Review: Minnie and Liraz

Minnie and Liraz
Melbourne Theatre Company
22 May 2017
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 24 June
mtc.com.au

Minnie & Liraz. Virginia Gay, Rhys McConnochie, Nancye Hayes. Photo by Jeff Busby

One of the many things I love about Lally Katz's writing is that it really doesn't matter when a new show doesn't quite hit the mark. Often new writing needs to get on a stage and be seen before it really finds what it's meant to be and Minnie and Liraz, MTC, needs some time on (and off) the stage to find its stride.

The 90-something Cohens, Minnie (Nancye Hayes) and Morris (Rhys McConnochie), have been married for 70ish years and are living in an expensive, bland and peach-coloured retirement home in Caulfield (that doesn't feel like Caulfield). When Minnie's bridge partner dies, Liraz (Sue Jones) is  determined to take her place. The Cohens don't like aggressively loud Liraz, but she does have a single 36-year-old grandson (Peter Paltos) who might be perfect for their single 38-year-old granddaughter (Virginia Gay) – grandchildren would be worth the price of Liraz in the family. And for a lot of the night, the story plays out how it's expected to – but this is a Lally Katz play, so it's easy to reject the peach-coloured view of the world before getting too comfortable.

Katz writes from her life and the Cohens are based on her own grandparents and, perhaps, her own experience of finding someone who's your-kind-of-awesome in your late 30s. At her best, Katz's characters are created from such a place of love and understanding that it's impossible to see them as fiction.

Minnie and Liraz is at its most delightful when it explores character. With loving and detailed performances and direction (Anne-Louise Sarks) that focus on character, the love for these people  drive it far more than its story.

However, as the romance trajectory and the death of at least one oldies is inevitable, the plot and climax feel forced – no matter how funny – and there's a lot of awkward exposition that bring us back to watching the construct of the play rather than being in the world with these people. Much of the exposition is through Norma (Georgina Naidu). She's the staff member who knows her residents too well but always feels like the outsider or a convenience, like her running a memoir class that lets Morris tells the story that  tells everything about him but doesn't sit in the narrative.

Minnie and Liraz often feels as peachy safe as its decor and design. But does anybody really like peach? Lets hope we get the chance to see the much darker and tighter work that it will become.

Review: Sunday in the Park with George

Sunday in the Park with George
Victorian Opera
20 July 2013
The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 27 July
victorianopera.com.au

Victorian Opera's Sunday in the Park with George is exquisite, and it's heartbreaking that it can only run for a week as so many people will miss this emotionally-perfect production of Stephen Sondheim's most personal work.

Sondheim wrote Sunday in the Park with George after his Merrily We Roll Along (1981) was booed by critics and closed after 16 Broadway performances. Urban legend says that he was ready to quit music theatre to write mystery novels, but writer and director James Lapine persuaded him to return and they were both inspired by a painting by George Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884).

The resulting work by Sondheim and Lapine (who directed the first production) is a passionate and deeply personal exploration about being an artist and the sacrifices that accompany the choice to make art. It won Tonys for its design and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the London production won Oliviers, including Best Actor in a Musical for Australia's Philip Quast.

The first act is set in 1884, as George sketches in the park and develops his new style of painting (pointillism or neo-impressionism, that creates its images and colours from the human eye merging its dots of colour). The fictional story is about the people in the painting, including George's mother and his lover, who are both rejected by George in favour of his art. The second act is in the 1980s in America where George's great grandchild, also George, is trying to create and fund his digital work in a world of snobby art critics, and planning to show his interpretation of Seruat's work in Paris on the island depicted in the famous painting.

Alexander Lewis (who studied at WAPPA and is currently in his second year of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera in New York) is outstanding as the Georges. Musically, it's like Sondheim wrote for him and emotionally he grasps the conceit of a man who gives up love for art, without ever losing the empathy of his audience. Christina O'Neil (who was also at WAPPA and a new Red Stitch ensemble member in 2013) is his counterpoint as lover Dot (and his grandmother in Act 2). She, too, sings the music like it's hers, but it's the heart and understanding that she brings to Dot that is so engaging.

And they are supported by an ensemble who are each memorable, none lesser than Nancye Hayes, as George's mother, and an Act 2 art critic, whose Act 1 song to George is a masterclass in how to perform Sondheim (warning: bring a tissue).

Conductor Phoebe Briggs understands how Sondheim applied pointillism to music and ensures that the musicians and voices never let one outshine the other. While director Stuart Maunder (whose direction of Sondheim's A Little Night Music for Opera Australia left me cold) ensures that the story is led by the powerful emotions that created it.

But even for nothing else, see it for Anna Cordingley's design. The most famous productions of George won awards for design. Victoria Opera doesn't have a Broadway budget, but Cordingley has created something that's as creative and original as Seruat and Sondheim. The costumes are made with material that's digitally printed with Seraut's colour palettes. This makes them look like they walked out of a new version of the painting and visually unite the two acts in ways that past designs haven't. Her detail is intricate and, even from the circle, it's easy to see that every hat is a finished work of art and her parasols are as beautiful as the music that sings about them. Meanwhile the set uses all of Seraut's known works and her cascade of falling colours is such a simple idea, but genius in how it supports the story and George's art.

After the success of Nixon in China, Victorian Opera are continuing to put Opera Australia to shame with a production that deserves to run for months, if only to show everyone who sees expensive opera and commercial music theatre why reviewers like me complain when they miss the mark.

It finishes on Saturday and its nearly sold out. So book now. And full time students and under 30s can get $30 tickets.

This review is on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Annie

Annie
John Frost, Power Arts, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Two Left Feet
1 June 2012
Regent Theatre
to 12 August
anniethemusical.com.au

Annie was the first big show I saw. It was the original Australian production (yes, the summer of 78/79) at the Festival Centre in Adelaide and it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. It was better than The Aristocats film and even better than Disney on Ice!  And it had kids in it. It was aspirational and my cousins and I sang every bit we could remember from it. (Thanks Gran for taking us.) I so wanted to be an orphan, but I really wanted to be Annie*. It's Annie's fault that I'm here today.

Annie was THE show of 1978 in Australia. The songs were played on the radio, there were stories in every newspaper about the casting and finding the dogs at the pound. We knew the names of the local Annies and orphans. It was bigger than The Voice.

Being a teenager, I didn't see the film (naff), missed the 2000 revival (naff!) and so nearly didn't see the 2012 production because I was scared that my inner-10-year-old would have her memories of such a perfect experience shattered.

Annie is naff. Its a schmaltzy, feel-good story about an perky orphan showing a billionaire the importance of being perky and convincing the new US-depression-time President that the sun will come out tomorrow.  It's more twee than Lolcats,  has the worst wig in the history of all theatre (even in the 70s the curly red perm looked ridiculous) and if it were written today, there'd be an extra scene to help the Act 2 resolution where she runs away, is attacked on the streets and saved by Sandy the dog.

So the only way to tell this story and make it more than laughable ironic nostalgia is to make it as perfect as possible and to tell the story with love. And this is what director Karen Johnson Mortimer has done.

It starts with an exquisite design (Kenneth Foy) that incorporates projections of 1930s New York to bring us into its world. We begin in the grey and white film world of orphanage poverty and colour is added until we're dancing in the lavish world of hope, love and wealth.

The first cast on stage are the seven little Australian orphans and Annie (Hattie Hook, we adored you) singing "Maybe" and "Hard Knock Life". This is make or break it time and this young cast make it. Bring in the Nancye Hayes as nasty Miss Hanniagn (who was the original Lily and company director of the 2000 revival) and there's no doubt that this is an Annie as good as any of us remember.

The cast can't be faulted.  Julie Goodwin (not the Masterchef winner) as Grace, Todd McKenney as Rooster, Chloe Dallimore as Lily, Anthony Warlow returning from 2000 as Daddy Warbucks and one of the best ensembles I've seen tell this story like it's their own. It's not just talent and experience (although if you can't dance like Todd, you don't deserve to be on a musical theatre stage); it's being totally with your character (no matter how small) for every moment you're on the stage. We're not in the audience to see performers show off; we're there to see a story and have to believe in the characters on the stage.

If you've never seen Annie, you may not like it as a grown up. I sat next to a confused 20-something couple on a date: the only way this is a date show is if your hoping to get knocked up that night. But there were lots of children. Children who didn't utter a word during the show (anyone been to a movie where kids shut up?), children who sat there as entranced as I've ever seen anyone in a theatre. A little girl near me was crying in Act 2 when it seems like Annie may have to go away with her fake parents.

This is going to be as defining theatre/story moment for many of these children, so please don't hesitate to introduce any pre-teens you know to theatre with Annie. As a commercial show it is expensive (and even I was nearly tempted by an Annie key ring at the merchandise stand), which leaves so many people unable to see it. I'm not going to debate the cost of putting on these shows, but producers, you're very smart people, so there must be a way to open up seats to kids and families who would otherwise never have a chance to see Annie. Daddy Warbucks would find a way.

We've seen some seriously dull musical revivals in recent years. These shows have ruined memories of great shows and made first timers wonder what the fuss was about. Revivals have to be as great as this Annie. They have to be better than what came before. Cutting cost corners on development and rehearsal or talent and spectacle only leads to empty seats and reviewers writing things that make you upset.

Annie is as perfect as a production of Annie can be. Filled with heart and talent, it reminded me why I fell in love with musical theatre all those years ago.

I never got to be THAT Annie, despite my Grandpa never calling me anything else, but I showed off on many stages in my teens, have adopted pets from the street and had red curly hair for many years. But I haven't sat on a billionaire's lap and called him Daddy...yet.

* until I wanted to be Sandy (from Grease, not the dog), then Janet from Rocky Horror.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens
The Production Company
24 November 2011
The Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 4 December

The cult fascination with Big and Little Edie Beale doesn't resonate as it does in the US, but it doesn't leave this pair any less fascinating. The Production Company present the Australian premier of the 2007 Tony-winning musical and with Pamela Rabe and Nancye Hayes cast, expectations were high.

The recluse and impoverished Beales were revealed in a 1975 documentary about the mother and daughter living in their filthy East Hampton mansion with raccoons, 50-plus cats, a metre high pile of empty cat food tins and endless fleas. Being the aunt and cousin of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis added to their notoriety and cousin Jackie soon paid for the cleaning of her relatives' house.

The original documentary is still uncomfortably irresistible in its welcomed exploitation, so the decision to re-tell it as a musical could be odd. Why re-tell a story that has already been told perfectly? But such eccentricity and dark sadness must be shared and Grey Gardens creates complexity by including a first act. Set 1941, Act 1 is a fictional afternoon leading up to Little Edie's (Liz Stiles) engagement party to Joe Kennedy (Alex Rathgeber where, cousin Jackie (Ariel Kaplan) runs about, Edie's daddy shows his colours and Big Edie (Rabe) sings and decides her daughter's fate.

For all the genuine affection of Act 1, its ending is played from the beginning, leaving little to draw the audience beyond the veneer of their world.   As it's known that Joe died in WW2, that Jackie nabs his little brother and how the Edie's end up, this act could filled with unfulfilled hope or be so dark that every note is a cruel stab at Act 2.

But it matters little, as Act 2 is what everyone wants to see. Taken directly from the documentary, Big (now Hayes) and Little (now Rabe) are as they will always be remembered. The music is forgettable, but their songs allow the subtext of the documentary to literally sing.

Hayes and Rabe are two of the best around and they surpass all expectations as the Edies bicker and fight for attention and try to find love in their bitterness and regret. It's easy to laugh at the quirks of old-lady eccentricity, but their story isn't easy to laugh with, as it's too close for anyone with parent problems or aging issues or a belief that two cats isn't enough. It's the honesty that Rabe and Hayes find that makes their Edies their own and so much more than remembered images from a tv screen.

With tiny budgets and short rehearsals, The Production Company always create something so much more than expected. Grey Gardens doesn't always grasp the tone and cultural impact of this story, but it's still a great night out and you'll not see better than Hayes and Rabe.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

Review: Turns

Turns
Christine Dunstan Productions
29 July 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 9 July
then to Qld and WA
www.turnstheshow.com.au

The chance to see legends Reg Livermore or Nancye Hayes is a good enough excuse to see anything, so having them both on stage  is more than enough reason to see Turns, especially as it is also written and directed by Reg.

I first saw Reg in one of the Betty Blokk Buster shows in the 1980s. I'm pretty sure this was my first taste of satirical and off-colour drag and, even if I really was too young to get most of it, it pretty much set my standard and my taste. For that, and for Barnum, he will always be one of my favourites. And the always-wonderful Nancye is a performer who loves and respects her audiences so much that she never has a moment on the stage when you're not completely with her.

Described as a music hall of the mind, Turns blends a nostalgic and loving look at vaudeville and "he's behind you" panto with a dark understanding of how our minds create new truths to deal with our realities.

Marjorie (Hayes) tells us how she was once the belle of the Sydney stage, but she now lives in a lonely North Sydney flat with her long-suffering son Alistair (Livermore) and dreams of having her coffin drawn by two dozen pantomine horses. Their tale is told through two monologues as each tell us their stories, as they see them.

Marjorie's language of non-stop malapropisms and puns is worthy of The Bard himself, whose spirit must be jealous that he wrote too early to use the likes of FJ Holden Uteruses and "as God is my wireless." And her complex and heart-breakingly demented mind is realised in Matthew Aberline's exquisite costumes that are full of humour and colour and confusion.

Gently guided by director Tom Healy, both performers show us the pain and frustrations of these unforgettable characters, and they temper the sadness with the type of humour that lets us cope with anything that life unfairly throws at us. If we can't laugh, what hope do we have?

Their story is beautiful and sad and so needs to be told, but its telling lacks the dramatic momentum so needed on a stage. By telling their stories separately, we miss the opportunities to see the tension and painful drama between them.  So much of what Alistair confesses to us was already clear from Marjorie's story, so there aren't enough of those heart-dropping moments of revelation.

Turns is an original, darkly funny and brave work that lets two of our greatest stars remind us why that are so great, but I'd so love to see it with a re-write that brings the two of them together so we could see more of the painful memories of the love that keeps them together.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

A Little Night Music

A Little Night Music
Opera Australia
15 May 2009
State Theatre, the Arts Centre

I had never seen a full production of A Little Night Music until now and Opera Australia’s version has supported my wonder at the Stephen Sondheim’s mastery, but it wasn’t this production that convinced me of its greatness.

As a remount of the original 1973 Broadway production (directed by Hal Prince), Opera Australia’s version is worth seeing for the historical value. The gorgeous and slightly ironic design still colours and supports the work perfectly and the evening lets us see how fulfilling and rewarding A Little Night Music can, and should, be.

Sondheim tears through to our souls and grasps the real emotions that drive us. A Little Night Music is about lust, passion and love. Act 1 oozes sex: Madame Armfeldt tells her granddaughter how she shagged kings, Désirée Armfeldt laughs with her old lover about her latest lover’s talents, the married Charlotte and Carl-Magnus Malcolm freely chat about his lover – and that’s a mere scratch of the surface. Everyone’s action is driven by their sexual desires and wants, even of its fear of sex or remembering what it once was - but everyone is with the wrong person - Charlotte and Ann confide, everyday is “A Little Death” as “Love’s disgusting, Love’s insane, A humiliating business”. Act 2 lets the need for love take over and this is where Sondheim’s remarkable knowledge into human motivation takes hold. This is in the music, in the lyrics and in the book – I just wish I’d seen more of it on the stage. For all the talent, what was missing was the lust, passion and love.

Conductor Andrew Greene is the star of the production, pitching and controlling the music to sustain and pace the emotion of the work, in a way not fully reflected in the performances. Vocally, the well-trained and experienced cast are ideal, with the mix of opera and music theatre voices adding a curious dimension to the characters. The refreshing and contrasting vocal qualities of Lucy Maunder (Ann) and Kate Maree Hoolihan (Petra) are especially welcome.

However, the inspired casting is Sigrid Thornton as Désirée. Thornton is by no means a singer, and never pretends that she is. Dramatically and emotionally she is on another level to the rest of the cast (with the exception of Nancye Hayes, whose Madame Armfeldt is perfect). Désirée is the character who we care about and the one who we believe. Thornton approaches her songs as her character and this is what nails it every time. It doesn’t matter if she barely sings “Send in the Clowns”, because she shows the irony of Désirée’s bitter hurt, regret and despair.

This thorough approach to character was missing elsewhere. There is no emotional consistency on the stage, as everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the work, especially with the male casting. Not one man on that stage let me believe that they were faintly interested in these women, let alone that they wanted them naked or that they loved them.

A Sondheim song is as powerful and enlightening as a Shakespeare soliloquy. We are privileged to see the hidden feelings of the characters; their secret thoughts and dilemmas that they would never tell anyone else. Early in Act 1, Fredrik considers “ravishing” (today we’d say raping) his teenage, virgin wife (who is terrified of sex); while Henrik, his depressed (and suicidal) son, despairs about his “intolerable” life, as he his dismissed by everyone who should love him. It’s not just about singing it well – it’s about showing us the raw emotion of the character.

I loved Stuart Maunder’s direction of The Pirates of Penzance, as it captured the fun and overall joke of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work. But you don’t direct, perform or even compare G & S to Sondheim. The heart of Sondheim is the drama and passion of complex, damaged souls. It’s filled with irony and comedy (it even reflects a French farce) – but it’s never a joke.

I wondered if I was being overly critical of a production that really does have a lot of marvellous aspects to it, until Google found me a YouTube clip of Sondheim directing an actor (his words) singing Henrik’s “Later”. I’m not comfortable comparing our national opera company’s production to a short YouTube video – but in a few minutes, Sondheim himself showed me how this production missed the mark.

Opera Australia is our funded, supported flagship opera company. With the astonishing artistic talent and skill available, and the ongoing support of audiences and funding bodies, this company should be consistently creating the best productions in the country and I shouldn’t find a YouTube video more emotionally rewarding.



This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.