Loving Hamlet, difficulties with language and dogs, The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane had me from Monash Uni's Sue Twegg's opening discussion about the instability of Shakespeare's language, accompanied by a very beautiful Great Dane.
However, if you don't know Hamlet – really know it, not just know that it's the Shakespeare one with the skull and "To be or not to be" – I have no idea if there's anything to connect to.
Ireland's Pan Pan Thearte perfectly describe it as "an irrelevant riff on Hamlet". Reveling in its meta-ness, the first half has academia, a live pun and an audition process that lets the audience get out of their seats to choose their Prince of Denmark.
Like a favourite album, the second half plays the sing-along choruses and well-known singles with highlights performed by Pan Pan and local Drama students from Trinity Grammar School. And the dog comes back. And a knowledge of Beckett lets you enjoy it even more.
With a Danish flag floor, Dane curtain and pillows, and silver garbage bins, its visual gorgeousness is easily mistaken for a sober symbolic design – if it didn't delight in its punny symbolism. The text too is treated with a fascinating mix of love and disdain, with moments of nerdy solemnity and audacious hilarity that were intriguing, if not engaging.
The emotional connection of the show is the understanding between the creators and the audience. We don't care for Hamlet and his family's sorid/solid/sallid tale, and don't care too much who gets cast, but we love them because we share the understanding of the play and the text and we get the jokes. Would Ophelia crawling out of a bin with garbage for remembrance be anything but odd without knowing the context?
This is theatre for theatre nerds and there's not much better than being in full theatre with the nerdiest.
The festivals are over, but there's no time to rest.
MKA's I know the writer 15-plays, 15-days season opens tonight at the new MKA pop-up theatre in Abbotsfod.
15 days of new writing from some of our best writers. Heart this company very much.
Ben Ellis Unrestless is tonight (so sorry that I can't make it).
And there's new work by SM favs Robert Reid, Zoey Dawson, Ross Meuller, David Finnigan and Glyn Roberts, and we'll get our first glimpse of Declan Greene's Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography.
Each play is on $7 at teh door, or $50 for the whole season.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Melbourne Festival and Sydney Festival
13 October 2011
Fairfax, the Arts Centre
to 15 October
I saw Foley surrounded by teenagers from Warrnambool.
At first I shhhed and glared at the rude boys who didn't know theatre etiquette, but listening to their commentary was as fascinating as the story Gary Foley told about his transformation from angry young to grumpy old man.
Like Jack Charles V The Crown, this year Ilbijerri and our arts festivals give the stage to activist, actor, academic and ratbag Gary Foley, who tells his story of becoming politicised and his experience of the Black Power political movement in Australia. Unlike Uncle Jack's story, we're left without getting close to the person, but his telling is compelling and angry and without a rainbow serpent in sight.
Wearing a Viva Fidel t-shirt and a black jacket with a glittery black-power fist, Foley begins his story in 1965 when he was the only black kid at school and living in a "redneck hellhole" where it never occurred to him that a segregated cinema wasn't normal.
Meanwhile, his history begins at the turn of the 20th century when Aboriginal water front workers were influenced by US black power movements and Fred Maynard formed the Australian Aboriginal Progress Association. Through his active involvement in Redfern, the Tent Embassy and early black theatre, Foley's history is not the one I learnt at school.
As us who were alive in the 70s saw missed parts of our history, chuckled at the recognition and despaired at the lost opportunities, my teenage theatre mates were so bored that they may get detention from their embarrassed teacher.
As a QandA-watching, theatre-going, Greens-voting, pseudo-hippy liberal, I hung on every one of Foley's word. I laughed at every political reference (damn it, I remember believing in Labor), was fascinated by the Tent Embassy footage that I hadn't seen, had no idea that teen-hero Simon Townsend (Wonder World) was a journo and nearly wet myself at the "Welcome to colour TV" and white-mask sketches from the never-screened pilot for Basically Black from 1972.
These kids didn't. They didn't even get the obvious parallel between the mining industries current squillion dollar campaign to create fear and the one that turned Hawke. One didn't even know that Eddie Maguire used to be on The Footy Show.
Chatting with them after, I have a much better idea of the show through their eyes and despaired at an education system that doesn't seem to reflect on Australia's recent history or current affairs. These teenagers have no connection to any of the events.
Foley's ultimate message is that for all our Sorry t-shirts and the acceptance of Aboriginal theatre in our arts festivals, we really haven't made that much progress and he encourages his young audience to take up the fight. Not a chance of this happening with these kids.
But, that's not so bad. If I'd been told the same history when I was 13ish, I wouldn't have got it either. These kids said "no shit" when Foley showed the Aboriginal flag (and told us how it was really created), they giggled at the word "boong" because they thought it was "bong" – and they kept saying "bong" – and at "coon". They may not have studied Keating's Redfern speech – or know who Keating is or where Redfern is – but these are teens who have never uttered "boong" or even know about "coon" and they thought that no one could be so stupid as to not recognise the Aboriginal flag.
They didn't get the wordy show about our missed history, but they didn't see a black dude; they saw a boring dude. And if that's the colour-free attitude they're taking into life, that's a damn fine step in the right direction. They'll care about history as they become part of it
I slept throughHedda Gabler. Not in the bad, snoring way, but in the feeling queasy and had a nap in the afternoon and the next thing I knew my +1 was ringing and asking where I was cos it was 7.59. I hear it was pretty amazing though, so please read Alison's review.
Loving Hamlet, difficulties with languageand dogs, The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane had me from Monash Uni's Sue Twegg's opening discussion about the instability of Shakespeare's language, accompanied by a very beautiful Great Dane.
If you don't know Hamlet – really know it, not just know it's the Shakespeare one with the skull and "To be or not to be" – I have no idea if there's anything to connect to.
Finally, I've seen an international piece in this festival that can and will influence our own theatre and storytelling. As the festival debate about appropriating and telling stories continues, The New York Theatre Workshop's Aftermath shows us that sometimes all you have to do is tell.
Created by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, Aftermath is described as documentary theatre, being created from interviews with Iraqi civilian refugees in Jordan in 2008. Workshopped with actors from the transcripts, nine stories were selected and shaped by the writers to place the tellers and their families in the context of the big-picture story and to re-tell the recent (his)story that we think we know.
Aftermath was written for a US audience, but was destined to speak to Australians, not just because of our military involvement, but because the interviews took place as Iraq played Australia in that World Cup qualifier and we re-live the scoring of that goal. Even die-hard Socceroos would cheer.
Their stories are harrowing and human and so far from media reports of collateral damage that I know I've glossed over when I'm watching the ABC. I have no idea what an exploding bomb sounds like; I don’t know the smell of flesh fused to a car seat or that of rotting bodies in the street. I do know that I would only flee my home, my family and my friends if there were choice. These people loved their lives and their homes, but and they had no choice but Jordan.
My only trivial comment is that the ownership of the stories transfers to the actors. Too often I see actors leading their characters and assuring the audience that it's all a game of pretendies. With actors this good, the acting disappears so much that the final gasping cheers were slightly distanced from the stories and I wonder if it would have been as or more affecting had the work taken a Brechtian step back from the emotion.
This may be theatre that's preaching to the liberal choir, but it left me shuddering. It humanises the Iraq war unlike any reporting I've seen and I'll be the first to donate to get it performed in our federal parliament.
How could I not with such critical critical reviews and the deeply hurt response of some of the creators.
Supported by the City of Port Phillip and local groups that support marginalised residents, the MIAF production of Site Unseen is only one result of a Community Cultural Development (CCD) program that's been running for months.
I was hoping to talk about CCD and the importance of having your voice heard. I was hoping to compare it to the stunning documentary theatre of Aftermath, to the exquisite honesty and confrontation of Ganesh and The Third Reich and to other wonderful CCD shows I've seen developed and supported by the Port Phillip Council. I was hoping to talk about how it spoke to me.
It's possibly best to read the website, support the program, scoff at the reviews and leave the show unseen.
I can't remember feeling so uncomfortable watching a piece of theatre – and my discomfort had nothing to do with the subject matter.
What I liked
The beautiful photo exhibition in the soupless kitchen of the Theatre Works foyer. Black and white photos of people with an object of importance.
The recorded voices of the people who helped make it.
The elephant, until it was explained. Oh, so the elephant in the room is the elephant in the room.
The piece of Chocolate Kugelhopf I had in Acland St after the show.
Knowing that people who have written about this show and the people who have spoken to me about it are not heartless arseholes for criticising that which deserves praise and large slices of Chocolate Kugelhopf.
I may have also liked Chris B's performance, but he wasn't on.
Whose story is it telling?
Very superficially, CCD uses the arts to enrich lives and communities by letting people share their stories. From intention to process and product, a CCD project always has its community participants at its core. Site Unseen is no exception, with a participant training and employment program as part of the project. All we are seeing is the developed performance.
However, unlike the Site Unseen project (and the above video), the live experience lacks the stories of real people. A very clean bloke pretending to be a bogan and saying "It's hard on the streets" isn't a story; it's a confirmation of a stereotype.
Of course the presented experiences of homelessness are true, but they are scraped off the surface of the real stories. Without detail, without context and without humanity, there's nothing to share that every person seeing Site Unseen doesn't know and see every day.
For me, the most moving story was the old woman being evicted with her cat, Rosie. This woman had a name (that I've forgotten) and her situation is so real to anyone who doesn't own their house. It really could be me. She was also a cardboard cutout in case our imaginations are so dead that we can't imagine what an old woman looks like.
To the creators and participants who are hurt by the response to this show, please tell us your stories because we want to hear them and they are what is unseen in Site Unseen.
Who is Site Unseen talking to?
Poor Felicity. Felicity is our guide and the chair of fictional WIMS (Walk In My Shoes). She's also living in fear of being stabbed by angry critics. If I were the kind of person who took a rhetorical knife to the theatre, she'd have been safe – because I would have self-harmed to get away.
Who is this woman meant to be? Is she the section of our society that this show wants to reach?
I get that it's meant to be satire, that's she's meant to represent the worst of silly rich middle-class ladies who take on charities to feel good about themselves and have no idea about who or what they are supporting. I've never met anyone like her though.
So Site Unseen isn't talking to us and we can happily sleep knowing that we've done our bit by turning up and politely clapping at the end.
Good satire makes us cringe at our own hypocritical ridiculousness. Felicity isn't any part of me or anyone I know, and I wonder if she's any part of anyone who chooses to see a show about homelessness as part of a respected arts festival. Does anyone really think that the people who want to see and support this show believe that the homeless are having a picnic and slumming it by buying non-vintage Moet with their food vouchers?
The tone of Site Unseen is that the audience are so ignorant and selfish that they need to be told the obvious.
Why doesn't this show confront me? Me, who lives in the Port Phillip (St Kilda) council and avoids walking down certain streets. Me, who has lied to Big Issue vendors saying that I already have a copy. Me, who writes about pretentious theatre and pretends to understand how homeless participants in a CCD project feel.
Homelessness in Rippon Lea
Last year during the storms, I wanted to put my car in my shed. My shed is filthy, falling apart and it leaks; it's not somewhere you'd want to spend more than a few seconds. It was late at night and opening the door I was confronted with a smell that I will never forget. I was terrified of finding a dead animal.
There was a body, but he was alive and in a sleeping bag in the one dry spot. He was also passed out. I shut the door. My car was fine. I had no idea what to do and was horrified at myself for being scared of someone who was so cold that my crappy shed was a good find. I didn't call the police like my neighbours suggested.
With a bit of googling and asking on facey, I put together a supermarket list and in the morning I filled an old backpack with museli bars, Milo, fruit cups, cheese sticks, Panadol, band aids, wet wipes, tissues and some chocolate. I left it in the shed, but he never came back. I know that I'd be humiliated if I'd been discovered sleeping in a run-down shed.
He left used tissues, rollie papers, some empty wine casks, a pair of boots, a pair of sandals and a rug that I wouldn't let my cats sleep on. He'd even managed a fire. I used thick rubber gloves to clean it all up. The smell took days to go.
(Dude, if your reading this. The food and stuff is still there and your shoes are in another bag in the corner of the shed.)
The homelessness of Site Unseen doesn't smell or confront or question. It may be based on real stories, but the final product is spotlessly clean and feels as authentic as a performance of "We're a couple of swells".
As such, it insults my intelligence, my empathy, my knowledge and my actions.
I didn't think that Whiteley's Incredible Blue would cause the next critical blue.
Cameron tweeted that it was "as much fun as snorting nutmeg" and called it "awful and ugly" in The Age, while on Theatre Notes, Alison quoted Ezra Pound and showed me things that I missed.
Incredible Blue is selling out, but some extra shows have been added. It's stunning. It's incredible. I'd have happily stayed and watched the 10pm show as well. Barry Dickins's writing means nothing and everything, with a poetry as addictive as the heroin that Brett Whitely could never leave. And I'm now a little bit in love with Neil Pigot. His performance is with me forever.
I'm writing a more substantial response to Site Unseen, but I'm letting it sit for a day or so because it is difficult to write a negative response to a show where the critical response is causing real distress to the people who helped create it. In the meantime, I love this video from the Site Unseen website, and there's a response from the creative contributors in today's Age that's worth reading. Shame it's not in the online version.
RSVP, Jennifer Williams, Cathie Clinton, Yvonne Coughlan
2 October 2011
Clifton Creative Arts Centre, 314 Church St, Richmond
to 9 October
This year, my Melbourne Fringe highlights have been the artists who have shared their stories. Story is a complicated concept. You can spend years reading all the discussion about how to create one or you can realise that everybody has a story and that yours is just as important, interesting and moving as any other. No Matter Where You Go, There You Are is Jennifer's and Cathie's stories.
Jennifer Williams and Cathie Clinton haven't been in the same room yet. Jennifer moved from Sydney to Ireland last year and Cathie moved from Ireland to Melbourne, and with director Yvonne Coughlan they've created a night of intimate and personal theatre through email and Skype.
In a large Richmond gallery, Cathie directly shares her stories and we watch Jennifer's on screen, and Yvonne creates balance and an equally intimate atmosphere for each woman. The distance of performing to camera frees Jennifer to talk about the issues that really matter to her and her large screen presence creates genuine closeness. Meanwhile, Cathie is introduced from the far side of the room, so the same closeness is developed slowly.
For it's delicate theatricality and gorgeous use of space, what makes this experience so intimate is the honesty of the performers. This solitary nature of the original development process seems to have created the safety to dig deep and find those authentic moments of truth that resonate far beyond a common experience.
Their's nothing extraordinary about Cathie's and Jennifer's experiences of leaving home and travelling, their doubts about being an artist and the drug of audience approval, or their fears of wondering who would want to see two neurotic women talk about their fears – but it's the normality of their stories that makes their telling extraordinarily beautiful.
The next incarnation of this project will include actors in Portland, USA, and Adelaide
The night I saw No Matter Where You Go, There You Are, there were three people in the audience. This was disappointing, but brilliant because it intensified the intimacy and made our tiny group personally invested in making the experience supportive.
There's so much to see this last Fringe weekend, but this is on until Sunday if you can squeeze it in.
This review first appeared on AussieTheatre.com (luckily!)
I took a break from the super-arty scene tonight to see Chasing Rainbows, the first play by emerging writer Tony Avard.
It's not arts-festival-ready, but the only way that writers can become great is by getting their work in front of people. So hooray for programs likeRMIT Link that support student arts projects.
Chasing Rainbows is about Bailey who's trying to deal with the death of close friend, a boyfriend who actually loves him and the characters who live in his mind and do their best to look after him. Performed by actors who care about the messages they're sharing, it's passionate and full of love, pop culture and guts.
For a few days, I've indulged in the joy of seeing shows without a notebook (thanks Carmen's Verandah).
Undisputed favourite was The Manganiyar Seduction. Pure joy that starts deep in your gut and ripples to the surface until it's impossible not to dance, or at least stand, cheer and whoop.
And how lovely to hear the director thank everyone at the festival, including the publicists. Tatia and Mary, if you weren't there, you were thanked and applauded.
I also loved The Magic Flute. If Mozart had marimbas, drums and tuned water bottles, he may have dumped those keyboards. The production suffered because the State Theatre is a sound-sucking beast for unamplified voices, but it didn't take away from the passionate performances. I haven't seen that kind of love for Mozart, or for opera, on a stage in a long time.
Was Assembly really a week ago? Moments of exquisite and moments of twee. Musically, I adored it, but was too concerned about the dancers to fully enjoy the choreography; especially as comments from later in the season were so much about, "We could see the blood and the bruises."
If you're joining the festival debate about appropriating and telling stories, Aftermath cannot be missed.
Based on interviews conducted with Iraqi civilian refugees in Jordan in 2008 and performed by The New York Theatre Workshop, it's created for all of us who have believed what politicians and the media tell us, for us who have no idea what an exploding bomb sounds like, for anyone who has used the term collateral damage, for anyone who thinks that anyone would flee their home if they had any choice.
Foley Ilbijerri Theatre Company
13 October 2011
Fairfax, the Arts Centre
to 15 October
I saw Foley surrounded by teenagers from Warrnambool.
At first I wanted to shhh and glare at the boys behind us who didn't know theatre etiquette, but listening to their comments was as fascinating as the story Gary Foley told.
As us who were alive in the 70s saw parts of our history that we missed, chuckled at the recognition and despaired at the lost opportunities, these teenagers were so bored that they may get a detention from their embarrassed teacher.
Chatting to them after, I has a much better idea of the show through their eyes and am now despairing about an education system that doesn't seem to reflect on Australia's recent history or current affairs. They had no connection to any of the events or stories being told.
However, I was quietly pleased to hear them giggle at the word "boong" because they thought it was "bong" – and they kept saying "bong". They may not have studied Keating's Redfern speech – or know who Keating is or where Redfern is – but these are teens who have never uttered "boong" or even know what it means. Perhaps, they're not so bad after all.
Rhinoceros in Love National Theatre of China
7 October 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 9 October
melbournefestival.com.au
Rhinoceros in Love stomps to MIAF with some mighty big footprints. First performed in 1999, it's considered China's most successful play and has been performed over 800 times to over a million people.
Visually striking in black, white, mirrors and water, the dream-like story's dark satire is balanced with moments of buffoonery and contrasted with the frustration and beautiful pain of being young and in love.
...
Because I'm a theatre nerd I'm so glad that I saw Rhinoceros in Love, but I'm left wondering if I'm an old fart who doesn't care about young obsessive love. I still love rhinoceroses though.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Rhinoceros in Love stomps to MIAF with some mighty big footprints. First performed in 1999, it's considered China's most successful play and has been performed over 800 times to over a million people.
Visually striking in black, white, mirrors and water, the dream-like story's dark satire is balanced with moments of buffoonery and contrasted with the frustration and beautiful pain of being young and in love.
Ma Lu has sense of smell as good as the rhinoceros he looks after at the zoo, and he loves Mingming, his dream-girl neighbour who smells of lemon-flavoured gum and a photocopier. She's in love with man who doesn't love her and isn't prepared for the love of a man who tells her she's his warm gloves in winter and cold beer in summer, but doesn't think his poetry is good enough to even write on rhino hide.
The internet has helped me understand a lot more about the context of this work and I've taken heed that director Meng Jinghui thinks that critics who said it was difficult to understand were merely insulting themselves.
I understood it; although, my date for the evening and I disagreed if the Ma Lu and Mingming had had sex. This is very clear to its young fans who quote the text and the 200+ student drama companies who have performed it, and writer Liao Yimei says that she remembers "feeling almost embarrassed by the raw passion and lust". As her characters describe themselves as Generation A Y (angry youth), perhaps Rhinoceros is like The Rocky Horror Show was to me as a teenager.
Sitting next to young Chinese speakers, it was clear that Liao's writing screams so much more than the English translation allows. Mandarin is already a literal language and once it's translated, it loses all subtlety and its stilted poetry can leave an already-distracted surtitle reading audience wondering what they're missing.
Because I'm a theatre nerd I'm so glad that I saw Rhinoceros in Love, but I'm wondering if I'm an old fart who doesn't care about young obsessive love. I still love rhinoceroses though.
The Melbourne Fringe Festival Awards were announced on Saturday night. Congratulations to everyone.
Professional Development Awards
Best Emerging Circus Performer, Supported by ACAPTA
Tilly Cobham-Hervey, Freefall
Tour Ready Award, supported by Adelaide Fringe Uta Uber Kool Ya
Best Emerging Producer, suppoted by Auspicious Arts Award
Erin Voth from The American Astronaut
Outstanding Comedy Show Award, supported by Brisbane Powerhouse
Me Pregnant!
Innovation in Theatre Award, supported by Brisbane Powerhouse. Bunny
Original New Circus, supported by Circux Oz Award No Such Thing as Normal
Outstanding Indigenous Artist Award, supported by the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts
Vicki Kousins from Re: appropriate
Melbourne cabaret Festival Award for Excellence in Cabaret The Unexpected Variety Show
Best Experimental Performance Award, supported by PACT Centre for Emerging Artists Sweet Child of Mine
Best Original Australian Work, in Memoriam of Caz Howard, supported by Theatreworks The Waiting Place
Best Emerging writer, supported by Victorian Writers Centre Award, in association with the Melbourne Theatre Company
Dan Giovannoni, Amelia Evans and Paige Rattray for Cut Snake
Innovation in Culturally Diverse Practice, supported by Kultour. In Fact, This Crease in Your Trouser is Good My Friend
Category Awards
Best Circus Freefall
Best Cabaret: Pirate Rhapsody, Mermaid Requiem
Best Comedy Lawrence Mooney in An Indecisive Bag of Donuts
Best Dance Proximate Edifice
Best live Art A Window in Mime
Best Music Musical Thoughts for a Darkened Room No Place Like Home
MIAF 2011 Half-Real Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival and The Border Project
29 September 2011
The Tower Theatre, The Malthouse
Sold Out
Drugs or pink pyjamas? Nervous tick or dead wife? It's your choice in The Border Project's Half-Real, a whodunnit choose-your-own-adventure.
The Border Project are from Adelaide and if you haven't hear of them, pretend that you have because they're getting talked about, in the good way.
With the help of a rather cool Wii-like controller and a whizz-bang, just-like-a-real-computer-game-but-bigger-and-smoother video projection, the audience vote about what happens next and who we think did the deed.
Performers David Heinrich, Alirio Zavarce and Amber McMahon present us with three intriguing suspects and the most frustrating element is choosing whose story we don't hear.
The premise of handing control over to the audience is too tempting to miss, but it doesn't take long to realise that our choice is as limited as the choose-your-own-adventure books the idea is based on, rather than on a narrative as sophisticated as a contemporary computer game. (As I once happily play Pong on a black and white telly, today's games continue to leave my jaw on the ground.)
Interacting with a controller is fun (and how I wish I had one for other shows*), but it was clear that our choices weren't based on the evidence presented, and post-show chat wasn't about the results of our choices, but about the choices made for us and if indeed there was any real choice.
Half-Real looks like a game with it's drop-dead design and super (non-pixillated) cast, but it feels like being a child playing a board game with an adult who's letting you keep up, even if they don't let you win.
* Should this 50ish couple written by David Williamson a) discuss how horrible their view of the harbour is, b) moan about their adult children or c) jump into the harbour?
I was late for Daniel's show (damn you daylight savings), but running down the corridor I heard a lot of laughing and a song about fucking. Apparently, it's what everything is all about.
So I knew I was going to like it.
Daniel made it through catholic high school as the only gay boy (that he knew of), but getting through a music conservatorium education when he was into show tunes and art songs was another challenge altogether, even when he vipped out his Wagner.
But it took a few more years to kill those damn self-doubt vampires – thank you [title of show] – and realise that he so has a story to tell, that the best way to tell it is through slightly obscure show tunes and by believing people are going to want to hear it.
Like the best, Daniel has the help of a great pianist and he opens up his heart to tell some tales that he'd rarely shared. Good stories need truth and it's in those moments of honesty that performers and audiences bond. When storytellers are brave, we see how meaningless our superficial differences are. Who hasn't decided in seconds that the cutie we've said hi to is our happily-ever-after, and we all did things in year 10 that we didn't tell our families ... until our solo cabaret shows.
The Things I Learned in High School is on at Longplay in North Fitzroy until Saturday. Forget the Fringe hub for a night, grab a drink and a meal and share your love of song (and fucking) with Daniel.
As the fortyfivedownstairs program continues to bring us companies who know how important it is to tell our stories and are willing to take the kind of risks that create amazing theatre, Scott Gooding's happy ending for Vicious Fish's Belbel Project is a satisfying hour of Fourplay.
A long-term couple wanting change have a remarkably cool new bed. With crisp purple sheets and geek-perfect proportions, it's ready to break in – but they don't want to fuck with destiny, so he invites a hot young man and she invites a hot young woman...
Now, before anyone gets excited about watching bored middle-class swingers, know that Fourplay's far more interesting and that the only writer resorting to cheap puns is me.
Catalan-Spanish playwright Sergei Belbel wrote his first plays in the 80s and has been Artistic Director of The National Theatre of Catalonia since 2005. Vicious Fish is the champion of his work in Australia, having presented four of his translated works.
Form and structure are as much a part of Belbel's storytelling as character and plot. Fourplay's time line alternates and scenes repeat from different perspectives with new information. This forces the audience to actively play in the onstage games and to continually re-think what they believe is happening. There's no passive watching with Belbel.
And while I love how this makes us really engage with the text, the brilliance of the Jenga-winning structure can create distance from the stories of the characters (Gooding, Michael Argus, Kaitlyn Clare, Liza Dennis) and distract from the humour that pumps the heart of the work.
With four people wanting to use the bed for more than a nanna nap, there's potential for farce, but Belbel is far darker and tempers their play time with uncomfortable laughs that feel really good once you get used to them and accept just how reactionary tits can be.
I've recently seen a lot of very funny shows where audiences seem afraid to laugh in case it isn't meant to be funny. If you think it's funny, the people creating it probably do as well; so, please have a glass of wine if it helps and enjoy Fourplay.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com
MIAF 2011 Ganesh Versus the Third Reich Malthouse There and Melbourne Festival and Back to Back Theatre
29 September 2011
Merlyn Theatre
to 9 October
Should we only tell our stories? Is it possible to balance the line between respect and offence? With a hullaballoo playing out in the media about how this show is offending some "Melbourne taxpayers", it's probably best to see Ganesh Versus the Third Reich to make up your own mind.
When the Back to Back ensemble conceived the "great conceit" of Ganesh travelling to nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika, they knew it was "morally fraught ... and too dangerous for a little theatre company from Geelong to appropriate Hindu gods and create a fairytale within the Holocaust."
Thankfully, they re-thought and created a story within a story that blurs reality and fiction as it confronts itself and manipulates its audience's assumptions.
Devised by Mark Deans, Marcia Ferguson, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, Kate Sulan, Brian Tilley and David Woods, the telling takes us into the rehearsal room as the cast (Deans, Laherty, Price and Tilley) deal with a difficult director (Woods) and argue dilemmas like if it's ok to play a Jew if you're not a Jew or an Indian deity if you're not an India deity. And there's the issue of who's going to play the "good part" of Hitler.
Meanwhile, Ganesh arrives in a concentration camp in 1943, where his elephant-head draws the attention of Mengele, and he meets Levi, whose mental retardation has kept him alive.
If you're going to be offended this work, be offended by yourself as you realise that you came into the theatre with some pre-conceptions and ideas that are offensive to others.
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is theatre that grabs us by our hearts, gives us permission to laugh, makes us cry, shakes some sense into us, then starts the process again. What an astonishing start to MIAF 2011.
Photo by Jeff Busby
Spring Awakening Monash Uni Student Theatre and Monash University Academy of Performing Arts
1 October 2011
Alexander Theatre, Monash University
to 8 October
www.monash.edu/mapa/
With over 60 Monash Uni students and recent graduates involved in every element of this production, it would be tedious to mention everyone who helps make this Spring Awakening so memorable; so, you'll have to read the program – and the only way to do that is to see this show.
Spring Awakening won Tony Awards in 2007 and is credited with bringing young audiences back to Broadway with its heart-breaking characters and rock-infused score. Its story is from a 1892 German play that was banned for confronting taboos like masturbation, first-sex, homosexuality, incest and violence. We may write openly about these topics now, but for all our contemporary knowledge, the pain and confusion about confronting any of these is still as strong; so, the music is a juxtaposition of angry, hurting rock straight from the hearts of its young characters.
If the thought of a student-theatre musical leaves you shuddering, banish such fear. Monash Uni Student Theatre (MUST) continues to believe in young artists and creates a structure and atmosphere that lets them create productions that surprise and delight.
The core creative team – Yvonne Virsik, Cassandra Fumi, Tom Pitts, Kristen Adriaan, Jason Lehane (director, assistant director, musical director, choreographer, designer) – start with the skills of their artists to create a production that's led by emotion. What results is a musical that's as striking and moving as any Tony winner, but never tries to be Broadway.
Spring Awakening is one of my favourite musicals from recent years and MUST's production is – I have to say it – a must. You might see versions with slicker dance and more mature voices, but you won't catch one with more heart.
And, really, the Clayton campus is a 20-minute drive from the city and there's parking at the door. Don't use its distance as an excuse.
I was running late for Daniel's show (damn you daylight savings), but running down the corridor I heard a lot of laughing and a song about fucking. Apparently, it's what everything is all about.
So I knew I was going to like it.
Daniel made it through catholic high school as the only gay boy, but getting through a conservatorium education when he was into show tunes and art songs was another challenge altogether. It's taken him a few more years to kill those damn self-doubt vampires – thank you [title of show] – and realise that he so has a story to tell and that the best way to tell it is through slightly obscure show tunes.
Like the best, Daniel opens up his heart and tells some tales that he probably thought he'd keep quiet. This is the stuff that bonds performers and audiences. In those moments we know that most of our differences are meaningless, because we all did things in year 10 that we didn't tell our families ... until our solo cabaret shows.
The Things I Learned in High School is on at Longplay in North Fitzroy until Saturday. Forget the Fringe hub for a night, grab a drink and a meal and share your love of song (and fucking) with Daniel.
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are RSVP, Jennifer Williams, Cathie Clinton, Yvonne Coughlan
2 October 2011
Clifton Creative Arts Centre, 314 Church St, Richmond
to 9 October
I just got in from this show and had the kind-of-brilliant and kind-of-disappointing experience of being in an audience of three. But I'm stressing the brilliant, because it's a night of storytelling that I really can't compare to anything else and I'm so glad that I went. (Watching Doctor Who so nearly won...)
So no matter what you're hoping to see this week, please make time for this.
I'll give it some more words tomorrow.
Spring Awakening
Monash Uni Student Theatre and Monash University Academy of Performing Arts
1 October 2011
Alexander Theatre, Monash University
to 8 October
www.monash.edu/mapa/
With over 60 Monash Uni students and recent graduates involved in every element of this production, it would be tedious to mention everyone who helps make this Spring Awakening so memorable; so, you'll have to read the program – and the only way to do that is to see this show.
.....
Spring Awakening is one of my favourite musicals from recent years and MUST's production is – I have to say it – a must. You might see versions with slicker dance and more mature voices, but you won't catch one with more heart.
And, really, the Clayton campus is a 20-minute drive from the city and there's parking at the door. Don't use its distance as an excuse.
As the fortyfivedownstairs program continues to bring us companies and writers who know how important it is to tell our stories and are willing to take the kind of risks that create amazing theatre, Scott Gooding's happy ending for Vicious Fish's Belbel Project is a satisfying hour of Fourplay.
A long-term couple wanting change have a remarkably cool new bed. With crisp purple sheets and geek-perfect proportions, it's ready to break in – but they don't want to fuck with destiny, so he invites a hot young man and she invites a hot young woman...
Now, before anyone gets excited about watching bored middle-class swingers, know that Fourplay's far more interesting and the only writer resorting to cheap puns is me.
