Review: In The Heights

24 March, Hayes Theatre

From Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame, an exuberant, joyful musical about a tight-knit Hispanic community in Washington Heights, NYC. Bodega owner Usnavi dreams of going back to the Dominican Republic and asking gorgeous Vanessa out on a date; Vanessa longs for an escape from her everyday life; Nina returns from her first year at Stanford with secrets to keep; and can Daniela's salon and Kevin's taxi service survive the changes slowly overtaking the neighbourhood? And Abuela Claudia watches over all, the keeper of their stories.

With characters from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Chile, and more, the music is influenced by the sounds of Latin America as well as rap. The musical and dance numbers are truly the best thing about this show, and the Blue Saint productions cast and band brought them to roaring life - their passion really just wanted to make you stand up and dance, and they were met with rapt applause and cheers at the end of almost every number.

The questions this show poses about race, love, class are all relevant and good ones, as we look at a community in flux - forced out by higher rents and gentrification, or through aspirations of social mobility, clashing with other cultures - though the way it answers them, or doesn't answer them, is somewhat less satisfying. Everything works out well, through the power of love, and/or a random lottery ticket. It's true that this is an idealised fairytale vision of Washington Heights, not a documentary - but even so it all feels just a bit too easy.

The entire run is sold out so I can't say, go get yourself to the show. But if you already have a ticket or are lucky enough to pick up a return (check the Hayes Theatre facebook or website), then you'll have a great time. This show has enough energy and joy and heart to make you almost forget some of the ways it skips over the harder questions.
 

Review: Kevin Jackson
 

Book by Quiara Alegria Hudes
Music and Lyrics by Lin Manuel Miranda
Director Luke Joslin
Musical Director Lucy Bermingham
Choreographer Amy Campbell
Set Designer Simon Greer
Costume Designer Elizabeth Franklin
Lighting Designer Trudy Dalgleish
Sound Designer Anthony Lorenz

Starring Ryan Gonzalez, Olivia Vasquez, Tim ‘Timomatic’ Omaji, Luisa Scrofani, Marty Alix, Monique Montez, Libby Asciak, Alexander Palacio, Ana Maria Belo, Margi de Ferranti, Richard Valdez, Stephen Tannos, Will Centurion, Michelle Rozario, Samantha Bruzzese

Review: Top Girls

5 March, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House

To celebrate her promotion, Marlene has a big dinner with the girls - including such historical figures as Pope Joan; explorer Isabelle Bird; Dull Gret; Lady Nijo; and Patient Griselda - and things get pretty drunk and messy.

In the second half of the play, told in a much more realist vein in Thatcher's England, Marlene returns to the office for her first week as managing director where she deals with her colleagues, her runaway teenage niece, and her estranged sister.

Much like Churchill's Cloud Nine, I found this a play of two halves. The dinner party was not boring but I found its overlapping, shouted dialogue and its array of self-absorbed characters pretty hard going. The second half on the other hand was much more engaging, and I think allowed most of the actors to be shown off to much better effect than they were in the historical roles.

Like Cloud Nine before it, almost all the actors switch roles in the second half. But where Cloud Nine invited comparisons of contrast (black and white, woman and man, adult and child all swapping places) Top Girls asks you to draw the parallel, between Pope Joan who had to give up all semblance of femininity to rule and the middle-aged manager who's "one of the boys"; between Lady Nijo the Emperor's concubine who became a nun and the businesswoman engaged in an affair with a married man - to connect the lines, between all the restrictions and restraints placed on women that have changed, and the ones that haven't.

I found the second half to be uncomfortable but really interesting - Marlene and her sister and niece all occupying different standpoints on ideas of class and privilege, on motherhood and family. I really like how Churchill allows these women and girls to be complicated, to be full of contradictions and irrationality, which in turn makes them very relatable.

But I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed spending that much time with them. And I was annoyed that the first half, which had laid the ground for all of this, felt like it was such a struggle to get through. Wasn't there a shorter distance from A to B (the play as a whole is 2.5 hours), or a more entertaining one? I'm not saying theatre necessarily has to be fun or 'likable' to be interesting - but it really does help when the journey is taking this long, and when I felt like the point could've been made in much less time.

I didn't dislike the first half like I disliked the first half of Cloud Nine, that's for sure, so it was a more even and consistent experience - but I found myself asking if I felt the trade-off had been worth it.

 

Director Imara Savage
Set Designer David Fleischer
Costume Designer Renée Mulder
Lighting Designer Damien Cooper
Composer & Sound Designer Max Lyandvert

With Paula Arundell, Kate Box, Michelle Lim Davidson, Claire Lovering, Heather Mitchell, Helen Thomson, Contessa Treffone

Review: Single Asian Female

21 February, Belvoir St Theatre

Pearl owns a Chinese restaurant in Nambour on the Gold Coast. She and her two daughters - violinist Zoe, who's floundering in the world of online dating, and teenager Mei, who feels conflicted about her Asian-Australian identity - bicker over generational and cultural differences, while Pearl steels herself to tell them some unwelcome news.

Written by Michelle Law (the sister of comedian Benjamin Law) this is a crowd-pleasing comedy drawn in broad strokes, eliciting frequent laughter. It has the kind of jokes you expect about karaoke and puffy vests, makes the expected points parental expectations and playground racism. I don't say this disparagingly - it's an entertaining ride that had the audience engaged and laughing throughout, and towards the end it does hit a few sincerely tear-jerking places.

As an Asian-Australian - some bits of it hit home hard; others felt like cliche to me and not representative at all. But it shouldn't be the burden of this one play to be 'representative' of the whole experience. What I'd like to see next is more plays from writers of diverse backgrounds. The more voices there are, then the more we can see the full spectrum of experiences reflected on the stage, as sprawling and diverse as that spectrum is.

Even if it doesn't offer anything new narratively, it's still a novelty to see a cast of almost entirely women and of those, three Asian women as the leads (in fact there's only 1 male actor, and he is not white).

My friend commented that the crowd was so white and middle-aged - to be honest, it actually felt more diverse than usual for me! There were at least 10! Maybe 20! Asians! Mostly around our age and younger too.

 

Emily Burton
Lucy Heffernan
Patrick Jhanur
Alex Lee
Courtney Stewart
Hsiao-Ling Tang

By Michelle Law
Director Claire Christian
Set & Costume Designer Moe Assaad
Composer & Sound Designer Wil Hughes
Lighting Designer Keith Clark
Stage Manager Peter Sutherland
Assistant Stage Managers Katie Hurst & Keiren Smith

Reviews: ...to a simple rock and roll song, and Act of God

A couple of capsule reviews:

...to a simple rock and roll song (Michael Clark Company, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House)

A contemporary dance program set to Eric Satie's piano, Patti Smith's Horses, and a medley of David Bowie. The program describing Clark's rebel-rousing career and the title set this up as this rock'n'roll affair but in contrast the actual show was very restrained. The choreo focussed often on stillness and holds and lines, and very precise spins and moves, that are very unforgiving and demonstrated the dancers' great physical skill - but overall felt to me very emotionally distancing. And I wasn't sure why this choreo with this music? I was left feeling both impressed and nonplussed, if you know what I mean.

 

An Act of God (Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst Theatre)

God has come to earth for one night, inhabiting the body of character actor Mitchell Butel (one of my faves!), to set the story straight on his new 10 Commandments, accompanied by the Angels Gabriel and Michael. This quippy, campy production has a fun, late-night talk-show air to it, with frequent references to current events and a few interactive segments with various audience members. I enjoyed this but it was really almost all just "boom-tish!" type humour and even at 75 minutes, it felt a little long.

Review: The Wider Earth, Sydney Festival

17 January, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House

A production from the Queensland Theatre and Dead Puppet Society, depicting Charles Darwin's journey on the Beagle and his formulation of the theory of evolution.

There's much to admire about this play: the revolving stage that fluidly turned from interiors to exteriors, the video backdrop, and most of all the puppets.

All the animals are puppets - from pigeons and puppies through to tropical birds and, most impressively, a life-size, lumbering Galapagos tortoise. The puppets don't aim for realism but instead all have a wonderfully steampunky, skeletal air. I didn't feel they were always integrated well into the production, but they were really impressive.

I like the ideas in this a lot too, the way we see Darwin connect the theory of tectonic plates - a physical world that's constantly undergoing the act of creation - and his own burgeoning ideas about evolution.

So I liked a lot. I just didn't like… uh… the script.

Kudos to Tom Conroy as Darwin, a familiar face from the Sydney stage scene who did his best, but there wasn't much to work with. This felt very simplistic, with each character falling into quite a neat little box - the religious one, the skeptic, the scientist - they seemed like the ones adhering to some grand design rather than being allowed to live and breathe.

Good ideas, good design, lots of good elements, but this never came close to hitting the mark for me.

Trailer
Limelight Magazine

Review: Tree of Codes, Sydney Festival

9 January, ICC Theatre Darling Harbour

A contemporary ballet, choreographed by Wayne McGregor - supposedly an interpretation of Jonathan Safran Foer's experimental novella of which I know very little.

So let's begin with what I saw. It started in the total dark, from which lights began to emerge - attached to dancers, as we soon realised, outlining their bodies like constellations or, as they began to move, like fireworks. As a concept, it's great but as it went on I really just wanted to see the dancers - movement is one thing but shape and form, all those things were lost to the dark.

When the lights did come up, I was really thankful - the dancers of Company Wayne McGregor were excellent. I also found the set design by installation artist Olafur Eliasson alternately impressive and interesting - utilising mirrors, glass enclosures, reflections across the walls of the auditorium - and the music by Jamie xx quite powerful.

And yet, even at only 75 minutes, I also found this - a bore? I could admire most of the separate elements but when put together, with the rather repetitive and fragmented choreography that only rarely seemed to coalesce into moments of focus, I grew… a little sleepy.

Yes, I micronapped.

Was there a narrative? Was there a point? For me, this was less than the sum of its parts, let's say. Mileage clearly varies. There was a standing ovation at the end. Obviously, I didn't partake.

Shout out to the very congested scenes prior to entry thx to security check which then caused a fifteen minute delay to the start of the show. Props to the social media manager who replied to my snarky tweet so politely.

Shout out also to the ICC having not one but three different theatres, none of which are particularly clearly labelled. Props to Sydney Festival for having volunteers on hand to redirect people.

Tree of Codes program

Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes
Time Out review

Review: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Australian Ballet

11 December, Capitol Theatre

The story of Alice chasing the white rabbit down into Wonderland is now 150 years old, and so iconic that saying something fresh about it is pretty hard. And it's a challenge too adapting a story that relies so much on wordplay and on extreme transformations to the limited confines of a stage.

Christopher Wheeldon's ballet takes on these challenges and comes up with something that's mostly a delight. It runs too long at three hours (including two intervals) and there are some scenes that could stand some whittling down. But it tackles the metaphysical and just plain physical difficulties of telling this story and pulls them off beautifully; and the dancers and the choreography unfold the familiar story with a ton of charm and humour. Joby Talbot's music is quirky without being too cute - a really good match for the tone of the show.

The staging is spectacular, as lavish as any I've ever seen from the Australian Ballet, following Alice's journey through the most colourfully vivid and stylised sets - the tea party, the ugly Duchess's house, the courthouse of cards, the Red Queen's garden. These were combined with video backdrops and interstitials were used brilliantly to create the illusion of Alice's interdimensional journeys and physical transformations - down the rabbit hole, under water, small as a mouse, large as a house.

The Cheshire Cat was depicted with a giant puppet so impressive that the audience broke out into applause on its first appearance - it's that kind of show, reminding me very much of the spectacular spectacles and whiz-bang effects of the popular musicals that are usually staged at the Capitol - Wicked, Lion King and the like.

But the performers aren't overwhelmed by the production bells and whistles - Jade Wood was lovely as a determined Alice, with Brett Chynoweth doing great character work as the White Rabbit, Nicola Curry absolutely chewing through scenery with the greatest of gusto as the furious, ridiculous Red Queen, and Jake Mangakahia somewhat stealing the limelight as a slinky, sexy Caterpillar.

Narratively, this adaptation is faithful to the source though it adds a few flourishes to Lewis Carroll's story - most notably a framing story that tells of a nascent romance between a teenaged (rather than child) Alice and the young footman accused of stealing a fateful baked good, and ties that into the story of the Queen of Hearts and the knave who must lose his head.

Overall this version links the 'real' world much more strongly with Alice's dream world, with almost every dancer doubling up roles between the two worlds. There were always connections between the two, but this plays out more like the Wizard of Oz's "and you were there, and you were there, and you too!" than the strange other-ness of the Wonderland of the book. (There's also, I think, a much stronger suggestion of porcine baby slaughter? MAYBE? Can I just note in the book that the baby pig runs away...)

Visually, it draws from a number of famous Alices, most notably John Tenniel's iconic original illustrations which in turn strongly influenced Disney. The colour palette reminded me of the unfortunate Tim Burton movie at times, and the Mad Hatter is more Depp than Tenniel.

It's probably a little long to be totally ideal to a child audience, but aside from that I'd really suggest it to anyone, perhaps even more so to those who haven't been to the ballet before.

(The Australian Ballet site has some great photos, to get an idea of the visuals.)

 

Conductor: Simon Thew
Alice: Jade Wood
Jack/The Knave of Hearts: Jarryd Madden
Lewis Carroll/The White Rabbit: Brett Chynoweth
Mother/Queen of Hearts: Nicola Curry
Father/King of Hearts: Tristan Message (guest artist)
Magician/Mad Hatter: Kevin Jackson
Raj/Caterpillar: Jake Mangakahia
Duchess: Ben Davis