Review: Muriel's Wedding

Muriel's Wedding: The Musical
Global Creatures in association with Sydney Theatre Company
23 March 2019
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 16 June
murielsweddingthemusical.com

"Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby

A new Australian musical. A phrase full of so much hope and an equal amount of fear; goodness, we've seen some duds. A musical adaption of a film. A phrase full of ... yep, we've seen them, too.  Muriel's Wedding: The Musical is both and, as Muriel and Rhonda would say, it's fucking amazing, and, legit, one of the coolest shows I've seen.

And it's ours. It feels like us, looks like us, bloody sounds like us and might be the show that runs all over the world.

In 1994, PJ Hogan's film Muriel's Wedding was an unexpected hit. If you haven't seen it, you should because a lot of the love for this musical comes from knowing, loving and referencing the film. Future productions may be able to step away from the source, but not yet.

With Hogan adapting his film script and working closely with director Simon Phillips and all the collaborators, it's far from a stage version of the film. It updates the story – you know it – to today with sad and lonely Sunshine-coaster millennial Muriel being as obsessed with social media as she is with ABBA. It expands some characters, especially Betty (Muriel's mum) and Brice (Muriel's first pash) and changes enough to make it a story about now; although, it would be even cooler to lose the 1990's race jokes and have a few less fat jokes.

Most importantly, it takes the story off the subtle screen, where silence, close ups and subtext bring us into character's heads, and into a world that lets us in with song and theatricality. Here, ABBA are out of Muriel's imagination and in her life as guardian angels, who don't always know what's best for her; Brice climbs to the top of Sydney to send a text; and Betty can dance as she makes her heart breaking choice.

"Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby

The first welcome into the world is Gabriela Tylesova's design. The stage is solid-block bright colours that let the action focus to a bedroom and expand to a city – the Sydney Harbour Bridge has never looked better on a stage. And it's framed with a proscenium of fuchsia-pink leaves and petals that could be tongues, scattered with mobile phones to share Insta pics.

While the stage is blocks of colour, the costumes are full of detail so intricate that the only the person who can see it all is the person wearing it. Each design – there are about 360 costumes – starts with character and immediately lets the audience know everything about them. You might not be able to see the detail of her unique shoes  – her shoe designs! –, but you'll never be distracted because everyone is wearing scuffed black show shoes.

Every costume is perfectly a bit too much. Think 1980s Ken Done tea towels and 2010s Lisa Gorman dresses – but with much cooler detail and the colour and pattern turned up. The bridal frocks all have two, or 20, too many frills; the florals are a bit too floral; the boardies would look too much on an end-of-year team trip to Bali – even the 1970s ABBA jump suits are a bit too white. They are all magnificent.

The genius choice though was Kate Miller-Heidke (I loved her music for The Rabbits and let's not forget that she's the representing Australia in this year's Eurovision) and Keir Nuttall for the music and lyrics. (They are also partners in real life and their first baby was born during the workshop process).

Their music doesn't try to to sound like a musical. Here, music and songs don't tell the story, they take us into the hearts of the characters. In theatre, in life, in our showers and cars, we sing what we can't say, and in great musicals, every song brings us closer to the characters' truths. The Porpoise Spit girls sound like the commercial pop they love, Muriel is the heightened emotion of 80s ABBA without the succinctness of their lyrics, Nuttall describes Muriel's father Bill as sounding like a "Rolling Stones tribute act playing in the Twin Towns casino" – and he does! Because the songs start with character, it always feels natural when they sing and the music never pulls the show away from the story.

"Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby

Throw in lyrics that are better than over hearing conversations on trains, ABBA songs by ABBA,  Miller-Heidke bringing in extra for sopranos to shine, and the bonus of Andrew Hallsworth's choreography that's equally as school disco as it is slick, and, well, I'm happy that my current ear worm is a song called "Sydney".

There's plenty being written about the awesomeness of the cast and they are all spot on. With a mostly new cast from the original Sydney Theatre Company show, the production is open to personal interpretations. Our new Muriel (Natalie Abbott) and Rhonda (Stefanie Jones) are already so different from the original cast (the soundtrack is free on Spotify) that it's going to be easy to want to see every cast change over the years. Everyone is bonza, but highlights include Pippa Grandison (who was Porpoise Spit Nicole in the film) as Betty, and Christie Whelan Brown as wonderful queen bitch Tania.

Muriel's Wedding is spectacular but never relies on spectacle. It's as daggy as a backyard engagement party, but as complex as trying to describe the perfect pavlova. It's as Aussie as pineapple on pizza (the best), beetroot in a burger (also the best) and hot chips eaten at sunset at the beach with seagulls stalking you for left overs.

Review: Priscilla

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical 
Michael Cassel Group and Nullabor Productions in association with MGM on Stage
30 January 2018
Regent Theatre
priscillathemusical.com.au

David Harris, Tony Sheldon, Euan Doidge. Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Photo by Sam Tabone Getty Images

As a commercial film-to-juke-box musical. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical remains a high kick above the rest. Based on the 1994 film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the live show was developed in Australia in 2006 and has been beyond the empty outback to 29 countries and 134 cities, including New York and London. The universal language of dance pop, body waxing and sequins travels well.

For its tenth anniversary Tick (David Harris), Bernadette (Tony Sheldon, who has played the role all over the world and is heading to 2000 performances) and Felicia (Euan Doidge) are back on the bus and have pulled up in Melbourne before heading to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.

Tick is Mitzi most nights in a Kings Cross drag club until his secret ex-wife invites him to bring a show to the Alice Springs Casino where she works. He's joined by former Les Girls star and transgender woman Bernadette and young performer Adam/Felicia and the trio drive an old bus, called Priscilla, from Sydney to the centre. Shenanigins follow as deep-bush meets inner-city, sass and sparkle reject hate, and chosen families create warm fuzzies.

Stephan Elliot's 1994 film did so much for bringing queer stories to the screen and popular narratives. It confronted assumptions, celebrated inner-city Sydney's queer community (when it was still called a gay community), increased queer visibility, and helped drag drag out of its not-so-comfortable portrayal of women with a super-fabulous leap of bloody-bonza-Aussie-original-fabulousness with Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner's costume designs.

It also addressed violence, rejection, shame and hate and has an undertone of fear, bitterness and melancholy that makes it so much more than a flag-waving story about everyone being fabulous.

Twenty-three years later, Australia reminded us that we're still striving for fabulous and that queer communities and families are still considered different by a boringly-large chunk of the country – not just the bush bogans on stage – and our government.

This show welcomes updated technology to add to the outrageous colour, sparkle and Brian Thomson's bus design – and Chappel and Gardiner's costumes are still magnificently witty – but how amazing would it be to see the show updated to reflect Australia here and now? What if it confronted the problematic beneath the sparkle?

I don't understand why shows like this are so often stuck in a time and not updated beyond Kylie songs – there's a lot more Kylie in it now.

Priscilla is fun. The cast are amazing and its broad appeal that tones down sex and makes violence safe with a dance number guarantees success. If commercial theatre is about making money, it's the most successful Australian show around.

This same success seems to make it easy to ignore, or joke away, its problems – especially those that laugh at the very communities it claims to be celebrating.

The lesbian jokes would have felt awkward and dated in the 1970s, and there are trans jokes that are even older and more ignorant. Winking to the audience that "Uluru is sacred" only re-enforces the  unacceptable references to "Ayers Rock" and celebrating the offensive act of climbing it. And for the love-of-not-being-horrible, why keep the Asian, German and Scottish stereotypes – and the Australian ones? This is a show about love and acceptance that encourages laughing at difference.

Tick, Bernadette and Felicia don't make safe choices to find happiness. They risk violence, hate and rejection. It's sad that their show makes safe choices to risk what? Risk offending people who don't like theatre that makes them think for a moment?

The Midsumma festival is also on in Melbourne. There are shows that celebrate queer artists and queer stories and don't smooth away anything that isn't comfortable to acknowledge. If you're going to see Priscilla, make sure you see at least one Midsumma show as well.

Review: Pennsylvania Avenue

Pennsylvania Avenue
Melbourne Theatre Company
13 November 2014
Sumner Theatre
to 20 December
mtc.com.au

Photo by Jeff Busby

Last week, Melbourne's two mainstage companies opened shows by Melbourne writers. Both directed by Melbourne directors and featured Melbourne performers and creators. Both were also set in the USA and based on US culture. But the chasm between Pennsylvania Avenue, at the MTC, and Calpurnia Descending, at Malthouse Theatre, is so wide that one can barely wave at the other.

Pennsylvania Avenue gets the Songs for Nobodies gang back together. Written by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Simon Phillips and performed by Bernadette Robinson, Nobodies is a heartfelt work about five fictional nobodies who encounter five famous and broken singer somebodies (Garland, Cline, Piaf, Holiday and Callas). Each story is complete and uses the music and Robinson's talent to mimic to add so much to the stories about how nobody is really a nobody.

Pennsylvania Avenue started with the same idea and ran in the other direction.

Set in the Blue Room, another oval room, in the East Wing of the White House in Washington, it's the story of nobody Harper Clements who worked as a social secretary at the White House from presidents Kennedy to Bush jnr. She's well over 50 (the horror) and it's time for her to leave with her cardboard box of memories, like when she recommended that Marilyn Monroe take her knickers off to get a better line in the dress when she sang "Happy Birthday" to Kennedy and when she accidentally suggested to Reagan that "Tear down that wall" would help his Berlin speech. With photos of her in the background of famous photos, her story begs for more inside knowledge of the White House and the people who live and work there, and for a greater insight into her own politics.

But she's fiction. In all fairness, it's never claimed that she's real, but it was the question everyone was asking after the show because she seemed real enough to wonder.

So why this story? Why is Melbourne's flagship company commissioning a story that has no direct or even thematic connection to Australia? Apart from maybe the fact that side-stepping politics is easy. The post-show treats were even Budwiser and fries with USA stickers on the box.

When did Melbourne become the out-of-town try out city for Broadway? Because that's where this show wants to go and as a bland celebration of USA culture, it might run for years.

The inspiration of the work is Robinson and she continues to sing like the best. This time she sings the songs of people who performed at or visited the White House (including Monroe, Streisand – "she's Jewish – Vaughan, Kitt, Ross and Dylan – Bob). But while there was connection in Nobodies, there was little connection between songs and this character. And this time the mimicing felt weird. Why doesn't Harper sing as Harper? It felt like a drag show without any of the subversion.

Meanwhile, a couple blocks away at the Malthouse, Calpurnia Descending opened. It 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 (and drag) to make up for Pennsylvania Avenue.

Calpurnia Descending review.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Shane Warne, the Musical

Shane Warne, the Musical
Arts Centre Melbourne, Adelaide Cabaret Festival
20 June 2013
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 21 June
artscentremelbourne.com.au

Oh Eddie Perfect! You gorgeous, sexy, magnificent beast. You're as hot as King Kong and if you had a fraction of the resources that developed the magnificent monkey, Shane Warne The Musical could tour Australia for ever – or until Warnie does something else that begged for a new song.

The original 2008 version of Shane Warne the Musical (review) made me kind of love our Shane. He's our ultimate anti-hero who finally realises that acting like a dick leaves you looking like a dick.

The concert version has cut some of the old to make room for the introduction of Liz Hurley – I remember when the tweets started and I didn't believe that Liz Hurley would ever date Warnie – and the new stuff's as great as the old.

The new concert version (only seen at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and here in Melbourne for two nights) clearly lacks the spectacle of full staging, but continues to prove that this show isn't dependent on anything but its music and writing.

It's hilarious and smart and so full of heart and sass that the only disappointment is its two-night run.

I haven't followed cricket since Kim Hughes was captain, but I know what Warnie gets up to. He's a brilliant choice for a musical hero, and Eddie Perfect wrote (and stars in) a show that celebrates the spin bowler who changed cricket, without denying that he's been a bit of a douche along the way; all the while laughing and totally loving everything about the public and media's obsession with his celebrity.

And having what may be the most gorgeous mass of talent ever is just a bonus. There's Perfect, Shane Jacobson (Kenny), Verity Hunt-Ballard (Mary Poppins), Christie Whelan Browne (A Funny Thing happened...), Rohan Nicol, Mike McLeish (Keating), Jolyon James (Moonshadow), Amy Lehpamer (Margaret Fulton), Andy Conaghan and Lisa McCune (easier to list what she hasn't been in). Throw in tight direction from Simon Phillips and music direction from Iain Grandage (whose conducting leads the enthusiasm and joy) and it's hard to get a better night in a concert hall.

As the last week has been filled with ridiculous fighting over the value of King Kong, Shane Warne, the Musical is an apt reminder that there are you-bloody-beauty musicals made in Australia about Australians and Australia (Keating, Margaret Fulton) that don't need squillions to be created.

And let's not forget the absolute gorgeousness of Flowerchildren by Melbourne's Magnormos that finishes on Sunday! (I don't understand how everyone who sees this show falls in utter love with it, but it's not getting the sold out signs that it so deserves.)

But tonight's all about Warnie. If you missed it in 2008, you have to see it to get what the raves were about, and if you loved it then, you'll love it again.

I'd love to see this show out of expensive velvet concert halls and into town halls and local theatres all over the country. It's an awesome work for us theatre snobs, but it reaches way beyond us. This is a show that blokes come to and get up during the show to get another beer. It happened in 2008 and happened in Hamer Hall last night. Dudes got up during the show and came back with beers to watch their Warnie. I scowled at their lack of theatre etiquette, but I fucking love the intent. Yep, this is a show that can be watched while drinking beer and I now wish that I'd asked them to get me one.

Photos by Meredith O'Shea

Review: Songs For Nobodies

Songs For Nobodies
Duet, A Melbourne Theatre Company Production
4 January 2012
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 13 January, then touring
songsfornobodies.com

Somehow I'd missed Bernadette Robinson in Songs for Nobodies. If you also missed it, or know that you have to see it again, it's back in Melbourne at the Arts Centre and it is as great as everyone said it was.

I admit that I'm always dubious about a showcase work – and it's not like Melbourne has a shortage of  Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday or Maria Callas impersonators – so I went along mostly out of curiosity. Sure, curiosity sometimes kills, but it also uncovers choice treats and pillowy warm spots to rest and dream.

First seen in 2009, Songs for Nobodies was created to show off Robinson's astonishing singing. And rightly so; hers is a voice that grabs your heart at first note and doesn't let ago until there's silence. Director Simon Phillips saw this and, knowing that it had to be more than a cabaret, brought playwright Joanna Murray-Smith on board to find the story for this remarkable voice.

The soul of this new work comes from Murray-Smith's decision to not write about the divas whose songs Robinson sings, but to create stories about five nobodies whose lives were changed after encountering one of the great singers. From a 36-year-old ladies room attendant fixing Judy's hem after her concert at Carnegie Hall to a young journalist interviewing Billie and an English librarian telling how her father saw Edith perform in a prison camp, each story is complete and perfect and, for everyone who has seen this show, now inseparable from the well-known songs that accompany them.

Robinson's performance as ten different women is as magnificent as her singing and what makes this show so unforgettable is her seamless merge between characters without any hint of herself in between. For a work all about the performer, the performer is nowhere to be seen and she lets the five nobodies and five broken somebodies soak in the audience love.

This sadly leaves us with  no idea who Bernadette is or how she sounds when she's singing as herself. I'd have loved to see a sixth story or even an encore song, but I wonder if that revelation would take away from all that went before?

Songs For Nobodies is for Judy, Patsy, Edith, Billie and Maria fans and for anyone who hasn't heard them.  Robinson grasps what was unique and incredible about each singer and makes each song sound like it had never been sung before. It's on in Melbourne until Sunday 13 January, then it's off to Sydney and Adelaide.

This appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 
John Frost
27 October 2012
Her Majesty's Theatre
to December 15
funnything.com.au

After the degustation of emotion, politics and confrontation of the Melbourne Festival, what better than a mouthful of fluffy sugar and an almighty fart? A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has no pretentions about being serious art.

First performed on Broadway 1962, it's ancient Rome, where slaves were whipped, women were bought and political correctness meant wearing the right toga to the senate. Giving a finger to the romantic gentility of musical theatre at the time and celebrating the ancient-Greek influences on vaudeville, there are tit, eunuch and fart jokes galore, as it asks the timeless dramatic question, "Who gets to de-virgin the teenager: the virgin boy, his dad or the stranger who bought her from her pimp?".

I've really tried to like this show.

                                                                    From the original recording LP

It was Stephen Sondheim's first score (music and lyrics; his previous work was the lyrics for West Side Story) and the book was co-written with Larry Gelbart (the dude who wrote the best episodes of MASH). If you're expecting dark and biting satire with music that stains your soul, remember that it takes time to hit your stride as an artist. Musically it's forgettable, but hints at the glories that followed, and book-wise there's jokes and structure without a hint of depth or complexity. It's a simplified world where men are manly or limp, and women are lovely and stupid, vejazzled and bendy, or old and sexless.

So why do it? It's as satisfying as a bucket of fairy floss.

Geoffrey Rush wanting to play Pseudolus the scheming slave is the lines-at-the-box-office answer. It's an old-school, star-led romp – and who can resist a romp with our-Geoffrey in a toga? Looking like he's having more fun than he dreamed of, this is Geoffrey's fart-in-the-general-direction to anyone who forgets that it's meant to be fun.

And throw in the commercial-dream cast of telly and theatre must-sees who have earned their first-name recognition because they are all damn good and totally watchable.  There's Shane Bourne, Magda Szubanski and Gerry Connolly for the oldies; Hugh Sheridan for the youngies;  Mitchell Butell, Christie Whelan-Browne and Adam Murphy for the theatries; and Bob Honery for everyone (Bob was in the original Australian production in 1964).

It may be the best that a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum can be.

Director Simon Phillips turns the serious to 0 and the giggle-and-hoot to 11. And Gabriella Tylesova's design of cardboardy houses and tassled-togas is as witty as any of the jokes. Like her design for Love Never Dies, it's an eye-orgasm to look at with detail that creates the world and the characters in an instant.

It's a show where the cast are applauded before they open their mouths, corpsing is compulsory and anyone daring to question its politics or guts will be scoffed at.

This appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby

Review: The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest
MTC
17 November 2011
Sumner Theatre
to 14 January 2012
www.mtc.com.au

The Importance of Being Earnest is pretty much sold out. As Simon Phillips's  original 1988 production is still talked about, tickets to its revival were swooped upon. And the promise of Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell certainly helped. The good news is that standing room spots are being released. So is it worth some queuing and tired legs?

Yep.

It's gorgeous and fun and the joy of watching our Geoffrey is worth a leg cramp.

To round off his final season of plays about the perils of being wealthy and middle class, where else could Phillips go but back to Oscar Wilde's satire of Victorian sensibilities and the mask of manners. First produced in 1895, its ridiculous story is balanced by its wonderful plot and a love of language and wit that few have come near to matching. In other words, it's one of the funniest things ever written.

From the first sight of Tony Tripp's re-realised design, there's no doubt that this Earnest should please even the most cynical. His black and white pop-up book set has delicious hints of Victorian erotica that contrast with the feathers, lace and velvet of the frocks, umbrellas, hats, handkerchiefs and handbags. It's sparseness leaves space for the text, while the complexity of the costumes establishes the expectation of the characters so that the cast are free to let them be so much more than what's expected.

And none frock up more magnificently than Rush. Treating the text like music, he doesn't miss a beat or a grace note and his restrained and refreshingly straight Lady B lets her power comes from more than her age and position.

And he is among a Wilde-wet-dream cast: Patrick Bramwell (Algernon), Toby Schmitz (Jack), Christie Whelan (Gwendolyn) Emily Barclay (Cecily), Jane Menelaus (Miss Prism), Bob Honery (Lane and Merriman) and Tony Taylor (Chausable). Some are less comfortable with the language and there are moments when giving in to the rhythm of the text will free the laughs, but each surprise and bring something unexpected to the well-known characters.

As Simon Phillips's MTC swan song, Earnest soars above criticism, so keep your tickets safe or try for the rare spots left.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies
The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific
28 May 2011
Regent Theatre
www.ticketmaster.com.au

On opening night, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber took a bow and shared the overflowing audience love with the Australian cast of Love Never Dies.  He told us he was never happy with the London version and said that this could be the best production he's seen of one of his shows.

After the West End version's mixed reviews (read bollocking) and the "postponement" of the Broadway version, all musical theatre eyes turned to Melbourne to see if the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera is really that scary. Regardless of any opinion,  Sir Andrew says it's what he imagined and Graeme Murphy (choreography) should have shown the knight how to do a convincing happy dance.

And so Sir A should be thrilled. Simon Phillips strong direction leads a perfect cast, from the faultless and gorgeous ensemble to Ben Lewis as the Phantom, who I'd love to see play the original. Maria Mercedes (my favourite Frank'N'Furter) brings a creepy darkness to Madame Giry; Sharon Millerchip (who was Meg Giry in the original Australian production of Phantom) lets Meg struggle with bitterness and hope; Simon Gleeson shows the sadness and regret in Raoul; and Anna O'Byrne (who was so wonderful as Polly in Malthouse's Threepenny Opera) makes us believe Christine's regrets.

However, the star of the show is designer Gabriela Tylesova. Her design creates a nostalgic Coney Island with a part-irresistible, part-nightmarish beauty. This spectacular world of pearled colours, sepias and greys is like a hand-coloured seaside postcard, but it's an uncomfortable world where the glorious freaks outnumber the happy visitors. No detail has been spared on the exquisite costumes of hand-sewn lace,  beads and brocade, while the joy and humour of her seaside and dancing-girl costumes fills the stage. And the only thing more gorgeous than the painted tights are the shoes. The sight lines up front mean that a bit too much backstage "mystery" is revealed (which this can and must be fixed), but seeing the shoes and the boots (oh my god, those boots) is worth it. I couldn't decide which pair I loved the most.

Ok, so this production is glorious, so why are there so many euthanasia jokes about Love Never Dies?

Perhaps because a story with no heart doesn't need a Do Not Resusitate order.

It's ten years since the Phantom escaped his lynching in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House and lovers Christine and Raoul were free to get it on in peace. Christine's become famous, they have a ten year old son (who likes music) and they're in debt (not sure why). Meanwhile Madame and Meg Giry followed the Phantom to Coney Island where Meg is still trying to get his attention (and this time she's getting her gear off ). Oh, and Christine really did find the courage to show him he "is not alone" and has been pining for her deformed father-angel.

For those unfamiliar with the Phantom story, I'm not sure what narrative question brings new audiences into this piece, and those who know it will spend time re-assessing their memories of the characters and the story. Dramatically, most of act one is given away in the opening number (where Lewis is amazing), the exposition outweighs the story progression and the highlights of the rest are Meg's stand alone numbers with the ensemble and any time the whole cast is on the stage and the story is having a breather.

I think The Phantom of the Opera is a perfect piece of theatre; musically, emotionally and dramatically. I'm an unashamed fan of Sir Andrew. Cats will always be awesome, I don't know why Aspects of Love was never huge and I have a cassette of Starlight Express and enjoyed every lycra-clad, roller-skating moment of the Melbourne production. There, I've said it.

If someone had played me the music of Love Never Dies, I would have guessed it was a parody of Lloyd Webber. Musically, it's forgettable and dreary and builds to a climax song that relies on the voice of O'Byrne and the outrageously glorious design (even if we all know that the coloured peacocks are boys).

The music is sadly matched by the lyrics that lack any hint of subtext and ("A man as hideous as this is capable of anything") and fail to show anything that isn't bleeding obvious.

But all could be forgiven with a great story. Ben Elton wrote the book. Ben Elton: the alternative-comic hero of the 80s and 90s; the wittiest bloke on the planet; the man who spits out more best sellers than most people read; a dude who understands story. Yes, I am also a fan of Ben Elton and have wiped the recent Channel 9 experience from my memory. I don't know how he wrote this story. There's no tension, no mystery, no compelling dilemmas (dilemma is equal and compelling choices, not a coin toss between which is the least dull), no humour (!) and has a lazy and unfulfilling ending worthy of a day time soap.  However, the cast bring everything they have to make it as emotionally real as possible and I saw a couple of tears shed.

This production is an incredible opportunity to fix Love Never Dies and remind all the disbelievers of just how much Sir Andrew changed and influenced musical theatre.  I tired to "look with my heart and not with my eyes", but the only thing my heart skipped a beat over were the shoes.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Marion Potts Lecture and MTC 2011

How can it already be time to think about 2011?

If you're thinking about what theatre subscriptions to give as the big December present, MTC 2011 is now open and Malthouse is teasing us with their new Artistic Director. 

Marion Potts is the new 2011 Artistic Director of Malthouse Theatre and presented the 2010 Rex Crompton Memorial Lecture last week. Don't worry if, like me, you missed it because Malthouse have given us the pdf of her speech. I'm excited.

The MTC also recently announced their 2011 season, Simon Phillips' twelfth and last season with the company. 

Of course, it'll be a hoot and a half to see Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell and Ewen Leslie as Hamlet, and it's wonderful to see new works by Melbourne writers (and darlings of the independent scene)  Robert Reid and Lally Katz; especially as both are directed by Aiden Fennessy, which makes me smile.

But nothing has made me as excited and terrified as Don Parties On. Oh yes, David Williamson has written a sequel to Don's Party. Garry Macdonald is in it and Robyn Nevin is directing. If it's as brilliant as the original, I'll take back everything I've said about Williamson's recent works. If it's the biggest car crash to ever hit an Australian stage...well I won't be the only vitriolic blogger.

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: Richard III

Richard III

Melbourne Theatre Company
29 April 2010
Sumner Theatre

If you don't love Shakespeare...well you probably won't admit it cos he's the greatest playwright ever and it's on par with saying you think The Beatles and Beethoven are crap. So the MTC crowd will toast Richard III with a bottle of Grange they've had since the 70s, even if it tastes like mould and vinegar.

I love our favourite Bard because his stories are brilliant. He writes about damaged souls facing impossible choices, tells some delightfully crude jokes and has a fine way with Queen Elizabeth 1's English. But let's not forget that his writing is dense and bloody difficult to read. Who didn't groan when they had to wade though a Shakespeare at high school and just read the Cliffs notes? I still go straight to Wiki for a plot summary when I see a bard tale because it's rare to really understand what's going on up on that stage (even in the plays I know well).

I don't give a hoot how good the individual performances are (at this professional level, I expect every performance to be awesome) or how clever the design is or how witty the contemporary references are if the story on that stage is muddled.

Richard III doesn't have an especially complicated plot: Bloke with short-man/cripple complex wants respect/fear/love/power, so he bumps off everyone standing between him and the crown. The story comes alive with a curse from his mum and the unescapable and hideous propositions he offers to the women in his life. 

Simon Phillips's  Richard  is chock full of original moments and bonus funny stage business. The West Wing corridors of power are instantly recognisable, the multiple death penalty chamber and the Guantanamo orange suits are poignant, the Messenger/text message joke is champagne worthy, and I don't mind that bad-guy Richard looks a bit like Hitler and good-guy Richmond could be a Barak Obama stand in.  But none of this helps tell the story.

With Shakespeare the story has to be the most important thing. No words were spoken in the best  Hamlet I've seen. My favourite Romeo and Juliet wasn't in English. The creators have studied the text and know it well, but they have to assume that each audience is coming to it fresh. The glorious words are the body and guts of the script, but they are a gross mess without a spine to keep them in order.

Richard III is about power and this version was set in a centre of contemporary power, but doesn't play with the appeal of power. (Something done perfectly in The West Wing). Men (in this story they are men) gain an aura of fear/allure/appeal when they are in positions of extreme power.  Even their immediate underlings and once-equal friends fall under this spell. How many young women washed their dresses after a visit with Clinton? In what world would Little Johnny have respect if he didn't have power? Even the mad monk is getting it. But Richard didn't. It's not like Shakespeare didn't put it in the script. This change of status and power has to be seen in the reaction of every person who comes near him. We shouldn't need the limp and hump to know who the most powerful bloke on that stage is.

Not to say it wasn't a fine limp – Ewen Leslie will be rightly remembered for this Richard, but I'll remember this production for its mass of be-suited middle-aged, middle-class sameness. 


This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Rock ‘n’ Roll

MTC

February 2008

The Playhouse, the Arts Centre

 

Tom Stoppard brilliantly uses the potent, resonating, loud, angry symbolism of rock and roll throughout Rock ‘n’ Roll. Stoppard continues to write superb scripts; so why is the MTC’s production about as rock ‘n’ roll as Nanna quietly humming “The Sound of Music” as she has a luke warm cup of tea and a Milk Arrowroot?

There’s a very interesting story hidden in the Stoppard script. It combines the historical with the political and the very personal; then wraps it all in an image understood by anyone born in the 20^th century. It follows the lives of an English and a Czechoslovakian academic who met at Cambridge in the 60s. The Czech returned to his home during the brief period of liberty in 1968. Their stories weave through to opening up of Eastern Europe in the late 80s.

I’m sure director Simon Phillips and his cast know the story, but it isn’t told clearly on the stage. The characters, the plot and the context are all confusing. I read the program after the show and learnt things I didn’t know about Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1989 – facts and people that were vital to the story – shame I didn’t understand all of this after watching a three-hour long production. Programme notes are great – but they shouldn’t be necessary to understand a production.

The coherency also suffered from a lack of context. I think the picture of Gough was letting us know it was the 70s. I hope it wasn’t implying that the 1975 debacle in Australian politics was as oppressive as living behind the iron curtain at the same time. The whole production just felt so old school. Here we in Australian theatres, AGAIN pretending that we are in the UK.

I think Stoppard wrote these characters to be played with a generous dose of satire. Has anyone ever said, “The only thing that would make you happy is of the workers owned the means of production” in any context other than a first year politics tutorial? Phillips directed it far too seriously. There wasn’t room to enjoy the humour. A couple of jokes got laughs – but we were laughing at the joke, not the comedy inherent in the script or the characters.

Genevieve Picot and William Zappa stood out amongst the cast. They brought an authenticity and life to their characters and to the stage. The story, however, does revolve around Jan, played by Matthew Newton.  As an actor, you don’t have to like anything the script or the director tells you to do, but your job is to make the audience not only believe, but care about your character.  I didn’t give a toss about Jan and what happened to him. Newton’s performance was as beige as Jan’s high waisted cord trousers.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll set suitably looked like a rock gig with a wall of speakers and a moveable lighting rig. Scenes changes were music, lights and video footage establishing time and place.  A rock concert is bright, loud and imposing. So why weren’t these changes rock and roll? The sound wasn’t even half of 11 and it didn’t take long to suspect that the lights on the rig were just decoration. I can understand many of the decisions made in the direction, but this one just floored me.

In Act 2, Jan says to Nigel, “We mass produce banality in Czechoslovakia.” We seem to be doing it here in Melbourne as well. Am I wrong to expect to walk out of production by our flagship company feeling inspired?

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com