Foyer Talk

Underbelly Razor

2011-11-06T20:30:00.000+11:00

Chelsea Preston-Cormack as Tilley Divine

I missed the earlier installments of the Underbelly series, and after seeing this season, that's something I regret. What I've seen has been impeccable drama. It is rare to encounter a historical series that marries great dialogue and characterisation with historical accuracy, but Underbelly Razor has done just that. Remarkable, too, because it comes from the WIN Network, who usually avoid broadcasting anything of substantial quality at all costs.

The clever use of music from recent decades covered as jazz numbers from the nineteen twenties is a touch of genius. It stamps the series as modern (just in case you're not watching it in HD), and draws the audience into the period with much-needed humour. The dialogue only occasionally diverted from the vocabulary of Australian English in the period, and the settings for the action of the series are impeccably depicted. Few films manage such superb historical aesthetics, but it is especially remarkable for a television series.

The series' two protagonists, Kate Leigh and Tilley Devine, are played by Danielle Cormack and Chelsie Preston-Crayford respectively, and their performances have been thoroughly engaging. While Danielle Cormack is a familiar and welcome face on our screens, I've never seen Preston-Crayford, and she is equally noteworthy. She also gained my attention because she's playing the namesake of one of Canberra's best-known cafes, and this explains a lot for those of us who live in the capital!

Danielle Cormack as Kate Leigh

Dealing with Australian history in this manner is refreshing. I have recently been working on a play set in Sydney in the 1880s and was surprised that I could not find a single novel, film or play that takes the city as its setting in this era. Our focus on the bush was not just dominant; it was absolute. The focus of Underbelly Razor on a Sydney story in the era of Dad and Dave, when we generally like to see ourselves as a quaint agrarian outpost of the British Empire, is both novel and redresses an unfortunate imbalance. I hope its a sign of a maturing national image.

Underbelly Razor is, of course, not without its historical faults, though most are negligible. The one notable problem is the way the police are depicted. The senior ranks of the New South Welsh police seem genuinely concerned with law and order, which seems to be at loggerheads with the histories I've read covering law and order in Sydney in this period. The police were as actively involved in the underworld as Tilley Devine and Kate Leigh, and to depict them as antagonists is taking a lot of dramatic licence! The inherent and utter corruption of the New South Welsh Police Force is known to have been a key factor in the development of the Sydney underworld from the early nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth, and this series treats police corruption merely as a minor theme.

I will accept this as dramatic licence, as the research required to depict the rest of this world must have been substantial, and I can't see how the writers could have been entirely ignorant of the key role the police played in the Sydney underworld. And forgiving them this licence leaves possibly the best television series I've ever seen; and I love television! Underbelly Razor has the production qualities of our best films, with excellent performances, great dialogue and a great story, well told.

Now I want to see the earlier seasons!

Lapland Odyssey

2011-11-04T18:00:00.000+11:00

Introducing his film at the Canberra International Film Festival, director Dome Karukoski talked about the Finnish cultural cringe, and my first thought was that this would relate well in Australia, where our national identity is also commonly defined by our deficits. Lapland Odyssey is a hilarious romp through a landscape that's about as foreign to Australia as it is possible to get, but its characters and humour will be as familiar to audiences of Australian films as sunshine and barbecues.

Karukoski is suitably cynical of the saleability of a comedy that starts with five suicides, but this black opening sets the tone perfectly for the hapless Janne. In his all-night search for the digibox he needs to secure his marriage, Janne leads his two hapless friends into Finnish Lapland wilderness amongst blizzard conditions, Russian tourists, the Aurora Borealis, animatronic deer and not a few boobs.

If I have to watch a formula film, the road movie is always my favourite. The formula, at its best, lends itself to a strong and consistent plot arc, excellent characterisation and endless laughs. Lapland Odyssey has all these features and is a model of the genre.

It puts me in mind especially of what I think is one of Australia's best comedies: Lucky Miles. Also a road movie, it is set in our most extreme landscape and finds humour in the imperfections of our national character. Lapland Odyssey does much the same in a Finnish context, and is also funny as hell!

You may have missed your chance to see this as part of the 2011 Canberra International Film Festival; for a taste, the trailer is here.

King of Devil's Island

2011-10-30T16:00:00.000+11:00

The violence of power and the power of violence are both explored beautifully in King of Devil’s Island. A true story, based on events occurring in 1915 at Bastøy Island in the Fjord of Oslo; a detention centre for ‘maladjusted boys’, as the subtitles tell us.

Maladjusted is somewhat ironic in the context of this story. The boys in the film are remarkably well-adjusted, and have as keen a sense of right and wrong as their ‘protectors’. Each of the film’s protagonists fail at some point to act according to their convictions, as do their protectors, who subtly develop into the story’s antagonists.

What I like most about this film is that although it casts certain historical figures clearly in the role of antagonists, all of them are fully developed, and all but one are depicted with a degree of empathy. Just like the protagonists, they’re pawns in a bloody game of chess being played by rulers as remote and inviolate as kings. Violence, in this context, is the inevitable response.

I can hardly put into words how much I like this film. Beautifully shot in the fjords, with precise timing matching the mood of the film to the development of the winter and remarkable performances from a very talented cast. This film is perfect.

You may have missed your chance to see this as part of the 2011 Canberra International Film Festival; for a taste, the trailer is here.

Toomelah

2011-10-29T20:15:00.000+11:00

Toomelah is a particularly interesting film, if not especially engaging. Writer and Director Ivan Sen went into the New South Welsh township of Toomelah, which began life as an Aboriginal mission, and filmed this story with the local community performing the roles. As characters and performers, they offer a lot. They are, in a sense, playing themselves, and although the story is fictitious, the setting and the circumstances of life in Toomelah is very real.

After the screening at Arc, Sen described the experience of making the film in this community. He went alone, with no film crew, in order to get unhindered access to the community, and to allow the performers more scope to ignore the camera. The effect is remarkable; these characters come to life, despite having just about the thinnest plot I've ever seen. There was one point while watching the film when I wondered whether the story was actually just Sen following Daniel Connors around and filming his real life.

The reality, though, is that this is a fictitious story about a real community, played by the people of the community. The slowness of life in this community is, presumably, captured faithfully, but unfortunately I don't think this verisimilitude does the film any favours. It asks a lot of the audience to keep watching, and while I think this is often acceptable, it is more effective when the story is more engaging.

I think it is particularly important that we tell the story of diverse Aboriginal communities, but I still think these stories need to be told in the dominant storytelling form of our society. While Toomelah is a film worthy of our attention, I doubt it will get much. With a plot arc this slow, it takes pre-established empathy with the characters for an audient to sit through it.

So I find it sad that I don't think Toomelah will get much attention. It is worthy of every Australian's attention, but its interest lies in the way it was made and what it offers as a picture of life in this community, rather than being intrinsic to the film.

The Dark Side of Midnight

2011-10-28T20:00:00.000+11:00

Political turmoil is an incubator of dramatic writing, and historical plays about moments of political change are relatively common. Less common are plays set in moments of political turmoil that are about the lives of people who lived through these moments, rather than about the political agitators who created them. This is a shame, as Tessa Bremner's play The Dark Side of Midnight demonstrates with its very heartfelt story about British colonists living through the Partition of India...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Four Flat Whites in Italy

2011-10-25T19:30:00.000+11:00

I suspect this may be the first time I've seen a New Zealand play on an Australian stage. It's a novel irony to hear actors we know to be Australian making disparaging remarks about Australia in a New Zealand accent!

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

The Hunter

2011-10-17T20:15:00.000+11:00

Odd that I should pass the small band of faithful in Martin Place for 'Occupy Sydney' on my way to see The Hunter. Odd, because this film is an interesting take on the idea of a big faceless corporation hiring a hit-man to take care of some business. Only the victim in this case is not to be just one person but an entire species, and they don't just want it dead, they want its DNA. Creepy, yes; and a great premise for a film. What a shame the script wasn't better developed.

The Hunter doesn't disappoint entirely. A strong storyline and some very interesting relationships develop. Despite some unfortunate stereotypes there is some genuine complexity in the fabric of the film, but The Hunter lacks any real character development. Now, I'm all in favour of plot-driven stories, but the plot in this film doesn't move fast enough to carry well without stronger characters. The hunter himself, played by Willem Defoe, is two-dimensional and lacks any back story to justify his quiet demeanour. By the time he reaches the climax, we still don't really know him. The vaguely heroine-like Lucy Armstrong doesn't quite make it to romantic lead, but despite the lack of script development, Frances O'Connor does a great job of bringing her to life. Apart from the very engaging children, played by Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock, the rest of the cast are just plot devices.

I still think there's a lot to love about The Hunter. Tasmania's wilderness is a landscape that was made to be a film set, much like Utah's Monument Valley was, except the Tasmanian bush has mood swings. Really, what the characters lack is almost made up for by the bush, which certainly changes its mood more often than Willem Defoe does. I'm not just being flippant; the bush genuinely works for this film, and the cinematography is exceptional, which makes the poor script all that much more disappointing.

This one's not worthy of a cinema screen, but it's worth seeing when it comes to TV. And I really did like it.

Love Song

2011-10-05T20:00:00.000+11:00

The warmth of John Kolvenbach's play Love Song is brought to the fore in Centrepiece's production, which opened at The Q in Queanbeyan tonight. This play brings a vibrancy to themes that can be cold and stark, drawing humour and humanity into some otherwise dark places.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

MP

2011-10-01T20:00:00.000+10:00

As a playwright who calls Canberra home, the thought of writing a play about politicians or politics has crossed my mind a few times. I've even started once, before giving up in disgust at the depressing result of that folly. I'm glad, though, that Alana Valentine gave it a better shot when she sat down to write MP.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Avenue Q

2011-09-28T20:00:00.000+10:00

I think it was family loyalty that took me along to Avenue Q. That, and some pretty high recommendations on Facebook and She Who Must Be Obeyed telling me to go see it while I still had the chance. Honestly, the idea of yet another bit of children's pop culture being appropriated for the adult market just wasn't appealing.

But in true Canberra musical theatre style, our 'amateurs' have redeemed a rather dry book and presented something truly spectacular. Technically, it was almost faultless. Apart from a few occasions when I couldn't hear the words over the band, I was blown away by how great these guys sounded. And it was a tiny band too; all I could see were two keys, two strings and a hitter who had plenty of space to rattle about in the pit.

The kudos, though, goes to a great cast, most of whom had to learn to control two bodies rather than the usual one. And it was fun just to observe as an audient that at first I had to keep reminding myself to look at the puppet rather than the actor! In time they blended, which just made the whole puppet/puppeteer thing work so well. At least in individual scenes it did.

As a whole show, though, Avenue Q just doesn't hold together very well. Whose story is this? What is it about? And why couldn't they just pick a story and stick with it? There are some interesting characters here that really deserve better treatment! But that's musical writers for you; most couldn't see a story if it played itself out on a stage in front of them!

I think, really, Avenue Q is a musical trying to be cutting edge and funny at the same time. It only succeeds in the latter, and occasionally fails at that because it's trying to be cutting edge. Does that make sense? Probably not, but I know what I mean. And whatever it's failings, Supa's cast and crew have outdone themselves. I had a ball.

22 Short Plays

2011-09-15T20:00:00.009+10:00

Opening with a convivial vibe at The Street Theatre tonight, 22 Short Plays by David Finnigan is a series of shorts carefully drawn together from longer works and staged by Melbourne's MKA.

It should not be taken as a bad thing that I really don't want to see the more complete scripts these shorts came from. As they stand in this context, they're often funny and always clever. While most of the characters tend towards either caricature or the absurd, there is the odd moment when something jumps out as rather more insightful, and the absurdity of the real world dwarfs the absurdity on stage. But it's not often this kind of concept drama plays out well in long form, and perhaps Finnigan is a master of the short form.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Broadway Bard

2011-09-10T19:00:00.002+10:00

I have just had one of the most enjoyable experiences of Shakespeare's work I can remember. Broadway Bard, part of the Sydney Fringe, is a show in which a bunch of random soliloquies or scenes (and even a couple of sonnets) and match it with a Broadway song. Simple enough. But the vivacity with which this concept has been realised is refreshing and very real.

Setting the tone by reminding us that Shakespeare didn't write for academics, but for the brutal criticism of the paying customer, Julian Kuo, the voice of the show, proceeds at an almost frantic pace through a selection of bits of the plays and sonnets of the Bard. His recitations of Shakespeare's words are just brilliant, and his performances of the musical numbers are inspired. He holds a great rapport with the audience throughout, and is most engaging as an almost-solo performer.

Kuo is supported by Isaac Hayward on piano, who must find it tiring at such a long sitting. His entrance, however, was awkward, and I'm not sure the director achieved what he was aiming for. Pianists, unless they are also actors, are probably best left at the piano. Especially the really good ones. Kuo could have used some better direction, too. Despite excellent presence, the stage at times felt like a large open paddock, and the plethora of props was really unnecessary. I suspect that it could be successfully staged with none, but at least half of the props really should have gone.

I forgot all that, however, during Kuo's rendition of Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech, which, while a little difficult to relate to at first, given that Kuo had his back to the audience for far too long, really sprang to life when it segued so seamlessly with Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The juxtaposition of these two pieces lent both an air of melancholy such as I have never seen more successfully brought about.

This, like many other moments, left me with goosebumps, and I don't goosebump very easily. I almost found this journey through the familiar and not-so-familiar highlights of Shakespeare's work to be more fun than seeing an entire play. Watch for it in Canberra!

Playing Gertrude's Horatio

2011-08-20T07:35:00.001+10:00

Although I grew up in that period when Shakespeare was well and truly out of favour in New South Welsh schools, I have loved his work ever since I first gave Hamlet the time of day at the age of 21. This was the year when Kenneth Branagh put the whole damn thing on screen, and even that self-indulgent marathon wasn’t enough to dampen my enthusiasm. Shakespeare’s plays, layered as they are with so many diverse readings, are always ready to yield another insight or provoke another idea. Among my favourite of Shakespeare’s provocations is Tom Stoppard’s magnificent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. This play, derived from Hamlet, features I think the best description of theatre ever devised. Offering a performance to a pair of potential customers, the leader of a performance troupe explains their creative oeuvre:

“We’re more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can’t give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory.”

The importance of blood, or more precisely, violence, can’t be underestimated in Shakespeare’s work...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Blood Brothers

2011-07-08T15:36:00.001+10:00

There is an awful lot of speculation out there about the bonds between twins. Whether it's about finishing each others' sentences or remotely sensing trouble in each other's lives, twins arouse a lot of speculation about whether certain behaviours are innate or acquired. Such speculations, I suspect, were part of the inspiration for Blood Brothers, now playing at The Q in Queanbeyan...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

I'm back!

2011-07-07T23:00:00.015+10:00

After a long period without seeing any theatre, I felt like I made something of a comeback tonight! Between holidays, a family crisis and a minor battle with pneumonia, it's been something of an epic struggle. I'm glad to be back, though. I've started rehearsing to play Horatio and Voltemand in Gertrude's Hamlet which takes to the stage at Tuggeranong Arts Centre in August.

Tonight, I was blown away by The Q's production of Blood Brothers. My review will appear on Australian Stage soon, and I'll post a link, but in the meantime, book your tickets!

The Phantom of the Opera

2011-04-09T19:00:00.001+10:00

I'm just home from Las Vegas where I had the opportunity to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian. What I have found fascinating since first hearing about the production is the idea that a theatre could be constructed specifically for one show; it seems at once wasteful and devout. The ancient Greeks invented the notion of an architectural entity devoted to theatre, and three thousand years seems rather a long time to wait for a theatre devoted to one show. Las Vegas, apparently, boasts two, but I only managed to see the Venetian’s Phantom Theatre. It is a spectacular representation of Paris’s Opera Populaire, complete with wax vestiges of Parisian high society in the nineteenth century in the balconies.

The custom build has allowed for some spectacular use of the fly tower to quickly present a myriad of different scenes and aid some very clever blocking. Effects including fireworks and flame throwers as well as a dancing chandelier and a rather clever gondola, not to mention the thickest smoke I’ve ever seen, cover a multitude of sins as the performers omit all pathos to avoid making a technical error. Not that it would matter if their performances were better; the audience simply wouldn’t notice with all the smoke and mirrors around (and, I might add, not all of the smoke is intentional special effect; Nevada’s lax smoking laws mean that cigarette smoke from the neighbouring casino fills the auditorium constantly).

I’ve said in the past that I like museum pieces; and apart from some impressive special effects, there’s little more of value in this show. Any student of theatre should see it, purely to flesh out their understanding of nineteenth century theatrical culture and gain a sense of the theatre’s layout. Of course, if you’re going to Paris you could go see the real thing, and probably get a better show into the bargain. The Venetian’s production, though, is also a fine example of theatrical precision, and execution, but little more. Dead flat characterisation and mechanical and unfeeling theatrical precision from the performers sucks what little life Andrew Lloyd Webber deigned to sprinkle into his book, and leaves you with nothing more than special effects to keep you entertained.

The big theatrical surprise of my trip to the United States is that the express version of Aladdin being performed twice daily (and often more) at Disney’s California Adventure Park shows the same technical precision and impressive technical effects while also portraying the story and characters with reasonable passion. It really puts the Venetian’s production of Phantom to shame. Still, that’s Las Vegas; the bright and shiny things are a very thin veil designed to distract the observer from the soulless decrepitude of the human condition. Andrew Lloyd Webber fits in perfectly.

42nd Street

2011-03-10T20:00:00.003+11:00

Erindale was alive tonight with Philo's opening of 42nd Street. The froth and bubble of Broadway is generous if not really enlightening, and the cast delivered a fine performance of a quaint old musical.

The story is that of a talented girl who dreams of singing on Broadway. Her talent noticed, she lands a role in the chorus line and when she accidentally trips the leading lady, fracturing her ankle, she manages to take her place. Woops, did I give away the ending? No, I think that was the writer...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Look Back in Anger

2011-02-17T20:00:00.002+11:00

Ten pound Poms let out of the nursing home may enjoy a trip down memory lane with Paris Hat's production of Look Back in Anger, but there is much more to this play for those of us who didn't live through post-war England. This is an opportunity to experience a first-rate performance of a play that was pivotal in the development of modern theatre...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

127 Hours

2011-02-14T18:40:00.000+11:00

SPOILER ALERT: this post contains references to the ending of the film.

A true story about a chap who literally gets stuck between a rock and a hard place for 127 hours sounds like a pretty boring premise for a film, doesn't it? But, perhaps because the film was directed by one of the UK's best directors, and perhaps because the survivor of this ordeal was far more practical and down-to-earth than your average American, this is a brilliant story.

Its protagonist, Aron Ralston, could well have been turned into a sickly sweet caricature, but Boyle's deft use of his hallucinations, memory, premonitions, or whatever you want to call them, are handled in a way that firmly grounds him in the reality of his circumstance. The film doesn't try to pretend that Aron never gave up hope, and it is his constant prevarications between hopelessness and persistence at the only option available to him that makes him both real and truly inspirational.

There have been some ridiculous stories about people finding the blood and gore too much. My suspicion is that these folk must have been completely shielded from any exposure to blood in their entire existence to be so extremely squeamish. There is nothing particularly extreme about the depiction of the removal of Aron's forearm, you might just need a strong armrest to grab hold of at a few critical moments. Limelight Cinemas' hardware held up fine!

Oklahoma!

2011-02-11T20:00:00.006+11:00

Free Rain really are gracing the stage of The Q at the moment with their production of Oklahoma! The classic musical has certainly been in good hands under the direction of Anne Somes and musical direction of Leisa Keen, and the energy on opening night was simply infectious.

Despite being a musical, and a light one at that, there is some genuine depth to these characters. Jenna Roberts' portrayal of the heroine is particularly noteworthy, but they all sit in the shadow of Tony Falla, Amy Dunham and Mathew Chardon O'Dea who shine in the love triangle. Despite being given very little to work with by the writers, they have developed an engaging story that really moves along.

I was particularly impressed with the cast's American accents. Perhaps for the first time in Canberra, a local cast has successfully emulated a single American accent, rather than the more common practice of each cast member using an accent from a different part of the United States. It may not have been a perfect Oklahoma accent, but even the cast of the 1955 film didn't manage that!

There is something unfortunate in the fact that, when they wrote Oklahoma, Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't see the value in the pioneering story that underlies the central love story. It leaves the love story a little hollow, and turns references to Oklahoma's journey to statehood into quaint oddities. I think that with more focus on this aspect, the story would resonate much more deeply, and the central love story would be enhanced by a heightened sense of purpose and destiny.

In all, this production of Oklahoma! is certainly one of the better musical productions of recent years.

True Grit

2011-02-07T18:50:00.052+11:00

I may again have to eat my words. I've often lamented that the advent of remade films in the last decade signifies the death of creativity. Doing something 'again' is for the theatre; films can simply be played again, so there's no point, and you should put your energy into making new ones. Well, now Joel and Ethan Coen have done it, and it is yet another remake of a film that I think is entirely worthy of the treatment. What's worse is that having enjoyed this film so much, I may now have to watch a few Westerns to find out whether this really is one.

True Grit was first made in 1969. It is the story of a fourteen year old girl who seeks to revenge for her father's murder and goes looking for a man of 'true grit' to undertake the fearsome task. She finds the same in Sheriff 'Rooster' Cogburn, a disreputable man with a drinking problem and a dislike for the one other person who cares about seeing the murderer hang. And so begins a journey into the Arkansas wilderness, and the wilderness of human emotions.

Firmly ensconced within the Coens' aesthetic oeuvre, this film is something really special. Despite being weighed down by overly loquacious and rather pretentious dialogue (which I think may be the norm for Westerns), the story hums along with engaging characters and a beautiful vision of Winter in the old west. Rather than soaking in a puddle of sentimentality, though, it explores the complexity of human emotions in the wake of life-changing events. In this, it diverges from what I had thought Westerns were all about. I understood them to be simplified and over-emotional excuses for a bit of gun-slinging; True Grit is nothing of the sort. I may just have to watch a few to see if I need to rethink my assumptions!

An ageing Matt Damon is an excellent foil for an old Jeff Bridges, but neither hold a candle to Hailee Steinfeld who gives a commanding performance as the ineffable Mattie Ross seeking vengeance for her father's death. The casting and execution of this role was surely critical to the success of this film, and Steinfeld really carries both the plot and the substance of the story.

Now, I've hardly seen any Westerns in my time, and have never been a fan of the genre (not that I'm a fan of any genre per se), so I can't comment on whether this is a reinvigoration of a tired genre of film-making, but it certainly is a fine piece of cinematography. It is, perhaps, the best film I've seen from the Coen Brothers, and that is really something.

Manly Mates

2011-01-28T07:54:00.000+11:00

Sir Robert Askin was the longest-serving premier of New South Wales in the twentieth century... as long as you don't count little Bobby Carr, who served eight months longer, but whose term unfortunately stretched into the twenty-first century. It will not be news to many that such petty distinctions actually matter to the ruling class. It certainly wasn't to me; which is why, when Frank Hatherley's play Manly Mates landed on my desk, I was keen to see it produced in Canberra.

A fictitious story based on posthumous accusations levelled at Askin, Hatherley's play plonks the jovial premier into a hotbed of gambling, womanising and crime (sometimes consecutive, other times concurrent). Joined by stoners, journalists, cops and shonky American poker machine salesmen, the scene in the private Octopus Room at the Manly Hotel is all too reminiscent of more recent rumblings of the political machinery behind closed doors in both New South Welsh and federal politics.

For this production, which later came to be declared the last of Canberra Dramatics' productions, I handed the reins to James Stevens, who has done a great job with an unwieldy script and a large cast on Tuggeranong's small stage. The show rolls along from one laugh to the next, and on opening night, despite a slow start, they developed a full head of steam for the hilarious finale.

It is great to see Michael Miller, who has performed in many of Canberra Dramatics' shows, reprise the role of Askin in the company's final production; he has a swagger befitting any crooked premier, and is ably supported by Rebecca Nicholson, another veteran of Canberra Dramatics' productions, as the enthusiastic Pat. Don Wilkinson also returned for this production, as did Robbie Matthews, and these friends were joined by a number of performers who had not performed with Canberra Dramatics before, most notably among them Margie Sainsbury who landed the enviable role of Lady Molly Askin, and lends her an air of forced grace.

Although I haven't had a lot to do with this last production, it has been a pleasure to see some of the journey this cast and crew have taken. They struck me from the beginning as a very cohesive group, and I am especially glad that James Stevens took on the task of directing them. Cerri Davis, who has worked in a number of different capacities with Canberra Dramatics over the years, also did a fine job in her first role as Production Manager.

In all, it was a great pleasure to see this hilarious play staged in Canberra, and it is a great finale to five years of productions.

The King's Speech

2011-01-15T19:10:00.006+11:00

Don't ask me why, but I'm a sucker for a title with a double meaning! Usually, though, they represent a pretty ordinary film, play or novel. In the case of The King's Speech, the film is far more clever than its title.

Set in 1930s England, with the world on the brink of war, this is the story of an unfortunate chap with a speech impediment. Not a particularly big deal, perhaps, unless the unfortunate chap happens to be the king of a constitutional monarchy in which the only useful thing a king does is to speak to his subjects. In such circumstances, there is only one thing for it; run through the gamut of speech pathologists until you find one who has a bit of common sense. Such a personage, of course, would have to be an Australian. You just can't make stuff like this up!

It's true. The film, I mean; it's a true story. And it's not in any way dry or sombre or mundane as biographical films are prone to being; it's a thoroughly engaging story, made all the more real by its heart-warming depiction of our queen in her childhood, her mother in her prime, and the relationships of this extraordinary family.

If you've not seen it, do so. If you don't like it, you're probably not human.

And Then There Were None

2010-11-26T19:30:00.004+11:00

There's a bit of a risk involved in seeing a show you've been involved with yourself. I did sound for a production of And Then There Were None in Theatre 3 back in 1998, when I first moved to Canberra, so there was no way I was going to miss seeing Rep's production of it this year!

One thing that surprised me was how many lines I recalled. I had none previously, although there were plenty of cues. Still, you wouldn't think I would recall them twelve years later with no contact with the play in the intervening years. And I really didn't remember the outcome. Not a skerrick of it. At any rate, it was a trip down memory lane.

The risk, of course, is that my view of the play is coloured by my memories of the production I was involved with. Not that they should be compared. I was involved with a student production by CADS (the defunct Canberra Amateur Dramatic Society), directed by relatively inexperienced directors, whereas Rep's production boasted the very deft hand of Duncan Ley as well as a host of experienced Canberra actors. And it showed. This was a great show that gave the play a lot more life than ours did. And it's needed with Agatha Christie's dialogue. It gave the odd nod to Film Noir, which at times was just a little too much at odds with the text, but more often suited it well.

The set, as dark and gloomy as a stage set can be, didn't seem to add much apart from making the Film Noir reference, but it suited the purpose and certainly gave room for the performers to die the most excellent deaths.

I love a play that doesn't take itself too seriously, and this is quite true of Rep's production of And Then There Were None. Really, no Agatha Christie play can be taken too seriously; they get awfully dry awfully quickly otherwise. This production manages to hold the attention marvellously.

Love, Lies and Hitler

2010-11-18T19:30:00.000+11:00

How often have you wanted to have one of your heroes sit on your shoulder and tell you how to make decisions about your life? Wouldn't it be nice, just occasionally, to have George Calombaris in the kitchen while you cook, chatting and offering helpful advice? Or to have the ever-so-experienced Henry VIII providing his support during a marital spat? Decision-making would be so much easier with such a support mechanism in place. As long as you were willing to surrender something of your own will to this mentor...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

The Sweetest Thing

2010-11-12T20:15:00.001+11:00

Growing organically from its warm minimal set in the cozy downstairs theatre at Belvoir, The Sweetest Thing is a sad and funny story about the intersection between love and family. Playwright Verity Laughton weaves a complex tale that focuses on the emotional journey of its characters very strongly thanks to being relieved of the burden of chronology. Despite a dynamic plot arc and potentially confusing time changes, the story of Sarah, played by the wonderful Diana Glenn shines through with excellent clarity.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

The Social Network

2010-10-25T21:53:00.001+11:00

Despite a few moments where truth seems to win out over storytelling, The Social Network tells a genuinely engaging story and does so with some empathy for a diversity of characters. It does this with some rather dry historical material, and it does develop a very human story, although it is a little on the superficial side.

From the opening scene, which shows not only Zuckerberg's dumping by girlfriend Erica Albright but also the reason for it, this film is distinctively about Mark Zuckerberg. He would be an awfully boring subject, though, without the rest of this impeccable cast. The standout is certainly Andrew Garfield's performance as Zuckerberg's foil Eduardo Saverin, which almost singe-handedly salvages the damage done by the awkwardness of Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg.

Eisenberg's depiction of Mark Zuckerberg is discomforting. Of course, it is not an easy thing to depict a living celebrity, and this particular celebrity, as the king of geekdom, must be a particular challenge, but I was left wondering what kind of human being I was seeing. At times, he seemed to be dealing with a condition on the autism spectrum, rather than merely being socially awkward, and yet even this was not consistent. At times he would suddenly animate, then return to a morose obsessive. Perhaps this impression was what was intended. For all I know, this could be exactly what Mark Zuckerberg is like, but whatever the reason, it was disconcerting.

The major strength of this film is that although it's a story about the development of Facebook intertwined with the story of a lawsuit, both of which threaten dullness, the human element is palpable and immediate. In fact (and I can't believe I'm saying this about an American film), I think the story could have benefited from a little more pathos around its central characters. There is a very human story here, and it barely emerges from the more technical process of depicting historical events.

I suspect that this film will date quickly. I would guess that, unless some major legal battle puts an end to Facebook, this story will be told again and again, and the best expressions of it are still to come. Hopefully some of them will be written with more concern for the characters, and will be performed with greater clarity.

A Well Hung Parliament

2010-10-22T20:30:00.001+11:00

Shortis and Simpson’s brand is safe with this latest topical offering, which provides plenty of laughs and many gentle jabs at Canberra’s more itinerant population. Rhyming Gillard with ‘kill hard’ and pointing out some of the delicious ironies of our new parliament (such as the two Wyatts and one Wong), these veterans of the Canberra stage were as amusing as ever, keeping the audience enthralled throughout.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

The Clever Country

2010-10-14T19:30:00.000+11:00

It is unusual, I think, to hear about a play inspired by a statistic. It is not encouraging, either. Nonetheless, Bruce Hoogendoorn's play, The Clever Country, currently playing at The Street Theatre, takes as its theme Australia's falling science enrolments, and does so—perhaps surprisingly, considering its inspiration—with great humour and an intriguing plotline...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Tomorrow When The War Began

2010-09-18T12:15:00.001+10:00

Tomorrow When The War Began is an iconic piece of Australian literature renowned not so much for its story, characters or fantastic writing as for annoying the heck out of high school students. John Marsden wrote it specifically for the high school market, aiming it at schools in need of an easy read for young adolescents. This ambit was successful, and as a result it is one of the most read stories in Australia, despite being dull, poorly-written and full of implausible circumstances and pointless guff. Needless to say, I didn't expect much from the film.

From inauspicious beginnings, apparently, great stories are born. The very act of adapting a story for film has a way of weeding out page-filling nonsense and implausible circumstances. A novel can get away with not mentioning visual elements, but scenarios undergo more thorough analysis in film. In the case of Tomorrow When The War Began, this process has thoroughly redeemed an otherwise unremarkable story.

The cast, who, with one exception, are far too old to be playing characters who need to ask their parents' permission for anything, are otherwise superb. Led by the magnificent Caitlin Stasey in the role of Ellie, they personify Marsden's characters better than Marsden did, and without any exception they sustain impeccable performances throughout the film. And yes, I even include a former Home and Away actor in this praise, which is remarkable in itself.

Like the age of the actors, the locations chosen for the film leave something to be desired, but are nonetheless redeemed. The Blue Mountains, instantly recognisable and distinctive, simply doesn't cut it for a random bush hideaway near the fictional rural town of Wirrawee. The sandstone cliffs of the Megalong Valley are simply too familiar, and the familiarity detracts from the value of setting the story in a fictitious Australian town.

The film nonetheless survives these faults, and is certainly the best saleable film made in this country for many years. The plot, characters and actors combine to produce a film that is far better in all respects than the novel that spawned it, making the tongue-in-cheek line from the film that all books are better than their films deliciously ironic.

This film may not win huge numbers of awards, but thoughts that it may be the beginning of the most profitable film series in Australian history could be right on the money. I certainly hope so.

Hamlet

2010-09-17T19:30:00.029+10:00

Having secured what I knew to be the last available ticket for Yohangza Theatre Company's production of Hamlet, I was surprised to find myself sitting next to the South Australian Premier and his wife for the performance. The irony of watching a king's downfall orchestrated through a theatre production while sitting next to the leader of a state government in a theatre was not lost on me, but I doubt that Mike Rann and his wife felt the same pangs of guilt as Gertrude and Claudius.

Played by Eun-Hee Kim, this Gertrude is perhaps not as guilt-ridden as some I have encountered. But whereas Gertrude is often portrayed with an underlying sense of her own moral corruption, Kim has given her an aloofness, lasting until Hamlet finally reveals his hand following the theatre scene. I prefer this change, as risky as it might be. It holds more weight with Shakespeare's text, and in this production, in this context, it provides a profound shift in the character that is necessary to add depth for its Australian audience. This is not a criticism of the performers, but a play performed in Korean for a predominantly English-speaking audience can't skimp on such details.

Hamlet certainly doesn't. Played by Jung-Yong Jeon, his vacillations are as palpable as that fatal hit, and his descent into madness is beautifully paced; almost undetectable. Claudius could perhaps have emoted rather more; by both dress and demeanour he emerged more western than the rest of the cast. But in all, this cast expended enough energy and elicited enough pathos to warrant a standing ovation from the opening night audience (though the premier, notably, remained seated).

A minimalist set spares no effort, with a centre rostrum raised in the middle of what must be hundreds of kilos of rice, and surrounded by traditional Korean artworks, and Korean percussive instruments. These instruments are put to excellent use by the cast, whose timing and energy is perfectly synthesised. More intriguingly, Korean Shaman rites are used to ensure the story is at home in its Korean context.

This is a remarkably sensitive production of what I think is Shakespeare's greatest work. It is faithful, if such a word can really be applied to any production of Shakespeare's work later than the seventeenth century, to the characters, their motivations, fears and desires; as well as their circumstances. And it dispels in my mind any doubt that the stories of Shakespeare are absolutely universal in their application to humanity.

The Ghost Writer

2010-08-19T18:15:00.004+10:00

To the extent that Americans love a good conspiracy theory, the Brits are equally keen on questioning the integrity of their Prime Minsters. Roman Polanski caters for both predilections in his magnificent new film, The Ghost Writer.

Ewan McGregor plays the titular character, a writer hired to massage the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister into shape following the mysterious death of another ghost writer. Gradually, and innocently (which is refreshing), he discovers a web of intrigue and finds himself reluctantly wrapped up in it, at his own peril.

However much I like this as a film, it's the story, penned originally as a novel by Robert Harris, that I find so magnificently intriguing. Remaining almost entirely fictitious, and needing no awkward date stamp, this story draws a shocking parallelism from the circumstances surrounding the era of fear following the 9/11 attacks. And surprisingly, since it parallels so literally the Anglo-American response, it is as relevant here in Australia as in the US and UK.

I can't say too much about it, lest I spoil it for you, but this is a great film, and you must go see it. That is all.

Do Not Go Gentle

2010-08-18T19:30:00.002+10:00

Seeing Do Not Go Gentle was an experience. Not just because it's a great show, but because I got the opportunity to meet Patricia Cornelius, the play's writer, before the show opened. That, and the fact that fortyfivedownstairs is a fantastic venue with more character than a Shakespearean king.

Equally admirable were the performances of a fantastic cast, admirably lead by Rhys McConnochie, all bringing their characters to life in a way that should connect with audiences of all ages.

Freezing my way through a show is not normally my idea of fun, but it's highly appropriate for Do Not Go Gentle, which focuses on Scott's unsuccessful attempt to plant an Australian flag at the South Pole before the Norwegians got theirs there. And while fortyfivedownstairs may have been a bit of a cold place on the night, the lives of its characters are just as cold, but with a warmth that makes it all worthwhile.

The thing I enjoyed most about this play was its insistence that life is for living, a thesis well worth remembering on a cold Winter's night in Melbourne.

The Berry Man

2010-08-05T20:00:00.004+10:00

I've never really liked stories about the Vietnam War. They have a tendency to either be so factual that they're dead boring, or so esoteric that they're unrelatable to anyone who didn't live through that time. Patricia Cornelius has deftly sidestepped both potential faults in her heartwarming play, The Berry Man.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Smart Casual

2010-08-03T20:00:00.003+10:00

A great energy filled Canberra's southern reaches tonight as local comedians warmed up a more-casual-than-smart audience for Smart Casual. Jokes about bogans (and boganism) predictably abounded, and were well-recieved by their targets. As well as these almost-obligatory barbs there were quite a few gems, particularly from the very sharp-witted Tom Gibson...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

The Girls

2010-07-30T21:00:00.004+10:00

We have a fascination with firsts. Having our first female prime minister has a sense of novelty about it, which would probably be equalled by a first Aboriginal prime minister. Both the reality and the possibility, however, are little more than symbols of a maturing atmosphere of equality; they offer nothing of real substance in themselves. The Girls, I think offers something of greater substance in its diverse vignettes around the theme of womanhood in a postmodern world.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Greenberg

2010-07-28T19:00:00.001+10:00

Some films are a chore to watch, but many of these reward the viewer's effort with a character that lives on well after the film has finished. Greenberg is such a film. Its central character, who exists in a cloud of mental illness, faces a banal life, overshadowed by his failures and their impact on those around him. Miserable, perhaps, but the character is not merely recognisable; he elicits an empathy that outlasts his film.

This character, Roger Greenberg, superbly portrayed by Ben Stiller (who I had previously thought a mediocre actor) finds himself resident in his brother's California home while the family is away after a stint in a psych ward in New York. His condition is never identified, and this is critical; he could be any one of us. Likewise the film's heroine, Florence Marr (played brilliantly by the little-known Greta Gerwig), presents another kind of mental instability, and elicits a similar empathy.

It takes a special kind of writer to come up with an engaging script around the theme of mental illness, but that is precisely what writer Noah Baumbach has managed to achieve in Greenberg. It's one of those films that survives being slow thanks to strong characters portrayed honestly and without a silly gush of emotion.

Dreams, Visions and Constipated Old Farts

2010-07-23T11:33:00.000+10:00

Images of an ageing Ghandi flit through my mind occasionally. They’re a cliché for political activism, akin to the image of Martin Luther King Junior’s infamous proclamation, “I have a dream”. These are epic images, and Ghandi’s in particular speaks of a life well-lived, and spent on something worthwhile. For the rest of us, our dreams—whether they’re as big as Ghandi’s or not—have a very tenuous relationship with the realities of our lives, but paradoxically these same dreams are usually the driving force in what an individual manages to achieve.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

True Logic of the Future

2010-07-15T20:00:00.005+10:00

Nothing pleases me more than to have my ideas of what constitutes good theatre challenged, and the talented and immensely clever cast and crew of True Logic of the Future have done just that. This is a creative and intricately constructed performance that presents many challenges for the reviewer, not least of which is the question of whether it should be reviewed at all...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Gruen Nation

2010-07-06T18:40:00.001+10:00

Wil Anderson is, in my humble opinion, Australia's most serious comedian. He may not admit it, but just about everything he says has a point, and most of those points are both scathingly critical and bitingly relevant. The only comedian that comes close to him is Paul McDermott, but his humour is very gentle by comparison, and almost exclusively aimed at politicians. Interestingly, both have spent formative years in Canberra, but the announcement that Anderson will be refitting the magnificent concept comedy The Gruen Transfer especially for the election makes me think twice about simply labelling him a 'comedian'. The Gruen concept, which allows Anderson to refrain from making too many comments that aren't funny, while still getting to a more salient point.

In the ABC's weekly newsletter, Gruen Nation is touted to dissect the advertising of the parties and "decode what's going on for the audience and point out the many strategies political parties use to influence voters". In his rather more forthright style, Anderson himself describes the show as the "national bullshit detector".

Analysing election campaigns is mostly about detecting disingenuity and calling candidates to account for their policies in the hope that voters may make an informed decision. Unfortunately, the media, which was enshrined in both our country and the Americans' as a balancing force in government, is not particularly good at this. Probably because they no longer have the time to undertake thorough investigation, their work is driven by media releases, which are innately untrustworthy. These days, dissecting how political parties construct a sales pitch in the context of an election is the best way to analyse their motivations and question their integrity. We may even find that this heightened scrutiny is a game-changer for federal elections.

And if not, it's still bound to be a great series.

Winter's Discontent

2010-06-19T19:30:00.001+10:00

Every now and then a play comes along that leaves you feeling like you’ve just witnessed something important, but you’re not sure what. Winter’s Discontent is one of them. It is coherent, intelligent, demanding of its audience and at times funny, but I still feel like I missed something. Like there was something substantial, important, that the writer was trying to communicate, and I’m a bit of a goose for missing it...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Jazz Garters

2010-06-19T09:51:00.001+10:00

Well, I've finally done it. More than twelve years after moving to Canberra, I have finally been to one of Rep's winter variety shows. I recall that it was originally recommended to me in 1998 as an undergraduate beginning a Theatre Studies major at the ANU, as an excellent example of the music hall tradition, so there's something bittersweet in having finally attended in the same week that the ANU's Theatre Studies major met its demise.

The cast certainly delivers. After a slightly flat first half, which could be put down to opening night, the second was quite magical. Ian Croker's rendition of Minnie the Moocher got the audience engaged, and Christine Forbes followed this with a beautifully theatrical The Girl from 14G, about which she bragged that she was overjoyed to be able to wear her pyjamas on stage!

I felt my personal cringe factor rise when we were informed that the finale was to be a rendition of Peter Allen's perfectly horrid canticle I Still Call Australia Home, but it dissipated completely with the cast's magnificent send-up of the song's overwrought history.

A variety show stands or falls on the energy of its cast, and this cast certainly works hard for their applause. After a flat start, the energy flowed and made Jazz Garters a fun and entertaining show, well worth a night out.

Harry Brown

2010-06-07T19:00:00.000+10:00

Harry Brown begins with one of the most guesome scenes of urban violence imaginable. The purpose of this scene, almost unrelated to the rest of the film, is perhaps to numb us a little for what is to follow. The violence of Harry Brown is, perhaps, of the same calibre as Quentin Tarantino's films, but Daniel Barber's use of violence is otherwise entirely incomparable. It is targeted, purposeful and meaningful to the same extent that Tarantino's is aimless and vague.

Michael Caine is at his best in this film. In case you were wondering, no, he's not funny; he strikes with absolute perfection that degree of pathos that could so easily turn into melodrama, without even a hint of going too far. He is supported by an impeccable script and visionary cinematography.

I have long been a devotee of those films that can take the most grotesque aspects of the human condition and appeal, even in that context, to our capacity for hope. Trainspotting was one of the first I encountered, and remains one of the best examples of the transcendental in film. Harry Brown certainly stands well beside it.

And in case you read my previous post about seeing Robin Hood at Perth's Picadilly cinema, you may be interested to know that Leederville's art deco Luna cinema was the perfect venue for a film of this calibre!

Robin Hood

2010-06-05T18:40:00.002+10:00

Robin Hood is a bit of a marathon, and if you have a comfortable seat and a few hours to spare, it's a vaguely worthwhile pastime. Unlike other renditions of the myth, this film draws its impetus from political machinations, and lets go of the story's usual plebian roots. Surprisingly, this is actually a good decision, as it provides not only a novel context for the story, but also broader relevance.

Russell Crowe plays his typical alpha male with a softer side, only this time with a funny accent. This novelty is complemented by extremely modern dialogue; making the film in many ways a counterpoint to films of Shakespeare's plays that place sixteenth century dialogue in a modern setting. This is the opposite; playing twenty-first century dialogue in a twelfth century setting, with the added irony of a post-colonial actor playing the Old Country's chief hero. My strange little mind would like to have heard Crowe's cultivated Australian accent placed into the context to see what other meanings could be derived, but of course that wouldn't do so well at the box office, would it?

And the box office is what this film is made for. It is formulaic, rudimentary and appeals to the same values as every other film about underdogs made in the last couple of decades. It does absolutely nothing to distinguish itself from that genre, and sits somewhere in the middle of Ridley Scott's very palatable aesthetic.

Of more note than this film is the venue I saw it in. Perth's Picadilly Cinema is a quaint venue, reminiscent of Canberra's Electric Shadows. That's all well and good, but this film needs chairs with a higher back and a clearer view of the screen. I came out with a sore neck and tired knees. Every city, especially Australia's western mecca deserves a Dendy or a Limelight.

A good film, but a bit meh.

Animal Kingdom

2010-05-28T21:10:00.002+10:00

Animal Kingdom poses that age-old question about how many blood spatters are too many. I suspect that the creators were attempting to use blood spatters as a visual motif, as most of the spatters were of a similar consistency, evenly spread across a contrasting surface, but ultimately they just echoed the naff nature of the film generally.

There was a lot of potential here. After a slow start, the film did engage, and it did manage to take me to that serendipitous point at which you have to know what happens next, and the screening environment just melts away. A magnificent cast with a wealth of experience is admirably lead by newcomer James Frecheville. His treatment of the morose character he landed is remarkably compelling, and I think the cast is this film's saving grace.

But overall, this is a truly disappointing film; not because it represents nothing of value, but because it really had a lot of potential that it didn't live up to. An engaging story and some of Australia's best actors are let down by a slow treatment in the editing suite and mundane cinematography. This one's definitely worthy of a remake, perhaps even with the same cast, but it needs a more compelling treatment by the creative team.

Every Single Saturday

2010-05-12T20:00:00.009+10:00

Before going along to see Every Single Saturday I must admit to a little apprehension. It is the same fear I face every time a conversation turns to sport or someone makes a comment vaguely sports-related and then looks at me as if I am expected to make a certain type of comment. That’s right, I’m a member of Australia’s smallest minority group: the Sports-Ignorant. Thankfully, although it really is all about soccer mums and dads, Every Single Saturday makes life easy even for the Sports-Ignorant. There’s even one of us amongst the characters!

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

I Love You Too

2010-05-03T18:30:00.000+10:00

I was one of the privileged hundreds to get free tickets to Limelight Cinemas' preview of I Love You Too, with writer Peter Helliar in attendance. After some inane and worthless chatter from morning radio hosts Scotty and Nige, who 'interviewed' the rather more intelligent Peter Helliar, this unfortunate train-wreck of a film was underway. Perhaps 'train-wreck' is a little harsh; I think this film is more like a series of minor derailments, causing some mayhem on the commute to great Australian cinema.

The plot, although a little cliche, is nonetheless engaging, following the story of Jim, a commitment-phobic man in his early thirties who is threatened with losing his girlfriend. It suffers, however, from that age-old scourge of the comedian-writer; being interspersed with one-liners, which may be hilarious at the time, but seriously interrupt the progression of the plot. It is a problem that may have been resolved, had the writer been an unknown, but perhaps there wasn't a dramaturge available who could confront Peter Helliar with the awful truth that some of these one-liners should have been ditched to protect the integrity of the narrative arc.

Admirable performances from Brendan Cowell, Yvonne Strahovski, Peter Dinklage and even Peter Helliar himself (who struggled to keep a straight face at times) couldn't save the compromised script.

Australian film went through a period of producing only one genre of film. It was a cross between comedy and drama that worked very well for the period we were in, but our industry has matured, and our films are now more complex, influenced by a wider range of international cinema, and reflecting a more diverse Australia. I Love You Too does none of this. It harks back to a naive and self-centred Australia from sometime in the 1990s. It has some redeeming qualities, most notably its engaging plot, but it just doesn't come together as a unified work, and is sorely disappointing.

Love Cupboard

2010-04-30T19:30:00.001+10:00

Love Cupboard can be neatly summarised as the story of an adolescent girl who isolates herself from the rest of her life to live with her boyfriend (hence the love); and to avoid discovery, hides in a cupboard in his lounge room (hence the cupboard). The story is as quaint as its title...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Faces in the Street

2010-04-10T20:00:00.002+10:00

Henry Lawson’s legacy is not an easy one to identify. It is wrapped up in the mystery of the Australian identity, which is now, as it was in Lawson’s day, straddled across the divides between urban and rural, between civilised and free, and of course between global and local. Max Cullen’s play, Faces in the Street, somehow manages to explore these weighty notions while remaining firmly grounded in the story of Lawson’s life...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Thoughts on Directing 'When He Was Famous'

2010-04-05T22:20:00.004+10:00

Well it's time for another first... but this is scary!

I have just handed over a show to my assistant director, Seth Robinson, before the last two dress rehearsals! Now, I can't complain too much. I've done this because I'm off to Fiji to attend my nephew's wedding, but it really is scary to think that this show will go on without me. Even at opening night!

It's not that I don't think the cast is ready; they could open tomorrow and be fine, I'm sure, but I'm not ready to let it go! I mean, I've slogged away for the last two months with them, and they're about to step up and perform, and I won't be there to enjoy it!

Still, that doesn't mean the rest of Canberra shouldn't; so if you haven't booked your tickets yet, call the Tuggeranong Arts Centre and tell them you're coming!

Toy Symphony

2010-03-17T20:00:00.008+11:00

There is an understated richness in every aspect of Toy Symphony. From the rigid, unforgiving box set, to the delicate simplicity of its marvellous performers, to Michael Gow’s unassuming dialogue, the play is replete with this marvellous juxtaposition of natural simplicity with deep pathos...

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

Impro: On The March

2010-03-14T19:30:00.027+11:00

Another great show from the Impro Theatre ACT guys tonight. I have unfortunately missed the shows for quite a while, and I'm very impressed with both the standard of performance and the format used in tonight's show. The show was non-competitive, and was centred around long-form improvisation. The long form very much suits the ensemble's style, and the smaller presence of the MC also retains a greater degree of focus.

I was particularly impressed with the ability of this cast to reincorporate earlier plot lines, and tie up loose ends that had been left earlier in the show. I recall a few moments in the middle of uproarious laughter wondering why I was laughing, and realising that the humour was in the simple reincorporation of a theme that had been lost previously. This is one of the golden aspects of improvisation; that the enjoyment of the piece often has more to do with our engagement with the performers than the show itself.

Must get back to Impro more often...

Richard III

2010-03-12T20:00:00.025+11:00

In Richard III, Shakespeare has left us one of the greatest challenges to the willing suspension of disbelief ever created; Richard is a foul and loathsome character, and yet every time I see the play, I am amazed at how much sympathy I have for the detestable excuse for a human being I am presented with. Everyman Theatre has left me in this state yet again.

The rest of this post is published on Australian Stage.

2009 CAT Awards

2010-03-02T20:04:00.006+11:00

While it might be an exaggeration to say that Parkes scooped the 2009 CAT Awards, their achievements were certainly the main highlight of the night. The town of 10,000 may be one of the smaller in the Canberra Area Theatre (CAT) Awards’ broad catchment, but it is certainly punching above its weight in impressing the judges...

For the rest of this article, go to Australian Stage

Bran Nue Dae

2010-02-27T21:00:00.001+11:00

Bran Nue Dae is a bit of a romp, but I’m not entirely convinced this film has survived some of its more irksome quirks. By and large the story sings, the direction is clear, and the cinematography is inspired, but a few lines of uninspired dialogue, a few missed beats, and the occasional diversion from the film’s primary mode of storytelling let down what is otherwise a light, unassuming comedy that would do the Australian film industry proud.

Ernie Dingo and Geoffrey Rush could be said to have saved this film. In the lead role is Rocky McKenzie, who can sing, but comes across rather wooden, even in singing mode. If it were a stage play, I would say it was over-rehearsed, but I’m not sure that’s possible with film. I would assume Jessica Mauboy was cast for much the same reason: her voice is spectacular, and this is one of the film’s redeeming features, but the moment she must speak it’s like she seizes up and loses all sense of her character. Missy Higgins is another actor who was surely cast for her musical talent, but whose performances as a character were charming, mesmerising and hilarious.

I don’t want to be too critical, because I actually really liked the film. It has a great story, some hilarious characters and scenarios, and some really great music. I just couldn’t quite relax into it.

The World's Fastest Indian

2010-01-30T20:00:00.001+11:00

The Kiwis are an amazing bunch of creatives, and are certainly punching above their weight as far as film is concerned. The World's Fastest Indian is a magnificently-crafted piece of cinema that showcases the country's talent and attention to detail perfectly.

It's the true story of Bert Munro from Invercargill, who has spent decades carefully modifying his 1920s Indian motorcycle, and in 1967 travels to Bonneville, Utah to run it on the salt flats in the annual Speed Week competition.

Anthony Hopkins gives a splendid performance with a surprisingly appropriate accent, not only for the character's New Zealand origin but also his age and personality. And the precision of his performance is simply a footnote to the carefully composed script that really demonstrates the characteristic strengths of the New Zealand mind.

Theatre offerings in 2010

2010-01-25T17:04:00.001+11:00

It's shaping up to be a good year. I'll soon be starting work on the production of a new play by young Canberra playwright Seth Robinson, called When He Was Famous, which is going to be a lot of fun. So, I figure it's time I gave some thought to what I must see, what I should see, and what I may see on Canberra's stages this year.

The obvious place to start is of course the Canberra Theatre Centre, but after next week's encore performance of The Musical of Musicals (The Musical), I don't see an awful lot that interests me. Pennies from Kevin has one of those titles that makes you wonder whether the show can be as good as the title, and King Lear is for old people; it will be a while before I can make head or tail of it! The Walworth Farce, however, looks like a worthwhile investment, and I think the season may potentially be redeemable from total boredom by Bell's continuation of their cross-dressing theme in Twelfth Night and Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling.

Canberra Repertory's closing play of the 2010 season has me very interested: I did sound for And Then There Were None in Theatre 3 while I was an undergrad at the ANU. I'm also looking forward to Moon Over Buffalo, a comedy planned for the brave month of May along with SUPA's production of Spamalot, which is sure to be a blast, especially since they were wise enough not to cast me! Queanbeyan Players, on the other hand, were wise enough to cast my brother-in-law in Fame, which is also one of those ubiquitous May shows!

Everyman Theatre continue their great run with Richard III in March, so I'll be looking forward to that along with Free Rain's classic A Streetcar Named Desire later in the year.

But by and large, the most impressive material I've seen yet belongs to The Q. Including a curated season of interstate productions as well as a few local offerings, I want to see just about everything in their aptly named Simply Irresistible season!

And that's not to mention the fact that I'll be taking the munchkins to Melbourne to see Mary Poppins on stage later in the year, that I just have to pop up to Sydney for Belvoir's Namatjira in September, or the great films I'm anticipating such as Bran Nue Dae (I know it's already open, but I haven't see it yet!), Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II. No doubt I will be enjoying some of these at Tuggeranong's new Limelight Cinema! Yes, I know it seems like a bit of a plug, but I'm in favour of anything that puts the boot into Hoyts!

So, I hope I'll see you about the theatres this year!

Lucky Miles

2010-01-24T20:30:00.000+11:00

If I told you I had watched a film based on trues stories about boat people entering Australia on the northwest coast, you'd probably yawn. I expected something more like a docudrama when I sat down to watch Lucky Miles, but was pleasantly surprised to encounter a comic drama set in the outback.

There is no sense of that superficial ocker-ness to this film, just a great story, impeccably filmed, and filled with dry, cackle-till-my-throat-hurts humour. Kenneth Moraleda gives an excellent performance as something of a straightman who balances the sardonic humour of the rest of the characters. He provides that balance between comedy and drama that Australian film makers have perfected.

This was a lucky find: I never heard about Lucky Miles when it was in cinema release, but wow! How do the greatest films always seem to miss out on media coverage? It's a crying shame; find the DVD!

Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-01T18:50:00.001+11:00

Film interpretations of literary works are unfortunately subject to comparison with their wordy counterparts and generally make a poor comparison. Sherlock Holmes' three writers deftly sidestep this risk by taking Arthur Conan Doyle's characters and situation and giving them a new plot. The result, I think, is a crime story that the master crime writer would have been proud of.

This film departs dramatically from the tradition of depicting Holmes as a Victorian aristocrat and instead shows him as a hero not unlike Spiderman or Mr Incredible, but with substantial flaws that both endear him and make him repugnant to a twenty-first century audience. Robert Downey Junior plays him admirably, but Jude Law's Watson is the star performance here. Just as in Doyle's novels, where Watson is the link between the reader and the aloof Holmes, Law's Watson gives the audience a central character that makes the detached genius accessible.

This film is unmistakably a product of the twenty-first century, but it manages at the same time to illicit that same sense of intrigue from me that reading Doyle's stories does. The makers of this film have been bold, even brazen, in their interpretation of Doyle's characters and situations, but the gamble has paid off, and Sherlock Holmes is, as a result, the first film to do Arthur Conan Doyle's characters justice.

Death and the Dreamlife of Elephants

2009-11-21T20:00:00.018+11:00

When the directors’s notes in the program talk about exploring things like anxieties, spirituality and purpose, you worry. Well, I do. I usually expect something that’s more like a ‘performance piece’ than a play, and something that, to quote an esteemed colleague, is ‘as deep as whale poo’. What I don’t generally expect is a play like Death and the Dreamlife of Elephants.

This play, staged at Wellington’s independent Bats Theatre, is the culmination of a collaborative project (I seem to be encountering a few of these this year), that has apparently involved a broad cross-section of the Wellington community. The action is set in Wellington, so I’m glad I didn’t see it on my first night here, because I would have missed half of the references! Nonetheless, I would still have walked out of the theatre a little dazed, a little confused, but nonetheless happy to have witnessed Julian’s story played out, and to have recognised something of myself in it.

Death and the Dreamlife of Elephants could reasonably be slotted into the Deep as Whale Poo genre, but this is probably the first play I’ve ever seen from that genre that has a (discernable) plot, as well as recognisable figures. Of course, the more intellectually challenged of my tribe would have trouble following the plot, but it is there, and it is both engaging and distinct. And as deep as whale poo.

Mao's Last Dancer

2009-11-11T18:30:00.001+11:00

Much is being made of Bruce Beresford's latest film, Mao's Last Dancer. It has been released amidst a flurry of discussion about the nature of Australian film, and because it doesn't deal with a particularly Australian story, it seems to break away from the stereotypical Australian film. Unfortunately, I think this will be the most memorable feature of the film.

Mao's Last Dancer is the true story, based on the autobiography of the same title, of Li Cunxin, a ballet dancer plucked from obscurity in a small Chinese village to study ballet in Beijing, who went on to defect from the People's Republic and achieve stardom in the United States. It is an inspiring story, but for my money, not a particularly memorable one.

As we expect from Bruce Beresford, the cinematography is superb, the performances convincing, even from some iconic Australian actors playing Americans. But I think that the only thing particularly noteworthy about the film is its subject matter. This is an Australian film that has next to nothing to do with Australia, and while I would be happy to see more films like this, I fear that the more endearing aspects of Mao's Last Dancer are overshadowed by this fact.

A good film, with a rather dull plot but spectacular performances, and one that offers excellent insight into a culture we tend to stereotype rather than engage with. Watch it when you're not at risk of falling asleep.

Notes on Directing 'Take Their Life'

2009-11-05T00:00:00.053+11:00

I have just handed over the reins of my current project, Take Their Life, to the stage manager, Joyce Gore. I thought I was scared of directing anything of Shakespeare's before, but now I'm even more scared because I no longer have any control over what happens!

I have learned an awful lot from the experience of directing a sacred cow. Having only directed new, or relatively new, works before, I've never had to deal with strongly-established and conflicting interpretations of character before. The principles are the same: you look for various interpretations and pick the one that best suits your needs, but when there is such a wide range of varying interpretations, and when some of those interpretations are so firmly entrenched from centuries of analysis, it can be a tough call to pick the one that best suits our purposes.

All directors say it, but it really has been a pleasure to work with such a talented cast. They've amazed me at times with their capacity to take an idea I've had about how a character should act or respond, and incorporate that into a holistic expression of a character, which essentially is nothing more than a concept. I have found it quite humbling to watch those characters emerge from vague and shadowy ideas in my head into characters who stand and walk about and interact as if they're real people.

So next stop is opening night, when we turn Shakespeare's sacred cow into a profane one. I hope people enjoy it, but really, the best part of the experience of profaning a sacred cow is over, and after nine months in development, I am both breathing a sigh of relief, and beginning to fret about letting it go.

Chookas, cast.

Review of Arts in the ACT

2009-10-28T12:00:00.000+11:00

This afternoon I participated in the democratic process. Sounds very noble and boring, doesn't it? Actually, I joined a whole bunch of other arty types to talk about arts practice in the ACT and government support for it. It was an interesting discussion, although it will be far more interesting to see what our great and mighty leaders do with our input.

The event was a consultation session run by a private firm contracted by ArtsACT to conduct a review of the arts in the ACT. Amongst a little bit of outright whining, there were some interesting discussions about the way in which governments support the arts, and how arts funding could best be utilised to the benefit of the arts community.

There were a few comments about the level of importation of art product, and the proportion of government funding that flows out of Canberra to artists based interstate or overseas. There was also a particularly interesting point made about the lack of support for arts businesses, which are, presumably, one of the most sustainable forms of arts activities.

But I think the most interesting point made, from the perspective of someone who has only been in Canberra for a little over a decade, was that Canberra had a much healthier and more robust arts community in the 80s and 90s. While I was well aware of most of the organisations, what these 'older' Canberrans were reminiscing was an atmosphere of creativity that could rival that of Seattle or Paris. At least one person who had lived through it remarked that she hadn't thought about it for years. It made me sadly jealous of those who have had a longer association with the city.

Still, I can hold out hope that a new era of cultural vibrancy may yet dawn on our little concrete jungle. The group I found myself in this afternoon certainly has more than its fair share of optimism. One of them was so optimistic that she even thought it possible that our elected officials may one day actually take pride in the achievements of creative Canberrans. I'm optimistic, but not that optimistic. As long as the minister for the arts is a lawyer with a strong cultural cringe against his constituents, I hardly see that happening.

What I hold out hope for is a revival of creative energy. I am in one sense thankful that I don't have an older picture of what a creative Canberra looks like, because a new era of that kind of culture is sure to look very different from the old one. I was surprised to learn that Happy Feet was largely created in Canberra. That is certainly a different image of creativity from what must have gone on in the 80s and 90s, but that kind of creative energy is something to get excited about (as long as they can find better script writers, because Happy Feet was crap in the dialogue and plot departments).

At any rate, if you would like to contribute your $0.02 worth to the debate, it's not too late. You can get along to the last consultation session on Wednesday 4 November at Belconnen Arts Centre, or you can complete the survey.

The Christian Brothers

2009-10-16T20:00:00.002+11:00

I am getting a little bored with the whole "let's say nasty things about the Catholic church" thing that our culture seems to have going on these last few years. Being an older play, Ron Blair's The Christian Brothers doesn't suffer from the same simplistic and one-dimensional depiction of Catholicism as its more modern counterparts. It's refreshing.

This one-man play is about an ageing Catholic school teacher going through something of a crisis of faith in the strangely public context of his classroom. Perhaps the most interesting part of this play is how the classroom itself, while occupied by however many students the audience imagines to be there, can be at once public and private.

Veteran of the Canberra stage, Bill Boyd brings the flawed teacher to life brilliantly, eliciting empathy and laughter as we recognise those flaws that most of our teachers probably also had. This is a great production, and an hour well spent.

The Hamlet Apocalypse

2009-10-09T20:30:00.000+11:00

I think Dionysus was smiling on me when I rocked up at La Mama tonight without a booking. And to be within those hallowed walls was, as always, a humbling experience. The Danger Ensemble's The Hamlet Apocalypse illustrates beautifully the human inclination to cling to what we know when facing what we fear.

Director, Steven Mitchell Wright, says that "this work is very simply about a group of actors choosing to perform William Shakespeare's Hamlet in the face of the apocalypse, the end, death, finality, loss, whichever it is for you". And while there is an element of simplicity in its performance, there is nothing simple about the way these actors face their apocalypse. Rather, there is an understanding and intense depiction of the very human emotions of fear, anticipation and determination.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is the perfect partner for this story, and its broad plot arc has been deftly interwoven with these actors' story. The cast delivers Shakespeare's dialogue with aplomb, and I may well have wanted to see them simply do Hamlet, were it not for the fascinating development of the actors' characters. As the cast counts down to the apocalypse, their own fears, insecurities and personalities render some of Shakespeare's most profound characters dull by comparison with these performers, whose experiences resonate spectacularly in La Mama's confined space.

The Taming of the Shrew

2009-10-06T19:30:00.001+11:00

When you go to the preview night for a Bell Shakespeare production, it could be for one of two reasons: either you're too stingy to pay full price, or you're so damn keen you couldn't wait... I fall into both categories.

If you've read any of the publicity about this production of The Taming of the Shrew, you will probably be aware that it sports an all-female cast. Of course the history of the play's interpretation, especially in the last century, is all about its gender politics. And rightly so, since it is a theme that cannot be divorced from Shakespeare's text. But having seen it, I wonder whether the decision to use an all-female cast really entered into the play's production process. I think it felt more like an academic exercise. A valid and interesting academic exercise, perhaps, but not as exciting as Shakespeare can be when he is lifted above the realm of the rational.

Petruchio is the character that stands to lose the most in being played by a woman, but Jeanette Cronin delivers a slightly insane Petruchio with a singularly spectacular performance. Luisa Hastings Edge likewise delivers a fully engaging and well-rounded Lucentio. Unfortunately, in the case of the remaining male characters, their female performers fail to deliver an entirely engaging performance.

Of course, this may be intentional. Perhaps Director Marion Potts meant for the disjuncture between the performer and character to accentuate our modern discomfort with the shrew's taming? Perhaps. But if this was the case, it's unfortunate that it leaves the audience simply uncomfortable and not sure why. Even if the other male characters had been better played by their performers, I still feel that the all-female cast idea would amount to little more than an academic exercise or marketing ploy, offering no enhancement to the production.

I don't mean to be too heavily critical of Bell's production, nor of the other performers playing male roles. Despite the unnecessary distraction of the female performers, the production as a whole is excellent, eliciting plenty of laughter and pathos even from a tired old cynic like me.

I especially liked the setting, which immediately put me in mind of Rooty Hill RSL, until I realised that there is no way there'd be five mirror balls at Rooty Hill, and this must therefore certainly be modelled after Parramatta RSL. The use of Karaoke is a nice touch, and I still have Culture Club lyrics swimming around in my head.

So apart from bearing perhaps a little too much concern for its gender politics, I think Marion Potts should be congratulated on a great production of one of Shakespeare's best comedies.

Puss in Boots

2009-10-03T15:00:00.004+10:00

How the magnificent Nina Stevenson manages to harness the enthusiasm of more than 30 youngsters to fill a stage and tell a comprehensible story is beyond me, but with Puss in Boots, she has done this and more, because the show is a delight.

I took my own three youngsters (who have the energy of 30), and they sat enthralled, completely engaged by the show's larger-than-life characters, especially the evil ones. And who wouldn't be? There is some fine emerging talent on display, especially in the personages of Rebecca Riggs, who plays the evil sister Rubella, and Adrian Thomas, as her brother Snotty. Even at my age (and with my degree of evilness), I struggle to emit an evil chuckle, but Rubella's cackle sent shivers down my spine. And their brother TJ, played by the engaging Rory Asquith, was as lovable as his sister was evil.

The principal cast is supported by a young ensemble equally noteworthy for their excellent performances; and the whole show is a magnificent showcase for the talents of these young Canberrans, who I expect will be entertaining us for decades.

Fringe Festival Folds?

2009-08-23T21:34:00.003+10:00

Like most of Canberra's arts community, I was not anticipating the news that the Fringe Festival would not be funded into 2010, and that the National Folk Festival would be given greater funding to include a fringe event in their program. Jorian Gardner was apparently quite surprised about this, but I can't say it wasn't predictable.

Jon Stanhope's time as Minister for the Arts has seen the loss of many opportunities for emerging artists in the ACT, as well as an ever-increasing flow of ACT Government funding to interstate and international artists. And John Hargreaves, who has responsibility for a number of arts events under the spurious ministerial arrangements of the Labor government, has shown himself to have a very limited capacity for abstract thought. So given that the Minister for the Arts shows very little interest in emerging artists, and the Minister for Multicultural Affairs has no capacity to comprehend the kind of events staged at a Fringe Festival, I doubt there was ever any hope for continued funding of the festival.

Nonetheless, Stanhope has apologised to Gardner for excluding him from the process, and The Canberra Cook is encouraging us to lobby for the continued funding of the Fringe. A protest is also planned for this Thursday (27 August) at 1pm in front of the Legislative Assembly. Personally, I'm completely over this notion of lobbying this government for anything. ACT Labor seem to think they're exempt from democracy, and would probably like to disband the ACT people and elect another.

Fringe events at the National Folk Festival are unlikely to include a range of art forms, and if the Fringe Festival is unable to find willing supporters to keep it going, it will be a sad loss for artists in the ACT. Fortunately, artists in the ACT are used to dealing with loss, and will no doubt carry on in spite of the ACT Government's disdain for their work.

For an interesting discussion of this news, see this post on RiotACT.

Balibo

2009-08-11T18:30:00.005+10:00

There is a fine line between a documentary and a movie, but occasionally a film comes along that sits very comfortably on that line. Balibo is one of these. The very true story of Roger East, who Jose Ramos-Horta lured to East Timor in those few days between Portugal's withdrawal and Indonesia's invasion in 1975, Balibo follows East's efforts to find out what happened to the five Australian reporters who had vanished amidst the Indonesian advance.

The film has a unique quality that at once depicts East's story and allows the audience to engage fully with him as a character, while at the same time telling the story of the Balibo Five with a sense of documentary. The process is not unlike Brecht's verfremdungseffekt, in the way that the film shifts from building dramatic intensity to communicating the facts of the story.

This serves the purposes of the film makers very well. Talking about the making of the film (I went to Dendy's Q&A session), director Robert Conolly talks about the Indonesian government asking whether the film will include the Indonesian point of view, to which he responded that the last thirty years of hearing the Indonesian point of view hasn't gotten us any closer to the truth. I am not in a position to comment on the accuracy of this film as a historic record, but as a piece of cinema, it has more human honesty than your average documentary, and more depth than your average movie.

East Timor celebrates ten years of independence later this month, so this is a timely release, in a way. It is, however, an Australian film about six Australians. What remains is to hear the stories of the East Timorese who suffered 24 long years of Indonesian rule. The makers of Balibo are aware of this, and provided training to East Timorese working with them on their film, in the hope that they will one day do so.

Sense and Sensibility

2009-08-11T10:47:00.002+10:00

Jane Austen's novels don't appeal to me greatly, but the quality of her wit is superb. Although Sense and Sensibility is not a novel that readily lends itself to a dramatic adaptation, Canberra's own Jodi McAlister has done a fine job of condensing Austen's story into two hours of engaging stagework.

One of the most memorable characteristics of Austen's work is the importance of the subtext, and the many paradoxes that are inherent in such a context. Drama, of course, thrives on paradox and subtext, but the sheer volume of these found in Austen's work has been the downfall of many dramatisations of her stories. In this production, I think both Jodi McAlister and Liz Bradley are to be commended for their work in focusing the attention and keeping the journey of the characters paramount.

A great performance by the cast was punctuated by three stellar performers in the roles of the three Dashwood sisters. Alex de Totth, Ylaria Rogers and Nicola Grear are most notable in the degree to which they are able to balance the humour of their roles with the truth of their characters' experiences. This is critical to Austen's stories, and the success of this production owes much to these three performers.

I have never been a great fan of Austen, but have always enjoyed the quality and intensity of her satire, and am very pleased that this production managed to express it so well.

Chess

2009-07-30T20:00:00.005+10:00

I really must come up with a good reason why I don't like follow spots and smoke. Normally my dislike of them doesn't matter, but in the case of Chess, they use them right at the beginning, and they use them well! Why is this a problem? Well, if you don't like follow spots and you don't like smoke, but the first thing in the show is a follow spot and smoke, it distracts you from the show. It's not a problem with a poor show, but unfortunately, The Q's production of Chess is not a poor show, so I feel I need to justify my dislike of follow spots and smoke. One day, my prejudice will have a justification, but this is not that day. Chess is just too good.

Chess is, in many ways, poles apart from Krapp's Last Tape, which I gushed about the night before, but it shares two important characteristics: it tells a remarkably human story, and allows an audience to engage in some depth with its central characters. That said, I think I missed some elements of that story, due to some distortion of Tim Rice's lyrics. I am unsure whether this was a problem with enunciation or amplification, but I suspect the latter. Of course, putting such complicated sentence structures into lyrics was probably a bad idea in the first place, but in this instance it was not a fatal one, probably due to the talents of this magnificent cast.

The ensemble gathered for this production must be one of the best I have seen in Canberra, but they were not a patch on the magnificent talents of principals Stephen Pike, Christine Forbes and Lexi Sekuless. Even an old cynic like me felt goosebumps!

Krapp's Last Tape

2009-07-29T20:00:00.009+10:00

Opening at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Krapp's Last Tape is one of Samuel Beckett's more well-known plays.

Sitting, as I am, and contemplating what I want to say about Krapp's Last Tape, I think about commenting on the set, the actor's performance, the lighting, the direction; but all of that seems to undermine this play. This is a story about a man who made a decision decades ago, and whose existence is not haunted, but shaped by the consequences of that decision. And nothing matters more than that character.

Of course, the design elements have to be properly balanced, or the character won't be visible. Ian Croker's set, Jack Lloyd's lighting, and Len Power's sound design are as important as Graham Robertson's performance, but all of these must be properly balanced, and nod gently to the presence of Beckett's 'hero'. I think this is the great strength of this production. All of these design elements are indeed balanced perfectly, giving the audience perfect access to the character.

I had read Krapp's Last Tape many years ago, and enjoyed it at the time. Like any of Beckett's work, it is difficult to read, but it absolutely sings when a performer embodies it. Graham Robertson is a veteran of the Canberra stage, and as one would expect, he brings Beckett's miserable Krapp to life. His engrossing performance is punctuated with perfect delivery of Beckett's dry humour.

I will argue to my dying day that the use of the word 'absurd' to describe Beckett's world view is absurd. He is a logician, and his work epitomises logic. It might baffle a person who tries to read it, but in performance Beckett's work is simplicity itself. And Krapp is a superb example of Beckett's magnificent capacity to tell a story. Nothing beats that.

Deathtrap

2009-07-24T20:00:00.001+10:00

Canberra Repertory opened Deathtrap tonight. A comedy about an ageing playwright ready to kill to get what he wants.

What I found most interesting about Deathtrap was its style. This is a play by an Australian playwright, written in the late 1970s, and very much set in that time and place; but it has all the hallmarks of an excellent British comedy from the 1960s. The madcap humour, dialogue almost entirely dependent on wit, and a very conventional structure, all mark this play as something other than what it is, and were I not aware that it was an Australian play, I would have assumed it wasn't, despite the references to Sydney's northern suburbs.

It is a lot of fun: one of those plays that you could well come away from with a sore belly from all the laughing. I didn't, though. Maybe the timing was a bit off due to opening night nerves, or maybe I just like a little more meat on characters' bones than Levin provides, but it was good.

Let The Sunshine

2009-07-07T20:00:00.000+10:00

Opening night of David Williamson's Let The Sunshine and The Street Theatre was full. Well, you wouldn't expect any less for one of Williamson's plays, would you?

I would like to describe this play as an amusing double-autopsy of capitalism and socialism, but that hardly does the play justice. Williamson's superb play demonstrates the inability of these two-dimensional political ideologies to deliver what they promise their adherents, through characters who, despite being built on one or the other of these ideologies, are forced to grapple with humanity in three dimensions.

I think some of Williamson's best qualities as a writer are on display in this piece; the intricate crafting of character and plot is astonishing to reflect on. This, like most of his work, is a plot-driven story, but that plot is clearly driven by the characters, and their individuality, their connectedness and their ideologies dominate the plot. Without the cast of distinguished actors assembled by the Ensemble Theatre, the text could be very dense, but it resonates beautifully as a play for today.

Agamemnon

2009-06-20T20:00:00.007+10:00

Anyone who's ever spoken to me about authors knows that the author I loathe most is Tolkein. I hate Tolkein's work because I can't understand how someone who fails entirely to grasp the idea of interworking exposition with climax can sell a single book! These people may also realise that I have a double standard insofar as my hatred of Tolkein for this reason has not caused me to dismiss the playwrights of Ancient Greece. The fact is, the Ancients wrote for a different purpose and a different audience, but Tolkein was just a babbling fool. Aeschylus, of course, was a master playwright, who had a justifiable reason to write an enormous quantity of vaguely interesting, but largely confusing, expository matter and interspersing it between some good dialogue and interesting plot. What I like most about Rachel Hogan's adaptation of Agamemnon is that she has managed to distil the essence of Aeschylus' tale into a performance that is widely accessible.

In doing this, the focus is drawn carefully onto Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra, particularly her interpretation of Agamemnon's actions, and her primal response to his slaughter of their child. These characters are portrayed exquisitely by the performers in this production, who balance the intensity of their emotions well with the need to edify the audience, as was the tradition of the Ancients.

The interplay between what we can control and what we can't control is one of the things we humans find most difficult to get a grip on. For the most part, we get the things we can control confused with the things we can't; and even when we do know which one is which, we still instinctively try to control the things we can't, ignoring the things we can. In some ways, Agamemnon's story is that of a king who spent ten years doing something about what was out of his control, while unwittingly losing his grip on what he could have had. But then again, Agamemnon was never really about Agamemnon.

Although I may have retitled it Clytemnestra, I love what Rachel Hogan has done with Aeschylus' play, perhaps enough to hail her as the anti-Tolkein. Of course, she may take offence at that (I don't know how she feels about Tolkein) but it is intended to be the compliment of compliments!

Samson and Delilah

2009-06-18T19:10:00.000+10:00

Samson and Delilah is a unique film that most filmgoers will probably find unappealing. It breaks many of the conventions of film, which makes for very unusual viewing, and it makes you uncomfortable in many ways, but it is a great story, and it is told with a great sense of simplicity and honesty.

Set in outback Northern Territory, this is the story of a young couple caught in a clash of cultures, and it explores the impact of broader cultural and political circumstances as they apply in this environment.

What I think is this film's greatest achievement is the way it touches on broad political issues without being in any way didactic or even judgemental. It tells a story about two young people, and the context in which they find their way through life and love. I think stories like this can play a big part in furthering the process of reconciliation, and more to the point, I think it's a great story.

Lotte's Gift

2009-06-10T20:00:00.002+10:00

Another uncomfortable trip to the theatre tonight. I am not entirely sure why I didn't enjoy this play, because on one level, it has all the things I love; a good story, great performances, and a novel approach to storytelling. And yet, it just didn't engage me.

The play is a one-hander, and it is the true story of the performer's grandmother, told through a conversation between them where the granddaughter learns her grandmother's deepest secret. And yes, a single performer with dialogue does mean that old naff idea of the person jumping from one character to another; but no, that's not why I didn't like it, because that performer, Karin Schaupp, manages to change character effortlessly, and David Williamson's 'dialogue' moves slowly, allowing the audience to move with her, and engage with the story. At least I think that's the intention. Having failed to engage, I'm not sure.

This is where Lotte's Gift left me in two minds. A good story, well told, and expertly written by one of the country's best playwrights. But it was just too slow.

The Road to Guantanamo

2009-05-26T20:30:00.009+10:00

There is a particular atmosphere in films that depict the victims of the Holocaust, and I found it incredibly disturbing to sense that same atmosphere in this excellent documentary recently aired on the SBS.

The Road to Guananamo is the story of several Pakistani Britons from Birmingham who found themselves caught up in the war in Afghanistan immediately following the 9/11 attacks, and who are ultimately imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, accused of being members of Al Qaeda. That this can happen to innocent travellers is hardly surprising, but the stories of their treatment at the hands of mostly American guards is no less shocking and outrageous than the many depictions of Jewish victims of the Nazis during World War II.

Apart from its moral position and emotional impact, which is similar to what I have felt when watching depictions of how the German Jews were treated in the early forties, what I found astonishing was the realisation of how conditioned I am. As these young men were relieved from their Afghani captors and handed over to the Americans, I felt, when I heard the American accent, a sense of relief; I felt their ordeal was finally over. Of course, the worse was yet to come, and the Americans proved themselves incapable of justice.

The film unselfconsciously takes advantage of our conditioning, allowing us to feel some confidence in the American gaolers before showing them to be as evil and conniving as their Nazi predecessors; and putting the story into this context highlights that the problem lies with the fascist element in the perpetrating society. While I cannot vouch for the voracity of the prisoners' accounts of their gaolers' actions, I am more inclined to trust their accounts than the rantings of governments beseiged by criticisms. What appalls me more than the behaviour of the American guards is the knowledge that Australians were imprisoned with these Pakistani Britons, and that our government was no more loyal to our people than the British were to theirs.

It is rare to see such a cogent and compelling story about the need to heed the lessons of history. While I know that the American people are every bit as honourable and worthy of respect as the Germans are, this film demonstrates that no people, least of all the Americans, should be complacent in holding their politicians accountable.

Ruben Guthrie

2009-05-24T17:00:00.003+10:00

I want to charge Brendan Cowell with writing a masterpiece in Ruben Guthrie, but I fear that would undermine the intense humanity of this work. This is Australian playwriting at its best, exploring Australian society with no sense of cultural cringe, and no sense of being old fashioned or quaint.

The promotional material for Ruben Guthrie repeatedly asks whether it is unAustralian to refuse a drink, but whether it is Australian or not is not really a concern for the central character, who you might have guessed is called Ruben Guthrie. His main concern is staying sober, not only within a nation that loves a drink, but within an industry where alcohol consumption is a selection criterion, and within a family with a strong love of the bottle. Brendan Cowell has dealt with his story's heady themes with a deft hand, plenty of humour, and stoicly (and wisely) refuses to answer the marketers' question.

What I found most remarkable about this play was the way in which Cowell has managed to show the fundamental failings of social programs that seek to address addictions or compulsions (such as AA's famous twelve steps), while also showing their effectiveness.

I recall reading some time ago Neil Armfield saying something about theatre being "necessary". The terminology has stuck with me, because many people see the arts as an optional extra, something to make life enjoyable, rather than a crucial building block of a healthy society. Ruben Guthrie eloquently articulates the reason why the arts, and especially the narrative arts, are necessary to a society, and in the process, it also highlights the inadequacies of the social work profession.

But that doesn't make it any less funny. In fact, it is yet another example of that spectacular Australian creation: the play that is, at once, both drama and comedy.

All Shook Up

2009-05-23T14:00:00.001+10:00

All Shook Up is a take on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, in case you didn't know. I knew, and I think I missed half the show trying to figure out which characters corresponded to which Twelfth Night characters. Why did I do that?

As we have come to expect from Supa, All Shook Up is a great show that doesn't ask a lot of its audience. We joined the blue rinse set for today's matinee. It's not normally a good idea to go to a matinee, the audiences are usually a bit flat, and the performers suffer for it. This was probably true today, and yet what struck me was the technical precision displayed by the cast. Under the musical direction of Garrick Smith, the principal cast gave stunning performances of many of Elvis Presley's most popular songs, supported by an equally impressive ensemble.

It was a great show, although not a patch on Supa's recent productions of Buddy. It could have something to do with the music, but I think maybe I'm just a little too young to appreciate it the way the rest of the audience, who were mostly twice my age, did. It's a good show, but for my tastes it needed a little less sugar.

The Seed

2009-05-16T20:00:00.001+10:00

Iain Sinclair says in his director's note for The Seed that it is "one of those special pieces that help us see with fresh eyes". I will assume he is right, but for someone who has had little contact with Vietnam veterans or the IRA, fresh eyes are a given. And in these wars, which are both in a way secreted failures, some of us still need more information.

The thing is that while a little more exposition would have helped, it would also meddle with a well-balanced plot. You can tell a story about one of the World Wars of the twentieth century and assume reasonable knowledge, but these conflicts are a mystery to most Australians, even those who continue to feel their impact on their lives. Of course, that's why this story is so necessary.

The Seed, ultimately, is not so much about these conflicts as it is about how politics impacts individual lives and families. I find this fascinating, because we in Australia, and, ironically, especially those of us who live in Canberra, are largely unaffected by the goings on in Parliament House, and there are many Australians who never even consider that in some countries a change of government can turn people's lives upside-down.

While I found it somewhat difficult to relate to the solid and resonant performances of this impeccable cast of three, I felt that this was more to do with my own ignorance of Vietnam and the Irish struggle. I hope in time that we will experience many more stories of the wars that have been fought and lost.

Big Voice

2009-05-15T20:30:00.001+10:00

It's a good sign when all a performer has to do is stand on stage to elicit a hearty laugh from her audience. And although it seemed that much of Shortis and Simpson's fan club were sharing the auditorium with me, their laughter, tears and raucous applause were well-deserved.

Moya presents an autobiography, in a form I have never experienced before. She shares, mostly through music, and in a broad range of styles, I might add, her life. And as patchy as the story may be, it is told with a unique combination of elegance, wit, and pathos that warmly engages its audience.

Her description of her Surrey grandmother, whose accent made her sound as though she were singing whenever she spoke, was endearing, and I could not help but swell with anger as she related the story of how her year 2 teacher berated her for singing a harmony before the class had been taught it. Her journey back to a love of singing, and her rediscovery of it here in what was described to her as an 'uncultured' Australia, is the main theme of this show.

Moya says in the program:

"Whenever people hear that I started singing at age thirty-five, there is always the same astonishment. What I find astonishing is how many people have been stopped from doing something that I truly believe is a natural expression of creativity. It's mostly a family member or a teacher that has intervened at a critical stage, made a judgement on a voice, and effectively silenced the flow, often for ever."

While the style of the piece is clearly that of a baby boomer, Moya's story resonates with a generosity and simplicity that is often lacking in theatre. It even appealed to a relatively cynical Gen-Xer like myself.

The Alchemist

2009-05-04T18:30:00.000+10:00

It took a while, I think, for both the cast and the audience to warm up to The Alchemist on Monday night. Maybe it was the day, or maybe it was not quite what the audience was expecting from Bell Shakespeare, or maybe it was simply the language.

There are a lot of people who find Shakespeare's language difficult to understand. I have always found that the more I am working with the language, the easier it is to understand. It took some warming up, but I found Ben Jonson's dialogue less dense, and more accessible for my 20th century ears, than I usually find with Shakespeare. Maybe it has something to do with the nature of the humour, which is more pithy than Shakespeare's, and perhaps, as such, more akin to an Australian's sense of humour. The interpretation of Lovewit, performed by Russell Keifel, certainly played this up, with his use of a laugh and accent reminiscent of Bob Hawke.

Whatever it was, Bell Shakespeare's production of The Alchemist met my expectations. It was thoughtful, intelligent, imaginative, unencumbered by preconceptions, and thoroughly entertaining.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-04-15T21:00:00.002+10:00

I've always been moderately fond of Danny Boyle's films. I wouldn't call myself a fan, I just notice his name on the end of films that I like quite regularly. Slumdog Millionaire is different. I loved it, and was shocked to see his name flash up at the end!

Although the plot is somewhat convoluted with a bit of ambiguity in its chronology, the story is intriguing, and although I went when I was kind of focused on something else (namely a meal at my favourite Lygon Street cafe), I was engaged quickly, and the film held my attention until the end.

There are some great performances from some child actors, and spectacular performances from the adult cast, but the star of this film is definitely the cinematography. From the slums of Mumbai to the Taj Mahal to the beauty of India's countryside, even the most dire of circumstances is presented beautifully, composed with a delicacy that is not common in films about this subject matter.

There aren't many films that successfully depict the horrible realities of our world and retain a sense of possibility and optimism, but Slumdog Millionaire does this beautifully. I suppose I will have to reassess my opinion of Danny Boyle. If he makes another film as good as this one!

Stomp

2009-04-08T16:30:00.005+10:00

How much money do you think you could make with your party tricks? The cast of Stomp have developed a series of party tricks (and they're great party tricks), and have put them together for our viewing pleasure.

Apparently this happens every year, and the TV ad has been saying that Stomp 09 is fresher, faster and funnier, which is just as well because I got bored halfway through, and if it was any slower or less amusing I may not have sat it out. There are moments throughout that are indeed fast and funny (I'm not sure whether they're fresh, you'll have to ask the marketers what that means), and it was a fun night, but it left a lot to be desired.

Most of the audience loved it, three or four of the thousand people there even thought it deserved a standing ovation, and the raucous applause elicited an encore better than the show itself. Some children in the audience elicited some golden responses with their laughter, and the show would be excellent for a family, if you want to blow your entire stimulus payment on it, that is.

I don't want to be mean; the cast is talented, responsive to the audience, perfectly synchronised, and very entertaining; but I just can't help thinking that these are just glorified party tricks. They are great party tricks, they really are, but I just can't help wondering why no one pays $80 to come and see my party tricks. Actually, no: if their party tricks are worth eighty bucks a view, mine would only be worth eighty cents, but it still makes me wonder, where's my eighty cents?

So, the next time you're at a party and someone starts banging on a garbage bin, remember to give them their eighty cents. Apparently they're worth it.

Floating

2009-03-06T11:08:00.013+11:00

The Welsh are a strange people; not strange in an unpleasant sort of a way, just odd. Different. Unusual. And so it makes a kind of cosmic sense that Wales should be the first country to have one of their islands float off on a tour of the North Atlantic.

Tonight's performance of Floating at the Sydney Opera House has been one of the most profound experiences I have ever undergone. It was theatre in a most pure and hallowed sense; unique, fleeting, and momentary.

Hugh Hughes, the protagonist, foretells this, referring repeatedly to connection, and highlighting our disconnection from the world by running around the auditorium, touching the three walls and pointing out how they disconnect us from the outside world. The interaction with the audience continues as he and Sioned encourage the audience to say hello to someone they haven't met before and explain the structure of the show to come, handing around some objects relevant to the story. This introduction was said to usually last 20 minutes, but in our case, took 45. During this time, three groups of latecomers entered, the first of which was welcomed gently. When the second group entered, we were encouraged to applaud, but by the time the third couple entered, 25 minutes late, the audience needed no encouragement to give them a standing ovation, and Hugh generousy praised their courage at entering so late.

The humour was light and easy, not at all forced, and by the time Hugh and Sioned were able to begin their story, we were asked if we needed to go to the toilet. As an audience, we had formed a bond. Sioned passed around an inflatable globe, to illustrate how far from Sydney Anglesey was, and upon realising that it was a beach ball, the gentleman in the front row threw it into the auditorium and we tossed it around for some time. There came one point in the story when a woman in the row behind me was laughing uncontrollably, and an infection of laughter took over the entire audience for several minutes. Hugh engaged her in conversation and it became apparent that it was her birthday, so under Hugh and Sioned's encouragement, we all sang happy birthday to Sue. There also came a time when someone needed to go to the toilet, and Sioned said she needed to go too, so we arranged an impromptu interval and Hugh stayed and chatted to those of us in the front row and a gentleman who had come from somewhere deeper in the auditorium.

The connections made were so natural and simple and honest that you didn't realise what was happening until Hugh reminded us of the theme of connection that was at the core of this 'show'. The story, while well-structured and relevant, was almost incidental to the entire nature of the evening, and when the show was over, and the audience offered an unequivocal standing ovation to the performers, who remained on stage, there was a sense in the audience that we wanted to stay. I know I sat back down after the ovation, and felt that I could remain here, as part of this audience, forever.

I don't know whether it is the same at every performance, but since the Opera House's documentation for the show says it lasts 75 minutes, and since our performance with its interruptions from late arrivals and an impromptu toilet break lasted no less than 120 minutes, I doubt it. Each performance is completely unique, and I could happily return and see another if the Opera House wasn't so far from home. The hubbub from the receding crowd was much more enlivened than any theatre audience I've ever been part of, and the ease with which members of the audience, who had been strangers at first, chatted and engaged was remarkable.

Floating is theatre at its best. It engages, connects and responds in just the way that film doesn't. And in doing this, it achieves something remarkable: it highlights the disconnectedness of our societies and worlds without judgement or reproach, but by simply presenting an alternative way to be.

I could not bring my dear wife to see Floating, and ringing her afterwards, I couldn't explain what was so wonderful about it. I don't think I've done it justice here, but this is a fleeting moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Unless, of course, I suffer amnesia.

I Hate Hamlet

2009-02-21T09:08:00.014+11:00

I love going to Theatre 3. There is magic in the place. I don't care that the decor is old and tired, I only ever notice it for a moment, because before long you feel the atmosphere of genuine theatre lovers mingling and engaging, like Liberals in the Press Club or bikies in a pub. This was what it was like at Theatre 3 last night, especially straight after the curtain went down on the opening performance of I Hate Hamlet.

The plot revolves around Andrew, a successful television soap actor from Los Angeles, who relocates to New York after having agreed to play Hamlet in a non-profit production in Central Park. Problems arise when he reveals that he hates Hamlet, and mainly agreed to play the role because of his girlfriend's love for the play. Fortuitously, the ghost of the late, great actor Barrymore, who once occupied Andrew's gothic apartment and played Hamlet, can return to mentor Andrew through the process of preparing for the most important role of his life.

A couple of the people I spoke to afterwards expressed the same surprise I had; why had I not heard of this play? It was written way back in 1991, and is such an astute and passionate exploration of our attitudes towards Shakespeare that it shocks me to think that it isn't part of the curriculum of every university's theatre department. It looks quite deeply into the psyche of the greatest play of all time while still retaining a modern view that is unencumbered by social expectations about how we should view the bard. In short, it is respectful without being reverential. It treats the way society hallows Shakespeare with ridicule, while still holding a deep and profound respect for the man's humanity, wisdom and power.

When I first started my academic career—after dropping out of high school and bumming around dead end jobs for a few years—one of the first pieces of literature from the English Canon that I encountered was Hamlet. I struggled with it, and came to some kind of understanding of it, rudimentary as it was. Over the years my love for the play has deepened. In the twelve years since first reading it I have seen more than ten stage productions and every film I could clap my eyes on, and I have never been disappointed by modern theatre practitioners' capacity to glean some new kernel of wisdom from the pages. Just like Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I Hate Hamlet further unpacks Shakespeare's story, treating it as a living, breathing work of art rather than a museum piece.

Canberra Repertory's production is simply brilliant, with the considerable talents and experience of Ian Croker in the role of Barrymore admirably matched by my old university classmate Glenn Brown as Andrew. Their swordfight was so much fun that I found found it difficult to resist the urge to get up and join in! The entire cast carries off the production brilliantly, with excellent comic timing (perhaps with a couple of hiccups that I am putting down to opening night), brilliant wit, and impeccable characterisation.

Now all I need is a show I can audition for with a sword fight...

In Cold Light

2009-02-04T21:53:00.004+11:00

It could almost be said that In Cold Light deals lightly with an issue of severe gravity. It could be said, if the play did not take itself so seriously.

Jarrad West gives a credible performance of the lead role, Christian Lamori; a Catholic priest summoned for questioning by a seemingly guileless inspector. With this character, writer Duncan Ley has deftly woven elements of a stereotype with the intensity of a tormented soul. This is mostly successful, but I felt that the use of an English accent for these characters lent the production a sense of remoteness that hindered my capacity to empathise.

Nonetheless, the play is a brilliant exploration of an aspect of humanity that we generally either avoid telling stories about or explore with very little depth. And the twist at the end is pure gold.

Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime

2008-12-21T23:00:00.000+11:00

While I've never been such a Philistine as to decline to see a film because it is in an unknown language and I'd have to read the subtitles, there is usually a sense of emotional distance when you have to read the words yourself. In the case of I've Loved You So Long, I felt no such distance. Indeed, this is the first time I've cried in a movie since... I don't know when. Sure, I am a callous bastard, but I often find myself moved by a film, only, rarely do I find myself as moved as I was by this one.

I've Loved You So Long focuses on the story of Juliette Fontaine coming from prison to live with her sister, who was a young adolescent when she was incarcerated. The tensions of living with an extended family are exacerbated by Juliette's personality, which it is accepted is altered by her time in gaol. Philippe Claudel's story is beautifully structured to release just as much information as is necessary to keep you interested, while retaining just enough mystery to keep you on the edge of your seat.

I have never seen a French film that I haven't liked, but I have also never seen a French film of this calibre. It is an outstanding piece of storytelling, full of pathos and charm.

Cosi

2008-11-21T23:30:00.003+11:00

We went last night to the opening of Cosi, which was a great affair, as you would expect. Cosi is the story of a young graduate sent to direct a play with a group of patients at a mental asylum. Funny enough as a situation comedy, but Louis Nowra has deftly wound broad humour around a story about the importance of love over politics.

In this production, the comedy outshines the potentially didactic moralising, just as it should, and as a result, the moral stands on its merits, couched in comfortably broad Australian humour.

Bringing classics to the stage is what Canberra Rep does best, and when you stage something that is as well-known as an enjoyable play as Louis Nowra's Cosi, you get to pick from the best actors Canberra has to offer. That's what happened here, and it's one of the main reasons this show is so enjoyable. This is a spectacular cast, and every nuance of Nowra's characters is instinctively brought to life. They enjoy the show even more than the audience, I'm sure; and even with a few members of the cast needing to work hard to stifle a laugh now and then, they never missed a beat. Who can blame them? After working so hard to deliver the comedy of Nowra's lines, to finally have an audience roar into laughter is a rewarding experience.

Canberra Rep's Cosi is simply one of the best nights out you'll find.

American Teen

2008-11-17T22:00:00.005+11:00

Winning a place on the guest list to American Teen was not a high priority for me. When I heard the title, I thought it must be a teen movie, and when I read that it was a documentary, I was even less interested. I could not have been more wrong.

This was the first time I've watched a documentary in a cinema, and it was well worth a Monday night. The stories of these five adolescents from Warsaw, Indiana were absolutely compelling, and wonderfully hilarious, as the raucous laughter from a near-empty cinema attested. Nanette Burstein has edited their experiences in their final year of high school with a deft hand, developing a rich, interwoven story well worth telling.

Watching these young Americans over-experience every emotion imaginable was fascinating not only because of the universal comedy of youth, but also because it reminds you just how good our education system is. Which is quite an accomplishment when your audience is a cynical old ex-teacher like myself.

American Teen is not ground-breaking or unique, but it is one of those rare pieces of film-making that exemplifies the best of the art form: simple storytelling, with characters that are easy to relate to, an awesome soundtrack, and an image of ourselves. Well worth a Monday night. Or even a Friday. Go see it.

The Wedding Singer

2008-10-17T20:00:00.002+11:00

Director Garrick Smith is absolutely right to say that The Wedding Singer is not Shakespeare, but whatever it's not, it is a lot of fun.

It is possible that opening night nerves got to the cast when I saw it; the first half hour or so was laboured and difficult to relate to, but then one of those great moments in theatre occurred, and the tenor lifted. It is a sign of a strong and talented cast when you see such a strong injection of energy in the middle of the first act. Before long I was tapping away and having a ball.

For those who don't know, the musical version of The Wedding Singer is substantially different from the film of the same name. In this, it is the musical numbers that drive the emotional essence of the plot, and the most poignant of these are delivered beautifully by the magnificently talented heroine, played by Rebecca Franks, and her equally talented offsider played by Amy Dunham.

The musical is also funnier than the film, as I remember it, and Tim Sekuless' timing is excellent. In my humble opinion, though, the best moment is when Boy George wannabe, George (played by Jeffrey van de Zandt) bursts into a rendition of an 80s pop song in perfect Hebrew. Gold.

No, it's definitely not Shakespeare, but it's a great night out.

The Learned Ladies

2008-10-11T17:00:00.001+11:00

The Learned Ladies is one of Moliere's ingenious comedies, and his genius lies in his capacity to incorporate incidental humour into circumstantial humour inherent in the plot, and still deliver an insightful and meaningful story. These days I consider myself lucky if a comedy is even funny, but to have humour on so many levels combined with a story of value is an unparalelled joy.

Under the direction of Geoffrey Borny, and I remember his direction well from my uni days, the cast delivered an exquisite performance; well-timed, responsive to the audience, and in every way relevant despite its age.

Diane Heather and Graham Robertson gave stand-out comic performances in their hilarious roles, and Andy Burton's Clitandre and Eleanor Garran's Henriette were spectacularly entertaining in their more serious roles. Terry Johnson was no less noteworthy as the simpering Trissotin, proving a worthy foil for Clitandre, and a balanced complement to Naone Carrel's appropriately ghastly Philaminte.

I couldn't help thinking that I would like to see a staging of this play set in 21st Century Australia, with the learned ladies of the title cast as chardonnay socialists and their more pragmatic counterparts as wealthy but down-to-earth Australians.

Regardless, this was an excellent production, and while I am disappointed that I couldn't be directly involved in it, I was pleased to be able to spend an afternoon in hysterics in the auditorium.

Pygmalion

2008-10-04T17:00:00.001+10:00

Busy as I am, I took the last chance I would have to see Canberra Repertory's Pygmalion, and I am glad I did. Living up to their excellent reputation, Rep presented a thoughtful and challenging piece of theatre.

Often, a great set and spectacular costumes simply make the performers look dull, as happened with Opera Australia's My Fair Lady, but not so in this case. A beautifully modern set, clearly a product of 21st century mentality, served as a symbolic gesture to this early 20th century story, complementing the costumes beautifully; and the cast earned every part of it.

As always, accents are a problem with this story. Accents are a difficult thing in theatre, and Shaw does no one any favours by writing a play that is absolutely centred on accent. Jessica Brent's Lisson Grove dialect was acceptable, and her recieved pronunciation was appropriately awkward. Other characters, however, had no excuse for sounding stilted. The production, nonetheless, survives its slowness, the pathos of Shaw's characters shining through in the second act just as it should, and the awkwardness of Shaw's ending was deftly handled.

I really liked this production. Maybe I was just relieved that the cast had taken the time to understand the characters, unlike the cast of My Fair Lady. It was slow, but didn't drag. It was awkward, but even that was appropriate. In all, a great show.

My Fair Lady

2008-08-29T09:34:00.000+10:00

Last Saturday I spent a fortune on a ticket to see Opera Australia's production of My Fair Lady, and although the ticket price isn't usually relevant in judging a theatrical production, in this case there is an amusing irony in exhorbitant ticket prices that I'm sure escaped the producers' attention.

We pay, of course, because we have high expectations of Opera Australia; and the extravagant sets and brilliant costumes combined with the magnificent performance by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra dazzle us into believing that we've had the best kind of theatre experience money can buy. And this is precisely the point of George Bernard Shaw's original story.

A poor flower seller, often impugned as a Mayfair Lady, is taken in by an arrogant academic who wants to prove that he can pass her off as a duchess; and having done so, he finds himself in love with her. Her innate worth, which stood in question, is proven by the fact that she is loved best by the arrogant academic who knows her best.

Reg Livermore's delivery of Henry Higgins's one-liners was fine. Well-timed, and responsive to the audience, the performance bore all the hallmarks of a seasoned performer. It did lack, however, a fundamental understanding of the character. It was obvious that this was not Livermore's ill, as the same could be said for Dolittle, Pickering, and perhaps, even Eliza. It would seem that neither producer nor director had bothered to scrape behind the surface of this deep, dark comedy. Opera Australia's My Fair Lady was a superficial and entirely inadequate treatment of one of the most profound dramatic works to grace the Western Stage since Shakespeare's Hamlet.

But who could blame Opera Australia? A high-brow institution without audiences seeking to generate cashflow by staging a popular musical. This was not an artistic endeavour so much as it was an exercise in marketing. And a very successful one. Every performance in Canberra was sold out, despite the exhorbitant ticket prices and the presence of a much more intelligent show literally next door in the Courtyard Studio.

Opera Australia have taken a shabby production, neglecting its more fundamental value, dressed it up in a spectacular fashion, and have charged us a fortune to see it. Just like Henry Higgins, they have taken something they assume to be worthless, they have added a superficial gloss, and have found it to be of value. And just like Higgins, they still misunderstand its innate worth. The irony is delicious. And devastating.

I am hoping for more from Canberra Repertory's production of Pygmalion later this year. They have a much better chance of making their point, mainly because they're not using a bastardised version of Shaw's story.

There is also hope in the upcoming new film of My Fair Lady (scheduled for release in 2010), which is being penned by the very intelligent Emma Thomson and is intended to pay more respect to Shaw's intentions.

The Three Sisters

2008-08-22T21:13:00.000+10:00

Chekhov bores me. There, I said it. I have spoken the unspeakable; Chekhov bores me. And yet, this play left me at a bit of a loss. How can you have a play that is thoroughly boring populated by characters that are infinitely intriguing? It should be an impossibility. But apparently it’s not.

To be perfectly honest, I thought Free Rain’s production of The Three Sisters to be the most profoundly astute and engaging interpretation of a thoroughly useless play I have ever encountered (and I have encountered many useless plays). Each character was carefully constructed, and portrayed brilliantly by a cast that has clearly engaged with Chekhov’s text on an intimate level.

Don’t take my description of Chekhov’s play as useless to be a negative thing. The play triggered thought, and because nothing seemed to happen, there was time to drift through thought without missing anything particularly important. Nothing was particularly important. At least, not to the mind of a cynical gen-xer like myself. But it would be nice if there were more opportunities to just sit and think.

This play is worth seeing twice, and I’m going back tomorrow. I’m hoping to be able to drift through those sections of the play that I didn’t drift through last time, and vice-versa.

Not the kind of play I would want to see every time I go to the theatre, but this was an opportunity not to be missed, and Free Rain should be commended on a splendid and invariably worthwhile production of something completely useless.

Mrs Holt

2008-08-12T07:48:00.000+10:00

Now, I'm not in the habit of commenting on shows that I've written myself, but I can paste here a transcript of Bill Stephens' comments on Mrs Holt, which is one of my own shows, which is currently showing at The Street Theatre...

Canberra Dramatics are a local theatre group which is committed to the development of new plays by playwrights from the city of Canberra and the surrounding region.

Their newest production, which is currently running at The Street Theatre until next Saturday 16th August is Mrs. Holt…written by Canberra playwright Trevar Alan Chilver.

I went along to the opening night of Mrs. Holt last Thursday night and discovered a thoughtful, entertaining and engaging play - not so much about aging - which I might have expected given the setting is in a nursing home ward - but more about changing attitudes and expectations between the generations.

I particularly liked the performance given by Gay Evans as an irascible, old patient called – intrigueingly – Zara Holt …who is the subject of the play.

I have not seen Gay perform before, but she is obviously an experienced actress – who has the ability to wring every ounce of comedy – and pathos – from her role to invest it with depth and interest.

Pete Ricardo, as the male nurse Jack Harris, also impressed with a well judged performance…the other actors in the cast Sarah Daphne, Sarah Ritchie and Cerri Davis.

Staged in a simple – effective and appropriate setting, this is probably the best play I have seen so far from Canberra Dramatics.and although it would benefit from eliminating some of the long black-outs between scenes which allow the pace to drop seriously... if you are at all interested in local playwrighting it is well worth your time to get along and see it.

Mrs. Holt runs at the Street Theatre until next Saturday 16th August. You can find out details of performances and performance times by ringing the Street Theatre or visiting their website.

The Role Model

2008-07-31T19:39:00.000+10:00

I was interested to see The Role Model not only because it was written by a fellow Canberran, but also because of the praise it had received from the great Edward Albee. It is usually a mistake to assume that you will enjoy something as much as you expect to when it gets such accolades. Who can live up to such expectations? The Role Model certainly didn't.

That's not to say it's not a worthy production; it is a great story, deftly performed by a cohesive and talented cast. It's just that the script didn't deserve the praise I heard. Much of the dialogue is awkward, and it doesn't help that the lead actor, Raoul Craemer, attempts to portray an elite Australian athlete without attempting an Australian accent. Don't get me wrong, there were some fine and genuinely funny moments, but this talented cast were let down by often unconvincing dialogue, and a director who allowed them to pronounce every 'T' in the script, which lent the already awkward dialogue a foreign and unfamiliar tone, which is not conducive to comedic impact.

Overall, an entertaining show, but this story had the potential to move me to both laughter and tears, and it didn't do either.

Hancock

2008-07-16T16:45:00.000+10:00

Had a great trip to Canberra’s fantastic Dendy again last night, to see Hancock. Cheap Tuesday, and it was busy with hundreds of baby boomers lining up to see Mama Mia! and I ended up in the wrong line, feeling like a complete idiot when I realised that there was no one within cooee of my age in the queue. It was a relief, however, to find that we could walk right into the appropriate cinema and not have to jockey for decent seats.

Hancock is a good piece of cinema, but very light. It’s one of those films with a great premise that kind of falls down when the story should be getting interesting. You could see that spot at the end of the exposition and the conflict where the writers—Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan—suddenly realised that they don’t know where they’re going with this story. It’s good, but the best bits are in the trailer. Wait for the DVD.

I’d like to give them ten points for trying, but this is one of those unfortunate films that has fallen victim to the Hollywood movie machine. The idea was fresh and new, which is more than you can say for most American films this century, but the execution just didn’t cut it.

I just wish we had opted for Ten Empty instead. Oh well.

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia

2008-07-13T10:51:00.000+10:00

I have long admired the work of Edward Albee. He’s pretty funny, for an American. And Moonlight’s production of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia was by far the most enjoyable thing I have seen on stage in Canberra since Rep did Noises Off last year. Wall to wall laughs were delivered by a talented cast under the direction of Bridget Balodis, who obviously understands timing and has an excellent command of the dramatic fluctuations of Albee’s work.

The play centres on the infidelity of Martin, and its impact on his small family. Jerry Hearn was assigned a difficult task in the role of Martin; to play a dramatic role in a comedy and do it well is an accomplishment in itself. Christa de Jager also toed the line very carefully between the intense drama of her role, and its comic one-liners. Sam Yeo, playing their son Billy, had a difficult time keeping a straight face as he began his hilarious journey, but his energy and timing, like that of the rest of the cast, was superb.

In all, a great night out. It was nice to be back in my old stomping ground of the ANU Drama Lab, but I was very disappointed with the enormous new seating: in order to avoid DVT I had to sit on an angle with my legs in the aisle, and crane my neck around to see the stage. The designers obviously didn’t consider the fact that many Australians are taller than a metre, or maybe they only expected children to be coming...