Cameron Lukey presents
26 May 2016
fortyfivedownstairs
to 12 June
fortyfivedownstairs.com
 |
| Paul Capsis. Photo by Sarah Walker |
My review is in The Age/SMH.
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
27 May 2016
Review: Resident Alien
Resident Alien
Cameron Lukey presents
26 May 2016
fortyfivedownstairs
to 12 June
fortyfivedownstairs.com
Cameron Lukey presents
26 May 2016
fortyfivedownstairs
to 12 June
fortyfivedownstairs.com
Review: Singin' in the rain
Singin' in the rain
Lunchbox Theatrical Productions,avid Atkins Enterprises, Michael Cssell Group, Dainty Group
14 May 2016
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 2 July
singin.com.au
The success of Singing in the Rain' is its mix of homage, iconic film moment re-creation – it really rains! – and a sprinkle of surprising original moments.
Jonathan Church's UK production moved from The Chichester Festival Theatre to the West End in 2012 and was a hit. Church is also the new Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company and – even though this is a re-mount – it's a good opportunity to see what might be in store for Sydney.
It's a theatre musical based on the 1952 Hollywood musical film set in Hollywood in the 1920s when talkies are introduced. Silent stars Don Lockwood (Adam Garcia) and Lina Lamont (Erika Heynatz) are in trouble because Lina doesn't sound as smooth as she looks, so Lockwood and his best friend Cosmo (Jack Chambers) scheme to dub her voice with that of Lockwood's new love Kathy (Gretel Scarlett).
It has been taken off the screen and made to feel like it belongs on a stage. Andrew Wright's choreography winks at the 1920s, embraces the ensemble identity of screen musicals from the 40s and 50s, but feels new; Simon Higlett's design has fun with the 1920s while showing how the same styles could be worn today; the newly-filmed screen scenes feel like being in the cinema in the 1920s; and the rain is so spectacular that the front rows are supplied with plastic ponchos.
The ensemble are a consistent treat and Scarlett, Heynatz and Chambers bring enough joy to their characters to let them love being who they are. They are rarely matched by Garcia, who shows little more than the Lockwood's superficiality.
There's plenty to love about this expensive production. Resources create spectacle, but it doesn't bring a contemporary or even a fresh vision to the story.
The old men slap women's bottoms and expect – and get – a laugh, the women are cast based on height and size, the men are cast based on height and size, the puddles left by the rain are deeper than the characters; and the inevitable happy ending is based on a woman being a bitch. For everything that's wonderful about it, it still feels as dated and dull as its pie-in-the-face gag.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Lunchbox Theatrical Productions,avid Atkins Enterprises, Michael Cssell Group, Dainty Group
14 May 2016
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 2 July
singin.com.au
 |
| Singin' in the Rain. Photo by Jeff Busby |
The success of Singing in the Rain' is its mix of homage, iconic film moment re-creation – it really rains! – and a sprinkle of surprising original moments.
Jonathan Church's UK production moved from The Chichester Festival Theatre to the West End in 2012 and was a hit. Church is also the new Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company and – even though this is a re-mount – it's a good opportunity to see what might be in store for Sydney.
It's a theatre musical based on the 1952 Hollywood musical film set in Hollywood in the 1920s when talkies are introduced. Silent stars Don Lockwood (Adam Garcia) and Lina Lamont (Erika Heynatz) are in trouble because Lina doesn't sound as smooth as she looks, so Lockwood and his best friend Cosmo (Jack Chambers) scheme to dub her voice with that of Lockwood's new love Kathy (Gretel Scarlett).
It has been taken off the screen and made to feel like it belongs on a stage. Andrew Wright's choreography winks at the 1920s, embraces the ensemble identity of screen musicals from the 40s and 50s, but feels new; Simon Higlett's design has fun with the 1920s while showing how the same styles could be worn today; the newly-filmed screen scenes feel like being in the cinema in the 1920s; and the rain is so spectacular that the front rows are supplied with plastic ponchos.
The ensemble are a consistent treat and Scarlett, Heynatz and Chambers bring enough joy to their characters to let them love being who they are. They are rarely matched by Garcia, who shows little more than the Lockwood's superficiality.
There's plenty to love about this expensive production. Resources create spectacle, but it doesn't bring a contemporary or even a fresh vision to the story.
The old men slap women's bottoms and expect – and get – a laugh, the women are cast based on height and size, the men are cast based on height and size, the puddles left by the rain are deeper than the characters; and the inevitable happy ending is based on a woman being a bitch. For everything that's wonderful about it, it still feels as dated and dull as its pie-in-the-face gag.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
22 May 2016
Review: After the Flood by Mikelangelo & the BSG
After the Flood
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
7 May 2016
mikelangelo.net.au
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
7 May 2016
mikelangelo.net.au
 |
| Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen. Photo by Tim Chmielewski |
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen may have formed in Canberra 15 years ago, but their histories and song lines reach back in time and across continents.
After the Flood is their fourth album. Influenced by a residency in Cooma with Big hART, they tell their stories about coming to Australia from Europe in the 1950s, living in Cooma and working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Today, Cooma is a stop before the snow fields, but there’s still the avenue of 27 flags representing the nationalities of the people who worked on the scheme. And it’s not difficult to imagine a town of 24-hour music and dance that balanced the back-breaking, life-risking work of tunneling through the mountains and bringing power to a nation. And I know why the best road-trip pie I’ve had was in Cooma.
The gentlemen, who share lead vocals on this album, find the hearts and souls of the migrants and refugees who made a home in mountains so far from where they were born. And they bring the music that travelled with them to find a new space for their extraordinary blend of polka, waltz, ballad, and rock and roll that always has room for an accordion or musical saw.
In Melbourne, the album launched in the lavish gold time-warp of the Thornbury Theatre; a venue that could have been built and decorated by the gentlemen in another time line.
Always in character, but never distanced from their audience, their mix of cabaret and theatre is a genre that’s owned and defined by this group.
While After the Flood brings a time and place to visceral life, the tour has a second act with the favourite songs that won the lust and wonder of their dedicated fans and unleashes the unpredictable passion of the magnificent Mikelangelo.
After the Flood is their fourth album. Influenced by a residency in Cooma with Big hART, they tell their stories about coming to Australia from Europe in the 1950s, living in Cooma and working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Today, Cooma is a stop before the snow fields, but there’s still the avenue of 27 flags representing the nationalities of the people who worked on the scheme. And it’s not difficult to imagine a town of 24-hour music and dance that balanced the back-breaking, life-risking work of tunneling through the mountains and bringing power to a nation. And I know why the best road-trip pie I’ve had was in Cooma.
The gentlemen, who share lead vocals on this album, find the hearts and souls of the migrants and refugees who made a home in mountains so far from where they were born. And they bring the music that travelled with them to find a new space for their extraordinary blend of polka, waltz, ballad, and rock and roll that always has room for an accordion or musical saw.
In Melbourne, the album launched in the lavish gold time-warp of the Thornbury Theatre; a venue that could have been built and decorated by the gentlemen in another time line.
Always in character, but never distanced from their audience, their mix of cabaret and theatre is a genre that’s owned and defined by this group.
While After the Flood brings a time and place to visceral life, the tour has a second act with the favourite songs that won the lust and wonder of their dedicated fans and unleashes the unpredictable passion of the magnificent Mikelangelo.
17 May 2016
Review & PS: Straight White Men
TheStraight White Men
MTC
12 May 2016
Fairfax Studio
to 18 June
mtc.com.au
There's a PS after the clip.
"What would you be willing to give up to make a difference in the world?"
Young Jean Lee wrote Straight White Men because a three-act naturalistic play about straight white men was the last thing the Korean-American, New York–based, avant-garde playwright and theatre maker wanted to write.
The result is an extraordinary exploration of privilege that starts with four men who are so self aware of their privilege that they question their own self awareness of their privilege.
The "last show" motivation has been a relative constant in Lee's work. In 2012, the Melbourne Festival brought us her We're All Going to Die, in which the non-singer, inexperienced performer fronted a band in a cabaret show about personal loss and death. She had the audience clapping along in a crying and smiling mess as we sang "We're all gonna die". Last year's festival screened a filmed performance of her work The Shipment about being black in the USA, in which some audience members huffed out of the cinema without trying to understand why some of us were laughing so much that it hurt.
In Straight White Men, brothers Jake (Luke Ryan) and Drew (Hamish Michael) are back home for Christmas with their older brother Matt (Gareth Reeves) and dad, Ed, (John Gaden). Their mum is dead, but her presence remains in the likes of Monopoly game re-made as Privilege – donate $50 to the local gay and lesbian support group.
Jake knows that his success at work is because he's a SWM, Matt insists he's happy being a temp at community centre because he's useful, and Drew knows how much therapy and talking have helped him. They sing satirical racist show tunes, want to wear Christmas eve pjs, and stop to ask the brother who's crying if he's sick, hurt or wants to talk.
What lovely men.
So why is their behaviour so funny?
They are what so many people say they/we want our straight white men to be. Yet when we're given men like that, we laugh at them.
Director Sarah Giles, designer Eugyeene Teh – who includes touches like the home-made clay phallic sculpture and Jake's full-compression running clothes coordinated with multi-pocketted running shorts – and the cast nail Lee's tone. The best satire is played as straight as it can be, without any self-aware winks to the audience.
Those winks are left to the glorious Candy Bowers, who welcomes the audience as a DJ – listen to what she plays – and is the woman of colour who watches and tweaks the men's world. Her constant presence reminds us that it's not about the men on stage; it's about everything that they are expected to be and about every one who laughs when they are not what we expect.
Like the playwright, she reminds us that we should be laughing at this world because we're part of it. We laugh because maybe we should feel as conflicted as they do when they're faced with giving up anything to help smash the system that has given them so much.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Have a listen to Candy Bowers and Hamish Michael talking to Richard Watts on RRR Smart Arts. They start about 1:40.
PS
I've read the tweets and the reviews about the plot and I don't understand why so many people can't see what this play is about.
It's not about straight white men.
If David Williamson wrote a piece called Queer Coloured Women, would anyone think it was really about queer coloured women?
Yet when a woman of colour writes a show called Straight White Men, so many people assume she's written a play about SWM. They don't see the very obvious clues on the stage – or even ask the even more obvious questions.
Excuse me while I attempt to mansplain.
The plot – the one that doesn't tie up nicely or feel quite right – is a complicated and genius joke. It's satirising the three-act psychoanalytic American plays, which tend to be about SWM.
The characters are part of the satire; they'd bleed irony if they were cut open.
When straight white men (or any variation of) write queer coloured women (or any variation of), the characters/situations/resolutions don't always feel real. At the extremes there's the black maid with a heart of gold (who isn't far from the noble savage), the Asian stranger who offers spiritual advice, the sassy gay best friend, the woman who sacrifices everything for her man.
We see these characters all the time. We hate them.
They are idealised and too perfect, or drawn from ignorance and not bothering to understand, or too afraid to show fault. They are "other".
Young Jean Lee wrote her straight white men like this.
They are idealised. They care about their Christmas tree, they ask each other about their feelings, they wear clothes that match. They may pretend to be SWM, but they aren't like any SWM I know.
She's written SWM as ridiculously as SWM write QCW.
Maybe it's hard to notice the huge cock on the mantle piece, but it's impossible to miss that a queer black woman welcomes you to the theatre, watches the show, interacts with the performers, and controls the scene changes. How are so many people missing that this is HER world? It's her perspective. She's in charge. She has the authority.
Is this idea that a QCW is in control of the SWM so out of the understanding of our theatre conventions that even when it's obvious, it's rejected?
MTC
12 May 2016
Fairfax Studio
to 18 June
mtc.com.au
 |
| Straight White Men. John Gaden and Hamish Michael. Photo by Jeff Busby |
There's a PS after the clip.
"What would you be willing to give up to make a difference in the world?"
Young Jean Lee wrote Straight White Men because a three-act naturalistic play about straight white men was the last thing the Korean-American, New York–based, avant-garde playwright and theatre maker wanted to write.
The result is an extraordinary exploration of privilege that starts with four men who are so self aware of their privilege that they question their own self awareness of their privilege.
The "last show" motivation has been a relative constant in Lee's work. In 2012, the Melbourne Festival brought us her We're All Going to Die, in which the non-singer, inexperienced performer fronted a band in a cabaret show about personal loss and death. She had the audience clapping along in a crying and smiling mess as we sang "We're all gonna die". Last year's festival screened a filmed performance of her work The Shipment about being black in the USA, in which some audience members huffed out of the cinema without trying to understand why some of us were laughing so much that it hurt.
In Straight White Men, brothers Jake (Luke Ryan) and Drew (Hamish Michael) are back home for Christmas with their older brother Matt (Gareth Reeves) and dad, Ed, (John Gaden). Their mum is dead, but her presence remains in the likes of Monopoly game re-made as Privilege – donate $50 to the local gay and lesbian support group.
Jake knows that his success at work is because he's a SWM, Matt insists he's happy being a temp at community centre because he's useful, and Drew knows how much therapy and talking have helped him. They sing satirical racist show tunes, want to wear Christmas eve pjs, and stop to ask the brother who's crying if he's sick, hurt or wants to talk.
What lovely men.
So why is their behaviour so funny?
They are what so many people say they/we want our straight white men to be. Yet when we're given men like that, we laugh at them.
Director Sarah Giles, designer Eugyeene Teh – who includes touches like the home-made clay phallic sculpture and Jake's full-compression running clothes coordinated with multi-pocketted running shorts – and the cast nail Lee's tone. The best satire is played as straight as it can be, without any self-aware winks to the audience.
Those winks are left to the glorious Candy Bowers, who welcomes the audience as a DJ – listen to what she plays – and is the woman of colour who watches and tweaks the men's world. Her constant presence reminds us that it's not about the men on stage; it's about everything that they are expected to be and about every one who laughs when they are not what we expect.
Like the playwright, she reminds us that we should be laughing at this world because we're part of it. We laugh because maybe we should feel as conflicted as they do when they're faced with giving up anything to help smash the system that has given them so much.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Have a listen to Candy Bowers and Hamish Michael talking to Richard Watts on RRR Smart Arts. They start about 1:40.
PS
I've read the tweets and the reviews about the plot and I don't understand why so many people can't see what this play is about.
It's not about straight white men.
If David Williamson wrote a piece called Queer Coloured Women, would anyone think it was really about queer coloured women?
Yet when a woman of colour writes a show called Straight White Men, so many people assume she's written a play about SWM. They don't see the very obvious clues on the stage – or even ask the even more obvious questions.
Excuse me while I attempt to mansplain.
The plot – the one that doesn't tie up nicely or feel quite right – is a complicated and genius joke. It's satirising the three-act psychoanalytic American plays, which tend to be about SWM.
The characters are part of the satire; they'd bleed irony if they were cut open.
When straight white men (or any variation of) write queer coloured women (or any variation of), the characters/situations/resolutions don't always feel real. At the extremes there's the black maid with a heart of gold (who isn't far from the noble savage), the Asian stranger who offers spiritual advice, the sassy gay best friend, the woman who sacrifices everything for her man.
We see these characters all the time. We hate them.
They are idealised and too perfect, or drawn from ignorance and not bothering to understand, or too afraid to show fault. They are "other".
Young Jean Lee wrote her straight white men like this.
They are idealised. They care about their Christmas tree, they ask each other about their feelings, they wear clothes that match. They may pretend to be SWM, but they aren't like any SWM I know.
She's written SWM as ridiculously as SWM write QCW.
Maybe it's hard to notice the huge cock on the mantle piece, but it's impossible to miss that a queer black woman welcomes you to the theatre, watches the show, interacts with the performers, and controls the scene changes. How are so many people missing that this is HER world? It's her perspective. She's in charge. She has the authority.
Is this idea that a QCW is in control of the SWM so out of the understanding of our theatre conventions that even when it's obvious, it's rejected?
Review: Dogfight
Dogfight
Doorstep Arts
6 May 2016
Chapel off Chapel
to 16 May
doorsteparts.com
Independent company Doorstep Arts from Geelong and are known for their productions of musicals. They've brought Dogfight to Chapel off Chapel. Based on a 1991 film, the musical version (Ben Pasek, Justin Paul, Peter Duchan) was first seen in New York 2012.
It's 1963 and marines Eddie and his mates have a day in San Francisco, before going to Vietnam to become heroes, and take part in the traditional Dogfight – a competition to see who can find the ugliest date for a dance.
So we get to see the fat, the "Indian" in her plaits and fringed dress, the frumpy, the big nosed, the be-spectacled, the old, the dim witted, and the one who's clearly a man: all the uglies. This is a fascinating topic to look at – I remember boys from high school having competitions like this and I'm sure they still do – but what disturbed me was seeing how ugly was portrayed on stage. Watching women perform as "ugly" women is ugly. Why fall into the stereotypes unless you believe they are true?
Act 2 comes together more solidly as Eddie (Alex Woodward) tries to apologise and make it up to teenage Rose (Olivia Charalambous), the girl he chose, while his mates get tattoos and try to rape a prostitute. It's not hard to guess the rest. Nothing in the story is surprising.
Woodward and Charalambous's performances are genuine and honest and both find something to make us care in a book that offers little. But the production doesn't offer a real sense of place or time, despite a Golden Gate Bridge and some hippy costumes, or bring the content into now.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Doorstep Arts
6 May 2016
Chapel off Chapel
to 16 May
doorsteparts.com
 |
| Dogfight |
Independent company Doorstep Arts from Geelong and are known for their productions of musicals. They've brought Dogfight to Chapel off Chapel. Based on a 1991 film, the musical version (Ben Pasek, Justin Paul, Peter Duchan) was first seen in New York 2012.
It's 1963 and marines Eddie and his mates have a day in San Francisco, before going to Vietnam to become heroes, and take part in the traditional Dogfight – a competition to see who can find the ugliest date for a dance.
So we get to see the fat, the "Indian" in her plaits and fringed dress, the frumpy, the big nosed, the be-spectacled, the old, the dim witted, and the one who's clearly a man: all the uglies. This is a fascinating topic to look at – I remember boys from high school having competitions like this and I'm sure they still do – but what disturbed me was seeing how ugly was portrayed on stage. Watching women perform as "ugly" women is ugly. Why fall into the stereotypes unless you believe they are true?
Act 2 comes together more solidly as Eddie (Alex Woodward) tries to apologise and make it up to teenage Rose (Olivia Charalambous), the girl he chose, while his mates get tattoos and try to rape a prostitute. It's not hard to guess the rest. Nothing in the story is surprising.
Woodward and Charalambous's performances are genuine and honest and both find something to make us care in a book that offers little. But the production doesn't offer a real sense of place or time, despite a Golden Gate Bridge and some hippy costumes, or bring the content into now.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
13 May 2016
Sixty two
The Australia Council lifted the organisational funding embargo today instead of Monday. Sixty two companies have lost their organisational funding.
Read about it here on ArtsHub.
Look that list.
It's only a fraction of it.
And, as our major dailies have slashed arts writing, the outrage, heartbreak and small-minded ignorance that has led to that decision isn't being shared much beyond the communities that it affects.
Remember when we all wrote letters to the senate about the cuts to the Oz Co budget. Did anyone who made those decisions read them?
How many jobs are lost?
How many jobs won't exist in the next years?
If it made any sense...
All I'm reading on Facebook is sadness. Today, they broke us.
But we still have tomorrow.
And the opportunity to vote them out. Oz Co money is federal money. We have an election in July.
#IStandWithTheArts on Twitter.
Read about it here on ArtsHub.
Look that list.
It's only a fraction of it.
And, as our major dailies have slashed arts writing, the outrage, heartbreak and small-minded ignorance that has led to that decision isn't being shared much beyond the communities that it affects.
Remember when we all wrote letters to the senate about the cuts to the Oz Co budget. Did anyone who made those decisions read them?
How many jobs are lost?
How many jobs won't exist in the next years?
If it made any sense...
All I'm reading on Facebook is sadness. Today, they broke us.
But we still have tomorrow.
And the opportunity to vote them out. Oz Co money is federal money. We have an election in July.
#IStandWithTheArts on Twitter.
12 May 2016
Cuts, cuts, cuts
I'm trying to catch up on reviews, but am distracted by FB and Twitter being full of rumours (until Monday's OzCo embargo) of arts companies losing funding, and people furious about the Fairfax cuts that have slashed arts coverage at The Age.
Nearly four weeks ago, arts coverage at The Age was halved. I was worried by how few people noticed. #FairGoFairfax
Freelancers were told before it happened. There are a lot of us. I wonder if those making the cuts even read the work of the many freelancers who have lost work.
And, of course, there are the staff members who have been moved around or made redundant.
It sucks on every level.
Who wants to read a newspaper (printed or online) that isn't created by experienced writers and editors?
And it's not just that people have lost work – as one of them, it sucks –, but it's also the loss of a diversity of voices and opportunities for small and independent companies and artists to get coverage.
Why review a show that a few hundred people see when it costs nothing to link to a story about a celebrity that more people will read?
Have a look at today's online front page. A few weeks ago, the three featured arts stories were likely to have been reviews of local shows; today it's Game of Thrones, Woody Allen (ugh) and Angry Birds.
Thursdays are good arts days in print, but there isn't a single theatre review or story in today's paper.
So what can we do?
If you're an artist, creator or company that has benefitted from coverage in The Age, let Fairfax know what that coverage has meant to you and the impact that it's had. Even if it's just a "thanks" tweet.
If you read arts coverage in The Age, let Fairfax know that you want to read about the arts in Melbourne.
Tweet, Facebook, email, sky write.
Let The Age know that you want to read about the arts that are made in this city.
And remember that it's not the Arts Editor who has made these cuts.
Nearly four weeks ago, arts coverage at The Age was halved. I was worried by how few people noticed. #FairGoFairfax
Freelancers were told before it happened. There are a lot of us. I wonder if those making the cuts even read the work of the many freelancers who have lost work.
And, of course, there are the staff members who have been moved around or made redundant.
It sucks on every level.
Who wants to read a newspaper (printed or online) that isn't created by experienced writers and editors?
And it's not just that people have lost work – as one of them, it sucks –, but it's also the loss of a diversity of voices and opportunities for small and independent companies and artists to get coverage.
Why review a show that a few hundred people see when it costs nothing to link to a story about a celebrity that more people will read?
Have a look at today's online front page. A few weeks ago, the three featured arts stories were likely to have been reviews of local shows; today it's Game of Thrones, Woody Allen (ugh) and Angry Birds.
Thursdays are good arts days in print, but there isn't a single theatre review or story in today's paper.
So what can we do?
If you're an artist, creator or company that has benefitted from coverage in The Age, let Fairfax know what that coverage has meant to you and the impact that it's had. Even if it's just a "thanks" tweet.
If you read arts coverage in The Age, let Fairfax know that you want to read about the arts in Melbourne.
Tweet, Facebook, email, sky write.
Let The Age know that you want to read about the arts that are made in this city.
And remember that it's not the Arts Editor who has made these cuts.
Review: Little Shop Of Horrors
Little Shop Of Horrors
Luckiest Productions & Tinderbox Productions
5 May 2016
The Comedy Theatre
to 22 May, then touring
littleshoptour.com.au
The only down side of the Little Shop of Horrors Melbourne season is that it's only three weeks.
The sci-fi schlock musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (who went onto Disney fame) about a blood-loving plant changing the fate of miserable florist shop workers Seymour and Audrey was inspired by a 1960 film, opened off-Broadway in 1982, and a film of the musical was made in 1986. This version blew Sydney away at the Hayes Theatre earlier in the year and is touring Australia.
The same team that created Sweet Charity at Hayes – Dean Bryant (direction), Andrew Hallsworth (choreography), Andrew Worboys (musical direction), Owen Phillips (design), Ross Graham (lights) and Tim Chappel (costumes) – cut back all dead ideas and preconceptions to grows a fresh, exciting and bloody brilliant version that makes it feel like it were written for now.
Totally over the top, it embraces the ridiculousness and the darkness of the story and by doing so, lets it find its own truth and makes the characters so real that the opening-night audience exploded at the end of "Suddenly Seymour", the show's shmaltzy love song.
Working with Erth Visual & Physical's magnificent, terrifying and all genital inflatable Audrey II plant, Phillips and Chappel's set and costumes are inspired by the 60s but not stuck in the past. They take us from a tiny black and white telly world – complete with Lee Lin Chin – to blooming, 3D, who-turned-up-the-contrast colour.
And everyone in the cast (Brent Hill, Esther Hannaford, Tyler Coppin, Scott Johnson, Josie Lane, Chloe Zuel, Angelique Cassimatis, Dash Kruck, Kuki Topoki) makes the characters so much their own that comparisons to anyone who has gone before them are impossible.
Anyone who says that “audiences” want to see the same old safe musicals that they’ve always seen needs to see what happens when a show is stripped back to book and music, and new creators are allowed to see what they can make from it.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Luckiest Productions & Tinderbox Productions
5 May 2016
The Comedy Theatre
to 22 May, then touring
littleshoptour.com.au
 |
| Esther Hannaford, Brent Hill, Audrey II |
The only down side of the Little Shop of Horrors Melbourne season is that it's only three weeks.
The sci-fi schlock musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (who went onto Disney fame) about a blood-loving plant changing the fate of miserable florist shop workers Seymour and Audrey was inspired by a 1960 film, opened off-Broadway in 1982, and a film of the musical was made in 1986. This version blew Sydney away at the Hayes Theatre earlier in the year and is touring Australia.
The same team that created Sweet Charity at Hayes – Dean Bryant (direction), Andrew Hallsworth (choreography), Andrew Worboys (musical direction), Owen Phillips (design), Ross Graham (lights) and Tim Chappel (costumes) – cut back all dead ideas and preconceptions to grows a fresh, exciting and bloody brilliant version that makes it feel like it were written for now.
Totally over the top, it embraces the ridiculousness and the darkness of the story and by doing so, lets it find its own truth and makes the characters so real that the opening-night audience exploded at the end of "Suddenly Seymour", the show's shmaltzy love song.
Working with Erth Visual & Physical's magnificent, terrifying and all genital inflatable Audrey II plant, Phillips and Chappel's set and costumes are inspired by the 60s but not stuck in the past. They take us from a tiny black and white telly world – complete with Lee Lin Chin – to blooming, 3D, who-turned-up-the-contrast colour.
And everyone in the cast (Brent Hill, Esther Hannaford, Tyler Coppin, Scott Johnson, Josie Lane, Chloe Zuel, Angelique Cassimatis, Dash Kruck, Kuki Topoki) makes the characters so much their own that comparisons to anyone who has gone before them are impossible.
Anyone who says that “audiences” want to see the same old safe musicals that they’ve always seen needs to see what happens when a show is stripped back to book and music, and new creators are allowed to see what they can make from it.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
06 May 2016
More Orchid
The Orchid and The Crow
Salvador Dinosaur and Theatre Works
4 May 2016
Theatre Works
to 15 May
theatreworks.org.au
orchidandcrow.com
The Orchid and The Crow was my favourite cabaret show of 2015.
2015 review.
Since then, it's toured to festivals around the UK, Canada and back home in Australia. It was nominated for a pile of awards and won a few. The original season also won a Melbourne Green Room Award for writing.
The wonderful people at Theatre Works have brought it back to Melbourne for a two-week season. It's really hard for a successful indie show to get another run, so make the most of this. And make sure that it's a huge success so that producers and venues will keep supporting amazing indie theatre.
At 29, Daniel Tobias was diagnosed with testicular cancer; it was bad – and even as he's singing and joking about it all 10+ years later, the genuine concern for his life remains. This show is about his wonderful family and about finding/losing/accepting/questioning faith, belief, culture and gods.
There's the big G god who has a thing for foreskins – yes, it is a weird thing to do to a baby – and the lesser gods and survivors like Lance Armstrong, who beat cancer and won a lot of Tour de Frances. Lance was still a god when Daniel read his book before he had his testicle removed and had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Looking at what the big G does to non-believers, does it even matter that Lance's lancing of himself was eventually revealed?
The show's slicker after touring and found its structure and its bigger story, but it hasn't lost any of the honesty or personal truth that makes it so compelling.
It's might also be my favourite cabaret show of 2016.
Salvador Dinosaur and Theatre Works
4 May 2016
Theatre Works
to 15 May
theatreworks.org.au
orchidandcrow.com
 |
| Daniel Tobias |
The Orchid and The Crow was my favourite cabaret show of 2015.
2015 review.
Since then, it's toured to festivals around the UK, Canada and back home in Australia. It was nominated for a pile of awards and won a few. The original season also won a Melbourne Green Room Award for writing.
The wonderful people at Theatre Works have brought it back to Melbourne for a two-week season. It's really hard for a successful indie show to get another run, so make the most of this. And make sure that it's a huge success so that producers and venues will keep supporting amazing indie theatre.
At 29, Daniel Tobias was diagnosed with testicular cancer; it was bad – and even as he's singing and joking about it all 10+ years later, the genuine concern for his life remains. This show is about his wonderful family and about finding/losing/accepting/questioning faith, belief, culture and gods.
There's the big G god who has a thing for foreskins – yes, it is a weird thing to do to a baby – and the lesser gods and survivors like Lance Armstrong, who beat cancer and won a lot of Tour de Frances. Lance was still a god when Daniel read his book before he had his testicle removed and had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Looking at what the big G does to non-believers, does it even matter that Lance's lancing of himself was eventually revealed?
The show's slicker after touring and found its structure and its bigger story, but it hasn't lost any of the honesty or personal truth that makes it so compelling.
It's might also be my favourite cabaret show of 2016.
03 May 2016
Review: The River
The River
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
1 May 2016
Red Stitch
to 28 May
redstitch.net
Award-winning UK writer Jez Butterworth (Mojo, Jerusalem) continues to explore men and masculinity in The River, which has its Australian premiere at Red Stitch.
A man (Dion Mills) has brought his girlfriend (Ngaire Dawn Fair) to his cabin by a lake and convinces her to come fishing on a moonless night.On his return, he frantically tries to call the police because he can't find her, but she comes back and is different woman (Christina O'Neil). The night continues with the women – who are seen how the man remembers them – alternating in each scene, creating a mystery that questions time and identity but may have its answer in a much baser reality.
Director John Kachyon returns to Red Stitch (his last show was Midsummer in 2012) and again creates an intimacy that is often missing in the small theatre that can leave its audience feeling distanced from the stage. With a realism design by Chloe Greaves, the performance space is moved to the centre of the room with four rows of seating on either side. This creates interrupted views and others so close that it'd be easy to touch the actors.
The intimate realism is continued with contained and honest performances that let the characters, rather than the actors, control the action. There are still moments of the actors being too aware of being watched, but Butterworth's elongated scenes of moving furniture or gutting a fish create space where the acting disappears and the audience feel like invisible voyeurs.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
1 May 2016
Red Stitch
to 28 May
redstitch.net
 |
| Ngaire Dawn Fair & Dion Mills. The River. Photo by Jodie Hutchinson |
Award-winning UK writer Jez Butterworth (Mojo, Jerusalem) continues to explore men and masculinity in The River, which has its Australian premiere at Red Stitch.
A man (Dion Mills) has brought his girlfriend (Ngaire Dawn Fair) to his cabin by a lake and convinces her to come fishing on a moonless night.On his return, he frantically tries to call the police because he can't find her, but she comes back and is different woman (Christina O'Neil). The night continues with the women – who are seen how the man remembers them – alternating in each scene, creating a mystery that questions time and identity but may have its answer in a much baser reality.
Director John Kachyon returns to Red Stitch (his last show was Midsummer in 2012) and again creates an intimacy that is often missing in the small theatre that can leave its audience feeling distanced from the stage. With a realism design by Chloe Greaves, the performance space is moved to the centre of the room with four rows of seating on either side. This creates interrupted views and others so close that it'd be easy to touch the actors.
The intimate realism is continued with contained and honest performances that let the characters, rather than the actors, control the action. There are still moments of the actors being too aware of being watched, but Butterworth's elongated scenes of moving furniture or gutting a fish create space where the acting disappears and the audience feel like invisible voyeurs.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.
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