micky.com.au, Sep 30, 1999

by Peter Webb 

at La Mama until October 17, 1999

 Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It was only a matter of time before the 90's cyber world collides with theatre. In Patrick Marber's play, Closer, we see an on-line Sex Chat Room. In micky.com.au (sic), the protagonist, Mick (Steve Mouzakis) is trying to create a snuff video project to download onto his personal website "for everyone."

Mick is not a happy camper. He locks himself into his flat, resists answering the door or the phone, plays video games and toys with his computer. He is depressed and almost totally disengaged from his world and his friends.

"Friends" however, may not be an appropriate word to describe the young couple who arrive, to niggle, dispute, taunt and tease him late one night. Simon, an electrician (Tobi Webster) and his girlfriend, Kat, (Miria Kostiuk) are intrusive, rude and insensitive. In fact, all three characters are self-indulgent and pretentious with an inflated sense of their own importance.

They mouth platitudes, spout pedestrian philosophy, compete with each other to be the most interesting and "out there". They manage only to be obnoxious and terribly annoying. 20-Something inner-urban angst is fascinating to other 20-somethings. Anyone beyond that age finds it predictable and boring.

Webb has written some entertaining dialogue between the three and director, David Symons has kept the energy high. The most effective – albeit completely irrelevant – scene is the arrival of Ian, the plumber (Tim Ratcliffe) to fix the toilet. The dialogue is swift and simple while Ratcliffe's performance is detailed and hilarious.

Mouzakis rides the emotional roller coaster of Mick's mind, dealing with his howling, raving and weeping. Kostiuk finds a bubbling and conceited persona for Kat. Webster has some funny moments but his performance seems out of control at times.

The more obvious problems arise during the prolonged and clumsily written monologues which preach some very ill-founded ideas. The final monologue from Simon is long and anticlimactic.

It is unclear what the writer's intention is in this play. If the play is an exploration of depression, it is often inaccurate. If it is an examination of youth alienation and culture, it is shallow. The writer has no distance from the characters to make them come to life.

by Kate Herbert

Funny Girl, Production Company, Sept 30, 1999

Music by Julie Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, Book by Isobel Lennart.

The Production Company at Melbourne Concert Hall Sept 30, Oct 1 & 2, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Caroline O'Connor is a card-carrying musical comedy phenomenon. As Fanny Brice, she is stunningly versatile, attacking with equal skill, gags or drama, choreography or song. It is as if we are seeing ten different women on stage.

Funny Girl is the third in The Production Company's concert series and arguably the best. Gary Young (Les Miserables) directs the show and creates a pulsating extravaganza without all the trappings of a complete stage show. Who needs 'em! We've got voices, actors, musicians and choreography.

Fanny Brice was Florenz Ziegfeld's prize comedy girl early this century.

She stormed onto the New York stage from the lower east side with her skinny legs, plain face and big hooter of a nose. She was a hit! Her one tragedy was marrying Nick Arnstein, (John O'May) a handsome, smooth-talking gambler who was finally gaoled for stock fraud.

O'Connor plays Fanny as cheeky, funny, warm hearted, loyal and just a bit dumb. She falls for Nicky and almost relinquishes her career to satisfy his ego. He loved her but could not deal with her being more successful than him. So what's changed?

O'May is adorable as the roguishly charming Arnstein. His warm voice is a fine complement to O'Connor. Nancye Hayes, as Fanny's mother, is the vibrant heart of the hens of Henry Street.

Her clan includes Joan Sydney who is delightfully Irish as Mrs. O'Malley, and the hilarious Susan-Ann Walker as Mrs. Strakosh who rivals The Nanny's mother for interfering.

Jack Webster is lively and engaging as Eddie Ryan and David Ravenswood is a hearty, powerful presence as Ziegfeld. A musical highlight is the bell-like tenor of David Rogers-Smith singing You'll Make a Beautiful Bride and The Australian Theatre Orchestra is wonderful under the skilful musical direction of Guy Simpson.

But the star is definitely O'Connor, winner of two MO Awards. She pours her soul into songs such as People and Don't Rain on My Parade and hits comic heights as a pregnant bride amongst the flurry of gorgeous brides in You'll Make a Beautiful Bride and as a Woody Allen look-alike soldier in Rat Tat Tat.

Melbourne would appreciate a remount and longer season of this show.

by Kate Herbert

Reverse World by Gumbo Japanese Theatre

Melbourne Fringe Festival
at North Melbourne Town Hall until October 3, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Think of the style of Monkey, the dubbed Japanese television series about the adventures of the Monkey King, and transpose it to the stage. You have something resembling Reverse World.

Angels, humans, martial arts combat, broad characters, loud costumes, noisy music and songs all combine to make up the work of Gumbo, the youthful Japanese theatre company which is doing the rounds of the western world's fringe festivals: Edinburgh, New York and now Melbourne.

Reverse world is their current show that is 75 minutes of grotesque physical comedy that incorporates classical and contemporary Japanese theatre styles. The five actors (Kayo Tamura, Kenichi Mabuchi, Kikuko Imai, Hiroyo Koyama, Noriko Ikemoto) are extremely physical and acrobatic.

They create choreography that owes a great deal to martial arts combat and they work directly to the audience with broad open clown-like faces. The five sing, chant and howl and Japanese percussion accompanies the whole piece, punctuating the action and providing a dramatic score.

In the story, the world of the angels collides with the human world when an angle falls in love with a human girl. It is a classic boy meets girl story. It is uncannily similar to the narrative of Parallax Island that is the show that precedes it in the same space on hour earlier.

The story satirises romantic love. God's angels control the humans who have no free will. the angels live an easy, joyful existence and attempt to eliminate all pain from the world of humans. The human girl objects to this trickery. She thinks we should face our fates.

This show is skilful, exciting to watch and often hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally. The latter is due to the hilarity arising out of accidents with accent. It seems unnecessary for the group to work in English when they are not fluent. The piece relies heavily on physical storytelling so why not do it in Japanese? It is exhausting to listen to it in English.

by Kate Herbert

Parallax Island, Oct 25 1999

by Maude Davey and David Pidd

Melbourne Fringe Festival

at North Melbourne Town Hall until October 3, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Have you ever looked at something through water or glass and thought it was much closer than it actually was? Well, that's the parallax view. It alters one's perspective, changes shapes and distances.

On Parallax Island, Maude Davey and David Pidd attempt, in a very gentle way, to shift perspective on gender and relationships. It is a charming little show with a few songs and no dense or heavy content.

There is a narrative through-line as well as several diversions. A man rowing a galvanised iron boat arrives on an island with a sole inhabitant: a woman. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, to go. He insists on staying. They are both there to be alone. They haggle over ownership of the island then over their roles.

She refuses to look after him then offers him food, water and love. When they decide to leave together, she feels as if she cannot win. If he rows the boat, she will be seen as a maiden being rescued. If she rows, she will be a "ball-breaker". Ah, feminism!  Nothing changes.

"Relationships make us into babies", the woman says. They bicker, behaving like children, taunting, scoring points and then forgiving. They tell stories about being male or being female. They swap roles/genders, use flashcards to tell the story and interrupt their journey to greet late- (very late) comers.

Both performers have an honesty, warmth and freshness that makes this enjoyable to watch. To quote the program notes, "This was an experiment to see whether we could make a show with the minimum of stress and worry. So every time we started worrying, we stopped." It shows.

One of the highlights is the songs. They create an a capella number out of the words "I love you" and accompany the opening and closing song (Sail across the Water by Jane Siberry) with a strange double bass built from a oil can and wood. (made by Guy Albert).

The set is simple, the message clear and the show short. You can't go wrong with this show in the Fringe.

by Kate Herbert

Normie and Tuan, Sept 19, 1999

 by Alex Buzo

at La Mama until October 3, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

In Australia, we may outwardly have a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan culture compared with that of 1969. We have restaurants and languages from 90 or more countries. However, racism has not been obliterated. It has merely expanded its targets to a greater variety of immigrants.

Alex Buzo's 1969 play, Norm and Ahmed, was about a back lane meeting between an Aussie bloke and a Pakistani immigrant. It was performed in the car park of La Mama and resides in La Mama history as the play which caused an actor to be arrested for saying "**** boong". He was arrested for the swear word.

In these days of more relaxed obscenity laws and more enforceable racial vilification laws, the actors are more likely to be arrested for the racial slur.

Normie and Tuan is Buzo's 1999 update of the original idea. A South East Asian character, Tuan, (Thanh van Nguyen) replaces Ahmed. It is a short, well-structured play with pithy dialogue and clearly drawn characters. Director, Greg Carroll, has set it in the lane behind La Mama.

It is after midnight in a quiet Sydney street. Tuan, a Malaysian-Vietnamese overseas student waits for a bus after finishing his restaurant job. Normie, (James Shaw) a cook in a Chinese restaurant, arrives playing Jimmy Hendrix at full volume on his ghetto blaster. He is a Vietnam veteran whose attitudes to Asians are unreadable. All we know is that he is volatile and frightening.

In a powerful performance, Shaw captures an edge of dangerous unpredictability and demonstrates the scattergun effect of Normie's anger at losing his job, his wife and his self-worth.

He taunts and teases Tuan, shifting between threats and jokes, questions and accusations, racism and mateship. As time passes Tuan begins to trust him and so do we.

Shaw's bluff blokiness is charming and dangerous but we hope Normie's friendliness is genuine. Nguyen is suitably youthful as Tuan, combining sweetness with tough ambition. Carroll keeps the pace rapid, the tension high and the action constant.

Take a coat on a cold night, but see this.

by Kate Herbert

An Accidental Departure, Sep 15 1999

by Mammad Aidani

 at La Mama in association with Footscray Community Arts Centre

 until September 26, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It is not the role of theatre to make an audience feel stupid. It is certainly not the role of community theatre to mystify its audience. An Accidental Departure, by Mammad Aidani, does just that.

We are all meaning-makers by nature. Toss us a mad image, an irrational phrase or a fractured thought and we will make a story out of it. Watching this play, it is a struggle. Perhaps Aidani's other role as a poet interferes, making his text inappropriately fragmented for theatre. Whatever the cause, the script does not transfer from page to stage.

The problem is not simply that the text is non-linear, nor that it deals with esoteric issues: despair, dislocation, madness or miscommunication. The problem is the form in which these ideas are presented.

Seven actors appear and re-appear in pairs. A man and a woman (Carlos Sanchez, Domenica Ferraro) perch among cardboard packing boxes in the disarray of their marriage. "We all know what it is like to live in a box", says a man in a wheelchair who acts as an inner voice.

Another man (Craig MacDonald) struggles with the disarray of his mind while a veiled woman (Chi Vu) taunts him . Two young people (Tony Nguyen, Maria Papastamatopoulos) invade a house and talk. A boy eavesdrops on a woman who talks incessantly. Another woman (Susan Jones) tells of her past.

There is one scene which works dramatically. A man tries to impress, charm or love a woman who is uninterested. MacDonald gives the dialogue and the character life with a sensitive and funny performance.

The writing here maintains the fragmented texture of the rest of the play but it makes sense of character, relationship and themes of anguish and dislocation.

Director, David Everist enlivens these awkward, disconnected scenes and characters with  unusual entrances from under the sink, or down a rope through a roof trapdoor. He employs a surprising soundscape, (Susan Jones) a quirky design built around kettles and clay cups (Caroline Ho-Bich-Tuyen Dang).

Unfortunately, nothing can save this from being a very confusing evening at La Mama.

by Kate Herbert

Wilde Inside, 8 Sep 1999

Adapted by Frank Gallacher from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

at Beckett Theatre, from Sep 8, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

How difficult it is to understand another's love, obsession and degradation. In his monodrama, "Wilde Inside", Frank Gallacher reaches inside the magnificent Oscar Wilde and shows us his torn and bleeding heart.

Wilde plumbed the depths of sadness by the end of his life. 'De Profundis", the title of his 80 page letter to his heartless, absent lover, Alfred "Bosie" Lord Douglas, came from the murky depths of anguish and pain as he languished in prison.

The letter was written during the last six months of his two years hard labour in Reading Gaol where he was imprisoned for homosexuality. Prior to this, in his tiny cell, he had access to no pen, paper or books. For Wilde, a man of art, wit and society, this was equivalent to a living death.

Gallacher, one of our finest actors, adapted the larger work, De Profundis, selecting sections of text suitable for the stage. His is a superbly crafted performance that sweeps gracefully between Wilde's passion and pain. Collette Mann directs him with great sensitivity. Together they have created a theatrical piece from the letter.

The cell is conjured by a wonderfully claustrophobic design (Gail Thomlinson, Donna McCrum) and complex, evocative lighting (John Hall, Michele Preshaw).

As Wilde, Gallacher prowls around his 3 square metres of cell or perches on the edge of his cot, speaking his heart to Bosie who betrayed, abused, manipulated and bankrupted him. At first, he speaks with passion and anger about his humiliation accusing Bosie of obstructing his creativity.

He tells stories of Bosie's abandonment and neglect of him. He tells of Bosie's father, the Marquis of Queensberry's, relentless quest to ruin Wilde and send him to gaol for seducing his son. This is a family that should have been slaughtered at birth. Both Bosie and his father are cruel, self-absorbed and untouchable. They are emotional psychopaths.

Wilde's rage shifts gears into religious fervour. He waxes lyrical about Christ, speaking poetically about sorrow and forgiveness. His public humiliation is an act of contrition, his weeping and loss of laughter a purge of his sins.

The horror of the piece is that Wilde, after raging at Bosie, is willing to forgive him. He loved Bosie blindly and tragically. Gallacher shows us this Wilde, flesh stripped back to the bone still willing to suffer more at the hands of his wretched lover.

by Kate Herbert

Blood Sister, Sept 4, 1999

Blood Sister

 by Daniel Keene at Trades Hall until September 26, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The poor old Kelly clan was an unhappy one. Ned hanged, Dan burned, Mum gaoled and sister Kate drowned. There is nothing glamorous about their lives.

Daniel Keene has revamped his play, Blood Sister, written in 1989, for this production directed by Tim Maddock who directed Keene's play, The Architect's Walk for The Adelaide Festival last year. The show has unobtrusive lighting by Shane Grant and a simple design by Kari Morseth.

Blood Sister, written for four women, (Rhonda Wilson, Laura Lattuada, Josephine Fisher, Maryanne Sam) is a grim story constructed around Kate Kelly's "rest cure" in a sanatorium 20 years after her brother's hanging.

Kate (Wilson) is a drunk, an opium addict and a depressive who drifts in and out of reality and distorted dreams or memories of her lost childhood and her damned family.

The three other women act as a chorus in the style of the ancient Greek theatre. They chant, sing Irish ballads, ululate and wail in semi-darkness, speaking in verse, a mode that is one of Keene's trademarks.

As chorus, they criticise, support or taunt Kate in her delicate state

His dialogue shifts between the realistic and the poetic. These two styles are distinctive in all of Keene's writing but it is generally the gritty realism that is the more successful dramatically. This was the case in many most of the short plays in the Keene-Taylor Project.

The women play characters from Kate's life. Her sister Maggie (Fisher) appears in a dream, obsessed with death. A sanctimonious worker tries to support and advise her in the sanatorium (Sam).

The play remains distinctly humourless throughout, lacking the rollicking Irish humour one might expect, even in deep sadness. The exception is the scenes involving Kate's fellow drunken sanatorium inmate, played with comic relish by Lattuada.

Blood Sister provides us with a good deal of information about Kat and the Kelly gang, particularly the siege at Glenrowan at which Ned was captured and Dan burned to death. Kate was a witness to these horrors and spent the rest of her life trying to escape them. In the late 20th century, she would be treated for post-traumatic stress.

She rebuilt her life, marrying and living with husband and children in Forbes until an actress in a travelling show, called "The True History of the Kelly Gang," recognised her, leading to Kate being hounded by her new community. Is it any wonder she wanted to kill herself?

by Kate Herbert for 2 pages

Henry V, Bell Shakepseare, 31 Aug 1999

by William Shakespeare

Bell Shakespeare Company Athenaeum 1 until September 18, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It is difficult to make slaughter appear heroic in these times. We cannot picture balmy fields filled with sword-wielding knights of the realm without imagining the bodies after the battle. Too much television war has spoiled our romanticising of death and patriotism.

In order to enjoy Shakespeare's history plays then, we needs must suspend our 20th century cynicism, pacifism and any related squeamishness about severed limbs and pools of blood.

John Bell's clever, albeit blokey production of Henry V once again provides a clear, consistent and colourful vision for Shakespeare. It is plumped firmly into the midst of World War One, with soldiers in both British and French infantry uniform singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and "Mademoiselle from Armentiers".

The period is clearly embedded in the design (Michelle Fallon) which uses English Music Hall complete with piano, footlights and red velvet drapes, combined with an army recruiting office and its backdrop declaring, "For God, King and Country"

Bell's production manages to be both comic and tragic. He polishes Shakespeare's own jokes and digs up a few ripe new ones. These pepper the gruesome Agincourt scenes and the long speeches by various lords and the king.

The first half is less certain than the second that romps along. Bell captures the tension, the interminable waiting for battle, the trepidation and self-doubt of the young king as well as his jubilation and nationalism.

Bell also mocks the French mercilessly. They sip champagne as they go into battle, are too lazy even to answer a telephone and boast about their armour. It must be by St Laurent.

One highlight is the stylishly choreographed battle scene (Gavin Robins) in which soldiers fall only to rise and fall again, tumbling over bodies, leaping into each others arms and being rolled and piled and hauled like carcasses.

Another highlight is the final courting scene between Henry (Joel Edgerton) and the high-spirited French Princess, Katherine, played by a magnetic Paula Arundell

Edgerton who also played Henry IV, plays this "plain king" as a patriot, a soldier and a lad with a romantic vision. He is well supported by a fine ensemble including the resonant tones of Rhyss McConnochie, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Terry Bader, Richard Piper and Mark Brady who provide a host of delightful French and English characters.

by Kate Herbert

Boneyard, Aug 26, 1999

 by Mark O'Flynn and Anthony Lawrence

At La Mama until September 12, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

One of women's greatest fears is that men, when left to their own devices, resort to more primitive behaviour. Think about Lord of the Flies. Even little boys degenerated into raging, competitive beasts.

Both Golding's novel and The Boneyard (Mark O'Flynn & Anthony Lawrence) are fiction, but we pray neither are true examples of males in a group without females. If they are, it's time to leave this planet for a better place.

Lawrence and O'Flynn have written a play that vibrates with potential and actual male violence. Four men are incarcerated in the high security wing of a prison. Three are murderers, it seems.

Doyle (Neil Pigot) is a manic junkie with AIDS and some very bizarre behaviour. Cedric, (John Flaus) the model prisoner, is older and has found God since his imprisonment thirteen years earlier.

Sharpe (Hugh Sexton) is the most overtly frightening: a rat-like volatile animal who is "never to be released." Young Smith represents normality, echoing our own anxiety about being in a room with these caged creatures. He is in High Security for his own protection because he is an informer.

The play is compelling in parts, particularly the first half hour. It marries a gritty realism with some more poetic moments. This combination is, perhaps, the outcome of a collaboration between a theatre writer (O'Flynn) and a poet (Lawrence).

Characters are clearly drawn and dialogue is pithy, often hilarious and always surprising. Wendy Joseph's direction is brisk, shaping dynamic shifts with crisp scene changes.

The men are a strong ensemble that creates a diverse, peculiar group of misfit inmates. Pigot, winner of Best Fringe Actor 1998, is exceptional. He plays with relish, .the unpredictable, giggling and dissolute Doyle.

Sexton as Sharpe is terrifying and dangerous while Flaus is mild-mannered but slightly deranged as the born-again Cedric. Webster is suitably bemused and nervous as Smith. The only problem is that all three lapse into inaudibility on occasion. Their loutish foil is the 'screw', played with gleeful power by Matt Norman

The script falters mid-way, losing focus and direction, although it remains interesting in its detail. Perhaps this meandering is intended to reflect the endless prison days. But the play could be more effective with a more coherent narrative through-line.

by Kate Herbert

Big Midnight, Aug 25 1999

 by Lunchtime Theatre

 at The Old Ballroom, Trades Hall until September 10, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Lunch time is not the time for either heavy food or entertainment. For ten years, Lunchtime Theatre (formerly Soup Kitchen) has been providing light, short and breezy shows during the city lunch hour and accompanying them with a mug of pumpkin soup and Potts yummy bread; sounds better than the office canteen, eh?

Big Midnight is more of a consommé than a chunky soup show. A jaded Cinderella, still wearing her ball gown, arrives at the terminal for Pumpkin Airlines'. She awaits the Romantic Millennium Midnight flight that will take her away from her failed marriage.

Along comes a clumsy looking geek in a bad suit and glasses. He is Prince Charming in disguise, come to regain the love of his former bride. The two engage in "adolescent jokes and clumsy courting" in the boarding lounge, watched and criticised by the lonely embittered airhostess.

The show is a musical with the comic-romantic script devised by the three cast Amanda Armstrong, Carmen Mascia, Robert Stephens with director, Greg Dyson designer, Betty France and Charlie Laidlaw.

The music, composed by Stephens, is the highlight. Simple songs are played on accordion by Stephens and sung by the cast. Titles include "I'm in disguise", sung by Prince Charming, "Tonight I'll Dance with You" and a song by Cinderella, "They used to call me Cinderella, Now they call me Sin."

The style of the production is sweet and naive. It has no pretensions, which makes it a little thin in content but it remains charming and entertaining.

The gags are often laboured or obvious and the dialogue could do with a bit of pepping up. This is often a problem with devised text. There can be less substance and the lack of a single writer's vision can dilute the content.

Perhaps this particular problem will be addressed in the later season that has three writers. Beginning the second Lunchtime Theatre season on September 14, is Rooming, three very short plays about hotel rooms written by Tee O'Neill, Yossefa-Even-Shoshan and Michaela Ronzoni.

By Kate Herbert

Burnt Piano, Aug 25, 1999

 by Justin Fleming

 MTC at Fairfax Studio until September 25, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

If works of art were star sign, which would you choose to be born under? Mona Lisa? Too elusive. Hamlet? Too depressive. If you were born under Waiting for Godot, would that make you an absurdist?

Justin Fleming was born on the day Samuel Beckett's Godot opened: January 3, 1953. Burnt Piano, is the outcome of his imaginative exploration of a woman so obsessed with this same coincidence of her own birth, that she stalks poor old Beckett for years.

Karen (Catherine Wilkin) has written innumerable unanswered letters. Finally, in Paris with her father, Pete (Bob Hornery), she sends her son, Jonah (Darcy Bonser) to deliver her missive into which she has poured her whole life.

He meets both Ma and Pa Beckett (Patricia Connolly, Dennis Olsen) who dismiss him. However, he reads mum's letter and discovers that she has betrayed his secrets too.

The play is a study of the dynamics of this family in grief over the death of another son in a fire. "It's not my fault," pleads Jonah, the survivor, echoing the words of the messenger boy in Godot to Vladimir and Estragon. References to Godot are thick on the ground.

Kate Cherry directs the production simply and stylishly on a sleek set by Hugh Colman. Ben Cobham's lighting is evocative and live piano-playing, (Olsen, Connolly) provides the emotion lacking in the text.

Fleming's script is inclined to be glib, almost clinical in style when not being witty. His characters elicit little sympathy. They present arguments, which reflects Fleming's other life as a barrister.

"Beckett is arguably the best writer of the 20th century," challenges Karen. Dad argues the point - and all others. Pete is recalcitrant, bluff and, a writer himself, more interested in plot than form, unlike Beckett.

 Karen is relentless, self-centred and not very motherly. Her dialogue lacks variation. In fact, the men seem to get all the great lines. Hornery milks his very funny dialogue and Olsen revels in Beckett's mild Irish cynicism. It is ironic that Beckett, the reclusive, publicity-shy writer, communicates most clearly in this play.

The second half of the play is more engaging and contains the best scene: a witty word play between the Becketts over a game of chess. It seems appropriate given that Beckett seems to play chess inside his own mind in his writing.

by Kate Herbert

Clive Potter: Poet, Aug 19, 1999

 by Anthony Breslin

at Theatreworks until September 5, 1999

It is nothing short of courageous to write, direct, design and perform one's first play. "Courageous" is here intended in the inverted Sir Humphrey Appleby sense.

Visual artist, Anthony Breslin, has written a script that deals with grief, death, creative failure, sexual 'coming out' and suicide: all very dense and emotive issues.

Clive Potter: Poet is about a young man, who is played, for some reason, by a young woman (Ruth Blakely). Clive's father has suicided, his publisher, (Don Bridges) ignores his poetry and he is bemused and confused by his emerging sexual preference.

At two and a half hours, the play is about an hour too long. It needs some ruthless editing and some dramaturgical advice. There are, however, some effective and affecting moments such as Clive's coming out phone call to his mother.

Much of the rest of the play comprises either overly long monologues from Clive, intermittently comic sketches with broad clown characters, or awkwardly emotional dialogues between mum (Roberta Connelly) and Clive or Clive and his elusive lover, Night (Anthony Breslin). There is also a mime artist on stage (Paul Roberts OK) consistently, evidently forcing Clive's fate.

The monologues are repetitive, dialogues with mum are written in poor rhyme and the scenes with Night are riddled with pedestrian philosophy.

These styles do not form a cohesive whole in this play that takes far too long to get to its point.  It lacks dramatic tension or dramatic action.

After 90 minutes, when Clive finally confronts his smarmy boss (Alan King) and the publisher, the narrative looks more promising but this is followed by a drawn out suicide attempt which dissipates the energy.

The actors work hard in a play which struggles to find its style. Blakely performs quite well with such weighty text and Bridges, King and Mark Wilson provide sound comic relief. Particularly good was Connelly as mother.

Breslin's dartboard/chessboard design is very clever and elaborate but does not serve the text. It is not aided by a clumsy lighting design (Susanne Kean).

This hero's journey could do with a clearer map. It is very difficult to sit through, especially in a very under-heated Theatreworks.

By Kate Herbert

Bob Downe Million Sellers, Aug 18 1999

at The Continental Cafe until September 5, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It's time to recast The Boy from Oz. Bob Downe has the cheesy dance steps, an even cheesier grin, a collection shirts to weep for and several dozen 60's and 70's hit songs. He is also as camp as Rosebud in January and he even has a showbiz "girlfriend" to fool the world into believing he is straight.

Million Sellers is relentlessly funny. It is Bob Downe at his absolute tip-top. He leaves your face hurting and the groovy opening night audience at The Continental Cafe howling for more.

Downe, if you have been on another planet for a few years and do not know, is the alter ego of Mark Trevorrow, who is seen on Good News Week occasionally, singing love duets with Paul McDermott.

In Million Sellers, he sings duets and medleys with Pastel Vespa, a colourful and dizzy Brazilian-Italian club singer whom he met when she jumped ship from an Italian cruise liner cabaret act. Her op-art moo-moos rival even Bob's lime green seersucker suit. The two are accompanied by musical director, John Thorn, who plays up a storm.

Bob's guest, Pastel Vespa, is a vapid try-hard cabaret singer who could have been a loser of the Eurovision Song Contest. She is a good foil for Bob.  Despite Pastel's perky presence and songstress persona, she is no competition for Bob's rapid fire gags and ridiculous crooning style derived from every act ever seen on an RSL club stage.

The humour is both camp and parochial. Bob thinks he is world class but his stardom is local: he has toured the North Coast of NSW. He is the master of kitsch and the king of suburbia. His material is perversely Australian. He refers to Bernard King, Vesta Nasi Goreng, the CWA, Knox City and chops for dinner.

Bob has an ego the size of the universe and a personality as loud as his sunshine yellow crimplene suit. He encapsulates the vacuous vanity and petty jealousy of the B-grade celebrity and never recognises his "nobody" status. Every line, joke or song is accompanied by a flurry of Channel Nine Dancers' choreography, with twirls grapevines and skips.

The song list is a litany of hits: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, Sunshine of My Life, Do it to Me One More Time, Windmills of My Mind, Summer Wine. It's a great singalong with the flavour of Peter Allen, Trini Lopez, Don Lane, Sonny and Cher and Denise and Ernie.

By Kate Herbert

Little Brother and A Party in Fitzroy, Aug 12 1999

Little Brother and A Party in Fitzroy

by Ross Mueller at Trades Hall until August 28, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Perhaps it was not coincidental that the opening night of Little Brother at the Trades Hall coincided with the industrial relations protest rally in Melbourne. The play addresses issues arising in a family with a communist father, a catholic mother, a radical daughter and a union-bashing son.

Ross Mueller, who is writer, musician and performer in this show, has written better plays than this. No Man's Island was an interesting script but Little Brother is disappointing because it lacks coherence, cohesion and sophistication. Even the direction by Peter Houghton could not save it.

He is teamed with Lucy Jones, composer, singer and performer with whom he produced Steel and Rust last year. Little Brother is an awkward mixture of original songs, scenes with the dysfunctional family and some very peculiar snapshots of a trio of young groovers in a cafe who read about the famous family's breakdown in the press over a macchiato and a gossip.

The show might be better served by focussing on the interactions between the siblings and parents. Mum is invisible, which is a pity. She could provide the emotional balance that the piece needs.

The monologues or narrations by dad are uncomfortable and ill-placed although there are some funny and pertinent gags about communists, the media and society.

Jones songs lack any variety. The melodies are repetitious and Mueller's lyrics, some of which are quite pithy, do not scan. It is a pity to do a musical show with two unremarkable voices which are not well balanced and with such mediocre songs.

Much more entertaining and with far better dramatic construction was A Party in Fitzroy, directed simply and effectively by Aidan Fennessy. Being a monologue, it is a less ambitious piece with no political content but has an engaging character performed with wit and sensitivity by Luke Elliot as the blokey, funny fan.

The character is an ardent fan of former Melbourne rock band, Weddings, Parties, Anything. The break up of the band echoes the deterioration of his personal life as he loses his love and his best friend.

Mueller's dialogue here is well observed and familiar to anyone who knows the band or even the pub band scene. This was a much better half hour in the theatre than Little Brother.

By Kate Herbert

Who's Afraid of the Working Class? Aug 11 1999

by Melbourne Workers' Theatre 

written by Patricia Cornelius, Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves 

 music by Irine Vela

at Trades Hall until August 14, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It should come as no surprise that Jeff Kennett cops a hefty serve of vitriol in the opening monologue of Who's Afraid of the Working Class?

It is the working class or, rather, the workless class, which has suffered most from the policies of this state government.

This is the return season of this production by Melbourne Workers' Theatre, a company that, thankfully, has not lost sight of its role as the mouthpiece of the disenfranchised worker. The show has lost non of its power, humour or despair. It is an emotional roller coaster ride.

The script comprises four narrative threads written by Patricia Cornelius, (Money) Andrew Bovell, (Trash) Melissa Reeves (Dreamtown) and Christos Tsiolkas (Suit). The four are interwoven over the 150 minutes. It is very satisfying to find characters from apparently disconnected stories, being mentioned or even strolling through other parts of the play.

Daniela Farinacci and Maria Theodorakis are credible and hilarious in Reeves story about two 'wog" girls from Coburg who try shoplifting in disguise as private school girls.

Bovell's tale of two children damaged and alone, victims of their hapless mother's boyfriend's violence, is a poignant and finally tragic reminder of life on the other side of the tracks.

Tsiolkas' text is a series of scenes built around a middle-class aboriginal man. (Tony Briggs). It is horrifying to hear him abuse and demean a white whore (Eugenia Fragos) in a violent, colour-prejudiced language. Although the writing is strong, there is less cohesive development of the narrative in his individual components.

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David Adamson's radio manic, talkback radio "autodidact" is still a highlight of the play.

Secrets and resentments are the mortar in the family in Cornelius' Money. Father is out of work, son is a thief and mother secretly and devotedly nurses a dying man for extra cash.

The pain and tragedy, the sense of repression and failure is enervating but it is alleviated by the sunny and funny moments in the play. Julian Meyrick has done a clever balancing act with the four sections of the text, making mileage out of scene changes.

Lighting by Paul Jackson is evocative and dramatic with backlight outside the Trades Hall windows colouring trees in the street. the entire program is accompanied by Irene Vela's sonorous Requiem for the Working Class, played by Adam Merange, Dean Addison and Nick Tsiavos which vibrate in the belly with the anguish of the characters.

We need more of this political theatre. Surely we still have the fight inus.

By Kate Herbert

A Major Event: Rod Quantock, July 28 1999

The Final Report from the Comedian General on the state of the State Written and performed by Rod Quantock at Trades Hall until September 4, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The words "politics" and "absurd" should be incompatible but Rod Quantock provides plenty of evidence to the contrary. To our left-leaning Comedian General, the phrase "democratic Victoria" is an oxymoron. In fact, the state  he believes the state is filled with several brands of ordinary morons.

Can it be true that this is Rod's Final Report on the State of the State? After years of acerbic political satire, Quantock says he is hanging up his chalk and blackboard and handing in his anti-Kennett placard. I don't believe him. I don't want to believe that, just because everything has been sold off in Victoria, he has no more to say.

The title, A Major Event, should at least get him a government grant. No. Not possible evidently because he is a vigorous government critic. His popularity, then, should place the event on the state's calendar. No. He doesn't drive ridiculously fast cars or cut down trees or design huge pointy buildings nor knock over heritage terraces.

He doesn't own newspapers or casinos or banks. He is not part of the 60% who approve of Jeff. He doesn't have Alan Stockdale's eyebrows or John Laws voice or Packer's money.

Do you get my drift? Quantock is one in a million - 18 million actually. His is a finely honed mind and he has created another intelligent, informed, charming yet worrying show. It is also screamingly funny..

The old chalkboard makes its final appearance in the appallingly designed Council Chambers at the Trades Hall. Quantock scrawls his creative equations, eccentric diagrams and mad theories all over the board until everything is overwritten and interwoven. Power, money, privatisation, E-Tag and poker machines all blur into one great catastrophe that is Victorian politics: tragic and somehow hilarious.

He says there is nothing more to be done. Marches do not work. Victorians could not even muster the energy to publicly protest over the elimination of tram conductors much less that of trams, hospitals or schools. 

He finishes this, his "last" show, (think of Melba's farewell gigs) with a call for solutions to the problem from the audience.  Even if you voted for Jeff, you might have to laugh. If not, we are truly doomed to a laugh-free zone into the next millennium.

By Kate Herbert

Stolen by Jane Harrison, July 25 1999

Stolen by Jane Harrison

 at Beckett Theatre Malthouse, July 24 until August, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

This second season of Stolen, by Jane Harrison is, theatrically, a smoother ride but is still a emotional roller coaster. The stories of five aboriginal children who were stolen from their families are so achingly sad that they are difficult to watch.

This is not to suggest that the play is all trauma and darkness. It is a romp in parts, with some sweet and funny moments. We watch children at play, being naughty, missing mum, keeping secrets, hoping for home. We hear myths about the creation of the white man who stole babies and the evolution of the red desert sand.

The play went to stage initially during the Melbourne Festival last year, in a co-production by Ilbijjeri Theatre Co-operative and Playbox. The script has involved many artists in its development that may be the reason it does not have one consistent voice.

This revival replaces two actors. Lisa Maza demonstrates substantial acting skill as Ruby, the child who becomes the target of a white man's abuse. Elliot Maynard plays Jimmy who, as a child, awaits his mum's return to collect him until he is told, falsely, that she is dead.

Shirley (Pauline Whyman) is a sturdy girl who, as an adult, is determined to find her own children who were also stolen. Sandy (Stan Yarramunua) is a wanderer who ran from the welfare as a tot and continues to search for "home". Anne, (Tammy Anderso)  the palest-skinned child adopted by a white family, is torn between two families and two cultures.

The company is strong ensemble that is enhanced by Wesley Enoch's vision as a director. The script is a non-linear narrative that merges past with present. Enoch uses stylised physicalisation to heighten dialogue and adds simple visual imagery with projections against Richard Roberts evocative demolition site. Stark lighting (Matt Scott) creates deep shadows through metal beds that double as gaol. The soundscape by David Chesworth is atmospheric.

The performances capture the charm and warmth of this community who have suffered so much at the hands of the white brothers and sisters. But it is the actors' personal statements at the very end that set the tears rolling. The audience could have applauded for hours if the cast had not left the stage.

By Kate Herbert

The Prima Facie Kid, July 22 1999

 written and performed by Angus Cerini

at La Mama until August 2, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Angus Cerini has an enormous power generator secreted somewhere in La Mama. He burn so much energy during his 70 minute solo show, The Prima Facie Kid, that on can almost see sparks fly from him.

This is the fourth in a series of short works Cerini has written and performed since 1997. The others are Recidivist, Dennis is Dead and F...wit. They all focus on issues of male violence, which Cerini believes must be addressed or rather confronted by his generation.

The Prima Facie Kid, directed by Karen Corbett, falls into two distinct parts. In the first, Cerini is an agitated clown who, we discover, entertains sick and dying children in hospital. He is driven by his quest to help the children forget their grief and pain. This character and his story make very moving theatre and could have successfully sustained the entire play.

However, he is so overwhelmed by his ongoing contact with such tragedy that he becomes the proverbial sad clown,  drunk clown, to be precise. Cerini's writing is a grab bag of hilarious dialogue, non-sequiturs, TV references, social commentary and naughtiness.

The clown remains pivotal in the second half and there are some fascinating ideas, allusions and characters but there is far less cohesion or clarity in the narrative. It is extremely confusing for this weary brain.

A powerful character is introduced as a story told by the clown. He is tattooed dad who murdered a child abuser. After this interlude, the clown is more wretched, drinker and the dialogue is interrupted by quick television news style grabs from a court case.

Cerini is a fine talent with exceptional energy and director Karen Corbett has kept the pace pumping and filled the space with emotional action. The play could benefit from the odd silence or stillness to accent the rest of this relentless toboggan ride but it is a potent piece with something to say.

Kate Herbert

Shadows and Light , John Bolton, 21 July 1999

Written and performed by John Bolton 

at Trades Hall until August 6, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

It is refreshing to be spoken to in the theatre. 

Usually we sit in darkness and listen and, if we are naughty, whisper the odd comment to our neighbour. John Bolton seems to look each one of us in the eye and have a personal chat about his life in art and love and Zen Buddhism.

Of course, he doesn't only talk. Bolton, who only recently closed his acting school in Williamstown, is a consummate mime and clown who trained in Paris in the 70's at L'Ecole Jacques Le Coq. Paris features prominently in Shadows and Light.

The art of storytelling is a subtle one and Bolton has a very individual and effective style that could be called "self narration": That is, he tells the story while he plays it physically. He even adds songs and costumes and some audience participation. the style is warm, charming and ever so engaging. You'll wish you had a cup of tea and bun by the fire.

The show is a series of anecdotes. It begin with his childhood in England which is told through shadow puppets. The drama school tales are hilarious because of the myriad British characters he plays, shifting from one to t'other without missing an accent.

Bolton peoples the stage with characters, all of who are believable an complete. Extraordinarily, they bleed into his own narration as he tells his own story.

He performed in a children's theatre troupe in Edinburgh, (hence the audience participation) busked through France, met, a mad drunken American, his wife-to-be and, finally, arrived at mime school in Paris. All these acting school types are more hilarious if you've worked in this environment with such pompous egomaniacs, but they are funny even without the personal experience.

The piece moves swiftly until the more poignant and intimate moments about his parents and death. There are moments toward the end, when there is a touch too much sentimentalism as he lights lamps to commemorate particular people. However, such honesty is lacking on the mainstage and we could do with more real sentiment rather than less.

The amazing thing is that Bolton manages to make Buddhism as funny as clowns. It is a very sweet show. I laughed out loud - very loud.

By Kate Herbert