Bully Virus - Theatre Review

What: Bully Virus
When: 16 - 27 May 2018
Where: La Mama Theatre
Written and directed by: Kate Herbert
Composition by: Anna Durham
Performed by: Jenny Lovell, Carole Patullo, and Geoff Wallis
Stage Management by: Emmie Turner

Jenny Lovell and Carole Patullo - photo by Joe Calleri

Bully Virus is the new play currently being performed at La Mama Theatre and I urge everyone to go and see it. Written and directed by renowned theatre director, writer and critic Kate Herbert Bully Virus looks at the endemic problem of workplace bullying.

Using verbatim techniques, Herbert brings us 5 harrowing stories of workplace bullying. Not surprisingly, there is an over representation of the health industry. More surprisingly perhaps, given everything which has been happening in the Melbourne theatre industry over recent years, there is no representation from that quarter. It is irrelevant though. The collection - along with an array of vox pops - produce a terrifying catalogue of workplace behaviours which are evidently designed to damage the people who have been targeted.

Whilst Herbert keeps the general tone light throughout with little comic windows into the HR and management perspective, the horror lies in us knowing these are real stories. These things, this damage, happened to real people. This truth is constantly reinforced as the acting trio read the victims stories from files and folios despite them being in the first person.

The play begins with Lovell, Patullo, and Wallis entering with great verve and energy and revving up the audience with rousing statistics which point out Australia is the world leader in workplace bullying (aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi) and that 1 in every 2 Australians has been a victim of work place bullying making us world leaders (aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi). We Australians do like to achieve on the world stage! Dressed in grey suits they go on to be a comedy trio of HR executives scoffing at wingers and whiners. There are some great moments as they impersonate  a Marx Brothers style comedy schtick and the always amusing elevator chat scene.

The times between though, are dark and deadly. Five victims tell their tale with the story of man bun wearing, beard dragging hipster office worker (Wallis) holding the narrative throughout most of the play, plastering the other four stories into a pastiche of pain and confusion.

An intriguing aspect to Herbert's choices is most of the stories do not contain the overt physical or verbal violence we probably tend to associate with bullying. Herbert illuminates the subtle bullying. She shows us how people are 'managed out' of their jobs. She demonstrates how Human Resources are not our friend. She reminds us they are paid by the company so why would they ever be on the side of the victim? As someone who has had the misfortune to experience both the overt and subtle styles of bullying too many times now I can tell you that every word of Bully Virus is true. You may laugh. You may find it funny. If you have been a victim though, this is a trigger warning. It will be hard to watch if you bare those scars yourself.

All three actors are great although I would have liked Lovell and Patullo to create more physical diversity between their victims. The only real way to keep track was by looking at the big labels on the files as they pulled them out and read from them. I know they are capable of more because their work when they were free of the scripts was great.

Herbert uses the small space at La Mama Theatre extremely cleverly and it seems a whole lot bigger than it is - an effect supported by spot lights and floods expanding and contracting the space. Kept in a clean open white, the simple lighting was extremely effective and I applaud the restraint used.

Durham's sound design is absolutely magnificent and pulls a good play into the realms of a great play. Again, there is restraint, but every sound and every moment of non-sound is so carefully constructed and so perfectly etched it creates the architecture of the world Herbert has crafted.

Bully Virus is only on for a short time but this is important stuff and if you can you really must go and see it. Bullying will only stop once we learn to recognise it and tell the people around us it will not be tolerated. When you are a victim it is hard to speak up for yourself and it only makes things worse but if you are a witness it is your duty to speak up for that person or those people! Bullying doesn't just harm and change the target, it harms and changes the entire community because of how that person then interacts with the world once they are damaged.

4 Stars

Personal - Theatre Review

What: Personal
When: 24 - 29 April 2018
Where: Arts House
Created and performed by: Jodee Mundy
Directed by: Merophie Carr
Design by: Jen Hector
Sound by: Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey
Video by: Rhian Hinkley

Jodee Mundy - photo by Bryony Jackson

The world is changing. Australia is changing. One of the great aspirations of our emerging NDIS is to evolve into a society which allows people with disability to live their lives as fully and independently as a human being. This means working and playing. This means dreaming and achieving. This means every space is a space for everybody. In Personal at Arts House Jodee Mundy shows us how to make the stage and audience spaces just such a world.

Whilst not having a disability herself, Mundy grew up as the only hearing person in a family of five. Even now, days later, I have trouble getting my head around the extraordinariness of growing up with parents and two brothers who can't hear. Mundy tells us she did not even realise/understand that the rest of her family was deaf until she was 5 years old. She was separated from her mother in KMart and despite the staff doing all the right things being reunited was a long and traumatic experience because (of course) her mother could not hear the announcements.

This was the light bulb moment for little Jodee and this is also the point when her life became something seriously other than normal - whatever that is - as she began to take on speaking and hearing duties for the family, especially on the telephone. It is not unusual for children who have disabled parents to grow up quicker than we would wish for them. In Mundy's case having to translate very adult conversations was very confusing and at times frightening.

Whilst Mundy doesn't dwell on this overly long, it becomes apparent as the performance progresses that there are scars. They are scars, though, which are smoothed and oiled by the intense love evident across the family.

Mundy does not allow us to linger on the painful moments which come with this oddly isolated childhood and she never wallows for a moment. Conversely she is a talented humourist and mime and I found myself laughing out loud a surprising amount of times as Mundy let us into the absurdity of her world. It is important to say we got to laugh with her, not at her.

Hinkley has created some fantastic animations as we explore nightmares which have a touch of Where The Wild Things Are about them, and there is even a little bit of Family Guy going on at one point. The video sequences are projected on 6 large boxes which Mundy moves around the stage. The images were sometimes separate and sometimes integrated, and often at unexpected angles and places. I enjoyed the Brady Bunch tribute which was one of the most beautiful moments - a moment when Mundy serenaded her family. I wanted to look around and find the projector set up to understand how it was being done, but I couldn't bare to tear my eyes away from the stage which is a testament to how good the performance was.

Another intriguing aspect of this show was it's dual language structure. I was especially excited to see that it was the Auslan which was privileged. One of Mundy's expressed intentions as an artist is to use 'art to redefine and skew the notions of inclusiveness' and to look for a future 'beyond inclusion'. The academics will probably call the next era Post-Inclusion.

In Personal Mundy succeeds beautifully. It is us, the hearing audience who have essentially been invited into a Deaf space and whilst it is fully inclusive, it is a shared space where we are not privileged.

It is also a sharing space but not a voyueristic one. The program refers to people's voyeuristic apetite to delve into how the deaf live their lives, and whilst Mundy gives a nod and some answers she sets boundaries. We catch glimpses of other people but Mundy stops at being too explicit and is careful to tell her story and not the story of those around her. It is her Personal story.

There absolutely is sound throughout the show and Flynn and Humphrey have created a complex soundscape. Mundy allow us to hear it and plays with sound all the way through, but what is really revealed is how sound is received. For deaf people sound is mostly experienced through the eyes or through physical sensation such as the low bass beat of techno, or using lights to indicate a ringing doorbell, etc. It is touch and sight and in some ways this makes sound bigger. As a live sound technician I used to always imagine the waves bouncing around the room. For deaf people it really does.

At this point I need to confess on the night I went there were some serious technical problems with the sound and video. It was not enough to make me unsatisfied with my evening and I still enjoyed the show immensely and laughed a lot, but it is enough to make me envious of those who will see/hear the complete show.

I also found the moving of boxes became tedious in the extreme. I understand it and, let's face it, every show which uses boxes ends up moving them around far too much. It is just the nature of the beast I suppose.

Told in a picaresque style and with a bathetic narrative, Personal will not give you every answer you ever wanted about what it is to be a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults). What it does is give you insight into one person's story whilst highlighting some universal issues, experiences, and prejudices. It is funny, sad, scary, and beautiful. It is also another brilliant example of post-truth theatre and post-inclusion theatre. The future is here and it is Personal.

4 Stars

Alexis Dubus Versus The World - Comedy Review

What: Alexis Dubus Versus The World
When: 10 - 22 April 2018
Where: Hairy Little Sister
Created and performed by: Alexis Dubus

Alexis Dubus

Alexis Dubus is a very funny man. He is a man of many talents, many accents and many words and we get the exquisite and unusual experience of being able to enjoy a great deal of them because he has brought us two very funny shows this Comedy Festival season. My last review was of his hilarious alter ego's show - Marcel Lucont's Whine List and here I am about to regale you with the intelligent humour of his spoken word routine called Alexis Dubus Versus The World playing at Hairy Little Sista.

Dubus calls Alexis Dubus Versus The World a spoken word show because it kind of breaks all of the comedy category tropes. It is a little bit stand up, a little bit pantomime, a little bit cabaret, a little bit punny, and he even throws in a little bit of burlesque just to shake the apple from the tree. All of it definitely falls into the category of spoken word though because all of it contains...well...words.

As fine a comedian as Dubus is (and he is very fine indeed!), he is also an accomplished wordsmith. Swinging effortlessly and unexpectedly between high Shakespeare to gutter trash you are expected to listen well to get the full joy and hilarity out of his work. At times his vocabulary exceeded that of the audience but for those of us who knew what homophonic means, there were wonderful nuggets of gold to embrace intellectually.

Dubus' performance included a lot of wonderful poetry as all good spoken word shows do and he is not afraid of the rhyming couplet, using rhythm and accents to make the predictable leap into hilarious and beyond. It is not possible for me to say I had a favourite poem but I intend to visit Wookie Hole if I ever get back to England and I will probably avoid getting a massage next time I am at the Singapore airport.

Some of the poetry moved into the territory of music and his observations about bananas has a definite reek of the Fresh Prince about it. There was also a very strong Monty Python influence to some of his music which is always a winner of course.

Alexis Dubus Versus The World is an eclectic mix of content but all of it is incredibly satisfying. Dubus was last here four years ago. In that time he has managed to get married and his foolproof advice on how to propose is certainly unique but, as he says, in his experience it has a 100% success rate.

We are really lucky he has chosen to return and even luckier he has brought us two iterations of his fantastic comic mind. See both shows in tandem. You won't regret it.

3 Stars

Marcel Lucont's Whine List - Comedy Review

What: Marcel Lucont's Whine List
When: 10 - 22 April
Where: Beckett Theatre, Coopers Malthouse
Created and performed by: Alexis Dubus

Marcel Lucont

Marcel Lucont's Whine List is a kind of humour which definitely appeals to people who watch the world in despairing wonder - people like me. Lucont (Dubus) is playing in The Beckett Theatre at Coopers Malthouse for the next two weeks of the Comedy Festival and I really recommend it.

Lucont has a fine stand up routine, disdainfully and yet elegantly delivering observations about the curious things he encounters as he travels around the world. If you watched Tonightly with Tom Ballard a week ago you would have seen Lucont do a guest appearance. In that segment he comments on the intriguing way each state welcomes it's guests on the signage. He is completely mystified and miffed that only people named Vic are welcome in Melbourne.

The true genius of his show though, lies not in his stories, but the stories he elicits from the hapless audience. Before we entered we were asked to fill out a questionnaire where were asked for our worst day at work, worst amorous encounter, and worst overseas experience.

I often talk about the issue of consent in relation to audience participation and Lucont deals with the problem perfectly. When the audience is given the form they are warned Lucont will choose the ones he likes best to use in the show. Ergo, if you fill in the form you are giving implied consent to be engaged as a participant. It is too late after the fact to act all coy and reticent so be warned.

The body of Marcel Lucont's Whine List lies in his selection of responses and his languid and unrelenting interrogations to find out more.  The truth is, he really doesn't have to do much to make the audience laugh. It is quite eye opening to see just how wrong some people's life go.

On opening night it was also very illuminating with regard to college life in Melbourne. Have you heard of the 7 Wonders? It is 7 places in the University (I won't mention which University) couples should have sex whilst being a student. Here's a hint - there is a lawn and a tower...

It is the patronising air of gallic superiority which makes Lucont's show work. Dubus is an Englishmen, and we all know about the rivalry between the French and the English. Lucont is a construction of all the great prejudices about the French - their arrogance, love of wine , and always being right.

I have to admit despite the arrogance, Lucont's insouciance and fake accent are still outrageously sexy. What is it about the French? Even faux French people have it!

The format does get a bit repetitive, but the variety of idiotic and outrageous situations people have found themselves in means the laughs just keep coming. Between categories Lucont also graces us with some of the best responses across the course of his travels in the UK and even without the interrogation they are stand alone hilarious. Oh, the things people get up to!

Marcel Lucont's Whine List is a late show, but the Malthouse has food and drink caravans and festoon lighting out in the courtyard as well as their usual offerings indoors. Go along, have some dinner and perhaps a couple of glasses of wine, and then take in a lovely red to sip along with Lucont as he gets you looking at the world through a slightly more jaded set of eyes than our own. Don't spill the wine laughing though!

4 Stars

Massive Bitch - Comedy Review

What: Massive Bitch
When: 2 - 8 April 2018
Where: The Butterfly Club
Written and performed by: Chelsea Zeller
Directed by: Samuel Russo

Chelsea Zeller

I first came across Zeller in last year's Comedy Festival when she wowed me with her performance in High Achievers. I was very excited to find out she was back for this year's festival with Massive Bitch at The Butterfly Club.

Zeller didn't disappoint. As I commented in the High Achievers review, Zeller has an amazing ability to perform multiple characters without a single misstep. She totally understands the connection between voice, body and character and in Massive Bitch she once again demonstrates her world class skill playing somewhere around ten characters in this TV talk show parody.

Massive Bitch is satire in the vein of ABC's Get Krack!n although Zeller's work is not farce. Perhaps a closer pairing can be found in Chamber Made Opera's production Crossing Live in 2007.

The story is the taping of the 50th episode of a morning show and the last one for Victoria the 'bitch' producer who expects a promotion and the ability to move on. Victoria uses controversy to win the rating's war and takes credit for advising Sonia Kruger to admit to be honest about her opinion of Muslim immigrants would make good TV. Victoria spirals between patronising, obsequious, and a raging bull to get this episode on air, but the more she pushes, the more things spiral out of control.

The supporting characters are fantastic, with the laconic camera man, John, getting the show started, a fun parody of Scary Spice in the Jenny Craig ads, an astrally disfunctional psychic guest, and Hugh - a cohost who gets his very own Tootsie moment littering the stage. Zeller switches between them all with mastery, commitment, and a delicate understanding of who they all are and why they are there. Well almost.

Where the show falls down is in the dramaturgy. Zeller wrote this piece herself this time, and whilst her acting is phenomenal, she needs to work on story structure and the proportional weight of characters. Oh, and titles too. I hate the title of this show and would never have come if not invited for that reason alone, but then I would have missed some fabulous ideas and brilliant acting.

Victoria is the 'massive bitch' in question but she really doesn't get a lot of stage time in this manic morning show filming schedule. Because of that, we don't get to really understand why she is a bitch (to me it just looked like a frustrating day - but then I have been called a massive bitch many times too...). This only really matters because Zeller has created a beautiful and touching and quite unexpected ending - but it kind of comes out of nowhere and as an audience member it jars rather than being satisfying.

Russo's direction did not impress me much. Last year in High Achievers the transformation between characters was aided with jackets and other acoutrements. This year they have forgone any costuming or props (except a stool). This is fine because Zeller is skilled enough to do all the work herself without even the hint of confusion or vagueness.

Sadly, Russo did not trust her enough so he has incorporated the 'turn away from the audience so they know there is a new character' technique which really gets in the way and becomes very tedious - much like theatre productions which use blackouts between every scene. Some of the transitions are cleverly handled but as the pace picks up they become more functional and obvious and irritating - and completely unnecessary.

Zeller never disappoints as a performer. She creates clear, clever and hilarious characters. The rest will come.

2.5 Stars

G'Day Comrade - Comedy Review

What: G'day Comrade
When: 28 - 31 March 2018
Where: Imperial Hotel
Performed by: Gosha Bodryi, Kaychu, Kirill Sietlov, and Gleb Tubushev

Kaychu

Russia is big news at the moment so needless to say there is a lot of great material for expatriated comedians to play around with and I was thrilled to see a show celebrating the old and the new in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year. Whilst the G'day Comrade comedians provided less Dostoyevski than advertised, there was just enough Putinesque paranoia to make this a night at Imperial Hotel full of belly laughs and merriment.

Compare Brodryi got the laughs started and kept the show moving along nicely. All of the comedians are young and developing talents but what they lack in confidence they more than make up for with that beautiful Russian air of danger and intrigue.

Tubushev kicked off the routines with the need to explain why he has a very North American accent. He was almost apologising for not being authentic Russian despite having spent the first 15 years of his life there. His story of immigration is warm and intelligent and his tale of plane drivers (known to most of us as pilots) brought me to tears of laughter as I started imagining my own impending small plane trip to regional Australia.

For me Kaychu was the big hit of the evening. A raw comedy finalist, Kaychu had me in gales of laughter as she looked in wonder at how well we treat our children and how confusing she finds it as a Russian. I was an easy mark though, because she begins at the point of despair over the length of holidays and how this means she has to spend time with her kids. "It's as if you like your children," she muses. I remember as a kid hating the Chirstmas holidays because they were so long. Who wants to spend that much time with the family when you're 10?

Sietlov was the only current Russian resident and professional comedian and it was interesting to see a real, if subtle nervousness when he riffed off an earlier Putin joke. Yes, we are on the opposite end of the planet but it was an intriguing reminder that the danger is very real. Some of Sietlov's humour didn't quite sit well with an Australian audience - in particular his extended AIDS sequence - but for the most part he was extremely funny.

G'day Comrades is a fun night and I really enjoy the Russian aesthetic. The Russian Film Festival is always one of my favourites and who doesn't get off on the melancholia of Chekhov every now and then? They even have Russian language shows scheduled at Speakeasy HQ. 

3 Stars

The Tales of Witchmen - Theatre Review

What: The Tales of Witchmen
When: 27 March - 1 April 2018
Where: The Butterfly Club
Created and performed by: Oliver Cowen and Kayla Hamill

Oliver Cowen and Kayla Hamill

The Tales of Witchmen is a lighthearted, pantomime romp following the quest of a Knight (Cowen) to kill Witchypoo. Along the way he is - helped? - by a range of intriguing characters played by Hamill and the whole quest takes place in the downstairs venue of The Butterfly Club.

This is a hat comedy. both Cowen and Hamill play a myriad of characters including Cabbage Girl and Owen-Megan The Vegan with an unexpected detour into a Raw Comedy parody where the hapless (and skill-less) comedy Barry Darren takes his turn on stage to be heckled by a heartless MC.

The Tales of Witchmen is very funny and well performed, with Hamill really standing out with her acting diversity across such a range of characters. Perhaps, though, this show would really take off if it was cleaned up and put in a child friendly time slot because this idea and these characters would be a hit on the theatre for children circuit. As adult comedy, the only real humour seems to come for slipping in swearing which is only funny for so long.

I did have a real problem with the first character we meet - The Boy (Hamill). I don't know why, but Hamill has chosen to portray the boy as someone with cognitive limitations and I found that very upsetting as it was pointless and rather insensitive. There was no commentary to support that choice as anything other than to be laughed at and for me this is not acceptable. I should put in a waiver here that my day job is in disability so I am perhaps somewhat more sensitive to these matters than many people might be.

The rest of the characters where fun and well crafted, though, which is why I say The Tales of Witchmen would have a great future as a children's entertainment. It is silly (in a good way), has great characters and fun hat work, and Hamill really embrace the pantomime structure with glee and energy.

2.5 Stars

SQUASH! - Live Art Review

What: SQUASH!
When: 17 March 2108
Where: Melbourne City Baths
Created and designed by: Meg Wilson
Composed by: Belinda Gehlert
Performed by: Ashton Malcolm, Dana Miltins, Josephine Were and Meg Wilson
Choreography by: Kiales-Nadine Williams
Lighting by: Alexander Ramsay

Meg Wilson

Live Art, that slipperiest of all performance forms often comes close to the traditional definition of theatre and SQUASH! is the closest it got for me at the Festival of Live Art this year. A durational demonstration of bravado, brashness and bouncing balls off walls, SQUASH! is a performance created by visual artist Meg Wilson and her ensemble in 2017 and brought to Melbourne for the Festival.

Durational performances have become a 'thing' which were made popular in modern times by the UK company Forced Entertainment. Now everyone is doing it. Personally, I am not sure that many of these performances are informed or add to the audience experience over time, but having said that Landing, which was also taking place in the Melbourne City Baths, is a great example of when durational performance is in the glory zone of form meets function.

SQUASH! is a fairly simple concept. Wilson plays squash over a four hour period with a range of contenders who have a variety of skills. Wilson is a world class competitor (in the women's league of course) and has all the attitude and conceit of most world class athletes. Think McEnroe, Rodman, Kygrios, Williams, Woods, etc.

Wilson is at the top of her game and knows she is the best. She knows she is so good she doesn't even really have to try. She has her own dance troupe cheering her every point, calls for champagne on the court and feels quite free to sabotage her opponents. Whenever she wins a game there is fan fare, flashing lights, room thumping music and she has her own promo video. Oh, and she never takes off her sunglasses because they are a status symbol as well.

It is quite amazing Wilson can have such depth of belief in herself in the face of the running commentary (Malcolm) and a clearly biased umpire (Were). Malcolm litters the games with commentary such as "They should call the women's competition the Duluxe Cup because it's as boring as watching paint dry" and "They are demanding equal pay for women in sports but they're doing less work in tennis - it's reverse sexism!" (Fess up, you know you have thought this yourself.)

In terms of this being a durational work I suspect this lies at the heart of the audience experience - to feel the wearing away of the soul as these comments keep being hurled out again and again. It is also intriguing to have them as female voices. It is a long standing tradition whenever men want to say something really sexist in modern times they find a woman to do the speaking for them. Julie Bishop is a great example, or perhaps just about any of the female commentators on morning TV.

I didn't get to see much of SQUASH! but from what I can tell, I got the point which begs the question of why it needed to be durational. I suspect the only real reason is because the veiwing balcony was so small that only a few people could watch at a time. The option was to crowd in and sweat to death, or to watch in shifts. I opted to try the shifts but then I was dealing with the ever pressing knowledge that other people were waiting for us to leave so they could get in.

I will say this was popular and a lot of fun. Swirling lights, thumping tunes, and the tension of real games in action made for good times when you had the chance to see it. Luckily if you came for SQUASH! you could switch in and out of Landing as well, so it was possible to make a full night of it.

I got to see two games in my two and half hours at the Baths. The first was with a novice, Achilles Heel. Wilson was ruthless and the hapless Heels was able to achieve little but watch the ball whiz by.

The second was a seasoned and skilled male player, Squash Spice. During this game the umpire had quite in a tantrum so an audience member was called in to keep score and Wilson was generally outplayed. Of course, by then she had been on the court for an hour and a half, had drunk a certain amount of champagne and danced a few too many victory dances. This was the time when Malcolm really let rip with the commentary about women's sport.

I have mentioned SQUASH! wasn't especially audience friendly but I don't know that I wanted or needed to see more regardless.  The constant sexism and disdain in the commentary was extremely wearing and I have lived enough of my life with the real thing so I wasn't particularly interested in exposing myself to more of it than I needed to for the sake of 'art'.

My reticence, however, is not a reflection on the work. It had bang, it had razzamatazz, it had balls and peaches and flutter flying through the air. SQUASH! is a wild ride and my reaction to it really just proves how on point the piece is.

Wilson and her team have done well, and SQUASH! sits comfortably within their body of live art work which so far comprises Team Trampoline and You Will Only Ever Be Any Good If You Can Run The Marathon. I am sure you can see the theme here...

3.5 Stars

Slippage - Live Art Review

What: Slippage
When: 18 - 25 March 2018
Where: Main Hall Laneway, North Melbourne Town Hall
Created by: Louise Lavarack

The 2018 Festival of Live Art is basically a giant playground for adults. In particular, around Arts House in North Melbourne, there is a plethora of activities - many of them free - which invite the participant to observe and/or partake in the spirit of exploration, joy, and self-actualisation. Some are deeper and heavier than others, but there are plenty of light ones around which are a good in between snack as you wait for the next main course in your event itinerary. Slippage is one of those snacks.

The concept is quite simple really. A bunch of long, brightly coloured (and very light weight) sticks have been loaded into the goods and services laneway beside the Main Hall of North Melbourne Town Hall. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to play with these sticks.

Using nothing but gravity and our ingenuity, we find ourselves gradually emboldened to hold a stick, look around, and then make a decision where to place it. Eventually something emerges. Is it a structure? It is art? Perhaps more importantly - will it stay up? Gravity tries its best, but on the first Sunday the wind was strong which turned our brief buildings into ephemeral butterflies before becoming a glorious pile of rubble to puzzle and tease at us once more.

Created by Louise Lavarack, Slippage continues her fascination with the poetic potentials of space and to activate our connection with our world. In this instance, working with collaborators Ellen Davis and Cobie Orger, Lavarack is not just inviting us to create ephemeral moments of joy, play, and interaction - she is also choreographing us.

The sticks are long so you have to reach to create and you have to manouver to avoid knocking people and other things. For short people like me, we have to collaborate with those who are height gifted so suddenly a solo routine becomes a pas de deux. Then someone else is needed to brace and a pas de trois is enacted. Amidst these corps routines ripple other dancers, wending between poles and people to find more batons or get a view from a different angle.

The delicacy of the routine, the reliance on gravity, and the necessary subjection to the wind and other elemental forces make the event an incredibly light and fragile experience. Peripheral awareness becomes a survival skill, delicacy of touch becomes the order of the day. Anything to heavy, too fast, or two flippant breaks everything.

Of course, just like building sandcastles by the sea, the very breaking of these structures is a part of the fun. In the demise of the moment is created the potential for new beginnings, new collaborations, new ideas.

The great thing about Slippage is its simplicity and the fact you can just leave and come back to it whenever. Each time you play there will be new kids in the playground and new ideas to become involved in.  I think about double the number of sticks would have been optimal because then it would be possible to play with colour and form density, but I am quite a fan of the line drawing, and it is the veritable fey nature of the insubstantial that perhaps makes this event work best.

2.5 Stars

The Diva Dive - Cabaret Review

What: The Diva Dive
When: 15 - 25 March 2018
Where: Hares & Hyenas
Created by: Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith
Performed by: Mama Alto, Clare St Clare, Maude Davey, Moira Finucane, Kathryn Niesche, and Yumi Umiamare

Moira Finucane

To attend a Finucane & Smith production is to be transported to a land of glory, freedom, and responsibility. It is a world where ugliness is exposed through beauty and truth, and freedom is gained through knowledge of self and others. To enter The Diva Dive at Hares & Hyenas is to open another portal into a transcendental meditation which promises liberation and delight.

The poster says the artists may change each evening as is the tradition of both the company and the genre. Very few places or people offer traditional burlesque in real cabaret format, but at The Diva Dive this is exactly what you will get.

On the night I went the particular smorgasbord of cabaret, drama, and variety consisted of some of Finucane & Smith's longest and most masterful collaboraters. At the centre of it all, of course, was the glorious beast that is Moira Finucane.

The divine Mama Alto and mesmeric Clare St Clare were back singing sublime duets as well as exquisite solo numbers. As their angelic voices combined in the opening number, the heavenly harmonies caused our souls to rise up and be freed from our earthly chains, opening our minds and our hearts to another way of seeing and hearing.  In act two Mama Alto croons 'I'm Kissing You' and as I closed my eyes I really did feel that each note, each word was a caress. St Clare followed up a little later with a powerful rendition of 'Diamonds In The Sky', lifting us up and refreshing the wind beneath our wings. There was much about healing and empowerment in The Diva Dive.

The Diva Dive is something a little out of the ordinary for this remarkable team as the entire show is a collection of new work, or new re-workings, none of which have been rehearsed as a formalised stage presentation, so the evening had a wonderful frisson of the uncertain. Having said that, with the detail and texture of the evening we really would not know this if we hadn't been told.

In the spirit of the evening, Finucane brought us new monologues featuring crows. Crows feature in Leviticus as being a creature unfit for eating. Finucane takes the idea of eating crow and turns it on it's head. As with all her work, she is essentially saying do not let people make you smaller than you are. Do not be humbled, do not be silenced. Speak up and be all that you can be.

Finucane is a master orator (as well as being a scientist, and artiste, and... a diva!) so when she speaks you cannot help but listen. During the course of the evening she reprises her story about the Auks which was the cornerstone of the show The Rapture. This time around it frames the problem of fracking in the Northern Territory and how the Aboriginal people on that land will lose their stories if they lose their water. Finucane doesn't just tell us the story though. She gives us something we can do about it.

This is another cornerstone of all Finucane & Smith works. They are about moving forward, showing another set of choices which can be made, and offering us all the chance to make them.

In this spirit Maude Davey brought us a delicate new and original work. Using song and monologue Davey took us on a three part journey. It began with a heartfelt and plaintive song 'Give Me More'. She then meandered with us through the tale of a tree pruning - so very mundane and yet so very impactful on all of creation. She finishes with the hymnal 'I Have Tried To Be Free'. The power of this piece is devastating exactly because it is so light and ephemeral. Davey is also continuing her explorations of the body in conversation with the text which adds intrigue.

The night is not dark and mournful as my words so far may imply. It is variety and burlesque and in the spirit of the unrehearsed Finucane brings us the fun improvised monologue game. Daring the audience to offer up words which shall confound she cunningly and wittily tells epic stories in three minutes with whatever fodder the audience has gifted.

Niesche, the every helpful monkey, performed a delightful variety act including prestidigitation and mime. As well, rather than the traditional organ grinder, she serenaded us on tuned liquor glasses before farewelling us with handkerchief origami.

The Diva Dive salon was not complete though, until the unforgettable Yumi Umiamare graced us with her elegant tea ceremony. The ceremony is an ancient tradition of purity, cleansing, and sharing. This stunning diva breaks through all of the history of secrecy with a joyous and irreverant burlesque act of superb impropriety. Freeing herself from her corsets she explodes in a hurricane of joyous energy.

To attend any Finucane & Smith event is to experience freedom, love, joy and celebration. The Diva Dive is something extra special because it is so full of the nascent. This group of beautiful and powerful women wrap a warm and nourishing womb around the audience as well as their work and from this incubator something powerful and promising is sent out into the world, healing wounds and washing away pain, always making it better.

Do not miss you chance to realise true freedom. The Diva Dive, like all new born creatures, is only young once and seats are very limited. To miss this show is to have one true regret in your life. Oh, and yes, it has every glittery sparkle and visually breathtaking element Finucane & Smith are internationally renowned for!

5 Stars

Supper Club: Soft Money - Event Review

What: Supper Club: Soft Money
When: 15 March 2017
Facilitated by: Asha Bee Abraham and Dan Koop
Designed by: Georgina Humphries

Arts House has been a big leader in the Melbourne Live Art scene but it is not just about participation and self reflection. Since the first iteration of the Festival of Live Art Arts House has been exploring ways to use art to change people, change communities, and change the world within an active arts paradigm. As part of this, they have regularly engaged in creating experiences which are actually a form of participatory action research and the most current version is their fabulous Supper Club series. I was given the opportunity to attend the Soft Money event and although I have no idea what I was expecting, I know and awful lot more than I did when I turned up - and had a plentiful supply of cuisine provided by The Oriental Tea House. Yum!

Participatory action research is a qualitative process which encourages action in the community using collaboration and following reflection. Don't panic! The Supper Club is not some sort of quasi post graduate education disguised as good food and good fun. It is far more real than that. Far more human. It also has the big difference of not having any reporting requirements or follow up.

Perhaps the best way to think about the Supper Club is along the lines of a formalised progressive salon. You get to meet exciting new people and discuss topics you never thought you would, but possibly hoped would happen. Travelling from table to table your dining companions change and all the conversations are facilitated by people who know their stuff, can answer questions, or can pose curly conundrums for us to consider and debate.

Supper Club: Soft Money revolved around the topics of the ways in which the concept of money as a universal means of exchange exist in our world and what this can mean in our future. There were tables to discuss banking, bartering, lottery, service, cryptocurrency and paying the rent.

It doesn't really matter which table you choose to sit at. You are given take away containers to stock up your food and are encouraged three times to switch tables. There isn't enough time to do all six, although you are encouraged to split up if you are with friends or partners so that you can exchange experiences later.

My journey began in 'Paying the Rent' which was a great focussing point. In this conversation we talked about our fiduciary responsibilities to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. There is a proposal which suggests all immigrant Australians pay an income tax of 1% to our First Nation as a form of rent. The idea is that we lease the land we live on (much like the Crown like's to lease what it considers it's land). This money would be managed by our landlords themselves and would go toward building a future of inspiration and accomplishment rather than just the mere survival they are living with now. I love it. Let's do it!

After this exciting and stimulating conversation I took a chance and moved to 'Cryptocurrency'. I keep hearing about bit coins and the crypto revolution so this seemed like a good time to find out more. In the end I am still in the dark. It's all about creating block chains and democratising the storage of data away from central databases such as banks, governments, hospitals... It sounded to me a bit like what the internet and social networking did for the news dissemination sector (although there is a mathematical validation in cryptocurrency). Don't ask me any more. I don't really get it and whilst our facilitator suggested it is the future, it may not be in my future. One big myth dispelled though, is that there is a finite source. Anyone can create a block chain (sort of) and thus new crypto currency is introduced.

I ended the night at the 'Lottery' table where a psychiatrist led us through a discussion about lotteries. We talked about why people buy lottery tickets and what they are hoping for or dreaming of. We discussed what we would do, and he gave us some data about whether it really does change people's lives. Apparently the $100,000 threshold is where the increased happiness sits. Anything more than that does not increase happiness and the happiness wears off after a few months anyway. So money does buy happiness, it just doesn't last. Also, he explained that people who play lotto for the big win are dreamers. People who play lotto for the small weekly wins are gamblers. An interesting distinction.

By then I had consumed a few glasses of bubbly from the bar (drinks not included) so whilst I did take a plus one, I wasn't able to grill him about the 'Bartering' table until the next day. Of course, this does mean the conversation continued and that is the magic of the Supper Club experiences.

The next one is on the 22nd March and is a topic close to our hearts - Hard Labour. We've all done gigs for 'exposure' or 'skills development' that did not include the payment of cash in return... Book now because I am pretty sure this next one will sell out quickly.

4 Stars