Friday Five: More Theatre

As we are all in lockdown, I thought it would be time to review the last theatre productions I was able to attend as, who knows when we will get to go and sit collectively in the dark again.

5 Recent Theatre Productions:

Josh Wiseman and Pippin Carroll in Rope

1. Rope - Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3: This is a well-acted and well-staged production of an old-fashioned piece of theatre. Known to many due to the Alfred Hitchcock film, this interpretation still has sufficient bluffs and double bluffs to keep the audience hanging on until the end. The trope of a bored entitled elite killing someone just because they can and not acknowledging there will be consequences is well trod now (not least through Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment or, more recently, Donna Tartt's 1990s book club favourite The Secret History), but at the time of writing (1929), the concept was original enough to be diverting. Patrick Hamilton's plays (he also wrote Gaslight) can be interpreted as stuffy and overwrought drawing-room dramas (and the opulence of the set threatens to overwhelm), but the fact that this still felt fresh is due in large part to the light but detailed direction by Ed Wightman and the flamboyantly compelling acting by Pippin Carroll in the lead role of Wyndham Brandon. Other acting is uneven and not all of the styles blend well together, but it is relatively tight at a one-act 90-mins running time.
2. The Appleton Ladies Potato Race - Ensemble Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre: Written by Melanie Tait, this charming, heartfelt and positively affirming play provides five great roles for women and a story that is both specific and universal. The small country town of Appleton is disturbed when returning resident and new GP Penny Anderson (Sharon Millerchip) discovers that the famous Potato Race awards $1,000 prize money to men and $200 to women. As she takes on the organisers, the competitors and the spectators she comes face to face with those who want change and those who see no problems with the way things are. Director, Priscilla Jackman teases out all the niggles, nuances, resentments and rejections as the characters try to understand and accept each other for who they really are. It's as like a fusion of Made in Dagenham with The Dressmaker served with an added side of potato puns.
3. Hello, Is There Anybody There? - Tempo Theatre, Belconnen Community Theatre: Tempo love to have fun with their productions, and they ham up this self-aware murder mystery with great delight. Lady Amelia (Cheryl Browne) is searching for a subject for her next novel, aware that it has all been done before and there are no new murder tropes - so with many a knowing nod to the audience (the fourth wall is completely demolished), she explores them all over the space of the play, aided and abetted by her drunken sot of a sexist husband (Kim Wilson) and the farcical cop duo (Michael Ubrihien and Nikki-Lynne Hunter rocking her Scottish accent for all its inherent humour). The writing is drenched in self-deprecation and deadpan delivery, and the cast milk it like the comedy cow it is with the butler and the maid (Gary Robinson and Marian FitzGerald) joining in the murderous parlour games. It's ridiculous but it's fun.
4. Milk - The Street, Street Theatre: I believe the theatre is a forum for sharing stories; exploring the past; questioning the present; and preparing for the future. Milk does all of the above with superb staging and atmospheric sound and lighting featuring pivotal moments in liminal spaces. If this an ode to the writer (Dylan Van Der Burgh)'s daughter, she is one very lucky human. We stand with you. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which we live.
5. The Governor's Family - Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3: Plaudits to Rep for taking on this confronting work. It's not often a community theatre company with a traditionally conservative audience would program a play tackling themes of cultural appropriation, gender diversity, incest and political revolution. If it is a little packed with righteousness, that is the fault of the writing and not of the delivery. Director Tony Llewellyn-Jones has assembled a cast of considerable merit to portray the dysfunctional family of the fictional Governor of NSW, Howard Mountgarret (played with agonising guilt and torment by Peter Holland in one of his finest performances to date). Frances Pod (Kiara Tomkins) is a young indigenous woman who has been raped by a group of Irishmen. Mountgarrett takes her into his home ostensibly as a gesture of compassion, but one which is viewed with scepticism by his weary and depressed wife (Antonia Kitzel) and insurrectionist cross-dressing daughter (Caitlin Baker) and partisan interest by his poetic justice-seeking son (Robbie Haltiner). As Mountgarret has to decide how to deal with the perpetrators - brothers of the temperamental newspaper man and potential beau of his daughter (Jack Casey) - he knows his actions will have greater implications for the future of the colony, which are hammered home with a decisive lack of subtlety in the second act. Andrew Kay's versatile set is a highlight, using the potential of the revolve and the scrim to place us in different sections of society with always the suggestion of another in the periphery. The production elements add in the moments of light and shade that the script itself lacks to make this a fully challenging piece of theatre.