tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35154175504823185632024-03-13T04:59:36.664-07:00On Centre StageThis is the blog for Douglas Kennedy which complements his arts and entertainment tweets. The writer is a Brisbane journalist who has both been heard on radio and read in the print media.Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-41095844520385339712013-02-17T20:30:00.002-08:002014-07-24T00:21:16.071-07:00Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-15866540331678696442013-01-22T09:18:00.000-08:002013-01-22T09:36:11.290-08:00SOUTH PACIFIC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYdNludjHpK3KRSddCmaxl7kT_XAolug9Gq_WDlN9H3rEucvI-AgSH2VfyWyPa3CjxWEexHK3T2AMCzvrCe4yQb6nXbuHtgeNsyCE2B_KDzqffTsGhc8WHCFq1tkMZmtfdNj4dIoO5PM/s1600/south-pacific-logo-home.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" oea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYdNludjHpK3KRSddCmaxl7kT_XAolug9Gq_WDlN9H3rEucvI-AgSH2VfyWyPa3CjxWEexHK3T2AMCzvrCe4yQb6nXbuHtgeNsyCE2B_KDzqffTsGhc8WHCFq1tkMZmtfdNj4dIoO5PM/s320/south-pacific-logo-home.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<img alt="South Pacific Logo" id="title" src="http://www.southpacificmusical.com.au/wp-content/themes/southpacific2012/library/media/images/south-pacific-logo-home.png" />Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-21179010787900409412013-01-15T16:42:00.000-08:002013-01-15T16:42:16.540-08:00RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN RULE OKAY!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">South Pacific by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Queensland</st1:place></st1:state> Performing Arts Centre’s Lyric Theatre. Stars Lisa McCune, Teddy Tahu Rhodes. Directed by <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bartlett</st1:city></st1:place> Sher. Season till January 27.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Believe it or not there’s some who want to wash post-war musical theatre icons<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, Richard Rodgers</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Oscar Hammerstein II</b>, right out of their hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There seemed to be a certain mood on opening night <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(among a few)</i> that the most successful Broadway team of the 1940s and ‘50s, composer Rodgers and lyricist Hammerstein, were old-fashioned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Old-fashioned?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">What’s old-fashioned?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">On many occasions old-fashioned just happens to be one of the best and most engaging fashions in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Almost everything that happened the day before yesterday is old-fashioned and a lot of it – not all of it – stacks up pretty well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Writer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">L.P. Hartley</b> said, ‘the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> past is a foreign country they do things differently there’</i>, and I’m one of its most dedicated tourists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If God or the Central Committee for Human Supply – or whoever<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>runs the ebb and flow of humankind – had given me an option, I would have spent 10 years of each of my three score years and ten in a different century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That would have given me seven lives in seven magical centuries unless, of course, I was lucky enough to be born in the year of the cat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I guess that would have given me nine lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ah life as a degustation meal!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One of the most exciting decades to have lived would have been the 1950s when there were more changes happening than at a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Victoria Beckham</b> house party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There was a wealth of forward looking literature, art, movies, plays, shows, design and on top of all that the origins of television and rock ‘n’ roll shaking down a generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But on Broadway the dominant musical presence of Rogers and Hammerstein, who had reigned supreme since teaming up to create <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Oklahoma!</b> in 1943, was grounded in a largely reassuring world of show business stability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In 17 short years, from 1943 to Hammerstein’s untimely death in 1960 at the age of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>65, the duo produced at least five masterpieces (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Carousel, The King</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and I </b>and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Sound of Music</b> among them) which earned them 34 Tony Awards, 15 Oscars, two Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Rodgers & Hammerstein came together in the tumultuous war years – the South Pacific story was played out in early ‘40s and premièred in 1949 – but for me they will be forever associated with the ‘50s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I like to travel to the ‘50s in my version of historic tourism as much as anywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The other interesting aside I picked-up – and let’s be clear I am only tackling the dissenters as many first nighters loved the production – was the contrast between petite bird-like <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lisa McCune </b>as Nellie Forbush, picking her way through the notes, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Teddy Tahu Rhodes’ </b>stoic operatic French plantation owner Emile de Becque.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There was a universal nod in <st1:place w:st="on">Rhodes</st1:place>’ direction and a general acknowledgement that his sublime de Becque ticked all the boxes in what was no less than a towering performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The pinnacle of which – as it should be – was <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Some Enchanted Evening</b> which gave Rhodes the opportunity to shine like the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bethlehem</b></st1:place></st1:city> star and was a sure-fire show stopper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Some thought that McCune was comparatively lightweight – although <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I am</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Going to Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair</b> was well received – but then Nellie is from the heartland of small town America Little Rock, Arkansas, with all its lightweight and unenlightened ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When Mary Martin was invited to play the original Nellie back in ’49 she agreed on the understanding that she would not have to sing a duet with the operatic giant Ezio Pinza, as she feared he would, musically speaking, blow her away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I think that the musically contrast, between Nellie and de Becque, is an appropriate metaphor to the cultural differences which go to the core of South Pacific’s inter-racial themes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The story of two pairs of unlikely mix-race lovers – Nellie and de Becque and Lieutenant Cable (Daniel Koek) and the islander Liat (Celina Yuen) – in the South Pacific at the height of the war was touchy if not controversial in its day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hammerstein was under a lot of pressure to cut Cable’s lyric for the song, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,</b> in the show’s try-outs because it touched a raw nerve with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s racially sensitive Broadway audiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But Hammerstein was the author who had given the world the ground-breaking musical theatre game-changing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Show Boat</b> (along with Jerome Kern) back in 1927.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As lawyer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Geoffrey Robertson</b> writes in an essay on the show, and the South Pacific during era, for the program, the number represented why Rodgers and Hammerstein wanted to write the show in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Robertson actually attributed the quote to author James A. Mitchener who penned the book, Tales of the <st1:place w:st="on">South Seas</st1:place>, which Rodgers & Hammerstein used as their primary source.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This Australian adaptation of the latest <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place> production – known as the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lincoln Center Theatre </b>production and the first ever Broadway revival since the 1949 premiere – is generally faithfully to a great musical love affair on all counts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">(Incidentally, The Lincoln production won seven Tony Awards in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2008, compared to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10 for the original show plus a Pulitzer Prize)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In addition to the talents mentioned, Brisbane-born <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gyton Grantley</b> (known for playing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Carl Williams</b> in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Underbelly</b> and TV’s new hit show <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">House Husbands</b>) handles the comic character Luther Bliss with aplomb and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Christine Anu</b> is suitably testy as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bloody Mary.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The ensemble – both nurses and Seebees – added theatrical and musical colour to the show and with the likes of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">John Frost</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Opera Australia’s</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lyndon Terracini</b> at the production helm the fire proofing is double-glazed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There’s several more enchanted evening ahead as South Pacific continues at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brisbane</st1:place></st1:city>’s Lyric Theatre until January 27.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When it comes to presenting musical theatre in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brisbane</st1:place></st1:city>, there’s nothing like a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>name and there’s several impressive ones here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-43966913831582349172013-01-14T17:17:00.000-08:002013-01-15T17:30:26.805-08:00MOUSETRAP GALLERY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kUZAAPmkgdNLACamXVLyWByLDeHiKGkh6NTkFSHoAk7qr_nyO284J4S-MWeOqdfrXVXIan74YfhVGNU0pwMHprC_GUheTE_VZssrmw8-_CUInzJlY9cJODGDlqXiNxeuC8BI9evB09U/s1600/Aganta+Christie+images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kUZAAPmkgdNLACamXVLyWByLDeHiKGkh6NTkFSHoAk7qr_nyO284J4S-MWeOqdfrXVXIan74YfhVGNU0pwMHprC_GUheTE_VZssrmw8-_CUInzJlY9cJODGDlqXiNxeuC8BI9evB09U/s640/Aganta+Christie+images.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Quen of Crime Fiction Agatha Christie.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuD3a_Hl0ybt9Rqa5B6YubxlSwz1_1vEu-1EHEJbyVbCcaDXdCNbZ0bVrRAiSkwlsrWLrMfckm3Eq2MJSwd_qIVh4zAUSMcho3Fo_lGI3gLIDWQLOXv3tG1zkN-757r4YhUC5lypvTxg/s1600/2013+Mousetrap.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuD3a_Hl0ybt9Rqa5B6YubxlSwz1_1vEu-1EHEJbyVbCcaDXdCNbZ0bVrRAiSkwlsrWLrMfckm3Eq2MJSwd_qIVh4zAUSMcho3Fo_lGI3gLIDWQLOXv3tG1zkN-757r4YhUC5lypvTxg/s640/2013+Mousetrap.bmp" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left Christy Sullivan (Mollie Ralston), Gus Murray (Giles Sullivan) and Justin Smith (Detective-sergeant Potter) in the Diamond Anniversay Australian production of the Mousetrap.<br />
Below Richard Attenborough nd Sheila Sim in the original 1952 production.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFW6O-EA8swZG79S4-G0FTMaqiuz3Y6x5Jb2IEBUQ06cXtT1Bp12sX8YH8kgX6_FbDzIanxKDgJaVkmvoRakIq6qi-E2jE5S4a7LRsySwYSSwwm5Zc9GXARuryIfR9ls__adB8nclmeA/s1600/mousetrap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFW6O-EA8swZG79S4-G0FTMaqiuz3Y6x5Jb2IEBUQ06cXtT1Bp12sX8YH8kgX6_FbDzIanxKDgJaVkmvoRakIq6qi-E2jE5S4a7LRsySwYSSwwm5Zc9GXARuryIfR9ls__adB8nclmeA/s400/mousetrap.jpg" width="333" /></a></div>
Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-47591677765774068942013-01-13T18:50:00.000-08:002013-01-15T23:24:17.243-08:00THE LITTLE MOUSE TRAPPED IN A GRIM REALITY.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Queensland</st1:place></st1:state> Performing Arts Centre’s Playhouse Theatre. Cast: Ensemble. Diamond Anniversary Production Directed by Gary Young. Season till January 20.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap</b> is a theatrical phenomenon, wrapped in a mystery, which comes from some parallel universe which has little to do with any time and place we know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It’s a bit like a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Doctor Who</b> time travel episode, where he goes back to some strange unrealistic past, but this time around there’s no Time Lord or Tardis to give the story a sci-fi context.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Tardis, however, did give us some sense of normality when it first came into view back in November, 1963, - incidentally the day after another surreal event, the assassination of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">President John F Kennedy</b> – because it took on the familiar shape of a police telephone box.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Likewise, Christie’s The Mousetrap, which started ‘life’ as a thirty minute radio play, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Three Blind Mice, </b>as part of the 80<sup>th</sup> birthday celebrations for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queen Mary,</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is shrouded in familiarity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">That’s the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agatha Christie reality show, where a group of middle-class character types, fueling suspicion and undoubtedly awash with dark secrets, meet in a secluded snowbound manor where someone has murder on their mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queen Elizabeth’s</b> grandmother, it appears, loved Christie’s work as did millions of devoted fans who made her books the most read in the English-speaking world behind <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Bible</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shakespeare.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So it’s perhaps understandable that the 1947 radio play should morph into the 1952 <st1:place w:st="on">West End</st1:place> stage production, starring husband and wife actors <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sir Richard</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Attenborough </b>and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sheila Sim, </b>with little more than a name change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There was already a play called Three Blind Mice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The play was a charming little drawing room whodunit – with eight characters and a dash of humor – which has a murder in the first act and lot’s of talk in the second.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Critics and commentators are discouraged from examining the plot too closely in reviews for fear of accidentally publishing too many clues or, what producers call, a spoiler.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Mousetrap is widely recognised as a charming little piece of classic middle-class theatre – good fun but hardly great drama – but one aspect of the play is talked about endlessly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now come has it been on the <st1:place w:st="on">West End</st1:place> stage for the past 60 years and broken more records then those angry Yanks when <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">John Lennon</b> said The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beatles</b> were bigger than <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jesus</b> or was it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Elvis?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In November 2012 it topped the 25,000 performance mark in the West End and it is still going strong at home and abroad, including <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There’s more written about the trivia surrounding The Mousetrap, and the legendary statistics, than the play itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My personal favourite is the one where Christie addressed cast concerns about the second act with: “I should stop worrying and get-off to bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“I think we might get a little run out of it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The spoiler phobia is such that the narrative is difficult to share, but there is one dark secret contained within The Mousetrap, that is seldom mentioned <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and that’s the real-life death which triggered Christie’s thinking in the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Generally, there’s only one youngster who is referred to in The Mousetrap mythology and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that’s Christie’s grandson, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mathew Pritchard</b>, who was nine-years-old when the play was first produced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The writer gave the son of her only daughter, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rosalind,</b> the rights to the play before it was realised that there was more than, ‘a nice little run’, to be had from it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, the ghost of another little boy, 12-year-old <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dennis O’Neill</b>, looms large over The Mousetrap. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There were no twists and turns in his little life except, perhaps, for the injuries he sustained while in the care of a <st1:place w:st="on">Shropshire</st1:place> farmer, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Reginald Gough, </b>and his wife<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Esther.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dennis, and his brother <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Terence,</b> were the subject of shocking headlines in the British press as the Allied troops were flooding into <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> to destroy the Nazi threat in 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Through a series of failures of ‘duty of care’ Dennis and Terence had been fostered to a couple who – in the words of Terence’s 2010 book <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Someone To Love Us</b> – had ‘forced them into brutality and neglect.’</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Dennis died as a result of the ill treatment he received from the Goughs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The ensuing court case, which saw the Goughs sent to trial and imprisoned, shocked and horrified post-war <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> and led to a major inquiry under <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sir William Monckton </b>and ultimately changes to the foster laws.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s easy to see why people were so shaken with the O’Neill story when you read or sing <strong>Vera Lynn’s</strong> anthem to a peaceful and sublime post-war future, <strong>White Cliffs of Dover.<o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: large;">Therell be bluebirds over<br />The white cliffs of Dover<br />Tomorrow<br />Just you wait and see<br /><br />Therell be love and laughter<br />And peace ever after<br />Tomorrow<br />When the world is free<br /><br />The shepherd will tend his sheep<br />The valley will bloom again<br />And Jimmy will go to sleep<br />In his own little room again</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: large;">The British dilemma was that they were what the Yanks call the good guys but still 12-year-old Dennis was dead, while being cared for by responsible adults, who were supposed to protect him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: large;">Why wasn't Dennis - like Jimmy - snuggling down to sleep in his own little room again?</span><br />
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</o:p><span style="font-size: large;">It would appear – that along with the British public – the case gave Christie a rare opportunity to be inspired by the headlines of the day.<o:p></o:p> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I sincerely don’t believe that revealing this connection is a ‘spoiler’ as the link was widely reported when Terence O’Neill's book was launched in 2010 and the real-life story is nothing to do with the final bombshell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, I do think it’s important that the memory of young Dennis O’Neill, and what happened to him, is not superseded by what is in truth mere light entertainment.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">For more info on the Dennis O'Neill story see<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O'Neill_case"><span style="font-size: large;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O'Neill_case</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Vera Lynn sings White Cliffs of Dover.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtW2Lx5Vwc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtW2Lx5Vwc</a></div>
Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-90422536108644324402012-12-09T06:09:00.001-08:002013-01-14T15:45:18.085-08:00Happiness<span style="font-size: x-large;">I am absolutely delighted as I have had more than 4000 hits although I haven't posted since the 2012 Olympics. Now I am ready to jump into the postings game once again with a 2013 series. Sir Haulway Barrack- Jones has been dispatched to the Michael Burns Kennedy Tales Tales site, while this one is reserved for stage, performance, film and the occasional visual arts. I'll keep the old boy on the address below and make this one more legit.</span><br />
<a href="http://makingwhoopee.blogspot.com.au/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">http://makingwhoopee.blogspot.com.au/</span></a>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-67260160187788666932012-07-19T18:31:00.001-07:002012-07-19T18:36:56.442-07:00A Post with a View<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRgn0bdGVRlE8XhMz_f60EuLQfBCdRY02xIZ59hA1X8Z1mbpUKdQqZK1RbnMh5c4YYh-Gp3l8aK1KKhzZOii_TCrq0H7hD2T_0d8Tzw461xHjn5FOXghAWUDjxF-SQAbAUCDg2C9HQ6RA/s1600/Beanier%2525202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRgn0bdGVRlE8XhMz_f60EuLQfBCdRY02xIZ59hA1X8Z1mbpUKdQqZK1RbnMh5c4YYh-Gp3l8aK1KKhzZOii_TCrq0H7hD2T_0d8Tzw461xHjn5FOXghAWUDjxF-SQAbAUCDg2C9HQ6RA/s400/Beanier%2525202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauYK199a6ALtMdwt1rmadcBwkMzQu0jy4EbnJ90_NvW3I0qOGZsh0KGKTBAputT0i324fJQTLJmEqeuB10dVOqg2Q8a7TgbXncs9izMF_8w2tIeqHsmt45woz4Vb1wWCy-_eM3o9SAGk/s1600/wall_th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauYK199a6ALtMdwt1rmadcBwkMzQu0jy4EbnJ90_NvW3I0qOGZsh0KGKTBAputT0i324fJQTLJmEqeuB10dVOqg2Q8a7TgbXncs9izMF_8w2tIeqHsmt45woz4Vb1wWCy-_eM3o9SAGk/s400/wall_th.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Colette Mann <em>(left)</em> and Roxanna McDonald cross the human divide while <em>(below)</em> Cirque Du Soleil go up the wall</span></td></tr>
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Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-23253459507476934442012-07-19T18:23:00.003-07:002012-07-19T18:46:15.721-07:00Barrack-Jones: Warm Love & Big Leaps<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Head Full of Love. Stars Roxanne McDonald and Colette Mann. Queensland Theatre Company. Cremorne Theatre QPAC. Till August 11.</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ovo. Cirque Du Soleil. <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Hamilton</place></city>. 54 artists from 16 countries. Till September 2<sup>nd.</sup></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Barrack-Jones </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">rounding off a busy week with a quick look at two shows with strikingly contrasting styles and themes, but equally deserving of attention in this busy theatrical scene.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Alana Valentine’s</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Head Full of Love</i> is a two-woman show, which explores the need for communication and understanding in a world where there’s too little of the damn stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I mean we all – in theory – speak the same language here in <country-region w:st="on">Australia</country-region>, but dash it all if sometimes it would seem that we’re living half way up - or maybe at the top - of the <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">tower</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Babylon</placename></place>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We’re talking to each other right enough – sometimes shouting even – but the words seem to come out in a torrent of strange tongues, which inevitably fail to hit the mark.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Tilly Nappuljari (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Roxanne McDonald</b>) and Nessa Tavistock (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Colette Mann</b>) would appear to be worlds apart, when they come across each other at the annual <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alice Springs Beanie Festival</i>, but somehow manage to connect in a an engaging and amusing 90-minute conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Big city girl Nessa is running away from a host of demons, while Roxanne is calmly knitting a beanie for the festival while coping with the trauma of spending </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">four hours a day - three days a week - on a dialysis machine away from country and family.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Roxanne’s indigenous heritage makes it more than four times likely that she would be in this precarious situation, despite the fact that her life has been largely drug and alcohol free.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">It’s something that’s simply in the indigenous DNA, but that doesn’t make her a push over and the women experience a sometimes feisty, but ultimately rewarding relationship.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Despite the subject matter, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Head Full of Love</i> is alive with good humour and is as likely to bring a smile to the lips as much as a tear to the eye.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">There’s even a design for a zig zag beanie among the promotional material for the play, which is something of a triumph for all concerned including QTC artistic director <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wesley Enoch</b> who put this little masterpiece on stage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">So see the play and then head off to <place w:st="on">Alice Springs</place> for the beanie festival when it pops up again next year. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">These remote communities need our support in areas such as community health. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">___________________________________________________________</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Barrack-Jones </span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">is more often than not driven up the wall when it comes to the circus, but as most of the world knows <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Canada</country-region></place>’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cirque Du Soleil</i> is in his a class of its own.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The crew have been coming to Australia – and Brisbane - since 1999 and this time around it’s brought a piece called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ovo (that’s Portuguese for egg) ,</i> which is a little strange as the two hour extravaganza focuses on the world of insects.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">A cast and crew of more than 54 young athletic men and women, from 16 countries, present a spectacularly entertaining night of Olympic proportions on the floor, in the air and even up the wall.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Cirque Du Soleil exists in a parallel universe where anything is possible as the young bodies in stylish – but familiar – Cirque Du Soleil costumes throw themselves around without doing themselves damage (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a miracle me thinks).</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">It’s a day in the life of insects – bugs, ladybirds, fleas, dragonflies, mossies etc – working, eating, crawling, fluttering, fighting and even falling in love.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The love story is left to the clowns, which is an interesting thought.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The action begins with the arrival of a stranger carrying an egg comes into their mist in what the circus folk call the enigma and cycle of life.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The first and second acts both end with two of the most remarkable displays that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Barrack-Jones</b> has ever seen under the blue and yellow <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Top.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-53913647860175008712012-07-18T22:58:00.000-07:002012-07-19T16:12:23.993-07:00<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigb0EN89bQ9JM-1yXFYeAK1EMgsCHla4WjeA0oVaxBgVf-rBrcZ34d8RKUEnCIioJEoGGfzjpmaasFmCy77mdubs95yipkH8Rcp75PLcLhZeATRa6jBPxl7wcN76l7o93RX1F-_h9OzeA/s1600/Frankie+Valli+And+The+Four+Seasons+Frankie+Valli+and+The+Four+Sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigb0EN89bQ9JM-1yXFYeAK1EMgsCHla4WjeA0oVaxBgVf-rBrcZ34d8RKUEnCIioJEoGGfzjpmaasFmCy77mdubs95yipkH8Rcp75PLcLhZeATRa6jBPxl7wcN76l7o93RX1F-_h9OzeA/s640/Frankie+Valli+And+The+Four+Seasons+Frankie+Valli+and+The+Four+Sea.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Those four young men under the New Jesry street light who would become The Four Seasons. Frankie Valli (second from left). </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-39078132749139433172012-07-18T22:54:00.003-07:002012-07-19T16:15:01.117-07:00Barrack-Jones: Sherry Baby or Sherry Bottle? Or Both?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<place w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Jersey</span></i></place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Boys –The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Music Bob Gaudio. Lyrics Bob Crewe. Lyric Theatre <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place>. Tickets available until September 16.</span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Barrack-Jones </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">here musing on that proverbial literary line from my old pal LP. Hartley who scribbled down ‘the past is a foreign country they do things differently there.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That might be true of the distant past but strangely enough recent times – such as the 1960s – seem more like an alien world even though I was screwing around then <em>(and I do mean that in a poet sense).</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I remember walking through <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Jersey</place></state> in the fall of ’62 with a sassy girl on my arm and the prospect of seeing a movie and, perhaps later, winning her over with an ice cream bar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The whole seduction was likely to cost 76 cents for two movie tickets – I think the film was <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the sci-fi frightener <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blob</i> – and an ice cream for 11 cents <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(I’d brought my own cream sherry hip flask).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we walked I heard four young men singing under a street light something about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherry </i>and wondering if they’d guessed what was in my<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pocket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherry</i> was a girl, who had been woven into a song by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bon Gaudio</b> for a new singing quartet <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Four Seasons</i>, and it was number one in what was then called the hit parade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now 50 years and 75 millions record sales later the boys are being recreated on stage in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place> in a celebration of their chequered story simply called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jersey Boys</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The show is the 19<sup>th</sup> longest running Broadway musical and has won a swag of awards including best musical in <state w:st="on">New York</state> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(a Tony)</i> and <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">London</city></place> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(an Olivier).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The songs are almost pumped out in heart racing fashion as one hit falls over another in a remarkable musical cavalcade which includes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">December ’63 (Oh What a Night), Ragdoll, Big Girls Don’t Cry. Walk Like a Man </i>and the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>fifth most played tune on the wireless<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Can’t Take My Eyes of You.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The show would be a terrific concert with the songs alone, but it appears that these squeaky clean lads in button down shirts, drain pipe pants, neat ties and tight coats lived extremely colourful and sometimes dangerous lives</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I know the feeling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Their story, which includes violence, sex, profanity, murder and even jail along with runs-in with gangsters and on the home front, girlfriends and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>families, reminds me of the time when we took our stories from the Bible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Only the Old Testament – as demonstrated in the middle-ages in shows such the Wakefield Mystery Plays – had as much sex and violence and in-your-face confrontation as <place w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jersey</i></place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Boys.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When we toured our mystery plays, all those years ago, they were touted as objects of lessons in morality, but nowadays these melodramatic real-life stories are more a demonstration of how talent wins out over adversity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>(Oh how I miss the Middle Ages, although they were home to some of our most smelly centuries, but I digress.)</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The boys, as depicted in the show, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have their up and downs – and three of them finally drop-out for various reasons – but the songs carry on (as does <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frankie Valli)</b> and everyone comes out of it smelling of roses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As indeed my sassy friend and I did rolling around in the garden rose beds after the movie as the four boys’ mournful harmonies could still<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be heard in the near distance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ah now romantic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I believe that now Mr. Valli is 78 – and still playing somewhere – but yours truly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(The Universal Thespian)</b> is also just warming up and looking for new possibilities despite 1000 years on the road </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I think I might return to the Lyric for another dose of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jersey Boys</i> and see if maybe….Well there was a rather attractive young waitress in the foyer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bar ….but never you mind about that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(as they say in Queensland)</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-79032088418966546452012-07-17T09:24:00.002-07:002012-07-17T21:39:51.279-07:00 <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioaOdLMfqLYzEm_DS7yhwMiKvWAFb6bkdMqSgyxvJv-JpvzQvItGDZHm2Kydj41iNsYvY1j8en2BZFx_Q8YKI55-HYVy0CD3Tgiuy6TnLL0PneNzUfcMGH44oifEjEHzqO89eD_KjrXCY/s1600/douglas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioaOdLMfqLYzEm_DS7yhwMiKvWAFb6bkdMqSgyxvJv-JpvzQvItGDZHm2Kydj41iNsYvY1j8en2BZFx_Q8YKI55-HYVy0CD3Tgiuy6TnLL0PneNzUfcMGH44oifEjEHzqO89eD_KjrXCY/s320/douglas.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXlTTJZE4EYf-SdsNWP5Qzm2QlvFoarbf3ELOd4HTJXGxt9qQnDKcWKPNBFrQ6cqw9J74fyeRlr3v2AaFiSoNqqRFF2ndFYIuYTyqIFpQpWVml6Rm8kCioZO0oMMrOPlbuRFdmFpAF0s8/s1600/ABDAM91CA0B2OF5CA9CXIN3CA5LOBA1CAHAZ353CAGXHPCSCAHUXC2PCA0WFUKMCAC6EGO0CACP11TUCAASG2KGCABYH5ICCAQUF2FBCA6WKD6Rqueen+vic+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXlTTJZE4EYf-SdsNWP5Qzm2QlvFoarbf3ELOd4HTJXGxt9qQnDKcWKPNBFrQ6cqw9J74fyeRlr3v2AaFiSoNqqRFF2ndFYIuYTyqIFpQpWVml6Rm8kCioZO0oMMrOPlbuRFdmFpAF0s8/s320/ABDAM91CA0B2OF5CA9CXIN3CA5LOBA1CAHAZ353CAGXHPCSCAHUXC2PCA0WFUKMCAC6EGO0CACP11TUCAASG2KGCABYH5ICCAQUF2FBCA6WKD6Rqueen+vic+6.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Sir Haulway Barrack-Jones</strong> <em>(above left)</em> relaxing in a concentrating mood and the actor in character as <em>Charley's Aunt</em> <em>(from Brazil where the nuts come from)</em> in a dress rehearsal for the '95 summer tour </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Above Madam Bovary's knockin' shop off London's Cromwell Road in Robbers Lane (according to Barrack-Jones). </span></div>
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</tbody></table>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-30349238163768024182012-07-12T19:36:00.006-07:002012-07-13T21:46:47.525-07:00 <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Top: The Gentlemen of Japan</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Right: Sully (left) and Gilly</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Bottom: The beautiful Ruby Preece in '28</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlZ4WAorOLrGNfIOuVZrAtzrBNG7Rj92bYznCBeeybcHzE_XitsTWkFwbJRGr-_sCQ55OmwXrq5diWnlgv6kHAw-LuyXCnwpJ0ZUUuVxvSZ7XXoJpWpTAlS6mhnR1YGHEeSHv7nAuk0s/s1600/220px-Patricia-preece-1928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img $ca="true" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlZ4WAorOLrGNfIOuVZrAtzrBNG7Rj92bYznCBeeybcHzE_XitsTWkFwbJRGr-_sCQ55OmwXrq5diWnlgv6kHAw-LuyXCnwpJ0ZUUuVxvSZ7XXoJpWpTAlS6mhnR1YGHEeSHv7nAuk0s/s1600/220px-Patricia-preece-1928.jpg" /></a></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-5178768688586178682012-07-12T19:24:00.003-07:002012-07-13T21:37:03.195-07:00Barrack-Jones – The Mikado Proper<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Barrack-Jones </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">back on the job after what’s been a truly topsy-turvy week on the <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brisbane</place></city> theatre scene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">By the end of it I do believe it was only the foyer bar holding me up, and that wouldn’t be the first time let me tell you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I think it’s time to polish off Opera Queensland’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mikado</i>, which looks set to do business that would have made dear old <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Richard D’Oyly Carte <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>proud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I reckon that young <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gilfedder </b>– <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Eugene </b>– would have made a terrific Victorian patter man and challenger to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Fred Sullivan</b> – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sully’s</b> brother – who was one of the top comic performers of his age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Poor old Fred died at the age of 40 leaving behind a wife and eight kids, but Sully did the right thing and looked after them all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I digress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Although young Gilfedder as Ko-Ko added a few contemporary references to his Little List song and there were plenty of other modern asides – such as the Wandering Minstrel Nanki-Poo<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">- Dominic Walsh</b> – flogging CDs of his work it doesn’t matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Mikado was never really grounded in the era in which it was created – it premiered in the winter of ’85 – and little to do with the real <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Japan</place></country-region>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Although Victorian Londoners were fascinated with the country – which was just reveling itself to the world – Sully used all that exotic stuff as a vehicle to send-up the Pommy establishment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There were all sorts of stories about how<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gilly got the idea for the Mikado, including being inspired by a Japanese sword in his study and some oriental community in Knightsbridge, but really it was all about keeping Sully on side.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As I said earlier, both men were getting to the end of the tether and Sully had already knocked back one suggested scenario because it had too much magic in it.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Mikado</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is really a nonsense story about a Lord high executioner who has no one to execute, a love sick boy called <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nanki- Poo </b>and three little maids who are dangerously close to being what the Yanks call jail bait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The virtue of young girls was a cause for some concern at the time as the age of constant had been raised from 13 to 16 in the autumn of ‘85 in a bid to stop the terrible traffic in child prostitution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Look, I love a pretty young ankle – don’t get me wrong – but I do have one or two morals and a line in the sand which I keep a sharp eye on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anyway, this modern director fellow <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Stuart Maunder</b> (AM would you believe. Is that when he gets out of bed I wonder? ) has obviously had a lot of fun with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The production is fast furious and a hoot to boot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It wasn’t Gilly & Sully’s last opera or even their last successful one – that was The Grand Duke and The Gondoliers respectively – but the relationship was as strained as a constipated elephant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I said I’d tell about the dreadful carpet row which all took place some years later didn’t I?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well, as you probably know,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all the Gilly & Sully operas were known as The Savoy Operas because that was the boys’ own theatre, where they were premiered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their producer D’Oyly Carte reckoned new carpets were needed and Sully was on his side because <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carte had promised to stage his serious opera, Ivanhoe, but Gilly thought it a waste of money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There were other financial rows and one thing led to another as a simple disagreement became a serious of blazing rows worthy of the great fire of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">London</place></city>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anyway, it wasn’t long after that The Grand Duke flopped and the boys decided to give it away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">They’d created 14 operettas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The last interesting anecdote from the Gilly & Sully story is the way poor old Gilly – who created all those fabulous topsy-turvy stories - died.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It was in the spring of ’11 when 74-year-old Gilly was giving swimming lessons to two charming young local lasses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One of them, 17-year- old Ruby Preece got into a spot of trouble and so the gallant scribe dived in to save her and promptly died of a heart attack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Such is death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The macabre, but amusing, twist is that when Ruby grew-up she went into bat for the other side if you get my drift.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I said <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Barrack-Jones</b> had a line in the sand but nothing about being PC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ha, ha, ha.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-82633328809729217382012-07-11T06:44:00.002-07:002012-07-11T07:12:12.710-07:00 <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXefp47DcEIVTEizR9G_KXUv6RnM0C5Mw83mzoUU7k1zC9XIR7dTqGjbedITMrinCL1B5spIGdZNL4Xj6bcrrqZa2L4l9KMS95_cRM3b9rR286B1tRc7RGAYY_MD5KxZLDhlRruLq89g/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img $ca="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXefp47DcEIVTEizR9G_KXUv6RnM0C5Mw83mzoUU7k1zC9XIR7dTqGjbedITMrinCL1B5spIGdZNL4Xj6bcrrqZa2L4l9KMS95_cRM3b9rR286B1tRc7RGAYY_MD5KxZLDhlRruLq89g/s320/untitled.bmp" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Paul Eddington got his start in the mid 1950s in the TV show Robin Hood and then (below) came a call to higher office</span></td></tr>
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Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-12176233280875376802012-07-11T06:41:00.003-07:002012-07-11T19:54:43.590-07:00Barrack-Jones – Yes, Prime Minister & the Mikado<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Barrack-Jones </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">back in the firing lines with some pithy comments on the stage version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, Prime Minister </i>and Opera Queensland’s G&S offering <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mikado.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I can remember once at the court of <strong>Henry VIII</strong> in the winter of '45, this rather spirited jester made some rather funny, no witty, and pointed, remarks about the king’s appearance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">They were brilliant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A natural.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The 16<sup>th</sup> Century’s answer to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Seinfeld</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A genius.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">No a comic genius.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We all laughed heartedly, and no one more so than His Majesty, which created a really relaxed air around the palace and made us all feel as if we were getting on famously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">What a wonderful world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">An enlightened court.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A court ahead of its time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The next time I saw the jester he still had a huge grin on his face, perhaps a few more tears, but sadly his head was no longer attached to his body as it went flying through the air into the River Thames.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This has always made me rather nervy when it comes to satire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Having said that I must confess that <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place> in the 21<sup>st </sup>century seems to be both relaxed and safe, at least until the next Federal Election.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So I was able to sit back and enjoy <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anthony Jay</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jonathan Lynn’s</b> theatrical lampooning of the British political establishment in the stage version of their celebrated TV shows <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, Minister </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, Prime Minister.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The original TV stars – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paul Eddington</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nigel Hawthorne</b> - have sadly left planet earth while <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Derek Fowlds </b>who played Bernard, has topped the 74 mark.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I have always particularly loved the remark made by top bureaucrat Sir Humphrey to his Minister, and later PM, that when he was out on a limb it was ‘courageous.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This reminds me of Goodish King Harry noting that his jester was a:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">‘ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">man of infinite bravery whose head, but unfortunately not his shoulders, were above the courage of his foolish conviction.’</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We all laughed with <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a tear rolling down our cheeks – but without really seeing the joke – and none more so than the poor fellow whose humour tuned out to be too cutting edge for the times.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Yes, Prime Minister,</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> which features some stout fellows – all bearing three names – in the principal roles including <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mark Owen-Taylor</b> (the PM), <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tony Llewellyn-Jones</b> (Sir Humphrey) and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">John Lloyd Fillingham</b> (Bernard).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I have a strong affection for actors with three names as I used to have that exact amount until I became <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sir Haulway Barrack-Jones</b>, which gave me four sometime in the late ‘90s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The performances not only bring the play into the present, but also add some farce in the second act worthy of one of the classics such as <em>Charlie’s</em> Aunt (which I remember with great affection also as I toured a regional version in the autumn of ‘92).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">On a sad note I recall that the original Jim Hacker, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paul Eddington</b>, was performing in HMS Pinafore here in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place> in ‘87 when he was diagnosed with the cutaneous T cell lymphoma which ultimately claimed his life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Eddington once said, ‘<em>you don’t have to believe in regicide to play Macbeth</em>,’ and he was certainly a much more courageous man than his Hacker character appeared at times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This new production of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, Prime Minister</i> tackling the vexing problem of reconciling practical politics against moral imperatives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In this version the morality concerns sex impropriety, but in real Australian political life there’s greater moral dilemmas to consider.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For instance is being in power more important than the life and death of others? In <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Australia</place></country-region> I wonder.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I digress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mikado</i>. Next posting. Just like the media we promise but take our time to deliver……… </span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-8771741950369072672012-07-10T21:39:00.001-07:002012-07-10T21:39:36.069-07:00<span style="font-size: large;"></span> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is what folk see of Barrack-Jones when there's trouble brewing</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ambrose Bierce contemplating going out for a Mexican take-away</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-55507827832241368682012-07-10T21:20:00.001-07:002012-07-11T20:15:00.807-07:00Barrack-Jones – Well here’s a howdy do.<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hail fellows and females well met – <strong>Sir Haulway Barrack-Jones</strong> here with my first report on the <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brisbane</place></city> theatre landscape having been shunted-off to three shows in my inaugural week of reviewing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well, here’s a howdy do, but more of that later when I get around to talking about Opera Queensland’s new production of <em>The Mikado,</em> which yours truly first saw in the winter of ’85.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That’s when <strong>W.S. Gilbert</strong> – Gilly – and <strong>Sir Arthur Sullivan’s</strong> – Sully- collaboration was on extremely shaky grounds as both of them were getting to the end of their tether.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The one thing the two men had most in common – apart from certain warmth (and in Sully’s case a particularly active form of it) for the ladies – was a remarkably short tether. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Perhaps the shortest tether ever in the history of the British theatre. Although theatre people, being theatre people, that’s a tough call.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>The Mikado</em>, however, was week’s end following two rather different shows, which demonstrates what contrasts are available within the <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place> theatre scene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The week started at the <em>Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts</em> – more affectionately and practically called The Judy – with a strange 60-minute piece called <em>The Disappearances Project.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In appears that 30,000 persons going missing in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Australia</place></country-region> each year, although 86 per cent of them turn-up within a week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I can understand that as I have often gone missing, most notably during police raids, bar room brawls, and at times which it appears that I am either going to receive a good bollocking or be in demand of money with, or without, menaces.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">However, I must say I generally pop back when things cool down, particularly if there’s a charming ankle or pretty face involved or, even, a couple of conciliatory vinos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Mediation through the consumption of alcohol can be extremely risky unless so much is tossed down that the participants collapse into an exhausted slumber.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I digress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Getting back to the show, it consisted of two actors – a man and women – facing the audience for around 70-minutes and recounting the pain and misery of those left behind and in their own words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s all based on research – very academic – and while some thought it pulled at the heart strings, others were not so sure. One chap said he believed it was a ‘shocking example of non-theatre’ as the performers had just put together a few lines lifted from research.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">My argument to that is that it was in the telling as I’ve heard fellows reading from the <em>Karma Sutra</em> who have sent audiences to sleep, while <strong>Marie Lloyd</strong> singing the <em>Come</em> <em>into the Garden Maud</em> back in the ‘90s had the chaps placing their toppers on their laps for the sake of decency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Stimulating stuff. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I digress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Watching the concerns of the family and friends of the missing - played against a back drop of dull suburban pictures and a droning soundtrack – made me think of two famous cases from the world of letters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I can still remember the hullaballoo when <strong>Agatha (Christie)</strong> went missing in Christmas ’26 for 11 days and turned up in Harrogate, <place w:st="on">Yorkshire</place>, simply taking the waters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That’s the town with the motto Avx Celebris Fontibus or a citadel famous of its springs if you prefer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I told her at the time that going to <place w:st="on">Harrogate</place> was a complete waste of doing a runner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">“If it had been me I’d have been off to the South of France to take in the vineyards,” I quipped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">She ignored that but then she was always a fairly logical sort who hadn’t much time for my hedonistic preferences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I think that was being married to the dashing Colonel Archie Christie who won her heart when serving in the Royal Flying Corp and then abandoned her for a certain Miss Nancy Neele.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">No. The real mystery was that happened to the American genius and author of <em>The</em> <em>Devil’s Dictionary</em>, <strong>Ambrose Bierce</strong>, whom I last <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>saw in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the summer of ’13 when he jumped on a horse and galloped away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I shouted after him, “where are you off to Amie?’ and in typical fashion he shrugged and retorted casually over his shoulder, ‘Just off to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Mexico</place></country-region> to see if I can pick up a take away for supper.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He never returned but left us some remarkable works including this favourite line: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em>“A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially in activity in the affairs of others.”</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Brilliant stuff. Wish my creditors could read that and take it into account. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Mum used to talk about the disappearing trick, which performed so well whenever Dad was coming back from a late-night at the pub, but never realised it was so popular. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-32723678104218018632012-07-06T23:32:00.003-07:002012-07-10T21:31:43.129-07:00<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yum-Yum (Kristy Swift), Ko-Ko (Eugene Gilfedder) and Hanki-Poo (Dominic Walsh) try and impress Sir Haulway Barrack-Jones at the opening of Opera Queensland's updated version of The Mikado</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I am off to the Opera Queensland production of <em>The Mikado</em> this evening with <strong>Sir HaulwayBarrack-Jones</strong> in tow. He will be writing something for me by Monday. Barrack-Jones, who is also known as the Universal Thespian, was at the premier of this production in in the winter of 1885 and has fond memories of the occasion. He also was quite familiar with <strong>W.S.</strong> <strong>Gilbert </strong>and <strong>Sir Arthur Sullivan,</strong> whom he affectionately calls Gilly and Sully. The old scallywag, who has been around the traps for a thousand years or more, will throw light on these giants of the musical genre. He has amusing recollections of the famous carpet row at the Savoy as well as Sully's last brave, but foolhardy, act . In the meantime here's a picture from the show.</span>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-70827785330452717362012-06-29T08:02:00.002-07:002012-07-08T01:17:33.152-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Sir Hulway Barrack-Jones </strong>is coming to this site. Here's a picture of him in happier times. I have agreed to allow him to use this site to promote his new show The Universial Actor. Sir Hulway <em>(pronounced Hallway)</em> is the eternal actor who has been with us for all time. He has a wealth of stories, a confidence much above his capabiltiities and the ability to comment on the past, present and future of our great industry without worrying too much about detail. His first theatrical outing was <strong>Calvary</strong> and his most recent included <strong>Hairspray.</strong> He says the simularities were striking. This will become his site in the new week, and thereafter, and he will offer a smorgasbord of offerings which he one day hopes to shape into something which sounds remotely intelligent. Between times he has agreed to comment on local productions in his own distinctive style. </span>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-63118876417334701812012-06-13T20:50:00.003-07:002012-06-28T17:33:06.270-07:00Theatre: Going To-and-Fro Between the Fo and Flu.<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Carol Burns as Elizabeth points the way to the 16th Century satirical tradition known as Commedia dell'arte</span></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Elizabeth</span></i></city></place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> almost by chance a woman. Stars Carol Burns, Eugene Gilfedder, SarahKennedy, Jason Klarwein, Dash Kruck, John Rodgers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Directed by Wesley Enoch. Queensland Theatre Company. Powerhouse. Continues till June 24.</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It has been more than a week since my last posting and, thanks to a bout of </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">the flue, I am now in catch-up mode as I try to make-up for lost time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, the one thing about life is that it doesn’t stand still for anyone – not even royalty as I noticed the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queen’s Diamond Jubilee</b> concert went ahead as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Prince Phillip</b> was carted off to hospital – so it’s up to us all to keep dancing as fast as we can for as long as we can.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Last week I was talking about Opera Australia staging <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Magic Flue</i> – and describing it as a tad highbrow – and this week it might appear, at first, that I have gone a little lowbrow with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dario Fo.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Italian Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is still rattling around the planet somewhere, was born March 24, 1926, which makes him a month older then the <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">UK</country-region></place>’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queen Elizabeth II.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">While shows such as <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elizabeth</i></place></city><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, almost by chance a woman,</i> appear vulgar, outspoken and absurdist, they are actually well crafted examples of a satirical theatre tradition that goes back centuries.</span></div>
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<city w:st="on"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Elizabeth</span></city><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, which features esteemed British actress <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Carols Burns</b> in the title role and centres on <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">England</country-region></place>’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Elizabeth I</b>, affectionately known as Good Queen Bess, draws on the Italian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Commedia dell’arte</i> as a starting point.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">One only has to look at Fo’s history – within the theatre and elsewhere – to see that his life has been a rich political experience beginning with his work with his father in the anti-fascist Resistance in World War II.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It would seem - and my confirming source is that sometimes vulnerable cyber reference <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wikipedia </i>-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Fo and Son were instrumental in helping various individuals, including allied soldiers and Jewish scientists, escape to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Switzerland</place></country-region>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Even in the post war era, Fo was walking a thin line turning Biblical stories into political satire – an extreme thing to do in Catholic Italy – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>writing plays from the 1950s.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, I was first introduced to his work decades later in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brisbane</place></city>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">For a while in the 1980s,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fo’s work was extremely popular with the TN Company, which at that time was a major ‘serious’ dramatic force within the <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brisbane</place></city> arts community.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I recall productions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Raspberries and Trumpets</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Accidental Death of an Anarchist </i>among others. His most successful play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buffo,</i> translated into 30 languages, never made <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Brisbane</city></place> to my knowledge.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Naturally, serious theatre students have always embraced the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Commedia dell’arte,</i> with its references to stock characters, social and political satire, improvisation and a chance to connect with western theatre’s first tentative professional outing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">What I particularly liked about this revamped version of Fo, freely adapted and translated by Luke Devenish and Louise Fox, is the language plucked from the past and made into contemporary relevance.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, I do concede that the two hour show – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>revolving around absurdist goings on between Elizabeth and her various courtiers whom in real life would have been flung (or worse) into the tower – does wear a trifle thin in the narrative department.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The basic idea is that Elizabeth, whom Flo asserts was no virgin but rather waiting for her lover, the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>treacherous Earl of Essex, is old and dying and doing it in a loud and boisterous, bawdy way.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(What a way to go if you still have the strength)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Throw in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">William Shakespeare</b> (whom the Queen believes is really writing about her), a wordy bureaucrat, a patronising maid, a transvestite and a tiresome boy and you’re got a spicy mix of seemingly outrageous nonsense.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But the language – and some notable theatrical antics from the likes of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Carol</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Burns, Dash Kruck Eugene Gilfedder, Sarah Kennedy</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jason Klarwein </b>along with musical help and added contributions from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">John Rodgers </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– made it first brilliant, then bearable and then, well, it’s time to go.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The last 15 minutes are a bit wearisome.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There’s been a bit of twitter chatter lately – believe it or not – about the viability of political satire, but I reckon, like all forms of theatre, it has its place.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Like most things in life, as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">John Lennon</b> once wrote, whatever gets you through the night.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I was brought up in a British satirical tradition and recall, as a young man, dipping into a broad range of absurd comic traditions including playwright <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NF Simpson</b>, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>radio’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Goons</b> and later TV’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Monty Python Flying Circus.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I think the British tradition was more easy-going, more socially-driven and less a reaction to politics as, I believe, the country in the later part of the 20<sup>th</sup> century displayed an even political temper.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Of course, individuals who believe they were the victims of injustice would disagree with that point of view, but once again it falls back on personal experience.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">For once, I haven’t come across any reviews of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elizabeth</i></place></city>, which I would particularly recommend, but then I haven’t been looking too closely.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, those looking for a review in a sentence – they have their place as well – might describe it as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ab Fab</i> meets <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Adder</i> with a dash of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goons </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Monty Python </i>(all English comic references, I know) thrown in for good measure.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-13404932355555426282012-06-04T22:14:00.002-07:002012-06-13T18:56:38.345-07:00Opera Australia: Right, Everyone Join In On The Chorus.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfopLkg10-uDS4dyShK3Zwz7pXd2mED4pUtLsRa8xk92-lfs3ufCLUQ1HFpZwHF3j9VrtnzOm2X2VU0MKhNORzaN-7Juq1JNsCPwIT6MkmqXgz_dP5Nlz2LJM39InW297b2j05lKLcF0/s1600/magic+fluteGetAttachment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" fba="true" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfopLkg10-uDS4dyShK3Zwz7pXd2mED4pUtLsRa8xk92-lfs3ufCLUQ1HFpZwHF3j9VrtnzOm2X2VU0MKhNORzaN-7Juq1JNsCPwIT6MkmqXgz_dP5Nlz2LJM39InW297b2j05lKLcF0/s640/magic+fluteGetAttachment.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Milica Illic (left) as Queen of the Night and Taryn Fiebig as Pamina in The Magic Flute. Photo Justin Nicholas.</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I remember an opera comedienne who would hit a high note, then catch her breath and shout at the audience, ‘come on everyone join in on the chorus,’ or something to that effect.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There’s something about opera with its divas, unlikely overweight soprano and tenor lovers, stodgy performances and general pomposity, which encourages the spoof, the send-up and a certain amount of derision.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Or at least that used to be the case, when opera was at the top of the mountain of high art and sponsors and supporters were perceived to be an elite group of precious patrons, but the world is changing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nowadays, a new wave of artistic directors, working with theatrically aware directors, is bringing the art form from those rarified peaks of artistic endeavor and into the people’s paddock.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In short, OA aspires to live in the love of the common people.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There was nowhere that was more obvious then in Brisbane the past couple of weeks, when audiences were treated to Opera Australia’s two most recent success stories.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">OA’s artistic director, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lyndon Terracini</b>, is bringing the company back to the <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Queensland</state></place> capital for the time first in more than two decades – the last visit was 1988 – with two state-of-art productions designed with mainstream appeal in mind.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The key to the productions’ success is as much in the direction as the versatility of the performers, who can sing as well as act, dance and in some cases engage in breathtaking gymnastics.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I am talking about ‘directing stars’ from the world stage in the shape of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion King’s</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Julie Taymor</b> and <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Australia</country-region></place>’s own behind-the-camera matinee idol <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Baz Luhrmann. </b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Today old<strong> Alfred Hitchcok</strong> would have had to share the spotlight among the living stars of the director's chair.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The first in this double-header was a completely overhauled <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mozart </b>classic, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Magic Flute</i>, which was trimmed down to two hours – with interval – and could easily hold its own in the highly competitive Broadway market place.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This magical piece of spin, which saw Mozart’s 1791 masterpiece morph into a slice of family entertainment which would look quite comfortable next to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion King</i> or even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mary Poppins</i>, was the brainchild of <strong>Julie Taymor</strong> (pictured).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAP6VsDjUuPKaDvQJwOTFDnZrhLe6QUphG3hW6NG4kqjb_EU4ZzUQlZlKurkFWh1gAZKdDdDFbJRbCN2TdS5nNNS-lmeGWRzeMM32GWTSfpCNAvdZdCz72TMyqJl6bLhKNb0eCQdhNaqg/s1600/Julie+Taymor+imagesuntitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" fba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAP6VsDjUuPKaDvQJwOTFDnZrhLe6QUphG3hW6NG4kqjb_EU4ZzUQlZlKurkFWh1gAZKdDdDFbJRbCN2TdS5nNNS-lmeGWRzeMM32GWTSfpCNAvdZdCz72TMyqJl6bLhKNb0eCQdhNaqg/s1600/Julie+Taymor+imagesuntitled.bmp" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The work came to life at <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">New York</state></place>’s Metropolitan Opera and was given its Australian renaissance by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Matthew Barclay</b> and as they say in the ‘op-biz’ it’s sure to irritate the purists.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This work is a theatrical cavalcade of colour, whimsy and joy as the troupe winds its way through a shortened version of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mozart’s </b>mysterious work with its links to Masonic traditions.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Julie Taymor</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> is well equipped to create this achievement as she has what cricket followers call, ‘ the runs on the board’,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King</i> breaking records at the Broadway box office, to the tune of more than $853 million, and now the seventh most successful show on Broadway.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(The most successful is still <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Phantom of the Opera</i>.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The director, who also brought us <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Beatles</b> inspired movie love story, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Across the Universe,</i> also has a swag of awards including Tony Awards for direction and costume design with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion King.</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">While <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Magic Flute</i> runs a crisp and to-the-point 120 minutes, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Baz Luhrmann’s</b> adaptation of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Benjamin Britten’s</b> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Midsummer</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Summer Night’s Dream</i> takes a more meandering route.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The show runs for more than three hours – with two intervals – but once again the cast demonstrates a broad sweep of performance skills.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvj5RYOdCzSBnibv4UYjP4zA5zuFQrGaZnM6tZQRHo64KYoRJX1bl0MjGyKDG0y_Y5KeGuXvMK38nXZyI8pnweSjFh5nBQZb-Qn0TgcALVeOjE1UXBSdwiJ_KZ_S4JNSboCnQ5kRykM5U/s1600/Luhrmann+images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" fba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvj5RYOdCzSBnibv4UYjP4zA5zuFQrGaZnM6tZQRHo64KYoRJX1bl0MjGyKDG0y_Y5KeGuXvMK38nXZyI8pnweSjFh5nBQZb-Qn0TgcALVeOjE1UXBSdwiJ_KZ_S4JNSboCnQ5kRykM5U/s1600/Luhrmann+images.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><strong>Baz Luhrmann</strong> (pictured)</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, who set his Dream in India around 1923, coaxed some wonderful acting performances out of his singing cast and draped his production in eye-catching fashion both in the set and costume departments.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The designers were <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bill Marron</b> and his wife and long-term professional partner <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Catherin Martin. </b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Once again stage and film director, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Baz Luhrmann</b>, is the very model of a modern operatic practitioner and brings a great sense of skill, crafts and originality to the medium.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">His big screen credits, for those who need reminding, include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge</i> and <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Australia</i></country-region></place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> but he’s also had a good track record with the OA.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Boheme on Broadway </i>back in 2002 won three Tony Awards.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The OA is back in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brisbane</place></city> with a bang.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The double header season runs until Friday and Saturday (June 8 and 9) but there’s talk of more to come.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Here’s a sample from A Midsummer Night’s Dream <a href="http://vimeo.com/9542385">http://vimeo.com/9542385</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">A scene from the Dream. Photo Branco Garcia</span></td></tr>
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</div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-44033479715359743282012-05-31T18:36:00.002-07:002012-05-31T21:34:55.512-07:00Deeming Did it Sir<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Frank and Jenny relaxing at home</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Down in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Sydney</city></place> watching my good friend <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frank Gauntlett’s</b> new play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deeming</i>, I couldn’t help but wonder if the 19<sup>th</sup> century serial killer had simply had a poxy childhood?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">I was consumed with all the contemporary fixations about diabolical characters – real and imagined – until Frank began to explain that the murders weren’t really central to his work.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Frank is - was and always will be – fascinated with theatre and drama from the complexity of a truly layered text to the frivolity of anecdotes about the men and women who populate this exotic world.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">You only have to look around Frank – and good wife always-laughing-and- smiling wife <strong>Jenny Brown's</strong> home chock-a-block with pictures and memorbilia – to see that the world of theatre is central to their sometimes seemingly chaotic lives.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">So <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deeming</i> is as much – if not more – about<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stage-manager <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Alfred Dampier</b> and his company who, in the tradition of a modern TV reality show, capitalised on the infamous Deeming case.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">In real history terms, Dampier wrote a piece called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wilful Murder!</i> as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frederick Deeming</b> faced the hangman’s nose back in 1892 and made an absolute pile thanks to Old Sydney Town’s fascination with the case.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Frank’s story, eloquently written with what one reviewer called ‘Victorian ornateness’ takes the concept a step further and has Dampier, desperate for a success, turning it into a theatrical reality piece.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Although set in colonial <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Australia</country-region></place>, this fascinating black comedy parallels our contemporary craze in ‘reality’ shows.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Overall I enjoyed the show – and was suitable impressed with the venue, the Kings Street Theatre, - but a Kennedy review is not appropriate.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">Instead, I’ll post a link to a review which impressed me – and I think Frank was fairly happy with it – and another on Deeming for those fascinated with ‘orrible murders.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">The review from <strong>Gareth Beal</strong> appears in <em>artsHub.</em></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">The run ends on Sunday, but I am confident that Deeming will one day return from the shadows and haunt some suitably atmospheric theatrical stage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14pt;">In the meantime, Frank’s next production will be the return of his earlier successful adaptation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">H.G. Wells’</i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Time Machine</b> starring <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mark Lee </b>who co-starred in the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gallipoli</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mel Gibson.</b></span><br />
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<strong><a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/deeming-frederick-bailey-5940">http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/deeming-frederick-bailey-5940</a></strong><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dampier">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dampier</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/deeming-189533">http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/deeming-189533</a></div>
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Plus this new review from Crickey's Lloyd Bradford Skye.<br />
<a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/curtaincall/2012/05/29/review-deeming-king-street-theatre-sydney/">http://blogs.crikey.com.au/curtaincall/2012/05/29/review-deeming-king-street-theatre-sydney/</a></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-34511210558121499332012-05-30T18:06:00.003-07:002012-05-31T19:41:33.441-07:00Cinema: Meet me at the Movies<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 3.75pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Audrey Hepburn</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Being looking for an opportunity to kick-start something on the movies and along comes an 11-film package from Dendy Portside running two sessions each Monday at 10am and 6pm.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The cinema, were the cruise ships dock, is calling its June, July and August line-up Winter Wonderland, and covering a period from the Oscar winning drama <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> (1941) to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bob Fosse’s</b> 1972 pre-war <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Berlin</place></state> musical <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cabaret</i> starring <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Liza Minnelli</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I recall in the dim dark past mum hauling me along to the cinema as a kid, growing up in the 1950s, as she reckoned it was the only place she could get some rest from my antics.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The other boys and girls would be running all over the shop, but I was glued to the big screen watching anything from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gregory Peck</b> in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Country</i> to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Norman Wisdom</b> in one of those classic British comedies such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Square Peg.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The movie didn’t have to be a classic, and it didn’t have to be <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Hollywood</city></place>, in fact I remember seeing a British comedy, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Very Important Person</i>, with a swag of home-grown comics, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Eric Sykes, James Robinson Justice, Stanley Baxter</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Leslie Phillips</b>, somewhere between 17 and 20 times in one week!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Nowadays, I have quite an extensive DVD collection and access to TV movies, but there’s something about seeing a movie on the big screen’s that is different to any other movie experience. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The big screen season opens with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Audrey Hepburn </b>in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)</i> on Monday, June 4, and continues with:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">My Fair Lady (1964) (June 18), Citizen Kane (1941) (June 25), Cabaret (1972) (July 2), To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) (July 9), Dr Zhivago (1965) (July 16), It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) (July 23), Calamity Jane(1953) (July 30), The African Queen (1951) (August 6), Meet In <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">St Louis (1944)</city></place> (August 13) and (1959)Ben Hur (August 20).</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I’ll be there……</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-91551773785799015732012-05-30T18:03:00.004-07:002012-05-30T18:03:57.510-07:00Hungry for Love? Breakfast at Tiffany’s<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 3.75pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Breakfast at Tiffany's poster</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">‘She’s a phony, all right, but a real phony,’ is the way Holly Golighty’s agent,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O.J. Bergman (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Martin Balsam</b>), sums up the classic big screen character in the 1961 adaptation of the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Truman Capote</b> novella <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breakfast at Tiffany's.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Naturally, the elegant and sophisticated <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Audrey Hepburn,</b> who played the role, was no phony, but rather Hollywood royalty, whose mother was a real-life Baroness.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Hepburn, born <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Heburn-Ruston</b>, was the daughter of right wing banker, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Joseph Hepburn-Ruston</b> and Dutch aristocrat <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Baroness Ella van Heemstra.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">When the parents divorced in 1935, Audrey went to school in London, became a ballerina in Holland and later a chorus girl and model, before landing a series of small roles in British movies such as Chiquita in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lavender Hill Mob</i> (1951).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">In contrast, Holly Golightly was a ‘socialite,’ living the ‘high life’, in keeping with the sensitivities of the times as the concept of a high-class call girl selling herself was strictly taboo.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blake Edwards</i> movie was billed as a romantic comedy as the eccentric Golightly takes the 115 minutes to connect with her bemused neighbour played by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">George Peppard.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Breakfast was a landmark film for both actors – Aubrey liked it because the naturally introverted actress had to play an extrovert and received an Oscar nomination for her trouble - but there are other notable features.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Screenwriter <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">George Axelrod</b> took out an Oscar nomination for his screenplay, but it was the music which took out the big gong with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Henry Mancini </b>winning an Oscar for music score and <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moon</i></placename><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <placetype w:st="on">River</placetype></i></place> being named best song.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Audrey crooned <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moon</i></placename><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <placetype w:st="on">River</placetype></i></place> in Breakfast and later recorded all Eliza Doolittle’s songs in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Fair Lady</i>, but during filming Fair Lady director <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">George Cukor</b> inserted <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Marni Nixon’s</b> singing voice.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The story goes that Audrey was furious and stomped off the set when she found out, but later, being the trouper she was, returned, apologised and got on with the job.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #636363; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Back to Breakfast, watch out for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Buddy Ebsen</b> as Doc Golightly and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mickey Rooney</b> as a racial stereotype, and Audrey’s Japanese neighbour, I Y Yunioshi. Later Rooney copped heaps for this performance.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3515417550482318563.post-69705628102933778832012-05-29T22:18:00.003-07:002012-05-29T22:38:18.244-07:00The Queensland Ballet: A Rose Coloured World<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Don Quixote with Blair Wood (top) as The Don and Keian Langdon as Sancho. Photo Ken Sparrow</span></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don Quixote. Choreographed by Francois Klaus. <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Queensland</state></place> Ballet. Playhouse House Theatre. Continues till June 2 Don Quixote (Blair Wood), Sancho (Keian Langdon/Gareth Belling). Dulcinea (Lisa Stewart).</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s time to go a tad highbrow with the Australia Opera staging, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Magic Flute</i>, and the Queensland Ballet presenting a new production of the perennial favourite, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don Quixote.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Let’s start with the Don, as it only runs till Saturday (June 2), and I have been away in Sydney checking out friend <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frank Guantlett’s</b> new play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deeming,</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>teaming 19<sup>th</sup> century serial killer, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frederick Deeming,</b> and actor- manager- cum- playwright <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Alfred Dampier.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">More on Deeming later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Don. QB’s artistic director <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Francois Klaus</b> is having a whip cracker of a final year in the role of AD, first with a thoroughly entertaining outing of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lewis Carroll’s</b> children’s classic, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alice in Wonderland</i>, and now <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cervantes’ </b>Renaissance classic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The production – which features music from a potpourri of composers including Minkus (Excerpts from Don Quixote) and Dvorak’s final movement from the New World Symphony and Cello Concerto in B - brings the Don wham-bang into the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In this telling, a dancer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(Blair Wood) is</b> playing the Don in a movie when he becomes so obsessed with the character, the errant knight begins to have a detrimental effect on his work and life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Klaus has created an enchanting narrative, about the eternal importance of dreaming, as the story shifts in time between the Renaissance world of the Don and his servant Sancho, and the challenges facing the young dancer in his contemporary waking life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This results is a clean and sharp narrative, which has an added bonus of some wonderful male dancing as well as the delicate contribution of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lisa Edwards</b> as Dulcinea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The show is packed with rustic charm as the Don and Sancho create their own distinctive dance style, humour<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and a powerful central message about the importance of dreams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The humour and rustic charm are particularly evident in The Don’s attack on the poor monks and a further encounter with bunch of innocent sheep. This all demonstrate that’s the Don’s mind is well and truly addled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The world should always accommodate the true eccentric, although, of course, individuals have responsibilities to their fellow men and women and, must live with accountability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Take a note.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In the meantime, I have picked out a review of the Don that I particularly like to share in the link below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This time I have opted for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Denise Richardson’s</b> review in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dance Australia,</b> which admittedly contradicts some of the observations spelled out in my opening pars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Francois Klaus and the Queensland Ballet’s passion for working with creative storytelling in its main house productions has always created challenges, and sometimes major problems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had problems with the QB’s storytelling in Fonteyn Remembered – combining actors and dancers in a tribute to Dame Margot back in 2010 – but others loved it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Such is life and cultural democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I personally think The Don is one of the better ones, but I am (as always) open to alternative critiques and I enjoy reading commentary which takes an alternative view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This Dance Australian review <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is a stimulating and informative one, well worth a view, and I particularly like the use of the photos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/review/queensland-ballet-don-quixote"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/review/queensland-ballet-don-quixote</span></a></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjxVkHANg2oIHDzemdk0dcFgBKCfpsWWGE6QrmHcGflS4pKgY8ESrctQZo3fLF59mnhLThdO1-5xxNlMYqS4pSfkVXO_4LYgdmgGvNBUFxRfgUvDO9PR4ypPa-cPvbpgxVhM3DDnYSn0/s1600/FRancois+klausimages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjxVkHANg2oIHDzemdk0dcFgBKCfpsWWGE6QrmHcGflS4pKgY8ESrctQZo3fLF59mnhLThdO1-5xxNlMYqS4pSfkVXO_4LYgdmgGvNBUFxRfgUvDO9PR4ypPa-cPvbpgxVhM3DDnYSn0/s1600/FRancois+klausimages.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Francois Klaus </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Douglas Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16238010258052434172noreply@blogger.com0