Archive | December, 2023

Thoughts on the Year in Theatre 2023

19 Dec

In 2016, I wrote an Open Letter to Sydney’s Theatre Critics. It was read by more people than anything else I’ve ever written for this site. (And my second highest readership ever? An article entitled Truth in the Theatre Foyer.)

In my Open Letter, I asked if it was possible, at the end of a year, to do more than simply rank the productions that had been seen.

I’ve no great issue with ranking performances – especially if anything I’ve written is on anyone’s Best of List – but I was hoping that the people who had seen so much theatre might make some further observations. I ended my Open Letter with the exhortation “Make some generalisations – you’ve earnt it!”

This year, the first full year I’ve returned to serious reviewing for quite a while, I’ve decided to take my own advice. 

However, there are a couple of caveats:

Firstly, I won’t be offering my own list of the “Best of”. Quite simply, who cares about my opinion? I could, of course, entitle the list “My Favourites”. That would acknowledge the issue of the unavoidable subjectivity (but still not address the issue of relevance or value.)

Secondly, I’ve seen and written responses to only 64 shows this year. That’s a lot of theatre most normal people would say, but my reviewing colleagues and I are not of that demographic. (Some of them have seen twice as many shows as me.) And to add a little more perspective, of the 50 shows nominated for this year’s Sydney Theatre Awards, I saw only 7. I do try to get along to most things I’m invited to. However, I avoid amateur theatre – not because of the quality, but because my pretentious approach is not a good fit with their mission statements – and I’m also currently not on the publicity list of several companies (STC, Old Fitz, Hayes, and Eternity.)

So, with these two caveats in mind, here are my outrageous generalisations. I’ll start with the most trivial.

  1. There are more reviewers than ever before. My personal publicity list currently has 37 review sites. And, every time a new show opens, I see on social media quotes from reviewers I’ve never heard of. I guess it’s a bit like those infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters: one of them will eventually write something worthwhile.
  2. Reviews now come with stars. When I started Theatre Red in 2011, a small number of publications rated shows out of 5 stars. Now most do. (I don’t. I’m uncomfortable about the implied comparison between shows. And I’m also keen that what I write about a show isn’t entirely abbreviated to something even a monkey can read.) One site even grades productions to the first decimal point, awarding scores such as 4.9 or 4.8 stars. (I’m keen to get a copy of that marking criteria.)
  3. Reviews are increasingly more generous-spirited. If you put on a show, someone will give it 5 stars. Perhaps this is not an ideal situation, but it’s preferable to the critical culture of several years ago, in which so many reviews were written with the subtext Who, exactly, do you think you are to write or direct or perform in a play? But, the overly effusive language of many reviews now makes it feel as though it’s marketing copy that’s being written rather than theatre criticism. (Of course, if you want exposure for your publication, if you want your site mentioned in an ad on the side of a bus, it’s good strategy to be extremely positive.)
  4. Instagram has changed the way that shows are marketed. On Facebook, producers generally put links to the review. On Insta, using a program like Canva, anyone can now take one of their production shots, bang on it the stars they’ve been awarded and the ticket booking details, and the whole thing seems extremely professional. As a producer of theatre, I’ve done it myself. As a writer of reviews, I would really like people to actually read the reviews.
  5. The number of independent theatre venues continues to decrease. And this is at a time when there seem to be more artists wanting to make theatre than ever. On the upside, it’s great to see little companies finding eclectic spaces to weave their magic.
  6. There is a continuing focus in our theatre on what the Right calls identity politics. We must have diversity on our stages and in our storytelling. (And one great consequence of this trend is that over half of the shows I saw this year were new works.) But I’d like to offer an observation; consider the oft-repeated slogan Our stories must be told. It posits an interesting question: is the role of the playwright to document society? And, if so, what technical and moral attributes would be required of them to do this effectively? And what sort of awareness, both in terms of aesthetics and epistemology, would the audience of such a work need? Watching a play that purports to bear witness to the lived experience of a particular demographic group, do I say “Well, that’s the Such and Such community!” or should I count this play as merely the equivalent of a single anecdote from a single individual who undoubtedly has personal biases? (I’ve got a lot to say about this idea – but it will have to wait until a later time).  
  7. Despite the above comment about identity theatre, a lot of indie work is still showcase theatre. By showcase theatre I mean indie theatre in which it appears the artists’ goal is to showcase their ability so they’ll be discovered and no longer need to do indie theatre. This is natural, and not something I can criticise – but it’s always great to see work that’s being shared primarily because of the beauty and truth it offers.
  8. This is how I ended my Open Letter in 2016: “And what isn’t happening in the scene that you really think should? After all, a good critic recognises what’s happening, and a great critic knows what is not.” So what do I think should be happening? Who asks questions like that? If I have an answer, it’ll probably be expressed in my own own theatre, rather than in theatre criticism.  

But I’m looking forward to 2024 and all the brilliant work I’m sure to see.

In the meantime, an enormous thank you to Sydney’s theatre makers!

Paul Gilchrist

Terminus

18 Dec

Mark O’Rowe’s play was first produced in Dublin in 2007.

It’s a three hander, constructed from interconnected monologues.

O’Rowe tells a damn good story. Set in modern Dublin, it’s laced with sex, violence and an unconventional theology. It’s both very funny and thought provoking.

O’Rowe employs what’s been described as poetic prose. This particular jury of one is still out in regard to its effectiveness. There are certainly passages of remarkable beauty, a glorious speech in which a young woman reflects on key moments in her life being one. But the use of rhyme, so effective in creating humour, perhaps is less so in representing reality. It depends on your metaphysics, your vision of the nature of Truth, or indeed if you think Truth has any particular nature at all (and is therefore deserving of that capital ‘T’). Despite offering a portrait of a very gritty, wild, dangerous city, the tight connections between the three storylines, the presence of an eschatology (unconventional or not) and, yes, the frequent rhyme, all suggest a world in which there is most definitely an ultimate order…. and that’s a vision of life that’s increasingly less common. (I will note, however, that O’Rowe’s three storylines are hardly of the common garden variety, and so to suggest the play asserts some sort of ultimate Truth might be missing the point – and I’ve reviewed theatre long enough to know that’s a common garden variety occupational hazard.)

This production, directed by Katherine Hopwood Poulsen, is a splendid 115 minutes of theatre. Presented in the basement of the Marrickville Town Hall, the aesthetic is appropriately minimalist, allowing the script and the performances to shine. Tabrett Bethell plays a woman attempting to save another from what she believes is a forced backyard abortion. Bethell has a powerful stage presence that effectively stands in pathos-inducing contrast to the character’s deep fragility. Andrea Tan plays a woman who, in a moment of fatal danger, is aided by the most surprising of heroes. It’s in this storyline that the play is at its most fantastical, and the gorgeous strength of Tan’s performance is that we’re fascinated to see where all this unlikeliness might lead. Johnny Cordukes plays an unexpected serial killer (though I’m not sure I’ve met enough of the type to be certain about the first of those adjectives.) Cordukes nails the macabre humour and, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, keeps us thoroughly engaged in the darkest parts of the tale.

Terminus was my final show for 2023 and, after a wonderful ride through a year of theatre, it was a terrific place for that journey to end.

Paul Gilchrist

Terminus by Mark O’Rowe

Marrickville Town Hall Basement until 16 Dec

www.terminusplay.com.au

Image supplied

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The Wind in the Willows

14 Dec

(In which my desire to appear erudite is apparent in the pretentious surfeit of quotes from other texts.)

Kenneth Grahame’s novel was published in 1908; it’s a perfect piece of Edwardian charm.

This is the literary world in which Rupert Brooke could dream of death on the Western Front in these words:

“If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

that is for ever England.”

Brooke also imagined that, in the afterlife, his soul would give back to the Divine

“the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

In this gush of misty positivity, Brooke omits any description of his mangled, war-broken corpse.  

(In all fairness, this oddly parochial era did also produce Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.)

Alan Bennett’s very clever theatrical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows was first performed in 1990 at the National Theatre. Bennett sticks to the key elements of the story, but he loses Grahame’s absolutely delightful narrative voice. Here’s a sample of how such prose might leave an honest dramatist to weep in envy:

“He (the Mole) thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”

But Bennett’s dramatic treatment does allow him to add even more jokes, and the postcolonial context encourages him to makes more explicit the very English nature of the tale, and to gently mock it.

Bennett also gives a clearer narrative arc. The original novel is episodic, but Bennett introduces the villains (the weasels, stoats, foxes and ferrets) early on, in preparation for the final showdown with the heroes (a mole, a water rat, a badger and a toad.) 

To any audience, familiar with the book or not, this anthropomorphism is its most distinctive feature. The characters are animals of the English countryside, but they speak (English, obviously) and live very English middleclass lives – ones filled with picnics, motoring and recreational boating. Is the suggestion that there’s something unquestionably natural about this way of life?

Grahame’s idyll was certainly a curious tale to tell at a time when England’s empire covered more than half the planet. Perhaps it was an elegy for lost innocence. Perhaps it was a smoke screen. (Though Tolkien’s diminutive hobbits – with their burrows, their penchant for comfort, their unexpected resilience, their fierce loyalty – are surely direct descendants of Grahame’s heroes. And despite Tolkien’s proclaimed dislike of allegory, this English myth of the courage of the little people came into its own in 1940.)

Whatever the case, Grahame’s story has undeniable charm, and has long been a favourite of children’s literature, a tale that speaks to both little ones and their elders.

Directed by James Raggatt, this production brims with magic. A bare stage is filled with exuberant performances. Michael Doris is terrific as Toad, presenting a character who is gloriously self-centred, eyes ever open to a world of adventure, and heart closed to anyone but himself. Lachlan Stevenson as the serious and sensible Badger has a commanding stage presence and offers a splendidly rich vocal performance. Miranda Daughtry as the weasel gives a perfectly hilarious portrait of the small time crime boss. Ross Walker plays Albert the horse wonderfully, poignantly expressing the patient resentment domesticated animals surely must feel towards their supposed owners. (The role is a superb invention of Bennett’s. He gives the horse a name and voice, and by giving him a burgeoning political consciousness, mischievously prompts us – as we watch a play soaked in anthropomorphism – to closely consider the nature of our relationship with our animal cousins.)        

The use of the space is magnificent, especially as the cast, hooded like puppeteers, effectively create cars, trains and boats, all from very simple props.

Occasionally the pace falters. Perhaps a more vigorous soundscape might have helped (and that’s from someone who usually finds them superfluous at best, and cheating at worst.)

And in case you’re uncertain about spending an(other) evening with a pack of adults in animal onesies, rest assured the costuming by Isabella Holder is beautifully simple and gently evocative.  

A playful paean to friendship and pleasure, this is a fun show.

Paul Gilchrist

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (adapted for the stage by Alan Bennett)

at KXT on Broadway until 23 December

www.kingsxtheatre.com/

Image supplied by Stacks On Theatre

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The Government Inspector

9 Dec

This is big, bold, ambitious theatre.

Gogol wrote the original in 1836, as a satire targeting the abuse of power. Director Alex Kendall Robson’s adaptation retains the Russian setting but updates the language. (The theme requires no updating.)

Anachronistic liberties are taken (references to Tolstoy, Chekhov, Rasputin and that quintessentially Russian pop group, Boney M) but all these add to the fun.

Gogol’s play is a classic tale of mistaken identity. The authorities in a provincial town mistake wandering scoundrel Khlestakov for a government inspector. Knowing their conduct has been corrupt, they’re terrified, and do all they can to placate Khlestakov. There are gags galore at the expense of the greedy and the status obsessed.   

Robson presents the show in the round, which puts pressure on a cast already a little challenged by the echoey acoustics of the venue, but the physical use of the space is splendid. Performances are explosively energetic, and include a fascinating range of acting choices. There’s some highly stylised movement, in set pieces by the entire cast, and in choices fundamental to the portrayal of certain characters. Raechyl French and Jade Fuda, as mother and daughter of the town mayor, move in a closely choreographed manner that might evoke a formal 19th century dance, appropriately symbolic of their fixation with class, but also hinting at the restrictions experienced by women in a patriarchy. (Incidentally, their ribald linguistic humour is suggestively naughty, but also suggestive of desire infantilised by oppression.) Jack Elliot Mitchell as the Post Master also uses hyper-realistic movement, a sort of languid slide and sensual pose, and aided by a vocal delivery that luxuriates in every syllable and so maximises the bawdy, a terrific portrait of pleasure seeking decadence is achieved. Lib Campbell as Khlestakov struts and pouts and throws herself around, wonderfully embodying a childish self-obsession.  

Other actors create their characters with less fireworks, but with equal impact. Sonya Kerr lets the language do the lifting and shines in her razor sharp portrayal of the cold hearted Chairperson of the Mayoral Advisory Board on Matters of Charity, Humanity and Philanthropy. Shaw Cameron’s Mayor is also magnificent. A public man, everyman’s friend until you’re not, Cameron plays it big, garrulous and greedy, but informed by the vision of the ever practical politician, the portrait retains the truth that gives real edge to its satirical teeth. Similarly, Mitchell Frederick Stewart as the Police Commissioner is brilliant, his understated, matter-of-fact delivery perfectly encapsulating the entitlement that perpetuates systemic corruption.

Paul Gilchrist

The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Alex Kendall Robson

Flow Studios until December 9

fingerlesstheatre.wordpress.com/

Image by Tim Hope

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Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall

8 Dec

As a reviewer of theatre, it would be no surprise to anyone that I find reading difficult. Consequently, when I’m sent marketing material, I don’t read it. If I’m invited to a show, and I’m available, I go.

The tiny amount of hype about this show that managed to seep through my obtuseness had lead me to expect a satire, with amateur theatre as its target. Now, as amateur theatre companies are the epitome of all that is evil in our society – in their unthinking, unearned privilege, in their wanton misuse of power – I was looking forward with relish to their being taken down a good peg or two.

But satire this was not. Instead, it’s an utterly charming sitcom. (Which is probably just as well; on more sober reflection, a professional theatre company taking aim at amateurs smacks of a mean-spiritedness more suited to my role than theirs.)

It’s opening night of the Middling Cove Amateur Drama Society’s production of Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall, but more than half the cast have come down with the lurgy. Cancel? God forbid! The show must go on! 

The script by Jamie Oxenbould and director Mark Kilmurry is hilarious, a glorious mixture of gags and set-ups that facilitate character based humour, both verbal and physical. And the cast know what they’ve been given and they make it sing. (And some of the characters want to actually sing – when they really probably shouldn’t.)

Performances are comic brilliance. I especially enjoyed Sam O’Sullivan as the so-serious auteur, Eloise Snape as the part-time actor who absolutely lives for her brief moments on stage (Providence having in its wisdom kept them brief), and Oxenbould as the old hand whose optimism remains untempered by experience. And Ariadne Sgouros as the stage manager, with her Hey-this-is-reality-calling attitude, is splendid.  

To successfully present truly terrible acting you have to be one of two things – truly terrible, or a true actor.

Like all sitcom, there are a couple of conceits an audience must accept to enjoy the ride. The first of these is that actors in a production know the lines of characters other than their own (I would’ve thought they struggled to remember even these.) The second is that amateur companies do new work. (Thank God that professional companies like Ensemble commit to it.)

In addition to sitcom, there’s also parody of the murder mystery genre. This type of parody is, of course, as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – only more common. (But I have to admit, in the case of that particular genre, I think the fish still definitely have it coming.)

And is something serious spun from all this marvellous, magic, comic mayhem?

During the show, the couple next to me whispered that it was difficult to know when the line between art and reality was being crossed. (Or, as the more cynical might rephrase it, when performance started and Life stopped.)

For me, the question the piece very pertinently asks is why do we value art? Is art created ultimately for the audience, or for the artist? It’s not merely amateurs that must ask themselves that.

So satire, after all.

As Someone-or-other-ski once said “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art”.

Paul Gilchrist

Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall by Mark Kilmurry and Jamie Oxenbould

at Ensemble until 14 January

ensemble.com.au

Image by Prudence Upton

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The Ballad of Maria Marten

4 Dec

We know Maria is dead from the beginning. She tells us. We’re going to be shown how it happened. It’s an interesting creative choice, especially considering that the dead Maria accuses us of coming along just to see her murder (a crime I was previously unaware of, and a crime that it wasn’t me who chose to write a play about.)

But, apparently, Maria’s terrible fate is well-known, and has been the subject of ballad and theatrical treatment many times before.

The poor woman was murdered by her male lover in Suffolk in 1827.

Here playwright Beth Flintoff presents it as the story of a woman who suffers from gaslighting and coercive control.

There are other intriguing decisions being made: the key one being that men are substantially written out of the tale. In the first act, the only two male characters who appear are played by women. Rhiannon Jean and Olivia Bartha create these two wonderfully: Jean’s Thomas encapsulates small obtuse selfishness, and Bartha’s Peter is a terrific portrait of genuine personal affection battling social expectation.  

In the second act, no male character appears on stage at all. It’s a brave decision. By privileging the female experience, the risk is run of making it less comprehensible – considering the topic is the relation between the sexes. Maria drives the play, and Naomi Belet’s performance is eminently watchable, a pathos inducing mixture of glorious exuberance and traumatised doubt. The script’s decision to exclude the culpable male character effectively centres the victim’s torment, but does so at the cost of making it less certain. The gaslighting and coercion are not shown, and so perhaps Maria really is a fool or mad – though I’m pretty sure that’s not the tale’s conscious purpose. In addition, choosing not to show men behaving badly can have the unintended consequence of imply their agency is irrelevant, and that the problem of violence against women is solely, and unfairly, up to women to solve.  

Such a tale as this is indicative of the ambiguity in our current use of the word “story”. We constantly say things like “our stories should be told”, meaning our lived experience should be acknowledged or seen. But that isn’t the only meaning of the word “story”. A good story is not simply a true one. The feminist assertion that most stories have expressed male lived experience is entirely valid, but in the pain of exclusion, to conclude that is all stories do is to miss their potential. Stories are not merely records of experience; they are invitations to judgement. Representation is not approval or assent; audiences can, and do, judge the actions of characters. Human beings delight in discernment; it’s the basis of our agency in the moral universe. In its invitation to judge, theatre is a type of enjoyable work out, a necessary training for the real thing.

Director Louise Fischer’s female ensemble do some great work, but the conclusion of the piece also prodded me into thought. I’ll be wary of spoilers, but the play’s presentation of female solidarity is fascinatingly indicative of the current zeitgeist. Is the freedom of throwing off the dominance of one group only to be found by being subsumed into another? And is political action always to be symbolic?

My vagueness is no doubt frustrating, but see this work – and then read about the historical events on which its based – and you’ll see that it is burningly relevant, both in its powerful indictment of misogyny, and in its thought-teasing presentation of contemporary political assumptions.

Paul Gilchrist

The Ballad of Maria Marten by Beth Flintoff 

at New Theatre until 16 December

newtheatre.org.au

Image by Bob Seary

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