CIRCUS OF ILLUSION - Canberra Theatre

 

Produced and Directed by Michael Boyd – Choreographed by Matt Downing

Costume design by Cathie Costello - Sound design by Tom Hawkins

Stage Management by Journey Malone - Lighting and Technical Manager: Jeremy Dhen

Canberra Theatre 10^th & 11^th January 2025.

Performance on 10^th January reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Michael Boyd in "Circus of Illusion"

Michael Boyd has built a strong following in Canberra for his superbly presented variety shows, outstanding examples of which were his “Cabaret de Paree” with Rhonda Burchmore in 2023 and his lavish, “The Christmas Spectacular” presented in Canberra just last month.

This show featured a topline cast, headed by Prinnie Stevens, eight excellent dancers, Hula-Hoop extraordinalist, Aleisha Manion, and Boyd himself performing a selection of his most mind-boggling illusions.

This is the third Canberra season of his “Circus of Illusion”, which although slickly presented, was for this visit a much more stripped back version than those of its 2022 and 2023 iterations.

Again Boyd repeated his illusions, still amazing, but mostly the same ones that had dazzled and intrigued only a month earlier. Similarly, Aleisha Manion repeated the two elegant and encore-worthy routines she had performed in the December extravaganza.

Eleisha Manion performing on her lollipop lyra.

Amiable Canberra juggler and clown, Idris Stanbury returned to host this program, as he had done in 2023, spent the first 10 minutes of the show warming up the audience by instructing them in the correct responses to his signals as to how to show appreciation for the efforts of the specialty artists, and feigning disappointment when the audience failed to get the point of his amusing  asides, before surprising them with a hair-raising display of juggling expertise involving a chain-saw and  two lethal looking swords.

Sascha Williams on rola bola.

Britain’s Got Talent finalist, Sascha Williams also returned from 2023 with his nerve-wracking rola bola routine which proved to be every bit as dangerous as it looked.  

Two lithe, lovely and accomplished dancers, Tegan and Allie, did their best to create spectacle on the vast Canberra Theatre stage, executing Matt Downing’s inventive choreography with vivacity and charm. However, despite their best efforts, and some spectacular costumes by Cathie Costello and Jeremy Dhen’s colourful lighting, these routines lost much of their impact when performed by just two dancers rather than eight. 

Tegan and Allie were also kept busy, along with stage manager, Journey Malone, assisting Boyd mystify and intrigue with his lavish illusions.

Idris Stanbury demonstrates his juggling prowess

Two young audience volunteers kept the audience enthralled during the inevitable but well-managed audience-participation sequences. Five-year-old Sienna, charmed with her unselfconscious fascination as she assisted Boyd with a levitating table, and nine year old Luke, who expressed his ambition to become a magician, picked up some tricks-of- the-trade, assisting Idris Stanbury with some tricky double-handed juggling.  

“Circus of Illusion”, even in this stripped-back version, still provided a welcome couple of hours of meticulously presented quality variety entertainment, particularly for those experiencing Boyd’s spectacular illusions, and world-class specialty acts for the first time.

However those attracted by his lavish large-scale revues, the latest of which was seen in Canberra only a month ago, may have experienced a sense of deja vu at the inclusion of so much material seen so recently in that show.

 

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

   

CIRCUS OF ILLUSION

 

Circus of Illusion. 

Produced by Michael Boyd. Canberra Theatre. January 10-11 2025 Bookings 62752700

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Circus of Illusion returns to Canberra with all the glitz and glamour of a Las Vegas show. Trained at his grandfather’s knee producer and illusionist extraordinaire Michael Boyd has created two hours of magical, mystical and mesmerizing entertainment with a capital E. E for exciting. E for electrifying and E for engrossing. There are acts to astound like Sascha Williams’s increasingly perilous rola bola act. The heart skips a beat as Williams slips but amazingly maintains his balance . Aleisha Manion proves herself to be the mistress of the hula hoop, spinning them about the body in a gracefully gyrating display of whirling lights.

Sascha Williams on the rola-bola

It is Michael Boyd who takes centre stage with eye-teasing feats of magic, escapology and levitation. We wince as a sword appears to pierce Boyd’s rotating body, accompanied by his helpers and showgirl dancers, Tegan and Annie. Eyes blink in amazement as , with a wave of a cape, one of the dancers vanishes into thin air only to be instantly replaced by Boyd. Performers disappear before our very eyes. Even simple magical tricks defy explanation.

In a show that is both slick and sophisticated each act leaves the audience enthralled and  filled with wonder. How does he do it.? What’s the secret? But then the best magician will never reveal his secrets and Boyd is among the best. Boyd and his performers keep us guessing to the very end. How is it that three random members of the audience can come up with the answers to three simple questions that will be revealed in a box locked high above the stage. There is no collusion. No time to write the answers down upon the paper and put them unseen into the locked box. Boyd is truly the master of his art. Or is there more to magic than meets the eye? “What??!!” exclaims the audience member behind me in disbelief as a glass disappears and a host of snowflakes float into the air from a single paper snowflake. In the inexplicable realm of magic Boyd teaches us that seeing is not always believing. But then if you believe in magic anything is possible.

Idris Stanbury is the Ringmaster

Every circus needs a clown and Boyd has found the ideal funny man in Canberra circus performer and juggler Idris Stanbury.  From warming up the audience to performing juggling acts and performing an hilarious rock star parody while a member of the front row audience holds the leaf blower for effect Stanbury’s idiosyncratic clowning and buffoonery lightens the mood and keeps the show moving.  Stanbury’s goofy clowning and groan joke comedy was perfectly pitched at an audience that delights in witnessing the fool’s antics.

When it comes to scene stealing, inviting young children to witness and perform magic before a heart-melting audience does the trick. With his poker face and remarkable, unbelievable sleight of adult-sized hands, Luke deserved his souvenir programme and bag of Michael Boyd tricks. It’s enough to make a child run away to join the circus. Five year old Sienna  after seeing a table levitate by itself and a red kerchief vanish and re-appear believed more than ever as she left with her reward that magic is indeed real.  Boyd is truly the master of mystery and the Lord of the Illusion.

Michael Boyd is the master of illusion

Circus of Illusion is his show and Boyd is the master of his art. His two major support acts, the graceful aerialist Manion and the heart stopping rola-bola balancer Williams appear too briefly to thrill and delight Boyd’s audience. The show moves slickly with moments of danger like Stanbury’s chain saw juggling, Williams’s agile recovery from a sudden slip and Boyd’s anxiety fuelling escape from handcuffs and chains to the rousing sound of Carmina Burana. It is circus for everyone, young and old and the audience hooted and cheered, clapped and laughed and had a thoroughly entertaining night at the theatre. Who could ask for more?

At two hours including an interval the show is a tad too long,  I would have preferred no interval but who can resist the opportunity to buy a light sabre and Boyd’s book of magical secrets from the merchandise store? It’s another way to ensure a complete experience at Michael Boyd’s fantastical, magical Circus of Illusion

Aleisha Manion Aerialist
Photo by Cam Tree Photography

Circus of Illusion was originally reviewed on Canberra Critics Circle in January 2023 at the Canberra Theatre. Contemporary updates have been included in this review

 

Dark Noon - Sydney Festival

 

Dark Noon – fix+foxy, Glynis Henderson Productions & The Pleasance (South Africa and Denmark).  Sydney Festival at Sydney Town Hall, January 9-23, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 9

CAST AND CREDITS
A fix+foxy production, produced by: Glynis Henderson Productions & The Pleasance
Writer & Director: Tue Biering
Co-director & Choreographer: Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Featuring:
Mandla Gaduka,   Katlego Kaygee Letsholonyana,   Lillian  Malulyck,  Bongani Bennedict Masango, Siyambonga Alfred Mdubeki,   Joe Young,   Thulani Zwane

Set Designer: Johan Kølkjær; Sound Designer: Ditlev Brinth
Costume Designer: Camilla Lind; Video Designer: Rasmus Kreiner
Lighting Designer: Christoffer Gulløv; Props Designer: Marie Rosendahl Chemnitz
Producer: Annette Max Hansen; Production Managers: Anne Balsma & Thomas Dotzler; Stage Manager: Svante Huniche Corell; Sound Manager & Operator: Filip Vilhelmsson; Assistant Director: Katinka Hurvig Møller; Costume Manager: Clara Bisgaard


Tue Biering, the Danish writer of Dark Noon, writes in his Director’s Note: What I found out was those Western films, as effective entertainment, laid the foundation for some violent narratives that moved off the screen and became part of a reality for many.

Several of the South African performers, in a post-script video, describe the effects on them as children watching Westerns on television or in the cinema – as indeed I remember doing back in the 1950s.  One even tells of his part as a teenager in the desecration of the dead body of a rival enemy gang leader.

What they present, in content and in the extraordinary manner in which they present it, is a parody of the history of the American Wild West – how it came about and developed in the 19th Century, and how it ended – but in the best tradition of the genre, it is disturbingly paradoxical.

Should we take the black humour seriously?  Does this forthright expounding of the story of the worst results of the poor whites and those who would take advantage of them invading the lands of the native peoples of central and western America, make nearly two hours of theatre consistently engaging?

I have to report that, though I entirely felt the strength of this critique of American culture – especially the fascination with and continuing demand for guns in that country – I did not find myself falling asleep like the gentleman seated next to me did, on and off.  I think this happened to him because the humour was not often subtle enough to engage our imaginations enough; and the forthrightness often became theatre being thrown at us, rather than – again more subtly – drawing us in.

On the other hand, I must report that that gentleman’s perhaps defensive response was probably the only one of its kind in the full house.  The great theatrical risk was taken on board, including by the audience members who found themselves being physically brought into the action, even though they were faced with being socially examples, perhaps, of the very whites who, according to Tue Biering, are in the catalogue of our collective search for freedom and a better life — and all the horrible things we have done over time to grab it and keep it.

It shows need for us to face up to ourselves, just as Biering found about himself in the process of writing, when it ended up having many more layers and meanings. It was about who told the story and my own blind spots.

From the practical theatre point of view, not only were the character acting, the choreography and performer’s skills in movement, and especially the range and quality of voice work in song and speech quite outstanding, but the complexity of the design of seemingly hundreds of scenes, and the timing of positioning of video cameras and all kinds of structures made the show fascinating to hear and watch just for its own sake.  

The team work and timing – sometimes frantically comic, yet often stunning in moments of silence – demonstrated the strength of community in the total team, which becomes an essential message from Dark Noon – that theatre art in itself is a grand measure of human cooperative achievement, in absolute contrast to the killings, the guns, and the misinterpretation of the real Wild West as the romance of freedom.

The show’s historical aspect limits it to the period from the major destruction of the native peoples and the animals such as the bison, their main food source, through the American Civil War, to the recognition of the western areas as states united, by the end of the 1800s.  It leaves us watching the political developments in the US today with a sense of horror as violence engulfs that country in massive numbers of mass murders, increasing as the years go by.

Dark Noon should be seen, as it has been since its inception in 2018, in Festivals and theatres around the world.  But whether the paradoxical nature of the parody of the ironically named United States’ culture can create change for the better, I unfortunately have my doubts.

 

One moment in the ever-changing Dark Noon
fix+foxy, Glynis Henderson Productions & The Pleasance (South Africa and Denmark).
Sydney Festival 2025
 

CINDERELLA - Opera Australia

 

Emily Edmonds (Cinderella) - Emma Matthews (Fairy Godmother) in Opera Australia's "Cinderella"

Music by: Jules Massenet – Libretto: Henri Cain

Conductor Evan Rogister – Director & Costume Designer: Laurent Pelly

Costume Associate: Thomaz Le Goues - Choreographer: Laura Scozzi

Revival Director/ Rehearsal Choreographer: Karine Girard 

Set Design: Barbara de Limburg – Lighting Design: Duane Schuler

Sydney Opera House: December 31^st  2024 to March 28, 2025.

Opening night performance on January 2^nd reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Emily Edmonds (Cinderella) - Jennifer Black (Noemie) - Angela Hogan (Madame de la Haltiere_ - Ashlyn Tymms (Dorathea) in Opera Australia's "Cinderella"

Having presented Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical version of “Cinderella” in 2022, Opera Australia decided that Massenet’s operatic version of the same story would make the perfect opening production  for its 2025 season.

Not only had Massenet’s version never been staged by Opera Australia, but as almost all the principal roles in this version were written for females, it provided a perfect opportunity to showcase the strength of its local roster of female singers, as well as provide the opportunity to invite three singers who’ve been forging impressive careers overseas, to make their Sydney Opera House debuts in this production.

Originally conceived in 2006 by French director, Laurent Pelly, as a four-act, French language production for Santa Fe Opera, this version, which ran for 2 hours 30 minutes, was also presented in London’s Royal Opera House, in 2011 under its original French title “Cendrillon”.

However, rather than present the original four-act French language version, Opera Australia opted for an abridged English language version of the same production commissioned and performed by The Metropolitan Opera in 2021, which runs for just on one hour and fifty minutes including a twenty minute interval.

No doubt the reasoning was that the shorter English language version would be more attractive to first time opera goers, summer tourists and even, perhaps, as an introduction to opera for children.

Ashlyn Tymms (Dorothea) - Angela Hogan (Madame de la Haltiere) - Jennifer Black (Noemie)
Emily Edmonds (Cinderella) - Margaret Plummer (Prince Charming) -Richard Anderson (Pandolfe)
Iain Henderson (Dean of Faculty) in Opera Australia's "Cinderella" 

But while this version has much to commend it, especially given that it retains Pelly’s quite wonderful costume designs and Laura Scozzi’s delightfully quirky choreography, both of which were much praised overseas for their originality and sparkle, it is hard to escape the feeling that something crucial has been lost in the conversion, particularly in relation to the storytelling.   

Massenet’s melodious score is given a marvellous reading by the Opera Australia Orchestra under the baton of American conductor Evan Rogister, making his first Sydney Opera House appearances, and the production is as beautifully sung as could be wished for.

Margaret Plummer as Prince Charming in "Cinderella"

 

Making their first appearances in the Sydney Opera House, Emily Edmonds is a delightfully wistful Cinderella, while Margaret Plummer is convincing in the pants role as Prince Charming.  

 Another newcomer, Ashlyn Tymms is teamed with OA regular, Jennifer Black as one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, who together with the marvelous Angela Hogan as their haughty mother, Madame de la Haltiere, managed to generate a few obvious laughs. However more astute direction might have provided them with more visual physical comedy ideas to fully realise the opportunities inherent in their roles.

Ashlyn Tymms (Dorothea) - Angela Hogan (Madame de la Haltiere) - Jennifer Black (Noemie)
in Opera Australia's "Cinderella".

It was left to Emma Mathews, returning to the SOH stage after a long absence, to inject excitement into the proceedings by glittering and gleaming, both vocally and physically, on her every appearance.

Described in the publicity as OA stalwarts, Richard Anderson, Shane Lowrencev, and Iain Henderson did exactly what they do best in roles for which they are perfectly cast.

No doubt Pelly’s original direction and choreography from the Metropolitan Opera’s 2021 English adaptation has been meticulously reproduced by the Revival Director, Karine Girard, but direction and design which may have appeared extraordinary in 2006, tends to look a little pedestrian in 2025, and certainly in need of some revision to allow it to achieve its original affect, particularly as regards to the storytelling.

Even so, the design and choreography for the ball, and glass slipper fitting scenes, exuberantly performed by the Opera Australia Chorus, are still extraordinary and hugely enjoyable.

Emily Edmonds (Cinderella) - Richard Anderson (Pandolfe) in Opera Australia's "Cinderella".

Regretfully though, any other magic appears to happen off-stage, particularly for the crucial transformation scene. For this scene the Fairy Godmother does her magic offstage while Cinderella is sleeping. Cinderella simply reappears (unmagically) in her ball-gown. following which the coach drawn by four cute white horses arrives and whisks her away to the ball.  

When Cinderella arrives at the ball, it seems that the Fairy Godmother had neglected to read the dress code because Cinderella is the only one at the ball not wearing red, with her dress in a completely different style to the rest of the guests.

More perplexing still is the slipper fitting scene. Earlier, Cinderella, now back in her ragged kitchen waif attire, sings a solo recounting her experience at the ball and reveals that she has the remaining glass slipper. However, when she arrives to have her shoe-fitting she is costumed curiously in all her ballroom finery.

Given that their courtship had been relatively cursory, the audience is left wondering whether it was the gown or the girl that captured the prince’s imagination.   

Even Barbara de Limburg’s much lauded story-book setting retains its original French text written all over walls and costumes. Given that this version is sung in English, it might have reasonably been expected that the text would have been changed to allow an English-speaking audience to understand whatever messages it was meant to convey.

If, however, none of this matters, why not just present the opera as Massenet intended? At least then the  opera purists may have been satisfied, having experienced the main course rather than an entrée.

                                                     All images by Rhiannon Hopley.

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

 

Antigone in the Amazon - Sydney Festival

 

Antigone in the Amazon by Milo Rau.  Sydney Festival at Roslyn Packer Theatre (Sydney Theatre Company), January 4-8, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 5


Credits:
Concept & Direction: Milo Rau; Text: Milo Rau & Ensemble

On stage – Frederico Araujo, Sara De Bosschere, Pablo Casella & Arne De Tremerie live on stage

On Video –  Kay Sara, Gracinha Donato, Célia Maracajà, Martinez Corrêa, choir of militants of Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST), and as Tiresias: Ailton Krenak

Dramaturgy: Giacomo Bisordi; Collaboration Dramaturgy: Douglas Estevam, Martha Kiss Perrone; Assistant Dramaturgy: Kaatje De Geest, Carmen Hornbostel

Collaboration Concept, Research & Dramaturgy: Eva-Maria Bertschy
Set Design: Anton Lukas; Costume Design: Gabriela Cherubini, An De Mol, Jo De Visscher, Anton Lukas
Light Design: Dennis Diels; Music Composition: Elia Rediger, Pablo Casella
Video Design: Moritz von Dungern; Video Making: Fernando Nogari;
Video Editing: Joris Vertenten

Direction Assistant: Katelijne Laevens; Intern Direction Assistant: Zacharoula Kasaraki, Lotte Mellaerts

Production Management: Klaas Lievens, Gabriela Gonçalves; Assistant Production Management: Jack Do Santos; Technical Production Management: Oliver Houttekiet
Stage Manager: Marijn Vlaeminck
Technique: Max Ghymonprez, Sander Michiels, Raf Willems

Special thanks to Carolina Bufolin
Production: NTGent
Coproduction: The International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM), Festival d'Avignon, Romaeuropa Festival, Factory International (Manchester), La Villette Paris, Tandem - Scène nationale (Arras Douai), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Equinoxe Scène Nationale (Châteauroux), Wiener Festwochen

In collaboration with Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

The Antigone in the Amazon team would like to thank and acknowledge support provided by Goethe Institut Saõ Paulo, PRO HELVETIA programme COINCIDENCIA - Kulturausch Schweiz - Südamerika, The Belgian Tax Shelter

Hero image and gallery images - Photo credit: Kurt Van der Elst

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www.sydneyfestival.org.au/stories/your-guide-to-antigone :

Created by the award-winning Swiss director and playwright Milo Rau in collaboration with Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Belgian theatre company NTGent, Antigone in the Amazon draws a line connecting an ancient Greek tragedy of a young woman who defied a despotic king to present-day activists and First Nations people working to save the Amazon rainforests.

At the production’s heart is a real-life incident: the 1996 massacre of activists from the Landless Workers’ Movement by a unit of Brazilian federal police. A peaceful blockade of a highway ended bloodily, with 19 of the protestors killed.

In Rau’s retelling of the story, a modern-day Antigone stands up for those advocating land rights in the Amazon. Marshalled against her is the apparatus of a corrupt state. The tragedy is that of the Amazon itself – and by extension that of humanity. Not for nothing has the Amazon been likened to “the lungs of the planet”.

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To quote from the play, Antigone in the Amazon is “the magic of theatre which transcends violence”.

This is no mere academic claim. The Europeans have worked with the people in Brazil in the Latin American tradition known as magical realism, creating the most emotionally powerful theatre I have ever experienced.  

We normally experience theatre as illusion used to help us reflect on reality – we stay at a degree of ‘distance’ to keep ourselves ‘safe’.  But when we see on huge screen video the people who survived that massacre, and the actors live on stage in front of us, as they tell and re-enact what happened to the people as they were being killed, it feels as if we are present at that moment of awful reality.

The worst – and best – moment was when we found out that the police were ready to ban the blocking of the road for the annual commemoration of the massacre, on this occasion when the filming was underway, just as the junta’s police had done in 1996.  But instead of arresting and shooting people, they listened to a woman who spoke to them about the importance of the event to the whole community – and allowed the re-enactment and filming to go ahead.

Otherwise we might have seen a repeat of the refusal to allow Antigone to properly commemorate her brother’s death – recorded by Sophocles in Ancient Greece.  Perhaps his play was a theatrical fiction about the rights of the ordinary people, but yesterday Antigone’s story became real.

You have only another day or so to see Antigone in the Amazon.  Do your utmost to get to Sydney to see it.  If you can’t – and even if you do – remember how great theatre transcends violence, and seek to make this your motto in action.  I am in awe not only of the Swiss Milo Rau, but of all those non-violent activists like the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) members who played their part in Antigone in the Amazon.

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PS   If you would like to understand the Latin American magical realism tradition, and its place in responding to colonialism, look up the article in the The Brown Daily Herald by Aalia Jagwani, Arts & Culture Editor, October 6, 2022 at

www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/10/latin-american-literary-traditions-through-time