Review: Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba (Ever)

 Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba (Ever)
La Mama
29 April 2010
Courthouse Theatre
to 10 April
www.lamama.com.au

We sit through a lot of meh theatre, but we keep going back because we know that every now and then there's a show that leaves us feeling so happy that we fall asleep smiling that night and wake up with the same grin. I had one of those moments at the 2008 Melbourne Fringe at Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba (Ever) and I still think it's one of the most gorgeous shows ever.

Sarah Collins's wrote and tells us the story of Kevin John and his quest to win the Jump Rope For Heart competition with his remedial class schoolmates. As narrator, she effortlessly slips in and out of character and each mad, broken and glorious person is so vivid that it's too easy to forget that it's Sarah in a hat.  The 2011 La Mama version is structurally tighter and Sarah is a more confident performer, but it maintains the joy, love and refreshing originality of the first season. And it's still bitterly and painfully funny.

Sarah writes from the heart. Sure her mind understands the components of story, has a marvellous grasp of metaphor ("the Milk Arrowroot and watered-down church cordial of short courses") and creates imagery so clear that I swear I've seen a Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers Parade (and I've never been near Toowoomba) – but this is technical stuff that writers have to learn. Her writing reaches us because she loves every character she's created. Each are so complete and so real that we can't help but feel every bit of their pain, frustration and joy.

Working with director Yvonne Virsik doesn't hurt either. Yvonne is a director who find things in a script that the writers didn't know they created, and she consistently brings out the strengths that her performers never knew they had.  Sarah's writing is wonderful, but Yvonne ensures that the story is shared with the audience.

As the Comedy Festival is in full swing, shows like this can slip off the radar. Don't let it. Once you've met Kevin John, Wren, Julie, Fairlie Pony and everyone else from Toowoomba, they will be with you forever. You will leave the thearte seeing the greatness in everyone – even in yourself – and have a whole new relationship with the letter D.

PS. I've searched for a negative (because isn't that what reviewers do?), so... Mel disappears in the narrative. Julie is so wonderful at the end (I LOVE her), but I'd love to see Mel again.

This review appears on AussieThearte.com

Review: Howie the Rookie

Howie The Rookie
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
18 March 2011
Red Stitch Theatre
to 16 April
www.redstitch.net

Red Stitch first brought the bloody incredible Howie The Rookie to Melbourne in 2002. I wasn't here, but am among the many who are thrilled to see this new production, which is part of a program celebrating the tenth anniversary of the independent company that regularly puts our funded companies to shame and brings us the scripts and the performances that Melbourne audiences deserve to see.

Mark O'Rowe's an Irish writer rightly won a stack of for his 1999 epic of redemption and loss. With language scooped from filthy Dublin gutters, it's told through two monologues with a present tense immediacy that drags us into a world so violent, devastating and fucking funny that we can't imagine how we ever thought that bashed boys with scabies or obese scrags in white leggings could be anything but beautiful. It's the kind of writing that makes me hurt because it's so good.

Paul Ashcroft (The Howie) and Tim Ross (The Rookie) attack each half with the kind of guts and energy that would let them win a Dublin pub fight. Ashcroft's physicality is frighteningly confronting, while Ross brings out the humour that could so easily get lost in the mess of piss, blood and scabies cream.

Greg Carroll's direction lets his actors draw deep and fill the stage with an energy that sparks. But I would have loved to see him trust the text a bit more, as there were moments that felt like they were underlining what was already bolded and hightlighted. It's so well written that the audience don't need to have it drawn so clearly; especially at the end of part one, which was given away too early. Don't warn us with mood; kick us in the guts as hard as Howie has been.

Even if our lives will never reflect the world of this play, the story has so much heart and goddam humanity that we have no choice but to know their rough and damaged souls. And this is where I get frustrated with Red Stitch. Some shows are so caught up with creating an authentic "them" (and showing the astonishing skill it takes to create "them") that the story struggles to be ours. We're so busy watching and admiring that we don't get lost in the world and have that inexpressible connection and understanding that every artist and audience longs for.

If it sounds like I'm being excessively picky about a company that I love, it's because sometimes they are so close to brilliant that the tiniest distractions can seem huge.

And don't you dare let it stop you seeing Howie The Rookie; it's a night of theatre that drags you into those filthy gutters, stabs your heart and leaves you breathless.



Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

This review appears on AussieThearte.com

Guest Review: Wagner and Me

Wagner and Me, with Stephen Fry

Cinema Nova

2 March 2011

cinemanova.com.au

Review by Josephine Giles

Stephen Fry is a rightly celebrated performer who manages to combine light entertainment with his unabashed celebration of intelligence and his insatiable curiosity.  Until I saw this documentary, I felt I couldn’t get enough of the man. However, in Wagner and Me, the dominance of Fry’s personality (and his bad shirts) detracts from this reasonably informative exploration of the music and politics of the German composer.

Wagner and Me is apparently an extended version of an hour long documentary made for the BBC, and the lower production values are evident in the beginning scenes with sweeping camera shots that made me feel a bit sick. Things settle down though, as self confessed Wagner tragic Fry breathlessly introduces us to preparations for the next production of The Ring Cycle at Bayreuth – the spiritual home of Wagner and the site of his famous purpose built opera theatre.

What follows is essentially a course in Wagner for Dummies – justifiable on the grounds that most theatre-goers know little about this ground breaking composer, except perhaps that his operas are ridiculously long, and that Hitler was his number one fan. And I am always pro to any attempts to educate the masses in the magic of my favourite art form.

A narrative tension is created by the conflict between Fry’s passionate love of Wagner’s music, and the well documented facts of Wagner’s (and his heirs’s) anti-Semitism – which Fry, having lost relatives in the Holocaust of WWII, feels duty bound to explore. The documentary gets really interesting when we are shown photos of Hitler appearing at a window of Bayreuth, waving to hoards of delirious fans; and scenes of Nuremburg, where we learn that Wagner sing-alongs often preceded the famous Nazi rallies. Another powerful moment is when Fry talks to a survivor of the Auschwitz, a cellist whose survival depended on playing for officers of the SS.

Behind the scenes peeks at rehearsals, both at Bayreuth and at a very interesting looking production of the Ring in St Petersburg, are interspersed with the historic and political, but most of the music scenes are too short to be really satisfying. While  the shrieking women of the Valkyries are always a hoot, the musical  highlight is a whole scene played on piano which demonstrates the magic of the “Tristan Chord”, and the way that Wagner uses an unresolving musical motif to keep the audience emotionally on tenterhooks until the final chord – some five hours later.

Fry’s love of Wagner’s music, and his delight at being backstage in the master’s theatre, are infectious. But he sabotages identification with this enthusiasm through constant self-deprecatory remarks - “You must think I’m mad” being a common one. As well as being intensely annoying, it destroys the mood that has just been set up – maybe by some sublime music – and here we are in Stephen Fry land again. God knows we get enough of that on the box every week.

This doco could have been, in someone else’s hands, an interesting exploration of whether it is possible to separate our appreciation of a genius’s creativity from our knowledge of their politics. Unfortunately, it comes across here as lip-service by Fry to counter the criticism that his slavish devotion to Wagner’s music will inevitably provoke.

Opera Australia recently announced, to great fanfare, they will be mounting a new production of the Ring Cycle in Melbourne in 2013. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, Wagner and Me is a good place to start. But, honestly, I’d wait for the DVD.

This review appears on AussieThearte.com

Review: The Wau Wau Sisters' Last Supper

The Wau Wau Sisters Last Supper

the Arts Centre

2 March 2011

the Famous Spiegeltent

spiegel.theartscentre.com.au

If the Wau Wau Sisters end up in hell for being sacrilegious, well I'll be there with them. So will you if you're reading this; and the good folk who got in upstairs because the thought of going down on God or their sister was too much for their sensibilities will be looking for a loophole that gets them down below for the fun.

At The Wau Wau Sisters' Last Supper in the holy temple of the Speigel, I had my first communion wafer in many years – from a scantily clad schoolgirl with glittery stigmata. I felt almost pious. So much that I was almost jealous that one sister had Jesus coming in her room.

As the sisters say, they're not dirty; they're fucking filthy. Filthy meaning fucking hilarious, sexy as all-go-get and so taught and bendy that you really want to take them home to play with.

The last time I sat at the temple of Wau Wau, I thought their awesome acrobatics outshone their comedy and am thrilled to say that The Last Supper leaves me choking on such a statement. Their material is now as tight as their abs, but feels as free as their onstage morals.  Throw in one of the best double trapeze acts around and audience participation that left reluctant participants dancing, there's no wonder they now sell out wherever they go.

And, where can we get those Fuck Yeah undies?

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com