Review: Accidents are Prohibited on This Road

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

Accidents are Prohibited on This Road

Russell McGilton

5 October 2010

Cabaret Voltaire,  Fringe Hub

to 10 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

There is little as boring an someone else's travel stories. The main reason backpackers have so much sex is that fellow-travellers shag them to stop them sharing their tedious stories. So when I realised that Russell McGlinton was sharing his 20-year-old backpacking stories, I thought of sneaking out.

Glad I didn't, because Russell is the exception to the rule. He also appreciates that most of us would rather have travellers diarrhoea than listen to backpacking tales, so he ensures that he tells good story. But I'm not forgiving an opening joke about the Grand Final and the federal election being a draw. You're a much smarter, more original and funnier man than that Russell – and so is your audience.

 Accidents are Prohibited on This Road is one of the many English-gone-wrong signs he saw in India and the show is a selection of his first backpacking trip tales from when he was 20 – 20 years ago, when he had hair. It's the follow up to the popular Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle.

Russell's easy manner of talking with his audience, which included a front row of 20-something backpackers, quickly put his audience at ease and eager to join in,  and he has a quick enough wit to get himself in and out of trouble. (FYI,  Russell found out that Germans still aren't ready for jokes about them bombing London).

This is the kind of story telling that has probably got him many free pints,  and if you're expecting boring dinner guests, Russell would be the ideal bloke to invite so that the conversation never slowed and everyone is too busy laughing to notice that you've served them frozen Lean Cuisines and cask wine.

Accidents is loosely structured around the need to escape a psycho girlfriend. Young Rusty headed to London (where folk are rude), Scotland (where folk talk funny) and Kenya (where folk are sexy or violent and talk funny). Here he doesn't do too well with the women, which may have something to do with him only meeting strange women. In fact, none of the women in this show were shown in any positive light.

For all its great telling and funny stories, there's a lot unsaid in this show. I kept asking myself why a 40-something was telling 20-year-old stories and why his "self-reflection" slides were as personal and meaningful as a fortune cookie. Accidents are Prohibited on This Road is as fun as drinking pints with mates at your favourite pub, but would become a much gutsier show if Russell dropped the fun-dude mask to reveal something of himself, show why he's still telling old stories, and let us know how 20-odd years have changed him or if he's met a woman who isn't a complete freak.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: For Whom The Bell Tolls

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Poet Laureate Telia Nevile

5 October 2010

Son of Loft,  Fringe hub

to 9 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

Following the critical raves, award nominations and sold out houses of While I'm Away, Poet Laureate Telia Nevile takes us back to the genesis of her genius and the common hell of all artists. In For Whom The Bell Tolls, she goes back to high school.

In her rust red check uniform, teen Telia captures the soul of every angsty teen artist in poetic wonders like "You Can Ring My Bell Jar" and "Losing My Virgility"and her awkward confidence is an inspiration to anyone who remembers the Pure Evil and Puerile Embarrassment of a PE class where popularity is publicly ranked.

With the likes of Vegemite sandwiches and oral presentation notes, Telia continues to capture the often ignored details of daily life and disarmingly transforms them into something so charming and gorgeous that we'll see their gorgeousness for ever. Our poet can't gas herself in her electric oven, so she has to fight on and envision a beatnik future with crowds of loving fans.

With the guiding eye of director Lou Sanz, the disarming and dry humour of For Whom The Bell Tolls is a more structured and complex show that Away, and we're seeing a lot more of the longing-heart of our poet, even if she still tries to hide behind the seriousness of her delightfully not-quite-right words.

As I love nothing better than a "well structured, drawn out word fuck", the Poet Laureate is my favourite poet and my inner-depressed-arty-out-of-place teen has replaced her Emily Dickinson quotes with those from Telia Neville – and will keep the thank you letter she slipped me (and everyone else – just to be polite) in my diary for ever.

For Whom The Bell Tolls finishes on Saturday. It's a brilliant start to a night at the Fringe hub.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: The Event

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

The Event

by John Clancy 

Daniel Clark

3 October 2010

The Loft Fringe hub

to 9 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

A writer sits at a desk and writes about a man who stood in a pool of light in a darkened room and talked about a man standing in a pool of light in a darkened room who talked about writers, and actors and the "professional observers" who watch them and the strangers who sit in darkened rooms wanting to be entertained.

Written to be loved (or possibly resented) by anyone who has sat in a small theatre and watched a show, The Event is uber-meta. It's so meta that the performer in this performance about a performance, written in the third person, explains that it's meta.

Does it already sound a bit wanky? A tad self-indulgent and arty-farty perhaps? Of course it is, but this could be the secret to its appeal. 

Writer John Clancy is a New York-based producer and director who has spent ten years presenting shows all over the globe. He knows theatre and pours every bit of his love, understanding and cynicism of our strange sitting-in-the-dark world into The Event. Us who watch in the dark know actors whose friendships are maintained by drinking and lying, about having naps during shows (he even helps with a lullaby) and the strange combination of advertising and chance that gets us into the darkened rooms.

Just when we're comfortably giggling at the time updates, the in-jokes and recognition, The Event reveals its real depth and places the man beyond the fourth wall into a more uncomfortably recognisable world of angst and confusion. This is far more than a funny story about theatre.

Adelaide-based director Daniel Clarke leads actor Nick Pelomis in the Australian premiere (I think... let me know if I'm wrong). This team also know the ironies, frustrations and payoffs of theatre. Pelomis performs like he's not performing, like The Event was penned for him and he talks to his audience like they are friends whose presence is more important than his is in this darkened world.

The Event is so independent theatre that it will spawn a a wave of imitators in future Fringes, but  – like the music theatre gem [title of show] – they will never be as original. 

Even if, per chance, you don't love The Event, you'll regret it if you miss it.

The writer checks for obvious typos and signs of her own meta wankiness, clicks Publish, before she checks Facebook, links the review to Twitter and hopes that the show she is seeing tonight didn't start at 6.30.

Review: McGuffin

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

McGuffin

Shaolin Punk 

1 October 2010

The Loft Fringe hub

season finished

www.melbournefringe.com.au

A scruffy man hands me a business card. It says: One briefcase. No memory. Three rules. Haven't you always wanted to write a TV show?

Yes I have.

McGuffin was a seven-episode Aussie TV drama series, but it was like watching TV in a time before re-runs and VCRS – miss it and it's gone. This was TV on stage and it was improvised. 

Ben McKenzie and his company Shaolin Punk call it hybrid improvised theatre. The structure of each episode was created in advance, but the dialogue, character development and plot were created on the night by the performers, the directors (McKenzie and Sean Fabri) and the audience – who were asked to suggest the pivotal turning points and reveals for each episode.

I only saw the last episode, but – like any good telly story telling – I was hooked into the mystery of the Sanchez Cross and those who sought it. It was a bit like the Da Vinci Code meets Dr Who and Offspring.

Fabri was joined on stage by Gina Morley, Chris Broadstock and Kate O'Neill, who know the rules and style of TV storytelling so well that they must spend many wonderful house on the couch watching the box.

McGuffin was far from slick high art, but it was never meant to be. It was a lot of fun (for the creators and the audience) and the next time they do a series, I'd try to be there from episode 1.

The TV show is over, but Shaolin Punk are presenting three performances of Dungeon Crawl at the Fringe. Impro Dungeons and Dragons.  Yes, it will be geeky.

Review: Sammy J - Skinny Man, Modern World

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010
Skinny Man, Modern World
Sammy J 
1 October 2010
The Ballroom, Fringe hub
to 9 October
www.melbournefringe.com.au

Our Sammy's all grown up. With no puppets, fancy sets (or Heath) and a slimming pin-stripe suit, Sammy J shares a reflective hour of sophisticated wit and word play... if you think reflection is fantasising about Alf from Home and Away, sophistication is getting rat-arsed drunk and the words you like playing with include "fingering" and "fucking ugly mermaid".

Sammy J has never been shy of revealing his embarrassing past, and Skinny Man, Modern World is a step towards a style of personal story telling that is going to open him up even more, let us see the man behind the character and make him even more of legend.

Smart as without ever being a smart arse,  Sammy J is simply one the best around. I love him in the same way I love Tim Minchin and Daniel Kitson.

I hope he never stops creating shows with Randy and puppeteer Heath McIvor, but I can't wait to see more of this intimate style of show that is just about Sammy and his stories. Some of which are songs, some of which may not be true and one of which is the BEST STORY told this Fringe. I can say no more because I'm blushing from the memory of it. The best comedians are the brave ones, the ones brave enough to pull out those stories that the rest of us would never, ever speak about.

And he's funny. Very, very, very, very funny. Jaw aching from laughing funny. Brain aching from thinking funny. Heart aching from feeling funny.

 Skinny Man, Modern World is on until 9 October.


PS: Have I mentioned that the first time I reviewed Sammy J, I was only mildly impressed.  I know how wrong I was. Always give performers another go.

This review appears on AussieThearte.com

Guest Reviewer: Ella Danse

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

Ella Danse
Beebop Arts

2 October 2010
241
9 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

Review by Karla Dondio

Last night was the second time I’ve cried during a performance at the 2010 Fringe Festival.

Perhaps I’m a tad sensitive and it’s time to increase my Vitamin B intake, but the truth is

I’ve just been privy to some really outstanding performances this Fringe.

As a wordsmith, I forget sometimes that you don’t need words tell a story. Thank you

Etoile Marley, performer and choreographer of Elle Danse, for reminding me how potent

and exacting the medium of dance is in conveying human emotions which is the

bones of great story telling.

To describe this dance/cabaret show would simply do it an injustice. What I will say is this:

So you think you can dance? You wish. Etoile Marley can dance. Sure she’s technically

precise, with the type of dexterity that puts most of us to shame, but there’s so much

more to dance than that. The kind of dancers who inspire demonstrate expertise while

exposing the qualities of the human condition with both subtlety and flare.

Last night I journeyed through despair, longing, eroticism, absurdism, joy and triumph.

And if you want to know how erotic is done sans the degradation and sexploitation that’s

everywhere these days, then don’t miss show.

Oh and did I mention Marley can sing beautifully as well as speak French? Well she

can and these attributes only add another dimension to this, already, superb show. The only

criticism I have is the show is simply not long enough. More please!

I take my hat off to all the performers of the Fringe Festival like Marley who have not only

honed their craft but also allow the audience to access the exquisite essence of story telling

through their vulnerabilities and triumphs. You make us laugh and make us cry, but

most of all you remind us what it is to be human. Etoile Marley you’re a star!

Last night was the second time I’ve cried during a performance at the 2010 Fringe Festival.

Perhaps I’m a tad sensitive and it’s time to increase my Vitamin B intake, but the truth is

I’ve just been privy to some really outstanding performances this Fringe.

As a wordsmith, I forget sometimes that you don’t need words tell a story. Thank you

Etoile Marley, performer and choreographer of Elle Danse, for reminding me how potent

and exacting the medium of dance is in conveying human emotions which is the

bones of great story telling.

To describe this dance/cabaret show would simply do it an injustice. What I will say is this:

So you think you can dance? You wish. Etoile Marley can dance. Sure she’s technically

precise, with the type of dexterity that puts most of us to shame, but there’s so much

more to dance than that. The kind of dancers who inspire demonstrate expertise while

exposing the qualities of the human condition with both subtlety and flare.

Last night I journeyed through despair, longing, eroticism, absurdism, joy and triumph.

And if you want to know how erotic is done sans the degradation and sexploitation that’s

everywhere these days, then don’t miss show.

Oh and did I mention Marley can sing beautifully as well as speak French? Well she

can and these attributes only add another dimension to this, already, superb show. The only

criticism I have is the show is simply not long enough. More please!

I take my hat off to all the performers of the Fringe Festival like Marley who have not only

honed their craft but also allow the audience to access the exquisite essence of story telling

through their vulnerabilities and triumphs. You make us laugh and make us cry, but

most of all you remind us what it is to be human. Etoile Marley you’re a star!Last night was the second time I’ve cried during a performance at the 2010 Fringe Festival.

Perhaps I’m a tad sensitive and it’s time to increase my Vitamin B intake, but the truth is

I’ve just been privy to some really outstanding performances this Fringe.

As a wordsmith, I forget sometimes that you don’t need words tell a story. Thank you

Etoile Marley, performer and choreographer of Elle Danse, for reminding me how potent

and exacting the medium of dance is in conveying human emotions which is the

bones of great story telling.

To describe this dance/cabaret show would simply do it an injustice. What I will say is this:

So you think you can dance? You wish. Etoile Marley can dance. Sure she’s technically

precise, with the type of dexterity that puts most of us to shame, but there’s so much

more to dance than that. The kind of dancers who inspire demonstrate expertise while

exposing the qualities of the human condition with both subtlety and flare.

Last night I journeyed through despair, longing, eroticism, absurdism, joy and triumph.

And if you want to know how erotic is done sans the degradation and sexploitation that’s

everywhere these days, then don’t miss show.

Oh and did I mention Marley can sing beautifully as well as speak French? Well she

can and these attributes only add another dimension to this, already, superb show. The only

criticism I have is the show is simply not long enough. More please!

I take my hat off to all the performers of the Fringe Festival like Marley who have not only

honed their craft but also allow the audience to access the exquisite essence of story telling

through their vulnerabilities and triumphs. You make us laugh and make us cry, but

most of all you remind us what it is to be human. Etoile Marley you’re a star!

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Words They Make With Their Mouths-

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

Words They Make With Their Mouths

Bambina Borracha Productions

1 October 2010
Son of Loft, Fringe Hub
to 9 October

www.melbournefringe.com.au

Tim Spencer has the most beautiful smile, but there's a lot more to his solo show, Words They Make With Their Mouths.

After a terrific reception at the Adelaide Fringe, Spencer (writer and performer) brings Melbourne his delicate and beautifully observed account of a group of 20-somethings out on a Saturday night in inner-south Sydney.

This isn't a plot based story with compelling twists and turns, but a study of the characters and place. Each ones begins by simply turning the corner and walking down the street. Linked by their universal search for love, he lets us watch these people without passing any judgement. With such an authentic voice, it's as fascinating watching strangers but we get to hear what they are saying and thinking.

Playing every part, Spencer, gently directed by Jessica Tuckwell, tells us about their average Saturday night. There's people like Elise who tasted like lipsmaker and Midori, a young man (Lewis?) who loves having a 30-something couple snort coke off his chest because it makes him feel like he's in the movies, Charlotte who hates that her boyfriend didn't hold her hair back when she puked, and Nick who treats Stacey's pussy like the door to Narnia.

At first it's difficult to understand that Spencer is the teller and no specific character himself, but you know that now, so will be able to enjoy it without your brain asking annoying questions.

Words They Make With Their Mouths runs for another week and these gen-Ys deserve love from audiences.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: A Study in Scarlet (A Study of)

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2010

A Study in Scarlet (A Study of)

Vicious Fish Theatre

1 October 2010
Son of Loft, Fringe Hub
season finished

www.melbournefringe.com.au

Before driving, comedy, sex and even before Dr Who,  Robert Lloyd discovered Sherlock Holmes. A Study in Scarlet (A Study of) is the story of his obsession. As someone prone to nerdy obsession, I had to love it.

Twelve-year-old Robert fell in love with Sherlock Holmes in Dubbo. He was the first person in ten years to borrow Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book from the local library and still hasn't recovered from his school production of a Holmes parody (with young Mr L in the lead) losing to an excerpt from The Crucible.

He intersperses his nerdy confessions, with an abridged telling of A Study in Scarlet, Doyle's first Holmes story. I admit that I haven't read any of the books – at 12, I was obsessed with Louisa May Alcott (Little Women) and KM Peyton (Flambards) and I'd discovered Dr Who on the telly – but wasn't surprised to see how much I already knew about the famous detective. Amazing fictional characters are so loved that they creep into our popular culture. And now I'm inspired to read about him. But I might go straight to book two, as I feel like I know Scarlet now.

Being alone on the stage, Lloyd is every character.  His Holmes is hot. He's suave and irresistible (and looks a bit like David Tennant). This is where this study gets really interesting, we get our deductive hats on and co-creator and director Scott Gooding steps in.

Gooding (who hadn't read Holmes but is familiar with nerdy obsession) not only saved the show from being called The Me in Holmes, but ensures that it's really a study of Lloyd.

Lloyd tells us how much he, as a lanky big-nosed kid, wanted to be like his tall, lean, sharp-nosed hero – but we are allowed to read deeper. We see how much his Holmes is the man he still wants to be, even when he admits that he's not smart enough to be Holmes and is only good at creating facades. Gooding makes sure that the man on stage is still revealing more than he intended.

More of this personal study and confession will add extra guts to the next season. There's still a hint of Robert playing a character when he's being himself. Watching a performer open themselves up personally on a stage – and become a person – is what makes good storytelling astonishing. It's what catches our hearts instead of our heads.

Study in Scarlet (A Study of) is an intriguing, honest and funny exploration of why we obsess with fictional creations. As a boy, Robert aspired to be Holmes. As a man we wonder if he still thinks Holmes (for all his depression and faults) is a better man than he is. Holmes was created by a man who probably felt the same. It's the recognition of the self doubt that audiences – including people who don't give a toss about Holmes – will love because we all want to hide behind a mask that makes us look better than we think we are.


This review appears on AussieThearte.com.

Discussion: Artists & Criticism (2008)

Reading the current blogasphere hoo hah about critics (I'll think about saddling up my high horse about it once I've written about the shows I saw last night and watched the Grand Final sequel) reminded me of this discussion from 2008. It's a look at how an artist deals with reviews.

An Actor Prepares is Eagles Nest Theatre 2008 Melbourne Fringe production. This work was last performed at the 2008 Adelaide Fringe, where it received a scathing review from The Advertiser.  James Adler talks about his reaction to a half-star rating.

Fringe festivals encourage an abundance of people wanting to see unique and courageous productions - but there are almost too many shows for this limited audience to choose from, which leaves many using reviews as their selection guide.

AussieTheatre’s Christina Cass reviewed an earlier version of An Actor Prepares. Her review praised the performances as courageous and said, “The imagery and essence of this play are stunning:  simple and heartbreaking. They challenge the audience to trust their senses.” Chris Boyd from The Herald Sun said, "Word for word it is a mighty script: Poetic, slippery and dramatic.  Deceptively simple and devastatingly effective. "

However, in Adelaide, An Actor Prepares received half a star, out of six, from Samela Harris, one of South Australia’s most respected and experienced reviewers. She opened with: “One can't have a good Fringe without some bad shows. This is the little gem of them all. It is so bad it could almost become a cult. It is almost impossible to tell what it is about.” She concluded by expressing her relief that it is quite short.

I asked Adler how he felt about the review. “In some ways you feel offended and hurt, but your artist’s skin also has to be thinker than that…I have no issue with someone not liking our work - for god’s sake that’s what the arts is all about - but the job of a reviewer is to attempt to engage with a work as well as provide an opinion about it's quality.

“What was offensive... is that she never really made any attempt to review it at all. It seems to me that her desire was to judge the piece as good or bad and to make sure that she, as reviewer, came out looking slick.”

It may be lacking in tact, but what is clear from Harris’s review is that she didn’t understand the intent or even the premise of the piece.

Adler tells me that An Actor Prepares is about “believing and then loosing faith”. This is a universal and powerful theme. He started writing the piece in 2001, on the day “we (Australia) started bombing Afghanistan.”  

 “I wanted to explode. . . go to Canberra and yell and protest. . . (but) my opinon as an individual would be drowned out.” From his personal reaction, Adler developed the metaphor of a bomb and wrote a monologue that interweaves the thoughts and actions of a suicide bomber with the stories of others who find themselves in violent, impossible or voiceless situations.

Musician, composer and director Nela Trifkovic says she came to work because ” for the first time in long time there was a story that I wanted to be part of - even if it was an angry story.” Nela describes herself as a survivor from the war in Yugoslavia. Coming to Australia and going to primary school in Perth, her mixed-religion, mixed-cultural upbringing was met with confusing mix of good intentioned ignorance. She said “a teacher yelled at me for using the term Yugoslavia… an Australian social worker told me you couldn't speak Serbo-Croatian. I try to listen to everybody and that's precisely why it's painful always being told what to.”

Trifkovic’s music adds dimension, perspective and counterpoint to Adler’s monologue. “I decided to offer my music for it does not tell one what to do, but hopefully leaves one on a bitter-sweet chord of self decision.”

An Actor Prepares is a piece that actively forces the audience to make their own decisions about meaning.

Adler finishes by saying, “I am not sure what the value of review is if the reviewer doesn’t try to understand where the work is coming from - and so in the end her (Harris) critique doesn't really seem worthy to be taken into account.”

This is a healthy attitude to criticism, but I wonder if Adler should try to understand where Harris’s criticism came from.

If a show totally fails to connect with an audience member, perhaps there are elements of the work that could be re-thought. Cass understood and admired the work, but she also said the “very personal work needs an outside eye to help take the next step toward a mature piece of theatre.”

I’ve also seen An Actor Prepares. It isn’t a piece that is easy to immediately engage with, as it lacks a traditional narrative, and adopts a more fluid approach to time, space and character. This does make it difficult to understand, but Adler and Trifkovic’s passion for their work is striking and they express an authentic belief, opinion and experience.

Fringe festivals encourage artists to take risks and experiment, offering an opportunity for artists to create the work they really want to make. An Actor Prepares is an ongoing experiment with form that was created with the intent to question and provoke. If it had been created merely to please, the result would be far less interesting, far less passionate and would never have resulted in such extreme and mixed opinions.

This originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Guest Reviewer: MelBorn 2010 Season 2

The Premiere 
and 
Mrs Robinson Comes to Town

MelBorn ReBorn, Melbourne Writers Theatre

September 2010
Carlton Courthouse
www.melbwriters.org.au

Review by James Adler

The Premiere

As those of us in the under resourced indi-theatre game know all too well: it takes a long time to get a show to tick all the boxes. So hats off to the Melbourne Writers Theatre, Broken Mirror and MelBorn for giving us this play loaded with potential.

As we wait for The Premiere to begin, I take a moment to admire the design work of Emily Collett. It is a simple but beautiful set of folding flats, made out of light stained timber and canvass. It almost makes us feel like we are in a church. There is huge potential for the set to be used in exciting dramatic ways and had the added advantage being able to be quickly removed, which is often necessary with multiple shows a venue, as is this case. One frustration I did experience is that the potential of this stunning set was never realised.

Suddenly it snaps to black. The show begins.  A male and a female voice speak urgently about acquiring weapons. This opening dramatic effect is strong. Immediately I am engaged, looking around, trying to work out who it is, where they are and what’s happening.

As the lights open up we find ourselves in a police in cell. The inmates are: a young-and-ready-for-action couple Seb (Leon Durr) and Livia (Karla Sylvie), and an imprisoned activist, Matt (Fred Rowan). The three get acquainted and chat about the state of affairs in the world outside the cell, in world of the Democratic Dictatorship of Robert Fellows. Initially I guessed that Robert Fellows might never appear and would, instead, serve as a symbolic point of reference, but this thought was quickly dispelled. In fact the question of how to deal with Robert Fellows (Bruce Langdon), a former freedom fighter who ran out of things to do other than become a dictator and then make a movie about his own demise, quickly becomes the focus of the play.

On the surface The Premiere is quirky, abstract and comic. The healthy smattering of witty one liners and the sharp satirical characterisation from all four performers alone make it worth a look.

That said, my feeling, is that overall many audience members found the piece difficult. While the abstract and satirical style and direction was, in some ways, a positive, they also served as barrier for that stopped the audience getting into the meat of the play. If you were up for the challenge it was clear that writer Amel Kenza is offering more than a gag and a smart turn a phrase. Beneath the surface there was clearly some serious intellectual meat worth gnawing on this bone.

The play is really an investigation of our contemporary movie-mass-media-homogenous-cyber world. The questions being asked are: we’re has our acceptance of our culture become form of passive self-imposed dictatorship? If so how did it get that way? When and how we just give up believing there was a better world to fight for? And if we are going to regain our hope do we A: fight back and try to regain control of the physical world or B: submit and gain power by becoming the lawnmower man and entering completely into the cyber market of the future.

These are indeed important questions and in The Premiere they are woven in an interesting web to that gives us a new perspective from which to consider them. At the end of the day, I say this is a play that has some serious potential but may need to go through another phase or two of development before this potential is fully realised.

With all new work some weakness are to be expected, but it’s important to focus on the strengths and The Premiere has plenty of them. I look forward to seeing where it goes next.


Mrs Robinson Comes to Town

Part two of the evening is Ms Robinson Comes to Town Written by Caroline Rowan and Directed by Renee Palmer. Again this production does a good job in bringing another script with strong signs of potential to daylight. 

Sorry if I seem obsessed, but would one of the directors please spend some time with the set designer and make use of her brilliant work. There is a golden rule in theatre: if there is a gun on the table in the first act then someone needs to get shot in the last act. What I am getting at is that if you promise the audience something you need to deliver. That’s how the contract around the suspension of disbelief works. This set had the potential to make all sort of shapes, be moved and altered between scenes, and be used as a shadow screen and as a scrim – why oh why did nobody do anything with it at all?

Ok, that’s enough of Mr Grumpy Pants because there’s a whole lot of good things about this story.

It’s kind of a half love story for geriatrics and half a satirical feminist/post feminist critique and review of contemporary society. Our protagonists are Grace Robinson, a somewhat heavy-by-nature, been-through-the-wars, both personal and political, die-hard feminist and her would be friend/lover Benny Grubb, a very working class but basically good natured fella who talks a hell of a lot too much.

The plot is simple but effective. Benny comes over and sees he can find a way to alleviate his loneliness by helping Grace unpack.  Grace despite feeling quite put upon, is talked into getting Benny to reveal all sorts of things about herself including her political views and painful personal history.

Ms Robinsons story starts with dead and lost husbands, gay children and climaxes with a revelation about her past rape. In a similarly somewhat two dimensional style Benny, is uncomfortable talking about himself. We get to know few details other than he was in a horrifically prudish marriage.  Throughout the piece Benny’s emotional incompetence is revealed as he constantly deflects personal enquiry with odd facts about Anne Banks who play Mrs Robinson in that film.

This is all aimed to somehow seduce Grace and climaxes with a failed attempt to kiss her. I must comment that while the performances were in general good – this moment in the performance was so badly staged and performed it almost made me gag.

As I said in general the performances were quite strong. The notable short coming on this front apart from the kiss scene was that Gris Gaffney did such a realistic job of his occa accent that he was at times almost impossible to understand. Both actors, but in particular Margaret Younger (Grace) did a good job of creating three dimensional and emotionally accessible characters. This was important because at the end of the day this was a story about two one-dimensional people growing up a bit in their old age and making a new friend.

Overall I think that the script was pretty strong. It got me to have a good think about a couple of ideas. Sometimes men in unwillingness to face emotional problems, might equally well be describe as just trying their best to get along in life, and that sometimes the intellectual rigor of serious politics feminist (or otherwise) has some kind of aesthetic link with the sense of needing pain or having to overcome problems to have a sense of self.

Anyway, I reckon it was a pretty good little piece. The script might need a bit of a nip and tuck and it would be good to see the gag of Benny talking too much and being irritating develop because at the moment that character really runs the risk of driving not only Grace but also the audience to violence.   

Guest Reviewer: Sondheim Triptych 1, 2

A Sondheim Triptych:
Saturday Night
Merrily We Roll Along
Magnormos
20 & 27 September 2010
Melbourne Recital Centre 
www.melbournerecital.com.au

Review by Josephine Giles

To celebrate the 80^th birthday of the music theatre legend Stephen Sondheim, Melbourne music theatre champions Magnormos have chosen three of his lesser celebrated works to be performed concert style over three consecutive Mondays.

The first two of these, Saturday Night (1953) and Merrily We Roll Along (1981) are clever choices that demonstrate Sondheim’s progression from a very good but still developing songwriter to arguably the most important theatre creator of his time – having found the way to communicate important ideas through the generally frivolous medium of the musical.

Saturday Night was to be Sondheim’s Broadway debut as a songwriter, but owing to the untimely death of the producer, its New York opening was delayed until the year 2000. It could be argued that this was no great loss to the world of musicals. The book (by Julius and Phillip Epstein) is thin, dealing with a group of young men on a succession of Saturday nights in Brooklyn just prior to the Great Crash of 1929. One of them, Gene, is swept away by the dream of a win on the stock market: after losing his gang’s money in a series of escalating financial disasters Gene is saved, both fiscally and morally, through the love of the pure and beautiful Helen.

Despite the insubstantial plot, the musical is charming, communicating a naive youthful exuberance existing in a less complicated era. Sondheim’s talent is evident in the many songs -  more lyrical and not as  seamlessly integrated   in  the piece as in his later works, but already bursting with inventive (and seemingly endless) witty rhymes.

For this semi-staged rendition the young but talented cast coped well with the occasionally required use of scripts, Brooklyn accents, and the brave (in these times) decision to go unamplified. Accompanied subtly by the upstage combo of piano, bass and drums, the cast were mostly audible in the extraordinary acoustic of the Recital Centre, though too much dialogue was lost thorough a naturalistic delivery, often aimed upstage. Underlining the change in acting styles and vocal technique since the introduction of body microphones, it was refreshing to hear voices au naturale for a change; but I would have preferred to see this old-school musical delivered in the old-school way: out front!

As all of the performers were wonderful it seems unfair to single out anyone for praise, but my favourites were the radiant Claire George (Helen), with her sweet and perfect singing; the big – voiced, comically gifted Montana Perrin (Mildred); and Andrew Strano (Dino) who epitomized the slightly OTT performance style required for this form of theatre.

Merrily We Roll Along, written some 28 years later, is Sondheim at the height of his powers as composer and lyricist. A musical for grownups, it combines themes of friendship, artistic compromise and the high price of success, with social commentary on the changing world of politics, relationships and ambivalence in love.

Literally turning dramatic convention on its head, Merrily We Roll Along starts in 1980 and through a series of scenes cycles backwards in time to 1957. Once a talented Broadway composer, successful Hollywood producer Franklin Shepard (Chris Parker) contemplates the ruin of his marriages and his dearest friendships – through the series of flashbacks we see Frank’s life as it unravelled, ending back at his idealistic youth with best friends Charlie (Stephen Wheat), his collaborator and librettist, and Mary (Laura Fitzpatrick), a novelist with an unrequited love for Frank.

What makes Merrily We Roll Along such a good match for Saturday Night is the way Sondheim uses it as a sort of retrospective of his own career. Songs appearing full-fledged earlier in the evening are reprised in less well developed form as we travel backward through time, culminating in an hilarious scene when Broadway producer Joe berates Frank for the lack of melody in his songs, and we’re treated to a clumsy work-in progress version of “What more do I need?”, the finale to Saturday Night.

Other musical highpoints are the song “Not a day goes by”, sung by Beth (Lisa-Marie Parker) with

gut wrenching anguish when her marriage to Frank disintegrates, then reprised with joy as Beth marries Frank some years earlier, with alternating verses sung with regretful longing by Mary; Stephen Wheat’s brilliant, show-stopping rendition of “Franklin Shepard inc.”; and  the clever “Bobby and Jackie and Jack”, presented for a 1960 review, another example of Frank’s yet to be fully realised genius.

The semi-staged production, beautifully directed by Shaun Murphy, used at centre stage a scaled down band (with a synthesiser standing in for the string section), and a “set” of two risers and a few bent wood chairs. Projections on the back wall of the theatre filled us in on where and when we were as we travelled back through time. This time the performers were miked – which, until the levels were sorted out toward the end of the first act, meant that again some dialogue was lost  to too-fast, poorly articulated upstage delivery.

Which is the only small criticism I can muster up about the night. Casting was impeccable – the three central characters played by Parker, Wheat and Fitzpatrick, were all superb, and supported by an equally good cast of principals and ensemble. Throw in some very g-roovy moves and an audience absolutely determined to celebrate, and you’ve got a great night out.

The Sondheim Triptych concludes on Monday Oct 4 with Anyone Can Whistle.