Archive | June, 2022

M Rock

28 Jun

Writer Lachlan Philpott’s tale is warm-hearted and fun; a paean to understanding between the generations. Tracey heads overseas on her post-HSC rite of passage, and promptly loses herself in the club scene of Berlin. Mabel, her grandmother, goes to find her.

In the manner of tales of a physical quest, the quest also becomes internal: the finding of self. (As a digression, it’s a common assumption that there’s someone to find, as against something to understand or something to do. It’s an assumption designed, oddly enough, for safety: an assertion of identity being far less confronting than an acknowledgement of liberty. See my latter comments regarding the play’s conclusion, and it’s clear this work ultimately backs radical freedom.)

Valerie Bader as Mabel offers a beautiful portrait of that most potent of mixtures, the gentleness and strength of age. Milena Barraclough Nesic as Tracey captures exquisitely the youthful tension between wonder and thoughtlessness.

The ensemble are terrific; Bryn Chapman Parish, Masego Pitso and Darius Williams play a globe of characters with subtlety, exuberance and generous humour.

Director Fraser Corfield’s staging is delightful, building a theatrical world that makes a joyous journey through three continents.

The conclusion to the tale happens fast and is awfully large; it’s as though a gentle river that has graciously slid through picturesque scenes suddenly comes to the cataract edge. Not that the end of the story is a fall – rather, the opposite – and, like all waterfalls that plunge 100 metres upwards, unbelievable. However, this is the land of symbol, where meaning trumps likelihood, and tales such as this are not told to dully record the odds, but to envision a type of victory.

Paul Gilchrist

M Rock by Lachlan Philpott

Produced by ATYP atyp.com.au

The Rebel Theatre until 17 July

Image by Tracey Schramm

Tags: ,

The Sweet Science of Bruising

23 Jun

I’m a huge fan of historical work. It transports you to the exotic, to another time and place. This facilitates big, bold story telling.

But the very fact you’re in a time and place other than your own inevitably forces a question: “What relevance does this have to my world?” (It’s all a neat way of eliciting a personal response from an audience without being too personal.)

First produced in 2018, Joy Wilkinson’s The Sweet Science of Bruising tells the story of female boxers in nineteenth century London. Because it’s about fighting, it’s the perfect parable for the ongoing struggle for equality. And it raises two salient questions: 1. Do women have to become like men to win? (The play asks this explicitly) and 2. Will the fight require women to fight each other? (The play obviously does ask this, but chooses not to make it the dramatic nub, settling rather for a broader promotion of sisterhood. In regard to this issue, I wish it had taken the gloves off, instead of just loosening the laces a little. But the most pointless theatre criticism of all is of the if-I-had-written-this-play variety. And, anyway, see my final comments.)

The story presents four equal protagonists, each a woman who takes to boxing for her own reasons. This makes for a longer show than average – two and a half hours of stage time – but a very engaging two and a half hours it is.

Period plays lay traps for actors; it’s easy to be blinded by our progressive prejudice and assume the past was not peopled with….well, people, but types. For the main, this production avoids this trap. The four leads (Sonya Kerr, Kian Pitman, Kitty Simpson and Esther Williams) are wonderful, creating rich, utterly captivating portraits of transgressive women. Cormac Costello as Professor Charlie Sharp, the arranger and promoter of the fights, gives a performance that crackles with gleeful possibility. The scenes between boxer Polly (Williams) and he are heart-warming magic.    

Period plays (especially the big and bold) also posit challenges for directors: How should I costume? What is my set? How real to make the physicality? Carly Fischer, with the help of a great design team, turns these challenges into fun opportunities.

Historical fiction poses one more question: how much is history and how much is fiction? (And, yes, there was female boxing in the nineteenth century.) Pedants love finding anachronisms, getting great delight out of pointing out that gramophones (say) weren’t invented until XXXX, or characters in XXXX were unlikely to express values not common until XXXX. In contrast, grownups appreciate the nature of fiction; you don’t find the truth in a tale by stepping on it, but by letting it wag. It’s in the joy it expresses, in its gift of hope; not in what it asserts about the past, but what it suggests for the future – and this play is a gift.

Paul Gilchrist

The Sweet Science of Bruising by Joy Wilkinson

Flight Path Theatre until July 2

https://www.flightpaththeatre.org/whats-on/sweet-science-of-bruising

Image by Becky Matthews 

Tags: ,

Daddy Developed a Pill

16 Jun

I have to admit, this one defeated me.

If theatre is a delivery system for meaning (albeit often a meaning built from irreconcilable tensions, and so a meaning only expressible in the dramatic form) then I have to admit I’m not sure what this one means.

(And, no, I didn’t read the program post-show; that’s the equivalent of reading Wikipedia’s article on orgasm after being left unsatisfied in the bedroom.)

Daddy has developed a pill – but Cynthia, his daughter, has developed another one. I don’t know whether these pills and their effects were literal or metaphorical. The difference between the two pills was ……. but then it was gone, and I’m not sure it was repeated. The play then became Cynthia hosting a party with myriad mad-capped guests, some of whom had clearly ingested very literal drugs.

As a writer about theatre you have to avoid the temptation of behaving like a nineteenth century amateur anthropologist, the type of supercilious old gent who dismisses other cultures as primitive because their values don’t align with his.

But the least interesting aspect of any production is whether it interests me.

This production by director LJ Wilson values energy, exuberance, audacity and speed.

Performances are dynamic, larger than life and consistently crazy. Sarah Greenwood as Cynthia anchors the play with an intriguing combination of swaggering dominance and childlike doubt. Clay Crighton and Jack Francis West play everybody else, with an inspiring, frenetic vitality.

Cassie Hamilton’s script is bouncy and cheeky, like a rivulet bubbling inexorably through the jungle (for a thick 95 minutes), cascading towards some enormous cataract, some frightening drop. I’m just not sure what that drop was – but it was deliciously dizzying.

Paul Gilchrist

Daddy Developed a Pill by Cassie Hamilton

KXT until June 18th   www.kingsxtheatre.com/daddy

Tags: ,

Ulster American

10 Jun

Some productions are so good that any written response bubbles into the evanescence of superlatives. This is one such production. Director Shane Anthony, Riverside and Outhouse Theatre are all deserve dousing in sparkling froth.

An actor, director and writer meet the night before rehearsals begin. They discuss art and its importance. David Ireland’s script is intelligent, bold, and brilliant fun. There are more one liners than dog turds in an leash-free zone, and the characters are so beautifully drawn that sketch cartoon blooms into full blown animation.

Jeremy Water’s Jay is an Oscar winning actor, self-important and ignorant. Brian Meegan’s Leigh is a director in the time honoured tradition: excessively polite, in the manner of an attendant in a lunatic asylum; the type you ultimately realise is no attendant at all, but rather one more deluded inmate. Harriet Gordon-Anderson as Ruth the writer has that steely (self)determination that makes writers the most unwanted people in theatre. All three performances are absolutely superb.

This is a play about Thought and Honesty in theatre, and so, of course, Truth. And when Jay finally pulls out his Truth for all to see (no, it’s not THAT, but it may well as be) the triviality of that truth becomes apparent.

What do we think is important in art? Stanislavsky’s famous warning was right.

But be also warned: this is a comedy of gasps. If opera is the artform in which things too silly to say are sung, this is the artform in which things too taboo to say out loud are …. well, said out loud. Violence, sexual assault, those sort of misterdemeanours (yes, I made that word up… I think). It’s difficult to imagine a living culture without an artform that serves this purpose. If we are to set boundaries, if we’re to think boundaries are necessary at all, we must be aware of what lies on their far side. If we don’t, our boundaries are not shared decisions, but rather merely the victory of fear, or worse, the stratagems of power.

So this very funny play is important.

We need comedies this dark to let the light in.

Veronica Kaye

Ulster American by David Ireland

at Riverside until 11 June riversideparramatta.com.au

then Seymour Centre until 18 June seymourcentre.com

Image by Richard Farland

Tags: ,