Melbourne Theatre Company
16 August 2019
Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
to 14 September
mtc.com.au
 |
| "Golden Shield" photo by Jeff Busby. |
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label Sisters Hayes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sisters Hayes. Show all posts
24 August 2019
Review: Golden Shield
Golden Shield
Melbourne Theatre Company
16 August 2019
Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
to 14 September
mtc.com.au
Melbourne Theatre Company
16 August 2019
Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
to 14 September
mtc.com.au
29 August 2015
Review: Antigone
Antigone
Malthouse Theatre
25 August 2015
Merlyn Theatre
to 13 September
malthousetheatre.com.au
In a desolate concrete yard where the only hint of humanity is a prefab building on stilts, a naked young body is dumped on the ground. Malthouse Theatre's Antigone starts with the Classic story, but it's not Sophocles's Antigone but an Antigone for now that's set in an isolated world where political power is its own reward and where there are no gods to blame or bow to, and no public chorus to witness and comment.
In the 400 BCEs, Ancient Greek playwrights competed in festivals. Filled with reflections and commentary on contemporary society, festivals were the place to hear opinions and figure out your own thoughts about issues. It was a bit like Facebook, but with better spelling. Sophocles won a lot of thumbs up and prizes.
Antigone was the first written but the final of Sophocles's three Thebean plays (that start with baby Oedipus). The first is the best known being about how Oedipus became King of Thebes by unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother, Jocasta. Jocasta and Oedipus had four children: sons, Polyneices and Eteocles; and daughters, Ismene and Antigone. Antigone followed her blind father into exile. The boys then killed each other fighting to be boss, leaving Jocasta's brother, Creon, as King, who declared that Eteocles was to be honoured while Polyneices was traitorous scum whose body was to rot in the open so the gods couldn't get his soul.
Antigone (Emily Milledge) wants to bury her brother. Her sister (Elizabeth Nabben) won't help her, Creon's son (Aaron Orzech) still wants to marry Antigone, and the unnamed Creon (Jane Montgomery Griffiths) wants Antigone and her defiance destroyed. The leader's husband is dead (for those wondering what happened to Eurydice) and the observing chorus are replaced by a guard/torturer (Josh Price) whose silence seems guaranteed.
Director Adena Jacobs and the design team (The Sisters Hayes, set and costume; Paul Jackson, lighting; Jethro Woodward, sound) create a bleak and godless world where hope is useless. The concrete is ice cold comfort and Jackson's lighting asks what's lurking in the surrounding black. Some of the most striking images come from the anticipation of one image and being confronted with something less gruesome but more horrific, like the revelation of tortured Antigone from behind black plastic sheets.
Montgomery Griffiths's text knows this story in many translations (including the Ancient Greek, which makes an unforgettable appearance). She rejects the parts she doesn't need and takes its themes, characters and familiarity to tell a story about now.
It's set in a country that has secret offshore facilities, known for their torture, and a leader who wears perfect black suits, argues that the state is right because it's the state, and refuses to listen to arguments, especially those from an angry and defiant young person. Even 12 months ago, this would have been a different play.
The contrast and similarity of Montgomery Griffiths and Milledge is what drives the work. One has power and age and knows she is right; the other has passion and youth and knows she is right. While a middle ground, cover up or lie seems an obvious solution, compromise is impossible for either woman and neither see how their destruction is mutual and far reaching.
Milledge is all contained passion and anger and Montgomery Griffiths uses the confidence of power to hide her doubts. Nabben shows how Iseme's inability to act comes from being torn in too many directions, Orzech shows how he is destroyed by trying to defy the woman who loves him for a woman she hates, and Price finds the least uncomfortable space between compliance and "don't ask".
There are times when the parallels are too obvious and there's room to tone down the references to Tones & Co (and I don't know what the pants pulling down was about), but if now isn't the time to put these issues to our stages, why do we bother to go to the theatre?
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Malthouse Theatre
25 August 2015
Merlyn Theatre
to 13 September
malthousetheatre.com.au
 |
| Antigone. Emily Milledge. Photo by Pia Johnson |
In a desolate concrete yard where the only hint of humanity is a prefab building on stilts, a naked young body is dumped on the ground. Malthouse Theatre's Antigone starts with the Classic story, but it's not Sophocles's Antigone but an Antigone for now that's set in an isolated world where political power is its own reward and where there are no gods to blame or bow to, and no public chorus to witness and comment.
Antigone was the first written but the final of Sophocles's three Thebean plays (that start with baby Oedipus). The first is the best known being about how Oedipus became King of Thebes by unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother, Jocasta. Jocasta and Oedipus had four children: sons, Polyneices and Eteocles; and daughters, Ismene and Antigone. Antigone followed her blind father into exile. The boys then killed each other fighting to be boss, leaving Jocasta's brother, Creon, as King, who declared that Eteocles was to be honoured while Polyneices was traitorous scum whose body was to rot in the open so the gods couldn't get his soul.
Antigone (Emily Milledge) wants to bury her brother. Her sister (Elizabeth Nabben) won't help her, Creon's son (Aaron Orzech) still wants to marry Antigone, and the unnamed Creon (Jane Montgomery Griffiths) wants Antigone and her defiance destroyed. The leader's husband is dead (for those wondering what happened to Eurydice) and the observing chorus are replaced by a guard/torturer (Josh Price) whose silence seems guaranteed.
Director Adena Jacobs and the design team (The Sisters Hayes, set and costume; Paul Jackson, lighting; Jethro Woodward, sound) create a bleak and godless world where hope is useless. The concrete is ice cold comfort and Jackson's lighting asks what's lurking in the surrounding black. Some of the most striking images come from the anticipation of one image and being confronted with something less gruesome but more horrific, like the revelation of tortured Antigone from behind black plastic sheets.
Montgomery Griffiths's text knows this story in many translations (including the Ancient Greek, which makes an unforgettable appearance). She rejects the parts she doesn't need and takes its themes, characters and familiarity to tell a story about now.
It's set in a country that has secret offshore facilities, known for their torture, and a leader who wears perfect black suits, argues that the state is right because it's the state, and refuses to listen to arguments, especially those from an angry and defiant young person. Even 12 months ago, this would have been a different play.
The contrast and similarity of Montgomery Griffiths and Milledge is what drives the work. One has power and age and knows she is right; the other has passion and youth and knows she is right. While a middle ground, cover up or lie seems an obvious solution, compromise is impossible for either woman and neither see how their destruction is mutual and far reaching.
Milledge is all contained passion and anger and Montgomery Griffiths uses the confidence of power to hide her doubts. Nabben shows how Iseme's inability to act comes from being torn in too many directions, Orzech shows how he is destroyed by trying to defy the woman who loves him for a woman she hates, and Price finds the least uncomfortable space between compliance and "don't ask".
There are times when the parallels are too obvious and there's room to tone down the references to Tones & Co (and I don't know what the pants pulling down was about), but if now isn't the time to put these issues to our stages, why do we bother to go to the theatre?
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
10 October 2010
Review: Carnival of Mysteries
MIAF 2010
Carnival of Mysteries
Finucane & Smith
9 October 2010
the Arts Centre, Playhouse
to 30 October
There may be a handful of tickets still available for Carnival of Mysteries, but not for long. If you have yours, don't let them out of your sight because people like me will cast morals aside and plot to steal them so that they don't miss or can have another wondrous visit to the best carnival ever.
Using such a definitive phrase is never good for objective reviewing, but Moira Finucane & Jackie Smith create worlds so wonderful that it hurts to leave them.
45downstairs has been exquisitely transformed by the Sisters Hayes into a nostalgic but timeless world of sideshow and cocktail bar where there's room to sit with a drink, play a parlour game and watch the bar stage for surprises like Azaria Universe's butterfly dance or the special guest appearances like singer Lois Olney.
But your ticket was exchanged for a stash of the illegal carnival tender, which lets you buy entry into the mysteries of the tiny sideshow rooms or the hand-painted carnival tent for intimate and very personal performances by Finucane & Smith's favourite artists.
Focussed on themes of innocence, passion, mercy, forgiveness and love, these shows are as voyeuristic and confronting as they are personal and liberating. This carnival celebrates all that is wrong with our perceptions of beauty and art, and questions all our notions of right and wrong. It's a world that welcomes the out of place and leaves everyone feeling like they are in a world where they can and will find love, passion and acceptance. And, of course, it's all a bit naughty and very funny.
The only disappointment is not being able to see every secret and mystery. I saw Sosinia Wogayehu's too sexy ball juggling, Maude Davey's glorious library discussion of her grandmother's implied cunt, Brian Lucas's monstrous gigolo, and Moira's Ice Queen and her gothic horror librarian. All were wonderful, but it wasn't enough. I missed treats like Carolyn Lee writing me a letter, Derek Ives not being hanged and Paul Codeiro being the handsomest dancer ever born. And so much more that I'm only just seeing in my keeping-for-ever carnival passport.
The Carnival of Mysteries is the hottest ticket in town and as this first carnival fades into legendary status, those who missed out will claim to have been there. So, do what ever you can to be among those who really were there. And, as it's on in a street that has ACDC and Dame Edna lane, I say we remember the Mysteries and re-name and the alley at the back of 45downstairs Finucane & Smith Lane.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
photo by Jodi Hutchinson
08 December 2009
Review: The Flood
The Flood
Finucane & Smith and La Mama
6 December 2009
La Mama Theatre
A trip to La Mama can be a long hour where you look forward to browsing the Readings sale table and choosing a pastry at Brunetti. The Flood isn’t one of those shows. It is the best piece of new theatre I’ve seen this year.
Jackie Smith is best known for her divine direction of Finucane & Smith's The Burlesque Hour and other wonders, but she has written a script that puts many writers to shame and I’m wondering if she was hanging out with the Shelleys and their friends in Geneva in 1816.
Gothic is more than old Cure albums and spider web tattoos or even knowing when Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein. Gothic literature explores the horror within ourselves and society. It has spawned many a B grade monster, but the authentic stuff really makes your soul shudder. Finucane & Smith’s Gotharama helped me past my false conceptions of Gothic, but The Flood makes me want to start wearing copious amounts of eyeliner and abandon my habit of wearing bright colours.
Two estranged sisters and their demented mother spend a night on their family property. They are isolated, spooked and full of secrets. It’s an Australian Gothic horror that defines the genre.
The story surprises, shocks and still keeps its secrets. It lets us laugh, but never undermines the characters, who are those rare fictional beings so real you know them. They evoke love and hate in equal parts, as you want to stand up and slap them, but can’t because you understand everything they are doing.
The script is remarkable, but it shines with Laurence Strangio’s contained direction; Bronwyn Pringle’s lighting and the Sisters Hayes’s design that creates the most space ever seen in La Mama, while still making us feel cramped; and Natasha Anderson’s sound design makes you want someone brave to go outside and check the rising river.
Which leaves the cast: Shirley Cattunar, Caroline Lee and Maude Davey. I’m at a loss for words. They never let us see the acting.
The Flood will move to bigger theatres, but none will have you in the living room with them or capture the cramped and spooked atmosphere of La Mama. So see it now. It’s sad and oppressive and holds your heart in your throat as you beg to know truth, but know the truth will hurt too much to know. See it. See it. See it.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Finucane & Smith and La Mama
6 December 2009
La Mama Theatre
A trip to La Mama can be a long hour where you look forward to browsing the Readings sale table and choosing a pastry at Brunetti. The Flood isn’t one of those shows. It is the best piece of new theatre I’ve seen this year.
Jackie Smith is best known for her divine direction of Finucane & Smith's The Burlesque Hour and other wonders, but she has written a script that puts many writers to shame and I’m wondering if she was hanging out with the Shelleys and their friends in Geneva in 1816.
Gothic is more than old Cure albums and spider web tattoos or even knowing when Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein. Gothic literature explores the horror within ourselves and society. It has spawned many a B grade monster, but the authentic stuff really makes your soul shudder. Finucane & Smith’s Gotharama helped me past my false conceptions of Gothic, but The Flood makes me want to start wearing copious amounts of eyeliner and abandon my habit of wearing bright colours.
Two estranged sisters and their demented mother spend a night on their family property. They are isolated, spooked and full of secrets. It’s an Australian Gothic horror that defines the genre.
The story surprises, shocks and still keeps its secrets. It lets us laugh, but never undermines the characters, who are those rare fictional beings so real you know them. They evoke love and hate in equal parts, as you want to stand up and slap them, but can’t because you understand everything they are doing.
The script is remarkable, but it shines with Laurence Strangio’s contained direction; Bronwyn Pringle’s lighting and the Sisters Hayes’s design that creates the most space ever seen in La Mama, while still making us feel cramped; and Natasha Anderson’s sound design makes you want someone brave to go outside and check the rising river.
Which leaves the cast: Shirley Cattunar, Caroline Lee and Maude Davey. I’m at a loss for words. They never let us see the acting.
The Flood will move to bigger theatres, but none will have you in the living room with them or capture the cramped and spooked atmosphere of La Mama. So see it now. It’s sad and oppressive and holds your heart in your throat as you beg to know truth, but know the truth will hurt too much to know. See it. See it. See it.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
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