Category Archives: Theatre

Theatre Review: The Eavesdropping Project

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The Eavesdropping Project was a fascinating take on life in Melbourne’s public transport system. Performed by St. Martin’s Youth Theatre, the play was well performed for youth theatre and had a cute sense of fun to the performance.

I’ve always been struck by overheard conversations on trains and trams in Melbourne. It’s an odd sort of environment where we seem to be alone despite us being packed in like sardines sometimes. Eavesdropping uses this concept well to create a performance inspired by the strange and awkward events on trains and trams.

The script was work-shopped by the actors and based on the conversations they overheard using public transport. You could easily relate to the characters and felt you were in on the observations having experienced the same things on your way to work, school or out and about.

The set and lighting was excellent with platforms and trains recreated in a multi layered set with added realism from various lighting techniques. This was one of the things that struck me most.

The singing at first jarred with me but I eased into that and the other alternative ways of telling the story such as all the actors standing in a line fighting for the microphone as they told some odd stories they saw on a train.

Overall, they performed a really original and fascinating concept well and has made me more conscious of my weird obsession with how people interact (or don’t) on public transport.

Eavesdropping Project, St. Martin’s, theatre, public transport, Melbourne, trains, trams

Theatre Review: Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters

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PMD Production’s performance of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters was an entertaining performance with strong acting and some powerful scenes but I thought it lacked any depth or anything to make it resonate with me.

Three SistersIt was performed at Chapel Off Chapel in The Loft. It’s an intimate black box theatre and the set straddled between realism and minimalism, with the antique furniture but nothing much else. The white panel at the back made me feel that there was something more to the set, adding to the realism, but sadly it did not and I thought the panel wasn’t needed.

The play itself surrounds three sisters in a bourgeois house in an unnamed Russian town. They see themselves as more educated and refined than the rest of the town, determined to make something more of themselves. Two of them dream of moving to Moscow, with their brother who dreams of becoming a professor.

The play transitions through four years, as their lives change, but the dream of Moscow and doing something significant never arises. It’s a tragic, yet comic tale, about lost dreams.

I personally found it hard to sympathise with a lot of the characters’ problems. They seemed trivial as their lives were lived in luxury. But I could also relate to some of them. I thought the play was meant to say something more, through the mouthpiece of seemingly trivial comments.

I enjoyed the moments of energy that contrasted strongly with the relative slow pace and calmness of the play. These were moments where the characters seemed a lot more real, coming out of the public persona they seemed to put on for each other.

So although the play was entertaining, hinting at some themes, nothing resonated with me after I’d left the theatre.

Three Sisters plays until June 30

[Rating:3]

Three Sisters, Chekhov, theatre, play, review

Theatre Review: Rhinoceros

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Friday night’s production of Rhinoceros at Melbourne University was engaging and full of some powerful acting but this adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s famous play butchered the original message, instead it succumbed to post-modernist wank that doesn’t take a side.

The original play is meant to be a critique of fascism as the people in the town begin to turn into rhinoceroses. But in Union House Theatre’s adaptation, the analogy is left more vague. At times the parallel with fascism is apparent, and in others scenes it draws from other adaptations that make it seem like the rhinoceroses are actually communists, or migrants even.

The program says, “Feel free to interpret them as you wish.” I can’t help but feel that this a cop out, and a total rejection of Ionesco’s original vision. It’s kind of typical of University politics that is polluted with post-modernism and that idea that “Everyone’s right and no one’s wrong.”

The play’s strong points was in some of the acting, particularly the scene in which Jack turns into a Rhinoceros. It was an energetic and passionate scene that saw the actor use all the space and his body with strong movements and booming voice.

There was a fair bit of ‘red bashing’ in the play which also soured the performance. They depicted one far-left character as obsessed and irrational, which comes out of a lot of student’s hostility to politics.

The final scene was also drawn out far too long and didn’t progress quickly enough tending to water-down the effects of the relatively fast pace at the beginning.

Overall, a confusing adaptation of what was originally a powerful, anti-fascist piece of a theatre.

As a side note, I’m considering hunting down the original script of this play because of the anti-fascist message and the analogy of people turning into something else is strangely similar to the short story I’m working on All Fascists are Zombies! I swear I didn’t know this until I saw the play.

[rating:1]

Union House Theatre, Melbourne University, Rhinoceros, Eugène Ionesco, theatre, review

Theatre Review: Tom Fool

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I hadn’t been to the theatre since 2003 or 2004, where I saw a few plays in Sydney as part of my HSC Drama course. As part of a theatre group, I’ve recently joined I’ll be going to the theatre regularly now. So look out for reviews of the shows I’ve seen.

Tom Fool is a translation of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Mensch Meier, and is about the lives of a very ordinary working-class family in 1976 Munich.

The three characters, Otto the father, Martha the wife and Ludwig the son, all battle against their oppression and alienation for their independence and control of their lives. It’s clear that the outside world, of work and society controls what boundaries these characters have and influence the conflict that is all set within the family home.

The realism of the set and the monotony of the actions mirrors our own lives. It’s stark, painful and often confronting. Having gone through unemployment after school for a year and a half, I found I identified a lot with Ludwig as he battled his parents who seemed to decide what he was going to do with his life, whilst he fought to convince them he was trying to look for a job.

The play also explores themes of the nuclear family and women’s oppression, where Martha is largely a passive character at the beginning but progresses to someone much stronger as she fights. Her independence is seen clear upon leaving the home and leaving her husband.

Whilst Otto is the dominant character in the play, and the oppressor upon both Martha and Ludwig, his own struggle for power takes place with his employer. It is clear he feels alienated from the drudgery of his job and takes out his frustrations on his wife and child. Otto is a violent character that you can’t sympathise with, but at the same time understand where is actions come from.

I enjoyed the play. The characters were strong and the text discussed some important themes, dealing with them in ways I’d agree with as a socialist.

[Rating:3.5]

Tom Fool runs until the 23rd of May at the Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre, Brunswick. Call 03 9016 3873 for bookings.