Feast Festival. Nexus Arts, Lions Arts Centre. 17 Nov 2017
If burlesque is about extravagance, parody and caricature particularly with a focus on nudity, then Brodie John’s Burlesque by Force is not a burlesque performance. Rather it is a carefully constructed glimpse into the fragile world of a rape victim who shelters behind the persona of a burlesque performer. It is a relatively short piece – some 35 to 40 minutes – but it packs a punch that leaves you thinking long after you have left the theatre.
Despite its impact, if Burlesque by Force is to have an ongoing existence as a piece of theatre beyond its recent world première, as it deserves, it needs further development. In short it needs to be longer and would merit being less ‘designed’ in its format; more on that later.
Brodie John wrote the script and was the sole performer in what was a well-executed, well designed, stylish and affecting production. As the burlesque performer, he enters from the stage left wing acknowledging the enthusiastic applause of an unseen audience. After taking several bows, the performer retires to his dressing room and starts the process of removing makeup and costume, and, as the layers are stripped away, the person behind the performer is slowly revealed through an extended soliloquy that is interspersed with a recorded voice over.
The narrative is about the performer’s rape at the hands of a former sexual partner whom he still sees, and acknowledges, from time to time as if nothing had happened, or as if it is all forgotten. But it is not forgotten, and it is not forgiven. The hurt and shame and disgust persist and the performer shares with the audience in vivid detail his personal struggle to not let this gross, violent act be a defining event.
Brodie John’s script is intimate and confronting, but at the same time beautiful as it lays bare the contradictions of sexual behaviour. It explores the feelings of self-guilt that are often reported as typical of rape victims, but it stops tantalisingly short of being a fully immersive experience. It warrants further exploration. I wanted to experience the performer’s pain more than I did. I wanted to get under the skin of the ugly suppurating sore that is surely the unwarranted feeling of guilt that the victim feels.
Brodie John circulated an ‘open letter’ to the audience in which he said that he was “honoured” that the audience had come to the performance and that he would be “humbled” to meet the audience after the show. The letter makes for interesting reading – I cannot doubt its sincerity – but I would have liked its sentiments to have been somehow included in the narrative of the script. I’m sure it’s possible.
Marissa Bennett (director), Abbey Howlett (composer) and Stephen Moylan (designer) have all left something of themselves in this production, but none more so than Brodie John.
Burlesque by Force will play in the next Fringe Festival. I hope there is enough time for it to be developed further. It deserves a new audience.
Kym Clayton
When: 15 to 18 Nov
Where: Nexus Arts, Lions Arts Centre
Bookings: Closed
Independent Theatre. Goodwood Theatre. 17 Nov 2017
Elegant and stylish. These hallmark characteristics of Independent Theatre’ productions shine forth from the moment the curtain comes up on Brideshead Revisited.
Not that there is a curtain. It’s all about lighting and simplicity.
Rob Croser and David Roach, with lighting designer Bob Weatherly, have found that a clean and lean look is what suits the Goodwood Theatre. Hence, just two long benches adorn a dramatically raked green stage which converges towards a huge framed screen upon which photographs are projected as virtual backdrops. Sometimes they’re exterior architectural images of Oxford, Venice, or Brideshead. Sometimes they are interiors. Occasionally they go a bit further to include art for the artist of the play, at one point creating an aesthetic of such drenching beauty that one would gladly let the play freeze there.
Will Cox as the older Charles Ryder returning in uniform to be billeted in the castle where once he loved and lost, sets the mood for the audience. He is narrator. We are about to hear a story. Audience members settle into their seats expectantly.
They are not disappointed.
Evelyn Waugh’s tale of bisexual love, family ties and religion unfolds eloquently through the heart and eyes of Charles Ryder, an atheist in a seething pit of conflicted Catholics. It is the tale of Sebastian, the spoiled beautiful dipsomaniac rich boy asphyxiated by his strictly devout mother, and of his variously distracted family members in their great and glorious castle. It is the story of how relationships may affect destinies and of how siblings may supplant one another. In this case, with Sebastian gone to his various alcoholic fates abroad, it is how Charles sees shades of that love in Sebastian’s troubled sister, Julia.
It is a vast and complex human portrait which spans 1923 to 1943. Only the little sister, Cordelia, is to emerge as a nice person, and she is deemed “plain” and alone.
Director Rob Croser has directed this show with his usual finesse and chosen its cast well. Will Cox, in a brown suit and waistcoat, carries the play with immense sensitivity. His eyes are everything. A beautiful actor. Then again, Ben Francis, shows the depth of his extraordinary versatility by embodying with agonising accuracy the needy, overwrought ambivalence of Sebastian. His fear of the judgemental prying of his mother and his need for unsullied loyalty tear into the heart of the audience. As he evolves to be the alienated alcoholic expatriate, so does the characterisation succinctly complete the picture. It will not be forgotten.
Madeleine Herd plays his sister Julia, a woman who breaks from the family values with her relationship with the divorced Canadian tycoon, Rex. Her defiance of the strictures of Catholicism becomes her inner torment, albeit she never loses the superficial grace of the English aristocrat. Herd's key to this characterisation is her voice and delivery which, with uncanny similarity to English actress Michelle Dockery, imbue Brideshead Castle with surprisingly fitting shades of Downton Abbey.
The rest of Independent’s cast play multiple roles. Paul Reichstein as the arrogant dandy, Anthony Blanche, is one of the delicious high spots of the production. David Roach plays myriad senior roles from fathers to teachers and, as ever, is unerring and a pleasure to behold. Brodie Watson-Victory adapts so completely to his contrasting roles that he could be different actors. And Emily Stewart, who has to grow up in front of the audience's eyes, comes into her own when Cordelia emerges as an interesting adult.
The play itself, adapted from Waugh's book by Roger Parsley, loses some of its momentum towards the end when all the guilt, doubt and religious redemption untwines in the great death bed scene. It was ever a troubling ending; it beggars the credibility that the rational atheist is converted at the eleventh to join those he has witnessed so deeply punished by their cruel and superstitious religion. But it sends the audience away with cultural dilemmas to dissect.
Samela Harris
When: 16 to 25 Nov
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. The Arts Theatre. 16 Nov 2017
Roll up, Roll up.
The Rep’s end-of-year romp into the realms of classic vaudeville is a night of raucous audience engagement and tears of mirth.
This is a wonderful tradition upheld by our oldest theatre company which happens also to be the oldest in the southern hemisphere, and quite a spectacle with the stage transformed to faux travelling tent, enabling the show to swing from high ham melodrama to assorted classic vaudevillian turns. Some audience members are still holding their ribs after watching Lindy LeCornu and Christopher Evan’s gloriously po-faced performance of the world-famous Balloon Dance.
Then there was Aled Proeve’s wistful rendition of The Hole in the Elephant’s Bottom which soon had the audience completing the punchlines like some huge smooth choral ensemble.
Indeed, in many ways the audience’s performance on opening night deserves its own rave review. It was of strong and beautiful voice both in song and booing and hissing and cheering; for, indeed, there was a valiant hero to celebrate, an evil villain to loathe and a beautiful heroine to champion in Walter Boughton’s dramatic melodrama, Virtue Always Triumphs or Life in the Wicked City.
Buddy Dawson has sprung miraculously out of musical theatre to save the day as Dick Truhart. This athletic young performer has a heavenly sense of physical comedy and an unerring instinct for the cornball. He plays it hayseed to the husk.
The object of his devotion is the hapless, innocent, unknowing heiress Charity for which part director Pam O’Grady has found the utterly divine Ashley Penny. Artful balletic physical exaggeration, a strong voice, an ability for split-second mood changes and the best howling bawl in the business put her in the upper echelons for melodrama stardom - for which, sadly, there is limited call today.
However, shades of the much loved Old Kings Music Hall of yore were ever present in this vivid and fun-filled show, not least when the bedazzling Mistress of Ceremonies, Penni Hamilton-Smith called upon the original Master of Ceremonies from those early Adelaide years, Mr Gordon Poole who, at 92 going on 93, still with that mellifluous British stage voice, was there in the audience booing along with the best of them.
Hamilton-Smith was true to the “ham” in her name in glamorous overkill, swishing about in blinding pink but, oddly, seeming almost to be sight-reading the show’s script when doing the absurdly alliterative introductions.
Also doing a lot of swishing was cloak-wrapped David Sinclair as the evil villain from “the city” whence all wickedness and depravity springs from the saloon bars and torture chambers. Raspy-voiced and evil-eyed, he pursued poor Charity with his gang of odd-bod thugs played by Matt Grohl, Laura Antoniazzi and Aled Proeve. Rose Vallen in black eyepatch was another evildoer as was Rebecca Kemp; not all that she seemed, as we came to find out. Tim Blackshaw and Annie Hall paired nicely as the earthy Truhart parents and Christopher Meegan pleased both with his twinkle-toed poise as the mysterious stranger and his lovely voice singing Danny Boy.
For, yes, there are songs for young and old, sing-alongs and knees-up in this celebration of cultural kitsch and, with Rowan Dennis on drums, it is the legendary Sandi McMenamin on the tatty old upright piano who gives the show its musical life. Move over Winnifred Atwell.
All this and much more is rolled into rowdy and rollicking fun by the expertise of director Pam O’Grady with a solid and seasoned backstage team, including Brian Budgen as scenic artist and Richard Parkhill on lights.
Give yourself a pre-Chrissie treat. Buy a ticket and live a night in laughter at the silliness of old-time shtick. It’s a tonic.
Samela Harris
When: 16 to 25 Nov
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
The Hills Musical Company. The Stirling Theatre. 10 Nov 2017
A bleak setting awaits those taking their seats at the Stirling Theatre for the Hills Musical Company’s production of Spring Awakening. Designer/Director Hayley Horton has wrapped the stage in black - a blank white projection screen, centre, the only relief. It is the foundation for this tale of a group of oppressed adolescents clawing, nay fighting, their way into adulthood with both hands figuratively tied behind their back. The set and lighting (Tim Bates) drives this message home.
Wendla Bergmann (Millicent Sarre) enters, dressed sweetly in virgin white, she is a picture of naivety and innocence. Sarre plays her coyly but with a strong desire for learning. Her Mumma Who Bore Me aches for wisdom and understanding. Sarre sings beautifully. In the immediate reprise the girls’ assault the stage, venting their frustration at their parent’s conventionalism. It is a powerful performance and has us upright in our seats. This production presents the innermost thoughts and desires of these otherwise outwardly compliant adolescents through the expressive musical medium of rock.
Sitting in their Latin class, the boys recite verse from memory when young Moritz Stiefel (Connor Olsson-Jones) has a mental blank. He has been kept awake at night by ‘wet dreams’ he cannot comprehend. When his close friend Melchior Gabor (Mitchell Smith) jumps to his defence, arguing with the boys’ teacher, Herr Sonnenstich (Josh Barkley) that Stiefel’s interpretation may still have validity it provides the perfect segue into All That’s Known. Smith gives us a first insight into the mind of a character that rejects both religion and institution. Smith’s Gabor is complex, inquisitive, relentlessly demanding, yet vulnerable; Smith’s performance is second to none.
The boys’ sexual frustrations are released in a powerful rendering of The Bitch of Living before the whole cast confess their crushes, unrealised sexual desires, and distant admiration, in My Junk; the number wonderfully juxtaposing the difference in the experience for girls and boys.
The Word of Your Body finds Sarre and Smith exploring their burgeoning sexuality in what is certainly a show highlight. We are trapped by the tension the two young performers exude as their hands explore their own body, and each other’s.
It is a troubling transition into The Dark I Know Well, but it is undoubtedly a defining performance for young actress, Sahra Cresshull who plays Martha Bessell. Cresshull tugs at our heart strings with her distressing, unnerving, and facially expressive performance, which is enhanced when her sister, Ilse (Jemma Allen), joins her for a stunning duet.
Olsson-Jones is dangerously good in And Then There Were None, with Fanny Gabor (Kate Anolak). It should be said that everything Anolak does, in her many roles as The Adult Woman, is delivered with panache and elegance. Thomas Phillips’ interpretive choreography – which enhances the entire performance – shines brightly, both in structure and cast execution, in The Mirror-Blue Night; another solidly executed sing by Smith. I Believe rounds out the first act with a passionate, believably staged love scene.
Horton’s set undergoes a constant transformation which mirrors that of her blossoming cast, as it is constantly ‘wounded’ by the players stripping it bare of the bleak wrapping which conceals its inner beauty, colour, angst, and impending destruction. The white screen, electronically decorated by hand drawings of innocence, is an evolving – occasionally distracting – canvas.
Olsson-Jones and Allen share a moment in Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind with another show highlight before Smith delivers an object lesson in performance with his rendition of Left Behind opposite Josh Barkley as Herr Stiefel. Both performers are outstanding in this number and, like Anolak, Barkley deserves recognition for his work throughout in his many roles as The Adult Man.
Totally Fucked is the showstopper number, which does nothing short of shake the house down under the skill of this ensemble. Never does this cast sound better than when singing together in harmony. The Song of Purple Summer a standout example of the sensitivity and power this group harness on stage. The talented ensemble is completed with the contributions of Emily Downing as Thea, Chelsea McGuiness as Anna, Emma Wilczek as Melitta, Kieren Gulpers as Greta, Zachary Moore as Hanschen, Harry Nguyen as Ernst, Robbie Mitchell as Georg and Dylan Rufus as Otto.
Tim Feedman’s sound design and operation manages the complex changing levels of dialogue and song with skill whilst musical director, Mark DeLaine’s band drives the rock genre without overpowering the show. What DeLaine has accomplished with the singers is the icing to Horton’s cake. There are a few creeping Australian-isms in both song and dialogue amongst the cast that frustrate, and a few nerves shake otherwise steady performers’ confidence on opening night; an issue likely to pass.
Horton’s vision for an updated Spring Awakening rings true, except for the costumes which seem oddly stuck in the past - perhaps one update too far from the original, or maybe an unnecessary alteration in the greater vision of this production? Either way it hardly matters, there is no doubt this is a show not to be missed.
Paul Rodda
When: 10 to 25 November
Where: Stirling Community Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
Therry Dramatic Society. Arts Theatre. 2 Nov 2017
It’s the only murder mystery at which one is told to go out and tell the world whodunnit,
That’s because playwright Alan Ayckbourn wrote three optional endings and it is decided for each performance by being picked from a hat.
On opening night, Jocelyn did it. Well, she said she did. But It Could Be Any One of Us and there is plenty of room for doubt.
On this Therry production’s opening night, the plot took quite a while to evolve. The pace was more like treacle than honey. The cast worked ferociously hard but somehow were missing some cylinders.
All the right ingredients are there. The Kerrin White set of the grand farmhouse living room is wonderfully expansive, detailed and sumptuous. It features the grand piano on which Mortimer Chalke regales the family with his latest composition. A very tousle-haired Roman Turkiewicz plays this dire composer and both he and the music are very funny.
Mortimer is head of a dysfunctional and dependent family: sister Jocelyn a failed crime writer, brother Brinton, a failed artist with arrested development, and niece Amy whose main talent is eating. They live a quarrelsome life together with Jocelyn’s partner, a would-be private detective called Norris.
The cat is set among the pigeons when Mortimer announces that he is changing his Will to leave the family estate to a girl who came to him for piano lessons 20 years ago, and she is coming to spend the weekend. Who should be the victim and who the killer, are then thrown about culminating in one riotous scary and chaotic thunderstorm scene in which the murder eventually takes place.
Therry pulls this off nicely. It is fast and funny. It is the high spot of the show, much enabled by the good work of the sound and lighting techs.
The play is performed in a perplexing assortment of English accents, some of them so laboured they slow the action. Gigi Jeffers, clearly an accomplished actress, delivers the character of Jocelyn with most emphatic enunciation. She makes a bit of a send-up of measured delivery and brings fond memories of the style of the late Hayette Erickson.
Ben Todd has a slightly posher accent as he bumbles around as the family’s hapless simpleton. Bonnie McAllister, as the overweight and depressed quasi-punk daughter, Amy Polegarte, has more of an Essex thing happening; not that she has many lines. Hers is a performance of sullen stomping and eye rolling and she is a comic pleasure to watch. Brad Martin as the over-enthusiastic would-be sleuth and Miriam Keane as the former student do their own regional thing, both with panache. One leaves the theatre with Keane’s brave rendition of the sausage song ringing through one’s mind. If ever anyone did credit to a silly song, it is she.
One can usually be assured of aching ribs after an Alan Ayckbourn play. There are some good laughs in It Could Be Any One of Us but this Kerrin White production does not throw the audience into the aisles. Doubtless some run-in time will bring a more naturalistic feel to the performances.
Samela Harris
When: 2 to 11 Nov
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com or 8358 3018