Reserved Seating Only - The Q

Review by John Lombard

 Q. What do divorce and the footy have in common?
A. They're both games of possession.

Reserved Seating Only explores the Australian love of football through the eyes of football widow Trina (Cecelia Specht) who has dumped her footy-obsessed husband and claimed his premium tickets in the settlement. She is thrust into conversation with her former husband's old sports companion Al (David Ross Paterson) and his irrepressible enthusiasm begins to teach her why her ex loved the sport so much.

As someone with zero knowledge of footy (it's that sport with a ball right?) I was worried I would not be able to follow the jokes. True, the specific references lost me, but the core of the play is the comedy of manners between Trina and Al. Trina and Al together are like shaved truffles sprinkled on a meat pie, but despite their differences they start to really like each other, and implausibly stray into something more than liking. Cleverly, Trina is the gateway character for football novices - Al has to explain so much to her that the audience gets filled in along the way.

Al and Trina are played by a real-life husband and wife, and that may be why the play veers so eagerly into romantic territory. But Trina has just left a long relationship with someone football mad, would she so blithely start seeing someone with the exact same problem? I was expecting a grand moment where Trina becomes completely absorbed in the game and understands its heart (and her ex-husband), but instead her journey ends in a cul-de-sac: despite her best effort, she doesn't quite get it. Instead we get a gentle romantic epilogue that feels tacked on and implausible.

Nonetheless, this is an amusing hour of light entertainment. The staging is clever, in particular there are very fun moments where the cast banter with the audience. I had to get up out of my seat at the start of the play as Trina squished past me in the hunt for her exclusive seat (it ended up being on the stage). But for all its laughs it lacks substance. Trina would call this play a bagatelle; Al would dub it a home crowd decision.

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

Written by Joseph Kesselring

Directed by Jon Elphick

Tempo Theatre

Belconnen Theatre to 12 September

Review by Len Power 5 September 2015

 

‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ was written in 1939 and is a black farcical comedy that still works for audiences today, as Tempo Theatre showed in their new production at the Belconnen Theatre.

Two spinster sisters are murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide.  Their nephew naturally worries about the impact this might have on his impending marriage.

The play contains a lot of topical references from the era in which it was written which go over an audience’s head today but it doesn’t matter.  One of the best jokes in the original production was the description of a character as looking like Boris Karloff of ‘Frankenstein’ fame.  The role was played on Broadway by Boris Karloff!

Every member of the cast did very well but it’s the quirkier characters who stand out in this play.  There was impressive work from Jon Elphick as the demented Teddy Brewster who thinks he’s the President, Teddy Roosevelt, Kim Wilson as the stressed Lieutenant Rooney, Bill Kolentsis - especially delightful - as the mad Doctor Einstein, Michael Effron as the wonderfully boring and demanding Officer O’Hara and Jason Morton who did a great Boris Karloff, given that Mr Karloff seemed to be unavailable.

Bill Kolentsis as Dr. Einstein

The more ‘normal’ characters included Sam Kentish in a nicely controlled performance as the harassed nephew, Mortimer Brewster, and the very pretty and accomplished Angela Edwards as his headstrong bride-to-be, Elaine Harper.  Lynne Seaman and Marian Fitzgerald gave nicely understated performances as the two murderous old ladies that you would never suspect of any crime.  In the smaller roles, Bryn Evans, David Henderson and Alistair Henderson all gave good characterizations.

Lynne Seaman and Marian Fitzgerald as the murderous duo

 Jon Elphick has directed the show very well, obtaining strong characterizations from his actors, keeping the pace fast and furious and giving full weight to every funny moment in the plot.  His set design works very well and the technical aspects of the show were fine.

Tempo Theatre gives Canberra the opportunity to see classic plays that other companies don’t present these days.  The second night audience I saw it with were clearly having a great time.

Photos by Sarah Bourke

 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast in the ‘Artcetera’ program on Artsound FM 92.7 on Saturdays from 9am.

RESERVED SEATING ONLY

Adapted and developed by David Ross Paterson from a play by Peter B. Sonenstein

Directed by Peter Houghton

Boxing Day Productions

Q Theatre, Queanbeyan to 5 September 2015

Review by Len Power 4 September 2015

In ‘Reserved Seating Only’, you know where it’s going as soon as it starts but the fun is in seeing how it gets there.  Two unlikely spectators sit next to each other at a Melbourne football match.  He is a rabid footy fan who has probably never missed a game in his life while she is attending her first match using the ticket she got in a divorce settlement from her husband.  Her total lack of knowledge and interest in the game mystifies and annoys him and his macho Aussie behaviour is a total turn-off for her.  It’s just what you need for a good romantic comedy.

Husband and wife actors, David Ross Paterson and Cecelia Specht, play the spectators very well.  The characters are close to caricature but both actors add considerable depth to the people they’re playing, especially in the body language they display.  We sure can identify with them!

Director, Peter Houghton, has produced a tight, well-paced production which plays for exactly an hour without interval.  He’s made sure that all the humour in the script is up there on the stage but he doesn’t allow it to fall over into cliché.  The interaction with audience members as the play commenced and especially during the half-time of the football match was especially well-done and very funny.  There were also some very well-timed belly laughs in the show.  You’ll probably never look at an Aussie meat pie in quite the same way again.

The simple set and clever lighting plot added to the atmosphere of the show as did Patrick Sarell’s original score.

It’s always a bit of a shock to see ourselves as others see us but that’s the fun in seeing an Australian play like this.  ‘Reserved Seating Only’ is light and amusing, but also thought-provoking entertainment.  Who needs to go to the footy?

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast in the ‘Artcetera’ program on Artsound FM 92.7 on Saturdays from 9am.

SKIN - Canberra Youth Theatre

Review by John Lombard

Love the skin you’re in.  Canberra Youth Theatre’s installation at the National Portrait Gallery explores the darker side of body image through movement and poetry in a moving performance that misses an opportunity to explore the more positive aspects of bodies.

The show begins in the foyer of the Portrait Gallery, with the CYT ensemble filing in wearing nothing but their underwear.  They stand to attention behind piles of clothing and begin to dress.  An alarm interrupts them and the group scrambles to switch places, until after a few rounds of frantic manoeuvring they are all dressed in a patchwork of outfits.  They then strip back to their underwear and walk into the exhibition hall of the Gallery, beckoning us to follow them.

SKIN has been designed to work in conjunction with the “Bare: Degrees of Undress” collection of nude portraits.  The performers take over part of the space and through spoken poetry and dance deliver very personal representations of their body image fears.

The setting is novel, but the performances are an uneasy fit with the content of the exhibition.  The nudes in the Bare exhibit are relaxed and blasé about their nakedness, as though it is the natural and honest state of being.  SKIN by contrast is about conflict with the body, with the performers engaging in slow and deliberate movements that suggest weight and struggle.  Only late in the performance, after the actors have worked through their fears and discomforts, does their movement become light and joyful.  After this, the actors disperse into the exhibition.

At that moment I interpreted SKIN as prelude to the exhibition, with the flurry of activity over clothes and the ugliness of bodies acting as a spiritual cleansing to prepare us for a more relaxed and joyful exploration of bodies.  Instead the audience was wrangled into an epilogue where we were addressed by the performers and asked to look directly at them, exploring their discomfort and ours.  This killed the positive vibe that preceded it and I think the performance would have been stronger if it was integrated into the exhibition rather than imposed on it.  SKIN demands our full attention for about an hour and while that is happening we have to put our curiosity about the paintings and photos on hold.

That said, the performing was well-executed and obviously extremely rewarding for the ensemble.  I would have liked to see more exploration of positive side of having a body.  As individuals we are all so intensely interested in our own bodies that it is hard to realise that other people are mostly indifferent to our tummy flab or crow’s feet.  The ensemble are all young and in good shape – when they were telling me how insecure they felt, I kept asking myself how being young and attractive could be such an obstacle to happiness in life.  Everyone feels bad about their bodies sometimes, but that is because we are all a bit delusional about the importance of a limited standard of beauty: the deeper truth is that bodies are actually kind of rad, a point that SKIN indirectly ends up making anyway.

'Reminder of free-wheeling times past' - Ricki and the Flash

Review by Jane Freebury

As the mum who didn't show up for her daughter's wedding then arrived in time for the divorce, Ricki Randazzo (Meryl Streep) could expect children to have a few issues with her. When she comes back into their lives, they're all grown up. Can she reach them still?

Back home in Tarzana, California, where she moonlights as lead singer with her band, she has a knack for working a crowd. The patrons at her regular gig are an appreciative lot, cheering on the mix of Springsteen, Stones and Pink. And you have got to hand it to Streep as she prowls the stage and lets rip with a dirty chuckle. She looks and sounds like she's been strapped to a guitar all her life. 

Ricki is an endearing reminder of free-wheeling times past, even if her politics don't fit. In an aside she mentions she voted for George W. Bush—twice. Give her back the good old days, when going through security checks at the airport didn't mean you had to remove all your chunky necklaces and rings, and people didn't look sideways at you in your barely tamed hair and hippie weeds.

Responding to a call from her former husband Pete (Kevin Kline) that their daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep's daughter in real life) has attempted suicide after her husband left her, Ricki makes the journey to be by her side. The tidy hedges and gated communities of Indianapolis where Ricki's ex lives with his new wife, is a foreign country until she bonds with the family poodle and spies some pot in the freezer.

It's not as though Ricki doesn't carry her share of maternal guilt for having deserted her children when they were little, just a lot less than most. The drama makes way for this to be beautifully expressed in her performance of 'Cold One', a song she wrote and sings to Pete and Julia one evening, before stepmom Maureen (Audra McDonald) returns home after a few days away.

We've known since Postcards from the Edge that she could sing and since Mamma Mia! that she could groove, but here she is quite the Linda Ronstadt or the Chrissie Hynde. One of the screen's gifted chameleons—think Iron Lady, Evil Angels, and The French Lieutenant's Woman—Streep is, as always, utterly convincing as an aging rocker. Having established her credentials in serious roles, she can afford to let her hair down. 

The screenplay is the work of esteemed creatives behind the camera too, the talented writer Diablo Cody (Juno, and episodes of TV's United States of Tara) and director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and The Manchurian Candidate). 

There is a big singing and dancing finale. It is, after all, a wedding reception, and as such a gesture of hope towards the future, however Ricki and the Flash could have done with a brisker wrap. We've seen that Demme has a soft spot for Neil Young, and music is perhaps his indulgence, but contemporary audiences have a low tolerance for things being drawn-out or for a great deal of sentiment in their melodrama either. 

It's worth remembering, however, that we tend to allow Bollywood the same indulgence in the big singing and dancing wrap, and anyone knows that the relationship difficulties aren't usually resolved on the dance floor. So enjoy.  

Also published online at www.janefreeburywriter.com.au

Ghosts in the Scheme by Scott Rankin

Ghosts in the Scheme by Scott Rankin.  Big hArt directed by Scott Rankin; lighting by Gillian Schwab; sound by Kimmo Vennonen; music directors and performers: Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen – Michael Simic, Pip Branson, Guy Freer, Sam Martin, Philip Moriarty.  Canberra Theatre Centre, The Playhouse, September 2-5, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 2

This show is the product of Project Cosmopolitana, the latest work by Big hART “working with the country’s most invisible, silenced or marginalised communities to explore many of the country’s unknown gifts”.  Invited to Cooma, NSW, by South East Arts and Cooma Monaro Shire Council “to embark on a new project working across generations and cultures...[they conducted] a wide range of community workshops including music, dance, oral history and archival research”.

I suspect that the real value of this work remains in the two years of working with the community.  Although the previous two Big hART shows I’ve seen (Ngapartji Ngapartji and Namatjira) produced highly effective theatrical storytelling of great significance to the wider Australian community, Ghosts in the Scheme fails on both counts.

The show is held together only by the quality of the music by the Black Sea Gentlemen, particularly by Pip Branson in a singing role as an occasional commentator on the action.  The script writing is, to put it bluntly, woeful.  The story which is murky for much of the time, gradually turns into a battle between three “old” people, a woman who fell in love when young with a man who she decided was unreliable, and so married his friend whom she never really loved.  In old age, the triangle blew apart.

Unfortunately, for the apparent purpose in writing the play, the Scheme (that is, the Snowy Mountains Scheme) was entirely relegated to background images and occasional difficult to hear voice-overs of bits of stories garnered from oral histories, while the central story could have happened anywhere to any generation.  There is nothing in the script which ties the story of the love triangle specifically to the experiences of the multicultural life of Cooma in the period of the Scheme.  The ‘Ghosts’ of the title were limited to the memories of these three, while what we needed was to get to know what happened to people because of the scheme.

So I’m left hoping that the people in Cooma who took part in the process of this project gained the great deal of satisfaction that they deserve – more than 30 groups and families are listed in the program – but despite our recognition of the musicianship of the Black Sea Gentlemen, theatrically Ghosts in the Scheme doesn’t make the grade.

INTO THE WOODS

Words and Music by Stephen Sondheim - Book by James Lapine

Directed by Richard Block -Musical Direction by Damien Slingsby

Choreography by Kathryn Jones

Presented by Dramatic Productions in association with ANU School of Music

Gungahlin College Community Theatre until 12^th September 2015.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant musical exploring beyond the “happily ever after” of favourite fairy tale characters to uncover lives which don’t necessarily have a happy ending, places considerable demands on the actors playing those characters, as well as the audience, because, as with all Sondheim musicals, it demands good vocal technique and excellent enunciation from the actors.

It says much for the success of Richard Block’s impressive production, that most of his cast  meet these demands, with enthusiastic, well delineated characterisations which not only allow the audience to savour Sondheim’s brilliant lyrics, but which capture the humour as well as the darkness inherent in Lapine’s intriguing, convoluted storyline.

Among the strong ensemble cast,  Veronica Thwaites-Brown as the Baker’s Wife,  Sian Harrington as Little Red Riding Hood, Phillipa Murphy as Cinderella, and Alexander Clubb as Cinderella’s Prince who was “bred to be charming, not sincere”,  all give strong performances.  Kelly Roberts is outstanding as The Witch, both before and after her transformation, making every line of her dialogue count, and singing her difficult songs superbly.

Colourful costumes and props, together with an impressive set, courtesy of Victorian Opera, add sheen to the production. Full marks also to musical director, Damien Slingsby, who accomplishes an excellent balance between the singers and orchestra. An added bonus is the opportunity to sample Gungahlin College’s cosy new community theatre.

This review first published in the digital edition of  "CITY NEWS"  on 29th August and in the print edition on 2nd September 2015.