Review - Rhonda is in Therapy

Rhonda is in Therapy

By Bridgette Burton

Produced by Hoy Polly and Baggage Productions

Directed by Wayne Pearn, Dramaturge – Julian Meyrick, Set and costume design – Kat Chan

Lighting design – Richard Vabre, Sound design – Tim Bright, Stage Manager – Lindon Blakey

Rhonda – Louise Crawford, Lief – Ben Grant, The student – Jamieson Caldwell, The therapist – Kelly Nash  

45 Downstairs - 7 to 23 September

  

Rhonda is in Therapy is a lively, insightful and satisfying play about the lengths gone to, by a young wife and mother, to remain in the limbo of denial, after experiencing a life-changing trauma that places her in the face of overwhelming grief.

It explores the cracked reality of Rhonda, a teaching professor of Chemical Engineering.  We watch her deal with her grief inspired, outrageous sexually exploitative behavior - through Therapy.  This challenging behavior is enacted as it is discussed to hilarious affect at times.

A multi layered work it is framed as a progressive and successful journey through Therapy - from piquant self-delusion to the contrasting self-empowering, yet somewhat dreary, acceptance of day-to-day reality.  And as such, is cleverly and skillfully penned, with a number of surprising and fascinating reveals.

Writer Bridgette Burton displays quite some insight. There is a wicked sense, in this work, that although socially inconvenient and often personally destructive - extravagant dissociative delusions can have a fabulous exciting and invigorating edge.

Almost everything about this production is outstanding even the very trite title ‘Rhonda is in Therapy’ is actually perfect.  The Direction by Wayne Pearn seamlessly incorporates some disjointed and abstract scenes with competence and grace, smoothly welding the whole together.  Sound by Tim Bright is used to signal (psychological) atmosphere to good effect.

Pearn truly brings out the best in his actors.  As Lief, Rhonda’s longsuffering husband, a generous kind man with a grounded sense of self, Ben Grant is just right physically.  He clearly expresses all the love, perseverance and dedication required to make perfect sense of this role.  Jamison Caldwell plays the student as sensitive and caring - irresistible ‘eye candy’.  And as the therapist Kelly Nash very naturally conveys a perceptive clinical interest in her patient and cleverly transmits the intense and slightly sickening atmosphere of the Psychiatrists Consulting Room.  Louise Crawford just shines as Rhonda.

If I were rating this production it would get four and a half out of five stars.  And where did that half a star go?  Well, it is actually a little too long, the last fifteen or so minutes drag a little.  And then there is what seemed to be an irrelevant red herring of the name of Rhonda’s lover being the same as that as one of her children.  Maybe this idea has a basis in some interesting psychoanalytic theory but just feels awkward and unnecessary in the context of the story.  For me these small issues pale into insignificance in light of a very entertaining and satisfying whole. 

Really Good Theatre!

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - RRAMP

RRAMP

The Collector, the Archivist and the Electrocrat

Arts House

North Melbourne Town Hall

5 – 8 September

Devised and Performed by Christine Johnston, Lisa O'Neill, Peter Nelson, Animation - Ahmarnya Price, Video Production – Jen Jackson, Costume Design and Construction – Selene Cochrane, Lighting Design – David Walters, Production Stage Manager – Leila Maruan.

Put simply, RRAMP is a beautifully produced quirky, eccentric collection of animated (Ahmarnya Price) love stories, mostly about life in the hen house. These are seamlessly presented by The ‘extraordinary’ Collector (Christine Johnston) with the assistance of her, longsuffering, ‘tenants’ the dancing Archivist (Lisa O’Neil) and musician Electrocrat (Peter Nelson). 

This sophistically costumed (Selene Cochrane), formidable talented ensemble entrance as they bemuse with song, dance and story. 

The disturbing issues of hording - at the core of RRAMP, though only really touched upon, provoke thought and leave a residue of intrigue.  In searching for meaning with regard to this motif there is, amongst other things, a suggestion that hoarding has vicariousness at its heart.

Many will recognize Christine Johnston as the easily lead and rather fragile Kransky Sister, Eve.  In RRAMP her ‘over the top’ character, reminiscent of Morticia from ‘The Addams Family’, of The Collector allows her to explore and thoroughly entertain as a bemusing and controlling spinster of a darker more creepy nature.

Musically the work is very satisfying and the lovely, cleverly integrated dancing by Lisa O’Neil is delightful. 

We are so fortunate, that currently, this type of vital and inspiring alternative work is being developed, supported and brought to us by our arts bodies.  And for our part - we should endeavor not to miss any of it!

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - Sayonara

Sayonara: Android-Human Theatre,

Presented by Arts Centre Melbourne

Produced by Osaka University, ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory, Agora Planning LTD, Seinendan Theatre Company

Fairfax

6.30pm August 24

2pm and 5pm August 25

This hour long performance and discussion is something I will never forget. Sayonara is a fascinating cultural exchange and perplexing investigation of the potential of robot androids.  And for this Melbourne can be very thankful to the Kenneth Myer Theatre Endowment Fund.

It has to be said that Sayonara is not great theatre.  It is not actually designed to ‘move the audience’ as pointed out by Writer Director Oriza Hirata in the program.   The first scene is of a young woman who is terminally ill interacting with an Android (Geminoid) that/who is comforting her with the recitation of poetry.  The atmosphere is of intimacy and the environment could be a therapist’s consulting room.  Unfortunately the actor (Bryerly Long) is difficult to see and hard to hear due to the way she is positioned in relation to the robot.  (I don’t think I have ever experiences such a silent auditorium.)

There is a second scene where a young man (Tadashi Kaizu) discusses with the robot the intention to send her into a contaminated area. I assume to work with living people who have become untouchable.  Then he picks up the Android and there can be no doubt that she/it is an object and not a person.

What follows is a discussion mediated by Marita Cheng with the Writer Director Oriza Hirata and Technical Advisor Hiroshi Ishiguro.

All in all, this - event was little confusing, a lot disconcerting and not very respectful of actors, but, extremely interesting and challenging!

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - Blue Room

The Blue Room

Produced by Five Pound Theatre

The Owl and the Pussycat

Swan Street Richmond

Directed by Jason Cavanagh and Performed by Kaitlyn Clare and Zac Zavod.

7 to 18 August

When the show I went to see (last Thursday the 9^th) finished the woman sitting next to me jumped up and said I loved that that was great.  And it was an entertaining and enjoyable and engaging performance. 

This production is a lot of fun because Director Jason Cavanagh has dealt it a really light touch.  The actor’s Kaitlyn Clare and Zac Zavod both appear to be reveling in the work and the audience engaging in a relaxed manner and laughing naturally from time to time. 

The Blue Room is an updated version of Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde that was first published in around 1900.  In its original form it was a fascinating document of socio-sexual mores, a daisy-chain of intimate, mostly illicit, relationships.  In this more recent incarnation David Hare has made changes to the characters to update it for our times.  The Soldier is now a Taxi Driver, the Parlor Maid an Au Pair and the Little Miss has become a seventeen-year-old Model.  And the other striking difference is that the social values have changed, ‘mercifully’, through the integrating of feminist ideas.

From my experience of having played the Young Wife (many years ago) her particular scenes have hardly been changed but her character, in this contemporary version of the story, is less disreputable with the shift over time of our (for want of a better way to put it) moral expectations.  And Kaitlyn Clare interprets the characters point of view poignantly.

The small shop front space of the Owl and the Pussycat is used to full advantage in the staging.  The actors take off and put on clothes a number to times both for scene changes and as part of the play.  The relaxed, matter of fact way, this is done enhances the sense of intimacy and engagement.  Clare is a very beautifully proportioned young woman and her capacity to embody a number of characters distinctly and convincingly - is striking. 

Zac Zavod works well to play his five varied characters.  However I wonder if he is not severely limited by having a moustache.  This is the second time in the last few months that I have seen a male actor with distinctive facial hair play a number of characters and on both occasions I felt their whiskers were restricting and limiting them.

5Poud Theatre has been putting on some very good shoe-string theatre.  Most recently I was lucky enough to catch Ruby Moon at the Own and Pussycat and was particularly impressed with the production values and the very high calibre of the acting.

Solid and impressive work.

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - Lipsynch

Lipsynch

Presented by Arts Centre Melbourne

Directed by Robert Lepage

Produced by Ex Mancina (Canada)

& Theatre Sans Frontieres (UK)

Authors, Performers and Designers:

Performed by; Frederike Bedard, Carlos Belda, Rebecca Blankenship, Lise Castonguay, John Cobb, Nuria Garcia, Marie Gignac, Sarah Kemp, Rick Miller, Hans Piesbergen.

Lighting Designer- Etienne Boucher, Sound – Jean-Sebastien Cote, Costume Designer – Yasmina Giguere, Set Designer – Jean Hazel, Props Designer – Virginie Leclerc.

State Theatre 4 – 12 August

Saturdays and Sundays 1pm to approximately 10pm

This unique adventure, of ‘a grand theatre marathon,’ with its rich gratifying sense of humanity and its haunting imagery, is certainly well worth taking.  Bring or buy snacks and heaps of water, dress lightly for comfort, and leave cumbersome coats in the cloakroom.  Then prepare to be amazed by how many varied aspects of human experience can be realized by only nine versatile actors.

Robert Lepage and his energetic company have created a delightful, engaging and often surprising narrative of today’s modern world in which the lives of nine, featured characters intertwine.  Simply lit (Etienne Boucher) with a beautiful and sometimes magical design (Jean Hazel) of movable interchangeable and projected sets it often seems like watching a film or television show with live performers.  At the same time there is a sense that the actors’ work is being framed in live sets that have quirks of their own.

Amazingly this is not only theatre for the initiated, but, an extremely accessible, beautifully honed work that offers comfortable and easy inroads to poignant, lived experience. Although some of the storylines involve distressing subject matter and many situations spring from dire need, everything moves forward with a sense of inevitability – like life really.

Yes it sounds like a cliché but Lipsynch reminds us that we all experience amazing, surprising and disturbing events, coming out of the blue, to seemingly challenge us.  And through example it shows us that we can find a ways through difficulties both real and imagined.  Truthfully – if there is fault to be found perhaps it is that Lipsynch, framed by Symphony #3 by Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, is clichéd at times.  But, it doesn’t promise not to be, and if anything, this renders it all the more affecting and easy to relate to.

Siting for a whole day in amongst a large audience being offered the cathartic affect of actors on the stage, in real time, exploring complex emotional experiences there is an experiential reward much like that of going to a wedding or a wake.

Go and take someone with you even if they are kicking and screaming to stay home.  And with any luck, like returning from a good holiday you will be rewarded by feeling refreshed and elated as I, and others I spoke to, did.

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - Hell House

Hell House

Arts House – Meat Market

3–5 July

Presented by Arts House and Back to Back Theatre

Director - Bruce Gladwin, Designers  - Mark Cuthbertson and Emily Barry, Sound Designer - David Franzke, Lighting Designer - Jennifer Hector, Costumes - Emily Barry, Artistic Associate - Marcia Ferguson, Production Management – Bluebottle.

If you are interested in theatre that provokes debate don’t miss Hell House and subsequent Forum – if you can get to get to the Meat Market in North Melbourne today. It will be discussed for months and judging by the Provocation Forum (Friday evening), the ideas examined, will germinate awareness, considerations and questions about both organised religion and theatre – that will be influential.

Presented by a huge cast made up of professional actors from Back and Back, and fifty or so volunteers, as far as installations go it is effective and has the potential to deeply disturb, depending on the position one takes as viewer.  Amazingly it is a prescribed copy of a serious modern day morality play staged yearly in the Bible belt in the USA!

The audience sets off in large groups following a ‘Devil’ tour leader. The journey, through ‘hell’ is a bit like a ghost train particularly towards the end were the imperative builds towards heaven and is released in the barn were sugary rewards of cordial and lamingtons are offered with songs of love and community from an earnest gospel band. Each group of four tours is followed by a Forum exploring aspects of the work.

The whole is full of horror, death and dying and features the marginalized as victims of their own sin.  No matter how one approaches stock standard demonization, this production and forum demonstrate, that, the tacit acceptance of medieval concepts of heaven and hell mask toxicity, cruel exploitation and very real lurking danger.

Suzanne Sandow

For Stage Whispers

Review - Blood Wedding

Blood Wedding

by Federico Garcia Lora

Adapted by Raimondo Cortese

Directed by Marion Potts

Set and Costume Design – The Sisters Hayes, Lighting Design – Paul Jackson, Composition – Tim Rogers, Assistant Director – Claudia Escobar

Performed by: Silvia Colloca, Nicole Da Silva, Irene Del Pilar Gomez, Ivan Donato, Mariola Fuentes, Ruth Sancho Huerga, Matias Steven, Greg Ulfan, David Valencia

Merlyn Theatre 21 July 19 August

Malthouse’s production of Lorca’s Blood Wedding sees language as no barrier to understanding a narrative of overwhelming desire and crushing grief, and potentially, injects heat and passion into the bleak, cold and wet Melbourne mid-winter.

In this contemporized, bi-lingual and ‘universal’ production the performances are strong and flowing.  However the bold staging on a vast desert like space, by director Marion Potts, and atmospheric lighting by Paul Jackson does not adequately support the actors, vocally or physically, to reach up into the large auditorium and move the audience through poetic emotion.  Nor is the small cast able to satisfactorily infer the largess of a huge wedding party or oppressive aspects of community as described and inferred by Lorca.  

This staging’s sense of arid space contradicts the claustrophobic lack of freedom that is at the core of the text.

The intense introductory scene, a duologue between mother (Mariola Fuentes) and her son (David Valencia) the bridegroom, is strong and elucidating and sets a high benchmark.  Both actors create a solid and convincing connection between their characters and clearly introduce the framing motif of violence. 

Throughout there can be no doubt that Fuentes’s mother is perpetually in pain due to the grief of losing a son to violence and therefore desperate to keep her last remaining child safe.  She plays an archetypal winging mother but vocally any rich timbre at her disposal is not projected to fill the space with nuance.   

The design by The Sisters Hayes incorporates intriguing ambiguous elements and motifs of extreme contrast, such as hot and cold.  They feature numerous fridges along the back of the set – establishing a reductive and basic environment suggesting domestic spaces and/or the kitchen of a huge reception a centre.  Stage right is placed a huge wall of symbolic crucifixes covered with what appears to be growing vines that later are transformed into something more disturbing and sinister. 

The wedding dress, beautifully worn by Nicole De Silva, is superb.  

Towards the end of the production as Spanish is flatly translated into English by a voice stripped of musicality.   This could be purposefully done to more vividly contrast the Spanish with the English but the result is dreary.  

Through working on two of Lorca’s plays The House of Bernarda Alba and Yerma I have felt Lorca to be a man pathologically at odds with societies constrictions. Interestingly, through the broadening perspective of this production, I realize the culture he wrote about had at its heart a perpetually brutalizing cycle of damage that he was hitting out against.

This is one of those occasions when reading the director’s notes after a performance goes a long way to validate and inform a production.  

Although, for me, all aspects of this production are not successfully integrated, it is doubtless, developing and consolidating as the actors become more at home in, and start to assertively fill, the Merlyn with passion and poetry.

Well worth seeing but try to sit as close to the actors as possible.

For Stage Whispers