The Bull, The Moon and the Coronet of Stars

The Bull, The Moon and The Coronet of Stars is written by Van Badham, is it a world premiere presented by Griffin Theatre Company, HotHouse Theatre and Merrigong Theatre Company.

This is an amazing piece of writing and theatre. The play follows Marion's (Silvia Colloca) life as she falls in love with Michael (Matt Zeremes) the publications officer at the Ashmolean Museum. Of course he is married. However he falls for her too when she wear a certain blue dress to work. As there feelings for each other grows so does the number of strange happenings in the Museum, until one night they need to guard the museum together, thus The Bull appears. The scene when they are tied together with a piece of string and the whole theatre is plunged into pitch blackness was a brilliant idea. It immediately heightens the audiences awareness of their voices and you can only imagine what is happening as you can't even see the hand in front of your face.  Marion is ashamed and scorned and so runs away to a tourist Village to become the art teacher for elderly tourists at the resort.  At the resort apart from the elderly ladies is Mark (also Matt Zeremes) he is the sommelier and has an eye for the women of any age! Marion dismisses him and the more she does the more he tries to seduce her. Of course in the end she succumbs as they fall in love.  

It is very well written and flows though the scenes with ease. There is a lot of humour in the writing making it easy to enjoy. Silvia and Matt make a beautiful couple on stage, this was good casting. They brought strength as realism into their characters and really didn't skip a beat from the beginning until the end.

Th Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars is playing at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. To book - www.griffintheatre.com.au

Photo: Brett Boardman

Dreams in White by Duncan Graham - Review

Andrew McFarlane and Sara West, picture Brett Boardman

Dreams in White is a world Première presented by the Griffin Theatre Company.  This production is a first for the Griffin Theatre Company as it marks the first writer/director collaboration, uniting the  work of Duncan Graham, with the direction of Tanya Goldberg (Way To Heaven, The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself, The Blind Date Project).
Dreams in White is a dramatic tale of deceit and murder. It is cleverly constructed using grapefruit as a metaphor for Michael Devines bitter/ sweet life; double life.  There are also similarities between Michael and his daughter Amy.  The play is quite sinister and it leaves you wondering what is the relationship between Father and Daughter and is the line between the two going to be crossed?
The play begins almost at the end of the story with Paula Anderson (Mandy McElhinney) and Gary Anderson (Steve Rodgers) trying to come to terms with what seems like an unwanted visitor, Ray Wimple (Andrew MacFarlane). Who Ray is and why they don't want to let him in, isn't clear until later in the play.   The next scene jumps back in time and you see Michael Devine (Andrew MacFarlane) in conversation over some revealing photos of his daughter, Amy Devine (Sara West), which he finds on his computer.  I did wonder about the language used in the Father/Daughter scenes.  She calls him a "Sick Fuck" and "Just Fucking shut up" they just seem to conflict with the obvious respect that she does hold for him.  He plays the concerned father, but what is really playing out in him mind, we never find out.  We then meet Anne Devine, (Lucy Bell) the devoted loving wife, who is preparing for a TV appearance regarding her husbands disappearance. We then cut back to Paula and Gary who are cleaning up after what you guess is a murder. Next, we are introduced to two new characters Julia White (Lucy Bell) and Gary Anderson (Steve Rodgers). They are going to be looking at property, through property developer, Michael Devine. As you will have already noticed the actors played more than one character which takes good directing and acting. The only issue I had with Julia and Gary was that I had no idea how they really fitted with the rest of the story. Their scenes didn't really add anything to play apart from the rather shocking moment when Gary has a break down and ends up semi nude in the middle of the show house.  Mandy McElhinney also plays the Psychiatrist that Anne visits to try to come to terms with what has happened.  There is a good mix of tension, despair, blame and distrust and Anne starts to talk about what has happened.  There are no costume changes in the production, so with the time changes and actors playing multiple characters, and one character with a double persona, it did get a bit confusing, however, if you kept in my mind that it will all become clear in the end it does!
This production will not be to everyones taste, there is cause language, semi nudity, masturbation, not forgetting the violent murder! However, the production was very well directed by Tanya Goldberg and the dialogue was skilfully written. The mobile phone plays a prominent role in this play and called for some very accurate timing.   It flowed well and the play had a good pace about it.  All in all I had  a very enjoyable 80 minutes, which kept me thinking and talking about it for quite some time afterwards.

Dreams in White
By Duncan Graham. SWB Stables Theatre, Sydney.
Tickets $32-$49. Bookings (02) 9361 3817. Until March 23.

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES LEE LEWIS AS NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Griffin Theatre Company Chair Michael Bradley today announced that Lee Lewis has been appointed the company’s new Artistic Director, set to take over from Sam Strong on 1 January 2013.Lewis is currently Associate Director at Griffin and one of the country’s leading directors, having worked for numerous main stage companies, including Sydney Theatre Company (Honour, ZEBRA! and Love Lies Bleeding), Belvoir (That Face), Bell Shakespeare (Twelfth Night), and Griffin (Silent Disco, The Call and The Nightwatchman). She has also directed widely for independent theatre companies in Sydney.Griffin Chair Michael Bradley said “Lee Lewis is the perfect person to take over Griffin at this stage of its development. She has a deep personal passion for Griffin’s mission to be the voice and heart of Australian writing in the theatre. She is also a brilliant director and nurturer of new work. Griffin has enjoyed wonderful success in recent years and is rapidly becoming recognised as a critically important Australian cultural institution. Lee’s appointment marks the beginning of the next exciting phase for the company, its artists and its audience.”Lewis trained as an actor at Columbia University in the United States, working on Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, before returning to Australia to study directing at NIDA. She has been an outspoken advocate for increased cultural diversity on Australia’s main stages, and a leading voice for the representation of female directors and playwrights.Of her new appointment, Lewis said: “I am excited to champion the works of Australian writers on the Griffin stage, around the country and internationally so that the company is increasingly recognised for the vital work we are so passionately committed to: the development and staging of the best Australian stories.”The appointment comes at a time of great momentum for Griffin, with many shows in the last two years selling out, attracting both audience and critical acclaim. The company’s work has recently been nominated for four Helpmann Awards, including two for the 2012 Sydney Festival production of The Boys, and for Paul Capsis’ one-man show Angela’s Kitchen, currently on a national tour. Outgoing Artistic Director Sam Strong will be taking up a new position at Melbourne Theatre Company in the New Year and is thrilled to be handing over the reigns to his colleague. “Lee is one of the country’s finest directors, a passionate and persuasive advocate of new writing, and a person and artist of deep integrity. She has been a vital part of Griffin’s current success and she is ideally placed to lead the company into an even more exciting future” said Sam Strong.Response to the appointment from with the arts has been overwhelmingly positive. Sydney Theatre Company’s Co-Artistic Directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett commented “It’s a wonderful appointment. Lee is a genuine developer of new work and a great collaborator. We look forward to continuing to work with her in her new role.” John Bell, Artistic Director of Bell Shakespeare and director of the first production ever to take place in Griffin’s SBW Stables Theatre in 1970, said “I am delighted to hear that Lee Lewis has been appointed Artistic Director of Griffin. For many years now she has been achieving wonderful theatre and is a great advocate of new writing. Lee’s enthusiasm, energy and freshness of approach will be a great asset to her new role.” Lewis’ most recent directing work includes A Hoax, currently playing at Griffin’s SBW Stables Theatre until Saturday 1 September, Highway of Lost Hearts for Darwin Festival, and School for Wives, currently touring the country for Bell Shakespeare. In 2013, Lewis will direct Rupert for Melbourne Theatre Company, and a new work for Griffin. The Griffin 2013 season will be announced on 3 September.

Porn.Cake by Vanessa Bates - Review

Porn.Cake is currently play at the SBW Stables Theatre. It is a contemporary work by Vanessa Bates which premiered in Melbourne last year.
It is based around two couples, Ant and Annie and Bill and Bella, and cake. Both couples are middle aged and the play explores the misgivings and feelings you might have when you reach that time in your life. It is a little like a reunion, reminiscing over lost dreams.  We also hear how times have changed and how modern technology, namely the mobile phone, can interfere with married relationships if you let it.  The couples tell the story while eating large amounts of cake, which also leads to more discussions around modern living and food allergies. One of the funnier scenes was with Ben, he doesn't like olives and talked about when you don't like a food, everybody seems to make it their mission to make you like it, this is so true.
The staging and production was very good. Between each scene audio snippets were played from Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Gordan Ramsey and I am sure there were more. The strobe lighting scene was also effective and it wouldn't have been easy for the actors either.  The bringing on and off the cakes and making sure that stage was fairly clear was quite a feat and acting while eating so much cake would not have been easy, I was surprised that nobody choked.
The dialogue is very circular, in that the first couples scene and the second couples scene were almost identical with the dialogue repeated in most scenes after. This was the most bizarre part of the play and in some parts it seemed very surreal. I did think that it was all going to come together and we were going to find that all the odd dialogue was going to join together to make sense, but it didn't.
This production will make you laugh and you will probably wonder what the heck? You will either think is it great or a total waste of perfectly good cake. One thing I can guarantee you will be hungry for cake when you leave. However, I don't think the actors will be eating cake,  for several months after the close of Porn.Cake!

Click here from more information on Porn.Cake

Photo: Georgina Symes

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY TO FAREWELL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR SAM STRONG

Griffin Theatre Company today announces the resignation of Artistic Director Sam Strong, who has accepted the role of Associate Artistic Director at Melbourne Theatre Company. Sam will program Griffin’s 2013 season, which is being announced on 3 September, and then finish up at the end of 2012.

On accepting Strong’s resignation, Griffin Theatre Company Chair Michael Bradley says, “Griffin’s loss is MTC’s gain. While we are very sad to be losing Sam, we are delighted he will be continuing to play a central role in shaping Australian theatre in his Melbourne home.

“Sam has delivered to Griffin everything we hoped and more. The company has enjoyed unprecedented critical success and audience growth, including several sold out productions. Griffin’s reach has continued to broaden with the introduction of innovative programs designed to further the company’s role as a nurturer of creative talent, and particularly new Australian writing which is of course our core. Taking a theatre company to new heights while remaining completely true to its ethos isn’t an easy task, but Sam has achieved that. He leaves Griffin positioned perfectly to continue its journey as Australia’s home of new theatrical writing and we are excited by the prospect of what lies ahead,” Bradley said.

The Story of Mary Maclane by Herself

The story of Mary Maclane by Herself is playing at the SBW Stables Theatre in Darlinghust.

This is a production is quite unique it takes the story from Mary MacLane's first book which was all about herself.  It is not an autobiography of Mary's  life but more of snippets and the mood of Mary MacLane.  You are drawn in by her egotistical rambling but at the same time she doesn't really care if you take note or not.

You don't have to know who Mary MacLane was to enjoy the show.  In the early 1900's she shocked populace with her first memoirs. They were honest, abrupt and 100,000 copies were sold in the first month.  She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, she was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist.
This play is written by Bojana Novakovic with Tim Rogers writing the music.  It was a perfect combination. The play opens in a very theatrical way almost like a Circus, "Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome!
Welcome to the 'Story of Mary MacLane by Herself', an event the likes of which you have never before happened upon! Literary sensation and columnist, writer and recluse, Mar MacLane is here with us tonight, appearing on stage of the very first time....."
All the time the double bass and violin are building the tension, it is very funny and put you in a good frame of mind to start the play.
Mary played by Bojana is captivating, you can't take your eyes off her. There are some great lines "I've given up alcohol as a means of trying to kill myself" and " Few things feel so cosmic as a cold boiled potato at midnight".  The portrayal is quite haunting with Mary's ramblings intertwined with songs and music.  Mary seems to have spent much of her life looking for fulfillment. She wants to marry the devil so conquer her, crush her, hurt her and consume her with love. She views herself as a liar and a gambler but overall you get the impression that she is overwhelming lonely, "kind, Devil, deliver me from Myself, of womankind and thirty one years, a philosopher, a liar, and a fool and unhappy and filled with hopeless despair.
Tim Rogers as well as writing the music plays the guitar and sings as a integral part of the show. As Tim and Bojana are both in the show you might think that it is self indulgent but it did not come across like that. The Stables Theatre was a perfect venue, it really made you feel part of the show, when they asked a question you wanted to answer. 
It is a production that will stay with you a while be prepared for 75 minutes of pure entertainment.

And No More Shall We Part by Tom Holloway

The Griffin Theatre once more brings intense entertainment to the people of Sydney. And No More Shall We Part is playing at the SBW Stables Theatre until 3 September.
This was a very memorial production, one that will stay with me for some time. It was heart wrenching and extremely moving.  It is the story of Pam and Don's life as they make a painful decision to say goodbye after a lifetime together.  You need to take tissues with you! As Sam Strong (Director) explained after the production they did cut 15 minutes from opening night as they realised just how intense it was and how it affected the audience and felt it was a little too much for some people. I know exactly what he meant, there are times in the play where I wanted it just to move on, for some relief.  The intensity is broken up with lighter comical scenes and it is not a performance that leaves you with total doom and gloom.  You will be surprised about how you feel at the end. It is extremely well written and won the 2010 AWGIE for best play. If you are in long term relationship there were many occasions where you will relate to the dialogue.  It is a very humane intimate portrayal of their relationship.
Directed by Sam Strong who you might remember for Speaking With Tongues earlier this year; has picked another play which is technically challenging to the actors. Actors Linda Cropper and Russell Kiefel felt that the technical side to the play was more difficult than the topic; they were both drawn to the play by the brilliant writing. The affect the play has on the audience is a testament to their performance.

Heartbreak Hotel

Are you loved or are you lonely? Have you ever been dumped, cheated on or ditched? Then it’s about time you checked in to the Heartbreak Hotel where lost loves come to mourn what once was.

The Heartbreak hotel written by Ian Meadows and Kate Mulvany, directed my Paige Rattray and Shannon Murphy, takes the audience on an emotional journey of love, loss and of course heartbreak.

Entering the charming old Griffin Theatre we are greeted by our very own bellhop, complete with bright red jacket and brass gold buttons and that perfectly tilted hat chinstrap and all. We are given our ‘ticket’ to the hotel which details what we will be seeing that night and where we need to go. Armed with a set of headphones we follow our bellhop through the maze that is Griffin and enter a small theatre. Inside we form a single line were we are branded with a ‘loved?’ or ‘lonely?’ stamp. Thankfully I’m told I’m loved and am able to sit with my friends. The room quickly darkens as ‘Sands through the hour glass’ begins - a contemporary piece with two powerful acting performances detailing a hotel murder the truth about lost love.

The Brothers Size

The Brothers Size is playing at the SBW Stables Theatre until 16 April. It is written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, if you haven't heard of this writer before, well I think you will be hearing a lot more of him in the future. He has won a load of awards since he graduated from the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program in 2007.  This play is superbly written and is an Australian premier production.
The actual theme of this play makes it sound like it is going to be a bit depressing but there is quite a bit of comedy, music and just the sheer brilliance of it, when you leave the theatre you just go, wow that was fantastic!

Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell

The opening night of Speaking in Tongues was amazing, Sam Strong the Director looked slightly nervous pre-show and I am not surprised as the audience had some of Australia's finest actors including Jacki Weaver.
It is the second time this show has graced the stage at the Stables Theatre, the first time was in 1996.  However, five year's on and it could have been written yesterday. It is one of those plays which is timeless.  Speaking in Tongues explores the relationship of two couples who end up having an affair with each other. Relationships and marriages are tested and questioned. I believe it is a play that would appeal more to married or divorced couples who will relate to the thought of going out to see if you still 'have it' and then the thought if you did meet somebody could you have a one night stand? and as the play says would one night lead to another? The play is very well written particularly the scenes where the dialogue interweaves between the two couples even though they are in two different places. Parts Two and Three are a development of Part One. You hear about the characters but they are not fully explained and the mystery of why the neighbour was covered in blood is revealed.
The cast Lucy Bell, Andy Rodoreda, Caroline Craig and Chris Stollery are all well accomplished actors and give their characters credible emotions - slightly nervous first meeting and awkwardness followed by guilt, drama and revelations.

For a Better World

For A Better World by Roland Schimmelpfennig opened last week. It is directed by Daisy Noyes and as she says, "For a Better World is not a "well-made play"! In some ways it is not a play at all, written for radio, without the restictions of physical staging, it travels across time and place, ducking in and out of the future, the past, memory, reality and fantasy. It is an excessive, sprawling text, a baroque roller coaster that doesn't so much explore its themes of sex and death, as hurtle past them."
You need to have read that paragraph before you go and see this as it is not an easy play or not a play to follow; so you know it is not you being dumb!  To me it was as if Roland Schimmelpfennig had taken LSD and the trip got more and more surreal as he wrote the script! I don't agree about the excessive sprawling text; a couple of times maybe but I wouldn't say it was that excessive, I certainly couldn't have fallen asleep, I was too busy trying to make sense of it all. It was a play about a group of solders in the jungle, they had swapped their uniforms for bikinis and underwear. There are aliens, there is sex (suggested) there is blood and dying. None of these are really explored as in a traditional play but as Daisy says they just happen and that's it!

Angela's Kitchen

An excellent performance by Paul Capsis. Angela's Kitchen was written by Paul and associate writer Hilary Bell. It is directed by Julian Meyrick.
It is an autobiographical tale for Paul's memories of his Maltese Grandmother Angela. Angela emigrated to Australia with her five children just after the second World War. She built a new life in Surry Hills but her heart always remained in Malta. He recounts stories of his childhood and cleverly reenacting scenes around the kitchen table; playing various family characters and slipping in and out of Maltese.
The staging is simple but very effective. The stage revolves around Angela's Kitchen which is transformed by projected images of Malta and family members at different times in Angela's and Paul's lives.
The whole performance is very moving and informative. Paul managed to keep the audience captivated in this intimate performance.