Belvoir/State Theatre SA. Dunstan Playhouse. 20 Oct 2015
It's a crime story. It's about the squalid and rapacious world of drug smugglers in Sydney. It's about Sydney real estate and its social divide. And, it's about Coca-Cola, lots of evil addictive Coca-Cola as well as the coke that is not cola.
The audience reactions on Mortido's opening night were mixed. Some were struggling to work out the Mexican folklore and others, the relevance of the sadomasochistic homosexuality. Some said they were puzzled about the real estate. There was plenty of interesting grist to take home and think on.
There is German dialogue in the play, but more dominantly, there is Spanish spoken, particularly by the Bolivian gigolo, played with savage sensuality by David Valencia. There are some oblique strands of thought such as the idea of mole sauce made from human tears.
Angela Betizen's new play is big in themes, symbolism, cultural references and violence both contained and actual. It is set upon a vast open plan of stage with one wall of mirrored tiles off which lights reflect mercilessly into the eyes of the prompt-side audience.
There's a perspex wall on which the child draws, beautifully, the roosters which plague his dreams. The child should be a likeable character, but he, exquisitely performed by young Calin Diamond, is pitiable. There are no likeable characters in this play. They are strictly underbelly.
There is, however, some wonderful acting in this production directed by Leticia Caceres. The star, Colin Friels, is a joy to watch. Perhaps less at home as in glib Ockerdom, he comes alive and brings the show to life the moment he steps out as the German-Bolivian cocaine baron, Heinrich Barbie. It is a brilliant and chilling transformation. Again, in the character of the Serbian stonecutter, Bratislav, Friels delivers a superb capsule of character and culture. No matter which character he plays, from Aussie copper to German villain, the Friels body work is sublime. Simply put, he has the most exceptional physical grace, even in depictions of violence.
Renato Musolino is compelling as the vile, bragging, coke-snorting Sydney drug king. He also is unforgettably poignant as the bare-arsed Kings Cross psych patient. Louisa Mignone could be two different actresses, so effectively does she define the disparate characters of Scarlett and Sybille. Tom Conroy plays the focal character of Jimmy, the family failure, the dupe, the mule, the drug king's servant brother-in-law. Most credibly, he creates one of the stage's great losers and, as written by Betzien, a loser who deserves to be a loser.
The script is still a bit overwritten with a tendency to reiterate to get the message through. But, seriously, the audience gets the Pert shampoo and conditioner joke straight off and it loses something being twice explained. Similarly, when the unexpected fourth box is delivered, there are only so many times we need to be reminded that the fourth box is not expected. And so forth. Less is more.
While the lighting offends, the soundscape lifts, carries, and complements the action on the stage magnificently. Composed by The Sweats with Nate Edmondson as sound designer, it ranges from soft, strange rustling and rattling through rumbles and roars, thumps and thunders and wondrous percussive intensities.
Mortido is a brave new work and an ambitious production which is what theatre is meant to be. Not all the audience stayed to the end on opening night but most certainly, all the audience took home interesting quandaries and memories of shining performances.
Samela Harris
When: 20 to 31 Oct
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Photography by Shane Reid
Northern Light Theatre Company. The Shedley Theatre. 16 Oct 2015
Big is hugely nostalgic for me. Released in the late 80s, the film is a personal favourite and resonated at a time when one was dreaming of growing up and attaining all of the privileges afforded to adults. The coming of age story is tried and tested, and presents wonderful character arcs for Susan Lawrence, (older) Josh Baskin, and Mr Macmillan; each learns something about themselves through the show.
The Northern Light Theatre Company production keeps the action in the ‘80s, and turns out some wonderful (albeit awful by today’s fashion standards) costume pieces including happy pants, floral jump suits, rolled suit jackets, and loads of puffy velvet and taffeta.
Sadly, other production elements are seriously lacking. The set is amateurish, the lighting design is undercooked, and the sound is tinny and poorly executed.
The set comprises several multi coloured boxes with various items of daily life (a table, bed, refrigerator, office desk, stove, arcade machine, etc) painted onto them. It is a concept which, with proper execution, could be quite effective. However, the painting standard is low and it seems no thought has been given to how these boxes will be used by the players. Oddly two ‘painted arcade machines’ are later replaced by two real arcade machines, which look much better, but only confuse the set concept further.
The lighting is lacklustre and fails to drive or define the action. The stage is often entirely lit when only two players are performing on the leg, and in other scenes lines are delivered from the dark. Follow spot is occasionally used to good effect, but not nearly often enough, and the grey stage is awash with white light and feels clinical and anaemic.
In spite of this director, David Gauci has assembled a strong lead cast. Kate Dempsey is outstanding in the role of Susan Lawrence and gives a beautiful vocal performance with measured acting. Her most recent love interest (older) Josh Baskin is played by Charlie Smith with pathos. Smith finds the joy and insecurity of a thirteen year old without patronising the audience; there are smiles on our faces watching Smith and Dempsey work together.
Angus Smith gives Mr Macmillan loads of guts; the famous piano scene with older Josh is delightful. The light up piano that has been sourced for this scene is icing on the cake.
The whole cast and ensemble give loads of energy; but the successes in this show belong to the leads. Some ensemble players still seemed unsure of their parts, which is concerning half way through the season. More thought about where characters are and why they are there would improve the ensembles ‘background business’. The whole show would also benefit from a lot more stillness.
Choreographer, Shenayde Wilkinson-Sarti has done the show proud. The dance numbers are lively and make great use of the space. There is mixed ability among the ensemble and Wilkinson-Sarti has accounted well for this. She makes everyone look good.
Emma Knights keeps the orchestra tight, and Gauci has placed the action well on the stage, but there is still work to be done. Big closes next weekend.
Paul Rodda
When: 9 to 24 Oct
Where: The Shedley Theatre
Bookings: northernlight.org.au
Brink Productions in association with the Adelaide Festival Centre. Space Theatre. 13 Oct 2015
A musty scent of earth and grass pervades the theatre. The roof is a canopy, close like a lowering sky lit by a ball of amber light. The stage is a small mound surrounded by circles of punishing wooden picnic chairs upon which the audience must sit. Beneath the feet, the lawn is summer-bleached and strewn with eucalyptus leaves. Tiny flies, gnats, come with the territory. They visit the audience members, landing on hands, programs, and foreheads while generating small outbreaks of "the Australian wave".
Enter the actors. They might be costumed like figures from a Russell Drysdale landscape, but they speak the spirit of Patrick White. It is as if, in adaptation, Chris Drummond has, like a literary alchemist, distilled the essence of White.
The original short story had the prosaic title of Down at the Dump. In renaming the story for the stage, Drummond has extracted the focal character with a melancholy twist. Daise is dead. The audience members attend her funeral. She lives among them. She is put to rest. She rises as a ghost of memories in her community. Her life was not complete. Aspirations are not just aims; they are breath.
It's about love and loss, about small minds in a big landscape and it is set in an insular Australian yesterday which we may now identify as an era when the country's cultural forces were at the height of idiomatic self-awareness.
The cast of four roams from character to character, not gender specific but divided by generations. Two great actors play the spans of suburban community seniors: the long-suffering wife, the plodding rustic man, the posturing local dignitary. Paul Blackwell dons shaggy dun brown overalls which make you itch to look at them and some rather odd old-fella makeup and uses artful demeanour as his primary tool of characterisation while from Kris McQuade arises that glorious gravel voice to ring forth a wonderment of White inflections and imagery.
James Smith and Lucy Lehman embody the experiences of growing up there in Sarsaparilla amid the secrets of the bush and the judgements of their elders. Lehman also represents Daise in her shades of approval from the tight little establishment of yesteryear while Smith elicits Ozzie, the symbol of the Aussie underdog. Oh, that young man can act. He is something special to watch. And to hear. White's wondrous lines stream naturally from his character depictions.
And there is the mind music of White's words placing these characters so vividly in the White world: the "small pink tilted house"; "standing among carnations"; "brindled with crystal crimson"; "turned into the speckled bush"; "trees with grey blades"; "face closed up tightly like a fist".
There's a graveside association with the deceased and the recollection of eating a caramelised baked apple; so incidental yet piercingly intense. Ah, behold the power of Patrick White's minutiae.
The players clomp in leather shoes through the grassy scape while lighting designer Nigel Levings plays harsh Australian sunshine through the shades of day upon the vast canopy under which the audience sits in The Space; a large world narrowed so carefully by designer Michael Hankin. If ever there was an award-worthy design, this is it.
But there is more.
There is the Zephyr Quartet: Hilary Kleinig, Belinda Gehlert, Jason Thomas, and Emily Tulloch. They are seated at four points among the audience, sometimes plucking strings in sweet tuneful eloquence and at others, rolling forth the atmosphere of this timeless Australian yesterday. It is intimate, perfectly balanced, and of mellow tonal beauty, with shades of swirling Philip Glass; the music embraces and caresses the audience. It is the final touch to the complete experience, to a particularly brilliant evocation of Patrick White Australiana.
Following the superlative, award-winning litany of productions of his career so far, this lovely lull of Australiana cements the belief that Brink artistic director, Chris Drummond, is the genius theatre mind of our time.
Samela Harris
When: 13 to 24 Oct
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Oz Asia Festival. The Space. 3 Oct 2015
Anyone familiar with the Japanese reality TV scene which SBS has done a great job of broadcasting in Australia, will have an immediate hook into the kind of experience Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker promises.
In a mere three years, Director Choreographer Toco Nikaido has taken her company and work to Europe as well as the Asian arts festival circuit and made such a name for themselves they are invited back. Not hard to see why.
What a mind bending, joyous, wild and thought provoking experience the work is. Imagine being in the middle of the high-energy insanity of your favourite Japanese reality TV show. Imagine having buckets of water thrown at you from all directions along with constant showers of multicoloured glitter falling on you from the rig above. All the while, you’re being bombarded visually by pop culture video, song and dance straight out of the zaniest traditions of karaoke bar life.
There is definitely method in the madness, a crazy mixed up story blending the struggles of Miss Revolutionary Idol alongside the freedoms and wonders of Australia. All this told in delightful sugar coated fantasy style accompanied by cliché Aussie tourism images of your standard cute koala bear and flag.
Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker is the most insanely brilliant melange of European styles of immersive theatre, theatre of cruelty and cinema with uniquely Japanese styles of story telling and mythology clearly reflecting the 70 years plus influence of US consumerism and culture on Japan since World War II.
What makes it so unique from an audience perspective is you’re never sure if you are the show for the performers, who are having a blast peppering you from all sides in the friendliest fashion, or the show in front you is meant to be the show. All the while, your mind is being very much love bombed into instant happiness by all the smiles, fun and games going on.
When the audience is invited onto the stage and applauded by the performers, it’s the moment you really start wondering, what’s important? The seemingly disposable pop gum experience or clearly genuine enthusiasm of the artists, for us as human beings?
David O’Brien
Where: The Space
When: Season closed
Bookings: Closed
John Frost, Karl Sydow, Martin McCallum and Joye Entertainment in association with Lionsgate and Magic Hour Productions. 4 Oct 2015
The buzz in the foyer before the sell-out performance I attended was incredible. Some, like me, missed the 1987 hit film starring Patrick Swayze (tragically dead at age 57 by pancreatic cancer) and Jennifer Grey, or the world premiere stage production in Australia in 2004, and were there because of the huge reputation of this work. The low budget, independently produced movie had no major stars (no, Patrick was not yet a star) but grossed skyward of $200 million. It was the first film to sell more than a million home copies; the hit song, (I've Had) The Time of My Life, and the soundtrack won Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards. All this started with the boy-meets-girl story that writer Eleanor Bergstein could not sell.
The action takes place in the summer of 1963 in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. Wealthy Manhattanites would retreat to woodsy resorts - like the Kellerman's as presented in the show - where the management organise skittles, talents contests and most pertinently, dance lessons for families. While it all seems a bit corny now, and the resorts lost their popularity in the 1980s, this sort of action has shifted to the cruise ships, as well as all the hanky-panky between the male staff and wide-eyed teenagers or bored housewives.
Basically, a nice girl in her gap summer falls in love with the dance instructor and has the time of her life. Some of the dramatic elements were later borrowed by Baz Luhrmann and his co-writers for the 1992 film, Strictly Ballroom. Due to partner problems, the top dog dancer reluctantly teaches a novice for a big number under the duress of a deadline. Baz even replicated the emphasis on Spanish rhythms and how to learn them - "leesin to yur 'art."
The design team created a filmic background for the stage production with motion imagery of lake water, rain, and scenic hills. Plantation shutters dropped periodically to help transit scene changes. The ambience of a high quality, old-school resort was there, meeting Bergstein's objective of placing you into the three dimensional present, as opposed to film's sense of two dimensional memory, as she put it.
The dancing is unbelievably good - exciting, visceral and sexy - the dirty dancing of the title. Maddie Peat and Kurt Phelan playing the top instructors at Kellerman's opened the dance numbers in an awesome display of virtuosity. The chorus choreography is highly individualised. It is in the relationship between Kirby Burgess's Baby Houseman and Phelan's Johnny Castle that Strictly Ballroom meets Grease (1978), for here we have a Sandy Olsson type falling for a Johnny Zuko type. The audience cheered for their success in seduction and choreography. And weren't those the biggest melons you have ever seen?
While a lot of the music was sixties soundtrack, James D Smith - who as Billy Kostecki introduced Baby to the debauchery of the staff quarters - sang In The Still of The Night with the clarity of a Herkimer diamond, and shone with Anna Freeland in the inspirational theme song of the finale. Unfortunately, director James Powell kept them in theatrical twilight in opposite corners of front stage, as this is a dance show after all. The other original songs are also left to the ensemble as the leads do not actually sing. Fans of the early sixties will enjoy all the contextual information - the Mississippi bus protest, Kennedy's Peace Corps and the liberal idealism that that president fostered - but also parental conservatism and illegal abortion, new stuff in addition to the romantic narrative of the film, I am told.
There was a standing ovation when I attended. Dirty Dancing is a terrific night out, sticking to the winning formulae of the film, and fulfilling a wish to re-engage with this love story by the immediacy of a stage performance.
David Grybowski
When: 4 October to 1 November
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au