The Rapture Chapter II: Art Vs Extinction
Finucane & Smith
7 September 2019
fortyfivedownstairs
To 29 September
fortyfivedownstairs.com
melbournefringe.com.au
 |
| Moira Finucane. Photo by Jodie Hutcinson |
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label Jackie Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jackie Smith. Show all posts
16 September 2019
Review: The Rapture Chapter II
MELBOURNE FRINGE
The Rapture Chapter II: Art Vs Extinction
Finucane & Smith
7 September 2019
fortyfivedownstairs
To 29 September
fortyfivedownstairs.com
melbournefringe.com.au
The Rapture Chapter II: Art Vs Extinction
Finucane & Smith
7 September 2019
fortyfivedownstairs
To 29 September
fortyfivedownstairs.com
melbournefringe.com.au
18 October 2017
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Taylor Mac, Chapter II & the G word
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Chapter II: 1836–1886
Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings
13 October 2017
Forum Theatre
www.festival.melbourne
Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music Chapter II included re-enacting the American Civil War, taking the racism out of The Mikado by setting it on Mars, moving all the chairs in the Forum, singing with helium and making even more new best friends. And ping-pong balls; has anyone talked about the ping-pong balls that Melbourne is loving in our own freaky way?
Sarah Walker's photos can tell story of Chapter II. She captures the why we're so in love with this show. Look at those smiles!
But back to Chapter 1. Something happened off stage, while Taylor was flying in a harness: the announcement of the McArthur Foundation Grants, which are incorrectly known as the 'genius' grants. Taylor got one. (As did with playwright Annie Baker, who wrote John that was at the MTC earlier this year.)
I first saw Taylor in 2008 in The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac. He had a ukelele, a suitcase full of op-shop drag and a lot of sequins and glitter. He performed to an intimate group at the Famous Spiegeltent next to Arts Centre Melbourne before going to the Feast festival in Adelaide. (Feast was directed by Dan Clarke, who is now working at Arts Centre Melbourne.)
I've been a fan ever since, and may have squealed when I found out that the 24-hour show was coming to Melbourne. Judy (Taylor's preferred pronoun; it really is easy to understand) shared work that started from the personal, ignored aesthetic and acceptable ideas of how to story, and connected with people who may never have thought they would connect with the radical idea of being your authentic self and seeing the world through a different gaze.
Many artists affirm how I see myself and my community. That night with Taylor changed how I saw myself in my community.
I left knowing that drag was could be exciting, embracing and subversive in ways that said 'fuck off' to all ridiculous assumptions of masculinity or femininity. And that it didn't have to insult women.
And I stopped resisting the Q word. My first memories of "queer" was it being re-appropriated as an insult. Re-re-appropriating queer as positive and inclusive has been bloody marvelous.
Mama Alto – one of Melbourne's Dandy Minions: the magnificent locals helping to make the 24-hour show – explains queer and queering rather wonderfully in this piece in The Music. (Or read it in this issue, which includes some very groovy writers.)
Taylor's next trip to Melbourne was The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook or Comparison is Violence. I left knowing that glitter belongs on every face that wants it and my reviews began looking for more positive than negative.
I'm not surprised that the G word is being thrown around.
But the word also dismisses the work it takes to create works of genius.
Maybe being open to those ideas that are usually rejected, finding the people who you want to create with – let's not forget that a team of glorious people are part of the 24-hour show –, and ignoring the NO voices* is always an amazing place to start.
* including critics; good writers are not always right.
Also:
Taylor Mac In Conversation on Saturday at 2.30.
www.festival.melbourne
The Wrap: closing night party on Sunday.
www.festival.melbourne
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Chapter II: 1836–1886
Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings
13 October 2017
Forum Theatre
www.festival.melbourne
 |
| Taylor Mac. Hour 7. Photo by Sarah Walker |
Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music Chapter II included re-enacting the American Civil War, taking the racism out of The Mikado by setting it on Mars, moving all the chairs in the Forum, singing with helium and making even more new best friends. And ping-pong balls; has anyone talked about the ping-pong balls that Melbourne is loving in our own freaky way?
 |
| Taylor Mac. Hour 8. Photo by Sarah Walker |
Sarah Walker's photos can tell story of Chapter II. She captures the why we're so in love with this show. Look at those smiles!
 |
| Hour 11. The balloons were worth catching |
But back to Chapter 1. Something happened off stage, while Taylor was flying in a harness: the announcement of the McArthur Foundation Grants, which are incorrectly known as the 'genius' grants. Taylor got one. (As did with playwright Annie Baker, who wrote John that was at the MTC earlier this year.)
 |
| Taylor Mac. Hour 9. Photo by Sarah Walker |
I first saw Taylor in 2008 in The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac. He had a ukelele, a suitcase full of op-shop drag and a lot of sequins and glitter. He performed to an intimate group at the Famous Spiegeltent next to Arts Centre Melbourne before going to the Feast festival in Adelaide. (Feast was directed by Dan Clarke, who is now working at Arts Centre Melbourne.)
 |
| Taylor Mac & Machine Dazzle. Hour 12. Photo by Sarah Walker |
I've been a fan ever since, and may have squealed when I found out that the 24-hour show was coming to Melbourne. Judy (Taylor's preferred pronoun; it really is easy to understand) shared work that started from the personal, ignored aesthetic and acceptable ideas of how to story, and connected with people who may never have thought they would connect with the radical idea of being your authentic self and seeing the world through a different gaze.
Many artists affirm how I see myself and my community. That night with Taylor changed how I saw myself in my community.
I left knowing that drag was could be exciting, embracing and subversive in ways that said 'fuck off' to all ridiculous assumptions of masculinity or femininity. And that it didn't have to insult women.
 |
| Taylor Mac, Dandy Minions (including Mama Also in the green wig) & audience (including Richard Watts, Tom Halls & Simone French). Hour 10 |
And I stopped resisting the Q word. My first memories of "queer" was it being re-appropriated as an insult. Re-re-appropriating queer as positive and inclusive has been bloody marvelous.
Mama Alto – one of Melbourne's Dandy Minions: the magnificent locals helping to make the 24-hour show – explains queer and queering rather wonderfully in this piece in The Music. (Or read it in this issue, which includes some very groovy writers.)
 |
| The Civil War. Photo by Sarah Walker |
Taylor's next trip to Melbourne was The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook or Comparison is Violence. I left knowing that glitter belongs on every face that wants it and my reviews began looking for more positive than negative.
I'm not surprised that the G word is being thrown around.
But the word also dismisses the work it takes to create works of genius.
 |
| Jackie Smith & Moira Finucaine. Photo by Sarah Walker |
Maybe being open to those ideas that are usually rejected, finding the people who you want to create with – let's not forget that a team of glorious people are part of the 24-hour show –, and ignoring the NO voices* is always an amazing place to start.
 |
| Dan Giovannoni as Yum Yum in The Mikado. Photo by Sarah Walker |
* including critics; good writers are not always right.
Also:
Taylor Mac In Conversation on Saturday at 2.30.
www.festival.melbourne
The Wrap: closing night party on Sunday.
www.festival.melbourne
 |
| Circus Oz Strong Women. Photo by Sarah Walker |
 |
| Chanon Judson. Photo by Sarah Walker |
 |
| Musical Director Matt Ray, who is also on stage for 24 hours. Photo by Sarah Walker |
11 July 2017
Review: The Rapture
The Rapture
Finucane & Smith
1 July 2017
fortyfivedownstairs
to 15 July
fortyfivedownstairs.com
The Rapture is a new work by Finucane & Smith – do I need to say more – and a community of artists who continue to create space where art offers hope and audiences dance.
It’s mostly a solo work by Moira Finucane; solo that’s only possible with the support and contribution of many, including a Mama Alto, Clare St Clare, Shirley Cattunar and Miss Chief on the stage, and music by Darrin Verhagen and Ben Keene. And Jackie Smith.
In the hazy underground of fortyfivedownstairs, there’s a catwalk that rejects any thought that imperfect isn’t exquisite. Here, Moira channels every god and devil that’s ever been worshipped or dismissed as she explores the love and despair that makes humans search for more than what we think we are. Then in a blink, she’s the person maybe only seen at home when no one is looking. Never assume that the divine are more than human.
Here naked means nothing more than naked and cheap tomato sauce from the supermarket is as much art as the hand-sewn costumes and original music created from hours of frustration and joy.
Moira’s performance is uncensored – no, that’s not the right word. So much of what we see in theatre is created for others: for subscribers, critics, ticket buyers, boards, bosses and funding bodies. And if it fails to thrill, the “fors” are blamed for not getting it or daring to be bored or disconnected.
Moira’s performance is self-indulgent – that’s not it either. Self indulgence on a stage doesn’t welcome an audience and brings little more than pleasure to the self-pleasuring artist.
Self indulgence and self censorship are for self. This work is deeply personal, but if it were all for herself, it wouldn’t connect and there wouldn’t a growing community of audiences (all over the world, now) who know they are as much a part of the experience as the artists who create it.
The Rapture comes from the very personal and reaches to places that are unknown but familiar. Even if you haven’t been in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and swung between despair and ecstasy at the human capacity to grieve and to treasure, you know what it’s like to think what you’d give up if you had to. Even if you can’t see structural oppression, even if you cringe at imperfection, even if you don't love polar bears, there's a place where thought falls away and we connect – even if you have no idea why.
We know when we're struggling and we usually know why. The Rapture gives us no excuse not to hope. It doesn't get much better than that.
Finucane & Smith
1 July 2017
fortyfivedownstairs
to 15 July
fortyfivedownstairs.com
 |
| Moira Finucane |
The Rapture is a new work by Finucane & Smith – do I need to say more – and a community of artists who continue to create space where art offers hope and audiences dance.
It’s mostly a solo work by Moira Finucane; solo that’s only possible with the support and contribution of many, including a Mama Alto, Clare St Clare, Shirley Cattunar and Miss Chief on the stage, and music by Darrin Verhagen and Ben Keene. And Jackie Smith.
In the hazy underground of fortyfivedownstairs, there’s a catwalk that rejects any thought that imperfect isn’t exquisite. Here, Moira channels every god and devil that’s ever been worshipped or dismissed as she explores the love and despair that makes humans search for more than what we think we are. Then in a blink, she’s the person maybe only seen at home when no one is looking. Never assume that the divine are more than human.
Here naked means nothing more than naked and cheap tomato sauce from the supermarket is as much art as the hand-sewn costumes and original music created from hours of frustration and joy.
Moira’s performance is uncensored – no, that’s not the right word. So much of what we see in theatre is created for others: for subscribers, critics, ticket buyers, boards, bosses and funding bodies. And if it fails to thrill, the “fors” are blamed for not getting it or daring to be bored or disconnected.
Moira’s performance is self-indulgent – that’s not it either. Self indulgence on a stage doesn’t welcome an audience and brings little more than pleasure to the self-pleasuring artist.
Self indulgence and self censorship are for self. This work is deeply personal, but if it were all for herself, it wouldn’t connect and there wouldn’t a growing community of audiences (all over the world, now) who know they are as much a part of the experience as the artists who create it.
The Rapture comes from the very personal and reaches to places that are unknown but familiar. Even if you haven’t been in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and swung between despair and ecstasy at the human capacity to grieve and to treasure, you know what it’s like to think what you’d give up if you had to. Even if you can’t see structural oppression, even if you cringe at imperfection, even if you don't love polar bears, there's a place where thought falls away and we connect – even if you have no idea why.
We know when we're struggling and we usually know why. The Rapture gives us no excuse not to hope. It doesn't get much better than that.
19 December 2016
What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 13
The "Lovies" will be ending this week, but if you send me some today, I'll make sure they get in.
Today we hear from Mama Alto and the Opera Chaser, Paul Selar.
Mama Alto
diva (in the most magnificent sense of the word)
MA's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Hot Brown Honey, at Arts Centre Melbourne, was affirming, daring, excoriating, exciting, irreverent, holy and empowering. It was joyous and emotional for me to see – for a change – so many people of colour, not just on stage but in the audience, too. This show, and the direct expressions of these artists, is a complete revelation. And it provided words to live by: "Moisturise, decolonise… stand up, speak up, rise up, make noise!".
Between Two Lines (Anna Nalpantidis with Elizabeth Brennan), at Embiggen Books,was my absolute pick of the Melbourne Fringe. Intimacy, stillness, presence, tenderness and the astoundingly profound depth of a one-on-one live art experience: the esoteric and curious ritual of bibliotherapy in a bath tub, and the feeling of balancing in an enormous snow globe, floating like a bubble in a precarious world.
Retrofuturismus (Maude Davies, Anni Davies and ensemble) at fortyfivedownstairs, which was equal parts shocking, tender, insightful, powerful and interrogative. A collision of the then, the now, and the yet to come, posing questions and explorations of environmental catastrophe, history repeating, queer possibilities, feminist futures and human nature.
Lisa Fischer at the Melbourne Recital Centre gave us the magic of unadulterated storytelling, with utter focus, dedication, talent, skill and sheer musical honesty. Lisa Fischer pours forth a fluid, breathtaking, all-encompassing and limitless voice with a warmth and generosity of storytelling, empathy and healing that is crystalline and rare.
Honourable mentions:
Blaque Showgirls (Nakkiah Lui and company) at Malthouse: a damning, hilarious, uncomfortable, layered spectacle of the state of this nation.
Lilith, the Jungle Girl (Sisters Grimm) at MTC Neon: a nuanced, raucous and provocative exploration of colonisation, culture, gender and the body.
Meow Meow's The Little Mermaid at The Malthouse: there are no words for the scintillating, glimmering madness of this diva’s unleashed psyche.
Frock Hudson FURRlesque at the Melba Spiegeltent: in the midst of a queer circus of silliness, humour, glamour and camp, Dean Arcuri in a glorious state of disarray delivered a poignant, raw, honest, tragically beautiful, emotional and heartbreaking sung rendition of "Will You Still Love Me When I’m No Longer Young And Beautiful" that spoke volumes about what it means to be queer and in love today.
The Color Purple (StageArt) at Chapel off Chapel: a stunning and passionate rendition of this Broadway icon-in-the-making, with a star turn by Thando Sikwila as Shug Avery. "It takes a grain of love to build a mighty tree – even the smallest voice can make a harmony."
Vanishing Act (Candace Miles and Rosie Clynes) at The Butterfly Club for Melbourne Fringe: a fabulous and unique cabaret journey through life with influences as diverse as Weimar, Grace Jones, Klaus Nomi, Kander and Ebb, and more, but syncretically combined to create a postmodern mishmash spectacle.
Lastly, powerful, eccentric, (rightfully) unashamed, (rightfully) unapologetic,authentic voices from women in cabaret comedy, two highlights of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: the irrepressible local legend Geraldine Quinn in a brilliant retrospective revue Could You Repeat That at Malthouse, and emerging feminist rabble rousers Pink Flappy Bits in their eponymous shows.
What MA is looking forward to in 2017: Particularly, Pamela Rabe in The Testament of Mary, DisColourNation’s second iteration of The Unbearable Whiteness of Being, and the new Jackie Smith play directed by Moira Finucane, The Exotic Lives of Lola Montez.
And more generally, anything involving the extraordinary talents and stories of people of colour, people experiencing disability, queer people, trans and gender diverse people, non-binary people and women.
mamaalto.com
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9
part 10
part 11
part 12
2014
2013
2012
Today we hear from Mama Alto and the Opera Chaser, Paul Selar.
Mama Alto
diva (in the most magnificent sense of the word)
 |
| Mama Alto. Photo by Alexis Desaulniers-Lea |
MA's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Hot Brown Honey, at Arts Centre Melbourne, was affirming, daring, excoriating, exciting, irreverent, holy and empowering. It was joyous and emotional for me to see – for a change – so many people of colour, not just on stage but in the audience, too. This show, and the direct expressions of these artists, is a complete revelation. And it provided words to live by: "Moisturise, decolonise… stand up, speak up, rise up, make noise!".
Between Two Lines (Anna Nalpantidis with Elizabeth Brennan), at Embiggen Books,was my absolute pick of the Melbourne Fringe. Intimacy, stillness, presence, tenderness and the astoundingly profound depth of a one-on-one live art experience: the esoteric and curious ritual of bibliotherapy in a bath tub, and the feeling of balancing in an enormous snow globe, floating like a bubble in a precarious world.
Retrofuturismus (Maude Davies, Anni Davies and ensemble) at fortyfivedownstairs, which was equal parts shocking, tender, insightful, powerful and interrogative. A collision of the then, the now, and the yet to come, posing questions and explorations of environmental catastrophe, history repeating, queer possibilities, feminist futures and human nature.
Lisa Fischer at the Melbourne Recital Centre gave us the magic of unadulterated storytelling, with utter focus, dedication, talent, skill and sheer musical honesty. Lisa Fischer pours forth a fluid, breathtaking, all-encompassing and limitless voice with a warmth and generosity of storytelling, empathy and healing that is crystalline and rare.
Honourable mentions:
Blaque Showgirls (Nakkiah Lui and company) at Malthouse: a damning, hilarious, uncomfortable, layered spectacle of the state of this nation.
Lilith, the Jungle Girl (Sisters Grimm) at MTC Neon: a nuanced, raucous and provocative exploration of colonisation, culture, gender and the body.
Meow Meow's The Little Mermaid at The Malthouse: there are no words for the scintillating, glimmering madness of this diva’s unleashed psyche.
Frock Hudson FURRlesque at the Melba Spiegeltent: in the midst of a queer circus of silliness, humour, glamour and camp, Dean Arcuri in a glorious state of disarray delivered a poignant, raw, honest, tragically beautiful, emotional and heartbreaking sung rendition of "Will You Still Love Me When I’m No Longer Young And Beautiful" that spoke volumes about what it means to be queer and in love today.
The Color Purple (StageArt) at Chapel off Chapel: a stunning and passionate rendition of this Broadway icon-in-the-making, with a star turn by Thando Sikwila as Shug Avery. "It takes a grain of love to build a mighty tree – even the smallest voice can make a harmony."
Vanishing Act (Candace Miles and Rosie Clynes) at The Butterfly Club for Melbourne Fringe: a fabulous and unique cabaret journey through life with influences as diverse as Weimar, Grace Jones, Klaus Nomi, Kander and Ebb, and more, but syncretically combined to create a postmodern mishmash spectacle.
Lastly, powerful, eccentric, (rightfully) unashamed, (rightfully) unapologetic,authentic voices from women in cabaret comedy, two highlights of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: the irrepressible local legend Geraldine Quinn in a brilliant retrospective revue Could You Repeat That at Malthouse, and emerging feminist rabble rousers Pink Flappy Bits in their eponymous shows.
And more generally, anything involving the extraordinary talents and stories of people of colour, people experiencing disability, queer people, trans and gender diverse people, non-binary people and women.
mamaalto.com
SM: The Adulteress (Melbourne Fringe) was cool and delightfully camp, but my Mama highlight was last week at Finucane and Smith's Christmas Cocktail party. There were many magnificent performances that captivated the sold-out, overflowing room, but one left the room silent: Mama Alto. One captivating song and the room exploded with pure love.
Paul Selar
Opera Chaser
OC's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: In my three decades of opera-going that I'm now calling OperaChasing and the piles of opera programs I'm not sure what to do with, 2016 will remain special: 95 opera productions in 21 cities. The memories of many may wilt as they hopefully nourish the heart and soul but others presumably will have everlasting immediacy.
In Melbourne, I love seeing how the operatic pulse beats and I'm always wishing more people would taste what's on offer, from the smell-of-an-oily-rag budget productions to the polished bells and whistles of the hugely funded national opera company. One thing for certain is that the smell of an oily rag is often at least as overwhelmingly affecting and rewarding as any high-end work performed to the more toffee-nosed culture that sticks to opera's heals.
Melbourne staged no less than 24 opera productions in 2016. Adding Gertrude Opera's Nagambie Lakes Opera Festival, a little weekend outing for city dwellers to combine wine and opera, the number swells to 32. Ok, part of that diverse program included three "nano" operas around 15 minutes in length each, but how their succinct attack still penetrates. Apart from the bacchanalian-steered opening night dinner and gorgeously sung operatic arias, Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti directed by Greg Eldridge and The Scottish Opera, a new gripping, shortened and stylised meshing of Verdi's Macbeth in an 80-minute work directed and designed by Luke Leonard still resonate.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the return of Opera Australia's Ring Cycle directed by Neil Armfield surprised me how much more arresting it was than its 2013 premiere (possibly due to that wilted memory). Elements of the everyday, mixed with the symbolic and surreal accompanying detailed characterisation and the year's most extraordinary singing and music-making, came together in a work of astounding beauty. Thank the gods it wasn't staged earlier in the year. I was so emotionally pummelled that immersing in anything outside The Ring seemed completely mundane.
Of the four, I had to see Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung again, and not just because of the allure of the double-dotted diacritics. Let's hope the cycle returns to Melbourne in 2019 so that it can be ticked off many more bucket lists.
But take note Opera Australia. More double-dotted Wagnerian repertoire got a magnificent outing by independently funded Melbourne Opera with Tannhäuser. This was a huge achievement that saw the company take a bold risk while making opera look right at home in the iconic Regent Theatre. Wagner's recurring theme of redemption resonated with glorious singing, expert orchestral support and director Suzanne Chaundy and her creative team's compelling staging portraying the contrast between one world of societal strictures and another of sexual pleasures. Perhaps Melbourne does have the initiative and resources to call itself a Wagnerian city after all. Is there any dream this city can't dream without making it a reality?
Victorian Opera's innovative arm muscled up once again under Artistic Director Richard Mills's tireless efforts in giving a fresh approach to the art. Directed by Emil Wolk, Laughter and Tears saw Mills's powerful reimagining of Leoncavallo's great tragic one-act opera, Pagliacci – the tears – came with a prologue made up of a pastiche of Baroque and Renaissance music imbued with comic abandon and contextual contrast – the laughter. Integrated circus arts handsomely illuminated the stage for one of the company's most compelling recent works that saw opera return to another splendid venue, the Palais Theatre. Certainly a work worthy of revival.
Finally, little Lyric Opera of Melbourne delivered an exquisite three-season adventure headed by the succulently staged, mojito-driven and rarely seen operatic version of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana by Aussie composer Malcolm Williamson. The musical richness of the score – brilliantly sung by many of Melbourne's young artists – the witty libretto and the directorial flesh Suzanne Chaundy gave to this festering black comedy (performed to an audience not much larger than 150), reflects the knack Artistic Director Pat Miller has in unearthing varied and exciting works.
Much further afield, controversial Catalan director Calixto Bieito's dark, thought-provoking interpretation of Fromental Halévy's rarely seen 1835 La Juive (The Jewess) at the Bavarian State Opera stood out for its subtlety and strength. Musically and vocally outstanding, it remains for me the year's most powerfully relevant work highlighting the oneness and differences in humanity, the instilled fear of the other as a threat, and of intolerances we harbour but can't see. Much food for modern thought.
Finally, for those interested in the many great contributions made to the art of opera in 2016, I'm running a one-hour Twitter night for The 2nd Annual OperaChaser Awards and Commendations via @OperaChaser between Christmas and New Year. I've given only a little away so come join in and have a drink to find out more to celebrate our artists with me.
What OC is looking forward to in 2017: If you think opera isn't your thing, maybe 2017 might change that. Bizet's ever-popular Carmen comes to town in a new production from Opera Australia so that could do the trick but I saw it in Sydney earlier this year and it's Cuban-set concoction needed a deal of attention I hope it gets by May. Two works at the top of my list are Opera Australia's King Roger – a 1924 work by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski and a co-production with London's Royal Opera House – and Melbourne Opera's second outing at the Regent Theatre for hours and hours of more Wagner with Lohengrin.
Rarely do we see Czech composer Leoš Janácek’s powerful works so Victorian Opera's Cunning Little Vixen, his poignant reflection on the cycle of life, shouldn't be missed either. Make sure you add Tom Waits and William S Burroughs's allegory of addiction, The Black Rider, to the list as well. It's a co-production with Malthouse Theatre starring Paul Capsis with Meow Meow and Kanen Breen.
Lyric Opera of Melbourne will no doubt enchant with a contemporary work by female composer Rachel Portman, The Little Prince. Based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's delightful 1943 book, it premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2003 with Teddy Tabu Rhodes in the role of the Pilot.
Finally, on the international front, for something quirky amongst so much impressive work that'll be impossible to see, there's a new comic opera based on that botched restoration of a fresco of Jesus likened to a hedgehog. Written by two Americans, librettist Andrew Flack and composer Paul Fowler, Behold the Man will premiere in a fully staged production in the town of Borja where everyone's laughing at how a town's misfortune turned with just a few well-intended brushstrokes. That I'd love to see.
operachaser.blogspot.com.au
Paul Selar
Opera Chaser
 |
| Paul Selar selfie |
OC's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: In my three decades of opera-going that I'm now calling OperaChasing and the piles of opera programs I'm not sure what to do with, 2016 will remain special: 95 opera productions in 21 cities. The memories of many may wilt as they hopefully nourish the heart and soul but others presumably will have everlasting immediacy.
In Melbourne, I love seeing how the operatic pulse beats and I'm always wishing more people would taste what's on offer, from the smell-of-an-oily-rag budget productions to the polished bells and whistles of the hugely funded national opera company. One thing for certain is that the smell of an oily rag is often at least as overwhelmingly affecting and rewarding as any high-end work performed to the more toffee-nosed culture that sticks to opera's heals.
Melbourne staged no less than 24 opera productions in 2016. Adding Gertrude Opera's Nagambie Lakes Opera Festival, a little weekend outing for city dwellers to combine wine and opera, the number swells to 32. Ok, part of that diverse program included three "nano" operas around 15 minutes in length each, but how their succinct attack still penetrates. Apart from the bacchanalian-steered opening night dinner and gorgeously sung operatic arias, Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti directed by Greg Eldridge and The Scottish Opera, a new gripping, shortened and stylised meshing of Verdi's Macbeth in an 80-minute work directed and designed by Luke Leonard still resonate.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the return of Opera Australia's Ring Cycle directed by Neil Armfield surprised me how much more arresting it was than its 2013 premiere (possibly due to that wilted memory). Elements of the everyday, mixed with the symbolic and surreal accompanying detailed characterisation and the year's most extraordinary singing and music-making, came together in a work of astounding beauty. Thank the gods it wasn't staged earlier in the year. I was so emotionally pummelled that immersing in anything outside The Ring seemed completely mundane.
Of the four, I had to see Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung again, and not just because of the allure of the double-dotted diacritics. Let's hope the cycle returns to Melbourne in 2019 so that it can be ticked off many more bucket lists.
But take note Opera Australia. More double-dotted Wagnerian repertoire got a magnificent outing by independently funded Melbourne Opera with Tannhäuser. This was a huge achievement that saw the company take a bold risk while making opera look right at home in the iconic Regent Theatre. Wagner's recurring theme of redemption resonated with glorious singing, expert orchestral support and director Suzanne Chaundy and her creative team's compelling staging portraying the contrast between one world of societal strictures and another of sexual pleasures. Perhaps Melbourne does have the initiative and resources to call itself a Wagnerian city after all. Is there any dream this city can't dream without making it a reality?
Victorian Opera's innovative arm muscled up once again under Artistic Director Richard Mills's tireless efforts in giving a fresh approach to the art. Directed by Emil Wolk, Laughter and Tears saw Mills's powerful reimagining of Leoncavallo's great tragic one-act opera, Pagliacci – the tears – came with a prologue made up of a pastiche of Baroque and Renaissance music imbued with comic abandon and contextual contrast – the laughter. Integrated circus arts handsomely illuminated the stage for one of the company's most compelling recent works that saw opera return to another splendid venue, the Palais Theatre. Certainly a work worthy of revival.
Finally, little Lyric Opera of Melbourne delivered an exquisite three-season adventure headed by the succulently staged, mojito-driven and rarely seen operatic version of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana by Aussie composer Malcolm Williamson. The musical richness of the score – brilliantly sung by many of Melbourne's young artists – the witty libretto and the directorial flesh Suzanne Chaundy gave to this festering black comedy (performed to an audience not much larger than 150), reflects the knack Artistic Director Pat Miller has in unearthing varied and exciting works.
Much further afield, controversial Catalan director Calixto Bieito's dark, thought-provoking interpretation of Fromental Halévy's rarely seen 1835 La Juive (The Jewess) at the Bavarian State Opera stood out for its subtlety and strength. Musically and vocally outstanding, it remains for me the year's most powerfully relevant work highlighting the oneness and differences in humanity, the instilled fear of the other as a threat, and of intolerances we harbour but can't see. Much food for modern thought.
Finally, for those interested in the many great contributions made to the art of opera in 2016, I'm running a one-hour Twitter night for The 2nd Annual OperaChaser Awards and Commendations via @OperaChaser between Christmas and New Year. I've given only a little away so come join in and have a drink to find out more to celebrate our artists with me.
What OC is looking forward to in 2017: If you think opera isn't your thing, maybe 2017 might change that. Bizet's ever-popular Carmen comes to town in a new production from Opera Australia so that could do the trick but I saw it in Sydney earlier this year and it's Cuban-set concoction needed a deal of attention I hope it gets by May. Two works at the top of my list are Opera Australia's King Roger – a 1924 work by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski and a co-production with London's Royal Opera House – and Melbourne Opera's second outing at the Regent Theatre for hours and hours of more Wagner with Lohengrin.
Rarely do we see Czech composer Leoš Janácek’s powerful works so Victorian Opera's Cunning Little Vixen, his poignant reflection on the cycle of life, shouldn't be missed either. Make sure you add Tom Waits and William S Burroughs's allegory of addiction, The Black Rider, to the list as well. It's a co-production with Malthouse Theatre starring Paul Capsis with Meow Meow and Kanen Breen.
Lyric Opera of Melbourne will no doubt enchant with a contemporary work by female composer Rachel Portman, The Little Prince. Based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's delightful 1943 book, it premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2003 with Teddy Tabu Rhodes in the role of the Pilot.
Finally, on the international front, for something quirky amongst so much impressive work that'll be impossible to see, there's a new comic opera based on that botched restoration of a fresco of Jesus likened to a hedgehog. Written by two Americans, librettist Andrew Flack and composer Paul Fowler, Behold the Man will premiere in a fully staged production in the town of Borja where everyone's laughing at how a town's misfortune turned with just a few well-intended brushstrokes. That I'd love to see.
operachaser.blogspot.com.au
SM: I didn't see as much opera as I wanted to this year, but Paul makes sure that I see some. His blog is great; no one else writes about just opera – let alone about opera all over the world. I learn so much about opera by reading his reviews and tweets.
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9
part 10
part 11
part 12
2014
2013
2012
07 September 2015
Review: Glory Box, La Revolucion
Glory Box: La Revolucion
Finicaine and Smith
Melba Speigeltent
to 13 September
finucaneandsmith.com
facebook page
For those who live on my side of town, they are on at the Kinsgton City Hall at Moorabin
on Tuesday 1 October.
kingstonarts.com.au
Right now, it's easy to let the state of the world leave you feeling powerless and heartbroken. Throw in the Australian government and its response to pretty much everything and it's a wonder that anyone can get our of bed and manage a smile. But it's also not hard to look around and see that we're not alone; that millions and millions of people all over the world really do give a fuck and are doing what they can to get us back on track.
If you need something to make you feel better and be assured that many fucks are being given by wonderful people, get to Glory Box: La Revolucion.
It finishes this weekend.
I promise that this show will lift your heart and give your soul the sort of tongue pash that leaves you so happy that you will have the energy to keep going and the determination to make a difference.
Everything about this year's Glory Box is about making our world better. From the performance that was free for artists to inviting amazing young performers Natasha May, from Tennant Creek, and Yeshewambtat Maharete, a refugee from Ethiopia, to join the company.
And it all began with the glorious boxes being invited to Cuba. Glory Box is the FIRST Australian show to be invited to the Havana International Theatre Festival. I can't think of any other company who are better to represent Australia. Don't look at our government, look at our artists. This is the real Australia. Viva!
This is a show about acceptance, love and humanity. It's about being who you are, not giving a toss if anyone is different, and doing what you can to value every person's life. And it's sexy as all go get.
There's not much that I haven't said about the artistry and general brilliance and artistry of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's burlesque shows. They are magnificent, and each year I wonder if Glory Box can possibly get any better. This year has surpassed itself.
Along with the new young performers, Holly Durant and Lili Paskas continue to combine the weird with the exotic, Moira brings out the milk, and Azaria Universe puts the pearls on for Total Eclipse of the Heart (I've lost count of how many times I've seen her do this, but it will never be enough).
New to the team is circus wonder and strongwoman Rockie Stone with dazzling rope work and a balance-strip with a wine bottle that will pop the most stubborn and repressed of corks. And Melbourne's own velvet-voiced Mama Alto feels so at home that it's hard to imagine a show without Benny Dimas.
Which is all wonderful, but there's also the new stage coupling of Moira and Saint Claire. There's a number with tomato sauce and white dresses that's heart breaking, but then they sing Garbage's "#1 Crush" with Moira as a bare-breasted king in a black leather jacket with flames, tight jeans and Cuban heels and Claire as a goddess in a strapless black dress with matching flames. I don't think I've seen anything hotter. (And I've seen St Claire and Mikelangelo.)
The night finishes with Moira's "Coffee of No Regrets", a monologue that starts with Saint Claire and Mama Alto singing "Non, je ne regrette rien" and ends with the Speigeltent screaming yes to personal, intellectual and sexual freedoms and ensuring that "his cafe latte was not hot enough" is on its way to becoming the cry of artists, activists and rat bags all over the world.
Now, I'm off to #LightTheDark.
GLORY BOX LA REVOLUCION! TILL 13 SEPT | Melba Spiegeltent 35 Johnston St Collingwood | from Finucane & Smith on Vimeo.
Finicaine and Smith
Melba Speigeltent
to 13 September
finucaneandsmith.com
facebook page
For those who live on my side of town, they are on at the Kinsgton City Hall at Moorabin
on Tuesday 1 October.
kingstonarts.com.au
 |
| Moira Finucane. Glory Box: Viva La Revolution |
Right now, it's easy to let the state of the world leave you feeling powerless and heartbroken. Throw in the Australian government and its response to pretty much everything and it's a wonder that anyone can get our of bed and manage a smile. But it's also not hard to look around and see that we're not alone; that millions and millions of people all over the world really do give a fuck and are doing what they can to get us back on track.
If you need something to make you feel better and be assured that many fucks are being given by wonderful people, get to Glory Box: La Revolucion.
It finishes this weekend.
I promise that this show will lift your heart and give your soul the sort of tongue pash that leaves you so happy that you will have the energy to keep going and the determination to make a difference.
Everything about this year's Glory Box is about making our world better. From the performance that was free for artists to inviting amazing young performers Natasha May, from Tennant Creek, and Yeshewambtat Maharete, a refugee from Ethiopia, to join the company.
And it all began with the glorious boxes being invited to Cuba. Glory Box is the FIRST Australian show to be invited to the Havana International Theatre Festival. I can't think of any other company who are better to represent Australia. Don't look at our government, look at our artists. This is the real Australia. Viva!
This is a show about acceptance, love and humanity. It's about being who you are, not giving a toss if anyone is different, and doing what you can to value every person's life. And it's sexy as all go get.
There's not much that I haven't said about the artistry and general brilliance and artistry of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's burlesque shows. They are magnificent, and each year I wonder if Glory Box can possibly get any better. This year has surpassed itself.
 |
| Saint Claire & Moira Finuaine |
Along with the new young performers, Holly Durant and Lili Paskas continue to combine the weird with the exotic, Moira brings out the milk, and Azaria Universe puts the pearls on for Total Eclipse of the Heart (I've lost count of how many times I've seen her do this, but it will never be enough).
New to the team is circus wonder and strongwoman Rockie Stone with dazzling rope work and a balance-strip with a wine bottle that will pop the most stubborn and repressed of corks. And Melbourne's own velvet-voiced Mama Alto feels so at home that it's hard to imagine a show without Benny Dimas.
Which is all wonderful, but there's also the new stage coupling of Moira and Saint Claire. There's a number with tomato sauce and white dresses that's heart breaking, but then they sing Garbage's "#1 Crush" with Moira as a bare-breasted king in a black leather jacket with flames, tight jeans and Cuban heels and Claire as a goddess in a strapless black dress with matching flames. I don't think I've seen anything hotter. (And I've seen St Claire and Mikelangelo.)
The night finishes with Moira's "Coffee of No Regrets", a monologue that starts with Saint Claire and Mama Alto singing "Non, je ne regrette rien" and ends with the Speigeltent screaming yes to personal, intellectual and sexual freedoms and ensuring that "his cafe latte was not hot enough" is on its way to becoming the cry of artists, activists and rat bags all over the world.
Now, I'm off to #LightTheDark.
GLORY BOX LA REVOLUCION! TILL 13 SEPT | Melba Spiegeltent 35 Johnston St Collingwood | from Finucane & Smith on Vimeo.
25 May 2015
#FreeForArtists
Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith and everyone who works and has worked with them are bloody marvellous people and remarkable artists.
As the last week has been a kick in to guts to the independent artists and companies that make us want to see, make and be art, F&S want to give something back to the community.
I want George Brandis to be my date for the Glory Box La Revolucion.
I want him to sit in room full of people who know how to think, who know how important it is to always question and confront what we know is wrong, and who know how to celebrate difference.
I want to see his face when Moira blows smoke into it.
I want him to tell me why it isn't the most "excellent" night of his life.
#BeMyTheatreDateGeorge.
Moira posted this on Facebook today:
ARTISTS. GLORY BOX IS #FREEFORARTISTS.
Because of a profound lack of support and good visionary leadership. Because of a consistent denial of human rights. Because of a lack of generosity and humanity. We here at Finucane & Smith are going to do some positive role modelling. ALL ARTISTS are invited to our coming season of Glory Box la Revolucion FOR FREE. And if you have been an independant artist for more than 10 years, we'll give you a little charm ( god knows you need one). There are limited tickets per night, and after they are gone, we'll make $25 tickets available for everyone who's missed out. If you are paid for your art, then pay us. If you have friends that earn money bring them. This season isn't funded. But let's share a generous joyful moment. #FREEFORARISTS. Because we think artists are ace. And necessary. So PM us, comment below, email us at info@moirafinucane.com. Grab a ticket share the joy.
We'll also be raising money for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre during the season for the exact same reason.
Share the joy. Spread the word.
Glory Box La Revolucion
20 August to 13 September 2015
The Melba Spiegeltent
email info@moirafinucane.com for artust tix tickets or buy some here.
As the last week has been a kick in to guts to the independent artists and companies that make us want to see, make and be art, F&S want to give something back to the community.
I want George Brandis to be my date for the Glory Box La Revolucion.
I want him to sit in room full of people who know how to think, who know how important it is to always question and confront what we know is wrong, and who know how to celebrate difference.
I want to see his face when Moira blows smoke into it.
I want him to tell me why it isn't the most "excellent" night of his life.
#BeMyTheatreDateGeorge.
Moira posted this on Facebook today:
ARTISTS. GLORY BOX IS #FREEFORARTISTS.
Because of a profound lack of support and good visionary leadership. Because of a consistent denial of human rights. Because of a lack of generosity and humanity. We here at Finucane & Smith are going to do some positive role modelling. ALL ARTISTS are invited to our coming season of Glory Box la Revolucion FOR FREE. And if you have been an independant artist for more than 10 years, we'll give you a little charm ( god knows you need one). There are limited tickets per night, and after they are gone, we'll make $25 tickets available for everyone who's missed out. If you are paid for your art, then pay us. If you have friends that earn money bring them. This season isn't funded. But let's share a generous joyful moment. #FREEFORARISTS. Because we think artists are ace. And necessary. So PM us, comment below, email us at info@moirafinucane.com. Grab a ticket share the joy.
We'll also be raising money for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre during the season for the exact same reason.
Share the joy. Spread the word.
Glory Box La Revolucion
20 August to 13 September 2015
The Melba Spiegeltent
email info@moirafinucane.com for artust tix tickets or buy some here.
23 August 2014
Review: Glory Box 10th Anniversary
Glory Box
Finucane & Smith
16 August 2014
Melba Spiegeltent, Circus Oz
to 24 August
Facebook event
Ten years ago I saw The Burlesque Hour in the Famous Spiegeltent on St Kilda Road. Moira Finucane, Azaria Universe and Umi Umiumare (and the Town Bikes); I was blown away and I still haven't seen anything like it. Many try, and are bloody wonderful, but they don't find that bit of me that says 'thank you'.
Finucane and Smith's Glory Box, as it was renamed, has toured the world but never misses a home season. This year, it opens the super-gorgeous Melba Spiegeltent in Circus Oz's new home in Collingwood – and it feels like it's come home.
Burlesque and strip. There's always been some female-positive acts, but mostly these performances were (and still are) created to be seen by male eyes and leave the performing woman in the position of an object to be enjoyed by the watcher. Like so many of us, Jackie Smith and Moira Finucane see women through better eyes, so they devised work that that doesn't just subvert that image, but smashes it to pieces and recreates it as something exciting, welcoming and celebratory.
This is burlesque that artists love performing and are doing so to share the experience with their audience.
This is strip that embodies feminism without the need to repress those parts of the feminine that can be ignored, rejected, criticised or fetishised.
This is feminist art that embraces the diversity of the sexual feminine, be she masculine, frilly, wild, angry, sassy, despairing, bejewelled, saucy, sad, prudish, glittery or quiet.
This is art where power and desire have no hint of negativity.
These are people who see nudity without shame or irony.
These are audiences who welcome bodies of all shapes and ages.
Here is subversive, queer, feminist art that didn't give a hoot if you're straight, conservative or "I'm-not-a-feminist-but".
And it's hilarious, sexy and outrageously glorious.
So, thank you!
Over the years, Moira and Jackie have welcomed some of the most amazing guest artists and helped many others to find their voices and their passion. Some are special guests during the season, which makes it hard to choose just one night to go!
Our guests were the magnificent Maude Davey, amazing flyer Roxie Stone, and the seriously sensational Emma J Hawkins whose broken doll strip sums up everything the Glory Box is about.
And every night there's Moira, Yumi, Azaria, Holly Durant and, new to the box, the magnificent songstress and siren Saint Clare.
It's a best of show, so expect favourites including Moira's "I Touch Myself" and Azaria's "Total Eclipse of the Heart": two pieces that they have to keep doing for as long as they can stand.
If somehow over the last ten years you haven't seen this show, there's no more excuses. The sparkling wine at the bar is excellent, it's not that hard to park, it's near tram stops and I promise that you'll leave happy and proud of being exactly who you are.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Finucane & Smith
16 August 2014
Melba Spiegeltent, Circus Oz
to 24 August
Facebook event
Ten years ago I saw The Burlesque Hour in the Famous Spiegeltent on St Kilda Road. Moira Finucane, Azaria Universe and Umi Umiumare (and the Town Bikes); I was blown away and I still haven't seen anything like it. Many try, and are bloody wonderful, but they don't find that bit of me that says 'thank you'.
Finucane and Smith's Glory Box, as it was renamed, has toured the world but never misses a home season. This year, it opens the super-gorgeous Melba Spiegeltent in Circus Oz's new home in Collingwood – and it feels like it's come home.
Burlesque and strip. There's always been some female-positive acts, but mostly these performances were (and still are) created to be seen by male eyes and leave the performing woman in the position of an object to be enjoyed by the watcher. Like so many of us, Jackie Smith and Moira Finucane see women through better eyes, so they devised work that that doesn't just subvert that image, but smashes it to pieces and recreates it as something exciting, welcoming and celebratory.
This is burlesque that artists love performing and are doing so to share the experience with their audience.
This is strip that embodies feminism without the need to repress those parts of the feminine that can be ignored, rejected, criticised or fetishised.
This is feminist art that embraces the diversity of the sexual feminine, be she masculine, frilly, wild, angry, sassy, despairing, bejewelled, saucy, sad, prudish, glittery or quiet.
This is art where power and desire have no hint of negativity.
These are people who see nudity without shame or irony.
These are audiences who welcome bodies of all shapes and ages.
Here is subversive, queer, feminist art that didn't give a hoot if you're straight, conservative or "I'm-not-a-feminist-but".
And it's hilarious, sexy and outrageously glorious.
So, thank you!
Over the years, Moira and Jackie have welcomed some of the most amazing guest artists and helped many others to find their voices and their passion. Some are special guests during the season, which makes it hard to choose just one night to go!
Our guests were the magnificent Maude Davey, amazing flyer Roxie Stone, and the seriously sensational Emma J Hawkins whose broken doll strip sums up everything the Glory Box is about.
And every night there's Moira, Yumi, Azaria, Holly Durant and, new to the box, the magnificent songstress and siren Saint Clare.
It's a best of show, so expect favourites including Moira's "I Touch Myself" and Azaria's "Total Eclipse of the Heart": two pieces that they have to keep doing for as long as they can stand.
If somehow over the last ten years you haven't seen this show, there's no more excuses. The sparkling wine at the bar is excellent, it's not that hard to park, it's near tram stops and I promise that you'll leave happy and proud of being exactly who you are.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
29 December 2013
What Finucaine & Smith loved in 2013, a New Year present
The ever-exquisite Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith wanted to include their favourite moments of 2013, but were worried that they hadn't seen much theatre in Melbourne this year, so they given everyone who reads Sometimes Melbourne, a New Year's gift of their Ten Moments of Revelation.
From ten years ago when Mary Lou said "Yes" to staging The Burlesque Hour at fortyfive downstairs, to Moira and Jackie saying "Sure" when someone wants to try something new, the last ten years of Finucane & Smith have resulted in some of the sexiest, sassiest, angriest, saddest, most outraged, most painful and most celebratory live art.
They took the negativity away from burlesque and made it an outrageously wonderful feminist celebration of women and men and love and everything else that should be celebrated far more than it is.
A while ago, I suggested that the lane way behind fortyfivedownstairs is re-named Finucaine & Smith Lane. Who do we have to hassle at the City of Melbourne to make this happen?
But over to Jackie and Moira.
Finucane & Smith travelled most of 2013. We were in Brighton, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and a few other assorted locales of glamour like Brisbane and Canberra, so we didn’t get to see much Melbourne theatre other than that which we created, but we did have some incredible revelatory moments with the art and artists of Melbourne. We have picked ten moments of New Revelation, many from artists we worked with for the first time this year, that will live in our memories for many years to come.
1. Afternoon, November, our little lo fi studio.
James Welsby comes in. We have never worked with him before. I'd met him in Tasmania a year ago, when Moira was talking about creating new work to some artists and the Finucane & Smith salon adventure approach to artistic risk taking, where we try out new work and new artistes and new collaborations: high risk art in low risk, lo-fi, low overheads salons. Well, James said he’d like to be in our next salon, and Moira said, "Sure". One year later he comes over in the afternoon, and shows us three fantastic short dance works, and then says, "I have a fourth I made it up this morning. It’s a kind of a sexy star wars dance that combines bump-n-grind, with a very lo-fi star wars costume and Ozzy Osbourne." Two months later it’s an uncontrollable hit.
2. Afternoon, October, the home of Kathryn Niesche, circus luminary of Appetite and Club Swing fame.
She wants to show us a Dutch Street organ her dad made. Handmade, handpainted, complete with Wurlitzer rolls. We love it. She has an idea about being an organ grinders monkey. She has Prince song "Organ grinder". We say, "Sure!" She gets the organ into Hares and Hyenas book shop, it’s very heavy. Two nights later she is rocking it out with her heritage organ in a monkey costume with her own personal grinders played by Lily Paskas and, yes, James Welsby. We were thrilled and her dad would have been proud.
3. Evening, February.
Everyone knows how extraordinary Vika and Linda Bulla are. But this is Vika Bull as a New Revelation. Vika Bull in the Etta James story. Every song jaw dropping. We cried. We gasped. Our jaws are still dropped many months later. She rocks in a way that is hard to describe.
4. Evening, August.
Moira is doing Iggy Pop’s "Candy" in jeans and no shirt, Iggy style, Vika and Linda Bull dressed in blue Supremes evening dresses, style on style, singing the Candy part. What an honour. What an honour. It rocked in a way that’s hard to describe.
=4. Morning, March. We have been commissioned to create the opening night event for Moomba, which we call Boom Boom Moomba. Disco seemed very important. So we created a red hot disco mama with Sarah Ward. She says, "I am not going to play a disco diva, I am going to be one." And so she proceeds to become the diva with the fever. Then she says to Jackie, "I am not going to ham it up, I will play it straight." Well anyone in Buenos Aires in October this year or Melbourne in July or on the banks of the Yarra on that hot March night would know that Sarah Ward playing it straight looks like a 1metre high white afro wig, spades of blue eye shadow, a costume that looks like an edible mirror ball, back up dancers, wild eyes, wild voice and sunglasses on the back of her head. Nice.
5. Hares & Hyena Bookshop, Late Afternoon, November.
Sarah Doogs McDougall, about 6 foot of pure larrikin circus talent walks in. She has mixed up the day and the act and comes with her hoops, but we already have a hoop act. Never mind. Can she do something on the bar we ask? Sure! She goes home and makes up a plate juggling, bottle juggling, tea towel juggling calf-eyed, sexy-silly-super-clumsy routine about a waiter being in love, and comes back the following night. She’s a hit. We call it Dumb Waiter. Look for it in the circus hall of fame.
6. Early Evening, June.
Jade Leanord, a beautiful young jazz diva, has given us a CD. We find it under a pile of dishes a few months later, and invite her to come and join us in Glory Box for a night. So she’s on the piano doing the most beautiful rendition of "Over the Rainbow", but the piano is offstage and ground level, so she needs just a tiny gentle visual support to draw the audience into her world. So one hour later, we have Ursula Martinez, of the red hanky strip fame, and Jess Love, of Candy Butchers fame, slowly processing down the catwalk, with animal heads on, holding hands, while Jess walks on champagne bottles, and they both end side of stage looking at Jade on the piano. Magic.
7. A very cold night, July.
Maude Davey. Not new to us, not new to Melbourne. But here is a new insight into her own particular genius, a celebration of what makes her such a special and irreplicable artist. And it all starts with her greeting us, in the rain, in a faux fur tippet, high heels and nothing else. And it only builds from there. Maude Davey. My Life in the Nude.
8. Morning, February.
Holly Durant is a most beautiful dancer. Last year we discovered she had a beautiful voice. This year we discovered she could act. She is a drunken agent’s assistant, bringing booze to two famous stars –played by two famous actresses Pamela Rabe and Caroline Lee – who have collapsed on a luxury hotel bed on Melbourne Cup Day. We are workshopping Jackie Smith’s New Play "The Star" on the 49th floor at Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Holly walks into rehearsal in a skin-tight chequered race dress, with fluorescent patent-yellow, 6-inch heels and a hideous fascinator and proceeds to fall all over Pamela and reel around the room, singing snippets from earnest new original musicals. She just ‘wanted to get into character’. Gold.
9. Evening, February, Fortyfivedownstairs, turn 10.
And we remember the first time we ever went in there. We wanted to create The Burlesque Hour but no one, and we mean no one, except John Paxinos, and a few fabulous funders, was interested. I sat across from Mary Lou Jelbart, with her wonderful voice, and keen artistic sensibilities, and she looked at me carefully and said, "Yes I have seen you." Pause. "You are remarkable." Pause. "Yes". And that was it. She didn’t need to know more. And ten years later we bring the Glory Box, as it’s now known around the world, back to fortyfivedownstairs every winter. And from Angus Cerini to Patricia Cornelius, from kamahi Djordon King to Sarah Ward she is still saying Yes. Yes.
10. Afternoon, October.
We are about to go to Buenos Aires to become the first Australian company ever to be invited to Latin America’s most prestigious international arts festival (no pressure) the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, but first we need to drop in at a little queer bookshop where we did our first ever cabaret, The Salon. Hares & Hyenas. Nearly 20 years ago. The stage was a door on milk crates, it was byo cushion to sit on the floor, Hares & Hyenas gave the punters bubbly (to help with the floor). A sell out. So here we are, planning a return to the bookshop! As soon as we got back from Latin America! (One month of wildly experimental art, new artists, new ideas, new acts every night!). And we are looking at lights. Everything looks amazing … almost too amazing. Then we discover the wallpaper the lights are playing off is original Florence Broadhurst! That’s why it looks like a film. And they open their home up for the performers to warm up. And they prepare us special Chinese tea so we can keep our energy up. And when we come back from our triumph in Buenos Aires – where they called Moira, La Diosa, (The Goddess) and compared Glory Box to Beckett, Ionesco and Artaud, and where Moira delivered her first ever monologues in Spanish (We knew it was going to be okay when the kitchen staff stopped working to listen during the tech) – and we come home to have one of the most creative months of our recent lives.
And finally, our own special Christmas gift: seeing Jennifer Zea, Venezuelan Soul Diva – who flew to Australia just to perform for us for one night – astound people with her extraordinary and massive voice, and her Latin Soul, in the velvet and luxurious surrounds of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins as she lifted their beautiful roof!
And we say, Gracias.
We remember again why Melbourne is one of the most creative universes in the world, why the passion and energy and commitment of artists, and artisans, and people who run all kinds of incredible theatrical venues spaces and ventures, create some of the most exciting art in the world.(I'm very excited by part 8.)
From ten years ago when Mary Lou said "Yes" to staging The Burlesque Hour at fortyfive downstairs, to Moira and Jackie saying "Sure" when someone wants to try something new, the last ten years of Finucane & Smith have resulted in some of the sexiest, sassiest, angriest, saddest, most outraged, most painful and most celebratory live art.
They took the negativity away from burlesque and made it an outrageously wonderful feminist celebration of women and men and love and everything else that should be celebrated far more than it is.
A while ago, I suggested that the lane way behind fortyfivedownstairs is re-named Finucaine & Smith Lane. Who do we have to hassle at the City of Melbourne to make this happen?
But over to Jackie and Moira.
Finucane & Smith travelled most of 2013. We were in Brighton, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and a few other assorted locales of glamour like Brisbane and Canberra, so we didn’t get to see much Melbourne theatre other than that which we created, but we did have some incredible revelatory moments with the art and artists of Melbourne. We have picked ten moments of New Revelation, many from artists we worked with for the first time this year, that will live in our memories for many years to come.
1. Afternoon, November, our little lo fi studio.
James Welsby comes in. We have never worked with him before. I'd met him in Tasmania a year ago, when Moira was talking about creating new work to some artists and the Finucane & Smith salon adventure approach to artistic risk taking, where we try out new work and new artistes and new collaborations: high risk art in low risk, lo-fi, low overheads salons. Well, James said he’d like to be in our next salon, and Moira said, "Sure". One year later he comes over in the afternoon, and shows us three fantastic short dance works, and then says, "I have a fourth I made it up this morning. It’s a kind of a sexy star wars dance that combines bump-n-grind, with a very lo-fi star wars costume and Ozzy Osbourne." Two months later it’s an uncontrollable hit.
2. Afternoon, October, the home of Kathryn Niesche, circus luminary of Appetite and Club Swing fame.
She wants to show us a Dutch Street organ her dad made. Handmade, handpainted, complete with Wurlitzer rolls. We love it. She has an idea about being an organ grinders monkey. She has Prince song "Organ grinder". We say, "Sure!" She gets the organ into Hares and Hyenas book shop, it’s very heavy. Two nights later she is rocking it out with her heritage organ in a monkey costume with her own personal grinders played by Lily Paskas and, yes, James Welsby. We were thrilled and her dad would have been proud.
3. Evening, February.
Everyone knows how extraordinary Vika and Linda Bulla are. But this is Vika Bull as a New Revelation. Vika Bull in the Etta James story. Every song jaw dropping. We cried. We gasped. Our jaws are still dropped many months later. She rocks in a way that is hard to describe.
4. Evening, August.
Moira is doing Iggy Pop’s "Candy" in jeans and no shirt, Iggy style, Vika and Linda Bull dressed in blue Supremes evening dresses, style on style, singing the Candy part. What an honour. What an honour. It rocked in a way that’s hard to describe.
=4. Morning, March. We have been commissioned to create the opening night event for Moomba, which we call Boom Boom Moomba. Disco seemed very important. So we created a red hot disco mama with Sarah Ward. She says, "I am not going to play a disco diva, I am going to be one." And so she proceeds to become the diva with the fever. Then she says to Jackie, "I am not going to ham it up, I will play it straight." Well anyone in Buenos Aires in October this year or Melbourne in July or on the banks of the Yarra on that hot March night would know that Sarah Ward playing it straight looks like a 1metre high white afro wig, spades of blue eye shadow, a costume that looks like an edible mirror ball, back up dancers, wild eyes, wild voice and sunglasses on the back of her head. Nice.
5. Hares & Hyena Bookshop, Late Afternoon, November.
Sarah Doogs McDougall, about 6 foot of pure larrikin circus talent walks in. She has mixed up the day and the act and comes with her hoops, but we already have a hoop act. Never mind. Can she do something on the bar we ask? Sure! She goes home and makes up a plate juggling, bottle juggling, tea towel juggling calf-eyed, sexy-silly-super-clumsy routine about a waiter being in love, and comes back the following night. She’s a hit. We call it Dumb Waiter. Look for it in the circus hall of fame.
6. Early Evening, June.
Jade Leanord, a beautiful young jazz diva, has given us a CD. We find it under a pile of dishes a few months later, and invite her to come and join us in Glory Box for a night. So she’s on the piano doing the most beautiful rendition of "Over the Rainbow", but the piano is offstage and ground level, so she needs just a tiny gentle visual support to draw the audience into her world. So one hour later, we have Ursula Martinez, of the red hanky strip fame, and Jess Love, of Candy Butchers fame, slowly processing down the catwalk, with animal heads on, holding hands, while Jess walks on champagne bottles, and they both end side of stage looking at Jade on the piano. Magic.
7. A very cold night, July.
Maude Davey. Not new to us, not new to Melbourne. But here is a new insight into her own particular genius, a celebration of what makes her such a special and irreplicable artist. And it all starts with her greeting us, in the rain, in a faux fur tippet, high heels and nothing else. And it only builds from there. Maude Davey. My Life in the Nude.
8. Morning, February.
Holly Durant is a most beautiful dancer. Last year we discovered she had a beautiful voice. This year we discovered she could act. She is a drunken agent’s assistant, bringing booze to two famous stars –played by two famous actresses Pamela Rabe and Caroline Lee – who have collapsed on a luxury hotel bed on Melbourne Cup Day. We are workshopping Jackie Smith’s New Play "The Star" on the 49th floor at Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Holly walks into rehearsal in a skin-tight chequered race dress, with fluorescent patent-yellow, 6-inch heels and a hideous fascinator and proceeds to fall all over Pamela and reel around the room, singing snippets from earnest new original musicals. She just ‘wanted to get into character’. Gold.
9. Evening, February, Fortyfivedownstairs, turn 10.
And we remember the first time we ever went in there. We wanted to create The Burlesque Hour but no one, and we mean no one, except John Paxinos, and a few fabulous funders, was interested. I sat across from Mary Lou Jelbart, with her wonderful voice, and keen artistic sensibilities, and she looked at me carefully and said, "Yes I have seen you." Pause. "You are remarkable." Pause. "Yes". And that was it. She didn’t need to know more. And ten years later we bring the Glory Box, as it’s now known around the world, back to fortyfivedownstairs every winter. And from Angus Cerini to Patricia Cornelius, from kamahi Djordon King to Sarah Ward she is still saying Yes. Yes.
10. Afternoon, October.
We are about to go to Buenos Aires to become the first Australian company ever to be invited to Latin America’s most prestigious international arts festival (no pressure) the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, but first we need to drop in at a little queer bookshop where we did our first ever cabaret, The Salon. Hares & Hyenas. Nearly 20 years ago. The stage was a door on milk crates, it was byo cushion to sit on the floor, Hares & Hyenas gave the punters bubbly (to help with the floor). A sell out. So here we are, planning a return to the bookshop! As soon as we got back from Latin America! (One month of wildly experimental art, new artists, new ideas, new acts every night!). And we are looking at lights. Everything looks amazing … almost too amazing. Then we discover the wallpaper the lights are playing off is original Florence Broadhurst! That’s why it looks like a film. And they open their home up for the performers to warm up. And they prepare us special Chinese tea so we can keep our energy up. And when we come back from our triumph in Buenos Aires – where they called Moira, La Diosa, (The Goddess) and compared Glory Box to Beckett, Ionesco and Artaud, and where Moira delivered her first ever monologues in Spanish (We knew it was going to be okay when the kitchen staff stopped working to listen during the tech) – and we come home to have one of the most creative months of our recent lives.
And finally, our own special Christmas gift: seeing Jennifer Zea, Venezuelan Soul Diva – who flew to Australia just to perform for us for one night – astound people with her extraordinary and massive voice, and her Latin Soul, in the velvet and luxurious surrounds of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins as she lifted their beautiful roof!
And we say, Gracias.
22 July 2013
Review: Glory Box Paradise
Glory Box Paradise
Finucane and Smith
13 July 2013
fortyfivedownstairs
to 11 August
fortyfivedownstairs
"Art is fueled by passion, liquor and unrealistic expectations." Welcome to Glory Box Paradise and the ninth year of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's subversive and celebratory burlesque where the passion is as potent as any cocktail and unrealistic expectations are turned into exquisite beauty.
Is there anything left to be said about Finucane and Smith's Burlesque Hour shows? I've run out of passionate adjectives to shout about how damn amazing this work continues to be.
Nine years ago, the first Burlesque Hour performed to an in-the-know audience at fortyfivedownstairs and later in the Speigeltent. I'd heard about it and bought a ticket for the tent. Here was something we hadn't seen before and so wanted to see so much more of.
Over 125,000 people have seen versions of The Burlesque Hour – that's more than a full MCG. Artists have come and gone and come back, it's had 50 sell-out seasons all over the world, won awards and collected multi-wordgasm reviews from critics who only disagree about the the degree of superlative.
There's a lot of burlesque in theatres and clubs, but no one is doing anything like this. So what makes this burlesque so different?
Rarely do naked women on display make other women feel good about themselves. Whether it's designed to attract a straight male gaze (that really doesn't attract all straight men) or simply because it's rare for women to publicly de-robe unless they fit an image that was created by applying good lighting, a flattering position and Photoshop.
In her current show, My Life in the Nude at La Mama (finishing this weekend), Maude Davey, who has appeared in many Burlesque Hour shows, talks about her realisation that burlesque is about declaring that you are beautiful are worthy of the audience's gaze.
"I am beautiful and worthy of your gaze" is a magnificent beginning for the many women (and men) doing weekend burlesque classes and sewing sequins on undies for their graduation show, but Glory Box Paradise leaps beyond this premise.
On a Finucane and Smith stage, nakedness has nothing to do with a boring flash of boob. With bodies that don't conform to young, spray-tanned, waxed, enhanced and starved images of female naked perfection, there's never doubt that the women performing know their own beauty – and they don't give a hoot if anyone thinks differently.
There are well over 20, 30 and 40. They have body fat and muscle and scars and marks that declare their bodies as so much more than something to gaze upon. (Moira even refuses to uses a hair straightener and goes frizzy!) And they perform work that's as sexy and powerful as it gets.
These are women who are sexual but are never sexualised. Women whose sexual power has nothing to do with control. Women whose sex lives are shameless. Women who don't support any image or idea that going to repress, disapprove or hurt. And this may be why every act is greeted with cheers.
The gaze of anyone is welcome, but this is performance that's not about earning the approval of the watcher, but about celebrating the performer and her view of the world. A view that's positive instead of critical and one that joyfully leans to the queer side of the spectrum while welcoming anyone who sits anywhere else.
And if you think you've seen it all before, this year is mostly new material, with a couple of old favourites.
Yumi Umiumare is back with genre re-defining punk Butoh, and dancer Holly Durant joined by new performer Lily Paskas. Melbourne favourite Jess Love (The Candy Butchers) is living in London these days, but is back home with some amazing and hilariously off-centre hoop and skipping routines. She also comes with Ursula Martinez. Ursula continues to treat with her disappearing red hanky and her sex change quick change number with Jess is pure joy (with a hint of raunchy goodness).
New to the Box is Sarah Ward and her alter ego Yana Alana. Yana's naked blue real-women-look-like-this gorgeousness thrilled audiences last week in her own show Between the Cracks, but Yana's lets Sarah out to play. In a mesmerising hologram silver corset, her duet of "Candy" with Moira's drag king is a highlight. The only one who nearly overshadows Sarah is Yana, whose cat-suited song about cats has left me singing "pussy wussy wussy" to my cat.
And there's Moira. There's no one like her. As an artist she creates work that is so from her heart and self that no one will ever be able to recreate it. It's gutsy and lusty and masculine and feminine and refuses to be anything that isn't Moira Finucane.
Photos by Carla Gottgens.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Finucane and Smith
13 July 2013
fortyfivedownstairs
to 11 August
fortyfivedownstairs
"Art is fueled by passion, liquor and unrealistic expectations." Welcome to Glory Box Paradise and the ninth year of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's subversive and celebratory burlesque where the passion is as potent as any cocktail and unrealistic expectations are turned into exquisite beauty.
Is there anything left to be said about Finucane and Smith's Burlesque Hour shows? I've run out of passionate adjectives to shout about how damn amazing this work continues to be.
Nine years ago, the first Burlesque Hour performed to an in-the-know audience at fortyfivedownstairs and later in the Speigeltent. I'd heard about it and bought a ticket for the tent. Here was something we hadn't seen before and so wanted to see so much more of.
Over 125,000 people have seen versions of The Burlesque Hour – that's more than a full MCG. Artists have come and gone and come back, it's had 50 sell-out seasons all over the world, won awards and collected multi-wordgasm reviews from critics who only disagree about the the degree of superlative.
There's a lot of burlesque in theatres and clubs, but no one is doing anything like this. So what makes this burlesque so different?
Rarely do naked women on display make other women feel good about themselves. Whether it's designed to attract a straight male gaze (that really doesn't attract all straight men) or simply because it's rare for women to publicly de-robe unless they fit an image that was created by applying good lighting, a flattering position and Photoshop.
In her current show, My Life in the Nude at La Mama (finishing this weekend), Maude Davey, who has appeared in many Burlesque Hour shows, talks about her realisation that burlesque is about declaring that you are beautiful are worthy of the audience's gaze.
"I am beautiful and worthy of your gaze" is a magnificent beginning for the many women (and men) doing weekend burlesque classes and sewing sequins on undies for their graduation show, but Glory Box Paradise leaps beyond this premise.
On a Finucane and Smith stage, nakedness has nothing to do with a boring flash of boob. With bodies that don't conform to young, spray-tanned, waxed, enhanced and starved images of female naked perfection, there's never doubt that the women performing know their own beauty – and they don't give a hoot if anyone thinks differently.
There are well over 20, 30 and 40. They have body fat and muscle and scars and marks that declare their bodies as so much more than something to gaze upon. (Moira even refuses to uses a hair straightener and goes frizzy!) And they perform work that's as sexy and powerful as it gets.
These are women who are sexual but are never sexualised. Women whose sexual power has nothing to do with control. Women whose sex lives are shameless. Women who don't support any image or idea that going to repress, disapprove or hurt. And this may be why every act is greeted with cheers.
The gaze of anyone is welcome, but this is performance that's not about earning the approval of the watcher, but about celebrating the performer and her view of the world. A view that's positive instead of critical and one that joyfully leans to the queer side of the spectrum while welcoming anyone who sits anywhere else.
And if you think you've seen it all before, this year is mostly new material, with a couple of old favourites.
Yumi Umiumare is back with genre re-defining punk Butoh, and dancer Holly Durant joined by new performer Lily Paskas. Melbourne favourite Jess Love (The Candy Butchers) is living in London these days, but is back home with some amazing and hilariously off-centre hoop and skipping routines. She also comes with Ursula Martinez. Ursula continues to treat with her disappearing red hanky and her sex change quick change number with Jess is pure joy (with a hint of raunchy goodness).
New to the Box is Sarah Ward and her alter ego Yana Alana. Yana's naked blue real-women-look-like-this gorgeousness thrilled audiences last week in her own show Between the Cracks, but Yana's lets Sarah out to play. In a mesmerising hologram silver corset, her duet of "Candy" with Moira's drag king is a highlight. The only one who nearly overshadows Sarah is Yana, whose cat-suited song about cats has left me singing "pussy wussy wussy" to my cat.
And there's Moira. There's no one like her. As an artist she creates work that is so from her heart and self that no one will ever be able to recreate it. It's gutsy and lusty and masculine and feminine and refuses to be anything that isn't Moira Finucane.
Photos by Carla Gottgens.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
17 December 2012
What Melbourne loved in 2012, part 9
Today it's Jackie Smith, Anniene Stockton and Jason Cavanagh.
Anniene Stockton
producer, performer, arts addict
ANNIENE: Last week I went to the HotHouse Theatre season launch in Wodonga. I took my cousin, Tennile, as she lives in the area and is fabulous company.
When we arrived, Tennile said that she had never been inside the HotHouse before and couldn't explain more than, "Just hadn't gotten around to it".
As we enjoyed the food and drinks before the official proceedings, she was asking loads of questions about the company and what happens there, so by the time we hit the "official" bit she was keen to hear what the Artistic Director had to say.
He started with the good news that Arts NSW had returned its funding and that Hothouse could continue its work. This was greeted with cheers and woops. He went on to share the dire stats around the steep decline of regional companies presenting Australian work. They are an endangered species.
Next came the season info and my cousin sat silently. I wasn't sure if she was listening or bored out of her gord. Had I done the right thing dragging her along? She might never wast to hang out with me again...
I gave a gleeful yelp when I saw that the season includes a work by the overly talented wordsmith Van Badham. Tennile smiled, leaned over and asked “do you know him?” I whispered back. “Her. Know her. Van is short for Vanessa and yes. Dear friend, exceedingly talented. Makes me the best cups of tea.”
At least she was listening. But, once the last work is announced, she turned to be and said, “Well I'm going to buy a subscription.”
It's very nice to introduce someone else to your passion and be there at that very moment when they become passionate too.
SM: I was also crook for Anniene's only performance this year (it hasn't been my best year), but Club Tristen will be back in 2013 and I will be there. As for a favourite moment with Anniene, well that's too difficult, so I'm setting for every time she laughs louder than anyone else in the theatre.
Jason Cavanagh
actor, The Owl, co-founder of 5Pound Theatre
JASON: It was week two of the 5pounds of Repertory season. I was walking out of the theatre, after having choreographed one of the musical numbers for Sally: A Musical, which I had only learnt to sing that morning. Leaving the theatre, I had to step over the little army of set makers, sourced from the Celeste’s first year Monash students, cutting and creating our cardboard sets and props.
Up the stairs I went to cook something quick, easy and healthy so we had time to get ready for the performance of Pygmalion that night. Whilst I cooked, I had the sheet music on the bench and was going over my melodies. As Dave (music director) passed, packing his gear away in the dressing room, he joined in for a second and then stopped in to help me with a specific bit I was having trouble with. He then left the room saying I shouldn’t do too much on it until he has sent me the mp3 of him singing it, so I don’t get into any bad habits.
So I continued to sing the bits I was slightly more confident in. I used the song to jokingly serenade Celeste as she passed the kitchen and she started singing it to herself, changing the lyrics slightly.
Then Sebastian bounded up the stairs asking if he could use my computer to email the script to someone or other for a reason that is still unclear to me. I said ‘fine’ and pointed him towards my room.
A short while later, as I had gone through the song a little more and the soup was on the boil, I went to my room to find Seb on my computer and Susannah sitting on my bed singing to herself. I flopped onto the mattress next to her and lay for a second. I could vaguely hear Freya and Tom singing in the theatre downstairs.
In this moment those last five minutes came flooding through my mind – of course, what I haven’t been able to capture is the details, the multitudes of little things that was adding to the chaos of that five-minute period, the ambient noises, the other people in the building and beyond – and I thought, "If it could only always be like this".
SM: Finally getting to The Owl and the Pussycat space (founded and managed by Jason) was a highlight in itself. Once a single-front cottage in once working-class Richmond, it's now an intimate theatre with a super-gorgeous bar that's established itself as an independent theatre venue that assures something worth seeing. And it's so easy to get to. Get a train to Richmond, walk out of the Swan St exit and cross the road.
As this is a day of missing shows, I missed two of the five 5Pounds of Repertory shows, but three was enough to see the impact this process had on the creators involved and I so hope Jason and 5Pounds do it again.
co-artistic director of Finucane & Smith, playwright
JACKIE: My favourite theatre experience this year has to be Yumi Umiumare and Theatre Gumbo's DasSHOKU Shake at fortfivedownstairs.
It was wild and funny, sometimes deeply chilling, scary, touching, and completely bonkers. It was one of those fantastic theatre shows that happen with the confluence of hard work, passion and dedication, and will never happen in that same way again. Not to say the show won’t go on and have a life, but it will never be that season again. It had an impossibly large cast, and an explosive set, and a galaxy of hand made and found props to rival a Snuff Puppet Garage sale. And it had Yumi Umiumare. Her performance and genius left me stunned. Always does. And we are very lucky to have her in Melbourne.
SM: It's no secret that I adore everything Jackie has a hand in creating, but 2012 was the year that I missed most her stuff. I was crook for this year's The Burlesque Hour and was so incompetent at reading a phone map that I missed most of the return season of her play The Flood. Acts 2 and 3 were still bloody good (but not the same as the cramped intimacy of the La Mama season), but the best bit was the post-show conversations with Jackie, Moira and co.
22/12. Opps. I DID see The Burlesque Hour. Just found my notes. I went on the last night. I loved it, but I was sick and my brain had forgotten. It's come flooding back now.
It was wild and funny, sometimes deeply chilling, scary, touching, and completely bonkers. It was one of those fantastic theatre shows that happen with the confluence of hard work, passion and dedication, and will never happen in that same way again. Not to say the show won’t go on and have a life, but it will never be that season again. It had an impossibly large cast, and an explosive set, and a galaxy of hand made and found props to rival a Snuff Puppet Garage sale. And it had Yumi Umiumare. Her performance and genius left me stunned. Always does. And we are very lucky to have her in Melbourne.
SM: It's no secret that I adore everything Jackie has a hand in creating, but 2012 was the year that I missed most her stuff. I was crook for this year's The Burlesque Hour and was so incompetent at reading a phone map that I missed most of the return season of her play The Flood. Acts 2 and 3 were still bloody good (but not the same as the cramped intimacy of the La Mama season), but the best bit was the post-show conversations with Jackie, Moira and co.
22/12. Opps. I DID see The Burlesque Hour. Just found my notes. I went on the last night. I loved it, but I was sick and my brain had forgotten. It's come flooding back now.
Anniene Stockton
producer, performer, arts addict
ANNIENE: Last week I went to the HotHouse Theatre season launch in Wodonga. I took my cousin, Tennile, as she lives in the area and is fabulous company.
When we arrived, Tennile said that she had never been inside the HotHouse before and couldn't explain more than, "Just hadn't gotten around to it".
As we enjoyed the food and drinks before the official proceedings, she was asking loads of questions about the company and what happens there, so by the time we hit the "official" bit she was keen to hear what the Artistic Director had to say.
He started with the good news that Arts NSW had returned its funding and that Hothouse could continue its work. This was greeted with cheers and woops. He went on to share the dire stats around the steep decline of regional companies presenting Australian work. They are an endangered species.
Next came the season info and my cousin sat silently. I wasn't sure if she was listening or bored out of her gord. Had I done the right thing dragging her along? She might never wast to hang out with me again...
I gave a gleeful yelp when I saw that the season includes a work by the overly talented wordsmith Van Badham. Tennile smiled, leaned over and asked “do you know him?” I whispered back. “Her. Know her. Van is short for Vanessa and yes. Dear friend, exceedingly talented. Makes me the best cups of tea.”
At least she was listening. But, once the last work is announced, she turned to be and said, “Well I'm going to buy a subscription.”
It's very nice to introduce someone else to your passion and be there at that very moment when they become passionate too.
SM: I was also crook for Anniene's only performance this year (it hasn't been my best year), but Club Tristen will be back in 2013 and I will be there. As for a favourite moment with Anniene, well that's too difficult, so I'm setting for every time she laughs louder than anyone else in the theatre.
Jason Cavanagh
actor, The Owl, co-founder of 5Pound Theatre
JASON: It was week two of the 5pounds of Repertory season. I was walking out of the theatre, after having choreographed one of the musical numbers for Sally: A Musical, which I had only learnt to sing that morning. Leaving the theatre, I had to step over the little army of set makers, sourced from the Celeste’s first year Monash students, cutting and creating our cardboard sets and props.
Up the stairs I went to cook something quick, easy and healthy so we had time to get ready for the performance of Pygmalion that night. Whilst I cooked, I had the sheet music on the bench and was going over my melodies. As Dave (music director) passed, packing his gear away in the dressing room, he joined in for a second and then stopped in to help me with a specific bit I was having trouble with. He then left the room saying I shouldn’t do too much on it until he has sent me the mp3 of him singing it, so I don’t get into any bad habits.
So I continued to sing the bits I was slightly more confident in. I used the song to jokingly serenade Celeste as she passed the kitchen and she started singing it to herself, changing the lyrics slightly.
Then Sebastian bounded up the stairs asking if he could use my computer to email the script to someone or other for a reason that is still unclear to me. I said ‘fine’ and pointed him towards my room.
A short while later, as I had gone through the song a little more and the soup was on the boil, I went to my room to find Seb on my computer and Susannah sitting on my bed singing to herself. I flopped onto the mattress next to her and lay for a second. I could vaguely hear Freya and Tom singing in the theatre downstairs.
In this moment those last five minutes came flooding through my mind – of course, what I haven’t been able to capture is the details, the multitudes of little things that was adding to the chaos of that five-minute period, the ambient noises, the other people in the building and beyond – and I thought, "If it could only always be like this".
SM: Finally getting to The Owl and the Pussycat space (founded and managed by Jason) was a highlight in itself. Once a single-front cottage in once working-class Richmond, it's now an intimate theatre with a super-gorgeous bar that's established itself as an independent theatre venue that assures something worth seeing. And it's so easy to get to. Get a train to Richmond, walk out of the Swan St exit and cross the road.
As this is a day of missing shows, I missed two of the five 5Pounds of Repertory shows, but three was enough to see the impact this process had on the creators involved and I so hope Jason and 5Pounds do it again.
22 July 2011
Review: Meow Meow at TBH
Meow Meow at The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne
Finucane & Smith
21 July 2011
45 downstairs
Meow to 31 July
TBH to 14 August
With my new (unconsciously) Meow Meow inspired hair, I felt a bit fan-girly at last night's The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne. So if you see me wearing too much glitter eyeshadow, you'll know who I'm honouring, but if you see me dancing semi-naked by the water wall at the National Gallery, it's a homage to Moria.
Finucane & Smith's Burlesque Hour is the blissful, if fit-inducing, antidote to any winter blues. Damn it, it's the antidote to pretty much anything negative and should be compulsory for teenagers and anyone who still thinks that having a body like a Photoshopped model is a way to happiness, and for anyone who has leered at a woman.
With a list of Melbourne-legend special guests that makes choosing which night to go almost impossible, the only solution is to go more than once. If you go before July 31, there's Meow Meow.
The magnificent and obsessive Meow Meow was performing at the Apollo Theatre in London a month ago. For the next two weeks, Melbourne gets lucky as she's purring, hissing and shedding sequins in Flinders Lane.
David Bowie has declared that he never misses Meow. And there's a long line of us ready to push the divine starman aside for a blinding glimpse of this Weimar alley cat.
Like a prowling feral, you know that Meow wants to curl up on a loving lap in front of fire, but the only thing she knows is that sharp claws and loud noise keep her safe. Behind her drag-queen glitter and sequins is a woman so determined to find perfect love that she'll demand a hug from a stranger, but will probably poke out their eye because they dare to be less than perfect and will want to disappoint her like everyone does.
With clear logic that wanting to kiss her means that you think she's pretty, which means that you want to fuck her, which means that you'll never leave, Meow wins endless hearts, but she will never let anyone close enough to realise that she's loved. Neither will she ever let her exquisite voice (or Melissa Madden Gray) get in the way or distract from the singular focus of Meow's deliciously distorted need for love.
Meow is the type of cabaret artist who makes up for any night of theatrical dullness we've endured. Not that there's a moment of dullness with Moira, Maude, Harriet, Holly and Sosina at The Burlesque Hour.
A version of this review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
Finucane & Smith
21 July 2011
45 downstairs
Meow to 31 July
TBH to 14 August
With my new (unconsciously) Meow Meow inspired hair, I felt a bit fan-girly at last night's The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne. So if you see me wearing too much glitter eyeshadow, you'll know who I'm honouring, but if you see me dancing semi-naked by the water wall at the National Gallery, it's a homage to Moria.
Finucane & Smith's Burlesque Hour is the blissful, if fit-inducing, antidote to any winter blues. Damn it, it's the antidote to pretty much anything negative and should be compulsory for teenagers and anyone who still thinks that having a body like a Photoshopped model is a way to happiness, and for anyone who has leered at a woman.
With a list of Melbourne-legend special guests that makes choosing which night to go almost impossible, the only solution is to go more than once. If you go before July 31, there's Meow Meow.
The magnificent and obsessive Meow Meow was performing at the Apollo Theatre in London a month ago. For the next two weeks, Melbourne gets lucky as she's purring, hissing and shedding sequins in Flinders Lane.
David Bowie has declared that he never misses Meow. And there's a long line of us ready to push the divine starman aside for a blinding glimpse of this Weimar alley cat.
Like a prowling feral, you know that Meow wants to curl up on a loving lap in front of fire, but the only thing she knows is that sharp claws and loud noise keep her safe. Behind her drag-queen glitter and sequins is a woman so determined to find perfect love that she'll demand a hug from a stranger, but will probably poke out their eye because they dare to be less than perfect and will want to disappoint her like everyone does.
With clear logic that wanting to kiss her means that you think she's pretty, which means that you want to fuck her, which means that you'll never leave, Meow wins endless hearts, but she will never let anyone close enough to realise that she's loved. Neither will she ever let her exquisite voice (or Melissa Madden Gray) get in the way or distract from the singular focus of Meow's deliciously distorted need for love.
Meow is the type of cabaret artist who makes up for any night of theatrical dullness we've endured. Not that there's a moment of dullness with Moira, Maude, Harriet, Holly and Sosina at The Burlesque Hour.
A version of this review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
23 June 2011
Review: The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne
The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne
Finucane & Smith
18 June 2011
45downstairs
to 14 August
From obscure subversive cabaret (loved by people like me) to Melbourne cultural institution (loved by people who go to the MTC), what hasn't been said about the insane gorgeousness of Finucane & Smith's The Burlesque Hour?
For all its new found, middle class popularity, TBH retains its subversive soul and it's still impossible not to leave feeling positive and excited about your age, your body and your overall sexiness, even if you sometimes keep it hidden.
The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne nearly as much as Melbourne loves TBH. It's missing some of the darker elements from past shows (and Azaria and Yumi), but this perfumed pink paper love letter is still written in fresh blood and addressed to the city where this now world famous show started.
This year Moira brings her favourite exquisite grotesque pieces and a new purple number that will leave you wet in all the right places. There's the wonderfully wild (and pro-hair) Sosina Wogayehu, Holly Durant and Harriet Ritchie, and Maude Davey continues to elegantly re-define rock. If you don't know, the correct response is "No way, get fucked, fuck off"
And as a special sparklie gift, there are a collection of weekly OMFG Melbourne special guest legends, including some of my absolute favourites like Die Rotten Punkte (how will Otto cope?), theatre goddess Pamela Rabe, rock goddess Deborah Conway (please sing "Man Overboard") and Meow Meow, the one burlesque artist who could make Moira seem repressed.
But for the opening weekend, there was Rhonda Burchmore. Now, I would usually consider Rhonda to be the antithesis of everything TBH celebrates about performance, women and sexuality. But, dammit, she made me laugh and I enjoyed the story about Micky Rooney's cock and her troubles with her fanny bird. But how awesome would it have been to see her drop the Rhonda mask and show us something completely unexpected and real. Next time Rhonda...
It's no secret that I think Finucane & Smith are one of the best things in this amazing world ofMelbourne theatre. Their work celebrates all who dare to refuses to conform, as it defies any attempt of genre definition and questions our perceptions and expectations of theatre and burlesque and life.
If you haven't seen it, there is no excuse good enough to miss it again.
10 October 2010
Review: Carnival of Mysteries
MIAF 2010
Carnival of Mysteries
Finucane & Smith
9 October 2010
the Arts Centre, Playhouse
to 30 October
There may be a handful of tickets still available for Carnival of Mysteries, but not for long. If you have yours, don't let them out of your sight because people like me will cast morals aside and plot to steal them so that they don't miss or can have another wondrous visit to the best carnival ever.
Using such a definitive phrase is never good for objective reviewing, but Moira Finucane & Jackie Smith create worlds so wonderful that it hurts to leave them.
45downstairs has been exquisitely transformed by the Sisters Hayes into a nostalgic but timeless world of sideshow and cocktail bar where there's room to sit with a drink, play a parlour game and watch the bar stage for surprises like Azaria Universe's butterfly dance or the special guest appearances like singer Lois Olney.
But your ticket was exchanged for a stash of the illegal carnival tender, which lets you buy entry into the mysteries of the tiny sideshow rooms or the hand-painted carnival tent for intimate and very personal performances by Finucane & Smith's favourite artists.
Focussed on themes of innocence, passion, mercy, forgiveness and love, these shows are as voyeuristic and confronting as they are personal and liberating. This carnival celebrates all that is wrong with our perceptions of beauty and art, and questions all our notions of right and wrong. It's a world that welcomes the out of place and leaves everyone feeling like they are in a world where they can and will find love, passion and acceptance. And, of course, it's all a bit naughty and very funny.
The only disappointment is not being able to see every secret and mystery. I saw Sosinia Wogayehu's too sexy ball juggling, Maude Davey's glorious library discussion of her grandmother's implied cunt, Brian Lucas's monstrous gigolo, and Moira's Ice Queen and her gothic horror librarian. All were wonderful, but it wasn't enough. I missed treats like Carolyn Lee writing me a letter, Derek Ives not being hanged and Paul Codeiro being the handsomest dancer ever born. And so much more that I'm only just seeing in my keeping-for-ever carnival passport.
The Carnival of Mysteries is the hottest ticket in town and as this first carnival fades into legendary status, those who missed out will claim to have been there. So, do what ever you can to be among those who really were there. And, as it's on in a street that has ACDC and Dame Edna lane, I say we remember the Mysteries and re-name and the alley at the back of 45downstairs Finucane & Smith Lane.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
photo by Jodi Hutchinson
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