Famous Last Words. Goodwood Theatre & Studios. 6 Apr 2024
In the intimate Studio performance space at the Goodwood Theatre, Benedict Andrews and Andrew Upton’s ‘transalation’ of Jean Genet’s psychosexual drama The Maids forces the audience to be voyeuristic and grips them by the throat for a continuous 90 minutes without pause. The expletive laden language at first elicits embarrassed responses, but this soon gives way to submission and then to arrogant judgement: whether we like it or not, the audience occupies the privileged position of crime scene observer, prosecutor, moralist, jury, and judge. Genet’s (updated) text, and director James Watson’s actual production design forces all this on the audience, and it is uncomfortable, provocative, and disturbing. More on that later.
The storyline of the The Maids has its basis in historical reality and concerns two domestic servants – sisters Claire and Solange, played by Emelia Williams and Virginia Blackwell – who plot against Madame (Kate Owen), their privileged employer. Their intention is to eliminate Madame and steal her assets. Like the witches in Macbeth, they routinely whip themselves into a jealous and avaricious frenzy by role-playing their fantasies whenever Madame is away from the house. They take turns in play acting: one becomes Madame, and dresses in her finery, while the other plays her sister. The blurring of personalities is palpable, and Genet’s dramatisation of the play acting is emotionally heightened, and extreme. The text provides fertile ground for Williams and Blackwell, who, in the main, tame and work the lurid text to their advantage. Blackwell is especially effective in presenting a personality on the brink of self-destruction, and Williams’ final scene is especially evocative as she employs levels of varying expression that stand in stark contrast to the often ‘shouty’ monologues at the start.
For much of the play, Madame is silently on stage serving as as constant pointer to what Claire and Solange aspire. Owen does it so well. Her presence is almost chilling. When Madame does finally ‘enter the scene’ and engages with her maids, it is immediately clear why Claire and Solange both despise and admire their employer. The success of this characterisation can be sheeted home to both Owen’s skill as an actor and Watson’s clear vision for what he wants.
This is not easy theatre, but one cannot help feel that Benedict Andrews and Andrew Upton’s translation has in part clouded some of the deeper issues evident in Genet’s original, such as the psychology of oppression: why the oppressed behave (and limit their behaviour) as they do in response to the actions and motivations of the oppressor.
The Studio at Goodwood is not an easy space to work, but Watson and his team turn limitations into advantages. The large wall of upstage mirrors is deliberately used as the dominant feature of the setting, and becomes a metaphor for Claire, Solange, and Madame continually and subconsciously looking inward at themselves while all the time being obsessed with outward appearances. The mirrors also give the audience a unique perspective: they force us to question the extent to which we might be reflected in the dramatis personae; they allow us to see everything that is happening all at the same time, but from different perspectives; they force us to be conscious that we are not only observing but also judging. Stage furnishings are minimal, but entirely sufficient: costume racks on which hang Madame’s couture; black lacquered cabinets and stands with rococo gold decorations; an elegant chaise. It all represents the world from which Claire and Solange are excluded, and to which they believe they cannot truly aspire. They are locked out, which is a sad parallel to the contemporary economic difficulties faced by many.
Rhys Stewart’s lighting is almost unstructured, and the entire auditorium is bathed in a stark white wash that lays bare everything. The audience cannot hide from the cast, and vice versa. There is no attempt at a ‘fourth wall’. Indeed, Solange directly engages members of the audience in provocative and menacing ways. It’s uncomfortable. At times one wished for the lights to fade down on the audience, so that we could be more secretive as voyeurs, and so that Claire, Solange, and Madame could not easily see us looking down our noses at them in our cosy and privileged judgement. But Watson had different ideas.
James Watson and Famous Last Words have daringly tackled a difficult play, and a testing adaptation of it. Again, they haven’t resiled from the hard stuff.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 to 13 Apr
Where: Goodwood Theatre & Studios
Bookings: eventbrite.com
SOLUS Productions. The Studio - Holden Street Theatres. 4 Apr 2024
Hunting down and confronting, face to face, the other half of a traumatically complex relationship 15 years later is a very big, very dangerous thing to do.
Una (Monika Lapka) does it. Ray (Marc Clement) is understandably anxious and disturbed by the sudden, most unwelcome presence of Una in front of him in the trash littered back room of the office building he works in.
Theirs is essentially a broken relationship seeking unmet need for closure, with much darker undertones and forces involved than expected, as Una begins pushing Ray about so many, many things needing explanation. Ray resists. Yet he too, finds a need to have many things revealed and explained.
Keys to this disturbing, electric, fast moving, thought provoking, emotive confrontation are age, experience, innocence, abuse, and love. All bound in a relationship that should have never happened.
David Harrower’s writing offers pain, shame, fear and unstintingly bright moments of human power games, transcending age. Games of overriding primordial instinct powered by a girl’s crush and a man’s confused misdirected passion.
This confronting conundrum is embodied and explored by Clement and Lapka with a delicate honesty belying the black and blue emotional bruises their characters’ have carried hidden within for 15 years.
Those bruises mark a truth both need the other to see. To understand. A truth hard to logically comprehend, because their situation doesn’t fit culturally accepted notions of survival, hurt, and forgiveness. That’s a tough call for an audience. Yet in performance, it’s a call an audience is hooked on, enough to seek answers as deeply as Harrower’s characters do.
Director Tony Knight states in program notes he merely fine-tuned his cast’s work.
The production substantiates that. Harrower’s writing would not sustain considered pressure to veer towards a predetermined point of view; to operate one dimensionally.
Harrower wrote a work daring to explore and question emotional landscapes and motivations with unflinching direct, morally unencumbered honesty.
A difficult work, but a profoundly effective one as staged by SOLUS Productions.
David O’Brien
When: 2 to 13 April
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Studio
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
David Venn Enterprises. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 3 Apr 2024
Elvis Presley caused a Rock 'n' Roll musical revolution in the 1960s. He was a revelation. Sadly this production is neither revelation nor revolutionary.
Luckily, for the most part, what this show lacks in narrative arc is somewhat compensated for in the performances, production values, and choreography.
At nearly two and a half hours (including a twenty-minute interval) Elvis – A Musical Revolution runs about thirty minutes too long.
So, let’s get the book gripes (by Sean Cercone and David Abbinanti) out of the way early.
This show feels choppy and disjointed. The narrative jumps around in time attempting to explain seemingly obvious points and then completely glosses over other significant life events, whilst placing undue focus on scenes that would benefit from a lot of red pen.
Any mention of Elvis’s significant substance abuse is completely erased here, and his relationship with Priscilla is propelled from first kiss to marriage turmoil in mere minutes. Dixie all but disappears.
Those unfamiliar with the life and times of the King of Rock 'n' Roll will almost certainly struggle to follow.
But the show is not without redemption. In fact, despite the incredibly difficult task this talented Australian cast have been handed with this script, their performances are excellent.
One wonders as Rob Mallett, in the show’s title role, bangs out number after number with boundless energy and exuberance, how this music theatre triple-threat can possibly manage two shows in a day, and keep up that pace week in, week out, on this gruelling Australian tour!
Mallett is a powerhouse. He brings, and gives, his all and leaves nothing in the tank. Shifting from gravelly vocal tones into his velvety baritone, his Elvis only gets better as the show progresses.
He is not alone.
Noni McCallum plays Elvis’s mother Gladys in many of the show’s more poignant scenes (or at least in so far as the writers’ intended). She is at her best when showcasing her beautiful soprano voice. Ian Stenlake, in the only non-singing character role, offers up a believable Colonel Parker, presenting the role Tom Hanks donned a ‘fatsuit’ for, with a far gentler demeanour.
Dan Potra’s set design with Declan O’Neill’s lighting elevates the production – the live video to black and white TV projection is particularly effective. All of the supporting performers bring the staging and production brilliantly to life, executing Michael Ralph’s spectacular choreography in Isaac Lummis’s perfect period costumes with fervour and pizzaz.
It is Kirby Burgess who shines brightest amongst them with her portrayal of Ann-Margret on the set of the film Viva Las Vegas, showcasing her spectacular dance abilities and fine singing voice.
On opening night young Nemanja Ilic, a local Adelaide performer of just 9 years of age, takes on the role of young Elvis with aplomb – proving himself a performer with some serious dance abilities!
There’s a lot to like here in the 40 plus numbers performed for Elvis fans, but this show’s book needs a lot more work to truly plumb the emotional depths it barely skims at the moment.
Paul Rodda
When: 3 to 28 Apr
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Raucous Behaviour. House and Grounds, Carclew. 16 Mar 2024
There’s a book sitting next to Noah (Gianluca Noble) as he plays solitaire sitting on his outstretched sleeping bag on the floor of the library he’s sheltering in from a fierce climate change induced snow storm. In Adelaide.
It’s entitled ‘Facts.’
Facts, feelings, history and survival struggles are rolled out, then intertwined in The Ark.
Director Playwright Thomas Liddell’s sparse, wonderfully illuminating exploration of what surviving apocalyptic outcomes of climate change would mean, beyond the terrifyingly obvious, is deeply thoughtful, at times, a raw eye opener.
Noah’s safe solitude is rudely interrupted by Eunice (Catherine Carter) and Grand Daughter Eve (Maya Carey) barging into the library in search of shelter.
Immediate survival battle lines are drawn.
Why should Noah help them? Doesn’t Eve’s ideas of communal sharing of the resources they have make solid sense in a world that’s completely broken down? No idea if anyone’s actually out there alive?
An eventual truce allows the three means to tentatively build relationships, and test where the edges to them are when it comes to what’s important to them in a world effectively dysfunctional, to completely non-functioning.
Catherine Carter’s Eunice is in the throes of early onset dementia. Eunice’s dementia, alongside her clear memories, operates as a kind of symbolic sieve though which a ‘forgetfulness’ of one generation has spawned the world Eve and Noah are struggling to survive in. That point is driven further home when Emma (Caitlin Hendrey) crashes into the library with her baby daughter.
Emma’s wife has abandoned her and their child.
Just as the world seems to have abandoned its inhabitants hopes of living.
Liddell brilliantly structures performances and pace in such a way ever growing and tightening tension of this tiny group’s claustrophobic circumstances leaves enough room for moments of hope and new understanding to flare up.
An experience and process not without very dark, extremely cruel moments.
Liddell’s cast manage a tremendous challenge giving life to ideas and experiences in a context matching a yet-to-evolve dangerous future. Liddell has written a future present epitaph for our world, in which his characters supply a warning we need to heed.
David O’Brien
When: 15 to 16 Mar
Where: Carclew
Bookings: Closed
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Bally, Gluttony. 17 Mar 2024
Sky Scraper (aka John Hugo) is an accountant by day and a drag queen by night, and she’s tall, very tall. In fact, when she races into the venue late for her own show and mounts the stage, she almost gets a nosebleed, and audience members close to the stage almost put their necks out as they strain to look upwards to see her!
She looks very corporate, dressed in her power suit replete with incredibly large shoulder pads that put anything from the 1980s to shame. In the best of drag queen style, there’s more than enough hairspray to hold her wig in style, and her bling and makeup is just … gorge! She immediately brings a wide smile to your face that stays there for the whole performance.
And what a performance it is – everything you would expect: fabulous lip synching with an Ethel Mermanesque lip quiver that creates a draft, high kicks that are so high the light rigging is at risk, fabulous dance moves that are sequenced to a formula (which she divulges so that we can all release our inner drag queen at the next opportunity!), and repartee that is quick, razor sharp, funny, and at times poignant.
The best comedic acts have a narrative that holds the gags, banter, and business together, and Skye Scraper: The Life and Times of a Drag Queen Accountant has all that, although the pace is a little slow to start off with. As the show’s title suggests, it is a tad autobiographical and Skye outlines the tension in her life between eking out a living in the corporate world doing something she’s not really fond of, and living her drag persona alter ego after hours. She wants to be herself and to love herself (and have others love her) for what she is, rather than conforming to whatever norms and expectations society demands. It’s quite touching really, and her sincerity makes it clear this is not just an act. Both Skye and John are on stage, their guards are down, and the struggle is palpable. The writing is intelligent, and rarely does she resort to gratuitously bad language.
Skye engages your heart strings, and when she is done, you are left laughing, but with a tiny little lump in your throat. This show is fertile for continuing development.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 to 17 Mar
Where: The Bally, Gluttony
Bookings: Closed