Review: The Ruby Sunrise

The Ruby Sunrise
Ensemble Theatre
Until 14 November
Tickets $23-63
Bookings (02) 9929 0644
Critic’s Rating 5/10

As published in the Sun Herald


The character of Ruby Sunrise is as American as apple pie. A Midwest teenager, she dreams of a better world and thinks her new idea of a Tele(from the Greek) vision (from the Latin) will stop wars, educate and bring humanity closer together.

Set in the 1920s, at a time when television science was racing ahead in leaps and bounds, it’s a world away from daytime soaps and episodes of Bridezilla.

When Ruby’s daughter, Lulu (Catherine McGraffin), gives the idea to writer Tad Rose (Glenn Hazeldine) 30 years later at the height of Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist investigations, they think they have a hit on their hands with a story that is an optimistic tale of determination that has a female heroine.

But censorship rears its ugly heads and the story gets diluted and changed along the way.

For The Ruby Sunrise to have its full impact, the stakes need to be high and the opening scenes set in the '20s need to have a gravity and realism that will drive the rest of the play.

Unfortunately this doesn't happen. It would have been a perfect opportunity to explore audiovisual styles but instead, director Sandra Bates has opted for a realist production, where even the make-up and costumes look like they’re straight out of a community theatre wardrobe.

Review: Wicked

As published in yesterday's Sun Herald.

Wicked
Capitol Theatre
Until 22 November
Tickets $95.90-129.90
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 8/10


Believe or not, there was life in the Land of Oz before Dorothy and Toto crash-landed, uninvited, and squashed the poor Wicked Witch of the East, stealing her lovely red shoes and running off down the yellow brick road.

In Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, we return to the college days of room-mates Elphaba (Amanda Harrison) and Glinda (Lucy Durack).

Elphaba, born with a green colour disfigurement, has been shunned her whole life by her cruel father, the Governor of Munchkinland, in favour of her wheel-chair bound sister Nessarose (Penny McNamee).

Glinda, on the other hand, in her perky little way, can’t seem to put a foot wrong and trots around the campus gaining a reputation for being just "so good".

In the spirit of Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead - the play that turned Shakespeare’s Hamlet on its head by spinning around the perspective of the main characters - Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, makes Dorothy and Toto a mere side story.

The real drama is how Glinda and Elphaba turned into the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West in a world that’s part Harry Potter part Witches of Eastwick.

It’s a beautifully tragic take on the old story with finely realised female leads that could explain Wicked’s mass appeal to young women around the world. Indeed, it is a musical strongest for the storyline and the stunning story-book imagery created by the fantastic set design, rather than the music, which only rarely gets beyond the appeal of a television score.

Durack is delightfully hilarious as she flutters around the stage, delivering one-liners like spells from a wand. But Harrison, like a lot of the ensemble, seemed to be keeping something in reserve, holding back on the big numbers for what could be an extensive Sydney season.

Durack and Harrison are supported by a solid ensemble of principles including the excellent James Smith, the wonderfully smoky Maggie Kirkpatrick and Bert Newtown as the Wizard who is only a cigar short of being the image of Winston Churchill. Highly recommended.


*The Sun-Herald reviewed a preview performance of this Sydney season.

Joel Edgerton: object of desire

Joel Edgerton puts down much of his success, as one of Australia's most respected actors of his generation, to the one time he had to wear a dress.

"My trajectory was a combination of luck. I mean, I back myself but I had a few moments of luck," he says on the sunny deck of the Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf Restaurant. "I was cast as a woman in my graduating show, called The Poet, the Women and Frocks, and Alan Wilson, who was an agent at the time, took me on because he was impressed by me in that play.

"I don't think I would have stood out as much if I wasn't wearing a dress."

Fifteen years later, Edgerton, 35, couldn't find himself in a more different role as he takes on the part Marlon Brando made famous: Stanley Kowalski in the classic Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Directed by Norwegian star of the stage and screen Liv Ullmann and co-starring Cate Blanchett, Streetcar is this year's big-ticket item for Sydney's theatre scene.

But Edgerton, in his laconic way, is unfazed by the media hype surrounding the role of Stanley, which has been played by some of the greatest West End and Broadway stars since it premiered in 1947.

The rest of my article on Joel Edgerton can be found HERE.

Review: The Distance From Here

The Distance from Here
Stables Theatre
Until 25 April
Tickets $23-$30
Bookings (02) 8002 4772
Critic’s Rating 5/10


US playwright Neil LaBute has such a distinct way of writing that his surname has entered the vernacular to describe plays that portray the disturbing lives of those who sit outside the norm.

And The Distance From Here is about as LaButeish as you’re going to get.

Darrell (Anthony Gee), son of a gulf war veteran, is pretty angry with the world. With his mate Tim (Benn Welford) at the local zoo, they antagonise the monkeys by yelling and spitting at them. It becomes a pretty obvious connection as you ask who really is the beast.

Then you get introduced to Darrell’s family and you enter the world of the trailer-trash US lower class with chain-smoking stepmother Cammi (Jeanette Cronin), her boyfriend and Gulf War veteran boyfriend Rich (Andy Rodreda) and his half-sister Shari (Laura Brent). It’s a family where no one is related by blood but is tied together by impoverished circumstances.

Recalling other anti-war plays, The Distance From Here makes the correlation between states at war and the violence war promotes within society.

But for LaBute to convincingly shock an audience, he needs to be delivered with more menace rather than the angry stereotypes we see played out in this production.

Director John Sheedy has recruited an excellent cast but they appear to be dying to get LaButeish with the text.

They aren’t helped by a set design which acts as a barrier and slows down the action nor the constant smoking on stage.

Review: Killer Joe

Killer Joe by Tracy Letts

BSharp

I am probably one of the few people out there that has never heard of Killer Joe. Many old veterans who spoke to me in the lead-up to the opening rolled their eyes, sighed and asked, 'How many times will that make it for you?'

None surprisingly. Somehow in the years that I have been watching theatre, Killer Joe went under the radar and this production at the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir Street was to be my very first. And I did come out feeling a little blushed.

After a little research I discover the play has been around since 1993 with its first successful outings in Chicago, New York, London and Edinburgh. Since performed in around twenty countries, it is a playwright's debut dream.

Killer Joe centres around a trailer park in Texas where early middle aged father Ansel (Josh Quong Tart) lives with wife Ansel Sharla (Anita Hegh) and daughter Dottie (Maeve Dermody). 

Coming in and out with typical regularity is the needy son Chris (Robin Goldsworthy) who has suddenly found himself in an undesirable situation owing some threatening locals a lot of money.

Chris learns that his mother (and Ansel's ex) has a death insurance policy and convinces his father that a solution to all of their problems would be to get rid of her. In walks the character Killer Joe (Christopher Stollery) and suddenly everyone's world gets turned upside down.

Director Iain Sinclair has chosen to honour the origins of this play setting it within a realist trailer park set (by Luke Ede) with Texas drawl to boot. Not only that, he has employed the wonderful skills of bluegrass band The Snowdroppers to give the production an even greater mid-west feel.

With performances from a cast that are exceptional, this is a tight and explosive production that doesn't stop. Stollery is particularly brilliant in a role that could easily be over played or forced. Despite the fact there were some clear technical issues on opening night which will have been ironed out by now, this production is almost filmic in the way it bombards the senses. 

Central to this bombardment is a text that is darkly humourous, simply complex with characters that avoid white-trash stereotypes. It is also an extremely violent play, but more so with the with violence as potential rather than what is on stage. This is a production that really shows that a night at an independent theatre can easily be better than some of the fare served up elsewhere.

Until 2 November

Bookings 9699 3444 or www.belvoir.com.au

About time there was a theatre picket line

The publicity unit at Company B Belvoir must be rubbing their hands with glee as controversy swirls around a show opening tomorrow night.

A mysterious opinion piece in The Australian today takes aim at the director (of a co-operative show, mind you) with the provocative title 'Roll up for the show trial with the Jews in the dock'.

It then goes on to say that director of the show 'Shannon Murphy ... doesn't understand objections to My Name is Rachel Corrie'.

Murphy is quoted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald saying, "I don't know how on earth this incredible woman's story could make you not want to have it told - it's actually quite disgraceful. If the arts start having censorship, where do we go?"

My Name is Rachel Corrie is a play based on the real life events around a woman of the same name who went to Palestine at the age of 23 as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was then run over by an Israel Defense Force bulldozer not long after arriving.

ISM are a Palestinian based left-wing organisation that is "committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles". They have some pretty hard core elements as you would expect and are not all flowers and roses.

Murphy is quoted further, saying "when I read it, I felt so passionate about making sure that, if it had not been done in Australia, that it was seen as soon as possible. I couldn't fathom why nobody else had jumped on it straight away.

"I then learned other people had tried [to get the rights from Corrie's parents]. I think it became hard for a while - a lot of people were wanting it, so they wanted to restrict who received it because it's a true story. I think her parents are cautious and just want it to happen at the right time. Timing is everything, really."

The Australian then quotes Cynthia Ozick of the Israel News;

"ON Justice Brandeis's celebrated principle that "The remedy (for free speech) is more speech," it is good and salubrious that My Name Is Rachel Corrie can finally be seen on a New York stage. Every word is Rachel Corrie's own, culled directly from her journals and e-mail messages.

"Corrie is in Gaza, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a front for the PLO. The new recruits are called on to stand as human shields before arms caches or shooter hideouts or outlets, concealing tunnels dug from Egypt to Gaza (to) smuggle guns, rocket launchers, explosives intended for assaults on Israeli citizens.

"For Corrie, in 2003, living and writing in the very heart of the second intifada, there is no mention of intifada, only of Israeli aggression; no acknowledgment of ongoing suicide bombings, rockets, bus explosions, attacks aimed at discos, eateries, malls, holiday gatherings no recognition, for all her concern for children, of kindergartens inculcating six-year-olds with the beauty of "martyrdom".

"Finally Corrie begins to contemplate departing from Gaza: Succinctly, she advises herself: "Travel elsewhere."

"There is an old-fashioned word for this mentality, the kind of earnest temporary do-goodism that is likely to do harm: the word is slumming.

"As it turned out, Corrie did not travel elsewhere. A tragic casualty of the war she chose to join, she was cut down -- horribly -- by an Israeli army bulldozer (which) was clearing brush to thwart cover for launchers, explosives, and ambush.

"In view of the play's manifestly political intent, and particularly in the lurid light of the editors having concluded with an accusation of deliberate murder, the London audiences who jubilantly welcomed My Name Is Rachel Corrie, and the New York audiences who weepily do the same, should know at least this much: they have been spectators at a show trial. And there are Jews in the dock."

Unfortunately, The Australian doesn't really explain what the Israel News is. It shoudn't be confused with local rag The Australian Jewish News, but rather a weblog run out of the Zionism and Israel Information Center which has its own clearly-defined agenda.

The review from Ozick isn't a bad one - maybe a bit too long-winded for my liking. But it would have been nice if The Australian properly declared the source to show the subjectivity of what the reviewer was writing. Well, at least before having a good old go at this Co-op theatre production.

But as they say, any publicity is good publicity.

Racey Issues

Sydney Theatre Company Director Lee Lewis appeared on page three of Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald calling for more racially diverse castings.

The article by reviewer Bryce Hallett centres around an essay by Lewis entitled "Cross-racial casting: Changing the Faces of Australian Theatre." The SMH forgot to mention that it was published by Currency House as part of their Platform Papers series, which you can find more about here.

The SMH reports that "Lewis argues that the failure of the Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare Company and Company B Belvoir to cast diversely risks marginalising ethnic groups".

Lewis goes on to say that "a multicultural stage costs money and, as theatres see their funding under constant threat and their hopes for the future dwindle, they decide to mimic the government's isolationist immigration policies and retreat to [a] conservative, risk-averse, funding-safe, white-casting agenda."

It's an extremely interesting and fraught topic that Lewis raises and I won't say too much until I read the entire essay. Of course, this is not the first time that this issue has been raised. Almost always the debate then dives into one about conservative programming by the major performing arts companies which they quickly brush off as nonsense. But the fact is that the amount of plays that constantly get programmed that are straight off the plane from New York and London is enormously aggravating and is getting oh-so-predictable.

And the Independent sector, where Lewis comes from, doesn't fair that much better.

Currency House's timing couldn't be more perfect, in the week that the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest census results showing the increased cultural diversity of the country.

Other interesting debates about race include one that was raised a couple of years ago when the BBC director-general described the corporation as 'hideously white'. Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert wrote an excellent paper in 2002 that looked at the history of our multicultural, post colonial and inter-cultural society and how theatre did and didn't reflect that change.

The Australia Council also commissioned a research paper in 1998 on 'the representation of non-English speaking background people in theatre, film and television' which you can view a summary of here.

Of course this doesn't even cover the wide range of forums and discussions that the theatre community have been holding that cry poor to the white institutional theatres. You can find various types here, here and here.


Image: cjnetworks.com

Review: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Task

Showtune Productions

Tom Mann Theatre

31st March 2007

The chatter around Sydney about this show has been unstoppable. Over 9,000 people have seen it since it premiered and I have been trying to get to it for ages.

Finally, yesterday, after much to-ing and fro-ing I manage to score some tickets and make my way to the Tom Mann theatre just around the corner from the Chalmers Street entrance to Central Station.

Running late, as usual, my companions and I scrape through and manage to squeeze in the back of the auditorium.

The Tom Mann theatre is a strange place. It's nestled within the confines of the Australian Manufacturer Workers Union headquarters. The building is one of those 70's office blocks, and if you didn't know the theatre was there, you would be hard pressed to locate it.

It's a proscenium arch theatre primarily used for conferences, a few community events and a film festival here and there.

There is no rake in the seating, so it lacks the intimacy that your would really hope for in a theatre production.

The chatter in the house is a-buzz as I look around at the rows of people that I don't usually see in theatres. What a great relief.

Up on the stage a four piece band is tuning in, making a bit of a racket as they prepare to do battle as the Angry Inch. A front of house girl is trying (a little to hard) to flog off glossy A4 programmes that you usually see at the big musicals in town. They must have a surplus of them, as she manages to ask everyone about three times whether they want to buy them. "Programmes! Programmes! Original Hedwig programmes! Just ten dollars! Programmes!"

Finally they shut her out, and the lights go down and the bang bang starts. Guitar, drums, bass, keyboard swell together and the mood is set.

East Berlin sometime in the late 70's, early 80's. The space is a picture of what it might be like at the foot of the old Berlin Wall in some old theatre that's been shut up and taken over by some graffiti addicted skin heads.

It's a solid start and then the star that everyone's been talking about - iOTA - enters. Hedwig and the Angry Inch begins and it doesn't stop.

Part narrative, part musical documentary, it flies the audience back in time and carries them from a divided Germany, a domestic scene, American GI's, to Sydney, to Redfern, to the Mid West, to New York.

The energy of this show is overwhelming and it's on the shoulders of iOTA, who displays the charisma of a rockstar and the humility of a character overcome by a world where identity, sexual or otherwise, is vulnerable and fluid. He throws himself into every interaction and song with delicacy and timing that is the hallmark of a rare talent.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch overcomes any spatial problems and lives up to the reputation that has fluttered around the social circles of Sydney. Simple, clean and clever, the show lets the power of the script, the music and iOTA's performance to fill the auditorium and give the impetus for the audience to give a standing ovation.

Bravo.

Out of the union building through the hoards of foh staff trying to flog off original cd's and Hedwig T-shirts, back onto Chalmers Street and around the corner to the pub. The musicians of the show are filling up on $5 steak as iOTA stays back at the theatre.

"He has another performance at 9pm. He basically has time for a sandwich and then he's back into make-up which takes about an hour."

He has to do it again?!

"Yeah."

Bravo indeed.

Image: iOTA as Hedwig, courtesy Showtune Productions

Review: Boston Marriage

Boston Marriage by David Mamet
Darlinghurst Theatre Company
Gaeity Theatre - 9 February 2007


Mardi Gras in Sydney is always celebrated as the Biggest, Best and most Beautiful gay and lesbian festival in the world. The inner city comes alive with pink and rainbow coloured flags and the event culminates in a huge parade with floats that proclaim proud messages about sexuality and political protest.

Despite the energy and huge local support for the parade in recent years, the festival aspect has always had trouble finding its niche in the entertainment and theatre arena. The drag shows are always popular year round, but when venues and theatre's start programming specific Mardi Gras events, it sits uncomfortably and smells of marketing opportunism - often with very little creative or entertainment payoff.

Darlinghurst Theatre Company has got it right this year, programming Boston Marriage, a play that is both entertaining and theatrically intelligent in its script and themes.

The production company, Gaiety Theatre, has transformed the intimate fridge-shelf theatre into a red curtained boudoir that is opulent and plush. Simple pink flats envelop the space creating an evening that lends itself to a Punch and Judy, as the two main characters go head to head over lesbian love, lust and invention.

As a Mardi Gras event, it captures the imagination of a target audience. It is a biting script, competently acted with a synopsis that engages.

But Gaiety have missed out on so much. There is so much more subtlety and sexuality in the script than they realise and a more intricate study of the characters and their wit would have made the evening even more satisfying.

The performers hesitation from moment to moment as the script swirled around the boudoir suggests a lack of connection between the characters from under-rehearsal and eye to detail. The pitch of the opening was too broad, and the director could have employed a more deft touch to honour the substance and subplot of the lines.

And it was such a shame that they missed out on the characters sophisticated relationships of dominance and submission to one another - something that would be completely appreciated at this time of year.

If they had engaged more with these elements, the evening would have really set a landmark for intelligent and entertaining Mardi Gras festival cuisine.


Postscript: The Sydney Theatre Company got in trouble for this, so why not the independent sector? The program notes for this production are lifted straight out of Wikipedia and the Guthrie Theatre website notes which include the biography, the history of the play as well as a glossary. Using information without credit is called plagiarism for both professional and non-professional theatre companies.

Image: Courtesy of Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Di Smith & Amanda Bishop