You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, June 21, 2016 ***1/2

MUSICAL THEATRE

Music, lyrics & book by Clark Gesner
Based on Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schultz
Produced by Aleksander Vass & Vass Productions
Alex Theatre, Fitzroy St., St. Kilda, until July 2, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert 
Stars: ***1/2

Review also published in print in Herald Sun. (May not appear online in Arts Herald Sun.) KH

 Clockwise from L-Courtney Glass, Joshua Robson, Luigi Lucente, Cameron MacDonald, Adam Porter, Sarah Morrison

Charles M. Schultz’s whimsical and enduring comic strip, Peanuts, is lovingly recreated by live actors in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Clark Gesner’s charming and entertaining American musical for the entire family.

Gary Abrahams’ production is swiftly paced and gleefully silly, with snappy choreography by Dana Jolly, slick musical direction by Ben Kiley, vivid costumes (Chloe Greeves) and it is performed on a cartoonish stage design (Jacob Battista).

Gesner’s episodic narrative echoes the structure of Schultz’s comic strips and the dialogue incorporates such timeless, Schultzian gems as the characters’ exasperated exclamations, “Aaaargh!” and “Good grief!”

The live songs, accompanied by a backing track, are perky, cheerful and eminently singable musical theatre tunes with witty lyrics that also pay tribute to Schultz.

Cameron MacDonald is perfectly cast as the hapless, Charlie Brown, playing him as perpetually bewildered with a downward-tilted mouth and drooping shoulders that embody Charlie’s melancholic attitude, heightened childhood anxiety and desperate need to be liked.

MacDonald’s voice has a bright timbre and warm tone and he expresses Charlie’s simple need to succeed in the kite-flying song, The Kite.

The title song provides a jaunty and animated opening chorus that introduces Charlie and all of his childhood pals, while the finale, Happiness, ends the show on a positive note after so much childhood angst, with Charlie and his friends celebrating things that make them happy.

A highlight is The Book Report, an ensemble number that depicts the children’s various struggles, joys and distractions as they each complete a book report on Peter Rabbit.

Luigi Lucente capers and sings as Snoopy, playfully giving this much-loved, doggy character a human personality as he does his funky dude dancing and dreams of being a World War One Flying Ace fighting the Red Baron from the comfort of the roof of his kennel.

Courtney Glass captures Lucy’s infamous crabby bossiness, vanity and bullying of Charlie Brown when singing The Doctor Is In, and Adam Porter is suitably philosophical, sensitive and intellectually superior as her little brother, Linus, who rejoices in his baby blanket in My Blanket and Me.

Joshua Robson revels in Schroeder’s Beethoven obsession while Sarah Morrison portrays Charlie’s sister, Sally’s childish imagination and her resentment about getting a D for her schoolwork.

This production is a diverting and authentic homage to Schultz’s genius and it elicits shrieks of laughter from the kids and is a hoot for those adults who are nostalgic about Peanuts.

Buy Kate Herbert

The Honey Bees, June 17, 2016 **1/2

Written by Caleb Lewis, Red Stitch 

At Red Stitch, St Kilda, from June 17 to July 16, 2016

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on June 17, 2016

Stars: **1/2

Review also online at Herald Sun Arts on Mon June 20 and in print after that. KH

Marta Kaczmarek & Christopher Brown - Photo Jodie Hutchinson

On an isolated, Western Australian apiary – let’s call it a honey farm – a dysfunctional family confronts the possibility of bee ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ that mirrors the disintegration of their family unit in Caleb Lewis’s play, The Honey Bees.

The dramatic potential of the play and its premise are not fully realised in Ella Caldwell’s uneven production for Red Stitch Actors Theatre.

Since her husband’s death, Joan (Marta Kaczmarek) struggles to run the honey business with her daughter, Clover (Rebecca Bower), and Clover’s partner, Kerrie (Katerina Kotsonis), but son, Daryl (Christopher Brown) returns to rescue the farm with his plan to sell 600 healthy, Australian hives to the US.

The sale is in jeopardy after the arrival of Melissa (Eva Seymour), a funky, young stranger who crashes her car, destroying over 100 hives.

Kaczmarek is compelling and wry as Joan, the matriarch whose iron grip and dogged determination to maintain the farm strangles the life out of her adult children.

Bower imbues Clover with a hapless naiveté as she blithely carries on tending her dead father’s bees, foolishly believing that her colourful, organic hives will avert any impending disaster.

Brown plays the returning prodigal son, Daryl, with a hint of desperation and recklessness, while Kotsonis’s Kerrie represents the sad inevitability of the family’s failure and Seymour’s Eva reminds them all of their isolation and unrealistic hopes.

Much of Lewis’s brisk, clipped dialogue sounds unnatural out of the mouths of the cast and it becomes more awkward when delivered with languid pace, loose cueing and limited emotional connection between characters.

Despite a strong and emotional final scene led by Kaczmarek, the production lacks dynamic range and it is difficult to sympathise with Lewis’s characters who are all rather pallid or disagreeable.

With its gritty, red sand and piles of greying, wooden boxes, Sophie Woodward’s design expresses the grim and tough environment, although it provides little sense of the various locations on the farm.

The mysterious disorder that has decimated the honey industry in every continent other than Australia could provide a strong framework for a family drama but this production and script of The Honey Bees is, ultimately, less than engaging.

By Kate Herbert 

Ella Caldwell - Director

Cast

Marta Kaczmarek

Christopher Brown
Rebecca Bower

Katerina Kotsonis
Eva Seymour

 Eva Seymour, Marta Kaczmarek & Christopher Brown - Photo Jodie Hutchinson

Opening Gala, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, June 14, 2016 ****

CABARET

Love Machine, 228A Malvern Rd., Prahran, Festival runs until June 26, 2016 
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on June 14
Stars:**** 
Review also online at Herald Sun on Wed June 5, 2016 and later in print. K

 Amy G. pic Olivia Rutherford

OK, it’s Melbourne Cabaret Festival time so you need to go to your computer and book a ticket to any or all shows in the program. I mean now!

Excerpts from eight productions featured in the Opening Gala and the absolute must-see is New Yorker Amy G, in Entershamement, an audacious, blindingly skillful and achingly funny show that incorporates slapstick, roller-skating, impressive vocals and a titillating blend of glamour and wickedness.

Amy G has an easy charm and a big, belting voice and she does a Buster Keaton-style fall-down routine on skates then plays the Stars and Stripes with kazoos that she secretes in all the wrong places.

The next remarkable and accomplished act is Geraldine Quinn whose original, hilarious, satirical songs parody both those childlike pop singers who think they are cool but are just pretentious, and also ridicules desperate musical theatre tragics.

Quinn is an accomplished talent and her show, Bang On The Strillers Live, will highlight her musical skills and those of her guests.

 Geraldine Quinn_Fox Poncing_pic by Theresa Harrison

Keep the credit card handy so you can book big-voiced, big-haired Yana Alana, our very own transgressive, camp cabaret artist who usually performs wearing nothing but blue paint but is clad in a red, sequined lycra jumpsuit this year.

In her show, Covered, she sings none of her own material, but messes with other people’s songs including the bizarre Dinosaur Egg by Scout Niblett, as well as tunes by Alanis Morissette, Jim Morrison and Jennifer Lopez.

 Yana Alana, pic Peter Leslie

Ash Flanders is best known as an award-winning theatre performer but in his solo show, Playing to Win, he teases out issues of being a winner or a loser in this fickle performance industry and he does so while being perky and adorable.

The snapshot of Sam Hooper’s show, Death Suits You, is a dark and compelling monologue in which he portrays Death as a mild-mannered but determined forward planner.

Hooper has a fine singing voice and Death’s song, Embrace Your Child, is a sweet ballad that confronts suicide.

Otto and Astrid are the faux-German brother and sister act, Die Roten Punkte, although their usual brand of outrageous punk/cabaret/rock did not feature in their Oompah-Oompah, German drinking song at the Gala.

Host, Mike McLeish, the newly minted Festival Artistic Director, was as excited as the crowd about his Festival program and, given the caliber of the acts at the Gala, this will be a bumper season for music, comedy and off-the-wall cabaret acts.

The Melbourne Cabaret Festival runs until Sunday June 26 and you can find the program at www.melbournecabaret.com.au. Go book a show now.

By Kate Herbert

Blonde Poison, until June 11, 2016 ***1/2

THEATRE 
By Gail Louw, by Strange Duck Productions 
The Lawler, Southbank Theatre, to June 11, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on June 2, 2016
Stars: ***1/2

 Review also published online at Herald Sun Arts and in print later. KH

Belinda Giblin in Blonde Poison

Seated in our comfortable lounge chairs, we may believe that we would make the moral choice if faced with the decision to collaborate with brutal tyrants to save our families and ourselves from torture or death, but would we?

Blonde Poison, by Gail Louw, is a monodrama based on the life of Stella Kübler (née Goldschlag), a beautiful, blond and indulged German Jewess who collaborated with the Gestapo in Berlin in World War II by informing on Jews who subsequently went to death camps.

Dressed in a stylish, black frock, Belinda Giblin is elegant and handsome as the 71-year old Kübler as she shifts the character from ecstatic, self-congratulatory reminiscences about her younger self to anxious defensiveness and defiant justification of her reprehensible, past actions.

Shuttered in an old-fashioned living room (designer Derrick Cox) with only stuffed toys and photos of her doting parents for company, Giblin’s Kübler intermittently garners sympathy for the torture she suffered, her decade in prison, the loss of her baby daughter who now hates her and her current loneliness.

However, any sympathy vaporises when she gloats over her betrayal of Jews, revels in their desperate plight, aligns herself with the Nazis and reveals her seething anti-semitism.

She fondly recalls her first husband, another unusually blonde Jew, talks nostalgically of her Art School days and nude modelling, her numerous lovers and her irresistible beauty.

She jubilantly lists the advantages she gained from her Nazi collaboration that left her unwilling to abandon her role as snitch even when she could no longer save her parents from the camps.

In Jennifer Hagan’s production, Giblin as Kübler becomes more unstable and fearful as the clock ticks away the hours leading up to her unwelcome interview with an old journalist, a Jew Kübler knew as a child and who escaped Berlin before the war.

Giblin plays the character with a persistent, nervy edginess that captures Kübler’s instability, but this keeps her voice in a heightened upper register that limits the dynamic range of the performance.

Gail Louw’s script reveals Kübler’s intense, treacherous life through memories and stories that she tells to her parents, her husbands and to the soon-to-arrive journalist, or in flashes from the past when she faces a Gestapo torturer, begs for her life or betrays a Jew in the street.

Louw’s text is dense and Hagan’s production craves periods of silence and stillness to provide a dramatic balance to the wordiness.

This is a conventional monodrama that explores a tragic historical period through the eyes of a woman who is guilty of atrocities against her own people and this creates an intense piece of theatre.

By Kate Herbert

Double Indemnity, June 3, 2016 ****

THEATRE

By Tom Holloway, adapted from book by James M Cain, Melbourne Theatre Company 

Playhouse Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, until July 2, 2016 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert  on June 3, 2016

Stars:****

 This review also published in print in Herald Sun Arts on Mon June 6 and online at H-Sun Arts. KH

If you like your crime writing hardboiled, your films noir, your characters fatally flawed and their dialogue witty and acerbic, this stage adaptation of Double Indemnity, James M Cain’s 1936 novella, will tick all your boxes.

In this entertaining and atmospheric production, Sam Strong’s direction is assured, Tom Holloway’s script is intelligent, the acting accomplished and the design, costume and lighting are stylish (Andrew Bailey, Esther Marie Hayes, Paul Jackson).

Cain’s story was also the inspiration for Billy Wilder’s 1944 movie, but Holloway’s play adheres more faithfully to Cain’s book about disgruntled insurance salesman, Walter Huff (Leon Ford), who plans with femme fatale, Phyllis Nirdlinger (Claire van der Boom), to murder Phyllis’s wealthy husband (Richard Piper) to claim his hefty, double indemnity accident insurance.

Strong’s production is dynamic, shifting gears frequently between brisk exchanges of abrasive, clipped dialogue, suspenseful silences, meaningful gazes and Walter’s wry, step-out narration that he delivers directly to the audience and which drives the action just as film noir should.

Performing on a revolving stage, the characters stroll languidly through dimly lit doorways or appear behind mesh screens, travelling between locations including well-appointed rooms in the Nirdlingers’ mansion, Walter’s seedy office and apartment, a moving train or an isolated meeting place.

Ford is suave and brittle as Walter whose whip-smart, caustic dialogue comes to life with Ford’s elegant and impeccably timed delivery.

Van der Boom is glamorous and sophisticated as Phyllis, the manipulative, greedy, blonde dame with a dark past. and these two self-absorbed and murderous lovers pace and prowl like animals circling each other before going in for the kill.

Peter Kowitz is convincingly crusty and gruff as Keyes, Walter’s shrewd and streetwise insurance boss, while Piper embodies the over-confident, rude and smug corporate bigwig, Nirdlinger.

Jessica Tovey is suitably naive as Lola while Lachlan Woods shifts with ease from the inarticulate Sachetti to the eloquent insurance manager, Norton.

To commit the perfect murder you need help, a plan and audacity, says Walter, but he does not account for the unpredictable human factor that interferes with his scheme nor is he aware of the secrets and lies of his seductive partner in crime.

This stylish production is a reminder of all that was great in 1940s film noir and it is also reminds us that crime never pays – and neither does insurance.

By Kate Herbert 

Resident Alien, May 26, 2016 ***1/2

THEATRE

Written by Tim Fountain
At foryfivedownstairs, until June 12, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 26, 2016
Stars: ***1/2

 Review also online at Herald Sun Arts and in print. KH

 Paul Capsis as Quentin Crisp, pic Sarah Walker

When asked to what he attributed his longevity, the infamously and theatrically camp Quentin Crisp replied glibly, “Bad luck.”

The English-born Crisp lived to 91, spending his final years in his notoriously filthy, single room in a New York boarding house and Paul Capsis channels this geriatric, acerbic Crisp in Tim Fountain’s one-man play, Resident Alien.

Capsis captures Crisp’s cultivated English accent, affectedly elongated vowels, flamboyant and effeminate style, dry wit and his absolute disregard for other people’s opinions of him.

In his sympathetic and detailed portrayal of Crisp, Capsis balances pathos with wry humour, depicting him as both a resilient old geezer and as a caricature of his own public image.

Capsis, as Crisp, looks decrepit in his grubby, silken dressing gown, wallowing on his stained bed or negotiating an achingly slow path through piles of books and dust (set and costume by Romany Harper).

Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he dresses painfully slowly in his gaudy, peach shirt, black velvet suit and wide-brimmed, maroon, feathered hat tilted at a rakish angle and applies his make up in preparation to leave his room.

 

 Paul Capsis as Quentin Crisp, pic Sarah Walker

There is no self-pity in this old man who is witty and oddly sage, outrageous and uncompromising, conservative and controversial in his views that were not aligned with gay politics, despite his role as a gay icon.

Fountain’s script, directed with assurance by Gary Abrahams, draws on Crisp’s final book of essays and the dialogue is littered with pithy witticisms, epigrams and memories of Crisp’s life in which style was his driving force.

Crisp was in “the fame business”, providing comment for cash or flouncing about at events while he could still walk but, despite his evident superficiality, his commentary is often poignant and his peculiar, prismatic views illuminate our own lives.

By Kate Herbert

Paul Capsis as Quentin Crisp

Director Gary Abrahams

Set Romany Harper

Light Rob Sowinski

Sound Daniel Nixon

The Glass Menagerie, May May 19, 2016

By Tennesse Williams
Malthouse Theatre, until June 5, 2016
I didn't see/review this production but it seems like one to recommend. Anything with Pamela Rabe is worth seeing. KH
 Winner of the 2015 Helpmann Award for Best Play

 Pamela Rabe & Rose Riley. photo Pia Johnson

Pamela Rabe & Luke Mullins photo Pia Johnson

  Pamela Rabe & Rose Riley photo Pia Johnson

  

Cast 

 Pamela Rabe, Rose Riley, Harry Greenwood, Luke Mullins,

Direction/ Eamon Flack

Set Design / Michael Hankin

Costume Design / Mel Page

Lighting Design / Damien Cooper

Composer & Sound Design / Stefan Gregory

The Sound of Music, May 19, 2016 ****

MUSICAL THEATRE
Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Book by Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse, Produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Frost, David Ian & The Really Useful Group
Regent Theatre, until July 31, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on May 19, 2016
Stars: ****

Review also online at Herald Sun News at 1am Fri May 20, and in print on Fri May 20, 2016. KH 

 Amy Lehpamer with child cast. Photo by Joe Calleri

Rodgers and Hammerstein are unbeatable in the musical theatre stakes and The Sound of Music includes some of their most singable and memorable tunes.

This Australian production is a restaging of Jeremy Sams’ London Palladium version of the original, 1959 stage musical that preceded the spectacularly popular and enduring 1965 movie with Julie Andrews.

Amy Lehpamer is deliciously high-spirited and charmingly effusive as Maria who she refreshingly plays as a gauche, noisy, unworldly and clumsy country girl who galumphs with equal abandon around the Austrian hills, the demure Abbey or the von Trapp mansion.

Lehpamer’s voice has an appealingly bright toned-voice and her renditions of The Sound of Music and I Have Confidence augur well for the rest of the show as she twirls and capers, singing with the relentless cheerfulness that characterises Maria.

Cameron Daddo’s voice lacks power and he is often unconvincing as Captain Georg von Trapp Maria’s employer, the Austrian patriot, and there is no palpable chemistry or sense of impending romance between Maria and the Captain and this leaves their dance duet looking less than intimate.

With her powerful voice, rich, dark, honey tone and exceptional vocal control, opera singer, Jacqueline Dark, almost steals the show as the dignified Mother Abbess singing the rousing and memorable Climb Ev’ry Mountain and her duet of My Favourite Things with Lehpamer and the four nuns’ jaunty, playful version of Maria (How do you solve a problem like...) is an early highlight.

Jacqueline Dark & Amy Lehpamer. Photo by Joe Calleri

The vivacious Lehpamer sings the unforgettable Do-Re-Mi and The Lonely Goatherd with the children who raise the cuteness factor to 100% in the joyful So Long, Farewell.

The children on opening night are played by: Alexander Glenk (Friedrich), Darcy McGrath (Louisa), Beaumont Farrell (Kurt), Karina Thompson (Brigitta), Ruby Moore (Marta) and Heidi Sprague (Gretl).

With her fine musical theatre voice and acting talent, Stefanie Jones invests the adolescent, Liesl, with depth in Sixteen Going On Seventeen, her duet with Rolf who is played by Du Toit Bredenkamp.

In supporting roles are Marina Prior as the stately Baroness Schraeder, David James as the opportunistic, clownish Max Detweiler and Lorraine Bayly as frumpy housekeeper, Frau Schmidt.

The high points of the show are Lehpamer and Dark’s compelling performances, the thrilling nuns’ chorus of Preludium, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s inspiring music and lyrics.

However, Act Two is less dynamic than Act One, with fewer songs and a lot of story to jam into a short time and Daddo’s ballad, Edelweiss, loses its power and sounds flat when it needs to be poignant and patriotic.

Although Robert Jones’ design captures the green, alpine landscape and luxurious von Trapp mansion, its picture frame style seems too small for the enormous stage at the Regent.

For ardent fans of The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s marvellous tunes should make your hearts sing as they do for Maria and the von Trapps.

By Kate Herbert

The Sound of Music, MEDIA CALL, Thurs May 19, 2016

Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Book by Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse, Produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Frost, David Ian & The Really Useful Group 

Regent Theatre, Melbourne, Thurs May 19 until July 31, 2016

All photos by Joe Calleri, taken at Media Call at Regent Theatre on Thurs May 9, 2016

 Amy Lehpamer & children, photo by Joe Calleri

 Jacqueline Dark & Amy Lehpamer, photo by Joe Calleri

 Marina Prior, photo by Joe Calleri

 von Trapp children, photo by Joe Calleri

 photo by Joe Calleri

 photo by Joe Calleri