The Boy from Oz. Reviewed by Alanna Maclean

The young Peter. Photo: Olivia Wenholz

 

The Boy from Oz. Music and lyrics by Peter Allen. Book by Nick Enright. Original production by Ben Cannon and Robert Fox. Directed by Kristy Griffin. Free-Rain Theatre. The Q Theatre. 1-20 October 2024.

 

The Boy from Oz is a rags to riches showbiz story that glitters with the showbiz songs of the legendary Peter Allen. Whether you were a fan or not there is no escaping those songs and the fairytale trajectory that took him from Tenterfield to the stages of the world. But the show does not ignore the underlying tragedies  and tensions of Allen’s life. And we can probably thank an  unsentimental Nick Enright script for the success of that. 

 

He was gay when that was not openly discussed. His father’s post war suicide was balanced out by his glowingly supportive mother and his own drive. He was taken up by Judy Garland, married her daughter Liza Minelli, won an Oscar for the theme song to the film Arthur and was dead in his 40s of AIDS. 

 

That’s a  lot to fit into a musical but I reckon The Boy from Oz just about manages it, even if it leaves everyone, audience and performers, gasping for breath at the end. Kristy Griffin’s exuberant production with Callum Tollhurst-Close as musical director and Ian McLean, driving a small but expert pit orchestra, sets the right pace. 

 

The set’s a little basic and there’s an occasional worry about the chances of a performer landing in the orchestra pit but the energy of the show makes the audience forget all this. 

 

Jared Newell leads a hard working and exuberant cast as Peter Allen  in true larrikin fashion. 

 

Meaghan Stewart has the power and fragility of his mentor Judy Garland, while Stephanie Bailey is sharp and bright as Liza Minelli. Lachlan Elderton is touching as Peter’s later partner Greg Connell, Dick Goldberg among various roles notably and wistfully suggests  George Woolnough, Allen’s grandfather and the Tenterfield saddler of the song and Janie Lawson is warmly powerful as Marian Woolnough, Peter’s mother.

 

The razzamatazz of the piece is counterpointed   by  Newell’s laconic and humorous first person narration and by the more serious moments in the story. And it is very hard to go past the pull of I Still Call Australia Home as a siren song to be sung when on foreign shores. Free-Rain’s production certainly reminds us of the power that Peter Allen’s songs continue  to have. 

 

Rockspeare Henry VI Part Two, directed by Lexi Sekuless, Mill Theatre, Dairy Rd until October 26. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

The wars in progress. Photo Daniel Abroguena

 

Director Lexi Sekuless has hit upon a canny way to explore Shakespeare's lesser-known history plays.

With an endless cavalcade of politicians and warriors from the English Wars of the Roses, the three Henry VI plays are hard-going for modern audiences and the mishmash of names – Gloucester, Suffolk, Salisbury, Warwick, York and so on, is daunting.

Occasionally somebody really famous pops up, like Joan of Arc, but she's dead by the time this play begins.

Problems abound, despite the flashes of brilliant acting moments in the complex story.

But performed with an unbelievably tight cast, just 5 actors to play all the parts, Sekuless has them as an acting troupe who from time to time, share with the audience the names of the characters they are about to impersonate. It helps a lot.

Added to that device are the punk-inspired costumes by Tania Jobson which clearly delineate the characters, and as with Queen Margaret’s studs-and nails costume (her saintly husband Henry is swathed in black with a crucifix dangling from the waist) they give an indication of the characters.

Backgrounding the action is a rock soundscape by Andre Pinzon using music by Ukrainian composer Ikoliks which matches the stabbing and thrusting that surfaces in many actual battle scenes, which are designed by movement director, Stefanie Lekkas.

Queen Margaret and King Henry at court. Photo Daniel Abroguena

One of the clever tricks of the production is to give the impression of huge crowds through banners and posters bearing the faces of the various protagonists, even wrapping the audience up in one of them at one point.

Scenic designer Kathleen Kershaw has chalked up red and white rose slogans for the houses of Lancaster and York respectively, enhancing the impression of sheer chaos.

It would be hard to find a more adept Shakespearean language coach than Sekuless, and the refreshing fact that you could hear and understand every word spoken by the actors plays no small part in bringing the play to life. Bell Shakespeare can rarely equal this.

And what a rogues’ gallery of characters!

There’s the handsome manipulator, Suffolk played by Mark Lee, something of a sex god who holds sway over Queen Margaret played by Amy Kowalczuk.

There’s the lady Eleanor, wife of the Lord Protector,  Gloucester, and in the hands of Heidi Silberman a harridan, whose downfall is a weird séance intended to conjure up her bright future.

As the wavering Henry VI, Chips Jin perhaps overplayed the king’s  gentle indecisiveness.

In a sympathetic portrayal, Kate Blackhurst managed to summon up an element of dignity in Gloucester, the only decent human being in the play, but I must admit to considerable confusion in the use of “she” for Gloucester, for Blackhurst plainly played the part as a “he”.

The other characters form a nasty conniving bunch, seen in the sinister scene where Margaret, Suffolk and their allies make a pact to get rid of the hapless Gloucester. The play gives a little cause for faith in human nature, with the ruler-insiders no better than the vacillating populace outside.

It’s a surprise, therefore, how much tenderness Kowalczuk and Lee manage to convey in the love relationship between Margaret and Suffolk, and as played, no wonder their affair is common knowledge among the people.

Lee, joyously villainous for most of the night, is free to play other roles after a scruffy bunch of pirates take his head and throw it on the stage. It's plainly a prop and there's no offence – it’s that kind of production.

That gory moment gives Kowalczuk as Margaret a rare moment to show weakness, devastated as she is by the loss of her lover.

By the end, Silverman, now playing the ambitious York, dons the Crown, although as in any good Netflix series, that’s up in the air, leaving us asking, what's the next twist in the plot?

Presumably Sekuless will show us that next year, but just as a hint, she’s pinched the opening Iine from a much more famous play and given it to Lee, who resurfaces as a young Dicky, soon enough to be Richard III.

“Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York,” he says—Curtain and blackout.

 

Rockspeare Henry VI Part Two

 

Rockspeare Henry Sixth Part Two.  Lexi Sekuless Productions at Mill Theatre, Dairy Road, Canberra, 2-26 October 2024

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Thursday October 10

Cast:
Player One: Heidi Silberman ; Player Two: Chips Jin
Player Three: Kate Blackhurst; Player Four: Amy Kowalczuk
Player Five: Mark Lee

Contingency: Sarah Nathan-Truesdale

Production Team

Writer: Billy Shake; Director and Verse Nurse: Lexi Sekuless
Sound by Artlist - Designer: "ikoliks"
Costume Designer: Tania Jobson; Scenic Set Designer: Kathleen Kershaw
Scenic Painting: Letitia Stewart; Construction: Mark Lee, Simon Grist
Movement Director: Stefanie Lekkas; Lighting Designer: Stefan Wronski
Apprentice to Lighting Designer: Jennifer Wright
Production Stage Manager: Jess Morris
Apprentice to Production Stage Manager: Emma Rynehart

Front of House Manager: Lexi Sekuless
Photographer: Daniel Abroguena

Henry VI Part 2
Mill Theatre, Canberra 2024

The audience member seated front left in this photo is where I was placed last night.  In-the-Round is not nearly enough to describe the arrangement.  In-the-Action is more like it.  And how good is that when every noble command, threat, or surreptitious lie; every sexual encounter; every execution; every thunderbolt of rock-band explosion; every strike of lightning; and even every moment of intense silence, hits home?  You are in the King’s Chamber, on the battlefield at St Albans, in the Hall of Justice, in the Duke of York’s garden, in the Abbey at Bury St Edmund’s, and a dozen other places – all in the tiny theatre at The Mill.

At last you understand why Shakespeare wrote this play of governmental mayhem.  You’re in the thick of it, between a man, Henry, who has ‘inherited’ his ultimate position of power, and the Lancaster and York family heads doing whatever it takes to prove their legitimacy against his – and his French wife, Margaret, a desperate Queen in her own ‘right’.

I think ‘Billy Shake” was offering a warning to his own Tudor Queen Elizabeth: don’t forget the ordinary people.  In three plays about Henry VI from a century before she ‘inherited’ her throne, and in his other history plays, he shows what greed, graft, corruption and violence achieve.

As an aside, I remember how, only a few years before William’s 1564 birth, Elizabeth had given royal approval to the very grammar school – to educate the poor – which I attended – Enfield Grammar, near the forest where she used to go hunting.  

And with a bit of violence from stormy weather in 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated.  But Shakespeare still had to write, not long before he died in 1616, The Tempest, about Prospero learning he had to give up the symbols of power – a lesson still not entirely put into practice.  King Charles III, I’m sure, though, is well aware of what happened to his forebear, Charles I in 1649.

So Lexi Sekuless and Company have achieved in this production her aim, which she had espoused at the Theatre Network Australia Canberra Gathering on Wednesday October 9: to make Mill Theatre a place for “thinking people”.  The show is full of energy, the characters’ speech is absolutely understandable; and the story is unfortunately true to the worst of what we see around us every day.

It certainly makes you think – and feel, and appreciate quality theatre, in all its manifestations – acting, movement, costume, set design, directing, and with a little irony in the personal history, as I believe, of the composer and sound designer, whose work creates the source of energy on which the production rides.

His background, coming from Ukraine, heightens the significance of Shakespeare’s work for presentation in the present time, when an invasion becomes merely a ‘special military operation’, taken up, it seems now in other places.

But, finally, the design of the casting makes this presentation work theatrically in perhaps an unexpected way.  We are not in all these grand or terrifying places but in a small working theatre space, with just 5 actors – to represent, as Sekuless has told me, some 40 cast members in some standard productions of these three plays.  The skill with which the script has been trimmed, costumes designed, selected and changed as the action progresses, and the actors chosen for physical, voice and emotional effect is quite remarkable, and is successful because we, the audience, can see what’s going on as if we are theatre workers in the wings.

Doing it this way, up close in the round, makes the show, for me, as if I were a stagehand when Phillip Henslowe made a diary note that a play called 'Harey Vi' was performed on 3 March 1592 at the Rose Theatre in Southwark.  It makes William Shakespeare real – and it rocks!

Amy Kowalczuk as Queen Margaret
in Henry VI Part Two
Mill Theatre, Canberra 2024

 

 

 

 

Spectacular technique and compositional style from Anton Wurzer

Music / Anton Wurzer Akkordeon concert

At Wesley Music Centre

October 9, 2024

Akkordeonist Anton Wurzer at Wesley. Photo: Tony Magee

Reviewed by Tony Magee

Anton Wurzer took his first music lessons at age 10 from his late father Josef who was a button akkordeon player.

“I always dare to be different and consider myself a unique Akkordeonist. I also use my own spelling for the word Akkordeon,” says Anton.

Delving into the international spelling of the word, I discover two more variants - Accordeon is frequently used throughout Europe, whilst Accordion is usual for the UK, USA and Australia.

For his concert at The Wesley Music Centre, Wurzer played a selection of seven of his original compositions, varied in style, played with incredible skill and suitably spiced with informative introductions as to the musical thought behind them as well as the inspiration and demographic influences, truely international repertoire.

Without hesitation, I would describe Wurzer as a world class player with a spectacular technique, on what is a complex instrument.

His right hand covered the entire range of the substantial keyboard section of the instrument in dazzling arrays of vivace melodic runs, scales, arpeggios and chords.

His left hand controlled the vast array of buttons, which can actually be used for melody, but mostly serve as a solid orchestral or big band foundation and accompaniment.

But the audience also saw and heard the incredible dynamic swells that a third part of the instrument delivers - the bellows - which swell in and out almost mimicking an oceanic wash.

Opening with Waves of Mallorca, the piece is a contemporary style composition with Spanish influences. Beginning in 6/8 time, the piece moved to slower and then accelerated 3/4 time, conjuring up street scenes.

Madrid to Paris is a French style Musette, but came across more as a romp through Europe, with clear Spanish influences, and a finale evoking Viennese style ballroom scenes.

Red Samba Beans, as the name suggests is a Samba. I could almost see the great statue, Christ the Redeemer, towering over Rio De Janeiro. The South American rhythms came not just from the music itself, but also percussive slaps and hits on the body of the instrument aided by finger snaps, which the audience soon cottoned on to, adding a considerable element of fun in participation.

Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio De Janeiro. Photo courtesy Wonders of the World

Inspiration sometimes comes from strange places. Wurzer explained that Ein Jazz Walzer was conceived whilst cooking an evening meal. It was jazzy and bluesy, including a swinging improvisation.

I should mention that none of these pieces are written out. Everything Wurzer played was straight from the heart and the mind and I got the feeling that none are ever played the same way twice.

Left hand bass riffs and motifs from the button side of the instrument served as the foundation for Groovy Man Walkin’, with substantial bellow washes creating a huge dynamic range, all serving as a fascinating accompaniment to melodic jazz phrases from the keyboard section of the instrument. Oh, and the “groovy” part was clearly evident, perhaps a gentle homage to Simon and Garfunkel.

Mia Samba, which translates to My Samba evoked images of the Brazilian Mardi Gras style, showcasing traditional Latin American themes, both rhythmical and lyrical.

Rem Zelker closed the program. Some audience members, this reviewer included, teared up when Wurzer explained that the piece was dedicated to the 283 passengers and crew who lost their lives when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine in July 2014, including 38 Australians.

Opening with a haunting but suitably respectful funeral march, the piece finished with an air of hope for peace, reflected in a Klezmer style 2/4 march of brighter demeanour.

Canberra audiences will remember with fondness the many seasons played by the Wilf Jones Trio at Queanbeyan’s School of Arts Cafe during the 1990s. With Wilfred on violin, the trio included George Urbaszek on double bass and Anton Wurzer himself on accordion. Great days and great music.

Wurzer received enthusiastic applause from the audience, for what was one of the more unusual but fascinating Wesley lunchtime concerts and was called back for an encore, which he introduced as Song for my Father.