Review - Everyman and the Pole Dancers

Every Man and the Pole Dancers

Final episode of an impossible theatrical soap opera – in four quarters

By Lech Mackiewicz

Produced by Auto Da Fe Theatre

Everyman – Maude Davey, The Grandmother – Jane Bayly, The Grandfather – Matthew Crosby, The Mother - Kathleen Doyle, The Father - Kazuto Shimamoto, The Daughter - Keina, Denda, The Son – Reece Vella, Director – Lech Mackiewicz, Coproducer – Matt Crosby, Visual installation artist – Naomi Ota, Composer – Noriko Tadano, Lighting Designer – Shane Grant

Mechanics Institute - Sydney Road Brunswick till 11 October 2014

Everyman and the Pole Dancers is a mischievous destabilizing Absurdist romp presented by a wonderful diverse and intriguing cast who are obviously having fun with the anarchistic text by Lech Mackiewicz. 

Daughter - Keina Denda  Photo  - Oscar Socias

The actors perform the serious material with unwavering commitment.  Mackiewicz as director must have a sense of humor that verges on the ridiculous to so successfully work with this gloriously eclectic troupe.  The result is a bit of a hologram bemusing yet satisfying.  

Maude Davey knits the whole together with a cigar-smoking Everyman.  She opens the show advising that the world is coming to an end. 

Chaotic and wildly funny at times it is a work that could have you dreaming crazy dreams for nights afterwards.  With marvelous and strange musical backing from Noriko Tadano playing the Shamisen one is entranced by six eccentric characters living their tacitly described last days in their ‘soap opera’ lives.  All in all this production has the strange capacity to touch ones psyche on a subliminal level.

Maude Davey as Everyman  Photo - Oscar Socias

The Grandparents who live chained to a street pole refuse to be rehoused in a retirement village.  This lack of compliance causes serious consternation.   The Mother (Kathleen Doyle) vehemently expresses her own fanatical truth that she is really a gay man. Generally all characters seem to lack significant agency, however, faced with pending doom all have a story to tell.  These solo pieces are like some sort of crazy post apocalypse Buddhist treaties that express importance of living in the moment to properly experience the value of life.  Some of the moments are riddled with loathing and conflict but what emerges from the whole is a heightened sense of humanity.

Davey also plays a number of subsidiary characters including a priest a prostitute and a psychiatrist.  Her easy relationship to her audience, whilst she flamboyantly performs, invests the work with the energy of engagement - to just the right measure.  Her capacity to present sexual antics on stage in a ‘sexy’ yet strangely neutral way adds a striking dimension of irony.

Noriko Tadano, Jane Bayly, Matt Crosby
Photo - Oscar Socias

Matt Crosby creates a perfect strange and unusual Grandfather and he uses his considerable vocal and physical skills to meet the Absurdist text with the crazy style required. 

There is a sense that Davey and Crosby lead the rest of the cast with supportive generosity.

Kazuto Shimamoto as the Father has a lovely warm sincere presence and is a delight to watch and listen to even though his characters monologue is riddled with torture and distress.  His Son as played by Reece Vella is lively and eager to please.  Jane Bayly embodies a dour self-contained Grandmother.   Kiena Denda’s Daughter is a stunning presence on stage.

Daughter - Kiena Denda Photo - Oscar Socias

With something of the Theatre of the 70 and 80s about it and truly rich with a Brectian staging (Naomi Ota – Visual Installation Artist) and hints of Artaudian madness and the relentlessness of Grotowski - Everyman and the Pole Dancers is surely the most baffling and rewarding offering in this years Fringe?

And it is not over yet – closing on the 11^th of October in Melbourne and due to open in another incarnation in Japan in the not to distant future.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Marlin

Marlin

By Damien Millar

Presented by Arena Theatre Company and

Melbourne Theatre Company

Director – Christian Leavesley, Designer – Marg Horwell, Lighting Designer – Rachel Burke,

Sound Designer Jethro Woodward, Composer – Wang-Zheng Ting, Puppetry - Rob Matson

The Lawler

September 25 to 11 October - $25 a ticket

Very much like a handsomely presented picture book, Marlin is a series of stunning images that come to life on stage through the stylish design of Marg Horwell.  It is the story of a Grandfather and Granddaughter working together to save the life of a Marlin and navigate the difficulties and dangers they encounter at sea in a small boat.

Christopher Bunsworth plays Thomas Grogan a great crusty, old, sometimes a bit cantankerous Grandfather and Ashlea Pyke his lively Granddaughter Billy.  Their relationship is not idealized but quirky and real and both fragile and strong.  Jacob Williams is the puppeteer he also plays a benevolent ghostly presence and an eccentric nun to great effect.

The Marlin puppet itself is glistens with life (Rob Matson).

Humour abounds - the kind of humour that kids like.   Ashlea Pyke as Billy is particularly cheeky and wacky at times and convincingly young.  In this intense and riveting hour of entertainment there is also suspense and danger and heaps and heaps of foam.

Marlin is superbly lit by Rachel Burke and underscored with music composed by Wang-Zheng Ting that is moving and directly affirming of the emotional content and poetic form of the whole.

The subject matter undoubtedly surrounds grief and loss – so kids recently bereaved could probably do with a little guidance and the opportunity to debrief after seeing this excellent work.

Top Notch Theatre for Kids!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Waking Up Dead

Waking Up Dead

By Trudy Hellier

Directed by Susie Dee

Performed by Caroline Lee

At fortyfive downstairs

4 to 14 September

Waking Up Dead is an exploration of the toxic effect of grief mixed with betrayal.  It is about a woman who discovers, in the wake of her husband’s murder, the life she has been living is not the construction she has invested in.

How deeply and satisfactorily one responds to this play will be individual it is an organic work that has been launched with integrity but three consummate talented women for a thinking audience.  My response is mixed.

There is a real courage involved in exploring and teasing out the events of our communal experience of shocking scenarios such as the murder of Herman Rockefeller a Melbourne millionaire who was living a double life.  With short gaps of time from the experience to the representation on stage the exploration can be very raw and risky compared to the more prescribed examination of something that is more fully resolved and framed in narrative by ‘the fullness of time.’

Trudy Hellier a successful actor has turned her hand to writing and she obviously has significant talent.  This is particularly evident in the early text of Waking Up Dead where the grieving widow (Caroline Lee) literally illustrates the era of her young life around the time she met her late husband.  There is a delightful poetic nature to the writing and performing of the early part of the work that doesn’t seem to be there towards the end as things flail and the protagonist’s perceptions and life fall apart. 

Suzie Dee’s staging is inspired and as director she appears to have set a strong framework that is perhaps clearer to the performer than the audience.  Sound bites (Ian Moorhead) are ambiguous and exactly where this woman is and whom she is talking to is hazy, it could be to the audience, it could be to the police it could be to herself, or perhaps it is all three?  

Caroline Lee is a consummate actor who embodies the characters she plays with convincing fineness.  She allows us into the crushed world of a woman who has lost herself, a woman humbled and reduced by the humiliation of betrayal and shattered by shock.  It would be very difficult not to be convinced by Lee’s poignant depiction of the characters melt down and fragile sensibilities.

However in examining the detrition of the surviving partner, in this generic story, I am not sure the work explores or even really touches on what we are most interested in.  I think it is actually the sensational that draws us to these stories not the fragmentation of a person who has been deceived through an amazing capacity for denial.  And yet self-denial is surely a universal characteristic and should therefore be an excellent subject for Theatre.

As a description and embodiment of a melt down it is perceptive, sad and fascinating.

On the whole something has not quite jelled – yet – or didn’t jell for me on opening night.  This work has left me questioning - floundering a little - though that may well be its intent.

Beautiful acting and clever direction and an extremely interesting story all come together strongly – but do they hit the mark?

See what you think!

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - The Harbinger

The Harbinger

Written and Directed by David Morton and Matthew Ryan, Puppetry and Stage Designer – David Morton, Lighting Designer – Whitney Eglinton, Sound Designer - Tone Black Productions, Costume Designer – Noni Harrison.

Performed by Kathleen Ion, Barb Lowing, Emily Burton, Anna Straker and Giema Contini.

This exceptional work is basically a delightful telling of a Fairy Tale for adults.  Rural towns in Victoria are very privileged to have the opportunity of such a magical evening of entertainment it is not to be missed if you get the chance. 

Set in a conventional theatre space that is the apartment of a very old man (large puppet operated by three puppeteers).  He is totally immersed in completing his life’s work, an act of love.  A young girl enters his apartment escaping from the hostile world outside.  What ensues is the unfolding of a story that is captivating, most particularly, because of the way it is presented by puppeteers who work with deft skill and exquisite deference to their puppets.  All design elements come together to form a crisply presented extremely well crafted whole.

On the night that I saw this work at Gas Works the audience was silent and entranced through out and the foyer was abuzz with charmed and satisfied patrons at the end of the performance.

Don’t miss it if it is coming to an Arts Centre near you and be grateful for an astute Arts Officer if your Council is bringing in this magical, moving night of Theatre.

Suzanne Sandow (For Stage Whispers)


9 September 2014, West Gippsland Arts Centre


11 September 2014, Colac Otway Performing Arts Centre


13 September 2014, Hawthorn Arts Centre


16 September 2014, Plenty Ranges Arts Centre


20 September 2014, Healesville Memorial Hall


23 September 2014, Forge Theatre and Arts


24 September 2014, John Leslie Theatre, Sale


25-26 September 2014, Darebin Arts and Entertainment Centre


1-4 October 2014, Street Theatre, Canberra


7 October 2014, Australian Theatre for Young People


9-10 October 2014, Gold Coast Arts Centre