Theatre: Glengarry Glenn Ross (★★★★)

Will O'Mahony and Peter Rowsthorn

by David Mamet
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Richard Roberts
With Luke Hewitt, Ben Mortley, Will O’Mahony, Kenneth Ransom, Peter Rowsthorn, Steve Turner and Damian Walshe-Howling

Heath Ledger Theatre
Until June 14

Once again Kate Cherry and Black Swan show the appetite and aptitude for the late 20th Century American theatre canon that made Laughter on the 23rd Floor the hit of their 2014 season.
Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s hugely influential drama of venality and the despairing criminality it breeds, might not have the irresistible exuberance of Neil Simon’s memoir, but it shares its energy and masterful use of language. Cherry’s vigorous, uncomplicated staging, supported by a talented, finely balanced cast, does justice to it in this impressive production at the Heath Ledger.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: Flood

Black Swan State Theatre Company
Written by Chris Isaacs
Directed by Adam Mitchell
Set and costume design by India Mehta
Lighting designer Chris Donelly
Sound designer and composer Ben Collins
With Joshua Brennan, Adriane Daff, Samuel Delich, Will O’Mahony, Whitney Richards and Rose Riley
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until February 2

Chris Isaacs’ Flood is the story of six 20-something Perth friends who reunite for a camping trip into the North-West outback organised by Mike (Joshua Brennan).
Steve (Samuel Delich) and the reluctant Vanessa (Whitney Richards) are a couple; Sal (Will O’Mahony), though, has left his girlfriend behind in Melbourne, where he lives, to join his buddies on the adventure. Their mates, Frankie (Adriane Daff) and Elizabeth (Rose Riley), complete the expedition.
They’re city kids, packed into Mike’s mum and dad’s Tarago, and unprepared for the isolation and dangers of the remote place they’re visiting. When a stranger appears out of the bush while the friends are skinny-dipping in a waterhole, surprise turns to fear, confrontation to violence, and disaster to tragedy.
It’s impossible not to recall Raymond Carver’s short story, So Much Water So Close to Home, and especially its Australian film adaptation, Jindabyne, with its added layer of racism. Isaacs’ story is more, and a fair bit less, than those excruciating parables of guilt and its consequences.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Cabaret: Guy/Doll

Created by Nick MacLaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim

Directed by Nick MacLaine and Andrew Williams

Musical director Jangoo Chapkana

Performed by David Bowyer, Julia Jenkins, Corinne Cowling and Will O’Mahony, accompanied by Jangoo Chapkana

Downstairs at the Maj

27 – 30 June, 2012

The team of Nick Maclaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim have become something of a local hit factory.

Their production for last year’s Cabaret Soiree series, the Cole Porter memoir You’ve Got That Thing was a rung or two above most of the entertainments staged during these seasons. Its script had substance, the music was elegantly performed and they wisely brought in the experienced and perceptive Michael Loney to direct.

Loney is not back this time, and the script has been reduced to occasional patter between songs. Guy/Doll suffers badly for both absences.

I wanted to like Guy/Doll much more than I did, and I believe its creators are capable of much better things. Choosing songs because there is a reason, rather than merely an excuse, to do them would be a good place to start.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian    

Theatre: Red

By John Logan
Onward Production

Directed and designed by Lawrie Cullen-Tait

Featuring James Hagan and Will O’Mahony

Subiaco Arts Centre

Until August 27

Biographical theatre needs to be approached with caution. It’s a brave writer who tries to draw drama from a real life, especially a famous one, and a brave actor who attempts to represent that life.

The currency of great theatre is universal human truth, not the facts of an actual life. The more we know about someone, the more difficult it becomes for a writer and actor to convince us that the person on the stage is who he claims to be.

It’s the polar opposite of the willing suspension of disbelief - the necessary engagement of belief - and it’s essential for biographical theatre to succeed.

Which is exactly what Red, John Logan’s terrific exploration of the Latvian-American artist Mark Rothko (1903–1970), does.

Red is a must-see production, and another feather in the cap for the independently funded Onward Production. The play comes to Perth within a couple of years of its London debut and only a year after it dominated the Tony Awards. I hope it attracts an audience large enough to encourage the company to bring more international work of this quality to Perth theatres.

Link here  to the complete review in The West Australian. 
For a broader look at Rothko, his legacy and the issues raised by the play, link here to William Boyd’s article in The Guardian. 

         

Theatre: The Deep Blue Sea

By Terence Rattigan

Onward Production

Directed by Michael McCall

Featuring Alison Van Reeken, Tom O’Sullivan, Michael Loney, Greg McNeill, Will O’Mahony, James Helm, Julia Moody and Amanda Woodhams

Playhouse Theatre

November 19 - 28, 2010

Not waving, drowning
The early 50s in England have left us a pervading memory of grimness; the certainty and glamour of its old social order shattered by 40 years of violence, and Carnaby Street and the Beatles still an age away.

In the theatre of this grey, transitional world, an established group of playwrights and an emerging cadre of vivid young actors both sought to keep and find their audience.

It would be a few years yet before the latter found the writers they were looking for; it would be decades before the artistic reputations (and box office bankability) of the former recovered from the shock of the new world that was coming.

Foremost among these established writers was the prolific, systematic Terence Rattigan, while among the new breed of actor was the powerhouse Welshman Richard Burton. It’s a happy coincidence that these two very different figures are the genesis of this fine production of Rattigan’s 1952 drama The Deep Blue Sea by Sally Burton’s Onward Production company.

The play opens where many end: worried by the odour of gas coming from a room in a frayed old boarding house, the landlady, Mrs Elton (Julia Moody), and a tenant, Philip Welch (Will O’Mahony), burst in to find Hester Page (Alison van Reeken) unconscious in front of the heater.

An empty pill bottle lies on the table. A note sits on the mantelpiece. Her husband, Freddie (Tom O’Sullivan), is away, golfing with his RAF pal Jackie (James Helm).

Another tenant, Dr Miller, is summoned, and he revives Hester. Welch’s young wife Ann (Amanda Woodhams) arrives, and they try to work out whom to call.

Then Mrs Elton drops her bombshell: they should contact her real husband, the eminent magistrate Sir William Collyer (Michael Loney). Sir William arrives, Freddie returns, and Hester’s protestation that what had occurred was just an accident falls apart when he finds the note.

It’s a good, standard set-up to the story, and it takes maybe half an hour of not especially gripping action to get there.

Alison van Reekin 

And then the play takes off, courtesy of Michael McCall’s sure-footed direction and van Reekin’s astounding performance. Her Hester burns through the remaining acts of her downfall and redemption, and she nails both the fragile insouciance masking her rising hysteria, and the sheer, physical passion that has thrown down the life she led, and her life itself. There’s a moment when Freddie leaves her embrace for the last time and she stands perfectly still, clutching the ghost of him, that is acting of transfixing quality. 

She’s supported admirably by Michael Loney, whose stock-in-trade impishness adds real charm to the deserted husband, and Greg McNeill, who handles the tricky character of the shady but acute Dr Miller with aplomb.

Even more difficult is the role of Freddie, who has to be attractive enough to besot an accomplished, mature woman and creepy enough not to deserve her. O’Sullivan is more than handsome enough to deliver the first and makes a good fist of the second. The rest of the cast – and it’s great to see eight actors in a local, professional production – have good moments that they deliver well. The show is accurately designed (Lawrie Cullen Tait) and lit (Andrew Portwine), and Hester is beautifully dressed by Steve Nolan. Stage managers don’t often make it to reviews, but this show is a minefield of potentially deadly entrances, exits and props, and Sue Fenty disarms them all with her customary skill.

Sally Burton has already earned our thanks for giving Perth a well-resourced independent production house, and The Deep Blue Sea will win her more. I wonder if she has in mind producing more shows related in some way to her husband’s career and the theatre (and cinema) in which he thrived? If this is the case, it will be a fascinating and unique development of more than just local interest.

An edited version of this review appeared in The West Australian of 22.11.10 read here