Review - The Trouble With Harry

The Trouble With Harry

By Lachlan Philpott

MKA; Theatre of New Writing and Darebin Arts Speakeasy in Association with Melbourne Festival

Director – Alyson Campbell

Producer – John Kachoyan

Woman - Emma Palmer

Man - Dion Mills

Annie Birkett – Caroline Lee

Harry Birkett – Daniel Last

Harry Crawford Maude Davey

Josephine Falleni – Elizabeth Nabben

Setting and Costuming – Eugyeene The, Lighting  - Rob Sowinski, Sound/Composition – Chris Wenn, Choreographer – Georgia Taylor

MKA’s rise in the Melbourne Theatre scene has been meteoric.  Over the period of the past three or so years they have produced much interesting, stimulating and refreshing Theatre.  This is no exception and a fine achievement.

The Trouble with Harry explores the scandalous subject matter surrounding the transgender life of Eugenia Falleni, who lived as Harry Crawford. Her story was brought to the public eye through a salacious murder case in 1920.

Maude Davey as Harry and Caroline Lee as Annie
Photo - Sarah Walker

The production pivots around Harry (Maude Davey) and his acquired and biological family.  There is an easy physicality between Harry and Annie Burkett played with all the respectability of the era by Caroline Lee.  It is fascinating enough watching two actors of this caliber navigating the truth of the scenario.  Female to male ‘drag’ without parody and exaggeration is a very tricky thing that is pulled off so intriguingly by Davey.

Burkett has a son Harry Burkett who is delightfully embodied by Daniel Last.  This little family’s world becomes shaky and vulnerable with the introduction of Harry’s biological daughter Josephine Falleni (Elizabeth Nabben). 

Caroline Lee as Annie and Daniel Last as Harry
Photo - Sarah Walker

It is a complex poetic text that incorporates two narrators or chorus, Woman – Emma Palmer and Man - Dion Mills.  These two deal in contemporary mores with an unsettling and aggressive approach.  It would be very interested to see what would happen if the chorus had the sensibilities of the 1920s.   Emma Palmer also doubles as a nosey neighbour of the Crawford family a brazen and unkind character.

The Northcote Town Hall has been ‘Immaculately Restored’ and is visually beautiful and, pretty much, era appropriate to the story.

Earphones are distributed to all as a way to contend with the difficult acoustics of the cavernous space of the Town Hall.   Through this, I imagine, performances are evened out vocally.   The narration is bold and brassy by contrast the characterization of Harry and his family is acute and sincere.

There is an unevenness of acting styles that may well be a directorial choice by Alyson Campbell.  Although Elizabeth Nabben as Harry’s volatile and boisterous daughter Josephine Falleni is able to straddle the divide.  She is loud and brash but also able to elicit sympathy through her disappointing rough and ready sexual liaison with a sideshow worker.  With this some insight is given into how the young Harry Crawford may have been.  Nabben delivers a sparkling performance.  

Elizabeth Nabben as Josephine Falleni
Photo - Sarah Walker

Eugyeene Teh design is edgy and the use of metal frames on wheels allows for quick useful space changes and constant fluid delivery of the text is inspired.  She also dresses Eugenia Falleni exquisitely.

There is a bit of unnecessary repetition in the mostly masterful writing (Lachlan Philpott).  Not all the vignettes ring true and there are jarring and uncomfortable moments smattered throughout out that don’t seem purposeful – or where the actors have not yet wholly connected with the text.

However over all this is a rich and entertaining offering that will doubtless grow over the next couple of weeks.  It would be a pity to miss this challenging lively totally home-grown work.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Wispers)

Review - My Lovers' Bones

My Lovers’ Bones

Brown Cab Productions

Melbourne Festival

From a story by Cameron Costello

Margaret Harvey – Director/ Performer/Devisor

Kirk Page – Performer/Devisor

Alison Ross – Production Designer/Devisor

Anna Liebzeit - Composer/Sound Design

Lisa Mibus – Lighting Designer/Devisor

Alexandra Harrison – Choreography/Devisor

Ainsley Kerr – Video Design/Devisor

Footscray Community Arts Centre – 45 Moreland Street Footscray

14 – 18 October

My Lover’s Bones is a contemporary interpretation of a very old story of an Aboriginal youth trapped by his own sorry misadventure.  It is a haunting tale of a young hunter leaving the comfortable intimacy of his lover’s embrace when lured by the call of the hunt.   

 

Kirk Page by Deryk McAlpin

As a darkly fascinating reinterpretation of a retelling of a Bunyip story, by Cameron Costello a Ouandamooka man, it reverberates with the mystery of an absorbing multi-layered tale, mesmerizing, dark and rewarding.  

Throughout is an ominous sense that something is dreadfully wrong – a pervading sense of evil.   This, along with an ambiguity in some of the imagery, satisfyingly, allows for an individual interpretation.

A very skilled group or artisans have collaborated to craft this work with Production Design attributed to Alison Ross.  Much of its magic is generated through various forms of media overlapping and enriching each-other.  Projected visuals (Ainsley Kerr) are many and varied and often disjointed.  They are at times bemusing such as small projections on the body.  The use of electronic sound (Anna Liebzeit) to convincingly portray vast natural landscapes is inspired and otherworldly when permeated with the sound of a human voice.  Light (Lisa Mibus) is used to enhance, craft, express distress and create tension.  The set design is versatile though a little crowded together somehow, perhaps with a view to leaving space for the performers.

Clearly displayed is the physical skill of Dancer Kirk Page and the beautiful subtleties of emotion and feeling that he is able to express with sometimes very small movements of groups of isolated muscles.  Much of the Choreography (Alexandra Harrison) is restrained and understated often exuding with an earthy feel.

Bewitching, mysterious and mesmerizing.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

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)