Review: Richard III

Richard 3
Bell Shakespeare
21 April 2017
Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio
to 7 May
bellshakespeare.com.au

Richard 3. Kate Mulvany & Meredith Penman. Photo by Prudence Upton.

Being in the depths of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I was calling Richard 3, by Bell Shakespeare, Chick Dick 3 because Kate Mulvany plays Richard. But no more throw away jokes about having seen a lot of Dicks because this production’s found so much that’s new, relevant and fascinating.

Yes it’s ANOTHER work about white men and power and what they do attain and keep power. But Peter Evans direction and Mulvany’s dramaturgy have shaped it to give the women a presence that’s rare in this story. Having the cast always on the stage, the constant gaze of the women ­– who are often no more than wife, mother, womb or irrelevant – is always felt.

And they know they live in a world where Richard knows that his power over them is unquestioned.

Anna Cordingley’s design of too-shiny golds with brown and orange brocades could be a Toorak mansion or an inner city restricted-entry club, but left me feeling like we were in London in the 1930s and Edward VIII was about to abdicate and change the power dynamic in his society because the woman he loved was considered scum.

It’s a production that explores gender, but Mulvany’s gender is irrelevant from the moment she turns around on the stage and we see Richard. In a black suit with short hair and dark eyebrows, he’s small and looks younger than he is. His scoliosis (and hers) is a constant source of pain that he tries to dismiss as irrelevant but he can’t sit or move without being forced to feel his difference.

With his soliloquies, Richard brings the audience into his confidence and makes us complicit in his choices. He keeps us in his gaze when no one else on stage is aware they are being watched. He needs us to know that he chose to be the villain, but every interaction shows us that his villainy comes from far more than his conscious choice.

It’s impossible to stop watching him and Mulvany’s remarkable and powerful performance keeps us with Richard so we see the world through his pain and anger. She makes us care about this man whose behaviour is abhorrent.

So yeah, see Kate’s Dick.


This review is on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: The Scottish one

Macbeth
Bell Shakespeare
8 June 2012
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 23 June
bellshakespeare.com.au

I have a confession to make: I've never read the Scottish play and, somehow, I've never seen a production. Shame on me, but it left me in an unusual position of being able to see if the Bell Shakespeare production really tells the story. All I knew was it's the one about the power mad couple and witches, and, being a Shakespeare tragedy, most people die.

It's unusual to see a professional telling of Shakespeare that doesn't assume a basic knowledge of the text and focuses its telling on interpretation and originality.

The most comprehensive interpretation of the text is Anna Cordingly's design that feels like a slab of cold rough Scottish highlands, where cardigans are a must, with a mirror ceiling that brings the magic and threat into the world the Macbeths think they can control. And Kate Mulvany's lady Macbeth is the most complex and fascinating person in it.

Peter Evans direction brings some original moments (I'm not THAT unfamiliar with it), but it's almost monotone, even Dan Speilman's Macbeth. Our beloved Bard wrote the best stories ever, but if he were writing today, it'd be suggested that he get more of the action onstage and maybe spend a bit less time in the character's heads. Shakespeare tellings that sing are directed like a piece of music is conducted. The dense and difficult text is beautiful to read, but it can't be relied on to tell the story on a stage. Shakespeare is about tone and rhythm and dissonance; it's like opera without the music.

It's clear that the terrific cast have worked on the nitty gritty of their characters (and probably improvised Macbeth and Banquo at the pub toasting Fleance's birth at the pub), but this production loses the vastness of the overall picture and the telling of the story is flat.

Come interval, I had to read the synopsis and ask who was the dude in the blue jumper with the beard. It was Malcolm, and I thought Fleance was a witch.

Review: Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar
Bell Shakespeare
7 September 2011
Fairfax Studio, the Arts Centre
to 17 September, and touring
www.bellshakespeare.com.au

Julius Caesar isn't the sexist of Shakespeare's writings. It's one of the politics and togas plays that's favoured in high schools for its large cast, relative shortness and the "lend me your rears" pun. Bell Shakespeare brave this neglected history play and bring it into a recognisable world of factions and power suits with many shades of grey.

JC is a wordy play about the power of words. Most of the action takes place off, so its success lies in making the on stage story about the decisions and dilemmas facing those reporting and those hearing.

This adaption, by director Peter Evans and dramaturge Kate Mulvany (who also plays Cassius), is about the group of conspirators and is structured to ensure it's about people dealing with the consequences of their choices, rather than reacting to the changing will of the masses. And the masses have been reduced to voices.

This lets it become a personal story that soars towards the end as Brutus (Colin Moody) is left alone to face the new world he created. (Purists be damned, the choice to bring the ending back is brilliant.)  This would be even stronger if we were with Brutus from the beginning. Act one suffers from not choosing a side. Breaking to interval as Caska (Gareth Reeves) declares, "Speak hands for me!” I wasn't sure if we were meant to be scared for Caesar (Alex Mengelet channeling a Godfather-like Brando) or excited that the faction looked likely to succeed in toppling their leader. We love Shakespeare's stories because they explore so many perspectives, but none of this complexity is lost by the choice to interpret and focus on a hero.

It's also a play known for its wishy washy chicks. Mulvany's Cassius obviously addresses the balance, but Calphurnia (Rebecca Bower) and Portia (Katie-Jean Harding) are far more persuasive than often seen and leave us wishing that Caesar and Brutus listened to their wives.

As this Rome believes in omens and gods Evans' direction allows for a fluidity that allows for "strange and wonderful signs", but some choices felt more style than substance, especially when the slow-mo entrance/exits took focus off the story action and on to the mechanics of getting actors on and off the stage.

Julius Caesar is touring, so each venue will adapt to the staging in different ways and it's a minor quibble for a production that lets heart, dilemma and regrets drive its history.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review: Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Bell Shakespeare

School version

9 August 2011

The National Theatre

Romeo and Juliet is a story about horny teenagers who make stupid decisions and the adults around them who don't realise that teenagers will make stupid decisions. It's an awesome story that would earn an "it's complicated" as a Facebook relationship status.

One of the many wonderful things about Bell Shakespeare is that they bring these glorious and complex stories to as many people as possible. Their schools program continues to excite young Bard fans and their web site is filled with resources, links and opportunities for teachers to create as much enthusiasm and love for Shakespeare as teens have for writers like JK Rowling and John Marsden.  But, unlike novels, plays are just words if they're not performed and Bell's young school troupe are show what all those words mean.

Directed by Damien Ryan, this abridged version is performed by a delightful cast of eight who bring fun, enthusiasm and understanding to the text, but the cutting decisions seem to have been based on retaining well-known scenes and showing language, rather than focusing on story and creating teenagers that teenagers care about.

The cutting is vital for time (and usually does no harm), but by losing some of the final scenes when characters could make choices that would make everything work out, the momentum and the hope is lost, which leaves the ending flat.  R&J should always end in silence or blubbing, even when we know the outcome.

I saw R&J with a few hundred well-behaved teens; I know what they thought of it. I've sat in cinemas with  teen audiences gripped by Harry Potter; I've seen teen audiences hang on every word that John Marsden says. If a teen audience (or any audience) is displaying signs of boredom, something isn't working.

I was a teenager when I first read R&J, saw it performed (thank you SA STC) and watched a couple movie versions. It's a play about teenagers in love. In the 80s, I loved it like I loved John Hughes films. There's no reason for any audience to not get it, unless the story isn't clear and the characters are not like teenagers.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing
Bell Shakespeare 
10 June 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 25 June
bellshakespeare.com.au

Ring the bells and make much ado about this Much Ado because nothing is better than a pun-filled night of cruel deeds, fake death and unrequited lust.

Big Willy loved a double meaning and if he'd been in London in the 1960s, I'm sure he would have moonlighted as a Carry On writer. If you've ever thought that the old Bill is a bit stuffy, Bell Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing will set you straight, and leave you suitably bent.

Much Ado is one of the comedies. It's the one where the reluctant lovers Benedick (Toby Schmitz) and Betrice (Blazey Best) are duped into fancying the hell out of each other, as schmaltzy lovers Claudio (Sean Hawkins) and Hero (Alexandra Fisher) nearly break up when a really mean deception goes to plan. It's about ladies sighing no more because men are deceivers ever and reminds us that a hey nonny nonny will always feel better than a sulk.

The cast mix of experienced and less experienced actors creates a fresh and authentic balance of endless energy that will ensure that anyone not in love with Shakespeare will be by the final applause.

Schmitz lets the audience be Bendick's best friend with soliloquies that make you want to share a flagon of cider with him and talk all night, and he's matched by Best's firey and compassionate Beatrice.  Bell Shakespeare favourites Arky Michael and Robert Alexander delight every moment they are on stage, while Sean O'Shea's Don John re-defines the nasty jealous uncle and Max Gilles's malaproping Dogberry shows just how much life is left in the old dog and ensures that auspicious persons will always suspect his age and place.

Then there's Stephen Curtis's design, which is part-Fellini, part-Brunswick-end-of-Lygon-Street and leaves you wanting to hug your lover from the back of a Vespa before an endless night of home made antipasto, Chianti and exhausting passion. Or at least re-embrace high-waisted pants, hair curlers and swirly net petticoats.

Directed by John Bell, this Much Ado About Nothing is an utter joy that brings every joke and every dilemma and tear out of this complex and very funny story. It left me wanting more and I think that I want "Press me to death with wit" on my gravestone.


This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

PS: If you're in London, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are up to  Much Ado

Review: King Lear

King Lear
Bell Shakespeare
28 May 2010
Playhouse, The Arts Centre

Walking across Prince's Bridge after King Lear, I overheard a couple discussing Edgar and Edmund. How brilliant is that? Bell Shakespeare's production told the story so well that people were leaving the theatre talking about the characters, not the actors.

It's hard to believe that it was 20 years since John Bell established a company dedicated to our Bard and are celebrating with a national tour of King Lear, with the company's namesake playing the king for the third time in his career.

Director Marion Potts (soon to be Artistic Director of Malthouse Theatre) makes character a priority and ensures that every heightened syllable brings the audience closer to the truth and madness  by allowing each performer to develop a very personal interpretation of their character. Jane Montgomery Griffiths's Goneril is especially fascinating, Peter Carroll's Fool is how I will think of this Fool from now on and Bell's Lear is clearly the from-the-heart interpretation Bell has always wanted to show.

Supporting the cast, story flows from Dale Ferguson's understated stage design and his "robes and furred gowns" unashamedly declare power and status.  Act One is accompanied by Bree van Reyk's on-stage percussion punctuating the language, building the tension and becoming such an integral guide in the world that characters freely add their own emphasis and beats; it's removal in Act Two leaves a world searching for guidance.

Bell Shakespeare grace our main stages and also work consistently to bring the Bard's tales to "all Australians, no matter who or where they are". With school programs,  a regional teacher's scholarship and remarkable programs like the Hearts in a Row (HIAR) partnership with The Big Issue, this company refuse to think that Shakepeare is just for fizz-swilling toffs.

Edgar closes King Lear with a reminder to bloggers and reviewers:  "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say." I say that this is the kind of Shakespeare that I love.

This review appears on AussieThearte.com

Venus & Adonis

Venus & Adonis
Malthouse Theatre Company and  Bell Shakespeare
20 April 2008
CUB Malthouse, Beckett Theatre

“She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not loved.” When Shakespeare wrote his poetic interpretation of the Venus & Adonis myth, he knew that thousands of years had not changed the dilemma of being a woman who loves. Malthouse Theatre and Bell Shakespeare continue to explore the nature of this myth in an original, complex and resonating production.

As humans, we are forever drawn to myth and tales that have existed since the first stories were told. How we tell them changes, but the eternal nature of human emotion and experience repeats though each generation of storytellers. Director Marion Potts and dramaturge Maryanne Lynch use the Bard’s interpretation to re-tell the Venus myth. What they have brought into our contemporary theatre is an intricate and powerful exploration of women and love. In a timeless hotel room, in the forest of a city, woman remains an untouchable goddess, a filthy whore and every powerful and powerless incarnation in between.

There is no Adonis on the stage. We, as audience, take on this role. We watch, are seduced by and reject the advances of Venus, played by, the perfectly cast, Susan Prior and Melissa Madden Grey. Our rejection is figurative as both are outstanding and it’s only theatrical convention that stops the audience from leaping up to join them. I’d watch Melissa Madden Grey cross the road. The amazing Meow Meow aside, Madden Grey’s range has taken her effortlessly from The Production Company to Pina Bausch Tanztheater. Can she do Shakespeare? Of course she can, and does it in a way that makes us want to keep watching and listening. Susan Prior contrasts and complements Madden Grey. Their performances seamlessly merge and separate as each new level of Venus is exposed.

In fear of repeating myself, the Malthouse design team keep getting everything right. Anna Tregloan’s set and costume encapsulate the complexity and timelessness of the myth, and the conflicting restriction and freedom of the women. Paul Jackson’s lighting continues to support and emphasise every emotion on the stage and David Franzke’s sound brings a remarkable element to the production, as the amplification almost turns us into voyeurs, rather than invited watchers. And he lets us hear Andrée Greenwell’s equally perfect composition.

Each element of this production is stunning, but as a whole there seems to be something missing. I found myself admiring the micro, because I wasn’t completely engaged by the macro. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was trying too hard to interpret and understand, rather than just enjoy.

Venus & Adonis is original and captivating. Like all myth, we don’t really need to consciously understand it to get the full emotional benefit. Enjoy this work by letting the images seep into your unconscious and see what feelings and memories or your own appear.
 
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.