Review: Blasted

Blasted
Malthouse Theatre
Merlyn Theatre
29 August 2018
To 16 September
malthousetheatre.com.au

Eloise Mignon & David Woods. Blasted. Photo by Pia Johnson

 My review is in Time Out.

Review: A Social Service

A Social Service
Malthouse Theatre
18 August 2015
Beckett Theatre
to 29 August
malthousetheatre.com.au

David Woods & Nicola Gunn. Photo by Pia Johnson

Separately and together, Nicola Gunn and David Woods makes a rare type of theatre that genuinely challenges ideas and opinions. In A Social Service at Malthouse Theatre, they find a line between reality and satire that's so sharp that a slip either side could result in serious injury.

A Social Service is about a semi-fictional artist (Gunn) who wants to affect change in a public housing estate and is confronted with the failure of the system that funds her and by her own attitudes towards change, art and the people she thinks want and need changing. Made by artists who couldn't do the site-specific community-involved piece they wanted to do – so they had to make the work in a theatre – it's self awareness is like the endless advertising image that has a picture of itself with a  picture of itself and so on. But somewhere in this spiral, the image changes and the downward momentum is reversed.

On the estate, "Nicola" meets a young woman (a changing cast from the Uprising Theatre collective for young people; I saw Isabel Mure, whose calmness and timing contrasted wonderfully with Gunn) making mosaic benches with the residents, and a series of men (Woods) who are wittingly and unwittingly trying to stop Nicola's project. Based on the creators' research of public housing in Melbourne and overseas, its story is so close to many truths – especially those about public art being used to take away public space – that the estate has to be fictional, even as it sits firmly in Melbourne.

I saw this on the post-show Time to Talk (Q&A) night and that the discussion was about public housing and how public housing tenants are treated. Here's a piece of fascinating theatre that brings up so many questions about process and performance, but the audience wanted to talk about the issues it discussed. (Apart from the woman who couldn't hear the dialogue; Woods's response to tell her to sit closer and be involved was perfect.) The work almost despairs about the hope of change through art, but it is resulting in a conversation about people and issues rather than one about the short-lived product that was made.

If only everyone who needs to hear this conversation this along would come along.

According to the Victorian Department of Human Services, there are nearly 35,000 people (that's just less than half a full MCG) on the the public housing wait list. In a state of nearly six million, surely an extra 35,000 homes isn't a hard ask; it's a relatively small number, but 35,000 too many.

For all the passion it evokes, A Social Service is far from polemic theatre;  it's hilarious and never sways from its story to make a point. If there's proof that comedy is just telling the truth, this is it. Gunn and Woods start with their own truths (as artists who want to make socially relevant art) and bring in the truths of people and communities they've met. The laughs are from self-recognition, and the people to worry about are those who don't laugh and can't see themselves somewhere on that stage.

This was on Aussietheatre.com.

Review: Super Discount

Super Discount
Back to Back Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre
15 November
Merlyn Theatre, Coopers Malthouse
to 1 December
malthousetheatre.com.au

Back to Back Theatre are the superheroes of Melbourne theatre who leave us wanting to wear our undies on the outside, don a sexy cape and do something that leaves someone else feeling better every day.

 Super Discount began because ensemble member Brian Tilley is obsessed with superheroes: those outsiders who hide from society and are only admired when their difference is on display.

With director Bruce Gladwin, the company developed a show about good and evil, where they start by deciding who gets to play Mark Deans's gold-caped super hero, who mostly prefers to be quiet. With Simon Laherty, Scott Price and Sarah Mainwaring making the decision, Brian thinks it should be him because he understands superheroes and intellectual disability, but David Woods (non-company member, but regular guest) puts himself forward because he can act disabled and should therefore be equally considered – especially because he might be more convincing.

Cringing? Uncomfortable? Hell, yeah!

Formed in 1987, Back to Back is based in Geelong and is the only company in Victoria with an ensemble of full-time of actors, who are all perceived to have an intellectual disability. They've toured the world, won piles of awards and part of their artistic rationale is to "create theatre to challenge the gods".

They rock in all the great ways and continue to confront latent prejudices and assumptions about disability and heroism with theatre that bites with sharpened teeth, but only hurts because you've laughed so hard.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

MIAF review: Ganesh Versus the Third Reich

MIAF 2011
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich
Malthouse There and Melbourne Festival and Back to Back Theatre
29 September 2011
Merlyn Theatre
to 9 October

Should we only tell our stories? Is it possible to balance the line between respect and offence? With a hullaballoo playing out in the media about how this show is offending some "Melbourne taxpayers", it's probably best to see Ganesh Versus the Third Reich to make up your own mind.

When the Back to Back ensemble conceived the "great conceit" of Ganesh travelling to nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika,  they knew it was "morally fraught ... and too dangerous for a little theatre company from Geelong to appropriate Hindu gods and create a fairytale within the Holocaust."

Thankfully, they re-thought and created a story within a story that blurs reality and fiction as it confronts itself and manipulates its audience's assumptions.

Devised by Mark Deans, Marcia Ferguson, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, Kate Sulan, Brian Tilley and David Woods,  the telling takes us into the rehearsal room as the cast (Deans, Laherty, Price and Tilley) deal with a difficult director (Woods) and argue dilemmas like if it's ok to play a Jew if you're not a Jew or an Indian deity if you're not an India deity. And there's the issue of who's going to play the "good part" of Hitler.

Meanwhile, Ganesh arrives in a concentration camp in 1943, where his elephant-head draws the attention of Mengele, and he meets Levi, whose mental retardation has kept him alive.

If you're going to be offended this work, be offended by yourself as you realise that you came into the theatre with some pre-conceptions and ideas that are offensive to others.

Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is theatre that grabs us by our hearts, gives us permission to laugh, makes us cry, shakes some sense into us, then starts the process again. What an astonishing start to MIAF 2011.

Photo by Jeff Busby

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com