Triune

28 Nov

The myth I grew up with was that younger people were more radical than older people. As people ‘grew up’, they settled. They collaborated. They became the problem.

As I have grown older myself I’ve come to realise how self-serving this myth is.

More and more I’ve come to feel that many young people are actually conservative. It shows itself most clearly in the extraordinary snobbery of youth. Life (as well as everything else smaller on the scale) must be done a particular way. To use a trivial example, it’s in the small-mindedness of someone who says,  if you’re not performing at Griffin by 30, you’ve failed.

But snobbery can be forgiven. After all,  it’s just fear.

Triune by Brave New Word is an intriguing exploration of our changing expectations of Life.

It’s based on the conceit of one character having a three-way conversation with the younger and older versions of themselves. It asks, how do our values change and how do they stay the same?

I’ll admit I had trouble relating to any of the values held by the character at any stage in his life (too much interest in sex, drugs and travel, and as a result of the chosen structure, too much interest in himself.) But it’s the nature and worth of drama that it presents different world views, and it would be to fall into the very error of parochialism, that I began this article criticizing, to complain that the character on stage was not living Life as I think it should be lived.

Photo by David Hooley

Photo by David Hooley

This piece was devised by the company and there are some wonderful moments. It’s a quick one hour show, and I would’ve loved to see a little more stage time to develop some variations in pace.

The joy of this piece is its assertion that the older character of the triune is actually the wisest. This is a beautiful affirmation of the process of Life, a declaration that it’s not something to be afraid of. It’s a generous spirited acceptance that Life is always, and gloriously, greater than our vision of it.

Veronica Kaye

 

Triune

Brave New Word

TAP Gallery until 7 Dec

http://www.tapgallery.org.au/2013/09/truine-22-october-7-november/

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Dying For It

26 Nov

To live, it is said, we must have a purpose. And so, it follows, we must die for one. Sort of.

In Dying For It, adapted by Moira Buffini from the original play by Nikolai Erdman,  Semyon is contemplating suicide. Virtually no-one tries to save him. Instead, they try to co-opt him into dying for their own chosen cause.  

In 1920’s Russia, the idea of living for a purpose was in the zeitgeist, and not just on a pop culture level, but as a government directive. You will live for the People’s State. It is this, I suspect, that drove Erdman to write the play. And then earned him time in Siberia.

Photo by Bob Seary

Photo by Bob Seary

It’s an interesting play to choose now. How many of us feel a pressure to live for a cause? Our sad experience, if anything, (and if I can borrow a phrase) is the unbearable lightness of being. The only serious attempt to suggest we live for a purpose comes from the infantile world of advertising. 

So why the popularity of the play? After all, Buffini is not the only modern writer to adapt it. Simon Stone was at it only a few years ago.

Well, it’s certainly funny. And director Peter Talmacs makes this clever farce come alive. Johann Walraven does a brilliant job as the bewildered Semyon, and the entire cast shine with the exuberance that makes this a truly fun night. (And Tom Bannerman’s set deserves a mention. Imposing and appropriately ramshackle, it evokes the claustrophobia of the human spirit oppressed.)

Perhaps the play’s attraction is the contemporary spectre of terrorism; the tragedy, and horror, of dying for a cause when it might have been better lived for.

But there’s also the end of the play.

Stone’s take, I recall, was rather different. Semyon was left in his coffin, inadvertently forced to play dead when he was not – a poignant symbol.

The conclusion of this version is even more powerful. A killer punch. Sure, it may be an ill-judged hope that any ideology could encapsulate the wildness of Life, but this final scene is a reminder that this failure does not give us leave to run from Life.

For we are not in it alone.

It is the true People’s State.

Veronica Kaye

Dying For It

adapted by Moira Buffini, from the original play by Nikolai Erdman

New Theatre til 21 Dec

http://www.newtheatre.org.au/

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Atomic

25 Nov

This is the story of Big History intersecting with individual lives. It’s the story of some of the people responsible for the development of the atomic bomb.

This sounds like weighty stuff (and it is) but this new musical does what the best of the genre does so well – revitalize ways of looking at the world.

The cast are terrific. David Whitney is great fun as a Berlusconi-inspired, philandering, status-obsessed Enrico Fermi. Simon Brook McLachlan almost steals the show as an uber-confident fast-talking Robert Oppenheimer. Christy Sullivan and Lana Nesna are mesmerising as they pinball back and forth between serious scientists, Rockette style dancers and Andrew sisters twins. Blake Erikson creates a fascinatingly morally ambiguous scientist. But the night belongs particularly to Michael Falzon and Bronwyn Mulcahy, who play Leo and Trude Szilard. Their performances are brilliant, and it is they who are the focus of the story.

Atomic

Leo Szilard invented the chain reaction that made the atomic bomb possible. The fear the Nazi’s would complete the bomb first drove he and his comrades to work on the Manhattan Project. When it was obvious that race had been won, Szilard campaigned to limit the use of this weapon in war. We know how successful he was. The opening sequence shows a young couple flirting – just as the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. It’s extraordinarily moving.

The score (Philip Foxman) and lyrics (Foxman, Gregory Bonsignore and Danny Ginges) are top class. And, yes, it’s a fun night, but I began this response by suggesting that it was the story of Big History and the individual. And after the war has finished, and Leo Szilard is no longer working on weaponry, there’s an interesting exploration of the idea of responsibility and recompense. And Trude sings touchingly of the special man she loves.

But I am left with the feeling that Leo is not so special. Not because he wasn’t a brilliant scientist and an avid campaigner, but because I don’t know if his situation is really so different from ours. We like to think we’ve avoided History, that our lives can be lived below the big issues of the day. But that’s just a self serving myth. In possibly the most powerful moment in the show, we see desperate refugees from Hitler’s Germany told to just go home. And so we’re reminded that every generation must face Big History.

Veronica Kaye

Atomic

NIDA Parade Theatre til 30 Nov

www.atomicthemusical.com

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The Crucible

24 Nov

The Crucible has drawn more tears from me than any other play.

And this incarnation by Emu Heights Productions is a powerful and deeply affecting presentation of a classic text.

There’s a heart rending three way tension in the play – that between what people say is true, what people think is true, and what actually is true.

It’s an exploration of the relationship between truth and power. (Does it suggest that real truth belongs only to the utterly powerless?)

It reminds us that assertions of truth are often politically motivated. (I’m inclined to say they always are.)

The Crucible

One of the reasons I find this play so affecting is Miller’s characterization of Reverend Hale, here played admirably by John Michael Burdon. Hale begins as the good-hearted but unconsciously ego driven expert only to become the great life affirming doubter. In the final scene, he advises Proctor to give the life saving lie, and I always leave the theatre wondering whether in this outlook there’s a blessed humility.

In contrast to Hale is Proctor’s warmhearted (or should I say red blooded?) common sense. The magic of Miller’s characterization is that Proctor is a man in his prime yet dogged by self doubt. Vincent Andriano portrays this marvelously. Proctor won’t make grand metaphysical statements; his feet are too firmly on the ground. But he knows what is not the case.  He can clearly say what is not true.  And, by sticking to this, he ultimately finds (or is it more accurate to say he creates?) a positive truth: that he is indeed a good man.

Director Ian Zammit has elicited strong performances from his cast. It’s a big one (nineteen) so I won’t try to describe all the performances. But I particularly enjoyed Naomi Livingstone’s multi-leveled portrayal of Abigail, a fascinating and frightening balance between playful coquette and cold hearted assassin, giving way at pivotal moments to the honest vulnerability of a woman terrified she may have over played her hand.  Emily Elise’s Mary Warren is a deeply moving portrayal of a girl out of her depth. And David Attrill wonderfully captures Giles, contentious, foolish and lovable; a portrayal crucial for the full impact of what must be one of theatre’s most moving offstage deaths.

And a last word about the design. It’s fluid and beautiful.

It’s one of the many elements that have gone into making this a very engaging and accessible production, one that has no doubt both pleased Miller fans and introduced great theatre to new audiences.

Veronica Kaye

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre

15 -23 Nov

More info about Emu Heights Productions

http://www.emuheightsproductions.com.au/

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The Maintenance Room

21 Nov

I used to live with a cop. He was a good man, but like us all, he suffered his personal demons.

One Tuesday morning he came home from a night shift more quiet than usual. I asked him how the shift had been. He’d driven around in a patrol car with his partner. At about 1 am they’d got a pizza. At 3 at a late night servo they’d got Slurpees. At 4 they got a call to a house where a teenage boy had hanged himself.

He’d left a note blaming dad.

‘And what was I doing?’ my flat mate said. ‘Just driving around!’

Then, for a while, he said nothing.

‘If I’d been there,’ he said finally, ‘I know what I’d have told that kid: Things change. I know shit all about your dad. Maybe he is the biggest dickhead in the world, I don’t know. But things change. I’m not saying him. I’m saying you.’

For 20 years I’ve told that story to anyone who’ll listen.

In Gerry Greenland’s thought provoking play, two men fortuitously meet at a time in their lives when they both desperately need someone to help them revitalize their world views.

Photo by Geoff Sirmai, Sirmai Arts Marketing

Photo by Geoff Sirmai, Sirmai Arts Marketing

The charming foibles and emotional struggles of these two men are played brilliantly by Lynden Jones and Kim Knuckey. It’s wonderful to see two quality actors play their range. Directors Allan Walpole and Christine Greenough have crafted an engaging piece of theatre.

Walpole’s set design is both effective and evocative. It’s a messy maintenance room at the top of a tall building – we are delving into the grubby hidden recesses of the human heart and the stakes are sky high.

The driving symbol of this piece is maintenance – the importance of not letting our attitudes, and relationships, drift into dangerous disrepair.

It left me thinking about one of the great unremitting conflicts – that between power and fortune, between the things we can control and the things we cannot. But the front in this conflict is perpetually on the move, depending on our life circumstances. To live fully, a vibrant awareness of this movement must be maintained.

Veronica Kaye

The Maintenance Room by Gerry Greenland

at King Street Theatre til Nov 30

http://www.kingstreettheatre.com.au/the-maintenance-room/

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Love Field

29 Oct

Billed as ‘a flight of fantasy’, this is a theatrical confection, a fascinating non-typical Australian play.

It’s a conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Jackie Kennedy, set only hours after JFK’s assassination.

Despite being peppered with historical allusion, Ron Elisha’s play is not an attempt to present a truthful account. But it’s certainly engaging, thought provoking theatre.

Photo by Tessa Tran, Breathing Light Photography

Photo by Tessa Tran, Breathing Light Photography

Director Michael Dean elicits eminently watchable performances from both Ben Wood and Lizzie Schebesta.

And Nick Plummer and Susan Millar have done a wonderful job of transforming the simple downstairs TAP white box theatre into the interior of AirForce One.

With two famous people and their milieu presented the play becomes, if not hagiography, then certainly an exhibition of icons. Johnson and Kennedy as political royalty? This is a fascinating tension. America is a democracy, isn’t it? And aren’t we?

The play is an exploration of the connection between the personal and the political.

It can be tempting to believe that our politics (and our morality) are something we attempt to live up to, a guide for our behavior. But a piece that looks at the personal lives of the politically powerful can draw attention to the possibility that our politics are often simply self serving.

And, of course, we’re all politically powerful.

And it’s self serving to assume we are not.

Veronica Kaye

Love Field by Ron Elisha

Downstairs TAP til Nov 2

http://www.bakehousetheatrecompany.com.au/

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An Ordinary Person

29 Oct

This one’s a conversation starter.

It’s a truism that our response to a play is based on our personal taste. But it’s often assumed that our taste in theatre is similar to (say) our preference for a particular flavour of ice cream.  It’s thought to be an almost physical response, beyond our control. Like sexual orientation.

I constantly argue that it’s not. Our taste in theatre is based (enormously, though not entirely) on assumptions I would class as political, and therefore assumptions which can be, and should be, questioned.

Pic Katy Green Loughrey

Pic Katy Green Loughrey

Despite being billed as a comedy, Robert Allan’s play is a passionate exploration of a controversial and crucial issue. This highly intriguing play explores the concept of victimhood.

My political assumptions about seeing oneself as a victim could be stated in this way:

  1. What we can give up does us good.
  2. What is taken away from us does us harm.

Do my ideas align with those presented by the play? On the balance, I would say no.

Director Julie Baz draws some good performances from her cast. (I particularly enjoyed Carla Nirella’s portrayal of a woman navigating issues of loyalty and morality.)

This is confronting new work. As it should be.

Do see it, and be prepared for some lively post show discussion.

Veronica Kaye

 

An Ordinary Person by Robert Allan

Old Fitz til 16 Nov

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

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Reading Reviews

17 Oct

Every artist knows there’s an art to reading reviews.

(Or maybe not an art. Maybe there’s a wine list. Or should be.)

But as a writer about theatre, I have a confession: I enjoy reading reviews of plays after I’ve seen them.

I know this makes nonsense of the idea that reviews are consumer advice. (My attending of theatre is rather like drinking from some random bottle I find under the sink – and then reading the label.)

I avoid reviews before seeing the play because everything feels like a spoiler.

I like to sit down to Hamlet and be surprised. “Oh, it’s in Swahili this time.”

I like to read reviews after I’ve seen the play because I don’t particularly want to know about the play. (I’ve seen it.) I want to know about the reviewer.

Or more precisely, I want to know about another person. I want to know what they value.

Because we do value different things. In aesthetics. In morality. In politics.

There is a danger to living in a pluralistic society that openly acknowledges this: we can forget to be truly amazed at how varied is the human experience. We can reduce the idea we value different things into a mere truism. But each one of us gazes through a different window. To……….. where?  I want a peek.

Reviewers say ‘Have a look through this window.’ And I want to thank them for that.

And to mix imagery, and to return to artists, let me conclude with this:

Putting on a production is like firing up a particle accelerator.  You get a small number of very excited particles and send them hurtling at a larger, more inert mass. Then, after the collision, you know more about the universe.

Veronica Kaye

Note: The image is Paul Gilchrist reading a review to an interested friend.

The Good, The Bad and The Lawyer

16 Oct

The centre of this play is Henry Crowley, played by Mark McCann. A comfortable lawyer, his world is rocked when his wife (Tricia Youlden) decides to sponsor an asylum seeker (Geoff Sirmai). And to add to Henry’s discomfort, his very working class cousin (Marc Kay) drops in. It’s not good timing; all Henry wants is to present the image of successful stability to a journalist from the Financial Review (Brigid O’Sullivan).

There’s some good laughs in Tony Laumberg’s script and director Richard Cotter elicits big fun comedic performances from his whole team.

GBL 37 - Mark+Tricia

The character traits satirized are self importance and narrow mindedness.

The power of theatre is its concrete nature. No airy abstractions here, not when there are flesh and blood characters so close we could almost touch them.

This is also theatre’s weakness. Henry Crowley in all his glory – parochial and devoid of generosity of spirit – is a particular man.

That man.

Not me.

How many people have sat in a theatre and tried to find comfort in that belief?

Veronica Kaye

The Good, The Bad and The Lawyer

TAP Gallery until 27 Oct

http://www.tapgallery.org.au/2013/09/the-good-the-bad-the-lawyer-starts-october-10-early-bird-offers-2/

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Roberto Zucco

7 Oct

With my no doubt frustrating tendency to write philosophy instead of theatre criticism, it might be expected I’d take this play about a serial killer and use it as a launch pad to discuss that old chestnut – “the nature of evil”.

But I won’t. Instead, I’ll use it as an excuse to write about conventionality.

Zucco’s violence, and the responses to it, are symbolic. This is not a blood thirsty play. It’s an amusing and engaging exploration of rebellion.

It begins with the murderer escaping a supposedly inescapable prison. The prison guards are conventional, in the sense they don’t see it coming, and conventional in that they’re characters virtually out of commedia. Played with a wonderful sense of fun by Neil Modra and Sam Dugmore, they return later in the proceedings as gloriously keystone-like cops.

Zucco, played with marvelous energy by Tim Cole, baffles those around him because he is so unexpected. We follow his extraordinary journey.

Photography by Katy Green Loughrey

Photography by Katy Green Loughrey

He has a whirlwind romance with a young girl. Played with a fascinating balance between naivety and dissent by Gemma Scoble, she longs to escape the expectations placed upon her by her family. Their only concern is that she’s marriageable material and can follow the conventional path.

In a powerfully tense scene, Zucco talks to an old gentleman who is lost in the subway. He’s taken a wrong turn, and is confused and vulnerable. Adrian Barnes plays this brilliantly, capturing the deep doubt of one who suddenly finds the world larger than he had ever imagined.

Later, Zucco kidnaps an “elegant lady”. She is more than willing. This is her chance to escape from her stultifying middle class world. Kirsty Jordan, harmonizing humour and dignity, creates a character whose authority and strength drive her to challenge the very milieu that originally empowered her.

Director Anna Jahjah has drawn from her entire cast engaging performances. I particularily loved Lyn Pierse’s joyfully larger than life characterisations.

Martin Crimp’s translation of Bernard-Marie Koltes’ play is rich and intriguing. There are some delectable speeches.

This play is part of a European tradition. Think Jean Genet. Criminality as rebellion.

It’s a risky symbol. And no justification is offered for Zucco.

It just throws it out there the idea that conventionality is problematic. It offers no alternative.

But what alternative can there be?

To live Life fully – and this play reminds us Life can be over much sooner than we imagined! – to live Life fully, we cannot pretend to know it in advance.

Veronica Kaye

 

Roberto Zucco 

Old Fitzroy until 19 Oct

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

 

 

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