Review: Dance Nation

Dance Nation
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
17 March 2019
Red Stitch
to 14 April
redstitch.net

"Dance Nation". Red Stitch. Photo by Teresa Noble

You'll probably never hear a 10-, 11-, 12-, 13-year-old call themselves "prepubescent". It's a word so distant from the experience of being that age that it rarely escapes from text books. It's a time when you feel like a child and look like an adult or feel like an adult and look like a child. And get treated in ways that are embarrassing, inappropriate or ick either way. Dance Nation is about girls in this in-between age, as seen through the memories of women in their 20s to 60s.

USA playwright and actor Clare Barron had her first play produced in 2013 and has since won some significant awards. Dance Nation is her seventh work and this Red Stitch production is its Australian premiere.

It's set in a local USA dance school that's desperate to get to nationals (finals). Their dance teacher (Brett Cousins) knows that their sailor routine isn't up to scratch, so he's developing a work for his six-girl- one-boy troupe about Gandhi. Oh, yes, it's as ridiculous a dance as it sounds, and is made even more wonderful with Holly Durant's choreography, which solves the problem of the tiny stage, and Adrienne Chisholm's glitz-on-a-pocket-money budget gold design and ballet-mom costumes.

All the pre-teens are played by adults (Caroline Lee, Zoe Boesen, Casey Filips, Hannah Fredericksen, Natalie Samsu, Tario Manvondo, Georgina Naidu and Shayne Francis, who also plays all the moms) and all bring the experience of knowing that the adult life you imagine at 12 isn't the life you live. None of which makes the confusion of personal competition contradicting personal friendship less confusing. Or makes the realisation that your body's changing in ways that will keep you on stages or get you off stages, and that your choice may be irrelevant. Or that you will be sexualised or not sexualised no matter what. And that doesn't stop once you're a teenager, adult, older adult or older-still adult.

Maude Davey's direction has the style of a daggy suburban dance competition with a core of sophistication and experience that's inspired by the emerging power girls find at that age. This is power that girls are often told to suppress, but we'd all rather learn the routine that lets all women hold onto that power and ignore anyone who says it's wrong.

Last chance: Dracula

Dracula
Little Ones Theatre
30 October 2015
Theatre Works
to 14 November
Theatreworks.org.au

Dracula. Amanda McGregor, Kevin Kiernan Molloy, Alexandra Aldrich. Photo by Sarah Walker

This gloriously sexy Dracula shows a much better way to do glittery vampires and it finishes this weekend at Theatre Works.

For the Melbourne Festival, Theatre Works welcomed an almost textless The Bacchae cast with women. Now Little Ones Theatre have created Bram Stoker's Dracula as a live silent movie and cast it with women.

This is Stoker’s story told with a black glitter and blood-red aesthetic that reflects, questions and wildly defies any assumptions of gender, sexuality and queer politics.Little Ones Theatre have one of the most unique voices in Melbourne theatre.

Director Stephen Nicolazzo embraces high-camp without the condescending tone or gender insult that camp laughs often come from.  Inspired by the 1980s but seen through today’s eyes, their worlds are visually arresting, sexually free and always unforgettable.

If you want to experience original texts, read them. Then come to the theatre to see them through someone else's eyes.

Catherine Davies, Brigid Gallacher. Photo by Sarah Walker

 Alexandra Aldrich. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula.  Alexandra Aldrich, Janine Watson, Morgan Maguire, Kevin Kiernan Molloy. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula. Little Ones Theatre. Kevin Kiernan Molloy. Photo by Sarah Walker

Dracula. Little Ones Theatre. Amanda McGregor, Zoe Boesen. Photo by Sarah Walker

Review: Dangerous Liaisons

NEON
Dangerous Liaisons
Little Ones Theatre
30 May 2014
Lawler Studio
to 8 June
mtc.com.au

Photo by Sarah Walker

The second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre opens with the dazzling high-camp, glitter-bright, subversion of Stephen Nicolazzo's Little Ones Theatre.

Dangerous Liaisons is a 1985 play (which won lots of awards) by Christopher Hampton that's based on Pierre Choderlos De Lacos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a late-18th century novel consisting of letters between the characters. Being a story about the perverse sexual and moral corruption of the decadent French aristocracy, it never has problems being transported out of its context.

Marquise de Merteuil (Alexandra Aldrich) and Vicomte de Valmont (Janine Watson; it wouldn't be a Nicolazzo play if gender wasn't questioned) were once lovers, but prefer being BFFs. As Merteuil was dumped by a lover – for the first time – she enlists Valmont to seduce the dumper's virgin bride-to-be (Amanda McGregor), who happens to be the daughter of another of Merteuil's friends (Zoe Boesen). Valmont thinks a convent virgin seduction is too easy and sets himself a worthier target (Brigid Gallacher) and then it begins to get complicated (with Catherine Davies, Tom Dent and Joanne Sutton).

Eugyeene Teh's set is a sunglasses-reaching explosion of gold luxury. This world is so rich that the curtains and floor are gold; until you look closely and see it's paper-faux. Into this comes the outrageously lush French court costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt that are pink, hot-pink rose pink, magenta, glittery pink, see-through pink with bonus pinked-up nipples and sequins.

The stylised acting style is close-to-but-not-totally-over-the top and is as controlled-camp as the design. This heightens the language of the script and highlights its look at the power that women have in societies that still categorises women as respectfully married, convent-worthy virgins or worthless whores. From the magnificent pink to its all-but-one female cast, this Liaisons is all about the women's sides of the arrangements.

But at over two hours (plus interval), its consistent style lets the exquisite pretty distract from the emotional connection to the story. Even with the incomparable Aldrich, it's hard to feel for a women who's on the verge of middle age and about to lose the only thing that gave her power when we're waiting for the next marvellous line and guaranteed laugh.

While all of the delicious cast have unforgettable moments (really, they are all wonderful), Gallacher finds the most in her character and lets Madame de Tourvel's heart meld with the style. The rest are nearly there and I think that week-two audiences will see the extra guts that was hinted at on opening night.

Little One's influences and inspirations are clear on the stage, but they make work that couldn't be re-created by anyone else. Nicolazzo has found artists who understand and share his vision and together they are one of the most authentic theatre voices around.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Mini review: Salome

HELIUM

Salome
Little Ones Theatre and Malthouse Theatre
30 August 2013
The Tower, Malthouse theatre
to 14 September
malthousetheatre.com.au

"Dance for me, Salome!" Never has Oscar Wilde been so gay – and he was in prison for sodomy and gross indecency when his play Salome was first performed in 1896.

Little Ones Thearte's HELUIM-season production of Wilde's Salome is so gloriously indecent that if it were performed in the 1890s, cast, producers, audience and passers by would be in the cells with Oscar.

According to the Bible, Herod wanted to see his step daughter, Salome, dance and promised her anything in exchange. She asked for the head of John the Bapsist. Wilde wrote his version of this story in French in 1891 and it was published in 1893. There were plans for a 1892 London season, but it was illegal to portray Bible characters, so its first performance was in Paris.

Wilde wrote Salome as a tragedy, but director Stephen Nicolazzo starts with its sexuality and moral ambiguity. It is, after all, a story about a virgin who wants the lust of a saint, and a king who wants his stepdaughter's virginity.

Surrounded by an Oz-emerald-green curtain, Salome rejoices in a mid-1980s aesthetic (gorgeous costumes by Tessa Leigh Wolffenbuttel Pitt and Eugyeene Teh; set by Teh), where the new romantics questioned gender on MTV, Madonna made pearls and lace cool, and David Lynch freaked out late-night film-goers; pass the oxygen, please.

With traditions and expectations abandoned, Salome is a man in a handmade matador costume, John the Baptist is a woman in a disco-ball bikini, Herod and Herodias drag up, and the soldiers and heralds are magnificently fabulous. It's a world where gender is everything but means nothing, and sexuality is everything until love and jealousy take hold.

Stephen Nicolazzo has found a remarkable and unique voice as a director. Following Psycho Beach Party (that's heading to the Brisbane Festival) and sex.violence. blood. gore, his high-camp, bold aesthetic defines his view of queer culture without rejection or criticism. His world is filthy without shame and welcomes everyone who celebrates difference and lets their heart make their choices.

And he has a a group of actors who have quickly established themselves among independent theatre's A-list. Paul Blenheim, Genevieve Giuffre, Alexandra Aldrich, Nick Pelomis, Peter Paltos, Zoe Boesen, Tom Dent are so sexy and so funny that it's impossible to decide which one you fancy the most.

Salome is glorious and hilarious and so damn smart that missing it isn't an option.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Mini review: Lord of the Flies

HELIUM
Lord of the Flies
US-A-UM and Malthouse Theatre
7 July 2013
The Tower, Malthouse Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

An adaption of William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies open's Malthouse Theatre's Helium program: five new works by independent artists. Flies is the debut for US-A-UM, who are based in Sydney and founded by director Kip Williams and producers Samuel J Hagen and Kate McBride.

The season's sold out, so hold tight to your tickets or kill a beast to secure one.

Set in a private boarding school, genteel furniture (design by Michael Hankin) becomes the island the children are stranded on and is soon as menacing and unknown as the dark forest and as exposed as the open beach.

The boys are played by young women, who keep the male names and behave like young teenagers who have been torn away from their homes and believe they might be the only people left alive. It's not women playing men and any assumptions about gender disappear in moments. And having gone to a private girls school, I recognised everything.

It's a stunning reading of the book. It grasps Golding's tone and turns it up to deafening, while bringing a sense of right-now attitudes and questions, and telling it in ways that only theatre can.

And the cast are sensational: Alexandra Aldrich, Zoe Boesen, Cat Davies, Michele Durman, Stacey Duckworth, Emma Griffin, Fiona Pepper, Contessa Treffone and Eloise Winestock.  It's impossible to name one above the other as their performances are so consistent and they work as an ensemble who wouldn't consider elevating one performance above an other.

If you can't find a ticket, best to book for the four other Helium shows, and there are only a handful of tickets left for the final MTC NEON show, Sisters Grimm's The Sovereign Wife.

Review : Psycho Beach Party

MIDSUMMA 2013
Psycho Beach Party
Little Ones Theatre and Theatre Works
11 January 2013
Theatre Works
to 19 January – but it's SOLD OUT
theatreworks.org.au

Hot diggity! If Psycho Beach Party isn't the most hip, groovy and neat-o hit of Midsumma, then I've got no idea what people like. Full of lust, longing and psychotic shaving, it proves that you don't have to be a queen to be camp or be gay to be queer.

There's songs by the B52s on a beach made of leopard print and shiny silvery-black steamers (Owen Phillips) that's filled with a super-hot cast of dream boats and gals dressed in leopard print and black (Eugyeene Teh). Do you need to know more?

Charles Busch has been playing women and looking damn fine in a frock since the 70s and been writing like plays the 80s off-Broadway hit Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. In 1987, he wrote (and starred in) Psycho Beach Party. It's like a 60s Annette/Gidget beach film with dreamboats and boyish girls who learn how to to surf and how to fill out a bikini, but with a Hitchcockish undertone (without the misogyny) and a bloody splash of a multiple personality psychodrama and drive-in slasher flick. It's a bit like if Sybil and Freddie stayed at the new Bates motel on Malibu beach, but gayer.

And there's no one better to re-imagine this American queer cultural-mash-up than director Stephen Nicolazzo and his company Little Ones Theatre. Its first season was at the Bondi Pavillion last year, but Melbourne has Theatre Works, even if St Kilda has never seen a surfer.

Nicolazzo models Psycho Beach Party as a parody that's not a spoof. It's non-stop hilarious, but it doesn't make fun of the absurd plot and outrageously stereotyped characters. Instead, it takes what we genuinely adore about about these genres and turns the volume up to magnificent, as it laughs at the dull squares who don't understand the fun – and reminds us how it's not about gender by letting drag heroine (Ash Flanders) perform without wig, padding or tuck. He does have a lovely hair clip though and a decolletage that lets him wear strapless gown without fear of side boob.

Mz Flanders is joined by a too-gorgeous selection from the new gen of local enfant terrifics: Genevieve Giuffre, Peter Paltos, Caitlin Adams, Kevin Kiernan Molloy, Zoe Boesen, Paul Blenheim, Tom Dent and Amanda McGregor and much of Psycho's magnificence comes from this cast who love every second the show, but never let that love get in the way of stiletto-sharp performances.

It finishes on Saturday 19; that's less than a week away and if you don't get a ticket ASAP, you'll be left like a wall flower who never took their sneakers off at the Sock Hop.

Photo by Sarah Walker

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: sex.violence.blood.gore

sex.violence.blood.gore

MKA

30 June 2012

MKA Pop Up Theatre, North Melbourne

to 14 July

mka.org.au

sex.violence.blood.gore is all flushed-flesh pink and delicate ivory lace, which makes it even sexier and gorier and gorgeous. First performed in Singapore in 1999 in a basement in secret, Melbourne's first production is in a secret warehouse in North Melbourne and, like all wonderful Melbourne secrets, you need a map to find it and may miss out because the word has already got around.

Malay-Muslim writer Alfian bin Sa'at was born in in Singapore in 1977 and with likes of the giraffe spot, Whitney-singing angels with plastic-covered wings, the problems of organ-donation racism and tiger blow jobs, it's easy to know why he's referred to as Singapore's "enfant terrible".

sex.violence.blood.gore is five short works connected by content that's sexy, violent, bloody and/or gorey, but start with sexual repression and are firmly placed in a country that deals with conflicts about religion, the aftermath of being a British colony and invaded by Japan, and defining its own identity between Malaysia and Indonesia. (I admit that my first reaction to Singapore was to look up the recipe for a Singapore Sling.)

With content so connected to the writer and his home, it could so easily be a curious, worthy and distancing work about queer South East Asia, but director Stephen Nicolazzo  (Home Economics, Two by Two, Negative Energy Inc) would never allow that.

He breaks down any sense of "them" with a glorious young cast of five women (Genevieve Giuffre, Catherine Davies, Whitney Boyd, Amy-Scott Smith, Zoe Boesen and Caitlin Adams) and one man (Matt Furlani) who freely play against their gender and ethnicity.  And Eugyeene Teh (designer) puts them in a pink world framed by body parts and net curtains and clads them in off-white underwear that teeters between repressive uncomfortable and irresistibly hot.

By taking it so out of its context, Nicolazzo lets the heart of this work speak and ensures that it's for and about everyone who sees it. This is what theatre is about. I see so many wonderfully written, beautifully performed works that are so terribly dull because they don't make this kind of connection with their audience.

And, of course, there's only one company in town that would bring us this type of theatre. sex.violence.blood.gore is the second show of MKA's winter season. Miss it and you'll regret it. And to ensure that you don't miss it, BOOK.

And, if you missed MKA's The Economist last year, there are TWO more shows before they go to Edinburgh on 20 and 21 July.

Photos by Sarah Walker

This review was on AussieTheatre.com

Read Cameron's wordgasm review that left me impotent.

Review: My Romantic History

My Romantic History
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
7 August 2011
Red Stitch
to 13 August

"If you haven't met someone by the time you graduate, you're going to marry some cunt from your work." So, freelancers have no hope, but how wonderful to see Red Stitch putting their audience on their stage.

My Romantic History is about the accidental workplace affair of Amy and Tom, who are in the dangerous single and 30ish zone. Come one, we've all been there.  You had nine drinks with "colleagues" because you didn't have anything better to do and after all he wasn't a "retard or a rapist" and he was captivated by the beauty of your tits. Then you got a bit stalky because he didn't declare undying love the morning after, even though you don't really like him and the only reason you think you had sex is because you're weren't wearing knickers. Textbook romance. Unless you're reading this from the house you own with someone you met at uni and have been acting like an adult since you were 18. But then you probably don't have time to go to the theatre because you're at home looking after kids you love, having dinner parties with other happy couples and exploring swinger web sites.

One of my favourite TV shows in my 20s was Thirtysomething. I shook my head at how these grownups could be so fucked up and knew that I'd never be like them. Now, at the other side of 30ish, I marvel at how totally together those fictional people were. There are many reasons why we love watching stories about not-perfect relationships.

Scottish playwright D C Jackson creates shut-up-that's-my-life empathy by showing how both sides see the object of their non-desire. The woman is a desperate freak in his eyes; he's a boring loser to her. It's a bit like When Harry Met Sally without the glamour of New York or the as-if! romantic gestures. But it's just as funny.

Ngaire Dawn Fair (Sasha) is the ideal hippy counterpoint to Zoe Boesen's confused Amy, and Tim Potter captures all perspectives of Tom with the kind of love and understanding that continues to make him an actor who should always be seen.

Peter Mumford's too-gorgeous toilety design ensures that we never see this affair with romantic-coloured specs. After all, if these two work out, there's hope for anyone who's desperate, or drunk. Meanwhile, David Whiteley's direction lets our sympathies change so much that it's impossible to take his or her side, so we have to like them both and wish that we could step in and help them make the best decisions. But if they made the best decisions, he wouldn't end up seeing his ex when he's covered in puke, she wouldn't be confessing to the bitch from work and we wouldn't have half as much fun watching.

My Romantic History is the sort of writing that brings its audience into the story because it's so close to home. The genuine laughter comes from recognition. Sometimes the secret of comedy is simply telling the truth. There's a week left. See it, unless your love life has been perfect.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheate.com

Photo by Jodie Hutchinson