Melbourne Festival, St Martins, Fraught Outfit and Theatre Works Present:

The Bacchae

Conceived by Adena Jacobs and Aaron Orzech

Music Composition – Kelly Ryall

Dramaturg – Aaron Orzech

Musical Director – Danielle O’Keefe

Lighting Designer – Danny Pettingill

Costume Designer – Chloe Greaves

Set Designer – Dayna Morrissey

Performed by St Martins Teen Ensemble: Bonnie Brown, Tove Due, Eve Fitzgerald, Anouk Gleeson Mead, Cindy Hu, Maima Masaquoi, Romaine McSweeney, Eve Nixon, Bridie Noonan, Lois Scott, Mieke Singh Dodd, Carla Tilley.

Music Performed by:

Freya Boltman – Vocalist

Julian De Marco – Boy Soprano

Nicholas Dugdale – Boy Soprano

Xiao Xiao Kingham – Pianist and Organist

Sarah Lee – Violinist

Bella Noonan – Vocalist

Zofia Witowski Blake –Vocalist and Percussionist

Lier Deng – Violin

Lara Stebbens – Cello

Kelly Ryal – Electronics and Sound

Theatre Works 8 – 24 October 2015

A strong sense of danger and menace lurks in this courageous contemporary interpretation of The Bacchae.  It is a vital production, performed in raw and natural way, without artifice, by girls and young women from St Martins Youth Arts Centre. It is apparently the culmination of the results of these young performers being empowered and supported to self-devise around the ‘adult themes’ of The Bacchae. 

Euripides’s original is an Ancient Greek Play that was first performed in 405BC.  Put very simply it looks at the conflicting sides of man’s nature – the controlled and organized, verses, the passionate and hedonistic as personified by the God Dionysius.

Andrea Jacobson as Director achieves in subverting ways of seeing through carefully managing the work with Dramaturg Aaron Orzech.  It is a fascinating attempt at communicating through a uniquely ‘feminine’, and therefore a somewhat enigmatic, sensibility.

There is an inference of youthful defiance in the performers commitment to the strong and weighty fabric of the ancient material, along with their retuning of ‘the gaze,’ through blatantly watching the audience watch them, often in a hostile way.  Refreshingly it never smacks of the actor wanting to be approved of by their audience.

The evening starts with two figures on stage, possibly a male being pleasured by a young female – but no - it is Dionysius being born from the thigh of Zeus.

Sound (Composition by Kelly Ryall and Direction by Danielle O’Keefe), although often electronic, is live.  Violin and voices combine exquisitely.  And the drum is used skillfully to underscore and vibrantly energize as well as to highlight and accentuate the perpetration of violence.

Tableaux and images allow for individual interpretation, many of them are very simple but loaded with social comment.  For example the only male performer, a very young person grabbing a can of coke and opening it after sinking into a couch may as well be cracking a can of Victoria Bitter. There are re-enactments of debasing sexual acts, imitation phalluses, an expression of the abject in the form of gold paint and Santa even makes a rather unpleasant appearance.

These young women morph form gawky kids to temptresses and everything in between and beyond.  In doing so they remind us just how complex, clever and sensitive young people are.  And how they are emerging into a treacherous world where their individuality is threatened through being overtly sexualized.

The evening concludes with the lyrical touch of an inflated Theatrical Mask, of a happy comic mouth with a Greek flavor (pardon the pun) with a large lascivious tongue.

I felt an acute similarity with Gob Squad and CAMPO's Before Your Very Eyes that came to Melbourne for the Festival in 2012.  A kind of amazing trust and theatrical intimacy of watching young performers communicate, with adult audiences, from a natural and sincere place. 

Somehow through the sum of its various parts and after a pensive walk up and down Acland Street from Theatre Works my specific, very strong and clear, take home message was - as a community we need ritualized bacchanalian (Dionysian) festivals to release some of the darkness in our natures in a safe and overt way.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Bock Kills her Father

La Mama

Presents

Bock Kills Her Father

By Adam Cass

Directed by Penny Harphem

Bock - Emma Annand

Taylor - Marissa O’Reily

D’Agostino - Emina Ashman

Chambers – Roby Hughes

Sarah – Annie Lumsden

Sound design and composition by Raya Slavin

Set and costume by Owen Philips

Lighting design by Jason Crick

Dramaturgy by Seanna Van Helton

La Mama Theatre – A part of Melbourne Fringe

September 16 - 27 2015

The title Bock Kills her Father with its suggestion of parricide immediately had me thinking of The Cenci by Percy Shelly a disturbing work about incest and murder that was lauded and directed by Antonin Artaud.  I wondered if this aspect of Theatre History inspired writer Adam Cass or perhaps it is the more current sensational stories of the sexual abuse of students by teachers that has informed his intense and weighty piece.

This polished production, in many ways reminiscent of the Neon production of Patricia Cornelious’s play Slut, is disquieting.  It is set on a murky yet translucent blue colored performance space (Owen Philips) that is nicely lit by Jason Crick.   And it is underscored with tortured sound, (Raya Slavin), that is grating and appropriately irritating and a far cry from the jaunty promising melodic music that opens the work.   This harsh sound could well be referencing Artaud and his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’.  For me it is the strongest component in the production.

As an ambitious undertaking Cass has produced a perplexing piece of writing that may well be difficult to wrangle.  It is a text that quite subtly reveals its truths bit by bit.  It is part naturalistic and part a kind of crazy subtext.  Initially individual rhythms and personalities impress but as the evening progresses, and possibly through a lack of playing clear intentions by the actors, characterization seems less clear.   However having said that this could be intended in the writing as all young protagonists seem to be ‘tarred by the same brush’ and, it would seem, are perpetually disenfranchised by their immediate community.  

There are a number of scenes that don’t feel real.  However the opening night performance inferred, that, if the actors garner speed, confidence and a more complete sense of their characters, particularly what drives and motivates their vindictive craziness, the whole should galvanize and make stronger sense of what the writer is trying to say.   

Owen Philips set is strong in its minimalism but his costuming is neither here nor there and seems to have a conservative edge.  It is too clean and pristine and middle class all round and makes little reference to the set.  It also adds to the sense of naturalism and therefore only partially serves the text.

As for what it is being suggested about the damaging and dividing of young woman by a (possibly) predatory male - this is not fully integrated in the whole and perhaps requires some stronger social references to give the whole more relevance and clout. 

This challenging and bemusing work although not fully satisfying, and way too nice, is thought provoking and has a great deal to offer.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Hildegard/Knef

Hildegard/

Knef

Created and Performed by April Albert

Directed by Rachel Baring

Lighting/Set Design by Rob Sowinski

Projection Design by Matto Lucas

Sound Design by Cat Tyson Hughes

Dramaturgy by Daniel Rice

Costume Consultant – Rebecca Dunn

Produced by Danny Delahunty

Pianist – Mark Hunter

Northcote Town Hall – 16 to 26 September

Affecting, lyrical and entertaining Hildegard/Knef is a enlightening musical Theatre/cabaret piece that is very transportable and should have quite an extended life as a touring piece.  It is reminiscent of Drowning in Veronica Lake staring Alex Ellis, also a one-woman piece about a movie star - that has recently been touring and I caught in Kyneton earlier this year.  Both works touch on the very human vulnerability behind the stylish public lives of their subjects.

Photo of April Albert by Greta Costello

Hildegard Knef was born in 1925 and lived an tumultuous young life through the war in Germany.  She began acting at 14, was an actress, singer and writer, was married three times and had one daughter, suffered from breast cancer, and died of a lung infection at 76.   One gets the sense that she has experienced darkness, passion and plummeted to troubling emotional depths that informed her intense impassioned sultry performances.  Her voice was husky and deep and her You Tube clips are peculiarly fascinating to watch.

April Albert confidently and adeptly brings this damaged femme fatal to life before our eyes.  And doubtless she will reach past the footlights to touch her audience throughout the run, and in many more incarnations of this accomplished work, much of which is in German.  The whole is tightly choreographed and cleanly realized through direction by Rachel Baring.

Rob Sowinski has created a simple and delightfully lit set that is beguilingly ambiguous and economical.  Less is more and props are used economically to significant effect.

Pianist Mark Hunter who is strangely tucked away from view supports Albert impeccably and could, perhaps, offer another dimension if actually featured. 

As Albert relaxes and releases more through each performance, and channels more of the gusty character of Hildegard Knef, this work is set to stun audiences.

A strong and satisfying and intriguing work that can only grow.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Bounty

MKA:  Bounty

Written by Eric Gardiner

Directed by Tom Gutteridge

Designed by Steve Hendy

Costume by Erin Duyndam

Sound Design by Eric Gardiner

Sound Production by Jordan Dempster

Cast: Connor Gallacher, Matilda Reed, Zia Zantis-Vinycomb and Artemis Ioannides.

Fringe Festival - Northcote Town Hall - 16 - 26 September 2015

It is always a refreshing adventure to catch an MKA offering.  Bounty is as described in the Darebin Fringe Festival booklet ‘(an) absurd collision between modern Queensland and ancient Rome’, absurd being the operative word here.

This wild, somewhat messy work, a little on the thin side as far as content, is slickly directed by Tom Gutteridge and performed with energy and aplomb by Conor Gallacher, Matilda Reed, Zia Zantis-Vinycomb and Artemis Ioannides.

Gallacher as Campbell Newman, and other inferred archetypal leaders, amply serves the role of manipulative patriarch and egocentric leader.  Reed a beautiful lithe young actor manages to fit the bill as Newman’s determined, supportive and often very serious wife Lisa Campbell.  Zantis-Vinycomb works well as with the rest of the ensemble to emulate there role of one of Newman’s daughters but it is Ioannides who excels as daughter Sarah Newman who she plays with strong focused centred energy and commitment. 

Initially set around the family dining table this work speaks of the power and control of the family patriarch as well as the community leader/slimy politician and is ridiculously timely in the current political climate.

It is a hilarious romp written and directed from a male perspective and contains a truly messy physical bitch fight, (the second I had seen in this weeks theatre).  Costumes (Erin Duyndam) come off and go back on and things get chaotic.

Worryingly no matter how good the sound producer Jordan Dempster is the speakers in Studio 1 at Northcote Town Hall have seen/heard better days and really need to be replaced to honor best Theatre practice.

An adventurous and energetic show – fun to catch.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)