2024: The Hair and the Shortis by Shortis & Simpson

 

 

The Hair and the Shortis by Shortis & Simpson at Smith’s Alternative, Canberra City, Saturday December 7, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Political satire, written, composed and performed by John Shortis and Moya Simpson.

    Shortis & Curlies John Shortis, Moya Simpson, Andrew Bissett at The School of Arts Cafe, 108 Monaro Street, Queanbeyan.  Season: Thursdays to Saturdays till June 29, 1996.

If you are a Liberal politician confident that cutting government spending is the only way to go; or a Labor politician feeling sorry for yourself after 100 days of the new regime; or a veterinary surgeon operating out of Woden Valley; or someone who thinks that a national gun register is not a good idea; or Princess Diana; or Jeff Kennett; or even a frozen embryo who hopes to inherit your dead father's estate: then you shouldn't see this show because you probably won't laugh.

This is how I introduced Shortis & Simpson when they began performing in 1996.  Nowadays, with Shortis and only one Curly, how much has changed since the first 100 days of John Howard’s eleven years, 1996 – 2007, of Conservative government (weirdly called ‘Liberal’ in this country) and the possible prospect of an even more right-wing conservative Peter Dutton government from early in 2025.

In the meantime the political issues may have changed their names and parties like the Prime Ministers: Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd  (weirdly called ‘Labor’ instead of Labour) 2007-2013; Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison (Liberal National Coalition) 2013-2022; Anthony Albanese (Labor) 2022-2025, so far.  

Shortis & Simpson have remained the same in principle and have developed in practice over these three decades, receiving a Canberra Critics’ Circle award this year, the citation reading “for their original music series, Under the Influence, in which the duo wove their own stories and music together with those of guest artists Keith Potger, Karen Middleton, DJ Gosper, Nigel McRae and Beth Tully, culminating in seasons with Mikelangelo and Fred Smith…. [an] initiative [which] proved a creative way of highlighting leading Canberra region popular musicians.”

And their full house at Smith’s Alternative tonight still laughed, and sang and clapped along, and even groaned appropriately, as they did at the Queanbeyan School of Arts Café – this time at Lydia Thorpe’s intended insult but unintended comic mispronunciation of King Charles’ heirs as ‘hairs’ rather than ‘airs’, stirring up John Shortis’ fascination with word play via The Hare and the Tortoise to this show’s title, The Hair and the Shortis.  Moya made it very clear who had the hair and who was the shortis.

The people who probably wouldn’t have laughed include the CEOs of Woolworths and Coles supermarkets; the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers; Elon Musk; Tronald Dump; all the Moonlight Senatas to Beethoven’s tune, up all night rushing bills through while Albo’s In The Air with John Paul Young, after enjoying his time in the Chantas Quairman’s Lounge; the new local Australian Capital Territory Liberal leader, Country&Western singer, Leanne Castley; the richest woman in Australia, Gina Rinehart, after her smooching with Nigel Farage at Trump’s dinner party at Mar-a-Lago; Senator Lydia Thorpe – they want to get rydia; and many others.

You wouldn’t want to be a Middle American either; or a Peter Dutton type who can pronounce ‘nuclear’ in every way except the right way – and seriously imagine covering Australia with nuclear power plants.

Then there are different, intriguing songs and stories.  The Childless Dog Lady, that is Moya Simpson herself, doesn’t seek sympathy, but recognition of her personal preference for dogs rather than children, rather than being insulted as a Childless Cat Lady as Kamala Harris has been.  While there was the story of the Australian native stingless bees kept at Parliament House in Canberra, but which don’t like our frosts and are taken to Sydney each winter to breed, and how they become a model for our politicians to become stingless, instead of stinging each other and us like European bees.

I can’t report here on all 26 items in this engaging show before the encore, but that was an enlightening history in itself of protest movements and their songs which made a powerful finale.

The important thing to say about Shortis & Simpson is that they are an essential part of our community.  We feel every year how we belong to them and they belong to us.  And they have promised me that they will be there with us again next year.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2024: Jack Maggs by Samuel Adamson

 

 

Jack Maggs by Samuel Adamson, based on the novel of the same name by Peter Carey, after Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
State Theatre Company South Australia at Canberra Theatre Centre, Playhouse.  December 5-7 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
December 5


Writer: Samuel Adamson    Director: Geordie Brookman

Cast
Jack Maggs: Mark Saturno;             Tobias Oates: James Smith
Mercy Larkin: Ahunim Abebe;         Hawthorne/Mary/Phipps: Rachel Burke
Constable/George/Partridge: Dale March;     Miss Mott/Lizzie: Jelena Nicdao
Percy Buckle/Dr Grieves: Nathan O'keefe
Ma Britten/Mrs Halfstairs/Old Mercy: Jacqy Phillips

Creatives
Designer: Ailsa Paterson; Lighting Designer: Nigel Levings
Composer: Hilary Kleinig; Sound Designer: Andrew Howard
Accent Coach: Jennifer Innes; Assistant Director: Annabel Matheson
Intimacy/Fight Choreographer: Ruth Fallon

Mark Saturno as Jack Maggs
State Theatre South Australia

Though I know Great Expectations from my teenage reading – most fascinated by the hero ‘Pip’, his hope of marrying Estelle, and the character of Miss Havisham, ‘a rich and grim lady…who led a life of seclusion’ – I never thought much about Abel Magwitch, alias ‘Provis’, ‘an escaped convict’.  

Now, watching Samuel Adamson’s in many ways quite remarkable play, I find it is unfortunate that I haven’t yet read Peter Carey’s story of the life of Magwitch, alias ‘Jack Maggs’, convicted of theft and sent to New South Wales ‘for the term of his natural life’.  

So here I am, watching a theatrical interpretation of a fiction twice removed.  As Jack Maggs arrives secretly back in London, is he the same character as the Magwitch I knew?  If you want the answer, you couldn’t do better than start at Chapter XL – the beginning of the third stage of Pip’s expectations – on Page 3ll where he tells Pip his real name, but they agree to use an assumed name ‘Provis’ and to call him Pip’s uncle.

Confused already?  In Great Expectations there are 38 characters, listed before you begin to read.   In Jack Maggs, the play, there are only 16 characters played by 8 actors, seemingly covering something like a new version of Chapters 36-42 of Great Expectations – except that there’s no Tobias Oates, 'mesmerist', or any of the others in Dickens’ story.  Perhaps I shouldn’t ever have read or have had Great Expectations in the first place – even though Carey’s Tobias Oates insists that reading the literary canon is essential!

On stage, the basic story of Jack Maggs’ life in Australia, and his type of character, is much the same as Magwitch telling Pip in Great Expectations, about how he was given a ticket of leave and became wealthy.  But now, as you can find out from the Study Guide at 

https://statetheatrecompany.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Jack-Maggs-Study-Guide2.pdf ,
The story follows the enigmatic ex-convict Jack Maggs (Carey’s version of Magwitch)
returning to London from Australia and embarking on a relentless quest to find his
‘son’ Henry Phipps, who has mysteriously disappeared. Maggs soon becomes
entangled in the web of Phipps’ neighbour, Percy Buckle and his bizarre household,
where he makes a deal with young novelist and “mesmerist” Tobias Oates (or is
it Charles Dickens himself?) To find Phipps. Oates has other plans though, and in
Maggs, might just find the perfect inspiration for his new novel.

Though the acting, choreography, costumes and technical wizardry make Jack Maggs eminently watchable, I wish I had been made by, say, an excellent drama teacher to read the 34-page Study Guide first.  Then I could have made the right connections to follow the plot, and better understood the point of the thoroughly enjoyable singing of such recognisably Australian songs.

With this in mind, I certainly recommend this interesting original view of the convict origins and history of Australian colonial life.  And thoroughly support the aim of encouraging the reading of literature of the Charles Dickens kind for Years 9 – 12 as the State Theatre intends.  They might find, then, as I see it, that Great Expectations is a social satire (of course, Pip and Estelle are at last inseparable, at least according to Pip, in the final paragraph); while there is not the same degree of ironic humour in Adamson’s Jack Maggs – and I am yet to find out about Peter Carey’s version.  There’s a laugh in ‘Toby’s Oats”, at least.

Jack Maggs by Samuel Adamson
State Theatre South Australia

©Frank McKone, Canberra