Reviewed by Bill Stephens
If for no other reason than the quality of the musicianship on stage, The Rock show would have had its audience screaming for more. But add the outstanding showmanship of ten ridiculously gifted young musicians, (some of whom are likely to become household names soon) who confidently shared moments in the spotlight with Australian rock and roll royalty, Jon English, effortlessly demonstrating why he is what he is, and you have the recipe for a memorable evening.
Focussing on the 50 year career of its star, The Rock Show referenced the music of The Mammas and the Pappas, ranged through Janis Joplin and Jimmi Hendrix (brilliantly channelled by Kita Kerford and Joe Karlow), through David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Along the way it included haunting renditions of "Whiter Shade of Pale", "Stairway to Heaven" and yes, even "Bohemian Rhapsody" until concluding on one of Jon English's best known songs "Six Ribbons" with barely a pause for applause.
Both the director, Stuart Smith, and the musical director, Isaac Hayward, were part of the gifted ensemble, most of whom were multi-instrumentalists and all remained on stage for the entire presentation gravitating between an impressive array of instruments and vocal combinations, as they interpretated Isaac Hayward's sophisticated musical arrangements utilising violins, cellos, flutes and clarinets as well as a variety of guitars, keyboards and drums.
Light years away from the usual tired tribute show, The Rock Show is a brilliantly conceived and executed entertainment which is notable for the quality of its musical arrangements, its intelligent direction, and its excellent production values. Watch out for it when it returns to Canberra in December.
(An edited version of this review appears in the 21-27 January edition of City News).
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Free critic’s panel for the Ausdance Master School
Late news that I have agreed to moderate a free critic’s panel for the Ausdance Master School running this week. It’s open to the public and that of course also means our Canberra Critics’ Circle members, and takes place from 12.45 pm to 1. 15 pm, Thursday 21 January in the Bogong Theatre at Gorman House Arts Centre.
Participating critics confirmed are Margaret Pierce, Ros Dundas and Lee Christophis.
As Neil Roach from Ausdance says– it should be a lot of fun.
Helen Musa
Participating critics confirmed are Margaret Pierce, Ros Dundas and Lee Christophis.
As Neil Roach from Ausdance says– it should be a lot of fun.
Helen Musa
Friday, January 15, 2010
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Schaubühne Berlin directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Sydney Festival at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-16, 2010
Theatre by Frank McKone: Two reviews - standard newspaper style and magazine style. Comments invited.
1.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Schaubühne Berlin directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Sydney Festival at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-16, 2010. In German with surtitles.
Mud, mud, (in-)glorious mud. What a difference from Australia’s own Hamlet on Ice or the British traditional Laurence Olivier film that my generation was brought up on. This Hamlet really is mad, with lucid moments, in grief at the death of his father. Madder as he realises what his mother has done and what women may do under a man’s control. Mad with anger and thoughts of revenge against his uncle, the murderer. Mad with fear that he may destroy the innocent Ophelia, with regret that he has killed her father, assuming Polonius to be King Claudius behind the arras. Mad at himself for not knowing how to take action, when, or what to do.
When the end comes, alone in the mud of the graveyard, we understand what “The rest is silence” means. At last, his death is a relief for Hamlet, and felt by the audience to be a kind of triumph. As the stage switched to black, in silence, the applause exploded, calling the cast back 5 times when I was there to express appreciation for the artistry of this production.
A surprising feature of this adaptation, which includes occasional modern language, topical references and even improvisation as Hamlet directly addresses his audience (characters in the play and us in the auditorium) is the humour. Shakespeare built this in to the gravedigger and Polonius, but Ostermeier and the translator Marius von Mayenburg have dared to show how watching a mad person is often very funny. The mood switches from zany wild clowning to humour which suddenly becomes very black, and again to terrible feelings of complete breakdown. Though Lars Eidinger as Hamlet has received most publicity, all the cast are entirely in control of their work in this highly expressionistic mode. Judith Rosmair’s scene as the broken Ophelia, hardly able to articulate her words, was just extraordinary. How different in style from the past is this performance, but how true it seems to be to Shakespeare’s intentions.
To bring, or not to bring this production to Australia may once have been the question, but the Schaubühne company prove the answer to be absolutely in the positive.
2.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Schaubühne Berlin directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Sydney Festival at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-16, 2010. In German with surtitles.
The essential question of any theatre production is Hamlet’s: to be, or not to be. The answer for Schaubühne is about whether their adaptation can be seen as true to Shakespeare’s intentions, as well as create a genuine response from a modern audience. Being chosen for the Sydney Festival also raises the question of translation from Berlin to Australia, Sydney in particular.
The answer is in the positive on all three counts, in my view, but you need to know more. Taking the last first, Lars Eidinger, playing Hamlet, is quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, saying that his use of improvised dialogue directly to the audience and of the humour in this version has a quite different effect in Berlin than in Sydney. In Germany he does not talk directly to those watching, and he thought people there laughed only to show themselves to be with it. In Sydney, the laughter is a genuine response, and it was clear to me (on Tuesday January 12) that the enjoyment of the business of theatre flowed fast between audience and actors, however fashionably dressed up Sydney people can be. Eidinger talked of “insight”, and I agree that Sydney audiences have a sophisticated appreciation of theatre which has grown over the past several decades. (Aside: see SMH Letters to the Editor, Friday January 15, for a contrasting view.) Translating the words and the action from Berlin to Sydney has been not just successful, but has brought out the best at both ends.
Oddly perhaps, I thought the surtitles showing Shakespeare’s original text was a brilliant Brechtian idea. We picked up the feeling from the sound of the German, the physical action and the live camera images while we also saw the words. I don’t know if the result was deliberate, but the ‘literalisation’ created exactly the right degree of ‘alienation effect’, allowing us to be both participants in the emotion and observers understanding the significance of the ideas. Perhaps in Berlin they should perform in English with surtitles in German, although I was conscious that the rhythm and cadences of Shakespeare’s language do not translate well into a different set of words and sentence structures.
This production takes literally Shakespeare’s emphasis on earth and nature, as against the unnatural and dysfunctional. The main part of the stage, thrust towards the audience, is covered in soil which, when wetted by characters holding garden hoses to represent Danish rain, turns into slippery mud. What this material actually is I don’t know, considering that actors buried their faces in it and apparently were still able to breathe, but the symbolic import was very clear. Earth, and nature, are unforgiving rather than being the sort of ideal harmonious environment that has become the fashionable view since the Romantics held sway.
Hamlet is shown to be justifiably mad, in the sense that although he knows he is behaving madly, everything that has happened around his father’s death and what happens as the play progresses goes against any possibility of his being able to direct events or control his life. This version concentrates on his personal and the local political life, leaving out Shakespeare’s wider political concerns about the forthcoming invasion by Fortinbras from Poland, except at the very end when we hear the drums of the approaching army to heighten the tension as all but Horatio die. I thought it would have been better to have left even this reference out, because the collapse of Denmark’s ruling elite was obvious enough in any case.
Shakespeare himself may well have not used all the material he wrote. I suspect the final gathering together of the whole script, I think in 1604, was probably in defence against others pinching his script – perhaps an early attempt at proving copyright ownership – but the result is more than four hours long and loses focus when what’s going on outside Denmark has to be covered.
So I conclude that the Schaubühne company have been true to Shakespeare’s central concerns. They also come from a long tradition, in my view beginning essentially from Erwin Piscator’s productions from the 1920s, of using expressionist techniques to open up theatre to the expansion of ideas in some degree in contrast to the ‘naturalism’ of the late 19th Century (which is still popular today). Schaubühne began in 1962, only a few years before Piscator died (still directing theatre in Berlin after his sojourn in the US during the Nazi period), and it seems to me they have continued and developed that tradition, which is much more in tune with Shakespeare’s ‘presentational’ theatre than with naturalism. This explains why this production is far superior to the ‘psychological angst’ versions that we have become familiar with (and also shows that Freud in his use of both the Oedipus and the Hamlet dramas got things out of kilter).
I think Schaubühne got the art into kilter, however much Hamlet’s world falls apart. This is why the audience responded so well when I saw the play, their applause bringing the cast back on stage five times for bows.
1.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Schaubühne Berlin directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Sydney Festival at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-16, 2010. In German with surtitles.
Mud, mud, (in-)glorious mud. What a difference from Australia’s own Hamlet on Ice or the British traditional Laurence Olivier film that my generation was brought up on. This Hamlet really is mad, with lucid moments, in grief at the death of his father. Madder as he realises what his mother has done and what women may do under a man’s control. Mad with anger and thoughts of revenge against his uncle, the murderer. Mad with fear that he may destroy the innocent Ophelia, with regret that he has killed her father, assuming Polonius to be King Claudius behind the arras. Mad at himself for not knowing how to take action, when, or what to do.
When the end comes, alone in the mud of the graveyard, we understand what “The rest is silence” means. At last, his death is a relief for Hamlet, and felt by the audience to be a kind of triumph. As the stage switched to black, in silence, the applause exploded, calling the cast back 5 times when I was there to express appreciation for the artistry of this production.
A surprising feature of this adaptation, which includes occasional modern language, topical references and even improvisation as Hamlet directly addresses his audience (characters in the play and us in the auditorium) is the humour. Shakespeare built this in to the gravedigger and Polonius, but Ostermeier and the translator Marius von Mayenburg have dared to show how watching a mad person is often very funny. The mood switches from zany wild clowning to humour which suddenly becomes very black, and again to terrible feelings of complete breakdown. Though Lars Eidinger as Hamlet has received most publicity, all the cast are entirely in control of their work in this highly expressionistic mode. Judith Rosmair’s scene as the broken Ophelia, hardly able to articulate her words, was just extraordinary. How different in style from the past is this performance, but how true it seems to be to Shakespeare’s intentions.
To bring, or not to bring this production to Australia may once have been the question, but the Schaubühne company prove the answer to be absolutely in the positive.
2.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Schaubühne Berlin directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Sydney Festival at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-16, 2010. In German with surtitles.
The essential question of any theatre production is Hamlet’s: to be, or not to be. The answer for Schaubühne is about whether their adaptation can be seen as true to Shakespeare’s intentions, as well as create a genuine response from a modern audience. Being chosen for the Sydney Festival also raises the question of translation from Berlin to Australia, Sydney in particular.
The answer is in the positive on all three counts, in my view, but you need to know more. Taking the last first, Lars Eidinger, playing Hamlet, is quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, saying that his use of improvised dialogue directly to the audience and of the humour in this version has a quite different effect in Berlin than in Sydney. In Germany he does not talk directly to those watching, and he thought people there laughed only to show themselves to be with it. In Sydney, the laughter is a genuine response, and it was clear to me (on Tuesday January 12) that the enjoyment of the business of theatre flowed fast between audience and actors, however fashionably dressed up Sydney people can be. Eidinger talked of “insight”, and I agree that Sydney audiences have a sophisticated appreciation of theatre which has grown over the past several decades. (Aside: see SMH Letters to the Editor, Friday January 15, for a contrasting view.) Translating the words and the action from Berlin to Sydney has been not just successful, but has brought out the best at both ends.
Oddly perhaps, I thought the surtitles showing Shakespeare’s original text was a brilliant Brechtian idea. We picked up the feeling from the sound of the German, the physical action and the live camera images while we also saw the words. I don’t know if the result was deliberate, but the ‘literalisation’ created exactly the right degree of ‘alienation effect’, allowing us to be both participants in the emotion and observers understanding the significance of the ideas. Perhaps in Berlin they should perform in English with surtitles in German, although I was conscious that the rhythm and cadences of Shakespeare’s language do not translate well into a different set of words and sentence structures.
This production takes literally Shakespeare’s emphasis on earth and nature, as against the unnatural and dysfunctional. The main part of the stage, thrust towards the audience, is covered in soil which, when wetted by characters holding garden hoses to represent Danish rain, turns into slippery mud. What this material actually is I don’t know, considering that actors buried their faces in it and apparently were still able to breathe, but the symbolic import was very clear. Earth, and nature, are unforgiving rather than being the sort of ideal harmonious environment that has become the fashionable view since the Romantics held sway.
Hamlet is shown to be justifiably mad, in the sense that although he knows he is behaving madly, everything that has happened around his father’s death and what happens as the play progresses goes against any possibility of his being able to direct events or control his life. This version concentrates on his personal and the local political life, leaving out Shakespeare’s wider political concerns about the forthcoming invasion by Fortinbras from Poland, except at the very end when we hear the drums of the approaching army to heighten the tension as all but Horatio die. I thought it would have been better to have left even this reference out, because the collapse of Denmark’s ruling elite was obvious enough in any case.
Shakespeare himself may well have not used all the material he wrote. I suspect the final gathering together of the whole script, I think in 1604, was probably in defence against others pinching his script – perhaps an early attempt at proving copyright ownership – but the result is more than four hours long and loses focus when what’s going on outside Denmark has to be covered.
So I conclude that the Schaubühne company have been true to Shakespeare’s central concerns. They also come from a long tradition, in my view beginning essentially from Erwin Piscator’s productions from the 1920s, of using expressionist techniques to open up theatre to the expansion of ideas in some degree in contrast to the ‘naturalism’ of the late 19th Century (which is still popular today). Schaubühne began in 1962, only a few years before Piscator died (still directing theatre in Berlin after his sojourn in the US during the Nazi period), and it seems to me they have continued and developed that tradition, which is much more in tune with Shakespeare’s ‘presentational’ theatre than with naturalism. This explains why this production is far superior to the ‘psychological angst’ versions that we have become familiar with (and also shows that Freud in his use of both the Oedipus and the Hamlet dramas got things out of kilter).
I think Schaubühne got the art into kilter, however much Hamlet’s world falls apart. This is why the audience responded so well when I saw the play, their applause bringing the cast back on stage five times for bows.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
TJ Phillipson at Photoaccess
TJ Phillipson Semblance
at Photoaccess Manuka
Just when I think 2009 has drawn to an artistic close, Photoaccess makes a last minute dash with one of the best exhibitions I have seen all year...Read whole review
Yolande Norris
Thursday, December 10, 2009
ANGELINA'S STAR PERFORMANCE
English National Ballet,
Canberra Theatre, December 3-5
Reviewed by Bill Stephens
For the second time in as many weeks I found myself in the Canberra Theatre, surrounded by highly excitable little girls in ballet dresses, and as thoroughly enchanted by a show as they were. (I hope this is a time of year, and not a time of life)
"Angelina's Star Performance" is a delightful ballet production, presented by the English National Ballet, which follows the story of a precocious mouse named Angelina Ballerina , and her efforts to rehearse her friends in a production of "The Sleeping Beauty", which they duly present before the Queen.
Anyone familiar with the "Angelina Ballerina" books by Helen Craig and Katherine Holobird, would note immediately that the very pretty set is straight out of the book illustrations, and the characters looked and acted exactly as they do in the books, except that they danced very clever choreography by Antony Dowson, to the glorious music of Tchaikovskys "Sleeping Beauty" carefully re-arranged to suit the action on stage.
At first I found myself wondering if the choreography may have been a bit sophisticated for the littlies, but soon noticed that those around me were absolutely transfixed on the stage .. they were involved in the story and could'nt care less about choreography.....and that was what I found so exciting. These kids were having a really magical theatrical experience!
The first act of the ballet concerned itself with the rehearsals for "The Sleeping Beauty", during which the snooty princess danced badly, some of Angelina's friends mucked up, and Angelina herself threw a tanty.
For the second act..the set cleverly converted into a pretty Victorian theatre and the mice presented the ballet of "The Sleeping Beauty" to the appreciative Queen seated in the Royal Box.
As I said, the kids could'nt have cared less about the choreography, but we older people took joy in noting that Angelina's production of "The Sleeping Beauty" was exactly like the real one...except it did'nt take three hours...only 25 minutes. The fairies brought their presents.. princess pricked her finger..everyone in the palace fell asleep..and duly woke up again when the handsome prince kissed the princess.
The choreography and costumes were full of clever references to the real ballet, and the dancing was precise and athletic, even though the dancers were clad in fatsuits to make them appear more mouselike.
During interval a couple of excited budding ballerinas began to twirl and whirl in front of the stage. In no time at all they were quickly joined by 40 or 50 more little girls (and even some little boys) all trying to imitate what they had seen on the stage. This continued all through interval until the lights dimmed for the second act. Afterwards I saw plenty of kids holding their parents hands and skipping along as they left the theatre. It was obvious that for them, "Angelina's Star Performance" had been a magical introduction to the world of theatre and ballet.
Thank you English National Ballet !.
Canberra Theatre, December 3-5
Reviewed by Bill Stephens
For the second time in as many weeks I found myself in the Canberra Theatre, surrounded by highly excitable little girls in ballet dresses, and as thoroughly enchanted by a show as they were. (I hope this is a time of year, and not a time of life)
"Angelina's Star Performance" is a delightful ballet production, presented by the English National Ballet, which follows the story of a precocious mouse named Angelina Ballerina , and her efforts to rehearse her friends in a production of "The Sleeping Beauty", which they duly present before the Queen.
Anyone familiar with the "Angelina Ballerina" books by Helen Craig and Katherine Holobird, would note immediately that the very pretty set is straight out of the book illustrations, and the characters looked and acted exactly as they do in the books, except that they danced very clever choreography by Antony Dowson, to the glorious music of Tchaikovskys "Sleeping Beauty" carefully re-arranged to suit the action on stage.
At first I found myself wondering if the choreography may have been a bit sophisticated for the littlies, but soon noticed that those around me were absolutely transfixed on the stage .. they were involved in the story and could'nt care less about choreography.....and that was what I found so exciting. These kids were having a really magical theatrical experience!
The first act of the ballet concerned itself with the rehearsals for "The Sleeping Beauty", during which the snooty princess danced badly, some of Angelina's friends mucked up, and Angelina herself threw a tanty.
For the second act..the set cleverly converted into a pretty Victorian theatre and the mice presented the ballet of "The Sleeping Beauty" to the appreciative Queen seated in the Royal Box.
As I said, the kids could'nt have cared less about the choreography, but we older people took joy in noting that Angelina's production of "The Sleeping Beauty" was exactly like the real one...except it did'nt take three hours...only 25 minutes. The fairies brought their presents.. princess pricked her finger..everyone in the palace fell asleep..and duly woke up again when the handsome prince kissed the princess.
The choreography and costumes were full of clever references to the real ballet, and the dancing was precise and athletic, even though the dancers were clad in fatsuits to make them appear more mouselike.
During interval a couple of excited budding ballerinas began to twirl and whirl in front of the stage. In no time at all they were quickly joined by 40 or 50 more little girls (and even some little boys) all trying to imitate what they had seen on the stage. This continued all through interval until the lights dimmed for the second act. Afterwards I saw plenty of kids holding their parents hands and skipping along as they left the theatre. It was obvious that for them, "Angelina's Star Performance" had been a magical introduction to the world of theatre and ballet.
Thank you English National Ballet !.
Friday, December 4, 2009
2009 ANU School of Art Graduate Exhibition
I have posted some of my thoughts on this year's fresh crop HERE.
If anyone is keen to check out what the latest Art School graduates have to offer, the exhibition opens tonight, complete with award ceremony, and continues through until December 13.
Yolande
If anyone is keen to check out what the latest Art School graduates have to offer, the exhibition opens tonight, complete with award ceremony, and continues through until December 13.
Yolande
Monday, November 30, 2009
Play: NOT AXEL HARRISON Malcolm Miller
Sam Floyd's latest play at The Street Studio, is a most entertaining gangster comedy, almost a farce without doors, in which clever lighting and set design, combined with telephone converstaions, create the kind of confusion and chaos we expect in that form.
There are good reasons why it isn't always advisable for writers to direct their own work, but in this cast Sam Floyd makes it work. One wonders what another director, without the writer's preconceived ideas, might have made of it.
The cast of seven gave polished performances from talented young actors. Becky Bergmann was a feisty daughter of the Italianate gangster chief, Poncioni, played by Davis McNamara with polished menace. Adam Salter was the dumb gunman, Val, who kept trying to get an exclusive on the dirty work to be carried out. Tom Watson as the innocent Axel, forced to strangle the hit man, played by Chris Brain, sent by loan shark Poncini, and then to take his place, was naively likeable as he bluffed his way into gangland. Daniel McCusker was the crooked, conniving cop, Spiegel, managing to be visibly corrupt, while Jack Dyball was the fringe-dwelling drug dealer.
The audience on opening night was having at least a laugh a minute as mistaken identity and confusion tangled the plot into zany humour ending up with baddies' bodies heaped on the floor.
I predict that a lot more will be heard from Sam Floyd, as his originality and willingness to develop and polish his plays grows.
There are good reasons why it isn't always advisable for writers to direct their own work, but in this cast Sam Floyd makes it work. One wonders what another director, without the writer's preconceived ideas, might have made of it.
The cast of seven gave polished performances from talented young actors. Becky Bergmann was a feisty daughter of the Italianate gangster chief, Poncioni, played by Davis McNamara with polished menace. Adam Salter was the dumb gunman, Val, who kept trying to get an exclusive on the dirty work to be carried out. Tom Watson as the innocent Axel, forced to strangle the hit man, played by Chris Brain, sent by loan shark Poncini, and then to take his place, was naively likeable as he bluffed his way into gangland. Daniel McCusker was the crooked, conniving cop, Spiegel, managing to be visibly corrupt, while Jack Dyball was the fringe-dwelling drug dealer.
The audience on opening night was having at least a laugh a minute as mistaken identity and confusion tangled the plot into zany humour ending up with baddies' bodies heaped on the floor.
I predict that a lot more will be heard from Sam Floyd, as his originality and willingness to develop and polish his plays grows.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)