Black is the Colour
Deafferent Theatre
25 September 2016
Meeting Room, Arts House
to 1 October
melbournefringe.com.au
My review is on The Age/SMH.
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
29 September 2016
Review: Black is the Colour
Melbourne Fringe
Black is the Colour
Deafferent Theatre
25 September 2016
Meeting Room, Arts House
to 1 October
melbournefringe.com.au
Black is the Colour
Deafferent Theatre
25 September 2016
Meeting Room, Arts House
to 1 October
melbournefringe.com.au
Review: Kill Climate Deniers
Melbourne Fringe
Kill Climate Deniers
Clan Analogue
303
melbournefringe.com.au
killclimatedeniers.com
In a Northcote bar, liberal lefties sculled their boutique beers and leapt to their feet to dance and cheer for a play called Kill Climate Deniers. Could Andrew Bolt be right?
At an Australian Parliament House gala, Fleetwood Mac perform – it’s filled with music jokes and has a joyous retro techno soundtrack – and armed eco terrorists attack.
To ensure no wasted taxpayer dollars, writer David Finnigan (from 2013’s controversial Kids Killing Kids) performs this version – it’s been a radio play, an album and an audio tour of Parliament House – using milk crates, an overhead projector and DJ Reuben Ingall.
Finnigan performs all the roles (all female) and interweaves the fiction with the real story about the reaction of a politician and Melbourne commentator Bolt to the play’s development funding from the ACT government.
Its satire is bitingly sharp and its truth could easily be satire. Both hurt with their absurdity.
PS. Remember that I'm tweeting piles of #melbfringe @sometimesmelb.
Kill Climate Deniers
Clan Analogue
303
melbournefringe.com.au
killclimatedeniers.com
A version of this is on The Age/SMH.
In a Northcote bar, liberal lefties sculled their boutique beers and leapt to their feet to dance and cheer for a play called Kill Climate Deniers. Could Andrew Bolt be right?
At an Australian Parliament House gala, Fleetwood Mac perform – it’s filled with music jokes and has a joyous retro techno soundtrack – and armed eco terrorists attack.
To ensure no wasted taxpayer dollars, writer David Finnigan (from 2013’s controversial Kids Killing Kids) performs this version – it’s been a radio play, an album and an audio tour of Parliament House – using milk crates, an overhead projector and DJ Reuben Ingall.
Finnigan performs all the roles (all female) and interweaves the fiction with the real story about the reaction of a politician and Melbourne commentator Bolt to the play’s development funding from the ACT government.
Its satire is bitingly sharp and its truth could easily be satire. Both hurt with their absurdity.
PS. Remember that I'm tweeting piles of #melbfringe @sometimesmelb.
27 September 2016
Review: Bliss
Melbourne Fringe
BLISS!
Isabel Angus
Courthouse Hotel
to 25 September
My review is on The Age/SMH.
Isabel is doing character comedy (and gender analysis) like no one else.
PS. Remember that I'm tweeting piles of #melbfringe @sometimesmelb.
PS. Remember that I'm tweeting piles of #melbfringe @sometimesmelb.
And here's The Jono Show to watch at home.
16 September 2016
Review: Pressure Down
Pressure Down
Hayley Butcher
13 September 2016
The Butterfly Club
to 18 September
melbournefringe.com.au
My review is on The Age/SMH.
Hayley Butcher
13 September 2016
The Butterfly Club
to 18 September
melbournefringe.com.au
 |
| Hayley Butcher in Pressure Down |
My review is on The Age/SMH.
14 September 2016
Melbourne Fringe 2016
Melbourne Fringe 2016
15 September – 2 October
melbournefringe.com.au
After reviewing at the last ten Melbourne Fringes, I'm having a break from blog reviews this year. My review brain was oozing out of my ears.
I'm still seeing lots of shows, will have some reviews in The Age and will be tweeting, hopefully in perfect quoteables.
Twitter #melbfringe is such a fun hashtag to hang out at. You get immediate responses to shows, can find out about last-minute ticket offers, and get to join conversations with other fringe-mad people about art, the universe and the best cheap eats near every venue.
I've met some of the absolute coolest people at #melbfringe, who I now know IRL.
And, there are super-cool writers seeing shows for AussieTheatre.com.
I am trying to answer every email; if I missed yours, send it again.
However it is impossible to see every show. It's impossible to see all the shows I really want to see. Then there are the shows that I didn't know I wanted to see until I hear how great they are...
15 September – 2 October
melbournefringe.com.au
 |
| Andi Snelling in Deja Vu |
After reviewing at the last ten Melbourne Fringes, I'm having a break from blog reviews this year. My review brain was oozing out of my ears.
I'm still seeing lots of shows, will have some reviews in The Age and will be tweeting, hopefully in perfect quoteables.
Twitter #melbfringe is such a fun hashtag to hang out at. You get immediate responses to shows, can find out about last-minute ticket offers, and get to join conversations with other fringe-mad people about art, the universe and the best cheap eats near every venue.
I've met some of the absolute coolest people at #melbfringe, who I now know IRL.
And, there are super-cool writers seeing shows for AussieTheatre.com.
I am trying to answer every email; if I missed yours, send it again.
However it is impossible to see every show. It's impossible to see all the shows I really want to see. Then there are the shows that I didn't know I wanted to see until I hear how great they are...
08 September 2016
Review: Imagined Touch
Imagined Touch
Jodee Mundy Collaborations and Arts House
7 Septemebr 2016
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
to 11 September
artshouse.com.au
Imagined Touch is "a deafblind live art experience" at Arts House in North Melbourne. Deafblind artists Heather Lawson and Michelle Stevens have been developing this remarkable piece for four years with director Jodee Mundy – everyone in Mundy’s family is Deaf, except for her, so Auslan is her first language.
In 2013, Lawson (who was born Deaf and lost her sight) and Stevens (who was born Blind and lost her hearing) said, “We need to make a theatre show that tells the truth about being Deafblind. We want to share our humour, grief and our profound isolation, to highlight the importance of human touch and tactile communication for Deafblind people”.
The work begins with the two talking with each other and telling the audience, sometimes through interpreters, how they met. As an audience – who can mostly see and hear, or see or hear – it's easy to imagine that they can "feel" our presence and support. And our curiosity. And perhaps a touch of condescending sympathy.
If you have a ticket for the show, maybe read the rest later because it is live art, which means that it doesn't exist without the audience's willing active participation.
We have an impression of the Deafblind, so it's time to feel it. We're given goggles that let us see light, some colour and shadow (and, in my case, the outline of the glasses that I kept on!) and headphones that play music and sound (by Tim Humphrey and Madeleine Flynn) that blocks out how hearing helps us move and position ourselves.
Once they were on, I reached for the hand of the friend I was next to – who was reaching for mine. We've been in countless blacked-out theatres, but this was immediately a new sensation. It was unexpectedly scary, especially as we were not sure what was happening around us. Then she squeezed my hand and could feel her being led away. I was no longer a “we”.
Then a stranger's hand took mine.
I had immediate and complete trust in that hand. I still don't know who it was. Or who any of the hands and arms and bodies I felt were, but one woman drew a smiley face on my hand and I'm sure we both laughed loudly because it was finally something we could understand.
In the third and final part of the show, Heather and Michelle perform. We still may not have any idea of their felt experience – our deafblind experience was a game where it was easy to trust every hand and touch – but we want to know more.
And both artists ensure that our expectations and assumptions are, challenged, dismissed and laughed at.
Imagined Touch – what a heartbreaking title – is shaped into a piece that defies expectations and genuinely tests, disarms and surprises its audience. It shares the lived experience of artists who don’t understand how their audiences experience their work, as their audiences don’t understand how they experience an audience. And, for a while, none of this mattered.
The was on AussieTheatre.com.
Jodee Mundy Collaborations and Arts House
7 Septemebr 2016
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
to 11 September
artshouse.com.au
 |
| Imagined Touch. Photo by Bryony Jackson |
Imagined Touch is "a deafblind live art experience" at Arts House in North Melbourne. Deafblind artists Heather Lawson and Michelle Stevens have been developing this remarkable piece for four years with director Jodee Mundy – everyone in Mundy’s family is Deaf, except for her, so Auslan is her first language.
In 2013, Lawson (who was born Deaf and lost her sight) and Stevens (who was born Blind and lost her hearing) said, “We need to make a theatre show that tells the truth about being Deafblind. We want to share our humour, grief and our profound isolation, to highlight the importance of human touch and tactile communication for Deafblind people”.
The work begins with the two talking with each other and telling the audience, sometimes through interpreters, how they met. As an audience – who can mostly see and hear, or see or hear – it's easy to imagine that they can "feel" our presence and support. And our curiosity. And perhaps a touch of condescending sympathy.
If you have a ticket for the show, maybe read the rest later because it is live art, which means that it doesn't exist without the audience's willing active participation.
We have an impression of the Deafblind, so it's time to feel it. We're given goggles that let us see light, some colour and shadow (and, in my case, the outline of the glasses that I kept on!) and headphones that play music and sound (by Tim Humphrey and Madeleine Flynn) that blocks out how hearing helps us move and position ourselves.
Once they were on, I reached for the hand of the friend I was next to – who was reaching for mine. We've been in countless blacked-out theatres, but this was immediately a new sensation. It was unexpectedly scary, especially as we were not sure what was happening around us. Then she squeezed my hand and could feel her being led away. I was no longer a “we”.
Then a stranger's hand took mine.
I had immediate and complete trust in that hand. I still don't know who it was. Or who any of the hands and arms and bodies I felt were, but one woman drew a smiley face on my hand and I'm sure we both laughed loudly because it was finally something we could understand.
In the third and final part of the show, Heather and Michelle perform. We still may not have any idea of their felt experience – our deafblind experience was a game where it was easy to trust every hand and touch – but we want to know more.
And both artists ensure that our expectations and assumptions are, challenged, dismissed and laughed at.
Imagined Touch – what a heartbreaking title – is shaped into a piece that defies expectations and genuinely tests, disarms and surprises its audience. It shares the lived experience of artists who don’t understand how their audiences experience their work, as their audiences don’t understand how they experience an audience. And, for a while, none of this mattered.
The was on AussieTheatre.com.
07 September 2016
Review: Lilith, The Jungle Girl
Lilith: The Jungle Girl
Neon Next and Sisters Grimm
3 September 2016
The Lawler
to 1 October
mtc.com.au
My review is in The Age/SMH.
Neon Next and Sisters Grimm
3 September 2016
The Lawler
to 1 October
mtc.com.au
 |
| Candy Bowers, Genevieve Giuffre in Lilith: The Jungle Girl. Photo by Jeff Busby |
 |
| Ash Flanders in Lilith: The Jungle Girl. Photo by Jeff Busby |
Review: We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You
John Frost in association with Queen Theatrical Productions, Phil McINtyre Enternainment and Tribeca Theatrical Productions
1 September 2016
Regent Theatre
to 29 October
wewillrockyou.com.au
My review is in The Age/SMH.
John Frost in association with Queen Theatrical Productions, Phil McINtyre Enternainment and Tribeca Theatrical Productions
1 September 2016
Regent Theatre
to 29 October
wewillrockyou.com.au
 |
| Brian Mannix in We Will Rock You |
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