By David Williamson. Christine Harris and HIT Productions. The Q Theatre. 27 June 2014
Although the AFL has been working hard to change its thuggish image over the last few years after a string of scandals, it still very much portrays a typically macho sports culture. With striking originality, ‘Managing Carmen’ explores the ‘shades of grey’ lying just under the surface of this carefully stage-managed theatrical production that we call ‘footy’ in Australia.
Brent (Jamieson Caldwell) is a highly talented but somewhat troubled football player who is failing to live up to his earnings potential as a brand ambassador due to his withdrawn demeanour. While Brent’s ruthless and belligerent manager Rohan (Brandon Burke) is doing his best to boost his image by supplying him with former model Clara (Annie Last) as arm candy, the devious sports writer Max (Trent Baker) is adding fuel to the fire by relentlessly targeting Brent in his gossip column.
Rohan decides to hire a therapist, Jessica (Hannah Norris), to determine what is bugging Brent and to unlock his ability to make some cash while he’s still at the top of his game. When she discovers Brent has a secret alter ego of the opposite sex, there is a mighty clash between the future of his career and the freedom to be who he really is.
The performers of ‘Managing Carmen’ were perfectly cast in their roles, with each of them bringing their own unique goods to the table. Caldwell’s transition from the emotionally stunted Brownlow Medallist to the flamboyant Carmen was spectacular, while managing to avoid falling into the trap of being farcical. Burke as his cynical and irate manager was hysterical, especially when teamed up with his on stage nemesis Baker. The cleverly executed loathing between the two made for some brilliantly unbridled nastiness that had the audience in stitches.
Last and Norris in their diametrically opposed roles also held their own, with the magnetic Last (an accomplished comedienne, as seen in ‘When Dad Married Fury’) providing the big laughs as Brent’s flaky, self-centred sham girlfriend. Norris held the fort well as the only character with a semblance of emotional stability, and anchored the show nicely.
With a lot of ground to cover throughout the two-hour duration, the scenes of ‘Managing Carmen’ were mercifully snappy, with great brevity built into the script. Only as much as we needed to know was included, which kept things moving along at a thrilling pace. The quirky use of pre-recorded voiceovers, giving voice to unseen television programmes and the outside media, was also a nice touch and gave a sense of the world outside the immediate drama.
Given Australian football’s entrenched image of masculinity, a cross dressing football player is actually quite a brave and tough issue to tackle for a mainstream theatre production. But while there’s the chance for a show like this to cause some offence to less open minded audiences, the intelligent and carefully handled contents of the script (while not being overly precious) and the larrikin, tongue in cheek humour employed by the cast meant that this did not seem to be the case at all.
While the context of ‘Managing Carmen’ lies within the world of the AFL, this is by no means a story overshadowed by the game itself. Rather, it examines the culture in which those who make their living from football inhabit, and what occurs off the field to keep the illusion of it alive. Overall, this show has the potential to be a strong and minimally threatening vehicle for building tolerance and compassion towards those who don’t quite fit the mould in the manufactured world of Australian sport.
Deborah Hawke
When: 24 to 28 June
Where: The Q Theatre
Bookings: Closed
By Vela Manusaute . Kila Kokonut Krew. Canberra Theatre Centre. 24 June 2014
The last musical I recall about the South Pacific was, well, South Pacific – a musical very much from an American perspective. ‘The Factory’ on the other hand is a purely New Zealand production, created and performed by people born and bred on its neighbouring islands.
Set in the city of Auckland in the 1960s, this sweet, light and vibrant production tells the story of father Kavana (Aleni Tufuga) and daughter Losa (Milly Grant), who leave their island home for the big smoke in the pursuit of a better life. With the help of Misilei (Paul Fagamalo), they secure a job in a textiles factory where the employees consist of other Samoans and Tongans with the same hopes and dreams.
Kavana and Losa quickly realise New Zealand is not quite the “land of milk and honey” they were expecting, as they come to realise the factory is owned by the bitter and neglectful Richard (Paul Glover). However, his son Edward (Ryan Bennett) looks after the workers as best he can and it’s not long before he falls for Losa, and they find themselves railing against a clash of class and cultures.
Pacific Islanders are well known for their stunning singing abilities, and they didn’t disappoint with ‘The Factory’. From the outset they absolutely overwhelmed the environment with the beauty and power of their voices, filling every corner of the Canberra Theatre with the most rich and joyous sounds (also courtesy of Musical Director Tama Waipara and Composer Poulima Salima) that you’d ever have the privilege of hearing.
The genre of each song was also incredibly varied, ranging from traditional compositions, to anything from gospel, soul, ballads funk and disco. All were slick and equally catchy, accompanied by some groovy and, on occasion, acrobatic moves by choreographer Amanaki Prescott Faletau.
What sealed the deal though was the exquisite pacing of the show, which kept the energy and sass of this musical consistently strong, with not one single lag throughout its duration. Each and every moment was filled with wonderment and the audience firmly in the palms of the performers hands from the moment they graced the stage.
Tufuga, Grant, Glover and Bennett as the leads were the most mind-blowingly pure and unwaveringly strong vocalists, and it practically induced a state of nirvana closing one’s eyes and just basking in the glorious sound seemingly coming straight from their hearts.
Likewise, the supporting cast (Taofia Pelesasa, Tavai Fa’asavalu, Troy Tu’va, Saipele Maika, Valentino Maliko, Joanna Mika-Toloa, Nastassia Wolfgramm, Suivai Autagavaia, Loma Teisi and Rosita Vai) were also extremely gifted, with a flair for comedy and a real display of camaraderie and pride. They worked wonderfully together as a team, with their collective timing spot on in every way. Fagamalo’s wonderfully campy portrayal of Ms Misilei also deserves an honourable mention, particularly his Priscilla-esque display at the factory social.
‘The Factory’ may be based on a simple, tried and true storyline, but what Kila Kokonut Krew has done with this foundation knocks modern musical theatre out of the ballpark. Audiences in the region are so used to seeing American and European productions that it was getting hard to believe that any musical produced from this neck of the woods could ever have popular appeal – I’m glad to be proved so wrong, and that the Pacific has found its voice…so to speak.
Deborah Hawke
When: Closed
Where: Canberra Theatre Centre
Bookings: Closed
By Catherine Crowley and Heidi Silberman. The Street Theatre. 20 June 2014
There was nary a soul in Australia that wasn’t affected in some way by the World Wars, with people from all walks of life having to sacrifice and ‘do their bit’ for the sake of the country. It’s always fascinating to sit down with the men and women from the older generations and hear their stories of survival, and how their experiences so deeply shaped them.
‘The Home Front’, a year in the making through The Street Theatre’s The Hive program, taps into this everyday perspective of war – but is inspired solely by the rich and rather untapped history of our women folk keeping the home fires burning during World War One while the men fought in far flung places.
Though thoroughly researched for context, accuracy and ideas, ‘The Home Front’ is no carefully scripted series of bombastic monologues. It’s actually a wholly improvised affair, with new stories and characters for every single show – as created by the audience’s input.
On this particular night, director Heidi Silberman gave us Vye (Catherine Crowley), Elsie (Ruth Pieloor) and Maisy (Lynn Peterson) as our three names to mould into characters. After giving them personality traits, occupations, fears, living arrangements and a rough plot, the three performers then hit the ground running to create a story about the lives of these women set in the spring of 1916.
With such a daunting task to carry out, it was no surprise that ‘The Home Front’ started out being quite laboured and stilted while the actors got their bearings and sized each other up. However, after the initial bit of awkward ‘hot potatoe’ being played between the three women, they eventually settled into their roles and fashioned quite a lovely, though not terribly absorbing, theatrical piece.
Where there were historical inconsistencies or when the performers were finding themselves in a gridlock, Silberman would physically step in to challenge the status quo and drag them back into the appropriate mindset of the era – which worked quite effectively to inject some energy into the story and get the production back on track.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of ‘The Home Front’ were the times when humour was being employed, overall the show seemed to take itself a tad too militantly. It’s true the pressure of improvisation can make it difficult to relax when one is trying to focus, but there was definitely more room for throwing caution to the wind.
Overall, the woman kept calm and strong composure for the duration of the show and developed their characters convincingly as time went on. Crowley was especially strong in her stage presence, and was the anchor that kept the production grounded.
Given the unpredictability of the stage environment, it’s also hats off to lighting designer PJ Williams, who did a wonderful job setting the scene and creating some marvellously realistic dusks and dawns throughout. Likewise, the homely and rustic Australian homestead set and period costume design had quite the air of authenticity about it, and really drew you into the era.
‘The Home Front’ was a cosy and intimate night at the theatre that had a ‘simple pleasures’ feel about it that evoked memories of sitting around with the family listening to radio plays in days gone by. It was a pleasant way to spend a winter evening and to hear war survival stories from a woman’s perspective.
Deborah Hawke
When: 18 to 28 June
Where: The Street Theatre
Bookings: thestreet.org.au
Inspired by the play The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol. Canberra Theatre Centre. 29 May 2014
Sitting in the Playhouse of the Canberra Theatre Centre at the conclusion of Simon Stone’s ‘The Government Inspector’, I admit that I was slightly stumped as to how I was going to review such a complicated and unconventional play. Instead of a nice tidy storyline that could be summarised with brevity, I found myself floundering in a sea of art imitates life imitates art chaos without any floaties.
How did such a production come into being? Well, the Belvoir and Malthouse theatres were originally paired up with Australia’s 'so hot right now’ director, Simon Stone, and the same cast that would eventually star in ‘The Government Inspector’ to put on the play ‘The Philadelphia Story’. However, after a mishap surrounding the rights to ‘The Philadelphia Story’, the rag tag group found themselves upstream without a play and desperately searching for another to fill the spot.
Stone came up with the idea of doing Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’, a 19th Century satire about a small Russian village that gets duped by an imposter pretending to be… a Government Inspector. But this would not be a straight interpretation of the original by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, they would use Gogol’s work merely as inspiration for a brand new, partially improvised and ultra-farcical piece of theatre that was devised in a very short space of time by both the writers and performers – essentially it’s a play about making a play.
The actual plot goes something like this: the director (Simon Stone) of ‘The Philadelphia Story’ has walked out on his cast and soon after Gareth, one of the cast members, suddenly dies. With no director, no rights to the play and one cast member down, the group decide to bring a theatre director over from Uzbekistan named Seyfat to do Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ with them.
Enter Frank (Gareth Davies), an unemployed actor who is there to audition for the show. Through an initial misunderstanding, but eventual outright deception, he leads the rest of the cast to believe he is the Uzbekistani director that has come to rescue them – and there we have the parallel to the plotline of the original ‘The Government Inspector’.
What was so refreshing about this play was the complete lack of stiffness or stuffiness in the dialogue between the cast members. While this was partially to do with the improvisational aspect, it also has much to do with the fresh, efficient and rather bawdy writing approach of Stone and Barclay. From start to finish the script bounced along with nary a lag to be heard; the banter between the actors was sharp, swift and endlessly amusing.
While the actors (Fayssal Bazzi, Mitchell Butel, Gareth Davies, Robert Menzies, Zahra Newman, Eryn Norvill and Greg Stone) were predominately playing fictional and caricaturised versions of themselves, both Newman and Davies played the additional and entirely fictional roles of Frank and Dolores, the Latin American cleaning lady with a hidden talent for musical theatre.
It is a difficult task to single out any one performer in particular, as each and every one of them made such a unique and significant contribution to the production. Together as an ensemble, they were an absolute comedic dream team, keeping the chemistry and energy flowing freely among them for the duration of the show. The blend of both veteran and more fledging actors was also a nice contrast that kept the production grounded.
However, Butel’s star really shone during his intensely narcissistic diva moment toward the end, and is right up there for me with the great moments in theatre. Norvill’s Jennifer Tilly-esque portrayal of her character was also a highlight, delivering some pricelessly daffy moments along the way. Butel also paired up nicely with Newman as the musical theatre talent du jour, both displaying their very fine sets of respective pipes and hamming it up for their duet.
A strong and very effective feature of the show was the revolving stage, allowing a frequent contrast between the drama going on both on stage and backstage. Particularly enjoyable were the moments the stage rotated in quick succession, giving the impression of a montage or diorama. The movement gave much more succinctness to the story, while at the same time maximising the opportunity for quick and dirty gags.
While the audience was told from the outset that we would not actually be seeing Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’, this was only true in part. What we got to see was a shimmering, outrageously cheesy musical version of Gogol’s classic, with the songs and music written for this finale by Stefan Gregory. The fact that Gregory wrote this in about one week does not in any way take away from its comic brilliance – quite the opposite, it proved to be the sparkly frosting on the cake for this madcap creation.
Stone’s ‘The Government Inspector’ is what I hope marks the beginning of a new genre of Australian theatre, where the boundaries are pushed into new, innovative and exciting territory and imaginations soar – even if in this case it has been coaxed along somewhat by curious circumstances. While on the outside it does seem like pandemonium, the core of this production is both polished and well-controlled thanks to a highly capable team. There are wee bits of genius shining through in this work and I expect great things for all those involved in the future.
Deborah Hawke
When: Closed
Where: Canberra Theatre Centre
Bookings: Closed
By Daniel Keene. Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Defence Force. The Canberra Theatre Centre. 20 Mar 2014
The battlefield has long been referred to as a theatre of war, however ‘The Long Way Home’ gives a very literal meaning to this somewhat sanitised term.
Inspired by the UK production ‘The Two Worlds of Charlie F’ that relayed the stories of wounded and injured British soldiers on return from Iraq and Afghanistan, ‘The Long Way Home’ is a similar project told from the Australian experience (though both share the same director in Stephen Rayne).
Most touching about both these projects is that they were also created as a form of direct rehabilitation for the servicemen and servicewomen involved. It must be noted that these soldiers were not simply consultants to the respective theatre companies – they workshopped their stories and performed them on stage alongside professional actors as well.
While this type of production might sound intensely harrowing, it is expertly blended with enough humour and poignancy to avoid being overly traumatic. The result was an honest and multi-dimensional re-telling of these most intimate of experiences, catching a rare glimpse behind the stiff upper lip of those trained to withstand suffering most of us would think unbearable.
‘The Long Way Home’ seemed to strike the right cord with Canberra, with tickets for each showing sold out by the time opening night rolled around. From what I could gather from the knowing laughs and enthusiasm of the responsive audience, I’m thinking there was a decent share of bums on seats from institutions such as Duntroon, the Australian Defence Force Academy and other military institutions. It was quite touching to observe their responses to what was occurring on stage, with much of it seemingly ringing true.
Told via a series of powerful vignettes, these stories didn’t shy away from much. Explored in great depth were issues such as culture shock, sleep deprivation, serious injuries, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the toll deployment takes on relationships back home – to name but a handful. However, the dominating overarching theme was the feeling of alienation when returning home from war, and the long road towards healing.
These darker moments were given intermittent respite by lighter moments exploring themes of mateship, bone dry military humour and a shared sense of identity, all peppered with a liberal dose of explicit, fruity dialect that would make Billy Connelly blush (tap arse, anyone?). The brilliant, metaphorically laden lesson on the chain of command was a highlight in this respect, all collectively lending a fascinating, behind the scenes insight into modern armed forces culture.
In regards to the performances themselves, they were so outstanding that I simply assumed the entire cast consisted of professional actors - it was not until afterwards that I discovered that many of them were actually from the Australian Defence Force, blending in seamlessly to the engaging and extraordinary mix.
While the swiftly changing set was minimalistic, it was highly effective – utilising a digital screen in the background for everything from the starry desert scenery, to the pre-recorded segues and employing only the most essential of props on stage. The sound was a mix of rough and ready Aussie rock/heavy metal, intertwined with more haunting compositions portraying the nightmares each protagonist privately endures.
Being that ‘The Long Way Home’ is predominately focused on individual soldiers’ experiences, rather than the country they are serving, it appropriately refrains from being overly patriotic. The only real example of patriotism is at the conclusion of the show, giving some sense of meaning and purpose to the brutal reality of war that had just been witnessed.
The evening ended with a dignified assemblage of the cast, with approval from the audience implicit in the heartfelt standing ovation. As no doubt each soldier on stage would have had their great moments of bravery in the field, fearlessly baring their heart and souls for this production is on par. If you’d like to understand what it really means when people say they sacrifice for the country, get along a see this remarkable piece of work.
Deborah Hawke
When: Closed
Where: The Canberra Theatre Centre
Bookings: Closed