Last chance: Dracula

Dracula
Little Ones Theatre
30 October 2015
Theatre Works
to 14 November
Theatreworks.org.au

Dracula. Amanda McGregor, Kevin Kiernan Molloy, Alexandra Aldrich. Photo by Sarah Walker

This gloriously sexy Dracula shows a much better way to do glittery vampires and it finishes this weekend at Theatre Works.

For the Melbourne Festival, Theatre Works welcomed an almost textless The Bacchae cast with women. Now Little Ones Theatre have created Bram Stoker's Dracula as a live silent movie and cast it with women.

This is Stoker’s story told with a black glitter and blood-red aesthetic that reflects, questions and wildly defies any assumptions of gender, sexuality and queer politics.Little Ones Theatre have one of the most unique voices in Melbourne theatre.

Director Stephen Nicolazzo embraces high-camp without the condescending tone or gender insult that camp laughs often come from.  Inspired by the 1980s but seen through today’s eyes, their worlds are visually arresting, sexually free and always unforgettable.

If you want to experience original texts, read them. Then come to the theatre to see them through someone else's eyes.

Catherine Davies, Brigid Gallacher. Photo by Sarah Walker

 Alexandra Aldrich. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula.  Alexandra Aldrich, Janine Watson, Morgan Maguire, Kevin Kiernan Molloy. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula. Little Ones Theatre. Kevin Kiernan Molloy. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula. Little Ones Theatre. Amanda McGregor, Zoe Boesen. Photo by Sarah Walker

Review: Dangerous Liaisons

NEON
Dangerous Liaisons
Little Ones Theatre
30 May 2014
Lawler Studio
to 8 June
mtc.com.au

Photo by Sarah Walker

The second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre opens with the dazzling high-camp, glitter-bright, subversion of Stephen Nicolazzo's Little Ones Theatre.

Dangerous Liaisons is a 1985 play (which won lots of awards) by Christopher Hampton that's based on Pierre Choderlos De Lacos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a late-18th century novel consisting of letters between the characters. Being a story about the perverse sexual and moral corruption of the decadent French aristocracy, it never has problems being transported out of its context.

Marquise de Merteuil (Alexandra Aldrich) and Vicomte de Valmont (Janine Watson; it wouldn't be a Nicolazzo play if gender wasn't questioned) were once lovers, but prefer being BFFs. As Merteuil was dumped by a lover – for the first time – she enlists Valmont to seduce the dumper's virgin bride-to-be (Amanda McGregor), who happens to be the daughter of another of Merteuil's friends (Zoe Boesen). Valmont thinks a convent virgin seduction is too easy and sets himself a worthier target (Brigid Gallacher) and then it begins to get complicated (with Catherine Davies, Tom Dent and Joanne Sutton).

Eugyeene Teh's set is a sunglasses-reaching explosion of gold luxury. This world is so rich that the curtains and floor are gold; until you look closely and see it's paper-faux. Into this comes the outrageously lush French court costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt that are pink, hot-pink rose pink, magenta, glittery pink, see-through pink with bonus pinked-up nipples and sequins.

The stylised acting style is close-to-but-not-totally-over-the top and is as controlled-camp as the design. This heightens the language of the script and highlights its look at the power that women have in societies that still categorises women as respectfully married, convent-worthy virgins or worthless whores. From the magnificent pink to its all-but-one female cast, this Liaisons is all about the women's sides of the arrangements.

But at over two hours (plus interval), its consistent style lets the exquisite pretty distract from the emotional connection to the story. Even with the incomparable Aldrich, it's hard to feel for a women who's on the verge of middle age and about to lose the only thing that gave her power when we're waiting for the next marvellous line and guaranteed laugh.

While all of the delicious cast have unforgettable moments (really, they are all wonderful), Gallacher finds the most in her character and lets Madame de Tourvel's heart meld with the style. The rest are nearly there and I think that week-two audiences will see the extra guts that was hinted at on opening night.

Little One's influences and inspirations are clear on the stage, but they make work that couldn't be re-created by anyone else. Nicolazzo has found artists who understand and share his vision and together they are one of the most authentic theatre voices around.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Mini review: Salome

HELIUM

Salome
Little Ones Theatre and Malthouse Theatre
30 August 2013
The Tower, Malthouse theatre
to 14 September
malthousetheatre.com.au

"Dance for me, Salome!" Never has Oscar Wilde been so gay – and he was in prison for sodomy and gross indecency when his play Salome was first performed in 1896.

Little Ones Thearte's HELUIM-season production of Wilde's Salome is so gloriously indecent that if it were performed in the 1890s, cast, producers, audience and passers by would be in the cells with Oscar.

According to the Bible, Herod wanted to see his step daughter, Salome, dance and promised her anything in exchange. She asked for the head of John the Bapsist. Wilde wrote his version of this story in French in 1891 and it was published in 1893. There were plans for a 1892 London season, but it was illegal to portray Bible characters, so its first performance was in Paris.

Wilde wrote Salome as a tragedy, but director Stephen Nicolazzo starts with its sexuality and moral ambiguity. It is, after all, a story about a virgin who wants the lust of a saint, and a king who wants his stepdaughter's virginity.

Surrounded by an Oz-emerald-green curtain, Salome rejoices in a mid-1980s aesthetic (gorgeous costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt and Eugyeene Teh; set by Teh), where the new romantics questioned gender on MTV, Madonna made pearls and lace cool, and David Lynch freaked out late-night film-goers; pass the oxygen, please.

With traditions and expectations abandoned, Salome is a man in a handmade matador costume, John the Baptist is a woman in a disco-ball bikini, Herod and Herodias drag up, and the soldiers and heralds are magnificently fabulous. It's a world where gender is everything but means nothing, and sexuality is everything until love and jealousy take hold.

Stephen Nicolazzo has found a remarkable and unique voice as a director. Following Psycho Beach Party (that's heading to the Brisbane Festival) and sex.violence. blood. gore, his high-camp, bold aesthetic defines his view of queer culture without rejection or criticism. His world is filthy without shame and welcomes everyone who celebrates difference and lets their heart make their choices.

And he has a a group of actors who have quickly established themselves among independent theatre's A-list. Paul Blenheim, Genevieve Giuffre, Alexandra Aldrich, Nick Pelomis, Peter Paltos, Zoe Boesen, Tom Dent are so sexy and so funny that it's impossible to decide which one you fancy the most.

Salome is glorious and hilarious and so damn smart that missing it isn't an option.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Mini review: Lord of the Flies

HELIUM
Lord of the Flies
US-A-UM and Malthouse Theatre
7 July 2013
The Tower, Malthouse Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

An adaption of William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies open's Malthouse Theatre's Helium program: five new works by independent artists. Flies is the debut for US-A-UM, who are based in Sydney and founded by director Kip Williams and producers Samuel J Hagen and Kate McBride.

The season's sold out, so hold tight to your tickets or kill a beast to secure one.

Set in a private boarding school, genteel furniture (design by Michael Hankin) becomes the island the children are stranded on and is soon as menacing and unknown as the dark forest and as exposed as the open beach.

The boys are played by young women, who keep the male names and behave like young teenagers who have been torn away from their homes and believe they might be the only people left alive. It's not women playing men and any assumptions about gender disappear in moments. And having gone to a private girls school, I recognised everything.

It's a stunning reading of the book. It grasps Golding's tone and turns it up to deafening, while bringing a sense of right-now attitudes and questions, and telling it in ways that only theatre can.

And the cast are sensational: Alexandra Aldrich, Zoe Boesen, Cat Davies, Michele Durman, Stacey Duckworth, Emma Griffin, Fiona Pepper, Contessa Treffone and Eloise Winestock.  It's impossible to name one above the other as their performances are so consistent and they work as an ensemble who wouldn't consider elevating one performance above an other.

If you can't find a ticket, best to book for the four other Helium shows, and there are only a handful of tickets left for the final MTC NEON show, Sisters Grimm's The Sovereign Wife.