Theatre Works wrap up...

2009 = 229 Performances; 585 artists supported; 20 new works; 100 workshops & rehearsals; 1 new logo; 1 new website; 3 Selected Works; 4 In The Works; 1 Moving Works season; 8 Moving Works pieces; 1 Circus Works season; 4 Circus Works companies; 5 Speed Dating for Artists; 6 Creative Developments; 5 masterclasses; 9777 tickets sold; 432 Bottles of Wine guzzled; 1065 coffees made; approx 1200 beers downed; 1.625 permanent staff; 15 wonderful casual staff & 1 very big wish for a safe & happy festive season to all our friends & supporters.

Phew what a year!

CIRCUS WORKS: Freefall and Downpour

December 14th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Melynda Von Derksen [www.artshub.com.au]

I just love going to contemporary Circus shows, so luckily it was off to Theatre Works again for me to see the second two performances of the Circus Works series - a platform for independent circus companies to flip, fly, twirl, juggle, balance and enthral the audience with their finely tuned skills and devil may care attitudes.

The first of these performances, which was called Freefall (Gravity & Other Myths), starred 7 young and very talented performers all hailing from the 'Cirkidz Performing Troupe'. The ensemble consisted of Lachlan Binns, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Martin Schreiber, Jacob Randell, Jascha Boyce, Brie Henwood and Triton Tunis-Mitchell.

I have to say, for a bunch of 'youngsters' who had little outside direction in devising this performance - which explored the theme of phobias - their take on the circus/theatre combination was not only different, but was impressive, clever and very entertaining.

Entering the dark theatre, at first I wasn't sure what to expect as the performers began to write their fears onto a papered wall. But suddenly, with the use of several low hanging light bulbs and some smooth choreography, the performance became illuminated in more ways than one.

Then we were introduced to each performer by the use of a telephone with a microphone in it. Not only did the use of the phone meld into the theme of phobias perfectly - as one performer told us about her fears as though she was talking to a market researcher - but it was also used as a prop for several of the other acts.

Then came the circus tricks! Time and time again throughout the course of this performance we were enthralled with brilliant balancing, tumbling, adagio, hand balancing and hoop tricks. But the piece de résistance for me was the juggling act, with this troupe putting a new twist on juggling by slowing it right down and making it very precise. As I said earlier - very clever!

In conclusion I thought the teamwork in this show was superb, with the varying ages of the performers (15 - 29) having no impact on their ability to create a top notch circus performance consisting of drama, humour, fun, skill and intellect. My only criticism is that I thought the performance went for a tad too long, but I really believe that Freefall has got a real future in the circus touring circuit. There certainly is no to fear of that.

Interval time!

The next performance, which was called Downpour, was performed by the 'A4 Circus Ensemble' and starred Zoe Robbins, Nathan Boadle, Thomas Worrell and Jess Connell. This time it was unrequited love that was being explored in a very poetic way.

As if in a dream like state we were lulled by the sound of the rain, before being introduced to each performer as they slowly awoke. Then the story began to unfold. Zoe loved Thomas, but he didn't love her, Thomas loved Jess but she didn't love him, Jess and Nathan loved each other...I think......confused? Not really, it was all pretty straight forward actually.

The dance of love started with some hula hooping by Jess and Nathan, before Zoe showed us just how talented her unloved feet could be by performing a wonderful foot juggling routine with just fabric. Well not just any fabric, gorgeous red embroidered fabric, but fabric none the less. I don't believe I have ever seen 4 pieces of fabric dance so beautifully before.

After that it was Thomas's turn to show us just how much of a brilliant chair balancer he is, while at the same time contorting his body in all manner of bends. After watching his act it came as no surprise to read that he is known as one of the most versatile contortion/hand balance acrobats in the country.

The dance of love continued with a bit of lap hopping, pushing, pulling, balancing, and general love sick angst, until again we were wooed by Zoe's amazing feet. This time it was parasols that she juggled - first one and then two. Then she showered herself and our senses with paper confetti before using her parasol as an overhead projector and shadow screen. I really liked this idea and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Finally it was back to Thomas for another contortion act, but this time the finale saw him being rained on from above with water - real water.

Although this performance was nice and short, I personally would have liked to have seen some resolution between the 4 lovesick performers. Maybe Zoe could have gotten her man after all. I guess I will just have to imagine what could have been in my own spare time.

One last word. With so many impressive circus troupes out there wowing audiences with their skills, it is going to become even more imperative for the future stars of circus to create performances that are new, fun, exciting and theatrically intelligent.

To find the right balance between circus and theatre is a challenging one, but as proven by the 4 acts from the Circus Works series, and with a little directorial assistance, it can be successfully done.

CIRCUS WORKS: Circus Trick Tease and Parasouls

December, 6th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Melynda Von Derksen [www.artshub.com.au]

Roll up Roll up, The Circus is in town! And it seems like every kid and their monkey these days is a circus performer of some kind. But is it any wonder with the likes of the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) and the Flying Fruit Fly Circus churning out circus graduates like a sausage factory? But don't get me wrong, these circus folk are very good at what they do, and I should know, I have worked with some of the most talented acrobats in Australia.

So it was off to Theatre Works for me to see the first two performances of the Circus Works series - a platform for independent circus companies to flip, fly, twirl, juggle, balance and enthral the audience with their finely tuned skills and devil may care attitudes.

The first performance, which was called Circus Trick Tease, starred a very attractive, lithe and flexible Malia Walsh, a very strong Shannon McGurgan, and well balanced Iranian performer Farhad Ahadi, who just happens to come from a traditional circus family in Iran.

Firstly we were treated to a well rehearsed balancing act by the 'Trick Tease duo', complete with diva antics and onstage humour. Then the 'New Age Sensitive Strong Man' himself not only serenaded us with a song, but went on to lift not one, not two, but four women off the ground. It wasn't just this guy's muscles and singing skills that were impressive, no his fake moustache and leopard skin one-piece suit really made this act something special.

After that we witnessed the amazing hand balancing skills of Farhad Ahadi. This guy is something else. Not only was his physical strength impressive, but anyone who can do a headstand on a bottle has got the thumbs up from me.

Then it was back to some more impressive balancing work, including daring three high shoulder stands from these dazzling performers, with their equally dazzling costumes. And finally to finish off, we were entertained with some boogie woogie dancing which made me want to go out and get lessons straight away.

All in all these three misfits entertained us wholeheartedly with their acrobatic antics, sexual innuendos, onstage fighting, flirting and tantrums. With a little direction from the right Director, Circus Trick Tease has a real future on the performing arts circuit.
Interval time!

The next performance, which was called Parasouls, starred a bevy of gorgeous and talented gals, namely - Pippin Aitken, Lauren Shepherd, Lilikoi Kaos, Nyree Camden and Alex Mizzen.

With a feminist take on traditional circus skills, these women introduced to the audience issues such as cultural stereotypes, bodies on display and what it is like for women to be 'dismembered' by society.

With curtains hiding female oddities and sideshow intrigue, we were introduced to some very flexible contorting, leg juggling, hat dancing and hula hooping.

In addition were we treated to some very sexy burlesque style feather fan work, complete with a baby doll strapped to the performer's body. To me this was a strong statement about what society says women with children can and can't 'do'. Being a new mother I found this most intriguing.

Finally these five strong women laid the table with a lace tablecloth, delicate tea cups were filled with gin, and we were shown fifties images of 'perfect' women. We ladies were warned to know our limits and then all limits were broken with some awesome fire twirling and hardcore hula hooping from Lilikoi.

Although I think this show could use some direction and some of the acts need tightening up, the idea behind it is strong and the women are making a powerful statement about being objects on display in a world where not all women fit into the ideal stereotype.

Good on you ladies - Go Girl power!

On a final note, if you love circus but missed Circus Trick Tease and Parasouls, you still have a chance to see Freefall and DownPour playing from the 9th to the 12th of December.

Don't miss out!

CIRCUS WORKS: Circus Trick Tease and Parasouls

December, 4th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Danu Poyner [www.australianstage.com.au]

Circus Works is a surreal and slightly silly showcase of circus acts comprising mostly home-grown performers. I had the good fortune to see two of the four shows on offer - Circus Trick Tease and Parasouls. I'd highly recommend you get along and see either one, or preferably both.

Circus Trick Tease

This trio begin their hilarious, sexually charged and slightly deranged routine before the audience were even in their seats. They have the persona of a bunch of misfits who have been travelling together for a long time and have gone slightly mad with cabin fever but nevertheless all they have is each other.

Collecting the audience's tickets at the door, Malia flashes us a plastic smile through too much lipstick and snaps sweetly at us to take our seats before handing us off to Farhad, a polite Iranian man with a winning smile who guides us to our seats while engaging us in unintelligible conversation in his native language. Once in our seats we watch as Malia and Farhad frantically get the audience organised, bickering with each other and at the self-absorbed but slightly neurotic strong-man whose silhouette we can see as he prepares behind the stage. It's a totally bizarre but brilliant way to start a show that only gets weirder.

Without spoiling the show, I'll simply say that the three performers are incredibly talented, have great comic timing and bounce quite literally off each other's energy. You can expect acrobatics, balancing tricks, cabaret numbers, juggling, balloon animals, dance routines and the dreaded moments of audience participation, all delivered with a winning combination of wit, histrionics, lowbrow humour and a toe-tapping soundtrack.

From start to finish and even afterwards, Circus Trick Tease is non-stop jaunty and jaw-dropping fun. Congratulations to Malia Walsh, Farhad Ahadi and Shannon Mcgurgan for an inspired concept and a dazzling performance. Special mention must go to Mcgurgan who is fairly bursting with ironic bravado and perfectly channels the iconic strong-man of the old-timey melodramas, moustache and all.

Parasouls

Setting a decidedly different tone, Parasouls is a frivolous but feisty performance featuring five young women who playfully but pointedly have things to say about femininity. To use restaurant parlance, it is more of a circus-inspired show - it is first about telling a story and sharing an experience, but the story and the experience are woven with the medium of circus.

Through a series of interconnecting vignettes, Pippin Aitken, Lauren Sheperd, Lilikoi Kaos, Nyree Camden and Alex Mizzen show off their graceful choreography and impressive acrobatic ability, all the while with quirky lighting highlighting a strong and sinister undertone.

Nyree Camden stands out as Miss Strawberry Siren with her good looks and peculiar but hypnotic brand of Burlesque tease. This seductive sweetness is counterbalanced by her fiery red-headed co-star, who in one scene appears in a strait jacket and tied up in chains. It is like Houdini without the water, and not only does she escape but she does so with striking acrobatic precision and while performing with a hula-hoop, all set to a thumping remix of memorable madhouse anthem 'They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-haa'. A fascinating and disquieting spectacle.

Another highlight was the scene which saw a handy housewife hammering nails into her nose to the strains of the Andrews Sisters, which led into a sequence involving burning rubber gloves and running around in a carefully choreographed fire-twirling finale.

The ladies make great use of music, props and visuals to tell a story that's funny, endearing, and if I dare to pull out that old performance trope - challenging and confronting. I will confess I did not understand all the symbolism, and perhaps as part of the male hegemony I wasn't expected or even supposed to. But the audience whooped with wild applause and so will you.

Theatre Works presents
Circus Works

Circus Trick Tease | 7.30pm Wed 2 - Sat 5 Dec & 2.00pm Sat 5 Dec, 2009
Parasouls | 9.00pm Wed 2 - Sat 5 Dec & 3.30pm Sat 5 Dec, 2009
Freefall (Gravity & Other Myths) | 7.30pm Wed 9 - Sat 12 Dec & 2.00pm Sat 12th Dec, 2009
DownPour (A4 Circus Ensemble) | 9.00pm Wed 9 - Sat 12 Dec & 3.30pm Sat 12 Dec, 2009

CIRCUS WORKS: Parasouls

Northcote circus performer up in the air

December, 7th, 2009

Northcote Leader - Review: Annika Pries

WHILE many notions of women in the circus involve looking glamorous on a trapeze, Northcote's Lilikoi Kaos has different ideas - such as wrestling out of a straitjacket wearing fishnets and heels, or banging nails up her nose.

"I call it Blockhead: that's a bit of fun in the afternoon," she said.

Born to a Hawaiian circus performer mother and a father who gave up doctoring to also become a carney, Kaos was on a trapeze before she could walk.

At three months old she was dangled in the air in the Fruit Fly Circus, carefully supervised by her mother and circus trainer.

After years of travelling around Europe and Australia, the family settled in Melbourne so Kaos' older brother, now a musician, could go to high school.

"I remember starting school not realising it was an odd thing Mum was a performer," Kaos said.

"I thought you travelled as part of life but when I did try and enter in the normal world, I was slightly ostracised. But I didn't really mind because I had this entire circus community as a family."

This week she joins some of that circus family - four other sisters who also grew up in the circus - as the Parasouls (most pictured), a gender-twisting journey into femininity. "There are so many strong capable women in the circus, acrobats and aerialists are so physically capable.

"So we're thinking about ... what women on stage mean and people's perception of women being performers and assumptions that they're in a cooch tent out the back and then out the front they're physically able," Kaos said. "It's about the strength of female performers and the notion of what females on display means."

Combining burlesque, theatre, dance and comedy, the quest for the perfect woman is symbolised by the team juggling a dismembered female mannequin.

"When I first started doing escapology, I started trying to play with ... how it's quite different to see a young female in heels and fishnets being strapped up like that, compared to what it would look like if a big burly sideshow bloke was," Kaos said. Parasouls are part of Theatre Works' Circus Works, showcasing four emerging groups blending traditional circus skills with storytelling.

Parasouls runs from Wednesday (December 2)-Saturday (December 5) at Theatre Works in St Kilda. theatreworks. org.au

Forest Of Gongs

Finding lost tales in the trees

November, 28th, 2009

The Age - Review: Martin Ball

THE forest has long been the source of narrative inspiration where the normal rules of society are upturned, and characters can become "lost in the woods" literally and metaphorically.

It's a staple device in folk tales, where the liminality of the forest provides both opportunity and danger for those prepared to journey within.

In FOG Theatre's Forest of Gongs, all these aspects of the forest are explored by a cast of 13 actors, all of whom have some degree of intellectual disability. The evocative title is developed in a hypnotic, live musical score that creates a haunting aural landscape suggestive of being metaphysically cast adrift in the "forest of the mind".

Director David Wells has worked with his cast to create a non-verbal text, where characters venture into the forest with varying consequences. Some are transported with wonderment; some are liberated from imprisonment; and some are isolated and fall victim to the violent potentialities of the environment.

As in all good tales, there is both focus and ambiguity, the latter emphasised by Richard Vabre's gloomy lighting. What emerges with the most clarity, however, is the consummate expressiveness of the performers.

There is a tremendous range and depth to the physical gestures and facial expressions. The two bird spirits, in particular, played by Melissa Slaviero and Debbie Lissek, come to life with great characterisation.

All those involved are to be commended, including the City of Port Phillip for supporting the production and performance.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/11/27/1258824829879.html

Roulette

Collision Course

November, 20th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Tony Reck

It's the music that sets the tone for Verve studio's production of Raimondo Cortese's play(s) Roulette. Quiet and reflective, tinged with hurt and melancholy, the Theatre Works stage is demarcated by four easily recognisable types of furniture. Behind table and chairs, park bench, airline seats and plush hotel lounge suite, there is stretched a taut piece of scrim. Behind this, and lit by a lonely half-light, characters linger and malinger as each traverses a windswept space in preparation for a confrontation with their nemesis. Cortese's dialogue is remarkable for what it doesn't say. That is, as each character bobs and weaves during their subsequent verbal stoush it becomes apparent to an attentive audience that the more shit these people talk, the more they will reveal themselves; thereby prompting an unravelling of their lives. Combined with some brave and concentrated performances from the Verve studio graduates, Roulette is an unsettling night in the theatre.

Cortese does not appear to have written his twelve plays with the intention of having each interwoven into one performance. And even though director Darren Natale has chosen to work with only five of the twelve, at times, a generality of tone creeps into this production. Inconsolable is a chat session in a cafe between a man and woman who have never before met, but who are obviously attracted to one another. Both are reproachable figures. Tom sips coffee while pretending to read Joyce's Ulysses. Kat is a worry-wart cum bull in a china shop who challenges Tom's addiction to nicotine, and his deluded sense of self. Meanwhile, on a park bench a short distance to the right, Break-In is a study in a self-destructive, sadomasochistic relationship. Cam and Julie, humping one another, yet not far from being homeless, discuss the pros and cons of the new girl in Cam's life. Desperate for a simple human relationship, one unattainable in an arbitrary world, Julie denigrates Cam to the point where his pretensions disintegrate. Promising love and friendship, Cam is exposed as only being there for the sex. Characteristically though, it is only when he reveals this primal intention that Julie admires him most.

As this interwoven performance progresses through the plays Hotel, Borneo, and Night, the generality of tone mentioned earlier permeates each exchange. This is partly a consequence of some of the performers not nailing the existential angst that always lurks within Cortese's creations. And even though each set of characters is distinctive in type and social status, the writer, as always, creeps into the action. In Hotel, a hard-nut, matronly cleaner from the old school, one whose current beau is explained away as "...a root between two roots...", lays down the law to her younger, up and coming protege'. Driven fractionally mad by the utter tedium of her existence, Tara eventually throttles Jane on the presumption that she threatens the security of Tara's employment. In Borneo, the sophisticated psychotherapist Angelica eventually finds communion with the carefree air-head Sal. Or so the audience is led to believe. (In fact, Sal is a smack courier intent on ridding herself of any chance she will be caught importing dope). What emerges during the ensuing conversation between the two women is the predatory characteristic of human relationships, even when such is a consequence of an apparently innocuous generational gap.

As a vehicle for a graduate production director Natale makes a wise choice in selecting Roulette to showcase Verve studio's acting talent. Production requirements are minimal, allowing for the graduate actors to express their craft in relation to Cortese's demanding linguistics. And even though each performer is more than adequate in their own role, there are several noteworthy performances. Gabrielle Brennan and Hannah Smith work very well together, and might consider amplifying their performance relationship beyond drama school. But it is during a moment of drunken decline in Night, a play about flippant sexual teasing and the drastic consequences this can have for the repressed homosexual, that Hayley Birch delivers a sustained period of compelling authenticity as the tragic, involuted lesbian Rachel, deathly uncomfortable with being on the prowl. Too much booze, not enough love, sexual frustration, and the debilitating effects of social prejudice, cohere into a transformational moment during which Birch, as her character Rachel, appears to be somewhere else other than on stage. It is the pathetic monster lurking behind the Pamela Anderson inspired 'Valley girl'. It is a moment Birch should document and remember, particularly in relation to how she felt and what she imagined during the conjuring of her creation. Even so, Cortese's writing for the most part is an indirect phantasmagoria of the human capacity for patheticism. Given this, Birch may very well have found her inspiration residing amongst the chance encounters between characters unbalanced during this entertaining production of Roulette.

Hallowe'en Classic [Presented by Impro Melbourne]

November 2nd, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Paul Kooperman [www.australianstage.com.au]

Improvisation is about taking risks, intentionally moving out of one's comfort zone to try something new, make an offer of an idea for someone to respond to without knowing exactly what will happen. Impro Melbourne does this week in week out, night after night, every time they get on stage, and they have achieved it particularly well with their latest offering: their Hallowe'en Classic festival.

This time, the show is divided into three segments: an open 'More or Less' section where directors begin ghoulish, ghostly scenes inspired by vampires and all things spooky, and the audience gets to decide 'more' or 'less' determining whether the scene will continue or not. Mike Bryant was a stand-out performer on this particular night, delivering a 'vampire 101 class' with such self-assurance, you would think he had been offering the unit at RMIT for years.

The second segment of the evening was 'Gypsy Prov' which highlighted the versatility of some of the Impro Melb 'main-stays' as well as showing off the talent of some of the interstate players. The wonderful thing about the Hallowe'en Classic Impro festival is its inclusion of guest players from other parts of Australia and the world. Players from Perth, Queensland, Canberra and New Zealand all pitched in with startling appearances to entertain the appreciative audience.

The final segment of the evening was 'Sondheim Unscripted' which was produced as a show on its own at this year's Melbourne Comedy Festival to a great degree of success. Sondheim is hard to perform even when scripted and heavily rehearsed, musically and lyrically, so to attempt to produce a piece of Sondheim-esque entertainment based on information gathered from the audience, well, it’s a tough ask. To its credit, Impro Melbourne has a way of making the impossible possible and did so again with this particular avant-garde, narrative-driven Sondheim-esque creation never to be seen again.

Special guests for the evening included Glenn Hall (WA), Dan Bain (QLD) and Robbie Ellis (NZ), playing along side Impro Melbourne stars: Lliam Amor, Rik Brown, Mike Bryant, Simon Dowling, Sean Fabri, Jason Geary, Jenny Lovell, Xavier Michelides, Karl McConnell, Rama Nicholas, Tim Redmond, Anna Renzenbrink, Jamie Robertson, Patti Stiles and Kevin Yank.

If you haven’t seen an Impro Melbourne show, step out of your own comfort zone, take a risk and just do it! And if you have seen one, they just keep getting better, so don’t miss the next one! They are the best fun you can have sitting in a dark space, surrounded by strangers.

Down The Rabbit Hole

October 18th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Grace Edwards  [http://graceegirl.blogspot.com]

Collaboration The Project's Down The Rabbit Hole, a sinister adaptation of the classic Alice's adventures in wonderland, may well give the children nightmares. For everyone else, this quirky, Tim-Burtonesque reinterpretation of the childhood tale will deliver an entertaining, fun night of dance, showcasing both the considerable talent of its performers and the creativity of its director, Paul Malek.

From start to finish, Down The Rabbit Hole proved a powerhouse of energy, featuring contemporary-edged choreography that spotlighted the characters of Alice and the White Rabbit. Whilst in some sections the music was loud enough to make a case for the provision of ear muffs, overall, the reworked but modern accompaniment energised the atmosphere, and alongside the hypnotic chequered floor and red stage lights, admirably set the scene for the dark tale.

The petite Kim Adam made an excellent Alice, with her clean technique and lines playing second fiddle to her apparent acting ability. As the villainous White Rabbit, Brendan Yeates was outstanding, reaching beyond the limits of choreography to present a truly charismatic interpretation of the character. The partnering sections between the two dancers were full of chemistry, illuminating the White Rabbit's seductive power over Alice as he led her further and further down the doomed path.

Though hard to believe, the second Act pushed up the energy levels even further, featuring the Mad Hatter's delightful tea party and the violent Queen of Hearts. This opened the way for more choreographic scenes involving the entire cast. In these sections, Malek demonstrated a good awareness of space and the logistics of ensemble performance, never allowing the choreography to seem messy despite having many characters onstage performing wildly different movements. In line with this, sections in which the dancers performed in unison were employed to great effect, balancing out the freer sections of choreography.

Utterly witty and zany, Down The Rabbit Hole is a great choice for a night out with friends. Unlike many adaptations of classics, which attempt to offer a cerebral, highly intellectualised version of the original, this production doesn't pretend to be more than it is - an enjoyable work of entertainment. For this reason and many others, Down The Rabbit Hole is a refreshing addition to the Melbourne dance scene.

Occupied [Fringe 09]

October 11th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Anne-Marie Peard [www.sometimesmelbourne.blogspot.com]

It's a strange feeling to see a stage that looks too much like how my brain feels, and love a show that made me laugh so honestly at my own life.

RAG Theatre's Occupied is for everyone who has ever endured a day in an office.

Cheap desks, IKEA bins, old computers (with holographic smiley face stickers), coffee cups, attempts at recycling, folders and chairs that spin create a design that makes the clutter look almost beautiful; if it wasn't for the clutter.

Starting slowly and ritualistically, five 'workers' (Carla Mitterlehner, Marjetka McMahon, Jo Sloggett, Melissa Tauber and Fur Wale) remind us that our worship of money is what makes us enter offices – places that thrive on unnecessary chaos, but ultimately chip away at our souls though boredom.

Under the steady direction of Scott Gooding, Occupied, was devised by the current RAG Theatre ensemble (RAG was formed in 1993) though workshops. The resulting series of vignettes about the 'madness' of offices strip away the pretence of these environments and let us laugh at their absurdity.

"You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps." There isn’t a workplace where this sign doesn’t appear – and everyone hates it because it’s true. The repetition of this cliché and the examples of the madness that the office life leads to were so familiar and so ridiculous at the same time. Who hasn’t moved the stuff on someone’s desk to bug them or tried to do yoga in their chair?

There’s little dialogue, because work conversations are all the same and don’t say much anyway. The official ones are filled with 'buts’ that blame other people (with some of the best outrageous excuses ever), while the casual chats are filled with untruths and a just a bit crude.

Occupied’s honest and hilariously accurate depiction of boredom sent me back to every job where I stamped my fingernails, wore an envelope as a hat, looked around the room through a postal tube telescope, built a folder house for my desk toy (that was there to cheer me up), wondered what those bitches were talking about behind my back or just wanted to climb under my desk and cry.

RAG Theatre, you are my type of people - thank you for reminding me why I never want to work in an office again.

Phantom Limbs - MOVING WORKS Creative Development Award

Those of you fortunate enough to see our recent Moving Works season here at Theatre Works might be interested to know that Phantom Limbs, winners of both the Peoples Choice Award and the Theatre Works Creative Development Award recently spent a very productive week at Theatre Works working on their latest piece: 'Ganzfeld Frequency' which they are currently performing as part of the Dance Miniature season at Fringe Hub - The Warehouse, 521 Queensberry Street North Melbourne until the 10th October.

Theatre Works wishes them a great Fringe season and looks forward to the full length presentation in the future.

Dance Miniature
The 'place' to practice art is the community. Dance Miniature is a visionary project of 9 emerging artists exploring the phenomenon of contemporary dance collectively. In this miniature community, they subdivide into groups to find convergence and differentiation in aesthetics, ideas and practices. These artists create seven choreographic works that take forms in either conventional theatrical presentation or performance installation, and experiment with different contemporary dance practices ranging from dance theatre, conceptual performance, and mix media to improvisation.

Head to the Fringe website for more details on session 2:
http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/dance-miniature

Theatresports

October 8th, 2009

ONLINE: Emily Cooney [www.expressmedia.org.au]

Theatre and sports are not two concepts that share sentence space regularly...with one exception that is. Theatresports, organised by ImproMelbourne (www.impromelbourne.com.au), is a Melbourne institution and not exclusive to the Fringe Festival. It is, however, a welcome addition.

Theatresports is showing every Sunday during the Fringe Festival at Theatreworks in Acland St, St Kilda. This intimate venue is perfect for the audience interaction involved in Theatresports. Each Sunday night different members of ImproMelbourne perform, so each show is guaranteed to be uniquely different in more ways than one.

If you are not exactly sure what Theatresports involves, don't worry. The first ten minutes of the show is dedicated to explaining the basic concepts of improvisation used by the players. These players are all talented and professional, like the show itself. Their performance leaves you amazed at the quick thinking comedy and enthusiasm. Even more impressively, it is not just the players who are improvising. The technical aspects of lighting and music are also unrehearsed.

Don't think you have to be a theatre expert to watch and appreciate Theatresports either. In fact, it is the perfect show to watch if you don't know a lot about the technical aspects of theatre or improvisation. The competitive aspect and riotous humour of the show make is easy to watch. It is a fast moving form of improvisation, involving a number of short games. This keeps all audience members interested and entertained.

Theatresports is an exciting inclusion in the Fringe Festival line up. If you are looking for the perfect show to finish off the Fringe season, or looking for a family friendly event, head along this Sunday. Theatresports is hilarious; I guarantee you will be laughing the entire time.

Theatresports

September 30th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Stephanie BySouth & Catherine Dorrestyn [ArtsHub] - [2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival]

The new season of Theatresports brings a sense of fun and humility straight away (although I dare say finals could get downright dirty as the teams slog it out for the champ accolade).

The night started with a few bumps. I was not sure if the introduction error was well engineered or a mistake - either way it was a great intro into the unexpected craziness that is Theatre Sports.

There is a lot of audience loyalty for the Impro Melbourne group and participation is expected. But don't panic, there is no dragging of audience members reluctantly on stage! Just be prepared to throw in your two cents as inspiration is constantly sort to set the 'scene'. Even if you're a nervous Nelly, the performers have a great knack at getting you into the swing, or yelling and finger wiggling. The audience participation actually becomes part of the essence of the show and, in many instances, actually makes the show so much more enjoyable.

I loved the randomness of Theatresports, the never quite knowing what to expect next. There were some acts which completely bummed but the beauty in these moments was the realisation by the teams to cut the scene right there and then, laugh at how bad it was and then create another scene. I enjoyed the lack of "acted perfection" and to watch a team perform, flow and produce something from thin air is a sight to withhold.

This gang of improv are varied in their ability to keep the wit, flow and gags flying. Some are still learning about the art of timing; particularly when not to jump in. Some performers seemed to stand out from the others with their ability to fly by the seat of their pants while others seemed to blend more into the background. Overall, a great show with high flying IQs and old-fashioned stage drama to boot!

Undeniably, a special mention has to be made for the improv musician, lighting director and stage management. This background group would have to be some of the best I've seen. They are undeniably part of the team often setting the q for performers. Even the occasional boo boo really tests out the performers ability, and without a doubt they all pulled through.

The show is in three parts over two sections. The first being good old-fashioned improv with a few mind-bending twists. The second being the competitive season of TheatreSports wherby 6 teams will fight to the death, slap each other about and crawl begging to win the competition. We bore witness to 'Ogimos' shredding apart 'Turan' without mercy. It was a team of 4 on 3 and the extra EQ made a great difference in the long run. Turan seemed like puppies thrown to the wolves in some challenges, but alas their team captain, when left on stage to fry by her team, did an extraordinary performance to leap out of the cauldron and score one of Turan's highest winning challenges. Yes - the initial cruelty to dump captain on stage by herself, then run away was actually a smart and cunning tactic!!

Mantswe [2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival]

September 29, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Laura Hamilton [Aussietheatre.com]

MantsweMantswe is the South African Sotho word for 'voices', and that is exactly what you get in this hour-long foot-tapping spiritual journey through the heart of South African music.

This all-female acapella group is the brainchild of Victorian producer Veronica Mansueto and her South African born partner Sello Molefi. All songs performed are written and arranged by the incredibly multi-talented Molefi, bringing an air of African authenticity to what the group says is "music about spirituality and feeling".

Having visited South Africa myself, most of these songs brought back vivid memories of walking through townships and hearing small groups sporadically break into song - perhaps to break their boredom, perhaps to simply express their joy in life - who knows? But you needn't have visited this part of the world to necessarily appreciate what this genre of music is about; especially when the inspiration behind Molefi's writing is briefly explained in the program for us.

Despite some initial nerves among the five singers, they settled quickly, and proved their incredible trust in each other by not relying too much upon Molefi's conducting and letting themselves go with the flow of the music. They kept together on most occasions, where earthy and experimental sounds revealed themselves in songs such as the jazzy bebop-sounding 'Doo Wee Doo' and the soulful 'Hold On', reminiscent of a black slavery anthem.

The real highlight for me was when Molefi himself joined in. Its not often you hear one male voice against the sound of five female ones, and Molefi's real skill here was to blend in as the sixth member of the vocal ensemble for several of the songs. His accompaniment really added something extra - and I'd love to hear more of what he can do. Mantswe is a group with a bright future ahead of them, and if they continue to be led by Mansueto and Molefi I have no doubt that will be the case.

Mantswe [2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival]

September 27th, 2009

ONLINE:Billy Morrell  [www.expressmedia.org.au]

Wednesday night saw St Kilda's Theatre Works play host to the opening of Mantswe. Translating as 'voices' in the South African language Sotho, Mantswe provided exactly that - an intimate, stripped back exploration of the voice, of melody and it's importance to the cultural landscape of South Africa. Composed by Sello Molefi (The Lion KIng, Dance Through Me, Elephant Tales) and produced by Veronica Mansueto, the performance featured a small ensemble of female singers from a range of different backgrounds.

In a mysterious opening, a smoke filled room awaited it's inhabitants. Five chairs, each with a water bottle placed underneath, occupied a small pocket of light towards the front of an eerily bare stage. It was a humble scene, but one that promoted an air of reverence - not so much for the performers themselves but for the material being performed. When the five women emerged, along with Sello Molefi in conductor mode, we knew we were in for a treat. Molefi's excitement was infectious as he signaled, gestured and stomped his way through the material - all the while leaving the attention for the singers. There was a real sense of celebration amongst the performers.

While Molefi was a powerful presence in the room, the members of Gumbination took centre stage. Songs swelled and melodies moved with an assured confidence as the audience was taken through a wide range of musical styles - all the while keeping an understated simplicity to the evening. From traditional hymns, complex multi-layered rhythms and soulful swaggers, one could definitely appreciate how much the music, and the act of being involved in such an experience, meant to those on stage. Each singer even took turns to address the audience on how the creative process has impacted on them personally. While this was definitely endearing, it may have been more of an exercise for the performers than the audience.

Mantswe really started to gain momentum when the group was allowed to showcase their collective chops. One song even combined multiple vocal lines to create a hip-shaking, rhythmic basis that wouldn't sound out of place around the Mississippi Delta. However it was Sello Molefi who provided the most memorable moment of the night. On top of a crescendo of layered voices, Molefi let loose with a series of exhilarating, visceral yelps and screams. His vocals, while a supporting element, were certainly a highlight.

Despite the obvious vocal talents of the five female singers, the narrative of South Africa was less evident. Genres appeared to come and go without any real sense of a place in time, leaving us very much impressed with the musicality of Molefi and Gumbination Productions, but lacking any real insight into South Africa itself. There were glimpses of a world outside the middle class comforts of Melbourne, most notably when the impassioned wails of 'Hold on Just A Little While Longer' were repeated over a wonderfully gritty rhythmic bed. But unfortunately many of the songs were impressive, without really being emotionally captivating.

While I may have been expecting a larger production, I was pleasantly greeted with a raw, understated performance by a group of local singers and the wonderfully talented Sello Molefi. Mantswe is an intimate showcase of a rich musical culture and an interesting study of the power of the female voice. Although, as we filed out of the theatre and headed down Ackland Street, I couldn't help but wonder how long it would be until we forgot about the rich musical history of South Africa, and went back to our comfortable couches.

Mantswe [2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival]

September 28th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Stephanie BySouth [ArtsHub]

The brochure bi-line states, "The exploration of music through voice."
This performance is actually an exploration of the 'self' through voice, to find the music of the soul.
The performance appears to be a result of a journey as shared throughout the show.
I'm convinced it is only the beginning of the road for Mantswe and they are all still evolving both individually and as a group.

As it was opening night there did seem to be some initial nerves which quickly settled. I get the impression they are about to go through a major growth during the Fringe performance which makes me want to return to see them at the pinnacle of their efforts. Ruth Gordon once said "courage is like muscles, you must use them to build strength". More time on stage will certainly strengthen their courage to consistently be fully expressed.

Elements of the show took me back to attendances at Protestant churches in the deep south of Kentucky and Mississippi where the expression of the soul is belted out through individual voice and unified rhythm. While this show wasn't a religious forum they are on a spiritual path to find the right blend of chorus without inhibiting the individual singer. Sandy Joseph was sparking individually but the need to jump straight back into the next 'chorus' line actually impeded her from fully letting it rip.

There inherently lies the challenge of the journey for this group, finding and allowing the individual to fully let go and express without consequence to the whole.

Sello Moleffi inspiringly leads this quintet to loosen the strain within, his enthusiasm and authentic ability is inspiring. He is guiding some amazing talent.

I'd like to go back and see Mantswe again, because the show isn't finished. The experience lightens your daily load but I'd like to witness their growth. I feel as if there is much more to come.

I'd also like to see more lyrics which the singers can own themselves. The singers were fantastic when they sang Acapella Mamela because they took the rythm of Africa as the background track and overlayed it with their own words and to hear their raw power come forward was fantastic.

I am grateful for the musical journey Mantswe took me on and for getting the tingles down the back of my neck. I wish them all the best with their exploration of music through voice.

Runtime Error [2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival]

September 28th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Elspeth McIntosh [ArtsHub]

The opening sequence of Runtime Error was brilliant, as the protagonist was sucked into his computer, his outer clothing mysteriously disappearing as he enters the dark world where ultra violet lights bring out the monsters within the complex computer who might not let him 'make it back to reality'. Their black set and bright costumes under the ultra violet lights worked beautifully assisted with great lighting to help you sink into the depths of the machine.

After Dark Theatre pull away from the clichés and comfort zone of ragged, tattooed gypsies typically found in New Circus' culture of bohemian cool which often dictates the aesthetics and sets up caricatures for performers to clone. After Dark takes on the challenge to not tap into the popular vein here, and hence take on a new form of risk as opposed to the usual physical risk of the art of circus itself. However, New Circus performers often take on a powerful individual character which the players of Runtime Error failed to sustain. They had trouble holding the thread of the narrative together with such short pieces of dialogue which was almost completely unnecessary, both weakening the narrative and disrupting the flow of the performance. Had it not been for the man and woman who would enter silently to contribute body balancing acts, it would have been too scattered and proves the point that dialogue - if necessary - required a strong director. There was an attempt to use a hula hoop as the narrative tool which the protagonist would manipulate the computer characters with yet this only provided more apprehension.

This show comes very close to exploring geek culture with the fabulous cat/manga woman at the end of the show, alternating between house lights and ultra violet lights for two separate women, very reminiscent of a Takashi Murakami painting - a Japanese artist who explores geek and 'Otaku' culture which venerates manga, anime and computer games which could have been an interesting and creepy spin. This is where art and circus ought to join forces. After Dark Theatre is a promising company who seem to be neophytes to this new approach to circus and they could benefit from collaborating with another company on their next project. Their concepts and artistic endeavours show promise for what circus will be entering after the burlesque craze which is now out of fashion.

Like the Cirque du Soleil, they created original work with their own hypnotic music thanks to 'Damage Control and K' and original beautiful costumes - particularly the body balancing couple's outfits featuring the intricate wirings of a computer board which glowed fantastically in the ultra violet lights. Cirque tend to have a 'theme' but not a narrative in order to concentrate purely on circus skills and After Dark Theatre must be applauded for attempting to tackle a narrative.
This is a fabulous concept and the company needs to make sure that their hard work is unseen which will be achieved once they are used to tackling this approach to circus.

CIRCUS WORKS

September 11th, 2009

CIRCUS WORKS selection process complete! Ooohhh, who will the lucky recipients be?

Stay tuned to find out which four companies will be performing in this awesome line-up of 3 brilliant new works and a very exciting return season! Oooohhh, Can't Wait!!!!

Something Blew [A Triple Bill]

September 4, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Mathew McFarlane [Melbourne's DanceLife]

HARD-HITTING & THOUGHT-PROVOKING

What an exciting development in the young lives of Collaboration - The Project and 2nd Toe Dance Collective! The recent delight on the menu is "Something Blew" a collection of three works with HARD-HITTING, interesting and THOUGHT-PROVOKING subject matter.

Let me start by saying that it is extremely easy for a dance show to become just another dance show. What separates a good dance show from a great one is simple - Entertainment. This is the key ingredient in any art form, whether it is Musical Theatre, A Play or a man in the street standing on his head singing Jacque Brel. Last night, I was not disappointed.

The opening piece was entitled "Lit". Choreographed by Benjamin Hancock and Rebecca Jensen, this piece set the scene for the evening - and gave it a twist! The audience were given torches pre-show, and invited to become part of the performance. In total darkness, Benjamin and Rebecca danced to the torch light. Both clearly accomplished and intelligent dancers, their strength and sense of each other were driven towards an exploration of "shadow". I found myself almost hypnotized by the figures moving in the dim light. I could choose where to look - sometimes at the giant shadows on the rear wall, sometimes at the darting silhouettes on the floor, and sometimes at the dancers themselves. This wasn't at any moment two dancers "demonstrating" their ability - It was two creative beings acting as a selfless vehicle to a simple, creative and thoughtful idea.

The second piece came out of the blocks like Usain Bolt after a Red Bull. Entitled "Down the Rabbit Hole" this was an excerpt from Collaboration - The Project's upcoming season in October. A dark adaptation of the classic Lewis Carrol novel "Alice in Wonderland," this one packed a punch! Paul Malek's choreography was impressive - complimenting the subject matter well. However I feel his real achievement was allowing the dancers the freedom to act. This piece wasn't bright, it wasn't fluffy and this Alice was certainly no "little Miss Sunshine". The piece opens with a scared and vulnerable Alice down the rabbit hole. We hear echoes of muffled voices and cries from all around. The familiar White Rabbit enters down stage - although something is different. We soon learn that this variety of white rabbit harbors a penchant for all things sinister and deviant - Sex, Drugs and Manipulation! Kim Adam is dynamic as our "led by the wayside" hero. She is grounded, strong and stands feet above her real height when she needs to pull the White Rabbit into check, but also cleverly allows herself to be drawn into his submissive spell. Brendan Yeates is excellent as our villain. He took the choreography he was given, and injected it with an illegal substance! He had been given the brief for a sinister, drug-riddled White Rabbit, and what he gave us was a character; one we believed, at any moment, could come crawling over our way... These characters are what I want to see. Don't show me dancers dancing - I can watch T.V for that. Show me a piece where I get swept up in a story - where the dancing is merely wood on the fire. This was entertainment. I certainly look forward to the next installment from Collaboration!

After an interval we were treated to the main course - "Something Blew". A modern take on the old English proverb "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue", this is one section of a four-part major project currently being developed by 2nd Toe Dance Collective. The colour blue - a symbol of purity, modesty and fidelity, is rocked to its core in this highly charged, and often confronting modern interpretation. The ensemble must be mentioned first. Benjamin Hancock, Tyler Hawkins, James Andrews, Frankie Snowdon, Madeleine Krenek and Jorijn Vriesendorp are simply excellent. You can just tell when a show means everything to those who perform in it. It is just something extra, and unspoken, that an audience admire. Produced by Paul Malek and Collaboration, intelligently directed by Paul Malek and Adam Wheeler - this piece promises to be a ripper! Megan Fitzgerald's lighting was spot on - pun intended! The combination of stark and dim set a mood of constant uncertainty as the piece explored themes of despair, forbidden sex, jealousy, lust and violence. I found myself cringing, laughing, and shivering - especially at the climax of the piece! A must see and something to challenge you and your current understanding of 'companionship.'

I walked away from the theatre entirely satisfied. Here are two young companies forging a path for themselves. The work is challenging, theatrical and most importantly - entertaining! This is all being achieved without financial support - but rather it is being financed by a passion and a desire to dance - a currency far more rewarding!

The Lower Depths

August 27, 2009

Accidental Arts - 3MBS 103.5FM Classically Melbourne - Review: Peter Green

Thursday night confirmed for me that Theatre Works under care and direction of the hard working Angela Pamic is still at the forefront; auspicing, supporting and producing new and interesting work from independent performers and directors and Theatre Works is still taking risks.

I and 50 others got great pleasure from Maxim Gorky's "Lower Depths" co-adapted and directed by one of Australia's inspiring theatre teachers and performance creators; John Bolton who also gave a great lesson in community theatre that not only included people often marginalized, but was so authentic despite being 1/3 the original length that Gorky would have thoroughly approved - I know I did.

John Bolton, in conjunction with the St Kilda Uniting Drop in Centre, through its coordinator Sharon Kirschner (who acted as a bridge to potential cast members) John has welded together a group of sometimes homeless people who experience difficulties in daily life - he has welded them into a very interesting and powerful cast, playing the transients of Maxim Gorky's "Lower Depths".

Embedded in the cast are three professional actors, including the director but the others in the cast make a great fist of transferring Gorky's masterwork to the stage, without jarring anachronous or trendy reworking and with undeniable authenticity.

The Theatre Works auditorium was transformed; the space surrounded by mountains of hard rubbish, but allowing each character to have their individual bunk, cubby hole etc against the side walls.

We walked and stood where we could and were sometimes in the centre of the action with cast arguing actors over head.

The production plays only 4 nights till Sunday, admitting only 50 a night and is already booked out, but perhaps if you went early and begged, they might find a space for you.

The Lower Depths

September 2nd, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Alison Croggon [Theatre Notes]

Yes, Ms TN has been whinging heroically this past fortnight, but that hasn't stopped her getting out to the theatre. Writing about it has been a different matter. But this morning she awoke from her slumber, brutally thrust aside the heap of used tissues that had accumulated overnight, and cried out: "Now or never!" Or something of the sort. (Witnesses differ: another report claims she actually said "Oh no! Not again!" Which reminds me of the Belgian theatre director who wakes up every morning, walks to his window, flings open the shutters, and shouts "Help!")

Existential angst is all part of life's rich whatsit, and it must be admitted that Ms TN does it exceptionally well. She does it, in fact, so it feels like hell. But it doesn't get the reviews done. So after a salutory kick in the arse from her alter ego, Ms TN will finally report on last week's theatre going. These reviews will be a little briefer than usual, for which Ms TN's better self apologises: but it's been a full week of mundane dread here, and that all takes up space.

First up was a production of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths at Theatre Works, which was on for a mere four days. I wanted to see this because of the personnel involved: it's a collaboration between John Bolton, Brian Lipson, Bagryana Popov and Joseph Sherman, with lighting by Shane Grant, and the cast included people from the St Kilda Uniting Care Drop in Centre. I expected something special, and I wasn't disappointed. Gorky's unsentimental expose of the Russian underclass had a production last year at 45 downstairs directed by Ariette Taylor (and there's more about the play itself in that review). Unlike Taylor's production, however, this company brought Gorky's preoccupations unflinchingly into the present day.

Bolton and his collaborators presented a savagely cut-down version of the play which lasted a little over an hour. It was promenade theatre, with the audience milling around with the actors in the large space at Theatre Works. The set filled the theatre with found objects that were probably rescued from rubbish dumps or skips, and bits of cardboard boxes, torn newspaper and rags covered the floor in a convincing simulacrum of squalor. In the centre was an area cordoned off by a walkway, in the centre of which was a bed where the consumptive Anna (Bagryana Popov) lay dying. Around the edges of the theatre were a series of booths or miniature stages. Phrases from the play and other kinds of graffiti were chalked onto the black walls.

It was one of those events which interlocked the fictions of the play with present-day realities, a decision reinforced by the qualities the non-professional actors from the drop in centre brought to the production. Working with non-professionals is a honourable tradition in realist art: neo-realist film directors such as Ermanno Olmi, for instance, worked with non-actors in films like Il Posto or The Tree of Wooden Clogs, bringing an unactorly authenticity to the performances which reinforced the political anger behind his films.

The effect of using non-professional actors in theatre is slightly different. On the one hand, it brings a direct immediacy of experience to the production; and in fact several of Gorky's monologues are replaced by the performers' own stories. But unlike film, theatre can't forget its own artifice. The performative effect is almost the opposite of authenticity: it's an unconscious artifice, a certain naivety, that paradoxically reinforces the emotional reality of the play.

Here these qualities - professional and non-professional - are skilfully woven together in a sharply contemporary work that seems very true to Gorky's bleakly humane vision, however radically it departs from the text. The Lower Depths has an organic vitality: the actors and audience occupy the same space, the actors watching as attentively when they're not performing, and emerging into focus when required. It seemed to me an exemplary work of community theatre, bringing together social and artistic ethics in a rare integrity.

It reminded me more than anything of the work of the British film and theatre director Lindsay Anderson. I never got to see Anderson's theatre (wrong age, wrong continent) but films such as If, O Lucky Man or This Sporting Life are brilliant examples of radical art. Like this production, Anderson's films examine human experience with a kind of tender democracy of vision that's underlaid by a clear-eyed social anger.

"Fighting means commitment, means believing what you say, and saying what you believe," said Anderson memorably. "It will also mean being called sentimental, irresponsible, self-righteous, extremist and out-of-date by those who equate maturity with scepticism, art with amusement, and responsibility with romantic excess. And it must mean a new kind of intellectual and artist, who is not frightened or scornful of his fellows." The Lower Depths reflects this kind of intelligent artistic commitment. I'd like to see more of it.

The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky, directed by John Bolton. Designed by Brian Lipson, lighting by Shane Grant, music direction by Bagryana Popov. With Brian Pigot, Brett A. Walsh, Stewart Weir, Tom Moleta, Joseph Sherman, Maree Wesol, Brian Lipson, Pat Nyberg, Abdul Hay, Rodney Dean Mcleish, Ant Bridgeman, Bagryana Popv, Sharon Kirschner and John Bolton. Theatre Works and participants from St Kilda Uniting Care Drop in Centre @ Theatre Works. (Closed).

www.theatrenotes.blogspot.com

OM

July 24th 2009.

ONLINE - Review: Travis de Jonk [samesame.com.au]

OM is an extraordinary production that must be seen. Visually stunning, thoroughly entertaining and captivatingly theatrical this fabulous new production by Industry Dance and it's sexy talented cast will take your breath away.

At it's essence the show explores ideas of spirituality and humanity through a series of dramatically visual and theatrical dance tableaus. Sturrock creates a moving artwork with each piece that moves from joyous and celebratory to dark and sinister, drawing on motifs from eastern spirituality and western spiritual mythology. OM takes you on a journey across lands and cultures, to the places within the mind and soul, and way up into the spiritual realms or real and artificial ecstasy.

OM begins with a pilgrimage of elders and believers towards the holy grail. Dancers shrouded in hessian move towards a golden statue of a Buddha. Movement explodes from that point taking us to the Garden of Eden, to a dark world captivated by artificial an external gods, to a celebration of flower children and Hare Krishnas, and the whole work ends with a return to where all life begins.

Sturrock succeeds in doing what so many dance companies try but fail to do; He uses popular music and dance styles coupled with more classical ones, in a way that isn't tacky, obvious or trashy. He also fearlessly uses performance methods such as drag and mime in spectacularly fresh and bold ways. It makes for a work of dance theatre that is unashamedly queer in its approach, but so much more than just a queer work.

Unlike a lot of dance works which can be as dry and humourless as a weetbix, or as irritating as fingernails down a black board, the very post modern OM is much more akin to a music video or stage concert. It moves from high art to poptastic, and still maintains a sense of integrity. It has a sense of humour. It has erotic moments. It's not afraid to entertain as well as move you.

According to Robert Sturrock, this show was put together on a shoe string budget. It's so hard to believe looking at the production values and what he has managed to put together with a shoestring. You'll be blown away by the lavish extravagant costumes of each movement, and the multitude of images created by Sturrock. Costume is so carefully constructed and considered that it is almost a member of the cast.

You'll be particularly impressed by the wonderfully talented cast who seem to be able to do anything that is leveled at them. Not only can the sexy cast of girls and guys all dance, but they can also sing and act well. It's a beautiful recipe of looks, talents and personalities. They give 110% and you can't help get swept up in their infectious energy.

OM is the astounding creation of director and choreographer Robert Sturrock that follows on from his first production Skin in February this year. There is no doubt that Sturrock is an astounding talent. This is only his second work off the ranks as Industry dance. After seeing OM you'll be just as excited as we are about what the future holds for this artist.

The worst thing about this show is how limited it's season is, with the final show on this Sunday 26th July.

If you do just one thing this weekend, go and check out this show.

Life's a Circus

August 8, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Laura Hamilton [www.aussietheatre.com.au]

Magnormos are a massively talented Melbourne company, and this latest production of Anthony Costanzo's Life's A Circus is an example of just how far they are moving along.

Local lyricist/composer Costanzo certainly has talent. The script's plot is somewhat predictable, but then again, maybe I've just seen too many musicals. When musicals are written by a performer about performers (as they so very often are) there's unfortunately a certain stereotype that emerges. I must admit I sat down waiting for the troubled gay character to materialize and sure enough, he was revealed within minutes. I have nothing against it, and as they say, "we write what we know". It just gets a bit tiring for the regular fringe music theatre audiences.

Life's A Circus tells the story of best friends Vivien (Chelsea Plumley) and David (Glen Hogstrom), seasoned circus performers at the pointy end of their decade-long career with the Grande Illusion Circus. They meet a young, impressionable and sexually confused new cast member, Alex (Cameron Macdonald) - and an awkward relationship triangle between the three of them ensues. Issues of ageing, sexuality, career vs. personal life are all thrown around. Nothing new here but it comes with the territory. Parallels are frequently drawn between life and the circus, read: "Life is a sideshow".

The combination of music theatre and circus is a hugely successful one, so much so that this production would really benefit from being staged in a much bigger space than St Kilda's Theatreworks. At times, the professional circus performers looked a tad stifled in their movements in this restricted space. There are some jaw-dropping tricks performed, but some of them didn't seem as 'thrilling' in this intimate theatre context: we all witnessed the inevitable clunkiness of heavy landings and awkward hand grips between performers.

Having said that, it's still exciting to watch and of course the evening's highlights came when all three singers and four circus performers were on stage together, creating group numbers with the combination of song and circus tricks. I wanted to see more of this combined work but scenes with dialogue were necessary in order for the plot to progress.

The flow of scenes was not always consistent - some scenes were much stronger than others, and there's hardly any dialogue in the first third of the show, yet plenty in the last third - so it seemed there was an attempt to quickly tie up the plot so it finished neatly at the end.

But between the singers and the circus performers there was not one weak link in the team. The three leads, who share the entire show's lyrical component between them each created magical duets with each other, and each have solos that were seamless and a real pleasure to listen to; both for the vocal talent and Costanzo's songwriting skills. Musical highlights included "A Cup of Capitalism", "Midnight" and "The Olive Tree" - all partly duets with strong, chillingly beautiful harmonies.

This is one incredibly impressive and smooth production made even better with the knowledge it's been locally produced every step of the way.

Life's a Circus

August 7th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Tony Reck

The Circus Grand Illusion may not be Cirque De Soleil, but it still tours the world. With performances in Asia and Europe, its 3 pivotal performers, David, Vivian and Alex, find solace against the rigours of touring by becoming close friends; very, very close friends. In her own affectionate manner, Vivien hunts down the ambivalent Alex and they begin a relationship; while concealing from their best friend and homosexual compadre' David, the fact that this relationship has begun. What Vivian and Alex don't gamble on is that David also has the hots for Alex. He will not rest until Alex accepts wholeheartedly David's offer of love. As love tryst extraordinaire' set against the backdrop of life on the international touring circuit, Life's a Circus also examines the often considerable hiatus between individual aspiration and its consequent harsh actuality. Touring the world may appear to be every young performer's dream, but don't those lonely old hotel rooms all begin to look remarkably alike very quickly ? And so it is for Vivian, David and Alex. Only able to find genuine intimacy in each other's company, a considerable amount of fortitude will be required if our 3 circus performers are to survive life on the road, and their own voracious sexual appetites.

By necessity, life compressed into art is usually an oversimplified affair. During a one and a half hour theatrical production there is little time for examining the on-going and often unresolved aspects of a love tryst that gets completely out of hand. Given this, Life's a Circus in no way has pretensions toward understanding the more complicated aspects of human relationships. Mostly told in song, it is a slick and professional production with a whopping big heart. All the usual tricks are here: the set up of the love tryst; the concealing of information only to have it revealed unexpectedly, and with the resulting devastating consequences. Of course, each character comes away discovering more about each other, and therefore, more about themselves. And as a member of the audience your view about the relationship is being manipulated by the script in very specific ways. But in the end it doesn't matter. Everything is so on the money in this show. The song lyrics are very well written. The direction is snappy and spatially considered. Design wise, it looks great. And the performers offer up a sustained and effervescent commitment to their respective characters that is quite admirable. Of course, love is nowhere near as simple as Life's a Circus suggests. But appreciating the love that has gone into this show from all concerned was easy. And even though there is perhaps one song and therefore one ending too many, the audience applause throughout, and at the production's end, was thoroughly deserved. Life may not be as simple a circus as this show sometimes suggests. But even so, it was a very entertaining night in the theatre.

http://www.tonyreck.blogspot.com/

Life's a Circus

August 6th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Will Conyers

Those who know this column will know that I only write for it when compelled.

Those who are lucky, and travel quickly through life, find the 30-something time a moment for pause and question about what lies ahead. The 'Who am I?, What am I doing here? Where have I come from?' questions are not just asked by actors, but just about the whole planet at this 30-something stage. But, the scary one seems to be 'Where am I going to?'.

And it is this time where life, it appears, 'hangs in the balance'. The ever-swinging trapeze of, Decision.

LIFE'S A CIRCUS is the brainchild of Anthony Costanzo. It has been entered in the prestigious Pratt Prize twice and been a finalist both times. Spawned from the days of Anthony's world tour with CATS, LIFE'S A CIRCUS gives voice to his observations in hotel rooms, coffee shops, airports - basically, anywhere he saw his tour mates, in and out of their lycra pussy pants.

Show tour fraternities become incredibly inward-looking microcosms and this is at the core of Costanzo's tale with book by Peter Fitzpatrick. We get to be the microscope.

His music takes a gentle pop music theatre approach and serves this story superbly. The myriad of musical lines that you will hear in the show's backing have all been played by Costanzo and cascade through every musical moment - there are very few moments that are not.

Enough said - just go and see it.

Chelsea Plumley (Vivien) delivers exactly what we have come to expect from her consummate ability: exquisite choices, one after the other. I know it has been written before, but it is a nonsense that this artist is not a national, if not, international name. To breathe the same air as 'Plumley on fire' is to breathe in the colours of life. True inspiration. If you are not crying at the end of Fly Away, a trip to a neurosurgeon could be order.

Glen Hogstrom (David) has been on too many of our stages as a chorus/bit part player. Hopefully, with this deeply sensitive but bloody masculine portrayal of troubled and wayward, David, Hogstrom will be taken more seriously. The almost-back-to-back renderings of He Loves Me Not and So Much More Than This let us know the calibre of artist we are dealing with. Detailed, subtle, bloody funny work.

Enter the younger 'meat' of the piece: Cameron MacDonald (Alex). The actor tackling 'Alex' has a job ahead of him. A complex character arc and a lot of maths "What the character actually knows, what the character doesn't, what the character can't know". It takes control to not telegraph the data that the actor inevitably does know. MacDonald makes the whole thing look like a walk in the park, sings like a dream and anyone, man or woman, will just want to take him home and look after him. When I look Into Your Eyes will remain in the theatrical scrapbook of my mind for many years to come.

Kris Stewart's deft direction cuts to the core of the story and we move swiftly from key point to key point. The audience is not under-estimated here. The welding of 4 adorable circus artistes to the story allow us to exhale and to laugh at ourselves. Lucy Birkinshaw's lighting was a master-stroke (when you go see it, just count how few lamps are actually there) - talk about necessity and invention!

There are too many finale numbers - the story doesn't know when it's finished - there are two clear moments for an interval (and it needs it - WE need it), but right now, I am all about celebrating the latest addition to the Australian Music Theatre alumni. And what a fitting member it is.

Finally, I must say that Aaron Joyner's MAGNORMOS has truly ‘arrived' with this production. I would be happy to see it anywhere in the world.

I cannot urge you strongly enough to get down the Theatre Works and enjoy a night that will make you bloody proud about what we do here in our own backyard.

http://www.broadwayatbedtime.com

Life's a Circus

August 5th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Antony Steadman [ArtsHub]

It's not very often that a new Australian musical is written these days, especially in the times of the US Invasion (Wicked, Jersey Boys, Avenue Q), let alone a good one. This is definitely not the case with Anthony Costanzo (music and lyrics) and Peter Fitzpatrick's (book) Life's A Circus.

I was fortunate enough to witness the first preview of this new work, which has been in development for quite some time, this being the first fully staged production and I can honestly say that this is hopefully going to be a hugely successful show.

From its A-List musical theatre cast (Chelsea Plumley, Glenn Hogstrom and Cameron McDonald) to the elements and mystery of circus, all is performed flawlessly. Not much pointed out the fact that this was a preview, other than director, Kris Stewart's brief speech before the show.

The story is a simple love triangle - boy and girl meet a boy, other boy not sure whether he wants boy or girl and boy and girl fall out of their friendship over said other boy.

With such a small cast, each have their individual moments to lift the roof off, however when the three sing together, their harmonies are pure electricity. Although the tunes aren't exactly memorable on first listen, the music is absolutely gorgeous. Thoroughly emotional and thrilling all at once. Adding to the atmosphere are the circus performances, by a silent troupe, Annabel Carberry, Vaughan Curtis, Shannon McGurgan and Stephen Williams.

The greyscale set was simple, yet effective, evoking many locales all at the same time, including airport terminals, circus arenas, hotels, bars etc. The neutral colour of the background enabled the performances to be even more vibrant and add more colour to the space than any amount of lighting could do!

It should be noted that Anthony Costanzo was short-listed for this piece for the Pratt Prize for musicals, so the only way is up!

I certainly cannot wait to go back and see the show again next week, as I am sure this piece will only improve over the season and knowing the challenges of writing and producing independent Australian theatre, my hat goes off to the team!

Life's a Circus

August 4th, 2009

Accidental Arts - 3MBS 103.5FM Classically Melbourne - Review: Peter Green

I went to the opening of "Life's A Circus" at Theatre Works Monday night last week, an augmented musical theatre production from Magnormos Prompt Musical Program a five year old production company, responsible for "Love Equals", Australian Musical "Mary Bryant", "The Thing About Men" and "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change".

This production has a book by Peter Fitzpatrick, composition and lyrics from Anthony Costanzo and was directed by Kris Stewart.
I should declare, not so much an interest, but confess I am an irregular attender to musical theatre - opera, concerts, recitals, even the Welsh Church to hear the choir and jazz conventions but not frequently musical theatre.

The last significant Australian musical I was at, was the opening of "Manning Clark's: History of Australia" in the unrefurbished Princess Theatre back in 1988 - a much criticized but brave and honest attempt at an intelligent Australian musical faulted I suspect because the musical is initially an American invention, just as opera originally Italian, ballet originally French, naturalism of the Ibsenite variety, Norwegian. Maybe we have not advanced the cannon sufficiently in musicals in Australia to give it a distinctive flavor, although I did find "Keating the Musical" and its successor "Shane Warne the Musical" witty and musically and otherwise very entertaining, but in fairness to "Life is a Circus" they were satirical comedies.

But to "Life is a Circus". The lead character Vivien played superbly by Chelsea Plumley was most assuredly Australian, refreshingly so, and for my money could make the transfer to the comic or dramatic stage with great success.

The circus component of the production was directed and choreographed by Shannon McGurgan and Kate Priddle; was excellent and the mainly NICA graduates knew their stuff and worked with exciting and edgy brilliance on what was essentially a stage set (and a very good one too!).

But for the show itself. I found that excitement was not matured by plot, the text, which I thought boarded on the ordinary, and the music, apart from the number "I love this show" unremarkable, and not improved in the Theatre Works space by being belted out with body mics.

The plot was simple enough but, slightly predatory biological clock ticking Vivien fancies newcomer fresh-faced clown Alex /Cameron MacDonald as does long time friend and confidant David/Glen Hogstrom whose use by date as tight-rope walker looms. Alex tells neither about sleeping with the other - denouement!

I must say that the opening night audience loved every minute and gave a standing ovation.

Life's a Circus

August 4th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Geoffrey Williams

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. 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'. Aficionados 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.

http://www.stagewhispers.com.au

Life's a Circus

August 4th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Paul Kooperman

Life's a Circus is a new musical by Anthony Costanzo (composer/lyricist) and Peter Fitzpatrick (book). It is currently being produced as part of the Prompt Musicals Program run annually by Magnormos.

Kris Stewart, resident director of Wicked, has done a masterful job of integrating the elements of set, circus, performances, scene and song. In fact, the star-studded list of names involved in this production is awe-inspiring. Chelsea Plumley, Cameron McDonald and Glen Hogstrom are the best of the best in terms of musical theatre performers and their performances last night demonstrated why: almost flawless; heard every word; felt every shift in emotion. Book writer, Peter Fitzpatrick, won an AFI award for best adapted screenplay for Hotel Sorrento. Anthony Costanzo was short-listed for the Pratt Prize for musicals in his first attempt. Circus performers Annabel Carberry, Vaughan Curtis, Shannon McGurgan and Stephen Williams perform like they just stepped out of Cirque du Soleil. The circus choreography by Kate Priddle is stunning and completely in sync with the style of story of the show.

Kris states in his director's notes that the main reason he wanted to direct this musical is Anthony's outstanding music. It really is. The twists and turns, nuances, range and emotional shifts are exciting. However, in saying that, I couldn't remember or hum one tune fifteen minutes after leaving the theatre. Is that a prerequisite for an exciting new musical? I'm not sure, but it did leave me wondering if there weren't too many songs in the show. Perhaps a few more interesting reprises or variations on themes would have helped cement the melodies? I am hypothesizing more than criticizing.

The theatrical integration between story and circus was wonderful, images and stunts seamlessly blending with plot and performance. However, the metaphor of life being a circus was underexplored. The lyric 'life's a circus' was repeated endlessly though I found myself wanting to be further shown how and why? The highlight of this metaphor was explored in the song 'walking the tightrope' culminating in Glen's character being 'dropped' from the tightrope, another metaphor for his relationship Chelsea's character falling apart. Great! But more often than not the text was the subtext and the characters said how they were feeling, rather than showing us through their actions.

The story was interesting but there was simply not enough to sustain the near two hour production. The characters were mostly passive, had no clear goals (other than each other) and it was frustrating watching them and listening to them half-heartedly pursue them.

Generally, Anthony Costanzo should be congratulated on a brave effort, a solid new musical with loads of potential, but even moreso because, as Kris states, the music is outstanding and Anthony is a new voice in the world of musical theatre to watch out for.

http://www.australianstage.com.au

Life's a Circus

August 4th, 2009

Herald Sun - Review: Kate Herbert

MELBOURNE loves a musical and we are fortunate to have Magnormos, an organisation that promotes new Australian music theatre. The Magnormos Prompt! Musicals Program is staging a new, boutique musical called Life's a Circus, with music and lyrics by Anthony Costanzo and book by Peter Fitzpatrick. Costanzo's music is a close relation of popular, contemporary musicals we know and love and the voices of the three actor-singers in this production (Chelsea Plumley, Cameron MacDonald, Glen Hogstrom) blend perfectly and provide some thrilling harmonies and rousing choruses.

Kris Stewart's direction is slick and polished, keeping the focus firmly on the voices and music. Christina Logan-Bell's architectural design and evocative lighting by Lucy Birkinshaw enhance the production. As resident director of Wicked in Australia and founding director of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, Stewart knows about fostering new music theatre. With a bigger production and budget, Life's a Circus would have a live orchestra, but the recorded backing is effective and Costanzo's composition and musical arrangements are successful.

The story deals with an unusual love triangle between three circus performers and the existential crisis of thirtysomethings considering their choices in life, work and love. Tightrope duo Vivien (Plumley) and David (Hogstrom) embark on another world tour with the slightly shabby Grande Illusion Circus troupe. Alex (MacDonald), the new young circus clown, attracts both Vivien and David, and their secret trysts and mixed messages form the basis of the romantic triangle.

In addition to these main characters, four circus performers (Vaughan Curtis, Annabel Carberry, Stephen Williams, Shannon McGurgan) provide a mostly silent chorus and some exhilarating feats of acrobatic skill very funny, physical clown routines with choreography by Kate Priddle.

I saw a preview of the production and it is clear that plenty of script development took place during rehearsal and will continue during this season. The performers are warm and engaging, many of Costanzo's songs are compelling and the show has great potential to grow. The circus metaphor becomes a little laboured in both the narrative and lyrics, the narrative and dramatic arc need some attention and there is more than one ending. But the show is well sung and has some great tunes and entertaining moments.

MOVING WORKS: Featuring SIPArt Event # 2.

July 26, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Jonathan W. Marshall

Performance Art in Oz

I concluded my Australian travels with ... Moving Works. Melbournians often call their city "the dance capital of Australia," and it is satisfying to see an institution like Theatre Works, better known for drama, playing an important role here. The bill featured works by artists who, whilst often experienced performers, have only recently begun to choreograph.

Dance's relation to theatre has been characterised by at least two major trends. The first is an admixture of the two traditions as "dance theatre," an uneasy alliance of emotional and psychological expressiveness with a mute body. Most of the works drew on this approach, varying from pleasantly slight, comic pieces focused around silent clowning (Daniel Cole and Michael Foster), as well as more overtly Expressionist pieces in which the arched female body suggests a soul reaching out from a deep well or pit of emotional turmoil (Jay Bailey and Carmichael).

The alternative mode in which dance has tended to be blended with theatre draws on the banal, sculptural styles of Performance Art, such as were staged at the New York's Judson Church in the 1960s. Here art works, styles and bodies rest alongside each other whilst maintaining a certain quiddity. Relatively ordinary or "inexpressive" movement is coordinated within a space defined by sculptural or musical values or other concerns, generating tensions in terms of how one might read the piece, rather than suggesting that the performer offers emotional authenticity located deep within her (or more rarely his) body.

Three works within the program were closer to this approach than to Expressionism, mime or conventional dance theatre. Gulsen Ozer's somewhat opaque mediation on landscape produces a body which never quite becomes a sign for something else such as emotion, politics, an idea, or a character. The body as body, then, standing and gesturing before us. Dancer Michaela Pegum's tendency to perform in profile suggests an indifference to dramatic models, turning the performance into a concrete manifestation of what embodiment can mean.

It was however Simone Litchfield's Hoops With Strings which most directly evoked the Judson heritage. A cello sits before the stage proper, whilst projections of Litchfield repeatedly bowing a violin loops behind her, and Jen Anderson's arch string-music fills the theatre.

Litchfield describes the piece's movement and ambience as a "vortex." There is a circling about a central, curved space, together with a clarity of bodily line and intense attention to details running from the shoulders through to the fingertips, that gives a sense of tensed precision, of a gathering of energies and affect in a manner both turbulent yet quietly measured.

Whilst the body is metaphorically compared to the cello, the full affect of this work is not reducible to models of character or of this single metaphoric allusion. This is as much a sculptural or sonic piece as it is a dramatic or choreographic work, an articulation of charged space, line and tempo.

My personal favourite though was Intimate Alien from Taurus Ashley and Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal-largely because it did not make sense. The program note read as if from William Burroughs during one of his more extreme poetic hallucinations, referring to "cobalt freedom," "dissonant doubt" and "alien" possession.

Each performer begins with a short solo, Tunggal's costuming suggesting a Goth, Harajuku chic, whilst arcs of her body swing close to the ground. Ashley's movement, delivered from a standing position, is distinct: more internalised and fragmentary, as in butoh. Even so, his style lacks the full plasticity of butoh such as might suggest a body formed from a provisional cloud of particulate matter. Ashley's style is both angularly constrained and tremulously dispersive.

When the pair come together, Tunggal occupies most of the space, whilst Ashley creeps behind her, his body a pillar topped by a V-shape made from his elbows jutting out and up from his shoulders, his palms folded together under his nose. He stares at the audience as an alien presence. Compared to the Expressionist vocabulary which dominates dance theatre, this is a post-human creation, a body defined by chaotic amalgamation rather than by a hidden depth of being or of soul which radiates outwards.

Intimate Alien might not have "meant" anything in conventional dramatic terms, but as a set of images with little precedent outside of Georges Bataille's darker Surrealist ramblings, this was a striking piece.

These and other works show that drama and its close, often fractious sibling called "performance," are alive and well in Australia. What further changelings might be generated by their endless, incestuous coupling and testing of each other's mutual boundaries, remains to be seen.

www.theatreview.org.nz

MOVING WORKS: Featuring SIPArt Event # 2.

July 13, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Tony Reck

Moving Works: bodies in crisis

In the performing arts time and space becomes a conceptual void, one that is unpacked to reveal emotional, intellectual and metaphysical dimensions. In turn, these same dimensions are comprised of an eclectic array of personal realities. And so it is in Moving Works, during which eight, ten minute performances are given the once over by a panel of judges and an audience required to offer discernment via a peoples' choice award. It's a rewarding night in the theatre, one largely instigated by the challenge set for artists to find a complex and defined movement vocabulary, then compress such into a ten minute reverberation of breath, body, conceptual rigor and emotional catharsis. No easy feat to be sure, yet the performing arts cannot escape the contemporary 'Need for speed' that characterises the present. Like it or lump it, we who populate society are all swept up in an ever increasing rate of exponential transformation.

Curator, Rochelle Carmichael prefaces each work separately, beginning with Phoenix, a meditation on fire, flight, return and regrowth. Choosing not to begin with what will become in other works an obligatory musical accompaniment, Phoenix sustains an extended period of silence during which its creators concentrate upon the expressive qualities of their chosen movement vocabulary. There are delicate moments of helplessness entrapped within a shimmering landscape that, once the inferno has subsided, give way to the joy of vigorous regrowth and the part this plays in nature's cycle of destruction and creation. A quiet work, Phoenix nevertheless has a measured tone that belies a solid structural base. On show here is a a formal sense that could amplify to include the form of catastrophe, such as the ferocious microclimate created when a wildfire unleashes its full fury. Auto, the second work, instead wants us to understand the physicality of great pain. Raw and somewhat less dainty than Phoenix, it is what an audience comes to expect from a dancer using personal experience as the material for art. Contortions and twists, heaves and flourishing flips, Neroli Jamieson's oeuvre of balletic pose and crash test dummy makes for an invigorating contrast. As body in traction Auto succeeds in conveying the sense of restriction caused by a body entrapped by physical impairment, one forced to capitulate by the limitations of a physical crisis.

Intimate Alien breaks the spell of solo performance presented by its two predecessors. It is a distinctive, rare dissection of cinematic schlock horror, convulsive irony, and a disciplined desire to find the movement vocabulary of exaggerated horror and the artifice of film. Booming overhead is the ever increasing specter of musical suspense that in itself, can never find enough pitch simply because B-movie horror just keeps on comin' at ya'. Monstrous configurations of hands enwrapping faces suggesting creatures exploding from chests give way to the hideous, vampire inspired female ready to press her tongue on your lips then sink her fangs into your neck. It's all very suggestive though, which is quite a challenge really, as blood sucking gore and Frankenstinian side steps tend toward cliche'. Self consciously dark and disturbing, Intimate Alien is the first work to crack open the humour bin; making it a wry, yet disciplined foray into live performance's potential for subverting that domineering stigmata, the moving image. The following work, Crow, continues with this humorous precedent as it takes the mickey out of grief in a Ted Hughes inspired rumination that is simultaneously funny while being funereal. As well respected poet, Hughes will always be the husband of Sylvia Plath; and perhaps there's also a dig in the ribs here at Modernism's tendency toward stoicism when faced by the horrors of its defunct epoch, the blighted twentieth century. Performer Daniel Cole is suitably trussed up in black dress with its back unzipped, while wearing a bowler hat. His scream could be apocalyptic, but when he winks an eye and lets us in on the joke, the audience laughs along with him at his androgynous creation; or is it Ted Hughes in metaphorical drag ? A poetic Queen haunted by the celebrity ghost of his suicidal nemesis and mentally ill wife..?

Interval at Theatreworks is a hearty affair, with booze and perambulating conversation countering the 9.00 pm chill. In contradistinction to the snap of a cold wind, the fifth work in this sequence of eight, ten minute shows is a warm and respectful rendition of one woman's torrid love affair with a violin. Hoops with Strings is the first and only piece to utilise video projection, and it does this well. Who would have thought that a Stradivarius could dominate the life of a human being ? Many of us are faced with the predicament created when parents project insecurities onto their children, often manifesting as the mistaken assumption that 'Any child of mine' will by birthright, become a musical prodigy. Yet performer Simone Litchfield always keeps herself nice, instead allowing the overwhelming video impression of composer Jen Anderson drawing a painful bow across excruciating violin strings, to brood upon a rear wall. While at performer's stage left there sits the violin itself; complete with battered case and what appears to be a discarded basketball hoop. But Anderson is not embittered by her musical experience. Resentful, yet respectful and appreciative, her regard for the instrument is expressed in movement that is at once wary, but also full of warm resignation.

In critical mass and therefore engaged in a crisis of confidence, Concrete Solace is a male-female duet complete with model, inner-city skyscrapers. Its a scintillating work, one electrified by the hazardous discharge of a solarised lighting design that compliments the urban decay implicit in each dancer's paroxysms. Added to this mix is a degree of difficulty involved in each performer slipping hollow model skyscrapers onto all four limbs, and then dancing to the rhythms of an urban centre in complete meltdown. My people's choice for the night, Concrete Solace nevertheless takes one risk too many, resulting in a slight descent into a generalised clunkiness toward its end. Even so, a fora such as Moving Works should remain a space within which aspirations can be realised and risks taken. The creators of Concrete Solace take full advantage of this opportunity. Clunkiness aside, this was an inventive, challenging and astutely choreographed piece of movement theatre. By contrast, StickSandStones is a considered study in athleticism, one that finds vigorous expression in the rippled body of Kathryn Newnham. Wearing a deathly baby doll, its embellished transparency revealing Newnham's muscular hips subdued by a pair of black briefs, there is invoked a suspicion that something dastardly has happened. Here, the choreography emphasises the quintessential 'Strong woman', but it's not entirely convincing. 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me' is of course the ritualistic chant that arises in a cruel schoolyard. And in spite of a pretense toward a child not being emotionally stung, each and everyone of us know that the schoolyard shapes the adults we become. Grief and pain are integral to the sculpting of the vulnerable artist. Formally very competent and of precise structure, StickSandStones would benefit from a specific and articulated emotional dilemma underscoring its formal beauty.

The final work of the night, Michael Foster's The Question, is a playful composition of slapstick comedy and mime. Like Concrete Solace, its entertainment is similarly derived from watching a performer keep time with a soundtrack that reflects Foster's specific tasks on stage. He changes a light globe and drops the removed globe on the floor. He steps forward and discards a broom by throwing it behind a curtain. What's evident is the precision with which Foster must keep up with the recorded sound, and this is achieved, making the piece a pleasure to watch. It's never easy being the last show on a program, and even though there are times when the intended meaning of The Question is unclear, Foster ends his piece the same way it began; with a sad, funny little man walking across stage carrying a ladder.

In an age in which it is increasingly difficult for independent practitioners to get a look in, Moving Works created a performance structure within which the above could not only occur, but also, was a thoroughly entertaining night in the theatre. Rochelle Carmichael, Theatre Works, and all involved in each production, are to be congratulated. As for me, I'm already looking forward to Moving Works 2010.

MOVING WORKS: Featuring SIPArt Event # 2.

July 11, 2009

Accidental Arts - 3MBS 103.5FM Classically Melbourne - Review: Peter Green

... The second debut I attended this week was "Moving Works" a Theatre Works and Liquid Skin co-production featuring 8 performances from 8 choreographers. Some first timers, a very worthy endeavor and like many debuts, a mixed bag; one very intelligent and exciting work, three good, and others shading from ordinary to just plain silly.

Each choreographer was given a bare stage, minimal lighting, no set and less than 10 minutes to strut their stuff.
If I hint at competition then I accurately reflect one aspect to the program. Each work was being judged for a peoples choice award by audience vote and a creative development award, selected by an Industry Selection panel. (I'm not happy with the term "industry" alongside "creative development") I shan't relate the entirety of the evening, but shall reflect 5 works to indicate the range of ideas and their execution.

I might declare here that Wednesday night was the opening of this short season and that I am not an acknowledged dance critic. On the first count, all the pieces seemed completed and did not suffer from first night hitches.
On the second; I was Head of the Performance Studies BA at Victoria University from its inception and became very familiar with movement based performance and with Australian and overseas practitioners being fortunate to see Pina Bausch Wuppertal Tanztheatre in Sydney and DV8 amongst others.

First to "Concrete Solace" choreographed and performed by Amy McPherson and James Welsby. This was an excellent performance, visceral, briefly sinister and erotic. From its static beginning with the performers re-arranging 4 models of high rise that's each, through its vigour, ambiguous coupling and Pilobolus like walk to its logical and intelligent end it was engaging, thought provoking and thoroughly satisfying - a fully finished work!

It was good to see Neroli Jamieson dance Jay Bailey's, "Auto" a statement where Neroli's recovery had reached, and her vigour belied, for me, that she was the ghost of her former dance self!

"Hoops and Strings", choreographed by Simone Litchfield and performed by her was sensitively evocative and caught my imagination and I felt that without the distraction of the film dominating the background could develop into a larger and more lyrical work.

In Rochelle Carmichael's "StickSandStones", danced by Kathryn Newnham she showed the basis of perhaps a longer work, that with an added level would justify her title in greater measure. Rochelle must also be congratulated for co-ordinating the evening's performance.

"Crow" a self directed piece by David Cole, performed, if that's the word by David Cole in a black dress, why? Soft black hat, allegedly inspired by Ted Hughes "Examination at the Womb door" and consisting of loud lament, stomp on hat, and petulant departure, was just plain silly, and in my opinion, insulting to his fellow performers on Wednesday night, and to the intelligence of his audience; mercifully it was short.

MOVING WORKS: Featuring SIPArt Event # 2.

July 10, 2009

THE AGE - Review: Jordan Beth Vincent

Essence bared in minimalist and moving theatre works

MOVING Works is a platform for emerging and independent choreographers, encouraging a dialogue between artists and a growing audience for contemporary dance.

The bite-sized works offer something for everyone and, as the program's founder Rochelle Carmichael has said, if you don't like what you see, just wait nine minutes for the next piece.

In addition to a time limit, there are no sets and only basic lighting, which offers an opportunity to see the essence of each movement idea. This laying bare of choreographic craft illuminates the strengths and weaknesses within each work, and provides the occasional glimpse of real artistic ingenuity.

Some works are intensely personal, like Auto, choreographed by Jay Bailey and performed by Neroli Jamieson. In the piece, Jamieson chronicles her rediscovery of her physical abilities after a serious car crash.

Other works, like Intimate Alien, choreographed and performed by Taurus Ashley and Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, take the exploration of the physical body to a more abstract place, with sweeping gestures that dissolve into convulsive shaking. This work, as well as Crow, a solo directed and performed by Daniel Cole, contains strange movements performed with intensity and commitment. Cole strikes a frightening figure in his macabre physical theatre performance, drawing inspiration from Ted Hughes' poetry about death.

Simone Litchfield's Hoops with Strings and Rochelle Carmichael's StickSandStoneS, performed by Kathryn Newnham, both utilise more conventional contemporary dance vocabulary. Newnham, in particular, is compelling as a performer.

The breadth of choreographic style on show in Moving Works makes for more than just great conversation fodder for the trip home. Audience members are encouraged to vote for their favourite, with the winner receiving a cash prize and the opportunity to further develop their work.

This story was found at:

www.theage.com.au

Congratulations Mark!

June 24th, 2009

Theatre Works wishes to congratulate Mark Wilson of Doorslam Productions [2009 Selected Works company - Inside the Island] on his acceptance to the 'The International Actors' Fellowship' from August to September this year.

The International Actors' Fellowship is an intense four week programme which aims to introduce this unique theatre space to actors from around the world. Over the four week programme the participants will be under the tutelage of seasoned Globe professionals who will explore technique, voice, movement and verse in response to the special challenges of this playing space.

Mark says that previous 'Fellow' of 2002 Jenny Lovell helped pave his way to being accepted for this opportunity to enjoy not only the technical apprenticeship but the chance to live, work and play in London with peers from all across the world.

Clickity CLack [Dont look Back] & Aoroi

May 27th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Alison Croggon [Theatre Notes]

Gatz, Clickity Clack & Aoroi, The Wonderful World of Dissocia 

... It was a relief, then, to see Rochelle Carmichael's Clickity Clack and Aoroi, two short dance pieces presented at Theatre Works. They are backed by a miscellany of music, including the soundtracks from The Matrix and Donnie Darko, a strange mulch that I ended up enjoying more than I expected. Combining circus, black light puppetry and physical theatre, Clickity Clack is a witty take on the erotics of dress with some wonderful costumes - a skirt levitated by red helium balloons, a cut-out paper business suit with a huge bow tie - and some fun reveals. Aoroi seems to be a concept taken straight from a fantasy art website, with fairies creeping out from beneath a curtain, half insect, half human, to play their amoral and predatory games. Despite some muddy movement, which took the edge off a little, these are seductive pieces, with a touch of the exuberant embrace of popular kitsch that animates so much of BalletLab's work.

www.theatrenotes.blogspot.com  

Clickity CLack [Dont look Back] & Aoroi

May 25th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Tony Reck

If the body is a landscape then the crotch is an intersecting space of desire and the primal urge. A muscular female dancer wearing skimpy negligee squats on a bench, her tense toes pointed toward the ground. Some distance to her left, a man lays splayed across the floor, his hips and groin constrained by a pair of ubiquitous Y fronts. Disconnecting the two dancers is a rolled out length of butcher's paper. Defying an expectation that this unfurled path should act as a link between the two dancers, the paper instead disappears into a scrim covered booth. The man engages in a seductive, backward crawl; his tumescent groin rubbing back and forth over the roll of paper as he and unfurled path recede toward the booth. He does not however enter the booth, for the allure of a frightened woman sitting on an isolated bench tempts the two performers into a masticating dance; during which there is much barely covered crotch readily exposed. Unrestrained sexual desire it would appear, is at once a pentultimate sin and a fertile release of wild fantasies played out in mental space yet to be experienced. A trapdoor into a dangerous world governed by one law: survival. As was the case in the Greek myth Orpheus, do not look back toward love already trodden, lest he or she with tempted gaze be forever condemned to burn in a bad love incapable of being extinguished. A fire that burns most fiercely in that intersection of lust, and that which might have been but never will, the genitalia of the soul.

And yet once this Pandora's Box is opened, it is never easily closed. Emanating forth from within the booth of fantastic shadows is a cavalcade of imaginative material. A second female dancer appears, wearing a red hooped dress; within which another women is concealed. A distorted shadow of bovine appearance is cast upon the scrim; one suggested by two flapping breasts that cannot be contained. A pair of red shoes - obligatory in any fairy tale - are then somehow suspended from the ceiling, before being slipped into by a dancer descending from the heavens. While all the time this imagery flushed from the back brain is casually observed by the same male dancer mentioned above, wearing a cardboard cut-out white tux, and carefully inclined upon the bench. What began as a tryst between two lovers becomes a competition for affection. The redolent imagery is at times so foregrounded by its contrivance that it becomes difficult to ascertain where the tryst ended, and its symbolic narrative begins. Perhaps though, Clickety Clack is a performance less comprised of a sequence of signs that contribute to a story, and more the presentation of images that bear no relation to events occurring in the actual world. Its motto appears to be be: this is a highly imaginative world within which the audience will make of it what they will... While the second show on this double bill, Aoroi, although more menacing in tone, is in effect not dissimilar.

Rats or cats, or perhaps, foxes hiding in the grass at night when terrified by the presence of spotlighting shooters, wade forward from beneath a curtain. Each animal's incandescent eyes are LCD lights propped on dancer's heads. Their mawkish movements exemplify exploration in the undergrowth; each searching for a golem who soon appears, dead keen on seducing all and every female into acts of profanity. Alongside his devilish demeanour, this manipulator of women outlines in tiny red candles a path leading nowhere else but toward and into his fiendish lair. Once again, the motif of the path is one of temptation. But unlike Clickety Clack, in which this path led toward a whimsical release of playful and gratuitous imagery, Aoroi's path is an express trip to the dark heart.

Considered together, Clickety Clack & Aoroi is a rumination upon the choice that confronts us when it becomes time to choose an appropriate partner. The show asks: who is right for me ? The devilish, carefree, reckless and often destructive spirit, or the safe bet that is the stay at home romantic who will see it through until the end. Of course, the same choice is rarely a simple one, as recent events in the Joseph Fritzl case confirm that the up standing, socially respectable individual can easily conceal a tortured and despicable secret. Important to note though is that Clickety Clack & Aoroi's manichean world is one underscored by a Christian dilemma. Adam and Eve, Good and Evil, The Garden of Eden and ultimately, a way of behaving that will result in judgement passed and an after-life in heaven or eternal damnation in hell. For the many people inclined to this manichean world view, catch Liquid Skin's double bill and you be the judge.

Direction & Choreography: Rochelle Carmichael
Performers: Kathryn Newnham, Caroline Meaden, Alice Dixon, Michael Kopp
Illusionist: Ross Skiffington
Light: Thomas Lambert
Design: Andrew Thompson
Costume: Rochelle Carmichael,Michael Kropp & Sarah Carmichael

www.tonyreck.blogspot.com

CLickety CLack Don't Talk Back & Aoroi (Double Bill)

May 21st, 2009

Accidental Arts - 3MBS 103.5FM Classically Melbourne - Review: Peter Green

Thursday night I went to Theatre Works, to Liquid Skins production of "Clickity Clack" and "Aoroi" to enjoy the double bill of what the program described as "physical theatre" - true of the second piece (a narrative of floor moving trolls, in a peculiar and unnatural fairy tale) but not of the first "CLickity CLack" which was danced with great balletic technique and strong physical work, and included some stunning pas de deux moves on a bench, a diaphanous dress held in mid air by balloons like an inverted transparent crinoline - a real red crinoline supported gown and much more that was beautifully danced with purpose and always with wit.

The performers Kathryn Newnham (I wonder if she is related to the wonderful countertenor Hartley Newnham?) Caroline Meaden, Alice Dixon and Michael Kopp - all new to me, but I hope to see them again in Liquid Skin's next production "StickSandStones".

The choreographer/director of this program was Rochelle Carmichael 1994 graduate of VCA's Masters in Dance and a very good reason to keep VCA courses out of the dead hand of Melb. Uni. She has a good lateral imagination for dance and movement if "Clickity Clack" is typical of her work. "Aoroi" is an older work in her repertoire, previously presented at Theatre Works. I enjoyed it, rather like the famous curate's egg "good in parts" but too much on-the-floor work for my taste but then trolly and unnatural fairies move differently I guess. Good to see the wide open space of Theatre Works used so effectively with surprise entrance and disappearances and shifts in focus across the space.
Thoroughly enjoyable and heartily recommended.

Garden of Delights

May 13th, 2009

ONLINE - Review: Tony Reck

garden of delights: vicious

Alice in Wonderland is an influential force in the theatre, and Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal's play Garden of Delights is no exception. A woman capped by a pair of pink bunny ears lies prostate on a sofa, wholly immersed within a sparse set shaded dazzling white. Her name is Lais and apparently, she is a famous actress. Holed up in a vast castle for reasons unstated, Lais takes calls from a television game show; her undying fans desperate for a snippet of information in their attempt to make sense of a women they have never met, but idolise. Diametrically opposed to Lais, on the other side of the stage, is a glass cabinet covered by a sheet of white muslin. Lais removes this sheet to reveal three of the cutest white baby rabbits that a person could ever wish to see; the innocent Child externalised by a romantic vision of purity interpolated and connected to Lais by the presence of her pricked bunny ears.

Beneath the glass cabinet and covered by a second sheet of muslin, there is however a grotesque, yet loveable troll who, because of his crude and unpredictable demeanour, is chained to a post. Lais is ambivalent in her feelings toward this incoherent beast whose head, neck and shoulders are wrapped in yellow fleece. Later, during a fit of pique prompted by Lais' perceived lack of love and affection, this hirsute troll slaughters each and every rabbit as they nestle safely in the glass cabinet. Between these two incidents there occurs a sequence of snappily directed scenes that shift in time and place. It soon becomes clear that Lais' Greta Garbo persona is a pipe dream she has constructed for the purpose of exploring motives unconscious, repressed memories, and a violent impulse that is a consequence of physical abuse packaged as religious devotion. As a convent schoolgirl Lais, or a figment of her innocent self, masturbates with a crucifix, is tampered with by a big, hairy purple creature and subjected to sadomasochistic acts where she is a willing participant. In Arrabal's chaotic world we are all complicit in the unspeakable acts perpetrated against us because, in the space occupied by the unconscious mind the external world's superficial moral order is no longer recognised. Roughly approximated within the Modernist project, Expressionism was replaced by a desire to further explore the wild dreams of the individual, and so it is the case in Garden of Delights.

Pipe Dream's interpretation of Arrabal's difficult script is a pretty decent effort. Confronted by a multitudinous melange of ideas and images, strange sounds, anonymous voices and the mad landscape that was the modern, industrialised mind, how does the theatre articulate that which defies explanation ? Director Paul Terrell has ambitiously chosen to go after the lot. In doing so, this production raises two interesting questions. Are conventional theatrical structures such as clear character delineation, dialogue, and the actor's craft, adequate for communicating to an audience the maelstrom of the unconscious mind ? And how important is it for a non-naturalistic play that is open-ended and explorative by impulse to be characterised by an overarching spine of vertical descent, such as in the work of Jenny Kemp ? These are questions not easily answered, as Arrabal's play was written with conventional theatrical structure in mind. Even so, like many plays of this type, the cathartic moment occurs as a ritualistic death. And always after death there is once again life; blade of grass, flesh, blood and consciousness only ever decompose so as to reconfigure elsewhere in the external world, and so it is in the Hieronymus Bosch inspired Garden of Delights.

Writer: Fernando Arrabal
Director: Paul Terrell
Performers: Jono Burns, Austin Castiglione,Marita Fox & Julia Harari
Set: Yunuen Perez
Light: Katie Sfetkidis
Sound: Keith McDougall
Costume: Chloe Greaves
Stage Manager: Amelia Jackson

www.tonyreck.blogspot.com

Garden of Delights

May 6th, 2009

THE AGE - Review: Cameron Woodhead

Clowning around in a garden of delights

By Fernando Arrabal, adapted by Paul Terrell,

BEHIND the red curtain, the heart is a stairway and the soul a jar of jam. Nuns concoct strange dogma from Japanese Zen, floppy-eared bunnies are slaughtered by ape-men, and childhood friends whinny like geckos. Such is life in Fernando Arrabal's Garden of Delights. This production from Pipe Dream daubs the canvas of the irrational with imaginative spectacle and histrionic riot.

Famous actress Lais (Julia Harari) has a lot on her mind. She lives with Zenon (Austin Castiglione), a bestial creature chained rather too close to the rabbit pen. Zenon is a proud representative of the forces of the id. Let loose, he destroys and ravishes with impunity.

In a twisted fairytale ending, Lais marries him, runs off to a bouncy castle and gives birth to a litter of toy dalmatians.

Her overactive libido is countered by scenes from her childhood: the cruelty she endured at the hands of nuns, her love/hate relationship with school friend Miharca (Marita Fox), and the mystical figure of Teloc (Jono Burns).

Director Paul Terrell has a talent for bizarre that is well suited to Arrabal's psychoanalytic drama.

Some of the best moments are the most shocking: Lais pleasuring herself with a crucifix, for one.

But the performers struggle towards a style of acting that befits the material. Absurdist theatre requires a serious sort of clowning that sometimes gets lost in the giddy hysteria of this production. Burns - who acts from the shoulders up - has the furthest to go; while Fox - with harshly rendered passions and precise, stylised movement - comes closest to it.

Garden of Delights

May 5th, 2009

Leader Newspaper - Article: Annika Priest

Pets in the footlights

ACTORS can be a high-maintenance lot, and domestic pets' fees are a lot lower.

"They're really good in the theatre," said director Paul Terrell of the rabbits which populate the surrealist fantasy play Garden of Delights. "They're adorable."

Part of the Spanish macabre, fantastical tradition that reaches from Goya through Dali to the recent Academy Award-winning film Pan's Labyrinth, Garden of Delights is about an actress who tries to reject the world for her elaborate, self-created sanctuary where she keeps an ape man, as well as the rabbits, as pets.

Written in the '60s by Fernando Arrabal, the play was last performed in Australia 30 years ago at the Pram Factory.
"He creates worlds that aren't usually explored a lot in theatre. He likes dealing with fantasy and science fiction in a very theatrical way, not necessarily a light comedy," Terrell said.

"They're quite serious a lot of times, very black and they can have fun in moments but they're dealing with full-on issues."
Garden of Delights, one of only four shows in Theatre Works Selected Works Season - designed to help Melbourne theatre companies - runs at Theatre Works until May 16.

Garden of Delights

May 2nd, 2009

Australian Stage Online - Article: 

One of Victoria's most exciting independent theatre companies, PipeDream will be staging Spanish writer, Fernando Arrabal's surreal fantasy, Garden of Delights in May as part of TheatreWorks 2009 Selected Works Season. Written in the 1960's and last presented in Australia thirty years ago at the Pram Factory, Garden of Delights bridges the gap between fairytale and nightmare as it explores the world of a famous actress who is escaping from reality into a bizarre garden of her own imagination.

The actress, played by Julia Harari, has tried to reject the world for her elaborate self-created sanctuary populated by animals including a half-man half-ape creature. But even in her own world her past continues to haunt her and slowly her life and history unravels before the audience in a kaleidoscope of strange characters, time machines, nuns, fame, violence, sex and hyper reality.

Garden of Delights forms part of the Spanish macabre/fantastical tradition of highly visual art that reaches from Goya through Picasso and Dali to the recent Academy Award winning film, Pan's Labyrinth. The writer, Fernando Arrabal grew up in Franco's Spanish dictatorship before going into exile and is seen as one of the founders of the Panic Movement of 1960's which can be described as a continuation of Surrealism and drew heavily of the Theatre of the Absurd.

PipeDream was founded by director, Paul Terrell and producer, Nic Halliwell in 2007 to produce theatre with an Absurdist, unworldly and imaginative aesthetic, especially focusing on strong visual production. Since then the company has produced King Turd the Great, a free spirited adaptation of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi staged in an underground car park, Harry's Christmas by Steven Berkoff and most recently, Wilde, based on characters from three Oscar Wilde stories for the 2008 Melbourne Fringe.

Only twenty three, Paul Terrell is a recent graduate of the VCA's Theatre directing program and has been directing since he was 18, first at Melbourne University and then independently. Along the way he has directed another play by Arrabal (Fando and Lis) which also featured Julia Harari, The Bald Soprano and Rhinoceros by the Surrealist writer Eugene Ionesco as well as fashion shows and several musicals.

Garden of Delights is one of only four shows in Theatre Works Selected Works season, which is designed to assist and support the best submissions each year from independent companies and enable them to mount a public performance of an exciting, cutting edge production. It is also one of a select group of projects supported by the Spanish Cultural Cooperation Program, which is an initiative of the Spanish Government to promote Spanish culture in Australia and one of just seven such programs run around the world.

The Theatre Works 2009 Selected Works Program and PipeDream presents Garden of Delights

Sex, Sheep and Sadomasochism

Garden of Delights

May 1st, 2009

Accidental Arts - 3MBS 103.5FM Classically Melbourne - Review: Peter Green

Last week I was busy, out three nights in a row to the theatre. To North Melbourne Meat Market to revisit Haylofts productions of "Spring Awakenings" and "3 x sisters" this time for the pleasure of it; and then two first nights from companies new to me. PipeDream at Theatre Works with Fernando Arrabal's "Garden of Delights" and then to Hoy Polloy at the Mechanic's Institute Performing Arts Centre Brunswick, with Franz Xaver Kroetz's "Tom Fool".

First the Arrabal "Garden of Delights" premiered in 1968, but last performed in Melbourne in 1979 in the Bank Theatre of the Pram Factory, Carlton produced be the Australian Performing Group and directed by Alison Richards.

PipeDream, the company, is the child of Paul Terrell (only 23) whose interests theatrically; the program informed me is in absurdist and surreal drama. With Arrabal, Paul is on the right tram; for Arrabal was co-founder of Panic Theatre (inspired by the God, Pan) and along with such writers as Duchamp, Ionesco, Man Ray, Dario Fo etc, etc was elected Transcendent Satrap of the College of Pataphysique. "Garden of Delights" is not easy to stage but Paul Terrell has succeeded by selecting plenty of width and depth (possible at Theatre Works) white light and light painted abstract space.

The direction though is looser than suits the pace and changes Arrabal's absurdist/surreal text requires; but individual performances are good if at times Julia Harari's Lais the retired and reclusive actress could have afforded a more "Grand Dame" persona; "Sunset Boulevard" without the ageing. The whole effect is perhaps let down by the odd gimmick, live rabbit (good) but fake rabbit carcasses (bad) when the actual might have justified outrage and panic Arrabal's text [held] and an inflatable bounce castle at the end with wizzing model helicopters - but still the play is worth a look; Arrabal is not that often staged.

Garden of Delights

May 1st, 2009

Canvas Magazine - Article: Richard Watts

Nightmare and Imagination

Richard Watts speaks with young director Paul Terrell about surrealism in the theatre.

Although only a recent graduate from the Victorian College of the Arts' Theatre directing program, Paul Terrell has already cut his teeth on some fairly weighty theatrical productions, including Eugene Ionesco's absurdist classic Rhinoceros, and King Turd the Great, a free-wheeling adaptation of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, which was staged in an underground car park.

His latest work, presented by the company he co-founded in 2007, PipeDream ("a company of young people interested in creating other worlds, not your standard living room dramas") is the surreal fantasy Garden of Delights by Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal.

Born in Spanish Morocco in 1932, shortly before the Civil War tore Spain apart, Arrabal is a novelist and poet as well as a playwright. In 1962, together with film director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) and artist and illustrator Roland Topor, he co-founded the Panic Movement, dedicated to chaotic performance art and surrealist imagery.

His surreal masterpiece Garden of Delights, which explores the imagination of an actress who has turned her back on reality, has not been seen in Melbourne for 30 years.

"I suppose that's one of the reasons [to mount this production], that the play was last staged in Australia 30 years ago," Terrell says.

"I want a new generation to explore this play, and to re-imagine it. I feel like surrealism is making a come-back in Australia and it's always good to re-look at some of the lost works of surrealism; the ones that a lot of people haven't explored or heard of ... to look at them through current theatre practises."

Terrell sees surrealism everywhere in contemporary Melbourne theatre.

"My thoughts go straight to Lally Katz's work, and Jenny Kemp; but even a lot of stuff that happens at The Malthouse I find to be quite surrealist. There's a real push in Melbourne at the moment to look at surrealism."

Absurdist and surrealist theatre have a strong hold on Terrell's imagination, and have done for many years.

"I first heard about absurdism in high school, and I suppose it's that questioning of the everyday existence that we live in, and that big existential question about it and about reality [that attracts me]; and the stories, because they're so outlandish and fantastical and theatrical. It's not just taking a slice of life and putting it on stage."

PipeDream's production of Garden of Delights is being staged as part of TheatreWorks' 'Selected Works' season, a program designed to assist and support Melbourne's independent theatre sector.

"It's really incredibly valuable. Just to get that extra notice is one thing; and that sort of step up that we receive from being part of this program is another, because we've been working as a company for three years and so in the third year to get this kind of lift, it's fantastic."

Garden of Delights

July 16th, 2008

The Australian - Article: Bernard Lane

From Seville to St Kilda, Spanish surrealism is back

OLD school friends act out the roles of nuns who taught them. Sex, sheep and sadomasochism flourish in a garden of memory. An actor keeps an ape-man as a pet. Welcome to the retro-surrealism of Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, whose work, Garden of Delights, is about to return to the stage in Melbourne after a 30-year hiatus.

"The last time was at the Pram Factory," says Paul Terrell of PipeDream theatre group.

"But there's a real resurgence of interest in surrealist and absurdist traditions."
The PipeDream production, to be staged next autumn at Theatre Works in St Kilda, will have Julia Harari in the lead role as Lais, an actor slipping between childhood memory, her psychoanalytically inflected inner world and a TV interviewer probing her career. It's one of 12 projects part-funded by a new and unusual program run by the Australian National University and the Spanish Government.

"The main objective is to promote the Spanish culture in this part of the world," says Fernando Gomez, deputy director general of international cultural co-operation at the Spanish ministry for culture.

Australia's program, part overseen by ANU's National Europe Centre, is one of just seven; the others run in the US, Germany, Morocco, South Korea, Japan and The Philippines. Why Australia? Why not, say, France? "The situation in France is so good for Spanish culture that we don't need to support cultural activity in this way," Gomez says.
The profile of Spanish culture in Australia is seen to be weak, often outdated and cliched although this is changing.
Lorca would be better known here than Arrabal although both are adventurous writers who in different ways fell victim to Spain's dictator Franco.

Lorca was shot in 1936. Arrabal's father was sentenced to death but ended up in prison; in 1941 he escaped and vanished forever. Like many others, Arrabal went into exile -- he lives in Paris -- and at one point wrote an open letter to Franco.
Terrell and Harari discovered his work as students at the University of Melbourne; they took part in a production of Fando and Lis, in which a paralysed girl goes on a magical journey.

Terrell, a student of directing at the Victorian College of the Arts, doesn't suggest that Arrabal's work is a window on Spain today. Even so, it's a powerful aesthetic tradition of the 20th century from which local theatre can draw inspiration and verve.

If English theatre is preoccupied with class and language, "by contrast, if you look at Spanish artists, there's an interest in the grotesque; it's much more visual, emotional, psychoanalytic." The Spanish cultural program is unusual in its breadth, says Simon Bronitt, director of the National Europe Centre. Film, theatre and music will benefit from the grants, as will academic conferences and travel by scholars.

"This allows a lot more people-to-people networking -- often to bring leading Spanish scholars to Australia," says Bronitt. For example, critic Ramon Garcia Dominguez, a leading authority on Miguel Delibes, little known here but a prolific writer much praised in the Spanish-speaking world, will come to Adelaide in September for a Flinders University symposium on Delibes.

Full details can be found at: www.spainculturalprogram.com

Inside the Island

April, 2009

Citysearch - Editorial Review: Julianne Gill

Louis Nowra is one of Australia's prolific, yet lesser-known, playwrights and writers. Better known for his plays such as Cosi and Byzantine Flowers, Nowra wrote the work Inside the Island in 1978, with its only production taking place in 1980. Theatre Works has resurrected the play as part of Doorslam, a production company created to not only foster new talent but to bring a new approach to Australian classics.

Nowra's play clearly fits the bill. An exploration of some of Australia's less-than-attractive characteristics is played out within the stark and unforgiving landscape of rural New South Wales on a huge wheat farm. The life of the farm's matriarch, Lillian Dawson, is the central figure of the play. Her farm is her version of a utopia and she works relentlessly hard to keep both the farm and its inhabitants within her self-defined boundaries. As she dominates those around her, Inside the Island hones in on what Nowra observed to be a level of imperial racism and native dispossession in Australia, along with exposing an undercurrent of class division and xenophobia.

While Lillian will seemingly stop at nothing to maintain control of her island, it becomes more and more apparent that her version of a utopia is what many others would consider to be a "dystopia".

Theatre Works - Volunteer - Ushers

Volunteering as an Usher is a great way to be involved in your local theatre. The position is one of responsibility and reliability; it requires the volunteer to arrive at the theatre 45 minutes before the show starts to be briefed on the venue and the ushering duties for the pending performance. The Usher is not permitted to consume alcohol as there is an OH&S component of the position (in case an emergency evacuation of the venue is required).

However, you are welcome to bring a friend and they will be entitled to free entry to see the performance with you. We would prefer an ongoing volunteering arrangement with the Usher, as it then reduces our need for briefing new Ushers each season. So, if you think you would like to regularly volunteer your services (at least once per season) then please contact Paula on admin(replace+with+at+symbol)theatreworks.org.au or 9534 3388 to discuss further.

Theatre Works - quietly developing the creative arts.

March 27, 2009

If you were wondering why we've seemed a little quiet of late, its because we've been busy creatively developing new works in the Theatre Works space.

Over the last few weeks we have had Black Hole Theatre working away at two new puppetry projects, our second IN THE WORKS company, Circus Catharsis have been busy building a new circus show to be performed as part of our CIRCUS WORKS season in December 2009 and coming up during our SELECTED WORKS season of Inside The Island, Magnormos will be workshoping their new musical, Flowerchildren.

Written by Peter Fitzpatrick, flowerchildren is the story of the legendary vocal group The Mamma's and the Pappa's, with a moving score based on their iconic songs. Magnormos will be workshopping this new musical in April with support from the City of Port Phillip and Theatre Works.

So it may seem like nothing much is happening at the moment but just wait for these exciting new productions to grace the stage in months to come...

Miss K in IL Mio Amore

March 25, 2009

With a near sold out season for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Miss K is on her way back to Melbourne to perform for one night only. Here's just a little of what they had to say in Adelaide...

A CSI/master chef with songs thrown in. She is a warm, energetic performer with a really fine voice.
Ewart Shaw [The Advertiser]

The entire show is appealing, deliberately tacky and blends together suitably in the end. Miss K's character has been well developed and is backed up well by the sexy, strong Captain Funk on guitar and vocals.
Bobby Goudie [Rip It UP Magazine]

Klara McMurray's alter-ego is a brassy, vivacious, garish, bottle-blonde ultra-vixen. Miss K is smart, witty and charming, she does some wonderful stuff, and her humour is easily likable and deserves to be seen.
Stephen Davenport [The Independent Weekly]

A quaint and quirky cabaret act, which finds its place perfectly within a setting such as the Fringe.
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Nikki Gaertner [Adelaide Theatre Guide]

As You Do

February 6, 2009

Herald Sun - Review: Chris Boyd

THANKS to the Midsumma Festival here and the Mardi Gras in Sydney, you could be forgiven for thinking homosexuality is all about that pesky little third syllable: SEX. Young, rampant and queer as. But love is a many-gendered thing. And this charming little show, written and performed by George Filev and Michael Firth, presents the lives of an established gay couple as a Channel 31-style TV show with segments on gardening, furnishing, pets, cooking and travel.

To begin with, it's so low-key it's off the chart. But something in the writing is reminiscent of Barry Humphries' first great creation, the Robur-sipping Sandy Stone.

Stan (Firth) and Seymour (Filev) might be ageing, overweight and ditch-water dull, but they're content and deeply committed to each other. Their words are as wise as they are rib-tickling.

In real estate terms, this show is overcapitalised. There are quality video segments and props galore (my favourite is the pair of walking sticks with drinks holders and the out-of¬my-way bicycle bells), but As You Do leaves audiences as content as the old lovers who've been entertaining us for the past hour.

Thy Will Be Done & As You Do [A Midsumma Double Bill]

February 5, 2009  

THE AGE - Review: Tim Richards

From angsty realism to suburban frou-frou

IT CAN'T be easy for a divorced man to realise his true sexuality in a small country town. If he falls in love with the local Catholic priest too, you can be sure there's conflict in the making. That's the premise of Thy Will Be Done, an angst and talk-heavy two-hander set in Apollo Bay.

The action proceeds in a series of short scenes, each inching the relationship between Tom (Brad Schmidt) and the priest (Kevin McGreal) a little closer to being acted on. Though the gradual pace adds realism, it also drags. A high point is Schmidt's sympathetic portrayal of the troubled Tom.

There's no angst in the following production, As You Do, but there is some innuendo. Bucket loads, in fact.

As You Do is a lifestyle show hosted by Seymour (George Filev) and Stanley (Michael Firth), an older couple who advise the audience on such diverse matters as gardening, pet care and soft furnishings.

Moving through each segment, they offer tips on the care of pansies and the proper placement of your pouffe.

Subtle it isn't. However, it's confidently delivered with a charming manner that provokes laughter at the conflict between the nanna-style living room and the lewd subtext.

Where the show falls down is in its final cooking segment, which is overlong and lacks the wicked contrast of the earlier elements. Otherwise, it's an entertaining guide to life.

Oh what a Launch!

January 30, 2009

What a wonderful evening we had celebrating the launch of our brand new look and 2009 Season Brochure last evening. Thank you to all who braved the heat to help us celebrate this occassion.

The evening was certainly balmy, though with the relief of a cool sea breeze that sprang up on cue we were cooled down with the assistance of plenty of iced water and deliciously cold wine.

Our guests enjoyed a preview of our newly designed website, unveiling of our 2009 season brochure and live performances by Magnormos & Circus Catharsis. We were thrilled to see our local State Labor Member for Albert Park Mr Martin Foley MP brave the heat and come over to St Kilda to support us.

In brief, 2009 at Theatre Works will include a mix of our ever inspiring 2009 Selected Works [formerly Company Initiative Program] and 2009 In The Works [formerly Company Development Program]. This year is also filled with an amazing mix of Theatre, Dance, Circus, Puppetry, Musical Theatre, Cabaret, Improvised and scripted Comedy and our brand new Circus Works program. With over 30 independent productions and special events there is sure to be something for everyone. Join us in celebrating the amazing diversity of Melbourne's Independent Arts scene as these fantastic companies bring their work to life on the Theatre Works stage.

If you haven't yet checked out the new look [beautifuly designed by Famous Visual Services, who also did our brochures] and our wonderful new website [designed by F6 Design], check them out.

Our 2009 Season Brochures are now on the street too. Look out for them and grab yourself one. Check out our new loyalty program on the back cover. Get your brochure stamped everytime you purchase a ticket to a Theatre Works show and we'll give you a complimentary ticket to your 5th show in 2009.Looking forward to another Bumper year [... not bumpy as recently reported ;) ...]

see you all in the foyer!

New name (sort of) and new mission for Theatre Works

January 29, 2009

THE AGE - Article

The rebranded St Kilda company aims to be much more than a venue for hire, writes Greg Burchall.

ONCE the occupational specialty of cattle rustlers, re-branding has caught on in the arts world, with the latest company to change its letterhead and season structure being St Kilda's Theatre Works (formerly Theatreworks).

While it might take time for the street signs pointing to its Edwardian parish hall home in Acland Street to change, operations manager Angela Pamic says 2009 will herald a new start for the 30-year-old company.

"We had a bit of a bump[er] year last year, organisation-wise, but we saw an enormous increase in attendance and now we can focus on providing access and support for as many individual arts companies as possible," she says.

After almost a decade of being seen as mainly a venue for hire, Theatre Works will once again present a season of "Selected Works", chosen from about 20 submissions in what was previously its "Company Initiative Program".

For Mark Wilson, Theatre Works provides the opportunity to tackle larger-scale works that are no longer part of the mainstream.

The artistic director of Doorslam Productions, which enjoyed success last year with Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris, has set his sights on one of Louis Nowra's early plays, Inside the Island.

"It was Nowra's third or fourth (play) and opened in 1980 with Judy Davis in the cast, but it was mauled by the critics and has not been seen (professionally) since," he says.

"By all accounts, it was a good production, but the subject matter was very critical of problems inherent in Australian culture, and I think that's what people couldn't deal with then."

If Wilson's challenge is to create "big and naturalistic" - a mansion in the middle of rural NSW - then Paul Terrell, of Pipedream, has the opposite task ahead: to make solid the surreal world of Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal's Bosch-inspired Garden of Delights.

"It's a fantasy, adventure, epic, film noir, time-travel thing, full of imaginary characters and alternative worlds all happening at once," says Terrell.

Not staged since the early days of the Pram Factory, Garden's aesthetic will be helped by "a little tucked-away grant" Terrell discovered from the Spanish consul's cultural fund.

It's that sort of prospecting that will help smaller companies create exciting and ambitious work on otherwise limited budgets in these tough economic times, says Pamic.

"You don't have to go for the big $100,000 hand-out grants that everyone is going for, you can look for smaller ones that are more project-specific," she says. "There are many other ways to approach funding, such as making connections with the local community and local businesses. These days people are more likely to give a little bit here, a little bit there."

Aside from Nowra and Arrabal, this year's "Selected Works" season includes a Liquid Skin Theatrephysical double bill of new piece Clickety Clack Don't Talk Back and a return of Aoroi, winner of the 2004 Melbourne Fringe movement award.

"In the Works" includes theatre offerings from Real TV (The War Project) and Little Ones (A Slow and Steady Darkening Towards Light), puppetry from Barking Spider (Match) and Circus Catharsis' George and Martha.

"For us it's about making sure there's a good range across all arts theatre, so that we're not catering for just one type of audience," says Pamic.

"Even in times of financial problems, people need to go out and experience new things, have their minds opened, whether it be for entertainment or to learn.

"I think there's always going to be a need for that."

www.theage.com.au