Friday Five: Theatre in 2024 So Far...

The cast of Queers at ACT Hub

1. Queers - Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub: A evening of well-performed entertainment that sits more under cabaret than theatre. It is a series of eight monologues performed by indiviual actors with no interaction between them. The direction (Jarrad West and Steph Roberts) is solid as each seperate monolgue takes us through various decades and gives some insight into the main concerns of the gay 'scene', which (according to the publisher of the works curated by Mark Gatiss) 'celebrate a century of evolving social attitudes and political milestones in British gay history. Here, the pub setting and musical interludes provided extra interest and atmosphere, with a special mention for Steph Roberts who played the bartender interracting with actors and adience alike.  
2. Last of the Red Hot Lovers - Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3: A fine production of a not-particularly outstanding play. Barney Cashman (David Cannell) decides he wants to have lots of sex with different women so he invites three of them individually to his appartment and fails to get intimate with any of them, possibly due to a disturbing and extremely unpleasant habit of constantly sniffing his fingers. As usual with a Neil Simon play, the self-indulgent, over-entitled, middle-aged, middle-class, mediocre white man is centre stage while the women are left to act in supporting roles. Victoria Tyrrell Dixon played the wisecracking Elaine Navazio with the perfect blend of cool confidence and comic timing, Stephanie Bailey as Bobbi Michelle played a demanding role with a lightness of touch, gradually and sensitively revealing the truth of her fantasist behaviour, and Janie Lawson as Jeanette Fisher handled existentialist dread well, although was a little stilted and uncertain of her cues.
3. After Rebecca - The Miscellany Co-operative, ACT Hub: Michelle Cooper is a tour de force in action as she delivers this one-person, seventy-five-minute mologue, which tackles themes of abuse and co-ercive control. She also co-directs with Emma Fibson, who wrote the work which transposes the story Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca to a remote outback farm. The idea of a young impressionable woman being swept off her feet by the star of a reality show only to discover when she is alone and isolated that he is more than the handsome heart-throb portrayed on television and that she is expected to be much less than the talented production assistant he met and seduced, is horrendously relevant and contemporary. It starts with a confidence which seems attractive. He takes charge, he promises adventure, he removes you from your support network, he shapes you to fit his mould, he snaps in anger, he denies everything, he will never ever stop. And you say sorry. Sixteen women have been killed in Australia this year due to ‘gender-based violence’. That’s more than one a week. It's only March. You need to see this.  

4. Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare, Macbeth - Canberra Comedy Festival, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre: Six years ago I saw Shit-Faced Shakespeare do their version of Romeo and Juliet at the Canberra Comedy Festival and I loved it. This interpretation of Macbeth is just as fun, sharp and witty, and as there is a different inebriated actor/ character each night, it has a wide range of appeal and bears repeat viewing. I also think the more you know the play; the funnier it is, and I have seen and performed in this play more times than any other of Shakespeare's canon. It's very well-crafted entertainment.
5. RBG: Of Many, One - Canberra Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre: FOr anyone who saw and loved Julia and Prima Facie, this new work by Suzie Miller will be a welcome delight. Heather Mitchell portrays the titular character, Ruth Bader Ginsberg from her budding legal awakening through her appointment as a Supreme Court Justice of the USA, and her cult status that saw her labelled as Notorious RBG. I have been interested in her career so I couldn't say if prior knowledge is necessary to the enjoyment of the play, but what I can say is that Mitchell is quite brilliant in embodying the woman as she ages and develops, learning and encountering all the highs and lows of her experience. The script is spectacular as Miller blends primary source material with directorial imagination, and the performance, directed by Priscilla Jackman, is nothing short of remarkable. Theatre that tells us stories of outstanding people and their effect on their surroundings is theatre worth watching. 

An Obsession with Birds: A Bird in the Hand

A Bird in the Hand by Ann Cleeves

Pan Books

Pp. 214

The author of the books on which the series Vera and Shetland are based, Ann Cleeves wrote the first in this George and Molly Palmer-Jones series in 1986. The couple in question are retired, happy to travel the British Isles birdwatching, and solving the murders which invariably occur. George used to work at the Home Office (doing secret business), is good with details and has bouts of depression; Molly is a retired social worker who is good at listening and brings out the best in people. Naturally, they make a great couple. Both are restless with their current life and enjoy a new challenge.

A birdwatcher is found dead on a marsh with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. This is a great surprise to everyone in the small community because everyone loved him. Or did they? Of course, they didn’t, as this is an old-style mystery and secrets soon come to light complete with multiple suspects, red herrings, precise timings of the murder, poison pen letters, and suspicious alibis. At one point when discussing how the “smooth and cylindrical” murder object might be a telescope, they admit, “It had become something of a game.” After noting the sincere concern of a potential victim, however, George realises it is not so cosy. “Her fear had been wild and irrational. So was murder. He would not find his answers through reason and intellect. This was no crossword to be solved by a gentleman in an armchair. Murder was mad and unreasonable, and gentlemen had no part in it.”

The novel contains lots of interesting birdwatching information – who knew twitchers were such addicts or that they had great rivalries with ringers? Twitching is a way of life, which affects people in dramatic ways when a ‘rarity’ is discovered, and news of which sighting is shared among the community. The impulse nature and attraction of twitching is highlighted, and George considers how far one might take this addiction. “He had always considered his obsession for birds to be relatively harmless, but now his own experience showed that it could alter mood, sense, even personality, like a drug. Did it also have the power to make a person mad enough to commit murder? Twitching was a desire for possession and that was always dangerous.”

The novel offers an interesting approach to retirement, as Molly admits to an unexpected bereavement at giving up her job. “She had thought that she would enjoy a time of quiet, enjoy having the time to do things well. But she had missed work desperately. It was not just that she missed feeling useful, although that was important. It was that she missed meeting people who were different, unusual, unconventional.” Although she has no real interest in the birds, she studies the passions of the people that chase around the country from the Scilly Isles to Scotland.

These two make an interesting couple, and with a background of birdwatching to add colour to the murder scenes and motivations, this could be an engaging series to follow.