Sounds of the city

The Sound of a Finished Kiss (Now Look Here and Electric Moon in partnership with Brisbane Powerhouse)

Brisbane Powerhouse, Visy Theatre

June 12 – 16

Australian alternative rock band The Go-Betweens is part of the architecture of this city – not only culturally, but literally, courtesy of the inner city Brisbane toll bridge named in their honour. The indie band found cult fame (but no fortune) with their idiosyncratic music, focussed on the personal rather than the political at a time of political turmoil in the state (the band formed at UQ when Queensland was halfway through Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s almost two decades as Premier). It is appropriate, therefore to have the band’s songs tell the story of a generation and a city that shaped it, which is the tag-line for the world premiere collaboration between acclaimed Brisbane theatre and music companies Now Look Here and Electric Moon, “The Sound of a Finished Kiss”.

At its core, the show, which is written and directed by Kate Wild, is a celebration of the band’s rich musical legacy, frozen in time within the early ‘90s era. It begins however in the less distant past; it is 2016 when one of a now-far-flung group of friends finds a mixtape that transports her from London back to the endless empty days of Brisbane in 1991, when their collective potential still had possibility for fulfillment.

Becky (Kat Henry) has just moved from Toowoomba to the sophisticated big smoke city of Brisbane for university. At O-week she meets Zed (Lucas Stibbard) who has similarly relocated from Mackay, only with a more personal reason driving his desire for a fresh start. For the next two years they hang out as Becky works down a list of coming-of-age milestones and through a series of monologues interwoven with the songs they loved, we see them relive the events which shattered friendships and scattered the four friends of their group across the world. Like the music itself, their stories navigate an array of emotions, from the euphoric to the painful and many moments of humour as snippets of the different perspectives of relationships reveal their distinct characters.

One thing Brisbane does well is tell its own stories, whether in words, through music or on stage. “The Sound of a Finished Kiss” combines all three of these. The show is full of referential fondness for the city and its locations, in descriptions of West End traffic and changes to its landscapes, our slow brown river, its Story Bridge, Queen Street Mall and The Beat. And description of a party in a verandas-all-around-Queenslander in all its swampie, fire-twirling, goon-bladder drinking, literary discussion glory is like a step back in time to a life with a different group of people, with time to spend and squander.

The show’s 90-minute running times flies by, despite the simplicity of its narrative, which is appropriate given that at the age of its characters, everything seems immense. What is big, however, are the sounds of the show’s live five-piece band and four talented actor/musicians. Musical director James Lees of Electric Moon effectively unites the music of The Go-Betweens with Wild’s original story. Although some songs go on a little bit longer than necessary, they all fit effectively into the narrative, especially given the different song writing styles of the band’s two front men, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. As an opener, the heartfelt ‘Cattle and Cane’ for example, written by McLennan as a longing for his boyhood Rockhampton farm home while homesick after relocation to London, evokes an identifiable recall of wanting to venture forth to a bigger, brighter world and later nostalgia for what has been left behind, in words like ‘I recall coming home through fields of cane… the sky a rain of falling cinders’, especially to those, like me, whose own hometown memories include the evening haze of cane fires and their black cinder burn off.

All members of the ensemble cast deliver in every respect. Kat Henry is a naively-optimistic Becky in counter to Lucas Stibbard’s eyes-downcast, hands-in-pocket loner, Zed, yet together they make ‘Right Here’ an at-once cutesy and heartfelt duet. Lucinda Shaw is a tour-de-force as Karla, Becky’s indie spirit guide. Vocally she is magnificent, moving from husky smokiness to screaming heights in the post-punk B-side ‘Karen’ (written by Robert Foster as a tribute to University of Queensland Library staff). And her later ‘Bye Bye Pride’, about the humility of healing and moving on with life is a memorable combination of vulnerability and vocal power.

As the self-assured and almost larger-than-life Mike, Sandro Colarelli is just as compelling. In ‘Drive for Your Memory’, a song Robert Forster wrote reflecting about his break-up with the band’s drummer Lindy Morrison, he is an irresistible force in description of how Mike is affected by a love that couldn’t be, yet almost was… ‘Deep down I’m lonely and I miss my friend’. And in ‘The House Jack Kerouac Built’, recognition of a bad situation becoming worse, his rich, tremulous modern-day crooning sounds are delicious in their Morrissey shades, especially as he laments his loneliness in the number’s final lines. The song is also unforgettable due to its full band arrangement and it is wonderful to often see its musicians Ruth Gardner, Richard Grantham, Brett Harris, James Lees and Karl O’Shea revealed from behind the back-of-stage scrim screen in some numbers.

Like the breezy, melodic mid-tempo number ‘Spring Rain’ which looks back on living in Brisbane suburbia and ‘driving my first car, my elbows in the breeze’ “The Sound of a Finished Kiss” has an essentially-beautiful simplicity to its experience. As celebration of The Go-Betweens’ rich musical legacy, it is worthy enough in its revisit of Grant McLennan’s melodic genius and Robert Forster’s evocative lyrics. But with its backstory of the city and some of its people, it is simply superb.

The music conjures up the past, as only music can do, beyond just the summer sounds of their most commercial hit ‘Streets of Your Town’. As a then NQ swampie who road-tripped from Mackay to Brisbane in a Datsun Sunny listening to The KLF for life-anew at the University of Queensland, it not only made me sentimental, but left me lamenting about youth being wasted on the young. Indeed, so powerful is its evocation of era, that it can make theatregoers nostalgic for a time and place they didn’t personally encounter.

Regardless of your experience, or otherwise, of Brisbane’s unique subculture in the early 1990s, however, it still offers examination of some resonate, universal themes that will leave audiences with urge to reconnect with friends from long-ago lives. This is a show with an all-too-short initial run whose virtually sold-out season stands as testament to its need to return its sounds of our city to a stage. In the meantime, we can await another viewing with revisit of old ‘Tweens albums and re-read of “He Died with a Felafel in His Hand” and “Zigzag Street”.

Cosmic complexities

Constellations (Queensland Theatre)

The Greenhouse, Bille Brown Studio

March 9 – April 9

Life is about choices right? Well, not really, according to British playwright Nick Payne’s “Constellations”, which is based on the scientific notion that we might be living in one of many universes which are co-existing simultaneously. It’s something to do with String Theory or Doctor Who philosophy 101 about alternative universes that exist separated only by a millisecond of time and a nanometre of space, without ever having contact.

Every moment that Roland (Lucas Stibbard) and Marianne (Jessica Tovey) share is at the mercy of the universe, meaning that there are infinite possibilities of their two lives shared in consideration of everything they have ever or never done. When they first meet at a barbecue, he says he is in a relationship and she is just making conversation. The odds of them getting together are astronomical; he is a beekeeper and she is a physicist working in the field of quantum cosmology. But when their worlds keep colliding, all the possibilities of their life together are shared, from first date to final farewell, through conversations of both varying physical proximity and intimacy.

It is an up and down relationship reflected also in the undulating stage of celestial blue pin-pricked by light apart from during the complete blackout between some scenes switches. Ben Hughes’ lighting design serves not only to complement Anthony Spinaze’s set design but fulfils a significant narrative purpose as sections of the stage are lit to border character interactions as hint of the underlying issue that will take things in a totally different direction to initial anticipation.

This is a play about language and initially, especially, deliberate attention is needed before the narrative’s direction makes its latter half more absorbing. This is especially so because of its organisation of often short and sharp scenes that are immediately repeated, sometimes with only slightly different emphases, sometimes with wholly different resolutions. Once settled into its unique structure, however, it is easy to appreciate the cast’s nuanced performances and Kat Henry’s subtle directorial choices that combine in its success.

Stibbard and Tovey are both excellent and their repetition of scenes with just the slightest of transformed touch, a testament to the craft of both. And their chemistry is ample. As the neurotic academic Marianne, Tovey carefully balances vulnerability with awkward bluntness in blurt of whatever is on her mind. Stibbard’s Roland, however, is vulnerable in a more traditional sense, lovable in his sometimes self-doubt, eyes alight with enthusiasm in speak of beekeeping and devastated in his yearn for things to be different.

“Constellations” is an intelligent and powerful piece of theatre that is both a beautiful love story and an emotional delve into the mysteries that remain in our understanding of the multiverse, perfectly timed at 80 minutes without interval and perfectly prepared for without prior knowledge of its narrative journey. Although it is a slow burn at first, its humanity will sneak up on you and leave you with much to contemplate about the complexity of life, the universe and everything.

Not so straight forward

Straight White Men (La Boite & State Theatre Company)

La Boite Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre

July 27 – August 13

“Straight White Men” is a difficult show to review. From the initial moments of its experience it subverts expectations by blasting the awaiting audience with an uncomfortably loud, rattling pre-show soundtrack of female hip-hop music, complete with explicit lyrics, before beginning with a stage manager (nominated by its Korean-American playwright Young Jean Lee to be a non-gender-conforming female of colour), greeting the audience.

In contrast, the story itself begins simply enough with initial scenes that appear to emulate family sitcom conventions. What seems to be constructed as a classic American family drama (set somewhere in its Midwest), however, emerges as so much more as it probes the construct of masculine identity. The work, brought to Queensland by La Boite Theatre Company in collaboration with State Theatre Company of South Australia, explores what could be perceived as the oldest birth privilege around – to be a straight white man.

When recently-widowed Ed (Roger Newcombe) welcomes his middle-aged sons home for Christmas, their exuberant celebration and sibling hijinks are but a veneer to the question of privilege. All of the men are successful; the youngest, Drew (Lucas Stibbard) is an award-winning writer, middle-brother Jake (Chris Pitman) is a hotshot banker who refuses to apologise for his success and eldest sibling Matt (Hugh Parker) has been working a series of temp jobs at social organisations, but is living with his Dad as he attempts to repay his student loans. Harvard graduate Matt, traditionally acknowledged as the brightest of the three, has a long history of championing minorities, yet questions what he is meant to do with his life, which leads to his sudden breakdown in tears, without apparent reason or explanation, during a night of Chinese food and foolery.

Although the switch from parody to provocation is subtle, more recognisable in retrospect than experience, the distinct chapters to the show’s tone sometimes labour its rhythm. For example, after teasing and mocking each other in brotherly banter and having too much to drink, characters engage in a dance off, which, although fabulously funny, drags long beyond its natural endpoint.

As the rowdiest of the brothers, Pitman gives an engaging performance as the least likeable of the siblings. And Stibbard is similarly solid as the put-upon youngest brother Drew. But appropriately for a play that is primarily about Matt’s experience in just trying to stay out of the way of life, Parker gives a layered performance that hints at his inner sorrow well before his character’s tearful breakdown, proving what an asset he is to any production.

Rounding out the cast is Newcombe as their loveable dad, adorable in his insistence that they adhere to traditions like Christmas pyjamas and attempt to join in their dance party, and Stagehand-In-Charge Merlynn Tong who, through the simplest of smiles and nods, brings a humour to the role to make it more than just a meta-theatrical device.

Appropriately, the one-room middle-class family drama takes place in a white living room (designed by Victoria Lamb), naturalistic in aesthetic thanks also to Ben Hughes’ lighting. Further bringing Lee’s script to life is the music composed by Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers, La Boite Artist-in-Resident and musical director of Black Honey Company. Still, holistically, the work seems unsatisfying, particularly in its conclusion and it is its cast that ultimately carries its success.

Although relatively simple, the plot’s universal appeal suffers from the playwright’s requirement for there to be no alterations, meaning that the character’s jarring American accents and the narrative’s US references, alienate rather than appeal. Still, the show’s examination of the notions of ambition, activism and the value of capitalist ideas of success provide valuable consideration in any western culture. And as a satire and show of social consideration, “Straight White Men” represents the deep and diverse theatre at the core of La Boite’s artistic vision and thus Brisbane’s dynamic theatre culture.

Let’s talk about sex

Awkward Conversation

Metro Arts, Sue Benner Theatre

November 18 – November 29

Whereas week one of Awkward Conversation had family as an organising centre, Week Two saw the focus move to sex… well gender to be precise. And it is no more finely seen than in David Burton and Claire Christian’s work “The C Word” about the f word… feminism. Though this is a predominantly static work, it is filled with fabulous lines of wit and wisdom from the women who take the stage. Under Todd Macdonald’s direction, they are feisty in their frankness as they tell of Cleopatra, Beyonce and Julia Gillard and that misogyny speech (passionately shared to the injections of audience applause). Nobody performs teenager as well as Emily Burton and her delivery of a speech about feminism to her class is a show highlight that will have you hoping for more.

Notions of gender as also central to the wicked game that is “Salome”. Salacious in its lustful provocation of red and black, satin and lace, and full frontal nudity, it is derivative of other works from director Steven Mitchell Wright so not entirely shocking. “Salome” was written by Oscar Wilde in 1871 while imprisoned for crimes of sexuality, but things have changed, we are told; we live in the suburbs now. And what a strange mixed up suburbia it is.

Suburban horror also drives Martin Crimp’s “Fewer Emergencies”. Under the direction of Lucas Stibbard, this largely talky work evokes some strange visuals, but is particularly interesting in how it begins with narrators interjecting from within the audience before making their way to the stage to take the audience through a loosely connected series of violent events, even sharing a song to shatter illusions of fatherhood.

Music features strongly in Daniel Keene’s “The River”, the story of a down-and-out dad attempting to reconnect with his son. The protagonist is essentially an unlikeable character with little backstory to engender audience empathy, however, it is a testament to Ron Kelly’s skill in inhabiting the role of wayward, drunken father. Surely the work contains many life lessons and analogies, however, the most memorable aspects are its aesthetics with live music and some sublime lighting that sees the stage bathed in blue during a journey though “The Boys Light Up.”

Together with Week One’s offerings, “Awkward Conversation” serves up exactly that – some discomfort, some interest and a whole lot to take away and talk about. This is part of the reason why collaborations can be so exciting, for collaboration allows fission as much as fusion. The juxtaposition of ideas offers different perspectives and opportunities for a contemplative conversation.

Serious strangeness

Klutz – A Tragicomedy (Monsters Appear)

Theatre Republic, The Loft

September 9 – 13

“Klutz – A Tragicomedy” is a peculiar story from the mind of playwright Benjamin Schostakowski, Director of the Matilda Award-winning “A Tribute of Sorts”. Perhaps the show’s most striking moment is its opening tableau – the slanted, shingled rooftop of Klutz Books, from which the entire piece takes place. The show’s protagonist, racoon-eyed and sullen-cheeked teenager Melchior Klutz (Lucas Stibbard) emerges from its attic window and struts about the roof. All emo-ish in his exaggerated woe, he laments of his life in justification of his planned suicide, to shock and confuse all who knew him. Fate intervenes in the form of an errant shuttlecock and he meets neighbour Hendrik (Neridah Waters) who is soon drawn into his uncomfortable, kitshy world. Together they gather each evening on the rooftop to plan his demise and rehearse his funeral, with things never really going exactly as planned.

More comedy than tragedy, “Klutz” is a both endearing and hilarious. Stibbard is simply wonderful as the young and upset Melchoir, all awkward in his adolescent attempts at swagger. Waters, too offers many comic moments in the physicality of her teenage self-consciousness.

That the lively comedy can transcend such dark subject matter is a credit not only to the realisation of the extreme characterisations, but the cleverness of Schostakowski’s writing, which captures with precision the perfect balance of the peculiar and the macabre. Indeed, in its (slight) boundary pushing, the show is very much like other works from Schostakowski’s cannon of quirkiness, particularly “A Tribute of Sorts” which featured in encore season as part of this year’s QTC line-up. Comparisons to Wes Anderson and Tim Burton are immediate, however, what makes this Schostakowski in style is the additional aesthetics. Retro ‘70s music marks scene transitions and film-like credits roll in the darkness, listing cast and crew, comforting the audience into the show’s heightened realism.

As a seriously strange tale of sexed-up misery, (entirely miserable and fully-sexed up), “Klutz” is a definite highlight of the 2014 Brisbane Festival program and one whose season is all too short. Hopefully we will be treated to another incantation soon for while its serious subject matter may seem like a strange premise for humour, the darker you get, the funnier things sometimes become.

Fair is foul and foul is fair

Macbeth (Queensland Theatre Company)

QPAC, The Playhouse

March 24 – April 13

Queensland Theatre Company’s flagship 2014 show is an ambitious production. Directed by lauded UK director Michael Attenborough (son of Richard Attenborough), “Macbeth” is presented in association with veteran Brisbane theatre troupe Grin & Tonic and features one of QTC biggest casts of recent years, with 16 actors taking to the stage. The result is an epic production that honours Shakespeare’s work with an impressive design aesthetic that, like “The Mountaintop” and “Mother Courage” explores the depths and possibilities of The Playhouse stage.

It is a thrilling beginning, when from amidst the misty, primitive darkness of the gnarled forest of a civil war ravaged wasteland, three witches appear to seduce Macbeth into acceptance of their prophecy that he will be king. It is a dark and dangerous place for as Macbeth himself notes, “let not light see my black and deep desires”. Foul in sisterly weirdness, these secret, hostile, midnight hags (Ellen Bailey, Lauren Jackson and Courtney Stewart) lithely limber over each other with an air of ethereality, like feral Tempest Ariels. Their writhed dance (choreography by Nerida Matthaei) is complemented by their breathy proclamations as they spit out the prophecies that inspire Macbeth’s vaulting ambition.

Other members of the all Queensland cast project similar dynamism in their darkness. Jason Klarwein is commanding in the titular role of the famed General Macbeth, a man of ambition, but also insecurity. Indeed, it is as the newly-crowned, but increasingly paranoid Scottish king that he truly shines, as his tragic hero seeks to ensure his kingship is safely thus through ordering Banquo’s murder. Klarwein’s imposing presence on stage is complemented by Veronica Neave, who delivers a determined, interpretation of the role of Lady Macbeth. Though they are both at home with Shakespeare’s challenging text, however, their Act One soliloquies sometimes appear to be fourth-wall break speeches to the audience, rather than vehicles for their characters to reflect, which is enhanced though the lack of gesture in seminal soliloquies such as Lady’s Macbeth’s plea for the spirits to fill her top-full of direst cruelty.

The ensemble is strong, and features some effective doubling. Eugene Gilfedder is perfect as the meek and gentle Duncan, before being reincarnated the Doctor, observing Lady Macbeth’s incriminating recollection that she never knew the old man to have so much blood in him. And Lauren Jackson also shows versatile prowess playing a witch and Lady Macduff. Lucas Stibbard, enlivens his scenes as the Porter, bringing out the only humour in the production when playing the crude, jester-like character and Thomas Larkin (for what would the Bard in Brisbane be without him) gives an impressive performance as a proud Prince Malcolm.

This is a testosterone-driven play of grimy, muscled men, bloodied from their war wounds. And it features impressive stage combat, including a final blow in the Macduff and Macbeth battle scene that brings a collective gasp from the audience. Everything about the design of this “Macbeth” is notable. David Walter’s lighting design achieves a stunning presence whether warming the banquet scene, shadowing the violence or illuminating Birnam Wood’s approach arising from within the stage itself. Phil Slade’s composition and sound design is similarly impressive in its ability to capture the grand heraldry of this epic work. Costuming too is effective, with the wash of cold charcoals and greys enhancing the ruling metaphor of darkness down to the smallest of details, like the mud-stained hems of the servant garb.

QTC have created a passionate production of Shakespeare’s psychological horror. If you like the Scottish play, you will like this production. And if you aren’t a fan, this won’t necessarily make you fall in love with it, but it will give you plenty of moments to appreciate, especially in the wild darkness Simone Romaniuk’s imaginative design element in which fair is foul and foul is fair.