What the Butler Saw @ New Theatre, dissected by Matt

Having both never seen this play (or been to the New Theatre) before, I had little idea about what to expect of my upcoming thespian experience. I can gladly say that, notwithstanding this initial anxiety, I have not been so pleasantly surprised in many years.

Despite the world feeling more absurd than ever, the English black comedy farce ‘What the Butler Saw’ feels witty and refreshing. Indeed, in a time when we take ourselves far too seriously, it is liberating for our world to be hyperbolised through an absurd lens, producing an effect similar to breaking the ice. In a genre that is far too underutilised these days, farce provides a lovely method for communicating the inverse absurdity of a different context to provide a refreshing insight into our own. This is exactly what we see here. The play’s uncomfortable moments are skilfully balanced by its humour to strengthen its broad criticisms of the hypocritical orthodox upper-class establishment. It was refreshing to sit through a play where I didn’t have to think too hard, have quite a few laughs and yet still manage to find meaningful insights into myself and society by the end.

The plot of the play quickly develops into a complex maelstrom. Opening in a private psychiatric clinic, Dr Prentice (Ariadne Sgouros) convinces Geraldine Barclay (Martin Quinn) to take her clothes off as part of her job interview as his new secretary. From that moment on, the farce is unleashed as Prentice attempts to seduce Barclay - with repeated and increasingly escalating shifts into sexual and psychological exploitation, gender confusion, lost and mistaken identities, nymphomania, transvestism, incest, blackmail and bribery increasingly getting out of hand. From Dr Prentice’s upper-class morality subverted by deep sexual repression to his foil manifestation, Mrs Prentice (Jake Fryer-Hornsby), dressed in just a black trench coat and high heels with a sexually aggressive aura, the formula feels mathematically perfect. The manifesting calamities brought on by the mad Freud-esque Dr Rance (Amrik Tumber) adds to tantalising absurdity of the play. The more ‘normal’ characters (Geraldine Barclay, Madeleine Carr as Nicholas Beckett and Andrew Guy as Sergeant Match) make the audience feel roped into the mess with a series of cross-dressing and false admissions, corrupted by self-serving interests.

Playwright Joe Orton’s vision feels viscerally anti-establishment. He overtly critiques big government, the intelligentsia, orthodox morality, and the upper-classes. Despite being written in a different epoch, his criticisms seem somewhat distant, but yet at the same time it feels oddly familiar to a contemporary modern Australian audience; institutionalised gendered hypocrisy concerningly still rings true in our context (see: Brett Kavanaugh). Interestingly however, some elements appear more absurd due to them being somewhat dated in our context, such as the diagnose of nymphomania for Mrs Prentice, which paradoxically strengthens the play.

The cast were superb, with excellent chemistry, connection and intimacy between their diverse characters. Notable standouts include Sgouros’ Dr Prentice and Jake Fryer-Hornsby as Mrs Prentice for their excellent stage presences (both together and separately). The employment of the accent coach Alistair Toogood proved a worthwhile masterstroke with the accents by each actor being of a superior quality in comparison to many other excellent productions (see: Luna Gale). 

Ultimately, this show didn’t disappoint in the slightest, with many clever laughs from an excellent cast that each had a solid grip on the play’s intention. The play’s content itself was refreshingly different from many other productions, setting itself apart in a deeply memorable way. Clever choices from the production team and director Danielle Maas made this play a carefully constructed and nuanced treasure. Very well done.

The Ghost Train @ Genesian Theatre, dissected by Kat & me

I do hope I'm not the only one who's going to be upset when the Genesian Theatre's days are up. Their production of The Importance of Being Earnest earlier this year was good fun, their old-timey-wimey aesthetic unmatched, and their ability to cast actors who look exactly as you would expect their characters to is very strong. In many ways it feels like a theatre stuck in an earlier time, exaggerating romanticised and stereotypical notions of the performing arts in a weirdly wonderful way.




I think this idea of sticking to the past is what dictates many virtues of their production of Arnold Ridley's The Ghost Train. It's an entertaining 'stranded with strangers' comedy-thriller that creates amusing moments of incredulity through its emphasis on melodrama, with beautiful stage and costume design to boot (no pun intended). Yet, this constant need to conform is also the harbinger of its vices - excessive over-acting, tumultuous vocal work and varying degrees of chemistry between the cast make this train journey a real bumpy ride.




As always, the cast physically embody their characters almost too perfectly. Kieran Foster as Charles Murdock, young, tall, brown-haired and handsome in his navy suit, alongside Nicole Wineberg as his blonde, leggy, upper-class wife-to-be Peggy, fit the mold of a young couple deeply in love to a tee. John Willis-Richards as the irritable Richard Winthrop, with his broad shoulders and Tom Selleck-esque moustache, is a perfect foil to foster's dainty Charles; so too is Zoe Crawford as Richard's brazen wife Elsie to Wineberg's somewhat modest Peggy. Tristan Black, making his play debut as train conductor Teddie Deakin, the glue that held the characters together, and all the other supporting cast are exact caricatures of characters, visually giving the audience exactly what they expect to see.

Again, Genesian delivers in the aesthetics department. Set and Costume Designer Ash Bell gives us 1920s England in all its colourful, silky, well-dressed glory. Every bowtie, brogue and brooch is as symbolic as it is stylish, from late entrant Julia Price (Julia Campbell’s second-half character) deceptively pure white clothing to (also late entrant) Dr Sterling's (Elizabeth MacGregor) underwhelmingly simple garments slightly offset by a blooming pearl necklace. The eerie platform set was well formed, with all its dust covered wooden furniture, balking floorboards, and murky windows. Ash really grasped the true facets of a ghostly atmosphere from which the mystery manifests. Bravo Bell.

Coming to the actual performance, we start to experience some delays.

One must question why a clearly boring script was allowed to take effect without much consideration for the entertainment quality that is expected in light of today’s theatrical standards. The comedic elements, limited to slapstick style and melodramatic components, were just a bit too over the top for a (presumably) sophisticated audience. This is best seen in Campbell's entire first half performance, where she plays the outrageous octogenarian Ms Bourne (also, if anyone can tell me what her closing lines were at the play's end that would be much appreciated).

Traditional English accents are largely adhered to, but Peggy, Bourne and Sterling (whose pacing and lack of energy gets exhausting at times) do occasionally slip back into the convict tongue. By contrast, one can't hear half of Fal Vale station attendant Saul Hodgkin's (Mark Langham) dialogue - his attempted British accent was difficult to understand and, like a real English transport manager, the artificial sounds around him (which drop in and out very uncomfortably) completely drowned it out.

I hate bringing up technical errors but I think the two separate times the performance was interrupted by radio coverage of last night's NRL semi-final needs to be noted too (not only because I'm a Souths fan).

If it weren't for Deakin's comical physicality (best seen in his polite but uncomfortable interactions with the handsy Price) or his role in the completely unexpected plot twist, Willis-Richards' nuanced portrayal of macho and resourceful Richard Winthrop, and the blink-and-you'll-miss-them reactions between the Murdocks (the subtle blowing of a kiss, perfectly-executed synchronised lines or the way one's engagement with other characters non-verbally brings out the jealousy of the other), it would require significant trackwork to travel through the 2-hour performance.

Ultimately, the play is full of twists and turns (train track pun intended). With a finale that I didn't see coming (but apparently more woke audience members did), it did what it was designed to do. Yet, whilst it carried us on a reasonably suspenseful journey, it nonetheless was lacklustre, never seeming to fully pull-out from the old-school platform when it was probably the better thing to do. If you’re waiting for the next train to take you to a performance of theatrical genius, then perhaps Fal Vale Station is the wrong place to terminate.




Luna Gale @ Ensemble Theatre, dissected by me

I think it's incredibly easy to write a review for a show you hate. Every single flaw lasts in the memory, overshadowing the relative strengths (and there are almost always strengths). They can individually be picked apart, examined, and discussed with incredible clarity - leaving little doubt in the mind of you, the reader, as to the performance's relative value. Hell, that's the whole point of this blog: if I don't keep it real, why even bother writing?

On the flip side, writing a review for a show you loved is hard. It's difficult to capture in words the simple pleasure of watching a well put-together show. Strengths cannot be considered individually like flaws, since the essence of what makes a performance good is not one stand-out feature but rather many features working together symbiotically. Words can never really do a good play justice - it is something that requires in-person viewing to grasp.

Which is why it's so damn hard for me to write this review of Ensemble's Luna Gale.

There's little doubt that the play comes with high expectations. It makes its Australian premiere and comes from Olivier-nominated/Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Rebecca Gilman. The cast and production crew have by far some of the most experience (and award nominations) I've seen. Ensemble, like any theatre, hates to put on a bad show. It's very safe to say all these expectations were met, courtesy of Susanna Dowling's world-class direction.

Entertainment Renaissance woman Georgie Parker leads her actors with a deeply nuanced understanding of her character, social worker Caroline, and all her complex and inter-weaving undertones. As the sole connection between meth-heads-turned-parents Karlie (Lucy Heffernan, making her Ensemble debut) and Peter (Jacob Warner) and Karlie's heavily Evangelical mother Cindy (Michelle Doake) in a grueling legal battle for Karlie's daughter Luna Gale, her stage presence is illuminating. That being said, the cast can hold their own too. Minor characters Cliff (Scott Sheridan, also an Ensemble debutant), Caroline's complicated superior, Pastor Jay (David Whitney), and foster care 'graduate' Lourdes (Ebony Vagulans) possess both the comedic and dramatic skills needed to contribute strongly to this production without exhausting the audience, echoing (and at times even outdoing) the major characters in this respect. Bar the fact that Lourdes' ultimate fate is quickly glossed over after the intermission, leaving the play little chance to explore what happens if the system fails, and Warner's performance as Peter is initially weak, Gilman's strong script is only enhanced by the acting of this cast. The gradual reveal of each character's respective situation keeps us continually engaged, portrayed with stunning accuracy.

Throw in professional vocal work (courtesy of dialect coach Nick Curnow) and a deceptively simple Simone Romaniuk set (where viewing mirrors, bookshelves, and coffee machines seem to disappear in the blink of an eye) and we're really in Iowa. The long, drawn-out words, synthetic office environments, and general muteness of the American Midwest is all there, letting us focus on the actors. I've actually been to Iowa, and this is a damn good representation. Even the bloody music between scene changes is worth mentioning - I don't know what a marimba actually is but sound designer Marty Jamieson makes it addictively good.

Ultimately, this play is something else. No amount of writing can give the cast and crew the credit they deserve. This is simply good, dramatic theatre, for any and every reason. Though I wish the script had given us more on Lourdes, there's so much else it sinks its teeth into. I'm interested to see how it copes with the likes of STC's Accidental Death of an Anarchist (which I've been told is also amazing), but if there's any show currently on that deals with guilt, shame, God and the greater good better, I'm yet to see it.

It's Not Creepy If They're Hot @ Sydney Fringe Festival, dissected by me

As is inherent in the name, the Sydney Fringe is a mixed bag. It takes a considerably lucky and calculated pick to find the right show that blends everything together in a cohesive, logical way. But is that the point of the whole festival? Maybe plots are supposed to be unusual. Maybe characters based on real stereotypes are supposed to be out of place when put on stage. Maybe, just for a short while, we can enjoy the ability for theatre to be weird.

After the first 40 minutes of 'It's Not Creepy If They're Hot',  it's probably a bit too weird.

The 2-hour play sets itself up nicely: North Shore 19-year-old Liv (Victoria Boult) is having a birthday party. As her friends trickle in and out of her cliched teenage-girl bedroom (adorned with party photos and the like), where her inebriated work colleague John (Max Seppelt) lies passed out on her bed, we get a glimpse into the thoughts, actions, and interactions between the troubled young cast. It's something like a modern Australian version of Friends, albeit with upper-middle-class first-year university students -apparently code for excessive ketamine and cocaine snorting, 'thot' music (which is, in my limited understanding, promiscuous music that empowers one by virtue of its promiscuity), and tumultuous friendships. As an introduction to the cast and production in general, it's very well-scripted; credit to young playwright Rosie Licence. Scenes are well timed, performances comedic (particular shout-out to Joseph Ingui as ketamine using/dealing Adam), and themes just evident enough to keep the university-aged audience engaged (who probably related to it more than me, if I'm being honest). Bar some blocking and vocal projection issues, it's entertaining theatre.

Unfortunately, the performance takes an abrupt turn before the intermission. Before this, long-haired Connor (Tom Osborne) has nearly hooked up with Liv. John has come to and left the party. Liv has had a big fight with Claire (Sophie Colbran). The other half of the cast hasn't been seen for a while. Under a now crimson light, and with no warning, the entire cast enter the Bondi Pavilion stage and scatter themselves across it. A digital projector begins playing an SMS interaction between two of them, as they describe how to take the perfect selfie. Liv (for some reason) strips and demonstrates this. Every now and then they turn to face different parts of the audience during this moment. As this explanation finishes, the first half is complete.

Doesn't make structural or logical sense? Yep. It doesn't. It just sort of...happens. Hell, it feels like the show is over - there's nowhere for the characters to go, no easy way to lengthen the script. Everything up until that point had reached a natural conclusion, in a reasonable 60-minute performance time.

But the show goes on. How I wished it hadn't.

The second half starts before Liv's party, then moves back to a week before Liv's party, at another party. Here, the scenes are overly long duologues that each highlight a specific element of youth culture that we've pretty much heard before - girls obsessing over guys, guys liking drugs, and girls being drunk, hungry, or both. There's very little cohesion between any of them, making me want to call these scenes vignettes (instead of poorly-related plot points). Again the play revolves around Liv (paying little attention to rest of the cast bar Henry and Claire), but now with her new (or is it old?) love interest James (Lewis Ulm) - both performances as confusing and misguided as the entire half. The once-relevant humour becomes tacky, lines about loving chicken McNuggets and useless Arts degrees contributing little to the progression of the story. The house-party music, which has been droning on in the background with little purpose for the entire play, drops in and out at unnatural times and could probably be done without. Another abrupt moment of absurdism (where the projector can't be seen clearly and the actors difficult to hear over a loud static sound) and a confusing ending linking the sea to an escape from one's youth drowns out the only truly impactful performance in the play - Sophie's teary monologue about her fear of becoming 'the girl who was raped' and told everyone, instead of keeping it to herself. A shame it was lost amongst so much tediousness, for her and the show.

Ultimately, INCITH provides a good starting hour of theatre, but little else beyond that. Characters quickly seem extraneous, the story slowly directionless, and 'Why am I watching this?' thoughts popping up in one's head more often. If you're a uni student looking for a relatable piece of theatre, or want to pretend like you are/can relate, you'll find exactly that. But if you're more a Grandpa Simpson type, where 'I used to be with it. Then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with it isn't it, and what is it seems weird and scary to me', this will not be your cup of tea (or snort of ketamine).

The Merchant of Venice @ Pop-Up Globe, dissected by me

If you've been on social media at all over the past few months, there's a chance you would've seen videos about the much-hyped Pop-Up Globe coming to Sydney this month. Like Katharina Grosse's installation at Carriageworks earlier this year, from those videos it seems like a chance for every basic white girl to express their 'artistic side' to their Instagram followers - without taking in a deeper understanding of the sheer magnitude of the whole concept. Even better, they could capture a Boomerang of themselves clinking wine glasses with the Globe stage in the background, a subtle indication of their 'cultured selves' (do people still Boomerang?). Yet, when you ask them what they liked about the show, all you'll hear is 'the costumes were nice' or 'the lights were pretty' (which, admittedly, they both are).

Or perhaps you haven't read about it; in which case, allow me to explain - right now, in Entertainment Quarter, there exists a life-size near-perfect rendition of Shakespeare's (second) original Globe Theatre. A process of academic research and brilliant aesthetics, PUG founder Miles Gregory has recreated the world-famous Thames-based playhouse down to the wire - in-the-round stage, open-air theatre, and (carpeted) groundling pit included. Bar some modern instruments and lighting schemes, everything is natural - actors battle the sounds of nature without microphones and a cold breeze continuously freezes the audience (or at least those who decide not to purchase a substantial dose of mulled wine). Debuting in New Zealand (with a brief stint in Melbourne last year) and featuring an all-male, nearly all-Australian and New Zealand cast, Gregory wants his shows not to be 'dusty Shakespeare' but rather 'Alive. Like a party'.

In director David Lawrence's Merchant, we definitely feel like we're in a party. What we don't feel, however, is the power of the play's more poignant moments.

This party atmosphere hits well before the play begins. In Sport for Jove style, the audience enters the Globe to the cast loitering around on stage, cheesy but cheery medieval music warming us to the whole experience. It takes some time to accustom oneself to the 4 cross-dressed actors on stage, particularly the burly red-robed Jessica (Sonny Bill Williams-esque Maori actor Reuben Butler) and the scene-stealing Nerissa (Thomas Wingfield, a clean-shaven and paler Russell Brand), but since the PUG looks to re-enact the gender restrictions of Elizabethan theatre we eventually learn to roll with it. It makes for some great humour later on, particularly when Jessica embraces the much shorter Lorenzo in an overly passionate kiss.

From then on, the performance is a mix of vibrant costumes, incredibly funny fourth-wall breaks (including yours truly singled out as a French suitor rejected by Portia), and even the occasional dance break (special shout-out to Jason Te Kare as the Prince of Morocco and his fascinating band of North African dancers/guards). Where the play shines most is its exploration of Portia's romantic subplot - Patrick Carroll puts on an incredibly immersive gender-bending performance in his/her search for love, disguise at the court, and subsequent dealings with Basanio (Josh Cramond) - which reaches its peak in the play's final scene, as the men and their wives bicker over the importance of the rings the former have given 'away'. For those new to Shakespeare and those accustomed to it, it really is good old fun - similar, I feel, to the way Shakespeare intended his theatre to be.

Unfortunately, such great humour distracts one from the performance's more dramatic themes. Build-ups to punchlines are sacrificed for the punchline itself, with the actors racing to get through their lines (looking at you again Te Kare, but not for good reason this time). Voice work is all over the place, to the extent where it borders on the Merchant of Auckland than the Merchant of Venice (notably in Butler's and Asalemo Tofete's performances as Jessica and Tubal respectively). Worst of all, we miss out on the tension between Antonio (Jonathan Martin) and Shylock (Peter Daubé). The latter never quite seems to balance the hatred but humanity within Shylock, giving a boring performance lost in the middle of the two. The audience is subsequently unable to understand the importance of his ring, the loss he feels at the play's end, his hatred for Antonio, or the intended impact of his 'hath not a jew eyes' monologue; it fades away in order to emphasise the party vibe, leaving us to hate Shylock simply because our pre-show knowledge of the play dictates he has to be hated. Because of this, the audience can't entirely connect with Antonio either - though he picks up in likeability and characterisation later in the play, again it seems like the subplot has overtaken the main one in this show. For someone who has not only studied the play, but has a deep passion for the issues it raises, in this respect I feel like I missed out.

That being said, if all you're looking for is two hours of good humour, entertaining comedic theatre, and some decent mulled wine, then pick up some dirt cheap groundling tickets. It would be better with a stronger intellectual challenge, but then again - nerds have never been fun at parties.

Sport for Jove's Moby Dick @ Seymour Centre, lost in translation before me

Sport for Jove's most recent incarnation is a show you really want to like. Even for a man whose knowledge of Moby Dick is limited to the Simpsons parody and that one reference from Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, I could see that. The set, costumes, lighting and sound try to make the performance go the extra mile in typical Adam Cook fashion, bringing the whirlwind of voices, energy and bustle of an 1850s whaling ship to the Reginald stage. I never shy away from my adoration of Nigel Poulton's movement direction, particularly notable in last season's Prize Fighter at Belvoir, adding to this aforementioned energy and bustle. Yet, even for its visual strengths, the crux of the show is strangely missing; lost somewhere in the misguided acting of its cast and a strained chemistry between them that makes few performances bar Danny Adcock's Ahab and Tom Royce-Hampton's Ishmael believable.

It should be noted, first and foremost, that this is not a production of the original Moby Dick. Nor is it a product of the incomplete Orson Welles adaptation. Instead it is its own beast, attempting to distinguish itself by trying to represent the Pequod as a 'ship of state' - where the novel's 30 crewmembers (reduced to a cast of 10 in this show) represent the 30 states of America at the time. This, to me, adds a significant (and unnecessary) complication to the original story. Cook has but 90 minutes to not only tell a tale of blindness and loss, but also one of diversity and coming together. In his own words, he wanted to 'strike a balance between poetry, philosophy and narrative excitement'.

Instead, he creates a whale that big is simply too big to be killed by one harpoon.

There's no real way to do Mark Thompson's set design justice. Within a stage backed by four floor-to-lighting-rig wooden boards (hiding an impressive drum set), two ladders placed on each respective side of the performance space function beyond their literal means to become whales, barriers and planks. More often than not actors don't leave the stage but simply duck into peripheral view below lighting catwalks, resting on couches or simply sitting. You get a real sense of being on a ship and the kind of community that would typically come with it, complemented by immense Pirates of the Carribean-esque costuming (also on a side note if anyone's seen the most recent POTC film tell me if it's any good, I still haven't seen it) and some sophisticated azure/strobe lighting (bet that's the first time anyone's called strobe lighting 'sophisticated').

However, if I can't applaud the set enough, I certainly do have a limit with respect to the acting. The performance begins with a cacophonous collection of different cries from the same people, which creates just as much confusion from the audience as my explanation of it does. We see the same actors put on American, British, Australian and Irish accents constantly, making any kind of separation between them difficult. Not only does this force them to lose the clarity of their dialogue, making us wish they could just stick to one bloody persona, but also makes their performances sacrifice realism for making sure we understand that this play is not Australian. What also results from this big cast with little performance time is a lack of connection between them, making chorus scenes hard to watch as each actor understands their own objectives but not the objectives of others. Thus, songs of the sea delivered by the ensemble drag on; the stories they tell the audience lose the impact they could have had; and we are simply overloaded. No more is this lack of connection emphasised than whenever Adcock as Ahab talks to literally anyone, his delayed reactions and internalisation boosting his performance but creating awkwardness whenever he shares a duologue with black shipmate Pip (Rachel Alexander) or the under-utilised shipmate Starbuck (Francesca Savige).

What I also couldn't stand is the unequal character development. Royce-Hampton's Ishmael by far carries the cast - he sticks to one accent, holds the most belief in his lines, and creates a genuine chemistry between other characters and the audience (in times of fourth-wall breaking narration, which whilst intriguing in their experimental nature are too quick for the audience to fully appreciate). However, his role ends after the first half hour, becoming more and more insular as the play progresses. Hell, he even plays the drums or bangs on metal sheets in moments of intense action, creating incredible soundscapes as an actor but not even allowed to participate in such action as a character. Why? Why leave out the only character that the audience first connects with? Why delve into Pip's backstory in a 15-minute monologue (where again voice work and issues with belief plague her performance), only to have the audience never hear from her again after this? Why even include 3 characters the audience never really meets, shitting on your desire to represent diversity? It just doesn't make sense.

The play, and indeed the audience, finds itself understanding of the book's original theme of blindness. Except it's not blindness to reality, as I envision Herman Melville intending. It's a blindness to what the play is designed to tell its audience. There's simply too much going on for us to focus on one thing, let alone it all, and when we are forced to focus on something it is either irrelevant, ends just as quickly as it came, or overwhelmed by other stylistic factors. By all means come for the visual delights, but if you're looking for theatre that sets sail for one destination and sticks to it, perhaps wait at the dock a little longer.