Bran Nue Dae

by Jimmy Chi and Kuckles

seen at the Riverside Theatre (Parramatta) on 16 January 2020

Andrew Ross directs this revival of the thirty-year-old Aboriginal musical Bran Nue Dae with Ernie Dingo as Uncle Tadpole and Marcus Corowa as his nephew Willie, with musical direction by Michael Mavromatis and Patrick Bin Amat. It is part of the festival of Sydney

Willie, expelled from a Catholic school in Perth after antagonising the fierce pastor there, determines to travel back to his home town of Broome though somewhat nervous of meeting his mother and explaining his situation to her. He meets an older Aboriginal man, Uncle Tadpole, who decides to travel with him, and they hitch a ride with two hippies, a somewhat clueless young German and his Australian girlfriend. Their picaresque journey northwards, the naive Willie's education in matters of the heart, and their reception in Broome, form the basic story, but the chief glory of the show is the infectiously enjoyable music, exuberantly sung and danced by the company.

Anthem

by Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Melissa Reeves, Christos Tsiolkas and Irine Vela, with assistance by Bryan Andy

seen at the Roslyn Packer Theatre (Sydney) on 15 January 2020

Susie Dee directs a cast of fourteen in this work of joint authorship presenting a slice of various Australian lives as crystallised on train journeys made (mostly) in Melbourne. Each author created scenes from observed situations on trains, the results being woven together as a series of interlinked episodes unified by musical threads composed by Irine Vela.

A previous project from 1998 called Who's Afraid of the Working Class? has provided the springboard for the current work, which the authors claim to be tougher, with 'no moments of redemption or reassurance .... unrelenting in the conclusions it draws'. They are certainly right about the tone, which veers from rueful acceptance of the grind of commuting on crowded trains to the raw anger of cultural and class repression with very few lighter moments to relieve the sense of frustration and rage hiding barely beneath the surface. 

The White Album

by Joan Didion

seen at the Roslyn Packer Theatre (Sydney) on 11 January 2020

Lars Jan and the Early Morning Opera group devised this staged adaptation of Joan Didion's celebrated essay on culture and counter-culture in the 1960s, with Mia Barron taking the principal part of reciting the text, five others taking minor parts, and a score or so of 'volunteers' providing the crowd background. It is part of this year's Sydney Festival.

On a bare stage with a wide box-like space at the back fronted by perspex floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors people mill about until the performance starts. Then an introductory exercise stills the cast (and the audience) and the recitation begins. Some aspects of the events Didion recounts and ruminates upon are acted out, or emblematically evoked, either on the stage or within the box: there is a particularly effective use of the white wall at the back to create slogans during the sequence concerning university sit-ins, and a slow motion enactment of gun violence in relation to the Manson murders.

Candida

by Bernard Shaw

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 28 November 2019

Paul Miller directs Martin Hutson as the Rev James Mavor Morell, Claire Lams as his wife Candida, Michael Simkins as his father-in-law Mr Burgess, Sarah Middleton as Miss Proserpine Garnett ('Prossey'), his secretary, Kwaku Mills as the Rev Alexander Mill, his curate, and Joseph Potter as Mr Eugene Marchbanks, an 18-year-old poet who is also a family friend. This is Paul Miller's fourth revival of an early Shaw play in the last five years; I've seen two others and this, like them, is excellent.

When the Crows Visit

by Anupama Chandrasekhar

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 13 November 2019

Indhu Rubasingham directs this new play, with Ayesha Dharker as Hema, Bally Gill as her son Akshar, and Soni Razdan as her mother-in-law Jaya. Clearly inspired by Ibsen's Ghosts the play provides (if that were possible) an even more bleak view of family dynamics. Where in Ibsen's play young Osvald Avling is for the most part a victim of circumstances, destroyed both mentally and physically by the ghosts surrounding him, in this play Akshay, the son of the house, perpetuates the cycle of male violence endemic in the family. 

The brutal compromises forced on women in a society in which men dominate and divorce is unthinkable even in the face of physical violence lie behind the constant bickering and unease between Hema, widowed now but still reliant on her husband's reputation to protect the family name, and Jaya, an apparently indulgent and borderline senile woman who uses her frailty to shield herself from her own painful memories. Relying on mythic archetypes to justify her past actions, and hoping that they will still guide her in dealing with her grandson, Jaya is a woman barely able to recognise that she has colluded in her own misery. Hema, realising that her son has become a monster too like his father, perhaps is on the verge of breaking the pattern - but at this point the play stops, so we cannot know if she is successful. In the meantime Akshay has degenerated from a somewhat rootless and none-too-successful young man in the big city, to a quite repellently vicious level. Just a quirky twist of the mouth can turn a naive smile to a cynical sneer with quite chilling effect.

The Watsons

by Laura Wade

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 10 November 2019

Samuel West directs this adaptation of Jane Austen's unfinished novel, with Grace Molony as Emma Watson and Loiuse Ford as Laura and a large supporting cast in a production designed by Ben Stones. The play was originally performed in Chichester, and is due for a transfer to the West End (as are so many of the Menier's successful productions).

Jane Austen began this novel in 1804, but chose not to complete it. There are some scrappy hints of her intentions, but no real explanation of why it was abandoned - a field day for an enthusiastic adapter.The play sets the scene, a predictable and enjoyable story of a young girl in reduced circumstances making her way in a social setting rich with possibilities for Austen's characteristically waspish observations about custom, propriety and marriage prospects. Emma has been brought up by a wealthy relative, and then discarded to be returned to her father's house just as the father is declining towards death; she has to cope with an older sister who has devoted herself to their father, a more flighty sister, and a married brother with a snobbish wife. She attracts the interest of the inarticulate Lord Osborne, and also has an easy familiarity with the clergyman attached to the Osborn estate.

Vassa

by Maxim Gorky adapted by Mike Bartlett

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 8 November 2019

Tinuke Craig directs Siobhán Redmond as the matriarch Vassa with Amber James as her daughter Anna, Arthur Hughes and Danny Kirrane as her sons Pavel and Semyon, Michael Gould as her brother-in-law Prokhor and Cyil Nri as her manager Mikhail. Sophie Wu played Lyudmila, Pavel's wife, Kayla Meikle was Natalya, Semyon's wife, and Alexandra Dowling and Daniella Isaacs played the two servants Lipa and Dunya.

In a versatile set designed by Fly Davis, unusually making use of a curtain in this theatre, and allowing for multiple entrance points reminiscent of a farce, the fate of capitalism is played out in miniature as Vassa attepts to preserve the family fortunes from collapse in the face of her husband's imminent death, her brother-in-law's rapacity, and her sons' incompetence. Indeed the staging encourages a view that we are watching a farce, as people erupt on stage, having been eavesdropping at the doors, or else appearing totally unaware of the crisis into which they are plummeting. Vassa herself holds the stage (she is usually on stage) with imperious determination, and even in her absence most people are fearfully aware of her authority.