Theatre: York

by Chris Isaacs and Ian Michael

Black Swan State Theatre Company

Directed by Clare Watson and Ian Wilkes

Designed by Zoe Atkinson

Composer and sound designer Dr Clint Bracknell

Lighting designer Lucy Birkenshaw

Performed by Shakira Clanton, Isaac Diamond, Ben Mortley, Benjamin and Jacob Narkle (alternating), Sophie Quin, Maitland Schnaars, Alison van Reeken and Elise Wilson

Heath Ledger Theatre until August 1, 2021

 

Maitland Schnaars

Even without its qualities (there are many), Chris Isaac and Ian Michael’s York is among the most significant works to come to the State Theatre Centre stage over its first decade. 

It’s the product of a web of training and experience, inspiration and experience, knowledge and sheer talent from sources as wide as WAAPA, the Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company and the Blue Room, The Last Great Hunt and others of our independent companies, the WA Youth Theatre Company and Black Swan – both at its genesis and in its current status as the State Theatre Company.

What Michael and Isaacs have done is take a location (the barely-disguised old York hospital and its site) and peeled back its history from the present to the early days of European settlement.

That, of course, is only a wafer-thin slice of this place; before then, stretching back tens of thousands of years, it was the country of the Ballardong Noongar people, a fertile, fecund land of bush and river flats, providing everything its inhabitants needed to live full, spiritually-charged and welcoming lives.

It underpins the hard story Isaacs and Michael tell – it’s that lost life that is the unquiet ghost that drifts through the trees like smoke from spectral campfires and rattles the windows of the old hospital with grievous memories.

The other unspoken but crystal-clear message of York is that, while the near-destruction of the lives and culture of this continent’s First Peoples is the stark and terrible result of often brutal and inhumane European colonization, no-one has been left undamaged by it. The colonial European world that was built here carries a persistent, angry flaw at its heart, an original sin that even 250 years hasn’t erased, making victims of its own as well as the “other”.

In York, we meet those victims, a slaughtered settler family and the Ballardong men falsely accused of their murder, a desperate family hoping to save the life of their boy and the stern matron who tries to help them, a young man driven mad by Europe’s wars and a committed Aboriginal lawyer driven crazy by an indifferent legal system stacked against her clients in the present day.

Before we meet them, though, we’re taken on a wild, zany ride through the old building, so out of character with both our expectations and what is to follow that it defies conventional theatrical logic.

It’s a classic horror-com, complete with things that go bang in the night, shrieking apparitions, Rooms That Must Not Be Entered, a ditzy neighbor who’ll only come to the house armed with a cricket bat, and then only during daylight hours.

In the middle of this mayhem comes a little scout troupe (Isaac Diamond, Ben Mortley, Jacob Narkle, Sophie Quinn and Elise Wilson) and their two Akelas (Jo Morris and Shakira Clanton) on a Foundation Day long weekend camp in 1985.

Young Michael (Mortley) relates a lurid story of a cannibal ghost told him by the old building’s janitor (Maitland Schnaars); a young Indigenous boy, Lewis (Narkle), conjurs up ghoulish monsters from his tradition. Blood streams from bannisters, ghostly hands encircle young necks –  it’s the whole shebang.

The whole affair is gleefully orchestrated by its directors Clare Watson and Ian Wilkes, the designer Zoe Atkinson (that set of hers is ALIVE!) and lighting and sound designers Lucy Birkenshaw and Clint Bracknell.

(I should say the fun and games were greatly enlivened by a hyperactive first night audience who found the whole thing genuinely hilarious and terrifying. Bless them – I wish every opening night mob were half as entertaining!).

There are intimations of the real-life horrors to come in the first act, although they might have been more direct and extended in the interests of the balance of the enterprise.

The mood of the first act is swept away after interval by the abject figure of a young man (Diamond), recently returned from the horrors of the WWI trenches, rocking in a chair, his mind in torment, his waking nightmares too hard for the matron, Roslyn Bell (Alison van Reeken) to relieve.

Another nightmare comes to the hospital – a young boy gravely ill with influenza (Narkle) from one of Chief Protector of Aborigines Neville’s Native Reserves, and his distraught parents (Clanton and Schnaars).

Duty and humanity overcome the matron’s fear and misgivings, and she treats the young boy despite the regulations forbidding it; her transgression is discovered, the price she pays is swift and brutal.

Finally, in 1839, a half-century before the hospital was built, a little family, Elijah and Sarah Cook and their infant daughter settled the same land. Sarah struck up friendships with the local Ballardong people, giving them water from the well, greeting their families as they passed through.

When the Cook’s homestead was razed to the ground, the bodies of Sarah and her child in the ruins, Inspector of Native Police Drummond fixed, by mere rumour and supposition (and despite any evidence to the contrary), on the guilt of two Noongar men, Doodjeep and Barrabong, who were hunted down, found guilty in a show trial in 1840 and hung in chains at the site of the crime as a “severe example” to the local Indigenous population.

This terrible story is told by the cast as a chorus front of stage, before York ends as it begins, with a married couple (Clanton and van Reeken) settling into the old building they plan to make their home.

And its past is theirs, to haunt them too.

There’s no denying the power of these stories, each based on fact, even if the structure of the play, and the changing moods and performance styles used to tell them can sit uncomfortably at times.

The younger actors, Jacob Narkle (he alternates with his brother Benjamin), Quinn, Wilson (whose intensity is weapons grade) and Isaacs are assured and convincing, and Mortley and Clanton bring poise and experience to their various roles. It’s a delight to see van Reeken and Morris, two of our very finest actors, working together in extended scenes.

Above all, York is a major career achievement for Maitland Schnaars. His presence, and his great, sombre, soul, fills the theatre when he conjures up the wronged ghosts of generations, while his comic touch in a couple of smaller roles is exquisite.

Schnaars has become an exceptional actor, and it’s a privilege to see him in a work that clearly means a great deal to him

As it should to us.     

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

 

Theatre: Fire

by Ebony McGuire

Kalyakoorl Collective

Directed by Sian Murphy

Performed by Ebony McGuire, Nadia Martich and Christopher Moro

The Blue Room

July 3 - 10, 2021

 

One of the greatest strengths of the Blue Room Theatre and its circle of independent producers and artists has been telling the stories of young adults and their contemporary, West Australian, domestic lives.

Those stories have a realism and relevance that make them both important and compelling.

They also offer great opportunities for young actors, directors and creatives to deal with subject matters they know and understand, resulting in many of the best performances we’ve seen on the Perth stage.

We are also fortunate that more and more work about life and issues by First Peoples artists is being presented on our stages. These stories, too, are real, relevant, important, compelling – and strong.

(Read the complete review in Seesaw magazine link here)

Cabaret: Koorlangka Re-imagined

Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse

Perth International Cabaret Festival

His Majesty’s Theatre, 19 June

Nothing about human beings is more fascinating and revealing than language. Our evolution, the way we think and act, the way we view the world and understand ourselves, is told in our words.

A dozen millenia ago, there were many thousands of independent human worlds scattered around the globe, each only dimly aware, if at all, of others apart from their immediate neighbours. Each with its own language.
Four thousand years ago, as hunter gathering gave way to agriculture (the “Greatest Fraud” according to the historian Yuval Noah Harari) and the first territorial empires arose, those  worlds had dwindled to a few thousand at most, and, by six centuries ago, most of the people on earth, ninety per cent or so, had assimilated into the vast world of Afro-Asia, with its imperial and nation states, interconnectedness and relatively few languages.

Only in Meso and Andean America, Oceania and Australia were smaller worlds and their languages found. Over the next three centuries they, too, were swallowed by the giant world order.

What has this little history lecture got to do with the opening night of the inaugural Perth International Cabaret Festival? If you were at His Majesty’s Theatre for the wonderful Koorlangka Reimagined by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse, I think you might know the answer.

Why has the first language of the land of the Noongar Whadjuk people survived, and why does it now enjoy a nascent renaissance in the face of oppression and neglect, the vast tide of the modern world that overwhelmed the small, ancient worlds in its path?

It’s partly because it had thrived for so long, become so deeply imbedded in country, that its deep roots could withstand, if barely, the fires of colonialism and the floods of world culture.

It’s partly because of the dedication and determination of people who kept it alive in their families and through their music and words.

But it seems to me it’s also because, notable among the world’s languages, it is a beautiful tongue, gentle and expressive, musical and full of humour and wisdom. There is a compelling, aesthetic reason for its existence quite distinct from its importance as the language of a continuing people.

I think that’s why the Welcome to Countries before many events have evolved from essentially an acknowledgement of our Indigenous communities and their custodianship of the country they hold to much-anticipated performances in their own right, given with increasing complexity and confidence (Walter McGuire’s witty and wise welcome before Koorlangka was a perfect example).

And it’s a huge part of the force of Koorlangka, Williams and Ghouse’s song cycle of family and nature.
Many, like the title song, Ngoonyoong Nindjan (Darling Child) and Djinda Djinda (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) are lullabies, others celebrate the natural world surrounding them, - Bindi Bindi (the butterfly) and Gitty Gitty (the willy-wagtail).

Songs in Noongar language transposed into English, and vice-versa (Moon River) show that Williams is a transcendent artist in any language, and her friend and collaborator Guy Ghouse’s generous, serene presence and fingerstyle acoustic guitar playing (often reminiscent of James Taylor, with the thumb taking the place of a pianists left hand) is a show in itself. The supporting ensemble, Russell Holmes on piano and the Dolce Ensemble’s strings add further depth and beauty to the songs, and also the cross-cultural context that enhances the universality of Williams and Ghouse’s artistry.

There’s much more to be said about Koorlangka, and my Seesaw Magazine colleague Bourby Webster does it perfectly (read her review of a 2020 performance here).

Koorlangka is a lovely, warm, even inspiring, experience – I urge you to listen to its songs (easily found on-line, and there is a cd available) and see it live when next it comes to country near you.     

Circus Cabaret: Railed

Head First Acrobats

The Rechabite until June 20

 

When Marcus Canning, of Fringe World fame, brought the old Rechabite Hall on William Street back to life at the beginning of 2020 there were things neither he, nor we, knew were about to happen.

He didn’t know that the venue would be all but closed through the guts of the following year, and certainly unable to put an entertainment programme together in 2020.

What we didn’t know was what it would be like.

pic: Katarina Witt

We’ve got a better (though not complete) idea now with the release of the Rechabite’s season for June and July, Chasing Rainbows.

It’s a mix of circus cabaret, comedy and live music in the main hall and downstairs club, dovetailing with the eatery and three bars over the venue’s four stories.

Unsurprisingly, the spirit of fringe abounds throughout, even if Chasing Rainbows is not exactly fringe at its most eclectic and challenging; but any single venue you could walk into at 5pm and pour yourself out of (responsibly of course) at midnight, having been generously fed, watered and entertained along the journey is worth having. You should try it soon.

Nothing better demonstrates the idea of Chasing Rainbows than its star attraction, the return of Head First Acrobats and their 2019 Fringe World smash, Railed.

It’s easy to see why the show pulls a crowd, and the crowd it pulls. It’s a heady mix of hen’s night tease and cleverly constructed acrobatics heavy on visual appeal if not, necessarily, high on degree of difficulty.

There’s absolutely nothing new in the routines, a straight- forward mix of strength acts, balancing, juggling and aerial work, mixed in with some neatly devised slapstick humour and much nodding and winking. If you’ve seen a bit of circus cabaret, you’ve seen it all.

But, hey, that’s not a bad thing. This is a night out show, and there was plenty of whoopin’ and hollerin’ in the audience as the trapeze artist Thomas Gorman, the juggler Louis Biggs, the acrobat Louis Biggs and strong man and balance artist Callan Harris plied their trade.

Harris is quite a specimen, and clearly the crowd favourite if the enthusiasm of the delightful and delighted posse of hens-nighters next to me were any gauge (I heard Chris Helmsey’s name bandied about sotto voce between the girls as he strutted his stuff).

While his big finale (pictured) owes more to precise carpentry than extraordinary athleticism and derring-do, it’s guaranteed to raise the roof.

Which it did – and which is all that needs to be said about Railed.        

  

Theatre: Ugly Virgins

Danielle Antaki, Mikayla Merks and Katie McAllister

Maiden Voyage Theatre Company

Blue Room Theatre until June 20

 

Unlike my friend and colleague Nina Levy, whose review of Sally Davies and Anna Lindstedt’s Ugly Virgins is up on Seesaw Magazine (read here), I’ve never strapped wheels to my feet and attempted to roll around on them.

As a child, however, every Sunday afternoon I was transfixed by the Roller Game, where the transported (from the US), rebadged Australian (formerly LA) Thunderbirds, led by the immortal Ralphie Valladares and tough-as-nails women likeTerri Lynch and Ann Calvello nearly always beat off the challenge of their opponents, most notably the brutish, black-uniformed Texas Outlaws, building a substantial TV and live audience around ’60s Australia.

But the craze died, the audiences fell away, and some corporate shenanigans back in the US dealt it a death blow.

It’s spirit lives on, though, in amateur, almost entirely women’s, Roller Derby teams and leagues in Australia and around the world; played on a flat track rather than the banked track of the professional (often staged) Roller Game, it’s edged towards Olympic recognition while maintaining its punk, outlaw stance.

The Perth Roller Derby has three teams, The Mistresses of Mayhem, The Bloody Sundaes and The Apocalipstiks, whose colourful names are matched by the nom de geurres of their players.

It’s this little world, with its jammers and blockers, fierce tribalism, finesse and brutality, that Davies and Lindstedt have used to represent their story of rejection and acceptance, loneliness and companionship, camaraderie, betrayal, remorse and forgiveness.

It’s an apt, metaphoric, environment, and makes for a tightly framed, funny, sad and ultimately emotionally satisfying story.

Three experienced skaters, Mad Splatter (Katie McAllister) Nutcracker (Courtney Cavallaro) and Cinnamon Roller (Danielle Antaki) find themselves ostracized from the fictional Purple Minions, but are determined to get back into the game. They set up an ad hoc training venue, and are joined by an artistic roller-skater keen to try the derby who, tentatively, calls herself Large Gunderson (Amber Kitney), and a complete novice, Huntswoman (Mikayla Merks).

Each has their own reason for being there, each has setbacks and heartbreaks to deal with. Each has to overcome their own façade, just as much as those of the others, to connect.

These are universal human issues, and Davies and Lindstedt (who also co-direct) deal with them with a light touch, exploring them without allowing them to derail the narrative.

Their creative team, production designer Eilish Campbell, lighting designer Rhiannon Petersen and the sound designers/composers Alex and Yell (and how good to hear the soundtrack’s signature piece, Kate Bush’s skate-worthy Running Up That Hill played in full and loud) work effectively in the minimalist space.

They’ve also recruited the support of the dramaturg Alexa Taylor and directing mentor Emily Mclean, whose work contributes further polish to the text and it’s staging, as well as the skating trainer Wheels McCoy, who keeps things pretty much upright throughout.

The show is cast extremely well. The real life age range of skaters is well represented in the cast, and their performances are genuine, well pitched and persuasive.

And they can skate – if not exactly well, at least well enough!

   

PERTH FESTIVAL 2021

Hymns for End Times

Composed by Rachael Dease

Arranged by Alice Humphries, Katherine Potter and Mia Brine

Performed by Rachael Dease, WASO and Voyces

Musical Director Mia Brine

Designed by Bruce McKinven

His Majesty’s Theatre

Rachael Dease is a hyper-sensitive, challenging artist with a formidable skill set and a rare facility to ponder the human condition.

Those skills, and those thought processes, have produced a distinctive, and distinguished, body of work, both as an independent writer/performance artist (City of Shadows, From a Small, Distant Planet) and as a composer and sound designer for theatre (It’s Dark Outside, Rest, You Know We Belong Together).

It’s fair to say that musically and in her thematic interests her work is very specific and uncompromising. That makes her 2020 album Hymn for End Times both monumental and glacial. Its cover, a starkly beautiful and forbidding black and white image of an iceberg is most appropriate.

I have no doubt repeated listening to Hymns for End Times will reveal its depths – I can only claim to have given it superficial attention prior to this world premiere live performance, and I’m pretty sure a large percentage of the festival subscription audience at The Maj had given it none.

Which makes presenting the entire album as a song cycle an ambitious undertaking, with Dease’s mezzo-soprano vocals backed by a 22-piece WASO ensemble and 12 choristers from Voyces, conducted by Mia Brine.

In my view it fell short of its aspiration, in large part because of some strange aspects of its staging wthat left it sitting uncomfortably between recital and performance art, each detracting from the other.

Dease is a striking figure on stage with her cascading scarlet hair and luminous face, accentuated here by a long, pale priestess’s gown. Her performance style typically relies on presence rather than animation, which suits the sombre, often ethereal, quality of her music.

On this occasion, though, this was taken to an extreme, with Dease either sitting motionless and impassive in a draped chair or, just as expressionless, standing behind a microphone stand. Whether this approach was meant to convey stasis, entropy, or a paralysing existential dread was unclear, but the effect at times risked being comic.

Perhaps, left to its own devices, the cumulative effect of this physical performance might have had a transcendental effect, but that was overwhelmed by the clash with Brine’s vigorous, staccato conducting alongside Dease from the piano.

I simply didn’t know where to look.

Matters weren’t helped by a less than perfect sound, especially of Dease’s voice. Her lovely deep tones were all there, but whether it was the mix or the accuracy of sound capture, the lyric was often hard to decipher, a serious difficulty for an audience dealing with unfamiliar material.

In the cycle’s penultimate song, I Am the Always, Dease ascended to join the choir – there’s no better way to describe it – the reconfiguration of the staging and the emphatic power of the song allowed the full potential of the music and its performance to reveal itself.

If only the same could be said of all the songs that preceded it.

 

A suggestion for my fellow arts reviewers, journalists and media people

On Sunday Fringe World sent an email saying that, because of the COVID restrictions in place until the end of this week – and therefore the end of the 2021 fringe – all media review tickets have been cancelled to allow as many paying customers as possible to attend shows.
I wholeheartedly support this necessary step to support our artists.
It’s a good time for us to recognize the generosity of artists and arts companies in providing complimentary tickets and other benefits to reviewers and the arts media generally. I’ve been among the most privileged of us over more than a decade during which I’ve been ticketed to many hundreds of wonderful West Australian productions.
It is sometimes easy to overlook what a benefit this is.
Can I suggest that we all look at the shows we were ticketed to this week and purchase tickets to them if they are still available. In this small way we will be showing our support for our artists, and also continuing to provide the coverage we had planned to deliver.