Review - Circus 1903

Circus 1903

Presented by Simon Painter, Tim Lawson and the Works Entertainment

Neil Dorward – Director and Co-Creative Producer

Andrew Spencer – Co-Executive Producer

Evan Jolly – Composer and Musical Director

Angela Aaron – Costume Designer

Richard Peakman – Associate Director

Mervyn Millar – Puppetry Director and Puppet Co-Designer

Tracy Waller – Puppet Co-Designer

Todd Edward Ivins – Scenic Designer

Paul Smith – Lighting Designer

David Simpson – Technical Director – Production

Vincent Schonbrodt – Rigging Designer and Technical Director – Rigging and Scenic

Orchestral Recording – The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra

Nice Studios – Branding Conception and Art Direction

Melbourne’s Regent Theatre

3 – 14 January 3pm and 7pm every day

Circus 1903 is a marvelous holiday treat that is full of exceptional circus feats from exemplary artists from around the world.  It is certainly a great show to bring the whole family, from little kids to Grannie and Grandpa, together for some uplifting and engrossing entertainment.

The set (Todd Edwad Ivins - Scenic Designer), atmosphere and archetypal vintage circus costuming (Angela Aaron) really invokes an era long past when Circuses were massive, in the round, tawdry, a bit sordidly romantic, alarming, disquieting and captivating.

Droll Ring Master/Master of Ceremonies Willy Whipsnade (David Williamson) opens the show with some cheeky fun and flying popcorn.  Throughout he introduces acts, narrates a look at the sideshow and sets up some really wacky and fun interludes with children drawn from the crowd.  He is a great ‘touch stone’ for the Audience.

But it is the extraordinary acts that are more-often-then-not just breathtaking.

 

The show presented in the whimsically appropriate Regent Theatre comprises of a very full program where all artists excel and the sense of danger is very real. 

There are too many acts to mention all, but my personal favorites are probably, the ultimate high wire work by Los Lopez, which is just marvelous and totally unforgettable, and Lucky Mood and her romantic Aerial Ballet that is just mesmerizing.

The Flying Finns are the first to perform.   And it is a heart stopping start watching three amazing acrobats catapult, flip and spot each other on a bouncing seesaw.  Then The Sensational Sozonov displays the most amazing capacity to find balance high above the ground on Rola Bola.  The very beautiful Ethiopian Elastic Dislocationist (Senayet Assefa Amara) contorts her body in the most profoundly amazing ways. 

You will have the opportunity to marvel at the juggling of clubs by the Great Gaston.  And watch The Perilous Perigos (Alfonso Lopez and Maria Jose Domenguez Pontigo – from Mexico) and some hair-raising knife throwing.

For comic clown like relief Duo Flash bring their humour to the edge of the stage.

And then there are the magical Elephant puppets that touch the heart with their innate capacity to capture the true rhythms and essence of the animal thanks to the extraordinary work of creators and puppeteers.

For the next week or so Melbourne audiences have the opportunity to be whisked back into the romantic world of the great Circuses. 

Don’t miss this splendid opportunity before it takes off to tour the USA.

And the Souvenir Programme is full, rich and comprehensive totally worth taking home.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - After Life

After Life

Michel van der Aa (Netherlands)

Composer, Stage Director, Video Script and Direction – Michel van der Aa

Performers:  Roderick Williams, Richard Suart, Marijje van Stralen, Margriet van Reisen,Yannick-Muriel Noah and Helena Rasker

Conductor - Wouter Padberg

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Technical Production Development – Frank van der Weij

Costume Designer – Robby Duiveman

Melbourne International Festival

Regent Theatre

11-13 October 7.30pm

As a semi-staged contemporary opera, about the gravitas we as individuals place on what we deem to be significant memories at the unraveling end of corporal inhabitation, After Life is an uncomfortable, yet gratifyingly challenging, offering.  It is an individual journey that although not without humor and lyricism requires patience and a contemplative approach to be satisfyingly engaging and inspiring.  

The story is of what happens to three people in the three or so days after their deaths, when they are accommodated in a state of limbo in the care of staff, Sarah (Marijje van Stralen) and Aiden (Roderick Williams), at a way station.   And there they are required to choose a memory to have with them to be able to move forward.   Whilst performers are grappling with these individual characters journeys; projected on two rear screens are various groupings of objects and furniture like those in an auction rooms from deceased estates and, at times throughout, the very genuine faces of actual people telling the stories of their own most significant memories.  These non-actors bring a beautiful heightened sincerity to the work.

The musical composition is heavily influenced by modern masters such as Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Schoenberg to bring to the ear what it sounds like.  The score though lyrical at times has an atonal not fully completed quality about it and the libretto is often startlingly simple, almost simplistic - adding another dimension of sparseness.  Thus – ‘space’ is ideally left to ponder the pivotal question of which single memory from ones life would one want to be able to access when dead - bringing to the fore what has been most important to us, as individuals, in our especially individualistic contemporary lives.

Well surely this type of challenging fare is what Arts Festivals are all about!

Note:  Do read the synopsis in the program before the work commences or you could seriously flounder and loose the will to persevere.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)