Women Beware Women

Was a bit unsure before going into the theatre to see “Women Beware Women”. The version this year’s NIDA graduates were going to deliver was a late 17^th century text with a modern adaptation twist. The first half of the play used the Middleton text and the second half the adapted text by Howard Barker. So it is really playing on a dangerous mine field as any missing step can blow up the whole production.

The end result was a surprisingly good production. The premise of the play is quite “Dangerous Liaison”-ish. Wealthy with nothing to do woman playing an aristocratic game that backfired as the power of corruption proved to be too strong and devastating for everyone. Did anyone win? That is not the question as sacrifices were littered all over the place.

Rebecca Johnston as the plotting Livia delivered a marvellous free from any constraint performance. Her transformation between the two acts was right to the point and her eyes were telling all the stories that needed to be told. Annabelle Stephernson as the originally victimised Bianca showed how a will to turn the table could shake everyone to their core. From her original innocence to her later prowling for victim attitude, she demonstrated the transition of her character skilfully. Other memorable characters include Kimberley Hews who played the mother – in fact actually live the Mother character – throughout the whole play. Her gesture and speech had completely embraced the power of her make up and costume, delivering a character way beyond her age. Darren Sabadina’s Ward provided a lot of comic relief as the outrageous husband of Bonnie Sveen’s Isabella. The “marriage” was doomed right from the start and yet so delightful to watch. Martin Harper was a very solid Duke whose intrigue eventually got him tied up. It is a performance by a very solid ensemble cast. The text of both parts, though quite different in style, was delivered masterfully with clear articulations and precise emotional points. This is particularly important when you are performing the late 17^th century text in the first act as it laid all the foundation for part two, so if the story was not clearly told, it will completely destroyed the second act way before it started. The energy level of the whole performance was spectacular. You can actually feel the actors were at ease with the stage and enjoying themselves during the performance, which made it a very exceptional performance.

The stage was filled with rusty mobile structures accompanied by frequent swapping of props. The only constant on stage were the huge candles that were lit in the first act to provide a mystic and intriguing atmosphere for the actions. The candles though remain unlit in the second act, stayed on the stage providing a good sense of continuity for the story. The florescent lights that replaced the candles in the second act provided a good change of atmosphere for the outrageous and raw text in this act. Set designer Teresa Negroponte really managed to use some “simple” tools to help telling a complicated story.

In all NIDA graduates’ “Women Beware Women” was a surprising production that will leave an impression for you even after you left the theatre. Some may found the nudity and language a bit offensive but they surprisingly fit the tone of the play without making you feel awkward. “Women Beware Women” runs till 20 October 2009 at NIDA’s Parade Playhouse.

Rabbit Hole

Saw NIDA’s graduate production “Rabbit Hole” twice already. When you feel you enjoyed something second time round even more than the first, you know you are in for something really special. That’s exactly what this production of “Rabbit Hole” was to me.

The cast is an unknown cast to the outside world but they displayed one of the best ensemble casts I had seen recently. Most of the cast members have to act beyond their age. One of them even put on pads to achieve so. However, what made it special was the precise performance delivered by these soon to be graduates.

The premise of the play was about grief – five characters five different ways of dealing with the same grief. It is a case of helping each other while drowning themselves from time to time. Becca played by Jacinta Acevski was a woman who left her successful job to become a full time mum but things didn’t really go the way she wanted. She’s still controlling, judgmental and at times cynical. Her husband Howie, played by Rick Donald, was broker who sought external help while grieving privately. To ensure that he could “help” his wife, he put on a strong face. Then came along Izzy, played by Gabrielle Scawthorn, the slightly eccentric party girl sister who found out she was pregnant. She was also a girl who wanted to be the centre of attention while tiptoeing around everybody’s grief. Becca and Izzy’s mother Nat, played by Shari Sebbens, was trying to scull through her own experience to help her daughter, only to find out that it complicated things instead. Lastly we have, Jason, played by Hugo Johnstone-Burt, who was seeking closure for the pain he caused.

What’s good about this cast is that they didn’t try hard to make believe. I mean of course it will be hard to compare them with Cynthia Nixon or John Slattery, but they delivered a performance that in my opinion went way beyond some of the professional productions I saw in 2009. The play emphasized on grief, but it did not exaggerate it. So crying was not an essential element for the characters for most of the part and it was exactly because of this that when any of the characters eventually broke down, the impact was much greater – and these actors dealt with those important turning points with perfection. Howie’s outburst as compared to his usual composure completely exposed the pain and brokenness inside him and how he failed to deal with it no matter how hard he tried. Izzy to a lot of people was a comic relief (and that’s probably why in the Ensemble production they had a comedienne to play her, which I thought was wrong) but she is more than that. She was in fact quite a binding factor in the family as a lot of events revolved around her without she actually acknowledging the attention she got at times. Gabrielle’s interpretation of the “shrug” in the original script was one of my favorite moments in the play.

The set of the play was beautifully done and reflects the social status of Becca and Howie. Also there was sufficient space to play out all the actions written in the script. However, the stairs to upstairs did look flimsy from time to time, and it does look dangerous when characters ran up and down it. The play also had a nice and suitable soundtrack and I liked the fact they had actual video footage on the TV screen instead of just putting out a soundtrack. Kudos to them for that. J

“Rabbit Hole” runs till 17 October 2009 at the Parade Studio at NIDA.

A Streetcar Named Desired

Never really clicked with Tennessee Williams but Cate Blanchett is strong enough a reason for me to go to the theatre to see Sydney Theatre Company’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

It’s Cate Blanchett, so of course the house is full…except the two seats next to me. I sat right in front of the sound control box, which I thought was quite cool. The sound guy found me funny too as I looked so fascinated by the sound panel in front of him. The best thing of having two empty seats next to you is that you can then have all three seats to yourself when people around you are too uptight to free themselves up. So that’s what I did. I had the three wholes seats to me and could sit in whatever position I liked J

Back to the play. The set itself was quite different from my imagination. It is nothing like white washed or grey washed kind of structure but a two-level (which was indicated in the script) motel kind of structure. The lower level is where all the major actions took place. The major tone of the set is old wrapping paper kind of yellow with of course broken tiles and unmatched haphazard furniture to indicate the living condition of our main characters. On the far stage left is an iron staircase leading up to the Hubbells. However, the steps are so steep and narrow that every time they moved up and down, especially when Blanche was in her nightgown, I felt that one of them might trip over. It looked more like a potential health hazard than that damn radio that Joel accidentally threw at Cate.

Tess Schofield had done a brilliant job on Blanche du Bois’ wardrobe. It told the fall from grace story of her owner exactly the way it should. From the classic stylish suit in the first scene to the last scene where Blanche got nothing but a plain under-dress on, the status change of the character was more than obvious. As for Stan, it was just a set of beefcake outfit to show off the muscles to demonstrate the animalistic instinct of the character - really not much to do or say with that.

Performance wise, Cate demonstrated why she is one of the most sought after actresses in her generation. She basically lived the character in front of the audience. There was not much of Cate left on the stage. Every word she uttered just jumped out of the page in the exact way you would imagine the character to say it. The good part was that she was not over theatrical during the psychotic scenes, which made it a lot more believable. The way she tried to hold herself together while breaking down bit by bit through every single scene was brilliantly precise that you just wanted to see more of what’s going to happen next. Joel Edgerton as Stan had big shoes to fill. He was obviously buffed up for the role and he did have a few moments that he grabbed the essence of the character. However, it was really hard to match the now immortalised version by Brando. I am not saying that he is not good, but I just couldn’t see that kind of charm that came through from Brando’s version. That kind of baby innocent and “straight forward believe” charm that got Stella going back for more. Joel’s Stan is just rough edges all over the place, which worked really well most of the time, but then when he needed to woo Stella, he just didn’t really have it all. And in my opinion, this is extremely important to have that kind of baby charm with Robin McLeavy’s Stella. Basically Stella worked on maternity instincts. It was not an accident that Stella was pregnant in the play. When she described about Stan, it was his baby or childish side that attracted her – not just the animalistic features of her husband. Also when Blanche described about Stella to Mitch, she mentioned that Stella was older than she was, which I could be reading too much into it, but to me was also a hint of magnifying the maternity instinct of Stella. She thrived on maintaining the balance of the two kids in the house who were competing for her attention. And that was why when she went into labour, the balance broke and disaster struck. McLeavy’s performance was not bad, but maybe lacked the hint of maturity and maternity that I was looking for in this character. I always think that Stella was a really overlooked and difficult character as Blanche and Stan were such out there – and they have to be because they were competing with each other throughout the play. Tim Richards did a great job as Mitch. His yearning for Blanche and eventually heartbreaks were well portrait without over doing it. They were two lonely souls trying to seek refuge in each other, only to find out that the stake was much higher than Mitch could take. His dilemma between affection and ration was displayed skilfully by Tim Richard’s interpretation.

Liv Ullmann’s direction was on the whole precise and exactly what you would expect from a Tennessee Williams’ play. With such a bunch of good actors to work with I am sure work will have been easier. The good part was you don’t feel the performers competing with each other. That’s what’s essential for an ensemble cast.

In all, Sydney Theatre Company’s “Streetcar” was a great value for money production. You did think that the money is well spent and despite its length you didn’t really realised that time is a factor because you would be completely absorbed into their world.

My last line for the play will be: “Man I want to be that “Young Collector” guy. At least I got to kiss Cate while nobody did!”

Hey Hey or No Way?

Have been trying very hard not to get myself into the recent media vortex of the “Hey Hey” skit that put Australia back on to the international media radar for all the wrong reasons. The main issues here are: “Is it offensive?” and “What constitute a good humour and what not?”

I’ve been reading all the posts, arguments and debates over the last week and all sorts of ammo were triggered – White Supremacy, Positive Discrimination, Excessive Political Correctness, and not to mention Racism. The issue here for me is more about: “Are we continuing to stereotype people unconsciously because we found ‘people who dance in an explosive wig with painted face’ funny?” There are lots of things that are funny to us because a) they are inherently funny b) because they are stupid c) because they are alien to us, and I think the when we are dealing with c) that’s where we are treading dangerous waters.

The “Hey Hey” skit could be funny without people realising the bad implications 20 years ago, but is it still relevant and reasonable in the 21st century where people are trying to correct their views and after making the famous “Sorry Speech” to the Aboriginal people? I think that’s where we need to ponder on. I found it very interesting that when they said that the group itself is multi-cultural and not white, it is not racist – that is such a common fallacy nowadays. This is because racism is not restricted to Anglo-descent or the Whities, but exists in all races. The skit might not be considered as offensive if they were actually done by African- Americans because they are having a good laugh of their own history. However, any other ethnic group will not have that kind of safety zone to play around with. This is because then you will be considered as poking fun at other people’s history. The intention may not be malicious, but the impact is completely different.

Harry Connick Junior’s reaction to the skit was very understandable. As an American, he grew up in a completely different culture, his music is very influenced by the African-American stream and probably he’d seen a lot more issues than we Australians did. Just imagine that if the Americans did a skit of “Aboriginal Hayho with didgeridoos “ do you think the Australian media will let that go so easily? The table could be completely turned and Australians will be condemning the American media for even allowing this kind of skit to go on air. So it is not surprising that Harry Connick Junior had such a huge reaction to this and the American media are furious about this. A lot of time we just need to put ourselves in other people’s shoes I think.

When people argue that it is “just for a good laugh” I think we need to think about is what we are laughing at. Shock values have been the recent favourites of a number of programs of late. It seems that any publicity is good publicity has been the token value for some producers in the media. Cultural sensitivity is a touchy issue and the balance is really difficult to strike. Earlier I mentioned that if African-Americans did the skit, it might not cause such an up roar. However, they might still be condemned of perpetuating stereotypes among themselves. The other night I was chatting with a friend and we were also thinking did we, as non-Anglo actors or media practitioners voluntarily or unconsciously perpetuated our stereotypes among our peers? We make fun of ourselves from time to time, but does it do more good or more harm to us and our peers? This maybe something we need to think about too.

And here I am not talking about Australia as a racist country. There is racism in Australia but I believe it is not more or less than any other originally homogenous countries. I had heard stories from my Indian friends when I grew up in Hongkong and knew how some people talked about the Indian population in Hongkong. However, it is unfortunate that in the past Australia has a more media savvy profile as a racist country. I do believe the age of White Supremacy is something of the history books, but as an increasingly multicultural country, we do need to figure out how we deal with or get to know cultures that we don’t know and understand them instead of “finding it funny, so let’s have a good laugh” because the consequence could be beyond one’s imagination, as in the “Hey Hey” case. And by this I am not talking about being overly politically correct either, because then we are throwing ourselves into another pool of murky water. For example, as a Chinese Australian, I do think that if we stop celebrating Christmas because we are scared of upsetting people of other faiths, then we should stop celebrating all festivities, including the Chinese New Year parade. Understanding and integration is a complex issue and it requires all forces to work together. Laughing at cultural issues apart from your own is always dangerous and no matter one likes it or not, there will be people who are not happy about it.

I am not here to tell people what is right and what is wrong, but one thing I really feel about this is “you have to be in their shoes to understand their concerns”. Simply thinking, “If I were them I will be ok with it” a lot of time doesn’t work because you will never be them – and that is clearly indicated in the grammar. And there is no point shooting missiles randomly around either because that will just induce more damages and opening up more wounds instead of having an issue healthily debated and dealt with. I personally think that the whole “Hey Hey” Saga will come to an end when its media value disappears because that’s what Australian and international media do nowadays. But did we actually learn something after all the mud slinging? That’s something to find out in time.