Zoey Dawson's AUSTRALIAN REALNESS

Drawn into the notes by Zoey Dawson for her play, Australian Realness, I was captured by the unspoken truth she was prepared to tackle. Do we love the larrikin or not? Modern educated Australia says no.

It’s a depressing state of affairs, classism, and the warfare that literally ensues as this play’s absurdity evolves into an ever-fantastical barren stage of mimes. Advertised as a joke, and at times dreadfully funny, Dawson manages to spear the arts world and the educated Fitzrovians (sorry, Fitzroy bourgeoise) right in their guts. While you may at first think you’re watching a Ray Lawler play, Dawson’s distinctive touch as a playwright is her ability to coax her audience into a sense of comfort and then disrupt it with pure dystopia.

The play opens at the Christmas gathering of a thoroughly modern Melbourne family, still tepidly dipping their toes into diversity. The daughter (Emily Goddard) is both wonderful and utterly annoying as she waddles her heavily pregnant privilege across the stage, whilst her tradie partner (Chanella Macri) must politely dodge the artful Moet-filled barbs of the daughter’s mother (Linda Cropper). Greg Stone’s enthusiasm in his role as the affable father perfectly contrasts with the shrill snobbery of the mother. Janice Muller competently directs the performances in Australian Realness, which are all stellar, particularly Cropper’s transformation. I was stumped for a little while there. Who was this other actress?

A laugh here and a laugh there, and we’re taken into the underbelly of every foul assumption concocted of the working class Australian. Transformed into the bogans in the shed out back, Cropper and Stone heave with clichés. Dawson’s writing is laying it on thick here, but it achieves what it needs to. The increasingly absurdist entries of the bogan family members on stage with laugh tracks is understood to be the audience having a laugh at the working class, sit-com style. The play is totally self-aware and challenges you not to see through its display of stereotypes. Between the banker son (André De Vanny) displaying his white short-shorts whilst talking money and ordering cocaine on his 80s flip phone, and the ill-behaved bogan son playing a Bennie Hill inspired sequence with his father, we get the drift.

Romaine Harper’s set design brilliantly shatters itself apart from the comforts of the Aussie living room, and thrusts Goddard’s character out of her proverbial bourgeoise womb and that of her baby. The camera work from here is temporarily jarring, and we are soon confronted by the banished – a migrant woman who was once the subject of the daughter’s art. The daughter, finally levelled out by the class warfare and on the streets, confronts her new reality and rebels against it, calling the banished woman names as she hears her baby cry under the rubble, unable to accept the even playing field of this new world. Try as her character might to be magnanimous to those less fortunate, once her bubble of a life is burst, she reviles the otherness of what she once accepted from her ivory tower.

Australian Realness force-feeds the fear of the working class down the throats of educated Australia. The working class ultimately takes a wrecking ball to the art, homes and privilege of the educated. It’s almost enjoyable to see how the patronising language used by the supposedly cultured against those they exert superiority over does little to save them from their ultimate fear.

Don’t let the bastards get you down.

THE RABBLE/CROGGON / My Dearworthy Darling

Feminist collaborators and visual provocateurs, The Rabble (Emma Valente and Kate Davis), bring audiences, My Dearworthy Darling, a thought-provoking work that is both entrancing and utterly disconnected all at once. I was particularly titillated that I’d be critiquing the work of the widely respected writer, Alison Croggon, a former critic that I both admire and who’s theatrical opinion I’ve revered. It is surprising to me then to find that I have a love-hate relationship with this work, which sets my mind into motion and confounds it equally.

My understanding is thus: our leading woman (Jennifer Vuletic) is struggling with her mental health as she wrestles her own image of herself away from her worst emotional abusers, her partner (Ben Grant) and her sister (Natalie Gamsu), who are also gripped with the torments of their life and its mundanity. In breaking free, Vuletic’s character strikes a chasm to the past, unravelling her own mind and reflecting the collective woes of womankind to a time where voicelessness was enshrined.

The chorus of medieval voices is perhaps the most breathtaking part of this production. Croggon’s inspiration here was taken from her residency in France’s monastery and centre for theatre writing, La Chartreuse. Inspired by Margery Kempe, a 14th century English Christian mystic, who’s book was considered to be the first autobiographical work, the chorus speaks the text of this work as Vuletic’s modern woman is grappling with telling her own truth, rather than through the twisted reflection of others.

It’s brilliant to me that in Croggon’s own words, the “writing is not so much about conscious intention as it is about process and discovery”, and My Dearworthy Darling achieves exactly that. Like an unfurling scent, I am at first overwhelmed and unable to see the notes for what they are, but with time I see with clarity the complexity of its character. The work on first impression, is a high-brow ‘art for art’s sake’ snobbery into the woman’s mind, with particularly gifted composing (Valente), and set and costume design (Davis). But with deeper introspection, I see where the Croggon/Rabble collaboration was reaching for.

The play splits between often humorous and relatable daily modern drudgery, and the other realm of our lead’s enigmatic psyche. The work opens with Vuletic sprawled sensually upon a boulder, silk-satin, languid-limbs, describing in luscious detail how her body is exposed and caressed. This visual and erotic reverie is interrupted by her partner, accusing her of poor memory as he refuses to take responsibility, an assault upon the earlier voluptuousness. The woman here is servile, not in charge of her voice or body, but a vessel without steam. This emptiness continues to pierce her reality, and she is accused by her sister of being selfish and cruel, goading the partner’s disgust. Unsurprisingly, facing the internalised misogyny of the existing women of her life, Vuletic’s character retreats in her mind to a world where she is supported in body and mind by the hooded chorus. After a particularly brutal episode in her current reality, she is taken to a place without hard edges (a mental health care facility perhaps) and ascends to take a crowning place amongst the medieval chorus, eventually stripping herself bare of her life before.

My Dearworthy Darling will divide its audiences, and this is largely due to its disjointed and often confusing trajectory. What one can do is enjoy the lush language, stunning visuals and Old English choral pieces. It is an inspired and thought-provoking work, but I too left the theatre wanting to perch myself upon a rock, and contemplate what it is I’ve been exposed to, and if that’s all there really is.

SOLARIS

Of all planetary science-fiction writing, Solaris, remains one of the most cerebral and enigmatic. Published in 1961 by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, Solaris has found itself adapted for cinema and the stage a number of times. Solaris emerged at a time when space travel was new and vogue, still unfurling its mysteries to the world. The possibilities of what the universe had to offer, the terror and terrific, captivated the imagination – and clearly still does today.

Award-winning playwright, David Greig, breathes new life into the work, catapulting a female heroine into its centre. Matthew Lutton directs one of his most evocative works yet, with the usual intensity of sound design by Jethro Woodward, which we have come to expect from his productions.

In this adaptation, Solaris, a planet at the far reaches of space, is visited by a small cluster of humans. For over two years no contact has been received from this expedition, and it is upon the arrival of Dr Kris Kelvin (Leeanna Walsman) that some rattling truths about the crew’s time in isolation emerge. Through a series of tapes, the recently deceased leading scientist, Gibarian (Hugo Weaving via video), reveals to Dr Kelvin his discoveries of the lonely planet, which is clearly attempting to make contact with the crew on board.

Aloneness, the frightening alien other that nestles itself in the mind, is at the heart of the work. Hyemi Shin’s set design extraordinarily creates the sterility of space travel and its disconnection from the familiar. A series of white moving parts typical of space travel juxtapose with scene changes incorporating a visual curtain of black liquid waves from the planet below. The set design mimics the depths of human intention, and for the more poetically inclined, the depths of the soul as it invites connection. It is unclear if the planet is inviting the crew into itself, or vice versa, remaining a point of fascination and uncertainty.

Lutton asserts that the power of representing science fiction on stage is through its ability to explore alternate realities, and Solaris is the kind of work that suits the confinement of the stage perfectly. The shifting spectrum of primary colours injects both beauty and trepidation into this world, expertly designed by Paul Jackson. The final image of Dr Kelvin standing alone, her shadow awash with red lighting is reminiscent of the feminine power of another famous science fiction performance. Alone, Dr Kelvin faces the dangers of her own mind rather than the danger of aliens that Ellen Ripley must entertain.

Leeanna Walsman is in her element here, and an excellent cast supports her. Fode Simbo as Snow, Jade Ogugua as Sartorius, and Keegan Joyce as the “visitor”, Ray, are captivating. Weaving’s presence via video is warm and earnest, adding a layer of depth to this already quality production. There is a crackling humour in the writing and acting, despite the gloom of the world they inhabit, and the audience regularly laughed and connected with the performances on stage.

Solaris makes for a pleasurable theatrical experience in every way. The questions that the characters explore, particularly on our power to inflict the worst of ourselves onto an innocent other, are pertinent. Like Solaris, we all seek connection – but what are we prepared to do to keep it?

WAKE IN FRIGHT

Beer, babes and brutality in chilling adaptation 

Australia, the land of plenty, the land of expanding planes, and dust. Dust as far as the eye can see. No sea in sight to quench the traveller’s hungry eyes, just the heat rising from the earth.

Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel Wake In Fright, is a jolting horror of the kind of underbelly Australia that a city slicker would gladly forget. The 1971 film directed by Ted Kotcheff finely and fantastically brought this horrendous fever-dream to life, and essentially became a cult film for its notorious representation of hunting the ‘roo.

I am therefore very pleased to see Declan Greene (Melancholia, Pompeii L.A., The Homosexuals, or Faggots) adapt and direct Cook’s work for the Malthouse stage. In this incarnation, Wake in Fright, a usually bloke-soaked nightmare, is spectacularly performed by one woman – Zahra Newman, who boldly embodies the terror and toxicity of masculinity.

The 70-minute performance, much like the sleepiness of the town Bundanyabba (“The Yabba”), begins rather benignly as Newman struts about all-beared-up as Lead Ted, the friendly 1990s bear, teaching the children of Broken Hill about lead poisoning – a first foray into the horror of the night. During Newman’s playful introduction, we are treated to a talk about immigration, racial issues and more of the gamut of the daily-woke blogosphere. I liked how Newman challenged the audience, but I admit I wanted to see the show unfold rather than be subjected to a surface-level string of views without proper unpacking. Wake in Fright is itself a cruel truth about the worst of our nation.

With excellent lighting and projection design from Verity Hampson, and music and composition from friendships, we descend into the gloom with the skilful Newman. I am truly, honestly, terrified.

John Grant, an educated fellow, finds himself waiting for a plane back to Sydney in the remote Yabba. Coaxed into a brutal bender by local cop, Crawford, he soon finds himself in a two-up joint, rendered penniless and with a missed flight back to the world of the living. Stranded, he takes a ride with a local into the outback, and so begins Grant’s final mad descent into the Yabba culture of beer, babes and brutality.

Hampson’s projection design coupled with the intense beats of friendships DJing in the corner of the stage turned the Beckett theatre into a hellish nightclub. As an audience we feel strapped in for a ride we don’t want, sucked into the psyche of Grant as he battles his way through the unknown cruelties of this world. It feels indeed like a rung of hell, with no end in sight.

This is a thoroughly ingenious modern take on Wake in Fright. Greene’s work is compelling and effective. The Malthouse has shown again that some of its finest work is one woman on stage taking a male-dominated story and making it her own. Newman joins the ranks of Pamela Rabe in The Testament of Mary, and Alison Whyte in The Bloody Chamber. You really can’t get better than that, mate.

Post's ICH NIBBER DIBBER

Witty, gritty conversation draws laughter and reflection

Ich Nibber Dibber is really as it sounds, a nonsense phrase dressed up as “a woman’s work” in German, and if this is women’s work, Post co-creators Zoë Coombs Marr, Natalie Rose and Mish Grigor make it look fabulously funny.

Descending from the heavens, these three angelic women draped in white come to be upon the stage. Make whatever metaphor you want from it – exiting the womb, descending like messengers from heaven – the women have something to say, and it starts with plenty of cussing and fussing about being trashed at a party.

Welcome to the human experience.

If you thought poo jokes didn’t captivate theatre goers, then listen here, you are gravely wrong. But there is so much more to this wonderful production than the humdrum of day-to-day life – my friend and I, and so many more in the audience can remember conversations like these with our friends, a combination of the profound and the banal. On a superficial level, the blokes in the audience will laugh, but for the women, we will laugh because we see ourselves in these three very human characters (even Gywneth Paltrow would agree).

The women inhabit personas we all recognise within our friendships – the sardonic, the naïve, the progressive, and it’s all tongue in cheek. If they poke fun at each other, they do it with profound love, in only the way the closest of kindred spirits can. Nat, Mish and Zoë admit that this is all them – they are just hanging out on stage having the really silly and gritty conversations close friends do. It’s really refreshing and welcoming, and it’s incredibly easy for the audience to connect and relate to the work.

The 70 minutes of Ich Nibber Dibber is all talk, but it’s the talk of over a decade of friendship. The women party, break up, and give birth in the span of the decade, and their conversations continue to shift with the times of their lives and the eras they fall within. It’s a glimpse into the past for many in the audience, from the choices of music to the socio-political backdrop of the noughties and today. There are serious issues the women face: sexual and racial discrimination, the disintegration of intimate relationships, haphazard views of the self – and it’s all handled with an impressive amount of subtlety and humour.

There are some poignant moments within this spectrum, particularly when the writer John Berger is quoted as they cannot recall whether John Berger or John Burgess was the first celebrity death of 2017. Berger’s quote on women surveying themselves as a man alters the atmosphere reminds us that while we are watching women inhabit the stories of their lives, they are still a spectacle of the male gaze.

I find Ich Nibber Dibber intelligently comments and navigates the complex terrain it raises with a lightness of being, and its capacity to make its audience laugh under such examinations makes for powerful theatre.

Malthouse Theatre presents SARAH KANE'S 'BLASTED'

Violence is violence, is violence, as Kane reminds us

When I think of Sarah Kane I imagine a rawness of writing, and Blasted is as brutish and raw as it gets. There is no line between the private violence of the domestic and the intrusion of war upon private citizens. Blasted drags us in not with string but with rope, and we are gripped in the hideousness of a reality we want to forget.

Anne-Louise Sarks directs her cast through treacherous material, and each rises to the occasion, despite how confronting it would be to wade through the play’s material on a daily basis.

Blasted begins in such banality. A woman (Eloise Mignon) and man (David Woods) with an obvious power imbalance, share a hotel room for a night. We are on edge, because the man plays with his gun like it’s an extension of his ego. The woman, a former lover we eventually learn, is subjected to his sexual, emotional and physical violence. It’s all shrouded in the banter of their conversation, all strangely accepted by the audience as the currency of their relationship, until we are rudely awoken to the scene of war as a soldier (Fayssal Bazzi) urges his way into their private space.

This production is hard to watch, and it is hard to listen to. The audience has no doubt heard of the atrocities of war and of the extremities of domestic violence, but how many transgressions do we forgive in our every day lives – what is the difference between a lover raping his partner and the stranger taking the same liberty as part of the “spoils” of war? Violence is violence, is violence, as Kane reminds us. While it was not received well by critics upon its first foray into the London theatre scene in 1995, this production has gathered momentum in its relevance like never before. Timely, is what I would call this production for the Malthouse Theatre.

Marg Horwell’s stagecraft and choice of costuming is on point; the cleanliness of the hotel and its beige colours contrasts wonderfully with what’s to come. The space gradually turns from the rubble of domestic violence to the thunderous destruction of the entire space. It’s a titanic feat to turn a hotel room into a rung of hell in under a minute, but the production team smash it. My only criticism is the use of the screen above the stage to capture the small intimacies of the play. It was an unexpected and unnecessary touch. There was enough on stage to convey the power and cruelty of the work without having to contrast it with rotting petals.

Woods’ performance is strong and sustained. As he journeys through the terrain of this play, we feel fear, disgust and ultimately pity for his character. Mignon’s woman is mercurial, childlike and random, which contrasts well with the intensity of the men she shares the stage with. Bazzi’s soldier is relatable and poignant, perhaps more relatable than the others as he is able to convey reason within the madness of the play’s world, despite being a terrifying presence.

The soldier goads the journalist, questioning whether he understands what it is to commit atrocities, but on some level, they are both brutes made from the fibres of their society and circumstance. How did we become so indifferent to violence? I find it to be the core of what Kane raises in Blasted, and a question I continue to ask myself after leaving the theatre.

Kane has succeeded.

Written by Sarah Kane. Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks. Performed by Fayssal Bazzi, Eloise Mignon and David Woods. Set and costume by Marg Horwell and lighting by Paul Jackson. Photograph by Pia Johnson.

Malthouse Theatre presents MELANCHOLIA

So, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang… or does it?

Lars Von Trier’s cinematic masterpiece, Melancholia, is conceptually breathtaking and frightening all at once. What begins as wedding party blues turns into the most intimate and bizarrely universal existential crisis. Oh yes, it’s Chekhovian, but as it releases itself, Melancholia leaps away from its inertia and challenges its spectator and characters into asking the big, dark and pulverising questions about life as we know it.

It’s totally arresting cinematically, and a monumental challenge for anyone attempting to adapt it for stage. But this is what Malthouse Theatre maverick Matthew Lutton is drawn to, and what he has taken on with astonishing success. Declan Greene’s writing is an excellent match here for Lutton, and the language takes flight with such rich, fullness that I can smell the manure, woods, and scent that the bride Justine (Eryn Jean Norvill) smells in her heightened state.

The opening of Melancholia immediately reflects the Romantic elements of Von Trier’s world with the floor chandelier, manor-grand carpeting and stunning costuming of glittering light and pearl shades. The ceiling, with its large circular opening, is like a planetarium that dispenses pink confetti to dust the scene with its ominous beauty. Set and costume designer Marg Horwell delivers with immaculate detail, and her work gives an ethereal glow to the whole piece. Paul Jackson’s lighting design triggers the most sensual and terrifying feelings within the audience, as it acutely reflects the hours of time ticking towards doom. These elements are aided by J. David Franzke’s sound design that shakes us to our core from the middle to the crashing end. It takes a powerhouse of a team to bring together this overwhelmingly good production, and the designers delivered threefold.

Act One begins with a wedding party that is so delayed, it turns the bride’s neurotic perfectionist of a sister, Claire (Leeanna Walsman), into a mad manikin. It is a riotously comedic start, and the actors have the opportunity to stretch their talents, namely the mother played by the stellar Maude Davey. The audience, like the characters (sans Justine), are lulled into the lavish evening before the beauty of it all begins to decay in Act Two. The mother’s humour turns into a drunken rampage, Justine steps out of her pearlescent, yet muddied bridal gown as if to remove her mask, and Claire’s husband (Steve Mouzakis) hits peak menace.

Melancholia, without lending itself to the cause, beautifully depicts the shadow of depression and mental illness upon a family. Norvill’s Justine is perfection, reflecting fragility and exerting her numbing power with such grace that I am transfixed by her performance. Walsman, whose stern yet loving resolve is no match for the finality of what is to come, supports Norvill wonderfully. Nature itself caves in upon the sisters as Melancholia, the planet, brilliantly shows itself in the sky with its threatening size and magnetic pull. The pull of the planet seems to elevate Justine out of her hiding place, and I get the impression that it has a similar effect on all of the characters. Everyone reveals their real faces, including Claire’s husband whose cowardice and cruelty emerges breathtakingly, literally.

It’s a hard play to stomach, as you leave the theatre feeling as though you’ve exerted all your power to the planet, Melancholia. The actors, especially Norvill and Walsman, give so much of themselves to the performance that you can just feel the harrowing nature of its undertaking. I found myself unable to tear away my gaze, because the production is simply so beautiful in all of its elements and I found the exertion a worthy exercise. I was particularly triggered by some of the feelings uttered by the characters, as its existential questions sink within the spectator so spectacularly.

You may have been living under a crushing behemoth planet if you had not heard of Von Trier’s work, but I wager you to give Greene’s theatrical adaptation a whirl at the Malthouse Theatre this season. Ground breaking and bold has been Lutton’s mark thus far on the Malthouse, but he absolutely hits his highest notes in his direction of Melancholia.

Malthouse Theatre presents Brothers Wreck

Jada Alberts is an exceptional writer and member of the creative community. Her first community, as an Indigenous Australian, is that of her family, and her family have lived and breathed realities that were not their choice to create. So Alberts creates, and as a storyteller she can take the tragedy of losing a loved one and make it a powerful conversation about grief. For a first foray into the world of playwriting, Alberts’ Brothers Wreck is an aching and loving work, despite its shroud of suffering.

Jada’s grief for those she’s lost and the lives of her people runs deep, and Brothers Wreck is a potent “love letter” to her own family. In Brothers Wreck, a family must manage their loved one coping with the aftermath of a suicide. With an existing high rate in young male suicides, Indigenous Australian men are at an even greater risk. From the biting account of his every day roadblocks, Ruben (Dion Williams) recounts his frustrations with the world to the Court-appointed counsellor, David (Trevor Jamieson). Ruben’s anger is palpable, and no reason will quench the deep sense of injustice he feels towards his world. Fiercely protective of his family, we learn that he was unable to protect his friend and cousin, the unseen Joe, from himself.

Ruben’s struggle reaches a fever pitch with the terminal illness of his mother, and the arrival of his aunt (Lisa Flanagan), an uncompromising powerhouse of a woman who refuses to give up on him. In truth, none of those around Ruben, including his sister (Leonie Whyman), and cousin (Nelson Baker), will give up on him. Confronted once again with the gloom of death, Ruben’s nightly visitations to the past deepen his addictions and sense of gloom.

The oppressive heat and thunderous downpours of Darwin serve as a brutal backdrop to this family’s saga. With harrowing recollections of the past, including a haunting account of death, Lisa Flanagan’s performance as Ruben’s aunt is the absolute standout in this production. Her arrival upon her family brings the storms, and the opportunity for healing. Supported by a stunning cast, Alberts directs a deeply moving performance literally saturated with rain and feeling.

Images by Tim Grey

Dale Ferguson’s staging becomes another character in this production, as the stage feels like a glib prison, with doorways made of metal-screen netting, and drains to collect the water that intrudes upon the stage. It’s a fantastically considered set: its prison-like qualities a reminder of the excessive incarceration of members of the Indigenous community, and the sense of hopelessness and poverty that pervade the characters’ lives.

Despite the focus on mental health and death, Brothers Wreck is a hopeful, often funny, and poignant play about a family and its refusal to collapse in the face of hardship. Momentarily uplifted by this warmth, I am reminded that family cannot be the only hope for a community, there is so much more work needed to bridge the almost insurmountable gap between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the nation.

Alberts’ work is an achievement of storytelling, and I hope to see more of her writing in the future.

Malthouse Presents Picnic at Hanging Rock

The disappearance of the turn-of-the-century darlings in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges has all the evocative appeal of a timeless classic: young school girls in their bloom disappearing into the harrowing Australian bush in a southern gothic fever dream.

As a young child, I shivered as I saw the great mass of Hanging Rock, where like many Australians I fell for the alluring tale of the disappearance of the women. When Joan Lindsay wrote the 1967 classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock, I wonder if she realised that audiences would come in droves to take a step closer to the mystery that never really was. Or was it? That is the question that rises in Lindsay’s readers and viewers of Tom Wright’s adaptation for stage.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is not the first tale to evoke the power of Australia’s sublime landscape, however its unfurling secrets of untamed nature in the face of impressionable young women barely buckled to their schooling is utterly sensual and unsettling.

Director Matthew Lutton has realised his best work in this timely February production of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Lutton’s cast is par excellence: Harriet Gordon-Anderson, Arielle Gray, Amber McMahon, Elizabeth Nabben and Nikki Shiels use their wiles and voices to such evocative effect that their words and physicality have the power to send the audience leaping out of their seats. This production hoists Lindsay’s language into haunting dramatic storytelling in such a way that I believe I am there with the girls, as the sun sets and the white of their dresses disappear into the rock forever.

Lutton hammers the horror to great effect, as the dark stage bares only an ominous mass of twigs and wood that is suspended above. The cast appear suddenly out of the black, and in the midst of this nothingness, the sounds of nature, women humming and discorded effects play out. A perfect storm strikes the stage by lighting design master, Paul Jackson, sound designer J. David Franzke, and composer Ash Gibson Greig.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a full-senses feast, and I am both terrified and drawn to the nightmare as it plays out before us. There are ample occasions of wit and excellent delivery from all performers, and Nabben’s turn as Mrs Appleyard is subtle and breathtaking, particularly in her last moments as a failed schoolmistress.

The tightly laced tension of teatime between Irma (Shiels) and Michael (McMahon) after the events on that Valentines Day at Hanging Rock, highlight the absurdity of the excessively civilised in the wake of traumatic events. This theme continues until there is no denying the significance of the schoolgirls’ disappearance and what that means for a society colonising an unfamiliar and dangerous landscape.

If you were fortunate enough to acquire tickets for Picnic at Hanging Rock, you will not be disappointed. The remainder of the run has sold out, and fittingly winds itself up on Valentines Day.

Malthouse Theatre presents REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN.

Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. directed by Janice Muller is a perpetual play on words, and a play on what those words mean to us. It isn’t just a revolution within our society, but a collective ‘revolt’ at our own bodies, and at the male gaze for which women squirm under. Yes, it’s a raging, raging work. It probably needs to rage, because what Birch tells us is nothing new to a woman’s struggle within the constraints of her world, the sharp lines that fix her within it – whether that is her workplace, her lover’s place, her child’s place – or any place in which she exists.

Birch’s text takes us to many dimensions of existence – at first it’s the constructed box that sits on the stage, vignettes of conversations that throw sex, marriage and work upon its head – women asking to be utterly present in the acts society inflicts upon them. Marg Horwell’s set design is effective here, the sound even strains within the ‘four’ walls created. Soon enough, this world revolts upon itself and a woman (Sophie Ross) climbs out of the four walls to really talk about the things we don’t talk about – about the damage women inflict upon our bodies, in a beautiful and hideous memorandum of all our physical evils – to be endlessly sexually available.

For all the seriousness of the work, the audience laughs with tears in their eyes at some scenes, and sometimes we flinched away – we couldn’t look upon what was before us. I sat behind male audience members who I confess I enjoyed watching too throughout the piece; in context, I admit I was morbidly fascinated at how they would react. Of course they laughed when it was appropriate, and sometimes when it was totally inappropriate, because on some level it was surely uncomfortable for male viewers to see a woman getting angry or opening her body up with Birch’s visceral words – but I can tell you that looking around the room at the women was an different story. Many moments of the play were a bitter reminder, unravelling us at the seams.

The cast is five-strong (Belinda McClory, Elizabeth Esguerra, Ming-Zhu Hii, Gareth Reeves, and Ross). Each actor delivered their parts with total abandonment and intensity – it is an absolutely demanding show to watch, but also to act. The words are hard, and they’re almost too funny and also too damn real. You know Birch is onto something good when you physically react to the words.

For all its power, the total breakdown of the world presented to us loses shape as characters throw costumes on, haphazardly run about, throw themselves on stage, shake, spit, shiver, deliver – it ceases to be a functional whole. Oddly enough, the work held its power until the final dimension and then disintegrated. Was it meant to show us how bad we really had it – apocalypse femme? I can’t say. But sometimes in an effort to rattle its audience, the hyper-modern piece loses us.

Did it change my outrage, or the message? No. Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. remains a daring exercise to deconstruct everything that shapes womanhood in a violent world.

Malthouse Theatre presents AWAY

Matthew Lutton’s blaze through the Malthouse Theatre (and now as Artistic Director) has brought Melbourne audiences some extraordinary and outlandish theatre to feast upon in recent seasons. The announcement that Away would be on the banquet table for procuring no doubt left many theatregoers with a morbid curiosity. The matrimony between the rugged Australian summer depicted in Gow’s writing and director Lutton’s horror dream of dancing animal skulls somehow takes this classic to new contemporary heights. Yes, Dale Ferguson’s costume design keeps us well within the bounds of the 60s, but his set complies with the post-modern theatrics we’ve come to expect from the Malthouse under the gaze of Lutton. Lutton injects into Gow’s world a kind of dystopian synchronicity that plays out as the actors dance in formations together like glamourous zombies trying to forget their realities to Stephanie Lake’s choreography.

What we have depicted in Away is an Australia of then which is not that much different from the Australia of today. Everyone has high hopes for the Aussie dream, but even in the most comfortable homes the world outside will always rudely awaken us. What unites the families of Tom (Liam Nunan) and Meg (Naomi Rukavina), our high school would-be, could-be, not-be lovers, is the quiet sadness and acceptance of a life that was hard-won. The fear that something could steal the dream away lurks beneath the happy exteriors of (most) of Gow’s characters, and becomes a focal point of the play. That dream is already stolen from Roy (Glenn Hazeldine) and Coral (Natasha Herbert) through the loss of their son in the Vietnam War. Herbert’s Kim-Novak look-alike Coral continuously treads the line between reality and the past, slipping further and further away from the desperate grasp of her husband. Coral is not mad because Roy cannot control her; she is in such a deep state of grieving that the Aussie dream is well and truly lost for her. Herbert gives Coral a fluid naivety damaged by tragedy; her performance is one of the heart-breaking standout’s alongside Liam Nunan’s Tom.

Amongst the great pretenders are Vic (Julia Davis) and Harry (Wadih Dona) who manage to live in the moment as they watch their son Tom slip away from them due to his illness. We know the inevitability of grief will befall them, and they too may just stop smiling through their sadness and join Coral on her faraway shore.

In contrast we have the couple whose great tragedy is staying together, existing in a chronic state of unhappiness in which no holiday can salvage. Heather Mitchell’s Gwen is marvellously funny and annoying as her shrill voice drains her family of any moments of joy; a complacent husband Jim (Marco Chiappi) continues to accept his lot with a resigned shruggery. Their family is one blessed with health, but they are not untouched by the life of having lived as battlers-come-good. Gwen’s chronic state of stress is indicative of another kind of grief, one where a lifelong sacrifice for a future yet lived leaves traces of bitterness.

This is still a sensitive and poignant production by Lutton amidst the jarring devices of non-naturalism that threatens to break down the walls of their world. Audiences will be surprised from the outset of this play; if they are expecting a classic re-telling of Away they will be in for an awakening – but it really is a very good one.

Malthouse Theatre presents THE HOMOSEXUALS

How dare we, or you, or anyone, be politically incorrect (PC is very in, in case you weren’t paying attention). Lee Lewis’ romp as director into taboo territory is loud, colourful, slapstick, and rainbow-shoots dance hits of the bygones. This production of The Homosexuals is everything you would expect it to be, and then a little more sardonic.

And it is funny. The shining light of this show isn’t the performers so much as their sharp dialogue catapulted from Declan Greene’s pen. I can see the delivery only sharpening as the season goes on, and like Greene’s usual work, is so right now. Right now, and reflected in the play is the war between white homosexual men and other sexual and racial minorities that continue to be marginalised by cookie-cutter ideals. It rages in this production, and offers a farcical gaze upon the pompous rhetoric of queer theorist ‘Bae-Bae’ (played with natural grace and disdain by the genderqueer Mama Alto).

The play is set in a tiny modern apartment in Darlinghurst where Warren (Simon Bourke), the identified ‘older gay gentleman’ looks through his lens at the young and chiselled Adonis (Lincoln Younes). Clichés aside, Warren attempts to hide his interest in the Adonis from his shrieky partner, Kim (Simon Corfield). Cue the realisation that married paradise does not exist even for the queer community. What is meant to be the night of the Mardi-Gras and offensive costume party (hint: blackface/Hiroshimaface/Naziface), turns into a comedy of near-misses as a druggie and part-time cook (Mama Alto) is mistaken for the gloriously self-righteous ‘Bae Bae’. A series of mad antics ensue in what is sure to be a night of laughs.

A real shout-out must go to the top-notch comic delivery of Diana (Genevieve Lemon), who propelled the silliness on stage and brought a sage moment towards the close of the fare. Unfortunately this is where the script diverts too sharply from the rest of the play; the tone suddenly shifts to a serious placethat doesn’t have the same wondrous reality-shatter of other works that manage to take comedy to dark places. The point is already made in the piece itself – the audience knows. The show ultimately ends with a whimper, no bang in sight. I found this a touch disappointing given all the walls shattered earlier in the evening.

However, if you want to catch a show that pokes fun at itself and definitely makes you laugh – then by all means, enter the rainbow world of The Homosexuals, or ‘Faggots’, currently showing at the Malthouse Theatre until Sunday 12 March.

Malthouse presents LITTLE EMPERORS

2016 saw the glass-globe political bubble of China’s One Child Policy shatter. Picking up the pieces of what is presented as a haunted generation of youth and families, the brave new work of Lachlan Philpott and director Wang Chong is both penetrating and poignant.

A talented cast drive this absorbing story of Kaiwen (Yuchen Wang), separated from a family he is too young to remember and suddenly asked to return to the world that rejected him. His tenuous connection with his sister, Huishan, (Alice Qin) harbours a familiar Chinese communal secret, and we are plunged into a world built on memory, the subconscious and heartbreaking reality. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching character is that of their mother, played with such varied and breathtaking emotion by Diana [Xiaojie Lin] – a character so tormented by living the life she endured against her will.

Philpott’s writing is achingly familiar as it speaks to something even I, an outsider, can recognise as the universal desire for closeness with our kin. Philpott’s opportunity to visit Beijing and meet with local people whilst collaborating with Chong has given a real dimension to his work. It would be easy to dismiss Philpott’s writing as another outsider attempting to discuss the unrelatable, but Little Emperors provides a rare glimpse into a world rarely discussed or acknowledged by its own people. In the play, Kaiwen now living in Melbourne directs his own work to confront the One Child Policy, but his cast one by one vanish as they find unearthing their secrets either too painful or unspeakable.

Where this play is overall potent, the uncomfortable dialogue and acting between Kaiwen and his sound technician (Liam Maguire) distracts. While it would be easy to dismiss the relationship between these two characters, it reveals a savage loneliness of Kaiwen. This loneliness breathes throughout the play as our characters battle inner torments they find difficult to express to those around them. It is evident that those who live in Kaiwen’s originating home struggle with what occurred in their own way.

The staging of Little Emperors is visually and stylistically brilliant. The entire stage is one murky pool of water through which our characters navigate uniquely. Kaiwen walks in the water with ease, but he also uses it with a violence to convey his own turbulent mind. Little white chairs serve as stepping-stones for the women, as they, chair after chair, exhaustingly negotiate every social interaction with forced labour. In one scene, the mother beats her own body with the body of water, side to side, in an unrelenting force of self-flagellation. Romanie Harper’s set design is so effective I cannot think of a more fluid use of staging to convey the inner tumult and complexities of these characters. Nothing is left unused or unturned on the Little Emperors stage. James Paul’s sound design matches the staging with a moodiness that permeates everything around it – this little world created before us grips us in an oxymoron of vitality and gloom.

I walk out of the theatre feeling closer to a truth I heard about in passing, and I feel for a moment closer to a community I have had limited interaction with. Australian audiences can gain much by seeing this work, and it assists in breaking cultural boundaries and giving insights where none have really been offered before. This is brave, beautiful and necessary theatre.