Review: Oil

Oil
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
17 November 2019
Cromwell Road Theatre
to 15 December
redstitch.net

Daniela Farinacci. "Oil". Photo by John Lloyd Fillingham

Oil by UK writer Ella Hickson takes place between 1889 and 2051. Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) began to be used in the late 1800s and it's predicted to take about 250 years for humans to use all of the fossil fuels on earth. It will take millions of years for our fossilised bodies to make more.

But Red Stitch's Australian premiere of this 2016 play is far more than a history lesson, social commentary or plea for us to treat our world better.

While it moves from Cornwell and Hamstead in the UK to Tehran and Bagdad in Iran, with visits from Libya and China, its emotional spine and connection to the audience is the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Daniela Farinacci and Hannah Fredericksen are both mesmerising as consistent characters who age as each act moves in time and place. Their story of choice, sacrifice, loneliness and the line between control and love is gripping as it finds its space in the parallel story about humanity. If only we could always choose to have light, warmth and freedom.

Red Stitch have opened a new theatre in South Yarra in an old Anglican church hall. It's bigger than their St Kilda theatre and gives the space needed to share an epic story, especially as its age asks how many other stories have been told in this place. The church next door was built about 150 years ago so would have been lit by candles.

The script is layered and structurally balanced in ways that ask even more questions as its brings attention to the writing. Director Ella Caldwell adds more layers and questions with a consistently strong cast (Jennifer Vuletic, Darcy Brown, Jing-Xuan Chan, Matthew Whitty, Justin Hosking, Charlie Cousins, Krisraw Jones-Shukoor, Nicole Nabout) who let the epic nature of the work tell the story; characters create the world rather than letting the world create the characters.

Some of the most striking performances can't easily be seen. The only time the full cast is on stage is in act one in a farm lit by candles. Candles don't create much light. Clare Springett's lighting (working with Greg Clarke's set and Chloe Greaves character-defining costumes) is the character that influences every choice in Oil and makes the telling extraordinary.

It's so easy to dismiss how much we depend on the light and warmth created by fossil fuels, as it's so easy to know why we choose light and warmth. And to question it all in an old dark hall is riveting.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 3

Today is about artistic directors with Marcia Ferguson from Big West, Rachel Maza from ILBIJERRI and Ella Caldwell from Red Stitch.

It's also about brilliant stuff that I missed.

Marcia Ferguson
Artistic Director, Big West Festival

MARCIA: A school student was crouched over the footpath in front of a large, prominent city bank. Looking more closely, we saw she was laying out five-cent coins to make the word GREED. The bank's security guard was getting agitated, standing right over her as she pored over her design. After yelling at her – “this street belongs to the bank!” – in the face of implacable concentration, he called the police. The girl scarpered as they arrived. An argument ensued between the police and a guard over who owns the street. When they'd all gone, pedestrians stooped to pick up the coins but very few people had the courage to touch the word GREED. This was my mecca moment of theatre for 2013.

And, of course, there was the Big West Festival (finished on 1 December). We got to see everything everyone has worked for since May 2012!

It's more than a festival. It's something new: it's art works driven equally by community and professional artists of heart and rigour. It's art by the audience. It's slow burn. It's art made over a long time, a great indicator of quality!

I love the moments where events teeter between performance and participation. For instance, at this festival, theatrical all-stars Born In A Taxi led the audience masterfully into the creation of a performance they didn't know they were making, and two Dinjerra Primary preps conducted recordings at the school market and left them for the artist to collect.

The festival is human, it's warm. It offers simple ways for people to make art. It has something to say. It’s about what's happening right now made by the very people who are living amongst it.

SM: My biggest disappointment of the year was not being able to get to a single Big West show or event. I really tried, but sometimes the diary tetris just doesn't work. Next year, I promise.

Rachel Maza
Artistic Director, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company

Photo by Michael Corridore

RACHEL: In June 2013 I had the great fortune of being invited to attend the Matariki Development Festival in Wellington, New Zealand. It blew me away!

This festival showcased some excellent new work and it was great to see what our first peoples' neighbours-across-the-way were making. The number of works and the calibre of work being produced over there is so inspiring. It also provided a forum for me to meet these amazing first nations theatre makers from around the world.

In Australia, it’s easy to feel like we're the only colonised nation but there, in that space, being able to draw direct parallels in their experiences and ours was empowering and enlightening.

And of course, Beautiful One Day! (Which finished at Arts House on 1 December.) Working with the Palm Island community, version 1.0 and Belvoir again has been exhilarating experience. This multi-faceted collaboration has challenged me as a performer and as a director. This latest remount has seen the work grow and develop into something we are all so proud of.

SM: Seriously, there was so much happening in the last two weeks of November this year that I missed as much as I saw (and I saw a lot). Missing Beautiful One Day is another regret.

But, the most exciting news for ILBIJERRI is that they're taking Uncle Jack to London, with Jack Charles V The Crown, directed by Rachel, having been invited to perform at the Barbican in February.

There's more of Rachel at issimomag.com.

Ella Caldwell

Artistic Director and Ensemble Member, Red Stitch

ELLA: So much great theatre this year! A standout for me was Kids Killing Kids (by MKA at the Melbourne Fringe) – I loved this. It was energised, unique and brave. The experience was electrifying at the time and has stayed with me.

On our home turf (Red Stitch), some key moments: The exquisite, detailed life that existed onstage between Julia Blake and Ensemble Member Tim Ross in 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog. Oh, and the moment during Midsummer (at the 2013 Geelong season)by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre when Ben (Prendergast) and I realised that an audience member had just vomited in their hands rather than leave and miss the last few moments of the show.

SM: I remember seeing Ella in a play years ago at the Courthouse and thinking that she's going to make it. I'm still never disappointed when she's on a stage. But my highlight for 2013 was easily her performance in Midsummer (even if I saw it in late 2012) and I'm really looking forward to her first year as the new Red Stitch AD.

And see what Ella's looking forward to in 2014 at issimo.com.

Part 1

Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest

Review: Roam

Roam
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
13 October 2013
Red Stitch
to 9 November
redstitch.net

Adam J A Cass's Roam was developed through the Red Stitch Writers Program. Like his very successful I Love You, Bro (first seen at the 2007 Fringe), it's about remembering that no matter how anonymous we play on the internet, there's a person behind every hot game avatar, flattering wink and bitchy comment.

Johnny (Tim Potter) and Julia (Ella Caldwell) are unhappily happy in a relationship that's ok enough to keep going, but ignores the death of her father and the loss of his job.

For Johnny, comfort is the anonymity of web chat roulette and amateur porn. But his irresistible find is a 13-year-old girl (Ngaire Dawn Faire) from Estonia, whom he joins in an online game based on Ancient Rome. Here his credit card buys the points she can't afford and they fight together to rule Rome as the sexiest avatars. Then Julia logs in.

The story comes to virtually real life when the design team (Benjamin Shaw, Jason Bovaird, Clare Springett, David Nelson, Michael Watson and Daniel Nixon) bring the screen onto the stage and transform the stage to the hyper-reality of Roam's Rome. Even with a too-Tron moment, the digital design creates a world that shows non-gamers why some gamers never want to leave their screen life, where they can look how they want to and be all the people they'll never be bold enough to be in the dull reality of reality. (And this is why I stick to Candy Crush.)

Director and dramaturg Gary Abrahams worked with Cass on the script and their success is making an overwhelming and endlessly complex issue into a story about three people who are facing deaths and endings.

For all the whizz-bangery of the design, it's still the question of whether Johnny and Julia will survive that creates the story's tension and hope. However, I'd like to see more ambiguity about the 13-year-old  or a bigger story about her, especially as the script keeps glancing at consequences of adults playing online with children.

There's a level to Roam that hasn't been revealed yet and, of course, it has to keep playing to find its depth and its bigger world (and maybe a re-boot of the ending, which is satisfying but doesn't answer enough questions). But without programs like this Writers Program, new scripts like this wouldn't be able to develop in front of an audience and there's something raw and powerful about seeing a script at an early stage.

In the meantime, the cast grasp the work's heart and its story reaches into the world of anyone who plays on a screen.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Midsummer

Midsummer
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
16 November
Red Stitch
to 15 December
redstitch.net

It's a tale about 30-something angst with accents, so it has to be in the Red Stitch season – but Midsummer is as welcome and gorgeous as a warm turquoise day under a shady tree with a shamelessly expensive picnic basket with your best friends, and your favourite musician turns up with a guitar.

In 2008 UK writer David Greig and composer Gordon Mcintyre created a play with songs that sells out every time it's produced. And, if the outpouring of love from opening night was anything to go by, Red Stitch's production will have to extend. Book now. Just do it. It's pure outrageous joy that will leave the most cynical and single of us a little less cynical.

Mid-30s Helena and Bob meet in a wine bar. They're so not each other's type, but there's far too much wine and ... we've all been there. It's a text-book rom-com structure but filled with such vivid life and unexpected situations that it feels like Grieg invented the genre. This is writing that can soar with hope because it welcomes the chance to embarrass the hell out of its characters and put them in the worst situations – and then add vomit, miscalculated bondage and being chased by a petty crim called Big Tiny Tam.

Ella Caldwell and Ben Prendergast's performances are touching and real, and so very funny. They perform like it was written for them, like the writer knew their strengths and the emotional secrets that drive their acting. But it wasn't, it was created with and for the original cast.

Trying to understand why this writing connects so strongly and feels so fresh, I found this article in The Guardian by Greig. He talks about watching actor Michael Gambon do something perfect that wasn't in the script and how the part was written (by Caryl Churchill) in way that gave the actor everything he needed and nothing that he didn't. It was "like a piece of music for the actor to play".

"I suddenly, really viscerally understood that the 'wright' at the end of 'playwright' is indicative of the fact that a craftsperson's job is to fashion vehicles, just like a cartwright or wheelwright, which an actor can inhabit and travel in. It really was fundamental and thereafter I have been much more aware that when writing, my job is to leave space for the actor."

I finally understand what I mean when I say something is over written; it feels false because it's so caught up in being exactly what the writer imagines that there's no room for the other creators to make it their story. Shakespeare got this. Write an exquisite story, but let the performers and creators decide how to tell it.

And director John Kachoyan and designer Peter Mumford make Midsummer even better by leaving space for the audience to make the story theirs. It's two people in a small room with guitars and cheap stuff stuck on the walls, but I deny anyone to not describe in detail the city they saw and how much the story was "just like me".

This is theatre that gets into your heart and leaves you happy, and if you're trying to tell someone that you fancy them, this might be the perfect date show.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Review: The Laramie Project – 10 Years Later

The Laramie Project – 10 Years Later
Arts Centre Melbourne presents a Red Stitch Theatre production
16 May 2012
Fairfax studio, Arts Centre Melbourne

I have family who used to live in Snowtown; they don't tell people that anymore. Truro, Port Arthur, Colombine; it only takes one word to recall the horrific violence associated with these places.

In 1998, Laramie in Wyoming, USA, made headlines when Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence, repeatedly beaten and left to die on the outskirts of the town. He died six days later and the media descended on this small town, once best-known for its university, but remembered for being nothing exciting.

People are killed daily in the US from robberies gone wrong and domestic violence; however, Laramie struck a chord because Matthew's was targeted and tortured because he was gay. Matthew's family are still lobbying to have the Hate Crimes Prevention Act accepted by the US government.

In November 1998, Tectonic Theater Project from New York travelled to Laramie and conducted interviews that were used to create The Laramie Project, a play and later an HBO film. It's become one of the most performed plays in America and continues as an active online community. In 2009, the company returned to Laramie to see what had happened over the last 10 years and the epilogue work premiered simultaneously in 100 US venues.

Red Stitch presented The Laramie Project – 10 Years Later in 2011 and were invited by The Arts Centre to re-stage this fascinating and important work.

Director Gary Abrahams guides an exceptional cast (Paul Ashcroft, Roderick Cairns, Ella Caldwell, Terry Camilleri, Kate Cole, Chris Connely, Brett Luderman, Rosie Traynor and Hester Van Der Vyer) in a telling that places it firmly in the US, but ensures that Laramie isn't far from our own homes. The company's passion for the project and their anger about the crime flows off the stage, but it's ultimately a performance that leaves us with hope.

It's almost impossible to discuss the work without discussing the crime, but there is an abundance of information and commentary easily available, and this style of verbatim or documentary theatre is created to be close to its subject. Still much of its success lies in its creation of distance.  By making the process a part of its story,  with the interviewees as characters alongside the people of Laramie, it's able to comment and bring strangers, who are like us, into the town.

Ten years later, Matthew's friends are still hurting (ten years really is nothing),  many involved in the case are still suffering, while others, including the respected current affairs show 20/20, are re-writing the story as a robbery gone wrong, and younger people don't even know who Matthew Shepard was. With a spine exploring stories and ownership and truth, this second work continues to tap directly into our lives, but its guts is the inclusion of the voices of the young men who killed Matthew.

It's too easy to leave out this voice and demonise these two men, but to do so would leave it without hope. They weren't freaks or psychopaths. They were two men who lived in a community that didn't question their belief that poofs are freaks. I know people who think like that: "I spose you must know a lot of THEM working in the arts." These are not bad people; they just live in a very different bubble to mine – and no one likes having their bubble burst.

As Matthew's father requested that the death penalty not be applied to their sentence and Father Roger Schmit befriended the killer,  10 Years Later leaves us with no choice but to listen with as much respect as possible and to find the understanding that is going to help us to continue to try and create a world where everyone is safe and respected.

Review: Stop. Rewind

Stop. Rewind
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
23 July 2010
Red Stitch Theatre
to 21 August
redstitch.net

Melissa Bubnic joined Red Stitch as Writer in Residence at Red Stitch in 2009 and Stop. Rewind has spent 18 months in development with the company's Writers Program.

With a structure that lets the characters say what they wish they said, but rewind back to what they actually said, Stop. Rewind can't fail to strike a familiar chord. I'm glad that other people spend much of their time re-running their encounters with better dialogue.

Bubnic's characters work in the public service with its long-termers, team meetings, bad cakes and rooms filled with people playing on Facebook, emailing gossip or trying to get a promotion by doing extra work. When a colleague gets cancer, each is faced with the reality of their situation and contemplates the possibility of change.

And change is rare in an office staffed with uninspiring, unfulfilled, boring sods. And this is where I has trouble with Stop. Rewind. Stories about uninspiring, unfulfilled, boring sods are ... well ... We have real life to watch boring people. For all it's recognisable "we all get bored/depressed" discussions, it felt too much like a work about "them" rather than a reflection of "us".

However,  I almost disregarded my own feelings, because Bubnic brings her characters to a beautiful ending of hope and perfect oddness that made all previous quibbles seem irrelevant and the Red Stitch cast and creative team created a strangely enchanting world.

Peter Mumford has, again, devised the most astonishingly simple and effective design in the tiny Red Stitch space and the expectation that the post-its would come down added a subtle tension to the night.  Anne Browning's lively direction captures the quirks and humanity of these people and this company continue to let actors do what they do best. Olga Makeeva, Andrea Swift, James Taylor, Giordano Gangl and Ian Rooney all bring so much more than the script to the stage and Ella Caldwell and Tim Potter are going to be people we have to pay a lot of money to see in the future.

Stop. Rewind isn't the best thing I've seen at Red Stitch, but it's still far more engaging and interesting than some of the more expensive shows on in town. And you can still buy a half year subscription to all of Season 2, which starts with Stop. Rewind.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.