Tag Archives: theatre

Betrayal

23 Jul

I know a lot of us justify the fact we’re yet to win a Nobel Prize in Literature by telling ourselves that it’s really just about who you know.

However, Betrayal by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter raises the disturbing spectre that the prize might also be awarded to those of genuine genius.

Several years ago, and for quite some time, Jerry had an affair with Emma, the wife of Robert, his best friend. Pinter tells most of the story through a reverse chronology, ultimately ending at the beginning.

The impact of reversing the tale’s chronology is twofold.

Firstly, it facilitates dramatic irony. Lies become more apparent, like shards of glass in sunlight. The audience delights in discovering the ways the characters have not been open and honest about the past.

But Pinter’s unconventional structure is not about giving the characters some sort of back history that explains or justifies their infidelity. (I’ve never been a fan of plays that use flashback to explain the present, feeling the question What happens next? is always more interesting than Why did that happen?) What Pinter does is more akin to what a craft-person working in the plastic arts might do. He crafts an object from the concept of betrayal, leaving us as unconcerned with narrative as we would be with, say, a small glass ornament. Instead, the concept is held up to the light, and we’re given glimpses from different angles, to marvel at the way the Truth is tainted.

This leads me to the other stroke of genius displayed in this unconventional structure: it weakens the sense of the passing of Time, as though whatever it is that is being betrayed is beyond Time – which, of course, it is. Every committed relationship we have is an attempt to transcend Time, to deny its inevitabilities, to say This Always, despite all Life’s vagaries.

And this hope filled fantasy of permanence aligns with how we usually think about ourselves as individuals. We imagine we’re like some solid object somehow caught in the current of Time. It’s as though we’ve accidentally fallen into that mysterious river and our natural element is elsewhere. Yes, we acknowledge the current will ultimately beat and batter us till destruction – that’s just a matter of Time – but we don’t see ourselves as fundamentally a part of the world that does that, but somehow outside and opposed to it. The soul-expanding thrill of Pinter’s play about deception is that the characters are continually shocked to discover that their secrets were always known, that their belief in their separation from the wider world was an illusion all along.

Cristabel Sved directs a wonderful production of this superb play. The staging is suitably and deliciously simple. Performances are excellent, offered in a gorgeous understatement that both highlights the glib naivety of those who deny realities greater than themselves, and which creates all the more poignancy when genuine vulnerability and passion are revealed.

Let me highlight a few moments of utter dramatic magic: the deeply human fragility of Ella Scott Lynch as Emma when she is simultaneously known to be unfaithful and aware the affair is over; Andrew Cutcliffe as Robert at a restaurant, cutlery in hand, barely containing his anger towards his supposed best friend; and Matt Hardie and Lynch as the two lovers, in the scene where their affair begins, so wanting to see life-affirming magic in what’s just a garden-variety curse; and Diego Retamales in a terrific comic cameo.

Paul Gilchrist

Betrayal by Harold Pinter

presented by Sport for Jove

until 10 Aug at the Old Fitz

oldfitztheatre.com.au

Image by Kate Williams

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Conscience

19 Jul

This is a fine piece of provocative political theatre.

Written by Joe DiPietro and first produced in 2020, Conscience tells the story of American Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith in her battle against McCarthyism. 

The Greek Theatre can be a challenging stage on which to play, but director Madeleine Stedman uses the space superbly, giving the production a beautiful flow (the type seen in quality performances of Shakespearean drama.) Stedman also elicits some excellent performances from her cast. Alison Chambers as Margaret Chase Smith gives us the iconic symbol of moral integrity, but richly shades that symbol with the warmth of human weakness. As Smith’s assistant, Matthew Abotomey offers a brilliant portrait of determination and fierce intelligence when they’re pitifully tainted with (undeserved) shame. Ben Dewstow as Joe McCarthy plays the buffoon splendidly, presenting both the self-interest and the sleaze that makes this variety of clownish laughability so politically dangerous. McCarthy’s assistant, Jean Kerr, has probably the largest character arc, and Jordan Thompson’s performance is mesmerising, a heart-rending journey of seduction and corruption. 

The play raises some fascinating questions.

Firstly, there are questions concerning the nature of historical drama. Directors are often asked Why this play now? And playwrights are asked Why this story now? Why tell a tale that’s set 70 years ago? To answer, Relevance is usually trotted out – as if Truth and Beauty were insufficient justification for a work of art. (It’s the equivalent of choosing a minor hobgoblin to defend Two of the Persons of the Divine Trinity.) The script of Conscience has a firm sense of its own relevance, with McCarthy portrayed as a type of Trump. History does not repeat, as Mark Twain may have said, but it does rhyme. However, as every part-time poet knows, chase the rhyme and you lose the sense. There are times this script left me wanting to know more about the historical McCarthy and less about the implied similarity to Trump. I refer to Relevance as a hobgoblin because, when many commentators say a play is relevant, they only mean that it’s telling whatever story is currently being told by the media. And when that story is Trump, you might feel you don’t need to hear it again.  (To misquote a critic greater than, I asked for bread and you gave me stones.)

The second set of questions raised by the play concerns politics. The play left me thinking about the word conscience in relation to what might be called the political sphere of life. The title pulls no punches. Margaret Chase Smith followed her conscience in opposing McCarthy and the play portrays this as admirable. The play suggests many other people did not follow their consciences and that was reprehensible. But what impact did Smith’s actions ultimately have? How did her following of her conscience impact 1950’s America? The spoiler rule means I can’t unpack this line of thought further – but see the play, and ask yourself the same question.

It’s a common trope to assert, when someone chooses political actions different to our own, that they have silenced their conscience. It’s also a convenient trope – because it neglects to consider whether that other person ever really shared our values in the first place. Conscience is a private thing, and (talk to any priest who has heard confession) a rather complex and varied thing. What one person considers shameless compromise another embraces as unavoidable pragmatism. I’m making no comment about the historical individuals who didn’t stand up to McCarthy or about Smith’s attitude to them; it’s just that the play left me wondering whether the word conscience is really at home in the political sphere of life. Maybe home is where it belongs, keeping us from sleep in the small hours of the morning, as we stand solitary judge on our own souls. Only I know my own conscience. Everyone else can only guess at it – and why they should bother when there’s a better world to build is beyond me.

It’s through these invitations to thought that I feel the play achieves Relevance (and not because of that media-mimicking minor demon.) It’s relevant because it asks us to consider the Third Person of my imagined Divine Trinity – Goodness.

How do we personally manifest Goodness? And how can we encourage Goodness in others? Do people become Good by being told they are Bad? Are people only Good when they align with our vision of Goodness? How is individual Goodness related to a Good society?

As you can see, the play invites some awfully good questions.

Paul Gilchrist

Conscience by Joe DiPietro

Presented by Joining the Dots Theatre

At The Greek Theatre, Marrickville until July 26

joiningthedotstheatre.com.au

Image by Iain Cox Photography

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Mr Red Light

11 Jul

A group of innocent people are held hostage for an hour and a half, which is coincidentally also the story being told on stage. (Thus would I seriously begin my review, if I were to accept my role in the grand tradition of theatre criticism, a role that posits my superiority to the storytellers. But I won’t – for reasons that will become apparent by the end of my response.)

After a failed attempted to rob a bank, Mr Red Light ends up in the Joker’s Pies store next door.

Despite a gun being waved around for the entirety of the show, the vision is comic and the key word wacky. There’s fun wordplay, set-based visual gags and very committed slapstick humour.

Written by Carl Bland (with Peter Bland and Peta Rutter) the play is absurdist or surrealist in intent, with the incredible scenario serving to invite thought about the human condition.

Dramatists love the trick of offering their characters no possibility of escape (and audiences go along with it because – as I’ve suggested – it often mirrors their own experience of being in a theatre.) But it’s a trick that demands careful consideration of the physicality of the performances; it’s inevitable that close proximity will have to reflect both intimacy and antipathy, and in so far as this genre is a distant cousin of naturalism, there’s enormous pressure to get the pacing right to make this all appear, if not believable, then at least somehow related to reality.

This production is certainly a giggle generator, but it suffers from an imprecision in the physical humour which is matched by a lack of rigour in the linguistic performances. And though the set by Andrew Foster impresses, some of the visual puns seem gratuitous. 

The plot plays out in real time, but texture is created by breaks into flashbacks, imagined scenarios and surprising perspectives.

This suggests the aspect of the human condition being explored is our ability to tell stories. Stories are shelter one character says. But not when they’re merely ever-repeated internal monologues: that sort of unexamined private narrative only prevents us experiencing Life’s fullness. Two of the characters have succumbed to the habit of telling themselves the story that they’re perpetually unlucky. (Always hitting red lights.) Another tells herself a constant narrative of guilt. We are storytelling creatures, but it’s only when we share those stories that their magic becomes apparent. It’s only when we sit around the fire and share with others the journey we’ve survived that stories perform their miracle: the transformation of disparate individuals into a close-knit community.

The unlikely conclusion of this piece is a hyperbolic assertion of this magical ability of stories. And though I feel this production struggles to cast that spell, it’s indubitably a joyful celebration of why theatre matters.

Paul Gilchrist

Mr Red Light by Carl Bland (with Peter Bland and Peta Rutter)

Presented by Nightsong

At Riverside Theatres until 12 July

riversideparramatta.com.au

Image supplied

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Primary Trust

26 Jun

To misquote Gandhi, We’re all children of God, it’s just that some of us are more childlike than others.

Kenneth is such a person.

Gentle, hesitant, uncertain, he lives a plain life and keeps to himself. He works at a second-hand bookstore. Every night he goes to Wally’s and drinks Mai Tais with his only friend, Bert. It’s difficult for Kenneth to imagine Life without Bert – and that’s curious, because Life doesn’t give many of us a Bert after the age of four. (Bert is the only character in Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer Prize winning play who transcends – in his own wondrous way – the inescapable doubts and wistful regrets of this sublunary world.)

When Kenneth’s bookshop is sold, he’s worried how he’ll find employment. (He got his first job only thanks to a social worker.) At the advice of Corrina from Wally’s, he applies for a position at a bank with the evocative name Primary Trust. According to Kenneth, the manager employs him because he reminds him of his brain-damaged brother.

As his friendship with Corrina develops, his special relationship with Bert changes, in a way that’s confronting (for Kenneth) but beautiful and hopeful.

The supreme importance of relationships like friendship is emphasised by an exquisitely simple speech by Corrina about her best friend, Denise. Corrina loves Denise. We don’t know why: in fact, we know virtually nothing about the briefly mentioned and never seen Denise – except that she doesn’t look after her cat as well as she might. But sometimes, when Corrina thinks about Denise, she cries. Perhaps this sounds sentimental? I think Corrina is just being honest, and being honest with Kenneth is life-changing. It’s this sort of openness that helps him find the connections he so desperately needs.

Primary Trust is an absolutely delightful comedy, informed by a sense of small town dagginess reminiscent of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. (The set, by James Browne, with a back wall of many coloured doors emphasises this sense of the parochial presented playfully.) But unlike Wilder’s play, this story is one character’s (Kenneth’s), and the view from eternity that warmly infuses the conclusion of Our Town is absent, replaced by the vision, courageous and true, that the only heaven there is we must find here, amongst the struggling souls who surround us.

Except for one alluded-to-but-not-expanded-upon instance of racial injustice, the world around Kenneth is not malignant, only forgetful. (Or a little too complaisant: The sky is blue, what can you do?) But a little reaching out goes a long way.

Yes, it’s an exploration of trauma, highlighting the humanity of those who suffer – but what the play primarily offers is not a portrait of pain but rather models of kindness (the consistent, persistent type that engenders trust.)

Directed by Darren Yap, performances are gorgeously engaging. As Kenneth, Albert Mwangi is superb, both immensely likeable and poignantly pathetic. With a compassionate charisma, Charles Allen plays Bert, wonderfully portraying the perpetual patience and positivity of the best friend of our dreams. Angela Mahlatjie’s Corrina is magnificent: honest and humble yet hopeful; softly unassuming and utterly soul-expanding. And she and Peter Kowitz do some hilarious doubling, with Kowitz’s bank manager true comic gold. Booth’s script –which captures the wavering richness of real speech – calls for virtuoso vocal work, and the cast delivers (aided, no doubt, by the remarkable skills of dialect coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley.)

This Ensemble production is a glorious invitation to laugh, and an irresistible reminder of our shared humanity.

Paul Gilchrist

Primary Trust by Eboni Booth

at Ensemble until 12 July

ensemble.com.au

Image by Prudence Upton

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Eureka Day

5 Jun

Set almost entirely in the P&C meetings of a primary school, you might assume this is a fun satire of contemporary society.

And you’d be right. Eureka Day by American writer Jonathan Spector is extraordinarily funny. But it doesn’t just make fun, it confronts one of the biggest rifts in our culture.

Eureka Day Elementary is a school built on social justice and inclusivity: a place where everyone feels seen and heard; a place where decisions are reached by consensus; a place where all points of view are valid.

The last of these is the issue. (And possibly the second last.)

Eureka, of course, means I have found it! – and there’s a sense that’s what the P&C believe: that their place is special, that it encapsulates, somehow, the perfect way forward.

But, for all their good intentions, it doesn’t.

Watching their meetings – bursting with thoughtless condescension, moral pedantry and obsession with policy, yet empty of soul-felt kindness, honest humility and genuine openness – is utterly painful. Yes, it’s hilarious, but it’s also excruciating. Earlier, I called the piece satire, but that genre usually employs hyperbole to make its point. But there’s no exaggeration here; it’s just the reality of our present day.

(A reality that feels like one of the rings of punishment in Dante’s Divine Comedy, one in which we’re condemned to an endless repetition of what seem to be absurdities but are actually perverted echoes of our true sins. However, I do think it’s a ring of Purgatory we’re stuck in, rather than Hell; we are purging ourselves; things will improve; there’s no need to abandon hope.)

There are beautiful moments in the piece where our societal problem is artfully diagnosed. One parent jokes that her daughter was very smart but also good-natured, so they knew she would become a benevolent dictator. Another compliments the work of a mime artist, for his subtlety and, we can only imagine, for his rare ability to just remain silent. Another parent says it straight out: she’s sick of the hubris.

This hubris, the belief that they’ve found the correct way, is tested by an outbreak of mumps at the school. Can all decisions be made by consensus? Are all points of view really valid?

As a society, we’ve fallen in love with policy and forgotten politics. And by politics, I mean the sphere of life in which we have to work with other people (as against just shout at them over and over that they are wrong or evil.) The fact that this play centres on meetings where adults must come together and solve problems makes it essential viewing.

(Though I must admit, I’m a little uncertain about the play’s exploration of vaccination. This hot button issue threatens to overwhelm everything else, burying from common view the representation of the political sphere that I so value. But, yes, I know, I know, the dramatic form must deal in the concrete…)

Directed by Craig Baldwin, the production bubbles away at just the right pace, evoking the awful enervating reality we currently endure, yet still assuring us the dramatic boil-over is imminent.

Performances are excellent.

Jamie Oxenbould as Don, a school official, is perfectly, perpetually, and pathetically polite and patient.

Katrina Retallick as Suzanne is both wonderfully comic and deeply poignant, offering a rich portrait of an individual traumatised by the universe’s chaotic cruelty and who overcompensates with a commitment to control.

Christian Charisiou’s Eli is brilliant as the epitome of overtalking privilege, the misguided good that knows not when to stop.

Branden Christine as the newcomer to the school community is magnificent, presenting a fascinating study in intelligence encountering its nemesis: the holding back, the bitten tongue, the seductive whisperings of despair as we wait to speak the Truth.

Deborah An as May has a gloriously warm energy. Her character’s journey is perhaps the biggest of the play, and she pitches it superbly. Her speech in which she posits what she wants for her kids is a highlight, and represents the best of what the play has to offer: the petty hobgoblin of certainty dispelled by a courageous vision of hope.

With this production, Outhouse Theatre shows once again why they are a vital part of the Sydney scene, presenting work that dares to walk our societal fault lines, and keeps its balance with honesty and humour.

Paul Gilchrist

Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector

Presented by Seymour Centre & Outhouse Theatre Co

At Seymour Centre until 21 June

seymourcentre.com

Image by Richard Farland

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Heaven

19 May

This is a beautiful play, beautifully presented.

Written by Irish writer Eugene O’Brien, it tells the story of a middle-aged couple at a crisis point, and it does so with humour and insight.

Kate Gaul’s direction is wonderfully simple, unaffected in a way that allows the brilliance of the writing and performance to shine.

The piece is constructed from two intertwining monologues. Husband and wife Mal and Mairead attend a family wedding. The couple seem to get on well, but they’re never shown speaking to each other because each is in the process of exploring something that will challenge their relationship. Fitting the setting, that challenge is sexual.

Mairead has met an old flame, the man with whom, in her twenties, she had the best sex of her life. Mal is confronting his repressed homosexual desires.

The title? Heaven? Do they both seek a joy that will utterly transcend their merely comfortable relationship? Have both become aware that Eternity fast approaches, with its mysterious, unsatisfying promise of either oblivion or pleasures of a less certain nature?  

In contrast to the metaphysical connotations of the title, both characters use very physical metaphors to express their needs and doubts, underlining that they’re far from finished with this plane of existence. She asks is this where my 50 years has lead? He wonders whether he has the courage to enter the world below, the lower dimension.

Because of my peculiar (and un-Australian) penchant for digging into metaphor, I should make clear that the play is not in any way religious (except what it has in common with all serious philosophies: an awareness of the tension between our inner lives and our outward relationships.)

This is, however, modern Ireland, and the hand of Catholicism is still heavy. Mairead tells of going to England for an abortion. Mal’s sexual fantasies are couched in the language of his desire for Jesus, effectively suggesting the complexity of his emotional situation, its guilt and its passion.

As the couple, Lucy Miller and Noel Hodda are absolutely superb.

Miller’s Mairead is gloriously tough. She doesn’t edit her speech. She’s a proud playground bully. She’s utterly disdainful of her daughter’s choice of partner. Reflecting on the death of her abusive father, she hisses that cancer sometimes takes the right ones. She’s deeply sensual and unafraid to fulfill her needs. Yet, she never speaks a word against Mal. It’s a magnificently rounded portrait, strength sparring with uncertainty, delivered with captivating power.

Hodda’s Mal is gentler, softer – desirous of the direction Mairead gives his life. Hodda plays the humour of the-dag-who-dares with consummate skill, but also marvellously portrays the internal battle between desire and doubt.

It’s a temptation with a production like this to be so taken by the skill of the makers that you forget the meaning, that (to mangle Yeats) you fall in love with the dancers, and forget the dance. But this production – an exploration of the tension between our inner and outer worlds, epitomised in its presentation of a marriage under threat – achieves the perfect marriage between artistry and Art.   

Paul Gilchrist

Heaven by Eugene O’Brien

Presented by Bitchen Wolf

At the Loading Dock Qtopia, until May 31

qtopiasydney.com.au

Image by Alex Vaughan

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IRL

7 May

Alexei has been chatting with Thaddeus on Messenger for ages, but they’ve never seen each other, and now it’s time to meet in real life. (IRL)

Alexei suggests Supernova for their first date. He arrives in his customary Disney princess-style outfit. Before their rendezvous, Thaddeus is tricked out of his clothes by a mysterious woman. Alexei comes to the rescue, but without revealing his identity.

It’s a crazy fun comic set-up that puts centre stage the concept of personal authenticity. When is it appropriate to play roles, and when should we just be ourselves? (Whatever the second of those two options means.)

As the two young lovers, Andrew Fraser and Leon Walshe are utterly charming, finding both the humour and heart in Lewis Treston’s beautiful script.

But I have to admit, it was the juxtaposition of this romantic comedy with a second story thread that I found utterly fascinating.

Alexei’s best friend, Taylor, is now a TV celebrity, working in America with some of the biggest names in the industry. She’s scheduled to speak at Supernova, but the pressure created by the inauthenticity of the role she’s asked to play becomes too much. In a glorious theatricality akin to Harper’s choice in Angels in America, Taylor opts out – not by entering a fridge like Kushner’s character, but by joining some tropical fish in the deep blue (which I’m guessing is an allusion to Finding Nemo.)

While psychologically AWOL, Taylor’s body is inhabited by Phoenix, a super villain with a strong family resemblance to Marvel’s Thanos. (Bridget Haberecht is absolutely terrific in each of these incarnations.) Like Thanos, Phoenix is zealously committed to a grand mission – the Great Forgetting – which will free society from its obsession with pop culture and facilitate true authenticity.

It’s not as crazy an idea as it sounds: Phoenix makes clear the link between pop culture and capitalism – all the cosplay characters prancing around Supernova are owned by just six major corporations.

Ignoring the capitalism thing for a moment, do we need to be freed from stories?

Indeed, can we be freed from stories?

There are several elements of Treston’s very funny, very clever script that seem to posit liberty from stories as a longed for possibility. Taylor is uncertain about the validity of the whole acting game and dreams of more authentic employment. Thaddeus is in the closet, and crucial to his character development is the dropping of any disguise and the showing to the world his true identity. And the coming together of the young lovers – the emotional heart of the story – appears to necessitate the shedding of any performative behaviour if they are to find the real thing. The last of these is particularly curious. Is romance real? Or is it a social construct, built from all the stories we’ve been told? (I found myself comparing this piece with Stoppard’s The Real Thing, a play which clearly asks whether true love is, after all, just one more performance?)

What is our relationship with stories? Presented here in the most delightfully accessible way, it’s a serious philosophical question.

(Warning! Boring, self-indulgent, reviewer digression ahead! When religious mystics seek a genuine encounter with the divine, they reject or bypass institutional authority, yet still they recount their visions in the tropes of the dominant narrative. Christian mystics see Jesus, Hindu mystics see Krishna. Zen Buddhism bucks this trend, suggesting that in the attaining of enlightenment, all narrative is shed – but, in doing so, it only affirms the fundamental importance of story in everyday life. On a secular level, modern pragmatism also displays an hyper-awareness of narrative. Responding to a society that is more soaked in story than any other in human history, modern pragmatism posits philosophical irony: an acceptance that no grand narrative can be privileged, yet a life without a guiding narrative seems inconceivable. It’s ironic because we know our particular chosen grand narrative can’t be proven true but, in a consciously playful way, we commit to it all the same. Treston’s world of perpetual pop culture references, and of a Supernova forest of competing yet somehow compatible narratives, seems a close cousin to modern pragmatism. But I’ll get back to that forest very soon.)  

Director Eugene Lynch elicits exuberant, high-energy performances from his superb cast. The physicality and the mock fights are especially impressive, combining sound (Daniel Herten), lighting (Topaz Marlay-Cole) and movement (Cassidy McDermott-Smith) with hilarious precision.

So, that fairy tale forest ….. Ultimately, what does the play suggest our relationship with narrative should be?

Does it suggest we should outgrow cosplay? That we should dismiss story and live in something called reality?

All that seems too simplistic a reading, one that denies the characters’ obvious joy in performance, and one that’s blind to the production’s deliciously-sweet and invitingly-rich final image.

Paul Gilchrist

IRL by Lewis Treston

Presented by The Other Theatre in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre

At KXT until 10 May

kingsxtheatre.com

Image by Justin Cueno

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Mummy, I’m Scared

11 Apr

This is a work of craziness and true comic commitment.

Set in the late nineteenth century, it tells the story of a family of women intent on summoning a spirit via a séance.

I call it a story – and for the show’s 50 minute duration, the plot works very effectively – but it’s really just a fast moving vehicle for some humorous hijinks.

It’s a three hander, written by Fia Morrison, and performed by Morrison, and her co-collaborators Alison Cooper and Georgia Condon.

There’s a lot of doubling, and this adds to the show’s enormous verve.

All three performers display great physicality, and Morrison herself excels in the type of magical facial expression that’s gloriously hyperbolic and glowing with mischievous energy. (Rather than the Theatre of Authenticity, this is the Theatre of Audacity, inviting an audience response of I can’t believe you’re actually doing that!)

All three performers have thrilling, distinctive vocal styles, and use these to mine and shine the comic nuance of Morrison’s lively script. Cooper is particularly adept at the throwaway gag. (Admittedly, at times, I lost lines from all three actors, but in a show like this, that’s always a risk courted for the sake of sheer exuberance.)

The historical setting makes sense of the focus on seances and the supernatural. The world weariness of fin de siècle society, with its rejection of traditional religion and its growing awareness of the inadequacy of any substitutes, encouraged the most audacious of spiritual experiments.

But the setting also facilitates key aspects of the show’s humour and impact.

Somewhere in the last hundred years or so, the acting fraternity has developed a way of portraying (faux) late Victorian and Edwardian historical characters, one epitomised by a thoroughly declarative vocal style. (It’s one of the styles employed in this production.) Where does it come from? Perhaps it’s our shared response to amateur theatre’s penchant for quaint old drawing-room dramas. Or perhaps, more broadly, it’s modernism’s response to the era that preceded it. Virginia Woolf famously quipped “on or about December 1910, human character changed”. But from wherever the trope derives, the declarative style we routinely give to historical characters is a delightful and deliberate denial of their inner life. And in this consciously comic erasure of psychological complexity, the performers themselves gift us a playfully subversive reminder of genuine human vitality.

Paul Gilchrist

Mummy, I’m Scared by Fia Morrison

Morrison was mentored by Mish Grigor, and the piece is presented as part of ArtsLab: Reverb, a program from Shopfront Arts that showcases the talents of emerging artists.

Until 12 April at Shopfront

shopfront.org.au (for tix and full program)

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These Youths Be Protesting

10 Apr

Aye, they do be protesting.

I’m not sure why the title of this one is in Pirate. The rest of the play is not, and that’s probably a wise decision, as it’s set in contemporary Australia, me hearties. (Yes, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been fighting the temptation to write my response entirely in the language of the buccaneer. After all, in a flat, consumerist society such as our own, what is any serious theatre review but some quaint, seemingly old-fashioned, musty document … but one that shows the way to hidden treasure?)

And this play, written and directed by Izabella Louk, certainly has its treasures.

I’m guessing it’s inspired by the student climate crisis protests of a few years ago, where young people quite understandably answered criticism that they should be in school with the assertion they’d like to be, if only the adults would do their job and protect the planet.

All the characters in this play are fifteen and, surprisingly, that’s the source of its strength.

Louk and her talented cast nail the high energy of youth, and the piece is fast-paced and very funny. Karrine Kanaan as the bossy would-be school captain offers a terrific satirical portrait of the obsession with self-advancement. Rachel Thomas’ Georgie is hilariously prim, and her journey to independence fascinating. Hamish Alexander’s Jimbo is slow-witted and good-hearted, great fun and greatly inspiring. Mây Tran’s Mandi is the serious heart of the play, and her impassioned speech about the challenges and necessities of political engagement is deeply affecting. But the script also gives Mandi plenty of scathing sarcasm, and Tran delivers it with delicious bite.

In these four characterisations, there’s a real sense of the dreams and doubts of youth.

But in making all the characters fifteen, doesn’t the play risk being about being fifteen? Is it a creative decision that threatens to overwhelm the more pressing issue of climate change?

Perhaps. Louk’s script reveals a maturity of political vision that belies its dramatis personae. The challenges of political action are candidly presented: How do you deal with those who support your cause but do so for selfish or stupid reasons? How do you work with people who claim to have the same goal as you but demand a different strategy? How do you not hate those who oppose your cause or, even more provokingly, seem entirely oblivious to it? How do you cope with the hate directed at you?

These challenges are not presented to dissuade us from political action, but to clarify what it is. Despite the current rhetoric, everything is not political. There are the things we can only do alone and there are the things we can only do together. The second of these clauses describes the political sphere of life, and its key word is together. Learning how to do things with other people is the key to political action.

This might seem naïve and simplistic, but this recognition of the true nature of politics is invaluable. The play may portray children, but many adult Australians appear to believe they’re being politically engaged when they’re merely spouting opinions. By representing the political sphere of life as it is first encountered by a group of teenagers – as they first learn to work together – the adults in the audience are gently, and surreptitiously, given a lesson in political maturity. (It’s a trick Harper Lee uses to great effect in To Kill A Mockingbird.)

On an even plainer level, the play’s exclusive representation of youth has an irresistible emotional impact. In regard to that most critical of issues, climate change, reason alone should prompt action, but the sight of fear in the eyes of a child is a powerful motivator.

Paul Gilchrist

These Youths Be Protesting by Izabella Louk

Presented by Blinking Light Theatre, in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre

At KXT until 19 April

kingsxtheatre.com

Image by Karla Elbourne

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The Lotto Line

3 Apr

This is seriously committed crazy.

Written by John Tsakiris, and directed by Megan Heferen and Tsakiris, The Lotto Line presents five people waiting in line to buy tickets in a lottery. They don’t seem interested in winning. Once the outlet closes, they wait for it to reopen. Time stops.

Absurdist theatre is a funny form. Some would say that it doesn’t so much reflect Life’s meaninglessness as actively add to it.

And it’s a brave team who presents a play in which Time stops. Of course, theatre reviewers are never catty or petty, but if they were, it’d be one hell of a temptation.

And perhaps only a youthful team could produce a play in which the halting of Time – the having to Wait – is presented as a fundamental human experience.

That’s what absurdism does: in convention-shattering ways, it tries to express something about the human condition. It’s transgressive spirit means that it especially values innovation (in fact, some commentators might suggest that the only thing absurdist plays have in common is that they’re all longer than they need to be.)

To suggest a formula, absurdism is where the Theatre of Audacity (I can’t believe you’re doing that!) combines with the Theatre of Authenticity (I totally believe what you’re doing.) It’s an absolutely explosive mixture.

I’ve already suggested I struggled to connect with the authenticity of this piece, but neither my personal limitations nor my impatience with decoding should get in the way of discussing its audacity.

In terms of physicality, performances are super tight. The choreographed movement that suggests these characters are slaves to routine is wonderfully executed. Jess Spies as the Lotto Master is a terrific counterpoint, engendering a swaggering superiority.

When those who Wait individualise themselves from the group, there’s more skilled comedy. Larissa Turton’s gruff crazy cat lady is splendid. Holly Mazzola’s clever, particular and prematurely middle-aged woman is a masterclass in focus. Jonathon Nicola’s petulant pedant is engaging fun. As Mr Horner, James Thomasson balances well the eternal battle between frustration and hope. Megan Heferen’s imperious, supercilious Ms Atkins drives much of the piece.

On occasions, there could be more care with vocal work. There were moments when I was afraid I’d be reduced to recommending this show to only enthusiasts of screeching. And, unfortunately, some of the mischievous linguistic humour was lost in delivery. But there’s a neat trick where characters swap vocal styles, and Turton and Mazzola pull it off with aplomb.

The Lotto Line is a playful puzzle, a nonsensical 90 minutes, an invitation to laugh.

Paul Gilchrist

The Lotto Line by John Tsakiris

Presented by Studio Five Productions

At Flow Studios until 12 April

events.humanitix.com/the-lotto-line

Image by Patrick Phillips

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