Wondering on one history

Casanova is a legend, of course, a challenge for men and a dream for women. I guess. We went to see Canberra Rep's take on Casanova last night and it was a frolic (labelled "fast, fun, unforgettable") but even touching. They did a great job, busy, interesting, convincing, entertaining, great costumes and stage set and lots of that blast from the past, the rotating stage. It all worked. I'm not so much one for laughing at all this, but I admired it and it got me musing over Giacomo Casanova and the story. The show is presented as the old Casanova recounting his story to a chambermaid. There's even a seduction by the old man but it's more education than flirtation. I was taken by the young and old Casanovas and I could imagine they were one character. I even thought I could see similar facial structures (Megan doesn't agree). The young Casanova was attractive, energetic, playful and surprisingly respectful. It's not a picture we have. Core to the plot was a love story for Henriette who also rose from poverty and was locked into high marriage and duty. Marrying for love is a modern, post-romantic obsession of wealth and I wonder if this twisted the history we are presented with. A number of modern obsessions appear in the performance, even gay marriage, although the castrato who GC falls for turns out to be woman in disguise and amusingly GC had guessed that at the start. There's a duel with Henriette's wealthy, powerful, high-born husband and several scenes of debauchery and a coronary-inducing confession and a prison scene. But there's attractive honour and dignity in Casanova's love for Henriette and his advice to an illegitimate son (who he'd influenced without conscious guidance) and even a certain decency in his sexual conquests. This is the attractive side of GC and it was offered here. There's a scene where he is saying men don't talk with an implication of his awareness of, and attractiveness to, women. This attractiveness is intriguing and central. So, despite his notoriety, he's presented here as not just the raw and disrespectful seducer. I'm wary of believing history when portrayed in film and the like so I downloaded his memoirs (free online) but they are lengthy and I know I will never do other than skim some pages. But in the search, I learnt that "Casanova" (also Don Juan) as an adjective dates to Victorian days and I expect that's the source of our image of GC. The warning at the start of my downloaded "Rare unabridged London edition of 1894" typifies it: "Transcriber's Note: These memoires were not written for children, they may outrage readers also offended by Chaucer, La Fontaine, Rabelais and The Old Testament D.W." So, Casanova continues to appeal and to fascinate and the Canberra Rep performance did an excellent job in continuing that fascination in this town.

Casanova was directed Jarrad West for the Canberra Repertory Society. The play was adapted by Mark Kilmurry from the screenplay by Russell T Davies. The performers were Ben Russell (Casanova), Tony Turner (Older Casanova), Amy Dunham (Henriette), Riley Bell (Rocco), Steph Roberts (Edith), Bojana Kos (Bellino), Chris Zuber (Grimani) with an ensemble comprising Kate Blackhurst, Geoffrey Borny, Liz Bradley, Kayla Ciceran, Alice Ferguson, Sam Hannan-Morrow, Bradley McDowell, Emily Ridge, Teig Sadhana.

A salon of their own

Six women meet in a beauty salon in a town in Louisiana. Truvy has had her garage converted to the salon. Her slogan is "There is no such thing as natural beauty " (it's good for business). She's in a little town. Annelle is doing Truvy's hair as the show begins, and she gets the job as Truvy's offsider. Annelle's quiet and needs a job. Daughter Shelby is getting married that day. Mother M'Lynn also comes to prepare for the wedding. There are a few stories - one of Annelle, which is oddly undeveloped, and mostly the story of Shelby - which wend through four scenes spread over a few years. There's sadness, intimacy, female friendship and support. There's also good humour, occasional short tempers, some fear and hope and discovery and most of all, quipping. These are friends but not too conspicuously. It's a small town. The wealthy Clairee eventually owns a radio station and expands her horizons with travel to NYC then Paris. Shelby and M'Lynn go through tragedy. Annelle is born again and she eventually finds accord with her more mainstream friends. I'd heard of the work from the movie with that mega cast - Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts - but I hadn't seen it. The script was written by a man, living in NYC, following the death of his sister with diabetes, in just 10 days. The play was a buzz off Broadway and within a few years was filmed on location in the original town, Natchitoches. Here, Canberra Rep did it, and the Canberra Times gave it a great review, so we went. What thoughts? It's a pleasant drama with some depth and emotional resonances, so it's satisfying and presentable. I felt this was very, very well acted. The program gave a long list of acronyms and achievements, NIDA, WAAPA, STC, Q, Belvoir, All Saints, TV and more. Strangely, we are the salon's mirror and the cast often gazes at the audience. The accents were a test at first, and occasionally relaxed into Aussie nasal, but we got used to it soon enough. There are quips throughout, but not too many belly laughs from an Aussie audience. I'm not sure it's our style. This is wisecracking southern USA, somewhat parochial but nonetheless wise. I imagine our rural or smallish town life may be the similar. This is not Chicago or NYC or even Canberra but neither is it hick. This is women's wisdom, earthy, and wise and supportive. Author Robert Best was interviewed and spoke of steel magnolias as beauty made in very strong stuff. And of southern women as "while gorgeous, they are fragile and bruise easily" but with "a tensile strength stronger than anything [he] could muster". I understand. These are wise but wisecracking women and impressive. As was the Rep performance.

Steel Magnolias was performed for Canberra Rep by Karen Vickery (M'Lynn), Nell Shipley (Shelby), Amy Dunham (Annelle), Judi Crane (Ouiser), Liz Bradley (Clairee) and Rose Braybrook (Truvy) under Jordan Best (director).

Loving to death

Camille Paglia listed the Star Wars saga as one of 100 key works of Western art*. I prefer to include West Side Story. We saw Free Rein Theatre Company performing WSS last night at the Q Theatre and it was sensational. Remember, this is a semi-professional company, so its show was pulled together from a range of skills from schoolkids up. And schoolkids is appropriate. WSS is an undated Romeo & Juliet, and the central characters are kids. Who else can love so strongly? But what a story of tragedy, of slips and errors, of social conditions and misunderstandings and at the end, perhaps of hope for a better future. All accompanied by the hugely infectious music of Bernstein. Not for nothing that this work is so loved. I have a copy of the red sleeved LP and it’s played to death so the words are inpinged on my mind. I feel every musical line from the first dots of the overture. I know most of the spoken lines, too. So I was a bit surprised to find a few unexpected segments: a strangely unrecognised musical intro to one tune (was it I feel pretty?); a repeat of the rumble death scene and a dance scene in red and black that I couldn’t place; only girls singing America. That’s perhaps the difference between the stage and film versions. I’ve read of a few scene changes from Broadway to film.

But what of this performance? I could not believe the effectiveness and joy of the dancing. They had limited space on stage but this was hugely vibrant and capable. Plenty of angled ankles displayed extensive training. Similarly the fun and details, like Maria’s three mates, Rosalia, Consuela and Francisca, in the I feel pretty scene. The love was believable and the tragedy was deeply felt, accepting the fantasy of theatre; the confusion and cock-sure offense of the kids was willing. The two gangs, the Jets and Sharks, were effective, although I have to give it to the Sharks for dignity and presentation: latins just have sexier moves than us whites. The voices were stunning at times, well in tune, powerful and wonderfully amplified and true to the original, even if some high notes were a struggle. I loved the operatic counterpoint of a few scenes, although I preferred the street, pop voices to operatic styles. This is art of the streets and the purity of opera voices seems out of place (I disliked the concert version by Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras although it’s conducted by Berstein himself, but loved the quirky Songs of West Side Story with artists including Chick Corea, Patte LaBelle, Steve Vai, Aretha Franklin, Brian Setzer and Little Richard singing I feel pretty). Soprano Maria is young, even if wise in love, so actually less interesting to me than alto, Anita, the older, worldier girlfrend of Maria’s brother. It’s Anita who learns from the purity of Maria, but it’s Anita who lives in the world. She’s the one who leads the Sharks girls in singing for America. What a great scene. As was Gee Officer Krupke, that witty play on justice and delinquency. There were so many good voices, but I have to mention the guys, lover Tony, Jets Riff and Action and Shark Bernardo. They were outstanding. Anita was a blast, too. Maria was just lovely in her too-early lost innocence. Plenty of great dancers but Anybody’s, the tomboy hanger-on to the Jets, was prominent and boyish, and sometimes even dignified when out of role for a bit. Feminists might not like her suddenly womanly as she walks Maria out at the end (Tony: “you’re a girl, act like a girl”). As for the music, this is Bernstein. It’s busy and balladic, frantic and occasionally floating, melodious and dissonant, syncopated and presumably hell to read, fabulously orchestrated. It has melodies that cut to your heart and energy that has you out of your seat. Which brings me to the musicians. This was an orchestra of 19 plus conductor. Admittedly, I concentrated on words and vision, but this was hugely impressive. I heard a few wobbly bits, but this was played with verve and love that this music demands. Great!

So, to put it simply, I’m in awe of this show. Both of the work of Gershwin and Laurents and Sondheim and Robbins, and of this semi-professional but long-standing company that can pull it off so well. The highest of praise from your emotionally devastated reporter. Catch it if you possibly can.

I can’t list everyone, but West Side Story was presented by the Free-Rain Theatre Company with Anne Somes (director), John Yoon (musical director), Lisa Buckley (choreographer). Key actors were Lachlan Whan (Tony), Nicola Hall (Maria), Zack Drury (Riff), Jordan Kelly (Bernardo), Amy Dunham (Anita), Michelle Norris (Anybody’s), Max Gambale (Action). The orchestra comprised Major Geoff Grey (conductor), Bernadette Evans, Tony Barker, Jess Stewart, Steve Hally-Burton, Jordan London (reeds), Carly Brown (French horn), Cameron Smith, Claire Leske (trumpets), Matt Ricketts/Simon Hukin (trombone), Elizabeth Charlton, Elysia Fisher, Jane Bairnsfather (violins), Annie Collett (cello), Jace Henderson (bass), Rhys Mottley (guitar), Steve Richards (drums), Alicia Perritt (percussion), Matt Rankin (synthesiser) and John Yoon (piano).

* Glittering images : a journey through art from Egypt to Star Wars / Camille Paglia. New York : Pantheon Books, c2012.

Strobe no warning

Live dangerously. Strobe light. No warning. So we joked in the car as we drove home. Megan and I had just seen two short plays, God and Pool (no water) performed by the Everyman Theatre Company. This is local theatre, performed in a small space, the Courtyard Theatre, for a small audience, and thank God/s that this theatre exists. It’s a place for experimentation, challenge, humour, even if it does have its rough edges. The two plays were quite different, but the commitment and thought was evident.

God is an early Woody Allen play. It starts with playwrite Hepatitis and slave/actor Diabetes planning how to win a drama competition. Then through interactions with audience from Gunghalin and a quest to the King and the arrival of Zeus as the veritable deus ex machina to the accidental murder of the doll-God. It’s obviously corny and jokey but also sited in its relationship to Ancient Greece and it even deals with some meaty issues of courage and protection and perhaps adulthood in metaphor. The cast did a great job with lots of energy, slapstick presence, audience proximity and mock involvement and some minor props. I wondered how the script had changed for the original (was a phone call to Woody Allen in the original? Northborne Avenue and Gunghalin certainly weren’t). Nice to see a fellow workmate on stage, too, but it’s not the first time. God was written by Woody Allen, directed by Duncan Driver and performed by Jarrad West (Diabetes), Duncan Ley (Hepatitis), Wayne Shephard (Trichinosis), Euan Bowen (King and a Fate), Amy Tinycray Dunham (another fate), Zach Drury (guard). Three others (who came from the audience) are not mentioned in the brochure, Steph Roberts (Diabetes’ girlfriend) and an unnamed other.

Pool (no water) is a weightier production dealing with jealously, success, schadenfreude and such. Four unsuccessful artists visit a fifth who had been part of the team years back, but in now rich and successful amd owns a pool. They party and, later in the night, go to recreate their skinny-dipping exploits, but, in the dark, the successful woman dives into an emptied pool and is seriously injured. The four photographically record her time in hospital and recovery over several months while enjoying the wealthy lifestyle, then destroy the photos after the successful one turns them into a sellable exhibition. The successful one derides the failures and they end happy in suburban life, presumably accepting their artistic failure. The characters and carry on are not likeable or attractive. You can understand the frustration and subsequent pleasure in misfortune but, of course, you don’t admire it. There’s an awareness of failure by these four. It’s not conscious, but spelt out in drugs and sex as they delude themselves. Drugs and sex thus strobes and Hendrix, and skinny-dipping thus (discrete) nudity. This was performed with lots of energy, with four actors playing fives parts, with considerable drama and evident innocence. I was satisfied with the plot finale of settling to family and suburbia although I was uncomfortable that it came so suddenly after the successful one’s climax speech. But the presentation was involving and the theme was challenging. Pool (no water) was written by Mark Ravenhill, directed by Duncan Levy and the cast was was Jarrad West, Steph Roberts, Amy Dunham and Zach Raffan.

Everyman Theatre Company performs the repertoire (Richard III was mentioned) as well as these lesser known works. This was quirky and intelligent and relevant theatre and that’s how I like it.

What’s a surrey?

O…klahoma where the da da da-da-da-da daaaa. That was about all I knew about the musical, except a discussion in recent weeks about the origin of the word “dashboard” that quoted a line from The surrey with the fringe on top, a song from, you guessed it, Oklahoma! The surrey was obviously a horse-drawn carriage, but I wasn’t too clear in my mind about that either. Oklahoma! was the first musical of Rodgers and Hammerstein and it was a great success on Broadway when released in 1943 running for a season of 2,212 performances. It’s a story of a central romance (Curly and Laurey) and a secondary comic romance (Ado Annie and Will Parker) set in early 20th century Oklahoma. There’s a subtheme of farmers versus cowpokes, a touch of Persian derogation (a wiley plot by Ali Hakim to avoid a shotgun marriage to girl-who-can’t-say-no Ado Annie), a good bit of dance including a long dream scene and a dramatic plot involving a misfit farm-worker (Jud Fry). The story is light, mainly centered on sexual politics around the box-social where males lasciviously donate to the school to win the hampers prepared by their favourites). The dramatic story centres on Jud who pines for Laurie and fights with Curley for her. This drama was out-of-place for me but the play obviously needed something more substantial to get through the 2 ½ hours. I found Jud’s death at the hand of cleanskin Curley and subsequent town-meeting judgement of “not guilty” that allowed the lovers to catch the train due 20 minutes was difficult. I expect the US is much more aware of murder and they also have strange rites that take local democracy to a level that’s absurd to our Australian sensibilities.

But how were the performances? I loved it. It’s an amateur cast and orchestra and they did it bloody well. Not like you’d expect on Broadway, of course, but very, very well done. Accomplished dance; decent voices; easy acting. I particularly liked Curley’s voice, but the other main characters were very good and the crowd scenes with harmonies were also harmonious. Ado Annie’s presence was madly effective as the flitter-brained floozy. The stage set was decent, and the cowboys’ thumbs in belts and womanly presence were effective and Aunt Eller’s presence was sensible and mature and held the story and the characters together. The accents stood out a little, but it was all a bit of a joke anyway. And the orchestra. Leisa Keen was the musical director. Sally Greenaway was to be the conductor, but was sick. The band included several jazz school graduates from these pages. The music was comfortable from the first bars of the overtures: well intoned and relaxed, although I did feel the chops were tiring by the end. And the instrumentation interested me, given a sound that was surprisingly full although obviously not orchestral. The music is light, but there are a few memorable tunes: Oh what a beautiful morning, The surrey with the fringe on top, I cain’t say no, People will say we’re in love, and of course the eponymous title song.

I was also interested by the associated history. Oklahoma! is set in early 1900s. Oklahoma (the state) was only declared a state in 1907, after it use in previous decades for relocation of Native American populations and subsequent ranching. It was also the dust bowl of 1930s fame.

So, a wonderful performance of an entertaining musical and much enjoyed. You couldn’t help but come out with that feeling … oh what a beautiful day, everything’s coming my way. Nice one and congratulations to Free-Rain Theatre Company. Some selected performers are: Barbara Denham (Aunt Eller), Dave Evans (Curly), Jenna Roberts (Laurey), Mathew Chardon O’Dea (Will Parker), Amy Dunham (Ado Annie), David Spence (Jud Fry) and Tony Falla (Ali Hakim). The orchestra comprised: Leisa Keen (keyboards1, bass), Ale O’Sullivan (keyboards 2), Derrick Brassington (percussion), Kiri Sollis (flute), Matter O’Keefe and Reid Furlanetto (clarinets), Jess Odonoue (oboe), Carly Broan and Curtis Gordon (horns), Jono Apps, Ax Long and Claire Leske (trumpets), Valdis Thomann (trombone). There are numerous others front- and back-stage who deserve mention too, but no room here.