Two Little Spiels: A Double Bill

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008
Two Little Spiels: A Double Bill
We Could Live Here
A Preamble
Friday October 3 2008

There’s big glitzy shows at the Fringe hub, but don’t forget the little gems that are sparkling away in hidden corners of the city. Two Little Spiels is two shows in early stages of development: We Could Live Here, devised and performed by Bron Battern and Karina Smith, and A Preamble, devised and performed by Eva Johansen.

Both still have rough edges, but the shiny, glittery and diamond-hard cores of these works are clearly visible, and a tiny room above a Smith St cafe is the perfect place to see them.

No matter how much you rehearse, think and re-work a performance, theatre doesn’t live until it has an audience. Work in progress performances let artists discover where the connections are and what ideas should be developed.

Remarkably beautiful images emerge from the movement-based We Could Live Here. Battern and Smith use slowness, stillness and quiet to evoke memory and combine it with a slightly dark sense of humour that adds an almost bitter poignancy to the “tea with diamonds”. However, even though sadness and regret are delightfully contrasted with hope and imagination – I’m not sure if I was meant to walk away feeling hopeful or fearful about being a single, old woman.

Johansen is best known for her work with the wonderful kabaret troupe Caravan of Love. A Preamble is her first solo work, which she promises isn’t just about “women’s issues and post-coitalism”. An original balance of clown and ingénue, she effortlessly switches from slapstick routine to heat-breaking, room-silencing song. The contrast is sometimes contradictory, but the two sides will soon combine into a pretty amazing character, who will prove how it is possible to be sexy AND funny.

With such solid bases and obvious connections with their audiences, the next step for both shows should be external direction. To reach their full potential they need input from someone who doesn’t have the creators' personal attachment.

Be prepared for is quite a long break in between shows, but make sure you see both – and use it as an excuse for a piece of cake or a cocktail.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com.

Appetite

MIAF 2008

Appetite  
Kage
24 October 2008
Fairfax Studio, The Arts Centre

The lesson I learnt from Appetite is: Never have a performer dry hump a whole roast suckling-pig while your protagonist is pouring out her heart and soul.

With an artistic pedigree including director Kate Denborough, writer Ross Mueller, performer Catherine McClements; a long development process; and the support of MIAF and the Arts Centre, I expected Appetite to be the kind of work that would take these Melbourne-based creatives to the world.

Fusing physical theatre/dance with drama and music, it’s about 39-year-old Louise, who is struggling with aging, realising she’s a middle class urban cliché and wondering what happened to her youthful aspirations. This should have spoken to me (and most of the assembled audience) and left me a blubbering mess of self-recognition, empathy and inspiration.

Instead, I thought that the Emperor, the Empress and all the assembled court were all starkers.

There were some beautiful and remarkable moments. Denborough’s captivating dance pieces were physically inventive and showed us everything we needed to know about the characters and their relationships. McClements has never failed to engage me on a stage, and her performance was the best it could be.  But the good bits just made the less-good bits seem even worse.

I thought Appetite was under-written, under-directed, and filled with middle-class clichés and one dimensional characters. Louise’s middle class existence has become so middle class that she has everything she could ever need – but having family, friends, material excess, and a husband-who-turns-down-her-hot-sister all suck in her mind. She wants her life to have meaning and “remember how to smile”. So she miserably wanders like a ghost around her party, as her mates get pissed and behave like teenagers on schoolies week.

We learnt nothing about her that we didn’t know from the first scene. Nothing surprised me, moved me or made me care.  As Mueller writes superbly about loss and discontent, I kept waiting for her to lose something. Instead, her wealthy, good-looking hubby declares that he loves her and that they will embark on a “life like we are falling in love every day”. I’m afraid that we were meant to believe this – however nothing on that stage made me believe that he loved her and their party behaviour indicated that they would wake up hung over, and conveniently forget their drunken late-night promises.

Appetite obviously embraces food and hunger as metaphor, but it seemed to be used more for its joke value than its symbolism. (And it is unfortunate that it is on the same week as flour and bread are used so perfectly in OKS’s Romeo and Juliet). Louise’s character climax revolves around two monologues that might have been the most incredibly written and life changing words every uttered - but I couldn’t hear them because the audience were too busy laughing at the physical action. I can see how this was an ironic comic counterpoint to her revelation, but all it did was distract. The distractions were fabulously funny and perfectly executed – but nothing can compete with simulated sex with a roasted whole pig.

If Appetite was satire, I think it would have struck a stronger chord. I searched the program notes for a hint that it was meant to be funny, but it’s about Louise being “inspired to change”. Perhaps I just didn’t see what inspired her.

This review appeared on AussieThearte.com

Romeo and Juliet

MIAF 2008

Romeo and Juliet  
OKT and Melbourne International Arts Festival
23 October 2008
Playhouse, The Arts Centre

With so many Romeo and Juliets out there, is it necessary to bring a three and a half hour contemporary Lithuanian production to Melbourne?

OKT was formed by Oskarus Koršunovas in 1999 and was awarded the status of Vilnius City Theatre in 2004. With a determination to find a new way to communicate with audiences, the company aims to "stage classics as if they were modern dramaturgy and modern dramaturgy as if they were classics".

Koršunovas said in the post-show Q and A that we are limited in what we can express with just words, and I really don’t have the words to adequately describe the complexity, depth and perfection of this Romeo and Juliet.

Layered and original, there isn’t a wasted moment in this production filled with the kind of imagery, metaphor and symbolism that prove the unrivalled power of theatre. As the stylised and highly choreographed direction swings from hilarious and crude to delicate and personal, the pure physicality of the performance is astonishing. Words and expression oppose each other, revealing the depths of the story and the hatred and difference that created their world.

The Shakespeare stereotypes are rejected for whole and surprising characters. This is a production where you feel as much for Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris, as you do for the young lovers, and see the tradition, the love and the hate that motivates every action.

This Verona is placed in two opposing but similar family pizza kitchens. This domestic, but public and familiar scene is a source of humour that gradually becomes the frame for the inevitable tragic events. The pain of life takes place in the everyday and familiar, as the bread and flour that sustain life become the symbol of poison and death.

I think the genius of Shakespeare is his complex and intertwining stories, not his iambic pentameter, and seeing a production in another language lets us focus more on story than language. The surtitles are there to be read, but they are an English translation of the Lithuanian translation, so the words become a reference, rather than the focus.

Arts festivals let us see and be inspired by the absolute best. OKS have set the bar pretty high and I now want to see theatre this good from our local companies.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

That Night Follows Day

MIAF 2008

That Night Follows Day
Tim Etchells and Victoria and Melbourne International Arts Festival
22 October 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

It’s comforting to know that all children add Earth, the Solar System and the Universe to addresses, and that little girls always tuck their skirts into their pants when they hand upside down. It is less comforting to see how much children are confused by, resent and are angry with adults.

That Night Follows Day is devised, written and directed by Tim Etchells, who directed Bloody Mess (Forced Entertainment) at MIAF 2005. His cast of 16 children and young people from Belgium speak as a chorus directly to the lit audience.

The script is a complex and remarkably structured list of what “you” (adults) do for and tell children and what “we” (children) promise to do. As adults we sing to children; we tell them about The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Spice Girls; we tell them not to drink bleach; and explain the plots of movies to them. In return, they promise to dress nicely, be as good as gold and not say asshole or motherfucker. It’s not hard to recognise the children in our own lives or the children we once were.

As an adult, it can be confronting to see and hear what children think of us. The loving recognition of calling kids “Pumpkin” delicately turns as their anger at forever being told “no” is exposed and the lies and tricks adults think they get away with are presented back to us.

This world clearly differentiates between the “us” of adult and the “them” of children. This was strange as 9-year-old and a 15-year-old expressed the same beliefs. The gap between these age groups is so much greater than a 15-year-old and a 20-year-old “adult”. The unasked question is when do these children and young people join our adult world, or when did we leave theirs?

The exceptional young cast contributed to the script, but are still very clearly directed and controlled by Etchells. There is no room for mistake or interpretation, even in the chaotic playground scene where the children do all the things adults don’t want them to do.

With such a strong adult directorial voice coming though the work, there is some doubt to the authenticity of the opinions being expressed, but not enough to lessen its impact.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

El Automovil Gris

MIAF 2008

El Automovil Gris  
Theatro De Ciertos Habitantes and Melbourne International Arts Festival
17 October 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Tonight I was very nearly involved in late-night violence on the 67 tram, as an outraged  80-plus woman nearly threw me out the door for not loving El Automovil Gris. Luckily, we both liked the Glass, otherwise there’s no telling what might have happened! At the half-way mark, this festival continues to evoke extreme reactions.

It really is black or white. People love or hate some of these shows. It’s beyond me how some folk scoffed at An Oak Tree, in the same way that my new tram-friend couldn’t fathom that I wasn’t enamoured by Mexican company Theatro De Ciertos Habitantes.

Their show is black and white. It’s a black and film. 

In Japan at the end of the 19th century, live presenters called the Benshi accompanied silent film. Adding voice and narration, the Benshi were often the drawing cards to the screenings as they added context, character and social commentary to these films made far away from Japan. This production is a contemporary interpretation and re-enactment of a Benshi accompanied film. In this case, the 1919 silent film El Automovil Gris, a semi-factual account of a band of thieves who terrorised Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution. The most fascinating thing about the film is that it incorporates the actual film of the gang being executed.

This Benshi commentary freely switches from Japanese to Spanish to English. The subtitles are just as freely interpreted, with changing fonts and languages, which get more and more visually interesting as the film progresses.

It all sounds really interesting – but I just didn’t get it. The performers were faultless, the live upright piano soundtrack was perfect, the idea is unique and there were some wonderfully absurd moments, but to me it was just funny voices, “cross-eyed” acting and laughing at the incongruity of the languages and cultural images. It is funny to see “mother fuckers” as a subtitle on a silent film, as we hear it said in Spanish or Japanese – but was there anything more to it than a series of strange jokes?

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Circus Trick Tease

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008
Circus Trick Tease
October 2008
Lithuanian Club

Circus Trick Tease bring circus to theatre and theatre to circus in their fresh, original and joyously naughty Fringe debut.

The Trick Tease trio are Miss Tinkle (Malia Walsh), the fickle and neurotic superstar; Mr Plonk (Shannon McGurgan), the self-proclaimed sensitive new age strong man, with 70s porn star tendencies; and Ghazanfar (Farhad Ahadi), who is from overseas.

Their performance is a terrific combination of character clowning and super-slick circus trick. This alone is worth the price of a ticket, but the ongoing story of their raunchy offstage relationships takes this show to an irresistible level.

Their humour balances slapstick with a wet-fish slap of irony, and is almost as seamless as their jaw-dropping acrobalance. They compete for attention, compete with each other and play with the fact that acrobats really do have to see each other from extremely intimate and revealing angles. Highlights include Ghazanfar’s quaint balloon animal and juggling performance, accompanied by the shadows of Tinkle and Plonk’s backstage antics, and the final ménage-a-tois inspired swing number. 

It was a joy to discover such a highly polished and hilarious act. I can’t wait to see their next show.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Sammy J in The Forest of Dreams

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008

Sammy J and the Forest of Dreams
October 2008
Fringe Hub

Is it wrong to have a crush on a squirrel? Terry’s a lovely squirrel. He’s fuzzy, soft, has a great sense of humour, is easily manipulated, and appears in Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams.

If you have heard that Sammy J In The Forest Of Dreams is the must-see show of the Fringe - trust what you’ve heard.

Its ephemeral images delicately explore the role of fairy tales and childhood dreams in our contemporary existence...NOT! It’s an arse-raping, puppet-snogging, king-fisting hoot, that’ll have you snorting with laughter.

Local comedian Sammy J and puppeteer Heath McIvor made this show from the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. All jokes aside, it demonstrates a solid knowledge of genre, incorporates original, authentic characters and is tied together with a well-told, complex and interesting story.

And it is funny. Very, very, very funny. Just don’t let the puppets fool you into thinking it’s a kid’s show. The opening “Fuck You Disney” song sets the tone – and it’s all down hill from there.

The Fringe season is sold out. So, sucked in if you missed out!

GOOD NEWS
The season is now extended. October 16 to November 9 at the Lithuanian Club.

PS: If you want to see a terrific interview with Terry the Squirrel,  John Richards had a chat with him for The Outland Institute.
 
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Book of Longing

MIAF 2008

Book of Longing
Melbourne International Arts Festival
15 October 2008
State Theatre, the Arts Centre

“I follow the chorus from chaos to art.” (Leonard Cohen). Every time I think Philip Glass is becoming his own cliché, I see something new and fall in love all over again. Book of Longing is an impeccable night of theatre and one of my festival highlights.

I love Glass best when he’s working with voices and words. (Perhaps because I can kind of sing along at home). This concert quickly reminded me of his 1986 album ‘Songs from Liquid Days’, where he composed to lyrics from Paul Simon, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne and Laurie Anderson. And a look on my copy reveals that the music director of Book of Longing, Michael Riesman, also worked on this album.

Book of Longing is composed to the poetry of Leonard Cohen. By letting us listen to the words against a familiar soundscape, the almost predictable sound of Glass gives a remarkable clarity and perspective to Cohen’s poetry. Glass even says the work “starts with words and almost every musical decision is made in view of the words”.

What takes this event beyond a concert experience is Susan Marshall’s stage direction. With a natural costume design, which looks like everyone chose their own outfit, a simple lighting design and Glass’s song cycle structure, the evening flows effortlessly. The four singers move on and off the stage, among the musicians (including Glass) and simply sing the words. By not acting them out, the power of the words themselves becomes stronger and their impact greater.

A scaffold mosaic backdrop of Cohen’s artwork brings a very visual dimension to the night. Mostly self-portraits, nudes, guitars and birds, Cohen’s art work seems quite naïve and simplistic compared to his words, but they show his thought process and Christine Jones’s design brings a wholeness to the stage.

Finally, I’ll leave Cohen to describe Book of Longing. He said, “With no apprehension whatsoever I presented Philip with a book of poems and he presented me with this really stunning evening of theatre. There’s something quirky, something eccentric about Book of Longing. It seems to have an intimacy of thought and experience, and I feel that it embodies a new kind of sensibility.”

Really, there’s nothing more I can add. I loved it and can see it inspiring more people to follow their own chorus “from chaos to art”.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

An Oak Tree

MIAF 2008

An Oak Tree
Melbourne International Arts Festival
12 October 2008
Fairfax Studio, the Arts Centre

If you are an actor who has been asked to perform in An Oak Tree and are googling for some clues about it, go away now and please don’t read anything about it. Just say ‘yes please’ and do the show, because it will be an unforgettable experience for you and everyone who sees it.

I could become addicted to An Oak Tree, and I’ve only seen it once. Process and story blend in a heart-wrenching tale of grief, guilt and suggestion that simultaneously draws us in and pushes us away – reminding us that we are merely watching a story whose outcome is known and controlled, but whose emotion is still being created before us.

An Oak Tree is a two hander, with the author (Tim Crouch) playing a stage hypnotist who was involved in a fatal car accident. The second role is always played by a guest actor, who has neither read nor seen the script and only meets Crouch an hour before the show. This performer is instructed by Crouch directly, through an earpiece and from pieces of written script.  The likes of F Murray Abraham, Laurie Anderson, Frances McDormand, Mike Myers and Tim McInnery are among the 200-plus actors who have performed with Crouch. Melbourne saw Jane Turner, Geoffrey Rush, Julia Zemiro and Kym Gyngell. I saw the wonderful Julia.

Zemiro is by far one of the best improvisers around and it was fascinating to watch her let go of her expectations and not improvise. For all its unknowns, Crouch never lets the second performer feel out of control. They have a lot of freedom in how they perform and react, but they have no control over the story or the structure of this remarkable work. Zemiro was amazing. It was beautiful to watch her initial fearful excitement disappear, as she put herself in Crouch’s hands and created a darkly funny and surprisingly emotional performance.

Crouch’s complex story (and the story within the story) allows for a myriad of responses and I can’t imagine that any two performers would be able to interpret and perform it in even similar ways. Just seeing one performance was an astonishing experience; so performing this with so many different actors must be almost mind-blowing for Crouch.

I saw Chunky Move’s Two Faced Bastard the day before An Oak Tree. Although very different shows they both directly address the duality of performance and performer. Whereby I only saw obvious questions in the first piece, Crouch’s quietly screamed to me everything I have ever dreamt of understanding about the process of writing and story and how to create authentic emotional realism on a stage. It’s simply fucking brilliant.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Two Faced Bastard

MIAF 2008

Two Faced Bastard

Chunky Move and Melbourne International Arts Festival

11 October 2008
Arts House

What can you say when a performer declares that they don’t like reviews that describe the experience of a show and that there’s no room for flippancy in reviews, because the artists are too highly invested in the work?  “Umm…you are really good looking and I liked the beer I had at the bar…” Surely, if there is room for flippancy on the stage, there is room for flippancy in a review?

Chunky Move’s Two Faced Bastard is about duality. It’s directed and choreographed by Lucy Guerin and Gideon Obarzank, and explores the on and off stage aspects of theatre and the “Jekyll and Hyde” nature of performance – seriously and flippantly.

The stage is split down the middle with the equally split audience on either side. Each side only see half of the show, whilst glimpsing and hearing the other. Stage and backstage become one, as the exit to one is the entrance to the other. (Sorry to ruin the experience – but even the program guide gave that away.)

Audiences appear as equally split in their opinions about its success. I really liked the mystery of what was going on beyond the curtain, but in the Q&A after the show, nearly half of the remaining audience indicated that they thought they missed out on something.

Two Faced Bastard was created though workshops and a series of development performances. The process is still very clear on the stage, especially as and performers (actors and dancers) discuss their opinions and fears.

The questions are fascinating and this festival is the ideal place to ask them. However, I felt that the concepts weren’t explored beyond an almost obvious level. I don’t think it’s a revelation that performers are scared of stuffing up on a stage or that artists continually ask if they are creating to please themselves or an audience.  I would have liked to see the creators express a firmer opinion, rather than just offer the questions. I'd love to know your answers.

Being on the non-dance side of the room, I didn’t see much of the dance, until the final scene when the curtain is withdrawn. These final moments were stunning, and expressed the concept of the show more simply, succinctly and easily than what went before.

The process seemed like a lot of fun, but the final product still seems to be finding itself. After the performance, Obarzank said, “It’s searching for itself and I’m quite happy about that.” Perhaps that is the answer I’m looking for.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Eric

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008

Eric

Vicious Fish Theatre

10 October 2008

Dancing Dog Cafe

Eric is one of those Fringe shows that was over before people began to hear about it.

With  content as diverse as reality TV pitches (Are you sexier than a fifth grader?), a speed dater who brings his own semen sample, and a Bond villain despairing that his minons dipped his echidnas in poison, Eric is sure to tickle most funny bones – while finding some unexpected new ticklish spots.

Eric is an experiment in form that started when Scott Gooding wanted to do a character comedy, but couldn’t come up with a solid idea for one character. Fortunately, he forged ahead by asking his favourite playwrights to contribute scenes, and the one person sketch show emerged.

Fortunately, he also called upon the directing talent of Scott Brennan. Best known for his work on television sketch shows, Brennan combines the tightness of TV sketch with the freedom, spontaneity and intimacy of theatre. With some clever structuring and measured pacing, he reins in Gooding’s excessive tendencies and knows when to let him loose.

Gooding’s comfortable physicality and genuine likability makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and his performance demonstrates a mightily impressive comic range. All of his characters are unique, authentic and recognisable, and at times it was easy to forget that there was only one person performing. His uncanny channelling of a blow up doll is almost haunting and no one who sees Eric will ever be able to book a brothel appointment without picturing him in a blonde wig.

With ten different playwrights (including Adam J A Cass, Robert Reid and Ben McKenzie), the comedy includes physical, joke, character, commentary, word play and a sobering dash of absurdist black. The Scotts successfully maintain and balance the different voices, without ever letting the differing styles and forms distract from the overall experience.

The Dancing Dog Café in Footscray is a terrific space for a show, but it meant that Eric missed the spontaneous ticket purchases at the Fringe hub or a better known venue. Hopefully Eric will return, because he deserves to be widely seen and welcome some adoring minions of his own.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

The Navigator

MIAF 2008

The Navigator
Melbourne International Arts Festival and Brisbane Arts Festival
9 October 2008
Playhouse, the Arts Centre

It wouldn’t be the opening night of the Melbourne International Arts Festival without walkouts and disgruntled mumblings.  Liza Lim’s new opera The Navigator is already eliciting extreme reactions.

At Thursday afternoon’s In Conversation, Kristy Edmunds and Robyn Archer discussed the unique role that Australian festivals play in enabling the creation of new work, supporting authentic voices and giving artists the freedom to create without the pressure of a known outcome. The Navigator is a product of the direct support of MIAF and the Brisbane Festival. Whether you choose to embrace or reject this outcome, it would never have existed without festival support.

Composer Liza Lim’s international demand far surpasses her local reputation. Archer describes her as Australia’s most important composer. I didn’t know about her, but I so want to hear more.

Lim’s composition is filled with unexpected contradictions and extremes. Like a child learning how to communicate, she plays with the myriad of sounds a human voice can make. Combining coloratura soprano (Talse Trevigne), baroque alto (Deborah Kayser), counter tenor (Andrew Watts), baritone (Omar Ebrahim) and bass baritone (Philip Larson) is already an unusual choice, but each also contradicts their own voice with squeals, grunts, barks and clicks.  Don’t expect to be humming the tunes on the way home.

Patricia Sykes libretto embraces the extremity of the music and lets her language and words joyously produce new sounds and images of their own.  Poetry like, “Embracing skeletons freeze and chime like beautiful relics”, force you to question the non-skeletal images and the non-chiming sounds.

Director Barrie Kosky has never been afraid to experience, explore and show us the new or the extreme. His controlled direction is terribly over-indulgent, but exquisite. There is no defining line between composition, direction, design and performance. All combine to create sumptuous, luscious and often absurd images that are designed to produce emotional and visceral responses.

Perhaps this is why people left. Maybe their responses were so extreme that they couldn’t bear the emotion any longer. Or maybe they just didn’t like it. 

I do wonder about the resistance to laugh and enjoy Kosky’s images. Is it the residual notion that opera is serious high art that is only meant to be admired? I enjoyed the absurdity of his images. Surely, the extra-sparklie gold lamé curtain, the fat bloke covered with butterflies, and the Fool/clown masturbating his over-sized penis, are meant to be a little bit funny!

The Navigator is not – and is not meant to be – for all tastes. It’s challenging, confronting and disorienting. I’m still not sure what it was about (and not completely sure if I liked it), but I was never bored, always fascinated and continually questioning and wondering about what I was experiencing.  I wish I could feel like that in every show, and am so glad that they had the support to create such a work.

This review appeared on AussieThearte.com

Kitten

MIAF 2008

Kitten
Malthouse Theatre and Melbourne International Arts Festival
8 October 2008
Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Kitten is about the transformative nature of grief and explores one woman’s journey through its drowning, floating and cleansing effects.

Directed and written by Jenny Kemp (who directed the astonishing Woman Bomb) and designed by Malthouse’s wonderful Anna Tregloan, I was looking forward to something spectacular - but I found it distancing, frustrating and ultimately boring.

 Kitten’s husband has died and her obsessive search for him leads to her breakdown. This work depends on the audience’s empathy with and sympathy for its protagonist and their understanding of her emotional narrative. Having three Kittens, who were far too similar, left the character strangely underdeveloped. Instead of creating a fuller picture of Kitten, it felt like a competition for which Kitten the audience liked best.

The opening act was slow, quite and intense. The emotional intensity started high and didn’t change, so the characters had nowhere to go that wasn’t down. In a scene that should have bonded the audience with Kitten, we were physically separated by a curtain and never allowed the emotional space to get near her.

Act two was filled with over-obvious dialogue, like Manfred saying, “I think you’re out of control” (I suspect I wasn’t the only person muttering “derr” under my breath) but missed vital clues to her behaviour. I have no idea if Kitten liked, loved or loathed Jonah, her dead husband, and couldn’t even figure out her conscious, or unconscious, feelings for the onstage Manny.

Act three brought the bi-polar bear. This scene was hilarious, gorgeous and spectacular, but nothing prepared the audience for such an extreme and unexpected change of mood, tone and style. Despite all its prettiness, wit and absurdity, this act felt so awkward.

I could see the academic, intellectual and emotional intent behind Kitten, but I think the intent got very lost in the translation.

 

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Set List

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008

Set List
Shaolin Punk
4 October 2008
Trades Hall

Set List is one of three improvised musical shows at this Fringe (that I know of). It has a fresh and enthusiastic, Micky and Judy, “let’s put on a show” feel about it, but needs to go back to the barn for a some more development

Set List is described as a band that “revels in the nuances, characters and stories behind one genre of music – with every note and lyric made up from audience suggestions”. This show was jazz – of the cheap motel, lounge act variety.

The Set List crew are all undeniably talented and extremely likable performers.  Highlights such as “You make me feel so nauseous”, the ballad about Sean the Anthropologist and the vocal musings about the devil’s condiment, prove the potential for a terrific show, but this performance felt so unprepared.

The ongoing success of shows like the wonderful Spontaneous Broadway is based on intense rehearsal, perfect characters and an obsessive knowledge of (and love for) the genre they are parodying. The Set List characters were very unclear (apart from Ben McKenzie’s band leader) and their stories could have applied to any band that happened to be perpetually touring the world (and not aging) for the last 40 years.

It is uncomfortable to watch performers break character and joke with each other. Even more so to watch them compete against each other, try to upstage (you know who you are) and – it really looked and felt like – bicker with each other. The onstage characters weren’t defined or developed enough to behave like that; it was clear what was character and what was performer.  

Finally – I may just be being obsessive and picky, but if you are promoting your show as a completely improvised set list – DON’T tape the typed and organised set list in clear view of the audience. It kind of destroys the mystery.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com