Sydney Dance Company. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 17 August 2017
Look for details informing the evening’s double bill and you find a tale of new breed greatness paired with a mature master’s work.
Gabrielle Nankivell’s intensely rich, deeply primal Wildebeest was commissioned by Sydney Dance Company’s 2014 New Breed season. In 2015, she was awarded the Tanja Liedtke Foundation award.
Opening night marked the 10th Anniversary of Liedtke’s death. So it was quite fitting Nankivell’s work was performed. Rafael Bonachela’s Frame of Mind scooped the 2015 Helpmann Awards for dance; best choreography, best dance work, best male dancer and best female dancer.
Instinct and knowledge are words Nankivell uses to describe the core to her Wildebeest. The work choreographically sears with animal primality blended with mythological ritual.
Almost every move originates directly from body joints - knees, elbows, knuckles - from which the limbs take their cue in bringing to life what is animal, powerful, fast, dangerous, wild, strong, and graceful.
Whether in solo or ensemble performance, the presence of the beast in fight or flight is utterly clear. Fiona Holley’s loose tunic costumes in gradations of dark to light soil colours and Benjamin Cisterne’s low level lighting with subtle white lightning flashes enhance the sense of animal chaos.
Surprisingly then, perhaps not, there’s a shift from wildness to a lemon hue lit phrase. Composer Luke Smiles offers up a delicious series of hoof like beats to which the ensemble matches with hands and arms as two dancers come together to form a living statue, then other dancers. Their arms and hands clapping together in time with beat.
It’s a mythic, religious soulfulness matching the animal wildness. Given the primal nature of the work, it’s easy to see this phrase of the work as a primitive human response to a feared power, worship it to understand it.
Frame of Mind is a very clever piece. Rafael Bonachela wanted to explore that desire to be in two places at once. He achieves this beautifully by mixing phrases of ensemble work with a duet. Designer Ralf Meyers and Lighting Designer Benjamin Cisterne provide Bonachela with a red curtained quarter square which is yellow lit for ensemble work and goes dark with faint front white wash lighting for the duet.
Where’s the clever? In the psychology informing the dance. Wonderfully, it’s not so much the dance that’s going on in the red corner that’s important. Oh no, it’s that male dancer and female dancer who don’t seem to be doing much. It takes a while to cotton onto it. She stands by the red curtain wall, watching. He slips in and out of the dance with the ensemble which is clearly under his direction. He’s half there, half elsewhere.
This terrific tension established so quietly between the male and female is given much more complex expression in the series of duets interpolated between the ensemble phrases. Only in these phrases is there a sense of unity, completeness and being at one in the moment. The choreography is gloriously intense, filled with ardent, passionately executed leaps, lifts and turns in which there’s an unrestrained freedom and joy between the two that is restricted when these two are in ‘real now time’. In the red corner with the ensemble.
Only when the first duet has occurred does attention turn to what is actually going on choreographically in the red corner space. It’s fantastic; filled with hard work and thrilling dance worthy of applause on its own. But it’s not personal. It isn’t intimate. It’s controlled and dependent for success on all dancers conforming to its dictates. Hence the tension tucked away between two dancers who would rather be somewhere else, and still get the work done.
David O’Brien
When: 17 to 19 August
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Star Theatres. Peter Maddern. 19 Jul 2017
Walking the Kokoda Trail has become something of a fitness-vacation fashion, one which defeats a few people and is a revelation to most. Here is a play which should be compulsory viewing for all those intending to go. It is an intense dip into the wartime world it once was and the reason its name now has such renown.
Peter Maddern has created a stereotypical young Aussie soldier who found himself in New Guinea as a “Chocko” or “chocolate soldier”, which label denoted the barely trained innocents who were late into action in WWII. Todd Grey portrays the young Private Morris Powell delivering a highly credible character; a classic, ingenuous ocker bloke with a broad accent and a voice more typical of the footy outer than the stage. It’s a huge script in which a series of wartime actions are embodied as well as a potted history of the whole interaction with the Japanese and some of the politics of the field, and a sense of the acquisition of wisdom by the character himself. It is a torrent of dialogue. Grey gives it light and dark, pace, tension, drama, and intimacy.
For one man alone on a small stage, it could have seemed an overly complex monologue but the writer, Maddern, also has directed the work and has seen that not only are there costume changes and one large rock-style prop to give the performer a sense of time and scene, but that his assorted frays of one-sided combat action are embellished by excellent sound and lighting.
Josh Williams’ soundscape is simply superb - from the jungle chatter of birds and weather to the percussion of weaponry and the sound of voices close and far from all directions. He peoples the theatre with invisibles. With Zac Eichner’s dramatic lighting and a haze of smoke, muddy mountaintop and frantic combat all feel real.
The narrative is rapid-fire and fact-filled. It’s a lot to take in. Occasionally time and place are projected through lights fanned out in the smoke effects.
It is not the easiest night in the theatre. It is not an easy story. But it is an important one in Australian history. It marks a crucial early defeat of the Japanese and it portrays a too-often overlooked saga of a mob of Aussie men who defended this country, but rarely ever told the gruelling tale.
One might suggest playwright Maddern cuts the early comparison to a then and now of Melbourne suburbs from the script and also the word “clusterf@!k” which was born of Vietnam. These anachronisms stand out like banners of distraction. But, otherwise, bravo!
Samela Harris
When: 19 Jul to 5 Aug
Where: Star Theatres
Bookings: trybooking.com
Bakehouse Theatre Company. Bakehouse Theatre. 8 Jul 2017
Stepping into the Bakehouse Theatre, the senses are surprised by the subtle and wonderful fragrance of ginger and lemongrass. Good heavens, the cramped little Chinese restaurant kitchen set is near-as-dammit, a functioning kitchen complete with fresh herbs and tossed noodles.
But there is not an Asian face to be seen in its busy staff of five.
This is a play in which all the rules are bent. It is not a case of blind casting. Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig intended Caucasian actors to play the parts: Asians, Europeans, and even anthropomorphic insects.
It is a wild ride of drama skills.
Consequently, it is a short and intense play with narrative and character threads weaving all over the place. Central is the kitchen of the Golden Dragon, a Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese restaurant with a huge menu. The cooks go like the hammers, calling out the ingredients while working over woks and loading take-away containers. Above the restaurant live two air hostesses who come in to eat after a long flight home. Also in the building lives the owner of a convenience store in a clutter of stockpiled goods, an older couple on an emotional downward spiral and a young couple dealing with an unexpected pregnancy.
The primary storyline takes place in the kitchen wherein the newest worker is a young illegal immigrant in agony with toothache. His pain is shared with the audience through the grating volume and intensity of his howling and yowling. Oh, is it so strident. The audience gets the message. The busy kitchen staff does, too, since they can’t hush him. The illegality of the poor lad denies him rights to formal treatment, so the cooks take it upon themselves to identify the tooth and, eventually, extract it, all the while keeping the furious cooking and serving going on around him. It is painfully funny. The force of the improvised extraction by spanner throws tooth high into the air. The world waits in dread. Yes, into the wok it goes. But the cook flicks it out and it flies again. Oh, no! It plops into the hot soup being carried out to one of the beautiful air hostesses.
Her response to it is surprising. But so are most elements of this intriguing little play. The beautiful blonde hostess has an older lover who calls her Barbie Doll. She seems fine with this. Meanwhile, further dramas play out between the other characters in the building. They are vignettes of real life and yet one must suspend disbelief. The building is a hothouse not only of humble humanity but of insects. Like allegorical creatures from Monkey Magic, there also lives an ant with her bountiful stockpile of stored food and a beautiful cricket who has no provisions because she has frittered away her life singing. She begs the ant to share. The ant enslaves her and humiliates her in a downward spiral of unthinkable cruelty.
These two creatures pop in and out of the action with their own episodic narrative. They are beautifully rendered simply with chopstick props as antennae.
Indeed, the presentation and performances of this quirky theatrical experience are uniformly good - as one may expect under Joh Hartog’s direction. Jo Pugh, Brendan Cooney, Mark Healy, Clare Mansfield and Robbie Greenwell complete the able and versatile cast, darting seamlessly from role to role.
Tech and lighting are good, but if there is a star in the show, it is Tammy Boden’s sweaty and claustrophobic little kitchen set with its wafts of food fragrance.
The audience emerges from the theatre, heads spinning with ways in which to interpret what they have seen.
Like a fine Chinese meal, there are many interesting ingredients and, left to digest them for a while, one realises that it has been surprisingly satisfying. So long as one does not worry about the tooth, it leaves a rather pleasant taste in the mouth.
Samela Harris
When: 8 to 22 Jul
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Matt Byrne Media. Arts Theatre. 6 Jul 2017
Matt Byrne never does anything by halves. This show has a very long run. It moves from The Arts to the Shedley at Elizabeth where it will run until the end of the month. This is good.
Perchance this South Australian premiere of Robert Stigwood and the Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever opened a bit prematurely.
On opening night there was a sense that it was not quite ready. Harmonies were adrift. It was as if one had stepped into late rehearsals.
The show is there. The talent is there. As always, Byrne can assemble some splendid performers.
To play Tony Manero, the dancing spunk made famous by John Travolta, he has cast Sebastian Cooper, a very handsome and engaging performer. He certainly holds the eye whenever he is onstage. Cooper has the classic Travolta dance moves down pat and he can touch at the heartstrings with his acting skills. His voice is good, but along with others in the cast, he seemed on opening night to be pretty much left to his own musical devices which meant for one crucial song that he set out in the wrong key.
The choral work also was loose and not up to the usual Matt Byrne five-star standard.
Byrne, on the other hand, steals from the show in his character roles, especially as the DJ in his boofy blond Afro wig. He is strident both in voice and costume.
Amber Platten is vocally strong as Stephanie although the dancing still needs work and there is lovely support from the rest of the cast, especially Matthew Pugsley, Brad Butvila, Iman Saleh, Lauren Noble and the boys. It is a large cast and everyone shows commitment and a sense of enjoyment in the process.
One of the top scenes in the show is the superbly-choreographed fight with Heimata Triponel as Juan, and his Latino Barracuda gang.
It’s a great musical with famous Bee Gees songs and some snazzy dance numbers. There are some very good dancers in the ensemble, too. And the dance is a strong plus in the production. So are the sets. The use of photo backgrounds with foreground additions is outstandingly effective and professional. Sound quality also is good and the orchestra generally sounds good, albeit there are some issues with pace. But, once the show is snappier and the singing wrinkles have been ironed out, it promises a cheery night of good songs, disco dances and bad wigs.
Samela Harris
When: 5 to 15 Jul – Arts Theatre
When: 20 to 29 Jul – Shedley Theatre
Bookings: mattbyrnemedia.com.au, 8262 4906, BASS or dramatix.com.au
State Theatre Company of South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 4 Jul 2017
It is a play about love-hate and it is a production which evokes love-hate.
Modern adaptations are fraught with risk in threatening a playwright’s creative impulse and cultural integrity. To fully appreciate them, it is wise to know the original work which often lives under the dismissive label of “museum theatre”.
This State Theatre production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House has been given the modern-day touch by South Australia’s most promising new playwright, Elena Carapetis. She has brought characters out of 1870s Norway and into the bright lights of modern-day somewhere-nowhere wherein the production has placed them upon an unadorned raised platform in the centre of a stage surrounded on three sides by walls of headlights. This is a set created by a lighting designer and it looks like it. It is not Geoff Cobham’s subtlest design and, while a lot of the production’s fierce and stark lighting has its own good aesthetic, it is peculiarly aggressive, confronting the audience with blinders and, in fact, one flash of such bedazzling brightness that the audience almost goes into shock.
In this ultra-modern minimalist concept, cast members sit upon orange plastic cafe chairs on the sidelines onstage. The banks of headlights are dimmed to put them in the shadows while they are not performing.
To represent the family living room, characters carry their own chairs up onto the dais. In the final scene of the play, the chairs are lined up around the dais as if it has become a doctor’s waiting room.
There are no creature comforts. A child is put to bed by being placed on the floor.
In her adaptation, Carapetis has killed off one of the two children in the play but elevated the presence of the remaining child who is very nicely played on opening night by Clio Tinsley. She symbolises the family unit and also the fate of the female. She’s the little doll in the doll’s house.
Carapetis has stayed fastidiously true to Ibsen’s portrait of Nora as a victim of patriarchal society. Famously, Nora says that she is now wife and before that she was daughter. But, once upon a time, she was born a “person". The play is about this sentiment. It is about an oppressed woman’s urge to free herself to be her own person, not the coerced object of societal expectations.
Nora is a woman who has everything. She had an affluent upbringing and she married well. Her adoring husband, Torvald, has just had a promotion in the bank. She has a nanny. She has spending money.
But there are underlying complications and terrible secrets in her seemingly superficial world. These unfold and the world gradually unravels.
Carapetis has overlaid the script with modern idiom. She has made Torvald younger, sexier and more fun that Ibsen’s straight-laced version. And director Geordie Brookman has picked a superb actor in Dale March to establish the dark and light of the loving but controlling husband. This Torvald is likeable. One feels more empathy in realising that he, too, is a victim of gender expectations.
The modern characters use mobile phones and iPads. They throw the f-word about. They wear torn jeans. They’re obsessed with kale.
They sing pop songs and they dance to raucous rap music.
It is not even the badly-done Tarantella for this Nora when it comes to distracting her husband by rehearsing her party dance. It’s a writhing, twitching, undulating epic of desperate eroticism. It is extraordinarily ugly, but it comes as a theatrical underscoring of the fear and loathing Nora feels for her male-placating predicament in life.
And she’s surrounded by headlights polka-dotting the stage walls. She’s the deer in the headlights of the patriarchy. She’s the out-of-control dancing toy of the men. She’s loved for what she represents but not for who she is.
All of this the young Miranda Daughtry performs with absolute skill and commitment. She connects with the audience from the word go. She is a wonderful Nora and an exciting find for the new State Theatre ensemble.
The Congolese actor Rashidi Edward makes interesting new chemistry. His casting as the awful Krogstad adds the dimension of racism to this version of A Doll’s House. Krogstad is the unpopular outsider, the crook, the loser. Comments about discrimination against him in the workplace suddenly seem colour-coded.
Edward embodies this and his romantic elements with calm panache, albeit sometimes inaudibly. Rachel Burke plays Kristine, Nora’s old friend who turns up as a penniless widow looking for work. It’s a lovely meaty supporting role and Burke devours it with style; similarly Anna Steen as Anna, the family retainer and nanny. In today’s A Doll’s House, she is strong and athletic, darting about the stage like the wind.
And then there is Nathan O’Keefe as poor Lars, the doctor who is an ever-present family friend. This character usually is cast as an older man but O’Keefe is one of this country’s wonderful actors and he nails poignantly the pathos of the lonely man who is not only physically sick but love sick, too. He quietly breaks the audience’s heart.
Altogether, the Carapetis and Brookman modern A Doll’s House is something of a wild ride.
It blares and glares. It ends with a bellow which impudently marries it to a tradition of theatrical tragedies.
But the play’s the thing. And there it is.
I liked it.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 22 July
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Photography by Andy Rasheed
