What I loved in 2018: The Best of Melbourne Theatre

The most loved shows of 2018 from "What Melbourne Loved" are Morgan Rose's  The Bachelor S17 E5 at La Mama and Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse.

Others with a few mentions are Calamity Jane at Arts Centre Melbourne, Lorelei by Victorian Opera and Stephanie Lake's Colossus at Arts Centre Melbourne for Melbourne Fringe.

I only saw two of these – both of which have repeat seasons in 2019. I was out of the country for the The Bachelor, I was seeing another section of the Fringe program and didn't have a spare night for Colossus, and I tried to see Lorelei but it just wasn't going to happen that week. So, can we have return seasons of all three, please.

I've had a quiet year and only saw about 140 shows this year (that I remember – don't ask).

It's been another challenging year for independent media and for arts criticism. Arts journalists have less avenues for work than even last year. Most reviews are still written by volunteers, and I'm astounded at how many people assume that indie sites and publications earn anything.

At times, the quest for star ratings and poster quotes seems more important than creating conversations or encouraging good writing – your audiences are smarter than that. The personal "banning" of critics is an eye roll; most of us have been banned from at least one show this year. And there are even less opportunities for emerging writers to be trained.

My wish for 2019 is that all companies, especially the funded ones, really start encouraging all critical responses to their shows. I've got lots of ideas if you want to talk.


Outstanding Artists 2017


WRITING

Michele Lee for Going Down at Malthouse

Going Down. Photo by Phoebe Powell

Special mention

Mary Ann Butler for Broken by Lab Kelpie at fortyfivedownstairs

Broken by Lab Kelpie

DESIGN

The design team of Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse
Elizabeth Gadsby (design),  Oh Yeah Wow (animation and video),Verity Hampson (lighting and projection), Steve Toulmin (composition and sound) and  Emily Johnson (concept artist)

Blackie Blackie Brown. Photo by Phoebe Powell

Special mentions

Bronwyn Pringle (lighting) for Colder at Red Stitch

Eugyeene Teh (set and costumes) for Suddenly Last Summer at Red Stitch

Suddenly Last Summer. Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

PERFORMANCE

Paula Arundell, Brenna Harding, Sophie Ross in The Bleeding Tree at Arts Centre Melbourne

The Bleeding Tree

Special mentions

Nadine Garner in A Little Night Music by Watch This

Virginia Gay in Calamity Jane presented by One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Mulsicals, Hates Theatre Co and Arts Centre Melbourne at Arts Centre Melbourne

Keep an eye on

Lou Wall –  Romeo is not the only fruit; It's not me, it's Lou; Lou Wall's Drag Race

DIRECTION

Declan Green for Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse

Special mentions

Susie Dee for Broken by Lab Kelpie at fortyfivedownstairs

Richard Carroll for Calamity Jane presented by One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Mulsicals, Hates Theatre Co and Arts Centre Melbourne at Arts Centre Melbourne. The balance of satire, irony and love was perfect.

Virginia Gay as Calamity Jane

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

post

post. Ich Nibber Dibber. Photo by Jacquie Manning

post are Natalie Rose, Mish Grigor and Zoë Coombs Marr. They formed in Sydney but continue to spend a lot of time in Melbourne. I first saw them in 2009 and have loved seeing their development collectively and as individual artists, even if a Last Tuesday Society appearance is still the first thing I remember. They've appeared in the end-of-year Loveds a lot – cos they are awesome.

Life meant that their bloody wonderful Ich Nibber Dibber at Malthouse didn't get a review from me, but I laughed myself almost sick during it from the moment we saw them floating like angels.


And

EVERYONE at La Mama because it's been a shit year and everyone has been incredible.


Outstanding Productions 2018

MUSICAL

Romeo is not the only fruit  presented by The Furies, Jean Tong and Stephanie-Bowie Liew at MICF

Romeo is not the only fruit

Special mentions

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Michael Cassell in association with Paul Blake & Sony/ATV Music Publishing & Mike Bosner

The Dressmaker - a musical adaption developed at Monash University by the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence Program.

I didn't review this because it's still in development; I can't wait to see what happens to it. If it doesn't get a professional production, there's something wrong.

The Dressmaker - a musica adaption. Photo by Sarah Walker

COMEDY

Virgin Bloody Mary by Nadia Collins at MICF

Nadia Collins. Virgin Bloody Mary

Special mentions

Anna Piper Scott and Sophie Joske in Almost Lesbians by Catface Productions at MICF

Almost Lesbians

Fafenefenoiby II: Return of the Ghost Boy by Neal Portenza and no one else even

Neal Portenza. Photo by Richard Watts

Eric The Third – The One Man Sketch Comedy Show by Vicious Fish Theatre at Melbourne Fringe

Scott Gooding as Eric

MUSIC

Mojo Juju, Native Tongue at Arts Centre Melbourne




LIVE ART

All the live art experiences at the Mere Mortals program at Arts House.
Including The Infirmary, Bushland and vigil/wake.

FESTIVAL

Melbourne Writers Festival
Finally a writers festival that celebrates all types of writing and story telling.


BEST OF THE BEST

Lagrime di San Pietro by Los Angeles Master Chorale at Melbourne Festival

Lagrime di San Pietro

Prize Fighter by La Boite Theatre with Darebin Arts Speakeasy at Melbourne Festival

Prize Fighter. Photo by Dylan Evans

The Director by Lara Thoms and Scott Turnball at Arts House in the Mere Mortals program

The Director. Lara Thoms and Scott Tuyrnball. Photo by Bryony Jackson

MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2018

Dark Emu by Bangarra Dance Theatre

Dark Emu. Bangarra Dance Theatre

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Review: Dark Emu

Dark Emu
Bangarra Dance Theatre 
6 September 2018
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 15 September
artscentremelbourne.com.au
bangarra.com.au

Dark Emu. Bangarra Dance Theatre

Bangarra’s Artistic Director, Stephen Page, reminds us in his program welcome that this is the “only company in Australia with its cultural origins in this land”. Let that sit for a moment. It’s a lot to take in, especially as they formed 29 years ago.

I thought about it at the end of Dark Emu when the Playhouse erupted with rock-star cheers.

Dark Emu opens with a giant blue seed pod. It’s not fluorescent, it’s more the glowing white-blue seen only in a star-filled night away from the city. It might not be a seed pod; maybe a map seen from above or a songline. It fills the stage and it’s from here that humans emerge.

Dark Emu. Black Seeds - Agriculture or Accident? by Bruce Pascoe was released in 2014. (Great interview with him.) I’d love to say that I've read it, but I only heard about it a few weeks ago when friends assumed that I’d read it; I WILL now. It demolishes the false idea that Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers before colonisation. It details complex farming practices and a reciprocal connection with the land – look after it; it looks after you. By telling the real history, it shows how our history was and is still re-written to fit post-1788 stories.

A revisionist-history non-fiction book is an unusual inspiration for a dance-theatre piece, but from the opening image, the connection between history and dance and story is so obvious that I wonder what we have to do to get every school-aged child in the country along to this show. It’s hard to change the minds of adults, but the next generations will see our stories though different eyes.

Not that we can’t change older minds. One way to start seeing things differently is to start feeling differently about them. The impact of art is often so hard to describe because it hits us in the feels before the thinks. Facts don’t mean much if you don’t feel emotionally connected to the consequences of those facts. Stunning works of art like this create the emotional link.

There’s narrative and story from Pascoe’s book that’s expanded with a focus on stories from the Yuin nation (south coast NSW). But it’s story without heroes or individuals. It’s about land and people, and destruction and resilience, and a hope and belief that these stories will be heard, shared and listened to. You don’t need to understand the detail of the stories about flies or fire to understand the feeling of massacre and destruction.

The choreography (Daniel Riley, Yolande Brown, Stephen Page and the 18 dancers) starts from and, mostly, stays connected to the earth. With no focus on individual dancers, and no straight lines or precise unison, it feels natural in its complexity. As does the colour in the design (set, Jacob Nash: lighting, Sian James-Holland), and the handmade costumes (Jennifer Irwin), which change with ochre and sweat as each season continues. The world is mostly dark and shadowy greys with fire/blood red, sky/water blue and new-life greens growing from the shadows.

One of the many joys of a Bangarra mainstage work – the company also works with communities and on Country – is how it’s not an option to try and separate one creative element from the rest. The choreography is integral to the designs, music (Steve Francis and others) and dramaturgy (Alana Valentine). And many of the collaborators have been working together since the company formed.

Bangarra may be the most vibrant, powerful and relevant cultural company in Australia and Dark Emu is as vital to our history as the book it started with.

Now, let’s all buy the book (from a local book store) and read it.

What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 11

Today's group of wonderful people are reviewer Tim Byrne, playwright Katy Warner and Neddwellyn Jones from La Mama.

And another day in which I regret missing Animal (to be fair, I wasn't in the country). This show has to have another season.

Tim Byrne
arts writer, reviewer

Tim Byrne. Photo by Chris Boyd

TB's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: The best assumptions to burst are the ones you hold about yourself. This year I burst an assumption I’ve held all my life: that I’m not really into traditional ballet. Australian Ballet’s first ever production of Nijinsky was undoubtedly superb, an intense and sustained masterpiece, but my most treasured moment in a theatre this year was under the spell of the Houston Ballet as they performed an impeccably danced, utterly rousing, muscular and deeply moving Romeo and Juliet. It was thrilling, and opened me to a form I’d dismissed as fusty and moribund.

What TB is looking forward to in 2017: I’ve been hopelessly slack with tracking upcoming programs, but I am off to Adelaide to see Thomas Ostermeier’s Richard III, which should prove interesting, given his electric Hedda Gabler here a couple of years ago for Melbourne Festival. But mostly I’m hoping to discover a new and unexpected love, something that opens me to forms I’ve never considered. Because that’s really the point of art, isn’t it?

SM: Tim's another reviewer who sees so much more than he's able to write about. I read his reviews even when I haven't seen the show.because they are a great read and they always show me something about the show or artist that I hadn't seen before. But my favourite moment with Tim this year was his talk with Stan Grant (about his book Talking to my Country) on a stupidly hot and still February night in a church hall in Albert Park. The room was fringed with boxes of second-hand stuff for a fete and Tim asked the perfect questions to let Stan tell his story.

Katy Warner
playwright

Katy Warner

KW's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I think I was hidden in a bubble of first drafts and deadlines this year and did not get to see as much as I wanted. I could name a couple of favourite missed moments. Like Animal. I am kicking myself for missing Animal.

This year I was fortunate enough to catch Jack Charles vs. The Crown after missing it the first time around. Uncle Jack makes it all look so effortless. What an incredible human. This was poignant, vital storytelling.

Loved Gonzo for its form, risk and performances. Plus, the discussions it generated in the foyer, and at work the next day.

OUR land people stories from Bangarra Dance Theatre. Jasmin Sheppard's choreography and David Page's music for MACQ was incredibly powerful.

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (Melbourne Festival) made me laugh and cry and sing and I just adored it.

Blaque Showgirls created some unforgettable moments, costumes, performances – satire at its best.

What KW is looking forward to in 2017: An Austrian-esque swing to the left across the world.

And pretty much everything in the Malthouse and Theatre Works seasons, the Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival, the new Australian writing on show at Red Stitch Theatre and, for families at Arts Centre Melbourne, Luke Kerridge's Bambert's Book of Lost Stories (just the trailer makes me teary).

katywarner.com

SM: Katy wrote and directed A Prudent Man at Melbourne Fringe. There's plenty of easy and average satire about elected right-wing politicians around; what made this stand out was how it made the audience begin to not like but listen to, and even care, about a selfish conservative middle-aged straight white man in a suit. This is another show that I really hope gets a return season.

PS: Maxim Boon sent me a message yesterday because he couldn't believe he'd not mentioned A Prudent Man in part 10; it's been added.

Neddwellyn Jones 
La Mama Theatre

Neddwellyn Jones 

NJ's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: The moment that stayed with me the most in 2016, was in the minutes following the opening of Animal (influx) at Theatre Works in November.

Following one of the most powerful and affecting productions of the year, we all joined in for three heavy rounds of applause. None of us in the audience, all fairly seasoned theatregoers, seemed to want to stop clapping. When we finally did, we sat there, as a group, united in silence and awe at what had just unfolded. No one dared to speak for at least a minute, and it felt like an eternity before anyone left their seat... and it felt like a reaction that came as close as it could to doing the work justice.

What NJ is looking forward to in 2017: In 2017, I cannot wait to check out the inaugural Asia TOPA Festival in February and March, which will provide an unprecedented opportunity for Melbourne audiences to celebrate the rich and wonderful contemporary arts and culture on offer from our close neighbours in Asia.

La Mama’s 50th Anniversary will also provide undeniable highlights, the stand-out being a month long festival in July with some of Australia’s most talented and celebrated writers, directors, designers and performers returning "home".

And lastly - if someone out there is listening to the word on the street  and were to program Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree for a Melbourne season, I dare say the chances of it being included in this same column in 12 months time would be extremely high!

SM: Another easy one: Every time Nedd changes ticket dates for me or squeezes me into a show on very short notice.

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part 10
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Review: Fire: a retrospective

Fire: a retrospective
Bangarrra Dance Theatre
6 November 2009
The Arts Centre, Playhouse

Hands up if you can name Australia’s internationally revered national contemporary dance company. How Aussie that, after 20 years of consistent achievement, Bangarra Dance Theatre isn’t always given the respect, the support and the adoration it deserves at home.

Not that the audience at Fire didn’t adore. Far from it. Being in that cheering audience was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve had in a theatre. It’s humbling to be with a crowd who are thanking the creators and performers for telling stories that all members of the diverse audience understood felt were theirs.

I like dance, but it’s like a foreign language and I’m often left admiring the pretty and the skill as I wonder what they are trying to say to me. But I totally get Bangarra. I watch this company perform and I know what they are saying to me. It might not be what they created it to say, but that doesn’t matter. Bangarra tell their stories by expressing the emotions of moments. We fill in the rest.

Under the artistic directorship of Stephen Page, Bangarra’s merge of traditional and contemporary is fluid and natural. There is no straight line in nature, no unison or perfect repetition. Random patterns are why it’s so hard to make anything artificial look natural. Bangarra’s choreographic style is precise, but there’s never unnatural unison. The slight differences between each dancer’s performance creates a stage that seems more natural and more in tune with how we are.

Bangarra’s originality flows from welcoming ancient white ochre ritual and encompassing Torres Straight Island celebration through to the a gorgeous use of elastic to create a stage full of cat’s cradle like song lines and the most awesome and sexy use of a slip ‘n’ slide. But the moments that remind us that our Indigenous culture is more than gum leaves and roo dancing are the most powerful.

Four men in jeans dance to a spoken Lord’s prayer and the voices of those who need to be heard in a piece about alchoholism, violence and abuse, and there’s a room silencing moment when a scratching, screaming woman finds relief in the horror of drugs. It’s not only in the arts that Australians suffer and are ignored for ‘cultural’ reasons.

At a time when far too much media and dinner party conversation was spent justifying the Aussie joke of black face and John Safran’s Race Relations is creating a mighty hoo ha on the telly, it’s a perfect time to go to the theatre to be part of a history, a vision and a contemporary dreaming that we are all part of.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Kin

Kin
Malthouse Theatre 
28 September 2007
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Kin is made by one family for all families to share.

Stephen Page has been the Artistic Director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre since 1991 and was Artistic Director of the 2004 Adelaide Festival of the Arts. In Kin, his cast are his son and nephews, who range in age from 10 to 14. His brother David composed the music. This family love working together, but it’s far removed from Von Trapps and Osmonds.

Page says, “The process started with a trip back to Country with my father and we talked about their culture and re-told stories. It was great. The boys’ eyes lit up – you could see this was something in their blood.” And so the boys from the city began creating their interpretation of old stories and telling us their own yarns.

Kin is told by the boys, so it is their view of their own world. Under the clear direction of Page, they don’t avoid the expected issues of racism, referendums and substance abuse, but neither are these issues all that their story is about. Guitars, rap and hip hop are possibly more important in a young teenager’s life.

Humour is a natural part of the telling. This is where the true personalities of the cast are evident and most revel in the audience’s response. There’s frustration and anger in some of the humour, and that’s what makes it so powerful. Don’t miss the joke about the coloured white folk. Page clearly guided the telling of some of the more sensitive issues, especially the very poignant and abstract depiction of petrol sniffing.

Kin is thoroughly captivating. Page captures the honest and raw energy of his cast and blends it seamlessly with his own signature choreography. Content aside, the cast are disciplined, controlled and skilled dancers.

Seeing children and families in the Merlyn together is fabulous. Bring your kids and your nieces and nephews and their friends. Although not recommended for the very little, Friday night’s audience proved Kin is for everyone.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.