This  50-minute, adult show is part of Summer Nights for 2016 FRINGE WORLD, and can be seen each night at 6.00, until 20^th February at the Blue Room Studio in James Street, Northbridge.

The scene is an old fashioned bar, with tasteless tables and chairs. To the side of the bar is a wall, which every time an unpleasant event takes place, another glowing crack creeps from the floor to the ceiling, depicting how the situation is fracturing. The clever lighting and set design is by Liam Kirwan.

        Esther (Bethwyn Legg) has owned and run The Cellar Bar for a decade, but now it is about to close, and Esther is looking forward to opening her new, upmarket club. Seated, in the corner strumming on his guitar – as he has done for years – is Max (David Gregory).

       Into the bar strolls stunning Rhizzy (Dixie Johnstone) the club’s jazz singer. She walks up to the microphone and purrs her moody and deeply emotional songs. Max is furious, as the previous night – half way through her performance – with no warning or explanation, Rhizzy had walked out.

       The bar door flies open, and in stomps Esther’s heart-broken Uncle Zac (Keith Scrivens). He is still grieving the death of his young daughter, who died on this day some years earlier. There is an ‘elephant in the room’ atmosphere, but no one is too sure why.

Director, Peter Clark, has built up a wonderful mix of tension and curiosity, as the skilfully constructed play unfolds. Dixie had a superb voice, and a style matched perfectly to the lyrics. The acting ranged from love and caring, to pure belligerence, and the audience certainly felt for the characters’ suffering. This is a very unusual play, powerfully presented by a top-notch cast.

Another hit for Vivienne Glance.

Afeif arrived with no knowledge of English from a poor, under-educated country, but believe me, his writing is highly intelligent, rich and sophisticated.

This work has been transcreated (translated and recreated) from Arabic by popular WA writer, Vivienne Glance (who recently gained her PhD from UWA) in conjunction with the author, to ensure the retention of the cultural richness.

This 85-minute (with brief interval) production from Always Working Artists can be seen at The Blue Room Main Theatre, 53 James Street, Northbridge daily at 7.00 pm until 5^th July.

‘In Godot’s Labyrinth’.

      In the corner sits the ‘mother of time’ (Janice Lim) knitting a never-ending umbilical cord – a theme that carries through all of the plays. At her feet lies a newly delivered child (Violette Ayad). In one of the numerous clever symbolisms, the mother and child create a live representation of Michelangelo’s painting, ‘Creation of Adam’.

      The knitter tells us that she was ‘there when ……..’, there then follows numerous important occasions and tragic events from world history.

      The stage goes dark, a whirring noise is heard and a flashing spaceship descends (creators Patrick Howe, Ian Tregonning, Anthony Watts). A spaceman (Kevin Mararo Wangai – amazingly talented) is lying on the ground; he rises and appears to float in the gravity free atmosphere. In a powerful booming voice, he describes the universe’s dimensions. He continues touchingly, showing how he represents the many different people of the world, from the strong handsome desert dwellers to the maimed and poor.

      In this almost poetic, thought provoking piece, we meet Beckett and possibly even Godot himself.

‘Why Rats Live Under Our Roof’, is an African street theatre treat.

       Along similar lines to the western pantomime, Monkey (Verity Softly – fantastic) is the Master of Ceremonies. In a white linen ensemble, with shirt, tie and suit brightly painted on the cloth (designer, Cherie Hewson), Monkey tells a few corny jokes and warms up the audience before introducing the star of the household, smooth talking and pun quoting Rat (Brianna Williams – hilarious).

      Monkey tells us about the loving couple living in the house, who are about to have their first child. Rat, wielding a flick knife, offers the heavily pregnant mother (Michelle Endersbee) some help in the delivery. The father (Kevin Mararo Wangai) just wants the baby (Violette Ayad) to be delivered as soon as possible and so agrees to Rat’s outrageous demands. What will the consequences be?

After the interval, the audience return to the theatre to find two large pods / eggs suspended from the ceiling.

‘One seed’

      From one egg climbs a female (Violette Ayad – an exciting new acting talent) dressed in a red bathing costume – the ovum. From the other, descends a male (Paul Grabovac) in blue – the sperm. The two lie down inside a capsule and fertilise. With a simulated view of a microscope slide, coupled with clever hand puppetry, we see the seed’s meiosis taking place, before the cells move on to the mitosis stage. One wonders, which actually came first, the human or the seed?

    The play moves on through the birth, life and finally onto death.

    This powerful play has no dialogue, but again with lucid symbolism expresses many emotions and shrewdly hints at life throughout the universe.

Joe Lui provides the soundscape and melody, with additional music by Rabie Abdelmajed.

Jeremy Rice, the well-respected WA director, who now lives in Melbourne, has returned to Perth bringing a wealth of new ideas that have given this play a freshness and exhilaration. The three plays are very different genres, but he has managed to convey the depth of the script and, with the terrific cast, given us a clear demonstration of how complex, unfair, varied and arousing the world is.

It is unusual to find a playwright that can write so lucidly and with such a quality in several genres. This is the kind of show that one can see several times and still see new slants in the symbolism and quirky action. Powerfully directed and splendidly acted, most enjoyable.

There is a delightful exhibition and collection of paintings and artworks, many for sale, by local artists on display.

The theatre is ‘in the round’ with two rows of chairs around the room’s periphery.

The scene is a dimly lit sitting room in a Parisian flat. It is just after the end of World War ll. In the centre of the room, there is a well-worn wooden table, loaded with pages from old books (set design Annette Orr and Helen Doig, lit by Emma Brown)

       Seated at the table is a proud and deeply satisfied woman, she is the American author and psychologist, Gertrude Stein (Vivienne Glance). Gertrude smiles as she looks fondly at the paintings on the walls, many of them given to her by close friends such as Matisse and Picasso. Into the room walks an infirm woman in widow’s weeds; it is Alice B. Toklas (Shirley Van Sanden), she has a harrowed appearance.

       Alice announces that today is the day that her dearest friend of the last 30 years, Gertrude, has just died. Alice tells us about their happy days together, with very funny interjections and corrections from the outspoken ghost of Gertrude (heard by the audience but not Alice) of her true feelings towards some of her artistic friends and how she almost succumbed to their amorous advances.

       The two companions are perfect for each other; Gertrude is exuberant, filled with drive, whereas Alice is happy to remain in the background, quietly looking after the business.

       After the play’s interval, we jump forward 20 years to 1964 and find frail Alice, now in another flat in Paris, describing Gertrude’s contemporary and experimental style of writing and recalling how her partner’s first books were published.

This is a delightful story, played with total empathy. Vivienne and Shirley are both exceptional scriptwriters and have been nominated and won many awards for their writing skills. They are also amazing, much admired, classical actors, and so the superlative quality of the acting and the emotions exhibited did not come as too much of a surprise.

Director, Helen Doig skilfully managed to keep the loving, light-hearted atmosphere of the script to the front. The flyer mentions how this play shows the need for marriage reform and the updating of gay rights; but although the deep love between the couple is lucid, the script is not pushing a message or screaming for reform, it is a simply, a fabulously constructed, intimate love story superbly performed.

The number of males in the audience was minimal, which is sad, as this is a quality ‘feel good’ play that deserves to be seen by a wide audience. An excellent night at the theatre.