JOSEPH AND HIS AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

Lyrics by Tim Rice

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Directed by Kelda McManus

Music Direction by Jenna Hinton

Choreography by Caitlin Schilg

Conducted by Craig Johnson

 

Reviewed by Len Power 27 February 2025

 

An early musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is based on the character of Joseph from the Bible’s Book of Genesis. The story is told as a sung-through musical and the musical score ranges through various familiar styles including Elvis-themed rock and roll, calypso, jazz, Country and Western, French ballads and 1970s go-go.

These ever-changing styles in the score give a director the golden opportunity to be wildly creative. The director of this production, Kelda McManus, has produced a highly colourful, imaginative and joyous show that will please everyone from children to adults.

The large cast includes a group of children who perform their numbers sweetly with discipline and charm. This production includes some adult cast members who began their theatrical life as children in earlier productions. Hopefully many of the children in this production will develop a lifetime love of theatre from this experience.

Tim Dal Cortivo (Joseph) and the children

Amongst the excellent adult cast, there are some standouts. As Joseph, Tim Dal Cortivo gives a highly appealing performance throughout the show.  He gave a particularly moving interpretation of the song, “Close Every Door.

Taylor Paliaga (Narrator) and the cast

The Narrator was played by Taylor Paliaga with strength and energy and her fine singing of the second act opening song, “Pharaoh’s Story”, was particularly memorable.

Joe Dinn (Pharaoh) and the cast

“Song of the King” was a showstopper for Joe Dinn, who gave the Pharoah’s song an outrageous and hilarious over-the-top quality that worked superbly. Joseph’s Brothers, led by Matthew Paliaga, gave a rousing performance of “Those Canaan Days”. The strength of their voices gave this song a notable depth of feeling.

Caitlin Schilg’s choreography suited the changing styles of the show and the cast’s abilities. The trained dancers in the company were given their chance to shine.

The set design by Ian Croker and Kelda McManus worked very well in conjunction with an imaginative lighting design by Alexander Clifford. The sound design of Telia Jansen was well-balanced between the cast and the orchestra, which was nicely conducted by Craig Johnson. The musical director, Jenna Hinton, obtained strong singing performances by the whole cast and Jennie Norberry’s costume designs were colourful and creative.

This is a very well-produced show that is suitable for all ages. It’s imaginative, colourful and enthusiastically played by the entire cast.

 

Photos by Ben Appleton - Photox

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/

 

 

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE - Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House

 

Composed by Gioachino Rossini – Libretto by Cesare Sterbini

Conducted by Daniel Smith – Directed by Elijah Moshinsky

Revival Director: Heather Fairbairn – Assistant Director: Andy Morton

Set designed by Michael Yeargan – Costumes designed by Dona Granata

Lighting designed by Howard Harrison

Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House Jan.18^th to Feb. 28^th.

Performance on Feb.19^th reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Sera Malfi (Rosina) - John Longmuir (Count Almaviva) - Andrew Moran (Dr Bartolo)
Samuel Dale Johnson (Figaro) - David Parkin (Don Basilio)

It could have been a disaster but instead concluded as one of those memorable nights of opera that you would not have missed for worlds.

Your reviewer had chosen this performance because of the opportunity it offered to experience Shanul Sharma in the role of Count Almaviva and Helen Sherman’s Opera Australia’s role debut as Rosina. Both artists will play these roles in the first cast for the Melbourne season of this opera later in the year.

Of course, there was also the opportunity to experience Samuel Dale Johnson making his Opera Australia debut singing Figaro for the entire Sydney season of The Barber of Seville.

Therefore, it was disconcerting on arrival at the Sydney Opera House to be confronted by notices advising that neither Johnson nor Sharma would be performing after all, necessitating the re-arrangement of several of the male roles for this performance.

Instead of playing Fiorello, Ambrogio and Notary as scheduled, Simon Meadows would perform the role of Figaro for this performance. Intriguing because this was the first time Meadows had sung this role for Opera Australia. But in the event, such was his superb vocal delivery and strong confident swagger in the role, few would have guessed.

Also, the opportunity to preview Meadows’ interpretation of this role under these circumstances, not only proved an exciting salve for the disappointment of missing out on experiencing Johnson but also augured well for the Melbourne season later in the year when Meadows is scheduled to alternate in the role of Figaro with Samuel Dundas.

To replace Meadows in his scheduled roles as Fiorello, Ambrogio and Notary, Clifford Plumpton stepped into these roles. Again, another unexpected preview, because although he had not previously performed these roles during the Sydney season, Plumpton will be playing them for the entire Melbourne season.

The final change for the night advised that John Longmuir would return to the role of Count Almaviva, which he had been performing previously in the Sydney season, and in which he will alternate with Sharma for Melbourne.

Although Longmuir’s performance was as polished and assured as one could wish, he may well have relished that particular night off, because the very next night he would make two auspicious role debuts as both the Governor and Vanderdendur, in Opera Australia’s highly anticipated presentation of Victorian Opera’s production of Bernstein’s Candide.

Similarly, Andrew Moran had also set himself a demanding schedule by remarkably alternating the roles of Dr Bartolo in The Barber of Seville with that of Martin in Candide. He would continue this feat until the end of the Sydney season of The Barber of Seville on February 28^th, then return to the role of Dr. Bartolo for the Melbourne season.

Jane Ede (Berta) - Andrew Moran (Dr Bartolo)

But enough about changes. There are some things that never change. Among them, the pleasure of experiencing accomplished artists perform Elijah Moshinsky’s exceptional interpretation of Rossini’s enduring opera buffa, for which Moshinsky took his inspiration from silent films.

Michael Yeargan’s riotously colourful settings and costumes still look as fresh and witty as when first seen in 1995, as does Moshinsky’s direction, on this occasion meticulously reproduced by revival director Heather Fairbairn with the assistance of Andy Morton.

Among the advertised artists for this performance, Helen Sherman proved vocally dazzling and adorably feisty as Dr. Bartolo’s disobedient ward, Rosina, thwarting and frustrating her eager, if unsuitable, suitors at every turn, taking full advantage of Yeargan’s setting with its surfeit of hiding places perfect for surreptitious assignations with the dashing Count Almaviva.

John Longmuir (Count Almaviva) - David Parkin (Don Basilio) -Serena Malfi (Rosina) - Andrew Moran (Dr. Bartolo)

Jane Ede extracted her fair share of laughs as Dr Bartolo’s no-nonsense, can-do nurse, while David Parkin, Andrew Moran and Clifford Plumpton, all masters of buffo roles, revelled in the endless opportunities to create hilarious pandemonium inherent in the opera’s ridiculously complicated plot.

Under conductor Daniel Smith’s expert guidance, the Opera Australia orchestra and chorus contributed a sparking account of Rossini’ s brilliant score which together with the inspired performances of the excellent cast, resulted in an unexpectedly satisfying performance of this classic comic opera completely banishing any initial expectation of disappointment.

                                                        Images by Keith Saunders. 

Please note: As there are no images available of Helen Sherman or Simon Meadows in the roles of Rosina and Figaro, I've included images of Serena Malfi and Samuel Dale Johnson performing these roles. 

 

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

CANDIDE - Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House

Euan Fistrovich Doidge (Maximilian) - Cathy-Di Zhang (Paquette) - Eddie Perfect (Dr.Pangloss) -Annie Aitkin (Cunegonde) - Lyndon Watts (Candide)

Composed by Leonard Bernstein – Libretto by Richard Wilbur

Conducted by Brett Weymark OAM – Directed by Dean Bryant

Set and Costume design by Dann Barber – Lighting design by Matthew Scott

Sound design by Samuel Moxham – Choreographed by Freya List

Victorian Opera’s original production presented by Opera Australia.

Sydney Opera House – Feb.20^th to March 14^th, 2025.

Opening night performance on Feb.20^th reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Cathy-Di Zhang (Paquette) - Euan Fistrovich Doidge (Maximilian) and the Opera Australian Chorus.

Despite its 1956 premiere Broadway season being labelled a box office disaster, Candide has become one of those masterpieces best known for its components rather than its complete performances which are still relatively rare.

The overture, orchestrated by Leonard Bernstein himself, is a favourite party piece for symphony orchestras worldwide, while coloratura sopranos delight in demonstrating their virtuosity with renditions of the stratospheric aria, “Glitter and Be Gay”.

The only other production of this work experienced by this reviewer was the legendary 1984 production directed by John Bell in the Seymour Centre which boasted a cast that included Philip Quast, Jon Ewing, Tony Sheldon, Tony Taylor, Deidre Rubenstein, Susan Van Cott, Barry Lovett and Rick Burchall.

However, in 2015, Lindy Hume created a production of Candide for Opera Queensland which starred David Hobson as Candide and Amelia Farrugia as Cunegonde.

In 2018 Mitchell Butel staged a production of Candide in the Sydney Opera House in which Alexander Lewis played Candide, Annie Aitkin played Cunegonde and Caroline O’Connor was The Old Lady,

Butel staged Candide again in 2024, this time in a co-production for the State Theatre Company South Australia and State Opera South Australia, with Alexander Lewis, Annie Aitkin and Caroline O’Connor repeating their roles as Candide, Cunegonde and The Old Lady.

Earlier in that same year Dean Bryant produced a completely different concept for his production of Candide for Victorian Opera. This production featured Eddie Perfect in the dual roles of Voltaire/ Pangloss, Lyndon Watts as Candide and Alexander Lewis demonstrating his versatility by taking on two different roles, Governor and Vanderdendur.

 In that production Katherine Allen played Cunegonde and Maria Mercedes played The Old Lady. 

 

Eddie Muliaumaseali'i (Cacambo) - Lyndon Watts (Candide) - John Longmuir (Vanderdendur) - Andrew Moran (Martin) - Euan Fistrovic Doidge (Maximilian) -Cathy-Di Zhang (Paquette) - Annie Aitken (Cunegonde) - The Opera Australia Chorus in  Opera Australia's "CANDIDE"

When Opera Australia programmed Victorian Opera’s production for inclusion its 2025 season it retained Eddie Perfect, Lyndon Watts, Euan Fistrovic Doidge and Eddie Muliaumaseali’i in the roles they had created for Dean Bryant but cast Annie Aitken as Cunegonde.

All these artists had appeared previously in productions for Opera Australia, except for Euan Fistrovic Doidge, who was making his Opera Australia debut as the wonderfully campy Maximilian.  

Opera Australia alumni, Dominica Matthews, Cathy-Di Zhang, John Longmuir and Andrew Moran are cast in the roles of The Old Lady, Paquette, Governor/Vanderdendur and Martin respectively, along with the Opera Australia Orchestra and Chorus.

One could hardly imagine a more perfect combination of music theatre and operatic talents to interpret Dean Bryant’s deliciously subversive concept, which sets the action in a clapped-out fifties caravan inhabited by a ghostly troupe of characters wearing bizarre makeup and decaying, once-lavish 18^th century costumes and wigs.

In this satire of a satire, pop-up signs effectively transform the caravan and keep the audience informed as to the location of the series of extraordinary events which challenge the resolve of Lyndon Watts’ Candide as he traverses the world convinced that he is living in ‘the best of all possible worlds”.

Cathy-Di Zhang (Paquette) - Eddie Perfect (Voltaire)  in "Candide"

Eddie Perfect, brilliant as both the narrator, Voltaire and Candide’s tutor, Dr Pangloss, cleverly pricks any hint of pretention while the various characters, including Dr. Pangloss, endure a succession of eye-popping, cleverly staged and often very funny, events, for which Bernstein has written a succession of beautiful melodies, most of which are referred to in his justly celebrated overture.

Each of these songs is gloriously sung with admirable style and panache by this cast of superb singer/actors, thrillingly supported by the Opera Australia orchestra and chorus exhilaratingly conducted by Brett Weymark OAM.

Among many highlights in what will undoubtably be remembered as a definitive production of this Bernstein masterpiece, the extraordinary virtuosic performance of Annie Aitkin as a hilariously drug-addled Cunegonde singing “Glitter and Be Gay”, that deservedly stopped the show; and the full cast choral version of the concluding song “Make Our Garden Grow”, which brought the excited first-night audience to its feet for a thunderous ovation, will remain treasured memories.

                                                      Photos by Carlita Sari

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

  

VINCENT FANTAUZZO

ANU Canberra Times Meet The Author

Room T2, Kambri, ANU

March 17 from 6-7pm.

 

Written by Len Power

 

How Vincent Fantauzzo, a street-fighting petty criminal, was kicked out of school at fourteen and became one of Australia’s most celebrated and successful portrait artists is detailed in his fascinating memoir, Unveiled.

A boy with a troubled home life and dismissed as a simpleton at school, Vincent Fantauzzo projected a violent and frightening persona as a means of self-protection. Inside that tough exterior, however, lived a thoughtful, sensitive and creative boy whose only wish was to be loved – and to one day break free of the intergenerational dysfunction he seemed doomed to inherit.

Arguably, Vincent’s most impressive and important achievement is his survival and the remarkable life he willed into existence despite severe and undiagnosed dyslexia that left him with no formal education and debilitating memory problems. He could never have imagined how far his dream of a better life – and an uncanny knack for drawing – would take him.

Today Vincent's work hangs in galleries around the world including the National Portrait Gallery and Federal Parliament House in Canberra. He’s sold out international exhibitions, won the Archibald Prize People’s Choice Award more times than any artist and twice won the Doug Moran Portrait Prize.

Sometimes tragic, often hilarious but always deeply moving, Unveiled is a paint-spattered, star-studded, white-knuckle ride from the Housing Commission ghettos of Australia to the art galleries of Hong Kong, through the back roads of India and into the nightclubs of New York as Vincent chases his dream with humility, humour and a boundless love for people and a life better lived.

Vincent Fantauzzo, award-winning portrait artist, completed a BA and a Masters in Fine Arts at RMIT, graduating in 2005. Fantauzzo truly emerged onto the portrait scene when his striking painting of his friend Heath Ledger took out the coveted People’s Choice Award at the 2008 Archibald Prize, winning again in 2009, 2013 and 2014.

Portrait of Heath Ledger, Art Gallery of NSW

In 2011, his Archibald-shortlisted portrait of chef Matt Moran won the Packing Room Prize; and his painting of director Baz Luhrmann was awarded the Moran National Portrait Prize the same year. In 2018, he was commissioned by the Historic Memorials Committee to create the official portrait of Julia Gillard for the Parliament House collection. The National Portrait Gallery commissioned Fantauzzo in 2020 to create a portrait of Hugh Jackman.

 

Vincent Fantauzzo will be in conversation with Helen Musa in Room T2 Kambri, ANU on March 17 from 6-7pm.

 

Spit - The Movie

 

 Spit – Screen Australia. Exclusively in cinemas 6 March, 2025.

Previewed by Frank McKone
February 23


Director:     Jonathan Teplitzky
Writers:      Christopher Nyst
Producer:    Greg Duffy  Trish Lake  Felicity Mcvay  David Wenham
Dir. of Photography:     Garry Phillips
Editor:         Nick Meyers
Production Designer:     Nicholas McCallum

Production Completion:     2024
Genre:     Comedy, Crime, Drama
Production Company: Tracking Films Pty Ltd


Cast:
 David Wenham     Helen Thomson     David Field     David Roberts
Gary Sweet     Arlo Green     Pallavi Sharda     Ayik Daniel Chut Deng
Sam and Teagan Rybka     Sami Afuni

Screen Australia: When ex-junkie, Johnny (Spit) Spitieri, flies into Australia on a false passport, he is locked up in an Immigration Detention Centre . The authorities want to know who he is, and where he's been. But so does gangster Chicka Martin, and his crooked cop mate, Arne Deviers, who are hot on Spit’s trail, and the Independent Public Integrity Commission is convinced the bumbling amnesiac is really an unlikely criminal mastermind. As Johnny talks up a storm without saying anything at all, he makes new friends amongst the detainees, and teaches them his version of mateship, and what it means to be truly Australian.
https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/spit-2024/41963

___________________________________________________________________________________
Exhilarated!  That’s how you will feel.  As Shakespeare might say: A most serious comedy, the funniest awful crime movie, and a moving drama extraordinaire all in one.  Spit is all about, and about all, humanity.  It’s art not for the sake of art.  It’s art which revives our faith in humanity, despite our worldly worries.

Like all the best Shakespearean comedies, all the confusion ends with a magnificent dance.

Another word you should use is rambunctious, or its synonyms like boisterous, unrestrained, irrepressible, exuberant, uproarious.  It’s not often that a cinema audience applauds with such enthusiasm at the end of a movie.

And again afterwards, when we were lucky enough to have David Wenham here in Canberra in person, speaking about his experiences in making the film, reviving his character in the 2003 comedy Gettin' Square.  

Unfortunately I never saw that film, but ABC Radio  National says “The film became a cult hit, partly because of Wenham's mesmerising performance as the mullet-headed Spit. Two decades on, Spit is the star once more”.   Wenham spoke with sincere respect of the importance and quality of the performances of the immigrant actors.  And he explained that Christopher Nyst, who wrote both films, is a criminal lawyer and knows these characters well.

It’s not unreasonable to class this film as Shakespearian.  It’s a comedy with depth of social understanding – and very specifically Australian.  No-one here should miss it; and I think I can guarantee it will travel internationally to acclaim – and to lighten our world-wide woes.

______________________________________________________________________________

BTW The only problem I had with Spit was the title caused an email to be treated as spam!

And check out the Funeral Parlour women as a contrasting image:

Image from
Spit
Screen Australia, 2024-25

 

 

 

 Baby Jane. Adapted and directed by Ed Wightman from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell. Canberra Rep. Canberra Rep Theatre.  Feb 20 - March 8.

Baby Jane is certainly a lurid piece of modern melodrama. Two sist ers are locked in an inte rminable battle over who did what to whom. Baby Jane (Louise Bennet) was a child performer eclipsed by her sister Blanch (Victoria Tyrrell Dixon) whose output was less vaudevillian and more straight film acting.  An accident has put Blanche in a wheelchair, ending her career. Who really was to blame? How the two sisters, struggling together in an old house, will survive is the question.

The best known iteration of the story is the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,  of 1962. It is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Henry Farrell. 

This version rings some changes but remains a great vehicle for the two leads especially to indulge in psychological carry on. 

This they do on a grand multilevel Andrew Kay set lit disturbingly at appropriate moments by Nathan Sciberras. Anna Senior’s costumes support a sense of period especially in the complex lace creation sported by Baby Jane in her childhood persona. 

As Blanch, the sister trapped increasingly by the injuries caused by the car accident, watches her old films on TV and desperately tries to escape, Jane becomes more and more unhinged and controlling. Housekeeper Luisa (Andrea Garcia) tries to keep her job in an increasingly strange situation. Edwin Flagg (Tom Cullen) arrives,  a dodgy young man who is being employed by Jane to help restart her singing career. And a sinister father figure of a ghost (Michael Sparks) wanders through to haunt her.

It’s a longish evening but well sustained by an excellent cast who are clearly enjoying the madness. The only sane person would appear to be the housekeeper, given a sensible and worried demeanour in a level headed performance by Garcia. The father figure is just there to mock Jane from her subconscious and a fine job Sparks makes of it  too. Cullen is suitably unsettling as Flagg, the potential music teacher.

Blanch’s despair in her room confined to a wheelchair is a less showy part than that of Jane but requires the kind of tension and truthfulness brought to it by Tyrrell Dixon. And as Jane, still trapped in that Baby Jane performance persona, Bennet is a mesmerising and increasingly unsettling presence. 

If this kind of filmic or theatrical madness is to your taste then go and enjoy. 

Alanna Maclean

MACBETH

 

David Tennant and Cush Jumbo in MACBETH. Donmar Photo by Marc Brenner

Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Directed on stage at the Donmar Warehouse by Max Webster. Directed for the screen by Tom Van Someren. Binaural sound design by Gareth Fry. Composer and musical director Alasdair Macrae. Gaelic Singer Kathleen MacInnes. Designer Rosanna Vize. Lighting designer Bruno Poet.Movement director Shalley Maxwell. Fight directors Rachel Brown Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown. Casting director Anna Cooper. A Trafalgar Releasing Production in association with Donmar Warehouse. Sharmill Films. In cinemas from February 20th.  

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

 Macbeth is the least enigmatic of Shakespeare’s tragedies. From the moment Macbeth (David Tennant) and Banquo(Cal MacAninch) encounter the three weird sisters on the heath, the audience learns of the course of events that will ultimately lead to the downfall of a noble hero as a result of his tragic flaw,” vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and fall on the other”. It is the undoing that will be done by his wife (Cush Jumbo), affirmed by the witches’ prophesies and carried out with tragic consequences. It is also the tragedy of the heat-oppressed brain. It is the tragedy of a man whose mind is plagued with scorpions. It is the tragedy of a man who puts his faith in the supernatural rather than the logic of reality.

Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth

In the intimate surrounds of London’s Donmar Warehouse, director Max Webster has brilliantly imagined a production of Shakespeare’s play that strips away all artifice of the theatre and trusts to the power of the actors’ storytelling. In a brilliant stroke of invention Webster removes the physical depiction of secret black and midnight hags and audiences hear the prophesies  through headphones that transport the ominous predictions to the innermost recesses of the audience’s minds. At one point, the Ensemble in a taunting ritual of prophesy amplify accusation and guilt in presenting the prophesies that will undo the tyrant when Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane and no man born of woman slays Macbeth.

 

Noof Oussalam as Macduff

Central to the drama are the extraordinary performances of David Tennant as Macbeth and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth. Tim Van Someren’s screen direction brings the audience into the very minds of the actors. Close ups draw us into the very thoughts and feelings, exposing motive and charting the predictable course of Fate. Tennant’s towering performance as Macbeth presents a protagonist doomed the moment he gazes upon his bloodied hands and the daggers of his deed. Jumbo’s  Lady Macbeth  begins her decline from provocateur to pitiful outcast at the moment of rejection by Macbeth. “Be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck til thou applaudst the deed.” Jumbo’s plaintive sleepwalking scene and descent into insanity evoke just retribution and yet Jumbo’s magnetism in performance may conjure sympathy for her sorry fate. What’s done cannot be undone as Macbeth pursues his bloody act. Tennant plays the man possessed. Convinced by his wife to enact the crime, he is a man out of control. Gripped by fear and doubt and panic. Tennant’s Macbeth on stage and on film mesmerises as he cuts his swathe through murder upon murder. The murder of Lady Macduff (Rona Morison) and her son (Casper Knopf) chill to the bone. Macduff’s grief trumpets the cry for revenge. From this moment forth and urged on by Malcolm (Ross Watt) the witches’ final prophesies are ignited and the stage is set for the confrontation between Macbeth and Macduff (Noof Ousselam). The final battle upon the stage is choreographed to the accompaniment of an echoing soundtrack of clanging swords . 

Malcolm (Ross Watt) Duncan(Benny Young) and Ensemble

 

The power of intimacy is at the very heart of this production as it could well have been four centuries ago. Webster and van Someren imbue Shakespeare’s psychological thriller with suspense and horror. Comic relief is provided by the Porter’s scene with Jatinder Singh Randhawa engaging with a modern day audience and offering the humour of our time interspersed with Shakespeare’s text. It also allows time for Tennant and Jumbo to wipe the blood from their hands and clothes. The universality of Shakespeare’s work rings true in word and action. A Scottish folk band capture the immortal spirit of the jig during the banquet scene.

Director Webster’s electrifying imagining  of Shakespeare’s Macbeth will thrill audiences. The Donmar Warehouse production attests to Shakespeare’s genius and the brilliance of his storytelling. It is an opportunity to experience the very best of British theatre.

Banquo (Cal MacAninch) and Macbeth (David Tennant)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BABY JANE

Adapted and Directed by Ed Wightman

From the Henry Farrell novel, “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?”

Canberra REP production

Canberra REP Theatre, Acton to 8 March

 

Reviewed by Len Power 21 February 2025

 

The 1962 psychological horror film, “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?” is famous for its now iconic performances by the stars of the film, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The film was based on a novel by Henry Farrell and it is this novel on which Ed Wightman has based his play, rather than the film.

In the story, two sisters are living together in seclusion.  Former stage child star, Jane Hudson (Baby Jane) is caring for her crippled sister, Blanche Hudson, formerly a famous movie star. It seems that Jane is responsible for the accident that resulted in her sister’s condition. Jane’s unstable state of mind results in an unrealistic plan to revive her child act while her aggression towards her sister increases alarmingly.

While the story in both film and play is basically similar, there is, wisely, no attempt to copy the performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

Louise Bennet gives a winning performance in the marathon role as Jane Hudson. She gives the character of Jane an eccentric childlike quality that is initially funny and a little sad, making her gradual descent into a dangerous insanity effective and realistic.

As her crippled sister, Blanche Hudson, Victoria Tyrrell Dixon gives a fine, in-depth performance as a woman increasingly fearful for her safety who is unable to get help when she needs it.

The best moments in the play are the confrontation scenes between the sisters. Petty jealousies become serious conflicts as Jane’s mind deteriorates and both actresses make these sequences frighteningly memorable.

Michael Sparks gives a nicely controlled performance as the ghost of the sister’s father who appears in Jane’s mind at key moments in the play. The psychological impact he had on the young Jane is effectively detailed in Sparks’ performance.

Andrea Garcia plays the housekeeper, Luisa, with an appealing warmth and concern for Blanche’s situation while dealing with the difficult Jane, and Tom Cullen gives a good performance as Edwin Flagg, a seedy young man who sees a chance to take advantage of Jane’s delusions.

Andrew Kay’s detailed set of this faded Hollywood home is nicely claustrophobic. Ed Wightman’s adaptation of the Farrell novel works very well and his direction of both character and action is excellent, making this a fine and entertaining thriller.

 

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/.

 

 

BABY JANE

 

BABY JANE.

Directed and Adapted by Ed Wightman from Henry Farrell’s novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Set design Andrew Kay. Lighting design Nathan Sciberras. Sound design Neville Pye. Costume design Anna Senior. Properties Antonia Kitzel.  Canberra repertory. Theatre 3. February 20 – March 8 2025. Bookings: canberrarep.org.au or 6257 1950.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Louise Bennet is Baby Jane

Director Ed Wightman wastes no time in establishing a macabre grotesqueness to his adaptation of Henry Farrell’s psychological horror thriller What ever Happened to Baby Jane. Wightman’s adaptation opens this world premiere production of Baby Jane with the silhouette of a figure singing Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are. It is unnerving echoing the sinister sound of  a scratchy recording from a bygone era. The lights fade up on Baby Jane (Louise Bennet), now an aging spinster, dressed in the girlish outfit of the Edwardian Era, complete with ringlets. The presence of a taunting father (Michael Sparks) provides a chilling tone of psychological abuse. It is a bizarre prelude to Fuller’s exploration of the fragile nature of the human psyche.

Wightman’s adaptation is faithful to Farrell’s account of two sisters, living together in a Hollywood mansion after a mysterious car accident that left movie star Blanche (Victoria Tyrell Dixon) paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair and her sister Jane, a has-been child vaudeville performer with delusions of regained stardom, Blanche’s resentful full time carer. The stage is set for a psychological drama, fuelled by jealousy, inflamed by anger and resentment, tormented by paranoia and psychotic in its delusory imaginings.  By the time that the immobile Blanche reveals the truth of the car accident to Jane, the damage, mental and physical is irreversible and neither Fuller nor Wightman can offer an optimistic resolution. A father’s abuse turns a daughter to a victim who in turn enacts abuse upon a helpless victim with her own terrible secret. The house with barred windows is a prison of the flesh and of the mind. Only the housekeeper Luisa (Andrea Garcia) presents some normalcy in this disturbed household. Musician Edwin Flagg, who answers an ad by Jane for a pianist to work with her on her dream of revival strikes a strange figure as single man, living with his mother and partial to alcohol. And through it all is the memory of the draconic father.    

Under Wightman’s assured and insightful direction, his cast create characters that are identifiably real. Although the production recalls the style and atmosphere of Robert Aldrich’s 1962 film with Bette Davis as Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche, Canberra Rep’s staging of Wightman’s adaptation is particularly pertinent to a time when the escalating mental health problem in society is a challenging and increasing concern. Victoria Tyrrell Dixon and Louise Bennet as the two sisters locked together in a psychological nightmare give stellar performances that are so very different and yet equally compelling. Tyrrell Dixon’s powerless victim evokes instant sympathy with her performance of an incapacitated former star, glued to replays of her former triumphs. Bennet’s Jane is a ricocheting performance of complex mental states. At once vitriolic in her outbursts or childishly absurd in her desperate recollection of her vaudeville days, Bennett charts a performance of psychotic complexity. Wightman, assisted by Neville Pye’s haunting sound design skilfully navigates the relationship and the suspense of unpredictable reaction. Tyrrell Dixon and Bennet receive excellent support from Garcia as the concerned housekeeper, Cullen as the odd musician and Sparks as the catalyst of destructive psychological influence.  

Wightman claims on the playbill that his main aim in adapting Farrell’s novel faithfully was to make it work as a piece of theatre. He achieves this admirably. My only criticism is the repetitive  scene betweem Jane and Flagg that could do with some judicious editing, coming as it does immediately after the interval and, though expertly performed by Bennet and Cullen tends to lose dramatic tension, which is the enduring impact of this production.

Canberra Rep has yet again excelled with its production values. Andrew Kay’s realistic set design, so effectively realized by the construction team provides the perfect setting for this replica of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It is also excellently captured in Anna Senior’s costume design. All in all Rep’s production is a triumph of authenticity and riveting theatricality.

On one level Rep’s production of Baby Jane is an absorbing piece of well-made theatre that will keep audiences entertained and engaged from beginning to end. On another it is a lesson in individual responsibility to consider the consequence of our actions on our own and others’ mental health.

On whatever level it is a production to be highly recommended.