2015: Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn

Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Mark Kilmurry; designed by Anna Gardiner; lighting by Peter Neufeld.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, December 4 – January 24, 2014-15.
Cast: Michelle Doake (Diana); Darren Gilshenan (Colin); Brian Meegan (John); Jessica Sullivan (Evelyn); Richard Sydenham (Paul); Queenie van de Zandt (Marge).

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 24

What an embarrassing play!

Not for us in the audience, of course.  No, all we had to do was cringe appropriately on behalf of Marge every time she put her foot in it.  And Queenie knew exactly how to time her big feet, especially in those lovely huge yellow shoes.

Darren’s Colin’s equanimity in accepting his girlfriend Carol’s drowning took the wind out of Diana, her husband Paul, and his other old friend John, but never surprised John’s wife, Evelyn, since she was never surprised by any man’s or woman’s or child’s behaviour.

Michelle’s Diana went horribly mad, Richard’s Paul became catatonic, while Brian’s John’s fixation against death nearly brought him asunder.  All of these experienced actors were spot on in characterisation and timing, as we would expect, but perhaps it was Evelyn’s role that was the hardest to play.

As the deadpan observer, it would have been easy for Jessica to make her Evelyn merely unpleasant and vindictive, but she made her thoroughly understandable to those other observers – us in the audience.  As we laughed at the ludicrous antics of the others, Evelyn kept our feet on the ground – and made the humour that much blacker.  Without her as a foil, the play could degenerate into farce, instead of worthwhile comedy.  A good call by director Mark, as well as skill from Jessica.

The other key production element which kept the play out of the potential farce zone was the use of terrible pauses of embarrassment – long enough not only for the audience to realise what the embarrassment was about; in the extra time of silence and stillness there was a second laugh as the characters’ confusion of feelings deepened.

Another good call by the director, and performed with consummate discipline by all concerned.

But my favourite moment has to be the withering looks Queenie conjured for Marge to send as daggers at Paul, so disgusted was she at his cruelty towards Diana in her distress, added to by her knowledge, direct from the horse’s (Evelyn’s) mouth, of Paul’s execrable behaviour in the back seat of his car.

Absent Friends is shown to be a bitter comedy from England’s Alan Ayckbourn, which still rings true even after a little translation to Australia in our 1970s.  It was another good call to keep to the original period, even if only because language has changed too much to set these marriages in this century.

I saw the second last performance in the run, and now feel disappointed that I cannot recommend to you to make sure you don’t miss it.  I nearly did, and I’m glad I did not.

BUT late news is good news: actually the play is transferring next week to Glen Street Theatre in Belrose from Wednesday 28 to Saturday 31 January, so go if you can.

Darren Gilshenan (Colin); Brian Meegan (John); Richard Sydenham (Paul)

Jessica Sullivan (Evelyn)

 Queenie van de Zandt (Marge)
Background: Richard Sydenham (Paul); Michelle Doake (Diana); Jessica Sullivan (Evelyn)

Queenie van de Zandt (Marge); Darren Gilshenan (Colin); Michelle Doake (Diana)

All photos by Katy Green Loughrey

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: After Dinner by Andrew Bovell

Treading the boards on Pier 4
Coffee and Danish at the far end
overlooking Sydney Harbour

After Dinner by Andrew Bovell.  Directed by Imara Savage; designed by Alicia Clements; lighting by Verity Hampson; composer and sound: Steve Francis.  Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1, January 20 – March 7, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 24

Helen Thomson as Monika, Rebecca Massey as Dympie, Anita Hegh as Paula

Josh McConville as Stephen, Glenn Hazeldine as Gordon

What’s the difference between Britain’s Alan Ayckbourn and Australia’s Andrew Bovell? 

I had the privilege of finding out by walking out of the Ensemble Theatre’s afternoon tea production of Absent Friends at 6.45pm, up the hill to Milsons Point train station, up even further on the stairway, not to heaven but on to the walkway across Sydney Harbour Bridge.  The brilliance and beauty, in an Australian summer evening light, of the sailing boats and ferries on the great waterway far below lifted me far above the cribb’d and confin’d English suburban household with which Ayckbourn had amusingly entertained me for the previous two hours upon the stage.

Down steps into The Rocks, down hill and even further down stairs cut into the cliff face, even unto Hickson Road and Pier 4, treading the boards to the end-point, poking out into that very harbour.  Time for a coffee and Danish before the bells toll for Wharf 1 and Bovell’s 8pm After Dinner, and the next 90 minutes on stage.

I laughed more after dinner time than I had for afternoon tea.

If I had had time to read Tom Healey’s four page essay in the typical STC program, I might not have expected such unconstrained laughter as erupted all around the audience as Monika (Helen Thomson) and Stephen (Josh McConville) made it off together; Paula (Anita Hegh), at last free from Dympie’s overbearing power, danced joyously alone; and Dympie (Rebecca Massey) hung on to Gordon (Glenn Hazeldine) as the band played on.

Healy quotes Bovell describing After Dinner as a “black comedy about five lonely and sexually frustrated people looking for a good time on a Friday night out and not finding it”.  Healey himself writes “At first glance, one might view After Dinner as a boulevard comedy: a group of 30-something ‘singletons’ out on a Friday night looking for – variously – sex, emotional contact and/or solace, but its political subtext articulates something far more profound.”

Well, I found Bovell’s comedy (his first play) anything but ‘black’, certainly compared to Ayckbourn’s ‘bitter’ comedy (his 12th play) (see my review of Absent Friends on this blog). 

Perhaps some of the difference is to do with these authors’ time in their lives of writing.  Ayckbourn was born in 1939, as WWII was beginning, wrote his first play at the age of 20, and wrote Absent Friends 15 years into a successful career of humour, just after Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests.

From Bovell’s own account (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/black-comedy-served-up-after-dinner-20150106-12iarf.html) and that of his wife, Eugenia Fragos, in an interview published in the program, the first version of what became After Dinner was written in 1984 when Bovell was 21, and the completed play was first produced at Melbourne’s La Mama in 1988.  While Ayckbourn was writing well into a career as a comedy writer, Tom Healey describes Bovell’s “political voice, this passionate view about the role of art” as “a hallmark of Bovell’s writing”.

Think of Holy Day or The Secret River and you know Bovell’s plays are in a different world from The Norman Conquests or Absent Friends. 

But the funny thing was I laughed more at After Dinner.  How could that be so?

It was because Bovell was a better creater of characters than Ayckbourn, at least in these two plays.  Ayckbourn relied on situation and characters which can easily be described ‘externally’.  Marge tries to do her best for others, but puts her foot in it.  Diana tries too hard to be the perfect wife, while her husband Paul is a control freak.  They go mad and Marge can do nothing except go home to help her indigent husband.  The ending is bitter: the characters are fixed, and there is no solution.

 Bovell’s characters talk…and talk.

As they do so, they reveal not fixed characteristics.  They are each searching to change, in themselves.  Paula dresses weirdly, knowing it will annoy Dympie, and in the end escapes Dympie’s power play. She dances briefly with Gordon, but passes him on to Dympie, and enjoys dancing on her own.  Dympie seems un-self-aware,  but sees the others change and realises she needs to change (though it takes an amazing performance on the table top for this to happen).  Monika knows she must escape her husband’s control, especially now that he is dead.  In the toilet she makes the decision – and succeeds.  Gordon knows he needs another man to talk to.  Stephen does not know he needs another man to talk to.  The talk changes them both.  Stephen finds Monika for a one-night stand.  Gordon, now that his wife has left him, dances with Dympie more realistic about himself.

It doesn’t sound funny, but Bovell’s writing was thoroughly understood by director Imara Savage and the actors.  They built up the talk and then the action from a static beginning to a frantic pace of change, and a quiet ending in a new light.  This is not romantic comedy where all’s well that ends well.  Each character sees their self with a more realistic understanding.  Their lives will go on, but without unrealistic expectations of themselves and others. 

This is not ‘black’ nor ‘bitter’.  It took a wild and very funny night to reach this point, for which we must thank the actors, whose timing, pacing and teamwork was wonderfully done, and who individually made every speech prove the writer’s understanding of character.

So, though I’ve always liked and even directed Ayckbourn, I’ve concluded that Bovell is better.

 All photos by Brett Boardman

 

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: Nothing to Lose Force Majeure

Cover Photo: Toby Burrows

Nothing to Lose Force Majeure directed by Kate Champion.  Artistic Associate and Music Curator: Kelli Jean Drinkwater; Set and Lighting design: Geoff Cobham; Costume design: Matthew Stegh; Text Dramaturg: Steve Rodgers.  Sydney Festival at Carriageworks, January 21-25, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 23
© Frank McKone, Canberra

At its heart, dance is celebration.

But to make a dance means to know and show what is to be celebrated.  And why.

The best dance work makes what is being celebrated both personal and universal.  Kate Champion’s work is among the best.

Nothing to Lose is, in one sense, not all Champion’s work.  Her special skill as director is to bring others in: not only those mentioned already, but Ghenoa Gela to choreograph the finale to sound composed by Stereogamous (Paul Mac and Jonny Seymour), and indeed the whole company working together to devise the movement vocabulary.  And an important participant in the process was an “Outside Eye”: Roz Hervey.

Force Majeure’s continuing success, including this show, the previous collaboration with Steve Rodgers, Food, and earlier works also reviewed on this blog, The Age I’m In, and Never Did Me any Harm, has always resulted from Kate Champion’s vision of new forms of dance/drama and her cooperative way of leading her company, often consisting of groups of people with a need and desire to express themselves through a movement vocabulary devised for their particular kind of celebration.

It is sad, then, to read in her Director’s Note I would … like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported my work with Force Majeure since its inception, in particular Carriageworks and Sydney Festival.  I am sincerely honoured that our resident home and the Festival that presented our first show have co-commissioned my last as Artistic Director with the company.

The Cast
Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Whatever the future holds, Nothing to Lose is literally writ large in today’s dance scene.  However I must try to avoid writing anything fatuous, since the show’s words in a way undermine my role as critic.  Almost – it seems every possible – derogatory (politically incorrect) word or phrase that people use to describe fat people is presented in a tumbling cascade of squirm-making sound, followed by all the politically correct questions and advice that people ask of and give to fat people, leaving me only able to say that the show simply says accept us for what we are and celebrate our lives with us.

Words are not needed then.  The conventional responses to such large bodies presenting themselves to us on stage are broken down first by an unusual form of audience participation.  The figures, on low pedestals, become exhibits of art works, statues that volunteers from the audience are guided to touch, exploring the bodies, in a personal and finally comforting way as they each rest their head on the expansive soft stomach of their chosen statue, “as if on a pillow”.  The experience (even of just watching as I did) reminded me of the Ron Mueck statue of the pregnant woman and the other naked figures in the National Portrait Gallery exhibition In the Flesh (until March 9, 2015), except that we were not allowed to touch those.

As statues in an exhibition, with guide Julian Crotti
Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Photo: Heidrun Lohr

The members of the Cast – Claire “Scarlett” Burrows, Julian Crotti, Michael Cutrupi, LaLa Gabor, Ally Garrett, Latai Taumoepeau and Anastasia Zaravinos – performed a series of episodes expressing in abstract forms emotions and experiences as people rather than as “fat” people.  Their physical skills and quality of dance movement, and the range of styles they worked in, simply showed us that expressive dance for such large people is just as normal as it is for any other people.  The way they moved was personal to them, but we could all relate to their feelings and applaud their success as dancers.

As a finale, an Ensemble – Alexandra Afflick, Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Alice Hatton, Michael Jaja, Victor Johnson, John Leha, Maeve Marsden, Malafou Ralph Togia-Molesi, Cara Neely, Shondelle Pratt and Angela Sullen – joined the Cast in a whole of company celebratory group dance in unison which elicited whoops, cheers and whistles as well as lengthy applause from a highly appreciative audience, which certainly included this critic.

Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Photo: Toby Burrows

Photo: Toby Burrows

Finale
Photo: Heidrun Lohr

2015: Long Grass Dance theatre by Vicki Van Hout

Long Grass  Dance theatre choreographed and directed by Vicki Van Hout.  Cultural consultant, choreographic collaborator and voice/sound: Gary Lang.  Produced by Performance Space and Intimate Spectacle, Darwin.  Sydney Festival, Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre January 14-18, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 16

Vicki Van Hout’s choreography and the quality of the dance work by the five performers – Katina Olsen, Taree Sansbury, Caleena Sansbury, Thomas ES Kelly and Darren Edwards – is quite extraordinary.  Their characters are modern Aboriginal people, with all their day-to-day ironic body and vocal language in the seemingly ‘off-stage’ moments, between stunning representational imagery of all the phases of life on the edges of official society.

About 2% of Darwin’s people are homeless.  Most are camped in the “Long Grass” where we see a simple plot played out: a woman takes sick and dies.  Who is she?

Dysfunction, cultural and family breakdown, alcohol, violence and inevitable almost unnoticed death are danced into our consciousness, supported by live dialogue and sound effects, in what seems to me to be an entirely original form.

There is no Martha Graham behind this “modern dance”.  There surely are elements of Larrakia traditional dance in the amazing flexibility, mimetic qualities, physical balance and strength in stillness, but neither is this “traditional dance” for these people struggling to survive in the long grass.

This dance is new.

Seeking comparisons, I looked to Bangarra.  However true to his culture, there is still some Martha Graham in Stephen Page’s work, though recent choreography by Frances Rings in Terrain shows a similar originality to Van Hout’s work (though on a more poetic theme).

I think the new development is terrific to see – Indigenous culture is breaking out all over.  No longer is there an assumed ‘traditional’ form of expression giving the impression to ‘white’ society that Aboriginals are all the same.  As it was in the past when 600 languages were spread across Australia, Long Grass is modern Larrakia culture in dance from Darwin, different from but equal to modern Murri culture from the Brisbane-based Page family, or Frances Rings’ modern Kokatha culture from Adelaide.

Long Grass is both tragic for its story and exciting for its art, and I hope to see more work from the Performance Space and Intimate Spectacle in the future.

Photos by Heidrun Lohr:

 Photos by Jamie Williams:

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: The Long Pigs by We3

The Long Pigs by We3 – Clare Bartholomew, Derek Ives-Plunkett & Nicci Wilks.  Directed by Susie Dee.  Produced by Insite Arts.  Sydney Festival at Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre January 15-18, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 16

Whatever you do in your life, make sure you avoid the black-nosed clowns.  It got quite scary when these three realised they were one red nose short and were clearly expecting to find one in the audience and chop it off.

We3 must have had a wonderful time putting together the enormous complexity of their set, as well as the characters of their clowns: the fat bossy one, the short one who regularly stuffs things up, and the tall somewhat lugubrious and rather naïve one who at one stage was nailed to a cross.  When he discovered that the nails didn’t actually go through his hands, he quite naturally exclaimed “Jesus!!”

By this time it was clear that these were anti-clowns.  After the recent ideological murders in Sydney and Paris, it struck me that this parody of Christ might have had serious consequences if they had chosen to parody Mahomet.

As it turns out, the short clown is a ring-in – beneath the surface his black nose is actually red, so it is duly chopped off.  When he is forced to eat his own nose (that’s where the cannibalism implied in the “long pigs” title comes in), red noses rain from the heavens, and the black-nosed clowns have won the day.

The message is that extremist ideology taken to its logical conclusion is a real danger.  Yet we laugh at the clowns, and even applaud, while watching it all happen.  The fact that this show must have been devised long before the Sydney and Paris murders shows the prescience of We3’s work.

And, indeed, it is great fun to watch.  And interesting to note that the clowns are all represented as male, while two of the performers are female.  I think this says something about who controls the extremist view of the world.

It’s not a pretty sight, but the gruesome story is well worth seeing.  You will surely laugh, in a black-nosed kind of way.

I've got a little list.  Isn't that one there in Row F?

Jesus!!

Birth - of a banana.

Can we trust these overblown red-nosed clowns?

Hang the ring-in.

Digest that, you red-nose!

Photos by Prudence Upton
(Captions: Frank McKone)

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: Have I No Mouth by Brokentalkers

Have I No Mouth by Brokentalkers, Ireland, co-directed by Feidlim Cannon and Gary Keegan.  Performed by Ann Cannon, Feidlim Cannon & Erich Keller.  Sydney Festival, York Theatre, Seymour Centre, January 15 to 18, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 15

In my day, before being a mere critic, I have had my experience of less than successful attempts at using what I call ‘oblique’ images and theatrical devices as significant symbols.

If in this case the devising group had constrained themselves, perhaps limiting the imagery to the balloons and using just one miked commentator/questioner as the main device, the story of a son’s emotional troubles resulting from the deaths of his baby brother and his father could have become a gripping drama.  But too much theatrical diversity means inconsistency, which means the drama wanders without clear development.

Basically, as the audience demonstrated admirably this evening, they only wake up when they can become excited by the prospect of a new development when a previously established device or image reappears.  Though the balloons, into which you blow all your anger, is a cheap ploy to engage the audience, it was at least a theme (and the only one) which followed through from balloons being handed out at the door, blown up in an audience participation exercise, popped when the son hugged his father’s ghost hard enough, with anger relieved in the fun of swamping the auditorium with bouncing balloons to end the play.

If it sounds as though I’m giving some instruction to a group of drama students, that’s not surprising when we see that Brokentalkers have no writer, just two ‘co-directors’ who claim that “Their work seeks to explore new forms that challenge traditional ideologies of text-based theatre” in a working method “founded on a collaborative process that draws from the skills and experiences of a large and diverse group of contributors from different disciplines and backgrounds.”

Sorry if I see value in the old ideology of a writer, director and if necessary a dramaturg to create consistency in the final result, but after all I have seen the Brokentalkers kind of challenge many times before – from the time of Piscator in the 1920s in Germany, through the Open Theatre of the 1960s in New York, and even in Canberra’s Fools Gallery in the late 1970s, as well as various Sydney groups such as Kinetic Energy.  Non-text based work is not exactly a new idea.  Some has worked; some has not.

Unfortunately, Have I No Mouth uses the real experiences of the people performing: the son is Feidlim Cannon, the mother is his mother Ann, and the psychiatrist is his psychiatrist Erich Keller.  Awful though it is to have to say it, since the issue surrounding Feidlim’s father’s death is obviously very serious, and perhaps reveals a crucial failing on the part of the medicos concerned, the play ends up perhaps being a kind of psychological therapy for the participants but offering little to an audience.

Some questions are raised, which I overheard some people discussing after the show, about the role of the mother as a parent, for example.  I found it difficult to listen because it seemed too much like prying into others’ privacy.

As each new device appeared, in the action or on screen, unexpectedly different in form or style without any apparent reason, about halfway through I found myself no longer engaged with the emotional content.  The play lost its plot.  The only interest was in wondering what new technique would appear next.

The company is described as  “one of Ireland’s most innovative and original theatre companies by making formally ambitious work that defies categorisation”.  I actually don’t know what this means, or how it applies to this presentation.  I’m just concerned that the important issues behind these people’s disturbed lives do need to be addressed, and need better, well-focussed theatre to do it.

I should add, though, it is a valid thing for the Sydney Festival to host such international indie groups, so that theatre practitioners and audiences here can make their own judgements.  This is an especially important value of the About An Hour segment of the Festival.

Photos by Prudence Upton:

 

© Frank McKone, Canberra