Not Axel Harrison by Sam
Floyd. Freshly Ground Theatre at The Street Two, November 26 – December
5 2009 (excluding Sundays and Mondays) at 8pm.
Freshly
Ground Theatre has carved a small but attractive niche in Canberra’s
theatrical architecture. The company is the vehicle for the writer Sam
Floyd, whose work continues to show flair in this, their third,
production.
Not Axel Harrison is a parody of the
gangster movie genre in which the hit man Axel Harrison (Tom Watson) is
killed by his intended victim,Chris, a non-violent florist (Chris Brain)
who disguises himself as Harrison not only to avoid detection as a
murderer but to escape the attention of the gangster loan-shark Poncioni
(David MacNamara)to whom he owes a large sum, which is why Poncioni had
sent Harrison.
At this point the plot, involving the
non-appearing Bruce (apparently already killed by Harrison), the
dim-witted bodyguard Val (Adam Salter), Poncioni’s sexy aggressive
daughter Donna (Becky Bergman), Micky the Mule (Jack Dyball), and the
corrupt cop in Poncioni’s pocket, Spiegel (Daniel McCusker), follows a
constantly twisted line of logic which should not be revealed here:
better to see the play and be surprised. Suffice to say, farce is the
order of the day.
The performances varied in strength,
with the commendations going to McNamara and Salter. But the generation
X, Y or Z audience was not looking for highly polished acting from a
cast of their peers. It was the dialogue and plot which carried the
laughs, making for a successful light entertainment.
Floyd’s
work has antecedents in Joe Orton’s Loot and Tom Stoppard’s The Real
Inspector Hound. Both those writers had the advantage of being able to
participate in the British repertory and university traditions in their
day. Freshly Ground’s niche is in this mould, but Canberra cannot boast
the equivalent of the Cambridge University Footlights, the progenitor
of much zany British comedy since the 1960s.
Maybe this
is the time for Floyd and those around him to take up where Elbow
Theatre left off and build our own Capital new wave of original young
writers.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 27 November 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
2009: Porcelain by Chay Yew.
Porcelain by Chay Yew.
Director: Beng Oh. Lighting Designer: Nick Merrylees. Cast: Keith Brockett (John Lee); Colin MacPherson (Voice One/Dr Worthing); Nicholas Barker-Pendree (Voice Two/Mr Lee); Paul David-Goddard (Voice Three/Alan White); Leon Dürr (Voice Four/William Hope).
At The Street Theatre Studio, Canberra, 3-7 November 2009 (original production at La Mama, Melbourne, 2008)
This production of Porcelain, about a gay relationship which turns sour and results in a tragic death, was presented at The Street in its most spare form. Just five plain chairs, John Lee in the centre surrounded by red paper cranes more of which he continues to make throughout the play.
This was Chay Yew’s first play, from 1993. His imagery is strongly reminiscent of Kathryn Schultz Miller’s A Thousand Cranes, a play for children which tells the true and poignant story of Sadako Saki’s battle against radiation sickness after the Hiroshima bomb and the tradition of folding origami miniatures according to which if a sick person folds a thousand cranes, the gods will grant her a wish and make her healthy. Is John Lee sick? Can, or should, the prison psychiatrist find him unfit to plead on a murder charge?
But it is the dialogue which still brings the horror to life. All five actors are seated with little movement except on one occasion when John Lee is caressed by his lover. Now I am reminded of that other play for voices, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. Though famous as a BBC radio play, its first performance was recorded by five actors standing on stage at the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association, Manhattan, in 1953. As the Reverend Eli Jenkins, Thomas made the only movement, stepping forward to declaim his morning prayer. Porcelain and Under Milk Wood are entirely different plays, yet the quality of the interplay between the voices is the strength in both cases, and it is to Beng Ho’s credit that he maintains that focus, avoiding the temptation to represent action physically. As is often the case in good theatre, less is more.
Especially well done in the performance I saw was the exposure of the conflicts and compromises made in the dialogue between the television interviewer and the prison psychiatrist, all happening on the sidelines of the real story of what John Lee did and why. Not only is the play worth seeing for its only too human story, but this production successfully worked our feelings and our intellects in coming to terms with the complexities of destructive relationships.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Director: Beng Oh. Lighting Designer: Nick Merrylees. Cast: Keith Brockett (John Lee); Colin MacPherson (Voice One/Dr Worthing); Nicholas Barker-Pendree (Voice Two/Mr Lee); Paul David-Goddard (Voice Three/Alan White); Leon Dürr (Voice Four/William Hope).
At The Street Theatre Studio, Canberra, 3-7 November 2009 (original production at La Mama, Melbourne, 2008)
This production of Porcelain, about a gay relationship which turns sour and results in a tragic death, was presented at The Street in its most spare form. Just five plain chairs, John Lee in the centre surrounded by red paper cranes more of which he continues to make throughout the play.
This was Chay Yew’s first play, from 1993. His imagery is strongly reminiscent of Kathryn Schultz Miller’s A Thousand Cranes, a play for children which tells the true and poignant story of Sadako Saki’s battle against radiation sickness after the Hiroshima bomb and the tradition of folding origami miniatures according to which if a sick person folds a thousand cranes, the gods will grant her a wish and make her healthy. Is John Lee sick? Can, or should, the prison psychiatrist find him unfit to plead on a murder charge?
But it is the dialogue which still brings the horror to life. All five actors are seated with little movement except on one occasion when John Lee is caressed by his lover. Now I am reminded of that other play for voices, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. Though famous as a BBC radio play, its first performance was recorded by five actors standing on stage at the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association, Manhattan, in 1953. As the Reverend Eli Jenkins, Thomas made the only movement, stepping forward to declaim his morning prayer. Porcelain and Under Milk Wood are entirely different plays, yet the quality of the interplay between the voices is the strength in both cases, and it is to Beng Ho’s credit that he maintains that focus, avoiding the temptation to represent action physically. As is often the case in good theatre, less is more.
Especially well done in the performance I saw was the exposure of the conflicts and compromises made in the dialogue between the television interviewer and the prison psychiatrist, all happening on the sidelines of the real story of what John Lee did and why. Not only is the play worth seeing for its only too human story, but this production successfully worked our feelings and our intellects in coming to terms with the complexities of destructive relationships.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 30 October 2009
2009: Wil Anderson's Wilosophy
Wil Anderson's Wilosophy. Stand-up comedy, with Justin Hamilton, at The Playhouse, October 29-31.
It's hard to put your finger on Wil Anderson's G-spot. He claims that God has hidden it. As a warm-up (I suppose you could say foreplay) Justin Hamilton is good, yet he doesn't have Anderson's touch. Just as well. You wouldn't want the intro to outshine the main act. But Hamilton deserves credit for a professional act as well as an award for bravery.
It's the risk-taking that makes Anderson stand out. Not just by saying out loud words that confront even audience members less than half my age. Not only by satirising politicians, religious ideologues, and office workers probably like most people in the Canberra audience. Not even by accompanying his words with quite extraordinary physical actions and facial expressions.
What's exciting is how he interacts with his audience, often leading him into potential black holes which he amazingly escapes from, like a kind of mentally gymnastic Houdini. He is more than a skilled stand-up comic. He has enough art to play with the artform.
Then, in addition, there is a carefully constructed plan to each of the items of social criticism which constitute his "Wilosophy". Issues of the day are exposed as arguments, presented by characters we know from television and the press, including himself. The core of the humour is not from the occasional slapstick interjection, but from showing up public figures' lack of logic.
And, finally, Anderson brings a quality of human kindness into this critical mass, in his warm story of a Down Syndrome children's concert. If you missed him in Canberra last week, or in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Edinburgh during the last year, you can fly down south to Wrest Point Entertainment Centre in Hobart on Friday October 6 for a one-night stand. Why not?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
It's hard to put your finger on Wil Anderson's G-spot. He claims that God has hidden it. As a warm-up (I suppose you could say foreplay) Justin Hamilton is good, yet he doesn't have Anderson's touch. Just as well. You wouldn't want the intro to outshine the main act. But Hamilton deserves credit for a professional act as well as an award for bravery.
It's the risk-taking that makes Anderson stand out. Not just by saying out loud words that confront even audience members less than half my age. Not only by satirising politicians, religious ideologues, and office workers probably like most people in the Canberra audience. Not even by accompanying his words with quite extraordinary physical actions and facial expressions.
What's exciting is how he interacts with his audience, often leading him into potential black holes which he amazingly escapes from, like a kind of mentally gymnastic Houdini. He is more than a skilled stand-up comic. He has enough art to play with the artform.
Then, in addition, there is a carefully constructed plan to each of the items of social criticism which constitute his "Wilosophy". Issues of the day are exposed as arguments, presented by characters we know from television and the press, including himself. The core of the humour is not from the occasional slapstick interjection, but from showing up public figures' lack of logic.
And, finally, Anderson brings a quality of human kindness into this critical mass, in his warm story of a Down Syndrome children's concert. If you missed him in Canberra last week, or in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Edinburgh during the last year, you can fly down south to Wrest Point Entertainment Centre in Hobart on Friday October 6 for a one-night stand. Why not?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
2009: The Christian Brothers by Ron Blair
The Christian Brothers by Ron Blair. Performed by Bill Boyd, directed by Geoffrey Borny. Presented by Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Thursdays to Saturdays October 15-24, 8pm. Matinees: Friday 16th, Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd at 10am. Bookings: 6293 1443.
At its first production, 34 years ago, The Christian Brothers could easily be seen as an indictment of the Catholic Church. Today, the play remains a classic because Blair's writing reveals far more. The original message is not lost, as ex-Catholic school men in the audience showed by their reactions at the special preview last Wednesday. But the theme as we see it now is not about the Catholic faith, nor about a particular religious faith, not even about religious faith at all.
Geoffrey Borny had the good sense, as we would expect from someone of his professional standing and experience, to allow Bill Boyd time to let Blair's words seem to slip out of the mouth of The Brother, as if by accident rather than deliberate intention. Even though Boyd is not a great actor – I found myself imagining Geoffrey Rush in the role – the effect is powerful as we, being addressed as if in his class, gradually realise that this teacher is at breaking point. It is both frightening and sad.
The Brother's breakdown turns on the same issue we all face in the modern world, and indeed in times past as well as presumably in the future. How could it be, for example, that reconciliation with indigenous people was pushed aside in political power play in 2000 and still struggles to revive 10 years later? How could it be that people invented completely unsustainable forms of financial investment for their immediate gain but inevitably for longer term collapse? What has happened to moral integrity in a world replete with intellectual knowledge and technical capacity? As Borny notes, The Brother asks the question "What does it profit my pupils to pass exams in such subjects as Mathematics, English or History, if they suffer the loss of their immortal souls?"
At the end, as he paints a representation of bars of a tiny prison cell, we know that The Brother's loss of religious faith represents the bigger loss in us all of sincerity and ethical purpose. It's a credit to Tuggeranong Arts Centre that they offer strong theatre of this kind. Take the opportunity to see it.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
At its first production, 34 years ago, The Christian Brothers could easily be seen as an indictment of the Catholic Church. Today, the play remains a classic because Blair's writing reveals far more. The original message is not lost, as ex-Catholic school men in the audience showed by their reactions at the special preview last Wednesday. But the theme as we see it now is not about the Catholic faith, nor about a particular religious faith, not even about religious faith at all.
Geoffrey Borny had the good sense, as we would expect from someone of his professional standing and experience, to allow Bill Boyd time to let Blair's words seem to slip out of the mouth of The Brother, as if by accident rather than deliberate intention. Even though Boyd is not a great actor – I found myself imagining Geoffrey Rush in the role – the effect is powerful as we, being addressed as if in his class, gradually realise that this teacher is at breaking point. It is both frightening and sad.
The Brother's breakdown turns on the same issue we all face in the modern world, and indeed in times past as well as presumably in the future. How could it be, for example, that reconciliation with indigenous people was pushed aside in political power play in 2000 and still struggles to revive 10 years later? How could it be that people invented completely unsustainable forms of financial investment for their immediate gain but inevitably for longer term collapse? What has happened to moral integrity in a world replete with intellectual knowledge and technical capacity? As Borny notes, The Brother asks the question "What does it profit my pupils to pass exams in such subjects as Mathematics, English or History, if they suffer the loss of their immortal souls?"
At the end, as he paints a representation of bars of a tiny prison cell, we know that The Brother's loss of religious faith represents the bigger loss in us all of sincerity and ethical purpose. It's a credit to Tuggeranong Arts Centre that they offer strong theatre of this kind. Take the opportunity to see it.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 26 June 2009
2009: Baby Boomer Blues by Alan Becher
Note [to subeditor at the Canberra Times]: keep ampersands in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice – this was the original film title.
Baby Boomer Blues by Alan Becher. Perth Theatre Company at The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan until July 2. Bookings: www.theq.net.au
What a funny play! Amanda Crewes's Carol, who has been 39 for the last 5 years, bounces on and off Greg McNeill's 53 year-old Bob, so there's lots of funny ha-ha. This makes for an enjoyable evening. Certainly on opening night last Friday, baby boomers laughed and occasionally shuddered, as they recognised in themselves Bob having gone to the kitchen, and come out again without doing what he had gone there to do. This was not a senior moment, he claimed. But they all knew better. Viagra gets a mention, too. I'm sure they well remembered the 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, completely unknown to Gens X, Y or Z.
Bob is a traditional Australian joker – really quite old-fashioned, covering up his insecurities, more conservative than he thinks he is, not really quite up with his own generation (despite saying how great the Woodstock movie was) and needing to find something important to do with his life after years of disillusionment. It's hard at first to imagine why Carol became his third wife some time before she was 39. Perhaps it was his air of vulnerability that attracted her, and indeed it is through her efforts that their marriage does not fall apart, and Bob does make a real decision.
Dealing with these complexities of character and subtleties in the relationship is where Becher's writing is funny peculiar. Through the first half and some way into the second the play seems to be no more than light comedy, full of jokes and banter, even in argument scenes. Then suddenly the atmosphere changes and we are expected to take Bob and Carol's conflict very seriously. It switches again as they perform in the holiday island entertainment, and again as they go to volunteer their services in a good cause.
So the play turns out to be one of good intentions, a kind of romantic comedy with satirical possibilities, but too contrived for me to accept as a top quality work. Fortunately, Crewes and McNeill are up to the challenge, keeping the energy up, making the most of good timing and providing a neat night's entertainment.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Baby Boomer Blues by Alan Becher. Perth Theatre Company at The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan until July 2. Bookings: www.theq.net.au
What a funny play! Amanda Crewes's Carol, who has been 39 for the last 5 years, bounces on and off Greg McNeill's 53 year-old Bob, so there's lots of funny ha-ha. This makes for an enjoyable evening. Certainly on opening night last Friday, baby boomers laughed and occasionally shuddered, as they recognised in themselves Bob having gone to the kitchen, and come out again without doing what he had gone there to do. This was not a senior moment, he claimed. But they all knew better. Viagra gets a mention, too. I'm sure they well remembered the 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, completely unknown to Gens X, Y or Z.
Bob is a traditional Australian joker – really quite old-fashioned, covering up his insecurities, more conservative than he thinks he is, not really quite up with his own generation (despite saying how great the Woodstock movie was) and needing to find something important to do with his life after years of disillusionment. It's hard at first to imagine why Carol became his third wife some time before she was 39. Perhaps it was his air of vulnerability that attracted her, and indeed it is through her efforts that their marriage does not fall apart, and Bob does make a real decision.
Dealing with these complexities of character and subtleties in the relationship is where Becher's writing is funny peculiar. Through the first half and some way into the second the play seems to be no more than light comedy, full of jokes and banter, even in argument scenes. Then suddenly the atmosphere changes and we are expected to take Bob and Carol's conflict very seriously. It switches again as they perform in the holiday island entertainment, and again as they go to volunteer their services in a good cause.
So the play turns out to be one of good intentions, a kind of romantic comedy with satirical possibilities, but too contrived for me to accept as a top quality work. Fortunately, Crewes and McNeill are up to the challenge, keeping the energy up, making the most of good timing and providing a neat night's entertainment.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
2009: BELONGING: Australian Playwriting in the 20th Century. By John McCallum. Book review reproduced as published in the Canberra Times.
BELONGING: Australian Playwriting in the 20th Century. By John McCallum. Currency Press. 484pp. $49.95.
Reviewer: FRANK McKONE
It was Hannie Rayson who wrote Life After George and the well-known play and film Hotel Sorrento, each a powerful drama of conflicting relationships. But did you know she also wrote "a wild, rather elaborately plotted, satirical farce" – Competitive Tenderness – in which "Dawn Snow, a Thatcherite character who claims to have made her name reforming the Ugandan police service, is appointed CEO of the city of Greater Burke . . . There is a lot of mad business with a savage pit-bull terrier, owned by Dawn, and lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. It all ends in chaos, but with Dawn rising".
Not quite the Rayson I thought I knew. McCallum surprises on many occasions from 1912 (Louis Esson's The Time is Not Yet Ripe and the first stage version of Steele Rudd's On Our Selection) to the State Theatre Company of South Australia's 2004 adaptation of Robert Dessaix's novel, Night Letters, in which "all the characters were on stage, occupying the same space, but in different stories". As Robert, dying of an AIDS-related illness, sat writing his letters home from "Europe, with its crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past" he was "framed as if in a painting, and . . . the characters from his past moved with and around him. In the theatre ghosts are never ethereal, they are always present, bodies on stage".
McCallum is a Sydney-based academic, senior lecturer in the School of English, Media & Performing Arts at University of NSW, and also a long-standing and highly respected theatre reviewer for The Australian newspaper. I think I found the awful Performance Studies word "trope" only twice in over 400 pages. The rigour of his research is exemplary and he is not afraid to write in a clear, imaginative style befitting the directness of Australian theatrical playwriting and stage production.
The distinction between plays being written and plays being staged is of key importance to McCallum's purpose. He begins by pointing out that "For much of the twentieth century, Australian drama had very little to do with Australian theatre – local plays were not often performed". At the same time, by examining the storylines, theatrical styles, writers' themes and intentions, even of playscripts some of which were never performed, McCallum successfully develops the through-line of our culture: we are always concerned with the way we belong to our country.
Each phase, like a century-long 16-Act drama, represents a change in point of view, often opposing the previous period while growing from it, sometimes diverging into previously unexplored directions. At first sight Australian drama might look like it all ends in chaos, lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. But Dawn does rise as we have gone from separating ourselves from our colonial European crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past, establishing our own voice in the 1950s and '60s, waving not drowning in The New Wave, finding ourselves in the global scene, and diversifying our playwriting among all the kinds of intellectual, social and personal communities that are the Australian reality.
Chapter headings, like "Bush and city", "The new internationalism", "Immigrants and exiles", "Aboriginal theatre", may seem ordinary enough, but the excitement is in the detail. As McCallum describes each play, from a list 51 pages long, in the context of its time and place, with just enough larger analysis but never too much, gradually it dawns upon the reader what belonging is all about. It's not about sentimental flag-waving patriotism, not about believing in myths of heroism or defeat, ideals or failures. Belonging is about accepting, exploring, critically examining, appreciating and enjoying our place in the world just as we are.
The book has an important role as a compendium of Australian drama. It's a book to search through for the many plays which should be revived. It will be good, for example, to see Bran Nue Day again soon, hopefully with the same positive energy and humour on film as it had on stage. It's a book in which to fill in gaps between plays you have seen, read or read about, and so to understand, for example, the full impact of a playwright like Nick Enright.
And, much more than a compendium, it's a book written with feeling. However much we may fear for the future of our theatre, McCallum uses Dessaix's Night Letters to ground us in his conclusion. "At the end [Robert] returns home. He is dying. [His partner] Peter is preparing for a new life without him, but they are both still looking for an exultation based on being there in a place. Of belonging."
Frank McKone is a retired drama teacher and an occasional theatre reviewer for The Canberra Times. He is author of FIRST AUDITION How to get into drama school. Currency Press 2002.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Reviewer: FRANK McKONE
It was Hannie Rayson who wrote Life After George and the well-known play and film Hotel Sorrento, each a powerful drama of conflicting relationships. But did you know she also wrote "a wild, rather elaborately plotted, satirical farce" – Competitive Tenderness – in which "Dawn Snow, a Thatcherite character who claims to have made her name reforming the Ugandan police service, is appointed CEO of the city of Greater Burke . . . There is a lot of mad business with a savage pit-bull terrier, owned by Dawn, and lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. It all ends in chaos, but with Dawn rising".
Not quite the Rayson I thought I knew. McCallum surprises on many occasions from 1912 (Louis Esson's The Time is Not Yet Ripe and the first stage version of Steele Rudd's On Our Selection) to the State Theatre Company of South Australia's 2004 adaptation of Robert Dessaix's novel, Night Letters, in which "all the characters were on stage, occupying the same space, but in different stories". As Robert, dying of an AIDS-related illness, sat writing his letters home from "Europe, with its crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past" he was "framed as if in a painting, and . . . the characters from his past moved with and around him. In the theatre ghosts are never ethereal, they are always present, bodies on stage".
McCallum is a Sydney-based academic, senior lecturer in the School of English, Media & Performing Arts at University of NSW, and also a long-standing and highly respected theatre reviewer for The Australian newspaper. I think I found the awful Performance Studies word "trope" only twice in over 400 pages. The rigour of his research is exemplary and he is not afraid to write in a clear, imaginative style befitting the directness of Australian theatrical playwriting and stage production.
The distinction between plays being written and plays being staged is of key importance to McCallum's purpose. He begins by pointing out that "For much of the twentieth century, Australian drama had very little to do with Australian theatre – local plays were not often performed". At the same time, by examining the storylines, theatrical styles, writers' themes and intentions, even of playscripts some of which were never performed, McCallum successfully develops the through-line of our culture: we are always concerned with the way we belong to our country.
Each phase, like a century-long 16-Act drama, represents a change in point of view, often opposing the previous period while growing from it, sometimes diverging into previously unexplored directions. At first sight Australian drama might look like it all ends in chaos, lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. But Dawn does rise as we have gone from separating ourselves from our colonial European crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past, establishing our own voice in the 1950s and '60s, waving not drowning in The New Wave, finding ourselves in the global scene, and diversifying our playwriting among all the kinds of intellectual, social and personal communities that are the Australian reality.
Chapter headings, like "Bush and city", "The new internationalism", "Immigrants and exiles", "Aboriginal theatre", may seem ordinary enough, but the excitement is in the detail. As McCallum describes each play, from a list 51 pages long, in the context of its time and place, with just enough larger analysis but never too much, gradually it dawns upon the reader what belonging is all about. It's not about sentimental flag-waving patriotism, not about believing in myths of heroism or defeat, ideals or failures. Belonging is about accepting, exploring, critically examining, appreciating and enjoying our place in the world just as we are.
The book has an important role as a compendium of Australian drama. It's a book to search through for the many plays which should be revived. It will be good, for example, to see Bran Nue Day again soon, hopefully with the same positive energy and humour on film as it had on stage. It's a book in which to fill in gaps between plays you have seen, read or read about, and so to understand, for example, the full impact of a playwright like Nick Enright.
And, much more than a compendium, it's a book written with feeling. However much we may fear for the future of our theatre, McCallum uses Dessaix's Night Letters to ground us in his conclusion. "At the end [Robert] returns home. He is dying. [His partner] Peter is preparing for a new life without him, but they are both still looking for an exultation based on being there in a place. Of belonging."
Frank McKone is a retired drama teacher and an occasional theatre reviewer for The Canberra Times. He is author of FIRST AUDITION How to get into drama school. Currency Press 2002.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 12 June 2009
2009: Agamemnon by Aeschylus, adapted and directed by Rachel Hogan
Agamemnon by Aeschylus, adapted and directed by Rachel Hogan. WeThree at Belconnen Theatre, Belconnen Community Centre, June 10-13, 17-20 8pm and at Carey's Cave, Wee Jasper, June 14, 5pm (dinner and show packages available – bookings for this performance essential). Bookings: 6251 2981
2467 years ago, only 52 years after the last tyrant was expelled from ancient Athens by the new rich middle class, Aeschylus presented this play about the legendary King of Argos, Agamemnon, returning home after 10 years away, finally destroying the city of Troy where his brother's beautiful wife, also his wife's sister, Helen, had been seduced by the Trojan, Paris. In the often messy transition to democracy from dictatorships, just as we are watching in Indonesia and South Africa today, it is important to remind people of the horrors of the past.
Rachel Hogan's adaptation focusses on the personal experience of Queen Clytemnestra, played with clarity and understanding by Jenna Arnold, left "unmanned", learning to rule in her husband's place, speaking with a confidence he cannot accept on his return, and taking revenge on him for his past sacrifice of her daughter, Iphigenia, and now bringing home the Trojan king's young daughter, Cassandra.
Taking the place of the original chorus, a Wise Woman speaks to the audience directly in modern language as narrator and commentator, as well as speaking to her Queen as an observant and questioning commoner. Diane Heather, using a torch to shine a light on us as if from the past, takes a critical view of our lack of understanding, explains what we need to know, and leads us into the action. The writing of this role is well done, and Heather's characterisation is strong. Alexandra Howard, an up and coming young actor to watch, demands our sympathy for the abused Cassandra, "inspired to speak of her own sufferings".
Bart Black's performance of Agamemnon needs more of a Shakespearean sense of his own majesty. In the original text he is more of a politician rather than just a rough soldier. Perhaps Hogan cut too much here. But the women are the central focus as they should be, while the set design, use of masks, music and movement take us back to the images and ritual of ancient Greek theatre. The play works well at Belconnen Theatre, and should be a special experience in Carey's Cave.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
2467 years ago, only 52 years after the last tyrant was expelled from ancient Athens by the new rich middle class, Aeschylus presented this play about the legendary King of Argos, Agamemnon, returning home after 10 years away, finally destroying the city of Troy where his brother's beautiful wife, also his wife's sister, Helen, had been seduced by the Trojan, Paris. In the often messy transition to democracy from dictatorships, just as we are watching in Indonesia and South Africa today, it is important to remind people of the horrors of the past.
Rachel Hogan's adaptation focusses on the personal experience of Queen Clytemnestra, played with clarity and understanding by Jenna Arnold, left "unmanned", learning to rule in her husband's place, speaking with a confidence he cannot accept on his return, and taking revenge on him for his past sacrifice of her daughter, Iphigenia, and now bringing home the Trojan king's young daughter, Cassandra.
Taking the place of the original chorus, a Wise Woman speaks to the audience directly in modern language as narrator and commentator, as well as speaking to her Queen as an observant and questioning commoner. Diane Heather, using a torch to shine a light on us as if from the past, takes a critical view of our lack of understanding, explains what we need to know, and leads us into the action. The writing of this role is well done, and Heather's characterisation is strong. Alexandra Howard, an up and coming young actor to watch, demands our sympathy for the abused Cassandra, "inspired to speak of her own sufferings".
Bart Black's performance of Agamemnon needs more of a Shakespearean sense of his own majesty. In the original text he is more of a politician rather than just a rough soldier. Perhaps Hogan cut too much here. But the women are the central focus as they should be, while the set design, use of masks, music and movement take us back to the images and ritual of ancient Greek theatre. The play works well at Belconnen Theatre, and should be a special experience in Carey's Cave.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
2009: Walk the Fence by Felicity Bott and Kate Shearer. Review Version 1
Walk the Fence. Theatre-in-Education co-created and directed by Felicity Bott (Buzz Dance Theatre, Perth) and Kate Shearer (Jigsaw Theatre Company, Canberra)for Early Childhood age group. Composer, Melanie Robinson. Installation and costumes, Kaoru Alfonso. Lighting, Alex Sciberras. Courtyard Studio at Canberra Theatre, June 3-13, 10am and 12.30pm. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
Buzz and Jigsaw, with actor/dancers Keira Mason-Hill (Rachel) and Chris Palframan (Pole, Mr Troublesome, Maggie and Brick)have created a work which excited, moved and educated all the Year 1 and 2 boys and girls I sat among on Wednesday.
Teaching emotional intelligence to 4-8 year-olds means engaging the childrens' emotions first to put them in the right state of mind to learn the lesson – just what theatre is designed to do, and done beautifully in this production. The lesson for Rachel is "Breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3 (to slow down and lower your anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings – because I am the boss of me."
But I am angry and breathing hard because I am told that the ACT Department of Education no longer gives any funds to support Jigsaw Theatre Company – despite 35 years' top-class work making it arguably the nation's premier theatre-in-education team. Jigsaw walks the fence even more on their tiptoes than the young girl Rachel in the show who has to learn to cope with her parents' separation and moving away from her street.
Rachel's story, danced exquisitely by Mason-Hill, with expert help from highly gymnastic actor Palframan,reaches a positive conclusion. I asked a neighbouring 6 year-old boy was he sorry or happy for Rachel. Happy in the end, he said, and clearly understood how good it was for Rachel to learn to ground herself in reality, feeling OK on the ground instead of only up on walls and fences.
The show is a wonderful example of how movement is the basis of feeling in theatre, as it is in putting emotional intelligence into practice. All the right principles of educational drama are played out through Rachel's journey from anger, which puts her in "time-out" without resolution, to working through to acceptance and even excitement at the prospect of change.
So while parents and teachers can, indeed should, give their children the experience of Jigsaw's work under the Department of Education's Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, the Company has to face the divorce of education from the arts. ArtsACT is the only local parent providing alimony, with encouragement from a supportive aunt at the Australia Council. There is enough to pay for artistic direction and administration, but absent parent ACT Department of Education needs to pay their share to cover costs of mounting shows. After all, this is not box office commercial theatre. Teaching emotional development in early childhood is essential to our community's well-being, but where's the right response from our government to support Jigsaw's literally heart-warming work?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Buzz and Jigsaw, with actor/dancers Keira Mason-Hill (Rachel) and Chris Palframan (Pole, Mr Troublesome, Maggie and Brick)have created a work which excited, moved and educated all the Year 1 and 2 boys and girls I sat among on Wednesday.
Teaching emotional intelligence to 4-8 year-olds means engaging the childrens' emotions first to put them in the right state of mind to learn the lesson – just what theatre is designed to do, and done beautifully in this production. The lesson for Rachel is "Breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3 (to slow down and lower your anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings – because I am the boss of me."
But I am angry and breathing hard because I am told that the ACT Department of Education no longer gives any funds to support Jigsaw Theatre Company – despite 35 years' top-class work making it arguably the nation's premier theatre-in-education team. Jigsaw walks the fence even more on their tiptoes than the young girl Rachel in the show who has to learn to cope with her parents' separation and moving away from her street.
Rachel's story, danced exquisitely by Mason-Hill, with expert help from highly gymnastic actor Palframan,reaches a positive conclusion. I asked a neighbouring 6 year-old boy was he sorry or happy for Rachel. Happy in the end, he said, and clearly understood how good it was for Rachel to learn to ground herself in reality, feeling OK on the ground instead of only up on walls and fences.
The show is a wonderful example of how movement is the basis of feeling in theatre, as it is in putting emotional intelligence into practice. All the right principles of educational drama are played out through Rachel's journey from anger, which puts her in "time-out" without resolution, to working through to acceptance and even excitement at the prospect of change.
So while parents and teachers can, indeed should, give their children the experience of Jigsaw's work under the Department of Education's Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, the Company has to face the divorce of education from the arts. ArtsACT is the only local parent providing alimony, with encouragement from a supportive aunt at the Australia Council. There is enough to pay for artistic direction and administration, but absent parent ACT Department of Education needs to pay their share to cover costs of mounting shows. After all, this is not box office commercial theatre. Teaching emotional development in early childhood is essential to our community's well-being, but where's the right response from our government to support Jigsaw's literally heart-warming work?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
2009: Walk the Fence by Felicity Bott and Kate Shearer. Review Version 2
Walk the Fence. Co-created and directed by Felicity Bott (Buzz Dance Theatre, Perth) and Kate Shearer (Jigsaw Theatre Company, Canberra). Composer, Melanie Robinson. Installation and costumes, Kaoru Alfonso. Lighting, Alex Sciberras. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, June 3-13, 10am and 12.30pm. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
In the foyer, Walk the Fence begins as the children receive tickets which tell them the number of the house they will visit in Rachel's street. Theatre staff check with the teachers and parents to keep friendship groups together. The Year 1 and 2 children I observed were excited, with anticipation building, ready to be part of the show.
Keira Mason-Hill presented Rachel, whose parents have separated, as a very angry child, unable to do her schoolwork properly, especially because her mother is about to move. "This is my street," says Rachel. "I don't want to go." Her fear of the unknown is represented in a common children's game of never touching the ground. Somehow, though, she must become grounded in reality, to learn to accept the change in her life without losing her sense of self worth. Mason-Hill is a modern dance artist as well as actor who creates Rachel's feelings wonderfully in exquisite lightness of movement. This is an education in theatre of the best kind for the young children who responded with no hesitation to the subtle moods as well as the plot.
This involves Chris Palframan, an actor and gymnast, playing a tall Pole on sprung stilts; a letterbox in which Rachel finds Mr Troublesome, the school principal to whom her mother writes about her; Maggie, a magpie who swoops all over the stage on roller skates; and finally Brick, the wall who teaches Rachel to work through her emotions with "breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3, (to slow down and lower her anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings." Finally remember "I am the boss of my feelings". This becomes an audience participation game, and the lesson is learnt.
It worked well with the 6 year-old boys sitting with me in house number 1A, who also wanted to know how Palframan learned to walk, run and jump on sprung stilts. I asked, did you feel sorry for Rachel, or happy? Happy in the end, they said, revealing to me that they understood her feelings. In the modern world, helping young children to develop their emotional intelligence is crucial for the well-being of our community, and Walk the Fence is designed to fit directly into the school curriculum in the Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, and particularly the Essential Learning Areas 4 (to act with integrity and regard for others) and 14 (to manage self and relationships).
It was humbling to hear from Kate Shearer after the show, however, that Jigsaw receives funding from ArtsACT and the Australia Council – enough to pay for artistic direction and administration – but that the longstanding commitment of funding from the ACT Department of Education, in Jigsaw's contract since the 1970s, is no longer provided. This leaves Jigsaw struggling to mount the very shows that our children desperately need. I can only hope departmental officers realise how they are making the Jigsaw Theatre Company walk even more on tiptoes on the fence than Rachel, and see their way to reinstate funding. The quality, artistically and educationally, of Walk the Fence justifies my feeling sorry now, but I would like to be happy in the end.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
In the foyer, Walk the Fence begins as the children receive tickets which tell them the number of the house they will visit in Rachel's street. Theatre staff check with the teachers and parents to keep friendship groups together. The Year 1 and 2 children I observed were excited, with anticipation building, ready to be part of the show.
Keira Mason-Hill presented Rachel, whose parents have separated, as a very angry child, unable to do her schoolwork properly, especially because her mother is about to move. "This is my street," says Rachel. "I don't want to go." Her fear of the unknown is represented in a common children's game of never touching the ground. Somehow, though, she must become grounded in reality, to learn to accept the change in her life without losing her sense of self worth. Mason-Hill is a modern dance artist as well as actor who creates Rachel's feelings wonderfully in exquisite lightness of movement. This is an education in theatre of the best kind for the young children who responded with no hesitation to the subtle moods as well as the plot.
This involves Chris Palframan, an actor and gymnast, playing a tall Pole on sprung stilts; a letterbox in which Rachel finds Mr Troublesome, the school principal to whom her mother writes about her; Maggie, a magpie who swoops all over the stage on roller skates; and finally Brick, the wall who teaches Rachel to work through her emotions with "breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3, (to slow down and lower her anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings." Finally remember "I am the boss of my feelings". This becomes an audience participation game, and the lesson is learnt.
It worked well with the 6 year-old boys sitting with me in house number 1A, who also wanted to know how Palframan learned to walk, run and jump on sprung stilts. I asked, did you feel sorry for Rachel, or happy? Happy in the end, they said, revealing to me that they understood her feelings. In the modern world, helping young children to develop their emotional intelligence is crucial for the well-being of our community, and Walk the Fence is designed to fit directly into the school curriculum in the Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, and particularly the Essential Learning Areas 4 (to act with integrity and regard for others) and 14 (to manage self and relationships).
It was humbling to hear from Kate Shearer after the show, however, that Jigsaw receives funding from ArtsACT and the Australia Council – enough to pay for artistic direction and administration – but that the longstanding commitment of funding from the ACT Department of Education, in Jigsaw's contract since the 1970s, is no longer provided. This leaves Jigsaw struggling to mount the very shows that our children desperately need. I can only hope departmental officers realise how they are making the Jigsaw Theatre Company walk even more on tiptoes on the fence than Rachel, and see their way to reinstate funding. The quality, artistically and educationally, of Walk the Fence justifies my feeling sorry now, but I would like to be happy in the end.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
2009: Every Base Covered by Sam Floyd
Every Base Covered, an anthology of short plays by Sam Floyd. Freshly Ground Theatre at QL2 Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre, May 20-30 Wednesdays to Saturdays, 8pm. Bookings 0450 067 322.
9 plays in 75 minutes sounds like at least a half-marathon, but in Floyd's capable hands we arrive at the end laughing and not a bit breathless, with Every Base Covered. The Ten Minute Play is now quite an established artform as a result of the Short+Sweet Festival competitions which grew from the Sydney Festival Fringe nearly ten years ago. Included in this program are two of Floyd's successes – The Disclaimer, a winner in the 2008 Canberra One Act Play Festival, and Imaginary Break-up which reached the finals in the Eltham Theatre Ten Minute Play Festival in Melbourne.
Each play is a – usually absurd – solution to a What if question. What if a café customer exposes his interest only in the waitress to the exclusion of all other norms of behaviour? What if a suicide negotiator actually thinks the jumper should jump? What would you sing if you had only a tiny ukelele left in the whole world? What if a girl ignores you after she has asked you for three drinks? What if you are the girl? What if you find yourself with a guitar instead of a ukelele after all? What if people could be persuaded to waive their right to sue for compensation for their death, when the cause of everyone's death is their birth? What if the girl you imagine you love is really imaginary and then wants to break up the relationship? What if the girl in the red polka dot dress you have just run over is the wrong one, because you don't know if the dress was supposed to be white with red dots or red with white dots?
Tight scripting is complemented by an appropriately economical staging and acting style, performed by only four actors. After a year of working together, I suspect the time is approaching for Freshly Ground Theatre, and Sam Floyd in particular, to take on bigger things. They have clearly built an audience among their 20-something peer group and could think now of moving beyond the limited QL2 into pubs and clubs, and eventually on to the main stage. Floyd reminds me of other local successes, such as Queanbeyan's Tommy Murphy, first mentioned in The Canberra Times in 2005 and now a published Sydney playwright. Let's see Freshly Ground seek new pastures.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
9 plays in 75 minutes sounds like at least a half-marathon, but in Floyd's capable hands we arrive at the end laughing and not a bit breathless, with Every Base Covered. The Ten Minute Play is now quite an established artform as a result of the Short+Sweet Festival competitions which grew from the Sydney Festival Fringe nearly ten years ago. Included in this program are two of Floyd's successes – The Disclaimer, a winner in the 2008 Canberra One Act Play Festival, and Imaginary Break-up which reached the finals in the Eltham Theatre Ten Minute Play Festival in Melbourne.
Each play is a – usually absurd – solution to a What if question. What if a café customer exposes his interest only in the waitress to the exclusion of all other norms of behaviour? What if a suicide negotiator actually thinks the jumper should jump? What would you sing if you had only a tiny ukelele left in the whole world? What if a girl ignores you after she has asked you for three drinks? What if you are the girl? What if you find yourself with a guitar instead of a ukelele after all? What if people could be persuaded to waive their right to sue for compensation for their death, when the cause of everyone's death is their birth? What if the girl you imagine you love is really imaginary and then wants to break up the relationship? What if the girl in the red polka dot dress you have just run over is the wrong one, because you don't know if the dress was supposed to be white with red dots or red with white dots?
Tight scripting is complemented by an appropriately economical staging and acting style, performed by only four actors. After a year of working together, I suspect the time is approaching for Freshly Ground Theatre, and Sam Floyd in particular, to take on bigger things. They have clearly built an audience among their 20-something peer group and could think now of moving beyond the limited QL2 into pubs and clubs, and eventually on to the main stage. Floyd reminds me of other local successes, such as Queanbeyan's Tommy Murphy, first mentioned in The Canberra Times in 2005 and now a published Sydney playwright. Let's see Freshly Ground seek new pastures.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
2009: A Stretch of the Imagination by Jack Hibberd
A Stretch of the Imagination by Jack Hibberd. Performed by John Wood, directed by Denis Moore for HIT Productions at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, Tuesday May 5 to Friday May 8, 8.00pm, Saturday May 9, 2.00pm & 8.00pm. Bookings: 6298 0290
This may sound picky, but this production has a running time of 110 minutes, including interval, according to the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne where it will be seen later in May on its round Australia tour. Maybe at The Q the interval was half an hour longer, but I don't think so.
So it wasn't just my imagination that was, legitimately, stretched by Jack Hibberd. The play consists of a series of vignettes, scenes from Monk O'Neill's apocryphal reminiscences, punctuated by his little rituals on his "penultimate" day, which turns out to be his last. Wood played for and got the laughs, but kept the pace too even and the transitions from scene to scene too deliberate. The result stretched my patience, when what I hoped for was a kind of wild unpredictability, a sense of Monk's imagination breaking out of all ordinary bounds, building to the fantastic but quite beautiful imagery of the final sunset which heralds his inevitable end.
Perhaps, too, Moore's direction, in asking for a great deal of physical playing out of Monk's stories, led to slowing down and weakening the emotional effects over the whole length of the play, despite the success of individual scenes. In some other productions of this recognised classic, the words have been more central, allowing the resonance of Hibberd's language to stir up images and feelings directly in the minds of the audience, rather as Barry Humphries does with his Sandy Stone character, who hardly moves within the confines of his decrepit armchair.
Monk needs to move to carry out his present-time activities, but seemed to me to become too much of a show-off miming and acting out the stories of his past. I felt less empathy than I wanted to feel, and so less of the sadness underlying his outward bravado came through than I think Monk O'Neill deserves.
Of course, this was my reaction, but Hibberd's character and script still have a great deal to say to us about what it is to be a certain kind of Australian. Monk's larrikin no bullshit manner and language cannot fail to make us laugh. And, however picky I am after the event, I certainly enjoyed the awfulness of Monk O'Neill on opening night at The Q, and laughed along with the rest of a highly enthusiastic audience.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This may sound picky, but this production has a running time of 110 minutes, including interval, according to the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne where it will be seen later in May on its round Australia tour. Maybe at The Q the interval was half an hour longer, but I don't think so.
So it wasn't just my imagination that was, legitimately, stretched by Jack Hibberd. The play consists of a series of vignettes, scenes from Monk O'Neill's apocryphal reminiscences, punctuated by his little rituals on his "penultimate" day, which turns out to be his last. Wood played for and got the laughs, but kept the pace too even and the transitions from scene to scene too deliberate. The result stretched my patience, when what I hoped for was a kind of wild unpredictability, a sense of Monk's imagination breaking out of all ordinary bounds, building to the fantastic but quite beautiful imagery of the final sunset which heralds his inevitable end.
Perhaps, too, Moore's direction, in asking for a great deal of physical playing out of Monk's stories, led to slowing down and weakening the emotional effects over the whole length of the play, despite the success of individual scenes. In some other productions of this recognised classic, the words have been more central, allowing the resonance of Hibberd's language to stir up images and feelings directly in the minds of the audience, rather as Barry Humphries does with his Sandy Stone character, who hardly moves within the confines of his decrepit armchair.
Monk needs to move to carry out his present-time activities, but seemed to me to become too much of a show-off miming and acting out the stories of his past. I felt less empathy than I wanted to feel, and so less of the sadness underlying his outward bravado came through than I think Monk O'Neill deserves.
Of course, this was my reaction, but Hibberd's character and script still have a great deal to say to us about what it is to be a certain kind of Australian. Monk's larrikin no bullshit manner and language cannot fail to make us laugh. And, however picky I am after the event, I certainly enjoyed the awfulness of Monk O'Neill on opening night at The Q, and laughed along with the rest of a highly enthusiastic audience.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
2009: Teuila Postcards by Lisa Fa'alafi, Efeso Fa'anana and Leah Shelton
Teuila Postcards by Lisa Fa'alafi, Efeso Fa'anana and Leah Shelton. Polytoxic Dance Company at The Street Theatre, April 7-8.
I must begin by saying what a shame it is that you may have missed Teuila Postcards. The theatre was not much more than half full on opening night, but a two night stand is not enough to build the audience this company deserves. If you can make it to the Opera House, you can catch them in Sydney April 29 to May 2.
If there is anything we learnt from Coming of Age in Samoa - or rather from Derek Freeman's Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth - it was the fun the young women had making up witty stories of sexual licentiousness. It is not hard to see where this show comes from, taking tourist stereotypes of the Polynesian island resort experience for a hip-hopping rock'n'roll ride set against inventive background reality checks. The missionary position gets the serve it deserves, but all done with such a light touch that even Samoans who are sticklers for convention appreciate the traditional humour. Needless to say, the young Islanders in the audience were beside themselves with excited identification and laughter, adding to the enjoyment of those of us who were not fluent in Samoan language. We didn't need to be to understand the dance, but I'm sure there were finer points to the jokes for those in the know.
Fa'alafi and Fa'anana are Samoan Australians involved in a wide range of performance and design work, based in Brisbane, working with Shelton who is also an actor, dancer, choreographer and designer, with a specialist background in the Japanese performance training method of Tadashi Suzuki. The result is a fast-moving constantly surprising mix of dance forms, music styles, costumes, and visual effects which packed so much into one hour that time seemed to be stretched by half as much again, yet without one flagging moment. The fun made the work appear to be easy, but the detail in the dance, voice, mime and timing across such a range of styles revealed the professional quality of training and experience which underpinned the entertainment.
This work and this company also showed the value of Civic's The Street Theatre as a place for welding community arts and top-class theatre. With new developments under way at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre and the establishment of the Belconnen Arts Centre, we will soon have the right spread of performance spaces for this kind of original work. Teuila Postcards could be taken as in memory of Jan Wawrzynczak who did so much, working out of the Belconnen Community Centre, to support the Pacific Islander arts community in Canberra. Polytoxic is just the kind of off-beat title he would have appreciated, just as we have enjoyed the Polytoxic Dance Company. Send us more Postcards, please.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
I must begin by saying what a shame it is that you may have missed Teuila Postcards. The theatre was not much more than half full on opening night, but a two night stand is not enough to build the audience this company deserves. If you can make it to the Opera House, you can catch them in Sydney April 29 to May 2.
If there is anything we learnt from Coming of Age in Samoa - or rather from Derek Freeman's Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth - it was the fun the young women had making up witty stories of sexual licentiousness. It is not hard to see where this show comes from, taking tourist stereotypes of the Polynesian island resort experience for a hip-hopping rock'n'roll ride set against inventive background reality checks. The missionary position gets the serve it deserves, but all done with such a light touch that even Samoans who are sticklers for convention appreciate the traditional humour. Needless to say, the young Islanders in the audience were beside themselves with excited identification and laughter, adding to the enjoyment of those of us who were not fluent in Samoan language. We didn't need to be to understand the dance, but I'm sure there were finer points to the jokes for those in the know.
Fa'alafi and Fa'anana are Samoan Australians involved in a wide range of performance and design work, based in Brisbane, working with Shelton who is also an actor, dancer, choreographer and designer, with a specialist background in the Japanese performance training method of Tadashi Suzuki. The result is a fast-moving constantly surprising mix of dance forms, music styles, costumes, and visual effects which packed so much into one hour that time seemed to be stretched by half as much again, yet without one flagging moment. The fun made the work appear to be easy, but the detail in the dance, voice, mime and timing across such a range of styles revealed the professional quality of training and experience which underpinned the entertainment.
This work and this company also showed the value of Civic's The Street Theatre as a place for welding community arts and top-class theatre. With new developments under way at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre and the establishment of the Belconnen Arts Centre, we will soon have the right spread of performance spaces for this kind of original work. Teuila Postcards could be taken as in memory of Jan Wawrzynczak who did so much, working out of the Belconnen Community Centre, to support the Pacific Islander arts community in Canberra. Polytoxic is just the kind of off-beat title he would have appreciated, just as we have enjoyed the Polytoxic Dance Company. Send us more Postcards, please.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 13 February 2009
2009: Guys and Dolls by Frank Loesser
Guys and Dolls by Frank Loesser. Free-Rain Theatre Company directed by Anne Somes, music directed by Lucy Bermingham, choreography by Annette Sharpe. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, February 13-28. Bookings: 6298 0290.
As Sky Masterson tells Sarah, it's all about chemistry. Yes, indeed. Despite each of the elements working well enough in their own terms - excellent singing, good orchestra, neat choreography, symbolic backdrop, great costumes, reasonable lighting - there was not much fizz in the reactions, especially in the first half on opening night.
Georgia Pike stood out as Miss Adelaide because she knew how to play out to the auditorium and respond to the audience's reactions. Sarah Darnley-Stuart as the the missionary Sarah Brown was almost as strong, and for me the highlight of the whole show was their duet Marry the Man Today, which brings the story to a conclusion after "umpteen" years.
So what was missing? Guys and Dolls, and the Damon Runyon stories the play is derived from, is a weirdly whimsical approach to what people nowadays like to call the underbelly of city life. It trivialises reality with romance.
Runyon's The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown was written in 1933, the year Hitler gained power. Perhaps escapism was needed then in the face of criminality and looming dictatorship, and still had its place in this 1950 musical as the Cold War and McCarthyism took hold. Today, I think, Guys and Dolls needs a cartoon style much more delineated than Somes achieved in this production, to break out of the 1950s mould.
I felt too much of this show was imitative rather than newly created, and that was why the chemicals just bubbled along rather than exploding as they should. Sinatra, now known as the apologist for the Mafia, is not here any longer to flash his blue eyes in apparent innocence. We call everyone "guys" now, there are no "dolls", and soppy men are not dragged into marriage by desperate women. Find a modern purpose for playing Guys and Dolls with a new view of its old-time attitudes, and then there will be real chemistry.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
As Sky Masterson tells Sarah, it's all about chemistry. Yes, indeed. Despite each of the elements working well enough in their own terms - excellent singing, good orchestra, neat choreography, symbolic backdrop, great costumes, reasonable lighting - there was not much fizz in the reactions, especially in the first half on opening night.
Georgia Pike stood out as Miss Adelaide because she knew how to play out to the auditorium and respond to the audience's reactions. Sarah Darnley-Stuart as the the missionary Sarah Brown was almost as strong, and for me the highlight of the whole show was their duet Marry the Man Today, which brings the story to a conclusion after "umpteen" years.
So what was missing? Guys and Dolls, and the Damon Runyon stories the play is derived from, is a weirdly whimsical approach to what people nowadays like to call the underbelly of city life. It trivialises reality with romance.
Runyon's The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown was written in 1933, the year Hitler gained power. Perhaps escapism was needed then in the face of criminality and looming dictatorship, and still had its place in this 1950 musical as the Cold War and McCarthyism took hold. Today, I think, Guys and Dolls needs a cartoon style much more delineated than Somes achieved in this production, to break out of the 1950s mould.
I felt too much of this show was imitative rather than newly created, and that was why the chemicals just bubbled along rather than exploding as they should. Sinatra, now known as the apologist for the Mafia, is not here any longer to flash his blue eyes in apparent innocence. We call everyone "guys" now, there are no "dolls", and soppy men are not dragged into marriage by desperate women. Find a modern purpose for playing Guys and Dolls with a new view of its old-time attitudes, and then there will be real chemistry.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
2009: The Burlesque Hour by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith
The Burlesque Hour written and directed by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith. The Street Theatre, February 10-14, 8pm. Bookings 6247 1223.
The best burlesque is satirical and therefore both entertaining and thought-provoking. Traditionally it was witty and risque, humorous and titillating. The best of The Burlesque Hour lives up to traditional expectations, going even further to satisfy us in modern times.
The main device is each woman in turn, and one man, performing against the background of a soundtrack using songs like Let Go by Frou Frou, Everybody Wants to Touch Me as performed by Deborah Conway, or Total Eclipse of the Heart in the manner of Bonnie Tyler - 14 items altogether, many of them in the altogether, by four actors, Moira Finucane, Azaria Universe, Yumi Umiumare and the not so token man Paul Cordeiro.
Movement, costume (and the removal of costume), and props are used to create highly unusual symbolic meanings, ranging from the funny but obvious through the funny and quite unexpected, to the not so funny and very pointed. It would not be fair of me to describe examples, since that would undermine the surprise element which is essential to this kind of show. Suffice to say that one involves an animal in a role reversal, another is about drinking red soup sloppily, another about the female capacity to produce milk, and another about the tension of maintaining appearances.
This last, called Mouth Piece, and her later act beginning in a huge mediaeval martial kimono, for me showed Yumi Umiumare's extra level of skill and depth of interpretation, taking these points in The Burlesque Hour beyond the clever and effective into the realm of a higher theatrical art.
On a practical note, you can see more from the bleachers than from the cabaret style tables near and on the stage, be prepared for some liquid being splashed about in addition to your own wine or beer, and, if you are old and have tinnitus like me, take ear plugs to dampen the amplification. Oh, and if you are lucky, you'll get to eat a strawberry in the Swedish manner. Enjoy.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
The best burlesque is satirical and therefore both entertaining and thought-provoking. Traditionally it was witty and risque, humorous and titillating. The best of The Burlesque Hour lives up to traditional expectations, going even further to satisfy us in modern times.
The main device is each woman in turn, and one man, performing against the background of a soundtrack using songs like Let Go by Frou Frou, Everybody Wants to Touch Me as performed by Deborah Conway, or Total Eclipse of the Heart in the manner of Bonnie Tyler - 14 items altogether, many of them in the altogether, by four actors, Moira Finucane, Azaria Universe, Yumi Umiumare and the not so token man Paul Cordeiro.
Movement, costume (and the removal of costume), and props are used to create highly unusual symbolic meanings, ranging from the funny but obvious through the funny and quite unexpected, to the not so funny and very pointed. It would not be fair of me to describe examples, since that would undermine the surprise element which is essential to this kind of show. Suffice to say that one involves an animal in a role reversal, another is about drinking red soup sloppily, another about the female capacity to produce milk, and another about the tension of maintaining appearances.
This last, called Mouth Piece, and her later act beginning in a huge mediaeval martial kimono, for me showed Yumi Umiumare's extra level of skill and depth of interpretation, taking these points in The Burlesque Hour beyond the clever and effective into the realm of a higher theatrical art.
On a practical note, you can see more from the bleachers than from the cabaret style tables near and on the stage, be prepared for some liquid being splashed about in addition to your own wine or beer, and, if you are old and have tinnitus like me, take ear plugs to dampen the amplification. Oh, and if you are lucky, you'll get to eat a strawberry in the Swedish manner. Enjoy.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
2009: In Cold Light by Duncan Ley
In Cold Light by Duncan Ley. Everyman Theatre directed by Duncan Driver at Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, February 4-7 at 8pm, matinee Saturday February 7 at 2pm. Bookings: 6298 0290.
This is an excellent new production of Ley's twist on how to get into heaven without lying. For The Q, In Cold Light is a strong beginning to its 2009 program a quality production of a locally written play which has stood the test of time since its original performance almost six years ago.
The story of how and why Father Christian Lamori (Jarrad West) finally reveals the truth could be thought of as a mystery play in the mediaeval tradition, while it is also a study of the process of interrogation highly relevant in our present-day world. The form of the play places it into a modern genre begun by Franz Kafka in his novel The Trial (1925), which was made into a film directed by Orson Wells (1962) and remade by David Hugh Jones with a script by Harold Pinter as recently as 1993.
The essence of this type of drama is that the character being interrogated seems to us watching not to be in a position to understand why they are accused. Though we begin by empathising with the apparent victim, we gradually find ourselves appreciating the interrogator's position. In Ley's version we even discover who The Inspector (played by the author) represents in the final scene, though in other playwrights' work, especially in absurdist plays such as Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson or Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, we are left at the end in the same limbo as the characters, still unable to fathom the truth.
Ley's Inspector plays as much with our assumptions about what we accept as truth as he does with Father Christian's beliefs. The script has been re-worked for a film version and for this stage version since its first appearance, making for greater depth of character and tighter drama, with an ending - reminiscent of Ionesco and Beckett - which is entirely logical yet with a surprisingly unexpected touch of humour.
The twists and turns of the interrogation keep our attention focussed throughout the 90 minutes of In Cold Light. It is good to see a local actor/writer working the drama with such confidence in this play which deserves a much longer season.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an excellent new production of Ley's twist on how to get into heaven without lying. For The Q, In Cold Light is a strong beginning to its 2009 program a quality production of a locally written play which has stood the test of time since its original performance almost six years ago.
The story of how and why Father Christian Lamori (Jarrad West) finally reveals the truth could be thought of as a mystery play in the mediaeval tradition, while it is also a study of the process of interrogation highly relevant in our present-day world. The form of the play places it into a modern genre begun by Franz Kafka in his novel The Trial (1925), which was made into a film directed by Orson Wells (1962) and remade by David Hugh Jones with a script by Harold Pinter as recently as 1993.
The essence of this type of drama is that the character being interrogated seems to us watching not to be in a position to understand why they are accused. Though we begin by empathising with the apparent victim, we gradually find ourselves appreciating the interrogator's position. In Ley's version we even discover who The Inspector (played by the author) represents in the final scene, though in other playwrights' work, especially in absurdist plays such as Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson or Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, we are left at the end in the same limbo as the characters, still unable to fathom the truth.
Ley's Inspector plays as much with our assumptions about what we accept as truth as he does with Father Christian's beliefs. The script has been re-worked for a film version and for this stage version since its first appearance, making for greater depth of character and tighter drama, with an ending - reminiscent of Ionesco and Beckett - which is entirely logical yet with a surprisingly unexpected touch of humour.
The twists and turns of the interrogation keep our attention focussed throughout the 90 minutes of In Cold Light. It is good to see a local actor/writer working the drama with such confidence in this play which deserves a much longer season.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 15 January 2009
2009: Peter and the Wolf by Wayne Shepherd
Peter and the Wolf. A children's puppetry entertainment written by Wayne Shepherd and actors, incorporating the music by Sergei Prokofiev. Ickle Pickle Productions, directed by Wayne Shepherd at Belconnen Community Theatre January 15 - 7pm, 16 - 2pm, 17 - 2pm, 20 - 2pm, 21 - 11am, 22 - 11am & 2pm, 23 - 2pm & 7pm, 24 - 2pm, 27 - 11am, 28 - 11am. Duration: 1 hour. Bookings: 6262 6977 or www.icklepickle.com.au
This is light entertainment of a rather odd kind, but enjoyed by an opening night audience ranging from toddlers to grandparents. The actors' ages range from 11 to adult, all with considerable amateur experience. In other words this is community theatre designed to be fun as much for those on stage as for the audience. Enthusiasm and warmth of relationship is the key to this kind of theatre, and Ickle Pickle manage very well.
Detailed criticism of individual performers is not appropriate here, but it is fair to say that I was surprised at the level of confidence and initiative the younger actors showed, as well as at the quality of voice projection. The Belconnen Theatre is not good acoustically, but I could hear every speaker very well from near the back row.
Shepherd structured the entertainment around a gently satirical version of a primary school assembly, where it was class 4M's turn to put on items for the school and parents. This involved audience participation - we had to sing a verse of Advance Australia Fair - and were taught the ra-ra chants of our Houses. The presentation was about the history of puppetry from around the world, with examples from Punch and Judy, shadow puppetry, Sesame Street figures as large hand puppets, and finally Peter and the Wolf with a narrator who became somewhat entangled in the action and the characters represented in various forms as costumed actors, string puppets with operators in blacks and unusual integrated actor/puppets.
Primary school level jokes are an integral part of the show, culminating in a restaurant scene in which the Sesame Street puppets find flies, bees, cockroaches and a number of other unmentionables in their soup, all explained away cheerfully by a French waiter. Written by Shepherd while teaching in China, I found this almost seriously absurdist. He claims it was very popular in China, probably I guess because the awful puns were a fun way to learn English. Just as this show overall is a fun way to learn about puppets.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This is light entertainment of a rather odd kind, but enjoyed by an opening night audience ranging from toddlers to grandparents. The actors' ages range from 11 to adult, all with considerable amateur experience. In other words this is community theatre designed to be fun as much for those on stage as for the audience. Enthusiasm and warmth of relationship is the key to this kind of theatre, and Ickle Pickle manage very well.
Detailed criticism of individual performers is not appropriate here, but it is fair to say that I was surprised at the level of confidence and initiative the younger actors showed, as well as at the quality of voice projection. The Belconnen Theatre is not good acoustically, but I could hear every speaker very well from near the back row.
Shepherd structured the entertainment around a gently satirical version of a primary school assembly, where it was class 4M's turn to put on items for the school and parents. This involved audience participation - we had to sing a verse of Advance Australia Fair - and were taught the ra-ra chants of our Houses. The presentation was about the history of puppetry from around the world, with examples from Punch and Judy, shadow puppetry, Sesame Street figures as large hand puppets, and finally Peter and the Wolf with a narrator who became somewhat entangled in the action and the characters represented in various forms as costumed actors, string puppets with operators in blacks and unusual integrated actor/puppets.
Primary school level jokes are an integral part of the show, culminating in a restaurant scene in which the Sesame Street puppets find flies, bees, cockroaches and a number of other unmentionables in their soup, all explained away cheerfully by a French waiter. Written by Shepherd while teaching in China, I found this almost seriously absurdist. He claims it was very popular in China, probably I guess because the awful puns were a fun way to learn English. Just as this show overall is a fun way to learn about puppets.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
2009: Hating Alison Ashley by Richard Tulloch
Hating Alison Ashley by Richard Tulloch from the novel by Robin Klein. Child Players ACT at The Street Theatre Studio, January 15-17 2pm and 7.30pm. Bookings: 6247 1223 or www.thestreet.org.au
Newcomer to Year 9, Alison Ashley (Josie Dunham), comes from the other side of the tracks (the upper side, that is). But the play is not focussed on her, with a waspish divorced mother who "rests" during the day and runs a fashionable restaurant at night, and has absolutely no interest in her daughter's personal well-being.
Of central interest is Erika Yurken (Joanna Richards) "Yurk" to her siblings and "Yuk" to her classmates as she learns how jealousy turns to unjustifiable hate. Realisation dawns as her own waitress Mum (Robyn Page), long separated from Erika's errant father, and reliable truck driver, Lennie (Brian Daly) seek her approval of their engagement to be married.
Comedy, which you might not expect when dealing with such issues, demands style and timing. Director Brandon Girvan and his whole cast have understood the requirements very well. The result is a great team effort which even 38 degrees at the 2pm opening performance could not diminish. In a cast of 16 actors, no-one put a foot wrong.
Jo Howard, who designed and made the stage set and also did the media and photographic work for the production, deserves special mention because the visual aspect of the show is crucial to creating the atmosphere of the school, the domestic settings and the annual excursion to Camp Desolation somewhere around 1984 (when the novel was written), while still having the right feel for 15-year-olds today.
Dunham's and Richards' acting performances held the play together, as they should because the script is written this way, and because they complemented each other in creating the moments of light and shade the comedy needs. The three teachers - Jo Burns (Nigella Belmont, always in control), Katy Ryan (the fey but effective drama teacher Elsa Lattimore), Jeffrey Van de Zandt (Geoff Kennard who puts "the phys into physical education") were neatly satirical representations of people I have known, as were the student characters Barry (Daniel Mills), Margeart (Olivia English), Diana (Chelsea Needham), Crystal (Maddie Sloan), Oscar (Nicky Anyos) and Craig (Jarron Dodds).
Erika's almost D-Generation siblings Harley (Lachlan Ruffy), Valjoy (Katie Murphy) and Jedda (Tayla Page), so well parented by Mum and Lennie, top off the comedy and make this an original and enjoyable production for teenagers and even oldagers like me.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Newcomer to Year 9, Alison Ashley (Josie Dunham), comes from the other side of the tracks (the upper side, that is). But the play is not focussed on her, with a waspish divorced mother who "rests" during the day and runs a fashionable restaurant at night, and has absolutely no interest in her daughter's personal well-being.
Of central interest is Erika Yurken (Joanna Richards) "Yurk" to her siblings and "Yuk" to her classmates as she learns how jealousy turns to unjustifiable hate. Realisation dawns as her own waitress Mum (Robyn Page), long separated from Erika's errant father, and reliable truck driver, Lennie (Brian Daly) seek her approval of their engagement to be married.
Comedy, which you might not expect when dealing with such issues, demands style and timing. Director Brandon Girvan and his whole cast have understood the requirements very well. The result is a great team effort which even 38 degrees at the 2pm opening performance could not diminish. In a cast of 16 actors, no-one put a foot wrong.
Jo Howard, who designed and made the stage set and also did the media and photographic work for the production, deserves special mention because the visual aspect of the show is crucial to creating the atmosphere of the school, the domestic settings and the annual excursion to Camp Desolation somewhere around 1984 (when the novel was written), while still having the right feel for 15-year-olds today.
Dunham's and Richards' acting performances held the play together, as they should because the script is written this way, and because they complemented each other in creating the moments of light and shade the comedy needs. The three teachers - Jo Burns (Nigella Belmont, always in control), Katy Ryan (the fey but effective drama teacher Elsa Lattimore), Jeffrey Van de Zandt (Geoff Kennard who puts "the phys into physical education") were neatly satirical representations of people I have known, as were the student characters Barry (Daniel Mills), Margeart (Olivia English), Diana (Chelsea Needham), Crystal (Maddie Sloan), Oscar (Nicky Anyos) and Craig (Jarron Dodds).
Erika's almost D-Generation siblings Harley (Lachlan Ruffy), Valjoy (Katie Murphy) and Jedda (Tayla Page), so well parented by Mum and Lennie, top off the comedy and make this an original and enjoyable production for teenagers and even oldagers like me.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)