A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - Theatre Review

WHAT: A Midsummer Night's Dream
WHEN: 16 - 20 July 2024
WHERE: Bluestone Church Artspace
WRITTEN BY: William Shakespeare
DIRECTED BY: Mitchell Wills
MUSICAL DIRECTION BY: Carly Wilding
DESIGN BY: Zachary Dixon
LIGHTING BY: Jacob Shears
PERFORMED BY: Paolo Bartonemei, Lore Burns, Todd Costello, Jackson Cross, Liliana Dalton, Asher Griffith-Jones, Lucy May Knight, Frances Lee, Tony Rive, Maddie Roberts, Bridget Sweeney, Riley Street, and Amy Watts
STAGE MANAGED BY: Giacinta Squires

Tony Rive and Frances Lee - photo supplied

Midsummer is 24 June in the UK so you could argue this production of Williams Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, presented by Sevenfold Theatre Company at Bluestone Church Artspace, is a little late in the year, but the play is 428 years old and everything geriatric does move a little slower. On the other hand, we are on the other side of the world and are in another endless Melbourne winter so the weather turbulence which is supposed to encompass this play is something we are all in the middle of. At least the characters in this play get a bit of sunshine in the morning. We still have months to wait for that.

Let's start with the elephant in the room. Anybody who tells you they are doing something new and different with any Shakespeare play is woefully ignorant. The Shakespeare plays have been performed as is and torn apart a gazillion times over the last 400+ years and are pretty much in constant production somewhere on the planet every day of our lives. I know they say there are only 7 stories but it is time humanity recognised there was more than one playwright in the world...just sayin'. 

I do know why people like doing Shakespeare over and over and over and over and over again. Firstly, it's free - you don't have to pay him for his work. Secondly you can do anything you want to his writing - it's not like he is alive to stop you. Thirdly it is large group ensemble work, and, in this day and age, no playwright can even get looked at if their plays have more that 5 characters which means you don't get that same football team camaraderie you can get with a Shakespeare.

Mitchell Will's (Director) version of A Midsummer Night's Dream does not break down any tropes or open any doors of newness or originality. It is, however, a nice and solid production with good blocking and he has evidently worked with the actors to make sure they know what they are saying and why they are saying it. He does a cute gender swap between Titania (Frances Lee) and Oberon (Tony Rive) which works to create a sweetness with the relationship with Bottom (Todd Costello). On the other hand, this swap does nothing to promote the actual messages in the play overall and actually contradicts his interpretation of fairies as dark creatures. I will talk about this a bit later.

The great danger of remounting something as old and well-known as any of the Shakespeares is the failure to undertake proper and meaningful dramaturgy. There is little to no reflection of the strangeness of the stormy weather on a midsummer night in this production - Shakespeare always uses weather to develop unrest and tension. There is no sense of understanding the tensions in England which underwrite the play including the outcomes of the Reformation and the crushing out of the bacchanalia-like midsummer celebrations which had evolved over time. There are no inferences which demonstrate the likelihood that Hippolyta and Titania might be references to Elizabeth 1and everything this implies. There is no recognition of the threat to theatre after the plague and then the persecution of Christopher Marlowe for the Dutch church libel and his homosexual indulgences which could very well underly Puck's (Liliana Dalton) obeisant apology at the end of the show.

Having said that, given modern times, Wills has done some other fun gender swaps - or maybe it is truer to say it is gender blind casting? Riley Street as Lysander is probably the great standout of the show. Not because she is playing a 'male' character. It is because she is evidently a phenomenal young actor. Lucy May Knight holds her own against such a strong performance with intriguing physical nuance in her repertoire. Bridget Sweeney as Helena is also another great performance. Asher Griffith-Jones and Todd Costello do some excellent clowning although I think Costello only really comes into his stride from the point at which Bottom becomes the donkey and his version of Pyramus is roll on the floor laugh worthy. All of the actors could take a leaf from his book in establishing greater character definition when playing multiple roles.

What Sevenfold's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream excels at is the glorious set and costumes created by designer Zachary Dixon and a live sound design created under the musical direction of Carly Wilding. The publicity for this show said it was immersive. It is not immersive - it is thrust stage. It is, however, live surround sound. The music and the forest noises (created by the actors live every night) happen around the edges and behind the curtains which allow us to feel that this world is greater than the confines of the stage rostra and where Jacob Shears' beautiful shifting and shaping lights are pointing too.

This production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is fun and light. It hits all the marks. In the program Wills talks about fairies traditionally being 'gentle, dainty, beings' and how he has brought out a darker side. Again, there is a dramaturgy problem here. No creature of the nether realms of English culture are all sweet and light. Fairies have always been fickle tricksters - until Hollywood got hold of them anyway. Besides which, Shakespeare has written his fairies as quite troublesome so Wills could not have made them anything other than that even if he had tried. I do think their dialogue is some of what was cut though so they are fairly tame in this production. 

Wills also talks about this being Shakespeare's first play with supernatural creatures which is true. The play very heavily leans on his poem Venus and Adonis (his first published work, produced a year earlier). It is also worth noting that the comedy sequence between Lysander, Demetrius (Jackson Cross), and Helena is potentially a tribute to Christopher Marlowe and leans heavily on the themes of Marlowe's poem Hero and Leander. Remember, all playwrights were poets back in those days. It doesn't take a genius to see that the play in the play - the great, shining glory of this particular production and possibly the most original thing I have seen in a Shakespeare in years - is a parody of Romeo and Juliet - or more specifically a subplot of the Venus and Adonis story.

In the end, what I am saying is that if you have to go and see another Shakespeare play this is pretty good dramatically, and truly excellent on the production front. Dixon, Shears and Wilding work together to create a world of beauty, magic, and darkness. The actors are a reliable ensemble with some truly standout performances and even though we all know what is going to happen next this production makes it worth hanging around to see what that looks like when we get there. As I mentioned earlier, the big payoff is the play within the play at the end. If the whole show had been done like this THAT would have been a truly original and exciting version of the Dream indeed!

3.5 Stars

LA BELLE EPOQUE - Theatre Review

WHAT: La Belle Epoque
WHEN: 10 - 20 July 2024
WHERE: Theatreworks (Acland St)
WRITTEN BY: Future D. Fidel
DIRECTED BY: Budi Miller
DESIGN BY: Shana Mackay Burns
LIGHTING BY: Tim Bonser
SOUND BY: Jack Burmeister
PERFORMED BY: Nelly Kouakou, Tariro Mavondo, Effi Nkrumah, and Mike Ugo
STAGE MANAGED BY: Jade Hibbert

Effie Nkrumah, Mike Ugo, and Nelly Kouakou - photo supplied

Every so often you see a piece of theatre which makes you shout out to the world - Yes! This! This is what theatre is all about! For me, La Belle Epoque, currently playing at Theatreworks is one of those pieces of theatre. It has everything. It is current with all the weight of history behind it. It is urgent, and painful, but lets you laugh all the way through...until it really matters. It is a call to action lest we forget.

La Belle Epoque is the tale of a colonised Belgian Congo lived through the generations of a king and told through the eyes of the true descendent, Chris (Mike Ugo). Chris is a refugee - yes, the Congo is still a terrifyingly dangerous place to live - living in Melbourne with his boo Isioma (Effie Nkrumah). Isioma. Isioma is helping her friend, Tarisai (Tariro Mavondo) and her sidekick Bob (Nelly Kouakou), make a documentary about the history of the Congo as part of a university assignment. They have enlisted Chris to give an authentic Congolese voice to the show although they don't really understand why that is important. In the meantime, Chris and Isioma are also trying to plan a life together. Spoiler alert - one of the funniest scenes in the play is when Chris is brought home to meet Isioma's parents.

This all sounds very straight forward, and perhaps a bit dry right? Let me tell you, La Belle Epoque is not dry at all! Future D. Fidel (writer) has an incredible gift of storytelling. He weaves time and characters so that they blur with perfect clarity. One minute we are in a Melbourne living room in 2024, and within the space of a few lines, hilarious character work, and a lighting shift we have travelled back in time a century or more. Just as easily Fidel can pull us right back into the present with a script problem Tarisai has to solve for Isioma. Just as easily he can make us laugh in one moment with a Laurel & Hardy style routine between Tarira and Bob, and then slip us into a tense struggle for survival by a king turned slave. In Fidel's writing the dark is as dark as the bright is bright.

These transitions are not easy and one of the best things director Budi Miller has done is to keep the stage and staging clean and clear. Along with the artful use of projection, it is the clarity and dynamic breadth of Nkrumah's performance in particular which pushes the narrative forward and makes sure we know where and when we are in this epic tale.

I mention Nkrumah because she is truly amazing, but the rest of the cast are strong too. Ugo's monologues are powerful and unflinching as he speaks Fidel's words and experiences and history. In fact, the final moments of this play packs a massive punch as it becomes clear suffering is nowhere near ending in the Congo any time soon. One of the clever aspects of this show is Fidel's observations about the through line of progress on the fate of the Congolese. In the 19th century the people suffered because of a need for rubber for motorcars. In the 21st century the suffering is going to continue because of the need for cobalt for electric vehicles. We need to think about how we save the people as we also strive to save the planet.

There are so many layers to La Belle Epoque and yet all of the strands in the loom are clear, concise and insightful. In this play the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It is not perfect - there was not enough time or money for perfection - but perhaps the rawness of this production allows the ideas and concerns to flow so much more clearly out to the audience. This play is so very much more important to see than I could ever effectively communicate.

4.5 Stars

THE LONG GAME - Theatre Review

WHAT: The Long Game
WHEN: 28 - 13 July 2024
WHERE: TW Explosives Factory
WRITTEN BY: Sally Faraday
DIRECTED BY: Krystalla Pearce
SET BY: David Bramble
COSTUMES BY: Olivia Adamow
LIGHTING BY: Natalia Velasco Moreno
SOUND BY: Beau Esposito

AV BY: Eddie Diamandi

PERFORMED BY: Gloria Ajenstat, Petra Glieson, and Charmaine Gorman

STAGE MANAGED BY: Kate Weston

Charmaine Gorman and Petra Glieson - photo by Jodie Hutchinson

Walking into TW Explosives Factory for The Long Game you just know you are in for a night of polished and sophisticated theatre. Glieson-Faraday productions does not disappoint for a single second in this regard.

Flipping the standard modern end stage upside down, rather than raking the audience, set designer David Bramble has raised the main playing space for this production which is a much better seating solution for this venue, and also allows the team to play with the vertical space with ease and safety. The entire set is a wash of muted beige and white which is the perfect representation of 'safe' wealthy home aesthetics. Richly carpeted floors, floor to ceiling drapes and an external wooden deck are all there to tell us we are in upper class suburbia. Whatever ugliness is about to ensue is going to happen to the bright, shiny people of the world.

As if on cue, out comes Gay (Gloria Ajenstat) dressed in couture white and gold, wine in hand and dancing her cares away. Two women, her daughters, echo her dancing down in the dark abyss of the forestage. The three women speak intermittently, the mother engaging in gay party repartee whilst the daughters tell of two very different non-consensual sexual encounters which form the nexus of the story of The Long Game.

After this prologue the play begins in earnest with Esme (Petra Glieson) turning up unexpectedly at the family home. Esme is obviously the 'black sheep' of the family in her torn, worn jeans and Medusa t-shirt. We quickly find out she has been absent for 2 years and has a history of alcohol abuse. Once Gay and Esme have established their relationship Miranda (Charmaine Gorman) turns up and we learn that this younger daughter has followed her father's footsteps into politics with some assistance from long-time family friend Byron who we never meet. We don't need to.

According to interviews by playwright Sally Faraday, what is supposed to ensue is a searing interrogation of sexual abuse in the political arena. Riffing off the experiences of Julia Gillard and Bethany Higgins, apparently the driving ideas were of victim complicity, the challenges of 'coming forward' and public perceptions. These ideas and questions are, indeed, vitally important but in my opinion very little of that comes through. Enough to start a conversation perhaps, but it all gets muddied up in the socio-political dialogue and the overt reluctance of Faraday to take a position. In many ways the story gets lost in the taupe tones of the set and the pastels of the costumes (Olivia Adamow). The play looks good but lacks real substance and bite.

Don't get me wrong. The Long Game is a real horror story. My problem is that nobody ever escapes despite the many open doors the characters could run through. Evil in this story lies in that ambiguous force called Byron. Byron was the dead husband's political partner in crime and family friend. After the death, somehow Gay stays within Byron's orbit and the political party circles and watches her daughters bloom into womanhood. So does Byron.

Byron has become a love interest for Gay, but we learn he is at the heart of Esme's battles with addiction, and he is also a key player in Miranda's progress towards political leadership. Across the course of The Long Game the relationships between these three women - so close and yet so far away from each other - is interrogated and truths are revealed. 

This all sounds like the recipe for a gripping, on topic tale which could rip a large whole in the fabric of sexual assault culture, right? So why doesn't it pack the punch it should despite excellent performances, great design, and experienced direction? There are a few issues in my opinion. 

The first is that the story gets lost in trying to be too much about manoeuvring in politics. Is this play a story about how to get ahead in politics or is it a story about rape? 

Secondly, the characters leave the original concept completely unresolved, and they end up looking as if they don't care. If they don't care, why should we? Gay disappears at the end, but the daughters don't investigate. Esme walks out to avoid the issue which she has a history of doing, and Miranda is left to do whatever she wants or doesn't want to do with her story and her career. As far as the play goes, there are few consequences if she does nothing and no real incentive to do anything. As such, The Long Game fails as a vehicle to demonstrate a way forward for women drowning in these kinds of circumstances. We see a status quo and that is all we see.

Finally, there is little light and shade in the writing or direction (Krystalla Pearce) of these characters. We can't fall into the depths of despair if we never see the light of love and joy shine through. Everyone starts the play in a dark and tense place, and we are never released from that which leads to emotional fatigue and a lack of stakes. These three women are never happy and seem to not have been for a very long time. Nothing about being in each other's company sparks joy. Eddie Diamandi's film work does show Esme and Miranda playing joyfully as little girls, but the actors don't demonstrate any of that in the show. There are few, if any unguarded moments of being lost in their past playfulness to help us see just how far away from each other they have travelled. Everyone could have worked harder to find the pre-trauma family dynamics.

The Long Game tackles very, very difficult ideas and experiences and I do commend the team for addressing things we don't want to see or talk about. The show looks amazing, and everyone on the design team can pat themselves on the back for creating main stage perfection in an independent theatre context. Performances are strong and lively, and Pearce makes sure the playing space is used extremely well, wielding the design elements with confidence too. The Long Game certainly exposes something, I guess it is up to us (just as it becomes up to Miranda) to figure out what we can or will do about it.

3.5 Stars

THE EXOTIC LIVES OF LOLA MONTEZ: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Exotic Lives of Lola Montez
WHEN: 20 - 30 June 2024
WHERE: Chapel Off Chapel (Loft)
WRITTEN BY: Jackie Smith
DIRECTED BY: Moira Finucane
SET BY: Isaac Lummis and Joshua Weeks
LIGHTING BY: Gillian Schwab

PERFORMED BY: Caroline Lee, Piera Dennerstein, Maple Rose, and Iva Rosebud

Maple Rose, Iva Rosebud, Piera Dennerstein, and Caroline Lee - photo supplied

Full disclosure - I saw The Exotic Lives of Lola Montez in its premier season in Ballarat in 2017. As auspicious as that occasion was, resonant with the goldfield's heritage of the woman in question, I am going to blaspheme and say I had a lot more fun this time around. The original season was performed on the beautiful big proscenium arch stage of Her Majesty's Theatre but returning to Lola's (and Finucane & Smith's) burlesque roots, this thrust stage - pun intended - version of The Exotic Lives of Lola Montez at Chapel Off Chapel has a contagious joy and deshabille not possible in the more formal theatrical surroundings. 

Lola Montez (Caroline Lee) is an Irish woman who explored the world using her charms and her wits to beguile European nobility, the daring folk of California, and the brash Australians of the 19th Century. A woman brave enough and determined enough, to live life on her own terms Lola Montez became famous for her Spider Dance, and she and her troupe were not only talked about in their own time, but as Finucane and Smith tell us, she is still talked about today!

The original production did play with the burlesque genre with Holly Durant playing Lola's burlesque avatar and ensemble and other abstracted concepts. In this iteration of the show, Moira Finucane (director) has expanded this idea and Lola now has her troupe surrounding her, serenading her, and supporting her in her daring endeavours. Joining in the fun and titillation are burlesque artists Maple Rose and Iva Rosebud. Adding a bit of class to these saloon shenanigans is opera star Piera Dennerstein (who also kicks up her leg in a mighty fine Can Can).

I felt the original show was a bit long and wordy, although this was no reflection on Jackie Smith's incredibly clever and hilarious script. That production did have an artistic gravitas and beauty which was unforgettable too.This time around I didn't notice the time go by and was far too busy hooting and hollering at the women on stage as they entertained us all and each other. I also felt the energy of the other women lifted Lee to new heights whilst also adding a softness as she gazed adoringly at her women being everything they could be just as she was doing herself.

You might think the story of Lola Montez ends sadly with her body ravaged by syphilis, and very likely dying in poverty. Finucane and Smith refute this narrative though, celebrating Lola's energy, spirit, and the magnificence of choosing a life of freedom rather than gendered repression. The final line of The Exotic Lives of Lola Montez rings with the echoes of history and will continue to resonant across a future yet to come. Lola Montez is not a role model for the patriarchy, but she is THE role model for women everywhere, of every time.

4.5 Stars

BLOOD IN THE WATER: Theatre Review

WHAT: Blood In The Water
WHEN: 20 - 30 June 2024
WHERE: La Mama Courthouse
WRITTEN BY: Jorja Bentley
DIRECTED BY: Tansy Gorman
DESIGNED BY: Bethany J Fellows
LIGHTING BY: Georgie Wolfe
SOUND DESIGN BY: Callum Cheah
PERFORMED BY: Chris Koch, Lana Schwarcz, Mia Tuco, and Karlis Zaid
STAGE MANAGED BY: Steph Lee

Mia Tuco, Chris Koch, Lana Schwarcz - photo by Darren Gill

It is sadly rarer than you might think but Blood In The Water, now playing at La Mama Courthouse, is a thoroughly engrossing play from start to finish. I guarantee you will not look at your watch once to see how much longer this is going to go on.

Written by Jorja Bentley, Blood In The Water is a play which investigates the life altering effect on a family when the son is accused of rape. Riffing off similar concepts to Duck Duck Goose, Blood In The Water takes a more intimate approach, focussing on the family. It delves deep into the murky waters of public perception, child rearing, and motherly love.

Bentley's script is almost impeccable. It keeps the ideas swirling and expanding, the characters shifting and evolving, and the relationships pushing and pulling across the hour and a half in which the tale is told. We never meet the son - the accused. We don't need to. The story is not about what he did. It investigates what is revealed about the people who are closest to him - or who thought they were closest to him - his family.

The story revolves around his mother Ruth (Chris Koch), his younger sister Jen (Mia Tuco), his stepfather Ruben (Karlis Zaid), and his aunt Sal (Lana Schwarcz). Ruben is a local politician who is running for Mayor, and he uses all of his political pull and questionable morality to keep everything quiet and try and keep his stepson out of jail. Ruth is ripped apart as she chooses which child to support and creates a narrative for herself which allow her to continue to fight for her son. Jen wallows in the morass of paparazzi pressure, online bullying and parental abandonment whilst trying to finish her schooling. Aunt Sal (Ruby's sister) is the port in a storm, objective outsider, and sisterly ear, trying to keep reason, logic, and safety front and centre in an ever-widening abyss of despair and distress.

Tansy Gorman has directed the show well, and helped the actors find great depth and nuance in their characters. It is this authenticity of performances which keeps the audience engrossed. The one thing which gets in the way of the show is that it seems as if neither Gorman nor designer Bethany J Fellows understand the power positions on a stage and this weakens the audience connection preventing the show from being truly cathartic.

The set is stunning, with golden hued cloths creating a faux proscenium set up of 2 sets of legs and borders and then a full cloth across the upstage wall. The problem lies in the impressive dinner table which takes up centre stage (and because of its size, most of the playing space). 

Centre stage is the most powerful place on stage. NEVER give it to a piece of furniture! As well as this, Gorman never uses down stage centre which is the second most powerful place on stage. Instead that just remains a black well of darkness with a couple of throw away scenes played in front of the proscenium in the far left and right corners. Just about everything else is played behind or beside the table. Once you put something between the actor and the audience the relationship is immediately weakened. Luckily, in this show the story and the performances are sooooo good they survive these big theatrical missteps, and the show is still riveting.

The entire cast of Blood In The Water is strong, but Schwarcz and Tuco really keep the energy and tensions sizzling. Zaid and Koch do keep up with them, but Koch needs to work on articulation (which is a weird thing to have to say as she is a voice coach). Luckily there are captions for this play so if you miss anything you can read the words on the screen. The set is beautiful, despite my issues with the table, and Georgia Wolfe lights the show elegantly to match it.  Callum Cheah's sound design is subtle and effective.

Blood In The Water raises a lot of questions about parenting, families, and living through crises. At one point I did think it was a bit heavy on the mum blaming. I can't even begin to imagine how you would navigate this situation without making big mistakes and there is nothing in the play which addresses the biological father and his role in... well... everything! The only thing I didn't get was the closing line by Jen. I think it needs to be set up better to land with the punch it is intended to.

There is a huge amount of really good theatre on the stages of Melbourne this week, but Blood In The Water is up there with the best of all of it. Don't miss it!

4.5 Stars

THE LAST TRAIN TO MADELINE: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Last Train To Madeline
WHEN: 18 - 29 June 2024
WHERE: Meat Market Stables
WRITTEN BY: Callum Mackay
DIRECTION & AV BY: Hayden Tonazzi
DESIGNED BY: Savanna Wegman
LIGHTING BY: Spencer Herd
SOUND BY: Oliver Beard
PERFORMED BY: Ruby Maishman and Eddie Orton
STAGE MANAGED BY: Finn McLeish

Ruby Maishman and Eddie Orton - Photo by Liv Morison

It is rare in independent theatre to see sumptuous productions presented with all the quality of a major state theatre company because nobody has that kind of money. Somehow Fever103 has pulled it off with Callum Mackay's The Last Train To Madeline which is playing now at the Meat Market Stables.

The Last Train To Madeline is a coming-of-age story. Perhaps influenced by the title, at first it feels like it is Maddy's (Ruby Maishman) story. Maddy is an 8-year-old girl who pretends her dad is Bruce Springsteen which is why he is never home. He is always away on tour. She steals a video camera from a classmate, Luke (Eddie Orton). He figures it out and after negotiating their way out of the incident they become playmates. The plays cycles between the ages of 8 years old, 17 years old (when they are young and in love and planning their escape), and 23 years old when Maddy returns to find Luke happily ensconced in a quiet, 'normal' life.

About halfway through the play I realised this isn't Maddy's story at all because she never gets the space to develop any real insight into herself or her life. She is the manic pixie dream girl trope created to activate Luke's life and choices. Does it matter? Not really. And it is true to say there is nothing new or original about the story or the characters either, but that doesn't matter either, because the play does what it does really well and the actors are top class. Do I have a little niggling resentment of the traditional 'Eve' portrayal of the female screwing up the male's life? Yes, but I am fighting thousands of years of history when I try and break that down.

Savanna Wegman's set dominates breathtakingly and provides an isolated playground for these two characters to explore themselves and each other out of the prying eyes of society and acceptability. Ostensibly a concrete overpass from a long disused railway line reminding us of the history of Wangaratta where the story is set. The shape also references the streamlined facade of our modern bullet trains. All of this feeds into the long-standing tropes of trains and travel and the vagabond. 

This metaphor is one of the base concepts in American film making and just about everything about this production including the topic, structure and - most especially - the sound design kept reminding me of Sofia Coppola's work. If this play was a film, it would be the kind that would win awards at film festivals. This feeling is enhanced by the very cinematic sound design by Oliver Beard.

The Last Train to Madeline is directed well by Hayden Tonazzi. My one wish is that he hadn't given away all of the secrets of the set within the first couple of scenes. What it meant is that the play struggles to build truly intimate moments and the audience has nothing left to learn about this world as the play progresses. 

Part of this is Wegman's problem too because the set lacks any dynamic elements to allow the story to expand. Rather than all the greenery upstage, that space could have been much more cleverly calculated by both the director and the designer - perhaps have a more St Kilda influence... Spencer Herd's stunning lighting design works hard to carry the burden of maintaining a sense of reveal and newness in the latter parts of the play, but we already know what there is and how the space can be used so there is a 'more of the same' sense to the final scenes which makes the play feel a bit longer than it is.

Having said all this, as a theatrical production The Last Train To Madeline is about as perfect as you are going to get. It is visually stunning, has sophisticated performances and design elements which are fully realised. This production has evidently had money and time and the audience is the winner. 

4.5 Stars

MEDIOCRE: Cabaret Review

WHAT: Mediocre
WHEN: 30 May - 1 June 2024
WHERE: The Motley Bauhaus
CREATED & PERFORMED BY: Riley Street

Riley Street

Some cabarets are secret little bombs of wisdom. This is what Riley Street's cabaret Mediocre, playing at The Motley Bauhaus, has turned out to be.

You already get a sense of where Mediocre is going to take you when you see 'Everything Is Fine' plastered across the keyboard, with the word fine falling off at the end. Then Street walks in with a box of goodies and the words 'No Really It Is' written across it'. Not entirely reassuring but it is enough to make you settle back in your seat waiting to hear more.

At first Mediocre plays out like a bunch of other cabarets. Street bumbles through app dating which becomes even more complicated when they realise, they are actually looking for a same sex relationship. Street goes on to describe one of the most uncomfortable dates I have heard so far. It is the kind of date which is only funny with the passage of (a lot of) time.

Street then goes on to discover they are ASD which clears a whole lot of confusion up but doesn't seem to make life easier. This is where the genius and incredible insight in Street's work shines through. After the diagnosis things should start working because now you know what is happening and can 'fix' everything, right?

What Street comes to understand is that a diagnosis does not mean there is a cure. It doesn't mean there is a magic pill which fixes you or your circumstances. You still have to live life and nothing about how life works changes just because you figure out why everything doesn't make sense to you. Street learns that managing an illness, or disease, or disorder just means you know why things are hard. Hopefully that eases some of the anxiety and you may be able to find strategies, but it doesn't make the problems go away.

Amidst all this, Street reveals themselves to be a much better than mediocre musician and singer. We cry along with them as they tell a heartbreaking tale of cruelty as the opportunity of a lifetime is unfairly stolen away with that fateful diagnosis. This straw that broke the camel's back in a long list of frustrations and fortitude. 

Hovering in the background is Street's family. As with most people in their independent years, Street's relationship with Mum and Dad is rocky and faced with challenges and misunderstandings. Dad is always there, though, with a bucket full of platitudes and Mum is there too even when Street can't always see her.

Mediocre is a cut above the average cabaret. Street comes to the stage with an open heart and an open book on their life. The honesty of the pain and confusion is balanced artfully with humour, some clever audience participation, and a pocket full of songs sung by a very talented singer. 

You probably missed this season of Mediocre because it was only on for 3 nights but hopefully it is coming back again, perhaps in a festival or just for a return season. If it does come back I highly recommend it.

4 Stars

KOAL: Theatre Review

WHAT: KOAL
WHERE: Theatre Works (Explosives Factory)
WHEN: 22 May - 1 June 2024
CREATED BY: Jacinta Yelland and Trey Lyford
DIRECTED BY: Trey Lyford
SET DESIGN BY: PAyton Smith
COMPOSITION BY: Ethan Mentzer
PERFORMED BY: Jacinta Yelland
STAGE MANAGED BY: Emmie Parker

Jacinta Yelland - photo by Ashley Smith

Our planet is suffocating, and our country is dying. What the wildfires aren't burning, the floods are washing away. Environmental disasters run parallel to the societal catastrophes human beings inflict on one another and all this is building up to what has to be some great conflagration in the near future because things can't keep going the way they are... Although based in Philadelphia, Jacinta Yelland has dug deep into her Australian roots to create KOAL with Trey Lyford and this show packs a punch in just over an hour. Riffing off that tiny Koala which survived the bush fires in 2019, referencing the endless mining disasters we experience in this country, and looking to Yelland's own family history of indentured servitude, KOAL journeys from funny to frightening in the blink of a baby koala's eye.

The show begins with a young girl dancing around a tree but soon we hear crackling and just about every Australian knows that sound. Fire. The girl runs off and we see a koala. Suddenly we are at a zoo being welcomed by a wildlife warrior with very strong resemblances to a certain Australian zoo dynasty. The zookeeper wants to introduce us to a koala and assures us the fire is very far away so we can ignore it. 

Then we meet Stevo, a miner. He goes down a cave to check methane levels but there is a cave in. The fire rages on and smoke starts to fill the room. Meanwhile the young girl is trying to attend school but doesn't meet the dress standards - shoes...

KOAL is a towering inferno performed with incredible skill by Yelland, who is a very highly trained physical theatre performer. Her characters are well-defined and performed with great nuance. The three stories arc to a delightful, if devastating, crescendo under the boughs of the gum tree which has held centre stage the whole time. I remember reading a long time ago that the reason there are so many eucalyptus trees in Australia is because they are more resilient to fire. Over the millennia more fragile native plant life has burned away, but the gum trees stand strong and tall because of their oil content. Even though it is toxic to them, that same oil is in the very leaves which keep our koalas alive. There has to be some kind of metaphor in there somewhere... but I digress.

As Yelland morphs from character to character and weaves her stories together, the tree at the centre of the stage morphs along with her. Payton Smith has created the perfect travelling set. In all there are 3 ladders of different sizes, and they are all strewn with brown paper woven to represent bark (paper bark?) or rock as needed. Gum leaves poke out here and there to the satisfaction of the little koala. I always hate ladders on stage but, to be honest, I didn't even realise that is what it was until part way into the show as it starts morphing into trucks and caves and kitchens and all sorts of things. Perhaps towards the end all the fiddling becomes a bit too much, but the show is just short enough for it to avoid becoming tiresome. Ethan Mentzner's compositions and sound design are faultless and take us everywhere the story needs to go very powerfully indeed.

If I do have a criticism (and yes, I do have one), I feel like the Indigenous story is the least elegantly realised and integrated into the overall structure of KOAL. The work assumes the audience has read all of the publicity material and, to be honest, I thought it was a story about refugees until I remembered what I had read. On the bright side, this play works if you read it that way and this is a very current and urgent interpretation. On the sad side, the stories of the Stolen Generation are important, and we miss an important part of the storytelling if it goes by without being noticed. I am surprised Lyford (director) didn't pick up on the ambiguity but perhaps, given he is not Australian, he didn't realise there could be another interpretation. It would be very unfair to expect international artists to be up to date with Australia's constant shameful social policies.

KOAL is equal parts delightful and a dystopian nightmare. Emerging from the embers the characters leave it to us to work out if catastrophes are a thing of our past or the only thing we have to look forward to.

4 Stars

THE WORD: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Word
WHEN: 17 - 26 May 2024
WHERE: Abbotsford Convent (Magdalene Laundry)
WRITTEN BY: Michael Carmody, Nadja Kostich, Michele Lee and Ensemble
DIRECTED BY: Nadja Kostich
COMPOSED BY: Allara Briggs Pattison
SET AND COSTUME BY: Matilda Woodroofe
LIGHTING BY: Richard Vabre
PERFORMED BY: Spike Angwin, Grace Annan, Sunday Bickford, Kleopatra Dukas, Harris Tate Elliott, Noray Hosny, Oscar Munro, Jackson Reid, Harriet Turner-Brown, Vito van Hout, Frankie Lee Willcox
CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Bridget Fiske
VIDEO DESIGN BY: Michael Carmody
STAGE MANAGEMENT BY: Steph Young

Ensemble - photo by Jason Cheetham

Words... We give them. We speak them. We take them back. We forget them. We write them. We erase them. We colonise them. We lose them. We find them. We learn them. We honour them. We ban them. They are clumsy and imprecise, yet they are the most sophisticated communication system we have ever designed. We are who and what we are because of them and in spite of them. The St Martin's Theatre Youth Ensemble have spent a long time exploring them and they now have an (almost) undergraduate level of understanding of semiotics and - more importantly - a brilliant piece of theatre now playing at Abbotsford Convent, called The Word.

The Word has been crafted over a year and a half under the tutelage and guidance of an incredible array of industry creatives. What shines through the strongest in this show, and IMO is perhaps the greatest achievement, is the cohesion of the ensemble as well as their centredness and confidence in what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it.

The Word is physical theatre, but it is not the kind which is high powered and aggressive. The performers rarely stand still, but their movements and journeys around the space is gentle and controlled. They find themselves within some kind of archaeological archive. The space is strewn with pottery and busts on wooden plinths which are moved around as story and context shifts and changes. Within this archive the ensemble explores their relationships with language, heritage, and community. 

The words themselves are released into the space in the form of video projection (Michael Carmody), dialogue, monologue, poetry, song, breath and silence. The words BEFORE, AFTER, and NOW slide into each other across 2 large cloths defining the boundaries of the corner stage configuration. These words, the artefacts littering the stage, and the energy and youth of the ensemble tell us immediately that what has happened and what is happening are all integral parts of what is yet to come.

Two groups form. An ancient feud. Somebody said something but nobody remembers what, exactly. Sides have been taken, but if you don't remember what was said anymore should you change sides? Should there even be sides? Modern day apps are full of tick box answers to questions but what if nothing suits so you have to tick 'other'? Can you really explain how you don't fit in a box in just 180 characters? Can words be that meaningful and precise? Somebody doesn't like a word. Should we ban it? Do we understand the ramifications of doing so? Do we understand the ramifications of letting the word stay? 

Nadja Kostich (director) has led this marvellous ensemble into a maelstrom of humanity and together they have created a beautiful map - or is it a maze? Helping to connect language to feeling and emotion Allara Briggs Pattison (composer) has, with absolute genius, created a sound scape which takes us into the deepest heart places and subliminally helps us understand why words are important to us as individuals, us as a community, and us as a collection of communities. The journey includes original songs by two cast members which are breath-taking! 

The movement sequences created by Bridget Fiske (choreographer) keep the space, the air, and the ideas ebbing and flowing and allow the words to shift the dust on a musty history of communication and the lighting sculpted by Richard Vabre (lighting designer) reveals and hides in a playful yet edifying manner. All of this plays out on an evocative museum style palette created by Matilda Woodroofe.

When you enter the performance space, you are offered the chance to write down some words that are important to you. Words that you love or hate, your first word, words you have been introduced to. This small act of pre-performance framing is integral to how deeply you become embedded in the concepts held in the show. Along the way we also learn the history of the Magdalene Laundry itself which 'speaks' so strongly the tale being told in it right now. 

This is not a show about answers. The Word explores ideas. It explores ideas about words and ideas framed by words. You will leave The Word wiser than when you entered the building, and you will be glad this happened.

4.5 Stars

THE ROOF IS CAVING IN: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Roof Is Caving In
WHERE: La Mama Courthouse
WHEN: 8 - 19 May 2024
WRITTEN BY: Matilda Gibbs with Jack Burmeister and Belle Hansen
DIRECTED BY: Belle Hansen
SET BY: Belle Hansen and Brigette Jennings
COMPOSITION & SOUND DESIGN BY: Jack Burmeister
PERFORMED BY: Joanna Halliday (violin), Daniel Kim (clarinet), Joshua Mackie (trombone), Linus Finn Mackie (guitars), Bek Schilling, Marlena Thompson, and Karen Yee (Keys)
STAGE MANAGED BY: Brigette Jennings

Marlena Thomson and Karen Yee - photo by Daren Gill

Rare is the person, these days, who hasn't had a share housing experience of some kind or another. For those of us who have been there/done that several times over it reveals itself to be a very changeable situation which can include the best of times and the worst of times. You can end up with life-long friends, people you never want to see or speak to ever again, and potentially even situations which include police involvement. To that you can add the many, many permutations of property manager and questionably habitable lodgings you might encounter, and it becomes no surprise that the Frenzy Theatre Company bring us a surrealist montage to explore the experience in The Roof Is Caving In currently playing at La Mama Courthouse.

Riffing off the theatre classic The Odd Couple and following the saturated colour palette of Barbie, The Roof Is Caving in is the story of two students who find themselves cohabiting for the first time in a less than well maintained after apartment complex.  We meet Bronwyn (Bek Schilling) and Hester (Marlena Thomson) as they are being handed over the key by an overly welcoming property manager (Joanna Halliday). After skulling the welcome wine, Halliday makes a quick exit and the two new tenants face their first dilemma - there is only 1 key for the apartment... 

In the ensuing negotiation of who will be the Keeper of the Key we discover Hester is the pedantic character and Bronwyn is the slob. My one big disappointment is that I really wanted Schilling to settle into their archetype like everyone else in the show. Instead, they kind of play the Everyman but that isn't right for the hyper-surreal tone of this production. 

The great delight of the play is the banda/chorus including everyone else in the cast. Whilst Bronwyn and Hester tug and pull to find a way to co-exist amidst unwashed dishes, unfinished laundry, very thin walls and late-night love interests, the ensemble pop up in the shower, the fridge, the window - just about everywhere playing the soundtrack of the lives of these two young women. It is true that their jaunty and sometimes dark jazz is a bit loud in the space but it is so good who cares? 

They also play all of the other characters in the play and they are brilliant. Joshua Mackie's handyman almost brought me to tears with his incompetence and Karen Yee as the neighbour is suitably domineering. Halliday is absolutely terrifying in a bunny boiling kind of way as the property manager and Daniel Kim has found so many ways to use a fridge which doesn't involve food it is positively mind boggling. Linus Finn Mackie plays Bronwyn's boyfriend and he is great but I couldn't quite work out his architype.

The entire ensemble keeps the tension building and the music and dance breaks work well for the most part. Perhaps the one moment it doesn't work is possibly the most important one - the housewarming party. There is soooo much work put into building up the party and the jeopardy the party puts the housemates in, but instead of keeping the tension going when the property manager turns up, Belle Hansen (director) let's it fizzle into another dance break which means we lose the thrill of the crescendo when the worst thing that could happen does happen. 

The Roof Is Caving In is a great script (Matilda Gibbs) and Jack Burmeister (composer) has written wonderful music for the banda and cleverly interwoven other sound elements to create atmosphere as intense and the colour palette. Hansen has made sure the cast keep the pace up and they use the space and their bodies and each other incredibly cleverly. Unfortunately, the show is about 15 minutes too long and because the crescendo stutters we really do feel it towards the end. 

The set (Hansen and Brigette Jennings) is detailed and clever. I would have liked the logic of the apartment to be as influenced by surrealism as everything else in the show is, but that might be a step too hard. How good would it have been with a sideways shower and a bed up a wall or something like that though???? There is no lighting credit, but I do think colour temperature was used well too. This show also wins the award for best and most appropriate use of a smoke machine since the end of lockdowns too ;)

The Roof Is Caving In is a wonderful and fun nightmare which is just a little too close to reality to be entirely comfortable. It is so exciting to have the live instruments in the space and the performers so cleverly integrated into the entire structure of the performance. 

4.5 Stars

THE BRIDAL LAMENT: Performance Review

WHAT: The Bridal Lament
WHEN: 8 - 19 May 2024
WHERE: Arts House (Main Hall)
CREATED & PERFORMED BY: Rainbow Chan
ANIMATION BY: Rel Pham
SET BY: Al Joel and Emily Borghi
LIGHTING BY: Govin Ruben
COSTUME BY: Al Joel

Rainbow Chan - photo by Sarah Walker

Song cycles are always rather unpredictable performance modes for audiences. The question becomes one of whether the music stands as musical exploration or whether it stands as storytelling. The Bridal Lament which is produced by Contemporary Asian Australian Performance and in its third iteration, this time at Arts House, is a song cycle which has Rainbow Chan exploring her Weitou cultural heritage both as part of a diaspora and also as part of her own authentic musical signature.

Chan's family left Hong Kong aroung the year the British lease of the territories expired in 1984. A millennia earlier, ancestors had left the mainland to settle into a walled village in what was to become known as Hong Kong. This agrarian culture are the people of Chan's matriarchal lineage. 

Centuries ago, weeping and wailing became formalised ritual as part of the Chinese people's relationships with their gods. It was also one of the few ritual forms which imbued women with magical/mystical agency in a patriarchal domination which takes the breath away to even try and conceive. For some time preceding the Cultural Revolution the celebration of marriage through wailing and lamenting became established in folk culture. As part of holding on to the past whilst marching inexorably into the future, Chan has revisited one of the communities in Hong Kong which still contain women who lived these experiences, women who learnt and performed these laments as part of their life events. Chan's mother was not one of these women, but her grandmother most certainly was.

There is a certain dark humour lurking within the implied horror lying under the current of these laments which Chan has resurrected. Young girls spend years learning these songs in the full knowledge they are going to be sentenced to a life of exile with people they do not know to live out a fate they have no way of foreseeing. A life in which they will have no personal agency at all. Once the matchmaker has done their job, the bride to be sits in a loft and sings her bridal laments for three days. Her feet may never touch the ground again until she is wed. 

What is left unsaid in Chan's show is that these laments are not actually for the family although it is the family who listens. They are for the gods. This period is a liminal state for the young woman who is trying to seduce the gods into making sure her fate is not as terrible as it possibly could be. It is no coincidence that in these traditional laments the groom is called the 'King of Hell'. The young woman is about to leave everyone and everything she knows to live with someone with that title and once this lamentation ritual is complete, she is expected to never cry again!

In Chan's The Bridal Lament she sings those laments to us in a blend of Weitouhua and English. Traditional chants are mixed and blended and melded with Chan's own brand of electro-pop. Parallelling the story of young brides preparing for their journey into the unknown, Chan gently weaves in the tale of her own family's exodus and how she finds herself part of the modern diaspora. Director Tessa Leong has worked with Chan to craft a thoroughly engrossing piece of theatre to accompany Chan's playlist. The explored social traditions are echoed gently in the slightly assonant tunings of Chan's music which whisper to us, the people in her new home, of the cultural dissonances of the past which make an excitingly different here and now.

The Bridal Lament looks to the past but connects women of a bygone era to those of today. As Chan tells us, these laments are a form of rebellion. They are a call to resist their fate as best they can. Chan, herself, is the embodiment of the success of that rebellion despite the distance in time and location it has taken to achieve it. As much as we might want to wallow in the victory, Chan reminds us that it is important to remember the pain of the past. How can we know who we are if we don't know who we have been? This is true of all of us, both within our individual cultural histories, but also within the history of the community we now find ourselves a part of.

Chan is accompanied by animations created by Rel Pham and shares the stage with a magnificent crystalline installation designed by Al Joel and Emily Borghi referencing rain, tears, cleansing. It is the carriage carrying the bride to her new husband. It is the mouth in a mouth, a whirlpool... it is hui.

Chan is still developing both vocally and musically, but as the music in The Bridal Lament moves into her own pop style you can clearly see the artist she is destined to become. On a stage filled with large architectural structures Chan does not disappear or get overwhelmed. Chan is destined for larger arenas but right now what we get in The Bridal Lament is the authentic origin story. Perhaps this fate is not one Chan should resist..

4.5 Stars