Pennsylvania Avenue

Posted on May 10, 2016 by jolitson

The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, April 30

Bernadette Robinson in Pennsylvania Avenue. Photo: supplied

Bernadette Robinson is well known for her uncanny ability to impersonate singers across a range of styles and genres. Keen to extend this beyond cabaret into a theatre show, she approached director Simon Phillips who commissioned Joanna Murray-Smith to write a play to showcase Robinson’s extraordinary gift.

The result was Songs for Nobodies, which premiered in 2010, in which Robinson performed monologues by five “nobodies” each of whom had had an encounter with a famous singer: Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas. Naturally, Robinson gave voice to the divas too.

Songs for Nobodies was an inspired and inspiring piece of theatre and proved a huge success. Following up on it, Murray-Smith has written a new piece for Robinson called Pennsylvania Avenue, which is also directed by Phillips. Once again, Robinson leaves you marvelling at her talent but the show itself is not as engaging as its predecessor.

Pennsylvania Avenue, which premiered at Melbourne Theatre Company, is set in the White House. Robinson plays Harper Clements, a girl from the south who gets a big break as an underling at the White House where she works her way up to become a trusted aide responsible for co-ordinating entertainment events. We meet her on her final day. After 40 years of hard work, her services are no longer required and she is packing up and leaving, reminiscing as she goes.

Murray-Smith uses the fictitious Clements as a clever way to interweave historical facts and anecdotal stories about various American presidents from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, along with their First Ladies and the many entertainers who performed for them. (I imagine it would go down a treat in the US). In narrating the piece, Robinson voices umpteen characters, male and female.

It begins with Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday for JFK in 1962 and takes in singers as diverse as Sarah Vaughan, Barbra Streisand, Maria Callas, Sarah Vaughan, Eartha Kitt, Diana Ross, Peggy Lee, Tammy Wynette and even an amazingly convincing, raspy Bob Dylan singing Eve of Destruction.

Her Sarah Vaughan is arguably the least successful but overall it’s extraordinary the way Robinson conveys such different vocalists, and she had the audience bopping in their seats for Aretha Franklin’s Respect.

Bernadette Robinson. Photo: supplied

Harper is a no-nonsense, resourceful character who is seen dispensing advice to everyone from Marilyn Monroe on knicker lines to Ronald Reagan on his famous Berlin Wall speech. However, her personal story is less interesting and the final revelation doesn’t have the emotional impact it is clearly supposed to.

The set by Shaun Gurton is a plush, upholstered room called The Blue Room with six large framed portrait of early presidents on the wall, which prove to be screens on which historical photographs are shown. Blue drapes at the back occasionally become transparent under the lighting to show the three-piece band sitting behind them. It looks suitably stylish but Robinson rattles around it a bit, shifting from chair to chair, moving her box of things or pouring a drink to keep her busy.

Often it looks as if she is moving for the sake of doing something. Nonetheless, she is a fine actor as well as an exceptional singer and she holds the stage in commanding fashion as she moves with quicksilver ease between numerous characters.

Running 90 minutes without interval, Pennsylvania Avenue feels a touch long but it keeps you entertained and is a lively showcase for a unique performer.

Pennsylvania Avenue plays at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House until May 22. Bookings: www.sydneyoperahouse.com or 02 9250 7777

Disgraced

Posted on May 4, 2016 by jolitson

Wharf 1, April 21

Sachin Joab as Amir. Photo: Prudence Upton

There were audible gasps among the opening night audience several times during the Sydney Theatre Company’s gripping production of Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced.

First staged in New York in 2012 and then produced on Broadway last year, Disgraced is a well-made American play clearly crafted to debate certain issues but it feels urgent and timely prompting plenty of discussion in the foyer afterwards around its provocative themes.

Set now, Amir Kapoor (Sachin Joab) is a successful New York corporate lawyer who puts in the hard yards as he aims for promotion at the Jewish firm he works for. He has denounced his Islamic faith, describing the Koran as “one very long hate mail letter to humanity” and is somewhat vague about his background, saying his parents were born in India though the area they come from is now in Pakistan.

Happily married to Emily (Sophie Ross), an artist with a particular interest in Islamic art, and living in a swanky Upper East Side apartment, life looks pretty rosy.

But when Emily and Amir’s nephew Hussein (Shiv Palekar) – or Abe as he prefers to be known – push him to represent an imam imprisoned for raising funds for Hamas, the consequences are far-reaching.

Things start to come apart when Amir and Emily have a dinner party for Isaac (Glenn Hazeldine), a Jewish curator who is considering including Emily’s work in a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum, and his African-American wife Jory (Paula Arundell) who is a colleague of Amir’s at the law firm.

Sachin Palekar, Paula Arundell, Sophie Ross and Glenn Hazeldine. Photo: Prudence Upton

A dinner party is a well-worn dramatic device and naturally articulate arguments flow. But Akhtar has written well-rounded, believable characters and they are the kind of people who would have such passionate, intelligent, political debates, so it remains convincing even if you are aware of the dramatic set-up. What’s more, Aktar throws some provocative sentiments, sudden eruptions of drama and surprise twists into the mix that jolt and shock you.

Nothing is black and white as the play raises complex questions about identity, race, religion, prejudice, radicalisation and what it is to be a Muslim man living in the West. Amir may have turned his back on Islam but some of the views he has grown up with prove more difficult to dislodge.

Elizabeth Gadsby’s stunning design brilliantly evokes Amir and Emily’s swish apartment full of art and chic designer furniture, while Sarah Goodes’ superb direction gradually ratchets up the tension as she draws compelling performances from her excellent cast. Some have disliked the way she has the cast change the set but for me it worked fine; the way Amir slowly clears the dinner table is actually very poignant.

Joab has plenty of film and television credits but is making his stage debut as Amir– which surely says something about casting in this country – and gives an impressive performance moving believably from suave confidence to explosive behaviour that surprises even him and then a shattering sense of loss. The primal moan he emits when he realises the ramifications of all that has happened is harrowing.

Sachin Joab and Shiv Palekar. Photo: Prudence Upton

Ross also colours her character’s emotional arc convincingly as she gradually realises what she has unwittingly triggered. Her interest in the history of Islam is conveyed with girlish enthusiasm initially and her pain and anger later in the piece feels very real.

Arundell brings plenty of sparky attack and zing to the piece as the smart, plain-speaking Jory, eliciting many laughs. Hazeldine finds the humour, passion and rather self-regarding arrogance in Isaac and Palekar makes a strong impression as Abe, whose attitude to his heritage changes through the course of the play.

Running a tight 90 minutes, Disgraced in a knotty play, engrossing play that raises plenty of pressing, topical questions and shows that there are no easy answers.

Disgraced runs at Wharf I until June 4. Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au or 02 9250 1777

A version of this review ran in the Sunday Telegraph on April 24

Hay Fever

Posted on April 29, 2016 by jolitson

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, April 15

Heather Mitchell and Josh McConville. Photo: Lisa Tomasetti

Noel Coward wrote Hay Fever when he was just 24 but already a star in the making. A comedy of gleefully bad manners, it was a huge hit when it premiered in 1925 despite lukewarm reviews and is still much performed.

Coward’s plays are deceptively difficult to do well. If the actors only give us superficial flamboyance and witticisms, the humour can all too easily fall flat. But Imara Savage has directed a fabulously funny production for Sydney Theatre Company that has a fresh edge and contemporary energy while still retaining a feel of the period.

The play is set in the household of the eccentric Bliss family. Judith Bliss (Heather Mitchell) is retired actress, determined to keep performing even if she no longer has a stage. Her husband David (Tony Llewellyn-Jones) is a novelist and their grown-up children Sorrel (Harriet Dyer) and Simon (Tom Conroy) still live at home, without appearing to work.

All four invite a guest for the weekend without telling each other, thrusting them into a maelstrom of games and idiosyncratic carry-on that leaves their visitors reeling.

Essentially a lightweight comedy, Hay Fever offers the audience a vicarious thrill in experiencing life with such wayward “artistic” types. But it also celebrates bohemian freedom and vitality, and contrasts that with the rather stuffy, conservative mores of “ordinary” people and their concerns about sex and class.

Alicia Clements’ wonderful design isn’t period specific but subtly combines elements from the 1920s with later decades, setting the action in an attractively ramshackle conservatory full of greenery and eccentric touches like a bathtub for a sofa. Only the inclusion of wheelie suitcases and the decision to have Judith lip synch to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black when she offers to sing at the piano sit a little oddly.

Clements’ costumes are also terrific with all the Blisses in a permanent state of semi-undress or dressing gowns and the outfits of the other characters speaking reams about their personalities from the anxious Jackie’s girly cotton frocks and Alice band to the vampy Myra’s stylish couture.

Heather Mitchell, Briallen Clarke, Tom Conroy, Harriet Dyer and Tony Llewellyn-Jones. Photo: Lisa Tomasetti

Savage’s excellent cast combines wit with truth. Towards the end of the play, some of the performing becomes broadly comic and more farcical but overall the characters all feel very real.

Mitchell is sensational as Judith, a whirling dervish at the heart of the play. Her comic timing is immaculate and she is gloriously funny as she tears up the stage. Llewellyn-Jones is distinguished yet grouchy as the rather self-absorbed David. Dyer plays Sorrel with a contemporary edge as a young woman testing who she is, while Conroy’s Simon affects a nonchalant flamboyance.

Helen Thomson as the chic, sardonic Myra, Alan Dukes as the proper “diplomatist” Richard, Josh McConville as the rather gung-ho sportsman Sandy, and Briallen Clarke as the mousey, nervous Jackie are the perfect foil as the beleaguered guests. Genevieve Lemon is also very funny in a broadly comic portrayal of the exasperated housekeeper.

The Bliss family can become rather unlikeable in productions but Savage avoids that, ensuring that their love for each other comes across as strongly as their hilariously appalling behaviour.

Hay Fever plays at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until May 21. Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au or 02 9250 1777

The Peasant Prince

Posted on April 20, 2016 by jolitson

Lendlease Darling Quarter Theatre, April 9

Jenevieve Chang, John Gomez and Edric Hong. Photo: Heidrun Lohr

Monkey Baa Theatre Company has a reputation for its delightful stage adaptations of children’s books and The Peasant Prince is another charmer.

It tells the true story of Li Cunxin (pronounced Lee Schwin Sing), whose autobiography Mao’s Last Dancer was published in 2003 and subsequently made into an Australian film by director Bruce Beresford. Li also wrote a picture book about his life called The Peasant Prince, illustrated by Anne Spudvilas, and it is that version that Monkey Baa’s creative directors Eva Di Cesare, Sandie Eldridge and Tim McGarry have drawn on for their stage adaptation for children aged 6+.

Born in a village in Shandong Province in China, Li was the sixth of seven sons in an impoverished but very loving peasant family. An extraordinary opportunity came knocking when a delegation from Madame Mao arrived in the village looking for talented children to attend the Beijing Dance Academy. After initially being overlooked, Li was chosen as one of just 15 children from around the country and at age 10 he left his home for Beijing.

The training was relentlessly tough and Li was terribly homesick, but eventually he found the courage, fortitude and determination to succeed. Selected by Ben Stevenson, the artistic director of Houston Ballet, to go to the US on a cultural exchange, Li defected. After a diplomatic standoff when he was held in the Chinese Embassy, he was eventually released a free man.

Li danced with Houston Ballet for 16 years and was a guest artist around the world. After meeting Australian-born dancer Mary McKendry in London, they married and came to Melbourne in 1995 where he danced with the Australian Ballet. Li is now artistic director of the Queensland Ballet.

The Peasant Prince begins with Li waiting backstage to make his debut in The Nutcracker for Houston Ballet, with his parents in the audience. It then rewinds to tell his story up to that point.

The script by Di Cesare, Eldrige and McGarry is succinct without it ever feeling that it is just ticking off plot points. A story Li loved his father to tell him about a frog acts as a metaphor for what is to come and the writers create many lively little vignettes that speak reams about Li’s life and relationship with his parents and brothers, a dance teacher who encouraged him, and Stevenson.

Jonathan Chan and John Gomez Goodway. Photo: Heidrun Lohr

McGarry’s direction, with movement by Danielle Micich, keeps the action moving swiftly on a minimal but very effective set by Michael Hankin featuring David Bergman’s beautiful video designs, which locate scenes as the story moves from the village to a school room to the dance academy and onto Houston. Hankin’s costuming is also very evocative, as is Daryl Wallis’s music.

The early scenes in China work wonderfully well with simple staging effects proving extremely eloquent. There’s a lovely sequence in which Li’s mother uses a blanket in various ways to suggest feeding, washing and drying her son with loving care. At the dance academy, two performers merely hold a pole to create a ballet barre.

The Houston scenes don’t have quite the same flow. A ballet rehearsal feels a little overlong and the coercion Li suffers in the Chinese Embassy doesn’t have the same clarity as the rest of the storytelling; I imagine children will be asking what was happening at that point. But overall it’s beautifully told.

As Li, John Gomez Goodway brings a wide-eyed, open-hearted exuberance and emotional vulnerability to the role that is very endearing. The other three actors – Jonathan Chan, Jenevieve Chang and Edric Hong – each play several roles and do an impressive job of slipping quickly between them to create various well-defined characters.

Running around 55 minutes, The Peasant Prince tells an inspiring story about courage, resilience, family love and following your dreams that kept the young audience engaged.

Li Cunxin was at the opening. Asked to make a short speech afterwards, which he hadn’t anticipated, he said he was deeply moved by the production. I imagine that young audiences will be touched, amused and inspired by it too.

The Peasant Prince plays at Lendlease Darling Quarter Theatre until April 20 and then tours to 37 Australian venues. See www.monkeybaa.com.au for details.

Aldo Mignone is Happy that the Old Fitz is also a Place to Call Home

Posted on April 18, 2016 by jolitson

Actor Aldo Mignone. Photo: supplied

Aldo Mignone, who plays Italian dreamboat Gino Poletti in A Place to Call Home, knew that the Australian period drama had a strong fan base but he had no inkling that it was tipped to feature so strongly in this year’s TV Week Logie nominations.

“You know how I found out? I saw in the Sunday Telegraph that (fellow cast members) David (Berry) and Abby (Earl) were in Melbourne for the nominations,” says the handsome young actor with a laugh.

The tipsters were right. A Place to Call Home has five Logie nominations including the viewer-voted Best Drama and the peer-voted Most Outstanding Drama.

“It’s amazing. I’m really proud that we’ve been nominated because we’ve got such a hard-working team. So fingers crossed,” says Mignone.

Set in rural NSW in the 1950s, A Place to Call Home moved to Foxtel last year thanks to fans campaigning to save the show when Network Seven dropped it after two series.

Mignone’s character is the son of Italian farmhands, who marries the beautiful Anna Bligh (Earl) daughter of the wealthy family his parents worked for. At the end of series three their marriage was under strain after Gino’s attempts at winemaking left him in debt. Filming is now underway on the fourth season.

“Things were pretty rough there towards the end,” says Mignone of Gino and Anna’s relationship.

“I’m probably not allowed to say much but (season four) is picking up from there. The marriage almost feel apart there for a second but now we have to rekindle that and tackle the real world: how are we actually going to make a living?”

For the last month, Mignone has also been rehearsing a play called Belleville, directed by Claudia Barrie, which opens at the Old Fitz Theatre on Friday. (The scheduled opening had to be delayed a week when Emily Eskell had to withdraw unexpectedly from the production and was replaced by Taylor Ferguson).

Chatting at the Woolloomooloo pub venue, Mignone admits he wouldn’t normally take on something else while filming but says that he couldn’t resist the chance to perform in Belleville – his first professional stage play.

“I’ve been coming here for quite a while and the work they put on is absolutely amazing. These guys are at the top of their game and I really wanted to be part of what is happening at the Fitz. It’s become quite a little theatre Mecca thanks to Red Line Productions (who currently run the venue),” he says.

Mignone met Barrie when he went to see a friend performing in her powerful production of Philip Ridley’s Shivered last year, also for Mad March Theatre Company.

“She likes a dark play,” laughs Mignone. “She is doing a wonderful job at Mad March Hare Theatre. She’s just a little powerhouse.”

Belleville, by American playwright Amy Herzog, is about young American newlyweds who move to Paris where their fraught relationship quickly begins to unravel.

Mignone, who plays their landlord Alioune, describes it as “an emotional, psychological thriller: this idea of finding happiness and how far one will go, and lie, in order to realise that.

“It’s not a terribly big role but I really wanted to be part of it. I think it’s incredible writing and it really gripped me when I read it. Fortunately I was able to accommodate that with A Place to Call Home.”

Where Gino is an Italian catholic, Alioune is French Muslim – “but that’s not the focus by any means in the play. It’s just his background,” says Mignone.

However, the chance to explore such different characters is what appeals to him about acting: “I like the idea of being caught up in different jobs, different ideas, different cultures for each role. It takes you to different places,” he says.

Born into an Italian family in Adelaide where his father is a doctor and his mother manages his medical practice, Mignone has four older sisters who used to dress him up and put on plays as kids. Later, they would take him to the theatre with them. “I just got caught up in it,” says Mignone, who went to NIDA but left two years into the course.

“There were just some disagreements,” he says. “I think the school is a good school. I think it disciplines you and you learn quite a bit but I was trying to do some outside work and I just wasn’t happy with the way it was handled so I decided to leave. Then I was in limbo for a bit working in hospitality and doing what you can to get by and then fortunately I landed A Place to Call Home.”

It was through his sister Louisa, who is also an actor, that he was cast as Gino. As luck would have it, Louisa – who performed in Mortido with Colin Friels at Belvoir last year and now lives in Los Angeles – was assisting at auditions for A Place to Call Home.

“At the time I didn’t have an agent and she said, ‘you should definitely see my brother for this role’. It was like, ‘Lou, thank you so much, that’s amazing.’ I was really so nervous. I had to sing this opera song and I’m a terrible singer but it got me the role,” says Mignone.

Whether A Place to Call Home goes into a fifth season remains to be seen. “People are talking in an excited way that it’s going so well so I wouldn’t be surprised if we did go ahead with a fifth season,” says Mignone, “but you never know until you are there on set filming.”

Belleville, Old Fitz Theatre, Woolloomooloo, April 20 – May 12. Bookings: oldfitztheatre.com/belleville

A version of this story ran in the Daily Telegraph on April 15

King Charles III

Posted on April 12, 2016 by jolitson

Roslyn Packer Theatre, April 2

King Charles III_STC_credit Prudence Upton 066

Robert Powell as Charles and Tim Treloar as the Prime Minister, Mr Evans. Photo: Prudence Upton

Queen Elizabeth II is dead. Long live King Charles III – or maybe not.

Unlike the Queen, who never meddled in affairs of State, Charles hasn’t even made it to his coronation when he astonishes the Prime Minister by refusing to sign a bill restricting the freedom of the press. With neither Charles nor Parliament prepared to budge, a constitutional crisis looms. Before long there’s unrest on the street and a tank parked outside Buckingham Palace.

So begins Mike Bartlett’s fascinating play 2014 King Charles III. Directed by Rupert Goold for London’s Almeida Theatre, it has had hugely successful seasons in the West End and on Broadway. Now a British company led by Robert Powell as Charles, which has been touring the play around the UK, is in Sydney with a finely honed production.

Set in the near future, King Charles III has the ring of one of Shakespeare’s history plays with Charles as a tragic figure: a principled man with a conscience but also a yen to hold more sway than a mere figurehead.

The Duchess of Cambridge, meanwhile, is well aware of the monarchy as a brand, its strength measured in column inches.

There are numerous Shakespearean echoes through the play with references to Lear, Henry IV, Macbeth Richard II and Hamlet. Bartlett has even written most of it in blank verse (apart from scenes featuring Prince Harry and his commoner girlfriend Jess, a Republican arts student from a working class background) using the iambic pentameter as Shakespeare did.

CharlesIII_040915_photoRichardHubertSmith-4190

Lucy Phelps as Jess and Rupert Glaves as Prince Harry. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

It’s a clever, daring concept, which Bartlett has pulled off with considerable skill and wit. The language is actually very accessible, so much so you almost forget that it’s verse at times, while the inclusion of contemporary words and phrases is often very funny.

Though there’s certainly a comic frisson in first meeting the Royal characters – Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Harry and a certain family ghost proffering conflicting prophecies – the play is by no means a parody. The characters are presented as real and Bartlett canvasses serious issues regarding the role and value (if any) of the Royal Family, the power of the media, and the impact of a rapidly changing society on the mindset of its people.

However, a small section of the opening night audience seemed determined to see the play in superficial terms and laugh at everything, upsetting the rhythm and tension of certain scenes.

What the play doesn’t generate is a great deal of emotional connection. Charles’ fate is unexpectedly moving and Harry’s misgivings and confusion about his role in life are touchingly understandable but mostly it’s a cerebral affair.

Designer Tom Scutt sets the action on a raised dais surrounded by a bare brick wall with darkened doors and a frieze of blurry faces suggesting the populace beyond the palace walls. Using minimal props, Goold stages the action with elegant simplicity. Stylised touches such as the choral singing and the use of Guy Fawkes masks in a street riot are strikingly effective. Only the scenes with the ghost feel unconvincingly staged.

Jocelyn Pook’s score adds plenty of atmosphere, and captures a sense of past and present with music ranging from the opening Requiem to pulsing minimalist chords.

Powell is marvellous as Charles, portraying a dignified but conflicted man driven by an uneasy mix of idealism and frustration after his long wait to become king. As the play unfolds, he also displays a slightly manic attachment to the power of the monarch, while his sense of betrayal is keenly felt.

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Robert Powell as Charles with Ben Righton and Jennifer Bryden as Will and Kate. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

Jennifer Bryden and Ben Righton do a wonderful job of capturing the clean-cut, photogenic glamour of Kate and Will, before revealing a steely strategic nous.

In a comic sub-plot reminiscent of Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I, Harry is portrayed as a disconsolate, troubled figure unsure of his role in life. Dressed in hoodie and jeans, Rupert Glaves conveys a surly passion and vulnerability as he contemplates life with a commoner, rather than the affable ease that the real ginger-headed Prince projects, while Lucy Phelps is a spirited Jess.

Carolyn Pickles is very funny as Camilla, urging her man to stand firm while displaying little understanding of what is unfolding. Tim Treloar is excellent as the Welsh Prime Minister, who is not a million miles from former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, while Giles Taylor exudes a born-to-the-manor confidence as the Tory opposition leader.

King Charles III is excitingly adventurous theatre in the way is plays with form. It also ignites healthy debate. With the Republican issue still unresolved in Australia, the foyer was full of heated discussions afterwards.

King Charles III plays at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until April 30. Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au or 02 9250 1777

A version of this review ran in the Sunday Telegraph on April 10

Swansong

Posted on March 17, 2016 by jolitson

Old Fitz Theatre, March 15

Andre de Vanny. Photo: Robert Catto

In the late-night 9.30pm time slot at the Old Fitz Theatre in Woolloomooloo, Andre de Vanny is performing Connor McDermottroe’s solo show Swansong. Returning after a brief season in the same venue at the end of last year, it’s a sterling performance that is very much worth catching.

McDermottroe is an Irish actor, writer and director, who lived in Australia for 10 years in the 1980s after coming to the Sydney Festival with the Druid Theatre Company. Swansong is set mainly in his native Sligo and centres on a troubled, violent misfit called Occi Byrne, the illegitimate child of a single mother in the Catholic West of Ireland whose life has been lived on the margins for as long as he can remember.

Occi suspects that an unfortunate but typically rash, barrel-rolling incident as a child may have shaken his head a bit loose. Be that as it may, he is full of uncontrollable rage that can bubble over in an instant. One particular piece of name-calling is guaranteed to get him really riled and then look out. At the same time, he has a poet’s eye as well as a keen sense of self-awareness and can spin an eloquent, compelling yarn.

It’s similar terrain to Enda Walsh’s Misterman and Mark O’Rowe’s Howie the Rookie, both given superb productions in recent times at the Old Fitz. Swansong may not be in quite the same league as a play, though there is plenty to admire and enjoy in the writing. But De Vanny’s performance is every bit as electrifying.

We meet Occi feeding a swan he has named Agnes. Swans mate for life, he tells us, but Agnes is alone after two swans fought over her and died. Instead, Occi is there for her, bringing her bread and finding strength in her grace and beauty. From there, he takes us on a journey through his miserable life from school days to a disastrous attempt to join the army.

After an appalling incident at the social security centre, Occi spends time in a psychiatric hospital where he glimpses salvation in the form of a depressive young woman called Mary. There’s also a blissful afternoon on an island while he is working on a fishing trawler. But with Occi’s explosive temper happiness isn’t destined to last.

Directed by Greg Carroll, De Vanny keeps the audience gripped for the play’s 80-minute duration. Wiry, compact and muscly with blazing eyes, he is able to spin on a dime – dancing around like a boxer, cheery, optimistic and laughing one minute; the next, his body contorted into a tense knot of coiled energy, eyes cold and crazed. Physically and vocally, it’s an astonishing performance, while emotionally he takes you through every twist and turn of Occi’s psychotic personality.

De Vanny even manages to elicit empathy. Against the odds, you care about Occi and can’t help but be moved by his awful existence – a tribute to both the writing and the performance.

Swansong plays at the Old Fitz Theatre until March 26. Bookings: oldfitztheatre.com

80 Minutes No Interval

Posted on March 16, 2016 by jolitson

Old Fitz Theatre, March 15

Ryan Johnson in 80 Minutes No Interval - 2 (c) Rupert Reid

Ryan Johnson as the hapless Louis in 80 Minutes No Interval. Photo: Rupert Reid

As it says on the packet, 80 Minutes No Interval runs for 80 minutes without an interval – which would doubtless please Claire, the girlfriend of the play’s hapless anti-hero Louis, who has no great love of theatre, particularly of the lengthy, pretentious variety.

Written and directed by Travis Cotton, and produced by Thread Entertainment in association with Red Line Productions, 80 Minutes No Interval is a ripping black comedy, which turns a satirical gaze on subsidised theatre, theatre critics, publishing, perfectionism and cursed bad luck.

Louis (Ryan Johnson) has an unhappy knack of detonating pretty much everything he touches. An aspiring but so-far failed novelist, he is sacked from his job as a newspaper theatre critic when his editor comes across a small red box robot, which uses algorithms to write better reviews than any mere mortal. Later Louis purports to be making a decent living as a freelance theatre reviewer (which had theatre reviewers chortling).

The kind of diner who would try the patience of the most solicitous waiter, Louis’s restaurant proposal to long-suffering (and clucky) girlfriend Claire (Sheridan Harbridge) is memorable for all the wrong reasons. His parents want him out of their investment property and the publisher who shows an interest in his latest novel– as long as he changes it and wracks up an army of Twitter followers – may not have quite the eye he once had. From there, it just goes from bad to worse.

80 Minutes No Interval rocks along with many laughs on the way (though I didn’t find it as wildly funny as some of the audience around me who roared out loud for much of it). The scene in the restaurant as an OCD Louis tries to order is a gem and Harbridge delivers a monologue, which is comic gold, about all that is wrong with theatre from seven-hour shows with dinner breaks, to Perspex boxes, blue faces and a litany of other clichés (many seen on Sydney stages in recent years).

As for the scene between Louis and the ruthlessly commercial publisher Dan Kurtz (an outrageously funny, outsized turn by Robin Goldsworthy), it’s gross-out hilarious.

Ryan Johnson, Jacob Allan & Sheridan Harbridge in 80 Minutes No Interval (c) Rupert Reid

Ryan Johnson, Jacob Allan and Sheridan Harbridge. Photo: Rupert Reid

Cotton’s writing has a great deal of comic flair but after a while the play does feel a bit like an over-extended skit with loads of things thrown into the mix, not all of which are followed through or fully come together. However, the show is deftly directed and staged with a set design by Georgia Hopkins, which includes a lovely reveal.

Johnson is the perfect foil to all the comical carry-on, playing things straight with an endearing performance as Louis. The rest of the cast, which also includes Jacob Allan as the admirably restrained waiter and Julia Rorke as a young florist, let rip with performances that knock the comedy out of the park though at times it feels as if they are all doing their own thing rather than responding to what’s happening around them.

A nip and tuck wouldn’t go astray, but 80 Minutes No Interval is often wickedly funny with serious points to make, and clearly tickled many in Tuesday’s packed house.

80 Minutes No Intervals runs at the Old Fitz Theatre until April 9. Bookings: www.oldfitztheatre.com

Machu Picchu

Posted on March 15, 2016 by jolitson

Wharf 1, March 8

Lisa McCune and Darren Gilshenan in Machu Picchu. Photo: Brett Boardman

After the success of Sue Smith’s previous plays Kryptonite in 2014 and Strange Attractor in 2009, her latest drama Machu Picchu was keenly anticipated – particularly with Lisa McCune and Darren Gilshenan in the lead roles.

But despite the best efforts of McCune and Gilshenan, the play itself feels underdeveloped, while the production directed by Geordie Brookman does it no great favours.

Commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company, Machu Picchu is a co-production between STC and the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

In a program note, Smith reveals that she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma a month before Kryptonite went into rehearsals. Machu Picchu was written in response to that experience. The play isn’t about cancer but explores how you deal with a life-threatening or life-changing event, and how that might make you reassess and change attitudes and priorities.

Gabby (McCune) and Paul (Gilshenan) are both successful engineers and appear to live a charmed life, though after 20 years their marriage has gone off the boil. Then, on the way home from attending a disastrous mindfulness retreat, their car crashes into a kangaroo. Gabby escapes unharmed but Paul is left a quadriplegic.

Darren Gilshenan and Luke Joslin. Photo: Brett Boardman

Machu Picchu takes its name from the Inca city: an engineering marvel both admire and have long planned to visit. It represents the missed opportunities and compromises so many of us make in the busy whirl of life today. With its extraordinarily strong foundations, which have ensured its survival, the ancient site is also a resonant image for relationships.

The play shifts back and forth in time, so that we see Gabby and Paul’s relationship before and after the accident. With Paul experiencing hallucinations from the medication, the play also moves between reality and more surreal scenes but this hasn’t been fine-tuned enough in the writing. Brookman’s direction does little to help and the shifts in tone and style feel somewhat clunky.

McCune and Gilshenan both turn in accomplished performances. McCune plumbs Gabby’s guilt, loneliness and frustration beautifully, while Gilshenan brings a dry humour to the role of Paul, convincingly portraying his physical limitations, pain and indignity as well as the emotional turmoil, all of which leave him wondering whether he wants to live.

Though the chemistry between McCune and Gilshenan doesn’t totally fire, the scenes between them are the play’s strongest.

The supporting characters, however, are sketchily drawn. Best friends Marty (Luke Joslin) and Kim (Elena Carapetis) – who have their own flimsy IVF story – come across as crass, insensitive and self-absorbed when visiting Paul in hospital. If there was any sense of subtext, we might feel they are nervous, unsure what to say or perhaps trying to hide their distress. As it is, it’s hard to believe Paul and Gabby could be close friends with such boorish people.

Paul and Gabby’s daughter Lucy (Annabel Matheson), a doctor, is also conveyed in a few broad strokes, while Renato Musolino does what he can with the Lou, the psychologist from the retreat who rather improbably reappears and tries to help Paul find meaning in life.

Darren Gilshen, Luke Joslin, Elena Carapetis and Renato Musolino. Photo: Brett Boardman

Jonathon Oxlade’s drab, unattractive set (lit by Nigel Levings) has a curtained hospital bed on one side of the stage and what feels like acres of poorly used, empty space on the other. (It may well sit better in the Dunstan Playhouse when the play goes to Adelaide). The hallucinations (which include Elvis for some reason) aren’t staged with any great imagination and visually it all feels rather bland and clichéd.

Machu Picchu explores interesting themes we can all relate to but it needs further dramaturgical work if it is to draw us in, provoke us and touch us emotionally. At present, it is only part way to becoming a compelling drama.

Machu Picchu plays at Wharf 1, Sydney until April 9. Bookings: 9250 1777. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre, April 13 – May 1. Bookings: BASS 131 246

A version of this review ran in Daily Telegraph Arts online on March 11

Buckingham Palace drama is no fringe show

Posted on March 14, 2016 by jolitson

Robert Powell as Charles with Ben Righton and Jennifer Bryden as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in King Charles III. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

To cut or not to cut a fringe? Without being too superficial about it, you can’t play the Duchess of Cambridge – Kate Middleton as was –without taking her lustrous locks into account, even if you aren’t attempting an impersonation.

“It’s amazing really to make the front cover of most newspapers just for the very fact that you’ve had a hair cut. When her fringe was cut (in September) suddenly that was massive news,” says Jennifer Bryden who plays Kate in King Charles III, the phenomenally popular, award-winning play by British playwright Mike Bartlett.

In fact, Bryden won’t be sporting bangs when the British production arrives at Sydney Theatre Company later this month.

“I wanted to. I angled for it but because we weren’t doing impersonations they felt that actually having long dark hair was enough. So I’ve kept mine long and we put it in hot rollers,” she says.

Ben Righton who plays William has a much healthier head of hair than the Duke of Cambridge with his receding thatch.

“He was slightly dreading the fact that they were going to suggest shaving a bald patch,” says Bryden with a laugh.

King Charles III premiered at London’s 325-seat Almeida Theatre in 2014. Directed by Rupert Goold, it quickly became the hottest ticket in town and transferred to the West End. When a Broadway season was confirmed, a second company was formed to take the play on a UK tour. Led by Robert Powell as Charles, that company is en route to Sydney.

Described as “a future history play”, Queen Elizabeth II is dead and Charles finally ascends the throne, Camilla at his side. But when he refuses to sign a bill restricting the freedom of the press, he triggers a constitutional storm. With civil war brewing, there are suddenly tanks outside Buckingham Palace.

Praised by New York critics as “flat-out brilliant” and “breathtakingly audacious”, Bartlett’s Buckingham Palace drama about a monarchy in crisis is written in iambic pentameter, giving the play a Shakespearean feel infused with a dash of Fleet Street.

Righton says he was “blown away” when he read the script. “That kind of writing does a lot of the work for you because it tells you which words to stress. It forces you into a style of talking. What is brilliant about Mike’s script is it refers to all kinds of modern things but in verse. I love it. It pushes the play along at a wonderful pace,” he says.

Will and Kate are among the most photographed people on earth but both Righton and Bryden decided to focus on the script itself rather than taking a forensic look at the young Royals when preparing for their audition.

“That turned out to be the right decision. Something we were told early on in rehearsals is that this wasn’t about impersonating. We were to approach the text as we would any text and approach the character as we would any other character. And only then, at the end, were we allowed to add suggestions of mannerisms that we had observed in real life,” says Bryden.

“They were never after imitations,” agrees Righton. “It’s like an alternative reality this play, a ‘what if’ Charles were to take the throne.”

Jennifer Bryden and Ben Righton in KCIII Tour. Credit Richard Hubert Smith

Jennifer Bryden and Ben Righton as Kate and Will in King Charles III. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

When it came to observing mannerisms, Righton noted that the Duke of Cambridge speaks in a “breathy” way, fiddles with his hands a lot and often has them in his pockets. “He’s left-handed. I’m right-handed so I’ve had to teach myself to be left-handed,” says the actor.

“If you look at Will for any length of time he’s – I’m trying to find a nice way of putting this – but he’s quite bland. He’s very straightforward and polite and he smiles a lot so there’s not a lot to go on. He’s a blank canvas.

“Because he’s been photographed since he was born you feel you know so much about him but you realise that we don’t. They’ve done a very good job of keeping his life private and what makes the bloke tick is very hard to find out anywhere. I know two people who went to school with him and I tried to get them to tell me a bit about him but they were very loyal and haven’t said a word. I can’t get anything out of them,” says Righton.

Bryden believes that the way Kate dresses has a strong influence over the way we perceive her. “I am lucky with the silhouettes of the costumes she wears and the heels. Once I was in costume that really helped.

“It’s amazing what the power of the imagination does,” adds Bryden. “In real life I don’t think any of us look particularly like the members of the Royal Family. There are similar shapes, colourings and heights but that’s about it. But actually once we’ve got the costumes on and the characters are introduced in the first scene, the power of the imagination lies with the audience to see the person they are used to seeing in the public eye.”

Beneath the fashionable outfits and flowing hair, there’s a backbone to Bartlett’s Kate that comes as a surprise. Portrayed as a shrewd political operator, who supports and motivates William, she has been compared to Lady Macbeth.

“She definitely wears the royal trousers…. In our play she’s a very commanding figure,” says Righton with a chuckle.

Careful not to give too much away, Bryden says: “She is the key operator, the person who makes the changes in the action of the play. She’s the one person within the Royal Family who can look at what’s going on objectively because everyone else is too tied up with their own family drama. Because Kate is new to all this, she is the one with the outside eye.”

Before she had any idea that she would be auditioning for the play, Bryden saw King Charles III in the West End from a seat in the gods with a friend of hers.

“It was so fascinating in the interval hearing all the discussions. So often everyone just makes and a beeline for the bar and it’s about what they’ve been doing that day. Here, everyone was talking (about the play), whether it was politics or family or actors playing real people or the monarchy. It was amazing. My friend said, ‘you should play that part one day,'” says Bryden.

None of the Royal Family has been to see the play. However, Tim Piggott-Smith who played Charles in the original production, received a letter from a member of the staff at Clarence House, Charles’s official London residence, pointing out that Charles doesn’t wear a wedding ring.

“I think everyone has taken that as a bit of a nod that they’re watching and hopefully approve,” says Bryden.“I’m sure they know all about it but I don’t think they would ever come and see it.”

King Charles III, Roslyn Packer Theatre, March 31 – April 30. Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au or 02 9250 1777

A version of this story ran in the Sunday Telegraph on March 13

Jo Litson: Scene and Heard

Articles and reviews about the performing arts in Sydney – and occasionally beyond.

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