Independent Theatre. Goodwood Theatre. 15 Nov 2019
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) didn’t die until he was 94 and some of his contemporary critics would have said not a moment too soon. He lived through the latter half of Victoria’s reign, two world wars, and saw air travel evolve from none whatsoever to commercial jets. He wrote his last play the year he died from complications after falling out of a tree he was pruning, but he had already won the Nobel Prize for Literature 25 years earlier. A late starter with the ladies, he certainly made up for it and manifested his great respect for the struggles of the fairer sex, and many other issues of social injustice, wage inequality and morality in a great canon of plays, including Independent Theatre’s current offering, Mrs Warren’s Profession.
The fishnet-clad, booted and shapely leg on the publicity and programme cover designed by Nicholas Ely leaves little doubt what is Mrs Warren’s profession. However, she is not a practitioner but an employer of sexual service in Europe’s major cities when such a thing provided a legitimised need at the time the play was written in 1893. Shaw sets up this delectable dichotomy of an independent, self-made and successful business woman who is also potentially exploiting white slavery, or is she providing high-earning jobs to liberated women?
In Shaw’s play, however, she is what she is, and he takes copious amounts of time having her explain the delicate situation to her daughter. The narrative then really focusses on her daughter’s acceptance or rejection of her mother’s profession. Unfortunately for drama, her daughter is also what she is, and indeed, no character during the course of events seems to undergo any change whatsoever in their lives. Arthur Miller took the situation of a virtuous progeny faced with the dubious morals of a parent in All My Sons and made a ripping proper drama out of it oozing with conflicted souls and culminating in heart-breaking tragedy. By comparison, Mrs Warren’s Profession is a moral walk in the park.
Nonetheless, this radio play has some interesting and thought-provoking moments. Certainly, Shaw’s observations on social injustice and capitalism evoke shame in realising that much of what we feel is wrong with the world today is so intergenerational as to signal a systemic dysfunctionality. Eloise Quinn-Valentine as Mrs Warren’s daughter is convincing as an egghead calculating her feelings by converting them to algebra. John Roben is magnificent representing free-wheeling finance and conveying the air of a tycoon used to buying anything he wants. Independent’s omnipresent actor, set designer and constructor par excellence, David Roach, provides a memorable vignette of a hangover. His Reverend Gardner easily cedes control of his life to son Frank who is solidly played by Patrick Marlin with carefree confidence and playfulness. John Oster has an ancillary role to the proceedings but launches the first scene with unhelpful haste. Pam O’Grady appears on stage with script in hand on opening night as she is gratefully filling in for the late withdrawal of the actor now not fulfilling the eponymous role. Even with the script in the first act, she is every inch a charismatic Mrs Warren in voice and manner, besides looking splendid in her period costume (no costume design credit provided). However, where drama might be conveyed the climactic confrontation with her daughter, director Rob Croser has the actors far apart and with a distracting script in tow, the momentum dissipates as Ms O’Grady cannot unleash. No doubt, as the season progresses and she has caught up and the scene is properly rendered, the conflict could be quite fetching.
A philosophical triumph and an indifferent drama, Mrs Warren’s Profession deserves respect for Shaw’s proactive voicing of social issues in theatre all those years ago, and Independent’s production is a compelling insight into the author and his times.
David Grybowski
When: 15 to 23 November
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
St Jude’s Players. St Jude’s Hall. 16 Nov 2019
Where did that time go?
Suddenly everyone is applauding, very well-earned applause indeed. Two and a half hours have just passed in a seeming trice, keeping an audience so absorbed in the play that no one seemed to move a muscle. Such stillness is a sign of magical theatre - and St Jude’s has the goods to turn on the magic.
Whatever one may think of Jeffrey Archer’s reputation, one has to salute his fine writing and this play shines forth with a taut plot revolving around a court case against a leading British legal figure accused of murdering his wife. It’s a play top heavy with elderly white men and toffy legal in-jokes. And yet it is a marvellous thriller which has not lost its legal and humane relevance.
Again, the miracle workers at St Jude's have transformed the church hall into very effective sets, one an expansive court room and the other, the living quarters of a very sedate London house. Snatches of exquisite classical music provide a soundscape between scenes.
Brian Knott stalks the stage with utter authority as the eminent senior prosecutor, his wonderful, resonant voice rolling across all the emphases and punctuated nuances of the English language at its court-room best. Andrew Horwood is the defendant. The senior prosecutor’s long-term courtroom foe, equally distinguished in the land of British pomp and, indeed, in terms of acting. He is Knott’s peer in performance. It is a compelling multi-dimensional characterisation he establishes. What a pleasure to behold these two actors, at the height of their skill in a play which could have been written to showcase them.
The production has been directed by Vicky Horwood, wife of the leading man, and she has rounded up some fine supporting actors to adorn the show with seasoned Adelaide quality. Hence, the lineup of David Lockwood, Eric Offler, Robert McCarthy, David Rapkin, and John Matsen are onstage in sterling support. The ever-reliable Julie Quick steps up as a pivotal witness to the event while Joanne St Claire gives very credible substance to the victim. In the younger roles, Adam Schultz as suave and winning Aslam Storm is a perfection of deportment. Andy Winwood is a strong and effective witness while Jan Rice is a picture of passive patience as the court reporter.
And, once again, St Jude’s delivers the expert goods.
This Brighton-based theatre company should never be underestimated.
It has a track record of serious, extremely satisfying substance which just gets better.
Samela Harris
When: 16 to 23 Nov
Where: St Jude’s Hall
Bookings: trybooking.com
Velvet Chase Productions. Scot's Church. 14 November 2019
The Scot's Church is a friend of the LGBTIQA+ community, but I’m sure the first bishop of two centuries ago would be turning in his grave to see the goings-on around the alter under the gigantic organ. While the theatre presented here is stark and confronting, graphic and noir, it is also designed to enlighten, to empathise and to give hope, and this is what Scots Church stands for today.
I am completely in awe by the creativity in this production, and by the mission of its creators, Dannielle Candida and Serena Wight, and their co-developmental cast. Dannielle says, “We have created an organic cathartic expression of both our pasts. We found comfort in each other by sharing our stories that for so long had kept us silent and closed off to most people who came into our lives, due to the fact of feeling not worthy enough because we were too broken - who would want us? We both had these feelings and we understood each other and therefore we weren’t alone, so maybe there are others who could possibly feel this way. We wanted to show that our past doesn’t define who we are, but there are reasons – experiences – that cause mental health illness.”
#nofilter in social media terms means one is seeing exactly what the sender sees in their real lives. This show arrives straight from experience – not only from Dannielle and Serena but from all cast members and their friends – alive and tragically deceased.
The 19th Century Anglican Church’s lofty Gothic revival architecture is a perfect backdrop to director Dannielle Candida’s set of older style furniture, costumes and chiaroscuro lighting. The show comprises nearly two dozen vignettes of mental health issues and their causes. Dannielle begins each scene enigmatically, and, illustrated with the elements of Gothic horror as popularised in such works as Frankenstein and Dracula, or the 1922 German Expressionist horror film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, invoking feelings of dread, anxiety, uncertainty and threat. Symbolic characters from 18th and 19th Century European folklore are employed to perform the role of a demon or shadow, who encourages and abets depression and suicide, and a golden fairy who comforts and abides. We see people succumb to horrible thoughts or the deeds of perpetrators in the dead of the night. Demons also manifest with modern symbols of lack of self-worth, drugs, humiliation, eating disorder, transgender journeys and abuse. Degenerating mental health seeps like a spreading blood stain. But Candida does not always leave each scene in mire. There is the fairy-like character of Hope & Faith who intercedes – occasionally – to keep people strong, to keep them going, to say, “It’s OK to say, I’m not OK.”
Like real life, there is not always a happy ending. Close to the end of the show, a tribute with candles and photos is made to suicide victims known to current and past cast members, including to fallen cast member lost last year. Riveting and heartbreaking.
Each scene is accompanied with a recorded track of perfectly pitched selections, some augmented with the violin of Sarah O’Brien. The music ranged from classical to dance, and my favourites were the counterintuitive renditions of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Like A Virgin and finally The Sound Of Silence which excited the last scene into a rousing climax.
Dressed in provocative costumes of black, Donna Lavill and Saskia Sanders play menacing shadow persons encouraging harm via the ever-present inner voice. Kendall Goode wears a gold dress like a fairy to represent Hope & Faith. Jack Tailor plays himself as a transgender expressing the frustration of prejudice in his transformation. Dannielle Hunter uses her circus movement training to convey issues of eating disorders, self-worth and image. Mime Emily Josephine transforms with white Japanese-style Geisha makeup in her scenes dealing with drug addiction and domestic violence. Tyson Gaddes and Dannielle Candida don bell hopper outfits (in tribute, I believe, to one of the fallen). One of them suicides and should have stayed dead as a symbol of finality. Serena Wight fooled me completely as the male perpetrator in a drug switch and difficult-to-watch date rape scene.
Dannielle Candida said to me after the show, “Being broken doesn’t define who you are.” That statement sums up the tremendous empathy her company has towards persons struggling with mental illness and it seems all cast members come from similar places to the ones they are portraying in the show, sometimes the real thing of their own experience. Very brave.
This isn’t a just a show with a special theme. This is a gift from people who are thankful for their lives and support each other to rise above their circumstances and contribute to normalising the conversation on mental health. A standing ovation was given generously. Double bravo!
The 2019 Feast Festival was Season 5 in three years for #nofilter, including fifteen shows in the Avignon Festival in 2016.
If you missed this Feast, the company will premiere to the world a new show during the Adelaide Festival entitled, Affair in the Gallows, at the Adelaide Gaol on March 6 and 7. It promises to be a “fair” for one weekend only, and besides being an intensive treatment of mental health and incarceration, it will feature performances of #nofilter (6th season) and Gorelesque (4th season), where “burlesque noir and horror collide, where art house pushes the boundaries. Not for the squeamish.”
David Grybowski
When: 14 to 16 November
Where: Scot's Church
Bookings: Closed
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 15 Nov 2019
There’s nothing like ending the year with a standing ovation. It’s like a Christmas gift, if you’re a theatre company. And, for the Adelaide Rep, it was well deserved as a response to its production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Of course, it is not the Dickensian tale as such that is played. It is Patrick Barlow’s droll adaptation which cleverly turns corn into ham.
And then, it is director Megan Dansie’s magic touch with dancing, comic timing, fanciful phantoms and puppetry to tickle the funny bone. Not to mention her casting, which comes somewhere close to perfection.
This may be Tony Busch’s finest performance yet. He is a consummate Scrooge, a wonderfully whiney, mean man. His loathsomeness makes all the better his transformation at the end of this now classic old morality tale. It is truly touching. Of course, sweet Bob Cratchett is the story's character counterpoint and Matt Houston makes quite a meal of the role, using artful physicality in an oversized and shabby suit to evoke a sense of the poignancy of long-suffering diligence. However, Cratchett is not Houston’s only role. He is multiple Cratchetts and Scrooges and he leaps skilfully and amusingly from character to character. He is not alone in playing multitudinous parts. At times, this modest cast with its wealth of witty puppetry veritably crowds the stage out. It is immense fun and the audience thrives on every scene as extortionate and loveless old Scrooge is dragged through the netherworld of ghostly replays of things which eventually transform him from heartless sod to philanthropist.
David Salter could play this show as an audition reel for almost any part in showbiz. He gives his superlative all to each and every character, from ever-loving family man to sadistic teacher. And he plays a bit of accordion for good measure. Georgia Stockham seems eminently at home in the broad Cockney culture of 1843, from heartbreakingly impoverished Mrs Lack to a wild and zany ghost in Christmas-theme hoops. Laura Antoniazzi gets the sweeter parts and, oh, what undulating eeriness she imparts to the Ghost of Christmas Past. Max Rayner and Jacqui Maynard complete this all-class cast, filling in as extras and gliding about quickly to move the sets and handle puppets. Door-moving is a comedy routine all of its own in this lovely piece of Christmas diversion. There are songs and vignettes, outright silly moments and tender scenes all played out on an austere stage on which the set-pieces are ever on the move. Indeed, the efficiency of set movements is another sign of the discipline and taut teamwork of Megan Dansie’s cast. She’s a good director. She has a good team. This is a good show.
Give yourselves a Christmas present and buy a ticket.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 23 Nov
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
State Opera Of South Australia. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 14 Nov 2019
With a lush score by Giacomao Puccini and Italian libretto (principally) by Luigi Illica based on a short story by John Luther Long, Madama Butterfly is one of the world’s most favourite operas. It has everything: a believable and emotional story, wonderful arias, hummable tunes (that stay in your head long after the curtain has come down) and an opportunity for dramatically evocative settings, costumes, lighting and other production elements. It is the type of theatrical event that one doesn’t tire of seeing, and this is the fourth production of Madama Butterfly by the State Opera of South Australia since 1999.
The current production is conceived and produced by New Zealand Opera, and its design by Christina Smith is a winner. The simple set comprises large wall-sized screens that are seamlessly moved by the ensemble to create different acting spaces. Matt Scott’s lighting design is sublime, and the tragic finale and especially the transition from Act 2 to 3 are simply beautiful and completely affecting. Lump in the throat stuff.
The story line of Madama Butterfly is uncomplicated. Pinkerton, an American navy officer, takes a young Japanese geisha by the name of Cio Cio San as his wife to ‘entertain’ him, but it is a marriage in name only and he intends to eventually take a ‘proper’ American wife. Cio Cio San however is committed to the relationship to the extent that she abandons her Japanese heritage, including her religion, and makes enemies of her entire extended family. She has a son by Pinkerton but does not learn of this until he returns after an absence of three years when he intends to cease the relationship because he now has an American wife. Cio Cio San is devasted and is persuaded to hand over her son into Pinkerton’s care. Her last selfless act is to take her own life to smooth an easy path for her son to start a new life.
Act 1 lays the foundations for the rest of the tragic story, and director Kate Cherry allows it to play at a leisurely pace that sometimes weighs a little heavy. This is not the case in Acts 2 and 3 where Cherry allows the glorious score and arias to weave their magic. Australian tenor Angus Wood (Pinkerton) and especially Korean soprano Mariana Hong (Cio Cio San) claim the production as their own and transport the audience to an altogether different place. Their love duet in Act 1 is an early highlight, and Hong’s Un bel di vedremo (One Beautiful Day) is heartbreakingly beautiful.
WAAPA graduate Caitlin Cassidy sings a credible, occasionally melodramatic, Suzuki. The ever-popular Douglas McNicol reprises his role of Sharpless and imbues it with the right amount of empathy, mixed with faint-heartedness when the opposite was needed to fully apprise Cio Cio San of the reality of her situation. Adam Goodburn also reprises the role of the matchmaker Goro but is restrained in his efforts to land the inherent humour in the role. The cast is rounded out by Pelham Andrews as the Bonze, Jeremy Tatchell as Prince Yamadori, Bethany Hill as Kate Pinkerton, Joshua Row as the Imperial Commissioner and young Nate Bryant as Sorrow (Cio Cio San’s son).
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is conducted by the well-experienced Tobias Ringborg, and is at its best during the beautiful Humming Chorus during which the dynamic balance between the instruments is first rate.
Madama Butterfly plays at the Festival Theatre until Saturday 23 November. If you are opera-curious, this production is for you!
Kym Clayton
When: 14 to 23 Nov
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au