Independent Theatre. Star Theatres. 29 Nov 2024
Few things in this life are as deeply satisfying as a really good, solid piece of old-school theatre. Or so think many of us. Rob Croser has been delivering this entity in a state of high finesse for years - and at affordable ticket prices. We don’t know how lucky we are.
He’s done it yet again, with designer David Roach ingeniously transforming the old Star Theatre into a very comfortable and believable London flat of the 1950s. Walking in onto the set, which is at the foot of the front row in the Star, took this 60s London flatter right back to that life, replete with its period gas fire and coin-hungry gas meter. Both set and costumes of The Deep Blue Sea are absolutely spot-on.
Hester Collyer has come upon hard times in post-war London, reduced to digs in a converted Victorian mansion the like of which, by rights, would have been hers had she not forsaken her knighted husband and run off with a dashing toy boy. Her mistakes are coming home to roost in this Terrence Rattigan portrait of broken hearts and wasted opportunities. Not even the kind people around her can extinguish her stubborn victimhood.
Through one long day, post unsuccessful cri de cœur with aspirin and gas, she wafts and wallows, dishevelled and in dressing gown, beyond hope or reason.
Hester Collyer is one of theatre’s great melodramatic roles for a seasoned actress, renowned from performances by Googie Withers and Peggy Ashcroft. With his general directorial impeccability, Rob Croser has cast the eminently capable Lyn Wilson in this emotionally exhausting lead role. In thrall, the audience follows the desperate vales, trenches and hysterical highs of her committed characterisation.
There is, of course, a human commonality to her plight and, although one may not like the spoiled hobby-artist, Hester Collyer, one understands her mindset.
She has created a love triangle. Her husband, Sir William, the judge, is still desperately in love with her, but not she with him. She loves the fun-loving drunkard, Freddie Page, a relic of WWII derring do-air combat, now a failed test pilot.
On this crucial day after her birthday, the emotional gambles of her past converge. Everyone comes knocking.
Handsome Freddie is a lovely posh cad, quite perfectly embodied by Patrick Marlin while Chris Bleby stands aloft, fairly literally, as the cuckolded noble husband. His is a beautifully expressive performance and one’s heart breaks for his heartbreak.
The supporting cast uniformly delivers strong and credible performances. Rose Vallen is salt of the earth and commonsense heart of gold as Hester’s landlady and cleaner while Ryan Kennealy and Sophie Livingston-Pearce turn in very entertaining cameos as busybody fellow tenants. Tim Everson very neatly encapsulates the spirit of slightly upper crust decadence in the atmosphere of postwar London hedonism as Freddie’s old school bestie.
Finally, there is Mr Miller, the sad old disgraced German doctor who also has digs at this Ladbroke Gardens address. Mrs Elton, the landlady, knows his and everyone else’s secrets. She almost keeps them. She and Mr Miller provide both physical and philosophical succour for poor Hester, with some of the best lines if this finely wrought play.
Yes, The Deep Blue Sea is very much a period piece. It is precisely dated, and this is part of its significance in the canon of English theatre. The 1950s was an era of damaged people in a bomb-scarred city, of a society trying to put the salve of stiff upper lip upon its war traumas.
While this wonderful Croser production with its splendid Roach set is attracting an audience of older citizenry still with memories of those not so long gone times, it is really a work to which Gen X, Y and Z should be exposed.
While the characters arrayed in the play are of their era, their stereotypes and their places in the cut and thrust of the human predicament are reborn through every generation.
This is a five-star piece of theatre, eminently worth your valuable time.
Samela Harris
When: 29 Nov to 7 Dec
Where: Star Theatres
Bookings: trybooking.com
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 22 Nov 2024
Most Australians remember the Ruth Cracknell/Gary McDonald television series of Mother and Son, penned by Geoffrey Atherden AM. They loved or hated it.
This stage variation on the theme - dotty, forgetful old mum’s challenging relationship with her carer son - is not a familiar “episode” from the series and it has a contemporary setting. Hence, its humour encompasses the very things which drive us all to various stages of dementia right now, things like mobile phones and telemarketing. Who among us cannot relate to these? But, while the play teases laughs from confusion, it also highlights the serious issues of aging and families; the fear of loneliness, the fear of institutionalisation, respite versus admission, the danger of falls and, of course, loyalty and responsibility.
All of those may only be communicated through the credibility endowed by good actors and, as director, the Rep’s respected Jude Hines has roped them in. Penni Hamilton-Smith plays old Mrs Beare. She a seasoned character actor and she tucks this challenging part under her belt with disarming ease and laudable lack of vanity. By the play’s end, she has established the most extraordinarily warm relationship with the audience. It is eating out of her hand, as they say in the classics. And, they whoop her at the curtain call, which, incidentally, has its own idiosyncratic charm.
The two Beare sons are polar opposites and aptly embodied by Stephen Bills as the adored successful dentist and Patrick Clements as the loyal stay-at-home caring carer son. Sub plots give romantic involvements to both men and, hence, the cast includes several well-wrought young female characters, very pleasantly played by Mollie Mooney, Nikki Gaertner Eaton and Jessica Corrie. Children Alifa Willoughby and Harry Bacon appear also as old Maggie Beare’s grandchildren. They are largely seen on a huge TV screen which interestingly doubles as a window on the set, and their zoom interactions tell another whole story about contemporary family life and the trials of technology. The set is generally a bit odd with its see-through front porch, but the furnishings well define the life and taste of a fading retiree.
A number of voices feature off-stage and, among them, Husain Mataza must be credited with a definitive portrayal of classic Mumbai call centre characters.
Mother and Son is a longish show. It is not hilarious and nor is it meant to be. Rather, it is amusing in the vein of touching triste. The high spot of humour is delivered in a gem of a cameo appearance by one Sandy Whitelaw as old folks home resident, Monica.
If people at cross-purposes and manipulative old seniors are your cup of tea in a divertissement of sleekish production values by a great old Adelaide theatre team, this is the play for you.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 30 Nov
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: adelaiderep.com
Ben Francis Entertainment. One night Only. Shedley Theatre. 21 Nov 2024
What a privilege.
That is my foremost thought on being part of the audience for Ben Francis’s Elton John bio show.
What an immense entrepreneurial outreach it was. A one night only “preview” show, an out-of-town try-out run. And, Wow!
Francis, aged only 24, already is a celebrated name on the Australian entertainment scene for his spiffy The60Four productions, four brilliant singer dancers who met back at school performing vast tropes of 60s pop songs to sell-out houses.
Here, he goes out on his own, but in the company of handpicked creme-de-la creme of his generation in the form of a fabulous band, switched-on techs and back-up gals to die for.
The show shone with the eye for detail and the general finesse of the big time.
Razzle-dazzle lighting and visuals, gorgeous fun costumes all over the place, grand piano downstage with and five-man band on a raised dais... The aesthetic balance was as well planned as the content and the wealth of vivid projections swept the audience into a sense of the big time.
Keyboard man Marco Callisto did the musical direction with Francis, on vocal arrangements of course. The polished band consisted of guitarists Jake and Jason Dawson, Will Burton on sax and James Nisbet on drums. Ray Cullen did the show’s visuals with Ethan Hurn on lights and Craig Williams on sound. Tia Rodger and Trish Francis sorted out the array of costumes which mirrored the Elton John life story while Carla Papa choreographed the show including, outstandingly, the three backup singers - Tia Rodger, Lily Horton-Stewart, and Emma Pool. Now, these dancer/vocalists were a little show of their own, cleverly adding another element of stage action for the audience while enhancing both the music, the spirit, and the narrative. I’ve never seen better presentation of backups. Ever. Carla Papa is sterling. And so of course is Ben Francis in a performance of extreme physicality as well as high focus. His Elton bio script was thorough and enlightening, and also moving. And, as well as carrying the narrative, he performed all the songs in that amazing many-voices of his. Talk about range.
He’s calling out for audience feedback to enhance what is hoped will, deservedly, be a mainstream production of this show.
My twopence might be to somehow share the narration to lighten the load and perhaps cull out a lesser-known song or two, to tighten the length. Otherwise, like the rest of the preview audience, I stand in wild ovation.
Ben Francis is a mighty showbiz force with which to be reckoned.
He will go far.
Samela Harris
When: 21 Nov
Where: Shedley Theatre
Bookings: Closed
State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 19 Nov 2024
The stage is dimly lit as we enter the theatre. Actors roam the elevated space, partially clothed, performing their warmups; mouths yawn, lips flubber, bodies twist and stretch. The heaped curtain lies across the stage as pieces of the set are rolled around. It’s all a bit grubby looking. As they pull on their costumes, mud and dust appears to hold the fabric together. The heap of grimy curtain flaps and rises, the actors come to attention, the show begins.
There is quite an art in re-imagining another author’s work and using the perspective of another character to do so. Peter Carey’s novel took Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations and twisted the plot a little, turning the shadowy figure of Abel Magwitch into the primary character of Jack Maggs. In Carey’s version, Maggs (Mark Saturno) returns from the Australian penal colony and is now looking for his ‘son’ Henry Phipps (Pip), the urchin he has sponsored into London society. Unfortunately, while he has somehow managed to become a wealthy freemans, he was sentenced for ‘the term of his natural life’ so is risking all by returning to England.
Samuel Adamson’s script has turned this around again, bringing to the fore Mercy Larkin (Ahunim Abebe), housemaid to grocer made good Percy Buckle (Nathan O’Keefe). Mercy becomes the narrator in this production, declaring all previous versions of this story to be lies, and she is here to tell us what really happened.
It’s all a little odd at times, with the cast breaking into bursts of song at odd moments, and it’s not always clear where we are. However, the performances are enough to distract until we catch up; Saturno is a powerhouse from the moment he walks on stage, and O’Keefe is in his element, wavering between social climbing aristo and slightly camp, fawning nouveau riche ex-grocer.
The author Tobias Oates, a thinly disguised Dickens, is played as a self-seeking, arrogant opportunist by James Smith, and there are some delightfully farcical moments between him and O’Keefe, and there are literary easter eggs aplenty.
When Maggs, who has come across Oates and Buckle while searching for Pip, is struck by a kind of tic douloureux, Oates, as a student of mesmerism, does a deal to heal him, thus becoming privy to Maggs’ secrets while he is under the hypnotic trance. He intends to use the secrets as a basis for his next book.
Dale March, Rachel Burke, Jelena Nicdao and Jacqy Phillips take on multiple characters as the play collects all the threads of the story and ravels them into a mucky theatrical cloth: the actors work hard with what is sometimes a fairly dense script.
It's easy to characterise this as a ‘play within a play’ but that’s not really the case here. It’s more that the Director Geordie Brookman has taken various theatrical forms – the Victorian stage, vaudeville and some decidedly post-modern devices – and exposed the artifice of the play and the simple but ingenious art of production. Actors stand side of stage blowing bird whistles; changing characters move in and out of scenes with the adoption of a hat or coat, wardrobes become front doors and carriages.
Nigel Levings’ lighting appeared to work with the grit and grime of Ailsa Paterson’s set and costumes. To be fair, it was difficult to ascertain all the effects from the front row, almost under the stage (aka the nose hair seats), but the clever use of shadow play and lanterna magica was brilliantly realised.
Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs is a clever re-imagining of Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, and Samuel Adamson and Geordie Brookman have pushed that envelope out a little more, with the Macy Larkin character diffusing some of the relentless masculinity. The literary landscape is ripe for interpretations such as these; State Theatre has done well to bring this one to life.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 to 30 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
Red Phoenix Theatre/Holden Street Theatres. The Studio. 26 Oct 2025
Irish playwright/screenwriter Martin McDonagh’s work for stage and film is redolent with incisive black humour. Suddenly daring audiences over the hill of unsettling plot surprises and somehow despite it all, to laugh even if choking back or silently inner giggling.
Hangmen centres on a momentous historical moment in UK history. End of capital punishment; the noose, hanging, was partially introduced in 1965. Made fully permanent in 1969. Meet them. Visit their twisted world. Twisted morality. Twisted humour.
Managing balance of absurdist darkness and light in McDonagh’s script, along with its pacing is Director Nick Fagan’s humongous challenge. Too dark and fast, lose the impact. Too slow and lighter in levity, also lose impact as well as meaning. It’s a hard ride to balance and he manages it.
Fagan gets the gist of Hangmen in the crucial first scene on which so much to follow is dependent, the last fatefully stuffed up execution Harry Wade (Brant Eustice) and assistant Syd Armfield (Jack Robins) carried out. A young lad later found to be innocent.
A black, challenging scene, it sets the tone for the production.
Banter between Hennessy (Trevor Anderson), protesting his innocence and Harry Wade cajoling, then viciously subduing the doomed man is wickedly absorbing. Play like yet appalling in its ordinary, yet artfully delivered, laughter inducing, bent cheeriness.
They’re quite a piece of work these former Hangmen. Harry Wade particularly, reigning supreme in his noose adorned pub, monstrous ego suborning cobbled together sympathetic locals; Deaf Arthur (Greg Janzow,) Charlie (Leighton Vogt,) stylish gin tippling wife Alice (Rachel Dalton) and moody daughter Shirley (Finty McBain).
Distinctly powerful pall of jovial morbidity emanates from Wade’s glee laden preening pride about his former profession and status. Permeates his every sledgehammer delivered word, even if meant in easy going bar jest. Lies leaden over all assembled, with the exception of old comrade Inspector Fry (Russell Slater.)
The world in Act One is bleakly chilly even if Richard Parkhill’s lighting offers a delicious warm hued wash over the set and upbeat tunes of the 60s play in scene changes.
Ennobling death at hands of “servants of the Crown, “deserving of circumspection and quiet self-counsel is a sickening thing to ponder even if such pomposity is absurd in its hilarity. Especially when Wade gives a newspaper interview to Derek Clegg (Tom Tassone).
Cracking the façade of this world is an equally arrogant, quite bitter, dangerous witted pub blow in Pom Peter Mooney (Joshua Coldwell.)
In Mooney, McDonagh has an anti-Wade type. Or is he? Mooney denies he and the Inspector know each other. Berates locals even as he sits apart from them. Shatters the power structure of the pub. Certainly doesn’t kowtow to the Hangman.
Coldwell’s Mooney is magnificently equal to Eustice’s Wade. They pass very pointed barbs in Act One, but no more. After Mooney has had a chat with Shirley and suggests a later catch up, she heads out ahead of Mooney.
Act Two is rapid paced with an edginess obliterating heady self-congratulatory, boorish, selfish and controlling darkness of Act One in which Wade pulls every string.
Armfield’s guilt over Hennessy has manifested itself fully. He knows Mooney. Mooney knows he may be suspect over Shirley’s disappearance. Is he?
Wade’s Hangmen code of security is suddenly violated.
In essence, law or lawlessness become intertwined in a confusing battle mired in judgemental controlling vengefulness.
No matter how dark or dire Act Two gets, as the clock ticks down to a final moment, McDonagh is still pulling out blackest, absurd humour. The great, very angry Hangman Alfred Pierrepoint’s (Gary George) rage over Wade’s describing him as smelling like death is the most brilliant comic counterpoint to a most shocking hidden moment.
The absolute absurdity is the point of Hangmen. Death as law. Absurd. Celebrating its demise while lauding it. Absurd. So absurd it needs to be funny to see just how absurd it all is.
David O’Brien
When: 24 Oct to 2 Nov
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com