The Ugly One

Famous Last Words Theatre
Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility

Fri 9 May, 2025

Staging a play called The Ugly One in this sensitive age when you may no longer call a spade a spade seems a little provocative.  It must be some kind of metaphor surely? Well yes and no – as we shall see.

Entering Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility is a treat in itself. It was good to be there early and soak up the atmosphere of a space that could indeed make many things possible. Four vertical lighting strips shone on the performance space and left enough ambient light for your eyes to roam around the intriguing space.

The cast of four each make their separate entrance down a tall stairway. Three of them will take on multiple roles but the ugly one, Lette, plays himself throughout. The grandest entrance is reserved for Lette’s boss, Scheffler, who strolls down the stairs like the belle of the ball.

Between her, Lette’s wife, Fanny, and Karlmann, his assistant, they need to address the delicate issue of telling Lette that he will not be presenting his company’s latest breakthrough at an upcoming convention because his face is a liability. That is, he is extremely unattractive.

It’s excruciating to witness as everyone squirms around this unfortunate reality but eventually the truth is out and Lette immediately insists on undergoing reconstruction surgery. Which as it turns out is fabulously successful and unleashes a chain of events that have you questioning who here is really the ugly one and other relevant questions about identity – how important is it that we look good? Or at least, feel like we look good? If you had a ‘better face’ would you be a different, or better person? Do others treat good looking people better? Are good looking people more likely to be more successful in life?

Rather than directly confront them these serious existential questions are inferred in the mayhem that follows Lette’s miraculous surgery. There’s plenty of humour embedded in the dialogue and a wonderful irony in the fact that the players themselves don’t realise how shallow they’ve become. Virginia Blackwell is near perfect as the supercilious boss and unscrupulous surgeon floating around on an air of superiority completely oblivious to things like ethics and feelings.   James Starbuck does a great job of playing a Lette who is initially hooked on the idea of being beautiful but undergoes something of a redemption as he comes to realise there may be other more important things in life. And his sexy presentation on connector plugs was hilarious!

The play skips along at a good pace. I really enjoyed the simulated surgery scenes. They managed to be brutal, humorous, artistic and elegant all at once. Just one example of some clever direction from James Watson.

So yes – ugly can be seen as a metaphor here, and that it’s not just something we see on the outside of a person. And while some may be gorgeous to look at, perhaps the old cliché is true that beauty really is only skin deep.

A fine piece of thoughtful, entertaining theatre in a great venue.   

This review also published in The Clothesline.

 

Silly Little Things - Theatre Review

Star Theatre Two at Star Theatres, Fri 23 Feb, 2024.

Laura Knaggs has written a delightful story, and tells it beautifully. She plays the part of Rosie, a young woman who is finally free of an oppressive long term relationship and desperate to celebrate her freedom;  start a new more exciting life. But it turns out she’s not that good at making decisions on her own. Her best friend is dealing with her own problems, her nosy neighbour keeps making life difficult, good men are hard to find, and her flower shop is going under. And the last thing she wants to do is give in and go back to her mother for help. Perhaps a few more shots of tequila will fix things? They don’t.

Rosie takes us all along this frustrating, entertaining ride with mostly good humour, sporadic misplaced optimism, and an honest vulnerability. She’s pretty hyper early on and it’s as if her speedy enthusiasm is plunging her into train wreck territory. But luckily for Rosie a near disaster opens her eyes just enough to help her see the good that’s right in front of her.

She still has that lovely bouncy personality but it’s not so manic now. She’s calmed down and has become a much nicer, smarter person.

So there is a moral to the story if you’re looking for one. Or you could just sit back and enjoy Knagg’s charming manner, the tightly scripted narrative, her impressive range of acting skills, and great sense of comedy. She’s a natural, and is clearly very much at home on the stage.

One small peeve – I think the title of this show belittles it. There’s a lot more going on here than Silly Little Things, but I guess that’s how Rosie may have seen things at the time.

This review also published on The Clothesline.

Fish Bowl - Adelaide Fringe 2023 Review

 

[THEATRE AND PHYSICAL THEATRE/Immersive ~ South Australia]

The Studio at Holden St Theatres, Tue 7 Mar, 2023.

Fish Bowl is part seminar, part theatre. While daring to entertain on a touchy subject like dementia it also provides a lot of advice on how to cope with, and treat, people with dementia.

Set in an aged care nursing home the players switch between being patients and carers, often quickly shifting from troubled /troublesome patient to narrator in the same scene. It’s a very effective technique that holds audience attention and attempts to explain the patient’s behaviour - why the patient might be all of a sudden roaming around the room in an agitated state, or affectionately addressing a soft toy as their spouse.

There is a tragi-comic aspect to dementia that is also on show here. As the old cliché says, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, and often either response is appropriate.  But people in the caring role have to get past that and come up with strategies to deal with the situation at hand. Fish Bowl shows us several delightful examples: a scene encouraging a patient to recite a long poem while getting them ready for bed is quite beautiful and amazing to watch.

There are also moments of extreme, violent anger that are quite scary. Such are the swings and roundabouts of dealing with dementia – childlike joy one moment; explosive fury the next.

Full marks to Fish Bowl Theatre for delving into this challenging territory. It’s instructive and enjoyable theatre that attempts to cast somewhat of a positive light on how one can cope with people who have dementia; how one can build relationships across the cognitive disconnect.  I commend them for that but the sooner a cure is found for this dreadful dignity sapping disease the better.

Director: Steph Daughtry
Writer: Matthew Barker
Performers: Matthew Barker & Evie Leonard.

This review also published on The Clothesline.

The Sensemaker - Adelaide Fringe 2023 Review

 

[THEATRE AND PHYSICAL THEATRE/Comedy ~ AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE ~ Switzerland]

The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall, Fri 10 Mar, 2023.

How long are you prepared to wait on the phone? How many looped menus do you tolerate? Are you patient? How willing are you to accept instructions from a phone bot? What do you do while you’re on hold? The Sensemaker will help you answer such questions. It may also leave you with an uneasy feeling that this nonsense is in its infancy and could get much worse.

The Sensemaker is a wonderful solo show that puts the spotlight on an issue that has exploded in very recent times – just what should our relationship be with bots. And Elsa Couvreur does so in such a glorious and graceful fashion. In an unusual combination of dance and comedy she commands attention form the outset. Every sideways glance, every twitch of a finger, every sigh, is calculated and intended to convey meaning. She is riveting to watch.

Couvreur shows inexhaustible patience as we endure the endless wait for her ‘’request to be processed.’ She comes up with some very inventive ways to pass the time and amuse herself and us before things get a bit weird and the phone bot would appear to be very much overstepping the mark. The caller needs to decide whether she wants to continue to have her ‘request processed’.

This clever show takes what is normally private behaviour into a very public space, and does so with subtle humour, and an abundance of elegance.

Countless hours have gone into the preparation of the many layers of pre-recorded messages and on-hold music. Clever use of multiple languages and the ironic use of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy may mean you’ll never here it the same way again.

A magnificent show displaying mastery of the technical and artistic sides of theatre. Superb entertainment that also throws up just so many questions. Deserved a much larger audience.

This review also published on The Clothesline.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Review

 

Her Majesty’s Theatre, Mon 14 Mar.

The Picture Of Dorian Gray was my introduction to the world of literature and social commentary of Oscar Wilde. Originally published in 1890, it made an indelible impression on my young soul and I was excited to see how this adaptation by Kip Williams would work for the stage. The essential idea of Dorian Gray is that he is forever young and that he only ages in a portrait of him created by his artist friend Basil. This sense of eternal youth gives Dorian the freedom to follow his every hedonistic, immoral fancy. But in a message for both old and young there are grave consequences.

This production by the Sydney Theatre Company is simply superb. The ease with which Eryn Jean Norvill handles the multiple roles of Dorian, Basil, Lord Henry, various household staff, and several other characters is incredibly impressive. She steps in and out of these roles throughout with frequent costume and scene changes in a rapid and constantly moving parade.

On the staging side this production is a technical tour de force. I doubt whether many in the audience would have seen anything quite like this. I certainly haven’t. The use of multimedia and live video has been creeping into theatre for some years but when bigger budgets allow bigger crews on big stages to work in tandem with people with big ideas this is what can be achieved.

The opening scenes of Basil talking to Lord Henry take place at the very back of the stage and are filmed live. For most of the audience the scene is best viewed on a large screen hanging from the front of the stage, though those towards the front could view the live scene if they chose. This is often the case throughout – many scenes are both recorded live and beamed on to large screens.

On other occasions Norvill (as Dorian) is talking live to Lord Henry but Lord Henry’s contribution to the conversation has been pre-recorded and Norvill is conversing with a recording of his part of the dialogue. This device is often employed and should, you would think, seem strange and stilted. But it is seamless, barely noticeable. On multiple occasions Norvill is relating to other characters speaking pre-recorded versions of conversations that she has also recorded so she is effectively talking to herself. Not to mention the fact that so much of her performance here is talking to camera, not to another person or character, and yet must appear as if she is in deep connection with another character. Like combining the skills of live theatre with acting for screen I guess and it is simply brilliant.

In a chilling conclusion that sadly has acute relevance for the narcissistic trend permeating contemporary Western culture, Dorian Gray ultimately pays a heavy price. This play is full of the wit, wisdom and eloquence characteristic of all Oscar Wilde’s work. You will wait a long time to see an individual performance as good as Norvill offers here, and the technical wizardry achieved by a team of black-clad ghostly wraiths floating in and out of view is initially a little distracting but becomes strangely and appropriately symbolic of a hidden world that only Dorian knew.

This is a show that you could definitely see a second or even a third time. Sometimes five stars are just not enough!

5+ stars 

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

The Laramie Project - Review

The Laramie Project

Holden Street Theatres, Fri 22 Oct

Long term Adelaide residents will immediately recognise the eerie similarity between the Laramie Project and our own equivalent moment of shame when Adelaide University Law Lecturer George Duncan was drowned in the Torrens in 1972. In 1998 a young gay man was brutally bashed and left to die outside the town of Laramie, Wyoming. “The skies are so blue here.” “It’s such a great community.”  “People are happy to live here.” “Here we let people live and let live.” “We don’t raise our children like that around here.” The people of Laramie struggled to accept that one of their own could be responsible for this appalling crime.

The Laramie Project is based on material gathered by a New York based Theatre group from 200 interviews with the people of Laramie. It’s an ingenious way to gather the raw material for a play and it works brilliantly. Each member of the wonderful cast takes on multiple roles of the townspeople: friends, barman, parents, staff and students from the local university, church figures, police, and doctors in a fast-moving parade of opinions and facts that essentially casts the audience in the role of jurors.

The first act does an excellent job of helping us get to know the victim, Matthew Shepard, and gives the audience an opportunity to establish their own personal connection with him. We learn that Matthew was a good guy and was universally liked throughout the town. The second act deals with the crime itself and the town’s subsequent shock and disbelief. A media circus invades the town and contributes to a shift in attitude in some of the locals. Sympathy gives way to cynicism and confusion: so we’re the centre of mass media attention because Matthew was gay? Was his life more important than that of a local cop who died around the same time?

Laramie clerics start using Matthew’s story to instruct their parishes. The Catholic priest wonders if the town should be grateful to Matthew for helping the town realise that hate and intolerance exist in Laramie and need to be addressed. The Baptist Pastor, Fred Phelps, took to campaigning against homosexuality. Invoking the authority of the Bible he insinuates that Matthew’s gay lifestyle had brought this upon himself. The final act deals with the court hearings, the ever-increasing debate around hate crimes and the rise of the Angel Action protest movement to counter the rantings of the likes of Fred Phelps. The courtroom apology of one of the perpetrators to Matthew’s parents was really moving, and the electronic candlelight vigil was a nice touch.

This is really fine theatre. The first-hand accounts of the townspeople lend authenticity and the cast really do a great job at managing multiple roles and costume changes and for once the American accents ALL sounded authentic – to my Australian ear anyway! I found the tendency to perhaps eke out more emotion from the situation than was warranted in the way that American dramas are wont to do a little bothersome but that’s the way the play is written, and not the fault of the cast.

George Duncan’s death here in 1972 led to South Australia becoming the first state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality. Despite the worldwide media attention, sadly not one piece of legislation has ever been passed in Wyoming to address the kind of prejudicial hatred that resulted in the death of Matthew Shepard.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

OzAsia Festival - White Pearl

Sydney Theatre Company and Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta, Wed 20 Oct, 2021.

The set reveals a modern business office in Singapore. Lots of clean shiny straight lines and floor to ceiling windows. An advertisement for Clearday cosmetics loops continuously above the stage – just like the 24/7 screen assault one experiences wandering around modern Asian cities.

The five Clearday employees all hail from different parts of Asia and are over the moon at the success of their newest product. When a video that casts the company in a somewhat different light goes viral on social media the mood changes and they move into damage control. An electronic hit counter tracking the viral video ticks away ominously and relentlessly as cracks emerge in the social fabric of this young company.

Many of these cracks revolve around racism. Is it okay to trade in questionable cultural stereotypes for races that have a minimal presence in Asian countries? Can personal relationships overcome the negative intra-Asian cultural assumptions made about people from Japan, Taiwan or Korea? The dynamics of office politics and the power balance between genders are also put under the spotlight. A strong and even cast deliver an often sassy dialogue with a class and style that forces quieter personalities to conduct their conversations in other surprising locations outside the office.

Plenty of humour ensures the mood never stays too heavy for long – led by the local Singaporean employee (played by Cheryl Ho) who seems lost in an American rap style time warp. Kristy Best as Priya the Indian office boss is suitably commanding, while Nicole Milinkovic as a Thai American has a lot of fun (mostly) exploiting the Thai girl stereotype.

Provocative and confronting, White Pearl is an entertaining analysis of modern business ethics, cultural assumptions, and the role of social media in contemporary Asia and raises many important questions. But we may have to wait for a sequel to find the answers!

(This review also published in The Clothesline at https://theclothesline.com.au/white-pearl-ozasia-festival-2021-review/)

Song #32 A Song for Innocence

 

SONG FOR INNOCENCE

 

I’m reaching out for love

And I fear that when it comes

It will pass me right on by without a word

This sad old crying world can leave you down

 

We all know this world has problems

We all know that times are hard

But try and accept with wisdom

The many things you cannot change

Let your anger turn to joy if you care at all

About that drunk and lonely man on the road – goin’ nowhere

 

If you want to point a finger at the poor old man’s oppressors

If you want to preach a message then make it one of hope

And if you have no hope left in you keep you quiet

What are you doing preaching words of shock and hate?

 

We are all tethered to the same big tree

We’re all in this together: sadness, you and me

If you wanna give us something clever, give us words of hope

Try and make it easier for those who’ve lost their way

Your shocking angry sermons are a waste of words

 

No one’s listening

Are you listening?

If you’re listening

Sing I am listening…..

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1983)

 

COMMENTARY

I had gone back to the theatre for the first time since I left school and found myself in a production that I think may have been called Songs of Innocence and Experience. Just checked and yes it was a collection of poems by William Blake.  There was a scene where the director wanted me to read a particular poem that I found offensive and I refused. It was one of those moments where I can be quite stubborn – I didn’t feel like such a poem added anything of value to the world. I know I didn’t read the poem in the play – perhaps someone else did – but I went away and wrote this song in response. I didn’t ever show it to the director! For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed the production and have many find memories of it.

Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo - Review

Little Theatre, The Cloisters, University Of Adelaide, Thu 14 May.

Presented by Adelaide University Theatre Guild

The Iraq war was a descent into madness – a war based on fabricated evidence of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. The absurdly named Coalition Of The Willing, Australia amongst them, waded into a war that created a hell that helped unleash Al-Quaeda, the Islamic state, and a host of other miseries upon the Iraqi people. It is in this hell that Rajiv Joseph sets his award-winning play. We view events through the eyes of American soldiers, Iraqi civilians, the son of Saddam Hussein, and the ghost of a tiger that has escaped the Baghdad zoo.

The dialogue is laced with dark humour as we watch the soldiers lose their sanity, limbs and the crass souvenirs of war that they hold dear. The military presence brings nothing but misery to Iraqi civilians. Musa, a local Iraqi gardener played by Nigel Tripodi, initially tries to gain from employment as an interpreter but ultimately despairs at the foreigners’ stupidity and lack of sensitivity towards their customs and culture.

The play’s telling irony is that the most intelligent and aware character in the play is an animal’s ghost. Only he, played with great presence by David Grybowski (looking suspiciously like a crazy Spike Milligan) sees the pathos and tragedy of innocent lives being lost as a city burns, the layers of sadness, and the pointlessness of the conflict.

Oliver de Rohan effectively portrays marine Kev’s personal descent into madness. His soldier mate Tom (Adam Tuominen) is played with just the right amount of bluster and bravado befitting the stereotypical profile of an American Marine before he too is forced to face his own fallibility staring into the eyes of a leper.

Multiple short scenes keep the pacing lively. Carefully chosen musical interludes between scenes reinforce the growing sense of futility. The set and staging is visually engaging and everyone is close to the action within the Little Theatre.

While the take home message of this production may be on the bleak side, the play itself is entertaining and a touch eccentric. It’s a good combination supported by a strong cast, an impressive set, and enlightened direction by Nick Fagan.

(Also published on The Clothesline.)