Max Davine's Blog

The new colonials

Since the time of Charlemagne the church has served as an apparatus for colonialism and the first and foremost objective of introducing foreign superstition into materially conquered lands is the reduction of the bodily autonomy and societal security of women. It is so effective because it convinces the majority that what is happening to them is good for them.

Before they introduce the corporatist machines that reward a few men as a means of motivating the eternally deprived masses, before they reduce education to the manufacture of workers instead of expanding minds and creating critical thinkers, and before they replace languages and dialects with their own they have always started with missionaries whose primary objective is to instill fear around any sexual practice that does not involve narrowing a woman’s role in society to that of a breeder. These things may all happen at the same time but as the Cheyenne proverb says “A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground”.

There are endless examples. Long before French, German, English, and Dutch corporations were set up in Africa their missions were starting to appear. Alfred the “Great” prioritized converting the Danes to Christianity over meeting them in the battlefields. Slavery was justified with the Bible and organized rape campaigns as a means of “breeding out” an entire people was employed perhaps for the longest time in Australia but cast its shadow on the concept of Canadian residential schools as well. After India gained its freedom Mother Theresa, when she wasn’t endorsing bloodthirsty dictators like Duvalier and spreading sepsis among the sick by using unsterilized medical equipment, was espousing the evils of birth control and abortion in India. Can anyone look at the situation of India’s population and say in all sanity that this was a good idea?

Now look again at what the insidious consortium of politics, social media giants, and their influencer minions are trying to do to the younger generation. The nostalgia for lost comforts in the “family unit” that of course never existed. The subjugation of women to men being offered as a condolence to the men for their traditional jobs no longer being enough to sustain them, let alone a family. The reduction of education to industrial servitude. All have coincided with an aggressive campaign against women’s empowerment perhaps best exemplified by the overturning of Roe v Wade in the United States two years ago.

George Orwell was wrong. Our freedoms will not be taken from us by the denizens of ivory towers. They will be given away. Sold on beliefs of recapturing a mythical time enjoyed by our forebears. This conversation about communism, about socialism, about fascism – ideas about economic management have never been employed to dominate the masses. Not in the USSR or Hitler’s Germany or anywhere else. They’re just economic concepts. Any concept can be manipulated by adequately corrupt people. No. It all started with the promise of comfort by way of the reduction of women’s liberty. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, and Franco’s Spain all had that in common. The promotion of traditional roles for women without their choice. Breeding and keeping the home and nothing else.

Our education system is already whittled down to grooming children for jobs. Corporations have already proven that the spirit of competition is as useless as anti-monopoly laws if CEO’s are all playing golf together in the same country clubs. Christianity has now a million phantom foes and needs more investment from politics in order to combat them. The blurring of national and religious concepts has gone on for over a decade.

The machine lost some of its power before 2016. Things were looking up. They’re fighting back. And they’re employing similar tactics that were employed in the centuries of colonization that preceded them. That same modus operandi. Disempower women and the nation falls.

We must reframe out political conversations. Never mind who’s a fascist or a communist or socialist or a capitalist. We need to talk about who wants to see the freedoms of women dissolved. And they’re not just in politics. The power that people like Elon Musk has cultivated can decide the outcomes of wars and the destinies of countries far more effectively than any government. These are the monsters sneaking up on our doorsteps. Know them. These are the beasts we should be talking about and when we vote thinking about.

Pirates of the Caribbean

So after twenty years of Pirates of the Caribbean movies and another on the way... I'm sorry... we need to talk about this. Robert Louis Stevenson could get away with it with one pirate book. One Pirates of the Caribbean movie - even two - I can overlook. But now it's what? Eight? We need to talk about pirates. Buccaneers of the Caribbean but we'll touch on the Corsairs of the Barbary Coast.
1500 - 1800 was probably the worst time to be a human being on earth ever. Constantinople had long fallen. Wallachia was gone. Ottomans ruled much of Europe and while they brought with them great advances in science and medicine, they were partial to purchasing the odd load of slaves either from Corsairs or the various Golden Horde remnants scattered across the East. The Habsburg Dynasty fiercely resisted, but warring religious factions in France and Germany - mostly Huguenots and Catholics - switched allegiances now and then and prolonged a state of warfare remembered today as the 100 Years War but it went on longer than that. Plus you had the Inquisition, Barbary Corsairs conducting raids on coastal European villages as far north as Shetland and taking slaves, AND, the gradual adoption of a Roman-style professional military by European powers to replace the old Feudal system of a few mounted lords and their phalanx of peasantry. This blew out military sizes from a few tens of thousand to hundreds of thousands. But there were no railways. Supply lines remained horse and carriage. These armies were hungry, thirsty - water was poisonous by the way - and yes starved of female affection. Napoleon wouldn't come along and make ravaging the women and girls of whatever local village was within walking distance a hanging offence until 1805 so these enormous hosts were quite at liberty to take as they pleased. Food, ale, the mother, the daughter, the son...
So its understandable that virtually anywhere in the world was preferable to Europe. Well, not for the locals. Across the Transatlantic Tradewinds in the Virginia Colonies, the Dutch plantations of Brazil, and the islands of the Caribbean over which French, Spanish, and English navies were - you guessed it - at war with each other, planters were cottoning on to how much cheaper everything is when you have slaves. This rang the dinner bell to a certain Francis Drake - some consider him the OG of the Letter of Marque-appointed privateer in Her Majesty's employ. He conducted raids on Corsair strongholds all along West Africa and Spanish trade hulks along the Trade Winds and, with impunity from his home country, took the loot to the planters - who at this stage were sometimes at war with their own country - and sold the cargo even if that cargo had been bound to their plantation anyway.
What kind of cargo is valuable to a planter in a region with no clearly established currency? It ain't pieces of f'cking 8, people. It's human cargo. The Golden Age of Piracy in Caribbean coincided with the peak of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. And while escaped or emancipated slaves were indeed to be found crewing the odd pirate vessel, they were not well treated. Buccaneering was not an easy life. It was usually short. Very violent. And there are accounts of former slaves being betrayed and sold back to their owners or left behind after raids.
I know they're just movies. And people should not look to cinema to teach them history. But such is culture. Our pop-trends supplant and become our teachers and somehow in two decades Bruckheimer and Disney have not so much as broached the topic of slavery, which was at the heart of Caribbean buccaneering. Not suitable for kids? Neither are those movies, did you notice? There were zombies and shit.
There were pirates who could be called freedom fighters or resistance fighters. Grace O'Malley is a great example. But none of them were in the Caribbean.

My Ongoing Thing with Tarantino Goes On

Tarantino has been criticized plenty for the violence in his films. One would add nothing to the discourse is one were to accuse him to causing an increase of violent tendencies in his viewers and, as an aside, one would also be wrong. But one may wonder if perhaps the violence depicted specifically in Inglorious Basterds represents an ideological shift in reflection on Nazism and the holocaust that has, as time buries memories of the true events deeper into history and fewer and fewer people are alive who can recall them from actual experience, had an unexpectedly disturbing effect on how people today view the persecution and mass murder of Jewish, LGBT, and Roma peoples.
A question I get asked by students who take an interest in 20th Century history with escalating frequently is why the Jewish populations of concentration and later murder camps did not put up “more of a fight” and I find the concept behind the question more and more disturbing each time. They are essentially asking why the authoritarian persecution of Jewish people in Hitler’s Germany and its territories was not answered with overt violence. This concept essentially undermines one of the most horrifying and tragic aspects of the holocaust – the fact that it was done to people who posed absolutely no violent threat whatsoever. Perhaps it is the lens of American culture and it’s popularization of the fearless lone cowboy defending against oppression in all its forms, the every-man-for-himself bearing arms and not relying on others, through which we are beginning to view the events that is causing us to collectively see this non-violence or pacifism as a weakness that in some way invited the persecution. It’s a disturbing thought. Non-violence and pacifism are elsewhere considered admirable attributes, rightly so.
In contrast, Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds totes itself, in the dialogue, as “Jewish vengeance” and depicts the Jewish oppressed, personified by a woman on the run and a crack team of specialist American-Jewish soldiers, committing atrocious acts of violence against Nazis, culminating in the Nazi high command being locked in a theatre (with their spouses and families) and massacred in essentially the same way the Nazis themselves were often documented to do. Satisfying, perhaps. But is this a helpful light through which to reflect on history? The Jewish people, and the LGBT and Roma peoples who were predominantly targeted by Nazis, were not a violent people. It was for this reason, and not the reasons documented by Nazi sympathisers and propagandists themselves, that they were targeted in the first place. Because they were pacifists. Averse to mass murder, as it might still be hoped most peoples are. The Nazis were not a sophisticated war machine that targeted for extermination an aggressor, they are a delirious collective of subservient buffoons who targeted an easy “other” who could not – and because they could not – defend themselves.
Tarantino is known to depict morally ambiguous characters but there was nothing morally ambiguous about the holocaust.
This brings me to the depiction of Hans Landa. While most of the Nazi high command, including Hitler himself, could be seen to be depicted in Inglorious Basterds as rather vacuous thugs, Landa is their antithesis. A highly intelligent, sophisticated, handsome adversary for the anti-heroes. In Landa, Tarantino courts the Heroic evil of Milton’s Satan or Shakespeare’s Iago or Lucas’ Darth Vader that saw them become villains oftentimes more popular and more iconic than the heroes of the stories in which they feature. Can anyone name the “heroes” of Inglorious Basterds of the top of their heads? But there’s a problem with this. Milton’s Satan was a loyal servant whose pride was injured. Iago was jealous of a dashing newcomer. Darth Vader was an innocent boy subjected to terrible tragedy and abuse and groomed by an emotional predator. They represented fictional scenarios and had sympathetic origins. Landa was a fanatic racist whose sole diabolical purpose was to hunt down and kill people who are very real in ways that were really done. Landa represents real human evil at its worst.
Let’s contrast this with how Nazis are depicted in the Indiana Jones films.
Sure they dress well and are shown to be a genuine threat, such as when Gestapo torturer Toht has Marion Ravenwood in his clutches, but it’s never so long before they commit some bumbling folly of almost pantomimic buffoonery, such as Toht burning his hand with a Jewish pendant and dancing around in the snow. Throughout Raiders, their names are seldom mentioned. They make absurd faces and are shot from comical angles as they lose control of the situation. Most importantly, they are time and again agents of their own destruction rather than being brutally murdered by Jews. The gigantic fighter who gives Jones a run for his money at the airstrip is eviscerated by the plane’s rotor because he’s not paying attention to his surroundings. Nazi drivers veer off the road and plunge into chasms at the slightest push. And the film’s infamous ending shows all the surviving Nazis of the piece, and important Nazi sympathiser Belloq, meddling in Jewish mysticism and being destroyed by supernatural powers they themselves invoked.
It's disheartening then to hear a rather misinformed punchline from The Big Bang Theory be repeated by viewers who say that Indiana Jones essentially had no effect on the Raiders’ plot. He just bumbles his way through it, trying to stay alive, and merely witnesses the Nazis destroy themselves as result of their own arrogance. This may not be classic American storytelling, but it does serve to remove all the power from the Nazi characters AND save Indiana Jones from any moral question.
The morality of Jones’ actions is thrown at him in both films in which Nazis feature. And rightly so. He is a mercenary, essentially a gun for hire, and he plays his part in the imperialist theft of sacred artefacts from various part of the globe. And he kills a lot of people in the process. I emphasize now that we’re not talking about Temple of Doom, which certainly did have problematic, imperialist overtones. We’re talking about Raiders and Last Crusade, in which Jones’ adversaries are Nazis. By having Jones stand back and let the Nazis destroy themselves, his hands are kept clean of too much blood, unlike Tarantino’s Jewish characters in Inglorious Basterds. And here’s another point – Indiana Jones is an American with a distinctly Welsh surname. Not a Jew. He does not represent the victims of Nazism, but those militarized forces which outmatched and defeated them historically on a battlefield. With Jones, it’s war. Not murder.
Last Crusade again shows Nazis and they are if anything even more pantomimically comical than they were in Raiders; shaking their fists at Zeppelins after being thrown through the windows, crashing their vehicles into each other in the chaos Jones stirs up, and in the end again largely being killed by their own stupidity rather than the entrapment and massacre featured in Tarantino. There are no Hans Landas in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones. The closest we have is arguably General Vogel, but even he has many instances of buffoonery and ultimately serves as an agent of his own destruction. Unlike Landa, none of the Nazi adversaries in Jones walk away, and yet this total annihilation is accomplished without costing Jones any heroic points.
That is not to say that the villains of Spielberg’s films are weak. As with Toht, they have their moments of power such as the multiple times Jones is captured and tied up, but even then Spielberg is careful to frame his shots so as to not elevate them too highly or for very long. His displays of Nazi horror, while not absent, are toned down and more cartoonish than Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan because these latter two are serious studies in the consequences of fanaticism whereas Jones can be seen as an exercise much the same as undertaken by the creators of the Loony Tunes, Marvel and DC comics, and Allied military propaganda of the era in which the Jones films are set; that is, taking the Nazis’ power away from them while still showing them as a credible and immediate threat. We see them burning books, we see them planning war, and we see them appropriating cultures they saw as inferior to their own ends. We just don’t see them do any of it very well.
Inglorious Basterds shows true visceral horror within its prologue. Like a strange comical mutation of the Jones films and Schindler’s List spliced together and formed into one violent, morally ambiguous, crass, wholly inappropriate mess.
It is true that the holocaust itself is never mentioned in the Indiana Jones films, although the fanatic racism of the Nazis is touched upon, and this is for good reason. Such an event has no place in pantomime. Real human suffering must be given the gravity it deserves and Tarantino’s idea of the mechanised mass-murder comes entirely from an era blessed with the hindsight knowledge that factories solely designed for the bureaucratised killing of human beings could exist. That is, everyone knows what’s going on and, unlike the victims of history, they’re fighting back.
When writing history certain prejudices must first be tackled. In 1939, your average European Jew wanted nothing from life but to continue living and they existed in a society that, while not entirely welcoming of them, either ignored them or hurt them with little more than harsh language. They got bye. For LGBT people it was different. For them there was no solace, no comfort, no freedom to be who they were anywhere they went but their existence was largely ignored by the mainstream and so they could be imagined not to exist to the average heterosexual cisgendered person. Mass murders had historically been carried out, but they were little noted in schools and of little consequence to 20th Century Western Europeans. And they were obvious. They involved mass shootings, mass starvations, mass poisonings, they were done in the height of violent aggression, and they were usually done thousands of miles away. Nobody had any concept of a shower that spewed Zyklon B into a room full of people. Not anyone in the general public anyway. Nobody except those vicious fanatics who were planning them had ever conceived in their wildest fantasies that factories could be built for the sole purpose of murder. Even as the oppression stepped up gradually as the years before the Final Solution was put into action, a peaceful people whose focus in life was to make a modest living and simply carry on existing did not have among them minds sick enough to imagine what awaited them.
Tarantino, perhaps unintentionally, proposes through popular fiction that the Jews could have made more of a fight of it. But that does entirely undermine the whole origin of the Holocaust. The victims of Nazism were not weak. They were easy targets chosen by weak monsters because of their peaceful nature.

Beyond the Beehive

Beyond the Beehive
Carol Whitfield

It can be any time of the day. You can be doing anything from the blandly mundane or the bogglingly difficult. An Amy Winehouse song comes on. Maybe it’s one of her more upbeat tunes? You get a little spring in your step. Maybe it’s one of her more, shall we say, personal numbers? “Back to Black”, perhaps. Then, you hear that haunted howl thundering out of your speakers, or your headphones, reaching from some turbulent shore and raining raw emotion down through your entire body. For a moment, it’s like she never left us. The connection to each and every word, the way her voice feels like her own soul cascading out of her body and into the ether, it’s like she’s there. But addiction is a demon that has taken more from the arts than the sea has drowned men. She’s gone. Truly worthy to stand beside Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, in more than just the age they reached before the dragon won its hard-fought battle. Even seven years on, it’s a hard realization to come to, and gives what she did leave behind for all of us who listen a certain gravitas that will never diminish.
One performer who ensures we never forget the gift that Winehouse was is Carol Whitfield, who together with an incredible four-piece band is bringing the music to the Butterfly Club in a series of intimate and powerful performances. What must be noted first is Whitfield’s love for the music she’s bringing us; she narrowly avoids tears when she speaks about the woman who created the sounds, and channels Winehouse during her performances in such an innate and devoted way that at times, in the low light when the beehive and the white dress is all we can really see, it almost feels like the real thing. But then again, some things you see with your eyes, others you see with your heart. Whitfield pays a final respect to Winehouse by not trying to emulate her vocals or imitate her too heavily. She was so unique, to do so would be a disaster anyway. Whitfield knows and trusts that she has enough of a connection of her own to bring us her interpretation of the songs, an act of courage that must be applauded.
With the accompaniment of four brilliant musicians, “Beyond the Beehive” had them dancing in their seats, crying quietly in the shadows, and finally left us glad that we have this little gift to reflect on in the long and beautiful annuls of musical history.

A Masquerade Ball Cabaret

A Masquerade Ball Cabaret
At Le Grande Cabaret
Max Davine

Camilla Cream is the darling of Melbourne’s – if not Australia’s – Burlesque scene. And if you’ve ever seen her in action, it isn’t hard to see why. Even if she remains in the iconic character Camilla Cream, her performances are fun, exciting, colourful, sexy, sassy and with just enough self-parody that they be not taken too seriously. So when she invited me to review her new show, I had to say yes. Minus any affiliation with either Bohemian Rhapsody or that other one I was part of, it’s a little strange. One feels naked. That’s okay, though. Because one will soon be in a room full of people who feel (and are) mostly naked. But feeling intimidated or awkward is not an enduring situation in a Le Grande Cabaret event, and everyone who attended was about to find out that Le Grande Cabaret is still keeping it fresh, alive and very much with open and welcoming arms even if you’re going alone or have never seen a burlesque show before.

You find yourself in a bookshop with a bar. Already, what’s not to like? There are gorgeous women walking around in red velvet robes. You get a drink (maybe) browse the literature and then take your seats as Patrick Collins takes the stage. In his smoking jacket he is everything a burlesque MC should be. Charming, charismatic, handsome and willing to show off his own talents (magic?) on the side.

But it’s the burlesque performers who own the night, and the line-up for this year’s Melbourne Fringe is the best you can get for a night out in Melbourne. See the edgy performance of De La Vinx, followed by the fun and bubbly Liberty Foxx. Such is the mix. An interlude with the heart-rendering vocals of Aria Scarlett while the great Camilla herself takes the stage and then the powerhouse performance style of Trigger Happy and Pyra Technix, whose dance got the firefighter in me alert but that’s okay. I know the venue has a dry chem extinguisher on hand, should anything go awry.

If you’re enticed – as well you should be – go catch this amazing line up for Melbourne Fringe before it ends. The theme is masquerade, so don’t forget your mask and velvet.

Electro Girl

“Electro Girl”

At The Butterfly Club
Max Davine

It’s 2018, and yet while science may have made leaps and bounds in understanding epilepsy in the past century, taking it from the days when it was associated with demonic possession and sufferers were often subjected to life threatening exorcism rites to an age where it can at least be monitored, there remains no absolute cure, and public awareness and knowledge has barely seen it destigmatized beyond the rude stereotypes of which sadly still permeate some corners of our popular culture.

One can assume that’s what inspired Lainie Chait and director Clare Pickering to bring Electro Girl to the intimate upstairs state of The Butterfly Club.

It opens with a sickly-looking Chait stumbling through the audience, greeting the guests, before falling into a demonstration of what has plagued her more than three hundred times for real in her life; a grand mal seizure. It’s a shocking awakening to what we’re about to be talked through, but one done always with gentle humor and self-deprecating irony.

Reemerging as Electro Girl, in her dazzling jumpsuit, Chait and her brain, Nora, talk to us intimately and candidly through twenty-six years of epilepsy.

It’s not unlike your average biography, all the usual psychological conditions are evident; youth, fomo, a poor grasp of the not-naïve reality of casual sex, alcohol and recreation drugs, all of which exacerbate anxiety and self-loathing in any and all of us. For Chait, this came coupled with another condition, and at this we are about to be sweetly but thoroughly schooled. All the while, there is the presence of a perfectly average life…

She talks us through her failed relationships, we’ve all had them, but not with the struggles caused by medication and the occasional post-orgasm convulsions to boot. She tells us about her private journal, most of us kept one, albeit not one full of medical advice and minutiae chronicling her struggles with a brain that tends to “hiccup”, as she says. This is a life story, quite a normal one at that, but with the addition of a struggle also not so uncommon, but one seldom seriously spoken of. It gives all of us the chance to ponder epilepsy and come to grips with just how normal it can be. There were moments anyone can relate to, balanced with moments of extraordinary accomplishment in the face of an unfair diagnosis. But, then again, if anyone can have most of Lainie’s life, then those with the rest of it can live as successfully and richly as she has.

Thank you, Lainie.

The Toxic Avenger

“The Toxic Avenger”

By Theatre of the Damned
Max Davine

Geelong has to be the most reluctant city to embrace the creativity of its community in the whole of Australia. Never was a town so perfectly laid out and positioned for hosting films, both international and local, a business that would create thousands of much needed jobs and bring much needed income to the region, and yet so vehemently against the idea. Not outside of Europe is there such a high volume of theaters per square kilometer, and such a high population of truly extraordinary talent to use them per capita, and yet such a communal and political disdain for the performing arts. Only the truly ignorant would say creative industries aren’t profitable, but as much as Geelong is a creative town, it hosts far too many old-fashioned minds intent on looking backwards, rather than moving forwards.

One example of “forwards”, however, is Theatre of the Damned. Founded by Tony and Elise Dahl, their mission statement includes the parameter that everyone should have “the same opportunity to be in a stage production regardless of experience”. Excellent to see! Not that such a statement can’t backfire, but success is entirely impossible without considerable risk. Having said that, nothing screams “considerable risk” quite as loudly nor proudly as staging a musical version of Lloyd Kaufman’s bonkers cult movie “The Toxic Avenger”.

Not everyone is unfortunate enough to have seen the movie, but nobody knew what to expect as we entered the excellent Shenton Theatre, decked out as it was in absorbingly elaborate set pieces. A live micro-orchestra was conducted by Courtney Miller and the cast took to the stage to give us what we come for. What that is turns out to be an almost binary antithesis to Kaufman’s exercise in bad taste. Playwriter Joe Dipietro and songwriter David Bryan (of Bon Jovi) have turned Toxie’s tale into a fun, straightforward, almost family-friendly night of entertainment. Not that it does not demand a considerable amount from its production team, guided expertly by director Doug Mann and choreographer Xavier McGettigan. Together, they made a complicated mass of stagery seem fluid and simple, and the dances elegantly beautiful.

The rest is heaped on the shoulders of the cast, and in some cases, they could not have been better. Liam Erk is destined to be Gelong’s next favorite export, shows his quality as Melvin Ferd the Third, and undergoes a profound but truthful shift in physicality when he emerges as the mutated Toxie (and the somehow tastefully handled limb-ripping begins). Erk connects to Ferd so intimately that even when grotesquerie of his make-up or the sheer insanity of the piece threatened to spill over into absurdity, we never forgot the loveable nerd inside.

The bill also promises the “most memorable and unbelievable duet you’ll ever see on any stage” – a reach that far extends the grasp of this company – however that is not to say that the duet is not one of the most difficult this reviewer has ever seen. The musical battle between Toxie’s mother and the wicked mayor – both played by Alicia Miller – is a marvel of character work. Aside from suffering twice the demands of a single performance, it was evident Miller had done twice the difficult development and preparation for her characters. Only such devotion and finesse could have saved such a moment from spinning out of control, but in Miller’s hands it is not only believable, it’s brilliant. She is utterly breathtaking.

Theatre of the Damned deserve the full support of the Geelong community. They would be insane not to get behind it.

Burke's Company

Review of Burke’s Company – The Basin Theatre Company

11 August, 2018

Chloe Towan

In 1860, Irish-born explorer William O’Hara Burke led an ill-fated expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Basin Theatre’s production of Burke’s Company by Bill Reed brings the Burke and Wills story to life by showing not only the plight of Burke and Wills, but also the consequences of the choices made by those who were supposed to meet them.
The Basin Theatre is a lovely little venue located in Thethe Basin near the Dandenongs. The Australian native plants seen driving to the theatre definitely help set the scene even before the theatre is entered. Graham Fly and Gary Bott, both of whom also make cameo roles in the play, have taken a simplistic approach to their set design yet have managed to transform the stage into an outback stockade effectively, facilitated by the warm lighting designed by Natalia McKinna. Perhaps unnecessary, however, is a series of landscape photographs that are projected to the side of the stage. Whilst the images do help viewers discern the location of the scene taking place, the transitions between different images did tend to be somewhat clunky on the night of the review, with location images jarringly changing mid-scene at points.

A soundscape by Fly and Daniel Koster also adds to the feel of the show, with both ambient noises played during scenes and musical interludes playing during transition. It seemed, however, that the ambient noises weren’t used as frequently in the second act which did not make the play feel as much like a cohesive whole as it could have.
The play’s story is told in a non-linear fashion, which, to someone unfamiliar with the Burke and Wills story, may seem slightly confusing at first. The play switches between the characters’ conversations together, internal monologues and the written statements of the Cooper’s Creek Party that were supposed to meet Burke and Wills’ party. The actors all truly look as if they’ve been wandering the outback for months, thanks to detailed costumes by Eileen Ervine, Graham Fly and Natalie McKinna and makeup by Tamara Hill. It is clear that the cast are putting their all into deciphering the difficult, often meaty content of the script. Whilst some performances lack the nuance needed to portray the tougher scenes, the cast work well together to encapsulate the endlessness of the Australian desert and futility of Burke and co.’s journey to Mount Hopeless.
A standout is Matt Phillips as King, Burke’s youngest party member. A voice of hope on the journey, Phillips delivers the most nuanced performance of the cast and did well to convey his character’s journey and progression. Kudos should also be given to Robert Trott who stepped into the role of Wright a week before the play’s opening. With script in hand, Trott made a valiant effort to decipher the difficult material of his scene whilst still reading the dialogue off the page, acting alongside Zane Kelly as the conflicted Brahe. It would be interesting to see what could be done with this scene after Trott has had the chance to become more comfortable in his role and get off-book.
Graham Fry’s direction was effective in dialogue scenes;, however the biggest problem the play experienced was its pacing issues. The play, much like Burke’s journey, felt long with several audience members becoming restless before the end of the first act. Whilst the slow pace did definitely help to convey the endlessness and hopelessness of the journey, more rise and fall in the pacing of the scenes could be useful to still convey the same themes, but also keep the play moving. Some actors also appeared stuck playing a ‘mood’, although this might be fixed should the pace be picked up.

Burke’s Company tells a familiar tale from a new angle. If you have an interest i
in Australian history and supporting local works, make sure you see the show before it closes. Just be sure to bring some water so you don’t feel as though you’re literally along for the ride.

Puffs

PUFFS
at the Alex Theatre
By Bryanna Reynolds

The play ‘PUFFS, Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic’ is bound to have you in stitches and casting magic spells! The laugh out loud comedic play showing at The Alex Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne Australia. A true delight you don't want to miss the opportunity to see!

Within a 10 minute drive of Melbourne’s CBD you can find your way down to the the theatre for a fun night suitable for friends and family! The moment you walk into the foyer of the theatre you are greeted by reminiscent decorations of magic and wizardry. Not to mention once you are in the actual theatre it feels as though you have stepped through the doors of the Great Hall and before you know it you feel just like a student at a certain school of magic and magic.

The play ‘Puffs’ follows the lives of Hufflepuff students through their seven years of schooling while they become witches and wizards. The play surrounds you by not only letting you reminisce about your favourite Harry Potter films but transports you to a time and place where anything is possible. I think it is through the element of friendship that really brings together the characters in the play. Not only for the play but also for people in the audience watching, it simply unites you as one with the play. It truly is an experience that needs to be seen to be believed. The cast includes the multi-talented Rob Mills a wonderful addition to the play. This is a change from his musical theatre performances and he truly has a comedic side that people need to witness. He brings his character to life and leaves you wanting more. The cast as a whole work so wonderfully together and I hope to see more of them together and for more people Australia wide to get an opportunity to witness this play and the actors bringing it to life. Also no worries if you haven’t seen the Harry Potter movies.

Whilst I would recommend that you have seen some of the films as it would make more sense with a lot of the references made throughout it isn’t essential as the jokes would still make you laugh out loud. The play truly combines a sense of magic and its Australian twang to the production is also hilarious. You can’t help but feel connected. There is also an element that this play was so highly successful on Broadway and is being represented in Melbourne by Aussie talent. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter franchise then ‘Puffs’ is certainly for you. The exhibition is suitable for people of all ages and there is sure to be an element of the play which excites the magic within you. So make sure to take along a camera and have your phone handy to snap a pic. You definitely won’t regret it. Needless to say the creative team behind ‘Puffs’ have allowed for plenty of Instagram friendly moments!

Make sure to check it out whilst in Melbourne!

The Lonesome West

“The Lonesome West”
By LAB Theatre Company
Max Davine

Not long after Melbourne Actor’s Lab director Peter Kalos, along with producers Natalia Nespeca and Skye Young, staged their brilliant show of “The North Pool” in the rudimentary little theatre in what appeared to be the large storeroom at the back of their school in Brunswick, the team announced a drastic upscaling. Thenceforth, their plays, with their distinctively intimate, raw, gritty and paralyzingly honest performances and lean, sharp writing by the luminaries whose sides are practiced in none other than New York City’s original actor’s Studio, would be shown at St. Kilda’s gorgeous Alex Theatre. No more would Kalos’ vision be economized by what he could fit on the tiny floor, nor would his audiences be restricted to the handful that could fit in the ramshackle stalls of the much-loved acting school. As a former student of Kalos’ early years, it did feel right to be back in the old neighborhood. But “The Lonesome West” is a drastic leap from the taut little two-handers Kalos has been handling through his school for the past nine years. Nor, however, is it Ben-Hur. Rather, it’s a starting block. A step out of the fringe-theatre of claustrophobic New York and into the longer-winded, more mobile plays of Great Britain. In this case, Ireland.

One of Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black but comedic Connemara Trilogy, which also included “A Skull in Connemara” and ‘The Beauty Queen of Leenane”, “The Lonesome West” carries a visual and sensual dynamic in it’s dialogue that demands the utmost discipline from its actors, in order to transport anyone who hasn’t strayed two-to-three hours west of Galway into the Emerald Hills of rural Ireland, where English might be taken for a whole other language. Fortunately, Kalos’ instincts for actors are as sharp as ever here. All have mastered the accent so perfectly that, while intelligible, it is just barely so, but more importantly, they have found tremendous characters in McDonagh’s work. The two brothers are electrifying in their powerhouse scenes together, and this is where McDonagh’s writing excels. Dean Gunera’s Coleman is quietly and subtly sadistic; a madman wrapped in layer upon layer of lazy complacency. Sean Kitchner’s Valene is a comedic masterwork; his very voice and appearance are ridiculously humorous, and he gets the most out of every line, but rendered with such careful attention to truth that he is almost heartbreakingly real.

However, in much the same way as “A Skull in Connemara”, it is in McDonagh’s periphery that cracks begin to show. Kalos is an acting teacher, and part of his class is working on two-hander scenes picked from any script that fits the bill. Meaning he likely chose this play based on the merit of the scenes between Coleman and Valene alone, rather than the whole play. Indeed, while Renee Kypriotis and Mattew Elliott, in the roles of Girlene and Father Welsh, respectively, are no less excellent actors, and they have all developed the intimacy between their characters so deeply that you’d never doubt that they’ve lived together within the confines of a small rural village their entire lives, McDonagh clearly didn’t care for Girlene in creating her; she is merely a means of communication and a sexual talking point for the men, and no performance, however inspired, can save her; Father Welsh is yet another drunken, troubled priest, and yet again, while Elliott plays him wonderfully, he is written as nothing more than a plot device.
Again, this does not fall on the actors.
McDonagh shares the strange aversion to female characterization with much of his male contemporaries and has a streak of underdeveloped supporting characters across his entire resume. Ultimately, you see a Melbourne Actor’s Lab play for the acting, and in doing so, “The Lonesome West” does not disappoint.