Theatre Review: Dead Man's Cell Phone

Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Peter Evans. Melbourne Theatre Company, Sumner Theatre, Melbourne until 7 August.

‘Magic Realism’ is a magnificent concept. When it exists in its most startlingly pure, unadulterated form, both the ‘magical’ and ‘realistic’ elements flawlessly blend together to enhance our understanding and appreciation of not only where it is possible to ‘be’, but how it is possible to ‘feel’. Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones (from Alice Sebold’s novel) are my definitive examples, to date, of its existence in the theatre and cinema respectively. In both of these examples, the elements – combined – had the extraordinary power to alter my comprehension and experience of time and place.

Obscurity and self-indulgence, the perilous traps into which artists exploring the abstract and surreal metaphysical worlds constantly risk disappearing into, are the arch-enemies of the world of magic realism. To avoid them, every opportunity must be fully explored, resolved and embraced – with clarity of imagination, intellect, heart and soul – to ensure that we’re not able to see the cracks and joins that are required to elevate us to this fantastical metaphysical realm.

Sadly, missed opportunities abound in this deadly, tram-crash of an offering from the MTC. As a result of Mr Evans’s determinedly stage-bound and unimaginative staging, Ms Ruhl’s self-reverential play is revealed to be much worse than it is (although I actually suspect it’s not that great anyway). Even fully-laden jumbo jets eventually (and magically) get off the ground, but Dead Man’s Cell Phone lumbers along the runway courtesy of questionable structure, a teeth-grindingly twee scene in a stationery shop, a overly camp airport terminal sequence accompanied by some unconvincing stage-fighting (even though the man sitting behind me was audibly quite impressed by the sight of two women fighting), and interminable scenes of psychology for pre-schoolers.

Jean (Lisa McCune) is in a Laundromat when she discovers that the reason Gordon (John Adam) won’t answer his cell phone is because he’s dead. When she continues to answer his incessantly ringing phone, she rather conveniently finds herself introduced to his family – all of whom have been scarred by Gordon’s apparent rampant narcissism. And on and on and on it goes.

Ms McCune skips along the pantomime route and never gets under the character’s skin – sacrificing all the wonderful myriad of possibilities for lots of cute, loveable nervously apprehensive acting, which had the audience tittering with affection. The simple fact, however, is that Jean is far from cute. She is a sad, tragic, desperately lonely young woman, and Ruhl’s ultimate sacrifice of her on the altar of impossibly trite and banal romantic convention is utterly disappointing. Sue Jones (as the matriarch of the family) was great – even though I couldn’t help wishing I was watching her play “Auntie Mame” or Arnold’s mother in Torch Song Trilogy (both of which she’d be perfect for). John Adam, Sarah Sutherland, Daniel Frederiksen and Emma Jackson all acquit themselves beautifully within the incredibly limited (and limiting) director’s vision, but after seeing Mr Frederiksen in the equally unfortunate Rockabye, it’s really time for the MTC to offer him something decent.

Claude Marcos’s momentarily clever Laundromat design refuses to get out of the way or effectively transform into anything other than a really expensive props table. That the actors have to wander around moving chairs and tables in the scene-changes like they used to when it was considered creative, becomes really tiring and derails whatever hope there was ever going to be for decent pace. Paul Jackson’s lighting design tries hard to take us somewhere, but never really had a chance because the big, ugly, green-walled Laundromat steadfastly refuses to budge.

Whenever people bemoan the fact that I chose when (and when not to) answer my mobile telephone, I always inform them that “my mobile phone exists for my convenience, not yours”. It’s that simple really. That this little golden rule negates much of Ms Ruhl’s thinly-structured, ‘other-wordly’ and pretentious mumbo jumbo about mobile telecommunications polluting the after-life is just one of the many points at where my interest in the proceedings simply evaporated, never to return. But I did rush home and do my washing.

Pictured: Lisa McCune in Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Photographed by Jeff Busby.

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.