MIDSUMMA: Become The One

MIDSUMMA
Become The One
Lab Kelpie and Gasworks Arts Park
1 February 2019
Gasworks Arts Park
to 9 February 2019

Chris Asimos, Henry Strand. Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Lab Kelpie produce new Australian writing. It's a challenge to get a funded company to risk new Australian work, so thank the theatre gods for independent companies like this who continue to create the kind of great writing that funded companies will produce in the future – after the risks have been taken.

Their new work for Midsumma is Become The One. It's the first full-length script from Lab Kelpie co-founder Adam Fawcett, which was developed after it won the 2018 Midsumma Playtime Staged Readings Event. There are many issues this play explores, but Fawcett says that so much of it is being the play he wishes he'd seen as a teenager.

Noah (Henry Strand) cleans houses. His agency has sent him to the swanky apartment of a well-known AFL player, Tom (Chris Asimos), who's up for up for the Brownlow.  Noah isn't impressed by fame and celebrity, is younger than Tom, and wears the pink and sparklie clothes that Tom wouldn't dare even look at. The urst is quickly broken and, against the odds, their relationship looks like it might last beyond the first weeks.

But Tom is a public figure and even when he tries to shut it out, footy is his life. His apartment is private but the design (by the team) is all lush green turf; he can't not be a part of this game that gives him so much and that he loves.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need works about coming out because it's not an issue. In a perfect world, professional sportsmen* wouldn't need to deny and hide any hint of sexuality that isn't manly hetero with a huge cock and muscles from eating nothing but protein.

But in our world, AFL players aren't gay. Yeah. Sure. Noah understands why Tom keeps their relationship a secret. He doesn't like it – it's pretty shitty being a secret –, but he knows that he and Tom live in different worlds and that Tom's would collapse if Noah were part of it.

Or maybe it wouldn't. It only takes one man to break the silence.

Director Lyall Brooks, the other co-founder of the company, and the cast let the relationship and love feel genuine and natural while always acknowledging that it will never be what either wants it to be. What price are they willing to pay for this level of happiness?

The AFL player story is immediately familiar to Melbourne – even if you don't follow AFL, it's hard not to know a bit about it and the passion of the fandom – but its themes and ideas reach way beyond the specifics of our city. Being the first – the one – isn't a choice that anyone makes easily.

Become The One only runs for a week and finishes on the weekend. It's a work that I look forward to seeing again because we need more writing like this from companies like this. And as it is the play Fawcett wishes he saw when he was a teenager, there will be someone who sees it and remembers it when they deal with the complexities of being yourself in a world doesn't seem to want you.

*The women in sport are more ok with this.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 5

Part 5 is brought to us by Sam and Matilda from Lab Kelpie because they have the best headshots.

Lyall Brooks
Actor
Artistic Director, Lab Kelpie 

Lyall Brooks

Favourite moments in 2017
The short answer is “new Australian writing”. Whether it was a production, a development or reading, or just a script – the breadth and quality and incisiveness and timeliness of the local voices I experienced this year blew me away.

The production of Kim Ho’s Mirror’s Edge, directed by Petra Kalive and performed with buckets of talent and passion by a bunch of Melbourne Uni students, was phenomenal. A brave expanse of ideas that crossed eras and skimmed its perfectly formed text across both a figurative pond of magical realism – and a literal onstage lake. It warmed my heart and poked my brain and made me cheer.

I also loved the silliness and charm of the only Melbourne Fringe show I was in town for, The Lounge Room Confabulator’s Survival Party. With my favourite dog on my right and my favourite cat lady on my left*, I laughed myself a damn headache for over an hour of what was basically a microcosm of Fringe: raw, sometimes-miss-but-mostly-hit, form-pushing and joyous theatre.

I got to glimpse a lot of unproduced work this year, too. Scripts by Emilie Collyer, Emina Ashman, Dianne Stubbings and Katy Warner (among others) all excited me – and Lonely Company’s brilliant Beta Fest: Theatre in Various States of Undress was an inspiring exhibition of new works currently under construction, and Lonely Company deserve a HUGE huzzah for making it happen.

[Self Promotion #1…] Personally, being a part of Patricia Cornelius’s Big Heart this year, as Theatre Works Associate Artist and the luckiest assistant director alive to work and learn under Susie Dee, was also one of my favourite moments (if a moment can still be spread over the months-long process). It was a big, brave work with both a beautiful team and relentless challenges, and I learned so much being on the other side of the table for once.

I could bang on for pages about what I loved this year, but I’ll stop.

No, sorry, one more thing.

Even though they weren’t in Melbourne, some of the theatre Adam and I saw overseas in 2017 (Small Town Boy by Maxim Gorki and Situation Rooms by Rimini Protokoll in Berlin, Cheese by Java Dance Theatre in New Zealand) and interstate (Bitch: The Origin of the Female Species by Edith Podesta at Brisbane Festival) made us stupidly excited about the potential of the form back home.

Looking forward to in 2018
The general answer is the same: New Australian stuff. Patricia’s long overdue mainstage debut, The House of Bernada Alba, finally catching Picnic at Hanging Rock at Malthouse, Jean Tong’s Hungry Ghosts, and all the vibrant indie stuff Melbourne does so freeking well.

[Self Promotion #2…] Lab Kelpie has a massive 2018 ahead with two new major works: Petra Kalive’s Oil Babies and the Victorian premiere of Mary Anne Butler’s Broken, on top of three or four shows in development and a national tour of A Prudent Man. This is only partly a plug! I genuinely am so looking forward to a MAD year presenting and developing new projects and working on building new avenues of support for our local theatre writers.

SM: There were Lyall's undies and his snot – and the rest of Spencer. But I'm going for his Frank in Merrily We Roll Along. And Sam.  I haven't met Matilda.

* I know who it is.

Keith Gow
Playwright, reviewer

Keith Gow

Favourite moments in 2017
Wild Bore was an absolute marvel of satire and craft and pure theatrical madness. I laughed so much it hurt, and then it gave me so much to think about in regard to theatre criticism and the conversation between critic and artist. Whenever I’ve written a review since, I’ve interrogated my point of view more and tried even harder to dig in to what the artist was striving for, whether it worked for me or not. I’m so thrilled this show has travelled far and wide this year.

Nanette was so simple and so powerful and would have always been so, but in the year of the marriage equality survey, it had so much resonance throughout the community. Stand-up comedy can be so immediate and respond to politics and society in a way traditional forms of theatre cannot because of its lengthy development process. This, though, is the culmination of Hannah Gadsby’s stand-up career; a show she has been writing and not writing for her whole career. Astonishing and brave and remarkable. And, as with Wild Bore, I’m glad this show has toured all over the place.

Looking forward to in 2018
I’m looking forward to Stephen Nicolazzo and Eugyeene Teh and Katie Sfetkidis being let loose at MTC for Abigail’s Party. I’m excited for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, also at MTC. The Malthouse line-up looks thrilling from beginning to end, but I am hanging out for Melancholia, Blackie Blackie Brown and the shows from Belarus Free Theatre.

Outside the main stages, I want to see Strangers in Between at Midsumma, directed by Daniel Lammin. And whatever is happening at Theatre Works, which had a really great 2017.

SM: Keith is a writer who sees and supports a LOT of independent theatre. I read his reviews and they often influence my choice to see a work, especially if it's new writing.

Tom Middleditch
Playwright, director

Tom Middleditch

Favourite moments in 2017
Awakening, remounting  MUST's season last year. It's rare to find a work that speaks for teenagers across the ages, corrects the faults of the original text while making the heart of said original stand strong. Vibrant, unapologetic, necessary, it's the sort of work that reminds you what we were really in danger of in the teen years, and fondly remembers those who didn't get to tell the tale themselves.

Germinal, as part of the Melbourne Festival. As a lover of Absurdism and anything involving the universe, I was sold from the blurb alone. What I wasn't expecting was the most joyful experience in theatre I've had in years. It collects its silly moments like the grandest and most adorably astute Absurdist on the open mic and climaxes, making not so much a point but a celebration of the stuff that just happened. Also, the joy of seeing a group of actors take to the Malthouse stage with pickaxes and ramming trees through the stage had me giggling for a good long time.

Looking forward to in 2018
Top of the list is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which is here years before I expected), telling a neurodiverse story that will be the genre and pop culture reference point for those on the spectrum for years to come, and on which all evolution towards acceptance and empathy will sprout from.

I'm also pumped for Jean Tong's Hungry Ghosts at the MTC. Seeing our generation of theatre makers and playwrights get the main stage attention they deserve is vindicating, and after catching their work in the Poppy Seed festival, Jean is one of the voices I want front and centre of this new wave.

SM: Tom's Alexithymia recently premiered at the Poppy Seed Festival. Full of heart and understanding, and I really hope it gets the chance for some development and another season. So much of power of theatre is seeing the world through different eyes;  writes neurodiverse characters and stories that remind us that we all see and understand the world differently.

part 4
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part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012

Review: Merrily We Roll Along

Merrily We Roll Along
Watch This
30 June 2017
The Lawler, Southbank Theatre
to 15 July
watchthis.net.au

Nelson Gardner, Nicole Melloy & Lyall Brooks. Merrily We Roll Along. Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

My review is on The Music.

Review: Spencer

Spencer
Lab Kelpie
12 May 2017
Chapel off Chapel
to 28 May
abkelpie.com

Spencer. Lyall Brooks, Jamieson Caldwell, Fiona Harris, Jane Clifton. Photo by Pier Carthew

Independent company Lab Kelpie (Adam Fawcett and Lyall Brooks) have been quietly finding their space in Melbourne's theatre community with Fat Pig, Super Girly, Elergy and A Prudent Man. Discussing concerns, especially about the social power, and presenting characters that are too often ignored on our stages, they continue to bring us some of the most exciting new writing around.

Following the success of Katy Warner's one-act A Prudent Man at the 2016 Melbourne Fringe (performed by Brooks, heading to New York in November and back in Melbourne the same week), Spencer is her new full-length work. If this production – cast, design, direction, Lyall's undies – doesn't get picked up by bigger stages and/or tours the country, there's something wrong.

Going back to the family home makes the most grown-up of us behave with the emotional maturity of an 8-year-old wanting to play with a tired puppy.

Scott (Jameison Caldwell) is the younger brother of Ben (Brooks) and Jules (Fiona Harris). In his 20s, he still lives at home with his mum Marilyn (Jane Clifton), but he's the most successful in the family because he plays professional AFL. Ben's always there to offer advice, even if his own footy career didn't work out, and because he's had to move back in the family home. They are soon joined by 30-something big sister Jules who needs her old room again. Still, everyone is excited because Scott's two-year-old son, Spencer, is visiting for the first time. He may not have been around for his first couple of years, but he's family and is already considered more family than their father Ian (Roger Oakley) who hasn't seen his adult children since they were children.

Warner has captured an authentic and loving Australian suburban voice. It's confronting – we don't sound like that! Yes we do – and so familiar that it's easy to find the awkward comfort of laughing at ourselves.

Warner's characters are written from the inside out. They are so easy to laugh at, but they are always recognisably real and the reasons for their decisions and behaviour are always painfully clear.

This emotional undercurrent is supported with Sharon Davis's tight direction that lets the rhythm build and fall naturally and ensures a consistent tone that never lets the performances or the script fall into a world where we're laughing at them and not at ourselves.

And there's a lot of laughing – it's squeak-out-loud hilarious. With timing that reads the audience perfectly, each performer brings a touch of clown but they all start with the heart and humanity of their characters. They do and say the most horrible things, and we still love them like family.

Bryn Cullen's costumes of K-Mart chic uggies, too-bright colours and clothes-we-only-wear-around-the-house add to the comedy without feeling unnatural. As does the design (Cullen and Rob Sowinski) of faux-wood panels with cheaply-framed family photos, furniture and a stereo that were new (or off the side of the road) in the 1990s, and a green vinyl kitchen chair (that I want) that's slightly exaggerated and full of visual surprises. It shows us everything about this family and still feels like we've all lived there.

Even though we may not know Marilyn, Ian, Jules, Ben and Scott, they are our families. They are the frustration and  resentment, the in-jokes that aren't funny to anyone else – Coco Pops are now ruined –, the behaviour that's only accepted if you share a bond that can't be broken, and the love that makes all the bad feel worse and still forgives everything.

Warner's script should be published and this production left me feel as good as watching The Castle or Kath and Kim. It's hilarious and it hurts in all the right places because it's us.


PS. I only tweeted about A Prudent Man and Super Girly: they were both ace.

Review: Sexercise

Sexercise
Aleksander Vass & Malcolm C Cooke
27 February 2015
Alex Theatre
to 29 March
sexercisethemusical.com

Lyall Brooks, Nicole Milloy, Fem Belling. Sexercise

Sexercise could be a ripper of a show if it toned up and got rid of the flab.

Sexercise is a new Australian musical. Yay. It's opening in a great new theatre venue, the Alex Theatre in St Kilda (used to be the George cinema). Yay. But putting on a show at this stage of its development. Boo.

30-somethings Sam (Nicole Melloy) and Joe (Lyall Brooks) are married with a child are finding more time for exercising with their bffs (LuLu McClatchy, Cameron McDonald, Kristin Holland) than for each other or for sex. Their couple's counsellor (Fem Belling) suggests they try "Sexercise", which "loses" more calories than yoga. It does, and they get fit enough to set the iPad to record.

The super-brilliant cast make this show work. Each one bring more than the script and music offer and each deserve more than they're given. See it to see these six give everything they have to make the show work.

There's so much this story could explore: the demise of sex in long-term relationships, the impossible quest of body perfection, how porn affects perceptions of bodies and sex, forgiveness and understanding when someone really fucks up... But it's mostly easy jokes that everyone is thinking before they happen.

Great comedy relies on a core of great drama – make those stakes high, give them impossible choices, make them fail.  Sexercise fails with the too-obvious comedy and the never-really-care drama.

But there is something there that could be hilarious, shocking and real. Not long before the interval, the couple sing "Is it over yet?", about feeling obliged to have sex, and the show finally begins. Everything we needed to know about that couple is in that song. It's funny and honest – who hasn't been there! – and everything before is unnecessary back story. Act 2 is much better because things happen. They are still predictable and make serious issues trivial, but there's story and problems to be solved.

Successful and popular shows develop and grow. This is at workshop stage, not expensive ticket stage. At least cut the songs where the audience don't clap. But keep the McClatchy's "Vagina or penis" song; it's numbers like this that show how cool Sexercise could be.

And then there's the LED-screen design stolen from a 1995 screen saver and the Big-W-sales-rack costumes; Belling's baggy beige pantsuit is the highlight of costumes try for joke rather than reflecting character.

I really hope that this isn't the end of Sexercise. But it's still at kissing and downstairs outside grope stage of sex and not ready to move on.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Savages

Savages
fortyfivedownstairs
18 August 2013
fortyfivedownstairs
to 8 September
fortyfivedownstairs.com

At the end of Savages, I had to joke about hoping that no one sees it on a first date because it was too uncomfortable to talk about its content.

Walking into 45downstairs, a sea of paper streamers and an imposing slanting deck beg for sunshine and a party, but I felt a heaviness in my belly the moment that George, Runt, Rabbit and Craze boarded their trip-of-a-lifetime cruise because I thought of Dianne Brimble. I didn't know that Savages was based on this case.

In 2002, 42-year-old Brimble took her daughter on their trip of a lifetime where she died from a combination of alcohol and the drug GHB, known as the date rape drug. There were eight men from Adelaide involved. There have been trials, but none have served gaol time for the death of the fat, old "ugly dog". One judge said that their suffering since her death is as bad as time incarcerated. I wonder if it would be the same if it had been one of the pretty young things the men had playfully harassed who had ended up face down and naked in the tiny cabin.

I struggle to find sympathy or understanding for these men and the people who support them.

This is what's so remarkable about Patricia Cornelius's new play; she tells a similar story from the men's point view. She doesn't justify, judge or even confront their behaviour, but tries to understand how men behave in a group; how nice-enough guys follow the pack and behave in ways they might never consider if they were alone.

This four (Lyall Brooks, Luke Elliot, James O'Connell and Mark Tregonning) are 40ish and have been mates for years. Before boarding they abandon their usual baggage of the women, exes and kids so that for a few days they can be the men they are meant to be. On board, there's nothing unusual about how they compete, share and exaggerate and each might easily pick up if they didn't expect to attract the attention of the gorgeous young or fear being judged by their mates.

Despite their constant guard, Cornelius writes men who are funny and vulnerable and real. She reveals secrets that help to understand them and lend hope that each will be man enough to walk away from his pack or lead them somewhere safe. But this isn't a safe story. It's one that needs to be told and talked about, because these are men aren't freaks or monsters. It's this that's so confronting and unsettling; they are men just like men we all know.

Director Susie Dee ensures that this is theatre that exposes the bigger picture by telling the smaller story. She guides her cast – who are all exceptional in roles that, I hope, are difficult to inhabit – from playful pack to broken men who need to re-claim power. This supports Cornelius's language that's bloke-on-the-street vernacular, but is heightened with a rhythm and delightfully self-conscious rhyme that reminds that it's telling a more important story.

And it all takes place on a set (Marg Howell) that makes the space feel as huge and isolated as a ship so far from land that the unspoken rules of civilisation don't apply. And with Kelly Ryall's sound and Andy Turner's lighting, it's raised and steeply slanted deck creates a world that's always moments away from toppling into the waves.

Savages is theatre that bites and barks at the end of a chain that's about to break, but we don't know if the escaping animal will attack or roll over for a tummy rub. Its telling is theatrically beautiful as it holds firmly to the belief that we – men and women – have to get closer to this problem if we're ever going to understand it and change ourselves so that the packs and everyone near them can feel safe.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Urban Display Suite

Urban Display Suite
Ross Mollison International
MTC Theatre, Lawler Studio
14 January 2012
to 21 January 2012
mtc.com.au

The zeitgeist bought its three-bedroom deco flat in St Kilda before the boom and has never left. Property prices: you're either smiling as you sip Moet or googling "sell my kidney" and realising that, even with the first home buyers grant,  you need another 25 body parts to get a deposit. Michael Dalley's real estate musical satire Urban Display Suite returns for its third season with a sharp wit that leaves its audiences grinning and ready to buy.

With music co-written with the ever-wonderful John Thorn and joined by the delightfully slimy Lyall Brooks, Gabrielle Quin and Sharon Davis, Dalley continues his astute observations of middle class suburbia with a nearly-too-close-for-comfort review about our obsession with property.

As a renter, even the sight of four pretend real estate agents walking into the theatre is enough to evoke fear and loathing. Fortunately, cabaret favourite Dalley has seen many of them himself and softens the terror with an opening song about the type of people who get that Cert IV in real estate and believe that their jobs are important.

Dividing property owners into bogans and wankers, the rest of us are safe to LOL at post-Federation-Square architecture and spot-on gorgeous songs about McMansion facades and shit art of the Mornington Peninsula. But expect to blush if you're counting on your parents leaving their house to you, and don't be surprised if your inner-apiring-home-owner-bogan agrees that you don't need a personality or a ten-inch penis if you bought before the boom.

Urban Display Suite has extended its season for another week and is a must if you spend your weekend reading Domain.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.