What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 4

It's more trickle than flood this year. Here's the form; tell us about those theatre and art moments in 2018 that made you happy.

Today, we keep celebrating independent makers and companies, and celebrate all those challenges to boring assumptions made about art, makers and audiences.

Sonya Suares
Artistic Director, Watch This

Sonya Suares in Contest. 
(I was a GS in my primary school church team; I wasn't good.)

Favourite moments in 2018
Both of mine were sitting in the Beckett Theatre this year: tears running down my face as Dalara Williams performed the inciting monologue in Blackie Blackie Brown and nearly wetting myself moments later, just as I did during Michelle Lee’s Going Down.

If I am permitted a moment that is not simply as an disinterested audient, then I must say truthfully watching Nadine Garner nail "Send in the Clowns" at every performance of A Little Night Music during the run was one of the highlights of my year. I mean, Every. Single. Time.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm looking forward to sending everyone I know to the return season Blackie Blackie Brown and, because I'm a big boffin/child-of-the-90s, to seeing Shakespeare in Love. Or you know, being in it if Simon Phillips decides to give me a spin!

And personally, I'm looking forward to performing Fleur Kilpatrick's Max Afford award-winning play Whale with a group of incredible womens. It's gonna be a ripper.

SM: Sonya is the driving force behind Watch This. Putting on musicals is expensive and difficult. Putting on Sondheim musicals multiplies the difficulty considerably. Watch This do it, anyway.  Without Watch This, we would see far less Sondheim in Melbourne. Without them we wouldn't see some some of out best performers in Sondheim musicals. If I had a magic funding wand, Watch This would get the money they need to become an ongoing professional company. As for my favourite moment with Sonya this year, it's her moving and powerful performance in Contest by Emilie Collyer.

Vidya Makan & Nick Simpson-Deeks in next year's Watch This show.
Co-directed by Sonya with Dean Drieberg.
Sondheim fans don’t need a title.

Mama Alto
Jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva

Mama Also. Photo by Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

Favourite moments in 2018
Mojo Juju's "Native Tongue". One of the most important new Australian works right now and, I suspect, for many years to come. Revelatory, extraordinary, damning, tender, groundbreaking, truth telling and part of a highly necessary reckoning of the national identity.

Honourable mentions. Willow Sizer's theatrical cabaret Death of a Demi Diva was a revelation. She gave a tour-de-force performance that set the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. Paul Capsis as Quentin Crisp in Resident Alien (return season). Magnificent, eccentric, and in many ways so close to home for all of our inner anxieties, foibles and paranoias.

Honourable mentions for things I saw interstate (naughty, I know). The View Upstairs (Hayes Theatre, Sydney) and An Evening with Constantina Bush (Spirit Festival, Adelaide).

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm eagerly keeping my eye on new works and projects from leading thinkers, powerful performers and those who speak back to imbalance. Anything and everything from Candy Bowers, Jean Tong, and Yana Alana. Midsumma 2019's theatre, cabaret and burlesque offerings look extraordinary. And, as always, I anticipate with relish the as yet unannounced surprises that will pop up underground in salons, dens, cabarets and dives across Melbourne. What delights await us at Hares & Hyenas, The Butterfly Club, The Melba Spiegeltent, and where else?

SM: Every moment with Mama Also is the best. She's exquisite. I think my favourite moment was sending interstate friends along to a show she was performing at. When they got back, all they could do was tell about this amazing performer called Mama Alto.

Booking my ticket for The Seventh Annual Mama Alto Holiday Special now. Join us.

Chris Wenn
Noise maker and overthinker

Chris Wenn. Photo by Ezekiel Rodofili

Favourite moments in 2018
There's no single moment that excited me quite as much as the feeling that we've reached a tipping point of invention and fertility within the independent sector . There was such an incredible amount and range of work presented by independent artists and companies in 2019. There was tremendous work to see from new, emerging,and established creators, and from sectors of our community that have gone unrecognised for too long. In the world outside of the major performing arts companies, we have had to build a level of resilience and self-sufficiency that can stand against the inconstancy of grant schemes. The Brandis 'reforms' and Fifield 'restoration' have only proved that we are, and always will be, a target for cuts and culture war. I am immensely proud of the way our community supports each other: through fundraising, crowdfunding, donations of time and material and effort, and a myriad other ways. Can't stop, won't stop.

Looking forward to in 2019
I'm looking forward to more work! More work by and for children and young people, more work by and for Indigenous people, more work by and for queer and non-binary people, more work by and for migrants and non-English speaking audiences. I want to see more work that challenges conventions and assumptions and what it means to make and witness art. I want to see work that reflects the strength and diversity of this global city, that engages audiences in new ways, that deploys technology and creativity in new spaces and old.

SM: Sound designers are such an important part of a design team and we don't talk about them any where near enough. Next year, I will listen to shows more. Chris was part of an amazing design team for Colder at Red Stitch. I mentioned the stage and the lighting designer and not Chris – but as I think back on the show, I can still hear it.

Review: Cabaret

Cabaret
David M Hawkins
1 May 2017
The Athenaeum
to 27 May
cometothecabaret.com.au

David M Hawkins's production of Cabaret may be as pretty as Sally Bowles's green nail polish, but the only person who loved the green was Sally* and we know her manicure was cheap and chipped.

After a mixed reaction to the Sydney season (now referred to as the preview season), Hawkins brought in director Gale Edwards to sort out the Melbourne run. With Paul Capsis as the Emcee, Kate Fitzpatrick as Fraulein Schneider and Chelsea Gibb as Sally, hopes were high.

Based on a short story Christopher Isherwood wrote in Berlin in the 1930s, Cabaret is seen through the eyes of American Clifford Bradshaw who arrives in Berlin and meets English cabaret singer Sally. The stage version surprises those who expect the 1972 film adaption by Bob Fosse, but the different characters and songs are always a welcome surprise.

Set in and around the seedy Kit Kat Klub as the truth of the Nazi's power is being realised, any new Cabaret defines itself with its design. And while the stage design with a wooden floor with footlights suggests a trip to Weimar Berlin – and is gorgeously accentuated by the plush velvet and fading decadence of the nineteenth-century Athenaeum theatre – the costume design doesn't declare a time or place. Spotlessly clean and very sequinny (and, oddly, not sexy), they don't seem to have been developed from or for character and stress that the approaching hell, that we know this world is about to descend into, is a facade that's as authentic as a Cabaret-themed dinner party.

The likes of a giant Hitler mask, some slick swastikas and goose-stepping chorey (which might be trying to be a nod to Fosse) remove the strength of the work's moral ambiguity and the direction doesn't let the dramatic tension of the loss of hope lead the story.

The direction seems focussed on scenes rather than the bigger picture and story. Choices like bringing Cliff into Kit Kat Klub numbers take away his strength as the observer who can see that it's about to collapse and that he has to leave. Making Jewish shop keeper Herr Shultz the Jewish gorilla in "If you could see her" takes away any hope for his fate. And giving Sally an "I will listen" line in Frauline Schneider's "What would you do" diminishes the older woman's desperate plea to find any way to let herself marry and be happy – let alone that Sally's story is that she doesn't listen.

Capsis is, of course, the ideal choice as the Emcee, but his role on the stage is confusing. Neither benevolent or indulgent, he's left side stage as observer more than a participant. Gibb lets Sally's fear and vulnerability show but, like Capsis, is restricted by the production that doesn't seem to want to be more than pretty. I'd love to see them both – and the rest of the cast – in a different production.

And enough has already been said about the technical difficulties on opening night.

* and me; I still wear emerald green nail polish thanks to Liza.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

What Melbourne Loved in 2016, part 14

Today we hear from actor and singer Petra Elliot and two of the biggest supporters advocates for the arts in Melbourne: arts writers Myron My and Rohan Shearn.

Myron My
reviewer, best dressed of all the reviewers

Myron My

MM's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Rather than talk about shows I loved, I really want to talk about shows that made me feel things that I don't normally feel or thoughts I had not considered before. To begin with, Backstage in Biscuitland really made me think about how we all need to work towards inclusivity in the arts, and not just performers or theatre makers, but as audience members as well. Similarly, Jodee Mundy and Deafblind artists Heather Lawson and Michelle Stevens's Imagined Touch had a strong response from me in terms of how we view disability, both in society and within the arts and a great lesson in reminding us that going to a performance doesn’t necessarily mean watching it or hearing it. 

Also at Arts House was Melanie Jame Wolf's Mira Fuchs, a feminist work on how women's bodies are seen and used within the context of stripping, Wolf herself having been a stripper for eight years. It's the first piece of a trilogy so I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of this. During the Fringe festival, The Honeytrap's immersive show, The Maze put me in the mind of a woman walking home alone at night while simultaneously being in the shoes of a man following her. The performance made me acutely aware of the concerns and worries women face on a regular basis and left me feeling vulnerable and ashamed, but in a good way. 

I also have to give a special mention to Joshua Ladgrove and his brilliant creation of Neal Portenza. I've seen him perform three times this year and each time, no matter what was going on in my life, his antics on stage always made me forget about everything and gave me permission to laugh a hell of a lot and to allow myself to just enjoy the moment. 

What MM is looking forward to in 2017: I have already purchased my subscription to the Malthouse Theatre and will be purchasing one to Theatre Works shortly. Both their seasons look amazing and I can't wait to get to see them all. Also looking forward to Little Ones Theatre's Merciless Gods and Stephen Nicolazzo's direction of The Moors for Red Stitch. And pretty much everything that will be on at Arts House. Oh, and to try and break this year’s record of 172 shows!

Myron's top-10-plus of 2016: myronmy.me

SM: No one sees as many Fringe shows as Myron does. He might see more than Fringe staff. He's one of the biggest advocates and ongoing supporters of independent artists (and especially cabaret) in town. He's the reviewer I read to find out about artists I haven't heard of (and he was a great source of "do I need to see x" during Fringe). But my moments with Myron are not about theatre: He loves Survivor – the tribe has spoken – more than I do. He knows the contestants names, he streams it before free-to-air. He should be on the Australian version; he applied but the producers were stupid and didn't choose him. I can share my love for this show with him and he makes me feel like I'm just a fan rather than an obsessive Survivor nerd.

Petra Elliot
actor, singer

PE's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: My friend invited me to visit her one Wednesday evening, but as I was already slated to go to fortyfivedownstairs that evening to see The Artisan Collective's Wit, I arranged to have brunch with her on Saturday morning instead.

That night I sat in the audience of Wit, marvelling at Jane Montgomery Griffiths in the lead role. Her performance was incredible, and I sat there with the tears she had evoked streaming unashamedly down my cheeks – I made absolutely no attempt to conceal them. The set design, direction, and supporting cast were just as impressive, creating a space in which I felt safe to just feel. It was one of the most dynamic and unforgettable pieces of work I'd seen in a while.

Perhaps though, there is another reason this work has stayed with me. That Saturday brunch brought with it news that my friend had found out she herself had cancer (which she had wanted to tell me that Wednesday, the night I saw the show). Experiencing Wit became that much more powerful – I suddenly had an even stronger tie to the work – and I can only imagine how much of a mess I would have been in the audience if the order of events had been reversed.

For me this is often the best theatre. Work in which you are able to do more than just witness, but experience, and truly immerse yourself.

Don't get me wrong, I of course love feel-good theatre and, on a lighter note, I turn my mind to the incredible cabaret I've seen in 2016. Special mentions to Cabaret Festival highlights Alice Tovey  in Personal Messiah, and Karlis Zaid, Mark Jones and Aurora Kurth for Australian Horror Story (with direction by Stephen Gates). Incredible performances, stunning original songs and musical arrangements, shining a light on the darker side of our society while still being incredibly entertaining. Mother's Ruin: A Cabaret About Gin was another highlight and is everything I love about cabaret: dynamic voices singing in killer harmony, a fascinating narrative on a topic you'd never have expected, and stunning re-arrangements of well chosen songs that progress the story and evoke all of the feels.

Double Indemnity at MTC was also a particular favourite. The performances were delightful, and how good was that set!

What PE is looking forward to in 2017: Like most people, I'm excited by the seasons of Theatre Works and the Malthouse, and I love what the Butterfly Club are doing with their curated seasons. I'll also be spending a few weeks in Adelaide for Fringe with The Mighty Little Puppet Show and Petrasexual (2014 review), and I'm super excited to get immersed in Mad March and see as much as I can.

petraelliott.com

SM: I've seen Petra this year, but I haven't seen her perform this year – not by choice – but I have watched her in part the tv show Sonningsburg that I'm going to watch all of before the year is out (it's all on YouTube). Favourite moment though was her getting 3D printed clitorises for her season of Petrasexual.

Myron at the Butterfly Club with Petra's clitoris

Rohan Shearn
Managing Editor, Australian Arts Review

Rohan Shearn. Photo by Alexander Evans

RS's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016:We were spoilt for choice this year as the commercial and independent sector delivered a mixed bag of delights.

Capturing the Australian vernacular of the 50s, Ladies in Black was a divine Australian musical adaptation of Madeleine St John’s popular 1993 novel, The Women in Black.  Matilda, featuring Tim Minchin’s witty lyrics, was everything a musical should be – it made you laugh and cry, and brought out the inner-child in us all. Special mention goes to Jacqueline Dark, and her rousing rendition of "Climb Ev’ry Mountain" in The Sound of Music – simply stunning.

Not to be outdone, the independently produced Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story was hauntingly intelligent, while Blue Saint Productions presented a beautifully crafted production of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World. Both productions were presented at Chapel Off Chapel.

The Melbourne Festival also delivered two of the most heart-warming performances of the year: Jess Thom was unpredictable and enlightening in Backstage in Biscuitland  while the National Theatre of Scotland’s Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour was pitch perfect in its delivery.

Drama wise, Paul Capsis delivered an exquisite performance in Resident Alien at fortyfivedownstairs, Daniel Clarke delivered an in-your-face exploration of masculinity with Caleb Lewis’s  Rust and Bone at the La Mama Courthouse, and the Belarus Free Theatre presented the confrontingly brilliant Burning Doors at Arts Centre Melbourne.

What RS is looking forward to in 2017: Musicals will be well represented again in 2017. It may have taken awhile to get here, but The Book of Mormon make its Australian premiere in February. It may have missed out on some nomination gongs at the Sydney Theatre Awards, Aladdin will take us to a ‘whole new world’ in this spectacular rendition of a modern Disney classic at Her Majesty’s Theatre in April. The Ladies in Black take up residence at The Regent for a return season, and Watch This continue their Sondheim journey with Merrily We Roll Along at the Southbank Theatre. Also, expect announcements on Dream Lover – The Bobby Darin Musical, and a new Australian production of Evita.

SM: Rohan is another amazing advocate and arts writer who sees everything, especially music theatre and cabaret. If I want to know anything about a musical, he's my source. I can't pick a favourite moment because I'm happy to see him every time I see him in a foyer, which is at most opening nights.

artsreview.com.au

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What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 5

While too much of the commercial theatre in Melbourne is regressive, boring and blah, there are amazing Melbourne companies and venues that make progressive, inclusive, challenging and mind-blowing theatre. Today we here from Scott Price from Back to Back theatre, Angharad Wynne-Jones from Arts House and Cameron Lukey from fortyfivedownstairs.

(Opps. In part 4  What Daniel Lammin is looking forward to didn't make it up yesterday, but it's there now.)

Scott Price
Member of the Back to Back Theatre ensemble since 2007, #autismpride

Scott Price. Photo by Jeff Busby

SP's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Sarah Mainwaring's show Duality Ok at La Mama has actually been my favourite piece in 2016. It was just a great piece of theatre and I just enjoyed it immensely. It was great to see Sarah perform outside Back to Back. I didn’t give a standing ovation, but it was a pretty good piece of theatre. If the others did it, I would have too. Sarah was just in casual clothes, and it was just the way that she spoke about her life, I don’t know how to describe it. We went with Simon Laherty, Alice Nash and Nikki Watson and we all thought it was good.

The Rabble’s Cain and Abel was good too, pretty full on and in your face and MTC’s Straight White Men with Luke Ryan I liked too.

What SP is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: Nothing basically comes to mind just at the moment, but I haven’t quite looked into it yet, haven’t had the chance. But I really enjoy comedy shows and the Melbourne Fringe and look forward to seeing more of that stuff next year.

SM: Scott's performance of God/god in the remarkable Lady Eats Apple is one that will stay with me for a long time. As communities and societies, we make assumptions about our gods and Scott challenged every one of those assumptions.

Angharad Wynne-Jones
Artistic Director, Arts House

Angharad Wynne-Jones. Photo by Pier Carthew

AWJ's favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2016: While I love the energy and risk in the experience of a work that has come to realisation in performance, I also really enjoy seeing works in development; work in development allows you to see the issues the artist is resolving, the pathways they might go down, the edits they might make.

This year I've had the opportunity to see Lz Dunn's work Aeon (premiering in March 2017 in Dance Massive) in a number of different places as she's developed it through the support of the Mobile States consortia. As a process of collaboration and co-commissioning with colleagues across the country, facilitated by Performing Lines, this has been an incredibly rewarding and enlivening experience. Running  and walking across the meadow in Royal Park (one of the traditional meeting places of the Kulin Nations and one of my most favourite places in Melbourne) with other test audience members was one of those times (of which there are so many working with the phenomenal artists that we do) that I felt so happy and honoured to be working at Arts House, with artists who are fiercely committed, deeply talented and determinedly experimental.

What AWJ is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: Oh so much! It's liking asking a parent to pick a favourite child … impossible. So, a couple at least are two new festivals: the gargantuan Asia TOPA that will change forever how Australia’s sees itself as part of Asia and gives us at Arts House the opportunity to  present two works from Japan. We are presenting the incredible chelfitsch with a beautiful, haunting contemplation on love and loss with Time's Journey Through a Room. We also welcome Hamanaka Company with Kagerou – Study of Translating Performance, a lyrical investigation into what it is to document disaster. Both works filled with the reverberations of life in Japan of post Fukishima, which resonate deeply with our Antipodean experience of the climate change emergency. And then Yirramboi, Melbourne’s First Nations festival creatively directed by Jacob Boheme, is a chance for us to work with First Nations artist  Emily Johnson who with Shore,  a quartet of community visioning, volunteering, storytelling and performance works  models  new ways and forms of collective imaging. A necessity now more than ever.

SM: 2017 is the year I will try even harder to see everything at Arts House. Sometimes we get so caught up with complaining about the boring regressive commercial theatre in Melbourne that we forget that Arts House is doing everything wonderful with progressive, exciting, inclusive, challenging, personal theatre. My favourites this year were a night at FOLA and Nic Green's Trilogy – another bloody amazing show that didn't get a review. Here was so much work that challenged the ridiculous perfection that is expected of women's bodies; so much work that let people leave and walk around in the world feeling good about the bodies that they have – and stop those conscious and unconscious judgments we make based on appearance.

But my favourite moment was seeing the photo Angharad chose. A photo that looks like the person and lets her true amazingness be seen without makeup and the insane need to Photoshop out every "imperfection". Thank you Pier Carthew for taking photos like this. Every time I open a program and see headshots of smooth faces that make them look computer-generated and barely resemble themselves, I wonder who took the photo, who chose the photo and why the person designing the program didn't question it. There's nothing wrong with looking like yourself.

Cameron Lukey
Development Manager and Executive Producer, fortyfivedownstairs

Cameron Lukey. Photo by Sarah Walker

CL's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I went to the closing night of Daniel Lammin's show Awakening at Trades Hall. I knew it had been a labour of love, and having worked with Daniel on Master Class,  knew how much time and effort he pours into every show he works on. It was funny, charming, insightful, and ultimately, very moving. I left feeling I'd seen someone really leave a piece of themselves on the stage. We're bringing it to fortyfivedownstairs next May for a return season, which is very exciting. I think it will have a great life in our space.

From a personal perspective (and I'm completely biased) it was also a thrill to watch Paul Capsis transform himself into Quentin Crisp in Resident Alien. I had been witness to his process, but watching him in front of an audience for the first time was pretty special. I forgot I had seen it dozens of times in rehearsal because his relationship with his audience is so unique.

What CL is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: I think it would be a bit Sophie's Choice to have to choose a show at fortyfivedownstairs, so outside of fortyfive, I'm looking forward to The Testament of Mary with Pamela Rabe at the Malthouse and Cabaret, which opens at the Athenaeum in April, with Capsis as the Emcee. That just seems like dream casting for both shows.

SM: My favourite is easily reading the email Cameron sent me yesterday after I'd said in part 4 how much I wanted to see a return season of Daniel Lammin's Awakening. He told me how fortyfivedownstairs are doing that season and gently hinted that he'd sent me an email* with that very info over a week ago. And fortyfivedownstairs giving Shit another season.

The first half of next year's fortyfivedownstairs season is unmissable. Not only for Awakening (I'm so happy to see this devastatingly wonderful work get another season), but there's another season of L’amante anglaise and I'm putting I am My Own Wife and Trainspotting in my diary now.

*As I say a lot: if I don't respond, it's likely that I haven't read it because it's lost in the deluge, flagged to read later or I just didn't see it.

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Review: Resident Alien

Resident Alien
Cameron Lukey presents
26 May 2016
fortyfivedownstairs
to 12 June
fortyfivedownstairs.com

Paul Capsis. Photo by Sarah Walker

My review is in The Age/SMH.

What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 1

It's December, which means one thing: It's time to find out what Melbourne's theatre community really loved this year.

It's time to ignore the awards and the critics and remember those shows, people and moments that made theatre in Melbourne so bloody wonderful in 2014.

To kick us off, it's Ash Flanders, Paul Capsis and Peter Paltos, who have just finished in Calpurnia Descending at Malthouse. I think Paul's “I wasn’t bored for a second” should be a goal for all shows in 2015. And I wasn't bored for a second in Calpurnia.

Ash Flanders
actor

Ash Flanders, the younger.  Photo by Ben Dyer

Ash: My list should start with shows I'm really bummed I couldn't see this year. These include (but are not limited to) the MTC NEON season, Madonna Arms (Next Wave at Arts House) and, of course, The Good Person of Szechwan (at Malthouse).

A highlight for me was Applespiel make a band and take on the recording industry (Malthouse, Helium series), which blew my mind largely because of the audacity of the concept – a rock-u-mentary made live in front of an audience by a clean-haired cult of young theatre makers, all who probably have $2 to their names. This show made me feel old and jaded – and reminded me to keep pushing ideas further... and to stop being such a whinger!

I will also never forget Jane Montgomery Griffiths’s naked (in every sense of the word) screams for her mother in The Rabble’s Frankenstein. I shall remain happily haunted forever.

This was also the year I discovered my Adena Jacobs impersonation, which has seen the total erasure of my natural voice. Good news everyone!

SM: I missed Ash in Hedda Gabler because Belvoir is in Sydney and I wasn’t. For that I too am bummed. But he posted plenty of pics of him in a one-piece bathing suit to keep me happy.

There was his performance in Calpurnia Descending (his Violet was fucking wonderful  – and Violet was my grandmother’s name, so I approved), but my moment has to be him telling me about meeting Katie Perry backstage. It’s not as sexy a story as it could be and I suggest asking him because it won’t be as good coming from me,

Paul Capsis
actor

Paul Capsis. Photo by Shane Reid

Pau: Hmmm, my favourite theatre moment in 2014  would be a little show I saw in the Tower at Malthouse. Applespiel I think was the title. A great young vibrant and highly energised cast with lots of funny takes on a rock documentary, using film, video, effects made and performed in front of the audience. I liked the energy, rawness, chaos and roughness of the performances and that’s something that’s lacking in a lot of Australian theatre right now. I find so much to yawn at these days. I wasn't bored for a second in this show.

SM: How about making “I wasn’t bored for a second” the goal for new shows?

There was only thing more amazing that Mz Flanders in Calpurnia Descending and that was Paul Capsis as Beverly. When I think of this show, the first image that comes to mind is Paul in his underwear at the top of a ladder; nothing left to hide, everything exposed. This show was endless laughter, but it ended with a moment that made every laugh hurt because we know they came from pain. In different hands, it could have been another laugh, but it was Paul and he was magnificent.

Peter Paltos
actor

Peter Paltos

Peter: My favourites are:

Greenscreen by Nicola Gunn/Sans Hotel at MTC Neon. For me, Greenscreen was an existential theatrical poem that articulated both my loneliness and sense of belonging. I was really touched by this piece. Gunn is a goddess.

Madonna Arms by I'm Trying To Kiss You. Three feminists speaking in verse and smashing the science fiction genre a new asshole. So earthy and absurd.

Hedda Gabler at Belvior directed by Adena Jacobs. I have not stopped thinking about the first fifteen minutes of this production since I saw it. It was like a painting quietly coming to life.

Grounded by Red Stitch, directed by Kirsten von Bibra. This was a really well executed, solo show with an impressive performance by Kate Cole. I dug the minimalism of this piece: old school, clean storytelling with no tricks.

SM: If you were in Calpurnia Descending, there isn’t much hope that your performance in Calpurnia Descending isn’t going to be my favourite moment of yours.

Peter was as amazing as Ash, Paul (and Sandy Gore). He was pure matinee idol with all the guts it takes to be a real matinee idol and maintain the bullshit image.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

Review: Calpurnia Descending

Calpurnia Descending

Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company & Sisters Grimm

14 November 2014

Merlyn Theatre, Coopers Malthouse

to 30 November

malthousetheatre.com.au

Ash Flanders and Paul Capsis. Photo by Brett Boardman

As Pennsylvania Avenue opened at the MTC, I know I wasn't alone as I wondered why. But they've just announced extra performances, so I think we know the answer. Meanwhile, a couple blocks away at the Malthouse, Calpurnia Descending opened and restored the faith of us who wonder why mainstage shows like to be safe.

Calpurnia Descending has already had a run in Sydney, but this is the first time the locally-adored punk camp Sisters Grimm have had a main stage show in their home town. 

And it has enough subversion, heart and guts to make up for Pennsylvania Avenue.

Like their maiden aunt at the MTC, Calpurnia Descending is also set in East Coast America, in New York, and also worships divas. Ash Flander's American hometown gal is as sweet as Bernadette Robinson's (but he's prettier; he's always prettier) and the Sisters knows that their Australian audience is likely to be better versed in popular US culture than by their own.

It starts with the simply-staged kind of show that would have worked as well in the days when the Sisters performed in the Collingwood flats' car park. Singing telegrammer Violet St Clair (Flanders) finds herself in the Miss Havisham-esque house of former-stage-goddess Beverly Dumont (Paul Capsis) and we're ready for a high-camp drag All About Eve. 

But the girlz know what we expect and expectations are damned as Sisters-founders Flanders and Declan Greene show us what they can do when they have some support and a mainstage theatre.

As always, director Greene is a step or three ahead of his audience and takes us places so unexpected that he makes it seem inevitable and obvious that much of it would be filmed live and shown on a giant screen and that it would be part-animation, part-game and part-better-than-any-mind-altering-drugs-I've-taken.

But with all its danger and manic thrills, it comes back to Capsis's Beverly, who can't find grace in ageing and would rather wear a wig cap than look at what she hides underneath her silk and wigs. As Beverly is faced with diminishing and no choices, Capsis is astonishing. There's an art to finding the heart in drag and no matter how grotesque and gut-hurting hilarious Beverly is, Capsis never lets us forget that she's real and hurting – and she remembers what it's like to be as pretty as Violet.

Along with the ever-wonderful Flanders and Capsis, Sandy Gore drags up as the manipulating men in Beverly's life and Peter Paltos proves that he would have been a matinee idol as butch as Rock Hudson were he born in an earlier time. They are all glorious.

Calpurnia Descending questions gender, sexuality, age and everything about our obsession with American culture. It even questions what belongs on a funded mainstage, while being one of the most exciting, smart and insanely beautiful shows on our funded mainstages this year.  

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

A weekend at the Foxtel Festival Hub

including
Wunderacts (Circa), Life Art and Leigh Bowery, The Love of Books: A Sarajevo Story, The Enemy of the People, Miles O'Neil and Simone Page Jones 

I've seen some terrific stuff this festival (Orlando and last night's An Enemy of the People are highlights), but the absolute jump-up-and-dance winner of this year's Melbourne Festival is the Festival Hub (ok, the Foxtel Festival Hub).

My favourite hour of this festival was spent sitting on a red velvet couch listening to Boy George, Paul Capsis, Le Gateau Chocolate and Richard Watts talk about identity, drag and the politics of being yourself. I had good coffee (really good coffee) and a cup cake with a purple flower, I was with people who remember the 80s and there was free Wi Fi to tweet from. Can't ask for anything more.

On Saturday afternoon, I saw Circa's Wunderacts. And yes it is.

And here's a chat with Daniel Crisp from Circa. 

Circa make intelligent, funny, sexy, mad and wonderful circus. From its fuck-me red stilletto shoes to the throwing of teddies, Wunderacts is an utter joy that had the audience on their grinning and cheering feet.

Circa take traditional tricks and add layers of skill and complexity that leave even the most jaded of us gasping. Throw in a world where strong women are bases, men dance gloriously in pink tulle and everyone is wonderful just as they are, it's the kind of show that simply left me feeling happy.

Their last performance is tonight (Monday).

After such a treat, there was no chance of going home to sit in the dark and write as there was sun, a roof top bar with cocktails, amazing views, great conversation and a very cute dog running from table to table for pats.

Sunday started with a documentary (yes, there's a film program in the festival). The Love of Books: A Sarajevo Story is a mix of first-person interviews, re-enactments and footage from the city during the siege. There were only two screenings, but it's well worth finding.

During the Bosnian war (1992–95), the city of Sarajevo was burnt and shelled, 250, 000 people were killed and two million refugees fled.  As snipers lined the streets and friends and families were killed and threatened, a group of  people risked their lives to move and hide 10,067 irreplaceable manuscripts. They put them in old banana boxes (books so old that they can't be exposed to light or held by human hands today) and ran. Then they did it again when the libraries in the city were burnt.

A man who was born in Africa and had made his home in Sarajevo said, "It would have been better to die with the books than to live without them."

I saw this film because I'd read Geraldine Brooks's fictional People of the Book, which was inspired by this story, and I wanted to see the exquisite ancient texts. They are so beautiful, but I was humbled and moved by a story that should be known far wider than the few who see this documentary.

Next it was back to the Hub for more coffee and was happily surprised to see that uber-gorgeous singers Miles O'Neil and Simone Page Jones had been asked back for their second Sunday. Even better, they performed with Nathan the dog. Every performance should have a dog.

And Schaubuühne Berlin's The Enemy of the People  supported my solid theory by having a German Shepherd. Every show should have a dog.

I was on a date ticket, so will leave the raving to others – who will be raving.

The pre-show whinge was "two and a half hours with no interval" – it's a big ask in the middle of festival – but have a wee before you go in and you'll be fine. And put up with the fuzzy surtitles (there were lots of complaints about how hard it was to read them).

I was near people who hated it and saw some wonderful huffy walkouts, but they should have stuck it out. The first stretch is contemporary uber-naturalism Ibsen with German hipsters and David Bowie songs. A young doctor had a new wife and baby and has uncovered that the local spa water is poisoned, but the local council convinces the local paper not to publish the findings. This leads to a very long speech about the "sodding liberal majority" that left me wishing that I wasn't one of the sodding, and then it gets so brilliant that I don't want to talk about it and ruin the impact. All I can say is that Melbourne audiences are wonderful.

And I'm hoping to get back to the Hub on Thursday for the forum about European Theatre with Schaubuühne's director Thomas Ostermeier.

All photos by me.

Review: Die Winterreise

Die Winterreise
Malthouse Theatre and Thinice
22 July 2011
Merlyn Thearte, CUB Malthouse
to 31 July 2011

I understand why Schubert purists are not enamored by Die Winterreise, but I'm a Schubert virgin, so was more than happy to go with the flow and the snow of this gorgeous meditation about the loneliness, guilt and sorrow of ageing.

Malthouse Theatre has again paired with Matthew Lutton's Thinice company from Perth  (The Trial) and bring together a creative dream-team to re-imagine the song cycle that Franz Schubert wrote a year before he died at 31 (in 1828).

Die Winterreise was based around the poems of Wilhelm Müller, who also died in his early 30s (in 1827). He and Schubert achieved their fame posthumously. Director Lutton, who has yet to hit the 30s danger zone and already enjoying artistic recognition, says that when he first listened to the cycle "the music aroused recollections in me I found difficult and painful to articulate". His finished work is a glimpse into the thoughts of a young man sharing the angst of his fellow-artists.

An old man (George Shevtsov) cooks a meal alone in his one-roomed flat. Listening to a Shubert recording, he faces his memories and his younger selves as they appear as a singer (Paul Capsis), dancer (James O'Hara) and pianist (Alistair Spence).

It's at times obvious, but its artistry turns even the more clichéd moments into something genuine, painful and beautiful. Chrissie Parrot's choreography, Adam Gardnir's design and Paul Jackson's lighting bring the multiple layers of this work out of the music and onto the stage. With such visceral visuals, the emotional impact of Die Winterreise is there without the music.

But this is a piece of music and it's far from a Schubert chamber concert. Sound designer Kelly Ryall and arranger Spence have deconstructed the music so that isn't so much an arrangement of Die Winterreise, but a complex sampling that lets us hear the beauty of the music, but forces the focus onto the stage story rather than the story in the score.

As a piece for voice, cabaret-favourite Paul Capsis was a curious choice, and a wonderful one.  With the help of music supervisor Iain Grandage, Capsis has let go of his show mask and by being more subtle in his performance, he's found a rounder and fuller voice that brings him so much closer to the hearts of his audience. I'm looking forward to seeing how he brings this into his cabaret shows.

The work ends with a monologue, written by Tom Holloway, which gives it an unexpected and defining narrative. Although it's beautifully sad, and Shevtsov's performance is heart breaking, it takes away the personal images and stories the audience were creating for themselves.

Die Winterreise is already dividing opinion, which is always a good reason to see something and decide for yourself.

This review appeared on  AussieTheatre.com

Review: All About My Mother

All About My Mother
Melbourne Theatre Company
19 August 2010
Sumner Theatre
to 26 September
www.mtc.com.au

I'm not sure why anyone would want to adapt a Pedro Almodovar film for the stage when there's a perfectly good film that can be popped into a DVD player. But the Melbourne Thearte Company liked the script (by Samual Adamson) and it's hard to resist the lure of casting Paul Capsis, Alison Whyte and Wendy Hughes.

As all adaptations should be, this All About My Mother is unlike its source. It's been taken off the streets and into the internal worlds of the characters. With a greater focus on the story and characters, the atmosphere of Barcelona backstreets, drugs, prostitutes, transvestites and transexuals is missing and it heads towards being a living room/backstage drama.

Manuela's (Whyte) son Esteban (Blake Davis) is killed in an accident when he's trying to get the autograph of great actress Huma Rojo (Hughes). Searching for Esteban's father (Lola, who is living as a woman), Manuela find her old friend Agrado (Capsis) and a pregnant nun (Katie Fitchett) and becomes Huma's personal assistant.

It's meant to be melodramatic and extreme and its super-high stakes and ridiculous coincidences make the story irresistible.

In Act One, Simon Phillips' direction stood back and let the story and the characters capture the audience's hearts and interest. This was supported by Stephen Curtis design, which nods to the film while leaving room for the story to unfold, and Alberto Iglesias' composition, structured by Ian Macdonald's sound design.

In Act Two, the melodrama takes over and drowns the story. It becomes less about caring and more about seeing how much emotion can be squeezed out of it. All the emotion is on the stage, as the audience are told how they should feel (complete with the underlining score), rather than letting us discover our own real emotions. Does anyone like being told how to feel?

This was especially apparent to me when I realised that not once in a piece about motherhood did I think about my mother.

All About My Mother is Almadovar made nice, which could be great if it brings new people to his films. But what I found especially distracting and a bit insulting was that Agrado – the transvestite prostitute – is played as the clown. Capsis performance is superb, but Agrado is the character who is getting laughed at. Almadovar does not laugh at his characters.  He laughs at the absurdity and universality of human weakness. He certainly doesn't laugh at the sexual, social or identity choices of the people in his world.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera
Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera
2 June 2010
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

"The good old diggers, who pull their triggers from Bagdad to Khe Sanh..." There's no doubt that Malthouse Theatre and Victoria Opera have relocated the The Threepenny Opera down under.

And where better than Underbelly Melbourne, where the Peachams gaze at the moon over St Kilda and Mac loves a whorehouse in North Bulleen.  Throw in a dream cast of Melbourne favourites and you've got a show sold out before it opens.

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera was first performed in Berlin in 1928. It went to Broadway and, according to Wikipedia, has had over 10,000 productions since – a number that would probably triple with the uncountable amateur, high school and university productions.

Michael Kantor chose this loved and still astonishing piece of theatre for his Malthouse swansong and what a way to go!  From the moment Paul Capsis sings "Mack the Knife" in a yellow dress and a blindfold, there's no doubt that the ride's going to be bumpy and exciting in all the right ways.

As Brecht worked with Weill, Kantor has again teamed with Richard Gill, following from their stunning 2008 collaboration Through the Looking Glass. Gill's Victorian Opera continues to pull down the artifice and misconceptions about this shiny form and celebrates it with incomparable style and invention.

Much of Weill's genius lay in his ability to write extraordinary songs for singers and non-singers,  but combining the best performers from the opera and cabaret/musical theatre worlds still offers its challenges. It's impossible to compare the crystal clear vocals of contemporary opera superstar Dimity Shepherd (Lucy) with the husky belting of Capsis (Jenny), but Kantor ensures that this combination of unlikely voices is natural in this world and Gill ensures that they complement each other in unexpected ways.

It's difficult to discuss the cast without using the word perfect, or Perfect.  Highlights include every moment Judi Connelli and Grant Smith sing as the Peachams; Capsis giving Lotte Lenya a run for her money; Anna O'Byrne (Polly) and Shepherd's "Jealousy Duet"; and Casey Bennetto (Tiger Brown) and Mac's "Canon Song". Eddie Perfect is Macheath – and yes he is. If you like your Macs cold and brooding, this "sadist and a rapist" may seem a bit nice,  but it's hard to be cold when you're wearing glittery braces and by the end of Act 2 there's few in the audience not wanting a filthy lusty moment with Mac.

The design team of Peter Corrigan (set) and Anna Cordingley (costume) have coloured a world that supports the characters, but doesn't feel like the Melbourne being sung about, and the designs seem to complete with each other for the dominant images, which oddly mixes agit-prop, boxing and clown-face metaphors. At times they look beautiful together, but it's not too hard to imagine the set with plain black costumes or the costumes in an empty black space.

None of which takes away from this production.

With such wonders on the stage, it could be easy to forget the orchestra, but the vocal/orchestral balance is ideal and Gill's musical direction is so like listening to early recordings of the work, that it is surely how Weill imagined it to sound.  And Brecht would have had a proud giggle at the bawdy Aussie interpretation of the text and lyrics by Raymond Cortese and Jeremy Sands.

Once you discover Brecht and Weill, there's no going back to a theatre world without them and great professional productions of The Threepenny Opera should not be missed. This one is officially sold out, but limited tickets may become available, so check the Malthouse website.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.


Richard and Eddie





Alan and Cyndi



Lotte

Burlesque Hour Legends

Burlesque Hour Legends
Finucane and Smith
25 June 2009
forty five downstairs

I’m searching for a superlative that hasn’t been used to describe The Burlesque Hour. Reviewers from all over the world rave every time this show appears. Created in Melbourne, it’s back home as The Burlesque Hour Legends and I’m trawling my thesaurus for any word that comes near to grasping the wildness, the sassiness, the spectacle, the irony and the understanding behind the show that continues to leave my brain wet and wanting more.

The term burlesque is readily applied to anything that shows a bit of nude and, too often, this results in moments that leave some of the audience feeling uncomfortable, inadequate or just sad that women continue to let themselves be seen as something less than a whole person. It’s not easy to take the exploitation and the wank factor away from strip.

This is where director Jackie Smith and performer Moira Finucane stepped in and, with other like-minded performers, perfected a style that has re-defined burlesque as political, inspirational and liberating. Strip is, of course, about exposure, but the exposure of bodies doesn’t compare to the exposure of secrets, of longings and of the unexpected. It’s still also totally hot and squeal-out-loud hilarious.

Don’t give it a miss this year because you’ve seen this show before. Legends is mostly new material and has an overall more rounded and complete feel about it. The regular performers explore some of their favourite themes from new perspectives and new guests try out their ideas. This does mean that some of the most loved moments are missing, but the new compensates for the loss of the old.

Yumi Umiumare’s new pieces are extraordinary. With characters including a lost and manic Tokyo pop singer and an office worker (or an executive) trapped in a suit of regret and longing, her Butoh inspired choreography is unsettling in its ability to grasp the essence of a character and expand it to a point that it’s almost overwhelming. I’m looking forward to her solo show at Malthouse in August.

Maude Davey changes the pace with dancing words, discussing her grandmother’s cunt, and her faded showgirl’s “Say Goodbye” must be what Mark Seymour’s unconscious was thinking when he wrote the urban anthem.

Then there’s Moira Finucane, whose new Veil act may well be responsible for making smoking an acceptable social habit again. With Jackie Smith, she continues to create work that challenges every boring and clichéd notion of femininity and sexuality. Her electrifying grotesques are powerful, terrifying and disturbing, but they affirm that the real grotesques are those who want women to look like 20-year-old size 0s, cook like their mums and fuck like blow up dolls.

And that’s just week one and two! The Burlesque Hour Legends changes every two weeks. The incredible Azaria Universe returns on July 12, as the marvellous Maude leaves, along with swinging Jess Love. But plan for at least three Burlesque trips in order to see the special guests. The blissful Paul Capsis joins the girls from 9 to 19 July, then Toni Lamond (yes Toni Lamond!) will be confirming her own legendary status from 23 July to 2 August. Which only leaves until July 11 to see Ursula Martinez. Ursula has been seen at La Clique with her nearly-ethnic dilemma and her perfected the red hanky strip, but she brings more to Legends, with an opening act that sets the room on fire.

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

A Company of Strangers

ADELAIDE FRINGE 2009
A Company of Strangers
Strut & Fret Productions
11 March 200
The Garden of Unearthly Delights, Spiegeltent

It didn’t take long among the company of strangers (and an old friend) to be reminded of the things that Adelaide does well.

Adelaide’s not just 1950s attitudes with great beer; this city knows how to create mouth-watering salt and pepper eggplant, affogatos and Fringe festivals. The Adelaide Fringe is the biggest on this side the world, because it’s the best. Audiences flock to shows; they see anything and everything – not because they’re among the arty farty “in” crowd, but because they know that taking a punt on a Fringe show is likely to be a lot of fun. And if the show sucks, they will enjoy it anyway, because they’ve paid and there’s still beer drinking and hanging around with the cool folk to be done.

Strut & Fret productions have captured the essence of the Adelaide Fringe in the Garden of Unearthly delights. Teenagers, dressed for nightclubs, line up alongside their grandparents, dressed for a possibly chilly evening, to get into the Garden. The food is delicious, the coffee is great, the bar has plenty of overpriced beer, the craft stalls are worth a look and there are more theatre spaces than you can count on both hands. I love the Spiegeltent when it sits by the Melbourne Arts Centre, but the tent feels at home in the Adelaide parklands.

Melbourne-based and world-travelling Martin Martini MC’s the Garden’s showpiece: A Company of Strangers. He declares Adelaide his favourite place to play – and it doesn’t take long to figure out why. This crowd doesn’t care about deconstructing the artistic merit of the piece– they want to enjoy the wackiness. So this show of strange people performing amongst the company of strangers is the perfect show for this perfect festival.

The company is a collection of wonderfully-odd musical cabaret performers. There’s no theme and no cohesion -it’s just meant to be fun.

The most-loved of the permanent strangers is the UK’s Le Gateau Chocolat. He knows that larger folk can appear svelte in flowing layers of black – so he has a collection of glossy, coloured lyrca body suits. With an opera-trained voice he belts out soprano-favourites as a bass and even has a play with Rhianna’s about an umbrella – whilst looking like a cockless telly tubby on acid. Drag is no longer a drag.

Lady Carol strums a ukulele and professes to be a “’lady” from Ireland. Her husky voice encourages the crowd to sing along, but she needs to decide if she is herself or her character on the stage.

Our own Paul Capsis should never be off a cabaret stage. Resplendent in red velvet he channels Janis Joplin and even sobers the mood with a composition co-written with Tim Freedman about his Nanna’s migration to Australia.

For all of the Strangers’ wonderfulness, none shone quite as blindingly as their special guest: Meow Meow. Lost in her own glamorous time-warp, Meow wraps herself around the audience and demands their support – literally. After forcing the audience to undress her she is carried to the stage with her thighs wrapped around the neck of the best looking man she could find. (I wonder if Mr Gateau is thinking of doing the same one night…)

With a temper rivalled only by her ego, Meow answer a less than modest “I know” to her rapturous applause. She thinks it’s for her, but we know it’s for someone else. Creator and character are so distanced that it’s hard to imagine them as one. Meow is too selfish to ever let us glimpse the woman behind her. She also knows that an illusion fails if we see the sleight of hand, and Meow’s magic would fade if we could see the work, the skill and the understanding of form that creates this exquisite parody.

A Company of Strangers is ideal Fringe fare. There are different special guests throughout the season, but be assured the Strangers will make you feel like you’re one of them in no time.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.