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Piper: By Frenzy Theatre

Piper

Piper Rating

★★★★★

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Seeing the opening night performance of PIPER presented by Frenzy Theatre Co and Theatreworks has renewed my faith in live theatre as a place of exuberance and joy. The show takes the Grimm fairytale, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and uses it as a springboard for an exploration of power, exploitation and survival in a way that stimulates the audience to engage and think whilst being thoroughly entertained.

Directed by Belle Hansen and co-created by Dora Abraham, Piper is indeed the extravaganza it sets out to be with a vibrant ensemble cast of 20 female and non-binary actors who are also singers, dancers and circus artists. It is a visual and aural feast with so much going on that you will want to come back and see it again.

The pre-show foyer entertainment features the eight rat dancers/circus artists who perform an ensemble floating rat movement. They move as one in their rat pack until one-by-one they spook and run into the auditorium. Inside, the audience are invited to step onto the stage and interact with other cast members – Hamelin town councillors, the children, the townspeople. The costumes by Harry Gill and Jessamine Moffett and makeup signal that this is a very colourful but fractured hyper-real world of Hamelin. We vote on which rats get to live, get a Taro Tarot card reading , receive and write mail distributed by the town florist and play a loaded card game with a town councillor. It is Disney-esque and captivating.

Frenzy Theatre Co chooses to be “pop culture-based, and grounded in its commitment to dynamic physical theatre, ensemble devising and maximalism”. For Piper, this is a commitment well and truly kept. Big moments with a lot of action (including an aerialist on a rope) and pumped music beats contrasted with quieter, poetic text-based scenes that take inspiration from Greek tragedy and chorus.

Jack Burmeister’s sound design and composition is integral to the success of the transitions and story-telling as is Sidney Younger’s lighting design. Hannah Jennings’ beautiful cinematography adds to the mood and spectacle. Despite the dark nature of the themes, overall the tone of this thought-provoking show is light and humorous. Rats will die, but why and how? In this version, there is no Piper. Then the children want their turn in the limelight but end up exploited by a different power altogether.

Piper
Piper

Despite a cast of 20, each performer has their moments to shine and all give solid performances. There is a cohesiveness within each ensemble group (rats, children, townspeople and councillors) so that no one performance steals the limelight. Rather, each performer supports the unity of purpose of their group which in turn supports the performance as a whole. This is remarkable and would have to be a strength of Frenzy’s approach to group devised theatre and ensemble development.

Frenzy Theatre Co was established in 2020 by Belle Hansen and Matilda Gibbs and are now joined by Jack Burmeister and Anna Louey as Company Artists. Their youth is their strength and they dream big. But they also have years and a depth of experience which means their crazy big ideas actually come to fruition! It is worth noting that Frenzy are committed to nurturing and up-skilling early career artists. If you love theatre, you should keep an eye on them.

I absolutely loved the experience of watching PIPER. I had been smarting from seeing a very bland, wordy production with no subtext at unnamed state’s flagship theatre company. I was bored out of my brain. It was predictable and all the loose ends were neatly tied up so there was nothing to have to think about. But PIPER exploded with life and had me hooked every minute. My mind was filled with things to discuss and mull over. So if you want to see the full gamut of what live theatre can be, go and see PIPER!

Disclaimer – I had the privilege to work with Frenzy Theatre Co in their last production, The Roof Is Caving In, as an actor/musician. I know first-hand how professional, inclusive, respectful and nurturing they are and also their incredible work ethic. These people work hard and still have to have day jobs. Yet they produce work far more compelling than some of the work that comes out of flagship companies. But that’s just my opinion.

Tickets available at https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2024/piper

DATES + TIMES
Tuesday 13 August – 7:30pm
Wednesday 14 August – 7:30pm
Thursday 15 August – 7:30pm
Friday 16 August – 7:30pm
Saturday 17 August – 7:30pm
Tuesday 20 August – 7:30pm
Wednesday 21 August – 7:30pm
Thursday 22 August – 7:30pm
Friday 23 August – 7:30pm
Saturday 24 August – 1:30pm (MATINEE)

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

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Hannah Gadsby Woof!

Hannah Gadsby Woof!

Hannah Gadsby brings their new show “Woof” to Melbourne Arts Centre for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Their star has risen well and truly since her show Nanette hit Netflix in 2018. Today, they grace the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (AU/NZ edition) with the headline “Comedy’s enfant terrible is relishing their anti-hero era”.

As a newbie, it was a wonderful introduction to Gadsby’s fast-paced, quick-witted, intensely analytic humour, which brought out belly laughs galore. Snappy asides like bullet spray on the way to the main punchlines compounded the fun. I was surrounded by pre-Nanette die-hard fans, so there was a lot of love in the house. And I can see why—Gadsby is earnest, humble, intelligent, funny, vulnerable, honest, and a truth-teller.

They’ve worked hard to be where they are now. For someone who can go for weeks without speaking (they have autism and ADHD) and who says they are bad at everything in life, including having fun, they have certainly played their cards to their advantage. They say their only skill is to talk to a room full of strangers and not feel scared. But what they choose to say has been both strategic and a personal lifeline. Nanette deconstructed comedy and social norms derived from centuries of white male dominance at a time when Australia was debating the same-sex marriage plebiscite. For this, Gadsby bared their soul, and it was raw and confronting.

Interestingly, Gadsby has tried hard, in good faith, to like Taylor Swift. It hasn’t worked. They even used her as inspiration for their 2016 show, Dogmatic. Of course, they have major differences: Gadsby has a depth of intellectual engagement with their art form and uses it to subvert and confront. Their 2023 Picasso-blasting exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, It’s Pablomatic, is a case in point alongside Nanette. However, I can’t help but see some similarities: both use the power of story-telling and self-disclosure in their work, which fosters a high level of devotion in their predominantly female fan base; both live their lives in a way that encourages their fans to be unafraid to be themselves and in return, their fans care deeply about them and want to support them. But there is a vast contrast in their lived experience of otherness and, therefore, the depth of their fight.

Hannah Gadsby Woof!

Now, Gadsby has a global voice and has just launched a new Netflix comedy show, Gender Agenda, featuring seven gender-queer comedians from around the world. Being nouveau-riche means staying in posh hotels where the concierges don’t know how to respond to questions about doing your own laundry and the bathrooms have no toilet brush. Gadsby worries about becoming a rich arsehole, but I doubt that will happen – they take a spare travel toothbrush with them to clean up after themselves when a low roughage travel diet messes with their regularity.

“Woof” is a show about the worries that lead to anxiety. If you think the ending is a bit loose, well, that is the point. There is no closure, no easy answers. What happened to all those plastic dolls called Cabbage Patch Kids from the 80s/90s? Did they end up somewhere in a “Blair Witch style croquembouche”? Will Hannah Gadsby be able to enjoy swimming with a whale on her day off? Will their brain let them remember fun times as vividly as they remember a randomly defiled Tim Tam packet left for them to clean up when working as a hotel cleaner?

Enjoy this show where your host “takes all their worries and lays them out on stage in front of a darkened room full of strangers. It’s like group therapy, but the group is the therapist”. That’s us, but we don’t feel like strangers. So now Gadsby adds us to their list of worries, too, because therapists are all “f***ed in the head.”

“Woof” is playing until April 20 at the Melbourne Arts Centre Playhouse.

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

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Melbourne Comedy Festival – Necrophilia

Melbourne Comedy Festival - Necrophilia

Don’t be fooled by this deliciously named one-act play “Necrophilia” by Aussie writer Lincoln Vickery. This tightly written dark comedy, directed by Ben Ashby, is making a return season at the 2024 Melbourne International Comedy Festival after winning Melbourne Fringe Judges Pick in October 2023. Whilst humour is derived from the awkwardly taboo subject matter, this play has a sensitive side. There are no visually disturbing scenes and the play treats all characters with respect as humans trying to cope with their bizarre situations.

The play opens in a morgue, with a sheet-covered cadaver on a trolley. The Motley Bauhaus Theatrette’s small stage and bare bricks perfectly conveyed the feeling of being in a cold basement mortuary. Darren (Declan Clifford) and Mark (Gene Efron) are in mid-conversation whilst preparing a body for viewing. The contrast between the usually unseen business of “making dead bodies look hot as shit” and the desensitised workers bickering about a “victimless crime”, especially when we realise that Darren has just confessed to feeling a rush when defecating in a certain street near his house under cover of darkness. He cleans it all up immediately, he explains, so, whilst technically a crime, no one gets hurt. He also explains the origin of the fetish – an accidental experience accompanied by unexplained pleasure that then becomes a fascination and a repeated behaviour that reinforces the rush.

These themes of fetishism and its origins and whether or not they affect others are explored within this play, and the quality of the writing really shines – there is no dull moment and lots of laughs. If you have come for the comedy, you won’t be disappointed. Vickery doesn’t miss any opportunity to bring out the hilarity of the situations in which he places the characters. For example, bumping into your boss at a sex shop, walking in on your boss dancing in a blissful moment of private surrender. However, the treatment of the underlying themes brings substance to this play.

Amanda (Gillian Mosenthal, who also produced this) is the necrophiliac and boss in question and the only character who reveals her insecurities directly to the audience. Instead of judging, we are invited to journey with her in her struggle and shame. I was impressed with the attention to psychological detail in the writing, particularly with the reveal of Amanda’s childhood trauma. Vickery has done his homework on this psychiatric condition. But there is no schmalziness here. It’s just a fact.

The minor characters shed more light on the question of whether necrophilia is a victimless crime. The recently bereaved daughter starkly contrasted with the mercenary med student who rents out cadavers to fund her studies. “Dead people are tools. I don’t care what you do”. Both characters were ably played by Joanna Halliday, who stole the scenes with her fearless performances.

However, the exploration of loneliness and the desire to connect in the face of shame draws us in. The actors have a lovely chemistry that brings the relationships to life. They really care about each other, and so do we. A developing romance between Mark and Amanda is at the heart of the narrative. But will it withstand the shame?

Come and see Necrophilia for the laughs, but you will be in grave danger of taking away a dose of heartwarming humanity.

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

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Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit

Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit

Enter a world of mystery and intrigue where the classic tales of Agatha Christie come to life in unexpected ways. This thrilling new show is back by popular demand and promises to keep you on the edge of your seat with all new improvised tales of murder and mayhem in response to audience cues.

Each performance is a unique puzzle crafted live before your eyes. It’s up to you to piece together the clues and guess the murderer before the amateur sleuth does. With an ever-changing storyline and an unpredictable cast of characters, this show will keep you guessing until the end.

So, do you want to visit the quaint little post-war English town called Murder Village? It’s open to you and 75 other tourists for an hour every night except Mondays for the next four weeks until April 21 for the duration of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Will someone die? Will they have been… um… murdered? With a candlestick or a rope? Will they have been at the centre of an intriguing conflict involving several suspects who all have a motive? Will the detective be assisted by an amateur sleuth who solves the mystery despite the red herring?

I would say probably not a candlestick or a rope (sorry, Cluedo fans) because you and the 75 other tourists will actually get to suggest the weapon in question, and I’m sure you are all much more imaginative than that. Take your phone because if you scan the QR code provided, you can also virtually vote on who the victim and the murderer will be (you have a choice of four) and can suggest the nature of the village event (is it always a fundraiser?) preceding the murder, as well as the clue that the case rests upon.

Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit
Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit

So, let me tell you a bit about my excursion to the village on opening night. As I climbed the many stairs and entered deeper and higher into the iconic venue, which is the Butterfly Club, for the first time, I found myself waiting alongside the other tourists in a dimly lit narrow lounge filled with knick-knacks, portraits, small flickering TV, mirror – the quirky otherness was the perfect transition from reality to the escapism that is Murder Village. The narrow theatre worked perfectly, with tiers that ensured there were no bad views.

Tonight’s host was Miss Artemis Martin (Louise Fitzhardinge), our shrewd whodunnit novelist (Agatha?) and our MC/narrator/unimaginative police officer was Detective Inspector Owen Gullet (David Massingham). We were introduced to Lady Clarissa Spalding (Candice D’Arcy), an excessively wealthy widow and best friend of Marion Kind (Amanda Buckley), a boisterous wartime entertainer.

Eddy (not Teddy) Brewster (Rik Brown), an Earl of Wooster, has bought the rights to Marion’s songs so that only he will profit whenever she performs, leaving her destitute. His respectable butler, Eames Chair (Rhys Auteri), has tarred feathered himself and picked up broken glass with his bare hands to serve his master. Eddy dies on a serving platter with a sharp edge that accidentally, on purpose, severs his carotid in a hilarious death scene. True to the genre, all three suspects are hiding something, but Artemis’s intellect uncovers Lady Clarissa as the murderer, and we are privy to her confession enacted as a flashback.

The population of Murder Village was 84, but now that Eddy is dead and Lady Clarissa is put away, there are now 82 possible people left to entertain you when you visit. So, the plot will be completely different based on your input. If you are like me, you will be so carried away by the fun energy of the performances you’ll have to remind yourself that the actors didn’t know the details of the plot beforehand – it all just unfolds before them, as it does for us. Musician Terrence Mudwater Junior (Jaron Why) improvised the background music on the keyboard (piano/strings sound). This underscored the action so well without drawing undue attention to itself that I had to remind myself someone was playing.

So, enjoy your excursion to Murder Village! I know I did.

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

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