Chorale’s Glorious Baroque Concert

Gloria! Music to Celebrate Christmas The Geelong Chorale’s directed by Allister Cox, All Saints Church, Newtown Saturday December 9, 2023.

There’s one important word missing from this concert’s title. Baroque.
For this was Baroque Music to Celebrate Christmas, and as such Geelong’s Chorale was magnificent. 
Or should that be Magnificat, the classical 18th Century work that opened the event. 
Magnificat, literally meaning ‘The Song Of The Virgin Mary’, has been played and sung at this time of the year for centuries.
There are many versions, instrumental and vocal,  by numerous composers over the years and this concert opened with one of the more familiar by Pergolesi.
Or was it? The Chorale’s musical director, Allister Cox,  in his familiar informative introduction warned us before his choir had sung a note that the version had been wrongly attributed to Pergolesi for more than a century. It was  actually composed by Francesco Durante (1684-1755), who was one of Pergolesi’s music teachers and nothing like as famous. But he would probably have been happy that his pupil’s name was bracketed with his work, Allister added,  because it meant the piece was played much more often.
And then the Chorale delivered an excellent version to illustrate the point. 
The enhanced 35-member Chorale – with 11 sopranos and an equal number of altos – sang each of the work’s familiar parts with delicacy when needed, precision throughout and celebratory gusto when called for.
This Magnificat soared into the venue’s rafters confirming again the excellent acoustics built into Newtown’s All Saints Church. 
Another aspect of this concert was that the Chorale had chosen not to invite guest vocalists to sing solo parts but to use Chorale members.
Aside of this was the extra element that the works called for un unusual line-up of two soprano soloists, an alto, tenor and bass. So we audience were to hear the subtle differences between Fiona Squires’ clear and sharp soprano and Claire Elder’s warmer, softer delivery. Alex McAuley’s tenor tones blended perfectly with Alex Hunt’s bass, while Kathleen Rawson’s warm, lush alto added lustre throughout.
The Chorale was accompanied by a small orchestra led by Patrycja Radzi-Stewart with Jamie Parker joining her on violin, Edwina Sekine on viola, Ilana Idris on cello, Caroline Brenchley on bass and Kristine Mellens’s keyboard adding organ and harpsichord when needed. 
Following that Magnificat opening, the Chorale presented a shorter and sweeter jewel of a piece by German composer Heinrich Schütz, the beautiful Chorus from his Christmas Story.
Schütz is considered to be the finest German composer prior to J. S. Bach, and this elegant, joy-filled work showed why.
It also allowed our Chorale  – and conductor Allister – to display their expertise in delivering musical delicacies with polish and charm. 
Following a short break to enlarge the orchestra with Stephen Moschner’s oboe and Britteny Ling’s trumpet, the afternoon’s final piece was the highly suitable Gloria! by  Antonio Vivaldi.
As Allister explained, Vivaldi, along with Bach and Handel, ranks as one of the greatest Baroque composers, with this piece, Gloria RV 589, probably among his best known and loved works
Considering that he wrote more than 500 concertos and 50 operas, that’s high praise. But again, the Geelong Chorale with its soloists and guest musicians brought the work’s 11 passages to glorious life. 
This was the highly recognisable Vivaldi, with bright, colourful lead-ins to finely detailed passages, then intricately textured moments expanding to  glowing crescendos – and all delivered vocally, joyfully and with a deal of Christmas finesse by our region’s premier choir.
At its conclusion, this concert’s neat and simple choice of familiar Baroque seasonal music drew long, warm, appreciative applause for every section and soloist from a highly-satisfied full-house audience. 
Gloria! Indeed.
– Colin Mockett

Medimime’s new- style Beauty

Sleeping Beauty, directed by Paige van der Chys for Medimime productions, The Story House at GAC, November 10, 2023

It must have been daunting for first-time director Paige van der Chys to take the helm of this production. Not only was she tasked with reviving a Geelong institution following a four-year Covid-induced hiatus, but she needed to sell the centuries-old English concept of pantomime, with its cross-dressing, gender-swapping, Royalty-revering, slapstick fairy-tale traditions to a new group of screen-nurtured Disney-sated kids.
What’s more, she needed to do this with a cast and crew sprinkled with past Medimime directors.
Medimime holds a unique position in Geelong’s theatre scene. It  dates back to 1974,  when a group of Geelong medicos decided to stage a Christmas pantomime with profits going to buy equipment  for the Geelong Hospital.
Not only did this raise  money for a good cause, it provided happy, colourful children’s entertainment – and allowed doctors and nurses, dentists, administrators and anyone remotely connected to the medical profession a chance to let their hair down and ham it up on stage.
Over time this concept became an annual Geelong tradition, with the medical fraternity forming a bond with our region’s theatricals and on the way raising more than $500,000 for our hospital’s charities. 

That was the background to this Sleeping Beauty which began, unusually, with a welcome speech from Medimime’s treasurer, Emma Musella, who introduced Barwon Health’s chair Lisa Neville. Both spoke about the company’s support and monies raised over the years.
Then, when the show started, it became fairly obvious that Medimime’s traditional audience of families with young children had changed, at least for this opening night. For the majority of responses to the cast’s early audience interactions were adult voices, without the number of unexpected childish exclamations and squeals of joy and delight. But it didn’t take long for those adult voices to lift their  game and take up the required ‘look behind you’ type calls along with cheers for heroes and boos for villains. There was one delightful moment when the chief villain, a witch/fairy named Poison Ivy, overplayed with relish by Jenna Irvin, went off script to admonish her audience with ‘why have you stopped booing me?’ This brought an avalanche of adult-voice boos drawing a smiling ‘That’s better’ from the evil one.

And the different age composition wasn’t the only difference between this Sleeping Beauty and former Medimimes.
Past productions always had a ramshackle ‘pulled together at the last minute’ quality with asides and in-jokes from the cast covering up their own fluffs and flaws. That was always reasonably explained by the cast missing rehearsals due to emergencies in their medical day jobs.
But this show, with its Covid-era interruptions, had been in rehearsals for more than a year. That made it the first Medimime I’ve witnessed with complex vocal harmonies for its songs and a number of tightly disciplined dance production numbers.
So take a bow, please, choreographer Charlotte Crowley and vocal director Emily Donoghue alongside a number of talented on-stage singer/actors. 

These began with Daniel Grocott as the big, colourful Royal nurse pantomime dame and his comedy sidekick, diminutive jester Sniffles, played with aplomb by Kate Gore. This confident duo held the show together not only with their wacky antics, corny jokes and sponsored local company references, they explained who the other characters were and how they fitted into the show’s flimsy plotlines.
So we knew that King Basil and Queen Rosemary (Scott Graham and Kim Edwards) had a baby daughter Aurora, played by Amelia Hay as a child, Alannah Farrar as an adult; who had been cursed by the formerly mentioned witch/fairy to die after pricking her finger on a spinning wheel’s needle.
 Luckily, there were three good fairies in Grace Williamson, Erica MacKinnon and Sophie Cutropia who, beside providing some of those delightful harmonies,  reduced Aurora’s curse to a 100-year sleep for all the Royal court until she was awakened by a kiss from a handsome prince, portrayed with dashing elan by  Alicia Neels.
He was assisted by a Scott Bradley’s knowing comedy page, while ultra-baddie Poison Ivy had a couple of hapless crooked assistants in Duck and Dive, nicely portrayed by Seamus Kennedy and Nina Chivers.  All these lead performers sang, danced and acted skilfully, presenting a dozen or so modern hit songs whilst receiving excellent support from the adult chorus of Bart Abbas, Donna Baldock, Cathryn Blennerhassett, Erin Bloye, Sarah and Kayla Booth, Tess Chatham, Bonnie Clissold, Deanne Elliott, Chloe Farrar, Claire Kennedy, Liz Lester, Jenna MacDonald, Isabelle McKenzie, Ethan O’Brien, Ged Sweeney, Julie Taylor, Leanne Treloar and  Evie Young, along with the junior ensemble of Harrison Coppock, Noah and Evie Hopper, Charlton Keogh, Alyssa Lowne, Samarah Parker, Emi Rattray, Vincent Seraiocco, Ruby Walters and the aforementioned Amelia Hay.
Combined, these actor/singers presented not just a colourful a spectacle that would  raise funds for Geelong’s hospital – they laid the groundwork for a new style of slick and tuneful pantomime that’s likely to keep the tradition alive in Geelong for years to come. Here’s to the 50th anniversary next year!

– Colin Mockett

Tartuffe – a devious delight centuries in the making

Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Zina Carmen for Torquay Theatre Troupe, Shoestring Playhouse Torquay, October 26 2023

This vibrant Torquay production of Tartuffe displayed two truisms. The first is that fine writing and simple truths will protect and project a play through the centuries. The second is that Torquay’s Theatre Troupe now occupies a significant place on our cultural scene.

First the play. The French actor/writer Moliere wrote Tartuffe aka The Imposter and The Hypocrite in 1664, performed it once – only for it to be banned by King Louis XIV for its progressive content. It pokes fun at gullible people fooled and conned by religious zealots. That’s a theme that still resonates today, but that isn’t really the reason that Tartuffe has survived and thrived over the centuries.
It’s Moliere’s remarkable writing skills that make the play stand out.
For throughout the play, every character speaks in rhyming couplets and every line contains exactly twelve syllables. These, though mostly spoken by one character, are sometimes shared by two or more, making the play an exhilarating audience experience as the storyline is clearly outlined and explained inside these parameters. Small wonder Tartuffe is considered a classic in both French and English theatre.
It also makes the play a booby-trapped minefield for its actors, for one fluffed, forgotten or misplaced line would have the potential to derail the entire dialogue and ruin the plot flow.
But it was that element that attracted TTT director Zina Carmen to the play, for, as she wrote in the programme,  having read it through, during the Covid lockdown, she became determined to stage Tartuffe in Torquay. 

She said that like Shakespeare, Moliere’s plays have the potential to be set in any situation in any era, so she decided to set hers in the present, during the end-of-season celebrations at a circus troupe. This brought the opportunity for colourful costumes and wigs with some opening tricks and acrobatics before the play properly began.
It also introduced another layer of difficulty for Zina’s acting troupe, who were already faced with the with Moliere’s exacting script and the play’s satirical themes. The style with which they overcame these hurdles nailed this review’s second principle – that Torquay’s theatre group now has established a significant place in our theatre scene.
For the large and variously talented team that Zina assembled – both off-stage and on – nailed every element of their classic play.

The big-top setting and colourful costuming were bang on. The lighting and sound, excellent and the simple, mostly unchanged multi-coloured set furniture allowed the action to smoothly flow without interruption.
And that large cast quickly and surely established their mastery over Moliere’s beautifully-crafted script.

They were led by Fred Preston as Oregon, the head of the household (in Zina’s scenario, the owner/ringmaster) who stubbornly refused to believe he was being swindled by religious newcomer Tartuffe’s devious tactics. He was backed in this view by his mother, M. Pernelle, portrayed by Terry Roseburgh as a fanatical religious killjoy.
Ranged against this stubborn pair were every other member of the family/ troupe, all of whom recognised Tartuffe’s duplicity and hypocrisy. These were led by Katie Hall’s verbose cockney maid Dorine – who proved to be as able a manipulator as Tartuffe himself –  and who brought together and coached the opposition into some delightfully purposeful comic schemes. That opposition comprised a central axis of Orgon’s son, daughter and brother-in-law. Ben Batterby played son Damis with energy and bravado, while his star-crossed sister Mariane faced a potential forced marriage to Tartuffe  with dramatic fortitude. Meanwhile brother-in-law and circus strong-man Cleante, played by Todd Curtis, tried several diplomac ways to sway Orgon’s staunch stubbornness, all in vain.  Lima Ball played Mariane’s suitor Valere with first bewilderment and then frustration, before Orgon’s wife Elmire, portrayed with finely-judged skill by Robyn Farrar, and facing her own threat from Tartuffe, concocted a seductive scheme to open her husband’s eyes to his mentor’s  duplicity.
That brings us to the man himself. Moliere’s structure of his play sees the first act all about the family trying to change their father/ringmaster’s mind. Though mentioned often, Tartuffe doesn’t actually appear until the second act. When he does, the play shifted up a gear. In the hands of Steven Georgiadis, Tartuffe was as crafty, sly, devious and manipulative – and believable – in his piety to shift every member of the audience into his opposition.
This lifted the play’s energy levels and briought a joyous element to Tartuffe’s false triumph then eventual downfall. That final twist was achieved with the input of Andrew Gaylard’s Loyal bailiff, Jock Hossack’s loyal Officer and Robert Roseburgh’s resolute Soldier as well as Izzy Luxton’s stoic servant Flipote.
Together, this team created a memorable Tartuffe that sits as comfortably in 21st Century Torquay as it has through Europe for centuries.
Go see it and you’ll be persuaded, too. Tartuffe is in Torquay’s Shoestring Playhouse until November 4. It is highly recommended. 

– Colin Mockett

Elgar and the GSO – Enigma revealed

Elgar’s Enigma played byGeelong Symphony Orchestra conductor Richard Davis. Costa Hall, October 21, 2023

In a short seven years, the Geelong Symphony Orchestra has established two firm reputations. The first is for playing with a proficiency well above expectations for its regional-town status. The second is for its adventurous choice of programming. Both were clearly in evidence at this concert.
Firstly, the orchestra was in fine form with strengthened horns, an expanded string section and its vibrant regular guest conductor, Richard Davis, at his eye-catching best. 

And the choice of programme – an All-Elgar special – gave the opportunity to begin with a chirpy Cockney serenade, finish with a glorious last-night-of-the-proms flourish and in between introduce guest solo cellist Richard Narroway to play beautifully the piece voted in 2011 as the best classical work of the 20th Century.

Small wonder this was a concert of encores. There were five, counting solo cellist and orchestra, plus long, loud applause accompanied by shouts, whoops and  whistles – unusual for our normally restrained Geelong audiences.
The concert began with that Cockney serenade, officially titled Cockaigne (In London Town) Overture Op.40, a piece designed to capture the vibrant sounds of London life at the turn of the 20th Century. This included everything from street-vendor’s cries to a Salvation Army band including much laughter, colour and movement, all cheerfully reproduced by the GSO clearly relishing the opportunity to have some classic musical fun.
This was followed by cello soloist  Richard Narroway joining the orchestra to play Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor Op 85 – the work voted in 2011 by ABC radio listeners as the best classical work of the 20th Century. This piece has become so associated with the late cellist Jacqueline du Prè that many cellists now feel discouraged from even tackling it. But not the young, confident and richly talented Richard Narroway, who played the piece with èlan. Seated on a raised dais aside  the conductor’s rostrum, his instrument’s honeyed tones first introduced each strain of the orchestra’s melodies and then led, mirrored and danced around them in sparkling lyrical shimmers.
For its part, the GSO and conductor Davis combined to compliment and highlight the cello’s gorgeous voice and Elgar’s elegant composition.
This piece drew immediate long applause leading to  several curtain calls quietened only by Richard Narroway’s impromptu solo encore.

Following the interval, came the main piece for the evening, Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme Op.36 – the well-known ‘Enigma Variations’, all 14 of them.
The programme notes told us – as did maestro Davis in his informative introduction – that the ‘Enigma’ title came from Elgar’s refusal to name the personalities he had musically depicted in each of the work’s variations. Today, it could equally be used to recall which film, series and TV commercials the works have accompanied. 
And they all led to that wonderful climax, the crowd-pleasing, crowning Pomp and Circumstance marches that annually finish in style London’s Albert Hall Last Night Of The Proms concerts.
It did seem a little strange to hear the tunes expertly depicted but without any of their accompanying flag waving, patriotic costumes, singing or streamers.
But that mattered little as the Geelong audience appreciation was electric and appreciative. This was for the sheer magnificence of the music,  the accomplished expertise of of our orchestra and besides, our ebullient, demonstrative, brilliant conductor provided more than enough energy to rival the London Proms’ night of nights.  

This all-Elgar concert was the last in the Geelong Symphony’s 2023 series. It made for a gorgeous, crowning finale.
But there’s more excitement to come. For our orchestra has already released its plans and dates for its 2024 season, starting with musical Titans – Sibelius and Brahms, in February; Music from the Movies  in May; and Heroica – Beethoven’s Eroica and Mozart’s Horn Concert  in October. 

I’d advise booking early, because Geelong’s Symphony Orchestra’s quality is already established, and this glorious concert would have enhanced it further.

– Colin Mockett

Jersey Boys – simply a superb show.

Jersey Boys – the story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons directed byPaul Watson  for Geelong Lyric Theatre Society, Playhouse at Geelong Arts Centre, October 6, 2023

In his programme notes, this show’s director, Paul Watson, recalls his own stage experience in the original Australian version of Jersey Boys. During his 100th consecutive appearance, he suffered a stroke while onstage cutting short his burgeoning stage career and leaving him with what he described as ‘a lot of unfinished business with Jersey Boys…’
If this performance did nothing else, it closed that unfinished chapter with a triumphal blast. Not only a blast, but a rousing, tuneful, glorious knockout success that had  its first-night audience singing along to a parade of top hits; whooping with joy at sensational sixties dance moves; laughing with the sly dark New York Italian humour and tearing up through the show’s poignant passages. They revelled in a whole stageful of brilliant acting talent but above all, they relished in a seamless production that richly deserved its long, loud standing ovation. For this was a diamond of a show. A brilliant flawless musical gem that dazzled in every department. From its sharply drawn storyline to its perfect casting and authentic costuming. From its slick choreography to pinpoint sound and spot-on lighting – but  above all its slick, professional-standard music, singing and dancing. This Jersey Boys was simply a superb show. But such simple success doesn’t come without a deal of flair, hard work and talent.
And that all slates back to director Paul and the the teams he assembled. These were led by his musical director Kate Notini and choreographer Vanessa Paech. Kate and her tight musical unit quite literally never missed a beat in providing the musical  base to deliver some 30 back-to-back hits from the 60s and 70s. These songs were not custom written for the musical, they were real solid-gold hits recorded by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons,  for this was the story of how that group rose from the mean New Jersey back streets to become one of the biggest hitmakers of their time. So the hits that Katie’s band were playing included pop standards Oh What A Night (Late December 1963) Rag Doll, Sheree Baby,  Who Loves You, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,  Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye), Stay; Walk Like A Man; My Eyes Adored You and  Big Girl Don’t Cry. All these and more were perfectly recreated by a super-talented on-stage acting/singing team – while Vanessa’s flair provided the movement to make every scene flow, from the group’s cheesy 60s synchronised stage steps to the progressions and processions of people in and out of their lives. The show’s scene-changes were fluidly achieved within this choreography, with furniture gliding on wheels moved by lead actors and ensemble alike, all while Katie’s band kept the pace brisk, even and cheerfully nostalgic throughout.
Each of the show’s actor/singers established their individual personalities early, winning their audience over inside the first couple of numbers.
They were led by Andrew Lorenzo as the handsome rogue/petty criminal Tommy DeVito who founded the group in between stints in jail. He handled the show’s early linking narration, too. His sidekick in harmony, the quiet bass player and rich bass singer Nick Massi, was beautifully underplayed by Adamo Di Biase, winning female hearts throughout. Meanwhile Duane McGregor played Franki Valli with restless energy, intensity and that faultless, authentic high tenor vocal range. But the man who brought success to the group was its songwriter and keyboard player Bob Gaudio – who also wrote the show’s music – was played with a believable reticence and awkward charm by Andrew Smith.
These four perfect leads were supported by a top-flight ensemble including Lochie Slater as Tommy’s friend and talent scout Joe Pesci,  Madeleine Hoogstra as Valli’s wife Mary Delgado; Dominic Muirhead as gangster kingpin Gyp DeCarlo; David Keene as flamboyant record producer Bob Crewe,  Charlie McIntyre as the sinister loan shark Norm Waxman, Grant Whiteside’s Donnie and session Drummer,  Jason Mill as Joe Long and sisters Ella and Paris Walsh as Lorraine and Francine. Most of these then assumed several characters in a highly versatile multi-talented chorus that also included Gabriel Wenyika, Storm Randall, Eloise Wingrave, Tom Campbell-Dick; Brandon Scaffidi, Charlie Bowman; Jasmin Wilson, Alannah Matchett and Alysia Macleod. All sang, all danced and all sparkled.
The show’s top quality lighting and  AV were down to Ian Scott, its sound by Ben Anderson, costumes by Dianne Martin, Maxine Urquhart, Lesley Deans and Browns Menswear while the hair and make-up teams included performers Adamo  and Alysia.
The neat and clever set was designed, and its construction coordinated by – who else – Paul Watson, who, I’m sure, must be mighty proud of this Jersey Boys.
 But probably prouder still would be Geelong Lyric Theatre Society. They’ve overseen and staged what is, surely, a smash hit as big as any musical staged in Geelong. That’s high praise, but merited. I highly recommend that you go see this Jersey Boys. It’s outstanding in every department. I further recommend that you get the tickets while they’re available. This show will sell fast!
– Colin Mockett

Every Unique Brilliant Thing Onstage (with one warning)

Every Brilliant Thing, directed by Nicholas Brooke  for Geelong Contemporary Theatre, Potato Shed, September 15 2023.
This play was marketed with a quote from the UK’s Guardian newspaper, as.. ‘One of the funniest plays you’ll ever see about depression – and possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see, full stop’.
I’ll go along with this, for it is a small gem of a show. It’s at times charming, moving, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny – and it’s original. It’s always original, because every production is different. I’ll explain how that happens later. 
But I can’t endorse the Guardian’s ‘Funniest plays you’ll ever see’ quote because I have one big reservation about it – and I’ll explain that later, too.
The play was written in 2014 by English playwright Duncan Macmillan with help from Jonny Donahoe.  It sold out three consecutive Edinburgh Festivals before a UK theatre run, tour and then was released for performing around the world.
To my knowledge, this is the first time it has been produced in Geelong, which is something of a surprise, given that it’s a particularly easy-to-stage show with a single performer and no set to speak of.
This Potato Shed show marks the debut of a new company, Geelong Contemporary Theatre, whose founder, Nicholas Brooke directs.
His performer is Canadian/Australian improv-actor Rachelle Lachland Goulter, whose charming, easy manner won over her audience even before the play started proper.
For when the audience arrived to select their seats in her squared theatre-in the-round, she was there to smilingly give each person a scrap of paper, post-it-note or card, each with a number and short sentence on it.  This she used as an ice-breaker to get to know her audience. She explained her circumstances – she had witnessed her dog’s death when she was seven and that same year her mother was hospitalised with depression.
To help, she began listing all the brilliant things in her life that she could think of, numbering them and gifting them to her mother. Number one was ice cream; two was water fights; three was staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV…
You get the idea. As she explained this system, Rachelle  began calling out just the numbers, and the audience member with that number would call out thier ‘brilliant thing’. So she would  call, ‘Number Five’ and a disembodied voice would answer ‘Things with Stripes’. A little later, Number 319 brought ‘Laughing so hard you shoot milk out of your nose’.. This punctuated the performance throughout its seventy minutes.
But not every response was a simple shout out from the card.
Some audience members were selected by Rachelle to play people in her life at the time she was talking about. Mostly they were given their lines, but occasionally expected to improvise. That’s how every performance of this play is unique and different. It’s as eccentric and idiosyncratic as its audience members.
At the Potato Shed’s opening night, the brave new theatricals drawn in this way were a quietly professional female vet, a dramatic university lecturer and notably, a surprised but most caring father-figure and a sympathetic, considerate boyfriend who became a Rachelle’s husband and then ex-husband. For each new actor wasn’t called upon once only, they were re-introduced at significant  moments as they re-appeared in Rachelle’s stream-of-thought  dialogue.
For at its base, Every Brilliant Thing is a story about coping with mental illness and that list of brilliant things became an essential distraction – but then an obsession. The list numbersmoved into the thousands, then tens of thousands. My own piece of card was number 1008 and my calling out ‘Dancing In Private’ triggered an unexpected  disco dance segment. Such unpredictability underlaid this Every Brilliant Thing’s humour as well as its charm and poignancy.  
But that was where my reservations came in.
At one point, Rachelle explained how suicide was a transmittable illness; for every time one was reported in the media, new cases would occur and the numbers spike. So new  protocols were introduced restricting media reporting. Journalists today no longer detail the methods employed or use terms such as ‘successful or unsuccessful suicides..’ and every piece should end with a common statement like ‘if you are concerned by items you have seen, you can find help at Lifeline on 13 11 14…’  
I know this to be true, for I was a working journalist when those protocols were introduced. 
Most people recognise the changes as now sensible, commonplace and widespread.
But then, in Every Brilliant Thing, Rachelle explained the method her mother used in her first failed suicide attempt, then the things she changed and arranged for her later fatal effort.
And, as the play had no programme, there was no support number to call should any audience member be adversely affected by a play that carried all aspects of mental illness, with its sadness and poignancy depicted alongside its humorous and charming aspects.

So please think twice before booking to see this Every Brilliant Thing if you are troubled or depressed. 

If you’re not – who-hoo! Go and see this Every Brilliant Thing. It’s an innovative, Joyful, charming, funny piece of theatre that you might even find yourself taking part in. And it’s also an excellent platform for Rachelle Lachland Goulter’s delightful range of talents.
– Colin Mockett

Russian history gets a Broadway – and Geelong – flourish

Anastasia, the musical, directed by Rhea Green, Carly Mitchell & Jeremy Ives for St Ignatius College, The Story House, Geelong Arts Centre September 14, 2023.

First, it has to be said that the Geelong Art Centre’s revamp of its old Blakiston Theatre into a 21st Century Music Hall with advanced technical facilities was highly successful.
The venue’s look and, sound worked particularly well for this big, polished school version of Anastasia, which, unusually, brought a recent Broadway musical to Geelong.
The musical closed in Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre March 2020 due to Covid and didn’t re-open after pandemic restrictions were lifted.
Clearly St Ignatius College were on the ball and snapped it up for the premier production in our region.
The show’s plot line is based on a 1997 children’s animated film produced by a team of ex-Disney employees headed by Don Bluth.
At its core was a series of historical rumours that followed the assassination of  captive Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered along with the rest of his family in Russia’s 1918 revolution.
Rumours swirled for years that his youngest daughter, Anastasia, had escaped the assassins bullets and was in hiding.
This musical Anastasia took one of those rumours, that Anya, a Russian street-sweeper found suffering amnesia, was really the high-born princess. This would be confirmed if she could escape the country’s post-revolution travel restrictions and meet with her exiled grandmother in Paris.
She was helped in this journey by a couple of questionable adventurers and in this version her identity was confirmed (sort of) and the show had a hazy Disney-esque happy ending.
It also had a series of very Disney-sounding songs linking the action; a huge 73-member cast that was exceptionally well drilled and rehearsed – and all of these efforts were supported and driven by 17 professional-standard musicians in the venue’s spanking new orchestra pit.
In the lead role of Anya/Anastasia, Liana Whatman was a revelation, with a commanding stage presence, perfect diction and clear, sure singing  voice.
She danced well, too, in her glamorous ball gowns.
Her friend/conspirators Dmitry and Vlad, played by dashing Luke McTaggart and crafty Meg Gray Grist gave sterling support with flashes of love interest and touches of humour.
The Dowager Empress grandmother was portrayed with resigned, formal maturity by Zoe Walter; while her sophisticated lady-in-waiting, Countess Lily, countered with the spirited verve of Lily Petterwood.
Stella Nicol was a perfectly chosen Young Anastasia and Mackinley Watson played Comrade Gleb, a stiffly uniformed revolutionary officer charged with pursuing the imposter with the sort of relentless perseverance shown by Inspector Javert in Les Mis. That wasn’t the only cross-reference to other productions in this Anastasia; for at times Dmitry & Vlad’s grooming of Anya appeared to be strait out of My Fair Lady while the clever train-escape scene was reminiscent of Indiana Jones. 
But those parts that were pure Anastasia – the lavishly scene-setting pre-revolutionary Royal ball and 1920s post-war Parisian White-Russian scenes of decadence  gave scope for that large, ensemble – and the St Ignatius costume makers – to parade their talents on a grand stage. For among the big, well orchestrated production numbers was an accurately danced  ballet segment and a vocal surprise in the glorious baritone voice of  Zach Jackson, playing  doomed aristocrat Count Ipolitov.
Taken together, this Anastasia showed a big, lavish fictional air-brushed saga of Russia’s history portrayed by a highly talented, expertly tutored and rehearsed team of young Geelong actor/singers. It was, at times, difficult to comprehend that this was a school production, such was its professional polish.
So it’s much kudos to the trio of directors, to musical director Michael Wilding, choreographer Dean Robinson and vocal directors Marina Brown and Tania Grant – and a special mention to Ben Anderson for his perfect sound and Jason Bovaird’s spot-on lighting and innovative, clever back-projection system that gave the whole production a lavish feel, while keeping scene changes to a minimum.
This Anastasia still has three more performances  this weekend. It’s a highly recommended showcase of just how far our region’s school performers – and our principal theatre complex – have advanced. 
– Colin Mockett

Priscilla – Glittering Queen of Geelong’s Playhouse

Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert – The Musical, directed by Dean Robinson, Playhouse, Geelong Arts Centre September 8, 2023.

In The 1990s the film that inspired this musical changed Australia’s thinking with its storyline based around a trio of drag artists on a bus trip into the Australian outback. Some might say that it changed Australia’s society for the better. Certainly now, a quarter of a century later, the gay community – and drag artists in particular – are simply accepted as an integral part of every Australian community, and the film is proudly recognised as an icon of our nation’s culture.
Behind that acceptance was the film’s high quality of writing, for every character had a relatable backstory, every situation a convincing plausibility.
So each of the lead characters had their own individual motivations to take that trip. Their bus Priscilla didn’t just break down, it had dirty fuel leading to blockages and spare parts were days away – all relatively common to outback travellers. And the people who helped the distressed trio frequently became friends. That’s common in Australia’s outback, too.
All this was relatively easy to transmit through the media of film, with swift editing shortcuts enabling instant scene changes, close-ups showing emotions and wide-angle background shots of the isolation in Australia’s stunning desert areas.
But none of this is easily replicated on stage, and it’s very much to the credit of Geelong’s Centre/Stage company, director Dean Robinson and the three teams  he assembled that this production worked so well.
The three teams were, firstly an excellent cast of on-stage actors; then an exemplary off-stage bunch of technicians and support staff; and finally the faultless 11 talented group of musicians in the orchestra pit.
Before commenting on the stage performers, I want to commend a backing team-within-a-team that was led by  Brett Greenwood. This was the show’s wardrobe, wig and make-up specialists.  Sharon Clearwater, Dawn Murdoch, Nicole Plowman, Zoe Smith, Virginia Connell, Anabell Meek, Pam Wilkie Clark, Pauline Greenwood, Jo and Jasper Jarwood, Charlotte Crowley, Liz Hay, Aubrey Anderson, Cathy Wynhoven, Barb & Emily Loges, Georgie Connell, Emily Lewis, Marcie McGowan, Caitte & Ted Illingworth, Sharon Paynter, Amy Pullen, Nicole Hickman, Emily Glover Smith, Amy Curtis, Jo Cook, Rimon Abohaidar, Aline Halle, Georgia Thorne, Michele Marcu, Rachel Gibson, Chante Heunis, Steph Caramanico, Marcia Davies, Ruby Piwonski, Ivana Javni and Kristina Benkotic. 
It’s a big group, but necessary, for these were the people who created the sensational costumes, towering wigs and suitably outlandish make up not just for the lead trio of drag artists – but for everybody on stage.
Because this Priscilla was awash with drag queens of every gender. They replaced the Australian scenery as a glamorous fast-changing backdrop that kept the show moving at a spanking – and sparkling – brisk pace. 
And somehow, amid all this glitz and swagger, glitter and pitch-perfect vintage music, the show’s trio of leads were able to project their individual larger-than-life personalities with idiosyncratic charm and wit. These began with Jules Hart’s deeply hidden straight-marriage secret to Lochlan Erard’s frantic – and astonishingly athletic – escape from his stifling family through to Mark Monroe’s cynical flawed fading artiste.
These three star performers were on-stage throughout, when they weren’t ultra-quick-changing costumes. Sometimes their changes coincided with the appearance and moves of their bus Priscilla, which went through its own quick-change, too.
Helping keep the upbeat tempo was a second talented trio – of Supreme-style singing Divas in Tessa Reed, Dana Singer and Kristen Wing whose glam-costumed appearance and strong harmonies led the singing of some 25 well-chosen pop hits.
They, in turn, were supported by Shani Clarke’s gender-bending Mr Understanding and a glamorous bunch of diva-queen strutting all-singing, all-dancing ensemble comprising Shaughn Pegoraro, Carmen Jensen, Dan Woodmason, Jessica Sherman, Joel Lane, Laura McKenzie, Maddy Horne, Nicola Gibson, Rebecca Del Bianco, Stephanie  Aleksic, Tash Henningsen and Will Johnston. Sometimes they were glam-dressed, sometimes costumed as paintbrushes, sometimes cakes, then outback overalled – but always gorgeous. (You can see why the big wig/wardrobe team was so essential). There was an extra, contextual serve of glitz from Flynn Wilkie-Clark’s flashback Young Bernadette.
Outside of the glitter community was a further support team of strait actors, all carefully chosen and each keeping the show’s ethos of authenticity and believability. These were Cath Hughey’s sweetly understanding hidden wife; Rimon  Abohaidar’s equally sympathetic Bob the Mechanic; Baxter Hyatt’s perceptive son Benji; Leigh Keast’s charismatic country singer; Mia Sugiyanto’s ping-pong projecting mail-order wife Cynthia, and Jack Barthel’s menacing homophobic outback bigot.
Tristan Harris added an authentic and credible first-nation cynic while Nicola Gibson stole scenes with her swinging portrayal of a blowsy roadhouse manager. 
Together, this group – along with backing singer Jack McPhail – presented this Priscilla as a musical play that was so much more than an Australian drag-queen showcase.
This Priscilla enclosed significant stories carefully and cleverly told against a musical backing of solid hit songs and absolutely awash with glitter and glamour.
It was a glorious celebration of our nation’s cultural change – and also of our city’s stage talent. 

I urge you to go see this Priscilla. I promise that you will love every sequinned sparkle. The opening night audience did. They were on their feet for a long and well-deserved standing ovation

– Colin Mockett.

The Happy Themes of Awkwardness

First Concert from Awkwardstra Geelong, conducted by Ian Crowther. Vines Rd Community Centre September 5, 2023. 

Geelong’s Awkwardstra was set up in September 2022 by actor/musician Scott Popovic, with the aim of creating a community orchestra for any and all musicians, regardless of their experience or skill level.
He said, at the time that his orchestra would be for anyone who just loves to play and wants to be part of a musical group.  ‘We don’t aim to be the MSO,’ he said.  ‘just a fun place to be part of something special.’

The Awkwardstra’s name and colourful logo came next, courtesy of Scott’s daughters, and the new group found a ready and willing venue partner in North Geelong’s Vines Rd Community Centre. The group has met there every Monday evening since, to play under the tuition/direction of mercurial conductor Ian Crowther. They didn’t audition, they paid $5 for the privilege and nobody was turned away for any reason.
This meant conductor Crowther faced a number of challenges, not the least of which was that in its early days he rarely knew how many players he would be working with, or the instruments they would bring.
But over the year, the orchestra’s numbers and experience has grown until this concert was arranged to mark their first anniversary.
Suitably, it was in the same room that the group had diligently rehearsed and, also suitably, the price of admission was an affordable at $10 for adults, $5 children. Unsurprisingly, the room filled to capacity with a couple of hundred people – mostly friends and relatives – who came to see and hear the now 24-member Awkwardstra perform.
The group kept true to its awkward name, with a highly unusual instrumental line-up. Awkwardstra Geelong 2023 had, for the most part, six violins and three cellos, three saxophones, two flutes, two clarinets, a flugel horn, a trumpet and a trombone. There were two basses, a keyboard and two percussionists.
This gave the group a unique sound that came not only from its instrumentation, but also from the composition of its musicians, which covered all ages and ranged in expertise from absolute beginners to retired professionals, all united by a common love of music and the pleasure of playing it together.
In almost 40 years of reviewing concerts in Geelong, I have experienced much, from the abysmal to the sublime – but I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never seen or heard a more joyful group than this Awkwardstra.
The happiness and exhilaration of the players was palpable. It spread throughout the audience and the resulting concert – which was, I guess, all the musical pieces they had learned and played throughout the year, was enthusiastically received and warmly, vigorously appreciated and applauded at the end of its 65 minutes.
There was humour, too, from the very beginning. The concert’s first number, The Muppet Theme, had several members adopting Muppet characterisations. It was  followed another light-hearted theme – Austin Powers’ Soul Bossa Nova, followed by the well-known Lord Of The Dance from Riverdance. Then back to the themes theme, with Game Of Thrones followed by Pirates of The Caribbean then The Great Escape. Almost all of these pieces began hesitantly, came together  during the middle part then finished with confidence – always accompanied by huge smiles and that wonderful air of joy from the musicians.
Their happy vibes clearly radiated from conductor Crowther, who did not speak throughout – the tunes’ introductions were competently handled by company president Scott Popovic and vice president Lauren Carnegie –  but it was Ian Crowther’s happy energy that gave his players their confidence and the whole occasion its delightful, cheerful zest.
For following their Great Escape came Henry Mancini’s funky Baby Elephant Walk, then a solo guitar performance of the theme from The Godfather by bassist Phil Bloomfield. Then came the New Zealand internet hit shanty Wellerman, the Sound Of Music standard My Favourite Things and an instrumental version of The Beach Boy’s God Only Knows, before the concert’s undoubted highlight. This was an original piece written by the bass player that we had seen earlier, Philip Bloomfield, who, he explained, was autistic and practically unaware of his musical abilities until joining Awkwardstra, but had now composed the piece titled My Heart Sings For Your Beauty in memory of his sister. It was sensitively performed by a sexted drawn from the string section and drew long and loud applause.
From there, the concert moved to a suitably decisive ending with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah followed by a compilation of four themes from Disney  movies.
At the finish, amid long, loud applause, whistles and whoops  from their thrilled supporters, the Awkwardstra members shared quietly pleased, knowing smiles.
This may not have been the best or the most elaborate, elegant or satisfactory concert that I have attended – but it has to have been the happiest that I have enjoyed in a really long time. Thank you, Awkwardstra.
– Colin Mockett.

A Cultural High Point from Mozart

CONCERT: W A Mozart’s Requiem in D minor K626 presented by Geelong Chorale with orchestra, conducted by Allister Cox. Wesley Church, Yarra St. August 20 2023.
This weekend will be celebrated for a number of reasons: The world will remember Spain’s women winning a world cup despite loathing their coach. Australia will recall the time our entire nation fell in love with the Matildas despite their losing two games – and Geelong will remember this weekend as the biggest celebration of performing arts in our city’s history.
This was mostly centred on the dazzling opening of our multi-million dollar revamped arts centre that laid on wall-to-wall glamour, glitz and glossy performances all weekend.
Aside from this was the remarkable non-professional Blood Brothers musical in Belmont (see previous review) and then, on the final afternoon, came this once-in-a-generational performance in the city-centre’s Wesley Uniting Church.
Mozart’s Requiem exists as a challenging lyrical enigma that has puzzled musicians for centuries. lt was last performed in Geelong in 1991, in Christ Church, sung by the GAMA Singers conducted by their director Peter Sergeant. That group evolved into today’s Geelong Chorale, and it was their current director, Allister Cox OAM who took up the challenge this time.
Allister pulled together his most experienced and able vocal chorus, some 50 singers were squeezed into the church’s choir stalls; then he brought together an excellent 24-piece orchestra led by the delightful Patrycja Radzi-Stewart. He then engaged four excellent soloists in crystal-voiced soprano Teresa Ingrilli; the beautifully warm alto tones of Syrah Torii; the clear and precise diction of tenor Ben Glover and the full-bodied masculinity of bass Manfred Pohlenz.
Then he coached, rehearsed and persuaded them all into a single unit to create a memorable performance of Mozart’s most enigmatic musical work.
For this Requiem was unfinished when Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35. It was completed by two others, Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Sussmayr at the request of Mozart’s widow Constanze, who needed the money. The finished work was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the piece for a requiem service to commemorate the death of his wife Anna a year earlier. She had died at age 20.
This much we know, but then the story then becomes complicated. Just how much of this Requiem was Mozart’s original and how much was the work of the others? Was Mozart aware that he was dying and really creating a requiem for himself? Was he poisoned so that others, including von Walsegg, could pass it off as their own? Rumours have flown and grown over the centuries and that’s why the Geelong Chorale advertised this concert as ‘a choral masterpiece whose genesis is shrouded in mystery.’

None of the mysteries were solved by this concert; but a packed audience in a Geelong church was treated to a glorious, rare piece of sacred music performed by a highly accomplished group of musicians led by a masterful conductor.
Allister chose to precede the Requiem with two short motets written by Mozart, one of which, Veni Sancte Spiritus having been written when Wolfgang Amadeus was 12. This joyful singing piece involved everyone, Chorale, orchestra and soloists in its complex melodies, while the second piece, Quis Te Comprehendat K.V. anf110 was a simpler choral piece with elegant solo violin work from Patrycja.
Then followed the Requim in full, without break or interruption – though personally, I did miss Allister’s always interesting introductions.
The Requiem comprised 16 different parts lasting in total for a little under an hour. Sung entirely in Latin, the composition covered the gamut of sacred music, from slow solemn funeral passages to the majesty, triumphs and joyful Alleluias of religious ceremonial works. 

All were recognisable Mozart, by their intricate recurring musical patterns, linking soaring high points, textures and musical colours – and all were delivered with care and flair by the assembled Geelong performers.
 At the end, the audience applause was warm, loud, long and highly appreciative.

For we audience members might not have fathomed which part was written by whom, and for whatever motivations.

 But we were all aware that we had experienced a remarkable piece of music, in a concert that provided a piece of high-end culture to cap off an extraordinary weekend of performance.   

– Colin Mockett

Blood Brothers – Grand Opera Style

Blood Brothers directed by David Postill for Theatre Of The Damned, Belmont High School Theatre, August 18 2023.

This excellent production should have been the centrepiece of the Geelong Art Centre’s official opening that clashed with its opening night.
For Theatre of the Damned, a small Geelong community theatre group presented a show in a school hall that would meet the challenging heights of a grand opera.
That’s because Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers is itself epic in its comi-tragic storyline.  It has the classic scenario of twin brothers separated at birth, one living in luxury while the other languishes in poverty. Of course they unknowingly meet and fall in love with the same girl – and Blood Brothers follows them through their triumphs and tragedies, singing through every scene.
Only instead of ancient Egypt or Rome, this story was set in England. Specifically in 1960s Liverpool, which was a time of social engineering, when governments rehoused the city’s slum citizens into newly-built ‘garden cities’ in nearby countryside. 
Quite apart from that richly emotional background, the setting allowed scope for some snatches of delightful Scouse irony and self-depreciating humour. And, thanks to director David Postill’s skill (and stage manager Scott Warren’s stealthy work in the shadows)much of the Blood Brothers storyline was sung in a free-flowing seamless stream without scene-changes. Just like the real grand opera. And, yes, it all led to a suitably operatic tragic ending that had been neatly prophesied in its opening scene.
So. That was the show.
But what made it really deserving of an Arts Centre premier staging was the  performances that director Postill drew from his unpaid but professional-standard actors. 
Front and centre was Bam Heskett as Mrs Johnstone, the mother of those twin boys who, as a deserted wife with four kids, faced the prospect of two more mouths to feed – and then dealing with the emotional aftermath of giving one of them away.
Bam mastered every nuance of her tragic journey, acting and singing with superb, stoic grace.  Her stage presence was compelling – and yet it was matched by the show’s narrator, played by Matthew Tripodi. His role called for him to intervene throughout, strolling in with Scouser swagger, occasionally taking small parts and wittily explaining situations while stitching together those seamless scenes. 
These two performances were worth the price of admission on their own – and that’s before we get to the central brothers. These were Jett Sansom as the underprivileged and under-educated sibling who stayed with his mother. Jett played Mickey with the boundless energy, innocence and friendly curiosity of a new puppy,  while his brother Eddie, played by Seamus Kennedy, wore his privilege with a cool entitlement, only slightly tempered with an unknowing guilt.
Any classic opera would have the brothers meet, unknowing that they were related, and falling in love with the same girl. 
Of course this happens in Blood Brothers, with the girl, Linda, played by Megan Bearman in yet another eye-catching performance.  She transverses her own emotional journey with youthful style and guile – and a delightful singing voice.
And yet another highly-charged acting  performance came from Tracey McKeague as the rich childless wife who artfully persuaded her cleaning lady to give up one of her babies then wilfully and heartlessly wrangled this separation.
Behind these six lead performances were four worthy multiple-part-playing support actors in bland husband Ash Chappel, villainous brother Angus Fitzpatrick and the delightful duo of Gemma Eastwood and Rose Whelan, whose energy, versatility and acting – along with fine voice – filled every other gap.
All of the above sang, danced and moved with style – thanks to movement director Alicia Miller while an unseen 9-piece orchestra led by MD Jason Harrison gave immaculate musical support to the show’s folk-rock score. 
So, this Geelong production of Blood Brothers may have lacked the mass spectacle of an Aida – but it was a magnificent demonstration of the super skills that our local theatricals can produce, and do so with regularity.
I urge you to go see Blood Brothers. I assure you that it will remain in the memory long after the imported glamour and glitter of GAC’s own opening will have faded. 

– Colin Mockett

Compelling, compulsive
– Sarah’s Life Counts

Make Your Life Count  presented by Sarah Aiken for Platform Arts, Courthouse Theatre, August 10, 2023.

This production arrived in Geelong lauded as 2023 winner of Melbourne’s Green Room Award for Best Visual Design (Dance). 
Certainly, that award was merited, but I’m not really sure that its category was correct. For this fascinating presentation might have been better described as ‘multimedia movement’ or possibly ‘performance art’. Even if you combined all three interpretations, they still wouldn’t exactly capture this unique work.
 The abstract title Make Your Life Count is choreographer/dancer Sarah Aiken’s visual interpretation of her imagination and individual qualities. It’s an interpretive work that swirled around and about her strengths, which are dance, visual illusion and multimedia capture and editing.
For most of the 70-minute presentation, Sarah performed alone in front of a giant cinema-sized screen. She began with a very clever life-sized version of shadow-puppetry, using a single light through a box-like frame. She struck poses to a backing track of unworldly electronic music using her body to project a series of images, from being curled up inside the frame, pre-natal style, to growing to full size then stretching to reach its extremes in a very clever and beautifully executed play with perspectives.
Then she removed the frame and the screen showed a giant version of herself, dressed exactly as she was on stage, barefoot in loose top and pants. She then held a Lilliputian-scale interview with this giant in a perfectly timed orchestration of words and movement, live and pre-recorded.  This seamlessly dissolved into a scene where she gyrated and danced while the screen showed projected images of her dancing, sometimes in synch, sometimes mirrored, sometimes delayed. It took more than a few moments to realise that these images were being recorded then and there and transmitted simultaneously. This gave a panorama of on-screen movement that shattered into fragments, becoming hundreds of Sarah-images each moving differently and together forming a synchronised patterned vision that was strangely both compelling and compulsive.
Then Sara began playing with this image, shifting onto the stage first white boxes, then wheeled furniture and finally screens that allowed her projected images extra depth and movement.
She then subtly moved toward a quietly subdued finale by using a hand-held screen to capture some of the words projected with random images. Then she was joined on stage by an uncredited assistant also holding a similar small screen word-collecter before a perfect ending – the music faded, the screen dissolved to blank while their two hand-held screens still impossibly held the projected words ‘Make Your Life Count’. 
Much kudos to Sarah for her memorable and perfectly accomplished performance that surprised and pleased on so many levels – and to Platform Arts for bringing such a work to Geelong. More, please. 
– Colin Mockett

Farce to Finely-drawn Frustration

Two One Act Plays directed by Sindi Renea and Zina Carman for Torquay Theatre Troupe, Shoestring Theatre, Torquay, August 3, 2023.

Producer Gay Bell pointed out her programme notes that behind Torquay Theatre Troupe’s reputation for carefully staged high comedy and contemporary drama, it had also a history of presenting one act plays stretching back 21 years.
This latest production brought together all of the above in two plays that were remarkable by their difference.
The first was a lightweight piece of theatrical nonsense, the second a tightly-drawn depiction of the effects of recent Covid lockdowns.
Both are products of the rich tradition of British small theatre, though the second had strong Australian elements.
First up was the comedy, Last Panto In Little Grimley, written by David Tristam and directed by Sindi Renea. It’s part of a highly popular UK theatrical series that features a small-town amateur theatre society for whom everything that can go wrong, does.
This time the company, facing a financial crisis, has decided to stage an ‘adult pantomime’ to raise funds. The show was  to be written and directed by the company’s self-centred, acid-tongued organiser, Donna, played with relish by Torquay stalwart Terry Roseburgh. She bullies the tiny company into staging her play despite their reluctance. And a tiny company it was; comprising Janelle Polwarth’s dim and timid wannabe singer, Joyce, Ben Batterbury’s unwilling and disinclined stagehand Bernard  and Margaret, a cynical but capable actor and peacemaker to whom most of the play’s disasters happen. She’s gloriously overplayed by Rose Carollo. In their, and director Sindi Renea’s hands, Last Panto In Little Grimley starts as farce, quickly turns to slapstick and then collapses into a surprisingly predictable ending.

But then, following a short interval, came Godzonia, written by Georgie Oulten and directed by Zina Carman. 

This clever and thought-provoking work was set against the background of the Covid lockdowns and its affects on a variety of different people. This allowed the writer to include controversial themes from euthanasia to family violence; Tinder dating to modern miscommunications. It also allowed director Zina Carman to bring together and drill an excellent ensemble cast built around Joe, a terminally-ill resident of Godzonia, sensitively played by another company stalwart in Andrew Gaylard, with his much-loved granddaughter Kate, portrayed with quiet vulnerability by TTT newcomer Vanessa Crouch. Their mythical Godzonia is a small island close to Australia which, thanks to its isolation, remained free of Covid.
Kate, on her way there, found herself caught up in Australia’s harsh quarantine system and Joe, sensing she was in danger, was struggling to get her admitted to his safe haven.
The pair communicate through today’s fractured internet-based messaging services, a theatrical ploy that allowed playwright and director to expand and involve their central character’s circles of acquaintances. It brought in Kate’s brash fellow-traveller Elva Dandelion and her untrustworthy husband Todd Curtis. There was Joe’s sympathetic carer Claire O’Brien and fellow ‘Covid Hero’ the intense supermarket worker Tom Vlamis. And they all drew in Ritesh Chhetri’s involved stranger.
All these characters remained on-stage throughout, keeping the action moving fluidly by using black boxes as seats and scenery.
 A beautifully simple device was to use mime to short-cut devices and props and this, combined with the ensemble’s  acting skills and well-drilled choreography gave this Godzonia a gloss that matched its thoughtful – and thought-provoking subject matters.
Together, these two vastly contrasting plays should ensure that TTT’s annual one-act play tradition continues unabated.

–Colin Mockett

Stark and Darkly Intense Comedy

The Lonesome West directed by Glen Barton for Torquay Theatre Troupe, Torquay’s Shoestring Theatre, June 8, 2023.
First impressions from the set for The Lonesome West would imply that Martin McDonagh’s play was set in 19th Century Ireland. But as soon as the characters arrived, their clothes, dialogue and props showed the play to be set in the last quarter of the 20th Century. That was when religion was losing its grip on the nation, but before the EU and tech revolutions.
As such its fits neatly into McDonagh’s awarded Connemara Trilogy, which includes The Beauty Queen Of Leenane and A Skull In Connemara.
All are set in Ireland and are stark studies of human nature, its influences, pressures and outcomes. They’re also intense black comedies containing murder and nefarious deeds.
The Lonesome West included several passing references to the other two plays plus it revealed murders and misdeeds of its own.     
On the surface, The Lonesome West is the story of two middle-aged brothers living in their Leenane family cottage together after their father had died. Leenane is a tiny village in County Galway on the west coast of Ireland.
The brothers first appeared as Irish stereotypes obsessed with religion, drink and fighting. The bigger, and presumed older brother, Coleman, was played by Matthew Bradford as a belligerent  manipulating aggressor while in the hands of Jules Hart, his slighter sibling, Valene, was a happy alcoholic, quietly absorbed in his collections of religious statuettes and women’s magazines.
In McDonagh’s now recognisable style, the play’s plot lines were revealed slowly, through secrets revealed during the brother’s bickerings and fights, some of which were highly realistic. 
It was clear that director Glen Barton had selected and rehearsed his cast with the utmost care, for each player was precise and accurate in word and action, even down to their choreographed fights.
But although the sibling’s rivalry was central to The Lonesome West’s complexities, it certainly wasn’t the only one. Several concerned the other two characters who appeared at the cottage as the brother’s peacemakers. The district’s young, insecure and ultimately tragic alcoholic parish priest, Father Welsh, played with melancholy by Lachie Errey, saw the brother’s dysfunctions as his own failure.
He delivered what was probably the play’s most revealing truths in a moving soliloquy, while Tess Parker played the other visitor, young Girleen with sassy, bright confidence.
The provider of sex appeal alongside cheap Poteen, Girleen, of course had hidden depths and secrets, not the least of which was a passion for the priest.
As a piece of theatre, The Lonesome West  provided a showcase for four different and distinctive acting performances in a rare dense-black comedy. It highlighted Glen Barton’s directing skills as well as the excellent set-building and tech lighting abilities that the Torquay Theatre Troupe now commands.
But on an entirely different, cerebral, level, it showed the mastery that Martin McDonagh has over his words. 
For he left an audience a world away from his remote Irish village with plenty to ponder about their own human relationships, the effects of these and their ultimate legacies.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is theatre as it’s meant to be.
– Colin Mockett

Stylish Afternoon Soiree

Salon Soiree featuring Lisa Breen, Kym Alexandra Dillon and Allister Cox. House concert in Highton, Saturday May 27, 2023.

 There was a number of deeply personal reasons to stage this concert for its producer and principal singer, Lisa Breen.
It was a celebration that she had endured – and left behind – health and personal problems.
It was an opportunity to get together and make music with friends and colleagues to celebrate moving into a new home which had space for a ¾ Grand Piano.
The only problem was that the piano is housed in a sun-filled room where the light was likely to fade its finish. So Lisa had commissioned  textile artist Sue Rawkins to stitch a bespoke fabric protector which this concert gave an opportunity to unveil.
But probably most importantly, this concert was a collection of favourite works her parents had loved to hear her sing.
Put that all together and this was an afternoon soiree of joy, emotion – a few tears – and of fine music.
We audience were seated on plush chairs, borrowed from the studio of friend Elaine Mitchell,  in the home’s dining space looking toward the sun-room. There, Kym sat at the piano, fronted by Lisa and Allister. All were without amplification. It wasn’t needed, for the house acoustics were fine.
Their opening work was an unusual – and exquisite – Ave Maria by Cherubin, which was suitably followed by  Paer’s Beatus Vir  – Psalm 112 put to a tune for voice, clarinet and piano.
Then Lisa left, for Allister and Kym to deliver Donizetti’s Clarinet Concertino  the background story of which Allister explained in his introduction while cleaning moisture from his instrument. Then came a dual surprise, a delightful slice of opera when Lisa brought in her sister, Sue, and the pair delivered the Letter Duet from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro with delightful harmonies.
Then it was Kym’s solo time, when she delivered three short pieces, the first two, House and Home she had written to a commission, before adding Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante defunte all three delivered with her trademark accuracy, precision and sensitivity. Dead princesses rarely have sounded so good.
Then Lisa and Sue returned to present a moving version of the well-known and much loved Delibes’ Flower Duet from Lakme. This was followed by Schubert’s Shepherd On The Rock , which Lisa explained hd been a particular favourite of her father, before Sue returned for the soprano sisters to deliver, as an encore, another of their parent’s favourites, the Irish classic Danny Boy. 
This was when the emotions broke. Sue wept mid-note and Lisa took on her stanza before the siblings finished together – with we audience now moist-eyed.
Following this poignant moment, Sue Rawkins brought in her piano cover, beautifully bedecked with fairies and musical images as requested by Lisa to  arrange  on the piano for the very first time.
This was, she explained, her own piece of operatic drama in that she wasn’t even sure if it would fit. It did.
The home’s layout meant that to properly view the work, we audience needed to leave our seats to walk around the piano to the kitchen, which was magically transformed to become a cocktail bar serving a complimentary Champagne cocktail named, of course, Shepherd On The Rocks.
Together, this all made for an enjoyable afternoon slice of fine music, delivered beautifully and with an unexpected serve of drama!
– Colin Mockett

Music For Royal Occasions sung by The Geelong Chorale, conducted by Allister Cox. All Saints Church, Noble St, Newtown. May 6, 2023.
It might have been seen as a bold move byGeelong’s senior choir to schedule this concert on Coronation Day – the biggest Royal occasion.
It could have contributed to a day of regal overload, but in the event our television companies did this by each providing identical coverage – while this Chorale concert allowed us a preview of what was to provide the best part of the coronation ceremony itself – the music.
Not that this church concert was all crowning anthems and fanfares; for in selecting his material, the Chorale’s musical director and conductor, Allister Cox, had widened the choice to include music written for Royal weddings, funerals and other occasions. But it was coronations that provided the majority – and the most stirring – of the afternoon’s songs.
The concert began with Hubert Parry’s I Was Glad, a rousing intro which backed the choir with strident organ chords played by Ken George with all the stops out.
This was followed and contrasted by William Child’s O Lord Grant The King a Long Life, a gentle, pretty tune with Ken joining the Chorale to sing it a capella.
Then followed a different element again, as piano accompanist Kristine Mellens joined for Samual Sebastian Wesley’s Thou Wilt Keep Him In Perfect Peace. As always with Chorale concerts, Allister provided short helpful commentaries to explain the works and illustrate their purposes. Thus we were told of William H Harris’s Holy is the True Light, then the respectful funeral rites of Henry Purcell’s short trio of Funeral Sentences, Man That Is Born Of Woman and Thou Knows, Lord.  Keeping to the theme came Edward Elgar’s They are at Rest, before Johannes Brahms’ lyrical How Lovely is Thy Dwelling. Then the Chorale’s bass singers quietly retreated to the very back of the church to provide a moving deep drone to back John Tavener’s lovely Song For Athene which was followed by a song chosen for the funeral of Elizabeth II James MacMillan’s Who Shall Separate Us? sung in eight-part harmony.
This led to a song for a very different occasion, John Rutter’s This Is The Day was previously sung at the wedding of William, Prince of Wales to Catherine Middleton. 
It was followed by another stirring anthem, the Proms favourite Jerusalem, sung with gusto by the whole church audience with Ken George back at the organ before a final Royal flourish, George Frederick Handel’s Zadok, the Priest, accompanied by Patrycja Radzi-Stewart solo violin to appropriately close the concert.
Later this song was delivered by a much larger and more prestigious choir, used as a high point when King Charles III was screened and anointed with oils in Westminster Abbey. 
I doubt the sovereign would have known it had been preempted five hours earlier in the city which contributed part of his education – but I’m sure that he and the other Royals would have approved. Because this concert made a fine contribution to a memorable occasion.

– Colin Mockett

Geelong – Catch This If You Can!

Catch Me If You Can – the musical directed by Ben McNaughton for Theatre Of The Damned, Belmont High School Performing Arts Centre, May 5, 2023.
Since its 2017 inception, Geelong’s Theatre of the Damned has remained true to its founding concept of bringing fresh musical theatre to our region.
Catch Me If You Can, the company’s ninth show, is a classic example, having never before been staged in Geelong, despite a successful and awarded Broadway run and a raft of well-received international productions.
But this bright, catchy musical also highlighted the second, less publicised, aspect of the Damned company’s philosophy – that of giving starts to fresh young local talent.
This was young theatre-buff Ben McNaughton’s first time in the director’s chair, anywhere. His musical director, Mae Udarbe’s, only previous experience in the job was for Gypsy, brought to Geelong last year by – yes, Theatre Of The Damned. Their choreographer, Andrew Coomber, was also on his second show for the company, though, having started at the age of 10, can claim to have appeared in 26 musicals.
Their lead performer, Storm Randall, was on his first principal role, though he, too, had plenty of school productions and last year he played Marius in CentreStage’s Les Miserables.
So it was a relatively untried and inexperienced team that brought their show to Geelong’s newest venue, the newly-built theatre at Belmont High School. They had a 25 member cast brimming with youth and vitality with a handful of seasoned and experienced older performers. And the result was sensational. This show’s vitality, energy and talent flowed from every well-cast ultra well-drilled performer. They joyfully sang, danced and acted the happiest of storylines to a bluesy, jazzy band until they took well-earned standing ovations some 2 ½ hours later.
 Catch Me If You Can is based on the story of American Frank Abagnale Jr, who rose from high-school trickster and imposter to become an international con-man posing as an airline pilot and doctor in the 1960s. His proficiency – he cashed worthless cheques to the tune of $ millions – led to the FBI assigning an experienced officer, Carl Hanratty and his team to find, identify, and arrest him.
That premise led to Catch Me If You Can boasting the unlikeliest of leading couples. For although the show does have a love interest and inter-generational emotive themes, it’s basically built around the growing respect between Frank and Hanratty, the hunted and hunter, the audacious thief and seasoned veteran lawman.  As Frank, the good-looking energetic Storm Randall is every inch a theatrical triple threat. He looks like an athlete and sings, dances and acts like a mature thespian. Onstage, he owns his audience with a cheeky grin, huge presence and belter of a singing voice. But he’s well-matched, out-sung and occasionally upstaged by Duncan Esler’s Hanratty.
Though their rivalry prevails, it never dominates the show, leaving plenty of room for David Postill and Jenn Stirk to impress as Frank’s parents. And they do, with David displaying an acting masterclass as a gravel-voiced declining alcoholic failure, Jenn faultlessly accented  as his disenchanted French wife – and both singing superbly. There was Hanratty’s team of detectives, Gerry McKeague, Jett Sansom and Kefyalew Amlaku somehow managing to simultaneously appear as dumb as Keystone cops and as slick as the West Side Story‘s Jets. There was that love interest with Storm falling for competent, confident nurse Paris Walsh and enduring her parents Barry Eeles and Kim Edwards; he questioningly suspicious of, and she wonderfully, comically, stricken by Storm’s attributes.
These leads were augmented and supported by a delightful bunch of co-performers (it’s slightly unfair to call an ensemble) who filled in gaps and provided live background as nurses, doctors, hostess, pilots, managers and more while singing and dancing with elan. Take another bow Ruby Esler, David Keele, Alicia Miller, Rebecca Wik, Ava Davies, Lucy Martin, Anna Flint, Seamus Kennedy, Laura McKenzie, Ryan Milich, Tom Nouwen, Lily Petterwood, Finn Jaques, David Van Etten, Rebecca Osborne, Claire Kennedy, Delanee Collins and Poppy Charles.
All of the above were backed by conductor Mae’s slick 11-piece 60s band led by the keyboards of Phil Kearney and Brad Treloar and driven by Patrick Consedine’s off-stage percussion. His drums didn’t fit, but the rest of the band was on-stage throughout. Extra plaudits should go to Ben Anderson’s immaculate sound and Maxine Urquart’s sassy 60s costumes.
Geelong’s Catch Me If You Can runs for just six more performances. It’s highly recommended that you catch one while you still can.

– Colin Mockett

Persuasion appeals on many levels

Persuasion, directed by Amelia McBride Baker for Theatre Of the Winged Unicorn, Ceres Temperance Hall, April 28, 2023.

Over its 30-year existence, Ceres’ Theatre of the Winged Unicorn has built a reputation for staging period productions with elegance and charm. This sparkling new version of Jane Austin’s Persuasion fits comfortably into that format, but with an added 21st-century twist. 
Under the direction of Amelia McBride Baker, who also adapted the book, the elegant stage is set simply. It has white draped walls surrounding three large views of 19th Century Somerset and real period furniture. The costumes and props appear authentic and the play’s unobtrusive incidental music was carefully chosen from the period.
The 13-strong cast is mainly drawn from the company’s well of past players with some talented newcomers.
They are all well-drilled and rehearsed in the clipped, clear, stilted English of Victorian times. They move skilfully and with ease on and off the small Ceres Hall stage to allow the action to flow seamlessly through five set-changes. How could this be any different? The play’s producer was TOWU’s co-founder Elaine Mitchell whose artistic flair embellishes   every company production.
What made this Persuasion different was that director Amelia and her assistant Kayla Bradford took all that company flair and added a light touch of 21st century soap-opera style.  The main difference between period plays and TV soaps is that, where the former is full-bodied, the latter is generally close-up. We TV-infused audiences are now so used to camera- close emotions on our giant flat screens, we expect to see them on-stage – and that’s precisely what Amelia and Kayla’s Persuasion delivered. 
The play’s central character, Anne Elliot was played with rare sensitivity by Julie Fryman. Though on stage throughout, it was mostly as a silent extra, quietly observing her peculiar circle of family and friends, reacting to their eccentricities without necessarily commenting, but with discreet expressions and body language. This was reflected by the other performers.
So we audience saw Anne’s father, Sir Walter Elliot through her eyes, played by Brad Beales as a shallow, self-obsessed vain peacock of a man. While her sister, Elizabeth, portrayed by Jocelyn Mackay with obvious relish, was clearly an uncaring dismissive bitch of a sibling. Their married sister Mary had the family’s self-centred trait, too,  but expanded with an overlay of hypochondria.
She was played by Rose Musselwhite, who clearly delighted in the role, drawing gasps, laughs and even applause for her indiscretions.  Conversely, Liam Erck was equally eye-catching  – but by neatly underplaying her patient husband. Meanwhile, Miriam Wood gave us a well-meaning but over-meddling godmother,  Ali Cruickshank a silent, scheming hanger-on and Maggie Evans an attention-seeking family friend.
Ben Crowley was a stiff, pompous Admiral of the Fleet and Katie Hall his Camilla-like wife, both well-heeled tenants essential to the plot.
But all this was just setting the scene for when two rival suitors appeared. They were the darkly good-looking enigmatic namesake cousin William Elliot, played with open charm by Simon Finch, and the dashing introverted Captain Frederick Wentworth, portrayed with gauche awkwardness  by Ben Mitchell.  Melissa Musselwhite’s Mrs Smith provided an experienced voice from the past to guide Anne’s future direction, and it’s not giving anything away to say that the outcome was highly satisfactory.
The emotions Anne went through were real, and the audience saw, experienced and appreciated every tear she shed.
They applauded long and loud, too, for what was an exceptional performance.
This Persuasion will run in the Ceres Hall until May 15. Tickets are already more than half sold,  and it’s recommended that you snap up the remainders while they’re available.

– Colin Mockett

Death, the Director – and Salesman

The Director, from Aphids at Platform Arts, Courthouse Theatre March 25, 2023

It’s normal for our reviews to begin by crediting the production’s director in bold type before listing the theatre and date.
That’s missing at the introduction above, because this play actually had two directors and both were on stage.
Lara Thoms is an artist and theatre director and Scott Turnbull was for 21 years a highly successful funeral director. 
Both are smart, contemporary and at the top of their game.
Their on-stage collaboration has created what is essentially an exposé of a taboo subject – the after-death experience that eventually faces us all.
Based on Scott’s intimate knowledge and Lara’s theatrical flair, their clever stage show The Director is a glorious presentation that digs deeply, details and de-mystifies the funeral industry in Australia.   
They explain in minute and graphic detail why there’s a homogeneity in funeral parlours’ treatments and price structures. Most are operated by a franchise company called Invocare which operates under a host of different family-company names.
They also showed, from go to woe exactly what happens when a deceased person is delivered into the industry’s care.
There’s a confusing plethora of choices that newly grieving relatives face, starting with the obvious: burial or cremation, celebrant or priest, formal or casual. But then there are the lesser, but equally important decisions; choosing the coffin, venue, flowers, reception, picture slideshow, music and more…
Turnbull and Thoms took us through each, with their importance and, probably more importantly, their costs, all explained with clarity and some wry and dry humour.
You wouldn’t normally expect that a show about such a grave subject to be both enlightening and amusing, but The Director manages this in rare style. 
That’s due to that on-stage pairing and sharing of the duo’s inside knowledge – his of the industry, hers of the presentation.
For this play was perfectly staged by two performers at the top of their craft. Their sizeable audience – word had clearly got around about The Director’s quality – left with their own wry smiles. They had been informed, entertained and were much wiser about a subject that awaits and affects every one of us.
So if you would be interested in knowing about some of the interesting things that people have requested to be buried with; which songs are commonly chosen by different sections of society – or exactly what happens when a body is cremated at 1500 degrees – you’ll find it here.
But as this was the final Geelong performance, you’ll need to seek out where next The Director is staged.
I guarantee that you’ll find it a rewarding experience.

– Colin Mockett

The Other Place is simply brilliant

The Other Place, directed by John Bishop for Torquay Theatre Troupe, Shoestring Theatre, March 16, 2023
Last October this company staged Harp On The Willow in this theatre. That play featured Tracey McKeague as the tragic Irish harpist nun, Mary O’Hara, while Michael Baker played her awkward alcoholic antagonist.
This production placed the same two actors again centerstage, but in different roles and very changed circumstances.
The Other Place is set in America and its storyline tackles probably the biggest fear of our ageing babyboomer generation – the stealthy onset of dementia and its many disguises. 
This time Tracey McKeague played Juliana Smithton, a smart, highly successful neurologist who is engaged on a lecture tour promoting a new genetic treatment for the disease to audiences of medical professionals.
Against this background, her own personal life is going through a series of crises. Her marriage is on the rocks, her doctor husband had diagnosed her with a terminal brain tumour and her daughter was keeping her husband and twin daughters away from her.
All this she confided in asides to us, her (real) audience while delivering her lecture, complete with powerpoint slides, at a hotel medical convention.
She’s also puzzled by a girl in a yellow bikini sitting unconcerned among the throng of doctors; while troubled by recurring memories of The Other Place – a family retreat used by her family in the past.
And if that’s not enough, she’s also getting flashback memories of a therapy session with a female specialist who she suspects is having an affair with her husband.
To convey all this in the course of a lecture presentation is a challenging task which Tracey McKeague completed with superb acting skills.
And when her husband appears, played by another consummate actor in Michael Baker – sometimes in her thoughts, at other times in person – the play’s questions and dilemmas compound.
Because in this production, nothing was as it first seemed. The Other Place has to be the ultimate mystery play, in that we were all drawn into the uncertainties of dementia’s unpredictabilities until, piece by piece, explanations emerged.
In this short 80 minute play, with no interval, we were given a clear insight into early dementia, where facts blurred with fiction, beliefs were fleeting and time either telescoped or stayed static.
The Other Place is a fascinating play that’s beautifully written by Sharr White and carefully directed by John Bishop, with uncomplicated simplicity on a stylish, clever and well-lit set.
All this combined to make an ultra-believable scenario that kept its audience absorbed and then left them with plenty of situations to take home, unpack and translate for themselves.
But above all else, for this reviewer, TTT’s  The Other Place left a memory of a beautifully balanced and nuanced central acting performance from Tracey McKeague, which was supported by three pitch-perfect performers in Michael Baker, Todd J Curtis and Jessica Hargreaves.
In all, TTT’s The Other Place is a piece of brilliant theatre on a difficult and highly sensitive subject of  concern to us all.
Don’t miss it.

– Colin Mockett

Passion, Triumph and Destiny

Fate & Destiny, Geelong Symphony Orchestra, conductor Richard Davis, Costa Hall, Saturday February 25, 2023.

Geelong’s Symphony Orchestra continues to innovate and surprise, with this excellent concert evidence of both.
It contained just three pieces, all lesser-known works by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Each was carefully selected to meet the overall theme of ‘Fate and Destiny’, meaning that this could have been a concert of orchestral doom, downfall and drama. 
But in the hands of conductor Richard Davis, solo pianist Hoang Pham and Geelong’s premier orchestra, this was by no means a negative experience. This concert was absorbing, informative and delightfully uplifting, drawing long and appreciative final applause.
The surprise was that such an unusual and challenging choice of material was delivered with so much stye and ease by our still relatively new orchestra.  This concert marked six years, almost to the day, since its first appearance.
The innovation came from conductor Davis and concertmaster Markiyan Melnychenko’s detailed and highly informative explanations to the backgrounds and meanings of each work, expertly dovetailed into the concert’s format. 
The concert opened with arguably its best-known piece, Mendelssohn’s lyrically layered and intricately woven Fingal’s Cave, executed with the skill and professional flair now expected from our GSO and its favourite guest conductor.
But after the applause had died down, conductor Davis put down his baton, picked up a cordless mic and explained that the composer didn’t actually write the work while he was a ship’s passenger inside the dramatic Hebridean cave, as is popularly believed, because he was so stricken by sickness on that voyage that he couldn’t write until days afterwards. But such was his recall of the occasion that the work contained such musical details as the swell of currents, rhythm of the ship’s engine and cathedral-like echoes inside the huge cave.
The conductor followed this with an illuminating preview of the concert’s next piece, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 in G major Op.58, explaining its complexity and difficulties and why the work disappeared after its premiere until it was revived by Mendelssohn some 28 years later. 
He then introduced pianist Hoang Pham – like the conductor, world-rated and an excellent friend of the GSO – before soloist, conductor and orchestra played the challenging piece with its awkward interactions, long pauses and apparent disjointed themes, bringing them together with glorious unity and clarity that drew long, loud applause and many curtain calls for soloist Hoang.
Following a short interval, with the musicians in position, orchestra leader Melnychenko entered to the customary polite applause. But instead of lifting his violin to play the key note to tune his players, he placed it carefully on his seat, picked up the microphone and gave a detailed introduction to the final work, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4 in F minor Op.36, explaining its significance to its composer  and to the nations of Ukraine and Russia.
This told of the passions that the work engendered, its fatalistic triumphal elements and relevance today – all of which were again expertly translated into brilliant music once conductor Davis returned.
The baton-master was at his eye-catching best as he gestured, cajoled, air-caressed and commanded his orchestra to ever-greater heights.
This concert was arguably the most expressive Richard Davis that Geelong has yet seen. Always immaculately turned out in white tie and tails, the conductor’s energetic, beautifully over-exaggerated dramatic gestures gave the impression that he had determined to wear out his suit from the inside, lining first.
But aside from this flamboyance and passion, conductor David was quite clearly extremely proud of every section of his orchestra, returning again and again to invite different sections to share the long, loud applause at the concert’s end.
Could it be that, having won over Geelong’s Symphony Orchestra with his charm and passion, Richard Davis is now working on capturing our audiences? If so, he would have brought several hundred into the fold with this excellent concert.
And that can only be explained as our city’s Fate and Destiny.
– Colin Mockett

The Beast – Brecht meets The Young Ones

The Beast directed by Derek Ingles and Kat Eadie for Geelong Rep. Woodbin Theatre, Geelong West,  February 3, 2023

First, lets get the warnings out of the way. This is a long play at 2 ½ hours total, and there is plenty of profane language delivered with an amount of relish.  There’s also a farcical slapstick scene with the actors wallowing in fake blood.

Against this, there’s a swathe of pitch-perfect performances in a sharply written black comedy which mercilessly satirises the thirty-something tree-change generation of today.
Eddie Perfect wrote The Beast under commission from the Melbourne Theatre Company. It opened in 2013 and this is its first performance in Geelong. It’s much to Geelong Rep’s credit that the company seized the chance to stage it.
Because if I were asked to describe The Beast’s style, it would be a mix of  Bertolt Brecht’s black humour meets David Williamson’s sharply drawn portraits of flawed personalities all played out in frantic scenes from The Young Ones.
The play follows three couples, all in their mid-30s who have moved to the country.  But not too far. The Beast could have been set in Ceres or The Bellarine.
The couples’ common aim is to live sustainably but without changing their inner-urban ways.
They chose to celebrate by buying an ethically raised cow to slaughter for a shared feast – but when the butcher didn’t turn up,  they decided to kill the beast themselves. This opened up opportunities for old rivalries, complexes and hidden secrets to come out, along with a slew of brilliant performances from a highly competent acting team. This is led by Glen Barton as Simon, who manages to be equally pretentious, oily, overbearing and obnoxious while belittling his long-suffering wife, Gen. She’s played by Shani Clarke, who drops some quietly-delivered put-downs of her own.
The second couple has Calvin Langley as Rob, a vulnerable, damaged and mentally unstable husband to Sue, who’s calm demeanour is systematically shredded until she unravels in a madcap fight scene. All neatly and skilfully portrayed by Elva Dandelion. The third couple has  Simon Finch as introverted, put-down husband, Baird, who has hidden depths and surprises while his wife Marge, played by Simone Clarke who wears her alcoholism as a badge of honour  behind her incisive wit  and wisdoms. 
Steve Howell added some stable old-time country good sense as Farmer Brown, Liam South some wildly speculative psychedelic ramblings as a ship’s skipper, Jesse Ivelja arrived with perfect timing as winemaker Jason, and Jules Hart contributed some inspired video work to tie up loose ends.
Of course, Rep’s The Beast is politically incorrect. It’s a ramshackle, fast-paced, truthfully drawn original contemporary dark satire.

It’s also very funny. 
So… If a cutting poke at a pretentious current generation is your partiality – you’ll love every unpredictable minute.

– Colin Mockett OAM

Geelong’s hidden gem of a concert

Geelong Summer Music Camp’s grand finale concert, Costa Hall, Geelong Waterfront, January 13, 2023. 
This was the 41st GSMC final concert and I have delighted in some 25 of them. That’s just about every one since the event moved to the Costa Hall. In that time I’ve held the belief – and spread the word wide – that this is Geelong’s most under-reported and undervalued hidden gem.
It’s without doubt the biggest and most heartwarming concert of the year. The best value, too.
Every January this concert showcases the skills of around 200 young musicians in Geelong’s premier venue. Each student is eager to display what they have learned in five days of intense musical masterclasses in the hands of some of our region’s best tutors and teachers.
As the audience comprises of mostly their parents, grandparents and siblings, the atmosphere is supportive, electric – and friendly. The camp and its concert was severely affected by Covid with the past three consecutive camps cancelled.
So this was the first GSMC final concert since 2019. 
As a result, compere Stephen Horman informed us, 2023 had a record number of newcomers especially in the younger age groups.
But if we had any concerns that this might affect the concert’s renowned high quality they were quite literally blown away by the first group – the Balyang Stage Band, which opened the show with tight, syncopated big-band brass versions of Sonny Rollins’ 1950s sax-jazz Doxy then Pete Townshend’s 80s rock classic Pinball Wizard.
Both were delivered with laid-back mastery by a 30-piece combo of chilled young musicians conducted by an ultra-cool black-clad finger-clicking Sean Rankin.
This opening elegance led the way into a 2½ hour concert containing equal parts of musical discipline, skill and youthful energy but with plenty of joy and charm on the side.
Because that big band intro was followed by the Camp’s youngest group – some 40-plus junior players of wind instruments who were conducted, coaxed  and guided by director Dr Sue Arney to become the Bellarine Concert Band playing Richard Saucedo’s Groovee!, Jodie Blackshaw’s Australian first-nation inspired Belah Sun Woman then Michael Sweeney’s rollicking Port O’ Call.
Then followed a sweet treat, with Michelle John’s Otway String Orchestra, comprising 50 slightly older and more advanced students playing five short pieces to display their range and versatility. Mozart’s Alleluia was followed by Aaron Fryklund’s delightfully soft Snowfall At Dusk, then Stephen Chin’s descriptive Silver Forest, Keith Sharp’s pirate-flavoured Bilge Rat Blues then finishing with Brian Balmages’ ultra-fast-paced and very well titled Velocity.
After another fast transition neatly filled with compere Horman’s informative banter, The Surf Coast Wind Symphony with its conductor Sally Davis took the stage to deliver Randall Standridge’s well-named Impact, Rossano Galante’s Wishing Well and John Zdechlik’s Riverdance-echoing Chorale and Shaker Dance with a degree of flair well above their age-range.
Then came another Camp Concert highlight: Jodie Townsend’s choral group – now called Djilang Singers – accompanied by, and occasionally joined by the wonderful Kym Dillon, who brought their own brand of high-energy expertise starting with Dolly Parton’s Jolene, moving to Mike Batt’s Garfunkel-flavoured Bright Eyes, then Chuck Berry/Beach Boys’ Surfing USA before surprising everyone by slowing down to a precisely-delivered folk-song Nodle Kangbyon – in Korean!Their set ended with a joyfully energetic mash-up of ABBA songs created by the singers themselves and titled Carl-ABBA.
At the business end of the concert with older students involved, came two orchestras under the baton of Ben Singh.
 First, the Swan Bay String Orchestra delivered two classics with professional flair.  Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, then Gustav Holst’s St Paul’s Suite for String Orchestra, delivered with grace and elegance before the group was joined by wind and percussion players to become the 70-piece GSMC Symphony Orchestra to play Stauss senior’s Radetzky March then Symphonic Reflections of themes from Andrew Lloyd-Webber.
Then to the all-on-stage big finale, with musicians, conductors, singers, tutors, elective leaders, organisers and support staff – more than 200 people directed by conductor (and camp president) Martin DeMarte to deliver a spirited version of a highly appropriate choice of material – Elton John’s I’m Still Standing.
This concert delivered three firm conclusions.
It showed that Geelong’s traditional joyful, surprise-packed first concert was unchanged despite its three-year enforced  layoff.
It showed that our future will be in good hands when such a disciplined, talented and eager-to-learn younger generation takes over.
And..  The best musical move you could make now would be to invest $20 in buying a ticket to the 2024 GSMC concert at the Costa Hall.
It’s Friday January 12, the website to book is http://www.gsmc.org.au.
And I guarantee that you will enjoy it. 

– Colin Mockett