MKA’s
Hypertext
Upstairs at Tuxedo Cat
17 Wills Street Melbourne - 14 – 28 June 2014
‘Keen as Mustard
and Sharp as Paint’ MKA’s Hypertext
is a great chance to engage with some complex contemporary writing for theatre. If you are after polished flawless production
values - don’t even think about it.
However if you are prepared to take the risk of being confronted and
challenged by energetic, passionate totally underfunded but eternally
courageous gifted theatre makers - get to the Tuxedo Cat in the next couple of
days and be inspired and soak up the ambiance.
On The Grace of Officials by Emilia Poyhonen
(Presented
especially for Refugee Week)
7pm
On the Grace of Officials, a Finnish play by Emilia Poyhonen, struck
me as a work based on, what one feels should be a contradictory premise, that,
old world explorers and colonialists would intrinsically support the notion of
embracing Asylum Seekers in our modern world.
It tries to cover
a lot of territory, (pardon the pun). It
feels a bit like a University Review that is part history lesson, part expose
of small-minded contemporary bureaucratic maneuvers around an asylum seeker whose
life reads like a fable.
The writing could
do with some culling and focus to fully hit the mark and the staging would be
significantly enhanced with the practicality of more lights so the lighting
designer (Clare Springett) could achieve more atmosphere. However it is currently nothing short of
engaging, funny and a bit moving as well.
The soundscape
(Tom Backhaus) is affecting and there are some strong performances particularly
from the actors who played Professor Fridtjof Nansen and the Asylum Seeker. Emerging Director Rohan Maloy appears to have
managed the material, and his cast, well on a shoestring budget.
Affirming and
thought provoking.
The Defence by Chris Dunstan
8pm
The Defense not only looks at Strindberg the man. But perhaps more importantly it decisively describes
a fraught director/actor relationship between a male director (Brett Johnson),
with huge issues, and a competent cooperative actress (Catherine McNamara). It cuts to the bone – touches on a very raw
nerve where the interaction between director, actor and material has unhinged
the director who has, subsequently, lurched into a kind of psychotic
megalomaniacal misogynistic tirade. His
abusive behaviour is endorsed throughout by his male co-workers. It’s alarming to watch, frighteningly real
and skillfully drawn by writer/director Chris Dunstan and performed with flawless
conviction by Brett Johnson, Catherine McNamara and Douglas Niebling.
Catherine McNamara
plays the Actress playing Strindberg superbly.
The nudity and
sexual references have the potential to be shocking and shockingly funny.
Very acute.
Thank You, Thank You Love by Tobias Manderson-Galvin
9.30 pm
Surely every
performer knows the fear of dying on stage.
Maybe dying in performance could be sort of masochistically addictive as
it seems it must have been for Tommy Cooper a stage Magician who’s sad demise
is quoted as inspiration by Manderson-Galvin for this work of five short plays
about dying on stage or, one could say, that die on stage.
Initially seated
in a huge haze of fog it is certainly not always clear what is going on or why
and that is a good part of the overall charm. It is pretty much up to you to
glean meaning where you find it. Some
things stand out - but often things don’t seem to match or link up. As the evening progresses not only the fog
but everything seems to spill out off the stage.
The suspended
state one feels held in could be likened to a type of disjointed arbitrary
chaos that creativity can be born/emerge from.
Thank You, Thank You Love is messy, kooky and embracing – funny and fun and
actually a great chance for the creator and performers to connect toy and play
with an audience. This they do with
generosity. It is complex and ambiguous
and full of glitches that sometimes seem completely real and unrehearsed or at
the very least under-rehearsed. This work
is an orgy of chaotic, sometimes realized and sometimes semi realized, ideas
with a healthy dash of self-deprecation staged in front of wine soaked
curtains.
Whatever. Once one has died on stage and felt the heavy
weight of failure surely things can only get better from there.
Performances by
Tobias Manderson-Galvin, his sister, Sam Young and Becky Lou Church are all
well pitched.
Disarming and
highly enjoyable.
Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)
Note on this response to Hypertext: My response was fairly blurry as I saw all three works in on evening and tried to write up a response in less than 48 hours which is way less than I really need for a comprehensive effort Blah!
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.
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.
