Director/Co-Producer Julie Dunsmore. Co-Producer Michael Gregory. Enmore Theatre. 25 Aug, 2024

Reviewed : 25 August, 2024

Once a year the stars of Theatresports – and some special guests – take to the stage to raise money for Canteen, the wonderful organisation that helps young people when cancer hits them or members of their family. Celebrity Theatresports celebrates “the opportunity to support, develop and empower young people impacted by cancer” in the way it knows best … by the “joy of improvisation”!

This year they rocked their audience with an exceptional program … and in the process raised funds for the people at Canteen and their young ambassadors, two of whom, Rosie-May Proudlove and Bella Sebens shared their stories with a very compassionate and understanding audience.

Co-hosts Steve Lynch and Jane Simmons conjured mature versions of Grease favourites Danny and Sandy (loved the leather best Jane!) as they carefully controlled the action; and this year two musicians improvised the mood music. James Tarbotton played the violin, and Nick Harriott at the keyboard, continued a tradition set by his father Chris, the original Theatresports Mr Music.

Theatresports diehards Ruby Blinkhorn, David Callan, Kate Coates, Daniel Cordeaux, Happy Feraren, Orya Golgowsky, Jordan Gregory-Dunsmore, John Knowles, Josh Magee, Nicola Parry, Amy Tustian, Lisa Rickets, Kate Wilkins, and the inimitable Ewan Campbell led the 2024 Celebrity Theatresports teams.

The celebrities bravely taking part in the no script, no autocue, no 7 second button “think on your feet”, “go with the flow” drama that is Theatresports included included Ryan Atkins, Concetta Caristo, Rob Carlton, Murray Fahey, Ben Fordham, Osher Günsberg, Jonesy, Mara Lejins, Joji Malani, Gabby Millgate, Montaigne, Jioji Ravulo, and Adam Spencer.

Impro isn’t easy! You don’t know what the topic will be or what twist the hosts will throw into it. But this year’s teams took on every topic and twist with glee and added some very inventive twists of their own. Even the celebrity challenges called in from afar by Rove McManus, Susie Youssef, Kitty Flanagan and Peter Berner didn’t phase them.

McManus’s challenge from London – A scene from London in the style of a soap opera – of course suggested a confrontation between a King and an estranged Prince being egged on by his American wife – fancy that! Flanagan’s challenge of taking a selfie in a lion’s enclosure at the Zoo led to an encounter with some strange tiger-lions on an emotional rollercoaster.

The topic offered by oncologist Liz Hovey, back at the Enmore again as a judge – Disaster Averted – led to a cancel culture HSC drama performance that delighted the students and drama teachers in the audience.

An Epic Betrayal of Trust suggested by judge Annabel Crabbe, was performed in song, and the very imaginative topic suggested by Peter Berner – At a Prestige Auction Bidding for a Cursed Work of Art – became an internally narrated film noir scene.

Eternal impro games favourites like Emotional Replay and Expert Double Figures led to interesting quick changes and contortions, while new games like Social Media Live Stream saw Hansel and Gretel interpreting a string of messages between an audience member and her father!

It was a great afternoon of improvised fun performed by quick-thinking intelligent people giving of their time to raise money to help support kids facing one of the worst sort of traumas families can face.

Celebrity Theartresports comes to the Enmore for Canteen every year – but you can see classic Theatresports challenges in “Scared Scriptless” every second Tuesday at the Chippo Hotel OR learn more about Courses and Workshops at improaustralia.com.au.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Simon Stephens, adapted from the novel by Mark Haddon. Director: Hannah Goodwin. Belvoir St Theatre. 17 Aug – 22 Sept, 2024.

Reviewed : 23 August, 2024*

Mark Haddon has always maintained that his novel, first published in 2003, is not about “any specific disorder” but about “difference … about being an outsider, about seeing the world in a surprising and revealing way”. The young hero of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is 15-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone. He is bright, a “mathematician with behavioural difficulties”. But he doesn’t like being touched.  He takes things very literally. He reacts to noise and bright light. He is “different”.

Much discovered about “differences” like these since 2003 and about how people like Christopher react to various “triggers”. Director Hannah Goodwin and Belvoir St acknowledge that people in their audiences may have similar reactions. To that end, they provide a detailed “sensory friendly” guide to the “triggers” in this production. They are available in writing and online. As well, just before each production begins, the cast demonstrate how they will cover their ears or eyes to warn the audience when loud noises or bright lights are about to happen … and how the digital clock on the wall of the set will augment the warning.

In keeping with the personal narrative style of both the book and the play, Goodwin and designer Zoe Atkinson have kept the set open, suggesting the “social distancing” that is important to Christopher but also giving space to re-enact  the various ‘chapters’ of his quest to find who killed Wellington, his neighbour Mrs Shear’s dog. The only props are a table, two chairs … and Christopher’s book.

Daniel R. Nixon plays Christopher. He does so in a way that is beguilingly empathetic and plausible. He uses his eyes, his face, a special shift of his shoulders, studied quick gestures, a variety of walks and effectively telling changes in vocal tone and pitch. It is a remarkable performance that has been carefully and caringly developed. Nixon is a clever performer whose engagement with the audience in this play is as skilfully managed as the performance itself. He establishes Christopher’s wariness, naivety, perceptiveness, and superior ability as well as his appeal to others … and the effect of his rejection of them. It’s a challenge to achieve so much in an interpretation – but Nixon does it superbly.

Brandon McClelland plays his father Ed, a single parent anxious to do the right thing by his son but never quite able to accept his literal interpretation of words and events or his rejection of affection. McClelland makes Ed tentative but impatient, eager to do his best by Christopher but quick to anger at times – and remorseful when that anger turns his son against him. There is real anguish at times in his performance – a father who is confused by behaviour that is “different” and hard to manage.

Matilda Ridgway is Judy, Christopher’s mother. She is living away from the family in another relationship – but Ed has told Christopher she is dead. When Christopher finds hidden letters from her that explain she is alive and living in London, he shuns his father, braves his fears, and sets out to find her. Their eventual reunion shows the depth of their feeling for each other.

Ridgway’s Judy is caring, understanding, sensitive to Christopher’s quirks and eccentricities, ready to give up her new life to live in a bedsit with him and try to restore his trust in his father.

Siobhan, Christopher’s support person, friend and confidant is played with subtle understanding and compassion by Brigid Zengeni. She watches and listens carefully, advises gently but firmly, and relates warmly with the audience as she reads from Christopher’s book.

Ariadne Sgouros plays an indignant and angry Mrs Shears. Nicholas Brown plays her husband, with whom Judy is living in London and who greatly resents Christopher’s arrival. Tracy Mann is an aging neighbour, Mrs Alexander, whom Christopher rejects despite her gentle approaches to him because his father has told him not to speak to strangers. Roy Jospeh is a policeman – and the minister who supervises Christopher’s A level Mathematics exam.

All the cast are constants on the stage, watching, changing character, becoming a hiding place or a train; drawing a galaxy on a wall or covering their ears or eyes to warn of impending loud noises or arguments or flashing lights. And demonstrating Christopher’s solution to a curly maths problem in a sparkling dance after they have taken their bows.

This is an incredibly aware interpretation of Stephens’ play. Its apparent minimalism disguises the thought, research and care that Hannah Goodwin and her team have taken to honour difference with warmth and humour – and clever, unpretentious theatricality.

It is hoped that some of the many HSC English students who are studying The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time can take time in the next few weeks to see Christopher’s story as revision of how the implications it makes can be interpreted so sensitively and wisely.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Performance

By Martin McDonagh. New Theatre Newtown. Director: Deborah Mulhall. 13 Aug – 14 Sept, 2024

Reviewed : 18 August, 2024

One of the characters in Hangmen, Peter Mooney (Robert Snars), wants to be seen as “menacing” rather “creepy”. He is. Menacing that is. So are some of the other characters. In fact so is the play! But then it is Martin McDonagh so “menacing” should be expected … as well as very, very black. Hangmen is all of this – and Deborah Mulhall directs to extract every sinister, sadistic moment as well as the “dark, dark humour” that seeps through all McDonagh’s work.

The first scene in Hangmen occurs in northern England in 1963, when Harry Wade (Nathan Farrow), the “second best hangman in England” and his nervy off-sider Syd (Jack Elliot Mitchell) viciously beat then hang James Hennessy (Owen Hirschfeld), a man who  shrilly protests his innocence to his last breath.

Zoom to 1965 and Harry’s pub in Oldham. Designed by Tom Bannerman, the pub is gloomy. Nooses hang from the ceiling – a tribute to Wade’s “service to the queen” who watches from a photo above the bar. Here, surrounded by his cronies, Wade is being interviewed by young reporter Doris Clegg (Georgia Nicholas) about his opinion on the forthcoming abolition of capital punishment.

Enter Peter Mooney. He’s from “the south”, well dressed, arrogant, but, yes, “menacing”! He suggests he might rent a room and Harry’s wife Alice (Sonya Kerr) asks for references. When he returns with the references, he meets their 15-year-old daughter Shirley (Kim Clifton), creepily chats her up, and arranges to meet her for a trip in his motorcar.

Later we find him in a café with Syd inferring that he has kidnapped Shirley to get back at Wade for that 1963 execution. Syd of course takes the story back to Wade, and when Mooney appears again, Wade goes into ‘hangman’ mode to find out what Mooney has done with Shirley …

McDonagh takes Harold Pinter’s “theatre of menace” beyond threatening cruelty to committing it. His insight into the viciousness of mankind and the bleak picture he paints of society are confronting – yet peppered with a distinctive form of black comedy that makes us laugh … albeit guiltily.

Mulhall allows her cast to find the minutiae that make McDonagh’s characters so appealing to actors. Short sentences, pauses, reactions, language. She keeps the direction tight, letting the tension build through the characters and the subtle changes in pace and rhythm that the dialogue and accents dictate.

The Wade who Farrow cerates is nasty, harsh.  He assumes a mean superiority showing no respect to his sycophantic friends but expecting total respect from them. He struts and sneers, his temper and innate viciousness hovering just below the surface in every interaction.

Kerr makes Alice efficient, giving her poise tinged with a watchful edginess based on Wade’s moods and reactions. She knows when to calm things down – and when to retreat. Not much gets past her, especially menacing looking customers. As a mother she is protective but sick of Shirley’s moodiness.

Kim Clifton shows that moodiness most effectively – and the naivety that Mooney plays on as he smarmily gains her confidence.

Mooney is not a nice character. He’s cunning and calculating and Snars finds this in disparaging expressions, scornful reactions, long pauses carefully timed, and tiny seemingly insignificant gestures that suggest contempt. He is menacing but is he a match for Wade?

Poor Syd Armfield is McDonagh’s ‘fool’ and Mitchell underplays the character skilfully. His timing is perfect, his reactions and delivery breaking the tension, even in the darkest moments of the play.

Wade’s foils – the ‘regulars’ at the pub played by Gerry Mullay, Reuben and Tom Massey – provide a different type of humour as they kowtow to Wade, or in the case of the local police Inspector (Alastair Brown) blatantly ignore his criminal behaviour.

Wade’s ‘bête noire”, Albert Pierrepoint, the ‘best hangman in England” is played by Jim McCrudden. Though he is part of the action for only a short time, McCrudden makes the most of this role, matching Wade’s malice with a more urbane malevolence and style.

Deborah Mulhall gathered a talented creative team to set the dark atmosphere and authenticity of this production. Helen Kohlhagen’s costumes conjure the period and style. Timothy M Carter’s subtle changes in lighting heighten the menace, as do Jim McCrudden’s original music and Mulhall and Mehran Mortezaei’s sound design. Mark G Nagle, as dialect coach, verifies McDonagh’s carefully phrased dialogue.

This is a carefully envisioned, directed and performed production that palpably finds what Mulhall calls the “despair and bruising” that drives McDonagh’s characters.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

Book Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian. Music Joe Kinosian. Director Richard Carroll. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 9-10 Aug, 2024

Reviewed : 9 August, 2024*

When Peter Novakovich reviewed this production for Stage Whispers in 2023 he wrote: “The Hayes Theatre Company production of Murder for Two is clever, witty, elegant, sophisticated, laugh-out-loud brilliant! My face hurt from laughing too much”. He followed that with a “clever, witty, elegant” review of this ingenious piece of theatre, covering the multiple theatre genres, musical theatre styles and the very talented actors and director who brought it to such sparkling life.

Peter’s review is comprehensive – and I won’t try to emulate his percipience or his way with words. Rather, ‘click’ here to take you there! You’ll see what I mean – and learn much about the writing, the music, the mixture of styles, the many characters and the tight, fast pace that is – must be – sustained.

What I shall write about is the initiative of bringing productions such as this from the Hayes Theatre to a wider audience. Murder for Two played for two sell-out seasons at the Hayes last year. It thrilled a host of audiences and critics. The Hayes is a small theatre doing great things. So, why not take some of those great things to another stage, a different audience?

The Riverside at Parramatta is a bigger theatre. (It will, soon, be bigger and better). It has a very strong, imaginative management team that brings a wide range of theatre to its western Sydney audiences: drama, opera, musical theatre, dance, circus, comedy, children’s theatre, concerts and movies. Those performances come from all over the country. It is also the base for the National Theatre of Parramatta that supports a host of innovative local playwrights, directors and performers.

What a treat then to have this crazy, stunning performance from the folk at the Hayes at the Riverside! The theatre was packed on both nights. And the audiences loved every minute of Gabbi Bolt and Maverick Newman’s revival their 2023 sellout performances.

I use the plural “performances” intentionally because Newman plays all the very different eleven suspects! Bolt is the ‘first response’ police officer, not yet a detective, but desperate to solve the crime before the real detective arrives. Hence the need for pace!

The production, the lighting and the acoustics work perfectly on the Riverside stage. And the action – wild, fast, funny – is perfectly timed. Whether singing, dancing, avoiding the invisible body on the floor or playing the piano (alone or together) Bolt and Newman make this clever mixture of murder, mystery and mayhem a veritable treat.

What a pity it was only in the west for two nights – but what a treat for theatre lovers to see such a brilliant production a little closer to home!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

By Enda Walsh. Empress Theatre and Seymour Centre. Director Anna Houston. Seymour Centre. 2 – 24 August, 202

Reviewed : 7 August, 2024

To many the word “Arlington” evokes pictures of the thousands of white headstones guarding thousands of American souls lost to wars since 1861. It’s a dark picture – and Enda Walsh’s play of that name is similarly dark. He conjures a dystopian society beyond 1984 or Brave New World or Severance that interrogates its citizens and leaves them empty of their dreams in locked rooms in high tower blocks with open windows tempting their will to live.

It’s a play that is confronting, grim, tough, daunting. It’s also challenging, thought-provoking, perplexing. It leaves you almost empty but clinging to hope and belief in humanity, courage, and compassion.

It’s also a play that demands a strong, talented team working behind the scenes as well as on the stage. Anna Houston has gathered that team and acknowledges how Aron Murray (Lighting and Video Designer), Kate Beere (Set and Costume Designer) Steve Toulmin (Composer and Sound Designer), Emma Harrison (Choreographer), and Saz Watson (Assistant Director) worked “tirelessly to bring the play’s feverish imaginings to vivid life”.

Beere’s set shows one of the small, locked tower rooms and a studio where “supervisors” watch on CCTV as they interrogate and control their captured citizens. The yellow walls of the room and the ceiling are screens where images and videos flash and flicker. Instructions are interrupted by voices, piercing noises, loud music, flashing light – and long instances of dark silence. It is a menacing setting totally in keeping with Walsh’s intense dialogue … and a silent, harrowing, twenty-minute suicidal dance.

A play such as this is exacting for its cast. The characters they play are vulnerable, exposed, fearful, tense. Becoming them can be stressful and disturbing. Direction needs to be caring, sensitive, understanding based on careful research and discussion. Houston praises her cast’s “intelligence and empathy for their characters” – but that same intelligence and empathy shines in her direction … and her realisation of “the desperate striving for a glimmer of hope in the pitch-dark night of grief” that she sees as the central theme of the play.

Phaedra Nicolaidis, Emma Harrison, Jack Angwin and Georgina Symes play the four characters in this vision of an oppressive future.

Nicolaidis is Isla, the only character with a name. She is under interrogation, but smiles at her new, invisible interrogator’s questions, wonders what happened to her former inquisitor, asks after him … her caring questions disconcerting this new “young man”. Houston directs Nicolaidis to make the small room feel even more confining. She stands, silent, quiet still for minutes in front of the window, staring at her reflection; or moves restlessly, then stops, staring at a wall or the ceiling; or paces in a pattern getting faster and faster. These are the movements of a prisoner, but Nicolaidis makes Isla impervious to the menace, still naïve, almost trusting.

Emma Harrison plays the “nameless woman” who spends twenty minutes in a wild, tempestuous dance that depicts the empty desperation of isolation, confinement, loss of self and hope and the desire to live. An exhausting and disturbing scene for the performer – and confronting for the audience. It is well that there are suitable warnings in publicity material.

Isla’s new, young interrogator is played by Jack Angwin. This character is the “Winston Smith” of Walsh’s dystopian world. New to the task of intimidation, he succumbs to emotion and caring – and faces the punishment of his ruthless supervisors. Angwin makes that change convincingly, bearing the ravages of torture bravely and refusing to answer the one question that sustains his belief in himself, his integrity and his humanity.

His Supervisor, Georgina Symes asks that one question constantly, slipping it between repetitious demands and torturous loud noises. Symes makes her stern, pitiless, heartless. Stiff, removed and unfeeling she epitomises those who control and intimidate and coerce.

Arlington was Enda Walsh’s attempt to write his way through the grief of losing his mother and his best friend. It may seem to be more than to those who see it – once they have time to consider their reactions, or read Houston’s detailed program notes. Whatever they decide, they will remember the incredible work that went into the production and the immediacy of the performances.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Anton Chekhov. Adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith. Ensemble Theatre. Director Mark Kilmurry. 26 Jul – 31 Aug, 2024

Reviewed : 31 July, 2024*

Adaptations only work in the hands of an exceptional and principled writer. Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith is both. Her adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 play Uncle Vanya is reverent to the style and intention of the famous Russian playwright, and the play’s enduring themes and ageless characters. This is an adaptation that really works.

The characters, their unfulfilled dreams, the emotional tension and the bleak environment in which Chekhov set them remain the same, but Murray-Smith has cleverly made them more ‘present’ by capturing what director Mark Kilmurry describes as “the colloquial language of the time with a clever contemporary essence (that) like a bright light, allows Chekhov’s humour to shine through”.

Kilmurry reaffirms that “contemporary essence” with clear, concise direction that highlights Murray-Smith’s tailored dialogue. He keeps the pace tight, building the tension that arises from the contrasts in the characters and their different frustrated dreams – but breaking it with moments of comedy that reveal Murray-Smith’s astute ability to translate Chekhov’s wry view of human relationships for a modern audience.

The play is set in nineteenth Russia on a country estate managed by Vanya and his niece Sonya. Designer Nick Fry hangs long velvet curtains in rusty colours to frame a hallway from which high glass doors lead into a living room lit by gas lamps. A bookcase holds odd ornaments, a samovar, glass teacups. A low red seat, a piano stool are the only bright colours. Fry’s costumes define the period but have a more contemporary feel.

Bare branches high on the walls and the sound of birdsong (composer and sound designer Steve Francis) symbolise the rustic setting that Matt Cox wraps in carefully judged lighting.

Yalin Ozuceik plays the title role of Vanya with an agitated energy that shows his frustration with the failing estate where any profit goes to his brother-in-law Serebryakov in the city. Ozuceik makes him agitated, nervy, a mixture of discontent juxtaposed with moments of wild humour and almost suicidal depression that are exacerbated when he falls in love with Serebryakov’s new young wife Yelena. With his niece Sonya and Nanny he is softer, almost hiding the resentful energy that consumes him.

Sonya is played by Abbey Morgan, making a striking debut at the Ensemble. She makes Sonya wiser than the naïve young woman she pretends to be. Her Sonya is percipient, observant, aware. She has a presence that demands the respect of the family. We see it in a judicious pause, a cold look, or a sharp rebuke that dissipates tension.

The older women in the household, Nanny and Vanya’s mother Maryia, are played by Vanessa Downing. Downing makes Nanny wisely calm. She knows the eccentricities of those she loves – and sees through the failings of others. She watches carefully, chides gently and cares unconditionally. As Maryia she is brittle, stiff and removed, only interested in social issues especially women’s rights.

Telyeghin, usually referred to as “Waffles”, is a failed landowner who works on the estate. John Gaden makes him a little bewildered, trying to keep up with the action, but often left behind, blinking confusedly, and clutching his guitar. When ignored by the arrogant doctor, Astrov, he backs off, the hurt evident in his face and eyes.

Astrov, played by Tim Walter, bemoans the lot of the country doctor, drowning his sorrows in Vanya’s vodka and sharing his woes with a besotted Sonya, totally unaware of her feelings for him and her hurt when he admits his infatuation with Yelena. Walter makes him self-absorbed, aloof but dependent upon the acceptance of the family.

David Lynch is Serebryakov, a bad-tempered aging hypochondriac who has decided to sell the estate to fund his old age. Lynch makes him loud and demanding – calling for tea at one in the morning – but weak and dependent on the care and attention of others. Serebryakov is not a likeable character and Lynch finds his conceit as well as his weakness and fear.

His bored young wife Yelena is played with jaded languor by Chantelle Jamieson. She is removed, edgy, quick to anger and disillusioned retreat, ignoring the family bickering around her and treating Vanya and Astrov’s advances with cutting disdain.

No one really wins in this cut and thrusts of opposites. Serebryakov and Yelena return to the city, leaving Vanya and Sonya to make what they can from the estate, with the bumbling help of Waffles. Astrov goes back to his home visits and Nanny to her knitting. What Kilmurry calls Chekhov’s “non-dramatic drama” leaves the characters where they began, and the audience wondering about the cycle of life – and what made them laugh so much.

The answer is a combination of Joanna Murray-Smith’s sensitive re-imaging of Chekhov’s characters and humour and Mark Kilmurry’s crisp direction of an intelligent cast who, like Chekhov, ‘got’ how comedy and pathos can work so cleverly together.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

By James Elazzi. National Theatre of Parramatta. Director: Shane Anthony. Riverside Theatres. 25 July – 3 August, 2024

Reviewed : 27 July, 2024*

James Elazzi sets this play in a small town that set designer James Browne creates with symbolic telegraph poles and wires, corrugated iron and spindly bush. It looks a bit run down and neglected but seems to wrap around those who live there, keeping them close. On a rise above the railway line, teenagers Karim and Beth watch the trains pass and fantasise about the people they see through the window. It’s just a game, but their fantasies cover thwarted dreams and disillusion.

Karim (Youssef Sabet) lives with his father Joe (Andrew Cutcliffe). They work together, picking and sorting Lebanese cucumbers by day and searching through rubbish at night for things that can be repaired and sold to help pay the bills. Joe is upbeat, satisfied with his lot. Karim would have liked to go on with his studies, but he’s an only son, and Joe makes him feel needed … until Karim meets gentle, retired Lebanese musician Abdul (George Kanaan) who teaches him to play the oud, an old Middle Eastern instrument, and ignites different emotions and ambitions.

Beth (Alex Malone) lives with her mother Kaye (Jane Phegan),a drug addict whose mood changes and wily deviousness keep Beth tightly tethered. Kaye uses a form of coercive control, playing on Beth’s conscience, so that even when she tries to leave, guilt pulls her back.

Elazzi tells their stories in economic, down-to-earth dialogue – in keeping with the background he has devised for them and the push and pull of their relationships that are established and developed in short scenes carefully directed by Elazzi himself with the support and experience of his perceptive co-director and dramaturg Shane Anthony.

They manage the many scenes and scene changes with clear, sharp blocking and carefully planned choreography that is an integral part of the action – enhanced by the cleverly devised effects of sound designer Aimée Falzon and lighting designer Frankie Clarke. In shadowy light flashing in time with beating music, the cast slide a sofa away, carry a table off or on, change chairs, remove a small prop, bring on another – and then move seamlessly into the next scene, never losing character or continuity. It is a fine example of collaborative vision and close ensemble work.

Youssef Sabet gives Karim both the restlessness of youth and the sense of responsibility typical of an only child in a single parent family. His impatience with Joe’s lack of ambition is juxtaposed with respect and love. It is not until he meets Abdul that he feels free to be himself … and accept the complications that arise and the links to his Lebanese heritage. Sabet makes Karim open, aware, curious, accepting and resilient.

Abdul is the opposite of Joe. Where Cutcliffe’s Joe is over-enthusiastic, pushy, tough, clinging to the company and support he needs from Karim, Abdul is sensitive and retiring. George Kanaan makes him gentle, understanding, reticent, but open to Karim’s youth and talent and sensual appeal. Caught between them Karim struggles to be who they want him to be and being true to himself.

Beth’s single parent family is very different, and Alex Malone finds in her the stress that comes from being constantly on edge. Caught between disrespect and a sense of loyalty and duty that Kaye plays on ruthlessly, Malone’s Beth is tense, watchful, carrying a weighty responsibility that she covers with brittle brightness when she sits with Karim watching the trains carry away her dreams.

Jane Phegan brings a different brittleness to Kaye, a brittleness based on the highs and lows of addiction and dependence on her drugs … and her daughter. She moves from loving and caring to bitter and accusative, using her own guilt and lack of control to control and hold Beth. It is not an easy role and Phelan uses the wealth of her experience to make Kaye disturbingly real.

Two different single parents; two different forms of control; two teenagers torn between what they want to be and the ties that make that seem impossible. James Elazzi tells their stories clearly and this strong cast gives his characters the depth and complexity that make them and their problems stay with you long after the stage lights come down.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

A Gathering for Manikay Performers. Improvising Soloists and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Director Paul Grabowsky. Conductor Benjamin Northey. Concert Hall Sydney Opera House. 24th July, 2024

Reviewed : 24 July, 2024

Wata was developed over many years of collaborative improvisation begun in 2004 when composer Paul Grabowsky – distinguished Australian pianist, conductor, arranger and founder of the Australian Art Orchestra – first travelled to Arnhem Land to explore the possibility of potential musical collaborations. There he met Arnhem Land ceremonial musicians Daniel Ngukurr Boy Wilfred and David Yipininy Wilfred, and learnt of their manikay, “cycles of poetic invocations of time and place.”

Over two decades Grabowsky explored ways to combine ‘Western’ music with the traditions of the world’s oldest-continuing culture. Hugh Roberston, Editorial Manager of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, writes that “ With Wata … he has arrived somewhere new, old, familiar and unique all at the same time”.

Wata is a coming together of orchestral music and improvised music with the manikay, songs and ceremonial music of the people of Ngukurr, Southeast Arnhem Land.  Wata is based on the seven parts of the Djuwalpada cycle where an ancestral figure walks through the land creating the cycle of birth, death, regeneration and the things needed to sustain life – a cycle that represents a model of “a holistically interconnected universe.” It’s a universal theme that connects the past with the now and the forever.

This is the first performance of Wata since its world premiere in Melbourne in 2021. It introduces Daniel Wilfred – vocals and biḻma (clap sticks) and David Wilfred – yiḏaki (Arnhem Land didgeridoo) – to the Sydney stage, along with soloists Aviva Endean (bass clarinet), Peter Knight (trumpet and electronics), Erkki Veltheim(violin) and Helen Svoboda (double bass and vocals). And of course the wonderful Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by the very busy, energetic Benjamin Northey.

It was intriguing to listen to the original manikay sung by Daniel Wilfred accompanied by David Wilfred and the yiḏaki, hear them picked up and improvised by the soloists on their very different instruments, then orchestrated in Grabowsky’s composition played triumphantly by the orchestra.

Powerful, ritualistic words sung clearly, improvised by soloists who vary and contrast the motifs, then echoed and re-echoed in music created by an empathetic composer who brings the different elements together so they connect to become what Paul Grabowsky describes as a “living, breathing, organic musical world.

It was a privilege to be part of the audience for Wata’s first performance in Sydney.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Sergei Rachmaninoff. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Director Brett Weymark. Sydney Town Hall. Saturday 20th July, 2024

Reviewed : July 20th, 2024

Brett Weymark described his interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers as “a special performance that sits somewhere between ritual, concert and theatre”. It is indeed special – because Weymark had the vision of the choir moving into different formations signifying the four phases of the All-Night Vigil of the liturgy: sunset to night, through the night to dawn and the new day – Vespers, Compline, Matins and the First Hour.

How he achieved this is typical of Weymark’s inspiration and drive!

Imagine the Town Hall cleared of seats. Imagine a square in the centre of that space marked out by clusters of candles and fresh cut flowers. Imagine the remaining floor space laid with lines of yoga mats where some of the audience, like those in older times, would wait out the long night.

A transformation had occurred. Weymark had worked his magic.

As the light dimmed slightly, Anthea Cottee and James Beck with their cellos, and David Cooper and Jennifer Penno with their Double basses took their places in chairs in the centre of each side of the square. They would play the music Weymark composed to intertwine the movements of Rachmaninoff’s work.

From doors on the north and south walls of the hall came the choir in soft whites and creams, their faces illuminated by the soft lights of their songbooks. On a movable rostrum conductor Tim Cunniffe raised his baton… and the Vigil began.

It is hard to describe in a short review the effectiveness of Weymark’s direction and the skill with which the choir moved so adeptly.

At times they created a diagonal corridor through which soloists mezzo-soprano Hannah Fraser moved as they sang. At others they moved to pairs of parallel lines along each side of the candle-lit square. Once they moved out of the space and formed single lines along the stairs to the pipes of the organ and along the front of the raised stage. At another time they formed small circles of six to ten, facing each other, yet acutely aware of their conductor’s signals – especially as he also was carefully moved to different places on the ‘stage’. How unusual to see a choir moving, and with such calm control!

Each section of the Vigil was gently introduced by Weymark’s interludes, the notes of cello and the deep voice of the double bass echoing the deep resonance of Rachmaninoff’s skillful blending of old Russian chants and melodies and the more expressive music of the early twentieth century.As Rachmaninoff’s musical messages led them toward morning, some members of the choir began to move slowly out of the hall, while others carefully bent to pick up candles and place them in a sun-like cluster on the southern side of the ‘stage’. Saxophonist Nicholas Russoniello came down from where he had played earlier in the Vigil to stand beside that flickering ‘sun’ until the last chorister had disappeared. Then, out of the stillness and silence, the Hymn to the Mother of God – The First Hour – began, sung, symbolically, outside in the foyer, heralding the new day.

Just as it had highlighted the differing tones of the music, the movement of the choir and the passing day, Mark Hammer’s subtle lighting haloed the candles as their light and the last notes of the choir promised renewal. Hammer used mellow variations of light to nuance the changes in the music. Gobos threw white spots on a red background over the recumbent audience as well as the choir; appropriate shades of blue, mauve and red spread around the back of the gallery; an icy blue spot picked out Russoniello playing high on the stage steps. Hammer understood Weymark’s vision and coloured it creatively.

Others have written brilliantly explaining the different resonances of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers. That is not something to which I would ever aspire. What I can say is that between them Tim Cuniffe, the beautiful voices of the Philharmonia Choir and Brett Weymsark’s clever suggestion of the passing hours of the night made this peaceful theatrical performance of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers something very special.

Watch for the SPH’s next exciting programs at sydneyphilharmonia.com.au

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Chenturan Aran. New Ghosts Theatre Company. Director David Burrowes. Old Fitz Theatre. July 5 – 27, 2024.

Reviewed : 14 July, 2024

Cut Chilli is a “coming-of-age” story of a different kind. It’s even bigger than that really – because though it revolves around inter-country adoption practices and “the wilful naivety around the broken systems that have enabled its darker side”, it reaches beyond that to our own dark history of ‘stolen’ children, forced assimilation, supremacist policies and racism.

Though Chenturan Aran’s play centres on Jamie, adopted as an ‘orphan’ baby in Sri Lanka, brought up in Western Australia in a predominantly white community, and becoming increasingly aware of the void in his life – his Sri Lankan heritage and culture, his birth mother, the details of his adoption – it also nuances the implications of being different – a different colour, a different religion, a different culture, a different generation.

It might seem a lot of “differents” to integrate into two hours, but Aran does so skilfully. He weaves them into the ‘family’ of his play: Jamie himself, his Muslim activist podcaster girlfriend Zahra, Katherine and Lee McKenzie, the white Australian couple that adopted him so many years ago and Jeff, his funny but very politically incorrect uncle. And explores them through the accusations, arguments and pain that result from Jamie’s searching questions

There is bitter confrontation, hurtful introspection, an upsetting revelation. The characters are real and colourful. The dialogue is economic, pithy, honest and director David Burrowes drives the action to match. It is fast, challenging, provocative, the conflict and tension lightened by humour including some very ‘dad-type’ jokes.

The tense friction that builds with successive scenes is juxtaposed with gentle translations of a Sri Lankan story recorded in the lilting voice of Nikki Sekar and told to the sounds and images of the sea projected on a scrim screen that stretches across the stage suggesting distance and peace.

Aran’s characters are carefully written and Burrowes and his cast make them immediate and real, especially Jamie and Zahra, played by 2023 NIDA and WAAPA graduates Ariyan Sharma and Kelsey Jeanell. Both make their stage debuts creating these very bright, fiery young characters who aren’t afraid to rock social, political or personal boats.

Sharma’s eyes and expressions augment Aran’s script to extend the implications of his words, and inject intelligent humour into his reactions. He realises the growing of strength of purpose in Jamie that Aran has written into the role, and the challenges of pace and pause that Burrowes has used to empower that strength.

Zahra is equally purposeful and Jeanell makes her frank, outspoken and unafraid to question, challenge or react – especially when faced with Jamie’s very uptight, suburban family. Her Zahra is energetic, very direct and just a bit devious.

Susie Lindeman and Brendan Miles play Jamie’s adoptive parents, Katherine and Lee. Both bring a wealth of experience to roles that demand underlying control and tension and outbursts of temper and emotion. Lindeman shows her strain in anxious gestures, vocal tremor and rising temper. Miles tries to hide it in humour and failed gusto, especially with Zahra who reacts to his cynical bonhomie with appropriate disdain – until the reason for their tension is eventually extracted – painfully – by Jamie’s persistence.

Lee’s brother Jeff is the ‘comic relief’ in the play – and Noel Hodda relishes every sick joke and PI comment that exposes Jeff’s open, unintentional offensiveness. He makes Jeff friendly, artless, funny, lovable – a buffer to the rising pressure that starts to erupt as the final scenes play out.

Cut Chilli has been produced by a creative team that is talented and insightful. David Burrowes’ empathic understanding and sensitive vision has been fixed and intensified on a set (Sohan Apte) that takes the action almost across an ocean, colours it with costumes (Rita Naidu) that contrast and blend and gives it sounds (Sam Cheng) that soothe and appease.

Like so much of the theatre being written and produced by new writers and indie companies, Chenturan Aran’s play breaks new ground in many ways. Congratulations to Lucy Clements for ‘remembering’ reading the play and, with Emma Wright, the New Ghosts/Old Fitz team, David Burrowes and his talented cast and crew, for realising it so effectively.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine