What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 1

It's December, which means one thing: It's time to find out what Melbourne's theatre community really loved this year.

It's time to ignore the awards and the critics and remember those shows, people and moments that made theatre in Melbourne so bloody wonderful in 2014.

To kick us off, it's Ash Flanders, Paul Capsis and Peter Paltos, who have just finished in Calpurnia Descending at Malthouse. I think Paul's “I wasn’t bored for a second” should be a goal for all shows in 2015. And I wasn't bored for a second in Calpurnia.

Ash Flanders
actor

Ash Flanders, the younger.  Photo by Ben Dyer

Ash: My list should start with shows I'm really bummed I couldn't see this year. These include (but are not limited to) the MTC NEON season, Madonna Arms (Next Wave at Arts House) and, of course, The Good Person of Szechwan (at Malthouse).

A highlight for me was Applespiel make a band and take on the recording industry (Malthouse, Helium series), which blew my mind largely because of the audacity of the concept – a rock-u-mentary made live in front of an audience by a clean-haired cult of young theatre makers, all who probably have $2 to their names. This show made me feel old and jaded – and reminded me to keep pushing ideas further... and to stop being such a whinger!

I will also never forget Jane Montgomery Griffiths’s naked (in every sense of the word) screams for her mother in The Rabble’s Frankenstein. I shall remain happily haunted forever.

This was also the year I discovered my Adena Jacobs impersonation, which has seen the total erasure of my natural voice. Good news everyone!

SM: I missed Ash in Hedda Gabler because Belvoir is in Sydney and I wasn’t. For that I too am bummed. But he posted plenty of pics of him in a one-piece bathing suit to keep me happy.

There was his performance in Calpurnia Descending (his Violet was fucking wonderful  – and Violet was my grandmother’s name, so I approved), but my moment has to be him telling me about meeting Katie Perry backstage. It’s not as sexy a story as it could be and I suggest asking him because it won’t be as good coming from me,

Paul Capsis
actor

Paul Capsis. Photo by Shane Reid

Pau: Hmmm, my favourite theatre moment in 2014  would be a little show I saw in the Tower at Malthouse. Applespiel I think was the title. A great young vibrant and highly energised cast with lots of funny takes on a rock documentary, using film, video, effects made and performed in front of the audience. I liked the energy, rawness, chaos and roughness of the performances and that’s something that’s lacking in a lot of Australian theatre right now. I find so much to yawn at these days. I wasn't bored for a second in this show.

SM: How about making “I wasn’t bored for a second” the goal for new shows?

There was only thing more amazing that Mz Flanders in Calpurnia Descending and that was Paul Capsis as Beverly. When I think of this show, the first image that comes to mind is Paul in his underwear at the top of a ladder; nothing left to hide, everything exposed. This show was endless laughter, but it ended with a moment that made every laugh hurt because we know they came from pain. In different hands, it could have been another laugh, but it was Paul and he was magnificent.

Peter Paltos
actor

Peter Paltos

Peter: My favourites are:

Greenscreen by Nicola Gunn/Sans Hotel at MTC Neon. For me, Greenscreen was an existential theatrical poem that articulated both my loneliness and sense of belonging. I was really touched by this piece. Gunn is a goddess.

Madonna Arms by I'm Trying To Kiss You. Three feminists speaking in verse and smashing the science fiction genre a new asshole. So earthy and absurd.

Hedda Gabler at Belvior directed by Adena Jacobs. I have not stopped thinking about the first fifteen minutes of this production since I saw it. It was like a painting quietly coming to life.

Grounded by Red Stitch, directed by Kirsten von Bibra. This was a really well executed, solo show with an impressive performance by Kate Cole. I dug the minimalism of this piece: old school, clean storytelling with no tricks.

SM: If you were in Calpurnia Descending, there isn’t much hope that your performance in Calpurnia Descending isn’t going to be my favourite moment of yours.

Peter was as amazing as Ash, Paul (and Sandy Gore). He was pure matinee idol with all the guts it takes to be a real matinee idol and maintain the bullshit image.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

Review: Intimacy

HELIUM
Intimacy
Torque Show
14 August 2014
Tower Theatre
to 23 August
malthousetheatre.com.au

Michelle Ryan danced professionally in Australia and overseas. Ten years ago, she was at the peak of her career and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She used to dance and had issues with intimacy. She still dances and has issues with intimacy.

Intimacy is dance theatre by Torque Show – a company including artists that Ryan used to dance with – and opens the 2014 Malthouse Helium season with a touching and honest exploration of how illness can change the meanings of intimacy.

With fellow dancer Vincent Crowley, singer Emma Bathgate and director Ingrid Weisfelt, Ryan shares  intimate moments of personal, sexual and romantic awkwardnesses, and those times when you have to ask strangers to give you their seat or help you get dressed.

Members of the audience are made to join in and there are the familiar looks of wanting to help but not knowing how and being terrified of offending in case help isn't wanted. This forced awkward intimacy is darkly funny and carries through to the more personal moments on stage, but it feels like it only scratches the surface. Dating is uncomfortable because dating makes us vulnerable, with or without illness.

A very good friend of mine had MS; I know that walk and the reach for balance. When she was diagnosed, about ten years ago, she said it was like her limbs (and at times her brain) were wrapped in wool, like an ugg boot but tighter. The closest moments for me were Ryan in a sleeping bag trying to get dressed and get around. Its fuzzy soft constriction seems comfortable but makes it so hard to move, physically feel and even hear, speak or see. It may not seem much, but it offers a relatable idea of what those symptoms can feel like. It's easy to relate to the emotional intimacy, but this helped to find how the restriction and frustration of the physical are part of the emotional.

And the strongest and most moving elements piece are the physical and the dance. From Ryan sitting and hiding the impact of MS on her body to her dancing with little balance and skinny limbs that don't want to listen to her thoughts, there's no denial that MS can suck. But her dance – and especially that with tall and muscualr Crowley – is about the irrelevance of the bits that suck and finding the parts of her that still fly.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

NEXT WAVE: SEEThrough

HELIUM
NEXT WAVE

SEEThrough

2 May 2014

Tower Theatre, Malthouse

to 11 May

malthousetheatre.com.au

SEEThrough grasps some truths about the awkward bond of heterosexual men and was created with  passion and honesty, but it isn't ready for the stage.

And with significant development support from Next Wave, Ilbijerri, the Performance Space and Malthouse, it should have been more ready.

Performed and devised by Colin Kinchela and Gavin Walters, it's about the bond between an Aboriginal man and a white man who grew up in a small town. It looks at sacred male spaces and the intimate rituals of male bonding, but doesn't move beyond the known and obvious.

There are attention-grabbing moments in the script, but the meaning of a work isn't just its words. It's what you say in every other element of a production that lets words live and connect or dribble away unnoticed. With awkward staging that bounced around the wide and empty black space like a tennis match and performances that didn't feel safe or open, the text wasn't supported.

But I hope that SEEThrough isn't shelved and dismissed after this production because not ready isn't the same as not good.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Mini review: Travelling Worm Show!

Hey! Yeah! It's Molly's Travelling Worm Show!
HELIUM
17 August 2013
The Tower, Malthouse Theatre
to 24 August
malthousetheatre.com.au

The undoubtable appeal of Hey! Yeah! It's Molly's Travelling Worm Show! is its embracing of all things crap.

It's based on the true-enough story of Melita Rowston's search for the “best damn crap tourism destination" that she discovered in her adventures around the world. But it's not about her adventures, it's about her crappest of the crap: the worm festival held in the 1970s and 80s in the tiny Gippsland town of Korumburra. Here the area's unique three-metre worms were celebrated, celebrities like Daryl Somers were crowned Worm King and local kids came to Melbourne for the Moomba parade with a giant worm puppet called Karmai. You don't get much crapper than than.

So this show, where Melita's now Molly, starts with a love of crap as its artistic guide. Molly arrives in a dodgy motel, having kidnapped a famous ostrich and crow puppet. She goes a bit meta with explaining that they're in a motel in a theatre and that their quest is to find Karmai's puppet master.

With help from performer Narda Shanley and puppeter Benito Di Fonzo, there are some very funny moments and the nostalgia oozes, but there's a fine line between celebrating crap and falling into it.

If this were a half-hour, late-night Fringe show, the worm could be a squirmy hit, but this version is too long, gets lost in its own story, isn't sure who its audience is and doesn't feel sure about what it's trying to share. There's something very lovely about Molly's worm adventure, so it's hard to totally dismiss it, but its genuine delight is still buried in the compost and needs some extra time with the worm bin.

Mini review: This is beautiful

HELIUM
This is beautiful
The Public Studio
19 July 2013
Tower Theatre, Malthouse Theatre
to 3 August
malthousetheatre.com.au

This is beautiful is the second work in Malthouse's independent theatre program, Helium. As performance art, it never claims to be theatre.

There are three screens, a large fruit and flower display, and three black lumps from which three dress-clad performers appear and ask questions about beauty.

I describe theatre and art as beautiful a lot. This work made me want to define what I think is beautiful.

Beautiful art:

• is created from your heart more than your head
• tells me something I didn't know about you
• reveals something that lets me connect with you and your view of the world
• is created by people who know their audience is smarter than they are
• asks questions beyond the obvious
• shares and celebrates.

Beauty has little connection with aesthetic choice.

This is beautiful is many things, but I didn't think it was beautiful.

Mini review: Lord of the Flies

HELIUM
Lord of the Flies
US-A-UM and Malthouse Theatre
7 July 2013
The Tower, Malthouse Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

An adaption of William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies open's Malthouse Theatre's Helium program: five new works by independent artists. Flies is the debut for US-A-UM, who are based in Sydney and founded by director Kip Williams and producers Samuel J Hagen and Kate McBride.

The season's sold out, so hold tight to your tickets or kill a beast to secure one.

Set in a private boarding school, genteel furniture (design by Michael Hankin) becomes the island the children are stranded on and is soon as menacing and unknown as the dark forest and as exposed as the open beach.

The boys are played by young women, who keep the male names and behave like young teenagers who have been torn away from their homes and believe they might be the only people left alive. It's not women playing men and any assumptions about gender disappear in moments. And having gone to a private girls school, I recognised everything.

It's a stunning reading of the book. It grasps Golding's tone and turns it up to deafening, while bringing a sense of right-now attitudes and questions, and telling it in ways that only theatre can.

And the cast are sensational: Alexandra Aldrich, Zoe Boesen, Cat Davies, Michele Durman, Stacey Duckworth, Emma Griffin, Fiona Pepper, Contessa Treffone and Eloise Winestock.  It's impossible to name one above the other as their performances are so consistent and they work as an ensemble who wouldn't consider elevating one performance above an other.

If you can't find a ticket, best to book for the four other Helium shows, and there are only a handful of tickets left for the final MTC NEON show, Sisters Grimm's The Sovereign Wife.