2023: Is There Something Wrong With That Lady by Debra Oswald

 

 

Is There Something Wrong With That Lady by Debra Oswald.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, September 18 – October 14 2023.

First produced by Griffin Theatre Company, 13 – 24 April 2021 at the SBW Stables Theatre.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 23

Cast:
Debra Oswald

Creatives:
Director – Lee Lewis; Associate Director – Nell Ranney
Set & Costume Designer – Jeremy Allen
Lighting Designer – Matt Cox
Original lighting designer for the Griffin production – Benjamin Brockman
Sound Designer – Jessica Dunn; Video Realiser – Daniel Herten
Stage Manager – Bronte Schuftan; Costume Supervisor – Renata Beslik




My experience teaching and directing high school drama students, now many decades ago, taught me an invaluable lesson.  This was expressed by dancer, mime and theatre arts teacher, Anton Witsel OAM, Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Tchaikovski Medal, in this way: “In the theatre you can always fall flat on your face.” He meant it literally as well as metaphorically.  Any kind of performing drama is a risk.

Hayes Gordon, founder of Ensemble Theatre, spoke of “acting acting” as a risk, and for some actors as a danger.

So I found watching writer Debra Oswald performing herself a bit disturbing.  She is not “in character”, yet she works to a script and has presented this story since its beginning at Griffin Theatre in 2021.  She ‘stands up”, but is not a comedian.  Some of what she says makes people laugh, but they are not jokes.

She ends with a loving tribute to her ever-faithful husband, and dog.  But what if he (the husband) has begun to feel that she is using him, even monetising their love?  Perhaps he might, considering her quite explicit stories of her sexual behaviour in younger times.

In my role as critic, I am left with ethical questions.  Should I judge the show as nothing but entertainment, succeeding in making people laugh?  Should I praise her open honesty about what it is to be a writer in a gig economy (the only kind of economy in the arts)?  How do I know, though, if all she has said is true?  

After all, I am aware of how often my memories and what I thought were truths have been coloured by later events and changing needs.  When I almost formally interviewed my mother, aged 85, soon after my father had died at the same age, we each had forgotten events that the other remembered as certain.  And there were secrets kept on both sides.

For a reasonable critical evaluation of a public paying-for show, I need to consider the purpose which the author may have had in mind and whether the production successfully achieved that intention.  But what is Debra Oswald’s intention, as both the writer and performer?

Is it meant to be a revelation with wider implications than her merely personal story?  Is it meant to give her status as a performer; so should I judge her acting skills?  Is it meant to be a homily of resilience, her ‘doggedness’, which we should take to heart?

So Oswald herself explains in a Writer's Note, “I’ve been around a while – making a living as a writer for over 40 years – and I wondered if the perspective of a bruised old dame might be of interest to people.  So, I wrote this show as my late-onset stage debut.  My aim is to be embarrassingly candid about myself, sometimes amusing, honest about the highs and lows of being an Australian writer, and hopefully to extract wisdom from the Ensemble audience about what I should do next.”

So – I was interested in bits and pieces of the story; I was embarrassed by some of her candidness about very intimate experiences; there were some amusing asides and one or two genuinely funny stories; I did feel some sympathy for the lows in her writing life and appreciated the highs.  

But as for wisdom I can’t offer much beyond Thank your Lucky Stars if you haven’t yet fallen flat on your face.  Writing and performing this show was certainly taking a theatrical risk.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2023: Is God Is by Aleshea Harris

 

 

Is God Is by Aleshea Harris. Co-produced by Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1, Sydney, September 15 – October 21 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 22

Performed by

Henrietta Enyonam Amevor as Anaia; Masego Pitso as Racine – twin daughters of
She – Cessalee Stovall and Man – Kevin Copeland.
Grant Young as Riley; Darius Williams as Scotch – twin sons of
Angie – Clare Chihambakwe and Man
Patrick Williams as Chuck Hall – Man’s lawyer

Co-Directors – Zindzi Okenyo and Shari Sebbens
Designer – Renée Mulder
Lighting Designer – Jenny Hector; Composer & Sound Designer – Joe Paradise Lui
Assistant Director – Kuda Mapeza; Fight Director – Lyndall Grant
Intimacy Coordinator – Amy Cater; Voice Coach – Lisa Dallinger
Accent Coaches – Amani Dorn and Rachel Finlay
Community Engagement Consultant – Effie Nkrumah
Community Engagement Associate – Gillean Opoku
Photographer – Pia Johnson




Is God Is – a mysterious title with no punctuation to suggest its meaning.  Is God? Is! is perhaps what Anaia believes until the last scene, alone on stage after taking final revenge on her father.  Then it reads Is God? Is?.

But this play is anything but a word game.  It is a playing out in violent action the ethics and tragedy of family coercive control, violence and revenge.  As these were given epic proportions in Ancient Greek theatre, so Aleshea Harris has done such a service for our theatre in modern times.  

Eugene O’Neill, in Mourning Becomes Electra nearly 100 years ago (1933), achieved a great family tragedy with a political emphasis critical of the American Civil War.  In 2018 another American, Aleshea Harris has conjoined two social tragedies – the continuing inequity of life for African Americans which the Civil War never resolved, and the overwhelmingly male family violence across our whole society.  The Australian numbers of women killed each week are damning.  

Is God Is is a universal tragedy.  Harris’ Anaia stands alone in despair with O’Neill’s Lavinia.  When will it ever end?

The style of presentation of Is God Is, infused with Black American cultural expression and mannerisms in language and physical movement, all integrated in today’s upbeat genres in sound, is quite extraordinary, more than complemented in the set design and lighting.  Originality is hardly a strong enough word to use for this production.  Forget the idea of staid conventional mainstage theatre.  This production is made for post Gen-Z.

Co-directing Is God Is, Zindzi Okenyo and Shari Sebbens represent in their own African and Australian First Nations family histories, and being women, both the issue of racial inequality, as well sexual inequality.  As Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director, Kip Williams, points out, “We couldn’t be more fortunate to have the extraordinary directing gifts of Zindzi Okenyo and STC Resident Director Shari Sebbens helming this remarkable production….Shari and Zindzi are in many ways just like the twins at the centre of this piece, whip smart, funny, courageous, and on a mission to change the world.”

Seeing the play, you know this is not sycophantic guff for publicity.  The evidence is in the impact on stage with the audience at curtain call in a state combining awe, pride and respect for such an achievement, by the whole team of actors, creatives and directors.  This is arguably the most exciting work I have seen from the Sydney / Melbourne Theatre Companies, in a cooperative venture of great promise.

Is God Is – theatre you cannot afford to miss.

Henrietta Enyonam Amevor, Cessalee Stovall, Masego Pitso
as twins Anaia and Racine visiting She, their mother who they had been told was dead,

Racine and Anaia, showing burns from the fire lit by Man
which supposedly killed their mother, She.

Grant Young, Clare Chihambakwe, Darius Williams
as twins Riley and Scotch with their mother Angie, Man's next wife,

 

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

2023: The Visitors by Jane Harrison

 

 

Photo: David Boud

The Visitors by Jane Harrison.  Presented by Sydney Theatre Company and Moogahlin Performing Arts at Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre September 11 – October 14, 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone, September 14

Performed by

Joseph Wunujaka Althouse (Lawrence); Luke Carroll (Gordon)
Elaine Crombie (Jaky); Kyle Morrison (Joseph)
Guy Simon (Gary); Beau Dean Riley Smith (Albert)
Dalara Williams (Wallace)

Director – Wesley Enoch; Designer – Elizabeth Gadsby
Lighting Designer – Karen Norris; Composer & Sound Designer – Brendon Boney
Associate Director – Liza-Mare Syron; Assoc Sound Designer – Shana O’Brien
Senior Dharug & Dharawal Language Teacher – Corina Norman
Voice Coach – Charmian Gradwell; Fight Director – Nigel Poulton

The Visitors is about making a crucial decision when there are differences of opinion.

The play is set in 1788.  It is so well written and performed, and is so important, that it should be immediately filmed on YouTube and links be put up on every social media platform for everyone to see before we vote on The Voice Referendum on October 14 2023.

The Visitors won’t tell you which way to vote, but it will show you why you must vote, and make you think about the consequences of your decision.

The play – written, directed and performed by people with First Nations heritage – is a speculative historical fiction which is riveting to watch, culminating in a final stunning speech by Luke Carroll as Gordon, the leader of the Sydney Cove clan of the Eora people.  His country is where the British ships are about to disembark.

There were 7 clans in the meeting to decide what to do – these were real, covering Sydney Cove and Harbour; Northern Parramatta River; Botany Bay (where Captain Cook had landed in 1770); the South Shore; Manly Cove and North Shore; the River; and the Headlands of the Bay.

Each leader is a complex character, just as in real life, with a mix of personal attitudes and responses to their clan’s needs.  There are traditionalists; some see opportunities in making a change; some want immediate violent action; some concentrate on ethics – what is right or wrong to do.  They meet accepting a basic principle that all have an equal say, can bring in a new idea or argument, change their position in response; speak formally when they hold the message stick; and work to stay polite and respectful even when emotions are raised in conflict.  

In other words, what we see is local democracy at work in the face of possible dire threat.  Lawrence (Botany Bay) points out for example that the threat might never happen, since recently the ships had moved on from his country after only three days.  Wallace is the most concerned with insisting on ethical behaviour towards the newcomers; but this becomes problematical when from the shore they see a man being hanged on one of the ships.  But it is Gordon’s experience when a young boy, when he saw what happened when his father tried to do the right thing towards Captain Cook 18 years earlier, that brings the meeting to a resolution – and to a standing ovation.

Sydney Theatre Company, by partnering with the Indigenous Moogahlin Performing Arts, has provided an important, and in the current circumstances a necessary, service to the nation, a highlight in the 50th Birthday program of Sydney Opera House.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2023: Summer of Harold - 3 playlets by Hilary Bell

 

Summer of Harold – 3 Playlets by Hilary Bell: Summer of Harold, Enfant Terrible, Lookout.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, September 8 – October 14 2023.  
Published with Theatre Program at the end of the playtext, Currency Press 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 13

Director – Francesca Savige; Dramaturg – Jane Fitzgerald
Set & Costume Designer – Jeremy Allen
Lighting Designer – Matt Cox
Composer & Sound Designer – Mary Rapp
Dialect Coach – Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Stage Manager – Erin Shaw; Asst Stage Manager – Mia Kanzaki
Costume Supervisor – Renata Beslik
Lighting Secondment – Joel Montgomery

Performed by
Hannah Waterman as Janet / Joanne / Rae
Berynn Schwerdt as Gareth / Jonathan




Hilary Bell's brand new hilarious theatrical experience about adventure, obsession and hope is the description the Ensemble has put out in its publicity, but I would say it’s an intriguing perspective from middle age of young adulthood, middle middle age and acceptance of death, all done in 90 minutes (without interval)

Janet, late 50s, solo, reminisces on her adventure as a temporary housekeeper for the famous playwright Harold Pinter as a 19-year-old in 1984 (based on the true adventures of Margaret Woodward, a contributing artist to the Australian Design Centre exhibition Happy Objects 2022 for the Sydney Festival.  Griffin Theatre and ADC co-commissioned the original version of Summer of Harold, titled Window, Cricket Bat because Pinter led an artists’ cricket team.  His widowed artist wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, approved of Bell’s script).
 
Gareth, late 50s, ceramics artist, is bitter in extremis about his failure to be recognised while Joanne, late 50s, is sent back to bed while he raves and contorts himself physically and mentally, collapsing into a catatonic state after an embarrassing awards ceremony and eating his rival’s piece of ‘spiritual’ cheese.

Jonathan, late 50s, has brought the ashes of Rae, late 50s, to her favourite Blue Mountains lookout, where she surprises him by turning up and warning him that Miriam – my age, he says – is only after his money.

I note that Hilary Bell is about 57.   She is also an artist.  The first two plays are partly about artistic integrity and hypocrisy, while the last is about reality.  Are these the essential issues for a late 50s person with the intensity of emotion that art requires?  There were laughs, that’s true; but intriguing rather than hilarious is how I saw Summer of Harold.

Intriguing also is a hugely cluttered wall of shelves representing in Play One, Harold Pinters’ collection of knick-knacks.  Pin-point spotlighting cleverly isolates pieces significant in each of the plays.  The props department must have had a field day.  

Going with each spot is an extraordinary collection of soundscapes.  My failure to be up with the latest in serious pop music meant the details of significance were lost on me.  I (like quite a proportion of the Sydney North Shore audience) am well past 57, but the general impression certainly related to adventure and obsession – but I didn’t hear or see much hope in Lookout, which was as much about Jonathan needing to lookout to avoid being trapped by Miriam as it was about the dangerously high but beautiful Lookout point in the Blue Mountains (surely at my favourite view of the Three Sisters).

Which raises another possibility in this very Australian art theatre presentation.  Are Janet, Joanne and Rae three sisters, in the MeToo sense.  They are OK when young and adventurous – until Janet accidentally breaks Pinter’s coffee cup (even though he is OK about it – sort of), but at late 50s, though Janet has funny memories, Joanne is left a nonentity shuffled back to bed, and Rae is apparently dead (and still telling Jonathan what not to do).

I can still say sincerely that this is an adventurous Ensemble production, not for its hilarity but for its intriguing Hilaryness.


© Frank McKone, Canberra

2023: Mr Bennet's Bride by Emma Wood

 

 

Sean Sadimoen as James Bennet and Stephanie Waldron as Emily Gardiner

Mr Bennet’s Bride by Emma Wood.  Canberra Repertory Society at Canberra REP Theatre, September 8 – 23, 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 9

Director – Aarne Neeme AM
Set Designer – Andrew Kay; Set Coordinator – Russell Brown OAM
Costume Designer – Anna Senior OAM
Wardrobe Coordinator – Jeanette Brown OAM
Lighting Designer – Mike Moloney; Sound Designer – Justin Mullins
Stage Manager – Mandy Brown
Photographer – Karina Hudson

Cast:
James Bennet – Sean Sadimoen; Emily Gardiner – Stephanie Waldron
James’ father Robert Bennet – Rob de Fries
Robert’s sister Mary Ellingworth – Liz St Clair Long
Mary’s maid Mrs Graves – Sally Rynveld
Their cousin Benedict Collins – Terry Johnson
Robert’s attorney George Gardiner – Iain Murray and his wife Sarah – Kate Harris
Mrs Bowman – Rina Onorato and her daughter Clara – Cameron Rose

________________________________________________________________________________

I have not the slightest doubt that had Miss Austen not suffered her untimely death in 1817, and had been present at the performance of Mr Bennet’s Bride last evening, being aware of the tricks that memory can play after such an age, she surely would have thought to herself, “When did I write that play?  It certainly must have been after I wrote Pride and Prejudice.  Or perhaps not.  Perhaps I wrote this one first, which would explain how I wrote so confidently, with such strongly established characters in the Bennet family.  Oh, ooops! Of course I only wrote novels.  But if I had written for the stage, I would have written this one.”

And, she would have thought, Mr Neeme and his actors must all have read Pride and Prejudice, and understood it so well.  And how much would I like to meet Miss Emma Wood in real life, as we have met metaphorically.

Then Jane and Emma would have such a talk, in the manner of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, about how much the relationship between men and women has changed, or not – though Jane might find herself mixing up Emma Wood with Emma Woodhouse.   Ooops – that’s another novel.

Though this is my fantasy, I certainly have no doubt about the meeting of minds.

Emma Wood’s script is perfect for naturalistic acting, and every member of the cast presented beautifully defined characters whose motivations for speaking were so clear that, as the relationships developed, I found myself reacting as if I knew these people personally – though with enough distance to laugh at them, or groan, especially at cousin Benedict Collins’s subterfuge in the expectation that his newly born son will inherit Robert Bennet’s Hertfordshire estate, since he believes that Robert’s son James is incapable of marrying.

It is a wonderful story of how it was the right thing for 29 year-old bachelor James to do, in genuinely falling in love with his father’s attorney’s daughter, Emily Gardiner, despite her lower class, lack of interest in reading books, and 17-year-old capacity to find everything so funny.  It is the directness of her open honesty that makes them a pair, even though her flighty behaviour takes the nerdy James back a bit.

And for those – I assume all – of us who know Pride and Prejudice so well, we can now better understand how the sensible nature of their daughter Elizabeth comes about.

It is amazing, and even a little embarrassing for me as a still rather ordinary writer, to recognise the brilliance of Emma Woods in absorbing and then matching the brilliance of Jane Austen.  I can imagine an e-talking book beginning with Mr Bennet’s Bride and naturally continuing with no apparent break with Pride and Prejudice.  For another 200 years.

Perhaps Canberra REP could do the recording.


© Frank McKone, Canberra

2023: Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation

 

The Canberra cast

Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation

 Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The New Stage Musical by Jonathan Rockefeller.  Produced by TEG Life Like Touring, in partnership with Rockefeller Productions, and in association with Disney Theatrical Group. It features a cast of Australian and New Zealand artists.

Canberra Theatre Centre, Main Stage.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

 
The cast may include Jake Bazel as Pooh; Chris Palmieri as Tigger; Kirsty Moon as Piglet/Roo; Emmanuel Elpenord as Eeyore, Rabbit, and Owl; and Kristina Dizon as Kanga/Owl. Actor playing Christopher Robin is not named.
(https://www.livingartscanberra.com.au/disneys-winnie-the-pooh-the-new-musical-stage-adaptation/)

Music by The Sherman Brothers—Robert B. Sherman and Richard M.


When I was four, near the end of World War 2, Pooh Bear was my favourite, on a par with Bambi.  Bambi’s mother, in the movie, was horribly murdered by cold-hearted deer hunters.  Pooh Bear’s naïve enthusiasm about doing things and hoping that things will turn out alright in the end, was such a relief.  

So I became an environment activist and a speaker for Amnesty International, and am still that four-year-old at the age of 82 and a half, because A.A.Milne’s characters were very much individuals with their own personal approach to life.  When reading Winnie the Pooh I was doing things in my bedroom with a group of friends I could trust to be interesting and thought provoking.

This production captured the core of the adventure to find ‘hunny’ for Pooh.  Of the characters Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Eeyore, and Owl all had the right ‘feel’ of the Milne originals, but I lost the warmth and engaging feelings I expected from Pooh and Tigger.

Though all the complicated movement work in the actors visibly performing the puppets was perfectly done by everyone, the voice quality for Pooh needed to be more rounded and warm, more melodious.  He is a poet who sings and ‘hums’, and who sometimes goes quiet as he contemplates himself.  While Tigger sounded too harsh rather than volubly excited with his fascination for numbers, as well as bouncing, paralleling Pooh’s fascination with words.

I think, in representing these characters, Disney took over too much from Milne.  Fortunately there was no attempt to rewrite Milne as Disney has done often before.  The Englishness which is the central quality of Winnie the Pooh is not to be strained.

However the fun and humour of this show is thoroughly well done, as is the puppet designs, the set design, and the lighting – though I found the recorded sound track interfered a little with concentrating on the words.

The audience included too many very small babies who kept up a level of background noise, but the feeling at the end throughout was positive and appreciative of a successful search for hunny.

 © Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

2023: The Hello Girls - Heartstrings Theatre

 

The Hello Girls – book by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel, music and lyrics by Peter Mills.  Presented by Canberra Theatre Centre and Heartstrings Theatre Company at  The Playhouse, September 7-9, 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 8

Director –  Jason Langley
Choreographer – Amy Orman; Musical Director – Alex Unikowski
Costume Designer – Sarah Hordern; Costumier – Helen Wojtas
Set Design – Monique Langford; Lighting Design – Antony Hateley
Sound Design – Kyle Sheedy
Sound Effect Design – Noah Chrapot and Tallulah Gordon
Photographer – Jane Duong

Musicians:
Alexander Unikowski – keyboard, guitar, trumpet, trombone, clarinet
John Yoon – keyboard; Enola Jefferis – cello; Mel Fung – bass
Brandon Reed – drums

Cast:
“Hello Girls”
Rhianna McCourt as Grace Banker; Ylaria Rogers as Suzanne Prevot
Petronella van Tienen as Helen Hill; Jessy Heath as Bertha Hunt
Kaitlin Nihill as Louise Lebreton
Swing – Kristy Griffin

Men
Joel Hutchings as Riser;
Joel Horwood as Matterson/Interviewer 3/Marching Soldier/Soldier/Doughboy
David Hooley as Pershing/Mr Morris/Marching Soldier/Soldier/Ackerson/Doughboy
Jerrod Smith as Dempsey/Beaumont/Interviewer/Soldier/Backing Singer/
    Marching Soldier/1st Officer/Adjutant/Doughboy
Kaya Byrne as Wessen/German Prisoner/Interviewer/Marching Soldier/2nd Officer/
    Soldier/Doughboy/Signalman/Backing Singer

 

With a name like Heartstrings I was prepared for The Hello Girls falling into the terrifying risk trap that all theatre takes – the pit of sentimentality.  Even worse, of American sentimentality in this story of how their telephone operators risked their lives and ended the Great War on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918.

But with a stunning real live band on stage not trying to pretend to be American; with actors who made it clear that they were playing being Americans; and with terrific choreography often venturing into satiric comedy, especially in the men’s parts; that trap was safely covered over.

As the whole cast gloriously sang later in the finale: “We are making history – telling the truth.  Will you answer the call?”  

Yes, in the sense that the Americans – men and these women – joined the war to defeat the Kaiser when France was in danger of being overrun; but also Yes for us to know the truths of our history, and to call out falsifications and the wrongs done even to those on our own side.  It was damning information when of the 223 women who did their duty, it was 1977 before they were given veterans’ rights; and only 33 were still alive to claim those rights by then.

Follow their story at https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/2019/07/05/hello-girls-were-women-who-answered-call-during-world-war/1285014001/

The matter of false assumptions is picked up in a brief but telling scene where the women meet a German prisoner employed to clean their office.  He is educated and engaged in French culture; speaks of soldiers having no choice about fighting; and how the killing of unarmed men happens on all sides in war – to save the cost they would be as prisoners.  He had begged for mercy (and was used as a cleaner), but one of very few from his platoon.

The show, rather like Come From Away in style, is full of energy, terrific singing and acting – in other words, is highly entertaining.  But it is entertainment with purpose, and the feeling coming off the stage powerfully in that finale and curtain call was pride in what the company has done to bring this to us.  Because it is the understanding of people’s commitment to their culture to make change happen and combining that recognition with a demand for truth-telling that is the universal message, not just about the past but about our very present and future in Australia as we vote in the forthcoming referendum for a First Nations’ Voice to be included in our nation’s Constitution.

The 223 Hello Girls themselves made history.  This production of their story foreshadows the making of history on October 14.

The Hello Girls
Heartstrings Theatre 2023

© Frank McKone, Canberra