Review - Last Man Standing

MTC Presents:

The Last Man Standing

By Steve Vizard

Music by Paul Grabowsky

Cast:  Clarry Flint – Peter Carroll, Ensemble – Nick Eynaud, Captain Skurry – Esther Hannaford, Doctor Morgan Cockburn - Simon Maiden, Colonel Raymond Hope – William McInnes, The Man – Jensen Overend, Ensemble – Monica Swayne, Elliot Fontana/Cam – Toby Truslove, The Minister for Defence – Nicki Wendt, Rachel Wiley – Alison Whyte, Violin – Ed Antonov

Director Roger Hodgman

Musical Director – Andrew Patterson

Set and Costume Designer – Richard Roberts

Lighting Designer - Matt Scott

Choreographer – Dana Jolly

Sumner Theatre - 6 November - 12 December 2015

The Last Man Standing is a rich opportunity to laugh, and laugh a lot, at the satirizing of one of our most treasured ‘holy cows’.  It is a motely, mottled mix of thoughts and ideas surrounding Anzac Day and our ever-burgeoning reverence, for it.  

Photo - Jeff Busby

Writer Steve Vizard has gathered Anzac Day motifs and created a pretty wacky scenario pertaining to the creation of a unique Ausi variety concert (V. C.).  It would seem this be being done to further galvanize the community through celebrating the disastrous and devastating contribution of our forces at Anzac Cove.   And yep there are puns aplenty.

Musically it has many of the best the hallmarks of Paul Grabowsky’s significant talent; subtle, mellow, moving and with songs that fit actors like gloves and support their particular skills and personal tones.  Some of the music is prerecorded but most is played live by violinist Ed Antonov and Andrew Patterson, who is the Musical Director, on the piano. 

At its heart The Last Man Standing reminds us we have fallen under a spell of politically driven hype and glorification of war.  Somehow we have been able to ignore or cover over the toxic personal and social costs endured over the last century.  And the homage we are now paying to Anzac day is further venerating human sacrifice and in doing so masking the personal and cultural damage experienced.

However – vitally - this timely reminder is encased in a light and engaging narrative that sweeps joyfully along.

Vizard, ultimately, encourages us to look at soldiers as real and flawed people who have been put in impossible situations, from which they have emerged deeply scared.

Photo - Jeff Busby

The Last Man Standing is beautifully cast with actors we have come to admire and love; lead by Peter Carroll who is an extraordinary tour de force.   He is the ‘last man’ Clarry Flint a survivor of Gallipoli.  Carroll is one of those inspired actors who can fill a parody with complex believable characteristics and reach out from behind the proscenium to make an intimate connection with his audience.  William McInnes as Colonel Raymond Hope the Bull of Kabul embodies our stuffy masculine, military past all respectability and suppression. 

Nicki Wendt portrays a Minister for Defence, (and a number of other difficult portfolios), with very convincing aplomb.  Alison Whyte as Rachael Wiley the producer’s producer. Toby Truslove shines as the master of ceremonies at the concluding spoof of a variety show.

Lighting by Matt Scott is mixed – sometimes shadowy, sometimes sharp and at times very consciously adding to emotional atmosphere and then at other times not particularly noticeable.  This seems to match the jumbled atmosphere of the whole that is inspired by the narrative and reinforced by the flowing Direction of Roger Hodgman and the efficient use of the revolving stage.

Photo - Jeff Busby

This first production of The Last Man Standing is a big, broad and confident, and as expected, a delightfully funny work about who we are as Australian’s in relation to conservative popular culture and our reverence for Anzac Day.  Satisfyingly it also has the capacity to move and engage on a more intimate and personalized level.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Someone Like Thomas Banks

Someone Like Thomas Banks

Thomas Banks – Writer/Performer

Lucy Freeman – Director

Gayelene Carbis – Writer

Nina Barry-Macaulay – Dramaturge

Canada White – Stage Manager, Set Designer, “Lorraine”

Scott Allen – Lighting Design

Lynn Gordon – Auslan Interpreter

45 Downstairs – until November 8 2015

Someone Like Thomas Banks is a wonderful unique opportunity to be offered insight into the complex life of an earnest, intelligent and astute young man with Cerebral Palsy.  It is a moving and joyful work that celebrates difference and highlights the need for more disability friendly Theatre.

Photo - Gemma Osmond

It may be a bit tricky to understand exactly what Thomas Banks is saying, at times, when he is talking, but he kindly suggests that we don’t worry to much because most of what he is trying to communicate will be made clear - and it is.

There is Auslan translation throughout allowing for easy engagement by members of the Deaf community and those who understand Australia’s very own language for the Deaf.

Banks uses a number of methods of to get his message across.  Multi-media, including an interactive video is used to great, clarifying effect.

This show courageously delves into the wishes and desires of a young gay man.  But in a more universal sense will touch anyone who has hoped for the elusive attainment of a sexual partner to love and sleep next to.   It is poignant.

Someone Like Thomas Banks has been developed over time with Director Lucy Freeman from its inception as part of the Platform Youth Theatre 2010 Provokateur project.   It honors the disabled in many ways including providing a disabled entrance to 45 Downstairs which offered quite and adventure in feeling vulnerable and a little on edge walking through darkened laneways to get to the ground floor performance space without the use of stairs.

Photo - Gemma Osmond

Banks who is many things including a proactive champion for disability recently had my table cleared at Malthouse and engaged my companion and I in conversation about what we were going to see.   He is very obviously a dynamic young theatre devotee.

He involves audience members an in this way adds another echelon of understanding most particularly the realization that one may need to slow down a bit and just take a little more time and effort to listen sometimes to fully understand what is being said.

This wonderful and cleverly managed show is well worth catching – don’t be sorry you missed it. 

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - In a Soulful Mood - Julia Messenger Quintet

The Melbourne Recital Centre and Brunswick Industry presented:

In a Soulful Mood

The Julia Messenger Quintet

As part of the Mood Indigo Series

Saturday October 17 at 2pm and 7pm

In the rarefied environment of the ‘acoustically rich’ Salon at the Recital Centre, honoring some of the great women of Jazz and Cabaret, Julia Messenger entranced and delighted her audience.  What a treat it was to listen to Ms. Messenger’s carefully managed voice surfing effortlessly on, in and around the glorious musical accompaniment of Mark Fitzgibbon on piano, James Sherlock playing guitar, Ben Robertson on double bass and Darryn Faruggia, who’s playing I was really taken by, on drums.

With disarming openness and sincerity Ms. Messenger chatted about the origins of most numbers before they were launched into, thus underpinning the richness and complexity of the performance.  For example she talked of Bill Robinson who danced with Shirley Temple, and was ultimately immortalized in the song ‘Mr. Bojangles’ and then the work was played featuring a piano solo by Mark Fitzgibbon.

Since Sunday I have been catching myself singing and humming Miss Otis Regrets.  Not surprisingly as Miss Otis Regrets featured just voice and the wonderful piano of Fitzgibbon.   This song, with all its irony, was certainly one of the highlights for me.

I also particularly enjoyed the moments when Messenger launched into German (Falling in Love Again) and French (‪Non Je Ne Regrette Rien) as another dimension was added and any lingering self-consciousness seemed to drop away.  This left me wondering how Ms. Messenger would fare if she was to assume the character of a particular songstress for a cabaret show.

The four instrumentalists seemingly effortlessly supported and honored each other and their solos wowed the audience.  Of the sixteen beautifully rendered works about half are very well know and the other half I was delighted to be introduced to in such an entrancing way.  Songs such as the haunting ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’, that was make famous by Bonnie Raitt was featured with a guitar melody and double bass solo, ‘Compared to What’ a Roberta Flack song was given a guitar solo, ‘Fine and Mellow’ written by Billie Holiday was also given a fabulous guitar solo.

Writing this has left me thinking how excellent it would be to hear a show where songs that were written by women were the only ones featured.

Keep an eye out for Julia Messenger because hopefully she will be bringing us more such delightful afternoons and evenings in the not to distant future.

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - The Experiment

The Experiment

By Mark Ravenhil and David Chisholm

Performer – Mauricio Carrasco

Writer – Mark Ravenhill

Composer – David Chisholm

Guest Composer – Fernando Garnero

Images – Emmanuel Bernardoux

Media Artist – Matthew Grigold

Dramaturg – Jude Anderson

Melbourne Festival 2015

Malthouse Theatre

The Experiment is true Festival fare - a challenging, demanding and at times ‘in your face’ performance.  It pushes the envelope with regard to sensation particularly sound.  The experience touches on, what it would be like to be traumatized, seemingly from the perspective of a perpetrator of violent/painful abuse.  But it could also be expressing the experience of the victim, as perceived by the perpetrator, who himself has been a victim.

There is considerable ambiguity throughout. 

It portrays the relentless intrusion of re-occurring memories, distress confusion and disassociation – the result of trauma.  It is immersive. 

Image of Mauricio Carrasco by Shane Reid

The actual traumatizing experience is hazily described.  This is because, that which is being portrayed and expressed, is not so much descriptive of events but rather a portrayal of the legacy of damage.   What we witness is one man’s shattered and changing realities through his disjointed verbal descriptions and a changing projected visual landscape.  

As a possible compliant perpetrator’s assistant Mauricio Carrasco (as the protagonist) talks of experimenting on two children and the inference is that the experiments are painful and dangerous and damaging.  Startlingly we are reminded of Holocaust medical experiments.

As a kind of contradiction to this there are some tame but symbolically troubling images of men with dolls that obviously symbolize children where the inference is more akin to the dark crime being sexual abuse. 

Blaming the other and torturing the listener/viewer expresses the perpetuation of the cycle and pain of abuse.   The works portrayal of the unethical and cold-blooded use of the innocent for one’s own gain - distresses. 

This material is doubly difficult to dwell on right now with the confirmation of the identification of the murdered child in the suitcase (Kandalyce Kiara Pearce) and the still involved disappearance of toddler William Tyrrell.  The cross over with reality as we are currently experiencing it through the news is deeply troubling.

Carrasco expresses the occurrences from the conceit of shattered brain.

Early on in the work there are inferences of the story Hansel and Gretel, bars and incarceration as well as projections of old knarled trees that could be out of a fairytale forest.  There are fantastical projections of double screens ambiguous forest and fairy world and perhaps undersea creatures.  Images change and the affronting journey brutalizes.

Technically what is truly amazing the way the sound moves around the room by way of numerous hanging speakers. 

Much of the sound is discordant music a legacy from the early 20^th century and most affectingly the sliding of a ruler on guitar strings and in doing so continually hitting the pickup to almost abusive effect.

It is becomes a harsh and unrelenting event and relief is felt at the conclusion.  And even then it seems to take a while to free oneself from the unrelentingly troubling, disorientating and brutalizing experience.

Suzanne Sandow