The Winslow Boy

The Winslow Boy tells the true story of a young cadet being accused of theft and expelled from the navy. His father who believed his son was innocent took all means to pursue for justice and along the way brought collateral damages to members of his family.  The play had received recent revivals on Broadway and the West Ends with some success. Now it is the Genesian Theatre’s turn to tackle this story.

Directed by Nanette Frew, Genesian Theatre tackled this well-known play in a most straight forward way. Story was told page by page on a family home stage and characters whizzed on and off. The pace was fast no non-sense and it kept the momentum going. There were a few places here and there that fell flat but overall it was a very fluid run of the script. The set was a bit wonky at places and the wobbly balcony door was a sore for the eye for me, and so was the at times creasy costumes worn by the actors. Surely at least at the beginning of the play when they are still kind of well off they would have Violet or other servants (they must have otherwise how could they maintain a two storey house with a huge front and backyard?) ironing their clothes before putting them on for the day? But then I could be a bit too picky and looking for unnecessary perfection in a community theatre. The story told about the cost of the law suit that drained the finances of the family but in terms of sets and costumes it was hardly reflected.

The ensemble did a decent job and had some good performances throughout the two acts. My personal favourite was Sonya Kerr who played Catherine. She displayed a huge range of emotional commitment yet did not subject herself to the weak stereotype that only acted by her heart. It was a meaty role and I think Sonya digested the role and transformed herself brilliantly. Catherine was witty and so was Sonya’s interpretation; Catherine was warm hearted and it could be seen via Sonya’s performance and Catherine was determined and so was Sonya’s display. It was refreshing whenever she stepped on to the stage. Equally interesting was Lachlan McNab who played the pretty much ignored son Dickie in the family. He was not the favourite son and the play did not hide that in between the lines.  What I appreciated about Lachlan’s performance was that he didn’t play the typical bitter martyr this character could easily slip into. He maintained a wicked sense of humour on situations that fell unjustly upon him. Those lines could be delivered in contempt and he could act like a dick but he chose not to. This added a lot of authenticity to the character. Lois Marsh and David Stewart-Hunter played the parents of the family. The delivery was respectable but not ground breaking. They are nice characters but simply playing nice and warm and concerned did not really give the characters much space or dimensions. The niceness, warmth, concern and determination displayed were just words displayed and I could not see a huge range of depth from them. You wanted to care about those characters but you just did not know how to do so because you weren’t really let in. That’s how I felt.  Roger Gimblett as Sir Robert Morton had some shining moments especially toward the end of the act 1. The chemistry and tension between Robert and Catherine were interesting to watch. Both seemed to have admiration for each other but fundamental differences in ideologies just kept getting into their way. Their scenes were just really enjoyable. As for the remaining characters, they were not as memorable. The Winslow Boy Ronnie was supposed to be the centre of the play but in the production it feels more on the centre right waiting to kick a goal that never seemed to come his way. Meg Mooney as Violet did not have the range that I was hoping for. I suspect it could be her voice issue that the character never really delivered. If you have a hard time catching the words it will be hard to understand the words in my opinion. Also the character seemed to be a bit colder than what I would expect for a maid who had devoted most of her life to this family.

On the whole this presentation of The Winslow Boy was an enjoyable and entertaining experience. There is quite some production value in it and its “straight down to business” presentation style made it extremely approachable for all.  That is something I always appreciated about Geneisan’s productions. It did not attempt to over-stylised productions and forgot about the theatrical basics – story telling. It is a definitely good way to enjoy a Friday or Saturday evening if you are in town.

The Winslow Boy runs from 17 January to 14 February at Genesian Theatre.

Sephiroths of the World

The year 2015 has a bumpy start in terms of world peace. The Charlie Hebdo incident that left 17 dead shocked the world and triggered the “Je suis Charlie” movement in France and around the world. Also a number of world leaders untied at the march after the incident to show solidarity and a united stand against extreme Islamist activities and for the protection of freedom of speech. These are all good if people actually live what they preach.

The fact is that it is not a universal trait for the human species to be peaceful and live in harmony. People were trained to identify differences and when they are in power some just want to force others to be the same as them. The whole attitude of “If you are not with us you are against us” is not unique to the Islamic extremists. Looking at what is happening around the world, in nearly every single political system, democratic or not we can see that trait. From George Bush to the Chinese Government to our very own Coalition government in Australia now, they are all the same. They persecute or suppress people under different banner and languages of their only political orientation to achieve the same results – to purge the differences they identified as threatening their own existence, with grounds or not – and sometimes exploit the notion of freedom of speech to achieve their own political agenda.

Living in a western democratic society we seemed to have provided a lot of options for how we want our country to be governed but is that so? Looking at Australia now we have a very incapable extreme white and right-wing government that cares about nobody else but themselves and their multi-million / billion friends. Projects that are not sustainable will be green lit, continued loud dismissal of climate change despite 2014 had became the hottest year since records were preserved, culling of marine lives to facilitate irresponsible fishing, dredging of sea beds and dumping of pollutants into the reef, the deforestation of lands because they were “just laid there not being unutilized for the lumber industry” and the list goes on. The whole gang of the Coalition government cannot look pass their own current and future interests but then repeatedly claiming they are for the better of the country while making people paying more for healthcare, paying more for education, paying more for goods and services, and triggering job lost by unnecessary cuts while fattening their own pockets with pay rises at 7% per annum while the defense force gets a less than inflation rate increase.

But for me the more disturbing thing is the concerted efforts of these “right-wing elitists” trying to purge the world of diversity unless they are good for their own publicity. There is no secret that establishments such as Fox News have extremist right wing agenda through and through in their programs. They have been mocked but they continued to push their agenda loud and crazy in the media, presenting fictions as facts. The recent “No-go zone” fiasco they started is one of the epitomes of irresponsible “journalism” that establishment exhibits. The fact is that I do not believe Rupert Murdoch and his outlets will stop in any sense (consider Rupert hailed his newspaper for reporting the bloody outcomes of the Sydney Siege instead of expressing condolences for the victims and thinks that all Egyptians are white – and strangely “tanned” in his Exodus themed movie) and they will continue to yell and shout until they drown out oppositions views (just look at how “interviews” were carried out against people who don’t agree with Fox News’ views).

In the acclaimed video game Final Fantasy VII there is a much-loved villain called Sephiroth. He was a good man until the point he found out his true identity and decided to purge the world of “evil” by summoning a meteor to crush the world. Anyone who did not agree with him or in his way will be removed. He was dubbed as the One Wing Angel because of his iconic single wing stance in his fighting form. Strangely when I looked at his picture again the other day, Sephiroth’s single wing was on the right hand side. This let me starting thinking about was the whole right wing design a reflection of the designing artist’s expression of what Sephiroth did resembled to what right ring politicians do? It is originally a Japanese video game so probably it has a lot more reference to the right wing Japanese politics, which we all knew led to a lot of pain and bloodshed in World War Two in many countries across Asia. The right wing politics is still strong and loud in Japan and it seems they haven’t forgot about the good old “world domination” agenda in the politics when they wanted to rebrand their World War Two invasions in textbooks and to simply “entering” those countries.

But when we consider this kind of approach, a lot of right wing governments are just doing exactly what Sephiroth was trying to do – changing the world with a limited vision and remove all entities they considered being in their way. The Abbott government’s attack on ABC and SBS because they were not producing pro-government materials, the motion to dismantle the renewable energy industry, the funding cut to CSIRO and the motion to pull down the renewal energy funding organization are all clear examples of this. The act of George Brandis to cut the Australia Council funding by 30% after they returned the sponsorship of a company that runs detention centre for the government is also suspiciously coincidental.

Artists are known to be more freethinking and not conforming to establishments. It is through their critical views of the world that we continue to question and improve our society. Politics, which hugely affects people’s lives, should be in no exemption when it comes to artistic scrutiny and critique. So it could be under such circumstance that Sephiroth was created as a “right wing” One Wing Angel when fulfilling his role in Final Fantasy.

It could be me just over-thinking about Sephiroth because of the world that I am living it or maybe not. But then on further thoughts, I think equating Sephiroth with our right wing politicians, power holders and establishments in this world is in fact an insult to Sephiroth, whom was a much loved character in Final Fantasy VII. For this I apologise to all gamers around the world who loves Sephiroth.