Circus: Absinthe (★★★★)

Ukrainian furniture removalists were never like this

The Empire Spiegeltent
Perth Arena Forecourt
Until August 29

Those wonderful folks who gave you Empire a couple of years ago are back, with Absinthe, and it’s a doozy.
Since it premiered in 2006, the show, mounted by the Australians Wayne Harrison and Ross Mollison, has taken Manhattan, and then Vegas – where it is approaching its 2000th performance at Caesar’s Palace – by storm.
What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, though; this touring production has the same structure as its stay-at-home sibling, with its MCs, The Gazillionaire and his ditsy side-kick Abby Bobbins, dispensing gobsmacking crudities and introducing a dazzling line-up of twirlers, balancers and fliers.
Cabaret circus is the 21st Century’s vaudeville, and it’s no wonder that the public flocks to it. If you liked the Perth Fringe smash La Soiree, you’ll LOVE Absinthe. And if Cirque du Soleil’s philosophical meanderings leave you a little underwhelmed these days (I plead guilty), Absinthe will quickly cure what ails you. Yowzah!

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Circus: Totem (★★★★)

Anything you can't do…

Cirque du Soleil
The Grand Chapiteau
Belmont Racecourse
Until September 27

You don’t have to buy into Cirque du Soleil completely to admire what the Canadian juggernaut has accomplished in its 30-year history.
It has had a revolutionary effect on circus and its staging, both by the shows it has mounted, and by its influence on other circus companies around the world.
Perhaps that cross-fertilisation is beginning to work back the other way, because Totem, the latest CdS show to visit Perth, is both more traditional and yet more contemporary than we’ve previously seen from it.
There’s still a certain amount of its trademark mumbo-jumbo to wade through, but what Totem really is about is production impact and bang for the buck, and it certainly delivers on both.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Music: Tim Minchin with Lucky Oceans, family and friends (★★★★)

Sonic Sessions
Fremantle Town Hall
August 6, 2015

Outside the Fremantle Town Hall last night, a friend said that, 20 years on, she’d be able to boast that she’d been at this gig by Tim Minchin.
That may be a little overemphatic, but it’s easy to see where she was coming from. The chance to see a genuine phenomenon (and there’s no doubt that’s what Minchin is), surrounded by his family and close friends, talking and performing his way through his lucky life and gilded career for a rapt hometown audience of 500, was something very special.
Especially so when he was coaxed through that story, and accompanied on his songs, by the wonderful Lucky Oceans, whose pedal-steel playing was downright celestial.
This was especially so on Charlie Rich’s gospel anthem, Feel Like Going Home, one of a sprinkling of covers including a bluegrass version of Muddy Waters’ Got My Mojo Working and the Stones’ Shine a Light that got the old hall rocking.
Indeed, it felt at times like a Sunday session at Clancy’s, Minchin’s uncles’ famous pub just up the road, where the young Minchin pulled beers and listened to Oceans and another uncle, the legendary Jim Fisher.
Uncle Jim was there, on guitar and mandolin, as was his cousin Tom, who played bass and contributed bullroarer vocals on Shine a Light, and Minchin’s long-time drummer, Ben Vanderwall.
Minchin’s brother Dan and sister Nell played and sang, and old friend Karl Wendt joined him on Tim’s powerful early break-up ballad, At Least I Tried.
The stories, of Tim’s childhood vicissitudes, the family pianola on which he learnt his trademark breakneck blues scales, were touching, happy, sad and revealing. Growing up as an artist, working at the Blue Room, Barking Gecko and, a sad irony, the Perth Theatre Company (note to George Brandis: international success and excellence in the arts don’t just happen; they are nurtured and seasoned by small companies in little theatres).
Put together, it was a window into the Minchin provenance, a combination of influences and opportunities that make him the ultimate jack of all trades and master of them all – or, as he put it, allow him to “make people think I’m smarter than I am – and it’s fucking worked!”
It sure has.

This review appeared in The West Australian 8.8.15

Here are a couple of the songs from the show, recorded (on a shaky camcorder) at an earlier get-together at the Sydney Opera House.

Shine a Light, with Tim and Cousin Tom:

and Harbour Lights, with Tim and Uncle Jim;

 

Theatre: Blithe Spirit (★★★)

By Noel Coward
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Set and costumes designed by Bryan Woltjen
Lighting designed by Jon Buswell
Sound designer and composer Ash Gibson Greig
With Adam Booth, Adriane Daff, Michelle Fornasier, Ella Hetherington, Michael Loney, Alison van Reeken and Jo Morris
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Until 9 August

It’s hard to imagine a less opportune time to premiere a drawing room comedy about a shallow, self-absorbed chap and the dueling ghosts of his temperamental wives than the middle of 1941. 
Human nature being the resilient creature it is, though, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit was a smash hit. It repeated its success on Broadway and on film, and remains one of those always-on-somewhere-in-the-world perennial hits.O
On opening night, by and large, the strong cast seemed uncomfortable and halting. Much of this must have been due to the late withdrawal through illness of Roz Hammond, who was to play Madame Arcati.  Her replacement, the impeccable Alison van Reeken, read from a script with skill and performed with some bravura, but the inevitable uncertainty this created was palpable.
Of course allowances must be made in such unfortunate circumstances, and it’s unwise to make hasty critical assertions under the circumstances. I’m curious to see whether, once it is bedded back in, this production has all the fluidity and élan it needs to succeed.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Songbird (★★★)

By Shakara Walley
Imprint Productions in association with Yirra Yaakin
directed by Ian Wilkes
designed by Patrick Howe
performed by Bethany Cooper, James Taylor and Zac James
Blue Room Theatre
10 - 19 July, 2014

James Taylor, Zac James and Bethany Cooper (pic: Jamie Breen)

 Shakara Walley’s interest is in the personal qualities and attitudes to life, family and friendship her Indigenous characters possess, rather than the particular issues they face as Aboriginal people.  Essentially, they live the same stories as everyone does, and respond in ways that may be influenced, but are not defined, by their Aboriginality.
Walley's approach to indigenous theatre is innovative and impressive. It will be fascinating to watch it progress.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Dance theatre: Gudirr Gudirr (★★★★½)

By Dalisa Pigram
Marrugeku in association with Yirra Yaakin
Directed and choreographed by Koen Augustijnen
Performed and choreographed by Dalisa Pigram
Singer and songwriter Stephen Pigram
Designed by Vernon Ah Kee
STC Studio
7 - 9 July, 2015

This extraordinary solo performance by Broome artist Dalisa Pigram, working with a creative team from Australia, Belgium and The Netherlands, is an example of the powerful synthesis of tens of thousands of years of continuous cultural endeavour with the skills and confidence of contemporary indigenous performing art.
The result is a mighty hour of high concept performance; dance, circus, martial arts, comedy, cultural and social witness combined.
What a shame that this wonderful West Australian work only comes to Perth two years after it premiered, and just for three performances. I sincerely hope it will be back again, and for longer, so more of us can appreciate its beauty and power.

Go to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Storm Boy (★★★★½)

By Tom Holloway
from the novel by Colin Thiele
Barking Gecko and Sydney Theatre Company
Directed by John Sheedy
Designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell
Lighting design by Damien Cooper
Sound design by Kingsley Reeve
Puppetry directed by Peter Wilson
Performed by Otis Pavlovic (alternating with Kai Lewins), Jimi Bani, Julian Garner, Anthony Mayor and Phil Dean Walford
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until July 11

Barking Gecko and the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy, the much-loved children’s story that has been sensitively and economically adapted for the stage by Tom Holliday, makes a short but welcome return to the Heath Ledger Theatre for the first week of the school holidays.
It features an entirely new cast from the original 2013 production, but its strengths and virtues are entirely intact.
This production is a final encore for Barking Gecko’s former artistic director John Sheedy. There’s no doubt about the legacy of creativity and ambition he’s left to our exceptional theatre company for young people.

I reviewed Storm Boy in its first Perth season in 2013, and this review of its return season inevitably contains some self-plagiarism! Link here for the complete version of this review, and here for the original 2013 review, both in The West Australian.