CUDDLE: Dance Review

WHAT: Cuddle
WHEN: 20 - 25 February 2024
WHERE: Arts House (Main Hall)
CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Harrison Ritchie-Jones
COMPOSITION BY: Max Dowling and Nick Roder
LIGHTING BY: Ashley Buchanan
PERFORMED BY: Harrison Ritchie-Jones and Michaela Tancheff
VIDEOGRAPHY BY: Alex Walton

Harrison Ritchie-Jones and Michaela Tancheff - photo by Gregory Lorenzutti

cud·dle - VERB - to hold close in one's arms as a way of showing love or affection OR to lie or sit close OR to ingratiate oneself with - NOUN - a prolonged and affectionate hug.

The word cuddle is one of those curious words which sounds so innocent and so intimate and therefore it has a natural connotation which references love and affection. It sounds sweet. It sounds cute. It sounds loving. For the most part, this is true. But you can be in a cuddle without consent. You can be in a cuddle without love. You can be in a cuddle to lie and be cuddled as victim of a deceit. To cuddle is to be close to someone and cuddling is about only two people which makes it personal. A cuddle is two. Any more than that is a huddle. In the dance performance Cuddle now playing at Arts House Harrison Ritchie-Jones explores the intimacy of just two people being close together in various forms, digging below the assumptions to find some truths about the pas des deux of life.

Cuddle is a non-narrative exploration of a word which sounds and feels so innocuous and loving, and places us in a combat zone to investigate its connotations. Ritchie-Jones and dance partner Michaela Tancheff layer into the dialectic the sounds of squeaky toys embedded into the costumes so that every time they move (and squeak) we are taken back to a time when we played with a baby or perhaps our dog. Watching two wrestlers in a boxing ring style fight venue squeaking away sets up a cognitive dissonance which is disarming and alarming at the same time. One second, it's cute, next it is funny as a long fart sound emerges, and the next it is terrifying as the brain reads danger and harm for something we normally associate with vulnerability being in this dark dance of doom.

The external conceit of Cuddle is framed around the concept of fight as dance. Perhaps not so true in boxing, it is public knowledge now that those big televised wrestling franchises are fake and the fights are most definitely more of a dance duet than actual combat. A white dance floor swatch replicates the boundaries of a boxing ring, the lighting (Ashley Buchanan) is cold, white fluresence, and whilst there is some seating for the audience, there are also barriers for people to stand behind, as well as two large screens for closeups as it true for all mega sporting events these days. They even have a referee microphone hanging from the grid, ready to be pulled down for commentary.

Videography (Alex Walton) features strongly in this show, with various levels of efficacy. We are somewhat obsessed with screen images these days and Cuddle allows a lot of exploration of that dialectice between the presented (film) and the represented (live performance), and also the intimate (close ups) and the distant (mid and long shots). All of these concepts are legitimate conversations to have around the concept of cuddling. The videography is live and switches between long, mid and close up across the entire hour. The audience gets to decide how they view this coupling at each moment of the performance. 

For me, the video is at its most powerful on the extreme close ups. In those moments we get to see the kind of detail you can only see when you are locked deep in a cuddle with somebody. The detailed bulge of musculature, the minutest flick of a finger in partner grooming, the gleam of light reflecting on drops of sweat. Perhaps the main point of the longer shots is to remind us that to watch a cuddle from the outside is to have no understanding of the experience or relationship of the two people doing the cuddling?

The start of the show is intriguing as a concept but probably has little more than wow value. The stage space is empty but on the screen we see the two performers emerge from a car wearing balaclavas and carrying a boltcutter. They approach a fence and cut the chain whilst also suddenly being caught up in a hot and heavy pash session. We recognise the rear entrance to Arts House and they slowly work their way towards the foyer, never leaving this passionate embrace. Is this pre-record? It is intriguing and amusing and it sets the mood for the rest of the show. I think the audience loved how it resolved. 

Once in the space, the dancers square off and size each other up, circling warily and squeaking outrageously. They come together for short, sharp skirmishes as they test each other. The dance takes place in 'rounds' and at intervals the dancers stop sparring and sit at opposite sides, slowly doffing parts of their attire as the show progresses. Do not fear though, the composers (Nick Roder and Max Dowling) have not done anything as crass as including tedious referential sounds such as bells to end a bout. The entire sound design is sophisticated, powerful, and full of all of the complexities of the performance.

We often hear sword fights described as being a dance of death, and people talking about the beauty and grace of boxing, and the art of war. In Cuddle Ritchie-Jones places these conflicts directly within the paradigm of these art forms commentators and combatants often reference. The genius is he does it with humour as well as the brute strength of professional dancer bodies. At one point he asks Tancheff is she wants KFC or the Kitchen? As she ponders the question, and after we've had a bit of a chuckle, it takes us a while to understand the context. It brings to mind martial arts training and the use of AB forms to learn technique. If you have ever studied Tai Chi or Karate or Kung Fu you understand innately this linkage between dance and combat. When you see Cuddle you will know it regardless.

There is no narrative arc to Cuddle. It is pure investigation and exploration of the many ways we pair up as human beings, as dancers, as fighters. The choreography includes dance and fight moves from a multitude of genre including ballet, line dancing, boxing, clowning, and human coupling. The intimacy of partner grooming is contrasted by a full body flip and pin to the ground. They say all is fair in love and war. What they don't tell you is that it all takes place in a cuddle.

4.5 Stars

HOUSE OF THE HEART: Cabaret Review

What: House of the Heart
When: 15 Feb - 10 Mar 2024
Where: Museum of Chinese Australian History
Created by: Moira Finucane & Jackie Smith
Performed by: Paul Fabian Cordeiro, Zitao Deng, Moira Finucane, Kate Marie Foster, Dave Johnston, Sophie Koh, Rachel Lewindon, Lois Olney, Raksha Parsnani, and Xiao Xiao

Zitao Deng - photo by Jodi Hutchinson

I rarely review shows twice. Usually, I question whether there is anything new for me to talk about. House of the Heart is a different kind of show though. House of the Heart takes us on many journeys through storytelling and music and dance, and having seen the first iteration last year I couldn't resist seeing the show again. Whilst still being presented in the Museum of Chinese Australian History, how could I possibly resist sitting with these wonderful artists and hearing their stories again, learning even more about them, the world, and myself along the way?

The timing of House of the Heart is no coincidence. The Lunar New Year has just taken place and this year is the year of the Wood Dragon. Moira Finucane (co-creator/performer) is a Wood Dragon. This is her year! Finucane starts the show by taking the time to tell us about the processional dragons in the room. I was lucky enough to be sitting right across from the Millenial Dragon (Dai Loong) - the one we see at Moomba every year. Dai Loong's body is so long (he is the longest processional dragon in the world), he wraps around the floors of the museum all the way to the bottom, just as he wraps around our hearts every year in the parade, and just like he wraps around the audience in the Dragon Gallery.

Finucane's tale winds downstairs with Dai Loong to the authentic replica mining town on the lowest floor, only to remind us of that dreadful White Australia Policy we will never be able to live down. Finucane explores all of her amazing connections with China, Chinese arts, and the Chinese Museum. We learn of the connection to her family and how central her connections with this museum are to how she travels through her life. A bit later she will reveal her German-Jewish grandmother's flight from the Third Reich and suddenly all the pieces which underpin House of the Heart fall into place.

Across the evening, we hear beautiful and heartbreaking stories of families being torn from their homes for a multitude of reasons. Sophie Koh sings across English and Chinese (I'm not sure which dialect) as she introduces us to the first ever Chinese pop song - and it is good! It certainly got me bouncing around in my seat! We learn about her family's migration to Aotearoa (New Zealand). Paul Cordeiro tells us the heart-breaking story of the fate of his brother only months after the family migrated from Singapore to Perth. As he sings some verses of 'Moon Shadow' I realise I have never really listened to that song before. I should have. Zitao Deng sings in three languages about their search for peace and a complicated relationship with their homeland, Taiwan. 

Finucane is back to tell us about swifts as Xiao Xiao plays her glorious and mournful cello. I love the story of the swifts. This is one of my favourite moments in the show. Raksha Parsnani celebrates her freedom with a glorious belly dance, having been told in her youth she would never be a professional dancer. New to this show for me is Kate Foster who sings a ballad version of 'Tenterfield Saddler'. So gentle. So sad. So tender.

The jewel in the crown, though, is Lois Olney, accompanied by Dave Johnston. With a voice reminiscent of (but better than IMO) Natalia Cole, Olney sings 'Autumn Leaves' and 'It's A Wonderful World' to remember her mother and son, both now gone. Olney was a stolen child who grew up in Perth. It took far too long for her to find her story and return to her mother's lands in Roeburn. She was 3 years too late to meet her mother but stays connected with her community. She sings us the only song she knows in her mother's language. 

Last year I came away from House of the Heart with resounding echoes of gentleness and sorrow. This year it felt different. Is the difference time? Is it something in the storytellers? Is it me? This year I come away thinking about the rebellion of human migration. The refusal to give up and stay in one place when that place is not giving you what you need or want. A refusal to have our lives predetermined. Moving our bodies in time and space is an act of searching. Searching for love, searching for food and sustenance, searching for a safe haven. 

For most migrants and - in particular, refugees - can never go back to their ancestral home for a myriad of reasons. Even if they do, it is not the same. Part of the contract of the journey though is there are no guarantees you will find what you are looking for, and it is hard to forget what you give up and sometimes even harder to remember why you gave it up. Or as is the case with Olney, you have no choice about giving it up and must then go on a search to try and find it again. 

Regardless of the differences in details, all of these stories are about an irresistible requirement to change destiny, to go in search of what you need to live and love and learn. Everyone on stage in House of the Heart heeded those words of Dylan Thomas and they have not gone gently into that good night. Instead, they find themselves standing (or sitting) on a stage in a museum at the bottom of the world. They sing, they dance, they tell their stories. They remind us of our story and how we all find ourselves in that very same museum at the bottom of the world. At the end of the show, we leave the building and head out into the world in search of wherever we need to be to find our own love, our own life, our own learnings. It is, once more, our turn to choose.

4 Stars

ANGEL MONSTER: Dance Review

WHAT: Angel Monster
WHERE: Theatre Works
WHEN: 14 - 24 Feb 2024
CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Nerida Matthaei
LIGHTING BY: Keith Clark
SOUND BY: Andrew Mills
PERFORMED BY: Asher Bowen-Saunders, Jade Brider, Hsin-Ju Ely, Makira Horner and Nadia Milford
SET BY: Nerida Matthaei and Rozina Suliman

Hsin-Ju Ely - photo supplied

There is nothing I like more than a strong and dangerous outpouring of female angst, defiance and despair. Angel Monster, currently playing at Theatre Works, gives plenty of that along with beauty, fire and a whole of lot of fast fashion floordrobe.

Choreographed by Nerida Matthaei and presented by Phluxus 2 Dance Collective, Angel Monster is a non-linear narrative about the slavery of women in modern times. It ties us up in the domestic chores of endless laundry, girdles reaching up past our waists, a fashion industry systematically crippling our bodies and our financial wellbeing, and our physical inferiority to the male sex drive.

The show begins with us being ushered into the theatre by the ensemble (Asher Bowen-Saunders, Jade Brider, Hsin-Ju Ely, Makira Horner and Nadia Milford) dressed in retro-sexy flesh toned boy cut girdles and bras, bringing a bucket load of Manic Pixie Dream Girl energy and drawing people onto the stage to ask questions like 'What do you like most about being a woman?' before letting us sit in our seats. It is all very friendly and disarming in that charming way girls are supposed to behave. My space is your space, my body is your body, my smile is my consent. 

Something is not quite right though because at least one of the women seems to be semi-comatose and perhaps even ill. She is there. She is dressed like all the others. She is trying to be present but is she ill? Drunk? On drugs? The ensemble continue on, some ignoring, some trying to help. Other oddities begin to emerge but in the end everyone is welcomed and seated and prepared for the show to begin. As we sit we notice 'pregnant' sacs hanging from the ceiling which tell us this space, this world, is not quite right and whatever emerges is potentially the stuff of nightmares. 

The dance begins and the tone quickly shifts between sweetness and anger, the mood see-sawing across the hour or so as these women explore beauty, fashion, desire, and expectation. Pre-recorded stories and words pepper the show and talk through female experiences and ideas. One of the most powerful is the story of teenage date rape. Is it rape if you stop fighting? (Yes!) 

The words 'constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed' echo across the evening as the ensemble smell their pits and one of them begins to shave and pluck every hair from her body. Clothes are strewn across the stage and bodies reminding us of the tyranny of fast fashion, reflected in the manic way the dancers clothe themselves and each other, desperate to get as many items on as possible whilst at the same time fighting for their freedom - freedom to move, and choose, and reject. They play with each other's boobs as if they are just toys yet reference Barbie and her lack of genitals and heart. They dance around a washing line Maypole, tangling each other up until the monster constantly hinted at and exposed in spurts of fury is finally revealed in her full glory. The wonderful coincidence of this happening right after the Lunar New Year just adds to the power of that final tableau. Are you scared yet? You should be.

Matthaei and the ensemble have brought together a lot of powerful ideas and speak to them with honesty, vulnerability, and truth. Traditionally, in Western culture at least, men have always joked about how crazy women are. They give their cars female names because we are so unreliable. Perhaps if those men came to see Angel Monster they might understand what they are seeing in the women around them and realise it is not insanity, it is survival.

Andrew Mill's sound design is powerful and fully supports the shifts and changes in the choreography and walks the line between ferocity and gentility as finely as do the dancers. I admit to being less in love with Keith Clark's lighting. To begin with, there is just way too much of it and so much is overhead fresnels giving little more than a multi-coloured wash. This is a show about dreams and nightmares, but nobody is sleeping in all that light! There is haze, which in this instance is totally appropriate, and would be hella effective if the lighting design was more architectural. The choreography has a peek-a-boo construct and the lighting should as well. 

Angel Monster is choreographed with a very lyrical version of contemporary dance which is a pleasant change from the more anatomically questioning style explored across Melbourne. It perhaps dulls some of the outrage in the work, but also makes it more appealing to a broader audience. Angel Monster titillates and castigates moment to moment. It entices with a subtle BDSM edge. It will make you look. Hopefully you will see.

4.5 Stars

DESTROYED: Theatre Review

WHAT: Destroyed
WHEN: 6 - 10 February 2024
WHERE: TW Explosives Factory
WRITTEN BY: Ebony Rattle
COMPOSITION BY: Alex Mraz
LIGHTING BY: Charis Rajamani
COSTUMES BY: Emily Busch
PERFORMED BY: Sarah Cooper, Emma Jevons, Artemis Munoz, Ebony Rattle, and Emma Snow
STAGE MANAGED BY: Kate Celikaite

Artemis Munoz and Ebony Rattle - photo by Leeav Henzel

Melbourne stages seem to be preoccupied with death over the last 12 months or so. Perhaps it is a phenomenon which extends back to lock downs. Perhaps is goes back further than that. It certainly seems to be high on the list of issues/questions for our female identifying theatre makers, so it probably goes back much further in history, and we just haven't seen it because it is only recently that the female voice has had a space to be heard unfiltered in our art and culture. Ebony Rattle's Destroyed is the latest in this sequence and is playing at The Explosives Factory until the end of this week.

It is a little bit strange to speak about a strong queer feminist work but then also say it non-ironically riffs off a play written by one of the great misogynists of history, but here I am telling you that Destroyed has hinged its major conceit off William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Apparently Rattle keeps being encouraged to try adaptations. Why? Their writing and theatre making is strong so why dilute it by using someone else's old story? I think Rattle should just keep doing their own thing. They don't need the crutch of someone else's writing.

As I said, Rattle is a strong writer. Their writing is sharp and insightful, with a very dark humour which attacks rather than disarms - the way humour is usually tasked in entertainment. The play hinges around Evelyn (Rattle) who is experiencing a terrible sequence of loss with people around her dying. Whilst processing grief she finds herself trying to negotiate a new relationship with Gabriel (Sarah Cooper). Themes of BDSM are explored as pain and love get blended along with bodies and lives.

To complicate matters even further, Destroyed delves deeply into the phenomena known as suicide contagion and also bullying. Amidst all the grief, Evelyn has become blamed for causing the latest suicide and her friends are now avoiding her. The relationship between Maya (Emma Snow) and Evelyn is utterly compelling.

So where does Macbeth sit in all of this? To be honest, I don't think it sits deep in the heart of Destroyed, but it does dominate the theatrical framing. Rattle has taken the idea of the three witches who foretell the action in Macbeth and has transplanted them into Destroyed, apparently to foretell Evelyn's doom. I am not entirely clear on what they did because the biggest problem with this production is the voice recordings are over-processed and pretty much unintelligible. I have absolutely no idea what they said which means I missed some of the most important information in the show.

I might need to take a step back here. Despite the fact that the witches (Snow, Artemis Munoz and Emma Jevons) have quite a lot of script, all of it is pre-recorded. They never actually speak in the space. Their performance mode is interpretive movement/dance, and their words are played through the sound system. I personally don't understand why you would put live bodies on stage but not give them their voice. The audience becomes split about where their attention should be. The body and voice of the performer in the space with the audience is a key factor as to what makes live theatre a visceral experience for the audience.

Apart from literally disembodying the voice this way, there is a basic anatomic hearing/listening problem which comes into play when you do this. Without a visual context, the brain has to work hard to comprehend voice (and pretty much any sound) which means there is delay. This is why, when you speak on the telephone you should say a few words before you say your name to a stranger because their ears/brain need to get used to the sounds and interpret them for meaning. If you then layer in a whole lot of reverb and pitch change and other processing and then add in the acoustic properties of the room the loudspeakers are in, the audience has to work soooooo much harder to understand. 

In Destroyed this became a compounded problem because the first speeches held a lot of information, and it all went on for so long. It reminded me of the discontent I had with all the film content at the start of Transwoman Kills Influencer. People come to live theatre for its 'liveness' and to begin a show with a long sequence of pre-record in whatever form is a great folly. It doesn't allow the audience to key into the show with mind and body in the same way another person in the space speaking does. Don't get me wrong, I liked the idea of the pre-records, but they need to be led by live voice to really work in this context.

I also want to emphasize that all of the sound and music in Destroyed is fabulous. It is one of the strongest sound designs (Alex Mraz) I have experienced this year. Emily Busch's costumes are great too. I kind of assume Busch had some input to the set design too because the witch's cloaks and the stage backdrop seem far too harmonised to have come from different creative impulses. There is no set design credit, so I am not sure. Charis Rajamani's lighting finishes the tableau with great nuance and strong intention.

Destroyed is a show with an incredibly strong visual aesthetic, a biting commentary, and a deep and sad soul. Destroyed reminds us how easy it is to compound tragedy through unprocessed grief, fear, and the fallibilities which make us human.

3 Stars

HOME ECONOMICS: Theatre Review

WHAT: Home Economics
WHEN: 30 Jan - 3 Feb 2024
WHERE: Explosives Factory
WRITTEN BY: Declan Greene
DIRECTED BY: Stephanie Lee
SET BY: Filipe Filihia
COSTUMES BY: Louisa Fitzgerald
LIGHTING BY: Tom Vulcan
PERFORMED BY: Alfie Baker, Ian Ferrington, Edan Goodall, Sarah Iman, Marko Pecer, Shanu Sobti, and Charlie Veitch
SOUND BY: Jackie van Lierop

STAGE MANAGED BY: Emma Parfitt

Sarah Iman and Charlie Veitch - photo by Ronin Green

In 2009 playwright Declan Greene wrote a series of 5 studies on sex and food which came together in a collection called Home Economics. Little Ones Theatre staged 4 of the 5 for a season, there was some rewriting and Currency Press have published it.  In 2023, emerging director Stephanie Lee was looking for something to direct for her VCA graduating play and decided to present three of the vignettes - 'Sugar', 'Truffles', and 'Flour'. In 2024 Theatreworks programmed the show into their Midsumma Festival line up.

This production begins with a pubescent school girl (Shanu Sobti) who is addicted to chocolate but has refused to go to a dentist her whole life. Because of this her teeth are decaying, and her breath is toxic. She is living and loving and crushing hard just like any teenage girl, but the boys (Alfie Baker and Charlie Veitch) are repelled and express it - right to her face at times - in that sadly authentic toxic way teenagers have about them. Greene is always spot on about the ugly in us all.

The second vignette portrays a couple at a restaurant. They are forced to sit there together for what seems like hours because they aren't getting served despite continually ringing a bell. Ah, the nightmare of restaurants with really slow service! The guy (Veitch again) is a dick and you might wonder why the woman (Sarah Iman) stays, but it becomes clear that she is working. This is not just a horrific date she can walk out on. When will that waiter come????

In the final scene a Home Economics teacher (Edan Goodall) is in a loving, committed marriage (Ian Ferrington), but a mischievous student (Marko Pecer) is intent on seducing him. Will the teacher give in to temptation or will his partner's love keep him faithful?

What is great about this production is its commitment to the Queer Theatre aesthetic. The set sparkles and shimmers and the actors are brave and bold. The visuals are strong and the topics are outrageous and authentic. We go to Queer Theatre to be shocked, amazed and challenged on every level and Filipe Filihia's set does that when we enter the space, and Greene's writing finishes the job on the way through.

The dramaturgy and the direction are where this production gets lost. It begins with choice of material. Whilst the vignettes are good, strong writing they are more a set of scene studies than anything easily collated into performance without strong intention. It is not that this is impossible. It is more that it needs skill and experience to know how to craft message and intention and I just don't think this team have enough dramaturgical skill yet (even though they did have a dramaturg on the project - Zack Lewin). The exception here is costume designer Louisa Fitzgerald, who created a costume palette which is perfect and helps the audience understand everything they need to know about these characters.

Filihia's set is a breath-taking cascade of silver curtains and draped white sheers but what does any of that have to do with any part of this show? It tells us nothing beyond a slight echo of the concept of over-indulgence. This is something, sure, but is nowhere near good enough to guide the audience through any practical or conceptual narrative. It's brightness and lack of architecture also made the lighting a challenge for Tom Vulcan. Vulcan did a great job in what was essentially a big, glittery white box.

The set turns out to be a precursor to a show over-filled with VCA unconditional positive regard self-indulgence. Sobti's schoolgirl is a wonderful swirl of energy to start the show, but Lee doesn't allow her the space to delve into, and expose, the pain which is so clearly there to be explored in the writing. Baker and Veitch are great as the schoolboys but it is as if Sobti never hears anything they say. She certainly never reacts to them.

In the third vignette Pecer's schoolboy is just a drag stereotype who reveals nothing about young love and the seductive power of innocence. I spent the whole time in the final vignette thinking who on earth could ever be attracted to such a little shit, never mind sacrifice a marriage for him? Goodall, as the teacher, is phenomenal but he is having to do all the work in himself because neither Pecer nor Ferrington really give him enough to justify his struggles. Lee needs to pay far more attention to the interplay of characters. The great flaw in both of these pieces is actors not hearing each other or offering enough.

The strongest vignette is the one in the middle. Lee has actually directed a masterpiece here and this is where the set also works in well with the conversation of the piece. Iman and Veitch explore the toxic male, and the hostage female wonderfully. In this section it is perhaps Greene who lets the team down as he doesn't entirely set the reason why the woman won't/can't leave clearly enough in my opinion. I love the table bell/boxing bell analogy - a simple but effective theatre trope.

In the end, though, my plus one said it best when he said "I don't know what the take-away was." Part of that comes from the source material which is not really designed to be a 'play'. This is surmountable though with a stronger sense of intention and dramaturgical skills. This production is a fine VCA piece but it really does not successfully transition into the outside world. 

On a personal note I was frustrated to see that VCA self-indulgence carry through to the scene changes. I know the art of the quick, efficient scene change has died but if you are going to let actors 'perform' at least keep it within the construct of where the performance is at so that the audience don't disconnect. Pecer's mincing theatrics as he mopped the stage completely destroyed the momentum into scene 2 and this then coloured the tone of scene 3. Theatre is story-telling. If it's not telling the story, don't do it!

2.5 Stars

TRANSWOMAN KILLS INFLUENCER: Theatre Review

WHAT: Transwoman Kills Influencer
WHEN: 27 Jan - 4 Feb 2024
WHERE: La Mama Courthouse
WRITTEN BY: Dax Carnay
DIRECTED BY: Emmanuelle Mattana
DESIGN BY: Filipe Filihia
LIGHTING BY: Chiara Wenban
AV DESIGN BY: Jordan Hanrahan
SOUND DESIGN BY: Owen Kelly
PERFORMED BY: Dax Carnay, Khema De Silva, John Marc Desengano, Ryan Henry, Emily Joy, Sancha Robinson, and Vateresio Tuikaba

STAGE MANAGED BY: Finn McLeish

Vateresio Tuikaba and Dax Carnay - photo by Darren Gill

Transwoman Kills Influencer is not a show title you can look away from and the same can be said about most of the actual show. Written by Dax Carnay, Transwoman Kills Influencer is having its debut season at La Mama Courthouse this week as part of Midsumma Festival.

Transwoman Kills Influencer is an intriguing piece of writing, not just because of the topics, but also because of the way it reveals its layers. The play you think you are watching at the start is perhaps not the play you realise you saw at the end. Carnay is not afraid of the fraught social topics surrounding gender expression, however she is much more concerned with the human beings who sit underneath all of that fear and confusion.

Using the Rashomon Effect, Carnay shows us a moment when it seems like the world is falling apart for the protagonist Denise played by Carnay. There are four other people involved in that moment - Bryle (Ryan Henry), Jen (Khema De Silva), and Alejandro (Vateresio Tuikaba). Transwoman Kills Influencer retells the story over and over from each person's different perspective and reveals a little bit more context to the story as it travels.

Denise - a transwoman - is the General Manager of an advertising agency. Jen is the Account Manager who was passed over for the GM job. Bryle is the drag queen Executive Assistant. Alejandro is the uber masculine social media influencer and a big client for the agency. Alejandro is pulling out his account and Jen is in a panic because this will cause the business to fail. Suddenly Alejandro is dead. Whodunnit?

As the story is pieced together, we learn about the complexities of the interpersonal relationships, character flaws, misunderstandings and general ignorance. The true art of this play though, is that bigger and broader high stakes public debate is torn away to reveal the people hiding underneath it with all their flaws, complexes, and imperfections. The play starts with stereotypes but, for the most part, it ends with real people and that is what makes it magnificent. 

The one exception to that is the character of Bryle. We never get to see much of Bryle beneath the overt drag persona. Maybe we don't need to. That character doesn't seem to be very integral beyond emotional support for Denise. In some ways I felt the unremitting overt clownishness of the portrayal of Bryle actually got in the way of the show and it's intentions, but I could also say the same about the portrayal of Alejandro. 

According to an interview I did with Carnay and Emmanuelle Mattana (director) for What Did She Do? this character is supposed to represent toxic masculinity, but the portrayal was way too camp and clownish to really make that work. Luckily the cameo by John Marc Desengano fills a rather big gap in that regard. It is not the acting. All of the actors are magnificent. I just think Mattana hasn't smoothed their performances so that they are all acting with the same contextual balance. The women in the show, however, have worked out that earnest/clowning balance to perfection.

Oh, and I hate the accents. Fake accents are sooooo 20th century! They are completely unnecessary, totally distracting, and they disconnect us from the deep truths within the play.

In Transwoman Kills Influencer Mattana has demonstrated a strong capacity to harness production elements to support the ideas. The set (designed by Filipe Filihia) is clever and captivating, although I do think some costume elements for Denise are not well resolved. Mattana has a background in film making so it is no surprise that the AV (Jordan Hanrahan) elements are incredibly well done. Perhaps the opening sequence is a bit too long? It is hard to tell though because the show had a delayed start on opening night so that might have impacted my perception a bit. I also would have like a bit of police investigation framing the start, rather than just creeping in at the end. We all love a bookend.

To be honest, I didn't notice the sound (Owen Kelly) which tells me it did what it needed to do perfectly. The lighting (Chiara Wenban) was also fine, although there was a smoke machine pumping hard throughout for absolutely no reason whatsoever. 

I get so annoyed with lighting designers these days. Every other single element of theatrical productions is chosen to be there or not be there with such great care, but lighting designers just smother everything with smoke and rarely think of dramatic purpose, intention or meaning. There is nothing in this lighting rig which smoke enhances except the upstage area at the start and end of the play. Most of the rig are fresnels so the lighting is not defining the architecture of the space. This means we don't need to see the beams and the only thing the smoke in this show does is draw our eyes up to the lighting rig rather than watching the stage and the story. It defeats the suspension of disbelief so integral to theatre making. Lighting is a dramaturgical art and theatrical smoke is NOT benign for actors or audiences which means choosing to use it is a big thing!

Anyhooooo, back to the play. Transwoman Kills Influencer is not a play which insists it has answers. Instead, it is a fun packed hour or so which explores social debate and earnestly searches for real thoughts, real feelings, and real people. The content will evince strong reactions at times, but also allows for a 360 degree investigation. 

We often find ourselves asking what does Post Truth mean? I heard somebody explain it well recently. It is truth with context. Transwoman Kills Influencer is truly a Post Truth play.

3.5 Stars

CLAIRE COME HOME: Theatre Review

WHAT: Claire Come Home
WHEN: 2 - 6 January 2024
WHERE: Theatre Works
WRITTEN BY: Amelia Newman
DIRECTED BY: Sarah Hartnell
PERFORMED BY: Sam Dolan and Lucy Orr
LIGHTING BY: Hannah Willoughby

Lucy Orr and Sam Dolan - photo by Phoebe Ann Taylor

You might think seeing a show which is billed as being about someone who tried to commit suicide is a bleak way to start the new year but fret not, dear pundits. Claire Come Home, playing this week at Theatreworks, is - rather surprisingly - not about Claire at all. In fact, the script really doesn't reveal Claire until around 10 minutes in. Rather, this newest black comedy by Amelia Newman is more of an interrogation about the holes caused by unexpected absences and the way the people standing next to those holes try and make sense of the inky abyss (and the people) they suddenly find themselves standing next to.

Claire is the central character of Claire Come Home only in the sense that she is the centre point of the two characters we meet on stage. Jared (Sam Dolan) is Claire's live-in boyfriend. Beth (Lucy Orr) is their housemate and has been Claire's best friend since grade 7. Anyone who has lived in share housing knows this is a recipe for disaster, but the play starts in the simple space of housemate untidiness, who drank the last of the milk without replacing it, and you owe me your share of the cost of... Everything seems pretty normal. Eventually we come to learn Claire is in hospital because she attempted suicide and suddenly all of those little irritations start to reveal nuances of tension, worry, confusion, and pain.

Claire Come Home is written in a picaresque style, utilising short and sharp scenes which director Sarah Hartnell interrupts with black outs and the sound of camera shutters which is designed to give us the sense of flicking through a photo book of moving images (social media reels perhaps?) which is reminiscent of the 1970s but stays just the right side of contemporary... just! This photo album construct is reflected in the white, geometric borders of an alcove style set which mimics the white borders you used to get on old photographs and which, in the digital era, you can add as a filter to your JPGs (there is no design credit for this show). Within that frame is a kitchenette and a large sofa barely remaining upright as a 2-metre pile of unfolded laundry at one end threatens to tip itself and the couch over. We've all met that pile of laundry. Admit it!

Jared spends a lot of time pedantically trying to defeat that pile of laundry. Beth spends a lot of time jumping around it restlessly and completely ignoring it. Jared and Beth appear to have been housemates for a while, but with the connecting presence of Claire missing from their lives for now, these two people have to finally spend time facing each other instead of her and find out who they really are. 

Along the way, Newman looks at questions of contagious ideation, endemic emotional isolation, and follows a range of ideological and cultural links to the question of death and life. This is not a straightforward journey and tries to activate post-modernist linkages between radical concepts. Whilst not always successful, there are certainly ideas and themes which will excite post show discussion including Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Mary Shelley, Julia Gillard, dead wildlife, and lost jewellery amongst other stuff. 

The lightness this kind of philosophical leaping brings helps keep the pace and tone upbeat, but it also makes the play feel longer than it actually is. I would love to weigh in on all the debates, but this essay would never end and if this is what I find myself talking about then I have start to question whether the point of the play has become too obscure - or alternatively the play has no point? Did Barthes win the day or has Newman misinterpreted his concepts as an underlying principle of semiotics?

Regardless, this would be a much stronger work if there were some longer scenes which allowed the important interpersonal issues people face when they are connected to a person who finally decides that are not coping and try a radical solution. I wanted a deeper exploration of ideation transference, of the conflict facing Jared because of the similarities of mannerisms between Claire and Beth, of how and why both of them are using obsession to manage their emotions. Claire Come Home has the potential to be a powerful work if Newman can find their way out of the obsession with art and focus on story. In many ways I think this is what I was trying to say about their other play The World According To Dinosaurs too.

Whilst I always rail against couches taking centre stage, Hartnell has been careful to ensure that the object is used in as many ways as possible and so I forgive. Orr really takes this as a personal challenge, and I don't think I've seen the human body take on so many shapes as she struggles to settle herself. Orr has amazing performance skills including body, face, and vocal dynamics and texture. I would say, though, that her next stage of professional development needs to be voice training. The people past the first row need to hear all the lines. Luckily this show has surtitles for accessibility because even in the fourth row I was struggling to catch all her lines. Dolan is a much more centred performer and is a nice foil to Orr's manic pixie dream girl energy.

Claire Come Home suffers slightly from its unfortunate low budget but you certainly get a sense of the intense visual's Newman must have been imagining as they wrote. There is - as advertised - blood dripping down the walls, but it is very underwhelming, and I was curious about lighting designer Hannah Willoughby's choice to go with pinks rather than the command of a deep blood red. This is not a play for subtleties although I loved the absence of a smoke machine. If you come and see Claire Come Home you return to a time in theatre when it was about the actors and the stage, and not about toxic wisps of distraction everywhere you look. Okay, I admit it, I really wanted smoke to ooze from the couch in the Frankenstein scene... 

Claire Come Home is a great start to the 2024 Melbourne theatre year. The ideas are strong, performances are strong, and production values are high within budget constraints. Newman is a playwright who will have a long career creating powerful theatre. They just have to shake off those trying too hard mittens which we all have when we begin creating our art. 

The art of semiotics is to engage in communication through the use of signs and symbols common to both sender and receiver. The Barthes discussion in this play is accurate but without context. What matters most is what the receiver takes from the signal, but what is the point of the writer if there is no idea to be transferred? On the other hand, Beckett had no concept of a world where man and woman were not biologically defined so how can his Waiting For Godot restrictions even have any meaning in 2024? And was Frankenstein the monster or the scientist? Oh dear, my head hurts. And this is why you have to see this play!

3.5 Stars

As an aside, I want to give a 500-star rating for the commitment to accessibility for this show. This should be the minimun standards for every theatrical event!

MAY 1998: Theatre Review

WHAT: May 1998
WHEN: 13 - 16 December 2023
WHERE: The Motley Bauhaus
WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY: Victoria Winata
DIRECTED BY: Acacia Nettleton
DESIGN BY: Nathan Dinh
LIGHTING BY: Rob Foard
SOUND DESIGN BY: Sarah Gooda

Victoria Wintana - photo supplied

Last week I reviewed Surat Suratnya which was a memory piece about the Indonesian purges in the 1960s which brought President Suharto into power. This week we move forward in time to May 1998 when students rioted and the rule of President Suharto came to an end. Playing this week at The Motley Bauhaus, May 1998 is a powerful interrogation on the issues surrounding multiculturalism and what defines our national pedigree. Whilst not specifically about Australia, an Australian audience will find that the questions arising in May 1998 are questions we are in the process of asking ourselves.

In May 1998 Victoria Winata (writer and performer) has created a bilingual, surrealist monologue. It shifts between the memories of the past and dreams of the future, it shifts between hope and despair, and it shifts between Indonesian and English language. Designer Nathan Dinh has captured that perfectly in a set grounded by a table and chairs, but with the floor boards falling away and the edges of the stage strewn with memorabilia including protest placards, photo books, children's shoes, etc. Normally I would rail against a table placed centre stage because, as I always say, why would you give the most powerful position on stage to a piece of furniture? In this instance though, it works because of the clever blocking of Acacia Nettleton (director).

May 1998 is a raw and intensely personal remembrance of a terrifying experience to live through and the soul wrenching struggle to be accepted. I'm not sure I understand why the concept of a homeland is so important to us, and even as I write this I see the irony because I identify strenuously as an Australian even though I am first generation. For the Chinese Indonesian community, the struggle to be accepted as something other than a cultural minority in Indonesia has been ongoing even though they migrated over a hundred years ago. During the Suharto regime the policy was assimilation, which meant unique cultural practices were discouraged - we know quite a bit about assimilation policies in Australia too, don't we?

Whilst the May 1998 riots were supposedly an unrest led by students, the truth is that the seeds were sown in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and it is believed the military actually engineered the riots to unseat Suharto. Inflation similar to the conditions in Germany which led to WWII created a social and economic disaster which could only have one outcome. In the riots the Chinese Indonesians became the target of pent up frustration and despair. We always look for an 'other' in these situations and it was this community which bore the brunt. Typically, it didn't even matter what your background was, if you looked Chinese you became a target.

In May 1998 Winata's character 'I' remembers the terror and confusion of the riots. The show begins with her getting a phone call saying her grandmother is dead, but she can't go to her funeral. She can never go back because she promised she never would. We learn that 'I' has migrated to Australia after the riots, after the most horrible thing that can happen has happened. We learn about the overwhelming stench of burning in the air, the crowds of people on the streets. 'I' goes out in the streets to look for her brother. Winata never says specifically what happened but suffice to say that there were a lot of rapes during those riots.

Telling the story in Indonesian and English, 'I' declares her right to assert Indonesia as her homeland. She will never consider herself Australian and will never become a citizen because she is Indonesian. Her plea and demand is that both Indonesia and China accept that claim so that she can return home. I admit, I don't know enough about the Chinese part of this story to understand what influence China plays in this narrative.

Winata is a poet as well as stepping into playwrighting, and the beauty and intensity of this writing is breath-taking. Add to that her incredible skill as an actor, and in May 1998 we have an enduringly powerful piece of story-telling. I am going to say it is perhaps around 10 min too long, but that might only be because I don't understand Indonesian and there are a couple of long passages in that language which allowed me to temporarily disconnect. Having said that, the beauty of the language, and the deep authenticity of Winata's performance kept me entranced even when I couldn't specifically understand what was being said.

Sarah Gooda's sound design was a light touch, but very effective, and the rhythm developed for Winata to move into more lyrical passages was delightful. Winata's connection to poetry comes through almost as strongly as her connection to Indonesia in this painful yet stunning piece of theatre.

I know this is a heavy topic for this festive time of the year, but I strongly recommend you go and see May1998 because I don't know if it will be restaged. I hope it will. If you saw Surat Suratnya you absolutely have to come and see May 1998 to see the next chapter in the story.

4.5 Stars

FUNeral: THEATRE REVIEW

WHAT: FUNeral
WHEN: 7 - 9 December 2023
WHERE: The Motley Bauhaus
WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY: Ruby Rawlings and Clare Taylor

Clare Taylor and Ruby Rawlings

What do Vanessa Amarossi and Death have in common? Absolutely everybody! Wocka, wocka wocka!

Well, actually, they also have the creative team of Clare Taylor and Ruby Rawlings in common. These two feisty women take Death head on with all the energy of a millennial pop star in FUNeral, playing this week for three shows only at The Motley Bauhaus.

Terry Pratchett's character Death has joined the digital age and is using their PowerPoint skills to interlope on a pair of women determined to cheat him of his prizes. Death always turns up early - they are a dedicated soul - and at FUNeral they wait with all of us for the show to begin. Just as they are about to give up Rawlings and Taylor burst onto the stage with high energy lip synching and eventually become aware that another presence is sharing their stage. There is a brief moment of mistaken identities, but then it is a head on battle despite humanities dismal record of nil-all. 

Taylor and Rawlings are determined to help us all learn how to live longer despite an insinuation by that dark demon that there is not much time left for them. Poo-pooing the well-researched Yale guide to a long healthy life, this enterprising pair have come up with their own step by step plan to stay alive which is a whole lot more fun even if it hasn't been published in a peer reviewed journal...yet.

FUNeral is a fun journey traversing a terrain which flits between surreal imaginings, a rather dubious TEDX session, and heart felt fears and truths. FUNeral was originally conceived during the height of the pandemic and Rawlings and Taylor reveal all the things which are most precious to them and would miss should Death visit their worlds. It ends with us all having a moment we can share the most precious things in our own lives. It is always magical to take those moments to share and honour the things we love and FUNeral lets us do that amongst a whole lot of laughter and fantasy.

Taylor and Rawlings are VCA Company 2020 and whilst we hear a lot about how hard it was for that graduating year because of lockdowns, one thing we don't talk about a lot, is just how good that cohort is working with technology - a skill they had to master in that environment. What makes FUNeral work is how easily these two actors interact with the most basic PowerPoint presentation ever made. Death is real, and in the room with us - an invisible puppet who pushes and pulls and plays with just as much life as the women. And they are funny!

I have to admit that I found it hard to really care about the women's fears of what they might lose if someone dies - it seems like a lot of wasted energy to me - but I really loved the message of cherishing what is most precious to us all. FUNeral is a sweet, high energy and hilarious investigation of how to think about living rather than dying.

4 Stars

SURAT SURATNYA: Event Review

WHAT: Surat Suratnya
WHEN: 6 - 17 December 2023
WHERE: La Mama HQ
WRITTEN BY: Ratna Ayu Budiarti and Wawan Sofwan
DIRECTED BY: Wawan Sofwan
COMPOSITIONS BY: Kurnia Eka Fajar and Ria Soemardjo
PERFORMED BY: Kurnia Eka Fajar, Ellen Marning, and Ria Soemardjo
LIGHTING BY: Cole McKenna

TRANSLATION & DRAMATURGY BY: Sandra Fiona Long

Ellen Marning and Kurnia Eka Fajar - photo by Darren Gill

Surat Suratnya literally means "her letters" in Indonesian and knowing that tells you everything about the event happening at La Mama HQ right now. Comprised of a pre-performance sound installation called 'Between The Letters' and a theatrical monologue called 'Our Last Dinner was Sayur Lodeh' the creative team immerses us in the sounds, smells and stories of Indonesia in the mid 1960's. Inspired by letters written by Ria Soemardjo's mother during the communist purges in Indonesia across 1965-1966, Sandra Fiona Long (translator/dramaturg/producer) has gathered her Australian and Indonesian cohorts and created this collaboration between herself, Soemardjo, and Stage of Wawan Sofwan - to help raise awareness of a difficult time which has been kept hidden and unspoken for so very long. 

Soemardjo's mother, Ibu Helen, is an Australian who married an Indonesian trade unionist. They lived on the island of Java and raised their children there. Unfortunately, the 1960's was a difficult time all over the world as the Cold War initiated an international 'reds under the beds' mania. In Indonesia, a union of islands only very newly minted in its independent sovereignty after 150+ years of colonisation by the Dutch, it was a chance to change power structures harnessing a violence seeded in the rebellions two decades earlier.

In those days anybody who had even the slightest whiff of socialist tendencies was declared a communist - a tendency very well documented in Australian history as well. In Indonesia the outcomes were deadly in the most violent of ways as somewhere between 500 000 and 1 million people were estimated to have been killed. As the wife of a prominent trade unionists living in that social carnage, Ibu Helen's letters home to Australia immortalise the growing turmoil and terror and confusion of those times.

The performances begin with the sound installation in La Mama's rehearsal space created by Soemardjo which establishes our link between Australia today, and Indonesian traditions and music. A man sits in the centre of the room, surrounded by a sheer cloth as if there but not there. He gently plays the Gong Ageng creating swirls and swoons of sound as people gather around. Intimate listening devices are available and you are encouraged to hold them close to your ear, as if to hear secrets from the past, whilst being immersed in the sound waves pulsing around the room at large. At some point in time the playful calls and replies of two Kemanaks draw us back out, play with us, and then invite us into the theatre space.

In there we meet Ibu Helen (Ellen Marning) who is making Sayur Lodeh for the last time as her family readies to evacuate Indonesia for the safer climes of Australia. For her it is going home. For her husband and family it is a fearful new adventure. The scales have tipped now, though. Staying is scarier than leaving.

Wawan Sofwan and Ratna Ayu Budiarti have woven together a monologue out of the aerogrammes Ibu Helen sent back home. Do you remember aerogrammes? Those light weight papers which folded into an envelope which allowed you to correspond internationally at low cost? They were the connections between worlds and designer Yudith Christianto has made them the veil between today and yesterday, copying original letters onto long lengths framing Marning's performance. Some clever silhouette work (Cole McKenna) also links the installation with the monologue at one point in the show. It may be a bit lost on younger audiences just how impactful the discovery that those letters were being intercepted and censored actually was back then, in a world with no internet, email, or social media.

This leads me to my main criticism of Surat Suratnya. Everything is beautiful, gentle, melancholy, and sad, but I feel the terror of those times is missing in this show. I have a connection to Indonesia as my grandfather was in the Dutch army around WWII. During the post war independence struggles my family saw first-hand how violent and terrifying unrest can be in that part of the world. My family finally left the day after their next-door neighbours had their heads decapitated. That kind of terror is visceral and the violence during the purges was far worse than the fight for independence. This is what I missed from the performance.

It was probably opening night nerves as much as anything, but I felt Marning was too much in her head. If she can find a way to take all of those overwhelming emotions flooding her eyes and feed them into her body through the chopping of the vegetables, and perhaps working with breath (in the monologue Ibu Helen talks about being asthmatic but not being able to get medication), the vibrations of that will create a tension belied by the soulful timbre of Kurnia Eka Fajar's Gamelan instrumentation, and the Indonesian philosophies underlying food.

Context is everything sometimes and I feel kind of sorry for those in the audience who will probably miss some of the humour - as did I perhaps... I had a good old cackle when Ibu Helen tells us her husband was held in high regard despite his Dutch education.

Sometimes theatre is about entertainment. Sometimes theatre is about education. Sometimes theatre is about orientation. Sometimes theatre is about beautification. Sometimes theatre is about revelation. Surat Suratnya is all of these things in a range of measures.

3.5 Stars

THE LAST EMPEROX: Book Review

WHAT: The Last Emperox
WRITTEN BY: John Scalzi

2020 was a place for some arts to die, but it was also a place where other arts got to fly. Books were one of the winners of that difficult time. According to The Authors Guild fiction books sales increased by 18%. One book published in the midst of lockdowns and a world turned inside out was the final instalment of the Interdependency trilogy, called The Last Emperox, written by John Scalzi. I must admit, I started reading this when it was released. I feel it is quite telling that I have only just finished this book, so many years later. 

The Interdependency trilogy actually began as a two-book space opera. As it was written it became apparent a third instalment was necessary and, whilst I haven't read the first two, I feel like the whole story actually lies in the second half of this third book.

The trouble with writing what have become known as space operas is that the authors think they can reveal things slowly and in a convoluted manner. This is why I have only just finished this book. In my opinion absolutely nothing happens until the second half. There is no inciting incident of any significance to draw the reader in. On the other hand, in these pages the first 2 books are pretty much explained - or the cliff notes at least - so I don't feel any need to read them and the world is not intriguing enough for me to want to go back and explore the history.

The concept has good potential. The Interdependency is a diaspora of humanity which has managed to fling themselves deep into the universe through wormhole style 'flows'. They now have the technology to build habitats so it doesn't matter that the planets are incompatible for human life. These communities also don't need to be near each other because they are connected by these flow streams.  

The problem is, in the first two books they have discovered these streams are collapsing and the last Emperox, Grayland II, has to figure out how to get as many people through what will be the last remaining stream to the only planet which can sustain human life. An added complication is that one of her enemies has rebelled and taken control of the other end of that stream and any spaceship not permitted through will be destroyed upon arrival. 

The conceit is a lot of fun, and once The Last Emperox stops messing around with all the cloak and dagger stuff, the story really takes off. The structure of the book is in 3 'books' which is part of why I don't think you need to bother with the first two. The characters are mostly fascinating although I think making the key players female is a bit disingenuous and leaves them feeling a bit two dimensional. I don't care what people may say, a woman is not just a man with mammary glands.  

Having said that, the character of Kiva Lagos is great fun. Grayland seems a bit lacking in personality. Nadashe Nohamapetan is a wonderful villian. Perhaps it is worth reading book two, The Consuming Fire, because that is where the rivalry between Lagos and Nohamapetan seems to have been fully realised.

The technology in The Last Emperox is a mix of good ideas and WTF. Scalzi has long had a fascination with life extension and transference of personality to other places as the body dies, kind of like Altered Carbon. The Interdependency trilogy plays with this and there is a big reveal in The Last Emperox which mirrors some of what has been developed in the Foundation TV series. On the disappointing side is the little things, like how they still use tablets and watch shows with the tablets resting on their knees. I would have thought that by that point in our technological development we might have come up with something a bit less cumbersome.

I know this sounds like I didn't enjoy the book. I really did - or at least the second half. The problem is that in 2020 I didn't have the patience to wade through all the soap opera before finally getting to the action. In the end, what is good about science fiction is the technology, the ideas in the world building, and the action. Just like any film script, a book needs to start at a point of action. The past and the relationships get revealed through that moment of impact and the ramifications which come from that.

Despite my reservations I do think science fiction addicts will enjoy this world. This trilogy is possibly a winning Xmas present idea, especially if you have a teen who is a really scifi addict.

3.5 Stars