Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions
17 February 2019 (industry show)
Princess Theatre
harrypottertheplay.com/au/

The Australian company of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Photo by Matt Murphy

"Just read the 'kin' books, A-M."

That was my introduction to the world of Harry Potter in 2001. A friend handed me the books because she was horrified that I hadn't read any of the four. Being in our 30s, we were allowed to swear. By the end of the first chapter, I was equally horrified that I'd been quick to dismiss a children's book about a kid wizard at a posh boarding school. I got the next three books on the day they were released. And haven't devoured any books so quickly since.

It's still overwhelming to try and understand the global cultural impact of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series: 500+million copies sold, translated into 80 languages, best-selling book series ever. That's before the films, theme parks and JK's awesomeness on Twitter.

It's so much that I'm pretty sure that no review needs to explain anything about Harry, Ron and Hermione's years at Hogwarts. Even muggles know about them.

I wasn't convinced about the 19-years-later epilogue to book seven because it took away the readers' imagined futures for these loved characters. And I already felt a bit sorry for Harry and Ginny's kids who had to live up to being the children of the too-famous Boy-Who-Lived and being named after their dad's dead hero parents. Which seems light compared to the burden given to Albus Severus, the middle child, who's being sent off to wizard school named after two wizards who saved his dad and changed the world not very long before he was born.

The Australian company of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Photo by Matt Murphy

It's here that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child begins. And I take back every thought I had about not publishing the epilogue.

This new theatre story opened in London in July 2016. It's since opened on Broadway and the Australian production is the third. All are breaking theatre sales records, have won/will win piles of awards and are likely to run for so long that slowly saving up to buy a ticket is an option.

This new story begins as soon as you arrive at the theatre. The Princess has been refurbished for this show. It's now pretty much Hogwarts with dragon gargoyles, hand-painted walls and bespoke carpet. It's bloody gorgeous. And there are new comfy seats and backstage work that future shows are going to be grateful for.

But we're here for the story and are back on Platform 9 3/4 with the Potters and the Granger-Weasley's sending their children off to Hogwarts. As first years Albus and Rose Granger-Weasley are no-choice-cos-cousins friends, there's a bit of apprehension that this is going to be the kids re-living their parents' adventures story.

It's not.

Rowling, script writer John Thorne and director John Tiffany know that fans who have grown up with these stories deserve new paths.

#KeepTheSecrets is all over social media, on badges given to the audience at at the end of each part, supported by JK and is as effective as any spell. I'm pretty sure the spell extends to the published script because I'd forgotten most of it since I read it.

I'm keeping the secrets.

I'm happy to have very long discussions in person though.

William McKenna and Sean Rees-Wemyss . Photo by Matt Murphy

There's so much unexpected joy in the on-stage twists and revelations – even the heartbreaking ones – that it'd be heartless to deny any fan those experiences. Even the program has spoiler alerts and warns readers when to stop reading.

It's not a secret that Albus (Sean Rees-Wemyss) befriends Scorpius Malfoy (William McKenna) and that the Sorting Hat makes a decision that will make people re-think their own house choices. Or that they muck about with time.

Fans will continue to debate whether it's canon. Most accept it's a story by JK, so it's now part of the world – even if it changes the consistency of a few million works of fan fiction. (Warning young cast members: you will be getting fan fiction written about you. It may be creepy.)

The script has moments of awkward exposition and favours the sentimental with an over-earnest belief in the power of love and friendship, but its tone is so like the books that minor flaws make no difference to the overall enjoyment of the story. They might stand out more if you don't know the world or appreciate that there are references and bonuses for fans in everything.

The new adventure brings in new characters but continues to explore the ongoing impact of Harry's traumatic childhood; he has some issues with being a dad. And it develops the characters of Ginny (Lucy Goleby) and Draco (Tom Wren) from love interest and enemy to adults who still spend way too much time dealing with Harry Potter (Gareth Reeves). Draco also has some daddy issues to deal with. Hermione (Paula Arundell) and Ron (Gyton Grantley) are, of course, also in the mix and it's no surprise that Hermione is a super success, that she and Ron are still in love, and that Ron is a pretty good dad.

Many other favourite Potter characters are welcomed back with squeals of love (or fear that is still love), but the story is led by Albus and Scorpius, whose trio is completed when they befriend a young witch called Delphi (Madeleine Jones) and set out to correct a wrong doing.

As in their own world, the new characters have to stand out amongst those who are already known, and one of the many delights of this production is how quickly Albus and Scorpius become as loved as the rest. Possibly because Albus is the child Harry deserves and that Scorpius is the child that Draco could have been had be been allowed to be enthusiastic and awkward – and been loved by his dad. And also because Rees-Wemyss and McKenna's bring complexity and questions to their performances.

The new characters have the freedom of being themselves, while the established ones have has 20-odd years of expectations from millions of fans weighing on them. Instead of trying to satisfy everyone, the cast (widely chosen from tv, funded theatre, indie theatre, music theatre and cabaret) seem to bring their own experiences of this world into their characters – even those who weren't born when the first books were released.

Some characterisations may be different from how readers have imagined them, but every one – from Harry to the unnamed Hogwarts students – reaches into the fandom and brings connection and understanding and a delightful mix up of expectations. All are wonderful, but keep an eye out for Debra Lawrance, Gillian Cosgriff and Soren Jensen.

The Australian company of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Photo by Matt Murphy

Regardless of the ongoing passionate discussions of canon and consistency, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was written as a theatre story and is told by theatre magic.

The design (Christine Jones) also begins in a train station where suit cases become train carriages but the most astonishing scenes are created by audience imaginations filling in the empty spaces. Some of the most emotionally significant scenes are created as simply as cast members moving a staircase.

There's never an attempt to hide the magic of being on stage. There's where's-your-nose sleight-of-hand magic alongside astounding black light work and misdirection. As an audience, we're able to imagine how the tricks work, except those that must be real magic because WOW!

There's so much WOW!
WOW! that never had to deal with budget constraints.
Heart-stopping, brain-bending, do-it-again WOW!, which is as much part of #KeepTheSecrets as the story.

I loved Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. 

As a fan, I want everyone else who loves this world to be able to see it.

But so many people will miss out on this experience because going to the theatre is expensive. It'd cost me a month's rent to take my niece and nephew. If I won the Friday Forty lottery, I'd have to make an impossible choice as to who gets to see it. I'm not denying the costs of creating such a show and keeping it running but there must be ways to welcome more people into the theatre.

Sponsors, government, producers, how can this be an experience that welcomes everyone?

As critics have no bias,  I knitted a Gryffindor-Slytherin-Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw scarf to wear to the show.

What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 4

Today Fleur Kilpatrick, Soren Jensen and Kerith Manderon-Galvin talk about moments of human connection. If that connection isn't there, what's the point of making and going to see theatre?

Fleur Kilpatrick
playwright, blogger, mentor

Photo by Matto Lucas

Fleur: Melbourne theatre is in a really great place right now. On a regular basis I find myself dumbstruck, standing in awe in a theatre foyer, words inadequate to describe what I’ve seen. I saw over 80 shows this year. Here are some of my personal highpoints:

Red Stitch’s Grounded. I wrote of it at the time that it was “outstanding storytelling that immerses us so deeply in one person’s world view that it changes our own”. But I also wrote of the very personal impact this show had on me: “Sitting there and hearing of the brown people made grey by the drone’s cameras, made body-parts by their blasts, and I was acutely aware – although no one would know it to look at me – that these people looked just like my beloved grandmother… I knew this and it tore me to pieces. In showing how America de-humanises both its own and my grandmother’s people, Grounded found humanity for both”.

There was exceptional new writing to be found in Melbourne and Fringe was full of it: Marcel Dorney’s Prehistoric made me want to riot. It was the best possible mix of rage, heart, comedy and music and my heart felt like it was exploding in my chest.

Also during Fringe I saw Emilie Collyer’s Once Were Pirates and Mark Wilson and Olivia Monticciolo’s Richard II (on the same day so that was a total overload of amazingness).

Emilie’s work somehow found a way to present the dilemmas of being “the modern male” through a story about pirates marooned in Northcote: after centuries and centuries in which physical dominance and brutality have been a man’s most desirable attribute, how does one suppress that violence and find their own self-worth in their suit and tie?

Richard II was perhaps the most politically challenging and defiant work I saw all year. I wrote at the time about how proud I was of Mark and Olivia, who “grabbed Shakespeare’s text with their teeth and dragged it into our ugly present. This is independent theatre at its best: vicious, dangerous, entertaining, hilarious and completely of this moment in time”.

But the work that I’ll carry with me into the future, cradled most tenderly to my chest was Roslyn Oades’s Hello, Goodbye, Happy Birthday. I didn’t write about it at the time and still sort of don’t want to. My experience felt too private. Aside from just being utterly swept up by the storytelling and performances, this was one of those shows that changed my perception of what theatre can be: how delicately it can make its point and how tenderly it can give voice to a community.

Thanks Melbourne. I love you.

SM: Fleur wrote The City They Burned. She wasn't there the night I saw it; I wish she had been so that she could've seen that my reaction was deep in my guts and very real. This is also the show I've argued about – professionally and personally – the most about this year. I saw it push known and refuse-to-acknowlegde buttons as it got reactions from "best thing I've seen" to "some things should never be written". I think that's what we want from theatre. I'd rather someone hate a show than think "meh"; at least they felt something real.

And we both mentored at MUST camp. Drama camp was awesome.

And School for Birds, always.

Soren Jensen
actor

Soren: With a new little one taking up much of our time, I missed more of the good stuff than I got to see this year. But made it along to a few standouts.

Hard to go past the end of year Calpurnia Descending. Powerful cast, hilarious, subversive and the technical elements of the live movie staging of Act 2 blew my mind the more I thought about it. Irreverent, fun and with a deeply-touching final image.

Also the powerful work from MKA with Richard II was very memorable. Intelligent political satire with two compelling performances, and a strip tease from Mark Wilson as Julia Gillard that made me angry, until I realised how not far off the point it was of our treatment of our first female PM. It was topical, with the right balance of classical text and modern satire.

But my favourite moments this year came from when the fourth wall was dropped in some of the things I experienced in theatre this year:

Mark in Richard II dropping all performance and addressing the audience with “They remember Whitlam”

Pop Up Playground's True Romans All, which threw you into the story of Julius Caesar, making you choose a side and meet the characters, and your choices determined the final outcome of the attempted assassination.

Mockingbird’s Quills, which led the audience straight into the asylum of the “lunatics”, which I had the pleasure to observe as assistant director

And finally, the experience of The City They Burned, which fully immersed the audience in the world of Sodom, making them present, validated and, in the end, complicate in the action that was unfolding.

I found with all of these, when the question is asked what can theatre offer in a modern interactive and expanding world of technology, that I could remember these moments of direct human connection between audience and performer, to the point where the audience could influence and help shape what was being experienced in that particular performance and say “This”.

SM: As a performer in The City They Burned, Soren did get to see my reaction, and was responsible for some of it. Soren is an actor who consistently creates characters from the inside out. I don't see his acting. As the cast of City interacted with the audience, there was a moment when I was hiding on a staircase in case someone asked me to dance. Soren's character was someone I wouldn't normally chat to at a party and when he came towards me, I had no where to hide, so had to give in and do what I was asked to. All we did was move to another part of the room. He also saved my theatre date by moving her to a less-confronting spot.

Kerith Manderson-Galvin
playwright, performer

It's much easier for me to think of my worst moments in theatre of 2014. That time I thought a show was a comedy and it wasn't. The time I thought the show I was in didn't exist. The times I was hurt by shows and times when I hurt myself because of my inability to sit still and just enjoy something.

The best moments are:

5) I took myself on a solo date to see Miley Cyrus. I wore Sally Hansen Airbrush Fake Tan and drank pink champagne and danced in new shoes next to teenagers. Miley was funny and fearless and clever and so was the show. She tried to get all the girls in the audience to kiss each other and I cried of happiness. Then she sang "Wrecking Ball" and I cried because that song is really moving and I had a difficult break up last year where I listened to Miley on repeat. When I left the show a young girl yelled out "Lady Gaga" and she was talking about me.

4) During the Melbourne Fringe I went on an OK Cupid date with someone I didn't really want to meet to see a show I didn't really want to see. I cancelled on the date. Then I uncancelled. On the way I got in a fight with someone on the street who then started following me. But I couldn't be happier I went. The show was Post-Mortem and I loved every moment of it. It was gentle and touching and sad and sweet and other words to describe a show with no words. I wish everyone could've seen it. I hope they do it again and more. It took me in to another world and I am so thankful for it. It was untouched and original and genuine. The date turned out to be pretty lovely too although he's a bit of a jerk really. I think he doesn't really like me as a person.

3) Crazy Horse Paris. I went to Crazy Horse in Paris. It was life affirming and probably my favourite thing I have ever seen ever.  There’s also Crazy Horse on Elizabeth Street. I went to the cinema there the other night. I really like it there.

2) Everything about Tobi Manderson-Galvin. Thank You, Thank You Love was exceptional and his best work to date as an actor/writer/director. My favourite Tobi moment is being in Bundanon and looking at wombats and writing songs together. We wrote a really good song about the internet being broken and then replaced the word internet with the name Antoinette: "Antoinette, why are you broken again?" My second favourite Tobi moment of 2014 is when we both went to Live Art Camp and I was terrified the entire time and kept crying but he looked after me. We played a getting to know you game on one of the days. We had to say what we couldn't live with out and I said, "my brother".

1) The Facebook message sent to me by someone in Melbourne Theatre Land telling me I *used* to be a pleasant and likeable girl. I cried for a long time but it's now my favourite thing that has happened all year. If you come and see Being Dead (Don Quixote) chances are that message will have made it in to the show. A woman never has to be pleasant.

**Honourable mention to the other night when I went to a show and asked my date if my hair was as long as the actor's on stage. My date said my hair is longer. That makes me really happy.

SM: Fuck pleasant and likeable. Actually, who wants to fuck pleasant and likeable? I love that Kerith always pulls me up if she thinks I'm being an old fuddy duddy. She made me look at Miley differently. And I love that she sat next to me when I saw her play Don't Bring LuLu at Melbourne Uni Union House Theatre. So often arts writers sit alone or, at least, not next to the artists who created the work we're watching. I love watching people watch their own work.

But my moment was her sending me the picture of her being a wombat because I would have chosen that very photo from all of her Facebook pics.

2103 Favourites
2012 Favourites

Reveiw: The City They Burned

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2014
The City They Burned
Attic Erratic
6 September 2014
Cavern Table Performance Space
to 23 September
atticerratic.com

Photo by Sarah Walker

Attic Erratic's The City They Burned is a re-telling of the Genesis story of Lot and his family. I remember learning about godly Lot at my Anglican school: Lot is told by God and his angels to get out of town, Lot's selfish wife looks back at their town of Sodom and God turns her into a pillar of salt for questioning his will and valuing her materialistic life.

Like slabs of the Old Testament, the understanding of what makes a good person is subjective and bits of the stories are often missed in the telling. When I drew Bible story pictures at primary school, they didn't include gang rape, incest, incest-rape and God generally being a dick by destroying everyone, except Lot, with a rain of fire. And we didn't discuss how Sodom gave us the word sodomy.

This tale is from books – the story of Lot is also in the Quran and the Torah – that continue to control so many people's lives, morality and decisions. As long as these stories keep being told, we need to keep looking at them to try to understand and continue to question why they are still at the core of so much in our society.

Writer Fleur Kilpatrick says that she wants to question the concept of bad or evil. What did the people of the city of Sodom do to deserve being wiped off the face of God's good earth?

What would happen if God were removed from the story?

Is a godless world compassionless and devoid of hope? Is it any different from a God-loved world?

Photo by Sarah Walker

Welcome to Sodom, where Lot (Scott Gooding) and his wife Ado (Jessica Tanner) are our hosts at a party. Lot is the manager of the factory where the good men of Sodom (Brendan McCallum, Dave Lamb and Soren Jensen) work. No one has heard from anyone in nearby Gomorrah in the last hours and they are getting worried as the party is in the honour of two inspectors (Dushan Philips and Kane Felsinger) who have just left Gomorrah. These men are outsiders; they dress strangely and don't look like Sodomites; they don't drink and they have a power that no one really understands.

The theatre is a converted warehouse in Collingwood. The audience go into a large living room that's  op shop chic with touches of "I want that" and "the eyes are following me" (designed by Rob Sowinski). We're offered food on sticks and drinks – bring $5; you'll want a drink – and it takes a while to realise that the performance has started and that we're the guests at a party where there's no line between audience and stage.

Conversations take place concurrently or in corners that only some people can see. Some of the most telling action happens in reactions; don't feel bad for turning your back on an actor. The actors treat the audience like known friends or workmates and some people don't like their conversations being overheard.

At one point, I was the only person watching Thamma (Shoshannah Oks) and Pheine (Brianagh Curran), Lot and Ada's daughter's, and one gave me a look that made me look away. Not long after, Ada stood near me as the worst thing she could imagine was happening metres away and I wondered if I should comfort her.

Director Danny Delahunty ensures that the overall story is clear and keeps moving. The details are bonus secret moments that might only be shared between one person and an actor and may not happen at all in another performance.

As the mood of the party goes from fun to awkward to dangerous – the inspectors aren't there to do good –  the audience is made to feel more and more uncomfortable, and it takes faith to trust that we are safe and only watching a game of make believe.

Photo by Sarah Walker

The second half of the night takes place in an old attic that's been transformed into a more traditional theatre space. Here, the audience are allowed back into the safe role of unseen watchers, but the room is small and close and dark.

Lot and his family escaped to a cave that isn't dark enough to not see what happens in the blackness. There are worse things than being turned into a salty metaphor, and it asks: what would you do if you thought you were the only humans left on earth.

While the first half makes the audience feel complicit in the decisions made at the party (none of us objected), the second half makes the audience watch the unfolding consequences of those decisions.

It's not easy theatre to watch.

But it's theatre that questions how form and writing can work so closely that it's impossible to see where one ends and the other begins. Kilpatrick's writing is so beautiful and strong that it disappears and doesn't sound like writing because we're so immersed in the immediate experience of being in Sodom.

Meanwhile Delahunty's unseen control makes sure that the moments and connections that need to be seen aren't missed. In the cave, I kept remembering seeing Thamma hug her dad at every opportunity at the party.

And the cast are exceptional. There's no safely zone of a stage for them to hide in either.

The City They Burned declares Attic Erratic as the next independent company to make a mark so unforgettable that a hole would exist in Melbourne's theatre scene without them. In the last three years, they've developed from theatre graduates doing their thing (I called them vanilla) to theatre makers who are getting bolder and more unforgettable with each production.

The audience capacity for this show is very limited and is already selling out. Book now and don't wait until their Fringe season.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: The Judas Kiss

The Judas Kiss
Mockingbird Theatre
15 March 2014
Theatre Works
to 22 March
theatreworks.org.au

Mockingbird Theatre continue to give us memorable text-on-stage productions of the plays that we wish we'd seen the original productions of, and give performers the chance to play roles that they've dreamed of. At Theatre Works this week, they're giving us The Judas Kiss: David Hare's imagining of the behind-doors conversations in a hotel before Wilde's arrest for gross indecency and in Naples after his release from gaol and not long before his impoverised death.

The first production, 1998, Sir David (The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, The Hours) described as "deeply unsatisfactory" in a 2013 interview in The Guardian. He said it went "off kilter " as he "wanted to smash every cliche about Wilde" and by casting "Ireland's most famous heterosexual as Wilde, we were possibly trying to sail away from stereotypes a little too far". Liam Neeson was Wilde and Tom Hollander was his lover and downfall Bosie, Sir Alfred Douglas.  No matter how off kilter, I wish I'd seen it.

In 1999, Belvoir toured Neil Armfield's production in Australia (with Billie Brown as Wilde) and Armfield went to London in 2012 to direct a much more successful UK version (with Rupert Everett as Wilde).

Mockingbird's founder, Chris Baldock, is our Wilde. At first, I wanted him to stop being an idealised impression of witty Wilde – to be more off kilter – but as Wilde let his public persona drop behind the closed hotel doors, Baldock's performance developed into something far more complex and fascinating. It's clearly a role he's always wanted to play and his years of preparation are felt on the stage.

The rest of the cast (Nigel Langley, Oliver Coleman, Zak Zavod, Laurent Murtagh, Soren Jensen and Nores Cerfeda) all bring a personal understanding and empathy to their characters, which makes for heartfelt – if, at times, uneven – performances. And all occasionally stumble over the naturalism problem of how to stand and listen or disappear into the background.

Also not helping is a set that looks like a suburban amateur company's period-drama set used since the 1950s and finally left out for hard rubbish. Resources, demands of the text and the spacious Theatre Works stage are all understood, but it's a distraction and undermines the quality of the rest of the production.

Still, director Jason Cavanagh, with assistant director Celeste Cody, bring a world that's true to the (long) text while creating a curiosity about Wilde and a wish that he'd made different choices. I'd like to have seen more of the love between Wilde and Bosie as, in this play, it's this love (destructive, obsessive or unseen by anyone but the two of them) that governs all of Wilde's decisions and it would help to support his choices rather than wanting him to slap Bosie and run off with Robbie. And given the play opens with a nude and lusty boy-girl sex scene, there's an expectation that sex is going to play a much bigger part in the story.

The Judas Kiss has its off kilter moments, but they don't knock it too far off balance and, as the chances of seeing this play in the near future are slim, it's well worth seeing.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 6

Today we hear from sisters Declan Greene and Ash Flanders, actor Soren Jenson and composer Andree Greenwell.

Declan Greene and Ash Flanders
The Sisters Grimm

Photo by Claryssa Hummenyj-Jameson 

DEC and ASH: Even though we’re sisters, our taste in art is pretty different. Declan is likely to see a 36-hour throat-singing opera, while Ash would much prefer to watch every season of Survivor in chronological order. I guess in that sense, we’re both into painful, durational work.

That said, one thing we definitely both obsessed over this year was The Rabble’s Story of O (NEON). It was legitimately dangerous work: incisive, brutal, and fearless in its politics, but married with an incredible eye for startling imagery. And it was also shit-yer-dakkz funny, which was necessary, as we actually have no attention sp

SM: I'd so watch every episode of Survivor in chronological order; "The tribe has spoken."

How can I choose a favourite moment from The Sovereign Wife or Summertime in the Garden of Eden? How can anyone do that?! Maybe it's the first glimpse of their achingly perfect casting. Or seeing the set for Summertime and knowing that they'd found a designer (Marg Horwell) who created a world that looked like their brains had spilled onto the stage. 

Or this:

Whatever, this may be the last year that they're not obscenely famous (and famously obscene), so I should be glad that they still speak to me.

And see what the Sisters are looking forward to in 2014 at issimo.com.

Soren Jensen
actor

SOREN: Probably the standout moment for me was the NEON festival. A sold out season of independent theatre in the Southbank Theatre. While I missed Schlusser's and Fraught Outfit's pieces (Menagerie, On the bodily education of women), I heard great responses and I was then blown away by Hayloft (By their own hands), Sisters Grimm (The Sovereign Wife) and The Rabble (Story of O).

The Story of O, especially, was imagistically beautiful, brave, confronting, torturous, erotic and funny, and the Wife was just far too much fun. And it was so great to see some of my favourite actors getting that sort of exposure.

But mostly it was the experience of seeing worlds blur, with many people coming to the Southbank Theatre for the first time and many MTC audiences being exposed to new companies and the amazing work being done on the independent scene.

At the Melbourne Fringe, MKA's Kids Killing Kids left the audiences, and the cast, with more questions than answers. But the fact that it created so much debate about not just the show but the purpose and responsibilities of artists and theatre itself still resonates within many of my circles of discussion. A brave, frantic, violent and reflective piece of theatre about making theatre. 

I combined this night of Fringe with They saw a Thycaline (a compelling piece of work from Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell) and Randy's (the purple guy) new show, which made for a very compelling and eclectic night of entertainment that I won't soon forget.

To top of it, at the start of the year I was lucky enough to be repeatedly mesmerised (ushering) by Camille O'Sullivan in The Rape of Lucrece, her solo piece from the RSC.  Haunting, devastating and ethereal, it left the audience with hearts broken by the beautifully delivered text and soulful singing. And although the text and subject matter were very confronting, especially performed by someone so pregnant, this just added to the beauty.

Other mentions: MTC's The Cherry Orchard, Karin Danger's Hot Box, Mockingbird Theatre's Kiss of theSpiderwoman, and the performances of Bert LaBonte and Zahra Newman in MTC's The Mountaintop.

SM: Firstly, I dare any dictionary to tell me that imagistically is not a brilliant word.

My moment with Soren was his performance in A Death in the Family, especially when his character wasn't speaking. No matter how well you say lines, they fall flat if a character doesn't really listen to others and watch what's going on. He made me like naturalism!

Andree Greenwell

composer, director

ANDREE: Sitting on the floor of the Salamanca wharf to experience Ryoji Ikeda's Datamatics at the fantastic Mona Foma music festival was a standout event of 2012 for me. What a knockout piece: real panelbeating composition – visual and aural! I love this festival in Hobart; you walk around and see artists from all over the country in a few blocks. It was a special time, sitting with artist Sonia Leber from Melbourne, improviser Jim Denley (NSW) and Rodney Berry who has returned to Hobart town after spending years working as a sound artist in Japan. And then there was the Chesworth Ensemble.

Then, at the Sydney Festival, there was an installation of Ikeda's at Carriageworks that my seven-year-old son loved. Top projections onto a massive white floor and I recall around 14 speakers. Great to see his work in such different spaces.

Andree's new show, The Hanging of Jean Lee, is on at Arts House this weekend (7–8 December). Details here.

SM: I'm still hoping to see The Hanging of Jean Lee, but it can only happen if there's an extra day between Saturday and Sunday.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest

Review: Equuas

Equus
Mockingbird Theatre
3 August 2013
Mechanics Institute
to 17 August
mockingbirdtheatre.com.au

Mockingbird Theatre continue to produce theatrically significant plays whose influence continues to be seen and felt in contemporary theatre. And there's no better way to understand these works than by seeing them. Reading a play is one thing, but plays are not created to be read, they are created to live and be shared with an audience. Mockingbird are currently sharing Peter Shaffer's Equus.

Written in 1973, the UK production of Equus (Shaffer's 12th significant work) went to Broadway and won Shaffer a Tony, Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics' award.  Shaffer's next work was Amadeus, which also won him awards. Equus most recently returned to Broadway in 2009 (and is mostly known because Harry Potter got his kit off).

It's a Freudian play about a uncovering why a young man violently blinded six horses in a stable. Seen from the perspective of the jaded middle-aged shrink treating the boy (Martin Dysart), it explores distorted and confused religion, passion and sexuality, and the writer is more certain about where to lay blame than the fictional psychologist is.

Chris Baldock directs a strong production that respects the text and reflects its famous productions. Its theatrical world is a stable where characters wait and watch the unfolding drama, while surrounded by the six horses who reflect the subconscious of the young man (Alan Strang) whose passion for the horses went so very wrong. It remains in the 1970s of the text, which helps to date the psychology practice and social attitudes (I doubt a contemporary Equus would resonate), while not detracting from any of the pain, confusion and desperate hope.

Highlight opening night performances were Soren Jensen (as Alan's dad), Maggie Chretien (as Alan's potential girlfriend) and Amanda McKay (as Alan's mum). The horses were also terrific. Some performances were still settling into the size and intimacy of the space and felt controlled by the actors, rather than the characters, especially when characters should be listening and reacting to what they hear rather than to their cue.

If you haven't seen, don't know or simply love Equus, see this production; it's a far better experience than reading the play and it's a far better work than many of the shrink dramas that it inspired. And with an overwhelmingly positive reaction to its first shows, it's already selling out, so booking is the best idea.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: A Death in the Family

A Death in the Family
Ward Theatre Company
26 April 2013
Ward Theatre at Docklands Cotton Mills
to 25 May
wardtheatrecompany.com

I'd not heard of the Ward Theatre Company, but they sent me a snail mail invitation that had black butterflies on it, so I had to see them. If sending a cute invite was all it took me to see this show, let's hope that your reading of even this opening will make you see it.

A Death in the Family is company founder and director Wendy Ward's adaption of James Agee's autobiographical novel set in Tennessee in the 1915. Ward is from New York and came to Melbourne in 2010 on a Distinguished Talent visa.  Agee is best known for his film criticism and was nominated for an Academy award as co-writer of the screenplay for The African Queen. A Death in the Family was published posthumously in 1957, after his death from a heart attack at 45, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958.

Adapting novels for stage is very tricky. If a work of art is perfect in itself, adaption means losing much of what makes it so loved. What's so remarkable about this adaptation is that it feels like a novel, with its slabs of narration, but still feels like it was born in a theatre. It's a bit like film with its close focus on character and naturalistic performances, but the direct narration, multi-level space and live music (Helena Plazzer and Emma McKay) ensures that it's a living and peresonal experience.

As narrator Agee, Soren Jensen sets the gentle and loving tone and makes it feel like the author's in the room and telling his story exactly how he remembers it. The intimacy is forced with only 20 seats in the venue  –  a converted warehouse is the gorgeous Cotton Mills community in Footscray (it's worth going just to visit this space) – but it's never uncomfortable, and with no contact from the other performers, it welcomes a closeness that doesn't have the awkwardness of people being watched.

It's a loving and sad story, but what makes it so exquisite is the performances. Although not in style or theme, they reminded me of the performances seen in Mike Leigh's films, which come from no script and weeks of character development and improvisation. Ward uses theatre's Meisner technique, which is based on improvising to bring emotional reality to a text. Each of the actors, Jensen, Darren Mort, Lee McCenaghan, Petra Glieson and Andrew McPhedran, never show they're acting; they listen and react to those around them and show how much they are completely invested in their characters when they're not speaking.  Keep an eye on Jensen during the car scene and Glieson in a kitchen table scene near the end of the second half.

Even though they run until 25 May, there really are are only 20 seats in the theatre, so please book so you don't miss out. I can see this work transferring to bigger venues, but the small audience lets it feel like they are there for you alone.

If I'd known it were two-plus hours, an American story with accents and slabs of narration in an inescapable venue, I may not have gone. If you hear this, don't let pre-conceptions put you off. This is a remarkable theatre experience.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: The Horror Face

The Horror Face

MKA

23 June 2011

MKA Pop Up Theatre

to 9 July

www.mka.org.au

MKA co-founder Glyn Roberts needed to create a company that would champion his writing and let us see his magnificently warped view of the too-close-for-comfort future. The Horror Face has the best lion ever on a stage and play three of season one 2011 proves again that MKA are a shot of adrenalin into the heart of Melbourne's independent theatre.

To prepare for your drugs, you have to put on a disposable lab coat to enter the Pop Up Theatre, where the plastic walls make it feel like Dexter has prepared another kill room, and the only comfort is that at least one of us must survive to tell the tale... if the downstairs door isn't locked. Designer David Samuel is the morphine that takes away the pain of dull design.

And Robert's fearless writing is the amphetamines that force his audience to pay wide-eyed attention to his dystopian world where humans will connect if it's the last think they do. His language dances and trips with the likes of "Armageddon again" and his offstage images are more disturbingly hilarious than the ones on stage. It's more cohesive than his dark Christmas story This is set in the future and this time he's letting the characters lead the action, rather than relying on the surreal and shocking world.

With director Felix Ching Ching Ho balancing the uppers and downers with a tone that rolls from prophetic to confronting, Soren Jensen, Annie Last, Brendan McCallum and Matt Young grab their multiple roles by their delicate bits and ensure that there's only just enough time to draw a breath in between laughs. But in such small room, don't let the audience know how much you're loving this performance. When we glimpse the actor behind the character, their struggle and confusion becomes less powerful.

MKA's The Horror Face is selling out most nights, but if you book now you've got until the end of the week to join the MKA cheer squad. And you'll get to see a gay android and Andrew the lion puppet, who may well be my new favourite performer; Aslan sucks in comparison.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com