This 2-hour, fun-filled presentation can be seen at The Hayman Theatre Upstairs, Building 102 in the centre of Curtin University, Bentley each evening at 7.00 pm until Saturday 3^rd May.

The stage floor and walls are painted in white gloss paint. There are several white wood chairs against the back wall. The play starts in the 16^th Century and progresses to the present day. (Set design Leah Mercer, Michelle Endersbee and built by Alessia Glynn, Emily Hughes and Bubble Maynard).

         A choir (Emily Hughes, Amanda King, Carlin Monteiro, Miarka Rogers, and A.J. Shugrue) entered in a line. Dressed in white linen, they sang an almost religious chant, as they weaved across the stage. Then to Handel’s music, ‘The entrance of the Queen of Sheba’, an elderly Queen Elizabeth l (Bubble Maynard – strong performance) was carried in on the shoulders of her servant, to her throne. Into the room strode Orlando (Beth Tremlett – excellent), who was immediately attracted by the amorous and very ‘energetic’ affections of the Queen. However, Orlando is a flighty character and soon ‘his’ eye is caught by one of the royal servants. The narrators (Eleanor Davidson, Emily Matthews) who were part of the entourage, guided us through Orlando’s various affairs of the heart – and other regions.

       As Orlando stood on the banks of the Thames, he saw a beautiful woman in a long fur trimmed coat and a fur Cossack hat, skating on the frozen river. This was the beautiful Sasha (Mahalia Bowles).  The flowing coat and the perfect sliding of the feet gave a faultless effect of her ice-skating. Again, Orlando was immediately in love, only to find that this Russian Princess was about to leave on a ship bound for her home country. On board, the Captain (Declan Brown) would attend to her every need.

       As Sasha sailed off, another sexually charged woman, the Arch Duchess of Romania (Daniel Suelto, great comedy performance) also appeared desperate for the love of Orlando.

       Will Orlando ever find his true sexuality? Will true love pass him by?

Lighting designer, Chris Donnelly, has perfectly blended the modern LED lights with a line of limelight style spots at the front of the stage; in several scenes, this gave a wonderful Victorian atmosphere to the play.  In the ‘garden of Eden’ scene, there were bright stylish, lively projected images created by George Ashforth and Rhiannon Petersen. The sound quality was crisp and enhanced by beautiful, original music composed by Keith Ong and Matthew Tamsitt. The costumes (Eleanor Davidson, Jess Bennett-Hullin), makeup and hair styling (Felicity Meath, Ariel Tresham) were of a very high standard.

Directed by Leah Mercer (assisted by Michelle Endersbee), this play is fast moving, filled with clever well-delivered lines and packed with chuckles. The cast were totally in tune and displayed great chemistry as they worked through this cleverly devised production.

There was one particular outstanding prop, an A3 sized pop-up book depicting Orlando’s house and various scenes from his life. This was a stunning piece of work, a true labour of love, created by Bubbles Maynard.

An unusual but most enjoyable play, certainly not the heavy Virginia Woolf that I expected. Very well produced and acted. Good light-hearted entertainment.

The excellent set was designed by Phil Miolin and built by the ever-dependable Ian Stewart and Alistair Kennedy . It depicts the Helmer’s sitting room on Christmas Eve, sometime in the mid-1970s. The cream walled room has in its centre a large leather couch, to the right a piano and on the left a massive undecorated Christmas tree. The properties, that included several well-considered kitsch items of the day, a stereogram, the obligatory lava lamp and a Giclee print of Tretchikoff’s ‘Chinese Girl’ (the original was recently bought for $1.7 million) were conceived by the director and collected by Bridgette Weller-Brown and Nicole Sandrini. The walls are covered with large seasonal decorations.

         The young maid, Helene (Rhiannon Peterson) opens the front door and in staggers a porter (Alistair Kennedy) carrying a huge doll’s house. He is followed by the children’s nanny, Anne-Marie (Liberty Hills) carrying wrapping paper and presents. The lady of the house, the manipulative and insincere Nora (Gemma Middleton) in her usual flamboyant way pays the porter the ridiculous sum that he requests and gives him a generous tip on top. This is typical of the lack of respect for money that has had her adoring husband and saviour, Torvald (George Ashforth) worried for years. He thinks she is a ‘silly’ girl, but there is a lot more to Nora than that.

         After years of dedication, Torvald has just been appointed head of the local bank but for Nora this just means a better social standing and more money to fritter away.

        Nora is just about to tackle the Christmas tree decoration when the maid announces that Mrs Kristine Linde (Amelia Tuttleby), an old school friend that Nora has not seen for some twenty years, is at the door. Nora warmly welcomes Kristine but as they dress the tree together, Nora gets the greatest pleasure from telling her friend of her wealth and happiness, before – in false sympathy – pointing out Kristine’s disastrous failure in life.

       The young handsome family doctor, Dr Rank (Nathan Whitebrook) arrives and is immediately shown into Torvald’s study. The next arrival is the de-barred solicitor, now a senior official in Torvald’s bank, Nils Krogstad (Monty Sallur). Nils, the antagonist, seems to have an unexplainable ‘hold’ over everyone he encounters, especially the mendacious Nora.

       Will Torvald see through Nora’s screen and will everyone live happily ever after? 

Ibsen’s skill and popularity is in building an apparently secure, or totally uncertain, situation before removing all the rules of society and turning the whole state of affairs on its head. To do this on the stage, demands a director with a full understanding of the script, subtlety and quality actors who can slowly move their characters from one extreme to another throughout the performance. Gemma Middleton was truly outstanding; she really conquered Nora’s many idiosyncrasies. By having Nora and Kristine decorate the Christmas tree together helped emphasise the nastier side of Nora, who was quite happy to make her ‘acquaintance’ work for her whilst she abused and belittled her. The cast worked brilliantly as a team, showing amazing chemistry, with Torvald, Dr Rank, Kristine and of course Krogstad all having their moments of brilliance.

Magnificently directed by Artist-in-Residence Philip Miolin, assisted by Samantha Barrett, they brought this classic play to life. When the word ‘contemporary’ is mentioned it often means an excuse to jazz a play up, then lose all the feeling and meaning. By employing a season and era with which most younger theatregoers can connect, the whole production was most accessible; and whilst retaining the quality and feel of the original script, the production was not too highbrow.

In this production restraint was the key word, with sensible sound design – great to hear LPs again – at a good level (Ryan Hunt), quality lighting  (Karen Cook) with an unusual ‘wow’ moment and costumes (Alex Vernon) true to the era – the flares brought a smile. SM Becca Jackson and her assistant Jennifer Scullion handled the whole stage production efficiently.

This is a terrific production of an old favourite that I have seen ruined by incompetence so many times in the past. Highly recommended.