What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 5

One of the many things I love about this series is making headshots optional. I love a bit of Photoshop, but photos that look like you rather than a silicone RealDoll are always better. Today's were chosen by the writers; they are perfect.

Scott Gooding
Renaissance Man

Scott Gooding trying to look like a middle aged white bloke.
Photo by Hotel - Underground Cinema

Favourite moments in 2018
First and foremost this year was Trustees at Malthouse as part of Melbourne Festival. Honest, brutal, thought provoking and funny as fuck. There are few times that theatre stops me in my tracks and I must remember to breathe, but, boy howdy, was this the show. The dissection of class, race and gender in current Australia was always handled with honesty and a daring that I rarely see now days. Also that the cast were of an age to be angry and articulate gave me hope that we all don't start to get old and complacent as theatre makers in this country. There was a true outlandish laugh at Natasha Herbert unpacking her white privilege – "I some time feel like I'm part of the problem" – and with perfect timing Tammy Anderson responded deadpan with "You are".

Fucking glorious!!! Honorable shout outs to Next Wave and the mad, joyous festival that it was. Angus Cerini's Bleeding Tree; MTC's Abigail's Party, House of Bernardo Alba and The Children; La Mama with Four Larks and Essential Theatre's Enter Ophelia, Blasted at Malthouse, and La Mama at BMI with Bachelor S17 E5. Looking at that list, some might think I have issues...

Looking forward to in 2019
Am keen on Malthouse's program for next year. Especially as I will get a chance to see Blackie Blackie Brown, which I missed this year.

23 December 2018

SM: I really really thought I'd written this. I'm so  sorry.
I loved the return of Eric, Eric the Third, at Melbourne Fringe; it was an absolute highlight. Middle-aged white straight men can do amazing comedy about middle-aged straight white men. And he wrote and performed Robert in Crisis at La Mama. This is genre writing at its best and I still don't want to give anything about this away because it really needs to be developed and seen again.

Katie Purvis
Book editor, radio presenter, theatre-goer

Katie Purvis.

Favourite moments in 2018
I saw Calamity Jane at the Fairfax in March, and nothing surpassed it for the rest of the year. I was enchanted by the playing with gender roles, the fabulous performances (both the acting and the music), the intimate staging, the whole-hearted embrace of the audience by the performers (and vice versa), the side-splitting hilarity of it all, and above all the performance of Virginia Gay in the title role.

Honourable mentions to Muriel's Wedding (in Sydney, with the original cast); Queen + Adam Lambert for the best arena concert I have ever seen; The Children by Lucy Kirkwood at MTC, which stayed in my head for weeks; Magda Szubanski's mock funeral at Melbourne Writers' Festival, an event that was stuffed full of love; and the city embracing my footy team with art and other celebrations when they made the AFL finals for the first time in 12 years.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm looking forward to seeing Melbourne Theatre Company continue to showcase strong women on stage and behind the scenes; to catching Barbara and the Camp Dogs at the Malthouse; and to discovering more great local musicians to play on my radio show and go see live.

SM: Listen to Miss Chatelaine on Joy on Sunday mornings. Katie's a terrific interviewer. I usually only hear the end of the show, which is why I love that it's also a podcast.

Katie always finds a typo that I've missed. I love this. She's a great editor. She was the editor and outside-eye reader for the #IStandWithEJ piece I did for ArtsHub. Once she'd had a look, took out one sentence and made me fix some clarity, I knew it was ready to be filed. When writers work with other people, our writing gets better.

Sarah Collins 
Writer/performer 

Sarah Collins. Photo by Christopher Downs. 

Favourite moments in 2018
STC’s Muriel’s Wedding. I haven’t seen an entire audience jump in their collective seats the moment a show opens like we did here. The force from stage, my god. Then I cried so much in the second song in, "The Bouquet", that I could not make out the stage. Like, SOLD dudes. You’re totally blurry! You win! But then we need to talk about Christie Whelan Browne as Tania Degano. What witchcraft casting. The friend I saw the show with called me yesterday -– we’re now 11 months on from seeing it – and we were still talking about her performance. Then, of course ,the musical genius of Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall, whose collective years of people-watching in Queensland have contributed to some of the most memorable lines ever sung in an Australian musical. “The men, are men, we dress like proper men ... they can do a heap of push ups”. YOU ARE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE. And Maggie McKenna’s Muriel? Forget Gaga. This was my Star Is Born moment for 2018.

Looking forward to in 2019
Muriel’s Wedding in Melbourne. Duh!

SM: We haven't seen a new work from Sarah for a while – kids take up time – but I had many favourite moments when she and her family discovered Japan. My late-night Facebooking was filled with photos that made me want to get on a plane. Then I just got jealous. Many great stories, but the Hello Kitty Shinkansen not turning up is my favourite. It was like she'd written it herself. Ask her to tell the story.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 6

More Taylor Mac tears, more Nanette love and more new writing.

Declan Greene
Playwright, director
Sisters Grimm
Resident Artist, Malthouse Theatre

Declan Green, Taylor Mac, Matthew Lutton. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2017
It was a pretty bloody amazing year, hey? Like everyone else I couldn't just pick one moment, and Taylor Mac stands on a plinth of judy's own. I'll get that out of the way first.  In 24 Decades of Popular Music, my favourite moment was judy solo with ukelele singing "World Peace, or who in the room to screw?" Written there in black and white, it's a dumb and unwieldy little question, but in performance it encapsulated the human tension between our glorious idealism and the frailty of our flesh – but also the glorious hunger of our flesh and the frailty of our idealism – and it made me bawl my eyes out.

Aaaaand also:

The moment the giant smashed avocado dick appeared in Natesha Somasundaram's Jeremy and Lucas Buy A Fucking House, confirming the promise made by the previous 60 minutes: that Natesha is indeed a dementedly talented and dementedly demented comic prodigy.

The genuine surprise of Matt Lutton's production of Away, which stripped away all the layers of sentiment and nostalgia and showed the raw, uncomfortable human desperation at the heart of that play.

Pretty much everything about Janice Muller's production of Alice Birch's Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, but especially that hysterical broken-farce of a third act and Ming Zhu Hii's terrifying performance as the Grandmother.

Ash Flanders's quiet and devastating vision of himself as high school drama teacher delivering a retirement speech in Playing To Win.

Betty Grumble's Love & Anger. I'm cheating because I saw it in Edinburgh but it's in Melbourne in a couple of days time and it's start-to-finish PHENOMENAL and doesn't let you take a breath. (SM: It's on NOW at The Butterfly Club.)

Looking forward to in 2018
I'm hopelessly biased, but there's so much in Malthouse's 2018 season I can't wait to see: Tom Wright and Matt Lutton's Bliss, Osamah Sami and Janice Muller's Good Muslim Boy, Jada Alberts directing her Brothers Wreck – one of the most incredible Australian plays of the last few decades, IMHO. And like other people on here I'm also very curious to see how the fuck I adapt Melancholia to the stage... 😂

Outside Malty, I'm very excited for Jean Tong's Hungry Ghosts and Nicola Gunn's Working With Children and The House of Bernarda Alda at MTC (that cast!!!), Embittered Swish's Estrogenesis at Next Wave, and the secret stuff The Rabble are cooking up for next year...

SM: Look at that photo! Audience members Declan and Matt Lutton on stage with Taylor Mac in Chapter III. Dec asked me to use it and there was no other one that I had even considered using this year.  But that wasn't even my favourite Declan–Taylor Mac moment. In my turn on stage in Chapter 1, I spent a lot of time looking at the audience. Declan was one of the first faces I recognised – smiling with no idea that he was being watched. There's something about seeing friends and strangers genuinely happy that is indescribable. 

Otto and Astrid Rot
Best band in the world

Astrid & Otto with Circus Oz team. Photo by Rob Blackburn

Favourite moments in 2017
We were both blown away by Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. The timing of it is so crucial at the moment with the debate around marriage equality. Come on Australia. Get it together! We also loved Ghost Party and Casting Off (at Sidesault at the Melba) and This is Eden (at fortyfivedownstairs and there's a return season in 2018.)

Looking forward to in 2018
We love the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It’s the best time to be in Melbourne. Can’t wait to see Laura Davis and David Quirk.

SM: I took a friend who had never seen them to their pre-tour performance of Eurosmash and watching her reaction was as wonderful as the show. But my favourite performance, so far, was at Andi's fundraiser. I suspect that I'm also going to totally love their collaboration with Circus Oz in December: The Strange and Spektaculär Lives of Otto & Astrid.

Myf Clark
Reviewer, arts administrator
Co-director, Girls on Film

Myf Clark

Favourite moments in 2017
Three words: Hannah freaking Gadsby. I was lucky enough to see her at MICF this year, thanks to the wonderful Anne-Marie taking me as her plus one, and it didn't take long for the tears to start coming out. I left the show feeling raw, vulnerable, inspired and every other emotion under the sun and I'm so glad more people have had the chance to experience this powerful and poignant show both here and overseas.

Honourable mentions: Seeing Cull by The Very Good Looking Initiative for the third time within a year, witnessing Christos Tsiolkas's words bought to the stage in Little One's Merciless Gods and experiencing The Rabble's one-off performance of Sick Sick at La Mama Theatre.

Honourable overseas mention: Dreamgirls at the Savoy Theatre in London. While Amber Riley, who was meant to play Effie, was sick, Marisha Wallace (her understudy) blew me away and I was bawling my eyes out while she sang "And I Am Telling You". Thank goodness interval was straight after and I could retreat to the private fancy lounge with free ice cream and a giant glass of gin!

Looking forward to in 2018
I'm hoping to get back into reviewing again this year (co-directing a film festival pretty much became my main focus this year, so I didn't see as much theatre as I would've liked). As always, I love seeing what La Mama has on offer each year and their dedication to supporting youth arts rocks my world.

I'm also really excited to see some bold and exciting women take over the main stage theatre companies, including Patricia Cornelius, Jean Tong and Michele Lee, as well as seeing Angus Cerini's The Bleeding Tree.

SM: I'm also hoping that Myf gets back into reviewing next year. We need more young exciting voices writing about theatre. My favourite moment was a few weeks after getting my Girls on Film crowd-sourcing reward bag. I'd been using the bag for shopping and finally found the pink "Feminist" badge that was in it!

part 5
part 4
part 3
part 2
part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Caravan

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2017
Caravan
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival
14 October 2017
Malthouse Forecourt
to 22 October
www.festival.melbourne/2017

Susie Dee & Nicci Wilks. Photo by Tim Grey

Caravan is ready to hitch itself to the nearest tow-bar and visit festivals around the world, but it's not worth waiting to see if it finds a park at the Malthouse again.

Judy (Susie Dee) and her daughter Donna (Nicci Wilks) live in a caravan. They've stayed in places with views of power lines and bins but home is home and there's hope for 30-something Donna to get an ending that's happier than the ones she gives her Tinder dates. And hope for an ending that isn't her being as happy as Judy is – Judy sees the positive – about spending her last night on earth (again) in the same caravan.

With a bitterly dark humour and fearlessly hilarious performances, their clownish extremes are initially very easy to watch, but clowns are holders of truth. The mother–daughter relationship becomes more uncomfortable – and personal – as it explores the complications of assumed love. There's always love, and the expectation of love, but competitiveness and resentment can distort love and leave it unrecognisable, even when it's as tender as the liver Donna fries up for dinner or as obvious as the enlarged liver that Judy is so very proud of.

Written by Angus Cerini, Patricia Cornelius, Wayne Macauley and Melissa Reeves – srsly, what a team – and co-created by Dee and Wilks, it's development began with four scripts about body organs in a caravan in a Collingwood carpark – when it was 40 degrees.

Outside in the Malthouse Forecourt, it's still October-chilly at night but op shop blankets ensure that the audience are cosy while looking into the too-cosy-for-comfort van.

Their new view of Melbourne still feels like the outer suburbs in the new van that's been re-fitted and designed by Marg Horwell. Starting with a 1970s orange bedspread that's so loud it might start a new retro bedspread trend, every original fitting is filled with details from medications to toy horses, and secrets are hidden in every storage nook and cranny.

While the individual contributions are felt, none outshine the other and create a consistent voice that's been developed by years of artistic collaboration and friendship. Book a blankie now because some of the last shows have booked out.

How to Fringe 2017: Declan Greene

Declan Greene
Writer, director, dramaturg, expert cleaner of pink slime (ask me about Lilith: The Jungle Girl in Edinburgh)
Sisters Grimm
Resident Artist at Malthouse Theatre (Malthouse 2018 season was launched last night) 

SM: My other equally-favourite sister. Our first enounter was Cellblock Booty in 2008.
 

Mink (and Declan Greene)

The Melbourne Fringe in three words.
Tipsy, Wasted, Hungover

A favourite Melbourne Fringe memory
Being asked to do a one-off night at the Fringe Club! It was called Fugly, and was a night of weird alterna-drag starring Art Simone and Olympia Bukkakis – where we also asked three theatre-makers to devise drag acts for the occasion.

Zoe Coombs Marr and Mish Grigor did a reading from Stephen Sewell’s The Boys with poorly-applied facial hair (very proto-Dave), Angus Cerini performed as a female bodybuilder (for which he got a full body-wax and spray tan, though certainly no-one asked him to). But the highlight of the night, for me, was The Rabble’s performance. Mary-Helen Sassman appeared onstage in a bathrobe and fake beard, looking very heavily pregnant, and told a series of increasingly nauseating ‘dead baby’ jokes – then stripped off her robe to reveal that she wasn’t wearing a fake stomach but was, indeed, very, very heavily pregnant... At which point she started thrashing to death metal and finally sang a gorgeous rendition of Odetta’s "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child". As legend now has it, Mary-Helen stuck around to watch a few more of the acts, then went home early and a few hours later gave birth. Amazing.

SM: I was there for the first half and will never forgive myself for missing MHS.

What is your experience as an independent artist being part of the Melbourne Fringe?
The Fringe Hub is a blurry, blurry world and I’m sure most of what I’ve done there isn’t fit for print.

What makes the Melbourne Fringe unique?
It’s not like Adelaide and Edinburgh where there’s a huge influx of artists from interstate and overseas presenting their work to a new audience. It’s far more localised: an occasion for a bunch of Melbourne’s most brilliant artists to present new work simultaneously, with a sampler of great stuff from out-of-town. And it works because the quality of independent theatre/art in Melbourne is so high anyway. Soooo... *tongue-pop* (I can’t actually do a tongue-pop).

What’s your advice for choosing what to see in the Melbourne Fringe?
Listen to the buzz and book in early instead of waiting until stuff is sold out and you have to beg the artists to stand in their bio box (this is advice I hope to one day take myself). Oh, and see the stuff you’re genuinely curious about – not just the 50 shows you feel obligated to see because you know someone in it. Unless ALL of your friends are amazingly talented (and let’s face it, they’re not). Don’t burn out or have a boring Fringe.

Do you think there’s a better system than star ratings for reviews?
Look, I fucking hate star-ratings as much as any other artist, but a fringe festival environment isn’t where anyone goes for nourishing long-form critical engagement. I think there’s an unspoken amnesty where it’s accepted, generally, that star-ratings are a necessary service for audience members in an open-access environment that’s saturated with art work of varying quality...!

Five shows/events that you will not miss at the 2017 Melbourne Fringe.
Church curated by Mama Alto
Let’s get Practical! Live. Presented by The Very Good Looking Initiative
The One by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Betty GRUMBLE: Sex Clown Saves the World
One Of The Good Ones. A Blackfella sci-fi exploring race and space

Review: normal.suburban.planetary.meltdown

normal.suburban.planetary.meltdown
Malthouse Prompt education program
5 November 2015
Beckett Theatre
malthousetheatre.com.au

My review is in The Age.

MELBOURNE FRINGE: Welcome to Nowhere

Welcome to Nowhere
25 September 2015
Coopers Malthouse, Tower Theatre
to 3 October
melbournefringe.com.au

Five incredible writers (Angus Cerini, Zoey Dawson, Daniel Keene, Fleur Kilpatrick and Morgan Rose), one fantabulous director (Emma Valente) and a heap of amazing students from Monash Uni.

If you have to choose one show this weekend, this is it.

Morgan Rose's piece is the highlight. Up to now, I've been unsure of her work but now I totally get her.

Fleur's is all alieny and full of gentle magical realism and heart, Zoey's is loud and mad, Daniel's is about families and dealing with the death of a father who broke his own family, and Angus's is violent and confronting. What more could you want in a night at the theatre!

Working with incredible students who perform, designed and operate, Emma has made these disparate writings come together as a work that speaks even louder than its parts.

Here's Myf Clark's review on Aussie Theatre.

Sometimes Sydney review: The Bleeding Tree

The Bleeding Tree
Griffin Theatre Company
10 August 2015
SBW Stables Theatre
to 5 September
griffintheatre.com.au

The Bleeding Tree. Shari Sebbens, Paula Arundell, Airlie Dodds. Photo by Brett Boardman

The Bleeding Tree won Angus Cerini the 2014 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting and its premiere production is running at Griffin's Stables Theatre in Sydney. This is theatre made with passion, guts and the conviction that change is not only possible but inevitable.

It opens as a woman (Paula Arundell) and her daughters (Shari Sebbens and Airlie Dodds) stand next to the body of the husband, father and monster they just killed. Their world (designed by Renee Mulder) is filthy, sand-encrusted, floral wall paper that looks like it's folded with knife-edge cuts and immediately feels like a forgotten Australian town in the middle of god-knows-where. As soon as they open their mouths, it's hard to remember to breath for the next hour.

This is shattering theatre that grips your heart in a vice that doesn't let go until the final syllable.

Cerini's writing is somewhere between genius and freak. It's damaged and violent and bloody and so fucking beautiful that it's like listening to music for the first time and wondering how noise can reach your soul like that.

Sounding like a ballad that recreates the idea of rhythm; it's almost begging to be a libretto. There's not a syllable out of place as each line defies the expected beat and creates one that catches the ear and refuses to be anything other than perfect.

And that's just the language.

Filled with images that are unforgettably gruesome but exquisitely just, it's a story that never gives away its next turn and could slip from hope to despair in a moment as the townsfolk discover that the man's been killed.

But astonishing writing is only the beginning of this production.

Arundel, Sebbens and Dodds bring character and history and a wholeness to the script that makes the women so real that it's hard to accept that they're fiction.

Dodds lets us see the rat-eaten, maggot-infested body through her eyes and brings the doubt of a young woman who tries to hope that her father acted out of love. Sebbens never doubts but is revolted and broken enough to be the one who could carry on the violence – her saying "hit her" nearly broke me. And Arundell cuts our hearts so many times that her breaking-point speech – about how everyone knew it was happening – speaks for every woman and child who has lived in fear and been beaten, raped and abused.

Directed by Griffin's Artistic Director Lee Lewis, The Bleeding Tree is so complete that it's hard to differentiate the creative contributions. Without preaching or lecturing, it – literally – rips open the bleeding guts of domestic violence and imagines a world where this is unacceptable.

It's unmissable.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Sometimes Hobart: Dark Mofo

Dark Mofo
Hobart
12–18 June
to 22 June
darkmofo.net.au
mona.net.au

Solid Lights Works

Hobart’s, and David Walsh’s, third Dark Mofo festival promised to be darker and weirder. It was! But its weirdness was welcoming and there was fire, warmth and mind-blowing light waiting around every dark corner.

I asked some of the Melbourners who were Dark Mofoing, as artists and/or visitors, what they thought.

Angus Cerini was performing in The Rabble’s Orlando.

One of the reasons I went to Hobart was to see Orlando again, and to see Cerini in it because he wasn’t in the original. I was dumbstruck at its opening night in 2012 at the Melbourne Festival, and to see this work again in the pastel wedding-cake-layered Theatre Royal theatre that was built in 1837 (by convict labour) was such a different experience – and possibly more wonderful. It’s darkness and hope and pool of freezing water – that actor Dana Miltins survived! – was perfect for this festival. (Can we see Story of O next year, please. Maybe performed at Mona.)

The Fire Organ

Cerini said, “Hobart is an incredible place. Dark Mofo seemed to be just about everywhere. I saw just about fuck all of actual events but it’s evidence was everywhere. Constantly. With red lights being the signature and one the entire city (of only 200,000) seem to embrace. It was quite incredible to feel like one was actually inside Dark Mofo purely by being in Hobart. In terms of arts festivals, it was like Adelaide festival time but in a way way way cooler place, with fuckloads less fuckwits (none), with absolutely staggeringly finessed artistry and curation in a place that has so much natural beauty and staggering history with weather consisting of freezing cold but crystal clear sunshine. I would not hesitate in going next year – for the fabulous environment, for the friendliness, for the seafood, for the sheer warmth of the place and its embracing of the art. Mona, although I only went at night and didn’t go into the gallery, is kinda mind blowing. And to think this entire festival and the sheer weight of its impact both cultural and economic on a city and a state comes from one dude with asbergers is just fucking brilliant. I feel really fucking privileged that I got to be part of it. But in truth all of Hobart is part of it. 10 motherfucking stars.”

I saw more of the festival and can only add another heap of mofoing stars.

Dark Mofo is small, but it’s all over the city. I was staying in North Hobart and the local pubs had Dark Beers for Mofos. I talked about Tasmanian stout with a bar dude who knew his beer. And it was great beer. I tried another one at another pub in Battery Point.

Dark Park and the opening night

Anastasia Ryan, Melbourne arts administrator, was at opening night on Friday 12 June. “The one night I experienced the festival, there was an amazing buzz. No-one seemed 100% sure what was going on, and people were just joining queues and following strangers, stumbling around in the dark looking for these pockets of red light. We drank hot gin cocktails (and then even better hot gin cocktails), got smoke in our clothes, and watched a giant confection of metal and pipes shoot flames into the darkness. Dark Mofo, I will be back for you.”

Oh, that hot gin cocktail! A mug of hot spicy and sweet gin poured over fresh fruit; on a cold dark night, it was soul warming.

The gin bar is in Dark Park at Macquarie Point. There were cabaret performances, but the thrill was walking around in the dark and finding the hidden light exhibitions.

My highlight was UK-born, New York-living Anthony McCall’s Solid Light Works. Walk into a dark door, in a warehouse at the end of the street, along a dark corridor and come into a huge space filled with haze and conical shafts of light. As a work, it was beautiful, but what made it come alive was being allowed to play in the light and discover how light and dark work together.

And so many of the people playing were children. So much of Dark Mofo is the experience of being part of community that embraces and loves this festival. Families came to Dark Park. Kids played in the McCall and the white fog-filled room that was all about scent  (it was run by Aesop, so the smells were good), ate from food vans while watching the Fire Organ, and put their fears in the mouth of The Purging fish, which was made my Tasmanian students and Indonesian artists and will be burnt in public on Sunday night.

Tennessee Mylott-Rudland and Jess McLaughlin Cafferty, interns at Monash University Student Theatre, were also at the opening weekend.

Mylott-Rudland sent me a photo of her at Solid Light Works.

Photo by Jess McLaughlin Cafferty 

McLaughlin Cafferty said, “I loved that almost everything was interactive, which was especially spectacular after a hot gin and a taco from a truck. I also really loved how most of the events were free and within walking distance of each other and allowed for a really beautiful and art-filled weekend.”

She also loved The Shadows Calling.

“I think my favourite part of Dark Mofo was the Patricia Piccinini (and Peter Hennessey) exhibition near the heartbeat over Hobart. She created a really beautiful and fascinating world and all the pieces in conjunction with the soundscape and the spoken word in the offices were absolutely gorgeous.”

The “heartbeat” is Pulse Column by USA-based Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. I thought it was wonderful when it was just a light shining into the sky from dusk to dawn that always let me know where the centre of the Hobart was, but it’s so much more. The light is attached to a person and it pulses with their pulse. Seeing it each night and knowing that every pulse was that of the person made it as close to literally being the heart of Hobart as possible. I really wish that I’d done it.

And this was just the opening night of Dark Mofo!

Pulse Column

from The Shadows Calling

Marina Abramović, Private Archaeology

Saturday was the opening the astonishing Marina Abramović Private Archaeology exhibition at Mona.

Again, the experience of being at the opening was as important as seeing the art.

On the ferry to Mona it was so dark and  near-freezing outside, but there was a cow sculpture to lean on and sheep sculptures to sit on. And plenty of warm and wine inside.

Sheep seats

Next was the 99 steps from the ferry and the realisation that there’s a line to get into the building. Which was also fine because there were fires outside, live music underneath the James Turrell Amarna pavilion, food, drink and friends.

Amarna at Mona

Inside, there were rumours of the famous performance artist being spotted in the restaurant and the line wait to get into her exhibition was about half an hour.

For once, waiting didn’t matter because there was all of Mona to explore, lots of people to talk to and the exhibition runs until 5 October.

When I saw Private Archaeology on the opening night, I loved it because it was pure performance-art wank. But the deeper I got, the more I really loved it and saw beyond what I thought was self indulgence. After being at Abramović’s conversation with Walsh, at The Odean Theatre, I went back to Mona and saw it through the eyes and heart that created it; the heart that believes in “everything”.

A lot of her early work, especially the 1970s video work, is self indulgent, but this exhibition is about seeing the development of her art. Seeing the change from filming her and her then parter, Ulay, screaming at each other to her finding the exact spot in Oslo where Edvard Munch’s painted The Scream and inviting 270 people to scream at the camera.

Made in 2013, The Scream video runs for over two hours. I watched maybe 100 people scream for about 50 minutes – it’s the noise that was finally too much. Some screamed with joy, but most found the pain they’d held deep in their bodies and let it free. I want to go back and watch the rest of it. Like so much of Abramović’s work, it’s easy to rush past and dismiss it but the truth and remarkable beauty of it comes when you spend time with it.

Jess exchanging energy

And all of this is before the rice and lentil counting.

Noise cancelling headphones, white coats, no cameras, a long bench with seats for 60, and white rice and black lentils to count. If the gallery didn’t have to shut, I would have stayed for hours.

This is only a hint of Dark Mofo. Still to come was the food bliss of the Winter Feast, where the Dark Mofo community gather in their thousands at Princes Wharf to sit at massive communal tables and feast on Tasmania’s most scrumptious and indulgent treats.

Dark Mofo was energising and welcoming and during a month when federal arts funding had been slashed and artists been devalued, it was wonderful to be a part of community that knew just how wrong that decision was. I hope I can go back next year.

Dark Park

The Purging

Inside the fog room

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

All photos by A-M Peard unless credited.

Sometimes Hobart: Orlando interview

Dark Mofo
Orlando
The Rabble
darkmofo.net.au

12 June 2015

It was cold in Hobart last night. The sun’s out today but tonight promises to be colder, darker and weirder as the third Dark Mofo festival opens and this gorgeous city celebrates art that’s made for icy dark nights. A highlight of the theatre program is The Rabble’s Orlando, which opens tonight at the Theatre Royal and finishes on Sunday. I flew down to Hobart for the festival and spoke to members of The Rabble as they rehearsed in Melbourne.

Orlando. Mary Helen Sassman & Dana Miltins. Photo by Sarah Walker

This is the third production of Orlando. The first was at the 2012 Melbourne International Festival and it was part of the Brisbane Festival’s independent theatre program in 2014.

Emma Valente, co-founder, with Kate Davis, and director of The Rabble, says that festivals “provide such an important context for our work. During a festival audiences are more adventurous, they are more likely to see something that they may never chose otherwise and they are excited to see something different. They are also an important meeting place for artists, a place where you can talk with and see work from artists from all around the country and the world.”

With renowned performance artist Marina Abramović as part of Dark Mofo, The Rabble are ideally placed to welcome audiences who are eager to embrace original creative voices.

No one makes theatre like The Rabble. They leave some critics – like me – and audiences raving with love; while others have stormed out in fury.

The first time I saw them was Special at La Mama in Melbourne in 2011. I took a friend who said she’d see anything as long as it wasn’t contemporary dance. At the end of this show, she looked at me and said, “I wish it had been contemporary dance”.

The stage was mouldy green with a toilet-paper back curtain, a mound of earth and an exercise bike. Actor Mary Helen Sassman was eight months pregnant and wore a native American headdress and a pink stretchy dress, when she wasn’t naked. With 60+ actor Liz Jones, the work explored the sometimes hilarious and mostly painful and warped relationship of parental resentment. It was like watching a dream that you thought (and maybe wished) you’d forgotten.

No one makes theatre like The Rabble dare to make.

Orlando is based on a deep and layered understanding of Virgina Woolf’s 1928 novel about a young man who doesn’t grow old but becomes a woman and lives for three centuries. Woolf’s story is on the stage, but there’s very little of her text.

I think that the truth of any work is in its subtext: the words that are never spoken or written, the scenes that are never seen. Meaning is found in the white spaces between words on pages and the silence and empty space on a stage. It’s why we can read the same books and see the same shows and argue for hours over the truth about what creator was sharing.

A Rabble work is formed in that empty space. Their work lets us get lost in the white void where words disappear and meaning becomes clear.

It’s difficult to describe the experience of seeing their work, so I asked Dana Miltins, who plays Orlando, to explain it.

“Oh my gosh I find this question really hard as well… I can’t fully answer it.

“To me, The Rabble have a unique way of distilling a novel that captures its spirit without telling the story as it reads, blow by blow. If you’ve read Orlando then I don’t believe you’ll feel ripped off by our version – the themes and ideas that exist within and behind the narrative are all there; but, the play exists on its own as well and is very much The Rabble’s Orlando.”

Orlando. Dana Miltins. Photo by Sarah Walker

The process of how it becomes The Rabble’s Orlando is as fascinating as the result.

Actor Sassman (who plays Orlando’s lovers, along with Angus Cerini) describes a Rabble rehearsal.

“A typical rehearsal starts with a 30-minute high intensity workout – usually circuit training but not always. I’m confused as to whether this is done as a bonding/unifying tool or to encourage competitiveness amongst the cast – either way we often find ourselves comparing abs and keeping a lunges tally. Once we’ve all broken a cool sweat we start to work. It’s always physical, very little discussion. Just on the floor and getting on with it. Emma and Kate work us hard. We love it.”

The work involves hours of improvisation and exploration of character and text, most of which never make it to the stage. The finished product is a distilled and clarified version of the results of this process.

Sassman talks about how they met through La Mama about nine years ago, although Valente and Davis met at Swinburn University earlier.

“Thank goodness! For Emma, Kate, Dana and I, our four-way working relationship was forged in blood, sweat, baby’s tears and breast milk (Mary Helen and Dana have performed while pregnant and Kate’s baby is due in July) as we made and toured shows on shoestring budgets – us with huge ideas and small CVs.

“I think we surprise each other, inspire each other and above all we truly trust each other to approach the making of the work with full integrity. Now with this Orlando we have Angus on board – fearless, eerily gifted and generous, he fits in just fine!”

The company are never afraid to share their admiration and trust for each other. At the end of the first Orlando season, I asked Miltins how she worked with director Valente to create her emotionally fearless and physically demanding performance. She simply said, “Emma’s a genius”.

Dana goes on to describe Kate as a genius. Davis and Valente work together to create each new work but while Emma directs (and lights), Kate designs. What’s most striking about her design is it’s use of colour and texture.

Orlando begins in a world that’s milk and semen white. With pebbles, fur, tulle, cotton and water, it’s a world that begs to be touched, felt and rolled naked around in.

Miltins says that Davis creates sets “we have to exist in, as opposed to on. There’s generally quite a lot to negotiate on her sets and I see them sometimes like an additional character. You have to interact with them and respond to them; they affect you and your performance. I love working in these environments and I think Kate’s a genius.

“I love most the element of danger that comes with it. To me, that element is what puts the sizzle in live theatre. Just the idea that anything could happen.

“The slipperiness, the way you have to lift you feet to clear the water when you walk, the way it changes your balance, and of course the cold. Her sets make you exist in the present because they demand attention and focus just to physically negotiate the terrain. And really that’s all any actor wants, to be truthful and present in the moment.”

There’s a pool of water on the Orlando stage. Dana is “praying, seriously praying” that the plans to heat it for this season come off.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

And please read Josephine Giles's interview with soprano Allison Bell.

What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 2

Today, it's photography, Q&As and a reminder to see The House of Yes before it finishes.


Sarah Walker
photographer

Photo by Sarah Walker

Sarah: My moments were both at the Malthouse and both involved high school students.

I recently shot a secondary school workshop for Malthouse’s Suitcase Series, where kids took Angus Cerini’s normal.suburban.planetary.meltdown and worked on it in drama class, adapting it and developing short sections for performance. Each school was presenting a couple of scenes to the other schools, and the levels of excitement and anxiety in the room were stratospheric.

Most of these kids only had about six lines and were going to be onstage for three minutes tops, but they were all so incredibly nervous and exhilarated to be performing. A girl walked past me, gabbling to her friend: “Of course I’m gonna do my very best, but right now I’m so nervous I think I might die”. The girl was, I might add, dressed as a cow. I loved that.

And then seeing the way these kids took a text and adapted it, added things that they felt were relevant and important and worth saying; that felt so empowered. One of the groups added a scene with a character being on the internet and getting pop ups: “Hey man, do you want a bigger penis?”. A boy from another school got offended, asking them where they drew the line of what was appropriate, and then suddenly, 50 high school students were having this engaged, intelligent discussion about censorship in art, and how theatre needs to be able to look at the dark side of life as well as the light.

On the one hand, I wanted to take them all to see The Rabble’s The Story of O and watch their little brains melt, but I was also so impressed at their thoughtful engagement and willingness to listen to each other’s points of view. Grown up theatre could learn a lot from them.

As a photographer, I get a massive art boner for lighting used well, and Am I during the Melbourne Festival was a fantastic reminder of the power of light. I saw it at a matinee with several school groups, which meant that I got a constant whispered commentary on how “totally awesome” the dancing was.

The set featured a huge bank of lights on the back wall, with some incredible DMX triggering to create patterns. The show started very dimly, mostly side lit, with the occasional shimmer from the light bank, until Shantala Shivalingappa finished a monologue and for just a second, every light on the set blazed on at full in this huge flare – hundreds and hundreds of lights beaming on, sending this rush of heat into the faces of the audience, and every single person in the space just let out this huge involuntary “Ah!”. The students behind me burst into a shocked sort of laughter; I just sat there grinning. There was something so primal, spiritual even, about that moment – humans in the dark being awed by the light.

SM: Every photo that Sarah publishes. It’s as simple as that. There’s no one who captures the essence of a moment like she does. She's made Melbourne look at theatre photography as seriously as we look at every other element of theatre


Stephen Nicolazzo
director

Stephen: Two of my favourite moments of 2014 come from The Rabble: Frankenstein at Malthouse and Death/Deadly/Dead for the Melbourne Writers Festival (also at the Malthouse). These works were exhilarating experimental queer feminist works that were striking in their visual and visceral power. The Rabble’s extraordinary ability to appeal to the darkest cesspools of one’s imagination and realise it on stage is something to behold, and I find the growth and detail of their visual playgrounds so engrossing and satisfying to experience. They speak through the image. A hard task, but one they tackle with gusto. I love them. So much.

Also, I adored Uninvited Guests’ I Heart John McEnroe at Theatre Works. Clare Watson (director) is a magnificent joyful artist and this work was a total nostalgic celebration. It was sublime. The cast and crew were all firkin top notch, and who the hell doesn’t want to see a pregnant Kath Tonkin play Madonna? Joyous theatre. Still think of it today.

And one more, please … Adena Jacobs’ Hedda Gabler at Belvoir. Fucking astonishing. Fucking gorgeous. Fucking Ash Flanders. Imagery I won’t forget. That is all I can say.


SM: Stephen’s show The House of Yes is on at Theatre Works until 13 December.  Go. Book now. Its dark camp freaking twincest is fucking wonderful.

I’ve watched Stephen’s direction for a few years. He’s developed a style and a directorial voice that’s totally his and he doesn’t compromise on what he wants to make and see on the stage.

My favourite moment. There were moments of Dangerous Liasons where I hurt from laughing, but it has to be coming in a tiny bit late to The House of Yes and seeing Josh Price towering in the dark complaining how hard it was to be a mother; I was totally in that world in seconds.


Keith Gow
playwright, blogger

Keith: After having my mind blown by Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending, I attended the post-show Q&A where Ash Flanders, Paul Capsis and Peter Paltos answered questions from Malthouse Associate Artist Lally Katz and the audience, who ranged from young teens to subscribers in their seventies.

Post-show Q&As are a strange beast. I always have questions to ask, but rarely ever do. Most of the time, when I leave a show, I want to think about it some more (or a lot) before I discuss it with anyone. And questions from random audience members very rarely help me with my own thought processes. I used to try booking tickets for the right nights, but now if I’m at the Malthouse or Melbourne Theatre Company on forum night, I count myself lucky – or I hightail it out of there.

One of my other favourite shows of the year was Hello, Goodbye & Happy Birthday – but I had to spend time thinking about that. I had no time for listening to possibly facile questions about a show I flat out adored.

One of the other notable Q&A sessions I attended this year was for The Sublime at the Melbourne Theatre Company. I was hoping the audience might ask tough questions about a problematic play. It was mostly simplistic questions and unenlightening answers. None of the troubling subtext was questioned or challenged.

Occasionally I’ll hear an answer I wanted to hear or appreciate that someone else in the audience had a wholly different response to mine.

What I loved about the Calpurnia Descending Q&A was getting the sense of how overwhelmed and overjoyed the audience were by the show and the creatives were by the response to the show. An older audience member got completely lost at the video-game sequence, but appreciated that younger attendees might have appreciated that more. The school kids in the audience loved the video-game sequence, but also connected with the opening scenes because they seemed “more real”.

One audience member commented that the second act felt like “tumbling through the Looking Glass”. Creator and actor Ash Flanders responded, “It’s like tumbling or Tumblr.com” – which it really, really was.

Obviously, I like to talk about the craft of theatre with other theatre makers. Sometimes listening to questions from random audiences doesn’t illuminate my experience of the show at all. But what I realise I do love about Q&A forums is the possibility of getting a glimpse into other people’s experience of a show they’ve just seen – especially after we’ve all just had our minds blown!

And speaking of getting insights into how other people see theatre this year, I’ve really loved Fleur Kilpatrick’s blog School for Birds – particularly her own post-show Q&As with random audience members.

Her interview with Cameron Woodhead, dissecting his thoughts on her show The City They Burned was brave and insightful – and a brilliant way to continue an artistic discussion, which so many of us think ends with the closing of a show or a critics review in the newspaper.

And, last but not least, Fleur’s podcast with Jana Perkovic, Audio Stage, was another highlight of Melbourne theatre this year. We have such vibrant work happening all around us and this insight into local theatre history was extraordinary in parts. I hope we hear more of Audio Stage in 2015.

SM: Keith’s play Who Are You Supposed To Be was part of the Melbourne Fringe this year. I totally loved being surrounded by fellow Dr-Who-obsessives who got every joke and reference, and I was so happy to see Dr Who show that let a women be the Doctor and challenged some of the gender issues that exist in fandom.

Here's more of Keith's favourites on his blog.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

Review: Resplendence

NEON
Respelendence
Angus Cerini/Doubletap
13 June 2014
The Lawler
to 22 June
mtc.com.au

Photo by Sebastian Bourges  

Angus Cerini scares me.

In a good way.

In a way that I know his work is likely to disturb and confront me and make me want a glass of wine and some alone time after a show.

His company, Doubletap, are next in this year's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre with a piece written and performed by Cereni, with dramturgy by Susie Dee, where it's impossible to take you're eyes away from him.

Resplendence is ostensibly about a man who goes down to the shops for something to eat and sees an accident. But its story, although powerful, is only there to show us the man.

Cereni's work shows me parts of the male psyche that I don't understand; those parts that I see and want to run from rather than try to understand.

He's supported by a design so integral to the experience that the work couldn't exist if one element were missing. Marg Horwell's design, Jethro Woodward's sound and Andy Turner's lighting put him on a raised catwalk where his walk and turn take us into his thoughts and away from a performer  on a stage.

The language of the text is so inner voice that it's easy to forget when it's recorded sound or live voice. He's never speaking to us, always to himself in his re-telling of his story. And in doing so, his language has found a space that's neither poetic nor natural, but something that shows us his thoughts in ways that language sometimes misses because we censor and control thoughts when we make them words.

And this language is connected to a physicality that's so linked to the psyche that it almost doesn't need the words.

Resplendence is a man who's impotent anger and fear comes from a loneliness that comes from an impotent anger and fear that craves violence or connection or understanding or just a shared laugh from a world that he's already too lost to. It's extraordinary theatre.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 1

Last year, I asked a few SM friends what their favourite moment in theatre was for the year. The responses were wonderful and remain some of the most popular posts; so, of course we're doing it again.

This series isn't about what the critics or the award committees think, it's not about what had full houses or made money; it's about those shows, people and moments that make us love theatre. It's about those moments when we feel something real and can't imagine being anywhere else.

If you want to be involved, email me at sometimesmelbourne at hotmail dot com.

There's also a version running in December in Issimo magazine. (I'll link when they're up.)

I'm starting with Stephen Nicolazzo. In 2012 he said that his theatre experiences "have changed me and allowed me to find a platform to express myself without censorship or fear".  Without censorship or fear! And that's what he – and so many other artists and creators – have done this year, and they are the ones we will see over the next month.

And there's Angus Cereni and Alex da La Rambelje.

Stephen Nicolazzo
Director

STEPHEN: There were many moments in theatre this year that have stayed with me and inspired me so much.

The Rabble’s Story of O, in particular, stood out as a fearless, entertaining and bold expression of sexual politics that was both incredibly humorous and tragic at the same time. Though it sparked controversy and debate, I think the key reason this work resonated with me was its assured aesthetic and deconstruction of gender; one that was engaged with both its ideas and its audience. It felt connected. On an intellectual and visceral level, it was a deeply satisfying and invigorating theatrical experience that I don’t think anyone, whether they loved it or hated it could deny.

This is what theatre is inevitably all about.

Also, of course, my love and respect for Sisters Grimm’s numerous works this year still stands with The Sovereign Wife, Little Mercy (at STC) and the re-imagining of Summertime in the Garden of Eden. What was so inspiring with their work this year was its ambition in scale, style and design – taking the essence of their ethos to a new level of visual and theatrical possibility. Very exciting indeed.

Another work that I feel was so very beautiful was Matt Lutton and Van Badham’s version of The Bloody Chamber at Malthouse. It was lavish and stark at the same time, beautifully directed and performed, and the music by David Chisholm made me wet for classical in a way I never thought possible!

Also loved, loved, loved I’m Trying to Kiss You’s remount of I Know There’s a lot of noise outside… at La Mama as it contained a performance that totally blew my mind by Anna McCarthy. I was crying with laughter and then crying from the tragedy of it all, all guided by that siren’s voice. 


This was also a big year in my own career. The success of Psycho Beach Party from Sydney to Melbourne and to the Brisbane Festival left me full of delight and gratitude. This was a work I never thought would touch anybody, and to see its effect on so many audiences over the course of 2013 has been so rewarding and exciting.

It, and my work with Malthouse on Salome, a production that I am deeply proud of like nothing else I have ever worked on, has solidified a key group of artists whom I simply could not create theatre without.

I would like to take the opportunity here to say thank you to all of the people I have had the pleasure of working with this year, as at the end of the day, those relationships and the work we have brought to the stage are my most memorable moments of 2013.  It seems that 2013 was another year of fearless theatre-making from the independent and main stage, and that is a friggen triumph indeed.

What Stephen is looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.

SM: What I love most about Stephen's work is that he show us what it's like to be Stephen Nicolazzo. It's like tripping around his mind and soul and seeing the world as he wants it to be. It sometimes frightens me that that world is a bit too much like my mid-80s teen brain, but I turned out OK.

As a director, he also creates a sense of purpose and love on the stage. It's so clear that all of his performers and designers love being in these worlds as much as he loves creating them. And he celebrates and supports a notion of queer that's embracing and welcoming; one that doesn't exclude because you don't quite fit in with those who think they don't fit in. He lets us find what makes every one of us queer and opens the door to the party with no questions asked.

Angus Cerini
Actor, playwright

Photo from Melbourne Writers Festival

ANGUS: That's easy! It was the completely mixed up MTC foyer during the NEON season.  To see that building buzzing and alive with all sorts was about time.  Long may it continue!!!

SM: Angus's writing gives me shivers – both good and terrifying. We didn't get a new work from him this year, but I'm one of the many who are very excited that he's in NEON for 2014!

As for a favourite moment. All I can say is that it involved a discussion about why he prefers to see genitals hidden by underwear.


Alex da la Rambelje
Magician

Alex (C) with Luke and Vyrom from A Modern Deception

ALEX: My favourite theatre moment started with a performance workshop run by Derek Scott, who plays the lead clown in Slava's Snow Show. He showed me the power of breaking rhythms and having lucid thoughts on stage; it has changed each and every show I've done since.

I saw him on stage in Slava's Snow Show this year, after having seen him in the show ten years ago. Watching him with the new knowledge of how he works was one of those rare experiences of constant realisation and clarity of thought.

SM: I'll never get tired of having no idea how Alex does things with cards. It bloody must be magic.

I had great fun taking a four-year-old to see Alex and Luke in How to Make Your Parents Disappear, but my favourite moment has to be Sh!t Tecoma People Say (and how good is Penelope the cat).



Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest