CONSTELLATIONS

 

Written by Nick Payne

Directed by Kelly Somes

Free-Rain Theatre. ACT Hub. April 16-25.

 

Constellations is a deft and fascinating play. There are only two characters, a bee keeper and a scientist. Roland (James O’Connell) keeps bees and makes honey. Marianne (Lucy Goleby) studies the universe. 

 

The deftness comes in with the way in which time is treated. Scenes are short, runs of dialogue often repeated, the two characters may react in different ways in the same situation. The space is in the round. Three red chairs are moved about in the space as needed.

 

The relationship between the two varies. Sometimes it looks like they will get together, sometimes not. But the relationship keeps on developing though good times and tough outcomes. Tensions flow and ebb.

 

Goleby and O’Connell handle this difficult shifting material with ease and panache. It is a delight to watch them perform this challenging two hander with its multiple variant scenes and emotional through lines.

 

And The Hub once again proves that it can be a magical place as these two performers work the in-the-round space to create  a story about relationships - how they go wrong, how they can go right. They and director Kelly Somes have done a great and sure footed job.

 

A very satisfying and moving evening, not to be missed.

 

Alanna Maclean 

 

NO EXIT

 

 

 

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. 

Directed by Céline Oudin. A Mockingbird Too Production. Mockingbird Theatre Company and Acting Studio. Belconnen Arts Centre. April 14-17

CAST: Garcin – Eli Narev. Inez – Victoria Tyrell Dixon. Estelle – Phoebe Chua. The Valet – Peter Fock

PRODUCTION TEAM: Director – Céline Oudin  Assistant Director – Sophia Castello Producer – Chris Baldock Lighting Design – Rhiley Winnett and Céline Oudin Sound & Projection Design – Céline Oudin. Set Design & Realisation – Céline Oudin & Chris Baldock Stage Manager and Lighting, Sound & Projection Operation – Sophia CastelloCostumes – Céline Oudin Props – Ben Castle, Shamus Moore and Céline Oudin Intimacy coordination – Steph Evans.Publicity & Photography – Chris Baldock

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Victoria Tyrell Dixon as Inez. Eli Narev as Garcin

 

It  is almost thirty years since I watched a student production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential play No Exit. At the time it seemed an ideal piece for three student actors and their student director. It was written for three actors and observed Aristotle’s unities of time, place and action. It was therefore quite simple to stage and an excellent vehicle for the theatre students.

Eli Narev as Garcin. Peter Fock as The Valet in NO EXIT

It was therefore with some interest that I went to see the production staged by Mockingbird Too, Mockingbird Theatre and Acting Academy’s second tier arm for emerging artists. It should provide the best possible opportunity for members of the production to learn and develop their skills. In the case of No Exit, the production offered an opportunity for emerging director Céline Oudin to demonstrate her skills as a director. To achieve the best possible result it is important that an emerging director is given the best possible conditions to achieve the best possible result. Oudin is fortunate to have as a mentor Mockingbird Theatre’s Artistic Director Chris Baldock. In this instance she also has the support of a strong cast in the three roles of Inez, Garcin and Estelle. Victoria Tyrell Dixon is a highly experienced and renowned Canberra actor whose performance of the lesbian Inez commands immediate attention. Eli Narev gives a most credible performance as the guilt ridden wife beater and cowardly defector and Phoebe Chua provides the right degree of vain, but fragile superiority as the London socialite Estelle.

 

Phoebe Chua as Estelle in NO EXIT

Director Oudin’s task is also assisted by the relative simplicity of the setting and the action. In an attempt to emphasize the universality of Sartre’s play, Oudin has furnished the room with three sofas that the Valet (Peter Fock) refers to as items from IKEA. It is far from the original 1944 production that stipulated Second Empire furniture and I felt that there could have been some comical irony if the furniture had come from Freedom Furniture, given that the three characters are destined to spend eternity together in this one room from which they may never exit. An assumedly immovable bronze statue purported to be a Jeff Koons’ dog seemed more like a painted balloon dog from the National Folk Festival. Perhaps it would have been helpful to consider the original stage directions more literally. In any case Oudin and her actors have given careful attention to the characters and their circumstance.

Victoria Tyrell Dixon (Inez). Phoebe Chua (Estelle). Eli Narev (Garcin) in Jean-Paul Sartre's NO EXIT

 We learn quickly that each character has been ushered by the valet into one of the rooms in Hell, allocated to the dead. Each has committed a crime that condemns them to an eternity from which there is no escape. Inez has seduced her cousin’s wife, resulting in the cousin’s death. Garcin, a wife beating journalist has deserted during wartime. Estelle has killed her newborn, leading to her former lover’s suicide. Each arrives, expecting to be tortured for their crimes, only to discover that they are the torturers, assembled to torment each other in Sartre’s moral judgement. Their eternal confinement turns each one on another, while also allowing them to see the consequences of their deeds in the world that they have left behind.  In Sartre’s philosophy Hell is other people.

No  Exit has been regarded as a seminal work that at the time of its first performance towards the end of the second world war appeared as a lightning bolt of theatrical innovation. At the final matinee performance I attended No Exit appeared somewhat dated, and the ideas no longer startlingly revelatory. Nonetheless as a psychological study of human behaviour, Mockingbird Too’s studio production was engaging and entertaining in a thought provoking way with interesting and believable performances by the cast and  clear and confident direction by Oudin. A stronger sense of cruelty might have made this production more riveting,  befitting the torturous entrapment in a personal Hell within and without.

If this is the kind of work that we can come to expect from Mockingbird Too’s emerging artists, then I look forward to future productions of such high standards.

 

 

 

RHINOCEROS by Eugene Ionesco

 

 

 Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco.  

Daramalan Theatre Company at Daramalan College  April 18 - 25, 2026
By arrangement with ORiGiN Theatrical, on behalf of Samuel French.
Bookings:
https://events.humanitix.com/rhinoceros-cnbc99wn 

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 18

Directed by Joe Woodward.  Translated by Derek Prouse

OUTSTANDING THEATRE IN EDUCATION

If there’s one lesson to be taken seriously, in a world of instant communication, it has to be about the problem of going along with the crowd.  Australia is ahead of the international pack by restricting the dangers of AI, of ‘influencers’, and the bubble-power of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube, to those of us who are at least 16 years old.

“As of 10 December 2025, age-restricted social media platforms need to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account.”
https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions 

Going to see live theatre, or even better taking part in performing a play like Rhinoceros, is the key to young people, their parents – in fact anyone – coming to grips with the issue of too much social conformity.  

French playwright Eugene Ionesco saw what happened when so many in his country collaborated with Nazism during World War II.  Though that was an extreme case, by the 1950s he wanted to alert people that this kind of thing can happen again -- long before what happened in 2003, when Mark Zuckerberg and Harvard University dorm room friends (all male) created "Facemash," an internet site that allowed users to rate the attractiveness of students, launched as Facebook in February 2004.  Within 24 hours, over 1,000 Harvard students signed up. By June 2004, it had expanded to over 30 universities.

The professional standing of the 19 teaching staff creatives and crew shines through this production of Rhinoceros, using humour and emphasising the satire, in a highly choreographed style involving – and so training in the practice of theatre, and educating through Ionesco’s writing – a student cast of 19, with a student backstage crew of 18.

Set up as the Daramalan Theatre Company, managed by Drama teacher Joe Woodward as director/designer, Rhinoceros represents top quality youth theatre production.

Very highly recommended for audiences young, older and even as old as octogenarians like me, because in a lively entertaining manner it raises those serious questions about individuality and social responsibility which we all must take on board, as parents and children, and simply as members of our local and national community.

The season is limited, naturally, to this coming week through to a special matinee at 1:00pm on ANZAC Day, next Saturday, April 25th.

Not to be missed.

CONSTELLATIONS

 

Constellations by Nick Payne. 

Directed by Kelly Somes. Stage Managers Sue Gore and Liz Phillips. Set concept and design Kelly Somes and Cate Clelland. Sound design Kelly Somes and Neville Pye. Lighting design Aidan Bavinton. Costume design Kelly Somes and Cate Clelland. Production photography Janelle Mcm,enamin and Michael Moore. Free Rain Theatre at ACT HUB. April 16-25. Bookings ACTHUB.COM.AU

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

To see actors Lucy Goleby and James O’Connell in Nick Payne’s Constellations at ACT HUB is to watch two actors at the top of their game, working in perfect synchronicity. This is ensemble acting at its very best, each actor completely attuned to their character’s complex relationship and conflicting emotions.

Marianne (Lucy Goleby) and Roland (James O’Connell) meet at a barbecue. She is a physicist, intelligent and curious about the natural laws of Qantum Mechanics, String Theory and quantum cosmology. Roland is a grounded beekeeper, a maker of honey. Both in their own way observe the laws of Nature. Marianne proposes an hypothetical multiverse, comprising many universes in which the natural laws pertaining to our universe can vary within the multiverse. This is of course a philosophical notion rather than a concept sustained by evidence. Roland’s definable universe is the ordered society of the bee colony, comprising the hierarchy of Queen Bee, Drones and Worker Bees.

Contrasting to a multiverse is a constellation, a recognizable pattern of stars, identified by formation or mythical figures. This too suggests a certain behavioural pattern that denies the existence of free will. Payne ingeniously uses multiple repetition of dialogue and situation with variations that could suggest parallel universes. Marianne recounts their first meeting at a barbecue, Roland at a wedding. Throughout we see the same scenario played over but from different perspectives or with different outcomes. In one episode, Marianne admits to an affair with a young office worker. In the same scenario it is Roland who has had the affair with another woman. The responses may be similar but the outcomes could be very different. As Payne’s multimoments evolve we watch the relationship develop, fracture,revive, result in marriage and finally confront the horrifying reality of Marianne’s illness.

Payne poses a universal conundrum. Do we possess free will? Are all choices predetermined by established laws? As implied in Marianne’s opening line, is it deliberate that we are designed in such a way as not to be able to lick our elbows as evidence of our inability to achieve immortality. It’s a pick up line that cannot but succeed to intrigue. Marianne’s mother has no fear of dying. She fears being kept alive. She fears the denial of free will. This presents a fascinating conjecture of scientific theory, hypothesis and definable laws of Nature.

For seventy five minutes, Constellations balances scientific theory with human emotion. It is a fascinating expression of action and reaction, determining a choice, subject to the dictates of changing circumstance. Roland’s proposal could have a very different impact at another moment in time or within a different emotional state. In Free Rain Theatre’s outstanding production, Payne’s dialogue is repeated with different responses or choices. And yet human nature remains constant. The sense of betrayal at the discovery of infidelity will be as true to Marianne as it would be to Roland in a similar circumstance. In the end Marianne chooses to exercise free will to intervene in the progression of her illness.

Director Kelly Somes has staged the production in the round with audience on four sides. Three chairs are placed at certain points on the stage. As Payne’s dialogue presents alternate realities the actors move the chairs into different positions to represent changing moods and physical relationships. Somes’ direction is purposeful and fluid, enabling an audience to follow the shifting scenarios and reactions. Director and actors create a fascinating pattern of connection and disconnection, intimacy and separation. Somes’s direction is craftily manoevured in a production that never fails to intrigue, fascinate and provoke. There is ample food for thought, concepts to wonder at and Marianne and Roland’s alternate choices to identify and recognize. Free Rain Theatre’s visiting production of Constellations is too good an opportunity to miss. Entertaining, engaging and intellectually stimulating, Somes, Goleby and O’Connell under Free Rain Theatre’s umbrella have brought to ACT HUB a production to light up Canberra's theatrical universe.

Photos by Janelle McMenamin