Author: Kate Foy

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Review: Faustus – Queensland Theatre Company & Bell Shakespeare @ Brisbane Powerhouse

Michael Gow has not so much adapted Marlowe’s and Goethe’s pre-existing Faustus texts as editorialised them with a whole range of other western cultural materials – poetry, drama, music, song and film. He’s woven them together with his own words into a contemporary take on the man who bargains his soul away to the devil in exchange for power and youth.

Gow directs this new play in a highly theatrical realisation that calls upon all the traditions of story-telling: mask, puppetry, song, and multiple role-playing by the ensemble. It’s absolutely 21st century theatre, but this production retains the earthy flavour and naiveté of the medieval theatre’s Morality plays and their lively playing out of the forces of good and evil in the world.

Apparently the devils, imps and vice figures were hugely popular in these early pieces, and so it is here. From the outset we know it’s not going to be a good ending for Faustus (Ben Winspear) but rather his sparring with Mephistophilis (John Bell) and the journey along the way to Hell’s Mouth that will provide the thrills for an audience.

With design by Jonathon Oxlade and lighting by Jason Glenwright the playing space fills the main stage of the Brisbane Powerhouse. Production design supports a range of theatrical delights which include Phil Slade‘s musical composition and Chris More‘s video designs. Continue reading “Review: Faustus – Queensland Theatre Company & Bell Shakespeare @ Brisbane Powerhouse”

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Review: Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness – La Boite & Sydney Theatre Company @ The Roundhouse

Images by Al Caeiro

Do you long for subversive comedy and theatre with a capital T? Regret the loss of sensation from our stages? Do you love the freakery of the side-show? If you are not troubled by the sight of  pustular eruptions and blood-letting – indeed, if you find that kind of stuff hilarious – then, ladies and gentlemen, step right this way. Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness by Anthony Neilson for La Boite and Sydney Theatre Company could be just the transgressive tonic needed for jaded theatre palates.

If you are a tad squeamish, never did understand all the fuss over Monty Python or, if you like a nice neat slab of realism all wrapped up at night’s end, then stay away; this one is not for you. If, however, you throw caution to the wind and your curiosity eventually leads you to a seat ringside, be warned. You are going to be whirled away by theatre in full outrageous, imaginative flight in the equivalent of a wild fairground ride. There is no stopping and no retreat once the carnivale capers begin and you are invited via the seductive tones of the mysterious, caped and moustachioed Edward Gant (Paul Bishop) to witness his tales of wonder.

Our host and master of the small troupe introduces his Players: Madame Poulet (Emily Tomlins) ‘Little’ Nicky Ludd (Lindsay Farris) and Sgt Jack Dearlove (Bryan Probets). This lineup of Victorian era fringe-dwellers are to be our tale-tellers for the evening. By the way, buy a programme; their backstories are worth the price alone.

The stories the Players enact are the stuff of melodrama: fantastic, grotesque confections like the tale-tellers themselves – but they are marvellously, awe-fully funny too. There are also hints of ripping yarns, nursery tales and Kipling but I’m not going to spoil a minute of the fun ahead of you by spilling the pearls on this neo-Victorian romp. Trust me though – Tennyson it isn’t.

The play reminded me of a couple of books I had as a child. They were full of oddities and cruelty and I’m not exactly sure how I ended up with them – some aunt or uncle with a dark sense of humour, perhaps. Coles Funny Picture Books contained morality tales and creepy poetry where naughty children are whipped (for heaven’s sake) by machines, and family pets die to save the kids – and, and they were ILLUSTRATED! You just never forget some things! These weird and wonderful books were the stuff of the high Victorian age, and had emerged from the fevered brain of Edward William Cole who set up and ran a huge Book Arcade in marvellous Melbourne in the 1880s. Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness has the same kind of very English (and perverse) 19th century sensibility – laced with dirty bits. Despite all the excesses and the cruelty, at the heart of this fable is romance – a lovely pearl just waiting to be set free. You’ll understand when you see the show.

The production, which is directed by Sarah Goodes in her debut for both companies, is spectacular in the real sense of the word. Costume designs by Romance Was Born are just plain dazzling and the best we’ve seen in town for a long time. However (picky time here) I wish the crew had been a bit more motley and moth-eaten, given they’re a travelling troupe of whimsy tale-peddlers. They look like something from the glitzy Venice Carnivale rather than a down at heel bunch somewhere in Victorian England. Renée Mulder‘s clever set design – a fantastic contraption with a nod to steam-punk – and the lighting design by Damien Cooper mesh beautifully together. It looks terrific.

The four-member acting ensemble are uniformly excellent. I’ve always felt Emily Tomlins had an inner clown just waiting to be let out. This play gives her free rein to play across the comic range from gentle, tragic heroine through outrageous freak to a toy bear abandoned in the nursery. She’s a joy to watch. Bryan Proberts is made for this kind of crazy, physical comedy; he doesn’t miss a beat here, bringing a sureness of touch and an aura of melancholy that reminded me of the great Buster Keaton. Who knew he could also play the trumpet? Newcomer (to Brisbane, anyway) Lindsay Farris has a gift of a role as Ludd – the former boy-actor turned radical. He gets to play some wildly funny characters with gusto. And it is Paul Bishop’s ringmaster figure who prowls the performance space spinning these yarns of lost love and loneliness together. His top-hatted, cloaked Gant is a gentle, sad, pot-bellied magician in stripes and, it turns out, the biggest romantic of all. They’re all in top form.

The cast of characters inhabited by Messrs Probets and Farris and Ms Tomlins is vast. I won’t spoil the delight you will undoubtedly have on introduction, but I will just say that my favourite (probably Neilson’s scariest creation for actors anyway) is the Phantom of the Dry. Once met, never forgotten.

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness plays its Brisbane Season at The Roundhouse until 12 June. Details on sessions and booking from the company website.

 

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Review: Empire Burning – !Metro Arts & Eugene Gilfedder

Portrait of Nero. Marble, Roman artwork, 1st c...
Image via Wikipedia

!Metro Arts Brisbane’s latest offering in its 2011 Independents program is Empire Burning, a most intriguing and, it has to be said, much-anticipated new work from writer, actor and director Eugene Gilfedder. Mr Gilfedder is a fine actor held deservedly in high esteem in the industry; the range of his work during the past 12 months alone is impressive. For this premiere season of his own play he has gathered a top-notch cast which includes himself as Seneca, the Roman statesman, philosopher and playwright.

Empire Burning is a mighty big work which runs at around 75 minutes’ playing time. It encompasses the rise to power of the boy-Emperor Nero, his relationship with his tutor Seneca and mother Agrippina, and nasty goings-on in the upper echelons of Rome. It’s all set against the mysterious fires that engulfed the city in AD64. Empire Burning suggests these are the work of the people ‘who come through the flames’ – what we now called terrorists. Apparently the religious extremists of the time – the Christians – were blamed for the fires back then. Not much changes it would seem.

I came away from this first production of the play with mixed feelings. I was engaged by the breadth of the subject matter and with the way the writer has taken the stuff of ancient Rome and found such a clever and frighteningly snug fit with contemporary world politics. I love the singularity of the voice in Gilfedder’s text – his poetic and intelligent writing. He has written some great roles for actors who, in this production, are very well cast and take to the material with relish. However, there is a problem in the density and scope of the play’s subject matter which feels as though it’s been compressed and forced into an all-too-short playing time. This is a triple-decker work if ever there was one, and the play’s contents burst the seams of the production. Continue reading “Review: Empire Burning – !Metro Arts & Eugene Gilfedder”

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Review: An Oak Tree – Queensland Theatre Company @ Bille Brown Studio

QTC has kicked off its first production in the inaugural Studio season with An Oak Tree by Tim Crouch, a UK actor-writer. The play is directed in another first (his) by the Company’s new Artistic Associate Todd MacDonald. An Oak Tree has had a good performance track record since its first appearance at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in 2005. For QTC it’s played out over 75 minutes in a new configuration in the BB Studio complete with red curtain, a little stage, plastic chairs and small drinks tables – yes you can bring yours in if you like – there’s no interval, by the way. It’s rather like a cosy Leagues Club somewhere, which is handy, because we learn that is where this performance within a performance takes place.

By the way, there is a tree in An Oak Tree. It takes its name from an art work (1973) by Michael Craig-Martin. However, the play’s tree is one spun out of your own imagination – a virtual tree, if you like. Read the Wikipedia entry on Craig-Martin’s artwork highlighted above, or scan your programme and you will get some sense of what Crouch’s play explores: need, faith, the capacity to give credence to the impossible – like transubstantiation or a change in the form or substance of something. An example is the sacramental bread and wine which, during the consecration at a Catholic Mass, is believed to become the body and blood of Christ whilst maintaining its original appearance. From another angle, theatre makers talk about ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ as part of the transaction between the work of art on stage and the audience’s reception of it. On a more human level An Oak Tree is about grieving and coping and the terrible vulnerability of the human condition.

An Oak Tree is a small but very rich and detailed work. It is not a play for the inattentive or the casual observer, or for actors afraid to step outside their comfort zone.

However, whilst it plays with your head and with dramatic structure and language An Oak Tree‘s narrative line is quite simple and, I promise, there are no spoilers if you read further. Two people – one, a hypnotist and the other an audience member – come together in what is, supposedly, a hypnotist’s act in a club – all for a bit of fun, ladies and gentlemen. Ostensibly strangers at this point, it turns out the pair have a shared history which is gradually revealed. The individual trajectories of their lives intersected at what dramatists used to call the ‘inciting incident.’ Here, it’s one which has devastated both. Their lives have continued, but each has been crippled by that moment in the past when both were forever changed. The content and subject of the play revolves around their interaction on stage and the playing out of their coping and survival mechanisms. Almost inevitably, their lives bleed into one another; we see their becoming as one-another by the play’s end. Continue reading “Review: An Oak Tree – Queensland Theatre Company @ Bille Brown Studio”

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Review: Statespeare – Shake & Stir and La Boite Theatre @ The Roundhouse

Images: Al Caeiro

Prologue:

This is not a Shakespeare production. It’s a play about the problem of studying Shakespeare’s plays in high school or, as the programme has it, ‘Studying Shakespeare sucketh.’

Statespeare, written by Nelle Lee with material from a range of Shakespeare’s plays, is all about the relevance of the works for kids who are dragged, often kicking and screaming, to study the plays – or bits of the plays – as the syllabus demands. The premise of Statespeare is that the plays are hard, studying them really doth suck and that people who like Shakespeare are most probably drama nerds or losers. At one of yesterday’s schools’ performances I heard an audible gasp from a few quarters in the audience at a line about Drama not counting for an OP score. There were clearly some Drama geeks (old and young) in the house. PS tell me it isn’t so – about Drama not counting for the OP!

For a good 40 or 50 years now – and probably well before that – Australian school kids have been introduced to the plays in the Shakespeare canon via small, touring companies of actors. I remember the Young Elizabethan Players – the ‘Young Lizzies’ – when I was at high school. They were all serious in black before it became de rigeur in theatre circles, and we duly fell in love with at least one of the young male actors in tights – I think they really did wear tights back then. Then came the famed Grin and Tonic 1.0 (recently 2.0) and now there’s Shake & Stir theatre company. Continue reading “Review: Statespeare – Shake & Stir and La Boite Theatre @ The Roundhouse”