Mini review: Salome

HELIUM

Salome
Little Ones Theatre and Malthouse Theatre
30 August 2013
The Tower, Malthouse theatre
to 14 September
malthousetheatre.com.au

"Dance for me, Salome!" Never has Oscar Wilde been so gay – and he was in prison for sodomy and gross indecency when his play Salome was first performed in 1896.

Little Ones Thearte's HELUIM-season production of Wilde's Salome is so gloriously indecent that if it were performed in the 1890s, cast, producers, audience and passers by would be in the cells with Oscar.

According to the Bible, Herod wanted to see his step daughter, Salome, dance and promised her anything in exchange. She asked for the head of John the Bapsist. Wilde wrote his version of this story in French in 1891 and it was published in 1893. There were plans for a 1892 London season, but it was illegal to portray Bible characters, so its first performance was in Paris.

Wilde wrote Salome as a tragedy, but director Stephen Nicolazzo starts with its sexuality and moral ambiguity. It is, after all, a story about a virgin who wants the lust of a saint, and a king who wants his stepdaughter's virginity.

Surrounded by an Oz-emerald-green curtain, Salome rejoices in a mid-1980s aesthetic (gorgeous costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt and Eugyeene Teh; set by Teh), where the new romantics questioned gender on MTV, Madonna made pearls and lace cool, and David Lynch freaked out late-night film-goers; pass the oxygen, please.

With traditions and expectations abandoned, Salome is a man in a handmade matador costume, John the Baptist is a woman in a disco-ball bikini, Herod and Herodias drag up, and the soldiers and heralds are magnificently fabulous. It's a world where gender is everything but means nothing, and sexuality is everything until love and jealousy take hold.

Stephen Nicolazzo has found a remarkable and unique voice as a director. Following Psycho Beach Party (that's heading to the Brisbane Festival) and sex.violence. blood. gore, his high-camp, bold aesthetic defines his view of queer culture without rejection or criticism. His world is filthy without shame and welcomes everyone who celebrates difference and lets their heart make their choices.

And he has a a group of actors who have quickly established themselves among independent theatre's A-list. Paul Blenheim, Genevieve Giuffre, Alexandra Aldrich, Nick Pelomis, Peter Paltos, Zoe Boesen, Tom Dent are so sexy and so funny that it's impossible to decide which one you fancy the most.

Salome is glorious and hilarious and so damn smart that missing it isn't an option.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

What Melbourne loved in 2012, part 2

Today's artists sharing their favourite moments of 2012 are Penelope Bartlau, Nick Pelomis and Kaitlyn Clare.

Penelope Bartlau

artistic director of Barking Spider Visual Theatre

PENELOPE: My favourite moment was one that recurred: People telling their own stories through different theatre arts experiences.

"Even though your Littel you can have big idears." This was from an 8-year-old girl who, with her four siblings and her dad, had lived in a car until three years ago. She said this at the end of our (Barking Spider's) Extended School Residency this year. Art has the power to transform.

SM: Sometimes the best shows don't get SM reviews, Barking Spider's The Memorandium was one of them.  Nostalgic, disconcerting and beautiful, a stageful of treasures and junk was used to trigger memories. As the audience shared their memories, Penelope told stories that included the memories and the object that started it. With our own memories at the heart of the stories, I suspect that one day we'll be telling her tales as our own. I remembered ironing floral hankies to fit into my school uniform pocket, my grandma's reluctance to use anything "good" and that a wooden spoon was a threat (never carried out) when I was little.  But, being a borderline hoarder, my favourite moment was rummaging through the backstage room that was filled with everything that couldn't fit on the stage. When I got home, I filled a box with stuff to go to the Salvos.

Oh, and her wedding was pretty special too.

Nick Pelomis
acteur

NICK: I adored Margaret Fulton and Persona; both beautifully realised and brought to life. And I'm not being biased, but I also loved Miracle Man and Golden Dragon (ok maybe I am biased!*). Personally, doing Pornography at State Theatre in Adelaide was pretty special – amazing play and playmates! Nice to work with Dan (Clarke) again too. 

SM: I didn't get to see Nick perform this year – boo. I would have loved to have seen Pornography, but it clashed with the Melbourne Festival. My favourite moment though was talking about cats one night at Theatre Works. I was can't remember why we were there because I'd euthanised my beloved cat that week, but Nick made me feel OK about being heartbroken over her loss.

* Being married to the director doesn't mean you have to like the work they do, so no bias even considered.

Kaitlyn Clare
actor 

KAITLYN: Reflecting on 2012, I have to say first and foremost how fortuitously blessed I feel and how deeply grateful I am for the incredible people who've thus far contributed to my personal and professional education. Truly.

To narrow it all down to one highlight, much contemplation has led me to the experience of working with Robert Draffin on my graduating production, The Flayed. He challenged, nurtured and respected me physically, emotionally and artistically through what was one of the most exhausting processes I've ever had the honour of partaking in. He trusted me with the gift of freedom and inspired in me a genuine fearlessness I'd never before felt – a secret weapon that enabled me to endure industrial chains and quite literally pop my veins, and to release energies I hadn't realised were simmering inside me. He's a unique genius with an essence not dissimilar to Gene Wilder's incarnation of Willy Wonka and, aside from Robert Reid, he's one director I'd be content to work with exclusively for the rest of my life.

xxxx.

SM: Kaitlyn made sure that I was at one of my favourite theatre moments of the year: Brynne Edelston's acting debut in MKA's Tinkertown. That so wasn't the moment. It was standing outside of Theatre Works on a hot summer night (with KC) watching Brynne walk out. She didn't talk to us and we didn't  talk to her; it was like a meeting of different species who weren't quite sure if the other were real.

Forgetting that Brynne had a handbag that cost more than what everyone watching was wearing, that her skin is a colour not seen in nature and her tits so huge that I wonder if anyone has ever looked her in the eye, it was the amount of effort she'd made to walk from dressing room to car. The photo-shoot make up, the styled hay-like Barbie hair, the matching clothes (I love that she wore all black to fit in with the theatre crowd), the towering heels and a dress that meant there was no way she could sit with her legs apart on such a sweaty night. 

And there's me. I would have put a handful of product in my hair to calm the frizz, but it was pink and black and probably showing some grey. I was wearing my $10 bright pink wedge heel Crocs from the outlet store and maybe something I'd bought at Target on a 20% off day. There's no way I'd have bothered with make up on such a hot night, the chances that my legs were waxy smooth are zero, the only hint of colour on my skin is freckles and hair, and I need a bra to keep my breasts in place.

We stared at Brynne like she was a freak; no wonder she ran off. Now, I really wish that we'd made the effort to make first contact. Although I know I would have stared at her tits.

part 1
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9

part 10
part 11

To include your favourite moment of 2012, please leave it as a comment. Note that comments are never published automatically.

Review: The Event

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

The Event

by John Clancy 

Daniel Clark

3 October 2010

The Loft Fringe hub

to 9 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

A writer sits at a desk and writes about a man who stood in a pool of light in a darkened room and talked about a man standing in a pool of light in a darkened room who talked about writers, and actors and the "professional observers" who watch them and the strangers who sit in darkened rooms wanting to be entertained.

Written to be loved (or possibly resented) by anyone who has sat in a small theatre and watched a show, The Event is uber-meta. It's so meta that the performer in this performance about a performance, written in the third person, explains that it's meta.

Does it already sound a bit wanky? A tad self-indulgent and arty-farty perhaps? Of course it is, but this could be the secret to its appeal. 

Writer John Clancy is a New York-based producer and director who has spent ten years presenting shows all over the globe. He knows theatre and pours every bit of his love, understanding and cynicism of our strange sitting-in-the-dark world into The Event. Us who watch in the dark know actors whose friendships are maintained by drinking and lying, about having naps during shows (he even helps with a lullaby) and the strange combination of advertising and chance that gets us into the darkened rooms.

Just when we're comfortably giggling at the time updates, the in-jokes and recognition, The Event reveals its real depth and places the man beyond the fourth wall into a more uncomfortably recognisable world of angst and confusion. This is far more than a funny story about theatre.

Adelaide-based director Daniel Clarke leads actor Nick Pelomis in the Australian premiere (I think... let me know if I'm wrong). This team also know the ironies, frustrations and payoffs of theatre. Pelomis performs like he's not performing, like The Event was penned for him and he talks to his audience like they are friends whose presence is more important than his is in this darkened world.

The Event is so independent theatre that it will spawn a a wave of imitators in future Fringes, but  – like the music theatre gem [title of show] – they will never be as original. 

Even if, per chance, you don't love The Event, you'll regret it if you miss it.

The writer checks for obvious typos and signs of her own meta wankiness, clicks Publish, before she checks Facebook, links the review to Twitter and hopes that the show she is seeing tonight didn't start at 6.30.