Europe

16 Sep

Old versus new. Stale versus fresh. Sophistication versus naivety. Decadence versus innocence.  Europe versus Australia.

One of these pairs is a false dichotomy: the last one.

Australia is European. (Or Europe is Australian, in case you’re tempted to think I’m making some sort of backward racist statement rather than philosophically dismantling an erroneous distinction.)

Michael Gow’s very funny and thought provoking play was written in 1987, nearly 30 years ago, and it feels like it. It harks back to the experience of an earlier generation, of the 60’s and 70’s, when every Australian intellectual fled to the Old World.

Has Australia become more European in that time? (Is that my ridiculous thesis?) Of course not, but the tyranny of distance has weakened, and we’ve grown more confident.

And that’s the value of James Beach’s very entertaining production; it explores that confidence.

Photo by Kurt Sneddon, Blueprint Studios

Photo by Kurt Sneddon, Blueprint Studios

In the play, Aussie fan Douglas chases European actress Barbara. They’ve had a brief fling when she toured Australia, and he sees no reason why it shouldn’t continue. She’s less certain. (The performances by Pippa Grandison and Andrew Henry are wonderful.)

Just as Barbara is about to go on stage she says ‘I’ll drag my body through this classic again’. (All my quotes are paraphrasing.) She wonders what would happen if she changed the end this time. But, alas, the audience has come to see that particular play. Again. A type of cultural obsessive compulsive disorder?

Barbara continues ‘We constantly redo the classics. Reinterpret them, reclaim them, reject them. And the new plays are just echoes of the old.’ (More paraphrasing.)

Why are we in love with the old? And, no, I don’t buy the whole ‘universals’ argument.

I started this response by suggesting that the obsession with Europe was a thing of the past. But I see the same thought patterns, the same conservativism, repeated every time we choose to produce another Patrick Shanley, Sam Shepherd or Neil La Bute play. (These productions, no matter how well done, often feel like cover bands; the theatrical equivalent of a Madonna Tribute show at the Rooty Hill RSL.) And it’s the same for the rewriting of the classics. Borrowed glory. (And, of course, highly effective pre-marketing. Postmodernism is not the reason why the Broadway musical is now inevitably an appropriation of an earlier text.) And there’s a similar conservatism lurking in our desire to create an Australian canon.

So maybe it’s not Europe. But it’s usually somewhere else, somewhen else. Not here. Not now.

But it could be.

And that’s what this very clever, beautifully performed production made me think about.

Veronica Kaye

 

Europe by Michael Gow

Seymour Centre til 27 Sept

http://www.seymourcentre.com/events/event/europe/

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Year of the Abbott

9 Sep

Seriously, sometimes Sydney theatre can seem like a thought-free zone. Leave your intellect at the door.

But this is an intelligent production; sharp and very funny.

Year of the Abbott begins with Brent Thorpe as Deidre Flick, ‘self funded retiree from Mosman’. She chats to ‘Alan’ on talk-back radio. It’s a beautiful skewering of the uninformed Right.

Year of the Abbott GS pix IMG_0421

The majority of the show is Shane Addison and Timothy Hugh Govers presenting what looks like a TV talk show, but is actually a wonderfully performed satirical revue of the last year of federal politics. They chat to each other and to some fascinating guests. The impersonations of both Rudd (Nathan Lentern) and Abbott (Jonas Holt) are superb.

A show like this reminds us of the power of good satire: we laugh at certain individuals, but the laughter empowers us. We’re not left cynical about the political process; we’re reminded how truly fascinating the whole thing is, and how important.

Veronica Kaye

 

Year of the Abbott

The Den (Chippendale Hotel)

Sat 27 Sept 9.30pm

https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/search/presenter/24521f7d-3831-4bf1-b67d-4a2844e79484/

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Harry and Liv

5 Sep

Harry and Liv are brother and sister, played with delightful irony by brother and sister Evan and Charlotte Kerr.

There’s a playful exuberance to this cabaret. Musical virtuosity is neatly balanced with fun, silly banter.

The venue, despite its lighting and acoustic challenges, has a lounge room charm.

harryliv1

Charlotte Kerr’s opening number, a gentle ballad, reminded me what an extraordinarily beautiful voice she has. As the show continued, I occasionally wished the pace would slow, so I could savour that beauty even more.

However, these two performers have a vibrant, utterly engaging stage presence. They close tonight, but hopefully they’ll be back with more.

Veronica Kaye

Harry and Liv

closes tonight 6 Sept

Glebe Justice Centre (37-47 St Johns Rd)

https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/3b7cc7f9-73f6-4c6e-9e1f-7c7aab51cb2d/

 

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Are you a real artist?

5 Sep

Are you a real artist? It’s a burning issue.

Do this fun quiz for the definitive answer.

 

1.You think what’s wrong with Australian theatre is

a) You’re not in enough of it.

b) People you want to sleep with aren’t in enough of it.

c) Everything.

 

2. You believe there should be more funding for the arts because

a) You are an artist.

b) Art is a good thing.

c) There’s nothing better to spend the money on.

d) It’s what the majority of the population demand, and answering that demand will quash potentially dangerous civil unrest.

 

3. You think playwrights are

a) Better when not Australian.

b) Better when not alive.

c) In need of workshops, development, dramaturgy, or failing all this, simply best tied and gagged and locked in a broom closet.

d) Failed reviewers.

 

4. You think the average Australian should see more theatre because

a) You don’t like the average Australian.

b) If you have to, why shouldn’t they?

c) The average Australian spends their money on the things they enjoy, which is just selfish, because artists would like more money to spend on the things they enjoy.

 

5. You say artists should always be paid because

a) You are an artist.

b) You are owed money by an artist.

c) You like to ignore the fact that what artists say may (perhaps even should) offend the people with the money.

 

6. You create art

a) For the approval of your peers.

b) To impress strangers whose values you probably don’t even share.

c) Because you didn’t get enough love in your childhood.

d) All of the above (boy, are you really screwed up).

 

7. You love theatre because of

a) The lights.

b) The grease paint.

c) The excitement.

d) Your fundamental immaturity.

 

8. You call yourself an artist because

a) Someone has to.

b) You think it will make people want to sleep with you.

c) No-one wants to sleep with you and it’s a form of consolation.

d) You make art.

 

9. You hate quizzes like this because

a) You don’t have a sense of humour.

b) You don’t actually like dissenting voices (and therefore the dramatic form)

c) You’re the artist, and you’ll do the challenging around here, thank you very much.

Microsoft Word - Document1

Scoring

For every ‘a’ give yourself 1, for every ‘b’ give yourself 2, for every ‘c’ give yourself 3, and for every ‘d’ give yourself 4.

If you scored over 36  then you can’t count, and so are perfectly suited to the intellectually fluffy and financially disastrous world of theatre. Congratulations, you are an artist!

If you scored under 9 then you didn’t answer all the questions, which suggests you are lazy, or willful. So, congratulations, you are an artist!

If you scored somewhere between 36 and 9 then you took this all way too seriously. And the confusing of the trivial with the important is a promising quality. So, congratulations, you are an artist!

 

Veronica Kaye

Sugarland

3 Sep

Is theatre a mirror,  reflecting our world as it is?

Or is it a window,  showing us a view of a world close by?

Or is it a telescope, revealing distant worlds?

Sugarland presents the lives of young people in a remote Australian town. It’s honest, confronting and hopeful.

Photo by by Tracey Schramm

Photo by by Tracey Schramm

Writers Rachael Coopes and Wayne Blair built this story after time spent in the Top End. Directors Fraser Corfield and David Page present it with great power and beauty.  Their ensemble is extraordinary, young and genuine. Dubs Yunupingu is brilliant. Her portrayal of Nina – of simple strength in the face of adversity – is deeply moving.

The youth of Katherine face a range of challenges; poverty, substance abuse, self harm, violence, and the spectre of racism. (One of the charms of the piece is, that for the most part, the characters see through the divisive aspects of race.)

Nina lives in a one bedroom house with twelve people. She has twenty stitches in the back of her head, courtesy of a female relative who’s thrown a brick at her.

Hunter Page-Lochard plays Jimmy, Nina’s cousin. He gives a powerful performance of a bright soul bustled by what the world has thrown at him.

Writer Rachael Coopes plays youth worker Penny. She encapsulates a patient, and inspiring, determination not to give into despair.

Of course, Sugarland is not ‘telescope’ theatre. These communities are our communities. (There’s a dreadful poignancy in the fact that the young people of the town are soaked in pop culture. Nina sings Rihanna’s Diamonds at the talent quest.)

This is a play to give confidence. There are things in our world to be fixed. But this play presents the challenges with heart-breaking honesty.

And honesty is a good midwife to hope.

Veronica Kaye

 

Sugarland by Rachael Coopes with Wayne Blair

ATYP Under the Wharf

til 13 Sept

https://www.atyp.com.au/whats-on/productions/sugarland

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Phaedra

22 Jul

This is a brilliant production.

I’ve made no bones about the fact I don’t like the Greeks. (Not the current ones. The ones who died about 2,500 years ago.  And, no, the bones comment wasn’t an intentional pun.)

The great Greek dramatists explored ‘universals’, or at least that’s what we’re tempted to think. Distance has lent them a grandeur. But they wrote in a society every bit as fractured and filled with contention as ours, and much of what we have raised to the status of classics were in their day part of a hard fought cultural war.

In Greek society one of the great divides was that between the philosophy of rationality and the theatre of fate and deep dark forces. Socrates and Euripides were contemporaries.

When I see current productions of the ancient Greeks, I ask ‘Why are we interested in their myths?’

From a purely personal perspective, I’m suspicious of any view that sees the world as ruled by fate and irrationality. It seems like just one more way of disempowering ourselves, of trying to mask the fact that we enjoy lives of extraordinary privilege, and hence of unprecedented responsibility. If the Furies were to drag me off today and I was to die horribly, blind and in exile, it would not override the fact that up until this point I’ve lived 49 years without ever being hungry except through choice.

Photo by Sasha Cohen

Photo by Sasha Cohen

But I started by suggesting that Michael Dean’s production of Euripides’ play is brilliant. And it is. It’s extraordinarily inventive and a visual treat. The cast are marvellous. The individualised characters (Danielle Baynes as Phaedra, Melissa Brownlow as the Nurse, Richard Hilliar as Hippolytus and Katrina Rautenberg as Theseus) are played with a beautiful strength, which powerfully highlights the tragedy of the conclusion. The Chorus (Sinead Curry, Cheyne Fynn, Nathaniel Scotcher and Jennifer White) is wonderfully mischievous, both fun and foreboding. The use of pop music is frighteningly effective, suggesting the hidden menace lying behind our seemingly harmless daydreams and fantasies.

Phaedra is a reworking of Euripides’ Hippolytus. It’s a myth of the power of sexual desire. In the ancient Greek world, humans are the playthings of the gods. Phaedra’s passion is a divine punishment.

So what’s our modern myth of sexuality? A sort of flat biological reductionism. The consequence of our decidedly anti-existential myth is that sexuality is robbed of both its magic and danger. And where did our dull unhelpful myth come from? From the victory of the rational viewpoint. So perhaps the Greeks are worth a revisit.

Veronica Kaye

 

Phaedra (based on Hippolytus by Euripides)

TAP Gallery til 26th July

http://www.liesliesandpropaganda.com/

 

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Book of Days

16 Jul

There’s a powerful set piece in the first act of Book of Days. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say it deals with the way the announcement of a death is received. Beautifully staged and cleverly written, it perfectly presents the predominant theme of the play – hypocrisy.

Langford Wilson’s play is sort of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, but with murder. (It’s not an appropriation. It’s definitely a subversion.)

Both plays are set in small Midwest towns.

Photograph © Bob Seary

Photograph © Bob Seary

Ultimately, Our Town presents small town life through the lens of the eternal; its mocking of the parochial is gentle to the extreme, and the play firmly asserts the value of the everyday, and of every life.

Book of Days offers a vision far less comforting. There are some seriously bad people in this play – and they’re respected members of the community.

Some audience members might find the second act unusual, undecided about the way the play becomes somewhat smaller, folding down to a whodunit.

But I think that’s the play’s purpose. It’s part of the American culture wars. It’s saying ‘What’s wrong with our simple dream?’ And it finds guilty parties.

Elsie Edgerton-Till’s production is terrific and her use of the space is magical. The performances are sensational. Kate Fraser creates a brilliantly engaging Ruth Hoch, the salt of the earth no-nonsense truth teller. The conceit of this play is that Ruth is playing Joan of Arc in George Bernard Shaw’s play. And like Joan, Ruth fights both Church and State. I’d further draw the contrasts and comparisons between Ruth and Joan, but I’d be guilty of dreadful spoilers.

In this play, there are characters guilty of far worse: Kyle Walmsley gives a chilling portrait of the intelligent, urbane and frighteningly calculating Reverend Bobby Graves. Simon Davey creates a marvelous portrait of a manipulative snake of a politician.

And a final word on Georgia Hopkins set design: a beautifully space to play, clean and pure, punctuated by only a single tree. The Garden of Eden? The Tree of Knowledge? The Fall from Paradise?

Veronica Kaye

Book of Days by Lanford Wilson

til 9 August

http://newtheatre.org.au/

 

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Every Second

9 Jul

There are a lot of angry and envious people in this play.

Ok, there are only four characters, but they’re all in the same situation; they desperately want children.

I’m the worst possible audience for this.

I don’t understand the basic motivation of the characters. I want a child about as much as I want a rhinoceros.

Photo by Louis Dillon-Savage

Photo by Louis Dillon-Savage

So, on one level, I found the whole thing rather frustrating. There’s a grand secret but I wasn’t let in on it. The only explanation offered for the character’s desires was that everyone else had children – which, of course, wasn’t meant as an explanation at all.

The characters are middle class Australians. In one sequence, Georgina Symes’ character says she can control everything except her own uterus, which is a statement of staggering self delusion. It’s a pity this incredible power is not being used to slow climate change or solve third world poverty.

Vanessa Bates’ play is cleverly constructed with plenty of good laugh lines. Shannon Murphy elicits from her cast strong performances. But I couldn’t like any of the characters. (Yes, I’m a bad person – the weirdo who doesn’t want children.)

The set by Andy McDonell is intriguing. It suggests the lake in the park. It suggests a woman’s reproductive organs. It suggests a vortex, dragging the characters down.  This is not a play about finding, or sharing, joy.

Veronica Kaye

 

Every Second by Vanessa Bates

Eternity Playhouse until 27 July

http://www.darlinghursttheatre.com/

 

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La Ronde

6 Jul

Written in the late nineteenth century, the question any current production of this play asks is its relevance.

This production contemporises costume and place names.  It’s happening now.

Foucault threw out an extraordinary challenge when he published The History of Sexuality.  Excluding the deep time of evolution, what history can sex possibly have? Isn’t sexuality just biological, not cultural? Isn’t it a timeless universal?

This production of Arthur Schnitzler’s play is fascinating because it makes an audience question whether a clear-eyed look at a supposed universal can, in fact, be historically specific. Forward looking in its time, is the play backward looking now? (It’s worth noting that the play is decidedly heterosexual. And, one would hope, the dynamic of class has changed.)

laronde-05

But the play is certainly about sex. Each of the scenes has a similar structure: pre-coital discussion, blackout for the act, then post-coital discussion. (The fact we don’t see the act itself is a powerful comment about its ineffable nature.)

The other aspect of the structure that’s intriguing is the suggestion of frequent infidelity. Perhaps not every one of the ten characters is actually being unfaithful, but each appears in two scenes, with a different lover. This highlights the strangeness of sexuality, so personal yet so ubiquitous.

The performances are good, both touching and funny (an achievement considering the tricky acoustics of the venue). Brendon Taylor as the Writer, Amanda Maple-Brown as the Actress and Emilia Stubbs Grigoriou as the Sweet Girl are particularly engaging.

Steven Hopley’s direction is simple and highly effective. He presents the play in the round and this evokes the dance of the title, and intensifies the oddity I referred to earlier: we watch beautiful young couples navigate the most private of moments and at the same time are aware of the social gaze of other audience members.

Is sex the place where the particular and the universal collide? (Or perhaps more accurately, rub up against each other?) And, if so, is this why sex is so crucial to both our sense of identity and our sense of connection?

Veronica Kaye

 

La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler

til July 12

Coronation Hall, 95 Lennox St Newtown

Performances – July 9, 11, 12 – 8pm

Book Now at www.stickytickets.com.au/enigma

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The Mercy Seat

30 Jun

Two mean spirited people with American accents remain in a room and argue about their relationship for 100 mins (including a 15 minute interval).

For many people, this would be the archetypal modern play. Which is why they stay at home.

But, in this case, context is all.  Our couple are arguing about their future while the rest of America, and much of the world, is in shock.

It is New York. It is September 12, 2001.

What to many was an unfathomable tragedy is to our couple an opportunity. They’re having an affair. He is married with children. Perhaps yesterday morning he was in one of the towers when the planes struck, instead of at his mistress’ place having his penis sucked. Is it their chance to just disappear and start again?

photo by Katy Green Loughrey

photo by Katy Green Loughrey

This production of Neil LaBute’s play is both funny and confronting. The performances by Rebecca Martin and Patrick Magee are powerful and intriguing.

Are we meant to take the characters as real people? Is this play gritty naturalism? If it is, it’s a vision of humanity so bleak that it approaches the immoral. (There’s a school of theatre that equates negativity with truthfulness. It’s the philosophy of those who wish to grant themselves moral holidays. If it’s just human nature to act dreadfully, how can my behaviour be at fault?)

The challenge of this play is the context. Presumably none of us have been in the situation represented.

Or have we?

Many of us are tempted to think the world is screwed, that it’s a chaotic mess, and that we’re all going to hell in a hand cart. I call it a temptation because it allows us to believe that it’s justifiable to be entirely self seeking. After all, in extremis, the call goes out “Every man for himself”.

The Mercy Seat is an intelligent and thought provoking production, a timely reminder that we must not use the magnitude of our society’s problems as an excuse to grant ourselves moral holidays.

Veronica Kaye

 

The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute

Old Fitzroy Theatre til 5 July

http://www.sitco.net.au/

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