MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Masquerade

Masquerade
Griffin Theatre Company & State Theatre Company of South Australia
Presented by Melbourne Festival
24 October 2015
The Sumner
to 25 October
www.festival.melbourne

Masquerade. Nathan O'Keeefe Photo by Brett Boardman

Kate Mulvany’s gorgeous adaption of Kit Williams's picture book Masquerade celebrates why picture books and stories are so important to children and why whenever a child asks you to read them a book, you stop what you are doing and read them a book. You’ll never regret that choice.

At today's post-show Q and A, Mulvany talked about how Masquerade was the distraction she needed when she was in hospital with cancer as a child.  She want on to explain how when, as an adult, she finally contacted Williams, she flew to his UK home where he served her rabbit pie and gave her the rights to his book – on the condition that her story be a part of the new story.

Published in 1979, his book is about the Moon (Kate Cheel) sending Jack Hare (Nathan O’Keefe) on a quest to deliver a gold amulet to her love, the Sun (Mikelangelo, in the dazzling role he was born to play). But what made this book insanely popular is that each page is filled with riddles and clues that identify the spot where the real gold amulet was buried. It was found in the early 1980s, but possibly by accident. And the lack of amulet doesn’t make the riddles and clues any more fascinating today.

At the heart of this adaption is the story about Joe (Louis Fontain), a child with cancer, and Tessa (Helen Dalimore), his mum who needs hope  – "Mum, why do you let them do that to me?" – as she shares the book with her son. With original music by Mikelangleo and Pip Branson, performed by the ever-divine Black Sea Gentlemen, their story continues after the last page with an adventure that lets Joe and Tessa help Jack Hare to revist Penny Pockets (Zindzi Okenyo) and the book characters and learn why The Man Who Plays The Music That Makes The World Go Around (Branson) sometimes stops.

With a design by Anna Cordingly that’s inspired by the book but created for the mood and complex delight of this version, direction by Sam Strong and Lee Lewis that never lets the story drop and always keeps hope, this is the sort of theatre that promises children that theatre is wonderful and reminds grown ups that a story about love is always the right choice.

Today (Sunday) is the last day of the Melbourne Festival. It’s been amazing and I can’t think of a better way to end it than to see one of the last two performances of Masquerade.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Sometimes Sydney review: The Bleeding Tree

The Bleeding Tree
Griffin Theatre Company
10 August 2015
SBW Stables Theatre
to 5 September
griffintheatre.com.au

The Bleeding Tree. Shari Sebbens, Paula Arundell, Airlie Dodds. Photo by Brett Boardman

The Bleeding Tree won Angus Cerini the 2014 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting and its premiere production is running at Griffin's Stables Theatre in Sydney. This is theatre made with passion, guts and the conviction that change is not only possible but inevitable.

It opens as a woman (Paula Arundell) and her daughters (Shari Sebbens and Airlie Dodds) stand next to the body of the husband, father and monster they just killed. Their world (designed by Renee Mulder) is filthy, sand-encrusted, floral wall paper that looks like it's folded with knife-edge cuts and immediately feels like a forgotten Australian town in the middle of god-knows-where. As soon as they open their mouths, it's hard to remember to breath for the next hour.

This is shattering theatre that grips your heart in a vice that doesn't let go until the final syllable.

Cerini's writing is somewhere between genius and freak. It's damaged and violent and bloody and so fucking beautiful that it's like listening to music for the first time and wondering how noise can reach your soul like that.

Sounding like a ballad that recreates the idea of rhythm; it's almost begging to be a libretto. There's not a syllable out of place as each line defies the expected beat and creates one that catches the ear and refuses to be anything other than perfect.

And that's just the language.

Filled with images that are unforgettably gruesome but exquisitely just, it's a story that never gives away its next turn and could slip from hope to despair in a moment as the townsfolk discover that the man's been killed.

But astonishing writing is only the beginning of this production.

Arundel, Sebbens and Dodds bring character and history and a wholeness to the script that makes the women so real that it's hard to accept that they're fiction.

Dodds lets us see the rat-eaten, maggot-infested body through her eyes and brings the doubt of a young woman who tries to hope that her father acted out of love. Sebbens never doubts but is revolted and broken enough to be the one who could carry on the violence – her saying "hit her" nearly broke me. And Arundell cuts our hearts so many times that her breaking-point speech – about how everyone knew it was happening – speaks for every woman and child who has lived in fear and been beaten, raped and abused.

Directed by Griffin's Artistic Director Lee Lewis, The Bleeding Tree is so complete that it's hard to differentiate the creative contributions. Without preaching or lecturing, it – literally – rips open the bleeding guts of domestic violence and imagines a world where this is unacceptable.

It's unmissable.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.