Matt Byrne Media. The Arts Theatre. 7 Jul 2018
The Arts theatre foyer is packed to overflowing on arrival and there is barely an empty seat in the house for Matt Byrne’s South Australian premiere of We Will Rock You. There is an audible buzz of excitement amongst the Queen fans and many are thrilled to finally be seeing the show after previously announced South Australian tours of the professional production were cancelled.
When the lights finally do go down, the restless, non-traditional theatre audience let out whoops and woos as the first chords of the opening number are struck. This crowd is here for the music of Queen and they intend to enjoy it!
And enjoy it they do. They sing and dance along, let out waves of laughter, and rapturous applause. The vibe is one of satisfaction and enjoyment.
This is not, however, a theatrically strong production.
Producer/Director Matt Byrne has spared no expense on this show. It really looks the goods. Sue Winston’s costumes are slick and spectacular, Rodney Bates’ lighting is sharp and professional, and the Audio by Allpro is nicely balanced. The digital creations and video by Flinders University are icing on the cake.
Unfortunately though the singing is average across the board - with a few exceptions - and none of the performers achieve a meaningful connection to the storyline or to their character. In a show which already lacks a strong narrative thread, this leaves it significantly lacking.
The story’s weak premise has a group of outcasts dissenting against a government that has banned musical expression. “Pop” music reigns and the society’s members are, for the most part, willing participants in this sociological, techno-age, construct. Except, that is, for the few rebellious “bohemians”. They believe in freedom of expression and thought, and connect with that via the now ancient and banned musical medium, ‘Rock and Roll’.
Iman Saleh is Galileo Figaro, the ‘dreamer’ of the bohemian rebellion. He performs with boundless energy. Byrne has made a call on Saleh’s ability to hit the right notes in his songs due to sickness, and for this performance he is voiced by musical director Kym Clark during musical numbers. Saleh’s mimed performance is equally energetic, but often way over the top and rarely connects emotionally with the lyric of each song. Similarly, Danielle Greaves – who does have the voice to hit the high notes – has chosen to down play her character Scaramouche, so much so that it comes off as complete disinterest. One found it impossible to believe the two leads fell in love on this stage.
April Stuart and James McCluskey-Garcia are the figureheads of the ruling elite and should have a foreboding presence. Neither is particularly frightening though, and moments of comedy throughout their performance only weaken that presence. Both have significant acting chops, but their characterisations fail to reach their potential.
The pairing of Anthony Butler and Kathryn Driver as Brit and Oz is a strong one, and some of the best moments in the production come from these two. Butler’s character feels spot on for the tone of the show, and Driver sings one of the evening’s most impressive numbers in Noone But You. Another vocal highlight is Scaramouche’s reprise of I Want To Break Free at the top of the show where Greaves is particularly on song.
Byrne has cast himself as Buddy Holly And The Crickets, and delivers a lovely little characterization. His penchant for adlib is well and truly overworked in the second act however. Despite being funny, it sits completely out of context with the show and makes an already long show, even longer.
The use of old school blackouts for set changes is excessive and unnecessary, and adds to a feeling of disjointedness that pervades the whole production. There is a tight ensemble of dancing girls led by Stacey Baldock who drag the numbers along, but choreographer Sarah Williams should have identified the strengths and weaknesses in the ensemble earlier and choreographed more to their abilities.
Kym Clark’s musical direction is tight once the music is underway. The band sounds great and Patrick Maher’s lead guitar solo in We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody is a highlight.
All that being said, much of the audience appears to well and truly get into the swing of it. If that is the measure of a successful production then this one might just serve as intended.
Paul Rodda
When/Where: 5 to 14 Jul – Arts Theatre
When/Where: 19 to 28 Jul – Shedley Theatre
Bookings: mattbyrnemedia.com.au
State Theatre & Malthouse. Odeon Theatre. 6 Jul 2018
Never has there been a more gripping, heart-rending opening to a play. Within moments of curtain rise, audience members are in tears. And yet, the action has been offstage.
Immediately, it is clear that Jada Alberts has tapped a nerve in her play Brothers Wreck, that there is a touch of genius to her skills as an emerging Australian playwright.
As an Indigenous Australian, she has written this play, she says, as a “love letter” to her family. In so doing, she has taken all of us under the skin of contemporary Aboriginal societal dysfunction. It is an intense experience. It is an emotional rollercoaster.
The play is set in rain-drenched, sweltering Darwin. With the sounds of torrential downpours and heavy drips, rain streaming through the ceiling of the set, the climate seems tangible. Designer Dale Ferguson's towering set of plastic-panelled walls with lots of cheap screen doors gives the idea of a block of council units. It is a sensationally good set. Unforgettable.
As is this play.
Its catalyst is the suicide by hanging of a young indigenous man. His body is found too late. He cannot be saved. The reason for his suicide is not defined. It was fuelled by alcohol and cultural despair. It sets off drinking and more cultural despair. Ruben, a cousin of the dead man, is on parole and he is an angry, angry, grief-stricken black man. Even the wisest indigenous counsellor cannot get the chips off his shoulder. Played by Dion Williams, Ruben has a storm of dialogue to impart, a lot of it rambled and mumbled and roared and raged, unreasonable and unreasoning, a flailing barrage of pain. Alcohol makes his pain worse and more potentially dangerous than that being suffered by the rest of the family. Theirs is eclipsed in the need to support and pacify him. One grows quickly to love the family, not only through Albert’s writing of the characters but through the marvellous performances. If Leonie Whyman is superb in her portrayal of the traumatised sister, Lisa Flanagan is utterly consummate as the stalwart auntie who glues the family together. They are well supported by Nelson Baker as young boyfriend Jarrod, and the renowned Trevor Jamieson as the patient counsellor. His voice is such a pleasure on the ear, and his mega-beard seems straight out of Edward Lear.
The narrative of grief and loss is compounded by the absence of the family mother. She is in hospital and her prognosis is not good. Thus the emotional experiences of the play resonate with audiences of all cultural backgrounds. Not to take away from her cultural imperative, but Jada Alberts has written an Aboriginal play which rings true for the world at large. She also has directed this production with a deftness which makes it ebb and flow with fine emotional balance. Chris Petridis’s lighting fits like a glove and Kelly Ryall’s soundscape, apart from a couple of attacks of aggressive volume, enhances the moods of the work and makes the hellish rainy season feel hellish real.
Despite and because of its grim theme, this is a lovely landmark piece of Australian theatre.
Brava Jada Alberts.
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 15 Jul
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
STARC Productions. Bakehouse Theatre. 5 July 2018
A rising star on the professional sidelines of Adelaide theatre is this tiny company: just three people, a director and two performers.
Director Tony Knight has taught both actors, Stefanie Rossi and Marc Clement, and they are a couple. It is a rare, tight-knit stage relationship and, as STARC, they come together expressing specific theatrical purposes. Jim Cartwright’s Two is an ideal showcase. The two actors perform fourteen roles depicting a night in the life of a north of England pub. The principal characters are the Landlady and Landlord, the publicans, with their familiar customer banter across the bar and their domestic acrimony behind it. These characters play straight through the fourth wall, audience members playing the throng in the pub being handed drinks and sandwiches. Thereafter, from the depths of the black stage arrive the regular customers, a cross-section of locals from the sad elderly to the crass would-be courtship. It’s quick changes and monologues, accents and character capsules for the actors.
The idea behind the play is that everyone is a story, if you just stop to listen to them. The truth also is that not everyone is interesting. A lot of characters in this world are clichéd because cliché emerges from commonality. And there is no place with a greater common thread than the local pub; or so it always used to be in the UK of yore.
The on-the-make rogue with a roving eye makes peacock play for women in the audience but in truth is a manipulative parasite on his hapless girlfriend. The old biddie wrapped in scarves just has to get away from the burden of caring for her ageing dependent. Old age, in the Cartwright view, is pitiful. Youth is harried and shallow. People are damaged. Drinking is party and panacea. The publicans keep the drinks flowing as the crowds ebb and flow and then are left with a lot of glasses and their own private demons.
Knight’s direction and Stephen Dean’s lighting convey an intensity to this world. The action is played downstage, right in the face of the audience. Not all the characterisations soar. The publicans are well-observed and delivered by Rossi and Clements. They are believable and are the lynchpins of the production. The actors struggle a little with the geriatrics but thrive on the antics of the show-off pair Moth and Maude and the other pair with their torment of jealousy and brooding violence. Rossi is quite heartbreaking as that broken woman while Clement is aptly shocking. They are a golden pair of talented actors, rightly mentored by their distinguished director.
There are few flaws, perhaps just the vocal efforts at old age and, truth be told, some low spots in the award-winning playwright’s script.
In all, however, it is another rewarding voyage into another world on the stage of the Bakehouse Theatre.
Samela Harris
When: 5 to 14 July
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
Kate Leigh - The worst woman in Sydney. Cabaret Festival. The Space. 15 Jun 2018
What a ripper of a show.
Libby Donovan taps into the heart and soul of modern cabaret with this exquisitely devised musical theatre piece.
It centres around the extraordinary life of Sydney crime queen, Kate Leigh, whose acumen running fancy grog shops and marketing drugs and prostitution made her not only phenomenally rich but also a media celebrity of the 1920s to 40s. She was as kind as she was ruthless and, despite the brutal underworld nature of many of her exploits, she was a remarkable businesswoman in an era which brought women few opportunities. This is the feminist message which O’Donovan evokes with her marvellous musical narrative.
O’Donovan arrives in The Space voice first, slowly weaving her way through the crowded cabaret tables, with the spotlight on her massive wig of long blond tresses. That voice is sublime, the theatre sound perfectly balanced so not only the beauty of the soft notes lingers in the air but the precision of every syllable with it. The audience is immediately captivated. It is a good entrance. And the show just keeps getting better.
Of course it is all tightly scripted and directed. It is a bio show with a complicated chronology. But O’Donovan’s loose, casual style makes it feel more like a friend telling an engrossing story.
She’s clad in a gorgeous magenta beaded and fringed 20s number, not all of it visible thanks to the sight-lines, and a monster fur stole of arctic fox or some such. There’s a lovely old 20s lamp on stage, an armchair and a giant projection screen on which black and white archival photos are presented as in a wooden picture frame. The aesthetic is dramatic. Her three piece jazz band has already established itself with some rousing pre-show entertainment. It settles in to back the star with a companionable spirit.
And, O’Donovan brings “the worst woman in Sydney” to life in word and song. She does red hot mama with the song Because Mama’s Got the Booze, soul with Lonely Girl, blues with Dangerous Girl, rag with Worst Woman and brings the house down with the fabulous tune of Six O’Clock. The songs carry narrative punch as well as classic jazz construction dominated by catchy chorus lines.
At one point, when Kate Leigh’s rival gang leader Tilly Devine is featuring in the storyline, another singer emerges from the audience to parry briefly in the character. The audience recognises it is Kate’s spouse, C&W star Becky Cole, and roars with approval.
"The Worst Woman in Sydney" is a finely-researched and constructed show. In its 70 minutes, it takes the audience through highs and lows and spots of humour: marriages and incarcerations, razor wars and shootings, snowstorms of cocaine, and media manipulation. It sets a vivid scene of rough old days of crime and tough old women achieving daunting power against the odds of the justice system. And, it features that wonderful, powerful, versatile voice of Libby O’Donovan and one vivid song after another. She makes it all seem effortless; the mark of the true pro.
Brava.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 17 June
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 13 Jun 2018
Veteran Aussie rocker Mark Holden has seen a few ups and downs through his career. The Carnation Kid soared to success as a fresh-faced Adelaide lad before his career palled, rose, dropped, sparkled…
He’s been a star. He’s been a student. He’s been a producer. He’s been a songwriter. He’s now a barrister and a beloved performer with one helluva tale to tell.
This tale is the substance of his Cabaret Festival show.
Clad in a snazzy red ringmaster’s jacket and accompanied by a four-piece band on the stage, he relates the Holden family saga, how he was descended from true circus folk, salt of the earth farmer circus folk who toured from Gelong to Ceduna in the early 1900s. It all began with the one-legged slack-wire and trapeze artist, Adolphus and his nine singing, dancing acrobatic children. Adolphus played the Tivoli in the 1870s. Holden has grainy old black and white photos projected onto a huge screen to prove it all and he sings a yodelling country and western number, My Dear Old Daddy, while the audience gazes at the image of a rural big top of yore. It was the Holden Ashton Circus in those days.
Mark Holden asserts that the circus is in his blood and, indeed, pulses merrily through the veins of all the Holden descendants.
Thus does he tell of Holden travels and travails, highs and lows, success and failure, hardship and success.
There was a grim shadow in the family history, Holden reveals. They farmed lovely land around Geelong where the Aboriginal people long had camped and travelled. But no more, the Wathaurong. The settlers, his ancestors among them, sent out “kill parties” to slaughter them and deter their return to the farmlands. Holden laments this awful legacy and has worked with the Aboriginal community and particularly one Mick Ryan creating a fierce history song called The Kill Party. He furthers the theme with a dispossession song, beautifully arranged albeit a forgettable tune.
The stage lighting, with fair-haired Holden in his red coat beneath projected scenes of verdant Australian landscape, is particularly pleasing to the eye and the old rocker is in fine voice.
His bio show is divided into chapters and thus comes the Countdown era with Holden singing Never Fall in Love Again, the screen showing scenes of the wild fandom of the day and the evolution of the Holden’s red carnation tradition.
With video clips illustrating the moments, he swings through his historic casting as the first ever Joseph of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat, his early acting in The Young Doctors, time with the Hoff on Baywatch, a battle with cancer, a return to law school, the days of Vanessa Amorosi, Australian Idol, and Dancing with the Stars.
Holden has been in and out of the spotlight for decades so he has a wealth of tales to tell; perhaps too many. The show could do with a cut, albeit Holden races through the mass of anecdotes and nostalgia with amiable efficiency.
The old star has not lost his appeal and there are lots of fans in the audience.
For a grand finale, he distributes red carnations throughout the auditorium, a gesture which is acclaimed with delight.
From the experiences of his career, today’s wise and seasoned Mark Holden promotes a theme of Nothing Lasts Forever and "making the best of what you’ve got”.
He gives us a substantial sentimental journey and a hearty slice of Australian entertainment history.
Samela Harris
When: 13 & 14 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed