Matt Byrne Media. Holden Street Theatres. 6 Nov 2020
What a tonic.
Matt Byrne is giving us just what we need after the fraught, homebody months - a fraught, homebody belly laugh.
The Odd Couple is an oldie but, what a goodie it turns out to be under the skills of Byrne and David Grybowski in the roles of Oscar and Felix, the world’s most gloriously ill-suited house mates. These are the roles memorably forged by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 60s movie and Jack Klugman with Tony Randall on TV. They are hard acts to follow. Then again, the sports writer slob and the domestic-diva news writer have a certain classic comedic substance especially as written by the great Neil Simon. And as Byrne and Grybowski prove, they can be carried off by a couple of capable character actors, even, as in this case, actors decidedly older than the characters they are playing.
In other words, this odd couple carries the show very well indeed and, as always seems the case in MBM shows, they are surrounded by fine support actors.
This is not to say one does not have to be forgiving at times. The American accents are a bit uneven and some of the lines get a bit botched, but the show rolls on in such good spirit that one can’t help just going with it for the laughs.
The New York poker-playing buddies are depicted by seasoned players gleaned from assorted amateur theatre companies around the town. They are very nicely cast with Timothy Cousins giving endearing embodiment to the food-loving cop, Murray, and Russel Ford, colourful as the other hungry player, Vinnie. Gavin Cianci has sleek mobster magic as the cigar smoking Speed and, as ever, Frank Cwiertniak, playing Roy, is a pleasure to see on stage. Their banter and generally anarchically blokey pack behaviour makes a strong contextual backdrop to the unholy domestic partnership of Oscar and Felix.
Of course, it is a period piece. There’s a pesky home telephone on the other side of the room and lots of not terribly PC backchat about wives and divorce. Then again, when it comes to Oscar and Felix, it is a satirical study of myriad universal facets of domestic behaviour and expectations. One suspends disbelief and laughs.
Byrne plays Oscar with strident voice and as many Matthau moments as he can rally. Grybowski grows and grows into the skin of Felix, a complex character, big-hearted and irritating, a man with the thickest of thin skins, or is it the thinnest of thick skins? Ironically, while the play is redemptive for slobby Oscar, perchance Felix is doomed to OCD peskiness for ever.
Bec Mason and Lauren Weber fill out the cast as the two giggly Pigeon sisters from upstairs. They are English girls, both secretaries, living in New York and looking for fun. Wigs maketh their stereotypes and the actresses play the parts for laughs, and get them.
Co-directing with Byrne. Rose Vallen has tapped into the comic quirks of the characters and added the Vallen choreographic touch to some of the chaos scenes and, one notes, the occasional skip in the step of grouchy Oscar.
The show ticks along very efficiently with a diligent production and tech crew right on the ball, and the set is one of the best this critic has seen on The Studio stage at Holden Street. It is an expansive wall-to-wall design with windows looking over an illuminated NYC skyline. Its scale gives an impressive sense of space to the theatre which, at the same time, allows for a benign sense of intimacy. Win win.
Of course, there is no intimacy in the seating, It is all covid-chequerboard. Audience members sign covid-tracking sheets and have their temps taken upon entry and, in the cashless bar, they queue with impeccable social distancing. It is the new way of the world and, to make up for the lower numbers, the performance season of this most amusing production runs right to the end of the month.
There’s lots of time to gin up and enjoy the tonic.
It’s a much-needed laugh.
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 28 Nov
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Red Phoenix Theatre and Holden Street Theatres. 22 Oct 2020.
How to get a full audience when faced with covid live theatre restrictions, you ask?
Take one small covid-quantity audience and then multiply it by three in three separate covid-safe performance spaces complete with three separate covid-safe bars. Ta-da! Financially viable and epically ingenious.
Clever Red Phoenix. Holden Street Theatre’s resident company ever was a savvy outfit and Holden Street Theatres just happens to have the requisite separate performance spaces along with lots of glorious open air.
So Michael Eustice and Libby Drake devised a mini festival of short plays around which audiences could safely be rotated. And, because covid-safe requires that venues be cleaned between performances, they assembled some off-the-wall amusements to keep the audiences properly corralled and entertained between entertainments, to whit, “tour guides”: Jean Walker as fierce school ma’m with devilishly long ruler; Nicole Rutty with a tray of diversions; Michael Eustice in adorable Goldfish Suit; and the living legend Wayne Anthoney with his repertoire of magic tricks and a very handsome marionette.
Then, there are the soapbox orators who later take to the stage inside the Box Bar theatre in the very arresting Words That Matter performance: Sharon Malujlo doing the Julia Gillard Misogyny speech artfully with that awful flat timbre and drawling ’strine vowels; Anthony Vawser delivering well, Robert Kennedy’s 1968 speech on the death of Martin Luther King; and Stephen Tongun presenting Martin Luther King’s I’ve got a Dream speech which is, in itself, worth the price of the show.
The audiences are ticketed with colour-coded stickers for this evening of multiple mini-plays and herded thus in socially-distanced groups of 20.
The short plays are pretty much hit and miss. In all, the evening is like an elaborate revue, albeit most of the pieces are on the serious side. Only one, Auto Incorrect, written by Bridgette Dutta Portman and directed by Libby Drake, is rib-cracker funny. Tim Williams shows some lovely comic timing.
Director Brant Eustice has elicited a certain ingenuous charm from Driving Mr Diddy written by Mandy Bannon. Certainly performers Brian Godfrey, Joanne St Clair, and Nick Fagen achieve a quirky interaction as the criminal and the accidental getaway drivers.
There is something for everyone to love to loathe in the odd array of wee plays. With lots of bars and lots of breaks, not to mention the joy of coming back after a long hiatus from living theatre, the thirsty audiences seem highly responsive and, in some cases, keen to be part of the action.
There’s some delicious character work by actors, Kate van der Horst notably in Intermission and Ruby Faith in The Book of Leviticus Show. John Rosen, Kyn Wilson, Petra Schulenberg, Kyla Booth, and Tom Tassmon also, but in this cast of thousands, too many to name.
The main thing about the production is that it is.
It is chutzpah and defiant good spirit in the face of a pandemic.
It is a welcome night out with friends. It is actors, techs, directors and venues back at work. It is imagination and initiative.
It is Red Phoenix rising once again.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 31 Oct
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Adelaide Theatre Academy. Goodwood Institute Hall. Sea Cast. 7 Oct 2020
For this generation, there’s been an uplift in the number of strong independent role models for young girls and women. To be fair, most of them are fictional and animated, but at least they’re there! Brave featured Merida who refused to be married off, Mulan followed her warrior heart (albeit having to disguise herself as a man) and the sisters of Frozen were an inspiration to legions of young girls.
The story of Moana is of this ilk, with the young daughter of the chieftain setting off on her own path, and eventually saving her people and their island home.
The students of the Adelaide Theatre Academy (Theatre Bugs) do themselves proud with this stage adaptation. There’s a bit of an issue with sound production which shows up early with a slightly muffled narration but otherwise all goes smoothly for these young actors.
With two productions a day, there are two full casts alternating; by the standard displayed by the ‘Sea Cast’, one assumes the ‘Land Cast’ performances are equally captivating. The triple threats are well evidenced with a number of cast members displaying outstanding singing, dancing and acting skills.
This production allows individual cast members to shine, but not at the expense of the ensemble, with many members taking turns at main character roles before melding back into the polished chorus. Some very well timed comedy provides good laughs for the audience.
The set is simple, with minimal use of props, but the production is so alive and so well paced that the characters themselves are all that is required. As Moana (Maddie Nunn) journeys across the seas in her wooden canoe, well placed lighting by Ben Francis conveys moods and scenes, as does his equally subtle soundscape. Costumes are simple, with coloured T-shirts defining human characters as well as land and sea (characters in their own right) and a fabulous Tamatoa (the crab), complete with Left Claw and Right Claw!
While there are some wonderful individual singing performances, it is the ensemble work that really stands out, with strong vocal harmonies and rollicking dance moves. Most memorable however, is the sheer enjoyment on the faces of the cast, smiling fit to burst!
The nine year old companion, who loves the Disney animation, proclaimed this production “fabulous!”. Quite right.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 7 to 10 Oct
Where: Goodwood Institute Hall
Bookings: trybooking.com
State Theatre Company. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 8 Sep 2020
There's a delicious, loving buzz surrounding our new Her Majesty’s as she opens her doors for live performance, the spacious new auditorium now in Covid mode with audiences strictly allocated to alternative seats only. Interestingly, on their first experience, the people seemed to love this restriction and yearn for its permanency; not an expected outcome.
In lieu of the deferred glittering song-and-dance, new-theatre, razzle-dazzle opening, Her Majesty’s is staging a serious play, and a classic proscenium-period theatre production to boot.
It is an extremely tall logistical order for director Catherine Fitzgerald, the State Theatre team, and the Festival Centre administration.
But, Adelaide’s theatre people have shown themselves to be glad, simply glad, to have a show at last and they trust in the pre-planned season choices of State Theatre.
By serendipity, this Patrick Hamilton play provides a nod to Her Majesty’s vaudevillian past, there being references to London theatre of the day and actresses out of work.
Fitzgerald has embraced these links absolutely beautifully, bookending the play quite literally with some artful period shtick.
Gaslight is a Victorian psychological thriller, the tale of a hapless young wife whose sinister spouse cajoles and bullies her into thinking she is going mad. It is a play with arguably the best ending in the world, especially as manifested in this production.
For this extra special presentation on this huge new stage, there is a lush and towering set. It is in hues of green and brown with an affluent clutter of art and family possessions, including, one notes, peacock feathers for good luck in the theatre. The principal character, Bella Manningham, wears a prepossessing deep blue and black heavy Victorian bustled frock designed, as is the set, by Alisa Paterson. If there is any fault in the set design, it is that it is so comfortable-looking that one wouldn’t mind moving in.
Nic Mollison’s lighting is a particular triumph. There are sconces of gas lights all around the room and they play their own vital role, not only in day-and-night interior illuminations but in being an eerie part of the plot.
Perhaps because of the scale of the new Her Maj, all the cast members wear microphones, perhaps a less perfect enhancement to the production and one wonders how essential.
Fitzgerald has taken the giant step of blind casting, having Eileen Darley playing the part of the male detective, Inspector Rough. Always a fine actress, Darley seems to have come to a peak of splendid in her skills. She devours the role, adding, as the director intended, the undercurrent idea of women’s roles in supporting women who silently suffer domestic violence. Darley looks wonderful in the layers of male attire, partly comical and party heroic, Indeed, the streaks of comedy through the play are welcome because the plot has one gritting one’s teeth with resentful fury, such a devious creep of patriarchal arrogance is the dominant character, Jack Manningham.
As one would expect, the lead performances by Ksenja Logos as Bella and Nathan O’Keefe as Jack are highly groomed and attuned, Logos desperately pitiable in her growing confusion and O’Keefe slimy and cruel in his psychological manipulations. They are well supported by Katherine Sortini and Ellen Freeman’s engaging characterisations as the two house servants. They offer light and dark embellishment to the conspiratorial prison of the Manningham marriage.
The Andrew Howard soundscape is subtle and apt for this production although there are periods when the play’s muted vocal tones and soothing hues set the mind wandering.
Gaslight is a long, wordy, old-school piece of very trad theatre. It is whence the term “gaslighting” emerged as a definition of making another person fear for their sanity. In this context, it has contemporary currency since there is Donald Trump out there making us all feel as if our world axis has skewed.
So, it comes to pass that happenstance has happened and that this first chapter of the new Her Majesty’s history is a fascinating story in its own right.
Here’s to the next many and varied chapters.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 19 Sep
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Adelaide Repertory Theatre. The Mystic Dr Drake Radio Plays! A 3-part series. YouTube
Here comes the trusty old Rep joining the line-up of companies which have mastered the art of entertaining their audiences while under the constraints of the Covid pandemic.
And, it is a bravura confection it has devised.
The list of companies who have worked this covid-era theatrical miracle is short. State Theatre of SA with ActNow heads the bill with their sensational, groundbreaking Decameron series, Zoom Theatre of the UK, The Project in the US, and Cancelled, the FB mini-series have led the way into the history books.
And now The Rep.
The Rep has done its own thing.
Reminiscent of its annual stage melodramas, it has produced a wild piece of absolutely cornball retro murder mystery.
Adelaide playwrights Warren McKenzie and Carli Stasinopoulos are the co-creators of Dr Blake, an heroic crime-fighter who is a paediatric surgeon by day and by night a detective with supernatural powers. His colleague, sort-of assistant and would-be love interest is a newspaper reporter called Lois Hanley. In each episode they are confronted with a murder most foul with villains hell-bent on stealing secret weapons, inheritance, or even love. They are as utterly dastardly as the good doctor is mystical and pure.
The tales are presented as radio plays with a row of microphones on a stage and, beside them, two sound effects operators, Mikayla Bishop and Kaityn McKenzie, along with musical accompanist, the inimitable Sandi McMenamin. There are special FX sounds of footsteps, pouring champagne, fire, rustling papers, and you-name-it. McMenamin heightens the suspense with melodramatic overtones or plays tinkling carousel-style backgrounds for the regular "sponsorship intermissions", funny old faux ads that they are.
As director, Warren McKenzie has assembled an extremely able ensemble for these plays. Brenton Whittle, Joshua Caldwell, and Nicole Rutty are the best known names with James Black, Brittany Daw, Laura Antoniazzi, Leighton Vogt, and Aled Proeve. In each episode they play different roles, keeping the whole thing bright and fresh and fun. Scripts in hand, they take one back to the days when repertory radio drama was the mainstream thing, when directors like Stafford Dyson were feared and revered in the ABC radio studio in Hindmarsh Square, when actors such as Ron Haddrick, Iris Hart, Myra Noblett, Margery Irving, Yvonne Hutton, Les Dayman, Len Sweeney, Thelma Baulderstone, and even the young Don Dunstan and John Bannon regularly stood behind the mikes.
From McKenzie’s 2020 cast, there are some delicious performances. Indeed it is good humour, lively characterisations, and fulsome nostalgic aptitude all-round. The actors seem to be loving every moment. Overacting and American accents are de rigeur. And, while it is not a formally-costumed production, the cast members all wear attire suited to the character of the moment. It all works rather well. In fact, the whole exercise, lighting, camera, and sound included, works very well indeed.
It is a gloriously zany and imaginative romp. It also is a gently satirical nod to theatre history and, as such, it is a credit to The Rep.
Samela Harris
Find it here: youtube.com
Since The Rep’s future is core to the intent of the Virtual Theatre, one is encouraged to make donations for the theatre’s much-needed upgrades here: adelaiderep.com/support-the-rep