… Is somebody gonna match my freak?

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

… Is somebody gonna match my freak? I Sophie Dumaresq & Asil Habara

M16Artspace, Gallery 1 | 24 January – 16 February 2025

…Is somebody gonna match my freak? is an exhibition by two multidisciplinary artists Asil Habara and Sophie Dumaresq. They were the 2024 recipients of the M16 Artspace ANU Emerging Artists Support Scheme residencies.

The exhibition’s title is taken from the lyrics of Nasty - a 2024 pop song by an American singer and songwriter Tinashe which went viral. “Match my freak” means finding someone who matches your weirdness and enjoys the same niche interests as you. Are we all a bit freaky? Is it a good feeling to find someone whose energy precisely matches yours? That was the philosophy behind this surging new bit of internet culture slang that also became a Trending TikTok sound.

The show is a tongue-in-check reference to the two artists shared sense of humour and interest in online popular culture, shit posting and the very real-life currents behind driving viral trends. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, shitposts on social media are of little to no sincere insightful substance. They may well be posted, as their sole purpose, to confuse, provoke or entertain. They are not specifically designed to evoke reactions.

Addressing topics ranging from the religious, to a popular reality dating television show “Love Island” and online consumer influencer culture, Asil Habara invites audiences to reflect on the profound intersections of culture and technology. This artist’s works in this exhibition are visually arresting and have amazing titles. Some are digital prints on satin cloth or on poly fil. Others are screenprints on paper or linen. The vibrancy of their colours is astoundingly powerful. Visitors may well find themselves simply feeling immersed in them. The artist is seeking to engage, to question and to be part of a larger dialogue shaping the cultural landscape. There are also some other types of works – found heels covered with colourful “saucy” images on collaged paper, and a found hat similarly improved via decoration.

bom cha cha cha cha, 2024. Digital print on satin cloth – Asil Habara
a new bombshell has entered the villa, 2024. Digital print on satin cloth – Asil Habara

Community is being in the third space with five hinge matches, at least two people who have seen your hole, ex housemates that went horrible, ex housemates that went well, a subleter who u rejected, friends with mutual distancing, three people that are currently in your dms, a secret crush or two, people who pretend not to know you from Instagram, randomly someone you went to primary school with, a guy with allegations but people for some reason are still friends with him, a string of lesbians who have all seen each other, a string of gays who have all seen each other, everyone being a dj while being all burnt out and everyone talking about moving to melbourne, sydney or berlin, 2025.Satin cloth, wood – Asil Habara

Crucifixion, 2025. Recycled timber, paper.
Asil Habara and Conor Ward

u know my swag not my story (i), (ii) & (iii), 2025
Screenprints on linen – Asil Habara

Valley girls giving blowjobs for Louboutins What you call that? Head over heels, 2025.
Found heels, collaged paper - Asil Habara

Sophie Dumaresq’s artworks feature her trademark pinks. As we have come to expect, she has used hand dyed and felted human hair. Other different elements in the artworks include rabbit and red fox skulls. The catalogue also reveals her use of plywood, a car hood, oil paint, hair spray, invisible blood and spit and UV reactive ink. She has provided UV torches to point at photos enabling us to see the otherwise invisible additions to their surfaces.

The titles of Dumaresq’s works are equally fascinating – “Like that one sex scene in Mulholland Drive” and “Manic Pixie Dream Rabbit Feet #1” are just two examples. Interestingly, in a new review of Mulholland Drive following the death of Director David Lynch, the reviewer Steve Palaski wrote “isn’t the kind of film that can be adequately explained, but I’ll give it a whirl.” If particular titles don’t move you and evoke feelings of familiarity within you, search for them on the Web and you should quickly identify clues as to why Dumaresq has used them. If you find yourself having trouble explaining to yourself, or to your friends, what this exhibition is all about, don’t be afraid, do the hard yards and give it a whirl. You’ll soon be showing your friends how vast your computer knowledge is!

Sophie Dumaresq - At it like f$$$ingrabbits (come find me hunny bunny), 2024.

Sophie Dumaresq - You can be my full time, baby, hot or cold, 2024.

Sophie Dumaresq, Like that one sex scene in Mulholland drive, 2024.

Together these two artists invite us to question the currents that shape our own material reality and cultural landscape, both online and IRL - come on, you must know it means In Real Life and is used to differentiate between online and offline worlds!

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS - Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney.

Based on a novel by Emily Bronte – Adapted and Directed by Emma Rice

Composer: Ian Ross – Set and Costume Design: Vicki Mortimer.

Sound & Video design: Simon Baker – Lighting Design: Jai Morjaria

Movement and Choreography: Etta Murfitt.

Presented by Liza McLean & Andrew Kay in association with A National Theatre, Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic and York Theatre Royal.

Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney. 31^st January to 15^th February 2025.

Opening night performance on 1^st February reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

This short, exclusive to Sydney, season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre gives Australian audiences an opportunity to experience a production by acclaimed British director Emma Rice.  

For those who have devoured Emily Bronte’s sprawling Gothic novel, this production will prove a fascination, not the least because of the economy with which the director and her creatives have managed to compress the myriad of detail contained in the epic novel into a production that runs less than three hours.

The story traces the convoluted lives of two wealthy families who lived in the Yorkshire moors in the 19^th century. It is complicated by the fact that many of the highly strung characters bear the same names as their ancestors.

For her adaptation, Rice approaches the story from the point of view of the moors, represented by a Greek chorus of actors who also play various characters from the novel as the play progresses.

A surrealistic stripped-back set design by Vicki Mortimer consists largely of cleverly stacked chairs. Wheeled on screens represent various locales. Lowered chandeliers differentiate the residences. Puppets are utilised to represent children and savage dogs. Atmospheric lighting, sound, and video, together with choreographed ensemble scenes provide additional atmosphere and spectacle.

 

Characters address the audience directly to express feelings, while members of the Moors keep the audience updated with hand-held blackboards on which are scribbled in chalk, the names of characters and the dates of the action taking place.

Throughout a haunting score played by onstage musicians and sometimes sung by the ensemble add to the other-worldly feel of the play, especially during the sections featuring the cello, played by TJ Holmes, who also portrays Dr Kenneth in the show.

Only John Leader as Heathcliff, Stephanie Hockley as Catherine and Nandi Bhebhe as the Leader of the Moors play a single character throughout. Each offers a memorable portrayal.  The other eight members of the company each play at least two or more supporting characters.  

 

On opening night, not all the actors had adjusted their vocal delivery to the size of the theatre, resulting in the loss of vital information. This, coupled with the heightened acting style, the ever-changing procession of neurotic characters, and Rice’s frenetic direction, although admittedly clever, provided a significant challenge to those trying to keep track of the convoluted storyline.  

This was particularly evident after interval when thirteen-year-old Cathy Linton is introduced and the story of how three years later she falls in love with Heathcliff’s son Linton commences. Despite the skill of the actors, the over-the-top melodrama of the pair’s story began to elicit nervous giggles, even belly laughs, rather than empathy.

Some laughs had also occurred in the first half of the production, and although it may have been the director’s intention to insert a few laughs into the proceedings to lighten the mood, although welcomed by some, they felt incongruous in the context of the storyline, and raised questions as to whether they were purposely placed or accidental.

For devotees of “Wuthering Heights” there is much to enjoy in this striking production. For those yet to be persuaded, this is your opportunity.

                                                    Photos by Steve Tanner

   This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au

 

 

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

Creek I Kirsten Wehner

M16Artspace, Gallery 2 I 24 January - 16 February 2025

Kirsten Wehner is a research-centred artist, curator, producer and writer living and working in Ngunnawal Country (Canberra). In her practice the artist works across a number of disciplines. She creates accessible writing, participatory experiences, sculpture installations, and a variety of visual media works.

Wehner is a Co-Director of Catchment Studio, an ACT-based independent creative platform transforming people’s relationships with waterways. She is also Co-Chair of the Board of the Cad Factory, an artist-led organisation based in Narrandera, NSW which collaborates ethically with people and place to create a local, national and international program of experimental work. And this busy artist also contributes to the committee of Plumwood Mountain, a unique 120-hectare heritage-listed private property near Braidwood, NSW which was handed back to the Walbunja people of the Yuin Nation in 2024 - the first time such a property has been gifted to an Aboriginal community.

Wehner is the M16 Artspace/ConceptSix Environmental Artist-in-Residence for 2024/5. Significant recent projects in which she has been involved include the National Museum of Australia pop-up touring installation River Country, the documentary More than a Fish Kill which explored how artists, fishery managers, and First Nations custodians processed 2019 and 2023 fish death events along the Darling River, and Finding Weston, Considering Country, a Traditional Custodian-led series of on Country walks. She has explored how disordered and unloved waterways can be re-imagined as holders of story and sites of cultural/ecological potential.

So where and what is Weston Creek? Located in south-western Canberra where a suburb carries its name, the creek was in the past “an intermittent stream, a system of rills, soaks and wetlands vibrantly alive with plants, insects and birds. Today, the waterway is largely piped and drained, forced underground or encased in concrete, struggling with pollution from street run-off and largely invisible to people who live in the area. And yet the creek is still there. Wehner says it is “flowing as it can, supporting life as it can, creating traces that ask us to know it.”

Immediately upon entering the gallery to see the artist’s exhibition, simply titled Creek, I was drawn to the framework of gathered sticks which invites us to imagine the creek as it once was. That, of course, is very much a part of what good artists do – they imagine things and invite those of us who see their artworks to do likewise.

Kirsten Wehner_Creek (installation view)_2024_Image Brenton McGeachie, courtesy the artist

Creek explores life along the Weston Creek waterway, asking what it might mean to care better for this particular disordered place. Inspired by talks and walks with Ngunawal Elders Uncle Wally Bell and Aunty Karen Denny that considered the creek as Country, Wehner explores some of the ways in which people connect with and seek to look after places along this waterway.

Just to the left of the stick structure some words about the exhibition pose a few questions adding to what we might think about. How might we respect and nurture Ngunawal wisdom? How does the work done by local park care groups sit alongside the invasive re-engineering of the creek’s flows? How can we listen to such waterways?

In what she appropriately describes as the “bends and eddies of the stick structure”, Wehner shows us some delightful watercolour and pastel works revealing what volunteers have done. Can we see how their efforts near to invasive engineering have contributed to the restoration of native habitat, despite the legacies of concrete drains?

Kirsten Wehner_Channel_2024_Image Brenton McGeachie, courtesy the artist

Other artworks in this excellent show incorporate ideas of fracture, using multiple panels or separated surfaces so we might avoid seeing the waterway simply as a ‘view.’

Kirsten Wehner_Flow Story_2024_Image Brenton McGeachie, courtesy the artist

Kirsten Wehner_Liferafts_2024_Image Brenton McGeachie, courtesy the artist

I considered how we humans think of fractures as something that occurs when our bones are broken, interfering with our everyday tasks. Then I thought about fractures in the land, caused naturally or by human interventions. Whether fractures occur naturally or otherwise, proper diagnosis and treatment are crucial for effective healing and recovery. Wehner is effectively encouraging us to understand that.




This review is also available on the author's blog here.

TITANIQUE - The Grand Electric Theatre, Sydney

The Cast of "Titanique".

Written by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, Tye Blue.

Produced by Michael Cassel and Eva Price.

Directed by Tye Blue – Choreographed by Ellenore Scott

Australian production directed and choreographed by Cameron Mitchell

Musical Direction by Hayden Barltrop – Costume design by Alejo Vietti

Sound Design Lawrence Schober, adapted by David Tonion

Lighting Design by Paige Seber adapted by Kathy Pineo.

The Grand Electric, Sydney until March 30^th 2025.

Matinee performance on February 1^st 2025 reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

 

Drew Weston (Jack) and the cast of "Titanique".

The inventors of the jukebox musical – a stage or film musical that uses popular songs instead of original music – have much to answer for.

The writers of “Titanique”, have played fast and loose with facts for this cleverly conceived concoction which purports to tell the probably untrue story of what really happened on the Titanic prior to its bingle with an iceberg.

The story is narrated by Celine Dion (Marney McQueen) who may or may not have been on the Titanic that night, assisted by a cast of characters, who, according to the film, definitely were, and some ring-ins like Tina Turner and Kathy Bates who definitely weren’t.

The result is a gloriously funny, superbly mounted and brilliantly performed example of high camp silliness guaranteed to uplift the spirits of even the most jaded individual attempting to reconnect with the real world while leaving the theatre with the song My Heart Will Go On still ringing in their ears.

There are plenty more of Dion’s songs threaded through this show, performed by an accomplished cast of eleven singers and actors who achieve polished harmonies and showstopping solos and duets, while revelling in the surfeit of witty double entendres that punctuate the clever script, and supported by a switched on four-piece band, Hayden Barltrop, Sam Loomes, Debbi Yap and Alysa Portelli who sometimes find themselves involved in the action.  

In the well-worn tradition of jukebox musicals, “Titanique” doesn’t confine itself to the repertoire of Celine Dion. A couple of surprises including Who Let the Dogs Out? and another particularly popular Aussie anthem, which must remain nameless because, as Dion confided, the producers don’t have the rights to it yet, find their way into the chaos.  

Sydney is the first city outside New York to experience this delightful piece of nonsense which has been running in New York since 2022 with new productions scheduled to open soon in Toronto, Montreal and London.

The Michael Cassel Group were quick to recognise the potential of the show and have certainly done their Australian production proud. The witty script is supported by excellent production values and a topflight cast directed and choreographed by Cameron Mitchell.

Marney McQueen and the cast of "Titanique".

Marney McQueen anchors the show, obviously relishing her role as Celine Dion. Georgina Hopson plays Rose, Drew Weston is Jack, and Matt Lee is Victor Garber.

Stephen Anderson is outrageous as Rose’s mother Ruth, (Yes! That’s right) chewing up the scenery at every opportunity, while Abigail Dixon gives him a run for his money as Molly Brown. Keane Sheppard-Fletcher oozes suave entitlement as Cal, Jack’s creepy rival for the affections of Rose.

Jo-Anne Jackson, Jenni Little and Trent Owers are kept busy providing sweet harmonies as well as impersonating the Titanic’s passengers, miscellaneous necessary others, and icebergs.

Talking of icebergs, another of those is artful scene stealer, Abu, who not only services the passengers as The Seaman, but also contributes a show-stopping turn as Tina Turner.   

At the matinee reviewed here, covers Artemis Alfonzetti and Matthew Predny played the young lovers, Rose and Jack, while Tyran Stig played Victor Garber. All were so good as to provide an excellent excuse to revisit the show.

In fact, several surrounding audience members were already on their second or third visit, obviously keen to share their experience with besties. No doubt the discovery of The Grand Electric Theatre, a cute heritage venue tucked away up a narrow lane in Cleveland Street, Sydney, may also have been a compelling attractor.

“Titanique” is a superior well-produced party show that doesn’t depend on audience participation for its success but of course embraces it with gusto. It is fast becoming a word-of-mouth sensation in Sydney, so it might be quite a while before you get the opportunity to see it elsewhere.

                                                         Photos by Daniel Boud

 

 

 An edited version of this review published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 04.02.25

Aria

 

Aria by David Williamson.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. January 24 – March 15, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 1

Creatives

Playwright: David Williamson
Director: Janine Watson;  Assistant Director: Anna Houston
Set & Costume Designer: Rose Montgomery
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox
Composer & Sound Designer: David Bergman
Operatic Voice Coach: Donna Balson
Intimacy Coordinator: Chloë Dallimore

 Cast
Monique - Tracy Mann

Her sons:
Charlie - Rowan Davie         Liam - Jack Starkey-Gill             Daniel - Sam O’Sullivan

Their wives:
Midge - Tamara Lee Bailey   Chrissy - Suzannah McDonald   Judy - Danielle King         
     
 _________________________________________________________________________  


David Williamson is only just a year younger than me, so when I say Aria is as good as the best of the old David Williamson, you know what I mean.  It’s full of the rapid and incisive repartee of Don’s Party but with the social and political world brought up to date.

And of course it’s funny, with his traditional one-liners – often causing us to universally groan while we laugh – and yet it’s a comedy, though never black, which brings out the honest reality to the third generation of this middle class family.  

Way back in The Department (1975) as the play ends Owen announces “It’s a girl” to add to his “four bloody boys already.”  And goes on “Boys are okay when they’re little, but by the time they’re about six they’re testing themselves out against you all the time.  I haven’t got the energy to cope with another.”  

And I hear Chrissy, the wife of Monique’s son, the ambitious never-at-home politician Liam, being accused of not disciplining her children and – in our social media world – in tears of frustration because they take no notice and just answer her back.  She wanted to be a teacher.  I hear the very same story from teachers today, in classrooms full of devices.

The beauty of Williamson’s writing is how we even end up feeling sorry for the deluded over-the-top capitalist Monique, singing Mozart's Queen’s aria which never made her the Maria Callas she believed she should have been, except that love, for her three boys, got in the way.

Ensemble Theatre, of course, has done the right thing again by providing the best in directing, designing and coaching for, in my view, an extraordinary team of actors.  The force of their energy as a group enlivens everyone as if Hayes Gordon is still here in his wonderful in-the-round acting space (and I am old enough to have seen him there at work).  

But much more than that, even, is each actor’s terrific awareness of the meaning of every word in Williamson’s script – not merely in their character’s personality, but so clearly motivated as to why they speak (or don’t) in their relationships with the other characters – and even further bringing out the implications in the metaphors which Williamson leaves implicit.  

Aria is exciting theatre of the very best kind – and kindness is what we need so much more of today.  At 84 it makes me charged with hope again by such great work from a mere 83-year-old.

Please don’t miss it!

 

 

 

MUSIC TO CELEBRATE

Salut! Baroque

Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest January 31

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

It’s hard to believe that in 2025 Salut! Baroque celebrates 30 years of presenting Baroque music.

Their first program for this year celebrated the entire spectrum of baroque music – from its near-beginning to its near-conclusion – presenting various composers who were either an influence for what was to come or influenced by what had already taken place.

A feature of a Salut! Baroque concert is the presentation of obscure or never heard before composers from the era. This concert offered works by Giovanni Antonio Guido and Jan Rokyta as well as works by several other composers.

The concert commenced with Tarquinio Merula’s canzona, The Nightingale, from 1615. Anna Stegmann, Sally Melhuish, Alana Blackburn and Alicia Crossley, playing recorders, gave this work a delightfully atmospheric performance.

On Baroque instruments, John Ma (violin), Julia Russoniello (violin), Isaiah Bondfield (violin), Brad Tham (viola), Tim Blomfield (bass violin) and Monika Kornel (harpsichord) then played Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s 1741 Concerto in E Flat Op. 7 No. 6, subtitled Arianna’s Tears. The sombre and contrasting bright and melodic sections were given a sensitive performance of great depth.

Salut! Baroque

The next item, Giovanni Guido’s Playful Harmonies on the Four Seasons – Summer Op. 3 from 1717 was performed by the string players. They were joined by Anna Stegmann on recorder for the final section, Dance of the Faun. The performance of this melodic and colourful work by the no longer well-known composer, Guido, proved to be one of the highlights of the concert.

Moving to an unexpected 1969, Balkanology, by Jan Rokyta for four recorders, this haunting, mysterious and complex work with Romanian and Turkish influences was given a superb performance by the four women on their recorders. The thunderous audience applause at the conclusion was well-deserved, making this another highlight of the concert.

There were also works by Johann Christian Schickhardt, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Each of these was given a fine performance by these musicians.

The concert concluded with a work written towards the end of the baroque period in 1750, Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto in A minor TWV 43. The combination of strings and recorder produced a rich sound that was at times dreamlike. It was memorably played and the perfect end to a concert that was educational as well as charming.

 

Photo by Dalice Trost

This review was first published by Canberra CityNews digital edition on 1 February 2025.

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/.

 

 

 

VALE NORMA ROBERTSON - Musical Director and accompanist extraordinaire.

 

Norma Robertson at the School of Arts Cafe in 1989 

NORMA ROBERTSON – 21^st March 1941 – 8^th January 2025 - Musical Director and Accompanist Extraordinaire.

Friends gathered at the Canberra Repertory Theatre recently to celebrate and reminisce about the life of one of their most admired and respected members, Norma Robertson, who died earlier in the month.

A life member of Canberra Repertory, Norma was best known to the wider community as the brilliant pianist and Musical Director for Canberra Repertory’s Old Time Music Halls.

For 26 years she and fellow pianist, Andrew Kay delighted audiences with their unique skills as duo-pianists.    

What set Norma apart from most other musical directors was her ability to play by ear, transpose any song instantly, often mid-song if necessary, and her inexhaustible good humour during rehearsals.

I learned this during my very first production, “Stairway to the Stars”, a revue I directed for the Griffith Amateur Musical Revue Company in 1958 and for which Norma - then a 16-year-old schoolgirl who had passed all her AMEB examinations - was my Musical Director.

She would be my musical director for five of my shows, until she won a scholarship to the Wagga Teacher’s College in 1961.

After graduating she married director Ross McGregor and they settled in Gundagai where in addition to Ross directing a series of theatrical productions, they produced four children.

In 1973 Ross McGregor was appointed artistic director of Canberra Repertory and in 1974 Norma McGregor, as she had become, was teamed with local dentist, Andrew Kay, to provide the musical direction for the inaugural Old Time Music Hall.

By 1976, having established my family in Queanbeyan, I directed a revue, Up Tempo, for Tempo Theatre, my first production in Canberra and the Kay/McGregor duo became my musical directors.

In 1986, my wife Pat, son Tim, and I purchased the School of Arts Café in Queanbeyan, which soon became the longest-established full-time cabaret venue in Australia.

Norma was now Norma Robertson, having married Graham Robertson in 1980, and agreed to be accompanist for a season at the café with American lounge singer, Connie Strait, whose talent for being able to sing just about any song from the Great American Songbook, was a perfect match for Norma’s ability to play just as many of them.

   

A poster on the School of Arts Cafe wall featuring a review of Connie and Norma's show.

After Connie returned to America in 1987, Norma, by now raising eight children (as the result of blending her four with Graham’s four) continued as accompanist whenever she could.

She resolutely refused to perform a solo in any of the shows, preferring to provide a safe and supportive ambiance for the artist she was accompanying.

But she did appear in group shows, including numerous editions of the annual Bull N Bush Christmas Parties, where she could hold her own as an entertainer with the best of them.

The cast of the 1992 Bull & Bush Christmas Party
Alan Cope - Graham Robertson - Kirsty McGregor - Norma Robertson - Rosemary Hyde

In their 1989 show, I Love a Piano, she and Kay showcased their duo-piano skills, with polished narration, as she did when accompanying Jon Finlayson and Jon Stephens for their 1998 Flanagan and Allen show, Underneath the Arches.

Nothing if not a perfectionist, Norma Page-McGregor-Robertson, didn’t abide fools gladly, but neither was she dictatorial. Rather, she was a wise and knowledgeable mentor, whose counsel was sought and respected by every artist with whom she worked.

BILL STEPHENS

                                                         Photos by Robert Roach.

An edited edition of this article first published in the digital edition of  CITY NEWS on 27.01.25

 

 

MOJO

 

MOJO by Jez Butterworth.

Directed by Lachlan Houen. Red Herring Theatre Company and ACT HUB. Produced by Gwyneth Cleary. Stage Manager Maggie Hawkins. ACT HUB Spinifex St. Kingston.

Cast: Lachlan Herring, Jack Ferrier, Joel Hrbek, Taylor Barrett, Taj De Montis, Joshua James.

Wednesday January 22 - Saturday February 1 2025  

Bookings:  https://acthub.littleboxoffice.com 

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Jack Ferrier (Potts), Tayler Barratt (Mickey) Joel Hrbek (Sweets( Taj De Montis (Skinny)
Photo Helen Musa

In  March 1995, notorious East End gangster twin Ronnie Kray died in prison. In July of the same year Jez Butterworth’s debut play,opened at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Set in a seedy night club in Soho, Mojo is set during the era of 50’s rock and roll and in the early days of the rise of the  underworld Kray twins with their penchant for murder, extortion, money-laundering, corruption and every vice known to the criminal world. This is the world of psychopaths, sociopaths, enforcers, big time gangsters and their thuggish henchmen. It is 1958. Rock and Roll has rattled the establishment as the young generation rock around the clock to Bill Haley and the Comets, or gyrate to the hip-swivelling affrontery of Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock. Lachlan Houen, Director of Red Herring Theatre Company’s inaugural production blasts the auditorium with tracks of the songs of the rock and roll revolution. Times are changing and Soho sees the rise of gangsters and crims like Potts (Jack Ferrier) and Sweets (Joel Hrbek), nightclub manager Mickey (Tayler Barrett), stooge Skinny (Taj De Montis) and nightclub owner Ezra’s son Baby (Lachlan Herring). This is the world of kill or be killed, violent power struggles and shady deals to snare the greatest prize, which in this case is rising teen singing sensation, Silver Johnny.

Jack Ferrier (Potts), Joel Hrbek (Sweets)

At the start of the play, nightclub owner Ezra’s body has been found gruesomely sawn in half and stuffed in two rubbish bins. Suspicion falls every which way and the inhabitants of the Atlantic Club are out for revenge in a play that mirrors the East End of Harold Pinter and the violence of Tarantino. Houen keeps the energy racing along. Characterizations are tightly coiled ready to spring into Sweet’s ADHD, Potts’s unstated menace, Skinny’s anxious panic, Mickey’s cool control and Baby’s explosive and violent unpredictability. Houen has cast MOJO brilliantly. An all male cast inhabit their world with riveting conviction. Only diction confounds performance at times as spitfire Cockney and East End accents lose the diction to fully tell the story. The opening scene between Potts and Sweets, beautifully played by Ferrier and Hrbek with a perfect sense of physical character lose much of the dialogue, so that I was left reeling until Barrett’s Mickey clearly revealed that the owner had been murdered and the thriller could get under way.  This production of MOJO, so splendidly performed with detailed attention to the unsavoury and largely unlikeable characters of the period would have benefited from the careful attention of a professional accent coach.

Lachlan Herring (Baby), Taj De Montis (Skinny)

Having said that in the hope that the actors will pay careful attention to the impact of their dialogue, Red Herring Theatre Company’s debut production promises a very bright future for the company. The actors sport excellent training credentials and their entirely believable portrayal of character and tight physical characterization indicates a level of professionalism that Red Herring aspires to. I wish them every success with future ventures.

In its premiere year Butterworth’s MOJO received an Olivier Award for Best Comedy. On the surface this may be an unusual award for a play that is about highly unlikeable thugs, fools, deadly neurotics and power-mongers.  Houen and his company play the absurdity and stupidity for laughs with an eye for the sudden twists and surprising moments of danger. In 1995 audiences who remembered the Krays and the rebellion of the rock and roll era could view Butterworth’s play with humourous detachment. That detachment is even more pronounced in 2025, and the small matinee audience in the intimate ACT HUB theatre obviously saw the black comedy in this almost farcical gangster thriller.

Red Herring Theatre’s production of MOJO and the promise of things to come makes a welcome addition to Canberra’s expanding stable of excellent talent. This is a debut well worth a visit.

Photos: Ben Appleton  Photox Photography

The Chalk Pit

 

The Chalk Pit by Peter Wilkins.  Lexi Sekuless Productions at Mill Theatre, Canberra.
22 January - 1 February 2025

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 24

Creatives & Company

Playwright: Peter Wilkins
Coach: Julia Grace
Players performing: Rhys Hekimian, Chips Jin, Alana Denham-Preston, Heidi Silberman, Timmy Sekuless, Maxine Beaumont, Rachel Pengilly, Martin Everett
Workshop support players: Kate Blackhurst, Rachel Howard, Sarah Nathan-Truesdale, Wynter Grainger, Phoebe Silberman

Photographer: Daniel Abroguena
Major partner: Elite Event Technology
Principal Sponsor: Willard Public Affairs

The Chalk Pit –  “A true tale of ambition, corruption, murder and betrayal, documenting the rise and fall of the Hon. Thomas John Ley” is presented by Lexi Sekuless “in a stripped back format called An Actor's Investigation. This is reflected in a lower ticket price.  This performance will be quite different from your usual night at the theatre. Each day from 10am, actors will work full time with renowned coach, Julia Grace (Melbourne Theatre Company), to pull apart the circumstances and characters and prepare to present a simple but powerful version of this story for the public at 730pm that evening.”

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I have mentioned before how the atmosphere of Canberra’s Mill Theatre reminds me of my seeing La Leçon in the Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris where, of the young writer Eugene Ionesco, Jacques Lemarchand wrote in 1952, in Le Figaro littéraire, “Within its small walls the Théâtre de la Huchette has what it takes to blow away all other Théâtres in Paris.… When we have grown old we will be proud to have attended performances of La Cantatrice Chauve and La Leçon.” www.theatre-huchette.com/en/the-ionesco-show

I sense in Sekuless’s manner of working something similar to this: “In the backroom of a café on the boulevard Saint-Michel a group of actors seated around a table roar with laughter. Nicholas Bataille, a young director, reads aloud the first scenes of a play by the young playwright Eugene Ionesco.”  Following each night’s script-in-hand exploration of The Chalk Pit, Lexi and her actors gather together in the foyer to talk with audience members.

This is creative theatre production in a community setting, which I am sure fits admirably into this writer’s career – Peter Wilkins’s work in Canberra began as artistic director of The Jigsaw Company, a specialist in educational theatre.  And there’s plenty to learn from in The Chalk Pit.

I am, of course, stretching connections too far – but in 1948 as Ionesco was getting on his way to showing in fictional characters the breakdown of marriage relationships and the rise of dictatorship, Wilkins shows us the true story of the bombastic, coercive controller, Australian Member of Parliament and corrupt businessman, the Hon. Thomas John Ley, a migrant from England as a child who ended up back ‘home’, found guilty of murder in the chalk pit, sentenced to be executed – but finally commuted to life in an insane asylum, where he died in 1947.

Ionesco couldn’t have imagined a life in his time to be really so absurd.  It’s likely that Ley actually caused, in Mafia style, four or five deaths – and fortunately failed to become Prime Minister.

Ley’s life story is long and complicated, but The Mill’s Actor’s Investigation, working as a team of ever-changing true-life characters, have brought the focus clearly on Ley’s marriage and extra-marriage behaviour.  The effects on the two women make The Chalk Pit a human story of the kind still played out in daily news stories; while on the political side the awful misuse of power around the world is as obvious today as it was to the young Ionesco after the two World Wars – in which the Hon Ley loudly demanded sending Australians as cannon-fodder in support of the British Empire.

The Chalk Pit is a great example of creative theatre work, in writing and production, especially in the context of Canberra, the Nation’s Capital – which our current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, says today (Canberra Times Page 4, Saturday 25th January) is “a fantastic place to live”.

Further Reading: www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/members/Pages/member-details.aspx?pk=1344

 

 

 

 

 

MOJO ACT Hub.

 

Jack Ferrier (Potts) - Lachlan (Baby) - Taylor Barret (Mickey) - Taj De Montis (Skinny) - Joel Hrbeck (Sweets) in Red Herring Theatre Company's production of "Mojo".

Written by Jez Butterworth – Directed by Lachlan Houen

Produced by Gwyneth Cleary – Stage Managed by Maggie Hawkins

Presented by Red Herring Theatre Company & ACT Hub

ACT Hub January 22nd - February 1st 2025.

Opening Night performance reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.


Red Herring Theatre Company’s inaugural production of the Jez Butterworth’s Olivier Award winning play Mojo offers adventurous theatregoers a challenging night of theatre.

Set in the back rooms of the seedy Soho nightclub, the play follows the machinations of a group of young drug-addled criminals who find themselves involved in the gruesome murder of the club’s owner, whose dismembered body is discovered sawn in half and stuffed into two garbage bins.

Directed with a certain flair by Lachlan Houen, the play commences with a largely unintelligible pseudo-cockney conversation performed at breakneck speed between gang members Potts, (Jack Ferrier) and Sweets (Joel Hrbek).

Their conversation is interrupted by Baby (Lachlan Herring) the dangerously psychotic and unloved son of the murdered night-club owner. Baby has ambitions of being a rockstar himself, but his ambitions are being thwarted by local crime boss, Mickey (Taylor Barrett) who intends to take over the nightclub and profit from the success of the resident rockstar, Silver Johnny (Joshua James).

The fourth member of the gang, along with Potts, Sweets and Baby, is Skinny (Taj De Montis) a waiter at the nightclub, who is revealed, in one of many surprising revelations, as having attracted the amorous attentions of Mickey.



Jack Ferrier (Potts) - Taylor Barrett (Mickey) - Joel Hrbeck (Sweets) - Taj De Montis (Skinny_.


Clearly, a lot of care and attention has been invested in this production, which was no doubt more satisfying for the director and actors to rehearse, than for many watching the results of their efforts.

Each of the actors have obviously worked hard at creating strong, individual characterisations. However, the characters themselves are such an unlovely lot, that it is difficult to muster any sympathy or empathy for any of them, especially given the surfeit of violent mood swings, rapid accented dialogue delivery, and baffling plot revelations.

On the evidence of this production, it is difficult to see what it was about this play that earned Jez Butterworth an Olivier Award, or indeed, what he is trying to say with his play.




                                                   Photos by Helen Musa

MOJO

Written by Jez Butterworth

Directed by Lachlan Houen

Presented by Red Herring Theatre & ACT Hub

ACT Hub Theatre, Kingston to 1 February

 

Reviewed by Len Power 22 January 2025

 

You’ll need a sense of humour for black comedy and a keen ear to fully appreciate Jez Butterworth’s seedy gangster play set behind the scenes in a 1950s English nightclub. In fact, as the play begins, you could be forgiven for wondering if you’ve blundered into the wrong play with the characters speaking what sounds like a foreign language.

This is the world of 1950s Soho in London uncompromisingly presented by writer, Jez Butterworth. The dialogue is part profanity and part colourful Cockney delivered at a machinegun pace by a group of not very bright, edgy and pill-taking young men.  They’re trying to be as tough as their jobs demand, but they’re fearful and desperate to project an image of masculinity that they don’t really feel. When they learn that there has been a particularly nasty murder of the nightclub owner, they’re seriously out of their depth as a battle for power begins.

Lachlan Herring (Baby) and Taj De Montis (Skinny) - Photo by Ben Appleton - Photox Photography

The fast-paced action has been staged with an impressive fluidity by the director, Lachlan Houen. He has obtained strong, colourful and real performances from his cast. Taylor Barrett shines as the more-controlled, ambitious Mickey and Lachlan Herring is particularly effective as the dangerously psychotic Baby. Jack Ferrier as Potts, Joel Hrbek as Sweets and Taj De Montis as Skinny give vivid, individual characterizations of these gangster types of the period. Their keen sense of timing brings out the humour in the script very well.

From left: Jack Ferrier (Potts), Lachlan Herring (Baby), Taylor Barrett (Mickey), Taj De Montis (Skinny) and Joel Hrbek (Sweets) - Photo by Helen Musa

The lengthy opening scene with Potts and Sweets seems to be pitched too high, emotionally, and the impressively authentic sound of the dialogue is achieved often at the expense of clarity. It’s not a play where you feel much empathy for the characters, but it is an intriguing look at the shadowy world of English clubs of the era.

This is an impressive achievement for Red Herring Theatre, a new theatre company for Canberra, hopefully a sign of more great theatre to come.

 

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/. 

Circus of Illusion  Canberra Theatre Jan 11-12.

Circus of Illusion has visited before and offers some good  old fashioned circus bits and pieces with an occasional touch of pantomime. There’s a kind of a wisecracking ringmaster in charge and a bloke who does dangerous balancing tricks and a woman who has a gentle hula hoop act and two statuesque showgirl dancers who also become very much the heart of some of magician Michael Boyd’s classic illusions.

These illusions are central to the show. People vanish and reappear in and out of elaborate boxes, swords and the danger of impalement hover and the assistants add glamour as well as considerable skills to support the vanishings and reappearances. Young audience members are frequently pulled in to help with the less dangerous stuff like card tricks.

The setting apart from the apparatus of the various bits of magic is just a few drapes artfully lit with strings of flashing lights but that’s all that’s needed for a bit of mood and atmosphere.

And the wide eyed kids down the front love it all. 

Shades of the old Sydney Tivoli back in the 1950s complete with the under tens being drawn into live performance and live magic. 

Alanna Maclean