Review: Cloudstreet

Cloudstreet
Malthouse Theatre
11 May 2019
Merlyn Theatre
19 June
malthousetheatre.com.au

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

The 1991 novel Cloudstreet won WA writer Tim Winton his second of four Miles Franklin Awards. It's a book that's easy to find in op shops as it's studied at high school, has been a telly mini-series and is one of those books that needs to be seen in bookcases.

The 1988 Black Swan and Company B Belvoir stage adaption by Nick Enright and Justin Monjo brought a new generation to the story as it toured Australia and went to London.

Matt Lutton directs the new Malthouse production. He's from Perth and says how reading the book helped him "understand what it meant to be growing up on Perth". Now, he lives in Melbourne and this Cloudstreet is more about its far-reaching themes than a reflection on living in the most isolated capital city in the world.

In the early 1940s, circumstance, luck or God bring the Pickles and the Lamb families to share a sprawling house in suburban Perth: 1 Cloud Street. Each family have challenges, successes and tragedies – and the threat of a serial killer – over the 20 years it takes for their stories to become one. It can be seen all on one night or split into two.

The stage adaption naturally cuts and condenses the novel. The pig doesn’t make the cut, but the third person narration does and is given directly to the characters. Talking about themselves in the third person creates intimacy as the audience become confessor and are allowed to know more than we see. But Lutton's new production brings the story even further into now. The most powerful changes are the introduction of Noongar language – the house is on Noongar land – and the "Black Man" character has become a male and a female storyteller. This helps to honour the story of the women who once lived, and now haunt, the house and, supported by a racially diverse, makes the story less about the people who lived there in the mid-20th century.

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

This is supported by having a small cast playing multiple roles. The bigger picture is evident, but it doesn't help make the story clear. There are times when it's confusing as to who are Pickles, Lambs, storytellers or new characters. Even something as simple as a cast list and synopsis in the program would help.

The actors with one character are much stronger. Natasha Herbert and Bert LaBonte are Dolly and Sam Pickles. Alison Whyte and Greg Stone are Oriel and Lester Lamb. Each bring a compelling understanding of the characters and the added complexity of seeing them with an empathy that can be missed in the book. Herbert lets Dolly be loved far more than she ever allows her herself to be loved; Whyte shows how Oriel hides her broken soul; and LaBonte and Stone each find a different kind of acceptance, determination and lovability in Sam and Lester.

As the story moves into the latter years, it becomes that of Rose Pickles (Brenna Harding), Quick Lamb (Guy Simon) and ultimately Fish Lamb (Benjamin Oakes), the favourite child who nearly drowns and suffers brain damage. Harding also brings a complexity to Rose and lets her make decisions rather than face consequences; Simon captures Quicks constant guilt; and Oakes lets Fish always react with a mix of wonder and patient acceptance that one day he will go back to the water.

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

At first view, Zoe Atkison's design looks like it's embodied the themes and motifs of the story with dark waves and hints of ghosts on its three sides. The stage floor of old thick floorboards and hidden walls that slide in and out, like the lift doors on Star Trek, hint at the old house and its many rooms. But as the rooms are indistinguishable, the design doesn't capture the house as the titular character that wants the families gone as much as it wants them to stay.

While there are some mighty powerful moments with complete black outs and a flooding stage, the story often feels too literal. Its magical realism of rowing through fields, swimming through stars, and Quick Lamb glowing is told far more than is seen. This ultimately makes it feel like a family-saga-cum-soap-opera, which seems to flow against the bigger Dreaming story that’s also being told.

This Cloudstreet isn’t the same as the book, the mini-series or of the first famous production. Its version is very much one seen through a contemporary point of view. This is its strength and part of the reason it doesn’t resonate as strongly as it could. None of which should will stop Cloudstreet lovers from seeing and loving it.

And if you don’t know what the fuss is about, grab a copy from an op shop for a couple of gold coins. For what it's worth, I like the book.

Review: The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon
Producers listed here
4 February 2017
Princess Theatre
open run
bookofmormonmusical.com.au

The Book of Mormon. Ryan Bondy & Auguston Aziz Tchantcho. Photo by Jeff Busby

Oh, I believe!

The expectations of the Australian production of The Book of Mormon were higher than a stoner watching South Park – the Broadway run hasn’t had an empty seat since it opened, and won Tonys, in 2011. These expectations have been reached – and surpassed.

Seeing it once isn’t enough.

Elders Price and Cunningham are 19 and paired off for their two-year Mission, following the thousands of Elders who have set the stereotype of Mormons all over the world. Elder Price (Ryan Bondy) is the perfect Latter Day Saint son. He knows he’s one of Heavenly Father’s favourites and prays to be sent to Orlando, Florida, for theme parks and putt-putt golfing. Elder Cunningham (AJ Holmes) gets everything wrong, is mostly excited to finally have a friend, and has to be told that Uganda, their destination, is in Africa. When they arrive in a village that’s been devastated by poverty and the threat of a local warlord adds to the misery of most of them having AIDS, there’s hope for baptisms – but the villagers have strong opinions about the mercy and goodness of God.

I don’t think I have ever laughed so much.

It’s easy to praise Bondy and Holmes (they have played the roles in international productions and will be replaced by their Australian understudies) who win the undying love of the audience from their first ding dongs. But everyone on stage is as utterly brilliant. Zahra Newman (Nabulungi), Bert LaBonte (Mafala Hatimbi) and Rowan Witt (Elder McKinley) are unforgettable and have each brought an extra bit of themselves to make the roles their own; the background characters are as developed as the protagonists; and the on-stage energy could run a city power grid

Written by Robert Lopez (Avenue Q and the wonderful musical episode of Scrubs), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park), and co-directed by Parker and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (a pile of Broadway shows), the satire of the Mormons and their faith is merciless. It’s created by following the first rule of comedy: tell the truth. Today, about 15 million people believe that truth about the church founded in America in the 1830s, but a lot of truths seem a bit nutso when they’re described.

The Ugandans are equally satirised, but their truth is very different and always seen through the point of view of the Mormons. They aren’t real Ugandans, but an exaggerated version of the “nice” and “innocent” (or warlordy) Africans expected on music theatre stages. Their layer of truth is the poverty and diseases that America could cure today; the cost of an A-reserve ticket could feed a starving child for a long time.

As the super-white American Mormons and the Africans are brought together with a common hope and goal, they are always the heroes of their personal, and the bigger, story. Everyone – even General I-can’t-spoil-the-joke-for-those-who-don’t-know – is loved and always laughed with, far more than at.

This confrontation and shattering of expectations is carried though every element. Glorious, flat, shining Salt Lake City falls away as a rotting dead donkey is dragged through the village; the Mormon boys dance like showgirls; and music theatre nerds can spot the references-cum-homages to shows including Les Miserables, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Hamilton and, of course, The Lion King.

Or just enjoy the joyous obscenity and freaking language, the tighter-than-tight jokes, the foot-perfect chorey, magnificent singing, and insanely brilliant design (Scott Pask, set; Ann Roth, costume; Brian MacDevitt, lighting) that’s as complex and joke-filled as the script.

They’ve done something incredible.

Also on AussieTheatre.com.

As it's also a very expensive ticket (musicals don't welcome everyone), it's worth trying for the nightly $40 ticket lottery. You have to be at the theatre when it's drawn, but it could save you around $400 for two tickets.

Review: Lungs

Lungs
MTC
11 February 2016
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 19 March
mtc.com.au

MTC. Lungs. Bert LaBonte & Kate Atkinson

Duncan Macmillan’s 2011 Lungs opens with a young woman–man couple in Ikea talking about having a baby, and a feeling of safe, well-made-play-for-those-who-live in Windsor/Yarraville/Northcote predictability settles. Settles for a few breaths! This new MTC production brings a life, tension and emotional rhythm to the text that’s like breathing in the first warm air of a beachside spring and ignoring the hint of rotting fish.

There’s little unexpected in the story. The “Shall we have a baby?” not-talking-about-it talk continues for 80 minutes, but covers years without a break or change of costume or place. Once Clare Watson’s super-tight direction brings the couple out of the box into the empty space, they can be anywhere. And with Kate Davis’s neutral costumes, which say everything and suit bath sex to polite coffee in Starbucks, it’s so easy to see the world and the people though our own experiences.

Kate Atkinson and Bert La Bonte bring an honesty and warmth to their character’s imperfections. Despite their inevitable trajectory and heard-before conversations about carbon footprints versus the capacity to love, they take their performances beyond the words into the empty space of what’s hiding in the words. Under Watson’s lead, Lungs finds its truth in the subtext, which let’s us want them to work it out and live in impossible Ikea-nice world where everything fits.

And all of this happens as the set dictates the tension and rhythm of the text, without the actors ever acknowledging what’s going on behind them.

Andrew Bailey’s design (with Richard Vabre’s lighting and Russell Goldsmith’s sound) is a literal metaphor for the emotional upheaval of the characters and for the structure of the text. It seems so obvious that there had to be a moment of genius in its inspiration. Beginning in a showroom-perfect apartment that looks like every other white-box apartment loudly appearing in Melbourne’s suburbs – like the one I live in – its square and surrounding circle hints at the dimensions of Michelangelo’s too-perfect Vitruvian Man, but its perfection is brief.

At first, you notice that it’s not really square. Then books begin to lean on their shelves. With imperceptible movement, the tension of wondering how far it can rotate before it’s too far underscores the tension of a relationship where there has to be a too-far moment and going back is impossible.

With inseparable design, performance and direction, Lungs is a reminder that a well-made middle class play can be far from safe.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Happy People in concert

Happy People in concert

18 October 2014

Chapel off Chapel

to 19 October

Photo by James Terry

Melbourne had the first look at Matthew Lee Robinson's musical Happy People on the weekend.

Its first workshop performance was in Melbourne in 2010 and since then Robinson, a WAPPA graduate, received a Churchill Fellowship to go to the USA to study composition, lyric and book writing under the mentorship of Stephen Schwartz – who wrote Wicked. With more development in the US and dramaturgical input by Schwartz, Happy People is ready to come home.

Inspired by the Australian children's tv program Hi-5, it's about an American kids-tv foursome, the man inside their elephant friend, and their manager. They've been smiling and wearing bright colours for ten years and the cracks are beginning to show. Sunny (Sun Park, who was in Hi-5) and Bobby (Bobby Fox) were married but can barely be in the same room as each other;  Benny (Tom Sharah) is auditioning for a boy band; Sally (Gretel Scarlett) stuck at 25 and isn't keep to turn 30; while Jeff (Bert LaBonté) has had enough of being an elephant, is in love with Sally and is secretly developing his own show with Sunny and hoping for manager (Robyn Arthur) to support them. Everyone's had enough of being happy, until their final tour is announced.

Directed by Chris Parker, the concert version shows that Happy People needs to get onto a stage (with this cast, please) to work out the final kinks. The book feels like it needs some Act 2 complications to raise the stakes and really threaten the relationships, but it's hard to tell when the action's so condensed.

Otherwise, it's ready to go with music that's asking to be sung along to, witty lyrics and a story's that gets behind the endless smiles of kids tv. Let's just hope that we get to see it in Australia (maybe with some Australian content) before the US grabs it and makes us wait.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Last Chance: The Good Person of Szechuan

The Good Person of Szechuan
Malthouse Theatre and National Theatre of China
2 July 2014
Merlyn Theatre
to 20 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

Photo by Pia Johnson

The Good Person of Szechuan. Epic!

And it finishes on Sunday. So there's still a chance to see it again.

The cast and performances are divine (even the ones playing gods), the design is somewhere between wtf and wow, the text is Aussie and the direction's Chinese. And it's as Brechtian as Brecht can be.

Brecht was a German modernist and a Marxist who rejected the emotional heart-grab of namby pamby naturalism and wrote theatre that was about understanding the manipulation and falsity of realistic storytelling in order to see the creation of fiction by rulers, governments and politicians. He wrote because he saw his world being torn apart.

Be it sense, fate or luck, he left his home in Germany in 1933 and moved around Europe (avoiding German invasion) and before going to the USA in 1941. He began Good Person in 1938 and completed it in 1943; no wonder there's enough content in this play to make it feel like it's written for any audience who have seen it since.

Set in a fictional Szechuan-cum-Berlin-cum-Melbourne-cum-AnyCity, it's about three gods coming to earth to find good people. It doesn't take long for them to settle for finding one good person. With the help of a water seller, they meet prostitute Shen Te, who gives them a room for the night and is rewarded with enough money to buy a tobacco shop. And then it gets really hard for her to maintain her goodness.

Photo by Pia Johnson

This version is by Tom Wright, who makes it sound like it was written in Melbourne. And it's directed (in translation) by Chinese director Meng Jinghui, whose work in China comes close to having a cult following. His Rhinoceros in Love was part of the 2011 Melbourne International Arts Festival. I didn't get it. However, I was sitting next to a group of young Chinese women who didn't stop laughing. It clearly spoke to them, and to so many others; it's been in ongoing production in China since 1999. I wanted to know what I was missing.

But I got The Good Person of Szechuan. Perhaps all I needed was a slither of familiarity.

And from the gods arriving with shopping bags and looking like bridezilla Madonna (Christian and pop) icons (design by Marg Horwell), it's a world that's filled with the nearly unrecognisable familiar.

From designer dresses (thank you audience member for telling me that they are genuine expensive frocks and not be-dazzled K-Mart t-shirts) to the smoke machine, piles of baby dolls and the live musician (THE SWEATS) in a glass box, there are no secrets but this forced distancing is combined with performances that draw us back into the world and make us see it as us and ours.

And Moira Finucane, Genevieve Giuffre, Emily Milledge, Josh Price, Bert LaBonté, Richard Pyros, Aljin Abella and Daniel Frederiksen! What more do I need to say.

The friend who came with me did have something else to say and she said it to the man who was sitting two rows behind us, Minister Malcolm Turnball.

"At the after party, I slyly bumped into him accidentally, so he had to notice me. After introductions, I questioned him about what was happening to the boatload of Tamil asylum seekers. His answer was, 'I don't know'. He tried to reassure me they were safe because we were 'looking after them'. I politely berated him about it and he really didn't have much to say. Finally I said, 'You've just seen a play by Brecht. What do you think he'd have to say about this?' Malcolm: 'I know what he'd have to say'. Me: 'Exactly."

I loved this production because it must be talking to those who don't care about Tamil refugees and carbon taxes and slow internet. It's made for our Malcolm Turnballs. If those in power can see the world how we do, surely they'll change.

Nup.


PS. I'm blaming my computer for losing my real review. And by computer, I mean I accidentally deleted it.

Review: Next to Normal

Next to Normal
Melbourne Thearte Company
3 May 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 28 May
www.mtc.com.au

It's been a while since a show left me in tears. With only one tissue, I wasn't prepared for the MTC's production of the Broadway hit Next to Normal.

Next to Normal is about Diana's trauma-induced depression, anxiety and delusion. It opens with her singing about death and being jealous of people in obituaries. Her family have suffered for years and are reaching the point where love isn't enough to cope, and she's meeting with a new doctor.

It took Tom Kitt (Music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) nearly a decade to create this exquisite work. There was extensive research and they workshopped, performed and rewrote it many times. When  the 2008 off-broadway production still wasn't completely grabbing their audiences, they re-wrote again, this time killing songs that had created the show.

It takes time and support and feedback, and more time and support to create work this good. If we had that kind of support in Australia and we didn't give up on shows after one run, we'd be producing work this good. The 2009 Broadway production of Next to Normal won Tony Awards (including Best Score) and the 2010 Pultitzer Prize for Drama.

A musical won the Pulitzer Prize! There was controversy, but anyone who has seen any production knows why it won.

Shakespeare brought us into the minds of his characters with the soliloquy. Great musical theatre writers (like Sondheim, and Boubill and Schönberg) use song. Kitt and Yorkey never let us passively (and comfortably) watch, but make us see and feel what it's like to be in the breaking hearts and souls of their characters, who are just like us. It's almost impossible to distance ourselves from this story.

Next to Normal is a remarkable piece, but with such sensitive material, which is so close to too many of us, and such a dark sense of humour ("Valium is my favourite colour"), it could be a disaster in the wrong hands. Fortunately it was given to Dean Bryant (director) and Matthew Frank (musical director). These two met studying Musical Theatre at WAPPA and have gone on to create works incuding Prodigal, Once We Lived Here and Virgins: A Musical Threesome. I didn't see any of them, but will not miss anything these two have a hand in creating again. They get musicals. They get this style of storytelling that soars when it uses emotion and the subconscious reactions that music evokes.

And their cast are perfect.  Melbourne-favourites Matt Hetherington and Bert LaBonte never disappoint.  As the teen characters,  Gareth Keegan, Christy Sullivan and Benjamin Hoetjes are three recent WAPPA graduates who testify that there really is no other place to study Musical Theatre in Australia. But the surprise is Kate Kendall as Diana. Better known for TV and non-musical stage work, she brings an emotional truth and understanding to her performance that you can almost forget that she's singing.

Next to Normal isn't a show to miss, especially if you're one of those people who doesn't "like" musicals. This one will show you how good they can and should be. It's a heartbreaking story about hurts that "never heal" and, for all it's hope and love, leaves you understanding why some people can't get out of bed each morning.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

Tomfoolery

Tomfoolery: The Words and Music of Tom Lehrer
Melbourne Theatre Company
25 November 2006
The Arts Centre, Playhouse

From its unexpected and explosive opening, Tomfoolery is a thoroughly enjoyable night of song, dance and comedy. As expected of the Melbourne Theatre Company, it is designed, directed and performed very well, but it fails to be the challenging and irresistible theatre that should be produced by our local flagship company.

Tomfoolery was adapted by Cameron Mackintosh and Robin Ray in 1980, as a cabaret of loosely linked Tom Lehrer songs. Lehrer’s work remains funny - very funny. How can you not laugh at 'The Masochism Tango', 'The Vatican Rag' and 'I Got It from Agnes'. His writing is intelligent and witty, but it has become nostalgia rather than the contemporary and shocking satire that it once was. The inclusion of very recent material referencing Korean nuclear testing, Dick Cheaney and murdered KGB agents, reinforced that the absurdities of politics and war really never change. Nonetheless, it didn’t comment on Australian society, apart from proving that we are more aware of US and UK politics than we are of our own.

I also have to question why it was performed in the “original American”, apart from to set up a couple of jokes. Were the accents necessary? Would anyone perform a translated Asian language work with a bad “oriental” accent? The American accents just seemed to distance it further from our own lives.

Then again, I may have been the only person in the audience thinking like that. Tomfoolery is a perfect choice for the (slightly) conservative MTC audience, who were happy to enjoy the show for the nostalgic song and dance night that it was.

The stand out performance of the evening was Mitchell Butel. In fact, it is worth seeing Tomfoolery just for Mitchell. He understood every nuance of the material, supported the ensemble and never let his energy or concentration drop. Keep an eye out for his Elmo in Act 2.

Melissa Madden Grey continued to prove herself to be one of the most versatile, disciplined and funniest around, and Gerry Connolly and Bert LaBonte were contrasting and ideal additions to the ensemble.

The show is, however, being marketed on Rhonda Burchmore. Rhonda is one of our best, but her performance was disappointing. Her energy was low, she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself and failed to reach the standard set by the rest of the cast. She may have been having an off night, but there is no excuse for constantly rearranging jewellery and costume (please just cut the train off that frock), looking at your feet when you move, and failing to stay in character when not “in the spotlight”. The contrast between her and the younger members of the cast was especially noticeable. Learn from those who still love every moment they get on a stage.

If you want well-performed, light-hearted fun for your holiday season theatre outing, Tomfoolery is a good choice, but there are funnier, more relevant and just as well performed cabaret shows next door at the Speigeltent.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com.