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

FRINGE review: Me Pregnant!

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

Me Pregnant!

Nick Coyle

24 September 2011

Lithuanian Club, The Loft

to 30 September 2011

Love Emeline, love the monster, love the villagers and love Nick Coyle.

Me Pregnant! is a fucked-up fairy tail of a mediaeval village that followed nerdy Emeline into the forest to take revenge on a monster, but one of the monster's babies survived and really hates Emeline.

Modelling a peasant sack with bright tights, Nick is our tour guide and everyone else in the village, the forest and the dark undersea cave. His story telling is immaculate, if you like your stories snarky, bitter and whimsical. And I don't mean fluffy my-little-pony whimsy, this is whimsy that's mixing speed and acid and never wants to come down.

And I now so want an octopus to give me a makeover and a tiny wind-up Nick Coyle doll to tell me bedtime stories.

"Tell me a story." Shows that let their stories lead have audiences who love them. Me Pregnant!  lets Nick show his terrific writing and prove that he's a performer who deserves to be cast in anything he wants, but the joy of the show is that he tells a brilliant story.

Nick's only on until Friday, so don't wait for the weekend to see him.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date

Mark Butler

24 September 2011

Portland Hotel

to 1 October 2011

Mark Butlers broked up with gfs; cos there gramma iz sheet.

In Grammar Don't Matter on a First Date, he asks his audience if they think he made the best choices.

Turns out that Saturday night's audiences were more pedantic than Mark is and are lucky that many couples there have found a mate who agrees that it's impossible to eat in a restaurant that lists possessive nouns on the menu and that friends with RAS syndrome* have to be removed from their Christmas card list.

The rest of us, who may have used an its/it's argument as a contribution to a break up (yes, I have), were able to feel justified.

For the single grammar slobs, who were dragged along by their friends, Mark offers grammatically-correct dating hints. Singles, if you are on RSVP, this could help: There is a happy couple. They're holding hands and sipping their merlot. From experience, Mark (and his enthusiastically agreeing audience) assures you that your lack of basic spelling and grammar knowledge is stopping the smart hot folk from dating you.

Yes, we (the hot smart folk) judge you by your grammar. And (it IS acceptable to start a sentence with a conjunction) we judge you by your spelling, punctuation and syntax. I'm more accepting than Mark is about LOL, but I have serious En dash and hyphen issues. THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE!

As a writer, an editor and a hot smart person, I think Mark's show should be compulsory. The Style manual and the Macquarie Dictionary Fifth Edition aren't in every family bookshelf (hell, they aren't even in every writer's bookshelf), so we need people like Mark to spread the word(s) by making us laugh.

And grammar slob or snob, Mark has everyone laughing. His audience–performer bond is instant, but he's talking about grammar, sex and puns – what's not to bond over!

So, of course, grammar matters as much as Grandpa does. And to all the glorious pedants at Mark’s show: I'd date youse all.

*RASS: Redundant acronym syndrome syndrome. "I'll grab some cash from the ATM machine."

This review first appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

FRINGE review: 4's KIN

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011

4's KIN

Dil Ruk, Morven Smith, Jay E Manne and Tim Clark (with guest Ben Lawrence)

24 September 2011

Portland Hotel

to 8 October 2011

Most new stand ups don't have a show's worth of material, but they do have a few minutes of terrific stuff, and what better way to get your Fringe legs than to share the stage with friends.

4's KIN give us their best 12 minutes and there's enough laughs and likeability to know that we'll soon be seeing much more of Dil Ruk, Morven Smith, Jay E Manne, Tim Clark and (guest) Ben Lawrence.

Each are developing a stage character and working with observational jokes, and all brought an original twist to the worlds around them and showed us just how twisted their brains really are.

I think being a stand up comic has to be one of the bravest performance choices. Great stand up is about sharing your most personal and embarrassing secrets with strangers and friends. The best (the ones we go back to see as much as possible) are the ones who dig deep, show us their hearts and help us realise that being a bit fucked up is perfectly normal.

This first appeared on AussieTheatre.com

FRINGE review: Sweet Child of Mine

Sweet Child of Mine

Bron, Jim and Linda Batten

and The Last Tuesday Society

28 September 2011

Studio 246, Brunswick

to 1 October 2011

I've seen some great shows this Fringe, but I haven't loved any quite as much as Sweet Child of Mine. My heart is still grinning from this show that's made from love – and there's only a couple chances left to for you to be able to say that you there when Jim told his dad jokes.

Jim and Linda Batten have six children; one, Bron, left their Warrnambool home to study contemporary dance and drama.

Jim and Linda love their daughter Bron. Melbourne's independent-cool-arty-farty hipsters (and arty-farty bloggers) love Bron's hilarious and subversive art. Jim and Linda like beautiful art that makes sense and doesn't have nudity or bad language. So what do they make of a daughter who understands post structuralism, danced a chicken abortion in an empty swimming pool and has spent a lot of time in a blue sleeping bag pretending to be a whale?

They perform this show together, on film and on stage.

Jim Batten is the star of this Melbourne Fringe. As scantily-clad Bron swirls around in symbolic white chiffon smock and practical Bonds underwear, Jim tells us what it's like to be the dad of an artist and, on film, Bron asks Jim and Linda to tell her what they think she does.

Apparently contemporary art isn't clear to everyone and artists are known to have unreliable incomes.

Linda and Jim Batten like art that has some emotional kick to it, that's uplifting, that is understood and makes an impression.

So they're pretty lucky to be in a show that ticks every single box. And it has obscure references, a beaver, bad language and blue paint for the rest of us!

Sweet Child of Mine is for anyone whose parents don't understand what they do (yes Mum, I'm still doing "some writing") and for parents who don't know why their artist offspring don't want a steady job.

But is it art?

Fuck* yes! 

(*Sorry Linda.)

PS. Jim and Linda, I'm a bit older than Bron and still supplement my income with that govt arts payment and am heading towards spinsterhood...


A version of this review appears on AussieThearte.com

FRINGE review: I HEART JACK

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011
I Heart Jack
Anna Lumb 23
September 2011
Fringe Hub, Rehearsal Room

to 8 October 2011

I HEART Jack is totally heartable.

Anna Lumb has worked with by DJ Lazer Ferrari and fringe/circus/everything legends Maude and Anni Davey to create a boutique circus of cult, wit, regret and broken hearts.

From en pointe balancing on bottles to making the tiny stage seem like a roller rink, Anna introduces three new characters who are based on cult legends and who share one sad event.

The narrative links could tighten up a bit, but it really doesn't matter because the combination of circus trick, monologue, music and live dance magnifies the emotion of each story and shows us people who try to keep their secrets but can't help but show their hearts.

And you get to watch Anna perform. She fearlessly shows us the hidden hurt of people who rely on their image, she lets us laugh and does the freakiest Hockey Pockey ever.

As other independent arts festivals grow and welcome commercial shows, the Melbourne Fringe still lets brand new work like this find its place and lets us share the kind of art performers really want to create.

This originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

FRINGE review: Who, Me

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011
Who, Me
Vicious Fish and MILKE
23 September 2011
Fringe Hub, Meeting Room
to 8 October 2011

In 1999, Rob Lloyd saw THAT Star Wars film more than once. This kind of honesty deserves admiration, but can I still respect him? (Even if he does look like David Tennant.)

David Tennant is MY Doctor. Jon Pertwee is Rob's. Who, Me is about Rob's obsession with sci fi, particularly Doctor Who (which is the name of the TV show; never the name of the character – except that once).

Directed and co-created by Scott Gooding (still going with Peter Davison?), it takes us into the-bigger-on-the inside mind of a passionate obsessive as his alter ego fracks with the wibbly wobbly and forces Rob to put his love on trial. Would Rob have a better life had he not donned a velvet jacket in the 90s and put his devious-and-too-honest VHS-stealing plans to more a more productive purpose?

The uber-meta time-travel/brain/trial story is the structure, but the double-heart of the night is Rob's story.  His confessions of his fan behaviour create wonderful squirming recognition, including a moment when you can pick how many people in the audience had their first kiss when they were well out of high school.

Still, by trying to find a balance between in-jokes and references for the fans and still making it fun for the non-fans (although I don't understand how anyone could NOT love Doctor Who*), the show’s spending some time in the void between the 'verses.

I'd love to see the references turned up to 11. Name those companions, show us the tower of Target books, throw in the really obscure stuff and go as close to the copyright breach as you dare. At the same time, the less-nerdy viewers need a clearer peek into the uber-nerd world they don't understand. The description of the Trek V Wars 90s is as good as stealing a vortex manipulator and mixing at a 90's sci fi party with your theory that Starbuck would have been much better as a woman.  But pics from a convention are not enough to even hint at the jaw-dropping nerdiness of these events**.

But fan or not, it's impossible not to adore Rob as he unzips his normal suit and lets his nerd out to frolic with an atrocious stand up routine and a final vignette that hurts to watch (it makes Wesley's unaired dance in "Waiting in the Wings" – I know you have the DVDs and have watched the extras – seem cool), but it hurts even more to realise that you understand it.

For all its meta wankiness and TARDIS/penis jokes, Who, Me is a love story.  The genuine passion and embarrassingly affectionate love we have for these fictional creations has got so many of us through bad times. And, like all loves, it's so much better when it's shared.

Rob and Scott share their passion to assure us that there's nothing wrong with knowing more about a tv show than our own family. And would Rob's life have been better with the Doctor? I'll leave that answer to a TARDIS birthday cake.

Doctor Who fans, don’t you dare miss Who, Me. Non-fans – what’s wrong with you!? See it anyway and you can catch up with the box sets after the Fringe.


* On Sundays, I gather in a secret location with a group of people old enough to have watched it on the ABC every week night and old enough to not be embarrassed when someone brings along a new dolly for show and tell. The tiny Jammie Dodger with the first Matt Smith doctor action figure was my favourite.

** Of course I know that from experience.  I went a Buffy etc convention. There was a Firefly preview leaflet, I saw Spike and Giles and discovered that my fandom barely rated on the geek scale. Mixing with these nerds, I felt cooler than Pinky Tuscadero when she was dating Fonzie.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Clybourne Park

Clybourne Park 

Melbourne Theatre Company

22 September

Sumner Theatre

to 26 October

www.mtc.com.au

Let's get it out in the open. Let's just be honest and talk about what Clybourne Park at the MTC is really talking about. It's an issue I feel very strongly about, something I won't change my mind about, and something that makes too many Melbournians behave like selfish knobs. It's about property development.

And it's about racism and about stuck up, white cunts.

As the MTC continues to explore how tough it is to be a middle class property owner, along comes American playwright Bruce Norris, who won the Pulitzer for this little beauty set in a family home in a white Chicago neighbourhood in 1959 and in the same house in 2009 as the now-black neighbourhood is being gentrified.

At first, it feels like the ultimate white-do-gooder, racism-and-sexism are-bad rant. It's like a competition to see who can resist sniggering the longest, and the first laughs are like watching Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with your Indigenous Australian pal while your dad makes monkey noises each time Sidney Poitier appears and yells at your mum to open his beer. We DO NOT laugh at such things.

Of course we don't, and no one coming to see a show by a posh university-run theatre company with the likes of Greg Stone, Alison Whyte and Berte La Bonte in it is going to expect a hooray-for-segregation story.  So there's no need for director (Peter Evans) to hold back and stress the social commentary in act one. My date for the evening compared the first half to The Help and didn't believe that it was meant to be funny.

It is funny. It's nails-down-the-blackboard satire filled with ridiculous people that is written to be laughed at as loudly as possible.

Act two is much freer with the comedy. Perhaps because it's easier to laugh at conversations we've had or heard. When an argument (Norris writes very fine arguments) develops about whether a joke is funny/offensive because it's about a black man, anal sex or rape, the delicious pain is not in the joke but in the squirming embarrassment and huffy indignation as each person the tries to explain, justify or deny the intent of their harmless words.

Norris says that too many people think "that my plays are about exposing hypocritical liberals...and what's missing from that assessment ... is that I'm something of a hypocritical liberal too." Writing, programming, being in or seeing Clybourne Park should never be about tut-tutting at the ignorant and misguided, but about cringing at our own blatant hypocritical attitudes.

The suburb cast (Stone, Whyte, La Bonte and Patrick Brammall, Laura Gordon, Zahra Newman, Luke Ryan) grasp this tone and relish in Norris's exquisite parallel structure. Each present the worst of their character, but finds their wholeness and their humanity, leaving them so real that the tipping point between laughing and crying is so precarious that's it's easy to slide down the other side without noticing.

Don’t wait for permission to laugh in Clybourne Park. Laugh because it’s so wrong and because it’s so true. Laugh because we know better and because we never learn. Laugh to prove you’re not uptight and because you know you really are.

Photo by Jeff Busby

Review: Future of the species part one

Future of the species: part one 
La Mama
8 Sept 2011
La Mama

What's the value of a human life? When is it OK to kill? When does life begin? End? I wonder if anyone I know would have the same answers? Maude Davey's Future of the species: part one doesn't leave you questioning the characters and their world, but questioning your own life and the beliefs you hold (often secretly) about whether life or death is something deserved.

Before going into the theatre Maude asks members of the audience to answer a quick survey. Moments after sitting, she describes her generous answerers and we're asked who is worth more. No one can answer. The same questions become more general, but even Nicole Kidman or Martin Byrant doesn't get an answer, but Kylie Minogue or Kyle Sanderlands does. If we can't laugh at the impossibility of such comparisons, what hope do we have?

In her underwear in a cell, Maude is woman who is alone and frightening lonely in a lab where she chose to be for money. Her eggs are harvested and the stem cells used for medical applications. She's wants a family and has conflicting feelings about a rat's babies. Should we fell sorry for her?

She is also a man on death row. He's sexually violent and there's comfort knowing that he's locked away from "us". Would we object when he faces the needle?

Directed by Ingrid Voorendt, it's intimate and visually confronting, yet leaves so much space for interpretation that its audience have no choice but to question themselves. This is brilliant stuff.

 Future of the species part one was first performed in Adelaide in 2004 and parts two and three are planned confront our beliefs about family and community. I suspect that the three seen together may be almost too much to watch.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com.

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

Review: Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar
Bell Shakespeare
7 September 2011
Fairfax Studio, the Arts Centre
to 17 September, and touring
www.bellshakespeare.com.au

Julius Caesar isn't the sexist of Shakespeare's writings. It's one of the politics and togas plays that's favoured in high schools for its large cast, relative shortness and the "lend me your rears" pun. Bell Shakespeare brave this neglected history play and bring it into a recognisable world of factions and power suits with many shades of grey.

JC is a wordy play about the power of words. Most of the action takes place off, so its success lies in making the on stage story about the decisions and dilemmas facing those reporting and those hearing.

This adaption, by director Peter Evans and dramaturge Kate Mulvany (who also plays Cassius), is about the group of conspirators and is structured to ensure it's about people dealing with the consequences of their choices, rather than reacting to the changing will of the masses. And the masses have been reduced to voices.

This lets it become a personal story that soars towards the end as Brutus (Colin Moody) is left alone to face the new world he created. (Purists be damned, the choice to bring the ending back is brilliant.)  This would be even stronger if we were with Brutus from the beginning. Act one suffers from not choosing a side. Breaking to interval as Caska (Gareth Reeves) declares, "Speak hands for me!” I wasn't sure if we were meant to be scared for Caesar (Alex Mengelet channeling a Godfather-like Brando) or excited that the faction looked likely to succeed in toppling their leader. We love Shakespeare's stories because they explore so many perspectives, but none of this complexity is lost by the choice to interpret and focus on a hero.

It's also a play known for its wishy washy chicks. Mulvany's Cassius obviously addresses the balance, but Calphurnia (Rebecca Bower) and Portia (Katie-Jean Harding) are far more persuasive than often seen and leave us wishing that Caesar and Brutus listened to their wives.

As this Rome believes in omens and gods Evans' direction allows for a fluidity that allows for "strange and wonderful signs", but some choices felt more style than substance, especially when the slow-mo entrance/exits took focus off the story action and on to the mechanics of getting actors on and off the stage.

Julius Caesar is touring, so each venue will adapt to the staging in different ways and it's a minor quibble for a production that lets heart, dilemma and regrets drive its history.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review: Tell them it rained too hard

Tell them that it rained too hard
Attic Erratic
2 September 2011
Studio Theatre, Gasworks Arts Park
to 10 September
www.atticerratic.com

While Platform Youth are confronting the perception of teenage sluts in Tenderness, independent company Attic Erratic give a very different 20-something view of the slut-or-virgin paradigm in Tell them that it rained too hard.

Tom Pitts wrote the text and music for this piece. The highlight of the night is how beautifully the music works with the text and how Pitts and director Celeste Cody use the combination of text and music to create the mood and move the drama of story.

But the text suffers from overwriting and seems caught up with telling us the sexual issues we should be thinking about, rather than showing us the stories of these characters, who never seem free to really tell us what's going on in their hearts.

As each generation discovers sex, they tend to act like no one did it before them. (I know I did.) This work claims to boldly explore the "contentious" and "still divisive" issues of sexuality, promiscuity and monogamy. It begins with a dream about harlots and a lecture about the free love of the 60s and how it people can't have an uncomplicated shag. But it doesn't go on to address issues of sexuality, promiscuity or monogamy.

I left thinking that the politics and outlook underpinning this world are just so straight. Straight as in heterosexual, straight as in conservative and straight as in as vanilla as cheap, white home-brand ice cream.

The promiscuous chick dresses like a Grey St hooker and has sex with two (!) men, while her best friend risks her nice safe marriage by having a pash with an ex. This may be a typicailish 20ish story, but it would be a far better story if it wasn't claiming to be unflinching and bold. If you're going to look at the issues around being a slut (a word that is slowly being re-claimed as a positive and empowering word) and how you can enjoy a fuck because it's fun, please at least glance at promiscuity (that's a LOT of partners) and the alternatives to monogamy that many people joyfully embrace.

Tell them that it rained too hard didn't speak to me, but it's driven by a cast whose honesty and passion for the story reminded me that it is reflection of the their world and it will speak loudly and strongly to others.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Tenderness

Tenderness
Platform Youth Theatre and Footscray Community Arts Centre in association with A.R.A.B
4 September 2011
Footscray Community Arts Centre
to 11 September

I wish I were shocked by the anger, violence and cruelty of Tenderness. I'm horrified that any 12-year-old girl would shave her public hair and lose her virginity to a 16-year-old or that any teenager will punch until bones crunch, but it's too easy to understand why when the impact of words like "ugly" and "slut" never seems to change.

Platform Youth Theatre create striking theatre that is led by the perspectives and voices of young people, and finished and strengthened by the experience of professional artists.

Tenderness is two short plays, Ugly by Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap etc) and Slut by Patricia Cornelius (Do not go gentle... etc). Commissioned in 2007, both were researched with young people in the northern suburbs and have undergone creative development presentations that have left them with authentic raw and angry young voices, without the implied judgment or now-I-know-betterness of the older writers.

Working with a remarkable young cast (Matt Hickey, Stephanie Capiron, Rebecca Mazel, Peta Sergeant) and Kelly Ryall's emotive score, director Nadja Kostich (Bare Witness) uses a constant and dangerous physicality that lets the scripts confront, scream and punch to show the vulnerability of these young people who see the world as ugly and pretend that they don't care.

As adults we can re-embrace words, take part in Slut Walk and happily have as much wild, skanky and consenting sex as we like, but do we or should we apply the same openness to promiscuous teenagers? I wish that everyone who has ever referred to a child as a slut (especially "journalists" and talk-back radio scum) could be made to see this play every time they throw such powerful words about.

Tenderness is the first work in the new performance space at the wonderful Footscray Community Arts Centre, and if this stark reminder of how little tenderness some teenagers have in their lives is setting the standard for what we will see in this space, it hope it will soon be one of Melbourne's favourite spaces

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review: Flowerchildren

Flowerchildren:the Mamas and Papas Story

Magnomos

Theatre Works

1 September 2011

to 10 September

www.magnormos.com/flowerchildren.htm

I don't think there's a seat left for Flowerchildren. It's worth ringing and trying for no-shows, because this mix of nostalgia, honesty and revelation is a show you won't forget.

I'm not a fan of the jukebox/tribute musicals, but working with the Magnormos team, writer Peter Fitzpatrick has taken all that he knows about great musicals (he's directed five Sondheim's) to create one that is loving, painful and wonderful.

I'm a product of the 60s, and have always loved The Mamas and Papas's music with those close harmonies that speak of love, but are underpinned with a melancholy that draws you deeply into the heart and truth of the song.

Their music is still glorious, but Flowerchildren reminds us that it was a product of many no-so-nice stories. Older John married teenage Michelle, Cass never got over her brief relationship with Denny, John never accepted Cass for her size, each had health-threatening addictions and Denny and Michelle has an affair. Underpinning their fame and sudden money, it was unhappiness, anger and drugs, that led Phillips to write some of their greatest hits.

The story is told in four parts, each narrated from point of view of one of the members, starting with Cass when she decided in join the group and ending with Michelle, who's the only member still alive. It also leaves their stories in the 60s and leaves Michelle to tell what she wants to about their deaths. Some of the urban myths are debunked and other more damaging accusations, particularly about John, are left for Oprah and the tabloids.

Flowerchildren succeeds where so many tribute pieces fail because the narrative is inseparable from the music and it uses the truth of their personal relationships. Phillips freely used his music to express his how he felt. In the early days, his "Words of Love" were for Michelle, "Creeque Alley's" "no one's getting fat except Mama Cass" still feels mean and the pain of Denny's "genius" mistake in "I saw her again" was recreated every performance to ensure that Denny remembered just how much he hurt John.

Working with the spot-on design (Christina Longan-Bell and Emma Kennedy), Aaron Joyner's direction captures the mood of the flower power, hippy movement of the late 60s.  It was a time of hope and new beginnings, but he doesn't let us see it with mass-produced fashion-conscious rose-coloured glasses.

Sophie Thomas's musical direction captures the unique sound of this group so well that it feels so close to seeing them live that it's easy to forget that we're not in San Francisco in 1967, and their recorded eight-part harmonies are re-created by using a mirror ensemble of four (Tim Carney, Jessica Featherby, Jack Feehan, Zuleika Khan).

And the cast couldn't be more perfect. Laura Fitzpatrick (Mama Michelle) brings the complexity that is so often missed in discussions of pretty Michelle, Matt Hetherington (Papa John) isn't scared of John's demons, Dan Humphris (Papa Denny) isn't scared of Denny's cowardice and Casey Donovan (Mama Cass) shows how Cass hid her pain, and masters Cass's dance style.

Flowerchildren will get another season. It's so good that it has to be seen more and must find it's way to the homeland of this group.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

Review preview: Flowerchildren

Flowerchildren:the Mamas and Papas Story

Magnomos

Theatre Works

1 September 2011

to 10 September

www.magnormos.com/flowerchildren.htm

I don't think there's a seat left for Flowerchildren. It's worth ringing and trying for no-shows, because this mix of nostalgia, honesty and revelation is a show you won't forget.

I'm not a fan of the jukebox/tribute musicals, but working with the Magnormos team, writer Peter Fitzpatrick has taken all that he knows about great musicals (he's directed five Sondheim's) to create one that is loving, painful and wonderful.

The full review is on AussieTheatre.com  and will be up here in a few days.