Desire and friendship collide in a play that doesn't shy away from thorny questions

The Age

20 hours ago

The actors expertly inhabit these thorny, complex, highly flawed characters. O'Neill is a highlight as the sardonic, defensive and staunch Jo, while Lee embodies the seesaw of open-heartedness and despair that Lia experiences. Hofbauer, more recently seen in Red Stitch's Comeuppance, brings to life the agitated, morally vacillating Simon.
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Under Isabella Vadiveloo's direction, the characters pace around a dining table planted in the centre of the stage.
No actor is ever completely off-stage; the ghost of their presence a spectre haunting the other two in their absence as they loom behind a curtain. Bianca Pardo's set oscillates between being a domestic space and a public space through minute changes to the onstage furniture. The same could be said for the characters' outfits, which subtly shift as they age and move through different ways of being.
Who you identify with in this piece and how you relate to it will hinge on your relationship to the question of kids. What's Yours invites projection as it interrogates the necessary sacrifices and payoffs of modern living.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair
JAZZ
Troy Roberts Quartet ★★★★
The JazzLab, July 31
Sometimes, life has a way of jolting you into the present with a reminder of its fragility and unpredictability. At the JazzLab last Thursday, just minutes before Troy Roberts and his band were due on stage, a medical emergency in the audience resulted in a venue evacuation and plenty of sombre reflection as we waited outside.
When the ambulance departed an hour later (with the patient in a stable condition) and we filed back indoors, the mood was understandably muted, drained of the anticipatory buzz that typically greets Roberts before every performance. The Australian saxophonist has called New York home for 20 years now, so his legion of fans jumps at the chance to hear him whenever he returns here.
And it's not hard to see why. Any apprehension that the subdued atmosphere might linger was banished within seconds of the band's arrival onstage. A burst of cleansing energy from drummer Andrew Fisenden announced the opening tune – Solar Panels – before the rest of the quartet leapt on board.
As a composer, Roberts keeps his bandmates on their toes with elaborate, rhythmically complex tunes. Yet even without a proper rehearsal, Fisenden, Brett Williams (on piano) and Sam Anning (bass) navigated the variable time signatures, tempo shifts and rhythmic fillips with apparent ease, beaming with delight as they moved in lockstep with their animated leader.
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Roberts' arrangements of standards also contained elements of surprise: The Look of Love was taken at an unusually jaunty pace, the rhythm section conjuring a Latin feel beneath Roberts' agile tenor spirals, while Up Jumped Spring saw the quartet skipping back and forth between a flowing waltz and a breezy 4/4 swing.
On Coltrane's Transition, Roberts and guest saxophonist Carl Mackey both offered volcanic solos that tapped into the composer's earthy spirituality. Wise One was gorgeously restrained, with Roberts' majestic, elongated phrases resting on a bed of rippling piano and shimmering percussion.
A joyously ebullient calypso tune followed, then – as a coda – a brief but heartfelt ballad, sending us out into the night feeling uplifted and reassured.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas
THEATRE
Miss Julie ★★★
By August Strindberg, fortyfivedownstairs, until August 17
Relocating August Strindberg's Miss Julie to the kitchen of a Greek restaurant, Company 16 serves up a stormy version of a classic that continues to perturb and inspire the contemporary stage.
Class, gender, and sexual mores have changed markedly since the Victorian era. Underlying power dynamics are harder to shift, and the play's gendered battle still speaks urgently to us because Strindberg, despite his virulent misogyny, carved out combatants who were evenly matched, forever locked in an undecidable human puzzle.
Evenly matched doesn't mean equal.
A mutual power disparity between the lovers is crucial, and the most stunning production I've ever seen – Yaël Farber's Mies Julie – upped the ante by being set in South Africa under apartheid. Miss Julie was the daughter of an Afrikaner pastoralist; John one of his black servants. Racial as well as class inequality were set against the gender divide, amplifying the intensity of the play's explosive passions and deepening the sense of social tragedy.
The Greek restaurant setting here evokes the bustling, behind-the-scenes world of hospo. It's performed in the round, amid sinks and stainless-steel benchtops, and one striking feature is the depth of intimacy it establishes straight away between John (Adam-Jon Fiorentino) and his fiancee, fellow chef Kristina (Izabella Yena).
Their bond is more erotic, and more grown-up, than anything that happens between John and Julie, and John's obvious lapse in judgment in pursuing the boss's daughter makes you reflect on his self-destructiveness for a change.
A scornful, sylph-like incarnation of the title character from Annalise Gelagotis certainly has a self-destructive side. Julie comes across as so unformed in this portrayal, however, that even her vicious whims and the cruelties she inflicts seem to emanate from her vulnerability.
A piteous desperation attends Julie's desire for agency, and there's irony in her abusing the unearned power she does have. Meanwhile, John's arc feels depressing and familiar from headlines: the brooding romantic lead has a manipulative streak latent in his performance, allowing Yena's Kristina to provide a window onto what is – however complicated the situation – clearly predatory male sexual behaviour.
I'm not sure about the surprise twist at the end. It didn't quite land as tragedy and suffered the same issue as the lurid approach to some of the play's (admittedly blatant) symbolism.
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In lieu of decapitating Julie's pet bird, for instance, John sticks it in a food processor and presses the button. The audience laughed at the gory substitution – a spell-breaking moment in a production which, at its best, summons the moody extremities and intense performances that make Strindberg's battle of the sexes so compelling.
Finally, the restaurant theme has added allure for those who can afford to splash out. Premium tickets include a Greek-inspired immersive dining experience by celebrity chef Conor Curran.