Review - True West

Mount Players Presents:

True West

By Sam Shepard

Directed by Travis Handcock

Set Design - Travis Handcock

Set Artist – Robert Wallace

Lighting Design – Roger Farley

Costumes - Debra Moore

Cast:

Lee – David Cubley

Austin – Lee Cook

Saul – David Runnalls

Mom – Sandy Green

Mountview Theatre Macedon

Until 11 June 2017

True West is a strong and interesting play by Sam Shepard.  It seems to be produced every now and again but not as often as Cowboy Mouth and not surprisingly as it is challenging for both actors and audience.

It is a courageous choice for Mount Players and its success it a testament to the especially strong ethic of team playing that this company thrives on.

Full of twists and turns True West surprises and shocks.  It touches on some mysterious, subterranean psychological motivations as it looks at the profoundly powerful sibling relationship/rivalry between two vastly different brothers, Lee (David Cubley) and Austin (Lee Cook).

It is dark, a very dark the story of a kind of a nightmare of interaction that can happen in the family home.  However at the same time it is almost hysterically funny especially in the second act.

This production is marvelously staged on a sort of framework/skeleton of a house, designed by Travis Handcock and heightened by one of Robert Wallace’s stunning backdrops indicative of the harsh desert environment.  Lighting (Design – Roger Farley and Operator – Roslyn Farrugia) is often used to considerable effect in creating atmosphere. 

Stage directions are honoured and the success of the second act’s deep dark humour is very dependent on this.

All actors work with integrity and commitment to their parts and the production as a whole.  And both leads do a stunning job in their own way.  However as a masterpiece of American Theatre the text is exceptionally demanding and requires a complex sense of communication between the two brothers. The drawback in this production, for me, is the casting.  Although both lead actors do a fantastic job of getting their characters over to the audience it is very, very difficult to see them as biological brothers.

It may just be my sensibility but these two need to be seen to affect each other or perhaps more importantly - actually listen to each other. Through their familial intimacy Shepard’s characters have the power to destroy each other.  The stakes are very high.  They are, fortunately, certainly not over acting but I think the piece requires a slightly more naturalistic approach.  Less acting and just a bit more naturalism could do the trick.

I would like David Cubley as Lee to take a couple of steps back, project less, and allow the audience to witness more of his thought processes.  In this way the dark insidious elements of the work could be seen to creep in and bring with them a more suspense filled atmosphere.

As audience I would like to register more shock and distress provoked by the uncanny, subtle changes throughout.

Director Travis Handcock has been very ambitious in this choice of work and it seems to be paying off.  Round the traps the word is out that this production is controversial and polarizing – some love it some hate it.  However it is getting the houses and is well worth catching if you can. 

True West is an engrossing story that offers heaps to think about.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Hello Dolly

The Production Company Presents

Hello Dolly

Book by Michael Stewart

Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman

Based on the play The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder

Directed by Garry Young

Musical Director - Vanessa Scammell

Choreographer - Kirsten King

Costume Designer - Isaac Lummis

Set Designer –Shaun Gurton

Lighting Designer - Nigel Levings

Sound Design – System Sound

Dolly Levi – Marina Prior

Ambrose Kemper – Jack Van Staveren

Horace Vandergelder – Grant Piro

Ermengarde – Baylie Carson

Cornelius Hackle – Glenn Hill

Barnaby Tucker – Nigel Huckle

Minnie Fay – Imogen Moore

Irene Malloy –Verity Hunt-Ballard

Rudolph Reisenweber – Mike Snell

Ernestina Simple – Alana Tranter

Stanley/Judge – Brenton Wilson

Ensemble:

Ella Burns, Matthew Jenson, Sam Marks, Rubin Matters, Thalia Smith, Suzanne Steele, Rachael Ward and Brenton Wilson

Playhouse – Arts Centre Melbourne

27 May to 11 June 2017

Hello Dolly is one of Broadways most successful Musicals and not surprisingly, the music by Jerry Herman is delightful and the story adapted by Michael Stewart from Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker it’s full of humanity and lovely witty lines.

This simple story about finding love in New York is universal, heartwarming and presented in a wholly engaging, fluid way by The Production Company.

Marina Prior, as the marvelously perceptive, understanding and controlling Dolly Levi a Matchmaker, ever so lightly holds the audience in the palm of her hand.  Prior, who can play with nuance in the bat of an eyelid, makes a delightful open and relaxed Dolly.  As anticipated it is well worth seeing this lovely contained production for her alone.  But there is much, much more to delight.

The staging is crisp and clean on a simple yet evocative set, by Shaun Gurton.  This skillfully designed and maneuvered framework is indicative of various locations.  Less is more.  The exceptionally proficient, open hearted and generous performers enhance settings by creating ambiance in divinely colourful costuming by Isaac Lummis. 

The orchestra, conducted by Musical Director Vanessa Scammell, is

situated centre stage and appropriately part of the action.  The added touch of instrumentalists watching the performers with delight and joy is heartwarming and all this adds to the lively natural feel - intrinsic to the production as a whole.

Garry Young ‘s direction is streamlined and uncluttered.  Kristen King has created some great environment defining tableaux with her choreography.  She draws from the fresh energetic ensemble many unexpected feats of fluid circus-like flips that amaze and delight.   Show stopper ‘Hello Dolly’ is outstanding, in fact breathtaking as a feat of mastery of swift lively movement/dance.

All performers reach way past the proscenium arch to charm their audience:  Glen Hill as Cornelius Hackle the downtrodden chief clerk exhibits excellent comic timing.   We truly care about his plight knowing that for love of Irene Molloy (Verity Hunt-Ballard),

he is going out on a brittle precarious limb.  Grant Piro plays the scrooge very eligible widower Horace Vandergelder like a comfortable second skin.  The lively and vivacious character Minnie Fay is given lovely bouncy elevation by Imogen Moore.

We are so fortunate to have The Production Company in Melbourne and all its invaluable philanthropic supporters.  And it is particularly heartening and satisfying to be able to watch recent grads from VCA and WAPPA and other young emerging performers being given this opportunity to excel and sparkle. 

All-in-all Hello Dolly is a splendid evening/or afternoon’s entertainment, and a marvelous opportunity, if you haven’t already bought tickets, to treat someone to a most entertaining performance of song dance, love and laughter.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Fire Bucket

YIRRAMBOI FIRST NATIONS ARTS FESTIVAL across Melbourne 5 - 14 May

http://yirramboi.net.au/category/program/#bullarto-wonthaggi

Fire Bucket

Indigenous storytelling by Uncle Wes Marne

Weelam Ngalut – Meat Market – Garden

May 10 at 7pm

There is so much awesome Indigenous Art being presented, in the YIRRAMBOI FRIST NATIONS ARTS FESTIVAL, across Melbourne till late this Saturday evening.  In amongst it I was lucky enough to catch this marvelous mystical Storytelling event.

After being enthusiastically greeted the audience was warmly welcomed and walked to the garden to experience a smoking ceremony before getting comfortable around a fire bucket to enjoy most remarkable evening of story from 95-year-old Uncle Wes Marne.

Some precedents were set – no talking between the smoking and the sitting and its rude to ask questions.  So it was unproblematic for Uncle Wes to ‘take the floor’ in relative silence and without being interrupted.

Ultimately I was glad not to be able to ask the questions that came bubbling to mind because this event was about listening with the heart, the mind, the body and the spirit.

Uncle Wes a community elder from Mt Druitt wove creation stories with personal story, anecdotes and animal wisdom stories moving the listener ‘back and forwards across time.’  When listening to such a consummate Storyteller colour and sensation can be seen and experienced with vivid and memorable clarity.  Amidst the light of the full moon, although it was a cloudless night, the city lights obscured the star mantle.  However with a few key descriptive words from Uncle Wes, in the twinkling of an eye, the milky-way was there in all its glory.

Wes was born in 1922 and his life experience is long and cultural understandings are extremely broad and deep and his compassionate perception profound and stabilizing.  The humour and intrinsic wisdom of these ancient and contemporary stories was imparted with sparkling crystal clarity.  A joyous sense of belonging and unity with all creation was imparted.

So many stories of animal with human foibles are enlightening and heartening.  The cross-over between animal and human - imbuing animals with the best and worst qualities of human nature allows one to listen through the protective and enlightening gauze of metaphor.

Who could ask for more than stories that teach and touch the soul being told around a fire under a full moon? 

What a privilege!

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Joan

Luisa Hastings Edge

JOAN

Presented by THE RABBLE and Theatre Works

Co-creators Kate Davis and Emma Valente

Set and Costume Design - Kate Davis

Text/Direction /LX Design / SFX Design – Emma Valente

AV Design – Martyn Coutts

Dramaturg - Leisa Shelton

Production Manager – Rebecca Etchell

Stage Manager and LX and SFX Operator – Ruth Blair

Creative Producer – Josh Wright

Performers:  Luisa Hastings Edge, Emily Milledge, Dana Miltins and Nikki Shiels

20 April - 30 April 2017

Opening with extraordinary multi media projections on scrims, JOAN by the RABBLE, is a work of high art.  It is riveting, hypnotic, haunting and sometimes deeply shocking.  But at all times uncompromisingly designed to insightfully explore a deep feminist response to the now canonized, illiterate peasant, who was ‘the virgin from Orleans.’   Joan of Arc who, in The Middle Ages, led the French into battle with the English, who ultimately burned her at the steak thrice, is the subject of this production.

Dana Miltins and Emily Milledge by David Paterson

Here her story is stripped back to its powerful and profound essence by a courageous affiliation of theatre makers who have previously brought us similarly weighty works such as The Story of O (2013) and Salome (2008).

I strongly advise before seeing this show you read up on Joan of Arc to be able to augment this astonishing ‘black and white’ offering with one’s own understandings, insights and colourful nuances.

Luisa Hastings Edge

The performance at Theatre Works is remarkably finely micro managed.  Lighting, sound, projections (Emma Valente and Martyn Coutts) and the human bodies of performers, Luisa Hastings Edge, Emily Milledge, Dana Miltins and Nikki Shiels work in outstanding synchronicity to produce startlingly crisply timed images.

Costumes by Kate Davis have the capacity to morph suggestively from military uniform to flowing dresses to projection screens of sorts.

Encapsulated here are Joan’s strengths of huge courage and dogged determination, along with her humiliation at the very private becoming excruciatingly public, then her torture and horrific demise.

As a mostly image based work, when text is finally spoken it is acutely and intensely visceral.  All four performers excel in affecting the audience with words but most particularly Nikki Sheils with Emma Valente’s sharp acute text.

It feels like a privilege and honour to be able to attend theatre of this caliber.

Suzanne Sandow