Unanswered

Chris Boyd: The Australian 31 January 2012

THANKS to competitive talent shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, there's an enthusiastic and demanding new demographic for stage shows built on dynamic, jazzy, acrobatic and intensely physical spectacle.

Paul Malek and co are more than happy to mop up that demand. Not so much "let them eat cake" as "let them eat beefcake."

Malek, however, is smart enough to know that spectacle needs to be combined with substance of one kind or another to make a satisfying theatrical experience.

Though inspired by a news story last year about the stoning to death of a nesting female swan by teenagers at Queen's Park in the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, Malek's new work is a fascinating combination of literal and abstract, of the metaphysical and the metaphorical. It operates on numerous levels whether you know the back story or not.

To an audience familiar with ballet, Unanswered will read as a clever and intriguing new take on Swan Lake or even La Fille Mal Gardee. That reading is reinforced by the choice of music, the ever-so-slightly unhinged musical rantings of California-born composer and musician Emilie Autumn. Combining harpsichord and electric violin, Autumn's music sounds like Vivaldi played by 1970s prog-rockers Yes.

For audiences who don't know an arabesque from an attitude, Unanswered is no less than physical origami.

The angles and folds of the eight bodies - together with the fall and hang of the papery matt costumes - are endlessly fascinating. Malek's inventive choreography manages to be ambiguous without ever seeming noncommittal. In one of the few solos, a dancer prances and romances, blowing kisses and plucking imaginary petals. She might be looking for a mate or she might be blissfully self-sufficient.

Midsumma audiences will notice - and delight in - the spread of body types and gender roles assigned to them. Malek's squad includes a couple of strikingly powerful women (notably Ashleigh Perrie and Kim Adam) and sylph-like men as well as the more traditionally masculine and feminine. The impossibly lithe Danny Golding is a definition of puckish dynamism.

The one significant criticism one can make of Unanswered is that it is relentless, visually and aurally. The dancers dial the energy level up to 10 - performing with lightning fast virtuosity in near-perfect unison - and do not let it drop for the best part of an hour.

Despite their proximity to us and the intimacy of the Theatre Works space, watching Unanswered is puzzlingly like watching television. The lack of dynamic range might be to blame.

Unanswered, By Paul Malek. Produced by Collaboration: The Project for the Midsumma Festival, Melbourne. Theatre Works, January 26. Ends Saturday. Tickets: $32. Bookings: (03) 9534 3388.

The Age: The Year of Magical Wanking Review

19 January 2012

THEATRE
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL WANKING
Written and performed by Neil Watkins, Theatre Works, until January 29
★ ★ ★ ★

WITHIN minutes of Irish writer-actor Neil Watkins appearing on a stark, half-lit stage, bare feet, black warrior-like markings painted beneath his eyes and roaming the floor like a trapped party animal in a grey suit, he declares he is ''a wanker''.

What is this? Are we in for an hour of self-deprecating, funny but weird memoir about some gay guy who just can't keep his needs in his pants or his hands from himself?

Not exactly. This bold, steely dramatic monologue - the text is entirely in verse - about Watkins' screwed-up life and his compulsively ignoble quest to avoid intimacy and escape the pain and shame with the excessive assistance of drugs and sex and nothing much else in between, is a complex and moving ''from ruin to redemption'' story more in the Celtic tradition of Frank McCourt than of Jimeoin.

Like Joan Didion's famous grief-memoir referenced in the show's title, Watkins takes a scalpel to a life on the edge of sanity and self-erasure, observing and documenting his experience rather than giving over to the pain altogether.

Watkins, a talented actor and writer, possesses as much Catholic guilt as a poet's precision of imagery as he takes us with him into the confession box only to release us, finally at the redemptive closing verse.

This is not just art as therapy because the writing is so interesting and director, Phillip McMahon's eye for any un-theatrical wanking means the play resists self- indulgence.

Watkins' story is gripping and sad and surprisingly charming and funny too. Which, given the full-on nature of its material, is quite a feat.

Milkbarmag: Review Negative Energy Inc.

17 January 2012

Where do you start with Ash Flanders? I want to leave it at “if you like the gays and you like to LAFF GO SEE ASH FLANDERS”. But he and his new show Negative Energy Inc. deserve much more than that.

To step into Ash Flanders’ world is to stick your hand into muddy fetid waters and pull out random objects – a dead horse, a mangled Cher wig, a terrifying rendition of “Jesus take the wheel”, smeared lipstick, Judge Judy, Christian summer camp, an exquistely tailored suit.

Standup and pop culture pastiche backed up on piano by the wonderful Dave Barclay, Ash Flanders assaults you with his almost lucid opinions on anything (and I mean anything.) Flanders seems to live by the old adage: if you have a point to make you might as well ram it home with a song

Negative Energy Inc. promises you will feel 300% worse after seeing it. I don’t know about that, but it certainly does make you feel violated in a way that is underterminable. Ash Flanders is one of the most wonderful aspects of theatre in Melbourne.

Negative Energy Inc. is playing at Theatre Works as part of the Midsumma Festival
Jan 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 and 5 Feb @ 7pm
Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St Kilda
Tickets: $25 Full, $20 Con and Grps 8+ (plus booking fee)
Bookings: 03 9534 3388 or www.theatreworks.org.au

The Australian: Mother/SON review

January 13 2012

Pride in mother's journey

Jeffrey Solomon in his one-man show Mother/SON. Source: Supplied

JEFFREY Solomon plays straight man to his mother in this endearing and poignant "coming out" story set in the mid 1990s.

Solomon, pictured, plays Brad, a screenwriter working in Los Angeles. He also plays Brad's mother, Mindy, a Long Island Jewish mama keen to tee up a nice girl for her beloved boy. Mother/SON, showing at Theatre Works in St Kilda until January 21 as part of the Midsumma Festival, is a semi-autobiographical story. It is very much about Mindy's journey, and her coming out as the mother of a gay man, from staunch denialist to a champion of the cause riding pillion in a pride march. Often painfully funny - and never mawkish - Mother/SON is a piece with broad and easy appeal.

Mastering the art of Negativity: Souther Star Observer interview with Ash Flanders

January 12 2012

Ash Flanders has quite a job on his hands convincing audiences to come see a show about negativity.

But if anyone had the ability to bottle and mass distribute the funnier side of cultural tragedies and personal failures, it’d be this Melbourne queen of camp and cattiness.

One of the stars of the VAC’s Queer as FxxK series and co-founder of Sisters Grimm, a theatre company that specialises in high-camp and trashy comedies, Flanders will remount his 2011 Hares and Hyenas show Negative Energy Inc at St Kilda’s Theatre Works as part of Midsumma.

“It’s a show that celebrates the terrible state the world is in,” Flanders said.

“You know the It Gets Better Project? This is my It Only Gets Worse antidote, because it doesn’t get better for stupid people.”

Celebrities, pop culture and religion can all expect to be called out in the show, but Flanders said the audience will also get to know some of his own, less than positive, history.

“It’s a personal show, like having a conversation with an intense friend,” he said.

“It’s hard being a middle class white boy from the ‘burbs and I’m going to tell you all about it.

“I was brought up a huge Christian and went to Christian youth camps for about 10 years until that clearly conflicted with my lifestyle.”

Flanders said his problems as an out performer also provided good source material.

“It’s interesting being in a business where people are supposed to be creative and open-minded but can be quite the opposite,” he said.

“You don’t see people like me on TV or in big scale productions a lot of the time, it’s very closeted. I tell the story of an agent that really liked me and went to the head of the agency who asked if I was gay and when she found out just said ‘I’m not interested’.”

Flanders said he found TV casting in particular was about hiring actors that were already the character.

“And since when has there ever been a screechy, queeny Australian character on TV?” he said.

“I don’t even know if gay audiences would like that, they’d be all ‘This is a horrible step back!’”

Flanders will be joined by accompanist Dave Barclay for the show, tackling a diverse range of showtunes and pop hits with his trademark bite.

“It’s got Madonna, some Carpenters, some country, Bonnie Tyler and even The Wizard of Oz‘s Optimistic Voices which, as you can imagine, in a show called Negative Energy Inc gets turned on its head.

INFO: Negative Energy Inc is at Theatre Works St Kilda Jan 15-Feb 5; Tix: www.midsumma.org.au

samesame.com.au review of Mother/SON

What better way to kick of your 2012 Midsumma theatre season than with the remarkable and brilliantly performed one man show, Mother/SON that features as part of Theatreworks curated Midsumma program, Men at Work.

New York Jewish writer/performer Jeffrey Solomonwrote and stars in this fantastic, heart warming, moving and hilariously funny one man play that explores the very special close relationship of a mother coming to terms with her gay son. In the unfolding story the audience follows both as they go from shock and acceptance, to a celebration of pride and coming to terms with loss. Though this work seems to be set at some point in the late 80’s early 90’s – as highlighted by the choice of music and inclusion AIDS storylines – it does exude a certain timelessness in it’s exploration of the unique relationship shared between a mother and her gay son. But you don’t have to be gay or a mother to get just what this work is all about. There’s something so gorgeously universal about the writing and performance, as well as what the show explores, that connection with it is inevitable regardless of who you are.

In a stripped back raw theatrical approach Soloman plays both roles, with little more to accompany him on stage than a prop bed, a bar counter and a couple of hand held telephones.
The dialogue is well crafted, and coupled with a perfectly delivered performance and carefully considered staging, Solomon brings to life this story with honestey and beautiful emotional details,and side splitting comedy. The result is a wonderfully engaging production that holds your attention from start to finish, and yes, tugs hard on the heart strings.

It’s not hard to see why this production won acclaim and awards like ‘Best Performer Leading Role, 2010 Absolut Gay Theatre Festival Dublin’ and ‘Best Solo Playwright and Best Male Solo Performance, National Gay Theatre Festival (U.S.)’

Mother/SON is a brilliant production, and an excellent choice on behalf of theatreworks for their Midsumma season. Jeffrey soloman’s performance alone is exceptional amd makes this wonderful work a Midsumma must see! But hurry! You only have 10 days to witness this great show.

Happy Midsumma!

Mother/SON plays for a limited 10 day Midsumma Festival season from 11 – 21 Jan 2012, at 7pm and 8:30pm at Theatreworks in St Kilda. Tickets are $25 full / $20 conc from Theatreworks