peteg's blog - noise - theatre - 2018 12 12 NIDA DirectorsDesignersProductions

NIDA: Directors' and Designers' Productions 2018.

/noise/theatre | Link

Booked 2018-11-24: $32.00 + 5.95 Service and Handling Fee = $37.95 for three of the six (?) showing. All in the Studio Theatre, notionally every hour from 7pm, but it took longer to adjust the sets than they allowed, so this opening night ended up dragging out well past 10pm. Every session was packed. In between I took a quick look at the costumery in the foyer, and the miniature set mockups where the cafe used to be. Loads of people; a big end of year scene.

First up was Molière's Le Mariage forcé ("the forced marriage"): well-executed commedia dell'arte. The set was fantastic and used to great effect by a tight cast. The usual stuff: a bloke (Tom Matthews) wants to get married until he doesn't. The bride (Charlotte Grimmer) says she expects tolerance and trust from her husband as she really wants to run off with her girlfriend. The father- and brother-in-law insist. A philosopher and a priest provide no help.

I was keen to see Hedda, based on Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, as the Norwegian has previously been a very reliable source of raw material. Well, this production bowdlerised that play to the point of vacuity; gone were the elliptic approaches and repeated motifs that repay close attention. I got nothing from this.

Finally, Big Blue Sky, based on Peter Garrett's autobio and a smattering of Midnight Oil hits. The last time I met such unabashed Oils fans was in 1996. The cast enjoyed themselves right from the opening frame: pub trivia about Garrett's bio, a game of backyard cricket, later a meat raffle drawn by Julia Gillard (represented by her hair for the most part). Most took turns to sing and perform Garrett's signature dance moves to a decent backing band made up of a keyboard/guitarist and drummer, and some of the cast playing bass and guitar. The only slightly bum note in this story of onwards and upwards was his self-righteous approval of a uranium mine as environment minister back in 2009. The minor use of video (to make an ad for his 2004 Kingsford Smith election campaign) was effective. They worked up a sweat in the audience too.