Guest Review: Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar
Victorian Opera
20 July 
Melbourne Recital Centre
to 30 July
www.ticketmaster.com.au

Review by Josephine Giles

This Caesar is good – very good. Though requiring some stamina from the audience, music lovers are rewarded with singing that simply knocks your socks off – packaged in a stylish, attractive production.

Granted limited financial resources for sets and lights, first-time opera director Stephen Heathcote (ex Australian ballet) was faced with another challenge – how to create an Egyptian court in the Elizabeth Murdoch Hall, which is a space well suited to chamber music but not at all to theatre. In collaboration with designers Stephen Curtis (sets), Alexis George (costumes) and Damien cooper (lighting) Heathcote has eschewed the literal. A dramatically simple set of essentially geometrical shapes, with a recognisable Cleopatra’s needle dominating the landscape, makes no attempt to disguise the hall, and provides a canvas for lighting that strives to integrate the set and the termite-like carvings of the recital centre walls. The gun-metal grey of the set is reminiscent of the surfaces of an aircraft carrier and serves to give a contemporary slant to the setting, reinforcing the time-less theme of warring nations.

Sensual relief is provided by a ceiling to lighting rig tall silken red curtain, which is manipulated throughout by the players to signify changes of scene. Simple but attractive costumes are historically non-specific and too unrelated to each other for my taste; but sensual opulence is again evident with the appearance of a beautiful swathe of blue fabric, manipulated by the dancers to accompany Cleopatra’s enticing aria V’adoro, pupille. This cloth-work and lighting could be used more frequently to enliven the somewhat stark staging, but the over-all effect of tasteful understatement work well for the most part.

Heathcote brings some delightful dance moves to this staging – again, this could have been taken further stylistically – and a lovely eye for the small tableaux that provide visual punctuation during the often long da capo arias.

Heading a home grown, but world class, cast is Sydney born David Hansen as Caesar. Described by a New York critic as a “matinee-idol countertenor”, Hansen has sung a variety of Handel roles around the globe and his confidence with this repertoire shows in his flamboyant coloratura, an impressive evenness and accuracy through all registers, and a startlingly clear top. A musical highlight was when he broke the fourth wall to join the orchestra in the auditorium to sing up a baroque bravura storm.

As Cleopatra, Tiffany Speight who so impressed as Romilda in the VO’s 2009 production of Xerxes, gives a sympathetic, down to earth portrayal of the famous seductress, and brings an easy and delightful style to the famous music.

Warm voiced Mezzo Tania Ferris is full of regal dignity as the bereaved Cornelia; and Dimity Shepherd applies her usual dramatic imagination to the androgynous Nireno, whom I swear is channelling media-queen Carson Kressley.

Scene stealer of the night though is young soprano Jessica Aszodi, as the boy Sesto. Aszodi is a natural and expressive actor, with a fresh voice of outstanding technique and surprising strength when needed, and gives the more experienced members of the company a real run for their money

Making up the remainder of the singing roles are Tobias Cole (a slimy Tolomeo), Anthony Mackey as the faithful Curio and the always impressive Steven Gallop as the brutish Achilla. Four dancers make up the cast as (amongst other things) guards, servants and scenery movers.

Conducting from the continuo in the pit, VO Musical Director Richard Gill inspired Orchestra Victoria to baroque splendour, marred only by occasional inaccuracies. 

All in all, this Julius Caesar is a triumph for the still young Victorian Opera, and for emerging director Heathcote. Though vastly different in style from last year’s delightful Xerxes, its strengths far outweigh its occasional weaknesses, with outstanding singing and music making that could be celebrated anywhere on the planet.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Guest Review: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw
Victorian Opera
9 July 2010
Playhouse, The Arts Centre
to July 17
www.ticketmaster.com.au

Review by Josephine Giles

Based on a Henry James short story, The Turn of the Screw is a ghost story with a twist. An impressionable young governess comes to Bly to look after two children who, it transpires, are being haunted by two evil ghosts. Or are they? Full of ambiguity, the story gifts to a director ample opportunity for flights of the imagination. Unfortunately this production, while chocker-block full of solid performances, remains earthbound.

Good things first. For this production Victorian Opera has engaged respected Britten expert Paul Kildea to conduct. Under Kildea’s sensitive and nuanced direction Orchestra Victoria responds in kind, with extra fine playing from the woodwind providing an atmospheric diversion from the emptiness on stage.

On stage, the youthful troupe of singers is, for the most part, well cast. As the highly strung Governess, Danielle Calder impresses with accomplished singing and a committed and convincing character. Maxine Montgomery as Mrs Grose sings with her customary assurance, while Melanie Adams (Mrs Jessel) is attractive but underpowered.

As the young charges Takshin Fernando (Miles) and Georgina Darvidis (Flora) are clear and engaging. Full marks should also go to Fernando for the most convincing miming ever of piano-playing in Act II.

 As the Narrator and the dastardly Peter Quint, James Egglestone is a perfect fit. His clear tenor is well suited to Britten’s music, and his impeccable diction and easy physicality add value to the package.

To the not-so-good. The Turn of the Screw is a sparse piece that is here staged with austerity. An almost empty stage is occupied by a Victorian style doll’s house, and the odd piece of furniture which is moved on and off to indicate a change of scene. Lighting is dim, to underline the action taking place in twilight, coupled with a black backdrop that sucks the life from the action. Lights in the doll’s house (spooky!), indicate changing times of day, but are inconsistent with the number of projected windows on the stage floor. The ghosts first appear in recesses in the back wall that look like, well, boxes; we know Flora is by a lake because she tells us while standing near a puddle of blue light, and the Governess must be walking in the garden because she is wandering around a stage lit with dappled leaves. I could go on. Suffice to say the direction and design lack imagination, and misuse the device of minimalism to ultimately convey very little in the way of atmosphere.

As with practically anything operatic these days, projected titles are used. In heavily orchestrated pieces sung in English their use can be justified. But for the lightly orchestrated The Turn of the Screw, in this theatre, and with this calibre of singers, their presence is an unnecessary distraction. The titles are situated at either side of the stage and just catch ones peripheral vision, making it impossible to focus on the singers (who are all perfectly understandable). To stop going mad, you end up giving up and looking away from the stage to read the titles and thus lose any immersion in the drama.

For its scale and contemporary subject matter The Turn of the Screw is a good repertoire choice for the Victorian Opera. The work is a perfect vehicle for the young singers promoted by the company, but this production, while strong musically, just misses the dramatic mark. The Turn of the Screw continues at the Playhouse till July17.Based on a Henry James short story, The Turn of the Screw is a ghost story with a twist. An impressionable young governess comes to Bly to look after two children who, it transpires, are being haunted by two evil ghosts. Or are they? Full of ambiguity, the story gifts to a director ample opportunity for flights of the imagination. Unfortunately this production, while chocker-block full of solid performances, remains earthbound.

Good things first. For this production Victorian Opera has engaged respected Britten expert Paul Kildea to conduct. Under Kildea’s sensitive and nuanced direction Orchestra Victoria responds in kind, with extra fine playing from the woodwind providing an atmospheric diversion from the emptiness on stage.

On stage, the youthful troupe of singers is, for the most part, well cast. As the highly strung Governess, Danielle Calder impresses with accomplished singing and a committed and convincing character. Maxine Montgomery as Mrs Grose sings with her customary assurance, while Melanie Adams (Mrs Jessel) is attractive but underpowered.

As the young charges Takshin Fernando (Miles) and Georgina Darvidis (Flora) are clear and engaging. Full marks should also go to Fernando for the most convincing miming ever of piano-playing in Act II.

 As the Narrator and the dastardly Peter Quint, James Egglestone is a perfect fit. His clear tenor is well suited to Britten’s music, and his impeccable diction and easy physicality add value to the package.

To the not-so-good. The Turn of the Screw is a sparse piece that is here staged with austerity. An almost empty stage is occupied by a Victorian style doll’s house, and the odd piece of furniture which is moved on and off to indicate a change of scene. Lighting is dim, to underline the action taking place in twilight, coupled with a black backdrop that sucks the life from the action. Lights in the doll’s house (spooky!), indicate changing times of day, but are inconsistent with the number of projected windows on the stage floor. The ghosts first appear in recesses in the back wall that look like, well, boxes; we know Flora is by a lake because she tells us while standing near a puddle of blue light, and the Governess must be walking in the garden because she is wandering around a stage lit with dappled leaves. I could go on. Suffice to say the direction and design lack imagination, and misuse the device of minimalism to ultimately convey very little in the way of atmosphere.

As with practically anything operatic these days, projected titles are used. In heavily orchestrated pieces sung in English their use can be justified. But for the lightly orchestrated The Turn of the Screw, in this theatre, and with this calibre of singers, their presence is an unnecessary distraction. The titles are situated at either side of the stage and just catch ones peripheral vision, making it impossible to focus on the singers (who are all perfectly understandable). To stop going mad, you end up giving up and looking away from the stage to read the titles and thus lose any immersion in the drama.

For its scale and contemporary subject matter The Turn of the Screw is a good repertoire choice for the Victorian Opera. The work is a perfect vehicle for the young singers promoted by the company, but this production, while strong musically, just misses the dramatic mark. 

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com

Review:Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After
La Mama
7 July 2010
La Mama Theatre
to 11 July
www.lamama.com.au

Jane Miller's beautiful and complex writing stood out at the Short and Sweet and Melborn short play festivals.  Happily Ever After is her first full-length work and is firmly placing her as one of Melbourne's must-see playwrights.

Lizzie and Ben are trying for a baby, Ben needs to convince Chloe to leave her house before his boss Dave gets the police,  Dave is trying to make Ben take charge of his life, and Chloe just wants to be left alone.

These characters have lost so much or have so much more to lose than they know and as their secrets are revealed or kept, each face a life of compromise while wishing that – just once – they were enough for their loved one.

In letting her breaking souls try for a miracle happy ending, Miller brings recognisable and complex emotions to the stage and shows them through a highly original story. In a mix of fractured fairy tale (the Prince dies alone because he won't take Cinderella at her word) and harsh reality, she balances the despair with hope and the bitter heartbreak with bitter-sweet comedy.

Director Beng Oh, who also stood out at Short and Sweet, deftly captures the frustration of relationships and the tone of the writing with composed pacing and by letting the cast embrace their character archetypes without losing their uniqueness.

Mike Frenchman (Dave) and H Clare Callow (Chloe) are the emotional counter balances to Paul David-Goddard (Ben) and Marnie Gibson (Lizzie). Frenchman's prick who thinks he's a mentor lets us laugh and Callow's distraught Chloe lets us wallow, as Ben and Lizzie try to find a way to be as happy as they pretend to be.  Lizzie could be easy to hate, but Gibson brings understanding to her actions and never lets us feel sorry for her and David-Goddard brings a complexity to Ben that lets us see the internal fight between letting himself feel and "manning up" to the world.  The last time I saw David-Goddard perform, he reduced me to tears (in An Air Balloon Across Antarctica); this is an actor who deserves a lot more attention.

Fortunately, Melbourne theatre goers are recognising the wonderfulness of Happily Ever After and a new show has been added on Sunday at 3pm because the remaining nights are selling out. This is theatre that wakes your heart up, so call La Mama and grab a ticket now.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Dead Man's Cell Phone

Dead Man's Cell Phone
Melbourne Theatre Company
1 July 2010
Sumner Theatre
to 7 August 2010
www.mtc.com.au

If you were at a cafe and a mobile phone kept ringing, would you answer it? Would you answer it if the man who owned it had died at the table? And do you believe that audience members who don't turn off their phones should be publicly shamed and forced to buy everyone drinks at interval?

The MTC have a phone-turn-off title with Dead Man's Cell Phone and in it sweet and mousy Jean (Lisa McCune) answers a dead man's phone, falls in love with the dead guy, meets his family, resolves his familial relationships and contributes to his human organ trafficking business.

American playwright Sarah Ruhl's script is a gorgeous foray into magic realism that delights in taking its audience to unexpected places and filled with wordy delights about the comfort of small casseroles and heaven being like an embossed wedding invitation.

Director Peter Evans takes full advantage of the script's humour but loses the joy of the magic realism. The extreme characters are never real enough to be natural and the fantasy elements are too real to let the fantasy fly, which leaves it in a no-folks land that is little more than the text.

Sound and lighting designers Kelly Ryall and Paul Jackson create a dreamy, magical atmosphere (Ryall's soundscape is especially gorgeous) and McCune brings enough vulnerability and genuine likability to Jean to let us love her enough to travel to her heaven, but too much of the production feels awkward once it's out of the comfort of cafes, posh houses and jokes about people who wear black.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Kunst ist Scheisse

Kunst ist Scheisse
Eva Johansen & Jonathon Miller
30 June 2010
24 Moons (in ACDC Lane)

What do we want? More Kunst! When do we want it? Once a fortnight on Wednesdays. Where do we want it?  At an uber-cool bar in a dingy Melbourne lane named after rock legends.

The arty folk know that Kunst ist Scheisse means Art is Shit and should be lining up for this changing mix of the oddest and most gorgeous cabaret artists in town.

For their opening week, host and diva Eva Johansen got her knickers out and welcomed guests who have won so many awards that they'd need a really big shelf if they lived in a share house.

Wes Snelling left Tina del Twiste sulking at home and gave us a welcome taste of Wes unplugged;  The List Operators continue to be one of the most consistently original and strange acts around and offered a bite of the brilliance they are taking to Edinburgh (and Matt Kelly's Michael Jackson is burned into my retinas); Earl Shatford made sparklie shirts sexy again and reminded us how jaw-droppping awesome juggling can be; Jess Devereaux found the best 1980s school social dress ever to combine dance, comedy and fashion; comedian David Quirk shared some embarrassing moments of his past; the Suitcase Royale got some mates on stage to form a super band; and the Caravan of Love girls let a couple of strangers find their hidden treats with chop sticks.

While regular nights like the fabulous The Last Tuesday Society encourage experimentation in front of hipsters downing beers,  Kunst is more about showing some of the best acts around to uber-cool sophistcates who sip cocktails but never stop giggling at the word play of the title.

Kunst ist Sheisse has found its new home at 24 Moons. This place is so cool that I almost felt uncool in my flat MaryJanes and an old PJ top from a Bras and Things sale. Found at the top of a staircase at the darker end of street-art filled ACDC Lane, this place has no choice but to rock, and its cut out cityscape wall design, ivy covered moon lights and comfy seats that encourage intimacy or welcome strangers couldn't be a more perfect setting.

Throw in a cocktail list guaranteed to make us-who-love-Matt-Preston weep at its originality and beauty (the one with Violet Syrup or the one that comes with a chocolate truffle please) and cheap cold cider on tap, it'd be difficult to get a better night of Kunst.

The next line up (Wednesday 14 July) includes whimsical, Fringe-favourite and bloody funny poet Telia Neville (who has a new blog) and the voice guaranteed to break hearts, Simoncee Page-Jones.  With possibility of Eva and Simoncee singing together, get there early to grab the best seats.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com


Photos by Max Milne

Review: Blood

Blood
Vicious Fish Theatre
25 June 2010
Theatre Works

Sergei Belbel's Blood asks what are the limits of a common morality and tests them with exposure to torture. It's an uncomfortable night in the theatre that leaves its audience shellshocked. But, like going on a roller coaster, the experience is worth the fear.

This production continues Scott Gooding and Vicious Fish Theatre's commitment to the works of Catalan playwright Sergi Belbel. Blood follows productions of Caresses and After The Rain. If reviews are to be believed, one was amazing and the other got a bit lost.

In Blood, a woman is kidnapped and told that over the next 40 hours she will lose a finger, an ear, a foot and her head unless her husband pays up. Her torturers try to ease her physical pain, but consider her life a necessary loss for their (unknown) cause. In a circular structure, filled with literal and metaphorical images of blood, we are taken from the torture room to the discoveries of her body parts, and returned to see the results.

Director Gooding quickly makes his audience uneasy with a flash of blinding light followed by a room that's uncomfortably dark, but light enough to see what we don't want to see. The text describes the importance of a clean amputation, but the visceral reactions come from the sound of an electric saw and the fearless performance of Janine Watson.

The sickening anticipation of pain and fear in the opening scene creates a physical reaction that draws the audience through to the conclusion, and the comedy that immediately follows offers some respite, but the relief is slightly frustrating.

Comedy isn't jokes and wit; it's how we get through every day. We laugh at ourselves and the world, so we can cope with the tedious and the unbearable. It's why we hear great jokes at funerals and why there's always some humour in great art. There is a lot of humour in Blood, but the laughs are sometimes misplaced and take us away from the story by reminding us that it's all a game of pretend, rather than giving us the breathing space to cope with the anticipation of the horror that's to come. This style of humour works best when we are laughing only to stop ourselves from running or puking and the  comedy could be toned down in order to make the laughs awkward and uncomfortable.

Watson, Alison Adriano, Chloé Boreham, Jon Peck, James Tresise and Kassandra Whitson are all strong performers who understand the nuances and guts of Blood, but they are not always compelling because they are bringing us the text and the plot, rather than letting us see the stories about people discovering the unimaginable.

One of the strengths of the script is that is brings the hidden blood of the torture room to our everyday world.  As the audience know what's in the appendage-sized packages, the middle scenes have to be about the people who discover the packages. To sustain the gut-churning emotion of the opening, we have to care as much about every character as we do about the woman being tortured. Complete and complex people need to be on the stage, so that instead of asking why on earth the woman doesn't just walk away from the world's most annoying man, we're wanting two damaged souls to find love on that park bench and wondering how the discovery of an amputated finger is going to change their chances.

Theatre is moments of change. Each character is a different person at the end of their scene and showing more of that change, and more of the lightness before the dark, will bring the empathy and closeness that will leave the audience unable to breathe.

The Blood text also suffers from a very literal English translation, to the point that words and phrases received giggles simply because they didn't sound right to the audience or feel right to the actors. Stage language by its nature is contrived and it's up to the actors to make it sound like it is the most natural and only logical way that people talk in this world. The language shouldn't get in the way of what the playwright and creators are saying.

Shows as unnerving as Blood need to settle and change as audiences react. Having survived its first week, the time to see Blood is this week; not only because the season ends, but because it will be so much closer to being something you're unlikely to forget.


This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Heracles High 5

Heracles High 5
A is for Atlas
23 June 2010
Meat Market

A is for Atlas are another Melbourne independent company who are dedicated to exploring their unique theatrical voice. In Heracles High 5, director Xan Coleman and his team explore the nature of contemporary heroes and heroism and if we expect far too much of those we hold in esteem.

The laminated safety instruction cards and the airline hanger-like proportions of the gorgeous Meat Market set the scene for the Heracles High 5 trip. But our plane is actually a TV studio and we're ready for the filming of "Green and Gold Live". With screens that tell us when to applaud, sigh, cheer and declare OMG, and a host as enigmatic as Jules (Wes Snelling), it doesn't matter that the plane/TV studio metaphor seems a bit odd because the band is playing, Wes is singing and we've met super hot Heracles.

Heracles looks a lot like Michael Hutchence and sings like Nick Cave, so he could only be more of an Aussie rock hero if he donned hot pats and sang "I Should Be So Lucky". The lyrics were difficult to decipher, but there was enough about diggers and Lleyton Hewitt to let us know what the songs were about.

With an interview by Jules and questions from the 'audience', we learn that spunky Heracles has been every hero since his days in Ancient Greece, including Napoleon, Chuck Berry, John Cleese and a member of the Third Reich – and he's sick of it. He's sick of repeating the his five labours,  he's fed up with Zeus (dad) interfering and had enough of being an idle idol, so he's not denying news report that he's become a government mercenary.

Up to now, Heracles High 5 was so much fun and so original, that any lack of narrative drive was irrelevant.  Looking at the hero versus entertainer and the why folk who haven't done that much get the same label as those who define our universal myths and archetypes is enough to get our brains ticking over.  Then the plane crashed and Heracles had to shovel a lot of poo.  Literally.

The second half takes place on Christmas Island where Heracles repeats his labours and I have no idea why. Heracles ended the same bloke as he was at the beginning, so the labours were a waste of his time. Perhaps what was missing was the human in the hero. Heracles was part human, but this hero was cold, grumpy and dull. Sure he was good looking enough to pick up anyone, but one reason contemporary heroes earn their title is because they are likeable, because they are human.  While Heracles remained unapproachable, grouchy, short tempered and bored with everything, there was not reason for anyone to care what happened to him and I would have flown away without him.


This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

GIVEAWAY: Kunst ist Scheisse

We can’t go to a dingy club in 1930s Berlin for a taste of Weimar Kabaret, but Melbourne has some fine dingy alleys and we can speak some German at the long awaited return of Kunst ist Scheisse on Wednesday 30 June and sample comedy, circus, burlesque and ‘arty shit’ from the Melbourne’s finest alternative cabaret artists.

Long before Australia Has Talent, artists would gather in clubs to discuss culture and politics over espressos and absinthe – and perform. With critical eyes and adventurous spirits, these dissident performers took risks, took liberties and took their audience somewhere shockingly new.  And the cabaret tradition still thrives.

Kunst ist Scheisse (Art is Shit) first appeared six years ago in a Brunswick Street bar and the monthly show featured many artists who are now among Melbourne’s favourites (and mine).  After a three-year run, the organisers developed their own shows and regularly appeared at The Last Tuesday Society.

The welcome back Kunst show is at 24 Moons, Melbourne’s newest cocktail bar in ACDC Lane, and will rock all night long with host Eva Johansen (part clown, part ingénue), house band The Suitcase Royale (before they head off to the UK again) and a program that reads like an award ceremony with a line up who have won Golden Gibbo, Green Room, Barry and Melbourne Fringe awards and wowed the toughest critics in Melbourne, the UK and the US.

With most of the performers regularly selling out their individual shows, this is an extraordinary opportunity to see The List Operators, Wes Snelling, The Caravan of Love and David Quirk. And check out record-breaking juggler Earl Shatford and dance artist Jess Devereaux.

Kunst ist Sheisse promises a different line up each fortnight and it’ll pay to arrive early as the venue is intimate.

More information is on their Facebook page. Or be at 24 Moons in ACDC Lane from 8pm on Wednesday.

GIVEAWAY

Kunst ist Scheisse has free double pass for a Sometimes Melbourne reader. If you'd like to come along on Wednesday 30 June, email your name to kunst@internode.on.net by 5 pm on Tuesday 29 June with Sometimes Melbourne as your subject.  The winner's name will be drawn out of a bowler hat and the winner will be emailed on Tuesday night. 

Photo by Telia Neville

Review: Grönholm Method

Grönholm Method
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
13 June 2010
Red Stitch

Do artists really have such a strange and limited view of the corporate world?

In the Grönholm Method four 40ish corporates arrive for a final job interview, only to find it's a group process, it's already started and at least one of them is telling porkies.

With potential employers checking Facebook pages (check your security settings now), psychological profiling of job applicants and most nine-to-fivers knowing their Myer-Briggs type (I'm an INFP), there's no doubt that getting a job these days is more than shining your shoes and smiling like a loon. And then there's all those 'pc' laws that prevent a job description listing boob size or age as the primary criteria.

Red Stitch have another script that would never have made it's way down under without this wonderful company and Jordl Galceran Ferrer's should be a gift to actors. The playwright supplies a tight and twisty plot that holds on to its secrets for as long as possible, but doesn't give the actors much to work with, as the plot pushes out the story.

The characters on the stage already have their polished work faces on and are trying to deceive each other and impress an unseen decision maker. They have no intention of ever letting down their guard and showing their real selves. Which is where the method lost me.

I wanted to see more... method. No matter how many layers and masks are being played, the cast are playing are real people and we don't see them.  All we see is mask, which leaves lots to admire, but little to care about.

I've worked in the corporate world and know that none of these candidates would have got past a first interview. Of course that's irrelevant, but I knew it because I didn't believe a thing they said or did – they never showed their real selves  – and that left me looking at actors on a stage, rather than people I believed.

And when they did reveal their true selves, they were as cliched and false as their faux-selves.  Even if there are no clues in the script, actors this good can create characters who are real. Just as all artists aren't self-absorbed, drunken and promiscuous wannabes; not all corporates are twats. Make these people real and all their play acting and testing will make Grönholm Method compulsory viewing for everyone who has ever donned a work suit and wondered if this is the life they really want to lead.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Cabaret treats on YouTube

Cabaret in all its versions is, was and will possibly always be my favourite musical.

Alan Cumming is my favourite Emcee and he made a docco called The Real Cabaret, where he goes to Berlin to see Christopher Isherwood's flat and seek out reminders of Weimer Kabaret. He also interviews people like Liza Minelli and Ute Lempur. It's great. Here is part one and the rest is on YouTube. 




Alan was the Emcee in Sam Mendes' 1993 Donmar Warehouse production, with Jane Horrocks as Sally.  (Alan rehearsed Cabaret during the day and performed as Hamlet at night!) Sam Mendes went on to direct a little Oscar-winning film called American Beauty and took his production and Alan to Broadway, where Natasha Richardson was Sally. Both versions won stacks of awards.

We saw a big theatre version in Australia with Toby Allen and Tina Arena or Lisa McCune.

Alan's site alone will easily kill a few hours on the web, but he's also an obsessive geek,  and is one of the creators of itsasickness.com, where fellow obsessives can share their passion for anything from Dr Who to coffee or, in Alan's case, truffle oil.

But back to musicals. Now, if Dr Who turned up in the tardis (preferably looking like David Tennant), I'd ask for a soy latte and a trip to 1993 London to see the original Donmar Cabaret cast.

Turns out I don't need to wait for a frolic with a 900-year-old time lord, because there's a damn fine video of the show on YouTube. It's not as good as being there, but I can watch it in my trackies and sing along.

Here's  part one (can't embed it). The whole show is on the Tube and it's amazing.

And speaking of Emcees...look who joined Alan at the Kennedy Centre Honours Kander and Ebb.



But this has to be the the best "Wilkommen" ever.



So what about some Sallys. Of course I love Liza the most (and here she is winning her Oscar), but...

Natasha was wonderful. (SometimesMelbourne doesn't approve of illegal recordings of shows - but thanks!)




And this is a bit fuzzy and the sound drops out, but it was recorded in 1968. It's Judi Dench and a glimpse of Hal Prince's original show.




Jill Hayworth was the first Sally in 1966, so she gets the final song (and there are some stills from the first production).

Review: Boston Marriage

Boston Marriage
MTC
4 June 2010
The Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio

"We do love shiny thing," says Anna in Boston Marriage. Yes we do, and this show is shiny and glittery enough to want the necklace and a matching pair of earrings.

David Mamet writes plays and films about blokes and masculinity, so 1999's Boston Marriage was a surprise, being about chintz, chunks and chicks. 'Boston Marriage' was a nineteenth-century endearment for spinsters sharing a house, because they couldn't find themselves a hubby, and the play is a drawing room farce with a wit and passion that (like its namesakes) defies the categories it gets carelessly named.

Mamet's Anna (Pamela Rabe) and Claire (Margaret Mills) have shared more than an abode and Anna can't wait to share the news that she has a wealthy paramour whose generosity will allow them to maintain their chintz-decorated lifestyle. Claire is happy, but more intent on bringing her new (very) young love to the house. If only the youngster didn't recognise Anna's shiny necklace, and the maid (Sara Gleeson) could keep her mouth shut.

From her high camp entrance in lush green velvet, Rabe's insecure and jealous Anna is a perfect foil to Mills's thoughtfully sharp (and desperately horny) Claire. With perfect timing and unbalanced emotion, both have everything at stake and manipulate and insult each other in ways reserved for those we truly love and understand.

Having a divine cast and a script that doesn't waste a single contrived and poetic word must be bliss for a director, and Aidan Fennessy (one of the best comedy directors in town) makes Boston Marriage shine more by camping up the wit without detracting from character or the essential drama of the story.

Gloriously funny and perfectly performed, Boston Marriage plays with class, gender and manners that could place it as easily in today's East Mebourne as nineteenth-century Boston and is by far my favourite MTC show this year.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera
Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera
2 June 2010
Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse

"The good old diggers, who pull their triggers from Bagdad to Khe Sanh..." There's no doubt that Malthouse Theatre and Victoria Opera have relocated the The Threepenny Opera down under.

And where better than Underbelly Melbourne, where the Peachams gaze at the moon over St Kilda and Mac loves a whorehouse in North Bulleen.  Throw in a dream cast of Melbourne favourites and you've got a show sold out before it opens.

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera was first performed in Berlin in 1928. It went to Broadway and, according to Wikipedia, has had over 10,000 productions since – a number that would probably triple with the uncountable amateur, high school and university productions.

Michael Kantor chose this loved and still astonishing piece of theatre for his Malthouse swansong and what a way to go!  From the moment Paul Capsis sings "Mack the Knife" in a yellow dress and a blindfold, there's no doubt that the ride's going to be bumpy and exciting in all the right ways.

As Brecht worked with Weill, Kantor has again teamed with Richard Gill, following from their stunning 2008 collaboration Through the Looking Glass. Gill's Victorian Opera continues to pull down the artifice and misconceptions about this shiny form and celebrates it with incomparable style and invention.

Much of Weill's genius lay in his ability to write extraordinary songs for singers and non-singers,  but combining the best performers from the opera and cabaret/musical theatre worlds still offers its challenges. It's impossible to compare the crystal clear vocals of contemporary opera superstar Dimity Shepherd (Lucy) with the husky belting of Capsis (Jenny), but Kantor ensures that this combination of unlikely voices is natural in this world and Gill ensures that they complement each other in unexpected ways.

It's difficult to discuss the cast without using the word perfect, or Perfect.  Highlights include every moment Judi Connelli and Grant Smith sing as the Peachams; Capsis giving Lotte Lenya a run for her money; Anna O'Byrne (Polly) and Shepherd's "Jealousy Duet"; and Casey Bennetto (Tiger Brown) and Mac's "Canon Song". Eddie Perfect is Macheath – and yes he is. If you like your Macs cold and brooding, this "sadist and a rapist" may seem a bit nice,  but it's hard to be cold when you're wearing glittery braces and by the end of Act 2 there's few in the audience not wanting a filthy lusty moment with Mac.

The design team of Peter Corrigan (set) and Anna Cordingley (costume) have coloured a world that supports the characters, but doesn't feel like the Melbourne being sung about, and the designs seem to complete with each other for the dominant images, which oddly mixes agit-prop, boxing and clown-face metaphors. At times they look beautiful together, but it's not too hard to imagine the set with plain black costumes or the costumes in an empty black space.

None of which takes away from this production.

With such wonders on the stage, it could be easy to forget the orchestra, but the vocal/orchestral balance is ideal and Gill's musical direction is so like listening to early recordings of the work, that it is surely how Weill imagined it to sound.  And Brecht would have had a proud giggle at the bawdy Aussie interpretation of the text and lyrics by Raymond Cortese and Jeremy Sands.

Once you discover Brecht and Weill, there's no going back to a theatre world without them and great professional productions of The Threepenny Opera should not be missed. This one is officially sold out, but limited tickets may become available, so check the Malthouse website.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.


Richard and Eddie





Alan and Cyndi



Lotte

Review: The Ugly One

The Ugly One
MTC
27 May 2010
The MTC Theatre, Lawler

What would you do if you were told you were ugly? Not homely or plain or "not my type", but so unacceptably ugly that even your beloved can only look at your left eye.

Marius von Mayenburg's The Ugly One is far more than a deliciously dark glance at superficiality, but draws its audience close with the shared fear of being rejected for our exterior. Who hasn't glanced in a mirror wishing that the face/body/clothes of someone else would wink back? No matter how much we know that real beauty is on the inside, we don't want to be ugly.

Lette (Patrick Brammel) had no idea that he was ugly, until his boss, Scheffler (Kim Gyngell), wants to send the hotter Karlmann (Luke Ryan) to a conference and Lette's wife, Fanny (Alison Bell), confesses that she always admired her husband for coping so well with his ugliness.  Now knowing he is socially unacceptable, Lette finds help from surgeon Scheffler and is transformed into a total spunk rat.  Business for the good looking can only get better and new friends like wealthy surgery addict Fanny and her son Karlmann offer new paths. Until everyone wants to look like Lette, and surgeon Scheffler owns the template.

Berlin-based von Mayenburg's work was last seen here in 2008 in Moving Target, directed by Benedict Andrews.  Mayenburg's style joyfully exploits all that is unique about theatre and gives its creative team the freedom to inject their own staging solutions.  From Moliere to McNamara, director Peter Evans lets his playwright's voices lead, yet the The Ugly One doesn't allow for an uninstrusive director; and it's a welcome surprise to see a sense of Evan's own style and choices.

The in the round stage contains office chairs, a microphone and buckets filled with crunchy, dribbly apples that provide a gruesome soundscape for the surgery. The couldn't-be-better cast morph between same-named characters as sharply as the surgeon's knife and the moments of doubt in between provide an unexpected rhythm to the text – and even more laughs.

Like recent gems Moth (Malthouse/Arena) and That Face (Red Stitch) and even MTCs Richard III (that didn't tickle me under the chin and make me smile), getting a ticket to The Ugly One is a challenge, but extra 9.30pm shows have been added so you don't have to miss out.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.