As You Like It, MTC, 18 Nov 2021 ***1/2

 

THEATRE 

By William Shakespeare

At Southbank Theatre, MTC unitl 18 Dec 2021

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

 This review published only on this blog. KH

 

 James Mackay, Georgia Flood, Christie Whelan Browne

Welcome back, Melbourne theatre! We’re back in venues and shows are coming thick and fast in this festive season. Get thee to a theatre!

 

The MTC leaps out of the blocks with Simon Phillips’ lavish production of As You Like It which captures the playful strangeness of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy with a nod to its more introspective and philosophical moments.

 

The production looks glorious with an evocative design (Alicia Clements) that counterbalances the soaring pillars of a palace with the lush green and floral slopes of the magical Forest of Arden – sans woodland trees.

 

The show begins with faithful, old Adam (Richard Piper) and Orlando (James Mackay) crouched planting seedlings in the (fake) turf at the lip of the stage. The first half gallops along gleefully but the production stalls after interval when the novelty of the design and the cheery liveliness of the characters start to wear thin.

 

Musical interludes (music by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall) are welcome in the first half, but there are too many tunes in the second half and snatching songs from other Shakespeare plays seems unnecessary.

 

There are some delightful performances, particularly Piper’s Adam. Christie Whelan Browne is perky and playful as Rosalind, the young woman who cross-dresses as a boy and is giddy with love. Mackay plays Rosalind’s beloved Orlando as a romantic, naïve lad who is easily duped by Rosalind’s cross-dressing.

 

Despite feeling overly long, this is a diverting and visually compelling production.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

Cast

Phebe / As cast Natalie Abbott

Silvius / Band / As cast Laurence Boxhall

Celia Georgia Flood

Touchstone Daniel Frederiksen

Jaques de Boys / Band / As cast Jack Green

Audrey / Band / As cast Xani Kolac

Orlando James Mackay

Adam / Corin / Band Richard Piper

Oliver / Amiens Chris Ryan

Charles the Wrestler / William / Band / As cast Richard Sergeant

Jaques / Le Beau Tim Walter

Rosalind Christie Whelan Browne

Duke Frederick / Duke Senior / Band / As cast Shivantha Wijesinha

 

Creative Team

Director Simon Phillips

Set & Costume Designer Alicia Clements

Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper

Composers Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall

Musical Director & Additional Composition Ian McDonald

Associate Costume Designer John Van Gastel

Associate Lighting Designer Tom Willis

Assistant Director Tim Paige

Intimacy Coordinator Amy Cater

Fight Choreographer Lyndall Grant

Choreographer Andrew Hallsworth

Stage Manager Christine Bennett

Deputy Stage Manager Lisette Drew

Assistant Stage Manager Meg Richardson

Production Photography Jeff Busby

Rehearsal Photography Charlie Kinross

JSMR by Jessica Stanley 30 Sept 2021 ***

THEATRE ONLINE

JSMR: an ASMR storytelling experience, by Jessica Stanley

By Spinning Plates during Melbourne Fringe Online

Online on Demand, Fringe: https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/jsmr/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUZZgoHuK1c

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***

 

Jessica Stanley in JSMR

 

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Reponse, or ASMR, is a peculiar sensory response that can be a “pleasant tingle you get when you listen to gentle whispering”. It can be employed as therapy for anxiety but it is also known to be a weird fetish that involves sexual arousal when a woman whispers close to a microphone.

 

Jessica Stanley explores ASMR from her own perspective as a person experiencing ASMR and its soothing effects. JSMR must be viewed/heard through headphones to achieve the full impact of the whispering, clicking, crackling, brushing sounds that feel so close to one’s ears.

 

In a series of quirky vignettes, characters and personal anecdotes, Stanley reveals the myriad views and uses of ASMR while tickling our sensitive nerve endings.

 

JSMR is intermittently compelling, sometimes slow-moving and more interesting for those who experience that tingling sensation on hearing whispering or almost inaudible sounds. At one hour, it feels a little too long, but it is strangely interesting.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Together Experiences - 3 videos from Arts Centre Melbourne Sept 2021

This looks interesting. Three video by artists. kh

Together Experiences -Arts Centre Melbourne -3 videos  

Media Release 28 Sept 2021

Arts Centre Melbourne has launched a powerful new storytelling campaign showcasing the importance of the performing arts to Victorians as it looks towards a future reopening. 

Together Experiences, an emotive series of short films created pre-COVID by Melbourne-based agency, Brands to life® shines a light on the unique and positive impact of the performing arts on the state’s diverse community. 

 Photo by Mark Gambino

The first three films focus on three individuals whose lives have been significantly impacted by the performing arts and Arts Centre Melbourne.

Choreographer Stephanie Lake discusses the creation of her large-scale work Colossus, an Arts Centre Melbourne commission and a lifelong dream to create a work exploring the complex unison and wild individuality of humans.

“There’s no question we’re in troubling times. There’s incredible division. A single leaf is interesting, but thousands of leaves moving in the wind is breathtaking,” says Lake.

Lauren Hayes, who was born blind, explains how audio description makes her theatre experience complete while Thomas Smith talks about Arts Centre Melbourne’s Tech Connect Regional Training Program which allowed him to pursue his dream of working in theatre from his home in Swan Hill.

The Together Experiences film series will be shared over nine weeks and lead into the time when Arts Centre Melbourne can begin welcoming artists back to its stages and audiences to its venues. The films will be shown through a digital media campaign as well as on Arts Centre Melbourne’s website and venue’s digital screens. 

“Since we closed our doors last year, COVID-19 has separated us: artists and arts workers from stages, audiences from venues,’’ says Arts Centre Melbourne CEO Claire Spencer AM.

“These films speak directly to our role as Victoria’s arts centre – a gathering place connecting all Victorians with the art that inspires them, and artists, makers and presenters with the stages where they belong.”

_END

 

Hamlet STC & MTC, Sept 20 1995 *****

 

NB: I just found this review from 1995. From the vantage point of 2021, I know this was an exceptional  production with an extraordinarily talented cast that included Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Richard Roxburgh, Peter Carroll, and directed by Neil Armfield. This was a treat! KH

 Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Produced by by Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company

 At Playhouse Theatre until October, 1995

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on around 20 Sep 1995

Stars: 5

 

Nothing shatters the spirit like grief and Shakespeare's Hamlet is saturated with souls grieving for death, abandonment or betrayal. Richard Roxborough's Hamlet is a copybook study of grief: shock, sadness, disconnection from his body and environment, fear, disbelief, self-doubt followed by unbridled rage.

 

Roxborough has earned his Sydney Critic's Award for his idiosyncratic, compelling and prismatic characterisation which glints in the light as he turns it. His prince has a subtlety and dynamic range which resonates, shifting easily from underplayed youthful carping and melancholia, through physical incapacitation to cynicism, physical comedy then full-blown anguish. 

 

How easily we forget the effect of grief on we frail humans. Hamlet loses a father, a lover then a mother. Ophelia her lover then father and Laertes father and sister. Their grief is palpable, almost unbearable to behold. The men turn their aching anguish outward to revenge a wronged loved one. Ophelia turns her pain inward.

 

There is a delicacy and reality in Neil Armfield's finely tuned, rhythmic production which plays the actors like instruments which weep and wail with torrents of emotion. He gives them their heads, never overstating either comedy or pathos. It is an ensemble piece with many of this exceptional cast playing multiple roles.

 

Peter Carroll as the donnish "prating old fool", Polonius, almost steals the first half of the play. Geoffrey Rush commendably underplays Horatio, the loyal, ever-watchful eye of objectivity.

 

 Jacek Koman has a still and regal composure which makes Claudius all the more insidious. Cate Blanchett's mad scene as Ophelia was profoundly distressing yet lyrical. Her pale muddied skin and clothing heightened the fragility of her physical and spiritual self.

 

The whole piece is served perfectly by the soundscape (Paul Charlier) and the design (Dan Potra) with distressed warehouse walls and cold tiling create a chill, grey, discomfiting palace for this greatest of all tragedies. The tiny shrine lights and flowers on the wall remind us constantly of the dead who will be remembered.

 

KATE HERBERT

Berlin, MTC Digital 27 August 2021 ****

 

DIGITAL THEATRE

Written by Joanna Murray-Smith, produced by  Melbourne Theatre Company

MTC Digital Theatre filmed at Southbank Theatre. Available online until 31 December 2022

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

This review, first published on this blog on 23 April 2021, is a review of the live production of Berlin that was filmed for this digital version. KH

Grace Cummings & Michael Wahr, pic Jeff Busby

 

Berlin by Joanna Murray-Smith is a two-hander that shifts from seduction to philosophical discussion before taking a turn into complex, social and political issues.

 The play, directed by Iain Sinclair, takes place in Charlotte’s (Grace Cummings) hipster apartment (design, Christine Smith) in an expensive part of Berlin. Having met Tom (Michael Wahr), an Australian tourist, in the bar where she works, she invites him to her home after he tells her he has no accommodation.

 

Their playful, confident and sensual seduction is a like a game of cat and mouse – or cat and cat – as they tease and entice each other with wine, poetry and half-truths.

Beyond Paradise, Darebin Youth Project, Preview

This immersive work looks interesting so here's a little mention about the project. I love to see good, new work with by about young people. KH

Beyond Paradise

Presented by Pony Cam & Darebin Youth Service as part of Melbourne Fringe 2021

Dates: 1-3rd / 7-9th / 14-16th October Venue: Festival Hub - Trades Hall

Beyond Paradise - Photo by Theresa Hamilton

*The performance is taking over a multi-storey carpark. 

*It is working with 10 teenagers from the Darebin area - in partnership with Darebin Youth Services. 

*It is a participatory and immersive.

The Production Company Archive 1999-2019

THE PRODUCTION COMPANY’S NEW ONLINE ARCHIVE

Click here for link: The Production Company Archive  

Jeanne Ken and Rachel. pic by Jim Lee

MEDIA RELEASE 24 August 2021

 

Two years ago, before our lives changed forever, The Production Company staged

its last production. Ragtime, an Australian premiere, was the company’s final show after twenty-one years of presenting musicals in the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne. Founded by Jeanne Pratt AC in 1998, the company produced sixty-five musicals in more than five hundred performances between 1999 and 2019, selling more than a million tickets, presenting no fewer than ten Australian premieres and creating thousands 
of jobs and major career development for artists and creatives.

 

How best to remember the unique contribution the company made to the 
vibrant artistic life we all enjoyed in Melbourne?

 

Today, the company has launched an online archive celebrating the sixty-five musical productions they presented and the people who both created and starred in them.

 

Chairman Jeanne Pratt AC said, "What a wonderful time we've all had! I hope you enjoy revisiting the many brilliant shows we brought to Arts Centre Melbourne. Until we meet again, this is our way of saying thank you for your support of The Production Company."

 

The company’s Artistic director Ken Mackenzie-Forbes AM and Executive Director 
Rachel D Taylor are delighted to announce that The Production Company’s 

online archive is now live.

 

Ken Mackenzie-Forbes said, “We are understandably proud of the unique contribution we made to the musical theatre industry across twenty-one years. This online archive will enable our subscribers, sponsors, artists and creatives to relive the excitement of those years.  This journey through the archives will bring back the joy and delight these memorable productions gave us a

Rachel D Taylor commented, “The online archive is a major resource on the company’s history.  It’s a beautiful reminder of the outstanding job The Production Company did presenting and promoting Australian talent, giving Melbourne audiences the best shows for twenty-one wonderful years.  The website honours our artists, creatives and collaborators with a permanent presence, long after the curtain has fallen. It was a joy

to create and I think it will make people very happy.”

 

 

On the HOME page, there is an icon for each musical.

• Click on an icon and see the original show announcement, the cast and creative team and enjoy a photo gallery of production images.
• Each musical page also includes a copy of the show program, providing the complete details for that production.
• Additionally, on the home page there are pull down menus featuring reviews from many shows and a history of the Pratt Prize for Musical Theatre.

 

The Wolves, LCT Private Reels ****1/2

THEATRE

Written by Sarah DeLappe, by Lincoln Center Theater (2017)

Lincoln Center Theater Private Reels, Online Broadway on Demand until 15 Aug 2021 https://www.lct.org/shows/private-reels/

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on 15 Aug 2021 (Melbourne, Australia)

Stars: ****1/2

The Wolves

 

On an indoor, fake turf field, a suburban, American, girls’ soccer team, stretches, exercises, trains, bickers and laughs.

 

In her play, The Wolves, Sarah DeLappe creates a slice of the life of adolescent girls. In rapid fire dialogue, they interrupt and talk over each other. The team has a volatile group dynamic, and these adolescents shift from childishness to adult behaviour and opinions in the blink of an eye.

 

As they stretch, they argue about ethics, political correctness, ambition, rivalry and winning – and they reminisce about those half-time orange slices at games in their not-so-distant childhood.

 

They are learning the rules of the adult world and, in so doing, they interpret, reinterpret and repeat what they have heard, regurgitating political views and social mores that are not yet their own.

 

They joke, giggle, accuse, reprimand, castigate, confuse and preach. There is very little silence in the world of these teens – until one of their number is injured, then one of their number does not return.

 

DeLappe’s writing is beautifully observed, multi-layered, passionate and often hilarious, while Lila Neugebauer’s direction is deft and seamless.

 

The ensemble is a cohesive team, just like the soccer teens are on the field. Each actor portrays a different teenager, ranging from the confident to the timid, the political animal to the politically incorrect, the silent, the voluble, the worldly wise or the sheltered and childlike.

 

The cast never falters as the team careers through their training and their adolescence until, at the end of the play, they bang up against real and palpable grief and loss that leaves them speechless.

 

The Wolves is an impassioned cry in the wild from these young women whose lives are not yet fully formed and whose futures hang heavily before them.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Writer -Sarah DeLappe

Director- Lila Neugebauer

 

Cast 

• Paola Sanchez Abreu  #25
• Brenna Coates #7
• Jenna Dioguardi #13
• Samia Finnerty #14
• Midori Francis #8
• Lizzy Jutila #00
• Sarah Mezzanotte #2
• Tedra Millan #46
• Susannah Perkins #11
• Mia Barron   Soccer Mom

 

Creative

• Sarah DeLappe
• Lila Neugebauer
• Laura Jellinek
• Ásta Bennie Hostetter
• Lap Chi Chu
• Stowe Nelson
• Amanda Spooner

 

The Mermaid (streamed) 2 August 2021 ***

THEATRE

Filmed at La Mama Courthouse on 15 July 2021, streamed on Vimeo

Reviewer: Kate Herbert viewed on 2 August 2021

Stars: ***

This review is published only on this blog. KH

                                                    The Mermaid, Allegra di Lollo- pic Pier Carthew
  

If you merge Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Little Mermaid with a smattering of myths and sightings of mer-people, then pop them in a blender with lots of teen angst, you come up with The Mermaid.

 

Directed by Cassandra Fumi, this devised production is a Youth Theatre performance (i.e. performed by young people and created with professionals) that took three years to develop.

 

The ensemble of nine actors aged from 12 to 19 perform this piece. It is episodic with some scenes that are movement-based, and others that rely on narration delivered on microphone by various cast members.

 

It opens with one defiant, young, trans actor who, as the host, suggests that we are about to enter the Coney Island Mermaid Parade – Yes, it’s a real thing in the US! Regrettably, we never see the Parade or this host character again.

 

In a confined set (Dann Barber) that is a giant, tiled, empty swimming pool, a girl (Allegra Di Lallo) – the titular mermaid –lies prone in a pink, plastic, paddling pool that has its own tail fin.