What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 9

Last call to have your voice heard and share your love for shows and artists who may not have got meaninless stars this year.

Today we hear from SM favourite Ash, and Eugyeene and Cathy.

Ash Flanders
Theatrical annoyance

Ash Flanders. Photo by Pia Johnson, defaced by FaceApp

Favourite moments of 2019.
 I've been in hiding most of the year due to an ongoing legal skirmish with Anthony Callea's people (those people have no sense of humour) but the first thing that jumped to mind was watching Ellen Burstyn go rogue in 33 Variations, directed by Gary Abrahams.

Ok, let me take you there. Ellen has just noticed her daughter's (Lisa McCune) skirt is unzipping itself onstage and calls her over – by her character name, obvs – and says something like, "Your skirt, darling," and then the Comedy Theatre is SILENT as she wrangles the zip back into place. Ellen knows we'll wait – and we do. Lisa's a total pro, casually moving her hair out of the way, waiting calmly as if this is something they've done a thousand times in rehearsal, something deliberately placed to suggest something about the mother-daughter relationship. But then Ellen, this Broadway ICON, struggles for a second to remember what she was meant to be talking about. So Lisa asks her a leading question, in character of course, and suddenly Ellen's back on track again. It was a very small thing – 15 seconds tops – and besides the sheer gay drama of it all (OMG, first she had to deal with Regan MacNeil and now THIS?!). I loved seeing the solidarity between the performers and the way both of these people were taking care of each other. Actors being kind to other actors is my new favourite thing; I'll have to try it sometime.

And in the opposite camp I of course loved watching the entirely solo Zahra Newman (certainly not helped by those clumsy stage managers dropping water bottles carelessly every night) skillfully create the nightmare we call home in DG's Wake In Fright. The performance was so considered and arch and nasty and perfect. Of course it's boring for me to like Declan's work – especially because everyone does and I'm a contrary piece of shit – but that guy really does make stuff I enjoy...for now.

But, all in all, this was a quiet year for me and theatre. I loved what I saw but I didn't see nearly enough. I loved doing The Temple with some of my all time favourite performers and my new favourite Irish theatre company, Pan Pan. I also had a blast teaching some performance writing skills to students back at my old uni – and watching them take their own work onto the stage almost melted my heart.

Oh, I also saw a stunning piece of live art where my niece married Christ out in Keysborough; I think the work was called Layla's Confirmation.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I feel like everyone I know is even busier next year and I'm thrilled about it. Stoked for the Malthouse season,  especially Stephen Nicolazzo directing Loaded, my one true love Paul Capsis in Go To Hell and the verbatim show Is This A Room has me really excited. I'm also hoping to somehow see Anthem and The Rabble's Unwoman in 2020 (PLEASE LET THESE HAPPEN AGAIN*) as life got in the way this year. Side note: go listen to Emma Valente's story in Maeve Marsden's Queerstories podcast (not stage related, but damn it's good). Selfishly I'm really looking forward to presenting a bunch of new things that I've been spending this year writing.

SM: I too love Emma's Queerstory. Queerstories is one of my favourite car podcasts. But this is about Ash. I totally dug The Temple, especially when people in the audience had no idea what was going on and tried to find an easy story. But my moment with Ash was convincing him that he had enjoyed some theatre this year.

*Anthem is at Perth and Sydney festivals. Why The Rabble are not at every international festivsal is beyond my understanding.

Eugyeene Teh
Theatre maker and designer

Eugyeene Teh. Photo by Antoine Debrill

Favourite moments of 2019.
The Rabble’s Unwoman: timely, meditative and important work that needs to be experienced by everyone. Emma Valente and Kate Davis’s confidently composed images were searing. Yumi Umiumare’s solo performance of suffering in part 3 was a hard watch, but visceral and sensational, and, though wordless, speaks volumes and for me, was the moment (albeit 45 minutes worth of a moment) of 2019.

Jo Lloyd’s Overture for busting the male-dominated lens that has established our stage culture, particularly in the world of dance. It blatantly mocks the male gaze and belittles their conventions in a lighthearted, unrestricted reframing and celebration of women’s bodies.

Zoey Dawson’s Australian Realness at Malthouse. Having worked on her deliciously surreal plays before, I was looking forward to this one and it still managed to surprise and unhinge me, and really made me think about perceptions of reality.

Emma Hall’s World Problems: a beautifully crafted and gentle reflection on who we are among a generational existential crisis.

Anchuli Felicia King’s The Golden Shield at MTC: a rare piece of writing presented by a mainstage company that doesn’t portray China and its people as a force to be feared, but ingeniously flips the frame to reveal real, multi-dimensional Chinese people and their reckoning with a couple of American jerks. It is a play that decolonizes through subtexts. For me, it isn’t just a clever, fast-paced legal thriller. It is all about communicating and understanding a cultural language – something this country gravely lacks

Balit Liwurruk: Strong Girl at St Martins: a powerful and emotional declaration by 12 young Indigenous women on what it is to be a "strong girl".

Finucane and Smith’s The Rapture, Part II: an impassioned cry for help on behalf of our dying planet, and a genuine and urgent beckoning for real action, delivered by the iconic Moira Finucane, who just returned from watching the ice melt in Antartica.

The Very Good Looking Initiative’s Batmania at Melbourne Fringe: a very weird and hallucinatory show that really fucked with conventional theatrical form and offered an exciting glimpse into the future of theatre.

Jean Tong and Lou Wall’s Oh No! Satan Stole my Pineal Gland, from another company that is changing the idea of theatre. Apart from an extremely enjoyable night of ridiculousness, it’s also the winner of the "best title" award.

Andi Snelling’s Happy-Go-Wrong was an incredibly moving and beautiful celebration of life!

Looking forward to in 2020.
Susie Dee and Patricia Cornelius’s Do Not Go Gentle...  I missed the original season and always wished I didn’t.

Kim Ho’s The Great Australian Play, because Kim Ho and a horse. And what it means to be "Australian" and "Great".

Ra Chapman’s K-Box, obvs.

I was very fortunate to hear Stephen Armstrong (creative director of Asia TOPA) speak, in a small room at Tokyo Festival, very clearly about why Australia needs to connect with its Asian neighbours and why it is so important re-balance its cultural identity away from a dominant white identity. Therefore, all things Asia TOPA, particularly Double Delicious, Sipat Lawin’s Are You Ready to Take the Law into Your Own Hands?, post and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre’s Oedipus Schmoedipus, Akira Kasai’s Pollen Revolution and Mallika Sarabhai’s SVA Kranti: The Revolution Within.

SM: I remember the first show I saw that Eugeeyne designed; he takes every bit of subtext and theme and creates a physical world that lets you understand so much in a glance, while always bringing his own remarkable and distinct aesthetic. He's been doing amazing things away from Melbourne this year, so my best moments are easily talking to him before and after shows.


Cathy Hunt
Director, dramaturg

Cathy Hunt

Favourite moments of 2019.
Counting and Cracking, Belvoir at Sydney Town Hall, Sydney Festival: the epic scale of the storytelling knocked my socks off; the way each strand was woven in and the whole festival experience of it. This is a Sydney I recognise, where almost everybody has a strong tie to someplace else, with Coogee Beach and people who don’t understand their own family’s whole story yet because all they have known is this place. The moment before the end of Act 2 when one character was about to get on a refugee boat bound for Australia, and the whole audience was taut, you could feel extreme anxiety on his behalf, knowing what might happen. Beautiful and big and somehow still simple.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I queued with my friend Shannon one Sunday morning in January for free tickets to final dress rehearsals, we were numbers 500 and 501 in the snaking queue. Melbourne provided and it did not disappoint. I particularly loved the immersiveness of the staging, Paula Arundell as Hermione and Gillian Cosgriff, who was supreme in an unnamed role. But I say no more…

Barbara and The Camp Dogs, Malthouse and Belvoir directed by Leticia Cáceres written by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine. Truly stunning, raw, roughly beautiful and incredibly brave production that broke through defences and spoke straight to the heart about how simultaneously destructive and creative we can be as human beings. Powerful piece claiming the space to get angry and not shying away from the underlying reasons that keep producing that anger, underlining First Nations sovereignty while cranking out superb tunes and putting the audience on saggy couches like in any run down pub. Loved this!!

You’re Safe Till 2024, by David Finnigan. ventured to Bunjil Place on a stormy night to see David freak out a small and select audience with his theatre science presentation of the "Great Acceleration", which has occurred since mid-last century, including a truly terrifying visual explanation using water bottles and a Coles "recyclable plastic" bag of how chickens have stacked it on since 1945.

Wake in Fright at Malthouse. Declan Greene and Zahra Newman's nightmare journey through an Australia that felt all too horribly recognisable. Stunning technically and with a virtuosic flexible performance by Zahra as the narrator desperate for a drink of water who keeps having booze chucked unwittingly down their throat. Incredible collaboration from all involved.

View from a Bridge at MTC directed stunningly, sparely by Iain Sinclair with the heart-rendingly genuine performance of Zoe Terakes as Catherine.

World Problems by Emma Hall at fortyfivedownstairs, especially the moment when the memories tumbled over into the future and things started going awry, the fantastical imaginings of that whilst the effort of putting together a trampoline was enacted. (The night I went we got to go to a sustainable food workshop after, with permaculturist Kat Lavers and I took home her mum’s lime pickle: big highlight)

The Other Place by Christopher Bryant at Theatre Works directed surprisingly by Jess Dick and performed with precision and energy by the ensemble of five women. This play took so many circular routes towards tracing, mapping and imagining the different destinies of Betty Burstall and Buzz Goodbody. The way it kept not explaining, never being able to explain but just making another pass at exploring one possibility as to why some of us go one way, step out of the room and others are able to flourish despite every adversity, moved me so much. As did the writing in its choice of the stories told and the multiple modes of representation, even just the attempt to forge a connection and the focus on these two particular women’s inner and outer lives. Design in the large space was innovative and entertaining but I can imagine another incarnation of the play in a smaller space, like the rebuilt La Mama…

Pomona at Red Stitch directed by Gary Abrahams: a strange, potent production in which the choice to range the cast around the side of the space to bear witness intensified the exploration of violence. Such a stellar cast and great to see Jessica Clarke, Julia Grace and Artemis Ioannides be differently brilliant on that stage.

Control by Keziah Warner directed so intelligently by Julian Meyrick at Red Stitch. Brilliant writing exploring the ways we shape and structure each other and are unavoidably shaped and structured by our situations. Each of three parts so different from each other but gorgeous interrelationships in each, particularly in the last part where Esta (Naomi Rukavina) and Isabelle (Christine O’Neill) inhabit and subvert the pupil/teacher and servant/master power dynamics.

Thigh Gap at La Mama written by Jamaica Zuanetti directed by Alice Darling. Afrenetic fever dream looking at unattainable body standards self-imposed and friend-policed, performed excellently by Veronica Thomas and Lauren Mass. It went beyond issues and became performatively extreme. The physical comedy around the sudden serendipity of drunkly discovering a baguette is a moment I won’t forget.

UnWoman by The Rabble at The Substation: a work so entirely dramaturgically complete, supremely satisfying and symbolically resonant as if carved out of the stones that Yumi Umimare birthed in the final part of the triptych. Also very funny on the way through, thanks to Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sussman in the second part, waiting for their unnamed procedure ,and the strange soporific forest of the pregnant women in their round containment.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Red Stitch: A new production of Feather in the Web by the brilliant and hilarious Nick Coyle directed by Declan Greene. I saw it in Sydney when it opened and need to see this incarnation happening as part of Midsumma. Orlando by Sarah Ruhl directed by Stephen Nicolazzo. Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch directed by the inimitable and wonderful Jenny Kemp,.

Asia TOPA: The Seen and Unseen – a collaboration by Melbourne based and Balinese theatre makers designed by Euygeene Teh lighting by Jenny Hector and dramaturgy by Adena Jacobs.

What Every Girl Should Know a new play by Monica Byrne set in 1914 in a Catholic reformatory,  at Brunswick Mechanics in February. Produced by Between the Buildings, directed by me, designed by Eloise Kent and sound designed by Jess Keeffe.

SM: Cathy's measured and help back direction of Love/Chamberlain at Theatre Works got into the hearts of its creators, on and off the stage, and  misjudged women it was written about. She removed the tabloid sensationalist lens and explored how and why women who dare step away from expectations are judged and hounded until they break.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 8

Today we hear from Charlotte, Beng and Christopher.

There's still time to contribute, but not much; it's not going all the way through the month this year. The form is linked on all the early parts. Or all the info is here.

Charlotte Strantzen Bair
Actor, presenter, theatre-maker and mother to two amazing humans

Charlotte Strantzen Bair

Favourite moments in 2019.
I'm thrilled that 2019 held more highlights than lowlights for me, with some really bright spots. My musical theatre picks for the year were Muriel's Wedding and Come from Away. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Muriel.  Would the film translate to stage? Will it have aged well? Any cynicism in me was quickly washed away by the sheer joy of the show, with Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall's music being ably performed by a fabulous cast (including, I discovered while watching, the wonderful Caleb Vines, whom I shared a stage with many times in the early 2000s in school holiday pantomimes! It made my year to see him all grown up and working in such a successful show). Come From Away was everything it was cracked up to be and more. It felt especially personal to us as my husband was in the USAA and away from family on September 11, so the emotional reaction was strong. I'm enjoying listening to the soundtrack now!

I saw some excellent kids theatre with my children, including ROFLSHALBOWCO by The Listies (not just for children!) at the Malthouse and Mad as a Cute Snake by Amelia Evans and Dan Giovannoni at Theatre Works. It's a real treat to see companies produce work that respects their young audiences and pushes the boundaries without making a big deal of it.

In comedy, I loved Keep at MICF by Daniel Kitson – I could listen to his storytelling for hours (and have!) – and Hot Donkey by Northern Ireland's Paul Currie, which takes on particular significance this week after the death of his hero, Caroll Spinney. Months later, I still find myself randomly breaking out into "Pandas for hands, I've got pandas for hands!".

My heart was warmed to see my friend and colleague Andi Snelling back on stage with Happy-Go-Wrong, which, as  already  mentioned in this series, is a great achievement. And, whie it didn't hit all the marks for me, I really enjoyed Raw Material and Traverse Theatre Company's What Girls Are Made Of as part of the Melbourne Interntional Festival of Arts.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, at long last! My brother and I are taking Mum for her 70th birthday...totally selflessly, of course! And, in a not-strictly-theatre sense, I am hanging out for My Dad Wrote a Porno in January and Tim Minchin's encore tour of Back in March.

SM: There are people who are always working and performing but we don't see them in our reviews and on the big stages. Charlotte makes theatre in homes and at parties and events. She (and her husband and colleauges) do murder mystery parties and theme parties and children's parties. They get to know their audiences in ways that few performers do. They make events become "the best day of my life". That's pretty great.

(PS. Are we allowed to start a count down to #MelbournePornoDay?)

Beng Oh
Director and theatre maker

Beng Oh

Favourite moments in 2019.
I didn’t see as much as I would have liked to this year but having said that, stand-outs for me include:

Ars Nova’s production of Underground Railroad Game at Malthouse. A funny, subversive and disturbing look at race relations with fully committed performances. Troubling in a good way.

Samah Sabawi’s Them at La Mama was beautifully directed by Bagryana Popov with a strong cast. It’s on the Victorian Premiere’s Literary Awards 2020 drama shortlist and is coming back in 2020 at the Arts Centre.

Also at La Mama, Rory Godbold’s When The Light Leaves was a timely piece as assisted dying laws came into effect. It’s a moving production that’s coming back for Midsumma 2020.

Declan Greene’s production of Wake in Fright at  Malthouse with Zahra Newman was simply brilliant and sucked you in right from the word go.

Opera Australia’s production of Aribert Reimann’s Ghost Sonata was a knockout. The singers sang some extremely tricky music with aplomb (and excellent diction) and Greg Eldridge’s production, in surreal designs by Emma Kingsbury, brought a really difficult piece to life.

Stephanie Lake’s Colossus with nearly 50 dancers was hypnotic and entrancing and I would have been happy to immediately watch it a second time. Still on dance, Hofesh Shechter’s exhilarating Grand Finale at MIAF really felt like the culmination of their work to date.

Anthem directed by Susie Dee at MIAF skilfully wove together five writers and a large cast into a memorable piece of theatre.

Last, but not least, Laurence Strangio’s The Year of Magical Thinking had a luminous performance by Jillian Murray coupled with exquisite lighting by Andy Turner.


Looking forward to in 2020.
Lots of things, not least of which are the Mozart Requiem by Romeo Castelluci, Robert Icke’s The Doctor, and Enter Achilles by DV8 (I can’t see it but I’m still excited by it) at Adelaide Festival.

Two shows in Melbourne stand out though. I missed it first time round and am excited about seeing Joel Bray’s Daddy. It’s queer, indigenous work with the lot. And sugar, lots of sugar. Not to be missed.

Susie Dee and Patricia Cornelius teaming up once more on Do Not Go Gentle... at Malthouse. I first saw the play in Julian Meyrick’s production at fortyfivedownstairs in 2010 and can’t wait to see what this latest production is like.

SM: I really enjoyed Beng's direction of Daniel Keene's Wild Cherries at La Mama, but what I remember most is how he let us see Cock though the hearts of the characters and brought a new reading to the well-known play. It was soooo hot that night in fortyfivedownstairs and, even while we melted, the audience were totally gripped by the story.

Christopher Bryant
Playwright, academic, sometimes performer

Christopher Bryant. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
I saw Barbara and the Camp Dogs and Underground Railroad Game at Malthouse in the same week and nine months later, I'm still thinking about them both. They both expertly navigated hilarity through some really dark places, and were all the more affecting for it.

The end of Working With Children by Nicola Gunn. I'd watch her eat cereal (but like, not in a creepy way), so, of course, I loved her performance. But the way it ended – kind of, leaving the audience in all these questions she'd raised, watching all these machine-based optical illusions work in silence – was oddly touching and a little bit magical. I didn't feel like the veil of "theatre" lifted until hours later.

House Sisters by Michelle Lee and the Monash Centre of Theatre and Performance: hilarious and kind of sickening in parts and genuinely kept me unsure where it was going to end up. Just really well made and written, directed and performed by some wonderful young actors.

Daddy by Joel Bray. Beautiful, beautifully made, and again, sat on the knife's edge between camp ridiculousness, intelligence and a deep well of hurt. He also navigated audience involvement/interaction incredibly well.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Loaded by Dan Giovannoni and Christos Tsiolkas (directed by Stephen Nicolazzo) and Prima Facie by Suzie Miller (directed by Lee Lewis) at Malthouse.

The Feather in the Web by Nick Coyle (directed by Declan Greene) and Orlando by Sarah Ruhl (directed by Stephen Nicolazzo) at Red Stitch.

The Great Australian Play by Kim Ho and Wellbless by Debra Thomas and Ella Roth Barton at Theatre Works.

SM: I got to see two new productions of Christopher's plays in the same week: The Other Place at Theatre Works and Disinibition at MUST. Both approached and directed in such different ways; both sharing his writing and themes and emotions in such different ways. What an amazing way to get to know a writer and their work. What an amazing experience for a writer!

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 2

Today, we hear from some of those artists whose work creates, develops and supports other art and performance in Melbourne.

Here's the form to write your contribution; you get to chose your own photo.

Keith Gow
Playwright and critic
keithgow.com

Some actor & Keith Gow in London. Hello, sweetie.

Favourite moments in 2019.
I was so pleased to see my friend Andi Snelling back on stage in Happy-Go-Wrong telling a deeply personal story about invisible illness, without it feeling at all indulgent – and making an utterly mesmerising, moving piece of theatre.

Some really excellent theatre at Malthouse this year, with Underground Railroad Game, Barbara and the Camp Dogs, My Dearworthy Darling and Australian Realness being utterly superb.

I saw three Arthur Miller plays this year (!), two in London – a bland production of All My Sons and an astonishing mixed-race production of Death of a Salesman – but the best one was by the Melbourne Theatre Company, in its A View from the Bridge.

And some solid, exciting work at Red Stitch this year, too, with Control, Dance Nation and Pomona as the real stand-outs.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
Grey Arias, Do Not Go Gentle... and Loaded at Malthouse. Home I'm Darling and Fun Home at MTC. Orlando directed by Stephen Nicolazzo at Red Stitch.


SM:Keith is another independent writer who writes about shows because he loves them and wants to support our arts community. His reviews are honest and beautifully written. Read him; I sure do. And he supports other writers by reading everyone else's reviews.

Danny Delahunty
Producer of festivals, Lover of art

Danny Delahunty. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
2019 was a really great year for amazing theatre, particularly in the independent sector. If I put aside my shining conflict of interest with Melbourne Fringe, my favourite moment that has stuck with me is Queen Kong. Everything about it was excellent, but the big thing for me was how progressed the concept of integrated access was in the work (most noticeably with the Auslan elements, which were a core part of the creative work itself and not just an addendum tacked on at the end). It was just such a great example of what can be done to make a work accessible without that accessibility feeling clinical and separate from the creative elements.

I also have to mention the absolutely stunning stagecraft and production wizardry in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. For such a dire script, the fact that this show was nothing less of spectacular is a testament to all involved. Yeah, I know, budget budget budget and the fact that you could have funded 10,000 indie theatre productions on a fraction of their operational costs, but ... to see a piece of theatre that literally rebuilt the internals of a heritage venue from the ground on up in order to fully come alive felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I also really appreciate the capacity of this show to introduce a heap of young 'uns to theatre for the first time in a context that's a bit more interesting for them than Year 7 trips to Uncle Vanya at MTC.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
The Asia TOPA program looks great, with my top pick being Metal (Lucy Guerin Inc collaborating with an Indonesian heavy metal choir – it's perfect.) I'm also really looking forward to Le Gateau Chocolat and Adrienne Truscott's Great Arias at Malthouse. Past that, I'm not sure what else it on its way in the indie circuit... usually I read through the "What Melbourne Loved" answers and put together my calendar from that, haha*!


SM: Danny and the team at Melbourne Fringe created a whole new amazing arts venue at Trades Hall! A new arts hub filled with so many performances spaces**. The Melbourne Fringe 2019 brought Trades Hall back to life. As unions struggle and our dear leaders try to portray the idea of people working together to stop exploitation and greed*** as dangerous, it was wonderful to see so many people back in the space created by Melbourne's workers unions. So many people getting together to see so many people creating art that show us our communities and beliefs through different eyes, that shows what the world should be and what it could be if we don't see those different perspectives.

* That's how I choose my shows.
** He may not have slept in September.
*** Join your union.

Emily Sexton
Arts House artistic director

Emily Sexton. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Walking into the opening night of the Yirramboi festival at the Meat Market was a revelation. I had never seen the space so transformed and so beautiful, and the performers that night were incredible: Deborah Cheetham, Sermsah Bin Saad, Monica Jasmine McDonald, Allara Briggs Pattison, The Merindas, Soju Gang. It was very memorable and a clear indication of First Nations artists in Victoria going from strength to strength.

I loved the double-bill that saw Vicki Van Hout’s plenty serious Talk Talk alongside the premiere of Joel Bray’s Daddy. It was so interesting to see these multi-generational Wiradjuri artists intersect – their stories, their form and craft, their humour.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
I was lucky to see The Mysterious Lai Teck in Yokohama in February as part of TPAM and it is a fascinating, literary show that left me much to contemplate about the nature of translation, the power of oral histories and the flaws of written archives;  it is coming to Melbourne as part of Asia TOPA.

Can I plug my own stuff? I’m going to plug my own stuff. I’m super excited by the local and international premieres happening in Arts House’s Season 1 in 2020 – did someone say Filipino action thriller musical? We have also announced a new project: Bleed – a biennial live event in the everyday digital. We have joined forces with Campbelltown Arts Centre to explore the relationship between the live and digital experience. From URL to IRL and back again, this is art that meets you where you already are: online, hyper-connected and endlessly networked. As digital increasingly seeps into our communities, identities and culture, we are working with artists who seek to make visible the shifts in power that result. The project will explore different models of sharing art, and in the process celebrate the spaces contemporary art is claiming within a digital public sphere. It will encourage different modes of listening, watching and playing, while still asking the question: where, when and how do we come together? The first edition starts in June at Arts House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, online, in the flesh and in your pocket. 

SM: Every time I see a show at Arts House, I tell myself that I should see more shows at Arts House. (Sometimes, the only thing wrong with Melbourne is how long it takes to get from one side of the city to the other for a 7 pm show.) It's a place where artists are free to make the work that they want and need to make without the pressure of box office and stars. It's a place where work develops and experiments and questions why we do this.

Melbourne Fringe: The good news stories

MELBOURNE FRINGE
12–29 September 2019
melbournefringe.com.au





So Melbourne Fringe is over and we have a couple nights off before Melbourne Festival begins. I saw a lot of shows – I think 31, but it's a blurr – and missed that many again that I wanted to see.

So many people don't see, go to or cover Fringe because of the big curated Festival – and they miss out on so much. Melbourne Fringe is the event where we see the beginnings of works that go on to change how we make theatre. It's where we see stuff that will never be seen again. It's where you will see an artist who connects with you and you and know that you are going to see everything they do. It's where arts community and audiences are developed and built, and where no one gives a toss what the sponsors think.

These are some of the many good news stories this Fringe.

Danny Delahunty and his team creating a new Fringe Hub at Trades Hall. So many more venues. A place full of history that reminds us every moment that the word "union" means working together.

Indie media stepping up again. There was the ARTery podcast - EVERY DAY, thanks to Jason Cavanagh and host extraordinaire May Jasper. Myron My at My Melbourne Arts saw 61 shows! And wrote about them. The only way to get the context, depth and importance of this event is to see a lot.

Awards. Yep, sometimes awards they are guff, but a lot of Fringe prizes are support to get to other festivals, and the "best" ones are decided by panels of industry people who also see so many shows throughout the festival. It's one to be genuinely chuffed about.

Ones that made me smile.

Andi Snelling's Happy-Go-Wrong is off to the Adelaide fringe.  (I talked about this on ARTery podcast.)

Andi Snelling.  Happy-Go-Wrong

Bron Batten's Waterloo is off to North Melbourne and to Edinburgh. I can't wait to see what this show becomes. This means that I somehow have to get to Edinburgh next year. As an arts writer, if I saved everything I earned as an arts writer in a year, I couldn't even get a flight. And that's more than others get.

Oh No, Satan Stole My Pineal Gland directed by Jean Tong and Louisa Wall won Best Ensemble. They were.

Claire Rankine won a producing award for Polygamy, Polygayu, which she also directed  and it was developed and performed by Alice Tovey, Charity Werk, Margot Tanjutco and Hayley Tantau.

Alice Tovey, Margot Tanjutco, Charity Werk, Polygamy, Polygayou. Photo by Ling Duong

Bryony Kimmings won Best Theatre for I'm a Phoenix, Bitch (ARTery podcast). She's still one of my favourite artists and even if I wasn't 100% sure about this work, its impact is astonishing. I've spoken to people who say their lives have changed since they saw it. Produced by Daniel Clarke and Arts Centre Melbourne.

Selina Jenkins's BOOBS won Best Cabaret. It's one of the best shows I've seen this year (ARTery podcast).

My favourite story is the two clowns from LA, Amritha Kaur Gemma Soldati, who came to Melbourne and knew no one and won Best Comedy. I saw The Living Room because someone from The Butterfly Club told me about it. (Those networks of people really do work.) It only ran for a week and us who saw it now have some pretty good bragging rights. If you missed it – well, I told you it was good.

Frobert and Joshua Ladgrove. Pic nicked off Facebook.

My nearly-favourite story isn't a prize (but this show won the Golden Gibbo at MICF). Joshua Ladgrove Presents Melbourne’s Only Bilge Pump Sales Seminar sold out – in the good way, the every seat filled way. Add an extra star to my comedy festival review. Three years ago, he did a Fringe show with an audience of nine: we will always be the Portenza Nine.

There many other artists and shows that I could mention – and hopefully did on Twitter – , but a lot of them are going to get lots of words in the future. And I many never have known about them if I hadn't seen them in this festival.

Guest response: A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer

 A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer
Complicite and Malthouse Theatre
8 March 2018
Merlyn Theatre
to 18 March 2018
malthousetheatre.com.au

A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer. Photo by Mark Douet

Guest writer: Andi Snelling

SM: I cried in Bryony Kimmings's  A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer; felt-tears-fall-onto-my-arm cry. It's a gut-kick emotional show that has led to having some amazing personal conversations about how we create art about illness and how we respond to work about illness.

Kimmings is from the UK and is well-known, and well-loved, by Melbourne audiences having brought us Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, Sex Idiot and Fake it 'til you make it.

It's possibly impossible not to have a personal connection to the ideas, frustration and raw emotion of the work. I started writing about my personal stories about cancer and it became very long. I'm not unique; the audience connection to the work is strong and immediate.

With a sequin-bedazzled cast, it begins as Kimmings's story about being commissioned to make art – a musical, naturally – about other peoples' illnesses. She finds a gendered mess of language, misinformation and naff fiction – that also makes me cry – and people who are so sick of being sick, and all the expectations that come along with being sick.

When Lara Veitch, who's not an actor, comes into the narratives and onto the stage, it becomes more personal and less hypothetical. And when Kimmings son gets sick, the distance between creator and topic no longer exists.

Here are Maxim's and Tim's reviews, but I want to share response by Andi Snelling. She wrote at 3.17 am.  Here's the link to her MyCause page.



AS: 3.17am has me playing that familiar Lyme game: WTF is that sensation and where is it coming from? Crawling, vibrating, squeezing sensations warming my heart area and machine gun rounds firing off in my right ear in a fireworks display of tinnitus which can be both heard and felt. My throat is dry and ticklish with the acidic taste of reflux because I broke my consume-nothing-after-8 pm rule because my granny o'clock dinner routine got interrupted by a 5 pm theatre show  A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer.

The show is pacing up my mind's corridor, tearing up the carpet and ceiling of my bedroom as the blur of my sickness-dreams comes into sudden sharp focus. The show was an ambitious rabbit hole dive which I loved on paper; a (rightly so) trendy, edgy, feminist artist facing cancer bravely from within whilst fuck you-ing patriarchal power as starkly as the white medical gown we will all wear one day. But it didn't work for me on a creative level somehow. And I wonder if that even matters because it did work for me on the level which it set out to be: a guide. Even when – especially when – it reveals there is no guide.

I was moved but didn't sob as I had expected to. This does not mean anything, other than I clearly had expectations which have little use in art. I felt my own thought struggles around my illness reflected – the pressure for positivity, the brave face bullshit, the cycling of mortality fears and total "normalcy", the "it's-easier-to-pretend-it's-okay" facade, the anger at isolation, the futility of reaching out to disappearing friends, the devastation when your relationship sledgehammers your heart in its hour of need. All of that. And more. I don't even have cancer, but I do have an illness as dangerous as cancer, yet without the voice that cancer has.

And so, the show hovers with me as 4 am approaches, just as art should. A helicopter churns the sky outside and at first, I have to double-check it's really there and not inside me because it can be with Lyme. My heart, like so many nights of late, pounds away, thudding parts of my body with its palpitations, giving me the fear of death and reminding me that I am alive. In the black of the night. Just like the black of the stage.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 10

Today is the last day of the loveds and the SM Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow. In part 10, Andi talks about being an audience member this year, Rohan talks about music theatre and I find the moments that made me so glad that I didn't stay home and watch TV.

Andi Snelling
Actor 

Andi Snelling

Favourite moments in 2017
2017 has been a unique theatre year for me. I haven’t been on stage the entire year (due to illness), which is the longest time I’ve been off the boards since I was four years old. It’s been a mixture of silent longing and inspiring observation. It’s the first time I’ve really sat back in the hum of the audience and truly taken art in as a temporarily non-practising artist. Three shows in particular grabbed my heart and pumped it for me.

My absolute favourite show was Trygve Wakenshaw’s Nautilus, which I saw in The Spiegeltent at MICF. His buckle-bodied spoof on all humanity’s absurdity had me snort-laughing and light-bulbing equally. I recall him so expertly setting the audience up with fond attachment to an established character or concept, then with great glee and trickery, smashing it before our eyes. His cheeky way of standing beside himself (sometimes literally) in order to highlight our hypocrisy, our injustice and our hope was mimed genius. As a fellow lover of physical expression, I was so uplifted by Trygve’s performance that I wanted to cartwheel myself straight into a rehearsal room right then and there and start conjuring the world with my body.

Another powerhouse show for me was Angel by Henry Naylor performed by Avital Lvova, at Holden Street Theatres at Adelaide Fringe. This was deadly theatre: a one-woman action blockbuster that had you holding your breath and begging for mercy as if you were its sniper heroine scrambling through the charred streets of Mosel. She gave a knockout performance and despite the stage being dressed only with a keg, I swore I could see, taste and feel the bullets flying in that way you do at a 3D cinema, dodging the not-really-there objects. Tears are springing up in my eyes just recalling the tragedy.

I can’t talk about theatre in 2017 without mentioning Wild Bore at the Malthouse Theatre. Of course I loved it. I laughed hard and took my brain to the gym. It was meta theatre that out-meta’ed itself and left you with visual metaphors which only your most trippy of dreams would normally be capable of. I loved how it stretched an idea well beyond its elasticity, then snapped it back in ways you didn't see coming. Witnessing Adrienne Truscott, Zoe Coombes-Marr and Ursula Martinez truly doing exactly what the fuck they wanted to be doing was super empowering. To their credit, they held themselves just as accountable as they did their critics. And all for a very apparent reason.

Other special performance moments for me include: seeing Sinead O’Connor sing half of "Nothing Compares" only to stop and declare, “I am now done with this song”, and the feminist punch-fest Hot Brown Honey that had me dancing and roaring in my seat as if I were back in my early 20s at a student protest.

Looking forward to in 2018
Who knows what 2018 will hold, but I feel great anticipation…

SM: I'd like to see Andi back on stage next year. Illness sucks. To do that, she needs some help. You can help here.


Rohan Shearn
Arts publisher and writer
Australian Arts Review

Rohan Shearn

Favourite moments in 2017
Once again, we were spoilt for choice this year as the commercial and independent sector delivered a mixed bag of delights.

The Book of Mormon kicked off the year in a riotous display of politically incorrect joy at the Princess Theatre, closely followed by Aladdin at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which was not only spectacular,but featured two outstanding performances: former Hi-5er Ainsley Melham as Aladdin, and Michael James Scott as the Genie.

Two Australian musicals made my favourites:
Ladies in Black – the musical adaptation of Madeleine St John’s popular 1993 novel, The Women in Black, made a welcome return to Melbourne; this time at the Regent Theatre.
Muriel’s Wedding  – the musical adaptation of the classic Australian film made its premiere at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney, featuring Maggie McKenna in her professional debut as Muriel Heslop. Both shows were directed by Simon Phillips.

My Fair Lady dazzled audiences at the Regent Theatre in the Dame Julie Andrews recreated 1950s classic by Lerner and Loewe featuring Anna O’Byrne as Eliza Doolittle, Charles Edwards as Professor Higgins and Reg Livermore as Alfred P Doolittle; and The Production Company surprised us all and with its production of Brigadoon, also by Lerner and Loewe.

Not to be outdone, StageArt presented their best production to date with David Bryan and Joe DiPietro’s four-time  2010 Tony Award-winning Memphis The Musical; and Music Theatre Melbourne delivered a highly charged, sentimental production of Paris – A Rock Odyssey by the late Jon English.

However, it is Taylor Mac and the A 24-Decade History of Popular Music who will leave a lasting legacy on all of those who attended judy's 2017 Melbourne Festival performances.

Looking forward to in 2018 
Dream Lover – The Bobby Darin Musical,  opening at Arts Centre Melbourne later this month featuring the ever consummate David Campbell.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert returning to the Regent Theatre as part of its 10th anniversary outing in late January.

The critically acclaimed American Idiot rocking the Comedy Theatre from late February.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical featuring the stunning Esther Hannaford at Her Majesty’s Theatre in February; Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz heading at Regent in May; and Mamma Mia! heads at the Princess Theatre in July.

Look out for Virginia Gay’s star-turn as Calamity Jane at Arts Centre Melbourne in March; Maury Yeston’s Nine makes a welcome return to Melbourne courtesy of StageArt in October; and I hope we will get to see Hayes Theatre Co’s production of Stephen Sondheim Assassins, the previously mentioned Muriel’s Wedding, and Evita sometime in 2018 or in 2019.

SM: If I want gossip (and I do,) Rohan is my first stop. I'd be so bored in intervals if he wasn't there to drink a glass of fizz with.

Anne-Marie Peard
Arts writer

The moment I hit peak cat women. A photo of a photo of me and my cats (still have one of them) at the
Gotokuji cat temple a couple of train rides out of Tokyo.

My Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow.

Favourite moments in 2017
The first "Hello" in The Book of Mormon and knowing that it was going to be everything and more.

The Rabble's Joan when the women fell into the squares of light.

Malthouse's Away when the world changed.

Following Moira Finucane around the NGV in The Intimate 8.

Squealing at a flying condom in Trainspotting.

The costumes in Glittery Clittery.

Laughing myself sick at Trygve Wakensahaw's Nautilus. He was a chicken and a cat and a sheep! I had no idea I was all about mime; I had no idea mime could be so damning. 

Still feeling physically ill during the last scenes of Awakening.

Mary Helen Sassman and Emma Valente committing like no one has ever committed before in The Rabble's one-off Sick, Sick.

Realising that I wasn't going to get a return ticket to Takarazuka Revue (The Scarlet Pimpernel) in Tokyo and a stranger giving me a ticket. She didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, but she knew how happy I was to get that ticket and she has theatre karma for life. If you're going to Japan, book for them when you book your flight. It's an all-female company and I still don't know if it's the queerest (including Taylor Mac) or the straightest company I've ever seen.

Betty Grumble making pussy prints in Love and Anger.

Being given a photo in an orange envelope at A Requiem for Cambodia.

Just before Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music began, I wondered if it could ever be what I imagined it could be. It was so much more.
Trying to sing and cry in the last hour of Taylor Mac.
Most All of the hours in between those moments.

The moment Hannah Gadsby turned Nanette onto itself and the bottom falling out of my heart.

Looking forward to in 2018
I'll start with Hir, Abigail's Party and The House of Bernarda Alba.


part 9
part 8
part 7
part 6
part 5
part 4
part 3
part 2
part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012

Give: Andi's Lyme Light

Andi Snelling is a Melbourne actor. She's great. She's also dealing with chronic illness and needs some help.

If every SM reader gave $1 (or $10), it would help get her closer to her goal. Here's the link to her MyCause page.





Here are some pics (by Sarah Walker) from her not-a-spare-seat-in-the-house fundraiser at the Wesley Ann.

Andi Snelling with Tash York. Photo by Sarah Walker

Astrid & Otto. Photo by Sarah Walker

Alia Vryens & Colin Craig. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dolly Diamond. Photo by Sarah Walker

Andi Snelling with Charlotte Strantzen & raffle prizes. Photo by Sarah Walker

What Melbourne Loved in 2016, part 9

Today we here from three amazing kick-arse women and actors: Andi Snelling, Mary Helen Sassman and Genevieve Giuffre.

And we're reminded that La Mama turns 50 next year. Here's to spending a lot of time in Carlton next year.

Andi Snelling
actor

Andi Snelling. Photo by Sarah Walker

AS's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I'm the sort of person who uses the word "love" a lot. And I do mean it when I say it. I love colour co-ordination. I love satire. I love cry-laughing. And I really, really, really super love theatre. This year, I recall saying the word "love: in relation to something I’d seen on a stage in these ways:

Am I Right Ladies? (Luisa Omielan, MICF): I loved the dance party atmosphere Luisa created as you entered and exited her show. It made me feel like everyone in the audience had suddenly come together to be in the same feminist, fist-pumping gang. Like we instantly got every other stranger in the room. It was that simple and powerful.

Nelken (Tanztheater Wuppertal, Adelaide Festival*): I loved this show and the way I ended up there. Sometimes with theatre, you don’t go to it, it comes to you. I randomly wound up with a ticket to this show via a fortuitous conversation with someone I bumped into at the Adelaide Fringe Artists Bar. You know, one of those a-performer-I-met-once-at-a workshop type connections? He had accidentally gone on the wrong night to the show, but the ushers, for whatever reason**, hadn’t noticed his tickets were for the following night and they let him in and he somehow got seats. So on the real night that the tickets were valid for, I ended up going! I had second row seats so could literally smell the Nelken (carnations) – actually, they were fake, but I could definitely smell them, that’s how excited I was to be there. Apart from the show's historical significance, I feel like this was the first time I saw Tanztheater done the way it's meant to be done. I've always felt actors lack physical expertise and dancers lack acting expertise, so seeing these two elements beautifully melded together hit my heart hard. This experience was one that goes well beyond the minutes and seconds of the show itself.

* I know it’s not a Melbourne theatre moment, but I’m a sometimes rule-breaker and this was my favourite show of the year. (SM: Breaking rules is a rule here.)

** I like to think they subliminally knew that Andi Snelling chick just has to see this.

Purge (Brian Lobel, MICF): I loved the way something of significance in my life changed because of this show. Purge was totally out-of-the-box: part–game show, part–love story and part-lecture, which got my cry-laughing juices going (which you already know is a thing I love). It was a highly interactive theatrical experience in which Brian shared his story about how he had kept or deleted 1300 of his Facebook friends, based on strangers' decisions. During the show itself, I ended up on stage re-friend requesting an old friend who I had unfriended the year before after a bitter falling out. This personal moment for me became a personal moment for everyone in the audience that day. And I wasn't the only one who got up. I realised how extraordinary it was that a kooky comedy show had got me reflecting so soberly on my connection to the humans in my world.

What AS is looking forward to in 2017: Somehow managing to score a free ticket to The Book of Mormon!

SM: I love anyone who uses the word love even more than I do. Andi's Deja Vu at Melbourne Fringe was dance theatre at its best. It was emotionally dark and at times very weird; for most of it, I had no idea what it was about or what was going on – and that was the point. I loved being able to sit and watch a performer without having to assign any meaning that wasn't my own. It was like crawling around in emotion and not being able to tell which were hers and which were mine.

andisnelling.com

Mary Helen Sassman
actor

Mary Helen Sassman. Photo by Brett Boardman

MHS's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I guess I can't name watching my four-year-old make his ballet debut in an excerpt from The Nutcracker as my faourite moment in a theatre in 2016?  It's not what you think, it's just that I got to watch his face in the theatre after his item had ended as he fell deeply in love for the very first time. Awwwwww.

I have two legitimate favourite moments to share:  One was to witness the harrowing transformation of Jane Montgomery Griffiths as a woman dying in Wit. She killed it. She crushed me. She is remarkable.

The other was Jess Thoms in Backstage in Biscuitland. I howled with laughter and crumbled with shame while she performed with vulnerability, with sheer resilience and at every step with consumate story telling skill.  This was the piece I raved about in the school yard.

What MHS is looking forward to in 2017: La Mama turns 50!!! What does this mean? Well, a party of course. But also a book on the history of my favourite theatre (oh the stories, oh the pics!) And then a season curated by Liz Jones where she has invited loads of excellent people who have worked here to present a work for a few nights.  The rest of this town might as well shut down for a time – it's going to be jam packed and so much fun!

Oh, Joan (The Rabble) at Theatre Works will surely be AMAZING (I'm not in it so I'm allowed to say that). In fact, I'd take out a subscription to the entire 2017 Theatreworks program if I could.

And my now five-year-old wants to sign up for jazz and acro next year and that might just trump 'em all.

SM: Mary Helen acts from a place so deep inside her that it feels like we're watching something secret. As for a moment: steak and glitter in Cain and Abel.

Genevieve Giuffre
actor

Genevieve Giuffre

GG's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I loved Hissy fits menacing work I might blow up someday for FOLA. After a long winter of some pretty boring theatre in London, it was so nice to be beaten and tackled to the ground by a giant head banging Bratz doll (main man Nat Randall).

I can still see Mark Wilson's body contorting in front of a black curtain in Anti-Hamlet (what a great show!) The "SORRY" on fire in Blaque Showgirls after the sorry not sorry dance. Ben Grant's yogo and wigs nightmare in The Rug, and how Zoe Coombs Marr's Trigger Warning emerged  like a phoenix out of a desolate tip of a year for independent funding and support.

What GG is looking forward to in 2017:  The next generation taking over... but in the meantime, The Homosexuals or Faggots, Joan, Merciless Gods, The Book of Exodus 1 & 11 and of course the return season of Playing to Win.

SM: This is easy: every moment Genevieve was on stage in Lilith, the Jungle Girl. She captures the soul of broken people and makes their pain so hilarious that it hurts to keep watching because you're trying to laugh and cry at the same time.

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
2014
2013
2012

Review: Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi
5 Pound Theatre
18 July 2013
The Owl and the Pussycat
to 27 July
owlandcat.com.au

Ubu Roi is a mess. A filthy, mud-spluttered, cover-me-with-plastic glorious mess.

Founded in late 2010, the 5Pound theatre ensemble are making their mark in Melbourne. Based at The Owl and the Pussycat in Richmond – once a single front workers cottage – they present plays that they love, which have so far ranged from The Blue Room to Pygmalion.

Director and Co-Artistic Director of 5 Pound, Jason Cavanagh, loves Absurdism.  He directed Ionesco's Rhinoceros last year and was thrilled to get into the 1896 script by Alfred Jarry that's said to be the inspiration of the mid-20th century style and had it's French audience rioting at its first performance.

Papa Ubu (let's call him Kevin) wants to be King. He's a greedy man whose childish behaviour destroys everything he tries to control in a world with snot and poo jokes that would put a poo-obsessed four-year-old to shame.

So Cavanagh fills the stage with reeking mud and with Mattea Davies's faded grotesque glory design, Tim Wotherspoon's dripping sound and Doug Montgomery's lighting the space is so viserally vile that I was glad I'd worn wellies. Mud is flung as underwear and excess body hair turn to brown and the front row pull their plastic covers over their to protect themselves from political shit fight that's played out before them.

Ubu Roi is a text that's read (or read about) more than it's performed, but seeing it is much more fun than reading it. Cavanagh grasps the wholeness of the story (it's very loosely based on the Scottish play), but the ending feels empty. And, while he lets his delightfully hilarious cast (Nicholas Dubberley, Amy Jones, Susannah Frith, Andi Snelling, Colin Craig and Antony Okill) revel in the mucky humour, there are times when they seem to be enjoying it a bit too much. The moments when they step away from charater and the ridiculous world to pull the plastic safety curtain across are perfect, but they need to decide if the world they are slipping and sliding in is real and dangerous or a playground for buffoonery.

As the mire gets stinkier by the day, Ubu Roi is going to fester until its grossness is squirmingly irresistible. So cover up and watch safely as 5Pound refuse to be safe and dull.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.