Tag Archives: Old Fitzroy

Pride and Prejudice

19 Jan

Kitty?

What has happened to Kitty???

In this adaptation of Jane Austen’s famous novel, the Bennet’s fourth daughter is utterly, inexplicably, and unjustly erased. I was mortified!!!

Of course, I’m parodying the pedantry of a certain species of Janeite, worshipers of Austen who are horrified whenever this sacred text doesn’t receive the fidelity and respect they feel it deserves.

(However, to be honest, I did feel the absence of the Gardiners. As models of a mature, successful romance, their very existence assures our heroine Elizabeth Bennet that her vision of true love is not just a naïve illusion.)  

Austen’s Pride and Prejudice attracts pedantry because it’s a foundational text of modern romance. The extraordinary number of film and stage adaptations attests to that. But when I say foundational, I don’t mean merely in terms of the literary genre of romance – I mean of the experience itself. Lizzy Bennet is determined to marry only someone she loves. And with love defined as a heady mix of desire, admiration, respect and an unwavering belief in equality, Lizzy’s hopes encapsulate the romantic aspirations of virtually every young modern.

On one level, adaptations of the novel aren’t tricky: Austen is essentially a dramatic writer. (Though there is the issue of that famously ironic narrative voice; do you simply give it to Elizabeth? If so, how do you present the heroine’s emotional and moral growth?)

Directed by Emma Canalese, Kate Hamill’s adaptation captures all the key dramatic moments and, if an old, sentimental reviewer’s tears are worth anything, the heart of this piece beats strongly.

However, both in script and performance style, this production juxtaposes the drawing room dramedy of manners of the original text with a wacky theatricality. Sometimes, the deliberate double entendres and the unconventional casting make it feel as though the original is being parodied, or at least not being trusted to engage an audience. Several characters are cast against gender, which adds enormously to the playfulness but not much to the truthfulness. (This is theatre of audacity rather than of authenticity.) Some bold doublings ramp up the silliness, and won’t fail to get a laugh from most audiences. The major challenge is the relative homogeneity of the ages of the cast. Some of the representations of the older characters lack subtlety, and the snap is taken out of the original text’s social bite: Age often has an agenda it imposes on Youth, and the manipulation this entails is partly hidden if the generations are blurred.

Several of the characterisations might disappoint small-minded Janeites. Compared with more conventional adaptations: Darcy (Idam Sondhi) is more socially awkward, and Lizzy (Abbey Morgan) more attitude than sparkle (this Lizzy rejects not only marriage without love but marriage in general – which somewhat alters the impact of the final scenes); Jane (Lucy Lock) is less gentle; Mr Bennet (Steve Corner) is louder, and ultimately closer in characterisation to Mrs Bennet (AJ Evans) – who dominates the action more than she does in the novel; Mary also gets far more stage time and is presented as a mistreated neurotic; Bingley is reduced to a joke. (Bingley and Mary are doubled by Victoria Abbott, who displays extraordinary comic talent.)

But I’m not a pedantic Janeite; did these characterisations disappointment me? All roles are played with an exciting committed energy. (To make a hasty definitive judgement about a work whose main theme is the danger of hasty definitive judgements takes either less self-awareness or more courage than I currently command – which probably makes me fatally unsuited to theatre criticism.)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no reviewer with literary pretensions can write about Pride and Prejudice without alluding to its famous first line. (So I can tick that off.) What is a little less commonly acknowledged is that all foundational myths must be reinvented, for that’s how they’ll find new audiences – and keep the old ones alive.

Paul Gilchrist

Pride and Prejudice adapted by Kate Hamill

Presented by The Artist Experiment & Dream Plane Productions

At Old Fitz until 8 Feb

oldfitztheatre.com.au

Image by Phil Erbacher

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The Cherry Orchard

15 Aug

This is not the one by Chekhov. Though it is, sort of. Gary Owen has taken the bones of the story and buried them in Thatcher’s Britain.

It’s odd (though enjoyable) that we’ll put on a century old Russian play in contemporary Sydney. And the odd (though enjoyable) dial is ramped up further when we put on a British adaptation of an old Russian play. (And even more so when you consider that this particular adaptation is actually a historical drama, set forty years earlier than the time it was written. And then add the fact that this is the second modern British play informed by Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard presented by this particular producing company in the last two years.)

It’s mirror reflecting on mirror, endlessly fascinating.

As I suggested, the bones of the story are the same: a privileged family in the process of disintegration. With the matriarchy asleep at the wheel, will they get to keep their estate?

Owen’s version keeps the pre-story of the death of the matriarch’s son, but soaks her grief in alcohol. The result is that the play seems smaller than Chekhov’s, haunted by a dead child and highlighting substance abuse. The sense of social change enervating an entire class is weakened, though perhaps it’s my historical ignorance that makes it difficult to find connections between Thatcher’s anti-working class revolution and the malaise of the landed gentry in fin de siècle Russia.

Under the direction of Anthony Skuse, performances are marvellous. Deborah Galanos as Rainey the matriarch has a tough job – the script rarely has her without a drink in hand – but she beautifully balances bullying charisma and vulnerability. Jane Angharad as her adopted daughter, struggling to keep her home and navigating a precarious romantic relationship, is deeply moving. Charles Mayer as Rainey’s twitty brother is great fun. James Smithers as the young would-be-radical is excellent, combining a boasting bravado with the ominous sense he might sell out. He’s having a fling (or is it?) with Rainey’s daughter, played with a glorious vibrant intelligence by Amelia Parsonson, and their scenes together are electric.

Paul Gilchrist

The Cherry Orchard by Gary Owen

At the Old Fitz until Aug 24

oldfitztheatre.com.au

Image by Braiden Toko

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Do You Mind?

26 Apr

Wittgenstein suggested a work of philosophy could consist entirely of jokes.

Can a piece of theatre consist entirely of questions?

Written and performed by Shay Debney, Do You Mind? is such an attempt.

The script is beautifully whimsical and very funny. It allows Debney to showcase his extraordinary linguistic and vocal skills and his delightful physical comedy.

Recently I wrote, that to be left with questions is exactly what I want from a piece of theatre … so how can I not be satisfied with this?

Some of the questions Debney poses to the audience are simply about our personal tastes or experiences. Other questions are the equivalent of a Zen koan, joyful little puzzles that tease us out of complacency. (They’re of the family of – but not including – What is the sound of one hand clapping?)

We live in the Age of Assertion and Grand Theory. Everyone seems to know the answer to everything. Certainty is now equated with commitment.  A piece of theatre that reminds us of the value of the question is a rejuvenating antidote to this dullness of mind.

Questions help us dig deeper, to see that things may not be as simple and flat as we’d lazily like them to be. We reanimate our world through questions. Questions are how we unwrap the gift that is Life.

Not that Debney’s questions are what most people would call political: they’re impishly playful.

Since we’re on the topic of questions, you might ask this question: Can a show like this – one that doesn’t construct a traditional character and which eschews a traditional narrative arc – is this a show capable of retaining my attention? At just under an hour, the experiment is exactly the right length. Director Julia Robertson masterfully creates changes of pace and pleasing variations of texture. And, anyway, Debney has such a warm, vibrant stage presence that we’re keen to stay for the ride.

(I’ve got to note that it’s refreshing to see a one-person show that’s not autobiographical. In shows in which an actor talks about themselves, I often have to fight the temptation to suggest that the size of the cast directly correlates with the level of interest the play is capable of generating.)

For theatre nerds, Do You Mind? also poses intriguing questions about form.

Peppered with questions delivered in direct address, the audience of which I was a part seemed uncertain when (or whether) they were expected to provide answers. (In conventional question/answer format: Q. Is there audience participation? A. Only if you want there to be.)

But what this mischievous little show does is illuminate the strange miracle that is art. Every single piece of theatre ever made is created by both the artist and the audience. However, we tend to privilege the first of these two. If you think my choice of the word privilege is perverse, just try putting on a show in your room by yourself and see if you don’t come to feel that the audience is every bit as important as you. A show like this spotlights the agency of those who attend.

By focussing on the magic of the question – questions of all types – this little show is a glorious gift, a reminder of the childlike wonder to be found in the choice to be forever unwrapping.

Paul Gilchrist

Do You Mind? by Shay Debney

at the Old Fitz, as a late show, until April 27

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/

Image by Julia Robertson

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Everything is Sh*t

28 Feb

I have to admit, I was excited about this show because of its title. After all, who doesn’t like a guessing game?

Taking my seat in the theatre, I entertained the possibilities. Could the mystery phrase be Everything is Shut, and we were about to be treated to a story of arriving in a small country town on a Sunday afternoon?

Or perhaps the secret phrase was Everything is Shot, and in store for us tonight was a re-creation of a wrap party, that wild celebration that marks the finalisation of filming, when it’s all in the can?

Lost in anticipation as I was, you can imagine my utter shock when I learned that the missing word was Shit!

Everything is Shit!!!

Some people might be comfortable with scatological language, and perhaps even enjoy it (like pigs in shit, as the saying goes.) But even the faecally tolerant might object to the gross generalisation in the title.

After all, everything is not shit.

As an indisputable piece of evidence, I offer this show.

It’s decidedly not shit.

This rock cabaret is terrific.

Writer and performer Andy Freeborn has a glorious stage presence. Freeborn’s songs are amusing and poignant. The band is magnificent. Outrageous metaphor warning: the band is a boa constrictor – steel-tight but very much alive. It’s an absolute delight to hear Freeborn on the keyboards jam with this team, making magic before our ears. I especially enjoyed Austin Hal on drums and Alec Steedman on violin, as they respond to Freeborn’s choices with lightning speed, or when they send down a few electrifying bolts of their own. (Snakes, and now lightning; my figurative language is clearly struggling to capture the energy on stage.) Creating a wonderful texture, Ren McMeiken takes lead vocals for a few of Freeborn’s songs, and displays a voice that’s pure gold. (Reptiles, climatic events and now metallurgy.)     

So, back to that title. It refers to the trauma that Freeborn’s family suffered because of their parent’s marriage breakdown.

The show is a sharing.

I’ve mention before the preponderance of sharings currently on our stages. Perhaps this genre has always overlapped with the genre of cabaret.

I’m not a huge fan of either genre. As a lover of language, cabaret often doesn’t do it for me. Despite the potential beauty of the lyrics, they’re often so difficult to catch on first hearing. And the banter between songs leaves me cold. (If Life is a cabaret, it’s because so much of it is either incomprehensible or superficial.) And I don’t usually warm to sharings because I chose to attend a theatre not a support group.  

As a sharing, this work values honesty and openness. Freeborn appears utterly committed to honesty; for example, they admit their banter is entirely unscripted, a totally unnecessary confession. At other times they appear more reticent, leaving us to guess at their experiences. I have no problem with this; a catalogue of traumatic events is rarely entertaining. And, anyway, in the titular song, Freeborn sings Everything is Shit, but that’s Ok. They’ve found a way out of the darkness.

Freeborn calls the show a healing through song. I’m glad it is, for the artist. For us, the show’s simply an absolutely joyous paean to resilience and transformation.

Veronica Kaye

Everything is Sh*t by Andy Freeborn

At Old Fitzroy Theatre until March 1

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/

Image by HollyMae Steane Price

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Orphans

24 Apr

Recently, as I passed my local RSL, I noticed posters for I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, the U2 Tribute Show, and Holding Back the Years, the Simply Red Tribute Show.

When I was younger, these sort of performers were called ‘cover bands’. I’m too uncool to know whether this term is still in fashion. However, I am cool enough not to be especially interested in this type of performance. I have no doubt the musicians in question are superb. In fact, they could well be better than the artists they are imitating. But still, there’s something less than satisfying about the form.

Few people seem to share my quibbles about what I call ‘cover theatre’. Whenever I see a local company produce a foreign play, or a play we have all seen before, I’m a little bemused. It feels like borrowed authority. Part of me wishes we could……I don’t know…… just transcend it.

Orphans is, of course, ‘cover theatre’. It’s also wonderfully done.

Photo by Rupert Reid

                   Photo by Rupert Reid

By Lyle Kessler, the play is set in Philadelphia’s underworld. (Why are artists attracted to stories about criminals? To quote the musical Chicago, is it because neither group ‘got enough love in their childhood’?)

Orphans is funny and thought-provoking. Director Anthony Gooley elicits from his cast terrific performances, deliberate hyperbolic, close kin to cartoon. It’s delightfully physical (which has its dangers; on the night I attended a crucial reveal came too early because a hidden prop suddenly popped into view.)

Treat and Philip (played by Andrew Henry and Aaron Glenane) are two adult orphans desperately in need of a father figure. Treat needs to learn moderation. Philip needs to learn to be brave. And so Harold arrives (played by Danny Adcock.) Harold might be a gangster, but he offers ‘encouragement’.

It’s an engaging production, with some powerful set pieces. Harold, who is also an orphan, speaks of the time he and the other orphans escaped the home where they were cruelly treated. They roamed the city, and then returned to the orphanage only when their hunger got the better of them. But “they had seen what they had to see.”

A play about parenting is a play about authority. We need it. And we need to transcend it.

Veronica Kaye

Orphans by Lyle Kessler

Old Fitz til 9 May

http://www.oldfitztheatre.com/

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Bad

16 Jan

There aren’t many shows in Sydney with a philosopher as one of characters. Alright, this is a clown version of a philosopher. Some people would say there’s no other sort. (An assertion which the rest of my response, with its usual intellectual pretensions, will no doubt provide supporting evidence.)

Penny Greenhalgh and Kate Walder’s Bad, directed by Scott Witt, is delightfully playful.

Cate Blanchett and Geoffery Rush are about to perform in that much under-rated classic, Mum Where’s my Bucket? However, due to unforeseen circumstances, the two great actors are now unavailable. Step in these two clowns. They find both the execution and the concept of acting challenging.

Photo by Yael Stempler

Photo by Yael Stempler

We usually assume the task of acting is difficult. That’s why we have the myth of the great actor, and fit people like Blanchett and Rush into it.

We don’t usually assume the concept of acting is problematic. We probably should. Pretending to be other people? Fine, if you can actually get your head around what other people are. Which is doubly difficult if you acknowledge you don’t really know who you are.

Bad is an exuberant, engaging subversion of our ideas about theatre.

Penny Greenhalgh’s philosopher is a gentle yet powerful parody of erudition and expertise.  Kate Walder’s stunt man is bouncy and almost irrepressible. He’s textured by the slightest hint of pathos. Dressed to be fired out of a cannon, and filled with the requisite thought-free positivity, just occasionally it seems he has intimations of his fate.

Both performers have a relaxed and deliberate imprecision. It’s as though their characters can’t keep up with the demands of the supposedly important roles they have accepted. This makes them joyfully human and the show a refreshing response to the over seriousness of theatre.

Veronica Kaye

 

Bad by Penny Greenhalgh and Kate Walder

Old Fitz til Jan 31st,  Late Sessions

http://www.oldfitztheatre.com/bad

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The Les Robinson Story and Belle of the Cross

25 Nov

Double bills are intriguing things. Two works that were created independently are suddenly placed together, resonating in unforeseen ways.

This is not a bad thing. To complain about it would be the equivalent of complaining about friendship. In friendship we become different. Our friends draw out certain of our qualities and suppress others.  In fact, it could be asked, what are we before friendship, or indeed before any of our relationships? How much sense does it really make to talk of our own self, independent of the world? Where would this self exist?

‘Oh, if only he/she/they knew the real me.’

The ‘real me’ is a fabrication.

Both of the plays in this double bill are (in essence) one-person shows about a person; which is what started me thinking about the above issue.

Photo by Katy Green Loughrey

Photo by Katy Green Loughrey

The Les Robinson Story written by Kieran Carroll and directed by Ron Hadley tells the story of one of Sydney’s iconic story tellers. I’d never heard of him.

Apparently, Les wrote prose in the modernist style, lived in caves, and was under-appreciated by the Great World. The first two aspects make him a character (more on this in a moment) and the last grants him universal appeal. Hasn’t everyone, at sometime, felt they’re under-appreciated? ‘If only they knew the real me.’

When I say Les is a character, I don’t mean the performance by Martin Portus isn’t rich or subtle. Rather what’s offered to us by this play is Les’ difference; how he was different from his world, and from ours. It’s nostalgic and sentimental, and many people will warm to it.

Belle of the Cross written by Angelika Fremd and directed by David Richie presents us with a woman slipping into homelessness. Gertraud Ingeborg’s performance is moving and engaging. Belle’s situation is not easy. She didn’t choose it. And, so we’re told, she dies without anyone knowing who she really was…….

Photo by Katy Green Loughrey

Photo by Katy Green Loughrey

This idea begins the play and ends it.

The beauty of this piece, and what resonates so magically and thought-provokingly with the first of the double bill, is this:

The second time* we’re told that Belle died unknown, we’re asked ‘Who hasn’t? Who won’t?’ And Ingeborg poses the question with a magnificent and mischievous twinkle in her eye, one encompassing both the pity and the glory of the human condition.

Veronica Kaye

 

The Les Robinson Story by Kieran Carroll

Belle of the Cross by Angelika Fremd

at The Old Fitz, until 29 Nov

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

 

* Apologies to Angelika Fremd for a quote which is probably a paraphrasing, and hopefully not wildly inaccurate.

 

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Howie the Rookie

7 Oct

Who doesn’t like a bit of rough?

Something about random violence and casual misogyny puts a tune in your flute. You dollies know what I’m talking about. Who doesn’t want to see some scrapping?

Howie the Rookie by Mark O’Rowe is a finely crafted tale about the bottom of Irish society. I call it a tale because it’s told. Two actors sit on chairs on a bare stage. One begins the tale. The other finishes it.

Photo by Kathy Luu

Photo by Kathy Luu

Despite the simplicity, these are absolutely brilliant performances. Directed by Toby Schmitz, Sean Hawkins and Andrew Henry are sensational. (And, no, they don’t remain seated. The performances are passionate and visceral.)

What does the tale say? Probably that violence begets violence.

This play is foreign. To me, that is. The whole street cred thing’s not my scene. Living a ridiculously privileged life, this type of theatre feels like an exotic holiday. But, if you’re sitting in front of an electronic screen reading this sort of stuff, you could probably do with a holiday.

Veronica Kaye

 

Howie the Rookie by Mark O’Rowe

Old Fitz til 25 Oct

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

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Four Dogs and a Bone

19 Sep

Brenda: I want to be famous!

Bradley: Why?

Brenda: I don’t know! *

First and third lines said with equal force.

This encapsulates John Patrick Shanley’s satire on the film industry.

This play is very funny. It’s jam-packed with tremendous one-liners.

Amanda Collins, photo Katy Green-Loughrey

Amanda Collins, photo Katy Green-Loughrey

It’s probably one of Shanley’s less substantial plays. The assertion that the film industry is laughable is hardly ground-breaking stuff. However, an enormous amount of money is invested in the triviality that is film while children starve (in the South Sudan as I write). So that means satires like Four Dogs and a Bone don’t lose their bite.

Shanley has created big characters and director Kate Gaul allows her cast to fill them. Design and blocking is kept appropriately simple, creating the space for linguistic brilliance and joyous hyperbole. There were a few opening night problems with pacing, but these will mend, and the cast will provide a terrific night’s entertainment.

Theatre’s revenge on film. Stage’s little brother is big on budget, but small on substance. And Shanley has fun with this. Victor, played by Paul Gerrard, is a stage writer hungry for money and therefore ripe for seduction by celluloid. Collette, played with glorious energy by Amanda Collins, is the star of the movie, but Collette is hampered by that most disgraceful of descents: she’s a theatre actor. Brenda is Collette’s support in the film and hence her rival in life. (Melinda Dransfield gives a delightful portrait of the nightmare performer: a façade of sweetness masking utter self obsession.) Belinda gleefully tells Colette that she looks grotesque in the daily rushes. As a stage actor, she is too big. A delicious irony – after all, regardless of performance style, big budget film rarely does subtlety.

Veronica Kaye

* Possibly a paraphrasing; my hunger for accuracy unequal to Brenda’s desire for fame.

 

Four Dogs and a Bone by John Patrick Shanley

Old Fitz til 27 Sept

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

 

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Thom Pain (based on nothing)

8 May

I try to avoid appearing as one of those self proclaimed experts who compare performances. You know the type. They say things like “I preferred the third grave digger in the ’28 production. Olivier. At the Old Vic. Oh, didn’t you see it?”

Well, the last time I saw Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on nothing) was in 2009. Luke Mullins. Downstairs Belvoir. Oh, didn’t you see it?

Mullin’s Thom was more aggressive than the current Thom, played by David Jeffrey in this SITCO production, directed by Julie Baz.

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Mullin’s was more lash out, than lash in (a play on words I’ve taken from Eno’s brilliant script.) Jeffrey is more inward, more self-deprecating. His performance is touching and very, very funny.

The title is an intriguing entree to the world of the play. The ‘Pain’ is obvious: Thom is disconnected. He speaks of himself in the third person. He refers to a past romantic relationship, but we never get her name.

But Thom Pain is also Poor Tom from King Lear. (Eno’s allusion, not mine.) Like Edgar in Lear, who adopts the persona Poor Tom at a time of crisis, Thom finds in ‘madness’ a type of security. His uproarious ramblings are much more structured than one might initially imagine, and his stories are sharper than any vulnerable tear-laden sharing. This one man show will not leave you feeling you’ve accidentally stumbled into some sort of support group. Thom is very much in control of his narrative. And, with a lot of laughs, you’re going to hear it his way.

Thom Pain also evokes Thomas Paine. (Or at least it does for me. Maybe I’m more nerd than wanker.) Paine was the English/American radical writer responsible for Common Sense, which fired the American independence movement, and The Rights of Man, which defended the French Revolution’s dream of liberty, equality and fraternity. He was a man deeply dissatisfied with the existing order, a man who demanded we could do better. Perhaps predictably, he died estranged from many of his contemporaries. Only six people attended his funeral. Eno’s Thom Pain could conceivably share the same fate.

But I don’t want to push this allusion too far. Eno’s Thom is more existential in his pain. More self centred.

And one of the things that makes this play so very dazzling is its dynamic and endlessly inventive word play. Eno takes simple idiomatic expressions, and inverts them, reverses them, pulls them inside out. (One small example, no doubt misquoted: “I didn’t know where I was, but I know I wasn’t in love.”) Idiomatic language is our companion in the everyday (and so, oddly, an intimation of the eternal). It speaks our common humanity. But Thom is betrayed by this common humanity. Or is he the traitor?

Either way, in this production, the result is hilarious.

Veronica Kaye

 

Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno

Old Fitzroy til 10 May

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

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