THE WRONG HORSE: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Wrong Horse
WHEN: 10 - 14 May 2023
WHERE: The MC Showroom (Main Stage)
WRITTEN BY: Marty MonStar
DIRECTED BY: Marion Arditti
DESIGNED BY: Sylvia Shao
PERFORMED BY: Brigitte Jarvis, Darren Mort, Graham Murray, Dom Phelan, and Ian Rooney

Dom Phelan, Brigitte Jarvis and Graham Murray - photo supplied

Delightful. This is not the coolest word in the dictionary, but it is the best word to describe The Wrong Horse now playing at The MC Showroom in Prahran.

I hear a lot of men bemoaning not being allowed to tell other people's stories these days, and complaining that leaves them nothing to write about. Those men need to look at the work of writers such as Marty MonStar and Shane Grant. Writers such as these two are showing us how many 'mens' stories there are which haven't been told. Stories which show us all that secret men's business they keep hidden from the rest of us in order to appear tough and stong and leaders. We are finally getting to see real men in all their glory, with all their flaws, all their sensitivity, and all their absurdity.

The Wrong Horse is a story which celebrates the Australian bloke in all his iterations. There is Noddy (Darren Mort) the tough thug, Big Ears (Dom Phelan) the nervous no-hoper, and a plethora of smaller characters surrounding them. Set in Footscray and surrounds, these two blokes form an unlikely pair of small time crooks who knock about together outside of 'working' hours. 

On this very early Tuesday morning Big Ears wakes Noddy full of nervous energy and an inability to sleep. He convinces Noddy to go to the races at Werribee with him. When they get there a gnomelike stable hand (Ian Rooney) gives him a tip. Unfortunately, Noddy has a form of numeral dyslexia. Fortunately for Noddy he is an unnaturally lucky son of a gun. In act 2 we get to see Noddy and Big Ears plying their illegitimate trade. The question is, will their experiences at the race track be mirrored in their working life or are there darker days ahead for this very odd couple from Fitzroy?

The Wrong Horse is a wonderful Australian comedy with all the flavour of Vegemite at its core. We meet all the best old mates from days of yore (and Rooney plays a lot of them!).The cast are a great ensemble and the extreme character definition they have found evidently comes from a core of love for these men being remembered and portrayed. I doubt if we will be seeing them in our writing for much longer so shows like The Wrong Horse are an important part of our cultural lexicon to be cherished.

MonStar has crafted an elegant play and Marion Arditti's direction lifts it into the extraordinary. Supported by a clever and minimalist design by Sylvia Shao, the men move from a flat in Footscray to a cars interior and to the Werribee racetrack and so on. On paper I would perhaps have thought this was too filmic and difficult to realise on stage. Arditti and Shao have found the magic formula though and have created a dynamic staging which just keeps on surprising. 

In my review of The Critical Marriage I commented on how I loved the director's use of the audience. The Wrong Horse takes it a step further and brings the audience into the racetrack to cheer on the races. It is cleverly done and my one bit of advice would be to try and find a way to do this in act 2. Act 2 is, by the very nature of what is happening, less visually stimulating so if the team could find a way to put the audience in the back seat of the car, perhaps, we would once again find ourselves in the middle of the action which would reignite our adrenaline and lift us for that wonderful catharsis at the end.

The cast were all amazing in the way they physically and verbally inhabited their caricatures. Rooney was incredible as he demonstrated he was a master of a thousand accents and Brigitte Jarvis' portrayal of stable hand Mary was possibly the funniest single moment in theatre this century! 

I was also thoroughly entranced by Phelan's portrayal of Big Ears. He had it all. The nervous twitches. The uncontrollable restlessness. The deer in a head lamp eyes. Utterly endearing. Mort was great as Noddy too but I do think MonStar has weighed that character down with too much wordiness. Would this tough guy really use all those words to say what he says?

The Wrong Horse is better than a Kinder Surprise. It is funny, clever, and more Australian that a Four and Twenty pie at the footy. As ocker as Maurie Fields, The Wrong Horse will bring smiles of rememberance along with gales of laughter to your face.

4 Stars

THE CRITICAL MARRIAGE: Theatre Review

WHAT: The Critical Marriage
WHEN: 3 - 13 May 2023
WHERE: Gasworks (Studio Theatre)
WRITTEN BY: Mark Andrew
DIRECTED BY: Karyn Hodgkinson
DESIGNED BY: Karyn Hodgkinson and Barbara Yazbeck
PERFORMED BY: John Bolger, Ian Ferrington, Janet Watson Kruse, Eleanor MacIntyre, and Carrie Moczynski
LIGHTING BY: Natalya Shield
SOUND BY: Ethan Hunt
STAGE MANAGED BY: Barbara Yazbeck

Eleanor Macintyre - photo supplied

It is always intriguing when playwrights marry their stories to philosophical principals. In The Critical Marriage, presented by Melbourne Writers Theatre at Gasworks this week, playwright Mark Andrew does just that by juxtaposing a married for life couple of academics with philosophical mores around the divide between science and religion.

The Critical Marriage is a retrospective type of play, moving from the present where an older Imogen (Janet Watson Kruse) is dealing with the death of her soul mate Bernhard. The play shifts between different layers of the past and present as it examines motherly love, brotherly love, romantic love, and the love of God. The temporal structure is very similar to that of When The Rain Stops Falling and, just like Bovell's play, characters are depicted by younger and older actors. The Critical Marriage is, perhaps, a bit more successful at it's interweaving of temporal space but that may be because of the deft hand of the director (Karyn Hodgkinson). 

I particularly enjoyed how the characters would step out of the stage space to sit with the audience at various times, joining us in looking back at the events of the past and experience what that outside eye can reveal. This technique allows Imogen to view her love and her lover and investigate memory and truth in a parallel to younger Bernhard's (Ian Ferrington) lifelong obsession with Baudrillard and his ideas about simulcra. Whilst I wonder at how the denouement works because it implies Imogen has access to information hidden to her, it is a powerful device. It also could be a small script omission easily fixed.

This leads me to one of the most fun characters in the show, Mutti (Carrie Moczynski). Mutti is Bernhard's mother. She is aging and losing her faculties through dementia. She will outlive her son, however, and this might be the missing bit of information I just referred to. Perhaps in his absence a family secret has slipped to Imogen. Mutti is a fox obsessed, feisty senior with a slightly wicked sense of humour. Moczynski misses none of the nuance as she teases her son, testing older Bernhard's (John Bolger) patience. They share a secret just as he and Imogen share the secrect of his cancer.

The cast is a wonderful ensemble and the liveliness and hope of younger Imogen (Eleanor MacIntyre) is a delightful foil to the centred stillness of her older avatar. Younger Bernhard has a fervour and sensitivity which contrasts to older Bernhard's tired defeat. All of the questions and challenges of these relationships is gently located in an elegantly dated decor (Hodgkinson and Barbara Yazbeck) with gentle lighting (Natalya Shield) and sound (Ethan Hunt) to soothe these protagonists on their troubled journeys.

Amongst the relationships I do think some of the philosophy gets lost. In particular, I am not convinced the God versus science dualism is adequately debated. Perhaps it doesn't need to be as long as you, the audience are familiar enough with the concepts. Perhaps it is not as much of a debate as it infers it is. Most definitely in the outcomes Baudrillard seems to come out on top and the philosophy behind Anavastha is exemplified in the ending of the play despite Bernhard's rejection. 

There is reference to Pascal's Wager but there is little in the play to directly infer the practical enactment in Imogen's life - which would be the logical placement. Her entire life comes across as a deferment to Bernhard despite her saying they were intellectual sparring partners. I personally found the discussion around Pieter Bruegel The Elder's painting 'Babylon' to be unedifying.

The Critical Marriage is intriguing in its ideas and constructs although I did find myself wanting a deeper reason to tell this story in Australia right now layered into the writing and the direction. I personally think we are past the social point of intellectual curiosity for curiosity's sake. What I want is some hint of why I, in Australia in 2023, need to hear/see this undoubtedly beautiful tale set in a Berlin spanning the previous 50ish years. I am unsure why it should matter to me. Having said that, I have already clearly set my course along the Baudrillard route. Perhaps if I still felt a lack of clarity I would get more from the work.

It is sadly rare for work which challenges us in such an overt philosophical manner these days. For that reason alone I would recommend The Critical Marriage. As well, though, you will experience a beautifully produced and performed piece of theatre which will compliment deep glasses of shiraz and engaging post-show discussion. I also love this new Amethyst Award initiative by Melbourne Writers Theatre and look forward to the gems it unearths over the coming years.

3.5 Stars

FACING UP: Theatre Review

WHAT: Facing Up
WHEN: 3-13 May 2023
WHERE: Theatre Works 
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Lynden Nicholls
DESIGNED BY: Adam (Gus) Powers
PERFORMED BY: Trudy Fatnowna Edgeley, Zerene Jaadwa, and Andre Prenc

Zerene Jaadwa and Trudy Fatnowna Edgeley

Very occassionally a piece of theatre comes along which is greater than the sum of its parts and has a clarity of purpose and message brighter than the purest diamond. Facing Up, currently playing at Theatre Works, is a show of that calaber.

On the surface, Facing Up is a simple beast. Using the verbatim theatre technique, it simply follows the timeline of Australian Prime Minister-ship since Federation in 1901. From the first to the last each Prime Minister is given the chance to enunciate their Indigenous policy in their own words. Alongside, two First Nations women also speak in the words of their people to exhibit the practical experiences and outcomes for the people affected by those policies. Suffice to say it is not an honourable forward progress.

You might think it to be a tedious theatrical approach, sticking to a linear timeline, particularly as the endless stream of Prime Ministers rarely move from behind their podium to sit in the dirt (literally) with the people they are making decisions for. In this case, however, it is strangely compelling and whilst I didn't recognise the names of a lot of the early 20th century Prime Ministers, I kept hoping and praying the next one would do better, or perhaps the next one would do better, or perhaps the next one would do better... and so on. Rarely are we confronted with just how appalling our history in this matter actually is.

There are moments of hope, but they are rare and recent. I found myself wondering how we could go from Barton, our first Prime Minister, saying we will not pass laws for our Indigenous population, and in only a few short years to definitively work to curtail and confine those very people. 

I have been despairing over the past decade over the lack of moral and ethical integrity of our politicians. Facing Up showed me this is an endemic disease which has infected our politics since Federation and probably since forever in human history. The horror, though, is that what our history in this matter has done is created a modern slave caste even though everyone is loathe to taint themselves with the truth of that word.

Facing Up is not dire or depressing though - a result which comes from the happy accident of our current Prime Minister, Albanese. The spark of hope which comes with Whitlam and which is quickly extinguished by Prime Ministers which followed, ignites a small flame with Rudd, and begins to blaze with the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It is a fire that even Morrison was not able to extinguish despite his appalling cuts to programs and funding for communities across Australia.

Facing Up is a play in which the ending changes with each Prime Minister. It was first performed when Turnbull was Prime Minister and our First Nation people decided to step forward and ask the rest of Australia to engage in Makarata to build our nation together. We then got stuck in the Morrison years which had the show ending in discomfort and despair. 

Now, however, it is the time of the looming referendum and a chance for us all to face our history and do what needs to be done to heal and make Australia a place we can be proud of and love. This is a dream we have all aspired to but never achieved because we weren't hearing, seeing - we weren't listening, watching. It is hard to admit to shame, but it is impossible to move forward if you keep your skeletons in the closet - out of sight, out of mind.

I say there is power in seeing all the Prime Ministers but if this play continues to live as we evolve as a society there might need to be some editing. Whilst there is some interest is seeing every Prime Minister, they contribute nothing if they were only in office for 16 days or had no articulated policy in this matter. I suspect the play will be stronger if the 'no comment' Prime Ministers are omitted. They can be acknowledged in the program notes I feel. This would keep a sense of pace and a little bit of the unknown for the audience which will act to prevent redundancy and the loss of attention needed for the work.

The great power of Facing Up though, lies in the truth telling of Jaadwa and Edgeley. As a piece of verbatim theatre, the words they speak are not their own, but they are the words of a real person in a real place and time. The tears they cried when they spoke of The Intervention and their removal from the protection of the Anti-Discrimination laws became the tears I cried too. 

Can you even begin to imagine your government actively removing your right to be treated with the same dignity and respect afforded to all other people in this country? A petition presented to government is ignored because a politician decides you are too dumb to understand what you have written - because of your race!!!! What would you do? How would you feel? I am crawling out of my skin in outrage as I write this review.

Having said all this, Facing Up is not a negative play. On the contrary, it is all about learning from the past and finding a way forward. It is about finding ways to work together and restore dignity to a vital part of our community. Our First People. This is ultimately embodied in the song of togetherness which ends the show and in which we all get to join in.

Some pieces of theatre transcend entertainment. They are essentially important to the spiritual wellness of everybody and everything. Facing Up is that kind of show. It is simple, it is honest, and it is aspirational. It is a show all Australians should have the opportunity to see. Especially with the important decision we all have to make looming so large.

4 Stars

BAYOU BART: Theatre Review

WHAT: Bayou Bart
WHEN: 3 - 13 May 2023
WHERE: Theatre Works
WRITTEN, DESIGNED & DIRECTED BY: Kalina Lauer
COMPOSITION BY: Tash Atkins & James Carolan
PERFORMED BY: Pippa Asome, Tash Atkins, Karin Chen, Bailey Griffiths, Daniel Hillman, Mikaela Innes, Lucy Knight, and Rowan O'Keeffe
LIGHTING BY: Vanessa Gregoriou

Pippa Asome and Tash Atkins

The spark of inspiration for artists can come from any direction, any moment, any thing the artist touches feels and sees. In the case of Kalina Lauer the inspiration for Bayou Bart - currently playing at Theatre Works - came from a costume she created for a different objective.

From the genesis of a gorgeous Bourbon inspired outfit, the idea of an alligator emerged. From the idea of an alligator, Lauer found her imagination flurrying around the wetlands of Louisiana. There may even be a hint of the picaresque adventures created by Mark Twain in this story.

Bayou Bart is the tale of two homeless children wandering around Bayou Bartholomew, the longest bayou in the world. Tristan (Rowan O'Keeffe) is world weary and cynical and just trying to sell some fish. Henri (Pippa Asome) follows him with devotion. Henri is looking for a home. They get separated in the fog. Henri follows a siren (Tash Atkins) and finds herself in a land where animals can talk. They have built their own little town of Cyprus to live in a style replicating human settlements.

The bayou is a magical, mystical place, evident from the first swirling, hypnotic lights (Vanessa Gregoriou) which draw us into a world of mist and mischief. It has a very Disney flavour in its conception and I found myself thinking about all the alligators and crocodiles which have populated swamps in the Disney-verse as we learnt the tale of the building of Cyprus. 

Just like all good children's stories though, amongst all the wonder of sentient talking alligators, rabbits, leopards and birds, evil lurks in the form of humanity. Downstream is where the danger stalks and with the eggs of a new generation about to hatch the dangers for the animals increases. Do they dare let this young human leave them, knowing what she does? If they do will Henri ever find Tristan? Will the animals manage to keep their sanctuary away from the destruction and devastation of the humans down river? Drawn by the lure of the siren, you will be on the edge of your seat as the drama unfolds.

Lauer has developed a beautiful and heart-rending story in Bayou Bart and this production, whilst created with limited resources, is as beautiful as the tale it tells. The costumes are elegant and well conceived and the masks are great. (The production uses masquerade for the magical characters). The composition (Atkins and James Caloran) is exquisite and the use of song through the show emphasizes the beauty and lyricism of the work.

The actors do a wonderful job in bringing the animals alive. In particular, Daniel Hillman and Lucy Knight are totally compelling as their psychopomps. Mikaela Innes is wonderful too but needs to slow down her speech. It is really important to articulate clearly when doing mask work. Bailey Griffiths is wonderfully menacing yet vulnerable as the boy who starts it all, but that character currently doesn't have a lot of stage time.

I do think the play itself needs work in the later part of the script. It feels a bit rushed in the climactic moments and perhaps lacks a clear catharsis. I mentioned earlier that there is a picaresque feel and I love the way down river never stops looming even as we walk out of the theatre. 

Bayou Bart still needs some more money for production (mainly to expand on the gorgeous costuming already so well developed), but it is an amazing show for kids and a magical one for adults too. 

Do I have some concerns? Perhaps. I think the cast is big and perhaps the story needs to expand a bit to justify it. I believe there is a lot of scope and, to be honest, in this case I would hate to see the cast reduce for operational pragmatism. I also wonder whether this tale wouldn't have more power and have a longer stage life if Lauer located it in Australia. I love that the costume inspired the work, but is the power of the story which has been found really in the wetlands of America, or is there impact, meaning, and myth to be found in the tropics or saltmarshes of Australia? It is hard to kill your darlings but Lauer might find a brilliance and impact closer to home building on what she has already created. 

I was completely hypnotised by Bayou Bart and you will be too when you go and see it. This is one for the whole family, not just the kids. You will be on the edge of your seat as the drama in the bayou unfolds and evil seeks to destroy a rare and fragile magic.

4 Stars

EARNESTLY SAID THAN DONE: Theatre Review

WHAT: Earnestly Said Than Done
WHEN: 17 - 23 April 2023
WHERE: The Motley Bauhaus Black Box
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY: Nick Robertson and Rowan Thambar

Nick Robertson and Rowan Thanbar - photo by Tony Dymock

At the start of the month I wrote about a clever pair of stand up comedians who decided to share a bill - Gay Horseplay - the result of which was an hour of sharp comedy with no fill. Earnestly Said Than Done is another shared bill in the same style and is playing at The Motley Bauhaus Black Box for this last week of the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Earnestly Said Than Done is a collaboration between two emerging comedians - Rowan Thambar and Nick Robertson. Thambar is well on the way to building a strong career and writes comedy for The Project. Nick is more of an 'around the traps' comedian, with a several years of stage performance behind him.

Thambar opens the show with tales of how his family history is kind of like the OG of MAFS. Leaning into his Sri Lankan heritage, Thambar's comedy pokes loving fun at his grand parents' arranged marriage, before moving on to his own parents and some of their sweet but funny cultural dissonances. You can definitely hear the 'voice' of The Project in Thambar's writing and delivery. He is very funny but I think the material is still really new and he hasn't quite identified all the punch lines. Thambar has just closed another show in the Festival so he may not have had time to fully immerse himself in this show.

Robertson is so physically different to Thambar you get a laugh before anything happens. Where Thambar is a tall and imposing, slightly balding man of colour, Robertson is a tiny white man with the most outrageous head of curly untamed flame red locks. This first chuckle is followed by many more as Robertson tells us about his ill-fated trip to Scotland.

Prior. Preparation. Prevents. Piss. Poor. Performance. An adage we have all heard and one Robertson's mum keeps trying to drill into his head. I think he has probably finally learnt his lesson now though, as you will discover when he tells his story. 

People always say comedians make the best comedy out of the reality of their own lives. Both comedians do this, and it is this honesty which makes their sets work. Robertson's story though, hides an experience of great trauma and, much like the truths Hannah Gadsby brings to her work, it is that pain escaping the constraints of the well scripted comedy show which reveals Robertson's raw humanity.

Earnestly Said Than Done is a bit rough but full of comedic gems. There are a range of great shows at The Motley Bauhaus and my recommendation is to make an evening out of it. See Earnestly Said Than Done as one plate in a multi-course dinner, with some spicy margaritas in between. Now that is living!

2.5 Stars

MS BEIGE BROWN GOES BEYOND: Theatre Review

WHAT: Ms Beige Brown Goes Beyond
WHEN: 13 - 22 April 2023
WHERE: Queen Victoria Women's Centre (Wayi Djerring)
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Cathy Hunt
SOUND BY: Jess Keefee
LIGHTING BY: Natalya Shield
PERFORMED BY: Yvette De Ravin Turner, Chris Flemming, Cathy Hunt, Shannon Loughnane, Tom Schmocker, 

Yvette De Ravin Turner, Cathy Hunt, and Tom Schmocker - photo by Darren Gill

If spoken word and indie theatre had a love child, the result would be Ms Beige Brown Goes Beyond which is currently being performed at the Queen Victoria Women's Centre as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. In a semi-surrealist adventure, "Australia's foremost feminist performance poet..." takes on Centrelink and applies for a community grant in a desperate effort to maintain her integrity as an artist, but also pay her bills.

Ms Beige Brown is a character created and performed by Cathy Hunt and has been haunting poetry and spoken word spaces for years. She has her own YouTube channel and a documentary about a period of writers block she experienced, which has done the festival circuit as well. Brown has been disrupting the masculine ouvre for a long time now.

In her documentary Brown describes her poetry thusly, "I take a word and find a stowaway and then... I shipwreck that word". Indeed, in the poetry she recites in Ms Beige Brown Goes Beyond there are many shipwrecked words, cleverly scuttled through the interogation of rhyme. Brown also says, "I take the non-sensical pronouncement to... dismember the big phallus." In this show there are two big phalli - Centrelink job search and the arts grant application processes across our great nation. Brown doesn't just dismember them. She spears them, guts them, and then shreds them as this comely, non-descript woman wields her words to point out the dehuminising, the insincere, and the ridiculousness of both.

The show starts with an unimposing woman - reminiscent of Jessica Fletcher - fumbling her way to front of stage to present a spoken word piece about grocery shopping. As the opening poem expands it's lungs we discover Foucalt in the fruit and vegetable aisle and Derrida in the dairy section. We realise this alliterative rambler might just be very funny AND have something unseriously serious to say.

Using the Derridesque deconstruction of language through alliteration, rhyme and non-reason, Brown castigates the power structures in Australia which actively work to drown artistic endeavour and bury artists in sustainability and ontological rapscallionry. Foucault would be proud of how skilfully Brown reveals and revolts againt the social control imposed by these structures and processes. She implores us all to open our minds and our hearts and our orifices to look at the true essence of the artist and to honour and value them. Don't be fooled by systems and processes and scores which are all designed to defeat rather than uplift.

As good/bad as Brown's poetry is, the point could not be made as strongly without the wonderful characters Hunt has created around Brown in this process. Shannon Loughnane (Ruben) almost steals the show as the well-intentioned job search consultant. Their saccharine friendliness hides a totalitarian obsession with procedure and an obdurate commitment to tick boxes. They make the term sustainable arts practice resonate with a loathesome quality aptly echoed in the brief hints through lighting (Natalya Shield) and sound (Jess Keeffe) that Ruben is actually the Devil incarnate.

Yvette De Ravin Turner also brings the laughs with her depiction of Jangela, the Morebin Council functionary who's lack of interest in the arts and lack of understanding that these grants processes are people's lives at stake is hilarious - or would be, if it wasn't so true. She also plays a few other characters, with a particularly outrageous cameo as one of a pair of European sock puppeteers.

The other puppeteer, Tom Schmocker, plays a range of smaller cameos. One of my favourite is as the durational performance artist railing against the tyranny of time and Tik Tok.

Ms Brown Beige Goes Beyond is so very funny. Everybody will get a laugh, but if you have ever been in the Centrelink job search system, applied for a grant, or - for even a second - considered yourself an artist of any kind you will be belly-laughing your way through the hour of this show.

4 Stars

ADULTS ONLY MAGIC SHOW: Circus Review

WHAT: Adults Only Magic Show
WHEN: 13 - 23 April 2023
WHERE: Arts Centre Melbourne (The Famous Spiegeltent)
CREATED BY: Sam Hume and Justin Williams
PERFORMED BY: Sam Hume, Magnus Danger Magnus, and Justin Williams

Sam Hume and Justin Williams - Photo Supplied

Roll up! Roll up! Grab and drink and prepare for the funniest naughty night in town at the 2023 Melbourne Comedy Festival. Adults Only Magic Show is one of three offerings by Showmen Productions this year. This is the one you DON'T bring your kids to.

Adults Only Magic Show is possibly one of the most fun shows in Melbourne right now. It is packed full of wonderful legerdemain and prestidigitation and, more importantly, this is a show full of humour (and a couple of dangly bits).

Hume and Williams have been performing amazing magic together for ten years. In the beginning they did the whole Houdini shebang. Their shows were full of props and costumes and all the water tanks and coffins you would historically have associated with magicians. Then the house burnt down.

Picking each other up from the soot and ashes, the pair shook off the embers, lifted their chins and started all over again. The lessons they have learnt along the way are the very things which make Adults Only Magic Show so great.

There are still props and costumes but what these guys have worked out is the real magic of the show is the craziness that the audience brings. Adults Only Magic Show is full of slight of hand and misdirection as members of the audience are brought up on stage and hornswoggled before our very eyes. The fun comes because every trick involves an audience member and there is no controlling what is going to happen when you bring random people on stage and ask an audience to make the decisions.

DON'T PANIC! Hume and Williams are just a fun pair of guys who like a laugh WITH us not AT us. In fact, they seem to often find themselves laughing at how they have been confounded by the audience rather than the other way around. They are very much the butt of their own jokes.

Speaking of butts, we do get to see a lot of  Williams' tooshy. He has a fondness for a certain gold jock strap which we see a lot of. Whilst there is maximum exposure of all the performers, Williams and Hume are from the Gypsy Rose Lee school of titillation. Magnus Danger Magnus on the other hand... I will stop drooling now ;)

I admit, I can't speak too highly of the comedic talents of Magnus. He takes the role of MC and magician's assistant and brings the house down with laughter whether he is speaking or just walking across the stage. 

Adults Only Magic Show is a late show (9:45pm) and is the perfect ending to any night out. You will laugh from start to finish, expel a whole lot of oohs and aahs, and might even blush once or twice along the way.

4.5 Stars

GRIM: Theatre Review

WHAT: Grim
WHEN: 10 - 22 April 2023
WHERE: The Motley Bauhaus
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY: Ellen Grimshaw
DIRECTED BY: Kimberley Twiner

AV BY: Chris Hocking and Matt Osborne 
LIGHTING & SOUND BY: Kelli-Anne Kimber

Ellen Grimshaw - photo supplied

After watching Grim at The Motley Bauhaus I realise a new theatrical genre needs to be created. I am calling it astrobouffesque. 

Ellen Grimshaw loves to use the conceit of alienation to help us look at the absurdity of humanity through humour, rapier sharp wit, and poignant satire. I first experienced Grimshaw's energetic explosions of observation at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe in Just Us Girls. Grimshaw brings all of those fireworks but perhaps hits the target with more impact in 2023.

Grim is the story of an alien who has been kicked out of their spaceship and hurtled right into the offices of a casting agency. Whilst being completely bewildered, the agency mistakes them for an actor and starts auditioning them for a range of commercials. What ensues is a hilarious montage of audition experiences that can only be drawn from real life absurdities. In the process Grim tries to learn the language and, even more unlikely, tries to figure out what people want from them.

Eventually Grim escapes and contacts their mum, who happens to be happily imbibing in a lot of alcohol in LA. Grim wants to be rescued and mum is coming as per a pre-arranged rendezvous but in the meantime her best advice for Grim is to be likeable. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to be liked in this world? Especially if you are female? Grim is here to show us and it is not always just sweetness and smiles!

Through physical bouffonry - well facilitated by the skilful direction of Kimberley Twiner - and the help of projected translation text, Grim maneuvers their way through social media, job search, and the audience. The chaos clowning favoured by dramaturg Vidya Rajan can also be seen in Grimshaw's performance. If you have a phobia about audience interaction this is not the show for you!

Liked, likable, loved - Grim will do anything to be just that. The hilarity and the tragedy of Grim is where and how far this takes them. Grim's journey is interrupted by our TV fave Guy Pearce (voice over) as he works his own 'normal' jobs to earn money between gigs and moans about CGI taking work from actors. 

Speaking of animation, a big shout out to Chris Hocking and Matt Osborne. The video contents is dynamic and highly interactive. Kellie-Anne Kimber's understanding of colour theory in the lighting is masterful. Tim Rutty's costume design is effective too. To be honest, everything about the show is great. My one concern is I think it is perhaps 5-10 minutes too long. It starts to get a bit too random for my taste at one point in the show, I admit.

The ultimate question Grim asks is how far do we have to go to be liked by the world, our friends, our family? I remember doing dance and calisthenics as a girl and the great emphasis and constant remonstrances about remembering to smile as my body contorted into painful shapes and moved to beats way too fast for my slow twitch muscles to follow. Grim is all about how 'nice' girls have to be and later, in a world dominated by cameras, how much of ourselves we have to give over in order to be taken into the fold. The fold of friends, the fold of employers, the fold of family. 

I suspect the story of Grim's mum comes from something very real. The catchphrase of the 21st century is "find your people" but what if the ones you think are your people suddenly kick you out? If your old people don't want you, how do you find new people? Grim doesn't have answers - or maybe not the ones you want. On the other hand, Grim is real and sharp and hilarious. 

3.5 Stars

PEAR-SHAPED: Theatre Review

WHAT: Pear-Shaped
WHEN: 5 - 15 April 2023
WHERE: Theatre Works
WRITTEN BY: Miranda Middleton and Ziggy Resnick
DIRECTED BY:  Miranda Middleton
DESIGNED BY: Grace Deacon
COMPOSITION BY: Oliver Beard
LIGHTING AND AV BY: Aron Murray
PERFORMED BY: Ziggy Resnick and Luisa Scrofani
STAGE MANAGED BY: Gin Rosse

Ziggy Resnick and Luisa Scrofani - photo by Angel Leggas

Magical realism, surrealism... what the hell is the difference? There is one, but it probably doesn't matter. This is the question I found playing in my mind after watching Pear-Shaped at Theatre Works last night. (This play is surrealism just for the record).

With Pear-Shaped, writers Miranda Middleton and Ziggy Resnick have masterfully interwoven Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with an age-old human story of deep pain and confusion. This story is one known by so many people through their youth - across all generations. It is a story of eating disorders and the carnage they create on family and social relationships. This is a serious topic because the end can be death, but also what about the lives lived before we get to that extreme point?

Kayla (Luisa Scrofani) and Frankie (Resnick) are sisters. Shifting randomly across time we watch them play dress-ups together and grow up together with a lovely closeness and bond. The earliest memory is dressing up to play Alice in Wonderland with dresses made by their Safta (grandmother). Kayla, the older sister, plays Alice and Frankie just has the supporting role of Sister who fell asleep on the river bank. We watch as this becomes the story played out throughout their lives.

The play starts with Frankie in real time trying to come up with a design concept for her graduating university play - Alice in Wonderland. The director is pressuring her for design concepts and her mother keeps calling her about her sister, wanting her to go and visit. Kayla is in a clinic for eating disorders. She has anorexia. Frankie decides she needs to trawl through the old dress up box for design inspiration. Rummaging through clothes and props Frankie drops down her own rabbit hole of memories.

Flipping in and out of growing up and dropping in and out of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland comes the revelatory link between the constant eating Alice engages in to change her body size and shape - to get into the garden, to get out of the White Rabbit's house, the hookah smoking caterpillar and his mushroom, the Mad Hatter's tea party, etc - and Kayla's eating disorders. 

Pear-Shaped is told from the sister's point of view though so what we are really seeing is the pain and grief of a girl/woman who feels unseen and who has essentially lost a sister, but one which just won't go away. A sister who also won't (or can't) come back. 

Frankie has given up hope, but the people around her haven't and as she digs deep into Carroll's text she looks for unanswerable clues to understand her sister and her life. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Lewis Carroll never tells us, but that doesn't mean we can't work it out...does it?

Resnick and Scrofani do a magnificent job with this show. It takes so much skill to perform this kind of material, but they both handle it well. Perhaps their youth prevents them from reaching the emotional depths possible in the work but we get the point so it doesn't matter. Scrofani plays every character who is not Frankie and manages the load with aplomb. I especially like her as the director and Safta. I am not as convinced about the portrayal of the mother as a breezy almond latte drinking nagger. I suspect there is more pain and fatigue to reveal in this character.

This leads me to Middleton's direction. Pear-Shaped is a bit of a NIDA fest and it shows in the polished production. Middleton wields the arts of her creative team with command and gloss. Grace Deacon's design is beautiful, as are so many of the props. My favourite is the glove boa for the caterpillar...or maybe it is the realisation of the Cheshire Cat puppet revealed one body part at a time? Cameron Steen's (ASM) puppetry and hand cameos are perfection by the way! Aron Murray's lighting and impressive AV design are what really take us to Wonderland though. Oliver Beard's sound design compliments it all.

As beautiful as Pear-Shaped is, and as cohesive as the concept and performance are, I did find myself a tad irritated by the depiction of Frankie as a designer. The only hints of this in her real time real world are a very twee mood board and a scrap book we never really see. I feel there was a whole lot of opportunity to make the chaos and experimentation of early-stage design inform Frankie's mental state if only they were willing to get a little bit messy.

Having said that, this production would be at home in any professional main stage theatre in Australia. It reaches those standards in writing, performance and production. I admit to feeling a sense of relief to be at a show with this level of top-class creativity and professionalism. This synergy is so rare when you don't have all of the resources those main stage companies have at their fingertips.

When you see Pear-Shaped you will see a world class production. More importantly you will see a story of great pain and great confusion. Amongst all of the sadness and loss though, perhaps Lewis Carroll can lead us to a point of hope? We will never know if we don't peer into the rabbit hole ourselves.

4.5 Stars

GAY HORSEPLAY: Theatre Review

WHAT: Gay Horseplay
WHEN: 28 March - 9 April
WHERE: Storyville
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY: Carmelo Costa and Jaxson Garni

Jaxson Garni

We all know the best way to get through life is KISS. This is the secret magic of stand up comedy. When it is done skilfully and with confidence the audience is taken on a ride of laughter which cancels out all of the hassles of the day they have just lived for. Gay Horseplay, being performed at Storyville as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, is exactly that type of show.

Gay Horseplay is, in it's simplest form, two friends and comedians who are sharing a split bill. Each man knocks our socks off with a hilarious 25 minutes of humour - supposedly about life as gay men, but really this is just life for all of us.

Carmelo Costa is perhaps the more experienced performer and he opens the show. His humour is a touch more risque. Whilst I wouldn't recommend this for minors, the adults of the world can get a lot of cheeky laughs and a 'no way!' moment or two which will leave you doubling over with laughter. It is naughty but not offensive - although there is a bit of fisting going on...

Jaxson Garni comes on next. Whilst his style is a little more low key, the humour is even more relatable to everyone. We all commiserated with him on the tragedy of WWC card photos. I ended up confessing mine looked much like a Rorshach blot. Garni coaches children about bullying and much of his material sits around why, on paper, this might not look like the right thing for him to do. Garni connects with the audience with such intensity you feel like you are in a conversation, and a very fun one at that.

Going with the split bill is genius for these two comedians. It means you can do short, sharp sets and can share the admin pain and costs of being in the Festival. It is a win for both the artists and the audience. 

If I had to compare these guys to anyone specifically I would say if you like Tom Gleeson and don't mind a bit of queer with your humour, you will love Gay Horseplay. Oh, and a shout out to the venue. Storyville is amazing (except for all the stairs).

4.5 Stars

STINKING HOT TRASH: Theatre Review

WHAT: Stinking Hot Trash
WHEN: 29 March - 8 April 2023
WHERE: The MC Showroom (Theatrette)
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY: Isabelle Carney
DIRECTED BY: Samuel Buckley and Will Hall
AV BY: Gabe Micallef

Isabelle Carney - photo by Cornershop Comedy

Yep. The Melbourne Comedy Festival is back for 2023and Melbourne stages are filled with comedy in all it's fabulous forms. Stinking Hot Trash is one of the crazier offerings playing in the Theatrette at The MC Showroom this week.

Stinking Hot Trash is a comedic incarnation created by Isabelle Carney. Carney was part of the writers room for Mad As Hell and the absurdist aesthetic defined by Shaun Micallef shows across the course of the evening. Stinking Hot Trash is a bit more random and unformed and perhaps leans more closely to the Aunty Donna style of comedy.

In Stinking Hot Trash Carney doesn't let us into the baggage she carries around. She is here to tell us about all the garbage in her life. Across the hour Carney takes us from sketch to sketch showing us a world which doesn't make sense. 

It begins with TV show parodies such as 'House Porn' where a Nordic model takes us around her mansion. She particularly likes a chair she bought because it 'speaks' to her. In fact it really does speak to us all. It is a very scary chair which will reappear and join a support group for killers!

We also get to meet Beefheart, a brave dog who - in the Lassie style - will join in the hunt for Jessikah who left her coffee at the cafe. I really did love the film noir detective sketch which led us all on a search for this missing women. Funny and engaging.

I wanted to like this show and found myself having several explosions of unexpected laughter which is exactly how absurdism works. I am not convinced the show holds together though. Some leaps are just too far and whilst I like when a comedian takes a moment to reveal a truth about themselves, I found Carney's jump to her experience with leukemia jarring. 

This leads me to my big problem with Stinking Hot Trash. The transitions. The shift from sketch to sketch was just awkward and caused the entire energy of the show to fall flat. I left the room thinking the show was completely under rehearsed and it is unclear to me how a show with two directors (Samuel Buckley and Will Hall) can be so poorly prepared and structured. There was a dramaturg too! What were these people doing?

The video content (Gabe Micallef) of the show is fantastic. The scenography is good and the editing is top class.

I notice that almost everybody involved in this project have a screen background and this might explain the weakness of Stinking Hot Trash as a stage show. You can't do a slow fade to the next skit on stage. There is no way to edit out the uncertain pauses and you can't move content around in post to create rhythm and intention. In live theatre this has to be done in the rehearsal room. Yes, even stand up comedy needs rehearsal.

Carney has a strong grasp of absurdist comedy and undoubtedly will make an impact in comedy on screen. I am not as convinced of her future as a live performer without stronger support in theatre making.

Stinking Hot Trash is a great training piece for the whole team, but I don't think this is ready to go on stage. There are some real comic gems in this show though and I do look forward to seeing Carney and her team in the future, once they have had time to work out the performance elements of live theatre.

2 Stars