MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: The Rabbits

The Rabbits
Melbourne Festival, Arts Centre Melbourne, Opera Australia, Barking Gecko, West Australian Opera, Perth International Arts Festival
10 October 2015
Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse
to 13 October
www.festival.melbourne

The Rabbits is an hour-long opera based on a 1998 children's picture book. Its Melbourne Festival season is sold out and as the Playhouse exploded with joy at the end of last night's performance, it's clear that this remarkable new Australian opera is going to be around for a very long time.

Adapted and directed by Barking Gecko's John Sheedy, it's a co-production with Opera Australia in association with WA Opera and was commissioned by the Perth and Melbourne festivals. Ostensibly an opera for children, it’s an amazing introduction to the form and sound of opera – and the many children who saw it were mesmerised  – but its levels of complexity and understanding never excludes an adult audience.

The original book is a 32-page, 228-word analogy about English-style rabbits invading and colonising a country of marsupials. It won awards, has been published all over the world, and remains a best seller and favourite book with John Marsden's powerful words and Shaun Tan's exquisite illustrations, which can’t be seen without finding something new. This production captures the heart and essence of the book and brings it to stage by creating characters from a story that doesn't have characters.

It begins with the introduction of a narrator, a white bird inspired from the brolgas on the end pages (the decorative pages inside the cover) and is told through five marsupials (Hollie Andrew, Jessica Hitchcock, Lisa Maza, Marcus Corowa and David Leha) and five rabbits (Kanen Breen, Nicholas Jones, Christopher Hillier, Simon Meadows and Robert Mitchell). Images like the steam-punk-like bike the rabbits enter on, handing a cog to the marsupials, and a lizard in the test tube are moments that are easy to miss on the pages but have become the turning points and drive of the stage story.

Lally Katz incorporates the Marden's sparse text into the libretto and lets the characters, who are inspired by the illustrations, tell their personal stories and do what they can’t do in the book: reflect on their actions.

Kate Miller-Heidke's composition and Iain Grandage's arrangements and additional music is welcoming to new ears and to opera buffs, who can spot the references. The combination of English-style opera and a more contemporary music-theatre style celebrates the sound and form of opera, while never being afraid to embrace music that isn’t associated with old-style opera.

Without trying to capture the endless complexity of the illustrations, Gabriela Tylesova's design takes details and makes them so real that it feels like walking into the world of the book. The mask and costumes for the marsupials and rabbits look like Tan's creatures but allow the performers to be seen (similar in style to Julie Taymor's Lion King design). And with lighting designer Trent Suidgeest, the scene where the babies fly away on kites is almost too much to bear.

With the September release of the National Opera Review, there's a lot of discussion about the value of opera as a form and of the ongoing existence of Australia's subsidised opera companies.

Then along comes The Rabbits. This is an Australian story made with Australian voices that shows how wonderful Australian opera can be. Along with last year’s co-production of The Riders by Victorian Opera and Malthouse Theatre, it's time to be excited about opera in Australia and time to stop asking if opera has a place, but to ask why our resources aren't being used to make more productions like this.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

The Rabbits. Melbourne Festival. Photo by Jon Green

Review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 
John Frost
27 October 2012
Her Majesty's Theatre
to December 15
funnything.com.au

After the degustation of emotion, politics and confrontation of the Melbourne Festival, what better than a mouthful of fluffy sugar and an almighty fart? A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has no pretentions about being serious art.

First performed on Broadway 1962, it's ancient Rome, where slaves were whipped, women were bought and political correctness meant wearing the right toga to the senate. Giving a finger to the romantic gentility of musical theatre at the time and celebrating the ancient-Greek influences on vaudeville, there are tit, eunuch and fart jokes galore, as it asks the timeless dramatic question, "Who gets to de-virgin the teenager: the virgin boy, his dad or the stranger who bought her from her pimp?".

I've really tried to like this show.

                                                                    From the original recording LP

It was Stephen Sondheim's first score (music and lyrics; his previous work was the lyrics for West Side Story) and the book was co-written with Larry Gelbart (the dude who wrote the best episodes of MASH). If you're expecting dark and biting satire with music that stains your soul, remember that it takes time to hit your stride as an artist. Musically it's forgettable, but hints at the glories that followed, and book-wise there's jokes and structure without a hint of depth or complexity. It's a simplified world where men are manly or limp, and women are lovely and stupid, vejazzled and bendy, or old and sexless.

So why do it? It's as satisfying as a bucket of fairy floss.

Geoffrey Rush wanting to play Pseudolus the scheming slave is the lines-at-the-box-office answer. It's an old-school, star-led romp – and who can resist a romp with our-Geoffrey in a toga? Looking like he's having more fun than he dreamed of, this is Geoffrey's fart-in-the-general-direction to anyone who forgets that it's meant to be fun.

And throw in the commercial-dream cast of telly and theatre must-sees who have earned their first-name recognition because they are all damn good and totally watchable.  There's Shane Bourne, Magda Szubanski and Gerry Connolly for the oldies; Hugh Sheridan for the youngies;  Mitchell Butell, Christie Whelan-Browne and Adam Murphy for the theatries; and Bob Honery for everyone (Bob was in the original Australian production in 1964).

It may be the best that a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum can be.

Director Simon Phillips turns the serious to 0 and the giggle-and-hoot to 11. And Gabriella Tylesova's design of cardboardy houses and tassled-togas is as witty as any of the jokes. Like her design for Love Never Dies, it's an eye-orgasm to look at with detail that creates the world and the characters in an instant.

It's a show where the cast are applauded before they open their mouths, corpsing is compulsory and anyone daring to question its politics or guts will be scoffed at.

This appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

Review: Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies
The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific
28 May 2011
Regent Theatre
www.ticketmaster.com.au

On opening night, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber took a bow and shared the overflowing audience love with the Australian cast of Love Never Dies.  He told us he was never happy with the London version and said that this could be the best production he's seen of one of his shows.

After the West End version's mixed reviews (read bollocking) and the "postponement" of the Broadway version, all musical theatre eyes turned to Melbourne to see if the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera is really that scary. Regardless of any opinion,  Sir Andrew says it's what he imagined and Graeme Murphy (choreography) should have shown the knight how to do a convincing happy dance.

And so Sir A should be thrilled. Simon Phillips strong direction leads a perfect cast, from the faultless and gorgeous ensemble to Ben Lewis as the Phantom, who I'd love to see play the original. Maria Mercedes (my favourite Frank'N'Furter) brings a creepy darkness to Madame Giry; Sharon Millerchip (who was Meg Giry in the original Australian production of Phantom) lets Meg struggle with bitterness and hope; Simon Gleeson shows the sadness and regret in Raoul; and Anna O'Byrne (who was so wonderful as Polly in Malthouse's Threepenny Opera) makes us believe Christine's regrets.

However, the star of the show is designer Gabriela Tylesova. Her design creates a nostalgic Coney Island with a part-irresistible, part-nightmarish beauty. This spectacular world of pearled colours, sepias and greys is like a hand-coloured seaside postcard, but it's an uncomfortable world where the glorious freaks outnumber the happy visitors. No detail has been spared on the exquisite costumes of hand-sewn lace,  beads and brocade, while the joy and humour of her seaside and dancing-girl costumes fills the stage. And the only thing more gorgeous than the painted tights are the shoes. The sight lines up front mean that a bit too much backstage "mystery" is revealed (which this can and must be fixed), but seeing the shoes and the boots (oh my god, those boots) is worth it. I couldn't decide which pair I loved the most.

Ok, so this production is glorious, so why are there so many euthanasia jokes about Love Never Dies?

Perhaps because a story with no heart doesn't need a Do Not Resusitate order.

It's ten years since the Phantom escaped his lynching in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House and lovers Christine and Raoul were free to get it on in peace. Christine's become famous, they have a ten year old son (who likes music) and they're in debt (not sure why). Meanwhile Madame and Meg Giry followed the Phantom to Coney Island where Meg is still trying to get his attention (and this time she's getting her gear off ). Oh, and Christine really did find the courage to show him he "is not alone" and has been pining for her deformed father-angel.

For those unfamiliar with the Phantom story, I'm not sure what narrative question brings new audiences into this piece, and those who know it will spend time re-assessing their memories of the characters and the story. Dramatically, most of act one is given away in the opening number (where Lewis is amazing), the exposition outweighs the story progression and the highlights of the rest are Meg's stand alone numbers with the ensemble and any time the whole cast is on the stage and the story is having a breather.

I think The Phantom of the Opera is a perfect piece of theatre; musically, emotionally and dramatically. I'm an unashamed fan of Sir Andrew. Cats will always be awesome, I don't know why Aspects of Love was never huge and I have a cassette of Starlight Express and enjoyed every lycra-clad, roller-skating moment of the Melbourne production. There, I've said it.

If someone had played me the music of Love Never Dies, I would have guessed it was a parody of Lloyd Webber. Musically, it's forgettable and dreary and builds to a climax song that relies on the voice of O'Byrne and the outrageously glorious design (even if we all know that the coloured peacocks are boys).

The music is sadly matched by the lyrics that lack any hint of subtext and ("A man as hideous as this is capable of anything") and fail to show anything that isn't bleeding obvious.

But all could be forgiven with a great story. Ben Elton wrote the book. Ben Elton: the alternative-comic hero of the 80s and 90s; the wittiest bloke on the planet; the man who spits out more best sellers than most people read; a dude who understands story. Yes, I am also a fan of Ben Elton and have wiped the recent Channel 9 experience from my memory. I don't know how he wrote this story. There's no tension, no mystery, no compelling dilemmas (dilemma is equal and compelling choices, not a coin toss between which is the least dull), no humour (!) and has a lazy and unfulfilling ending worthy of a day time soap.  However, the cast bring everything they have to make it as emotionally real as possible and I saw a couple of tears shed.

This production is an incredible opportunity to fix Love Never Dies and remind all the disbelievers of just how much Sir Andrew changed and influenced musical theatre.  I tired to "look with my heart and not with my eyes", but the only thing my heart skipped a beat over were the shoes.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com