Theatre: Ghost Stories (★★½)

Richard Moss checks things out

By Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson
Prince Moo Productions
Director Peter J Snee and Jennifer Sarah Dean
Designer Jaz Wikson
Lighting designer Mat Cox
Featuring Stuart Brennan, Richard Moss, Matthew Connell, Brian Markey
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Until October 12

To say that I scare easily is an understatement. I saw Disney’s Sleeping Beauty when I was around six and still haven’t fully recovered, just about dislocated a hip convulsively jerking my legs out of harm’s way during Jaws, and was a tiny bit frightened last week by The Sound of Music.
So, if the publicity was to be believed, I should have been stretchered out of Ghost Stories at the Heath Ledger Theatre.
But I’m afraid I wasn’t. Not even close.
Ghost Stories has been a popular success in the UK and elsewhere – it claims a total audience of over half a million – so maybe the “don’t tell anyone” request is cleverer than it seems.
Because this might be one occasion where lack of word of mouth is the best marketing strategy.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Hamlet (★★★★½)

Matilda Ridgeway and Josh McConville

By William Shakespeare 
Bell Shakespeare
Director Damien Ryan
Designer Alicia Clements
Lighting designer Mat Cox
Featuring Josh McConville, Matilda Ridgway, Sean O’Shea, Doris Younane, Ivan Donato, Michael Wahr, Philip Dodd, Robin Goldsworthy, Julia Ohannessian and Catherine Terracini
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Until August 16

The Prince is on a roll. There are all-night queues for Benedict Cumberbatch’s West End stand, and Bell Shakespeare’s short season at the Heath Ledger is a sell-out.
As it should be.
This Hamlet, with its clear and intelligent direction by Damian Ryan, should completely satisfy both aficionados and newcomers to the greatest of plays. If that’s too bold a claim for the play, there’s no doubting its hero is the first of drama’s characters. He utterly dominates his play, physically and intellectually. He speaks a third of its 4,000 odd lines; it needs no secondary plots or truly independent second lives.

Theatre: Rising Water

Black Swan State Theatre Company
Written by Tim Winton

Music by Ian Grandage

Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Christina Smith

Featuring Alison White, Claire Lovering, Geoff Kelso, John Howard, Stuart Halutz and Kai Arbuckle and Callum Fletcher (alternating)

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

June 25 – July 17, 2011

Rising Water marks the arrival of the Heath Ledger Theatre, and Black Swan as its resident company. It’s a big-hearted entertainment with some striking assets, the most important of which hits you the moment you take your seat.

Christina Smith has done the play, and the theatre space, a great service with her set; three boats bobbing – actually bobbing ­– in their pens, with deep blue gleaming water below and a transmuting Indian Ocean sky above.

It’s brilliant to look at, and a perfect platform on which director Cate Cherry can manage the story and her cast. Significantly, it's the first design that solves the problems of visual focus in the space and makes the great curving wood surfaces of the auditorium look right at home.

Theatre: A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

Black Swan State Theatre Company

Directed by Kate Cherry

Set design by Christina Smith

Costume design by Alicia Clements

Lighting design by Trent Suidgeest

Sound design by Ash Gibson Greig

Featuring James Beck, Elizabeth Blackmore, Benj D’Addario, Adriane Daff, Arielle Gray, Stuart Halusz, Brendan Hanson, Luke Hewitt, Natalie Holmwood, Michael Loney, Sam Longley, Kelton Pell, Myles Pollard, Kenneth Ransom, Scott Sheridan, Alison van Reeken and Shubhadra Young  

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

May 11 ­– 22, 2011

There’s no mystery to the enduring popularity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or its allure for directors and actors. The earliest of Shakespeare’s very greatest plays, its poetry – the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations selects 63 separate passages from it – and sheer sexiness, its bravura set pieces and memorable characters are an irresistible mix.

Alison van Reeken and Luke Hewitt 

Director Kate Cherry wisely lets the text, rather than any real or imagined sub-text, do the talking, and by and large it works for her.

Luke Hewitt’s turn as the immortal Bottom is a great success. Hewitt is a big, funny man, which makes Bottom the figure of fun meat and drink for him, but he’s got the sensitivity to deliver the character’s humanity and essential goodness. We can laugh at Bottom, but we need to respect him as well, and Hewitt makes us do both.

Alison van Reeken’s Titania is armed and dangerous, with weapons both human and supernatural at her disposal, even when lost in love or lust. She’s a knockout.

PIAF: Boundary Street

Written by Reg Cribb

Music by James Morrison

Directed by Kate Cherry

Featuring Adriane Daff, Rebecca Davis, Matt Dyktynski, Luke Hewitt, Christopher Kirby, Damon Lockwood. Clare Moss, Emma Pask, Kenneth Ransom, Gina Williams and Terry Yeboah, with James Morrison, Roger Garrood, Harry Morrison, John Morrison and Raymond Walker.  

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

Until March 20

Miss Lila Draper and Pte Bob Walker, New York City, dance to 
the US Fifth Air Corps Orchestra at Dr Carver's in 1943 .

This is an important production for many reasons, and the historic events on which it is loosely based, and the issues that arose from them, have been strangely neglected for almost 70 years.

I wish I could say Boundary Street steps up to these marks, but sadly it falls well short. Reg Cribb’s script is terribly episodic, with many short scenes that led nowhere yet required some awfully clunky set changes. Situations arise and disappear without explanation; the fate of the central characters is left unresolved in a denouement that lacks either historical accuracy or theatrical power. 

Director Kate Cherry has difficulty filling the stage with the forces at her disposal, leaving some scenes, especially the dance numbers, dreadfully exposed. Even the music, much of it original material by jazz legend James Morrison, who led the band, seemed tentative.

Too much is wrong with Boundary Street. Despite all the anticipation and high expectations, this play and this production are simply not ready for the public. 

The complete version of this review appeared in The West Australian link here.   Meanwhile, from the safety of his Canberra bunker, Ron Banks sent this spray in to The West, while Vickie Laurie's review for the ABC link here has some back-of-house detail to ponder.