Side by Side by Sondheim

Thursday, 4 February 2010

The Studio at the Subiaco Arts Centre was dressed to be timelessly chic and sophisticated in drop-dead black, lit apparently by the chandelier haloing light over Tim Cunniffe as he sat at one of two baby grand pianos that dominated the stage.

Invited to sit in the style of an intimate cabaret revue, the audience was dazzled over the span of the show, treated to a sample celebration of the earlier works of one of the greatest composers and lyricists of modern musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim.

The show opened with the crowd-pleasing “Comedy Tonight” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a cheeky farce of mistaken identities and noises-off bawdiness set in ancient Rome.

Director and designer Gregory Jones has adopted Wintour vogue for his latest vision and decreed black to be the new black, and the easy fashion to stick mainly to this shade (save for it’s opposite on the spectrum and the occasional colour flashes from boas, Christmas lights and tutus(!), made you feel impossibly stylish and practically New York-ian.

Ross Bryant took a little time to settle into his role as Narrator, but was useful in providing those new to Sondheim with a little history on the man, his music, and just what was happening within the historical landscape of the mid to late 20th Century when these productions were first launching along the great White Way.

The performers were individually immensely watchable and as an ensemble well suited. Simon Loughton was handsome and assured, an appealing leading man to voice Sondheim’s lassair faire tenors.
Tim How switched capably between being the Everyman (hilarious in “The Little Things You Do Together” with Sherry-Anne Hayes) to being the clown.

Casey Edwards appeared to be channelling musical theatre goddess Carolyn O’Connor: pixie cut – check, arch eyebrows and knowing smile – check, hella wow voice – a definite check.
Sherry-Anne Hayes was the goofy cute comedienne, her face wide-eyed and appealing (think Amy Adams in Enchanted), punched with the screwball comedic delivery of Debra Messing circa Will & Grace.
Gillian Binks completed the quintet as the all rounder, excelling in droll delivery (You Must Meet My Wife) to melancholic nostalgia (Send in the Clowns) and just for good measure, rapid-fire panicked patter (Getting Married Today).

With so much to enjoy, it was an evening of so much more than just a little night music from a very polished company.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Thursday, 21 January 2010

A step back into an innocent, more nostalgic time, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, is a curious musical - made up of vignettes reminiscent of the classic newspaper comic which American baby boomers grew up with, and populated by actors who are probably more familiar with Ginger Meggs, our own popular larrikin version, rather that this neurotic lovable loser.

Mesh Theatre has done their best with the slight premise, and the obvious lack of plot, to instead showcase some of the more familiar Peanuts characters in this production. The result is an appealing kick that could almost serve as an alternative to the high gloss of kid-specific juggernauts The Wiggles, or more comparatively, Hi-5.

When this comic strip by Charles M Schulz first appeared over 50 years ago, the general ages of the children (postulated to be around 5 - 6 years old) was an irony to the more mature middle school dialogue they were spouting; but in 2010 I wouldn’t say those concepts have been fast forwarded, but rather superceded – with the iGeneration now more immersed than ever in a screen life of mobiles, internet and video, this show emerges as a charmer; happiness is…chasing butterflies and rabbits with your pet dog, playing a toy piano with the seriousness of a maestro, making up kissing/ advice booths – this is a world of imagination and play, where adults sound muffled and don’t make any sense, everything and everyone is usually bigger than you, and your pet is both an ace flyer and a high kicking singing sensation.

Standouts in the uniformly well voiced cast were Amberly Cull as Charlie’s little sister Sally, button cute with a Betty Boop voice to match, bringing winsome determination and joy to “My New Philosophy”; and Bri Williams as the indefatigable Snoopy, fearless and free, living the perennial childhood that an entitled pet has the luxury to know nothing else of. Her “Suppertime” dance number was a crowd roaring showstopper, and her appealing characterization and top-of-doghouse musings were exactly how you’d expect Snoopy to think and sound like.

A snack tasty skip down memory lane.

Lord of the Flies

Saturday, 27 June 2009

Lord of the Flies is a Dangerous Book about Boys. Written by Briton William Golding in the shadow of the atomic bomb, the novel is rich with onomatopoeic imagery (the roar and then plop used to describe a tangled parachute is a wonder) and allusions to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Ballantyne’s Coral Island festoon the narrative with allegorical layers to be turned over and over.

Director Gregory Jones having staged directly from the text in previous productions, challenged himself with Nigel Williams’ adaptation, a translation that was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1995.

The island is only imagined, as the audience is greeted by a blackboard ready set - tables and high stools in a typical classroom and boys in uniforms at attention. An overlay soundtrack of rhythm that sounds like a jump cut heartbeat is ominous, and it is not a plane crash that scars an island paradise and leaves these boys isolated, but a bomb in civilization itself separating children from adults.

The numerous lost boys of Littluns are reduced to one - Perceval (Thomas James), who despite his height did make you think he could actually be aged six as related in the original. Daniel Garrett as initially reluctant leader Ralph, impressively managed to stand on his head, which I thought was hilarious as his character is mentioned doing this very act numerous times in the first chapter – giving blood rushing physicality to the disorientation of a world turned upside down.

Nick Maclaine portrayed Jack as boldly belligerent, a school prefect confident in his right to rule and egged on from mere leader to despotic tyrant by the mysterious-boy-of-no-particular-school, Roger (Nicholas Hiatt) a character only referred to in the novel quite late in the piece, but who instills terror in all who see him painted savage.

Simon (Daniel Klemens), reflective and unpopular as prophets are apt to be, disappears in his epileptic fit and emerges with not just the truth about the Beast from the Air but the realization that society is fragmenting, so of course as harbinger he is killed in a disturbing sequence of sound and fury. Piggy (Izaak Lim) is left as a lone nagging voice of civilization, adamant on the importance of the conch, neurotic with his “ass-mar” and rightly fearful for his life.

Chalked chapters written across the back wall beneath a poster of the Queen marked the passage of time, but the compact pacing never lagged despite its Educational Edition repute, and this adventure into the heart of man’s darkness played out to an intense finale of almost unbearable apprehension…then suddenly, a grownup steps into the room.

Having read this recently, I have wondered about this ending - how do you process the experience of being hunted or a hunter? At 12, how does this ugly reality shape you and your future?

Are you forever tainted, or will you put the incidents down to childish games and a series of unfortunate accidents vaguely remembered in the far distant adult future?

I guess it makes you think - despite the promise of each new generation, could we have avoided the way the world is now? For it may not be just the wake of all that has come before, but as illuminated in this work, there is the uncomfortable knowledge within each of us of an innate turmoil between order and anarchy.