2025: The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson

 

The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, June 13-July 12, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 5

    Playwright: Lauren Gunderson
    Director: Liesel Badorrek

    Cast
    Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton; Gabrielle Scawthorn as Marie Curie

    Production Concept: Anthea Williams
    Set & Costume Designer: James Browne
    Lighting Designer: Verity Hampson
    Composer & Sound Designer: Daniel Herten
    Video Designer: Cameron Smith
    Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley
    Movement Coach: Gavin Robins
    Stage Manager: Bella Kerdijk; Assistant Stage Manager:  Maddison Craven
    Costume Supervisor: Lily Mateljan
   
 “The Half-Life of Marie Curie” is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)

Director's Note

It is 1912 and Marie Curie has won two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields. It is almost impossible to overstate her level of international celebrity or, consequently the tempest that exploded after it was leaked to the press that she was having an affair with her married colleague Paul Langevin.

Virtually held hostage in her Paris home by journalists and angry mobs, Marie fell into a deep depression. Her friend, the British physicist, electromechanical engineer and suffragist, Hertha Aryton, took Marie to her house on the English coast for the summer, the respite of which may have saved Marie’s life. Obviously, we will never know the intricacies of this incredible friendship between two extraordinary women….but we can imagine.

The Victorian age was one of incredible change and discovery, particularly in the field of science. Unlike now, the worlds of science and spirituality weren’t regarded as mutually exclusive. There was a feeling that it was possible to reveal the invisible, and know the previously unknowable – in science, nature and even, to quote Hamlet, ‘That undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns’.

Like many Victorians, Marie attended seances with her husband Pierre out of curiosity. Could there be any science there? A measurable energy? What have we been and what do we become?
Lauren Gunderson’s play is about Transformation and Discovery – processes which shape both Marie and Hertha as women, as scientists and as friends, in real and transcendent ways.

‘Half-life. The moment an element transforms so fully that it is more other than self.’

Liesel Badorrek 

_________________________________________________________________________________
 

First, the performances, the stage design and choreography make this production of The Half-Life of Marie Curie one of the most imaginative, engaging and even exciting to watch shows that I have ever seen.

Second, but not least, the play, short though it is, has intellectual and emotional power which places it among the greatest theatrical works.

It was simply wonderful to see these two exquisite actors working so completely in harmony together, creating totally believable characters. Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton grabs our attention from the get-go, so focussed on her concern for the welfare of her colleague, equal in scientific achievement, but suffering social contumely as a woman leading an independent life.  

Gabrielle Scawthorn’s Marie Curie pulls us inevitably in to her emotional turmoil as a woman and lover of her dead husband, needing to find new love in Paul, in the context of her almost spiritual understanding of science, working with these men, which enabled her to explain the process by which seemingly unchanging elements radiate energy – changing half-life by half-life from uranium to lead.

Physics and chemistry are brought together in a fascinating abstract circle of light, darkness and transparency, representing in my mind the universe within which, and indeed integrated into, Marie and  Hertha – like all of us – exist, live and die.

Thinking of the experience of such force emanating from the intimate space of the Ensemble Theatre brought to my mind, almost in a funny way, two words.  Marie’s death, probably from cancer caused by the very radium she discovered, though long after the holiday that Hertha provided for her which “saved her life” socially, and gave her love, seemed AWFUL.  Yet her two Nobel prizes are AWEFUL, and rightly show the importance of Marie Curie as a woman scientist.

I am not surprised to find on Wikipedia that Lauren Gunderson's works heavily focus on female figures in history, science, and literature. She is one of the top 20 most-produced playwrights in the country, and has been America's most produced living playwright since 2016. She has had over twenty plays produced including, “I and You”, “Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight”, “Parts They Call Deep”, and “Background”.  

Thanks to Ensemble, my hope for American culture is restored.  Ensemble’s founder, Hayes Gordon, would surely be proud.

And, in case you were wondering, Google AI says:
No, Pierre Curie did not die from radiation poisoning. He died in a street accident in Paris on April 19, 1906, when he was run over by a horse-drawn carriage. His death was a tragic accident, not a result of radiation exposure. While both Pierre and Marie Curie were pioneers in the study of radioactivity and exposed themselves to radiation, Pierre's death was not related to that. Marie Curie, however, did eventually die from aplastic anemia, likely caused by prolonged exposure to radiation. 

 Gabrielle Scawthorn as Marie Curie; Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton
in The Half-Life of Marie Curie, Ensemble Theatre 2025
Photo: Prudence Upton

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Wrong Gods - Belvoir and Melbourne Theatre Company

 

The Wrong Gods by S. Shakthidharan.  Belvoir Theatre co-produced with Melbourne Theatre Company, at Belvoir Theatre, Sydney, May 3 – June 1, 2025.
Supported by The Hive – Supporting emerging talent at Belvoir

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 11

CAST
Nirmala: Nadie Kammallaweera    Isha: Radhika Mudaliyar
Devi: Manali Datar            Lakshmi: Vaishnavi Suryaprakesh


CREATIVES
Writer and Co-Director: S. Shakthidharan
Co-Director: Hannah Goodwin
Set and Costume Designer: Keerthi Subramanyam
Lighting Designer: Amelia Lever-Davidson
Sound Designer: Steve Francis
Associate Sound Designer: Madeleine Picard
Composer: Sabyasachi (Rahul) Bhattacharya
Tabla performed by Aman Pal

Indian soundscapes recorded by George Vlad (mindful-audio.com)
Movement & Fight Director, Intimacy Coordinator: Nigel Poulton
Vocal Coach: Laura Farrell
Stage Manager: Madelaine Osborn; Stage Manager: Steph Storr
Assistant Stage Manager: Mia Kanzaki; Assistant Stage Manager:
Grace Sackman

Digital Program at https://belvoir.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/TWG-Digital-Program_v5.pdf
Cover photography by Daniel Boud
Rehearsal photography by Brett Boardman

The four women at a light moment in rehearsal as
Isha, Nirmala, Devi and Lakshmi
The Wrong Gods by S. Shakthidharan, Belvoir 2025

 

 

We are putting our faith in the wrong ideas. The wrong systems. The wrong gods.  That woman, in the valley. Her gods and our gods are going to need to talk to each other. They are going to have to work together. It will take an openness on both sides. They are ready.
But are we?

This is the ending of the Author/Director’s program note.  It’s where we begin to appreciate his play, written he says, because of his experience more than a decade ago:

She's sitting on the banks of her river, deep in her valley, in the remote heart of India. She's staring at me. I'm brushing off her soil from my lenses, my tripod, my cables. I've just finished an interview with her. As I head back up the mountain, to where my Australian arts colleagues are waiting, she yells: 'make sure you get our story onto that TV!' It's not a request: it's an order. Her cow bellows his [her?] support. 'I'll try, aunty,' I feebly call back down the mountain.

Not on television, but powerfully on real-life stage, The Wrong Gods makes its point in a straightforward manner, in 90 minutes, no interval.

That woman in the valley, with her cow but no man left to work, is Nirmala, a traditional small farmer, needing her teenage daughter to leave school to keep the farm going.  Isha has been told by her teacher, Devi, that she is very bright.  Isha insists on going on to school in the city.

Both mother and daughter are very determined characters.  Though Nirmala is afraid of ‘modern’ influences, after a highly emotional argument, she finally gives in and lets Isha go.

But soon Lakshmi appears, a modern executive, in a program to explain to the villagers how her American company is being funded, including by the Indian government, to dam the valley to supply clean water to the millions living in the city.  This will drown 40,000 people's homes.  In the theatre world, there are echoes here going right back to Henrik Ibsen and An Enemy of the People.  

On the side, I had a picture in mind of the town of Adaminaby, drowned in the building of the 1940s-50s Snowy Mountains water supply scheme in Kosciuszko National Park, not far from Canberra, Australia, where I live.

When Isha returns she is educated in science and sees the necessity of modern development, the new Indian god, while her mother refuses to leave and would rather drown than deny the traditional gods and thousands of years of her indigenous way of life.

I thought then of the sincere acknowledgement of the Gadigal Eora people, original custodians of the land where Belvoir stands,  given by Radhika Mudaliyar just before moving into the role of Isha at the opening of the play.  In the end, as Isha, she reconciles with her mother Nirmala – but as S. Shakthidharan says, are we ready?

And then I thought – in 200 years modern progress has already brought us far worse than the damming of many valleys like Nirmala’s.  Even if we can limit the CO2 in the atmosphere with our net-zero plan by 2050, we are already past tipping-points according to most scientists – like Isha becomes in the play.  Can we ever be ready for a world-wide future so inhospitable as to be incapable of supporting human life?

The Wrong Gods pulls no punches.

Isha and her mother Nirmala
in rehearsal reacting to the inevitability of modern 'progress'
as Lakshmi and Devi explain.
The Wrong Gods by S. Shakthidharan, Belvoir 2025

 

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

2025: Harold Pinter Double Bill - Ensemble Theatre

 

 

The Lover and The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney May 2 – June 7 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 10

Director: Mark Kilmurry
Set & Costume Designer: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox
Composer & Sound Designer: Daryl Wallis
Stage Manager: Lauren Tulloch; Asst Stage Manager: Yasmin Breeze

Cast:
Nicole da Silva; Gareth Davies; Anthony Taufa


Harold Pinter.org
www.haroldpinter.org › plays › plays_lover offers an interesting view of The Lover when it was first presented at the Arts Theatre UK in 1963.  

‘Richard’ (husband) or ‘Mark’ (lover) both played with precision by Gareth Davies is English upper middle class to a T.  ‘Sarah’ or ‘Whore’ even more so by Nicole da Silva, I thought – partly because I think Pinter gave her opportunities for more varied emotional responses to situations.

But an un-named reviewer in The Financial Times (who perhaps may have attended the same long boring meetings as Richard) wrote in 1963:
“Harold Pinter is [by] far the most original, as he is also the most accomplished, of the younger generation of playwrights. And lately he has added to his other remarkable qualities an extreme formal eloquence. This quality will not, I suppose, endear him to the sterner of my younger colleagues, who regard formal eloquence as a sign of frivolity. They are all for ragged ends edges and untidy ends. But for those with any feeling for shape this addition to Mr. Pinter’s range is an uncommon delight.”  

He (I assume all financial journalists were ‘he’ in those days) goes to praise Pinter’s “absolute economy of means to produce a ... precision of effect. The little play works simply beautifully, like a perfectly adjusted piece of miniature machinery; except that machinery is dead and this play is scintillating alive.”

Gareth Davies as 'Richard' and Nicole da Silva as Sarah
in The Lover, Ensemble 2025

I was young at 22 in 1963 (Pinter was 33) and could not have agreed with The Financial Times more.  Now I have some doubts.

Mark Kilmurry and his actors, including Anthony Taufa as the milkman in The Lover, have honoured Pinter’s reputation for precision exactly, but what else has Pinter left us with 60 years later?

The idea of risky game-playing between a couple now ten years into their marriage seems to offer a warning – if we feel there needs to be a serious intention behind the play – in just one line.  She asks why does he want to stop, and he replies “Because of the children.”  I’m not clear whether Pinter meant only a plot device – that is, the sons will be home soon from boarding school – or whether he meant that parents need to stay married without having to play such games, to prevent emotional confusion damaging their children.

Today we would perhaps ask for more on this kind of issue from the most original and accomplished playwright of our younger generation.

And I wonder, too, then, about The Dumb Waiter.  Davies and Taufa got their Londoner accents pretty well from the Teddy-Boy parts of the city my father made sure I didn’t go near, and the play makes something out of the idea of political power coming down from above, but my literary studies in its year, 1959, emphasised The Dumb Waiter as a clever writer playing another kind of theatre game – called Absurd Drama.

Not only are the two thugs waiting to kill on the orders from an unknown gangster above their station in criminal society, but they were clearly just a variation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.  Beckett was in his fifties by now, and Pinter barely 30 – and ready to prove himself as good at absurdism.  I still think Beckett was better.

Gareth Davies and Anthony Taufa
in The Dumb Waiter, Ensemble 2025

Ensemble’s production of the two plays as a Double Bill certainly brings up plenty to laugh at, especially with such top-class actors (and an amazing scene change in only 20 minutes during interval); and for people much younger than a stern oldie like me there is much to learn from Pinter’s originality and “extreme formal eloquence”.

I see plenty of being “all for ragged ends edges and untidy ends” on social media today.  Stop it, I say – as I suggest Pinter meant.

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell

 

When the Rain Stops Falling. Based on the play by Andrew Bovell. Mockingbird Theatrics at Belconnen Arts Centre May 8-17, 2025

Directed and designed by Chris Baldock

​Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 8

Cast:
Gabriel York – Chris Baldock
Elizabeth Law (Older) – Liz St Clair Long; Elizabeth Law (Younger) – Ruth Hudson
Joe Ryan – Bruce Hardie
Gabrielle York (Older) – Jess Beange; Gabrielle York (Younger) – Jayde Dowhy
Gabriel Law – Leonidas Katsinas; Henry Law – Zac Bridgman
Andrew Price – Dyllan Ormazabal

Production Team:
Director: Chris Baldock; Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Assistant Director: Zac Bridgman; Properties: Natalie Trafford and Chris Baldock
Set & Projection Design: Chris Baldock; Projection Realisation: Rhiley Winnett
Sound Design: Chris Baldock
Lighting, Sound and Projection Operation: Rhiley Winnett
Costumes: Chris Baldock and Cast

As Gabriel Law and Gabrielle York

When the Rain Stops Falling is among the most significant Australian plays.  This is because it’s like an Argyle diamond.  Of all diamonds in the world, it has a special character, which is peculiar to Australia.  

The diamond itself at core is emotional as a study in more than 20 scenes of a family in regeneration over a lifetime.  The emotion is centred on Gabriel York’s need to re-connect with his only son after he left his wife some 20 years before when he was 30 and Andrew was 8.

But the diamond is bigger than it first seems.  Gabriel senses a connection back to his grandfather, through a series of family links over 80 years, which finally bring Andrew to find his father.  It is in the playing out of these links of loves, and failures to love enough, full of hopes and ironies, that the diamond shows itself to be Australian, of many colours.

As I wrote about the original Sydney Theatre Company production in 2010, “‘The play is unrelievedly bleak but with a denouement of unexpected hope: a moving, almost revelatory evening of theater’ [Richard Zoglin, Time] while the Australian audience on opening night in Canberra responded to the many moments of ironic humour which are built into our culture.  We certainly found the unexpected hope, but not an unrelieved bleakness.  In fact, without laughter, I suspect, the unexpected hope at the end would have been maudlin and sentimental.  In this production, it was ultimately satisfying to know that Gabriel and his son Andrew, with the help of a fish falling from the sky, could at last enjoy each other’s company after four generations of emotional disaster.”

Chris Baldock’s production of When the Rain Stops Falling, in a small scale in-the-round setting, captures Gabriel’s frustrations and final happiness in Andrew’s company, but is more subdued in tone.  This is because there are facets of the diamond which bring to light issues, especially about the natural environment and social behaviour – including the fish falling out of the sky – which encouraged a higher level of Australian ironic laughter on the bigger stage, particularly on the contrasts between the Englishness of the attitudes in Gabriel’s grandparents and the realities of colonial life.

Yet the seriousness, especially of the women’s lack of status as against the men’s belief in going their own way no matter what, certainly comes through as it should, perhaps even more so in 2025 than in 2010, making this production well worth seeing.

And not to forget that Climate Change is the brightest political facet of this play.

__________________________________________________________________________________

For follow-up, I think it’s fair to say that Bovell’s playscript is a twist-and-turn experience in trying to catch on to the stories in Gabriel’s family history.  

If you need help, here is a family tree, based on Cygnet Theatre; ShowerHacks.com. "Genealogy, the ancestry of When the Rain Stops Falling."; and www.sustainabletheatre.org/index.php/narrative/climate-change-generational-influence

 As they appear in their various scenes:

Grandfather Henry Law in his Forties in the 1960’s
Grandmother (younger) Elizabeth Law in her Thirties in the 1960’s
                        (older) Elizabeth Law in her  Fifties in 1988
Father Gabriel Law at Twenty-eight in 1988
Mother (younger) Gabrielle York at Twenty-four in 1988
                (older) Gabrielle York in her Fifties in 2013
                Joe Ryan (married to Gabrielle York) in his Fifties in 2013
Gabriel York at Fifty in 2039
Eliza Price – Andrew’s mother doesn't appear.
Andrew Price at Twenty-eight in 2039
 
The pictures below are from Cygnet Theatre, San Diego, California

 

This was created by the Cygnet Theatre while producing When the Rain Stops Falling to explain the connections of the characters. With this, we can understand the generational repetitive actions that involve the change in climate.  

 

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Blithe Spirit - Canberra REP

 

 

Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward.  Canberra Repertory Theatre - Season: 2 – 17 May 2025

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 2

Directed by Lachlan Houen
Written by Noel Coward

Cast:

Winsome Ogilvie - Elvira
Alex McPherson - Ruth
Peter Holland - Charles
Elaine Noon - Madam Arcati
Antonia Kitzel - Mrs Bradman
John Stead - Dr Bradman
Olivia Boddington – Edith

Creatives:
Set Designers: Andrew Kaye & Michael Sparks OAM
Lighting Design: Leeann Galloway
Sound Design & Composition: Marlené Claudine Radice
Costume Design: Suzan Cooper; Props Coordinator: Gail Cantle




Blithe Spirit is a satirical farce about the English upper classes in the 1930s, with references to the class structure, marriage relationships, and at a comically deeper level about their capacity to believe fantasies about the nature of truth and falsity.  And about death.

“He wrote it in a week. He referred to it as “An Improbable Farce in Three Acts” and took the name from the first line of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, To a Skylark. The play opened at London's Piccadilly Theatre on July 2, 1941—just six weeks after it was written. On November 5, 1941, it premiered on Broadway.” (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival - Blithe Spirit:A High-Spirited Comdey...)

I was born in January 1941, evacuated from London to a small village, Coedpoeth, in rural Wales, in the wake of the Battle of Britain.

The reality of war was not a farce.  But Coward’s instantly successful play was a metaphor, making absurd laughter out of the upper class who had not wanted to understand that reality.

At www.bard.org/study-guides/noel-coward-as-the-mirror-of-a-generation there’s a neat article: Noel Coward as the Mirror of a Generation by Lynnette L. Horner (Utah Shakespeare Festival).

So, as I enjoyed the laughter along with everyone else at Canberra REP last night, I was also asking myself why?

Why should REP in 2025 choose this play?  Is it enough to laugh at the cast's excellent reproductions of the mannerisms and accents of Noel Coward’s 1930s, as you notice in the corner the maid Edith peddling away on her exercise bike to keep fit like Elaine Noon's totally energetic Madam Arcati, just for the sake of having a bit of fun?

Or might something more substantial been made of why we should laugh at them – in their time, or in our time of international mayhem?  In 1941 British and American audiences could make the connections for themselves.  Maybe today we need a bit of help – unless like me, you were there at the time.

Don’t miss REP’s Blithe Spirit, which is very stylishly done.  But don’t be afraid to wonder what it means in today’s Trumpian world.


Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Magic Realism at CIMF - Canberra International Music Festival

 

 

Magic Realism at CIMF.  Presented by TURA, Canberra International Music Festival and The Street, with recorded Soundbed Performers, at The Street Theatre, Canberra.

Part 1        O Spectabiles Viri
Part 2        Mungangga Garlagula

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 1


Because, over my four-score years and four, I have never had formal training or education in music, I respond to the sound of music in an unsophisticated immediate emotional way.

Viewed as offerings in an International Music Festival, both O Spectabiles Viri and Mungangga Garlagula are interesting as examples of unusual music presentations, but from my point of view as a theatre critic they were both less effective than they might have been.

Since there did not seem to be any particular connection between the two items in the evening’s program, I’ll discuss them separately.

In each case, though, I heard not just the music but saw a performer presenting us with a show of their own devising: Jane Sheldon in the role of the early 12th Century European composer Hildegard von Bingen; Mark Atkins in the role of a lonely travelling Aussie bushman camping out on country with a 60,000 year history.

Each had a co-creator/performer in Erkki Veltheim, with backstage support from a dramaturg, Ruth Little; a lighting designer, Niklas Pajanti; and set/costume designer, Emily Barrie – plus a team of recorded musicians from Soundbed Performers; engineers and management from the Tura Production team; technicians from The Street; and overall production management from CIMF’s Joshua Robinson, who gave an introductory speech.

I have read about Hildegard, who was clearly a forceful feisty woman in her day, 1098 – 1179, as a “German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages”, according to Wikipedia.  

She obviously organised everybody in sight, and yet it still took until 2012 before Pope Benedict XVI declared her to be a saint.

I found Jane Sheldon’s performance of Hildegard’s music essentially sad, rather than uplifting, and I wondered if our modern concerns about women’s glass ceiling were influencing what seemed to be Hildegard’s frustration when more expansive moments in the singing more or less died away – often into silence.  Too much in the 15 minutes was time waiting for a new development to happen, which in the end never eventuated.  

I read up more about Hildegard after hearing Jane’s piece, and felt Hildegard would have insisted on more action.  Or perhaps Jane was representing that thousand years’ wait for canonisation.

Mark Atkins’ un-named bushman (I think – or perhaps I missed his name in some of the muffled speaking into the microphone) was a very different story.
 
Though I was a naive invading Pom as a teenager, I was a regular overnight bushwalker most of my life, including in outback Queensland.  But it was in Far-West New South Wales, in Broken Hill country where I actually saw the MinMin lights he speaks of as mysterious spiritual connections to the old country of his traditions.

I saw them one time following down along a station property wire fence.  On another occasion, they were less like a light-bulb, more like a lighted mist, floating down a creekbed in Mootawingee.  And I spoke to a woman who had been frightened by a big bright MinMin following close beside her car while driving towards Broken Hill from the South Australian border.

I’m sorry to say, in response to the spiritual idea, that the scientific story was they are examples of static electricity forming between layers of different temperature air.

Though I found Mark’s characterisation a bit of an odd mix between old whiteman bushman stories and Aboriginal tradition. I heard bushwacker stories around the campfire – sometimes between my mouthorgan accompaniment to Click Go The Shears –  but I could only be amazed at Mark's dramatic performances on the didgeridoo.

The pace of his total presentation, even accounting for the old man bush character, was rather too slow for me, but his sounds of the didgeridoo brought his work to life.

And this is what a Festival is for – to bring out the unusual, where magic and realism meet in a 12th Century chant or the rhythm of an ancient didgeridoo.

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Stars in 3D - Dance Week

 

 

Stars in 3D.  The Stellar Company at Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra.

Featuring the Chamaeleon Collective with special guests Hilal Dance Australia.

Director, Producer & Film Editing: Liz Lea
Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Technical Consultant: Craig Dear
Social Media: Olivia Wikner
Auslan Interpreter: Brett Olzen

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 30



Stars in 3D is a meditation in dance, audio and video, on our place in the universe.  

Unpretentious in performance and design, yet warm-hearted, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally positive, being present in the moment is much more than merely watching as an audience.  It’s like taking part in an important ritual cultural celebration – of true scientific understanding.

Diversity – even down to the varied number of protons, neutrons or electrons in a simple atom like helium – is what makes our universe what it is; just as we each are individually different yet come together to create new generations.

The story of our universe is represented symbolically in the choreography.  We see the amorphous gas being drawn together by gravity to form stars; the formation of galaxies, twin stars and black holes; culminating in the mathematics of the Golden Ratio in the Fibonacci spiral – the dance of the universe -  in “Legs: A joyful and empowering dance piece performed by a group of mostly senior women. Set to a song that celebrates their resilience and spirit, it’s a tribute to their love of movement, sense of fun, and refusal to stop dancing—at any age.”

The integration of video – from real astronomy, backing, or often surrounding, the dancers on stage, to scenes of the dancers on screen combined with those on stage – accompanied by an enormous array of sounds, music and song, was a highly original approach to using theatrical space (pun intended).

After the show, 3D headsets can take you further, by linking to your smart phone, into experiencing your place in our all encompassing universe.

For me, two important themes come to mind.  

First is the essential place of women in our understanding of living in this universe, as they are the elements of physical change – not just symbolically but in actuality.  The family groups with their children enjoying the dancing in such an enthusiastic atmosphere were a special feature of my experience last night.

Second, and equally significant, is the realisation that Art and Science are unified in our amazing human capacity for imagination.  They work together in this show, placing us thoughtfully where we belong, however briefly, in ‘our’ universe, where we have proven Einstein’s maths predicting gravity waves to be real – with the strong possibility that this universe, of which we can see only some 5%, may return to a singularity and explode again into another different universe in an infinite series.

WOW!  What a show this is!



Creatives and Performers:

Link to the Full Program, with details of performers, films and computer simulations.

 

For an equally fascinating but different angle on our understanding of mathematics, read how we (in this case mainly men in the form of ancient Indian Buddhist monks) 'invented' the idea of 0.  

From a philosophy of meditating in a state of 'nothingness' came the idea of counting needing to include a number in the space between +1 and -1.  Without zero, Einstein could never have made the calculations to prove the existence of the universal force we call gravity.

 The history is recounted from the time of Buddha, about 450 BCE, to the present day in another work of art - The Golden Road, How Ancient India Transformed The World - by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury 2024).

 

The Stars in 3D in action
Photo by O&J Wikner Photography

 Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

Romeo and Juliet, Daramalan College

 

Romeo and Juliet Written by William Shakespeare, adapted by Tony Allan.  Directed and designed by Joe Woodward.

The Joe Woodward Theatre, Issoudun Performing Arts Centre, Daramalan College, Canberra.  26 and 30 April and 1, 2, 3 May at 7.00pm and 3 May at 1.00pm

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 26




William Shakespeare almost certainly attended the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford-upon-Avon until he was 14 or 15. This grammar school, just like Enfield Grammar School which I attended in the 1950s, was a free school, supported by Queen Elizabeth I, for boys and was located near his family's home.  

Though I studied his Henry IV and played the young Prince Hal when I was 13, William may well have read the story of Romeo and Juliet, about the families and the tragic results of their parents’ enmity in Verona, which was well-known in Italy for 100 years before his birth in April 1564.  

Possibly based on truth, it was first published as a short story written by Tommaso Guardati in 1476, as a novel by Luigi da Porto in the 1530s, in another version by Matteo Bandello in the 1550s, and then translated into French and English, in the form of a poem, by Arthur Brooke: The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which William Shakespeare adapted for the theatre when he was aged 30 in 1594.

Now in the Internet Age you can begin more research by going to www.veronissima.com/en/romeo-juliet-true-story.html (and have a look at Enfield Grammar School https://www.enfieldgrammar.org )

I tell you this to give the modern Australian young people a sense of the literary and theatre tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his plays 400 years ago (and still in the English tradition of my day, at least, some 70 years ago.)  This is to be in keeping with Drama Teacher/Director, Joe Woodward’s intention that “DTC’s new theatre production of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a rare Hermetic presentation to create a total theatre experience of drama, music, media, interactive entertainment, food and drink and visual art.”  

And indeed all these elements were there, with many in the audience seated at cafe tables, and a bar in the foyer beforehand, at interval, and after the show.  I did look up the meaning of ‘hermetic’ – “complete and airtight /  or, relating to occult tradition encompassing alchemy, astrology, and theosophy.”

I’m not sure all of that was covered, but the design, music, audio-visuals, costumes and choreography of movement made for an interesting approach, while the measure of success was very much in the final scenes, where education in and through drama came to full strength.

This was achieved not by too much talk and show-off action in the vein of Romeo’s ‘mate’ Mercutio, but in the stillness and silences of the tomb, the recognition of the tragedy they have caused by the Montague and Capulet fathers, and a very important last image added in perhaps by Woodward as teacher/director – or hopefully by the students in a rehearsal workshop.

In my script, which I guess is the 1623 Folio version (there were 7 versions after William’s first effort), the play ends with no more than a homily from the Prince of Verona:

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

But in this presentation, in the silence following this speech, Juliet’s mother – never a pleasant parent before this moment – picks up her now dead daughter, aware now of the poison and the dagger, and lays her down, down stage almost amongst the tables of food and drink, and holds her Juliet there, in tears. As the lights dim to blackout.

William has, of course, castigated the men throughout the play for their insistence on their ‘right’ to win at all costs, but Shakespeare still left those men in charge.  

In this largely gender-blind casting, these modern young Australians have taken up the rights of women in that one powerful ending moment.  This is learning through drama in action of the best educational kind.

Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt
Act III, Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet
Daramalan College, 2025

 

Mother, Nurse, Juliet, Capulet Father
Act III, Scene 5
Daramalan College, Romeo and Juliet 2025

 Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

2025: Sophocles' Antigone - Greek Theatre Now, Canberra

 

 

Antigone by Sophocles, translated by Ian Johnston (Vancouver Island University, Canada).  Greek Theatre Now at Burbidge Amphitheatre, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra. April 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Cast
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus – Ella Buckley
Ismene, daughter of Oedipus, sister of Antigone – Sienna Curnow
Creon, King of Thebes – Ian Russell
Eurydice, wife of Creon – Sarah Hull
Haemon, son of Creon and Eurydice, engaged to Antigone – Alastair McKenzie
Teiresias, an old blind prophet – Michael J Smith
Guard, a soldier serving Creon – Justice-Noah Malfitano
Messenger – Crystal Mahon
Chorus Leader I – Neil McLeod
Chorus Leader II – Kate Eisenberg
Chorus, people of Thebes – Jessica Beange, Samuel Thomson, Selene Thomson, Sarah Hull, Justice-Noah Malfitano, Crystal Mahon, Alastair McKenzie, Sienna Curnow, Michael J Smith

Creatives
Graphic Designer / Photographer – Carl Davies
Costume Designer – Tania Jobson
Movement Director – Lachlan Ruffy
Director / Designer – Cate Clelland

Producer – Michael J Smith



Greek Theatre Now has the right show, in the right place, and on this Good Friday, the right weather.

Creon’s belief that being king gives him absolute power, never to be challenged by ordinary citizens, because good and stable government depends on having one man in charge, is a theme very relevant to the democracy / autocracy warfare by arms or in trade happening today.

His belief that men are superior to women is an equally relevant issue.

Though this amphitheatre is small by Ancient Greek standards in 440 BCE, Sophocles would be pleased with the acoustic quality here – as good as I was amazed to experience at Delphi, with its seating for 4,500! – and with the added advantage of so much more intimate contact with the audience here.

When Antigone confronts her expected to be father-in-law with “YES”, and tells him what-for in no uncertain terms why she broke his law, we felt for her, along with our friends in the Chorus.

And like them, we could see the different sides of the political argument and try to work out what was the truth, where was justice if the law was unjust, and when standing up for human rights is necessary, despite the personal consequences.

The small scale of this production, and clarity of this modern translation, made me feel that I was sitting near Sophocles and feeling along with him how exciting it was to see the message getting through.

I’m sure he was pleased with all of the actors, perhaps especially with Ella Buckley who made her Antigone such a force to be reckoned with; and impressed with Michael J Smith’s contrasting roles both in acting and in producing the show.

He also could see how definitively Cate Clelland had directed and shaped the performance – and surely was as concerned as all of us were for her brief episode of ill-health, with sincere hopes for her quick recovery.  Cate is one of Canberra’s long-standing and experienced directors and deserves a special acclamation for her work on Antigone.

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

 

Ratburger by Maryam Master, based on the book by David Walliams

 

 

Ratburger by Maryam Master, based on the book by David Walliams.  Canberra Theatre, April 15-16, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Creative Team

Director: Liesel Badorrek
Designer: Isla Shaw
Lighting Director: Jasmine Rizk
Sound Designer: Ross Johnston
Video Producer: Mic Gruchy

Cast

Zoe: Jade Fuda
Burt: Nicholas Hiatt
Albie: Mason Maenzanise
Tina/Sheila: Billie Palin
Dad/Mr Grave: Christopher Tomkinson
Understudies: Connor Banks Griffith, Hannah Wood

Watching Ratburger as I am in my second childhood, I feel more frightened than when reading any of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales in my first.  I’m sure Zoe’s step-mother in Ratburger is closely related to both Gretel’s mother and the wicked witch in the Hansel and Gretel story.

Reading the Grimm’s dark stories was a calm and thoughtful experience for me in my first childhood – as I hope it is for eight-year olds reading Walliams today – but this presentation of Ratburger on stage is loud audially and visually, turning the essential dark story into a kind of black comic satire.

This is what frightens me.  The set and video design is absolutely fascinating, intriguing to watch, drawing in even the toddlers in the audience.  The choreography is fast, theatrical and often funny.  The amplified voices range from loud to screaming, and cannot be ignored. The images are designed to create curiosity, especially about how the shadow effects are done – including when Zoe’s step-mother and Burt the Burgerman cause her father’s final divorce as they race each other off and into his grinding machine.  

The puppetry is exquisite.  The dialogue is full of ‘woke’ phrases.  And then we adults understand the satire.  

The young will only see the horror of nasty grown-up untrustworthy woman  and conniving even criminal man making burgers from rats, as they break up Zoe’s family again; and Zoe’s incompetent but loving man – the father she loves – coming good and helping save her favourite rat from the grinder.  

If they are old enough, they may see the extreme presentation as funny. In the performance I saw there were not many laughs.  Middling youngsters laughed at obvious gags (words and in actions); some adults laughed at the ‘woke’ dialogue; little youngsters mainly watched with little apparent reaction; some fiddled with the cushions they were given to lift them high enough to see the stage.

As an example of responsible theatre for children, it concerns me that those too young to cotton on to the satire will remember family breakdown and how unloving adult women behave; and will pick up on the sentimental message of the girl saving the rat despite everything, (and learning to like the girl next door, but only after she has apologised).

In my role as a grown up, I see the play for what it is – a satire of the tragedy of life where divorce is increasingly common and there are plenty of rats who make burgers from rats.  

But I think Master’s play is more for adult education than for children.  I haven’t had the opportunity to read the book by David Walliams, but hope children who read it may respond as I did to the Grimm Brothers’ fairy stories.


Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

 

2025: Henry 5 - Bell Shakespeare

 

 

Henry 5  Bell Shakespeare, Canberra Theatre Centre, Playhouse, April 11 - 20, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 11

Cast

King Henry: JK Kazzi; Dauphin: Jack Halabi
Westmoreland: Alex Kirwan; Alice/Messenger:Odile Le Clezio
Katherine/Boy: Ava Madon; Michael Williams/Scroop: Harrison Mills
Exeter: Ella Prince; King of France/Canterbury/French Soldier: Jo Turner
Montjoy: Mararo Wangai;
Grey/English Soldier/Understudy: Rishab Kern
Grey/English Soldier/Understudy: Ziggy Resnick

Creatives

Director: Marion Potts
Set & Costume Designer: Anna Tregloan
Composer & Sound Designer: Jenthro Woodward
Movement, Intimacy & Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Voice Director: Jack Starkey-Gill
Stage Manager: Sean Proude

The action begins in preparation for the Battle of Agincourt

In a highly original approach to Shakespeare’s asking for our indulgence for two hours, Marion Potts has made Henry V – the third in the Henry IV and V set – fit neatly into 1 hour 50 minutes with no interval:

Act 1, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 1, Scene 1: London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace.
Act 1, Scene 2: The same. The Presence chamber.

Act 2, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 2, Scene 1: London. A street.
Act 2, Scene 2: Southampton. A council-chamber.
Act 2, Scene 3: London. Before a tavern.
Act 2, Scene 4: France. The KING'S palace.

Act 3, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 3, Scene 1: France. Before Harfleur.
Act 3, Scene 2: The same.
Act 3, Scene 3: The same. Before the gates.
Act 3, Scene 4: The FRENCH KING's palace.
Act 3, Scene 5: The same.
Act 3, Scene 6: The English camp in Picardy.
Act 3, Scene 7: The French camp, near Agincourt:

Act 4, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 4, Scene 1: The English camp at Agincourt.
Act 4, Scene 2: The French camp.
Act 4, Scene 3: The English camp.
Act 4, Scene 4: The field of battle.
Act 4, Scene 5: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 6: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 7: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 8: Before KING HENRY'S pavilion.

Act 5, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 5, Scene 1: France. The English camp.
Act 5, Scene 2: France. A royal palace.

And it works a treat, because it concentrates the play into realising our understanding of the real autocrat behind the playboy Prince Hal.  He doesn’t become this just because he becomes King Harry.  He just is a coercive control freak, which director Marion Potts makes clear in the final scene of enforced acceptance by the French Princess Katherine that he “loves” her.

Katharine has no real choice

 The great thing about this production, in addition to Nigel Poulton’s marvellous impact as Movement, Intimacy & Fight Director, is the clarity of the voices – in French as well as English – achieved by Jack Starkey-Gill’s directing.  Instead of speaking in standard Shakespearian stage English like in the Olivier film of the 1940s, everyone from the King down makes absolutely sure that whoever they are talking to – including us – understand exactly what they mean.

If you thought this theatrically choreographed version, in modern dress, is just a “modern” interpretation to make Shakespeare “new”, you’ll find yourself surprised, especially through the character of Prologue, how modern Shakespeare was in his time – for he clearly shows how manipulative and self-serving dictators are; in this case in the Plantaganet/Tudor family of his very Queen.

How prescient he was, when we look around the world today, when we see men in power pushing on to win Battles of Agincourt in real wars as well as trade wars in our nightly news.

Bell Shakespeare has made Henry 5 out of Henry V, an exciting and important contribution to our thinking about politics – democratic and autocratic; about the anti-humane character of warfare; and about the destruction of personal worth and integrity, at the individual level – especially, but not only, for women.

This a Bell Shakespeare production which should tour world-wide.

King Harry incognito, pretending to be a common man,
while gathering intelligence.

 

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Pirates of Penzance - Hayes Theatre

 

 

 

 

 The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan, “re-wired and re-booted” by Hayes Theatre Company (Sydney) at Canberra Theatre Centre, The Playhouse, April 2-6 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 3

    
Cast & Creatives

Starring
Trevor Jones as The Major-General and more
Jay Laga’aia as The Pirate King and more
Brittanie Shipway as Ruth, Mabel and more
Maxwell Simon as Frederic and more
Billie Palin as Isabel, Barry and more/onstage swing

Director Richard Carroll
Co-Arranger & Musical Supervisor Victoria Falconer
Musical Director and Co-Arranger Trevor Jones
Assistant Director & Choreographer Shannon Burns
Set Designer Nick Fry
Costume Designer Lily Mateljan
Lighting Designer Jasmine Rizk
Sound Designer Daniel Herten
Production Manager Abbey Pace
Stage Manager Sherydan Simson

Hayes Theatre has brought the most rambunctious, humorous, outrageous production of The Pirates of Penzance from exciting Sydney to cautious Canberra – to a standing laughing cheering ovation.

Don’t miss it if you dare, or you’ll have nothing to talk about in your 3 days in the office.

The point is, of course, that The P of P is a political satire, and the Hayes’ rewiring makes not too subtle but plenty of LOL connections with the pirates of today, while telling the complex story of the moral dilemmas of the orphan Frederic learning proper behaviour.  It could all be happening in Parliament House where Frederic, after battles and promises to marry, finally realises he is really a teal independent simply asking for conflicts of interest to be dealt with through reasonable diplomatic discussion.

Google AI tells me: The Pirates of Penzance was written by the famous duo, with the libretto by W.S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan in 1879. It premiered with a single performance in Paignton, England, on 30th December 1879 and had its official debut in New York the next day, where it was an instant hit.

Penzance is a pretty bay very near the end of Cornwall in UK, a nice little harbour town remote enough for real pirates, while Paignton is easterly, just along the south coast where I used to holiday as a child and learned nice manners, just like Frederic.  G&S for me was quite gentle social satire, rather like a good David Williamson in Australia today.

But their secondary title, The Slave of Duty, had and still has much more significance.  Wikipedia tells us: The Third Socialist Workers' Congress of France was held in Marseille, France, in 1879. At this congress the socialist leaders rejected both cooperation and anarchism, both of which would allow the existing regime to continue, and adopted a program based on collectivism. The congress also adopted a motion that women should have equal rights to men, but several delegates felt that essentially woman's place was in the home…. The congress has been called a triumph of Guesdism and the birthplace of French Marxist socialism.
[  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers%27_Congress_(1879)  ]

And there are all the clues in The Pirates of Penzance.  Frederic becomes a socialist, just as did my parents and therefore I did in the following half century.  

This is where, in the Hayes’ Re-wiring, we stop laughing.  They give an extra solo to Frederic to end the operetta, about his new understanding: we must not allow ourselves to be slaves to duty when the powers that be command you to kill.  

Though G&S could not be so direct in their day, this is what they imply in making fun of the assumption that pirates are all lower class who must kill the upper class to keep their thieving business profitable; and that Major-Generals and Police should therefore imprison and kill all pirates.

Frederic, the orphan pirate, and Mabel, the upper class sophisticated daughter of the Major-General, love each other – a symbol of peace without violence.

Laugh out loud along with Misters Gilbert and Sullivan, and enjoy Hayes Theatre’s genuinely funny – and powerfully performed – theatre.  But take seriously the finale:

Poor wandering ones!
Though ye have surely strayed,
Take heart of grace,
Your steps retrace,
Poor wandering ones!
Poor wandering ones!
If such poor love as ours
Can help you find
True peace of mind,
Why, take it, it is yours!

Maxwell Simon as Frederic and Brittanie Shipway as Mabel
in The Pirates of Penzance
Hayes Theatre 2025

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  Based on the novel by Mark Haddon; adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens.  Mockingbird Theatre Company, Canberra, at Belconnen Arts Centre, March 20 – April 5 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 1

CAST:
Christopher (at certain performances) – Wajanoah Donohoe
Christopher (at certain performances) – Ethan Wiggin
Siobhan – Leah Peel Griffiths; Ed – Richard Manning; Judy – Claire White
Ensemble – Travis Beardsley, Callum Doherty, Peter Fock, Meg Hyam, Anthony Mayne, Tracy Noble
with a special appearance from Phineas Baldock

PRODUCTION TEAM:
Director/Designer – Chris Baldock; Assistant Director – Stephanie Evans
Stage Manager – Rhiley Winnett
Lighting Design – Rhiley Winnett and Chris Baldock
Projections Design – Matt Kizer; Projection Realisation & Operation – Rhiley Winnett
Music Composer – Matt Friedman; Costumes and Props – Chis Baldock and cast
Autism Lived Experience Consultants – Jacob Alfonso and Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor
Rehearsal Prompt – Liz St Clair Long



The calculation of the square of the hyptenuse of a right angled triangle is the image which informs this thoughtful presentation of The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time.  

Though the drama of the life of Christopher John Francis Boone, accurately characterised by Wajanoah Donohoe, is not exactly exciting in a conventional theatrical way – since the central character has no empathetic capacity – we find ourselves watching the story play out at some ‘distance’ emotionally.  Rather like Christopher himself, we seem to be objectively observing a documentary about adults as parents and neighbours, including their rearrangements of sexual relations, and how difficult life therefore is for a seriously autistic child, at the stage of achieving the highest score possible in Mathematics on his way from high school to university.

Intellectual determination to complete his knowledge of mysteries, from who killed the dog in next door’s garden to the explanation of Pythagoras’ theorem is the central feature of Christopher’s life.  

So, physically, Baldock and the Design Team have us sitting in straight rows on three sides of a square, watching highly stylised acting-out of the story, in terms of choreography and costume design, surrounded by large rectangular projections of words, and even mathematics, and images of practical things like trains which illustrate the action in a Christopher-like way.

And then we discover the final ruse.  We are watching in real time Siobhan and Christopher creating a play for us to understand what happened in the past, especially including how difficult Christopher’s built-in need to only always speak the truth had been for his parents, and the reasonable resolution of their lives which was achieved.

So the play within a play parallels what the theatre company is doing – artfully creating the words of a novel in living form.  This extra level is emphasised in Baldock’s production by the abstract white costuming for the Ensemble, rather than having the characters dressed in normal street clothes. 

Wajanoah Donohue and ensemble in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Photo: Chris Baldock

 This play is not presented as ‘naturalism’, but in a form designed to illustrate the issue of how being autistic, despite one’s intelligence, is fraught with difficult situations and often unfair treatment – even when other people understand that you can’t not behave in the frustrating, for them, way you do.  

Rather than presenting this now famous play with the razzamatazz of the Grand Tour by the National Theatre of Great Britain which I reviewed (on this blog) June 2018, Baldock brings the play down to size, and in doing so leaves me with a more simple focus on the issue as it is for so many people ‘on the spectrum’.

And Wajanoah’s explanation of the proof of the Pythagoras theorem – after the curtain call, as if he was Christopher but somehow out of role – was terrific.

Thank you, Mockingbird.


©Frank McKone, Canberra
 

2025: The Glass Menagerie - Ensemble Theatre

 

 

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, March 21 – April 26, 2025.
Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 29

Cast & Creatives

    Tennessee Williams. Playwright. ...
    Liesel Badorrek. Director. ...
    Danny Ball. Cast - Tom Wingfield. ...
    Blazey Best. Cast - Amanda Wingfield. ...
    Bridie McKim. Cast - Laura Wingfield. ...
    Tom Rodgers. Cast - Jim O'Connor. ...
    Grace Deacon. Set & Costume Designer. ...
    Verity Hampson. Lighting Designer.
Photos by Prudence Upton

Blazey Best, Bridie McKim, Danny Ball
as Amanda Wingfield, daughter Laura, son Tom
The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025
Photo: Prudence Upton

Do your very best to get to Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, on the Harbour at Kirribilli, no matter what the weather, for their production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.  You have till April 26th.  It’s a classic.

How ironic is my shock as actor Tom Rodgers, as the smartly brylcreemed “gentleman caller” Jim, clumsily trying to dance with crippled terribly shy Laura, knocks over and smashes her beautiful but fragile glass model rearing horse (or rather, unicorn).  The whole audience gasped as one; and were horrified again as her brother Tom (Danny Ball in a consistently steady performance) threw another handful of precious glass, smashing it into the image of the face of his father; and like me were in tears for Bridie McKim’s delicately played Laura, left alone in her crippled world.

Bridie McKim and Blazey Best
The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre, 2025

 

Bridie McKim as Laura and Tom Rodgers as Jim O'Connor
in The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025

Why is the power of this wonderful Ensemble Theatre production, so ironic?  On the very day as I watched The Glass Menagerie, in The Saturday Paper, Rick Morton was quoting from “the questionnaire sent by US officials to Australian researchers and institutions, seeking to determine whether their work complied with Donald Trump’s promise to cut funding from projects that support a ‘woke’ agenda.”

“Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] project, or DEI elements of the project?”

How even more ironic is it that Tennessee Williams’ character, gentleman caller Jim, is described by brother Tom when they were at high school, as so popular that within five years he could have become the President of America!  And now, at 22, like Tom, he works in an Amazon-like warehouse, and is soon to marry Betty.

So sorry, Laura.  

As I write, the Australian Broadcasting Commission is reporting on the problem of “boys’ culture” made so much worse by social media today. Has nothing changed since 1944?  Then, Tennessee Williams sent the boys like Laura’s father in the Depression and now her brother in wartime off to seek “adventure”, leaving their women frantic – like her mother, Amanda Wingfield, played to perfection by Blazey Best.  

So the final irony as I see it is that theatre, as produced by Ensemble Theatre, shows us the heights of human empathy in the teamwork of wonderful actors, and of human intelligence and understanding in the work of director Liesel Badorrek and her team of designers, set makers and stage managers, in presenting a great American tragedy of failing human relationships, just as true in this century as a century ago.

Theatre may be an illusion, but this work reveals the truth of how our real world is still no more than a collection of beautiful but yet so fragile possibilities, so easily accidentally knocked over – or so deliberately smashed by Presidents seeking adventure.  

Tennessee Williams saw World War 2 as the result of economic depression – a way of escape for the boys (though, in another irony not covered in his play, often a way into work for women, at least while the fighting continued).  It’s not unreasonable to expect that tragedy may be repeated in World War 3.  The Glass Menagerie is not just, as Ensemble Theatre says, “Williams’ timeless portrait of a shattered family” but an image of a shattered humanity.

Unfortunately President Donald Trump’s approach to theatre on The Apprentice surely means he sees Tennessee Williams as ‘woke’; and his performance in the White House attempting to intimidate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – who actually ironically has been a seriously successful professional satirical comedian – showed Trump to be the worst kind of ham actor, dangerous because he has no self awareness.

So we ordinary people are left like Laura to a seemingly unfulfilling future.  But the strength of Ensemble’s production of The Glass Menagerie can be measured by the depth of the silence achieved by Danny Ball and Bridie McKim in the moment which ends the play.  Theatre of this outstanding quality makes life worthwhile, no matter what.

Bridie McKim as Laura
in The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025
Photo: Prudence Upton

©Frank McKone, Canberra