we see her initial control of her demeanour and speech degenerate.

The peeling yellow wallpaper in her nursery prison obsesses her. Its pattern shatters all aesthetic rules. Perkins' poetry is vivid and compelling. It is "a smouldering, unclean yellow," with a pattern of "lame, uncertain curves that suddenly commit suicide."

The woman describes the pattern as being like fungus, revealing strangled heads and bulbous eyes. But beneath the surface pattern she sees a creeping woman, trapped and trying to escape. It is this image that eventually takes over fragile mind.

Hegh is rivetting, vibrating with the despair and uneasy control of a shattered psyche. It is this desperate vocal and physical control of language and delivery that exaggerates the delicacy of the woman's mental state.

Evocative lighting by Luke Hails creates a series of dramatic spaces that highlight the feelings of entrapment and the vocal brightness of the woman's voice overs lend an eerie childlikeness to her plight.

By Kate Herbert

Menopause-The Musical by Jeanie Linders, Feb 10, 2005

Menopause - The Musical by  Jeanie  Linders 
Produced by  G4 Productions, Lascorp, ICA and McPherson Touring

Where and When: Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, from Feb 10, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 10, 2005

Menopause - The Musical, written by Jeanie Linders, boasts a title that makes people laugh and wonder how one can write a musical about women's hormones.

Well, it is identification theatre. The audience, mostly women over 55, cheered at every reference to a menopausal symptom and danced on stage for the finale.

They identify with the characters who are all in their 40s or 50s. They are an executive, (Caroline Gillmer, a soap star, (Jane Clifton) a rural housewife, (Deidre Rubenstein) and a hippy. (Susan-Ann Walker OK)

These menopausal women meet in a department store then compare menopausal symptoms in song.

Despite the quality of the writing being limited, there being no narrative, nor any dramatic tension, the show is entertaining to its target audience - and perhaps their husbands.

The set is a wall of department store doors. There is simple 60s choreography and a few costume changes but essentially the show is a series of clever song parodies hooked together with daggy dialogue.

The Australian production is directed by Gary Young and choreographed by Andrew Hallsworth .

The four actors make a meal of the witty songs that puts new words about symptoms to classic tunes.

Gilmer belts out the opening parody to that Soul classic, Chain, Chain, Chain, which transposes into "Change, Change, Change- Change of Life".

There are songs about memory loss, over-eating, lack of fitness, fatness, sex, vibrators, face lifts, cosmetics, incontinence and confusion.

Gilmer sings, "I've got the night sweats baby this evening" and Clifton vamps with, "I'm having a hot flush, a tropical hot flush."

Walker bemoans her sleeplessness to the tune of I Will Survive, singing, " I -  I am awake." The audience shrieks.

Husbands not able to cope with the stress of the wife's mood swings are lyrics to the tune of In the Jungle: " In the guest room or on the sofa my husband sleeps tonight."

My favourite was sung to the tune of "Bill" and about anti-depressants: "Pills! I love you so I always will."

Menopause is fun - really daggy and little preachy, but fun.

LOOK FOR: Gillmer's Chain, Chain, Chain.

By Kate Herbert 

Mamma Mia! (The Musical) March 9, 2005

Mamma Mia! 

Music by Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus Book by Catherine Johnson

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, March 9 to  June 9, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The vibrant musical Mamma Mia! returns to Melbourne after four years with its nostalgic and eminently singable repertoire of ABBA pop tunes. Each song is a potential Eurovision Song Contest winner.

The opening night audience bopped and bounced in its seats to every beat and sang along with the catchy lyrics of Benny and Bjorn's immortal songs.

The beginning of the show felt a little uncomfortable. Some dialogue was too expository and there were occasional vocal pitch problems. These were overcome quickly.

The show hit its straps with the memorable Money Money Money, then Mamma Mia and Super Trouper.

The audience was delighted by every cunning segue from a line of dialogue into the opening lyric of a song.

Writer, Catherine Johnson, takes advantage of the impassioned, romantic lyrics, sung originally by Agnetha and Anni-Frid. Many ABBA songs are about relationships and lend themselves to a play about falling in and out of love.

The story is simple. Donna, played by the warm-voiced and passionate Silvie Paladino, (OK) runs a taverna on a Greek island. Her 20-year-old daughter, Sophie, (Kellie Rode) is to be married the next day.

The hitch is that Sophie, unbeknowns to her single mother, invited three of her mum's ex-lovers (John O'May, Bruce Roberts and Peter Hardy) to her wedding, hoping one of them is her unacknowledged dad.

Rode is perky and engaging as Sophie and her three "fathers" have fun with their goofy roles.

The show is stolen by the three older women on stage. (Paladino, Jenny Vuletic, Emma Powell) They appear together as Donna's old girl group, Donna and the Dynamos, decked out in Shiny Elvis suits singing Super Trouper and, in the finale, You Can Dance and Waterloo.

Jenny Vuletic is unbelievably sassy and magnetic singing Does Your Mother Know. Paladino's The Winner Takes It All is compelling and the final of I Do I Do I Do is delightful.

There are two huge dance numbers. Voulez Vous is a big chorus number in the taverna and under Attack is a marvellously quirky underwater dream sequence in wet suits, fluorescent goggles and snorkels

The second half is a musical rocket.  The audience stood and danced and sang in their seats during the finale. So should you.

By Kate Herbert for 1 pages:

The Big Con by Guy Rundle, with Max Gillies, Feb 25, 2005

 The Big Con  by Guy Rundle  

Produced by Malthouse Theatre, Arts Centre & Sydney Opera House

 Dinner & Show, ANZ Pavilion, Arts Centre 6.30pm until March 12

Show only, Malthouse Theatre, March 15-April 3, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The stakes are high and the political barbs fly thick and fast in The Big Con.

Max Gillies performs a series of more savage than usual satirical impersonations in this brutal attack on Australian political conservatives.

Gillies is united in his assault with cabaret singer, Eddie Perfect, who punctuates Gillies characterisations with caustic songs.

Script and lyrics bear the stamp of the scathing wit of Guy Rundle, whose background as comedy writer and political magazine editor are evident in his ferocious and shamelessly Leftist script.

The landslide win of the Howard government, the rise of conservatism in federal politics and the absurd infighting of the ALP provided a platform for new and even more bitter comic criticism.

Rundle's rage at our political situation is palpable and penetrates the comedy.

The stage is decorated as if for a conservative Think Tank called, ironically, The Centre for Independent Analysis. Host, Eddie Perfect, introduces various right-wing speakers, all played by Gillies in exceptional make-up. (Nik Dorning)

"We're spending the night on the right side of the fence," sings Perfect.

The first half is almost unbearably brutal and Gillies portrayal of arch-conservative radio talk back host, Alan Jones, is ferocious.

What follows is Keith Windschuttle, the only fictional character, (unless I've have missed the real Keith) a radical left- turned extreme right-wing historian.

Windschuttle's rewriting of history reeks of David Irving. He discounts the Holocaust, most deaths in World War One and calls the Stolen Generation "borrowed."

Rather tame by comparison, is Alexander Downer portrayed as an incompetent kindergarten teacher type having trouble with his visual aids.

Gillies plays Tony Blair making excuses and wanting to be loved, George Bush misusing words and video characters including Phillip Ruddock and Rupert Murdoch.

These are followed by a hilarious impersonation of Amanda Vanstone who tours her road show, Amandatory Detention.

Tony Soprano brings a Mafia-style "warning" from the US government. John Howard sniggers with contempt about the total power invested in him by his new control of the Senate.

This is not a show for the faint-hearted and will offend some people - even those on the Left. The Big Con is irreverent, acerbic, combative and impassioned.

By Kate Herbert

Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand, MTC, Feb 23, 2005

CYRANO DE BERGERAC by Edmond Rostand

Melbourne Theatre Company
Where: Playhouse, Arts Centre, Wed Feb 23 until April 2, 2005
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on FEb 23, 2005

Published Herald Sun Feb 25, 2005 in Amusements

`FATE is cruel. I look like a circus but I'm stuffed full of poetry,'' quips Cyrano de Bergerac in Edmond Rostand's play from 1897.

Simon Phillips' production features David Wenham as Cyrano, the noble, heroic, churlish French soldier and poet who suffered the indignity and anguish of being born with a ridiculous, enormous nose.

Rostand's play was a throwback to earlier verse plays, but its lyrical, romantic and touching story won French audiences. It remains a classic.

It takes liberties with the real Cyrano's story. Cyrano is secretly in love with his childhood playmate, Roxane (Asher Keddie), but never reveals his love because he knows he's ugly and undesirable.

Instead, Roxane enlists Cyrano's help in her infatuation with Christian (David Lyons), a pretty but stupid soldier in Cyrano's regiment.

Both the comedy and tragedy of Cyrano's unrequited love are played out in the colourful and heartfelt love letters he writes for Christian to send Roxane.

The play can be heartrendingly poignant as well as rollicking, fighting and comical.

This production is entertaining but lacks the emotional range and overwhelming passion of Rostand. The stakes seem too low and sometimes gags interfere with the lyricism and passion.

This might be in part because of the lightness of Andrew Upton's adaptation. It provides funny, modern references and witty rhymes but seems self-consciously contemporary.

These problems may improve as the season goes on. The play is an epic and might need time to even out its bumpy edges.
Wenham is engaging and warm as Cyrano but perhaps a little less dangerous and impassioned than we might expect of the character.

The sword-play is rather tame and the acting is uneven among the soldiers, but there are several strong performances.

Alex Menglet is deliciously eccentric as the poetry-obsessed baker, Ragueneau. Stephen Ballantyne brings warmth to Cyrano's dearest friend, Le Bret, the most realistic character.

As De Guiche, the arrogant commander of the soldier and ardent suitor of Roxane, Hayden Spencer is able to bridge the absurdity of his early foppishness and his later earnestness. Bob Hornery, Gerry Connolly, Julie Eckersley and Carita Farrer all play delightful cameos.

A violinist, Michael Harris, provides vibrant, original, almost gypsy music composed by Ian McDonald.

A vivid, exotic and complex design by Gabriela Tylesova integrates the proscenium arch into diverse scenes.

This production is definitely entertaining but not the definitive, poignant version of Cyrano we might expect. 

By Kate Herbert

Caption:  Nose job: David Wenham (left) as Cyrano with Gerry Connolly.
Illus:  Photo
Column:  Entertainment
Section:  AMUSE
Type:  Theatre Review

Debbie Does Dallas-The Musical, Feb 14, 2005

Debbie Does Dallas -The Musical

Adapted by Erica Schmidt, music by Andrew Sherman, conceived by Susan L. Schwarz 

Three Amigos Productions

Athenaeum Theatre 1, Melbourne, from February 14, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

One could not describe Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical as a critique of the politics of pornography or sexuality.

In fact, it straddles (pardon the innuendo) soft-core porn and sketch comedy with a sprinkling of teen television soap opera tossed in.

The show, directed by Peter Ross, was adapted by American, Erica Schmidt, from the actual old an d infamous porn movie of the same name.

The sexual antics in the stage show - we presume, not having seen the original - far less lurid but perhaps almost as titillating to some audience members.

The concept fits in with the recent surge of sexual lifestyle parodies that include Menopause the Musical and Orgasm the Musical as well as those two comedy shows about how babies kill the sex lives of mums and dads.

Debbie Does Dallas is entertaining and boasts a very talented and versatile cast of eight singer-dancers. The three men and five women relish the raunchiness of this over-the-top parody of dim-witted cheer leaders and thick-headed footballers.

Debbie, played with zest by Lisa Adam, a high school cheer squad captain, must raise the cash to finance her trip to join the prestigious Dallas Cowboys cheer squad.

With her four pals, Lisa (Zoe Ventoura) Roberta, (Beck Corley) Donna (Georgina Hart) and Tammy (Emma Hawthorne) she forms "Teen Services", a company that provides, for cash, any services wanted by men. You guessed it! The men all want sex.

The choreography is raunchy and slick. The peppy pop songs get better and funnier as the show progresses.

 Debbie sings Ten Dollars Closer each time she makes another ten bucks from her sexual favours to the polite but hungry sports store owner. (David Keene)

The boys belt out I Wanna Do Debbie with its less than subtle innuendo and the girls sing Bang Bang Cheer.

The three men shift character often and effortlessly playing not only the dopey footballers but all the men who "employ" the girls for their services.

The women have fun playing an array of witless teens. Particularly strong are Adam as the ambitious and relentlessly cheerful Debbie and Ventoura as the deliciously bad and disloyal Lisa.

There are some tasteless jokes and some content that might be offensive to some, but the whole show is a bit of a light laugh.

Kate Herbert