Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Feb 23 2019 ****1/2 (Review of 2019 opening)

THEATRE

Story by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, script by Jack Thorne
At Princess Theatre, Melbourne, reviewed on Feb 23, 2019
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****1/2

 

2021 season begins on 25 February 2021.

 
NB: Because Cursed Child is about to re-open after closing for Covid in 2020, I am re-posting this review was from the opening of the Melbourne season of Feb 23, 2019  There are cast changes this 2021 season. 

 

This review was NOT published in Herald Sun in 2019. KH

Sean Rees-Wemyss & William McKenna 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a sparkling, visual feast filled with tasty, Hogwarts  treats for the Potter aficionado.

 

The excitable and very vocal crowd cheers and gasps at the remarkable, jaw-dropping special effects of John Tiffany’s production that combines magical illusion, black theatre puppetry, startling appearances and disappearances, and whirling choreographic scenes - oh, and familiar characters as well as new ones.

 

Tiffany keeps the action swift and vivacious in Parts One and Two that are an endurance test of over five hours for the audience - but nobody seems to mind.

 

Based on an original new story by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, this new play, written by Jack Thorne, which hurls us back into the world of Hogwarts when Harry (Gareth Reeves) and Ginny’s (Lucy Goleby) son Albus (Sean Rees-Wemyss) begins his less than stellar school years at Hogwarts Academy. 

 

A cunning twist is that Albus's best friend is the goofy and incompetent Scorpius Malfoy (William McKenna), son of Draco, Harry’s childhood nemesis.

 

The signs at the theatre say, ‘Keep the secrets’, so this we will do. You will not hear anything of the cursed child, the changing fate of young Albus, Scorpius, Harry and his cronies, Ron Weasley (Gyrton Grantley) and Hermione (Paula Arundell) or the current headmistress Professor McGonagall (Debra Lawrance). 

 

If you loved the Potter books and movies, this is a must-see for you. There are working magic wands, magical creatures, moving staircases, terrifying dementors, villains and heroes, battles for life and death, broken familial relationships and all your favourite characters.

 

The heroes of this production are the invisible people who manipulate human bodies, puppets, staircases, wands and other paraphernalia to create this fantastic world before our eyes.

 

As Scorpius, McKenna delights the crowd from start to finish, and Rees-Wemyss, as Albus, is a suitably disenchanted, rebellious teenager.

 

Appearances by  Severus Snape (David Ross Patterson), Professor Dumbledore (George Henare), Lily and James Potter, Dolores Umbridge (Hannah Waterman), and a delicious bathroom cameo from Moaning Myrtle (Gillian Cosgriff) send the crowd into paroxysms of delight.

 

Occasionally, some dialogue feels a bit cheesy and uncomfortable, a few characters are a bit shouty and lacking vocal control, and the story is extremely convoluted.

 

But, ultimately, there is plenty of spectacle to keep the audience cheering and clapping as we witness the continuation of the fight between good and evil that is at the heart of the Harry Potter series. Everyone goes home tired and happy.

 

by Kate Herbert

Come From Away, 13 July 2019 ***** (REVIEW of 2019 season)

 MUSICAL THEATRE 

Book, Music & Lyrics by David Hein & Irene Sankoff

Comedy Theatre, until Oct 27, 2019 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert (reviewed at preview performance on Sat 13 July 2019)

Stars: ***** (5) 

I am posting my 2019 review of this sensational production as it has now opened again in Melbourne. I have no information about any cast changes for this 2021 season. 

It runs uitl 14 March 2021 at Comedy Theatre. KH

This review was NOT published in Herald Sun in 2019.

Melbourne Cast of Come From Away-photo Jeff Busby

Come From Away is a remarkable, exhilarating and joyous celebration of the human spirit at its best, and the audience leapt to its feet in a standing ovation at the finale. This show is a rare creature you should not miss.

On September 11 2001, 38 planes were diverted to a tiny town in Newfoundland, Canada, almost 7,000 passengers were met with warmth and open-hearted generosity.

On that dark day, the 10,000 residents of Gander and neighbouring towns gave shelter, solace and a warm hearth to complete strangers displaced by the events of 9-11. These people shared their lives. Remember sharing?

In their electrifying and outstanding musical, writers, David Hein and Irene Sankoff, condense 16,000 stories from real interviews into a narrative set over five days, with dozens of quirky characters portrayed by an exceptional ensemble of twelve.

Hein and Sankoff weave an uplifting and compelling tale, about the passengers who start in a state of panic, despair and ignorance, and the extraordinary residents of Gander who rally to make them welcome. As news filters through from New York, these strangers commune and a new, short-term community takes shape.

With Christopher Ashley’s deft direction, actors transform into multiple characters with only the change of a jacket and an accent. On a stage sparsely decorated with wooden chairs and slender tree trunks, they transport us from claustrophobic plane to crowded sleeping quarters or a rowdy pub.

Ashley sets a vivacious pace that never tires the audience, but keeps us energised and on the edge of our seats, because we care about these people.

We wait anxiously for news of Hannah’s (Sharriese Hamilton) fireman son in New York, Captain Beverly Bass’s (Zoe Gertz) pilot friend, wonder if this odd couple (Nathan Carter, Katrina Retallick) will get together, and will the gay partners, Kevin and Kevin (Doug Hansell, Nicholas Brown), split up?

With precision and style, Hein and Sankoff thread dialogue amongst the spirited, witty lyrics and complex, choral harmonies of their songs, to inform story, characters and relationships.

The signature tune, Welcome to the Rock, provides a stirring anthem about Newfoundland that is reminiscent of a Les Miz chorus, while the rousing Celtic, folk-rock score, featuring a live band (fiddle, guitar, bass, bodhran, accordion), supports the ebullient performers.

City slickers and foreigners start to realise they won’t be robbed or killed in this gentle, surprisingly tolerant, isolated island, although some of Muslim faith are carefully screened.

Come From Away has an unlikely story for a musical, but it works and its celebratory story renews one’s faith in humanity. I’d wanted to watch it all over again immediately it finished. If you see nothing else this year, see this. It’s worth it.

By Kate Herbert

COME_FROM-AWAY-Zoe Gertz - pic Jeff Busby

COME_FROM-_AWAY_Nathan Carter Katrina Retallick -pic Jeff Busby

Cast in 2019

Zoe Gertz - Captain Beverly Bass

Richard Piper - Mayor of Gander (and other characters)

Sharriese Hamilton- (Hannah)

Doug Hansell – Kevin T

Nicholas Brown - Kevin

Kolby Kindle –Bob

Emma Powell - Beulah

Katrina Retallick – Diane

Kellie Rode-  Bonnie

Sarah Harrision -Janice

Nathan Carter – Nick

Simon Maiden – Oz, Rabbi

Director - Christopher Ashley

Musical Staging -Kelly Devine

Musical Director -Luke Hunter

Musical Supervisor -Ian Eisendrath

 

UnMute - Improvisation on Zoom (UK) 20 Nov, 2020 ****

IMPROVISATION ON ZOOM 

On ZOOM on 20 November 2020

https://www.facebook.com/events/401589581206275/  

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:****

 This review published only on this Blog. KH

L-R: Luke Sorba & Pippa Evans in UnMute

 

In UnMute, close up on the zoom screen, we see two improvisers minds in a whirl as they conjure character, place and dialogue in a split second. It is a joy to behold!

 

Improvisors, Luke Sorba and Pippa Evans (Oliver Award winner), create a series of Zoom calls between two people. Off-screen, Paz, the ‘Voice of Reason’, feeds them characters and locations taken from audience suggestions in Chat and calls ‘Unmute” to start each new scene.

 

The first scene features Adam (Luke), a bookseller who calls Helen (Pippa) who is working in a sweatshop making leather trousers and is terrified she will be caught chatting on Zoom. She hilariously uses the Zoom screen to show her tiny fingers that help with the fine stitching.

 

In the second call, Helen (Pippa) then calls her social worker, Rupert (Luke), to discuss her current employment in the sweatshop. However, his incompetent advice and obviously dodgy duplicating of her passport, all lead to him admitting he is not a social worker but a former casino worker who was furloughed and retrained during the pandemic.

 

Rupert, (Luke) then speaks to an anxious woman is Picadilly Circus as she stands by the statue of Eros. and they reveal they are a couple and their conversation escalates into an argument about their marriage and his demands on her.

 

This same supercilious wife (Pippa) then talks to her unbearably over-confident, smug yoga teacher, Marco and they get mired in murky existential psychobabble. The improvisers minds create some riotous dialogue including him naming his yoga poses after types of pasta e.g. the Fettuccini. She then teases him with sexual innuendo about the Downward Dog.

 

The yoga teacher (Luke) in Hampstead calls a Scandi Noir detective, Lisbeth, (Pippa) in Stockholm to search for a missing person – his yoga student. She speaks in cryptic, odd English in an accent that is a collision of Swedish and Welsh, using strange and indirect allusions.

 

Finally, Lisbeth, the Scandi detective, calls Adam, the bookseller (Luke), to order books on dream interpretation. Her strange English expression and mad dreams and imagery prompt him to write his own book and her asks her to help him.

 

UnMute is a hoot to watch as the two improvisers, with great ease, weave a web of interconnected stories and finally make sense of this improvised world of characters

 

 

by Kate Herbert

Pulp Playhouse Reunion 7 Nov, 2020 ***1/2

IMPROVISATION THEATRE

Produced by Pulp Playhouse hosted by BATS Improv 

Date: 7 Nov 2020 via ZOOM 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 

Stars: ***1/2

This review published only on this blog. KH

Top L-R: Regina Saisi, Rafe Chase, Joshua Raoul Brody; Lower L-R: O-lan Jones, Mike McShane, Brian Lohmann 

 

On 7 November 2020, BAT Improv hosted a reunion show by members of Pulp Playhouse, an inspired and inspiring company of improvisers who explore genres in their storytelling.

 

The company’s first show was 23 April 1988 in San Francisco. and the members changed over the years. The shows I saw in the 90s featured Paul Killam, Diane Rachel, Barbara Scott, Regina Saisi and others.

 

This online show boasts improvisers from San Francisco and Los Angeles: Regina Saisi (director of the show), Rafe Chase, O-lan Jones, Brian Lohmann and Mike McShane, with music by the incomparable Joshua Raoul Brody.

 

On the Zoom screen, we see the improvisers narrate stories and play characters alone in their homes, some against virtual backgrounds, as they tell crime fiction stories in the style of pulp novels. Each is a discrete narrative introduced by a pre-determined character who asks for a story title from the audience who post their title ideas in the Zoom Chat.

 

In Story One, Regina Saisi, as narrator, Eleanor Hillary Shackleton III, is in a snowstorm surrounded by her huskies. She tells the story of The Wild River in which Cynthia meets Ralph, a gentleman who slips into a river. She saves him with her poetry and, perhaps more practically, with a makeshift canoe that tumbles over a waterfall.

 

The narrator of Story Two is Brian Lohmann playing Arlo Fisk, former – or is failed – FBI agent, now FBI archivist, who welcomes us to FBI: Inside! from the FBI Archives library (a black and white, virtual background).  Fisk, a character Lohmann created for early Pulp shows, narrates the story One Bullet, an exciting story told by a dull man. Lohmann’s characterisation of the dour FBI officer, Fisk, is awkward, rigid and hilariously earnest.

 

‘Crime is bad. Nobody likes it!’, says Fisk dryly.

 

In One Bullet, Mike McShane as Herman Kitter, a man of influence, is confronted outside his barber shop by a man and woman with nude photographs that could ruin him. Lohmann, as Fisk, says about Kitter, ‘He had a susceptible kidney’.

 

Story Three is narrated by Rafe on his character’s 30^th anniversary with his ventriloquist dummy bride. He tells his bride a story about a woman (Regina Saisi) alone in a cabin who meet and befriends Sasquatch (McShane) outside her lonely cabin. This becomes a love story as eccentric as that of the narrator and his dummy bride.

 

O-lan Jones as Roliimpsia Queen of the World, the laid back and petulant warrior princess, narrates The Swedish Fish, a story about Princess Volartua (Regina) whose herald finds in Sweden a poetic Fish (Brian) that can sing a beautiful, Swedish Fish song.

 

The final story is by Mike McShane as elderly Peepers Keeperbaum, a former child star living in a retirement home. In his crusty aged voice, McShane narrates the clever and witty Clara Bow and the Model T, about a meeting between Clara Bow, pert, silent movie actress with a squeaky piping voice, and Henry Ford, inventor and captain of industry.

 

The expertise and ease of these versatile and masterly improvisers creates narratives and characters that inspire and entertain. Let’s hope for more reunions shows.

 

by Kate Herbert

Love Letters to Melbourne, 6 Nov 2020 ***1/2

 

CABARET / BURLESQUE

By Finucane & Smith

Zoom on Thurs 5 Nov 2020 at 7pm

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

 This review published only on this blog. KH

This online version of Love Letters to Melbourne by Finucane & Smith, is a cornucopia of diverse performers streaming to us directly from their living rooms, bedrooms and even a bathtub.

 

It comes to us via Zoom – with all the expected zoomy technical problems that crashes the streaming just after interval. (Maybe it came back online, but I gave up trying after 10 minutes.)

 

Rachel Lewindon plays pre-show piano while we peer at other guests – in their Zoom windows – lounging, sipping wine or wandering off waiting for the show to start.

 

Our host, the inimitable Moira Finucane, steps on screen and greets almost the entire audience of 100+. She glitters in lame, pouting her scarlet lips as she talks about Melbourne deserved this love after being locked down for 100 days.

 

Shirley Cattunar, a woman in her 80s, sings Stand By Me from her couch, unaccompanied.

 

To the song, One Night in Heaven, and watched by a gaping Molly Bashful, Maude Davey pulls strawberries from her bosom under her strapless black taffeta gown.

 

In his Sydney studio and wearing glittery boots and a belt of stuffed toys, Paul Cordeiro performed a dizzy disco dance.

 

Next, Caroline Lee tells an erotic suburban poolside story featuring zucchinis, nipples and Derek’s glistening shaft, that was inspired by Lockdown and is interrupted at a crucial moment by a Zoom drop out!!

 

Meanwhile, Maude Davey almost upstages Lee, as Davey dressed for her next spot wearing red, thigh high boots and shimmering black veil obscuring her face and moving to Am I Blue.

 

Mama Alto sings Memories (Streisand) unaccompanied, then Finucane returns as the Milk Queen, in her bath, wearing white bikini and pearls, grimacing and writhing in litres of milk.

 

After a short interval, Die Roten Punkte, Otto and Astrid, perform from their bedroom Second Best Friend (Ooh ah!), “Time to wake up to tickle all the corners.” This is their love letter to Melbourne.

 

The Zoom failed on Otto and Astrid’s last, lip-smacking, screen-kissing farewell and we were left marvelling at the impact of Zoom in our lives as artists and wondering what came next in the Love Letters.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

.

Loaded (Audio) by Christos Tsiolkas, 24 Oct 2020 ***1/2

Adapted from novel by Christos Tsiolkas with Dan Giovannoni

By Malthouse Theatre

Audio version online. Tickets from 30 October 2020

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

This short review published only on this blog. KH

                                                                       Roy Joseph

Set in Melbourne in 1995, Christos Tsiolkas’ novel, Loaded, was a transgressive, subversive and grungy view of Ari, a young, Greek gay man’s adventures with drugs, clubbing and sexual hook-ups.

 

Malthouse Theatre’s cancelled its stage adaptation of Tsiolkas’ 1995 debut novel and has now replaced it with an audio version adapted by Tsiolkas with Dan Giovannoni, directed by Stephen Nicolazzo and featuring Roy Joseph as Ari, self-narrating his story.

 

This adaptation is like listening to an audio book with soundscape. It is a collision of 1995 and 2020 cultural references. 

 

Ari still plays a mix tape on CD while other references are updated with 2020 lingo, including ‘hipsters’, ‘Woke’, ‘swipe left’, mobile phone playlists and other delights unavailable in 1995.

 

Much has changed since ’95 in the arenas of sexuality and gender, drugs, music and partying, but Ari’s world is still lurid, graphic, provocative and probably still offensive to some.

 

If the four, one-minute videos on the website are any indication of the stage production, there would have been an abundance of mirror balls, vivid and violently flashing lights, loud club music accompanying graphic, physicalised sexual activity.

 

There is plenty of sexual imagery in the language of this audio version, but the listening audience is not confronted with visuals of writhing, groping and hooking up that might feature in the live production.

 

By Kate Herbert

Single Ladies Now, Red Stitch, online 16 Oct 2020 ***

 

By Michele Lee 3 x 10 minute monologues

Red Stitch Theatre online

https://redstitchweb.squarespace.com/single-ladies-audio-page

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars:***

This review published only on this Blog. KH

Andrea Swifte, Jem Lai, Caroline Lee

The audio play is making a comeback since Covid closed down our theatres, and Red Stitch is on the audio bandwagon with three short, audio monologues based on Michele Lee’s Single Ladies, a play that was cancelled back in March.

 

Directed by Bagryana Popov, these three monologues by three women take place in Collingwood, an inner suburb of Melbourne with a colourful history and even more colourful current population.

 

Rachel (performed by Jem Lai) dubs herself ‘a sad insomniac‘. She lies in bed, listening to the last tram on Smith Street, checking her phone feeds, yawning, watching lesbian trash on Netflix and reminiscing about Em, her recent ex-girlfriend. For an entire night, punctuated by passing trams and noisy, drunk pedestrians, Rachel analyses the relationship and her own inability to let go and clear her house.

 

Lilike, A batty local woman from an immigrant past, is performed with a broad Aussie accent and vibrating, nervous energy by the inimitable Carolyn Lee. Every morning, she attends her ‘Collingwood friendship shrine’ where she chats to an odd collection of objects – a ceramic toad for one – that she has placed at her shrine.

 

Lee’s Lilike is already a strident objector to a car park being built by a construction company, and she now discovers that her own home is also to be developed for modern housing.

 

Andrea Swifte plays Anne, a middle-aged woman, who lives alone in a Collingwood apartment and is clearly lonely. She eats soup, makes calls, almost break into tears, then chastises herself. She phones various men who seem to be her previous dates, until one, Daniel, a farmer, is available to chat – about soup.

 

The character of Anne is enlivened by Swifte’s easy, relaxed, engaging and vocally strong performance. The context of the narrative is clearer in this monologue than in the other two but this may be because of the shift from stage to audio play.

 

These monologues will pass the time as you walk with your phone or lie in your bed musing about this mad, new world we are confronting.

 

By Kate Herbert

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

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

On sale to public from 30 October.

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

There is also a complementary panel event, Reloading Loaded.

 

From Media Release:

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

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

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

 

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

End Release