What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 13

One more latecomer; extra late because I ignored email for a couple of weeks. If there are any more late ones, send them through and I'll add them here.

Cathy Hunt
Director, dramaturg

Cathy Hunt

Favourite moments in 2018
Brother’s Wreck by Jada Alberts at Malthouse located you inside a very difficult and unguarded family dynamic,. Taking place during the Darwin build up, it was interrupted with bursts of rage in a powerful performance by Dion William, deep grief just able to be weathered with community, and tough warmth of the auntie kind dispensed by Lisa Flanagan. All finally released as the rain came. Moved and shook me.

Trustees by Belarus Free Theatre at Melbourne Festival and Malthouse. There were moments in this layered work where you had to hold your breath, particularly the charged exchanges between Tammy Anderson and Daniel Schlusser dredging up the underlying colonialism which still snakes between us all and underpins everything in this country. Schlusser stood in for the dominant white men like John Howard and Anderson demanded that we really see her as a black woman comfortable in her own skin and a playwright, while dismissing and tolerating his extravagant and vocal guilt. The sequence that most struck me was driven by Niharika Senapati who started from a very relaxed place but then was able to escalate and carry the whole audience with her exuberance until they were nearly dancing out of their chairs before she was brutally thrown down and oppressed.

Aurum choreographed by Alice Topp, Australian Ballet. Dance so intoxicating that I couldn’t take in enough with my eyes; unlike anything I’ve ever seen the Australian Ballet make.

Nether choreographed by Lauren Langlois for Next Move 11 at Chunky Move. Like witnessing a new language take form and be articulated through the body. (Reminded me of the film Arrival )

Calamity Jane from One Eyed Man, Arts Centre Melbourne. Recklessly hectic, hugely joyous and delightfully queer, though I badly wanted Calamity to make a home with Katie and depart wildly from the original, heteronormative ending! Seeing it again soon when it moves to the Comedy Theatre. Can’t wait!!

The Crucible at VCA directed by Adena Jacobs. They rediscovered the motif of contamination in witchcraft through a design element of something strange and viscous that looked like maple syrup dripping dow; made me apprehend this play in an utterly new way. Potent gender-blind casting too, Sam Rowe as Mary Warren was quite remarkable, as was Lucy Ansell as John Proctor.

The Nightingale & The Rose, by Little Ones Theatre at Theatre Works, for the astonishing dynamic between Jennifer Vuletic as the Nightingale and Yuchen Wang as the Rose; a strange, sexy impossible yearning between an older woman and younger man (which reminded me of Simon Callow’s book Love is Where it Falls)

Strangers in Between by Tommy Murphy at fortyfivedownstairs for Midsumma directed by Daniel Lammin. It felt so much like Sydney in the 90s, so movingly honouring the families we find for ourselves.

I also really dug Morgan Rose’s The Bachelor S17 E5 at Mechanics – totally inspired. I was there crushed in on the closing night and really loved having the space to contemplate the absurdity of the culture of giving the alpha male so much space and pitting all the female-identified characters against him. Will Bride’s absent minded sense of natural entitlement was absolute gold.

Although I worked on both of these last two shows, I can’t keep from sneakily mentioning them as they were amazing pieces of theatre incorporating music and sound in totally new ways.

Dybbuks from Chamber Made at Theatre Works, conceived and directed by Samara Hersch. This layered work was a truly extraordinary and haunting exploration of how we can live with the dead drawing on the Jewish myth of the Dybbuk who possesses a living person and uses their voice to resolve what can never truly be resolved. Incredible vocal and physical improvisation, it was both visually and aurally overwhelming. A truly unique work to experience, it persists in the memory for its complicated beauty and concentrated consideration of difficult, dark and erotic areas of human experience.

Lorelei by Victorian Opera. A feminist opera featuring gorgeous frocks to make Ru Paul drool by Marg Horwell illuminated by Paul Jackson, directed with virtuosic talent and a superb sense of humour and humanity by Sarah Giles, libretto by Casey Benedetto and Gillian Cosgriff and lush, liquid music by Julian Langdon performed brilliantly by literal sirens Ali McGregor, Antoinette Halloran and Dimity Shepherd.

Looking forward to in 2019
Finally getting to see Blackie Blackie Brown at the Malthouse!

Control by Keziah Warner on as part of Red Stitch; I read some earlier drafts so am really interested to see the final work.

The Australian Premiere of Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill directed by the formidable and phenomenal Jenny Kemp

Also very excited to see Mr Burns, a post-electric play by Anne Washburn at fortyfivedownstairs as I’ve been wanting to see it for a while.

Lady Example by Alice Will and Caroline as I missed it in Next Wave and heard such good things.

Biladurang by Joel Bray sounds really intriguing, performed in a hotel room. I liked his work Dharawungara in Next Move 11.

I’m looking forward to seeing The Selfish Giant for Victorian Opera composed by Simon Bruckard, based on Oscar Wilde’s fairytale.

At MTC, A View From the Bridge directed by Iain Sinclair; heard great things about his production of this play in Sydney.

Also keen to see Golden Shield by Anchuli Felicia King.

And I might be lured back to Arts Centre Melbourne for the return of Merciless Gods.

SM: My favourite thing from Cathy this year is this looking forward to list. A list like this – including shows that are indie, funded, emerging, established, huge, intimate, scripted, developed, adapted, sung, danced – reminds us just how vast and diverse theatre and performance is in Melbourne. If you're looking for a list of shows to see, start here.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 5

Today we go from a 45-minute play in the smallness of La Mama to ten hours of happiness at the Arts Centre and music floating through Docklands, with Patricia Cornelius, Bryce Ives, and Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey.

Patricia Cornelius
playwright

PATRICA: A woman in her middle age stands still, so long she stands still in the half light, half turned into the darkness, buried in a heavy winter coat and a grey mane of unkempt hair whispering almost inaudibly. And these snatches of odd and scattered phrases draw us into a world that lasts 45 minutes at the most and it’s called Bunker and it’s at La Mama.

The creative team are Greg Dyson, Trudy Radburn and Charlie Laidlaw. As in the title the world is a bunker, a place away from danger, an internal place, a place not easy to come back from. I left there moved and elated and yet this piece of theatre had been strange and elusive. I loved that it reminded me of what theatre can be, the strange worlds it can take us to and totally unpretentiously.

And just as Bunker is whispers and scattered phrases, They Saw a Thylacine, with its two story tellers (Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton) inside a cage, is a feast of intertwined, beautifully written narratives. The stories are rich and fine and entirely captivating. These are two actors who are making their own work and their use of language is a reminder of the best in the tradition of storytelling or yarning.  I loved their evident love of language. And I believe I was witness to the beginning of two actors who may continue to write for themselves for awhile but will go on to be wonderful playwrights.

What Patricia is looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.

SM: Savages. OMG. This is writing that gets into your guts. I felt this play more than I watched it. It's hard to be made to understand men whom I despised for everything they thought and said about women – ugly women.

Bryce Ives
director

BRYCE: 2013 has been epic.


Life and Times by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma was quite possibly the best ten hours I'll ever spend in a theatre. A monumentally long examination of our struggle to express ourselves and describe what has happened in our past, it was wonderfully fucked and awkward. I was somehow moved, informed, entertained and somewhat changed by this experience.

Richard Murphett doing Richard Foreman with the graduating VCA actors was a surprising highlight. We went to poetry city, with Eddie, and it was strange, surreal, hysterical and disorienting. Richard Murphett allowed the necessary space to ensure the graduating actors somehow commanded this complex text. It was a celebration of Foreman and the New York avant-garde, but also was strangely relevant to this time and the work we are making in Melbourne.


Finally, Daniel Schlusshner (M+M, Mengerie) continues to lead our mob of makers. Within his work are regular moments that transcend and go to some place other, and it’s these moments that inform my own understanding of what is possible in theatre: how we listen, how we see and how we construct sense in a chaotic world.

Honourable mentions: 
The Story of O by The Rabble took me to the uncomfortable and disturbing part of my dream space. Palace of the End, directed by Daniel Clarke, gave us three astonishing performances of stories that must (urgently and regularly) be heard. And, finally, Einstein on the Beach gave everything I hoped and more.


On a personal note, it’s been wonderful working with the artists at Theatre Works under the unrelenting vision of Daniel Clarke, and alongside my continued collaboration with Nate Gilkes and the Present Tense ensemble. We’ve spent the past six months intensively training and considering our own process, often alongside the amazing Leisa Shelton, an artist who enables other artists and performance makers to better articulate and understand their work. Training with Leisa IS the highlight of each week.

SM: Bryce and I sat next to each other at Life and Times. He laughed at the same things I did; what more can you possibly want at the theatre. It was such a wonderful and happy-making experience that we said we may never be able to go to the theatre together again.

Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey
sound/music artists, long-term collaborators

Dress rehearsal of 5 Short Blasts

MADELEINE AND TIM: Sitting in the audio booth at the State Theatre with three young people from the St Martins Cross Age Ensemble as they waxed lyrical about their responses and insights  to the Australian Ballet’s production of La Sylphide. Their commentary was heard by a small test group of audience members via audio description headsets. In that booth we experienced a sense of both subversion and the sound of a million possibilities opening.

We also had  the busiest year of our career. The image is from our Dress Rehearsal for 5 Short Blasts: that moment when the imagined becomes real is always extraordinary.

You can see 5 Short Blasts until 25 December. Details here.

SM: My excuse for missing 5 Short Blasts was genuine: I was in hospital (nothing bad) on media day. And, you know, mornings.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4
Part 6
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