A Suppository of Wisdom by Shortis & Simpson

Moya Simpson

John Shortis

A Suppository of Wisdom by Shortis & Simpson at Smith’s Alternative Bookshop, Canberra, September 12-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 13

John Shortis and Moya Simpson have produced another classic collection of satirical songs and monologues arising from political events, in this case the moveable feast of the Federal Election on September 7. 

So delectably unstable is this table setting that even though by the second performance they had picked up on Sophie Mirabella’s loss in the Victorian electorate of Indi, they still included the song of horror – on the part of new Prime Minister Tony Abbott – about Barnaby Joyce becoming leader of the Nationals  and therefore deputy leader of the Liberal National Coalition (traditionally offered appointment as Treasurer).  Only that very afternoon, Warren Truss was confirmed as the Nationals’ leader, while Barnaby, having successfully moved from the Senate (Queensland) to the House of Representatives (New England, NSW) is now Nationals’ deputy leader, therefore being tipped for the traditional Country Party post as Minister for Agriculture.  With his views about coal-seam gas and foreign investors buying up farming land, the horror may go on for Mr Abbott.

To have written, rehearsed and so professionally performed 18 numbers – and a thoroughly deserved encore – in less than a week says a great deal about not only Shortis & Simpson’s sense of humour but also about their dedication to the task.  After some 17 years of satire which has made them a Canberra icon, performing now in the Bookshop which is rapidly becoming the kind of small music venue reminding me of icons of the days of old in Sydney, such as The Basement and The Troubador, A Suppository of Wisdom found its audience, and the discriminating audience was not disappointed.

It is hard to pick one number above all the others, especially because each had its own special music and singing style, but maybe the two that had the audience most in fits of laughter were the yodelling Tony A and the drunken monologue Learless Feeders. 

Beginning from the idea that Tony Abbott was picking up from the US Tea Party and Sarah Palin, Simpson’s “Tony a...yay...yay” took on a life of its own that still rings in the mind.  This is a song for YouTube, surely to become the theme song for this Government until a double dissolution or the antics of the kangaroo-poo-throwing Senator Ricky Muir (elected with less than 2% of primary votes) bring the Parliament into convulsions – maybe not of laughter – some time next year.

But perhaps the truest satire was Simpson’s monologue as a typical Aussie bloke, drunk on alcohol and the power of words, with extensive views on all aspects of politics – except that every phrase, including all the usual obscenities which pepper such rantings at the bar, had the first letters of significant words reversed.  As an early exponent of Alzheimer’s, I and many of the audience (who, Shortis claimed, had increased the usual average age in the venue by 40 years) were completely overwhelmed not only with the laughter that this generated, but with the fascinating mental exercise of trying work out, at speed, what the words were and then realising how they undermined all the pretentiousness of every politician mentioned.

This speech, to my mind, matches Peter Sellers’ famous political speech (“Let me grasp ....”) and definitely should be recorded on Shortis & Simpson’s next CD.  Or better, put this up on YouTube – it is sure to go “viral”.

Unfortunately, since elections and their results are so volatile, A Suppository of Wisdom has already come and gone by the time you read this.  But Smith’s Alternative Bookshop looks like lasting for quite a while yet, with jazz, stand-up comedy and maybe more Shortis & Simpson to come.  I certainly hope so.

John Shortis on ukelele and Moya Simpson in full yodel

Project Rameau

Project Rameau Sydney Dance Company - choreography by Rafael Bonachela; Australian Chamber Orchestra – guest director Dale Barltrop.  Lighting and set design: Benjamin Cisterne.  Costume design: Rafel Bonachela and Fiona Holley.  Music editor and arranger: Graham Sadler.  Dance director: Amy Hollingsworth.  Canberra Theatre Centre, September 12-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 12

Music and dance for the sake of music and dance.  This collaboration between the artistic directors Richard Tognetti (ACO) and Rafael Bonachela (SDC) is perhaps the most accessible modern dance work one can imagine – thoroughly imbued with the energy of youth.

It is a celebration of the ebb and flow of life, in social groups with a tremendous sense of community; in couples drifting together and drifting apart; as individuals expressing the mood of the moment; in times of reflection; in times of grand enjoyment.  The joy and satisfaction at the end of an hour’s continuous engagement in the sound and sights of this performance moved the audience to applaud for curtain call after curtain call.

The skills of the ACO musicians and the SDC dancers were beyond reproach – indeed far beyond my understanding.  How they can do it I don’t know, but the effect is mesmerising.

The music is not all by Jean-Philippe Rameau.  For example, Vivaldi’s storm, the presto from Summer, The Four Seasons provided an opportunity to see youth temporarily at the mercy of events outside of themselves, which, of course, they usually gaily ignore.

The stage design was interesting, with the orchestra upstage and a part of the performance instead of being relegated to the pit.  This meant the cueing, the beat and the mood of each of the twenty numbers in the show was immediately in the control of all the  performers – dancers and musicians – working as a unified group.  The result was an electricity lighting up each piece dramatically.

Though the simple black costumes and the modern technology in the lighting created a very much up-to-date 21st Century style, the ensemble quality with the visible live orchestra behind the dancers somehow seemed appropriate for this music originally written and performed in Rameau’s 18th Century operas, ten of which are represented here.  The atmosphere as the performance concluded was surely very like that in the opera houses of France where Rameau’s work was so popular.

Was this a worthwhile project?  Absolutely, in my view.

RU4ME

RU4ME based on Kissing Frogs by Andee Jones, written and performed by Annie Byron, directed by Wayne Harrison.  True West Theatre & Riverside Productions at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, September 11-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 11

If you’re a man and you haven’t GSoH, you might like to avoid this witty and telling story of Annie’s search for an arthouse cinema buddy on the internet dating service RU4ME.  Except, of course, she discovers that, at her age after raising her now-adult children, having a common interest in arthouse cinema is not what it’s really all about.  Especially when the few men she meets who actually have a sense of humour very soon find someone else.

Each of the 40 or so others not only have their individual characteristics which activate her delete button, but have in common an inability to recognise her as a person in her own right.  “Do I have to become submissive to play this game?” she asks herself, and asks us.

The wonderful thing about her play and her playing of the role is the light touch, which infuses not only the script but the set design (Andrea Espinoza), sound design (Jeremy “Jed” Silver), lighting and video (Nicholas Higgins) and the whole concept in Wayne Harrison’s directing.

There is a message behind the laughter, coming from Byron’s own experience when “I plunged into internet dating myself, and when the first person I met was so obviously not what his profile described”.  It’s not just so many men who  misrepresent themselves and fail to understand that women are equal, but she has also to learn to see herself for what she really is and really wants.

Can she find this through profiles, email, Photoshopped images, going to movies, risking alarm bells ringing in her head at “parties”.  LoL, of course not.

But, laugh out loud as we do, it’s in real life that she finds what she needs – and we are glad for her.

And we appreciate Annie Byron’s precise acting skills which bring this story to life.  If you come without a SoH, you’ll surely find one in this hour and a quarter show.

Home at the End by Duncan Ley

Home at the End by Duncan Ley.  Everyman Theatre directed by Jarrad West.  Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, September 4-14, 2013


Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 4

Duncan Ley likes to explore the psychological effects arising from a very specific situation.  You’ll surely remember the interrogation in his In Cold Light (soon to be a feature film) with its unexpected twists and turns creating the effect of a mystery drama.  We search to find out what is happening, and why.

In Home at the End, Act 1 ends with a sudden and completely unexpected horrific event.  I even wondered if this was the end of the play, but as others obviously more in the know on opening night wandered off to the bar for interval, I then had to wonder what on earth could happen next.

Because the play is a mystery I should not reveal just what does happen, except to say that the title means what it says.  The character, Joe Smith, who we realise in the second half is the central figure in the drama, does come home, at the end.  But it took me considerable time and analysis afterwards to work out what should be understood to be the theme of the play.

Apart from the question of the limitations of my intellect, does this mean that the play is a success or not?  I mentioned In Cold Light because that play ran for just 90 minutes, was absolutely tightly focussed, and made us understand, and even empathise with, the Inspector – the interrogator, who is as much trapped in the situation as the victim.

Home at the End runs for almost two and a half hours, not including interval.  Soon after Act 2 got under way I realised what the ending might be – and I was right.  But this meant that a great deal of Act 2 could have been trimmed, as well as some of Act 1, so that the drama’s momentum, already at a high point at the end of Act 1, would be better maintained – either to an inevitable end (which I saw coming), or a surprise end, which would need a reworking of Joe’s psychological development in Act 2.  He would need to be apparently coping much better with the trauma of his experience at the end of Act 1, but lose it against our expectations when his (at this point imaginary) wife Andrea sings her final song and fades away.

What the play is about is the experience of traumatic stress.  What can we expect a person to do at the dreadful moment of absolute threat?  Like any animal, and we are only a species of animal after all, will it be fight or flight?  Does a person, in this moment, have any control over their response?  I think Ley says, no.

The response to such fear, especially as in his play when the horrific event is completely unexpected by the character, Joe – and by us in the audience – is entirely instinctive.  Can, then, the person be blamed if he flees to save himself, when he might have fought back, at least yelling out a warning to others, or attacking the danger even at the risk of losing his own life?

It is this issue which is played out in the attempts to treat Joe’s traumatic stress disorder through group therapy and psychological counselling in Act 2.  Can treatment of this kind be successful?  I think again, Ley says not really.  “Home” at the end, for this person, Joe, is no kind of comfortable resolution.  It’s just an escape into pathological story-telling.

At this point, the impact of the play broadens.  Joe is (or was before the trauma) a writer.  Does Ley suggest that to be a writer is to be escaping into story-telling?  In his case certainly not pathological, even if in this play a bit long-winded.  Traumatic Stress Disorder is now such an issue in the world that TSD is a label in its own right, and counselling is seen as a necessary part of help for anyone faced with the kind of experience that Joe has.  The issue, and therefore this story, is important.

Putting this story on stage, and with excellent performances from all the cast – Isaac Reilly as Joe, Helen McFarlane as Andrea, Amy Dunham and her unusual puppet as their 6-year-old daughter Molly, with Jordan Best, Geoffrey Borny, Laura Dawson, Duncan Driver, Alice Ferguson, Will Huang, and Chris Zuber playing all the other roles (including quite fascinating commedia dell’arte characters) – makes for a very worthwhile theatre experience.  Highly recommended.

BIJOU - A Cabaret of Secrets and Seduction - by Chrissie Shaw.

Street Theatre until 8^th September.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens



Chrissie Shaw as Bijou

 

Bijou by Brassai

 

An image of an elderly pearl-draped woman, taken by photographer Brassai in the Bar de la Lune in Montmartre in 1932, was the catalyst for this extraordinary production. The woman was known as Bijou.

Though little is known about Bijou, her image inspired Canberra actor/writer, Chrissie Shaw to create and perform this exquisitely evocative cabaret about a wonderfully irascible, mischievous, beguiling story-teller. Shaw draws on all her theatrical skills, honed over a career of remarkable performances, to create a totally believable, fascinating character, who sings, dances, teases, flirts, and ultimately breaks your heart, as she rummages through her recollections, rewinding her life as a survivor of the ‘Great War’.

Her stories are funny, horrifying, pathetic and sometimes profoundly sad, but all have the ring of truth...or are they just the ramblings of a manipulative, clever, old woman desperate to hold the attention of the audience, who, unwittingly, have become another character in her stories?

Susan Pilbeam’s unobtrusive direction carefully guides Shaw through Imogen Keen’s warm, glowing Bar de la Rue, decorated with flickering candlelight and rich fabrics. Curtains become bridal veils, and table numbers morph into sensuous props as Bijou moves among her audience, dancing a la Mata Hari, or singing with a voice that has known life, the cleverly chosen collection of songs which advance and embellish her stories.

Liz Lea has devised dances that fit the character as beautifully as Victoria Worley’s luxurious collection of faded finery and Gillian Schwab bathes the whole proceedings in ever-changing, dramatic, moody lighting. Alan Hicks is superb as the long-suffering bar-pianist, providing a strong supportive presence, sensitive piano accompaniments and even gentle vocal harmonies. All are essential contributions to a riveting tour de force performance by Chrissie Shaw in this gloriously entertaining, beautifully realised production.    

 

Chrissie Shaw as Bijou 

Chrissie Shaw as Bijou 

 

Chrissie Shaw as Bijou

                                   This review appears in CITY NEWS September 4 - 10th edition

 

 

 

Lively discussion in final critics’ “In conversation…”

The final two guests in the Canberra Critics’ Circle’s 2013 “In conversation…” series at the Canberra Museum and Gallery were pianist Elaine Loebenstein and art curator Barbara McConchie.

This winds up a cycle of six sessions in which the critics met informally face-to-face with arts practitioners in dance, musical theatre, technical theatre, film, music and visual arts to learn more about their approaches to their work and to raise issues beyond that.

Pianist Elaine Loebenstein

The session with Elaine Loebenstein on August 12 took place as a result of a special request from the music critics to talk about improvisation.

Irish-born Elaine is a classically-trained collaborative pianist who moved to Canberra in October 2011. With performances behind her in venues such as the National Concert Hall Dublin, St. Martin in the Fields London, Schloss Schönbrunn Vienna, Teatro Della Maestranza Seville and New York University, she has a particular interest in live classical improvisation for silent film.

She has recorded improvised soundtracks for various projects including a DVD containing historical footage of Vienna produced by the Austrian Filmmuseum, and an experimental work by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wasner.

Recent improvisational performances include her two-week film and music project IMPROVisual in the Western Foyer of Sydney Opera House, the Canberra Centenary Launch at the Playhouse, the Rocks Bizarre Festival in Sydney and a return to the Pordenone Festival in Italy.

The lively discussion ranged from classical to jazz as Elaine put forward the view that “set” performances of music are only fairly recent in the history of music,  enhanced by the phenomenon of recorded music.

The session with Barbara McConchie on August 27 began with a personal introduction by Barbara, who is now manager at the ANU School of Art, but has previously been executive director of Craft ACT, art officer at the Australian War Memorial, gallery manager at Beaver Galleries and print manager at Studio One National Print Workshop.

Barbara McConchie

The daughter of a well-known Canberra artist, Barbara outlined some of her more unconventional approaches to getting art into the real world, including the project Memories in Place, installations in three huts in the Namadgi National Park and Still Lives, an exhibition and film program looking at the ‘object’ in film.

As this final session drew to a close, a free-for-all discussion ensued on income for visual artists, public art and the necessity of imagination in our lives.

And everybody had an opinion on the Skywhale.

The Canberra Critics’ Circle’s “In conversation…” series will resume in Winter, 2014. The circle gratefully acknowledges the hospitality and support of Shane Breynard, Michael Bailey and the Canberra Museum and Gallery in making this series possible.

On November 2 this year, the circle will stage a symposium at the CMAG on the late, often scandalous Canberra group Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, to coincide with an exhibition on the subject.

Bijou – A Cabaret of Secrets and Seduction by Chrissie Shaw

Chrissie Shaw as Bijou

Bijou – A Cabaret of Secrets and Seduction by Chrissie Shaw.  SmallShows in association with The Street Theatre Made in Canberra, performed by Chrissie Shaw and Alan Hicks (piano), directed by Susan Pilbeam.  At Street Two, Thursday 29th August - Saturday 7th September, 7.30pm; Sunday 1st and 8th September, 4pm, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

The artist Gyula Halász, originally from the ancient Transylvanian town of Brassó,  became the photographer of Paris nightlife where he was known as Brassaï.  In 1933 he published a book including this photo of “Bijou” of the Montmartre cabarets, apparently without ever speaking to the woman.

"Bijou" - photo by Brassaï, Nuits de Paris 1933

Four years of research and writing has produced a life and times of Bijou – fictional, but entirely possible.  Beginning from lines from Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire, which include Elle n’avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores, and entwining into a kind of internal monologue – spoken, mimed and sung by the anonymous “Bijou” – an enormous range of French and German music, Shaw has created perhaps the most significant work of her long stage career in Canberra.

"Bijou" - photo by Brassaï, Nuits de Paris 1933

 Her story begins as she refuses to acknowledge the Brassaï closeup hung on the side wall of our cabaret setting.  He knew nothing of the real person he so rudely photographed.  She blinds him with her hat and recalls the joys and terrors of her life.  The measure of her character was coming across one of the girls she had known at convent school – like her, sexually used and abused by a leading figure in the Church – as an adult: poverty stricken, demoralised and literally looking like death.  Bijou would survive: indeed she would use the men who would use her, and succeed in bringing down the archbishop via a secret tunnel by which he visits her brothel.  He does not recognise her from when she was his 12-year-old sex-object, literally; but one of her “girls” recognises him in all his regalia during Mass, and screams out the truth.

The son born of her illegitimate liaison is brought up by Bijou’s parents, believing Bijou to be his elder sister.  But the play – which this is, rather than the merely entertaining cabaret it first appears to be – is not only about the appalling treatment of women, family shame, and the strength of character needed by a woman to rise above the indignity and even threats to her life, such as when her German nobleman officer “husband” sends her home to Paris after World War I when “he could have killed me” because she knew too much of his affairs.

The awful twist to her story is that her secret son dies in that very war, and we are faced not only with how a mother must carry on despite such a loss, but also with the realisation that this war – the “Great War” to “End all Wars” was a lie, as all wars are.  And we know, as she was photographed in 1933, how true her recognition of this would be.  And still is.

Though for me the first half was played rather too “studied”, in the second half we warm to this woman, from her first true love (who at 21 is recovered by his upper class family and married to the “right” kind of girl) to her acceptance of her life as a permanent denizen of a bar in Montmartre, in her sixties.  She has an odd but interesting relationship with her pianist who, having previously walked out to escape her demands, finally returns to recover her hat.  The Brassaï photo is revealed once more, but we now know the truth behind the picture.

This is a brave work, and a great example of the value of the Made in Canberra project, with excellent quality in the work by Susan Pilbeam as director and dramaturg; Alan Hicks as pianist and in character; Imogen Keen for a wonderful evocative set, reminding me very much of the erstwhile School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan; Liz Lea for choreography which recreated the styles of the times, from the 1870s to the 1930s; Gillian Schwab for lighting; Victoria Worley for providing costumes that could peel back the years as Bijou remembered them; and Chrissie Shaw herself for an original work, both personal and socially significant, and for singing and speaking with such vocal range – from the likes of Johann Strauss, various art song composers, Eric Satie, Kurt Weill and, to conclude, to Jean Lenoir’s Parlez-Moi d’Amour – just my thoughts, indeed.