Special Fringe Appearance at The Outland Institute

Guest appearance at The Outland Institute.

AussieTheatre Fringe Reviews 2008

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008

Here are the AussieTheatre reviews from 2008.

A Suicide for Winter

A Suicide for Winter
The Tiger Lillies
August 4 2008
North Melbourne Town Hall

If I have bar for measuring great cabaret, it’s The Tiger Lillies. If I have a bar for measuring great comedy, it’s The Tiger Lillies. The inspired punk cabaret of A Suicide for Winter continues to defy genre, as it draws new comers into the (alleged) Tiger Lillies cult.

Melbourne joyously revels in regular visits from the UK based trio. (Songwriter, singer, accordion player and piano player Martyn Jacques, bass/musical saw player Adrian Stout and percussionist extraordinaire Adrian Huge.) Many cabaret artists claim their  dark, ironic and so naughty influence, but none dare copy as this trio balance on the summit of originality.

A Suicide for Winter mixes old favourites with a new selection of Deadly Sins (anyone currently in Edinburgh can see all seven sins in their new show). No hamsters, sheep or giraffes with sky-high vaginas were defiled in this display of harmonious musings, but the wonderful Huge took a poo joke to a level that would make a poo-obsessed toddler blush, and, I am surprised, that this is the first time I’ve seen Jacques play the piano with a rubbery sex toy.

White faced, be-suited, ponytailed and a little bit pudgy Jacques doesn’t try to be a lead singer. The glorious melancholy of his music seeps into your soul and gently squeezes your heart until it bleeds. His castrati-style vocals channel the distorted libidos of every true castrato, as he reveals a world of sordid violence and desperation that would break the most calloused heart – but you’re far too busy laughing to care.

Perhaps if Brecht had written a Carry On script (Carry on One-Legged Transsexual Crack Whore) and Ken Loach was asked to direct, it may come close to the images that flow from Jacques’s mind – but it would still feel like The Sound of Music in comparison.

If the content of A Suicide for Winter weren’t so extreme, it would just be smutty and dull. As the world is united in its worship of young, lycra-clad people with no body fat and IQs the size of a competing rhythmic gymnasts waist (listen to them being interviewed), it’s a comfort to have ‘the best freak show in town’ acting as a much needed counter balance.

PS.  If I ever have a funeral, please play ‘Getting old’ by The Tiger Lillies, even if it does result in some walkouts.

Photo by Andrew Attkinson

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Winner - What I Liked in 2008.

First Man Standing

First Man Standing
Rod Quantock
7 August 2008
Trades Hall

1968 was a year of change, protest and assassination. Nixon was elected, Hussein came into power and someone left the cake out in the rain in ‘McArthur Park’. Back in Melbourne, a young architecture student took some jokes to the review stage, and he hasn’t left yet.

Rod Quantock has been nudging our sensibilities for 40 years. As I was born in 1968, I am rather fond of that year. We’re the love children of the 60s, we managed a year or two of free tertiary education (which I spent in the uni bar), and we still can’t believe that anyone seriously supported little Johnny Howard.  We’re not Baby Boomers, but we’re too old to identify with Generation X, so I’m declaring us Generation Rod.

He’s been there all our life. We probably first saw him on the 80s sketch comedy Australia: you’re standing in it, or it might have been a Captain Snooze ad. As we started hanging out at Fringes, there was Rod, fuelling our leftie anger as we enjoyed our middle class arts festivals. The luckiest ones have been on a Bus trip and met Trevor the rubber chicken. (I would have been there, if I hadn’t been living in Adelaide at the time.)

In First Man Standing, Rod celebrates the last 40 years. There’s a lot of reminiscing to be had. Victorians revelled in the Jeff era, but Rod’s most heartfelt thanks was to Little Johnny – the man who wrote every one of his jokes for 11 years. Then he gives us another chance to cheer because the little critter was voted out of his own seat. Kevin07 isn’t funny enough yet to take Johhny’s place, but Rod knows the tide will turn. In the meantime, Peter Garrett is doing a fine job of becoming our most embarrassing politician. (Us Generation Rodders are burning our Midnight Oil vinyls in disgust.)

Rod’s style doesn’t change much, but he has moved from blackboard and chalk to laptop and mouse. (However, he uses technology like someone who still can’t believe that computers really exist.) If you saw his recent Melbourne Comedy Festival show will be thrilled to see the late comers and audience statistic graphs have developed. And latecomers – well you have been warned.

The best comedy comes from truth. Sure, we laugh at Jeff’s phallic sculptures, and Bracks and Brumby’s round tunnels, but we’re only laughing because the other option is crying. Rod’s comedy is as sharp, intelligent and bitingly hilarious as ever.

One of the great things about his shows is the audiences. It’s rare to see people in their teens and in their 60s cacking themselves at the same material. Young ones in the audience (anyone under 45) can look forward to a very special moment. If you screamed at your parents, marched in protest, or re-used plastic bags before it became cool: Rod leads the Baby Boomers present in an apology to the generations Rod, X and Y. But do we feel any better knowing that our projections of environmental disaster have come to fruition…Sometimes it might be nicer to be proven wrong.

If you’ve enjoyed Mr Q at anytime over the last 40 years (even if it was just as Captain Snooze), get down to Trades Hall for First Man Standing – you won’t be disappointed. If you’ve somehow managed to miss him in the last 40 years, it’s time you found out what all the fuss is about.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Holiday

Holiday
Malthouse Theatre and Ranters Theatre
19 July 2008
CUB Malthouse, Tower Theatre

Holiday is a meditative exploration of a world separated from the responsibility and routine of day-to-day life. It’s more weekend beach house than five star resort, but who doesn’t love a few days at the beach.

I was initially intrigued and drawn into this gentle world. Raimondo Cortese’s writing captures casual conversation with ease, Adriano Cortese’s direction is beautifully paced and structured, and Paul Lum and Patrick Moffat’s performances are faultless.  But I wasn’t taken anywhere else. Like a beach house holiday, I kept waiting for something to happen; expecting a moment that would tie the looseness of the conversations, chats and stories into something more.

I could see so much process at work that I was never really engaged, or even that interested in the characters. There were nibbles and hints that drew me back in, but never enough to give a clear understanding of their relationship with each other or make me really care. Which could well be the point of Holiday.  When men are alone, do they really have such mundane conversations?

I didn’t see the original production at Arts House, and suspect that some of the impact of the design was also lost in its transfer to The Tower. Sitting up the back, I was immediately distanced from the white box set, which would have felt a lot more intimate in the front rows. Nontheless, Anna Tregloan’s design perfectly captures the complexity, mood and humour of the work. (Tregloan’s design continues to be a highlight of every production she works on.)  The whole piece is coloured and given remarkable depth by David Franzke’s sound design. I know there wasn’t a cat scampering under my seat, but I found myself looking for it.

There are so many elements of Holiday that are superb, but I came away feeling like I should have packed a really good book to read.


This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

1927, Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Cabaret Festival

2 July 2008

Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a cabaret treat from UK company 1927.  Part homage, part satire and all passion, 1927 have mixed their favourite genres to create something irresistible.

Imagine a silent film, complete with piano player, and the figures on the screen come to life. It is utterly delightful - as delightful as Little Julie playing homeless crack whore with a toy syringe.

The evening’s ten terrible tales were written and directed by Suzanne Andrade. Her work is marvellously macabre, but she’s just so terribly nice. (Imagine the love child of The Tiger Lillies’s Martyn Jacques and Emma Thompson.) Her descriptions of “milk moon tit driplets” and “marshmallow excrement” are as wonderful as they are wrong. Her characters are all familiar, yet so original. There are plenty of surprises, and the twins in search of a playmate simply have to be seen.   

Esme Appleton and pianist Lillian Henley join Andrade on the stage. Her stories combine with the animation and design of Paul Barrit. The interaction between the performers and Barrit’s screen is stunning.  I couldn’t imagine one without the other.

This show has understandably won heaps of awards and is happily trotting around the globe. I’m not sure how it fits with the Malthouse’s vision of presenting contemporary Australian theatre, but let’s just solve that by making the 1927 company honorary Aussies.

This review appeared on AussieThearte.com

Waiting For Godot

Waiting For Godot

Cracked Actors

18 June 2008

Cromwell Street Thearte

I enjoyed this Waiting For Godot like a young bottle of red. It’s still a bit rough, but the skill of its making is evident and its richness and complexity will come with exposure and time.

Cracked Actors was formed in 2007 with the determination to bring “classic” works to the stage. As Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot is a compulsory play for anyone with an interest in theatre, it was a obvious choice for the new company.

This Godot will improve with every performance. It needed the response of an audience to let the pace settle and let the performers trust the text and the humour. Opening night suffered from forced pace and anticipation. The natural rhythm and structure of the work was overridden by enthusiasm and a determination to interpret the well-known text.

This is the play so famously quoted as the one where “nothing happens….twice”. But that doesn’t mean that the audience don’t need to want something to happen.  We know that Godot never arrives. Like watching a loved movie, we know what’s going to happen, but still hope that this time it will be different.  Stories need anticipation and hope. We want to imagine everything that has happened to bring these people to this point and everything that could possibly happen tomorrow. We need to be told the story, not just see the text.

You know you won’t see Godot, but you will see Phil Roberts as Pozzo. Roberts was born to play Pozzo.  His timing is immaculate and his deep understanding of Beckett, his character and the style shine though.  He once played Lucky and I want to see him give Estragon and Vladamir a go. Colin Morley’s also brings a believability, poignancy and almost lovability to Estragon. The rest of the cast just needed to relax into their characters and trust the words. It’s a very funny script, we don’t need to be told when to laugh.

It’s always worth seeing a well known script performed. Sure, we can read them, but plays are written to be performed. Cracked Actors production is a terrific introduction to Waiting For Godot and I look forward to seeing what great work they show us next.

 This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour

The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour

3 June 2008

The Atheneum

 I have to admire a group who finish their show by telling the assembled crowd that they’re the worst audience they’ve ever seen; then create an instant standing ovation by using one of the most overused jokes in Australian comedy. The Chaser team are having a break from the telly and touring with The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour.

The live show is a mix of political jokes, sketches, gags and shockingly choreographed dance routines. It’s more about seeing the boys in the flesh (too much in Craig’s case) than creating a new Chaser genre.

So what do our favourite satirists do now that little Johnny has left The Lodge (and Kirribilli House)? Kevin07’s gang gave us some chuckles (like Penny Wong trying to control harmful emissions - from Peter Garrett), but the biggest laughs still came from Johnny’s faded team. There was even room for one last Peter Costello joke. The set up was elaborate and misleading; a musical about Frank Forde, our shortest serving Prime Minister, who served for only eight days - but that’s still eight days longer than Costello.

The politically savvy had many giggles, but the leg slapper guffaws of the night were saved for the arse jokes (not just Craig’s), the internet dating research and embarrassing the bogans in the audience.

Naturally, the team had to test the satire/offence line. The joke about plastic bags and Philip Nitschke was close, but a couple of Bill Henson jokes were the evening’s balancing acts. The topical subject matter is ripe for the kicking, but maybe the jokes would be better pitched at the critics (and I use that term in its broadest sense) of Henson’s photography, rather than the subject matter of his art (jugs too small to be decent).

Chas Licciardello was quoted in The Age this week saying that reviews of the live show haven’t been positive, but “we’re all so arrogant reviews don't affect us." With theatres full of appreciative, ticket buying fans, should they care was the reviews say? Chaser fans will continue to love every minute of The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour and non-Chaser fans won’t be there; so let the boys be arrogant. I enjoyed myself much more than I expected to and Osama W bin Laden wins my vote for joke of the month.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Patrick White Playwrights’ Award

Patrick White Playwrights’ Award  

24 May 2008

STC, Wharf 2

On May 24, Angus Cerini and Timothy Daly were announced joint winners of the 2007 Sydney Theatre Company and The Sydney Morning Herald Patrick White Playwrights’ Award. Their winning plays, Wretch and The Man in the Attic were chosen from nearly 150 entries and presented as a rehearsed reading.

The $20,000 award, shared by the winners, is Australia’s richest playwrighting award. An initiative of STC and The Sydney Morning Herald, it was established in 2000 in honour of Patrick White. Previous winners are: Patricia Cornelius (2006), Wesley Enoch (2005), Stephen Carleton (2004), David Milroy and Ningali Lawford (2003), Reg Cribb, Ian Wilding (2002), Brendan Cowell, Toby Schmitz, Jackie Smith (2001), and Ben Ellis, Bette Guy, Ailsa Piper (2000).

Wretch’s reading received a very mixed response from the sold out audience; some refused to applaud at the end, many were simply stunned, while the rest of us cheered at the unveiling of such a unique and challenging voice.

On behalf of the judges Polly Rowe (Literary Manager, Sydney Theatre Company) said,
“Wretch grabbed hold of us, shook us up and left us devastated. Angus Cerini drags the audience into the lives of characters who share a cruel yet tender relationship in which resentment, blame and love co-exist. The playwright’s original style unearths the poeticism in fragmented and brutal language.”

Cereni’s work is extreme and confronting in its content, its characters and its original language. A mother visits her son in prison. Poverty, violence and prostitution are simply part of their lives. Her cancer ridden ‘loogy booby’ means she has to lose her ‘woman bits’, but she still offers to help her son prepare for his likely anal rape. Meanwhile he is struggling with the guilt and consequences of his own violence. These are far from comfortable, accessible characters, but there is an almost exquisite beauty in their squalor. Cereni takes us to such extremes to create a remarkable work about love. We may not like his characters, but we understand their choices and want a miracle to save them.

Timothy Daly says, “The Man In The Attic is based on an amazing true story, of a Jew who was hidden by a German couple during World War II, but when the war ended, they decided not to tell the man. The story is a unique blend of intimate and epic, personal and political. It’s a writer’s gift.”

Rowe said that, “it impressed us all by demonstrating authorial skill, dexterity and craftsmanship.” Daly’s work is an extremely well crafted play, with a balanced combination of past tense narrative and present tense action.  When the family first find and hide the Jew, it proceeds like many stories we have heard before. Then the twist is finally revealed and the real drama begins - when the family don’t tell their ‘guest’ that the war is over and he is free.

The complex plot revolves around two unexpected pairings. The Jew and the wife, who talk daily, but cannot see each other because he is sealed in the attic; and the husband and their Nazi neighbour, who regularly see each other naked, but are unable to communicate. The second pair’s story is more complex, but nowhere near as compelling as the first. The Jew and the wife drive the story and our interest so much that I wondered why we needed to know so much about the other couple.

Cereni’s beautiful depravity and Daly’s images of stars and hiding will both lead to stage productions that hopefully won’t be too far away.

 
This  appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass
Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera
21 May 2008
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

Through the Looking Glass is the first collaboration between Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera. The 2008 Malthouse season continues to surprise and delight with this astonishing new opera.

Through the Looking Glass explores perceptions of childhood and growing up, while maintaining the absurdity and humour of Lewis Carroll’s writing.  Composer Alan John and librettist Andrew Upton have fashioned an intriguing work that draws from the “Alice” books and the report and rumour surrounding Charles Lutwudge Dodgson (Carroll) and his relationship with Alice Pleasance Liddell. (Dramaturge Maryanne Lynch’s discussion of this relationship is in the programme and is well worth reading.)  This Alice is followed and reflected by three ‘young Alices’ whose presence continually force us to question the truth and source of their wonderland.

Peter Corrigan’s incredible set, costume and puppet design delightfully re-invent the reflected backwards world. With hints of darkness and complex imagery, the design is as fascinating and confusing as Alice’s (and Carroll’s) thoughts.

 Director Michael Kantor brings a determined story telling aspect to the production. It is a complex and difficult story to follow, as well-known parts of the tale are missing and Carroll has become a character, but Kantor lets us understand enough, without compromising the music or spectacle.

 With the likes of David Hobson and Suzanne Johnston, the cast are all wonderful, including the children playing the young Alices. However, Dimity Shepherd is outstanding as Alice. Shepherd is always vocally superb and consistently brings complexity and depth to her characters.

 Conductor Richard Gill says, “Shiny new operas are held very close to our hearts.”  It is indeed rare to see an Australian opera produced. Victorian Opera are including a new Australian opera in their repertoire each year. By bringing a production as wonderful as Through the Looking Glass to a wider theatre audience, let’s hope that theatre appetites are whetted for more of thesame.

 This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Cellblock Booty

Cellblock Booty
Sisters Grimm
1 May 2008
Harmsworth St Collingwood

The breadth of the offence in Sisters Grimm’s Cellblock Booty is something to behold. Sexism, racism, homophobia and blasphemy are rampant in a work that entertains though sheer exploitation.

Declan Greene and Ash Flanders are the Sisters Grimm. They create queer theatre at its most anarchistic. Flanders has even introduced the term 'ball acting' to my theatrical vernacular.

Cellblock Booty is a homage to the 70s sexploitation prison flicks. Thrushmore womens prison is a world of jiggling breasts, implied (and blatant) homosexuality, innuendo and manipulation though stress and drugs by a power crazed ruler. Luckily, we have developed as a society and now demand quality non-exploitative entertainment like Wife Swap and the re-vamped world of Big Brother 08. Surely, a fisting from Thrushmore’s Matron can’t be more painful than a diary room chat with BB.

There should be something in this show that offends you. It’s meant to. It’s not just outrageously bad acting, unbelievable characters, unwarranted nudity, inconsistent plot and a pair of boots that make shoe lovers weep. Cellblock Booty pushes us to our limits of taste and tolerance.

Connie (Flanders) calls her African American inmate every racial slur she can muster. Chink, kike, packy, gook and spick roll off her tongue with abandon. Of course, none actually refer to the ethnic stereotype she is trying to offend. As a representation of ignorance and ridiculous racism, there is no finer than Connie. I should also mention that the inmate being offended is sensitively played by a young woman in an afro wig and a full body “blacking up” that makes the Black and White Minstrel Show look racially positive.

There is substance supporting the tacky high camp frolic. (And I’m not talking about the collection of substances in Connie’s arse.) The repeated image of God as a dragon is a remarkably detailed and astute observation about religion. They play with, break and satirise the conventions of drag by having men and women playing women. The men play lesbians, so this queer show has men regularly groping women.

The Sisters deftly balance the line between satire and offence. Then leap over it as far as they can. The jiggling breasts torture scene had me scribbling notes about women who still let themselves be directed like that. Then Greene’s direction lowered the lights at the perfect moment and took the scene to such an extreme that I was wiping away tears of laughter within seconds.

For the final irony, you have to see Cellblock Booty in the underground car park of the high-rise council flats in Collingwood. The echo effect of the venue saves the company a fortune on sound, the authentic cement interior is perfect for Thrushmore and the cold reminds the audience that it’s OK to be uncomfortable. However, they then went and created a totally welcoming bar space out of re-cycle crates and other found objects from the flats.

I’m not sure if the Sisters Grimm realise just how good they are. Don’t get me wrong – this is by no means slick, brilliantly written, soul-touching theatre; it’s cheap, chaotic and crappy. They do everything wrong and that’s what makes it so right. So, give BB a miss one night and head to the flats. Just remember to bring your muff.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

48 Hour Play Generator

48 Hour Play Generator
The Emerging Writers Festival
11 May 2008
BMW Edge, Federation Square

Take four emerging playwrights and four famous paintings. Leave them alone for 48 hours and see what happens. Welcome to the second 48-Hour Play Generator, the closing event of Melbourne’s Emerging Writer’s Festival

How do local playwrights get their work read, let alone developed and produced? A script can be brilliantly written, but it’s only half-alive if it isn’t performed and seen. The Melbourne Dramatists are a group of well-known, mid-career playwrights trying to address the problem.  Group members Ross Mueller, Adam Cass, Robert Reid, Melissa Bubnic and Amelia Roper cranked up the Generator.

Early career playwrights Tom Maclachlan, Fregmonto Stokes, Meg Courtney and Michele Lee were The Generator’s chosen fuel. On Friday, each was given a well-known painting as a stimulus. On Sunday, their newly written short plays were teamed with a director and three actors. On Sunday night, an audience gathered in the glass surrounds of the BMW Edge, eager to see the results. It really sounds like a writer’s nightmare. Who hasn’t had that dream where they are totally unprepared and about to be judged by an audience of their peers?

There cannot be any serious criticism of works written in such a short time. Completing the process alone is admirable. The fact that all created credible, interesting and engaging short plays proves how damn good these writers are.

It was fascinating to see works at such a raw, almost still-bleeding stage. Most chose very encompassing themes (God, religion and morality were popular), some let their characters have a personal rant, and most plot holes were filled with description and exposition – but each writer created something highly original without resorting to formula, cliché or stereotype. I’m sure that the hokey pokey of Not in this Town (Maclachlan), the taboo discussion of Every Spitting Angel (Stokes), the confession hearing cow of Gopastami (Courtney), and the haunting celler dwellers of Cellar Children (Lee) will all be developed by their writers into something new and wonderful.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

An Evening with Lorna Luft

An Evening with Lorna Luft

3 May 2008

Fairfax studio, The Arts Centre 

Melbourne didn’t see Lorna Luft’s multimedia show Songs My Mother Taught Me. Instead, we were treated to the much more intimate An Evening with Lorna Luft. This gave us the opportunity to see Luft for herself, without immediate association with well-known members of her family.

Luft made her television debut at 11, singing on her mother’s series (The Judy Garland Show). She said she was never comfortable with her legacy. Comfort, acceptance and celebration of her upbringing have come with age, love and distance.  She has also created and maintained her own astonishingly consistent career that spans Broadway musicals (at 19 she stared in Promises, Promises.), national tours, Off Broadway theatre, television, film (she was in Grease 2), concerts and variety. She has also had time to write “Me and My Shadows: Living with the Legacy of Judy Garland” and produce the Emmy winning series based on her memoir.

The evening’s standing ovation declared that Luft is indeed a performer to be reckoned with. She enthralled the eager audience, with a selection of musical and popular favourites ranging from ‘My Funny Valentine’ to ‘Don’t Cry Outloud’ (in tribute to the brother in law she loved dearly).

She was much more comfortable and settled after the interval. It was here that we got to hear her stories, feel her sincerity, laugh at her wit, and share some of Songs My Mother Taught Me. We were privileged to hear her stories (like Judy changing all the shoes outside the doors at the Savoy) and hear her sing some of those songs.  When she stated with, ‘The night is bitter...’ the room belonged only to her.

Luft doesn’t try to emulate her mother. Her arrangements (by her husband and pianist Colin R Freeman) suit her voice, her style and her personality. She captivates by being herself.

Luft is performing in other cities until the end of June. Nothing will stop fans going, but there will also be many more Friends of Lorna by the end of the tour.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com