By Hung-Yen Yang. National Theatre of Parramatta. Director Dom Mercer. Riverside Theatre. 20 – 29 October, 2022

Reviewed : 20 October, 2022*

A Practical Guide to Self Defence is another piece of theatre that realises National Theatre of Parramatta’s aim to produce work that “reflects the diversity of Australia today through contemporary and bold performances”. The play does all of that. It’s autobiographical and reflects the experience of many kids growing up in Australia’s multicultural society. It’s very contemporary, and it’s certainly bold. How often do you see martial arts in Sydney theatres? It’s also very funny!

Here’s the plot! A first-generation Australian Chinese boy is growing up in Wollongong. He’s bullied by the white kids in his class; cancelled by the racist teacher on playground duty; blamed when he uses his limited martial arts training to fight back; misunderstood by his parents when he tells his story. Then, when his mother takes him to Hong Kong for a “surprise” in the summer holidays, she enrols him at a local school to learn Cantonese! Because he only speaks English he’s bullied by the “big boy gang” who demand his money. When he fights back, he’s expelled! So, he runs away and flies back to Sydney determined to work harder at school and get to university! Which he does … and you guessed it, he’s bullied yet again! And you can imagine what happens when he applies for jobs …

Here’s the sub plot! There are only two actors. They play the father, the son, the mother, the grandmother, the young bullies, the teacher, the university bullies, the school principal in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong bullies. They also show family photos and lots of advice on power point messages! And demonstrate various martial arts!

They are on the ball every minute. Quick costume bits and pieces – a pair of glasses, caps, shirts – are donned and discarded as they move from one anecdote to another, one character to another. There is no time to re-think! And they never miss a cue, verbal or physical, in this 75-minute long ingeniously written ‘Australian’ story.

Playwright Hung-Yen Yang must have been thrilled as he watched this perceptively directed and performed interpretation of his play. Dom Mercer’s direction ensured the warmth and humour of Yang’s writing did not overshadow the hurt and frustration the young Hung-Yen faced, nor the lasting effect it had on his life. Those messages were clear – and compelling. Compelling too were the underlying messages about family and values and heredity. All are interlinked in a very carefully crafted piece of theatre.

Edric Hong and Alan Zhu play the Older and Younger Yen. Both have a strong command of the many characters they portray– and of the stage itself.

Hong moves smoothly, clearly and with consummate ease from proud but strict, traditional father to wise, elderly grandmother, to red-bespectacled whining mother, to nasty teacher, to cruel bully. A change of stance, a change of voice, a different tilt of the head and one of his new characters emerges, strong and equally believable – and just as quickly changes back to his predominant character as the older Yen. This is not easy, especially when interspersed with examples of martial arts that require sustained control and energy. Hong’s timing and pace infuse his characters – and add to the humour that the real Yen has used to offset the racism that he has faced all his life.

Alan Zhu is an exceptional young actor. His energy and confidence imbue the characters he creates, whether it be the wide-eyed, innocent five-year-old Yen, the Year 7 student losing his belief that the bullying will stop in high school, or the unyielding Hong Kong principal.

Zhu has excellent comic timing and the ability to establish a strong relationship with the audience.

Together Zhu and Hong are a formidable pair with whom Mercer has worked to bring  Hung-Yen Yang’s family – and bullying foes – beguilingly to life.

Behind the scenes Mercer has a band of imaginative creatives: set designer Kelsey Lee, composer and sound designer Zac Saric, Lighting and Video designer Morgan Moroney and fight choreographer Andy Trieu. They provide the setting and mood, the space and time in which the action – and the fight scenes – occur and are thus an intricate part of a production such as this.

Mercer acknowledges this in his program notes: “This play was unlike anything anyone on the creative team had ever read, filled to the brim with stage directions of virtuosic and sprawling fight sequences and striking visual effects, and we hope that our collective imaginations have managed to capture and provide some insight into the vivid and electric mind of the writing/writer”.

Together with the two talented, fit and fleet-footed actors they certainly have! In their hands Yang’s story is charmingly but very powerfully told.

It runs for only 9 days. Try not to miss it – and take your kids! They’ll love the fighting,  they’ll laugh at the characterisations – and they’ll understand the messages.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

Form Dance Projects. Choreographer: Eliza Cooper. Riverside Theatres. 13 -15 October, 202

Reviewed : October 13, 2022*

“The rustle of leaves, the bustle of busy creatures … A cloud of bats, flickering at dusk …”.

Eliza Cooper writes lyrically of the ‘flashes and fleeting visions” that inspired this intricate and delicately evocative performance where dancers whisper and drift across the dimly lit stage in flurries and flashes of lithe limbs and drifting lacy fabric that embody the tiny mammals that have intrigued humankind, from Aristotle (“For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.”) to composer Claude Debussy (“The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams”).

Unlike Debussy, the bats Cooper has created are not sad. They are alert, aware sensitive to each other and the air and sounds that surround them. They either hang, suspended by tight toes, waiting out the daylight in dark corners, or “flicker at dusk” trembling awake to fly to dark haunts and hunt sleepy insects deep inside “blooming cactus flowers” shining silver in the moonlight.

Seven dancers – Maxine Carlisle, Mitchell Christie, Allie Graham, Jasmin Luna, Cassidy McDermott-Smith, Remy Rochester and Strickland Young – in dark, wispy, translucent costumes depict these strange nocturnal animals. Twitching fingers depict their complex senses; tightly bent arms suggest their elastic wings. In agile leaps and light, nimble steps they ‘fly’ through the night sky, reaching to each other at times, swirling alone at others, hunting, catching, consuming greedily.

Cooper’s choreography is studied and perceptive, finding the multifaceted complexity of the creatures that have been “tumbling acrobatically” in her in dreams over three years. Her vision is enhanced by collaboration with creative sound designer Mason Peronchik, whose blend of cheeky, chattering bat voices and flighty, whimsical music captures both the whimsy of these creatures and the mythological wariness of them created by writers like Bram Stoker in Dracula.

Cooper’s vision extends to costume design and, with John Cooper, the creation of the large, silver lotus blossoms and moon, surreptitiously moved across the stage by Niki Verral, Isabel Estrella and Madeleine Bracken.

This is a stunning piece of theatre. It’s creative, imaginative, sensitive. What a pity it plays for such a short time!

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening performance

By Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach. Blackout Theatre Company. Director: Cierwen Newell. Pioneer Theatre Castle Hill. 30 September – 9 October, 2022.

Reviewed : October 1, 2022*

There are some great things happening in the arts in Western Sydney – as I keep saying – and this is yet another of them. Blackout Theatre came out of the COVID cloud with the NSW amateur premiere of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in 2021, a fine production of Chicago in May this year  and now an equally fine production of Legally Blonde. If their aim is to get bigger and better, they are certainly achieving it! This production is very slick, very funny …  and poignantly pink … just as it should be!

Few musicals highlight their messages as colourfully as this. Be true to yourself. Look beyond appearances. Keep faith. Trust. All these themes shine through in a production that is skilfully – and lovingly it feels – directed and performed. Pink may be the key – but continuity, characterisation, choreography, costumes and commitment colour this production just as vividly.

Director Cierwen Newell writes of the “family vibe” that grew during rehearsals, but it is the professionalism of the whole production, cast and creatives alike, that takes it beyond that ‘vibe’.

Newell has behind her an imaginative and talented creative team who have realised the possibilities that LED technology can bring to set design. With John Hanna, Adam Ring and LKR Productions, Newell created an array of background projections that set each scene, taking the cast from California to New York, from Harvard to Paulette’s beauty salon, from a courtroom to a caravan.

They are projected on to separate screens, the central one with a balcony reached by stairs either side, giving a variety of levels that are featured creatively in the blocking. Swift work by stage crew adds the minimal furniture needed to augment the scenes.

On this set, the cast work with energetic enthusiasm and spilt second timing to create the characters who sing and dance their way through 19 songs, some clever choreography created by Daniel Lavercombe, and a skip rope segment that really shows what “Whipped into Shape” can mean.

Front and centre in the production is Jordan Miller whose portrayal of Elle Woods is stunning in every way. Her character development, movement, voice, relationship with other characters and with the audience – all are strong and honed with care. But Miller adds to them a vibrancy, a chutzpah, that makes her Elle a little more defiant, a little more sassy … and feistily convincing.

Elle faces her journey from California to New York backed by her Delta Nu girls, the Delta Nu Trio – Daniella Delfin, Zohra Bednarz, and Amelia Caruana – and her parents, played by Blackout stalwarts Pamela Humphreys and Michael Robinson.

As Emmett Forrest, Elle’s mentor at Harvard, Cameron McCredie is staidly “crushed corduroy” as he watches, evaluates and carefully encourages Elle – and sings beside her in “Run Rufus Run” and of course, “Legally Blonde”.

Elle’s former boyfriend, Warner Huntington III is played by Luke Quinn, who makes Warner befittingly self-centred as he uncaringly dumps Elle in “Serious”, then becomes increasingly more self-aware as Elle’s confidence and intelligence emerge.

Fiona Brennan stepped in to replace Marika Zorlu as Paulette on opening night. This was unfortunate for Zorlu, but something we have grown to accept as the pandemic continues to affect the arts.

Anyone would relish playing this whacky, colourful character, but Brennan picked up the call on opening night and really found all the funny “bends” and “snaps” that Paulette injects into the show – including her attraction to the sexy courier, Kyle, played with tongue in raunchy cheek by Robert Hall.

Brenna Smith, as Brooke, leads the very coordinated Callahan and Company team as she “Whips” her way into the story … then into court with Elle as her trusted confidante and lawyer.

Adam Ring plays the pompous law Professor Callahan with Kate Staddon, Enid Hoopes, Jordan Anderson, Liam Vicari and Luke Quinn as his ardent acolytes. Their performances, with the company, of “The Harvard Variations” and “Blood in the Water” brings a different tenor to the production.

Matthew May and Damian Shahfazli have a few special moments as Nikos and Carlos. Alexander Irby is Grandmaster Chad; Koren Beale is the Judge; and Katie Griffiths the District Attorney.

It’s strange how dogs feature in musicals – especially considering how unpredictable they can be – but little Teddy, and not so little Rufus, make their short appearances as Bruiser and Rufus quite successfully, if, in Rufus’s case, rather quickly!

Videoed to the cast from another space in the complex, Musical Director Alvin Mak conducts the very accomplished orchestra. It was good to see a photo of them included in the program even though they can’t be acknowledged appropriately by the audience.

Legally Blonde is different! It’s fast. It’s loud. It’s cheeky. But it’s also powerful and defiant -just like Elle and her mates! Cierwen Newell has found all of that in this production. It’s as powerful as any professional production – and indicative of the talent, energy and creativity  that drives this thriving western Sydney company.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening Night

By Jonathan Biggins. Hunters Hill Theatre Company. Director: Jasper Kyle. Club Ryde. 9-25 September, 2022.

Reviewed : September 18, 2022.

Hunters Hill’s production of Australia Day waited patiently during two years of restrictions to make its funny and irreverent appearance in this 2022 season. Funny because of playwright Jonathan Biggins’ ability to satirise everyday characters and situations; irreverent because his satire is, in the words of director Jasper Kyle, “highly provocative” – as satire usually is! In the well-known Wharf Revue, Biggins and his co-writers Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott lampoon politics and politicians, local and international. In Australia Day, the satire is more local, more personal and more telling.

Biggins sets his play in the imaginary town of Coriole. On a succession of monthly meetings six members of the local Australia Day Committee congregate in the Scout Hall to organise the annual Australia Day celebrations. The characters they represent might be found in any “committee’ or organisation anywhere – people who want to be involved for various reasons – not always altruistic! In this case there is an aspiring politician, a representative from the CWA, a green feminist, a redneck denialist and a token ‘new’ Australian.

As they inter-act, they provide what Kyle describes as “a wonderful mix of clashing progressive versus conservative ideologies”. Most members are happy for the event to stay the same – a parade, a concert featuring the school choir and local dance group, the introduction of new citizens and a sausage sizzle. The new, younger members are prepared to question and suggest some changes.

The chair of the committee is Brian, the local mayor, played by Martin Maling. Owner of the local hardware shop, Brian is seeking pre-selection for federal politics – and worried about an application by Bunnings to build locally. Maling plays Brian as arrogant, self-righteous, easily flustered and easily angered, turning often for support to the secretary of the Committee and fellow councilor Robert, played by Ross Alexander.

Robert is a much calmer person and Alexander shows this in his patient listening to opposing views and attempts to keep the peace. He listens a lot, shakes his head often, and intervenes when he thinks things are getting out of hand. He is a distinct contrast to Wally, the local plumber who is aggressively anti-everything: global warming, conservation, smoking ceremonies, migration. Wally is the ‘cringe’ character in Biggins’ play and Alan Long enjoys every moment of playing this ‘shock jock’ style character.

The two female characters are also poles apart. Maree is a stalwart of the CWA and comes to meetings equipped with her cross stitch and knitting. Renee Simon, in her debut on the stage, uses bustle and fussiness to accentuate Maree’s character when things get a little confusing, especially if it’s anything to do with new technology.

Helen, played by Cee Egan, is a single mother, a feminist and a Greenie, who bristles about anything that might appear to be racist or discriminative – including the sausage sizzle! Egan uses the feistiness of this character to try to push the pace of the production. She listens carefully and uses gesture and expression effectively to show her exasperation – and her deviousness when an opportunity arises to further her political ambition.

The new representative from the local school is Chester, a first generation Australian – Sri Lankan. Chester sees himself as a bit of joker, and Kirit Chaudhary makes the most of the quips and one-liners Biggins has given this character.

Kyle and his cast find the humour of the second act where everything that can possibly go wrong does! A bushfire, food poisoning, blocked portaloos, a little bit of bribery, a thunderstorm, and the arrival of a past prime minister!

This is a play that uses satirical humour to question what Jasper Kyle describes as the “uglier side of ourselves that we try to ignore and keep hidden”. By lampooning those  characteristics, Biggins, Kyle and his cast bring them out of hiding and make us think about them carefully.

Also published in Stage Whisper magazine

By Pelle Koppel, adapted from the novel by Janne Teller. National Theatre of Parramatta. Director Erin Taylor. Riverside Theatre. 1 – 10 September, 2022

Reviewed : 3 September, 2022*

Young actors Alyona Popova and Joseph Raboy shine in this un-nerving Danish play about teenagers who want to be taken seriously. Teenagers searching for meaning in a world that doesn’t … won’t… can’t … answer their questions about the meaning of life. Their world has gone beyond the supercilious “42” that Douglas Adams suggested in Life, the Universe and Everything. Their world is far more insecure, and Pelle Koppel surmised that if they had to find answers for themselves, they might find discover things that are even more disturbing.

This is Popova’s first professional production since graduating from NIDA. Raboy is more experienced. Both face, in this play, a situation that must have been even more confronting for them than it is for the audience. They tell the story of twenty children trying to convince one of their friends that there is more to life than the “Nothing” he preaches from the branches of an old plum tree. As they search to present him with things that “mean something” to each of them, they sacrifice things that are far more precious than a soft toy.

It is not an easy story to tell. It becomes more and more disturbing as the sacrifices become more personal, more life-threatening. Both performers carry the descriptions of the challenges the teenagers face with poignant, realistic storytelling.  Under the fine direction of Erin Taylor, they become evocative, teenage narrators trying desperately to explain why they have collected a pile of precious and gory objects in an abandoned windmill. Their expressive voices pick up the many faces of fear – bewilderment, bravado, distress, panic – as they describe how each child reacts as they are asked to give up the thing they hold most dear.

There is an almost breathless hush in the audience as the sacrifices become more threatening. Could this happen? Would children, under duress, go this far?

“It is challenging and unnerving,” Erin Taylor suggests, “but if we do not share the search for meaning with young people, they will certainly search for it in our absence.”

Designer Kelsey Lee has converted the Lennox Theatre stage space into a corner of the windmill. A raked floor is surrounded by dilapidated grey slate walls, where light filters through broken spaces. Surrounded by this lowering greyness, Popova and Raboy move easily in the steps of the children they describe, sitting, kneeling, running – or becoming a crumbling crucifix lit from high above the stage.

Lighting designer Kate Baldwin and sound designer Aimée Falzon have created an atmosphere that moves from the brightness of a summer playground to the dim recesses of a village church … and eerie shadowy sounds that follow the children into their growing desperation.

With Lee, they have created an open but enclosing space where Taylor can develop the tension that is inherent to the children’s story. Her direction of Koppel’s adaptation is deft and perceptive, sensitive to the challenges she is asking of her cast – and the anxious children they depict.

As she says: “They are Greta Thunberg screaming in the face of Trump”.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening night

By Charlotte Brontë. Adapted by Nellie Lee and Nick Skubij. shake and stir theatre company – on Tour. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 31 Aug – 1 Sept, 2022

Reviewed : 31 August, 2022*

shake and stir’s adaptations are always thrilling, always respectful! They stick to the story. The characters are true to their creator. The set and lighting are just as atmospheric as the written descriptions. Seldom are adaptations so faithful to the original. But shake and stir have assembled a formidable ensemble to create their adaptations.

Writers Nellie Lee and Nick Skubij team up again to re-imagine Charlotte Brontë’s late 19^th century novel in a play that omits neither the rejection and poverty of Jane Eyre’s sad childhood, the romance and tragedy of her later adventures nor the places and characters that populate her life. Firstly, Gateshead Hall where she is bullied by her wicked aunt Sarah Reed and her nasty cousin John and locked in the ‘red room’ where she thinks she sees the ghost of her dead uncle. Then Lowood Institution, the gloomy orphanage run by Mr Brocklehurst where Jane endures eight long years. Finally, the gothic grandeur of Thornfield Hall, where Jane meets the gentle Mrs Fairfax, the moody Mr Rochester, his French ward Adele and eventually his mad first wife, Bertha Mason.

That they do so in a production that requires only four actors is a rare feat.

Enter director Michael Futcher, who deftly blocks the production so that changes in character are clearly defined by accent, stance or the addition of a small item of costume. Futcher respects the talent and training of his cast and their commitment to work with him to re-create  Brontë’s characters. He also respects the intelligence of his audience! He knows they will follow when a freeze or a brief lighting snap changes a scene effectively – especially on a set that is designed to accommodate a range of spaces and levels.

Josh McIntosh’s versatile grey, gothic set becomes the dreaded places where Jane lives her early life – and the melancholy grandeur of Thornfield Hall. Muti-levels reached by dim stairways are draped and framed by long grey curtains that shiver eerily in whispery breezes. Sarah McLeod’s original, gothic-sounding compositions echo as she sings at a piano and almost hidden in the shadowy curves, accentuated by Jason Glenwright’s moody lighting and the sounds of sudden storms or teeming rain created by Guy Webster. In this production Michael Steer the adds fiery stage effects that are so essential to Brontë’s macabre tale.

Four actors – Julian Garner, Nellie Lee, Jodie Le Vesconte and Sarah McLeod – and three swings – Maddison Burridge, Hilary Harrison and Nick James – people McIntosh’s dark stage. Together they are taking the production to 39 venues across the country. They play over thirteen characters in a production that sees them dressed in drab grey lifted only by two touches of dull red, a beige cravat, a plain white wedding dress and a flimsy veil. Geared to accommodate the ubiquitous threat of Covid, each of the swings is ready to step in and take over at any time – and they do, seamlessly. That well does this ensemble and their crew work together.

In their publicity notes shake and stir suggest that “Never has the story of this fiercely passionate young woman on a voyage of self-discovery been more timely. In the wake of #metoo, women all over the world have rediscovered their voice and spoken up – demanding that which should have always been theirs”  … just as Jane did!

Jane Eyre is regarded as one as one of the original feminist works. Jane’s honesty and integrity shines through in this production – as does her compassion as she saves Rochester from a fire, champions his vicious, mad, incarcerated wife … and returns to marry him after the horrific fire that blazes through McIntosh’s set, sending Bertha Mason falling to her death and leaving Rochester maimed and sightless.

This production will be remembered in images of high grey scaffold-like levels, shadows and flickering flames and a heartless society based on rigid beliefs and cruel classism. And images of a courageous young woman determined to stay true to herself.

Seeing this production will benefit students studying both English and Drama. The former will be able to compare and contrast the text and the adaptation. The latter will see a variety of theatrical styles from Gothic Theatre to Magical Realism. They’ll see fine characterisation and ensemble acting – and just how creative multi-discipline theatre can be.

Check shake and stir’s website touring dates and venues.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

*Opening night

Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Monday 29 August, 2022

Reviewed : 29 August, 2022

After six weeks of impressive impro and competitive comedy, six teams met for the Cagefight finale! A chance to improvise brilliantly enough to win over the audience – and a cheque for $2,000.  So great had the following for the competing teams grown, that organiser Dave Crisante had to move the event from the cosy cheeriness of the Chippendale Hotel to the cavernous capacity of the Factory Theatre. Undeterred by rain, the audience – friends and family; young, older and very old! – filtered up the Factory steps, drinks and phones in hand, to cheer on their favourite team.

Those phones would be essential because, realising the crowd would be far too big to use the subjective method of applause to decide the winner of each heat, Crisante and his helpers had a fairer alternative. Why risk subjectivity when you can resort to electronic voting? And very few of those in the audience would be without a smart phone! Hence, on each seat was a small program with team names on the front and a series of QR Codes inside. One of these would be activated briefly each time a vote was required. How’s that! Performing arts  and technology working together again!

The players in the final six teams were a mixture of seasoned improvisors and new recruits to the art. All were infused with the important ingredients for improvisation: courage, quick thinking, going with the flow and enthusiasm.

They ‘played off’ over two heats. Each team was given 12 minutes to strut their stuff. The first heat saw “Impro (Taylor’s Version)”, “The Queen’s New Boyfriend” and “Uno Reverse” battle the round out in a frenzy of locations, events and characters, most suggested by the audience.

Despite some fierce competition, “The Queen’s New Boyfriend” topped the electronic score with their six-person team creating a scenario where Mum and Dad channel jumped between a series of TV programs from Soap Opera to British Crime. They were all totally involved, changing characters quickly, taking up offers in a flash and keeping things moving and coherent.

The second heat involved “Flight Mode”, “Fillow Talk” and “The Cream Team”. “Flight Mode” took on the challenge of performing in ‘a rock and a hard place’, using written confessions collected from the audience. “Fillow Talk” used their previously successful idea of trying to act out a phrase from a song spoken in Fillipino. “The Cream Team”, battling with the unlikely topics of ice cubes and Lord of the Rings, was successful.

The two winning teams then pulled out the very best of their impro skills in a battle to the end. Both received thunderous applause from the very supportive crowd – but the electronic ballot gave the $2000 to “The Cream Team” – Reuben Ward, Josh Magee and Tom Cardy (who some of you may have seen recently on Spicks and Specks).

This was a big night for all of the performers, and for Crisante and his team who cover all the behind-the-scenes organisation that makes these events work. Over 160 performers have been involved in the weekly heats leading up to the final. They’ve honed their impro skills, developed their team’s expertise and become part of the ‘buzz’ that is Impro Comedy Cagefight.

Dave Crisante’s Monday night classes and comedy impro heats, and his Thursday night communication course at ‘The Chippo’ have proved an exciting addition to the Sydney Impro scene.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

Also, see Carol’s review of Heat 3.

The New Production. By Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Opera Australia and The Really Useful Company, in association with Cameron Mackintosh. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Opened 26th August, 2022.

Reviewed : 26 August, 2022*

In the bowels of the Paris Opera House, this ‘new’ Phantom hides away in a lush but dark world where flickering candles in gold candelabras cast shadows around an ancient keyboard, a strange music box and the few pieces of furniture he has collected to warm his lonely life. What a contrast it is to the colourful, lively world of the operas that are performed above him!

“Phantom” is a story of contrasts: dark versus light, despair and vengeance versus optimism and joy. In his new take on The Phantom accentuates that contrast. The dark is even more gloomy and melancholy – the light even brighter and more carefree.

Earlier this year Sydney audiences watched the incredible spectacle of a brilliant production of “Phantom” in front of a backdrop of a shining, rain-cleansed harbour. Audiences in theatres all over the world have marvelled at music and gasped at the falling chandelier, the boat, the pyrotechnics.

In this re-imagined production, audiences are creatively transported into the Paris Opera House in the early 1900s and the stage of a colourful production of Hannibal. They are led along a labyrinth of dark, backstage passages and a precarious stairway into the deep despair of Erik’s desolation. The music in all its splendour, still sparkles with the chandelier, just as it has sparkled for the past 36 years, but in this production the setting is makes it seem closer, more immersive.

Cameron Mackintosh’s idea of contrasting “the Phantom’s darker backstage world with that of the traditional opera world onstage” has been realised by the incredible imagination of opera designer Paul Brown, who went back to the score, the libretto and Gaston Leroux’s original 1912 novel for inspiration. His research led him to create a “world of contrasts” that resulted in “dirty crumbling backstage corridors in counterpoint to the grand opulence of the gold proscenium. The real textures of bricks and pipes in conflict with the painted scenery of palm trees” and a Phantom’s lair that “became a magpie’s nest of stolen objects”.

Some might say that between them Mackintosh and Brown have transformed The Phantom from a musical into an opera! It has always had the feel of an opera. The macabre theme. The evocative music. The operatic characters. The little bits of comedy. The sad ending. Paul Brown’s new set – and Maria Bjornson’s original and still exquisite costumes – add the “opera” that is promised in the title.

The staging of “Phantom” has always been problematic for directors – the chandelier, the water, the boat – but 36 years of technological development means Brown’s haunting design ideas are stunningly achievable. The cast of Hannibal disperse as the stage evolves to become the high brick wall of the Paris Opera House where Erik leads a reluctant Christine down steps that miraculously slide out from the bricks, then disappear back into the brickwork as they reach the bottom and the boat that will take them across the misty waters of the lagoon. Smoothly walls open to reveal the ominous shadows of Erik’s lair.

Accentuated by height and the variable juxtapositions of lights and projections, every scene becomes more atmospheric, more real, and more immersive. Add the music, the singing, the acting, the dancing and the colour and glitter of the costumes, this production has lots of everything – probably summed up in the brilliance of “Masquerade”, which has it all!

Josh Piterman cements his critical acclaim as The Phantom in the London production in 2019. Singer and actor, he finds the loneliness and longing of this sad recluse. In “The Music of the Night” that sadness rises powerfully up and beyond the stage. There is the strength of determination mixed with the weakness of humiliation in Piterman’s Erik, a man covering rejection with music and the yearning for love and acceptance.

Australian-American Amy Manford also reprises her London and Athens performances as Christine. The clarity and power of her voice captures the imagination of the audience – as well as the hearts of Erik – and Raoul. She moves from hopeful singing pupil to diva, to lover and to anguished captive with elegant ease and emotion.

Blake Bowden plays Raoul with similar elegance and emotion. He brings a wealth of stage and screen experience to this role, finding the passion of both the music and the ardour with which Raoul defends Christine.

Giuseppina Greech is appealingly funny, charming the audience with her beautiful voice and her petulant depiction of the up-staged Carlotta. Paul Tabone plays the huffy Ublado Piangi whose Hannibal is so disastrously ruined by a falling sandbag and Carlotta’s stormy exit from the stage. Tabone is no stranger to this role, having played it in over 1600 performances in London, and he does so with comic panache.

David Whitney and Andy Morton show a different kind of panache as opera mangers Messieurs Firmin and André. Their comic timing and characterisation are indicative of their experience in opera, musical theatre and stage.

Jayde Westaby is the gracious but strict dance ballet mistress, Mme Giry. Mietta White plays her young daughter Meg, who introduces her friend Christine to Firmin and André as a replacement for Carlotta. It is her suggestion that starts the tangled plot. Rauol hears her and falls in love – and Erik realises that he is losing her.

Director Seth Sklar-Heyn brings these impressive performers together in a powerful production that is almost overwhelming.

This is a production that anyone who hasn’t been to the opera before will love – and those who have loved The Phantom will love just as much. The Phantom on the harbour was spectacular – the ‘new’ Phantom in the Opera House is beyond spectacular!

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Night

Enmore Theatre. 21st August, 2022

Reviewed : 21 August, 2022

The best yet? If not, it’s certainly in the running! With host Andrew Denton in sparkling red sequinned tails, co-host Josie O’Reilly in glittering gold and black and Music Man Benny Davis in shining silver, this annual theatrical treat was everything a charity impro event should be. The hosts were hyped, the teams were primed – and as usual the audience, warmed up by the inimitable Ewan Campbell, was ready for anything.

But the hype wasn’t just about improvisation.

This annual Sunday afternoon event is part of Theatresports and the Enmore Theatre’s ongoing commitment to Canteen, the wonderful organisation that supports young people “when cancer turns their lives upside down”. Ticket sales, a raffle, an online auction and donations from this event give a major boost to the wonderful organisation that means so much to so many kids and their families.

All those who take part in Celebrity Theatresports do so for love, and there was a great deal of love in the Enmore last Sunday afternoon. It shone from the faces of all the Enmore staff and Canteen volunteers selling raffle tickets. It shone from the heart of young Canteen Ambassador Josh Bell, who spoke so impressively of how important Canteen has been to him and so many other young people. It shone in the tears of the audience when Lily Knowles explained, heart-breakingly, about Canteen’s support in the recent loss of her mother. And when her father, Theatresports veteran John Knowles, left his team on stage to comfort his brave daughter.

Love also shone in the faces of the six Celebrity teams as they hit the competitive stage with their impressive impro talents. Judged by the Grande Dame of Impro, Lyn Pierse, with Play School’s Benita Collings and oncologist Dr Liz Hovey, and using some traditional Theatresports games, they showed the audience just what can be achieved when you … offer, listen, accept, extend … and add a bit of conflict, tension, tempo, pace and fun. Especially when it’s done by the experts!

One team was challenged to perform without the actors’ feet touching the floor. As the team members were carried around the stage by other teams things became more and more hilarious – and precarious! Andrew Denton, too, saw a precarious moment in the final game when Adam Spencer carried him a little too close to the edge of the stage in an underwater extravaganza! Virginia Gay and Rove McManus proved their impro prowess in several games, Gay impressively in an Opera challenge – and McManus becoming increasingly expressive as a garbage collector in an Emotional Replay.

Audio Celebrity Challenges were ‘piped’ in from David Collins (of the Umbilical Brothers), Jay Laga’aia (from back stage at The Eternity Theatre’s production of Once) and  Sam Simmons from UK TV’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Live Celebrity Challenges – Benita Collings and journalists Jane Hutcheon and Jennifer Byrne.

Competition was stiff, but there had to be a winning team, and that was “Fun Lovers” – Gep Blake, Veronica Milson, Jane Simmons, Rove McManus and David Callan – who lost only one point! What a triumph!

Congratulation to them, to all the other teams and to the host of people who make the event happen. It’s a highlight of the year for all those who perform in and love impro. And it’s always great to see so many of Impro Australia’s ‘impresarios’ back on the stage supporting a charity that means so much to so many.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine