The Hive

The Hive
Sam Sejavka
Chamber Made at The Meat Market
Until 10 Sept

There’s something about Sam that all the quirky Melbourne theatre writers owe a debt to. The excentric or fried, Lally Katz, Dario Va Circa, James Adler, and yes even me too. Wether we know it or not, we’re the heirs of his playwrite as rock star cool.

I tell you that because I want you to understand that the problem I had with The Hive wasn’t the writing.

After all, I could barely understand a damn thing that was being said. Sung.

I wanted to like this show, I really did. It’s a modern opera by chamber made, it’s reinterpretation of a classic Sam Sejavka script, I should have left that place with my brain buzzing.

Let’s get right into what I hated shall we?

Up and coming genius composer Nicolas Vines. Stop telling this kid he’s a genius. It’s not doing him any good. He’s clearly talented but the more you tell him he’s brilliant the more he’ll think he can get away with anything.

I get modern composition, I really do. Atonality and dissoncance, I love it. But I also get balance and contrast. The score for The Hive is all dissonance all the time. And after half an hour of it, the rest’s just white noise. We want a god damn melody. Once. Just once.

Even Stravinsky can’t be Stravinsky all the god damn time.

Anna Tregloan’s design is pretty if not really exploring an idea very deeply, but who can blame her, is there nothing in this town that she doesn’t do the design for at the moment?

I can’t realty comment on the direction because I didn’t notice any and as I say, the delivery of the text meant I didn’t understand a single word so I can’t really review the play. The original text however is probably still available from currency and is well worth a read.

Danny Episode

Construction of the Human Heart

Construction of the Human Heart
Ross Mueller
The Tower
Until Aug 21

Okay, so it’s over and I missed reviewing it for publication. There's things to do.

I’ll admit it, after all the god damn hype around the thing, I didn’t think it was that great. I mean, it was good, don’t get me wrong, but after it premiered at the storeroom last year, everyone was like, oh my god, have you seen it, you gotta go see it.

Well, I didn’t go see it then. I had something on. That happens in this place.

And I really hate that. That I go to the remount of a show that every one said was the shit and come out going, well it was okay but…

There’s nothing in it to fault, well perhaps that even without having seen it’s original, it was obvious that they’d recreated the storeroom production in the tower. Other than that, it’s great. Todd MacDonald and Fiona Macleod, well, everyone knows they’re meant to be on stage together, from ride to construction. The direction is Brett Addam’s subltly geometric movement, Casey Benetto’s voice over just quirky enough and Ross’s writing clever and approaching it’s peak. I say approaching cause I know what’s coming and it’s gonna be good.

So perhaps that’s it’s downfall. In the storeroom you’re no more than three seats away from them, they’re spitting on you, the rage and pain washes straight over you in that confined little room, and the towers too big. We’re just too damn far away from it it get it’s full impact. This is a story of humanity and you gotta be able to get up close to understand.

Danny Episode

Festen

Festen
Dramatisation by David Eldridge
MTC at the Fairfax
Until September 23rd


I've been hanging out to see Festen since some time last year. Mate of mine up at STC told me about watching it play up there (Jeremy Sims as Christian - i think) and seeing the well healed Sydney audience sink into their chairs as the play progresses. Watching them steel themselves, "no, we can do this we can do this" and then, at a certain point in the play, deciding en masse, "nope, that's enough" and walking out.

I'm pleased to say Melbourne audiences are a damn site harder than our northern contemporaries. Not one got up and left. Not a single storm out. Yay for us. You go Melbourne.

Well, the show itself... this is the kind of work i think a flagship theatre company should be doing. We all know that it's based on the Dogma film, conversation at the party afterwards was much centered on how the anarchy of the film translated to a very still and very strong staging. Never the less, the chaos of the story still plays through and very much gets under your skin in that creepy crawly don't you just wanna take a blunt knife to humanity way.

What wonderful creatures humans are.

The return of Jason Donovan to the Melbourne stage as Christian is a delight to behold. This aint the boy next door you remember from Neighbors, this a powerful actor with a deep. deep emotional reserve whose really been to some places since Especially For You.

John Stanton, down from the original Sydney production is the epitome of the bad dad, and rightly so for the guy who played Fraser in The Dismissal. It's also really good to start seeing mates appearing on the MTC stage. Shout out to the wonderful Kat Stewart from Red Stitch and Julie Eckersley.

For me MTC's Festen justifies MTC's The Clean House.

It aint an easy ride but it must be seen.


Danny Episode

back back

Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Apologies for my disappearance of late but it's been a hell couple of months. There aint been nothing in beat either.
Well, who the hell knows whose reading this beyond Chris Boyd anyway. Ta for the shout btw, and punctuation and spelling be damned. that message was passed on by certain mutual parties as quite the lecture i can assure you. No, I kid and not very effectively. Will do what i can in future but make no promises.
So, where has Danny been that's been so damn important he hasn't been able to blog. Well, apart from anything he's been directing a handful of shows, writing a handful more and jet setting around the country like the international bright young thing he is. HA. If I win a green room for the last show I swear I’ll spit. Pour my heart and soul into something for six years and nothing, churn out the most self indulgent spectacle ever and they roll over and play dead. Nobody knows nothing.
Ah well, there's always use for a big green dildo in my household.
Not like that, geez.
Anyway, busy continues on well into fringe for Danny, so the reviews and blogs will likely come thin and far between.
But I am out to see a couple of things so there should be a few coming, fingers crossed. Festen tonight so perhaps we speak too soon.
Well, good to remember how to use this damn engine anyway.

ttfn
D