Matrophobia

Matrophobia

Studio in Bakehouse Theatre, Tue 14 Mar

Matrophobia is the fear of becoming like your mother, and The Daughters Collective do a superb job of conveying the web of intricate reactions this conjures up. They achieve that Holy Grail of comedy with a show that is really funny and scarily serious in equal measure.

Three women each take turns in describing their mothers’ lives and how they feel about them. With dance and music and crisp, articulate dialogue they switch between being themselves and being their mothers, and on occasion it is difficult to tell which is which – such is the interwoven connection between them.

Another effective switching technique has the cast swapping between scenes that are rehearsed and choreographed, to scenes where they are being themselves in conversation with the audience and each other. It adds a degree of authenticity and sincerity that gives the overall performance greater credibility. It’s a tricky task, and works beautifully.

A scene that has them thrust into the future where, despite all their fears and misgivings they each have twins is hilarious. They engage in a manic episode of mutual adoration of each other’s babies, and then try and reclaim some semblance of fitness and sexiness in a gym like dance routine.

As a male it felt a bit like watching an initiation into secret women’s business at times, but it also gave me a greater appreciation of the complexity of women’s lives. I am normally loathe to concede that a woman’s life is more complicated than a man’s but after watching Matrophobia I’m not so sure. The biological imperative to have children and nurture and all the messy physiology that goes with it was forcefully and funnily presented here.

There is a bitter sweet balance of love and hate about their mothers that is honest, brutal and loving, and that is a tough mix to get right in a one hour piece of theatre. It’s refreshingly realistic, and all portrayed with great poise and depth of perception.

Younger women are going to find Matrohobia eerily predictive, but it’s a show that everyone can enjoy and learn from because, of course, we all have, or have had, mothers.

A fantastic piece of serious comedy that does not miss a beat. Smart, entertaining theatre.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

A Boy Named Cash

A Boy Named Cash

Henrietta’s at The Henry Austin, Mon 20 Feb

Johnny Cash is another music legend whose legacy is being kept alive by a generation who weren’t born when his songs were played on the radio. In A Boy Named Cash Monty Cotton does a fantastic job of bringing Cash’s music to a modern audience. He has the deep resonant vocal tone that was Cash’s trademark, and I suspect he may be a far more accomplished musician than Johnny Cash was.

This show is slick and pacey. Cotton rips through all the expected hits with a virtuosic ease. From Folsom Prison Blues to Ring of Fire and everything in between he plays everything Cash fans from the past might want to hear. And truth is he plays them all better than Johnny Cash ever did. With a deft touch on guitar and an array of loops and pedals he turns every song into a showcase of his exceptional ability and in the process elevates every song to a new high.

I doubt that Johnny Cash was funny on stage, but Cotton sure is. Goading the audience to participate at frequent intervals he gets everyone singing along and laughing at themselves in good natured fashion. Not only is this show great to listen to but, and perhaps in contrast to the serious persona Cash cultivated, there are plenty of laughs. A segment where he asks the audience to nominate songs for ‘a Cash conversion’ is very clever and really funny.

Cotton has taken the legend and the music and made it his own. His singing is great but if it lacks anything it’s that gravel edge that characterised Cash’s vocals – probably a consequence of hard living and a lot of drugs and alcohol – and Cotton might be better off without it!

A Boy Named Cash is almost the complete package. The hour flew by in the hands of a very talented musician/performer, and should guarantee that Cash’s music will last a good while longer yet.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

A Blot on Our Cultural Landscape

Bucks (or A Bag of D*cks)

Mainstage in Bakehouse Theatre, Mon 27 Feb

The scariest thing about Bucks (or A Bag of D*cks) is it’s very close to the truth. Anyone who has spent time in male dominated sporting environments for example, may well recognise many of the behaviours in this menacing show. The uncontrolled substance abuse, the bullying, the fake bravado, the repressed gay character, and the reluctance to genuinely confront issues with honest conversation is a sad reflection on Australian male culture that one hopes is becoming less prevalent.

The bucks party though is still alive and well, and in this instance involves subjecting the buck to a range of demeaning behaviours in some weird twis­­ted idea of being a good mate, being a good sport, being willing to have a laugh where in fact it is a degrading exercise in ritual bullying.

The 5 male cast members run amok in Bucks, and create a sense of mayhem and chaos with high energy drug fuelled dysfunction. Old scars resurface from unresolved differences and disagreements are met with denial or attacks on the accuser with little regard to the truth of a matter. It’s all about being tough, and it’s a toughness born of fear – fear of being vulnerable, or looking weak or sensitive. A fear of honestly confronting reality and dealing with opposing views in a rational way.

Bucks (or A Bag of D*icks) is a great combined performance as they generate a sense of palpable fear. There is a sense of relief as things come to a close even though everything is still unresolved. You can imagine the characters meeting again months later and having a laugh about ‘that crazy bucks party’ while still not confronting the issues of fear, repressed sexuality, and the bullying it revealed.

This show should be shown in schools across the nation for boys to examine and question what is going on and why, and for girls to get a glimpse of just how ugly and threatening the macho world of the Australian male can be.

Not all Australian men are like this of course, but these types do exist. Hiding behind notions of mateship and with misguided ideas of what it means to be a man, they’re a blot on our cultural landscape.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

A History Of Early Blues - Live at the Wheatsheaf

Friday, February 24th, 2017

Australian blues legend Chris Finnen was to be part of this show, and it was really disappointing to learn that due to sickness he would not be part of the line-up for A History of the Early Blues. Chris Finnen is a remarkable blues player and a great story teller. Harmonica player Bill the Tree (yes that is his name) was recruited to take Chris’ place, and he joined Cal Williams Jr (guitar) and Kory Horwood on double bass for an exceptional evening of blues and early American music.

The band took over the mantle of storytellers about the songs they played and the origin of the blues, and warmed further to the task as the show progressed. In the end they did it so well that Chris Finnen was hardly missed. The show featured songs by folks like Leadbelly, Sun House, Furry Lewis, and blues classics like Got My Mojo Working.

But the focus of the show was actually quite a bit broader than just early blues. A number of songs were from the realms of folk or Gospel. Some were reminiscent of the music featured on the Coen Brothers movie, O Brother Where art Thou. This broader focus added tonal variety and an appreciation of how all these forms of early American music are connected.

A fascinating part of proceedings was the way the group would announce a song and then spend a few minutes warming up – improvising their way to the point where they were all ready to do the song. It was as if the songs began twice.

The musicianship on display in this show was stunning. Cal Williams Jr, playing a metal guitar made from bits of a tin shed, was a revelation. Showcasing multiple techniques - strumming, picking, sliding – he showed us there are many ways to play the blues. Billy the Tree on harmonica told us how blues contributed to the spread of the harmonica and provided a sweet bluesy backdrop throughout the show, and Kory Horwood’s double bass added depth and resonance.

The audience were invited to join in on occasion. We had a go at field hollering music – mimicking the way the blues was born in the fields, and the show ended with everyone joining in the refrain of an old Gospel tune as the band played and sang their way through the audience on their way out. It was a lovely touch.

An illuminating and instructive evening listening to great musicians playing the music they obviously love.

(This article also published on The Clothesline.)

Living in a Trumped World

I’ve been meaning to write about this since the day Trump got elected and Leonard Cohen died. Seemed fitting somehow that Leonard would not want to live in a Trumped world. He no longer belonged. His vision and compassion was no longer wanted. I was filled with a deep sadness on both counts, and part of me wanted to go wherever Leonard went. Follow class and dignity to wherever it resides.

Like many have shared I felt something died the day Trump was elected. It was as if I awoke from a dream that was revealed to be a sham. I had been living believing that slowly we were progressing as a species. Sounds stupid and naïve to write it, but that’s honestly how I felt. I felt we were evolving, and Cohen was the embodiment of that. I felt we were making progress in being more compassionate and understanding with each other. It was not OK to bully people; being gay was OK – nearly; the position of women had attained something approaching parity; cultural differences and the value of diversity were being slowly recognised as an asset to a country, to a company, to the planet; most nations had agreed on some kind of action – however small – to negate climate change; the world was moving towards clean energy.

And then someone who believes in none of these things was voted in as the president of one of the world’s most powerful nations. 28% of Americans voted for a lying, ignorant narcissist, and thumbed their noses at women’s rights, blacks, gays, climate change, etc in the process. They simply wanted to return America to a time of near full employment (cars, manufacturing) and where men could abuse any woman they wanted with impunity.

Clearly a quarter of America’s population felt left out of the political process as they saw their lives slip into underemployment and poverty. Mexicans and Muslims, and anybody else who looked different to them, were taking their jobs and they’re angry. They have every right to be. I realise now that it’s one of the many failures of democracy and its elected representatives to adequately explain what is going on – what globalisation and automation are doing to the job market; why jobs are disappearing. No support offered in terms of meaningful retraining, and certainly no longer term vision of where retrenched manufacturing workers might fit in a new economy once traditional sources of employment dried up. People outside of politics who weren’t concerned with presenting false promises that everything would be OK had been saying for years that traditional manufacturing industry in the West was collapsing, and that alternatives needed to be explored. But nothing was done, government subsidies propped up dying industries and then the GFC blew it all apart. No conversations with affected workers took place about what the future might look like and what their options were. They were left high and dry by the political classes to fend for themselves and fed up with the whole goddamn business they voted for Trump. No matter that he had 5 kids from 3 wives; no matter that he’s filthy rich and a compulsive liar.  It really didn’t matter who Trump was, what he said, or what he believed, as long as promised to stick it up Washington and bring back the good old days.

It’s hard to see how Trump is going to keep this miserable 28% happy. Infrastructure projects might do it for a while. But the bigger picture for me is where to from here for the planet; where to from here for do-gooder lefty leaning liberals in Western countries like Australia. For people like me. How do we reclaim the agenda? How do we get things like the rights of minorities back in focus? How do we bring back compassion as part of a nation’s psyche? Somehow we need to talk with these people who are angry; we need to acknowledge their anger; and we need to present them with viable alternatives so they don’t feel like all those ‘others’ are wrecking their life, and taking away what they see as rightfully theirs.

OR

Maybe they’re kind of right. Maybe as a species we simply don’t act to save ourselves until we reach crisis point. That’s what we’ve always done.  Maybe we need a war. Maybe we need to see and feel the results of massive dislocation of the economy due to climate change. Maybe when Tuvalu and Kiribati disappear the rest of the world might take notice. Maybe most of us are simply unable to think about others and the future for more than few well meaning minutes. And not until shits hits fan will we act. We can only focus on ourselves and the present.  Perhaps the ability to foresee the consequences of our collective actions merely screens the inward looking shallow nature of our true selves?

Maybe we can entertain notions like equality and gender equity when most of us have adequate employment and a living standard that is pretty comfortable. But when things slip back towards the poverty line we revert to self-preservation mode and inherently blame ‘the other’ for our woes.

I have never felt this way before. I’ve generally been optimistic about what the future holds. But I don’t like the circling China is about in the Pacific. I don’t like Trump’s disregard for old alliances and his reckless willingness to discuss using the US’s nuclear capability. I don’t like the hopelessness of the UN as a body without any clout. (Israel routinely ignores it and does what it likes and always gets away with it.) There is no global political leadership. As eloquent and articulate and loving as Obama obviously was, he too was unwilling or unable to effect widespread meaningful change. (Except inside America’s border with Obama care. And what of a people who seem angry that someone dared to help those who need a hand paying their medical bills??? What is with these people???)

It seems quite feasible to me now that a large war is not too far away. It’s not Trump’s fault. Our ineptitude has bred his success. He’s just another card in a collapsing pack that adds to the instability – he doesn’t have the intelligence to be part of any solution.

I was in Vanuatu working with vocational educators when Trump was elected and Cohen died and I was desperate to talk to someone about it. I broached the topics with the people I was with. Their response? Is there an election happening? Who is Donald Trump? What’s wrong with him? And they’d never heard of Leonard Cohen. So there’s another kind of naivete that exists in many parts of the developing world. Their world is far from perfect but they are not tormented by the horrendous and sad stories that our 24/7 media world feeds the globally connected citizen. Trump and Cohen are irrelevant to them. They go about peaceful lives doing what they can to make a living and feed their families and don’t seem any less happy for it. They certainly don’t have the material means to travel but their disconnected cocoon of a tropical paradise seems to deliver a kind of peace and resignation that is far from the angst that my newly discovered naivete wreaks upon my being. Perhaps I’d have been better off being born in Vanuatu.