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The Age
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
This stormy tale set in a Greek restaurant serves up more than drama
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. Loading 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. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead THEATRE What's Yours ★★★★ Red Stitch Actors' Theatre, until August 24 To have kids or not to have kids? A newfound sense of urgency in Keziah Warner's play What's Yours is injected into the debate, which is more alive than ever amid the broadening of possibilities that mean more people can have children, even as the ever-deteriorating state of the world complicates the decision itself. The play kicks off decades in the past, the liminal age of youth and opportunity distilled into a moment of carefree drunkenness at a sharehouse party. Lia (Carissa Lee) and Jo (Christina O'Neill) are best friends and housemates. Simon (Kevin Hofbauer) is a stranger who first desires Jo, and then, years into the future, Lia. Obscured by a gauzy curtain, the flashback has an ephemeral, otherworldly feel. When the curtains are pulled back, we're firmly in the present. Simon and Lia are struggling to conceive, and hear through the grapevine that Jo, whom they haven't spoken to in years, has frozen eggs that she doesn't intend to use. They reach out, hoping for a display of magnanimity from someone they've hurt deeply. The result plays out over the course of the next few years as their loyalties, motivations and feelings shift and morph. What's Yours is a meditation on power, desire, mortality, the ethics of friendship, the limits of possession, and the enduring legacy of the choices we make. The minutiae of each of these characters' decisions are placed under the microscope, as they extort one another for answers and defend their right to live the way they envisioned for themselves. Warner's story bypasses familiar beats in favour of something altogether fresh and new. When justifying why they respectively do and don't want children, Lia talks about wanting to feel a love so enveloping it hurts her. Jo wants to do whatever she wants; if that something is nothing, so be it. Perhaps due to the contracted nature of the play, Lia and Jo are necessarily cleaved into neat binaries. Lia's so blinkered that she can't contemplate why someone wouldn't want a child, while Jo is so disconnected from the prospect that she doesn't know how to interact with a parent. 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. Loading 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. Loading 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.
Sydney Morning Herald
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Hobbits in the aisles: The Lord of the Rings musical is a valiant effort
Their affecting duet Now and for Always in the second half is one of the musical's highlights. Laurence Boxhall's performance as Gollum alone deserves five stars as he bounds across the stage on all fours, swings from ladders and somehow croons in the character's trademark breathy rasp. It's like Andy Serkis is in the room with us. Other standouts are Stefanie Caccamo as Arwen, bringing her signature melodic prowess to the ethereal role, an impressive violin-brandishing Hannah Buckley and cello-playing Jeremi Campese as comedic duo Pippin and Merry, and Jemma Rix as the majestic Galadriel. And there's the magic of it all. The demonic Balrog and gigantic spider Shelob are magnificently brought to life. The liminal state Frodo enters whenever he wears the ring is depicted through a stunning combination of lighting, sound and Newton's arrested movements. How you'll feel about this adaptation will hinge on your attachment to the source material, but if you want to see the most fantastical moments of the trilogy resurrected on stage, Lord of the Rings – a Musical Tale mostly delivers. Reviewed by Sonia Nair THEATRE The Comeuppance ★★★ Red Stitch Actors' Theatre, until May 25 High school reunions are sublime stages for the exploration of thwarted dreams, misled desires and suspended states of youth. Robin Schiff knew it when she wrote the play-turned-film, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, now a musical. Christopher Miller knew it when he created The Afterparty, the darkly comic murder mystery TV series that kicks off with a death at a high school reunion after-party. American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins knew it when he wrote his playscript, The Comeuppance, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2023 and is gracing Melbourne stages for the first time in this Red Stitch debut. Five friends who used to call themselves MERGE (Multi-Ethnic Reject Group) gather in DC to 'pre-game' for their 20-year high school reunion. Edging towards middle age and living through the 'comeuppance' from past decisions, they're in various states of disarray – exacerbated by copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. Party host Ursula (AYA) recently lost their grandma and is nursing partial blindness due to diabetes. Berlin-based artist Emilio (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor) is reticent about his newborn child and seemingly flourishing arts career. Caitlin (Julia Grace) is trapped in an unhappy marriage. Christina (Tess Masters) is severely struggling as a doctor who navigated the worst of COVID. And interloper Paco (Kevin Hofbauer) is suffering from post-traumatic stress as a war veteran. But this isn't any average school reunion. Lurking on the edges of Ella Butler's eerily constructed facade of a suburban porch is Death itself, who takes turns inhabiting each character to elucidate their relationship to mortality in sonorous, sinister addresses. It's a masterful sleight of hand from Jacobs-Jenkins, displaying the actors' range as they oscillate between their characters and Death, and blending exposition with a blatant reminder that everyone is on a slippery slope towards eventual pain and loss. The script is exquisitely dark, as Death – personified here as a catty gossipmonger – traverses the terrain of miscarriages, accidental deaths, suicide, death of children, loss of pets, war crimes and fatal illnesses. Jacobs-Jenkins depicts how large, traumatic, historic calamities like Columbine, 9/11, the Iraq War, Trump's election and COVID have metastasised into the rot of the characters' personal lives. It's a remarkably pessimistic but compassionate snapshot of life as a Millennial. Under Gary Abrahams' direction, the characters join the fray at different junctures throughout the night and circle each other in various formations of anger, joy, nostalgia and regret. In-jokes are carried out to their headiest conclusions in a particularly memorable choreographed sequence, spittle-specked invectives are uttered – mostly by Emilio, whose memories differ from those who've had to navigate a different version of the truth to cope with living in the hometown they're still in – and feelings are irrevocably hurt. Loading The play is pitched at such a frenetic level that it can be hard to maintain momentum throughout – it's split into two halves, unlike the original which ran for an uninterrupted 140 minutes – and the intensity of the exchanges are diffused when any one character is monologuing at length. Instead, the play is at its strongest at its bookends with intimate conversations that grapple with the sum of a life. The conceit of Death, while portentous, ultimately fizzles in the final sequences. A striking work of fiction that dares to situate itself in the aftermath of COVID, The Comeuppance combines horror with social realism to probe existential fears and chart our collective mental state. Are we OK? No, not really. Reviewed by Sonia Nair MUSIC The Soul of the Cello: Timo-Veikko Valve ★★★★ Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 3 There's a lot to love about Timo-Veikko Valve. After almost 20 years as principal cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Finnish-born musician, affectionately known as 'Tipi', has become something of an Australian musical treasure. Blending prodigious technique with infectious enthusiasm, he continues captivating music lovers wherever he goes. Working with the strings of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, this chamber concert not only confirmed Valve as a charismatic player but proved him a sensitive director and talented arranger. Bringing a questing sense of exploration to the Prelude from Bach's solo Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, Valve grew the music's intensity, leading it directly into a tidy account of Mozart's orchestral arrangement of Bach's E-flat major fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II. The variegated textures of Valve's effective arrangement of Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor underlined both the work's passion and playfulness; qualities reminiscent of its dedicatee, Joseph Haydn. Deftly alternating solo quartet passages with full orchestra or spotlighting soloists ensured a welcome lightness of touch, as in the Trio of the third-movement Menuetto, where acting associate concertmaster Tair Khisambeev contributed a sparkling solo. More abrasive textures came with Wiima by Valve's compatriot, Jaakko Kuusisto. After some sonic shrapnel, the music seemed to morph into a dystopian soundscape from which elements of civilisation struggled to emerge. Solo cameos for Khisambeev, principal second violin Matthew Tomkins and Valve's former ACO colleague, principal viola Christopher Moore, were all dispatched with aplomb. Passion and poetry allied with sheer joy made Valve's account of the Schumann Cello Concerto a thrilling highlight. His tender slow-movement duet with principal cello David Berlin vividly contrasted with the folksy rhythmic swagger of the finale. In manifesting all of Schumann's elegiac drama, Valve indeed revealed the cello's dynamic soul. Reviewed by Tony Way DANCE Yirramboi: Monster in the Cyborg Body ★★★ The Channel, Arts Centre Melbourne, May 3 Saturday was a long day for many – politicians, election workers and volunteers at countless sausage sizzles – but for no one more than choreographer and performance artist Joshua Pether, who spent 12 hours in a durational performance, embodying the strange, otherworldly ordeal of Monster in the Cyborg Body. While the democratic process played out in school halls and community centres, Pether staged his own parallel ritual of personal and political transformation – a slow and fluid ritual, still in the process of becoming – in the small studio behind Hamer Hall, overlooking the Yarra. The work, scheduled to run from sunrise to sunset, combined two earlier pieces by Pether exploring the intersections of indigeneity and disability. But rather than restaging them directly, he folded their concerns into an evolving performance landscape – circling, diffusing and reworking them in gestures of suspension and hesitation. It invited a porous kind of attention: audiences drifted in and out, collaborators appeared and disappeared. The performance seemed to breathe with the ebb and flow of its witnesses. In the morning, there was minimal action as piles of dry leaves were gradually shifted around the space and its centrally placed trestle table. By early afternoon, haze drifted through the room and a glitchy, subterranean soundscape began to pulse. WeiZen Ho, who created the sound design for one of Pether's earlier works, joined him as a performer. A tangle of yarn was slowly, unsystematically straightened out and then wrapped around a large column: a neat way of registering the passing of time. By late afternoon, the calm solemnity of the performance gave way to a more intense atmosphere. Appropriately, perhaps, the work reached its climax just as polling booths closed and counting began outside – a moment collective transition registered in the work's search for new ceremonial forms. Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann THEATRE Hans Zimmer ★★★ Rod Laver Arena, April 29 'I haven't done anything yet,' Hans Zimmer grins when he walks out on stage in Melbourne to immediate, rapturous applause. It's not hard to see why the mere sight of the man might cause such a response – any movie lover of the past few decades will know his iconic film scores, from The Lion King and The Dark Knight to Dune and James Bond movies. Zimmer's unique compositional style melds classical and synthesised elements, so a show bringing it all to life is a little like seeing the MSO if they were all wearing leather and performing in an arena with drunk men heckling them. Unlike other composers who might stay behind the scenes, Zimmer is a part of the experience: the 67-year-old plays guitar and keys throughout, and also chats candidly. 'I treat this like a big dinner party,' he says. 'It's like my best 10,000 friends coming over.' More than 20 musicians are on stage, with instruments including an electric cello, two drum kits, bagpipes, brass and a large gong. The technical prowess on show is impressive: special mention to Leah Zegler, whose vocal range in the Interstellar suite is incredible, and Pedro Eustache, who makes the Armenian duduk sing sorrowfully alongside Melbourne's own Lisa Gerrard for the music from Gladiator. Zimmer's music is masterful, often building from an unassuming foundation to something grand and sweeping – What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World? from 2013's Man of Steel is a great example, beginning with Zimmer on piano. It's a joy, too, to hear the spirited music from Pirates of the Caribbean live. But the show is let down by a poor sound mix – a blown speaker blares intermittently, and at one point the bass is so loud that it is actually painful on the ear. Generic footage accompanies the music – even stills from the films would evoke a stronger emotional response from the audience, who first found the music this way. The concert's runtime of more than three hours means there are also dips in energy – a tighter selection of music may have made for an overall more cohesive experience. Still, there are great moments in the show, such as the iconic Lion King music, though the strange inclusion of a non-Zimmer composition (He Lives in You) is ironically my favourite moment of the night. Zimmer ends on Time from Inception – a meditative piece that has the arena silent. It's a reminder of what good music can do. Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen JAZZ International Jazz Day Celebration ★★★★ Hanson Dyer Hall, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, April 29 In 2011, UNESCO designated April 30 as International Jazz Day. Since then, the annual event has become a universal celebration of jazz, with cultural and educational activities held around the world in the lead-up. This year, the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music hosted a free concert on the eve of International Jazz Day, highlighting some of the most recent additions to the teaching faculty – a faculty that now includes many of this city's finest jazz musicians. Andrea Keller (head of the jazz and improvisation department) was positively beaming as she introduced the musicians, who performed in different combinations alongside special guest Simon Barker. Barker has been working as artist-in-residence with the Con's jazz students, many of whom were in the audience on Tuesday to marvel at the Sydney drummer's artistry. They were treated to a masterful display of technique in the service of musicality – not just by Barker, but by all the performers. Solos were deliberately compact, emphasising communication rather than parades of individual virtuosity. International Jazz Day is about the value of shared experiences, after all. Alto saxophonist Angela Davis lent her ravishingly graceful sound to several ballads, while tenor saxophonist Carlo Barbaro variously strutted, swaggered and delved into turbulent freeform clouds. The rhythm section (Brett Williams on piano, Stephen Magnusson on guitar, Sam Anning on bass and Barker on drums) sketched deft backdrops for the shifting frontline, instinctively driving the energy forward or pulling back to a whisper when required. Gian Slater sang mostly wordlessly – including on a striking duet with Barker, where her voice rose like a ceremonial chant over Barker's expressionistic drums.
