Tiddas

By Anita Heiss. Sydney Festival 2024. Directors: Nadine McDonald-Dowd and Roxanne McDonald. Belvoir St Theatre. 12-28 Jan, 2024

Reviewed : 17 January, 2024*

Photo : Stephen Wilson Barker

The co-directors of this warm, honest play explain that “Tiddas is a shared Aboriginal word for sisters,” women who have grown together bound by friendship, love, and years of shared experiences. They explain the importance of women in Aboriginal culture as “the backbone and heart of our ways … no matter the changing world around us”.

The five ‘tiddas’ in Anita Heiss’ play – Izzy, Xanthe, Ellen, Nadine and Veronica – have been friends for years. All but Nadine are Aboriginal, but she is married to the brother of one of the ‘Tiddas’. They grew up together in Mudgee but eventually all have moved to Queensland, where they remain close, meeting each month, ostensibly for their book club, in reality just to keep in touch.

As ‘tiddas’ they are open, honest, direct. They know each other well enough to sense changes or disquiet; to question, share, listen and advise. That scenario gives Heiss the opportunity to raise many issues, some personal, some exposing, “truth telling” stories that are of wider importance and impact on cultural identity.

Photo : Stephen Wilson Barker

The play follows them over the months of their book club meetings, seeing them through good times and bad, laughter and tears and a major crisis that rocks the solid foundation on which their sisterhood is based. It’s a lot to cover in only 90 minutes, but in carefully developed short scenes that are pithy and concise, Heiss shows the importance of empathy and compassion, understanding and support, resilience and trust.

Co-directors Nadine McDonald-Dowd and Roxanne McDonald make the production move quickly, ensuring clear continuity and clarity as the characters move through complicated situations, exposing rawness, anxiety, bitterness, apprehension, happiness, and grief.

The actors are sure of their characters and their complexities, working as a close ensemble even as they make slight changes to the set, where designer Zoe Rouse has used two walls of high bookcases filled with books, nick-nacks and pot plants to create a spacious room opening onto a grassed terrace and a jacaranda tree that is symbolic to the ‘tiddas’.

Photo : Stephen Wilson Barker

It’s a bright, cheerful environment, especially as the colours of the set are reflected in the costumes, designed skilfully to mirror the personalities and occupations of the characters.

Louise Brehmer plays Nadine, the ‘white’ sister who is a respected writer. This is a tough role, as Brehmer takes Nadine from a position of strength through a range of emotional scenes, not the least of which is breach of trust that isolates her from the group.

Lara Croydon is Izzy, striving to be “Australia’s Oprah”, confident, strong, understanding but thrown into indecision when a difficult complication arises. Croydon carries both iterations of the character clearly, one with assurance and poise, the other with honest introspection and perception.

Xanthe, played by Jade Lomas-Ronan, is a peacemaker. Caring and concerned, she is loved by everyone, especially her Grandma and her husband. Lomas-Ronan finds the warmth and fun in Xanthe – as well as the hidden disappointment that she eventually shares with her friends.

Anna McMahon is Veronica, in the throes of a failing marriage and gradually losing what tenuous confidence she has. McMahon takes her through her bitter lows in hesitant explanations, then, with support form the ‘Tiddas’, confidently showing new strength and self-belief.

Ellen, played by Perry Mooney, is fiercely independent, the ‘clown’ of the group who keeps everyone entertained with her ‘bleak jokes’ (she is an undertaker!) and clever one-liners. Mooney carries this role skilfully, making Ellen cheeky and sassy, full of life, caring … but also brutally honest

Photo : Stephen Wilson Barker

Co-director Roxanne McDonald plays Xanthe’s grandmother and Izzy’s mother. As the token ‘elder’ in the production, she is a constant to all the friends, part of their meetings, supporting when asked with wise advice. McDonald is clever performer, she is in every moment, watching, listening, reacting quietly, or with a telling change of expression or perceptive aside.

Sean Dow plays the five men in their lives! With a change of walk, voice, personality and costume he becomes husband, brother, lover, equally believable in whatever role.

Tiddas is about a sisterhood, but it’s message reaches beyond the ‘tiddas’ to raise “serious questions” about “the truths, half-truths and outright lies we tell ourselves” (Eamon Flack Artistic Director, Belvoir Street Theatre).

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening production

Love Letters

By A.R. Gurney. Genesian Theatre. Director Richard Cotter. 13-28 Jan, 2024

Reviewed : January 14, 2024

Photo : Grant Fraser

When A.R. Gurney described his play Love Letters as needing “no theatre, no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorisation, and no commitment from its two actors beyond the night of performance”, he failed to explain what actors and directors could do with this unusual script.

Written in 1988, the play is a series of letters and cards written by Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner. Their correspondence begins in elementary school during the 1930s and follows the writers to boarding school, summer camps, college and into their later lives. Born to relatively well-to-do American families, their letters tell of their challenges and triumphs, and the effects of changing times and circumstances.

Photo : Grant Fraser

In performance, Love Letters becomes much more than just a reading. As in the play 84 Charing Cross Road, when the words are spoken the feelings of the writers can be expressed more honestly. In their intonation and their faces the actors can inject the messages between the lines in the letters … especially if the actors reading the letters are “partners in life and theatre”.

Tricia Youlden and Richard Cotter met 30 years ago in a production of King Lear. They have appeared together on stage and film in over eighteen productions. Who better to bring the lovely characters of Love Letters to life than actors who have created so many characters together – and shared as many life experiences as the characters A.R Gurney created?

Their interpretation of Andy Ladd and Melissa Gardner bring much more than “commitment’ to the characters. They begin by creating the youthful voices of the childhood friends, a little hesitant as the simple sentences of the early letters suggest, then ‘grow’ with them as their writing becomes more complex.

Cotter’s Andy becomes more confident, sharing his beginning love of writing with smiles and more complex sentences. Melissa, on the other hand, is less interested in writing, and Youlden shows this in querulous disinterest, gazing beyond the words she has written. This contrast in t

heir characters becomes more noticeable as they move into their teens and their letters expose the effects of their different family environments.

Photo : Grant Fraser

Cotter uses his eyes, a cheeky grin, a thoughtful expression, a gentle smile to give Andy greater dimension as he matures and begins to realise his hopes and ambitions.

For Melissa, more social and outgoing, Youlden uses flippant tones, a little petulance and impatience… eventually admitting her envy of Andy’s more stable family.

As the letters take them through work, marriage and children, Youlden and Cotter sit a little differently, turn the pages of their lives more hesitantly, look beyond the audience a little more wistfully … or fearfully …

Love Letters covers over 50 years in the lives of Melissa and Andy as America and the world changes around them. Their story is funny and moving – and told touchingly in this production by two skilled, perceptive performers.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

The Lonesome West

By Martin McDonagh. Director: Anna Houston. Empress Theatre Company. Old Fitz Theatre. 13 Jan – 4 Feb, 2024

Reviewed : 13 January, 2024*

Photo : Saz Watson

The Ireland Martin McDonagh depicts in his two Irish trilogies is not a happy place, especially the town of Leenane in County Galway where The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West are set. Rather than the pretty images tourists see of cottages nestling on the northern edge of Killarney Harbour, the village McDonagh paints is a place of bleakness and dysfunction.

His characters are dissatisfied, angry, quick to take offence, often morally corrupt. And, though shockingly violent at times, in a ‘quare’ crazy Irish way, they are also funny.

In The Lonesome West, it’s brothers who are the cause of tension, provoking each other brutally, fighting viciously even though they have just buried their father … whom the older brother, Coleman shot in the head. Everyone believes it was an accident, but it wasn’t …

Photo : Saz Watson

“Getting your hairstyle insulted is no just cause to go murdering someone,” taunts his brother Valene, who has supported the ‘accident’ story in exchange for taking possession of everything left by their father. And just in case Coleman forgets, everything in the house is marked with a black “V” – even the fibreglass figurines which Valene collects religiously.

It is this ‘bone of contention’ that provides the friction. Valene provokes, Coleman reacts. Coleman ‘steals’ a drink, Valene reacts. Insults are thrown, tempers erupt, a fight begins. It’s sadistic, cruel, violent … but somehow, it’s funny! Black comedy makes us laugh at something that makes us feel uncomfortable.

Anna Houston directs with this in mind. She follows the rhythms of McDonagh’s script, moments of quiet, followed by rising tension, culminating in fierce language and savage physicality – and some unforeseen shocks – all set in a sparsely furnished living room designed by Kate Beere. It is a dour, bleak room, with mismatched furniture, age-stained wallpaper coming away in patches, and a shelf of sacred statues watching over a gaping fireplace … that is intrinsic to the plot!

Houston skilfully manipulates the action in the space. distancing the brothers as the tension rises, then bringing them closer to circle each other, taunting, until they erupt – into fight scenes that are carefully choreographed and rehearsed and explicitly timed.

Photo : Saz Watson

Plays such as this require detailed research into the motivation of the characters – and their accents, in order to achieve the inflections that are so recognisably Irish. Under the guidance of dialect coach Linda Nicholls Gidley, Houston’s cast find the cadence and rhythm – and the pace and diction needed for McDonagh’s idiomatic dialogue.

Lee Beckhurst as Coleman Connor is brooding and resentful, easily provoked, quick to take offence. He is wary, watchful and Beckhurst keeps him coiled, ready to spring, constantly aware of the hold his brother has over him, even as he steals his brother’s drink to share with the priest – or recalls memories with Girleen.

The Valene Connor that Andre de Vanny portrays is spiteful, scheming. Small and lithe, he almost skips around the stage, needling his brother, baiting him as he draws his black ‘V’ on yet another of his religious figures, or taunting him with the liquor he won’t share. He is a vindictive character, and de Vanny shows this in his gloating expressions and wild, cruel eyes.

Abe Mitchell plays Father Welsh – stuck in a parish fraught with suspicion and sinners – his frustration not helped by a drinking problem that his parishioners, especially the Connors, don’t let him forget. Mitchell shows the weakening faith of the character, even as he tries to support the brothers and deal with a local suicide.

Photo : Saz Watson

Ruby Henaway is Girleen – bright, cheerful, as settled as a young woman can be in a place where so much is unsettled. She values her friendships and is supportive of both the brothers and Father Welsh. This is particularly poignant in a scene in Act 2 when she sits with the priest beside a lake, watching the water and the night sky. Here McDonagh writes more lyrically, and though poignant, the scene leads to a less happy twist in the plot – another feature of black comedy.

Anna Houston’s production finds the pace and style of Martin McDonagh’s wicked humour, irony, crazed, wild characters and dramatic ‘surprises’. Her cast exposes the frustrations and frailties of the characters whilst still sustaining the level of energy that is vital to maintain the constant momentum of the production.

HSC Drama students studying Black Comedy should see this production and how it is staged – and McDonagh’s play The Lieutenant of Inishmore is one of the set texts!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*First public performance – Preview.

Sophia=(Wisdom): The Cliffs

By Richard Foreman. Phenomenological Theatre. Director Patrick Kennedy. New Theatre. 10-27 January, 2024

Reviewed : January 11, 2024

Photo : Daniel Boud

In program notes to Sydney’s premiere production of Richard Foreman’s 1972 avant-garde play Sophia=(Wisdom):The Cliffs, director Patrick Kennedy, renowned internationally for his stunning productions of Foreman’s plays suggests you:

“Sit back and allow your conscious mind to be enveloped in the cacophony of visuals, sounds and lights. Don’t expect catharsis and don’t expect a linear narrative.”

Photo : Daniel Boud

It’s good advice! Because this production is beyond different. Trying to find a narrative in the many short scenes would defeat the effect Kennedy is achieving. It is rather a “picturisation”: a sequence of tableaux with brief snatches of dialogue, augmented by some projected signs and definitions, unusual props and strange characters. In Foreman’s own words his play are a “theatrical experience rather than a narrative structure”.

That “theatrical experience” is orchestrated by Kennedy as director, stage manager, lighting and sound operator and stagehand. He will be at the back of the theatre for every performance, a deep measured voiceover, stopping the action with sharp blasts of sound, or interjections and black outs. He sets the pace, tempo and tone of the production – and his carefully schooled cast responds faithfully.

Photo : Daniel Boud

In a production that mixes dada, absurdism, alienation and slapstick in a series of interrupted scenes and orchestrated tableaux and strange props, one can really only do what Kennedy recommends and let “the images and sounds blur together to create a world.” React to what you see, rather than trying to work out what it means.

What is ‘seen’ is a cast of eleven actors. Some – Agustin Lamas, Lara Kocsis, Luke Visentin, Kirsty Saville and Beatrice McBride – are dressed in rich satin Restoration-style costumes complete with lace, feathers, coiffed wigs and heavy powered make up. These characters have small black microphones attached to distortion boxes that change and project their words.

Others – Katie Regan, Charmaine Huynh-Encluescu, Celeste Loyzaga. Nehir Hatipoglu and Heather Tiege – who wear simple dresses, aprons and different types of shoes are ‘factory workers’. Their makeup is plain, but their lips deep red. They carry props, change aspects of the set, hold ropes, write words on a black board.  Izzy Azzopardi is also a mountain climber, complete with helmet and climbing boots.

The audience enters to a darkened auditorium. Sounds from the planet Jupiter fill the air. The set is dark. There is a red door on one side, a lighted widow on the other, a throne-like chair in the centre. Lines of tape run at angles from a cut out of waves at the front of the stage. A pair of long, striped clown pants hang high on one side. The sound effects get louder and louder – and stop. The red door opens and a man walks out and sits on the chair.

This is Max, husband of Rhoda, who, to enliven their marriage has summoned copies of themselves with the help of Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom. The mayhem that results forces Rhoda to flee, but the abominable snow man and the factory workers prevent her escape. But one would only know this if one had read a summary of the play!

Photo : Daniel Boud

All the action is stylised, faces devoid of expression. Movement is carefully choreographed, usually slow and studied, often resulting in a tableau with the characters facing the audience, their expressions blank, their eyes vacant – until Kennedy stops the scene with a blast of sound, a black out and loud music that heralds the next scene.

Props – a chair, a stool, a children’s swimming pool filled with frothy fake foam, an ironing board! – are carried or placed or removed by the ‘factory workers’, their movements meticulously timed and carried out with rigid precision, blank faces and wide eyes. Even when their faces appear in little cut out houses high in a backdrop, moving like metronomes with a finger each side of their heads, their faces are blank, their lips pursed, their eyes fixed.

There are many scenes, many changes of props and furniture, many actions and reactions as tableaux are formed and changed, but not one of this dedicated cast ever misses a programmed beat, even as they lift voluminous skirts to climb through a window manipulating a spear or a sword. Or are stopped several times in the middle of a creeping entrance, by Kennedy’s harsh “NOT NOW”.

Photo : Daniel Boud

Plays such as this present challenges that some actors love – they are different, non-linear, their characters are two dimensional, Brechtian. In this case Kennedy has stripped the script of stage directions and scenic pointers and adapted the script to his “own theatrical interests”. Obviously he has chosen a cast who thrives on this different, radical direction.

The result is a production from which you walk away talking not the story but about the direction, the colour, the costumes, the symmetry, the weird continuity, the strangeness of Rhoda’s green plastic feet …

And you are sure to remember Patrick Kennedy’s first production in Australia, and his

inspired take on this strange, absurd, “theatrical experience” written by Richard Foreman and first performed in 1972 – over 50 years ago.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

Smashed – the Nightcap

Sydney Festival. Sydney Theatre Company Wharf 1 (The Thirsty Mile). 6-27 January, 2024

Reviewed : 7 January, 2024

Photo : Jacquie Manning

Victoria Falconer is no ordinary host! She has a vast history of performing and directing across Australia and internationally. But for this month she has left her role as co-artistic director of the Hayes Theatre to become the cheeky, sexy dynamo who fronts the cabaret Smashed – the Nightcap at Wharf 1. She sings, plays multiple instruments, leads the band and controls the show with a bold, defiant hand, deftly reeling the audience in to her contemporary take on the “salacious cabaret dens” of the 1920s and 30s.

Keeping her glass full and the audience eating out of her hand, Falconer heads a “femme-fronted” line up of cabaret and circus stars in the dim haze of the theatre on what was once one of the loading wharves of Sydney’s historical “Hungry Mile”, where crime boss Tilly Devine reigned, razor gangs roamed and ladies of the night lounged.

Photo : Jacquie Manning

But it’s 2024! The bar is open, the grog isn’t ‘sly’, the ladies are limbering up … and “Daddy” Victoria is in charge!

In costumes as colourful as the show itself, Falconer introduces the show with a spiel that puts masters of stand up to shame! Weaving between shadowy tables she sidles by her customers, teasing gently, roasting sassily, flirting audaciously. By the time she’s back on stage she’s set the scene for Sydney Festival’s “juiciest line-up around” with a live band including Nathan Barraclough, Abi McCunn, Jarrad Payne and Mary Rapp.

There’s Malia Walsh, the sinewy, hula-hooping, fire-wielding, marshmallow-loving founder of Circus trick Tease, whose impudent persona belies her slinky skill and contortioned control.

Photo : Jacquie Manning

There’s Tynga Williams, the tall, muscular Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi, Noongar and Torres Strait Islander drag performer, dancer, singer and model who kicks high, and Karlee Misi who strips away her feathers and finery as only burlesque babes can!

Twirling and twisting above the stage in ropes and a hoop, aerialist Bridget Rose brings the thrills of Cirque du Soleil to the cabaret crowd, and American singer-comedian Lady Rizo has left Joe’s Pub in New York for summer in Sydney for a Nightcap with Smashed.

Special guest, Australia’s own Courtney Act, captured the audience with a love story that touched their hearts, tickled their funny bones and showed them just why Act is truly and Aussie Idol!

Photo : Jacquie Manning

Smashed is circus-style cabaret. It’s suggestive, risqué, ribald and loads of fun. What makes it work so brilliantly is Victoria Falconer herself, who is in every moment, watching, following, conducting, coordinating.

If you love cabaret, enjoy a laugh and a thrill, go see this show. There are even more guests lined up for the rest of the month so the show you see might be even more exciting! And the negroni’s from the bar are good too!

 

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

Bananaland

By Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall. Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Sydney Festival. Director Simon Phillips. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 3-14 January, 2024

Reviewed : January 4, 2024*

Photo : Wenell Teodoro

Where to start? With applause firstly, lots of it, for a musical that is much more than a musical. It’s a story, told in clever writing and eclectic music performed by multi-talented artists whose charismatic characters question everything – people, politics, parenting, performing. They sing, dance, and make us think, laugh, empathise and feel good! They do so in a production that mixes three musical styles – angry punk, kiddie-pop and emotive introspection – along with satire, comedy, and heart-warming realism.

Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall have been working together for many years. Their music and lyrics have won international acclaim, including their collaboration for Muriel’s Wedding – the Musical. But Bananaland is different! Director Simon Phillips calls it “a joyful, comic romp – an outrageous satire of all the extraneous crap that anyone trying to forge a career in music faces on a day-to-day basis”.

Keir Nuttall is also a stand-up comedian, who performs as Franky Walnut, and it his quirky comedic talent that makes Bananaland special. He has created characters that have heart, who suffer, bounce back, care about each other, react to change, but are also very funny, especially as they deal with a few Australian stereotypes that Nuttall satirises skilfully.

Photo : Wenell Teodoro

The four main characters are the musicians of Kitty Litter, a heavy, punk-style band whose lead singer Ruby Semblance is angry about everything from animal rights to Clive Palmer. Kitty Litter is loud, provocative – and not doing very well, except for one lone fan, Darren, whom they call Stephen King because he looks like the horror author. When they are performing at the Manhattan (in Goondiwindi!), they are surprised to find that the Sunday performance has been sold out to an audience of children, because their angry song “Bananaland” (a protest about “Clive Palmer’s incursion into Federal politics”) has become an online kids’ hit!

Despite Ruby’s reluctance, they decide to try to make it as a children’s band, and with the help of veteran diva Mimsi Borogroves, the Wikki Wikki Wah Wahs is born. In pastels, dungarees and a dog suit, rather than black, lace and chains, the Wikkis become a hit. Their songs metamorphose into bright repetitious songs for kids, their choreography more dance moves than stamping. They are interviewed on daytime TV and are billed to open for Jessie Jam Jar and Pikelets the Cat at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney!

But the path through fame is never smooth! Darren/Stephen King gives up on them, disagreements arise, Ruby still despairs their transformation, but things work out … with a little bit of faith and a lot of love.

Photo : Wenell Teodoro

That love shines out in a production, that is pacy, perfectly timed and skilfully managed. Phillips’ direction is deft, imaginative, his vision of the production in line with what he describes as “the rhythm of the dialogue that is … both musical and comedic”.

Max McKenna is Ruby Semblance, the leader of Kitty Litter. Frustrated with the state of the world, Ruby vents her anger in heavy, angry music. But she also carries the bitterness of a disrupted childhood and McKenna finds both characteristics in a performance that blazes at times, but is compassionate, confused and moving at others. McKenna’s range, versatility and energy are stunning, their timing immaculate. They make Ruby scarily lovable and poignantly believable.

Georgina Hopson plays Karen Semblance, Ruby’s older sister and protector. Karen sings with the band, but worries about missing time with her five-year-old son Toby. Hopkins, a Conservatorium trained soprano, adds an extra operatic ‘zing’ to Kitty Litter, a sweet lilt to Wikki Wikki Wha Wha and gentle depth as she sings to her son Toby. There are some lovely scenes with Ruby where Hopkins and McKenna portray the specialness of their sibling relationship, and their “Supah Sistah Powah”.

Another member of the band, and Ruby’s lover, is Seb Kale, played by Joe Kalou. Seb is body-proud and into poses, wellness and social media, who sees himself as “so much more than just a torso”. Kalou brings wide cross-media song and dance experience to the role as well as strong character development and excellent comic timing and pace.

Similar timing and pace and cunning use of comic pause shine in the performance of Maxwell Simon as rock’n’roll enthusiast Ex, who is caught up in the thrill of touring and performing – especially if Ruby is there. Simon is particularly endearing when he becomes the Wikki Wha’s compulsory “animal” character, Dangles the Dog, whose hang dog expressions, excited whimpers and plaintiff howls are real audience pleasers.

Backing both Kitty Litter and the Wikkis are drummer and guitarist Terry and Terri, who remain poker faced throughout the production. Dressed in black and dark ‘shades’, they sustain their blank impassiveness, even as they ‘play out’ the audience and stand with the other musician for a final bow. Just another comic touch to this cleverly directed production.

Dave Eastgate, Amber McMahon and Chris Ryan, play the many other characters who populate the band’s world.

Dave Eastgate is Ron Delbridge, the ‘sound engineer’ at Goondiwindi’s Manhattan room,  who Ruby knocks out in a moment of guitar wielding rage. Rather than paying the weighty compensation Ron’s lawyers are chasing, Ruby agrees to let Ron become the Wikki’s roadie – and extra performer. Ron rises to the occasion with Eastgate’s wealth of experience across stage and screen to guide him. He is funny (a must for anyone involved in this production), athletic and looks particularly impressive in a feathery owl suit at the Wikki’s Easter Show performance.

Photo : Wenell Teodoro

Amber McMahon plays multiple characters with seemingly consummate ease. After a brief  walk-on posing with a Friday night raffle meat tray, and a few minutes of hilarity as a raunchy, drunk bride-to-be taking over the stage at her hen’s night, McMahon returns for a more sustained time as Mimsi Borogroves, Kitty Litter’s mentor and originator of the idea of Dangles the Dog. She also plays a fawning day time TV hostess, kids’ “music heavyweight” Jessie Jam Jar and the PA of a record producer. McMahon takes on all these characters with her usual accomplished style – and perfect satiric timing.

Chris Ryan too plays a raft of characters. Most appealing – and poignant – is his portrayal of Darren/Stephen King, the shy, sole fan who follows Kitty Litter unfailingly. Ryan’s hesitant, gentle Darren is lovably timid, especially when he sings about how the band empowers him. In contrast, he is bumblingly funny with a fire extinguisher at one of the Kitty Litter’s performances, excruciatingly cringe-making as a guffawing TV presenter and fluffily feline as Pikelets the Cat.

Photo : Wenell Teodoro

Bananaland is played on a set that complements the ingenuity of the writing. Designed by Simone Romanuik, it makes intelligent, imaginative use of theatrical technology. LED lighting bars hung both horizontally and vertically frame the set, flashing and moving as a distraction between scenes, while set pieces are flown down or slide across an almost black stage. Dark colours back Kitty Litter while a rainbow and vertical lights colour the Wikkis’ performances. Romanuik’s costumes are similarly imaginative – and practical, considering the energetic choreography that the actors has devised themselves. Both set and costumes are enhanced by Ben Hughe’s creative lighting.

Don’t miss this production. It’s Australian talent at its creative, thoughtful, theatrical, fun-loving best! It signifies the beginning of this year’s Sydney Festival – and if it’s any indication of things to come, January 2024 is going to rock!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening Performance

Carols At The House – Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. December 15,16, 17, 2023.

Reviewed : 15 December, 2023*

Photo : Keith Saunders

The Philharmonia Choirs’ Carols at The House returns to the Opera House after a renovation-and-pandemic enforced absence – and they’re doing it in style!  Five hundred and forty choristers and sixty-eight musicians wrap around the stage of the Concert Hall to present a program that is as varied as the fruit in Christmas puddings and the coloured baubles on Christmas trees.

The Symphony Chorus, VOX, the Philharmonia’s young adult ensemble, and the Christmas Choir (nearly four hundred keen singers from choirs across the city and beyond) have been rehearsing for weeks to bring this much-loved event back to the Opera House.

Presiding over them is conductor Dr Elizabeth Scott, Associate Music Director of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, lecturer in Choral Conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Sydney University) and much-loved Choral Director of the NSW Schools Spectacular.

Photo : Keith Saunders

Dr Scott’s vibrant energy and control reaches out from the dais to the orchestra on the stage and the tiered balconies of singers that surround it, right up to the dizzying height of the Concert Hall, where organist David Drury plays in splendid isolation! It is wonderful to hear the dazzling pipes of the organ back “in action” again.

Together they present traditional carols – “O Holy Night”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”; excerpts from the classics – Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” and Tchaikovsky’s “March of the Toy Soldiers”; northern hemisphere yuletide songs – Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”; and Christmas music from our own composers – Elena Kats-Chernin and Kirli Saunders’ “Summer Together” and Luke Byrne’s “Capricorn”. It’s a diverse program, one that accentuates the universality of the Christmas message … love, hope and peace.

As well there are solos by versatile soprano Julie Lea Goodwin, whose beautiful voice and sense of fun bring extra warmth and glitter to the production, especially when she dons tinsel and reindeer glasses to lead the choirs in “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Or reprises her recent performance in La bohème singing Musetta’s cheeky song, “Quando me’n vo”.

A different kind of theatrical depth comes from another famous voice, that of John Bell AO OBE. Actor, founder of Bell Shakespeare and director of both theatre and opera, Bell reads some literary “Christmas messages”. Australian poet John O’Brien’s Tangmalangaloo brings our local sense of humour to the fore, while A.A.Milne’s King John’s Christmas has a very English timbre and extracts from Dylan Thomas’ Memories of Christmas and The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry add the gentleness of Welsh and Irish humour.

Photo : Keith Saunders

Compere of the 2023 production is the vivacious Vanessa Hughes, well-known to ABC Classic audiences as the presenter of Classic Drive and the Choir Hour. Just as personable as she is on air, and sporting an illuminated head band emblazoned with the word “alto”, Hughes establishes herself firmly as part of the performance, along with the audience whom she urges to join in! They do, with great enthusiasm, including a very rousing “Jingle Bells”.

Carols at the House 2023 brings a special part of the Sydney Philharmonia’s history back to the Concert Hall. With it comes the chance to celebrate the spirit of this special time of year and its messages of harmony and goodwill.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall

By Mark Kilmurry and Jamie Oxenbould. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Mark Kilmurry. 1 December, 2023 – 14 January, 2024

Reviewed : December 7, 2023*

Photo : Prudence Upton

A play within a play! A play about things that can go wrong in the theatre? Surely not! Yet Mark Kilmurry and Jamie Oxenbould’s new take on these old themes is fresh fast and very funny. It’s a great way to end a year in which there hasn’t been too much to laugh about.

Oxenbould explains their idea: “There’s something very pure about amateur theatre. People going to the immense effort to put on a show, purely for the love of the theatre … So seeing that passion get derailed is never not funny. Seeing that derailment soldier on, in the face of overwhelming odds, and finally succeeding, was the starting point for writing this play”.

The fact that they built the play around a production of “a cliché-ridden murder mystery” shows how well they know amateur theatre! Murder mysteries are the ‘bread and butter” of community theatre companies. Audiences love them, so they make a little profit! They have big casts so can accommodate more enthusiastic ‘thespians’. They are usually set in rooms with lots of doors and windows and need moody lighting and sound effects.  Add a nasty, contagious virus and you have a host of possible “things that can go wrong”.

Kilmurry and Oxenbould have combined all of these in a play that’s got something for everyone.  They are both clever writers. They know their actors and their audience. And Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall appeals to both. It’s a physical farce so it’s full of the challenges on which actors and directors thrive.  There are zany gags that audiences love. And it’s full of situations, on and off stage, that will make theatre people, especially community theatre people, nod, and laugh … and cringe!

Like a novice stage manager who’s doing community service; her twelve-year-old niece who’s been co-opted to operate lights; a sticking door; over-confident actors; and cast member after cast member calling in sick. But it’s opening night – and the local council is considering cancelling their tenure of the building – so  the show must go on!  With only two actors, the director, and the stage manager playing all the roles!

Plays like this only work with a tight, committed team of actors and designers and direction that firmly controls the comedy and the pace. Kilmurry’s production works perfectly!

The set, designed by Simon Greer, could stage any Agatha Christie mystery. It hides all the crannies the writers have built into the play and allows for multiple entrances and some surprises.

Greer’s costumes too, add to the comedy and the context of the production. Daryl Wallis provides the atmospheric sound – and Verity Hampson has fun with the lighting, especially when the twelve year old is ‘operating’!

Photo : Prudence Upton

Jamie Oxenbould, Sam O’Sullivan, Ariadne Sgouros and Eloise Snape take on the task of bringing the amateur actors – and the many characters in Hamlington Hall – to life. All four are experienced in the genre; all have an overabundance of energy; all know how to find what Freud called “the meaningful in the meaningless”.

O’Sullivan plays Shane, the (mostly) altruistic director. Sullivan makes Shane understanding, compassionate but nervy and prone to panic which he supresses with superb effort (mostly). He excels in showing Shane’s emotional turmoil and edgy despair as he tries desperately to control the catastrophe that’s developing around him.

Photo : Prudence Upton

The elderly, arrogant actor, Barney, is played by Oxenbould, who brings superb comic timing and amazing energy to the role. A master of quizzical pauses, raised eyebrows, droll expressions and quick changes, Oxenbould makes Barney haughty, condescending, just a bit pathetic … and hilariously funny.

Eloise Snape plays Phillipa (Pip), the leading lady in the production but one who is also very needy!  Snape finds that frailty in a performance that takes her from bright confidence to hesitant uncertainty. She uses comic timing to accentuate the “actor” Pip sees herself to be – and shows her own comedic prowess in the three completely different characters Pip plays in Hamlington Hall.

Karen, the reluctant Stage Manager, is played by Ariadne Sgouros. Sgouros makes Karen, strong, questioning, a little brash. She struts across the stage, stands astride, shakes her head at the behaviour of the ‘actors – but hangs in there to help, even taking on roles in the play! Karen is a great character and Sgouros relishes every funny line and action.

Photo : Prudence Upton

Tallulah Pickard plays the Voice of Karen’s niece, calling down from the bio box to explain what’s going wrong!

 Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall  is a credit to both Kilmurry and Oxenbould – and to the creative cast and crew who make it work so effectively. If the laughter in the audience on opening night is anything to go by, it will be another star in the Ensemble’s theatrical story. And it plays right through the holiday season so would be a great gift to those who love theatre and love to laugh!

*Opening Night

Rhys and Joel’s Family Christmas

Rhys Nicholson and Joel Creasey. Enmore Theatre. 1 Dec, 2023

Reviewed : December 1, 2023

Photo : supplied

Fans, families, fun seekers, followers – gay and straight –  they filled the Enmore, downstairs and in the balcony! Just for a couple of comedians? Well, yes! Nicholson and Creasey, alone and together, have a wide appeal. In person, on TV, on the radio, they reach across generations and genders, so it’s not surprising that their “Family Christmas” shows attract a large, eclectic crowd.

Though I think I was the oldest in the audience, the over 60s were well represented in that crowd, both straight and gay! Not all ‘oldies’ are as conservative as many think! We grew up with rock and roll, the beat generation, the flower people, the protesters, Hair, Oh Calcutta and Graham Kennedy! (Look them up! They often caused more of a ruckus than a few jokes do today!)

Photo : supplied

Nicholson and Creasey know their audiences. Know who to ‘knock’, what topical stories will get a laugh from their audiences, and where to draw the line. So it was no wonder that they lampooned other audiences (what happened to the show in Wollongong guys?), Australian TV’s attitude to gay creators, and references to news stories of 2023: “If you want to spice it up this Xmas, serve a Beef Wellington”.

Photos : websites

Of course they joshed each other about their exploits over the year, especially Rhys’s wedding, from the stag party (in Adelaide?) to the number of guests … “The Project had trouble booking a comedian that night!” … to the ceremony at the Enmore theatre itself.

Their improvised banter was interspersed with guest performers including comedians Nikki Britton and Jenny Tian. Georgia Mooney sang and played her dulcimer: “This is a dulcimer. I won it in a raffle … I wanted the meat tray!) and Brendan Maclean, with his guitar and his incredible voice.

Photo : supplied

There was audience involvement of course. Two volunteers, one very keen, one not quite so zealous, raced to complete a task including wrapping up a sponge window cleaner. Another two, both very agile, danced and voice synched!

Hiding in the “secret Santa Sack” was none other than Osher Günsberg! Apparently a real surprise, this threw both Creasey and Nicholson, momentarily, but Günsberg gallantly ‘helped’ them over the ‘shock’ and the three batted off each other cleverly.

A night of improvised chat, comic fun and song.  A good way to start the run up to December 25!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

 

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