By Xavier Hazard. Every Other Theatre Company. Director Mehhma Malhi. KXT On Broadway. 6 – 21 September, 202

Reviewed : 18 September, 2024

In the last three months Sydney audiences have had the chance to see two plays that disclose the “hidden world” of exclusive private boys’ schools. Trophy Boys by Emmanuella Muttana directed by Marni Mount played at the Seymour Centre in June and July. All Boys by Xavier Hazard directed by Mehhma Malhi will close at KXT On Broadway this weekend.

Both plays are stinging exposés of a closed, elitist world where young boys are educated in a system that encourages classism, exclusivity, entitlement, misogyny, racism, nepotism, homophobia … and absolution. Many of those young men move on to university colleges where that behaviour continues, even, it seems, is sanctioned – as exposed in Josephine Gazard’s gut wrenching account of rape, and shame, and the determination to be believed in her play That’s What She Said (KXT May 2023 directed by Suzanne Millar).

After seeing That’s What She Said, I wrote “There is no theatre more important than that which exposes wrong and inspires reaction.”

All three of these plays do so in a way that hits hard and leaves lasting social bruises. They are written by young playwrights with consciences who brave societal precepts in favour of truth. They cleverly turn that truth into theatre that entertains even as it exposes.

Xavier Hazard pulls no punches in All Boys. Rather, as he takes his characters through 6 years at ‘Saints’, the mythical private school he creates. He describes their initiation into an entitled environment that encourages, disparages, dissuades and degrades as it carefully and pervasively perpetuates a sense of privilege and power that will, as director Mehhma Malhi, writes “always protect these young men without care for others”.

Harry Stacey is one of the eleven talented young actors who take Hazard’s characters through six years of brutal initiations, ridicule, homophobia, condescension and censure that by the time they reach year twelve somehow has instilled a sense of male privilege that will carry most of them into careers of authority and power.

There is an energy in this production spurred not just by robust youth and aptitude of the cast, but by belief and conviction – and the collected perceptive passion of director Mehhma Malhi and her creative colleagues. In her notes in the program Malhi writes glowingly of the collaborative commitment of both her cast and creatives and their dedication to a play that “offers the scaffolding to open a dialogue about how we might change men’s behaviour”.

The play takes the form of many short scenes that introduce the boys and follow them through the different events of their schooling that show their weaknesses, their strengths and their vulnerabilities – and see them grow into young men most of whom will perpetuate a patriarchy that will govern and judge, control and dominate.

Both playwright and director find moments of humour that lighten and accentuate scenes that speak loudly at times, and threateningly at others. Scenes that are played out in the playground, or in study times, in pairs or in groups, on the sporting field or in moments of introspection rising from family secrets that have been devastatingly revealed … or while preparing a debate.

It is interesting that the closed “in camera” environment of planning a debate and the competitiveness of the intellects involved therein featured in both Hazard and Muttana’s plays. It is interesting too that all three plays inferred the power of family ties in having criminal charges absolved.

All Boys is another “call out” to a society that has accepted the rights of the privileged, and perpetuated the acceptance of violence and domination. But it’s not just calling out to men. Like Trophy Boys and That’s What She Said it’s calling out to society at large to recognise the need to acced and admit and act.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

By Melanie Tait. Ensemble Theatre. Director Priscilla Jackman. 6 Sept – 12 Oct, 2024

Reviewed : 15 September, 2024

Prince Harry took “Royal Memoirs” to a new, personal level in Spare, but how many people knew that the very first ‘inside the Royals’ story was told by a Scottish teacher who was hired to look after Harry’s grandmother and her sister in 1933.

Marion Crawford – “Crawfie” as she was called – was governess to Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret for sixteen years. She was their teacher, friend and confidante. She saw them through World War II, the abdication of King Edward VIII and her father’s coronation as King George VI.

When some of her memoirs were published in an American magazine and later collected in a book entitled The Little Princesses, Crawford was ‘ousted’ from her retirement cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace and none of the royal family ever contacted her again. She sought solace in the Scottish town where playwright Melanie Tait’s extended family lived and worked. They knew Crawfie’s story well, and Tait tells it in a play that director Priscilla Jackman fittingly describes as “a taut, playful, yet deeply affecting commentary on power, authorship, motherhood and loyalty”.

Jackman deftly directs the play on a ‘nursery’ set designed by Michael Hankin. On a dark, glassy floor, a low blue table and two high backed nursery chairs might conjure a scene from “Alice in Wonderland”. It is spare and clean, and its minimalism subtly accentuates order and status, which Genevieve Graham continues in her costumes. She picks up Hankin’s blue in the princesses’ mother, Queen Elizabeth’s elegant ensemble. Crawfie she dresses in a grey tartan suit and pale blue blouse. Their shoes are covered in the same fabrics.

That attention to detail and preciseness is a continuing feature of the production. Jackman’s direction is concise, as is the dialogue through which Tait clearly identifies the place, the time and status of the characters. Every word and rhythm is clear, every action exact, every movement carefully considered and executed. Every sound and lighting cue (James Pater Brown and Morgan Moroney) is perfectly in sync with the tone and tenor of the action.

Elizabeth Blackmore is outstanding as Marion Crawford. She gives Crawfie a presence, an essence of strength and purpose, an ability to rise above condescension and class. Her Scottish accent sounds very natural, even the slight burr she sustains after she has ‘adapted’ her speech as required by her employer! Blackmore shows that Crawfie accepts her place but won’t be cowered. With Elizabeth she defers slightly; with Lilibet she is warm and loving, though suitably strict.

Emma Palmer is Elizabeth. She finds the contradictions that Tait (and history) have given the woman who became “the Queen Mother”.  Palmer makes Elizabeth haughtily condescending but also a bit flippant, softening her arrogance with almost impish asides about parties and drinking. Palmer uses her eyes to great effect, holding them fixed and glaring if annoyed, or flashing them in a way that suggests she’s sharing a salacious secret.

The other characters are played with amazing clarity by Matthew Backer. At first, he is “J” the Australian narrator/journalist who links events and passing years. He is also Ainsley, stiff, deferential butler/secretary to the royal household; and the American editor who cajoles Crawfie into telling her stories. More importantly, he is Lilibet the young princess, besotted with horses and eager to learn from her new teacher. No scene is more poignant than Backer as Lilibet making her first trip on the Tube with Crawfie. Backer shows her childish curiosity and naivety in a way that is realistically beguiling.

Though Tait’s play is a stark reminder of the wealth and power of the nobility and the barriers of “class”, it is also a story about love and warmth, trust and loyalty – and the woman who gave up her own chance of motherhood to guide and educate the young princess who would reign over the British Commonwealth for more than 70 years.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Ian Gower & Paul Carpenter. Adapted from the original TV series by Richard Curtis & Paul Mayhew. Henry Lawson Theatre, Werrington, NSW. Director Rhonda Hancock. 13th -28th Sept, 2024

Reviewed : 13 September, 2024

It’s never easy directing – or acting in – a play based on a television series, especially when the characters are so well-known and quirky, and the play requires two sets used alternatively scene after scene! It works in film, but it’s darn hard in live theatre, especially when one character is required to move between scenes constantly!

Director Rhonda Hancock admits the “staging was not without difficulties” siting multiple costume changes denoting the passage of time as an example, but not mentioning how quickly some of those changes needed to be made to keep the pace required in a comedy such as this. The Vicar (Nicole Madden) is to be congratulated on the number of jumpers and wraps she dons, mostly in half light on her way from the Vicarage and the Parish Hall!

The set, designed by Mark Prophet, followed the idea used by many old sit coms. Two rooms, side by side, with a communicating door. Both rooms, decorated by the director, captured time and place authentically and still allowed the cast of ten to interact in some ‘busy’ parish council meetings.

In this second play based on the British comedy, the Vicar produces a local radio program, directs a nativity play, and Alice and Hugo expect a happy event. Alice is predictably naive, the Vicar sarcastically dry and the men of the parish council much the same as portrayed in the series, their oddities imitated effectively … with a few surprises.

Nicole Madden is not new to the role of the Vicar, having played the character in HLT’s 2023 production of Gower and Carpenter’s original adaptation. Madden gets the sardonic tone and dry wit of the Vicar well, using quick pauses and quizzical looks to accentuate comic moments.

Holly-Leigh Prophet is a very funny Alice. She captures the girlish simplicity of the character in naïve looks, guileless reactions and quick, childish claps and skips and twirls. It would be easy to make this character over-the-top, but Prophet contains her carefully.

Matthew Doherty plays her husband Hugo, not quite as naïve as his wife, but equally unsophisticated. Both work well together as the newly wedded couple coping with the scorn and disparagement of Hugo’s father, David, Chairman of the Parish Council, played by Christopher Pali.

The other men of the Parish Council are played by Ken Fletcher, Mark Prophet and Elliott Prophet. Fletcher is Frank Pickle (who gives away a personal secret on the radio); Mark Prophet is the very lewd Jim Trott, and Elliott Prophet the busy farmer Owen Newitt.

Beverley Mooney plays Letitia Cropley, who in this adaptation concentrates on her knitting but never misses a thing. Unfortunately Mooney was ill on opening night and her place was taken by Rebecca Fletcher, who, after only one rehearsal, was very funny in a role that depends on facial expressions, gestures, movement and timing rather than dialogue.

Because of the writing, which is filmic rather than theatrical, this is a play that requires much planning and rehearsal. Hancock and her cast have done a good job to make the many scene changes as fast as possible while still sustaining the action and the comedy … specially in the last riotous scene.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

By Duncan Greenwood and Robert King. Hunters Hill Theatre Company. Director: Margaret Olive. Club Ryde. 30 Aug – 15 September, 202

Reviewed : 8 September, 2024

A pedantic novelist/book reviewer, his estranged wife and his publisher are pitted against each other in a tricky plot in this slightly different murder mystery, that does, as director Margaret Olive suggests, “keep the audience grinning and squirming”. Add an attractive secretary, a strange neighbour, locked doors, a gun and poison and the possibilities might seem endless … as they are!

Playwrights Duncan Greenwood and Robert King have cunningly taken the usual features of the “mystery” genre and added so many unpredictable twists that it’s not just a “who dunnit?” It’s more complicated than that, and the surprises keep coming right until the very last moment.

The characters are very English, the dialogue very exacting. It is important that every clipped word is expressively delivered, without losing the tempo necessary in a play that has so many twists and turns. Olive has ensured all of that in a production is well rehearsed and carefully timed. The cast have developed their characters clearly and sustain the pace necessary to build the tension as well as making the most of the humour as the complicated plot – which would be spoilt by any attempt to summarise – is revealed.

Ross Alexander plays Selwyn, a best-selling, self-opinionated mystery writer whose book reviews are blisteringly critical. He’s not a very pleasant person and Alexander makes him sarcastic, spiteful and wickedly malicious – but also very suave and elegant, engaging the audience with expressive eyes, sardonic smiles and very effective comic timing.

Julie Mathers plays Imogen, his wife, who is equally elegant – and equally intelligent. Mathers uses fine timing, smooth, confident movement and gesture to define Imogen’s strength and tenacity. She matches Selwyn’s acerbic comments in quick, tart rejoinders. Both actors make the most of the cut and thrust that define how well-matched the characters are – and how fiery their marriage must have been.

Brian May is John, the publisher who is close to both protagonists but certainly not as smart or as astute! May makes him blundering, easily ridiculed and constantly confused. He blinks a lot and has trouble following the repartee that is so much part of Selwyn and Imogen’s conversation.

The secretary, Christine, is played with poise and efficiency by Fabiola Pellegrino. She is just a little sassy in her responses to Selwyn, but knows how far she can go.

Rawdon Waller is the neighbour, Peter Fletcher, who brings a different kind of humour to the production. Fletcher is an interloper, a bit of a busybody, and Waller makes him loose and gangly, popping around furniture and invading the personal space of whichever character he approaches.

The detail of the direction is matched by the detail in the costumes (Cettina Lahiri), the effects of both lighting (Wayne Chee) and sound (Peter Tucker) – and the set (Wayne Chee) which provides the necessary background to the action.

The title, Murder by the Book, is more than it implies. Margaret Olive and her cast and crew have produced a murder mystery which has not only the usual intrigue of the genre, but includes inferences about society, class, human nature and relationships. It is fun – and a little more thought provoking than your usual “English who dunnit” – and you still have another few more chances to see it.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

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