The 1920s, and all that dissonance

MEOW MEOW

The 1920s, and all that dissonance

Ah, the 1920s. Some think Gatsby, but I’m inclined to think Weill.

A period that inspired many current-day flapper parties, but fundamentally tested an array of structures, very notably in music. It’s almost too good: Meow Meow and the MSO coming together again (remember Pandemonium?) to jostle a comfortable audience’s senses with tales of tragedy and temptation.

Meow Meow is joined onstage by the incredible Aura Go on piano and Christopher Moore conducting and on violin. They take us on a long (and I do mean, long) journey through the 1920s with Hindemith, Walton and Stravinsky. Amidst these pillars of discord, we are also treated to Picabia’s La Nourrice Américaine (The American Nurse), Schwitters’ Cigarren, and Weill, of course.

Meow Meow keeps things light to begin with, adding her own unique schtick that elicits chuckles from the audience. Once the back is suitably exposed, and we’re all smiling, she does a fine job of introducing the audience to the 1920s and what it meant politically, socially, and importantly, musically. Parallels are made to our current end of days, and we nod understandingly.

The first pillar of discord of the evening is Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 2 for Piano and 12 solo instruments. Composed in 1924, the piece is structured across four movements, with the piano at the centre. Go is absolutely in element here, showcasing her versatility as a performer and every bit the virtuoso. Hindemith’s piece essentially takes chamber music and thrusts it into a storm, all the notes carrying off the ground and ascending to a place beyond the period and spouting it back out with vigour and contempt. It’s an uneasy ride, but it’s perfectly well suited to the commencement of the pieces this evening.

It’s time for more chuckles with Cigarren by Kurt Schwitters, an obscure piece of disassembled language that only a Dada could love. It curls and purrs out of Meow Meow’s mouth like it was written for her. Meow Meow also gives us a delicious rendition of Brecht/Weill’s classic, Pirate Jenny. The shrill cruelty of Pirate Jenny’s words sounds as it should in German, and it’s quite titillating despite only three audience members speaking a lick of the language (Meow Meow checked). It’s okay, we, the bourgeoise audience all universally understand the welling hatred of those who look down upon us.

It’s all cruelty, with another Brecht/Weill ballad, in The Ballad of the Drowned Girl, until we fall headlong into William Walton’s poetic universe in selections of Façade. The morbid state of the evening ascends briefly in Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. The tale is compellingly narrated by Meow Meow, and the devil in disguise is elegantly portrayed by Moore, who’s silhouette as he conducts and plays along, is a ghoulish projection upon the Melbourne Recital Centre’s curtains. And just as I too am about to abandon all hope, the lighting saturates a deep red, the drums crescendo, and the soldier makes his choice in the face of the beckoning devil.

Ah yes, the 1920s as we like to remember, where temptation wins.

First published on 25 October 2022 for Theatre Press

DANCE HALL: THE DIVA CAROUSEL

Moira Finucane and her troupe of alt-glitterati storm upon the Luna Park Speigeltent; it’s all shimmies and wild confidence, and I admit I’m excited to see what’s dished up.

Finucane & Smith (Finucane and partner Jackie Smith) are my favourite kind of art collectors – they find unique artists to celebrate and perform with, taking their shows across the globe and showcasing a daring kind of stage appeal not often seen in Australia. I was first enamoured with Finucane’s work in the acclaimed Carnival of Mysteries, which submerged its audience in an unworldly and exciting place.

Finucane has an enormous stage presence; admittedly it’s unfathomable to think of anyone like her. Her magnificent height and figure coupled with her tremendous voice command a room, and it is at this point she rapidly takes her disco-pumping show to socio-political territory. No stone is left unturned in Finucane’s summation of the week’s events. Whether you agree with her or not, it was an unexpected turn for a dance-hall inspired show. It’s not the first time a performer has turned up the heat in the age of live-streaming, but I was expecting Finucane to take a different approach.

Once we were sufficiently enlightened, I was completely sucked into the thumping beats in an ode to various styles of music and performance, particularly to James Welsby voguing out, or the Bollywood craze ignited by Paul Cordeiro. The evening took another turn with the epic voice of Willow Sizer sizzling us with her Berlin-cabaret flair, and Clare St Clare gliding on stage to provide us with her scintillating vocal breathiness.

Dance Hall establishes itself as a variety show of amazing and fearless talent, and as the second act rolled round, I was pleasantly surprised by the humour and brilliance of ideas on display. I marvelled at the wonderful Maude Davey as she spun us into a frenzy of laughs dressed as planet earth, and then serenaded the audience into a misty-eyed state with her ballads. Finucane returned to utterly own the stage in a seductive pie-splattering performance that will have me looking for alternative uses for tomato sauce hereafter. I was eventually thrown by Mama Alto into the depths of my emotions with a rendition of Des’ree’s Kissing You, a performance which absolutely nailed in its final moments the vocal gymnastics of the piece.

Overall, I walked out of the spiegeltent satisfied and a touch overwhelmed. I was seduced by its glamour, blushed at its candour, and sighed at its occasional poignancy.

DANCING ON THE VOLCANO

It was indeed a time to be alive, between two World Wars in Germany, the highs and lows of life were encapsulated in the music of the era. A time marked as a period in the eye of a storm, poets and artists thrived in their joy at the end of 1919, and experienced the rattling descent into Nazi Germany. ‘Dancing on the volcano’ was an apt term for the artistic world of Germany in this period. Kabarett, a German form of political satire was commentary wrapped up in performance – a musical send up of the times.

Providing the historical context of the music only adds to the gravity of its content, and Robyn Archer AO, takes her audience on an educational journey with her long-time collaborators, Michael Morley on piano, and George Butrumlis on accordion.  Delving into the political carnage of the times, kabarett was also intensely concerned with the darker facets of the human identity – murder, sexuality, and obsession. It absolutely exploded in the 1920s, and saw the likes of Bertolt Brecht, Hans Eisler, Kurt Weil and Friedrich Hollaender take centre stage in this dark and electric world. Many of their pieces are performed with a lightness of tone, but deal with child murderers and the disintegration of society.

The performance begins on a pleasant note, with charming and saucy numbers like Kurt Tucholsky’s Anna Luise, which focuses on a man’s reminiscence of his time under a buxom woman’s skirt. However, it is not long before we find ourselves thrust into darker territory, stricken with tales of criminal conduct and the seedy underbelly of Berlin. The collaboration between Weill and Brecht for The Threepenny Opera resulted in the notorious and widely loved Mack the Knife. It was a pleasure to hear Archer perform the classic, and a special note must be made to Morley’s piano playing with this piece, perhaps cementing itself as my favourite rendition.

Archer relishes in the humour of the music, and her gestures throughout send her audience into fits of laughter even when a grandmother is being slain in Frank Wedekind’s Granny Murderer. The tongue in cheek humour of kabarett often savagely dealt with the cruelties of the world, something Archer clearly appreciates. This is most notable in her powerful performance of Friedrich Hollaender’s The Jews. Archer’s performance descends into the fist and head shaking notorious of a certain Chancellor, that when she finally lays the blame on multiple minorities in a final crash, she utterly rattles her audience. We are experiencing a rise of similar attitudes in our present day. Such is the power of the kabarett.

The delivery is overall strong, however I find the occasional phrasing in English leaves Archer breathless, as the translations don’t always flow so well. I appreciated when Archer would occasionally croon in perfect German – another example of her expansive skill as a performer. I must note here though, it would be harsh to expect a non-German speaking audience to grasp the subtle and brilliant flashes of truth conveyed in the words, and so much of Dancing on the Volcano is an ode to the power of words.

After the dark turns with The Jews and Brecht and Hans Eisler’s tragic horse in Falladah, the audience is both exhausted and in need of an injection of hope. Anticipating this need, Archer ends with Brecht and Eisler’s once again in the wonderful Bilbao Song.

I exited with greater knowledge and some joy from the night out, but also exited imagining a society ripping apart the horse it once loves stays on with me.

Arts Centre presents The Sounds of Falling Stars

The star-wattage of Cameron Goodall is so bright the audience gasps for air, as he brings to stage the greatest musicians of the 20thcentury.

The Sound of Falling Stars is a high intensity euphoric gaze into the past, and the falling stars are the men who died too young from living too hard and too fast. Their voices have carried through the decades and into the present (in most cases) in this nostalgic serenade by Goodall and his band of merry men, Enio Pozzebon (on keyboard), and George Butrumlis (on accordion).

Goodall is an explosion of talent; he is harnessed artfully by legend herself, Robyn Archer AO, who has written and directed this utterly fantastic show. Archer who is famed for her intimate shows and soulful sounds, has crafted this portrait of the musicians who died too young. The Sound of Falling Starscontains a litany of music from musicians of the likes of Hank Williams, Bobby Darin, Elvis Presley and all the way to Kurt Cobain. It is Goodall’s excellent voice and ability to mimic the essence of these now deceased icons that really captures the audience.

Goodall first enters the stage as none other than the Sex Pistols’ prince of darkness, Sid Vicious, who at 21 found his demise. Goodall manages to capture the voice and mannerisms of Vicious, and rapidly fire away as Mario Lanza and Sam Cooke the next moment. Goodall’s talent as actor and musician is evident, and the audience is completely in the palm of his hand. It takes effort to embody 31 performers, but Goodall does it without ever breaking out of their rhythm in a relentless show of tragedy and soul.

What is so captivating in The Sound of Falling Stars is the glimpse into the troubled lives of the musicians, and the often-tragic way their lives came to a sudden end. The theme of death, bad fortune and self-destruction pervade the stories. And, as emphasised at the close of the show, many lived and learned on the excellence of musicians past, but also followed the methodology of their own downfalls. One cannot help but consider whether an untimely end would surely ride on the coattails of such whirlwind ascent.

I find myself wanting to listen to all of these musicians, some of whom I collected in my early youth and some of whom were new to me as a Gen Y. One particular standout for me, (but entirely based on my own private musical tastes), was Goodall’s soulful performance of Jeff Buckley. Buckley’s high lilt of melancholy and vocal control is what I imagine to be one of the hardest voices to mimic, but Goodall did it with such precision, I felt for a moment that Buckley waded out of his watery grave back to us at the Arts Centre that night.

Despite the gloom, Goodall captured the heart of the audience through one musician and another, leaving us on a delighted high. I expect we all hope to see Goodall in some other incarnation another time, maybe next time as himself.

The Sound of Falling Stars was performed from 28 February – 3 March 2018 at the Arts Centre, Playhouse.

The Kransky Sisters Present A VERY KRANSKY CHRISTMAS

The Kransky Sisters are the kookiest cabaret act gracing Australia, and really, they’ve become cultural icons in their own right including memorable TV appearances on programs on Spicks and Specks and Adam Hills Tonight. I doubt many pictured backwater Australia as three sheltered sisters as a comic-cabaret gothic triad, but nonetheless here they are in all their kooky mod-squad glory.

The Kranskys are touring pre-holidays to offer some quirky Christmas cheer to Australians everywhere. Appearing at the relatively new kid on the block, the Alex Theatre, the sisters Mourne, Eve and Dawn (Annie Lee, Christine Johnston andCarolyn Johns) bring the house down with their hilarious songs, revamped versions of club hits, and strange stories from their fictional lives.

For those who don’t know the Kranskys’ origin tale, it starts out like most caravan dreams: Mourne and Eve’s mother runs off with their uncle, leaving them with their half-sister Dawn, the tuba-playing and long-suffering member of the pack. They live in Esk in small-town Queensland, and ever dressed alike, conduct their everyday Aussie lives whilst enabling each other’s sheltered world-views – with marvelously funny results.

To get everyone in the mood for their fabulously off-beat humour, a slideshow shared highlights of the sisters’ travels over the past year. It’s particularly funny to those who like the odd and unsettling – which is pretty much everyone in the audience – because we didn’t come for a Barbie sideshow, and the wonderful seriousness of their vibe only heightens the absurdity.

Mourne (clearly the dominant sibling), tells stories from their childhood and adult lives, and Eve nods in agreement and chimes in, whereupon they’re often completing each other’s sentencesas Dawn eyeballs them. Songs intersperse their histories, from singing Thriller to an unsuspecting Swedish backpacker, to taking same backpacker to a nightclub only to regale the night through song to us – we really get a solid dose of Kransky Does Pop: Sia, Daft Punk etc. etc. and it’s an absolute hoot as the sexual undertones of the music are utterly lost on them. Brandishing the tuba, and an oddball collection of other instruments, they give us a new vantage point to confection music by injecting their gloomy-folk magic to it.

The Kransky Sisters are a highly talented performance trio, and their style, music and unique way of storytelling gives them the enduring creative edge to attract audiences for years to come. I know that I will happily attend their next Christmas shindig if they will have me.

If you want to catch the kooky Kranskys, you may need swallow your pride for some audience participation – but boy will it make for some fun! You’ll find them touring Melbourne until the 26 November, and then on to NSW, QLD, SA and ACT.

Robyn Archer in QUE RESTE T’IL (WHAT REMAINS?)

Australian luminary and chanteuse Robyn Archer takes her Melbourne audience through a journey of harsh cityscapes and loving sentiments in Que reste t’il (What Remains?). I suspect the ‘What Remains?’ of her performance is an ode to the love affair we have with French music and how ingrained it has become within our popular culture.

What is so enthralling about Archer’s performance is her engagement with her audience. When an awkward twenty-something seated beside her relatively conservative mother can both burst into song along with the crowd, you know that the conductor of such an experience is of the gifted kind. The crowd is filled with those who have supported Archer for decades, and she certainly knows how to command them with her voice and wit.

Accompanied by Michael Morley on piano, and Paul Butrumlison accordion, Archer’s music sails through the turbulent times of Paris from the late nineteenth century and as far as the 1970s – even stopping to deliver an outsider’s perspective of the city of lights in Cole Porter’s You Don’t Know Paree. Archer interspersed her songs with stories of the era – a charming education on the history of live performance, with decadent and tragic stories ranged from lesser-known artists to the crowded halls of the Dadaist movement. It is apparent in ‘What Remains?’ that Parisian cabaret was not afraid to regurgitate the city’s own horrors and grime, juxtaposed with the songs concerning quaint longings of love that perch in a higher place above the cityscape.

I found Archer’s ability to weave history through French songs a marvellous form of escapism. My eyes even misted over during a rendition of Marie-Louise Damien’s Pluie: Damien, as Archer explains, was a chanteuse of the Parisian cabaret lesser known than Édith Piaf, but her music was exquisite, as Archer showcases. From Jacques Brel (who’s music dominates the night), Archer takes on some comic short rides with Aristide Bruant’s It Takes Cash, the kitsch delight The Singing Nun’s Dominique and the steamy Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot’s Je t’aime. ‘What Remains?’ is such a tasty and eclectic mix of tragi-ballads and humour, where nothing musical of the French variety is left unturned.

The night came to a roaring close with two comic renditions – Alouette where everyone chimed in, and a bastardisation of Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien. Archer and her team exited the stage with thundering applause behind them – we really wanted more than an encore.

Francophiles found themselves in a comforting terrain in ‘What Remains?’, and for those remaining, find themselves delightfully haunted by the songs that have pervaded their lives through various mediums over the years.