Feed The Horse - Circus Review

What: Feed The Horse
When: 18 - 21 October, 2018
Where: Melba Spiegeltent
Created and performed by: Radish By Night

Radish By Night

Feed The Horse is one of the three experimental circus shows which opened for the second week of the Sidesault festival at Melba Spiegeltent last night. I haven't been able to find out details of the cast members but they all worked as a very tight ensemble.

Feed The Horse is billed as being a Dadaist/Surreal/Butoh performance. It is supposed to be immersive and shock the senses. I am not convinced it lives up to the marketing but what I will say is Radish By Night have an incredibly strong visual aesthetic and some great circus skills.

Dadaism and Butoh were essentially created out the the same impetus although in different parts of the world at different times. Both movements were about breaking down the traditional ideas of what art (or dance in the case of Butoh) is/was. They are both a form of 'anti-art' movement. They are both about breaking taboos and revealing the ugly, the real, the visceral. Surrealism was born out of Dadaism and reached deep into the subconscious to make unexpected and absurd connections and bring them into the conscious world.

Radish By Night have certainly captured the look of Butoh, and the sequences around and beyond the hand balancing routine capture the look and feel of traditional Butoh - although I suspect more as an aesthetic than a movement. I was  impressed with the hand balancing routine although I think there were some problems with the stability of the apparatus. Having said that, the acrobat who performed it was extremely skilled and created the most amazing nightmare shapes.

 I am not convinced they touch on Dadaism at all as they stay well within modern post-dramatic performance forms (it is hard to be Dadaist in a post-dramatic age). The one exception may be the final sequence where the audience are made to stand in the middle of the room for apparently no purpose at all. I also think that is the closest element of immersion as well. I don't define running around the audience in a big top tent as immersion...

The great strength of the show lies in it's surreal vision. For those who don't know, the term "feed the horse" refers to stimulating and/or fingering a female for pleasure. The show begins with the most incredible visual sequence which links the idea of the womb, to the vagina, to the mane of the horse using the stunning natural locks of one of the male performers.  As I said earlier, the visuals in this show are phenomenal and Feed The Horse is worth seeing just for this aspect alone. I also suspect the performers have done some work with Viewpoints looking at how they use and balance the space and each other so endureingly.

The ideas and images are strong in Feed The Horse, and the circus elements are great too. This is the only show in the Sidesault series to use the tight rope and there is a simple, yet stunning aerial trapeze act. The simplicity in itself a Dadaist rebellion in a way. The manic skipping clown was fun too. The sound track to Feed The Horse was wonderfully otherwordly and helped create the idea of dreams and nightmares.

The show is short - only around 40 minutes which is great because as the last of the three on offer, it means if you see the whole set it is still not an overwhelmingly late night. It will however leave you with amazing visions to inspire your own dreamscape as you sleep.

3 Stars

Laser Kiwi - Circus Review

What: Laser Kiwi
When: 10 - 14 October
Where: Melba Spiegeltent
Created and performed by: Degge Jarvie, Zane Jarvie and Imogen Stone

Zane Jarvie, Imogen Stone, and Degge Jarvie

I don't know if I have ever had so much silly, ridiculous, outrageously dorky fun as I did watching the Colossal show Laser Kiwi at Melba Spiegeltent. One of the acts in the 'Sidesault' festival, I have to tip my hat to our neighbours in the land of the long white cloud who showed us how to have a whole lot of good, clean fun just for the purpose of laughing our heads off.

The name of the show, Laser Kiwi, comes from one of the quirkier entries in the flag changing referendum New Zealand held in 2015. Unsurprisingly, it didn't win (although it should have, I reckon). Colossal have taken the outrageous and audacious humour of this flag and turned it into a comedy/circus hybrid which - for all the same reasons boaty mcboatface won the ship naming competition in the UK - captures the imagination of everyone and puts a huge smile on the face, and a brings a disbelieving laugh (and occassional groan) to everyone's lips.

Laser Kiwi is much more comedy than circus, but Stone's aerial space walk on the silks is mesmerisingly beautiful, albeit continually interrupted by Degge Jarvie's prop puns. Stone is also something of a contortionist and the final routine 'The Perfect Match' is as funny as it is incredible to watch as she lights matches and candles with her feet whilst doing a handstand, amongst other incredible feats.

Zane Jarvie is the balancing aficionado. One of my favourite routines in the show is the recurring montage of the 'Planet Gobblers'. For those of you who don't know, there is a video game of the same name which involves a giant pair of lips eating planets which are tiny balls of different colours which look impressively like m&ms. Throughout the show the three of them come grunting out on stage and eat their planets. Zane, however, always tries (and fails) to be clever and toss the candy into the air to eat it. Eventually the other two have enough and Zane comes up with a fool proof plan. He has made a mousetrap style maze pillar which he balances on his face.

The idea is he throws it up in the air, it lands in the dish and rolls down this complicated series of tunnels and into his mouth. It was even funnier on the night I saw it. As you know, the nutty m&ms can be irregular in size and in a glorious irruption of reality, the candy kept getting stuck in several places in the tube. It was hilarious watching Degge try and nudge it loose whilst avoiding making the contraption fall off Zane's face.

The Colossal team are not afraid of irruptions of reality and a portion of the hilarity of their show is the way they abashedly share the humour of the fortunes of fate on their endeavours. Laser Kiwi is bursting with prop humour and puns. Some of my favourites were the incredibly accurate snail, the tape worm, and the final front ear.

Another very funny sketch is the one which parodies the Japanese game show Hole In The Wall. Instead of humans they bring up an audience member who plays against Stone with wooden mannequins. Perhaps the one sour note for me was when the last cut out was a pair of boobs. Pretty much everyone in the audience went quiet on that one which made me proud.

Unfortunately the Laser Kiwi season at Sidesault is over, but this week brings 3 new and amazing acts to the Melba Spiegeltent. Get on down and discover what other new adventures are happening in the world of independent circus.

3.5 Stars

Summer & Smoke - Theatre Review

What: Summer & Smoke
When: 3 - 14 October 2018
Where: Good Shepherd Chapel
Written by: Tennessee Williams
Directed by: Tanya Burne
Performed by: Alice Bishop, Helen Doig, Leah Filley, Joseph Green, Cecilia Low, Ryan Murphy, Cariad Wallace, and John Wood
Costumes by: Emily Harvey and Amanda Hitten
Lighting by: Natalia Velasco
Music and sound by: Julian Lyngcolm and Peter McKeown
Stage Managed by: Joey Burford

John Wood, Helen Doig, and Leah Filley

Summer & Smoke is a play written by Williams at the beginning of his golden era of play writing. It has never been a play produced in Australia, but White Horse Collective have changed that and have put on a season at the Good Shepherd Chapel in Abbottsford.

Produced on stage in 1948 (just after A Streetcar Named Desire), Summer & Smoke was made into a film in 1961. All of Williams' plays are considered to be autobiographical and Summer & Smoke clearly delves into his family situation.

Williams' mother was considered to be pretentious and was the the daughter of a minister (Wood), as is the protagonist Alma (Filley), and his grandmother was a music teacher as is Alma as well. Williams' sister was diagnosed schizophrenic and had a lobotomy, and the mother figure (Doig) in Summer & Smoke is suffering some form of serious mental illness which restricts Alma's life as she has to take on carer duties. Williams himself took on responsibilities for his sister and suffered from depression - again, reflected in the character of Alma. Williams' mother married a young shoe salesman and Alma ends the play going off into the night with...a young shoe salesman. You get the picture...

The story revolves around the transformation of Alma and John (Green) from one state to another. For Alma it is the journey from devout good girl mired in duty and faith and for John it is travelling from a hedonistic corporealist to a man of responsibility and conformity.

Summer & Smoke was not one of Williams' more successful works, and I think it is because the transformative journey for Alma is not quite credible. There is not quite enough in the writing to get the audience to change their view of her from saint to sinner. John's journey is much more clearly accounted for.

Much of this can be blamed on the writing, but in the White Horse Collective production there is a portion of blame to lay on the direction (Burne) and the acting. Williams spends a lot of dialogue capital talking about Alma's affectations including the use of the 'long A'. John mocks her about it, telling her he saw someone mimicking her, Nellie (Wallace) talks about taking up her affectations, and Alma even admits to a small portion.

Nothing of that comes through in Filleys performance. Yes, she does use the long A occassionally, but it is swaddled in a sea of realism and authenticity in the southern accent so at best she seems like the slightly nervous type and that is about it. The greater the affectation, the more scope there would have been for Filley to play with the breaking down of her sense of self and values and the greater the dynamics and tension possible between the cast members.

As well, John identifies Alma has a doppelganger and this is key to her descent. He is talking about a sensuous side which has been locked up under the watchful stare of the fountain angel Eternity. This is a bit harder for us to grasp because White Horse have decided not to include the prologue. I don't think they understood how important it was to help us understand both John and Alma and why they are like they are - how they could grow up and yet have such opposing beliefs.

Burne does not allow Filley the space to explore the battle within Alma. John teases and prods and pokes to release the doppelganger to join him in his own moral descent. The tension of the work really lies in Alma's failure to overcome. Rosa (Low) is the image constantly thrown in her face as the kind of woman John wants and until she allows her corporeal needs to overcome her spiritual constraints she cannot have him. Without this tension, her downfall is hollow.

The character of the mother is also woefully under used. One of the great tensions working on Alma from childhood is the caring of her mother who has debilitating and destructive mental health problems. Burne just keeps her sitting behind the action raising some verbal interference. We rarely see them fully interacting and we never get to fully appreciate the fear or love Alma must have for her. We never see the destruction she has on the lives of both the reclusive father and the overwhelmed daughter who has to put on a facade of superiority to hide her misery and despair.

The company in general do act out the play well and Burne has directed the story well, it just feels as though the intention was missed and, to be honest, I don't know how much more a playwright can do to tell people what the story is.

I love the accents. I rarely say that, but this is because they are rarely done well or consistently. This ensemble of actors have worked hard though and none of them miss a beat. This is essential for producing Williams' plays because he is a poetic writer and the rhythm of his work relies on the melody of the southern drawl.

The decision to present Summer & Smoke in the Good Shepherd Chapel is a stroke of genius. I just wish (again) they had included the prologue somehow because the fresco work could then be a much more powerful and active agent in the story and add to the overwhelming pressures working on Alma.

The sound and music was absolute perfection. Lyngcoln and McKeown play live and in particular they make the decadent scenes sing with power and potential. All of the production elements worked to do their bit although the lighting could have drawn on the iconography within the chapel more perhaps.

I did enjoy this production of Summer & Smoke. It is the fact it was so good which has made me frustrated because I can so clearly see the potential of the powerhouse it could have been. I don't know if it is a play which will get much more stage time in Australia because it speaks very little to the Australian life or current modes of society but I am glad I have seen it staged. Tonight is the last performance and I would recommend seeing it if you can.

3.5 Stars

Zelos - Film Review

What: Zelos
Digital release date: 13 October 2018
Written by: Claire J Harris
Directed by: Jo-Anne Brechin
Featuring: Shannon Ashlyn, Ainslie McGlynn, and Ben Mortely

Shannon Ashlyn and Ben Mortely

Zelos is the Greek work for both passion and jealousy and Harris' film of the same title is about that and so much more. Having won a slew of awards from film festivals across the globe, the film has its digital release today in iTunes Store, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.

Zelos is the first feature film for both Harris and Brechin. Originally a short story by Harris, the two of them developed the idea into a film script when they met at AFTRS. Two years after graduating they finally had the film in the can so to speak. In 2017 it was released on the big screen and now it is available for general consumption through your favourite digital outlet.

Zelos is the story of a thirty-something middle class couple who are literally crossing the threshold to live together. It could be said the details of the film are cliche; Sarah (Ashlyn) sleeps with someone while on holiday and Bernard (Mortley) spends the rest of the film trying to come to terms with it. Both of them are desperate to hold the relationship together.

It is said that one person in a relationship is always more invested than the other and in Zelos it is Bernard who is that person. We never really find out why Sarah went on holiday without Bernard although towards the end it becomes apparent there were miscommunications long before the moment the film starts the story.

Counterpoint to Sarah and Bernard's story is the relationship between Rebecca (McGlynn) and her husband. The desperation with which Sarah and Bernard are working to hold their relationship together is counterpoint to how carelessly Rebecca's marriage is allowed to fall apart. Add the subtext of Bernard having always had a secret crush on Rebecca and you have the ingredients for a fairly tried and true relationship drama (it is billed as a dramedy but I didn't find much to laugh about).

Don't worry though, there is a much deeper commentary in the film than first meets the eye. Having read interviews and publicity I am not sure Harris even knows what an incisive commentary on the relationship dilemmas of modern times she has written in Zelos. Underlying all of these people and their relationships lies the question of partnerships as property.

Historically marriage was always connected to transfers of wealth and property. In a world where everyone has an independent means of income (educated middle class Sydney for example), the financial transactions are no longer central to the need for partnering.

The other element of classical marriage contracts was the woman as being a element of property requisite to the exchange transaction. Getting in the way of that is that pesky feminist revolution which gained so much ground in the 20th century.

Finally, for women in the past sex meant children which meant an inability to provide due to pregnancy, birthing, and then nourishing multiple mouths. With the advent of birth control came sexual liberation. In the modern age and in first world countries the idea of woman as property is not incumbent.

It is this idea which Zelos incidentally explores and struggles with in an intriguing fashion. It raises bigger questions. As Rebecca points whilst disparaging When Harry Met Sally, we are expected to have sex with a lot of people and then get married and just sleep with one person for the rest of our lives. We can blame the Disney princesses all we like, but the manifesto for the role of women has been in place for millennia prior to us. Bernard's struggle, whilst seeming to be patriarchal bullshit is still subtextually wired into our society. It is no accident this is Bernard's story and not Sarah's.

I really enjoyed this film and the question it raises about what partnerships are in this new world, especially in light of gay marriage plebiscites, the religious right push for celibacy and fidelity, and the questions about the character and behaviour of far too many politicians to enumerate. We are struggling with these questions globally and at an intrinsic level.

Zelos is not a perfect film however. Sarah and Bernard are supposedly both writers. Bernard has lost his mojo and been swallowed by the corporate world of app development. In the course of his relationship struggles however, he pulls out his post-it notes and laptop and writes a screenplay.

There are some writer group scenes (which are meant to be comic relief I think), where he writes the screenplay for the movie we are watching. One of those 'the play within the play' kind of thing. In the group he is told it has been done before. The idea is stale.

I think this is a moment for Harris to thumb her nose at someone who may have made those comments about this film. Whilst I didn't like those scenes, good on her for going ahead with it. It works if you have something new to show, and in Zelos she does.

I adore the design palette and the colour grading of the film. It is so refreshing to see a film which is not blurange. It has a very sun-washed look with subtle sepia tones which gives it a kind of classic feel. It is like watching a bittersweet memory, but a fresh one..

Zelos is a great movie to download and watch on a quiet night in. There is something comforting about watching others struggle with what we are struggling with and this film provides some deeper food for thought and perhaps some insight as to why relationships really are so hard.

3.5 Stars

This-That - Theatre Review

What: This-That
When: 8 - 13 October 2018
Where: Upstairs, The Butterfly Club
Written and directed by: Kotryna Gesait
Performed by: Kristina Benton, Candice Lillian, and Ryan Stewart

Kristina Benton and Candice Lillian

This-That is the latest offering from writer/director Gesait and has been playing at The Butterfly Club this week. Perhaps slightly inaccurately billed as an anti-rom-com rom-com, the show is nevertheless a good two-hander and well worth seeing for the great acting and intriguing character studies.

Let's get the tedious part over with first so I can get onto the good stuff. It is not a comedy. This-That is a dramatic piece of theatre which has funny moments. The funniest of those are in the meta-structure when they step outside the drama to tell us what the next step of the show would be if it was a real romantic comedy.

The internal structure of the play is, however, quite a deep and sensitive interrogation of how two women cope with the realisation that the other woman in their man's life is a real person and not just some cartoon cut-out stereotype. Alice (Benton) is the wife of a university professor and June (Lillian) is a math prodigy uni student. Both are, of course, sleeping with the same man.

June never knew he was married and we never find out how or when Alice discovered the deception, but I have to assume it was a recent discovery because the play starts with her storming in and saying things nobody should ever say to anybody regardless of circumstances. Benton is a powerful actor with an expressive face so when she plays angry, everyone in the room ducks for cover.

June is a straight laced, goody two-shoes, straight A, mathematical prodigy. This becomes relevant because Gesait uses this meeting space of June and Alice between the end of their relationship with the man to the beginning of the relationship between themselves as an exemplifier for the topological application of empty set theory. June goes into great detail of how the empty set can be everything and nothing. I think it is a slight misreading of the theoretical principal but it is an intriguing hook to hang the story on. I would explain what I mean but do you really want to read me going on about X and null sets and vacuous truths? I didn't think so... June says enough for both of us.

Both women are great actors although it is intriguing to see they both have very different acting styles. Benton is a master of Stanislavsky's realism and is a representational actor, whereas Lillian has a fine tuned awareness of her physicality in the space and is more of a presentational actor. I don't think I have ever seen the two styles juxtaposed so clearly before.

I was also very impressed and intrigued by the use of the upstairs stage at The Butterfly Club. I have never seen the back stage area opened up and it creates all sort of exciting possibilities. Gesait has used this space well although I did not enjoy the work done down the aisle as much.

The room is not set up for traverse theatre and I personally hate having to twist around to watch stuff that does not need to happen away from the natural eyeline of the audience. I can forgive it in cabaret because of tradition, but it has no place in a work of this nature and adds nothing to the story or experience. Likewise, bringing Stewart into the action to demonstrate romantic tension was pure gimmick and disappointing in an otherwise quite sophisticated play.

I'll be honest. I did not appreciate the originating premise of the show. I don't understand why women blame other women when men cheat on them. It is the man at fault so the only reason for Alice to invade and attack June at the outset is to reinforce the patriarchal trope that women are to blame for every evil, not the poor hapless man who just has the natural inclination to spread his seed everywhere. As a feminist piece of writing This-That fails from the outset.

I also couldn't really see the logic in the relationship between Alice and June. This may be because the meta- structure break ins actually destroyed any sense of tension or emotional development. In particular the sleep montage did not work. I didn't get it at all. Where was the montage?

This-That is nowhere near as funny to me as other reviewers have found it but I did find the play to be an intriguing representation of how two women in an awkward situation can actually show themselves to be rational and intelligent, and even interesting - a far cry from the representation of women in the historical western canon of play writing - and for that I loved it.

3 Stars

My Sight: Their Sight - Circus Review

What: My Sight - Their Sight
When: 11 - 14 October 2018
Where: Melba Spiegeltent
Performed by: Ryan Darwin, Romain Hassanin, and Abby Madden

Ryan Darwin

Blindful is a dance/circus venture created by Abby Madden and the show My Sight - Their Sight is a part of this year's Sidesault festival. Exploring the question of how the loss of sight affects a person's understanding of space and safety, this show kicks off the nightly program at the Melba Spiegeltent.

My Sight - Their Sight is an idea Madden was interested in exploring and for which she created the company Blindful. Born with glaucoma, Madden was interested in how sight (and the lack of it) affects physicality and interconnection.

Madden is a contemporary dancer. Joining her on this journey is another dancer and parcour specialist (!) Hassanin, and circus artist Darwin.

For the most part, My Sight - Their Sight is a dance show. Hassanin has a love of break dancing so it is no surprise there is a lot of floor work.

There is only really one nod to circus, which is Darwin's beautiful rope routine. He is blindfolded and it is fascinating watching him carefully measure out his height on the rope with his feet. Darwin is phenomenally strong and it is awe inspiring to watch him spend so much time just swinging by one hand, especially blindfolded! Anyone who has worn a blindfold knows how wierd and disorienting it is - and to be swinging it must be so much worse!

The show starts with running though. Lots of it. The company of three run in and out of the circle of chairs playing some sort of game of hide and seek. The energy and the running never stop and we get to see the extreme fitness of the troupe in every step, jump, and dance move they make.

The blindness explorations start simply with the company trying to spin on the spot, jump in sequence and box step together. The blind folds come on and off.

I loved the commentary on how, when blindfolded they had to be more mindful because they had less sensory data to inform. There is an extended repetitive sequence where Hassanin is blindfolded and keeps trying to do a floor roll/spin sequence and Darwin calls out when he is safe, and Madden tells him to reset when he gets too close to the audience - which means he has to start everything from the beginning each time. This is why it is important to not move furniture or leave chairs poking out around people with vision impairment!

I love the concept of My Sight - Their Sight and all of the performers are incredibly skillful. The show is very short though - maybe forty minutes - and I think this is because the idea just hasn't got enough body yet. Even as a dance it feels more like a series of rehearsal room explorations than a finished performance with intention. The endless repetitions didn't help the sensation that this work isn't finished either. I know that is an elements of contemporary dance but too much and it just looks like filling in time.

I also would have liked to see much more exploration of the blindness. There was too much time with full sight for the blindfolds looking to look like much more than a gimmick. I would have liked to see more successes in that state, more actuation and celebrations of positive outcomes.

My Sight - Their Sight is a show which has great potential and I look forward to seeing it fully realised in the future. It is a nice, gentle start to the evening of circus happening in Sidesault this week though, and has just the right elements to help switch out of work mode and get your into the right headspace for a great night of circus at the Melba Spiegeltent.

2.5 Stars

BOSS Squad - Circus Review

What: BOSS Squad
When: 11 - 14 October 2018
Where: Melba Spiegeltent
Performed by: Marina Gellman, Lisa Goldsworthy, Flick Lannan, Marcela Sheuner,  and Amy Stuart

Lisa Goldsworthy, Amy Stuart, Flick Lannan,
Marcela Sheuner and Marina Gellman

BOSS Squad is a joint venture between Point & Flex Circus and Madhouse Circus. Together they have created a crazily energetic show which celebrates the strength of women and it is on show at the Melba Speigeltent until this Sunday as part of Sidesault.

Dressed in the purple, green and white of the suffrage movement, this ensemble of insanely strong and vibrant women have just enough black to remind us there are no powder puffs here. This troupe mean serious business.

BOSS Squad is a glorious array of circus acts and a few sideshow elements which take us back to the glory days of freak shows and the idea of the super human.  This show debunks the myths of femininity being a synonym for fragility, delicacy, and weakness. These women are strong and fit and not afraid to be just a little bit gross when the moment warrants it.

The show begins with a fantastic teeterboard routine. It immediately set the tone for much of the show, demonstrating an eye for the ensemble and switching in and out between the whole troupe to show there are no specialists - everyone of them are powerful and can do it all. We have all heard of the ubermensch, well here are the uberfrau!

This interchange process carried through most of their circus tricks including the juggling and the acrobatic skipping with various degrees of success. Whether the tricks landed or not was not as important as the skill and strength they demonstrated in doing some very complex work. Awe and incredulity were in ample supply amongst the audience from start to finish.

We often see the Cyr Wheel in circus these days - less so the older German Wheel. It is a big, heavy, unwieldy apparatus and usually used by men but Lannan shows us just how much power she has as she skillfully moves this wheel in a dance of grace and delight.

Gellman loves the sideshow elements. What she does with milk after drilling a hole in her nose is something you need to see for yourself, and her appetite for light bulbs is... enlightening? She is also a phenomenal singer with a voice of great poignancy.

Proving that women are not fragile, Goldsworthy and Gellman dance a beautiful acrobatic duet on a pile of shards of broken glass. This routine is still a little rough, but then I defy any of us to find our core with a broken bottles under our feet!

The score underlying the show is a medley of iconic feminist power pop songs (including Miss B of course!). There are fantastic voiceovers including debunking myths men have about women. My favourite was - and I had never heard this before - there are men who think women can control their menstruation kind of like we can hold in our pee!

Women do bleed, and Gellman reminds us of that in another sideshow routine which involves a staple gun and her arms and a commentary of being labelled. Standing still as the blood drips down her body, she makes the strongest statement possible. I couldn't help looking at the bruises and other marks on her body too from her circus training which all spoke to the same story interestingly.

BOSS Squad is a fantastic show and incredibly empowering for women. The team still need to work on their tricks. It is not that they aren't highly skilled. It is more that what they are doing is so incredibly complex. I love that they are not afraid of that though, and are in it for everything they have got!

BOSS Squad is a late show (9:30pm) but we are all still Fringe fit so why not see all three shows, starting from 6:30 and just make a night of it? Circus Oz have opened an indoor bar for between the acts and there is popcorn and choctops and all your circus faves, as well as a liquor shelf to warm your cockles on these still a bit to cool nights.

3.5 Stars

Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel - Cabaret Review

What: Dance Hall - The Diva Carousel
When: 10 - 14 October
Where: The Famous Spiegeltent
Performed by: Mama Alto, Paul Codeiro, Maude Davey, Moira Finucane, Kathryn Neische, Willow Sizer, Clare St Clare, and James Welby

Clare St Clare, Paul Codeiro, Moira Finucane, James Welby, Mama Alto, and Maude Davey

With all the glitter, grace, thrills and chills of an amusement park, Finucane and Smith bring Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel to Melbourne. The Famous Spiegeltent has raised it's big top in Luna Park and Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel brings all of the dreams, desire and daring of the fun park onto the stage.

Finucane and Smith have been touring Dance Hall across regional Victoria and are taking a moment to allow Melbourne into the glory and glamour of humanity celebrating itself with a richness of ideas and urgencies which need to be expressed. The amazing doyenne, Moira Finucane, begins the night with a quote from the iconic revolutionary Emma Goldman - "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." In Dance Hall everyone dances because it is our revolution!

Finucane and her team are absolutely revolutionary, opening people's minds and hearts one diamante, ostrich feather, and shimmy at a time. She and partner Jackie Smith also always bring some great woman from history to their shows, reminding us that the fight for freedom has been a long and glorious and painful one and that we are not alone. This time it is Emma Goldman - Russian born and American made. If you want some really empowering words to fire you up Google Emma Goldman quotes and prepare to be affected.

The show begins with Finucane's fabulous 'Extemporaneous Provocations' in which she links Goldman to the great outrages of our current times - Kavanaugh, climate change, etc. She is not lecturing though. The art of Finucane and Smith is to drop an idea, dance and sing around it and let it settle in your mind where and how it will. As the title of the segment implies, Finucane provokes. She prods and teases and dares to question. There is a definite point of view, but if you are just listening because a gorgeous woman is standing in front of you in a see-through dress covered in sequins that's okay as long as you are listening!

Dance halls used to be the meeting places of yore and in Dance Hall Finucane and Smith are allowing humanity and freedom meet each other. Having said that, Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel has a stronger lineage to music halls. This iteration is more in the style of variety and strongly reminiscent of the famous Parisian music halls such as the Moulin Rouge. There is exotic dance (Codeiro), outrageous gogo (Welby), witty burlesque (Davey), puntastic comedy (Davey), and the amazing chanteuses Mama Alto and Clare St Clare whose singing transcends the earthly and takes you straight into heaven.

Finucane and Smith are more than just a performance company though. Much (if not most) of their work is about community. Dance Hall has been teaching dance across Victoria and providing those communities with the opportunity to explore their talents and express themselves through performance.

On their travels, in a tiny little town called Yarck (population 548), they found Willow Sizer. Now on scholarship with Finucane and Smith, Sizer is a powerhouse performer with an amazing voice, a dynamic stage presence, and dance moves to impress.

It is perhaps wrong to single anyone out in Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel because every second of the show is magnificent. I almost went hoarse from so much cheering, and laughing and joining in the frolics. I do have to talk about the return of Maude Davey though.

In 2014 Davey decided it was time to hang up her tassles and stop performing nude, but to celebrate her glorious career she created the phenomenally successful show My Life In The Nude. It was meant to be a full stop to that part of her career because she felt she was too old to continue getting naked on stage, but it had so many remounts due to popular demand it almost became its own ironic statement.

I am delighted to announce that Maude Davey is back! In Dance Hall: The Dive Carousel Davey reprises two of her most famous burlesque acts and tops the whole thing off with a new stand up comedy routine as Mother Earth. You should see her polar cap... "It is very attractive."

Earlier I said the show is more music hall than dance hall, but Finucane always finds a way to get us up on our feet and Dance Hall is not exception. Dance halls were the precursor to discotheques and nightclubs and the night begins and end in boogie fever as Welby and Codeira shake their tail feathers and get us all up on our feet to join in the fun.

Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel is more than just the stage show though. Celebrating the great Luna Park you can get the Luna Park experience which includes rides.

I cannot express how exhilarating and uplifting this show is. Don't miss your opportunity to experience Dance Hall: The Diva Carousel at Luna Park (if there are any tickets left). Do you remember the Tivoli? Welcome back!

5 Stars

Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl - Theatre Review

What: Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl
When: 4 - 14 October 2018
Where: La Mama Courthouse
Written by: Jane Miller
Directed by: Beng Oh
Performed by: Keith Brokcett, John Marc Desengano, Annie Lumsden, Andrea mcCannon and Glenn van Oosterom
Design by: Emily Collett
Lighting by Dans Maree Sheehan
Sound by Zac Kazepis

Andrea McCannon, John Marc Desengano, Glenn van Oosterom and Keith Brockett

Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl is a mouthful of a title, but it is the name of the new play written by Miller and directed by Beng Oh being performed at La Mama Courthouse until 14 October. Such an unassuming sounding play is a smokescreen for a show which packs a wallop, sizzles with energy and takes you places you have no idea you are heading for.

It is suprisingly rare to see shows with this much energy outside of VCA theatre student productions - Hotel Now is the only other group in Melbourne which springs to mind and they actually are VCA graduates so this 15 Minutes From Anywhere production really does stand out in the crowd. Played in traverse (which I love!!!) Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl bounces around and across the stage at a breakneck pace bringing a barrel full of laughs before blowing the mind with this post truth examination of The Rake's Progress.

Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl investigates just what a woman will do for love. Starting with the girl (Lumsden) being tutored in the art of 'getting a man' which includes not being smart, ambitious, or independent McCannon teaches her to laugh at the man's jokes and like whatever he likes.

Inevitably the girl meets a boy (Brockett), they have sex and her very rich parents disown her. The boy wants to be in a band so the girl tries to get him into her brother's (Desegno) band. They don't want him because he can't sing so she solves the problem in a most unexpected way, clearing the way for him to pursue his dream only to hear him say he doesn't want that dream anymore. Instead he wants to be a business man.

Her pattern for problem solving continues as does his vacillation between career choices. In the end it is clear all he really wants is to be rich. As with The Rake's Progress the boy leaves the girl to marry a rich woman (McCannon).

It is really at this point in the play Miller starts telling her own story and everything changes although perhaps the logic is a bit confusing given all the set ups so far. I feel, given everything that has happened in the play, the logical thing would have been for the girl to kill the wife, but it would be hard to have that scenario fit the story Miller wants to tell - which is confronting to say the least! Having said that, the final twist is well worth that small element of confusion.

As I said earlier Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl is played in traverse which is perfect for the picaresque structure of the play. As the actors run on and off stage it is like the pages in a book or photo album are being flipped to tell the next part of the story. Collett has created a wonderfully simple but clever palette to move the story through its 3 act structure and Beng Oh has directed the set changes well, not allowing the energy to drop.

As each of the three layers are revealed the depth of Collett's understanding of the world of the play is revealed and her choice in the final act is genius, moving us out of the literal just as Miller moves us out of the comical into a completely different realm of being, into another version of truth in this 'progress'.

Sheehan's lighting is functional, simple, and quite beautiful using a lovely rose tone to augment the open white signature of the work. Kazepis has created a great sound design, although I do have some small hesitation about his choices for the third act. In particular there is a transitional choice used a few time which is quite jarring. It is not that I don't like it. It is more that I don't think it has been worked into the rhythm and pace of the performances and the lighting properly. That is just a personal aesthetic though.

The acting ensemble in Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl are brilliant. Most of them have worked with Beng Oh and Miller several times previously and I think the synergy of their working relationships really shines through. I admit to really being impressed with van Oosterom's work, but everyone is brilliant so that is probably an unfair shout out...

Just A Boy, Standing In Front Of A Girl is a fantastically wild ride but don't be fooled by all the laughter. The material is deep and painful. What is the incredible thing about Just A Boy is Miller's ability to understand and demonstrate cause and effect in such a blindingly clear fashion. This play shows us that life and people are truly farcical, but also incredibley dangerous. Everybody is.

4.5 stars

The Magnolia Tree - Theatre Review

What: The Magnolia Tree
When: 4 - 6 October 2018
Where: Kingston Arts Centre
Written and directed by: Michael Gray Griffith
Performed by: Ezra Bix, Rohana Hayes, Michelle Robertson and Bruce Whalley
Stage managed by: Jessica McKerlie

Ezra Bix, Rohana Hayes, and Michelle Robertson

The Magnolia Tree is a play which has captured the imagination of Melbourne since it's initial production at La Mama in 2017. Since then it has gone on to be performed at Gasworks and Queanbeyan. In its current iteration it is touring Kingston, Knox and Doncaster throughout October.

In The Magnolia Tree Griffith has teased out a contentious and sensitive issue which all of Generation X are having to face about their Baby Boomer parents. In a society obsessed with life at all costs, the question about the quality of end of life services and options is on the forefront of the personal and political agenda.

Griffith has written a play which places the questions surrounding palliative care and euthenasia in a boxing ring to be battled out by the children of a women who has been experiencing a degenerative illness for 11 years and which now leaves her with no real quality of life now, and no capacity for independent living. It is not stated explicitly in the play the mother has Alzheimers, but Griffith says the idea came to him whilst working in a facility tending people with this condition so...

Vicky (Hayes), one of the daughters, has been providing live in care but the doctor has advised it is now time for the mother to be re-homed into full time nursing care facilities. The other two children, Jack (Bix) and Deborah (Robertson), have come over to discuss the options and come up with a plan.

The topic is a difficult one and the play begins with the unfortunate truth about the state and care levels of our seniors nursing home and the picture is not flattering. The children come to the conclusion that a home with suitable resources and appropriate levels of service would cost around $600,000 and the only way to raise the money would be to sell the family home. This is where the conversation gets difficult.

Everyone has an agenda, difficult personal circumstances (except maybe Jack - we never get to find out much about him...), and a desperate need to move on with their lives. Deborah is a mother herself and is in difficult financial circumstances and Vicky's life revolves around tending her mother.

Griffiths has said he has created Jack's character around the story of the tempting of Jesus in Matthew 4: 1-11 and I think this is where the great flaw in this play sits. Firstly, it makes Jack not really human. It somehow sets him up as being outside the conversation - an observer and perhaps a judge. It unfortunately sets up some uncomfortable gender commentary too but I am going to pass on that conversation for this review. It also means the entire conversation of the play sits around tempting the sisters rather than being a real conversation about the woman in the bedroom and the relationships and history of the family.

I am Gen X so yes, I am having those types of conversations in my own family and I am also hearing them going on around me in work places, at pubs, etc. I hate them because they all seem to come down to who will get what in the will. It may be because my family do and have always lived below the poverty line and so we have little to pass on, but I personally believe this is not anything which should be under consideration by the potential recipients at any point in time and certainly not in the context presented in this play.

One of the features of this work which has received a lot of hype is the audience get to decide the outcome by popular vote (wonderfully set up and adjudicated by Whalley). I actually really loved this feature. It is a little bit of choose your own adventure but it is a good litmus test for the mood of the community. From my understanding the result has generally swayed in favour of euthenasia.

I personally voted that way. Not because of my personal bias in that direction and also not because of anything said by anyone in the play - until just before the voting. It wasn't until those last few moments that we finally heard what the mother had to say about it before she lost her faculties and I voted in accordance with her wishes.

Griffith has spoken about his surprise at the general bias of responses but personally I think he is misreading the 'data'. In my opinion it is not a response to difficult economic times, selfishness, or moral vacuity. Rather, I think it is a sign we are moving towards a climate of respect and a ethical imperative to honour the choices of the person at the core of the debate. Given that almost no moments in The Magnolia Tree even seem to spend much time considering the mother's experiences and interests it is perhaps not surprising the 'data' appears to be pointing elsewhere. It is not a very flattering portrait of Gen X either!

Griffith has directed this production of The Magnolia Tree himself and whilst it looks beautiful it is far too cerebral and lacks theatricality. This is evident in the glossing over of deeply emotional moments such as Vicky's supposed breakdown when Jack reveals he tried to euthenise the mother a year ago. I think an external director would possible have found ways to break down the socratic structure to breath some humanity into the characters.

Hayes played Deborah in the previous versions, but this time she plays Vicky. Hayes has the emotional depth for the role but the blocking is appalling with her spending a lot of time with her back to the audience fiddling with brochures. She does a wonderful job of demonstrating emotion held to the point of breaking, but never let's herself actually break down so it is hard for the audience to see a softer side to her. All we really get to see is the lonely gambling addict she has become.

Robertson has taken over the role of Deborah. She does a fine job of it. The problem for her is the writing. Deborah just comes across as a greedy, opportunistic thief. Bix is intriguing as Jack (and I swear he could be Bruce Willis' brother!) but again, the writing gives him nowhere to go as an actor or as a character.

I love the ideas behind the inception of The Magnolia Tree and these issues are absolutely current and topical and must be examined and discussed. I just think Griffith has missed the true core of the respect for life/quality of life conversation and has been unable to grapple with the true complexities of life long family relationships. It is too 'in their heads' as people like to say.

3 Stars

Love Bird - Theatre Review

What: Love Bird
When: 3 - 7 October 2018
Where: La Mama Trades Hall
Written by: Georgina Harris
Directed by: Phoebe Taylor
Performed by: Jessica Martin, Brendan McFarlane, Ryan Stewart, Phoebe Taylor, and Matt Tester
Design by: Jason Chalmers
Lighting by: Jason Crick
Sound by: Steven Carnell
Stage management by: George Lazaris

Phoebe Taylor, Jessica Martin, and Matt Tester

Love Bird is the play currently being performed at La Mama Trades Hall until Sunday. This is not a love story. Well, actually, it is but Love Bird is not romantic in any way at all.

All of the publicity - and also the reviews from the first iteration at The Butterfly Club in January - refer to Love Bird as absurdist comedy. There is also some reference to it being related to the sitcom genre and you can see by the design (above) there is definitely some kind of cartoonish aesthetic Chalmers was working with.

I have to burst this bubble though. Love Bird is neither absurdist nor a comedy. Let's start with the second element first. For a show to be a comedy it has to have a feel good/happy ending. Just because a show has humour does not make it comedy - just ask Aristotle!

Now for the more complicated element - absurdism. Absurdism is a term as thoroughly misused in modern theatre as comedy. Absurdism - real absurdism - requires a level of existential angst about it. Think Waiting For Godot for example. Nothing of the sort exists in Love Bird. A more accurate way to describe Love Bird is a disturbing family drama with an air of the ridiculous.

Love Bird is the story of an 8 year old girl who is given a cockatiel - also known as a love bird - for her birthday. Cockatiels mate for life, think they are human if they have no mirror and no mate, and live for 20 years. Harris has based this part of the story on her own life.

I really hope where the story in the play goes is not quite so autobiographical because it is disturbing in so many ways I actually felt nauseous at points and really upset. I was even more upset by the uproarous laughter of the people sitting in the back row. Did they not understand what they were seeing?

In a nutshell, the bird finds a way to achieve sexual satisfaction with the girl. When the mother finds out she is banned from taking the bird out of the cage. The father takes a phone call and the bird is noisy so the father asks the girl to 'pleasure' the bird to shut it up and then sends her to the kitchen to eat Tim Tams. How many levels of destructive programming does the poor girl need?

Fast forward several years and the girl is dating. She brings a boy home and the possessive bird gets upset. The girl 'pleasures' the bird to shut it up and then, is encouraged by the boy to 'pleasure' him.

Yes, things happen to short circuit the situation. Specifically, her hands have Dettol on them after cleaning up from her activities with the bird which then causes a painful burning sensation for the boy-  but the pattern has already been set and we all know this won't be the end of it for her.

Amidst all this there is some commentary about unconditional love and the parents have a deeply disfunctional relationship which (from what I could tell from the direction), resulted in the mother becoming an alcoholic... Can you see why I am having trouble seeing this as comedy? I lost sight of the humour after the first ten minutes and I never got it back.

Taylor writes in the program notes this re-mount was about exploring the darker side of the text and I think she succeeded but in this instance this is not a re-mount, it is a re-imagining and everything should have started from scratch. The cartoonish flavour of the costumes is completely out of place with the darkness she has found and frames the work inappropriately. I admit I am not sure how involved Chalmers was with this remount because the role of the Mother was played by a petite actor at The Butterfly Club and Taylor's dress is not a design match in style or fit to any of the other characters.

Harris has written a play with two problematic elements for stage - a child character played by an adult, and an animal played by a human. These aspects are always deep wells of misery for theatre-makers to fall into.

Martin always brings great life and energy to the stage but (as happens most of the time), she has aged down too far. Franny is supposed to be 8 but she is being played as if she is closer to 5 or 6. This problem is a combination of the costume, the direction, and the acting. In Love Bird though, the confustion doesn't seem to get better when reappears as the teenager. It is almost impossible to place her age in the second half of the play.

I can't even deal with the cockatiel (Stewart). I don't think it is so much a problem with the actor as it is a conceptual flaw in the direction. In this darker version, it would have been a more powerful choice to not have the the cockatiel real in the space at all. In that version I could also be persuaded the play is absurdist in the real sense of the word.

Tester plays the father magnificently but he is playing the original, more cartoonish version of the show. Taylor is good as the mother but fails to portray the obsessive cleaning aspect of the character which didn't give her anything to really lean into as an actor.

I admit I really did not enjoy my night of theatre with Love Bird but the rest of the audience was in fits of laughter so maybe I missed something important. I just couldn't divorce the performance from the messaging and the messaging was way too dark for me to laugh.

Love Bird is currently running at an hour and a half - extended from it's one hour length at The Butterfly Club. This is a mistake. Some serious choices need to made by both Harris and Taylor with regard to what this show is and then make sure all their choices support those intentions. As it is, Love Bird is a mish mash of styles and ideas and is currently sitting as a very dangerous work of unfiltered messaging.

2 stars