Review: Don Parties On

Don Parties On

MTC 

13 January 2011

Playhouse, the Arts Centre

to 12 February 2011
www.mtc.com.au

David Williamson was my favourite playwright when I was 14 and I got an A+ for my Don's Party English essay. Suspecting that my teen taste may have been naive, I re-read the script and still recoiled with embarrassing recognition and nostalgia at the perfect snapshot of the generation who raised me. I love Don's Party. I'm not alone and 40-odd years later Williamson has given us Don Parties On.

I was a toddler when Don's Party was written; the same age as the offstage baby Richard. Discovering the play in 1980s Adelaide, I was far from 1970s Melbourne, but I knew Don and Kath and their guests. They were the young, university-educated middle-class generation who supported the left to rebel against their parents and felt entitled to their easy education and well-paid jobs. From their casual misogyny to the excitement of home made pizzas, this was the last generation we now call Baby Boomers and the generation whose free sex created gen X ... and in 2010 they still have friends over on election night.

Don (Garry McDonald) and Kath (Tracy Mann) are still together in their tastefully renovated house in Lower Plenty, Mal (Robert Grubb) and Jenny (Sue Jones) got divorced, Cooley (Frankie J Holden) is now a Liberal voter and married to newcomer Helen (Diane Craig), Mack is dead and there's name dropping of Evan, Kerry, Jody, Simon and Susan.

There are few surprises. They've all followed the path they were set on in 1969 and the biggest laughs came from Kath doing her PHD at Deakin (is anyone not tertiary educated in Melbourne weeing themselves?), the three men singing Creedence Clearwater Revival and the three women wanting to listen to Maxine McKew criticise the ALP when she lost her seat.

I still recognise these people, especially Jenny and her preaching to 42-year-old Richard and liberal Liberal Helen supporting Medicins Sans Frontiers and buying goats for Africa, but I don't believe them.  They have elements of people I know, but each is little more than a cliche.

But these are fictional people and "Don" tells his friends that his fictional accounts of them (he finally had a book published) were never meant to offend and that all writers borrow and exaggerate from life. If this is exaggeration, Williamson must know some very dull people. The 70s swinging stories didn't even make them interesting.

The perfectly chosen boomer cast all brought more to their characters than they were given, but the "young" ones were less successful. Playing a stereotype (even if it's written) gives an audience nothing to relate to. Instead of seeing ourselves and caring, we're left grateful that we are not like them.

Naturally I looked to Richard (Darren Gilshenan). He's 42 and thinks he's 30 (so do I), but behaves like a brat who needs his mummy to give him an overnight flu tablet to calm him down. The original offstage baby Richard was more authentic. He and his 30-year-old lover (Nikki Shiels) are poor caricatures of selfish people whose only purpose is to be laughed at. Which was ironic, as Jenny tells us how her generation feels such passion for their children.

Structurally the new party is a reflection of the old with enough exposition and self-references to excite my inner-14-year-old and make my 42-year-old self want to attack the script with a red pen. One chips and twisties joke was plenty and who cares about dentist Evan if he's not part of this story.

And as gen Y nightmare granddaughter Belle (Georgia Flood) screams, "Just because there's a vampire in the movie, doesn't make it a vampire movie", just because every ABC political celebrity and well known politician is mentioned doesn't make it a political play or a social reflection of our society.

The political satire was restricted to name dropping (including enough Nick Minchins to convince Nick Minchin that he's important) and comments about the faceless assigns of the ALP and the irrational fear of boat people. Combined with sound bites from the ABC's 2010 Election Night coverage, it felt like the kind of political lecture a new Australian should listen to in order to pass their are-you-bonza-enough-to-be-one-of-us test.

I just don't get it. I know we get more conservative and complacent in middle age, but we don't get dumber. I secretly hoped that Don Parties On would be David Williamson's finger to all of us who have scoffed at his post-Emerald City writing, but then I'm just a 42-year-old who recently asked her mum for a Panadeine Forte because she had a bad headache. And out of nostalgia, curiosity and a love of play written in the early 70s,  I would have gone to see it no matter what any review said.

Photo: Jeff Busby
This appears on AussieTheatre.com


The first review was this one on Crikey.
Arts Hub
Theatre Notes
The Age


Don's Party film trailer

Marion Potts Lecture and MTC 2011

How can it already be time to think about 2011?

If you're thinking about what theatre subscriptions to give as the big December present, MTC 2011 is now open and Malthouse is teasing us with their new Artistic Director. 

Marion Potts is the new 2011 Artistic Director of Malthouse Theatre and presented the 2010 Rex Crompton Memorial Lecture last week. Don't worry if, like me, you missed it because Malthouse have given us the pdf of her speech. I'm excited.

The MTC also recently announced their 2011 season, Simon Phillips' twelfth and last season with the company. 

Of course, it'll be a hoot and a half to see Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell and Ewen Leslie as Hamlet, and it's wonderful to see new works by Melbourne writers (and darlings of the independent scene)  Robert Reid and Lally Katz; especially as both are directed by Aiden Fennessy, which makes me smile.

But nothing has made me as excited and terrified as Don Parties On. Oh yes, David Williamson has written a sequel to Don's Party. Garry Macdonald is in it and Robyn Nevin is directing. If it's as brilliant as the original, I'll take back everything I've said about Williamson's recent works. If it's the biggest car crash to ever hit an Australian stage...well I won't be the only vitriolic blogger.

Review: The Grenade

The Grenade

Melbourne Theatre Company
15 April 2010
Playhouse, the Arts Centre

What does a wealthy middle class family do when a grenade appears in their open plan living space? Luckily, the dad is a lobbyist who specialises in crisis management and it turns out to be more of a metaphorical grenade that ignites deeper fears about family love and security being in danger. If The Grenade were an episode of Packed to the Rafters, it’d rate through the roof.

Tony McNamara’s work is about fear, especially the fears invented by the comfortable middle class. We read forwarded emails about plastic water bottles causing breast cancer, but don’t think twice about the impact of driving to the supermarket to buy water in a bottle.  The easier our lives, the more we worry. 

The script is shaped to perfection, filled with tippity-top wit ("Broken eggs: you've raped chickens"), winning crowd pleasers ("Hi, I'm Randy") and a plot that jogs along like an Olympic pace setter. McNamara's original characters are plucked from the southern bank of the Yarra and have funny names like Busby (who is nothing like Berkely) and Wheat (who favours an "Abe Lincoln meets Gatsby" look). There's even a hot ex-nun who is writing a romantic erotic novel with a muscle-bound spunk called Randy, a sardonic and judgmental baby who may be evil and a teenage girl who wants to lose her virginity.

And with a cast like Garry McDonald and Mitchell Butel, giggles are unavoidable...and these are all the sort of things we say when we were bored.

The MTC rightly love a good play that it's subscribers can relate to. The Grenade is bit like a Melbourne God Of Carnage (by Yasmina Reza) from their 2009 program, and they share director Peter Evans. Both are about the same tribe, set in an expensive apartment and have jokes about posh imported food. But where God of Carnage laughed with "us", The Grenade is laughing at "them" with humour that is is approaching (but not reaching) parody. By putting a mocking wedge between the audience and the stage, it feels unauthentic (a stainless steel fridge does not equal authenticity) and misses the opportunity for the audience to attach emotionally and feel anything for this family.


This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

The Hypocrite

The Hypocrite
Melbourne Theatre Company
20 November 2008
The Playhouse, The Arts Centre

The Hypocrite is an ideal end-of year crowd-pleaser for the MTC. It’s cast with favourites, knee-slapping funny, pretty to look at and offers a neat interpretation of a work that most MTC subscribers read during their formal education.

Molière penned the original in French rhyme and Justin Fleming’s translation shines as brightly as the 22 fabulous chandeliers glittering over the stage. Fleming’s clever and intricate rhyme scheme changes as the content moves from hypocrisy to true love, and a very effective pattern differentiates Tartuffe. As Dr Seuss proves, none can resist the delight of a rhyming couplet, and beauties like knowledge/porridge, dig it/bigot and chassis/map of Tassie won many well-deserved cackles.

This Hypocrite is directed, designed and performed for laughs. It’s like a panto for grown-ups, with clownish performances, over-the-top costumes, big hair, closet jokes and well-known actors. Who’s not going to laugh at Garry Macdonald (Orgon) in thigh-high, lace up gold boots and a full length, lime-green velvet jacket? There’s even the ultimate “he’s behind you” gag, which becomes evident during the deus ex machina ending.

Kerry Walker is the stand out as Madame Pernelle. She handles the difficult language with ease and creates a grumpy and believable clown. It would be hard for Macdonald and Nicholas Bell (Cléante) to deliver anything other than great; Marina Prior’s comic timing was a welcome surprise; and Martin Sharpe (Laurent), Sara Gleeson (Mariane) and Chris Ryan (Damis) are delightfully petulant teenagers, but need to listen to Kerry in order to master the delivery of rhyme.

It’s also very rare for Kim Gyngell to disappoint. His performance is impeccable, but I wonder about some of the character and direction choices. He’s a sleazy, ridiculous and totally transparent fraud – which Kim does perfectly, but this doesn’t leave any doubt about the rightness of the family and the delusion of Orgon and his mum. It’s hard not to compare it with Malthouse’s recent version of the same work (Tartuffe), but what struck me about Marcus Graham’s Tartuffe was the creation of empathy and doubt. To feel the impact of Tartuffe’s deceit and downfall, we need to know why Orgon and his mother were so besotted with this man and wonder if the family’s opinion of him is selfish and misguided. (And, of course, it would be wrong to compare Kim’s underwear scene to Marcus’s.)

The Hypocrite is like indulging in a vanilla slice from a posh Toorak bakery. It looks scrumptious, is totally enjoyable at the time and much better than a cheap version - but the gratification doesn’t last and you know there are more substantial, nutritious or unforgettable options out there.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.