“Live Classical Music”. Matt Withers. At Wesley Music Centre. February 19. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY.

 

ANCIENT sounds like the guitar and the lute always take a listener back to another time, and even with contemporary music the guitar still holds that connection to the past, but with Matt Withers playing the guitar the sounds are extraordinary no matter what period the music comes from. 

In a sold-out concert, with social distancing, the Wesley Music Centre is the perfect place for a solo classical guitar. The sound that Withers creates on his instrument makes that space come alive. Beginning with three pieces by Robert Davidson, the first titled “Twenty Twenty”, was not only a world premiere, but it suggested, as Withers said, to offer a sense of hope and joy, and it did. This quite Australian sounding piece reflected a laid back laconic style. 

The following two works, “Daring to Love” and “Forest”, were flowing and mellow pieces, but also fiery at times. They spoke of a composer who knows the guitar well. Three works by Richard Charlton followed. The first, a lullaby, “Berceuse”, which Withers had played several times for his one-year-old son, was a sweet and dreamy piece.

 The other two works, one a Tango were full of colour and movement that jumped out at a listener. Australian composer Natalie Nicolas wrote her work “The Shift” in three movements, “The Rain Will Go Away”, “Sunbeam” and “Beyond the Mist”. This too was a world premiere that was commissioned by ABC Classic. It is about “the emotional and psychological struggles of a loved one”. These three movements did not have the richness or fluidity of the previous works, but did show some technical mastery. They felt a little lost in their construction but offered the sound of great potential. 

In some of the quieter moments, they were quite special. Local composer Sally Greenaway writes fascinating music. “En Las Sombras”, which translates to “in the shadows”, crossed genres. The playful and tuneful work stood out for its ingenuity and dynamism. It was magnificently played by Withers. 

A short standout work by Phillip Houghton titled “Kinkachoo” has become, as Withers said, part of the Australian guitar vernacular. The fullness and beauty of it have rightly seen it become a standalone work.

 Finishing off with the smile-inducing “Felicidade” by Tom Jobin, which was arranged by Roland Dyens, is something that Withers loves and so do his many listeners. It sings of joy and happiness in its many bright colours. 

This is music that works on every level. Matt Withers is to be commended not just for his inspiring musicianship, but also for his entrepreneurial and promotional skills. He is commissioning a work for guitar from Elena Kats-Chernin right now. This goes along with his bi-annual competition for new classical guitar music. 

Australia needs more musicians like Withers.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

1

 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.  Canberra Repertory Theatre at Naoné Carrel Auditorium, Theatre 3, February 18-March 6, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 19

Director: Anne Somes
Associate Directors: Alexandra Pelvin, Antonia Kitzel

Set Designer: Cate Clelland
Sound Designer: Neville Pye
Lighting Designer: Stephen Still
Costume Designer: Fiona Leach

Cast:
Maggie “The Cat” Pollitt – Victoria Tyrrell Dixon
Brick Pollitt – Teig Sadhana
“Big Daddy” Pollitt – Michaels Parks OAM
Ida “Big Mamma” Pollitt – Liz St Clair Long
Mae “Sister Woman” Pollitt – Lainie Hart
Gooper “Brother Man” Pollitt – Ryan Erlandsen
Doctor Baugh – Rob Drennan
Reverend Tooker – Saban Lloyd Berrell



I hope that Canberra Rep will continue, every twenty years or so, to put on Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, to remind us how family life, sexual relations, money matters and sport are all tied up in the one terribly complicated knot.  This week I should also include a special reference to party politics and the treatment of women in a parliamentary democracy, which Williams could well have covered in his America in the 1950s.

The Rep 2021 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is very good indeed, tied together even more tightly, I think, than in 2001.  (Reviewed in The Canberra Times, April 28 2001; available at www.frankmckone2.blogspot.com.au)  

Even if often with pro input, in an amateur repertory company it can be a matter of good luck to find a cast that suits all of Williamson’s expectations.  But the difference in quality in these two Rep productions is nothing like as great as some people see between the original movie and the later one (1984) with Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange, Rip Torn, and Kim Stanley, described on Youtube as “True to Tennessee Williams's original play (unlike the awful Paul Newman / Elizabeth Taylor movie from 1958)”.

Rep’s casting, characterisation and consistency of team work in this presentation is particularly satisfying.  Even the great recent Sydney Theatre Company production (reviewed here May 19, 2019) could be seen as concentrating more on the stars – Pamela Rabe (Big Mama), Zahra Newman (Maggie) and Hugo Weaving (Big Daddy) – rather than giving as much status to Brick, Mae and Gooper.  At Rep last night I came away with an equal sense of the importance of each one of these six central characters, and the solid support of Rev Tooker and even from the small part of Dr Baugh.  Rather than being overwhelmed by Big Daddy and Maggie, I felt I understood better, and with more sympathy, not only their needs and why they behaved as they did; but also the relationships between the brothers Brick and Gooper, their wives Maggie and Mae, and the essential role in the whole family of Big Mamma.

When it comes to detail, Williams did not make casting easy.  At the risk of seeming sexist, for example, I have to say that when Williams makes Maggie stand before a full length mirror and point out that she has not lost her figure, Victoria Tyrrell Dixon absolutely looked the part.  How Teig Sadhana could make his Brick unresponsive was a small miracle as I saw it.  

According to www.sparknotes.com/drama/cat/summary  at the end “Maggie thanks Brick for saving her face [after announcing she and Brick are to have a child].  Brick puts down three shots, finds his click, and exits indifferently.  Maggie forlornly gathers Brick’s liquor bottles and locks them away, refusing to release it until he has sated her.  Desperately she declares her love for him.  The distant Brick can only reply: ‘Wouldn’t that be funny if that was true?’”

However, www.gradesaver.com/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof/ says “In the published script, we are left entirely uncertain as to whether Brick will concede to sleep once more with Maggie and allow her to bear a child.  The text itself leads one to suspect that nothing is going to change, but with enough ambiguity that each production can choose for itself which ending will be implied.

“In the playing script, however [for the original Broadway production by Elia Kazan], Brick ends the act sitting on the bed – and although the dialogue is also quite different from the published script, it is this stage direction that significantly weights the dice in favor of Brick having a change of heart.”

Somebody said to me in the foyer on the way out: “Interesting ending!”  I felt glad with the ending Anne Somes chose.

And glad, too, that Michael Sparks played Big Daddy with an interesting mix of attitudes towards himself and Brick in their long duologue, in which I learned that he has more self-awareness than I had thought before.  It was a softer interpretation, and, I thought, opened up a better chance for interpersonal compromise.  This makes the play, firstly, perhaps more in tune with Tennessee Williams’ intention; and secondly makes it more hopeful for the future.

Perhaps this means that Williams was too hopeful, when we consider the experiences of Brittany Higgins, when she was a ministerial staffer in the Australian Parliament, and of others such as Dhanya Mani – whose article in The Saturday Paper February 20-26, 2021 is essential reading.

I must say that Ryan Erlandsen’s characterisation of Gooper, in tight formation with Lainie Hart’s Mae, gives me little hope that greed for money-grabbing is on the way out.  A certain Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and now threatening digital insurrection against the Australian democratic government, says that Tennessee Williams’ hope in this play that Brick would recover from his depression after the death of Skipper, and justifably inherit Big Daddy’s property, is no more than a romantic dream.  And maybe my dream will one day come true: when Big Daddies and Big Mummas – and Little Daddies and Little Mummas – learn to treat each other, and are treated by others, truly as equals.

Thank you all at Canberra Rep for such theatre, so well directed, designed and performed.

Canberra Repertory Theatre
Set Design by Cate Clelland
for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
February-March 2021
Photo: Helen Drum 

Post settings Labels No matching suggestions Published on 20/02/2021 17:14 

WOLF LULLABY by Hilary Bell

Rachel Pengilly (Lizzie) - Natasha Vickery (Angela)

Directed by Jordan Best for Echo Theatre.

The Q, Queanbeyan – 18th to 27th February.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens.

James Bulger was a two-year-old British boy who in 1993 was lured away from a shopping centre and murdered by two ten-year-old boys. Hilary Bell’s “Wolf Lullaby” written just three years later revives recollections of this event by investigating the phenomenon of children who kill children.

Rachel Pengilly as Lizzie

Bell's play is set around a nine-year-old girl, Lizzie, convincingly portrayed by Rachel Pengilly in a carefully judged performance which keeps the audience guessing throughout the play. Lizzie is among a group of children who discover the body of a baby boy while playing in the local park. As the inevitable investigation progresses it becomes evident that Lizzie knows more about the circumstances of the baby’s death than she’s prepared to admit.

 

Rachel Pengilly (Lizzie) - Natasha Vickery (Angela) - Joel Horwood (Warren)
  Craig Alexander (Ray)

During questioning from her estranged parents Angela (Natasha Vickery) and Warren (Joel Horwood), who despite being separated maintain a friendly relationship, Lizzie denies all knowledge of the baby’s death, but as more evidence comes to light, Angela and Warren begin to doubt her denials.

Further questioning by the local policeman, Ray (Craig Alexander) begins to reveal Lizzie’s dark imagination, throwing the relationship of her parents into turmoil and they begin questioning themselves and each other and especially Ray’s style of questioning as he tries to manoeuvre Lizzie into admitting guilt. 

The fascination of Bell’s play is that while the characters are interrogating each other each member of the audience finds itself coerced into examining its own responses should it find itself in such a situation. 

Jordan Best’s production is tight and efficient. Her casting is excellent and each of her actors provide strong, compelling performances. Chris Zuber’s stripped back setting, together with the dramatic lighting by Jacob Aquilina, provides sufficient atmosphere to inform the audience of the many changes of time and place. 

Therefore, given these many changes demanded by the script it was surprising that a more imaginative solution wasn’t arrived at than the frequent blackouts which interrupt the action, destroying not only the pacing of play but also audience concentration, especially as the actors, sometimes costumed in pale colours and clearly visible moving into position often appeared to be waiting for Matthew Webster’s excellent atmospheric soundscapes to run their course.

Nevertheless, this is a commendable production by Echo Theatre of a compelling play which throws light on a situation which would be every parent’s worst nightmare, and recommended for anyone seeking an entertaining and thought provoking evening of fine theatre.

                                                     Images by Cathy Breen 

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

Hamed delivers spellbinding sounds of mystique

“Afternoon Tea at Six” album launch, 

Eishan Ensemble, at The Street Theatre, 

February 13, 2021 

Reviewed by Tony Magee

THE Tar is an Iranian musical instrument, resembling a long-necked lute. Its sound quality is unique, but certainly includes hints of banjo, mandolin and lute.

Tar virtuoso Hamed Sadeghi

In the hands of Iranian tar virtuoso Hamed Sadeghi, he and the instrument took centre stage, delivering spellbinding and evocative sounds of mystique, colour, warmth, passion and beauty.

Sadeghi was wonderfully supported by Michael Avgenicos on alto saxophone, Maximillian Alduca on double bass and Adem Yilmaz on percussions. Each of these artists also had numerous opportunities to showcase their own unique and superb talents throughout each of the eight pieces played on the night.

This was world music, where east meets west, including Indian, Middle Eastern and Western classical influences.

One of the hallmarks of the ensemble’s playing is the frequent use of unison between tar and alto sax, sometimes joined by the double bass, where Alduca would double or triple the melody, whilst at the same time, keeping the solid bass foundation driving through

Much of this music is meditative in nature, particularly Sadeghi’s solo improvised tar introductions to many of the pieces, before bass and percussion created a huge array of pulses and rhythmic diversity over which the tar and sax could soar.

Eishan Ensemble

Whilst the pieces mostly ranged between triple time and quarter time, specific time signatures were cleverly disguised by the myriad of unusual accent points that Sadeghi places in his melodic phrases.

In fact, this music is sometimes “a-rhythmic” in nature, which is another fascination and hallmark of the style of the ensemble.

Opening with an extended and mournful tar solo from Sadeghi, the first piece, “En Route to Balkh”, referencing a town in Afghanistan, slowly introduced gentle percussion effects from Yilmaz, joined by bowed bass of majestic depth and discreet sax splashes, almost a prelude to the beginning of the concert.

“Behind the Window” and “The Street” included excellent bass solos from Alduca, the latter piece beginning with a hard driving bass and percussion foundation, captivating and drawing the listener in.

Other pieces featured on the album included “Black and White”, which opened the second half of the show, also featuring an extended tar solo introduction and “Future #2” which included a stunning percussion solo from Yilmaz, full of musical colourations, and interesting and unusual rhythmic accents.

“The Street” was also requested by several audience members as an encore, and on both occasions everyone, myself included, were caught out with its false ending – applause erupting at what seemed like the finish – only to have the ensemble strike up again for a final musical epilogue.

As an ensemble, Eishan operate almost as one, with superb accuracy in phrasing, cadence points and endings.

Sadeghi spoke only once during the first half and once during the second half, leaving the power of the music to say everything that was necessary.

First published in Canberra City News Digital Edition, Feb 15, 2021

Wolf Lullaby

 

Wolf Lullaby by Hilary Bell.  Echo Theatre at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, February 18-27, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

February 18

Director: Jordan Best
Set Design and Construction: Chris Zuber; Lighting design: Jacob Aquilina; Sound Design/Composition: Matthew Webster; Props: Yanina Clifton

Cast:
Rachel Pengilly – Lizzie
Natasha Vickery – Lizzie’s mother, Angela
Joel Horwood – Warren, Lizzie’s father
Craig Alexander – small town police officer, Ray

At the very least this is an interesting play to begin our year of vaccination.  There are so many viewpoints to start from.  

The policeman, Ray, in some ways is a bit of a plodder: I can almost hear him say, with heavy sarcasm, “That’s a likely story!”  How likely? is a question I have to ask.

Then I must think about Hillary Bell’s intention in making up a story about a nine year old girl’s inner wolf and her parents.  Has Lizzie inherited a dangerous mental state from her mother?  Have Warren and Angela created an evil child through their fractious relationship?  Can we ever know ‘the truth’?  Is the application of criminal law the only way society can respond, if telling lies is truly a natural element of the human condition?

The directing and design of the telling of this story on this stage must be considered in the light of this likely or unlikely child’s tale with its philosophical implications.

Then I might be able to say if this innoculation against the fear of childhood killing has worked.  

The set design image which seemed to place most of the action behind the wire of something like a refugee detention centre stirred my questioning.  That central space became Lizzie’s bedroom, the police office, Angela’s living room, the police interrogation room, as well as the remand cell.  Perhaps the image represented the idea that all the people in their different ways were trapped in a chicken-wire cage, including Angela and her daughter because of their psychological conditions; Ray as he had to interrogate only according to the book; even the dead child Toby was in there behind the community’s commemoration flowers and poems placed outside the wire.

But apparently not Warren who was so often, conveniently, ‘on shift’, to pay for Angela’s and his separate rents, or when it was the weekend – the court-order time when his daughter stayed at his place – and the parents’ arguments took place in open space around the central raised set as if in the street where the children’s hopscotch pitch was laid out.  On the sides, left and right, words about murder were projected, becoming meaningful later as Ray’s interrogation ‘progressed’ and Lizzie’s parents worked out what their daughter might have done.

This set, combined with an ominous background sound track of children’s apocryphal skipping rhymes, disturbed me in two different ways.

First, as I suppose on reflection I was meant to feel, it all seemed to be an omen of doom.  

But I also felt there was a mismatch between this use of symbolic image and space and the seemingly naturalistic presentation of the characters.  Rachel Pengilly played her nine-year-old Lizzie so realistically that I found myself worrying that such a young actor was being allowed to play such psychological trauma – only to find when reading the program after the show that she is old enough to have a BA degree from University of New England.

Craig Alexander’s Ray, again naturalistically, played out the policeman’s conflict of feelings towards this local young girl, whose family he knew: he had unbending evidence-gathering rules to follow, while feeling at times sympathetic in a kindly adult way towards Lizzie’s telling lies, as well as feeling stressed by the frustration of not being able to extract the truth.

Similarly, the coming together and blowing apart episodes in Angela and Warren’s feelings about each other were realistic and very uncomfortable to watch.

After overnight reflection, I wonder if the set design, still without any need to set-change from short scene to short scene, would have been better if it represented a plain bland small room with a small desk, a chair and single bed, in which the naturalistic acting would feel normal instead of somehow out-of-place in the chicken-wire setting.  

By amazing coincidence, the image I have in mind appeared in Canberra’s CityNews on the very day of Wolf Lullaby’s opening night.  In a highly unlikely story, a significant artist, Melissa Beowulf, has painted “Cottage Room” 2018, representing the room in which she was held in remand at the Alexander Maconochie Centre for 14 months on a charge of murder (acquitted at her trial). [https://citynews.com.au/2021/digital-edition-february-18/  Page 28 in “Effects of injustice linger for ‘powerless’ painter” by arts editor Helen Musa]

 

Image courtesy of Melissa Beowulf
CityNews Digital Edition February 18, 2021 P28

The surround-sound of children’s rhymes would still make the point, and make us feel concerned about the violence inherent in many nursery rhymes.  The words that Lizzie supposedly wrote might have been better projected above the stage, rather as Tennessee Williams did in The Glass Menagerie.  A photo of the flowers and poems for Toby could be projected perhaps on the room window, as if on TV news, when the adults in the dialogue become aware of what Lizzie had written, and her words could appear as if the news camera had zoomed in.

Perhaps my reaction seems a bit old-fashioned, but I think the playscript and our need to come to grips with the truth of the story is unsettling in itself.  The mismatch in the set design was an extra layer which disturbed my focus on the characters and the implications of their experience, though the directing and performance in the acting was excellent.

In other words, Echo Theatre’s presentation of Hilary Bell’s Wolf Lullaby at The Q, Queanbeyan is an interesting production indeed.  Innoculation is advisable.

WOLF LULLABY

 

Written by Hillary Bell

Directed by Jordan Best

Echo Theatre Company production

The Q Queanbeyan to 27 February

 

Reviewed by Len Power 18 February 2021

 

Written by Australian playwright Hillary Bell, Wolf Lullaby premiered at the Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney in 1996.

In a bleak, remote town, a small child is murdered. Suspicion falls on 9-year-old Lizzie. Convinced her daughter is guilty, Lizzie’s young mother must make the torturous choice between ignoring her intuition and presenting Lizzie to the police.  The impact of the crime engulfs everyone involved, making us question why it happened and how it is handled after the event.

Jordan Best’s strong production plays out on a set designed by Chris Zuber that evokes the bleakness of a remote country town.  Matthew Webster has given the show an ominous and threatening sound design that adds considerably to the atmosphere of dread and the shadowy lighting has been effectively designed by Jacob Aquilina.

The strength of this production is in the direction and performances by the cast of four.  As Lizzie, the nine year old accused of murder, Rachel Pengilly gives an extraordinary performance.  Clearly much older than the character she is playing, she convinces us that she IS that troubled young girl.

As Lizzie’s mother, Natasha Vickery gives a heart-felt performance of a woman who finds life difficult enough without the horrific situation she now finds herself in.  As her partner, Joel Horwood gives a strong performance of a man conflicted about love and commitment.  Their scenes together are very real.

Craig Alexander as the investigating town policeman deftly shows all facets of his character, at times frustrated and threatening but then displaying an unexpected tenderness towards the girl.

Playwright, Hillary Bell, gives us characters we can empathize with and the dialogue between the despairing parents is especially well written.  You do wonder, though, why the policeman is all alone in his investigation.  Surely there would have to be psychiatrists and lawyers involved in a situation involving a child under suspicion of killing another child.

Nevertheless, the director, Jordan Best, and her company have given us an effective and involving drama that raises many issues of concern that leave us with many uncomfortable thoughts.

 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

 

‘Theatre of Power’, a regular podcast on Canberra’s performing arts scene with Len Power, can be heard on Spotify, ITunes and other selected platforms or at https://player.whooshkaa.com/shows/theatre-of-power.

 

THE GODMOTHER

 

Screenplay by Hannelore Cayre, Jean-Paul Salomé

Directed by Jean-Paul Salomé

Alliance Française French Film Festival

Palace Cinemas 4-31 March 2021

 

Previewed by Len Power 17 February 2021

In ‘The Godmother’ (original French title ‘La Daronne’), Isabelle Huppert plays a police translator, Patience Portefeux, who, desperate for money, gets involved in the other side of drug dealing with hilarious results.  The similarity to the TV series, ‘Breaking Bad’ is only the starting point.  The film goes off in its own original direction, maintaining a sense of real danger and suspense while amusing us with deftly drawn characters amongst the crooks, the police and others caught up in the plot.

Well-known French actress Isabelle Huppert shows what a fine comedian she can be.  She wins us over to her side immediately and we worry for the rest of the film if she’ll get caught, even though drug-trafficking is really no joke.

Supporting performances are excellent.  Liliane Rovér plays Huppert’s difficult mother, spending her last days in an expensive nursing home.  Hippolyte Girardot is Huppert’s lover and police chief chasing the drug traffickers and getting closer to the truth the whole time and Nadja Nguyen steals every scene as a practical and tough Chinese apartment building owner.

There are some superbly staged action sequences that are quite breath-taking and a Chinese wedding robbery that goes wrong is black comedy at its best.

Director, Jean-Paul Salomé’s film is a wicked romp that is great fun from start to finish.  Just enjoy it for what it is, an entertainment, and don’t think too much about the reality of the drug world behind it.

 

‘The Godmother’ is one of 37 films that will be shown at this year’s Alliance Française French Film Festival that will run from the 4^th to 31^st of March at the Palace Cinemas.  There are many interesting films on offer again this year, making it hard to choose what to see.  You’ll wish you had time to see them all!  The full program can be found at Alliance Française French Film Festival website.

 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

 

‘Theatre of Power’, a regular podcast on Canberra’s performing arts scene with Len Power, can be heard on Spotify, ITunes and other selected platforms or at https://player.whooshkaa.com/shows/theatre-of-power.