The Metropolitan Musical Theatre Co. Arts Theatre. 9 May 2014
Move over, Todd McKenney! Step aside, Hugh Jackman! You'll need to, to make room for the latest, mid-Elvis-sized Peter Allen reincarnation, David Salter. More on him later, but let me tell you about this production. In a word - stunning.
In case you have been stranded Douglas Mawson-like in Antarctica for the last fifteen years - and were not one of the 1.2 million Australians who saw the original production in 1998-99, or the reprise in 2006 - The Boy From Oz musical is Nick Enright's love letter to one of Australia's greatest songwriters and entertainers, who passed away in 1992. Enright links Allen's country town upbringing, his childhood performances at the local pub, and his mother's unwavering support, with the swings and roundabouts of his concert and songwriting career. Allen's improbable encounter with Judy Garland in an Asian night club led to his marriage to Lisa Minnelli, which ended amicably after seven years in 1974, as his homosexuality came to the fore with the changing times. No, I'm not making this stuff up. Enright seamlessly weaves this narrative with Allen's songs and this is where David Salter comes in. But more on him later.
This is a high octane production that does not stop for a breath. While Leonie Osborn had to take over direction, the panache of original director Max Rayner and his casting choices remain side-by-side with Osborn's re-imaginings. It's a fast-paced dancing and singing extravaganza designed to exemplify the showmanship and hard work of Peter Allen. Carmel Vistoli's choreography has the hoofers working with springs on their feet while Jillian Gulliver's orchestra is absolutely first class. The costumes (Osborn and Vistoli) have the wow factor. ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ and the finale ‘I Go To Rio’ were big passionate numbers.
There was a lady on stage. Bronwen James's Judy Garland was absolutely magnificent in her imagineering of the aging and fragile star. Bravo! And the lady's progeny was also on stage. I did not see anything but Liza Minnelli in Selena Britz's impersonation. Everything was there - the brash voice, the killer vibrato, the gestures. Britz's feature song was an absolute show stopper. Bravo! Both of them inhabited the professionalism and sense of destiny we sensed in the originals. While never really in the same room on stage, these two were impeccably mother and daughter. Angus Smith, one of the best character actors on the scene, was called upon to generate a number of individuals with great skill.
David Salter has gone from strength to strength with Chorus Line in 2012, the cheeky Hispanic in Altar Boyz last year, and now Peter Allen. You needed a real sweetheart for this role - someone who connects with an audience, can hold a rapport, and shows them the razzle-dazzle. Who can bang away at the 88s singing into the mike, and then next second shimmy that shiny shirt dancing across the stage. Who can look crestfallen at the demise of his mother-in-law and then his lover, and show you Peter Allen's love of life and conquer his larger-than-life personality. Here David Salter does it all. Bravo!
There are two other performers of worthy note. Post-toddler/pre-adolescent Joshua Spiniello was inspirational as the young Tenterfield progeny Peter Allen (you may see Ned Baulderstone on another night). Only ten, he already has seven years’ experience and I'm sure we'll see more of him. And last, but sadly not least, is the robotic piano, slithering across the stage like a giant sea slug, intent on nudging the actors out of the spotlight.
Well, there you have it. Bravo to the Met!
David Grybowski
When: 8 to 17 May
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 7 May 2014
William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is in my view his most poetic work. The yearning of the young lovers has defined the teenage condition ever since - all the way to West Side Story and beyond - and is dramatically and tragically heightened by the blood feud between the families.
First-shot-at-it set designer Paul Rodda's Verona was manifested with gritty white rendering and a twilight skyline. Actor Paul Rodda's parsimonious prologue put the play in peril - he did not foreshadow the comically animated and skillfully executed bonhomie and hotheadedness he wowed the crowd with as Mercutio. Costume designer Sharon Malujlo assisted director Megan Dansie in shaping a somewhat medieval look with a budget.
It was clear from the opening confrontation between the Montagues and the Capulets that we had a cast with a wide range of experience. Then one is stunned by the reality of the swordplay - not once but twice again in the production. Complex thrusting with very real looking foils was choreographed by Scott Curness, Jaye Gordon, Mark Holgate and Andrew Kenner.
Although already at the ripe old age of nineteen, Abby Hampton embodied the innocent naivety of the not-quite fourteen Juliet. In her opening scene, she impresses the audience with her listening - an obedient Juliet yet we see her struggling with this talk of marriage between her mother and her nurse. Hampton conveys an unusual acting quality of having her character appear to self-reflect on every line and situation, adding an extra dimension of veracity. A stunning performance. Akkshey Caplash makes an impetuous, sulking and in-action Romeo but misses out on some of the subtleties. For me, he did not always match Juliet's emotional quotient. Together, however, they obtained an evocative chemistry, yet still, director Megan Dansie could have asked for more.
The cast elders steadied the production. Cate Rogers issued her usual nuanced and studied performance as the doting nurse with a touch of dotage. Steve Marvanek's father raging at a daughter's disobedience and ungratefulness took me aback when he nearly backhanded our heroine. Nary was there a friar cooking up intrigue like Gary George, with his gut-busting energy and focus.
Motiv Brand Design's Botoxed kissing-lips motif on the program cover and flyers also evokes the hearts of R & J in their final slumber. It is very fetching, and ought to turn some heads into the theatre.
At the Q & A after the show I attended, the cast was clearly in awe of director Megan Dansie's ability to get the show on the road, and to get the play clearly understood and accessible to today's texting adolescents. While some things have changed since Shakespeare's time, some things haven't, but were never said more beautifully.
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 17 May
Where: Little Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
NOTE: Barefoot Editor, P. Rodda appears in this production and this review remains entirely unedited from the original version written by D. Grybowski.
State Theatre Company of SA. The Dunstan Playhouse. 6 May 2014
After the applause, it's time for pondering.
Lally Katz presents us with a play about a very lovely friendship - not just between neighbours but between old and young and across cultural gaps.
In Neighbourhood Watch, a feisty old Hungarian widow called Ana reaches out of her solitude to befriend a young neighbour called Cathy. Cathy's an aspiring actress who shares a house with a geeky friend. Louise McCarthy's design for the neighbourhood creates strangely bland and very tall box houses which, with cunning geometrics, can seem as thin as a guard house or as broad as a unit front as they turn. With the aid of stage hands, they turn frequently. One of them opens up to illustrate the interior of Ana's house.
There is an abstract sense of street. It is quite spacious and cold. Lonely. One neighbour runs around delivering flyers. Delivery boys come and go. Wheelie bins go in and out. Ana's dog barks from an invisible back yard. Thus is suburban life delivered.
The real life, however, comes in the form of Miriam Margolyes as Ana. She is Ana. In one tremendous and utterly committed performance she becomes this peculiar little old lady with a terrible past and a tenacious spirit. She is a difficult, bossy, needy old chook.
Katz has Ana impose her history upon her new friend so that Cathy embodies Ana's past in memory scenes. These, too, feel as if they are drawn as sketches onstage. They are outlines of narrative which are pieces slowly forming a whole.
The construction of the play is in every way unconventional.
It's heart, however, is as old as time. It reaches out for human understanding. It notes the immense importance of care in the community and the value of learning about others. Strangers are mysteries and easy to ignore. But everyone has a story. Everyone has emotional needs. Sometimes, these can match up magically. So they do for Ana and Cathy.
And as expressed through Miriam Margolyes, it is a passage which not only tickles the funny bone but also makes the heart ache.
Margolyes in floppy floral frock and sensible shoes, kidnaps the eye for every moment she is onstage. Eleanor Stankiewicz towers beside her, clad in bright pop colours. She is strident as visual contrast. She is beautiful as an actress, blessed with an exceptional voice. She cooly underplays the role of Cathy giving the impression of a little girl lost.
Eugenia Fragos assumes an almost caricatured appearance of advanced years in portraying the hobbling old Serbian neighbour from Ana's last neighbourhood. Doggedly, this old survivor offers her friendship, undeterred by Ana's almost brutal shuns. Her plight brings tears to the eye.
Effectively, Nic English plays the mysterious boyfriend, Martin while Carmel Johnson is solid and sensible as Christine next door. Newcomer James Smith is touching as Cathy's smitten housemate.
Somewhere in this production, directed by Julian Meyrick, there is an undefinable tension. Or, is it a sense of detachment? After the applause has died down, one is left contemplating what it was that seems odd. It's a puzzle.
Not so, however, is the divine Miss Margolyes. A consummate performance. From a memory play, she leaves an imprint never to be forgotten.
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 24 May
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
By George Orwell. Shake and Stir. The Q Theatre. 2 May 2014
It’s been 65 years since George Orwell’s vision of a nightmarish communist future was put to paper; lucky for us it was never realised in the Western world, but you’d be forgiven for thinking back in 1959 that the scenario was a frighteningly real possibility. However, for countries like North Korea it is sadly a reality, where the enduring story of 1984 seems to have served as an inspiration rather than a warning.
This is Shake and Stir’s second Orwell production at The Q Theatre, the last being a brilliant adaptation of Animal Farm in 2013. One important difference between the two is that for 1984, the company chose not to have an interval in order to preserve the level of intensity that would build up during the hour and forty minutes – an effective decision, and something that should be done much more often with shows of this kind.
A feature of this version of 1984, besides the blinding spotlights harassing the audience in the lead up to the show, was the seamless and innovative insertion of media into the production. The well-timed pre-recorded material was used to great effect in creating the relentless surveillance of the people of Oceania, as well as the beautiful dream sequences of protagonist Winston Smith (Bryan Probets). It also served to heighten the emotion of Winston to the nth degree by providing synchronised close ups of his torment as he was systemically broken by the deceitful O’Brien (David Whitney).
The cast were nothing short of phenomenal, seemingly leaping straight from the pages of the book and materialising onto the stage at Queanbeyan. Hands down, as in the book, it was Probets and Whitney going head to head in the heartbreaking ‘re-education’ scenes towards the end of the play that proved most stirring.
However, the chemistry between the superb Nelle Lee as Julia and Probets as Winston was also noteworthy for its authenticity, as the bold young woman brought the nostalgic, world-worn ‘thought criminal’ back to life for that brief but achingly precious time. Ross Balbuziente and Nick Skubij as supporting characters brought great versatility to their roles and just the right amount of comic relief in otherwise sombre moments.
The costume and non-media elements of the set design were appropriately bleak, replicating the wretched life of a comrade, apart from a charming hidden room (that was literally hidden within the set) that would become the oasis for Julia and Winston during their last days of relative freedom.
Shake and Stir certainly lived up to its name that evening, leaving one feeling slightly rattled and shell-shocked. If anything, it was a good reminder to appreciate the pleasures and privileges of a liberal society and to take note of what we have to lose.
Deborah Hawke
When: Closed
Where: The Q Theatre - Canberra
Bookings: Closed
State Opera of South Australia. Festival Theatre. 3 May 2014
This La Traviata is visually stunning. Christina Smith’s set and costume design is inextricably and perfectly coupled with Matt Scott’s lighting and together they are a triumph and a feast for the eyes
La Traviata is based on the Alexandre Dumas’ novel La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) and tells the story of a consumptive society courtesan who wears a white camellia to signal that her illness precludes her availability – otherwise she wears a red one. She eventually finds true love from a man who can see past her profession but she is pressed by her lover’s father to abandon the relationship in order to protect his family’s good name. The story has been borrowed and adapted a number of times, including in Baz Luhrmann’s musical-film Moulin Rouge! and in Boublil and Schönberg’s musical Marguerite.
The principal design concept includes a small cut away room comprising two semi-mirrored walls and ceiling set on the expanse that is the main stage of the Festival Theatre. The room is lit in a range of evocative ways and oozes both sanctuary and spirituality. It is where Violetta, the courtesan, entertains and escapes from day-to-day cares. It is where she ponders the meaning of her life, and it is where she eventually dies when her illness finally runs its inevitable course. The entire stage is framed by gigantic curved upstage curtains, and one of them comprised images of camellia blooms that gradually faded from a sensual red to an ethereal silvery white to mark Violetta’s deteriorating fortunes. The Dumas imagery is preserved.
Russian soprano Elvira Fatykhova is a recognised Violetta expert, having played the role in opera houses around the world. She has a beautiful coloratura voice and her diction is as sharp and crystal clear as the nine chandeliers that ornamented the stage. She looked stately and seductive, and always vulnerable. Aldo Di Toro sang well the role of Alfredo, Violetta’s lover, but wasn’t entirely successful in raising the temperature of the chemistry of their relationship to the levels it needed. As Violetta’s life slipped away in the closing stages of the final act, Fatykhova’s duet with Di Toro (Gran Dio!..morir sì giovane) was ever so touching. Director Kate Cherry had her stoic to the end as Violetta comforted Alfredo in her arms rather than the other way around.
A highlight of the evening was Mario Bellanova’s excellent interpretation of Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father. His commanding baritone voice was strong, warm and pure of tone. His duet with Fatykhova in Act 2 (Dite alla giovine sì bella e pura) was a highlight of the production.
Conductor Nicholas Carter expertly drew out the achingly beautiful melodies from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, which sounded as good as it ever has in an opera. The audience was understandably delighted. Cherry had the occasional soloist with their back to the audience, and hence to the conductor, and this caused Carter a minor problem but it did give a more natural ‘feel’ to some of the more tender moments.
La Traviata has many well-known arias and is understandably one of the most frequently performed operas around the world. Chorus Master Timothy Sexton (as well as being SOSA’s CEO and Artistic Director) was outstandingly successful with the vocally talented SOSA Chorus. There were perhaps too many of them on stage at times, which thwarted the jollity and atmosphere of some of the party scenes. The minor principals all provided solid support for the leads, and of particular note were Deborah Caddy as Flora Bervoix and Robert England as Marchese d’Obigny who both gave fine acting performances as well as being in fine voice
This production is a collaboration of SOSA, Opera Q (Brisbane) and New Zealand Opera, and it is a winner – world class.
Kym Clayton
When: 3 to 10 May
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au