Nancye Hayes’ return to the STC is a joy and a privilege to witness
By Michael Bailey, Daniel Herborn, Shamim Razavi, John Shand and Kayla Olaya
THEATRE
4000 MILES
Wharf 1 Theatre, February 7
Until March 23
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★
Vera hasn’t changed the name on the buzzer for her New York apartment in the 10 years since her husband died. It still reads “Joe Joseph”. Her grandson, Leo, meanwhile has just cycled 4,000 miles, from Seattle to New York via Kansas. Ostensibly, he’s on the move, and she’s unbending. But, despite the 70-year age difference, they’re close in many ways.
It’s not a blood bond: Vera married Joe after he’d already had Leo’s future mother, but that doesn’t dilute the grandmother/grandson love. Besides, they share another bond that scorns generations, mobility and inertia. They’re both confused by life. Although ferociously independent, Vera’s just clinging on as she marks time in her 90s, and Leo, having lost his cycling buddy to a horrific accident in Kansas, hit New York to find his girlfriend less than enthused.
It’s a joy and a privilege to see Nancye Hayes return to Sydney Theatre Company, performing Vera in Amy Herzog’s multilayered 2009 play. Hayes ages herself perfectly to fully inhabit this spiky, fascinating creature, adding extra glow to the inherent warmth, and sharpening the inherent acerbity. She makes it credible that Vera can call someone stupid, and be forthright rather than nasty.
Nancye Hayes and Shiv Palekar in 4000 Miles.Credit: Daniel Boud
Such commendable casting would count for little had director Kenneth Moraleda not found a Leo capable of enunciating the muddy banks and backwaters of their relationship, as well as the flower-lined rambling paths – for Leo and Vera are profound catalysts in each other’s lives.
Looking rather older than Herzog’s specified 21, and after some initial nervy bumps for both actors, Shiv Palekar slipped easily into Leo’s jumpy zone where he can be the instigator of affection, while viewing Vera’s age as some alien land divorced from his own future. Both Hayes and Palekar give us people we like, despite their flaws, for their capacity to accept, forgive, love and help.
The play engenders the nagging feeling that perhaps Herzog initially flirted with a two-hander, before it got away from her, and other characters, who could quite possibly have been merely discussed, gate-crashed the stage. The first is Bec, the girlfriend who gives Leo the flick. She, too, is confused, and while Ariadne Sgouros makes Bec’s unpredictable leaps in mood and perspective, she sometimes works a little hard at them.
The second is Amanda (Shirong Wu), whom Leo invites back to Vera’s from a bar. A night’s sex looks certain, until the Chinese-American sees Vera’s communist books – and then sees Vera, herself. Wu is amusing twisting between Amanda’s drunken playfulness, come-hither sexiness and rich-girl hang-ups in her outpouring of thought bubbles riddled with “like”.
Jeremy Allen’s literal set catches the sense of an abode that’s been Vera’s for decades, and will be her last, aided by Kelsey Lee’s lighting. Jessica Dunn’s music, meanwhile, is simply gorgeous, mixing New York jazziness with more pastel hues, that, like the characters, stutter in expressing their true meaning.
MUSIC
BRAHMS & BEETHOVEN
Australian Chamber Orchestra
City Recital Hall, February 11
Reviewed by PETER McCALLUM
★★★★½
Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra began Brahms’ Violin Concerto, their 2025 season, and their second half century with a broad, expansive tempo, allowing phrases to swell with unhurried strength, and creating well-shaped arcs from the woodwind girded by brooding tension.
Playing against an expanded ACO, with more than 30 strings and guest wind and brass players from Australia and overseas, Tognetti, who has led the ACO for 35 of its 50 years, played with his favoured gut strings, used in Brahms’ day but usually replaced today with wound steel.
Richard Tognetti performed using his favoured gut strings.Credit: Charlie Kinross
Although they lack the latter’s incisive brilliance, they have their own distinctive sweetness and create additional bow noise in the sound, which, when well managed, is like a carving that exploits the grain, roughness and hidden lights in the wood rather than polishing it.
This suits Tognetti’s tonal aesthetic, which often resists the gleaming projection of mid-twentieth century violinists (captured on records during their golden age) and draws back to intimate expression to make its impact through disarming plainness and insinuating quietness. Expressive emphasis was achieved largely by pulling back and varying the tempo.
In the slow movement, I found this excessive. Rhythmic freedom is essential to Brahms’ style but there needs to be a heartbeat. There were, of course, moments of soaring sound and searing intensity, unashamed romanticism (as in the first movement’s second theme) as there must be for a work like this.
Tognetti’s cadenza, mixing cadenzas by Busoni, Heermann and Auer was interesting and, in authentic Romantic tradition, a little too long. The finale had robust grit and fine energy though, on this occasion the coda skated a little too fast for perfect poise.
This was a deeply committed performance showing exacting care and expressive affinity, though with some exaggerations that should ease away as these players return to the work as I hope they do.
In the second half of this monumental and historic program Tognetti conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 In A, Opus 92, with violin in hand to lead the orchestra in a performance of vivid immediacy and surging energy. The visiting wind players shone through Beethoven’s extended introduction and led the first movement with transparent clarity and buoyancy.
The famous Allegretto was well-paced with sunny glow in the central theme and carefully calibrated softness in the fugue. After a hugely boisterous scherzo, the finale raced ahead with Bacchanalian abandon, at one point daring itself to go faster still, but without losing the wild logic that makes it so compelling.
With some gaps, I have been listening to the ACO for all of its history, and the vitality of its current incarnation does honour to the vision and audacity of Robert Pickler, John Painter and others who contributed to its founding 50 years ago.
MUSIC
ST JEROME’S LANEWAY FESTIVAL
February 9, Centennial Park
Reviewed by KAYLA OLAYA
★★★★½
The minute the intro of I Love It by Charli XCX and Icona Pop kicked in, the Laneway crowd, even from its farthest reaches, went berserk.
Performing in Sydney for the first time since releasing her electronic, party-girl album Brat, Charli XCX finally brought the “Brat summer” phenomenon to Australia. Her songs have been in every playlist, car aux and club, and by getting her to headline, Laneway secured the artist of a generation.
Olivia Dean’s set was a soulful and ethereal affair.Credit: Edwina Pickles
As the album’s bangers rolled out – including 360, Club Classics, Guess, 365 and Everything Is Romantic – the crowd was never not jumping, screaming, twerking, dancing, climbing on each other’s shoulders and singing. Apart from the shoulders, Charli XCX was doing the same.
From the mellow I Might Say Something Stupid to the whole crowd performing the TikTok dance to Apple, this was a set that will live in memories for a long time.
Laneway itself was the epitome of a colourful and cheerful summer festival. Sitting on the ground among crunched drink cans with a group of mates, all knee-high boots and knee-length shorts, head scarfs and hand-held fans as the smell of sunscreen wafted through, added to the sensory experience of a perfect summer afternoon.
The range of musicians was diverse but perfect for Laneway audience, comprising up-and-coming artists adored by TikTok and Gen Z.
With each new song, Beabadoobee whipped out a different coloured guitar – hot pink, teal, yellow – in a set of R&B pop-punk that was more fiery than the whimsical sound of her recordings. Performing in front of a baby-pink tulle backdrop that made the stage look like the setting for an American prom, she proved enchanting live.
Despite the oppressive sun, a determined crowd gathered to watch Aussie punk-rockers Skegss, with LSD, perhaps their most popular tune, also one of their best performances.
Meanwhile, Olivia Dean was soulful and ethereal throughout a set to hold hands and sway to, while Clairo, a soft-spoken indie singer who looked like she came straight out of the ’60s, charmed with tunes including Juna and Thank You .
MUSIC
DMA’s
Taronga Zoo, February 7
Reviewed by MICHAEL BAILEY
★★★★
The zoo had closed hours ago, so why were so many children still here for this Twilight At Taronga gig?
It’s a jolt when you work it out. DMA’s, hailing from Newtown just across the bridge, have been releasing music for nearly eleven years - an eternity, by the standards of rock bands formed this century.
Which explains all the kids, possibly conceived to the soaring strains of Delete or In the Air, hearing those very same songs tonight through their earmuffs while mum and dad swilled rosé from plastic cups, held each other and swayed. One of the tykes had even drawn a “You Rock DMA’s” sign.
The DMA’s still sound a little Oasis and Stone Roses but mostly they have grown into their own thing.Credit: Dara Munnis
And rock the DMA’s assuredly did. At this point, the ingredients are comforting in their familiarity – Johnny Took the showman, thrashing his acoustic guitar even when holding it vertically, strutting the stage and geeing us up; Matt Mason all business on lead axe, anchoring the reverb-heavy yet deceptively intricate arrangements with aplomb; and Tommy O’Dell’s vocals as pure and urgent as ever, spouting lyrics that rarely made much literal sense but have a way of making you feel things just the same.
And, of course, they’re all still wearing their baseball caps – apart from the hired hands on bass and drums, who nevertheless reliably provided the baggy or Britpop rhythms as they were called for.
Yes, DMA’s still sounded a little bit like Oasis and Stone Roses – and like B-sides from those bands in a couple of flat moments – but mostly they have long since grown into their own thing.
Take a recent single like Olympia, which got the moshpit bouncing early with a hammered riff that AC/DC could claim, a cascading melody and shout-along chorus that most bands would kill for, and all wrapped in an air of mystery that’s an anomaly in the social media age.
The sonic palette was limited but a smorgasbord all the same - the stomping intensity of Play It Out and Hello Girlfriend, the dreaminess of hit Cher cover Believe (which a few seemed to be solely here for) and the lightning-strikes mix of profundity and joyous release that are Delete, Silver and Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s The Weekend.
Will DMA’s endure when tonight’s kids have kids of their own? History says no, but the smiles on the mums and dads’ faces as they walked back up the hill to the buses say otherwise.
The Twilight at Taronga concert series continues until March 9.
COMEDY
Troy Hawke: The Greeters Guild
Enmore Theatre, February 8
Reviewed by DANIEL HERBORN
★★★★½
“Some comedians see folded arms as a sign of disinterest,” Troy Hawke purrs to one incongruously defensive front-row punter. “I see you as an envelope I’d like to unsteam”.
As Hawke, the alter ego of character comic Milo McCabe, concedes, he isn’t the most straightforward act to describe to the unenlightened. His main shtick is standing outside retailers, nattily dressed in a smoking jacket, pleated slacks and cravat, and bestowing “bespoke compliments” on passers-by.
The quaint character and his delightfully verbose compliments have won over many and propelled Hawke to viral fame, but as he explains in The Greeters Guild, his antics are often met with officiousness or even aggression. One man asks if he’s part of the Taliban. A humourless boxer threatens our hero with violence after Hawke dares to call him “adorable”.
Milo McCabe’s delightfully verbose compliments have propelled Hawke to viral fame. Credit:
Hawke leads us down some strange rabbit holes involving defunct words, scrabble numerology and a deliciously pedantic intervention into a Facebook squabble over neighbourhood noise, but always with a twist up his immaculately tailored sleeve.
Improving on the ornate nuttiness of his previous show, Sigmund Troy’d, this new hour is deeper, funnier and more uplifting. It digs into his persona and how the public reacts to it. Why, it asks, are we so reluctant to compliment strangers or to accept praise in good faith?
The show makes liberal use of video snippets, but Hawke’s physicality, manically swivelling his hips to emphasise points and drawing waves of laughter with his quizzically raised eyebrows and pregnant pauses, elevate it far above a static clip show.
By the end, surely every envelope has been metaphorically unsteamed, and every audience member has been won over to Hawke’s crusade, cheering on his victories and all but hissing at those who stand in the way of his bizarro benevolence. An oddball delight from start to finish.
MUSIC
KATE MILLER-HEIDKE
City Recital Hall, February 7
Reviewed by SHAMIM RAZAVI
★★★★
That Kate Miller-Heidke’s work has been nominated for 18 ARIA awards over the years speaks to her long and celebrated career as a national darling. That those nominations span categories as diverse as best pop release, best classical album, best comedy release and best original soundtrack highlights the scale of her ambition. But the fact that not one of those nominations has bagged an award would make you think this Kate of all trades has mastered none.
You’d be wrong.
Her recorded work may suffer from over-arrangement but on stage – accompanied only by musical-and-life partner Keir Nuttall on guitar – her musical mastery is unmistakeable.
Kate Miller-Heidke soars at Eurovision in 2019.Credit: AP
For a more everyday singer-songwriter the accessible comfort of hits Last Day on Earth and Caught in the Crowd would be set highlights. For Miller-Heidke they feel like obligatory sops to audience expectations – the essentials playlist. Things get far more interesting on O Vertigo! where manic trilling and warbling betray her classical training.
That virtuosic soprano soars on the implausible Eurovision entry Zero Gravity, rendered far more powerful without the synth overlay of her original recording while her operatic cover of Paint it Black is as implausible as it is potent, revealing both her own talents and the hidden depths of the Stones’ composition.
She is better still when in full Kate Bush mode, channelling not only the vocal style but also the piano and storytelling chops of her more famous namesake, most compellingly on the confessional Sarah. What may have started as raw, awkward tribute is now an integral part of this Kate’s artistry, allowing her to lay claim to at least part of the other’s mantle.
Comedy and poetry pepper the evening and her compositions for Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical round off the night’s demonstration of the full breadth of her talents, which takes us back to the question: why no ARIA awards? She has either been robbed of the recognition she deserves or her time will come. Based on this show, both those statements are true.