Chris Fung is one of those rare actors who gets cast in a professional production before completing his training at drama school. During his second year he auditioned successfully for a place in the ensemble of Opera Australia’s production of THE KING AND I which has just finished its season at QPAC in Brisbane before heading to Melbourne. He is also understudying Teddy Tahu Rhodes in the role of the King of Siam. I was keen to speak with the charming, intelligent and wonderfully quick-witted Chris about that experience, but also about how he came to the musical theatre as a career. Continue reading “Just Out: Chris Fung (Interview 40)”
I am chatting via Skype to David Megarrity, composer, performer, teacher, theatre-maker, and doctoral student. David is about to open (with Samuel Vincent) in the two-man production GENTLEMEN SONGSTERS for the Brisbane Cabaret Festival. I’m keen to hear more about the ‘gentlemen songsters with ukeleles’ and, of course, why they have turned to this sweet little instrument. During my time as a student in Honolulu I came to love its sound, something that seemed to be everywhere … part of the daily soundtrack of life in the islands. Since those days the ukelele has popped up everywhere – perhaps because it’s so democratic. We’ll get to that and to Tyrone and Lesley later, but we start by talking about David’s background and how, as part of his doctoral research, he is investigating the intersection of music and performance. Continue reading “David Megarrity (Interview 39)”
The Parade Ground yard outside the Roundhouse Theatre was buzzing last night with indie patrons there to see not one, not two, but three shows on the La Boite indie calendar: 4000 Miles, Mullah Nasrudin, and Machina, an eagerly-awaited, new work from Richard Jordan, directed by Catarina Hebbard, and which is now playing in the Loft – a space I hadn’t visited before.
The lead up to production – itself subsidised by a ‘long-tail’, online crowd sourced campaign – added clever marketing videos and a website (designed by Nathan Sibthorpe) which teased us with hints of dastardly doings by the evil, faceless ‘Machina,’ and of individuals who have decided to ‘go inside’ the machine and live as disembodied selves in perpetuity. The regularly posted bulletins hinted at evil corporate scheming and fear of their machinations (pun or otherwise intended) and, of course, society’s obsession with online connectivity. Add the age-old fascination with the idea if not the reality of immortality for a price (Faustus) – and you get a rich and powerful mix that intrigued. Continue reading “Machina – La Boite Indie and Mad Cat Creative Connections at The Loft”
A disclaimer up front – I’m currently serving on the Foundation of the Empire Theatre and am a former Board member. If, then, you think the following should be taken with a grain of salt, so be it!
Theatre, oh theatre, how I love you in all your moods and guises. I’ve been in love with you for many years – too many to recall – and I’ve never lost the excitement and the anticipation of the magic that is made present from talent, sweat and tears. A group of strangers come together to experience something only fully realised in the dynamic of a single moment of pure community.
The theatre is also powerfully transformative of individuals and communities small and large. Playwright Arthur Miller once noted that the theatre is the place where strangers come together in a civilising act as important as road and bridge building. Maybe it’s because of the power theatre holds that, throughout history, it’s been one of the first agencies to be closed down by repressive regimes. Individuals and communities can be changed – are changed – when they come together to be refreshed and renewed, to be inspired, to laugh, to weep, and to think out loud in front of themselves – that last one from Martin Esslin, another great of the theatre. This communing was something I experienced afresh last Thursday night at the opening of the Empire Theatre’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe’s classic of the modern musical theatre, The Phantom of the Opera.Continue reading “Review: The Phantom of the Opera – Empire Theatre (Toowoomba)”
Images: Dylan Evans Photography (Main Image L-R: Trevor Stuart, Jessica Marais, Amy Ingram, Anthony Standish, Benjamin Schostakowski, Jennifer Flowers, James Stewart)
Cosi by Louis Nowra is a much-loved and, by now, a classic in the canon of modern Australian plays. According to David Berthold, it’s also the playwright’s personal favourite. It’s certainly admired by La Boite Theatre Company who have produced it three times over the years. The latest has just opened at the Roundhouse under the direction of Mr Berthold and it’s a production that finds the rhythm of the play’s compassionate heart.
Filled with marvellous characters, and set in an asylum during the Vietnam War, Cosi follows the adventures of young Lewis (Ben Schostakowski) a uni student, who gets a job helping the inmates “put on a show.” He’s all for a bit of Brecht but Roy (played with glorious gusto by Trevor Stuart) is adamant that the music of the spheres must be heard in their shabby little theatre, and so it’s Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte that gets the nod. It’s as nutty an idea as is possible to imagine, and perfect given the play’s setting. No one can sing, one can hardly speak – all are damaged and apparently incapable of any kind of cooperative activity. Young Lewis (‘Jerry’ to Roy’s ‘Martin’) is clearly out of his depth.
Aaron Davison and Benjamin Schostakowski
‘Putting on a show’ plays are ready-made for comedy. Typically we are treated to agonising (hysterical) auditions; shambolic (hysterical) rehearsals and, finally, awful (hysterically awful) performances. There are often great one-liners and in-jokes for the theatre crowd so there’s a lot to laugh at. By the way, the little theatre that designer Hugh O’Connor creates in the big room at the Roundhouse is just delightful. Cosi is no different in this regard, but there’s a whole lot more going on.
One of the great strengths of Nowra’s play is its ability not only to make us laugh but also to make us feel the hurt of those we’re laughing at. Cosi also makes plain the importance of so much we take for granted. As we watch the hapless troupe and their director grope and stumble around it’s clear that they are, perhaps for the first time ever, rediscovering what it means to be useful. No longer isolated they come together squabbling, arguing points of view finding a kind of collective wisdom and joy on the fly. Continue reading “Review: Cosi – La Boite Theatre Company at the Roundhouse Theatre”
