CABARET IS LIFE – ADELAIDE CABARET FESTIVAL 2014

Kate Ceberano

FOR three weeks in June, world renowned cabaret artists, cabaret lovers and new acts making their mark on the national cabaret stage will descend on the festival city of Adelaide for what has become the largest cabaret festival in the world.

This year’s event will also be the third and final festival to be artistically directed by iconic singer of soul, jazz and pop, the inimitable Kate Ceberano. Her tenure comes to an end and she will hand the baton on to international megastar Barry Humphries in 2015.

Since its inception almost twenty years ago, the cabaret festival has featured top line artists from all over the world. Overseas artists of the calibre of Bernadette Peters, Ben Vereen, Chita Rivera, Mary Wilson, Mandy Potemkin, Ute Lemper  have been joined by Titans of Australian cabaret such as Meow Meow, Eddie Perfect, Debra Byrne, Troy Cassar-Daley, David Campbell, the previous festival director, and Marina Pryor. 

Archie Roach

And the list goes on. This year the Adelaide Cabaret Festival will feature 470 acts over the three weeks from June 6th. to 21st. Of those two thirds will feature Australian artists, including headliners like Tim Minchin, Eddie Perfect and Archie Roach.

 

Ceberano is proud of her achievements in raising the profile and participation in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. “I interpreted my role as placing emphasis on something that was important. I wanted to bang on about Australian cabaret and ask in what way are we relevant. When you look at great artists like Tim Minchin, Eddie Perfect or Meeow Meeow, you’re looking at how they’re really progressive and dominating this form of cabaret. Even in the earliest cabaret festivals we needed to create a genre that has merit and can have its own brand of superstars

Ceberano has recently published her autobiography, “I’m Talking”, co-written with Tom Gilling and taking its title from her funk band with whom she was the lead singer. In it she characterizes the cabaret artist as someone who hurtles into the unknown with no fear of consequence, pouring out their fears and dreams. As an example she refers to Chita Rivera, the legendary singer who starred in the film of West Side Story. She performed at David Campbell’s last festival. Ceberano is overwhelmed by the velocity and strength of Rivera’s personality. “The truth that she offered even though she’s just a woman who had a very critical accident and there she is on stage telling the story of being selected on Broadway by Stephen Sondheim and giving a life story which is like sliding doors. I was in tears. It’s an indomitable spirit this cabaret spirit and it can’t be relegated to badly sung Broadway songs or stages with velvet curtains. This is a very deliberate art form. There’s nothing accidental about it.”

Ceberano has recently published her autobiography, “I’m Talking”, co-written with Tom Gilling and taking its title from her funk band with whom she was the lead singer. In it she characterizes the cabaret artist as someone who hurtles into the unknown with no fear of consequence, pouring out their fears and dreams.

Rhonda Burchmore

As an example she refers to Chita Rivera, the legendary singer who starred in the film of "West Side Story." She performed at David Campbell’s last festival. Ceberano is overwhelmed by the velocity and strength of Rivera’s personality. “The truth that she offered even though she’s just a woman who had a very critical accident and there she is on stage telling the story of being selected on Broadway by Stephen Sondheim and giving a life story which is like sliding doors. I was in tears. It’s an indomitable spirit this cabaret spirit."

Nelson Aspen

Gradually, a sense of Ceberano’s final cabaret festival begins to emerge. As well as the passion in her voice, there is the danger, the risk that an artist takes when they confront the unknown and the new. There is the excitement of the original, the daring and the powerfully engaging. It is entertainment in its purest form of seductive persuasion.

Audiences accustomed to the European or New York forms of cabaret may be surprised by the emerging trends that will be evident at Ceberano’s festival. Artists are introducing a new set of skills, including improvisation, comedy and stagecraft. “These are the rare people you have to see live" Ceberano says, "and feel the energy emanating off the stage to really see what drives a particular artist.” The cabaret artist is a product of the audience. They don’t turn on unless they’re turned on. .”
Ceberano refers to a quoyte by artist, Brett Whitely,. in “I’m Talking” “There is a point in all art where it’s as it should be, and then you need to corrupt it.” Ceberano explains “By doing that you’re driving reality into a hyper reality that is not of this world.

Meow Meow is a perfect embodiment of this principle. As a former Pina Bausch dancer she was required to demonstrate the highest kind of discipline and adherence to Bausch’s kind of principle. “Obviously she couldn’t be contained within an ensemble.” Ceberano says.  She just can’t help it. She’s fearless. She’ll bodysurf across a crowd in fully structured sequined dress. That takes a lot of self-confidence about your body and the audience. I’m just gobsmacked. She takes my breath away.”

Ceberano lives and breathes her festival. Her effusive energy and enthusiasm is fuelled by her immersion in the festival. She can be seen mingling in foyers, asking audience’s their opinions as she wanders from table to table, running workshops with the young Class of Cabaret performers, who could well be the next generation of cabaret headliners, or performing with guest artists like Paul Grabowsky.

The Raah Project

This year she will be on the Festival Theatre stage with The Raah Project, the internationally and critically acclaimed purveyors of modern music encapsulating classical, jazz, hip hop, jungle, soul and electronics.  So much for trying to pigeon-hole cabaret.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival, once again designed by and featuring an exhibition of works of prominent visual artist, David Bromley, will feature 470 international, national and local acts. Much of the charm of the festival is that it is contained chiefly within the many traditional and unconventional performance spaces within the Adelaide Festival Centre on the banks of the River Torrens. Performances are rarely longer than just over the hour, with the exception of The Raah Project, and audiences can see at least two performances a night if they wish, and even one during the day.


Paul Capsis

Only the electrifying Paul Capsis will be presenting his State Theatre Company show “Little Bird” as part of the Cabaret Festival outside the Festival Centre precinct at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide’s CBD across from the famed Adelaide Markets. An air of intimacy pervades the wintry event and many of the venues retain the traditional charm of the cosy, atmospheric cabaret venues.

 

Anthony Warlow and Faith Prince

 Visitors to Adelaide will be able to immerse themselves in a banquet of rich cabaret fare. Headliners include Australian legends such as Anthony Warlow, performing with Broadway star Faith Prince; the fabulous Rhonda Burchmore; the Aria Award winning Perfect Tripod, David Campbell and Archie Roach. Over the years, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival has hosted many of the top international performers, and this year is no exception. Robert Davi leaves his tough guy film roles behind him to croon his way into the songs of Rat Pack rogue Frank Sinatra. Popular Hollywood reporter Nelson Aspen arrives with a swag of gossip, songs and stand-up comedy. The UK’s The King’s Singers will perform the best of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Gershwin and many more of the American greats. One of the all-time greats, Darlene Love will be accompanied by a twelve piece band as she sings her classics, such as He’s A Rebel, The Boy I’m Going to Marry and Mountain High – River Deep. Beloved Hollywood comic actress, Kathy Najimy, will bring her solo show, Lift Up Your Skirt” to the Adelaide cabaret Festival.

And that’s just the tip of this cabaret iceberg. There’s a lot more beneath the surface, and for those who may miss some of the acts, they can catch surprises at the Backstage Club, hosted in turn by Ali McGregor, Libby Donovan and cabaret mad , bad and dangerous performer Mark Nadler (“I’m a cabaret performer, not a f****** role model”). But wait! There’s more. Free entertainment will also be provided with performances at the Festival Centre’s Piano Bar or while eating a range of foods at The Wintergarden.
I ask Ceberano what she believes has made the Adelaide Cabaret Festival such a success. “The answer’s Adelaide.” she replies, without a moment’s hesitation. “Adelaide is what’s so special about this. It’s a perfect arts culture really. The other reason why it works is that it’s winter and it’s an all in-house event. People come in and they stay there. We provide a whole entertainment as well as free entertainment and we have a captive audience and it’s pure. It can work as well as in any other country.” The festival culture in Adelaide is distilled.”
“One of the reasons I was so thrilled to pick up this festival, “ Ceberano goes on, “ and I am sure that Barry Humphries feels the same is that the history of cabaret is so delightful. You want to brand yourself with it. I did. .” Ceberano remembers the time when she was 18 and walked into the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. An enormous banner advertising a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition was the first form of marketing that she’d seen.Toulouse-Lautrec was making heroes of local people in the posters themselves, so basically it instructed anyone going in to be proprietorial. You own this place.”
Ceberano’s humility and generosity of spirit is immediately palpable. She pays tribute to the team that has brought her final festival to fruition. Visionary Father and Chairman of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Frank Ford AM, receives high praise. “What a guy! Frank’s one of the old guard and you know, let’s face it, he’s the person who holds all the keys. I think the new generation will take it in an entirely different place. There’s something so nostalgic about Frank.”

The things I have learnt doing this festival over the past three years have been life-changing. There’s a great beauty in being responsible for audiences and performing.” She is indebted to her team and producer Torben Brookman and Associate Producer Terri Dichiera.” I’ve seen the administration treat the artists like silkworms. Because of that I’ve seen the artists deliver so much more than they probably expected to deliver themselves. I love that. I’ve learnt how to look after artists. From watching a show I’ve just instinctively taken on board. A lot of what the artists are doing, and I’m incorporating a lot of that into my own work. I have been an audience member for a while instead of being on stage.”

Ceberano knows that her third and final festival will be very special. “We also know it’s bigger than Texas,” she says, “because Barry Humphries is coming too. This is a tribute to every arts person who’s been a part of the festival since the beginning. It’s a great idea and it will continue to find more and more relevance. It’s been an absolute success story since the start.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival
June 6 – 21 2014
Adelaide Festival Centre
For further information and bookings go to:
www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au
 bass.net.au

Peter Wilkins
 

WINGING MY WAY TO THE TOP



Book, Music, Lyrics: Karen Strahan and Jill Walsh

Producers: Karen Strahan and Jill Walsh

Director: Gordon Nicholson

Musical Director/Arranger: John Black

Choreographer:  Michelle Heine

Set Design: Wayne Shepherd

Costume Design: Christine Pawlicki

Q Theatre, Queanbeyan 8 – 17 May 2014



Gordon Nicholson-Jill Walsh - Lisa McClelland-Karen Strahan - John Kelly
Gaye Reid - Angela Lount

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Though original Australian musicals are not rare, those which manage to successfully capture the Australian psyche certainly are. “Winging My Way to the Top” is on the verge of being such a musical, which, after a rather bumpy gestation period, finally received its world premiere at the Q in Queanbeyan on Thursday night.

It would be easy to go on about what’s wrong with this show, especially the opening night performance, but let's concentrate on what’s right about it.

Jill Walsh and Karen Strahan

Karen Strahan and Jill Walsh have managed to come up with an exuberant show in the best Australian vaudeville tradition. The characters live. The gags are funny, often wildly so. The songs are tuneful and catchy and the story has the potential to be really engaging as it follow the travails of three middle-aged sisters, who, 20 years earlier, almost made it big as The Diamond Sisters, with a minor hit song “My Chocolate Heart Has Melted”.  

An on-stage incident during the Tamworth Music Festival abruptly ended their careers and although Beryl (Jill Walsh) and Ruby (Karen Strahan) have married and gotten on with their lives, the youngest sister Pearl (Lisa McClelland) has never given up on her childhood dream of becoming a singing star.

Gordon Nicholson, who took over the role of director at short notice, also plays Charlie Cheapside, a struggling furniture salesman and the husband of the eldest sister, Pearl. Nicholson is a brilliant comic, very much in the long line of such renowned Australian vaudeville baggy pants comedians as Joe Lawman, George Wallace Snr, Bobby Le Brun and Lucky Grills.

Gordon Nicholson and Jill Walsh
(Charlie and Beryl Cheapside)

Rude, crude and irresistibly funny, Nicholson dominates the stage in all his scenes. He gets stiff competition from Jill Walsh who is quite marvellous as his garrulous and gutsy wife Pearl. The innate Australianness of their combative, rough and affectionate relationship is deliciously captured and very funny to watch. Unfortunately the strain of the dual roles of actor and director took its toll on Nicholson who dried on several occasions. Although his experience allowed him to cover the dries with aplomb, his fellow actors were not quite so skilful and their confusion was often painfully evident

John Kelly, as the successful but definitely dodgy investment broker and husband of Ruby Diamond, Godfrey Goldsmith, teamed well with Nicholson for two amusing songs “Remote Control” and “The Bronding Song”.

The rest of the principals are members of successful Canberra professional singing ensembles, so it is no surprise that their excellent singing, rather than their acting,  is one of the strengths of this production, especially when they’re backed by John Black’s terrific seven piece band and classy musical arrangements.

Jill Walsh (Beryl Cheapside) Gaye Reid ( Phyllis Jones) Lisa McClelland (Pearl Diamond), Karen Strahan
(Ruby Goldsmith)

 Gaye Reid was delightfully unconvincing as the former Solid Gold Dancer, Phyllis Jones, especially in the production number “Solid Nugget Blues” when she hilariously loses the plot during the frenetic dance routine. Karen Strahan shines in the title number “Winging My Way to the Top”, and Lisa McClellan has her best moment with the silly-enough-to-be-a hit-song “Beep Beep”.

Angela Lount, adds to the fun as the Goldsmith’s voluptuous French maid and domestic E.A., Vivyen, and has her own solo “My Name is Vivyen”, but it is when she joins Strahan, McClellan, Walsh and Reid for possibly the best song in the show, a beautiful ballad, “All I Have Is Me” that her warm contralto really thrills.

A troupe of dancers add razzle dazzle to several numbers and double as barbecue party friends. However their presence also highlights the lack of dance skills among the principals who look uncomfortable and ill-at-ease in the song and dance numbers.

Wayne Shepherd’s double-roomed setting is attractive, but the actors often appeared cramped in the first act, and there were clumsy set-changes in the second act.

Nicholson’s direction style is very much rooted in his theatre restaurant background, and though he and his production team have achieved a great deal in the short rehearsal period, the show often has a rough and ready vaudeville look, instead of a music theatre polish, and on opening night appeared under-rehearsed. As well, the pace was erratic and there are unsolved dramaturgical issues.  Pace and polish will no doubt improve with further performances, and hopefully the dramaturgical issues will also be sorted.

None of this seemed to worry the first-night audience however, who gave every sign of being greatly entertained, screamed with laughter throughout, and at the final curtain, rewarded the show with a standing ovation.

 This review also appears on the Australian Arts Review website www.artsreview.com.au

 

1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL

 

Created and adapted by shake and stir theatre co.

Adapters: Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij

Director: Michael Futcher

Designer: Josh McIntosh

 Lighting Design: Jason Glenwright

Sound Design: Guy Webster

Media Producers: optical bloc

Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre 30^th April to 3^rd May 2014

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

George Orwell’s deeply depressing novel “1984” about a nation perpetually at war, where cameras watch every move and Thought Police roam the streets, has never been among my favourite reading, so I was not particularly looking forward to attending this performance. Having seen shake and stir theatre company’s previous youth theatre production of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” I knew that the production would at least  be ‘interesting’ , but from the very first moments, bombarded by huge deliberately scratchy television images, my interest was immediately engaged  and for the rest of the 90 minute performance never flagged for a moment.  

Bryan Probets as Winston Smith

This powerful stage adaptation by Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij is remarkable in the way it captures the horror and hopelessness of a world where every movement is watched and any spark of individuality ruthlessly crushed.  Lee and Skubij are also part of the superb  five-member ensemble which makes up the cast, along with Ross Balbuziente, Bryan Probets and David Whitney, who, between them, people the stage with a seeming multitude of characters so that the audience often feels it is  watching an epic rather than an ensemble of just five actors. 

 

The leading character, Winston Smith, whose job it is to rewrite history to align the past with the current political agenda of the ruling party and its illusive leader, Big Brother, is startlingly portrayed by Bryan Probets in a remarkably intense and committed performance. When Winston falls in love with the mysterious Julia, a warm and sensitive portrayal by Nelle Lee, their forbidden love affair provides the only hints of hope or humanity in the desolate environment of the decaying concrete desolation of Oceania. Therefore when, under torture by the loathsome O’Brien (David Whitney), Winston betrays Julia, the affect is devastating.

Bryan Proberts and Nelle Lee

Director, Michael Futcher, takes full advantage of the opportunities offered by Josh Mackintosh’s cleverly flexible set-design capturing the bleak concrete decay of Oceania, dominated by a huge plasma screens. These screens allow the audience access into the innermost thoughts of the unfortunate Winston, while the set continually provides the audience with unexpected and intriguing surprises. Though gruelling to watch, his staging of the torture scenes with its live rats is masterly, as is his control of the interaction between the actors and the filmed sequences.

Even though this is a touring production, the detail and commitment of the performances, as well as the meticulous mounting of the production is nothing less than astonishing.  Shake and stir theatre company have set the bar high with this production of “1984”. One looks forward to their next production, an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s gothic masterpiece “Wuthering Heights” with great anticipation.  

 This review also appears on the Australian Arts Review website www.artsreview.com

 

 

 

 

ISLAND

Choreography: James Batchelor

Design: Ella Leoncio

Sound Design: Morgan Hickinbotham

Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, until Sunday May 4^th.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Canberra choreographer and dancer, James Batchelor is on a mission to change his audience’s perception and expectations of what a dance performance should be. For his latest, very professionally produced, abstract dance and installation piece, “Island”, his designer Ella Leoncio has transformed the courtyard into a huge black box with mirrored walls and floor outlined in neat perspective-challenging white lines. Positioned within this box are six large free-standing transparent perspex screens surrounding six circles of white light on the floor. During the work the screens and white lights are manoeuvred into different positions by the dancers. There is no conventional theatre seating, although stools and chairs are available for audience members requiring them. Instead the audience is invited to wander around the installation and view the performance from different parts of the installation as the performance progresses.   

The three dancers, Bicky Lee, Amber McCartney and James Batchelor himself, clad in identical loose fitting crisp white costumes and make-up, perform as series of complex kinetic rap-like movements to a relentlessly driving soundscape devised by Morgan Hickenbotham. The work, divided into three sections, each following the other without interruption, commences with a rather slow mime-style solo performed blank-faced by Bicky Lee. A  busy, intricate duet featuring Amber McCartney and James Batchelor, also performed blank-faced, and much of it in unison, follows, before all three dancers combine for the final section.

The  movement is committed and skilful and while appearing  repetitious at first, as the viewer becomes aware of the constant small changes of detail, multiplied and heightened by the mirrors, white lines and perspex reflections,the effect is  mesmerising.

Whether “Island” represents the new direction for dance remains a moot point but it certainly provides a fascinating and worthwhile experience for its audience, who, in another break with tradition, are invited to contribute a donation on leaving, instead of paying for a ticket in advance.

                                                                Image: Helen Musa
             This review appears in the digital edition of CITY NEWS published 2nd May 2014

 

 

1984 adapted from the novel by George Orwell

1984 adapted from the novel by George Orwell, by Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij.  shake & stir youth theatre company, directed by Michael Futcher at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre Wednesday 30 April, 8.00pm, Thursday 1 May, 10.30am & 8.00pm, Friday 2 May, 10.30am & 8.00pm, Saturday 3 May, 2.00pm & 8.00pm, 2014.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 2

Terrifying & depressing is how I found this production by shake & stir.

If you dress this man in a business suit:

O'Brien in 1984

it’s amazing how much he looks just like this man:

Donald Rumsfeld - one-time US Secretary for Defense

One image from the show that I can’t get out of my head is O’Brien / Donald Rumsfeld watching impassively as his underlings waterboard Winston Smith.  1948 to 1984 is nothing on 1984 to 2004 or 2014. 

Although Michael Futcher has kept to a 1948 style for the set and costumes, it seems to me that Orwell was not out of touch – just his timing needs adjusting.  I remember 1984 (the real one, not the novel) with some hope when our Prime Minister offered us the promise that ‘no child will be living in poverty by the year 2000’.  Some hope!

To the group of Year 12 Advanced English students who stayed for a Q&A, it was David Whitney who thought that what is even more frightening than Orwell’s prediction of a future of dictatorship, is to know that his prediction of future total tracking of information on all citizens and the use of manipulative psychological torture has become true of modern democracies.  Depressing indeed!

I checked out what Donald Rumsfeld is up to now.  Here it is at http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/04/15/donald-rumsfeld-to-irs-my-taxes-are-a-known-unknown/ .

To escape depression, after a walk with views along the beautiful Brindabella Mountain range, I realised that there is hope in the quality of the work by this youth theatre team.  The relationship between Nelle Lee as Julia and Bryan Probets as Winston formed the dramatic thread of the show, both actors capturing the beginnings of attraction under the duress of the industrial workplace, bombarded constantly with official announcements of glorious achievements, the need to love Big Brother, and the injunctions against sexual behaviour.

Lee played Julia’s positive leadership in the developing relationship – in the forest hideaway and the rented room in the antique shop – so tenderly and with such a feeling of excitement in finding real love that we, watching, were moved despite our doubts, just as Winston was.  It was the strength of the acting here that made their discovery, arrest and the three stages of Winston’s torture that we witness, to the point where he is forced to betray Julia, so awful.  When they at last meet again, in the factory canteen, and both know that each had betrayed the other, and in doing so had betrayed their love for each other, our sense of loss is palpable as we  realise that our own love is fragile; always at risk of manipulation.

Then David Whitney’s O’Brien becomes spotlighted by our horror at his capacity to so absolutely, coldly, calculatingly twist Winston’s reality.  Whitney spoke in the Q&A of Orwell’s interest in language, and once again I could not escape the image of Rumsfeld, who even now is twisting words about his tax as if he is the victim of other people’s incompetence.  Unbelievable!

So, for a youth theatre company, is this 1984 an important, worthwhile and theatrically valid project?  Absolutely!  No weasel words from me.

Cruise Control written and directed by David Williamson

 Cruise Control written and directed by David Williamson.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, April 30 – June 14, 2014.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 30

Had a terrific night.  Warm welcome home for David W.  And what a cruise!  Not sure so much about the control bit yet, but after all that was just David having a bit of fun.  Of course he’s terribly up-to-date, so instead of putting on the old-style slide night of boring stills, he had a stack of Twitter-length YouTube movie clips – just sooo funny, you wouldn’t believe!

Cousin John B. was there – sat just near me in fact – so David made sure he got the Shakespearean shot in, of Richard (he’s the English dark-side-of-everything novelist, you know) putting down colonial Aussie Imogen when she thought his “vaulting ambition” was from Hamlet.  Vaulting was right, in the end, as it turned out – just like Macbeth.

I suppose a lot of us were in the business, being Opening Night and all, so it really did feel like family to see David’s son Felix pretending to be that awful Richard who was pretending to be the ants-pants of sexual predators.  He did it so awfully well, in a very English way, that in some clips we almost believed he was being honest.  No wonder we felt for poor old ex-Ascham private school girl Imogen when she was so nearly trapped.  Fancy – despite going to the most expensive school in the world (or at least Sydney), if she had known her Shakespeare she might have been done for.

Of course we knew her type – marrying a bra boy like Darren making his fortune selling surfboards to China.  He was a laugh when he wasn’t basically an embarrassment.  But then he could actually splash the Dom Perignon around, and actually knew how to protect his wife.

The other women were definitely in our circle – Richard’s wife, editor Fiona, and Silky, the casting agent.  But we knew for real, if we hadn’t worked it out at first, that David was just putting the whole show on, when Silky’s husband Sol turned out to actually be Henri Szeps in his seemingly inevitable role as a dentist (though acting a typical self-effacing New York Jew, he said he just fixed gums).

It got to be a bit of a selfie in the final clip, for there was David himself, playwright and his own director, smiling modestly back at us, hoping that we thought he had achieved what editor Fiona had advised Sol about his novel idea of Al Qaeda sleeper dentists causing mayhem.  Though it was a plot that grabbed attention, she pointed out that it also needed to be credible if he hoped to sell his story.

Well, I think David’s plot is not absolutely credible, but I can’t reveal why not, since that would tell you the ending which, as in any mystery story, must remain sacrosanct until you see it for yourself.

But I can certainly say that, perhaps surprisingly for such a literate Ensemble audience, we could identify with the motivations for all the cruisers’ actions, even those of the Maroubra surfer.  And I can also say that we could retreat to the bar feeling quite OK about people being left believing something that was not true if it meant that they were now in control and communal justice had been done.

In other words, David has shown that he hasn’t lost the Williamson touch.  Cruise Control is a ‘well-made play’ in the traditional sense.  He is in control of his theatrical form, comedy on the edge of farce in one direction, while reflecting enough of reality to bring to light questions for our consideration.

In particular the playing out of the fraught relationships between the three couples, the literary English, the sentimental American Jewish and the down-to-earth Australian, could easily have been let go into slapstick stereotyping.  This can get laughs, as we laughed early in the play, except that as characters come and go through the multiple entrances and exits we expect of a farce, each new interaction exposes enough complexity in each character for us to identify with them and to make more than superficial judgements about them.

Tieing the drama together is the motivation common to each couple.  The cruise will be the make or break point for the woman in each marriage.  Tieing the situation together is the character of the Filipino waiter, whose real name is Jesus.  On board the cruise ship he is known as Charlie.  Can his family stay together as he works eight months straight, has two months at home with children and wife, provides them with more money than anyone else in the village, sends his children for a good education, then goes away again for the next eight months?

At this point I can say that I think Williamson has achieved the dictum of his own character, the editor Fiona.  There is a level of credibility here, which makes for interesting but tough-minded acting work for the cast, to set the correct level.

Kenneth Moraleda as Charlie, who has a beautiful singing voice, provided a softness in his linking role which I’m not sure I’ve seen in any of Williamson’s earlier plays.  I generally have doubts about a writer directing his own work, but I sense that Moraleda’s gentle singing which opens the action became a point for Williamson as director to return to for each character, and each actor – Helen Dallimore as Imogen Brodie, Peter Phelps as Darren Brodie, Kate Fitzpatrick as Silky Wasserman, Henri Szeps as Sol Wasserman, and Michelle Doake as Fiona Manton – knew they could trust Williamson the writer to give them the opportunity for those softer moments which brought their characters to life; and each made the most of their opportunities.

The one character without such a moment is Richard Manton.  The solution for Felix Williamson was to establish moments – even in a kind of distant-gazing pose – which gave Richard a different kind of life.  His ‘softening’ became a threat, a manipulative lie rather than a truth with which we could empathise.  It says a great deal about professionalism in today’s Australian theatre that a father can so successfully direct his own son.

And there’s no doubt that the Ensemble Theatre has a family atmosphere for a new Williamson work which enhances this play about couples moving beyond their youthful expectations to the point, as Fiona says, where she has at last ‘grown up’.

Helen Dallimore, Peter Phelps as Imogen and Darren Brodie

Kate Fitzpatrick as Silky Wasserman, Kenneth Moraleda as Charlie

Kenneth Moraleda, Peter Phelps, Helen Dallimore

L to R: Peter Phelps, Michelle Doake, Helen Dallimore, Henri Szeps, Felix Williamson, Kate Fitzpatrick

Michelle Doake, Felix Williamson as Fiona and Richard Manton

Photos by Clare Hawley

THE GIRLS IN GREY

By Carolyn Bock and Helen Hopkins

Helen Hopkins - Carolyn Bock - Samantha Murray

Director: by Tom Healey

Set Designer: Alexandra Hiller

Costume Design: Lyn Wilson

Lighting Design: Nick Merrylees

Sound Design: Nick Van Guylenburg

Presented by: Critical Stages and the Shift Theatre

The Q, Queanbeyan, NSW. 24^th -26^{th April}, 2014

Touring N.S.W and Victoria May/June 2014

Reviewed by Bill Stephens.

Three young women, each from a different background, each with different motivations, enlist in the Australian Army Nursing Service to assist during World War One. They find themselves in an unfamiliar land, right in the middle of fierce battles, treating horrific war injuries without facilities or equipment.

Their individual responses to their situation provide a remarkably powerful insight into the world and the work of nurses in the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Turkish battlefields during the First World War.  Playwrights Carolyn Bock and Helen Hopkins have drawn on actual letters, diaries and eyewitness accounts preserved in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to fashion this candid, moving and impressively presented account of life on active service.

Carolyn Bock as  Grace in "The Girls in Grey" 

Gently allegorical “The Girls in Grey” is presented, without interval on Alexandra Hiller’s elegant, evocative setting of notepaper messages pinned to a make-shift hessian army hospital tent. As the play begins, the three nurses, dressed in long grey flannel dresses and, played in delicately pitched performances by the authors, Carolyn Bock and Helen Hopkins together with Samantha Murray, prepare their uniforms, read from the notes, and muse on their lives, aspirations and ambitions. Their various male relatives, lovers or patients are all portrayed by James O’Connell.  

Tom Healey’s tightly choreographed, almost balletic, direction provides a mesmerising rhythm to the production. The clarity and diction of the three nurses is striking as they tell their stories in carefully measured sentences, sometimes alone, sometimes in unison, and punctuated by moments of meaningful silence. Occasionally they utilise their hands and aprons to mime medical procedures, emerging or disappearing almost ghost-like from the deep shadows of Nick Merrylees superb lighting enhanced by Nick  van Cuylenburg’s chillingly atmospheric sound design.  

The production reaches its highpoint in a stunning finale where the three women, moving in unison and in silence, slowly and ceremoniously lay out dozens of red poppies reminiscent of the graves of the war dead. It’s a graceful and affecting image which allows the audience time to reflect on the play’s powerful message of resilience and remembrance.

 

Seen on this occasion at the Q in Queanbeyan on the eve of Anzac Day “The Girls in Grey” proved the perfect entrée to Australia’s most significant day of remembrance.   

       This review appears on the Australian Arts Review website.. www.artsreview.com.au