What I loved in 2018: The Best of Melbourne Theatre

The most loved shows of 2018 from "What Melbourne Loved" are Morgan Rose's  The Bachelor S17 E5 at La Mama and Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse.

Others with a few mentions are Calamity Jane at Arts Centre Melbourne, Lorelei by Victorian Opera and Stephanie Lake's Colossus at Arts Centre Melbourne for Melbourne Fringe.

I only saw two of these – both of which have repeat seasons in 2019. I was out of the country for the The Bachelor, I was seeing another section of the Fringe program and didn't have a spare night for Colossus, and I tried to see Lorelei but it just wasn't going to happen that week. So, can we have return seasons of all three, please.

I've had a quiet year and only saw about 140 shows this year (that I remember – don't ask).

It's been another challenging year for independent media and for arts criticism. Arts journalists have less avenues for work than even last year. Most reviews are still written by volunteers, and I'm astounded at how many people assume that indie sites and publications earn anything.

At times, the quest for star ratings and poster quotes seems more important than creating conversations or encouraging good writing – your audiences are smarter than that. The personal "banning" of critics is an eye roll; most of us have been banned from at least one show this year. And there are even less opportunities for emerging writers to be trained.

My wish for 2019 is that all companies, especially the funded ones, really start encouraging all critical responses to their shows. I've got lots of ideas if you want to talk.


Outstanding Artists 2017


WRITING

Michele Lee for Going Down at Malthouse

Going Down. Photo by Phoebe Powell

Special mention

Mary Ann Butler for Broken by Lab Kelpie at fortyfivedownstairs

Broken by Lab Kelpie

DESIGN

The design team of Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse
Elizabeth Gadsby (design),  Oh Yeah Wow (animation and video),Verity Hampson (lighting and projection), Steve Toulmin (composition and sound) and  Emily Johnson (concept artist)

Blackie Blackie Brown. Photo by Phoebe Powell

Special mentions

Bronwyn Pringle (lighting) for Colder at Red Stitch

Eugyeene Teh (set and costumes) for Suddenly Last Summer at Red Stitch

Suddenly Last Summer. Photo by Jodie Hutchinson

PERFORMANCE

Paula Arundell, Brenna Harding, Sophie Ross in The Bleeding Tree at Arts Centre Melbourne

The Bleeding Tree

Special mentions

Nadine Garner in A Little Night Music by Watch This

Virginia Gay in Calamity Jane presented by One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Mulsicals, Hates Theatre Co and Arts Centre Melbourne at Arts Centre Melbourne

Keep an eye on

Lou Wall –  Romeo is not the only fruit; It's not me, it's Lou; Lou Wall's Drag Race

DIRECTION

Declan Green for Blackie Blackie Brown at Malthouse

Special mentions

Susie Dee for Broken by Lab Kelpie at fortyfivedownstairs

Richard Carroll for Calamity Jane presented by One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Mulsicals, Hates Theatre Co and Arts Centre Melbourne at Arts Centre Melbourne. The balance of satire, irony and love was perfect.

Virginia Gay as Calamity Jane

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

post

post. Ich Nibber Dibber. Photo by Jacquie Manning

post are Natalie Rose, Mish Grigor and Zoë Coombs Marr. They formed in Sydney but continue to spend a lot of time in Melbourne. I first saw them in 2009 and have loved seeing their development collectively and as individual artists, even if a Last Tuesday Society appearance is still the first thing I remember. They've appeared in the end-of-year Loveds a lot – cos they are awesome.

Life meant that their bloody wonderful Ich Nibber Dibber at Malthouse didn't get a review from me, but I laughed myself almost sick during it from the moment we saw them floating like angels.


And

EVERYONE at La Mama because it's been a shit year and everyone has been incredible.


Outstanding Productions 2018

MUSICAL

Romeo is not the only fruit  presented by The Furies, Jean Tong and Stephanie-Bowie Liew at MICF

Romeo is not the only fruit

Special mentions

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Michael Cassell in association with Paul Blake & Sony/ATV Music Publishing & Mike Bosner

The Dressmaker - a musical adaption developed at Monash University by the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence Program.

I didn't review this because it's still in development; I can't wait to see what happens to it. If it doesn't get a professional production, there's something wrong.

The Dressmaker - a musica adaption. Photo by Sarah Walker

COMEDY

Virgin Bloody Mary by Nadia Collins at MICF

Nadia Collins. Virgin Bloody Mary

Special mentions

Anna Piper Scott and Sophie Joske in Almost Lesbians by Catface Productions at MICF

Almost Lesbians

Fafenefenoiby II: Return of the Ghost Boy by Neal Portenza and no one else even

Neal Portenza. Photo by Richard Watts

Eric The Third – The One Man Sketch Comedy Show by Vicious Fish Theatre at Melbourne Fringe

Scott Gooding as Eric

MUSIC

Mojo Juju, Native Tongue at Arts Centre Melbourne




LIVE ART

All the live art experiences at the Mere Mortals program at Arts House.
Including The Infirmary, Bushland and vigil/wake.

FESTIVAL

Melbourne Writers Festival
Finally a writers festival that celebrates all types of writing and story telling.


BEST OF THE BEST

Lagrime di San Pietro by Los Angeles Master Chorale at Melbourne Festival

Lagrime di San Pietro

Prize Fighter by La Boite Theatre with Darebin Arts Speakeasy at Melbourne Festival

Prize Fighter. Photo by Dylan Evans

The Director by Lara Thoms and Scott Turnball at Arts House in the Mere Mortals program

The Director. Lara Thoms and Scott Tuyrnball. Photo by Bryony Jackson

MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2018

Dark Emu by Bangarra Dance Theatre

Dark Emu. Bangarra Dance Theatre

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What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 3

It's time to hear from regulars Ash and Daniel L. And a first time visit from Jane Miller, who's been written about on SM from the very early days.

Ash Flanders
a festival of dangerous ideas dressed in stained pyjamas

Ash Flanders/Norman Bates. Selfie. 

Favourite moments in 2018
Getting to see Abigail's Party on the mainstage – the biggest stage MTC has – was my favourite night at the theatre this year. Stephen Nicolazzo took an older (although to me, it's canon) play now largely associated with community theatre and reminded me why it was still relevant. There's nothing more timeless than people trying to impress each other in order to feel more than what they are (but enough about the arts scene, LOLZ). Getting to hear lines I know off by heart was one kind of thrill, but hearing something new in them – as well as crafting detailed relationships between these seemingly broad characters – left me gobsmacked. That lady is anything but Nicolazy.

Other non-lazy ladies who blew my mind were POST with Ich Nibber Dibber. I don't envy the task of studying and transcribing your younger self, but the result was captivating. On a structural level the piece was a damn impressive feat of storytelling, but while it made me laugh (probably the most of any show this year), it also made me feel a lot of feeeeelings, none of which I'll share because I don't know you. I think like a lot of work I really dig it took something seemingly disposable – the offcuts of unstructured chats over ten years – and made something incredibly HIGH ART BUT ALSO CLOWNY from it.

I also got to witness an unforgettable moment at the end of the Malthouse season of Blackie Blackie Brown. Seconds before the show concluded, an audience member took a turn and was sick in the seating bank forcing the whole show to stop, because those are the sort of happy accidents that tended to happen with this show. I also cut my hand open with a machete in Sydney. We were determined to say goodbye to this beast properly, so Dalara Williams delivered her final monologue from the foyer. But the timing worked out so that midway through her monologue audiences began coming out of Melancholia... because. of course. Dalara's voice managed to silence the entire Malthouse foyer, and both audiences stood silently to witness it. The words Nakkiah had written – about a brighter Aboriginal future and the struggles still ahead – never felt more powerful than in that moment. I had the distinct feeling of being in a 'star-making' moment and I'm sure everyone else felt the same about me seeing as I'd set Dalara up for her monologue by playing a seven-year-old boy – a role I'd been gunning for since day one of rehearsal.

Looking forward to in 2019
Naturally I'm looking forward to working with a bunch of talented folks in The Temple at Malthouse (join usssssss....). I'm also a little thrilled we have Ellen Burstyn to gawk at when she acts her pants off in 33 Variations – which I assume is about the many TIGHT POLITE SMILES she has for homosexuals bothering her incessantly about The Exorcist. I'm also crossing my fingers for more plays from the GONE WRONG universe.

SM: Sure Blackie Blackie Brown was just the best, but then came PELICANette: the link should take you to the Google doc.


Daniel Lammin
Director

Engaged means presents!

Favourite moments in 2018
For me, it has to be The Bachelor S17 E5. I think I may have gotten the last ticket because I kept putting it off. The idea of staging an episode of a reality TV show sounded trite to me, and I had no desire to watch a bunch of self-satisfied artists put an episode on stage just for us to laugh knowingly at it and feel superior to it. But when I realised it was the work of Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell, I leapt at my computer and frantically booked. Morgan and Kat are maybe my favourite theatre makers in Melbourne. Their work is always so stirring and thrilling and presented with such generosity (especially their Riot Stage work), but The Bachelor surpassed my suddenly high expectations. It was beyond a clever concept, beyond parody. It was profound, hilarious, disturbing, moving, infuriating and epic. It treated its subject with such respect as it pulled its gender and racial politics apart, and in the process the gender and racial politics of our own world. This was theatre immediate and vital, insanely imaginative and rigorous in a way so little work is anymore. Morgan, Kat and their team presented a series of questions, provocations and conundrums, but you didn’t hear the questions, you felt them deeply, and Kat’s direction is some of the best I’ve seen in Melbourne in a long time. I left afterwards giddy at its audacity and generosity. Anyone else would have made it a joke, but they made it something bigger, deeper and grander than anyone on that show would ever have imagined their pursuit of Love could be.

Looking forward to in 2019
Obviously anything that Kat and Morgan do, which is also linked to the work of another artist I love. We finally get to see a staging of Fleur Kilpatrick’s Whale thanks to MAPA with Kat directing, and it just sounds so incredibly audacious! I’m also very excited for Fleur’s production of Slaughterhouse Five coming back, a co-pro with Monash Uni Student Theatre (MUST) and Theatre Works. The original production was incredible, and the work Fleur created with the students was often extraordinary. I can’t wait to see it again!

SM: I love Daniel's ongoing exploration of men and violence and where we go so wrong to create societies where violence develops: Sneakyville at fortyfivedownstairs (written by Christopher Bryant) started with Charles Manson, but was so much more.

But my favourite show of his this year was After Hero by the Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance at Malthouse. He works with emerging actors (students makes it sound like they aren't ready; they are) to create performances that come from places that mean something to the performers. This creates a passion on the stage that is so easy to connect to.

And it's very exciting that he's going to be continuing to work with students in his new position as producer at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance.

I also use a film review he wrote when I teach film criticism. It's an example of personal subjective writing and it ALWAYS gets students talking and thinking about how to be more personal in their own writing.

Jane Miller
Playwright
15 Minutes from Anywhere

Jane Miller

Favourite moments in 2018
I didn’t see as much theatre in 2018 as I would like to have. Highlights for me were Blasted at Malthouse. It’s obviously not an easy text but Sarah Kane’s writing is stunning, confronting and visceral. Everything about Anne-Louise Sarks’s production was pitched perfectly. Blasted forced me to appreciate the privilege inherent in my own discomfort.

Something completely different was Puffs at The Alexander Theatre. I’ve only read three Harry Potter novels  – SM: What!? – so I probably didn’t get as much from the humour as true aficionados, but it was fun, clever and the performances were excellent.

The evocative and intelligent Fallen by She Said Theatre at fortyfivedownstairs made me acutely aware of the powder keg of frustration underneath an incredibly repressed façade. I love She Said Theatre’s work.

Perhaps my favourite show of the year was Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell’s The Bachelor S17 E5. By using the transcript of an episode of The Bachelor, they made a show that was both hilarious and disturbing. Their production choices and beautiful cast revealed the darker subtext at the underbelly of reality television. It was brilliant and I’d love to see it have another run.

Looking forward to in 2019
Solaris at he Malthouse and Arbus and West at the MTC. I will be keeping my eyes open for the exciting things coming up a Red Stitch, Darebin, fortyfivedownstairs, Theatre Works and from my favourite independent artists.

My creative partner-in-crime Beng Oh has a return of his excellent production of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock coming to fortyfivedownstairs for Midsumma, which is very exciting.

Perhaps the thing I’m most looking forward to is seeing the amazing team at La Mama continue to thrive and renew despite the heartbreak they experienced during 2018. Their determination and support of artists is a wonderful thing to experience any year.

SM: Jane has been one of my favourite local writers since she stood out in Short and Sweets many years ago. Her plays grasp how characters have to make choices and that those choices should be impossible. Her characters are us; we know these people and she always ensures that we remember them because we're making those impossible choices with them. Her Just A Boy Standing in Front of a Girl  at La Mama in October surprised me at every turn. It began by ensuring that the audience had to think about gender and perspective from the moment we sat in our gender-specific seats, and continued to question what decisions in the story were based on gender. Great stuff.

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 8

Today we have three awesome indie theatre makers whose work I haven't seen this year.

Bron Batten
Theatre-maker, Producer and Performer
bronbatten.com

Bron Batten in Onstage Dating. Photo by John Leonard

Favourite moments in 2017
I haven't seen much this year because I've been touring so much (#humblebrag) but I did manage to catch a few great pieces that really touched and stayed with me.

I too wish to jump on the Nanette bandwagon and state what a remarkable piece of performance it is. Hannah Gadsby's restrained yet furious and impassioned plea for tolerance and acceptance is inspiring both in its sophistication and emotion as well as its hilarity. Nanette is a perfect example of how truly simple, artful and devastating stand-up can be when undertaken by a master performer, and I have no doubt her 'retirement' will be hampered by that fact that this work will tour for years.

I forgot to mention this last year, but as it toured again this year, I'll include Nat Randall's The Second Woman. This work is completely brilliant, compelling, funny, emotional and addictive and I'm so so glad it has more well-deserved presentations lined up for 2018.

I saw Powerballad by New Zealand performers and theatre makers Julia Croft and Nisha Madhan in Edinburgh and the show then toured to Melbourne Fringe. I made a brief cameo in the work over several nights in Scotland (#humblebrag), which allowed me to see how Julia sensitively crafted her excellent performance in response to the audience. A surreal and at times absurd response to the dominant structures of language, Powerballad also managed to be funny, self-aware and include karaoke – which are all wins in my book.

Angels in America at fortyfivedownstairs was a compelling and artful staging of a classic text and I managed to watch all six hours without getting bored  – much to the disbelief of its director Gary Abrahams. And a recent addition to this list was Romeo is Not The Only Fruit as part of Poppy Seed Festival. I really, really loved this show and it totally deserves to become Australia's answer to Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.

Looking forward to in 2018
As for next year, I'm looking forward to Ich Nibber Dibber from post and Bryony Kimmings's A Pacifists Guide to the War on Cancer, both on at The Malthouse. Kimmings's Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model is perhaps one of my favourite shows ever, so I'm really excited to see this new work.

SM: Goodness, I haven't seen Bron perform this year! But, to be fair, she was Onstage Dating all over the place (and that's still one of my favourite shows ever). I do remember sitting with her at a Comedy Festival show and laughing very loudly and wondering if I'd laughed that loudly at one of her shows and feeling the need to explain that sometimes I don't laugh loudly because I'm listening.


Emilie Collyer
Playwright, writer  
betweenthecracks.net

Emilie Collyer. Photo by Ross Daniels

Favourite moments in 2017
I first want to acknowledge that the theatre made this year in Naarm/Melbourne was made on the lands of the Kulin Nation. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Sovereignty was never ceded and it’s time for a treaty.

I loved a lot and a lot has already been loved. I kind of love/hate lists because #inclusion/exclusion issues. But I love this series because it provides a multitude of voices and reminds us we are all capable of more than one kind of loving and of the kind of great big beautiful polyamorous adventure that is theatre in Melbourne. So these are things that have lingered with me well into the morning-after glow this year. Strap in. I have a lot to say.

All the new writing because, well, that’s my jam so I DO mean all of it. Standouts were Rashma N Kalsie’s Melbourne Talem, Natesha Somasundaram’s Jeremy and Lucas Buy a Fucking House, Amelia Newman’s Younger and Smaller and Alexithymia (Citizen Theatre and A_Tistic, by Tom Middleditch). There were all worlds I loved being in and can’t wait for more from these writers.

The students I worked with at Melbourne and Deakin unis who are making thoughtful, considered, powerful, often feminist, queer and radical work. I was particularly impressed by the ensemble work at Deakin and being in a room as these young theatre makers grappled with the art form and had such respectful debates about the work and really collaborated deep and hard. The bomb.

Huge shout out to Little Ones Theatre. Three massive shows this year and every one of them brought something remarkable to audiences from the shiny beauty of The Happy Prince to the hilarious and stylish-to-die-for The Moors and the epicly-ambitious Merciless Gods. Dark and delicious, The Moors, I reckon, was my favourite play of the year.

All at ArtsHouse: Excerpts from the Past by KwaZulu-Natal artist Sethembile Msezane took my breath away with its clarity and power. The panel Art and Action: Displacing Whiteness in the Arts hosted by Tania Cañas started conversations we need more of, putting voices front and centre who need bigger and louder public platforms. As did Tribunal (PYT, Fairfield).

Emily Tomlins’s arms (Niche).

Nisha Joseph’s G-MA’s erotic food preparation instructions (Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit).

Dan Clarke’s Kiln Program at Arts Centre Melbourne that gave space to such a range of makers, writers and imaginers. In particular Black Girl Magic (Melbourne) featuring Kween  and, curated by Sista Zai. I was sitting next to a young Muslim woman watching this fabulous show and she asked if I had been to the Arts Centre very often. I said yes and she said it was her first time. And she looked supremely happy and confident to be there. That event had made it her space. As it should be.

So huge props to all the wonderful people smashing down barriers of who owns cultural spaces. This includes Kate Hood’s company Raspberry Ripple and the first of their play reading series (Love Child by Joanna Murray-Smith) with casts that include both actors with disabilities and those without present Australian plays.

In a year where I needed to fill my own well I did some wonderful workshops. With Jane Bodie (Kiln), Candy Bowers (Kiln), The Rabble (MTC), Inua Ellamns (Arts Centre). The generosity of these makers in sharing their knowledge and their approaches to craft was phenomenal.

And the work that held me in the most unique theatrical space of the year was Fraught Outfit’s Book of Exodus Part 2. That incredible poetic, dream-like place. It also reminded me of the privilege of seeing a company work over several years around a theatrical and visual theme. This piece seemed to me like such a clear crystallisation of what Fraught Outfit has been exploring in their Innocence Trilogy and that design by Eugyeene Teh. Good lord!

Looking forward to in 2018
Well a lot of the indie seasons haven’t been announced yet and I know that’s where my juiciest anticipated works will be and I know some awesome things are coming from stellar people like Petra Kalive, Rachel Perks, Bridget Balodis and Mary Anne Butler.

I’m also looking forward to seeing a Melbourne season of The Drover’s Wife; if not in 2018, then the not too distant future.

Of the mainstage seasons, most excited about Jean Tong’s Hungry Ghosts, Patricia Cornelius’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Michele Lee’s Going Down and Nakkiah Lui’s Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death.

SM: I'm looking forward to some new stage work by Emilie next yea, but I've really enjoyed reading some of her other published work this year, including this piece in The Lifted Brow.


Kerith Manderson-Glavin 
Performance maker
unofficialkerithfanclub.com

Kerith Manderson-Galvin

Favourite moments in 2017

You're Not Alone. It surprised me and I surprised myself; I went in ready to be horrified and prepared to walk out. Instead, I saw it twice. Both times I found it hard to leave the Malthouse afterwards. I wanted to stay there and think and talk and think more. I loved it for so many reasons but I loved that it really felt like it needed an audience – which is the point of performance, right? It was alive. 

Oh my god, I loved it so much I wish I could see it again. I emailed Malthouse thanking them – I just remembered that, hahaha what a weird thing to do. Wow. I just loved it. I love it. Wow.

Patti Smith. I sense my experience of Patti Smith was similar to the experience of *the big show everyone keeps talking about*. The first note she sang the whole of Hamer Hall gasped and held their breath. I am certain we all experienced the same journey that night and that's a remarkable power. Religious. I held my friend's hand and we cried at the same time and laughed at the time and at the end we were exhausted and had to go home and then for a bit I couldn't listen to Patti Smith because it made me feel too many feelings.

Also. Nick Cave, 10 000 Gestures (in Paris – la dee ddaaaa), Bacchae – Prelude to a Purge (in Berlin – oh Berlin you were my favourite performance of 2017). And every night I got to perform with my brother in The Eternity Of The World and I felt so completely safe for every chaotic second

Looking forward to in 2018

I really like Nicola Gunn's headshot on the MTC website. It appears they have cropped the image for Working with Children and then made it black and white and used it as a headshot. She looks very beautiful. Wait, maybe they are different photos? In the headshot, she has on a black scivvy. (I really think she has an exquisite brain and talent.)

I'd like to go see The Wooster Group show in Sydney Festival (The Town Hall Affair) because it feels like something I should like to see. Maybe I will.

SM: Did I really not see anything of Kerith's this year? So, I'm going with that she might seriously like cats more than I do.

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What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 4

Part 4 is artists to keep a keep eye on.


Jean Tong
Writer/director

Jean Tong selfie.
(Send me pet pics and I will always use them.)

Favourite moments in 2017
So many people are going to say this (as they should, too), but Hannah Gadsby's Nanette tops any performance experience I've had this year. I sat by myself in a packed room and wept for an hour at MICF. Never before and not since have I felt myself so thoroughly torn apart, seen and loved at the same time in a work. I was a wreck for the next week; it's an astonishing work for its truths and the skill with which it presents those truths. It was incredible to see comedy opened up in that way and sweep the floor of... basically any work ever made.

The only other show that came close to being as intelligent, as well-made, and as heart-crushing was Joel Bray's Biladurang at Melbourne Fringe. The performance was gorgeous, and the gentleness with which it opened up the space between audience, performer, city and story was just so absolutely stunning. The extremely limited capacity meant not many people managed to get to it, but fingers crossed it returns because I want everyone to see it.

Looking forward to in 2018
post's Ich Nibber Dibber at Malthouse. They're so funny and irreverent and clever and I love everything they do solo/together.

Not a specific show, but I'm very excited to see what MTC Next Stage program will bring. Benjamin Law, Leah Purcell and Patricia Cornelius all on commission at the same time? Local fave Natesha Somasundaram a resident? It's all too much good at the same time, the industry might break.

SM: Every moment of Jean's Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. This new work has just finished it's Poppyseed Festival run at The Butterfly Club. Can someone please make sure that Jean and this show get some serious development money and another huge season (with the same cast). It's the subversive satirical lesbian musical we need. So many new works disappear; this one has to be helped only bigger stages. And I'm really looking forward to seeing her Hungry Ghosts at MTC next year.

Bradley Storer
Cabaret performer/future DILF

Bradley Storer

Favourite moments in 2017
In terms of sheer shock, one of my favourite moments from theatre this year was the now infamous opening night of Cabaret where during the title number Chelsea Gibb’s microphone cut out and she was forced to leave and re-enter the stage – chaos with the director of the show Gale Edwards yelling instructions from the audience and Paul Capsis forced to vamp until microphone adjustments could be made. Only for Gibb to re-enter and have the microphone start cutting out again! The audience was on its feet roaring and cheering in full support, and it was one of those rare moments where the entire audience was deeply, viscerally connected to a performer valiantly struggling onstage. Gibb not only rose above but knocked it out of the park, and I don’t think I’ll ever hear that song the same way ever again.

I’m sure so many will mention the incredible 24-Decade History of Popular Music with Taylor Mac, and there were too many mind-blowing moments to recount here. Although bursting into unexpected tears after 40 minutes of being forced to wear a blindfold was a highlight, the moment I cling to came in the very last chapter at the edge of the seventies. After we’d survived an orgasmic Cold War between two gigantic phalluses, and celebrated with a joyful and rapturous backroom orgy to Prince’s "Purple Rain", we were called to imagine us all collapsed in post-coital bliss on the floor of the backroom, our exhausted breaths climbing into the air to create the opening strains of Laurie Anderson’s classic "O Superman" – a post-modern jumble of images and confusion, strange voices calling out prophecies in the darkness of planes coming, tender and pained cries to be held by a mechanized and distant mother with "petrochemical arms". A giant spot light seared through the audience as though it was piercing directly into our souls. And I started crying so uncontrollably hard I had the poor unfortunate people around me asking if I was alright.

Looking forward to in 2018
All I’m hoping to see in theatre next year is things that surprise me!

SM: I saw Bradley every night at Taylor Mac and we've talk about it every time we've seen each other since.  One day, we may be able to explain all the tears; if we ever really undersatnd them ourselves.

John Collopy
Lighting designer 

John Collopy. Photo by Stephen Amos

Favourite moments in 2017
This is hard as a lot of them have been shows I have been lucky enough to be working and learning on. I loved The Rabble's Joan even more for being privy to such a fulfilling and exciting creative process, and Little Ones Theatre's Merciless Gods consistently broke me, even though I would have seen it dozens of times. Learning from designers and creatives at the top of their game was a personal highlight and a great privilege.

That said, the standout moment for me was watching Away at Malthouse. When the massive transition began, the Year 12 Drama students around me gasped, turned to each other, and collectively went “faaarrrkkkkk”, and then giggled with pure excitement as the stage was completely transformed (which was, I think, a ‘faaarrrkkkkk-worthy’ moment). I think it’s such a key moment in a creative’s life, to be awed by something; and it was wonderful to know that they had just had that moment.

Looking forward to in 2018
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at MTC, for its telling of neurodiverse stories (even if the author won’t admit or label it). Melancholia, at Malthouse, because the film is so beautifully cinematic and seeing how that will happen on stage fills me with many feelings, but mostly those events that will happen which haven’t been announced yet, that are urgent responses to other events which haven’t happened yet.

SM: My favourite moment was getting a favourite from someone I didn't know, but it took me a moment realise that I do know John and have seen his lighting at MUST shows and his beautiful and sharp light for The Nose at this year's Fringe.

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Oedipus Shmoedipus diary

Oedipus Shmoedipus
post
9 May 2015
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
to 10 May
melbourne.vic.gov.au

Saturday's ensemble. Photo by James Brown.

Friday night

On Saturday afternoon, five of Melbourne's favourite arts writers and critics are volunteer perfomers in post's Oedipus Shmoedipus at Arts House Melbourne. Each show needs 25 volunteers. All we know is that we'll be doing something about death. It was performed at Belvoir last year, so some people know what they are in for. I haven't read anything about it and am going in blind. But I trust post and if I can't put up my hand to be a part of an independent feminist theatre show, then what good am I as an arts writer!

Joining me will be Richard Watts from Arts Hub and RRR, Cameron Woodhead from The Age, Rohan Shearn from Australian Arts Review and Tim Byrne from Time Out.

Saturday

12.35 am. I wish I were already asleep. Not looking forward to morning alarm but looking forward to whatever we're going to be doing. As long as I don't have to dance, I think I'll be fine. I haven't read any reviews and really don't know what to expect.

8.25. Shit, time to leave but I am awake! 

9.13 We're here. And our special guest surprise from Adelaide is Jane Howard from The Guardian.

 (clockwise) Tim, Myron, Cameron, Rohan, Jane, Me, Richard

4.04 pm You know that nightmare where you're backstage about to go on and you have no idea what you have to do? That's pretty much what performing in Oedipus Schmoedipus was like.

Except it was brilliant and I know that I'm not the only one who would love to do it again tonight.

Each performance uses 26 new volunteers as the chorus to an opus about great white plays about death. We're backstage and can only guess what it's all really about. But I get to see it tonight and understand it as more than nervous fear about my shoe breaking or my skirt being tucked into my knickers.

Our volunteers were a mix of performers and non-performers, but experience didn't seem to make the process any less nerve twitching. After a warm up, everyone was given a number and told to look at a screen above the stage that, we're promised, will tell us what to say and what to do. 

We ran though our parts in the show once, but that's it. 

During lunch, we all knew that few of us could remember much.

The first part of the show is post's Zoe Coombs Marr and Mish Grigor killing each other, many times. Sitting in numbered chairs backstage, all we could hear was the reactions of the audience as we watched the backstage crew getting buckets and mops ready to clean up what must have been litres of blood. 

The first time on stage was as a group, which made it safe and relatively easy, but I really am looking forward to seeing it tonight because two hours later and I'm not sure what we actually did.

Minutes later I had my first solo entrance and this was so like that dream. I really had NO IDEA what I had to do. 

I was fine. The screen told me what to say and then told me to leave. 

I wish I had a screen in real life.

From then on, it was so much fun. The very lovely stage managers told when we had to be ready and the screen told us what to do. It was a bit like karaoke, but more Shakespearean and with dance moves.

Oh yes, there was dancing, including a huge group number where we followed a video of Mish in a pink body suit. 

There was also a surprise for us all – something we weren't expecting – and that moment may have been the most genuine and gloriously wonderful one of the night. As there are still two shows to go, I don't want to give it away.

The last two shows are sold out, but I never believe that sold out means sold out. It's an amazing process and if watching Oedipus Schmoedipus is anywhere near as wonderful as being in it, then it's worth turning up and hoping for no-shows.

Zoe Coombs Marr & Mish Grigor. Photo by Ellis Parrinder

9.57 pm

Wow. WOW! It's impossible to know how powerful this show is from being on the stage.

So much of the volunteer performer process was developed to ensure that the vollies have a positive and fun time; which we did. What we're unaware of is just how these group performances are being made into something bigger and cohesive. The glorious clump of ghosts near the end is a reference to a discussion in the beginning, the lines we read are making a script that can't be see when you're in the middle of it.

And the results of the process are remarkable.

While it's a bit scary on that stage, from the audience side everyone looks like they know exactly what they are doing and that they know their part in the big picture. I heard people in the foyer after the show discussing how well rehearsed the group was; I know they wouldn't have believed me if I'd told them the truth.

Then there's Mish and Zoe's opening: it's confronting and shocking and very very bloody, but funny and somehow welcoming. They die and die and die and it's astonishing.

Sunday
3.32 pm

For volunteers who still want to dance at home. (And perhaps cry a bit.)

Oedipus Schmoedipus is an opus on the great white writers and their words about death (not grief or loss, just the "there rust and let me die" moments), but it's really about the voices that are missing from that opus.

Watching last night, the scene that was a total hoot to perform but pinched a nerve while watching was the costumed dance. The performers are dressed in costumes – named backstage as "tiny pants", "big pants", "Hedda", "skeleton", "cow" etc – from productions of classics. On stage, as everyone dances and spasms, the laughs make it clear that we can't see ourselves anywhere on that stage – it's just people in costumes, which don't especially fit, reflect or suit them, doing what they are being told to do.

For all the delightful, good looking and extremely talented volunteers, this is a work told by young women – women who once might have hoped to play Juliet's nurse, in their 30s – who know they're not the women in these writings (even though they are works that they still love). So they slashed and bled the great white pages to show the silence and demand a voice for those who still struggle to be heard. And they welcome strangers – most of whom don't look or act like actors – onto their stage to let the sounds of those missing voices reach as far as they can.

Shamelessly Glitzy Work

ARTS HOUSE IN AUGUST
Shamelessly Glitzy Work
post
14 August 2009

With sequined curtains, buckets of confetti, lasers and lumpy goop, post’s Shamelessly Glitzy Work is shameless in its glitz and fearless in its attitude.

Zoe Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor and Natalie Rose formed post in 2004, after meeting at Pact Youth Theatre’s imPACT ensemble in Sydney, and haven’t stopped creating since. Their first full length work (Gifted and Talented) won awards at the 2007 Melbourne and Adelaide Fringes and Shamelessly Glitzy Work received Australia Council funding to be developed at a Performance Space residency as their second full length piece.

Post by nature, they start with a touch of ironic postmodernism and post structuralism, but they refuse to define their own genre, which blends installation, dance, monologue and magic. Expect their next work with be post-post.

Shamelessly Glitzy Work sets out to explore lies from mass marketing to drunken declarations, with content ranging from painfully accurate to slightly obvious. The manic aerobics class that morphs into a wet t-shirt competition is unforgettable, and so good that it leaves their discussion of bogans, Barinas and puking feeling a bit too familiar. But their originality and engaging performances more than compensates for any glitches in the glitz.

The show also touches on the relief and excitement of being with “people who get it”. If you love sitting amongst a crowd of others who “get” that theatre can reach beyond the obvious and should be brave enough to experiment whatever the result, keep an eye on post, as we haven’t seen the best of them yet.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.