Trustees
3 October 2018
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival
Beckett Theatre
to 21 October
malthousetheatre.com.au
www.festival.melbourne
 |
| Natasha Herbert. Trustees. Malthouse Theate |
My review is at The Music.
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label Daniel Schlusser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel Schlusser. Show all posts
08 October 2018
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Trustees
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2018
Trustees
3 October 2018
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival
Beckett Theatre
to 21 October
malthousetheatre.com.au
www.festival.melbourne
My review is at The Music.
Trustees
3 October 2018
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival
Beckett Theatre
to 21 October
malthousetheatre.com.au
www.festival.melbourne
My review is at The Music.
07 December 2013
What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 7
Today's favourites are from playwright and play maker, Rob Reid, director Daniel Lammin and director Shannon Woollard.
And remember that contributions are welcome from all SM readers.
Robert Reid
playwright, director, play maker; artistic director, Pop Up Playground
ROB: Kids Killing Kids. Totally awesome show, amazing energy, incredibly entertaining for a work that was fundamentally a power point presentation, lecture and a dance number. But how do you pass up a show that was condemned on the floor of the UN.
SM: I'm not sure when Rob has time to breathe. He's just finished a week where he was directing a play reading (Yours the Face by Fleur Kilpatrick for the VCA's Master of Writing for Performance), had a new work premiering at 5Pounds of Repertory (Because of Reasons), a recent work (The Well) re-mounted at La Mama, and was playing his guts out at This is Door 13 at Theatre Works. I managed three out of the four, but I saw the first season of The Well. He's created and co-created more shows and events in 2013 than a lot of people have seen in 2013.
But my favourite moment was a tweet saying that he'd created a Valkyrie game for me. I consider this my achievement of the year.
And see what Rob's looking forward to in 2014 at issimo.com.
Daniel Lammin
director, writer
DANIEL: There have been a few highlights for me this year, some expected and some a complete surprise. But the biggest highlight?
A few honourable mentions would be Matt Lutton’s double-punch with Dance of Death and The Bloody Chamber, both which left me giddy with joy.
Daniel Schlusser also hit it out of the ballpark with Menagerie and M+M.
I was prepared to despise Simon Stone’s The Cherry Orchard, but absolutely adored it.
Bagabus delivered the gorgeous Bushpig, a beautiful little fable with cracking writing and a tremendous performance.
And then there was the sublime impossibility of Einstein on the Beach, which might be one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in a theatre and probably ever will.
But if I have to pick the highlight, it's MKA’s Kids Killing Kids. Not long into it, I began to feel sick to my stomach in the best possible way. There had always been, in the back of my mind, this worry that we artists don’t really think about the consequences of what we do, and often get away with so much because it is ‘art’.
What David Finnigan, Sam Burns-Warr, Georgie McAuley and Jordon Prosser dared to share with us was an extreme experience of where that danger is magnified to unexpected proportions, but all four had the maturity to leave it to us to decide whether they did the right or wrong thing. No work I’ve seen has made me question my intentions and ethics as a theatre maker as much as this show.
I left it shaking, dizzy, crying and distressed; terrified to dare walk into a rehearsal room again, and questioning every decision I’d ever made as a writer and a director.
And I was so incredibly thankful for that.
Part of me worries that a lot of those questions were lost on a lot of people hypnotised by how ‘cool’ the show was or how exhilarating their production of Batallia Royale sounded, but I think the questions it poses and the discussion it has instigated made it exactly the kind of show we needed to see, for our practice and our conscience.
There was something deeply unsettling behind the eyes of these four young artists, a need to tell this story in order to understand it better for themselves. It might not have been technically impressive with opulent set design and ridiculous costumes, but Kids Killing Kids is probably the most important piece of theatre of this past year.
And then there was the Febreze bottle in Summertime in the Garden of Eden. Give that thing a Green Room Award.
And see what Daniel is most looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.
And remember that contributions are welcome from all SM readers.
Robert Reid
playwright, director, play maker; artistic director, Pop Up Playground
 |
| Photo by Sarah Walker |
SM: I'm not sure when Rob has time to breathe. He's just finished a week where he was directing a play reading (Yours the Face by Fleur Kilpatrick for the VCA's Master of Writing for Performance), had a new work premiering at 5Pounds of Repertory (Because of Reasons), a recent work (The Well) re-mounted at La Mama, and was playing his guts out at This is Door 13 at Theatre Works. I managed three out of the four, but I saw the first season of The Well. He's created and co-created more shows and events in 2013 than a lot of people have seen in 2013.
But my favourite moment was a tweet saying that he'd created a Valkyrie game for me. I consider this my achievement of the year.
And see what Rob's looking forward to in 2014 at issimo.com.
Daniel Lammin
director, writer
DANIEL: There have been a few highlights for me this year, some expected and some a complete surprise. But the biggest highlight?
A few honourable mentions would be Matt Lutton’s double-punch with Dance of Death and The Bloody Chamber, both which left me giddy with joy.
Daniel Schlusser also hit it out of the ballpark with Menagerie and M+M.
I was prepared to despise Simon Stone’s The Cherry Orchard, but absolutely adored it.
Bagabus delivered the gorgeous Bushpig, a beautiful little fable with cracking writing and a tremendous performance.
And then there was the sublime impossibility of Einstein on the Beach, which might be one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in a theatre and probably ever will.
But if I have to pick the highlight, it's MKA’s Kids Killing Kids. Not long into it, I began to feel sick to my stomach in the best possible way. There had always been, in the back of my mind, this worry that we artists don’t really think about the consequences of what we do, and often get away with so much because it is ‘art’.
What David Finnigan, Sam Burns-Warr, Georgie McAuley and Jordon Prosser dared to share with us was an extreme experience of where that danger is magnified to unexpected proportions, but all four had the maturity to leave it to us to decide whether they did the right or wrong thing. No work I’ve seen has made me question my intentions and ethics as a theatre maker as much as this show.
I left it shaking, dizzy, crying and distressed; terrified to dare walk into a rehearsal room again, and questioning every decision I’d ever made as a writer and a director.
And I was so incredibly thankful for that.
Part of me worries that a lot of those questions were lost on a lot of people hypnotised by how ‘cool’ the show was or how exhilarating their production of Batallia Royale sounded, but I think the questions it poses and the discussion it has instigated made it exactly the kind of show we needed to see, for our practice and our conscience.
There was something deeply unsettling behind the eyes of these four young artists, a need to tell this story in order to understand it better for themselves. It might not have been technically impressive with opulent set design and ridiculous costumes, but Kids Killing Kids is probably the most important piece of theatre of this past year.
And then there was the Febreze bottle in Summertime in the Garden of Eden. Give that thing a Green Room Award.
And see what Daniel is most looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.
SM: Maybe we could redesign the actual Green Room Award to be a Febreze bottle?
My moment of Daniel's this year is his Columbine: every moment of it, from the early Facebook updates to being there and knowing that every seat was sold. As it was being created, I wondered why he was telling a story that's distanced from his own. He showed me why.
Shannon Woollard
director
SHANNON: After all the slog, tears and triumphs associated with production of Jazz Angel, it was – unequivocally – Steve Gome's mesmerising turn in Dario Fo's Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas at Trades Hall in October. Seeing this done properly (a labour of love for Gome and director Wayne Pearn) was very moving for me.
One of the first "adult" plays I was permitted to see was Cant Pay? Won't Pay! in London at the age of 13. That crazy genius Fo entered my psyche and could not be removed thenceforward. Seeing Johan Padan was worth enduring those tedious, frustrating and disappointing theatrical experiences. Having a lone actor take me on a two-hour expedition into this incredibly humanistic work reminded me that history is about perspectives and that theatre, or more accurately, storytelling, is actually a form of nourishment. I also felt deeply sympathetic and incredibly pissed off when I found out about the poor attendance figures in the first part of their run. The show deserved to be sold out.
Shannon's annual PlaySix festival opens on 12 December. Details here.
SM: Jazz Angel was in in the upstairs theatre at The Athenaeum. It was like being in the 1920s. This is a space that should be used more.
(OK, my real favourite moment was when I was feeding a cat called Artie while his parents were on holidays. Not having seen Artie for a couple of days, I was panicking. Then on day three of the disappearance, I saw him. He glared at me and ran off, but I knew I hadn't lost him.)
(OK, my real favourite moment was when I was feeding a cat called Artie while his parents were on holidays. Not having seen Artie for a couple of days, I was panicking. Then on day three of the disappearance, I saw him. He glared at me and ran off, but I knew I hadn't lost him.)
05 December 2013
What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 5
Today we go from a 45-minute play in the smallness of La Mama to ten hours of happiness at the Arts Centre and music floating through Docklands, with Patricia Cornelius, Bryce Ives, and Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey.
Patricia Cornelius
playwright
PATRICA: A woman in her middle age stands still, so long she stands still in the half light, half turned into the darkness, buried in a heavy winter coat and a grey mane of unkempt hair whispering almost inaudibly. And these snatches of odd and scattered phrases draw us into a world that lasts 45 minutes at the most and it’s called Bunker and it’s at La Mama.
The creative team are Greg Dyson, Trudy Radburn and Charlie Laidlaw. As in the title the world is a bunker, a place away from danger, an internal place, a place not easy to come back from. I left there moved and elated and yet this piece of theatre had been strange and elusive. I loved that it reminded me of what theatre can be, the strange worlds it can take us to and totally unpretentiously.
And just as Bunker is whispers and scattered phrases, They Saw a Thylacine, with its two story tellers (Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton) inside a cage, is a feast of intertwined, beautifully written narratives. The stories are rich and fine and entirely captivating. These are two actors who are making their own work and their use of language is a reminder of the best in the tradition of storytelling or yarning. I loved their evident love of language. And I believe I was witness to the beginning of two actors who may continue to write for themselves for awhile but will go on to be wonderful playwrights.
What Patricia is looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.
SM: Savages. OMG. This is writing that gets into your guts. I felt this play more than I watched it. It's hard to be made to understand men whom I despised for everything they thought and said about women – ugly women.
Patricia Cornelius
playwright
PATRICA: A woman in her middle age stands still, so long she stands still in the half light, half turned into the darkness, buried in a heavy winter coat and a grey mane of unkempt hair whispering almost inaudibly. And these snatches of odd and scattered phrases draw us into a world that lasts 45 minutes at the most and it’s called Bunker and it’s at La Mama.
The creative team are Greg Dyson, Trudy Radburn and Charlie Laidlaw. As in the title the world is a bunker, a place away from danger, an internal place, a place not easy to come back from. I left there moved and elated and yet this piece of theatre had been strange and elusive. I loved that it reminded me of what theatre can be, the strange worlds it can take us to and totally unpretentiously.
And just as Bunker is whispers and scattered phrases, They Saw a Thylacine, with its two story tellers (Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton) inside a cage, is a feast of intertwined, beautifully written narratives. The stories are rich and fine and entirely captivating. These are two actors who are making their own work and their use of language is a reminder of the best in the tradition of storytelling or yarning. I loved their evident love of language. And I believe I was witness to the beginning of two actors who may continue to write for themselves for awhile but will go on to be wonderful playwrights.
What Patricia is looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.
SM: Savages. OMG. This is writing that gets into your guts. I felt this play more than I watched it. It's hard to be made to understand men whom I despised for everything they thought and said about women – ugly women.
Bryce Ives
director
BRYCE: 2013 has been epic.
Life and Times by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma was quite possibly the best ten hours I'll ever spend in a theatre. A monumentally long examination of our struggle to express ourselves and describe what has happened in our past, it was wonderfully fucked and awkward. I was somehow moved, informed, entertained and somewhat changed by this experience.
Richard Murphett doing Richard Foreman with the graduating VCA actors was a surprising highlight. We went to poetry city, with Eddie, and it was strange, surreal, hysterical and disorienting. Richard Murphett allowed the necessary space to ensure the graduating actors somehow commanded this complex text. It was a celebration of Foreman and the New York avant-garde, but also was strangely relevant to this time and the work we are making in Melbourne.
Finally, Daniel Schlusshner (M+M, Mengerie) continues to lead our mob of makers. Within his work are regular moments that transcend and go to some place other, and it’s these moments that inform my own understanding of what is possible in theatre: how we listen, how we see and how we construct sense in a chaotic world.
Honourable mentions: The Story of O by The Rabble took me to the uncomfortable and disturbing part of my dream space. Palace of the End, directed by Daniel Clarke, gave us three astonishing performances of stories that must (urgently and regularly) be heard. And, finally, Einstein on the Beach gave everything I hoped and more.
On a personal note, it’s been wonderful working with the artists at Theatre Works under the unrelenting vision of Daniel Clarke, and alongside my continued collaboration with Nate Gilkes and the Present Tense ensemble. We’ve spent the past six months intensively training and considering our own process, often alongside the amazing Leisa Shelton, an artist who enables other artists and performance makers to better articulate and understand their work. Training with Leisa IS the highlight of each week.
SM: Bryce and I sat next to each other at Life and Times. He laughed at the same things I did; what more can you possibly want at the theatre. It was such a wonderful and happy-making experience that we said we may never be able to go to the theatre together again.
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey
sound/music artists, long-term collaborators
MADELEINE AND TIM: Sitting in the audio booth at the State Theatre with three young people from the St Martins Cross Age Ensemble as they waxed lyrical about their responses and insights to the Australian Ballet’s production of La Sylphide. Their commentary was heard by a small test group of audience members via audio description headsets. In that booth we experienced a sense of both subversion and the sound of a million possibilities opening.
We also had the busiest year of our career. The image is from our Dress Rehearsal for 5 Short Blasts: that moment when the imagined becomes real is always extraordinary.
You can see 5 Short Blasts until 25 December. Details here.
SM: My excuse for missing 5 Short Blasts was genuine: I was in hospital (nothing bad) on media day. And, you know, mornings.
director
Life and Times by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma was quite possibly the best ten hours I'll ever spend in a theatre. A monumentally long examination of our struggle to express ourselves and describe what has happened in our past, it was wonderfully fucked and awkward. I was somehow moved, informed, entertained and somewhat changed by this experience.
Richard Murphett doing Richard Foreman with the graduating VCA actors was a surprising highlight. We went to poetry city, with Eddie, and it was strange, surreal, hysterical and disorienting. Richard Murphett allowed the necessary space to ensure the graduating actors somehow commanded this complex text. It was a celebration of Foreman and the New York avant-garde, but also was strangely relevant to this time and the work we are making in Melbourne.
Finally, Daniel Schlusshner (M+M, Mengerie) continues to lead our mob of makers. Within his work are regular moments that transcend and go to some place other, and it’s these moments that inform my own understanding of what is possible in theatre: how we listen, how we see and how we construct sense in a chaotic world.
Honourable mentions: The Story of O by The Rabble took me to the uncomfortable and disturbing part of my dream space. Palace of the End, directed by Daniel Clarke, gave us three astonishing performances of stories that must (urgently and regularly) be heard. And, finally, Einstein on the Beach gave everything I hoped and more.
On a personal note, it’s been wonderful working with the artists at Theatre Works under the unrelenting vision of Daniel Clarke, and alongside my continued collaboration with Nate Gilkes and the Present Tense ensemble. We’ve spent the past six months intensively training and considering our own process, often alongside the amazing Leisa Shelton, an artist who enables other artists and performance makers to better articulate and understand their work. Training with Leisa IS the highlight of each week.
SM: Bryce and I sat next to each other at Life and Times. He laughed at the same things I did; what more can you possibly want at the theatre. It was such a wonderful and happy-making experience that we said we may never be able to go to the theatre together again.
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey
sound/music artists, long-term collaborators
 |
| Dress rehearsal of 5 Short Blasts |
MADELEINE AND TIM: Sitting in the audio booth at the State Theatre with three young people from the St Martins Cross Age Ensemble as they waxed lyrical about their responses and insights to the Australian Ballet’s production of La Sylphide. Their commentary was heard by a small test group of audience members via audio description headsets. In that booth we experienced a sense of both subversion and the sound of a million possibilities opening.
We also had the busiest year of our career. The image is from our Dress Rehearsal for 5 Short Blasts: that moment when the imagined becomes real is always extraordinary.
You can see 5 Short Blasts until 25 December. Details here.
SM: My excuse for missing 5 Short Blasts was genuine: I was in hospital (nothing bad) on media day. And, you know, mornings.
07 July 2013
Mini review: Persona
Persona
Fraught Outfit and Malthouse Theatre
5 July 2013
Beckett Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au
I missed Persona last year. I came to regret this, but a consistent rule of reviewing is that you will miss the show you should see. It sold out its Theatre Works season, won a pile of Green Room Awards and I heard, "Did you see Persona?" too many times to dare miss its return at Malthouse.
I hadn't seen the Ingmar Bergman film that it's based on, but YouTube shows me how much it honours the film while being something that could only be told in a theatre. It's one of those works where direction (Adena Jacobs), design (Dayna Morrissey, set and costume; Danny Pettingill, lighting; Russell Goldsmith, sound) and performance (Meredith Penman, Karen Sibbing and Daniel Schlusser) are inseparable and the audience are as immersed in the process as the creators
It's bloody good.
And it deserves much more than a hurried response, so please read Alison Croggon's Theatre Notes review. She's since seen this season as well and says it's just as wonderful.
Fraught Outfit and Malthouse Theatre
5 July 2013
Beckett Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au
I missed Persona last year. I came to regret this, but a consistent rule of reviewing is that you will miss the show you should see. It sold out its Theatre Works season, won a pile of Green Room Awards and I heard, "Did you see Persona?" too many times to dare miss its return at Malthouse.
I hadn't seen the Ingmar Bergman film that it's based on, but YouTube shows me how much it honours the film while being something that could only be told in a theatre. It's one of those works where direction (Adena Jacobs), design (Dayna Morrissey, set and costume; Danny Pettingill, lighting; Russell Goldsmith, sound) and performance (Meredith Penman, Karen Sibbing and Daniel Schlusser) are inseparable and the audience are as immersed in the process as the creators
It's bloody good.
And it deserves much more than a hurried response, so please read Alison Croggon's Theatre Notes review. She's since seen this season as well and says it's just as wonderful.
04 June 2013
Review: Menagerie and Bodily Education
NEON: Festival of Independent Theatre
Menagerie
Daniel Schlusser Ensemble
17 May 2013
On the bodily education of young girls
Fraught Outfit
31 May 2013
The Lawler
mtc.com.au
The MTC's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is letting five of Melbourne's best independent companies create and present a new work without the stress of finding a venue and an audeince. It's exciting knowing that these amazing and very-loved companies will be seen by a broader audience, but that doesn't mean they are going to be loved by new eyes.
The season opened with the Daniel Schlusser Ensemble's Menagerie.
They tried to get the rights to Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menangerie, but thankfully they weren't granted because what they created was far more fascinating.
I thought Menagerie was beautiful. The cast were faultless and I was so engulfed in the experience that it left me a bit wordless. So, please read what Chris Boyd said in The Australian.
Others didn't love it, like Cameron Woodhead. I've read whinges along the lines of "how could he have misread it?", but all reviewers can do it read what they see on the stage and his review makes it very clear that he didn't see a work about love.
I was less worried about interpretation, which could be because I like and admire, rather than love Tennessee's writing (and my feminist reading of him never left me feeling comfortable or seeing the love), but this work did inspire me to re-read The Glass Menangerie.
However, Schlusser's work isn't so much about interpreting text. He creates worlds for characters to live in and it's up to the audience to decide who and what they watch. In this case, it's still William's New Orleans, but in a trailer park after Cyclone Katrina, where there's a plastic paddling pool, a hot tin roof to play on and people from William's life and work.
It's nothing like a Williams play, but it's the essence of Williams and if it doesn't bring you closer to his work, it sure brings you closer to something about the man who wrote some of the more important theatrical works of the twentieth century.
The next NEON work (finishing this week) is Fraught Outfit's On the bodily education of young girls.
It's inspired by a 1903 novella by Frank Wedekind and director Adena Jacobs has worked with ten young women (13 to 16) from St Martin's Youth theatre.
It's another remarkably beautiful work to watch with a very different, but utterly delightful cast. But, unlike Menagerie, I didn't leave inspired to read the text. In fact, my reading of the summary of the text left me re-interpreting what I saw on the stage.
Sitting in the theatre, I gave up looking for story and meaning and was happy to watch the young women stretch and dance and play. Does that sound pervy? It didn't feel so watching it, but reading that it was about a group of young girls in a boarding institution being groomed for an unknown future made me feel awkward.
I initially saw a gorgeous and heartfelt reflection on ageing and the difference in seeing teenagers as women or girls – and especially how teenagers see themselves as one or the other. But as a place that was training them up for something "unknown", I saw it as a reflection on the performance world these young women want to work in.
Already they have been cast based on how they are going to look on the stage and the world of performance can be wonderful, but often cruel and judgemental. Is this their bodily education? Instead of watching them as young women being themselves, I saw the process that created the work and any onstage awkwardness as misunderstanding.
I wish I hadn't read the program and could only see it as something that was beautiful.
And we still have Hayloft, The Rabble and Sisters Grimm to come!
(And I am currently reading The Story of O in preparation for The Rabble's work. At this stage, all I can say is Oh...)
Menagerie photo by Sarah Walker.
Bodily Education photo by Lachlan Woods.
Menagerie
Daniel Schlusser Ensemble
17 May 2013
On the bodily education of young girls
Fraught Outfit
31 May 2013
The Lawler
mtc.com.au
The MTC's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is letting five of Melbourne's best independent companies create and present a new work without the stress of finding a venue and an audeince. It's exciting knowing that these amazing and very-loved companies will be seen by a broader audience, but that doesn't mean they are going to be loved by new eyes.
The season opened with the Daniel Schlusser Ensemble's Menagerie.
They tried to get the rights to Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menangerie, but thankfully they weren't granted because what they created was far more fascinating.
I thought Menagerie was beautiful. The cast were faultless and I was so engulfed in the experience that it left me a bit wordless. So, please read what Chris Boyd said in The Australian.
Others didn't love it, like Cameron Woodhead. I've read whinges along the lines of "how could he have misread it?", but all reviewers can do it read what they see on the stage and his review makes it very clear that he didn't see a work about love.
I was less worried about interpretation, which could be because I like and admire, rather than love Tennessee's writing (and my feminist reading of him never left me feeling comfortable or seeing the love), but this work did inspire me to re-read The Glass Menangerie.
However, Schlusser's work isn't so much about interpreting text. He creates worlds for characters to live in and it's up to the audience to decide who and what they watch. In this case, it's still William's New Orleans, but in a trailer park after Cyclone Katrina, where there's a plastic paddling pool, a hot tin roof to play on and people from William's life and work.
It's nothing like a Williams play, but it's the essence of Williams and if it doesn't bring you closer to his work, it sure brings you closer to something about the man who wrote some of the more important theatrical works of the twentieth century.
The next NEON work (finishing this week) is Fraught Outfit's On the bodily education of young girls.
It's inspired by a 1903 novella by Frank Wedekind and director Adena Jacobs has worked with ten young women (13 to 16) from St Martin's Youth theatre.
It's another remarkably beautiful work to watch with a very different, but utterly delightful cast. But, unlike Menagerie, I didn't leave inspired to read the text. In fact, my reading of the summary of the text left me re-interpreting what I saw on the stage.
Sitting in the theatre, I gave up looking for story and meaning and was happy to watch the young women stretch and dance and play. Does that sound pervy? It didn't feel so watching it, but reading that it was about a group of young girls in a boarding institution being groomed for an unknown future made me feel awkward.
I initially saw a gorgeous and heartfelt reflection on ageing and the difference in seeing teenagers as women or girls – and especially how teenagers see themselves as one or the other. But as a place that was training them up for something "unknown", I saw it as a reflection on the performance world these young women want to work in.
Already they have been cast based on how they are going to look on the stage and the world of performance can be wonderful, but often cruel and judgemental. Is this their bodily education? Instead of watching them as young women being themselves, I saw the process that created the work and any onstage awkwardness as misunderstanding.
I wish I hadn't read the program and could only see it as something that was beautiful.
And we still have Hayloft, The Rabble and Sisters Grimm to come!
(And I am currently reading The Story of O in preparation for The Rabble's work. At this stage, all I can say is Oh...)
Menagerie photo by Sarah Walker.
Bodily Education photo by Lachlan Woods.
22 April 2012
Review: The Histrionic
The Histrionic
Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company
15 April
Merlyn Theatre
to 5 May
malthouse.com.au
Until I hit Google, I didn't know about Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. A quote from the New York Times that his works are "the most significant literary achievement since World War II" crops up a lot. As an over-educated reader, I guess I should know him, but The Histrionic hasn't encouraged me to seek out more Bernhard.
In 1982 Bernhard had a super-hissy when a Saltzburg Festival theatre wouldn't turn off emergency EXIT signs and he cancelled the season because "A society that can't deal with two minutes of darkness can do without my play". He then went all meta and returned to the same theatre with a dark comedy about a living-treasure genius artist performing his greatest work in a town that's more interested in its pigs and sausages – complete with ironic rants about EXIT signs.
I love little more than art and writing, but I care little for self-important art and writers. Even with its satirical guise, The Histrionic is still so close to reality that I didn't care.
Billie Brown joyfully embodies Bruscon, the self-obsessed genius who has to perform even if his cast/ family and audiences don't live up to his standards. In a career-highlight performance, the work is mostly a one-sided conversation with Bruscon and for all its insight and genuine wit, I didn't care if he succeeded, failed or was eaten by the pigs.
I didn't care about the writer or his art because there's nothing he's saying that we don't know. I know people like Bruscon and his cast and, even with their lost souls and broken hearts, I'm happy to light the way out and live without him.
But what makes this production so intriguing and enjoyable is that director Daniel Schlusser and his wonderful cast make us care for everyone else on the stage. The good-hearted landlord (Barry Otto), his wife (Kelly Butler) and daughter (Katherine Tobkin) and Bruscon's wife (Jennifer Vuletic) and children (Josh Price and Edwina Wren), say little, but great theatre and irresistible performance isn't really about getting the most lines.
As Bruscon pontificates, they accept and suffer in a marvellous backstage void filled with saw dust and old props that have been left to decay (designed by Marg Horwell and lit by Paul Jackson). With the likes of huge fruit and veg, a giant hand and massive moose, you can't not laugh at and love the artifice of theatre – and there's the bonus game of "what show is that prop from" (hooray for another appearance of the bi-polar bear).
Schlusser's voice is by far the more interesting one in The Histrionic and he balances the line between self-indulgence and art so deftly that even the likes of Bruscon are forgiven, if not loved.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company
15 April
Merlyn Theatre
to 5 May
malthouse.com.au
Until I hit Google, I didn't know about Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. A quote from the New York Times that his works are "the most significant literary achievement since World War II" crops up a lot. As an over-educated reader, I guess I should know him, but The Histrionic hasn't encouraged me to seek out more Bernhard.
In 1982 Bernhard had a super-hissy when a Saltzburg Festival theatre wouldn't turn off emergency EXIT signs and he cancelled the season because "A society that can't deal with two minutes of darkness can do without my play". He then went all meta and returned to the same theatre with a dark comedy about a living-treasure genius artist performing his greatest work in a town that's more interested in its pigs and sausages – complete with ironic rants about EXIT signs.
I love little more than art and writing, but I care little for self-important art and writers. Even with its satirical guise, The Histrionic is still so close to reality that I didn't care.
Billie Brown joyfully embodies Bruscon, the self-obsessed genius who has to perform even if his cast/ family and audiences don't live up to his standards. In a career-highlight performance, the work is mostly a one-sided conversation with Bruscon and for all its insight and genuine wit, I didn't care if he succeeded, failed or was eaten by the pigs.
I didn't care about the writer or his art because there's nothing he's saying that we don't know. I know people like Bruscon and his cast and, even with their lost souls and broken hearts, I'm happy to light the way out and live without him.
But what makes this production so intriguing and enjoyable is that director Daniel Schlusser and his wonderful cast make us care for everyone else on the stage. The good-hearted landlord (Barry Otto), his wife (Kelly Butler) and daughter (Katherine Tobkin) and Bruscon's wife (Jennifer Vuletic) and children (Josh Price and Edwina Wren), say little, but great theatre and irresistible performance isn't really about getting the most lines.
As Bruscon pontificates, they accept and suffer in a marvellous backstage void filled with saw dust and old props that have been left to decay (designed by Marg Horwell and lit by Paul Jackson). With the likes of huge fruit and veg, a giant hand and massive moose, you can't not laugh at and love the artifice of theatre – and there's the bonus game of "what show is that prop from" (hooray for another appearance of the bi-polar bear).
Schlusser's voice is by far the more interesting one in The Histrionic and he balances the line between self-indulgence and art so deftly that even the likes of Bruscon are forgiven, if not loved.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
17 December 2011
What I Loved 2011
December really did sneak up this year. I still think it's August.
But the urge to make chocolate truffles and eat fruitcake tells me it's time for the What-I-Loved Awards.
Now in their fourth year, there's still no red carpet or sparkly statue, but feel free to put on your best frock and assume that you were nominated.
I've seen over a hundred shows this year, reviewed most of them and loved watching others without the critical hat.
As ever, most of my reviews are also written for the national site AussieTheatre.com, which welcomed new editors and owners Erin and Matt in July. Already they've increased hits by thousands and readers can look forward to a whole new look in 2012.
And please keep reading every other site and blog that reviews, comments or raves. Without them, we may not have had David W's magnificent hissy over nasty reviewers or Site Unseen may not have started a debate about the value of community cultural development.
My criteria for the What-I-Likeds is: how much I liked it. The shows I remember (yes some are forgotten) are the ones that respect audiences enough to know that we watch theatre with our uncontrollable emotions. Even if our oh-so-clever heads appreciate a practitioner, get the joke or the reference and admire the structure, if our hearts and guts don't care, there's not much point in even being there.
For the first time, there's only one non-Melbourne show among the winners and most of this year's winners are independent companies and artists.
Outstanding Artists 2011
WRITING
Angus Cerini for Save for Crying
Special Mention
Patricia Cornelius for Slut in Tenderness, Platform Youth Theatre
DESIGN
David Samuel for MKA's season 1 (Sleepyhead, 22 Short Plays, The Horror Face, J.A.T.O)
Special mention
Gabriela Tylesova for the shoes in Love Never Dies
LIGHTING DESIGN
Paul Jackson for Little Match Girl
PERFORMANCE
The cast of Aftermath
DIRECTION
Daniel Schlusser for The Dollhouse
EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS
Tobias, Glynn and everyone from MKA.
Outstanding Productions 2011
CABARET
Miles O Neil's World Around Us II
with bonus points to be shared with the rest of The Suitcase Royale for the Xmas song at the Last Tuesday Society's Occupy Xmas.
Smoke and Mirrors
COMMERCIAL SHOW
Clybourne Park, MTC
MUSICAL
Next to Normal, MTC
and
Flowerchildren, Magnormos
Special mention
Spring Awakening, MUST
COMEDY
Sweet Child of Mine, Bron, Jim and Linda Batten
Special mention
Negative Energy Inc, Ash Flanders
Best of the best
Namatjira, Malthouse Theatre and Big hART
and
I know there's a lot of noise outside but you have to close your eyes, I'm Trying To Kiss You
This extraordinary show never made it past a review preview, which said sucked in to anyone who missed it. Played in the crowded downstairs room of a Fitzroy terrace, word of mouth ensured that this Fringe gem sold out (and maybe pushed some overcrowding regulations).
I'm Trying To Kiss You are Allison Wiltshire, Anna McCarthy and Zoey Dawson. Remember those names. Deeply personal, I know etc is a confronting and intimate revelation of young women's thoughts. Unafraid of gender, language and sex, the creators crafted a story of confusion, awkwardness and bravado that was willing to be honest.
It's development took 18-months and was assisted by the Melbourne Fringe Festival and Full Tilt Outside Eye mentor program.
I heard it described as confronting and scary; a friend of mine thought it was sad and lonely. I thought it was beautiful – and that includes its glorious bitchiness, darkness and anger. Without being obvious, this work gently grabbed me by the heart and reminded me what it was like to be 20ish.
My favourite show of 2011
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, Back to Back Theatre, Malthouse Theatre and MIAF
2010 Favourites
2009 Favourites
2008 Favourites
But the urge to make chocolate truffles and eat fruitcake tells me it's time for the What-I-Loved Awards.
Now in their fourth year, there's still no red carpet or sparkly statue, but feel free to put on your best frock and assume that you were nominated.
I've seen over a hundred shows this year, reviewed most of them and loved watching others without the critical hat.
As ever, most of my reviews are also written for the national site AussieTheatre.com, which welcomed new editors and owners Erin and Matt in July. Already they've increased hits by thousands and readers can look forward to a whole new look in 2012.
And please keep reading every other site and blog that reviews, comments or raves. Without them, we may not have had David W's magnificent hissy over nasty reviewers or Site Unseen may not have started a debate about the value of community cultural development.
My criteria for the What-I-Likeds is: how much I liked it. The shows I remember (yes some are forgotten) are the ones that respect audiences enough to know that we watch theatre with our uncontrollable emotions. Even if our oh-so-clever heads appreciate a practitioner, get the joke or the reference and admire the structure, if our hearts and guts don't care, there's not much point in even being there.
For the first time, there's only one non-Melbourne show among the winners and most of this year's winners are independent companies and artists.
Outstanding Artists 2011
WRITING
Angus Cerini for Save for Crying
Special Mention
Patricia Cornelius for Slut in Tenderness, Platform Youth Theatre
DESIGN
David Samuel for MKA's season 1 (Sleepyhead, 22 Short Plays, The Horror Face, J.A.T.O)
Special mention
Gabriela Tylesova for the shoes in Love Never Dies
LIGHTING DESIGN
Paul Jackson for Little Match Girl
PERFORMANCE
The cast of Aftermath
DIRECTION
Daniel Schlusser for The Dollhouse
EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS
Tobias, Glynn and everyone from MKA.
Outstanding Productions 2011
CABARET
Miles O Neil's World Around Us II
with bonus points to be shared with the rest of The Suitcase Royale for the Xmas song at the Last Tuesday Society's Occupy Xmas.
Smoke and Mirrors
COMMERCIAL SHOW
Clybourne Park, MTC
MUSICAL
Next to Normal, MTC
and
Flowerchildren, Magnormos
Special mention
Spring Awakening, MUST
COMEDY
Sweet Child of Mine, Bron, Jim and Linda Batten
Special mention
Negative Energy Inc, Ash Flanders
Best of the best
Namatjira, Malthouse Theatre and Big hART
and
I know there's a lot of noise outside but you have to close your eyes, I'm Trying To Kiss You
This extraordinary show never made it past a review preview, which said sucked in to anyone who missed it. Played in the crowded downstairs room of a Fitzroy terrace, word of mouth ensured that this Fringe gem sold out (and maybe pushed some overcrowding regulations).
I'm Trying To Kiss You are Allison Wiltshire, Anna McCarthy and Zoey Dawson. Remember those names. Deeply personal, I know etc is a confronting and intimate revelation of young women's thoughts. Unafraid of gender, language and sex, the creators crafted a story of confusion, awkwardness and bravado that was willing to be honest.
It's development took 18-months and was assisted by the Melbourne Fringe Festival and Full Tilt Outside Eye mentor program.
I heard it described as confronting and scary; a friend of mine thought it was sad and lonely. I thought it was beautiful – and that includes its glorious bitchiness, darkness and anger. Without being obvious, this work gently grabbed me by the heart and reminded me what it was like to be 20ish.
My favourite show of 2011
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, Back to Back Theatre, Malthouse Theatre and MIAF
2010 Favourites
2009 Favourites
2008 Favourites
22 September 2011
Review: The Dollhouse
MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011
The Dollhouse
fortyfivedownstairs and Daniel Schlusser
16 September 2011
fortyfivedownstairs
to 25 September
It might be best to get to the fortyfivedownstairs for The Dollshouse before the madness of the Fringe begins. Just don’t regret missing it. Don't worry if you like or despise Ibsen, because this remarkable adaption will leave you with a new perspective. It's overtly theatrical, but feels like overhearing your neighbours fighting and you can't tear yourself away from the delicious uncomfortable intimacy.
It doesn't take long for Ibsen and nineteenth-century naturalism to turn up in any drama or theatre studies class. And it takes less time to realise that naturalistic dialogue and situations are far from naturalistic. As all scriptwriters learn, the art is in making the terribly contrived sound real and, even in translation, Henrik Ibsen is a fine starting point.
The opening of Daniel Schlusser's adaptation doesn't start with Ibsen. Nora (Nikki Sheils) is in a black slip, Torvald (Kade Greenland) is on his games chair with a big TV, Dr Rank (Josh Price) and Kristine (Edwina Wren) are talking about massage and Nils (Schlusser) has a microphone and is looking at vodka. Described by Schlusser as "hyper realism", their conversations are far from the known text ("Torvold have you seen my phone?") and feel improvised, but there's far too much order and design, and the heightened theatricality of the extended stage of cold beaten metal and the interaction with the audience and crew only adds to the sense of inclusion.
Schlusser has re-written Ibsen's story as its subtext. For all its deceit and lack of communication, when these people speak, they say what they mean. This is so unnatural, but the effect is so real. Perhaps it because we don't have to interpret the falseness, so are able to understand and feel for everyone on the stage. Or maybe because there is so much awkward humour in the tension and unraveling horrors. It’s more natural to try to laugh when things are bad than to make a serious speech.
This is the first time I've seen an Ibsen and totally got it. It must be as close to understanding what the1879 audiences felt like when they witnessed such a new style of writing and performance, and I'm betting that Henrik himself is gazing down and high-fiving Chekov at the use of Chewy costume.
And having a can't-see-the-acting cast doesn't hurt. All are so comfortable on the stage that even with the excessive fairy lights and tissues from Ben the sound operator, it's wrong to think that they are performing, as they are simply what Ibsen must have thought of. Sheils especially shows a Nora who struggles, without making us pity her or hate her. (And if you saw Nikki in Don Parties On, please see this so you know it was the play and not the actor.)
The ending may surprise. In 1880 Germans producers insisted on a new ending and Ibsen wrote the alternative saying, "I prefer, having learned from previous experience, to commit such violence myself, rather than surrender my works to treatment and adaptation by less careful and less skilful hands than my own."
If all adaptations were as skillful as this one, great writers would never have to worry.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Photo by Marg Horwell
The Dollhouse
fortyfivedownstairs and Daniel Schlusser
16 September 2011
fortyfivedownstairs
to 25 September
It might be best to get to the fortyfivedownstairs for The Dollshouse before the madness of the Fringe begins. Just don’t regret missing it. Don't worry if you like or despise Ibsen, because this remarkable adaption will leave you with a new perspective. It's overtly theatrical, but feels like overhearing your neighbours fighting and you can't tear yourself away from the delicious uncomfortable intimacy.
It doesn't take long for Ibsen and nineteenth-century naturalism to turn up in any drama or theatre studies class. And it takes less time to realise that naturalistic dialogue and situations are far from naturalistic. As all scriptwriters learn, the art is in making the terribly contrived sound real and, even in translation, Henrik Ibsen is a fine starting point.
The opening of Daniel Schlusser's adaptation doesn't start with Ibsen. Nora (Nikki Sheils) is in a black slip, Torvald (Kade Greenland) is on his games chair with a big TV, Dr Rank (Josh Price) and Kristine (Edwina Wren) are talking about massage and Nils (Schlusser) has a microphone and is looking at vodka. Described by Schlusser as "hyper realism", their conversations are far from the known text ("Torvold have you seen my phone?") and feel improvised, but there's far too much order and design, and the heightened theatricality of the extended stage of cold beaten metal and the interaction with the audience and crew only adds to the sense of inclusion.
Schlusser has re-written Ibsen's story as its subtext. For all its deceit and lack of communication, when these people speak, they say what they mean. This is so unnatural, but the effect is so real. Perhaps it because we don't have to interpret the falseness, so are able to understand and feel for everyone on the stage. Or maybe because there is so much awkward humour in the tension and unraveling horrors. It’s more natural to try to laugh when things are bad than to make a serious speech.
This is the first time I've seen an Ibsen and totally got it. It must be as close to understanding what the1879 audiences felt like when they witnessed such a new style of writing and performance, and I'm betting that Henrik himself is gazing down and high-fiving Chekov at the use of Chewy costume.
And having a can't-see-the-acting cast doesn't hurt. All are so comfortable on the stage that even with the excessive fairy lights and tissues from Ben the sound operator, it's wrong to think that they are performing, as they are simply what Ibsen must have thought of. Sheils especially shows a Nora who struggles, without making us pity her or hate her. (And if you saw Nikki in Don Parties On, please see this so you know it was the play and not the actor.)
The ending may surprise. In 1880 Germans producers insisted on a new ending and Ibsen wrote the alternative saying, "I prefer, having learned from previous experience, to commit such violence myself, rather than surrender my works to treatment and adaptation by less careful and less skilful hands than my own."
If all adaptations were as skillful as this one, great writers would never have to worry.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Photo by Marg Horwell
05 September 2011
MELBOURNE FRINGE HINTS 7: Well Made Plays
With all the cutting edge, quirkiness and contemporary cliches applied to Fringe shows, there are still old school plays based on scripts that believe in structure.
Vicious Fish Theatre
A couple have a new bed and each will invite a stranger to inaugurate it.
Fourplay by Catalan-Spanish playwright Sergi Belbel is the fourth play in Vicious Fish's four-play Bebel Project and director Scott Gooding continues to bring us work that challenges traditional structures.
Like architects, writers who reject structure likely to fail. Those who experiment with it can soar above the throng or splat to earth when their story and characters get lost in the cleverness of the telling.
Fourplay has 38 scenes that alternate between advancing the action and taking it back, and each is played twice to force the audience to challenge their perceptions. It could be fascinating.
Since we're talking about structure, Ibsen has to come into the conversation about well-made plays.
If you haven't read Ibsen, what are you doing reading a theatre blog? Get ye to the library or the book section of any op shop now.
Director Daniel Schlusser is recreating this Dollhouse as a contemporary domestic horror and describes is as "a daring theatricalisation of Nora's mental landscape".
I've missed Schlusser's recent re-imaginings of classic plays, but reviewers I trust and respect have raved about them. That's enough to get me along.
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