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Welcome to Cultural Binge
The rating system is simple:
★★★★★ – Terrific, world-standard. Don’t miss.
★★★★ – Great, definitely worth seeing.
★★★ – Good. Perfectly entertaining. Recommended. Individual mileage may vary.
★★ – Fine. Flawed and not really recommended, but you may find something to appreciate in it.
★ – Bad (& possibly offensive).
See more reviews over at The Queer Review.
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Oil (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★★★
Written by Ella Hickson. Sydney Theatre Company. Nov 4 – Dec 16, 2023.
May, the heroine of Ella Hickson’s 2016 play Oil, is timeless. She is both a storytelling tool, an archetype that spans hundreds of years, and a mother doing her best for her daughter. But ‘doing her best’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘doing good’. If nothing else, Oil is about the cycles of our lives and the loops humanity finds itself stuck in.
Hickson gives a biography of the petroleum trade, from its introduction in the 19th century to a speculative future after we have exhausted the fuel. Millions of years in the making, humanity manages to squander it in mere centuries. This history is anchored by May (a brilliant Brooke Satchwell) and her daughter Amy (Charlotte Friels). Starting in Cornwall, England in 1889, the play travels to turn of the century Tehran, 1970’s London, near future Baghdad and back to Cornwall in the middle of the 21st Century. In each period, mother and daughter fight over their visions of the future and their place in it.
Violette Ayad and Brooke Satchwell. Photo: Prudence Upton. May evolves from curious, beaten-down housewife, to ambitious, grafting maid, to CEO of a global petrol-chemical company and beyond, rising and falling with the fortunes of the oil industry. At every step she is striving for her own power and independence, and trying to raise her daughter to have more and be better than she was. Here is where fossil fuels meet ossified opinions. While May is a hard-working survivor, Amy is a child of relative security, with a worldview at odds with her mothers. For May, oil is a saviour, but Amy sees the destruction wrought.
Charlotte Friels. Photo: Prudence Upton. There is a definite air of ‘2016’ to the play. Imagining the state of the world in the lead up to the dual nationalistic earthquakes of Brexit and Trump, there is a sharp edge to the discussion of Britain’s fading global power and the impact of vampiric colonialism. May’s arguments of how the oil industry has given education and ‘civilisation’ to other nations reeks of the same self-defensive denial and dream of lost glories that drove the nation to self-immolation.
Satchwell is revelatory as May. Her first stage role in 13 years proves she is up there with our best performers. While she’s been giving us lighter, friendlier fare on screen for decades, her recent turn to serious drama is reaping rewards. She instantly brought to mind UK actress Billie Piper, both for the power of her performance and her ascendance to acting acclaim. My Christmas wish to all our theatres is “cast Brooke Satchwell please”!
Damien Strouthos, Saif Alawadi and Brooke Satchwell. Photo: Prudence Upton. At two and half hours long, full of some dense, combative material, Oil is not for those seeking a light-hearted night at the theatre. Comparisons to the work of Caryl Churchill are apt. Hickson messes around with form to give us stories suited to the theatre and not the screen. The result is transcendent and meaty. You won’t be sitting back and relaxing, you’ll be leaning in to see what’s coming next.
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Sibyl (Sydney Opera House) ★★★★
Conceived by William Kentridge. Composed by Kyle Shepherd & Nhlanhla Mahlangu. Sydney Opera House. Nov 2-4, 2023.
South African, multidisciplinary artist William Kentridge has an eye-opening Australian premiere to close out the Sydney Opera Houses’s 50th birthday celebrations. Sibyl demonstrates Kentridges “Gesamtkunstwerk”, his blend of forms to deliver a message. Encompassing hand-drawn animation, dance, song, shadow-play, physical comedy, sculpture and more, it is revelatory and truly expansive.
The Moment Has Gone. Photo: David Boon. The performance begins with a short film, The Moment Has Gone, showing Kentridge’s animation style. His use of charcoal to gradually create a single image while telling a story, is fascinating. When combined with his humour as a storyteller, you start to see the mind of the artist at work. Woven into this animation are short phrases, some portentous, some silly or banal. The film is accompanied by a live score by Kyle Shepherd on piano featuring an all-male South African chorus led by Nhlanhla Mahlangu providing an organic and live aspect to the prerecorded work.
Waiting for the Sibyl. Photo: David Boon. Following that is a chamber opera Waiting for the Sibyl, sung in four Bantu languages. It explores the idea of the ancient Greek oracles and prophetesses of mythology across a number of songs, each staged individually. The tale of the Cumaean Sibyl, giving prophecies of the future on oak leaves, only for them to be scattered without order by the winds, making them impossible to decipher, is interpreted over six songs.
Waiting for the Sibyl. Photo: David Boon. Combined with projections, hand-painted backdrop, and music composed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd, the phrases from the film become prophecies with the pages coming alive, through song, dance and animation. Somehow they start as magical elements, and become more mundane as the show progresses. A commentary on how contemporary life has made the miraculous merely commonplace.
In the end it is not the message that resonates but the medium itself (I tip my hat to Marshall McLuhan). The cross-disciplinary use of art styles itself frees the artists from linear interpretations, like an oracle crosses time. The future is irrelevant when our focus is in the here and now, watching the stage, immersed in spectacle and song.
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The Dictionary of Lost Words (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★
Adapted by Verity Laughton from the novel by Pip Williams. Sydney Theatre Company. 26 Oct – 16 Dec, 2023.
Words and language are powerful signifiers of what we consider to be important. While in the internet age words are easy to disseminate (like one guy spouting his opinions about theatre for example), the history of how we organise and communicate information and the decisions made along the way, is a thorny one. The ‘primacy of print’ forms the setting for Verity Laughton’s translation of Pip Williams’ beloved book, The Dictionary of Lost Words, and in doing so it highlights the strong difference between novels and plays.
Brett Archer, Chris Pitman & Angela Mahlatjie. Photo: Daniel Boud. Esme Nichols’ world is surrounded by words. Her father is working in “the scrippy”, the scriptorium where he and other academics are collating the English language into a dictionary. It is a gargantuan task; codifying, defining and illustrating an entire lexicon. As a child she watches as they debate, and sometimes discard, words. It’s these “lost words” that intrigue her the most and Esme (a vivacious Tilda Cobham-Hervey) starts her own project, to save and collect the words no one else cares about.
As a young woman, Esme starts to understand the forces behind which words are saved and exalted and which are cast off. If a word must be in print before it can be recorded in the dictionary, then who decides what is printed in the first place? If women’s books aren’t printed, how are their words to be included? Are women’s words less important than those of men? And so begins Esme’s journey into womanhood, as she seeks out words the men are ignoring at the turn of the 19th Century just as women’s suffrage is gaining steam, and the forces that would erupt into World War are brewing.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey & Rachel Burke. Photo: Daniel Boud. My first thought, as I entered the Sydney Opera House’s Drama Theatre, was “I want those bookshelves”. The set by Jonathon Oxlade is a long wall of square shelving illuminated from behind. It gives off a calming, clean Scandinavian tone. In front of it stand more era-appropriate desks of darker wood on top of which, we soon discover, is a clever video set up allowing us to see what is on the desk. Here they project images and text onto the back wall of the set. Mainly used to mark scene transitions, this video work gives the play an extra layer of dynamism which is effective when it’s not being overused.
The relatively sparse stage is filled with excellent performances. Ksenja Logos shines in various roles, but especially as the toothless, former sex-worker Mabel with a fruity vocabulary that opens Esme’s eyes. Rachel Burke excels as Esme’s long-suffering, illiterate maid Lizzy, who provides a level of heart to balance Esme’s cerebral pursuits. Raj Labade brings an innocent charm to the role of Gareth, a young man working at the printing press.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey & Raj Labade. Photo: Daniel Boud. It’s in the community of women that the play finds its footing. Esme’s head is filled with knowledge but she is ignorant of her own biology, and it’s through her relationships with her female friends, mentors, strangers and even servants that she fully develops. It is the women around her who challenge her worldview and push her forward.
Angela Mahlatjie, Tilda Cobham-Hervey & Rachel Burke. Photo: Daniel Boud. For all the inventive stage-craft and fine acting however, The Dictionary of Lost Words can’t escape its unwieldy plotlessness. The sweeping scope of the novel works on the page, but less so on the stage as events unfold with no real narrative drive. Opening scenes are filled with exposition that proves to be of little impact to the wider story.
At three hours long, the impact of The Dictionary of Lost Words is sadly dissipated. Key relationships are lost across the span of time making for an ending that aims for poignancy but falls flat. This is the novel edited and translated to stage, rather than being adapted to a different form of storytelling. Fans will enjoy the details, but patrons approaching it for the first time may find it a harder sell.
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The Memory of Water (Ensemble) ★★★★
Written by Shelagh Stephenson. Ensemble Theatre. 20 Oct – 25 Nov, 2023.
The premise of Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water sounds like the set up to a farce. After the death of their mother Violet (Nicole Da Silva), three sisters converge on the family home for the funeral. They each deal with their grief in different ways. One hits the drugs, one is desperate for a shag, and one contemplates her own life and the choices she’s made. It’s a comedy that’ll make you cry.
The title comes from the concept that pure water retains a ‘memory’ of the substances that have been dissolved in it. It’s an idea one character instantly dismisses as nonsense. But as physical water assails the family home (from freezing snow, to the encroaching waves on the shore, and the lack of hot water for the bathtub), it is the memories of their mother that cause the most damage.
Michala Banas, Jo Downing & Madeleine Jones. Photo: Prudence Upton. Teresa (Jo Dowling) nursed their mother through her Alzheimer’s disease, watching her memory fade. Mary (Michala Banas) blames their mother for sticking up for their absent father and teaching them the wrong life lessons. And the youngest, Catherine (Madeleine Jones), is convinced their mother hated her and has memories of abuses that may or may not have actually happened. Memory is a tricky, unreliable thing. What if their mother was none of those things?
Set entirely in Violet’s bedroom, the ghost of their late mother is everywhere, from the bright coloured decor (a frighteningly realistic set by Veronique Benett) to the closet full of outdated dresses. In her grief, Mary starts to have conversations with Violet as she remembers her from her childhood, in 60s make-up and clothing.
Nicole Da Silva & Michala Banas. Photo: Prudence Upton. Stephenson’s grasp of these characters and their dynamics is masterly. The three sisters have a real sense of organic history and weariness to them. Teresa and Mary have little time for Catherine’s extra dramas. Mary’s academic career is the cause of friction between herself and Teresa. The way they speak to one another gives us backstory without resorting to too much blatant exposition. Stephenson manages to weave in storylines with a pleasant subtlety that develops with ease till it reaches its climax. The humour comes from the foibles of people under pressure and it works, not because we laugh at the characters, but because we’re laughing at ourselves.
Michala Banas, Jo Downing & Johnny Nasser. Photo: Prudence Upton. The whole play rests on the three actresses playing the core trio and Dowling, Banas and Jones are just brilliant. Over the course of the 2.5hrs they grieve, laugh, get drunk and rage at each other. Jones particularly stood out to me as Catherine, a self-obsessed, train-wreck of a young woman who is desperate to be loved (to be clear that sentence relates to the character, not the actress). Rachel Chant’s direction is strong, giving the play a good rhythm. The final image of the first act is what really hooked me in.
Madeleine Jones & Michala Banas. Photo: Prudence Upton. The Memory of Water may be 27 years old now, but the script is still sharp in its observations, and with this cast it flows perfectly. While it’s funny, you leave the theatre with a sense of melancholy and the hint of positive change. This is another strong show from Ensemble, who have had a good year all round, which makes me more excited for what they’re bringing in 2024.
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Message In A Bottle (Sydney Opera House) ★★★★★
Directed and Choreographed by Kate Prince. Based on the songs of Sting. With ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company. Sydney Opera House. 25 – 29 Oct, 2023.
On the face of it, none of this should work. The music of Sting mixed with contemporary hip-hop dance, and a story about the plight of refugees. But choreographer Kate Prince, and her outfit ZooNation, have pulled off a minor miracle in creating Message in a Bottle. Or, to put it another way… every little thing she does is magic!
Message in a Bottle at Sydney Opera House. Photo: Daniel Boud The idyllic life of a family unit of loving parents and three children is torn apart by war. As they are forced to flee the conflict, tragedy befalls them at every turn. Separated over time, we track each sibling as they try to overcome the horrors they’ve seen and find a new life and hopefully love and joy at the same time.
Message in a Bottle at Sydney Opera House. Photo: Daniel Boud The beauty of using dance to tell this desperately heavy story is the lightness of touch it brings. The show doesn’t shy away from violence, rape and the cruelties of the refugee system. but the moments are never didactic. Even the horrors of war and struggle are filled with dynamism and grace. Marvelling at the work of these dancers is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
Prince’s chameleonic choreography shifts with each scene, making inventive use of the set and staging (by Ben Stones) as it goes. Elements of krumping, popping, break dancing etc blend with lyrical contemporary. At one point, two dancers break out into a romantic pas de deux that hits like a breath of fresh air among the more acrobatic moments.
Message in a Bottle at Sydney Opera House. Photo: Daniel Boud Sting’s music, reworked by Hamilton’s Alex Lacamoire (including all new arrangements and re-recorded vocals by Sting and other vocalists including Beverley Knight) plugs into the narrative of the lyrics and mines them for their emotional and dramatic heft. Many classic songs are reduced to a single verse or chorus in service of the main story. In lesser hands the thought of hearing “I’ll be watching you” sung over a prison scene would feel like it was in ludicrously bad taste, but the fresh arrangements and solid story keep things level.
And it’s remarkable how well the lyrics and melodies of Sting suit this storyline. Phrases like “sending out an S.O.S.” or “don’t stand so close to me” are recontextualised into something fresh. This may be a jukebox show, but it never descends into a lazy covers concert. Here the songs are working to drive the story.
Message in a Bottle at Sydney Opera House. Photo: Daniel Boud Message in a Bottle can be serious at times but it is not depressing or dour. The music and movement make a show that is possibly more positive and life-affirming than it has any right to be. As the performance came to a close, the audience was instantly on their feet in one of the easiest and most well deserved standing ovations I’ve seen in a while. You’ve only got till Sunday (29 Oct, 2023) to see this beauty, so don’t wait!
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MQFF 2023 Reviews UPDATED
UPDATE 3.11 – New reviews for The Lost Boys, Our Son, L’immensità, Fireworks, Isla’s Way and 1946: The Mistranslation that Changed Culture.
UPDATE 2.11 – New reviews for In The Meantime, Sunflower and Birder added.
I’m reviewing films at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival this year for The Queer Review. I’ve consolidated my reviews (and those by other Queer Review reviewers) here so they sit in the one place. I’ve listed them in star rating order to make things easier for people considering going and added interviews we’ve run with some of the talent and creators.
I’ll be updating this page as more films are reviewed.
★★★★★ REVIEWS
Our Son ★★★★ REVIEWS
1946 – The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture ★★★★ NEW
Chasing Chasing Amy ★★★★ (reviewed by James Kleinmann)
Fancy Dance ★★★★ (reviewed by James Kleinmann)
Kokomo City ★★★★ (reviewed by James Kleinmann)
L’immensità ★★★★ NEW
The Lost Boys (Le paradis) ★★★★ NEW
Our Son ★★★★ NEW
Passages ★★★★ (reviewed by Glenn Gaylord)
Sunflower ★★★★ NEW
Fireworks ★★★ REVIEWS
Fireworks (Stranizza d’amuri) ★★★1/2 NEW
Summer Qamp ★★★1/2 (reviewed by James Kleinmann)
Birder ★★★ NEW
INTERVIEWS
D Smith. Kokomo City. -
Robyn Archer: An Australian Songbook (Belvoir) ★★★1/2
Devised and Performer by Robyn Archer. Belvoir St Theatre. 18 – 29 Oct, 2023.
Robyn Archer is a storyteller, it just may not be the story you expect to hear. It’s notable that the title to her new show is An Australian Songbook, rather than THE Australian Songbook. There is a multiplicity of options and her talent as a curator is just as important as her skill as a performer.
With an impish grin, Archer takes us through a potted musical history of Australia, combining works by First Nations artists, melodies inherited from traditional European folk songs, country & blues and rock. You won’t hear too many songs you recognise unless your knowledge of music is much deeper than the average, but you will learn a lot along the way.
Robyn Archer: An Australian Songbook. It’s thanks to her stage presence that the evening never feels like a TED talk. There is humour laced through the commentary and the song choices that enlighten aspects of Australian life often overlooked. These are primarily songs of the common people. We get great lashings of politics too. From satirical tunes skewering political leaders, to songs rooted in feminist activism, Archer’s provocative, left-leaning wit still rings strong.
This isn’t only Archer’s night. She is accompanied by a trio of multi talented musicians with an ear for a laugh. George Butrumlis on piano accordion, Cameron Goodall on guitar, and Enio Pozzebon on keyboards, who all bring their acting/singing/playing chops to the stage. In fact some of the funniest moments belong to the trio.
There’s a definite nostalgia to An Australian Songbook. Not just in looking back at centuries of music, but Archer’s own career. The focus here isn’t on soaring melodies or popular bangers, but on the narratives and character each song brings forth, and this is the kind of material Archer excels at. For fans of Robyn, or of the rarely explored corners of Australian music, the show is a must see.
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Bark of Millions (Sydney Opera House) ★★★★★
Full review up on The Queer Review.
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A Little Night Music (Hayes Theatre) ★★★★
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Hayes Theatre Company. 13 Oct – 11 Nov, 2023.
There’s something thrilling about a chamber production of a Sondheim musical. Restricting the space and staging focuses everything on the music and performances. And with a score that can be as tricky as this, the performances need to be sharp. Filled with counterpoint melodies, varying time signatures and vocal gymnastics, not to mention oodles of comedy, A Little Night Music manages to be one of Sondheim’s most linear and accessible shows without sacrificing any of his trademark complexity.
Renowned actress Desiree Armfeldt (Blazey Best) is touring while her daughter Frederika (Pamela Papacosta) lives with her grand-mother, the imperious Madame Armfeldt (played by the imperious Nancye Hayes). She misses her daughter, and when an old flame, Fredrik Egerman (Leon Ford), attends the theatre with his young wife, Anne (Melanie Bird), Desiree hatches a plan to finally settle down in domestic bliss with Fredrik and Frederika. Desiree’s lover, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Joshua Robson) however has no intention of giving up his mistress, and Anne has no intention of giving up her husband.
The Cast of A Little Night Music. Photo: John McCrae A Little Night Music is Sondheim at his peak, capping off his trilogy of early 70s hits. Preceded by Company and Follies, Night Music eschews the psychological intricacies of those dramas in favour of a rollicking romantic farce with a delicious twist. The matriarch, Madame Armfeldt, isn’t a disapproving moral pillar, but instead is disappointed that her daughter is merely using her sexual prowess for fun, rather than following in her footsteps and using it to rise in the world. As she sings, “it’s but a pleasurable means to a measurable end.”
Behind the seemingly light, comedic plot, we get one of Sondheim’s most romantic scores and scathing lyrics littered with observations of romance, sex and relationships. ‘Everyday a Little Death’, ‘You Must Meet My Wife’, ‘Liaisons’ and ‘Send in the Clowns’ all skewer the foibles of human interaction. ‘A Weekend in the Country’ is maybe one of his wittiest numbers. The sexual politics may be dubious, but in a world where none of the characters are held in high esteem, you can let it slide by you.
Blazey Best & Josh Robson. Photo: John McCrae This new production at the Hayes, timed for the show’s 50th anniversary, has stacked the cast with terrific players filling out all the supporting roles. The result is a powerhouse show where smaller roles like Robson’s hilariously magnetic Count Carl-Magnus and his wife, Countess Charlotte (Erin Clare) almost outshine the leads. Melanie Bird is perfect as Fredrick’s much younger wife Anne – a terrific voice with a real gift for comedy. Nancye Hayes’s witheringly droll Madame Armfeldt is as perfect as you expect.
Jeremy Allen’s set design makes the stage feel larger than it is, with a real sense of depth. By reducing the onstage furniture to a bare minimum, the scene changes happen quickly and without fuss. It’s a smart staging for the space.
Blazey Best. Photo: John McCrae Things are slightly dampened by a few flies in the ointment. Muddy sound makes the counter-melodies hard to follow, and the quintet are often muffled and/or over amplified, sounding artificial. Some accents waiver, a few of the performers don’t quite have the verbal dexterity to nail Sondheim’s trickier moments and there is an incongruous flash of nudity that does nothing for the story.
A Little Night Music is as sumptuous and romantic as the title suggests, but always tinged with a wry observation. Caustic lyrics are juxtaposed with soaring melodies. This cast and this production bring out the best of the score, well worth seeing especially now that the season has been extended.
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Blaque Showgirls (Griffin) ★★★
Written by Nakkiah Lui. Griffin Theatre Company. 4 Sep – 21 Oct, 2023.
Blaque Showgirls is both a daft comedy and a commentary on the status of indigenous Australian lives. Terrible and terrific at the same time, it has the energy of a Christmas panto fueled with bags of cocaine – to be honest, I loved and hated it in equal measure.
Fair-skinned Sarah Jane Jones (Stephanie Somerville) knows she is a proud Aboriginal woman, despite what everyone around her says. Her only clues about her mother come from a single photograph of her smiling in front of the billboard for ‘Blaque Showgirls’, a burlesque show whose selling point is its all-black cast. Sarah is convinced her mother was a showgirl and she intends to follow in her footsteps. Her nips may be too pink, and her hair too fair, but she won’t let narrow-minded racism hold her back…
Photo: Brett Boardman Very loosely inspired by the cinematic, trashy classic Showgirls, Blaque Showgirls is a story of ambition, delusion and the way Australian society treats Aboriginal culture and people. Its style is broad, crass and loud, but its message goes much deeper. Everything I loved about the show comes from playwright Nakkiah Lui’s script. It’s both pun-erific and sharp as a knife in places. It’s a smart script pretending to be dumb.
The performances and direction however don’t manage to hit the high/low balance of the text. One-note and shouty, the show rarely goes much further than its campy surface. This is all glitter and tits. Which isn’t to say it’s not wonderfully fun, just that the fun is completely two-dimensional and wears thin after the deliberately stupid dialogue has been hurled at you at full volume for 85 minutes
Photo: Brett Boardman The highlights of the show come from those rare moments when the comedy is balanced with meatier content. When Molly (Angeline Penrith) drops the accent and delivers a monologue to the audience, it hits home. Not every attempt at seriousness works as well. Things turn didactic at the end as the thin pretence is dropped. It felt unnecessary and heavy handed for a play filled with such a lightness of being.
Blaque Showgirls is a good time out, filled with laughs and some important messages. While the execution didn’t work for me, it has for many, and I can’t deny the show is entertaining.
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