Theatre: Mission Drift

The TEAM

for the Perth Festival

written by The TEAM

Music by Heather Christian

Directed by Rachel Chavkin

With Stephanie Wright Thompson, Bryce Gill, Heather Christian, Ian Lassiter and Amber Gray, accompanied by Matthew Bogdanow and Josh Myers

Heath Ledger Theatre

Until March 2

Bryce Gill, Ian Lassiter, Stephanie Wright Thompson and Heather Christian
(pic Lee Griffith)

There’s no objective measure of theatre or how it gives each individual the particular things they like, want and need from it.

So, when I say that I have never seen anything better than Mission Drift in the theatre, you will only know if you can at least understand me if you have the great good fortune to see it for yourself. It has everything I think theatre should have, and does everything I believe theatre should do.

 Mission Drift is a daring encompassing of America, its historic promise and its breaking.

It’s the incredible fecundity and westward impulse of America that inspire Mission Drift’s thrilling first half, which is, quite literally, a history of a nation.

If the second half of Mission Drift lacks some of the ebullience of the first, it simply mirrors the grinding stasis that has beset America, and its dream, since those last days of ’07.

I was often in tears during this brilliant production (and here I should disclose that I was living in America, and personally affected by the events of 2007 and ’08); two days later its effect on me has scarcely subsided. If there’s still a ticket to be had, go see it.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

  

Perth Fringe Festival 2013

Done and Dusted 
Turnstiles is, finally, all Fringed Out.
So, of the 42 Fringe shows I saw, I'm very glad I saw 20 and rather wished I'd have missed only nine. That's a terrific strike rate for a come one, come all fringe, and a testament to both the quality of our local artists and the ability of Marcus Canning and the Fringe World team to attract quality from interstate and abroad. 
I've said before, and will keep on saying, that I don't see any reason for us to stop here. Let's make the Cultural Centre precinct a place to gather, be entertained and inspired twelve months a year, not just at festival season. We don't need more fancy buildings or expensive infrastructure; just content, great content, and I'm absolutely convinced the demand will be there, and the benefit, to our city and our state, immeasurable.

Read on for a run-down of my Fringe:

Theatre: Le Foulard, Bane 2 and Never Mind the Monsters

Never Mind the Monsters

Blue Room

Bane 2 and Le Foulard

PICA

Lucy Hopkins

Lucy Hopkins only made one mistake in her magnetic, witty Le Foulard – its fabulous first line: “You are about to receive something of a very high quality”.

There’s no denying that what followed was. What she didn’t know, however, is that the “about” was redundant; we’d already had “very high quality” twice that night in the Blue Room’s Summer Nights series with Never Mind the Monsters and Bane 2.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian  

Theatre: The Improved

The Skeletal System

for Fringe World

Written and directed by Will O’Mahony

Designed by Alicia Clements

With Glenn Hall, Andreas Lohmeyer and Will O’Mahony

The Blue Room

Feb 12 - 16, 2013

One of the pleasures of fringe is getting a first look at local work that has the potential for longer runs and other stages. A good example was Rachel Dease’s sombre and exciting City of Shadows, which went on from last year’s Fringe to critical acclaim in the tough New York Fringe and, happily for me, had a short encore run here last week.

So far this time around, Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s Minnie and Mona showed the theatrical smarts and sharp performances to go to the next step, and it’s now joined by Will O’Mahony’s tense, twisting The Improved.

It’s infuriating to hear about shows after they’ve gone. Hopefully, they, and you, will get another chance to get Improved somewhere, and soon.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian.

Theatre: Three Little Pigs

Devised by Tara Louise Notcutt and the cast

Directed by Tara Louise Notcutt

Performed by Albert Pretorius, James Cairns and Rob van Vuuren

Fringe World

Until February 24

The small but deadly strike force South Africa has sent to infiltrate our Fringe has hit again, this time with a taut, hilarious political allegory about – you guessed it – three pig brothers and a big, bad wolf.

The brothers are pigs of the “’ello, ’ello, ’ello”, as well as the ham and bacon, variety, and two of them have been blown up and blowtorched by a shadowy crime boss (their finger-lickingly delicious autopsy is a highlight). The younger, smaller brother (Rob van Vuuren) knows the bad guys are after him next, and goes squealing to the cops, in particular an Irish goat (Albert Pretorious) and a hard as nails chicken (James Cairns).

They take the case to the head of the Pig Squad the brothers had been members of, Vark Jansen (a gloriously funny name, sounding for all the world like an very impolite imprecation, when said with the appropriate accent), and the hunt for the murderer is on.

It’s great fun, but for all the fun and games, there’s serious intent behind the laughs. I’ve speculated before that the extraordinary history and ethnic, political and economic circumstances of SA have produced an alternative theatre with a particular energy and edginess.

I wonder if any other national theatre can produce work with this fever, and this determination. It’s both instructive and inspirational to have these fine examples of it at our Fringe.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian.

Theatre: Dirt

Written by Nick Warren

Directed by Jenine Collocott

Performed by James Cairns

Until February 23

I was talking with the all-pervasive Joe Lui, who almost seems to be holding alternative theatre in Perth together by dint of personal effort, about the South African shows at this year’s Fringe.

We were struck by the urgency of these performances. Even a relatively slight rom-com like Love @ First Bite had an edge; and Dirt, a vastly more considerable piece, was savage in its a febrile energy and intensity.

Much of this is due to the phenomenal power of James Cairns, who delivers the theatre performance of the festival thus far, but there’s something else besides. Joe and I thought perhaps, even though the characters Cairns plays in Dirt, like those in First Bite and last year’s Fringe highlight …miskien, are white, middle class, hedonistic and complacent ­– just like us, in fact – South African history is so different, and these characters’ place in its society so much less absolute, that it completely changes the torque of their theatre writing and performance.

Three men are travelling from Johannesburg to Cape Town for the funeral of a friend. They have his dog with them in the car. Like a good road movie, there’s revelation and conflict, tragedy (of the canine variety) and a psychic, as well as physical, destination to reach. The dirt of the title is manifestly that poured into the grave of their friend at the end, but it’s also that which gets dug up and spread on their journey.

Cairns has a terrific ear for voices, and each of his characters is distinct and memorable. As well as the three travellers and the dog – Cairns does him proud – there are incidental characters, especially a hilariously mock-obsequious Indian South African traffic cop, that he switches between without skipping a beat.

A word of warning: the two Parade Teatro tents are struggling to cope with our new summer paradigm (thank God global warming is a myth, hey), and the industrial fans being used as part of the solution can be an unfortunate distraction. If you’re going to Dirt – and I hope you will – it’s worth finding a seat where they are as unobtrusive as possible.

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

Theatre: Watt

The Gate Theatre Dublin

for the Perth Festival

From the novel by Samuel Beckett

Selected and performed by Barry McGovern

Directed by Tom Creed

Heath Ledger Theatre

Until February 17

When the doors closed at the Heath Ledger Theatre, something happened.

The audience reduced their conversations to a whisper, in anticipation of the arrival of the actor on stage. When, however, some time had passed and the play did not begin, and as if on cue, the whisperers resumed talking at their previous volume. This sudden increase in sound suggested that an incident of some kind had occurred, impelling people to look for it. Others, seeing the direction in which many of their fellows were looking, began looking in that direction as well. People, unable to see for themselves what had occurred (because nothing had), began asking each other what was going on.

It was an auspicious beginning for a night in the company of a writer with an unsurpassed ability to describe what happens when nothing does, and an actor, in Barry McGovern, with the skill and focus to bring it to the stage.

Link here to my complete review in The West Australian