Review: Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf
La Mama
24 August 2013
La Mama
to 25 August 2013
lamama.com.au

"Calm yourself, Hitler!"

Mein Kampf isn't Hitler's autobiography, but a farce about Hitler's imagined friendship with Jewish bookseller Shlomo Herzl when Hitler lived in Vienna hoping to be accepted into the Viennese Academy of Fine Art. He wasn't. And it's no wonder, his paintings are all technique and no style; they're dull and reveal a man who seems incapable of seeing – let alone creating – art or seeing real beauty.

It was written by George Tabori in the 1980s to belittle Hitler. Is there anything more humiliating than being laughed at?

Tabori lost nearly all of his family in Auschwitz. Born in Hungary, he was working in Berlin in the early 1930s and fled to London. Here he had novels published, wrote scripts for the "control freak" Hitchcock, was rejected by Hollywood, but discovered theatre in 1947 when he translated Brecht for the American stage. His first play was performed on Broadway, but he was blacklisted by McCarthy, possibly due to his friendship with Arthur Miller.

In 1969, his real breakthrough came with Cannibals, a play set wholly in Auschwitz, but his biggest hit was, and remains, Mein Kampf.

It's a tough one to get right; Hitler and Holocaust jokes aren't easy at the best of times and the danger of laughing too hard at faith or the Jewish characters, who's future we already known, is difficult. But director Beng Oh and his consistently wonderful cast balance the line and gleefully topple into absurd hilarity, rebalance and slip into the pain and horror that it has to acknowledge.

And all takes place in a design by Peter Mumford that embraces the La Mama fireplace so that its ongoing burning creates a tension and fear that it's almost hard to laugh over, and the costumes by Amaya Vecellio support the filth, cold and ridiculous beauty.

Glenn van Oosterom's raging and impotent Hitler is hilarious and Mark Bonanno, Stephania Pountney, Uschi Felix and Samuel Macdonald are just as memorable, but it's Mark Wilson's Schlomo who never leaves the stage. From his drawing of the La Mama raffle at the beginning, Wilson sets the tone and pace from outrageous hilarity to I-want-to-look-away-but-I-can't horror. He's the one who lets us laugh when we want to be horrified and reminds us that the only reason we're laughing is that the truth is still too hard to take in.

Let's hope that Mein Kampf gets another life. Mainly because it's bloody great theatre (with real blood), but also because it tells a story that we all know but often seem to forget.  As our federal election approaches, we're being forced to accept policy that's based on the irrational and unfounded fear and threat of people fleeing persecution, and, as we flick past photos of 100s of dead in Syria, it's important that we remember what happens when we give in to unjustified fear or become complacent because it's not happening to us.  I know we can't get Krabbot and co along to a performance, so it's up to us to recognise the words and actions of people who will do anything to maintain their power.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Sarah Walker

Review: King Kong

King Kong
Global Creatures
15 June 2013
Regent Theatre
kingkongliveonstage.com

Oh King Kong! You gorgeous, sexy, magnificent beast. Your entrance may be the most spectacular thing ever seen on a live stage. Every time you’re on, the audience is yours for the taking, as all around you pale to dull, despite all manner of shiny costume. You are glorious and unforgettable. If only a fraction of the care, love, money and time that went into your creation was put into creating the story you are doomed to play in.

After a couple weeks of previews and rumours, King Kong opened last night.

It’s spectacular. Visually and technically, this is theatre that we haven’t seen before and it has to be seen just to see its amazing pretty.

Peter England’s design, Peter Mumford’s lighting, Frieder Weiss’s projections and Roger Kirk’s costumes are so WOW! that doesn’t matter that it doesn’t feel like New York or that Skull Island screams Tron. The sea of light, the Skelator Statue of Liberty and the fluffy monkey leotards are so sensorially sensational that it’s easy to forgive the inconsistent style and questionable portrayal of women.

Then there’s the beast created by Sonny Tilders and his team. Kong defies superlatives. With a team of puppeteers (led by Peter Wilson), this amazing critter shows emotion and heart befitting his size; his breath-taking magnificence is the reason alone to see his show. (But if you’re taking young theatre fans who could be scared, it’s worth speaking to someone who has seen it.)

And there are humans to see as well. The huge ensemble is sensational. With choreography by John O’Connell and circus/aerial direction by Gavin Robins, their energy and step-perfection fills the huge theatre as much as Kong’s roars.

Principals Esther Hannaford (Ann, Kong’s love), Chris Ryan (Jack, Ann’s love), Queenie Van De Zandt (Cassandra, a prophet) sing beautifully and bring so much more than they are given to their roles. And they are given so little to work with.

Hannaford even overcomes the endless sniffing of Ann (her girly smell attracts monkeys and men of all sizes) and a dream sequence where she realises she’s an ok woman because dream angels in black pvc corsets tell her she’s hot and sing, “We don’t need no story or director to make us perfect”.

Hot you may be dream angels, but why you are there is one of those mysteries that may never be answered.

The story isn’t there. There’s a plot based on assuming the audience know King Kong’s film story, but it’s filled with illogical leaps, clunky dialogue and the melodrama of unearned emotion.  It feels like it was written around the spectacle (during a tech run, before previews).

Kong deserves some writers. They don’t have to be expensive, award-winning writers, just writers who know story and how to tell story in theatre. People who know that a foreshadowing monkey has to come back; that unearned kisses don’t create love; that if a guy sings a song about Lady Liberty, his story should be about liberty; and that long-legged women don’t fill plot holes.

It’s a slightly dodgy analogy, but I’m going to compare it to a Pixar/Disney film. Films like Wal E, Toy Story and Monsters Inc are visually and technically sensational, but they start, end and are seen by zillions because of their stories. These scripts are written in writers’ rooms and drafted until they are perfect. Every syllable and story beat is analysed and worked until it’s assured that there isn’t a second where the audience will stop caring or drift off. The animation is the icing and ribbon around the cake of the story. Icing is vital and delicious, but doesn’t make sense without cakey substance.

When interval and post-show conversations are “what if they …”, instead of “what about when”, there’s something wrong.

Oh A-M, you’re a writer, so of course you care about the writing; the general public don’t care, they just want to see pretty. No one cares about story.

Think of your favourite stories – book, film, comic, tv, told in the pub. How many of them do you wish were different? How many do you remember just for how they looked? The sleazy producer Carl, who captures Kong, even says in the opening scenes “People want stories”!

So, it looks amazing, the dancing monkey is to-die-for and the cast nearly overcome the woeful story, but what about the music? It’s music theatre after all.

The music is forgettable. It’s not boring, but it doesn’t move the story, show character or add much more than a beat for the spectacle that it’s supporting.

The most successful number is Ann’s lullaby to Kong on Skull Island. Emotionally and dramatically, this is the moment for Ann to tell her secret, to reveal her soul to the god who can never share her truth. It’s the moment the audience is meant to be so with these two that every subsequent obstacle to their survival is heart breaking. Its repetition in Act 2 should leave the audience crying. But it’s a song about the moon. It’s performed beautifully and looks stunning, but it’s gutless.

The music could be removed from the show without affecting the story. I can’t name a long-running or award-winning show that can say the same.

King Kong could be a game changer. There is so much jaw-dropping, razzle-dazzle magnificence on the stage that it’s already changing the rules, but until the same amount of work that created its dazzling glory goes into the writing and the music, it’s just a couple hours of exquisite pretty that’s too easily forgotten.

Photos by Belinda Strodder.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Midsummer

Midsummer
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
16 November
Red Stitch
to 15 December
redstitch.net

It's a tale about 30-something angst with accents, so it has to be in the Red Stitch season – but Midsummer is as welcome and gorgeous as a warm turquoise day under a shady tree with a shamelessly expensive picnic basket with your best friends, and your favourite musician turns up with a guitar.

In 2008 UK writer David Greig and composer Gordon Mcintyre created a play with songs that sells out every time it's produced. And, if the outpouring of love from opening night was anything to go by, Red Stitch's production will have to extend. Book now. Just do it. It's pure outrageous joy that will leave the most cynical and single of us a little less cynical.

Mid-30s Helena and Bob meet in a wine bar. They're so not each other's type, but there's far too much wine and ... we've all been there. It's a text-book rom-com structure but filled with such vivid life and unexpected situations that it feels like Grieg invented the genre. This is writing that can soar with hope because it welcomes the chance to embarrass the hell out of its characters and put them in the worst situations – and then add vomit, miscalculated bondage and being chased by a petty crim called Big Tiny Tam.

Ella Caldwell and Ben Prendergast's performances are touching and real, and so very funny. They perform like it was written for them, like the writer knew their strengths and the emotional secrets that drive their acting. But it wasn't, it was created with and for the original cast.

Trying to understand why this writing connects so strongly and feels so fresh, I found this article in The Guardian by Greig. He talks about watching actor Michael Gambon do something perfect that wasn't in the script and how the part was written (by Caryl Churchill) in way that gave the actor everything he needed and nothing that he didn't. It was "like a piece of music for the actor to play".

"I suddenly, really viscerally understood that the 'wright' at the end of 'playwright' is indicative of the fact that a craftsperson's job is to fashion vehicles, just like a cartwright or wheelwright, which an actor can inhabit and travel in. It really was fundamental and thereafter I have been much more aware that when writing, my job is to leave space for the actor."

I finally understand what I mean when I say something is over written; it feels false because it's so caught up in being exactly what the writer imagines that there's no room for the other creators to make it their story. Shakespeare got this. Write an exquisite story, but let the performers and creators decide how to tell it.

And director John Kachoyan and designer Peter Mumford make Midsummer even better by leaving space for the audience to make the story theirs. It's two people in a small room with guitars and cheap stuff stuck on the walls, but I deny anyone to not describe in detail the city they saw and how much the story was "just like me".

This is theatre that gets into your heart and leaves you happy, and if you're trying to tell someone that you fancy them, this might be the perfect date show.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Review: Stockholm

Stockholm
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
29 April 2012
Red Stitch
to 26 May

Stockholm continues Red Stitch's not-to-be-missed 2012 season. Why I know that it's is bloody great theatre: After the show, I sat with my friend and we talked about how it related to our lives.

We didn't talk about the quality of the post-show wine or about the performances or the design (all great). We talked personally and exposed issues in our own relationships that we'd normally hide. The ability to  reflect on your own life may be the line between entertainment and art; it's certainly the line between being glad I went to the theatre rather than staying home to watch The Voice.

Todd and Kali are young and gorgeous and have enviable sex . They gutted their house to create a love nest that they never have to leave and ignore phone calls from Todd's mother. Loving Ingmar Bergman films, they are planning a trip to Stockholm and are practicing their Ikea-Sweedish, as Todd prepares a perfect dinner and Kali checks his phone for messages.

Blending third person description with naturalism, UK writer Bryony Lavery's beautiful script creates the distance and denial that exists in a destructive co-dependent relationship. The desire to be in the relationship and to be happy overwhelms that voice that knows it has to end but wonders if perhaps the awful bits are the price for the wonderful parts and is silenced by the "attraction of true remorse".

Director Tanya Gerstle understands the eponymous syndrome and creates an uneasy mood as intense as their sex life.  With levels and spaces created by Peter Mumford (design) and Richard Vabre (lighting), the tiny stage feels both isolated and cavernous, and allows Todd and Kali to move and hide what they need to from the other.

Gerstle also lets Brett Cousins and Lusia Hastings-Edge find their own truth in their characters. It's this kind of honest acting that lets an audience find their own truths on the stage. The relationship they create stage is erotic and natural and fearful, which comes from a remarkable trust between the performers. They let us understand why they behave like they do, don't let us take sides and almost draw us into the destruction by wanting them to be work it out.

I'm so over leaving theatres and not caring about what I just saw, but I keep going back because once in a while, you get a show like this.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Review: My Romantic History

My Romantic History
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
7 August 2011
Red Stitch
to 13 August

"If you haven't met someone by the time you graduate, you're going to marry some cunt from your work." So, freelancers have no hope, but how wonderful to see Red Stitch putting their audience on their stage.

My Romantic History is about the accidental workplace affair of Amy and Tom, who are in the dangerous single and 30ish zone. Come one, we've all been there.  You had nine drinks with "colleagues" because you didn't have anything better to do and after all he wasn't a "retard or a rapist" and he was captivated by the beauty of your tits. Then you got a bit stalky because he didn't declare undying love the morning after, even though you don't really like him and the only reason you think you had sex is because you're weren't wearing knickers. Textbook romance. Unless you're reading this from the house you own with someone you met at uni and have been acting like an adult since you were 18. But then you probably don't have time to go to the theatre because you're at home looking after kids you love, having dinner parties with other happy couples and exploring swinger web sites.

One of my favourite TV shows in my 20s was Thirtysomething. I shook my head at how these grownups could be so fucked up and knew that I'd never be like them. Now, at the other side of 30ish, I marvel at how totally together those fictional people were. There are many reasons why we love watching stories about not-perfect relationships.

Scottish playwright D C Jackson creates shut-up-that's-my-life empathy by showing how both sides see the object of their non-desire. The woman is a desperate freak in his eyes; he's a boring loser to her. It's a bit like When Harry Met Sally without the glamour of New York or the as-if! romantic gestures. But it's just as funny.

Ngaire Dawn Fair (Sasha) is the ideal hippy counterpoint to Zoe Boesen's confused Amy, and Tim Potter captures all perspectives of Tom with the kind of love and understanding that continues to make him an actor who should always be seen.

Peter Mumford's too-gorgeous toilety design ensures that we never see this affair with romantic-coloured specs. After all, if these two work out, there's hope for anyone who's desperate, or drunk. Meanwhile, David Whiteley's direction lets our sympathies change so much that it's impossible to take his or her side, so we have to like them both and wish that we could step in and help them make the best decisions. But if they made the best decisions, he wouldn't end up seeing his ex when he's covered in puke, she wouldn't be confessing to the bitch from work and we wouldn't have half as much fun watching.

My Romantic History is the sort of writing that brings its audience into the story because it's so close to home. The genuine laughter comes from recognition. Sometimes the secret of comedy is simply telling the truth. There's a week left. See it, unless your love life has been perfect.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheate.com

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Review: Princess Dramas

Princess Dramas
Red Stitch Actors Thearte

11 June 2011

Red Stitch

to 2 July

www.redstitch.net

According to the director's notes, "Plot, character and any other category we might expect from plays that celebrate the uncontested integrity of a subject based on free will, are long gone."  So, if you like plays without plot, character and any other category we might expect from plays, then get to Red Stitch for Princess Dramas.  But don't you dare scoff if others use their free will to disappear at interval because they crave conflict and drama and story.

German writer Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power." (Thank you Wikipedia.) Her writing is complex and actively tries to disorient the listener with a seemingly unending barrage. I heard some fascinating observations, but it's such a wall of noise.

Peter Mumford's design and Olga Makeeva's costumes add welcome distraction and humour; when isn't a giant stuffed vagina funny? Andre Bastian's direction understands the work like no watcher ever can and actively injects lightness and absurdity to the idea-heavy text.  It's a hoot to see Red Stitch favourites Dion Mills as Snow White and Andrea Swifte as Sleeping Beauty, and guest actor Melodie Reynolds performance as Jacqui O is memorable and as compelling as this work could ever be.

For all its admirable bits, including a thigh slapping funny ending, I have no idea who this show was speaking to. The first question any writer asks is "who is your audience?". The first feedback most writers get is the same. One of the reasons the MTC is full every night is because they know exactly who they are speaking to (I know it isn't me). I felt like this show wanted me to admire its smartness, rather than being something I'm meant to take into my heart and enjoy.

There are libraries full of astonishingly intelligent books that are never read, film festivals are programmed with super-clever films that are never seen, and there must be thousands of unread uber-smart-ass blogs.  Intelligent doesn't mean engaging or moving or interesting.

The third part of Princess Dramas has some jokes about women coming on their own. I hope they were masturbation jokes, but it was hard to tell. Regardless, I'm going with the theme. Masturbation is no doubt one of the great pleasures in life, but no matter how good it feels and how technically proficient the masturbator is, is it interesting to any one else? This is the kind of show that reminds me why some people don't like theatre and why some shows are called wank.

The review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review: Stop. Rewind

Stop. Rewind
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
23 July 2010
Red Stitch Theatre
to 21 August
redstitch.net

Melissa Bubnic joined Red Stitch as Writer in Residence at Red Stitch in 2009 and Stop. Rewind has spent 18 months in development with the company's Writers Program.

With a structure that lets the characters say what they wish they said, but rewind back to what they actually said, Stop. Rewind can't fail to strike a familiar chord. I'm glad that other people spend much of their time re-running their encounters with better dialogue.

Bubnic's characters work in the public service with its long-termers, team meetings, bad cakes and rooms filled with people playing on Facebook, emailing gossip or trying to get a promotion by doing extra work. When a colleague gets cancer, each is faced with the reality of their situation and contemplates the possibility of change.

And change is rare in an office staffed with uninspiring, unfulfilled, boring sods. And this is where I has trouble with Stop. Rewind. Stories about uninspiring, unfulfilled, boring sods are ... well ... We have real life to watch boring people. For all it's recognisable "we all get bored/depressed" discussions, it felt too much like a work about "them" rather than a reflection of "us".

However,  I almost disregarded my own feelings, because Bubnic brings her characters to a beautiful ending of hope and perfect oddness that made all previous quibbles seem irrelevant and the Red Stitch cast and creative team created a strangely enchanting world.

Peter Mumford has, again, devised the most astonishingly simple and effective design in the tiny Red Stitch space and the expectation that the post-its would come down added a subtle tension to the night.  Anne Browning's lively direction captures the quirks and humanity of these people and this company continue to let actors do what they do best. Olga Makeeva, Andrea Swift, James Taylor, Giordano Gangl and Ian Rooney all bring so much more than the script to the stage and Ella Caldwell and Tim Potter are going to be people we have to pay a lot of money to see in the future.

Stop. Rewind isn't the best thing I've seen at Red Stitch, but it's still far more engaging and interesting than some of the more expensive shows on in town. And you can still buy a half year subscription to all of Season 2, which starts with Stop. Rewind.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

The Rites of Evil

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2009
The Rites of Evil
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
4 September 2009
Red Stitch

In a recent interview, playwright (and actor) Travis Cotton said that mediocrity is the toughest challenge he faces in his work. Fortunately, there is nothing mediocre in his latest creation, The Rites of Evil, or in Red Stitch’s production of it.

Red Stitch thrive on presenting th contemporary playwrights that would usually miss be Australian stages. This lets us see incredible scripts from the UK, the USA and, in this case, Australia. The Rites of Evil is Travis Cotton fourth work and its complexity, dark absurdity and outright guts place it very comfortably in the company’s program.

If you’re not in your 30s or 40s, you could miss the subtleties of The Rites of Evil, but they add an extra dimension of enjoyment for those of us who remember why we avoid Nestle and Coke products and may even support Easter’s rites of evil theory. When Easter and Xavier are released from an undefined institution, they form a forced friendship that, for all its dysfunction, may be the only real thing in their lives – if their parole officer, Bronwyn, lets them meet.

Travis Cotton has created a world that lets us laugh, hope and hurt at the same time, but it’s the vision of Director Alex Menglet that brings the world to life. Menglet controls the elevated-mood and the Absurd aspects of the script, creating a balance of hope and menace that keeps the audience engaged in the emotion of the story and not distracted by the gorgeous grace notes of the Tamagotchi, the Nazi boots and the bizarre on-stage mix of old and older technology (exquisitely designed by Peter Mumford).

The contrast of Tim Potter’s, Johnny Carr’s and Erin Dewar’s performances is like mixing plaid with polka dots and paisley. The combination should overpower and frustrate our aesthetics but, as anyone with a patchwork quilt will testify, the combination creates a more intense and oddly satisfying effect. Each are clown-like in their approach but raw in their emotion, and their heightened performances magnifies the reality of their situation and increases impact of their downfall.

The Rites of Evil is Red Stitch’s Melbourne Fringe show, so it’s a terrific chance to get into the Fringe early and start the annual celebration of Melbourne’s independent theatre.

More 2009 Fringe reviews.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.