The first play, ‘The Kraken’, is PG rated and starts at 7.30 pm, with a matinée showing on Saturday 18th at 2.00 pm.

The second show, ‘The Darkness’, rated M+ – because of the subject matter – begins immediately after the first production.

‘The Kraken’ is a semi-autobiographical play, adapted by Cody Fullbrook from his favourite children’s book. Internationally acclaimed, Brisbane author, Gary Crew, wrote the book. Crew was generous and brave enough to allow Fullbrook to unreservedly make the adaptation.

Gary Crew, who started life as a draughtsman, did not publish his first book until he was 39 years old. Then, as an English teacher, he specialised in picture books for primary school-age readers, his awards include the prestigious ‘Children’s Book Council Book of the Year’ – four times. His illustrator is Marc McBride, who has a wonderful series of books on ‘How to draw Deltora’s monsters’. Crew also has awards for his adult detective fiction.

The Kraken

The word ‘Kraken’ is derived from the Scandinavian ‘Krake’ meaning ‘crooked’ and the German (plural) word meaning ‘octopus’.

 The scene is a coastal village in the south of WA. A jetty reaches out into the sea; waves are lapping (artwork Tekima Wiland, Jordy Roelofs). A freezing haar is drifting in. On shore is the back door of a house, with a table and chairs on the patio. On the main stage is the interior of a kitchen. The side of the kitchen bench has Christopher’s artwork displayed on it. Set by Wayne and Sheryl Gale and stage management by Shaun Griffin. The inspired foyer display is enhanced by Dean Goodwin’s photography.

Powerful and low cello and double bass music gives an eerie setting to the cruel sea setting. Slowly and softly, the musician / composer, Miro Kepinski introduces a piano accompaniment.

      It is late in the day when 16 year old Antonia (Simonne Matthews) takes her young brother, Christopher (James Matthews) to his favourite place, the end of the pier. Antonia is holding her kid brother’s hand because he is blind. Christopher has always shown a special interest in the sounds of the ocean. The sister is worried about the creepy darkness, but being blind, this is of no concern to Christopher.

      As they sit on the jetty, Antonia receives a disturbing phone call from her friend (Zack Inglis). At home, their Mum (Rachel Bartlett) answers the knock on the door, to find a saturated fisherman (Adrian Alajberg) selling fish – but strange things happen. The Mum calls her husband (Matthew Sullivan) who is on his way home, and standing on the station platform talking to a homeless man (Ron Arthurs). The father spots a strangely dressed old woman (Samm Coad-Ward) getting dangerously close to the edge of the platform.

      At home, Christopher chats to a young boy (Ethan Dixon) who is new to the area, unaware of the boy’s strange skin colour.

The three children were amazing actors, good strong assured diction and enunciation. The story was filled with intrigue and the suspense held until the very end. Most of the parts were short cameos, but the players managed to convincingly portray the full depth of the characters. Samm demonstrated that if you get the walk right, the character falls into place.

The tale is about various forms of fear – real and imagined.

Cody Fullbrook has brilliantly captured the feel of this story, and young adults will leave the theatre wanting to read the book.

The Darkness

‘The Darkness’ is a documentary style, contemporary play penned by Brisbane born, WA actor, Bethsaida Tapsall. Originally presented at the 2014 Perth Fringe Festival, this is a revamped and expanded version. This poetic drama is presented by Phoenix Theatre Inc., as part of their new ‘Local Writers’ Showcase’ season.

Starting at 8.30, this one-hour show immediately follows ‘The Kraken’ in the Memorial Hall Round Room in the Phoenix Theatre complex. The choice of this room is perfect, adding intimacy to the delicate subject being enacted. The slight echo of the room also adds an extra dimension to the storyline.

The room is set up as a church for a memorial service, with nightlight candles along the aisle. In the centre of performing area is a memorial with wreaths and tributes scattered around. On one side of the stage is a park bench, to the other, a nurse’s flat.

There is a mix of live acting and film. The video being projected onto each side of the ‘stage’. The video sound was a little variable due to inclement weather whilst filming, and not using a foam windsock on the microphone.

      Seated on a park bench is a middle-aged woman, Patricia (Melanie Hannah). She has three heavy bags of shopping, and so is waiting for her daughter Roxanne (Kate Lloyd) to meet her. However, there is a tragedy and Roxanne dies. In disbelief, the traumatised mother tries to explain her loss.

      Standing on her memorial stone is the ghost of a young girl in a fine shroud, it is the deceased Roxanne. The girl describes her last few moments before her death. Then the hospital nurse, Emilee (Karen Hansord) who is at home after a horrendous 12-hour shift, shares the shocks of her day.

       Roxanne’s sister and best friend, Cherish (Bethsaida Tapsall) is heartbroken at the loss of her soulmate, especially as she was about to introduce her boyfriend, William (Matt Sullivan) to the family.

       Gradually, we learn the full truth behind the relationships.

The writer / director combination rarely works, as often assumptions are made as to how well the story’s message is being conveyed to the audience. When the director is also an actor, the problem can be exacerbated. However, thanks to Bethsaida Tapsall’s finely honed talent, she has conquered all three tasks, presenting a subtle, powerful and moving play.

Miro Kepinski has composed the accompanying sensitive, subtle and moving musical background.

The talented cast guide us through the first, roller-coaster stages of mourning, showing the loss of love, feeling abandoned and then anger at being deserted by the deceased. The cast each had their own very different confronting outlook on the impact of death and managed to drive their message powerfully through to the audience.

Most adults will have experienced this ‘darkness’ that has been captured perfectly by a strong cast and the beautifully structured, heartrending script.

I saw this final rehearsal on the night of a full moon, but it was still a family show (for over 10 year olds). It is about Aliens but there is no blood or gore, no really frightening scenes, just lots of fun from the cast of thousands.

The music and lyrics were added later by Grammy-nominated, Bruce Kimmel (who acted under the name of Guy Haines in ‘The Partridge Family’ and ‘Happy Days’). Bruce’s first musical treasure in 1976, was a lewd farce called ‘The First Nudie Musical’ – perhaps Phoenix’s next offering?

This humorous Australian Premiere is a joint production by Phoenix Theatre Inc and Dark Psychic Productions; it is being presented at the Phoenix Theatre, Memorial Hall at 435 Carrington Street, on the corner of Rockingham Road, Hamilton Hill.

This outrageous two and a half-hour, vibrant production has ‘curtain- up’ at 8.00 pm on three consecutive weekends – Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights – until 27^th September. There is one matinee on Sunday 21^st at 2.00 pm.

       It is summer 1958 near San Fernando, and the alluring radio reporter (Shaun Griffin) warns that strange objects have been seen in the sky. In a nearby cottage live the perfect American couple, inventor and visionary, Fred Bunson (Gary Devries) and his doting wife, Joyce (Sylvia Mellor). Their well-mannered daughter, Donna (Mikaela Innes) who desperately wants to be a bad girl, is asking if she can go to the local dance. ‘Only if you take you kid brother’, Tommy (Jayden Timms) which she is only too pleased to do.

      At the dance, Donna meets the love of her life, Hippie Rod (Krispin Maesalu) and goes for a ride in his car. We see a spaceship landing and before we know it, three Aliens have landed, sending a farmer (Chris Doney) and his wife (Sharon Theil-Harkin) into turmoil.

     A creature in a long flowing cloak and with a massive external cerebellum arrives; this is The Brain (Cody Fullbrook). With him is his highly strung, grovelling helper, Zubrick (Glenn Wallis) and the beautiful, appropriately named, Yoni – look up this Sanskrit word – (Kate Lloyd). They come from a planet where any kind of emotion is totally unacceptable, but the ardent Yoni makes up for the whole population’s lost passions. This is shown in the beautiful ‘I Need an Earthman’, delivered in the style of Eartha Kitt.

      The army is called in, and is led by a lowly 1-Star general, desperate for promotion, he is General Mills (Mario Piccoli) with his strong, silent-type assistant, Private Partz (Jordan Norrish). They recruit Joyce Bunson’s elderly father, the scholarly Professor Leder (Pat McMahon) and a police officer (James Buckland) to help them tackle this Alien threat. When a local girl (Aimee Nicholls) sees Private Partz, she dumps her boyfriend (Keith Ong) for this uniformed hero.

       When the Aliens try to ‘tap’ the Earthlings’ brains, they send for their ‘tap’ team – of dancers (Nikita Harwood, Darby Kelly, MMoloki Hartill, Erica Luck, Kylie Griffin and Devetta Ridgwell).

       Will the Aliens win? Can anyone save the earthlings?

The outstanding chorus consists of Lisa Malatesta, Alex Rivas, Sheryl Gale, Angela Donlan, Brenda Gabersek-Goud, Sara Urban and her wonderful daughters, Leah and Ruby (who at 7 years old looked as though straight from the film ‘Annie’) did not miss a beat in the complex choreography. The dancing routines devised by Jayde Clark and her assistant, Kate Lloyd are bright and fill the show with magic. The dances were carried out in perfect sync and filled with energy.

It is obvious that director Ryan McNally and his assistant, Rebecca Coutts-Smith, have put a tremendous amount of thought into the movement and the delivery of this clever script. The dialogue has so many subtle references to the ham acting, expressions and sentence structure of ‘The Addams Family’, ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Happy Days’. Blended with the wonderful orchestrations of the 22 songs and tunes, many of which were toe-tappingly good, the show came alive.

The genres of music ranged from marches, soft shoe and high kicking, to passionate seductive melodies. The musical director, Krispin Maesalu, managed to unite the very large cast. They were pumped up, bringing life and smiles to their powerful delivery. The delightful chorus line did not have a single weak link; they gave all the numbers 100% vocally and physically, creating a memorable ‘opening’ and ‘finale’.

The main characters, Mr and Mrs Bunson, Donna, The Brain and his two assistants were all wonderful singers. They could all belt out a tune without faltering. Gary Devries is a new discovery and yet the audience warmed to him immediately. Glenn and Kate gave a high kicking routine and Cody was mesmerising as the Brain who almost hypnotised the audience with his delivery. Great loopy fun.

I know I often joke about the programme, but Shaun Griffin has produced a superb, full colour A5 programme. The lighting and sound from designer Alex Coutts-Smith has taken the show to a new and professional level. He had full movement, multi-pattern LED spots, which along with the standard LED floods gave an exciting movement and colour range to the songs and dance routines.

The five-piece live band was led by Josh Haines on keyboard. Talitha Dunn on numerous woodwind and brass instruments, along with Greg Critchley on acoustic bass and Catherine Motteram on piano helped complete the group.

Joe Snelgrove was supposed to be on drums, but someone said ‘Break a leg’ and he did, the night before the show. Mark Sutcliffe stepped in, and without any rehearsals did an amazing job. The music was sparkling and gave that special depth that a playwright’s CD of music would lack.

The costumes (Sheryl Gale, Jodie Innes and Ryan McNally) were stunning, and there were dozens, all well designed with plenty of clever and stylish finishing touches. The Aliens outfits were space age, comprising black leotards with Lego-like patterns sewn onto them. Even the Bunson family had the typical homely, daggy outfits of the late 50s. Clever design and a lot of work.

The set changing, and there were many scenes, were rapid and well planned and carried out by Jeni Stevens and her team of Alison Kovaks, Becca Jackson and Hannah Gould.

Don’t expect a triumph of a storyline, but the fun script with its subtle references to the old TV series is hilarious. If you enjoyed ‘Reefer Madness’ and want another good light-hearted, chewing gum for the mind entertainment at the end of a hard day’s work, then you will really enjoy this cleverly presented, tongue-in-cheek, madcap fun.

Go along and experience the thrill of ‘Feel-O-Rama’ as introduced by Gabi Guidone and Andy Griffin.

This is a catchy energy filled romp with plenty of laughs. As near to a full-scale professional musical as a community theatre production could expect to achieve. Excellent.