ROMEO AND JULIET SUITE No.2

Presented by Canberra Youth Music and Canberra Dance Development Centre

Llewellyn Hall Saturday 23^rd June 2012

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Georgia Powley and Hayden Baum
with
The Canberra Youth Orchestra
(Photo:Greg Primmer) 

Canberra Youth Music and Canberra Dance Development Centre pooled their resources to present an impressive and satisfying Shakespearean themed concert in Llewellyn Hall.

The opening work was the lovely tone poem “The Bard” written in 1913 by Jean Sibelius. Although short, this piece makes considerable demands on the players because of its richly detailed colouring. After a rather tentative start, the young musicians of The Canberra Youth Orchestra, carefully guided by conductor Rowan Harvey-Martin, soon settled into the mystical atmosphere of the piece to produce a deeply satisfying performance.

No sign of hesitancy in the second piece, “Suite from Henry V”.   Muir Matheson’s stirring  arrangement of music  written  by Sir William Walton for Sir Laurence Olivier’s acclaimed film of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” convincingly  captures the period feel of the source material, and it was clear from their strong, confident playing,  that the young players were revelling in the dramatic possibilities inherent in the arrangement, as much as the audience.

This confidence flowed over to the third piece of the evening, “The Walk to Paradise Garden”, the gorgeous intermezzo written by Frederick Delius for his opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet”.  This beautiful emotive music was superbly played by the young orchestra and set the mood and tone perfectly for the major drawcard of the evening, a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s evocative “Suite No. 2 from Romeo and Juliet” presented with full orchestra and dancers from the Canberra Dance Development Centre.

Usually, in this type of presentation the dancers perform in front of the orchestra, which often results in the dancer’s movements being blurred by the movement of the orchestra players behind them.

On this occasion however, the vast stage of the Llewellyn Hall was divided into two separate areas, with the orchestra on one side, and the dance area, covered by a dance tarkett, on the other. It worked beautifully.

Jackie Hallahan had choreographed the seven short movements which make up the suite into a one-act ballet depicting the major incidents of the familiar Romeo and Juliet story. Commencing with the dramatic meeting of the Montague and Capulet families and progressing through to the final death scene in the family crypt, the choreography was clear, expressive and in complete harmony with the music. Most importantly it was confidently and beautifully executed by the young dancers.

 Highlights included the dramatic opening sequence with the dancers costumed in lovely flowing red and black costumes, and the lovely pas de deux superbly danced by Georgia Powley and Hayden Baum.

As seems de rigueur at concerts in the Llewellyn Hall, Rowan Harvey-Martin made an impassioned statement during the concert drawing attention to the impact of the current situation involving the Canberra School of Music, and the truth of her comments was compellingly demonstrated by this remarkable concert by two of Canberra’s leading youth organisations.

The Venetian Twins

The Venetian Twins

By Nick Enright and Terence Clarke, Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3, 22 June to 7 July 2012. 

Malcolm Miller

Commedia dell'Arte originated with travelling groups of poor players who visited villages and tailored their show to amuse and entertain everybody, including the children.  Our 'Punch and Judy' is the remnant of these days and still amuses people of all ages.  Slapstick, pantomime, and the goonish humour developed during and after WW2 in England have been combined with Commedia by Australians Nick Enright and composer Terence Clarke in a genuine Aussie musical brought to life by multi-talented Director Tessa Bremner for Canberra's Repertory theatre company. 

The story is a very old one, perhaps as old as theatre itself, of twins separated early in life and arriving in the same place to be confused and confusing to everybody, including each other.  Ocker Zanetto and sophisticated Tonino are both played with delightful distinctness of character by Josh Wiseman, on a set with the necessary swinging doors to enable quick changes from one to the other.  Ian Croker as the comically villainous Pancrazio shines as he attempts to interfere in the romantic arrangements and planned marriage of Zanetto and Rosina, played by a winsome Bronte Forrester.  Dick Goldberg scores most of the laughs as Ariecchino, the inept servant of Zanetto.

The set designed by Ian Macdonald is clearly inspired by that Australian icon of the 1950s, the Ettamogah Pub, with its crazily out-of-square buildings. 

The strong cast includes the experienced Kate Tricks as the conniving and manipulative servant Columbina in a delightful performance, and singer Pamela Andrews whose wonderful voice brought the character of Beatrice, Tonino's lover, to splendid life. 

Costumes designed by Kate Levy brought the actors from Verona in the 18th century to Jindyworoback in the 20th.

The music from a back-stage band under Jim McMullen, and Musical Director Raphael Wong, is full of Terence Clarke's musical jokes and references, which should delight lovers of musical theatre.  Nick Enright's script, with the suggested local and contemporary references added by Bremner, builds a unique mix of Commedia, ocker humour, and farce which I found totally delightful.

The Venetian Twins

By Nick Enright and Terence Clarke, Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3, 22 June to 7 July 2012. 

Malcolm Miller

Commedia dell'Arte originated with travelling groups of poor players who visited villages and tailored their show to amuse and entertain everybody, including the children.  Our 'Punch and Judy' is the remnant of these days and still amuses people of all ages.  Slapstick, pantomime, and the goonish humour developed during and after WW2 in England have been combined with Commedia by Australians Nick Enright and composer Terence Clarke in a genuine Aussie musical brought to life by multi-talented Director Tessa Bremner for Canberra's Repertory theatre company. 

The story is a very old one, perhaps as old as theatre itself, of twins separated early in life and arriving in the same place to be confused and confusing to everybody, including each other.  Ocker Zanetto and sophisticated Tonino are both played with delightful distinctness of character by Josh Wiseman, on a set with the necessary swinging doors to enable quick changes from one to the other.  Ian Croker as the comically villainous Pancrazio shines as he attempts to interfere in the romantic arrangements and planned marriage of Zanetto and Rosina, played by a winsome Bronte Forrester.  Dick Goldberg scores most of the laughs as Ariecchino, the inept servant of Zanetto.

The set designed by Ian Macdonald is clearly inspired by that Australian icon of the 1950s, the Ettamogah Pub, with its crazily out-of-square buildings. 

The strong cast includes the experienced Kate Tricks as the conniving and manipulative servant Columbina in a delightful performance, and singer Pamela Andrews whose wonderful voice brought the character of Beatrice, Tonino's lover, to splendid life. 

Costumes designed by Kate Levy brought the actors from Verona in the 18th century to Jindyworoback in the 20th.

The music from a back-stage band under Jim McMullen, and Musical Director Raphael Wong, is full of Terence Clarke's musical jokes and references, which should delight lovers of musical theatre.  Nick Enright's script, with the suggested local and contemporary references added by Bremner, builds a unique mix of Commedia, ocker humour, and farce which I found totally delightful.

W.A.Mozart e il Corno di Bassetto. Delta Wind Consort

W.A.Mozart e il Corno di Bassetto.  Delta Wind Consort at Palazzo dei Capitani, Malcesine, Italy, Tuesday 19 giugno 2012 – ore 21:00

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Though I am not a technical expert in acoustics, nor qualified to properly analyse the Delta Wind Consort’s interpretation of Mozart’s music, I felt I could not pass up the opportunity to say that I have surely found a solution to the Fitters’ Workshop dilemma.  Import, holus bolus, the 17th Century Palazzo dei Capitani from Malcesine.

At ground level is a great hall which opens onto a neat French style garden with steps providing access to boarding boats, admittedly on a 350 metre deep glacial Lake Garda, rather than a rather less impressive Kingston Foreshore – but you can’t have everything.

Upstairs, with floor to ceiling windows looking out across the lake to the high mountains just a bit bigger than Monte Ainslie, the concert hall has huge timbers breaking up the ceiling to create what seemed to me to be just the right acoustic for the wide register of sound generated by the three corni di bassetto led by Ferrante Casellato, with Raffaele Magosso and Antonio Pozzato.

It was a delight to hear these instruments of the clarinet family work so well together in selected pieces, mainly arias, from Le nozze di Figaro KV 492, Il Flauto magico KV 620, Così fan tutte KV 588 and Don Giovanni KV527.  Of course, the encore just had to be a whimsical Pa pa pa from the Magic Flute, but the piece I felt brought out the sense of musical history was the complete Divertimento in Fa magg. KV 229.

It was here that the description of the Delta Wind Consort as un gruppo cameristico came to the fore.  The light surface of the divertimento was underlaid by touches of dark colouring, and it was easy to imagine Wolfgang and Constanza testing out the music ready to perform in places like this small palazzo in Malcesine.

Behind the presentation by the Delta Wind Consort was the Benacus Chamber Orchestra Association, formed in 2009 to provide opportunities for young professional players to perform in venues around northern Italy, working in cooperation with the local organisations, in this case the Commune di Malcesine Assessorato all cultura, and under the patronage of the Provincia di Verona. The link is www.benacuschamberorchestra.com/ .

And the Palazzo, at least in its current manifestation in Malcesine, even has a built-in English pub and café, run by a north country English couple who provide huge pots of Tetley tea – something wonderful indeed in 30 degree summer temperatures.  Perhaps we should import the lot as a going concern.

ROGER WOODWARD

Canberra Theatre. 7^th June 2012

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Whoever advised Roger Woodward that it was a good idea to perform his concert on the vast, stripped-back Canberra Theatre stage on one of the coldest nights of the year, did him a disservice. But even in this setting, which had all the atmosphere of a draughty aircraft hangar, and saddled with a piano which required the services of a tuner throughout the interval, plus a noisy air-conditioning system, Roger Woodward still managed to enchant his audience with an evening of superlative piano playing.

 Although some  may have wished for a more adventurous  program featuring the compositions of some of the contemporary composers like Xenakis, Takemitsu or Sitzky  that he so famously champions ,  the carefully chosen program of Debussy, Mozart, Bach and Chopin  proved deeply satisfying and provided plenty of opportunities  for Woodward to display the virtuosity for which he is so justly admired.

The first of the three Debussy Estampes with which Woodward opened the concert, certainly suffered from the unsympathetic atmosphere as the audience struggled to capture the delicate evocations of oriental temples being conjured up from the piano. However, Woodward’s intense, no-nonsense technique and Debussy’s lush textures soon won over and we quickly succumbed to the beauty of the pieces and to Woodward’s fascinating interpretations.

But if the Debussy hadn’t done the trick, then Woodward’s enthralling performance of  the three selections from Mozart’s  K570 piano sonata, and three preludes and fugues from J.S.Bach’s “Well Tempered Clavier”  certainly left no doubt  of his command and mastery of his instrument.

The second half of the program was devoted to Chopin. It included three mazurkas, the "Fantaisie in F minor", the "Ballade No. 4 in F.Minor" and finished with an exhilarating, gutsy account of the familiar "Polonaise in A – Flat Major", which left the audience cheering.  Rewarded with three encores which included a glittering account of the famous “Waltz in C Sharp minor”, most left the theatre aglow from the performance just experienced. Others perhaps mused on the somewhat bizarre presentation in our premier theatre venue of one of Australia’s national treasures.  

Wagner, Brecht and the old blokes with the IPads…

By Alanna Maclean

It was a Sunday where the new crashed into the old.

At the Dendy there was Susan Froemke’s long and absorbing documentary on the Metropolitan Opera’s collaboration with Robert Lepage to produce a new look for Wagner’s Ring Cycle.  Outside the Lincoln Centre in New York the purists fumed before they’d even seen Lepage’s mighty many armed machine on stage, a machine that, overlaid with various projections and moving in multiple configurations, would, in theory, be much more flexible in presenting Wagner’s huge concepts than previous attempts.

It’s kind of appropriate that the whole set echoes Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Everything from the Rhine River in Das Rheingold to the immolation of Brunnhilde in Gotterdammerung is played out on, over, on top of and in between the ‘planks’ of the set, revolving on a central spine. Rhine maidens get their fins caught in the cracks in rehearsal, stunt doubles at the end of cables walk the vertical rainbow bridge to Valhalla and Deborah Voigt’s Brunnhilde covers well for a nasty first night tumble on what must have been at times a stage with a terrifying rake.

This is a film for anyone with even a passing interest in staging but it is the techies who will revel in the detail and the backstage shots of the people who wear black. On the design front it’s a bit of an object lesson in the perils of driving things by computer. Masses of blokes with laptops debate seriously as the machine and the opera audibly grind to a halt in rehearsal. Of course halts and accidents are not unknown with more conventional staging but this is so massive and so much has been invested in designing and building the set that you want it to work.

Whether it does so theatrically is another matter. This documentary was shown as a curtain raiser to the Dendy’s Met Opera The Ring Cycle Encore Screenings, but film is not theatre. It’s all very impressive but I’m watching it at one remove and a trip to NY is expensive. I have a certain trust in Lepage’s capacity, however, having loved his Far Side of the Moon some years ago at the Sydney Festival.

There could be more about the lighting, which is a key transformational element, not just washing the machine with the kind of projections that Wagner’s stagecraft could perhaps only do with paint but also with placing pools of light and washes where they need to be. Certainly the computers are involved in this these days but it was good to see that follow spots still seemed to be operated by humans. And they were not bringing the show to its knees.

It’s important to remember that this is also a film about the real and hard work of putting a show together, something it reflects very clearly. And it does not neglect front of house either; the pithy and perceptive comments of one of New York’s wonderful, knowledgeable, middle aged, outspoken theatre ushers are also given a moment.

It all makes me want to rush off to the encore screening to see if I can guess from that how it all might have worked on the stage.

No such problem over at The Street last weekend where John Muirhead and Chuck Mallett’s Brecht: Bilbao and Beyond played to full houses. No huge machines here, just two older blokes, a fancy chair, a grand piano, a black box stage, a bit of illumination and a couple of IPads.

That last set me back, I can tell you. No page turning for Mallett at the piano, no piles of taped together music, no discrete running list page for Muirhead. Never mind the Met’s machine – here’s the future in an instant and Muirhead’s knowing cherub of a Bertold Brecht is waving it at us, while at every fade to black Mallett’s mediaeval imp’s face is reflecting its blue.

As for what they did with seventy minutes with Brecht’s poems and songs, it was a window on the work beyond the plays as well as one that allowed a glimpse into The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage in particular. Brecht’s sardonic and uncompromising views on war, on poverty, on the need for humanity made for a thoroughly engrossing and human show done by a couple of surefooted veterans.

These little shows at The Street sneak up and vanish fast. Look out for further Solo at The Street pieces like Paul Capsis’ Angela’s Kitchen (13-23 June), Michael Hurst’s Frequently Asked Questions (10-21 July) and Boy Girl Wall with Lucas Stibbard (22AAug-1 Sept). Angela’s Kitchen has already had publicity and that for Boy Girl Wall is yet to come, but I don’t forget that New Zealand’s Michael Hurst not only comes with a great theatre pedigree but was also Hercules’ funny and endearing sidekick Iolaus in the Hercules TV series. He would also appear to have been the only actor in New Zealand not in The Lord of the Rings.

Whether any of the above will come waving their IPads remains to be seen. 

Shakespeare Lives....

By Alanna Maclean

Never underestimate the vitality of Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare has just been in town with a Macbeth with a very spare and contemporary approach.

Meanwhile a film based on Macbeth called Shakespeare Must Die has just been banned in Thailand.

Updates are nothing new for the look of a Shakespeare of course but what happens when his plays are being viewed by those for whom English is not the first language? (I don’t include the moanings of decades of English speaking students who have generally gone from Shakespeare illiterate to Shakespeare literate once they got themselves on stage doing it.)

Late in 2011 I was doing a workshop about Shakespeare in Thailand at Makhampom Theatre’s Chiang Dao centre. We’d called it Shakespeare in the Rice Fields but it really didn’t end up being about that in more than a metaphysical way. We were in the main theatre space there, which is like a long, two-storied version of the New Globe in London surrounded by water and sitting in the middle of the rice fields. Because the sides are open in the daytime the rice fields become a background. You are never, in that place, unaware of agriculture. (Or architecture)

Makhampom’s Richard Barbour was a bit nervous about language since it looked like the group were going to be all Thai (The non-Thais had not come to Thailand for the big Makhampom Theatre Reunion Forum fortnight to find out about Shakespeare). So was I but only because my Thai is still only enough to navigate a market, a restaurant or a taxi ride. I’m a long way from following the snappy dialogue of a satirical likhe play with any kind of comprehension. However, I’d just spent two weeks teaching drama to Akha students in Chiang Rai and had confidence as always in the Thai translator, what mutual English and Thai we might all muster and the goodwill that always accompanies Makhampom. 

As for Shakespeare’s language, we weren’t going to be tackling that except for the occasional short key quotation. If I’d chosen Hamlet the key one might have been ‘To be or not to be’.  Or the Ghost’s ‘Remember me…’. The intent was to work on the two turning points in The Winter’s Tale,  ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’ (the only stage direction in Shakespeare that I am inclined to trust) and the scene where Hermione’s statue comes to life at the end and Leontes says ‘O she’s warm’.

The group were frank about what they saw as their lack of knowledge. ‘We know Baz Luhrman’s Romeo+Juliet’ they said but actually there’s much more Shakespeare in Thailand than that and they showed that they knew about Hamlet and Macbeth at least by name. And one of the Thai kings, Oxford educated King Rama VI, translated three of his plays (The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet) into Thai. I even once glimpsed the casket scene from The Merchant of Venice being done by a school group in a Bangkok mall.

What they came up with in a two hour session (that extended into a longer discussion) were a couple of moving and accurate responses to the two scenes, underpinned by lifetimes of training in Thai movement and performance styles. As for the language, it became Thai for the purposes of the afternoon and much could be said about the way clowns seem to be universal. This group rightly brought the man eating bear and the clown seeing it all and the people drowning on the ship sinking at sea all on stage. We don’t know what Shakespeare’s theatre did with ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’, but the group bought right into the theatricality of the scene. The sound of the drums scraping across the concrete floor, accidentally discovered and incorporated, was a nerve-racking addition to the bear’s slow motion meal. 

I admit to having to hold back any interference when the group put a very 1960s bucket hat on the head of Hermione for the statue scene but when it ran in performance she echoed the 1960s Queen Sirikit who came with the king to Australia and dazzled my generation with her glamour. Again, the emotion of the moment was there. And for an hour after we were supposed to finish we were all still there, talking about what the session had uncovered about ways to work on a daunting text by targeting the key moments.

If you want some idea of the epic stories that drive Thai performance then they can be found among Makhampom’s contemporary performances. Elements of the Thai Ramayana  (the Ramakien) surfaced during the many Thai performances at the Forum as did Buddhist and folk tales.

These can also be seen in a variety of much more commercial theatre pieces in Bangkok. Shows like the royal sponsored Sala Chalermkhrung and the huge Siam Niramit are a good introduction to the Thai sense of the epic as is the Phuket Fantasea, complete with acrobats over the audience’s heads, a procession of elephants and a bevy of live chickens. The Joe Louis Puppets may have to be hunted out from wherever they are now based, having lost their old Bangkok theatre, but I’m sure I spotted some of their half life size puppets each with two to three operators at the Thai Festival in Sydney a few weeks ago.

There’s also a contemporary ‘black box theatre’ scene that is well worth searching for. Patravadi Theatre over the river in Thonburi stages some good examples of this but there’s also lovely socially acute work done by Makhampom in their tiny converted beauty parlour in Saphan Kwai (‘behind the police post where the bomb went off ‘) and by powerful groups like the Butoh based B-Flor. You won’t find most of this in Lonely Planet but a search of the internet and an eye on the newspaper arts pages might just send you down a dark alley to see Thailand’s theatre of the now.

Shakespeare might not always feature (I did once see a Thai version of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther at the Crescent Moon theatre in the Pridi Banomyong Institute) but if he does, rest assured he will be bent to Thai needs and views.

BRECHT: BILBOA AND BEYOND

Devised, written and performed by John Muirhead and Chuck Mallett

Street Theatre 1^st to 3^rd June 2012.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Who would have thought that an evening of Brecht could be so joyous, exhilarating and profoundly moving? Not adjectives usually associated with Brecht but perfectly appropriate for this spellbinding evening of superb cabaret.

No microphones, no setting except black drapes, just a piano, a chair, a couple of scarves, and most surprisingly, two Ipads. Yet these two performers, elegantly attired in black (what else?) shared their fascination and deep knowledge of the life, from cradle to grave, of Berthold Brecht, through his songs, poems and writings in a 70 minute virtuoso performance which left their audience excited and enthralled.  

This is cabaret as it should be. Interesting material performed by extraordinary artists. Usually there would be no need to mention their ages, which normally would be irrelevant, but with these two extraordinary performers, their ages are a crucial factor in their show, because John Muirhead and Chuck Mallett between them bring over 90 years of accumulated theatre experience to their performance, and it shows.

Now 76 years old, John Muirhead’s careful enunciation and strong mellifluent baritone confirm the legacy of more than 40 years working as an actor, mainly in England, performing on stage in productions such as Tommy, Stop the World I Want To Get Off, Boys in the Band (the original Emory) and in The Seagull with Judi Dench, as well as films including On The Beach, Ned Kelly and Juggernaut.

Chuck Mallet, a sprightly 87 year old, has worked for more than 50 years in London’s West End, including seven years as Musical Director at the English National Theatre during the reign of Sir Laurence Olivier. Among the hundreds of professional actors he coached have been Sir Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Angela Lansbury and Miriam Margolyes.

In “Brecht: Bilboa and Beyond” all this experience is distilled into a performance, extraordinary for its authenticity and economy of focus. Witness the ease with which John Muirhead, with just a scarf tied around his head, or a coat with the sleeves tied behind him to become an apron, or held aloft to represent a baby, conjures up Mother Courage, Mrs Peachum, Brecht’s lover, Arnholt Bronnen or a whole stage full of Brechtian characters.

Marvel at how simply and unobtrusively Chuck Mallett, in addition to providing superb piano accompaniment and exquisite musical settings for several of Brecht’s poems and writings, further enhances the performance by occasionally leaving the piano to join Muirhead in songs or dramatic vignettes.

"Brecht: Bilboa and Beyond" is a highly polished and deeply entertaining experience, not so much in a laugh-out-loud way, but more profoundly, from the privilege of sharing with the rest of the audience a very rare and special theatrical happening.