Theatre: Metalhead

Tiffany Barton

Creative Collaborations and The Fremantle Festival
Written by Tiffany Barton
Directed by Monica Main
Featuring Della-Rae Morrison, Maitland Schnaars, Caitlin Jane Hampson, Amri Mrisho, Maja Liwszyc and Rubeun Yorkshire
Victoria Hall
23 – 30 October 2014

We’ve seen two plays from and about the Pilbara town of Roebourne here in the last month. Both are the result of long collaborations with the local community, and both spring from the tragedies that have beset that hardscrabble, blighted place. 
The first, Big hART’s Hipbone Sticking Out, has triumphantly reached its potential; it’s as exciting and creatively successful a piece of theatre as I’ve seen.
Tiffany Barton’s Metalhead (at Victoria Hall, directed by Monica Main for the Fremantle Festival) still has some distance to travel.
Metalhead lacks accuracy and development in parts, and some of its characters are hard to grasp. There is, though, undoubted power, unflinching conviction and theatre craft in much of Barton’s writing. She’s shown in work like Diva and Polly’s Waffle that she has no fear of sex or violence, either separately or in combination, in her work, and there are some savage lessons to be learned from it.

Theatre: Black as Michael Jackson/ Hello, My Name is…

Black as Michael Jackson and other identity monologues

by Karla Hart and Michelle White

directed by Monica Main

performed by Karla Hart and Della Rae Morrison

Yirra Yaakin at Blue Room Theatre

19 June - 7 July, 2012

Hello, My Name is…

Conceived, directed and performed by Nicola Gunn

Blue Room Theatre

12 - 30 June, 2012

Yirra Yaakin, WA’s fine indigenous theatre company, is bringing two shows to the Blue Room’s first 2012 season.

The first, Black as Michael Jackson, written by Karla Hart and Michelle White and performed by Hart and Della Rae Morrison, is a series of loosely connected vignettes that deal with questions of identity in indigenous life and culture in Perth and regional WA.

At its best it’s funny, confronting and revealing. Hart is a feisty, valiant actor, and she brings a combative energy to her recurring character, Amy, and other roles. Morrison’s Nell is older and sadder, and their combination gives a range of experience to the happy, funny, sorrowful and tragic circumstances they describe.

The later show at the Blue Room, Melbourne performance artist Nicola Gunn’s Hello, My Name Is … all but defies review. Gunn is a theatrical risk-taker, and this piece, which she cheerfully admits is in the very early stages of its development, is a big one.  

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian  

     

Theatre: A Germ of an Idea, Laryngectomy

A Germ of an Idea

Written and performed by Monica Main

Directed by Helen Doig with Fran Tinley

Blue Room Theatre

7 – 25 June, 2011

Laryngectomy

Renegade Productions

Written by Demelza Rogers and Joe Lui

Directed by Joe Lui

Featuring Paul Grabovac, Jessica Rawnsley, Demelza Rogers and Jessica Allen Jones

Blue Room Theatre

7 – 18 June, 2011

When I arrived at the Blue Room to see two shows I was warned were “like chalk and cheese”, there were two people stuck in the lift between floors (who even knew the Blue Room had a lift). Had to be an omen.

The cheesy part was A Germ of an Idea, Monica Main’s take on all things dirty, grimy and malodorous, a nice idea that only comes off in parts.

Laryngectomy proved, quite literally, to be the chalky bit of the evening, but presented with such skill, ferocity and courage that you had to take stock and take notice.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian