Review: The Long Pigs

The Long Pigs
14 March 2014
fortyfive downstairs
to 23 March
fortyfivedownstairs.com

Coulrophobia: fear of clowns. If you've never been scared of clowns and their silly red noses, you will be by the end of The Long Pigs.

Rejected and broken by their own kind, the three long pigs (from the Melanesian Pidgin for "human flesh") are so bitterly dark and absurdly hilarious that you'll never be able to look at a fake red nose again without breaking out in a sweat or gagging.

Clare Bartholomew (Circus Oz, Die Roten Punkte and lots more), Derek Ives (Rock 'n' Roll Circus, The Candy Butchers and lots more) and Nicci Wilks (La Fura Del Baus, CIRCA and lots more) are the three pigs: This, That and The Other Pig. They're filthy and play in a rank mire of intimidation, mistrust and can't-wash-it-off evil.

With ever-wonderful director Susie Dee, these traditionally-trained clowns put their hands down the throats of glittery-rainbow red-nosed clowns, turn them inside out and cut their guts out from the outside – with a blunt rusty knife.

And with the design team of Anna Tregloan (set and costumes), Andy Turner (lights) and Jethro Wooward (composition and sound) turning fortyfive downstairs into the cesspit factory where the clowns-gone-bad prepare and perform, the only thing more frightening than the clowns is the temptation to join them and roll around with them in the blood.

Be tempted. The macabre doesn't get more gloriously funny.

This was on AussieTheatre.

Photo by Ponch Hawkes

What I loved 2012: the best of Melbourne theatre

Now that 33 of Melbourne's creators have shared their favourite moments, shows and artists of 2012, it's time for the annual What I Loved awards.

It was a tough choice this year, especially in writing and performance. The short lists were far too long to publish and many wonderful moments didn't make the finals.  But it comes down to my strict criteria: How much did I love it?

With a few exceptions, most of the Loves have already been raved about by the 32 other creators. I smiled a lot every time one was mentioned. It's pretty great to know that these artists really are reaching the hearts of their audiences and sharing something memorable.

The Loves still don't have a statuette or show bag for the nominees, but maybe one day... (In the meantime, if anyone wants to design a certificate, I'm sure the winners would print it and put it on their fridge until it disappears under takeaway menus.)

You can also see these on AussieTheatre.com with a different discussion.

Outstanding Artists 2012

WRITING

Louris Van De Geer: Tuesday, MKA

and

Robert Reid: On the production of monsters, Melbourne Theatre Company
and 
Zoey Dawson: The unspoken word is "Joe", MKA, La Mama

The unspoken word is 'Joe'. Photo by Sarah Walker.

DESIGN

Eugyeene Teh: Tuesday, MKA; sex.violence.blood.gore, MKA; Triangle, MKA; 
The unspoken word is "Joe", MKA
and
Anna Tregloan and Paul Jackson: Wild Surmise, Malthouse Theatre

sex.violence.blood.gore Photo by Sarah Walker

PERFORMANCE

Dana Miltins: Orlando, The Rabble, Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival
(and Golden Dragon, MTC)

Special mention
Nilaja Sun: No Child, Theatre Works, Brisbane Festival, Melbourne Festival
and
Brigid Gallacher: The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of  Romeo and Juliet

Dana Miltins in Orlando. Photo by Sarah Walker

DIRECTION

Suzanne Chaundy: Beyond the Neck: A Quartet on Loss and Violence, Red Stitch
and 
Stephen Nicolazzo: sex.violence.blood.gore, MKA

Beyond the Neck: A Quartet on Loss and Violence

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

Daniel Clarke
The Creative Producer of Theatre Works (to be shared with everyone at Theatre Works) for making Theatre Works a venue that we want to go to, for creating a community of artistic experimentation and discussion, and for increasing audiences by an amazing 71%. I missed too many shows at Theatre Works this year, but that'll change in 2013.

Produced/Co-Produced by Theatre Works
No Child
Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert
This is a door
Hello, my name is
The Year of Magical Wanking
Negative Energy
Mother/Son

Dan also directed Golden Dragon, Melbourne Theatre Company

and

Declan Greene
Summertime in the Garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm
The unspoken word is "Joe", MKA, La Mama
Pompeii L.A.,Malthouse Theatre

Pompeii L.A. Photo by Pia Johnson

Outstanding Productions 2012

CABARET

Candy B, Australian Booty: The Fatty-Boom-Boom Remix

Candy B

COMMERCIAL SHOW

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, MTC presents the Belvoir production

MUSICAL

Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert, Present Tense,Theatre Works

Special mention
Contact!, Arts Centre Melbourne

COMEDY

Zombatland, Arts House, The Suitcase Royale

Special mention

The Goodbye Guy, Justin Hamilton

Zombatland

MUSIC

Field Recordings  and Music for Airports

Bang on a Can All-Stars, Melbourne Recital Centre

Bang on a Can All-stars

DANCE

Weather, Lucy Guerin Inc, Melbourne Festival

CIRCUS

From the ground up, Circus Oz

BEST OF THE BEST

The Wild Duck, Malthouse presents a Belvoir production

Summertime in the Garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm

Summertime in the Garden of Eden

Lipsynch, Arts Centre Melbourne, Ex Machnia, Théâtre Sans Frontières

Choir Girl, Sarah Collins, Celeste Cody and the choir

MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2012

100% Melbourne, Rimini Protokoll & The City of Melbourne

my just home from the show reaction

My favourite moments are here, which are different from my favourite shows and artists.

2011 Loves

2010 Loves

2009 Loves

2008 Loves
2007 quickies

Review: Wild Surmise

Wild Surmise
Malthouse Theatre
Beckett Theatre, Malthouse
15 November
to 2 December
malthousetheatre.com.au

Jane Montgomery Griffiths says her adaption of Dorothy Porter's 2004 verse novel Wild Surmise "is an enactment of the act of love that is reading". Until now, I hadn't read Dorothy Porter. I'm nervous of verse novels; I think they're a bit pretentious. How great to be so wrong. This Malthouse production celebrates Porter and compels a reading of the novel, while relishing being told on a stage.

Alex is an astrobiologist and minor science celebrity. She's engulfed in an affair with Phoebe, an older American scientist, and married to poetry professor Daniel, who's had enough of corporate universities, dreams of getting back at pretentious students and is diagnosed with cancer. There's no comforting romance or confessional resolution in a story that hurts with the honesty that Alex and Daniel can never share.

The first thing seen on the stage is Humphrey Bower (Daniel) reading pages of verse; all the pages of his story that are stuck on the walls/window/mirror of his world. Designer Anna Tregloan and lighting designer Paul Jackson have created an exquisite double-mirrored world with reflections that distort and confuse like a Vegas magician but so beautifully open what feels like a new dimension on the stage where Alex and Daniel can simultaneously be in the same and different worlds.

Director Marion Potts captures why Porter's poetry is so loved, but brings a life and interpretation to the story that lets the theatre own this telling. Porter's words fly with their surprising rhythm and cosmic comparisons, ground with metaphors of terrible Elvis movies and unflusable big black turds, and comfort with the familiarity of St Kilda beach and Mario's coffee. Pott's encapsulates Alex being a Sydney girl with her fumbling with a red expresso machine and never lets the characters become as heroic or honest as their raw thoughts.

In a conventional narrative we hear conversations and imagine the unspoken; in verse we hear the unspoken and are left to imagine the awkward conversations that never share the emotional truth and poetry in their hearts and heads.

Montgomery Griffith and Bower speak verse like it's their only language and there's not a syllable uttered without understanding and intent. Their powerful and painfully truthful performances love the text but show what Alex and Daniel feel about each other beyond the words. They don't speak to each other, but are so aware of the other that they react when the other thinks or speaks about them. It's this detail that adds the heart that creates people we care about, even if their behaviour and thoughts are not what we'd chose.

When we read, we add the detail that makes a story ours.  This production adds the character detail for us, which leaves us free to really listen to Porter's words. It's not like reading, but it captures the passion of falling in love with a book and a writer because its damaged people are so clear that we feel like we're in their world with them.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Pia Johnson

And please read Chris Boyd's review.

Review: Intimacy

MIAF 2010

Intimacy

Malthouse Theatre

Melbourne International Arts Festival
Ranters Theartre

7 October 2010

CUB Malthouse, Beckett Thearte

to 23 October

malthousetheatre.com.au

melbournefestival.com.au

With so many international shows in town for the festival, it could be easy to miss the local shows in the MIAF program. If you're a local, book your tickets for Intimacy now to let the arty bliss continue post festival, and if you're visiting, consider forgoing the big stuff for this locally made perfect piece of imperfect life.

Ranters Theatre's Intimacy opens with actor Paul Lum telling us that he lives by St Kilda beach and one night went down to the streets and introduced himself to people because he wanted to talk. Playing with ideas of documentary and truth, director Adriano Cortese says that "the most interesting connections occur between people who don't know each other" and how it's sometimes easy to reveal your true self to a stranger.

These fascinating connections take place in Anna Tregloan's design of rocks in a blue curtained world that captures the feeling of sitting at St Kilda beach or on the rocks approaching Elwood (one of my favourite spots) without forcing the recognition of needing to know where these rocks are.

Lum sits and talks to people like roller coster–obsessed Russell, a street performing Bird Man and Tanya from Carnegie who can't sleep, all played by Patrick Moffat and Beth Buchanan. As each gently uncover the type of fears they would never reveal to friends and loved ones, the audience are drawn closer and closer to a too-familiar world of  hidden inner judgement. The intricate detail and of each story is so revealing that it's hard to imagine that it's not verbatim accounts of real meetings rather than a rigorously written, structured and rehearsed process.

For all its theatricality – including some of the best atrocious singing and dancing –  the Ranters style of performance is so intimate that its almost like eaves dropping. Raimondo Cortese's dialogue doesn't sound like learned lines or improvisation. It sounds like people talking, with all of our pauses and agreements that mean no more than we are still in the conversation or just letting the other person talk. It sounds so natural that its poetic.

As people talk, the others listen. It's rare to see actors really listen to each other on stage; listen to what the other is saying and meaning, not just listening for a cue. Some of the most beautiful moments were just watching these remarkable actors being silent.

When I saw Ranters Holiday in 2008, I didn't completely get what they were doing and felt like I was watching a curious process. But I was completely drawn into Intimacy because I could see me in this world of people that are nothing like me.

Ranters are now one of my favourites and how often do you leave a show thinking about the most extreme thing you've done for love, not worrying that everyone is judging everything about you or deciding to start masturbating with more heart and feeling.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places

MIAF 2009
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
The Store Room and Melbourne International Arts Festival
16 October 2009
Meat Market

Tonight’s television news showed the CCTV footage of a child’s pram blowing under a Melbourne train, with the baby still inside. The baby wasn’t hurt, but anyone who saw the footage will never let a child out of their grasp at a train station again. Melbourne may be known for its iconic trams, but more of us catch trains.

Director Anna Tregloan and sound designer J David Franze spent over a year sitting on trains recording conversations and the resulting The Dictionary of Imaginary Places uses the direct transcripts of these overheard conversations and turns them into something remarkably surprising, unexpectedly funny and curiously beautiful.

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places has been created through The Store Room Theatre’s Artistic Associate program, which allows artists a three-year tenure to develop work. If is the first result of this process, I’m looking forward to more.

Tregloan is best known for her stunning theatre design (it’s no secret that I think her designs are wonderful), but when she creates her own work, she shows us the core artist that controls her.

Like Black (2007), The Dictionary of Imaginary Places combines performance art with design, but this time she doesn’t deconstruct an existing narrative, but starts with the most disparate mass of words.

The conversations people have on trains are mundane. They are filtered because they can be heard, but unfiltered because people assume that no one is listening. In this dictionary, these stolen words mean nothing or everything. The words are just sounds and glimpses of what could be. They don’t belong to the characters or the space and tell their own stories away from what we are witnessing, and Franze’s sound design ensures that we also hear them in unexpected ways.

Rows of train-like seats fill the tunnel-like cavern of the Meat Market and four passengers (Heather Bolton, Christopher Brown, Rita Kalnejais and James Wardlow) recreate what the overheard conversations could have been like. Well, make that what you could never have imagined them to be like. Unless you close your eyes and imagine a red-gowned women stuffing MX’s in her dress to give her a large arse or a jazz hands dancer in a blue sequined jacket prancing among the old coffee cups.

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a view of Melbourne that could be imagined by none other that the creators, but still resonates with us who live on train lines, and even those who can only imagine the joys of public transport.

And Anna continues to put the most glorious of gorgeous shoes on display, but that’s just my obsession.


This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Optimism

Optimism
Malthouse Theatre, Edinburgh International Festival, Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Festival
30 May 2009
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

When the next generation of theatre writers wax lyrical about Australian Theatre in the mid- to late-noughties, the Kantor-Malthouse style will not be forgotten. Since 2004, Kantor has led Playbox to Malthouse and invigorated one of Australia’s favourite companies.

Kantor’s style is to re-fashion a classic work with a very-now re-write, cast a well-known performer (preferably not an actor) alongside some very experienced ones (preferably with names like Barry, Alison and Francis) and some great newcomers, throw in a collection of songs from Kantor’s CD collection and hope that Anna Tregloan can design it. Sometimes it works a treat (Sleeping Beauty) and other times I’m left wondering (Woyzeck).

In Optimism, Voltaire’s Candide gets the Tom Wright script treatment; Frank Woodley is the outsider; Otto, Whyte and Greenslade are on board; 40-somethings cringe because we know the words to Haysi Fantaysee’s “Shiny Shiny” and growl because the program notes didn’t list the right name of The Go-Between’s song; and Tregloan let the stage fly with a wonderful use of giant fans and plastic curtains.

All the top-notch ingredients are there, but I was still left wondering.

The songs are a hoot and the performances worthy of Australia’s Got Talent - but do they serve the story? The mix-tape of contemporary music in Sleeping Beauty showed character and moved the story, but here they felt like they were chosen for their joke value, or to let an unused cast member sing, or to prove that Barry Otto knows he can’t dance. The took us away of the story and each time it was harder to come back to a point of empathy and caring.

Story telling is about caring. Now I’ve loved Frank Woodley since he was a Found Object back in the 80s and find myself singing his “get on the bus” ad each time I get on a tram. ‘”Frank” is one of our great comic characters and was the ideal cho ice for the optimistic and confused Candide. But it’s still Frank. Frank talks to the audience, improvises beautifully, causes his fellow-performers to giggle and lets us all laugh at the fun he’s having – but then it’s back to the “play”, and it’s still Frank we’re watching, not Candide. It’s hardto care about Candide, when we know it’s Frank playing. Woodley is a terrific performer and I would love to have seen what Optimism could have been if he’d been given some really strong direction and been made to leave Frank outside with a pile of comics and one of those never-ending packets of Tim Tams.

No artistic director will ever please us all or get it right every time. I don’t like every decision Kantor makes for Malthouse, but I love that he takes risks, nurtures our independent companies and lets some incredible artists shine. What frustrates me is that I can see what he wants his shows to be. I can see the thought process, the ideas, the research and the intelligence behind his choices, but too often the amazing show that is running in his head, isn’t running on the stage.

Optimism is off to the Edinburgh International Festival in August and will be at the Sydney Festival next year. Works like this need time with audiences to settle and develop, so of course I’m optimistic that the festival audiences are in for a treat and hope that I get the chance to see what it becomes.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Melbourne 2008 - What I Liked

The 2008 AussieTheatre Melbourne Awards

There are no shiny trophies, no need to frock up and no one semi-famous to read out the nominations. In fact, there’s no prize at all, except knowing that this is the remarkable work that has inspired me over the last 12 months.

Theatre in Melbourne: even if I could go out every night, I would still miss something worth seeing.

Overall, I wish I wasn’t disappointed by so many commercial productions and wish that people who see commercial shows would also take a chance on the small, independent productions. It’s always going to be hit and miss, but this is where the best theatre continues to be created and it hurts knowing that it’s only seen by a lucky few.

That’s not to say it’s all been good, but it isn’t hard to remember the great stuff. These artists and companies challenge with their content, re-invent form, respect the intelligence of their audiences, and refuse to be bland. Some of them were visiting us from interstate and overseas, but most of this incredible theatre has been created here in Melbourne.

Before the drum roll, let me thank Jo, David, Laura, Karla, Kim and John (the wonderful team of Melbourne reviewers for Aussie Theatre) for their knowledge, their passion, their style and their from-the-heart opinions.

And thank you to everyone who lets us know that you appreciate reading what we have to say.

Outstanding Artists 2008

WRITER
Adam Cass for Oasis Oasis
and
Sarah Collins for Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba. (Ever)

DIRECTOR
Benedict Andrews for Moving Target, Malthouse Theatre
and
Yvonne Virsik for Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba. (Ever)

DESIGNER
Anna Tregloan for Venus and Adonis, Malthouse Theatre

SOUND DESIGNER
David Franzke for Venus and Adonis, Malthouse Theatre

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Paul Jackson for Moving Target, Malthouse Theatre

NEVER TO BE MISSED CREATOR/PERFORMER – female
Melissa Madden Grey,  Venus and Adonis, Malthouse Theatre and Vamp, Malthouse Theatre

NEVER TO BE MISSED CREATOR/PERFORMER – male
Daniel Kitson, The Ballad of Roger and Grace  and The Impotent Fury of the Privileged

FESTIVAL DIRECTOR
Kristy Edmunds for her final, unforgettable Melbourne International Arts Festivals.

Outstanding Productions 2008

CABARET
Reuben Krum's Naughty Show, Reuben Krum
and
A Suicide for Winter , The Tiger Lillies
and
Lea Delaria is Naked, Lea Delaria

MUSICAL
Spontaneous Broadway

COMMERCIAL PROGRAM
Blackbird, Melbourne Theatre Company

DANCE
Three, Batsheva Dance Company

COMEDY
Sammy J In The Forest Of Dreams
and
Cell Block Booty, Sisters Grimm

THE BEST OF THE BEST
Ollie and the Minotaur, foogle and 9minds
and
An Oak Tree, Tim Crouch/Melbourne International Arts Festival
and
Romeo and Juliet, OKT/ Melbourne International Arts Festival


The show that will stay with me from 2008 is:

The Ballad of Roger and Grace, Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn

(2012 update: Buy the ballad here.)


This story originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Kitten

MIAF 2008

Kitten
Malthouse Theatre and Melbourne International Arts Festival
8 October 2008
Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Kitten is about the transformative nature of grief and explores one woman’s journey through its drowning, floating and cleansing effects.

Directed and written by Jenny Kemp (who directed the astonishing Woman Bomb) and designed by Malthouse’s wonderful Anna Tregloan, I was looking forward to something spectacular - but I found it distancing, frustrating and ultimately boring.

 Kitten’s husband has died and her obsessive search for him leads to her breakdown. This work depends on the audience’s empathy with and sympathy for its protagonist and their understanding of her emotional narrative. Having three Kittens, who were far too similar, left the character strangely underdeveloped. Instead of creating a fuller picture of Kitten, it felt like a competition for which Kitten the audience liked best.

The opening act was slow, quite and intense. The emotional intensity started high and didn’t change, so the characters had nowhere to go that wasn’t down. In a scene that should have bonded the audience with Kitten, we were physically separated by a curtain and never allowed the emotional space to get near her.

Act two was filled with over-obvious dialogue, like Manfred saying, “I think you’re out of control” (I suspect I wasn’t the only person muttering “derr” under my breath) but missed vital clues to her behaviour. I have no idea if Kitten liked, loved or loathed Jonah, her dead husband, and couldn’t even figure out her conscious, or unconscious, feelings for the onstage Manny.

Act three brought the bi-polar bear. This scene was hilarious, gorgeous and spectacular, but nothing prepared the audience for such an extreme and unexpected change of mood, tone and style. Despite all its prettiness, wit and absurdity, this act felt so awkward.

I could see the academic, intellectual and emotional intent behind Kitten, but I think the intent got very lost in the translation.

 

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Vamp

Vamp
Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Opera House
6 September 2008
CUB Malthouse, Merlyn Theatre

What a time for cabaret in this town! The ever-wonderful Burlesque Hour is still running, The Tiger Lillies were scary and wonderful, and now Meow Meow returns to her hometown in Vamp.

David Bowie describes Meow Meow as one of “certain artists you just never miss.” I’m kinda chuffed that have a conversation starter for the time I meet Dave, as I also believe that Meow should never be missed.

Meow has pounced, hissed, purred and sold out in the Spiegeltent; she’s performed at more international festivals than I can list; she’s better known in Shanghai, New York and various European capitals than her hometown; and collaborated with the likes of the Dresden Dolls and John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).

Vamp was commissioned by Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Opera House, so Meow could work with local wonders including Iain Grandage (composition), Michael Kantor (direction), Anna Tregloan (design), Shaun Parker (choreography) and Paul Jackson (lighting). While Vamp is every moment Meow’s show, the depth and completeness of the piece come from the collaboration.

Vamp was inspired by by Wilde’s Salome. Meow describes it as the “dual empowerment and disempowerment of the body and its sensual or ridiculous dance”. She understands the ridiculousness, but continues to participate and craves the attention. She lets us see that the wild and sexy goddess is really just a bored and lonely woman in a skin coloured body suit and some stick on pasties, but she continues to be amazed at her own stage beauty. This vamp knows how absurd she is, but wants to believe the image. She alternatively criticises her audience, but forces some to hold her close (literally) and help create the facade. To the audience participation men – what was so difficult about the “shape of a swastika” request?

Meow herself is a parody of a parody that takes us so uncomfortably close to the truth that laughter is the only possible release. Perhaps we will all get our ’15 Minutes of Femme’ one day - but do we want it?

The memorable, the incredible and the best stage characters have an independent life, far removed from their creators, while their creators are so much more than their one character. As Dame Edna is to Barry Humphries, Meow Meow is to Melissa Madden Gray.

Gray could grace any musical theatre, opera or dance stage in the world, while earning a fine living from singing on morning chat shows and posing for women’s magazine lifestyle features. We (David Bowie and me) are so grateful that she has chosen a path that is far more dangerous and extraordinary. She creates on the edge, takes risks and chooses creative and original over safe and predictable.

Gray’s outstanding technique, skill, passion and determination clearly support Meow, but Meow is far too self-centred to let Gray share her limelight. Gray doesn’t even get a mention in the program, and Meow herself drinks fizzy wine at the after show party.

Early in the show, Meow tells the audience “You may not be moved, but you will be touched.” This performance touches you and stays with you. Meow is tantalising, seductive and very bendy, but arouses our latent intelligence. Vamp is the real deal. Don’t regret missing it.
 
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Holiday

Holiday
Malthouse Theatre and Ranters Theatre
19 July 2008
CUB Malthouse, Tower Theatre

Holiday is a meditative exploration of a world separated from the responsibility and routine of day-to-day life. It’s more weekend beach house than five star resort, but who doesn’t love a few days at the beach.

I was initially intrigued and drawn into this gentle world. Raimondo Cortese’s writing captures casual conversation with ease, Adriano Cortese’s direction is beautifully paced and structured, and Paul Lum and Patrick Moffat’s performances are faultless.  But I wasn’t taken anywhere else. Like a beach house holiday, I kept waiting for something to happen; expecting a moment that would tie the looseness of the conversations, chats and stories into something more.

I could see so much process at work that I was never really engaged, or even that interested in the characters. There were nibbles and hints that drew me back in, but never enough to give a clear understanding of their relationship with each other or make me really care. Which could well be the point of Holiday.  When men are alone, do they really have such mundane conversations?

I didn’t see the original production at Arts House, and suspect that some of the impact of the design was also lost in its transfer to The Tower. Sitting up the back, I was immediately distanced from the white box set, which would have felt a lot more intimate in the front rows. Nontheless, Anna Tregloan’s design perfectly captures the complexity, mood and humour of the work. (Tregloan’s design continues to be a highlight of every production she works on.)  The whole piece is coloured and given remarkable depth by David Franzke’s sound design. I know there wasn’t a cat scampering under my seat, but I found myself looking for it.

There are so many elements of Holiday that are superb, but I came away feeling like I should have packed a really good book to read.


This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Tartuffe

Tartuffe
Malthouse Theatre
20 February 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

The creatives and cast of Malthouse Theatre’s Tartuffe seduce the audience so convincingly that imperfections with the production become irrelevant.

It’s an intimidating task to adapt a classic work. Louise Fox remains true to Molière’s structure and characters, whilst delightfully playing with the language. (How could anyone resist rhyming Tartuffe with poof?) Grange, the Financial Review, Byron Bay and Desperate Housewives didn’t make the 17th century French original, but they set up many a contemporary reference and joke in this version. If Molière had a Facebook profile, I’m sure he too would have referenced it.

In this version we find ourselves in a suburb like Toorak, complete with its own pool and ornate faux French iron fencing. As always Anna Tregloan’s design beautifully supports the script and the space with an intelligent balance the practical and the aesthetic.

Living here are an indulged family, frustrated by their patriarch’s (and his mother’s) admiration and support of the very religious Tartuffe. With a cast including Marcus Graham, Alison Whyte, Barry Otto and Malthouse favourites Francis Greenslade and Peter Houghton, it would be difficult to be disappointed in cast. On a technical level, the scenes between Alison and Marcus are superb. There buzz from making an audience laugh is naturally addictive for a performer, but some of the clownish aspects of some performances could be better balanced. The clowning can be huge in this farce, but there was a bit of “look at me” acting, which really shouldn’t happen in a cast this experienced.

The build to Tartuffe’s entrance is structured perfectly. Certainly there is a lot of exposition in the first scenes, but we are eager to see the god-like presence that has taken over the household. Marcus doesn’t disappoint. His god-like entrance is as divine as it can be and we very soon discover how this Tartuffe was able to so thoroughly deceive and seduce. Getting over the fact that he is pleasing on the eye, Marcus’ delivers a complex and rounded character. He successfully elicits a degree of empathy and support for the character we could so easily despise – which makes his Act Two downfall even stronger.

The pace picks up significantly in Act Two as it heads to the unavoidable deus ex machina (used almost in its literal sense). I do wonder if a contemporary “king” may have been more relevant than the choice of Christian king or even a less obvious Christian image. It certainly worked in the context of the script, but in the context of Melbourne in 2008, there was something lacking. The final ironic twist may also have been more poignant with a different image of religion, belief or intervening deity.

Finally Matthew Lutton’s direction must be acknowledged. (He was assisting director Michael Kantor until a few weeks ago, when his own ironic deus ex machina intervention arrived when Michael became ill.) There are some hints of inexperience, especially in communicating in a big space, but otherwise the direction is tight, balanced and admirable. Act 1 would benefit from work on establishing the status and relationships of the characters through direction and performance, rather than relying on dialogue and exposition. And sometimes a joke for the sake of a laugh distracts too much from the story and doesn’t serve the script and production as a whole.

At the end of the night, Tartuffe is thoroughly enjoyable. It’s not the strongest or most relevant piece of theatre I’ve seen at the Malthouse, but it’s one that sets the bar high for the rest of season.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Photo by Jeff Busby.

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty
Malthouse Theatre
12 July 2007
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

 
Devised by Michael Kantor, Paul Jackson, Mayann Lynch and Anna Tregloan, Sleeping Beauty is proving that new direction, new blood and collaboration at Malthouse can create the kind of original and enlightening theatre we want and expect from this company.
 
Sleeping Beauty is told as a song cycle, using contemporary and popular music (primarily from the youth of Malthouse supporters). Part musical theatre, part concert, part fairy tale; it asks what Sleeping Beauty would dream about and takes us on her journey from childhood to sexual innocence, to adulthood and the ultimate maturity of disappointment.
 
A song cycle needs singers. The casting and combination of voices and genres was curious. Renee Geyer is jazz, Grant Smith is opera, Ian Stenlake is pure musical theatre and Alison Bell is an actor who can pull off a song. The juxtaposition of the voices was so odd that it worked brilliantly, to an extent.
 
Renee is the diva and star. Her delicious and sumptuous jazz (come R&B), makes you want to drink absinthe and chain smoke in tiny dark room until dawn, as her husky tones makes you fall in and out of love with your companion all night. She opened the night with “She” and captured every heart in the house. What she later did with Eminem was near perfect.
 
Grant has deservedly been on many an opera stage and never ceased to shine. Ian continued to prove himself one of our finest musical theatre performers. His Bowie renditions were nearly as hot as Bowie himself (sorry Ian, no one is hotter than Bowie).
 
The moment I walked away with was Renee, Grant, Ian’s performance of Elvis Costello’s “I Want You”. It took this love song into a dark, intense and confronting realm that explored how mother, father, brother, older woman, older man and lover can desire, want, love or hate the beauty of young woman.
 
While the vocal combination worked, what didn’t work as well was that each of the four were performing in their genre, not as an ensemble. Ian and Grant’s performances could have filled a 2000 seat venue. This created unevenness on the stage that might need some tighter direction. Ian at times simply overwhelmed Alison, who was performing to the room she was in.
 
Alison Bell is a very good actor, but she was the odd voice out. Vocally she wasn’t nearly as powerful as her the other three, which hindered the performance, as it became a comparison. The role needed a singer who was comfortable telling a story though song, rather than acting out the song. (Perhaps someone along the lines of an Australian Idol contestant - a singer who may have actually lived out the bizarre fairy tale dream and nightmare in a public medium.)
 
Direction, design and concept all worked perfectly to create this highly original work, even if a few self indulgent decisions were made. Often the story would have moved much better if songs had been shorter, giving us just the appropriate lyric grab or emotional rift, rather than the whole number. This would have deprived us of some wonderful performances, but would have served the story much better.
 
Sleeping Beauty is a work that will grow and change as it runs. It speaks to its audience and is totally enjoyable. As it becomes tighter, it will begin to work better as a whole, rather than a collection of wonderful moments and performances.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Black

Black
Malthouse Theatre
17 March 2007
The Tower Theatre, CUB Malthouse

A post-avant-garde-performance-art-installation is never going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Well, I drink coffee and Anna Tregolan’s Black is as welcome and satisfying as the first strong, aromatic and lovingly-made expresso on a slow Sunday morning.

There is a mixed sense of anticipation and apprehension as we are gradually let into the Tower Theatre. All we know is that the performance runs for three hours, but we can come and go as we please.

Walking down a dark corridor, a small screen with a changing collage is our first clue. Sounds of muffled voices and dropped cutlery begin to filter in as we round the corner and find ourselves above the space we will enter and, perhaps unwittingly, merge with.

Black is the stories of Elizabeth Short, a young Hollywood starlet, whose severed body was found in an empty lot in 1947. Her unsolved murder has created many fictitious, semi-factual and imagined accounts of her demise on screens and in novels, newspapers and gossip mills.

Each performer (Caroline Lee, Moira Finucane, James Wardlaw and Martyn Coutes) represent a facet of the multiple stories. They could be witness, media, detective, victim, friend, family or stranger. All spin web of movement and text that fills the space and draws the audience closer.

The text is designed to be listened to like music, with a four part vocal score of monologue. It’s quite meditative, but separating the parts reveals a poetic and evocative language that was almost unexpected. “The collaging of a body” with “postage stamps of flesh removed”.

The performers are separated by a zigzag wall of perspex. They move through and around the walls, forever changing their position. What makes this work remarkable is that each wall acts as a transparent mirror – we can see through it, and it reflects multiple images around the space.

One performer looks like a conjoined twin from a carnival freak show, whilst simultaneously standing in the audience, looking at another performer, holding her own hand and watching herself. The performers don’t touch or interact but their multiple reflections touch and merge, some morphing like a 90s music video, others walking through each other like ghosts. The effect is stunning, as there are so many versions of the same scene to look at.

As an audience we are allowed to choose if we sit, stand or move. We think we are controlling what we witness and who we see it with. However the reflective walls and changing light take away our control and bring our images into the performance space and the story.

The creation, rehearsal and performance of this complex work is precise and perfect. Design, direction and performance blend to create an experience that is genuinely original, creative, intelligent and brave.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.