Mary Poppins *****

 Mary Poppins 

Her Majesty’s Theatre, (Opening night-Thurs July 29, 2010)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***** (Yes, 5)

 (This review was unpublished in the Herald Sun after opening night but these are some thoughts on this exceptional production)

A new star is born in the musical theatre firmament. Verity Hunt-Ballard is Practically Perfect, as she sings, in every way for the role. She is what is known as “the triple threat”: sings, dances and acts. 

Her soprano is bright and crystal-clear, her character is a perfect blend of prim and mischievous, pert and bossy. Her comic timing is impeccable in both physical and verbal gags, she dances up a storm, maintaining Mary’s poise and cheekiness as she performs complicated routines.

Mary Poppins comes to life and even the creatives and producers of this production state categorically that not only is she the best Poppins they’ve seen, but this is the best cast in the six year history of the stage show.

This Poppins is the super-nanny who, with a spoonful of sugar, a snap of her fingers and a “spit, spot, spick and span” makes the kitchen tidy and the toys tuck themselves away.

The magic of the movie is present but it is even more spectacular because we see it immediately before us. Crowley’s set design is transformational, transporting us from the proper and staid domestic home of the Banks into Bert’s pastel painting of a technicolour park as it comes to life with ballet dancing statues. 

Mrs. Corry Conversation Shop is populated with eccentric characters is exceptional costumes who perform with Mary and Bert the supercalifagilistic dance routine and song.

Philip Quast as Mr Banks is commanding and accomplished with a fine resonant voice and a suitable thawing of his icy demeanour. Marina Prior captures our sympathy with Mrs Banks, the former actress who craves more time with her family. 

As the children, Jane and Michael, Hayley Edwards and Kurtis Papadinis were natural, playful and without that glossy artificiality of stage children.

Sally-Anne Upton funny, bold and booming as Mrs Brill and Judi Connelli’s bullying nanny Andrew is a treat. Rickerby awkward and hilarious in the slaptick kitchen scene.

Matt Lee is perky and charming as cockney Bert and stuns us with his dancing on the ceiling while Debra Byrne is poignant and in fine voice in her cameo as the Bird Woman.

This is a stunningly polished and wildly entertaining production that beats all other international productions to date - and that's according to the show's creative team themselves.

By Kate Herbert

Songs From The Middle****1/2

Songs From The Middle

By Eddie Perfect and The Brodsky Quartet, Melbourne Cabaret Festival

Where and When: South Melbourne Town Hall, 25-26 July

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

Eddie Perfect’s passionate voice brings tears to my eyes. It is thrilling. His witty, ironic lyrics make me laugh until I hurt. When you blend his soaring vocal tones, charm and wit with the silky, sexy strings of The Brodsky Quartet, additional musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music and arrangements by Iain Grandage, the result is a cabaret masterpiece.

Songs From The Middle is a collection of songs about Mentone ­ yes, Mentone, that bayside suburb that is neither glossy, well-heeled Brighton nor the tranquil Mornington Peninsula. Eddie grew up there, went to St. school there, fell in love, visited to malls and Bunnings there. He left Mentone in anger but this time, he sings, “I’m leaving in peace.”

The relentlessly prosaic quality of life in Mentone stands in stark contrast to the complexity of Grandage’s arrangements, the sheer beauty of the strings plus percussion, wind instruments and piano. But, mixed with the pure ordinariness of Eddie’s memories and the banality of the stories is a wistfulfulness for the lost past, a social commentary on the suburbs and an honouring of the lives that ordinary people lead.

The show is about personal history so Perfect begins with a witty lament for the loss of the simple life in (I Liked It Better) The Way It Was. He follows it with Frankston Line, the pulsating, percussive song that echoes the rattle and clunk of a train ride, in the voice of a disenfranchised, young vandal who tags (graffiti) his signature on every station along the Frankston train line.

There you will recognise if you know Mentone (I do) such as Bunnings, Nepean Highway, Mentone Beach. There are poignant memories of young love including Plummer Road that is about a storm water drain and a girl that lived on the street. There is a sweet instrumental dedicated to Susan Morgan, a childhood crush who passed away as a young adult. Then Perfect makes us roar laughing with a song about love falling apart like an IKEA shelf in I Wanna Go Home.

In What Are We To Do?, aliens land in Mentone in 1992 and no one knows what to do, including the Mayor. The aliens realise how boring the life is in Mentone and fly away leaving everyone changed.

The finale is a hauntingly simple anthem to Mentone and we get sing along with Perfect and, miraculously, The Brodsky Quartet. It is a musically scintillating show, with charm, skill and heart.

By Kate Herbert

Working – A Musical ***

Working - A Musical

 Adapted from Studs Terkel by Stephen Schwartz & Nina Faso, songs by James Taylor, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers & Susan Birkenhead

Chapel of Chapel, Prahran, Melbourne, July 18 to 31, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

If you thought that your working life was too boring to be art, think again. The dramatis personae is Working include: iron worker, parking attendant, waitress, cleaners, receptionists, truck driver, fireman, factory worker, stonemason, checkout chick, housewife, retiree, and a teacher who is the only middle-class professional.

Group and solo songs are interwoven with monologues about work that are adapted from Studs Terkel’s 1974 oral history interviews with American workers. The workers grab our attention with rousing chorus numbers including Hey, Somebody, Traffic Jam, and the finale, Something to Point To. A six-piece, on-stage band, lad by Daniel Heskett, gives a fairly tight performance, although the sound mix was a little loose.

Most of the songs are celebrations of the workers’ pride in their jobs and their determination to overcome challenges despite some suffering despair. This production, directed by Dione Joseph, is sponsored by Beyond Blue and incorporates projected information about helping colleagues with depression. These notes are informative although they sometimes distract from the characters or distort their message.

The structure of the show is a little unbalanced with more monologues than songs. The acting ability of some of the cast is limited (most come from amateur musicals) but the songs carry the show.

There are a few stand-out performances. Christian Cavallo has a versatile voice and compelling presence, playing three hilarious, detailed characters. He belts out a cool blues in Lovin’ Al as the parking attendant, is poignant as Roberto, singing Un Mejor Dia Vendra (A Better Day Will Come), and is funny and scary as the psychopathic copy-boy.

Rachel Collins is a sassy performer with a big voice singing I’m Just Movin’ as checkout chick, Babe, and is moving as Grace, the down-trodden, suitcase maker. Todd Morgan is engaging as both the cheeky mailman and a bratty, ambitious school-leaver, while David Barclay has a rock band vocal quality and matching looks.

Some of the characters break your heart but most challenge us to see their work as valuable and joyful. This is a show with heart that supports an important charity.

By Kate Herbert

The King and I ***1/2

The King and I

By Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, by The Production Company

State Theatre, Arts Centre, until July 15 to 25, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

The Arts Centre whistles a happy tune during Rodgers and Hammerstein’s much-loved musical, The King and I. The enthusiastic crowd hums along with the impressive repertoire of evergreen tunes including: I Whistle a Happy Tune, Hello Young Lovers, Getting to Know You, We Kiss in a Shadow, Something Wonderful and the joyful Shall We Dance? Remember the movie with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr?

It is an exotic romance about the King of Siam (Juan Jackson) who introduces Western culture to his country by employing the plain-speaking, elegant, English widow, Anna Leonowens (Chelsea Gibb), to tutor his dozens of children and wives in his Royal Palace. It is timeless and timely, dealing with culture clash, resistance to modernisation and colonialism.

The muscular, youthful Jackson looks striking as the arrogant, child-like King struggling to defend outmoded traditions. Jackson’s voice is warm and resonant and his character is most effective when he sings. Gibb is suitably bossy and proper as Anna, enunciating with rounded, English vowels. However, Anna’s brisk speaking style transfers into a slightly brittle vocal tone in Gibb’s singing.

The show starts slowly but takes off by interval.  Director, Terence O’Connell, and musical director, Peter Casey, stage this engaging musical with a versatile, on-stage band, Alana Scanlan’s Asian-influenced choreography, an exotic set (Kathryn Sproul) and vivid costumes (Kim Bishop).

One highlight is Silvie Paladino’s perfectly controlled, poignant rendition of Something Wonderful as Lady Thiang, the King’s loyal, number-one wife. Another is The Little House of Uncle Tom, a play within the play, narrated by little Tuptim (Emily Xiao Wang). O’Connell combines deceptively simple, theatrical devices, Asian imagery and clever choreography to tell a story of love, slavery, escape and death that echoes the story of the King’s oppression of Tuptim.

Adrian Li Donni and Xiao Wang are in fine voice as the star-crossed lovers, George Henare is commanding as the traditionalist Kralahome, and there are crowds of cute children to make us smile and coo.

By Kate Herbert

Dead Man’s Cell Phone ***

Dead Man’s Cell Phone

By Sarah Ruhl, Melbourne Theatre Company

 Sumner Theatre, MTC, July 2 to August 7, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Do irritating ring tones and mindless mobile phone chatter drive you to thoughts of bodily harm? In Sarah Ruhl’s black comedy, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Jean (Lisa McCune) politely answers the persistently ringing phone of a stranger, Gordon, (John Adam) who is seated at the next table in a café.

After answering the first call, she discovers that the man is dead in his chair then calls for help – on his phone; a reasonable reaction, but her ensuing actions are totally bonkers. She chats to Gordon’s body while waiting for help. Still rational? She continues to answer keeps Gordon’s calls from his mother (Sue Jones), wife (Sarah Sutherland) and colleagues, telling them he will call back or breaking news of his death. Still sounding plausible?

Jean then develops elaborate lies about being Gordon’s colleague, accepts invitations to visit the grieving family, meets with the mysterious lover (Emma Jackson) and invents comforting stories about Gordon’s last words about each of them. And she’s still answering his calls, insisting that Gordon left his phone to her as his last wish. Now, does she sound bonkers?

The idea is eccentric and funny, and some of Ruhl’s dialogue is hilarious. The cast, directed by Peter Evans,  has impeccable comic timing, capturing the eccentricity of the heightened, comical characters and plunging headlong into the mad world of the play. Gordon’s family dynamic makes Jean’s fantasies seem tame.

McCune is a charming, quietly funny Jean, making her a mousey, obliging, angel of mercy struggling to manage her web of white lies. Jones has fun portraying Mrs. Gottlieb, Gordon’s controlling mother, as a comically repellent, eccentric, selfish bully. As her ignored second son, Dwight, Daniel Frederiksen plays the family wimp with relish.

Sutherland tosses her blonde mane and totters drunkenly on high heels as Hermia, Gordon’s privileged but abandoned wife, while Jackson is exotic and sexy as Gordon’s Hispanic lover. Adam finally appears as the charismatic, egotistical Gordon in the final scenes, revealing Gordon’s murky, immoral, money-spinning role in organ trafficking.

Despite the marvellous performances, Ruhl’s script, by the end, feels contrived and lacks a clear dramatic structure and narrative arc, not because of its leaps of fantasy (inaccurately described as “magic realism”), but because even absurd narratives require an inner logic. The style is inconsistent, lurching from a commentary on contemporary life and phone etiquette to absurd comedy or existentialist drama. Versatile actors make this production entertaining.

By Kate Herbert

Fame the Musical ***

Fame the Musical
Conceived by David De Silva, Book by Jose Fernandez, Lyrics by Jacques Levy, Music by Steve Margoshes

 Regent Theatre, Melbourne, from April 2, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Fame the Musical relies heavily on the success of the 80s movie and its title song, Fame, to attract an audience. Although it is a musical, its feature is the impassioned and high-energy dancing. The vibrant cast of young dancers seem to be pumped on hormones and caffeine. The scent of adolescent testosterone is in the air.

The songs are forgettable, with cheesy lyrics and uninspiring tunes – apart from Fame itself, which appears early in the show in an abbreviated version, then in its full form as a rousing curtain call finale. Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore wrote a spectacularly successful and memorable tune in Fame.

The problem is that Pitchford and Gore wrote none of the other songs. What happened to the original soundtrack songs: Hot Lunch, Out Here On My Own, Red Light, Never Alone? A fight over the rights?

Some tunes are saved by a couple of compelling voices. Let’s Play a Love Scene becomes a charming duet between Chris Durling, as earnest acting student, Nick, and Catherine Shepherd as his daggy, lovelorn admirer, Serena.

A flash of Fame magic appears when Jaz Flowers, as Mabel the over-eating, lusciously fleshy dance student, belts out Mabel’s Prayer with her powerful voice and vocal acrobatics. The crowd cheered, proving Flowers is a talent to watch. Rowena Vilar is a spunky performer playing Carmen, the parallel to the role of Coco made famous by Irene Cara while Darlene Love, playing Mrs. Sherman, has a thrilling voice.

The casting for this production appears to be linked with that well-known TV dance competition. Finalist, Timomatic, is a muscular and charismatic Tyrone, the illiterate hip-hop dancer, and 2009 winner, Talia Fowler, as Iris, bringing some lyrical, classical ballet moves.

Kelley Abbey’s choreography is certainly a feature. The entire company dancing the Argentine Tango is a vivid, sensual treat and you could power the city with the energy of the sassy dance routine in Hard Work.

The Fame finale is a highlight, with memorable dancing on the roof of a New York cab – pity it doesn’t appear until the final 3 minutes of the show.

Fame the Musical is let down by clumsy narrative and plotting, some lame dialogue and the loss of the award-winning, original soundtrack. But it is certainly a montage of great dance routines with a few musical high points, thanks to the band and a few good singers.

By Kate Herbert

Starting Here, Starting Now ****

Starting Here, Starting Now

Music by David Shire, Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr., by Manila Street Productions

Black Box, Arts Centre, June 24 to July 4, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

Starting Here, Starting Now is a delicious musical revue written by David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr. in 1976. In this updated production, West End director, Andrew MacBean, casts four, versatile, Australian performers (Anita Louise Combe, Martin Crewes, Simon Gleeson, Christie Whelan).

All four boast impressive credentials on both London and Australia musical theatre stages.

The staging is deceptively simple, with four old theatre chairs, a couple of stools, a red velvet drape as a backdrop and, lurking at stage left, a grand piano played by musical director, Simon Holt.

The 26 songs – both group and solo numbers – are threaded together into an intelligent, comical and often poignant commentary about modern relationships. MacBean’s direction is seamless and clever and the four voices blend immaculately in harmonies. Each of Maltby and Shire’s songs has its own unfolding narrative, a dynamic range, and an emotional urgency that create a dramatic arc within each song.

Combe’s voice is expressive and impressive, shifting with ease from pure, classical tones to raunchier styles and transforming from sweetness to sadness or quirkiness. Whelan is a striking presence with a bright, musical theatre vocal quality and a capacity for sassy, cheeky characters. Gleeson has charm, warm vocal tones and a grin that lights up the stage. Crewe has a strong voice and presence, sells a song beautifully and dances with pizzazz.

The songs deal with lovers who range from desperate (I’m A Little Bit Off), to romantic (Just Across the River), lonely (Watching the Parade Go By), angry (I Don’t Remember Christmas) and cheerful (Pleased With Myself). This show is a rocket with catchy tunes, smart lyrics, exciting performances and slick direction.

By Kate Herbert

Calendar Girls ***

Calendar Girls 

By Tim Firth

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, from June 23, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Wherever six women of a certain age are gathered they shall produce a nude calendar. Well, I made that rule up, but it describes quite effectively the story of Calendar Girls, Tim Firth’s stage play based on his film (starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters) that was, in turn, based on a true story.

 In 1999, 11 women from the Yorkshire village of Cracoe, members of the Women’s Institute, bared all on the pages of the annual W.I. calendar to make money for Leukaemia research. The catalyst for this charitable and risqué plan was the death from lymphoma of the husband of one of their community. Their calendar made 2 million quid – so get naked for charity, ladies!

The Australian production features a casting couch of women over 50 – some further over 50 than others. Amanda Muggleton is bold and brassy as Chris, the village show-off who always craved being the centre of attention. Anna Lee plays the grieving widow, Annie, Lorraine Bayly is the perky, retired schoolteacher, Jessie, and Rachel Berger plays single mum and church organist, Cora. Rhonda Burchmore is the fit and sassy Celia, the trophy wife of a local golfer and Jean Kittson is the mousey, goody-two-shoes, Ruth.

Kittson’s hilarious characterisation of Ruth is the comic highlight. She creates a classic, low status clown with her gangling, awkward gait and madcap slapstick, combining it with poignant vulnerability.

This show ain’t art; the gags are predictable, the set is pure, village drama society, the dialogue is schmaltzy, the narrative sentimental, accents patchy and the direction (Psyche Stott) clumsy and unimaginative.

But this show touches its target audience; it is identification theatre. The house was packed with older women who tittered at cheeky gags then roared and squealed when the cast got their kit off for the calendar photos, their womanly parts skilfully obscured by iced buns, teapots and mandarins.

The moving, true story behind the play is ever-present. We enjoy the show despite its artistic failings and, in some ways, because of them. It reminds us of daggy country fetes, lamington drives, and the indomitable spirit of women who band together to help neighbours in times of need. And it’s really fun watching these women toss their dressing gowns off to flash a bit of thigh and bosom.

By Kate Herbert

Candy Man ***

Candy Man 

By Wayne Scott Kermond, presented by Kermond Creative

Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre,  June 17 to 27, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Candy Man is an homage to Sammy Davis Jr. and, more specifically, to song and dance men. Wayne Scott Kermond has the credentials as both a hoofer and singer and he grew up in a travelling music theatre family, performing in Gypsy at the age of 11. He was also the guy who did a Donald O’Connor by running up the wall in Singin’ in the Rain.

By creating this show with his wife and director, Katie Kermond, he is fulfilling a dream. His passion for both the material and his sense of achievement almost overwhelmed him on this opening night when tears filled his eyes.

Kermond does not attempt to impersonate Sammy Davis Jr. Although both have show biz families, sing, dance, are vertically challenged and funny, Kermond notes wryly that he is not black, one-eyed or Jewish. Kermond’s singing voice is less distinctive but he is compelling when belting out passionate numbers such as Birth of the Blues and Sing Sing Sing.

The production really starts to fly during Rockabye. Kermond peppers it with funny impersonations of Bogart, Rocky Balboa and Brando doing versions of the song.

Kermond is backed by an exceptionally tight, show band, with plenty of brass, under the musical direction of drummer, Jamie Castrisos. Although Kermond sings most songs alone, five versatile dancers join him on stage in snappy choreography that echoes the movies of Gene Kelly, vaudeville toe-tappers and music theatre. He also uses his acrobatic, clown skills in a slapstick routine for Make-em Laugh.

Kermond links songs with slightly cheesy patter describing Sammy Davis’s chequered life and career. The Las Vegas medley recalls Davis’s floor shows with favourites including Old Black Magic, and Lady is a Tramp, complete with showgirls dressed in little but feathers.

The glossy show tunes are balanced by warm, emotional ballads including Hey There and What Kind of Fool Am I. A volunteer dances with Kermond during Singin’ In The Rain and an enormous troupe of children appears on stage for a rousing version of Gonna Build a Mountain, with the entire audience joining in the chorus of Halleluiahs.

Kermond’s confidence and delight in the show accelerate over the evening and we are all hooked by his warmth and charm by the end.

By Kate Herbert

Hymne A’ Piaf (Hymn to Piaf) by Caroline Nin ****1/2

Hymne A’ Piaf (Hymn to Piaf) 

By Caroline Nin

Melbourne Recital Centre, June 2 to 5, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

French chanteuse, Caroline Nin, is captivating. In her cabaret show, Hymn to Piaf, she reinvents, in her own thrilling style, a programme of 13 moving songs that characterised “the little sparrow”, Edith Piaf. It is a loving tribute to Piaf, not an impersonation.

Almost magically at the start, the tall, elegant Nin materialises from dim light, speaking the English lyrics of Les Mots D’Amour, before singing it in French. With her chiselled features and fair hair, skilful storytelling and rich, smoky, vocal tones, she charms and seduces us with song after song. It is a carefully crafted programme with emotional and dynamic range.

In carefully articulated, slightly accented English, she introduces each song with the tale of the song to follow. She prowls the stage or perches on a stool, tantalising us with her sensuality and inviting us to share stories of the murky Parisian underworld known to Piaf in her disreputable past.

She alternates between earthy and ethereal, leaning toward us like a whispering lover, planting her long legs, gesturing with graceful arms, and capturing us with her expressive, slightly sad gaze. A silvery glitter beneath her eye glints like a tear when she lifts her head to the light.

The singing style shifts from the nasal tones of Piaf to complex jazz notes, intimate ballads and impassioned lamentations. Jonathan Schwartz (double bass) and Tom O’Halloran (piano) provide masterly, heartfelt accompaniment.

Mon Vieux Lucien (My Old Lucien) she sings as a cheeky, Parisian pickpocket, who visits his old boss, Lucien. La Foule (The Crowd) is passionate and expressive while Mon Dieu (My Lord), a dark lament, is carefully underplayed. Faut Pas Qu’il Se Figure is a haunting song about a haunted girl waiting for her cheating lover.  Nin sings La Vie En Rose – one of Piaf’s signature tunes – simply and compellingly in a jazz style.

L’Accordeoniste and Milord are homages to “les filles de joie” (the girls of joy), a pretty French way to describe prostitutes. Nin sings with both pain and wild abandonment, “I’m only a girl of the harbour, in the shadow of the street.” She finishes with a deliciously fervent rendition of Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regrets) and an encore of Padam, in which she insists we sing along.

Caroline Nin is luminous, spirited, unpredictable and warm. This is a night to remember.

By Kate Herbert

Silence **

 Silence

Written by Hoa Pham, by Hungry Ghosts

 La Mama Courthouse,  May 20 to  June 6 then touring Vicoria

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **

Hoa Pham’s play, Silence, directed by Wolf Heidecker, focuses on the stories of three generations of Vietnamese-Australian women: the grandmother, Ba (Gabrielle Chan), her daughter-in-law, Ma (Diana Nguyen), and Ba’s granddaughter, Dao (Ai Diem Le), who is Ma’s teenage daughter. Silence is part of the Theatre For Our Diverse Community program at La Mama and funded by Vic Health.

The Vietnamese family home is represented by the scent of cooked, noodle dishes, a red-glowing, candle-lit Buddhist altar, death anniversary rituals and a song that warns of “hungry ghosts” that refuse to pass into the next world and demand to be fed. These ghosts, one being Ma’s dead husband, are depicted by floating masks and white-robed puppeteers (Bronwen Kamasz, Conor Fox, directed by Penelope Bartlau).

Although the three actors seem a little uncomfortable on stage, their relationship to the Vietnamese culture gives this play credibility. Chan gives the grandmother a fragile, aging beauty and other-worldiness as she struggles with the hungry ghost of her son. Nguyen finds moments of passion when talking about her corrupt, dead husband and, as Dao, Le captures the stroppiness of a resentful teenager.

The naturalism of the script, with its unnecessarily expository dialogue, clashes with the abstract images of the spirit world. Although naturalism and stylisation can work well together, the disparate elements of this production are not cohesive and sit awkwardly. Some fierce editing and restructuring of this script and smoother transitions between scenes would enhance its impact.

246 wds

By Kate Herbert

Urchin **1/2

Urchin 

By Christopher Brown & Rhian Hinkley, by Encyclopaedia of Animals, Full Tilt

Fairfax Studio, Victorian Arts Centre,  May 20 to 29, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

The first 30 minutes of Urchin are entertaining and funny, with some visually arresting digital imagery, sound and set design, and comical performances. The problems arise in the second half – but let’s enjoy the beginning firstly.

The opening image is like a moment from a Philippe Genty visual theatre show. Two men (Christopher Brown, David Tredinnick), carrying a desk and chair, walk into the wind, bathed in dramatic lighting (Jenny Hector). They are surrounded and dwarfed by an enormous wall of cardboard boxes (designed by Mark Cuthbertson).

The following slow, sparse dialogue reveals that they are brothers, Martin (Tredinnick) and Damien (Brown), small-time entrepreneurs who are a parody of cheap salesmen engaged in an endless search for the product that will make them millions.

When they find the mysterious Urchin – purportedly a vaccine for fear – in a scrappy sales catalogue, they believe that they have found salesman’s gold. They engage Warren (Merfyn Owen), a plausible, marketing mouthpiece with a dodgy hairpiece and a thoroughly convincing but totally fabricated sales pitch for the Urchin.

The inflatable Urchin makes a dramatic appearance, swelling from a backpack into a plump, over-sized pouffe. The sales pitch says that it eliminates fears when used regularly. The truth is that, when the men crawl inside its puffy tent-like structure, it confronts them with their worst fears that appear as surrealistic film projections.

Although the story is non-naturalistic, it has narrative, characters and themes that combine into a collection of vignettes. These are heightened by the use of video (Rhian Hinkley) and a complex soundscape (Jethro Woodward). There is also a very funny, cowboy song and dance routine by the three actors.

Despite all the complex visual and audio technology, the performers are the highlight. Tredinnick brings wry humour and clever underplaying to Martin. Owen comically captures the unbearable oiliness of Warren, the slick and smug motivational speaker and Brown has an edginess as Damien, the brother who disappears after one too many Urchin experiences.

Although the individual components in isolation are interesting and well executed, they do not form a unified whole, so the show feel dislocated and unfinished. The latter half loses cohesion when it staggers unsuccessfully into existential, philosophical dialogue that is more confusing than funny or illuminating.  Urchin tilts at Absurdism, but Samuel Beckett it ain’t!

By Kate Herbert

Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellen ****

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Comedy Theatre, Melbourne,  May 9 to 2, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

Waiting for Godot is a play about nothing – and everything. It is heart breaking and hilarious in its impeccable balance of tragedy and comedy. Samuel Beckett changed the face of modern theatre when he wrote it in 1949.

Two vagrants – or clowns – meet daily at dusk to wait for the elusive Godot, their saviour and tormenter who never arrives. It encapsulates the existential dilemma. Two bare, forked, human animals, trapped in an unspecific time and place, wait for an unknown man, desperately filling empty hours until night falls and they can leave. It’s the nightmare version of Groundhog Day.

Sir Ian McKellen is Estragon (Gogo) and Roger Rees plays Vladimir (Didi) in Sean Mathias’s production reflects the daily anguish and mindless distractions of existence. Gogo and Didi wail and rail about their predicament, filling meaningless minutes with mindless banter, arguments and fleeting diversions, even considering hanging themselves from the solitary tree.

McKellen’s Gogo is compelling and detailed. He echoes scruffy derelicts we dodge in alleys with his slow, deliberate Northern accent, forgetfulness, sudden laughter, cheeky looks, vacuous gaze, scrawny legs, flailing arms and tattered clothing. Gogo is playful and delightfully unpredictable, whining about painful feet and cruelly mimicking others.

Roger Rees’ Didi has a faded stateliness reminiscent of a more salubrious past. He is more distressing because of his fraught clutching at reality and frantic attempts to recognise place, time and people. McKellen and Rees revel in Beckett’s blend of Vaudevillian patter, comic business, lyrical, allusive dialogue and philosophical references.

Godot never arrives but two strangers, Pozzo (Matthew Kelly) and Lucky (Brendan O’Hea) appear. Kelly’s Pozzo is mad, belligerent, pompous and cruel. O’Hea is his prefect servant: enslaved, exhausted, obedient and silent until he explodes into a prolonged, gibberish rave.

They all crave peace, oblivion and solitude but cannot do without even the flawed company of their damaged, crazy partners.

Mathias’s production is emotional and psychologically vivid in its colourless, blasted landscape. Stephen Brimson Lewis’s set is a destroyed theatre, complete with ornate balconies and tattered backdrop with anonymous foreboding. But, when we focus on the actors, the environment disappears; the characters become the landscape.

The actors make the story clear through character and dialogue, listening intently and responding with clarity and simple humanity. No need to muddy the play with added interpretive detail. It tells its own anguished tale.

By Kate Herbert

Richard III ****1/2

Richard III 
By William Shakespeare
Melbourne Theatre Company

Where and When: Sumner Theatre, MTC, until  June 1, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

Shakespeare’s Richard III is a designer villain, fit for a James Bond movie: a powerful, wealthy, ambitious mutant making a backroom grab for power. 

Although there is little historical evidence for this, he is depicted as a deformed hunchback with a withered arm and a dragging limp, and is described as a “bottled spider”, “a bunch-backed toad”, a boar, a dog and other insulting labels. Shakespeare’s Richard is designed to make the opposing Tudor dynasty of Elizabeth 1 feel good.

Simon Phillips’ production is passionate and compelling, surging through the years of Edward IV’s rule and Richard’s own two-year reign. We are perched on the edges of our seats waiting for the next political horror. Ewen Leslie is a charismatic, youthful, villainous and crippled Richard who charms and seduces, manipulates and murders to attain the throne. He is the quintessential Machiavellian Prince.

The world of Richard’s England is transported to a contemporary, political environment resembling modern America or any other hotbed of political intrigue. The clandestine meetings in corridors and the royal factions have echoes of The West Wing. Richard’s murders are modern executions, the invasions and rebellions are like newsflashes and the King’s proclamations are media conferences. This interpretation brings Shakespeare closer to our world. Power never changes. These battles now take place in the White House situation room or corporate boardrooms that are skilfully replicated in Shaun Gurton’s design.

Phillips edits the text to maintain a rocket-like pace and to clarify the story. He even starts the play with a scene from Shakespeare’s Henry VI to provide us with some back-story – “Previously in the War of the Roses…”

A fine cast supports Leslie’s magnetic performance and brings the poetic text to life. Alison Whyte finds sensitivity and passion in the grief-stricken Queen Elizabeth, mother of the murdered princes while Meredith Penman is moving as Lady Anne who is so cunningly seduced by Richard after he kills her husband.

Humphrey Bower gives the power-hungry Buckingham an edge of ardent playfulness and excitement and Jennifer Hagan’s vengeful, old Queen Margaret is both potent and fragile in her flimsy hospital gown.

Roger Oakley as Hastings and Nicholas Bell as Stanley are both commanding and Paul Ireland is riveting in the small roles of the murderer and Surrey.

The three hours pass rapidly and Shakespeare’s play lives and breathes in this gripping production.

By Kate Herbert

[title of show] ***

 [title of show]
Music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen, book by Hunter Bell 
Produced by Magnormos

Theatreworks until May 4 to 15, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

The title of this musical is [title of show]. If you ever fill in an arts funding form (don’t bother!) it’s the first line. Creators, Jeff Bowen (David Spencer), and Hunter Bell (Michael Lindner), bent all the guidelines for writing a musical. So successful was their rebellion that they won three OBIE awards and were nominated for a Tony.

The music conforms to recognisable styles but the story, lyrics and dialogue break with tradition. Bowen and Bell, two gay New Yorkers who work in musicals, write a show about two gays guys creating a musical about themselves creating a musical. Get it?

We watch the friends complain about doing crummy jobs, writing a show, casting their friends, Heidi (Lara Thew) and Susan (Laura Fitzpatrick) and musician, Mary (Sophie Thomas), rehearsing songs, sending their application to the New York Music Theatre Festival and waiting for success to hit them like a truck.

The creators played themselves in the original production (there’s even a song called “I Am Playing Me”), but, for this production, director, Aaron Joyner, casts locals. Their four voices blend beautifully in a range of peppy tunes with quirky, funny lyrics.

 The wry, camp often hilarious, dialogue keeps the story romping along. When it stalls, the characters simply say, “This scene’s been going on too long” – black out. No lighting effects, set changes or pyrotechnics. Not until the producers stick their noses in, forcing the creators to argue over script changes. (Change It, Don’t Change It.)

The characterisations are not complex but Spencer has fun as pedantic composer Jeff, while Lindner relishes playing flamboyant, ambitious Hunter. Fitzpatrick is composed as the sardonic Susan and Thew employs her big voice as the colourful Heidi.

The show pokes fun at the expectations, budgets and predictable content of the musical, its producers, casting decisions, cheesy lyrics and awful rhymes. It is constantly self-referential; they talk about themselves, refer to the audience, make jokes about their dialogue and argue about selling out to Broadway. The songs follow the narrative with titles including: Two Nobodies in New York, An Original Musical, The Tony Award Song, Secondary Characters and Awkward Photo Shoot.

The last song says it all; “I’d rather be nine people’s favourite thing than a hundred people’s ninth favourite thing.” Never sell out. Never surrender.

By Kate Herbert

Elizabeth: Almost by chance a woman ***

Elizabeth: Almost by chance a woman 

Adapted from Dario Fo by Luke Devenish & Louise Fox, Malthouse Theatre

Merlin Theatre, Malthouse, April 8 to 24, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Italian satirist, Dario Fo, would be delighted with Julie Forsyth’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in this adaptation of his play, Elizabeth: Almost By Chance a Woman. Forsyth’s idiosyncratic comic style, clown face and husky, childlike voice always please and surprise audiences.

Fo is an exceptional, eccentric, comic performer and playwright who skilfully blends scathing political satire, Commedia dell’Arte and literary, cultural and linguistic allusions.

Forsyth revels in the grotesqueness of Elizabeth in her final years. She is old, ugly, tattered, incontinent, foul-mouthed and confused, tottering in corsets and gaudy gowns, avoiding her ravaged image.

Fo portrays Elizabeth as an addled, vain, childish despot, ignorant of the political state of her realm, pining for her lover, the Earl of Essex, unwilling to believe that he plots against her, and obsessing that Shakespeare satirises her in his plays.

Michael Kantor’s production diverges from Fo’s script, which relies significantly on Fo’s own improvisational style, quirky gibberish (known as “gramelot”) and huge personality. Fo, in the original Italian and its better translations, is complex, intellectually challenging and farcical. He adds scatological language, cunningly wrought social commentary, convoluted lingo, current political and artistic references and Shakespeare quotes.

Kantor uses an adaptation (Luke Devenish, Louise Fox) that loses much of Fo’s magic and feels more vulgar than clever. The role played originally by Fo, Donna Grozetta, sees Bille Brown in panto dame costume as the overbearing, offensive, gibberish-speaking cosmetician employed to fix Elizabeth’s ugly visage. Some of his/her absurd babble is funny and clever, using rhymes, spoonerisms, slang, coarse language and mangled quotations. She dubs Essex the Earl of ”Yes Sex” and the audience “mockwits”.

The production lacks the physicality of European clown and the controlled, insane absurdity of a Fo production. Chris Ryan, as Elizabeth’s Fool, is most effective when singing, but his clown lacks comic physicality. Nikki Shiels misses the potential comedy of the maidservant, while David Woods plays Egerton, the palace conspirator, with comical restraint, having fun with his interminable political monologue.

The introduction of Shakespeare (Brown) is confusing and ineffective. The play might be better served leaving him as an off stage character and relying on quoting his royal characters that so enrage Elizabeth.

Mark Jones’ music is a welcome addition. Anna Cordingley’s design and costumes are inspiring and Paul Jackson’s lighting creates a magical world. However the production seems overblown and lacks cohesion despite Forsyth’s wonderfully mad performance.

By Kate Herbert

Cosi by Louis Nowra, HIT ***

Cosi 

By Louis Nowra, HIT Productions

Touring country Victoria until May 3, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Cosi is clearly on the VCE syllabus this year because the audience was packed with groups of 17 year olds –and they enjoyed this production of Louis Nowra’s play immensely. Teachers love it too because it is riddled with themes that include Vietnam War, love and infidelity, drugs, mental illness power and difference.

The play was first staged in 1992 but is set in 1971 in Melbourne in the period of the Vietnam Moratorium. Nowra’s comedy is broad in this play and director Denis Moore take advantage of the slapstick and big, bold characterisations.

The story is based on an experience of Nowra’s own as a graduate. The lead character, Lewis (Michael Wahr), in a fit of his own madness, volunteers to direct a show with a group of mentally ill patients in an institution.

To make things madder, one particularly bolshie patient, Roy (Don Bridges), bullies the malleable Lewis into staging Cosi Fan Tutte, a Mozart opera sung in Italian. Of course his cast can’t sing, act or speak Italian,  – and not one has stable behaviour.

Of course, the comedy and the pathos arise out of the six actors various obsessions, disorders and compulsions that include nymphomania, pyromania, Compulsive-Obsessive Disorder, heroin addiction and others. 

Outside the institution, the real world carries on with protests about Vietnam, Free Love and political activism being the focus of Lewis’s girlfriend and best mate’s lives. Lewis realises that providing a positive experience for his cast is more important than global politics and war.

Jim Daly straddles that fine line of pathos and hilarity with his portrayal of Henry, the near-catatonic war obsessive. He breaks our hearts with his stammering speech about his father and the war. Wahr is suitably vulnerable and indecisive as Lewis. Bridges plays his antagonist, Roy, with manic energy and bravado. As the food-obsessed erotomaniac Cherry, Bessie Holland is hilariously domineering, loud and sassy and elicited roars of laughter from the audience.

Caroline Lee is compellingly accurate as the compulsive Ruth who counts her steps on stage and learns everybody’s role. Katie-Jean Harding captures an air of fragility in Julie the addict. Jacob Allan is bold and riotous as the rough-nut pyromaniac, Doug. Adrian Auld plays multiple roles but is best as the doped up musician, Zac.

Cosi is a funny, messy play that raises issues suitable for VCE study and makes us laugh a lot and weep a little.

By Kate Herbert

Little Mercy ***

Little Mercy 

By Ash Flanders and Declan Greene, by Sisters Grimm

Where and When: Collingwood Underground Arts Park  March 17 to 27, 2010

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Deep in the bowels of an underground car park in Collingwood is the venue for Little Mercy, Sisters Grimm’s parody of a trashy, cult, horror movie. Think of Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen and The Exorcist; then picture Mercy, (Susie Dee), a smiling, demonic, adult-sized child in a pretty, white dress and hair ribbons. Now be afraid.

The first half of this tribute to evil children is laugh-out-loud funny. Ash Flanders, co-writer, is outstanding as Virginia Summers, the delicate, almost-recovering alcoholic, New England housewife who longs for a child of her own. Her husband, Roger (Sean James Murphy), is a musical theatre director. (Now, that could be a horror show in itself.).

The Summers live a life of quiet comfort and luxury until – surprise, surprise! – little, 8-year old Mercy arrives, unannounced, on their doorstep, saying that she is their long-awaited, adoptive daughter from a suspiciously obscure orphanage.

Of course, Mercy is the child of Satan – literally – and Virginia’s life goes to hell in a hand basket very rapidly. Her precious kitty is killed, Mercy’s teacher (Cara Mitchell) is blinded, and there are stories about a mysterious fire that killed all the teachers at Mercy’s previous school.

The script, written by Flanders with director, Declan Greene, is riddled with satirical allusions to all the visual and verbal signatures of horror flicks and 1940s movies, their characters, plots, dialogue, and even their musical scores.

Flanders plays Virginia with an absolute commitment to truthfulness, playing it straight – if that is possible when wearing a red, velvet gown. Murphy captures the smug superiority of a 40s romantic lead, with his resonant voice and relentless smirk, while Dee revels in the grinning wickedness and sly asides of Mercy.

Mitchell works hard as the stitched up school ma’am but seems miscast in the role. One can’t help imagining it played by a huge drag queen or, well, Bette Davis. Her sexy nun was very funny though.

Little Mercy is a madly entertaining ride, although it needs some editing in the second half – and perhaps some exit doors and safety features.

By Kate Herbert

Cats ***1/2

Cats

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lyrics based on T.S. Eliot, Old Possums Book of Practical Cats, produced by Lunchbox, David Atkins and Really Useful Group.

Where and When: Regent Theatre, until March 28

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

While the appeal of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Cats, is unquestioned, we can ask how its flaws manage to outweigh its successes. 

The feline choreography is spectacular, the junkyard design, costumes and make-up are impressive, a couple of songs – especially Memory – are outstanding, the diverse characters echo the human world, and the lyrics and narrative are based around T.S. Eliot’s poems for children from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, 1939.

On the other side of the balance sheet there are irritations: the poetic meter doesn’t scan well with the music, most of which is predictable, the narrative is flimsy, the villain, Macavity, is much anticipated but hardly seen, and Growltiger’s Last Stand is too long.

Ultimately, the flaws don’t affect its success. If you’ve been living underground for 30 years without musical theatre news, Cats opened to acclaim in 1981 in London, won endless awards and still runs worldwide. Who can argue with that?

The vivacity and relentless energy of this youthful chorus are highlights. Like their animal counterparts, these felines are alert, constantly moving. Gillian Lynne’s choreography successfully blends classical ballet with sassy jazz moves. The original direction by Trevor Nunn, creates vivid, recognisable catty characters that leap from the stage and Eliot’s page.

Eliot’s poems are strung like a washing line, one kitty character following another, linked by a fine narrative thread. We witness the Jellicle Cats in a rubbish yard celebrating their annual Jellicle Ball, a boisterous, outstanding choreographic feast after which the sage, Old Deuteronomy (John Ellis), announces which lucky cat will be awarded a tenth life. The tattered and outcast Grizabella, played with a warm voice and sensitivity by Delia Hannah, gives the production its heart. Memory remains the only song that lingers in our memories.

Memorable cats include the titillating Rum Tum Tugger, played with Frank’n’furter seductiveness by John O’Hara. Adrian Ricks’ balletic pirouetting as Mr. Mistoffelees is staggering and Laura McCulloch is charming as ginger cat, Jennyanydots. Michael-John Hurney’s big voice provides several characters.

We may not have the in-the-round staging of the original show, but these sensual kitties romp through the Regent, prowling between seats, mewing and purring and tickling audience members. We still get some of the sensurround of that original London production.

By Kate Herbert

Hazel Curtis: Fear Doctor***

Hazel Curtis: Fear Doctor

by Petra Kalive and Melissa Bubnic

Where and When: Mark St. Hall, Nth Fitzroy until March 14

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Hazel Curtis (Petra Kalive) strikes terror into the hearts of every audience member – and that’s scary when she’s a “fear doctor”. Hazel is a super parody of one of those appallingly over-confident, 70s, self-help gurus who invite you to a seminar, behave as if they are changing your life and making it more fulfilling, when they are really only filling their own pockets.

Hazel is built like a puffy sofa and wears leopard print leggings and sparkly tops that cling a little too closely to her voluminous curves. She grins like a Cheshire cat and is relentlessly cheerful – until somebody crosses her or touches her inner, wounded self. She is outrageous and funny, but she’s scary too. Her seminar on overcoming your fears is too close to the truth about those smarmy facilitators who preach change.

No one is safe in this audience. Hazel talks directly to each and every one of us. She assails us, regales us with her stories, wheedles secrets out of us, drags reluctant participants up on stage to force them to perform her three H’s, “Hear your fear; help your fear; hiss your fear.” She is the consummate bully who ridicules people into believing they need her help and pursues them until they take out a restraining order.

We chant along with her idiotic sayings, “The rage inside you burns”, or, as she calls it, RIYB. Her sidekick and technician, Jimmy, handles the cheesy muzac and the excruciatingly simplistic PowerPoint diagrams and photos. “See a door, open it and walk through,” she urges us. “Unlock the back door to your happiness.” Do you recognise the shiny glint of a fake?

But under the surface of this narcissistic, social-working nazi, is a tragic, lonely heart who masks her own pain with superficial chanting and catchphrases. Hazel struggles with some bad news that almost derails her entire seminar. What could be just a clever and funny caricature ,straddles the boundary between humour and poignancy, truth and parody.

Hazel’s bull-headedness is counterpointed by Jimmy’s inadequacy and simple, unrequited love. She demeans him and he bounces back like a puppy. Jason Geary directs the show with a lively hand, ensuring that the jokes and the confrontations keep coming.

By Kate Herbert