Oz Asia Festival. Space Theatre. 24 Sep 2015
Teater Garasi has warned that its show will be raucous and chaotic. The audience should not feel too comfortable.
The first message is at the door to the theatre - a thin, rolled mattress, a pair of large feet protruding from one end. A welcome from the dead.
The Space is wide open with performers meandering about as the audience enters. There are some benches against the wall, some flat cushions for the floor and a row of tables with "VIP" reserved cards upon them. It turns out that the ushers very thoughtfully steer the older people to the tables. A bit of Eastern respect for age. How refreshing. There is a convivial, busy feel to the theatre. The show begins in an organic way with things just happening and then a marching band stomps through - and the world of a Jakarta night street comes alive.
The performance is physical theatre at its best. The performers exhibit the many disciplines of sophisticated stagecraft. Their bodies tell a thousand human stories as they dance and march, carry things to and fro, set up little trading stalls, dart from the shrill whistle of the policeman. Corrugated iron plays a large part in the play, depicting transience, enterprise, poverty, hope... Characters set it up as little building symbols in the changing shape of the city. They use it as shelter. They carry it about and wear it rolled up on their heads. They dance loudly upon it.
There is an MC of sorts who explains that the audience will be moved about, so expect surprises. He comments throughout the busy hour of the show while assorted others carry crude PA systems or megaphones and make announcements or revelations to the audience. A surtitle screen translates these commentaries which, often with dark themes, have a beautiful sense of poetry.
All Jakarta life throbs by, fast and busy, sad and hopeful. People scurry under umbrellas, ride bikes, jostle, roll, flee. There are raunchy sex workers, stern Muslims, hawkers, protestors, all colours and creeds overlapping in the seeming chaos of the vast Indonesian populace. There is even a wedding ceremony, a lively band and singer celebrating at one end and at the other, a groom sitting in solitary state. People dance with plastic bags over their heads. The bride, Nur, is not present. She has had to go and work as a domestic in Malaysia, the groom explains. So it is, these days. A hard life. This scene is followed by the most perfect moment of the show, an older woman in classic Indonesian garb, singing solo a song of philosophic fatalism. It segues into a death dance, a silent topeng duo.
Essentially, what award-winning director Yudi Ahmad Tajudin brings us is vivid and feisty agitprop theatre. From the well-observed people soup of Teater Garasi's Jakarta street comes the powerful message of an oppressive government agenda. People controlled to keep them poor, the play asserts.
And there, on the stage, beside the hubub of seething urban existence, lies that rolled mattress one first saw at the door with those huge brown feet protruding from the end. There lies the constant thing, the unifying common factor, death.
The Streets is a simply wonderful work of immersive theatre. It is a grittily aesthetic picture of the ordinary life of our near neighbours. It is a contemporary cultural experience, superbly wrought. A triumph of OzAsia 2015.
Samela Harris
When: 24 to 26 Sep
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Bakehouse Theatre
James Johnson's The Audition is about the audition from hell, the ultimate audition which plays on the theory of the actor as a blank canvas.
It is a ferocious two-hander which pushes the actors to extremes but, of course, is quite the showcase for the talented upcoming performer, being both a challenge of intensive dialogue and a playground of veering emotions.
It describes Lauren, an aspiring actress who attends an audition for an unidentified play. Stella is the steely director who seeks to put her applicant through not only all the tricks in the acting book but also all the games of psychological confrontation. Lauren already has a few vulnerabilities, scarred by the ugly volatility of her parents' relationship, for instance. Stella presses her emotional buttons and then some of the most primal of human insecurities as she exerts all the mighty power and mystery of the director and, beyond that, a strange calculated sadism.
It is not a play which speaks well of directors. Then again, it is really a fairly ridiculous play. It is an exercise in dramatic theory and virtuosity. The dense script calls upon lots of shouting and weeping, sex, violence, drugs and absolutely no humour or even irony.
But director John Hartog has picked a couple of very capable actors to engage in all the sturm und drang. Clare Mansfield reaches into the realms of desperate overplay as the aspiring actress Lauren, giving her all the cornball histrionics which would ensure that she will never get the role. From the silliest formal self-written audition piece right through to the writhing cot case, she delivers it as breathtakingly stereotyped. It is exhausting simply watching her.
Krystal Brock's character of Stella is a counterpoint of steely restraint. Brock nails it nicely. Passive aggressive manipulative cruelty is her game and she imbues the role with graceful sangfroid.
Hartog's design is rather effective, The Bakehouse's black stage is opened to the back wall where ladders and scrims rest in the spirit of a dark theatre. Centre stage is a blackboard, oh so symbolic, where names are written and erased. Then there is the director's table and chair and an isolated chair for the vulnerable actor.
Lighting and sound by Stephen Dean and Matthew Chapman are apt and effective - and, indeed, all round it is a highly proficient production of an annoying play.
Samela Harris
When: 17 Sep to 3 Oct
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Independent Theatre Company. Space Theatre. 3 Sep 2015
The American Century began after that nation's late contribution in ending World War I, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was right there with it, naming the interwar period with his collection of stories, entitled, Tales of the Jazz Age, and furthering the fiction of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby, both of which he wrote in the twenties. The great Jay Gatsby was actually a great prohibition-era criminal, directing operations in several large American cities from his Long Island mansion, purchased to keep an obsessive eye on an old flame from the war days, now unfortunately married as Mrs Daisy Buchanan. He hoped that hosting generous and ostentatious high society parties would draw her to him like a moth to a flame, but he needed the assistance of his lowly neighbour - and narrator of director Rob Croser's clever adaptation - bond trader Nick Carraway.
The fantastic art deco set of ivory and marble, designed by David Roach (with assistance from noted Adelaide architect and brother Rod Roach) and Rob Croser, set the mansion and Manhattan scenes in opulent style. Croser picked the right cast. Will Cox hit all the marks as the mid-western east coast initiate, Nick Carraway. Cox had a pivotal role introducing the scenes, and in providing background and thought bubbles, and as a useful tool in the machinations of the mega-rich. Lindsay Prodea did a great job with the complex Gatsby. Green pier lanterns for envy and a yellow car for cowardice were Gatsby's colours. He presented the exterior of a confident self-made man, but also displayed Gatsby's vulnerability, conflict, and willfully blind objectification of his romantic goal.
In condensing a novel for stage, Croser had to choose amongst numerous scenes and descriptions to flesh out the characters and this was successfully done. Alexander Woollatt created an unpredictable and dangerous Tom Buchanan. Madeleine Herd and Kate Bonney as Daisy Buchanan and Tom's mistress respectively successfully presented as high class possessions deeply indebted to a man's world. Herd gave us a distracted attitude (as indeed required) while Bonney produced a lively persona that lifted the show. Laura Antoniazzi got a hole-in-one as female golfing champ and party person Jordan Baker. Three sparkling gems. Nick Fagan did a good snap as the hapless hubby of Tom's mistress.
Where would the story be without the glitz? In the Lower East Side, not on Long Island, where it belonged. The cossies by Sandra Davis, Pattie Atherton and Angela Doherty, along with the make-up and hair, were absolutely stunning! Choreographer Pam O'Grady got the crew gaily flapping at the numerous Gatsby functions. Andrew Steuart had a unique modus operandi that caught my eye in every part he played, especially on the dance floor. The party mood was definitely enhanced by feisty songs of the period sung on stage by Ben Francis.
Opening night though, jeez, I wager, was not as good as any subsequent performance which I implore you to see. At the beginning, things seemed a little forced and uncertain, but the whole shebang built up to speed as the evening wore. The stakes were raised and the mood successfully shifted from party gaiety to psychological drama. The epilogue was very touching. Those familiar with the 2013 Baz Luhrmann film with Leo Cappuccino in the eponymous role will find a much more complete story on stage. Bravo to Croser for yet another world premiere of his own adaptation of a classic!
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 12 Sep
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 3 Sep 2015
It is not surprising that this play ranks alongside the Beauty Queen of Linane as most often produced among Martin McDonagh's works. It is a neat little theatrical masterpiece cleverly balanced between poignancy and cruelty while funny on multiple levels.
The magic is in the McDonagh characters, who are as idiosyncratically Irish as praties over a peat fire.
The magic of this Rep production is in the casting.
Director Kerrin White's choice of actors simply nails it, and gives some little-known performers a chance to shine. This applies most specifically to Matt Houston as the eponymous lead in what is only his third production with The Rep. He establishes and develops the persona of the orphaned cripple boy with absolute conviction. It's a performance that sears into the memory.
But it does not stand alone.
As the story goes, Cripple Billy is both embraced and asphyxiated by the oddbods of the isolated community of the tiny Aran Island of Inishmaan. Thus, he is raison d'être for his two spinster aunts who run the local shop which, for some reason in 1934, is stocked almost entirely with tinned peas.
Seasoned performers Sue Wylie and Tracey Walker slap on the wrinkles and age up to fuss around in the quaint little microcosm wherein the only contact with the outside world comes in the form of Johnnypateenmike who trades snippets of overheard gossip for fresh eggs or whatever else he can snag and take home to his alcoholic old mum. Wylie and Walker make a lovely, quirky double act as the old gals with their daily banter covering the disappointments and anxieties of their limited lives.
Johnnypateenmike is a core character, catalyst to the grand getaway plans of the island young. He is not likeable but perhaps he is not what he seems. Dirty, scruffy old thing, he is the social media of the day and an essential part of the community. John Leigh Grey makes him larger than life. It is a vivid and fluent performance and an epitome of Irishness.
Eleanor Boyd as the boozy old Mammy shows just what a delicious gem one can make of a cameo role. She's very funny, as are the two youngsters of the production. They are still at school and they are talents which are definitely going places. Benjamin Maio Mackay playing Bartley, in a fancy school uniform which somewhat confuses as to what sort of school they may have on the island, is a vibrant onstage presence. His endless patter about sweeties is as lively and fun as it is important in establishing the narrowness of island life. Mary Rose Angley plays his sister, Helen and, oh, what a manic, mugging whirlwind of a lost soul she makes her.
Ben Todd plays a good, solid doctor in the middle of the general mayhem while Alan Fitzpatrick, a strong and simpatico young actor, is very lucky that as Babbybobby, he is the one cast member who does not have to keep trying to say Babbybobby and get it right.
But that name is one of the notes in the music of language which carries the play and the cast has worked hard to achieve the lilts and sways of the dialogue.
It's high marks to Kerrin for his tight direction and simple but effective sets and special marks to lighting designer Jo Topperwien for some good aesthetics and apt atmospheres.
The pace of set changes could be picked up a bit and accompanying music better balanced - but there's not much wrong with this neat piece of good theatre.
Try to catch it.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 12 Sep
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
State Theatre Company. Dunstan Playhouse. 25 August 2015
Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright in town at the beginning of the 17th Century when Ben Jonson was in full bloom during the English reign of King James I (1603-25). Writing wasn't his first career choice - he was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his stepfather when he volunteered for the army and is considered to have killed an enemy soldier in single combat in Flanders. On return to England, he started as an actor. Queen Elizabeth I banned his co-written play, Isle of Dogs, and Jonson did time for "leude and mutynous behavior." A year later, he killed one of the actors in that play in a duel, and also wrote his first successful script, ironically titled, Every Man in His Humour. He was/is regarded paradoxically as a bit of a hot-head and one of the best writers of satire in his time.
Whereas Shakespeare is performed verbatim, Jonson's Volpone (or The Fox) needed a bit of a massage by adaptor Emily Steel. Volpone in the first scene appears bound to his deathbed in Venice and, seemingly soon to be departed from his fabulous wealth, manages to extract even more treasure from three friends who are promised to be his sole heir by Volpone's mischief-making manservant, Mosca. I could see the Jacobean masses ripping laughter at the unadulterated greed of these rich bastards while they manipulate each other for ever more booty, work their way through corrupt courts with crooked, smooth-talking lawyers to protect their assets, and finally get unjust comeuppances.
But that was then and this is now. I didn't peal with laughter or feel anything often enough to make this a great night out. Director Nescha Jelk seemed to have all the design elements in place: Jonathon Oxlade's modern Italianate pillars and arches making a colonnade or peristyle as required, Geoff Cobham's lighting palate complementing Oxlade's colourful personality-bespoke costumes, and Will Spartalis's spoof music. Jelk and her cast invest the characters with over-the-top and physically comedic idiosyncrasies that were at first startling and laugh-fetching. But after the initial intrigue had been set, the script followed the course of a morality tale, and production values that were initially stimulating and unusual became loud and overloaded.
It was great to see some of the old favourites foiled with a younger crop of actors. Edwin Hodgeman charmed with his aged Corbaccio. Geoff Revell made his schtick comfortable in a variety of guises, and Paul Blackwell infused the eponymous role with his comic complexity. James Smith, Patrick Graham and Elizabeth Hay are the future on stage and no doubt we'll see a lot more of them. With Caroline Mignone and Matt Crook, director Welk guided the cast in script-enhancing physical comedy.
I think my lack of enthusiasm for this production is that the characterisations were fully understood once the key creative elements were established, and the story's wending didn't sustain my interest. Upon being told that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote, Jonson apparently said, "Would he had blotted a thousand!" Careful, Ben.
David Grybowski
When: 21 August to 12 September
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au