Loaded (Christos Tsiolkas) audio play of stage adaptation, from 30 Oct 2020

So, Melbourne theatres are dark but the Malthouse is gearing up for an immersive 4-part digital audio play version of the stage adaptation of Loaded (Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni).

On sale to public from 30 October.

"Presented in four episodes with accompanying visual elements and available for download through Bandcamp via malthousetheatre.com.au."

There is also a complementary panel event, Reloading Loaded.

 

From Media Release:

"Malthouse Theatre’s world premiere production of Loaded will be reimagined as an immersive four-part digital audio play, given it can no longer proceed on the stage as planned for season 2020, due to the current restrictions on live theatre.

"Award winning Melbourne playwright and theatre maker Dan Giovannoni (Turbine) has teamed up with Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap) to adapt Tsiolkas’ 1995 debut novel into an audio play — rewriting Ari’s odyssey from a 21^st century perspective.

"Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo (Merciless Gods) and featuring Roy Joseph (Five Bedrooms), this queer migrant history follows 19-year-old Ari — a Greek, gay, and unemployed adolescent in 90s Melbourne — as he searches for an escape, of sorts, via sex, drugs, and dance clubs.

 

"In partnership with The Wheeler Centre, Malthouse Theatre will run a companion panel event, Reloading Loaded with author Christos Tsiolkas, writer Dan Giovannoni, director Stephen Nicolazzo, and facilitator Rebecca Harkins-Cross. The panel members will discuss Melbourne scenes, adaptation hurdles, and why Ari is a character that never gets old."

End Release

Visitors: Darkfield Radio, Tues 13 Oct 2020 ***1/2

By Realscape Productions (AU) and Darkfield (AU)

On the Darkfield Radio App

7.30pm Tuesday 13 Oct 2020

18 minute audio play for two people

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 

Stars: ***1/2

This review published only on this Blog. KH

Visitors, by Darkfield Radio, is an evocative, intimate and eerie audio experience that brings performance right to our ears and transports us from our homes to places unfamiliar and unknown.

Listeners experience this audio play while seated in their own  living room with chairs facing opposite 3m apart. It is designed for two people, both wearing headphones, sitting with eyes closed, in a darkened room with a window, a door, a table and two chairs 3 metres apart. You’ll understand why when you embark on this experience. 

I won’t spoil the surprises with any more detail or revelations about who these visitors are or what they want from their hosts. Suffice to say, it is like attending a séance so prepare yourself for 18 minutes of sightly disorienting audio drama.

 

Each of the two listeners hears a different part of the story from the perspective of one of the visitors. The audio technique resembles that used in the UK production, The Encounter, performed by Simon McBurney. 

 

The ‘visitors’ arrive, and we hear two women’s uninflected voices telling us that they have many invitations. Then we hear their footsteps, chairs scraping on the floor and then breathing that feels alarmingly close to our ears.

 

Sounds shift startlingly from ear to ear in a semblance of reality, compelling us to open our eyes but it is much more fun if you don’t.

 

The women tell us that they are called Alex and Jean and are looking for the new Alex and Jean, which is disquieting as we have no idea what that means for us, the ‘visited’.

 

Alex whispers in my ear while Jean takes my friend away and I can hear their faint voices, as if through a door. It is an unnerving and profoundly intimate experience having someone inside my head without seeing her, although I have an image of Alex and her presence is palpable.

 

There are thunks and steps, doors opening and closing, distant voices and very close breaths. Throughout the experience, a disturbing soundscape ebbs and flows like waves.

 

Darkfield has so far welcomed 85,000 audience members in Australia and over 170,000 globally. It's best to experience it with two people. You must download the Darkfield Radio App onto your phone then follow the instructions. Even the instructions sound spooky!

 

By Kate Herbert

Austen Con (Jane Austen Convention) Online 7 Nov 2020

This tickled my interest, mainly as it has an Improvised Austen play at 2.20pm on the day. KH

MEDIA RELEASE: 12 October, 2020

 Austen Con

 

Saturday 7 November, 2020 9am - 5pm www.24carrotproductions.com

 

Running live online for ONE DAY ONLY on Saturday the 7th of November 2020, the third annual Austen Con is a much-loved celebration and exploration of all things Jane Austen.  

Running concurrently across two Youtube stations on the day - Pemberley and Netherfield - the program includes:

Pemberley (click to link to online program)

Session 1: 9am - 10am
Choose Your Own Austen Adaptation: Join a panel of Austen-enthused creatives who will match her major novels with outlandish adaption pitches. 

Session 2: 10:20am - 11:20am
Love and Friendship - Exploring Austen's Literary Legacy: Join Lauren and Hannah from the podcast Bonnets at Dawn as they talk about the authors that inspired Jane Austen and how Austen influenced the work of other classic women writers including Elizabeth Gaskell and Anne Brontë. 

Session 3: 11:40am - 12:40am
Austen’s Landscapes: Join Jo Russell-Clarke for an introduction to the landscapes of Austen’s writings. This includes a drawing session. 

Session 4: 1pm - 2pm
Performing To Strangers - Reading neurodivergence in Pride and Prejudice: Join Hannah Aroni and James Matthews of A_tistic as they consider what it might mean to read both Mr Collins and Mr Darcy as autistic, and talk about their work creating a neurodivergent retelling of Pride and Prejudice. 

Session 5: 2:20pm - 3:20pm
Austen-twisted Cabaret and Burlesque: Presented by Bradley Storer and colleagues, during this hour Melbourne performers bring their unique perspectives to themes in Austen’s work. 

Session 5: 3:40pm - 5pm
Beginner Regency Dance Lesson: Brought to you by Jane Bullock, Regency dancing is the perfect socially distanced activity. Clear a space, grab your water bottle, and put on your flat, non-slip dancing shoes!

Netherfield (click to link to online program)

Session 1: 9am - 10am
Choose Your Own Austen Adaptation: Join a panel of Austen-enthused creatives who will match her major novels with outlandish adaption pitches. 

Session 2: 10:20am - 11:20am
Oranges and Cloves: Kelly Lock runs a workshop with participants making traditional, edible Christmas decorations. 

Session 3: 11:40am - 12:40am
English Paper Piecing: Kelly Lock joins us again with an introduction to an age-old quilting technique. 

Session 4: 1pm - 2pm
Austen’s Bath Buns: Former MasterChef contestant Jess Jenkins takes us through techniques and a recipe for making the some of the buns that Jane Austen loved, adapting a period recipe for modern kitchens. 

Session 5: 2:20pm - 3:20pm
Improvised Jane Austen with Melbourne’s Soothplayers: Come and experience a wonderful array of curious characters that could have walked straight out of the pages of a Jane Austen novel. Featuring seasoned performers from The Improv Conspiracy, Big Hoo Haa, Impro Melbourne, iO Chicago and Second City Chicago.

Session 6: 3:40pm - 4:40pm
Austen’s Global Fashion Industry: Austen’s heroines dress in a way that we think of being specifically English, but Regency-era fashion has influences and impacts around the globe. Join Hilary Davidson for this fascinating hour. 

Also included in the ticket price is access to the wonderful Mansfield Park Market Hub

Le Roundabout, 11 October 2020 ***1/2

By Impro Theatre LA (Online)

Improvisation  with performers from round the globe

Monday 12 Oct 2020 Melbourne time (aired LA time 2pm Sun 11 Oct 2020)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

https://improtheatre.com/livestreaming/

This review only published on this blog. KH

Luke Sorba (London) & Jeffrey Thompson (LA)

In this format called Le Roundabout, Impro Theatre LA invited improvisers from around the globe to do a show together on Zoom. They had only 45 minutes online together prior to the show and that wasn’t rehearsal time because it’s all improvised!

 

Director, Dan O’Connor, asks the virtual audience to type suggestions for a location and heirloom in the Chat and the first scene begins on a beach with a sunset over an ocean.

 

What follows is a mad, dating advice story dealing with miscommunication in relationships as couples meet, date, break up, hold, hands, kiss virtually, get back together, have inspired moments about love and miscommunicate constantly.

 

The tension is palpable for both performers and characters as they navigate the complexities of the virtual performance arena and the confusing relationship landscape. Ironically, given the virtual world, this show is not about online dating.

 

Joanne (Edi Patterson) breaks up with Jack (Jeffrey Thompson), her ‘hot’ but ‘curmudgeonly’ boyfriend whose cat strolls into frame and is instantly incorporated into the story which is now on the Cat Beach. (Accepting offers is an improvisation imperative, no matter what they are.)

 

Luke Sorba is hilarious earnest as Brian, the Cat Beach Moderator, who inadvertently becomes a dating moderator, advising his relationship-challenged cousin, Tom (Joe Bill) about the ‘hand-holding status’ of his relationship with Cynthia (Naomi Snieckus).

 

Brian has no human friends and spends his time listing actresses who played Catwoman and sending humans off the beach when it is Cats-Only time.

 

Meanwhile, Joanne is on a first date with Tony (Jun Imai, improvising in his second language) who impresses her with his antique film projector, his muscularity and his famous film director father – he’s a Coppola.

 

With the switches between screen – and countries – the improvisers occasionally do not run with some of the director’s specific offers that might raise the stakes further, such as, ‘Back at the cantina, chaos rules’.

 

However, the human and cat action escalates until Tom, in a heartfelt monologue, has a life-changing realisation about love with hilarious metaphors about growing vegetables and the story ends.

 

This is edge of your seat performance, not least because nobody, least of all the improvisers, knows what’s coming next. More trans-global impro, please!

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Cast

Jo Bill (Chicago)

Edi Patterson (LA)

Luke Sorba (London)

Naomi Snieckus (Canada)

Jeffrey Thompson (LA)

Jun Imai (Japan)

 

Directed by Dan O’Connor

Kari Coleman on Technical Direction (Switcher) 

Helen Allemano on Sound 

Rich Johnson on OBS Tech and Video.

 

These Folk, 11 Oct 2020 ***1/2

At The Boulevard Theatre (in Soho)

Improvisation Theatre online (with The Bristol Improvisation Theatre)

Performed on Fri 27 March 2020

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Reviewed on 11 October 2020

See this online at this link:

https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/stage-shows-musicals-opera-free-stream-online_51198.html?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=30september2020&fbclid=IwAR28zE7z_JqmMJY2-al4wduuxxRLHeoOfZ6M5Idrq3Rm9HxKsUQ9Iwp_958

This review appears only on this blog. KH

Justin Brett and Susan Harrison improvise a mythical, musical journey in this show at the Boulevard in Soho that just squeaked in before the UK Covid restrictions closed London theatres.

 

Tall, lanky Brett is a contrast to Harrison, who is petite and sweet, and both are capable and charming improvisers who, with two musicians, are able to create a coherent and cohesive improvised landscape of characters, places and songs in a moment.

 

The inspiration for their 30-minute fable comes from an audience member named Equador (Yes, really!) who tells the pair that he made a bag this week out of his late grandparents’ old curtains. This surprising and evocative story is a gift for any improviser.

 

Brett and Harrison launch their tale with a word at a time story about Equador going on a journey with his bag. Brett, as Equador, sings the Song of Sadness then visits a Youth Hostel owned by a privileged, young woman called something that sounds like ‘Morona’. Their dialogue is riddled with puns and she dubs him a ‘pundamentalist’.

 

In a wonderfully poignant and philosophical moment, Equador says carries his memories and family with him in his bag made from grandparents’ curtains.

 

They reminisce about the past in a song called 1982 (‘What a time to be alive!’) but Equador travels on without Morona until he meets the Woman of the Border of the Balkans and sings The Woman of the Border, She Stands for Order.

 

The performance ends with a celebratory song called Now Is Where the Now Is, about going home and keeping the past with us in the present.

 

This is a joyful musical and comedic improvisation that highlights the skill and spontaneity of the two performers and their musicians.

 

By Kate Herbert

Missing People (Online), Leeds Playhouse, 10 Oct 2020 ***1/2

Written by Brad Birch

Produced by Leeds Playhouse & Kani Public Arts Center (sic) co-production

Filmed at Kani Public Arts Center, Japan, on 26 Feb 2020

Performed in English and Japanese with subtitles on video

Reviewed by Kate Herbert online, 10 Oct 2020

Stars: ***1/2

This review appears only on this blog. KH

Fortunately for those of us outside the UK, Missing People, written by Brad Birch, can be viewed online. Unfortunately for the company, this fortuitous turn of events is because the in-theatre season was cancelled on press night, 26 February 2020, in response to the Covid Pandemic.

 

This co-production between Leeds Playhouse and Kani Public Arts Center, Japan, is performed in English and Japanese subtitles and is co-directed by Mark Rosenblatt and Nobohiro Nishikawa, so language and cultural differences and clashes are at the forefront of the play.

 

Sakiko (Susan Hinkley) and Dan (Simon Darwen), travel from the UK to Japan to visit Sakiko’s parents, where their communication is clearly more problematic than simply a language barrier.

Dan’s mum, Linda (Ishia Bennison) accompanies the couple to Japan so that the two families can finally get to know each other and assist Sakiko and Dan to plan their upcoming wedding.

 

However, Sakiko’s mother, Chiyo (Natsumi Nanase), and father, Masaru (Yutaka Oda) are defensive, anxious and so secretive about their son’s whereabouts, that Sakiko suspects there are problems far more serious than issues at her brother's workplace.

 

This is a story of a prodigal daughter returning home, only to find that the ‘good’ son who followed the family’s rules has now become the prodigal.

 

The story is both a family drama and a mystery with the absent brother at the centre. The families must struggle with awkward, extremely formal communication and the beleaguered Sakiko is responsible for all slow and complex translations.

 

The cast brings depth, warmth and anguish to the characters and relationships as they struggle to understand each other and their predicament.

 

The stylised and austere, Japanese-inspire set design features tall columns and floating beams that loom over the characters and also act as narrow screens on which to project translations.   

 

The blend of languages intensifies the drama and suspense as we follow the trials of the family members and await news of the prodigal son.

 

Missing People can be viewed through this link:

https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/stage-shows-musicals-opera-free-stream-online_51198.html?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=30september2020&fbclid=IwAR28zE7z_JqmMJY2-al4wduuxxRLHeoOfZ6M5Idrq3Rm9HxKsUQ9Iwp_958

 

Cast

Sakiko -Susan Hinkley

Dan -Simon Darwen

Linda -Ishia Bennison

Yasuko -Yuri Eikawa

Chiyo -Natsumi Nanase

Masaru -Yutaka Oda

Koji/Genki -HirokiTanaka

 

Set Design --Rumi Matsui

Costume -Rie Nishihara

Lighting -Elliot Griggs

Sound Design Matt Padden

Movement- Director Sachi Kimura

 

 

Lem N Ginge: The Princess of Kakos, Audio excerpt 7 Oct 2020 ***

 

Lem N Ginge: The Princess of Kakos (excerpt only)

Written by Ell Potter and Mary Higgins

Part of a new series of audio dramas plays called Written on the Waves (UK)

5min 10 sec

Produced by 45North and Ellie Keel Productions.

Reviewed by Kate Herbert

Stars: ***

https://soundcloud.com/whatsonstage-830861346/lem-n-ginge-extract

Short review of this online audio play. Review published only on this blog. KH

 

Sharon D Clarke

Lem N Ginge: The Princess of Kakos is described as an 'all-singing all-dancing queer feminist fairytale', performed by Sharon D Clarke with the writers, Ell Potter and Mary Higgins.

Ell and Mary push themselves to the front of the crowd for the Princess’s 25^th birthday but the King makes an emergency announcement that the Princess has had her voice stolen. She cannot speak publicly as an adult. The King will tear out the tongues of all girls under 25 if the voice is not found.

The fable is a goofy parody of a fairy tale quest with a sting in the tale. The two women choose to go on the quest because, to quote them,  the Princess is ‘fit’.

This excerpt is a bit twee and old-fashioned, but who cares?

Composition, sound design and editing by Tom Foskett-Barnes.

Come To Where I Am Vol 1: Critical Stages & Paines Plough 7 October 2020 ***

THE RIVERLAND OF RAX By Alysha Herrmann

VIOLIN By James Elazzi, Western Sydney NSW

FIREBRAND By Peter Matheson Maclean NSW 

By Critical Stages Touring & Paines Plough UK 

Register for their Screening Room and watch online  

https://criticalstages.com.au/  

Reviewed by kate Herbert: 7 October 2020

Stars: ***

 

This is a short review of Volume 3 and is published only on this blog as a Lockdown comment and review. I'm trying to cover pieces hat are available to Australian, or more specifically Melbourne audience online. e are in a much longer Lockdown than other states. KH

 Peter Matheson

Come To Where I Am is a series of commissioned 10 minute pieces about the Covid experience around Australia. These may be theatrical or fiction or memoir or other forms of spoken word. The three pieces in Volume 1 vary in content and quality but all are in the form of short memoir read and delivered directly to camera for online viewing.

The Riverland of Rax is a short memoir about her life in Renmark and the stories from that place. Violin by James Elazzi reads a first -person account of his night with his Dad, scavenging for good finds that he can sell to help with the cost of groceries. He finds a violin and memories of wanting to play an instrument comes back and Dad scorns his find. He is flooded with memories of his Mum.

Perhaps the most compelling is Firebrand, a first-person memoir account in which Peter Matheson reminisces about his grandfather, Bert, comes, a war veteran from ambulance corps is France. ‘Mud, blood and mateship.’ He then recalls a feisty, reliable, pioneering neighbour confronting a voracious bushfire.  Matheson conjures the thick, burning acrid  burning of an Australian bushfire and the terror that accompanies it.

There are three more volumes that you can view online. (See above for link.)

Executive Producer: Chris Bendall
Series Producer: Melanie Carolan
Dramaturgs: Chris Bendall & Charlotte Bennett
Editor: Ben Pugh

Good Dog by Arinzé Kene (online 19 min version) 1 Oct 2020 ****

Good Dog by Arinzé Kene 19min online version- Youtube

Adapted for screen by Natalie Ibu

Based on the stage production of Good Dog, produced by tiata fahodzi and Watford Palace Theatre

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 1 October 2020

Stars: ****

 

This 19-minute version of the stage play, Good Dog, by Arinzé Kene, has a pulsating, relentless rhythm that follows a young boy’s emotional journey in a public housing tower block in England.

 

Anton Cross, irected by Natalie Ibu and Andrew Gillman, plays the Boy who is the narrator and subject of the stories he relates about his life and his neighbours on a public housing estate.

 

Cross is a magnetic presence as he talks with open-eyed honesty direct to camera, addressing his absent audience intimately. We follow him as he leads us up tower block stairs, onto balconies, into stores and down lanes where he is followed by the estate bullies.

 

The Boy introduces us to Trevor Senior, the overworked and addled father who spends his exhausted waking hours worrying that his son, Trevor Junior, a contemporary of the Boy, will end up with the same work-roughened palms as his father.

 

We then follow the Boy to the local store, run by Ghandi, described as a ‘a 51-year old boy’, who struggles to manage the ‘What What’ Girl who shoplifts, and her What What mum who threatens to get all her What What pals to boycott Ghandi’s shop.

 

The key allegorical tale that the Boy relates is a revealing and familiar story about Little Dog who is terrified and cowed by Big Dog. Big Dog barks all day through the fence terrorising Little Dog who dashes whimpering inside as soon as her owner returns. She is afraid of her own big tail.

 

The 'little dog' harbours her fear and revenge until she grows to a size that matches her tail and viciously savages 'big dog'.

 

This allegory reminds us that inhospitable environments and relentless abuse breed fear that can grow into violence and rage. All rules have no meaning when one has tried to be a Good Dog all one’s life, only to find that those rules don't apply to other who consider themselves to be Big Dogs.

 

Big Dog is a poignant, topical piece that is impeccably performed by Cross and would be a treat to view in its full two and a half hours in the theatre.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Directed by Andrew Gillman & Natalie Ibu
Adapted for screen Natalie Ibu

Music Michael Assante

 

CAST

Boy -Anton Cross

Young Boy -Sammy Kamara

Trevor Senior -Vinta Morgan

Trevor Junior -Amerjit Deu

What What Girl -Lara Vira

What What Mum --Maria Alexe

Teenage Boy Edward Kagutuzi

Desmon -Calvin Cawood

Massive Martin -Alex  Radosavljevic