Review - Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi

By Alfred Jarry

5pound theatre

Directed by Jason Cavanagh

Performers:

Nicholas Dubberly – Papa Ubu

Susannah Firth – Queen Rosamund/Ensemble

Any Jones – Mama Ubu

Colin Craig – Buggerlas/Ensemble

Anthony Okill – King Wenceslas/Ensemble

Andi Snelling – Captain Bordure/Ensemble

Designer – Mattea Davies

Sound Designer – Tim Wotherspoon

5pound theatre is offering the opportunity to view a classic we seldom get the chance to see.  As yet another adventurous gamble from this troupe, who never seem to ‘take themselves too seriously’ it is a raucous engaging messy romp. 

Adapted from an ancient work by Alfred Jarry Ubu Roi is an Absurdist piece that lends itself to Theatre of Cruelty.   Therefore - what a great choice to stage it on a set of mud in front of an evocative fading mural reminiscent of a cave paintings designed by Mattea Davies.

The story is commences with a spry, spunky and dogged Mama Ubu (Amy Jones) goading and convincing childish and suggestible Papa Ubu (Nicholas Dubberly) to kill the King and assume power with all its trappings. Not an unfamiliar story.  Subterranean carnage, driven by greed, lust and hunger for power and control, informs the action and narrative at every turn.  At times atmosphere is created by Tim Witherspoon’s sound design of dripping water in a cavernous space - redolent of a prehistoric environment.

Directed with a light and humorous touch by Jason Cavanagh Ubu Roi will incubate and grow over the next two weeks into something really worth catching.  The show not the mud – that is!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Domino

Domino

By Giuliano Ferla

Domino

By Giuliano Ferla

Presented by Attic Erratic

Director – Danny Delahunty

Set - Laura Harris

Performers

Alex Duncan – Prof

Joseph Green – Doc

Kane Felsinger – Skoll

Matt Hickey – Polly

Spencer Scholz - Gen

The Convent Abbotsford

18 to 29 June 2013

Well produced in a great found space at the lively hub of the Convent Abbotsford and playing to good size houses of interesting contemporary audiences Domino is a promising and challenging work that seems to just (frustratingly) miss the mark.

As a story it has the drive of an epic Myth or Fairy Tale.  However the work as a whole it is not clearly enough structured or delineated to make adequate sense for an audience who display their frustration by becoming restless in the last 20 to 15 minutes of the performance. 

At times the writing is startlingly satisfying then it falls.  This work requires more cohesion of concept through a deeper understanding by the Director and Actors of what the Writer is trying to say.  The Writer needs a more focused commitment to what he is trying to get at and some advice on editing.

When it works in the use of cut off words the text is exciting and inspiring however it is so uneven that as soon a one is swept away by how it operates bang – one is slapped back down to earth again with verbose banality.

A sort of fairy tale ambiguity is tendered by the set (Laura Harris). It could be and ‘men’s shed’ containing the shack from King Lear, a cubby house of a stable for a Nativity scene.  This liberally allows for a variety of interpretations. 

All five performers are strong and able, though there is some considerable vocal pushing - which infers a lack of confidence.   Although there are a number of startling moments of change and much rich characterization more directorial imput is required to refine and focus the work of the actors. 

The use of basic unpainted mod-rock masks smacks of the Drama classroom not a public performance.

Every aspect of this production is strong and and loaded with potential though it does not pull together into a coherent whole and ends up being less than the sum of its parts.  It is more like a work in progress than a fully realized production.  This suggests an inexperienced directorial eye (we all have to start somewhere).  To unlock this text productively it needs an experienced director/dramaturge to workshop with writer, director, dramaturge, and actors - to strip back the text and express the essence of the original idea with courage and aplomb.  

Well produced in a great found space at the lively hub of the Convent Abbotsford and playing to good size houses of interesting contemporary audiences Domino is a promising and challenging work that seems to just (frustratingly) miss the mark.

As a story it has the drive of an epic Myth or Fairy Tale.  However the work as a whole it is not clearly enough structured or delineated to make adequate sense for an audience who display their frustration by becoming restless in the last 20 to 15 minutes of the performance. 

At times the writing is startlingly satisfying then it falls.  This work requires more cohesion of concept through a deeper understanding by the Director and Actors of what the Writer is trying to say.  The Writer needs a more focused commitment to what he is trying to get at and some advice on editing.

When it works in the use of cut off words the text is exciting and inspiring however it is so uneven that as soon a one is swept away by how it operates bang – one is slapped back down to earth again with verbose banality.

A sort of fairy tale ambiguity is tendered by the set (Laura Harris). It could be and ‘men’s shed’ containing the shack from King Lear, a cubby house of a stable for a Nativity scene.  This liberally allows for a variety of interpretations. 

All five performers are strong and able, though there is some considerable vocal pushing - which infers a lack of confidence.   Although there are a number of startling moments of change and much rich characterization more directorial imput is required to refine and focus the work of the actors. 

The use of basic unpainted mod-rock masks smacks of the Drama classroom not a public performance.

Every aspect of this production is strong and and loaded with potential though it does not pull together into a coherent whole and ends up being less than the sum of its parts.  It is more like a work in progress than a fully realized production.  This suggests an inexperienced directorial eye (we all have to start somewhere).  To unlock this text productively it needs an experienced director/dramaturge to workshop with writer, director, dramaturge, and actors - to strip back the text and express the essence of the original idea with courage and aplomb.  

To present Domino convincingly the actors would need to undergo intense physical and vocal workshops to better equip them to credibly play humans in a post-apocalyptic age.

Challenging and valiant but naive work.

(For Stage Whispers – but unpublished)

Review - Story of O

Story of O

By THE RABBLE after Pauline Reage

Supported by NEON (Melbourne Theatre Company)

The Lawler Studio – Southbank

June 27 – July 7

Creators – Kate Davis and Emma Valente

Director – Emma Valente

Set & Costume Design – Date Davis

Cast

O – Mary Helen Sassman

Sir Stephen – Jane Montgomery Griffith

Rene  - Gary Abrahams

Jacqueline – Dana Miltins

Anne-Marie – Pier Carthew

Nathalie – Emily Milledge

Actors move around on a sparse stage, set with merry-go-round horses and sprinkled with sand that makes a crunching sound as it is walked on.  This modern reinterpretation, by The Rabble, of the original novel Story of O written by Pauline Reage (Anne Desclos) and published in 1954, is at times, an overwhelmingly visceral experience.

The masochism of being subjected to erotic/pornographic sex is explored from the female perspective.  Mary Helen Sassman plays O, a young woman with a healthy defiance, who throughout is symbolically violated with clinical objectivity - as though such exploits are an imperative and necessary evil.  The unquestioning compliance, with which, the-matter-of fact sex acts are perpetrated, by the other characters, is fascinating.  This disturbing malaise of neutrality allows, the viewer, space for contemplating meaning that is uncluttered by emotional connectivity. 

As O, Sassman tellingly and poignantly portrays the journey of a feisty and strong willed young woman being corroded by voluntary sexual exploitation/victimization.

Emily Milledge is beautifully cast as Nathalie an apparently unquestioning compliant and complicit child like assistant who’s participation in torturous activities implies the self perpetuating unquestioning and cyclic nature of the exploitation of the female body.

The character of Sir Stephen played by Jane Montgomery Griffiths establishes an unstable patriarchal focal point.  Griffith richly and disturbingly embodies this controlling and unlovely male character who initially lectures the audience on the semantics of erotica.

Story of O is a serious work and not for the faint hearted.  Acts of sex and violence such as penetration, restraint and whipping are robustly and graphically, albeit symbolically, enacted. 

Director Emma Valente courageously and rewardingly explores theories of erotica in relation to gender – fulfillment, satiation and annihilation.

It is an intense and rocky ride that has much to recommend it including a hilarious parody on the casting of a classic work that is concurrently running at Melbourne Theatre Company.

(For Stage Whispers) 

Review - 2 Short Russians

5pound theatre

Presents

2 SHORT RUSSIANS

Vodka, Fucking and Television

By Maksym Kurochkin

The Bear

By Anton Chekhov

Jason Cavanagh – Director/Designer

Jack Beeby – Hero/Luka

Clare Callow – Fucking

Susannah Firth – Vodka/Popova

Dmitri Pronin – Television/Smirnoff

The Bear is a beautifully crafted piece of writing and a lovely introduction to Chekhov as a writer of comedies.  This staging is just delightful with all three actors excelling.  What it may lack in precision is made up for with energy commitment and a very real grasp, and expression, of instinctive truth.

A couple of years ago I was sent to review a production of The Bear and was unable to complete the task as I found the whole way to serious and precious and possibly, on retrospect, slow and labored.  Not so this production it is fast and furious and hilarious.  Jack Beeby sets the scene with a youthful interpretation of a cynical aged manservant Luka with just a hint of clown.

Propova, a recently widowed woman of some property, is the type of role that Susannah Firth inhabits very satisfyingly on the surface whilst realizing the subtext with subtle nuance.  And Dmitri Pronin just is The Bear – no question.

Vodka, Fucking &Television is just as fascinating as it promises to be with staging that is nothing short of inspired.  As Hero Jack Beeby fights with his existential angst in trying to modify his life by eliminating one of his fabric of sustaining, yet at times debilitating, pleasures.   These addictive supports are portrayed as personas that ‘arc up against’ being rejected and fight for supremacy.  I do have a small ‘beef’ with this production, in that, to my sensibilities Lust is ill cast.  Clare Callow certainly interprets the character strongly and appropriately and is sexy, but her voluptuousness somehow defines her as a seductress of a much earlier era and thus dates a relatively contemporary work.  This is a tiny quibble in another great night at the Owl and Pussycat.

It is a rewarding pleasure to follow 5pounds’s offerings.

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - The Woman Tamer

Replay Presents

The Woman Tamer

By Louis Esson

Directed by Rob Reid

Cast

Tom Molyneux

Clara Pagone

Jack Beeby

Kate Brennan

Assistant Direction and Chorography Kate Brennan

The Owl and the Pussycat

21 – 25 May

Rob Reid is nothing if not courageous. So often one hears it said that real Art is born of taking risks.  Couched in ambiguity this fascinating production risks being rebuffed tor being obscure.

As an adapted version of a short insightful piece about Melbourne’s underworld by Louis Esson, written in 1910, it is like a puzzle and will be read by each audience member according to his or her knowledge, or lack of, about theatre, rehearsal techniques, old Australian vernacular and the works, life and times of Louis Esson.  It is reminiscent of his much longer work The Bride of Gospel Place - first performed in 1926.

This reviewer experienced The Woman Tamer as a rare confusing and provocative cerebral treat.  That is not to say, it is not a visceral experience because it is, most particularly in the repetitive dressing and undressing of Kate Brennan that infers unquestioning monotonous sexual compliance.

The Woman Tamer commences in the small foyer of The Owl and the Pussy Cat with the ukulele backed melodic harmonic singing of Clara Pegone and Jack Beeby then moves into the performance space. Thereafter Tom Molyneux and Chopsey the character he is playing becomes the main focus of attention.  The other three actors work strongly around, and in response, to him - portraying a number of characters using almost all the words of the original text. 

As actors, with the possible exception of Molyneux, none fully integrate their characters, but rather, in a Brechtian manner are both themselves and the characters they are interpreting.

The sum total reads as a sort of Abstract or sub-text and proffers a strange revelation - that could be interpreted as, displaying the troubled mechanics of the writers mind.  Though the Director’s program notes suggest that it is the mental health of the main protagonist Chopsey that is being explored in relation to his poor sense of his own masculinity.

This is one of those productions where you are at liberty to make up your own mind about what is going on.   But you will have to catch it first, in its very short run at the, public transport friendly, Owl and the Pussycat just opposite the Richmond Station in Swan Street.

(For Stage Whispers)