Review: True Minds

True Minds
Melbourne Theatre Company
29 April 2013
The Sumner
to 8 June
mtc.com.au

I'll always see a new Joanna Murray-Smith play. She's one of Melbourne's most commercially successful playwrights and she writes terrific jokes about being middle class in Melbourne. Her latest, True Minds at the MTC,  is the theatrical equivalent of a black-and-white romcom that you're happy to watch every time it's repeated on the ABC because it's an easy giggle with some terrific performances.

Daisy (Nikki Shiels) lives in her enviable converted warehouse with a collection of giraffe knick-knacks. She's written a commercially successful book about how men need their mum's approval before they choose the girl of their dreams. It's a bit of a surprise, as neither of her leftie parents – mum (Genevieve Morris) is into beyond-alternative medicine and young men, dad (Alex Menglet) is a drunken academic and philanderer – are into marriage and her last beau (Adam Murphy) is in rehab. But love is strange and Daisy's fallen for the most conservative hunk in town (Matthew McFarlane) and is preparing to meet is his mummy (Louise Silversen), who would call Julie Bishop a raving liberal Liberal. As Dasiy gets the dips ready, there's a storm brewing outside and everyone ends up in her open plan living room.

For all the big laughs and performers who bring extra so much extra to their characters (it's worth seeing for the three women), there's not a second's doubt as to what's going to happen or an opportunity to wish for something different. Couldn't we even like the hunky fiance for a bit and understand why Daisy wants to marry him? The jokes are easy and obvious, the politics are duller than QandA, and the characters are so full of cliches that they become unrecognisable as real people. This leaves the audience safely distanced because there's little chance of really seeing theselves on the stage.

Peter Houghton had written/directed/performed some of our funniest theatre. He builds a manic world where the background action says as much as the script, but he seems to be pushing for True Minds to be farce. It's not extreme enough to be farce and the characters are too likeable to push them to farcical extremes. At the same time, there's not enough guts in the script for it to be social satire: conservative ladies in peach don't like gay marriage while young liberal lefties are all for it, some people are happy not to get married, and it's all about love at the end of the day. Really? There's so much more to explore. (And out of rehab and happily pouring booze all night without any of your loved ones keeping an eye on you?)

It's a funny and enjoyable show, but it's so safe that it's inoffensive and forgettable.

Photo by Jeff Busby.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 
John Frost
27 October 2012
Her Majesty's Theatre
to December 15
funnything.com.au

After the degustation of emotion, politics and confrontation of the Melbourne Festival, what better than a mouthful of fluffy sugar and an almighty fart? A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has no pretentions about being serious art.

First performed on Broadway 1962, it's ancient Rome, where slaves were whipped, women were bought and political correctness meant wearing the right toga to the senate. Giving a finger to the romantic gentility of musical theatre at the time and celebrating the ancient-Greek influences on vaudeville, there are tit, eunuch and fart jokes galore, as it asks the timeless dramatic question, "Who gets to de-virgin the teenager: the virgin boy, his dad or the stranger who bought her from her pimp?".

I've really tried to like this show.

                                                                    From the original recording LP

It was Stephen Sondheim's first score (music and lyrics; his previous work was the lyrics for West Side Story) and the book was co-written with Larry Gelbart (the dude who wrote the best episodes of MASH). If you're expecting dark and biting satire with music that stains your soul, remember that it takes time to hit your stride as an artist. Musically it's forgettable, but hints at the glories that followed, and book-wise there's jokes and structure without a hint of depth or complexity. It's a simplified world where men are manly or limp, and women are lovely and stupid, vejazzled and bendy, or old and sexless.

So why do it? It's as satisfying as a bucket of fairy floss.

Geoffrey Rush wanting to play Pseudolus the scheming slave is the lines-at-the-box-office answer. It's an old-school, star-led romp – and who can resist a romp with our-Geoffrey in a toga? Looking like he's having more fun than he dreamed of, this is Geoffrey's fart-in-the-general-direction to anyone who forgets that it's meant to be fun.

And throw in the commercial-dream cast of telly and theatre must-sees who have earned their first-name recognition because they are all damn good and totally watchable.  There's Shane Bourne, Magda Szubanski and Gerry Connolly for the oldies; Hugh Sheridan for the youngies;  Mitchell Butell, Christie Whelan-Browne and Adam Murphy for the theatries; and Bob Honery for everyone (Bob was in the original Australian production in 1964).

It may be the best that a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum can be.

Director Simon Phillips turns the serious to 0 and the giggle-and-hoot to 11. And Gabriella Tylesova's design of cardboardy houses and tassled-togas is as witty as any of the jokes. Like her design for Love Never Dies, it's an eye-orgasm to look at with detail that creates the world and the characters in an instant.

It's a show where the cast are applauded before they open their mouths, corpsing is compulsory and anyone daring to question its politics or guts will be scoffed at.

This appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby