Review - Hir

Hir – Review – SSandow

Red Stitch Presents:

HIR

By Taylor Mac

Directed by Daniel Clarke

Assistant Director – Thomas Quirk

Set and Costume Design – Adrienne Chisholm

Lighting Design – Richard Vabre

Sound Design - Ian Moorhead

Cast:

Belinda McClory – Paige

Ben Grant  - Arnold

Jordan Fraser-Trumble – Isaac

Harvey Zaska-Zielinski – Max

30 January to 4 March 2018

Hir is a real shocker.  It is hugely entertaining, hysterical, disturbing, bewilderingly, disorientating, yet, satisfyingly orientating - all at the same time.  It is a timely immersion into a kitchen sink dramatization (pardon the pun) of changing social sexual mores and, as such, offers a cathartic journey for the audience. 

This play by the iconic Taylor Mac is like a hot potato – risky to handle.   It is ultra immediate and addresses the changes in gender politics and lived changes in gender that are all around us.   The personal is still political and perhaps even more so then in the early 70s.

Chaos reigns on a marvelous wacky colourful set by Adrienne Chisholm. 

Instead of maintaining the status quo and nurturing her husband Arnold (Ben Grant) after his debilitating stroke, Paige (Belinda McClory) inverts expectations of a caring wife.   She takes a frenzied ‘quasi-feminist’ route in unleashing upheaval in her family’s home.  In conjunction with this her adolescent daughter Max (Harvey Zaska-Zielinski) is swapping her gender requiring the use of hormones, the growth of facial hair and the adopting of new personal pronouns.  And Paige’s dishonorably discharged soldier son Isaac (Jordan Fraser-Trumble) returns from war, presumably in search of solace and healing, to an unrecognizable home.

Though out this romp are heaps of metaphorical rabbit holes and a number of hand grenades; some of which are thrown and some, unexpectedly, are not.  Every now and again there is a pervading sense of doom - then suddenly everything is back on track and kind of ok or a bit less ok - but making more sense.  As audience we are totally engaged with the excellent acting and twists and turns in the expose of the characters, unfolding of complications and nuances of the predicament.

Director Daniel Clarke’s casting is excellent. One can sense he and his actors have just ‘bitten the bullet’ and run with this vital volatile work.  A masterpiece of our times classily presented?  I think so!

McClory is masterful.  Her Paige subversively defies convention with, at times, the playful unreasonableness of a petulant child.   This contrasts with the weighty seriousness of old social patriarchal conventions and expectations.  We know what they are - only too well.  And we know the real and or implied violence intrinsic to maintaining these precepts.  The stakes are pretty high and at any point things could get nasty.   

Ben Grant, as the long-suffering Arnold, perceptively conveys an intellectually damaged man who is at the mercy of his pugnacious wife.   Delightfully contrasting this, at times, with a sparkle in his eye, he conveys an acute awareness of his predicament.  Moments when Grant quietly expresses Arnold’s elusive thoughts are wicked magic.

In his initial entrance Jordan Fraser-Trumble’s meth addicted damaged soldier son Isaac maybe needs to bring more of the military in with him.   However this is a bit of a quibble from me and could seem petty.   Especially because as Isaac he claims his territory beautifully in the second act.

Harvey Zaska-Zielinski’s Max is very true to type as a transgender actor in the title role.  Another quibble - I would be really interested in seeing a little more of the teenage girl in his interpretation.

There are many memorable moments in this production that suggest how we support, effect and motivate each other is central to our wellbeing.  On the whole Hir is full of compassion.  I left the auditorium with a spring in my gait and a renewed fascination with what it is, and will be, to be human.

Expect this show to sell out quickly.

Delightfully, the opening night evening commenced with Mama Alto singing sultry love songs in the Red Stitch courtyard.  Very special!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Rhonda is in Therapy

Rhonda is in Therapy

By Bridgette Burton

Produced by Hoy Polly and Baggage Productions

Directed by Wayne Pearn, Dramaturge – Julian Meyrick, Set and costume design – Kat Chan

Lighting design – Richard Vabre, Sound design – Tim Bright, Stage Manager – Lindon Blakey

Rhonda – Louise Crawford, Lief – Ben Grant, The student – Jamieson Caldwell, The therapist – Kelly Nash  

45 Downstairs - 7 to 23 September

  

Rhonda is in Therapy is a lively, insightful and satisfying play about the lengths gone to, by a young wife and mother, to remain in the limbo of denial, after experiencing a life-changing trauma that places her in the face of overwhelming grief.

It explores the cracked reality of Rhonda, a teaching professor of Chemical Engineering.  We watch her deal with her grief inspired, outrageous sexually exploitative behavior - through Therapy.  This challenging behavior is enacted as it is discussed to hilarious affect at times.

A multi layered work it is framed as a progressive and successful journey through Therapy - from piquant self-delusion to the contrasting self-empowering, yet somewhat dreary, acceptance of day-to-day reality.  And as such, is cleverly and skillfully penned, with a number of surprising and fascinating reveals.

Writer Bridgette Burton displays quite some insight. There is a wicked sense, in this work, that although socially inconvenient and often personally destructive - extravagant dissociative delusions can have a fabulous exciting and invigorating edge.

Almost everything about this production is outstanding even the very trite title ‘Rhonda is in Therapy’ is actually perfect.  The Direction by Wayne Pearn seamlessly incorporates some disjointed and abstract scenes with competence and grace, smoothly welding the whole together.  Sound by Tim Bright is used to signal (psychological) atmosphere to good effect.

Pearn truly brings out the best in his actors.  As Lief, Rhonda’s longsuffering husband, a generous kind man with a grounded sense of self, Ben Grant is just right physically.  He clearly expresses all the love, perseverance and dedication required to make perfect sense of this role.  Jamison Caldwell plays the student as sensitive and caring - irresistible ‘eye candy’.  And as the therapist Kelly Nash very naturally conveys a perceptive clinical interest in her patient and cleverly transmits the intense and slightly sickening atmosphere of the Psychiatrists Consulting Room.  Louise Crawford just shines as Rhonda.

If I were rating this production it would get four and a half out of five stars.  And where did that half a star go?  Well, it is actually a little too long, the last fifteen or so minutes drag a little.  And then there is what seemed to be an irrelevant red herring of the name of Rhonda’s lover being the same as that as one of her children.  Maybe this idea has a basis in some interesting psychoanalytic theory but just feels awkward and unnecessary in the context of the story.  For me these small issues pale into insignificance in light of a very entertaining and satisfying whole. 

Really Good Theatre!

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers