Tag: Brenna-Lee Cooney

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Chris Beckey (Interview 44)

Image: Morgan Roberts

I met with Chris Beckey in July for coffee and a chat at The Three Monkeys in West End. Chris was then appearing in CALIGULA for The Danger Ensemble. As I edit this long-overdue post, he is preparing for the Brisbane Festival’s production of Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE in an adaptation by Lally Katz. Once again, he is working under the direction of long-time creative collaborator Steven Mitchell Wright.

That afternoon I asked Chris, as I do all artists I interview, what had brought them to where they are now. We end up talking about process as the afternoon ticked away. Continue reading “Chris Beckey (Interview 44)”

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Review: Frankenstein – Fractal Theatre at Brisbane Arts Theatre

Images: Geoff Squires

Frankenstein, written at the start of the 19th century, has taken deep root in our culture. It’s a sprawling, gothic-romantic novel, considered by some to be the first science-fiction story. In a way it sits at the door of contemporary literature and points the way to the genres we now take for granted.

It’s a challenging novel to read, and its cinematic and theatrical spin-offs are legion as artists across the decades, fascinated by its subject matter, have attempted to set their own stamp upon it. Millions of words and perhaps as many hours have been devoted to this book, written by the 19 year old Mary Shelley during one rainy summer holiday in Geneva, and in response to a competition amongst her friends, including Byron and her husband to be, Percy Shelley, to see who could write the best horror story. Mary won that bet.

The latest to attempt to tame the beast is independent Fractal Theatre’s adaptation and production for the stage at Brisbane Arts Theatre. No matter the subject they tackle you know you are going to be provoked by Fractal. Their work doesn’t shy away from the intellectually difficult or the theatrically ambitious and Brenna Lee Cooney’s adaptation and direction of Frankenstein is no exception.

Continue reading “Review: Frankenstein – Fractal Theatre at Brisbane Arts Theatre”

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News and What’s On: This Week in Queensland Theatre – December 6-12 2010

What’s On
Check company websites for more details, including show times

Greenroom tracks local (Queensland) theatre production so, if you are looking for opera, ballet, or other shows touring from elsewhere, check other media listings. Might we suggest for other Brisbane performing arts listings OurBrisbane.com

Continuing:

Grimm Tales adapted by Carol Ann Duffy and dramatised by Tim Supple, Dir Michael Futcher, Queensland Theatre Company at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC

Music of the Unexpected composed by Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold; written by Anne Roylance with Cinematic producers Markwell Presents and visual artists from Multicap Monte Lupo at JWCoCA. This one is for families.

One Nighters at the Judy:

The Brink Party #2 – a bit of variety from your favourites (Friday)

Gimme Gimme: tales of an eternal optimist with Kathryn McIntyre Dir Cienda McNamara Mus Direction James Dobinson at JWCoCA (Saturday)

News

Apart from its being less than 3 weeks till Christmas, things are starting to slow down in the home-grown theatre world in Queensland. Thoughts turn to summer days and lazy nights – now if only the rain would stop falling.

However, the Greenroom Groundling awards nomination period is now open. Click here or on the big green button on every page of Greenroom to nominate your favourites for the inaugural Groundlings . These will be announced online on St Valentine’s Day, 2011.

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This Week in Queensland Theatre: August 9-15

Metro Arts facade
Image by Dramagirl via Flickr

Further details on company websites

Opening:
April’s Fool by David Burton Dir Lewis Jones for Empire Theatre Projects Company (Oakey Cultural Centre)

Continuing:
The Secret Love Life of Ophelia by Steven Berkoff Dir Brenna-Lee Cooney at !Metro Arts
Boy Girl Wall for The Escapists, created and performed by Lucas Stibbard at !Metro Arts
I Love You Bro’ by Adam J Cass Dir David Berthold for La Boite Theatre at the Roundhouse (closes Sunday)


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The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (Review): Fractal Theatre

Iambic pentameter (aka blank verse) is known for being the rhythm that most closely approximates everyday speech in English. Most of us meet it for the first time in the plays of Shakespeare. With its repetitive de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM de-DUM spring on each line of the verse, despite – or perhaps because it’s closely associated with Shakespeare – IP often gets a bad working over in the hands of inexperienced actors. In a misguided attempt to make it sound more ‘real,’ all the insistence and momentum in the rhythm can get flattened out and choked. Perhaps even more unfortunately, it can be spoken in a kind of reverential ‘poetic’ voice which casts the content and the speaker into some kind of other world divorced from reality. IP is full of traps for the young player.

And now, here’s playwright Steven Berkoff appropriating the old master’s metric verse form for  The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, currently playing at !Metro Arts Studio in Brisbane.  I started by mentioning IP because one of the real delights of this Fractal Theatre production, directed by Brenna-Lee Cooney, is that the two actors in the production, Eugene Gilfedder (Hamlet) and Mary Eggleston (Ophelia) handle the verse so well; it’s earthy, muscular, lyrical, downright dirty (but in a soft-porn kind of way) often delicate, and always affecting. Neither actor is the slightest bit disarmed by the text, in fact they chew it up and spit it out – as utterly befits this 21st century, retro-Elizabethan, poetic psycho-drama. Phew!  Hoorah for them and hoorah for Berkoff; it’s great to hear such tough verse done proud. Continue reading “The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (Review): Fractal Theatre”