Theatre: The Shadow King

William Shakespeare's King Lear 
adapted by Michael Kantor and Tom E Lewis
Malthouse Theatre
Directed by Michael Kantor
Designed by Paul Jackson, Michael Kantor and David Miller
Musical direction John Rodgers
Performed by Jada Alberts, Jimi Bani, Frances Djulibing, Rarriwuy Hick, Damion Hunter, Kamahi Djordon King, Tom E. Lewis and Natasha Wanganeen, with musicians Selwyn Burns, Djakapurra Munyarryun and Bart Willoughby
Heath Ledger Theatre until 1 March
 
Let’s be clear: despite its title, its language and its setting, The Shadow King is King Lear, Shakespeare’s, and all theatre’s, supreme drama.
In a remarkable achievement, Michael Kantor and Tom E. Lewis (who also plays the king) have stripped half its length, all but eight of its 21 characters (no sadistic Cornwall, no grasping Albany, no loyal Kent), changed the gender of one of them (Gloucester), presented a radically altered text in five indigenous languages as well as English, and delivered an always satisfying and sometimes transcendent version of the play.
As Djakapurra Munyarryun’s phenomenal, keening voice sings all the sorrow of tens of thousands of years, signed, date stamped and filed; as Frances Djulibing falls to the ground from the cliff her son imagines for her; as Tom E. Lewis dances, distracted, in the dust, the unsurpassable art that lies at the heart of Shakespeare’s greatest play, and this memorable, iconic, imagining of it, rises up from the red dirt and takes us in.


Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN

By Suzie Miller
Barking Gecko Theatre Company
Directed and designed by John Sheedy
Choreographer Danielle Micich
Featuring Harrison Elliott, Mohammed-Adel Berrached, Rikki Bremner, Toby Derrick, Yilin Kong, Jacinta Larcombe
The Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre
February 22 – March 1

Our political parties would do well to dig deep into Suzie Miller’s ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN for a glimpse into the lives and opinions of the next generation of voters and leaders.
As they did two years ago in Driving into Walls, Miller and Sheedy use young performers who are primarily dancers to represent these kids and their thoughts. They are also strong actors, and the result is more nuanced than its predecessor.
ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN is also far more optimistic and, I suspect, more representative of what’s happening for most young people.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: An Iliad

Homer’s Coat
for the Perth Festival
Written by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson
Based on Homer’s Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles
Directed by Lisa Peterson
Performed by Denis O’Hare, with Brian Ellingsen
Sunken Gardens, UWA
Until February 26
(Albany Entertainment Centre February 28)

We begin with Homer, and nothing other than the Bible and Shakespeare has influenced us more. The poem of the uber-warrior Achilles, that begins “Goddess, sing the rage of Achilles, murderous, doomed, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls”, is as bloody and propulsive as anything ever told. In it, for the first time, psychologically identifiable personalities emerge from the shade.
The American actor Denis O'Hare and his director friend Lisa Peterson have long harboured the idea of bringing The Iliad to the stage, and the result is an unmitigated triumph.
The character O’Hare creates is universal. He’s the man in the tattered coat who’s always looked at the world and seen it for what it was. He’s the miller and the little tramp, Falstaff and Quixote, written by Chaucer and Shakespeare, Voltaire and Cervantes, Nick Cave and Tom Waits.
And, of course, he’s the first of them all. He is Homer. 

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Krapp's Last Tape

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By Samuel Beckett

Directed and performed by Robert Wilson

His Majesty's Theatre

Krapp’s Last Tape, the short play by Samuel Beckett brought to His Majesty’s Theatre by the preeminent American theatre artist Robert Wilson for the Festival of Perth, is a work of forcible noise and long silences.

In one of those silences, the sound of someone sobbing could clearly be heard in the audience. I’m unable to say whether it was from high emotion engendered by Mr Wilson’s performance, or because she was desperate to escape from the theatre.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Fringe World 2014

Welcome to the city on the Fringe of the World. Here's the Perth Fringe Festival happenings (at least those parts of this many-headed monster that happen to me!) day-by-day from curtain up on January 24 until it collapsed on February 23. 
There are spot reviews of all the shows I see, with links to full reviews of those that appeared in The West.. 
This year followed The West's (and, indeed, most people who cover fringes') lead and give nasty star ratings for the shows I see. 
It's not my natural inclination to treat performance like Olympic diving,  but it seems it's a useful tool, especially for companies and producers looking to get to other events, so there you go.
Feel free to disregard them (or anything else I say) because, in the end, fringe is all about trusting your instincts, keeping your ear to the ground and your finger on your mouse and unearthing those little nuggets of genius for yourself.  
I can tell you, for example, that the three shows I really should have seen, Lost and Found's La Voix Humaine, Gillian Cosgriff's This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things and Holland Street's Point and Shoot, all of which garnered piles of 5-star ratings and Fringe World awards, I passed over or only found out about too late.
(Incidentally, they're examples of why the so-called Fringe Encore in the Urban Orchard should actually include "by popular demand" return performances of shows like this, instead of what amounts to a two-week piss up that only disrupts other traders, including PIAF, and runs the risk of damaging Fringe World's well-deserved reputation.)  

So, just click the "Read more" tag below, and let's get cracking!

Opera: The Old Maid and the Thief

By Gian Carlo Menotti
Love Opera!
For Fringe World 2014
Musical director Lochlan Brown
Director Kathryn Osborne
Set and Costume design Philippa Nilant and Sally Phipps
With Nola Formentin, Michael Heap, Jenna Robertson and Alexandra Bak
Perth Town Hall
Until February 22

 
I’m no opera buff. I went to the splendid Perth Town Hall for Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief mainly to see how Kathryn Osborne, one of our best young theatre directors, would approach her opera debut.
The answer is very well. And that’s only one of the pleasures of this fun tale of lust and larceny in small-town, early 20th century America.

Theatre: These Guys

Variegated Productions

Created by Libby Klysz, Brent Hill, Ben Sutton, St John Cowcher and Michelle Nussey

Directed by Libby Klysz

Performed by Ben Russell, St John Cowcher and Michelle Nussey, with Alwyn-Nixon Lloyd 

For Fringe World

PICA until Feb 22

There’s only one thing wrong with this gem of a Fringe show: it leaves you wanting more, but the bastards won’t give it to you.