Neon Next and Sisters Grimm
3 September 2016
The Lawler
to 1 October
mtc.com.au
 |
| Candy Bowers, Genevieve Giuffre in Lilith: The Jungle Girl. Photo by Jeff Busby |
 |
| Ash Flanders in Lilith: The Jungle Girl. Photo by Jeff Busby |
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label mtcNEON. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mtcNEON. Show all posts
07 September 2016
Review: Lilith, The Jungle Girl
Lilith: The Jungle Girl
Neon Next and Sisters Grimm
3 September 2016
The Lawler
to 1 October
mtc.com.au
My review is in The Age/SMH.
Neon Next and Sisters Grimm
3 September 2016
The Lawler
to 1 October
mtc.com.au
30 June 2015
Review: Shit
Shit
Dee & Cornelius
26 June 2015
Southbank Theatre, The Lawler
to 5 July
Shit is the shit. The fourth show of the 2015 MTC Neon Festival of Independent Theatre screams louder and stronger than the women it's about and inspires us to make our support for independent theatre as louder than possible.
Writer Patricia Cornelius says, "Really good independent theatre is radical. It is actually going to shock you. It is actually going to make you think differently." Shit is astonishing independent theatre.
I don't understand why every theatre company in the country (and beyond) isn't competing to get the next Patricia Cornelius and Susie Dee play. From their days with the Melbourne Workers Theatre to their 2103 award-winning and independently-produced Savages, their consistent accolades somehow don't translate to commercial demand.
Shit is about three women who have been arrested and are locked up. Their crime isn't revealed until later – and shown remarkably with Marg Horwell's design – but the act isn't what the work's about.
 |
| Nicci Wilkes, Peta Brady, Sara Ward |
Sam, Bobby and Billy are women whose stories are rarely told on our don't-upset-the-subscribers or our let's-talk-about-me stages. If we do see them, they are characters to laugh at; they are not "us" who go to the nice theatre. They are women who punch and fight. They are women who have never felt safe and joke about having a bed room door with a lock, wanting a bed with sheets and a doona cover, or remembering if someone ever hugged them as a child.
Their stories are confronting and raw, but not because of who they are. They confront who the audience are. The talk about being on public transport and knowing that all it takes to make someone get off is to yell at them. I would, and if I saw them at the train station, I'd get in the safe and crowded front carriage. This is theatre that lets us see ourselves through someone else's eyes; eyes we may never have thought of looking through.
Cornelius's writing leaves me shaking. Her dialogue sounds natural but it isn't like spoken language. She makes the profane poetic and lets language be so much more than words with assumed meaning. Her text has shape and rhythm and feels like it's beating to the heartbeats of her characters. It makes us listen to every "fuck" and "cunt" – and there are many – and really hear what they mean. And she only tells what needs to be told, leaving the subtext and the untold as the voice on stage that sneaks into your guts and doesn't let go.
This text is given life by Susie Dee's direction. Dee lets the actors be everything their character asks, while still working as one. She finds ways to make the shape of Cornelius's words become visible. She take us from violent gutter back to the stage and reminds us that we are watching theatre and, as such, are complicit in creating the world and the lives we see.
All of which is nothing without Peta Brady, Sarah Ward and Nicci Wilks as Sam, Billy and Bobby. Each embody the pain and anger that fuel these broken women while never letting the audience feel pity. They put up walls but the truth seeps out as they show us why we're laughing at the type of darkness and violence that can only be laughed at to save yourself from despair.
This Shit is why we go to theatre. This Shit is real. It's what can happen when a creative ensemble are given the resources to work together and not be concerned with pleasing or fitting criteria. It's astonishing theatre that needs to be presented as far as it can be seen. It's unmissable.
This was on AussieTheatre.com .
20 December 2014
What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 9
And with Bon Batten, Rhys Auteri and me, it's time to farewell Melbourne's favourite moments for 2014.
What I Loved in 2014 will be up on Monday.
Bron Batten
I don't know how to describe what she does, but it's fucking awesome
Bron: There was heaps of stuff I loved this year (contrary to the popular belief that I hate everything), Green Screen as a part of Neon, Oedipus Schmoedipus at Belvoir, Calpurnia Descending at The Malthouse and Have I No Mouth at the Melbourne Festival.
Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role model at Theatre Works was bloody astounding and I left the show feeling like I'd been kicked in the chest. Touching, funny, real and relevant.
Other good stuff was Tessa Waters's Womanz, Trygve Wakenshaw’s Kraken at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Dr Professor Neal Portenza makes me laugh a lot and watching Adrienne Truscott's Asking for It and Zoe Coombs Marr's remount of Dave kicking the comedy world in the balls.
And witnessing a small, balding David Sedaris sell out Hamer Hall by literally reading from an A4 piece of paper made me really happy because you just can't predict what people are going to like.
SM: There was the anaconda at Last Tuesday Society's YouTube Comment Orchestra, the look on her face when I told her that I liked Marzo, but it has to be the moment in the Use Your Illusion (NO, not "that" moment) when we realised that the hypnotist was an actor.
Rhys Auteri
writer, musician, possum
Rhys: I wrote a first draft of this and it was far too long, going into too many shows – even after seeing under 50 shows for the year, my lowest attendance for many years. As such, I’ve heard of at least half a dozen shows that sounded like I missed something special, but oh well.
Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending again made me suspect that they write their scripts in bold and underline, possibly scrawled in lipstick and adorned with stickers. Hilarious and razor sharp, clever, it indulged in its own delightful vacuity to find surprising moments of emotion and revelation. Its use of live video and other media was brilliantly executed and helped the Sisters Grimm continue to develop the theatricality of their work to match their pointed writing and perfectly over-pitched performances. The image of Paul Capsis climbing a staircase to nowhere, draped in a green screen of lost possibilities was mesmerising.
My highlight of the Melbourne Festival was Circa’s fantastic Opus. Their ability to transform the skills of circus into a touching and vast language of dance was revelatory and brought an array of new ideas to an ancient craft. There were lots of tumbles and lifting and jumping, but these spectacles of strength were presented not for their own sake but pitted towards a higher visual aesthetic of movement. Basically I felt pretty fat and unfit after watching this – I’m not entirely sure this wasn’t their whole plan.
Nicola Gunn once again delighted with Green Screen – playful, engaging, maddening, confusing and crystal clear all at once. Gunn is fearless in her exploration and use of theatrical language to say what cannot be put merely into words. A teacher of mine once commented that great theatre was like a dream, an intense unforgettable experience that nonetheless proves difficult to explain to those who were not present. The image of Gunn riding a slowly deflating thrown of air mattresses seemed at once courageous, ridiculous and omnipotent.
I was fortunate enough to catch Jono Wants a Wife at the Fringe. It was an unassuming piece that really delivered. Jonathan Burns’s confessional solo piece gave a rare glimpse of the vulnerable male journeying from awkward adolescence to heartbreak and often self-loathing – romantic, inept, confused, ashamed and predatory. The woman I saw it with found it a revelatory insight into the male of the species: “I didn’t realise that men think like that” (or something to that effect). It was a brave, warts-and-all performance, perfect “poor theatre” storytelling.
Melbourne favourites Blue Grassy Knoll premiered their new score to Buster Keaton’s The General. Their ability to transform the crowd into a raucous mess of cheers and boos transport you back to the days and spirit of silent cinema. If you think you might like to get into Keaton – this is the way to do it.
And finally, I caught a few hours of the 52 hours straight improfest that was Little Soap on the Prairie. This completely improvised durational saga featured fantastic character work and storytelling that ran the gamut from absurd and silly to heartbreaking and poignant. It’s easy to dismiss a work like this as somehow “lesser” than similar durational works by “serious” theatre groups like Lone Twin, Forced Entertainment or Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. But this was not merely an exercise of self-indulgent theatre games. The ability of the performers to plumb the depths of fascinating characters, while creating an epic and engaging story was pretty magical. I will always remember the murder of Constance (played by Jenny Lovell) in the final hours of the show. As her murderer crept towards her – hands outstretched to make a gun - you could sense the tension in the performers and the audience. There were actual gasps as the murderer shouted ‘bang, bang’ and pulled the trigger. This moment was about as simple as playing on stage gets, yet it was one of the most powerful things I witnessed this year.
Other shows I loved this year included Therese Raquin, Applespiel Make a Band and Take on the Recording Industry, The Government Inspector, Neighbourhood Watch, Single White Slut, Sex Idiot and Marzo.
SM: The first time the possum hissed in Bucket's List.
Anne-Marie Peard
writer
A-M: Some of my favourite moments this year were in Live Art experiences. There was the small group experience of Yana Alana snuggling into my chest, with six of us on her bed, in In Bed With Yana Alana; asking a stranger if I could stick a label on her and take her photo in Take the Call; the unexpected joy of making a band with Sam Halmarack & the Miserablites; and writing a very bad poem in bed with my cat for A Day Like Every Other.
But the one I'll never forget is The Rest is Silence: the 4 am encounter at The 24-Hour Experience. I wasn't well and I was so close to going home at 5 pm, but I wanted to go to the forensic morgue. There were no actors: it was just the staff running through what they do when a body comes into the Homicide Room (crime and accident victims) and then showing us how they harvest tissue. And the staff then sat and talked to some of us – at 5 am – about their jobs. It was the most real, fascinating and honest encounter I had seeing arts events this year.
What I Loved in 2014 will be up on Monday.
Bron Batten
I don't know how to describe what she does, but it's fucking awesome
Bron: There was heaps of stuff I loved this year (contrary to the popular belief that I hate everything), Green Screen as a part of Neon, Oedipus Schmoedipus at Belvoir, Calpurnia Descending at The Malthouse and Have I No Mouth at the Melbourne Festival.
Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role model at Theatre Works was bloody astounding and I left the show feeling like I'd been kicked in the chest. Touching, funny, real and relevant.
Other good stuff was Tessa Waters's Womanz, Trygve Wakenshaw’s Kraken at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Dr Professor Neal Portenza makes me laugh a lot and watching Adrienne Truscott's Asking for It and Zoe Coombs Marr's remount of Dave kicking the comedy world in the balls.
And witnessing a small, balding David Sedaris sell out Hamer Hall by literally reading from an A4 piece of paper made me really happy because you just can't predict what people are going to like.
SM: There was the anaconda at Last Tuesday Society's YouTube Comment Orchestra, the look on her face when I told her that I liked Marzo, but it has to be the moment in the Use Your Illusion (NO, not "that" moment) when we realised that the hypnotist was an actor.
Rhys Auteri
writer, musician, possum
Rhys: I wrote a first draft of this and it was far too long, going into too many shows – even after seeing under 50 shows for the year, my lowest attendance for many years. As such, I’ve heard of at least half a dozen shows that sounded like I missed something special, but oh well.
Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending again made me suspect that they write their scripts in bold and underline, possibly scrawled in lipstick and adorned with stickers. Hilarious and razor sharp, clever, it indulged in its own delightful vacuity to find surprising moments of emotion and revelation. Its use of live video and other media was brilliantly executed and helped the Sisters Grimm continue to develop the theatricality of their work to match their pointed writing and perfectly over-pitched performances. The image of Paul Capsis climbing a staircase to nowhere, draped in a green screen of lost possibilities was mesmerising.
My highlight of the Melbourne Festival was Circa’s fantastic Opus. Their ability to transform the skills of circus into a touching and vast language of dance was revelatory and brought an array of new ideas to an ancient craft. There were lots of tumbles and lifting and jumping, but these spectacles of strength were presented not for their own sake but pitted towards a higher visual aesthetic of movement. Basically I felt pretty fat and unfit after watching this – I’m not entirely sure this wasn’t their whole plan.
Nicola Gunn once again delighted with Green Screen – playful, engaging, maddening, confusing and crystal clear all at once. Gunn is fearless in her exploration and use of theatrical language to say what cannot be put merely into words. A teacher of mine once commented that great theatre was like a dream, an intense unforgettable experience that nonetheless proves difficult to explain to those who were not present. The image of Gunn riding a slowly deflating thrown of air mattresses seemed at once courageous, ridiculous and omnipotent.
I was fortunate enough to catch Jono Wants a Wife at the Fringe. It was an unassuming piece that really delivered. Jonathan Burns’s confessional solo piece gave a rare glimpse of the vulnerable male journeying from awkward adolescence to heartbreak and often self-loathing – romantic, inept, confused, ashamed and predatory. The woman I saw it with found it a revelatory insight into the male of the species: “I didn’t realise that men think like that” (or something to that effect). It was a brave, warts-and-all performance, perfect “poor theatre” storytelling.
Melbourne favourites Blue Grassy Knoll premiered their new score to Buster Keaton’s The General. Their ability to transform the crowd into a raucous mess of cheers and boos transport you back to the days and spirit of silent cinema. If you think you might like to get into Keaton – this is the way to do it.
And finally, I caught a few hours of the 52 hours straight improfest that was Little Soap on the Prairie. This completely improvised durational saga featured fantastic character work and storytelling that ran the gamut from absurd and silly to heartbreaking and poignant. It’s easy to dismiss a work like this as somehow “lesser” than similar durational works by “serious” theatre groups like Lone Twin, Forced Entertainment or Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. But this was not merely an exercise of self-indulgent theatre games. The ability of the performers to plumb the depths of fascinating characters, while creating an epic and engaging story was pretty magical. I will always remember the murder of Constance (played by Jenny Lovell) in the final hours of the show. As her murderer crept towards her – hands outstretched to make a gun - you could sense the tension in the performers and the audience. There were actual gasps as the murderer shouted ‘bang, bang’ and pulled the trigger. This moment was about as simple as playing on stage gets, yet it was one of the most powerful things I witnessed this year.
Other shows I loved this year included Therese Raquin, Applespiel Make a Band and Take on the Recording Industry, The Government Inspector, Neighbourhood Watch, Single White Slut, Sex Idiot and Marzo.
SM: The first time the possum hissed in Bucket's List.
Anne-Marie Peard
writer
 |
| Photo by Sarah Collins |
A-M: Some of my favourite moments this year were in Live Art experiences. There was the small group experience of Yana Alana snuggling into my chest, with six of us on her bed, in In Bed With Yana Alana; asking a stranger if I could stick a label on her and take her photo in Take the Call; the unexpected joy of making a band with Sam Halmarack & the Miserablites; and writing a very bad poem in bed with my cat for A Day Like Every Other.
But the one I'll never forget is The Rest is Silence: the 4 am encounter at The 24-Hour Experience. I wasn't well and I was so close to going home at 5 pm, but I wanted to go to the forensic morgue. There were no actors: it was just the staff running through what they do when a body comes into the Homicide Room (crime and accident victims) and then showing us how they harvest tissue. And the staff then sat and talked to some of us – at 5 am – about their jobs. It was the most real, fascinating and honest encounter I had seeing arts events this year.
05 December 2014
What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 1
It's December, which means one thing: It's time to find out what Melbourne's theatre community really loved this year.
It's time to ignore the awards and the critics and remember those shows, people and moments that made theatre in Melbourne so bloody wonderful in 2014.
To kick us off, it's Ash Flanders, Paul Capsis and Peter Paltos, who have just finished in Calpurnia Descending at Malthouse. I think Paul's “I wasn’t bored for a second” should be a goal for all shows in 2015. And I wasn't bored for a second in Calpurnia.
Ash Flanders
actor
Ash: My list should start with shows I'm really bummed I couldn't see this year. These include (but are not limited to) the MTC NEON season, Madonna Arms (Next Wave at Arts House) and, of course, The Good Person of Szechwan (at Malthouse).
A highlight for me was Applespiel make a band and take on the recording industry (Malthouse, Helium series), which blew my mind largely because of the audacity of the concept – a rock-u-mentary made live in front of an audience by a clean-haired cult of young theatre makers, all who probably have $2 to their names. This show made me feel old and jaded – and reminded me to keep pushing ideas further... and to stop being such a whinger!
I will also never forget Jane Montgomery Griffiths’s naked (in every sense of the word) screams for her mother in The Rabble’s Frankenstein. I shall remain happily haunted forever.
This was also the year I discovered my Adena Jacobs impersonation, which has seen the total erasure of my natural voice. Good news everyone!
SM: I missed Ash in Hedda Gabler because Belvoir is in Sydney and I wasn’t. For that I too am bummed. But he posted plenty of pics of him in a one-piece bathing suit to keep me happy.
There was his performance in Calpurnia Descending (his Violet was fucking wonderful – and Violet was my grandmother’s name, so I approved), but my moment has to be him telling me about meeting Katie Perry backstage. It’s not as sexy a story as it could be and I suggest asking him because it won’t be as good coming from me,
Paul Capsis
actor
Pau: Hmmm, my favourite theatre moment in 2014 would be a little show I saw in the Tower at Malthouse. Applespiel I think was the title. A great young vibrant and highly energised cast with lots of funny takes on a rock documentary, using film, video, effects made and performed in front of the audience. I liked the energy, rawness, chaos and roughness of the performances and that’s something that’s lacking in a lot of Australian theatre right now. I find so much to yawn at these days. I wasn't bored for a second in this show.
SM: How about making “I wasn’t bored for a second” the goal for new shows?
There was only thing more amazing that Mz Flanders in Calpurnia Descending and that was Paul Capsis as Beverly. When I think of this show, the first image that comes to mind is Paul in his underwear at the top of a ladder; nothing left to hide, everything exposed. This show was endless laughter, but it ended with a moment that made every laugh hurt because we know they came from pain. In different hands, it could have been another laugh, but it was Paul and he was magnificent.
Peter Paltos
actor
Peter: My favourites are:
Greenscreen by Nicola Gunn/Sans Hotel at MTC Neon. For me, Greenscreen was an existential theatrical poem that articulated both my loneliness and sense of belonging. I was really touched by this piece. Gunn is a goddess.
Madonna Arms by I'm Trying To Kiss You. Three feminists speaking in verse and smashing the science fiction genre a new asshole. So earthy and absurd.
Hedda Gabler at Belvior directed by Adena Jacobs. I have not stopped thinking about the first fifteen minutes of this production since I saw it. It was like a painting quietly coming to life.
Grounded by Red Stitch, directed by Kirsten von Bibra. This was a really well executed, solo show with an impressive performance by Kate Cole. I dug the minimalism of this piece: old school, clean storytelling with no tricks.
SM: If you were in Calpurnia Descending, there isn’t much hope that your performance in Calpurnia Descending isn’t going to be my favourite moment of yours.
Peter was as amazing as Ash, Paul (and Sandy Gore). He was pure matinee idol with all the guts it takes to be a real matinee idol and maintain the bullshit image.
It's time to ignore the awards and the critics and remember those shows, people and moments that made theatre in Melbourne so bloody wonderful in 2014.
To kick us off, it's Ash Flanders, Paul Capsis and Peter Paltos, who have just finished in Calpurnia Descending at Malthouse. I think Paul's “I wasn’t bored for a second” should be a goal for all shows in 2015. And I wasn't bored for a second in Calpurnia.
Ash Flanders
actor
 |
| Ash Flanders, the younger. Photo by Ben Dyer |
Ash: My list should start with shows I'm really bummed I couldn't see this year. These include (but are not limited to) the MTC NEON season, Madonna Arms (Next Wave at Arts House) and, of course, The Good Person of Szechwan (at Malthouse).
A highlight for me was Applespiel make a band and take on the recording industry (Malthouse, Helium series), which blew my mind largely because of the audacity of the concept – a rock-u-mentary made live in front of an audience by a clean-haired cult of young theatre makers, all who probably have $2 to their names. This show made me feel old and jaded – and reminded me to keep pushing ideas further... and to stop being such a whinger!
I will also never forget Jane Montgomery Griffiths’s naked (in every sense of the word) screams for her mother in The Rabble’s Frankenstein. I shall remain happily haunted forever.
This was also the year I discovered my Adena Jacobs impersonation, which has seen the total erasure of my natural voice. Good news everyone!
SM: I missed Ash in Hedda Gabler because Belvoir is in Sydney and I wasn’t. For that I too am bummed. But he posted plenty of pics of him in a one-piece bathing suit to keep me happy.
There was his performance in Calpurnia Descending (his Violet was fucking wonderful – and Violet was my grandmother’s name, so I approved), but my moment has to be him telling me about meeting Katie Perry backstage. It’s not as sexy a story as it could be and I suggest asking him because it won’t be as good coming from me,
Paul Capsis
actor
 |
| Paul Capsis. Photo by Shane Reid |
Pau: Hmmm, my favourite theatre moment in 2014 would be a little show I saw in the Tower at Malthouse. Applespiel I think was the title. A great young vibrant and highly energised cast with lots of funny takes on a rock documentary, using film, video, effects made and performed in front of the audience. I liked the energy, rawness, chaos and roughness of the performances and that’s something that’s lacking in a lot of Australian theatre right now. I find so much to yawn at these days. I wasn't bored for a second in this show.
SM: How about making “I wasn’t bored for a second” the goal for new shows?
There was only thing more amazing that Mz Flanders in Calpurnia Descending and that was Paul Capsis as Beverly. When I think of this show, the first image that comes to mind is Paul in his underwear at the top of a ladder; nothing left to hide, everything exposed. This show was endless laughter, but it ended with a moment that made every laugh hurt because we know they came from pain. In different hands, it could have been another laugh, but it was Paul and he was magnificent.
Peter Paltos
actor
 |
| Peter Paltos |
Peter: My favourites are:
Greenscreen by Nicola Gunn/Sans Hotel at MTC Neon. For me, Greenscreen was an existential theatrical poem that articulated both my loneliness and sense of belonging. I was really touched by this piece. Gunn is a goddess.
Madonna Arms by I'm Trying To Kiss You. Three feminists speaking in verse and smashing the science fiction genre a new asshole. So earthy and absurd.
Hedda Gabler at Belvior directed by Adena Jacobs. I have not stopped thinking about the first fifteen minutes of this production since I saw it. It was like a painting quietly coming to life.
Grounded by Red Stitch, directed by Kirsten von Bibra. This was a really well executed, solo show with an impressive performance by Kate Cole. I dug the minimalism of this piece: old school, clean storytelling with no tricks.
SM: If you were in Calpurnia Descending, there isn’t much hope that your performance in Calpurnia Descending isn’t going to be my favourite moment of yours.
Peter was as amazing as Ash, Paul (and Sandy Gore). He was pure matinee idol with all the guts it takes to be a real matinee idol and maintain the bullshit image.
02 August 2014
Last chance: Green Screen and Purgatorio
What really must end this weekend is my time with a gastrointestinal virus. I'm excited that I can now get out of bed, but am leaving myself in quarantine until there is no sign of it. It doesn't needs sharing and I'm on my way to becoming an obsessive hand washer.
As I don't write well in the bathroom, some great shows missed out on reviews and they finish this weekend. There's time to see them both. Unless you are sick. Then stay home.
NEON
Green Screen
Sans Hotel
Lawler
finishes Sunday
mtc.com.au
Nicola Gunn's Green Screen ends the second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre. I can't compare her theatre to anything because Gunn creates work that is like her unconscious explaining her soul.
The more of her work that I see, the less I understand it. And I never want to. I'm scared that if I begin to see how her creations work, I'll begin to see the trick. Meanwhile, I have no idea how something that begins with a line of toy animals, hummus pasta, a green monster blow-up mattress and gold body paint can say so much and be so personal to someone who has never eaten hummus pasta.
And she's joined by Nat Cursio, Tom Davies, Jonno Katz and Kerith Manderson-Galvin who meet, talk and sing in a community centre that tries to calm with beach-scene wall paper. They are a complete joy.
Green Screen is bitingly cynical but deeply loving and, in a breath, the final moments bring the work's disparate events together to let us know what it's all been about. It's beautiful.
Purgatorio
5Pound and Attic Erratic
The Owl and the Pussycat
finishes Saturday
facebook.com
Well, you might not be able to see this because it's sold out. But it can't hurt to call and check.
Melbourne audiences generally like to let a show run for a bit until they see it. This often means that people miss out on great shows by being cautious and waiting to hear if it's worth seeing. Lesson: go early and be among the people making the word of mouth.
Purgatorio is by Chilien-American playwright Ariel Dorfman, who's best known for Death and the Maiden. Here Purgatory is the soulless empty between Heaven and Hell where a Man interrogates a Woman over the murder of her children, and a Woman interrogates a Man about his guilt over his wife's death. It doesn't take long to recognise the Greek myth the stories are from, but it's far more than a reflection on Medea and Jason as Dorfman continues to explore what it takes for humans to do the unthinkable and if there's hope for redemption in a world set on revenge.
Director Celeste Cody finds the endless layers in the script without giving away its secrets, and she uses the tiny space of the Owl and the Pussycat to create a dark and empty world that's neither hellish nor real. And by placing the audience on either side of the room, each side naturally align themselves with Man or Woman.
But Freya Pragt and Jason Cavanagh ensure that the audience's allegiances are never firm. Both performances are riveting, but it's how they work together that makes this script so frighteningly real.
As I don't write well in the bathroom, some great shows missed out on reviews and they finish this weekend. There's time to see them both. Unless you are sick. Then stay home.
NEON
Green Screen
Sans Hotel
Lawler
finishes Sunday
mtc.com.au
Nicola Gunn's Green Screen ends the second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre. I can't compare her theatre to anything because Gunn creates work that is like her unconscious explaining her soul.
The more of her work that I see, the less I understand it. And I never want to. I'm scared that if I begin to see how her creations work, I'll begin to see the trick. Meanwhile, I have no idea how something that begins with a line of toy animals, hummus pasta, a green monster blow-up mattress and gold body paint can say so much and be so personal to someone who has never eaten hummus pasta.
And she's joined by Nat Cursio, Tom Davies, Jonno Katz and Kerith Manderson-Galvin who meet, talk and sing in a community centre that tries to calm with beach-scene wall paper. They are a complete joy.
Green Screen is bitingly cynical but deeply loving and, in a breath, the final moments bring the work's disparate events together to let us know what it's all been about. It's beautiful.
Purgatorio
5Pound and Attic Erratic
The Owl and the Pussycat
finishes Saturday
facebook.com
Well, you might not be able to see this because it's sold out. But it can't hurt to call and check.
Melbourne audiences generally like to let a show run for a bit until they see it. This often means that people miss out on great shows by being cautious and waiting to hear if it's worth seeing. Lesson: go early and be among the people making the word of mouth.
Purgatorio is by Chilien-American playwright Ariel Dorfman, who's best known for Death and the Maiden. Here Purgatory is the soulless empty between Heaven and Hell where a Man interrogates a Woman over the murder of her children, and a Woman interrogates a Man about his guilt over his wife's death. It doesn't take long to recognise the Greek myth the stories are from, but it's far more than a reflection on Medea and Jason as Dorfman continues to explore what it takes for humans to do the unthinkable and if there's hope for redemption in a world set on revenge.
Director Celeste Cody finds the endless layers in the script without giving away its secrets, and she uses the tiny space of the Owl and the Pussycat to create a dark and empty world that's neither hellish nor real. And by placing the audience on either side of the room, each side naturally align themselves with Man or Woman.
But Freya Pragt and Jason Cavanagh ensure that the audience's allegiances are never firm. Both performances are riveting, but it's how they work together that makes this script so frighteningly real.
19 July 2014
Last chance: The Myth Project: Twin
NEON
The Myth Project: Twin
Arthur
11 July 2014
The Lawler
to 20 July
mtc.com.au
NEON's Twin is the first of Arthur's The Myth Project series that's about exploring the Australian psyche and the myths it creates. Exploding in a shiny-streamer world that moves from a cabaret-noir-cum-disco underworld to a bleak country pub that hides a secret, it's the second show opening this week where an established company is working with high school students.
Arthur is director Paige Rattray and producer Belinda Kelly. They work with a group of collaborators and for this project the group includes 32 year 11 and 12 students from Launceston College in Tasmania. Unlike Red Stitch's current collaboration with students from St Michael's Grammar school, The Flock and the Nest, the teenagers aren't the focus of the story. Instead they are a chorus who watch and mock and are welcome every time they are on the stage. And they're terrific. It's easy to stand out on a stage; it's a skill to blend with 31 performers and still be yourself.
The overall story is hard to follow but each episode (by writers Amelia Evans, Duncan Graham and/or Dan Giovannoni) has a satisfying completeness and adds to the ongoing mystery. It starts with twin sisters, a cowboy and a pub, and continues years later at the adult twin's birthday party where the guests are strangers, singing is dangerous and no one knows who is really alive at the end. Does this family have any hope or is Hell a place where our past deeds come back and where everyone wears shiny blue dresses?
And if is Hell, then I'm joining the line to get in. Twin is creepy and mysterious, and while never letting the tension drop, it doesn't lose its sense of fun or its heart; we may not really know what happens to the sisters, but we sure care and want them to be happy.
Part of the joy in watching is the continual questioning of what happened and the displacement from where we thought we were, but it wouldn't work without a cast who are as shiny and spectacular as their teenage ensemble. From dream-haunting weird to sexy-as-all-go-get to innocence-with-a-gun, Julia Billington, Catherine Davies, Kevin Kiernan-Molloy, Rose Lockhart, Markus McKenzie, Kurt Phelan, Guy Simon and Netta Yaschin, with Stephanie Francis and Trinnay Hancock-Holmes as the young sisters, are at one with the picnic-at-hanging-rock-teen-disco-mystery-horror-movie tone and know how to know the truth without sharing the secrets.
This is theatre that wants to create a world that's always questioning the world it's created in. Without using tired icons or even hinting at the obvious, Twin shows an Australia that's disturbingly recognisable and perhaps a lot closer than we'd like to think.
And the next instalments of The Myth Project will be at Red Stitch and at Theatre Works.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
The Myth Project: Twin
Arthur
11 July 2014
The Lawler
to 20 July
mtc.com.au
 |
| Photo by Sebastian Bourges |
NEON's Twin is the first of Arthur's The Myth Project series that's about exploring the Australian psyche and the myths it creates. Exploding in a shiny-streamer world that moves from a cabaret-noir-cum-disco underworld to a bleak country pub that hides a secret, it's the second show opening this week where an established company is working with high school students.
Arthur is director Paige Rattray and producer Belinda Kelly. They work with a group of collaborators and for this project the group includes 32 year 11 and 12 students from Launceston College in Tasmania. Unlike Red Stitch's current collaboration with students from St Michael's Grammar school, The Flock and the Nest, the teenagers aren't the focus of the story. Instead they are a chorus who watch and mock and are welcome every time they are on the stage. And they're terrific. It's easy to stand out on a stage; it's a skill to blend with 31 performers and still be yourself.
The overall story is hard to follow but each episode (by writers Amelia Evans, Duncan Graham and/or Dan Giovannoni) has a satisfying completeness and adds to the ongoing mystery. It starts with twin sisters, a cowboy and a pub, and continues years later at the adult twin's birthday party where the guests are strangers, singing is dangerous and no one knows who is really alive at the end. Does this family have any hope or is Hell a place where our past deeds come back and where everyone wears shiny blue dresses?
And if is Hell, then I'm joining the line to get in. Twin is creepy and mysterious, and while never letting the tension drop, it doesn't lose its sense of fun or its heart; we may not really know what happens to the sisters, but we sure care and want them to be happy.
Part of the joy in watching is the continual questioning of what happened and the displacement from where we thought we were, but it wouldn't work without a cast who are as shiny and spectacular as their teenage ensemble. From dream-haunting weird to sexy-as-all-go-get to innocence-with-a-gun, Julia Billington, Catherine Davies, Kevin Kiernan-Molloy, Rose Lockhart, Markus McKenzie, Kurt Phelan, Guy Simon and Netta Yaschin, with Stephanie Francis and Trinnay Hancock-Holmes as the young sisters, are at one with the picnic-at-hanging-rock-teen-disco-mystery-horror-movie tone and know how to know the truth without sharing the secrets.
This is theatre that wants to create a world that's always questioning the world it's created in. Without using tired icons or even hinting at the obvious, Twin shows an Australia that's disturbingly recognisable and perhaps a lot closer than we'd like to think.
And the next instalments of The Myth Project will be at Red Stitch and at Theatre Works.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
05 July 2014
Finishing this weekend: The Witches and Photographs of A
The Witches
Malthouse Theatre
Last show tonight
malthousetheatre.com.au
Roald Dahl's children's stories are dark and naughty and let children get into all sorts of trouble without bothersome grown ups ruining the fun or trying to help. The Witches is about what happens when a group of children-hating witches meet at a hotel and come across an orphaned boy.
Having missed chunk of the beginning (I should have known there is no right turn onto Sturt Street from Kings Way during peak hour), I didn't review but I loved what I saw.
Guy Edmonds plays everyone in this stage version of the story, which is based on a play by David Wood. His instant transformations from horrible hag to squeaky fast mouse are magic. There's little on the stage except the performer and the imagination of his audience – it's pretty close to the experience of reading – and together they create a show that's more spectacular, far scarier and more loving than anything made from special effects.
Here's what Keith Gow thought after seeing it earlier this week.
NEON
Photographs of A
Antechamber and Daniel Keene
Last show tomorrow
mtc.com.au
Until this show, I didn't know anything about 15-year-old Louise Augustine Gleizes. Known as "A", she was a celebrity hysteric in Paris in the late 1870s whose hysterias were photographed and the young woman was exhibited by her doctor, the influential neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Photographs of A by Daniel Keene explores the young woman's illness and experiences in the Salpetriere sanitarium from inside A's head.
If only the public display of ill and sexually traumatised young women didn't feel so familiar.
Sixty-something Helen Morse is Augustine and, even though Ben Grant and Anouk Gleeson-Mead appear on stage with her, the script is nearly all hers. Her performance is as beautiful as it is disturbing.
Having seen the photos (they are in the free program), we know A was as gorgeous as any teenage girl is and the key to this work is hearing the teenage voice – one that's still full of hope and doesn't understand the consequences of her experiences – come from an old, ugly and near broken woman. The power of Keene's script comes from what's unspoken.
However the production, directed and designed by Brian Lipson, is so aware of its theatricality that it never escapes the falseness of being in a theatre and feels so obvious that there's little surprise or space for unexpected wonder. When the design starts with rows of tea-light candles, the expectation of their lighting and snuffing takes away from the beauty of the candlelight.
The NEON festival is about the new and the daring. Photographs of A is a lovely piece that's worth seeing for Morse, but it feels out of place in NEON.
Malthouse Theatre
Last show tonight
malthousetheatre.com.au
Roald Dahl's children's stories are dark and naughty and let children get into all sorts of trouble without bothersome grown ups ruining the fun or trying to help. The Witches is about what happens when a group of children-hating witches meet at a hotel and come across an orphaned boy.
Having missed chunk of the beginning (I should have known there is no right turn onto Sturt Street from Kings Way during peak hour), I didn't review but I loved what I saw.
Guy Edmonds plays everyone in this stage version of the story, which is based on a play by David Wood. His instant transformations from horrible hag to squeaky fast mouse are magic. There's little on the stage except the performer and the imagination of his audience – it's pretty close to the experience of reading – and together they create a show that's more spectacular, far scarier and more loving than anything made from special effects.
Here's what Keith Gow thought after seeing it earlier this week.
NEON
Photographs of A
Antechamber and Daniel Keene
Last show tomorrow
mtc.com.au
Until this show, I didn't know anything about 15-year-old Louise Augustine Gleizes. Known as "A", she was a celebrity hysteric in Paris in the late 1870s whose hysterias were photographed and the young woman was exhibited by her doctor, the influential neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Photographs of A by Daniel Keene explores the young woman's illness and experiences in the Salpetriere sanitarium from inside A's head.
If only the public display of ill and sexually traumatised young women didn't feel so familiar.
Sixty-something Helen Morse is Augustine and, even though Ben Grant and Anouk Gleeson-Mead appear on stage with her, the script is nearly all hers. Her performance is as beautiful as it is disturbing.
Having seen the photos (they are in the free program), we know A was as gorgeous as any teenage girl is and the key to this work is hearing the teenage voice – one that's still full of hope and doesn't understand the consequences of her experiences – come from an old, ugly and near broken woman. The power of Keene's script comes from what's unspoken.
However the production, directed and designed by Brian Lipson, is so aware of its theatricality that it never escapes the falseness of being in a theatre and feels so obvious that there's little surprise or space for unexpected wonder. When the design starts with rows of tea-light candles, the expectation of their lighting and snuffing takes away from the beauty of the candlelight.
The NEON festival is about the new and the daring. Photographs of A is a lovely piece that's worth seeing for Morse, but it feels out of place in NEON.
21 June 2014
Review: Resplendence
NEON
Respelendence
Angus Cerini/Doubletap
13 June 2014
The Lawler
to 22 June
mtc.com.au
Angus Cerini scares me.
In a good way.
In a way that I know his work is likely to disturb and confront me and make me want a glass of wine and some alone time after a show.
His company, Doubletap, are next in this year's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre with a piece written and performed by Cereni, with dramturgy by Susie Dee, where it's impossible to take you're eyes away from him.
Resplendence is ostensibly about a man who goes down to the shops for something to eat and sees an accident. But its story, although powerful, is only there to show us the man.
Cereni's work shows me parts of the male psyche that I don't understand; those parts that I see and want to run from rather than try to understand.
He's supported by a design so integral to the experience that the work couldn't exist if one element were missing. Marg Horwell's design, Jethro Woodward's sound and Andy Turner's lighting put him on a raised catwalk where his walk and turn take us into his thoughts and away from a performer on a stage.
The language of the text is so inner voice that it's easy to forget when it's recorded sound or live voice. He's never speaking to us, always to himself in his re-telling of his story. And in doing so, his language has found a space that's neither poetic nor natural, but something that shows us his thoughts in ways that language sometimes misses because we censor and control thoughts when we make them words.
And this language is connected to a physicality that's so linked to the psyche that it almost doesn't need the words.
Resplendence is a man who's impotent anger and fear comes from a loneliness that comes from an impotent anger and fear that craves violence or connection or understanding or just a shared laugh from a world that he's already too lost to. It's extraordinary theatre.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Respelendence
Angus Cerini/Doubletap
13 June 2014
The Lawler
to 22 June
mtc.com.au
 |
| Photo by Sebastian Bourges |
In a good way.
In a way that I know his work is likely to disturb and confront me and make me want a glass of wine and some alone time after a show.
His company, Doubletap, are next in this year's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre with a piece written and performed by Cereni, with dramturgy by Susie Dee, where it's impossible to take you're eyes away from him.
Resplendence is ostensibly about a man who goes down to the shops for something to eat and sees an accident. But its story, although powerful, is only there to show us the man.
Cereni's work shows me parts of the male psyche that I don't understand; those parts that I see and want to run from rather than try to understand.
He's supported by a design so integral to the experience that the work couldn't exist if one element were missing. Marg Horwell's design, Jethro Woodward's sound and Andy Turner's lighting put him on a raised catwalk where his walk and turn take us into his thoughts and away from a performer on a stage.
The language of the text is so inner voice that it's easy to forget when it's recorded sound or live voice. He's never speaking to us, always to himself in his re-telling of his story. And in doing so, his language has found a space that's neither poetic nor natural, but something that shows us his thoughts in ways that language sometimes misses because we censor and control thoughts when we make them words.
And this language is connected to a physicality that's so linked to the psyche that it almost doesn't need the words.
Resplendence is a man who's impotent anger and fear comes from a loneliness that comes from an impotent anger and fear that craves violence or connection or understanding or just a shared laugh from a world that he's already too lost to. It's extraordinary theatre.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
10 June 2014
Review: Dangerous Liaisons
NEON
Dangerous Liaisons
Little Ones Theatre
30 May 2014
Lawler Studio
to 8 June
mtc.com.au
The second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre opens with the dazzling high-camp, glitter-bright, subversion of Stephen Nicolazzo's Little Ones Theatre.
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1985 play (which won lots of awards) by Christopher Hampton that's based on Pierre Choderlos De Lacos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a late-18th century novel consisting of letters between the characters. Being a story about the perverse sexual and moral corruption of the decadent French aristocracy, it never has problems being transported out of its context.
Marquise de Merteuil (Alexandra Aldrich) and Vicomte de Valmont (Janine Watson; it wouldn't be a Nicolazzo play if gender wasn't questioned) were once lovers, but prefer being BFFs. As Merteuil was dumped by a lover – for the first time – she enlists Valmont to seduce the dumper's virgin bride-to-be (Amanda McGregor), who happens to be the daughter of another of Merteuil's friends (Zoe Boesen). Valmont thinks a convent virgin seduction is too easy and sets himself a worthier target (Brigid Gallacher) and then it begins to get complicated (with Catherine Davies, Tom Dent and Joanne Sutton).
Eugyeene Teh's set is a sunglasses-reaching explosion of gold luxury. This world is so rich that the curtains and floor are gold; until you look closely and see it's paper-faux. Into this comes the outrageously lush French court costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt that are pink, hot-pink rose pink, magenta, glittery pink, see-through pink with bonus pinked-up nipples and sequins.
The stylised acting style is close-to-but-not-totally-over-the top and is as controlled-camp as the design. This heightens the language of the script and highlights its look at the power that women have in societies that still categorises women as respectfully married, convent-worthy virgins or worthless whores. From the magnificent pink to its all-but-one female cast, this Liaisons is all about the women's sides of the arrangements.
But at over two hours (plus interval), its consistent style lets the exquisite pretty distract from the emotional connection to the story. Even with the incomparable Aldrich, it's hard to feel for a women who's on the verge of middle age and about to lose the only thing that gave her power when we're waiting for the next marvellous line and guaranteed laugh.
While all of the delicious cast have unforgettable moments (really, they are all wonderful), Gallacher finds the most in her character and lets Madame de Tourvel's heart meld with the style. The rest are nearly there and I think that week-two audiences will see the extra guts that was hinted at on opening night.
Little One's influences and inspirations are clear on the stage, but they make work that couldn't be re-created by anyone else. Nicolazzo has found artists who understand and share his vision and together they are one of the most authentic theatre voices around.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Dangerous Liaisons
Little Ones Theatre
30 May 2014
Lawler Studio
to 8 June
mtc.com.au
 |
| Photo by Sarah Walker |
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1985 play (which won lots of awards) by Christopher Hampton that's based on Pierre Choderlos De Lacos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a late-18th century novel consisting of letters between the characters. Being a story about the perverse sexual and moral corruption of the decadent French aristocracy, it never has problems being transported out of its context.
Marquise de Merteuil (Alexandra Aldrich) and Vicomte de Valmont (Janine Watson; it wouldn't be a Nicolazzo play if gender wasn't questioned) were once lovers, but prefer being BFFs. As Merteuil was dumped by a lover – for the first time – she enlists Valmont to seduce the dumper's virgin bride-to-be (Amanda McGregor), who happens to be the daughter of another of Merteuil's friends (Zoe Boesen). Valmont thinks a convent virgin seduction is too easy and sets himself a worthier target (Brigid Gallacher) and then it begins to get complicated (with Catherine Davies, Tom Dent and Joanne Sutton).
Eugyeene Teh's set is a sunglasses-reaching explosion of gold luxury. This world is so rich that the curtains and floor are gold; until you look closely and see it's paper-faux. Into this comes the outrageously lush French court costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt that are pink, hot-pink rose pink, magenta, glittery pink, see-through pink with bonus pinked-up nipples and sequins.
The stylised acting style is close-to-but-not-totally-over-the top and is as controlled-camp as the design. This heightens the language of the script and highlights its look at the power that women have in societies that still categorises women as respectfully married, convent-worthy virgins or worthless whores. From the magnificent pink to its all-but-one female cast, this Liaisons is all about the women's sides of the arrangements.
But at over two hours (plus interval), its consistent style lets the exquisite pretty distract from the emotional connection to the story. Even with the incomparable Aldrich, it's hard to feel for a women who's on the verge of middle age and about to lose the only thing that gave her power when we're waiting for the next marvellous line and guaranteed laugh.
While all of the delicious cast have unforgettable moments (really, they are all wonderful), Gallacher finds the most in her character and lets Madame de Tourvel's heart meld with the style. The rest are nearly there and I think that week-two audiences will see the extra guts that was hinted at on opening night.
Little One's influences and inspirations are clear on the stage, but they make work that couldn't be re-created by anyone else. Nicolazzo has found artists who understand and share his vision and together they are one of the most authentic theatre voices around.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
23 December 2013
What I loved 2013: the Best of Melbourne Theatre
I was determined to see more than 100 shows this year and on my rough count I made it to 187. (If I count Life and Times as three shows, I get to 190; and if I count all the short plays, I can bluff a 250+!)
Over December, we've heard what 51 people from Melbourne's theatre community loved in 2013, but here are my What I Loved awards.
There's still nothing shiny to take away.
As always, my criteria is simply what I loved the most; what shows and artists I remembered beyond the final applause.
Some were easy picks, while others were impossible to choose between and there are shows that I can't believe didn't make my own list!
Outstanding Artists 2013
WRITING
Patricia Cornelius for Savages, fortyfivedownstairs
Special mentions
May Jasper for Not a very good story, La Mama
Patricia Cornelius for Savages, fortyfivedownstairs
 |
| Patricia Cornelius |
May Jasper for Not a very good story, La Mama
Lally Katz for Stories I want to tell you in person, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir
Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell for They saw a thylacine, Melbourne Fringe
DESIGN
 |
| Sunday in the Park with George |
Anna Cordingley for Sunday in the Park with George, Victoria Opera
and
Kate Davis for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
and
Kate Davis for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
Special mention
Eugyeene Teh, design; Russell Goldsmith, sound; Rob Sowinski, lighting for Palace of the End, Theatre Works
LIGHTING
PERFORMANCE
 |
| The Sovereign Wife |
Hannah Norris for Palace of the End, Theatre Works
and
Mary Helen Sassman for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
and
Ash Flanders for The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON
and
The cast of Death in the Family, Ward Theatre Company
Special mentions
(or who to watch out for, because wow!)
Peter Paltos
Emily Milledge
Emily Tomlins
Genevieve Giuffre
DIRECTION
 |
| Palace of the End |
Leticia Caceres for Constellations, MTC (and a special mention for The Tall Man, La Mama)
and
Emma Valente for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
Special mentions
Daniel Clarke for Palace of the End, Theatre Works
Daniel Lammin for Columbine, MUST
Stephen Nicolazzo for Psycho Beach Party
EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS
 |
| Summertime in the Garden of Eden |
Marg Horwell for her astonishing design for Constellations, MTC; By their own hands, The Hayloft Project at NEON; Savages, fortyfivedownstairs; and Summertime in the garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm and Theatre Works.
Marg consistently bring a visual narrative that's far beyond what the writers could ever have imagined, but makes the world look like it could never have been anything else.
 |
| Story of O |
and
The Rabble for Story of O at NEON, and Room of Regret, Theatre Works at Melbourne Festival.
I've run out of words to describe this company. I love them to pieces. All I know is that there's nothing on a Rabble stage that feels out of place. For a company with such a complex improvisational development process, they let process be process and only bring what's absolutely necessary to the stage.
Outstanding Productions 2012
CABARET
 |
| Between the Cracks |
Stranger, Geraldine Quinn at Melbourne Fringe.
COMMERCIAL SHOW
Constellations, MTC
and
War Horse, National Theatre of Great Britain and Global Creatures in association with Arts Centre Melbourne
Constellations, MTC
and
War Horse, National Theatre of Great Britain and Global Creatures in association with Arts Centre Melbourne
MUSICAL
Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera
and
 |
| Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story |
Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera
and
Wolf Creek, the Musical, at Melbourne Fringe
COMEDY
 |
| Happiness is a bedside table |
Happiness is a bedside table, Hannah Gadsby at Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Special mentions
 |
| Slutmonster and friends |
Slutmonster and Friends at Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Famoucity!, Lessons with Luis at at Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Famoucity!, Lessons with Luis at at Melbourne International Comedy Festival
And the Melbourne Ring Cycle was very cool, even the not-for-review dress rehearsals.
BEST OF THE BEST
 |
| The Rape of Lucrece |
The Rape of Lucrece, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Projects Australia
Einstein on the Beach, Arts Centre Melbourne, Pomegranate Arts
Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON
Kids Killing Kids, MKA and Q Theatre Company at Melbourne Fringe
MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2013
19 December 2013
What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 17
That's it! 51 members of Melbourne's theatre community have shared their 2013 favourite moments, shows and people.
The last very-loved three are Mary Helen Sassman, Glyn Roberts and Richard Watts.
(And there might be a bonus next week.)
What Melbourne loved the most in 2013
The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm, NEON
Summertime in the Garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm, Theatre Works
They saw a thylacine, Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell, Melbourne Fringe
Story of O, The Rabble, NEON
Kids Killing Kids, MKA, Melbourne Fringe
M+M, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Theatre Works, Melbourne Fringe
But the MTC's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is the undisputed winner.
MARY HELEN: I have felt a bubbling undercurrent – sometimes champagne all fizzy pop and sometimes simmering soup all hearty – this year, as though something special is happening to our little industry. We have seen courage and risk-taking robustly applauded.
As a performer, my scariest, most formative and now favourite moment was while performing in The Rabble's Story of O, where scores of audience walked out mid-performance; some loudly exclaiming their disdain as they left. I inherently aim to please – or so I had thought – so was challenged, but ultimately it felt dangerous and honest.
Also this year I have been working at what Chris Boyd has called "Headquarters": La Mama Theatre. What I love most about that place is that it feels like home to so many ridiculously talented people and companies.
My favourite moments there and elsewhere:
A stunning and dark tale in Angela Betzien's The Tall Man. Director Leticia Caceres created an eerie and raw world with some seriously good Brisbane-bred actors Hayden Spencer and Louise Brehmer.
Super Discount (Back to Back Theatre) was super awesome.
Menagerie (NEON, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble) thrilled me. I am now and forever unfulfilled if there are less than three simultaneous climaxes at any one time on stage.
SM: MH's performance in Story of O left me reeling (and I lost count of the climaxes).
It's almost impossible to get into the head of the O in the book. Mary Helen got into O's head and did what the book doesn't: showed us what this women felt. It's when actors bring more than the writer created to a character that they become so real that we are willing to forget that we're watching an actor.
Glyn Roberts
was Co-Creative-Director, MKA
is Program Manager, La Boite Theatre Company (Brisbane)
GLYN: Well. 2013 was for me one of the most hectic years of my life; although, not the busiest. That was 2011–12: those heady years where we built cutting-edge performances spaces out of eggshells and barley sugar.
My favorite show was The Rabble's Story of O, but that has been talked about quite a bit here. And I finally caught Arthur's Cut Snake, a show that is "performance" at it's simplest and most effective. Such a lovely thing.
My favorite moments in theatre this year were more the symptoms of shows. Watching a Year 10 class from the Gold Coast lose their shit while watching The Economist at the World Theatre Festival in Brisbane or, in Brisbane again for the Brisbane Festival, having MKA's production of The Unspoken Word is 'Joe' programmed alongside so many friends and colleagues from Melbourne.
It was a sign that something was beginning and ending simultaneously. Change was afoot, not to mention the emergence of a curious culture of sharing and communication between Melbourne and Brisbane, cheekily going on behind Sydney's back.
The most telling moments were the white hot fury that MKA's Kids Killing Kids could, on any given night, insight and the bacchaenalian thrill that it would inspire in the hearts of others.
The same went for Mark Wilson's Unsex Me, which divided audiences with many to this day still unable to control the volume of their voice when the piece is mentioned (which is excellent).
Both shows represented my swan song as a Creative Director of MKA and both were shows that forced those that saw them to lay their cards on the table. These pieces not only polarised members of the audience but exposed who they were ideologically, aesthetically, sexually, culturally and artistically. It was these moments where theatre managed to expose people's essence and foundations and had them leaving the theatre raw and alive both livid and joyful.
As Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014.
SM: I was going to talk more about Kids Killing Kids and a bit about Group Show (what a bunch of writers!), but I'm going with:
"If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014."
Let's all take that in to 2014.
Richard Watts
writer, broadcaster, the guy who sees more shows than anyone and should be given a present by Melbourne's independent artists for all the amazing support he gives
RICHARD: Between all the performance delights that Melbourne had to offer, as well as the biennial Castlemaine State Festival, the World Theatre Forum at Brisbane Powerhouse, and a truly spellbinding performance by Pantha Du Prince and the Bell Laboratory in Barcelona (hands down my favourite performance of the year in any artform), 2013 has been an excellent year. Congratulations to everyone who made and staged work this year – you’ve been amazing, and I can’t wait to see what you’ll create in 2014.
This year got off to an excellent start with Psycho Beach Party at Theatre Works, a camp feast of satire and leopard print, beautifully performed and designed and excellently directed and performed.
I also adored the MTC’s Constellations, a heartbreakingly beautiful exploration of love across parallel worlds by UK playwright Nick Payne starring Alison Bell and Leon Ford; Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You Never Had it So Good) at the World Theatre Festival, which featured some of the best integration of technology and the audience I’ve ever seen on stage; and, at the same festival, I Heart Alice Heart I by Irish company HotForTheatre, the single most romantic production I saw all year – I was sobbing happy tears by the end of the play, and I certainly wasn’t the only one.
Coming back to Melbourne, I was amazed and delighted by Brisbane circus company Casus and their show Knee Deep at the Famous Spiegeltent (a venue I’ll miss in 2014), an intimate display of physical skill that playfully subverted gender norms, and I laughed uproariously at the Indigenous fairy tale Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui at the Castlemaine State Festival. I also shrieked with mirth at Lucy Hopkin’s superb solo clown act Le Foulard at Tuxedo Cat and at the return season of the wonderfully rude and hugely entertaining Slutmonster and Friends. at Northcote Town Hall during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Windmill Theatre’s School Dance was wonderful too – its awkward geek heroes really resonated with me, reminding me of my Dungeons & Dragons-playing high school days – as was Simon Keck’s hilarious play about suicide, Nob Happy Sock at the Imperial Hotel, though in a very different way.
I missed some of the MTC’s NEON season due to a trip to Spain but I was very taken by The Hayloft Project’s exploration of myth and theatrical form, By Their Own Hands, and, seemingly like everyone else in Melbourne, was thrilled and delighted by Sisters Grimm’s subversive, playful, confrontation and brilliant The Sovereign Wife.
Back at Theatre Works I saw one of the most riveting performances of the year in The Palace of the End – overall a very strong production, with an absolutely riveting performance by Robert Meldrum, who I couldn’t take my eyes off. Simply astounding.
On the other side of town at La Mama I was equally enthralled by Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude, a classic encapsulation of the adage "the personal is political" in cabaret form, while the equally powerful The Bloody Chamber at the Malthouse, skilfully adapted by Van Badham and directed by Matthew Lutton, not only made me see Alison Whyte in a new light, but gave me a new appreciation for the feminist fairy tales of Angela Carter. Great stuff.
I finally caught up with sci-fi puppet epic The Omega Quest at Revolt in Kensington; cheered Geraldine Quinn’s excellent Sunglasses at Night: The 80s Apocalypse Sing Along Cabaret at the Butterfly Club; was made to empathise with beastly men thanks to Patricia Cornelius's superb Savages at fortyfivedownstairs; gasped in wonder at Richard Vabre’s absolutely exquisite lighting for Stuck Pigs Squealing’s night maybe at Theatre Works; delighted in a bite-sized range of contemporary and traditional dance styles in Nat Cursio’s Private Dances II at Northcote Town Hall; was taken aback and enthralled by Branch Nebula’s Whelping Box at Arts House Meat Market; and adored Elbow Room’s Fewer Emergencies at the Owl and the Pussycat.
Then it was Fringe time. The controlled simplicity of They saw a thylacine and the judicious blend of comedy and heartbreak in Black Faggot thrilled me; Wolf Creek, The Musical revelled in its low-fi silliness, as did Dr Professor Neal Portenza’s Love Muffins; I was taken aback and thrilled by Mark Wilson’s committed performance in MKA’s Unsex Me, while Big One Little One’s live art piece Confetti was one of the most exhilarating and life-affirming works of the year.
Next came the Melbourne Festival, where my highlights were Nicola Gunn’s post-modern masterpiece In Spite of Myself and Belarus Free Theatre’s electrifying piece of agit-prop Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker.
After the madness of Fringe and the Festival, where I saw 40 shows in 40 days, I collapsed a little, though I still had time to see Malia Walsh and company’s circus-puppetry-dance hybrid Arabella at the La Mama Courthouse, which was superb, as was Sisters Grimm’s remounted, gender-fucking Summertime in the Garden of Eden at Theatre Works.
This was meant to be a brief summation of just some of the year’s highlights – not all of them. Oops. Damn, it’s been an excellent year!
SM: Damn, it has been an excellent year! And Richard has seen most of the shows.
Richard's another one of those people whom I trust if they tell me to see something. Without his recommendation, I wouldn't have seen Slutmonster and Friends. And, to not have seen this fuzzy-pink, giant-cocked slut of a monster is too sad a thought to contemplate. I sat with Richard at Slutmonster and Wolf Creek and, I've said it before, but it's wonderful to be with people who laugh (and cry; Dr Who) at the same things I do.
The last very-loved three are Mary Helen Sassman, Glyn Roberts and Richard Watts.
(And there might be a bonus next week.)
What Melbourne loved the most in 2013
The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm, NEON
They saw a thylacine, Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell, Melbourne Fringe
Story of O, The Rabble, NEON
Kids Killing Kids, MKA, Melbourne Fringe
M+M, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Theatre Works, Melbourne Fringe
But the MTC's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is the undisputed winner.
There's still no award statue, no cash prize and I'm in my pjs as I announce the winners, but there are quotables and every show and person mentioned knows that Melbourne really loved you in 2013.
Mary Helen Sassman
performer
MARY HELEN: I have felt a bubbling undercurrent – sometimes champagne all fizzy pop and sometimes simmering soup all hearty – this year, as though something special is happening to our little industry. We have seen courage and risk-taking robustly applauded.
As a performer, my scariest, most formative and now favourite moment was while performing in The Rabble's Story of O, where scores of audience walked out mid-performance; some loudly exclaiming their disdain as they left. I inherently aim to please – or so I had thought – so was challenged, but ultimately it felt dangerous and honest.
Also this year I have been working at what Chris Boyd has called "Headquarters": La Mama Theatre. What I love most about that place is that it feels like home to so many ridiculously talented people and companies.
My favourite moments there and elsewhere:
A stunning and dark tale in Angela Betzien's The Tall Man. Director Leticia Caceres created an eerie and raw world with some seriously good Brisbane-bred actors Hayden Spencer and Louise Brehmer.
Super Discount (Back to Back Theatre) was super awesome.
Menagerie (NEON, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble) thrilled me. I am now and forever unfulfilled if there are less than three simultaneous climaxes at any one time on stage.
SM: MH's performance in Story of O left me reeling (and I lost count of the climaxes).
It's almost impossible to get into the head of the O in the book. Mary Helen got into O's head and did what the book doesn't: showed us what this women felt. It's when actors bring more than the writer created to a character that they become so real that we are willing to forget that we're watching an actor.
Glyn Roberts
was Co-Creative-Director, MKA
is Program Manager, La Boite Theatre Company (Brisbane)
GLYN: Well. 2013 was for me one of the most hectic years of my life; although, not the busiest. That was 2011–12: those heady years where we built cutting-edge performances spaces out of eggshells and barley sugar.
My favorite show was The Rabble's Story of O, but that has been talked about quite a bit here. And I finally caught Arthur's Cut Snake, a show that is "performance" at it's simplest and most effective. Such a lovely thing.
My favorite moments in theatre this year were more the symptoms of shows. Watching a Year 10 class from the Gold Coast lose their shit while watching The Economist at the World Theatre Festival in Brisbane or, in Brisbane again for the Brisbane Festival, having MKA's production of The Unspoken Word is 'Joe' programmed alongside so many friends and colleagues from Melbourne.
It was a sign that something was beginning and ending simultaneously. Change was afoot, not to mention the emergence of a curious culture of sharing and communication between Melbourne and Brisbane, cheekily going on behind Sydney's back.
The most telling moments were the white hot fury that MKA's Kids Killing Kids could, on any given night, insight and the bacchaenalian thrill that it would inspire in the hearts of others.
The same went for Mark Wilson's Unsex Me, which divided audiences with many to this day still unable to control the volume of their voice when the piece is mentioned (which is excellent).
Both shows represented my swan song as a Creative Director of MKA and both were shows that forced those that saw them to lay their cards on the table. These pieces not only polarised members of the audience but exposed who they were ideologically, aesthetically, sexually, culturally and artistically. It was these moments where theatre managed to expose people's essence and foundations and had them leaving the theatre raw and alive both livid and joyful.
As Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014.
SM: I was going to talk more about Kids Killing Kids and a bit about Group Show (what a bunch of writers!), but I'm going with:
"If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014."
Let's all take that in to 2014.
Richard Watts
writer, broadcaster, the guy who sees more shows than anyone and should be given a present by Melbourne's independent artists for all the amazing support he gives
 |
| Ho and Ho |
RICHARD: Between all the performance delights that Melbourne had to offer, as well as the biennial Castlemaine State Festival, the World Theatre Forum at Brisbane Powerhouse, and a truly spellbinding performance by Pantha Du Prince and the Bell Laboratory in Barcelona (hands down my favourite performance of the year in any artform), 2013 has been an excellent year. Congratulations to everyone who made and staged work this year – you’ve been amazing, and I can’t wait to see what you’ll create in 2014.
This year got off to an excellent start with Psycho Beach Party at Theatre Works, a camp feast of satire and leopard print, beautifully performed and designed and excellently directed and performed.
I also adored the MTC’s Constellations, a heartbreakingly beautiful exploration of love across parallel worlds by UK playwright Nick Payne starring Alison Bell and Leon Ford; Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You Never Had it So Good) at the World Theatre Festival, which featured some of the best integration of technology and the audience I’ve ever seen on stage; and, at the same festival, I Heart Alice Heart I by Irish company HotForTheatre, the single most romantic production I saw all year – I was sobbing happy tears by the end of the play, and I certainly wasn’t the only one.
Coming back to Melbourne, I was amazed and delighted by Brisbane circus company Casus and their show Knee Deep at the Famous Spiegeltent (a venue I’ll miss in 2014), an intimate display of physical skill that playfully subverted gender norms, and I laughed uproariously at the Indigenous fairy tale Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui at the Castlemaine State Festival. I also shrieked with mirth at Lucy Hopkin’s superb solo clown act Le Foulard at Tuxedo Cat and at the return season of the wonderfully rude and hugely entertaining Slutmonster and Friends. at Northcote Town Hall during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Windmill Theatre’s School Dance was wonderful too – its awkward geek heroes really resonated with me, reminding me of my Dungeons & Dragons-playing high school days – as was Simon Keck’s hilarious play about suicide, Nob Happy Sock at the Imperial Hotel, though in a very different way.
I missed some of the MTC’s NEON season due to a trip to Spain but I was very taken by The Hayloft Project’s exploration of myth and theatrical form, By Their Own Hands, and, seemingly like everyone else in Melbourne, was thrilled and delighted by Sisters Grimm’s subversive, playful, confrontation and brilliant The Sovereign Wife.
Back at Theatre Works I saw one of the most riveting performances of the year in The Palace of the End – overall a very strong production, with an absolutely riveting performance by Robert Meldrum, who I couldn’t take my eyes off. Simply astounding.
On the other side of town at La Mama I was equally enthralled by Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude, a classic encapsulation of the adage "the personal is political" in cabaret form, while the equally powerful The Bloody Chamber at the Malthouse, skilfully adapted by Van Badham and directed by Matthew Lutton, not only made me see Alison Whyte in a new light, but gave me a new appreciation for the feminist fairy tales of Angela Carter. Great stuff.
I finally caught up with sci-fi puppet epic The Omega Quest at Revolt in Kensington; cheered Geraldine Quinn’s excellent Sunglasses at Night: The 80s Apocalypse Sing Along Cabaret at the Butterfly Club; was made to empathise with beastly men thanks to Patricia Cornelius's superb Savages at fortyfivedownstairs; gasped in wonder at Richard Vabre’s absolutely exquisite lighting for Stuck Pigs Squealing’s night maybe at Theatre Works; delighted in a bite-sized range of contemporary and traditional dance styles in Nat Cursio’s Private Dances II at Northcote Town Hall; was taken aback and enthralled by Branch Nebula’s Whelping Box at Arts House Meat Market; and adored Elbow Room’s Fewer Emergencies at the Owl and the Pussycat.
Then it was Fringe time. The controlled simplicity of They saw a thylacine and the judicious blend of comedy and heartbreak in Black Faggot thrilled me; Wolf Creek, The Musical revelled in its low-fi silliness, as did Dr Professor Neal Portenza’s Love Muffins; I was taken aback and thrilled by Mark Wilson’s committed performance in MKA’s Unsex Me, while Big One Little One’s live art piece Confetti was one of the most exhilarating and life-affirming works of the year.
Next came the Melbourne Festival, where my highlights were Nicola Gunn’s post-modern masterpiece In Spite of Myself and Belarus Free Theatre’s electrifying piece of agit-prop Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker.
After the madness of Fringe and the Festival, where I saw 40 shows in 40 days, I collapsed a little, though I still had time to see Malia Walsh and company’s circus-puppetry-dance hybrid Arabella at the La Mama Courthouse, which was superb, as was Sisters Grimm’s remounted, gender-fucking Summertime in the Garden of Eden at Theatre Works.
This was meant to be a brief summation of just some of the year’s highlights – not all of them. Oops. Damn, it’s been an excellent year!
SM: Damn, it has been an excellent year! And Richard has seen most of the shows.
Richard's another one of those people whom I trust if they tell me to see something. Without his recommendation, I wouldn't have seen Slutmonster and Friends. And, to not have seen this fuzzy-pink, giant-cocked slut of a monster is too sad a thought to contemplate. I sat with Richard at Slutmonster and Wolf Creek and, I've said it before, but it's wonderful to be with people who laugh (and cry; Dr Who) at the same things I do.
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