When the play was first produced, American audiences were surprised to hear that Australia even took part in the Vietnam War.

ARENA Arts and Entertainment are a highly respected WA independent, not-for-profit arts organisation, dedicated to supporting Community Theatre and Theatre for Schools productions. They are presenting this, their latest drama at The Latvian Centre (LC), 60 Cleaver Street in Belmont, conveniently situated just off Great Eastern Highway, a couple of kms east of The Burswood.

The 2-hour production is nearing the end of its season, with performances on Thursday 23^rd, Friday 24^th, and Saturday 25^th June. All shows begin at 8.00 pm.

The set comprises several black rostra at heights varying from 20 cms to 1 metre across the rear of the stage. There are brightly coloured cubes acting as seats. An impressive tree fills one corner.

The clever lighting and sound design by Simon James gave the impression of a much more substantial lighting and sound rig. The sound and lighting operators were Callum Vinsen and Brendan Ellis.

Stage manager Simon James was assisted by ASMs Stewart Mulligan, Sarah Langridge and Gema Seenarain, who worked speedily as a team between scenes. They were helped by the sprites and fairies from the Shakespearean opening scene of the play. These fairy costumes were made by Phylissa Meagher and Chris Ellis.

       The audience find themselves as parents watching the last few seconds of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Eve’. The sprites and fairies fill the aisles and run onto the stage. Year 12 student, ebullient Tom (Brad Albert) who is acting as Puck, moves to the front of the stage and takes his bow. The surprisingly prejudiced headmaster, Roy (Andrew Smally), congratulates his cast and their director, Miss Latrobe (Gema Seenarain).

     After show, Tom meets attractive student, Meg (Madeleine Shaw). Meg’s hypochondriacal, snobbish mother, Gwen (Valerie Henry) is bossing her hen-pecked husband, Jim (Don Weaver), who loves Meg. Gwen then berates daughter Meg for talking to boys – especially Tom, one of those new Pommie immigrants!

     For their holidays, Meg and her parents are hoping to travel afar in their luxury caravan. Gwen is never happy or satisfied, and even sets up contentious situations.

     As the headmaster and his nervous wife, Coral (Stephanie Locke) leave the school, he starts to bully her for talking to staff and parents. Coral is broken hearted at losing a son decades earlier, and is trying to come to terms with the constant grief and needs friends. Perhaps her overfriendly meeting with Leonie (Sarah Langridge) or her passionate encounter with honeymooner, Rick (Stewart Mulligan) will cheer her up.

     Tom’s Mum, Vic (Phylissa Meagher) proudly cuddles her son; her ‘blue collar’ husband from Nottingham, Harry (Simon James) tells Tom how proud he is. Tom’s parents are struggling financially, and are heading off for a basic camping holiday.

     To everyone’s horror, it is not long before the headmaster and his wife, Meg’s family and Tom’s clan all find themselves in the same camping site for their 1967 Christmas break. The campsite has Christmas entertainment with Hawaiian dancers and a zany and enthusiastic Master of Ceremonies, (Michael Moshos), who parallels Ariel in the ‘Tempest’. However, the weather turns nasty and a storm causes destruction to the camping area – a real life ‘Tempest’.

Director Christine Ellis has lucidly directed this complex character study. Every person has been richly written, and in this production, we can immediately connect and recognise them with people we know in our lives.

The ARENAarts is always keen to give newcomers a chance to act, and in this play the impressive male lead was new to the stage. There were some very good performances, with ‘old troupers’ like Val and Simon giving superb performances whilst generously, but subtly, helping others around them on the stage. One actor was word perfect, with good powerful diction but was so locked off on the script that the acting suffered. Try to think what the words mean as you are saying them, and let your body go with the flow.

The pace was very good, and the mood of the play, which varied from hilarity to deep tragedy well displayed.

It was good to see Simon James – as good as ever – back on the stage, after years of designing the lighting and sound.

A beautifully written play, well presented with some very strong performances.

The producers of the play, ARENAarts, have already brought us half a dozen wonderfully colourful and thrilling Pratchett stage plays over the past few years. This tongue-in-cheek story – ‘comedy theatre production of operatic proportions’ – is loosely based on the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ musical. Like most of Pratchett’s stage plays, the book was adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs, and the director has further modified this (slightly).

As a child, Terry was desperate to be an astronomer, writing his first spooky, astral story for his school magazine in 1961, aged 13! His first children’s novel, written and illustrated by Terry, followed 10 years later when he was a journalist. He gave up an excellent job to become a full time author in 1987 and by 1996; he was the top selling author. Pratchett’s books are filled with suspense and humour. Writing 2 books a year, ‘Maskerade’ was the eighteenth of the forty novels in the Discworld series, and the fifth witches’ story.

Multi-award-winning Pratchett was second only to J. K. Rowling, selling 2.5 million books in the UK alone, and more than 85 million books worldwide, in 37 languages.

After being knighted, Pratchett thought it only correct that he should make his own sword – this he did from ore he dug himself, blended with meteor ore. He gained nine honorary degrees, but after suffering from Alzheimer’s for 7 years – not the stroke he was thought to have had – he died in March this year. Admired by Margaret Atwood and George R. R. Martin, only four years before his death, Pratchett had the third fastest selling adult hardback in history – dictated to a friend as he had lost his writing skills.

He gave a million dollars to the Alzheimer’s Foundation.

The two and a half hour fun performances – which cost only the price of a cinema ticket – are brought to life by ARENAarts each Thursday, Friday and Saturday night (Sunday matinees), curtain up at 8.00 pm in The Latvian Centre (LC Theatre), 60 Cleaver Terrace, Belmont – just off the Great Eastern Highway. Plenty of free parking. The season runs until Saturday 18^th June.

The stage has a 60 cms raised area at the rear, giving two very effective performance levels. The scenery was fairly simple (designer Simon James) but there were a great number of interesting props supplied by Linda Redman, who, along with Chris Ellis and Rachel McCann also provided the quality costumes.

The director employed several areas of the stage, moving the attention of the audience with his clever lighting design – operated by Gordon Johnson (no relation, this tech has class) – this kept the pace moving very well with the minimum stagehand interruptions. The stage manager was Linda Redman, efficiently aided by Janet and Callum Vinsen.

       The show opens with a powerful welcoming speech by a Teller (Callum Vinsen), who sets the scene.

      We join Granny Esme Weatherwax (Ursula Johnson), an obsessive and self-centred witch, sitting on the blasted heath. Seated next to her at the small fire, is her dizzy witch friend, Nanny Ogg (Julie Holmshaw).  They are searching for a third witch to join their coven and have in mind, Agnes X. Nitt (Joanne Williams), but she has ambitions to become a famous opera singer. Adopting the stage name of Perdita, Agnes goes to the local Ankh-Morpork Opera House owned by Mr Seldom Bucket (Michael Lamont) and asks for a part in the next show.

      The house manager, Salzella (Robert Whitehead) has already chosen an attractive lead singer, Christine (Emily Theseira) who is full of her own importance, but untalented as a vocalist. Musical director, Herr Undershaft (Johan Smit) decides to use Perdita voice to sing along to Christine’s movements. As the audition takes place, Pounder, the rat catcher (Penny Phillips) and Walter Plinge, the young janitor (Sarah Christiner) weave in and out of the three ballet stars, Giselle, Solange and Collette (Lily Bailup, Riti Smith and Rachel McCann) as they rehearse their routines.

       Walter’s Mum, Mrs Plinge (Christine Ellis) prepares the refreshment for the visiting world famous, Italian Tenor, Senior Enrico Basilica (Jim Chantry). Basilica cannot speak a word of English so relies upon his manager (Maria Passalacqua) to translate.

       Soon, random corpses start appearing; have they been murdered? Then the witches find that the Opera House is haunted, so decide to investigate the mysterious deaths. They come face to face with a threatening thief (Elizabeth Meath) and the production manager, André (Brendan Ellis) is acting strange. Could the murderer possibly be the innocent scenery painter, Mr Cripps (Donald Weaver) or stagehand, Amo (Ned Wolf)?

Director Simon James has been bringing joy to the Perth audiences for 30 years, winning many awards on the way for his directing, acting and set designs. This is Simon’s sixth Pratchett play, and he has regathered his regular team for this show. When you have a great cast, stick to them.

This troupe was superb, not a weak link anywhere, they had pace, empathy, good comedic delivery – even the ballet dancers brought a big smile with their subtle, fun movements. The script was like that of a pantomime, plenty of one-liners and written on two levels, one for the young audience (this show would suit 10 years and above) and the ‘mature’ double-entendre jokes for the parents.

With a larger cast, one often spots the daydreamers who are not too sure what is going on, here the cast were word perfect, attentive and moved beautifully.

Special mention should go to the two witches, Perdita and Christine who were magnificent; however, from Opera House owner down to the rat catcher and Walter, the cast were exceptional.

A very funny show, with plenty of dry humour and the odd reference to well-known phrases from the cinema. A reasonably priced, most professional, fun night out.

This sublimely amusing ARENAarts’ production can be seen at the Latvian Centre (LC Theatre), 60 Cleaver Terrace, Belmont. Plenty of free parking. The two-hour performances run nightly at 8.00 pm until the 5^th April, with matinees on Sunday 23^rd and the 30^th March at 2.00 pm.

The set (Allan James) is deliberately minimalistic, with a simple door frame representing a door; this allows the zany sound effects to fill in the illusion. At one stage a whole pack of hounds came onto the stage – well as many glove puppets as the stage hands could hold – and what if one was Aggro! Who cares? One particular prop was quite spectacular, making the audience jump on its entrance.

There is a stunning backcloth painted by scenic artist extraordinaire, Tim Prosser. With quite simple scenery, quality lighting was required to ensure the creepy effect, well done Mario Piccoli on your lighting design.

 According to the script, all the characters are played by three male actors, director Simon James decided to use three females instead and the result is even, more hilarious.

        When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, petrified to death by a massive hound, an anonymous note is sent to Sherlock Holmes (Amanda Watson) at Baker Street – cue Gerry Rafferty!! Yes this tale is filled with clever cringe jokes – telling him to keep away from Dartmoor. Naturally, Holmes is intrigued and so with his bumbling right-hand man, Dr Watson (Bree Vreedenburgh) they set off immediately for Baskerville Hall in search of the truth.

       Our heroes sink into a quagmire, come face to face with some yokels. Why is the butler so strange? Will his beautiful sister win over a loving heart?

       Will they unravel the mysteries of the Hound before it takes yet another Baskerville victim, Sir Henry (Rachael Maher)? 

 The director, Simon James, has gathered the perfect cast. Having three physically different actors allows for immediate recognition of the myriad characters they play in this parody. With a script laden with double-entendres, puns and jokes the buffoons are in their element. The humour is expressed by voice, expression and wonderful body language. Not even the tiniest of jokes is allowed to slip through their superb comedic performance. Every second of this play has a laugh, a smile or a groan being generated. The cast interact directly with the audience, Holmes even picking an argument with one poor punter.

The soundscape (Simon James) is incredibly complex for a community production; there are dozens of quality sound effects, many of which required accurate cuing (Linda Redman) – or deliberately bad timing. The numerous costumes and wigs were most inventive and had their own touch of humour.

The pace of the show travelled like an express train, there were some very quick costume changes and yet the dialogue was still perfectly clear. The cast never faltered.

The lunatic stage manager (Jane Sherwood, a character in this play), as always is faceless thanks to a selection of animal masks; in her mind, she was moving around the set invisibly. This multitasking stage manager, assisted by Callum Calder, was the prompt, loudly correcting any grammatical or pronunciation error that the cast may utter.

The witty team was topped off with the help of two well-known, talented directors assisting in the wings, Johnny Grim and Chris Thomas.

Last year one of the biggest successes of the community theatre was the wacky version of John Buchan’s ‘39 Steps’, seen by thousands. This unusual ‘makeover’ was presented by four local repertory groups to full houses. If you enjoyed the ‘39 Steps’ then you cannot miss this brilliant but ridiculous play, it glows from beginning to end. With the dialogue written like a pantomime on two levels, one straight, with a bit of slapstick for the young and innocent, along with a other bluer interpretation for the adults.

Your smile muscles will be exhausted. Try not to miss this play and it is for all of the family (over 10 yrs).