Review: The Seed

The Seed
Melbourne Theatre Company
22 February 2012
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 4 April

As a writer takes the "tell your story" advice literally and writes about being a writer, I wonder how much of the abundant dialogue about stories and half-written stories that are looking for a beginning and have no end is a writer trying to tell people what she does or is it begging for another writer to write about their writing.

Actor and writer Kate Mulvany was most recently seen in Melbourne in Bell Shakspeare's wonderful Julius Caesar, where she was as Cassius and the dramaturg; she knows how to tell a story. The Seed is her semi-auto-biographical work that was developed through the 2004 Phillip Parson's Award and has seen productions at Belvoir and in her home town of Geraldton.

This production is the mainstage direction debut of Hayloft's Anne-Louise Sarks (who was also assistant director for the remarkable The Wild Duck currently at Malthouse) and pops local favourites Tony Martin and Max Gilles on stage for us.

Thirty-year-old Rose (Sara Gleeson; played by Mulvany in previous productions) has arrived in Nottingham, UK, with her father (Martin) to see his childhood home and meet his formidable father (Gilles). With a shared birthday, the balloons, mystery boxes and Guy Fawkes night fireworks, help Rose to burst, unwrap and explode the stories of her IRA-supporting grandfather,  her ten-pound-pom and Vietnam conscript father and her childhood cancer.

It's a deeply personal piece about guilt and betrayal and trying to connect to family through secrets and silence, but it seems to be so personal that there isn't enough distance (writing, direction and performance) to take it from a great family tale to a story that will outlive its characters. The story is gentle and loving, but its black humour and inherent humanity are cocooned in a kind of writing that is loved in a novel, but feels over-written and self-indulgent on a stage.  

For a production having everything going for it, the result is disappointing and it might be best to grab a  new Seed from this crop and give it some time in the loving goodness of a dark compost heap before it sprouts again.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

Last Tuesday's Poet Laureate is Live on Air

It was bloody hot last night, but the hottest spot in town was The Last Tuesday Society's Occupy Xmas: their fourth Christmas spectacular.

If anyone wants to wipe out Melbourne's indie theatre scene, poison the pear cider and gluten-free ale at a Last Tuesday gig.  As it's here that hosts and founders Richard Higgins and Bron Batten assemble the most ridiculously talented (and the most ridiculous) folk around and make them perform for Melbourne's hipsters*.

Everything at the Xmas gig was new material. Some will fade into legend, like:

• The Suitcase Royale's "Merry Christmas You Cunts" song
• Bron's attempt to get snogged
• Max Gilles as Lord Mayor Doyle
• The Sisters Grimm's delicate re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk.

While others were glimpses of new shows, like:

Live on Air with Poet Laureate Telia Nevile

Last night, Telia warmed my heart with a death metal ode to the apostrope. Typos can be forgiven but if you ever write it's and think it's possessive, you'll never have sex with a writer.

Live on Air is on for four shows the Butterfly Club from Thursday to Sunday. The Poet Laureate's gorgeous world is subtle, intricate and so damn funny that you'll leave in love with words for ever.


* in the original sense of the word and the more recent sense

Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing
Bell Shakespeare 
10 June 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 25 June
bellshakespeare.com.au

Ring the bells and make much ado about this Much Ado because nothing is better than a pun-filled night of cruel deeds, fake death and unrequited lust.

Big Willy loved a double meaning and if he'd been in London in the 1960s, I'm sure he would have moonlighted as a Carry On writer. If you've ever thought that the old Bill is a bit stuffy, Bell Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing will set you straight, and leave you suitably bent.

Much Ado is one of the comedies. It's the one where the reluctant lovers Benedick (Toby Schmitz) and Betrice (Blazey Best) are duped into fancying the hell out of each other, as schmaltzy lovers Claudio (Sean Hawkins) and Hero (Alexandra Fisher) nearly break up when a really mean deception goes to plan. It's about ladies sighing no more because men are deceivers ever and reminds us that a hey nonny nonny will always feel better than a sulk.

The cast mix of experienced and less experienced actors creates a fresh and authentic balance of endless energy that will ensure that anyone not in love with Shakespeare will be by the final applause.

Schmitz lets the audience be Bendick's best friend with soliloquies that make you want to share a flagon of cider with him and talk all night, and he's matched by Best's firey and compassionate Beatrice.  Bell Shakespeare favourites Arky Michael and Robert Alexander delight every moment they are on stage, while Sean O'Shea's Don John re-defines the nasty jealous uncle and Max Gilles's malaproping Dogberry shows just how much life is left in the old dog and ensures that auspicious persons will always suspect his age and place.

Then there's Stephen Curtis's design, which is part-Fellini, part-Brunswick-end-of-Lygon-Street and leaves you wanting to hug your lover from the back of a Vespa before an endless night of home made antipasto, Chianti and exhausting passion. Or at least re-embrace high-waisted pants, hair curlers and swirly net petticoats.

Directed by John Bell, this Much Ado About Nothing is an utter joy that brings every joke and every dilemma and tear out of this complex and very funny story. It left me wanting more and I think that I want "Press me to death with wit" on my gravestone.


This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

PS: If you're in London, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are up to  Much Ado

Review: Godzone

Godzone
Melbourne Theatre Company
10 December 2009
Sumner Theatre

I’d hand out how to vote cards for Max Gilles if he ran for any public office, especially now that he and writer Guy Rundle might be looking for new jobs because Godzone is a bit of an unexpected snooze.

Admittedly, with the federal Liberals putting on a farce that has made their supporters cringe and left the rest of us laughing as hard as we would at a Max Gilles show, this new show had a tough comedic act to follow this week.

Gilles have been satirising our pollies since Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. The Gilles Report on the ABC was my teenage source of political information and his latex-assisted satire has continued to be biting and accurate. Following Don Watson and Patrick Cook, Guy Rundle joined Gilles as writer in the year that Little Johnny got to sit at the head of the grown ups table.

Conservative pollies with severe short-man complex are a gift to pinko, pesto-eating comedians and their followers, who sponsor poor kiddies from the not-so-lucky countries and welcome anyone as their neighbour (except Liberal voters, of course). It’s hard for the left to lampoon and verbally sodomise their own.

Gilles’s Kevin07 has his jingo Aussieisms, his marketing speak and his Mandarin, but he’s not as ripe for the picking as Labor leaders like Bob or Paul. Face it, Krudd can be a bit dull and even if he doesn’t live up to all his promises, he was the one who finally let us say ‘Sorry’. Gilles’ Mad Monk Abbot can call him the Milky Bar Kid, but it’s about as painful as being lashed with a silk ribbon. There was room for some comments on being Sri Lankan and cruising the Indonesian seas and I don’t remember hearing the acronym ETS.

As Kev and Tony openly admit that their Christian faith and beliefs influence their political and personal decisions, Godzone brings the big guy into the picture in a Kevin-style think tank where even token conservative Andrew Bolt can have a say.

I expected Bolt-through-the-brain to be the character to bring back the gut-aching laughs. He could have made fun of us – the people in the audience dying to laugh. Telling us we like goats cheese and John Safran is like reminding us that we like theatre and a glass of fizz. It’s not satire. If we can’t tear new-ones for our pollies because we don’t despise them as much as we used to, perhaps it’s time to turn the spotlight on our selves – and Bolt-from-any-sense is a perfect character to do so.

Godzone is running through the over-eating season until mid-January, so I reckon it’s going to change. Rundle and Gilles are too good to let flat material stay and director Aiden Fennessy knows how to bring laughs to a stage. I wouldn’t rush for tickets just now; wait and see what the punters are saying after the day of exchanging crappy presents.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Babes In The Wood

Babes In The Wood
Malthouse Theatre
18 November 2006
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

There has been more media coverage of Babes In the Wood over the last couple of weeks than most Malthouse productions receive for a season. Why? A song about Steve Irwin. It has been misquoted and taken out of context by every story I’ve read (including one on AussieTheatre).

Before September, Irwin was been a ripe target for satire, but now we have to be careful. (If you have just woken from a coma – Steve Irwin died in September). I’ve seen the great controversy. It’s a loving, kind, funny and totally respectful song about an iconic Aussie bloke who sings that we should all try doing the thing we love. He then dies doing what he loves, when three ridiculous stingrays come dancing in. If anything it is satirising the public response to Irwin’s death – who didn’t find themselves saying, “At least he was doing what he loved.” The only person who should be offended is Germaine Greer. Her character is the one singing all the misquoted lines.

There we go – another 170 words devoted to one of the best publicity calls made by a theatre company. I’m sure many tickets will be bought just to see this scene. It’s a good reason to go - it’s funny, respectful and relevant. In fact, it stands out as one of the better moments of Babes In The Wood.

If you saw the 2003 production of Babes In The Wood, don’t expect Babes 2 (in the city). This is the same production, with some new material. I missed the original, so cannot compare the two.

It is good old-fashioned pantomime, created intelligently. The opening scenes are enticing and captivating. It is great to openly laugh and enjoy “serious” theatre. How many other mediums allow you to boo at a John Howard joke and scream back “Oh no he isn’t” when the panto dame declares he’s a bold and visionary prime minister.

Sadly the show loses momentum and never recaptures the opening energy (except for the Steve Irwin number). A lot of material would read well in the script, but slows the show down on the stage. I know its hard to cut your good lines, but some people didn’t come back after interval. Much of the material is still relevant, but has lost the impact and power that it had in 2003. Tamper/children overboard, un-Australian, war on terror - is this political comment for 2006?

There is new material, but it seems to have been forced into the old script. The Rumsfeld “known and unknowns” joke was most welcome, "Under the Milky Way" at least referenced the Commonwealth Games and, if you look carefully, you may notice a reference to Steve Irwin.

The original music is terrific and supported by an eclectic and illogical soundtrack of 70s and 80s pop hits. The tradition of panto is to use contemporary music, but these retro moments are not contemporary. If it is a commentary on society today, why not use the music of the starettes that fill our media as much as any politician? Kylie’s return, aging rockers on the Countdown tour, wealthy singers trying to make poverty history, Australian Idol and Brittany are all too easy targets. (Amanda Vandstone singing, “Opps I did it again” instead of Nutbush?) Agadoo is funny – but what is its relevance?

What does sustain the production is the terrific cast. Caroline Craig, Diana Emry, Julie Forsyth, Max Gilles, Francis Greenslade, Eddie Perfect and Lucy Taylor. Each one as perfect as Eddie, having a ball on the stage and making sure the audience also enjoy the absurdity and silliness of the panto.

Babes In The Wood is a fun and irreverent night out, but is not the seditious political satire that I expected.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.