Review: The unspoken word is "Joe"

The unspoken word is "Joe"
MKA and La Mama
6 October 2012
La Mama Theatre
to 14 October
lamama.com.au

The unspoken word is "Joe" has added as many performances as possible. The last lot sold out in 20 minutes. This means that the cast get pizza and those without tickets will have to see something else at the Fringe and believe what they heard about this show.

Last year, award-winning playwright Declan Greene recommended that I see a show co-created by Zoey Dawson. I know there's a lot of noise outside but you have to close your eyes was one of my favourites in the 2011 Fringe and since then Dawson's directed us The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of  Romeo and Juliet and performed all over the world in in MKA's The Economist.

Zoey's great! And wunderbeast producers MKA have grabbed her new script to create the rarest of Fringe beasts: a show that you can't get tickets for and a show that all reviews agree about.

"Joe" is a meta theatre reflection on indie theatre and breaking up. Really! What's so wonderful is that it's also nothing like that. Only the bravest go meta and so few succeed. Being in on the jokes, I was there from second one, but knew just how good it was when my date whispered, "It's not for real, is it?"

Hell yes, it's for real. It's so painfully real that it guarantees to send everyone back to their own memories of making art and stuff, being really serious about it, getting drunk, thinking you're the bee's knees and making a total muggins of yourself. It's wonderful stuff.

And it's all made more perfect with Greene's direction and dramaturgy, Eugyeene Teh's consistently awesome and witty design and a extraordinary cast (Nikki Shiels, Georgina Capper, Annie Last, Matt Hickey and Aaron Orzech) who never let us in on the joke.

Cameron used up all the best adjectives and the metaphor about taking liberties with dead body. And I couldn't agree more.

Review: The Horror Face

The Horror Face

MKA

23 June 2011

MKA Pop Up Theatre

to 9 July

www.mka.org.au

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

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

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

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

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

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com