ALL IS TRUE

M, 1 hr 41 mins

Dendy Canberra Centre, Palace Electric New Acton

3 Stars



Review by © Jane Freebury


This is Shakespeare as you have never seen him before, and might find hard to believe. It takes place during the last three years of his life, when he had returned from London to live at his family home in the countryside, working on the garden. There is not a jot of creative writing in sight.

When the Globe Theatre burned to the ground in 1613, after a canon misfire during a performance of Shakespeare’s last play, he retreated to Stratford-upon Avon, to live with his wife and daughters.

a tantalisingly vacant space to fill

Little is known about him during the years before his death, a relatively sudden event, at 52. It is a tantalising vacant space to fill in the Bard’s life, into which steps veteran actor Kenneth Branagh.

The only portrait we have of Shakespeare depicts a man with a sensual mouth and a wide intelligent brow. In his period wig and beard, the appearance of a heavily disguised Branagh with prosthetically lengthened nose, is a close enough to the mark.

Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh) with
daughter
Susannah (Lydia Wilson) 

Ben Elton’s screenplay imagines the great man in everyday life, in a contemplative frame of mind, even getting an occasional reproach for absences and lapses from his wife, Anne Hathaway (played here by the redoubtable Judi Dench), and daughters Judith (Kathryn Wilder) and Susannah (Lydia Wilson).

An occasional visitor brings the outside world in. His patron, the Earl of Southampton (a sprightly Ian McKellen), the ‘fair youth’ who inspired Shakespeare’s poetry, arrives for a chat in one of the film’s highlights.

This intimate meeting, like all other interactions indoors during the evening, takes place in candlelight. The production designer has kept all the period detail authentic, without concessions to modern cravings for atmosphere or expressive lighting.

Shakespeare is less pleased to see a young admirer and aspiring writer who drops in. It interrupts his gardening, and the youth is given short shrift with the advice to simply get started if he wants to write.

dismissive of his own legacy, consumed by the loss of his son

Some of the film’s key moments are filmed from a very low angle. It might be meant to signify Shakespeare’s greatness, to remind us of his lofty stature as a poet and dramatist for all time, but it just looks a bit odd.

While Shakespeare is dismissive of his own legacy in this life story, he is consumed by the loss of his son, 11-year-old Hamnet who died many years before, while he was away.

Few of us may have known that he had a son, and the fact of it makes an interesting focal point of this homecoming by a man so absent from family, and so much of the world.

All is True is the alternative title of Shakespeare’s last play, Henry VIII, a collaboration with one John Fletcher, who doesn’t get a mention here. It’s a playful title for a film founded on conjecture rather than fact.

All in all, it’s a slight piece, and tends to sound contemporary, to help make the great man more accessible. He had family issues like everybody else, but I’m not convinced that Shakespeare’s family would have communicated with him the way they do during very different times, four centuries ago.

Shakespeare (Branagh) with wife Anne
(Judi Dench)

Production design and costumes and candle-lit interiors give the film a strong sense of authentic period detail, despite doubts about the authenticity of language, and of manners and family relationships.
The mystery that is William Shakespeare may never be resolved. Perhaps the intellectual acuity, wisdom and poetry of his plays and sonnets, a contribution to the English language that none can match, is all we need to know, and better kept that way.

Jane's reviews are also published on her blog, the Film Critics Circle of Australia, and broadcast on ArtSound FM 92.7

Jump First, Ask Later

Original director and choreographer Byron Perry. Tour director Karen Therese. PYT Fairfield and Force Majeure. Q Theatre, Queanbeyan. Friday May 17 at 10.30 am and 8 pm.

It felt like a wisp of a season for a short show. But Jump First, Ask Later is anything but a wisp of a show. This piece celebrates western Sydney, its mix of ethnicities and individual histories as well as the physicalities of urban music and movement. And it does so with a reflective intelligence as well as with the appealing nature of the tumbling and balancing routines.

Films of Jackie Chan and the impossible urban physical antics of many an action hero are clear influences as the six performers tumble and soliloquise around the scaffolding set. The tumbling and routines are powerful; the stories that the five young men and one young woman tell are windows into lives that reveal something of migration and much of finding a place in the world.

This might be a wisp of a review but it was hard not to come away moved by the dignity and hope of the stories and the characters. It’s a show that undoes much of the stereotyping that goes with where people live. Thanks to Joe, Patrick, Ale, Jimmy James, Ivana and Tristan for dropping by Queanbeyan with a reminder.

Alanna Maclean

RUSSIAN LULLABY

Songmakers Australia

Art Song Canberra

Wesley Music Centre Sunday May 19

Reviewed by Len Power

‘Russian Lullaby’ was a program of Russian songs presented by members of Songmakers Australia – Andrea Katz, piano, Merlyn Quaife, soprano, Christina Wilson, mezzo-soprano, and Andrew Goodwin, tenor.

The first half of the program comprised a number of lullabies, some amusing and some that were darker in tone, by composers Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Kabalevsky and Mussorgsky.

‘Cradle Song’, by Glinka, a beautiful duet for soprano and tenor, was an excellent opening number, displaying the richness and fine blend of the voices of Merlyn Quaife and Andrew Goodwin.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Winter Evening’ was sung with great accuracy and feeling by Andrew Goodwin.  Andrea Katz’s piano accompaniment for this song was exceptional.  Christina Wilson followed with a very amusing ‘There Was An Old Woman’ by Kabalevsky.  Sung very well, her playing of this old woman also had real depth of character.

Left to right: Andrea Katz, Merlyn Quaife, Andrew Goodwin and Christina Wilson

Andrew Goodwin and Christina Wilson then gave us another finely sung duet with ‘The Lark’ by Glinka.

After interval, artistic director and piano accompanist, Andrea Katz, set the scene for ‘From Jewish Poetry’, a song cycle by Shostakovitch.  Composed in 1948 after the composer’s denunciation in 1947, the composer's situation and the official anti-Semitism of the time made a public premiere impossible until 1955.  The cycle is one of many works by Shostakovich to incorporate elements of Jewish music.

Andrea Katz

The eleven songs of the cycle were all memorably sung.  The opening song, ‘Lament over the death of a small child’ was a chillingly beautiful work sung superbly by Merlyn Quaife and Christina Wilson.

Other highlights included ‘The dramatic father’ sung by Wilson and Goodwin, ‘Zima’ sung by all three performers, ‘Song of the girl’, sung by Merlyn Quaife and the finale, ‘Happiness’, again sung by all three artists.

This was a nicely balanced concert with generally lighter works in the first half and a more sombre and dramatic tone for the second half.  Very well sung by the three singers with fine accompaniment by Andrea Katz on piano, this was a memorable afternoon of song.

Photos by Peter Hislop

This review was first published in the Canberra City News digital edition of 20 May 2019.

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

TOWARDS ZERO

Written by Agatha Christie

Directed by Jon Elphick

Tempo Theatre Inc

Belconnen Theatre to 25 May

Reviewed by Len Power 18 May 2019

Agatha Christie’s ‘Towards Zero’ was first published in 1944 and was adapted for the stage by Christie and Gerald Verner in 1956. Director of the current production by Tempo Theatre, Jon Elphick, believes it may be the first time it has been performed in Canberra.

If you’ve read the novel, you’ll know that it is a very clever whodunit and arguably one of Agatha Christie’s best.  Tempo Theatre’s production of the play is one of their best, too.

In ‘Towards Zero’, a murder occurs during a seaside house party.  Investigating Police Superintendent Battle theorises that, when a murder is committed, the people involved all seem to be converging towards a given place and hour - all going towards zero.

From left: Jason Morton, Kim Wilson and Garry Robinson

This production is the 10th Christie play directed by Jon Elphick.  His large cast of eleven all perform their roles with conviction and a nice depth of characterization.  Kim Wilson, who has the distinction of playing in all ten Christie productions directed by Elphick, gives a particularly fine performance as Superintendent Battle.

As well as some of Tempo’s regular performers, it was good to see a number of very capable actors who are new to the Canberra stage, as well as two graduates from Perform Australia (previously Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art) in this production.

Las Wijayatilake and Chintarmanya Vivian

The costumes are credited to Marian Fitzgerald, Jon Elphick and the cast.  The women’s dresses were particularly attractive, stylish and correctly in period.

Jon Elphick has once again produced a well-designed drawing room set with an army of cast members and other helpers who have constructed and dressed it.  A small company like this must have a limited budget but the production values on show here are impressive.

The large audience at the matinee performance I attended demonstrated that Tempo has a strong and appreciative following.  We all had a lot of fun trying to guess the murderer – unsuccessfully, of course - in this well-done and intriguing murder mystery.

This review was first published in the Canberra City News digital edition of 19 May 2019.

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

THE WORLD GOES ROUND

Directed by Jarrad West -Musical Direction by Alexander Unikowski

Choreographed by Caitlin Schilg - Set Designed by Chris Baldock

Costume design by Fiona Leach - Lighting Design by Helen Nosworthy

Sound design by Joel Edmondson

The Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3, 16th May - 1st June, 2019

 

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Samantha Marceddo - Joel Hutchings - Julia Walker - Isaac Gordon (back) - Louiza Blomfield

 

The song writing team of Kander and Ebb are responsible for many of this centuries most iconic musicals, among them “Cabaret”, “Chicago” and “The Rink”. They’ve also written for film, as well as special material for celebrity performers, in particular, Liza Minnelli. “The World Goes Round” is a musical revue for which a selection of some of their best songs has been cleverly woven into a showcase for five outstanding performers.

Director, Jarrad West, has set his version, after hours, in a beautifully detailed evocation of a New York Night Club, designed by Chris Baldock, in which large posters of Kander and Ebb shows adorn the walls. During the show, the posters light up to indicate which show the song being performed is from. This is a clever touch, because although it’s not necessary to know this information, each song being a little story of its own, the additional knowledge certainly adds to the enjoyment.  .

The talented cast portray anonymous night club employees who arrive for work, set up the club, and eventually leave, having assumed a variety of personas as they interpret the songs.

 It could have been disastrous for the production to have one of the original cast members, Samantha Marceddo, fall ill during the final days of rehearsal, but the production was fortunate in that both the Director, West, and choreographer, Caitlin Schilg, both excellent performers, were able to step in and take over Marceddo’s role at short notice, and indeed provide the show with some highlights of their own.

Julia Walker - Joel Hutchings performing "Arthur in the Afternoon"

 

This is a show full of highlights, and each audience member will choose their own. For this reviewer, outstanding moments included almost everything performed by the remarkable  Louiza Blomfield, but particularly her full-throated version of “The World Goes Round”, which opens the show, Jarrad West’s superb interpretation of “Coloured Lights”, Julia Walker’s delightfully cheeky “Arthur in the Afternoon”, Isaac Gordon’s delicious take on “Sara Lee”, Joel Hutchings powerful “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, Caitlin Schilg’s gutsy “All that Jazz”, and the roller skating fun for “The Rink”.

Issac Gordon performing "Sara Lee) 

 

West’s stagings of the many duets, trio and ensemble numbers are masterly and no doubt first night glitches with sound balance, missed lighting cues, occasional errant harmonies and sluggish pacing will be attended to quickly.  But over-all, this production is a triumph for Canberra Repertory, and most definitely one for your “must see” list.

 

                                          Photos provided by Canberra Repertory. 

                This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 18.05.19

 

 

Winyanboga Yurringa

Winyanboga Yurringa by Andrea James.  Directed by Anthea Williams.  The song Ngalya Woka composed for this production by Dr Lou Bennett AM.

Presented by Belvoir, in association with Moogahlin Performing Arts at Belvoir Street Theatre Upstairs, Sydney, May 4-26, 2019.  Indigenous Theatre at Belvoir is supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 18

 For me, a non-Indigenous unsuspecting then-teenage invader of this country in 1955, to claim that I can ‘review’ this work is not sensible.  Winyanboga Yurringa is Aboriginal theatre which becomes cultural ceremony, which I can observe and respond to – but not judge.  It is both Aboriginal business and specifically Aboriginal women’s business which I can respect, and participate in only through my imagination.

I have long been, through non-Indigenous law, an Australian citizen, and a bushwalker all my adult life.  In her illuminating excerpt from her PhD thesis, quoted in the program, Danièle Hromek quotes Torres Strait Islander architect and artist Kevin O’Brien writing:

“Country is an Aboriginal idea.  It is an idea that binds groupings of Aboriginal people to the place of their ancestors, past, current and future. It understands that every moment of the land, sea and sky, its particles, its prospects and its prompts, enables life.  It is revealed over time by camping in it….There is no disenfranchisement, no censorship and no ownership.  Country is a belief.  It is my belief.”

Though my camping and walking on country in many parts of Australia has a history of only some 60 years – and cannot be compared with the Aboriginal history which we now know to be more like 60,000 years – my enjoyment and appreciation of ‘going bush’ means I understand the feelings of Auntie Neecy, played by Roxanne McDonald, in seeing the need to insist on the young city women camping out, even if only once a year, in the bush without their phones and alcohol.

The essence of the play is not a romance about the purity of nature (which is more like how a person of European upbringing like me might see it).  For these women, it is where the realities of their lives and the conflicts which arise daily can be worked through with better understanding of how their Aboriginality literally and culturally connects them.

When the young Jada (Tuuli Narkle) rebels, steals a phone and cannot be found – since she had gone to find a spot with a mobile signal and then walked to a road to meet a boyfriend – the group, in facing the risk that she is lost and could be in harm’s way, must work together as they search.  In fact, her boyfriend failed to meet her as promised.  Jada returns, taught by the experience to respect the concerns of the women for her welfare, and a return to country ceremony is played out by returning items held in a museum (one woman is a PhD researcher) to be buried in the sands of this sacred site.

The crucial item is a full length possum skin cloak which they place reverently on Auntie’s shoulders in recognition of her essential role as an elder – an act of powerful emotion which connects them to the past, the present and the future.

I feel proud of the good fortune I have had at Belvoir to see again a performance by Roxanne McDonald, who I first saw in Yibiyung by Dallas Winmar (reviewed in The Canberra Times, September 2008, available at www.frankmckone2.blogspot.com ).

Angela Penrith, Tasma Walton, Roxanne McDonald, Tuuli Narkle, Dubs Yunupingu, Dalara Williams

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Pamela Rabe, Zahra Newman, Hugo Weaving
Photo: Hon Boey

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.  Sydney Theatre Company at Roslyn Packer Theatre April 29 – June 8, 2019.  By special arrangement with the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 18

Production photos by Daniel Boud

 Kip Williams may be no relation, but his production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is  literally a vindication of Tennessee Williams’ brilliance.  It’s all about light, mirrors and reflection – a grand celebration of the work of lighting designer Nick Schlieper, within a magnificent space shaped by sound designer Stefan Gregory.

Nothing is out of place theatrically in this billionaire’s expansive mansion, except the family within, lost in the forces of jealousy, lust, frustration and retribution.  Though a sociologist might write an erudite essay on the social and economic causes in the nature of capitalism, this playing out of ‘a synthesis of all my life’, as Williams wrote, becomes a lived experience for us, watching from the safety of our theatre seats.

The design of the staging seems to have given the actors freedom of action, expression and feeling to match the magnificent space.

Zarah Newman’s Act One performance is almost beyond belief as Maggie – the cat on that terribly hot tin roof, where to stop for even a fraction of a second would be to be destroyed.

From even a simple acting-skills point of view, let alone accuracy of characterisation, Harry Greenwood’s manipulation of his body, balancing on one leg, wielding his crutch not so much as a support but as a weapon, becomes a horrifying representation of his psychological state.

I could give examples of every actor’s particular wonderful achievements, especially including the antics of the children (and the directing of such young ones), but will focus on Hugo Weaving’s voice.  Even Big Daddy could not physically fill the empty reaches of the space, yet his voice in anger was as frightening as the explosions of the fireworks to celebrate his birthday; while when weak in sorrow or confusion, the sound of Weaving’s voice carried his mood all around and off the stage, into our minds and even our hearts.  A great performance, indeed.

This is a modern production of a great American play which I’m fortunate not to have missed.  I hope it will go on tour, especially to Tennessee Williams’ homeland.  America needs to learn now as much as in the 1950s from its great artists; as we do here and all around the world, through the honesty and truth-telling of such writers, producers, directors, designers and actors.

Zahra Newman and Harry Greenwood
as Maggie and Brick

Harry Greenwood and Zahra Newman
as Brick and Maggie

Children: Buster, Dixie, Polly, Sonny with
Peter Carroll, Anthony Brandon Wong, Josh McConville and Hugo Weaving
as Reverend Tooker, Doctor Baugh, Gooper, and Big Daddy

Zahra Newman and Hugo Weaving
as Maggie and Big Daddy

Harry Greenwood and Pamela Rabe
as Brick and Big Mama

 For further thinking, the essay “Tennessee Williams: Life on a hot tin roof”, published in the program (with no acknowledged author!) is excellent, in addition to Kip Williams’ Director’s Note; while the interview with Hugo Weaving written by Harry Windsor, published in The Saturday Paper, May 18-24, 2019 adds a great deal more detail about the production than I have space for here.