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

Review: J.A.T.O

J.A.T.O
MKA
14 July
MKA Pop up Theatre
to 30 July

If you've ever sat in an unlit cement car park at midnight with only over-brewed black coffee and unripe lemons to eat, your night was still lighter and less-bitter than the voice of writer Vedrana Klepica.  And there's no one in town who would bring us such a playwright, apart from than MKA.

MKA's fourth playwright for the year is Klepica. She's from Croatia and met Melbourne's Declan Greene at a playwriting conference in Cairns. Dec says that she didn't like Cairns. I suspect that she didn't like the pleasantness. With a work about pigeons with fucked up legs, jokes about fags and invalids and not washing away the clotted blood of a violently lost pregnancy, I imagine that the fat touristy happiness of tropical Australia was too much for her.

Fortunately she let Declan be the dramaturge for MKA's production of her J.A.T.O. Narratively the story needs some tightening, but her voice and her characters are so deliciously dark that plot can be damned.

J.A.T.O are an obscure European pop group who arrive in Zagrab at the same time as a dignitary. There are security officers to ensure the safety of the official and a local has on her best slutty dress to pick up the bartender, or better, at the gig.

This isn't angry Agitprop eastern European theatre that celebrates the just way forward. Rather it's a reflection of a generation who are so frustrated and angry that they have to laugh because there's not much left to do.

Director Tanya Dickson has recently graduated from VCA and brings the fullness that is missing in the script by making the conflicting layers of bleakness and comedy blend like dark sea salt chocolate. This contradiction of flavours is supported superbly by the designers. David Samuel makes the stage a giant sandpit for play, but surrounds it with black curtains and Chloe Greaves' costumes dip the heads and shoulders of the characters into a grey that makes them look like their heads are in a black and white movie.

And, again, MKA are letting us see some of the best recent graduates in their casts. This won't be the first time I write about Stefan Bramble, Rory Kelly, Cate Wolswinkel, Tristan M Watson, Janine Watson and Tom Dent.

MKA's 2011 season 1 is drawing to a close. They have no funding or formal support, but in a few months they've marked their place in Melbourne's independent theatre scene and shown us some of the most exciting new writing and emerging artists around.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

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

Review: 22 Short Plays

22 Short Plays
MKA
9 June 2011
MKA Pop-Up Thearte, Prahran
to 16 June
www.mka.org.au

MKA are officially my favourite company this year. With no funding, a diabolical sense of it's-ok-to-be-wrong and a middle-finger salute to boring theatre, their battle with a local council made them stronger and, at only months old, they have established themselves as one of those Melbourne companies who have to be seen.

MKA call themselves the theatre of new writing and already have the support of some of our best playwrights.  Founded by Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Glyn Roberts, they finally have a home above the Prahran Mission in the still-groovy Windsor end of Chapel Street, and rarely has an office been so gorgeously transformed into a theatre.

22 Short Plays is by David Finnigan. With a sketch structure that is far funnier than any sketch show, Finnigan embraces the perception of gen-Y apathy and mixes it with a distorted look at the blandness of a society ruled by commercialism. And there's a great cum joke, a near-perfect conversation with God and who wouldn't watch a sitcom called Sad Threesomes!

Narratively, there's room for some more coherency and some editing would punch up some of the jokes that are a bit flat – but such minor quibbles are nothing at this stage of development. This is bloody funny stuff and I'll be in line to see Finnigan's next work.

The on-stage coherency comes from Manderson-Galvin's in-your-face direction, which ensures character and contrast in every sketch and knows how to make the most of the individual talents on the stage (Conner Gallacher, Paul Blenheim and Ellen Grimshaw).

He also has a strange obsession with ELO. Don't get me wrong, I thought ELO rocked when I was a pre-teen, and when they did "Xanadu" with our Livvy, the excitement of my favourite musical talents combining with a movie about roller skates and an angel was almost too much. Now, I just feel old now because ELO have become ironic.

Another MKA name to keep an eye on is resident designer David Samuel.  Not long out of VCA, his design of Honey Bunny's Sagittarian Full Moon Finale stood out at Midsumma and he's establishing his his love-of-symbols style with MKA.

If we're to support and maintain a challenging, positive and brave theatre community, we need companies like MKA.


This review first appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review: Honey Bunny's Sagittarian Full Moon Finale

MIDSUMMA
Honey Bunny's Sagittarian Full Moon Finale
3 February 2011
Northcote Town Hall

Writer and director Julian Hobba says that Honey Bunny's Saggitarian Full Moon was inspired by a night with friends in 2002. The resulting work captures the energy and mood of a 20-something party, but is far more than a glimpse of a gen Y gathering.

A group of friends gather in an empty backyard for a housewarming. With a gift of gilded bunny, they find something to pay homage to as they try to avoid the truths and secrets that they know they have to face.

Just as Ys distant themselves from Xs, generations will always claim to be unique – I'm sure the first kids to move out of the family cave to live in a bark hut scoffed at the dated Cavers. Honey Bunny's characters (and cast) broadly represent their generation, but are based on more than generalisations and it's easy to see, and feel, that their selfishness, pain and hope are no different from anyone else's. With such an understanding of archetypes, and a quote from Jungian scholar and legend Marie Louise Von Franz in the show, it's a work also influenced by Jung.

Hobba's writing freely uses moon, tide and blood imagery and plays with language without letting it get in the way of his story.  Directing his own work, he is supported by his totally watchable cast (Brendan Barnett, Alicia Beckhurst, Emma Breech, Marcus McKenzie, Ben Andrew Pfeiffer, Michael Wahr and Drew Wilson) and a design team (David Samuel, Lucy Birkinshaw and Chloe Greaves) who all ensure a balance between the drama and the gentle surreal beauty and horror that their full moon brings.

Near the end, characters wonder if they can see moonlight tears or water, and with such lovely writing, I have no doubt that we'll soon see more of Hobba and everyone who bowed before Honey Bunny.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com

photo by Pia Johnson


PS: Some reviews that disappeared in the weekend of flooding are now floating to the surface...