Monthly Archives: July 2022

Review: The One (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jul 22 – Aug 27, 2022
Playwright: Vanessa Bates
Director: Darren Yap
Cast: Gabrielle Chan, Angie Diaz, Aileen Huynh, Damien Strouthos, Shan-Ree Tan
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
In Vanessa Bates’ The One, siblings Mel and Eric are mixed-race Malaysian-Australians, who have lived in Australia all their lives, but who have never really felt completely accepted, by either side of their combined heritage. This is not a point made too obviously, with playwright Bates choosing instead to amuse us with events surrounding the impending visit of the pair’s flamboyant mother. Much of the writing sparkles with a delightful wit, but the plot lacks focus, involving many moments that feel superfluous, and in need of a more succinct edit.

The comedy is given effervescence by Darren Yap, who directs the piece with charm and spirited vigour. Set and costumes by Nick Fry are whimsical in their appeal, and along with Verity Hampson’s lighting design, the production offers satisfyingly exuberant imagery. Music by Michael Tan is inventive and meaningful, effective at conveying a soulful quality that relates closely, to the themes of the story being told.

Lead performers Angie Diaz and Shan-Ree Tan are both captivating presences, who deliver a sense of integrity, alongside the buoyant humour that they exteriorise for the staging. Diaz and Tan demonstrate great flair for the playfulness of The One, but it is their commitment to the depth and substance of the material that keeps us attentive. Gabrielle Chan is suitably glamorous and evanescent as Helen, the self-absorbed mother. Damien Strouthos brings great energy and believability as Cal, the devoted beau of Mel. Aileen Huynh’s exaggerated approach to waiter Jess, can initially look somewhat startling, but makes good sense later in the show.

There is nothing fundamentally real about what draws the boundaries between countries, just like much of our identities are comprised of little that can be thought of as concretely material and unyielding. What is true however, is that individuals experience all manner of prejudice and degradation, based on how people think of one another. Mel and Eric have a right to feel that they belong, and it is up to us to define the meaning of inclusivity, wherever we call our home.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: Attempts On Her Life (Kings Cross Theatre)

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Venue: Kings Cross Theatre (Kings Cross NSW), Jul 15 – 30, 2022
Playwright: Martin Crimp
Director: Saro Lusty-Cavallari
Cast: Lucy Burke, Bridget Haberecht, Lucinda Howes, Josephine Lee, Ebony Tucker
Images by Clare Hawley

Theatre review
Anne never appears to tell her own story. In Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life, we are presented with “17 scenarios for the theatre” that try to nail down the enigmatic Anne. 5 women actors and a television screen, take on various performative configurations, as though in search of an answer to a mystery pertaining to the idea of an elusive person, but is in actuality finding ways to understand the nature of media in 1997, when the play was first produced.

It is the exploration of form over content that makes Crimp’s writing seem wild and incoherent, and even though Saro Lusty-Cavallari’s direction emanates considerable earnestness, for that spirit of theatrical experimentation, there is insufficient playfulness, and a lack of danger that makes the show feel somewhat staid. Attempts on Her Life wants to take us somewhere chaotic, even anarchic, but it all feels overly measured and deliberate. Video features prominently, and Lusty-Cavallari’s work in that arena is admirably precise, incorporating a sense of technical proficiency for the medium, to provides unexpected polish to the experience.

Set and costumes by Rita Naidu, while not particularly imaginative, prove to be highly functional, for a play that constantly evolves its mode of staging. Lights by Sam Read contribute a good degree of dynamism, that moderates effectively the vacillating dramatic intensity, as we move from one vastly different scene to another. The cast is well-rehearsed and energetic, with a cohesiveness that allows them to project with great confidence.

The world has changed so much in the 25 years since the initial appearance of Attempts on Her Life. Gatekeepers determined which stories were being told, and the ways in which they were told. Although the matter of authorship is still a contentious one, we are now more able to have people tell their own stories, and therefore we find ourselves more able to hear directly from the horse’s mouth. If Anne is still around today, she will have every opportunity to say her piece if she wants to, and if she chooses to keep away from the limelight, we will just have to leave her be.

www.montaguebasement.com

Review: Control (New Theatre)

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Venue: New Theatre (Newtown NSW), Jul 5 – 30, 2022
Playwright: Keziah Warner
Director: Patrick Howard
Cast: Romney Hamilton, Riley McNamara, Emily Suine, Luke Vinsentin, Caitlin Williams, Olivia Xegas
Images by Bob Seary

Theatre review
Three short plays set in the future; the first tells a story about a reality show in space, the second features a museum holding personal memories, and the third sees a robot receiving training from a human so that itself can become a teacher. Science fiction takes us to wildly imagined spaces, in order that we may observe ourselves in a different light. Keziah Warner’s Control looks to be about a time centuries ahead, but its contemplations are really about the here and now.

Warner’s dialogue is dynamic and amusing, but her narratives have a tendency to feel underwhelming. Segments about the reality show and the museum, feel insufficiently dramatic, even though the contexts are set up with ample intrigue. The concluding story about machine learning, is more successfully rendered, with director Patrick Howard paying very nuanced attention to the emotional fluctuations that occur throughout. It is perhaps revelatory, that we are ultimately most drawn to things that tug on our human heartstrings.

It is an ambitious set design by David Marshall-Martin that contains all the action, with a grandness that proves appealing, yet effective in portraying the foreboding nature of Warner’s futuristic visions. Lights by Capri Harris bear a sensitivity that helps convey the subtleties inherent in these nightmarish tales of our collective destiny. Rhiarn Zarzhavsky’s costumes offer textures and a colour palette that anticipate a world that is harder and colder, than what it has already become. Director Howard’s own sound design is exciting and thorough, for a staging that embraces the genre of sci-fi unabashedly.

Performers Romney Hamilton and Caitlin Williams are unequivocal stand outs, playing organic teacher and synthetic student respectively, on the planet New Earth. Hamilton’s ability to access emotional depths in very little time, and with minimal external influence, is an impressive sight. Williams as the android, is somehow able to depict layers, whilst maintaining a resolutely robotic exterior.

Science fiction often foregrounds our fear of extinction. This is distinct from the concern around our deaths as individuals, which seems divergently to be something we know to accept, or at least not to contradict. In Control, we look to be a species struggling to hang on to survival, refusing to acknowledge that the end is nigh. We imagine ourselves in dystopic situations, heroically clinging on, when in fact all we do in real life, points to a definitive catastrophe. Life could very well go on, but human participation in it, seems delusory.

www.newtheatre.org.au

Review: Burn Witch Burn (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Jul 7 – 30, 2022
Playwrights: Tasnim Hossain, Claudia Osborne (based on a story by Fritz Leiber)
Director: Claudia Osborne
Cast: Sheree da Costa, Daniel Gabriel, Alex Packard, Tivy Siripanich and Alex Stamell
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review

When Norman discovers that his successes as a lecturer, are due to the witchcraft that his wife practises, things begin to unravel. Forces light and dark are unleashed, as a chain of secrets get revealed, in Burn Witch Burn by Tasnim Hossain and Claudia Osborne, a work of experimental physical theatre, based on a 1943 story (and 1962 film) by Fritz Leiber.

With an emphasis on atmosphere over narrative, the storytelling becomes nebulous. There may not be much certainty as to what exactly is being said, but the production is often unpredictable and intriguing, able to entertain for most of its duration. Emma White’s set design and Veronique Bennett’s lights offer visual brilliance, inviting our eyes to explore every furtive corner of the space. Chrysoulla Markouli’s exhaustive sound design lures us into the ethereal, where we attempt to connect on a plane that is decidedly esoteric and ephemeral.

Directed by Osborne, Burn Witch Burn is a quirky and charming presentation, although the macabre qualities that it tries to render, prove to be less than affecting. Where it intends to portray horror, the show can feel somewhat hollow. There is meaning to be found in this tale of secret women’s business, but Burn Witch Burn is hesitant to make anything obvious, choosing to keep many of its concerns under wraps. The cast of five embodies that mystery well, willing to be looked at but not really seen, with performer Sheree da Costa leaving a particularly strong impression, full of mesmerising intensity and admirable physical discipline.

In some ways, the witches in the show are an allegory for the ways in which power is distributed and  enforced. Feminists want everyone to embrace their ideals of equality. We believe that a fair world is the best way forward, but there are many in positions of privilege who will not acquiesce to the idea, that the relinquishment of power is often a good thing. It seems that we are a species seduced by injustice, and a destination of peace is therefore impossible. Activism work can never be complete, it has to be in perpetual motion, whether in the confrontation of others, or of the self.

www.redlineproductions.com.au

Review: Moon Rabbit Rising (25A Belvoir)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Jun 29 – Jul 10, 2022
Director: Nicole Pingon
Cast: Mym Kwa, Jon Lam, Jasper Lee-Lindsay, Monica Sayers, Rachel Seeto
Images by Clare Hawley

Theatre review
The ancient Chinese legend of 嫦娥 Chang’e has been told with many variations, but what is certain about the story, is that it involves her beau 后裔 Hou Yi, an elixir and the moon. Moon Rabbit Rising is a devised work based on that very tale. Without the use of any dialogue, we revisit a myth that has persisted through the ages, and that a billion people memorialise, during annual celebrations of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

What we remember about Chang’e and Houyi is explored through physical theatre in Moon Rabbit Rising, with a delicate sensibility that makes the presentation look more like an abstract dance, than a literal representation of the beloved narrative. Director Nicole Pingon’s creation is one of considerable beauty. It incorporates the story’s inherent naivety for a show able to express a gamut of emotions, from which the audience can form personal interpretations, whether about the immediate story, or tangential departures inspired by what one encounters.

Tyler Fitzpatrick’s evocative lighting design provides for the staging, a hypnotic quality that encourages our minds to simultaneously focus and dream, to use what our eyes see, and travel to mythical and perhaps philosophical spaces within. Christine Pan’s sound and music are wonderfully rich, memorable for the modernity and the sensuality she introduces, to this most traditional of folklore.

Elderly performer Jon Lam delivers untold resonance and profundity, as we delve into an exploration of heritage. Together with four younger members of cast, an exceptionally cohesive ensemble is built, with a shared earnestness that demonstrates a commitment to something that weighs of unmistakeable significance. Their faces reveal an intense connection with the material involved, and we reciprocate by investing sensitively into all that they offer.

On this land, people of colour have had to sublimate our histories, modifying and even burying psychic links to ancestral pasts, in order that we may be allowed to feel at home. That strategy for survival is not just a result of our acquiescence to unfriendly demands, but is in fact a way for many, to deal with difficult situations that had to be left behind. As we emerge from those traumas, it only makes sense to rediscover and embrace parts of what we had escaped. The danger of nostalgia however, is that we forget the bad that had come with the good. The prudent thing to do therefore, is to interrogate and question all that can be inherited, before retaining that which is truly valuable, in our forging of new identities.

www.littleeggscollective.com | www.belvoir.com.au