With The Dark, Feb 28, 2009 **1/2

With The Dark by James Adler

Eagles Nest Theatre Northcote Town Hall, Feb 25 to March 7, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

The first half of With The Dark, by James Adler, is a play about a writer struggling to overcome depression and lack of confidence. In the second half it transforms into a different play – an allegorical, Grimm-style fairytale.

Rosemary Johns directs this production with an emphasis on the comical elements, despite it being about the black dog of depression and the dark inner reaches of the human psyche. James Shaw is Mann, the young, angst-ridden writer who doubts his talent, his life choices and his sanity. Shaw has a strong raw energy but performs with a little too much stress and anxiety, causing him to shout and sweat more than is comfortable.

Mann tumbles often into bed to sleep and avoid his psychic angst but is haunted by his inner ghosts (Alicia Benn-Lawler, Joanne Davis) that lurk under his bed. The most telling and possibly interesting characters is the Voice (Geoff Wallis) who lounges around Mann’s home, sipping tea and mouthing cheerful platitudes and making optimistic suggestions. Wallis delighted the audience with his wry humour, deft comic timing and surprising choices with what is sometimes limiting dialogue.

Then we embark on the allegorical hero’s journey into the dreamlike, dark forest where Mann encounters a wacky, royal court (think Alice in Wonderland) with a very funny and pompous, accented King (Phil Zachariah) and a roller-skating Queen (Belinda Di Vito). Mann must help a lost child (Davis) find her grandma (Benn-Lawler) who was taken by the wicked dark beast. Wallis, wearing a loud shirt and jokey devil’s horns and looking like a Las Vegas comedian, balances menace and comedy as the beast-demon.

At times Adler’s dialogue becomes florid or predictable but the production is engaging and entertaining. The self-referential story about a writer struggling to find his art does not break new ground but it keeps us interested.

By Kate Herbert

Moonlight and Magnolias, MTC Feb 26, 2009 ***

Moonlight and Magnolias 

By Ron Hutchinson, Melbourne Theatre Company

Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Feb 26 to March 28, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 26, 2009

Stars:***

Ron Hutchinson’s play, Moonlight and Magnolias, takes its title from a description of the American South in Margaret Mitchell’s gaspingly long and hugely popular 1930’s novel, Gone With The Wind. Although the movie with Vivien Leigh was enormously successful, its inception was fraught with conflict.

Producer David O. Selznick (Patrick Brammall) famously stopped the movie three weeks into shooting, sacked the director and the script then hauled screenwriter, Ben Hecht (Nicholas Hammond), and director, Victor Fleming (Stephen Lovatt), into his office, with only a Remington typewriter and a stash of bananas and peanuts, to rewrite the biggest movie ever made – in five days.

The play peers through an MGM office window to witness the agonising rewrite. The creative chaos, haggling and total exhaustion of the characters, and the unbelievable mess they create, provide plenty of material for verbal and physical comedy. The trio alternately snipe, praise and blame. They attack each other’s credentials, skills, politics, relationships and values as they struggle to overcome fear and panic at their seemingly unachievable task.

Some of the funniest scenes depict Brammall and Lovatt re-enacting the entire movie for Hecht who, to the astonishment of Selznick, has not read the book. Brammall portrays a pert and pouting Scarlett O’Hara while Lovatt recreates hilarious characters including Prissy the black maid, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard. The audience’s recognition of characters and scenes stimulates much laughter.

The actors make the most of Hutchinson’s dialogue that captures the acerbic language and one-line “zingers” that characterised the American movies of the 30’s. Bruce Beresford’s production is tightly directed and set in an opulent Hollywood office (Shaun Gurton).

The acting is accomplished. Brammall embodies the brash rudeness and manic energy of Selznick, Hammond portrays Hecht with a supercilious and cynical humour and Lovatt finds comedy in the macho arrogance of Fleming. Marg Downey provides an hilarious cameo as Selznick’s beleaguered, obliging and endlessly patient secretary, Miss Poppenguhl (OK).

Despite the audience’s obvious enjoyment and the apparent success of the play in other countries, the script repeats itself, returning to the same arguments about Jewish politics in Hollywood, writers being castigated, attacks by Fleming and Hecht on each other’s movies, snipes about Selznick’s marriage and his father -in-law.

There can be no dramatic tension in this play because we know the outcome. The script is completed, the movie is made and it goes down in history. It feels more like a long, comic sketch than a play – but it is funny.

By Kate Herbert

Wretch, Feb 19, 2009 ***1/2

Wretch by Angus Cerini

La Mama, Carlton, Feb 19 to March 8, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

In Wretch, winner of the 2007 Patrick White Playwright’s Award, Angus Cerini and Suzie Dee are both compelling and repellent as the damaged and almost demented mother and son. Cerini often writes about male violence in our community and this play is a prime example.

Wretch focuses intensely on the two characters and their fraught and dysfunctional relationship. Their interaction takes place when the mother (Dee) visits her son (Cerini) in a juvenile detention centre where he serves a sentence for beating a man and rendering him a quadriplegic. Their meeting is tortured and confused as the pair attempts to understand each other, their past, his crimes and her illness.

The actors perch on chairs facing the audience, the awkwardness of their meeting emphasised by the stark white cube (Marg Horwell) within which they sit. Their faces are mask-like, frozen in grimaces that echo the screaming pain of their lives. The white walls and floor are illuminated with harsh fluorescent light (Richard Vabre) that makes the couple look like human exhibits in a museum. Underscoring their relationship is an eerie sound scape (Kelly Ryall).

Cerini’s writing blends coarse, realistic dialogue with a rough, fractured, poetic language. Mother and son scramble to communicate in broken sentences that express their muddled thoughts, clumsy love and desperate need for connection.

Dee’s portrayal of the mother is sympathetic and delicately wrought. Sporting pink tracky-dacks and tee-shirt, she is the epitome of a down-market bogan. But her naivete and tentativeness, combined with her fierce desire to protect and love her son, invite our sympathy and attention. She slowly reveals her past as a cheap hooker who does not know the identity of her boy’s father then hesitantly tells of  “the sick” that riddles her body and claims her cancerous breast.

As the loutish boy, Cerini vibrates with the barely repressed rage of a young man who has only ever known insecurity, violence, poverty and despair. His presence is magnetic and sometimes frightening, but Cerini manages to find the tender underbelly of this uncouth man-boy who struggles to understand his own violent crimes and his fear of losing his mother to her illness.

Both actors are powerful throughout and Dee’s direction is taut, keeping the physical action to a minimum but the dramatic tension on full. The script has a few false endings in the latter half and seems to repeat itself, but the strong acting sustains the play making it a vivid depiction of two members of an underclass fighting for survival.

By Kate Herbert

ABBAMANIA, Crown Casino, Feb 18, 2009 ***1/2

ABBAMANIA

When & Where: The Palms, Crown Casino, Feb 18 to March 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

Whether you are a fan or not, there is no denying that the songs of Swedish pop group, ABBA, are catchy. They pass “the old grey whistle test”. (i.e. Ii you play them to old blokes, they’ll be whistling the tune the next day.)

The tunes also trigger the get-up-and-dance impulse and that is just what the crowd at ABBAMANIA did. They swayed, bumped, clapped, waved and did the finger-pointing dance to Mamma Mia. ABBA attract a seriously daggy crowd but they certainly know how to have a good time and they know all the lyrics.

ABBA generated myriad tribute bands and this English show has been running since 1999. On stage are look alikes for the quartet. Bjorn (Mark Thomas) plays guitar and Benny (Phil Hawkes) piano. Although four singers alternate in the roles of Agnetha and Frida, I saw the sassy and rich-voiced Katy Summer as Agnetha and Carly Broom playing a rather under-stated Anni-Frid.

Two backing singers (Lydia Griffiths, Laura Chapple) and 11 musicians including eight string players support them with a big orchestral sound based on Bjrn and Benny’s original arrangements.

The hit tunes kept coming. The crowd went wild over peppy tunes such as Waterloo, Mamma Mia, Money Money Money, Super Trouper and Summer’s version of the raunchy Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! They leapt to their feet for the deliciously twee Dancing Queen and popular SOS.

 They sighed and moaned at the recognisable first chords of romantic ballads such as I Do, I Do, I Do and Fernando then Summer knocked their socks off with a haunting solo of The Winner Takes It All. The original ABBA harmonies are featured and the swelling sound and emotional lyrics still affect the audience.

Of course we can’t ignore the cheesy, designed-for-non-dancers 70s choreography and retro costumes that boast more silver knee-high boots, lame’, lycra and white jump suits than should be legal.

ABBA is never going away. They won Eurovision in 1974 and they keep having revivals so, if you loved them then, you’re gunna love ABBAMANIA.

By Kate Herbert

Friday Night, In Town, Feb 12, 2009 ***1/2

Friday Night, In Town by Kieran Carroll, La Mama

Carlton Courthouse, La Mama, Feb 11 to  Feb 21, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 12, 2009

Stars: ***1/2

If you peered into a home, a bar or a laneway on a Friday night in Melbourne, you might witness scenes such as those in Kieran Carroll’s Friday Night, In Town. The play is a patchwork made up of multiple stories, each with discrete and separate characters. All of the relationships and stories have merit as snapshots of people in the city although some are more effective or absorbing than others.

The most compelling theatrical element of the entire evening is a monologue performed with passion and sensitivity by Jeremy Kewley at the end of the second half. Our interest is piqued when his agitated character walks into an inner city bar then downs a beer, a whisky and a vodka chaser in quick succession. We are captivated by the story he tells about his confrontation with his womanising friend, and his revelations about his teenage daughter are chilling.

There is an edge of danger and suspense in the tale of a Brighton boy (Alex Marriott) who finds himself trapped on a bar stool between a sneering, tattooed petty crim (John King) and his giggling and drunk girlfriend (Alison Bennett).

While waiting for a cancelled train (sound familiar?), an elderly man (Lex Ross) meets an anxious young woman (Kristy Barnes-Cullen). There is a melancholy charm in this story as they strike up an unusual friendship that is healing to both.

The other stories involve a couple of builders chatting up two birds in a pub before a footy match, a drunk Russian woman swilling merlot and her lonely, divorced neighbour and a man and woman who both love the same man.

It is rare to see 16 actors on stage anywhere other than a major theatre company. Director, Noel Anderson, keeps most actors onstage throughout the two hours that sometimes provides depth to the space and volume to the vocal quality. However often, the stage simply looks crowded for no reason.

The scene changes are slow, the languorous pace of the show needs variation and the acting is inconsistent with a few highlights. But this collection of city stories is strangely fascinating.

By Kate Herbert

I Love You, Bro, Feb 11, 2009 ****

I Love You, Bro  

By Adam J.A.Cass, Malthouse Theatre

The Tower, Malthouse Theatre, Feb 11 to 28, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

Ash Flanders, in I Love You, Bro, is like a taut wire waiting to snap. He is magnetic as the isolated, disturbed and disturbing 14 year-old English boy who lives and loves through internet chat rooms while downstairs his single mother is beaten by his step-father.

 “Johnny-Boy” (his chat room name) creates an eccentric and profoundly theatrical world in which he inhabits multiple characters including a teenage girl, her vulnerable younger brother, a young thug and two female secret agents.  The extraordinary thing is that Adam Cass’s play is based on a true story that occurred in Manchester in 2003, although the real boy created an even more elaborate and unbelievable web of deception. The story ends in violence, despair and shame.

Flanders peoples the stage with a parade of characters. We watch Johnny-Boy fall in love on line with “Marky-Mark”, a muscular and obviously gullible 16 year-old footballer who lives in the same town. In the chat room, Johnny-Boy role-plays a cute girl called “AlbaJ” (Jessica Alba) and dupes Mark into internet sex with him/her.

The entire story escalates out of control as Johnny-Boy’s lies and fantasies become more and more convoluted to keep Mark interested in “this fag love of two non-fags”. It is astonishing that Mark never questions the crazy story. Maybe teenagers in Manchester are so bored they will believe anything.

The sparse design (Jason Lehane) incorporates projected snatches of cyber-text and dim lighting isolates Johnny in a bleak, otherworldly environment that reflects his fragile mental state. He inhabits anonymous cyberspace where he is only limited by his imagination – and that seems limitless.

Yvonne Virsik’s direction keeps the focus firmly on Flanders and his compelling characterisations. Cass’s play has the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, complete with flawed hero. I Love You Bro is a treat.

By Kate Herbert

Zanna Don’t! Feb 4, 2009 ***

 Zanna Don’t!  

Book, music, & lyrics by Tim Acito; additional book & lyrics by Alexander Dinelaris, by Quirky Productions

Chapel off Chapel  Feb 4 to 14, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 4, 2009

Stars:***

The 2003 Off-Broadway production of Tim Acito’s, Zanna Don’t! launched the career of Jai Rodriguez of Queer Eye fame. It won the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Anti-Defamation) award which tells you something about the content.

Zanna Don’t! is a funny and warm musical about young love. Although the show is not overtly political, Heartsville High exists in an alternative universe in which homosexuality is the norm and chess-players, not football stars, are sex symbols. Zanna (Samuel Kitchen) has magical matchmaker powers; he waves his sparkly wand and students fall in love.

He matches lonely quarterback, Steve (Nic Riley), with Mike (Chris Buchanan), the Chess Club star. Then he weaves his spell over tough Roberta (Jessica Carbone) and mechanical bull rider, Kate (Kate Williams). But Zanna’s plans go awry when Mike writes a controversial school revue about heterosexuals in the military and Steve and Kate kiss on stage then fall in love.

This Melbourne ensemble is cute, charming and energetic as the spunky teens. Luke Gallagher’s direction is slick and choreography by Tamara Finch and James Rooney is sassy. The five-piece band, lead by Julia Buchanan, does justice to Tim Acito’s music and its mix of popular styles including rockabilly, disco and lyrical love ballads. Andrew Bellchambers backdrop is sensational.

Apart from the title’s allusion to Xanadu, there are satirical references to musicals including Grease and Godspell. All the songs are about aspects of love (another musical title?). It opens with the vivacious Who’s Got Extra Love? by Zanna and cast, its lyrics cleverly establishing the story and characters in the first five minutes.

 Buchanan and Riley’s voices blend well in the duet, I Think We’ve Got Love. The narrative changes when, later, Buchanan and Williams sing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a more poignant duet about heterosexual love. The pain of illicit love is even more potent in the quartet, Don’t You Wish We Could be in Love?

There are several rollicking tunes. Carbone belts out with zest her song about wasting time on unfaithful lovers, I Ain’t Got Time. When she falls in love with Kate at the mechanical bull practice, the ensemble sings, Ride ‘Em, a country-style hootenanny.  Luke Taylor and Drew Downing are a riot singing Fast, a rapid-fire, rockabilly patter duet.

Zanna Don’t! takes the standard musical “boy meets girl” narrative by the scruff of the neck and gives it a good shake. This production is worth a look.

By Kate Herbert

The 39 Steps, Jan 22, 2009 ***1/2

Adapted by Patrick Barlow from Alfred Hitchcock

Playhouse, Arts Centre Jan 22 to Feb 15, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

An action thriller, espionage, murder, police pursuits and a beautiful blonde sound like ingredients of the Bourne or Bond movies of our decade. 

However Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps was made in 1935. Hitch knew how to titillate an audience with action, suspense and sex so he adapted John Buchan’s 1915 novel, stripping away the British Imperialist blather and adding a sexy blonde and rapid-fire action.

Now we have Patrick Barlow’s satirical stage adaptation of Hitchcock, using physical comedy to replicate the movie thriller style in stage action. It is a physical comedian’s dream and the audience claps like seals at every sight gag.

The dashing hero, Richard Hannay (Mark Pegler), visits a performance by Mr. Memory where he meets Anabella (Helen Christinson), “a beautiful, mysterious woman pursued by gunmen,” who is later murdered in his London flat. Hannay flees when he is accused of her murder and becomes embroiled in the hunt for a villain who is stealing British military intelligence.

Barlow and director Maria Aitken employ every comic trick to translate the rollicking tale to the stage. The comedy arises from the sheer inventiveness of using four actors to play dozens of characters with mad accents. It also gets laughs from the idiocy of trying to create film reality on stage (the train chase is a riot) and by repeatedly referring to the failure of theatrical devices: late lighting cues, dropped lines, actors playing objects or dragging on props to create a location.

The audience is tickled when two actors (Russell Fletcher, Jo Turner) playing multiple characters switch rapidly between characters with the twitch of a hat or change of accent – a classic clown routine. Turner and Fletcher relish playing characters including Scottish police, villainous spies, farmers, station masters, paper boys, milkmen, landladies and an entire bagpipe parade.

Hitchcock’s style is so ripe for satire and the surprising simplicity of comic invention makes us laugh, as does the wry, English humour. Barlow incorporates references to Hitch’s movies: “I have vertigo”, says Christinson as Pamela, the perky and petulant blonde to whom Hannay is handcuffed.

Pegler captures the toffy-nosed voice and earnest posturing of the heroic, pencil-moustached Hannay. Christinson is charming and funny as a German spy, pretty Scottish farm girl and delicate English rose.

But without the versatile and hilarious Turner and Fletcher to create the entire landscape and parade of characters, this uproarious comedy could not succeed.

By Kate Herbert

How To Direct From The Inside, Jan 21, 2009 **

By Ephiny Gale

La Mama, Jan 21 to Feb 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:**

There is something prettily decadent about the staging of How To Direct From The Inside by Ephiny Gale.  With its collection of dolls, rocking chair and dolls’ tea-sets spread across the floor, the tiny interior of La Mama becomes the jumbled, old-fashioned bedroom of a little girl.

Six young women, most dressed decoratively in tattered, spattered petticoats, perch amongst the detritus. Susie (Steph Lillis), hugging a doll, peers through a high window; Kat (Kate Dix) and Anne (Amy Jenkins) sway rhythmically on the rocking chair; Jacq (Syrie Payne) reclines behind a fabric screen.

Illia (Charlotte Strantzen) strides across the stage intermittently, giving instructions as the “director,” and Blue (Kiloran Hiscock), the lead, communicates with us and with them.

The problem is that form completely overwhelms content. The themes are so opaque and the structure so convoluted that the play fails to tell its story – unless we read the program notes.

There are too many characters on and off stage. The six on-stage women are evidently metaphors for the body and mind of Blue – imagination, circulation, memory, brain. Seven other characters (apparently the dolls) are mentioned but they are so confusing it is impossible to understand their roles as part of Blue. Then there is a further metaphor overlaid; they are the cast and crew of a theatrical production. Confused yet?

Director, Clara Pagone, attempts to elucidate themes, characters and relationships by visual means but, in the end, there are just too many characters and far too much exposition. Ironically, Blue begins the play by saying that she hates monologues and exposition.

There is certainly commitment from the entire cast to explore these themes of identity through metaphor and language but, in the end, the play is almost impenetrable without program notes.

By Kate Herbert

Sandwiches , Jan 21, 2009 ***

Sandwiches 

By Elise Hearst & Nicholas Coghlan, by Melbourne Town Players

75 St. Georges Rd, Fitzroy, Jan 21 to Feb 7, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

There is much to recommend the inaugural production of this new company, Melbourne Town Players. Sandwiches is compellingly performed by Terry Yeboah (Billy) and Lauren Urquhart (Paula) playing the brother and sister who, although adults, seem to be trapped in childhood roles and memories.

The script by Elise Hearst & Nicholas Coghlan is evocative and lyrical. It is not a linear narrative but rather an exploration of the relationship between brother and sister interspersed with the private musings, secrets, obsessions and dreams of both Billy and Paula. They recall stories about their mother and conjure up childhood games such as the almost forgotten skipping rhyme, Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush.

On an old suitcase turntable they each play vinyl albums that resonate, reminding them of poignant or comical stories from their past. The music ranges from nursery rhymes to classical music and 1950s rock and roll tunes to which they dance as if in an old-fashioned dance hall.

Yeboah and Urquhart are an engaging and playful duo. They slip in and out of adult communication and childlike petulance, echoing the brother-sister patterns of childhood. Ming-Zhu Hii (OK) directs them imaginatively, layering the relationship with simple physical activities such as dancing and drawing.

The performance is in a room over a shopfront so the design cleverly incorporates the Edwardian wooden fireplace. It is an intimate show for a dozen people who perch precariously on stools. Beware! On a hot night it is almost suffocating up there – but hand-held fans, water and wine are provided.

By Kate Herbert

Tennis Elbow Family Circus, Jan 20, 2009 ***1/2

Tennis Elbow Family Circus by Dislocate

Spiegelworld Melbourne Park, Australian Open Tennis Festival,Jan 20- Feb 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

Dislocate has a cute family circus show called Tennis Elbow – and, funnily, it’s at the Australian Tennis Open. The three acrobats, Kate Fryer, DJ . Geoffrey … , perform a 45 minute show that is a melange of circus apparatus routines, acrobatics, slapstick and comic patter, with some audience participation thrown into the mix.

To get to the venue you need to negotiate a path through Melbourne Park, past sunburnt tennis freaks sitting on lawns staring at a huge screen watching Federer beat everybody else. You’ll get to the Spiegeltent and everything will be cool – if the air con is working.

The trio move effortlessly with each other – an outcome of their long history as a company. They integrate complex balances with two or three bodies as well as acrobatic leaps and tumbling to create relationships and story.

Geoffrey plays the goofy fool who makes mistakes, turns the wrong way, misses cues, misunderstands directions and causes crashes and falls. Of course the kids are delighted by an accident, especially if nobody is really hurt. His spinning rope routine tickled the kids and adults.

Petite Kate grins relentlessly at the children and keeps trying to introduce her guitar act. She does so with air guitar when she performs her comic but skilful tissu routine – a ground to air act that involves climbing swathes of fabric.

DJ plays the leader of the gang, always comically trying to inject professionalism into the show. His routine on straps is a display of strength and flexibility that still maintains a relationship with the children. This is unusual in circus acts as the strenuousness of the technique often precludes much communication.

The show is playful, engaging and skilful. There are laughs and gasps of astonishment from all the family.

By Kate Herbert

The Horseman From The Snowy River, Jan 19.2009 ****

The Horseman From The Snowy River  

By Rene Gasser, Burnley Ova, from Jan 19, 2009, Touring 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

It’s not merely memories of my romantic, childhood fantasies about owning a pretty (expensive) horse that trigger my delight at The Horseman From the Snowy River. Rene Gasser’s tent shows make me gasp because they star the majestic, dancing Lippizaners and Friesians as well as other magnificent, intelligent and powerful horses.

It is the dexterity and athleticism of these beasts that makes the show irresistible. Our favourite from the previous show  (Il Caballo Blanco) is Pasha, the lean, elegant and passionate white Arab stallion that gallops and gambols in his solo opening act with horse whisperer, Gasser. Pasha’s flying gallop is testament to the myth that the Arabian was made by God from the wind.

The other equine cast includes the striking, muscular Lippizaners. These white stallions with regal bearing and a deeply arched neck were bred for the Arch-Duke Charles of Austro-Hungary in the 16^th century and are a cross breed of the Andalusian and descendants of Roman chariot horses.

There is a duo of pretty, glossy, chocolate Friesians that share some Andalusian blood and have a luxuriant, long mane, forelock and tail. In their double act Michael Harrison rides them with one foot on each horse while Pasha and others gallop between the Friesians under his legs.

There are also some cute and quirky acts. Harrison and Gasser’s whip cracking act (the 10 metre whip seemed to crack mighty close to my nose); a Border Collie herding three sheep hilariously named Brittany, Paris and Trevor; Hercules, the gentle-giant Clydesdale, in a duo with a cute-as-a-button, miniature pony; and trick riding by Jamal and Sonia. The MC provides entertaining introductions, jokes, mime and juggling.

The show is captivating. Exceptional horse trainer, Gasser, leads a team of riders as he puts the steeds through their paces on the sand-filled arena. The audience sits on four sides of the purpose-built marquee. If you book the posh seats, you can eat delicious antipasto and visit the stables after the show. Ride on, Rene!

By Kate Herbert

The Taming of the Shrew, Jan 13, 2009 ***1/2

The Taming of the Shrew 

By William Shakespeare, Australian Shakespeare Company

Where and When: Botanical Gardens until March 14

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

On a balmy evening after a roasting hot summer’s day, nestling on a blanket with a wine in the Botanical Gardens and watching Shakespeare under the night sky is just the ticket. This year we see Greg Carroll’s uncluttered, bawdy and witty production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew.

The play tells the tale of the notoriously sharp-tongued Kate (no relation), the “shrew” of the title, and her seduction, marriage and subsequent taming by the boisterous Petruchio (Brendan O’Connor). This pretty but argumentative Kate (Lucy Slattery) is too forward to be attractive to the men of Padua but she must be married before her younger, more amiable and malleable sister, Bianca (Gemma Bishop) can wed one of her parade of suitors.

Petruchio woos and marries the cantankerous Kate for her money, despite her flaws – then proceeds to tame her in ways grotesque, ridiculous and totally unacceptable to sensitive modern women (and hopefully men too).

O’Connor hilariously macho and rowdy, yet wickedly impish as Petruchio. He courts Kate with sexual innuendo, rough sensuality and outrageously slapstick moves. Kate’s shrewishness is almost totally obliterated by his effrontery.

Terri Brabon, playing Petruchio’s loyal servant, Grumio, creates an entertaining clown double act with O’Connor. They taunt every other character with their manipulative antics. This production emphasises silliness and physicality. For example, Petruchio arrives at his wedding dressed inappropriately in cowboy pants decked with feather boas and a sequined bustiere while Grumio wears a gorilla suit.

The entire ensemble enters the spirit of this goofy style. Bishop is very funny as Bianca, playing the usually milky, dull maiden as a primping, posing, giggling candidate for High School Musical. Ross Williams dodders as her suitor, old Gremio, and Ezra Bix is a foppish Hortensio. There are also the sexy, young men, Lucentio (Hugh Sexton) and Tranio (Simon Mallory) and the dignified father of the brides, Baptista (Phil Roberts).

The simple staging, naughty but playful style and added contemporary references give this play a refreshing new coat of paint.

By Kate Herbert

Walking Whale Circus, Jan 8, 2009 ***

Walking Whale Circus  

By National Institute of Circus Arts & Melbourne Museum

Melbourne Museum, daily, Jan 1 to Feb 1, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

For the third year, Melbourne Museum is presenting an educational circus show for children. The last two years explored bugs and bees. This year The Walking Whale Circus, a 30-minute show directed by Matt Wilson, charts the evolution of creatures from ocean dwelling fish and mammals to land dwelling lizards and then to birds of the air.

It is likely that the very young children in the audience cannot follow the long and wordy introductory and some of the explanatory details but they enjoy the acrobatic antics that follow. The four performers, students of the National Institute of Circus Arts, sport vivid and eye-catching costumes (by Amanda Fairbanks) representing a whale (Caroline Walsh), a fish (Jessica Ward), a bird, (Heather Garlan) and a lizard (Karl Stock).

Caroline Walsh’s whale walks and talks and finally learns to swim with the help of the children. Her character is Master of Ceremonies, introducing the other characters, communicating with the audience and providing the educational information and explanation of the evolution of life forms from sea to land and air.

The story our chatty whale tells begins 400 million years ago with a Fluttering Fish, portrayed by Jessica Ward who performs elegant and fluid handstands and contortions while balancing on three short, metal poles.

20 million years pass and the audience, lead by our whale, teaches the fish to crawl. She transforms into a Leaping Lizard, played by Karl Stock in a striking, orange lizard costume. Stock demonstrates some exceptional acrobatic feats while wearing short, sprung, stilt boots that allow him to bound like a kangaroo – or a Leaping Lizard.

Finally, the lizard transforms into a multi-coloured Bird, played by the vivacious Heather Garlan, who dances and flies like an exotic bird on a static trapeze.

The performers sing, (some a little half-heartedly) a song about evolution. “Everything around us is evolving and revolving, changing, re-arranging all the time.” Unfortunately it is not a song that the children can participate in but they enjoy the intermittent opportunity to flap their wings or crawl like a lizard.

The characters and narrative need development in this show written by Anthony Crowley, but the physical spectacle keeps the littlies engaged and teaches them a little about evolution in this 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

By Kate Herbert

The Wind in the Willows, Jan 7, 2009 ****

The Wind in the Willows adapted from Kenneth Graham

Where and When: Botanical Gardens, Gate F. until January 28

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

How can you resist a show that seats you beside the lake in the Botanical Gardens during summer, with the kids, a picnic and jokes for oldies and youngies? The Wind in the Willows is back in the Gardens and it still delights its audience.

The cast sees some more changes this year but stalwart, Roscoe Mathers, deserves a veteran’s jersey for his years as the M.C. of the show, Head Chief Rabbit. Mathers’ playful, charming manner engages the crowd of little ’uns from the start and his patter with Robert Jackson, the oily Weasel, elicits giggles from the parents. Mathers and Jackson are a great double act and have the added benefit of being musicians.

If you missed Kenneth Graham’s story as a child, the egocentric Mr. Toad (Andrew Dunne) lives at the lavish Toad Hall and, like all affluent dilettantes, gets obsessed with one fad after another. He gives up boating after he capsizes his canoe – to the delight of the kids. Friends, admirers and critics surround Toad.

Sean-James Murphy plays the gruff, old Badger who “knew all the Toads” and thinks the current Mr. Toad is letting his family down. Ratty (David Bailiht OK), the water rat, loves a picnic but thinks Mr Toad a bit too adventurous and Mole (Michelle Hall), a shy, stammering clean-freak, admires Mr Toad’s audacious spirit. A cheerful Otter (Jon Boad OK) and his fearless son, Portly (Harry Stapleton), complete the friends of Toad.

There is never a dull moment as Toad falls out of his boat, careers into a policeman in his new golf jeep, goes to court, is imprisoned by the Weasel and enlists his friends to reclaim Toad Hall from the rascally Weasel who invades it. The animals sing plenty of perky songs including the sing-a-long “Waggle your ears, wiggle your nose, and sing whispering willows”, The Famous Mr. Toad and the Duck Ditty.

There is even some running around time. The kids, in either the Badger Batallion or Rat Pack, go hunting in the Wild Wood for lost little Portly while the parents are treated to their own entertainment back at base camp. Take a picnic, a hat, some sunscreen and a kid or two and sing along with these very British animals.

By Kate Herbert

Golden Valley, Jan 7, 2009 **1/2

Golden Valley by Dorothy Hewitt, Perilous Productions

 Northcote Town Hall, Jan 7 to 18, 2009

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

Australian poet, Dorothy Hewitt, wrote 21 plays including Chapel Perilous, a play based on her own life, The Man From Muckinupin and Golden Valley, her 1981 play for children. Golden Valley creates a mythical rural Australian landscape inhabited by a family of ageing, magical, native animals who adopt an orphan child, Marigold (Zoe Ellerton-Ashley).

This is no ordinary family of creatures; they are human by day and animal by night. Jane is a long-legged crane (Jane Bayly), Em a house-proud wombat (Carmelina di Guglielmo OK), Nee is a red-headed possum (Robert Stephens) and Di is a very old and wise mopoke (Ben Rogan).

Marigold’s adoption from an orphanage run by an Irish nun (Carolyn Connors) is executed with absurd ease an without the red tape of real adoptions. But the joy of her new life with a loving family is short-lived when the villainous owner of the valley, Jack Swannell (Rogan), calls in the family’s mortgage. It resonates with current housing loan issues.

To find a solution to the family financial crisis, Marigold enlists the help of Tib the Witch (Connors) and Nim (Mike McEvoy), a mysterious, green-skinned boy who lives in the bush. Nim is a shapeshifter so he also appears as a wishing tree, the ghost of a gold miner and the heroic Yarraman.

These eccentric creatures, as well as songs and live music by musician, Connors, and the cast, engage the audience of 4 to 10 year olds. But, with children and adults alike, the villain gets the biggest reaction and the chase sequence involving Rogan as the scruffy and wiry old rogue, Swannell, was a hit.

Given the huge reaction to this slapstick scene, the production could possibly benefit from more physical comedy to complement Hewitt’s poetic language, quirky characters and songs and Viviana Frediani-Massara’s (OK) vivid set design.

Billy Elliot, Dec 31, 2008 ****1/2

 Billy Elliot 

Book and lyrics by Lee Hall, music by Elton John

 Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, from Dec 31, 2008

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:  ****1/2

Billy Elliot is a rare, inspirational musical with a powerful narrative that triggers laughter and tears. (Take tissues.) It weaves the gritty and achingly sad story of the Northern England Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 with the joyful tale of Billy, a miner’s son who wants to be a ballet dancer. 

The contrast between ballet and mining is stark but the message is clear: fight for what you want and you might change your future.

Lee Hall’s book, based on his screenplay, captures the dignity, courage and foolishness of the miners’ resistance, the violence of the police and the bloody-mindedness of Maggie Thatcher. Against this tough struggle for survival, Hall sets the playful world of the ballet class and the creative ambition of 12-year old Billy.

Elton John’s music captures the vitality and humour of Northern England. He sets Hall’s potent lyrics to styles including anthems, marches, folk ballads, boogie-woogie, jazz and more. The show begins with the rousing workers’ anthem, The Stars Look Down, a revolutionary song that expresses the pain and commitment of workers.

Hall and John continue the revolution with Solidarity, a confrontation between police and miners. The visionary director, Stephen Daldry, with choreographer, Peter Darling, overlays this pitched battle with the Billy’s hilariously chaotic ballet classes. The show’s style cunningly incorporates slapstick, British workers’ theatre, silent movies and more. One wacky scene even features giant dancing frocks.

But the show is nothing without Billy, played on the New Year’s Eve opening night by Dayton Tavares (OK) although five boys share the role. Dayton had the crowd standing and shouting. His dance technique is exceptional and he can sing and act too! Electricity, Billy’s halting but poetic attempt to describe how it feels to dance, wrenches the heart and there is not a dry eye during Dear Billy with his dead mother (Samantha Morley). When he flies above the stage the crowd is mesmerised.

Richard Piper is both funny and moving as Billy’s dad, the simple miner trying to hold his family together during the strike. Mike Smith is impassioned and engaging as his older son and Lola Nixon is deliciously wicked as Grandma. Genevieve Lemon is tough but lovable as the brassy, ciggy-smoking ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson and John Xintavelonis (OK) is hilarious as her pianist, Mr. Braithwaite.

The chorus of adult dancer-singers is exceptional, the ballet class girls are cute and comical but several scenes are stolen by the cheeky, captivating Thomas Doherty as Billy’s nearly gay friend Michael.

Billy Elliot pushes all the right buttons and is a show that you could happily see again and again.

By Kate Herbert

Theatre & Musicals Wrap Up 2008, Dec 19, 2008

Theatre & Musicals Wrap Up 2008

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Published in Herald Sun, Melbourne

You can keep your lavish spectacles. My 2008 exceptional theatrical experiences were intimate and low budget. Tim Crouch’s compelling two-hander, an oak tree, unmasked the evolution of a performance. We witnessed the breathless moment of creation, an artists’ mind in a whirl, when an actor who had never seen the script performed with Crouch. His second play, England, had a similar visceral and emotional intimacy.

Holiday, by Ranters, was an eccentric, voyeuristic piece in which two men, unwitting specimens in an over-sized display cabinet, chatted casually and randomly about memories and hopes. I was moved by the simplicity of Jackie Jackie In the Box, a disturbing installation (Ilbijerri Theatre) displaying aboriginal “living specimens” inside glass display cases. Haneef: An Interrogation, challenged political and ethical views by incorporating verbatim extracts from Haneef’s police interrogation.

Several thrilling solos epitomised the art of the performer. Charlie Ross’s exhilarating One Man Star Wars was a condensed version of the trilogy in one astonishing hour of action, vocal acrobatics and aliens. Anne Browning in The China Incident depicted a galloping corporate workplace disaster of international proportions while Rod Quantock gets my vote for political comedian.

Anything by the inimitable Sisters Grimm wins the insanely funny award. Some Girl/s, Neil LaBute’s whip-smart, acerbic play, was superbly directed by Sean Collins while Joanna Murray-Smith’s Ninety (MTC) also had wit and vivacity in a two-hander. The MTC and Malthouse produced interesting, varied programs – but so they should with all that money to spend.

2008 saw the reinvention of the Australian Musical. Keating was a scathing political satire and a dazzlingly clever musical evocation of Keating’s rise to power. Shane Warne The Musical contained less barbed satire, but Eddie Perfect was magnetic as Warney.  The satirical vignettes and songs in Beware of the Dogma were hilarious.

We cannot ignore the visually spectacular Wicked and its two remarkable leads. Lucy Durack, with her warm bright voice, played the annoyingly perky Galinda and the rich-voiced Amanda Harrison was the awkward and rebellious Elphaba.

There were the inevitable low points this year. Joelene Anderson was out of her depth in Lloyd Webber’s solo musical, Tell Me on A Sunday, and Shaun Micallef was sadly miscast in Boeing Boeing, although his three air hostess lovers were delectable.

Hedda Gabler could gladly have shot herself earlier in PMD’s production and One Cloud, a new play supported by Theatreworks Initiative, was inexpressibly slow and painful to watch. Kit Lazaroo’s Asylum was a confused piece about a Chinese refugee.

And now we anticipate a whole new chocolate box of theatrical goodies in 2009. Yum!

By Kate Herbert

Is There Life After High School? Dec 17, 2008 ***

 Is There Life After High School?

Book by Jeffrey Kindley, Music & Lyrics by Craig Carnelia, by Stella Entertainment

Chapel off Chapel, until 23, 2008

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Dec 17, 2008

Stars:***

In a peculiar collision of events, Is There Life After High School? coincided with my nostalgic revisiting of childhood photos. I was primed for a musical about the high school years.

Jeffrey Kindley and Craig Carnelia wrote a show with specific relevance to American schools recognisable from US teen movies. Strangely, although the characters, songs and stories are really entertaining and the cast strong, the American characters’ recollections are totally alien to my school experience.

The opening chorus of The Kid Inside sets the tone of the musical. The show was written for nine adults ten years after graduation who reinhabit their younger selves, shifting from adult self to the past, vulnerable, teenage self. Directors Paul Watson and Peter Fitzpatrick double cast each role with a teenager playing the character at school age.

This device provides experience for the younger cast and doubles the voices to give a rich, full chorus. There are interesting moments when older selves talk to or observe younger selves. The small stage, however, feels crowded with 18 actors.

The show combines songs and vignettes. It is not a linear narrative following the lives of individuals but a montage of character types and stories. Actors play a variety of characters defined by accents and attitude. We meet the cheer-leader, football star, geek, outsider, radical, lonely guy, chubby boy, the pretty girl and others.

The over-riding feeling is of nostalgia in these bitter-sweet reminiscences. These adults have regrets and suffer a sense of loss for various reasons. The sing about The Things I Learned in High School and Second Thoughts. The Diary of a Homecoming Queen depicts regrets about losing popularity.  Fran and Janie is a beautiful duet between two friends  (Natasha Bassett, Lizzie Matjacic OK) who lost contact after school.

But most of the stories are about failures and vulnerabilities at high school. They regret never confronting the abusive football coach or teacher, never asking out the pretty girl, being cast in the lead of a show, winning a playground fight or being the chubby, victimised kid.

But all remember the craving for acceptance and the abiding sense of competition. And all believe that their adult lives are simply High School All Over Again. They never escape that vulnerable kid inside.

By Kate Herbert

Short and Sweet 2008, Dec 11, 2008 ***1/2

Short and Sweet 2008 

Week Two

Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre, until Dec 20

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

If you don’t like one play at the Short and Sweet short play festival, wait 10 minutes and you get a completely new one. The program in Week Two of the Festival comprises performances by 10 Independent Theatre Ensembles. (Weeks 1 and 3 are individual playwrights).

Only one of the ensembles credits a playwright. The rest, presumably, were devised by performers with a director. This form of creative development of a theatrical product produces a smorgasbord of styles and content and the high level of collaboration and commitment is evident. All 10 pieces are rich in character, inventive in style and form, tightly directed and skilfully performed. What is noticeable in most is a non-linear structure and reliance on physical rather than text-based performance.

Several themes are apparent in the plays. Death and illness provide content for four. Tea For Two, one of the two strongest works, is a clever acrobatic narrative in which two men deal with a dead woman. Bodybag is a dialogue-based duet about the suicide of a celebrity while Tinsel Town is an amusing Gothic horror satire. Finding Your Place portrays a writer who suffers dementia, trying to hold memories of characters she wrote.

Other pieces deal with relationships. With their inimitable stylised movement with music, Born In A Taxi present my other favourite, the charming and playful 6 Hours Later. Last Drinks experiments with repetition and deconstruction of a scene at a club and Match sees a couple communicating through little creatures made from modelling clay. Morbid Porn is a wild and sexy ride with a woman seducing a tiny puppet.

 Fractured fairy tales provide content for After the Tower – a comical dance-based piece about Rapunzel’s conjoined twin daughters – and Grimm that features seven quirky clowns re-telling the story of Snow White.

This program has a rich variety of work, some fine individual performances but the pieces that excel are 6 Hours Late and Tea For Two.

By Kate Herbert