George Orwell intended 1984 to be a satire, but this play shows it’s close to the truth

THEATRE
1984 ★★★
Comedy Theatre, until July 6

When George Orwell wrote 1984 – his self-proclaimed “satire” – in 1949, he couldn’t have foreseen how it would irrevocably shape our cultural rubric, with terms such as “Big Brother” and “groupthink” an inextricable part of our vocabulary. Nor could he have anticipated the extent to which his fictional portent has materialised into concrete reality.

Michael Whalley (left) as Winston Smith and David Whitney as O’Brien in Shake & Stir’s production of 1984.

Brisbane-based theatre company, Shake & Stir, is reprising 1984 after first bringing it to stage in 2012, but the geopolitical climate heralding this year’s production has never been more Orwellian. People are being incarcerated and deported for not adhering to a state-sanctioned narrative. Genocidal entities engage in widespread disavowals of what we know to be true. Mass totalitarian surveillance has resulted in an unprecedented form of industrialised warfare with constantly shifting adversaries. Against this backdrop of collective amnesia and weaponised language, 1984 is especially resonant.

As audiences settle into their seats, a roving spotlight illuminates progressive sections of the room in harsh light. A sparse, concrete-grey stage is framed by multiple television screens emblazoned with the phrases “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength”. Concentrated in the centre are five people performing jingoistic anthems, each concealing a different connection to Big Brother and the despotic rule of Oceania.

A rewriter of history in the Records Department of the so-called Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith (a suitably twitchy and dogged Michael Whalley) is a key architect of Oceania’s state-sponsored propaganda. He’s also incredibly disenchanted and quietly resistant, jotting down his “thought crimes” dangerously in a diary.

Michael Whalley as Winston Smith and Chloe Bayliss as Julia in Shake & Stir’s production of 1984.

Omniscient cameras projected on to the screens follow Winston’s every move. In staging that’s undoubtedly been mirrored by plays such as Truth, much of the action unfolds on these screens, whether they’re documenting the characters or being overlaid with archival footage of World War II.

We gain an insight into Winston’s interiority through sweeping monologues, where his face is projected up-close to the audience – appearing almost disfigured by the scrutiny, an apt metaphor for state encroachment. Less effective are the corny sequences where Winston dreams in colour of greener pastures.

The only time Winston’s public persona isn’t at odds with his private feelings is when he’s with his wide-eyed, idealistic lover Julia (a rousing Chloe Bayliss) or antiques seller Charrington (Abhilash Kaimal, whose versatility shines in multiple roles). But Winston and Julia are running on borrowed time, and the ramifications are profound and indelible.

The world-building of 1984’s minimalistic set is incredibly effective. Decked in matching blue boilersuits, the characters are stripped of their individuality in a world where things such as razors, chocolate and lipstick don’t exist any more. Multiples of Big Brother perennially loom over them. The stage unfurls into a single realm of reprieve, bathed in a warm light.

If Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij’s adaptation of 1984 is impeccably staged, it’s also heavy-handed and unsubtle. Blinding flashes of light punctuate every scene transition and deafening alarms blare periodically.

The slow creeping unease of the text doesn’t translate as easily to stage, and the motifs of fear and control quickly become repetitious, particularly in the high-impact torture scenes.

1984 is at its best when it’s tracing the minutiae of the characters’ stolen interactions, whether it’s in the frenzied conversation between Simon and Winston as the former charts the ever-contracting dictionary of words, or Winston’s meeting with the duplicitous O’Brien (David Whitney re-enacting his role in a marvellously supercilious turn).

The last few scenes are especially masterful as Winston and Julia contend with how their private selves have become forever tainted by state overreach. Behind them on the screens, Winston’s face is eerily superimposed on to Big Brother’s, the edges blurred and inextricable from one another.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

MUSIC
Killing Heidi ★★★
25 Years of Reflector Australian Tour
Northcote Theatre, June 28

“Hello Melbourne, how you going?” says Jesse Hooper, Killing Heidi’s guitarist. His sister, lead singer Ella Hooper, comes on stage with her back to the crowd, swivelling around and waving as she soaks in their adulation. She pretends to rev up her air guitar as they launch into the opening bars of Mascara.

Ella Hooper of Killing Heidi performs at the Northcote Theatre with brother Jesse Hooper on guitar.Credit: Richard Clifford

Killing Heidi arrived on the Australian scene when local rock music was at its peak, surrounded by acts such as The Superjesus and Grinspoon. Melbourne signifies the last leg of their tour, which celebrates 25 years of their debut album Reflector, with the anniversary edition currently sitting at number one on the Aria Australian albums charts.

The band plays their debut album in order, rather than devising a set list specifically for the show. Popular singles Mascara and Weir were played at the start, which in some ways allowed for a level of comfort for die-hard fans familiar with the album, but also removed the opportunity to build anticipation.

Ella Hooper jokes that they were clearly a band that worked with the emotion of angst. She gives fans licence to step back into their younger selves, a time when the state of the world felt a little less complicated. She reminds us that ageing is a beautiful thing, remarking that the “Jack and Coke” she once consumed while performing in her youth has been replaced with coconut water.

Hooper still carries the energy of her teenage self as she bounds across the stage and thrusts and shakes her head, hair whipping her cheeks. She holds the mic out to the crowd, encouraging them to sing along, uttering “that’s f---ing rad” when she hears them recite the lyrics verbatim.

During the show, Ella Hooper notes the importance of supporting the next generation of women artists, giving a shout-out to support acts Hassall and Siobhan Cotchin.

The live performance felt true to the album renditions, but the addition of keys, which Ella Hooper had specifically requested if the band were ever to reform. This was particularly evident in the mellow track Astral Boy, when the drums and bass guitar player weren’t performing.

During Weir, Ella Hooper teases the chorus, saying “gotcha!” when they’d lead into the next verse, knowing fans wanted to belt out “will you make it in the end”.

Killing Heidi returns for an unexpected encore – an opportunity to play hit singles Calm Down, Heavensent and I Am from other albums. This performance had a zeal that was missing from the main set, perhaps due to the amplified vocal harmonies from the keyboard and bass player, or maybe because the tracks represented an era when the band’s sound had matured.

Jesse Hooper expresses how humbled they are that fans have reconnected with their music. Signing off, Ella Hooper says cheekily: “See you guys in another 25 years … maybe”.
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

MUSIC
MSO Winter Gala: Lang Lang ★★★★★
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall, June 28

Part pianist-muse, part dazzling showman, classical music superstar Lang Lang presented as an intriguing artistic phenomenon during his two sold-out Melbourne concerts. Wednesday’s solo recital affirmed Lang Lang’s great affinity with the romantic repertory in a program underlining poetics, rather than pyrotechnics.

Faure’s beloved Pavane was treated almost too delicately with whispered phrases and half-lit sonorities. Schumann’s Kreisleriana, arguably one of his least approachable works, sprang to life with vividly etched contrasts between aching melodic outpourings and frenetic, fiery outbursts.

Traversing a dozen Chopin Mazurkas, Lang Lang illuminated the huge variety of moods and styles the composer was able to achieve in this rhythmically lopsided dance form. Among their sometimes-playful perversity, the melancholy sensuality of the A minor, Op. 17 stood out for its meltingly beautiful timbre.

Pianist Lang Lang with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.Credit: Nico Keenan

The official program ended in a blaze of glory with the imposing Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44, before encores that included a diaphanous account of Debussy’s Clair de lune and a truly incendiary reading of de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance.

Saturday’s breathtaking account of Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was more in keeping with Lang Lang’s rock star image. A strange amalgam of styles, the concerto was once described as “beginning with Bach and ending with Offenbach”.

After the dramatic opening with its baroque overtones and the amusing, nonchalant scherzo, the blinding virtuosity of the tarantella finale left many wondering how anyone could play so fast and so accurately. Images of a fluttering hummingbird came to mind. This seemingly superhuman
talent, the stuff of lasting memories, unsurprisingly elicited a rapturous ovation.

Two encores, Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 and the Disney tune Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? were strange bedfellows. Bookending the concert, chief conductor Jaime Martín revelled in the festive Spanish air of Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso, graced with perfectly judged bassoon cameos by Elise Millman.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s wondrous orchestration was supported by lustrous string tone and cohesive, strongly characterised playing throughout the orchestra. Among the solos, Owen Morris’s rapid-fire trumpet impressed. The rousing solemnity of The Great Gate of Kyiv seemed a timely and fitting conclusion.

Hopefully, those who came to witness Lang Lang’s technical brilliance went away from these concerts realising that he is a well-rounded romantic, whose art is both dazzling and deeply empathetic. For that, he really does deserve a rock star reception.
Reviewed by Tony Way

MUSIC
Jem Cassar-Daley ★★★★
Northcote Social Club, June 28

These are golden days for feeling blue. The Northcote Social Club was thoroughly charmed on Saturday night by the collective heartbreak of three charismatic Gen Z songwriters singing a big, sad world of everyday calamities while positively beaming with the first rush of being heard.

Jem Cassar-Daly at the Northcote Social Club.Credit: Richard Clifford

Anxiety is the confessed bete noir of Belgian expat Romanie. She silenced the early arrivals with a finger-picked electric guitar, impish banter and songs drawing on the agonies of Palestine, climate grief and fragile hope. They played like first drafts of raw experience, roaring with a voice that threatened to scream and ultimately did.

An even fresher voice from rural New South Wales, Mikayla Pasterfield opened with her TikTok breakthrough Damage You Still Do – an assured first dip into a well of childhood guilt, unrequited love and worldly resilience. Her pealing giggle between songs brought ample light, even to that intriguingly loaded one about buying a goldfish, Tactile.

Steeped from birth in old-school stagecraft and grit, Jem (daughter of Troy) Cassar-Daley upped the energy with a slick bass-drums-guitar trio and a gushing dedication to her “incredible” sisters in song before throwing herself into the last night of her Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving tour.

From the post-romantic inner monologue of Slow Down to the homesick airline stationery letter Space Between, her songs mine a consistent emotional register: sharp-focus country-pop ballads laced with the genre’s traditional sighs of longing and brave-faced disappointment.

As a writer, she’s moving fast. Changes was an oldie from the 2022 debut album that she’s all but left behind. The paint was barely dry on Tidal Wave and one or two others, even if it took a couple of inspirational covers — Gwen Stefani, Addison Rae — to bring any real sonic surprise.

Mikayla Pasterfield returned to make a seamless duet of Texas Ain’t That Far, Is It Dear?, the sheer joy of communion making the song’s fundamental melancholy evaporate like an old memory. The headliner’s inevitable encore, King of Disappointment, radiated with the same sense of bliss reclaimed in the thrill of performance.

For all its gentle sorrows, that joy was the glaring takeaway from this show: three stunning singers claiming a world where blokes are sidemen and women draw strength from bills stacked with more women, then laugh about it on the way to the bar. Some nights, one guitar solo is enough.
Reviewed by Michael Dwyer

THEATRE
Super ★★★★
Red Stitch, until July 6

Superhero culture is dangerous because it’s “essentially fascism”, according to Alan Moore. Trump once released a non-fungible token of himself as a superhero with eye lasers, let’s not forget, and the adolescent fantasy of fighting evil with superpowers looks frankly terrifying when it plays out in the world.

A production shot of Super at Red Caroline Lee, Laila Thaker and Lucy Ansell explore their powers in Super. Credit: Credit Cameron Grant - Parenthesy

Anyone who thinks seriously about the subject should be worried by the infantilising nostalgia, the power worship, and the narcissistic sense of exceptionalism that seem to have gripped the imagination of a so-called adult audience. At the same time, it’s true that satire and subversion from within – the nerdy reality-check of Kick-Ass, say, or the cynical vision of corporatised “Supes” in The Boys – can act as a kind of kryptonite to the worst tendencies of the genre.

Emilie Collyer’s new play Super gives us a fantastically silly and strange sideswipe at the superhero tropes we’ve inherited. It’s a full-throttle feminist funfest that will tickle those who love the grandiose cosplay and game-changing powers of superhero stories, while dodging hypermasculinity and ultra-violence, launching a guerrilla attack on gender inequality, and celebrating female friendship into the bargain.

Two besties – Nell (Laila Thaker) and Phoenix (Lucy Ansell) – are the only members of their superpower support group, and their special abilities are drawn from a distinctly feminine arsenal. Phoenix has a preternatural gift for suppressing her rage and can calm others against their will. Nell is, well, super-organised – a paragon of unpaid labour who can fast-track solutions to almost any problem.

When Rae (Caroline Lee) first enters their gathering, they think she’s taken a wrong turn – the AA meeting’s down the hall. But the celebrity chef has a superpower of her own. She’s so in touch with her own sorrow that if she bursts into tears, she can make anyone cry helplessly alongside her.
It comes in handy when the ageing star’s producers threaten to dump her from her TV show: Rae weeps and wails and weaponises her victimhood until they relent.

Laila Thaker as Nell – her power is being super-organised.Credit: Cameron Grant - Parenthesy 

Phoenix is suspicious of the new arrival – they’re almost opposites of each other – but all three are determined to use their powers to do good in the world, despite the prickliness, and despite their powers coming at a physical cost (nothing special power suits can’t fix, though that comes at a price, too).

Soon their charity work becomes big business. Rae uses her celebrity to start a reality TV show judging whether ordinary contestants have superpowers. Phoenix gets ripped and fights against gang and domestic violence in marginalised communities. Nell turns their enterprise into a mega-corporation fuelled by big data, drastically enhancing the good they can do …

A dystopian twist and climactic confrontation looms, as liberal aims begin to be achieved through – you guessed it – fascist means. Can they right themselves, or will they become villains and victims of their own success?

Emma Valente directs an almost painfully entertaining show, featuring exaggerated, laugh-out-loud funny performances and spectacular visual gags and costumes.

The examination of power isn’t quite as fleshed out as you might hope, but the ending is radical in a way that restores perspective.

The greatest superpower, it seems, might be the ordinary human comfort of genuine friendship.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

IMMERSIVE THEATRE
The Door in Question ★★★★
Metro West Footscray, until June 29

Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are still a source of fear, confusion and stigma. Troy Rainbow’s remarkable mixed-reality immersive theatre event, The Door in Question, fights against them by opening a portal into altered perception, utilising the latest VR and interactive AI technology.

The Door In Question is an immersive theatre experience using VR. Credit: Lauren Marr

This is a solo trip into the labyrinth of the disordered mind. And if that sounds risky, the project is so sensitively realised that it feels unique in humanising (without remotely romanticising) what psychosis is like, inside and out.

It helps that the artist has skin in the game. Rainbow’s mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia – a deeply personal experience and an inspiration for the world you’ll enter.

Audiences first step into an antechamber that serves as a meditation room. A few deep breaths are needed before donning a VR headset in a Footscray shopping mall and stepping down the rabbit hole. A colourful, disturbing wonderland awaits, based on a childhood story Rainbow’s mother wrote for him.

Disorienting voices guide you through gritty urban landscapes, decrepit domestic environments, and a world based on classical mythology – statues of Medusa, fountains, ancient Greek columns – and onwards and upwards into a florid brush with divinity … or paranoid delusion.

Disorienting voices guide you through decrepit domestic environments in The Door in Question. Credit: Lauren Marr

You’re inducted into a secret history of Footscray (including its Indigenous history) as you walk the streets to a second location, and I don’t want to spoil what happens there.

The less you know, the better, though I can say it’s a full-body experience. The show will quite literally make your spine tingle, twisting the design surprises and interactive mystery of immersive theatre and escape rooms towards a higher purpose.

In fact, it almost portrays mental illness as a kind of escape room… one with no escape, and a profusion of clues everywhere you look.

Each space is engagingly designed, and there’s a haunting quality to the voice acting and the polyphonic script, some of which sounds as if taken verbatim from people with schizophrenia.
Hallucinatory audiovisual tricks keep you on edge, painfully vigilant, and one section involves a responsive AI program, as a grandiose delusion tightens its grip.

Exploring psychosis through mixed reality tech is a fabulous idea, and The Door in Question really does feel at the forefront of a brave new kind of artmaking.

But it’s the human element that makes it work – the profound authenticity of lived experience, and the unflinching insight into the danger and distress, as well as the wildcard beauty – and, yes, the love – amid the deranged tangle of psychotic illness.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
ACO Unleashed, ★★★★
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Hamer Hall, June 22

Undaunted by the withdrawal of injured Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja from its current tour, the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) took the opportunity to draw soloists from its own ranks in a program confirming all its appealing strengths.

Anna da Silva Chen plays with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as part of ACO Unleashed.

In the absence of artistic director Richard Tognetti, longstanding violinists Helena Rathbone and Satu Vanska shared direction of the orchestra. They were joined by the ACO’s newest member, Anna da Silva Chen, in a buoyant account of Bach’s Concerto for Three Violins. Clearly delighting in their collaboration, they wove the music’s contrapuntal strands into a richly detailed tapestry, abetted by the ACO’s customary rhythmic drive.

Vanska brought an edgy bravura to Bernard Rofe’s arrangement of Ravel’s Tzigane to which the presence of the celesta in the accompanying forces contributed an additional exotic touch.

Exemplary ensemble and beauty of tone graced Tognetti’s arrangement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 “Serioso”. Nuanced variations of texture reinforced both the original’s urgency and intimacy.

Schubert’s Quartet Movement in C minor, D. 703 shimmered like a jewel, full of light and shade, where dramatic and lyrical elements were held in admirable balance.

Giving the Melbourne premiere of Jaakko Kuusisto’s Cello Concerto, principal cellist Timo-Veikko Valve gave a passionate tribute to the late composer, a longtime family friend and fellow Finn. Kuusisto, who died of brain cancer in 2022, aged 48, conceived this well-crafted work with Valve’s considerable technical and expressive prowess in mind.

Like Sibelius, Kuusisto often sets his emotional lyricism in sparse surroundings. Here, some percussion freshened the orchestral palette, further enticing the listener’s close attention. Empathetically supported by his fellow players, Valve’s advocacy of this score may well make it a 21st-century classic.

A welcome, if unforeseen, element of its fiftieth anniversary season, this program celebrated the abundant talent of a great chamber orchestra.
Reviewed by Tony Way

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