Review - Born Yesterday

Melbourne Theatre Company Presents

Born Yesterday

By Garson Kanin

Directed by Dean Bryant

Cast

Mrs Hedges/Helen/Manicurist – Heidi Arena

Ed Devery – Tyler Coppin

Harry Brock – Russell Dykstra

Eddie Brock – Chris Fortuna

Bellhop/Bootblack/Waite – Josh Gates

Senator Norval Hedges/Assistant Manager/ Barber – Richard Piper

Billie Dawn – Christie Whelan Browne
Paul Verrall - Joel Jackson

Set and Costume Designer – Dale Ferguson

Lighting Designer - Matt Scott

Composer and Sound Designer – Mathew Frank

Southbank Theatre – The Sumner

14 January – 25 February  2017

Richard Piper, Tyler Coppin, Heidi Arena, Chris Fortuna
and Christine Whelan Browne - Photo Jeff Busby

Usually, now days, when a classic play is revived by a main-stage Theatre Company, one anticipates a complete and radical reworking or a rather facile museum piece.   Of this, the first production of the year from MTC - Born Yesterday, a play from 1946, neither can be said.  With the wackiest and most invigorating curtain call this captivating production feels very modern, relevant, relatable to and thought provoking.

This could be due to our continued obsession with gangsters and shows like The Sopranos.  In the program Director Dean Bryant suggests it is due to our current political milieu.   For me, and possibly other Rake fans, the casting of Russell Dykstra as Harry Brock is a significant plus.  Brock is the demanding ‘nouveau riche’ bully at the centre of the story.   Dykstra is one of those actors able to find a place in the audience’s heart even when he is playing a totally unpleasant and reprehensible fellow.   If this particular character is not actually a murdering gangster he is doubtless, at the very least, a controlling crooked thug.  Dykstra still elicits sympathy for Brock in his portrayal of this complex well-drawn individual.

Russell Dykstra and Christie Whelan Browne - Photo Jeff Busby

Christie Whelan Browne is a superb choice for the role of Bilie Dawn - the simple retired showgirl and longsuffering girlfriend of Brock.   In this she has sold herself short due to naivety and a complete lack of education.  Browne moves across the stage in such an interesting way, expressing her characters physical tensions and ticks and yet, also at times, she is lithe and winsome. Her acting and physicality is well matched by Joel Jackson who plays Paul Verrall the ‘boy next door’ character employed to educate her.  When Browne expresses her character’s attraction to Jackson’s character her flowing extended movements are almost danced and delightful to watch.

Costuming is lovely and its colours work stunningly with the amazing set of white and hues of blues and greens (both designed by Dale Ferguson).  This set is of such grand proportions that it boasts glorious full staircase.  Lighting (Matt Scott) makes some marvelous changes to colour and ambiance.

Joel Jackson and Russell Dykstra - Photo Jeff Busby

This amazing environment and the very solid acting of all supporting cast creates a delightfully convincing work to support the character journey and evolution of Billie Dawn.

Tyler Coppin fits the shoes of Ed Devery, Harry Brock’s legal advisor who has become totally dependent on alcohol.  One can only imagine the gravity of the situation he finds himself in - working for a person who will never take no for an answer.  Through Coppin we witness Devery’s vulnerability.

Chris Fortuna plays a little ferret like character who moves around relentlessly doing his brother’s bidding.

Heidi Arena, who plays Mrs Norval Hedges and the Hotel Manicurist, also plays high-energy maid Helen.  

Richard Piper plays Senator Norval Hedges very convincingly as a typically -  smarmy, weak, self-serving and dishonest politician.

Generally music is only incorporated when actually being turned on by a character in situ.  It is really refreshing not to have pivotal moments underscored by a Sound Designer (Matt Scott) and to just be listening to voices, the words and conversation.

Joel Jackson and Christie Whelan Browne

Overall Born Yesterday is a bit of a Cinderella story but it also talks about deception and betrayal and how relationships can get messy.  At the same time it highlights how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and how an intelligent mind can be very sexy.  It is intrinsically feminist and measures up very well for a contemporary audience.

Truly a most enjoyable and entertaining night out.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

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)

Review - Macdeth

Arts Centre Melbourne presents Company 13’s

MACDETH

Devised by: Fiona Roake, Christain Bagin, John Forman, Vanessa Chapple and Aurora Kurth

Directed by James Pratt

Performed by:  Fiona Roake, Christain Bagin, John Foremen and Aurora Kurth

Fairfax Studio 19 – 21 January 2017

11am and 2pm

With heaps of age appropriate fart jokes, Macdeth, is an excellent, often very funny, physical theatre romp in a Theatre in Education style.   It is a Drama/English Teacher’s ‘God send’ - a wonderful show to introduce young people to Shakespeare’s revered play Macbeth. 

It is the perfect ticket for children of eight and older to start their journey of getting to know this classics.   The Arts Centre have perfectly programmed it for this week, just as we are getting to the end of the holidays and kids are starting to get bored and needing something challenging to think about.

The actors/devisors work as a stunningly ‘well oiled’ ensemble using percussion to underscore and create atmosphere.  They are fabulously versatile, have great physical skills and work pretty much in a ‘gender blind’ way.

Macdeth opens with King Duncan entering with an entourage and addressing the audience using a comic vocal echo that he milks to the hilt. 

Most of the story is told in the comfortable 70mins.  Of course it is heavily abbreviated but several of the most notable monologues are pretty much there or partially there; like Macbeth’s ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ soliloquy and Lady Macbeth’s ‘Out, dammed spot!’ speech.

So much of this work is memorable because of the witty energetic, beautifully timed way it is presented.  Banquo’s ghost is a hysterical figure in a sheet.  The witches dissect a cat rather than stir a cauldron.  There is blood and guts aplenty - created through mime and acutely imagined by performers and the youthful audiences.

The marvelously equipped lighting rig and presumably lighting technician of the Fairfax really assists with the quick changes.

As an adult who has seen Macbeth a good number of times I found this work enlightening.  It is amazing how one always finds something new every time one approaches a Shakespeare.  This time, amongst other things, I was left thinking that perhaps Lady Macbeth displayed bipolar symptoms.

Listening to families in the audience the work was generating heaps of discussion between parents and children.

This show is totally worth catching, really educational but fun.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

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)