Review: 'Tis Pity

'Tis Pity: An Operatic Fantasia on Selling the Skin and the Teeth
Victorian Opera
6 February 2017
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall
to 8 February
victorianopera.com.au

'Tis Pity. Kanen Breen & Meow Meow. Photo by Pia Johnson

The 2015 Victorian Opera production of Die Sieben Todsunden with Meow Meow took me as close to seeing how Brecht and Weil must have imagined their work. It was a highlight of that year and the newly devised 'Tis Pity song cycle reunites Meow and director Cameron Menzies, adds the rather divine tenor Kanen Breen and Richard Mills composing for a full orchestra. And it's about exploring the history of prostitution. All the ingredients are brilliant, so what went wrong?

Of course, Meow and Breen's performances are excellent. Their vaudeville-cum-Brechtian-cum-"Alan Cummings in Cabaret" clowns are backed by red velvet, three male dancers and Orchestra Victoria, with cheap shiny-red cardboard hearts on their music stands. The opening moments are full of hope as Breen sings that sex is both the question and the answer.

Sex? Sex.

What follows is ten vignettes about how women have been exploited by men for as long as records exist. Their order is drawn from a hat in convenient chronological order. This device is only slightly less annoying than the alarm screaching the beginning of each vignette.

There’s no consistent theme. From Ancient Greece to contemporary Hollywood, there are narratives – not structured stories with characters – about "whores", men using prostitutes, keeping wives away from whores, keeping women “subjugated”, evil menstrual blood and hypocritical religion.

The narrative voice is almost always male – even when delivered by Meow. When she does speak as a women, it's confirming the male narrative that working girls (with cockney Pygmalion accents) are selling their souls.

With little exploration of a female point of view and research that feels as deep as a Wikipedia introduction, perhaps Mills's boast that "This project was written at breakneck speed in the month of November" says it all.

‘Tis Pity is under developed and needs to find more heart than those cut from cardboard.

Also on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: The Mikado

The Mikado
Opera Australia
17 May 2011
the State Theatre, the Arts Centre

What is it about Gilbert and Sullivan? I try and scoff at the dated humour and chorus of ancient schoolgirls, but it's impossible not to enjoy a song about a snickersnee. And, dare I say, Opera Australia's current production of The Mikado is slightly better than my high school production in 1984.

Based on a UK production directed Christopher Renshaw, Stuart Maunder directs a fun and joyful Town of Titipu. It pays respect to the G&S traditions (like the fans and re-writing Ko-Kos list) and makes sure that it's as English as Liberty prints and baked beans on toast.

Tim Goodchild's gloriously satirical design clads the gentlemen of Japan in kimonos with bowler hats, brief cases and fans made from The Times and the little maids in satchels instead of obis and their pastel kimonos with lace and hearts are so girly that they make a Hello Kitty dress look butch.

The Mikado remains the most popular of these uniquely English operettas. It's the not-at-all-racist one about the man condemned to death for flirting, who seeks redemption in the love of a teenage schoolgirl, if only she hadn't caught the eye of a travelling musician. And it's not at all pervy when each respectable gentleman is paired with a schoolgirl.

It's best not to read too closely into the story and just enjoy Gilbert's rarely-equalled word play and absurd story and give in to tapping your foot to Sullivan's tunes. Most of the rest of the audience are tapping away anyway.

This is G&S that never loses the love in its parody as Nanki-Poo (Kanen Breen) prances and leaps, Katisha (Jacqueline Dark) snarls in emerald green and high heels and Ko-Ko (an inspired choice in musical theatre favourite Mitchell Butel) wheezes and schemes.

The Mikado is as wonderfully daggy as ever and has assured its place as a favourite for another 100 or so years.

* Ok, the only thing good about ours was that we really were schoolgirls "18 and under".

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby