Rough magic: Ensemble's Richard III

You know the opening, that famous declaration. It isn’t happening yesterday, it isn’t happening tomorrow. It is happening right here, right now, on the stage in front of us, in as close to real time as we can get. It is immediate, present, in your face; unavoidable; NOW!

A cousin to the Hamlet he directed for the Studio Company at Riverside Theatres in 2004 and for the Ensemble in 2006, Mark Kilmurry’s Richard III, playing at the Ensemble Theatre, is characterised by a sense of making do, of finding old odd ends and repurposing them to new means; of finding new life in the dark and old.

Death becomes them: Sydney Festival & Belvoir’s Oedipus Schmoedipus

A disclaimer in the Belvoir foyer warns patrons that “this production contains all the bells and whistles including the use of loud noises, graphic violence and loads and loads of blood.” While early reviews did not quite know what to make of this production, it is safe to say that none of it is ever truly serious. Especially not in the hands of collective theatre group post who “take being silly very seriously.”

Oedipus Schmoedipus is a smorgasbord of over the top deaths and an outrageous amount of stage blood (all within the first ten minutes of the show). There are deaths by gunshot, knives, long-sword, cutthroat razor, throat slitting, and bomb, while various appendages are lopped with relish and groans of barely-disguised enjoyment. After this opening barrage of deaths, the stage is cleaned in a ballet-like effort by the stage management team, and the curtain is pulled back to reveal The Volunteers, post’s (not-so) secret ingredient in their madcap shenanigans. What follows is a forum about death, delivered by Mish Grigor and Zoë Coombs Marr with occasional interjections from the volunteers who follow prompts on screens set in the lighting rig. One carefully chosen-at-random volunteer enters and dies – in this performance, she sits on the ground, coughs once, then lies on the floor, playing dead. “What is that?” asks Coombs Marr. “What is that? What is that?” Her disappointment is only short-lived, as she and Grigor pun and non-sequitur their way around the often-taboo subject of death, dying, carking it, falling off the perch, kicking the bucket, meeting their maker, and various other euphemisms. Underneath the anarchy, the coordinated (and sometimes choreographed) chaos and the uncooperative backdrops, is a poignant and often quite unexpectedly frank discussion of how we all know it’s coming, sooner or later, one way or another, but we have no idea how or when, so we might as well enjoy those presented on stage in the meantime.

To be, or Not Toby: Belvoir’s Hamlet re-Daned

On 25^th October, Belvoir announced that Toby Schmitz would be leaving the role of Hamlet early due to a scheduling conflict. Schmitz was to be replaced by Ewen Leslie, another of Simon Stone’s usual cast members. Like Schmitz, Leslie had previously played Hamlet, for Melbourne Theatre Company in 2011, and would be stepping up to the mark from 19^th November. Curious to see how recasting the titular role would affect the production, I went along. And it was actually better the second time around.