Matt Byrne Media. Holden Street Theatres. 24 Oct 2010
‘The Breakfast Club’ is a cult 80s film by writer John Hughes that traces a day in the life of 5 teenagers stuck in detention on a Saturday. The group could not be more different, but by the end of the day they discover that despite these differences they could not have more in common. The character-focused story explores stereotyping, social politics and relationships.
Byrne has taken a huge gamble in attempting to mount a performance of such a well-known film; audience expectations are high, and translating a film to stage is never an easy proposition – particularly such a close character study. Sadly for me this production only made it half way there.
Before walking into the theatre I knew that solid casting and tight direction were the crucial ingredients this show would need to succeed. The actors all show great potential, and each develops an interesting character to watch. In this piece however, they have been left to their own devices too much and there is a real disconnect on stage that makes the play jar.
The cast is comprised of Jamie Hornsby, Kristen Tommasini, James King, Kacy Ratta, Loccy Hywood, Brendan Cooney and Matt Byrne. There are some strong performances amongst the group, but the material is complicated and their potential is left unexplored by Byrnes directing. Each of the young players work hard on their own stories, but the whole is still raw, unrefined, and in need of some tough direction to create a polished piece.
The ensemble would benefit from a lot more pace throughout the show; serving both to lift the energy during the arguments and heighten the poignancy of the silences. During intense scenes, the amount of pacing, shouting, desk-banging and feet stamping inevitably detracts from the real, raw emotions; this could have been better handled by Byrne. The choice to use American accents is understandable, but poor execution made it distracting, and it pulled focus at crucial moments in the story.
As the productions designer, Byrne has developed a very workable set which succeeds in locating various scenes throughout the show clearly and with minimal set changes. The intermedial use of projected photography and music does a wonderful job at guiding audience members who are unfamiliar with the film through the action.
Whilst I wasn’t entirely captivated by this production, equally I didn’t find it hard to watch. The truth is it doesn’t reach the same poignant and emotional heights as the original, and the journey doesn’t feel nearly as rewarding, but it is by no means a bad show, so if you are interested to see what Byrne and his young cast have done with a cult classic, I would still encourage you to check it out.
Paul Rodda
When: 22 Oct to 8 Nov
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: bass.net.au
State Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company. Space theatre. 25 Oct 2014
Thank goodness someone has written a play that shows the Chinese nationals to be the way they really are, or is it the way we think they are? Or demonstrates in no uncertain terms what they think of us - koala-like loafers lazily lounging on a treasure of resources lacking ideals - or is this the way white Australians think Chinese nationals think about us? Where sits the experience and the stereotype?
Kryptonite is a new Australian work co-produced by our state theatre and Sydney Theatre Company by accomplished playwright Sue Smith. While the world premiere took place in the harbour city last month, the work was directed by State's very own Geordie Brookman.
We follow the on-off relationship of Aussie surfie-uni bloke cum Green senator Dylan and Chinese student cum businesswoman Lian over twenty-five years. From the late '80s to today, the fulcrum moments - the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Beijing Olympics - provide temporal bookends for China's modern coming-of-age. The genius of the writing is that Dylan and Lian also represent their native lands, and their personal discourse gets geopolitical and progressively accusative and nasty. The love story is more a story of yearning at the foot of insurmountable cultural and character abutments.
Victoria Lamb's stage is designed with the modern idioms of bare and alienating, yet is fetchingly architectural (which means it's got style). I loved the disappearing ink on the rouched silk-like backdrop. Nicholas Rayment follows suit with harsh and focused lighting. Composer DJ Tr!p (no, not a typing error) hones the edge further, and sound designer Andrew Howard gives it an ethereal effect.
Sue Smith chose to chop up the chronology in a way re-popularised by Quentin Tarantino - another technique that separates modern theatre from its proscenium stage forbears. Sometimes confusing, I appreciated its value nearer the end.
Ursula Mills gives an excellent performance in the challenging role of Lian. Her Lian, likely a creation of all of herself, Brookman, Smith, and Smith's sister-in-law, certainly was an incredibly detailed and nuanced rendition of everything I see in being Chinese - for example, her hard working impoverished student, her early peasant-like behaviours, her power woman period, frank judgments, clear thinking, passion, love of country. Bravo! Tim Walker provided no less verisimilitude and his transition from a prankster to a senator seemed the real deal. Director Geordie Brookman made the years fly by, like the pages blowing off a calendar, with inventive blocking and creative scene changes, and not least, the performances he extracted from this great cast.
I was thrilled at the pace and the scope of this production, a real roller coaster ride called Australia's relationship with China, superbly executed and presented. A time capsule of the times.
David Grybowski
When: 22 Oct to 9 Nov
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Photography by Lisa Tomasetti
Vitalstatistix. Waterside Workers Hall, Port Adelaide. 16 Oct 2014
I have always considered the Vitals to be vital in the creation of new theatrical work in Adelaide, and they do so presently via three programs: Incubator - a residency program for the creation of new performance work, Adhocracy - an annual amalgam of artists and audience, and Contemporary Communities - community-based projects partnering artists with non-artists culminating in a new work. The latter sounds similar to what the dear, late and great Geoff Crowhurst used to do through Junction Theatre.
Quiet Faith is a world premiere born of Vitalstatistix's artistic director Emma Webb's Incubator program. Writer, director and performer David Williams wanted to counterbalance the bombastic and shrill political elements of Christianity that hog the publicity, with a theatrical documentary (sometimes called verbatim theatre) recalling the piety and works springing from your suburban Sunday service.
The documentary aspect comes from Williams' personal experience growing up in a church family, and through his interviews with twenty Christians from various denominations and with diverse ages and occupations. With co-performer and collaborator, Ashton Malcolm, they mimic the intonations of the interviewees in expressing their testimony. Indeed, they sought permission of the interviewees to perform their very words. How great is that? Imagine being able to interview Willy Loman or Richard III in order to provide an authentic performance!
The result is a gentle and often wry reflection on your everyday church-goer, and Christian religion and social service provider. But the first thing that will impress you is Jonathan Oxlade's fetching circular maze set in the middle of the cavernous Waterside Workers Hall. The low walls of the maze, constructed of bleached plywood with a high level of craftsmanship, function as seats for the audience. Above is a halo of diffused lighting thoughtfully designed by Chris Petridis. Whispering voices and vespers penetrate the space via eight enormous trumpet-like speakers (sound design: Bob Scott). An exceptionally credentialed creative team has been applied to this project. The design was sculptural/architectural, take your pick.
Williams and Malcolm play the various roles of social workers, pew sitters and deacons. You are immediately captured by the devotion to service thus expressed, and will identify with the political views - from "What is Abbott doing?" to "Of course, if you belong to the church you voted Liberal." Williams and Malcolm sweep amongst the audience and look you in the eye with their monologues of verisimilitude. Indeed, the script is certainly most real, with all the halted sentences and changes in thought and expression that we do when we explain or converse. This worked extraordinarily well 90% of the time. They also sang devotional hymns, and people joined in for Amazing Grace and The Lord's Prayer. Hell, I grew up with 10:30 Sunday mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, so I knew what Williams was getting at.
I was especially moved with the last scene where a couple of ministers explain how they gave baptism to a stillborn - against doctrine - to provide the requested comfort this would give the parents. They posit the question: If we can't provide compassion and assuage grief at this time of need, what use are we or our church?
Quiet Faith is hallowed ground, a little bit like going to church, and a powerful voice for the faithful who actually practice what they preach. Whether you are a full-blown atheist, one of the flock, or a complete hypocrite, you will not leave the same as you entered.
PS Ashton Malcolm says she is playing Desdemona in State Theatre's November production of Othello, and I wouldn't miss that, either.
David Grybowski
When: 8 to 19 Oct
Where: Waterside Workers Hall
Bookings: trybooking.com
University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 11 Oct 2014
It was a great idea of director Geoff Brittain to present both Strindberg's ‘Miss Julie’, and English comedian and playwright Patrick Marber's version of the famous Swedish three-hander. You can see them together in one night, as I did, on the closing night of the season on 18 October, or only ‘After Miss Julie’ during the week preceding. Unfortunately, the ‘Miss Julie’-only season is kaput.
Strindberg is famous for his innovations in, and essays about, theatre, and particularly as a proponent of the new-fangled thing called naturalism. ‘Miss Julie’ is all of a love triangle, class struggle and kitchen drama. Not to underestimate the challenge, the action seemed to easily transfer to Marber's setting on the day of the 1945 British election when Labour won over Winston Churchill.
Geoff Brittain's set, manifested by Tony Clancy was complete, detailed and adequately passed for the servant's quarters of a manor both in 1888 Sweden and 1945 Britain. I loved Ben Todd's costumes and Jennifer Morris's work on hair and make-up. She considerably enhanced the female roles, especially as the actors traded roles between a servant cook and an aristocrat in the two plays.
Nick Fagan's man servant, betrothed to the cook but risking a roll in the hay with Miss Julie, was grumpy from beginning to end in both plays. I sensed that Fagan missed copious opportunities to find a broader range of responses. Rosie Williams was Miss Julie in the original and Christine the cook in the adaptation - Marber made the latter a diminished role. Williams reached a suitably high level of distress as the Miss, but unfortunately lost considerable power due to breathlessness. Cheryl Douglas was very convincing in both her roles with flashes of brilliance, imbuing her Christine with dignity and her Miss Julie with coquetry. Excellent posture helps. Come to think of it, Williams was pretty good in the hot and horny bits, too.
Notwithstanding the above, ‘Miss Julie’ had edge-of-seat tension throughout. Miss Julie's sensually dangerous games and her improper exertion of power and subsequent fall had a similarity to Salome (which actually post-dates Miss Julie by three years). While I perceived this during ‘Miss Julie’ (no, really, ask my companion that night!), Marber actually mentions this in ‘After Miss Julie’. Geoff Brittain coached his actors to find Strindberg's razor sharp transformations of shifted status, changed plans, and switched loyalties with terrific timing, and demonstrated the same with ebullient blocking. The tension lifts a teeny bit in ‘After Miss Julie’, simply because you get the plot, but there is great pleasure in hearing the 1945 vernacular, and you get carried away with it anyway.
I would certainly choose to be there on Saturday, 18 October.
David Grybowski
When: 4 to 18 Oct
Where: The Little Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
Stirling Players. Stirling Theatre. 12 Oct 2014
Written by John Hodge and directed by Megan Dansie, Collaborators is based on real characters and events (with a healthy dose of dramatic licence) and finds famous Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, a heavily censored Russian playwright who is considered an enemy of the Soviet authorities, commissioned to write a play about Stalin's life for the celebration of the ruler's 60th birthday. In a show of force, Bulgakov is told that if he doesn’t complete the play his career will be destroyed by the closing of his latest work, Moliere, and his family is at risk of assassination. Bulgakov is morally opposed to Stalin's oppressive regime and has made his politics felt, however oddly he somewhat owes his career to the soviet leader who is apparently one of his biggest fans, and after all what choice does he have? So he decides to write the play; but does he?
This play is wonderfully constructed. Hodge presents a darkly comic interpretation of a horrible time in history and then further blurs the lines between reality and dream worlds. The show makes for great debate after leaving the theatre – both about the happenings on stage and the intention of the playwright underpinning it all. Perhaps Hodge didn’t have an overarching message to deliver; maybe it was a simple, time worn, comment on society (human conflict, freedom speech, revolution, etc). Either way director Megan Dansie leaves it hanging up in the air – a risk if the players are not all on the same page – but a risk that has, in this instance, paid off.
So many of the questions I had when I left the theatre remain, but I feel OK about that because it intrigues me. Is Stalin real or a hallucination personified by the guilt Bulgakov feels about writing the play? Does Stalin really write the play on Bulgakov’s behalf in that dank basement of the Kremlin, or is it all in Bulgakov’s head? Is Bulgakov really ordering the NKVD to carry out Stalin’s requests or merely making connections in his mind to recent local events? Are Bulgakov’s improved living conditions a reward for being Stalin’s new friend or just a coincidence? Is Bulgakov deluded by his terminal illness or is that his ‘method’ for writing a story he despises? The play presents a lot of reasons why you might believe one thing or another at any one time. Most interesting perhaps is that it never clears it up.
Gary George plays Mikhail Bulgakov with wonderful light and shade. His torment is gradually revealed as the play within a play unravels. George’s Bulgakov is wonderfully challenged by the complexities of governance and his utter disbelief at how a simple order can tear a country apart is evident. George gives Bulgakov a gut wrenching sense of self-loathing towards the end and you cannot help but feel empathy towards the man. His continuous energy onstage was unrivalled.
Peter Davies plays Joseph Stalin like something out of a comedy sketch show and it works wonderfully. Davies’ characterisation makes the penultimate twist all the more perverse and transformed Stalin from an every man, misunderstood and irresponsible to a paranoid psychopath.
Steve Marvanek in the role of Valdimir, a secret policeman, is equally menacing and tormented. Vladimir has a small story of his own bubbling away in the background and Marvanek really makes something of that adding an extra dimension to the piece. He also successfully avoids the easy comedy (a secret policeman with artistic tendencies!) and gives Vladimir more human qualities that ultimately transition well into his suspected defection and eventual ending. Vladimir’s internal torment is evident.
Sharon Malujilo as Yelena Bulgakov (Mikhail’s wife), Alex Antonio as Grigory, a censored novelist and friend to Bulgakov, David Lockwood as the Doctor and Samuel Rogers and Joshua Coldwell as the actors presenting the play within a play were all standout supports.
Rogers and Coldwell offer up some fantastic elements of comedy which (although only occasionally stealing the focus) lighten the mood and point up the comedy of the piece. Antonio had some of the most poignant lines in the play. His troubles are clear and his suicide very evocative. Malujilo makes her Yelena not only a critic of her lover’s work but also a measure of his delusion, transforming her performance as his deterioration takes hold; like holding up a mirror.
The set, designed by Malcolm Horton, fits the stage well but offers some very odd entrance and exit points which do confuse the action in the first half. Once the energy of the play builds late in the first half these frustrations became less of a problem. The repeated use of doors and set pieces to represent different locations does take a while to get used to, but Dansie has made use of this confusion to give the piece a strong and punchy pace that keeps the action very tight and intense.
This is a very enjoyable production of a most intriguing play. There are only 3 performances left, so I encourage you to check it out.
Paul Rodda
When: 3 to 18 Oct
Where: Stirling Community Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com