What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 8

It's an international edition as Karin Muiznieks, Alex da La Rambelje and Yvonne Virsik go travelling.

Karin Muiznieks
cabaret performer and songwriter

Karin: I was invited by a friend to be an extra in a "cabaret video" he was filming. Turns out it was the promotional trailer for the 2014 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The trailer was being shot in Melbourne, using an entirely Melbourne cast,crew and scenery and heavily featuring artists who live and work in Melbourne. They said that Melbourne had "the right feel" for cabaret. It made me feel kinda triumphant and sad at the same time. It showed me that everybody secretly knows in their hearts that Melbourne is the true centre of cabaret in this country, and yet we are still scrambling to receive the funding and support that other states take for granted.

Why bother shipping out to Adelaide when the soul of cabaret is in Melbourne? I bust my arse to break even here, so I'm also shipping out. See you in 2015, Melbourne. Hopefully, the government and sponsoring bodies will realise what jewels they have in our local scene and not force performers out of town if they want to earn a living.

SM: The Von Muiznieks Family Hoedown was such a surprise. I don't know what I expected, but it surpassed all expectations and created new ones. I laughed myself sick, saw my first bass ukelele and can't believe that they're not being invited to perform everywhere.

Alex da La Rambelje

magician

Alex: My top five theatre experiences in 2014:

5. Max and Ivan, The Reunion (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Sharp, hilarious and rich with narrative complexities, Max and Ivan's follow up MICF show was my stand out pick from the festival this year. The guys inhabited a myriad of living and breathing characters, and managed to create some moments of genuine pathos at the end. It's always awesome seeing a high-concept theatre/comedy show at the Comedy Festival.

4. Matilda (RSC)

Joyous fun. It felt totally fresh. The musical numbers flowed organically from the narrative, and when the audience started cheering I realised I was watching damn good writing. Melbourne, just you wait.

3. Monsieur Butterfly (Edinburgh Fringe)

This high-concept stand up show had me standing up in anticipation at the final moment. Alex Horne constructed an intricately woven machine of a show that was embodied in the actual, impossibly complex, tangible machine he constructed on the stage. Using balloons, VHS tapes, pool cues, bowling balls, a potato on a zip-line and lots of other randomly drawn common-or-garden items, he created a machine just like the one he’d always wanted to create in his childhood. 

2. Elephant Room (Edinburgh Fringe)

I went to Edinburgh Fringe with the intention of seeing as many magic shows as I could (I clocked up over 10). This show was a standout – a surreal trip that brought magic and theatre together more seamlessly than I have ever seen. The world of the piece was the Elephant Room, a bizarre limbo land inhabited by three "shadows of magic personalities", who seemed to be reliving former glories that belonged to no particular set time or place. The show elevated common conjuring routines above the mundane and set them in a world that was able to frame the illusions as truly magical.

1. Derren Brown, Infamous (Glasgow Theatre)

I’ve spent the last ten years periodically pouring over every live recording, tv special and written word Derren Brown has offered. Seeing him live was a thrill. He truly commanded the stage. I realised how the skillful, dangerous and ballsy performance techniques I had perceived in his recorded work were in every way real. The man is a god.

SM: I watched him do close up card tricks determined to figure it it out. I couldn't. I know how it's done and I can't see him do it.

Yvonne Virsik
director, Artistic Director MUST

Yvonne: I was lucky enough to start the year in New York and saw loads of shows there, but except for Sleep No More and a great King Lear featuring Frank Langella at BAM – I don’t like the play much, but this was simply and exquisitely staged with a galloping pace – my highlights for 2014 have all been in Australia.

Tonelgroep Amsterdam's Roman Tragedies at The Adelaide Festival was a brilliant experience: three “Shakespeares”, extraordinary performances from powerful actors, a set you could move around on and order drinks from and tongue-in-cheek text via an LED screen announcing how long till the next major character died.

At the Melbourne Festival, I found Roslyn Oades’s Hello, Goodbye and Happy Birthday (Malthouse) playful, life-affirming and profoundly affecting, my only quibble the lack of diversity of expression in the 18 year old “stories” chosen.  And One Step at a Time like This’s Since I Suppose  was a rare and rich experience.

Opus from Circa left me enthralled when a lot of the circus pieces disappointed – not just the music and bodies doing extraordinary things, but the intimacy, humanness and moments of real meaning.

Red Stitch’s Grounded was remarkable in all elements. I found the style fascinating – a touch heightened and gestural – but somehow all the more real and engaging for it. Beautiful work from Kate Cole and Kirsten Von Bibra is surely one of our most underrated directors.

The Defence by Chris Dunstan at MKA’s HYPRTXT Festival was brilliant, bold and uncomfortable, playing with gender dynamics and abuse of power, as did Mark Wilson and Olivia Monticciolo’s Richard II (MKA at Melbourne Fringe) – immediacy to gasp for.

The Good Person of Szechuan at Malthouse Theatre was a delight – alive, cheeky, and chaotic, yet surprisingly clear.

Masterclass with Maria Mercedes at forttfivedownstairs was directed by Daniel Lammin with glorious clarity as was his work The Cutting Boys at La Mama.

In Thérèse Raquin at Theatre Works, Gary Abrahams orchestrated an inexorable build in tension. Some of my favourite moments were Thérèse struggling with her hoop skirt with increasing ferocity in the small apartment.

The City They Burned (Attic Erratic) by Fleur Kilpatrick and directed by Danny Delahunty was wonderfully shaped and horrifying. Violence begets violence has never been as palpably realised for me as when the daughters turned on their father in act two.

Other 2014 memorable theatrical moments include:

Bryony Kimmings handing around cups for people to discreetly trim their pubes into during Sex Idiot.

Realising I had learnt a lot about the experience of being on The Autism Spectrum from the student-created Them Aspies in the MUST Season, and having a bit of a cry at my immense pride in their achievement.

Lloyd Jones impassioned introduction and running amok in When the Cream Sinks to the Bottom at La Mama – “Did he really just do that?!”

Experiencing the beautiful, raw but caressing honesty of Jess Gonsalvez’s Naked at the MUST Container Festival.

The cheer when Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell‘s They Saw a Thylacine was announced as part of the 2015 Malthouse Season.

The hoot-inducing moments and technical acrobatics of Calpurnia Descending (Sisters Grimm at Malthouse).

Hanging out with the brilliant participants in The MTC Women Director’s Program.

That’s a fair bit, I know and there are heaps I haven’t mentioned. These are just some of my memorable moments and experiences from over 150 shows in 2014.

SM: Yvonne really tried to donate some pubes to Bryony but it was difficult in jeans. I'd forgotten about that; lucky she mentioned it.

I'm blown away every time I see a MUST (Monash University Student Theatre) show. Student unions are brilliant things and the thought of them disappearing as tertiary education becomes all about money is too depressing. My MUST highlight was getting to meet next year's lot at #NotDramaCamp. I'm excited about the theatre they are going to make.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 7

Richard Watts, Cassanda Fumi and Tobias Manderson-Galvin share their favourite shows today.

Richard Watts
arts journalist

Richard: At the start of 2014, I made a vow to myself to cease constantly and consistently burning the candle at both ends. Consequently I’ve only seen 112 live performances across various genres this year (so far – there’s another few to try and squeeze in before Christmas!) but I’ve also avoided the debilitating, lingering lurgies that had regularly laid me up for weeks at a time the last few years running.

Consequently, despite missing out on some apparently excellent productions as a result of pulling things back a notch (e.g. The Rabble’s Frankenstein and Grounded at Red Stitch), I still managed to see some mad, magnificent and moving productions in 2014. Here are the highlights of the year that was:

From Adelaide, Gravity and Other Myths staged the single best circus production I’ve seen all year at Northcote Town Hall, as part of the City of Darebin’s Speakeasy program. A Simple Space wasn’t just exhilarating, intimate and a bravura demonstration of fine-tuned human physicality, it was also a glorious display of circus as art, and an evolution of that form that was the perfect counterbalance to the corporate Euro-pudding blandness of juggernauts like Cirque du Soleil.

Also at Northcote Town Hall, Elbow Room’s Prehistoric lit up my synapses and set my heart racing like no other show in 2014. Infused with a punk sensibility, it was vibrant and alive, it was also a knowing, insightful and carefully crafted work that managed to be simultaneously nostalgic and utterly of the moment; everything that indie theatre should be, and more.

Bryony Kimmings’s Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model at Theatre Works was not only a continued demonstration of producer Dan Clarke’s astute eye for programming the brightest and best, but also a marvellous, insightful, deeply moving and empowering exploration of life in our modern world. Without doubt the most affecting production I saw this year.

Finally, my single best show of the year: Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Roman Tragedies at Adelaide Festival. Six hours of Shakespeare in Dutch, with English surtitles. Going into this show I was full of dread. Coming out of it, I was envious of those audience members who would be experiencing it in the following days, and would have killed a Liberal Party politician to see it again. Exquisite acting, a thunderous and dramatic live score, inspired direction by Ivo van Hove, and intelligent and nuanced use of multimedia and social media – as well as giving the audience the opportunity to not only move around the auditorium at regular intervals but to actually take to the stage – made this one of the most memorable productions I have any seen anywhere in my 47 years. Fuck it was good. If it ever comes to Melbourne – or anywhere else in Australia for that matter – DO NOT MISS IT.

Honourable mentions: The Worst of Scottee at Theatre Works; Bryony Kimmings’s Sex Idiot at Melbourne International Comedy Festival; Trygve Wakenshaw’s Kraken at Melbourne International Comedy Festival; Ray Chong Nee’s performances in The Motion of Light in Water and Jumpers for Goalposts; Caroline Lee and Maude Davey in MKA’s The Trouble with Harry, and Lachlan Philpott’s beautiful, poetic script; Carousel Des Moutons at Melbourne Festival; Big hArt’s Hipbone Sticking Out at Melbourne Festival; and Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending at the Malthouse.

SM: Richard’s been hosting Smart Arts on RRR for ten years: that’s a lot of pretty amazing moments. I can’t imagine Melbourne’s theatre and arts scene without Smart Arts. Richard always asks great questions and from his choice of music to his guests, he’s one of the greatest advocates and supporters of independent theatre, music, artists and creators in Melbourne. Buy him a drink when you see him.

Cassandra Fumi
arts editor, theatre maker

Photo by Sarah Walker

Cass: When I think of 2014 it's green! Green Screen was the standout work for me. I loved the delicateness and vulnerability of this piece. It was a Nicola Gunn show unlike other Nicola Gunn shows, but then oh so much a Nicola Gunn show (does that make sense?).

I also loved Bron Batten’s Use Your Illusion that was part of Field Theory. I thought it was a clever, engaging piece. My presence as an audience member was really needed, not only to be hypnotised but also to go on a journey with Batten. Oh yeah, I totes bought into the hypnosis thang.

I also adored Calpurnia Descending; the dancing rat made me laugh. Ugly laugh. Like Dawson’s ugly cry. This work made me think, whilst having a great, entertaining time at the theatre. I also went to Katy Perry a few nights later and – yes, yes! – Katy also had a rat on stage. The gift that keeps giving.

SM: I so nearly had a Live Art moment with Cass at the Melbourne Fringe, but it turned into a very individual live art moment because I missed her by seconds. (Bloody burger that took forever that I ate  as I ran to be on time – and it wasn’t even nice.)


Tobias Manderson-Galvin
maverick

Tobi: My best top 5:

5) Perth's Fringe World. That was a really great fringe festival. It may be the best in the world right now. Supportive core staff, varied curated and non-curated spaces, selection of hub areas, a real cool artist bar, great audiences, beautiful design. I can't give this festival a better rap. It is the best. Fuck you Adelaide and Melbourne, do we need to call an ambulance – and any other Australian fringe you don’t really exist, get over it.

4) Luke Devine's The Land Than Time Forgot (Melbourne Fringe, Hares & Hyenas). Luke in nothing but a black tee, white 'away' shorts, and holding a hot pink notebook, tells the story of growing up in Tasmania. This better happen again. If you missed it. Whooo boy. You missed it.

3) Inventing a festival with MKA massive and primarily Mr John Kachoyan. Calling it HYPRTXT. It having almost nothing to do with the internet. Doing a show in it that also didn’t really have anything to do with the internet. My new pal John Kachoyan reading in the show on the final night. JK also doing a reading of his solo show. Just everyone involved in all of that. Like Jenn Taylor. Like people from the Gong. A playwright from Finland. All of you/them!

2) Kerith Manderson-Galvin's commissioned work for Union House Theatre Don’t Bring LuLu. I went more than once. I gather that for a while there people thought Kerith was a pseudonym I'd made up, but she's actually my sister. I think for a while there, people thought she was my sister but she's also herself and that's a thing too. But she is my sister too, so obvs i'll deck you if you don't like her shows. And this was a great show. Really a show more than a play. There has not been another script like it. Not here not anywhere. If you haven’t read it, you should find a way. It better have another life. Meanwhile i guess you could just see Being Dead (Don Quixote), her next show in Midsumma in January.

1) Big thanks to Stephen Armstrong and the Arts Centre who were part of hosting IETM/Asian Satelite Meeting and Lab in Melbourne.

Also a special mention of something bad/good so far: my podcast with Kerith has only had two episodes because a bunch of data got deleted and then I was without internet for weeks/also without a credit card for a month and a half and lost my account. So anyway.... Jolly Good Radio returns sometime when I'm rich and the gods smile upon us.

SM: Every moment with Tobias is a moment, but my favourite was watching his mum watch him in his Thank You Thank You Love (HYPRTXT).

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

FRINGE part 6

Bucket's List

20 September 2014

Fringe Hub, Rehearsal Room

to 4 October

melbournefringe.com.au

With wedding song two-steps, a surly possum, dried apricots & words that sound like bucket, don't even think about missing this. Bucket's List is Sarah Collins fourth major work and the first one that she hasn't written for herself.

She wrote it for comedian Justin Kennedy, who is a writer for The Project, co-wrote and performed the very successful Donna and Damo with her, and proposed to Collins on stage during the 2010 Melbourne Comedy Festival season of D & D.

Bucket loved his work at the bucket factory for 19 years and 364 days and was happy to stay for the next 20 years, but bucket peak has been reached. He finds a new job as a wedding DJ, realises  that he's never had his own wedding dance and, with the help of his neighbours and a sexed-up and cynical possum, he goes looking for love.

It's a sweet and loving story that has its dark and weird moments but doesn't descend into the same unexpected bleakness that Choir Girl did, and, while she lets hero Bucket be the hero he needs to be, the foreshadowed ending isn't a surprise.

Kennedy's adorable performance makes it easy to love Bucket and maybe want him as a sweet and odd friend, but he barely utters a word. The performance is all physical (like Mr Bean, but nothing like the Mr Bean character) while recorded narrator, Felix Nobis, tells the story, with Rhys Auteri providing a live guitar score and doubling as the possum who finds noisy love before Bucket finds his own hope of a girlfriend.

Director by Yvonne Virsik (who directed Collins's first work Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba (Ever)) ensures that there's guts and humanity in the more twee moments, and Jason Lehane (who directed D & D) created a bucket puppet who may be remembered as the woman who made too many people cry this Fringe.

Collins writing continues to stand out as work that could only be hers. Hers is writing that shows that if you trust your voice and don't try to sound like anyone else, you'll find the people who love your work.

PS.  It started as when Sarah met a wedding DJ who used to be a bucket salesperson.

Richard 11
MKA
25 September 2014
Northcote Town Hall, Studio 2
to 28 September
melbournefringe.com.au

Mark Wilson and MKA made their unforgettable mark in last year's Fringe with UnSex Me, Wilson's penetrative riff on the Scottish play. This year, Wilson is joined by Olivia Monticciolo and they drag Richard 11 into the now to give the politics we seem to be accepting a good double dicking.

With Wilson as Richard and Monticciolo as his cousin Henry, they start as children playing and become adults playing at being Kings of Australia. With slabs of Shakespeare's text and plenty of their own, the story is re-cast as the Rudd and Gillard leadership debacle with numbers meaning everything and a de-crowned King who isn't afraid to do everything he can to undermine the woman who disposed him.

Here's theatre that's about now and us and isn't afraid to question and scream about gender and power and how we accept too much that shouldn't be accepted.

It's political, funny, cruel, honest & what-the-fuck-have-we-done brilliant. And Mark wears gold tights.

It's also sold out.

Bonus: Terrific conversation with random audience members on School for Birds.

Who Are You Supposed to Be?
26 September 2014
The Owl and the Pussycat
to 5 October
melbournefringe.com.au

One of the loveliest parts of Who Are You Supposed to Be? was being in an audience who were squeeing with joy as they recognised themselves, their world and every geeky sci-fi reference. And there are many geeky sci-fi references.

I know that because I got most of them. And maybe squee'ed at 5 and 10 and the mourning of the passing of Firefly.

Keith Gow is a Doctor Who fan and wrote a play set at a convention where a con-famous podcaster (Rob Lloyd) meets someone he only knows from Twitter (Jennifer Lusk, who also played this part in the UK) and attacks her for daring to dress as the fifth Doctor.

With enough Doctor Who references to thrill even the most obsessed, it looks beyond the obvious nerd jokes to explore gender issues, sexism and the place of non-cannonical breasts in geek culture.

It is a work for Doctor Who fans and sci-fi obsessives. There's enough for non-fans to enjoy, but it's safe to assume that the people who go to a play about Doctor Who fans are going to get the Blink jokes.

Some of these are on AussieTheatre.com.

Last chance

What to see on the weekend? Here's Friday, Saturday and Sunday night covered.

The Von Muiznieks Family Hoedown
The Butterfly Club
Facebook
Last show tonight

The Melbourne Cabaret Festival is in it's second week and The Butterfly Club is always a favourite place for a show and a drink at the hoarders-dream bar; clutter can be art.

Karin, Simon and Emma (von) Muiznieks are from Essendon, the heart of bluegrass. And as Lativan sibling bluegrass and country pop-cover bands go, there's no one like them.

If you missed that, they're a Lativan sibling bluegrass and country pop-cover band from Essendon. For reals. Beat that von Trapps, Osmonds, Jacksons and von Brady Bunch singers, who aren't real siblings so they don't count.

Singing bluegrass and country classics by the likes of Lorde, Brittney, Adele, Rhianna and Tom (Jones) with mandolin, autoharp and bass ukulele, their hoedown is so much more fun than prancing around a fountain in clothes made from curtains.  Yee-ha!

The von Muiznieks have created a niche that only they can fill and are filling it with great singing, terrific playing and stories that I'd never imagined.

There's development to go but the von Muiznieks are on their way to being something that will sell out Spiegeltents. I loved them so much that I'm ready to chew me some hay, call myself a hoe and wear gingham.


Orphans
Q44
Q44 theatre in Burnley
q44.com.au
Last show on Sunday

Q44 are a new company working in an amazing converted warehouse in Richmond, which is also home to visual artists and a very old white cat.

Like Red Stitch the early years, they are an ensemble of actors working to produce the plays they want to perform.

Their second production is the 1983 play Orphans by American playwright/director/actor Lyle Kessler. The orphans are adult brothers, Phillip and Treat, living in an abandoned council flat in Philadelphia. Treat is a petty criminal and Phillip is housebound due to allergies and trusting that his brother. The fairy Godfather is Harold, a drunk with a briefcase full of stocks and bonds, who's kidnapped by Treat.

It's a bit Freud 101, but the three characters make up for any obviousness in the plot. And see it for the exceptional performances.

With a realism technique that fits the work, Ashley McKenzie (Treat), Mark Davis (Phillip) and Gareth Reeves (Harold) immerse themselves so deeply in the characters that the technique all but disappears. Engaging and real, they each create genuine fear for their character and overcome the awareness of being watched.

Keep an eye on this company.

Kevin Turner's review.

Hypertxt Festival
MKA
On the grace of officials
The defence
Sugar, sugar
Thank you, thank you love
The Tuxedo Cat
mka.org.au
last shows on Saturday

Maverick favourites MKA have taken over the Tuxedo Cat in the city and four new shows finish on Saturday.

All are a bit angry and are preaching to the converted, but if you're not angry about how we're treating refugees, how women are portrayed on stage and screen, and how young women can't see their own beauty then you need to see more theatre made by people who are.

I haven't seen Thank you, thank you yet, but will take an hour off from a party on Saturday night to see it.

James Jackson's reviews.

The defence

Thank you, thank you love

Sugar, sugar

What I loved 2013: the Best of Melbourne Theatre

I was determined to see more than 100 shows this year and on my rough count I made it to 187. (If I count Life and Times as three shows, I get to 190; and if I count all the short plays, I can bluff a 250+!)

And I still missed too many!

Over December, we've heard what 51 people from Melbourne's theatre community loved in 2013, but here are my What I Loved awards.

There's still nothing shiny to take away.

As always, my criteria is simply what I loved the most; what shows and artists I remembered beyond the final applause.

Some were easy picks, while others were impossible to choose between and there are shows that I can't believe didn't make my own list!

Outstanding Artists 2013

WRITING

Patricia Cornelius for Savages, fortyfivedownstairs

Patricia Cornelius

Special mentions

May Jasper for Not a very good story, La Mama

Lally Katz for Stories I want to tell you in person, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir

Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell for They saw a thylacine, Melbourne Fringe

DESIGN

Sunday in the Park with George

Anna Cordingley for Sunday in the Park with George, Victoria Opera
and
Kate Davis for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

Special mention

Eugyeene Teh, design; Russell Goldsmith, sound;  Rob Sowinski, lighting for Palace of the End, Theatre Works

LIGHTING 

Richard Vabre for night maybe, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Theatre Works

PERFORMANCE

The Sovereign Wife

Hannah Norris for Palace of the End, Theatre Works
and
Mary Helen Sassman for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
and
Ash Flanders for The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON
and
The cast of Death in the Family, Ward Theatre Company

Special mentions
(or who to watch out for, because wow!)

Peter Paltos
Emily Milledge
Emily Tomlins
Genevieve Giuffre 

DIRECTION 

Palace of the End

Leticia Caceres for Constellations, MTC (and a special mention for The Tall Man, La Mama)
and
Emma Valente for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

Special mentions

Daniel Clarke for Palace of the End, Theatre Works

Daniel Lammin for Columbine, MUST

Stephen Nicolazzo for Psycho Beach Party

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

Summertime in the Garden of Eden

Marg Horwell for her astonishing design for Constellations, MTC; By their own hands, The Hayloft Project at NEON; Savages, fortyfivedownstairs; and Summertime in the garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm and Theatre Works.

Marg consistently bring a visual narrative that's far beyond what the writers could ever have imagined, but makes the world look like it could never have been anything else. 

Story of O

and

The Rabble for  Story of O at NEON, and  Room of Regret, Theatre Works at Melbourne Festival.

I've run out of words to describe this company. I love them to pieces. All I know is that there's nothing on a Rabble stage that feels out of place. For a company with such a complex improvisational development process, they let process be process and only bring what's absolutely necessary to the stage.

Outstanding Productions 2012

CABARET

Between the Cracks

Between the Cracks, Yana Alana at Melbourne Cabaret Festival

Special mention

Stranger, Geraldine Quinn at Melbourne Fringe. 

COMMERCIAL SHOW

Constellations, MTC
and
War Horse, National Theatre of Great Britain and Global Creatures in association with Arts Centre Melbourne

MUSICAL

Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story

Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera
and

Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story, Magnormos

Special mention

Wolf Creek, the Musical, at Melbourne Fringe

COMEDY

Happiness is a bedside table

Happiness is a bedside table, Hannah Gadsby at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Special mentions

Slutmonster and friends

Slutmonster and Friends at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Famoucity!, Lessons with Luis at at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

DANCE

Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc, Belvoir and Arts House

OPERA

Nixon in China

Nixon in China, Victorian Opera

And the Melbourne Ring Cycle was very cool, even the not-for-review dress rehearsals.

BEST OF THE BEST

The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Projects Australia

Einstein on the Beach, Arts Centre Melbourne, Pomegranate Arts

Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON

Kids Killing Kids, MKA and Q Theatre Company at Melbourne Fringe

MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2013

Life and Times: Episodes 1–4, National Theater of Oklahoma at Melbourne Festival

2012 Lovies

2011 Lovies

2010 Lovies

2009 Lovies

2008 Lovies

2007 quickies

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 17

That's it! 51 members of Melbourne's theatre community have shared their 2013 favourite moments, shows and people.

The last very-loved three are Mary Helen Sassman, Glyn Roberts and Richard Watts.

(And there might be a bonus next week.)

What Melbourne loved the most in 2013

The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm, NEON

Summertime in the Garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm, Theatre Works
They saw a thylacine, Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell, Melbourne Fringe
Story of O, The Rabble, NEON
Kids Killing Kids, MKA, Melbourne Fringe
M+M, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Theatre Works, Melbourne Fringe

But the MTC's NEON Festival of Independent Theatre is the undisputed winner.

There's still no award statue, no cash prize and I'm in my pjs as I announce the winners, but there are quotables and every show and person mentioned knows that Melbourne really loved you in 2013. 

Mary Helen Sassman

performer

MARY HELEN: I have felt a bubbling undercurrent – sometimes champagne all fizzy pop and sometimes simmering soup all hearty – this year, as though something special is happening to our little industry. We have seen courage and risk-taking robustly applauded.

As a performer, my scariest, most formative and now favourite moment was while performing in The Rabble's Story of O, where scores of audience walked out mid-performance; some loudly exclaiming their disdain as they left. I inherently aim to please – or so I had thought – so was challenged, but ultimately it felt dangerous and honest.

Also this year I have been working at what Chris Boyd has called "Headquarters": La Mama Theatre. What I love most about that place is that it feels like home to so many ridiculously talented people and companies.

My favourite moments there and elsewhere:

A stunning and dark tale in Angela Betzien's The Tall Man. Director Leticia Caceres created an eerie and raw world with some seriously good Brisbane-bred actors Hayden Spencer and Louise Brehmer.

Super Discount (Back to Back Theatre) was super awesome.

Menagerie (NEON, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble) thrilled me. I am now and forever unfulfilled if there are less than three simultaneous climaxes at any one time on stage.

SM: MH's performance in Story of O left me reeling (and I lost count of the climaxes). 

It's almost impossible to get into the head of the O in the book. Mary Helen got into O's head and did what the book doesn't: showed us what this women felt. It's when actors bring more than the writer created to a character that they become so real that we are willing to forget that we're watching an actor.

Glyn Roberts
was Co-Creative-Director, MKA
is Program Manager, La Boite Theatre Company (Brisbane)

GLYN: Well. 2013 was for me one of the most hectic years of my life; although, not the busiest. That was 2011–12: those heady years where we built cutting-edge performances spaces out of eggshells and barley sugar.

My favorite show was The Rabble's Story of O, but that has been talked about quite a bit here. And I finally caught Arthur's Cut Snake, a show that is "performance" at it's simplest and most effective. Such a lovely thing.

My favorite moments in theatre this year were more the symptoms of shows. Watching a Year 10 class from the Gold Coast lose their shit while watching The Economist at the World Theatre Festival in Brisbane or, in Brisbane again for the Brisbane Festival, having MKA's production of The Unspoken Word is 'Joe' programmed alongside so many friends and colleagues from Melbourne.

It was a sign that something was beginning and ending simultaneously. Change was afoot, not to mention the emergence of a curious culture of sharing and communication between Melbourne and Brisbane, cheekily going on behind Sydney's back.

The most telling moments were the white hot fury that MKA's Kids Killing Kids could, on any given night, insight and the bacchaenalian thrill that it would inspire in the hearts of others.

The same went for Mark Wilson's Unsex Me, which divided audiences with many to this day still unable to control the volume of their voice when the piece is mentioned (which is excellent).

Both shows represented my swan song as a Creative Director of MKA and both were shows that forced those that saw them to lay their cards on the table. These pieces not only polarised members of the audience but exposed who they were ideologically, aesthetically, sexually, culturally and artistically. It was these moments where theatre managed to expose people's essence and foundations and had them leaving the theatre raw and alive both livid and joyful.

As Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014.

SM: I was going to talk more about Kids Killing Kids and a bit about Group Show (what a bunch of writers!), but I'm going with:

 "If we avoid indifference from here on in then I think we will be set to have a good 2014."

Let's all take that in to 2014.


Richard Watts
writer, broadcaster, the guy who sees more shows than anyone and should be given a present by Melbourne's independent artists for all the amazing support he gives

Ho and Ho

RICHARD:  Between all the performance delights that Melbourne had to offer, as well as the biennial Castlemaine State Festival, the World Theatre Forum at Brisbane Powerhouse, and a truly spellbinding performance by Pantha Du Prince and the Bell Laboratory in Barcelona (hands down my favourite performance of the year in any artform), 2013 has been an excellent year. Congratulations to everyone who made and staged work this year – you’ve been amazing, and I can’t wait to see what you’ll create in 2014.

This year got off to an excellent start with Psycho Beach Party at Theatre Works, a camp feast of satire and leopard print, beautifully performed and designed and excellently directed and performed.

I also adored the MTC’s Constellations, a heartbreakingly beautiful exploration of love across parallel worlds by UK playwright Nick Payne starring Alison Bell and Leon Ford; Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You Never Had it So Good) at the World Theatre Festival, which featured some of the best integration of technology and the audience I’ve ever seen on stage; and, at the same festival, I Heart Alice Heart I by Irish company HotForTheatre, the single most romantic production I saw all year – I was sobbing happy tears by the end of the play, and I certainly wasn’t the only one.

Coming back to Melbourne, I was amazed and delighted by Brisbane circus company Casus and their show Knee Deep at the Famous Spiegeltent (a venue I’ll miss in 2014), an intimate display of physical skill that playfully subverted gender norms, and I laughed uproariously at the Indigenous fairy tale Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui at the Castlemaine State Festival. I also shrieked with mirth at Lucy Hopkin’s superb solo clown act Le Foulard at Tuxedo Cat and at the return season of the wonderfully rude and hugely entertaining  Slutmonster and Friends. at Northcote Town Hall during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Windmill Theatre’s School Dance was wonderful too – its awkward geek heroes really resonated with me, reminding me of my Dungeons & Dragons-playing high school days – as was Simon Keck’s hilarious play about suicide, Nob Happy Sock at the Imperial Hotel, though in a very different way.

I missed some of the MTC’s NEON season due to a trip to Spain but I was very taken by The Hayloft Project’s exploration of myth and theatrical form, By Their Own Hands, and, seemingly like everyone else in Melbourne, was thrilled and delighted by Sisters Grimm’s subversive, playful, confrontation and brilliant The Sovereign Wife.

Back at Theatre Works I saw one of the most riveting performances of the year in The Palace of the End – overall a very strong production, with an absolutely riveting performance by Robert Meldrum, who I couldn’t take my eyes off. Simply astounding.

On the other side of town at La Mama I was equally enthralled by Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude, a classic encapsulation of the adage "the personal is political" in cabaret form, while the equally powerful The Bloody Chamber at the Malthouse, skilfully adapted by Van Badham and directed by Matthew Lutton, not only made me see Alison Whyte in a new light, but gave me a new appreciation for the feminist fairy tales of Angela Carter. Great stuff.

I finally caught up with sci-fi puppet epic The Omega Quest at Revolt in Kensington; cheered Geraldine Quinn’s excellent Sunglasses at Night: The 80s Apocalypse Sing Along Cabaret at the Butterfly Club; was made to empathise with beastly men thanks to Patricia Cornelius's superb Savages at fortyfivedownstairs; gasped in wonder at Richard Vabre’s absolutely exquisite lighting for Stuck Pigs Squealing’s night maybe at Theatre Works;  delighted in a bite-sized range of contemporary and traditional dance styles in Nat Cursio’s Private Dances II at Northcote Town Hall; was taken aback and enthralled by Branch Nebula’s Whelping Box at Arts House Meat Market; and adored Elbow Room’s Fewer Emergencies at the Owl and the Pussycat.


Then it was Fringe time. The controlled simplicity of They saw a thylacine and the judicious blend of comedy and heartbreak in Black Faggot thrilled me; Wolf Creek, The Musical revelled in its low-fi silliness, as did Dr Professor Neal Portenza’s Love Muffins; I was taken aback and thrilled by Mark Wilson’s committed performance in MKA’s Unsex Me, while Big One Little One’s live art piece Confetti was one of the most exhilarating and life-affirming works of the year.

Next came the Melbourne Festival, where my highlights were Nicola Gunn’s post-modern masterpiece In Spite of Myself and Belarus Free Theatre’s electrifying piece of agit-prop Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker.

After the madness of Fringe and the Festival, where I saw 40 shows in 40 days, I collapsed a little, though I still had time to see Malia Walsh and company’s circus-puppetry-dance hybrid Arabella at the La Mama Courthouse, which was superb, as was Sisters Grimm’s remounted, gender-fucking Summertime in the Garden of Eden at Theatre Works.

This was meant to be a brief summation of just some of the year’s highlights – not all of them. Oops. Damn, it’s been an excellent year!

SM: Damn, it has been an excellent year! And Richard has seen most of the shows.

Richard's another one of those people whom I trust if they tell me to see something. Without his recommendation, I wouldn't have seen Slutmonster and Friends. And, to not have seen this fuzzy-pink, giant-cocked slut of a monster is too sad a thought to contemplate. I sat with Richard at Slutmonster and Wolf Creek and, I've said it before, but it's wonderful to be with people who laugh (and cry; Dr Who) at the same things I do.

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Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

2012 part 1, with links to the rest

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part Tobias

Some described their favourite moments of 2013 with a mere few sentences, but MKA's Tobias Manderson-Galvin has seen too much long-form theatre this year.

Tobias Manderson-Galvin
Creative Director, MKA

TOBI: Professor Lenore Mandeson gave the opening keynote address at the Australian Theatre Forum (in Canberra) with her colleague, futurist Kristin Alford. It had nothing explicitly to do with theatre and it was wonderful to think about theatre in relation to something else/everything else. One of the highlights was Lenore riffing on Brecht's Threepenny Opera and miming swinging a plastic bag of shit above her head and then throwing said pretend bag in our general direction as a part of her description of conditions in South African slums, but really as a part of a bigger critique of the culture we're more directly a part of.

Also turning up each day to the forum and discovering she and I had worn matching outfits yet again, a sort of superficial confirmation of the synchronicity in having my medical anthropologist mother as the headline act at a peak industry event in my current field. It was like bring your son to work day, which was actually lots of days. If anyone ever wants to know about Giddens or Weber, I've been going to lectures since I was six months old.

Being Dead (Don Quixote) was my favourite show this year, hands down no questions asked. It was Kerith Manderson-Galvin's reworking of a classic book she didn't read via Kathy Acker's reworking of the same text (who knows if she read it or not).

Kerith spearheaded the work but Soma Garner and Amy Lever-Davidson pulled off some design coups. It was only on for two nights in a university, so if you missed it well ok I guess you didn't have much of a chance – but when it returns, make sure you get a ticket or you will be missing one of the most genuinely accomplished works of queer theatre made in years.

I don't know if Kerith'd call it that, but it was that. I've noticed that 2013 was a big year (maybe the last few years even) for calling shows 'queer' or 'feminist' or 'theatre', whether they were any of these things or not. I think this is all them.

A Supple Beauty. When asked, Kerith (from Part 4) also mentioned this as one of her favourite moments and even though Mark (from Part 8) didn't, I'm sure he thought it. MKA went to the Adelaide Fringe and didn't really have the best time audience wise. (We took three shows, one averaged an audience of perhaps 25 a night and the others averaged three to four). So, when I saw there was an anarchic, cabaret/variety night at 3.00 in the afternoon on a Saturday, we were first in line to get on the bill.

The night before the performance Alexis Dubus (aka Marcel Lucont), a burlesque darling (who wishes to remain unnamed) and me were thrown out of the Fringe Club for taking our clothes off on the dance floor to Nelly's "Hot in Here" (a DJ coincidence, as we were getting naked anyway in an effort to promote the event). On the day of the show, Mark Wilson, Kerith and I performed totally naked, save for a leather belt I kept on, and we deconstructed the only State Theatre Company of South Australia show we saw all year.

Kerith did a death scene that went for about 20 minutes. Mark performed a harrowing edited version of the Beethoven inspired Tolstoy novella The Kreutzer Sonata re-written by himself, and I played Chris Brown and Rihanna songs. And why not. Then we spent about six minutes doing a Q&A with ourselves and drinking bottled water. Apologies for not inviting you Geordie Brookman, but, fair warning, we'll be back.

Einstein on the Beach. I saw it two nights in a row. First night, apologies to Andrew Fuhrmann who I went with, I was fidgety and bored. I wanted to be a hero, so I didn't take a break in its 4.5 hours and had a less than great time. Yet, slit my wrists and draw a hot bath, I went back the next night and only left the room for four minutes – because that's how long it takes to take the piss you planned in advance and they know that bit is a little less interesting – but when I realised I'd mistimed and the first ballet had started, I raced back to my seat because this show is in a league (albeit a sort of vintage museum league) of its own. I spent weeks singing "Knee Play 3".

Life and Times. Not only being there, but that they made all the burgers for the audience themselves and we all watched it and it took like 10 hours and Kerith didn't go to her 10-year high school reunion so she could see it (and she went to the most elite girls school in Victoria, not me I went to a public school and even that I got expelled from and then went to another public school, but enough) and Lenore asked Kerith and I to dinner with her and Pat Galvin and also invited Nature Theatre's Pavol and Kelly and wait, omg, I haven't even started telling you about how I got four free VIP tickets and went to a Limp Bizkit concert and got soft tissue damage, tearing my cartilage and ligaments around my spine, sternum and ribs from moshing like I was 17/partying like it was 1999/doing it all for the nookie and that Fred Durst was like "nice jacket dude'" to me and I break danced while I was crowd surfing!!! As in: on people's heads!!! And how when MKA took The Economist to Brisbane Powerhouse for World Theatre Festival there was a girl who came late one night and stood in the back row and was wearing what seemed to be a Norwegian flag as a skirt and she was the perfect image of what I always imagined the lead lady role would be (though it's always been played inimitably by Marcus McKenzie) and then I met her by chance in the basement of the theatre and she had the same name as the character and Kerith didn't believe she even existed and thought maybe I was having another episode but we're friends on Facebook now, so that's as real as it get. And then, oh, working with Shian Law on Psycho for Balletlab was the start of a dream come true – my return to ballet which isn't really theatre, is it?  and this is about theatre isn't it? And also you know Katie Noonan, well she's beautiful isn't she? Have you ever seen her perform? And then there was that time – no I – but maybe that's not what's important now but I don't want to leave anything out in this at all. Not one bit.

SUN from Melbourne Festival was really my favourite theatrical work of 2013. Metal. A dance corps. A pastoral setting. I hadn't seen Political Mother (the companies previous work), so ok some say that was better, whatever, I don't know, this was fuckiing excellent.

And an honourable mention to when Kerith and I snuck into the ska gig at the Festival Club (The Caribs et al) and, to a song called "No More" in which the refrain was "I''ll cry no more tears for you/over you" (or something), the guitarist (about 80 years old) cried throughout. Kerith still isn't sure what ska is and though she does know who Reel Big Fish are, this was a moment of classic half a century old music and a moving performance.

What Tobi is looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.

SM: My moment: proofing/editing the above.

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Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest