Reviews

Chess

Lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. Old Scotch Music and Drama Club. Director: Alan Burrows. Choreographer: Di Crough. Musical Director: Martine Wengrow. October 19 – 28, 2017

Chess the musical is not unlike the game it depicts - deceptively and demandingly complex. The music is difficult, the movement requires focused and adroit choreography and its performers need both the acting and vocal chops to do its tension fuelled scenes and songs justice. A lot can go wrong in this production,and it can be hard to find the people needed to get it right. OSMaD found them, and have presented what is a powerful and consistently interesting production of a very challenging piece.

Chicago

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. Gosford Musical Society. Directed by Toni Williams. Musical Direction: Chris Hochkins. Choreography: Karen Snook. Costumes: Jamie McKenzie. Set Design: Simon Castle. Laycock Street Theatre. October 20-November 11, 2017

It's impossible to start this review off in any kind of 'neutral' perspective, given that, the first community theatre production of any kind this reviewer had ever seen, was opening night of GMS' Chicago in 2002. Aspects of the experience that struck me most were the over-flowingly loving vibe emanating from the audience; how high the production values were in regard to costumes, lighting and set design; and the marvellous diversity of the cast – in appearance and professional abilities.

A Festival of Russian Ballet

The Imperial Russian Ballet. Concert Hall, QPAC. 19-20 October 2017

Australian audiences have had a love affair with Russian dance companies ever since Michael Edgley and Andrew Guild began touring them to Australia in the 1960’s. It’s this love of Russian dance that permeates the whole performance of the Festival of Imperial Russian Ballet, a pop-pourri of popular pieces from the classical repertoire.

Germinal

Conception and Direction by Halory Goerger and Antoine Defoort. Melbourne Festival. Malthouse Theatre. 19 – 22 October, 2017

Germinal is marvelous festival fare – an exceptional experience.  It is just the sort of show that stretches expectations and delivers the completely unpredicted in a totally unique way.  One gasps and laughs with surprise whilst being charmed by the whimsical nonsensicality of the experience.  And yet all the time the reasoning of the whole seems to be based on the perfectly rational.

We Love Arabs

Written & performed by Hillel Kogan with Adi Boutrous. Batsheva Dance Company of Israel. Melbourne Festival. The Coopers Malthouse Beckett Theatre. 18 – 22 October 2017

We Love Arabs is a dance-comedy-drama show; it is simple in concept but rich in metaphor, allegory and irony.  It is beautifully, straight-facedly executed satire and – beneath its wit and its piss-take on the pretensions of ‘contemporary dance, a bitingly serious piece.  It is – ostensibly and actually - about those awkward neighbours, the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The Melbourne Monologues

Melbourne Writers’ Theatre. La Mama Courthouse, 17 – 22 October, 2017

Melbourne Writers’ Theatre continues to impress with another engaging series of monologues, The Melbourne Monologues. Like The St Kilda Stories it is also a series of six short stories that are directed with care and sensitivity by Elizabeth Walley.

The Kitchen Sink

By Tom Wells. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: Shane Bosher. 14 October – 18 November 2017

The most important things to get right are the place and the time. The Kitchen Sink is set in the fading seaside village of Withernsea, East Yorkshire, a few years ago as Martin’s milk delivery float, a risky rival to Tesco, is rapidly running out of business. Director Shane Bosher, with no assistance from the Ensemble’s program, completely nails it.

Chicago

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. Willoughby Theatre Company. Director: Andrew Castle. Musical Director: Alex Ash. Choreographer: Janina Hamerlok. The Concourse, Chatswood. Oct 13 – 22, 2017.

Long before TV hits Wentworth and Orange is the New Black, there was Chicago, the John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse Broadway Musical collaboration about women in prison for killing their lovers and husbands, their slimy lawyer and corrupt prison warder. Based on a 1926 play, it’s inspired by real criminals of the time, telling its satirical tale of celebrity criminals and the corruption of the legal system in the vaudeville style, used as a sort of Brechtian device

SHOUT! The Legend of The Wild One

By John-Michael Howson, David Mitchell and Melvyn Morrow. MLOC. Shirley Burke Theatre, Parkdale. 13 October to 21 October 2017

MLOC’s production of Shout! is a classic example of Community Theatre being alive and well in the suburbs of Melbourne.

Director Rhylee Nowell has pulled together a group of musical theatre devotees and produced a show that has the audience singing along. 

Rhinoceros

By Eugene Ionesco. heartBeast Theatre, Brisbane. Directed by Steve Pearton. October 13 – 28, 2017

Rhinoceros, written in 1959 by Romanian / Frenchman Eugene Ionesco, illustrates how radical groups such as the Nazis, fascists or communists can come into being and sweep the people up into their beliefs. As a model, he has used the rhinoceros that at first seems strange and unattractive but lures most into the group. This is Theatre of the Absurd and heartBeast has staged it in a theatre that matched the play. In the Reservoir Theatre, at the bottom of four flights of stairs, the audience sat on three sides of a small square stage between four pillars.

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