FESTIVAL: Brief Encounter

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2013

Brief Encounter

Kneehigh Theatre, Arts Projects Australia, Melbourne Festival, John and Janet Calvert-Jones, The Brenda Shanahan Charitable Foundation

12 October 2013

Athenaeum Theatre

to 27 October

melbournefestival.com.au

In their West End and Broadway hit, Cornwall’s Kneehigh Theatre pay enthusiastic homage to the 1945 film Brief Encounter.

In 1938, Laura and Alec meet at a train station. Both are married with children, but meet on Thursdays and develop something far more than they’ve ever experienced.

The award-winning film, based on a Noel Coward play, is considered a classic of contained naturalism or a dreary melodrama. Whatever the perspective, it’s a product of its time in look, morality and its very earnest and precise-pro-nun-ci-a-tion acting.

With an almost verbatim script, Kneehigh capture its unmistakable style, but inject a nudge and a wink of joy into its constricted morality, and play with the unearned passion of its melodrama with touches like replacing the Rachmaninoff music with Coward songs.

For all its likeness to the film, its telling is pure theatre with puppets, pull-along trains, film screens and a bright-pink velvet curtain that declares that this isn’t a show for soppy tears.

Brief Encounter’s re-imagining is enchanting and so full of unexpected delight that the love story is secondary. Watch the film for that.

This first appeared at issimomag.com.

Review: Silent

Silent
Fishamble, Arts Projects Australia
8 February 2012
The Lawler
to 10 February
mtc.com.au
artsprojects.com.au

Silent is another very short-run show that might be gone before everyone hears that they should see it. It finishes on Sunday, along with the remarkable Rape of Lucrece in the theatre next door.

Ireland's Fishamble company are all about new plays and writers (I love them already). Silent is written and performed by Pat Kinevane. He says that it's a chance for him to be grateful for every blessing because it could be him "lying against a post restaurant door". It won awards at the Edinburgh Festival and has toured the UK, Europe and the US.

Tino was named after Rudolph Valentino and he slips into the absurdly beautiful silent film style of his namesake to tell the story we've stopped to hear on a cold Dublin street.  Perhaps we dropped a coin without looking at him, perhaps we're looking for somewhere where we won't freeze tonight. Either way, we listen.

His story of homelessness starts with a childhood that could have been better, the suicide attempts of his brother (whose smile would "trump the smile of Jesus") and a slide into addiction and mental illness that lost him all of his "splendid things".  But it's not driven by what-ifs or if-onlys, but by a desperate need to speak with other people and break the unrelenting loneliness of having so little that you know that only 1 in 600 people will even look at you as they go by.

Kinevane is a compelling performer who lets us know that Tino knows we're still made uncomfortable by the sight of him. And his script creates Tino's world with witnesses who will never know his story and plants its ending so gently that it doesn't make us ask the right question until it's too late. It's beautiful writing.

Having toured and been polished, it suffers slightly from not being in a small intimate venue because empty seats and a large stage the create the space for audience to escape into, but it takes nothing away from the work that's full of the kind of hope that hurts as much as it supports.


FREE tickets for this are still available if you join Little Birdy Tix.

Gush: The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece
Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Projects Australia
6 February 2013
Sumner Theatre
to 10 February
mtc.com.au
artsprojects.com.au

I saw The Rape of Lucrece tonight. I'm still shaking.

It's harrowing and exquisite and I am completely and utterly in love with Camille O'Sullivan and Feargal Murray.

And Melbourne only has four more chances to see it.

Taking the Shakespeare poem and creating a "play with songs", it was developed by the new Royal Shakespeare Company studio in 2011 and won awards at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe.

I haven't read the poem. But, umm, wow. A poem told from the perspective of the rapist and the woman he raped. What is says about guilt and eternity left me with a lump in my soul that might not fade.

It's performed by Camille O'Sullivan. Why has no one dragged me to see her when she's been in Melbourne? She may the most watchable creature to ever grace a stage. She had me from the moment she opened her mouth to speak; then she sang.

It felt like the whole audience breathed in together and didn't look away until the last of the extended curtain calls.

Forget what she sounds like (but it's like a hand-made chocolate filled with chilli ganache and sharp honey-nut praline crisps), her voice comes from her heart and she sings with an emotion that comes from somewhere so deep and personal that it feels like every word was written for her.

And she's accompanied by pianist and her musical partner Feargal Murray, who developed the piece with her and director Elizabeth Freestone. A brilliant accompanist almost disappears and become an extension of the singer. He is brilliant.

I wasn't on a review ticket, so that's enough and I'm free to gush.

But SHAME MELBOURNE SHAME that there were so many empty seats. A half-empty theatre! I'm embarrassed that this incredible city isn't lining up for this show. You will love it, Melbourne. I know what else is on in town; this is the choice to make.

Song from the show: reverbnation.com.


To make it easier lasttix.com.au/melbourne have half price tickets.

Here's Joanna Bowen's review on AT

Traces

Traces
Les 7 Doigts De La Main / The 7 Fingers
Arts Projects Australia
19 August 2009
Comedy Theatre

Wow! High energy, high risk and guaranteed to leave you gasping, Traces is sure to leave its indelible mark on everyone who sees it.

Circus company Les 7 doigts de la main was formed in 2002 by seven graduates of Montreal’s National Circus School. In a city where internationally renowned companies like Cirque Éloize and Cirque du Soleil are based, this young company was determined to “create a circus of an entirely different flavour” and bring circus to a human scale.

Creators of contemporary circus look to express tricks uniquely through character and story or take them to a new level of skill. Traces has original routines that use contemporary dance, skateboards and basket balls, but stands apart by intimately presenting their performers, rather than characters.

This company is the second cast, but the show is designed to adapt, and through use of music, stories and direct audience interaction, it doesn’t take long to know Antoine, Antoine, Genevieve, Philip and Raphael like friends. Without the distraction of character, costume and effect to hide the performer’s human flaws - or giving them time off stage to recover - their circus skills are also more exposed.

And, for all it’s enticing narrative and unique street feel, Traces soars with its skill. From the addictive opening choreography to the final jaw-dropping Chinese hoop routine, there’s no hiding the astonishing, heart-stopping acrobatic strength and skill of these performers. Each are genuinely engaging personalities, but you can’t take your eyes off them when they show us their super-human side.

Like professional sport, physical risk is part of circus with margins of error measured in millimetres. Even with years of training and months of rehearsal, risk is an integral part of Traces and one of the reasons we enjoy watching it so much. If this cast of 20-somethings don’t inspire you to join the circus, they will at least inspire you to take some risks to perfect the skills and abilities that will leave your traces in your world.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

The Pegasus Story and DEBRIS

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2006
The Pegasus Story
DEBRIS
Arts Projects Australia
Ride On Theatre and Black Lung Theatre
7 October 2006
Festival Hub, Lithuanian Club
High St

Picking the right double bill is an important part of the Fringe. This was a good night. I chose this double because they had both had successful productions interstate. Debris was acclaimed in Sydney and The Pegasus Story sold out at the Adelaide Fringe. Both have benefited from their “out of town” runs with tight, well-rehearsed shows. They are very different types of theatre, but both explore the use of monologue to tell their stories.

The Pegasus Story is thoroughly engaging and proves how truth is sometimes far more fascinating than fiction.

Mark De Ionno isn’t a trained actor; he’s just a guy telling us his story. He suffered a psychotic episode in mid 2000. The Pegasus Story is a very revealing and personal insight into Mark’s manic depression. Knowing he came though safely, we can sit back and enjoy the journey from northern Australian desert to Adelaide’s seediest street.

Mark’s story works, because it is not a performance. He easily evokes the empathy and compassion needed to draw the audience into his life. Working with director Daisy Brown has enhanced the story telling by using simple elements of theatre. The props, costumes, slides and perfect live music support the story, never compromising Mark’s affable personality or honest approach.

The strength of this work lies in its truth and I fully believe in moulding facts to tell a greater truth. An opening and reoccurring joke is that his initials are MAD, but he is not credited as Mark Anthony De’Ionno. Another good joke is set up with Mark working as an Indigenously sensitive tour guide, but he refers to Uluru as Ayers Rock. These are tiny, almost irrelevant criticisms, but if they cause the audience to doubt Mark, the veracity of the rest of his story is also doubted.

Debris has a very different creative team. All are recent NIDA graduates and this production is a testament to the outstanding quality of actor, director and designer emerging from the school. The text is also based on a style of monologue, but uses theatrical technique to tell its story.

The design, by the company, arrests you the moment you enter the space. It is so successful that I was initially genuinely horrified and felt very uncomfortable being there - until I realised just how brilliant the design concept was. (However, the risk and safety elements of the design really do need more consideration.) Ailsa Paterson’s costumes also come from a clear understanding of the text and reflect every nuance of the themes and characters.

Under the direction of Tanya Goldberg, this is intelligent theatre that engages your brain and your senses. Bojana Novakovic and Thomas Campbell give two of the best performances I’ve seen this Fringe. But does Debris tell a good story?

Before I could write about this show I had to do some serious googling to understand it. The need to research indicates that there is something not quite right with the story telling. Once I realised there was a common criticism in other Debris productions, I stopped analysing the acting and direction and looked at the text.

Debris is Dennis Kelly’s debut work, first presented in the UK in 2003. This is dark, absurd and extreme material. The language is stunning, but appears to be written for its own sake. I want to “read” this play. Unfortunately, the brilliance of the language often confuses and overwhelms the story telling. I was unsure if there were two, four or multiple characters talking to us and, despite faultless delivery, I found myself drifting away during the some of the monologues and losing the narrative thread.

Debris is astonishing theatre. I was shocked by the character’s stories, but it didn’t succeed in making me care about what happened to those children on the stage. By using minimal theatre and maintaining its authentic voice, The Pegasus Story is a more engaging experience because it tells a damn good story.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.