The Pavilion ***

The Pavilion by Nick Musgrove & Alexandra Lee

Chapel off Chapel, Feb 24 to March 5, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 24, 2011

Stars:***

You don’t need to be a cricket tragic to see The Pavilion, but it certainly helps to know a lofted cover drive from a reverse sweep and a wrong’un from a wide ball.

In this naturalistic, light comedy by Nick Musgrove and Alexandra Lee, directed by Tom Peterson, we are voyeurs in the clubrooms of the fictional Glendale Community Cricket Club. For 90 minutes we watch the Glendale eleven, who range from 16 to 60 years, career through their batting order in a match that could mark the end of their finals hopes.

The play’s structure follows the shape of the match. The dramatic action, punctuated by off-stage highlights on the pitch, plays out in the clubrooms where each lost wicket cues a new episode in the characters’ interactions. Although these avid, amateur sportsmen avoid discussing personal issues, these seep into the clubroom banter, revealing plenty about the individuals.

The provocative clown, Dave (Nick Russell) feels abandoned by best mate, Simmo (James Needham) whose loyalties now lie with his wife. Gambler, Alistair (Dylan Lloyd), places secretive bets between overs. Team captain, Martin (Paul Dawber), has a suspiciously low run rate and his secret affair damages the team’s morale.

Although this is not a theatrically imaginative script or groundbreaking production, it has a parade of diverse, recognisable characters, a few good laughs and it escalates to a final, satisfying, personal battle.

The End by Samuel Beckett ***1/2

The End by Samuel Beckett

By Malthouse Theatre

Beckett Theatre, Malthouse, Feb 22 to March 1, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****1/2

For the second time this month, my wish for 2011 is granted: an actor in an empty space in a show that focuses on the performer, acting technique and language – without technology. Hooray for actors!

Robert Menzies, deftly directed by Eamon Flack, stands alone in a stark, black box to perform Samuel Beckett’s novella, The End. Although not written for the stage, the 22 unedited pages of Beckett’s prose weave complex word pictures, evoking a vivid landscape filled with places and people.

Menzies’ sad, battered, clown face, scruffy hair and gruff, bleating voice conjure an old derelict wandering the streets, rambling and raving as his path leads him to his inevitable, predictable demise. The actor steps reluctantly into the space, fixes his bare feet deliberately onto a marked spot in the centre of the black floor and begins his story or, rather, his collection of scrappy memories.

The man is by turn angry, frustrated, demented, ranting, melancholy, but always confused and vulnerable.

This novella, written in 1946, incorporates elements of his later works: existential dilemma, obsession with age, death and the futility of the human condition. The old man in The End foreshadows the two hobo-clowns in Beckett’s most famous play, Waiting for Godot, and has echoes of Krapp’s Last Tapes and Endgame.

This is a hero’s journey towards death, played out by one of the forgotten and homeless people in an unforgiving city.

Motherhood the Musical ***

Motherhood the Musical by Sue Fabisch

By HIT Productions

Athenaeum Theatre,  Feb 17-27, 2011

Reviewerd by: Kate Herbert on Feb 22, 2011

Stars: ***

Ah, the trials of motherhood: nappies, crying babies, school runs, weight gain, sleep deprivation, weak bladder. Motherhood the Musical, by Sue Fabisch, is a collection of songs pegged together by scenes at a baby shower.

This show, directed by Terence O’Connell, is identification theatre. We all recognise these types.  Rebecca Moore is Amy, the hopelessly naïve, expectant mum viewing babydom through rosy glasses. She sings the romantic, I’m Having a Baby, interrupted roughly by the others who set her straight.

Barbara, played by rich-voiced, sassy Amelia Christo, is jaded and exhausted at home with three kids. She sings about whining kids in Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, but also delivers a moving ballad about her love for her son.

Versatile Ziggy Clements plays Brooke who juggles her law practice with family and sings about her obsession with bulk buying in Costco Queen. Trisha, played by Jacqueline Hoy, a frazzled, divorced mum, sings about her loneliness when her kids are away in Every Other Weekend.

The dialogue is cheesy, the pace loose in the sketches and some tunes sound like songs by The Wiggles but the audience of women roared at the cheeky, accurate lyrics.   

A couple of numbers are gutsy blues or rock tunes and the finale is a rousing, gospel song, The Kids Are Asleep, a celebration of that moment of peace and liberation for parents.

‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore, Malthouse ***

‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore by John Ford

By Malthouse Theatre
Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse, from Feb 16 to March 5, 2011
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb16, 2011
Stars: ***

Modern adaptations of classical plays can be illuminating and theatrically challenging. However, Marion Potts’ production of ‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore teeters on the edge of melodrama rather than penetrating the moral murkiness of John Ford’s 1633 Jacobean tragedy.

This is not to say that it lacks theatrical merit or that some audiences won’t love its bold, economical style, musical elements and contemporary references. The cast is reduced to nine and the sub-plots all but eliminated. A single, modern punk (Chris Ryan) boasting about his sexual conquests replaces the foolish suitors.
 

Because of the savage editing and reduced cast, too much of the flesh of Ford’s play and too many characters are missing making the story confusing and incoherent. By stripping characters and sub-plots, the breadth of the moral decay, hypocrisy and corruption of this 17th century society is lost. It rushes to its bloody end and we feel we have missed something important.
 

Potts takes risks with her collage of styles and some are successful.  Soprano, Julia County, adds a romantic, emotional layer as she glides above the ghastly, earthly events. Anna Cordingley’s three-level set is a metaphor for the multiple levels of morality and status. Her backdrop, in the roiling style of a Mannerist painting, is a highlight.
 

Ford’s play is always considered controversial. The children of Florio (Richard Piper), the virginal Annabella (Elizabeth Nabben) and her brother, Giovanni (Benedict Samuel) have an incestuous relationship. Annabella’s tutor, Putana (Laura Lattuada), approves the affair. When Annabella falls pregnant, she is hurriedly married to Soranzo (John Adam) who abandons his vengeful paramour, Hippolita (Alison Whyte), who is then betrayed by Vasques (Anthony Brandon Wong).

There are some strong performances particularly from Adam, Nabben and Whyte, although the acting is uneven. After oodles of sex, murder and revenge the stage is littered with bloodied bodies. Ultimately, this production favours form over substance. The idea is interesting but the execution only partially successful.

A Behanding in Spokane, MTC ***1/2

A Behanding in Spokane 

By Martin McDonagh, by Melbourne Theatre Company

 MTC Sumner Theatre, Feb 10 to March 1, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 10, 2011

Stars: ***1/2

Martin McDonagh says his black comedies walk the line between comedy and cruelty. His newest work, A Behanding in Spokane, combines his signature, laugh-out-loud dialogue and situational absurdity with blatant and latent violence. The stage is a dangerous place for his characters.

It is a revenge comedy: a hand for a hand instead of eye for an eye. Decades earlier, the brooding, racist, Carmichael (Colin Moody) was behanded (his hand cut off) by rednecks who waved goodbye to him with his own hand.

For 26 years, the obsessed Carmichael fruitlessly scours the country for his lost hand. A couple of chancers, Toby (Bert LaBonté), the black marijuana dealer, and his dim-witted girlfriend, Marilyn (Nicole da Silva), try to con him by selling him an aboriginal hand stolen from a museum. All hell breaks loose and they face the wrath of Carmichael.

The play has some of the classic elements of McDonagh’s style. A group of eccentric, flawed characters are trapped in an isolated, claustrophobic location, in this case, an Arizona motel room. Cruelty and violence collide with banal conversations and peculiar obsessions. The outcome is unpredictable and the situation dangerous.

Moody is compelling as the dour, volatile, surly Carmichael. Although the other characters appear to be too clever, clean and middle class, LaBonté captures the weakness and bravado of the frightened Toby, da Silva is suitably dim as his gal and Tyler Coppin is funny as the weird, reluctant receptionist.

Peter Evans’ production needs to escalate to an explosive ending. The pace is too slow in the final scenes – but that could be in the writing. Strangely, these American characters have the style and language of McDonagh’s Irish characters but they lack the credible, dim edginess of the quintessential American criminal.

This script is not as successful as McDonagh’s six early plays set in isolated, western Ireland. It is a one-gag story that needs either to be unleashed and dive further into absurdity and chaos, or to be harnessed into a shorter play. If you want to see a classic McDonagh, see the movie, In Bruges. It is brutally funny.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover ***

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Adapted from D.H. Lawrence by Glenn Elston, Australian Shakespeare Company

Rippon Lea, Feb 8 to March 17, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Novelist, D. H. Lawrence, would be delighted by the amount of naked, youthful flesh and blatant sexuality in Glen Elston’s adaptation of his erotic tale about adultery and lust between the cultured Lady Chatterley (Hannah Norris), and the rough-handed game-keeper, Mellors (Jamieson Caldwell).

The two actors gambol audaciously outside the Rippon Lea mansion, tearing their clothes off amongst the trees, capering sensually on tables and beds or under a rainstorm. Caldwell’s lean musculature and Norris’s pale flesh glimmer in the fading twilight.

As a student I was obsessed with every luscious and scandalous novel by Lawrence and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was his most controversial. Connie is bored in her sexless marriage to the pompous Sir Clifford (Soren Jensen), a wheelchair-ridden invalid while Mellors, a former army lieutenant, lives alone after the end of his marriage to a carping harridan.

Elston’s adaptation incorporates Lawrence’s passionate, provocative language as well as the electric, highly sexualised physicality of his characters. Caldwell is deliciously wicked, seductive, ironic and physically abandoned as Mellors and Norris captures the vibrating, wide-eyed need of Connie.

Several minor characters provide narration to fill the gaps in the story but the balance between narration and scenes is not quite right. The first scenes that set the background could happily be excised or condensed. The play really gets going when Connie and Mellors first meet.

This is a cheeky, robust production and who could pass up sensuality on the lawns at Rippon Lea with a glass of wine and a picnic hamper?

Ruben Guthrie ***1/2

Ruben Guthrie by Brendan Cowell, Red Stitch Actors Theatre

 Rear 2 Chapel St., St Kilda Feb 8 to March 5, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 8, 2011

Stars: ***1/2

The stage is a dangerous place in Brendan Cowell’s play, Ruben Guthrie. As Ruben, Daniel Frederiksen is a totally out of control drunk, so all the danger is in the bottle – or, rather, bottles – that surround him, imprisoning him in a world of expensive and deadly booze.

Ruben Guthrie is the Creative Director and golden boy for a slick advertising agency. He fuels his fertile imagination and compelling ad campaigns with grog, recreational drugs and ego. When his young, glamorous partner, Zoya (Anna Samson) dumps him because of his boozing benders, Ruben is forced to confront his addictions and assess whether his talent lies only at the bottom of an empty vodka glass.

At intervals, Frederiksen addresses us directly as his Alcoholics Anonymous group. We stagger with him through his Twelve Steps. We witness his appalling behaviour toward Zoya and the next lover, Virginia (Erin Dewar), a scrambled, recovering addict. We listen to the horror stories of his drunken escapades leaping from a roof or strangling a stranger. We observe the pious, psycho-babble that accompanies such recoveries.

Cowell’s writing is audacious, contemporary, hard-edged and fast-talking. The dialogue is well-observed, shifting from bold and funny to moving and sensitive. The structure follows Ruben’s recovery period, taking us along on his dizzying rollercoaster ride. The second half becomes a little unwieldy, with too many characters and some awkward, abstract scenes during Ruben’s relapse into booze.

However, the social observations are incisive, facing addiction in the affluent, commercial world rather than on a grimy street. Frederiksen is compelling as Ruben, managing to be both charming and repellent and a talented cast supports him.

Invisible Atom by Anthony Black *****

Invisible Atom by Anthony Black

By 2b Theatre Company

Where and When: Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre, Feb 4-13, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***** (Yes, 5!)

Invisible Atom is a testament to the power of the actor. For most of the hour, I sat gaping at Anthony Black’s exceptional skill and the inexorable narrative unfolding in his poignant, ironic human tragedy. It is an epic tale of a man’s journey from security toward an inevitable, personal calamity.

Black is alone on a small, elevated stage that he peoples with a parade of complex, credible characters. With taut direction by Ann-Marie Kerr, he uses classic theatrical devices to create his story.

Under a stark light, two walking fingers create a tiny, man-puppet; a metaphor for man’s insignificance in the universe.  He adroitly shifts characters in a blink by lowering or raising his spectacles, flicking his trench coat, tilting girlishly, changing accents, raising pitch or blurring vowels. It is consummate acting technique and delicious to behold.

The compelling Black self-narrates as Atom, a man drowning in an existential crisis. Atom was a successful stockbroker with an expensive house and car, a loving girlfriend and a young baby. After a bomb kills his colleagues he questions his life and begins his disastrous, downward spiral into despair.

This is not only splendid performance, but it has equally elegant, inspiring writing by Black. The production is atmospheric, hilarious, often distressing, but features gob-smackingly skilful acting.

Skin Tight, Feb 2, 2011 ***

Skin Tight 

By Gary Henderson, SaySIX Theatre and The Groundswell Division

Where and When: fortyfivedownstairs, until February 2 to 20, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

Skin Tight is a fierce, emotional short play by New Zealand playwright, Gary Henderson, depicting a couple in a passionate, violent, sexually charged relationship. It has a visceral physicality making the stage a sexy and dangerous place.

It begins with a jolt; the young couple hurl themselves bodily at each other, falling to the ground, wrestling violently and erotically in piles of discarded clothing.

The play is like a time a capsule of the relationship between Tom (Michael Whalley) and Elizabeth (Holly Shanahan). They drag up memories, make confessions, taunt and tease, attacking physically and verbally and even using knifeplay in a disturbing scene. Their passionate physicality is underscored by crackling, 1940s gramaphone music and percussive, electronic sound (Jared Lewis).

The past collides with the present and the future is dimly ominous. Henderson’s writing cunningly misdirects us to make assumptions about the couple’s relationship, circumstances and particularly about their age. They look young but slowly we discern the truth.

In this production, directed by Justin Martin with choreography by Tom Hodgson, the balance between dialogue and physicality is unstable. Whalley and Shanahan give committed, impassioned performances but their physicality feels disconnected from the dialogue. Their emotional detail is much clearer in the choreographed scenes than the spoken.

Henderson’s script craves more nuanced performances, more detailed characterisation and layering of pain with pleasure, youth with maturity. However, this production goes some way in exploring the pain, longing, passion and underlying despair of Tom and Elizabeth.

By Kate Herbert

Spring Awakening **1/2

Spring Awakening

Book and lyrics by Steven Sater, music by Duncan Sheik, based on the play by Franz Wedekind, by The Young Australian Broadway Chorus (YABC)

Where and When: National Theatre, St. Kilda, until Feb 5, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

Staver and Sheik’s musical, Spring Awakening, based on Frank Wedekind’s controversial 1891 play, won multiple Tony Awards. It is an adventurous and vivacious idea that overlays a 19^th century story about teenagers in a rural town in Germany with 21^st century “Indie rock” songs.

This production, directed by David Coates, casts actual 17 year olds. The Broadway production casts youthful but older performers with stronger technique. The authenticity of casting young actors unfortunately reduces the level of singing and acting skill and their understanding of the complex issues.

It certainly appeals to young audiences with its theme of sexual awakening in oppressive times and its popular, Indie music and edgy lyrics. It may shock some audiences with its sexually explicit scenes and stories of suicide, parental abuse, teen pregnancy and abortion.

The teenage voices carry the songs tunefully, but lack the requisite power, control and, obviously, maturity. Aleksa Kurbalija plays the precocious Melchior, Shannen Chin-Quan is the naïve Wendla, his lover while Liam Maguire is the hapless Moritz.

Coates employs the original, abstract, gestural movement and thumping choreography from the Broadway production but it feels a little awkward here. The balance between the Amish-looking children and the gutsy 21^st century dance and song is uncomfortable, but the kids give it their best shot and the audience is happy.

By Kate Herbert

Liza (On an E) ****1/2

 Liza (On an E) 

By Trevor Ashley and Dean Bryant, Midsumma Festival

 Hi Fi Room, Sunday 23, 30 and Feb 6

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Star: **** 1/2

The standing ovation for Trevor Ashley nearly lifted the roof of the Hi Fi Room. Ashley is a cheeky crowd teaser and, unquestionably, a crowd pleaser. His solo show, Liza (On an E), is both a tribute to, and a parody of Liza Minnelli.

Ashley, currently starring as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, belt out show tunes but also performs moving ballads with alacrity. He does not impersonate Liza but, rather, channels her spirit: her inane giggle, affected sibilance, crusty vocal quality, rambling chatter, forgetfulness, boozing, awkward dancing, glittering costumes, wardrobe malfunctions and pixie hairstyle.

Dressed in various lamè pantsuits, Ashley commands the large audience with his impeccable comic timing, sassy characterisation and relentless vitality.

Between the 17 songs is acerbic and hilarious patter, written by Dean Bryant, about Liza’s childhood, career and her competitive relationship with her mother, Judy Garland. There are also sardonic stories about her gay grandfather, father, stepfather and marriages to gay men, including Peter Allen.

The title of the show, Liza On An E – a nod to her song, Liza with a Z – could refer to singing an ‘E’ note, but more cynically refers to Liza’s drug history: ‘E’ for Ecstasy pill. Bryant wickedly changes lyrics to the Kander and Ebb’s songs, Liza With a Z and Yes (“Don’t say No. Say novocaine.”)

His versatile repertoire includes Aznavour’s sad ballad about a drag performer, What Makes a Man a Man? Be My Guest becomes a scathing exposè about Liza’s disastrous divorce from David Gest and he satirises Lady Gaga with Poker Face. A charming, young guest, Ed Grey, shares Liza’s duet, Does He Love You?

Ashley changes tone with Sondheim’s poignant ballad, Losing My Mind, following with a run of explosive hits: Maybe This Time, Cabaret and, as the finale, New York, New York. The tight band, under Musical Director and pianist, Daniel Edmonds, provides a huge brass sound to support Ashley’s big voice and Liza’s glittering reputation.

 Hopefully, Ashley will bring this show back after he finishes his season with Hairspray.

By Kate Herbert

I Am Playing Me ****

I Am Playing Me

Midsumma Festival

The Butterfly Club, Bank St. South Melbourne, Jan- Feb

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ****

I Am Playing Me, the first Midsumma cabaret, is a charming hour devised by the award-winning, Australian cast of the quirky, New York musical, [title of show] – yes, the parentheses are part of the title – a musical about two guys writing a musical about themselves creating a musical.

After singing the lives of four nobodies for a year, the cast now tell their own stories in musical theatre, their loves, work and dreams.

The four singers (Laura Fitzpatrick, Lara Thew, David Spencer, Darren Gatt) blend perfectly in harmonies, supported by skilful pianist, Sophie Thomas. All are deliciously engaging, particularly at such close quarters; at the Butterfly Club, one could reach out and tickle them.

They opens with I Am Playing Me, from [title of show], a kooky lament about the horrors of playing oneself on stage. There follows a succession of personal stories, music theatre memories, playful jibes and patter between their favourite songs.

Fitzpatrick and Spencer sing All The Wasted Time, a poignant love duet from the musical, Parade. Gatt sings a cheeky kids’ tune, Poor Kitty, and Thew belts out the comical I’m Breaking Down, from Falsettos. Fitzpatrick’s bright tones suit Sondheim’s Move On, from Sunday In The Park With George.

The Butterfly is a tiny jewel in our cabaret crown, featuring cabaret artists who perform in a miniature space to small but enthusiastic audiences. There’s a new show every week; the programme keeps changing with most running only three nights.

In January, the club features Midsumma Festival shows but the parade of virtuoso artistes continues all year and includes the Melbourne Cabaret Festival in July.

The Butterfly Club programme can be found at: www.thebutterflyclub.com.

BREAK OUT LIST – THE BUTTERFLY CLUB PROGRAMME JAN- FEB 2011

·       Thu 20/01/11 -Sun 23/01/11 Midsumma presents COURT! the Cabaret

·       Thu 20/01/11 -Sun 23/01/11 Midsumma presents Trevor Jones in STICKY SITUATIONS

·       Fri 21/01/11 -Sat 29/01/11  Midsumma presents BEST OF THE FEST Tue 25/01/11

·       25 Jan EVAPOR-AID - Qld Flood Fundraiser  

·       Thu 27/01/11 -Sun 30/01/11  QLD FLOOD RELIEF FUNDRAISER' Midsumma presents: Mikki Ross in CreativiT.V

·       Sat 29/01/11 -Sat 05/02/11  Midsumma presents Candy Royalle: Love Spectacular -

·       Tue 01/02/11  Jack Colwell & The OWLS present: PICTURE WINDOW -

·       Wed 02/02/11 -Sat 05/02/11  Midsumma presents The Jane Austen Argument : THE SPACES BETWEEN

·       Tue 08/02/11 - Wed 09/02/11  FILTHY SECRETS

·       Thu 10/02/11 - Sun 13/02/11 SCRATCH theatre presents: LISTS OF INVISIBLE THINGS  by Caity Fowler

·       Thu 10/02/11 -Sun 13/02/11  EASTEND CABARET  -tales of love, sex and communism.

·       Mon 14/02/11 Madame Natalia presents: WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE Valentine’s Day cabaret

·       Thu 17/02/11 -Sun 20/02/11 Sophie Walsh-Harrington in: The Damsel in Shining Armour

·       Thu 17/02/11 -Sun 20/02/11  Ruth Rogers-Wright presents FABULOUS DIVA: THE MUSIC OF NINA SIMONE

·       Thu 24/02/11 -Sun 27/02/11 Melissa Trickey in: Happiness 101: laughter is the best pseudo-science

By Kate Herbert

Prodigal **1/2

 Prodigal

Music by Matthew Frank, book and lyrics by Dean Bryant, Midsumma Festival

fortyfivedownstairs, until Jan 28, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2

Recently, the number of original Australian musicals increased significantly. Prodigal was developed in 1999 when writers, Matthew Frank and Dean Bryant, were studying at WAAPA. It premiered in 2000, won a Green Room Award (Best Original Score) and scored an Off-Broadway season.

Prodigal is a chamber musical with five performers and a single piano. The show has merit but it feels and sounds like an early work by artists who promised a bright future in the musical theatre. This early show is like their baby pictures, to paraphrase Stephen Sondheim.

Frank’s score provides singable, traditional show tunes and pop songs, although none are showstoppers. Bryant’s book, based on the biblical story of the prodigal son, is credible and has poignant elements but it is predictable and the dialogue is often trite. However, the show is enjoyable and the crowd is touched by the tale.

Prodigal is a “coming out” story about Luke (Edward Grey), an 18-year old living in coastal Eden, where he is the perfect son, school captain and about to work in dad’s fishing business with his tearaway brother, Kane (Adam Rennie). He disappoints mum (Anne Wood) and dad (Peter Hardy) when he runs off to university in Sydney. His life turns to ash after too much partying and drug taking and he returns home like the biblical prodigal.

The small cast is talented. Grey’s clear tones and passionate performance bring Luke to life. Wood brings humour and a powerful and emotional performance to Luke’s loving mum, Celia. Hardy gruff voice and blokey demeanour suit dad’s country quality. Christina O’Neill plays a perky Maddy, Luke’s wacky housemate and Rennie doubles as Luke’s brother and boyfriend, Zach.

Prodigal is accompanied by a single piano played by local legend, Mark Jones. Although Jones’ playing is rich and skilful, we crave a few more instruments and complexity. With the simplicity of the staging, static direction (Dean Bryant) and sparse design (Joanna Butler) the show feels thin.

Perhaps we shouldn’t tamper with our baby pictures. Maybe we should let Prodigal remain an early work and look to the future works of Bryant and Frank for the jewels.

By Kate Herbert

Court in the Act, Feb 2011 ****

Court in the Act 

(The Case of the Crown v Someone in the Audience), by Rod Quantock

 Old Melbourne Gaol, until Feb 11, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

You wouldn’t want to be a real defendant in the Kangaroo Court that is Rod Quantock’s Court in the Act: The Case of the Crown v Someone in the Audience. During this thoroughly absurd court case, a member of the audience is accused, tried and sentenced for a trumped up charge invented by other audience members.

You could get off scot free for causing the deaths of thousands, or be sentenced to the gallows at the Old Melbourne Gaol next door for stealing a cake.

The venue of Quantock’s hilarious, mock court proceedings is the illustrious and woody Old Magistrates’ Court. After an informative tour of the frighteningly cramped, concrete bunker that is the Old City Watch House, the audience chooses the crimes to be tried then adjourns to the courtroom where the fun begins in earnest. In the small, opening night crowd, everyone plays a role: defendant, defence barrister, judge, witness, juror, court reporter, clerk of courts or court artist.

The entire evening is improvised. However, the inimitable Mr. Quantock S.C. (Senior Counsel), as Crown Prosecutor, steers the proceedings by leading the witnesses, manufacturing evidence and building a narrative and back-story that compete favourably with the wittiest television courtroom dramas. It beats Rake on the ABC.

Quantock relies on his wits and compelling personality, acunningly devised courtroom structure and the willingness of participants to leap headlong into this playful improvisation. Participants gleefully improvise characters, dialogue, questions, answers and actions with intelligence and quick thinking. Who needs actors?

By the end, we have a thorough knowledge of the crime and its alleged perpetrator. The cheeky, blasé Colin, accused of stealing a secret recipe for heavenly banana bread, is sentenced to 23 days hard labour. Mick, a dodgy, country accountant, is found not guilty of a scurrilous act of sabotage that destroyed evidence of his embezzlement.

Finally, the court reporter reads his pithy, Herald-Sun headlines and the artist reveals strikingly accurate portraits. And it will all be different tomorrow night.

By Kate Herbert

Don Parties On ***

Don Parties On 

By David Williamson, Melbourne Theatre Company

Where and When: Playhouse, Arts Centre, until February 12, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***

Don’s Party, by David Williamson, divided critics and audiences in 1972. His sequel, Don Parties On, will split opinion again. Forty years on, characters from Don’s (Garry McDonald) boozy, wife-swapping, 1969 Federal Election party, return to recapture – or obliterate – their shared past. There is no escaping comparisons – and the new play comes off second best.

In the original play, outrageous bawdiness, crass humour, Australian vernacular and swearing created a confrontational, social document of left-leaning, young, middle-class couples hoping for election success for Gough Whitlam’s progressive Labour Party.

Don Parties On is set on the night of the 2010 Federal Election. Don, a former high school counsellor and failed novelist, hosts another election party.  He and his formerly bolshie, lefty mates have aged – but not very gracefully. Their boozing, bullying, belligerent arguments and sexism are no longer excusable as youthful exuberance.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud jokes but the play lacks heart and substance, and the dialogue often sounds like political editorial.

Don’s Party cunningly balanced bawdy humour with scathing social observations, personal conflicts and sympathy. Don Parties On lacks its rawness, energy and dramatic tension. The lack of a clear, narrative structure and dramatic climax – which worked for the original play – makes this play repetitive and directionless. Personal conflict does not equate to dramatic conflict. One wonders why anyone stays after such furious personal attacks and crises.

Robyn Nevin directs a talented, vivacious cast who revel in the broad comedy. McDonald plays Don with a jaded, nostalgic air and Tracy Mann plays his long-suffering wife, Kath. Robert Grubb gains sympathy as Mal, a boozy, failed businessman.

Sue Jones relishes playing Jenny, a tough, judgmental Labour politician, bearing a grudge for decades. Frankie J. Holden uses plenty of slapstick as the ailing Cooley, a sad echo of the irresistibly seductive, young Cooley. Diane Craig is cool and elegant as Helen.

The oldies’ checkered pasts are viewed through the eyes of younger generations: Richard (Darren Gilshenan), Don’s childish son, whose marriage is falling apart, his histrionic lover (Nikki Shiels), and stroppy daughter (Georgia Flood).

Like the Liberal and Labour spokespersons, these Baby Boomers revel in each other’s misfortunes and trumpet their own successes.  Their lives suffered as many changes as the Australian government. If election analyst, Anthony Greene, charted their paths, they would be complicated, miserable and incomprehensible. They are a relentlessly dislikeable bunch.

Cinema Fiasco, Astor Theatre

Delight in movies others love to hate

Preview by Kate Herbert

• From: Herald Sun
• January 14, 2011 12:00AM

Hosts Geoff Wallis and Janet A. McLeod add gleeful commentary to B-grade flicks. Source: Supplied 

IF YOU find B-grade movies painful and intolerable, Cinema Fiasco makes them hilarious and astonishingly entertaining. 

Hosts Geoff Wallis and Janet A. McLeod are film buffs of a different kind - they love to love the films that others love to hate.

They invite others into their obsession, showing their bad movies of choice in the faded, salubrious surroundings of the Astor Theatre monthly on Fridays. During the movie, the pair engages in witty, cynical, cinematic commentary.

"We don't talk over it. Heaven forbid anyone should miss some of that gold," Wallis assures us, should you want to actually watch the movie.

Tonight you can indulge your horror-movie sensibilities with Earth vs The Spider, a movie about an oversized, hairy arachnid terrorising a small town.

It stars forgettable luminaries and is directed by Cinema Fiasco's favourite director, Bert I. Gordon. Wallis says Gordon's films feature things grown to an enormous size, rogue creatures that start eating people. His cheapskate, special effects are usually blow-ups of normal-sized rats or ants intercut with enormous puppet-heads.

Fiasco previously presented two others films by Gordon: Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants, starring a youthful Joan Collins.

Cinema Fiasco began at the Astor Theatre almost three years ago. Astor Theatre manager George Florence was looking for new and different things to put on at the cinema to encourage diversity of use.

"I came up with this idea," Wallis says. "He (George) liked it, I brought Janet on board and now we co-produce it with him."

Wallis says the idea evolved during the time he and McLeod were poor and bad videos were cheap.

Next Cinema Fiasco: Friday, February 4. Coffy (M) Action queen Pam Grier goes on a rampage against drug dealers.

Friday, March 4, Houseboat Horror (R 18+), The Australian bloodfest about a machete maniac.

CINEMA FIASCO

EARTH VS THE SPIDER

Astor Theatre, Chapel St, St Kilda, tonight 8pm. www.astortheatre.com.au

Alice in Wonderland***1/2, Jan 12, 2011

Alice in Wonderland

Adapted by Glenn Elston from Lewis Carroll, Australian Shakespeare Company

Rippon Lea House and Gardens, until Jan 29, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** 1/2

Not only does the audience at Alice In Wonderland have the opportunity to wander through the luxuriant Rippon Lea Gardens, the children get to teach the White Rabbit how to tell the time, crawl through an inflatable, multi-coloured rabbit tunnel, play death-defying croquet with the tempestuous Red Queen and scramble through the legs of the adults who become a pack of playing cards on the croquet field.

This new production, directed inventively by Kevin Hopkins, is one of Glenn Elston’s four outdoor, summer shows and it should be a runaway success with families. It features Lewis Carroll’s deliciously mad characters and nonsensical dialogue and the children squeal with delight at just about everything.

The story begins at the beginning, of course, and just keeps going on until the end, to paraphrase the Red King. The White Rabbit (Ashley McPherson) arrives in a prissy flurry of lateness (“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date”) and is then pursued by Alice (Gemma Bishop) and the entire audience of “little caterpillars” to the second location. (The show would be more streamlined for audience if the first location were simply on the lawn behind the first site.)

The vivid, cartoonish set design provides an eye-catching backdrop for the parade of eccentric, vibrantly costumed characters. Singable songs, live music and simple audience participation punctuate the physical action and help keep the children attentive.

The actors captivate the kids with their antics although there are occasional issues with vocal volume. Jamie McDonald’s Mad Hatter is funny and frenetic and he is well supported by Jonathan Dyer as the oafish March Hare and Kate Hosking as sweet, sleepy Dormouse. Bishop is a charmingly girlish Alice and McPherson engages with the White Rabbit’s games.

We are all shocked to be laughing so hard at Jacqueline Cook’s baby-abusing Duchess who is terrifyingly funny tossing her baby-doll in the air and feeding it pepper. The stilt-walking Red Queen (Lea Porcaro) and her subservient King (Gerard Schneider) are commanding. The Queen’s repeated cry, “Chop off her head!” and her insanely illogical court case are a hit. There is plenty to entertain and occupy all ages in this engaging and unpretentious show.

By Kate Herbert

In a cluster of cabarets - Midsumma 2011

Midsumma Festival

From January 16, 2011

Preview by Kate Herbert

Jan 12, 2011

If you love cabaret, then the 2011 Midsumma Festival probably has a gem cut just to your liking. Although the festival boasts over 150 events ranging across art forms, the performing arts, cabaret and music theatre programme is particularly impressive.

Midsumma is Melbourne's celebration of queer arts and culture, and its shows feature renowned Australian and international artists who work in mainstream arts.

The Premier Events programme includes a return season of Prodigal, the Green Room award-winning musical written by celebrated, local musical duo, Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank. Prodigal premiered during Midsumma 11 years ago then ran on Broadway two years later, becoming the first Australian musical ever produced in New York City. It is the story of a family struggling to reconcile the golden boy who ran away to Sydney, with the changed prodigal son who returns to them. Its cast features some leading musical theatre performers.

If you loved the talented Trevor Ashley as Edna Turnblad, the blousy mum in the wildly successful musical Hairspray, you’ll be thrilled by his cabaret Liza (On an E), in which he channels Liza Minelli. Another gang of professional, Australian music theatre artists, the cast of the quirky, hit musical, [title of show], tell their own stories in a funny and moving concert.

The Blue Show is a daring, new and adult offering from Circus Oz, showcasing sexy, muscled bodies and unbridled circus talent. This is the first production in the new, century-old Circus Oz Melba Spiegeltent. Another sassy, acrobatic show, Ladies Prefer Brunettes by The Cadettes and Women’s Circus, interrogates the nature of societal images of women.

If you want wigs, retro costumes, big band and hit tunes from the 30s to the 90s, Luke Gallagher and Dolly Diamond’s comedy cabaret, Getting Down and Brassy, is for you. Their repertoire include classics ranging from Frank Sinatra, Eurythmics, Thelma Houston, Kylie Minogue, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Michael Bublé.

An international show from Canada, The Book of Spells – A Love Story, is based on two tales of magic realism by British writer Sara Maitland.

The venues include: Northcote Town Hall, the tiny, eccentric Butterfly Club, Gasworks Art Park, 45downstairs theatre, Hares and Hyenas book shop and Kaye Sera’s Bizarre Piano Lounge and many more. There should be something on your side of town.

Midsumma opens on 16 January with Carnival at Birrarung Marr and runs until February 6. Check the programme at: www.midsumma.org.au

Comedy of Errors By William Shakespeare ***1/2

Comedy of Errors 

By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Robert Benedetti, by Australian Shakespeare Company

Botanical Gardens, until March 12, 2011

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors is a totally bonkers farce involving two sets of twins, mistaken identities, eccentric characters, absurd puns, bawdiness and endless entrances and exits. It is a smorgasbord of tasty comic opportunities for an actor.

Glenn Elston’s production capitalises on the comedy by dressing characters in half-masks in the style of the Commedia Dell’Arte (think Harlequin) and peppering scenes with physical gags, slapstick routines and silly walks to make John Cleese envious.

Although this production began life indoors at the Athenaeum Theatre, it is better suited to its outdoor venue in the Botanical Gardens. Its kooky comedy and looseness looked a little uncontrolled on a formal stage but have an engaging playfulness in the informal outdoors.

Egeon of Syracuse (Ross Williams) has twin sons both – just to complicate matters –called Antipholus. He lost his wife and one twin, now known as Antipholus of Ephesus (Hugh Sexton), in a shipwreck 25 years earlier. Egeon arrives in Ephesus in search of them with the remaining twin, Antipholus of Syracuse (Simon Mallory). Both Antipholuses have twin servants called Dromio (Syd Brisbane, Brendan O’Connor), also separated in the shipwreck. Confused yet?

The identically costumed and masked twins are indistinguishable from each other and the audience must cheerfully abandon itself to the inevitable confusions. Mallory and Sexton have fun as the pompous, pointy-nosed, young Antipholuses. As their Harlequin-like servants, Brisbane and O’Connor are cheeky, big-eared and bawdy Dromios, capering and tumbling to avoid unwarranted beatings.

Terri Brabon, on roller-skates, plays Adriana (wife of Antipholus of Syracuse) as a demanding, spoilt harridan. Josephine Bloom plays her sister, Luciana, as a prim, ballet-dancing maiden wearing an enormous chastity belt. There is some funny physical business between Tony Rive as Angelo, the foppish, horsey jeweller, and Andrew Bongiorno, the peg-leg pirate-like moneylender, Balthazar. Williams, as the droning old Egeon, and Kevin Hopkins on stilts as the beleaguered Duke, get plenty of laughs.

It could enhance this outdoor production to open up the performance space and take advantage of the myriad, off-stage entrances and exits. It feels a little constrained on the stage, although the cartoon-like set design (Greg Carroll) is effective.

Summer nights in the Gardens are too luscious to miss so take a blanket and wine and have a giggle.

By Kate Herbert

The Wind in the Willows, Jan 4, 2011 ***

The Wind in the Willows 

Adapted from Kenneth Graham by Australian Shakespeare Company
Botanical Gardens Gate F, until Jan 29, 2011
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Jan 4, 2011
Stars: ***
 
It’s that time of the summer again when all good little rabbits must picnic by the big river and go on an adventure into the Wild Wood with the madcap British characters from Kenneth Graham’s inspired children’s books.
 
The Wind in the Willows is back at the Botanical Gardens and, this year, we enjoyed it on a mild summer’s morning with birdsong and even the odd wildlife roaming across the grassy performance area.
Is the kiddy component of the audience getting younger? They all looked about 3 this time.

This summer production began in 1988 and casting alters yearly. However, the engaging Roscoe Mathers is clocking up decades as Head Chief Rabbit. His cheeky banter with Robert Jackson, the sleazy Weasel, elicits giggles from all ages, and their music encourages everyone to sing along to, “Waggle your ears, wiggle your nose”, and other perky songs.

The egocentric Mr. Toad, played as a toffy twit by Andrew Dunne, lives at lavish Toad Hall and is obsessed with boats, fast cars and boy-toys. It’s like an episode of Top Gear.

David Gould takes advantage of his basso profundo voice to play the gruff, know-all Badger. Cheery Ratty (David Bailiht) loves a picnic and introduces shy Mole (Michelle Hall) to Toad. Playful Otter (Callan Lewis) and, Portly (Dominic Hook), his fearless son, complete Toad’s gang.

There is never a dull moment as Toad falls out of his boat, careers into a policeman in his prized jeep, goes to court and is imprisoned by Weasel who invades Toad Hall with his wicked weasel family (including Natasha Stoat Despoja and Evil Kn-Weasel).

The kids go hunting in the Wild Wood for lost little Portly while Mathers and Jackson entertain the parents with endless bad puns and improvisation off the script. Wear a hat, take a rug and snacks and sing along.

By Kate Herbert