Mini review: Stars of track and field

Stars of track and field
La Mama
29 July 2015
La Mama Theatre
to 9 August
lamama.com.au

Stars of Track and Field. La Mama

Stars of track and field is about a family at breaking point.

Teenage son (Hayden Burke) is beginning to see the truth about his family. His sister (Stephania Poutney) is self harming, his mother (Kristina Benton) suffers from years of chronic pain and depression since a car accident ended her running career, and his father (Joe Peruzzi) is still trying to be the man who's in control of his family and can make everything better with ice cream.

The relationships are complex and real and writer Amanda Miha has captured the frustration of family being the only people you can hate because you love them. She looks at how past trauma is passed to children, how children don't really understand why the past can't be left in the past, and how it's possible to think and do the unthinkable for your family.

With Darren Vizer's direction, the performances are strong and honest but need to adjust to the intimacy of La Mama and trust that the audience can see the subtext. And there's a much stronger ending on the stage that happens before the ending; what we imagine is always worse than what we see.

MIDSUMMA: Two Short Plays

MIDSUMMA
Two Short Plays
Ladymullet Productions
23 January 2014

Brunswick Arts Space

to 25 January

midsumma.org.au

Melbourne writers Belinda Bannerman and Kathryn Goldie recently formed Ladymullet Productions and for their Midsumma debut, each wrote a short play. Their three-night season of Two Short Plays sold out, but there's talk of a Fringe season, which would be terrific because both deserve to be seen by many more people than could squeeze into the Brunswick Arts Space on those very hot summer nights

The L Wing, by Bannerman, is set in a not-too-distant-future lesbian retirement home where 60-something resident Sal (Kim Givens) meets new resident Andrea (Natasha Broadstock) and recognises her as her long-lost love Andi, even if Andrea doesn't remember Sal – yet.

With heart-felt performances by the cast (also Jane Menz and Hannah Smallman), it's a rom com that pushes all the right buttons of love and hope, but has enough darkness in the comedy to keep it grounded and to ask if honesty is best if deception keeps everyone happy.

Love Triangle, 1919, by Goldie, starts as a simple love story between governess Flora (Stephania Pountney) and stablehand Edward (Hayley Lawson-Smith), but Flora's once-potential boyfriend, Joe (Tom Carmody) returns from the war and threatens to reveal the secret that Joe trusts will tear the lovers apart. It's no secret to the audience that Edward is a woman, but the story's tension and hope lie in not knowing how Flora will react if and when she finds out or how far Edward will go to keep the secret.

Goldie's writing lets all three tell their version of the story, and, by placing the audience throughout the space, Christine Husband's direction lets the jumps in time and space feel natural and intimate as the three move among and speak to the assembled crowd. This is writing that lets its performance space enhance the telling and, by doing so, lets the audience get closer to the hearts of the characters.

Ladymullet Productions say that they want to make great theatre and film, and what's going to get them there is continuing to tell the stories that they want to tell.

Review: Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf
La Mama
24 August 2013
La Mama
to 25 August 2013
lamama.com.au

"Calm yourself, Hitler!"

Mein Kampf isn't Hitler's autobiography, but a farce about Hitler's imagined friendship with Jewish bookseller Shlomo Herzl when Hitler lived in Vienna hoping to be accepted into the Viennese Academy of Fine Art. He wasn't. And it's no wonder, his paintings are all technique and no style; they're dull and reveal a man who seems incapable of seeing – let alone creating – art or seeing real beauty.

It was written by George Tabori in the 1980s to belittle Hitler. Is there anything more humiliating than being laughed at?

Tabori lost nearly all of his family in Auschwitz. Born in Hungary, he was working in Berlin in the early 1930s and fled to London. Here he had novels published, wrote scripts for the "control freak" Hitchcock, was rejected by Hollywood, but discovered theatre in 1947 when he translated Brecht for the American stage. His first play was performed on Broadway, but he was blacklisted by McCarthy, possibly due to his friendship with Arthur Miller.

In 1969, his real breakthrough came with Cannibals, a play set wholly in Auschwitz, but his biggest hit was, and remains, Mein Kampf.

It's a tough one to get right; Hitler and Holocaust jokes aren't easy at the best of times and the danger of laughing too hard at faith or the Jewish characters, who's future we already known, is difficult. But director Beng Oh and his consistently wonderful cast balance the line and gleefully topple into absurd hilarity, rebalance and slip into the pain and horror that it has to acknowledge.

And all takes place in a design by Peter Mumford that embraces the La Mama fireplace so that its ongoing burning creates a tension and fear that it's almost hard to laugh over, and the costumes by Amaya Vecellio support the filth, cold and ridiculous beauty.

Glenn van Oosterom's raging and impotent Hitler is hilarious and Mark Bonanno, Stephania Pountney, Uschi Felix and Samuel Macdonald are just as memorable, but it's Mark Wilson's Schlomo who never leaves the stage. From his drawing of the La Mama raffle at the beginning, Wilson sets the tone and pace from outrageous hilarity to I-want-to-look-away-but-I-can't horror. He's the one who lets us laugh when we want to be horrified and reminds us that the only reason we're laughing is that the truth is still too hard to take in.

Let's hope that Mein Kampf gets another life. Mainly because it's bloody great theatre (with real blood), but also because it tells a story that we all know but often seem to forget.  As our federal election approaches, we're being forced to accept policy that's based on the irrational and unfounded fear and threat of people fleeing persecution, and, as we flick past photos of 100s of dead in Syria, it's important that we remember what happens when we give in to unjustified fear or become complacent because it's not happening to us.  I know we can't get Krabbot and co along to a performance, so it's up to us to recognise the words and actions of people who will do anything to maintain their power.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Sarah Walker