THE INDEPENDENTS: FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS - Week 2

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) - Little Dove Theatre Art - Photo by Andrew Sirkorski

Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio October 14 -16^th, 2026

Opening Night performance reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

The festival’s second week showcased works created and performed by female artists.

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle)

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) - Photo Mathew Miceli

Created and directed by Chenoeh Miller for Little Dove Theatre Art.

Performed by Alicia Melonie Jones and Noa Rotem (co-choreographers), and Monica Engel (musician and musical arranger).

Music and sound: Reuben Ingall – Lighting design: Theo Carroll

In her program notes, award-winning theatre-maker Chenoeh Miller explains that The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) has been more than eight years in development.

This deeply personal, harrowing work explores how the body retains memories of trauma.

Combining dance, Butoh, spoken word, and live and recorded music, Miller creates a surreal, unsettling world. The three skilled performers draw the audience in, even when the meaning of their actions remains elusive.

Noa Rotem in "The Fool ( or Francesca Giselle) - Photo: Andrew Sikorski

As the audience enters the dark, haze-filled theatre, Noa Rotem dances energetically to loud party music. Her conversations with arriving patrons suggest a light-hearted performance ahead.

That impression fades as the lights dim further and Rotem begins an extended, deeply personal monologue.

A lavishly costumed figure emerges from the gloom, miming an address whose words are unintelligible. Another appears from beneath the costume. Their purpose remains obscure in the low light, but the sequence establishes the production’s distinctly unconventional character.

A series of episodes follows, with the trio changing costumes and hairstyles, coating their hands and feet in black paint, running on the spot, rolling on the floor and contorting their faces.

Reuben Ingall’s unsettling recorded soundtrack and Monica Engel’s live singing deepens the work’s disturbing atmosphere. A confronting ensemble sequence on a raised platform in which all three mime physical abuse, reinforces its exploration of trauma.

Frumpus Landed

Frumpus in "Frumpus Landed"

Created and performed by Cheryle Moore (artistic director), Stephanie Hart (costume design) and Lenny Ann Low (projections). Audio production: Guy Freer.

Beyond their three-person casts of co-creators, the week’s two productions have little in common.

Sydney-based Frumpus gleefully defies categorisation, revelling in its reputation as one of Australia’s most distinctive performance ensembles.

The show opens on a nearly bare stage: three chairs, a small table to one side and a white screen at the back.

Wearing frumpy red tracksuits and dark glasses, the trio prowls the stage with yo-yos, apparently preparing to make a film in which all three will appear.

FRUMPUS in Frumpus Landed.

Water sounds and projected footage of a deserted mansion introduce the first scene. Now playing maids in white nightdresses, the three sit absorbed in embroidery.

A phone rings. Each answer in turn, but no one speaks at the other end. When one maid pricks her finger and treats it by pushing it into a bread roll, the show plunges into a gleeful slapstick parody of period films.

Cardboard boxes fly onto the stage, household chores descend into mischief, and feathers fill the air as the maids prepare a feast.

They bring in a huge table and race to pile it with delicacies, including an endless supply of fruit and vegetables.

Brilliant deadpan clowning sustains the escalating absurdity. Ridiculous, unpredictable and irreverent, the show is uproariously funny, ending in glorious chaos with the stage strewn with debris and the performers visibly spent.

Together, these contrasting productions demonstrate the range of the festival’s second week. The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) offers an unsettling exploration of trauma, compelling in its physicality even when its meaning remains elusive. Frumpus Landed turns domestic routines into exuberant absurdity, delivering uproarious comedy through precise deadpan clowning. One disturbs, the other delights; neither settles for conventional theatre. 

                                                     Frumpus photos supplied.

                            This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.

THE INDEPENDENTS FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS WEEK 2

 

The Independents Festival of New Works. Week 2.

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) Creator and director: Chenoeh Miller Choreographer and performer: Alicia Melonie Jones Music arrangement and performer: Monica Engel Choreographer and performer: Noa Rotem Music and Sound: Reuben Ingall Lighting Design: Theo Carroll. Photos by Andrew Sikorski

Landed by Frumpus. Artistic Director, Performer, Creator: Cheryle Moore Performer, Creator, Costume Design: Stephanie Hart Performer, Creator, Projections: Lenny Ann Low Audio Production: Guy Freer.

The Courtyard Studio Canberra Theatre Centre. October 14-16 2026. 62752700.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins 

 

The Independents Festival of New Works Week 2 continues the Canberra Theatre Centre’s initiative to provide opportunities for theatre makers to create original and innovative theatre. In Chenoeh Miller’s The Fool and Frumpus’s Landed one could not experience two more contrasting works. Inspired by the Tarot card The Fool, Miller’s work is powerfully visceral, electrifying in its raging pulsation of action, motion and intellectual provocation. The work is a spellbinding exposure of the fateful struggle by women to survive and ultimately run the gauntlet of their fate. Landed could not be more contrasting. Frumpus turns the Courtyard Studio into a rumpus room of riotous frivolity. Both works, though poles apart are performed by three women. In The Fool, the performers pursue resilience of the spirit in their quest to drive through the aching oppression and expectation of their imposed destiny. In Landed three hilarious comediennes romp through the hilarity of clever parody in an irreverent look at nineteenth century solitary domesticity, B Grade Movies, Chekov and the horror genre. The Kransky Sisters meet the Frumpus Follies.

 I left the Courtyard Studio transfixed by the images of The Fool. There is the image of the Fool (Monica Engel), dimly lit in Theo Carroll’s ghostly blue wash, dressed in the richly brocaded costume and intoning Heilung’s Afhomon, a haunting  prophesy of transformation. The images endure, holding the moment, mesmerizing and inviting contemplation. In another sequence Engel begins to run, ceaseless and repetitive and joined by Jones and Rotem in a repetitive and continuous pursuit of escape and discovery. The three women, sculpted in agony utter the voiceless scream of Butoh’s darkness between the flesh and the bone. Jones stands aloof on a rostrum repeating the erotic gesture of the nightclub dancer while Engel repeatedly carries out the routine monotony of her everyday life. Both are victims of their conditioning

Childhood memory feeds the fear of being trapped in a deep pit by cruel siblings. The voiceover recollection of a gang rape and the perpetual danger that accompanies abuse towards women provide a chilling reminder of ever present fear. And yet in a performance so visceral in its imagery and powerful in its impact we are reminded that The Fool survives because of the promise of a new tomorrow, a lightbulb realization and the courage to move forward. Like The Fool Miller and her cast offer hope and the capacity of women to move through the memory, the constant repetition and exhaustion and the abuse to stand together. At the keyboard, Engel sings the song of resolve as she utters the words “Do or Die. We are invincible.”

 And yet it is not only women who must do or die. This is a collective responsibility for all to strive for The Fool’s positive future. There is pain, but there is also hope in Miller’s  triumphant work.  Before the show the audience is invited to dance freely and joyously with the performers until the lights fade and Jones utters a welcome to country and a salute to the creative spirit that has given us the land, the waterways and the sustenance. It is a welcome worthy of being given at every public occasion. For all humankind woman is that creative spirit and The Fool is Little Dove Theatre Art’s tribute to all women. It is a symbol of endurance and hope. I hope that it may return for a longer season.

In red tracksuits emblazoned with Frumpus the three visiting performers arrive on the Courtyard Studio stage. Landed may be a relatively new work, but like Little Dove Theatre Arts they have been a legendary item on the experimental underground Sydney scene since 1999. Their tradition is carried over in their guest inclusion in Independents – Festival of New Works. 

 

In a series of vignettes, performers Cheryle Moore, Stephanie Hart and Lenny Ann Low explode about the stage with a fierce energy, chaotic theatricality and anarchic sense of humour. Nothing escapes their manic irreverence. Anachronism rings on a telephone in their spoof on Jane Austen maidens. Everything is upside down and roundabout in their yo-yo spinning madness. Elizabethan maids set a banquet table that ends across the floor in a carpet of artificial fruit , food and flowers. Blood oozes from the lips of the Hollywood actresses. A locked door becomes the arbiter of doom as an imaginary monster approaches and disappears with a dropout of character. It is all ridiculous and if it tickles your humour, like one member of the audience you won’t be able to stop laughing.

Landed is parody on steroids. Every genre, every literary work, every silent horror movie, every theatrical style is up for ridicule as the performers blast their way through absurdity in one hour of laughter and idiocy. Like every happy ending there is a moral as Moore, Hart and Low crawl, slide or lumber off the stage to Alive from the musical Applause. Landed bursts with life, lands a heap of laughter and leaves to the sound of wild applause.  

Independents – Festival of New Works is a bold initiative by the Canberra Theatre Centre and the works included in this festival are quality performances. I would like to see more work by local artists included in the festival. There is enormous talent in Canberra and the Courtyard Studio with the auspices of the Canberra Theatre Centre is the ideal venue to showcase works that are new, experimental and developmental. I look forward to next year’s season.

 

 

 

ARCHDUKE TRIO

 

Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series

Amalia Hall, violin

Edward Neeman, piano

Patrick Suthers, cello

Gandel Hall, NGA 11 October

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

A rare musical gem was followed in this concert by a monumental classic.

In the 19^th century, Emilie Mayer composed eight symphonies, a piano concerto, at least 15 concert overtures and as many as 14 string quartets.

A review of one of her works in 1878 described her as a “rare phenomenon” but an exception to the rule that writing orchestral works was “the domain of the creative male intellect”. No wonder her music was largely forgotten! It’s good to see that her work has received renewed attention during the 21^st century.

Introduced by New Zealand violinist, Amalia Hall, Mayer’s Notturno for violin and piano in D minor, Op.48, andante, proved to be a lyrical, sensitive work with a peacefully flowing narrative from the basic theme, presenting new angles of vision in its development.

It was given a finely sensitive performance of great beauty by Hall and Edward Neeman, piano. It made you wish that more unknown works of quality by women of that era could be discovered.

Amalia Hall, violin, Edward Neeman, piano and Patrick Suthers, cello

Beethoven’s monumental Archduke, the piano trio in B Flat major, Op. 97, followed with Patrick Suthers, cello, joining Hall and Neeman. Suthers gave a very entertaining introduction to the work, noting that Beethoven must have been in a surprisingly good mood when he composed it.

In four movements, the trio commenced with a sunny piano melody soon taken up and embellished by the violin and the cello. It was playful, dramatic, and melodic but also with a sense of grandeur.

The second movement, unexpectedly a Scherzo, was darker and a good contrast to the first movement. The tranquil third movement started reverently and then quietly proceeded with several delicate variations. It led directly into the joyous fourth movement, a rondo, returning to the sunny main theme and bringing the work to a triumphant close.

The artists met the challenges of the work superbly. Their highly sensitive performance of the third movement was the highlight of this memorable concert.

Photo by Arianne Schlumpp

 

This review was first published by Canberra CityNews digital edition on 12 October 2026.

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

Len Power also presents the weekly Concert Hall program on Artsound FM, playing recordings of some of the best concerts from in and around Canberra. Concert Hall can be heard on Sundays at 8pm and is repeated on Wednesdays at 2pm.

 

 

THE INDEPENDENTS: FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS. - Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio.

 

The Independents: Festival of New Works – Program 1

Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio – October 9 - 11, 2026.                  

 Week 1 - Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Promising a celebration of bold theatre, dance and storytelling from some of the country’s most exciting independent artists, this festival presented by the Canberra Theatre Centre offers four shows from the Sydney Fringe Festival, two being works by local artists and creatives.

The festival runs over two weeks with two shows being presented in tandem in the same venue each week.

Mikelangelo in the Belly of the Whale.

  Co-created by Michael Simic and Tracy Bourne and performed by Michael Simic.

Croation-Australian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and performer, Michael Simic and his alter ego, Mikelangelo, are no strangers to Canberra audiences, having built up a loyal local and International following over the years both with his band, the Black Sea Gentlemen, and as a solo performer. Indeed, his Canberra performances last year saw him celebrated as The Canberra City News 2025 Artist of the Year.

This solo show, also first seen in 2025, is perhaps his bravest and most personal offering to date, delving as it does into his relationship with his father, and the challenges of his own fatherhood while maintaining are peripatetic career as an entertainer.

Beginning on familiar ground with Simic as Mikelangelo in storyteller mode, accompanying himself on accordion, exhorting his audience to join him on an adventure for which they need to learn some three-part interpolations to a jolly sea shanty ominously entitled “The Eye of the Storm”.

A skilled storyteller and practised charmer, when a line in another shanty, “The Art of Consumption” reminds Simic of his father, he suddenly drops his alter ego, to dwell on his own childhood, specifically, his relationship with his father, leading to thoughts of his own efforts at being a good father and husband.  

It is in this section that his show is at its most captivating and compelling. But just as revelations threaten to become too personal, Mikelangelo returns, along with a storm, a giant squid and a sperm whale, which swallows Mikelangelo.

In the whale’s belly, Simic argues with Mikelangelo. They duel. Simic sings “The Man You Want to Be”, strips off most of his clothes just as the whale decides to eject him through its sphincter, from which he emerges covered in silver glitter.  

But at this performance, the lights came up too quickly, revealing Simic frantically covering himself in silver gel, forcing him to drop all pretence of acting, and forever the entertainer, rescue the performance with an awesome display of charm and showmanship.

For all its strengths, Mikelangelo in the Belly of the Whale remains a promising work-in- progress with unsolved challenges for both performer and director.

ICHOR  - Directed by John Fabry for Treachery of Images (TOI).

Ichor is an astonishing physical theatre work performed by John Fabry together with Matteo Panucci, Bayley Prendergast, Anthony King and Callum Stephens.

As each took the stage, initially costumed in drab brown leather and cloth, their bodies smeared with ash, the suggestion was of primordial, neanderthal creatures, who crouched, hissed, snarled and grunted ominously at each other, in an effort to communicate and socialise, but without established rules to guide them as to how to proceed.

During the process, they discard their outer coverings to impress each other by indulging in hyper-masculine behaviour, posing, pushing and shoving in tightly choreographed episodes.

The discovery of wooden staffs enables them to communicate with rhythmic patterns until one breaks away from the group to sit alone. When another joins him and attempts physical contact, his efforts are roughly rebuffed, to the surprise of both.

For most of the work, performing in brief black trunks and kneepads, the five performers displayed super-fit bodies, and enviable endurance, as they performed Fabray’s physical demanding choreography for a fascinating original work that explores ideas of male identity, conformity and self-acceptance making it a neat pairing with Michael Simic’s work which tackled similar topics in a very different way.

The programming for the second week of the Festival suggests that the presentations on offer will explore similar topics from a female perspective.

                                                               Images provided.



                           This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.Link here

FACE TO FACE

 

Written by David Williamson directed by Celine Oudin.  Mockingbird Theatre,The Studio. Belconnen Arts Centre. Oct 7-17.

 

This is an intriguing piece, set on a row of chairs facing the audience. There’s nothing else in the way of a set, unusual for a David Williamson play, but it is enough.

 

Ten people have come together for a mediation. Glen (Joshua Nicholls) is there because he rammed the back of his boss’s Mercedes after he was sacked. It’s mediation or court.

Joshua Nicholls (Glen)

 

There’s no interval, the action is taut and the emphasis is on unravelling what looks at first like a simple event. Jack Manning (Sachin Nayak) is in gentle charge of this. As he repeatedly reminds Glen, it is this or a trial and the traditional consequences.

Sachin Nayak (Jack Manning)

 

The story unrolls slowly, under quiet questioning from Jack. How Glen (Joshua Nichols ) is running his scaffolding firm comes under severe scrutiny. His wife Claire ( Victoria Tyrell Dixon) has things to say about their relationship. The women who run the firm’s office, Julie (Chloe Smith) and Therese (Sophia Castello) have other secrets.

 

Workers Barry (Zade Fainstein), Luka (Ryan Hedley), and Richard (David Yates) reveal lots of industrial shortcomings in the running of the workplace. Revelations and attitudes come out into the open.

 

Even though he clearly has his own problems, recognised by his very supportive mother Maureen (Anna Hemmings) Glen’s sacking has had deeper reasons, linked to a careless workplace culture.

 

There’s a beginning, middle and end to the structure with a fair amount of turmoil in between the row of empty chairs at the beginning and the same image at the end. The ideas of the play lie in modern restorative practices and ancient restorative ones like those of the Maori but it also owes a debt to pieces like Twelve Angry Men.

 

Director Celine Oudin and a cast who individualise the characters strongly give a clear eyed production of a play that should provoke thought about consequences and justice.

 

Alanna Maclean

FROZEN

Directed by James Tolhurst-Close. Musical director Callum Tolhurst-Close. Free Rain Theatre Company. The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan. To Oct 11.

 

I have an anti Disney gene. And was raised on unadulterated Hans Christian Andersen, unhappy endings and all. However, stories change and narratives develop and Frozen can stand on its own two feet.

 

It’s a Disney spinoff but with a degree of gumption and with two, not one, heroines at its centre.

 

Chloe Stevenson as the forthright Anna and Charlotte Morphett as her magical sister Elsa leads a cheerfully happy cast that on opening night included a nicely reserved Mele Tuli and an exuberant Zahra Zulkapli as the younger Elsa and Anna. 

Charlotte Morphett (Elsa)

There’s good clear character work and singing from a cast that includes Joe Dinn as the relentlessly cheerful snowman Olaf and Jackson Gibbs as the ever reliable Kristoff. 

Chloe Stevenson (Anna) with the cast

The storyline of heroines passively falling for princes is surprisingly avoided and the emphasis is on the evolving sisterly solidarity between Anna and Elsa.

There’s a big and solid sounding orchestra in the pit under Callum Tolhurst-Close’s leadership that doesn’t put a foot wrong.

 

The set has its fascinating side, backed up by a film screen that does a very good job of changing the setting and the atmosphere. I miss the old painted backdrops but the images work and it does save a lot of flying. (Sets can’t be flown at The Q anyway.)

 

Free Rain’s exuberant production has been packing them in all season and success is easily judged by the number of kids who turn up in costume. It’s got enough magical elements to delight the young who will already know the story. That is excellently carried by Stevenson’s Anna and Morphetts’ Elsa as the central sisters.

 

No wonder that the audience is so full of little Elsas and Annas. Frozen clearly deserves what has been a highly successful season.

 

Alanna Maclean

THE INDEPENDENTS: FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS

 

The Independents: Festival of New Works.

 The Courtyard Studio. Canberra Theatre Centre. October 10-11 2026. Bookings:: 62752700 or canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Mikelangelo In The Belly of the Whale

 Co-created by Michael Simic and Tracy Bourne

 The self-appointed Nightingale of the Adriatic and Bull of the Balkans, Mikelangelo, alter ego of Michael Simic goes solo in his autobiographical account of his difficult balancing act as husband, father, the son of a complex father and a nationally renowned artist. Can singer, songwriter, musician, performer and former Canberra Artist of the Year Simic sway a packed audience in the Courtyard Studio without the support of the Black Sea Gentlemen. Can he charm the audience without the backing of an Adelaide Cabaret Festival Ban?. Can the Balkan Elvis send shivers down your spine with his rich baritone voice? The answer is a resounding yes.

 

But Simic is not merely alone with his trademark accordion, guitar and clarinet to tell the story of a journey across the metaphorical sea that will eventually thrust him on a search for true identity in the belly of a sperm whale. He is the Captain Ahab of his own life’s journey, accompanied by his charmed crew of mesmerized audience members ready at the slightest urging to la la along or join in the shanty to weather the storm that hurls our intrepid hero into the belly of the whale, where he finally confronts the home truths that he must face with Mikelangelo.

 Mikelangelo In The Belly of the Whale is a tender and personal account of the tranquil and turbulent seas that many artists must face. Simic is the consummate entertainer, the captivating storyteller and the Svengali of willing audience participation. With co-creator and director Tracy Bourne, Simic weaves a rollicking yarn that hoists the sails on an artist’s struggles to balance the ballast of his life. Like Jonah his epiphany comes with the struggle through the Sphincter into the light of revelation. As the song says, “It ain’t necessarily so.” (Struggling through the sphincter I mean).

 Simic’s personal and heartfelt account of his life and the battles that he faces makes for a thoroughly enjoyable and at times surpirising hour in the company of a caring husband, a loving father, a compassionate family man and an entertainer who never fails to give his audiences a whale of a time.

 Ichor.

Directed by John Fabry. Cast: John Fabry, Mario Panucci, Bayley Prendergast, Anthony King, and Callum Stephens.

 

The meaning of contemporary dance and physical theatre so often rests in the interpretation of the beholder. So it is with the second show of The Independents’ double bill. Nothing could be in greater contrast to Mikelangelo In The Belly Of The Whale than John Fabry’s sinewy dance piece, Ichor. Five male dancers including Fabry  enter the stage. They each wear loin cloths and are marked with patterns of black streaks and tribal markings. Their bodies ripple with muscularity and youthful vigour, elastic in their steely physicality. Fabry’s choreography lends primeval animalism to their corporality. It is strong, sinewy and confronting in its subversive aggression. It is unabashedly masculine, admirable in its physical strength and fine physique. But what does it all mean- the leaps, the growls, the beating rhythms of sticks upon the tarquet, the conformity and the eviction of the outcast individual?

 The Greek word Ichor refers to fluid that flows like blood through the veins of the Gods or a watery fluid emanating from a wound. In the absence of a programme, the spectator is left to wonder. At times, while two dancers explore the mystery of sexual attraction, others raise their hands in supplication to a possible higher authority. Am I witnessing the evolution of the human animal, from the tribal collective to communication to sexuality to the development of language, repeatedly uttered in an incomprehensible tongue to the audience? Possibly. And then again perhaps not.

 

Without a clearer indication of intent, the work becomes repetitive and mystifying. The dancers are agile, virile and expressive in their choreography as they progress from individual dance to ensemble interaction. I couldn’t help feeling that a shorter work with the explanation of the theme and content would have made for a far more satisfying experience. Refer to the Bangarra programmes with their detailed and helpful notes.

 The Canberra Theatre Centre is to be applauded for providing artists with the opportunity to experiment with new work and a platform for community to witness the diversity of arts practice. In the case of Ichor, an outside eye may have resolved some of the issues that detracted from a potentially powerful piece.