Saturday 16 March 2024

Cameron Ribbons: Eulogiser Bunny, Q the Locals and Sophia Borserio, The Q, 16 March


 This is one of those standup shows where the best part of the show is probably the pun in the title. The concept has potential - the performer does a mock-eulogy of themselves - but the content is largely dad-jokes with a side order of whimsical nonsense rather than any particularly deep personal reflection, and it's also sabotaged by some unusually messy tech-work and some plot that's only just there as a bare thread to sorta hold the evening together (messed up by a lot of the plot resolution being in video that resolutely refuses to play back smoothly and kinda kills any sense of comic pace). 

Normally I write longer than this but a show that comes across as this half-arsed really isn't worth that much more reflection. 

Friday 8 March 2024

Bring It On: The Musical, Canberra Philharmonic in association with Erindale Theatre, 29 Feb-16 Mar


 The 2000 film "Bring it On" was an entertaining teenage cheerleading comedy that looked at the sport with a slightly cynical side eye, through the perspective of Kirsten Dunst's cheerthusiast Torrance, Eliza Dushku's cheerskeptic gymnast Missy and Gabrielle Union's Isis, indignant about how her team's culture had been appropriated by a bunch of white girls. It did well enough to produce six follow-up direct-to-video sequels, all of which feature variations on the same basic setup - cheerleading rivalries and some aspect of street-dance culture infiltrating their world to a greater or lesser extent, and, in 2011, it was adapted to become a stage musical by the team of Tom Kitt and Amanda Green (fresh from the "High Fidelity" musical as a team, Kitt also fresh from getting a Putlizer as composer of "Next to Normal" and recently orchestrating "American Idiot") plus Lin-Manuel Miranda (post "In The Heights", pre "Hamilton"), with a script by Jeff Whitty, following up on "Avenue Q". Weirdly the musical doesn't directly adapt the first movie, instead being kinda a distillation of the general themes of them all into a story of another Cheerthusiast whose dreams of conquering the cheer-world seem to be dashed when redistricting means she's moved to an inner city school with, shock-horror, no cheersquad. If you can't guess that she'll learn lessons in tolerance while creating a new cheersquad with the various diverse underdog types at her new school, congratulations for missing out on 90% of pop culture tropes. 

Philo gives this an energetic production with a skilled production team assembling a strong cast to meet the physical, musical and acting demands of the show - Jessica Gowing as our heroine, Campbell, with just the right mix of ruthless determination and charm, Jess Marshall as her no-bullshit counterpart at the new school, Hannah Lance as the seemingly sweet Eva, Katie Lis as the bubbly and enthusiastic Bridget, Ashleigh Maynard as the somewhat accidentally bitchy Skylar, Emma English as the nicely dim Kylar, Diana Caban Velez as the double-act  of Nautica and La Cienega, Frank Shanahan as the dopey boyfriend Campbell leaves behind, Grayson Woodham as the brainier boyfriend she picks up along the way, Jeremy Chan as the booty-obsessed Twig, Ash Syme as the too-cool-for-this Cameron and a rich and diverse ensemble of dancers, singers and a few ring-in-cheer-people.

Isaac Gordon directs a tight ship, keeping the show ever flowing, with the assistance of CHarlotte Morphett's razor-tight choreography and Alexander Unikowski's high-energy music direction as the score various from hip-hop to balladry to traditional music theatre narrative ensembles. 

This is an energetic, light piece that feels contemporary, lively, and thoroughly entertaining. This is by no means essential viewing but if you're looking for a fun time there's certainly a lot of fun to be had here.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Happy Meals, Happy Kids, Q the locals and Sunny Productions, The Q, 7-9 March 2024




 There's been an interesting run of Youth Theatre recently, with a lot of fairly dark material dealing with teenagers facing not-too-distant future dystopias in plays like "This Changes Everything" (2022) and "The Trials" (2023). "Happy Meals, Happy Kids" continues that trend with a group of 6 teenagers in the remains of a McDonalds preparing for one climactic event as the fate of the world hovers over them. But there's also a spirit of life and of resistance from these characters as they reflect on how they'd forced themselves to grow up too quickly (academically, socially, professionally) and are now regretting how fast their youth is passing - while we see that they still have occasional moments of youth hovering within them, whether it's desire to reconnect to family, to just dance and enjoy themselves, to experience anything that isn't the pervasive doom that hovers over them. It would be easy for a play like this to be essentially nihilistic, but Jade Breen's writing and their co-direction with Ella Buckley means the play is ever-more effective for letting a varied sense of humanity through the dark situation - a humanity we can embrace even as we know, intellectually, that it's probably going to be hurt by outside forces. 

Katie Bisset plays the teenager who attempts to organise the rest with a strong sense of purpose, even as it becomes more apparent that her gestures may be futile. Caitlin Bisset, Joshua James and Phoebe Silberman play the three more disruptive members of the group, trying to divert themselves from the realities of what's coming, with jokes, games and reminiscences. Wajanoah Mascot Donohoe plays Bisson's closest partner, a supportive figure with his own neuroses and nerves. And Zoe Ross plays the isolated one, melting down in the bathroom as the pressures overwhelm her. 

Ros Hall's set and Sen McNamara's costumes evoke the chaotic times, from the trashed details of the set to the small tears and scrapes of the costumes.

Breen is a skilled writing talent, writing passionately and with care, creating a varied cast of characters in a brutal situation and taking them to a grim but inevitable conclusion. It's a confident and powerful piece and I can't wait to see how their talents are explored further.

Thursday 29 February 2024

Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Canberra Rep, 22 Feb-9 Mar

 

Neil Simon is a chronicler of a very specific era in American Comedy - his '60s comedies leaned more into the aspirational middle-aged, middle-class that was the bulk of the Broadway audience in that era, of the same ilk as writers like Jean Kerr ("Mary, Mary") and William Gibson ("Two for the Seasaw"). More prolific than either, he kept on writing til the early 2000s across plays, musicals, and movies creating quite a sizable legacy. His 1969 comedy "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" takes on the swinging cultural mores that he'd been witness to (those who have seen the miniseries "Fosse/Verdon" may remember Simon was a witness to a lot of Fosse's infidelities) and the complicated emotions those brought up in an older generation. 

In some ways, it's very much a middle-aged man's view of the era (Simon was 42 when he wrote it), and some of the attitudes of that era do pervade the play (it could be retitled "I'm scared of every woman who isn't my wife" - Simon's later play, "Jake's Women", could be retitled "I'm also scared of some of the women who have been my wife"). But in other ways, it offers a great range of roles for three actresses to get their teeth into as they each visit the apartment owned by Barney Cashman's mother for an afternoon Barney intends to be an intimate, special experience, which turns out to be more revealing of both himself and the women he's invited over than it is the carnal delights he's been hoping for. Each act of this three-act play is a two-hander between the neurotic Cashman and a different woman who each get a lot of time to create distinctive, complex characters.

First up there's Victoria Tyrell Dixon as the tough-talking Elaine, an experienced woman whose bluntness unnerves Barney but who's absolutely able to see through his blather and his self-delusion to realise that he's never going to be able to follow through on what he claims to want. It's very distinctive from the previously more poised roles I've seen her in and it's a delight to see her deadpan disappointment building as the act builds. Stephanie Bailey follows as the impulsive, goofy Bobbi, whose continual patter about her personal dramas reveals a woman whose experiences are wildly at odds with Barney's conventional nature. She also gets to sing a few bits of Bacharach and is thoroughly engaging. Janie Lawson wraps up the show with the moody, depressed Jeanette, who gets laughs from her wordless entrance all the way through (though the script slightly sabotages her by having some very 1969-style-dramatic-therapy where depression can apparently be cured by yelling at someone a lot). Playing against them is David Cannell who anchors the piece as our ironically-titled-red-hot-lover-who-is-really-more-lukewarm-neurotic - we see him get into the cycle of being a slightly more polished seducer (as his Fiona-Leach provided suits get more polished and his preparatory moves get a rhythm to them) and also how the inner Barney is still a conventionally happily married man with an abstract yearning that the afternoons with these women is never going to cure. 

This is very much what you'd expect from a Neil Simon play of the era-  it's gentle, non-threatening theatre with charm and some pretty decent jokes - but it is very much of its era and the main enjoyable quality is the performances of the three different women. 

Thursday 22 February 2024

Next to Normal, Queanbeyan Players, Belconnen Community Theatre, 15-24 February 2024

 

This is the third time I've seen a production of this 2008 musical, after a not entirely successful production at the Hayes and a much better production a year later by Phoenix players. It's a challenging show to get right - a chamber-rock-opera for a cast of 6 and  a band of 6, dealing with mental illness and family trauma in an intense two and a half hours. It's about how the struggles for mental health take their toll not only on the person suffering but on those around them as well, and it's about how the desire for normality can obscure dealing with brutal lingering aftereffects of trauma. 

Queanbeyan Players has assembled a strong cast for this production - Sarah Hull navigates a challenging score that requires her to sing the pure clarity of "I miss the Mountains" and the rock tempos of "You don't know" with aplomb, humanity, warmth and just the right amount of incipient mania. Dave Smith moves outside his normal confident heroic tenor types into a figure who's motives are far murkier and may in fact be no help whatsoever to his wife and family. Kara Murphy plays their daughter, so guarded from her homelife that a new relationship may parallel the experiences of her parents. Luke Ferdinands has the voice of an angel and the moves of a demon as the embodiment of the family's foundational trauma, insinuating himself into each of the character's lives with ease. John Whinfield as the gentle Henry gives the show its moments of pure innocence and kindness. Andrew Finegan as the doctors who try to treat Diana gives a slightly distant professionalism and, in the end, a desperate pleading for his work to have meant anything at all in the face of clear signs it's been futile. 

The creative team of Belinda Hassall, Christopher Bennie and Jen Hinton assemble a strong production, using domestic spaces as a battleground for the internal struggles of a family. 

This is not an easy show for cast or audiences - it takes us to places of hurt and pain and deals with trauma that lingers well after the end of the show. But it's a powerful experience and absolutely worth catching. 

Friday 16 February 2024

Tiny Beautiful Things, Queensland Theatre in association with Trish Wadley Productions, Belvoir Street Theatre , 1 Feb-2 Mar

 

Nia Vardalos’ adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a small play that contains big thoughts. It takes the format of a recap of the two years from 2010-2012 that Strayed spent writing the advice column for the online literary magazine, “The Rumpus”, where she wrote responses to people struggling with issues with their family, with their love life, with surviving death of their loved ones, their own guilty past, their addictions, traumas, and hopes. She responded by drawing on her own experiences with what she called “Radical honesty”, revealing her own issues with her parents, her previous addictions, her mistakes, and her successes in ways that remain true and powerful over a decade later – because it’s about experiences we all share or will share at some point or another, and about getting comfort from another person’s experiences.


Lee Lewis’ production keeps the scale small – cast of four, one domestic set as Sugar wanders the set clearing up after a busy day with her family and three actors embodying the letter writers open their hearts to her seeking guidance. There’s an honesty and gentleness to the performances – Mandy McElhinney as Sugar carries the heart and the warmth of the story, with Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior, and Angela Nica Sullen as the three letter writers, each presenting their issues to her and listening as she discusses both theirs and other people’s issues. There’s a cumulative power to each of these conversations – it never just feels like a series of bits, each response digs deeper into Sugar and her own experiences and widens our knowledge – and by the end, we’ve felt an entire journey in the company of a warm and trusted guide.


Simone Romaniuk’s set and costumes give this a comfy home-like intimacy, with Bernie Tan-Hayes’ lighting and Brady Watkins composition and sound design defining the spaces these people live in just right.

While yes, this is a show that could feel like a set of homilies, somehow this is so much more. It’s a celebration of humanity, in our flawed, questing, confused, quizzical, and yearning nature, and it’s a powerful experience.

Thursday 15 February 2024

A fool in love, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, 6 Feb-17 Mar


 Lope De Vega's 1613 comedy "La Dama Boba" is one of an estimated 1,800 to his name (431 of which have survived to the present day), and on this presentation seems like a viable variation on commedia del arte precepts - the plot rides on the highly-controlled marriage of a heiress to a vast fortune, and the challenges to that marriage due to her foolish nature and the multiple conniving plots of various suitors to her and her intellectual sister. I'm not entirely sure it utterly survives the weight of Van Badham's adaptation in which she's inserted her own highly laboured post-modern jokes about modern culture, herself and her work as an opinion writer on the Guardian and the nature of renaissance dialogue, nor that Kenneth Moraleda's production, which like most productions of comedies of this era imposes a style I'd call "broad panto" does it a lot of favours, but there are some pleasures in this, mostly relating to design and the right central performances from the central pair of lovers, Contessa Treffone as the titular fool Phynayah and Arkia Ashraf as the central wooer, and some nice goofing on the sidelines from Megan Wilding and Alfie Gledhill as the secondary characters who's sidenline wooing is appropriately riduculous. 

Elsewhere it's over the top comedy that does a lot of nudging in the ribs to let you know just how hilarious it thinks itself - on occasion, it does almost get there but mostly it's pushing very hard and some performers in particular are not served well by this approach - it all feels a little desperate to please. Isabel Hudson's design has a nice surrealism and playfulness but, in particular in the second half when the plot seems to be reaching for something a bit more thoughtful, this feels desperate to be thought of as fluff, wheras instead it's like gorging on fairy floss ... too much turns the stomach a little.