Song for a Weary Throat by Rawcus

Song for a Weary Throat
as part of Melbourne International Arts Festival

“Dance with me,” she asked.

“Dance with me,” she insisted.

“Why won't you dance with me?”

She crossed the desolate space, walking from one ensemble member to the next, asking for a small moment of joy amongst the rubble and the carnage.

Some kind of cataclysm has occurred. The survivors are scattered around the stage. Whatever has happened, whatever trauma has taken place, it keeps happening. The deafening noise and the sharp explosions of bright light upends whatever moment of comfort we can glean when our eyes adjust.

And it happens again.

And again.

And…

How do you get up when the world keeps shifting below your feet? How do you find your voice and song again after it’s been drowned out by the din of destruction?

Rawcus’ new work, Song for a Weary Throat, debuted at Theatre Works in 2017 and has been programmed now as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. The work has been devised amongst a creative team and an ensemble of performers, under the direction of Kate Sulan.

The company creates theatre that draws on dance and visual arts and for this show has collaborated with the Invenio Singers, who lend their exquisite singing voices to this very moving experience.

Jethro Woodward’s sound design and musical direction create a particularly memorable soundscape – unnerving and upsetting at times, loud noises keeping the audience on edge. Emily Barrie’s set design suggests a possible post-Apocalyptic bunker, detritus scattered across the stage, chairs and ramps and ladders slowly being woven into the fabric of the performances and dance.

The Rawcus ensemble includes performers both with and without disability and all are fully committed to realising Sulan’s vision – an impression and a representation of people finding the strength to stand up and speak up in a world that insists on making that harder every day.

There were joyous moments when most of the ensemble took a running jump off the edge of a ramp. And equally upsetting moments when one half of the ensemble watched the others struggling to crawl up a steep incline, unwilling to help them.

In the midst of despair, Song for a Weary Throat finds hope – something we’re in desperate need of in 2018.

The show closes today.

Witness Performance: Suddenly Last Summer

Kate Cole in Suddenly Last Summer
Photo: Jodie Hutchinson

My review of Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams at Red Stitch is up at Witness Performance. Here's a taste:

The production is an odd mix of the hallmark qualities of these two companies: Red Stitch’s commitment to text-based theatre, and Little Ones’ reputation for stylised camp. Eugyeene Teh’s design – walls draped with long leaves, plants hanging from the rafters – plunges us into the mystery of the garden district of New Orleans. Even in the confined space of Red Stitch, the set bows to the Little Ones’ proscenium-arch aesthetic, with a widescreen look that evokes a feature film and somehow makes the space look bigger. Katie Sfetkidis’ lighting is elegant and moody, with layers of smoke and haze emphasising the oppressiveness of this family meeting.

On Broadway – Presented by Flourish Productions

The Cast of On Broadway

Flourish Productions has been putting on concerts of songs from musicals for the last few years, mostly focused on particular composers: the songs of Cy Coleman, the songs of Ahrens & Flaherty, the songs of Alan Menken and the songs of local composer Matthew Robinson.

This weekend they presented On Broadway, a selection of songs from the last few decades of Broadway hits. It’s an eclectic mix shared among a cast of eight singers, four men and four women.

Director/choreographer Leanne Marsland has done a wonderful job pulling together a strong ensemble of performers to belt out songs in chorus or in pairs or as solos. There’s a seamless transition between songs; the ninety-minute concert flowed from one song to the next, without the usual feel of song, pause, song that can happen in this kind of group cabaret.

Starting out with “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story got the show off to a strong start. This is a promise of something to be fulfilled and “Lucky Be A Lady” was a fun follow up.

Some of the songs worked better out of context from their shows than others. “Someone to Watch Over Me” is a classic from the Broadway songbook, beautifully performed by Catherine Langley, one of the producers of the night. Alec Steedman’s “Wilkommen” and Ellie Nunan’s “Cabaret” from Cabaret made me want to see them in a full production of the show.

“Agony” from Into the Woods seemed strangely lacklustre, not garnering the laughs it would have in the show itself. Danielle O’Malley nailed “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and “If You Got It, Flaunt It”.

“Cell Block Tango” from Chicago was one of the absolute highlights of the night. The rendition itself was strong – everyone in full voice and embodying the merry murderesses of the musical. Of course, with a cast of four men and four women, this number was four women and two men, which gave it an added queer element which made it more delicious.

Much to my surprise, the later medley of Andrew Lloyd-Webber songs from Song & Dance, Aspects of Love & Jesus Christ Superstar was really thrilling. Kudos to Ellie, Lachlan and Danielle for their harmonies there.

Most of these songs are absolutely classics of the genre and it’s always a pleasure to hear them. But to have such a strong concept for the concert itself – solid choreography elevating the songs and helping the transitions, On Broadway was Flourish’s strongest concert series yet.

Flourish Productions presented On Broadway this weekend only at Chapel Off Chapel.

My Name is Jimi by Dimple Bani & Jimi Bani

My  Name is Jimi

Artifacts and symbols of Indigenous Torres Strait Islander culture sit in glass cases around the stage, high above us, out of reach. Museum pieces kept a long way from the world where they were created. This is colonialism in its simplest form - culturally destructive but explained away as keeping history preserved.

As Jimi Bani explains, though, the history and culture of his people, the Wagadagam of the Western part of the Torres Strait, is kept alive by storytelling and language. Jimi’s father Dimple, who was at the forefront of creating this show before he passed away, was a linguist and the latest in a line of Wagadagam Chiefs.

Dimple spent a lot of his life finding ways to tell the story of his people, through documentaries and plays and stories and performance. He also tried to get those artifacts of his people returned from the museums of Europe, but even after promising they would return them, they never did.

Jimi is a performer in his own right, in a way that we recognise that term – having performed in theatre companies across Australia and in film and television. He has taken up his father’s mantle and has toured this production extensively to get the word out. And the history out. And the dance out.

He’s not alone on stage, though. There are three generations with him: his mother and aunt, his brothers and one of his own children. Director Jason Klarwein has harnessed the joyful energy and truth of Jimi’s family and created a beautifully devised piece theatre that in moments is simply the performance of ritual dance or the donning of traditional costume and headdress.

There are moments of predictable culture clash – times when son Dimtri won’t put his phone down to listen to stories of his people’s history. But the idea that technology is merely a distraction to tradition is dramatically undermined by its use in the show – cameras used to film dioramas, to film dances, projectors used to retell ancient stories or project a vision of the night sky.

Jimi goes through a lengthy process of explaining his family tree early on in the show and promises there will be a test later. It’s a well-worn joke that actually works dramatically later on; we the audience have learned a little of his history and culture and the fact we can recite back some of the Wagadagam language late in the show is proof that a shared culture will never die.

This is a beautiful show that began at Queensland Theatre and has traveled to Darwin and Sydney and now is at the Melbourne Festival. I hope it continues to travel all over this country, because we need to hear Indigenous voices telling their history. And I hope it travels to Europe, because if stealing artifacts is part of their history, Jimi telling his story back to them should be part of it, too.

My Name is Jimi closes at the Melbourne International Arts Festival today.

Watt by Samuel Beckett – adapted by Barry McGovern

Watt by Samuel Beckett
Adapted and performed by Barry McGovern

Samuel Beckett once described writing Watt as “a means of staying sane” while he was on the run from the Gestapo. From that experience, Beckett and Watt are grappling with experiences that they can't quite understand.

In this stage adaptation of his novel, you can see the character of Watt trying to make sense of the world, in all its fascinating complexities. This is a simple story, told in a simple way, through a performance that feels lived in and true.

Writer and actor Barry McGovern has spent lot of his career performing in Beckett plays. He’s been Vladimir in Waiting for Godot and Clov in Endgame and appeared in half a dozen other works by Ireland’s pre-eminent dramatists.

Watt travels on a train to Mr Knott’s house and becomes his manservant. He works on the ground floor and then moves on to working on the first floor. Then takes a train to somewhere, though perhaps this last train journey – to the farthest end of the line – is really just taking us back to the beginning of Watt’s story, where he climbs out of poverty to make something of himself.

The stage is almost bare. A chair that is almost never used. A small hand trolley. Watt carries on luggage and takes off a bowler hat. Before a word is uttered, Tom Creed’s production feels Beckettian – revelling in a long silence before we know a thing about this lanky man and where he’s headed.

The Beckett Estate is very particular with how his stage plays are produced; they insist his stage directions are followed precisely. I wondered if adapting his prose allows for any chance to push boundaries, though the sparse action doesn’t call for anything more elaborate in set or costume.

Sinead McKenna’s lighting design is very effective, enhancing Watt’s journey – making us feel the coldness of the train platform or the cosiness of Mr Knott’s house without distracting from McGovern’s superb performance.

This show reminded me a lot of Eamon Flack’s production of The End, the Beckett short story that was performed by Robert Menzies. In both cases, I was captivated by early moments, felt a little lost in the middle, but was drawn back in as the shows ended.

I wondered if perhaps they might have been more effective as radio dramas and then remembered that the precise movements and subtle lighting state transitions and the bravura performances at the centre will be what I remember. This is theatre at its most minimal – where nothing seems to happen but a lot is said.

Watt is on as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival until October 13.

Witness Performance

The Harp in the South at Sydney Theatre Company

In September, I had two reviews published on the Witness Performance website. I'm really pleased to be able to add to the conversation over there.

The first was a review of Sydney Theatre Company's The Harp in the South:

The Harp in the South tells a vastly different story to David Williamson’s Emerald City or Gordon Graham’s The Boys or Jane Bodie’s This Year’s Ashes, but it feels fitting that the city itself finally gets an epic play – a prequel to the plays of Sydney that are a central part of Australia’s theatrical history. This production stands proudly and deservedly alongside its forbears.

The second was a review of Malthouse Theatre's Ich Nibber Dibber:

The formal poses of Hellenistic statues relax throughout the show and permit us to see the apparatuses upon which they’re posed. At one point, Natalie unstraps herself and pops off to the loo and the façade cracks a little. These figures aloft on pedestals aren’t angels or Venuses de Milo. They are women turning their gaze on themselves and asking us to actually listen to their experience. 

The details of the conversations might seem mundane but the accumulation of those experiences turns into something profound.

Melbourne Fringe: The Mission by Tom Molyneux

The Mission by Tom Molyneux
Photo: Sarah Walker

The widespread use of Acknowledgement of Country throughout the theatrical community is a good reminder that we live and work and tell stories on a land that has been home to Australia’s Indigenous people for forty-thousand years. Any Fringe show presenting work on the lands of the Wurundjeri people in the Birrarung are continuing a very long tradition.

Performer Tom Molyneux’s Acknowledgement of Country feeds directly into the story of The Mission; “sovereignty has never been ceded” is a strong jumping-off point for a story about our Indigenous population’s autonomy.

This personal history begins thirty-thousand years ago at the forming of Budj Bim, a volcano in Western Victoria. The Budj Bim area is a very important one to the Gunditjmara people, a site where they developed a system of aquaculture, thousands of years before European settlement.

After European settlement, it was the site of Eumerella Wars, where the Gunditjmara were overwhelmed and killed by colonisers who had the support of Native Police – Aboriginal troopers under the command of a white police officer.

Around the same time, Budj Bim was renamed Mount Eccles after William Eeles; the original Indigenous name was displaced by the misspelled name of a war buddy of Major Thomas Mitchell.

The scene is set for Tom’s more recent ancestors to take their place in the story, the particular focus of which is Uncle Allan McDonald, who was born in the late 1800s and later fought in World War I.

The Mission explores Allan’s life in Western Victoria on the missions in and around Budj Bim and Warrnambool. And then we join him on the ship to Egypt where he will train along with other soldiers before fighting at Gallipoli and Beersheba, two of the most famous campaigns involving Australian troops during the first World War.

As a “half caste,” Allan is accepted into the military because he looks closer to white than black and has grown up around the “good influence” of white colonisers. His brother is deemed “not white enough” to enlist.

Tom’s performance is quite gentle in its approach to difficult history and incendiary topics, taking us along as a guide and, for most of the piece, giving a stellar performance as Allan McDonald. There’s a gentle burn of fury underneath; the way Allan is treated on his return is utterly heartbreaking and completely expected.

Director James Jackson gives Tom the space to move and play and explore this very personal story. John Collopy’s lighting design is subtle when it needs to be and striking in moments of surprise; Allan’s first view of Egypt is bright and overwhelming – for him and for the audience.

The script is strong; this land’s history is so integral to Indigenous culture and it’s vital to this piece. Tom builds a full picture of Budj Bim and the Christian missions and parts of Western Victoria I know so little about – and you can feel the distance from home when Alan travels to Egypt and the Middle East.

At the centre of the piece is a family story that is rich in culture and in place, but Tom admits has moments that wouldn’t be out of place on Neighbours. Allan lived a long life and saw his home and his country change a great deal. Early in his life, he was a young man fighting for his land overseas, continuing a tradition of his people fighting for that same land but losing it.

He may not have been respected when he returned from the war, but he lived long enough to see the day when Australia finally considered him a person – decades after he sacrificed so much for the colonisers of this land.

The Mission is a beautiful, touching and rich tribute to a man and his people and the land they fought and died for. A land his people keep fighting and dying for. Sovereignty was never ceded and Tom Molyneux’s new play and performance carries this truth with it. I hope it leads a long, strong life.

The Mission plays at Melbourne Fringe tonight and tomorrow night and will be part of a regional tour in 2019.