Review: One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view

One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view, Platform Youth Theatre. Written by Adam J A Cass (assisted by Andrea Jenkins, Neil Triffett, Justin Grant and Caitlin Dullard in collaboration with the Platform Youth Theatre Ensemble); Director Caitlin Dullard; Set and Costume Design Tanja Beer; Lighting Design Geoff Adams; Music Composition Amanda Coventry and Samak A Sangi. Fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne, 3–13 December.

There was a moment, very early on in this Platform Youth Theatre production, where I became hypnotised by what was unfolding. The delightful Kayla Roberts (The Unknown) stands completely still, staring – full of wonderful curiousity – at Andrea Jenkins (The Bitter) as Ms Jenkins literally hurled a firey and defiant monologue about her painful relationship with a higher authority straight to the audience from about three feet away. There was no earnest, self-concsious, well-meaning 'youth-on-stage-instead-of-on-the-streets' worthiness at play here. This was Theatre: and quite possibly an example of the best Youth Theatre I have ever seen.

An epic allegory on Faith, rich in contemplation, ideas and characterisation, One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view boasted a luxury of riches, and made ample use of each and every single one of them.

Ms Beer's brilliant set was not only startling in its conceptual simplicity, but it managed to serve the demanding production at every point: from the early clarity of its quintessential reference to The Bible's 'Eve' to its later almost hallucinatory transformation into the vast and deadly 'Poisonous Point' – traversed by the ensemble in a journey of biblical proportions.

Ms Dullard's direction was, initially, applied in beautifully broad brush-strokes and, perhaps most importantly in youth theatre, the ensemble were delivered to the stage with great confidence, knowledge and respect – ripe, and of their time and place. This is no mean feat within an ensemble of some 20 young actors with varying degrees of experience on stage, but Ms Dullard kept the work honest, engaging, truthful and connected. She was rewarded by magical and commited performances from every single member of the ensemble – which, more often than not, was incredibly powerful and yes, hypnotic.

Mr Cass's outstanding script was burning with symbolism, ambition, insight, wit and observation – but where it was its most powerful was in its stunning use of vocabulary – and in not being even remotely shy of demanding punishing changes in rhythm, tone, structure and breadth of vision. Tricky counterpoints, juxtapositions and metaphors – in the hands of a lesser talent – would have risked falling into ponderous, laboured conceit; but Mr Cass's obvious belief in the strength and purpose of this work (and his role in it) resulted in a beautifully complex script that completely provided, and then accounted for, every possibility – exploring, at times, a language of its very own.

It is impossible to single-out individual performances within this ensemble; such was the strength of unity in permission that signals a fine ensemble at work. What was clear was just how much these young actors love the Theatre and the opportunity to tell their stories. On this very special night, the Theatre loved them back.

I cannot wait to see what they do next.

Pictured: Clare O'Shannessy, left, (The Woman) and Kayla Roberts (The Unknown) in One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view. Photographed by Sophie Neate.

This review was commissioned and published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: Black Marrow

Black Marrow, Chunky Move and The Melbourne International Arts Festival. Direction, Choreography and Concept by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Damien Jalet; Set and Costume Design by Alexandra Mein; Lighting Design by Niklas Pajanti; Original Music and Sound Design by Ben Frost featuring Oren Ambarchi; Sound Design/Operator Byron Scullin. In collaboration with, and performed by, Sara Black, Paulo Castro, Julian Crotti, Alisdair Macindoe, Carlee Mellow and James Shannon. The CUB Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne until 24 October.

Dance, perhaps more than any other creative discipline, has to work exceptionally hard to define, and maintain, its contemporary relevance in an increasingly cynical, impatient, overloaded and (dis)connected society: such is the burden of expectation and borrowed observation that increasingly litters the everyday dialogue throughout Melbourne's currently unrestrained creative democracy.

Black Marrow opens against Alexandra Mein's intriguingly spare vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland (simply, if later counter-intuitively, lit by Mr Pajanti): huge sheets of black plastic providing an instantly recognisable garbage dump. Gradually, shape-shifting bodies scurry underneath what turns out to be a huge piece of black latex covering the stage. Grunting, heaving, fearful and desperate angular 'creatures' meet centrestage before scurrying off to the periphery again. It is a masterstroke: and in a spine-tingling coup de theatre, the near-naked dancers are revealed to us as the entire black latex floor covering is stripped from the stage and out of sight in a heartbeat.

I hold my breath for the stunning pieces of isolation (I have never seen shoulder blades isolated to such powerful effect – at one with Mr Frost's otherwise indecisive score), and some superb work on the theme of contorted mutation with the dancers' heads tucked forward, somehow completely out of sight between their shoulders; as their bodies morph, entwine and pulsate across almost every inch of the stage. The artistry and execution is exceptional: and it is a scintillating promise of what is to come.

Sadly, it is a promise that is soon broken.

Almost immediately, and with then only rare respite, Black Marrow collapses and falls apart under the weight of its clichés (think carnivalesque, ringleader, circus, toy dinosaurs, Mythology for Preschoolers) and is reduced to a twee playground aesthetic: even though it is entirely lacking in a child's unquestionable and fearless curiousity about how the end of our world will look, feel and sound. For the rest of its 60 minutes running time, it becomes increasingly stage-bound – resulting in a strangely one dimensional landscape.

The exceptions are the brilliance of the thrilling 'last gasp' full body extensions from the floor against the repetitious beeps of a heart-monitoring machine, and the fights against flat-lining that accentuate the dancers' ultimate physical prowess and powerful physical fluidity. Their floorwork is exceptional ... which only highlights the fact that there is little further exploration of full extension: especially at the end, when covered in black oil (yes, an environmental message delivered with the subtly of a fire-hydrant), they only stand to collapse again, even if it is into magnificent Pompeii-inspired frozen corpses, recoiling in horror from the pain of their demise. Minutes from the end, it is a frustratingly fleeting, powerful whiff of all that might have been.

The Spoken Word in the context of Dance in performance has always been a complicated affair, and in this case, it results in a kind of ill-considered, pseudo homoerotic, egocentric and indulgent monologue that only serves to fail the physical vocabulary that wants to fuel the work: and the less said about the grotesquely misogynist birthing sequence … and a silly machine sequence (that immediately reminded me of my own Contemporary Dance classes at Rusden Drama College in 1980-something), the better.

Ultimately tentative, earnest and essentially unfulfilling, Black Marrow delivers little of the thought-provoking, edge-of-the-seat, incisive choreographic adventure we expect from Melbourne's premiere dance company. The dancers are faultless and meet the precise physical demands of the work's rare and momentary highpoints to absolute perfection. This only makes the extent to which they are starved of the raw, truthful creative exhaustion and repetition (to which the work makes what turns out to be spurious claims in the program) even more obvious. And bitterly disappointing.

Photo: Black Marrow, photographed by Alexandra Mein.

This review was commissioned and published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: High Society

High Society, Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter, Book by Arthur Kopit, Additional Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, CLOC Musical Theatre. Directed by Chris Bradtke; Musical Director Bev Woodford; Choreographed Movement by Tailem Tynan; Set Design by Brenton Staples; Costume Design by Nancy Matthews; Lighting Design by Stelios Karagiannis; Audio Design by Alan Green. With Kelly Windle, Trevor Jones, Richard Perdriau, Rachel Juhasz, Peter Dennis, Peter Smitheram, Anne Pagram, Pip Smibert and Madeleine Corbel. Alexander Theatre, Melbourne until 17 October.

In our precious world of Music Theatre, there are people who really know what they're doing and people who don't: and from the moment you set eyes on Mr Staples' stunning (and magically transformational) set and Mr Karagiannis's utterly flawless lighting of it, you will rightly anticipate that CLOC Musical Theatre's production may just well set a new benchmark. And so it does, eventually, to become a wonderful achievement of which the company should be incredibly proud.

Which only leaves the bit about the people who don't know what they're doing.

Watching and listening to High Society on stage is like watching a grave being robbed: a sorry mess of a show that somehow manages to take theatrical and cinematic icons (Philip Barry's stage play, and then film, The Philadelphia Story and Sol C Siegel's film High Society), add some trusted, then obscure and then some even more obscure Porter tunes to a leaden, and (surprisingly given the wit and prestige of the material's sources and original casts) humourless 'book' to come up with a compilation musical of the worst kind. It's as though people without any creative ideas of their own sat around the kitchen table, opened a well-thumbed "Cole Porter Songbook" and went "I know! Let's make a musical! A really, really long musical!" Cole Porter's terrific and efficient songs for High Society (the film) are considered to represent his last truly great score … and one might have expected them to be delivered, unaltered, to the stage. What did Mr Kopit and Ms Birkenhead think was missing? Unfortunately, we soon get to find out … and we're only left to wonder what Mr Porter would have thought if he'd been alive to witness it.

The lumpy Ridin' High (lifted from Red, Hot and Blue) becomes, in this context, a pointless piece of fluffy exposition which seems to exist only to have our heroine, Tracy Lord, run around in jodhpurs for some inexplicable reason. Regrettably, it also gets the additional burden of having to open the show … after a mannered and unengaging nod to the title song. Songs that open shows (just stop for a moment and think about some of them) have to be really good. Ridin' High just doesn't cut it. I Love Paris and It's All Right With Me (both from the much better Can-Can) are also jammed in, and the Porter classic – Just One of Those Things (from Jubilee) – also gets a run. Now, True Love is a wonderful song … a standard … but it ain't no end of Act One number. Instead, Act One just stops … as though someone who meant the world to us suddenly dropped stone cold dead right before our very eyes. It's a very uncomfortable moment to which the audience appeared to have no idea how to respond. The experience of witnessing this extraordinarily beautiful production, performed by a uniformly excellent cast, orchestra and crew and yet still suspecting that something important was absent, was truly difficult to comprehend.

Mr Bradtke brings a skilfully crisp guiding hand to the proceedings, and even though the pacing on opening night was uneven, it's impossible to determine whether there was anything further he could have done or if it was the musical's inherent dead weight that kept dragging it down. Ms Woodford's orchestra, with the exception of some rogue strings and uneven sound mixing, acquitted what passes for a score beautifully – even if the orchestrations are, mostly, deadly dull.

In the end, I realised I wish I'd been at the company's recent production of Miss Saigon: a piece of music theatre equal to their incredible talents and abilities.

Pictured: (L to R) Trevor Jones, Kelly Windle and Richard Perdriau in a publicity photograph from CLOC's High Society. Photographed by Richard Crompton.

This review was commissioned and published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: God of Carnage

God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton, Melbourne Theatre Company. Directed by Peter Evans; Set and Costume Design by Dale Ferguson; Lighting Design by Matt Scott; Composer/Sound Design by Kelly Ryall; Fight Choreography by Felicity Steel. With Pamela Rabe, Geoff Morrell, Hugo Weaving and Natasha Herbert. Playhouse, The Arts Centre, Melbourne until 3 October.

It's not difficult to appreciate why Ms Reza's God of Carnage (and Mr Hampton's translation of it) is one of the most celebrated and decorated plays of the decade. It is pin-point accurate satire of the highest order … a flawlessly structured, intricate and glittering dissection of relationships, manners, careers, ambitions and societal aspirations: and the Melbourne Theatre Company's production of it is stunning.

Véronique (Ms Rabe) and husband Michel (Mr Morrell in his MTC debut) sit down with Alain (Mr Weaving) and wife Annette (Ms Herbert) to discuss how they are going to deal with the fact that Alain and Annette's son has whacked theirs in the mouth with a stick – knocking out teeth and causing various degrees of increasingly, seemingly irreparable, damage. The negotiation begins with a disagreement about the wording of a 'cause and effect' statement … and over the next fleeting 90 minutes, anything (and literally everything) goes.

Mr Evans directs with rare economy and absolute precision – connecting instinctively and immediately with the play's internal engine. He is supported by Mr Ferguson's lean, similarly economic and attractive design. Mr Scott's lighting brings everything into stark relief and the cold, dark, disassembling shadow which is cast over the proceedings in the play's dying minutes is astonishingly painful. A 'slow fade to blackout' doesn't come much better than this – made all the more powerful by a playwright at the very height of her powers: knowing when, and how, to end on a beat – a breath – of perfect realisation. Ms Steel's contribution is marvellously physical rough and tumble which, if anything, I wish (as exemplified in God of Carnage's cousin, Noel Coward's Private Lives) there had been a good deal more of.

The glorious cast (dressed perfectly by Mr Ferguson) relish, and deliver, every moment with absolute skill in a rare show of exemplary stagecraft. These are four of our best – and, hours after the performance had ended, it remained an almost guilty pleasure that we had been given the opportunity to see them all at work in the same place at the same time.

See it.

Pictured: Hugo Weaving and Natasha Herbert in God of Carnage. Photographed by Jeff Busby.

This review was commissioned and published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: The Colours

The Colours. Written and Performed by Peter Houghton. Melbourne Theatre Company. Director Anne Browning; Set and Costume Designer Shaun Gurton; Lighting Designer Richard Vabre; Composer David Chesworth. Lawler Studio, Melbourne until 12 September.

It is a brave man who will write and perform a one-man show about War. In fact, preparing to attend this performance, I must confess to wondering what more could (or perhaps needs to) be said about this too often recycled, reinterpreted and common-sense defying human endeavour. I have very fond memories of Alan Seymour's influential Australian War drama The One Day of the Year (banned by the Adelaide Festival in 1960) and English playwright Peter Nichols' musical farce Privates on Parade (produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company in 1980). And the list goes on.

And now, added to the collection, is Peter Houghton's arresting mini-masterpiece The Colours. Colour Sergeant Atkins (Houghton), has been abandonded by his superior officers in Batundi, a fictional British outpost in Africa – left to guard his regiment's 'Colours': the flag that proudly wears the embroidered mementos of campaigns past … battles won, but more pertinently in this case, lost.

At turns hilarious, poignant, moving and powerful, Houghton has somehow managed to bring a unique insight to the conversation. Painstakingly researched, The Colours illuminates the lives of the British Empire's professional soldiers, resulting in a mesmerising ode to their contribution to the relative peace of our world … and the way in which we comprehend and experience it. While Houghton's script is littered with thought-provoking observation about contemporary issues (including some waspish commentary on religion, America's 'Empire status' aspirations, the ANZAC legend, and the contribution of the many nationalities that fought both independently and under British 'Colours'), it is ultimately the great affection with which Houghton has written (and performs) the ghost of his beloved Colour Sergeant (and a magically achieved supporting cast) that ensures it is never anything less than entirely engrossing.

Ms Browning has set the pace to frenetic, and with the exception of two stunning speeches of immense dramatic depth, the only thing lacking were breaths of reflection and contemplation. Often underestimated in the theatre, silence and stillness (on this occasion) might have added the necessary 'air' that would have provided us with the opportunity to share more equitably in the depth of story experience and Houghton's bravura performance of it. As it was, each outstanding dramatic and comedic highpoint (of which there are a luxury of riches) ultimately seemed packaged a little too neatly together.

Mr Gurton has created is a marvellously realistic, versatile and atmospheric environment which provides Houghton, Browning and Mr Vabre great opportunity to exploit every inch of it. Mr Chesworth's evocative soundscape transported us effortlessly to the distant African plains and featured the instantly recognisable war cries and bugle motifs that today signify (and dignify) our collective solidarity of the reverence of our War memories.

Pictured: Peter Houghton in The Colours. Photographed by Paul Dunn.

This review was first published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: Rockabye

Rockabye by Joanna Murray-Smith, Melbourne Theatre Company. Directed by Simon Phillips; Set Design by Brian Thomson; Costume Design by Esther Marie Hayes; Lighting Design by Philip Lethlean; Composer/Sound Design by Peter Farnan. With Kate Atkinson, Betty Bobbitt, Daniel Frederikson, Pacharo Mzembe, Zahra Newman, Richard Piper and Nicki Wendt. Sumner Theatre, Melbourne until 20 September.

Theatre, like sex – or in the case of Joanna Murray-Smith's Rockabye, the lack of it – can be a profoundly disenchanting and one-way affair.

It's a bleak, judgmental and love-less world that Murray-Smith's characters inhabit … dominated by the selfish, archly conceited, Edina Monsoon-esque, fading Diva Sidney (Nicki Wendt). Miss Wendt delivers a performance of great range, conviction and passion – even though she is saddled with one of the play's more grotesquely articulated 'ideas' (later laboured over in a scene between Miss Bobbit's Cook 'Esme' and Miss Atkinson's PA 'Julia'): that lesbians couldn't know what it's like to want children ... because they're lesbians.

Sexual politics, AIDS politics, politics generally, the nature of Celebrity, Race, colour, culture, cultural heritage, drugs, music, Punk, post-Punk, baby naming, fashion, movie stars, secrets, lies, career-manipulation, journalism, the media, the future of newspapers, greed, childlessness, homosexuality, same-sex parenting, Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, even the scones on the kitchen bench, all feature in a play that, upon considerable reflection, appears to have failed to decide what it really wants to say, why it wants to say it, and to whom … never mind about why it's important we have to hear it.

Altogether too cluttered and shallow to be satirical and too glib and indecisive to be farcial, Rockabye is an undeveloped and over-written play that screams out to be Television and/or (given its London setting and English and European geographical and cultural references) aimed at the Popcorn Theatre-going UK audiences for whom it is obviously intended.

Rockabye ponders, swipes and labours its way almost interminably around the rights of a childless, ageing Celebrity to adopt an African Child versus the rights of African Children to die in their own country. There's also a Toyboy (Mr Frederikson), a cocaine-abusing Manager (Mr Piper, who also camps it up beyond recognition as a Groupie), an Adoption Agency Lawyer (Miss Newman in a measured performance of great authority), and a Journalist/Broadcaster (Mr Mzembe who does a stunning job, even with most of the clichés and all of the melodrama).

Miss Hayes' costumes are fabulous while Mr Phillips is on 'exit stage left enter stage right or glide in on the props' auto-pilot. Mr Thomson's design (with the exception of a marvellous bar and a wardobe) is similarly serviceable … save for the final reveal of the Sumner Theatre stage's full extent. Flying sets out of sight is a trusted and reliable old trick, but on this occasion especially, a most welcome one – primarily because it revealed the only truly theatrical instinct of the night. Sadly, it was also minutes from the end – and with a running time of two hours without an interval (despite what the program says) it's just far too much for far too little in return.

My incensed, childless, forty-something, straight, female 'plus one', whose searing anger and resentment had to be quelled (at great personal expense I might add) with much red wine and Japanese food afterwards, has since been unable to resolve her rage at being perfunctorily (and somewhat offensively) labelled as a woman "who forgot to have children" – not only in the play, but also again in that pesky, unreliable program.

There may well be a great play to be written about the differences between the human rights, hopes and aspirations of the Third World versus the paper-thin gaudy excesses of a Celebrity-obsessed, childless and lonely Developed World. But then again.

Pictured: Richard Piper and Nicki Wendt in Rockabye. Photographed by Jeff Busby.

Review: Slava's Snowshow

Slava's Snowshow, Presented by Ross Mollison and David J Foster. Directed by Viktor Kramer; Designed by Viktor Plotnikov and Slava Polunin; with Jef Johnson, Derek Scott, Nikolai Terentiev, Yury Musatov, Gigi Vega Morales and Aeilta Vest; Sound by Roma Dubinnikov; Lighting by Sofia Kostyleva; Stage Technicians: Francesco Bifano, Dmitry Sereda and Vitaly Galich. Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne. Until August 30, then touring.

Sometimes in the theatre, albeit all too rarely, magic can happen. Sometimes, when each and every theatrical element combines, the result is a perfect, fleeting moment of pure theatrical ecstasy. We recognise it instinctively – compelled to make sense of such welcome, but unusual, wonder. But never in my theatre-going experience, has magic happened as purely and simply (or as often) as it does within every riveting moment of Slava's Snowshow.

From the raw and beautiful aesthetics of every aspect of the production's design to the eye-scorching, demonic snowstorm, this is a performance unlike anything I have ever experienced. Hatched by bravura sound, lighting and staging brilliance, this is theatre that reaches out, both literally and metaphorically, and turns your expectations of what theatre can achieve upside down and inside out.

Polunin's rock-solid, picaresque narrative provides his performers with a framework for every possibility – from the heart-aching poignancy of a track-side farewell, to rollicking adventures on the high seas … astonishing creative genius is constantly illuminated. While Slava's Snowshow might be renowned for its spectacle, it is the myriad of tiny heartbeats of pure Clowning artistry that ultimately inspire it. It is one delicate, white snowflake – lifted, gently, from the end of a broom – that signals the impending doom. It is the raising of an eyebrow, the flickering of an eye, the pouting of a mouth, the tightening grip of a broomstick and the casting of one expression after another that power this performance to its awe-inspiring conclusion: where everything that was once nuance balanced with illusion, is revealed in all its over-sized, audience-uniting, glorious wonder.

Slava's Snowshow is a journey of humanity, and all its flaws and possibilities, in finite, wordless detail. Magic happens. Don't miss it.

This review was first published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: Life's a Circus

Life’s a Circus. Presented by Magnormos Prompt! Musicals Program, Artistic Director/Producer: Aaron Joyner. Composer/Lyricist/Musical Director: Anthony Costanzo, Book by Peter Fitzpatrick, With Chelsea Plumley, Glen Hogstrom, Cameron MacDonald, Shannon McGurgan, Annabel Carberry, Vaughan Curtis, Stephen Williams. Directed by Kris Stewart, Choreography by Kate Priddle, Set Design by Christina Logan-Bell, Lighting Design by Lucy Birkinshaw, Sound Design by Lo Ricco Sound Studios. Theatre Works, St Kilda. Until August 15.

The alluring, hypnotic and contradictory world of ‘Circus’ has been excavated many times throughout the Music Theatre canon: Barnum, Carnival! … and the great grand-daddy of them all, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel – spring to mind. Cinema, too, has mined the artform’s layers of emotional, death-defying performance excess to (mostly) memorable effect. Unlike its siblings, where the themes and the environment from which they emerge meld quite magically, the multiple ‘Circus’ analogies and metaphors throughout Life’s a Circus provide it with, almost equally and at once, great service and disservice. And it is a structural fracture that never heals.

Life’s a Circus tells the story of the traveling Grand Illusion Circus troupe, and in particular, three of its members: Vivien (Plumley) and David (Hogstrom) who are best friends and partners in the tightrope-walking act, and Alex (MacDonald), the Clown. With increasing urgency and desperation, Vivien and David make various plays for the affections of the young Alex – who, in a bitter sweet denouement, flawlessly delivered by a red-hot Mr MacDonald – declares that neither of them offer him anything more desirable than the joys of his journey through life as a Circus Clown. Problematically for the overall effectiveness of Life’s a Circus, it’s not that difficult to see why. MacDonald’s ‘Alex’ is a lovable, joyful character – and MacDonald connects truthfully with the abandon and sensitivity of the role of Clown … not only in the way he chooses to journey through life, but also in the snippets we witnessed of his exquisite clowning skills. That Vivien and David’s lives, in stark contrast, contain such little real joy (Vivien shops and David cruises for sex online), is a measure of the only credible way in which the Circus environment contributes meaningfully to the story’s primary arc.

The three principals are, without exception, superb. Their reading of, and obvious respect for, Mr Costanzo’s big-hearted and harmonious score is spot-on. They are more than ably supported by the production’s gold-plated pedigree, including Music Supervision by Wicked Musical Director Kellie Dickerson; a stylish, functional and fantastically versatile set from Christina Logan-Bell; exquisite lighting design from Lucy Birkinshaw and an illuminative soundscape from Lo Ricco Sound Studios.

Director Kris Stewart’s otherwise compact, super-charged and tightly-packaged direction couldn’t quite join the seams that connect the trio of principals and the four circus performers (McGurgan, Carberry, Curtis and Williams). More often than not (with the exception of the clever Walking the Tightrope), their ‘voicelessness’ (particularly in the opening number) began – and ended – as a dislocated and unsatisfying distraction … unlike their skillful, acrobatic artistry – which was simply breath-taking. Frustratingly, they seemed to belong in a completely different show.

The essential structural conflict is that Mr Costanzo’s score is vastly more accomplished and often superior to his chosen construct – and it really comes into its own when it discards the increasingly literal, and ultimately repetitive, ‘Circus’ metaphors and instead embraces the landscape of interpersonal relationships, as he does to devastating effect with The Olive Tree, Midnight, the Sondheim-esque Something on the side, the show’s haunting (but sadly, later abandoned) motif Time will tell, and the showstopping ‘11 o’clock number’ Fly Away.

It’s an extraordinary thing when a Music Theatre performer quite literally ‘stops the show’. Afficiandos of the form crave ‘showstoppers’ – that moment when the massive emotional and musical machine that is a piece of Music Theatre turns on the head of a pin – stopped in its tracks by the absolute perfect performance of the perfect song at the absolute right time and place of the night: which is precisely what Chelsea Plumley did at this Opening Night performance with the ‘anthem’ of the show: Fly Away. Why Miss Plumley is not a major star on our Music Theatre stages remains an unqualifiable mystery.

Ultimately, however, Magnormos, under the Artistic Direction of Aaron Joyner, are to be celebrated, treasured and prized for their work in Australian Music Theatre. The privilege of being present at this rare and special performance of a piece that, with more work and development, should shed its skin to become a serious contender for that constantly elusive creation: The Australian Musical.

Pictured: Chelsea Plumley as Vivien in Life’s A Circus

This review was first published by Stage Whispers @
www.stagewhispers.com.au

Review: The History Boys

The History Boys by Alan Bennett. Presented by the Boroondara Theatre Company, Cromwell Road Theatre, South Yarra. Directed by Bryce Ives, with Chris Gaffney, Luigi Lucente, Peter Maver, Elliot Roberts, Stuart Daulman, Beryle Frees, Tristan Lutze, James Cook, Gerard Lane, Riki Lindsey, Fabio Motta and Kevin David Newman. Set design by Jeremy Bailey-Smith. Lighting design by Karla Engdahl. Until Saturday 25 July, 2009. Bookings 03 9809 1546.

Alan Bennett's The History Boys is a near perfect example of what we have come to know (and either love or hate) as the well-made play: grand themes, considered structure and form, and characters meeting, often quite circumstantially, in a unique time and place on their journeys through life. Like many such beasts, however, it owes a significant debt to stories that cover similar terrain – and in the case of The History Boys, that debt is to Tom Schulman's Academy award-winning screenplay for Dead Poets Society (1989) and the many and various direct quotes from an array of poets, writers and philosophers that lend the play it's literary talk. But the intellectual and theatrical rigour is all Bennett's; and war, cinema, faith, religion, politics, philosophy, art, poetry, literature, sport – and of course, history – are all stunningly illuminated, rightfully ensuring that his play deserves, if not entirely, its "modern classic" status.

The History Boys concerns itself with eight boys from Cutlers' Grammar School in Sheffield, England who are preparing for their entrance exam into 'Oxbridge' (a composite of the UK's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge Universities). Cutlers is "low in the league" and its headmaster desperately needs to secure its status and reputation as one of educational over-achievement.

This Boroondara Theatre Company production, under the razor-sharp direction of Bryce Ives, slowly rises and ultimately soars above Bennett's over-arching tendency towards obfuscation. Ives has literally incised this voluminous play and first exposed, and then connected with, the rich vein of dramatic torque that really powers it: love – in many, if not all, of its guises … young, illicit, of-self, unrequited, flowering, erotic, destructive, but ultimately redemptive. The History Boys may well appear to be about the various styles of education and the purposes they serve, but Ives is more determined that we will remember this play as a great love story – no more beautifully realised than in Chris Gaffney's perfectly-pitched English/General Studies teacher 'Hector' whose love of the arts … and his boys … is the play's foundation stone.

Ives is rewarded by the performances of his astonishingly talented ensemble lead by Luigi Lucente's dazzling star turn as the piano-playing class stud 'Dakin', Peter Maver's besieged and befuddled 'Headmaster', Elliot Roberts' sweet 'Posner' and Stuart Daulman's charming 'ruggers'-mad 'Rudge'. Beryle Frees (as the somewhat unforgivably under-written History Teacher Mrs Lintott) warmed up to take on the play's famous monologue about the role of women in history, and Tristan Lutze (as tyro Teacher Irwin who is brought in to coach the boys in the lead-up to the exams) searches for his identity and purpose through the minefield of unrestrained, youthful exuberance and curiosity that surrounds him with a marvellous performance of understated sensitivity, conflict and confusion.

But this intelligent, finely balanced, emotionally raw and powerful production relies entirely on each member of the ensemble and James Cook, Gerard Lane, Riki Lindsey, Fabio Motta and Kevin David Newman each bring great skill, creative intelligence and boundless energy to their magical performances.

Jeremy Bailey-Smith's gorgeous set appeared to create more problems than it solved in the intimate Cromwell Road Theatre while Karla Engdahl's stylish lighting design matched the play's location-shifting demands – particularly through the use of the theatre's actual windows.

In the final tableau, when Bennett has capitulated to a typically English, stage-bound form of emotional manipulation, this Boroondara ensemble and its handsome production, stood rightfully proud, connected and truthful in the journey of great merit they had prepared and then shared with us … and the profound truth of the line "Art always wins in the end" was this exceptional company's reward – and ours.

This will be the hottest ticket in town – and for every good reason. Whatever you need to do to get a ticket, do it.

Photograph ©www.gavind.com.au

This review was first published by Stage Whispers @ www.stagewhispers.com.au