Review - The Happy Prince

La Mama Presents Little Ones Theatre’s

Image by Pia Johnson

The Happy Prince

After Oscar Wilde

The Happy Prince – Janine Watson

Swallow – Catherine Davies

Director - Stephen Nicolazzo

Set and Costume Design – Eugyeene Teh

Lighting Design and Production Management – Katie Sfetkidis

Sound Design and Composition – Daniel Nixon

Producer – Jo Porter

Stage Manager – Jacinta Anderson

Assistant Director – Paul Blenheim

Design Assistant – James Lew

Assistant Stage Manger – Kristina Arnott

La Mama – 18 to 29 January 2017

This much anticipated offering is an entrancing, resonant, contemporary interpretation of Wilde’s deeply moving work that meets expectations of excellence.  It seems to be the hot ticket of this year’s Midsumma Festival and has petty much sold out.  So hopefully there will be another incarnation in the not too distant future.

Wilde’s children’s story The Happy Prince, like Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose, E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, is highly compassionate and profoundly moving.  These stories, and there must be others, if read or heard as a child are assimilated in a profound way and stay with us for life.

Stephen Nicolazzo’s careful direction barely leaves a hair out of place and every subtle interaction on stage seems integral and necessary.  It could almost be a film - with perfectly set up frame following perfect frame.  Nicolazzo is, if there is such a thing, a Theatre Auteur.  And everything in this work, as it is unfolding, seems to explore and exude Wilde.   

Janine Watson’s Prince has all the elegance of a 19^th century statue.  She also has some of the self-importance, sense of command and an edgy soupçon of cynicism found in some of Wilde’s well-known theatrical characters.  The Prince’s heart and sense of empathy, is as huge, as her capacity for self-sacrifice.  Watson has the skill as a performer to convey considerable depth and potency.

Catherine Davies’s Swallow is a street wise, somewhat cocky, self -aware roller scatter with a delightful dash of humour.   Davies’s physical skills come to the fore allowing us watch the Swallow metaphorically lose the capacity to fly and fade and freeze at the feet of her beloved statue.

This staging of The Happy Prince has traces of the milieu of a Victorian Peep Show and the hint of a tawdry illicit edge. 

In changing the gender of the Prince and the Swallow and making the relationship between the two women an erotic one, the character’s vulnerability and tender heartedness is, possibly and kind of strangely, even more poignantly highlighted.

Sound Design and Composition by Daniel Nixon is rich and marvelous.

Image by Pia Johnson

Eugyeene Teh has created a unique and special space in tiny La Mama and simplicity seems to be her key. 

The concluding text spoken by Watson is hauntingly beautiful but also oddly jarring as they are not actually part of the original children’s story.

Truly a treat!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Meme Girls - Review

Malthouse Theatre presents

Meme Girls

Created by Ash Flanders, Stephen Nicolazzo & Marion Potts

based on an original idea by Ash Flanders.

Direction – Stephen Nicolazzo

Set & Costume Design – Eugyeene Teh

Lighting Design – Katie Sfetkidis

Sound Design &Composition – THE SWEATS

Cast – Ash Flanders and Art Simone

Stage Manager – Lisa Osborn

Beckett Theatre

8 April to 2 May 2015

Art Flanders and Stephen Nicolazzo have a significant following in Melbourne.  They are, together and individually, unique voices in the contemporary Melbourne theatre scene.  I think it is fair to say their refined yet bright and bold, very visual approach to theatre, flair and irreverence has garnered significant respect from audiences.  

Art Simone and Ash Flanders - Photo Pia Johnston

Meme Girls is beautifully crafted/Directed - with set, lighting and sound exquisitely coordinated.  It looks fabulous and is lit by Katie Sfetkidis.  Designer Eugyeene Teh has woven her considerable magic to provide a set that infers numerous environments including the probing of a camera lens and perhaps the more relevant circle that is the Looney Tunes iconic signature image.  Over all Meme Girls offers a glorious loud, high camp opportunity to sit back and marvel at what can be achieved. 

However, as representations/imitations of You Tube posts, it often seems flat and without dimension.   Loud, brash, relentless, and generally without the use of the reflective relief of irony, the whole seems to be about narcissism and ultimately feels indulgent and narcissistic. 

Art Simone and Ash Flanders - Photo Pia Johnston

Assisted cleverly, with exquisite timing, by Art Simone who is dressed in stunning drag, Ash Flanders goes through transformations on stage to portray various fragile characters.  But most of the women vaguely realized by Flanders tend to morph and fade into each other.   They are not adequately integrated as individuals and there is starkness in their portrayal that borders on bland stereotype.  Perhaps it was the result of first night nerves and as Flanders relaxes into the show he will access the feminine with more veneration, joy, enjoyment and definition.

Art Simone and Ash Flanders - Photo Pia Johnston

There are at least two opportunities for sensitive and poignant explorations of women finding themselves in difficult and baffling circumstances.  However when rendered as unadorned imitation in a matter of fact way both, intimate revelations, lack dimension and soul.  Perhaps a clearer definition between performer and character or more thorough characterization would add texture and liberate meaning.

The whole is micro-phoned with enough amps to reach into the corners of a noisy nigh club and certainly supports Flanders ultimately rich and agreeable singing voice. 

Sadly I am left with little idea of what the creators are trying to communicate with this slick but lightweight work except perhaps a capacity to bring all elements of Theatre together to create a visceral event that does not require interrogation.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Salome

Salome

By Oscar Wilde

Presented by Little Ones Theatre and Malthouse Theatre

Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo

Dramaturgy - Natalia Savvides

Set and Costume – Eugyeene Teh

Cast:

Paul Blenheim – Salome

Genevieve Giuffre – John the Baptist

Alexandra Aldrich – Herod

Peter Paltos – The Young Syrian

Zoe Boesen – The Page of Herodias

Tom Dent – Namann the Executioner

Nick Pelomis - Herodias

Little Ones Theatre’s slick and flippant production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome is lively, loud, lighthearted and wickedly profane.  It’s an ‘in-your-face’ cabaret performance with loads of well-dressed and undressed ‘eye-candy’ and more than just a hint of Jean Genet.

Little Ones Theatre has made a fascinatingly provocative reworking of Wilde’s reworking of a Biblical Story.  

In their ‘take’ we are introduced to the concept of Salome as a beautiful desirable male Princess through the homosexual proclivities of The Young Syrian played with forthright lascivious humor by Peter Paltos. However this is one of those examples where the universal swapping of gender roles detracts from the meanings intrinsic to the story, though, it does not detract from the visual aspects of casting and set/costume design by Eugyeene Teh.   Most successful in playing against gender is Alexandra Aldrich who presents a pretty crazed Herod with aplomb. And Nick Pelomis as Herodias is fascinating to watch.

Salome is indeed beautiful and Paul Blenheim dances her dance of the seven veils with lithe elegance, but then curiously, vaguely and without intent, gloats over the dead body of the Baptist as if it means nothing to have had her cruel intent realized.

Some diligent research by Director Stephen Nicolazzo and Dramaturge Natalia Savvides is perhaps missing from the making of this work.  If my memory serves me adequately the flaw in Salome’s nature that turned her so sour on John the Baptist was her unyielding pride fueled by biting resentment at being rejected by the disciple.  The reason for Salome’s destructive intent is not adequately explored here and therefore the reworking of the story doesn’t make complete sense. 

In all, Salome is a satisfying as a spectacle that is light on meaning – but is well work catching as a showcase of some of Melbourne’s youthful and courageous theatre making talent.  The tickets are only $25 each and it is on till 14 September.

(For Stage Whispers)