What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 9

Last call to have your voice heard and share your love for shows and artists who may not have got meaninless stars this year.

Today we hear from SM favourite Ash, and Eugyeene and Cathy.

Ash Flanders
Theatrical annoyance

Ash Flanders. Photo by Pia Johnson, defaced by FaceApp

Favourite moments of 2019.
 I've been in hiding most of the year due to an ongoing legal skirmish with Anthony Callea's people (those people have no sense of humour) but the first thing that jumped to mind was watching Ellen Burstyn go rogue in 33 Variations, directed by Gary Abrahams.

Ok, let me take you there. Ellen has just noticed her daughter's (Lisa McCune) skirt is unzipping itself onstage and calls her over – by her character name, obvs – and says something like, "Your skirt, darling," and then the Comedy Theatre is SILENT as she wrangles the zip back into place. Ellen knows we'll wait – and we do. Lisa's a total pro, casually moving her hair out of the way, waiting calmly as if this is something they've done a thousand times in rehearsal, something deliberately placed to suggest something about the mother-daughter relationship. But then Ellen, this Broadway ICON, struggles for a second to remember what she was meant to be talking about. So Lisa asks her a leading question, in character of course, and suddenly Ellen's back on track again. It was a very small thing – 15 seconds tops – and besides the sheer gay drama of it all (OMG, first she had to deal with Regan MacNeil and now THIS?!). I loved seeing the solidarity between the performers and the way both of these people were taking care of each other. Actors being kind to other actors is my new favourite thing; I'll have to try it sometime.

And in the opposite camp I of course loved watching the entirely solo Zahra Newman (certainly not helped by those clumsy stage managers dropping water bottles carelessly every night) skillfully create the nightmare we call home in DG's Wake In Fright. The performance was so considered and arch and nasty and perfect. Of course it's boring for me to like Declan's work – especially because everyone does and I'm a contrary piece of shit – but that guy really does make stuff I enjoy...for now.

But, all in all, this was a quiet year for me and theatre. I loved what I saw but I didn't see nearly enough. I loved doing The Temple with some of my all time favourite performers and my new favourite Irish theatre company, Pan Pan. I also had a blast teaching some performance writing skills to students back at my old uni – and watching them take their own work onto the stage almost melted my heart.

Oh, I also saw a stunning piece of live art where my niece married Christ out in Keysborough; I think the work was called Layla's Confirmation.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I feel like everyone I know is even busier next year and I'm thrilled about it. Stoked for the Malthouse season,  especially Stephen Nicolazzo directing Loaded, my one true love Paul Capsis in Go To Hell and the verbatim show Is This A Room has me really excited. I'm also hoping to somehow see Anthem and The Rabble's Unwoman in 2020 (PLEASE LET THESE HAPPEN AGAIN*) as life got in the way this year. Side note: go listen to Emma Valente's story in Maeve Marsden's Queerstories podcast (not stage related, but damn it's good). Selfishly I'm really looking forward to presenting a bunch of new things that I've been spending this year writing.

SM: I too love Emma's Queerstory. Queerstories is one of my favourite car podcasts. But this is about Ash. I totally dug The Temple, especially when people in the audience had no idea what was going on and tried to find an easy story. But my moment with Ash was convincing him that he had enjoyed some theatre this year.

*Anthem is at Perth and Sydney festivals. Why The Rabble are not at every international festivsal is beyond my understanding.

Eugyeene Teh
Theatre maker and designer

Eugyeene Teh. Photo by Antoine Debrill

Favourite moments of 2019.
The Rabble’s Unwoman: timely, meditative and important work that needs to be experienced by everyone. Emma Valente and Kate Davis’s confidently composed images were searing. Yumi Umiumare’s solo performance of suffering in part 3 was a hard watch, but visceral and sensational, and, though wordless, speaks volumes and for me, was the moment (albeit 45 minutes worth of a moment) of 2019.

Jo Lloyd’s Overture for busting the male-dominated lens that has established our stage culture, particularly in the world of dance. It blatantly mocks the male gaze and belittles their conventions in a lighthearted, unrestricted reframing and celebration of women’s bodies.

Zoey Dawson’s Australian Realness at Malthouse. Having worked on her deliciously surreal plays before, I was looking forward to this one and it still managed to surprise and unhinge me, and really made me think about perceptions of reality.

Emma Hall’s World Problems: a beautifully crafted and gentle reflection on who we are among a generational existential crisis.

Anchuli Felicia King’s The Golden Shield at MTC: a rare piece of writing presented by a mainstage company that doesn’t portray China and its people as a force to be feared, but ingeniously flips the frame to reveal real, multi-dimensional Chinese people and their reckoning with a couple of American jerks. It is a play that decolonizes through subtexts. For me, it isn’t just a clever, fast-paced legal thriller. It is all about communicating and understanding a cultural language – something this country gravely lacks

Balit Liwurruk: Strong Girl at St Martins: a powerful and emotional declaration by 12 young Indigenous women on what it is to be a "strong girl".

Finucane and Smith’s The Rapture, Part II: an impassioned cry for help on behalf of our dying planet, and a genuine and urgent beckoning for real action, delivered by the iconic Moira Finucane, who just returned from watching the ice melt in Antartica.

The Very Good Looking Initiative’s Batmania at Melbourne Fringe: a very weird and hallucinatory show that really fucked with conventional theatrical form and offered an exciting glimpse into the future of theatre.

Jean Tong and Lou Wall’s Oh No! Satan Stole my Pineal Gland, from another company that is changing the idea of theatre. Apart from an extremely enjoyable night of ridiculousness, it’s also the winner of the "best title" award.

Andi Snelling’s Happy-Go-Wrong was an incredibly moving and beautiful celebration of life!

Looking forward to in 2020.
Susie Dee and Patricia Cornelius’s Do Not Go Gentle...  I missed the original season and always wished I didn’t.

Kim Ho’s The Great Australian Play, because Kim Ho and a horse. And what it means to be "Australian" and "Great".

Ra Chapman’s K-Box, obvs.

I was very fortunate to hear Stephen Armstrong (creative director of Asia TOPA) speak, in a small room at Tokyo Festival, very clearly about why Australia needs to connect with its Asian neighbours and why it is so important re-balance its cultural identity away from a dominant white identity. Therefore, all things Asia TOPA, particularly Double Delicious, Sipat Lawin’s Are You Ready to Take the Law into Your Own Hands?, post and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre’s Oedipus Schmoedipus, Akira Kasai’s Pollen Revolution and Mallika Sarabhai’s SVA Kranti: The Revolution Within.

SM: I remember the first show I saw that Eugeeyne designed; he takes every bit of subtext and theme and creates a physical world that lets you understand so much in a glance, while always bringing his own remarkable and distinct aesthetic. He's been doing amazing things away from Melbourne this year, so my best moments are easily talking to him before and after shows.


Cathy Hunt
Director, dramaturg

Cathy Hunt

Favourite moments of 2019.
Counting and Cracking, Belvoir at Sydney Town Hall, Sydney Festival: the epic scale of the storytelling knocked my socks off; the way each strand was woven in and the whole festival experience of it. This is a Sydney I recognise, where almost everybody has a strong tie to someplace else, with Coogee Beach and people who don’t understand their own family’s whole story yet because all they have known is this place. The moment before the end of Act 2 when one character was about to get on a refugee boat bound for Australia, and the whole audience was taut, you could feel extreme anxiety on his behalf, knowing what might happen. Beautiful and big and somehow still simple.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I queued with my friend Shannon one Sunday morning in January for free tickets to final dress rehearsals, we were numbers 500 and 501 in the snaking queue. Melbourne provided and it did not disappoint. I particularly loved the immersiveness of the staging, Paula Arundell as Hermione and Gillian Cosgriff, who was supreme in an unnamed role. But I say no more…

Barbara and The Camp Dogs, Malthouse and Belvoir directed by Leticia Cáceres written by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine. Truly stunning, raw, roughly beautiful and incredibly brave production that broke through defences and spoke straight to the heart about how simultaneously destructive and creative we can be as human beings. Powerful piece claiming the space to get angry and not shying away from the underlying reasons that keep producing that anger, underlining First Nations sovereignty while cranking out superb tunes and putting the audience on saggy couches like in any run down pub. Loved this!!

You’re Safe Till 2024, by David Finnigan. ventured to Bunjil Place on a stormy night to see David freak out a small and select audience with his theatre science presentation of the "Great Acceleration", which has occurred since mid-last century, including a truly terrifying visual explanation using water bottles and a Coles "recyclable plastic" bag of how chickens have stacked it on since 1945.

Wake in Fright at Malthouse. Declan Greene and Zahra Newman's nightmare journey through an Australia that felt all too horribly recognisable. Stunning technically and with a virtuosic flexible performance by Zahra as the narrator desperate for a drink of water who keeps having booze chucked unwittingly down their throat. Incredible collaboration from all involved.

View from a Bridge at MTC directed stunningly, sparely by Iain Sinclair with the heart-rendingly genuine performance of Zoe Terakes as Catherine.

World Problems by Emma Hall at fortyfivedownstairs, especially the moment when the memories tumbled over into the future and things started going awry, the fantastical imaginings of that whilst the effort of putting together a trampoline was enacted. (The night I went we got to go to a sustainable food workshop after, with permaculturist Kat Lavers and I took home her mum’s lime pickle: big highlight)

The Other Place by Christopher Bryant at Theatre Works directed surprisingly by Jess Dick and performed with precision and energy by the ensemble of five women. This play took so many circular routes towards tracing, mapping and imagining the different destinies of Betty Burstall and Buzz Goodbody. The way it kept not explaining, never being able to explain but just making another pass at exploring one possibility as to why some of us go one way, step out of the room and others are able to flourish despite every adversity, moved me so much. As did the writing in its choice of the stories told and the multiple modes of representation, even just the attempt to forge a connection and the focus on these two particular women’s inner and outer lives. Design in the large space was innovative and entertaining but I can imagine another incarnation of the play in a smaller space, like the rebuilt La Mama…

Pomona at Red Stitch directed by Gary Abrahams: a strange, potent production in which the choice to range the cast around the side of the space to bear witness intensified the exploration of violence. Such a stellar cast and great to see Jessica Clarke, Julia Grace and Artemis Ioannides be differently brilliant on that stage.

Control by Keziah Warner directed so intelligently by Julian Meyrick at Red Stitch. Brilliant writing exploring the ways we shape and structure each other and are unavoidably shaped and structured by our situations. Each of three parts so different from each other but gorgeous interrelationships in each, particularly in the last part where Esta (Naomi Rukavina) and Isabelle (Christine O’Neill) inhabit and subvert the pupil/teacher and servant/master power dynamics.

Thigh Gap at La Mama written by Jamaica Zuanetti directed by Alice Darling. Afrenetic fever dream looking at unattainable body standards self-imposed and friend-policed, performed excellently by Veronica Thomas and Lauren Mass. It went beyond issues and became performatively extreme. The physical comedy around the sudden serendipity of drunkly discovering a baguette is a moment I won’t forget.

UnWoman by The Rabble at The Substation: a work so entirely dramaturgically complete, supremely satisfying and symbolically resonant as if carved out of the stones that Yumi Umimare birthed in the final part of the triptych. Also very funny on the way through, thanks to Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sussman in the second part, waiting for their unnamed procedure ,and the strange soporific forest of the pregnant women in their round containment.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Red Stitch: A new production of Feather in the Web by the brilliant and hilarious Nick Coyle directed by Declan Greene. I saw it in Sydney when it opened and need to see this incarnation happening as part of Midsumma. Orlando by Sarah Ruhl directed by Stephen Nicolazzo. Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch directed by the inimitable and wonderful Jenny Kemp,.

Asia TOPA: The Seen and Unseen – a collaboration by Melbourne based and Balinese theatre makers designed by Euygeene Teh lighting by Jenny Hector and dramaturgy by Adena Jacobs.

What Every Girl Should Know a new play by Monica Byrne set in 1914 in a Catholic reformatory,  at Brunswick Mechanics in February. Produced by Between the Buildings, directed by me, designed by Eloise Kent and sound designed by Jess Keeffe.

SM: Cathy's measured and help back direction of Love/Chamberlain at Theatre Works got into the hearts of its creators, on and off the stage, and  misjudged women it was written about. She removed the tabloid sensationalist lens and explored how and why women who dare step away from expectations are judged and hounded until they break.

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 13

One more latecomer; extra late because I ignored email for a couple of weeks. If there are any more late ones, send them through and I'll add them here.

Cathy Hunt
Director, dramaturg

Cathy Hunt

Favourite moments in 2018
Brother’s Wreck by Jada Alberts at Malthouse located you inside a very difficult and unguarded family dynamic,. Taking place during the Darwin build up, it was interrupted with bursts of rage in a powerful performance by Dion William, deep grief just able to be weathered with community, and tough warmth of the auntie kind dispensed by Lisa Flanagan. All finally released as the rain came. Moved and shook me.

Trustees by Belarus Free Theatre at Melbourne Festival and Malthouse. There were moments in this layered work where you had to hold your breath, particularly the charged exchanges between Tammy Anderson and Daniel Schlusser dredging up the underlying colonialism which still snakes between us all and underpins everything in this country. Schlusser stood in for the dominant white men like John Howard and Anderson demanded that we really see her as a black woman comfortable in her own skin and a playwright, while dismissing and tolerating his extravagant and vocal guilt. The sequence that most struck me was driven by Niharika Senapati who started from a very relaxed place but then was able to escalate and carry the whole audience with her exuberance until they were nearly dancing out of their chairs before she was brutally thrown down and oppressed.

Aurum choreographed by Alice Topp, Australian Ballet. Dance so intoxicating that I couldn’t take in enough with my eyes; unlike anything I’ve ever seen the Australian Ballet make.

Nether choreographed by Lauren Langlois for Next Move 11 at Chunky Move. Like witnessing a new language take form and be articulated through the body. (Reminded me of the film Arrival )

Calamity Jane from One Eyed Man, Arts Centre Melbourne. Recklessly hectic, hugely joyous and delightfully queer, though I badly wanted Calamity to make a home with Katie and depart wildly from the original, heteronormative ending! Seeing it again soon when it moves to the Comedy Theatre. Can’t wait!!

The Crucible at VCA directed by Adena Jacobs. They rediscovered the motif of contamination in witchcraft through a design element of something strange and viscous that looked like maple syrup dripping dow; made me apprehend this play in an utterly new way. Potent gender-blind casting too, Sam Rowe as Mary Warren was quite remarkable, as was Lucy Ansell as John Proctor.

The Nightingale & The Rose, by Little Ones Theatre at Theatre Works, for the astonishing dynamic between Jennifer Vuletic as the Nightingale and Yuchen Wang as the Rose; a strange, sexy impossible yearning between an older woman and younger man (which reminded me of Simon Callow’s book Love is Where it Falls)

Strangers in Between by Tommy Murphy at fortyfivedownstairs for Midsumma directed by Daniel Lammin. It felt so much like Sydney in the 90s, so movingly honouring the families we find for ourselves.

I also really dug Morgan Rose’s The Bachelor S17 E5 at Mechanics – totally inspired. I was there crushed in on the closing night and really loved having the space to contemplate the absurdity of the culture of giving the alpha male so much space and pitting all the female-identified characters against him. Will Bride’s absent minded sense of natural entitlement was absolute gold.

Although I worked on both of these last two shows, I can’t keep from sneakily mentioning them as they were amazing pieces of theatre incorporating music and sound in totally new ways.

Dybbuks from Chamber Made at Theatre Works, conceived and directed by Samara Hersch. This layered work was a truly extraordinary and haunting exploration of how we can live with the dead drawing on the Jewish myth of the Dybbuk who possesses a living person and uses their voice to resolve what can never truly be resolved. Incredible vocal and physical improvisation, it was both visually and aurally overwhelming. A truly unique work to experience, it persists in the memory for its complicated beauty and concentrated consideration of difficult, dark and erotic areas of human experience.

Lorelei by Victorian Opera. A feminist opera featuring gorgeous frocks to make Ru Paul drool by Marg Horwell illuminated by Paul Jackson, directed with virtuosic talent and a superb sense of humour and humanity by Sarah Giles, libretto by Casey Benedetto and Gillian Cosgriff and lush, liquid music by Julian Langdon performed brilliantly by literal sirens Ali McGregor, Antoinette Halloran and Dimity Shepherd.

Looking forward to in 2019
Finally getting to see Blackie Blackie Brown at the Malthouse!

Control by Keziah Warner on as part of Red Stitch; I read some earlier drafts so am really interested to see the final work.

The Australian Premiere of Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill directed by the formidable and phenomenal Jenny Kemp

Also very excited to see Mr Burns, a post-electric play by Anne Washburn at fortyfivedownstairs as I’ve been wanting to see it for a while.

Lady Example by Alice Will and Caroline as I missed it in Next Wave and heard such good things.

Biladurang by Joel Bray sounds really intriguing, performed in a hotel room. I liked his work Dharawungara in Next Move 11.

I’m looking forward to seeing The Selfish Giant for Victorian Opera composed by Simon Bruckard, based on Oscar Wilde’s fairytale.

At MTC, A View From the Bridge directed by Iain Sinclair; heard great things about his production of this play in Sydney.

Also keen to see Golden Shield by Anchuli Felicia King.

And I might be lured back to Arts Centre Melbourne for the return of Merciless Gods.

SM: My favourite thing from Cathy this year is this looking forward to list. A list like this – including shows that are indie, funded, emerging, established, huge, intimate, scripted, developed, adapted, sung, danced – reminds us just how vast and diverse theatre and performance is in Melbourne. If you're looking for a list of shows to see, start here.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 11

Because last minute.

Andrew Westle
Finished his Phd
Delving into Dance podcast

Andrew Westle

Favourite moments in 2017
A year that was tarnished by the inauguration of DT (SM: He self-googles; we don't want him here by searching for his name) and the divisiveness of his politics of hate. The same year we saw the expensive and divisive postal vote and the increased focus of gender inequities in the creative industries, alongside the increased reporting of sexual abuse. 2017 is the year that appears to mark a precipice. A call for action; what is the trajectory we have set ourselves?

There were three works that answered the call, all significant departures from the path our political leaders appear to want to take us and complicating the status quo. They have marked me in distinct and significant ways. They have all changed me!

Hannah Gadsby, Nanette.
What the fuck! This was just a phenomenal performance. I was blessed to see the return season. One microphone and one enormous Hamer Hall stage, a stage too often reserved for "high art". A stunning juxtaposition for the critique of high art outlined during the show. Ask Hannah what she thinks of Picasso… and rightly so. The show was perfectly structured and bravely performed. The unresolved tension at the end was palpable. A call for action. I turned to Bec Reid with the knot in my chest as we looked for the words: “WHOW!” What else can be said?

Taylor Mac, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
24-Decade, like Nanette, was a provocation and a call to action. The audience were implicated as part of the mode of delivery. Generally, I loath audience participation and seek to hide from any invitation to participate. But for a radical faerie realness ritual sacrifice, I was there! The audience participation felt so natural as inclusion as part of the mode of performance and the nature of its creation.

Vote one Taylor for President. The performance models what it would be like if we had a leader that valued the diversity of voices, including queers, women and people of colour.

It was unapologetically queer in its politics. A protest. A celebration. A radical faerie realness ritual sacrifice. It was everything and more. A temporary community that reflected my politics and my love of what and who humans can be.

Jonathan Holloway said to me on the first night that the work would change the city (a huge call, I though at the time). BUT YES! Not a single person couldn’t have been changed. Personally, Taylor gave value to my queer politic in a way that doesn’t often feature in theatre of a generic LGBTIQ nature.

Not a day that has passed without reflection upon Taylor’s show. From slow dancing with strangers to the validation of anonymous cock sucking! Machine Dazzle, Tiger and the whole crew! Incredible!

All the Queens Men, The Coming Back Out Ball
The vision of Tristan Meecham, The Coming Back Out Ball paid homage to our LGBTI Elders. While involved in the ball as the maître d', I can say without bias this was the best night of my life. An artistic intervention based on research that literally changed peoples lives. The project embraced and celebrated our elders, with a room of over 500 people full of love and joy.

I was embraced by a lesbian who was in tears of joy saying, “This is the best night of my life". It is the first time I have been recognised as a lesbian and an elder.” I spoke to a 68-year-old trans woman who used the ball as her post-op debutante. Then there was a couple who were celebrating their 26th Anniversary. This was a truly safe and celebratory space, with a three course meal for all the Elders and amazinging performances from the likes of Robyn Archer, Deborah Cheetham and Toni Lalich.

The Ball embraced everything wonderful about inclusion and community!

Honorable mentions: Attractor at Asia TOPA; Angels in America; Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster, Nicola Gunn; Do Not Collect $200; Gabrielle Nankivell’s Wildebeest for Sydney Dance Company; All the Sex I've Ever Had; Melanie Lane’s Nightdance; and Wild Bore.

Looking forward to in 2018
In 2018 I will be spending significant time in the UK, so really looking forward to the experience the new and unknown. Seeking works that profile a diversity of voices, the queer, the unique and works that engage their audiences in re-imagining the world we could inhabit.


Cathy Hunt
Director, dramaturg

Cathy Hunt

Favourite moments in 2017
The Happy Prince Little Ones Theatre, La Mama.  In this almost unbearably delicate production, the series of encounters and gradual entwining of the hopelessly selfish prince even in her compassion and the beautiful reckless generous obliviousness of the roller-skating swallow with his tiny strength which he gives up accidentally. As they began to see each other they disintegrate and that love was devastating.

The Encounter, Complicite, Malthouse. It stopped, shifted and altered time when I was within it, a huge feat and one that made the world sit differently afterwards. Despite the vastly British framing, familiar if effective storytelling tricks to make us trust, a huge interior journey became possible.

Free Admission, Ursula Martinez, Arts Centre Melbourne. Ursula brought in and broke down (by constructing) a wall! She freely admitted through a "Sometimes I..." structure drawing from the free association much that isn’t usually allowed to enter into theatrical or our mental space. Potent, unique and challenging.

Passenger, Footscray Community Arts Centre and Arts Centre. Not so much for what happened on the bus, but for the incremental inroads this work made into the real world beyond. How the uninspiring Docklands we drove through became part of the audience’s imaginative terrain. The pleasure of spotting strange characters, a Clint Eastwood-esque figure on horseback, and the way it shifted our relation to overlooked, ordinary over-developed urban spaces, has stayed with me.

Book of Exodus part 1 and part 2, Fraught Outfit, Theatre Works. Navigated the weight of time, of history, of cultural destiny with first two children then a whole band trying to find their way through the dark desert. From a slow journey through (part 1) a white world of futile foam with discoveries like a gingerbread house through (part 2) into a shadowy black space shining with gold and a lamplike sun in which childhood objects like sleeping bags and scooters alternated with displays of power and detachment that were never held onto too tightly, but slipped through young fingers like uncomprehended ash. The final moment of the babies having a bacchanal, suckling and the deus ex machina descent of Euygeene Teh’s incredible gold-breasted milk-dispensing contraption was unparalleled.

Queen of Wolves, Nick Coyle, Hares and Hyenas. An Act of indomitable mental and imaginative fortitude in which Nick Coyle embodies Frances Glass, a determined governess-type charged to restore a haunted house to a semblance of order. I marvelled as I felt so many things. The Hares and Hyenas wallpaper became the peeling veneer of a cobwebby mansion. The cello-playing frenzy and channelling of a louche Southern former mistress of the house was unfathomably funny. A seriously glorious work of theatre with crazy high production values. Must see! Crying out for another season.

Merciless Gods, Little Ones Theatre, Darebin Speakeasy. This work transported me into the dark subterranean places of our unbridled uncensored feelings and was so intense and violent in parts, yet terribly tender in others. The drive to display and dramatise what surges underneath even apparently ordinary moments and relationships masquerading as familial, the unabashed blatancy of the project and its incredible realisation by the ensemble and the whole team made for compelling theatre. The palette of reds and the spatial design like a tongue sticking out between the seating banks seemed like the only possible setting for this act of collective calling up of the spirit of a whole decade.

One of the Good Ones, Cope St Indigenous Arts Collective, Metanoia. I delighted in this ambivalently nostalgic retro-ridiculous offering with a set made from outmoded technology, that asked the audience to read the work on multiple levels. With their child self believing a hairdryer was a blaster, with their adult self who was nostalgic for the time when it was possible to believe a hairdryer was a blaster and with their current self noticing colonial triggers (such as music from the bicentennial) while being made aware of the racist tropes invoked (like "one of the good ones"). Smart writing and hilarious performances. By setting this struggle in space, in the future, the audience drew their own parallels about Aboriginal heroism in the struggle for sovereignty in a hostile (solar) system.

The Chairs,  Jenny Kemp, designed by Dale Ferguson, La Mama. Like dwelling at the bottom of the sea, living in a lighthouse, being part of an elaborate ritual in which a couple attempt to work out how to extricate themselves from life, re-capture and experience each other’s affection, by instituting space between them, in preparation for saying goodbye to everything. That moment of Jillian Murray and Robert Meldrum progressing up separate staircases nearly obliterated me. Unbearably powerful!

Ash Flanders is Nothing,  Hares and Hyenas. Kaleidoscopic collision nigh impossible to encapsulate. A bit like dwelling within a cabana made of Muriel’s Wedding, your childhood sense of The Neverending Story as tragedy and a reflux-like experiencing of Ash Flanders’/one’s own less than ideal life. All generously given to you on a slightly chipped but really lavish platter with full flourish. Consummate performance by an ascerbically insightful marvel making a Christmas sacrifice of his own bravado for your delight.

Looking forward to in 2018
Good Muslim Boy, Melancholia, Blasted (Australian premiere!) at Malthouse, and the return of Belarus Free Theatre.

The Nightingale and the Rose by Little Ones and Dybbuks by Samara Hersch and Chambermade - both at Theatreworks

Hungry Ghosts by Jean Tong at MTC and much much more on and off stages.


Yvonne Virsik
Director
Artsistic Director, MUST

Yvonne Virsik

Favourite moments in 2017

Susie Dee and Nicci Wilks doing their best to adjust to a sudden (devlishly angular) rainstorm during a performance of Caravan – adjusting their caravan/set, trying to stay in character but not– gloriously entertainingly live.

Brilliant, hilarious and insightful women taking about where we are at in The Festival of Questions,  especially "The Handmaid's Tale WTF",  Wheeler Centre, Melbourne Festival.

Bizarrely serendipitous programming one night at The MUST Cabaret Festival: a dramatic duet of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" performed in German followed a few minutes later by an equally dramatic solo version in Russian, then the hosts joining in with their English version and...

Great sport Tim enduring black goo poured over his head again and again in pursuit of the "great promo shot" for Frankensteinxx at MUST.

The razor-sharp choreographic flourishes in How to Kill the Queen of Pop, Hotel Now.

Turning around suddenly in response to the 360 degree soundscape of The Encounter at Malthouse.

The moments of humble, shared humanity between those on the stage, those in the audience and those on and off in All the Sex I've Ever Had, Melbourne Festival.

People's unreserved joy at experiencing Taylor Mac, of whom I only got a little first hand, but an enormous amount vicariously.

The incredibly dramatic, fiery, epic-action-movie-like scene changes in MTC's Macbeth.

The wondrous final image of Angels in America Part 1: the inventive canvas-curtained set dropped down to reveal a beautifully glowing hand-painted stained glass effect.

The stunning images of Exodus, Part I and Part II, Fraught Outfit at Theatre Works.

Glimpses of Joan, just caught by light, The Rabble at Theatre Works.

The focused fleeting images of In Plan, Melbourne Festival.

The Nose in The Nose, Bloomshed at Melbourne  Fringe.

Some surprises:
The shifts in tone in Hannah Gadsby's Nanette and Kaitlyn Rogers's Can I Get an Amen. They both totally succeeded in keeping us with them, through all their heart wrenching terrain. (Ok, so by the time I saw Nanette, it wasn't a surprise, but the power of the experience of was.)

Realising it wasn't just a genius marketing ploy in Wild Bore at Malthouse.

Realising it wasn't just my niece enjoying As You Like It at the Pop Up Globe from The Groundlings area.

The sometimes jarring, sometimes fluid relationship between movement and text in Nicola Gun's incredible work Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster.

Discoveries – why have some of these taken me so long?
Trygve Wakenshaw in Nautilus – A fluid rubbery joy.
The Travelling Sisters – looking forward to more.
Rama Nichols – she's just so good.
Seeing Joe Fisher juggle for the first time at The MUST Cabaret Festival–  not a form I generally go crazy over, but the electric tension he brings to his performances is something else.

Show I loved (but, as always, there are so many):
Angels in America at fortyfivedownstairs, directed by Gary Abrahams I think has affected me the most. I've always loved the texts but what a privilege to experience them brought to life with such theatrical ingenuity, extraordinary performances and searing humanity. One of my favourite moments of the whole year is returning for Part Two, scanning the audience and catching the eyes of familiar faces from the night before, full of excitement at continuing our epic journey together.

What I'm looking forward to in 2018
Melancholia at Malthouse. The film has stayed just under my skin since I saw it and I've always thought it would make a fascinating piece of theatre. With Declan Greene and Matt Lutton as creators, I tingle at the possibilities.

I only saw a bit of Taylor Mac, but will be keeping an eye out for judy's work all over the world. Determined to also check Mac out as a playwright, I bought a copy of Hir afterwards and am now looking forward to Daniel Clarke's Production at Red Stitch very soon.

Generally, I'm looking forward to more surprises, more diversity in programming and in the breadth of artists engaged, which does seem to be growing. Bring on the surprises, the discoveries and the sheer theatrical joy!


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