Based on a 14th century, Chinese fable ‘The Circle of Chalk’; this is the Black Swan State Theatre Company’s first international collaboration. Presented in the ‘Beijing or Peking Opera’ style that combines music, speech, mime, dance and acrobatics is part of the 2016 Winter Arts Festival.

‘The Chalk Circle’ parable is usually presented as a dramatic tragedy. Here we are taken back to the original folk tale. It is presented with Brechtian techniques, in a traditional setting but with contemporary middle-class dialogue, at times quite coarse. The upshot is approaching an adults’ pantomime, which may come as a shock to the purists, but it is fresh and great fun. Brecht actually wrote music and songs for the play, but these have been added to and refined.

This innovative, 3-hour presentation can be seen nightly in the Heath Ledger Theatre, within the State Theatre Centre of WA in Northbridge. Performances are at 7.30 until Sunday 14th August – the sixtieth anniversary of Brecht’s death. There are also some matinées.

有普通话附中文字幕

The story is set in the Soviet Union area of Galinsk around the end of the Second World War.

The stage is like that of a new theatre. There is no backcloth, no flats in the wings, any drapes or scenery of any kind. A few well-chosen props are on the stage, along with wardrobe racks. (Set Designer Richard Roberts assisted by Lui Hong Ping).

As the play begins, three layered, sculptured backcloths are raised from the floor; they give a wonderful appearance of mountains in a mist. A Chinese gateway arch is rolled into position.

The men who are exalted officials wear the stunning, brightly coloured and highly embroidered, Hanfu, and the ladies traditional Princess costumes. The Costume Designer, Zhao Yan, although still young, she has designed for more than six dozen productions.

With little scenery, the demands on the Lighting Designer, Mark Howett to create atmosphere, was high.

      The actors wander onto the stage in their black, rehearsal trackies and T-shirts. They begin their warmup routine, and then select their masks from a rack of specially designed façades (Designer of props and masks, Professor Zhang Huaxiang).

 

‘The Singer’ (Musical Director/Sound Designer, Dr Clint Bracknell) with guitar in hand, takes his seat at the foot of the proscenium arch. Accompanied by a brightly dressed, indigenous singer (Lynette Narkle), the two beautiful voices set the scene.

     The Malaysian percussionist, Arunachala, attacks the timpani – the play has begun.

     In the town of Nuhka, the church is filling for Easter Mass. The slimy Fat Prince (Luke Hewitt) ingratiates himself with the powerful Governor, Georgi (Geoff Kelso) and his egotistical wife, Natella (Caitlin Beresford-Ord) as they sweep past the peasants. The Prince admires the Governess’s new baby, Michael, who has been left outside the church with the maid, Grusha (Alex Malone). Two soldiers are admiring Grusha, when one, Simon (James Sweeny) tells his dim friend (Kenneth Ransom) how he has watched her bathing in the river. Grusha is horrified.

     The Fat Prince has arranged a political coup, and with the Government deposed and her husband dead, Natella escapes the heartless, murdering Ironshirts (Adam Booth, Alison van Reeken). In doing so, she leaves her son behind, yet takes time to collect her expensive wardrobe of clothes.

     Grusha is keen to look after the baby, but with the gestapo-like Ironshirts searching for the child, she accepts the help of a kindly peasant woman (Kylie Farmer, Indigenous name Kaarljilba Kaardn). They escape across the northern mountains to her brother (Steve Turner), Lavrenti’s farm; well away from the Governor’s friends and the Ladies of the Court (Felicity McKay) who may recognise her.

       What will become of Grusha? Her lovers on the way? Moreover, the baby? Who is Judge Azdak?

Directed by Dr Wang Xiaoying, the Vice President of the National Theatre of China, with Assistant Directors, music graduate, Chen Tao and Melbourne based, Hong Kong born, Felix Ching Ching Ho who is an independent theatre director, a new freshness was brought to the Perth stage. The pace was cracking; with stagehands and cast moving the props in and out within seconds, the story retained its drive wonderfully.

Most of the players had several characters to play, and with a different mask for each one, the appearance could change, but the facial expressions disappeared, putting the focus onto the body language. Steve Turner probably had the largest number of personalities to perform, each being rich in detail.

In the first Act, Alex Malone as Grusha was magnificent, giving a full range of emotions. The play requires the occasional song, and her beautifully soft, sweet voice was crystal clear. In Act 2, one of our masters of the stage, Geoff Kelso, proved that he still has that magic touch. His comic delivery was brilliant and his singing left the audience gaping at the quality of his crooning.

The whole cast worked unrelentingly to give the audience an inventive, novel production.

‘Part One’ of the play caused ructions and the ire of morality groups when it was released, yet it went on to win every major award, including a Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards for Best Play.

This wonderful mammoth, 3-hour drama can be seen at the Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre, Northbridge nightly at 7.30 until Sunday 19^th June.

The stage is devoid of the normal flats and scenery, instead the sides of the stage have walls of lamp rigs – spots, floods, the full range; there are about 70 lamps on each side of the stage arranged at a dozen different levels.

The whole ‘ceiling’ of the stage comprised dozens of opaque Perspex panels, lit from above. The set and costume designer, Christina Smith, has selected numerous superb props, which completely satisfy the audience, giving a full mental picture of the venue, wealth etc.

The back wall consisted of black drapes that blended into infinity. They subtly opened and closed, allowing props and cast to enter. The numerous props / furniture entered silently and smoothly on travelling floor belts. Stage manager Peter Sutherland and his assistant, Claudia Blagaich certainly had to work for their crust in this show.

The work of the company’s mechanist, Nathan Fry, is often taken for granted, but here the directors and designer have created moving furniture, fly wire harness, the incredible wrath of God, inclement weather, a descending coffin and a spectacular final scene that left the audience speechless. Superb work.

On this occasion, it was good to see the major stage teamsters being invited to join the actors for the curtain call.

This synopsis of the story is more informative than usual, and for some, may contain too many spoilers; however, for others it may help them follow the unusual storyline.

      It is 1985 in New York City, and we are at the funeral of Louis’s grandmother, with the aged Rabbi Chemelwitz (Toni Scanlan) blundering his way through a vale. After the service, ‘word processor’ Louis Ironson (Will O’Mahony), a neurotic lover, meets Prior Walter (Adam Booth) his partner of four years. Prior tells Louis that he has contracted AIDS. After months of caring for Prior, unable to cope, Louis deserts his friend in his final hours of need.

     Louis then embarks upon a relationship with the apparently ‘straight’ Mormon lawyer, Joe Pitt (Stuart Halusz) who, due to his latent homosexuality, has been having difficulty living with his wife, Harper. Agoraphobic ‘Buddy’ Harper (Jo Morris) is a Valium-addict, who fanaticises her way out of her misery, by planning holidays with imaginary travel agent, Mr. Lies (Kenneth Ransom).  

     True-life, brutal, right-wing solicitor, Roy Cohn (John Stanton) – who is gay, but despises other gays – offers Joe a senior post in the Washington Justice Department.

      We next see Prior desperately sick in bed. In a dream the daunting Angel of America (Felicity McKay) with a divine presence, has descended from Heaven and nominates Prior to become a prophet and spread the message. He declines the offer, but poor Prior could not start to contemplate the suffering in store for him. Prior turns to his best friend, dependable, ex-drag queen, Belize (Kenneth Ransom) for support. Prior tells Belize how he hears an Angel’s voice saying that she is coming for him – the angel’s help turns out to be an AIDS cure, and Prior goes to a hospice under the care of compassionate nurse Emily (Felicity McKay).

In one fantasy episode, Harriet is informed by Prior that Joe is a closeted homosexual and, in a touching performance, she challenges her husband on the topic. Now exposed, Joe and Louis become closer, and one night whilst drunk, Joe phones his mother, Hannah Pitt (Toni Scanlan) to inform her he is Gay. His mother panics, and wants to move to New York to help guide Joe back onto the straight and narrow. She puts her house up for sale with real estate agent, Ella Chapter (Felicity McKay).

     On visiting his GP, Dr Henry (Toni Scanlan), Roy finds he too has AIDS – but in denial calls it ‘liver cancer’. After high pressure from Cohn and his pathetic senior assistant, Martin Heller (Jo Morris), Joe decides to turn down Cohn’s job offer. Furious, Cohn calls Joe a wimp and goes on to say how he achieved his exalted position, even boasting how he executed Ethel Rosenberg (Toni Scanlan) for Treason as part of by McCarthy regime.

     As he becomes stronger, Prior’s ancestors from 17 generations earlier, appear at his bedside. They are a medieval farmer (Stuart Halusz) and a refined, seventeenth-century Londoner (John Stanton), both of whom died of the plague. They are enlisted to prepare for the advent of the ‘Angel of America’.

Directed by two award winners, Kate Cherry and her assistant Joe Lui, this complex story required all of their skills to stop the tale from becoming bogged down, and to ensure it retained the audience’s attention throughout; this duo were magnificent.

The movement director, Lisa Scott Murphy, ensured that the numerous entrances and exits flowed perfectly. Dialect coach, Luzita Fereday thankfully had the cast all speaking with the same understated New York accent.

The storyline has aged a little, but the depth of emotion demanded and the exemplary delivery by this top notch, highly experienced troupe guaranteed a freshness. The cast had the challenging task of involving the audience in their tension, fear and stress for three hours, but by giving each actor a number of characters to play, including women playing males, it kept their performances alive. The script has several very funny sections that again lifted the show from the grim topic, retained the pace and allowed light relief.

Often in Gay plays, the cast feel obliged to caricature the characters, thankfully this cast were subtle, and even the overtly gay Belize had just the correct amount of limp wrist.

Assistant director Joe Lui, renowned for his chromatic use, has worked well with lighting designer Matt Scott to produce a remarkable visual experience from the vast lighting rigs.

Sound designer and composer, Ash Gibson Greig, was at his very best; with a backing ranging from subtle creepy, dirge-like strings to a bouncy Beatles’ tune. There were several unusual sound effects required, and these too were inspirational and dramatic.

The show had a couple of scenes that were daring even by today’s standard, but when the play was first staged, the audience’s reaction was one of horror and repulsion.

This thought-provoking show was not demoralising, but worked at every level of performance, direction and teching. A memorable, remarkable production that makes one hope ‘Part Two’ will be staged in the near future.

This impressive world premiere is a Black Swan production and it is being presented in the Studio Underground at the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, on the corner of William and Roe Streets, Perth. The production runs nightly at 8.00 pm until Sunday 22^nd June.

The performances are approximately 90 minutes (no interval).

Unusually for the Underground theatre, the set is a full and complete representation of an actual hospital ward.

The towering 6-metre walls are decorated with typical post-war, waist level, green ceramic tiles. The centre of the backdrop consists of three, large gothic windows fitted with safety grills. There is an old hospital bed and to the side, a desk. On one of the grubby walls is a two-way mirror.

Designer India Mehta has not merely settled for simplicity, the hospital ward looks convincingly practical and dishevelled. There are clever extras incorporated to add authenticity, such as water pipes, air vents and even power boxes near the coving. Superb design.

        Dressed in hospital regulation, white pyjamas, a prominent lawyer, David Rail (Kenneth Ransom) is sitting on his infirmary bed. He looks around at the strange environment and wonders where he is and how he got there.

         A door opens and a young doctor enters. She is a psychologist, Alice (Marthe Rovik) assigned to David’s case. Slowly she enlightens David to how he was found with a head injury; but in a panic, David explains that he must leave as quickly as possible because he has an important meeting. Alice goes on to explain that he has been in the hospital for some days, and that she has been trying to help him discover what had happened.

        Things are going frustratingly slowly for the doctor, as no sooner does she seem to be getting somewhere, but David has a relapse and she has to start all over again.

          Will the two manage to unravel what happened that fateful night?

 

The director of this wonderful, suspense-filled drama is WA’s much-admired actor, Stuart Halusz, who has appeared in several major State Theatre productions. Halusz has carried his own fine acting skills and passed them on to the two sole actors. The acting starts at what appears to be a frustratingly plodding pace, but this allows the whole presentation to slowly build in tension and excitement as the play progresses. The two actors were flawless in their non-stop, 90 minutes of performing. The doctor starts ingratiatingly sweet to the patient, but her approach changes as the patient’s condition progresses. Fine teamwork between the actors and director.

The lighting designer, Trent Suidgeest, has as always given that extra touch of genius to his plan. The lights through the windows change colour as the day changes from noon to night, but he also has the lamps tracking to show the sun’s movement. The room lights have dark green, dust bin-like, metal cowls that complement India’s wall tiles perfectly.

Brett Smith’s very subtle sound design was well thought out. A soft, thunder-like rumble being used to superb effect at dramatic places in the play; whilst some composers would have composed powerful music, this was far more effective.

The apparent simplicity of this play hides the inspired acting and directing skills that are involved. An unusual script that carries the 90-minute dialogue adeptly and smoothly to its unnerving conclusion.