Oklahoma! The Production Company, Sept 28, 2005

Oklahoma! 

Music by Richard Rodgers, Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein

Based on the play, Green Grow the Lilies by Lynn Riggs

The Production Company

 State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Sept 28 to Oct 1, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Sept 28

In 1943, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein changed the face of musical theatre with the invigorating production of Oklahoma!

It was the first musical play. Each song informed the story, the plot the music were cohesive.

Hammerstein adapted the book from Lynn Riggs unsuccessful rustic play, Green Grown the Lilies. He also wrote the lyrics and was joined in this, their first of many famous collaboration, by Richard Rodgers.

The show is thick with hit tunes. The title song, Okahoma!, is a rousing chorus by the company and possibly the most memorable which explains why Rodgers and Hammerstein changed their title to Oklahoma1 early in its run.

As the handsome cowboy, Curly, Ian Stenlake oozes charm and plays the role with an athletic and boyish seductiveness. His voice is resonant and true and his opening number, Oh What a Beautiful Morning, brought cheers from the audience.

He was joined in a jaunty and engaging rendition of The Surrey With The Fringe On Top, by Aunt Eller (Nancye Hayes) and Laurey (Lucy Durack).

Durack as Laurey, the object of both Curly and Jud Fry's attentions, is suitably pert and pretty with an attractive soprano. The duet between Laurey and Curly was a highlight.

The secondary love story between the fickle and silly Ado Annie and her beau, Will Parker, is played delightfully by Amanda Harrison and Christopher Parker.

Harrison captures the flightiness and spirit of Annie and sings with passion and humour. As Will, Parker is the good-hearted oaf.

Nancye Hayes holds the centre of the show together with Aunt Eller, the strong farming woman who is fiercely independent, protective and good-humoured.

Mitchell Butel takes the role of Ali Hakim, the roving pedlar, to new comic heights, playing him as a heavily accented Persian womaniser. His comic timing is impeccable and his passionate Persian goodbye is hilarious.

As the loutish villain, Jud Fry, James Millar gives the character some humanity and creates a tragic if not lovable creature. Millar's rich baritone makes Jud's song, Lonely Room poignant.

Terence O'Connell directs this concert version with a slick hand, keeping scene changes swift. Orchestra Victoria plays superbly under Guy Simpson and

Alana Scanlan's choreography is a feature in Laurey's dream ballet and the chorus number, Kansas City.

Even without all the bells and whistles, this concert Oklahoma! Does justice to a great musical.

By Kate Herbert

CAST:

IAN STENLAKE                         Curly

CHRIS PARKER                         Will Parker

LUCY DURACK                           Laurey

JAMES MILLAR                          Jud Fry

AMANDA HARRISON                 Ado Annie

MITCHELL BUTEL                      Ali Hakim

NANCYE HAYES                         Aunt Eller

GARY DOWN                              Andrew Carnes

Ensemble

LOUISE BELL, NATALYA BOBENKO, GEMMA BROMLEY, REBECCA COLAFELLA, KATIE COOPER, BECK CORLEY, KENT GREEN, MATT GREEN, PETER HOSKING, MICHAEL LINDNER, AARON JACKSON MENDOZA, JOHN O'HARA, KURT PHELAN, ASHLEA PYKE, MELLE STEWART, ROBERT STURROCK, KATRINA TALBOT, SOPHIE VISKICH, STEPHEN WHEAT, MATTHEW WITHERS, DALLAS JAYS, THOMAS LACEY.                      

Director                                              Terence O’Connell

Music Director                                    Guy Simpson

Choreographer                                   Alana Scanlan

Sets & Costumes                               Richard Jeziorny

Music by Richard Rodgers

Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Based on the play Green Grow The Lilacs by Lynn Riggs

Musical numbers: “Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' ”, “The Surrey With The Fringe on Top”, “Kansas City”, “I Can't Say No”, “Many A New Day”, “It's a Scandal! It's An Outrage!”, “People Will Say We’re In Love”, “Pore Jud Is Daid”, “Lonely Room”, “Out Of My Dreams”, “The Farmer And The Cowman”, “All Er Nothin' ”, “Oklahoma”.

Broadway productions:

May 31, 1943 – May 29, 1948, St. James Theatre (2,212 performances)

May 29, 1951 – Jul 28, 1951, Broadway Theatre (100 performances)

Dec 13, 1979 – Aug 20, 1980, Palace Theatre (302 performances)

Mar 21, 2002 – Feb 23, 2003, Gershwin Theatre (413 performances)

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Singing Telegram by Michael Frencham , Sept 22, 2005

Singing Telegram by Michael Frencham 
Tusind Tak Productions

Melbourne Fringe Festival
  Store Room, Nth Fitzroy, Sept 22 to Oct 8, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Michael Frencham is a 30 year-old actor who spent several years working as a singing telegram. This is his story.

Mike talks directly to the audience about his evolution as a singing telegram. He was a student needing work, he saw the ad, he attended an audition in a dreary, industrial location.

The telegram agent who becomes a recurrent character in the show, is brassy, pushy Lexy. "Rhymes with sexy," she quips. Do you get the picture?

A Lexy, Frencham sucks hard on a mime ciggy and grimaces at us through the smoke. She is really declasse' but manages to get her clutches into Mike who needs the cash.

His first Gorilla-gram is a disaster. He faces an 18^th birthday party and when he finds the birthday boy he is in his birthday suit doing the unspeakable alone in his room. Mike wants to quit but Lexy is persuasive.

He then becomes Elvis for Aunty Jan's 50th birthday and has a liaison with Elvis-obsessed Aunty Cheryl after the gig. The loveless Mike might be on to the good thing, he thinks.

As his Elvis impersonation improves, the work keeps coming.

Clearly, a show on its preview can be a bit bumpy but there are some glaring problems with Singing Telegram that will not necessarily change after more runs of the show.

There is some comedy to be had from the desperate life of a singing telegram but it might be better suited to a stand up routine. It certainly needs more substantial material to make it theatre.

Mike's parallel story of his relationship to football and his father's obsession with Mike's childhood success is unsuccessfully rendered through a series of voice overs and slides of Mike on a footy field with the under 12s.

These interludes read more as an excuse for Mike to go off stage to change telegram costumes than as a significant second layer to his story.

Perhaps a less literal representation of the telegram characters, fewer costume changes and more depth in the issues arising from Mike's despair or more gags about his predicament might take the piece to a new level.

By Kate Herbert

Drink Pepsi, Bitch! by Eddie Perfect, Sept 22, 2005

Drink Pepsi, Bitch!  by Eddie Perfect

Malthouse Theatre

Beckett Theatre, Malthouse, Sept 22 to Oct 2, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Sept 22, 2005

Cabaret performer, Eddie Perfect, is a glorious ranter.  He rants about Pepsi advertising and its vacuous spokesmodel. Paris Hilton. He rants about Oprah, IKEA, Cirque du Soleil, Ray Martin and call centres.

He rants through his original song lyrics and stand-up material. He is vitriolic about corporations, rampant consumerism, cynical marketing campaigns, advertising and our own apathy.

His targets are nto only high profile companies. H slams the hippy fascists, those scruffy ferals who come from middle-class families and demand we all ride bicycles, grown deadlocks and eat tofu.

Perfect is the perfect voice for all of this. He has a wicked humour, a cunning way with language and rhyme and an intelligent, backhanded political sensibility.

He also has a sparkling smile, oodles of charm and a cockatoo hairdo that defies gravity.

He has a gung-ho manner and no fear of reprisal. Even using the name of the cola giant in his title got him into legal strife. Big companies can use us but we can't take their names in vain it seems.

An accomplished trio of musicians backs Perfect's act. (Ben Hendry, Dustin McLean, Vincenzo Ruberto) His songs are jazz influenced with a few ballads and a latin number tossed in.

The titles give away his targets. Drink Pepsi, Bitch! Is his version of the new, in-your face marketing ploy for the cola company.

Where There's Will and Wave There's Ray is a scathing tune attacking Ray Martin's sugary coverage of the Tsunami.

I'm In Too Deep peeks into internet pron which brings new meaning to the term, Internet Service Provider.

Those poor sods who work in call Centres are not free of criticism in Thank The Lord for cal Centres.

And for those of us who have been lost or lost love in that endless furniture showroom that is IKEA, Perfect lets fly lament entitled, I Want To Go Home.

Oprah gets a serve in Where's My Flat Screen TV, a cry from the US suburbs desperate to fulfil the American Dream.

It is his finale that really hits home his message. Stop Being so Damned September 10 is an indictment of our cynicism and inertia in the face of 21^st century horrors.

Perfect is shrewd, irreverent and a consummate performer. This show is delectable.

By Kate Herbert

Not Dead Yet by Rawcus & Born in a Taxi, Sept 21, 2005

Not Dead Yet  devised by Rawcus and Born in a Taxi

Theatreworks,  until Sept 25, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Sept 21, 2005 at 1pm

A Rawcus show is always a cheering theatrical experience and Not Dead Yet is no exception - despite its theme being death. Rawcus finds a wicked way to investigate humanity in all its pain and humour.

The company of able and disabled actors devised Not Dead Yet in collaboration with Born in a Taxi, a movement improvisation group. The production si directed by Kate Sulan (Rawcus ) and Penny Baron (Born in a Taxi).

The pair of directors skilfully plaits together a series of scenes in movement, music and simple dialogue.

The opening scenes are, indeed, raucous with the volume of the party music about to do some ear damage. As audience enters, the actors are concealed behind a single door where, we assume, a raging party is in progress.

Occasionally, the door opens, a party-goer tumbles out and we see the riotous carousing inside.

Later, we realise that the party is just one imagined view of the afterlife - a big party. Good so far! Other images of death follow of peace, confusion and joy.

We see Ray in his wheelchair ignoring answering machine message of condolence while he is comically almost buried beneath sympathy cards and flowers.

We see a glamorous God's random decisions about our destinies based on a wheel of fortune.

Abstract scenes depict people wandering confused and aimless, meeting friends by surprise, all represented  non-literally through repetitive  movement

Not dead yet is enhanced by evocative, gloomy lighting (Richard Vabre) and by

both a recorded soundscape ( Jethro Woodward0 and marvellous live percussion. Tania Bosak, Daniel Tobias).

The final scene was poignant and compelling. A heart wrenching song plays while four actors sit quietly on the floor. Others deck them in clothing and paraphernalia from an ordinary life: an umbrella, scarf, flowers.

It feels like a tribute to their lives and their passing into the next life, a farewell of sorts.

Not Dead Yet is based on a Chilean notion that members of their community who are disabled are revered as spirit guides of the soul as it goes form this world to the next - whatever it is.

This is a beautiful and moving basis for this entertaining and charming show.

By Kate Herbert

The Minutiae of Inertia by Tyler Coppin, Sept 21, 2005

The Minutiae of Inertia by Tyler Coppin

Melbourne Fringe Festival

  Store Room, Sept 21 to Oct 8, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Sept 21

The Minutiae of Inertia, written and performed by Tyler Coppin, is a striking and incisive study of a child and his father over one traumatic night amongst many others.

Mum has left both father and son and neither dad nor his seven-year-old son can sleep.

This is the first night in seven years that dad has visited the child's room upstairs and he knows that the child's normal sleeplessness and screaming behaviour have kept his mother demented since his birth.

 Now it is dad's turn to manage the night terrors.

Jimmy has a vivid fantasy life in his lonely upstairs room where  he plays at crashing planes into the Twin Towers and chanting George Bush's name. He tosses tiny dolls off buildings o their death and then drives in remote-controlled fire trucks to the rescue.

His favourite toy is a homemade Incredible Hulk, complete with realistic pectorals.

Coppin brings to life not only Jimmy but Hulk who is a gruff ageing Hollywood actor with shattered dreams. Jimmy feels Hulk is a completely separate character from himself and when Hulk shouts, Jimmy tries to quieten him to stop dad coming angrily upstairs

 Meanwhile dad is below, in his resentment and despair, drinking his way through a case of pinot noir to drown his sorrows about mum leaving him, his lost ambitions and failed career.

 He too has fantasies, mostly reminiscences about his deceased parents and his own childhood.

Coppin's performance is exuberant, controlled, skilful and moving. He is credible as both dad and Jimmy and the Hulk is a highlight, sounding a little like Jack Nicholson meets Michael Douglas.

Jimmy wears kiddy's pyjamas which means all three characters are in pyjamas but, despite them, we see Coppin transform into dad and Hulk, shifting his voice substantially and his body subtly.

Coppin plays Jimmy with a bright naivete and intense imagination. Dad he plays with an initial edge of menace that dissipates as we realise his incapacity. He is a drunk we at first suspect to be volatile but realise he suffers the inertia of the title.

Coppin's writing is smart and dad's dark musings often sound like lyrical beat poetry.

Anna Borghesi's design divides the space simply into Jimmy's room -  a table piled high with toys - and dad's lounge.

Minutiae is a fine solo performance of a charming short play.

By Kate Herbert

I Get the Music in You, Queenie van de Zandt & Tony Taylor , Sept 21, 2005

I Get the Music in You 

By Queenie van de Zandt  and Tony Taylor

Melbourne Fringe Festival

 Store Room , Sept 21 to Oct 7, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Queenie van de Zandt is not only a great cabaret singer, she is hilarious too. Her solo cabaret/comedy show, I get the Music in You, is a delightful parody of a music therapist whose heart is not in the right place.

Queenie plays Jan van der Stool, a self-absorbed, conceited and blatantly rude singer who runs workshops to heal the inner self through singing. " Open the throat and open the door", she repeats.

With the relentless Jan on stage is Helen, Queenie's much abused accompanist, played completely deadpan and mute by David Young who looks outrageously funny in his flimsy dress.

Jan runs the workshop like a concentration camp warden or an authoritarian tuck shop mum. She demands everyone pay for their biscuits and coffee "The plunger coffee", she snipes, "is for Helen and me. The International Roast is for the rest of you."

When half a packet of bikkies goes missing, she is like a bird of prey seeking her target.

Jan is Dutch and her language is riddled with comical second language errors But nothing fazes Jan. She is in control and believes she can help her hapless students despite her blunt criticism.

Queenie, as Jan, introduces her victims onto the stage to sing and then transforms into these students herself. First she plays Carole who sings Shattered Illusions, a comic song about her bad choices of men.

Then she sings a truly beautiful love ballad as the painfully shy Kirsty. Finally she is Arthur, a lumpen thing who idolises Michael Jackson and sings Ben in a breaking falsetto.

Jan teaches us a series of very funny and literal interpretive dance moves to accompany The Wind Beneath my Wings. We all participate gleefully.

We discover our inner bell, learn to do the vocal exercise called the Vomit, hopefully without puking and learn that singing "the big note" at the end of a song is just showing off.

Queenie plays herself and other students at the end and sings a grand finale of songs including a marvellous rendition of Barbra Streisand's very difficult song, A Piece of Sky.

His show is a real laugh-out-loud hoot with some really powerful singing by Queenie.

By Kate Herbert

Telefunken by Stuart Orr, Sept 20, 2005

 Telefunken by Stuart Orr

Table 9 Productions and Malthouse Theatre

The Tower, CUB Malthouse, Sept 20 to 25, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stuart Orr is a compelling presence in his solo work, Telefunken. His show is a clever and eccentric blend of physical performance, multiple characters, Nazi propaganda, film footage, projections and soundscape.

The Telefunken world collides with the real world of World War Two history and contemporary  television but .it has more in common with a Grimm's fairy tale.

The central figure is Ralph Gerhard Mann, a young German soldier who is holed up in an abandoned Berlin cinema in the final days of the war. He addresses the audience as American liberation soldiers who he wants to leave.

Ralph is shirtless, a bare, emaciated figure in a cluttered chaotic environment.

Wires lead from his head to an rough,  old television set. Playing on a screen behind him are excerpts from Hitler Youth propaganda, Oprah episodes and footage of the Iraq war and George W Bush.

He tells a fractured tale, a movie script that he writes as he aits to be captured. It is about Erasmus, a Jewish boy who is tormented by other boys,becomes a soldier and finally transforms into a werewolf Nazi figure akin to Hitler and obsessed with Parisian negro jazz.

Orr's analogy is not quite clear but seems to raise questions such as - Is television fascism? Is its invasion of our minds propaganda?

Whatever the message , the execution is vivid, entertaining and cunningly wrought. Orr transforms between characters, using accents and physical transformations to people the stage with personalities.

He plays the characters in Erasmus story as famous actors: Michael

Caine is he grandfather, Brad Pitt is Erasmus and Schwarzenegger and Peter Lorre make hilarious cameo appearances.

Telefunken is performed impeccably and directed seamlessly by Barry Laing. The action is constant and the complexity of images and the shifting levels of time and place are handled cleverly.

It is a complex and cluttered world that requires phenomenal energy and continual transformations from Orr. He performs it effortlessly.

The evocative lighting ( Matthew Brber) and projected design is integral to the composition of the show. The video montage ( Orr and Thom Brandon) is intercut with delightfully simple pen and ink drawing (Eloise Bowden) representing Erasmus' journey in a children's book style.

Stuart Orr's Telefunken is comical, cynical, ironical and very entertaining.

By Kate Herbert

Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas, Aug 30, 2005

Under Milkwood  by Dylan Thomas  

 by McPherson Ink

Atheneaum Theatre 1, Aug 30 to  Sept 3, 2005

Colac, Moonee Ponds, Geelong, Werribee, Horsham, Hamilton, Sale, Frankston until Sept 29, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Aug 30, 2005

The cobbled lanes and entire eccentric population of the fictional Welsh coastal village of Llareggub burst into life in this production of Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood.

Thomas called it a "play for voices" and it is impossible to do justice to his lush, vivid, lilting poetic language on this page.

Four actors (Daniel Craig, Beverley Dunn, Dion Mills, Charmaine Gorman), directed by Don Mackay, inhabit the countless bawdy, loving, yearning, petulant and gossiping characters in this ninety minute version of the play.

Thomas lived part of his beer-soaked life as a poet in the Welsh village of Laugharne and one can imagine him jotting down his observations of the townsfolk in the pub and on the streets over the years to form the final script of Under Milkwood.

It is a rich, inspired and irreverent view of the passions and yearnings, loves and losses, venomous hatred and long-held rivalries, all heard on one spring day in Llareggub.

The actors share the three narrator voices that paint the landscape and characters of Llareggub. (Spell it backward) Each actor also plays numerous characters with his or her own distinctive style and great conviction and relish.

The narrators allow us to see the village but it is blind old seafaring Captain Cat (Craig) who allows us to hear it through his hypersensitive ears.

The actors transform from one character to another with a swift shift in body and voice and the addition of a scarf, a hat or jacket.

Although Thomas' called it a play for voices and the creamy Welsh accents and lyrical language are definitely the focus, the script lends itself generously to the embodiment of its unique characters.

There is a delicate balance of loving and despising in Under Milkwood.

Mog Edwards, draper, (Mills) writes soulful love letters to his loved one, Myfanwy Price (Gorman), dressmaker and candy shop keeper. Mrs. Cherry Owen (Gorman), adores her loving husband Mr. Owen, (Mills) even when he reels drunkenly from the pub.

Innkeeper, Sinbad Sailors, (Mills) pines for his unrequited love, pretty Gossamer Beynon (Gorman) and promiscuous Polly Garter (Gorman) sings a wrenching song about her long dead lover, Wee Willy. Even Captain Cat weeps for his dead Rosie Probert.

The harsher underbelly of Llareggub is seen in schoolmaster, Mr. Pugh (Mills) who secretly plans the poisoning death of his nasty wife. (Dunn) while Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard (Dunn) still controls her two dead husbands from her dreamy sleep.

Under Milkwood is a unique and complex language play, passionate, raucous, raunchy and profoundly moving and funny.

By Kate Herbert

Stuff Happens by David Hare, Aug 25, 2005

Stuff Happens by David Hare  

 Company B, Belvoir

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, from Aug 25, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Aug 25, 2005

David Hare's play, Stuff Happens, is like a documentary-drama about George W. Bush's regime and the decision by the US to invasion of Iraq.

The result is harsh criticism and biting political satire directed at every member of the current United States government and English Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

This production, directed by Neil Armfield for Company B Belvoir, Sydney, boasts an exceptional cast of sixteen actors not often seen on stage in Melbourne.

The stage is starkly designed with a wall of huge, distressed steel girders upstage.

The characters sit and stand around a huge conference table, at times looking like characters at the Last Supper.

As the political events unfold preceding the March 2003 strike on Iraq, scenes move swiftly.

Hare takes verbatim speeches or snatches of dialogue from Bush, (Greg Stone) Cheney, (Russsell Kiefel) Rumsfeld, (Russell Dykstra) Powell (Wayne Blair) and Blair (Rhyss Muldoon) and inter-cuts them with dramatisations of crucial conversations that were never made public.

Between scenes, characters swarm across the stage, swinging the huge table to a new position or forming tableaux of meetings we know occurred but of which we have little intelligence.

This alien world of power and violent decision making in the White House, Downing Street or the United Nations headquarters, is somehow represented as a cartoon. The characters are like satirical rubbery figures mouthing platitudes. Each actor almost impersonates these political characters.

The terrifying thing is that these cartoon men - and Condoleeza Rice (Leah Purcell)  - are real decision- makers for our world.

The vengeful, self-centred and ill-informed actions of the Bush government seem to be made by a boys club of ignorant but single-minded people.

Tony Blair is represented as trying to maintain international law and a philanthropic view of the rest of the world. He sees himself saving people from tyranny. Bush and his cronies want to blow Iraq into the Stone Age as retaliation for September 11.

The rapidity and idiocy of the decisions made leave one gasping when seen compressed into three hours.

The play is didactic, arguing a particular political point and representing the  decisions by the US and England as hasty , ill-considered and dangerous.

Greg Stone plays Bush with a cunning, boyish stubbornness. As his cohort of bully-boys is superb. Wayne Blair shows the invidious position of Colin Powell  and Muldoon, as Tony Blair, displays the hope and eventual panic of the British PM.

Stuff happens not an easy night in the theatre but it is a challenging and educational one.

By Kate Herbert

Sunset Boulevard, The Production Company, Aug 17, 2005

 Sunset Boulevard 

Music by Andrew Lloyd  Webber  Lyrics and Book  Don Black and Christopher Hampton 

The Production Company

State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, August 17 to 20, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Aug 17, 2005

The spectacle of the luxurious mansion and glittering lights of Hollywood may be missing from this concert production of Sunset Boulevard, but the harsh view of the self-centred wannabees is present.

Director, Wayne Harrison, focuses successfully on Lloyd Webber's music, the voices and the relationships between these profoundly self-centred characters.

Judi Connelli's big cabaret voice fills the State Theatre with the overwhelming and controlling personality of the faded silent movie star, Norma Desmond.

When she sings Surrender, we believe Norma will never surrender her claim to fame and adulation. During With One Look we see vividly Norma's obsession with her own silent movie image.

Joe Gillis, the dashing, down-at-heel screenwriter and gigolo played by David Campbell, is acquisitive and almost as manipulative as Norma herself. His voice is true and resonant and he makes Joe's cynicism palpable in a stirring rendition of the title song, Sunset Boulevard.

"Now I have suits and she has hope, " he sings. The story and lyrics are relentlessly critical of the Hollywood culture of the 1940s.

Roger Howell's magnificent, rich baritone and still presence bring great dignity to the role of Max Von Mayerling, Norma's devoted butler, minder and ex-husband. He sings with warmth and passion, The Greatest Star of All and New Ways To  Dream.

Chelsea Plumley brings a cheeky quality and bright voice to the ingenue, Betty Schaefer, Joe's love interest and an aspiring writer.

The chorus provides a fine supporting cast of wannabee writers, actors, singers and producers. Their rousing opening number, Let's Have Lunch, and The Perfect Year, both capture the quality of Billy Wilder's unpleasant Hollywood.

Harrison keeps the action moving swiftly and a simple design of three movable screen by Richard Jeziorny provide a sense of location. The car chase with miniature cars was a very entertaining addition.

The orchestra, conducted by Peter Casey, provides the foundation for the production with a strong and rich quality of sound.

Sunset Boulevard is an expansive and cynical story that is well-served by Lloyd Webber's powerful music and by the intelligent and witty lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black.

It makes one crave a full production of the show again.

By Kate Herbert

Cheech by Francois Letourneau, MT, Aug 10, 2005

Cheech by Francois Letourneau
Translated  by Rick Des Rochers  
Melbourne Theatre Company

 Fairfax Studio, Victorian Arts Centre, Aug 8 to September 24, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Cheech, a play by contemporary Canadian writer, Francois Letourneau, is often funny, generally outrageous, riddled with inner urban angst and fast dialogue.  Be prepared for male and female nudity, coarse language and some violence.

The performances and direction (Gordon McCall) are broad and colourful but the play and its young, desperate, out of control characters, leave one feeling unsatisfied.

The story centres on the thriving and overt sex industry in Montreal.

Ron (Aaron Blabey) runs an escort service. On this day, the Chrysler convention is in town and Ron must win this lucrative group booking by impressing the boss with a photo portfolio of sex kittens. Cheech is his unseen arch rival.

Letourneau uses a non-linear but narrative based structure. The play is set during a single day but does not run chronologically. Scenes are short, like ad breaks, and are revisited out of order.  A digital time clock alerts us to the actual time of day.

Canadian director, McCall, keeps the pace rapid and stages the play on two levels of a vivid, metropolitan environment. (Shaun Gurton)

Aaron Blabey makes the volatile and despairing Ron credible and funny. His depiction of Ron's secret anger management exercises is hilarious.

Ron's sidekick, Maxime, (Kenneth Spiteri) takes photos of the perky but secretive escort, Jenny. (Miria Kostiuk) Max gets himself into unexpected hot water when he takes the girlie pics to the pharmacy to be printed.

Max is preoccupied with Stephanie, (Kate Kendall) a suicidal prostitute who slits her wrist while on a professional call to the apartment of the socially awkward Olivier (Daniel Frederiksen).

Meanwhile, upstairs, Alexis (Jason Raftopoulos) obsessively awaits a call from a girl

The absurdities and tragedies of all five characters converge in one final anti-climactic scene.

Characters are bound to modern technology: mobile phones, voicemail, voice recorders, ghetto blasters and cameras.

They are all psychologically dysfunctional: Sophie uses anti-depressants, Ron a self help pop psychology, Stephanie attempts suicide, Alexis wills his phone to ring and Sophie masks her identity.

The play is entertaining, rapid-fire, contemporary in characters and content but strangely emotionally alienating.

By Kate Herbert

Measure for Measure, Bell Shakespeare, Aug 9, 2005

 Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare   

Bell Shakespeare

 Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, August 9 to 2, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

John Bell's production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is a theatrical delight that is successful on every level.

It boasts an accomplished cast, intelligent and compelling direction, imaginative design and makes the Elizabethan dialogue and concepts crystal clear to the modern ear.

It is known as a "problem play" but is also called a tragicomedy because, although it is a comedy with broad, bawdy content and a happy and romantic outcome, it deals with serious issues.

Written in 1604 during the reign of James 1, it debates the issues of morality, justice, hypocrisy and self-sacrifice

The Duke of Vienna, (Sean O'Shea) departs his decadent city, leaving it under the iron-fisted rule of his conservative deputy, Angelo. (Christopher Stollery).

The Duke avoids his responsibilities by departing Vienna but secretly observes the outcome of his experiment by disguising himself as a Friar.

What transpires is that the rigid and puritanical Angelo adheres to the letter of the law against fornication by condemning to death young Claudio (Timothy Walter) for making pregnant his fiancee, Juliet. (Michelle Doake).

Claudio's devout sister, Isabella, (Tamsin Carroll) a nun, is asked by Claudio's raffish friend, Lucio, (Matthew Moore) to petition Angelo for Claudio's pardon.

Instead, the frozen heart of Angelo heats with lusts for Isabella and he promises to spare Claudio if Isabella sleeps with him.

The play requires intense concentration to comprehend the complex arguments presented by all parties to support their respective positions.

Isabella's suit to Angelo is long and imaginatively argued. Angelo's subsequent argument is equally compelling.

The Duke, still in disguise, convinces his loyal Councillor, Escalus, (Robert Alexander) to stay Claudio's execution. The Duke then manipulates everyone in the final scene in which he reveals his identity and exposes Angelo's dirty deeds.

The lusty, degenerate Vienna is vividly depicted in the bawdy scenes opening the play and the second half. Robert Kemp's design, blending classical architecture and modern clutter, is evocative.

O'Shea is compelling as the reticent Duke who grows into his authority. Stollery is commanding as Angelo and Alexander a sensitive Escalus.

Moore makes charming the rogue, Lucio, and  Darren Gilshenan is hilariously credible as the cheeky pimp, Pompey. Carroll's composure and grace as Isabella make her rivetting.

This is an exciting and delightful production of a play that deserves more attention in the modern repertoire.

By Kate Herbert

Construction of the Human Heart by Ross Mueller, Aug 2, 2005

 Construction of the Human Heart by Ross Mueller

 Store Room,  August  2 to 21, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Aug 2, 2005

Construction of the Human Heart, by Ross Mueller, employs an inventive form to tell the story of a marriage in tatters.

The Man (Todd MacDonald) and Woman (Fiona MacLeod), seated in an empty space, read their lines from what appears to be a rehearsal script, complete with bulldog clip, dog-eared pages and highlighted dialogue.

Initially, we wonder whether this is a play reading rather than a production. Slowly we realise that the actors and characters, the script and reality are blending and splitting, bleeding into each other to create a complex dual reality.

A voice over provides scene settings and stage directions, forcing us out of the story and back into the construction of a play.

The characters' story is that both husband and wife are writers. She is the more successful. His career is at a standstill as he awaits a big break into television writing.

He compares her to a combination of Elle McPherson and Stephen Hawking: brains and beauty. She, unflatteringly, says he is the lovechild of Elvis Costello and Elvis Presley: a backhanded compliment.

But what lies at the heart of their dysfunction is the haunting presence of their dead child. Each recounts memories of the child. The woman remembers driving past a cemetery where her mother was buried. The man remembers reading the child's favourite book, Where the Wild Things Are.

Mueller uses the reading of the dialogue as a metaphor of a couple caught in the replay of the "script' of their relationship to highlight their alienation from each other. It emphasises the mechanical, unemotional layer that is superimposed upon their grief and loss.

As the play advances, the scripts are tossed - literally - and the pair struggles to communicate as their marriage disintegrates.

MacDonald is passionate and moving as the distraught husband. As his wife, MacLeod effectively portrays a woman with a cool surface masking her profound underlying pain.

Director, Brett Adam, keeps the staging simple and focuses on the relationship and the form of Mueller's play. We are constantly confronted with the fact that we are watching actors but we are simultaneously drawn into the trauma of the characters.

Construction of the Human Heart is a fascinating study in form and style that works on most levels.

By Kate Herbert

My Fair Lady, July 30, 2005

My Fair Lady 

Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Music by Frederick Loewe

Produced by ACT Inc & Arts Events Management

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, July 30 to August 13, 2005

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on July 30, 2005

The wit of Alan Lerner's lyrics and dialogue combined with the singability of Frederick Loewe's tunes make My Fair Lady an eternal favourite in the musical theatre repertoire.

The show boasts a list of major hits and memorable songs: With a Little Bit of Luck, Wouldn't it Be Loverly, On the Street Where You Live, I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.

The audience relishes Higgins sing-speaking Why Can't the English? and his musings on why women can't be more like men in Hymn to Him.

This small-scale production, directed by Darien Sticklen, (OK) is by no means the consummate version of the musical, but it has its successes.

Alan Fletcher is a powerful presence as the redoubtable linguistics expert, Henry Higgins. He delivers both songs and dialogue with great conviction and excellent comic timing.

Laura Fitzpatrick, playing Eliza Doolittle, has charm and a sweet singing voice but does not fully embody the transformation of Eliza from urchin to sophisticate.

She sounds too middle class for the rough cockney in the opening scenes and does not achieve the glamour, sophistication or accent required for her to be mistaken for a princess in the later scenes.

Roger Oakley is a fine foil to Fletcher as Higgins' bluff offsider, Colonel Pickering and Babs McMillan is delightfully wry as Higgins matronly mother.

Apart from these performances, the production feels a little amateurish and unfinished.

Marty Fields is a funny performer but he completely misses the robust cheekiness of Alfie Doolittle, Eliza's carousing, ne'er do-well, Cockney father.

Chris Durling looks right for the part of Freddy Eynsford-Hall, the young man besotted with Eliza. However his acting lacks credibility and, although he has a clear tenor voice, he hit a few bad notes on opening night.

The ensemble sang competently and the dance routines, choreographed by Joanne Adderley, performed a few lively routines especially the Cockney dance to Get Me To The Church On Time.

The audience loved Higgins teaching Eliza to speak "proper". Her linguistic success prompted applause after The Rain in Spain.

Another high point is the Ascot Gavotte. The formality and posing of the wealthy race goers and their rigid restraint at the races is a comical contrast to Eliza's excitable cries to the horse, "Come on Dover, move your bloomin' arse."

You will enjoy this show if you love My Fair Lady but do not expect the definitive production.

By Kate Herbert