What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 8

Everyone today loved Maltilda. Welcome Richard Watts, Sara Collins and Jason Whittaker.

But before you read. If you want to be part of this series (and your friends and fans want to read what you think), you have to send your answers to me.


Richard Watts
Performing Arts Editor, Arts Hub; Smarts Arts presenter; legend

Richard Watts. Photo by Nicola Peniguel

RW's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I’ve seen some brilliant, beautiful, challenging and moving life performances this year, in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and the Northern Rivers region of NSW, as well as in a diversity of Melbourne venues.

Works such as Zoe Coombs Marr’s Trigger Warning and Sammy J’s Hero Complex made me roar with laughter even I as marvelled at the skilled writing on display. The Artisan Collective’s Wit at fortyfivedownstairs and MUST’s Awakening at Trades Hall made me sob. Backstage in Biscuit Land and Matilda the musical made me cheer. Dancenorth’s IF _ WAS _ and Le Patin Libre’s Vertical Influences allowed me revel in the splendour and the beauty of the human body moving through space.

But if there’s one moment that typified everything I love about the performing arts, it was the Lotus play readings at the National Play Festival back in July. Extracts from four new plays by Asian Australian playwrights; four fresh new perspectives; four very different takes on storytelling that didn’t rely on the familiar tropes and clichés of Australian mainstage drama.

Siti Rubiyah by Katrina Irawati Graham, Squint Witch by Shari Indriani, My Father Who Slept in A Zoo by Ngoc Phan and Entomology by Natesha Somasundaram – each reading made me hopeful for the future and hungry for more.

What RW is looking forward to in 2017: The further decolonisation of our theatres and performances spaces, more plays and stories by First Nations and culturally diverse artists, more amazing work by female-identifying playwrights and directors, and more stimulating conversations with friends, peers and colleagues in the foyers of Melbourne’s theatres.

SM: Every moment with Richard is pretty damn good. One of my favourites was seeing Sammy J's Hero Complex with him. We braved front row centre because we knew we were in safe hands, but had no idea just how great this show was going to be. Being able to share the love you have for a show with someone is what live theatre is all about. Laughing by yourself on the couch is never as good.

Richard is a tireless advocate for independent art and artists in Melbourne, he sees more theatre than most of us, and he listens to music, reads books, and goes to films and art exhibitions. He loves theatre and art with the kind of unconditional passion that we wish from our lovers. Every time I see Richard chair a discussion or I listen to a radio interview, I learn more about how to be a journalist. He researches, he asks excellent questions and knows when to change tack during an interview.

I'm sure that indie artists in Melbourne know how lucky they are to have Richard (I hear some very lovely things being said), so let's all make sure we make sure he knows how respected, appreciated and loved he is.

Sarah Collins

playwright, photographer

Sarah Collins

SC's favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2016: It's been a hard old year. Where previously I felt "the less money and resources we have the more punk we will be!",  I'm really struggling to get past the cuts, the closures and the lack of opportunity in theatre in 2016. (I'm writing a comedy about it so please get in touch with me if you want to laugh your way through this too. I'm sick of feeling despondent). 

The best performance I saw this year was Lyall Brooks in A Prudent Man. He. Did. Not. Skip. A. Beat. It was a huge treat to see such a polished performance at the wonderful Melbourne Fringe and he made the script sing and every word count. Matilda was fantastic. Tim Minchin (that writing!) and James Millar were the highlights for me. James Millar could honestly play that role on Broadway; he was born for it. Unfortunately due to my niece just missing out on that role I was a bit pissed with our Matilda. I'm sure under any other circumstances I would have found her a true delight. 

Finally my favourite moment that happened IN a theatre in 2016 was a moment told by a friend who has been teaching drama at an all boys private school in Brisbane for ten years. Irrespective of the fact that support for the arts is being ripped from here there and everywhere, theatrical expression can never be killed. In the context of an all boys school this was breathtaking. In the context of why we all gravitated to theatre in the first place it's a great reminder.

SM: It's been a year without a new show from Sarah – toddler wrangling is more time consuming than making art –, so I've had to be happy with Facebooks posts that make me know why social media was invented. I think my favourite was vomiting on the way to Ikea and the Christmas photo.

Jason Whittaker
journalist, critic

JW's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: What made me feel the most? The cry-o-metre registered one Melbourne show in 2016: The Events, the singular and devastating Edinburgh Festival choir-backed play brought to Malthouse Theatre via Belvoir Street in Sydney. Catherine McClements broke me; it must be a career-best performance and she’s given plenty of them.

Malthouse had a strong year under an artistic director growing in confidence. Matthew Lutton’s Edward II and, particularly, Picnic At Hanging Rock were urgent pieces of auteur theatre. And I have enormous affection for The Glass Menagerie production bought in from Belvoir, even though the Malthouse space sucked out intimacy. Melbourne Theatre Company’s best was probably Disgraced, though Jasper Jones was a terrific adaptation and I liked Kip Williams’s Miss Julie more than most. And don’t forget The Secret River, STC’s simply yet stunningly staged adaptation that got to us in March. It wasn’t new in 2016, but it’s probably the best Australian work we saw this year.

What made me happiest in the theatre in 2016? Matilda  is the best commercial musical to come to Australia in decades. Little Shop of Horrors via the Hayes Theatre in Sydney was so smart and so much fun. The foul-mouthed, sweet-singing Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour were a Melbourne Festival highlight.

But the absolute best piece of theatre in this city in 2016? I’d give it to Robert Lepage’s masterful, magical bio-monologue 887. A spell of wide-eyed loveliness, as I gushed on Twitter afterwards. A genius theatremaker wringing everything out of himself and the form.

What JW is looking forward to in 2017: Red Stitch has secured some super-hyped US and UK plays next year: Rules For Living, The Realistic Joneses, Incognito and The Moors. I’m excited by all of them. I think the Malthouse program looks as strong as this year’s. I’ll be interested to see what MTC does with Annie Baker’s John, which I had mixed feelings about in New York and will really test subscribers, and of course what Simon Phillips does with Macbeth. And trust me: The Book Of Mormon is as good as everyone says it is.

SM: Jason and I know each other and read each other, but I don't think we've met. I'll fix that in 2017. What I love about his reviews is that he shares his gut feelings towards a show and I'm either "What he said!" or "Did he see a different show?" – no in between. And that's what I love about reading other criticism: I want an extreme reaction; reading something meh is as meh as doing something meh.

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
2014
2013
2012

Review: Lipsynch

Lipsynch
Arts Centre Melbourne, Ex Machnia and Théâtre Sans Frontières
4 August 2012
State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne

Critics criticise because theatre this exquisite exists.

Robert LePage's Lipsynch asks for nine hours of your time, but there's no need to be scared. Unlike watching a box set or spending a day at work, there are intervals with time to talk with friends and strangers and to share a comradery that only those who were there will understand.

As Gorecki's harrowing "Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs" echos from a soprano's lone performance, a young woman is found dead in her plane seat, still holding her crying baby. What follows explores nine lives whose stories are explicitly or implicitly affected by this heart-breaking cry. Told in multiple languages, over many years and countries, some links feel tenuous, especially as false clues are planted, but as the ninth hour approaches, they come together with a mix of surprise and inevitability that demands complicity in its heartbreak and heals with its beauty.

Contrasting an intimate naturalism that feels like film and an ingenious design that celebrates theatre, Canadian director LePage and his performers/co-writers began the creation of this epic meditation with the human voice and the confusion between voice, speech and language.

Anyone who has sung or laughed or cried knows how a sound can say more than words can dare.  The themes are set with the dissonance of a controlled singing voice and the instinctual crying of the baby and move through sounds like lipsynching movies, a farting/groaning corpse, the voice of Kenwood appliances, a Scottish detective resenting his French-speaking sat nav, the voices inside a head and an unspoken story that begins in hour one and ends at hour nine.

Each is remarkable in its reflection on the voice and its transcendence over words and is delicately balanced by a different visual theme and theatrical technique for each of the nine stories. There's one that takes place mostly on public transport, one in a recording studio, one in a bookshop in the snow and one drives around London. Each is so different, that it's as exciting to discover the visual theme for each story as it is to find out whose story is being told.

It's story has often been described as high-class melodrama or soap, but this dismisses its complexity. It's coincidence and connections are so tightly written that it almost demands a second viewing just to re-visit all the moments that didn't seem important at the time, but came rushing back at the end

The cast play one of the central nine and multiple roles. Frédérike Bédard, Carlos Belda, Rebecca Blankenship, Lise Castonguay, John Cobb, Nuria Garcia, Sarah Kemp,  Rick Miller and Hans Piesbergen are the original cast and creators – with LePage and dramaturg Marie Gignac in 2007, when it was a eye-blinking five hours – and are performing in Melbourne. Their performances come from a knowledge of their characters that makes it easy to forget they are acting as they never bring undue attention to themselves or to the story's clues. 

If you've ever watched Buddhist monks make a sand mandala, the creators focus on the intricate beauty  and minutia of a segment before moving to the next. It's only when it's finished that the patterns and breathtaking beauty is revealed, then it's then swept away. Lipsynch reminded me of a mandala.

The detail and craft is astonishing, but its only at the end that it's almost perfect balance is revealed.

The biggest disappointment was the slabs of empty seats (shame on you Melbourne) and the unforgivable surtitle synching. There's no perfection in theatre or life, but I left Lipsynch somehow elated and drained and if I wasn't away this weekend, I'd go back for another nine hours.

This was on aussietheatre.com

just home response

Review: The Blue Dragon

MIAF 2010
The Blue Dragon
Melbourne International Arts Festival 
Robert LePage
9 October 2010
the Arts Centre, Playhouse
to 12 October
www.melbournefestival.com.au

The Blue Dragon was my first experience of Canadian theatrical-legend Robert LePage's  thearte. Twitter tells me that it's not his best work and that I should be disappointed. I wasn't. I see a lot of works about middle-age, middle-class angst and disappointment in Melbourne and this is one of few that felt real enough to make me care.

The technical mastery and visual wonder of Dragon has been and will be raved about by others. Splitting the stage horizontally, allowed for scene changes as tight as a brilliantly edited film, locations as intimate as an apartment and as vast as the Shanghai skyline and, being a multi-language script, placed subtitles as midtitles at eye level; leaving the audience able to read and watch at the same time. I barely noticed when I wasn't hearing English.

From the opening description of the perfect squares of Chinese calligraphy, metaphor and symbolism are the dominant language of The Blue Dragon – that lurks in the thunder and storms that rarely leave the skies. China is represented by ancient dance, cultural revolution, crowded cities and art made from mobile phone photos, while the west and Canada are as obvious as a bottle of maple syrup and a stuffed moose.

With a design whose influence will be seen in our theatres over the next year, overt symbolism, a long time line and placement in a country "on the cutting edge of history", Dragon positions itself as an epic tale, but its story and characters never meet these expectations. 

Fifty-year-old Pierre (Henri Chassé) left Canada 20 years ago to study art in China (LePage told this story in The Dragon Trilogy in 1985) and is living in an artists complex in Shanghai. Claire (Marie Michaud) is an old-flame and in China to adopt a baby. She doesn't want to re-kindle the love and knows that, at 46, her young advertising work colleagues look at her "like a black and white tv". Xiao Ling (Tai Wei Foo) is a young Chinese artist supported by Pierre and sharing his bed. In a country where the word dissident can ruin your life, she creates art that shows her own "authentic emotion". 

With the adoption failing, Claire befriending Xiao Ling while not knowing about her relationship with Pierre, Xiao Ling's unwanted pregnancy and Pierre revealing that the blue dragon is his mood not a colour, the story would be at home in a soap or one of those terrible plays about middle class, middle age angst.

And this is what I loved about it. These characters never live up to the expectations of their worlds, themselves, each other or us. Out of place and judgemental, they make selfish decisions, never really communicate and feel lost and miserable as they realise that their lives are not what they imagined. Pierre even admits that he's a bourgeois artists holding onto artistic ideals but never making art. We want them to be better, to fulfil our expectations of this astonishingly relevant and symbolic world, but they act like frustratingly ordinary people; perhaps like people we know, perhaps like us.

LePage shows us a theatrical world that deserves heros, but he gives us ordinary and infuses the melodrama with a self-mocking humour like a Chinese KFC ad that looks like a movie, a cultural revolution soldier jumping on the back of Pierre's bicycle, a Chairman Mao cap with a red maple leaf and discussions about pandaplomacy. This is a world that even heros would fail in and is pushed to an ending that I thought perfect.

It's rare for a Robert LePage work to be in the antipodes and there's only three more chances to see it (including today at 6 pm). You might be disappointed, but you might not.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.


photo by Yancik Macdonald