By Peter Maddern

Race relations are a fraught subject at the best of times. In post war USA, they reached another crescendo of hostility and conflict, though this time rather less violently than through the civil war of 70 years previous. Miss Daisy (Angela Lansbury) is an aging Jewish widow who’s driving record means she can no longer be trusted alone on the roads. Her diligent and caring son, Boolie (Boyd Gaines) hires her a driver, the African-American, Hoke (James Earl Jones).

Driving Miss Daisy then is the play of how these two start the long process of bonding, then inter-dependence and finally a sincere and deep friendship that sees their days out, with all of this played out before a back drop of the search for equality for African-Americans in the United States, particularly the South. The prejudice also displayed against Jews and the pressures placed upon those who get it by business and social conformity add spice to the tale.

For those who see Driving Miss Daisy as an opportunity to see two icons of TV, theatre and film strutting their stuff, you will not be disappointed. Recently I marveled at the stamina of 70 something Barry Humphries doing his ‘last’ show but he is but a spring chicken compared to Lansbury and Jones, both of whom are well into their 80s – Lansbury a remarkable 87.

Not that age was wearying them. Though neither was required to dance like Nureyev, both sustained their energy and composure throughout leaving us with the most touching and poignant moment of the whole show.

This play, written by Alfred Uhry, is a substantially pared down version of his Best Picture winning film of 1989 (directed by Bruce Beresford). Remarkably, this production is the first to be on Broadway and features that production’s cast other than for Lansbury who replaces Vanessa Redgrave. As well as its strong racial message, Driving Miss Daisy will also move baby boomers who will see their own lives flash before their eyes as the 60s pass and their relationships with their elders come into focus through Daisy, Hoke and Boolie.

A thoroughly enjoyable show that utilises minimal staging but clever use of projections to take us between the various locales and moments of time.

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By Peter Maddern

30 something Tom (Brad Williams) sits between two women who covet him but whose positions about sex are almost polar opposites. Eve (Claire Glenn) is a former girlfriend who saw her relationship and sexual appetite for ever changed after being raped in a pub by an unknown attacker. She is back from two years in China and keen to show Tom she has regained her touch. Manpreet (Serena Moorghen) similarly aged to Eve in her mid / late twenties is into anything that may be categorised by the word fetish. Inhibitions are not part of her DNA and everything seems inevitably aimed at sexual satisfaction. How lucky is Tom to be caught between these options!

This play written by Australian Van Badham after her return from a decade in England heavily reflects the theatrical scent of that country of the past 20 years. It revels in the notion that merit is a function of the shock created and her audience is spared no shortage of sex acts, nudity and violence to hammer home her points.

Claire Glenn takes on the most formidable challenge of the three players and does an admirable job, swinging and swaying between the hurt and challenges of her rape and the need to get back into the scene, to present herself as eligible for guys like Tom before it may be considered too late. Bitter and sweet, demoralised and energised, Glenn takes us on a convincing emotional ride juxtaposed not only against the instincts of Tom but the rapaciousness of Manpreet.

Myf Cadwallader’s staging makes good use of moving screens mounted on wheels though the precision with which the makeshift shower is placed and adjusted (or indeed used at all) all seemed somewhat unnecessary. But a real highlight was Chris Petridis’ lighting, giving great effect to the metaphor of the opening bathroom scene through to keeping the electricity of the relationships pumping along with strobing fluoro lights. His skills picked up through gigs with the likes of ADT are on full show.

Violent, shock theatre will appeal to many and for others it is a style that hopefully will disappear from view more quickly than it lasted. But it is fair to say the challenges taken on by the fivepointone team have been well-handled and this, clearly, is a company SA theatre goers will wish to keep close with.

Kryztoff Rating    3K

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By Peter Maddern

Hedda Gabler is a piece of work. A woman, named not as her husband’s wife but as her father’s daughter, exists in a world where her overarching desire for power over others pollutes the well of accepted behaviour expected by those around her. When Ibsen wrote the play, the character of Hedda was somewhat of a sensation given the straight laced preferences of the theatre of that time. Today, with Joanna Murray-Smith’s modern adaptation, she is probably a far more recognisable or familiar figure. But while strong, she is no pin-up girl for the feminist movement – there being no yang to her evil yin.

State Theatre’s modern adaptation via Murray-Smith is slick. Alison Bell successfully takes on one of the most demanding roles in theatre, seemingly preferring to paint her Hedda as a manipulating villain rather than say a victim of circumstance or an idealist fighting against society.

Hedda achieves her power and status not through beauty but a charisma that men find compelling, mostly to their detriment. Cameron Goodall, as her husband Jorgan, does nicely as the somewhat weak man who has fallen under her spell but who nonetheless also balances his career needs with respect for the struggles of a colleague rather better than his wife does. However, his seeming ambivalence to the potential joys of his honeymoon seems to not have made him rather more sceptical of his wife’s personality.

Terence Crawford as Judge Brack, their confidant and business manager, is the only one who seems to be able to match Hedda, with Crawford convincingly placing himself as Hedda’s equal in the game of free wills and manipulation.

Whether the modern adaptation works is questionable. While DJ Trip’s haunting electronic vibes instantly atune our minds to the present day, the combination of i-pods and mobile phones with hand written manuscripts seems somewhat awkward.  Perhaps pitching this in the 1980s would have been sufficient.

Kryztoff Rating   3.5K

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By Fiona Gardner

Dressed in a long Scottish kilt, Mark Wilson presents the story of a fictional replication of a daughter who is a theatre legend. This award-winning prima ballerina actress then takes you through the trauma or wild fantasy of an abusive parent. The crossing-dressing performance reflects on the grandeur of Mark Wilson’s inflated sense of being an artist and although this piece has been rated PG, it is definitely looking towards the M if not MA classifications, taking into consideration the impact that live theatre can create.

As the piece is narrated throughout, the role-play is enhanced with a psychologically deepening of the questions relating to the development of homosexuality. This performance states that it will whisper a confession (which plays on the question of reality) that turns into an unbelievable revealing final scene. Wilson delves deeply into the love that he has for his father, exploring not only Freudian sexuality but also relationship development generally towards our parents as well as the development of a specific gender.

Each scene is performed with great conviction and a spontaneity that will have you wondering what hit you. But be warned Unsex Me is extremely confronting and conservative minded folk may well walk out wiping their brow. This questioning autobiography leaves you guessing at the end between the rights of different genders and sexual equality with the whole effect maximised by the disturbing fact that its contents are indeed true.

Kryztoff Rating   3.5K

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Romina Verdiglione as Sylvia, Scott Perry as Mr.Lawrence, Miranda Pike as Iris, Patrick Clements (background) asOwen

By Peter Maddern

A ten year old girl, Iris, (Miranda Pike) has had her gold fish washed away by parents struggling with the bills and their marriage. When a strange man, Mr Lawrence (Scott Perry) arrives to become another boarder in the home, Iris increasingly sees him as a saviour; her new goldfish and a solution to the problems getting worse domestically.

Set in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, under Peter Green’s experienced and submersing direction Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, takes us most successfully back to another era. While the set is a tribute to detail and the music nicely chosen from the period (it is not often one hears Herb Alpert nowadays), it all goes to show that so-called simpler times had the same dramas we all often live with today.

The play opens with Iris positing on the aphorism that one’s childhood ends when unhappiness first sets in. From there, Canadian playwright Morris Panych has his audience hoping that the joys of her child hood can indeed be sustained, that a happy ending for these sometimes sad individuals can be found. Depressingly, at times, however it seems she is only one of the characters who cares about that.

No review of Goldfish would be complete without featuring Pike’s superb display as Iris. While she opens with the head start of being rather closer to Iris’s age than most of her audience, maintaining a credible physical front as a girl has to be balanced with delivering the wit, naivety and yet wisdom of a mind dealing often mulling on adult issues. Hers is a wonderful performance.  

New to the stage but delivering with assurance is Scott Perry. The awkwardness of his Mr Lawrence character is confidently delivered and sustained, helped somewhat by his imposing physique and the Forest Gump like clobber. Patrick Clements as Owen, Iris’ forlorn father, is also excellent in conveying the pent up terror of a middle-aged man who has no career, dreams that can’t be fulfilled and what he does has is on the edge of deserting him when his wife, Sylvia (Romina Verdiglione), unsuccessfully attempts to leave the family home.

While all that may sound somewhat sombre fare, the truth is that there is great humour amongst Goldfish’s poignancy and the evolved yearnings to see a hitherto happy childhood extended keeps us with the program.

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The Bakehouse Theatre Company

is pleased to present a show to open its 2013 Season,  that is both hilarious and heart breaking:-

 “GIRL IN THE GOLDFISH BOWL”

 by Morris Panych.

Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Drama

 It’s funny, heartbreaking and just a little bit odd

 “My mother says you know when you’ve grown up. It’s the moment you stop being happy and start remembering when you used to be.”

It’s 1962 and the Cold War is at its peak. For ten-year-old Iris, not only is the world on the brink of extinction, so is her childhood. When the eccentric young girl discovers an amnesiac drifter on the shores of a remote Tasmanian fishing town, she’s sure he’s the reincarnation of her goldfish, sent to rescue her family and her youth.

Written by one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl is hilarious, yet heart breaking. The award-winning play brings back the absurdity, pain and beauty of growing up.

Directed by: Peter Green (who brought you shows like “Educating Rita”, “Misery” and “The Drawer Boy”)

Featuring: Miranda Pike, Patrick Clements, Bronwen James, Scott Perry and Romina Verdiglione
Set/Costume design: Manda Webber
Lighting/sound design: Stephen Dean
Stage Manager: Manda Webber

WHEN:

Previews: Thursday April 18 and Friday April 19 (All tickets $20)
Opening Night: Saturday April 20.
Season Continues: April 24, 25, 26, 27.  May 1, 2, 3, 4.

All shows at  8pm

WHERE: Bakehouse Theatre, 255 Angas Street, Adelaide

TICKETS:  Adults $28; Concession $24; Fringe Benefits $20; Groups (6+) $20; Students (Secondary, Tertiary and Drama) $15; Previews $20

DURATION: 90 minutes plus interval

BOOKINGS:  www.bakehousetheatre.com

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HEDDA GABLER  

By Henrik Ibsen

In a new adaptation by Joanna Murray-Smith

26 April – 18 May 2013

Opening Night: 30 April 8pm

DUNSTAN PLAYHOUSE

Ibsen’s enigmatic heroine is brought to life by one of Australia’s most exciting young actors, Alison Bell, in a new adaptation of Hedda Gabler by leading Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith.

If Hedda Gabler were a real-life figure today, she would be a staple of the gossip magazines and tabloids – the “It Girl” of her generation. Raised as a blue-blood, renowned for her beauty and intelligence but trapped in the mediocrity of her boring academic husband’s world, Hedda is desperate for excitement, both romantic and intellectual. When her husband’s former academic rival arrives back on the scene, a spark ignites and Hedda initiates a manipulative and deadly game.

Regarded as one of theatre’s greatest female roles since it was first published in 1890, Ibsen’s celebrated anti-heroine has been brought to life by many of the world’s greatest actresses, including Ingrid Bergman, Maggie Smith, Judy Davis and Cate Blanchett.

“I’ve been waiting to have another go at Ibsen since directing Ghosts in 2008, and to approach one of his greatest plays, in a wonderful new version by Joanna, is a real honour,” says Director Geordie Brookman.

Most recently delighting audiences in ABC TV’s Laid, and lighting up stages for Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Melbourne Theatre Company, Alison Bell makes her State Theatre Company debut in this role. She is joined by Company regulars Kate Cheel (The Glass Menagerie, Three Sisters), Terence Crawford (Speaking in Tongues), Cameron Goodall (In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Hamlet), Carmel Johnson (Pornography, Three Sisters) and Nathan O’Keefe (Pinocchio, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)).

Joanna Murray-Smith has achieved international success as a playwright, renowned for her thought-provoking plays which deftly mix comedy and drama, elegant language, wit and savage observations. Her work has been nominated for many awards including the Olivier Award for Best Comedy for Female of the Species, which State Theatre Company presented in 2008. Her other plays include The Gift, Rockabye, Ninety, Bombshells, Honour, Redemption, Lovechild, Honour and Songs for Nobodies which recently toured Australia. Murray-Smith has been awarded two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Drama, Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2004 and the London Theatregoers Choice Award. She was also a finalist for the 2006 Miles Franklin Award and was nominated for the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

“Bell is a terrific actor. Her Una is alternately vulnerable and defiant, but as her armour cracks, we get a piercing portrayal of the suffering Ray’s betrayal has wrought.” The Age, on Alison Bell in MTC’s production of Blackbird.

DIRECTOR: Geordie Brookman

SET AND LIGHTING DESIGNER: Geoff Cobham

COSTUME AND ASSOCIATE SET DESIGNER: Ailsa Paterson

ASSOCIATE LIGHTING DESIGNER: Ben Flett

COMPOSER: DJ TR!P

CAST INCLUDES: Alison Bell, Kate Cheel, Terence Crawford, Cameron Goodall, Carmel Johnson and Nathan O’Keefe

For further media information, images and interviews, please contact Sophie Gardner on (08) 8415 5312 or 0431 210 131 or email sophie@statetheatrecompany.com.au

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Poor Uta, for when her audience joins her for a party in her room at the Hotel Richmond she is somewhat dishevelled  as a result of no one turning up to the relaunch of her career at some dive on Hindley Street a few hours before.

From there, with the constant urgings of her stressed manager, George, Uta takes on various indulgences as the audience tries to gets comfortable and settled whether on the bed, couch or various plastic stools.

Her tales degenerate from her high times with celebrities to finally some home truths that peel away at her delusional persona, heavily based around her one ‘hit’ song that has been tragically remixed in a 21^st century electro style.

This is all great fun as her party goers, one and all, get caught up in her story as they mingle and dash for a comfortable place to witness what at times is madness.

Uta is a very different kind of show and ideally presented for the Fringe – it is zany, self-indulgent and often very funny with some Dame Edna touches and moments that make you think of how silly stardom is and Mick Jagger looks trying to be a 20 year old at 65.

Come with a few under the belt, a taste for further champagne and a throat ready to yell ‘yes’ at any whim she or George may propel your way.

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