Theatre offerings in 2010

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!

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia

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...