It’s a Christmas miracle: Don’t miss this magical premiere
By George Palathingal, Penry Buckley, Michael Ruffles and Harriet Cunningham
Snowflake
Old Fitz Theatre
December 7
Until December 22
Reviewed by HARRIET CUNNINGHAM
★★★★½
Andy’s teenage daughter, Maya, left home three years ago, suddenly, after what seemed like just another father-daughter argument. There’s been no contact. Not even a text. Then an old friend mentions they have seen Maya in a café in town, and Andy’s heart leaps. Will she come home for Christmas?
British playwright Mike Bartlett (Albion, King Charles III) is celebrated for work that offers a touchstone to now but still resonates with a rich theatrical heritage. Snowflake is no exception to this model. In spite of its small scale and tight structure – one scene, one location, 100 minutes straight through – it packs in what could be an overwhelming overview of language, relationships, politics, culture, love, death and generational change.
Lilian Alejandra Valverde, James Lugton and Claudia Elbourne in Snowflake. Credit: Robert Miniter
James Lugton, as Andy, owns the stage for the first half of Snowflake. He’s waiting for Maya under a handmade “Welcome Home” banner in a dusty village hall. Everything, from his untidy beard to the dodgy lights and the sad plastic tree shout desperation. The white, widowed, middle-aged, middle-class museum assistant is anxious, twitchy, uncomfortable in his own skin as he rehearses a possible reconciliation with his daughter, a reconciliation he feels should involve apologies from both sides. It’s a brilliantly sustained soliloquy that dips in and out of Andy’s life, Lugton drawing sympathetic smiles and wry laughs at his portrayal of a well-meaning man out of his depth in the scary new world of identity politics.
Then there is a knock at the door. Enter Natalie, a young woman, played by Lilian Alejandra Valverde, apparently there to collect some crockery. Blithely ignoring Andy’s efforts to get her to leave, she makes tea for them both and sits down.
The dialogue that unfolds is a brilliant dance of ideas, arcing across the yawning generational gap between the two. Valverde, pitch perfect in her North London accent, radiates charisma as she, by turn, challenges and listens to Andy. Like a benevolent Inspector Goole or, perhaps, the Ghost of Christmas Present, she is here to interrogate, but not to condemn. Andy is by turns confused, combative and distraught. If Maya finally arrives, the prospect of reconciliation is still in doubt.
Director Jo Bradley has created a little Christmas miracle of a premiere. All three actors are outstanding, including Claudia Elbourne, who brings a valiant intensity to the stage as the story plays out and the lighting and set design (Soham Apte and Luna Ng) deliver a final touch of magic. But the real magic remains with Mike Bartlett’s words, which somehow range across the universal, to the individual, to the collective, without preaching or taking sides, in a deeply affecting plea for the power of listening to each other. Do go.
The Killers
Qudos Bank Arena
December 6, Rebel Diamonds ★★★★
December 7, Hot Fuss ★★★★½
Reviewed by GEORGE PALATHINGAL
Two. Stunning. Shows.
You’d think the first would be the one to tell the grandkids about: the Killers, Las Vegas’ finest, blazing through a curated set of their many pop-rock hits, plus a spine-tingling cover of one of the greatest Australian songs of all time (Don’t Change by INXS).
But then, on the second night, four shadows are thrown up on the enormous white sheet in front of the stage. It drops to reveal the original Killers line-up, who launch into their hit 2004 debut album, Hot Fuss.
The irrepressible Brandon Flowers, with original members Dave Keuning (left) and Mark Stoermer (right) making a rare overseas appearance. Credit: Chris Phelps
This is a big deal. Founding guitarist Dave Keuning and bassist Mark Stoermer don’t tour much any more; they’re presumably happy to stay at home and count their Mr Brightside royalty millions while irrepressible frontman Brandon Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr take the mission to the masses overseas.
For the past few tours, the loveable and excellent Theodore Sablay and Jake Blanton have filled in for Keuning and Stoermer. And, sure enough, there are the touring musicians in an augmented line-up of nine on night one, ripping through the legit crowd-pleasers and riding the occasional low where lasers, streamers and Flowers distract you from the lesser tunes, as they did in 2022.
But night two starts with only the original four, two of whom some of us didn’t even know were in the country, and it genuinely gives a special extra thrill. Stoermer quickly seizes his bass spotlight on opener Jenny Was a Friend of Mine before Keuning’s jubilant riff kicks off the third version of Mr Brightside we hear in two days. (On night one they also do that cheeky fake-out of playing a goofy dance version first.)
Drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr played at both shows in Sydney.Credit: Chris Phelps
It’s no secret Hot Fuss is one of the most front-loaded albums you’ll ever hear – I said at the time its first five songs would one day lead the Killers’ greatest hits album and was proved 80 per cent correct.
But even after that extraordinary opening salvo, culminating with the often Elvis-channelling Flowers tagging All These Things That I’ve Done with a glorious blast of Presley’s Burning Love, the second half of the album sounds fantastic, too. Flowers punctuates the run-through with stories from the band’s early days, and it is adorable.
By now, it’s a total love-in – Sablay and Blanton join in for this exuberant celebration of Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll, as the song puts it, as do the touring line-up’s three powerhouse female backing singers – but a leaner, post-Fuss extended encore of hits is still a little flawed.
As with the previous night, This Is Your Life presumably gets on the set list because there’s a great bit you can wave your hands to, and, much as we love Runaways, few of us know all the words, so please stop handing over that first verse to us, Brandon.
But still, if in a couple of years, in this way, the Killers give the 20th-anniversary treatment to the Sam’s Town album (third track: When You Were Young, almighty on both nights of this tour), you’d be a fool to miss it.
Tina Arena and Richard Marx
Sydney Opera House Forecourt, December 9
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★½
This double bill is more middle of the road than a broken white line. The last time you heard a Tina Arena or Richard Marx song was probably in a dentist’s waiting room or in a cab with the radio tuned to a classics station, but the fact remains that you don’t enjoy a decades-long career and draw a huge crowd to the Sydney Opera House forecourt unless you’ve got something special to offer.
Australian Arena (smooth pop and R&B lite) and American Marx (soft rock) may not appear to have much in common besides both operating under the same adult contemporary umbrella, but the “special something” they share is impressive: a litany of chart hits and an effortless stage presence that only comes from being a seasoned pro.
Tina Arena’s incredible voice and knockabout humour more than earns her the title of Australian National Treasure. Credit: Ashley Mar
Marx’s energy makes him seem 20 years younger, but he also looks it: there wouldn’t be many 61-year-old men who could pull off leather pants and a sleeveless top as well as he does. As he tears through his ’80s and ‘90s hits - Endless Summer Nights, Right Here Waiting, Hazard, etc - he makes a convincing argument that playing rock ‘n’ roll keeps you young.
Australian audiences love an international artist spinning a yarn with a local twist, and Marx tells a doozy about skipping out on a boring lunch at Doyle’s restaurant in Sydney in the ’80s to find a pay phone so he could call his answering machine in LA and sing the chorus of his future hit Angelia before he forgot it.
The charm, hits, and striking appearance - sci-fi Cleopatra meets ’70s glam - carries over to Arena, the beloved singer-songwriter celebrating 30 years of Don’t Ask, her blockbuster 1994 LP that led to her becoming the first woman to ever win the ARIA Award for Album of the Year.
Don’t Ask is faithfully played in full, and while the hit singles like Sorrento Moon and Chains justify why the album sold millions globally, most of it can be described as easy listening - fine if your main hobby is not rocking boats, but a bit check-the-time for anyone not into having all of life’s rough edges sanded off.
While she doesn’t quite top Marx, Arena’s incredible voice and knockabout humour more than earns her the title of Australian National Treasure, making the middle of the road not such a bad place to hang out for a few hours.
HOT TUB
Belvoir Downstairs Theatre, December 8
Until December 21
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★
Playwright Lewis Treston wrote Hot Tub after dreaming of a helicopter lifting a hot tub on to the roof of a Surfers Paradise high-rise. The play, finally premiering after winning the 2016 Patrick White Playwright’s Award, unfolds more like a nightmare: not one of fear and loathing, but of zanies and grotesques worthy of Hieronymus Bosch.
The requisite straight character, Dido, has come to stay with her estranged father, Murray, during Schoolies, in a tower called The Great White. “Straight” is a relative term: her opening gambit is to hit on her dad for 32 grand so she can have a gastric sleeve operation in Brazil.
But she’s sweet, well-meaning and sane by comparison with Murray, a professional gambler, Jade, his new wife, a career mystic, Eunice, Jade’s mother, the shady owner of The Great White, and Reese, Jade’s son, a pill-pusher and gay pornography creator. Then there’s Officer Cheryl, a lunatic cop, Stinger, a lunatic bikie lord and Macka, a Shakespeare-quoting electrician and undercover cop.
Melissa Kahraman and Kieran McGrath in Hot Tub.Credit: Katherine Griffiths
All have a slender grip on reality. Jade answers a repeated query from her husband with, “Sorry, babe. I forgot I was here.” They’re fun characters to play, and director Riley Spadaro has cast them consummately. Melissa Kahraman excels as the semi-ingenue Dido, who learns more about life in a week than she did in the preceding 17 years. Kahraman gives her a veneer of teen boredom when confronted with the trappings of crime, while also letting us glimpse the vulnerability beneath, so when Treston punctures the mayhem with a moment of poignancy, she makes it telling.
Kieran McGrath embodies Murray’s swindling, swaggering gaucheness (even without white shoes), and Diane Smith ensures Eunice is a matriarch with whom no one messes. Shannon Ryan is hilarious as Jade, the apotheosis of New Age loonies, as is Jack Calver as the wanton Reese. Ella Prince makes Officer Cheryl alarmingly manic, and Patrick Jhanur plays both Macka and, especially effectively, the unhinged Stinger.
The best episodes are so funny that there should be a health warning before you go in. But Treston’s work labours under its own inanities too often, even with this exceptional cast. Perhaps it should simply be shorter because the style of humour becomes exhausting, as does the frequent shouting. If you need an end-of-year giggle, however, you’re guaranteed.
Jamie xx
Carriageworks, December 8
★★★½
Reviewed by MICHAEL RUFFLES
When Jamie Smith visited Sydney as one-third of the xx in January 2018, he hid upstage, surrounded by equipment like Oz the Great and Powerful as exquisite tunes drifted over the Domain.
On Sunday he took centre-stage as celebrated DJ and solo dance-pop wizard Jamie xx and nearly disappeared in a blaze of strobe lights as he tried to blow the lid off Carriageworks.
Jamie xx often had the crowd in the palm of his hands.Credit: Gabrielle Clement
The bass vibrated around the cavernous sheds from early in Wanna, the opener to this year’s top 10 album In Waves, and the crowd was all under one roof rattling even as the show was only in first gear.
The energy only built with the frenetic Treat Each Other Right, and was then released with the blissful Still Summer, blending genres and mixing in tracks from earlier in his career along the way.
The set was well crafted, and songs were remixed together in fun and surprising ways. Smith took the long way into the juddering, explosive Kill Dem; there was a bit of a drift before he again had the crowd in the palm of his hands with the mesmerising 2015 monster Gosh.
While we wait for the xx reunion, here’s Jamie.Credit: Gabrielle Clement
Perhaps the highlight was Breather, which is really anything but. The studio version is a mix of YouTube yoga samples that builds to a climax over six minutes. Here Smith ran into it at high speed and gave the crowd only a few moments to inhale.
About an hour in, his bandmates Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim joined as disembodied voices for a barnstorming version of Waited All Night. Those after a reunion of the xx might have to keep waiting, but Madley Croft’s voice returned to the fore for Loud Places.
Not afraid of collaborating, Smith finished in spectacular style with help from the Avalanches (All You Children), Swedish pop star Robyn (Life) and Honey Dijon (Baddy on the Floor).
Visually, the show was a minimalist affair with bright lights and flickering shots of the crowd as Smith buried himself in the decks. While there was not much to look at, boy, did he give us something to dance to.
Jamie xx plays a second show at Carriageworks on December 9.
Good Things Festival
Centennial Park, December 7
★★★
Reviewed by PENRY BUCKLEY
In the middle of defiance anthem Clown, halfway through their headline set, Korn freeze. Drummer Ray Luzier appears large on the screen, drumstick suspended in midair. The audience’s anguish builds to a roar, before frontman Jonathan Davis playfully admonishes them as if they are the song’s antagonist (“Now, shut the f--- up!“) and the nu metal pioneers restart the single from their now-30-year-old debut album.
The performance is a perfect metaphor for a day of stops and starts, of setbacks and silver linings. It begins with a thunderstorm that means attendees at the alternative and metal festival are advised to delay arrival, and follows news earlier in the week that second-billed Sum 41 have cancelled their Australian tour (frontman Deryck Whibley has been diagnosed with pneumonia).
In the eye of the storm, Korn’s 80-minute set is untouchable, full of dark energy, from the distorted fairground guitar on Dead Bodies Everywhere to the bone-rattling bass on Ball Tongue. Davis’ bagpipe intro to Shoots and Ladders nods to metal’s ancient origins, and the whole audience thrills in raising middle fingers for record-company diss track and set closer Y’All Want a Single.
Korn are not the only ones celebrating an anniversary. Folk-punk heroes Violent Femmes play their self-titled debut album from start to finish in honour of the 40th anniversary of their first Australian tour.
Thousands sing along with vocalist Gordan Gano to the appropriate Blister in the Sun (after the rain clears, it’s a scorcher) and groove to the brushed drums on Add It Up and Gone Daddy Gone, while a rich brass section on Confessions provides some relief in a festival line-up heavy on thrash. Bassist Brian Ritchie thanks the headline stage’s Auslan interpreters before making “one more announcement”, launching into Dance, Motherf---er, Dance!
There are some inevitable problems with set times. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, whose solo slot on the second stage starts 20 minutes before Korn, loses much of his audience. While Korn play to tens of thousands, Corgan plays a gentle, intimate set of old hits, as well as a delicate acoustic cover of INXS’ Don’t Change, to just a few hundred.
But the festival is really about its fans’ diverse interests. As the band tees reveal, people are here to see Atlanta heavy metal band Mastodon, Melbourne punks the Living End, riot grrrl forerunners L7, or alternative rapper Grandson. Still, few discerning scene-heads can resist the pull of Jet’s 2003 Hottest 100 winner Are You Gonna Be My Girl, for which singer Nic Cester embraces his McCartney-esque metal scream.
In this sense, Good Things lives up to the festival ideal of creating a perfect society for its attendees. Nowhere is this clearer than on alternative stage 666, which hosts a talent show and air-guitar competition, and where festival-goers sing karaoke versions of System of a Down’s Chop Suey and Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life, backed by a full band. In a crowd of 30,000 metalheads and misfits, no one is left out.