AMERICA SINGS!

 

AJ America, mezzo-soprano

Roland Peelman, piano

Art Song Canberra

Wesley Music Centre, Forrest 19 November

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

Exploring the changing world of American art song, “America Sings!” was a fascinating journey that focussed on composers like Stephen Foster, known as the “Father of American Music”, through foreign composers that visited America such as Gustav Mahler, who brought a German influence, and Australia’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks as well as contemporary American composers like Charles Ives and Taylor Swift.

The mezzo-soprano, AJ America, is a performer, conductor and creative producer. She is the Artistic Director and founder of Luminescence Chamber Singers and Children’s Choir and currently serves as Chair of the Minister’s Creative Council.

Roland Peelman and A J America

Pianist, Roland Peelman, has been active in Australia for over 30 years as a conductor, pianist, artistic director and mentor to singers, composers and musicians.  He has been the Artistic Director of the Canberra International Music Festival since 2015.

The program commenced with two songs by Stephen Foster, “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Hard Times Come Again No More”.  A J America’s rich mezzo-soprano gave these songs a comforting warmth.  Her clear diction made every word count.

The program of many contrasting songs was a good showcase for America’s fine vocal ability.  Highlights from the first half of the program included “Songs To The Dark Virgin” by Florence Price and Charles Ives’ electrifying “Majority” which was given a strongly dramatic and winning performance by America. Peelman’s breath-taking accompaniment to this work included moments where, not just his fingers, but his whole arm had to be used on the keyboard!

Roland Peelman playing Charles Ives' "Majority"

The second half of the program commenced with Peggy Glanville-Hicks’ haunting “Thirteen Ways Of Looking At a Blackbird”, followed by the edgy “Five Elegies” by Hans Eisler, a life-long collaborator with Berthold Brecht. The two very different works were sung well by America.

A J America

After the songs by Eisler, it seemed a natural step to two songs by Kurt Weill, “Dirge For Two Veterans” from the poem by Walt Whitman and the sublime “Speak Low”. America sang this with a sensitivity that added a welcome dimension to this well-known song.

The program finished with “The Last Great American Dynasty”, a 2020 song by Taylor Swift. America and Peelman gave this a performance that was both witty and colourful, bringing this highly stimulating program to a close.

 

Photos By Peter Hislop

 

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/.

 

BLAMEY STREET BIG BAND SWINGS WITH THE BEATLES

Conducted by Ian McLean

Harmonie German Club, Narrabundah, 18 November

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

The Harmonie German club was really swinging when Ian McLean and his Blamey Street Big Band in concert gave an extra dimension to the much-loved music of the Beatles.

Including at least one song from every Beatles studio album and some of their singles, the 22 piece big band moved from one hit to another, showcasing the extraordinary output from the Beatles’ 13 albums and showing in these arrangements how adaptable these songs are. Canberra’s leading jazz vocalist, Leisa Keen, joined the band for many of the songs, adding an extra sheen to this memorable evening of music.

The band, conducted with energy and sensitivity by Ian McLean, set an appealing, relaxed mood with a delightful jazz-funk arrangement of “Blackbird” and then Leisa Keen joined them to sing two numbers, “Here Comes The Sun” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. Both songs were superbly sung and played, bringing back memories to those of us of a certain age who were around when the songs first burst onto the scene in the 1960s.

Blamey Street Big band

Many of the songs had arrangements by the band’s principal saxophone player, Andrew Hackwill, and there were other arrangements written for the Count Basie Big Band, Ella Fitzgerald and others. In a first, band member and saxophonist, Jack Percy’s beautiful arrangement for “All You Need Is Love” was heard and, surprisingly, Andrew Hackwill’s lush new arrangement for the Beatles song, “Now and Then”, released only recently, was hauntingly sung by Leisa Keen.  Various band members and their instruments were featured in certain songs.

Ian McLean

In the second half of the show, guest conductor, Natalie Dajski, of the Band of The Royal Military College, expertly conducted four songs, “Norwegian Wood”, “Something”, “Octopus’s Garden” and “Eleanor Rigby”. The rest of the show was conducted by Ian McLean and included the songs “Yesterday”, “She Loves You” and “Penny Lane” as well as others, most of them sung by Leisa Keen.

 

Leisa Keen

Each of the evening’s songs was given an interesting, relaxed introduction by the conductors and Leisa Keen. Their personable connections with the audience and the fine music played and sung made this a memorable, nostalgic evening of song from the fondly remembered Beatles era.

 

Photos by Dalice Trost

This review was first published by Canberra CityNews digital edition on 19 November 2023.

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 COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)(REVISED)

Written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer & Jess Winfield

Directed by Ylaria Rogers

A Canberra REP production

Canberra REP Theatre, Acton to 2 December

 

Reviewed by Len Power 17 November 2023

If you are looking for a Christmas show where you can relax, leave your brain at the door and just have fun, “The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged) (revised)” might be just the show for you. I think we’re safe in assuming that no-one would be expecting a serious show with THAT title!

Written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer & Jess Winfield, it started out as a short send up of “Hamlet” at a fair in California 1983. Bit by bit, the show was added to until it morphed into “The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged)” and appeared with great success at the Edinburgh Festival in 1987. The rest is history with the show receiving an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest running Shakespeare show on the West End in London after a run of 3,744 performances, ending in 2005.

Canberra REP’s production goes for the most silliness you can cram into two hours from start to finish with three actors, Callum Doherty, Alex McPherson and Ryan Street, giving high energy performances from start to finish. They must be exhausted by the end of the show.

There is quite a bit of imagination in the staging and the director, Ylaria Rogers, and the cast have milked every moment for maximum effect. This isn’t a thinking man’s comedy – the script and the playing are as broad and obvious as possible.  Kayla Ciceran’s set design of half-finished stage sets and messy heaps of props gives this crazy show the right atmosphere.

The play itself seems to run out of steam in the second act and concentrates on “Hamlet” with some cringe-worthy audience participation and the multiple running of this sequence, including backwards. The action at times has a sense of desperation about it as if the actors are trying too hard to be funny.

Comedy can be a personal thing and how you react to this show depends on your own taste. Many audience members on opening night were laughing their heads off while others “sat like patience on a monument” (“Twelfth Night”, Act 2 Scene 4).

 

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 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised]

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield.  Canberra REP 16 November – 2 December 2023.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 17 Opening Night

Creatives:
Director: Ylaria Rogers; Asst Director: Jude Colquhoun
Stage Manager: Paul Jackson
Set Designer: Kayla Ciceran; Mentor: Andrew Kay;
Set Coordinator: Russell Brown OAM
Props: Anne Gallen; Costume Designer: Heather Spong
Lighting Designer: Stephen Still; Asst Lighting Designer: Ashley Pope
Sound Designer: Neville Pye

Cast:
The Players — Callum Doherty, Alex McPherson, Ryan Street



Go now to https://canberrarep.org.au/CompleteWorks  so you don’t miss out on hilarity at its best.  

Wherever The Complete Works is put on, the Players are expected to take the built-in opportunities for improvisation and local community revisions.  What’s so good about this Canberra REP show is how lively is the action, how absurd the style, and how original are the set, props and costumes compared with what you will see on Youtube.

Most important is how directly, personally and warmly these three connect with the audience.  We were completely engaged from Ryan Street’s announcement about switching off our phones, via Alex McPherson’s pre-eminence, to Callum Doherty’s extraordinary Hamlet moment when we suddenly realised we had stopped laughing – but only until they did Hamlet faster and faster and shorter and finally backwards!

Clowning, of course, is a very special art where fun is made by playing with our expectations.  These three get the essential ingredient – the timing of the unexpected – absolutely right every time.  You don’t need to know your Shakespeare.  You’ll be surprised at how much you learn – while you laugh, wave in unison, shout out the words, and applaud with gusto.

Just be there, and enjoy every moment – I promise you will.

33RD ACT ARTS AWARDS

CANBERRA TROUBADOUR NAMED ARTIST OF THE YEAR

A Canberra diplomat, musician, philosopher, poet and raconteur was this evening (November 14) named 2023 Citynews Artist of the Year at the 33rd ACT Arts awards held in the ANU Drill Hall Gallery.

Fred Smith, who with an easy Aussie everyman persona, has become something of a national folk hero and was praised by the critics for his Australia-wide touring concert, a sellout at the 2023 National Folk Festival, and for his book of the same name, “The Sparrows of Kabul.”

Fred Smith and the presenter of the award, CityNews editor, Ian Meikle

Smith has combined diplomacy and music for a long time and had already made his name as a musician years before for his original albums related to Australia’s peacekeeping missions in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville.

The first Australian diplomat to be sent to work alongside Australian troops in Uruzgan province and the last to leave, in 2011 he released the influential suite of songs “Dust of Uruzgan,” followed by a book of the same name.

He returned to Afghanistan in March 2021 to work at the Embassy in Kabul and ended up as part of the Australian team processing former Australian government staff and thousands of others through the human logjams at the airport’s gates, recounted in his book, “The Sparrows of Kabul.”

Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting

Earlier in the evening, the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting was presented by Canberra Theatre director Alex Budd to Jim Adamik, who was singled out for a remarkable year of acting, especially for his performances in Yasmina Reza’s play “God Of Carnage” at The Q and as envious musician Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” at Canberra Rep.

Diane Fogwell, presenter, with the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting winner and Theatre Award winner, Jim Adamik

The award is an initiative of the Tsongas family to keep alive the memory of the well-known Canberra actor Helen Tsongas Brajkovic.

The 2023 Canberra Critics Circle is as follows:

Frank McKone, Helen Musa, Rob Kennedy, Meredith Hinchliffe,

Tony Magee, Alanna Maclean, Joe Woodward, Kerry-Anne Cousins,

Cris Kennedy, Michelle Potter, Simone Penkethman, Bill Stephens,

Brian Rope, Len Power, Graham McDonald, Peter Wilkins,

Dante Costa, Barrina South, Ian McLean, Con Boekel,

Jane Freebury, Samara Purnell, Beejay Silcox, Colin Steele, Theodore Ell.

Canberra Critics Circle Awards

The awards evening, hosted by the Canberra Critics Circle at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, also featured the circle’s own awards, which went to:

Visual Arts

Tom Rowney

For his magical exhibition displaying virtuosity in glass. The exhibition included a new body of work: the Tesserae Series, which include sparkles of gold in coloured glass.  He paid homage to Italian glass artists by using sea horses, which formed the stems of goblets and candelabra.  For his lustrous exhibition at Canberra Glassworks in April and May: “Tom Rowney – Aventurine Spirit".

Visual Arts

Hannah Gason

For her exhibition “Arranging Light” at the Canberra Glassworks, an exploratory essay in light and glass. The artist created a series of beautiful works using light as a key element to play on glass surfaces creating magical illusions of space and movement.

Visual Arts

Linda Dening, Kim Mahood, Sally Simpson, Wendy Teakle

For the exhibition "Staying With The Trouble" at Belconnen Arts Centre. These four artists worked together for over a year to achieve this impressive joint exhibition. Their strongly individual works highlight the expressive power of the graphic mark on paper as well as the nature of the environment that is their inspiration.

Visual Arts

Wouter Van de Voorde

For examining issues of life and death, for his photobook “Death is not here” published in October 2022.

Visual Arts

Peter Maloney

For a revealing account of his multiple media practice from the perspective of his queer sexuality capturing a sense of his engagement with apparently opposing, if related ideas, the image and its mirrored reflection as distortion, “THE MIRROR Angles of Resistance” at CCAS April-June 2023. A posthumous award.

Dance

Ruth Osborne

For her significant role, including her own performance,  in James Batchelor’s production “Short Cuts To Familiar Places,”  in which she demonstrated connections with German dancer and choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser and her Australian followers. For her mentorship of Batchelor and the recording of a universally available oral history interview on Bodenwieser.

Dance

Natsuko Yonezawa, Itazura Co

For "Kiku", an outstanding collaboration in the areas of choreography, videography, music composition and sound design in the creation of a short dance film and accompanying documentary that explored dance and the ageing body through the experiences, both spoken and performed, of six Canberra women.

Dance

Australian Dance Party

For "Culture Cruise'' and its innovative use of dance to create a unique, innovative experience traversing land and water fusing performing arts, fine dining and Canberra’s cultural institutions.

Dance

Gretel Burgess

For her extraordinary achievement in  producing and directing “A Stroke Of Luck”, an informative and moving dance work, which she performed with her daughter, Chloe, and for which she drew on an eclectic choreographic repertoire to depict her lived experience as a stroke survivor.

Dance

Caitlin Schilg

For her choreography for the Canberra Philharmonic Society production of "Cats" for which she drew on a whole gamut of demanding dance styles to create a series of brilliantly staged production numbers which were executed with admirable commitment and precision by the large ensemble.

Music

Phillipa Candy

For a stunning premiere performance of “Keys of the Kingdom” by composer Michael Dooley, which featured playing ranging from the lightest, most delicate touch to thundering intensity with every moment of imagery magnificently captured and interpreted.

Music

Edward Neeman, Larry Sitsky

For a bravura performance of "Apocryphon of Initiation", a "concerto" for piano without orchestra composed by Larry Sitsky, in which the full capacity of the piano was explored with performer becoming at once the conductor, soloist and full orchestra.

Music

Liam Budge

For "In His Words - Voices of Fatherhood," a musical exploration of fatherhood based on video interviews with nine fathers, featuring the sophisticated combo of Brett Williams on keyboard, Chris Pound on bass, Ben Hauptmann on guitars and James Hauptmann on drums.

Music

Fred Smith

For his concert, "Sparrows of Kabul," a musical retelling of Australia's Afghanistan experience which comprises a sense of shared collective grief and an astute musical analysis of Australia's 20-year involvement in the Afghan War from a man who witnessed the many shades of war first hand.

Music

Apeiron Baroque

For an innovative, edgy approach to programming and a performance of baroque music of the highest quality featuring forte-pianist Marie Searles and violinist John Ma.

Musical Theatre

Canberra Philharmonic Society

For its production of “Cats”. Directed by Jordan Kelly with musical direction by Alexander Unikowski and choreography by Caitlin Schilg, this remarkable production succeeded in creating a fascinating feline world.

Musical Theatre

David Cannell

For his masterful performance as Sir Joseph Porter in Queanbeyan Players production of “HMS Pinafore”. His excellent diction and mastery of the Gilbert & Sullivan technique stamped him as an exemplary interpreter of these patter roles.

Musical Theatre

Dramatic Productions

For an outstanding production of “Dogfight” which was highlighted by inventive direction, atmospheric choreography, tightly balanced singing and orchestra playing and sensitive character portrayal from a fine cast.

Musical Theatre

Heartstrings Productions

For its production of “The Hello Girls”. This imaginative production with its accomplished cast and deceptively simple setting achieved an impressively professional sheen.

Musical Theatre

Dramatic Productions

For its exuberant production of “School of Rock” for which it fielded two separate casts. This production was an outstanding example of what can be achieved when youthful enthusiasm is supported by clever creative leadership.

Poetry

K.A. Nelson

For “Meaty Bones”, a poetry collection that combines wry and fond reminiscence with clear-sighted sensitivity to injustice, to bring home the legacy of colonialism to the personal dimension.

Poetry

Sandra Renew

For “Apostles of Anarchy”, a poetry collection that trenchantly dramatises the antagonism, defiance and hope of lesbian and gay rights activism from the 1960s to the 1980s, to depict an often invisible struggle still haunting the present day.

Non-fiction

Frank Bongiorno

For “Dreamers and Schemers: A political history of Australia”, a work of virtuosic sweep and synthesis that perceptively traces institutional machinations and social movements to their roots in personal motives and quirks of character.

Memoir

Fred Smith

For “The Sparrows of Kabul”, a memoir that presents a unique and humane perspective on the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and that testifies candidly and poignantly to the dedication of consular officials to helping people escape desperate circumstances.

Fiction

Zoya Patel

For “Once A Stranger”, an assured debut novel that braids together narratives of past and present to consider eternally knotty questions of familial belonging.

Screen

Wildbear Entertainment

For the documentary “Ford vs Holden” and their evolving slate of Canberra-produced factual content, including “Rachel's Farm” and “The Black Hand”.

Theatre

Jordan Best

For her direction of “God of Carnage” for which she created a claustrophobic world on stage exemplifying the conflicting contemporary dilemmas of homeless minds.

Theatre

Jim Adamik

For his performance as the 18th Century composer, Salieri, in “Amadeus”, combining an impressive stillness and thunderous outpourings of emotion.

Theatre

Natasha Vickery

For her performance in “Collected Stories” for Chaika Theatre at ACT Hub, a challenging role in which she skilfully introduced subtle changes that hinted at past emotional damage as her character matured over the years.

Theatre

Andrea Close

For her fast-paced, witty performance as the eccentric Judith Bliss in “Hay Fever” by Noel Coward, at ACT Hub.

Theatre

Mill Theatre

For the riveting production in an intimate setting and a pitch perfect ensemble performance, where the cast carried the complexities of time and space to great effect in Nick Enright’s “Good Works”.

Photos by Len Power. All photos of the presentations can be seen in my personal blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/2023/11/33rd-act-arts-awards-photos.html.

  

THIS ROUGH MAGIC - The Street Theatre

 

Andre Le - Kaitlin Nihill - Reza Momenzada - George Kanaan
in "THIS ROUGH MAGIC"

Written by Helen Machalias – Directed by Beng Oh

Dramaturgy by Dr. Rebecca Clode and Granaz Moussavi

Production designed by Imogen Keen – Lighting Designed by Gerry Corcoran

Sound Design by Kyle Sheedy.

Presented by The Street at The Street Theatre, November 11^th to 19^th November, 2023.

Premiere Performance on 11^th November reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

This Rough Magic begins impressively with a storm sequence depicting the plight of anxious passengers on a sinking ship. Not surprising given that Helen Machalias had based her play on a tantalising concept of telling the story of the Siev 221, 2010 Christmas Island boat disaster through the prism of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

What was surprising was that despite the care and attention obviously lavished on this production, the realisation proved to be such a dense, almost unintelligible and ultimately uninspiring, experience.

Perhaps a clue lies in the playwrights notes in which she explains that “This Rough Magic has evolved to become a genre-bending Shakespearean adaptation that is both a celebration of Shakespeare and an act of rebellion against the canon.  Iranian culture, Farsi language and Persian myth and storytelling traditions are as prominent as the Shakespearean text, offering a countervailing perspective on what we think of as ‘the classics’”.

Add to that the director’s promise that “our production is Shakespeare inflected and likewise our credo to evoke, not illustrate. From That starting point our journey through the play has taken us through Christmas Island, accounts of immigration detention, Persian culture, poetry, politics and more”.

George Kaanan - Lainie Hart - Kaitlin Nihill
in "THIS ROUGH MAGIC"

That’s a tall order for five actors to cope with, let alone an audience, even an inquiring one, and particularly for those not especially steeped in The Tempest, Iranian culture, Farsi language and Persian myth.

In this production, George Kanaan plays Prospero. Reza Momenzada is Ariel, Katlin Nihill is Miranda, Andre Le plays Caliban and Lainie Hart plays a Dive Shop Owner, an Immigration Official and joins with the others to represent various named politicians and a chorus of hungry ghosts and refugees.

All work hard, but given the peripatetic nature of the script, and the fusion of Shakespearean declamation, naturalistic and accented languages, many of the lines were hard to absorb and were therefore lost, and none of the cast were able to demonstrate the range of vocal or acting technique necessary to create characters able to engage interest or sympathy.   

Imogen Keen has devised a striking scaffold setting, but despite Gerry Corcoran’s clever lighting design, and the evocative sound design by Kyle Sheedy, while affective for the opening scene, it ultimately offered little sense of time or place elsewhere.

Kaitlin Nihill - Lainie Hart - George Kaanan -  Reza Momensada - Andre Le - 
in "THIS ROUGH MAGIC" 

While Machalias’ initial concept of riffing on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” to express her concern about Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, seemed a seductive concept, it’s hard to escape the thought that the development of her play suffered from “too many cooks”. The contributions of many to its development, including two dramaturgs, two cultural consultants and all the cast, are acknowledged in her program notes.

By trying to address so many aspects of a complex problem at once, her prime message has become obscured in a welter of unnecessary and confusing detail. Eliminating the dross and sharpening the focus would not only improve the accessibility of the play, but also increase the likelihood of its message reaching a wider audience.

                                                  Images by Novel Photographic

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

THIS ROUGH MAGIC

Written by Helen Machalias

Directed by Beng Oh

A Street Theatre production

The Street Theatre to 19 November

 

Reviewed by Len Power 11 November 2023

 

Following a storm resulting in a disastrous shipwreck in which many die, some surviving Iranian refugees are washed ashore on Christmas Island and the long process of seeking asylum in Australia begins.

Those refugees, Prospero, Miranda and Ariel, in “This Rough Magic”, also happen to be the main characters in Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest”. On the island they encounter Caliban, a Chinese Malay young man with a machete, now a guard at the detention centre.

“The Tempest” is a play that has long been the subject of various interpretations and debates about its meaning and “This Rough Magic” is a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s play to discuss Australia’s refugee asylum question.

Given a major staging with an atmospheric set design by Imogen Keen, a complex lighting design by Gerry Corcoran and a dramatic sound design by Kyle Sheedy, the play is presented as a series of scenes where reality, rhetoric and fantasy collide to tell the story of the cost of pursuing the promise of a better life.

Swinging between incidents on the island, political speeches from Australia and elements of Shakespeare’s work, it’s hard to get a handle on the play’s true intentions or feel much empathy for the characters. It feels like the link to “The Tempest” actually constrains the play.

Director, Beng Oh, keeps the show moving at a fast pace, but has not resolved issues with many of the short scenes that remain obscure in their nature.

From left: Andre Le, George Kanaan, Kaitlin Nihill and Reza Momenzada

The cast of five are mostly unmiked, making a lot of the dialogue hard to hear clearly. All of the characters lack background detail to make them come alive but Reza Momenzada, Andre Le and Kaitlin Nihill give good performances. George Kanaan as Prospero is a commanding presence but one of Canberra’s finest actors, Lainie Hart, is wasted in her small multiple roles.

George Kanaan

The refugee asylum issue is a good subject for a drama, but “This Rough Magic” might have been clearer and more satisfying without its ties to Shakespeare’s play.

 

Photos by Novel Photographic

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/.