 |
| Eryn Jean Norvill outside of court. Source: AAP |
The judge released his verdict on 11 April. There was some outrage, but a lot of silence.
I wrote this for ArtsHub about the verdict.
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label Robyn Nevin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robyn Nevin. Show all posts
16 April 2019
Opinion: #IStillStandWithEJ. Rush wins defamation case
Make some noise. Let women know that they are believed and that their safety and wellbeing are far more important than the reputation of a powerful man who can afford good lawyers.
I wrote this during the trial.
The judge released his verdict on 11 April. There was some outrage, but a lot of silence.
I wrote this for ArtsHub about the verdict.
The judge released his verdict on 11 April. There was some outrage, but a lot of silence.
I wrote this for ArtsHub about the verdict.
23 May 2017
Review: My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
Opera Australia and John Frost
16 May 2017
Regent Theatre
to 27 July
myfairladymusical.com.au
This was always my favourite song from Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady. Even with misguided teen romance-goggles, I appreciated Eliza's frustration with being told what to do, think and say. Show her! Show me! Show us!
Which is hard to do in a theatre that doesn't let most of the audience connect with the show.
Opera Australia and John Frost have re-creacted the original 60-year-old iconic Broadway production. To bring some relevance (and bonus music-theatre nerd squee points), it was directed by Dame Julie Andrews, the first Eliza Doolittle.
And it is a glorious re-creation of a magnificent production. Those Cecil Beaton costumes! That Oliver Smith set! The Ascott Opening Race!
Based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, the story of the flower seller Eliza being taught how to be a "lady" by the pompous Professor Henry Higgins is well known. And as long as those romance-goggles don't interfere with the idea of the very young woman falling for the much older man who treats her like scum and really doesn't respect or like the women in his life, it's an insightful reflection of the gender, class and social power that, sadly, rings as true today as it did 100 years ago.
What makes this production more than a re-creation is that contemporary opinions have shaped the performances.
Robyn Nevin as Mrs Higgins, Henry's mother, and Deirdre Rubenstein as Mrs Pearce, Henry's housekeeper, bring strength and power to the women who know how their social positions are controlled by others. Reg Livermore's Alfred Doolittle and Tony Llewellyn-Jones's Colonel Pickering balance of clowning with the understanding of men who are beginning to lose their social power with age.
Charles Edwards (my Downton Abbey fan-heart smiled) lets Henry see his own absurdity, even if he refuses to budge. Edwards performance is excellent, but it is strange that there isn't a middle aged, English-speaking actor in Australia who would have been just as terrific.
Which leaves Anna O'Byrne as Eliza. She's wonderful. She ensures that Eliza's choice to go to Higgins is far more than an attempt to escape poverty, and lets her heart break when she realises that her education may have left her with less than what she started with.
But if you're sitting anywhere other than the first rows of this huge theatre, it's difficult to appreciate what makes this more than a re-creation. It wasn't designed or directed for the Regent Theatre. It's visually magnificent and grand but its emotional power relies on performances and people. Even with such strong performances, I don't know how Eliza feels in the final scene – I was too far away; even in good seats – which is the moment that makes or breaks a contemporary My Fair Lady.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Opera Australia and John Frost
16 May 2017
Regent Theatre
to 27 July
myfairladymusical.com.au
 |
| My Fair Lady. Photo by Belinda Strodder |
"Words, words, words!
I'm so sick of words
I get words all day through."
This was always my favourite song from Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady. Even with misguided teen romance-goggles, I appreciated Eliza's frustration with being told what to do, think and say. Show her! Show me! Show us!
Which is hard to do in a theatre that doesn't let most of the audience connect with the show.
Opera Australia and John Frost have re-creacted the original 60-year-old iconic Broadway production. To bring some relevance (and bonus music-theatre nerd squee points), it was directed by Dame Julie Andrews, the first Eliza Doolittle.
And it is a glorious re-creation of a magnificent production. Those Cecil Beaton costumes! That Oliver Smith set! The Ascott Opening Race!
Based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, the story of the flower seller Eliza being taught how to be a "lady" by the pompous Professor Henry Higgins is well known. And as long as those romance-goggles don't interfere with the idea of the very young woman falling for the much older man who treats her like scum and really doesn't respect or like the women in his life, it's an insightful reflection of the gender, class and social power that, sadly, rings as true today as it did 100 years ago.
What makes this production more than a re-creation is that contemporary opinions have shaped the performances.
Robyn Nevin as Mrs Higgins, Henry's mother, and Deirdre Rubenstein as Mrs Pearce, Henry's housekeeper, bring strength and power to the women who know how their social positions are controlled by others. Reg Livermore's Alfred Doolittle and Tony Llewellyn-Jones's Colonel Pickering balance of clowning with the understanding of men who are beginning to lose their social power with age.
Charles Edwards (my Downton Abbey fan-heart smiled) lets Henry see his own absurdity, even if he refuses to budge. Edwards performance is excellent, but it is strange that there isn't a middle aged, English-speaking actor in Australia who would have been just as terrific.
Which leaves Anna O'Byrne as Eliza. She's wonderful. She ensures that Eliza's choice to go to Higgins is far more than an attempt to escape poverty, and lets her heart break when she realises that her education may have left her with less than what she started with.
But if you're sitting anywhere other than the first rows of this huge theatre, it's difficult to appreciate what makes this more than a re-creation. It wasn't designed or directed for the Regent Theatre. It's visually magnificent and grand but its emotional power relies on performances and people. Even with such strong performances, I don't know how Eliza feels in the final scene – I was too far away; even in good seats – which is the moment that makes or breaks a contemporary My Fair Lady.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
28 March 2014
Review: Neighbourhood Watch
Neighbourhood Watch
MTC presents the Belvoir production
20 March 2014
The Sumner
to 26 April
mtc.com.aud-watch/
Any one who saw Lally Katz's super-gorgeous Stories I Want to Tell You in Person heard about her writing of Neighbourhood Watch, and will be thrilled that the MTC have brought us that Belvoir production. Like most of Lally's work, it's personal, dreamy and so dark that that you're never sure if you're wiping away tears of heartaching recognition or life-affirming love.
Neighbourhood Watch is about neighbours, friends and death and all the things we do to avoid or confront both.
It's set in the year of Kevin 07: a far-too-quickly-lost time of hope. Howard lost his seat and his government, a woman was Deputy PM, a rock star was Minister for the Environment, Kyoto was signed, our Indigenous people were finally apologised to, and we all got $1000 to buy some treats to keep the economy going. Today, such hope feels like fiction.
It was also the year that Lally moved to Far Kew and met Anna, her 80+ Hungarian neighbour who became her best friend, and the year that Robyn Nevin asked Lally to write her a "tough and funny" character. When the Nevin asks, you write – and result is the story of grieving Catherine (Megan Holloway) meeting her neighbour Ana (Nevin), whose lifetime of grief is as guarded as her big-dog protected front gate.
The combination of Robyn and Ana is as good as it gets. Katz captures the unique second-language rhythm and Nevin perfects it in a performance that lets you love Ana in an instant. Ana's Englishisms and missing social niceties are hilarious, but Nevin assures that we are always on her side, even when she is making painful choices, and that Ana is never made fun of. It's such a remarkable performance that it might be impossible to see the play and not consider real-life Anna a friend.
Simon Stone's confident direction is an enhancing and comfortable fit with the writing; he's able to bring Katz's work to a commercial stage without losing her delightfully awkward tone or any of the love that she pours into her characters, while letting them find their place in the world beyond the text.
With Dale Ferguson's almost bare stage design, made intimate with Damien Cooper's lighting, there's enough space to feel the reach of the drama, but Kew is missing. It's easy for a Melbourne audience to understand the subtleties of the suburb – so much of Katz's work starts with and evokes a sense of place that leaves residents homesick – but its greyness doesn't share the green of the trees, the manicured lawns, Leo's, the High Street tram or getting stuck on Princess Street trying to cut across to the Eastern Freeway. Having said that, I could see it all, so perhaps the wheelie bins were more than enough.
Lally Katz's writing grabbed me from the first time I saw a short play about the Apocalypse Bear in Kew. There have been ups and downs, but at her best her writing is felt in our hearts before our brains have time to think it all through. Neighbourhood Watch is Katz at her absolute best.
But the real world isn't at its best. Lally wrote a piece for The Age on 1 March: Anna has cut her off and isn't speaking to her. In Stories, Lally talked about real-life Anna seeing the play in Sydney and the thought of it being in Melbourne without her being there is unthinkable – and, more importantly, it's too sad to think that she might not know how much this play has made us love her.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
MTC presents the Belvoir production
20 March 2014
The Sumner
to 26 April
mtc.com.aud-watch/
Any one who saw Lally Katz's super-gorgeous Stories I Want to Tell You in Person heard about her writing of Neighbourhood Watch, and will be thrilled that the MTC have brought us that Belvoir production. Like most of Lally's work, it's personal, dreamy and so dark that that you're never sure if you're wiping away tears of heartaching recognition or life-affirming love.
Neighbourhood Watch is about neighbours, friends and death and all the things we do to avoid or confront both.
It's set in the year of Kevin 07: a far-too-quickly-lost time of hope. Howard lost his seat and his government, a woman was Deputy PM, a rock star was Minister for the Environment, Kyoto was signed, our Indigenous people were finally apologised to, and we all got $1000 to buy some treats to keep the economy going. Today, such hope feels like fiction.
It was also the year that Lally moved to Far Kew and met Anna, her 80+ Hungarian neighbour who became her best friend, and the year that Robyn Nevin asked Lally to write her a "tough and funny" character. When the Nevin asks, you write – and result is the story of grieving Catherine (Megan Holloway) meeting her neighbour Ana (Nevin), whose lifetime of grief is as guarded as her big-dog protected front gate.
The combination of Robyn and Ana is as good as it gets. Katz captures the unique second-language rhythm and Nevin perfects it in a performance that lets you love Ana in an instant. Ana's Englishisms and missing social niceties are hilarious, but Nevin assures that we are always on her side, even when she is making painful choices, and that Ana is never made fun of. It's such a remarkable performance that it might be impossible to see the play and not consider real-life Anna a friend.
Simon Stone's confident direction is an enhancing and comfortable fit with the writing; he's able to bring Katz's work to a commercial stage without losing her delightfully awkward tone or any of the love that she pours into her characters, while letting them find their place in the world beyond the text.
With Dale Ferguson's almost bare stage design, made intimate with Damien Cooper's lighting, there's enough space to feel the reach of the drama, but Kew is missing. It's easy for a Melbourne audience to understand the subtleties of the suburb – so much of Katz's work starts with and evokes a sense of place that leaves residents homesick – but its greyness doesn't share the green of the trees, the manicured lawns, Leo's, the High Street tram or getting stuck on Princess Street trying to cut across to the Eastern Freeway. Having said that, I could see it all, so perhaps the wheelie bins were more than enough.
Lally Katz's writing grabbed me from the first time I saw a short play about the Apocalypse Bear in Kew. There have been ups and downs, but at her best her writing is felt in our hearts before our brains have time to think it all through. Neighbourhood Watch is Katz at her absolute best.
But the real world isn't at its best. Lally wrote a piece for The Age on 1 March: Anna has cut her off and isn't speaking to her. In Stories, Lally talked about real-life Anna seeing the play in Sydney and the thought of it being in Melbourne without her being there is unthinkable – and, more importantly, it's too sad to think that she might not know how much this play has made us love her.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
19 July 2012
Review: Queen Lear
Queen Lear
MTC
12 July 2012
Sumner Theatre
to 18 August
mtc.com.au
Queen Lear was always going to be a bitch to review.
Men and women are different beasts who adore and loathe each other because we see the world in slightly different ways. Shakespeare's women aren't as richly fascinating as his men, so the gender swap isn't that unusual (Kate Mulvany's recent Cassius comes to mind), but to do so successfully means that every relationship to Lear has to change in subtle ways that together change the story.
It's here that Rachel McDonald, as dramaturg and director, is most successful. Too often the on-stage relationships in Shakespeare are ignored for the sake of original character, but McDonald's Lear is led by the changing status and relationships that are often much clearer that her story.
The relationship between mother Lear (Robyn Nevin) and daughters Reagan (Belinda McClory) and Goneril (Genevieve Picot) starts with the bitter angry resentment that comes from not being loved enough by the person who's meant to love you the most. It's personal and touching and a father could not make Goneril cry in quite the same way. (I haven't mentioned youngest daughter Cordelia because I have no idea what was going on with her and gave up trying to understand.) The most unexpectedly moving relationship is between Kent (Robert Menzies) and Lear as Kent tries to protect and respect his Queen, and Greg Stone brings a surprising depth to his wheelchair-bound Albany by focussing on how his relationship with his wife Goneril changes.
Niklas Pajanti's lighting is exquisite in its creation of the void-like world and its momentary glimpses of characters as they came in and out of the dark. It made the stage look beautiful and intriguing and helps make sense of a design (Tracy Grant Lord) that baffles.
The stage has depth and levels that are beautiful to look at, but offer a confusing world. Maybe the hanging chains bound them to the gods; perhaps Edgar's bike and naked shower were his last hints of freedom – but why was there a giant phallus that grew and shrank and ejaculated pretty fools in white nighties?
McDonald's program notes say, "It is like a science-fiction world ... simultaneously ancient, contemporary and retro." This explains why the costumes were a bit Bride of Frankenstein meets Blake's Seven and Mad Men, but by drawing on so many aesthetics, Lear's world is merely a mish-mash of ideas that distract – often comically – from the telling of the story. It may be a stronger telling with just the costumes and the lighting.
But no matter what, it's Lear we go to see.
Robyn Nevin was always going to be Lear like no other. And she is. The night opens magnificently with a woman with undisputed power. She loves being Queen and the accompanying parties and gorgeous frocks; she never considers that her power will change when she splits the property between the kids. As the two elder daughters learnt how to behave from their mum, everything is taken from mum and her anger mixes with dementia as she fights to maintain her mask and keep the hurting old lady hidden. Her fool is placed in her head and appears as versions of her daughters who help create her lucidity in the madness; if only they didn't keep popping out of the giant penis.
For all the oddness of Queen Lear, when Queen Robyn is on stage, the rest makes more sense.
Photo by Jeff Busby
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
NOW, head to TheatreNotes to read what everyone else has to say.
And Alison's reaction to Julian Meyrick's rant about the evils of the blogosphere.
(If the links hit paywall: Google.)
MTC
12 July 2012
Sumner Theatre
to 18 August
mtc.com.au
Queen Lear was always going to be a bitch to review.
Men and women are different beasts who adore and loathe each other because we see the world in slightly different ways. Shakespeare's women aren't as richly fascinating as his men, so the gender swap isn't that unusual (Kate Mulvany's recent Cassius comes to mind), but to do so successfully means that every relationship to Lear has to change in subtle ways that together change the story.
It's here that Rachel McDonald, as dramaturg and director, is most successful. Too often the on-stage relationships in Shakespeare are ignored for the sake of original character, but McDonald's Lear is led by the changing status and relationships that are often much clearer that her story.
The relationship between mother Lear (Robyn Nevin) and daughters Reagan (Belinda McClory) and Goneril (Genevieve Picot) starts with the bitter angry resentment that comes from not being loved enough by the person who's meant to love you the most. It's personal and touching and a father could not make Goneril cry in quite the same way. (I haven't mentioned youngest daughter Cordelia because I have no idea what was going on with her and gave up trying to understand.) The most unexpectedly moving relationship is between Kent (Robert Menzies) and Lear as Kent tries to protect and respect his Queen, and Greg Stone brings a surprising depth to his wheelchair-bound Albany by focussing on how his relationship with his wife Goneril changes.
Niklas Pajanti's lighting is exquisite in its creation of the void-like world and its momentary glimpses of characters as they came in and out of the dark. It made the stage look beautiful and intriguing and helps make sense of a design (Tracy Grant Lord) that baffles.
The stage has depth and levels that are beautiful to look at, but offer a confusing world. Maybe the hanging chains bound them to the gods; perhaps Edgar's bike and naked shower were his last hints of freedom – but why was there a giant phallus that grew and shrank and ejaculated pretty fools in white nighties?
McDonald's program notes say, "It is like a science-fiction world ... simultaneously ancient, contemporary and retro." This explains why the costumes were a bit Bride of Frankenstein meets Blake's Seven and Mad Men, but by drawing on so many aesthetics, Lear's world is merely a mish-mash of ideas that distract – often comically – from the telling of the story. It may be a stronger telling with just the costumes and the lighting.
But no matter what, it's Lear we go to see.
Robyn Nevin was always going to be Lear like no other. And she is. The night opens magnificently with a woman with undisputed power. She loves being Queen and the accompanying parties and gorgeous frocks; she never considers that her power will change when she splits the property between the kids. As the two elder daughters learnt how to behave from their mum, everything is taken from mum and her anger mixes with dementia as she fights to maintain her mask and keep the hurting old lady hidden. Her fool is placed in her head and appears as versions of her daughters who help create her lucidity in the madness; if only they didn't keep popping out of the giant penis.
For all the oddness of Queen Lear, when Queen Robyn is on stage, the rest makes more sense.
Photo by Jeff Busby
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
NOW, head to TheatreNotes to read what everyone else has to say.
And Alison's reaction to Julian Meyrick's rant about the evils of the blogosphere.
(If the links hit paywall: Google.)
22 January 2012
Review: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
MTC presents the Belvoir production
16 January 2012
Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse
to 18 February 2012
mtc.com.au
Sometime in the 70s, the ABC filmed the MTC production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll; my grandmother made me watch it with her. I didn't really get it, but I liked it, especially as 1950s Melbourne and 1970s Adelaide weren't that far apart. Years later in high school, The Doll was an English text and I aspired to be Bubba; I still didn't really get. Now that I'm older than Pearl and Olive, I get it, and the opening night ovation for this production and for writer Ray Lawler confirmed that it's still one of the best plays out there and a piece of Australian theatre history that should be compulsory.
Does Summer of the Seventeenth Doll really need an introduction? If you've been to high school in Australia, you must have read it. It's the one set in Carlton in the 50s, where two cane-cutters arrive to spend their 17th five-month lay off with their Melbourne barmaid girlfriends, but one of the women left to get married, the cane season brought trouble and all are confronted with not being 30 anymore.
It's a brilliant story that forces painful change as each character faces the chasm between what they want to be seen as and who they are, and it's a masterclass in the power of a three-act structure.
Director Neil Armfield lets Lawler's writing lead and he guides his cast to find a depth and a rawness to their characters that brings a freshness and new understanding to those familiar with the text.
Steve Le Marquand (Roo), Travis McMahon (Barney) and TJ Power (Johnny) each reject comfort for the need to be masculine, but this production is about the women.
Eloise Winestock shows how much Bubba wants to be a better version of Olive. While Alison Whyte lets Olive be the young woman who flouted convention and ages in moments as she's offered a salvation that means she's lost everything.
Robyn Nevin is unforgettable as Olive's caustic mother Emma, who sees the truth and can't help her daughter. But Helen Thomson's Pearl is the performance to see. Too often Pearl is a prude, but Thomson lets us see why Olive chose her in the first place – she's a hoot – but she knows that reputation is all that she has and can't let herself be swept into Olive's life. Choosing an un-married and openly sexual life in the 40s and 50s was a choice that few women willingly made and Olive's explanation to Pearl about decency depending on people can't dull the sting of having other women feel sorry for you.
This Summer of the Seventeeth Doll confirmed it as one of my favourite plays. Lawler ensures that we understand why every choice is made, but we long for every one to choose differently and find a way back to happiness and love. Its honesty is as true now as ever and its world is still so close to ours. I'm sure I’m not alone in admitting that I'd bluff happiness rather than have anyone feel sorry for me.
If you love Australian theatre, if you love theatre, you have no excuse to miss see this Doll.
MTC presents the Belvoir production
16 January 2012
Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse
to 18 February 2012
mtc.com.au
Sometime in the 70s, the ABC filmed the MTC production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll; my grandmother made me watch it with her. I didn't really get it, but I liked it, especially as 1950s Melbourne and 1970s Adelaide weren't that far apart. Years later in high school, The Doll was an English text and I aspired to be Bubba; I still didn't really get. Now that I'm older than Pearl and Olive, I get it, and the opening night ovation for this production and for writer Ray Lawler confirmed that it's still one of the best plays out there and a piece of Australian theatre history that should be compulsory.
Does Summer of the Seventeenth Doll really need an introduction? If you've been to high school in Australia, you must have read it. It's the one set in Carlton in the 50s, where two cane-cutters arrive to spend their 17th five-month lay off with their Melbourne barmaid girlfriends, but one of the women left to get married, the cane season brought trouble and all are confronted with not being 30 anymore.
It's a brilliant story that forces painful change as each character faces the chasm between what they want to be seen as and who they are, and it's a masterclass in the power of a three-act structure.
Director Neil Armfield lets Lawler's writing lead and he guides his cast to find a depth and a rawness to their characters that brings a freshness and new understanding to those familiar with the text.
Steve Le Marquand (Roo), Travis McMahon (Barney) and TJ Power (Johnny) each reject comfort for the need to be masculine, but this production is about the women.
Eloise Winestock shows how much Bubba wants to be a better version of Olive. While Alison Whyte lets Olive be the young woman who flouted convention and ages in moments as she's offered a salvation that means she's lost everything.
Robyn Nevin is unforgettable as Olive's caustic mother Emma, who sees the truth and can't help her daughter. But Helen Thomson's Pearl is the performance to see. Too often Pearl is a prude, but Thomson lets us see why Olive chose her in the first place – she's a hoot – but she knows that reputation is all that she has and can't let herself be swept into Olive's life. Choosing an un-married and openly sexual life in the 40s and 50s was a choice that few women willingly made and Olive's explanation to Pearl about decency depending on people can't dull the sting of having other women feel sorry for you.
This Summer of the Seventeeth Doll confirmed it as one of my favourite plays. Lawler ensures that we understand why every choice is made, but we long for every one to choose differently and find a way back to happiness and love. Its honesty is as true now as ever and its world is still so close to ours. I'm sure I’m not alone in admitting that I'd bluff happiness rather than have anyone feel sorry for me.
If you love Australian theatre, if you love theatre, you have no excuse to miss see this Doll.
14 January 2011
Review: Don Parties On
Don Parties On
MTC
13 January 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
I was a toddler when Don's Party was written; the same age as the offstage baby Richard. Discovering the play in 1980s Adelaide, I was far from 1970s Melbourne, but I knew Don and Kath and their guests. They were the young, university-educated middle-class generation who supported the left to rebel against their parents and felt entitled to their easy education and well-paid jobs. From their casual misogyny to the excitement of home made pizzas, this was the last generation we now call Baby Boomers and the generation whose free sex created gen X ... and in 2010 they still have friends over on election night.
Don (Garry McDonald) and Kath (Tracy Mann) are still together in their tastefully renovated house in Lower Plenty, Mal (Robert Grubb) and Jenny (Sue Jones) got divorced, Cooley (Frankie J Holden) is now a Liberal voter and married to newcomer Helen (Diane Craig), Mack is dead and there's name dropping of Evan, Kerry, Jody, Simon and Susan.
There are few surprises. They've all followed the path they were set on in 1969 and the biggest laughs came from Kath doing her PHD at Deakin (is anyone not tertiary educated in Melbourne weeing themselves?), the three men singing Creedence Clearwater Revival and the three women wanting to listen to Maxine McKew criticise the ALP when she lost her seat.
I still recognise these people, especially Jenny and her preaching to 42-year-old Richard and liberal Liberal Helen supporting Medicins Sans Frontiers and buying goats for Africa, but I don't believe them. They have elements of people I know, but each is little more than a cliche.
But these are fictional people and "Don" tells his friends that his fictional accounts of them (he finally had a book published) were never meant to offend and that all writers borrow and exaggerate from life. If this is exaggeration, Williamson must know some very dull people. The 70s swinging stories didn't even make them interesting.
The perfectly chosen boomer cast all brought more to their characters than they were given, but the "young" ones were less successful. Playing a stereotype (even if it's written) gives an audience nothing to relate to. Instead of seeing ourselves and caring, we're left grateful that we are not like them.
Naturally I looked to Richard (Darren Gilshenan). He's 42 and thinks he's 30 (so do I), but behaves like a brat who needs his mummy to give him an overnight flu tablet to calm him down. The original offstage baby Richard was more authentic. He and his 30-year-old lover (Nikki Shiels) are poor caricatures of selfish people whose only purpose is to be laughed at. Which was ironic, as Jenny tells us how her generation feels such passion for their children.
Structurally the new party is a reflection of the old with enough exposition and self-references to excite my inner-14-year-old and make my 42-year-old self want to attack the script with a red pen. One chips and twisties joke was plenty and who cares about dentist Evan if he's not part of this story.
And as gen Y nightmare granddaughter Belle (Georgia Flood) screams, "Just because there's a vampire in the movie, doesn't make it a vampire movie", just because every ABC political celebrity and well known politician is mentioned doesn't make it a political play or a social reflection of our society.
The political satire was restricted to name dropping (including enough Nick Minchins to convince Nick Minchin that he's important) and comments about the faceless assigns of the ALP and the irrational fear of boat people. Combined with sound bites from the ABC's 2010 Election Night coverage, it felt like the kind of political lecture a new Australian should listen to in order to pass their are-you-bonza-enough-to-be-one-of-us test.
I just don't get it. I know we get more conservative and complacent in middle age, but we don't get dumber. I secretly hoped that Don Parties On would be David Williamson's finger to all of us who have scoffed at his post-Emerald City writing, but then I'm just a 42-year-old who recently asked her mum for a Panadeine Forte because she had a bad headache. And out of nostalgia, curiosity and a love of play written in the early 70s, I would have gone to see it no matter what any review said.
Photo: Jeff Busby
This appears on AussieTheatre.com
The first review was this one on Crikey.
Arts Hub
Theatre Notes
The Age
Don's Party film trailer
13 November 2008
The Women of Troy
The Women of Troy
Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company
13 November 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse
Barrie Kosky never wants his audiences to feel too comfortable and The Women of Troy is a relentless reminder that wars continue to strip women of power, dignity and hope.
Of course, he does it in true Kosky fashion; with blood, music and a mixture of discomfort, unexpected beauty and unsettling humour. It starts with confronting violence and never lowers its intensity. By the end, we accept the constant gore, gun shots and pain as normal. I initially thought this was a pacing problem, then I realised that it was probably the point – and it was a point made damn well.
Kosky describes Euripides’s ancient work as, “one of the most searing and moving antiwar plays ever written.” With Tom Wright he adapted and condensed the script to its core, telling of a post-war time after the city of Troy has been overrun by the Greeks (with a cunning plan involving a big horse) and those left alive can only see a future of humiliation, pain and violence.
For a director who loves words, sounds and music, the impact of a Kosky show is always the visual. The music and three-person chorus (Natalie Gamsu, Queenie Van De Zandt and Jennifer Vuletic) were stunning at the time, but I’ve forgotten what they sung, and I can barely remember the script. But the images have remained.
The direction draws on unforgettable horrific images from our current wars, supported by Alice Babidge’s design of an endless warehouse of lockers and cabinets, where blood trickles and pools, and we don’t want to see what’s behind the closed doors. Here the bloodied and bruised women are treated as carcasses, ready to be shipped off to their new owners in boxes bound with packing tape.
Robyn Nevin (as Queen Hecuba) and Melita Jurisic (as Cassandra, Andromache and Helen of Troy) are riveting. Kosky directs his performers in a way that breaks down all public personas and shows us the uncensored thoughts of the person’s inner voices and unconscious. As classical works were written without thoughts of naturalism, it’s no wonder Barrie presents them so vividly.
The choice to cast Jurisic in the three roles continues to split opinions. If you know the work, each character is clear, but it is confusing if you don’t, or haven’t read the program notes. Either way, it distracts by focussing the show on her performance (which is superb), rather than the piece as a whole.
I’m never quite sure how to read a Kosky work – which is what I love about them. He understands his own intricate interpretation and directs with a detail that supports his every thought. So, to avoid confusion, I think its best to just sit back, let the experience flow and see how you feel at the end.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company
13 November 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse
Barrie Kosky never wants his audiences to feel too comfortable and The Women of Troy is a relentless reminder that wars continue to strip women of power, dignity and hope.
Of course, he does it in true Kosky fashion; with blood, music and a mixture of discomfort, unexpected beauty and unsettling humour. It starts with confronting violence and never lowers its intensity. By the end, we accept the constant gore, gun shots and pain as normal. I initially thought this was a pacing problem, then I realised that it was probably the point – and it was a point made damn well.
Kosky describes Euripides’s ancient work as, “one of the most searing and moving antiwar plays ever written.” With Tom Wright he adapted and condensed the script to its core, telling of a post-war time after the city of Troy has been overrun by the Greeks (with a cunning plan involving a big horse) and those left alive can only see a future of humiliation, pain and violence.
For a director who loves words, sounds and music, the impact of a Kosky show is always the visual. The music and three-person chorus (Natalie Gamsu, Queenie Van De Zandt and Jennifer Vuletic) were stunning at the time, but I’ve forgotten what they sung, and I can barely remember the script. But the images have remained.
The direction draws on unforgettable horrific images from our current wars, supported by Alice Babidge’s design of an endless warehouse of lockers and cabinets, where blood trickles and pools, and we don’t want to see what’s behind the closed doors. Here the bloodied and bruised women are treated as carcasses, ready to be shipped off to their new owners in boxes bound with packing tape.
Robyn Nevin (as Queen Hecuba) and Melita Jurisic (as Cassandra, Andromache and Helen of Troy) are riveting. Kosky directs his performers in a way that breaks down all public personas and shows us the uncensored thoughts of the person’s inner voices and unconscious. As classical works were written without thoughts of naturalism, it’s no wonder Barrie presents them so vividly.
The choice to cast Jurisic in the three roles continues to split opinions. If you know the work, each character is clear, but it is confusing if you don’t, or haven’t read the program notes. Either way, it distracts by focussing the show on her performance (which is superb), rather than the piece as a whole.
I’m never quite sure how to read a Kosky work – which is what I love about them. He understands his own intricate interpretation and directs with a detail that supports his every thought. So, to avoid confusion, I think its best to just sit back, let the experience flow and see how you feel at the end.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
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