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
Friday, 13 February 2009
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
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