2025: Blithe Spirit - Canberra REP

 

 

Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward.  Canberra Repertory Theatre - Season: 2 – 17 May 2025

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 2

Directed by Lachlan Houen
Written by Noel Coward

Cast:

Winsome Ogilvie - Elvira
Alex McPherson - Ruth
Peter Holland - Charles
Elaine Noon - Madam Arcati
Antonia Kitzel - Mrs Bradman
John Stead - Dr Bradman
Olivia Boddington – Edith

Creatives:
Set Designers: Andrew Kaye & Michael Sparks OAM
Lighting Design: Leeann Galloway
Sound Design & Composition: Marlené Claudine Radice
Costume Design: Suzan Cooper; Props Coordinator: Gail Cantle




Blithe Spirit is a satirical farce about the English upper classes in the 1930s, with references to the class structure, marriage relationships, and at a comically deeper level about their capacity to believe fantasies about the nature of truth and falsity.  And about death.

“He wrote it in a week. He referred to it as “An Improbable Farce in Three Acts” and took the name from the first line of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, To a Skylark. The play opened at London's Piccadilly Theatre on July 2, 1941—just six weeks after it was written. On November 5, 1941, it premiered on Broadway.” (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival - Blithe Spirit:A High-Spirited Comdey...)

I was born in January 1941, evacuated from London to a small village, Coedpoeth, in rural Wales, in the wake of the Battle of Britain.

The reality of war was not a farce.  But Coward’s instantly successful play was a metaphor, making absurd laughter out of the upper class who had not wanted to understand that reality.

At www.bard.org/study-guides/noel-coward-as-the-mirror-of-a-generation there’s a neat article: Noel Coward as the Mirror of a Generation by Lynnette L. Horner (Utah Shakespeare Festival).

So, as I enjoyed the laughter along with everyone else at Canberra REP last night, I was also asking myself why?

Why should REP in 2025 choose this play?  Is it enough to laugh at the cast's excellent reproductions of the mannerisms and accents of Noel Coward’s 1930s, as you notice in the corner the maid Edith peddling away on her exercise bike to keep fit like Elaine Noon's totally energetic Madam Arcati, just for the sake of having a bit of fun?

Or might something more substantial been made of why we should laugh at them – in their time, or in our time of international mayhem?  In 1941 British and American audiences could make the connections for themselves.  Maybe today we need a bit of help – unless like me, you were there at the time.

Don’t miss REP’s Blithe Spirit, which is very stylishly done.  But don’t be afraid to wonder what it means in today’s Trumpian world.


Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Magic Realism at CIMF - Canberra International Music Festival

 

 

Magic Realism at CIMF.  Presented by TURA, Canberra International Music Festival and The Street, with recorded Soundbed Performers, at The Street Theatre, Canberra.

Part 1        O Spectabiles Viri
Part 2        Mungangga Garlagula

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 1


Because, over my four-score years and four, I have never had formal training or education in music, I respond to the sound of music in an unsophisticated immediate emotional way.

Viewed as offerings in an International Music Festival, both O Spectabiles Viri and Mungangga Garlagula are interesting as examples of unusual music presentations, but from my point of view as a theatre critic they were both less effective than they might have been.

Since there did not seem to be any particular connection between the two items in the evening’s program, I’ll discuss them separately.

In each case, though, I heard not just the music but saw a performer presenting us with a show of their own devising: Jane Sheldon in the role of the early 12th Century European composer Hildegard von Bingen; Mark Atkins in the role of a lonely travelling Aussie bushman camping out on country with a 60,000 year history.

Each had a co-creator/performer in Erkki Veltheim, with backstage support from a dramaturg, Ruth Little; a lighting designer, Niklas Pajanti; and set/costume designer, Emily Barrie – plus a team of recorded musicians from Soundbed Performers; engineers and management from the Tura Production team; technicians from The Street; and overall production management from CIMF’s Joshua Robinson, who gave an introductory speech.

I have read about Hildegard, who was clearly a forceful feisty woman in her day, 1098 – 1179, as a “German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages”, according to Wikipedia.  

She obviously organised everybody in sight, and yet it still took until 2012 before Pope Benedict XVI declared her to be a saint.

I found Jane Sheldon’s performance of Hildegard’s music essentially sad, rather than uplifting, and I wondered if our modern concerns about women’s glass ceiling were influencing what seemed to be Hildegard’s frustration when more expansive moments in the singing more or less died away – often into silence.  Too much in the 15 minutes was time waiting for a new development to happen, which in the end never eventuated.  

I read up more about Hildegard after hearing Jane’s piece, and felt Hildegard would have insisted on more action.  Or perhaps Jane was representing that thousand years’ wait for canonisation.

Mark Atkins’ un-named bushman (I think – or perhaps I missed his name in some of the muffled speaking into the microphone) was a very different story.
 
Though I was a naive invading Pom as a teenager, I was a regular overnight bushwalker most of my life, including in outback Queensland.  But it was in Far-West New South Wales, in Broken Hill country where I actually saw the MinMin lights he speaks of as mysterious spiritual connections to the old country of his traditions.

I saw them one time following down along a station property wire fence.  On another occasion, they were less like a light-bulb, more like a lighted mist, floating down a creekbed in Mootawingee.  And I spoke to a woman who had been frightened by a big bright MinMin following close beside her car while driving towards Broken Hill from the South Australian border.

I’m sorry to say, in response to the spiritual idea, that the scientific story was they are examples of static electricity forming between layers of different temperature air.

Though I found Mark’s characterisation a bit of an odd mix between old whiteman bushman stories and Aboriginal tradition. I heard bushwacker stories around the campfire – sometimes between my mouthorgan accompaniment to Click Go The Shears –  but I could only be amazed at Mark's dramatic performances on the didgeridoo.

The pace of his total presentation, even accounting for the old man bush character, was rather too slow for me, but his sounds of the didgeridoo brought his work to life.

And this is what a Festival is for – to bring out the unusual, where magic and realism meet in a 12th Century chant or the rhythm of an ancient didgeridoo.

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Stars in 3D - Dance Week

 

 

Stars in 3D.  The Stellar Company at Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra.

Featuring the Chamaeleon Collective with special guests Hilal Dance Australia.

Director, Producer & Film Editing: Liz Lea
Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Technical Consultant: Craig Dear
Social Media: Olivia Wikner
Auslan Interpreter: Brett Olzen

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 30



Stars in 3D is a meditation in dance, audio and video, on our place in the universe.  

Unpretentious in performance and design, yet warm-hearted, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally positive, being present in the moment is much more than merely watching as an audience.  It’s like taking part in an important ritual cultural celebration – of true scientific understanding.

Diversity – even down to the varied number of protons, neutrons or electrons in a simple atom like helium – is what makes our universe what it is; just as we each are individually different yet come together to create new generations.

The story of our universe is represented symbolically in the choreography.  We see the amorphous gas being drawn together by gravity to form stars; the formation of galaxies, twin stars and black holes; culminating in the mathematics of the Golden Ratio in the Fibonacci spiral – the dance of the universe -  in “Legs: A joyful and empowering dance piece performed by a group of mostly senior women. Set to a song that celebrates their resilience and spirit, it’s a tribute to their love of movement, sense of fun, and refusal to stop dancing—at any age.”

The integration of video – from real astronomy, backing, or often surrounding, the dancers on stage, to scenes of the dancers on screen combined with those on stage – accompanied by an enormous array of sounds, music and song, was a highly original approach to using theatrical space (pun intended).

After the show, 3D headsets can take you further, by linking to your smart phone, into experiencing your place in our all encompassing universe.

For me, two important themes come to mind.  

First is the essential place of women in our understanding of living in this universe, as they are the elements of physical change – not just symbolically but in actuality.  The family groups with their children enjoying the dancing in such an enthusiastic atmosphere were a special feature of my experience last night.

Second, and equally significant, is the realisation that Art and Science are unified in our amazing human capacity for imagination.  They work together in this show, placing us thoughtfully where we belong, however briefly, in ‘our’ universe, where we have proven Einstein’s maths predicting gravity waves to be real – with the strong possibility that this universe, of which we can see only some 5%, may return to a singularity and explode again into another different universe in an infinite series.

WOW!  What a show this is!



Creatives and Performers:

Link to the Full Program, with details of performers, films and computer simulations.

 

For an equally fascinating but different angle on our understanding of mathematics, read how we (in this case mainly men in the form of ancient Indian Buddhist monks) 'invented' the idea of 0.  

From a philosophy of meditating in a state of 'nothingness' came the idea of counting needing to include a number in the space between +1 and -1.  Without zero, Einstein could never have made the calculations to prove the existence of the universal force we call gravity.

 The history is recounted from the time of Buddha, about 450 BCE, to the present day in another work of art - The Golden Road, How Ancient India Transformed The World - by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury 2024).

 

The Stars in 3D in action
Photo by O&J Wikner Photography

 Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

Romeo and Juliet, Daramalan College

 

Romeo and Juliet Written by William Shakespeare, adapted by Tony Allan.  Directed and designed by Joe Woodward.

The Joe Woodward Theatre, Issoudun Performing Arts Centre, Daramalan College, Canberra.  26 and 30 April and 1, 2, 3 May at 7.00pm and 3 May at 1.00pm

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 26




William Shakespeare almost certainly attended the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford-upon-Avon until he was 14 or 15. This grammar school, just like Enfield Grammar School which I attended in the 1950s, was a free school, supported by Queen Elizabeth I, for boys and was located near his family's home.  

Though I studied his Henry IV and played the young Prince Hal when I was 13, William may well have read the story of Romeo and Juliet, about the families and the tragic results of their parents’ enmity in Verona, which was well-known in Italy for 100 years before his birth in April 1564.  

Possibly based on truth, it was first published as a short story written by Tommaso Guardati in 1476, as a novel by Luigi da Porto in the 1530s, in another version by Matteo Bandello in the 1550s, and then translated into French and English, in the form of a poem, by Arthur Brooke: The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which William Shakespeare adapted for the theatre when he was aged 30 in 1594.

Now in the Internet Age you can begin more research by going to www.veronissima.com/en/romeo-juliet-true-story.html (and have a look at Enfield Grammar School https://www.enfieldgrammar.org )

I tell you this to give the modern Australian young people a sense of the literary and theatre tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his plays 400 years ago (and still in the English tradition of my day, at least, some 70 years ago.)  This is to be in keeping with Drama Teacher/Director, Joe Woodward’s intention that “DTC’s new theatre production of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a rare Hermetic presentation to create a total theatre experience of drama, music, media, interactive entertainment, food and drink and visual art.”  

And indeed all these elements were there, with many in the audience seated at cafe tables, and a bar in the foyer beforehand, at interval, and after the show.  I did look up the meaning of ‘hermetic’ – “complete and airtight /  or, relating to occult tradition encompassing alchemy, astrology, and theosophy.”

I’m not sure all of that was covered, but the design, music, audio-visuals, costumes and choreography of movement made for an interesting approach, while the measure of success was very much in the final scenes, where education in and through drama came to full strength.

This was achieved not by too much talk and show-off action in the vein of Romeo’s ‘mate’ Mercutio, but in the stillness and silences of the tomb, the recognition of the tragedy they have caused by the Montague and Capulet fathers, and a very important last image added in perhaps by Woodward as teacher/director – or hopefully by the students in a rehearsal workshop.

In my script, which I guess is the 1623 Folio version (there were 7 versions after William’s first effort), the play ends with no more than a homily from the Prince of Verona:

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

But in this presentation, in the silence following this speech, Juliet’s mother – never a pleasant parent before this moment – picks up her now dead daughter, aware now of the poison and the dagger, and lays her down, down stage almost amongst the tables of food and drink, and holds her Juliet there, in tears. As the lights dim to blackout.

William has, of course, castigated the men throughout the play for their insistence on their ‘right’ to win at all costs, but Shakespeare still left those men in charge.  

In this largely gender-blind casting, these modern young Australians have taken up the rights of women in that one powerful ending moment.  This is learning through drama in action of the best educational kind.

Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt
Act III, Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet
Daramalan College, 2025

 

Mother, Nurse, Juliet, Capulet Father
Act III, Scene 5
Daramalan College, Romeo and Juliet 2025

 Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

2025: Sophocles' Antigone - Greek Theatre Now, Canberra

 

 

Antigone by Sophocles, translated by Ian Johnston (Vancouver Island University, Canada).  Greek Theatre Now at Burbidge Amphitheatre, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra. April 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Cast
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus – Ella Buckley
Ismene, daughter of Oedipus, sister of Antigone – Sienna Curnow
Creon, King of Thebes – Ian Russell
Eurydice, wife of Creon – Sarah Hull
Haemon, son of Creon and Eurydice, engaged to Antigone – Alastair McKenzie
Teiresias, an old blind prophet – Michael J Smith
Guard, a soldier serving Creon – Justice-Noah Malfitano
Messenger – Crystal Mahon
Chorus Leader I – Neil McLeod
Chorus Leader II – Kate Eisenberg
Chorus, people of Thebes – Jessica Beange, Samuel Thomson, Selene Thomson, Sarah Hull, Justice-Noah Malfitano, Crystal Mahon, Alastair McKenzie, Sienna Curnow, Michael J Smith

Creatives
Graphic Designer / Photographer – Carl Davies
Costume Designer – Tania Jobson
Movement Director – Lachlan Ruffy
Director / Designer – Cate Clelland

Producer – Michael J Smith



Greek Theatre Now has the right show, in the right place, and on this Good Friday, the right weather.

Creon’s belief that being king gives him absolute power, never to be challenged by ordinary citizens, because good and stable government depends on having one man in charge, is a theme very relevant to the democracy / autocracy warfare by arms or in trade happening today.

His belief that men are superior to women is an equally relevant issue.

Though this amphitheatre is small by Ancient Greek standards in 440 BCE, Sophocles would be pleased with the acoustic quality here – as good as I was amazed to experience at Delphi, with its seating for 4,500! – and with the added advantage of so much more intimate contact with the audience here.

When Antigone confronts her expected to be father-in-law with “YES”, and tells him what-for in no uncertain terms why she broke his law, we felt for her, along with our friends in the Chorus.

And like them, we could see the different sides of the political argument and try to work out what was the truth, where was justice if the law was unjust, and when standing up for human rights is necessary, despite the personal consequences.

The small scale of this production, and clarity of this modern translation, made me feel that I was sitting near Sophocles and feeling along with him how exciting it was to see the message getting through.

I’m sure he was pleased with all of the actors, perhaps especially with Ella Buckley who made her Antigone such a force to be reckoned with; and impressed with Michael J Smith’s contrasting roles both in acting and in producing the show.

He also could see how definitively Cate Clelland had directed and shaped the performance – and surely was as concerned as all of us were for her brief episode of ill-health, with sincere hopes for her quick recovery.  Cate is one of Canberra’s long-standing and experienced directors and deserves a special acclamation for her work on Antigone.

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

 

Ratburger by Maryam Master, based on the book by David Walliams

 

 

Ratburger by Maryam Master, based on the book by David Walliams.  Canberra Theatre, April 15-16, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Creative Team

Director: Liesel Badorrek
Designer: Isla Shaw
Lighting Director: Jasmine Rizk
Sound Designer: Ross Johnston
Video Producer: Mic Gruchy

Cast

Zoe: Jade Fuda
Burt: Nicholas Hiatt
Albie: Mason Maenzanise
Tina/Sheila: Billie Palin
Dad/Mr Grave: Christopher Tomkinson
Understudies: Connor Banks Griffith, Hannah Wood

Watching Ratburger as I am in my second childhood, I feel more frightened than when reading any of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales in my first.  I’m sure Zoe’s step-mother in Ratburger is closely related to both Gretel’s mother and the wicked witch in the Hansel and Gretel story.

Reading the Grimm’s dark stories was a calm and thoughtful experience for me in my first childhood – as I hope it is for eight-year olds reading Walliams today – but this presentation of Ratburger on stage is loud audially and visually, turning the essential dark story into a kind of black comic satire.

This is what frightens me.  The set and video design is absolutely fascinating, intriguing to watch, drawing in even the toddlers in the audience.  The choreography is fast, theatrical and often funny.  The amplified voices range from loud to screaming, and cannot be ignored. The images are designed to create curiosity, especially about how the shadow effects are done – including when Zoe’s step-mother and Burt the Burgerman cause her father’s final divorce as they race each other off and into his grinding machine.  

The puppetry is exquisite.  The dialogue is full of ‘woke’ phrases.  And then we adults understand the satire.  

The young will only see the horror of nasty grown-up untrustworthy woman  and conniving even criminal man making burgers from rats, as they break up Zoe’s family again; and Zoe’s incompetent but loving man – the father she loves – coming good and helping save her favourite rat from the grinder.  

If they are old enough, they may see the extreme presentation as funny. In the performance I saw there were not many laughs.  Middling youngsters laughed at obvious gags (words and in actions); some adults laughed at the ‘woke’ dialogue; little youngsters mainly watched with little apparent reaction; some fiddled with the cushions they were given to lift them high enough to see the stage.

As an example of responsible theatre for children, it concerns me that those too young to cotton on to the satire will remember family breakdown and how unloving adult women behave; and will pick up on the sentimental message of the girl saving the rat despite everything, (and learning to like the girl next door, but only after she has apologised).

In my role as a grown up, I see the play for what it is – a satire of the tragedy of life where divorce is increasingly common and there are plenty of rats who make burgers from rats.  

But I think Master’s play is more for adult education than for children.  I haven’t had the opportunity to read the book by David Walliams, but hope children who read it may respond as I did to the Grimm Brothers’ fairy stories.


Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

 

2025: Henry 5 - Bell Shakespeare

 

 

Henry 5  Bell Shakespeare, Canberra Theatre Centre, Playhouse, April 11 - 20, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 11

Cast

King Henry: JK Kazzi; Dauphin: Jack Halabi
Westmoreland: Alex Kirwan; Alice/Messenger:Odile Le Clezio
Katherine/Boy: Ava Madon; Michael Williams/Scroop: Harrison Mills
Exeter: Ella Prince; King of France/Canterbury/French Soldier: Jo Turner
Montjoy: Mararo Wangai;
Grey/English Soldier/Understudy: Rishab Kern
Grey/English Soldier/Understudy: Ziggy Resnick

Creatives

Director: Marion Potts
Set & Costume Designer: Anna Tregloan
Composer & Sound Designer: Jenthro Woodward
Movement, Intimacy & Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Voice Director: Jack Starkey-Gill
Stage Manager: Sean Proude

The action begins in preparation for the Battle of Agincourt

In a highly original approach to Shakespeare’s asking for our indulgence for two hours, Marion Potts has made Henry V – the third in the Henry IV and V set – fit neatly into 1 hour 50 minutes with no interval:

Act 1, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 1, Scene 1: London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace.
Act 1, Scene 2: The same. The Presence chamber.

Act 2, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 2, Scene 1: London. A street.
Act 2, Scene 2: Southampton. A council-chamber.
Act 2, Scene 3: London. Before a tavern.
Act 2, Scene 4: France. The KING'S palace.

Act 3, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 3, Scene 1: France. Before Harfleur.
Act 3, Scene 2: The same.
Act 3, Scene 3: The same. Before the gates.
Act 3, Scene 4: The FRENCH KING's palace.
Act 3, Scene 5: The same.
Act 3, Scene 6: The English camp in Picardy.
Act 3, Scene 7: The French camp, near Agincourt:

Act 4, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 4, Scene 1: The English camp at Agincourt.
Act 4, Scene 2: The French camp.
Act 4, Scene 3: The English camp.
Act 4, Scene 4: The field of battle.
Act 4, Scene 5: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 6: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 7: Another part of the field.
Act 4, Scene 8: Before KING HENRY'S pavilion.

Act 5, Prologue: PROLOGUE
Act 5, Scene 1: France. The English camp.
Act 5, Scene 2: France. A royal palace.

And it works a treat, because it concentrates the play into realising our understanding of the real autocrat behind the playboy Prince Hal.  He doesn’t become this just because he becomes King Harry.  He just is a coercive control freak, which director Marion Potts makes clear in the final scene of enforced acceptance by the French Princess Katherine that he “loves” her.

Katharine has no real choice

 The great thing about this production, in addition to Nigel Poulton’s marvellous impact as Movement, Intimacy & Fight Director, is the clarity of the voices – in French as well as English – achieved by Jack Starkey-Gill’s directing.  Instead of speaking in standard Shakespearian stage English like in the Olivier film of the 1940s, everyone from the King down makes absolutely sure that whoever they are talking to – including us – understand exactly what they mean.

If you thought this theatrically choreographed version, in modern dress, is just a “modern” interpretation to make Shakespeare “new”, you’ll find yourself surprised, especially through the character of Prologue, how modern Shakespeare was in his time – for he clearly shows how manipulative and self-serving dictators are; in this case in the Plantaganet/Tudor family of his very Queen.

How prescient he was, when we look around the world today, when we see men in power pushing on to win Battles of Agincourt in real wars as well as trade wars in our nightly news.

Bell Shakespeare has made Henry 5 out of Henry V, an exciting and important contribution to our thinking about politics – democratic and autocratic; about the anti-humane character of warfare; and about the destruction of personal worth and integrity, at the individual level – especially, but not only, for women.

This a Bell Shakespeare production which should tour world-wide.

King Harry incognito, pretending to be a common man,
while gathering intelligence.

 

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Pirates of Penzance - Hayes Theatre

 

 

 

 

 The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan, “re-wired and re-booted” by Hayes Theatre Company (Sydney) at Canberra Theatre Centre, The Playhouse, April 2-6 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 3

    
Cast & Creatives

Starring
Trevor Jones as The Major-General and more
Jay Laga’aia as The Pirate King and more
Brittanie Shipway as Ruth, Mabel and more
Maxwell Simon as Frederic and more
Billie Palin as Isabel, Barry and more/onstage swing

Director Richard Carroll
Co-Arranger & Musical Supervisor Victoria Falconer
Musical Director and Co-Arranger Trevor Jones
Assistant Director & Choreographer Shannon Burns
Set Designer Nick Fry
Costume Designer Lily Mateljan
Lighting Designer Jasmine Rizk
Sound Designer Daniel Herten
Production Manager Abbey Pace
Stage Manager Sherydan Simson

Hayes Theatre has brought the most rambunctious, humorous, outrageous production of The Pirates of Penzance from exciting Sydney to cautious Canberra – to a standing laughing cheering ovation.

Don’t miss it if you dare, or you’ll have nothing to talk about in your 3 days in the office.

The point is, of course, that The P of P is a political satire, and the Hayes’ rewiring makes not too subtle but plenty of LOL connections with the pirates of today, while telling the complex story of the moral dilemmas of the orphan Frederic learning proper behaviour.  It could all be happening in Parliament House where Frederic, after battles and promises to marry, finally realises he is really a teal independent simply asking for conflicts of interest to be dealt with through reasonable diplomatic discussion.

Google AI tells me: The Pirates of Penzance was written by the famous duo, with the libretto by W.S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan in 1879. It premiered with a single performance in Paignton, England, on 30th December 1879 and had its official debut in New York the next day, where it was an instant hit.

Penzance is a pretty bay very near the end of Cornwall in UK, a nice little harbour town remote enough for real pirates, while Paignton is easterly, just along the south coast where I used to holiday as a child and learned nice manners, just like Frederic.  G&S for me was quite gentle social satire, rather like a good David Williamson in Australia today.

But their secondary title, The Slave of Duty, had and still has much more significance.  Wikipedia tells us: The Third Socialist Workers' Congress of France was held in Marseille, France, in 1879. At this congress the socialist leaders rejected both cooperation and anarchism, both of which would allow the existing regime to continue, and adopted a program based on collectivism. The congress also adopted a motion that women should have equal rights to men, but several delegates felt that essentially woman's place was in the home…. The congress has been called a triumph of Guesdism and the birthplace of French Marxist socialism.
[  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers%27_Congress_(1879)  ]

And there are all the clues in The Pirates of Penzance.  Frederic becomes a socialist, just as did my parents and therefore I did in the following half century.  

This is where, in the Hayes’ Re-wiring, we stop laughing.  They give an extra solo to Frederic to end the operetta, about his new understanding: we must not allow ourselves to be slaves to duty when the powers that be command you to kill.  

Though G&S could not be so direct in their day, this is what they imply in making fun of the assumption that pirates are all lower class who must kill the upper class to keep their thieving business profitable; and that Major-Generals and Police should therefore imprison and kill all pirates.

Frederic, the orphan pirate, and Mabel, the upper class sophisticated daughter of the Major-General, love each other – a symbol of peace without violence.

Laugh out loud along with Misters Gilbert and Sullivan, and enjoy Hayes Theatre’s genuinely funny – and powerfully performed – theatre.  But take seriously the finale:

Poor wandering ones!
Though ye have surely strayed,
Take heart of grace,
Your steps retrace,
Poor wandering ones!
Poor wandering ones!
If such poor love as ours
Can help you find
True peace of mind,
Why, take it, it is yours!

Maxwell Simon as Frederic and Brittanie Shipway as Mabel
in The Pirates of Penzance
Hayes Theatre 2025

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  Based on the novel by Mark Haddon; adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens.  Mockingbird Theatre Company, Canberra, at Belconnen Arts Centre, March 20 – April 5 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 1

CAST:
Christopher (at certain performances) – Wajanoah Donohoe
Christopher (at certain performances) – Ethan Wiggin
Siobhan – Leah Peel Griffiths; Ed – Richard Manning; Judy – Claire White
Ensemble – Travis Beardsley, Callum Doherty, Peter Fock, Meg Hyam, Anthony Mayne, Tracy Noble
with a special appearance from Phineas Baldock

PRODUCTION TEAM:
Director/Designer – Chris Baldock; Assistant Director – Stephanie Evans
Stage Manager – Rhiley Winnett
Lighting Design – Rhiley Winnett and Chris Baldock
Projections Design – Matt Kizer; Projection Realisation & Operation – Rhiley Winnett
Music Composer – Matt Friedman; Costumes and Props – Chis Baldock and cast
Autism Lived Experience Consultants – Jacob Alfonso and Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor
Rehearsal Prompt – Liz St Clair Long



The calculation of the square of the hyptenuse of a right angled triangle is the image which informs this thoughtful presentation of The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time.  

Though the drama of the life of Christopher John Francis Boone, accurately characterised by Wajanoah Donohoe, is not exactly exciting in a conventional theatrical way – since the central character has no empathetic capacity – we find ourselves watching the story play out at some ‘distance’ emotionally.  Rather like Christopher himself, we seem to be objectively observing a documentary about adults as parents and neighbours, including their rearrangements of sexual relations, and how difficult life therefore is for a seriously autistic child, at the stage of achieving the highest score possible in Mathematics on his way from high school to university.

Intellectual determination to complete his knowledge of mysteries, from who killed the dog in next door’s garden to the explanation of Pythagoras’ theorem is the central feature of Christopher’s life.  

So, physically, Baldock and the Design Team have us sitting in straight rows on three sides of a square, watching highly stylised acting-out of the story, in terms of choreography and costume design, surrounded by large rectangular projections of words, and even mathematics, and images of practical things like trains which illustrate the action in a Christopher-like way.

And then we discover the final ruse.  We are watching in real time Siobhan and Christopher creating a play for us to understand what happened in the past, especially including how difficult Christopher’s built-in need to only always speak the truth had been for his parents, and the reasonable resolution of their lives which was achieved.

So the play within a play parallels what the theatre company is doing – artfully creating the words of a novel in living form.  This extra level is emphasised in Baldock’s production by the abstract white costuming for the Ensemble, rather than having the characters dressed in normal street clothes. 

Wajanoah Donohue and ensemble in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Photo: Chris Baldock

 This play is not presented as ‘naturalism’, but in a form designed to illustrate the issue of how being autistic, despite one’s intelligence, is fraught with difficult situations and often unfair treatment – even when other people understand that you can’t not behave in the frustrating, for them, way you do.  

Rather than presenting this now famous play with the razzamatazz of the Grand Tour by the National Theatre of Great Britain which I reviewed (on this blog) June 2018, Baldock brings the play down to size, and in doing so leaves me with a more simple focus on the issue as it is for so many people ‘on the spectrum’.

And Wajanoah’s explanation of the proof of the Pythagoras theorem – after the curtain call, as if he was Christopher but somehow out of role – was terrific.

Thank you, Mockingbird.


©Frank McKone, Canberra
 

2025: The Glass Menagerie - Ensemble Theatre

 

 

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, March 21 – April 26, 2025.
Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 29

Cast & Creatives

    Tennessee Williams. Playwright. ...
    Liesel Badorrek. Director. ...
    Danny Ball. Cast - Tom Wingfield. ...
    Blazey Best. Cast - Amanda Wingfield. ...
    Bridie McKim. Cast - Laura Wingfield. ...
    Tom Rodgers. Cast - Jim O'Connor. ...
    Grace Deacon. Set & Costume Designer. ...
    Verity Hampson. Lighting Designer.
Photos by Prudence Upton

Blazey Best, Bridie McKim, Danny Ball
as Amanda Wingfield, daughter Laura, son Tom
The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025
Photo: Prudence Upton

Do your very best to get to Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, on the Harbour at Kirribilli, no matter what the weather, for their production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.  You have till April 26th.  It’s a classic.

How ironic is my shock as actor Tom Rodgers, as the smartly brylcreemed “gentleman caller” Jim, clumsily trying to dance with crippled terribly shy Laura, knocks over and smashes her beautiful but fragile glass model rearing horse (or rather, unicorn).  The whole audience gasped as one; and were horrified again as her brother Tom (Danny Ball in a consistently steady performance) threw another handful of precious glass, smashing it into the image of the face of his father; and like me were in tears for Bridie McKim’s delicately played Laura, left alone in her crippled world.

Bridie McKim and Blazey Best
The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre, 2025

 

Bridie McKim as Laura and Tom Rodgers as Jim O'Connor
in The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025

Why is the power of this wonderful Ensemble Theatre production, so ironic?  On the very day as I watched The Glass Menagerie, in The Saturday Paper, Rick Morton was quoting from “the questionnaire sent by US officials to Australian researchers and institutions, seeking to determine whether their work complied with Donald Trump’s promise to cut funding from projects that support a ‘woke’ agenda.”

“Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] project, or DEI elements of the project?”

How even more ironic is it that Tennessee Williams’ character, gentleman caller Jim, is described by brother Tom when they were at high school, as so popular that within five years he could have become the President of America!  And now, at 22, like Tom, he works in an Amazon-like warehouse, and is soon to marry Betty.

So sorry, Laura.  

As I write, the Australian Broadcasting Commission is reporting on the problem of “boys’ culture” made so much worse by social media today. Has nothing changed since 1944?  Then, Tennessee Williams sent the boys like Laura’s father in the Depression and now her brother in wartime off to seek “adventure”, leaving their women frantic – like her mother, Amanda Wingfield, played to perfection by Blazey Best.  

So the final irony as I see it is that theatre, as produced by Ensemble Theatre, shows us the heights of human empathy in the teamwork of wonderful actors, and of human intelligence and understanding in the work of director Liesel Badorrek and her team of designers, set makers and stage managers, in presenting a great American tragedy of failing human relationships, just as true in this century as a century ago.

Theatre may be an illusion, but this work reveals the truth of how our real world is still no more than a collection of beautiful but yet so fragile possibilities, so easily accidentally knocked over – or so deliberately smashed by Presidents seeking adventure.  

Tennessee Williams saw World War 2 as the result of economic depression – a way of escape for the boys (though, in another irony not covered in his play, often a way into work for women, at least while the fighting continued).  It’s not unreasonable to expect that tragedy may be repeated in World War 3.  The Glass Menagerie is not just, as Ensemble Theatre says, “Williams’ timeless portrait of a shattered family” but an image of a shattered humanity.

Unfortunately President Donald Trump’s approach to theatre on The Apprentice surely means he sees Tennessee Williams as ‘woke’; and his performance in the White House attempting to intimidate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – who actually ironically has been a seriously successful professional satirical comedian – showed Trump to be the worst kind of ham actor, dangerous because he has no self awareness.

So we ordinary people are left like Laura to a seemingly unfulfilling future.  But the strength of Ensemble’s production of The Glass Menagerie can be measured by the depth of the silence achieved by Danny Ball and Bridie McKim in the moment which ends the play.  Theatre of this outstanding quality makes life worthwhile, no matter what.

Bridie McKim as Laura
in The Glass Menagerie, Ensemble Theatre 2025
Photo: Prudence Upton

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Moors by Jen Silverman

 

 

The Moors by Jen Silverman.  Lexi Sekuless Productions at The Mill Theatre, Canberra, March 26-April 12, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night March 26.

Cast

Agatha: Andrea Close; Marjory: Steph Roberts; Huldey: Rachel Howard
Emilie: Sarah Nathan-Truesdale
Moorhen: Petronella van Tienen; Mastiff: Chris Zuber

Contingency Moorhen: Rachel Pengilly (playing 21 March and 5 April)
Rehearsal contingency: Alana Denham-Preston

Production Team

Writer: Jen Silverman: Director: Joel Horwood
Production Designer: Aloma Barnes
Sound Designer: Damian Ashcroft; Lighting Designer: Stefan Wronski
Set Construction: Simon Grist
Production Stage Manager: Lexi Sekuless; Shadow Stage Manager: Ariana Barzinpour
Programming support: Timmy Sekuless and Zeke Chalmers
Photographer: Daniel Abroguena
Producer: Lexi Sekuless Productions
Major partner: Elite Event Technology; Principal Sponsor: Willard Public Affairs



Wuthering!  

See The Moors at The Mill to experience the heights of wuthering.  And indeed the depths of sister Agatha’s withering stares.  I think Andrea Close truly deserves a Julie Bishop Oscar [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7n2s6m-HbE  ]  

No wonder Emilie goes bonkers with her hatchet, and kills the conniving Agatha to death.  Living in The Moors with this simulation of the surviving Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne (Maria and Elizabeth died young), as well as their brother Branwell, chained in the attic, would send anyone round the bend.

Navigating Joel Horwood’s precision directing makes watching The Moors’ twists and turns exciting, like driving an obstacle course in a time trial in an electric car that can accelerate from stop to 100ks instantly.

If you are expecting an unconventional 19th Century romance of the Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Tenant of Wildfell Hall kind (the Brontës were never ordinary in their prudish time in history), then strap your seat belts on for a wild ride through Jen Silverman’s half-satirical yet still seriously enlightening exposition of life – like the one we all live daily – in a frighteningly unpredictable world.  

Kindness, empathy and self-awareness is what we need to learn in our relationships, beautifully represented – and wonderfully sensitively performed – in The Moors by Petronella van Tienen as the tiny Moorhen and Chris Zuber as the massive Mastiff: the Dog who thinks he is God.

Somewhat on the opposite of life is Steph Roberts’ maid Marjory – in her way as rational as Emilie tries to be; while Rachel Howard’s Huldey remains innocent and naïve through it all.

You can’t not enjoy the laughter and even the groans in The Moors experience – and you will certainly appreciate the thinking and skills that go into such stmulating theatrical fare.

Another excellent Mill Theatre production.  I don’t need to say, “Don’t Miss”.

https://sites.google.com/lexisekuless.com/mill-theatre-at-dairy-road/more/online-program-the-moors

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Song of First Desire by Andrew Bovell

 

 

 Song of First Desire by Andrew Bovell.  Belvoir Theatre, Sydney, February 13 – March 23, 2025.
Original production 2023 by Octubre Productions, Spain.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 22

Writer: Andrew Bovell; Director: Neil Armfield
Set and Costume Designer: Mel Page; Lighting Designer: Morgan Moroney
Composer/Sound Designer: Clemence Williams
Associate Sound Designer: Madeleine Picard
Movement and Intimacy Director: Nigel Poulton
Voice Coach: Laura Farrell
Stage Manager: Luke McGettigan; Asst Stage Manager: Jen Jackson

“Set in 1968 and the present, it unpicks the instincts that drive individuals and whole societies towards fear and violence – and perhaps, also, reconciliation.”  Belvoir Artistic Director, Eamon Flack.

Cast:
Julia / Carmen – Kerry Fox
Alejandro / Juan – Borja Maestre
Carlos / Luis – Jorge Muriel
Camelia / Margarita – Sarah Peirse


Reviewing theatre is a personal response.  My truth, as young people today often would say, may be different from another audience member’s.  But that should not be taken as being against each other, though I find myself not entirely agreeing with the apparent statements of fact in the promotion material online like ‘powerful', ‘epic’, ‘utterly enthralling’.

Song of First Desire is an important story, as Eamon Flack notes.  But, I well remember my excitement in the theatre when I saw Andrew Bovell’s When the rain stops falling.  I wrote then: “The experience watching is exactly as happens while reconstructing a complex 1000 piece puzzle.  Aha! realisations light up completely unexpectedly when it becomes clear that this or that piece just has to go here or there.  Yet it is not until the very last piece is in place that we feel the tension that we might not have everything correctly understood, fall away.  Only as the last clue is revealed, just as the rain stops falling, do we suddenly feel we can breathe again with satisfaction that all is now positively complete.”

I think this story of why Alejandro was sent by by his mother to the one-time Spanish colony, Colombia, when he was a radical student ‘THEN’ and reappears ‘NOW’ as a Colombian ‘migrant’ seeking work, presented in episodic scenes as these words are projected on the stage set walls, was meant to be put together in our minds in a similar way.  But I found the complexities of the emotional relationships between the characters in the families, and the time gaps, left me too confused.  

By the end I think I have worked out a rough idea that Alejandro’s mother saved his life; and I understood how awful autocratic government is, but I didn’t feel personally engaged in the characters as I had in When the rain stops falling, or as in his other famous play, Speaking in Tongues.

I can imagine, though, how strongly the audience in Madrid must have felt for these characters, drawing on their personal histories of families in conflict in Spain throughout the last century.  However I must say that I couldn’t see the relevance of the homosexual aspects of the story while watching the play.  Only afterwards can I  see that perhaps this was about the politics of a right-wing government – but only because of my knowledge of history rather than because of what was done or said in the play.

I must admit that this raises the question of my not being able to pick up all of the words actually spoken.  My old age and hearing aids were probably part of the problem in the acoustics of Belvoir, which are quite deadened by the three-quarters surrounding bodies of the audience.  The work of movement and intimacy director Nigel Poulton, with such experienced actors, certainly showed me what the characters felt in each short scene, but I needed much greater clarity in the voicing, especially of the men, to know what exactly they were saying.

So though for me on the night the theatre was not entirely ‘powerful', ‘epic’, nor ‘utterly enthralling’, I certainly appreciated the strength of the acting and the importance of the intention in writing about the horror of dictatorial power – not only in Spain in the past but in so many countries around the world, including ironically in the very Colombia that Alejandro was sent to for his safety.  

His final speech in memory of the poet/playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, assassinated in Spain in 1936, gives the play its strength of purpose and the reason for not missing Song of First Desire.  

Borja Maestre as Alejandro
in Song of First Desire by Andrew Bovell
Belvoir Theatre 2025
Photo: Brett Boardman

 

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell

 

 

Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell. A Gooding / Woodward Production presented by Canberra Theatre Centre, March 19-23 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night March 20

Performed by Natalie Bassingthwaighte


Lee Lewis - Director
Willy Russell - Playwright
Simone Romaniuk - Costume and Set Designer
Paul Jackson - Lighting Designer
Marcello Lo Ricco - Sound Designer
Brady Watkins - Composer
Jennifer White - Dialect Coach
Producers: Neil Gooding & Alex Woodward



It’s some twenty years since I was first as surprised as Shirley herself to learn the correct pronunciation of ‘clitoris’.  Played then by Sue Howell in the relatively small Canberra Repertory Theatre, I wrote (Canberra Times, Aug 2004) of her interpretation that it “avoids raucous superficial laughter, invokes a quieter response, and allows us time to absorb Shirley's feelings about how her youthful self, Shirley Valentine, became lost in the "cribb'd, cabin'd and confin'd" English suburban life of wife and mother Shirley Bradshaw.  Her observations about orgasms, men, feminists and English xenophobia are not merely witty, but are little illuminations in self-understanding.”

Natalie Bassingthwaighte, playing today to Canberra Theatre Centre’s almost full “proscenium arch theatre seating 1,244 patrons in one raked tier”

successfully talks to her kitchen wall – through the ‘fourth wall’ – achieving the laughter the crowd expects, while leaving us understanding the importance of Shirley’s right to independence – yet wondering how she will manage her middle-aged future when her job waitressing in Kosta’s taverna inevitably will come to an end.

Bassingthwaighte’s success was measured as much in the silence of so many as we absorbed the implications of Shirley’s responses to her situations, at home and away, cleverly built into Willy Russell’s script; as it was in the standing ovation bringing her back on for an extra curtain call.  But, I thought, she can’t do an encore!

You only have this weekend to see her in action in Canberra – do not miss the opportunity.  Otherwise you’ll have to travel to Adelaide for the Festival, April 1-6.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

 

2025: Spit, the movie

 

 

 Spit – Screen Australia. Exclusively in cinemas 6 March, 2025.

Previewed by Frank McKone
February 23


Director:     Jonathan Teplitzky
Writers:      Christopher Nyst
Producer:    Greg Duffy  Trish Lake  Felicity Mcvay  David Wenham
Dir. of Photography:     Garry Phillips
Editor:         Nick Meyers
Production Designer:     Nicholas McCallum

Production Completion:     2024
Genre:     Comedy, Crime, Drama
Production Company: Tracking Films Pty Ltd


Cast:
 David Wenham     Helen Thomson     David Field     David Roberts
Gary Sweet     Arlo Green     Pallavi Sharda     Ayik Daniel Chut Deng
Sam and Teagan Rybka     Sami Afuni

Screen Australia: When ex-junkie, Johnny (Spit) Spitieri, flies into Australia on a false passport, he is locked up in an Immigration Detention Centre . The authorities want to know who he is, and where he's been. But so does gangster Chicka Martin, and his crooked cop mate, Arne Deviers, who are hot on Spit’s trail, and the Independent Public Integrity Commission is convinced the bumbling amnesiac is really an unlikely criminal mastermind. As Johnny talks up a storm without saying anything at all, he makes new friends amongst the detainees, and teaches them his version of mateship, and what it means to be truly Australian.
https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/spit-2024/41963

___________________________________________________________________________________
Exhilarated!  That’s how you will feel.  As Shakespeare might say: A most serious comedy, the funniest awful crime movie, and a moving drama extraordinaire all in one.  Spit is all about, and about all, humanity.  It’s art not for the sake of art.  It’s art which revives our faith in humanity, despite our worldly worries.

Like all the best Shakespearean comedies, all the confusion ends with a magnificent dance.

Another word you should use is rambunctious, or its synonyms like boisterous, unrestrained, irrepressible, exuberant, uproarious.  It’s not often that a cinema audience applauds with such enthusiasm at the end of a movie.

And again afterwards, when we were lucky enough to have David Wenham here in Canberra in person, speaking about his experiences in making the film, reviving his character in the 2003 comedy Gettin' Square.  

Unfortunately I never saw that film, but ABC Radio  National says “The film became a cult hit, partly because of Wenham's mesmerising performance as the mullet-headed Spit. Two decades on, Spit is the star once more”.   Wenham spoke with sincere respect of the importance and quality of the performances of the immigrant actors.  And he explained that Christopher Nyst, who wrote both films, is a criminal lawyer and knows these characters well.

It’s not unreasonable to class this film as Shakespearian.  It’s a comedy with depth of social understanding – and very specifically Australian.  No-one here should miss it; and I think I can guarantee it will travel internationally to acclaim – and to lighten our world-wide woes.

______________________________________________________________________________

BTW The only problem I had with Spit was the title caused an email to be treated as spam!

And check out the Funeral Parlour women as a contrasting image:

Image from
Spit
Screen Australia, 2024-25

 

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Hub Fest 2025 by ACT Hub

 

 

Hub Fest Play Festival.  ACT Hub at Causeway Hall, Kingston, Canberra.  February 16 – 22, 2025.
Hub Fest was devised by Lachlan Houen for ACT Hub

The Bestiary - An Interlude by Hannah Tonks
The Forsaken by Oliver Kuskie

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 16



The two plays in this first Hub Fest are interesting, having in common serious criticisms of today’s social culture presented in short-form theatre.  The Bestiary is an Orwellian satire in 30 minutes of the world’s shifting towards authoritarianism at government level.  The Forsaken shows the breakdown of social norms at the personal level.

In theatrical terms, The Bestiary’s half-hour is more successful than The Forsaken’s 70 minutes.  

In both plays characters make a series of polemical statements which slow down the drama.  

In The Bestiary, the statements made by the rebellious terrorist artists serve to increase the dramatic tension about what they will do with the focus character: the hypocritical woman Minister for Aesthetics.  Their punishment – making her create a work of art – then results in her execution because she has broken the very law she is responsible for.  Just as she had had Wolf executed.  The shame is that Wolf’s partner, in bringing the Minister to justice, is herself shot by the firing squad as well.

In The Forsaken, the social issue about the isolation of the elderly and the impossibility of this old man’s ever being able to do anything practical about the family violence (on one side of his thin walled flat) or about the poverty-driven drug-driven theft and profiteering by the flat-sharing young (on the other side) is as powerful a theme as the issue of the need for government support of creative artistic freedom in The Bestiary.

But sitting listening to the old man’s recording of his frustrations, though very well performed, and faithful to my own feelings (like him I am in my 80s), started to feel a bit interminable.  The breaking away to the short scenes in the other flats – in the foreground on stage – took the dramatic action away from that central character.  We saw what was happening and understood his frustration and even fears, but there needed to be much more emotional interaction beyond just the peripatetic popping-in by the wild-haired young man from the share flat, before the effective scene with the wife from the family side.

Perhaps, as The Bestiary showed, maybe 40 minutes of intense interactions could have got the message through more strongly.

In the end, of course, the value of ACT Hub’s Hub Fest is exactly this – that for a small price you can make such comparisons and appreciate the creativity of the theatre arts, without being executed!

See https://www.acthub.com.au/production/hub-fest-play-festival

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: Aria by David Williamson

 

 

Aria by David Williamson.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. January 24 – March 15, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 1

Creatives

Playwright: David Williamson
Director: Janine Watson;  Assistant Director: Anna Houston
Set & Costume Designer: Rose Montgomery
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox
Composer & Sound Designer: David Bergman
Operatic Voice Coach: Donna Balson
Intimacy Coordinator: Chloë Dallimore

 Cast
Monique - Tracy Mann

Her sons:
Charlie - Rowan Davie         Liam - Jack Starkey-Gill             Daniel - Sam O’Sullivan

Their wives:
Midge - Tamara Lee Bailey   Chrissy - Suzannah McDonald   Judy - Danielle King         
     
 _________________________________________________________________________  


David Williamson is only just a year younger than me, so when I say Aria is as good as the best of the old David Williamson, you know what I mean.  It’s full of the rapid and incisive repartee of Don’s Party but with the social and political world brought up to date.

And of course it’s funny, with his traditional one-liners – often causing us to universally groan while we laugh – and yet it’s a comedy, though never black, which brings out the honest reality to the third generation of this middle class family.  

Way back in The Department (1975) as the play ends Owen announces “It’s a girl” to add to his “four bloody boys already.”  And goes on “Boys are okay when they’re little, but by the time they’re about six they’re testing themselves out against you all the time.  I haven’t got the energy to cope with another.”  

And I hear Chrissy, the wife of Monique’s son, the ambitious never-at-home politician Liam, being accused of not disciplining her children and – in our social media world – in tears of frustration because they take no notice and just answer her back.  She wanted to be a teacher.  I hear the very same story from teachers today, in classrooms full of devices.

The beauty of Williamson’s writing is how we even end up feeling sorry for the deluded over-the-top capitalist Monique, singing Mozart's Queen’s aria which never made her the Maria Callas she believed she should have been, except that love, for her three boys, got in the way.

Ensemble Theatre, of course, has done the right thing again by providing the best in directing, designing and coaching for, in my view, an extraordinary team of actors.  The force of their energy as a group enlivens everyone as if Hayes Gordon is still here in his wonderful in-the-round acting space (and I am old enough to have seen him there at work).  

But much more than that, even, is each actor’s terrific awareness of the meaning of every word in Williamson’s script – not merely in their character’s personality, but so clearly motivated as to why they speak (or don’t) in their relationships with the other characters – and even further bringing out the implications in the metaphors which Williamson leaves implicit.  

Aria is exciting theatre of the very best kind – and kindness is what we need so much more of today.  At 84 it makes me charged with hope again by such great work from a mere 83-year-old.

Please don’t miss it!

©Frank McKone, Canberra