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