Adapted by Craig Warner from the novel by Patricia Highsmith. Genesian Theatre Company, Sydney. March 16 – April 20, 2024.

Reviewed : 24 March, 2024

Mark G Nagle always chooses plays that challenge – and he meets the challenges they present with excellent insight and preparation and a team of creatives and actors who ‘see’ his vision clearly.  His production of Strangers on a Train is a fine example of the sort of theatre that emerges from creative collaboration based on detailed research, analysis and planning. Even his program notes, meticulous and informative, suggest that this production, whilst of a specific genre, might be a little bit different.

Strangers on a Train is Nagle’s “first foray” into crime and suspense. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1950 novel, this 2013 adaptation by Craig Warner captures Highsmith’s clever plot with what Nagle describes as “a streamlined narrative” a feature that is intrinsic to Nagle vision. His cast – and his sound and lighting operators – work at a fast pace that is sustained through a series of intertwining scenes.

The action takes place on a sleek, white stage designed by Gregory George. Vertical and horizontal lines suggest uniformity and order. Black and white furniture reinforces a sort of starkness. As do the costumes – definitive colours and clean lines that contrast with anything that might appear creased or conflicting.

Contrasts are inherent in this play, based as it is on two dissimilar men who meet on a train – as dissimilar to the two horses pulling the chariot in Plato’s Phaedrus, which one of the men, Guy Haines is reading. The charioteer is the intellect: the horse on the right (Haines) is rational and moral; that on the left (Charles Bruno) is wild and irrational.

Haines is a quietly confident architect, who is concerned about his wife’s infidelity and the implications of a divorce. Bruno, an alcoholic ‘mummy’s boy’ who has been cut off by his wealthy father is bitter and vindictive. Bruno suggests a perfect solution would be for each to murder the other’s ‘problem’. Bruno tries to pull Haines into his plan; Haines fights against him. But Bruno is relentless. He brazenly carries out his side of the bargain – and hounds Haines continuously to reciprocate …

Nagle’s direction is exacting, the tempo and tension that he develops is accentuated by Michael Schell’s chilling sound effects and lighting effects that offset George’s stark set.

Roy Wallace-Cant plays the vengeful Charles Bruno. He makes this character affable and relaxed but increasingly over-bearing, intrusive, insensitive and manipulative. Bruno is not a likable character and Wallace-Cant shows this in sneering expressions, eyes that appear crazed and drink-affected unsteadiness and volatility.

Haines, conversely, is racked by fear and guilt and Hamish MacDonald shows this in a performance that takes Haines from confidence and aspiration to nervous watchfulness, worn down by soul-searching and guilt, despite the support and concern of his new wife, Anne, played by Rachele Edson.

Jane Wallace Plays Bruno’s doting mother Elsa, Christopher Gerard the private detective who suspects Bruno of foul play. Krishae Senthuran is Haines partner Frank Myers and Chris Bocchi plays Roberta Treacher and Miriam Haines.

The play centres around Bruno and Haines – the increasing pace and the growing tension of the production are dependent upon the authenticity and strength of their characters. Both Wallace-Cant and MacDonald find both in a production that is taut and edgy … based on direction that is precise and exacting.

Nagle is a thoughtful charioteer who holds the reins firmly. His two ‘horses’, unlike Plato’s, have both been “good” and “noble” following his directions with trust and conviction, and bringing a very clever production to the GenesiaTheatre.

By David Williamson. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Mark Kilmurry. 8 March – 27 April 2024

Reviewed : 16 March, 2024

David Williamson has seldom failed to react to flaws in the society – or the people who promote them. His reaction to the ever-widening gulf between the very affluent few and the and the struggling many has driven him out of retirement to comment on this “Great Divide”. The cost of living, house prices, property developers, greedy politicians all come under scrutiny in his new play, set in a sleepy town somewhere on the east coast.

The coast stretches across James Browne’s set in horizontal swathes of blue and yellow behind high vertical white shutters. The white and blue continue in a room that doubles as office and meeting room – and the beach in a gentle scene where the setting sun plays from the west over the shore (lighting Veronique Benett).

Pugnacious property magnate Alex Whittle (Georgie Parker) has plans to convert that peaceful shoreline to another gold Coast-style haven for the very rich – starting with an 18-hole golf course and resort. She has the local mayor Alan Bridger (John Wood) on side and they believe the Council is “sweet”. The plan seems ‘in the bag’ until single mother Penny Poulter (Emma Diaz) starts a petition on behalf of the local residents, most of whom are low-paid renters.

At first Whittle scoffs at such effrontery – but when fair-minded local newspaperman Brian (James Lugton) gives the petition column space, Whittle turns feral. She’ll do anything to get her way – “I always win!”– including establishing a Foundation and trying to win over Poulter’s rebellious surfer daughter Rachel (Caitlin Burley) with the offer of a scholarship to a Californian University … and setting her harassed assistant Grace (Kate Raison) to dig up some dirt on Penny.

These female characters are all more three dimensional than one expects of Williamson’s women. They are gutsy, direct, articulate. Their dialogue is strong and hard hitting. Even the much-beleaguered Grace is given spirit – which Raison develops beautifully throughout the play, always watching, astutely aware, inwardly seething, revengeful.

Georgie Parker makes Whittle cold and vicious. She is venomous in attack. Whether be-littling Bridger, haranguing Brian, deriding Penny or ridiculing Grace, she spits out her scorn in arrogant sluices. She strides around the stage; or stops, head high and sneering as Bridger splutters, or Grace recoils. There is no kindness in this character – even as she cajoles Rachel she is slyly condescending and demeaning. What a character for Parker to get her teeth into – and she bites hard!

In her own way Penny is just as tenacious. She’s had it tough. Pregnant before she finished uni, she has struggled in low paid jobs (she stacks shelves in a local supermarket) but she loves the laid-back life of this tiny, tight-knit town and she’s prepared to fight for it – and people who will be displaced if Whittle has her way. Diaz finds all of that in a tight performance where she balances loving but harried mother with determined plucky citizen. She faces Whittle’s rancour with calm resistance, Rachel’s defiance and accusation with hurt pain. The ‘dirt’ Whittle leaks to social media with tenacious grit.

Burley’s Rachel is bold, rebellious, hurtful. She is a fiery teenager, confident, ambitious – but gullible to Whittle’s scheming, and determined to defy her mother. She finds the barbs and offence in Williamson’s dialogue, shouting abuse at Penny, her anger and resentment clear in  her taunting tone and taut control. But Rachel is also intelligent, perceptive and Burley shows that side of her just as clearly as the play proceeds.

John Wood blusters and bristles as the avaricious mayor grovelling at the at the expectation of pay off and a bit of fame. Lugton finds the dilemma of the small-town newspaper man, struggling to keep in business and retain integrity in the face of suggested wealth.

David Williamson’s newest play is not just “a string of one liners” from two dimensional characters satirising society. This play hits just a bit harder – and the women do all the hitting!

By Marc Camoletti, Hunters Hill Theatre. Director: Chrissie McIntyre. Club Ryde. 8-24 March, 2024

Reviewed : 9 March, 2024

Boeing Boeing has a long history! It was a hit in its native France in 1960. The English adaptation opened in London in 1962 and ran for seven years! And despite some misgivings concerning inferences about American society, the 1965 movie starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis did well overseas. By 1991 the play was listed in the Guinness Book of records as the most performed French play in the world. Multiple revivals over the past 20 years have also done well, some winning awards.

Yet in the enlightened world of feminism and #Me Too, one might wonder why an apparently sexist play about an over-confident architect juggling physical romances with three air hostesses continues to be so popular? Perhaps because it seems farfetched … and farcical! Perhaps because, in the hands of a good director, farce can be very funny!

Chrissie McIntyre proves to be that kind of director. She knows the genre; knows that pace is all important; knows the cast must be on the ball every minute; knows their characters must be over-the-top but believable. And her direction of Boeing Boeing has all the features of good farce: clever blocking, carefully rehearsed choreography, fast dialogue, physicality, colour … and a set where all that can happen.

The Paris apartment designed by Wayne Chee has the necessary four doors and hallways that Camoletti’s plot requires, as well as lots of space for action especially in the second act, where chaos occurs.

Michael Mulvenna plays Bernard, the coolly confident architect who balances his relationships with three fiancées from different air lines based solely on their flight schedules – and his reliance on the discretion of his French maid, Bertha, played by Maggie Scott. Both establish their characters and the brittleness of that relationship quickly and distinctly.

Mulvenna’s Bernard is over-confident and smug, flamboyantly complacent that his unique set-up can’t possibly go wrong … until it does! Scott’s Bertha almost steals the show! Her character’s dubious world-weariness and shrewd perception evident – and sustained – in every entrance, every preceptive aside and every head-shaking exit. It’s good to see Scott back on the stage in a role that she underplays beautifully.

Luke Baweja plays Bernard’s friend Robert. Fresh from country Provence, Robert is awe-struck at Bernard’s menage á quatre and how he manages it. Baweja uses his expressive eyes and gestures to show that initial awe and disbelief. His ease on the stage, lithe physicality and strong comedic timing come to the fore as the action heats up.

The trio of flight attendants bring real colour to the production, both in their personalities and their uniforms, which have been carefully researched and authentically copied by seamstress Joanna Yetsenga.

In a jaunty red uniform is American hostess Gloria, played by Laura Stead. Glamorous but very astute, Gloria seems to be in for the ‘long haul’ but is less loyal than she appears. Stead makes her slick, poised and suave, and almost arrogantly assured especially in her treatment of Bertha … and in a racy scene with Robert

In the blue uniform of Alitalia, Gabrielle Rawlings plays Bernard’s Italian fiancée, Gabriella. Rawlings makes Gabriella very sweet and sexy but quite assertive, especially in the second act where she is caught up in a maelstrom of comings and goings that try her patience and her temper.

Cassandra Gorman is Gretchen, the Lufthansa air hostess. All in yellow, Gorman’s Gretchen is vibrant and assured … until she mistakenly kisses Robert and becomes guilt stricken. Gorman has a strong stage presence which she uses to advantage in playing this bewildered but very bright, open character.

Things become chaotic when changed flight schedules and a storm land all three women in Paris at the same time. Robert is caught in the middle, Bernard loses control, airline bags cause questions, and with good direction, clear choreography, and fast action the resultant frenzy is farcically funny.

Hunters Hill is delighting audiences with this fast, well-acted and deftly directed production.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

Simone Young Conducts Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. 28 February – 2 March, 2024

Reviewed : 28 February, 2024*

A warm, balmy late summer night in Sydney. The forecourt of the Opera House is busy – some just enjoying the sights and the buzz; others hurrying on their way to one of the events on offer at The House: opera, (La Traviata) theatre (RBG), cabaret (Gatsby) … Or the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s gala opening of their 2024 season: Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with Australia’s own Simone Young conducting!

That was certainly enough to enthuse the thousands of ticket holders that will fill the Concert Hall for each performance, but they will be treated with “appetisers” as well.

Firstly, Young conducts a rhythmic acknowledgement of country composed by First Nations percussionist Adam Manning, musician, artist, educator and Conservatorium Coordinator at the University of Newcastle. This moving composition conjures the rhythmic relationship between the people and the land and echoes the “heartbeat of Ngaya Barray, Mother Earth.”

Accompanying the beat of traditional instruments, orchestra members play single notes on their instruments, until, in the final moments, the entire orchestra use clapsticks to create “synchronised harmony.”

Following this, French violinist Renaud Capuçon joins Young and the orchestra to present the Australian premiere of Le Sommeil a pris ton empreinte (Sleep retains your print), the latest work of French composer Camille Pépin.

The concerto was aired in Paris in April 2023, with Young conducting Capuçon and the Orchestre National de France. Pépin, who travelled to Sydney for this premiere, describes the piece as “a love story actually” inspired by the French poet Paul Éluard, reflecting the joys and sadnesses of his life in five movements. “It explores shifting emotions through passages of quiet reflection and emphatic bravura.”

Then came Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, written in the summers of 1901 and 1902 during his summer holidays from the Vienna Court Opera, where he was the director. During this time he met and married Alma Schindler and the symphony supposedly reflects Mahler’s personal life at that time.

The most played of his symphonies, it opens with a trumpet fanfare that introduces a funeral march and establishes the rhythm of that section of the work. Within this section are two trios which are more intense and lead into the second movement that is almost frenzied. Here the musicians – and the conductor – are forced to work to that increased pace and the more joyful tones.

It is in the third movement that Mahler becomes more dramatic and the orchestra more theatrical. This movement is often played alone and is perhaps the most recognised of Mahler’s works. Certainly this performance by the SSO shows the brilliance of his ability to draw the orchestra together in one resonating performance. Beginning with just the strings and the harp, it builds to a crescendo of glittering sound that is spellbinding in its intensity and energy. An energy that Simone Young matches with dynamic physicality and control.

This is a powerful opening to the 2024 season – but just a harbinger of things to come. The varied program will include Schuman’s Second Symphony, Arnold Schoenberg’s huge, romantic retelling of the Danish legend, Gurrelieder. Bach’s Goldberg Variations and in November Die Walküre, from Wagner’s epic four-opera Ring Cycle.

‘Twould be wise to book early! Packages are available.

https://www.sydneysymphony.com/

*Opening performance

Independent Theatre, North Sydney, Feb 17, 2024. Avoca Beach Theatre, Feb 18, 202

Reviewed : 17 February, 2024

The Spooky Men pretend to be “spooky” but they’re not! They’re funny, weird, somewhat dark … but thought-provoking, original and very talented. Led by Spookmeister Stephen Taberner, they have been an Australian musical phenomenon for twenty-three years. After catching their collective breaths after sell-out national and international tours in 2023, they are back on the stage in their home state with their incredible harmonies, “spooky-fied” takes on well-known songs – and their own astonishing insights into interesting trivia and the state of the world.

Taberner’s dry wit and circumlocutive introspections set the scene for a program that is unlike that of any other a cappella group. Like Taberner himself, each spooky is an individual, playing his own whacky part in an absurdist style recital that belies the control and complexity behind it.

Dead pan while Taberner introduces a new song, or reacting quizzically to a bizarre idea he elucidates, they are constantly in the moment, ready as he turns to lead them in the next song – whether it’s a tender love song or one of their trademark funny salutes to something more mundane! It’s all part of the “routine” that makes the Spookies different! Makes you eager to know what’s coming next!

It might be a Spooky special like “We are not a Men’s group” or an ironic take on “Team Building”, the proliferation of handy men for hire … ‘We’ll give it a go!” Or it might also be a seriously beautiful ‘Spooky-fied’ version of “Jolene”.

Only the Spooky Men could consider a satiric tribute to an unseen body part – “The Eyebrow”! – or write a crazy song about being members of too many clubs. Or make a “call out” to audience behaviour as they do in “The Man in the 17^th Row”.

Spooky humour is always interspersed with something much gentler and serious, like their almost eerie rendition of Tom Waits’ “Picture in a Frame” and a haunting Georgian folk song.

Taberner and his men are not afraid to make a political comment – and in this program they reference their reaction to the lost referendum in a rousing rendition of Yothu Yindi’s “Treaty” with the audience joining lustily in the refrain.

In similar vein, the turbulence in Europe is evoked in a beautiful interpretation of a Ukrainian patriotic folksong.

The Spooky Men always leave the audience surprised – and wanting more. And what could be more surprising than a brilliant ‘Spooky-fication’ of Bohemian Rhapsody, and a glaringly bright but not quite so well-fitting tribute to Freddy Mercury’s white singlets!

The Spooky Men’s Chorale is everything you’d hope an Aussie male a cappella group would be! Irreverent, audacious, satirical, funny – and at the same time whimsical, tender, sincere and harmonious.

If perchance they are appearing somewhere near you, don’t miss them. They are really something special.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

Director Simon Phillips. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 15-17 Feb, 2024

Reviewed : 15 February, 2024*

Only a performer as skilled and versatile as Bernadette Robinson could possibly hope to inhabit the diverse lives of ten of the most famous musical divas of our time. From Maria Callas to Amy Winehouse; Judy Garland to Miley Cyrus; Dame Shirley Bassey to Amy Winehouse; along with Piaf, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton and Karen Carpenter, Robinson takes her enthralled audience seamlessly from opera to pop, contemporary pop star to war time chanteuse.

She needs only a few silent seconds after freezing in characteristic pose on the final clear note of one carefully balanced and controlled evocation, to prepare herself for another. Even before the applause dies, the transformation is made. The spot picks up a different stance, a suggested toss of the head. They are re-enforced by a few notes from the guitar, or the piano, a gentle beat from the drum – and suddenly Kate Bush has been replaced by Dame Shirley and the flicks to falsetto of “Wuthering Heights” become the steamy introduction to a Bond movie or the ringing self-assurance of “This My Life”.

There is a richness in her voice that allows her to find the husky sexiness of Édith Piaf, (complete with beautifully rolled ‘Rs’) as she evokes the dark streets of war-torn Paris or the cabarets of the 1960s. And clear, classical control as she faultlessly takes on the operatic arias made famous by Callas.

Yet she just as effortlessly vamps a little as Dolly Parton proving that the blonde “weren’t nobody’s fool”! As soon as the intro to “Jolene” begins, there is a little bump of the hip, a lift of the chin, and Parton is there on the stage.

Similarly Robinson moves effortlessly into more contemporary ‘divas’, beginning with the gentle, sad Karen Carpenter, the “drummer who became a singer” and whose long fight with anorexia Robinson makes sweetly poignant in “Rainy Days and Mondays”.

She finds the contemporary eclectic range of Amy Winehouse’s contralto, her plaintiveness in “Back to Black” and her misguided strength in “Rehab”. When she evokes Miley Cyrus, she finds the power of that comes with confidence and maturity in the words of “Wrecking Ball” and her 2023 hit “I Can Buy Myself Flowers”.

The divas wouldn’t be complete without Streisand and Garland – and Robinson inhabits both: the quizzical realisation of the first, who found she could still be an actress when she sang; and the husky ‘s’ of Garland’s voice as her story took the audience “over the rainbow”.

Robinson augments her evocations with titbits of the divas’ lives: the bits that everyone knows about – and her understanding of how they were manifested in their songs. It’s a clever way making her interpretations much more personal than just an ‘impersonation’ – but one that only someone as multi-talented and versatile as Robinson could so well.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening performance

By George Frideric Handel and Thomas Morrell. Opera Australia and Pinchgut Opera. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. 8-9 February, 2024

Reviewed : 8 February, 2024*

Handel’s dramatic oratorio Theodora was first performed in Covent Garden in 1750. It is in English, set to the libretto by Thomas Morell. It is said that Handel considered it his best work, though history would seem to favour Messiah. It is Handel’s only tragic oratorio and the only one written in English.

Set in Rome, in the 4^th century AD, it tells the story of the Christian martyr Theodora who refuses to pay homage to the Roman god, Venus, and is executed with her Roman lover Didymus, who has secretly converted to Christianity.

This is the first time Opera Australia and Pinchgut Opera have ‘joined forces’ and the first time Pinchgut has performed in the Joan Sutherland Theatre. Being ‘in concert’ means there is a chance to see Orchestra of the Antipodes and their incredible period instruments ‘up close’ on stage – and be awed by Pinchgut’s talented director Erin Helyard, along with the twenty professional singers of the Cantillation and five acclaimed soloists.

In deep tones, bass David Greco, as the governor of Antioch Valens, issues his dark proclamation that anyone who does not sacrifice to his Roman god Venus will be executed.

Roman soldier Septimius, performed by tenor Michael Petruccelli, has the dreaded task of carrying out his orders. Didymus – countertenor Christopher Lowery – pleads to no avail for his Christian friends to be exempted from the decree.

Soprano Samantha Clarke as Theodora is at prayer with her friend Irene (mezzo soprano Helen Sherman) when they hear the proclamation. Together they refuse to obey the order, sealing Theodora’s eventual fate.

Behind them the members of the Cantillation watch and listen carefully, rising to echo aspects of the story.

Controlling all is the elegant Erin Helyard, guiding fluidly and expressively – and also playing the Chamber Organ. It is always a joy to watch Helyard in action.

Hopefully this will be just the first of OA and Pinchgut in collaboration.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening production

Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos, from the book by Cheryl Strayed. Co-conceived by Marshall Heyman and Nia Vardalos. A Queensland Theatre Production, in association with Trish Wadley Productions. Director: Lee Lewis. Belvoir Street Theatre. 1 Feb – 2 Mar, 2024

Reviewed : February 4, 2024

Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things was published in 2012. It is a collection of letters she received and answered, anonymously, and unpaid, in an advice column called “Dear Sugar” on an online literary website. Topics ranged from mundane questions to lifetime sorrows.  When it was suggested to Canadian writer and actor Nia Vardalos that it might be adapted for the stage, Vardalos was astonished by the “raw and extraordinary candour” of both the writers of the letters and Strayed herself.

She managed to capture that ‘rawness’ and courage in her adaptation – and herself played the role of Sugar in its première in New York’s Public Theater in 2016 and again in 2017. It has since become one of the most produced plays in the world … yet, as transfer director Lee Lewis says, it is a play “like no other”.

Because this play has no linear plot, nor characters that relate based on a ‘motivation’ or ‘objective’. There are no scene changes as such, no real conflict. There are no multi-media effects. Yet this play is a truly moving piece of theatre – one that reaches into very dark places where it shines the light of hope.

There are four actors. Sugar is the constant. The other actors become the many people of different ages and backgrounds who wrote to Sugar over the two years Strayed worked on the column. They don’t ever meet each other. Yet they connect in the most personal ways. The only play I have seen that compares in any way is Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing, because that too was different and took the audience into difficult places.

The set is Sugar’s home, where she answers the letters on her laptop. Designer Simone Romaniuk uses the framework of the open plan living room and stairs of a two-storey house. Just the framework. The walls are not clad. Nothing is hidden in this space. It is as open as the letters Sugar receives and the replies she writes.  Littering the set is the accumulation of a family. Toys, dirty clothes, shoes on the floors. Appliances and crockery on the kitchen benches. Cat bowls on the kitchen floor. The freezer door left open. Games on the dining table – and Sugar’s laptop.

In this space Mandy McElhinney becomes Sugar. Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior and Angela Nica Sullen are the letter writers, who move in and around the space, always on the stage, sometimes standing beside Sugar, or sitting on the kitchen as she tidies up, or drying the dishes she has left to drain.

They are still, silent, focused as Sugar answers a letter – then in a few short sentences quickly become one of the many people who sought advice. A wary teenager, a rape victim, a very angry man, a young Lothario, a grief-stricken father … never making eye contact, but always aware, as the letter writers themselves must have been as they searched Sugar’s replies for the one letter addressed to them.

McElhinney is constantly on the stage and constantly on the move – just as the multi-tasking mother, homemaker, writer, columnist she depicts. Moving to the laptop, but seldom sitting down, she ‘reads’ the writers in the words and style and tone they use. And as she answers, she goes about household tasks, picking up a pair of shoes here, or sniffing at a discarded shirt and stuffing it into a washing basket.

She stops at times, perhaps thinking of the right approach; or reacts quickly as if a specific word or phrase sparks a memory, then goes on picking up toys from the floor as she begins her answer; or stops mid-sentence to find the next word as she irons a martial arts uniform; or ponders over her last response as she makes the next day’s sandwiches and packs them into lunch boxes.

Obviously, every movement, every action, every change in her voice, every thoughtful expression, every painful memory, is strictly choreographed, yet McElhinney makes it seem perfectly natural – even remembering something she’s forgotten as she begins to climb the stairs to bed. Sugar is a beautiful role and McElhinney embodies every nuance of it.

Strayed’s answers to the letters are based on her own experiences – some are as moving and painful as the letters that prompted them. In them she references her mother’s death, her father’s rejection, her beastly grandfather, a red velvet dress trimmed with white lace … and shares the lessons she learnt from them …

“I’ve always written the column as if I were a naked woman standing in a field showing you everything but her face.”

Mandy McElhinney makes every one of those references as deeply real as Strayed must have felt them.

Four actors. Never relating. Only once or twice almost touching. Yet there is electricity between them, a current that travels through the audience eliciting a sniff here, a tear wiped away there, an almost inaudible gasp – and many silent nods.

Cheryl Strayed’s advice continues to reach across the world in this very special Australian production of Nia Vardalos’ delightfully different play.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

With The Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Sydney Town Hall. 3rd Feb, 2024

Reviewed : February 3, 2024

Singer, songwriter, musician, actor, director, producer … Meg Washington is all of these. A multi-talented performer who reaches across the arts, Washington has APRA, ARIA, Jazz Bell and Country Music awards to her credit. She is the voice of Calypso, the schoolteacher in Bluey and has recently written all the songs for a soon to be released feature film called The Deb, produced and directed by Rebel Wilson. With her partner Nick Waterman, she has co-written and co-produced a film adaptation of Paul Kelly’s song “How to Make Gravy” which is in production.

Now she is on a three capital cities tour singing with the symphony orchestras of Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne. What a thrill for her many fans to hear her sing her own songs accompanied by some of the best classical musicians in the country

“I love that if a song is written well enough, it can be robust enough to handle that much interrogation and still sound good and feel good,” she writes. And they can! Every one of the songs in this concert handles that “interrogation” perfectly.

With Vanessa Scammell conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Washington’s music thrilled as powerfully as the singer herself. As she introduced the song “Honeysuckle Island”, Washington said she envisaged herself as the island with the music of the orchestra rolling like a tsunami rolling from behind her. And that is a perfect description of the effect of her music played by the orchestra.

In every song, it rose behind her in a tidal wave of powerful notes reaching up to the high domes of the Town Hall and over the audience, resonating at times, delicately nuanced at others. In the first half of the performance Washington spoke only once, finishing a short observation with the words: “I see this as the gift it is.” She didn’t need to explain any further!

Washington sang songs form her much loved repertoire – “Catherine Wheel”, “Archilles Heart”, “How to tame Lions”. She shared the different joys of motherhood in the song “LobsterI, and introduced two new songs, “Dream On” and “Poetry Motion” which she performed as a duet with guitarist Ben Edgar.

The finale, a stunning orchestral arrangement of “Batflowers”, exemplified Washington’s idea of a song “changing over time just as you yourself change”.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine