Review - Beached - MTC

Melbourne Theatre Company

Beached

By

Melissa Bubnic

Director – Petra Kalive, Set Designer – Andrew Bailey, Costume Designer – Kat Chan, Sound Designer – Robert Jordan, Animator – Rebecca Hayes.  Cast: Producer – Anthony Ahern, JoJo – Susie Dee, Louise Fanny Hanusin and Arty Damien Sunners.

Lawler Theatre

22 April – 10 May

Beached is refreshing and engaging and will certainly delight Secondary School audiences with some of the outrageous shocks embedded in the writing, particularly in regard to the use of ‘language’.  It is a fun romp written by a young writer that will be becoming even funnier as it tightens up through consecutive runs.

Arty (Damien Sunners) is over fed and pampered by his suffocating mother JoJo (Suzie Dee).  He sits in a sedentary position on a couch, part human part foam rubber, and eats almost more than is humanly possible.  The reality television program Shocking Fat Stories lays claim to Arty’s story and in doing so attempts to doctor the story for maximum effect and revulsion factor.

But that is not all, there is more to the story as the work touches on a number if social issues with startling and liberating political ‘incorrectness’ at times.

Suzie Dee’s mother character JoJo initially seemingly grounded in clown is a strongly realized, complex and convincingly dogged woman.  Anthony Ahern serves the production well as the producer and delightfully in a number of small video roles.

Although over written and just a bit too long and sometimes calling out for changes in the physical rhythms of the staging the direction is deftly and comfortable handled by Petra Kalive.

Beached is a real gift to Teachers as it touches on many complex issues and MTC have comprehensive and useful teacher notes online.  

Highly recommended!

Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Song - Ranters Theatre

Song

By Ranters Theatre

Concept/Director - Adriano Cortese Visual Concept/Designer Laura Lima, Songwriter/Performer - James Tyson,

Image Production and Lighting Design - Stephen Hennessy, Sound Designer -

David Franzke, Perfumer - George Kara, Performers - Paul Lum and Patrick Moffatt, Text - Raimondo Cortese, Producer - Sara Austin, Adriano Cortese,

Production Management - Geordie Baker & Govin Ruben from Rubix Cube

Arts House – North Melbourne

12 April – 21 April

This ‘sense around’ experience can be enjoyed against the wall, on a stool, or, on your own piece of astroturf placed anywhere on the beautifully polished Town Hall floor.   It is a very individual experience that doubtless many participants have reveled or will revel in, in the next few days.

It is so often what frame of mind one brings to theatre, that colours the experience, and can enhance with piquancy and assist in the suspension disbelief.  Exhausted at the end of a long week I was looking forward to something immersive and magical.  And, initially, I responded to Song with as much generosity as I could muster to find myself strangely transported to my sometime, misspent youth – imbuing me with the feeling of being totally stoned and lying heavily on the grass with a heightened awareness to my natural surroundings. 

A solid and interesting starting point I thought.  But sadly not a place I was able to freely maneuver from with the limited resources at my disposal. 

Song is an intense experience that makes weighty demands on its audience as it separates out the senses.  What one has most to work with is sound (David Franzke), sounds from nature as well as songs simply sung with a guitar and then piano (James Tyson).  There are also smells (Perfumer – George Kara) and air movement and a large round white object and some falling water.    Although initial smells are light and pleasant they are almost all somehow synthetic, and, except perhaps in the early stages, do not necessarily relate to the sounds.

Overall there is little to look at, other than other audience members.  To start with this is unmediated and not particularly comfortable though as the event moves on lighting (Stephen Hennessy) states change.   I was expecting projected images.  In a world that is so dominated and informed by the image it feels strange to do without them.  And for me the strongest messages from Song are just how dependent I have become on visual stimuli and how discomforting and disconcerting it can be to separate out and isolate ones own senses.

A worthwhile adventure in theatre making and interesting journey as participant but it did seem to give me a headache.

Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)

Review - The Other Place

The Other Place

By Sharr White

Directed by Nadia Tass

Cast: Juliana – Catherine McClements, Ian – David Roberts, A Woman – Heidi Arena, A Man – David Whitely

Set Design – Shaun Gurton, Costume Designer – Edie Kurzer, Lighting Designer – Nigel Levings, composer – Paul Grabowsky, Sound Designer – Russell Goldsmith, Voice and Dialect Coach – Suzanne Heywood.

Melbourne Theatre Company

The Playhouse

26 January – 2 March

Catherine McClements’s work as Juliana, a convincingly dynamic and successful woman in her early fifties, is remarkably strong and rich in this beautifully complex work, by American writer Sharr White.  It reveals as it unfolds in twists and turns, by degrees - in a seemingly effortless manner due to Nadia Tass’s directorial precision.

The Other Place is presented on a neutral, uncluttered set by Shaun Gurton and lit to create various and varied atmospheres by Nigel Levings.

McClements is a real tour de force.  Although an actor easily recognized for her extensive television work she displays wonderful strength and ability on the large Playhouse stage where she is able to ‘turn on a pin’ emotionally and psychologically.  Her relationship to the audience is challenging as a presenter and narrator (albeit unreliable) and participant in two other narratives one legitimate and one, a fictionalized construct.

Sound (Russell Goldsmith with composition by Paul Grabowsky) is used unconventionally to enrich the atmosphere and at times, ambiguously, echoes the shifts in Juliana’s destabilizing mind.

There are several laments in this work.   The loss of a child is a haunting theme but not the crux of the work.  At the heart of the writing is the curvy flow of the changing realities, understandings and perceptions of  the character Juliana’s brain that makes it such a rich and rewarding piece.

David Roberts as Ian, Juliana’s longsuffering husband, initially portrayed through the eyes of his wife, as a self centered adulterer, towards the end of the play sits on stage - a man reduced by the weight of the burden of loving a woman who is no longer the one he married. 

Clever, poignant and moving The Other Place is solid satisfying theatre!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - The Dead Ones

The Dead Ones

Written & Performed by Margie Fischer

Directed by Katherine Fitzgerald

Designer Kathryn Sproul

The Dead Ones is a moving work about sorting the goods, chattels and memories of deceased parents. It is about what to keep, and what to dispose of, and how.  In a way it is the reconciling of a daughter with the memory of her childhood, youth, history and strong, hardworking and determined Jewish parents and paternal grandparents.  It is a solitary journey by an only child, due to the premature loss of her brother from a rare illness in his early twenties.  Therefore the volatilities that could be experienced in the sharing of the responsibility of this task with siblings are absent.  As a raw work that touches on tender feelings and vulnerabilities that are exposed by grief and intimacy it is a courageous gift from Margie Fischer - writer and performer - to her audience

The Dead Ones is a statement of experience and not a complex exploration of ambivalence or the illogical paradoxes imbedded in filial relationships.  It is open to interpretation and available as a yardstick by which one can measure one’s own experience.

Both of Margie Fischer’s parents died suddenly, so there was no long protracted suffering or indeed opportunities for nurturing palliative care with its potential for profound intimacy, healing reconciliations and outpourings of grief.  

The work is measured and virtually delivered as a eulogy with revealing photographs.  Although directed by Katherine Fitzgerald, her input would appear to be of refinement and consolidation rather than interpretation.  As a simple and sincere presentation, not adorned or embellished it could, to some, not really be perceived as theatre.

It is an absorbing experience like having a short holiday in another family’s home.  

For this reviewer it was an enriching and enlightening experience that differs greatly from my own experience of grief and passing of ‘love ones’.  I found it to be deeply moving, thought provoking and cathartic and am very glad I had the opportunity to see it.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Don't ask me why this spacing wants to be so crazy.  I 

don't actually know what to do to fix it so will leave it for now.

This was such an interesting show that provoked heaps of discussion.  For me it highlighted and brought up questions about the public and private, obviously dealing with grief, thoughts about why people collect and hoard and particularly dealing with personal issues on ones own - an aloneness ......