Theatre: The Snow

By Finegan Kruckemeyer

Barking Gecko Theatre Company

Directed by Adam Mitchell

Designed by Zoe Atkinson, Lucy Birkinshaw and Cathie Travers

Performed by Grace Chow, Charlotte Otton, Andrea Gibbs, Isaac Diamond and Cathie Travers

STC Studio Until July 15

Charlotte Otton and Grace Chow

I made the fatal error of going to the opening night of Barking Gecko’s latest foray into the fertile imagination of the prolific Tasmanian playwright for (mainly) kids, Finegan Kruckemeyer, without my infallible wriggle-meter.

It’s all very well for all-grown-up audiences to enjoy and appreciate theatre for the young because so much of it – and particularly Kruckemeyer’s – keeps a weather eye on what tickles the adults the kids are taking care of as well.

But the missing wriggle-meter is the real test. Are the kids engaged, entranced and a little bit naughty? Are they shifting in their seats, have they got an endless stream of questions for mum or granddad? Are they bored? Has the play lost them, or are they happily lost in it?

The Snow has got plenty going for it. Kruckemeyer’ s allegory of how distrust, ignorance and rusted-on enmity is like snow that won’t melt is neatly imagined and just as neatly staged by director Adam Mitchell and his feisty and talented performers Grace Chow, Charlotte Otton, Andrea Gibbs and Isaac Diamond, accompanied by the outstanding accordionist Cathie Travers.

It staging is inventive, with multiple chuckleworthy characters drawn by Gibbs and Diamond, a crafty set-in-a-roadcase design by Zoe Atkinson and lashings of clever and entertaining puppeteering and size-shifting magic.

In its “simple story” (Mitchell’s own words), the young, little Thea (the kinetic Chow), the silent, mysterious and much larger Olive (the much loftier Otton) and a bunch of local heroes are catapulted away from the permanently snowbound village of Kishka (pop. 200) and over their despised rival, snowbound too, village of Gretaville (pop. also 200) to find a solution to their white, cold, obstinate problem.

After many adventures, overcoming many obstacles and uncovering many surprises, our mismatched champions bring all to rights, heal many old wounds and cause many piles of snow to melt. Because as any kid’ll tell you, 200 minus 200 comes to nought, while 200 plus 200 is, well, heaps.

The problem is all in the “many”; too much of a good thing is just that, and I suspect there might have been a fair bit of fidgeting and losing the plot going on in a young audience as Thea and Olive’s odyssey plays out.

There are just too many episodes in The Snow, too many pieces to fit into the jigsaw to finish the picture (for example, there’s a drear and dingy district called The Darkness that the characters seem unable to avoid and keep diving into without much rhyme or reason).

None of which detracts from the craft of the production, the energy of its performances or the worthwhile messages The Snow delivers. And none of it makes Finegan Kruckemeyer less than a master of stage writing for all us kids. It’s just something a little less than the sum of too many parts.

And I’m sure that’s what the wriggle-meter would have said.     

 

 

Theatre: The Great Un-Wondering of Wilbur Whittaker

by Dan Giovannoni
Barking Gecko Theatre
Director Luke Kerridge
Composer Claudio
Set and Costume Designer Jonathon Oxlade
Animation and Video Designer Tee Ken Ng
Sound Designer Tim Collins
Lighting Designer Lucy Birkinshaw
Puppetry Consultant Sarah Nelson
Movement Consultant Bernadette Lewis
Performed by Adriano Cappelletta, Grace Chow, Luke Hewitt and Laura Maitland
Performances at the Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth; Red Earth Arts Precinct, Kararatha; BREC, Bunbury; Albany Entertainment Centre
April 9 – May 19, 2022; Tickets on the Barking Gecko Website https://www.barkinggecko.com.au

Grace Chow and Adriano Cappelletta (pic: Stewart Thorpe

 

The gap between entertainment for kids and for adults is long dissolved now, and Barking Gecko remains in the vanguard of theatre with stories and productions that work across the ages and interests of audiences.

Traditionally the starting point for bringing these diverse audiences together has, inevitably, been the stories, but Barking Gecko have a commitment to production values that add a high gloss to their telling.

In the case of Wilbur Whittaker, that begins with a beautifully designed set of abstracted columns and arches by Jonathon Oxlade (who also created some marvellous costumes). It frames the expanse of the Heath Ledger stage as well as anything I’ve seen there, and, with the assistance of slide out rostra and slide in or drop down screens, allows for a genuinely thrilling parade of effects and scene changes.

Oxlade’s work is given even more impact by the powerful, rapid-fire visuals by Tee Ken Ng that worked seamlessly between and during scenes and take us to other galaxies and beyond.

These design assets, integrated into director Luke Kerridge’s rapid-fire staging and delivered by some terrific stage management by Jack Wilson and Georgia Sealey, give Wilbur Whittaker a propulsive comic-book energy that’s exciting to watch.

It’s also excellently served by its cast; Wilbur Whittaker (Adriano Cappalletta), an eternal Clark Kent, is a boy who’s lost his Wonder and goes looking for it across the galaxy before his time runs out, while Princess Fantastic (the combustive Grace Chow) is his Supergirl. They provide the earnestness and determination the quest for Wonder requires.

The remarkable Luke Hewitt and Laura Maitland deliver the laughs, especially as the fabulous Pearls of Wisdom (Oxlade outdoes himself here) and Hewitt’s ubiquitous, cynical Francis Fox.

My hesitation about Wilbur Whittaker is the same as for the writer Dan Giovannoni and Kerridge’s previous collaborations for Barking Gecko, the Helpmann Award-winning Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (2016) and House (2021).

After its inventive opening, the plotline tends to meander and lose focus - the litmus test here is the level of engagement by young audience members who continued to react to the spectacle, but not always the storyline.

Those qualms, though, dissolve in an exhilarating final scene as Wilbur, his sense of wonder restored, rides the Dangerbird through the clouds towards the audience

It’s an extraordinary effect, a testament to the skills of Wilbur Whittaker’s creative team and Barking Gecko.   

 

(Don't just take it from me – it’s worth reading the review by 11-year-old Jackson Davis in Seesaw Magazine here) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theatre: A Ghost in My Suitcase ★★★½

Barking Gecko Theatre

Heath Ledger Theatre until March 3

Perth’s terrific theatre for young people, Barking Gecko, has been a frequent contributor to the Perth Festival, and it’s only fitting that it’s latest production appears in a year that has seen something like ten “Made in WA” productions gather critical acclaim and, even more encouragingly, box office numbers.

A Ghost in My Suitcase deserves both. The story, adapted by Vanessa Bates from the novel by Gabrielle Wang,  of a Chinese/French-Australian girl, Celeste (Alice Keohavong) who returns with her mother’s ashes to the small town of her family and the house of her Por Por – grandmother – Madame Bao (Amanda Mar) in China is entertaining — for both its younger and older audience – and enlightening about the culture and mores of both our countries.

Her adventures, her rivalry and eventual alliance with Ting Ting Shen (Yilin Kong), the great-grand-daughter of the man who ruined her family, is told in a style familiar to lovers of Sino-swashbuckling cinema and the supernatural elements it often contains.

While the narrative falters occasionally, and the climactic battle is a little underwhelming (especially in comparison to what has gone before) and predictable, the story of ghosts, ancient feuds and the triumph of courage is well told, gripping enough and lots of fun. I’ll leave the details for you to discover when you go!

What makes this show is its gorgeous imagery projected onto boxes expertly manoeuvred into position on an otherwise bare stage, the expressive soundscape created by the ubiquitous Rachel Dease and the fine performances by all three cast members.

The cleverly devised, knockabout staging of the show by co-directors Ching Ching Ho and Barking Gecko’s departing AD Matt Edgerton is illuminated by the visual design of media artist Sohan Ariel Hayes, richly coloured and textured, evocative and often remarkably three-dimensional. One scene, as our heroes float through the canals of Zhujiajiao Water Town is as cunningly constructed as it is breathtaking.

Keohavong, Ma and Kong are all excellent, and well supported by Freida Lee and John Shrimpton in the plays minor roles. The lithe, athletic Kong, a dancer by training and previous experience, is especially effective in a performance straight out of the wuxia playbook.

A Ghost in My Suitcase has already gathered many admirers on its journey to the Perth Festival. The short season here will win it many more.   

Theatre: My Robot (★★★½ )

By Finegan Kruckemeyer

Barking Gecko Theatre Company

Directed by Matt Edgerton

Designed by Ilsa Shaw

Lighting design by Chris Donnelly

Composer and sound designer by James Luscombe

Robot designer Steve Berrick

Performed by Arielle Gray, St John Cowcher and Sarah Nelson

State Theatre Centre Studio

Until November 28

So much of children’s theatre – of all theatre really – is about the journey from here to there, from the unbearable past to a desirable future.

One of the things that makes the extraordinarily fecund Finegan Kruckemeyer’s My Robot different and interesting is that when the play starts its hero, the feisty, ever-so-slightly nerdish Ophelia (Arielle Gray) has already arrived at her destination – and she’s not at all happy about it.

She has just moved to the seaside with her parents (St John Cowcher is her father and all the show’s other characters – we never meet her mother) and while dad is thrilled by their new surroundings, Ophelia pines for the mountains and friends of their former home.

The play’s other point of difference is right there in the title. A functioning robot character called Olivetti (designed by Steve Berrick and wrangled by Sarah Nelson) is Ophelia’s sidekick and lifeline.

She finds Olivetti – or the pieces that will make it up – in a box in a dumbwaiter that connects her room to the café below owned by the haughty, censorious Ms Ogilvie.

Ogilvie’s stink eye isn’t the only challenge Ophelia faces. There’s the town bully, Otis, who wants to cajole her into admiring the seaside town while trying to get her out of it. And there’s her neighbour, Orson, whose allergies and agoraphobia shut him up in his room away from life.

But Ophelia isn’t easily daunted, and once she puts her toolkit to work and builds Olivetti, she’s a force to be reckoned with. As is the little robot, whose powers of telekinesis elicited gasps of delight from the young (and not so young) audience.

Things proceed in typically engaging Kruckemeyer fashion, with all the real set backs and hard-won triumphs he is a master of, until Ophelia, in true Grace Bussell style, daringly affects a rescue from the wild sea and brings everyone and everything to a highly satisfying conclusion.

There’s no beating Arielle Gray if you want feist, adorability and that pinch of nerdiness, and Cowcher shows yet again what a terrific character actor he is. They are both stars, and its wonderful to see them so committed in a show for children. Barking Gecko’s award-winning production values are all on show (Isla Shaw's storybook design, with Chris Donnelly’s lighting and James Luscombe’s music and sound), and Matt Edgerton directs the whole process with precision and ease.

It would have been nice if the budget could have stretched to a second character actor to create more colour and movement (and maybe allow mum to make an appearance), and Olivetti, achievement as it was, was a little cumbersome to excite an audience used to R2D2 and its lively successors.

Those minor issues aside, My Robot comfortably clears the bar set by what now must be regarded as Australia’s leading theatre company for children and young people. We should be grateful for having them here.

   

Theatre: Saltbush (★★★★★)

By Compagnia TPO and Insite Arts
Directed by Davide Venturini and Jason Cross
Lyricist/musician Lou Bennett
Designed by Elwyn Mannix
Sound Design by Spartaco Cortese
Digital design by Elsa Mersi
Preformed by Sharni McDermott, Caleena Sandsbury and Sani Townson
Studio Underground
12 - 14 July

 In the hands of committed and skilled creative and technical artists, theatre for children, and especially very young children, can be a thrilling and engrossing experience.
Never more so than with Compagnia TPO and Insite Arts’ Saltbush, a faultless, fantastically inventive introduction to Aboriginal art and philosophy, and much more beside.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising. Theatre for the very young works in pure realms of the senses and imagination, and, with the aid of digital technology, previously unimaginable sights and sounds can envelop and entrance like never before.
Saltbush is a wonderful experience for adults too. Its technical achievement is gaspingly powerful, the stagecraft (directed by David Venturini and Jason Cross) precise, the skill of its three performers wonderful.
I simply can’t think of anyone who shouldn’t see this mighty, perfect show.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (★★★½)

Adapted by Dan Giovannoni and Tom Kerridge
from the story by Reinhardt Jung
Barking Gecko Theatre Company
Directed by Luke Kerridge
Designed by Jonathon Oxlade
Lighting design by Chris Donnelly
Composer and sound designer by Ian Moorhead
Lead puppeteer Tim Watts
Bambert constructed by Hamish Fletcher
Performed by Igor Sas, Amanda McGregor, Jo Morris, Nick Maclaine and Tim Watts
State Theatre Centre Studio
Until April 23

The publicity for Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories recommends it for ages 8 to 108. Behind that ambitious marketing hyperbole, there lies a truth about the wonderful quality, and genuine fascination for all ages, of contemporary theatre for young audiences.
No-one has been more successful at it than Perth’s Barking Gecko Theatre Company under the audacious artistic directorship of John Sheedy,
Sheedy’s successor, Matt Edgerton, has assembled an A-list team for his first production, the adaptation (by Dan Giovannoni and Luke Kerridge, who also directs) of Reinhardt Jung’s 1998 German novel, Bamberts Buch der verschollenen Geschichten.
I have some reservations about the clarity of the story, and will be interested to see how it plays to those “all ages”, but, despite those misgivings, there’s no doubting that the skills and intent Barking Gecko has built up over the years remain strong as it enters its new era.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: the Ballad of Pondlife McGurk

By Andy Manley and Rob Evans
Barking Gecko and Windmill Theatre
By arrangement with Catherine Wheels Theatre Company
Directed by Gill Robertson
Performed by Marko Jovanovic
Subiaco Arts Centre Studio
Until October 4
 
No one said school was meant to be easy, and for Simon and Martin, two young boys newly arrived at a primary school in Grade 6, it’s going to be tough.
They’re outsiders in a small world run by an in crowd, the smart, vicious, Sharon McGuiness, her acolyte Anushka, and the jocks-in-training Colin and Stuart.
Still, two loners are better than one, and the boys bond over their shared sense of adventure and their love of comics.
Their estrangement, and the cruelties and betrayals that brought it about, are the story of the play.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Driving Into Walls

By Suzie Miller

Barking Gecko Theatre Company

Directed and designed by John Sheedy

Featuring Harrison Elliott, Michael Smith, Rikki Bremner, Thalia Livingstone and Matthew Tupper

The Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre

February 25 – March 3

pic: Jon Green

Last year, I called another show about alienated youth in Western Australia, Reg Cribb’s The Damned, memorable and unlovely, and that’s also an apt description of John Sheedy and Suzie Miller’s collaboration on Driving into Walls.

Cribb’s essentially fictional story drew on a number of real-life stories from around Australia, while Driving into Walls is the result of interviews and workshop exercises with 500 young people from around the state. It tells their private stories, about the perils and pitfalls of 21st century life for young people, in their own words.