Roslyn Packer Theatre, September 9<\/strong>
Until October 14<\/strong>
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605
<\/strong><\/p>\n
A good production of The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em> confirms civilisation still exists. The barbarians may have vandalised art in favour of what they call popular culture, but if Oscar Wilde can still adorn our stages, the war\u2019s not lost, and a difference survives between wit and the inanity that mostly passes for comedy. As a consequence, we can sit there with tears in our eyes, not just because the play is so funny, but because the cleverness is so beautiful.<\/p>\n Helen Thomson (Lady Bracknell) and Charles Wu (Algy) star in this beautiful production<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Janie Barrett<\/cite><\/p>\n This Sydney Theatre Company production, directed by Sarah Giles, is also beautiful to behold (which Oscar would have liked), thanks to the lavishness of Renee Mulder\u2019s costumes and Charles Davis\u2019s set, skilfully lit by Alexander Berlage. The production contains two performances fully justifying a trek to the public transport backwater of Hickson Road.<\/p>\n Firstly, Helen Thomson is a younger, more pert and more vital Lady Bracknell than most. Her voice modulation should be compulsory listening for all young actors as she plunges and soars through the octaves of Wilde\u2019s wit, culminating in the immortal injunction to Gwendolen, \u201cCome, dear \u2013 we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n The other is Megan Wilding playing the daffy Gwendolen, who exhibits supreme instincts for tone, timing and facial expression. When these two are absent, the show loses just a little sparkle, like champagne that\u2019s been open for an hour or two.<\/p>\n Their excellence is replicated by the too-seldom-seen Sean O\u2019Shea as Algy\u2019s butler, Lane. Giles has opted to emphasise the long-suffering side of the lives of the servants, with the set allowing us to see into their mimed world while the main action unfolds. Yes, Wilde did write The Soul of Man Under Socialism<\/em>, but his fabulous play amply punctures the vacuous pretensions of the \u201cruling class\u201d without need for further elaboration.<\/p>\n The other leads \u2013 Charles Wu\u2019s Algy, Brandon McClelland\u2019s Jack, Melissa Kahraman\u2019s Cecily, Lucia Mastrantone\u2019s Prism and Bruce Spence\u2019s Chasuble \u2013 also acquit themselves well. There are, however, finely shifting lines between maintaining comedic pace and talking over the audience\u2019s laughter, and they will feel these out as the season unfolds. They could also pull back slightly, and let Oscar do more of the work. He won\u2019t let them down.<\/p>\n THE CHAIRS <\/strong> They smear on their make-up before our eyes: smudged white and garish red, making faces that might have delighted in the guillotine during the French Revolution, hooting when another head plopped into the basket. Then they pull on the ragged clothes that constitute their finery, contrasting with the asylum-like scrubs in which we first find them: him mopping and her fussing. With their faces and finery in place, they\u2019re ready to receive their guests.<\/p>\n iOTA, Paul Capsis and director Gale Edwards on the set of The Chairs.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Janie Barrett<\/cite><\/p>\n Eugene Ionesco\u2019s 1951 play just names them Old Man and Old Woman, although the Old Man does call his wife of 75 years Semiramis, a fog-thickening reference to the mythological Assyrian queen. Ionesco wrote it just after Beckett penned Waiting for Godot<\/em>, but The Chairs <\/em>beat Godot<\/em> to the stage, and thereby helped spawn the retrospectively termed \u201ctheatre of the absurd\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s seldom performed, and yet Gale Edwards\u2019 gripping iteration for Red Line Productions fizzes with immediacy. It is still a brave piece, too \u2013 and requires bravery from the performers, for beneath the daub of white and red they must invent the characters more than in most plays.<\/p>\n If boldness is required, who better than iOTA as Old Man and Paul Capsis as Old Woman? These two can be zany grotesques or bleed with humanity, can be Punch and Judy puppets, vaudeville comics, homespun philosophers and even weird precursors of George and Martha in Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/em>, all at once.<\/p>\n Edwards has chucked out Ionesco\u2019s elaborate staging directions, instead having designer Brian Thompson give us just a round red podium, like a circus ring, with the chairs jumbled to either side. As the invisible guests arrive, the Old Woman sets up the chairs on the podium, ready for the lecture the Old Man has devised that will explain all. Except that he won\u2019t deliver it. Even though she hails him as having been capable of becoming a maestro, a doctor or chess grandmaster, he\u2019s not up to delivering his own thesis, and so they await the Orator.<\/p>\n Capsis and iOTA are compelling, funny and startlingly eccentric, with heartbreak an optional extra, as when he imagines their flesh \u201crotting together\u201d when they die. It\u2019s not a truly great play, but The Chairs<\/em> will never shed its fascination, and I can\u2019t imagine it being done better than this. Dare to see it.<\/p>\n G Flip Five years ago, Georgia Flipo was a Melbourne session drummer uploading songs in their bedroom.<\/p>\n Tonight, three weeks after their sophomore album topped the Australian charts, they were working the first of two capacity Enmore crowds like they\u2019d been a rock star forever. No opportunity for a fist pump went unpumped, drumstick twirl untwirled, or mass clap-along unclapped.<\/p>\n G Flip\u2019s rapid rise to prominence might have a bit to do with their 2021 announcement that they are nonbinary, still a relatively rare thing in Australian pop culture. Or last year\u2019s news that they married Chrishell Stause, the actor and real estate agent of Selling Sunset<\/em> fame. That\u2019s a lot of social and celebrity zeitgeist to surf.<\/p>\n No opportunity for a fist pump went unpumped or drumstick twirl untwirled.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Don Arnold\/WireImage<\/cite><\/p>\n But anyone who came tonight for G Flip the influencer stayed for G Flip the songwriter and performer.<\/p>\n The opening drum solo was a literal smack in the head for anybody who\u2019d forgotten Flip\u2019s musician credentials. And while the mid-paced melancholy of 7 Days<\/em> was an odd choice as setlist starter, things kicked into gear with Hyperfine<\/em>, Flip roaming the stage with a dancer\u2019s energy as their three-piece band (including a second drummer with whom she alternated throughout) underpinned the first of tonight\u2019s many, massive, shout-worthy hooks.<\/p>\n The range and power of Flip\u2019s singing has improved markedly since this reviewer saw them at the Metro back in 2019 \u2013 the big high notes they hit in Queen<\/em> were impressive enough to think maybe a vocal coach has been involved.<\/p>\n Flip\u2019s songwriting and arranging is still bound to pop-rock convention, but the standouts were exemplars of the form \u2013 the rocky Rough<\/em> boasted a chorus as clever as it was loud, Australia<\/em> showed a touching way with an acoustic ballad, while The Worst Person Alive<\/em> was an instant classic that felt like it should be everywhere. (If they released tonight\u2019s version, where none other than Mike Shinoda of noughties heroes Linkin Park bounced on for an impromptu rap verse, maybe commercial radio would actually play it).<\/em><\/p>\n G Flip the influencer was here tonight as well, and that\u2019s undeniably part of the appeal. Declaring a \u201csafe space\u201d for all, they later helped a girl in front come out as bisexual with a joyous chant of her name. Flip clearly revels in the community leadership role.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Seeing a mad world through unhinged eyes<\/h3>\n
Old Fitz Theatre, September 8<\/strong>
Until October 15<\/strong>
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND<\/strong>
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u26051\/2
<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
G Flip\u2019s now an influencer, but it\u2019s their music that convinced<\/h3>\n
<\/strong>Enmore Theatre, September 7
<\/strong>Reviewed by MICHAEL BAILEY
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605
<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n