Reviews These Days ...

From Verity...

It can be hard in these days of gradually vanishing newspaper coverage of the arts to nail enough reviews to give the punter a notion of what's on where and an idea of a number of people's take on a play.

'The Sweetest Thing' - currently playing at Belvoir Downstairs (until Sunday, November 21st) has only caught one review in a major newspaper - being bumped consistently for coverage of the STC's production of Sam Shepard's 'True West'. Which is fine, of course. I'll give a nod to relativities here!

The good thing is the on-line community has more space  to discuss a work and access to a greater range of informed subjective responses to new work so...here are three more reviews to round out the picture..

ABC Online from Jenny Blain: http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3059913.htm 

Time Out from Pristine Ong:

http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/theatre/event/19519/the-sweetest-thing.aspx

Alternate Media Group from Toby Boon:

http://www.altmedia.net.au/theatre-the-sweetest-thing-2/26983

Angela's Kitchen

Hilary says...

'Angela's Kitchen' opens tomorrow night, a Griffin Theatre Company production at the Stables in Kings Cross.

It's a one-man show performed and written by the inimitable Paul Capsis, in conjunction with director Julian Meyrick, and myself as associate writer.

Paul and I met as teenagers in 1985 through Shopfront Theatre in Sydney's south. We became fast friends, bonded by our Surry Hills childhoods, our love of music that no one else was into, and theatre. We created a miniature surf musical that toured from Pastel's in the city to the Clarendon in Katoomba. Through Paul I met Julian, whose Kickhouse Theatre commissioned a play from me in 1993, leading to my working with Julian and Louise, and the beginning of that friendship.

Twenty or so years passed and we'd all gone off in different directions. So when Nick Marchand asked if I'd collaborate with Paul and Julian on 'Angela's Kitchen', I was overjoyed. Not only was it the opportunity to work with two dear and old friends, but also with two great artists, on a play about the world Paul came from when I first knew him.

Every word in the play is Paul's. My job as associate writer has been to help Julian craft, edit, and elucidate themes while, as a writer, staying out of the way. The play's power comes from the honesty and simplicity of Paul's story-telling, and it was clear that any literary conceits would diffuse this power.

While we have made no attempt to make the play be about more than it is, the experience of the migrant's flight from trauma to safety is a universal one – there are few Australians who cannot claim it as part of their family history.  Angela's story provides a window into an ordinary life – a Maltese immigrant, a wife and mother, living in Surry Hills. This ordinary life is made of epic stuff – war, death, courage, endurance. The world is full of such windows, such 'ordinary' lives. By letting us glimpse into Angela's, Paul makes us consider where we come from, how we came to be what we are, how our actions shape our children.

Find out more about ANGELA'S KITCHEN at Griffin

Our Melbourne cast

Here's our Melbourne cast and director at the reading of The Seven Needs last Thursday.

As we're mostly Sydney-based, it was only Ned (who is about to become a Melbourne resident) who was able to get along to the reading. See the previous post for his account of the evening.

For more info about MKA Richmond's Open Season go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Richmond-Australia/MKA/129779870388203 or check out the company at  http://www.wix.com/mkamkamka/mkarichmond

Or read the indefatigable Augusta Supple's post about the company here.

7 NEEDS

I arrived in Melbourne slightly jaded having said good bye to my home of 20 years and wondering where I'm gonna lay my head for next few weeks when I'm back in Sydney. I said a quick hello to the family and headed off to MKA Richmond for the reading of 7NEEDS. There was one slight hitch that being that MKA had been informed that they couldn't operate a Theatre in their space. I wondered if the reading would be on at all.

I found the address and noticed a few people surreptitiously gathered outside a doorway. I thought I'd lost my mind and this was the inner city Melbourne of John Wren fame; sly grog, sp bookies and the rest. I waved the family good bye and slipped inside. MKA had indeed been given notice but that seemed to be no deterrent for them. Tobias and Glynn told me they'd already found a new venue and handed me a beer.

The space is amazing. These guys have converted what was effectively Tobias' living room into a Theatre. It's roughly the same size of La Mama in the early days. It's a crying shame that Richmond Council have given the the flick but I reckon it'll be Richmond's loss more than it will be MKA's.

We sat down and 7NEEDS took off. This was the first time all 7 plays had been put together and what a revelation it was! Director Paige Marshall arranged the plays in order to reflect Maslow's hierarchy of needs starting with Food, Shelter, Sex and moving up through the others. Paige structured the piece like a pyramid and it made sense. The audience loved it and it struck me what gold we 7 had mined. 7 minds riffing on 7 needs in 7 entirely original voices. Really exciting. What an amazing introduction to the world of Melbourne Theatre! MKA are a breath of fresh and it was an invigorating to get a taste of it.