European folklore mingles with Australian and New Zealand myths and legends in Beck Wheeler’s latest exhibition, Gone Bush. The German-born, New Zealand-based artist presents vibrant, colourful works inspired by her cross-cultural upbringing and the oral tradition of folklore. Many works…
Heather Bloom reviews The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet for Australian Stage. See the review in its original context here.
Zoey Dawson’s feminist adaptation of Shakespeare’s most famous play, and perhaps the world’s most iconic love story, The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, takes the male driven plot of Capulet vs. Montague and shifts the focus to Juliet, Shakespeare’s most often quoted heroine.
Karen Coombs reviews The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet for Stage Whispers. See the review in its original context here.
A modern adaptation of a classic is not uncommon. Zoey Dawson’s version of Romeo and Juliet, however, takes on the challenge of using a young, all female cast to play the mostly male characters of the Montague and Capulet battle. And it works well. If anything, it takes the focus off the famous, tragic couple and puts the spotlight onto the young and in love Juliet; also aided by the fact that Juliet is played by the one actress, Brigid Gallacher, whilst the rest of the cast; Nikki Shiels, Naomi Rukavina, Devon Lang Wilton, Laura Maitland and Carolyn Butler, takes turns in playing Romeo. What is achieved therefore is an eye-opener into the angst of a young teenage girl in love – albeit a modern one.
Chris Boyd reviews The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet for the Australian. 6/3/2012 Zoey Dawson's all-female "Teenage Dream" production of Romeo and Juliet dispenses with a great proportion of the testosterone-driven horseplay and filthy humour. This…
Robin Usher
The Age
28/02/2012
See the article in its original context here.
The Bard’s famous love story gets an all-female rewrite
SHAKESPEARE’S Juliet is one of drama’s most famous characters but she is seldom considered a solo character divorced from Romeo, her famous lover.
Zoey Dawson is out to change that with a contemporary, all-female production of Romeo and Juliet, featuring some of Melbourne’s finest young actors.
”I want to reconfigure the play with Juliet in the centre of it,” she says. ”Most of Shakespeare’s important characters are male but this is really her story – Juliet has the strongest dramatic arc. She is the one asking the questions and has the big monologues. She is like Hamlet because everything depends on what she does – when Romeo is banished he sits on the floor and cries.”
Check out some great shots by photographer Joshua Levi Collings - and find more on our facebook page.
The Age
Kathy Evans
24/2/2012
Innovative arts venue fortyfivedownstairs celebrates its first decade.
JULIAN Burnside QC, once harboured “foolish fantasies” about becoming a photographer before changing his mind at the last minute. But he still carries a torch for artists whose creative expression, he believes, makes our lives more bearable: “Without law you can’t have society, but without art you can’t have civilisation.”
14/02/2012
Stephen Russell
Melbourne Weekly
A CLASSIC tale of doomed romance, Romeo and Juliet is usually performed with Romeo as the protagonist. But a new all-woman production of The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet at fortyfivedownstairs puts Juliet front and centre, focusing on her attempt to navigate through the perils and pitfalls of high-octane teenage dreams.
Annemarie Peard reviews Two by Two for Aussie Theatre. See the review in its original context here.
As it’s Saint Valentine’s Day week, it’s a commercial glut of glittery hearts and factory roses as we’re told to face the future as the gods intended: as a wholesome twosome. Blah to that; celebrate instead by going to fortyfive downstairs to see Little One’s Theatre’s Two by Two.
It’s raining; it’s been raining for so long that Carl (Gary Abrahams) and Jack (Paul Blenheim) can see the huge boat from their high-rise city apartment window. Jack’s packing supplies and listening to the radio for unlikely evacuation news. As a painter, Jack’s ticket to board is at the end of the queue, but Carl’s a doctor – someone with useful post-ammageddon skills. Both know why they’re not staring in this episode of The Love Boat, especially as their boy/girl couple neighbours went days ago. But there’s hope when Duckie (Zahra Newman), a patient of Carl’s, turns up with a baby and is desperate to board.
Darkly funny and unexpectedly confronting, Two by Two was developed at NIDA and won the 2011 Malcolm Robertson Prize (for awesome writing).
Karen Coombs reviews Two by Two for Stage Whispers. See the review in its original context here.
Noah’s Ark is a biblical story that at times is depicted as a charming tale of God’s creatures walking two by two into the safety of an enormous ark. At its crux, though, is an apocalyptic event of a grieving God about to destroy his creation with world-wide deluge – only one family, and one male and female of every living creature are saved.
Two by Two, the winner of the Malcolm Robertson Prize in 2011, transports this ancient story into the 21st century, a futuristic Melbourne that is facing the potential end-of-the-world due to torrential rain and the threat of the dams about to rupture.
Exciting news for audiences of the acclaimed Finucane & Smith's The Burlesque Hour: The Glory Box... We have just heard that Ursula Martinez, she of the infamous red hanky strip Hanky Panky, London cult cabaret diva, star of the Olivier…
The closing of A Dingo Fence and Mallee Roots: Victorian Farming on the Fringe was a great success last Saturday. Kristin Deimer's artist talk and accompanying performance by Helen Davey made a fabulous 'Finissage' which is apparently all the rage…
The Age
Robin Usher
31/01/2012
The Age interviews Dan Giovannoni – see the article in its original context here.
PLAYWRIGHT Dan Giovannoni is suspicious of the tolerance afforded minorities in contemporary Australia, even though he is a member of generation Y that he acknowledges has little direct experience of prejudice.
”I could live my whole life quite happily in a lefty bubble having a great time with friends and family,” he says.
Giovannoni shared in last year’s fringe festival award for best emerging writer for the comedy Cut Snake and won the the Malcolm Robertson Prize for his new play, Two by Two, which is at fortyfivedownstairs next month.
Twenty artists are in the running for prizes totaling more than $50,000 as part of the Victorian Government’s 2012 Victorian Indigenous Art Awards.
The awards, now in their seventh year, profile the diversity of Indigenous arts practice in Victoria and showcase the uniqueness of south-east Australian Aboriginal art.
Premier and Minister for the Arts Ted Baillieu said the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards played an important role in celebrating and promoting the work of the State’s Indigenous artists and our unique Koorie culture.
Time Out Melbourne
25/01/2012
Time Out Melbourne interviews Zoey Dawson – see the article in its original context here.
Actor and director Zoey Dawson presents an all-female production of Romeo and Juliet at fortyfivedownstairs, sharing the space with an all male production of Henry IV.
How did you come to this play?
I’d never seen a production that was really concerned with Juliet herself. Romeo and Juliet usually come as a couple. I wanted to yank them apart and just look at what happens to her. The fact that she meets a boy at a party and four days later she kills herself. What is that?
This production emerged out of an honours year project, is that right?
That was in 2010. I’m calling it an extensive development period. Before then I wasn’t so keen on it, really. But after I was assigned to it at university, and read it through, I was like, shit, this is a 13-year-old girl, and yet it’s part of this great romantic mythology.
I thought, OK, so my cousin is 13, and she’s obsessed with Twilight. I look at her, and other 13-year-olds, and I think: she is a child. How did this romantic mythology build up around a child? That was where it started, when I realised Juliet was 13.
MCV
Andrew Shaw
25/01/2012
MCV interviews Dan Giovannoni – see the article in its original context here.
Two by Two is a modern take on the classic bible tale Noah’s Ark but with a gay twist. Playwright Dan Giovannoni talks about the play’s plot, issues and themes.
Dan, what’s the story behind Two by Two?
It’s set in a futuristic Melbourne, during a great flood. An ark has been built and parts of the city are being evacuated. Carl and Jack don’t qualify for passage on the boat because they don’t meet the requirements of a ‘family’ – they’re gay, they have no kids, and they can’t procreate with each other. The play follows them in their struggle to find a way to get on board. Their home is gatecrashed by Duckie, who for her own reasons is also looking for a way to get on the boat, but has something they all want and need – a ticket, which comes in the form of a baby.
Aleksia Barron reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for ArtsHub. See the review in its original context here.
The subterranean haven of fortyfivedownstairs is the perfect place to settle down with a champagne and suspend one’s disbelief at a man, sans costume and makeup, announcing that he is, in fact, Madonna. So does Michael Griffiths, who doesn’t bat an eyelid when declaring that he is, in fact, Madge herself, before merrily launching into a night of musical and comedic repartee.
Cameron Woodhead reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for the Age. See the review in its original context here.
Dean Bryant’s pop-inspired cabaret continues to delight audiences: Christie Whelan returns in Britney over at Chapel off Chapel, and at fortyfivedownstairs, Michael Griffiths is camping out as Madonna.
In Vogue doesn’t reach for humane impersonation in the way the Britney show does, but it shares one quality that makes it unusually engaging as entertainment. By salvaging Madonna’s tunes from the tinny iterations of 80s pop, and twisting them into intricate arrangements for the baby grand, the show gives a lively sense of how good the songs really are.
Kate Herbert reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for the Herald Sun. See the review in its original context here.
Stars:****
WHO CAN EXPLAIN why pop divas such as Madonna, Bette Midler and Kylie are gay icons – they just are.
Singer-pianist, Michael Griffiths, directed by Dean Bryant, performs Madonna’s hit songs, speaking in first person as Madonna but without any drag-queen costuming, accent or attempted impersonation of that feisty, Italo-American pop idol.
Vito Matarelli reviews In Vogue: Songs By Madonna for Australian Stage. See the review in its original context here.
With Melbourne’s Midsumma now in full swing and pop royalty spreading their cabaret wings (Britney is currently performing south of the Yarra), it seems quite natural that the Queen of Pop should seek to re-invent herself yet again. The Queen of them all – Madonna!
Australian Stage
by Paul Andrew
20/01/12
Paul Andrews interviews Dean Bryant – see the article in its original context here.
Prolific writer/director and musical theatre prodigy, Dean Bryant, returns to the 2012 Midsumma festival with a new work celebrating the life and art of a pop culture icon – In Vogue: Songs By Madonna. He speaks to Australian Stage’s Paul Andrew.
It seems you have been rather busy Dean?
The last twelve months have been crazy, actually, and the busiest of my life – and it’s not letting up any time soon – the year started with a revival of Prodigal, the first musical I wrote – with Britney MD Matty Frank) and Liza (on an E) – both of which were huge hits for Midsumma Festival. I went to NYC to put up the Broadway premiere of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – which is still pulling in crowds and is a popular hit. Then my directing debut at Melbourne Theatre Company with Next to Normal, my opera directing debut with Hansel and Gretel for OzOpera and my Production Company directing debut with Anything Goes, co-directed with Andy Hallsworth.
I wrote two new shows for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival – Josie in the Bathhouse – which is playing the Spiegeltent at the Arts Centre in March and In Vogue: Songs by Madonna. Then I flew round the world casting Priscilla in Brazil, Milan and recasting NYC and finally moved to Milan for two months to direct the production in Italian – quite the experience, brilliant cast, very rocky tech period, but another big success. Now, it’s quite a relief to be staging two single actor shows for Midsumma.
Cabaret Confessional
by Lena Nobuhara
7/01/2012
Interview: Michael Griffiths salutes Madonna – see the article in its original context here.
Adelaide born, WAAPA trained, Sydney based performer Michael Griffiths made a sensational cabaret debut at the 2011 Adelaide Cabaret Festival with In Vogue: Songs by Madonna. He premiered the show to sold-out crowds and pulled off a compelling performance as the pop diva – without wigs, costumes or an accent. The show was such a success that he is about to take it to Melbourne, New York and Sydney. As Michael gets ready for the tour, he chats to Cabaret Confessional about his hit show he calls “Madge Unplugged”, his collaboration with a cabaret wunderkind Dean Bryant and his thoughts on cabaret.
Michael will be starting a tour diary just before he kicks off the 2012 Midsumma Festival season in Melbourne. Watch this space and follow his adventures as he gives us an insider look at the In Vogue: Songs by Madonna Tour!
Time Out
By Andrew Fuhrmann
10/12/2011
Mary Lou Jelbart on 10 Years Downstairs – see the article in its original context here.
Former ABC arts reporter and current fortyfivedownstairs artistic director Mary Lou Jelbart is overseeing the tenth birthday celebrations of the creative hub in February 2012.
“The original impetus was more toward chamber music and exhibitions,” says Mary Lou Jelbart, who together with Julian Burnside, famous collector of dictionaries, founded the venue in 2002. “But it quickly changed.”
After hosting a series of critically applauded works by Ariette Taylor and Daniel Keene, Jelbart saw the light. “I suddenly recognised how important it was to have a theatre for new work.”
The Age
Written by Michael Dwyer
December 5, 2011
Collision course to creativity – see the original article here.
Taking an individual approach while participating on a team effort works well for Collider, writes Michael Dwyer.
MUSIC is a lot like life. You can talk about it until you’re as old as Socrates, insist on structure and meaning and higher purpose, or you can just plug in and wing it until it feels good.
Classical tends towards the former, rock the latter. Jazz lays a heavy bet each way.
The Press
Written by Keith Lynch
November 25, 2011
Cathedral’s collapse immortalised – see the original article here.
A Christchurch man caught the moment when the Christ Church Cathedral crumbled on February 22.
Andrew Hewson, 24, was in an art studio he shared with his brother, Michael, and other artists on the sixth floor of the Tower Building in Cathedral Square when the earthquake struck.
He grabbed his camera and took pictures of dust clouds engulfing the Square and police kiosk.
Review by Alison Croggon for Theatre Notes on 14 October. See here in it’s full context.
La beauté, “Beauty is difficult, Yeats” said Aubrey Beardsley
when Yeats asked why he drew horrors
or at least not Burne-Jones
and Beardsley knew he was dying and had to
make his hit quickly
Hence no more B-J in his product.
So very difficult, Yeats, beauty so difficult.
– Ezra Pound, Cantos
I left Whiteley’s Incredible Blue last night with Pound’s verse circling around my head. Barry Dickins’s new play, subtitled “an hallucination”, is almost an essay on the proposition of the difficulty and necessity of beauty, through the medium of the enfant terrible of Australian art, Brett Whiteley.
Review by Kate Herbert for The Herald Sun, October 14. See it in it's original context here. BRETT Whiteley, one of Australia's great painters, was a tortured artist - a self-indulgent, free spirit and heroin addict. In Barry Dickins' play,…
A beautiful image from Whiteley's Incredible Blue, page 5 of The Age 14 October 2011. Image by Simon Schluter
Review by Anne-Marie Peard on Sunday 2 October, please see it in it's original context here. As the fortyfivedownstairs program continues to bring us companies who know how important it is to tell our stories and are willing to take…
Rebekah Stuart Shannon McGrath Both artists are showing exquisitely detailed digital prints that blend the processes of photography with painting. Exhibitions run until 15 October.
The Age newspaper
Written by Robin Usher
October 1, 2011
VETERAN Melbourne playwright Barry Dickins hates heroin, which puts him at odds with the subject of his latest production, the artist Brett Whiteley, who is thought to have died of a heroin overdose after more than a decade of addiction.
But Dickins has been fascinated with the painter since he met him during a Melbourne exhibition more than 40 years ago. He was commissioned by the Melbourne Theatre Company’s artistic director, Simon Phillips, to write a one-man show about Whiteley in 2000 following the artist’s death in a hotel in the small town of Thirroul, south of Sydney, in 1992.
Dickins has wrestled with the work ever since and it is finally being produced in the Melbourne Festival from October 13. His book on the artist, Black + Whiteley, was published in 2002 after extensive interviews, including with the painter’s wife, Wendy.
”It was based on conversations about him, but it was really all my invention,” Dickins says.
...underway now at fortyfivedownstairs Monday 26 September 7.21pm Curated by Sally McKitrick.
We are excited to announce the blog for the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards 2012 is up and running. We are very excited to welcome Hannah, she will be working with the fortyfivedownstairs curator to curate and organise the Victorian Indigenous…
LUKE HARDY & SARINA LIROSI ARTIST FLOOR TALKS Saturday 3 September 2pm All welcome Luke Hardy's photographic work lies somewhere between narrative and mystery. His practice began as a means of documenting journeys, but journeys over time become inevitably more…
