Considerations of quality

A couple of months away travelling and a couple more laid up with pneumonia and I saw fewer shows in 2017 than in recent years (but still well into the double digits). Reflecting, it is clear that quality over quantity can be incredibly rewarding. And what quality there was on offer… so much so that my usual top five favourite, has been blown out to the following ten:

1. Torch Songs (Mama Alto, Brisbane Powerhouse, Wonderland Festival)
2. Lady Beatle (The Little Red Company, La Boite Theatre Company)
3. My Name is Jimi (Queensland Theatre)
4. Once in Royal David’s City (Queensland Theatre)
5. The Play that Goes Wrong (Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, QPAC)
6. Chef (Persona Inc & Atobiz Ltd, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane Festival)
7. Nigel Kennedy: Vivaldi The New Four Seasons + Dedications (Nigel Kennedy, QPAC)
8. Kinky Boots (Michael Cassel in association with Cameron Mackintosh, QPAC)
9. Spectate (Counterpilot, Metro Arts)
10. Humans (Circa, QPAC)

And honourable mention to the UK’s National Theatre Stage to Screen show Yerma… Gut-wrenching, phenomenal theatre thanks to Billie Piper’s devastatingly powerful performance.

And mention also to the following highlights:

• Best performance:
  • Elaine Crombie as a hilarious house-slave in Queensland Theatre Company’s An Octoroon.
  • Merlynn Tong in her intimate and vulnerable one-woman work, Playlab’s Blue Bones
  • Cameron Hurry as badly behaved brother Valene in the darkly irreverent The Lonesome West by Troop Productions
• Best AV – Spectate (Counterpilot, Metro Arts)
• Most thought provoking –- Octoroon (Queensland Theatre, Brisbane Festival)
• Best new work – Merlyn Tong’s Blue Bones (Playlab, Brisbane Powerhouse)
• Best Reimagining – Signifying Nothing (Macbeth) (Hammond Fleet Productions, Brisbane Festival)
• Best musical – Kinky Boots (Michael Cassel in association with Cameron Mackintosh, QPAC)
• Best cabaret:
  • Torch Songs (Mama Alto, Brisbane Powerhouse, Wonderland Festival)
  • Lady Beatle (The Little Red Company, La Boite Theatre Company)
  • Song Lines (Michael Tuahine, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane Cabaret Festival)
  • Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs (Alan Cumming, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane Cabaret Festival)
• Best music – Nigel Kennedy: Vivaldi The New Four Seasons + Dedications (QPAC)
• Best opera – Mark Vincent Sings Mario Lanza and the Classics (Lunchbox Productions, QPAC)
• Funniest – The Play That Goes Wrong (Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, QPAC)
• Most fun – Let Them Eat Cake (Act/React, Anywhere Festival)
• Most madcap – Chef (Persona Inc & Atobiz Ltd, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane Festival)
• Most immersive – Trainspotting Live (In Your Face Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse)
• Most moving – Once in Royal David’s City (Queensland Theatre)

2018 looks set to continue to showcase both the wonderful work of this state’s creatives and innovative works from both here and further afield. Festivals will continue to punctuate the cultural calendar, serving to oscillate audiences between feast and famine like a cultural bulimic… although with Brisbane Powerhouse’s Melt Festival moving to May (maybe at the same time as Anywhere Festival) it may be a shower than usual start to the year.

Courageous capabilities

Humans (Circa)

QPAC, The Playhouse

December 6 – 9

Given the way they are heralded around the world as an exciting and innovative physical theatre company, Circa is surely one of Queensland’s great cultural exports. And it is always wonderful to have them perform to a home-town crowd, as they will now be doing as part of a multi-year partnership with QPAC, beginning with share of their show “Humans”, an ensemble journey of celebration of what it means to be human.

The work sees 10 acrobats exploring the human form in expression of the essence of the human body’s extraordinary possibilities. As such, it is one of the company’s stripped-back and more organic pieces, which even in the Playhouse Theatre still feels like a more intimate experience than some of the company’s previous works. Mostly the show is floor work but there are still some beautiful aerial displays of trapeze, rope routines and straps segments. This is a wise decision as the limited use of apparatus allows concentration on the performers and the amazing things they can do with their bodies

It begins with a woman twisting out of her clothes, before the entire ensemble join her, spread out around the stage, each in their own space. It’s an engaging introduction that has audience members spoiled for choice in where to look as performers transition from individual movements to working collaboratively in tumble atop and under each other, layering the scene with highly-skilled gymnastic movements. Clearly, this is a work of substance more than showmanship and it is all the better because of it. Even the muted costume tones contribute, adding to the aesthetic without detracting from appreciation of the skills on show. And as its soundtrack transitions from evocative violin to feisty fiddle numbers, this only escalates as bodies are thrown around in tumble, twirl, slide and smash into the floor, in an energetic display to contrast the blank performer faces.

The high energy scenes are dynamic, but there is vulnerability too and many instances where gasps and applause are equally audible from the audience, in response to the innovative choreography as much as the feats of balance and strength themselves. We see a human jump rope, a performer walking and then rolling across a row of the others’ heads and a three-performer-high human pyramid on which a woman balances one-handed. And when the pyramid is inverted, it sees one man, supporting the weight of five people…. astounding stuff. There is laid-bare and beautifully poetic vulnerability too when a man moves around a female performer as if she’s a limp doll needing to be bent into position.

The inventiveness extends also to the soundtrack, which features an eclectic mix of world sounds such as jaunty gypsy stylings, upbeat electronica, sultry jazz and a folksy Joanna Newsom’s ‘Does Not Suffice’ to finish things off. And ‘The Impossible Dream (The Quest)’ is the perfect accompaniment for a revelry routine in which performers all try, through different contortionism, to lick their elbows. Not only are moves cued to music but the use of tempo works well to draw focus. And so, when speech is used, just once, it seems holistically out of place.

What matters here is just the human body on display and it is a spectacle easily appreciated, particularly as performers freeze in place in the show’s later moments. There are no characters or discernible narrative here, which makes it easy to become lost in the experience of each routine. The show runs for only 70 minutes but it sometimes feels much longer (#inagoodway), given how much is packed into its experience.

“Humans” is an astonishing show that reconfirms Circa’s acclamation as one of the world’s top contemporary circus troupes. Indeed, its experience will have you at once amazed and honoured in acknowledgement of its home-grown success. The playful and powerful physical strength, grace and flexibility of its top-of-their-game performers is as mesmeric as it is breathtaking. In Circa’s hands we can truly see the incredible physical feats of which humans are courageously capable.