By Cameron Woodhead, Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, Tony Way and Billy Burgess
This wrap of shows includes the Melbourne debut of tick, tick ... BOOM!, an intimate gig from a band whose star is rapidly rising, a pair of performances demonstrating enormous mastery and expansive freedom, a raw and flamboyant hour of cabaret, a low-key theatre production that cannot be missed, Darren Hayes offering a glimpse into a different kind of Savage Garden, and an energetic performance filled with searing intensity by violinist Ilya Gringolts.
MUSICAL
tick, tick … BOOM! ★★½
Music, Book & Lyrics by Jonathan Larson, StoreyBoard Entertainment, Comedy Theatre, until February 12
It’s one of the great tragedies in American musical theatre: the creator of Rent, Jonathan Larson, died of an aortic dissection, at just 35, on the very day that musical was first performed in public.
Finn Alexander and Hugh Sheridan in a scene from tick, tick ... BOOM!Credit: Jeff Busby
He didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of its success; never held the Pulitzer Prize the show won or the Tony Awards it received. Nor did he see how his work resonated with a global audience – especially the young, who were hungry for something that captured the spirit of Generation X in the way Hair had done for the Boomers.
We can only imagine what Larson might have achieved with more time, but his autobiographical musical tick, tick… BOOM! gives us a sense of his drive and prodigious talent. And it holds a special significance to musical theatre artists, speaking directly as it does to the anxiety and self-doubt (not to mention the poverty) they typically encounter as they struggle to turn their creativity into a career.
Hugh Sheridan (centre) leads the cast of tick, tick ... BOOM!Credit: Jeff Busby
Originally conceived as a monologue with songs, the three-hander is narrated by Jon (Hugh Sheridan), a promising young composer in New York City. He’s on the cusp of 30 and, like many aspiring artists, he schleps at a cafe to pay the bills while battling a crisis of self-confidence.
It doesn’t help that his childhood friend Michael (Finn Alexander) has abandoned acting for a lucrative marketing job. Jon is further torn by the fact that his partner Susan (Elenoa Rokobaro) – herself a dancer – longs to flee the privations and pressures of NYC to raise a family somewhere a bit saner.
As Jon workshops the musical Superbia, he must decide whether to submit to the demands of “real life” or to pursue what seems like a quixotic dream.
Sheridan could be convincing and likeably neurotic as Larson’s alter-ego, but their singing on opening night was a mess. It’s a punishing role vocally – with as many songs as a regular musical and much more dialogue and soliloquy – and it was painful to listen to their consistent huskiness and straining for big-notes. The experience was similar to watching an injured tennis player finishing a match they’re doomed to lose. Whatever admiration you might feel for the player’s grit gets quickly overwhelmed by concern at the potential damage they’re inflicting on themselves.
Elenoa Rokobaro gives a roof-raising rendition of tick, tick ... BOOM!’s biggest banger.Credit: Jef Busby
But there is not a trace of strain in Rokobaro’s voice. She gives a roof-raising rendition of the show’s biggest banger, Come to Your Senses (poached from the unproduced musical Superbia itself).
Both she and Alexander combine sensitive, unshowy acting with rapid-fire caricature, switching in and out of comic cameos, from Jon’s chain-smoking agent to the corporate cut-outs Jon briefly endures on an ill-fated market research gig.
There’s the odd annoying distraction: wobbly sound design, some missed technical cues. Yet any musical theatre fan will be pleased at the rare chance to see this poignant celebration of the adversities, and the pleasures, of creative life professionally performed.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
MUSIC
Fontaines DC ★★★★
Corner Hotel, 7 February
It’s been a long wait for Fontaines DC fans in Melbourne. The Irish post-punk band was slated to make its Australian live debut in 2020, but postponed to finish an album. A pandemic later, and they’ve released multiple records, been nominated for a Grammy and named NME’s Best Band in the World.
Irish post-punk band Fontaines DC perform at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne on February 7, 2023.Credit: Rick Clifford
In short: they’ve blown up. But a promise is a promise, so several false starts later, here they are at the 800-capacity Corner Hotel, the original venue they were scheduled to play three years ago. It’s a rare club show for a band whose star is rapidly rising – and the perfect way to experience their cerebral, blistering music.
Frontman Grian Chatten, sunglasses on until halfway through the show, easily commands the room. He lurches over the crowd, hand outstretched, to rapturous cheers. This isn’t a band that trades in on-stage banter: Chatten is focused for the 90-minute set, his voice moving between spoken drawling and controlled singing. Comparisons to Joy Division’s Ian Curtis abound: Chatten is hypnotic, whether he’s brandishing a tambourine or raising his arms, messiah-like.
He’s backed by four bandmates, who sometimes harmonise but are mostly focused on carrying forth the cavernous, complex music: chugging, distorted guitars and slippery drums. The set showcases songs from the band’s three records – the most recent, 2022’s Skinty Fia, dominates, with highlights including the syncopated Jackie Down the Line and the moody, atmospheric Big Shot.
Fontaines DC perform an intimate gig at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel.Credit: Rick Clifford
For music that is so rooted in the dark and personal, there’s something wonderfully communal about Fontaines DC’s live show. Bodies merge in the pit; the crowd leads itself through a singalong of early single Roy’s Tune. When Chatten sings the last song of the night, I Love You, it feels like a final, cathartic release. “Cheers,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
MUSIC ★★★★★
Paul Lewis
International Classics, Melbourne Recital Centre, February 3 & 7
Paul Lewis’ probing encounters with the poetry of Schubert’s piano music are a thing of wonder. Having enthralled Melbourne audiences with his Schubert performances about a decade ago, he has returned to the Melbourne Recital Centre clearly still fascinated with this music and still eager to explore and communicate its vast emotional depths.
Over two richly rewarding evenings, one of the finest Schubertians of our age presented six of the composer’s sonatas in performances radiating both enormous mastery and expansive freedom. In realising Schubert’s lyrical and harmonic streams of consciousness, Lewis turned the MRC’s new Steinway into an instrument capable of seemingly infinite variations of colour and a vehicle for expressing the widest gamut of human emotions.
Pianist Paul LewisCredit: Kaupo Killas
Charm and poise characterised the early Sonata No. 7 in E-flat, D. 568, the slow movement being shaped with appealing flexibility. There was no doubting the sense of anguish that pervaded the opening march of Sonata No. 14 in A minor, D. 784, nor the intensity of its volatility. After the silvery opening of the finale, Lewis rang the changes of Schubert’s harmonic development with authority.
Taking no prisoners, the Sonata No. 17 in D, D. 850, opened at a cracking pace, firing the imagination as the music charted choppy waters. With its subtly calibrated colours and wonderful improvisatory feel, the second movement was a masterclass in balancing fantasy and finesse. A carefully orchestrated finale followed the sparkling scherzo, bringing listeners back down to earth with fine gradations of timbre.
The haunting Allegretto in C minor, D. 915, provided further delight with its deft colouring of inner voices and contrasting major and minor modes.
An engaging interplay of light and shade enlivened the two-movement Sonata No. 15 in C, D. 840, Lewis carefully pointing out each new point of interest along the way. Surrounding the sunny outer movements of Sonata No. 13 in A, D. 664, was the ravishingly coloured central Andante, another memorable highlight among many.
The power and conviction with which Lewis invested the outer movements of Sonata No. 16 in A minor, D. 845, contrasted with the quicksilver scherzo and the crystalline tone of its Trio. Coming after the powerful finale of the sonata, the A-flat Allegretto from the Moments Musicaux, D. 94, once again exquisitely coloured, made for a perfect encore.
After such moving and insightful performances, here’s hoping this passionate poet of the piano returns to Melbourne soon.
Reviewed by Tony Way
MIDSUMMA | CABARET
Devastating Beauty ★★★
Christopher Fieldus, The Motley Bauhaus, until February 11
One silver lining from the pandemic years is the establishment of the new The Motley Bauhaus – an attractive pub, art gallery and performance hub in the heart of Carlton. The force behind the venue, Jason Cavanagh, won a well-deserved Green Room Award for outstanding contribution to independent theatre last year, and with a packed program of LGBTQ shows at the Midsumma festival, it’s become a friendly queer wonderland.
One highlight is Christopher Fieldus’ Devastating Beauty – a raw and flamboyant hour of cabaret that strip-mines the artist’s life story for nuggets of insight and showcases his highly distinctive vocal style.
Autobiographical prose poetry shapes the piece. We follow Fieldus through a privileged childhood in Bangkok, then touch down in Melbourne and Adelaide for an unvarnished descent into promiscuity and hedonism, substance abuse, relationship breakdown, and the creation of various personae – including drag queen Ms CeCe Rockefeller – which function as both a stimulus and an impediment to self-discovery.
Christopher Fieldus performs Devastating Beauty at Midsumma.Credit: Matto Lucas Photography
The poetic monologue contains piercing images and word choices, as well as less secure sequences. Invoking a Catholic background and the legend of the saint he’s named after, for instance, adds depth, while references to the Greek myths of Narcissus and Echo feel a bit flat and contrived.
Still, the searing honesty in Fieldus’ reflections lends them emotional weight. He’s unafraid to appear unlikeable – a rare enough quality in a performer – but is clear-eyed, never succumbing to self-flagellation, on the one hand, or the ghoulish voyeurism of misery memoir on the other.
Brilliant vocals transcend the poetry. Fieldus sings a mix of popular tunes in inventive arrangements. He rips every shred of melancholy from Augie March’s The Cold Acre to open the show, soars into an ethereal upper register for FKA twigs’ cellophane, and even unleashes punk rock vibes on The Killers’ Mr Brightside.
Fieldus has a small issue with confidence. Regular eye contact and, perhaps, engaging directly with the audience might help. It’s cabaret, after all.
When the performance craft matches Fieldus’ impressive talents, there’ll be no stopping him.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
This review was written from a preview.
Gaby Seow plays Scott in Trophy Boys.Credit: Ben Andrews
MIDSUMMA | THEATRE
Trophy Boys ★★★★★
By Emmanuelle Mattana, The Maybe Pile, 45 downstairs, until February 12
Theatre lovers should rush to see Trophy Boys, the hilarious and devastating debut play from Emmanuelle Mattana. We can only hope there’s a return season at a main-stage venue so the audience that most needs to see it – students at elite all-boys schools – can be booked in en masse.
Leigh Lule as David in Trophy Boys, a show set around an all-boys debating team preparing to argue the case against feminism.Credit: Ben Andrews
Performed by an entirely female-identifying and/or nonbinary cast, the show features four year 12 boys from the fictional St Imperium, all locked in a room prepping for debating championships against their all-girls sister school.
They’ve copped the topic: “That feminism has failed women” and must argue the affirmative – as portraits of female leaders from Jacinda Ardern to Ruth Bader Ginsburg gaze down upon them.
They twig right away to the trouble they’re in.
Brainiac scholarship boy Owen (Mattana) is a self-described male feminist and ally, woke as you like. He points out the dangers – especially to his future political career – and uses a formidable command of feminist critique to mount a debater’s case.
Fran Sweeney-Nash as Jarred in Trophy Boys at Misumma. Credit: Ben Andrews
Perhaps they can outflank the “enemy”, um, “opposition” by invoking intersectionality, presenting themselves as more radically feminist than the girls?
Owen’s teammates – popular jock Jarred (Fran Sweeney-Nash), lawyer’s son Scott (Gaby Seow) and nerdy team adviser David (Leigh Lule) – join the brainstorm, tying themselves in knots trying to make a case without mansplaining or risking being cancelled.
The heightened performance of insecure adolescent masculinity is brilliantly observed. It’s drag at its most satirical and incisive, and – as the discussion veers from politically correct cant into latent homophobia and outbursts of misogyny – a dramatic disjunction opens between woke rhetoric and how the boys behave.
A sudden bombshell turns the disjunction into an abyss. All the playfulness of the gender performance gets ramped into a brutally effective, high-stakes examination of sexual assault, revealing just how far the rules of the game are skewed in the boys’ favour.
It’s astonishing to see a shoestring production from young indie theatre artists so secure and artistically complete. The script is powerful and ferociously intelligent; the performances witty and exuberant and, crucially, empathetic (the boys’ behaviour might be grotesque and hypocritical, and sometimes caricatured, but the actors don’t dehumanise their subjects) and all elements of design, including use of a traverse stage, promote a voyeuristic intimacy.
Never, over almost two decades reviewing theatre, have I written two five-star reviews in a row. Though I was tempted to remove half a star to avoid the perception that I’ve gone soft, that’d be toxic masculinity at work, too, wouldn’t it?
Trophy Boys is a revelation. Catch it while you can.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
MUSIC
Darren Hayes ★★★½
Sidney Myer Music Bowl, February 4
Publicity for Darren Hayes’ Do You Remember? tour made it clear he’d be performing all the Savage Garden hits. Hayes’ ability to book a venue the size of Sidney Myer Music Bowl depends on that promise, and true to his word, he devoted half of the set list to the group’s two albums.
Darren Hayes performs at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on February 4, 2023.Credit: Rick Clifford
But rather than a rehash of Savage Garden’s late-90s heyday, the Do You Remember? show was like an alternate timeline Savage Garden, one where the line, “I believe you can’t control or choose your sexuality” was underlined in bold, not hidden in the second verse of Affirmation.
In a piece published on Music Feeds last year, Hayes spoke of wanting to revisit his teen years “with the wisdom of a proud 50-year-old gay man”, a reimagined adolescence where he’d be “loved for who I truly am today”.
Darren Hayes performs in Melbourne for his Do You Remember? tour.Credit: Rick Clifford
In front of a near-full Music Bowl, Hayes showed not even a skerrick of inhibition. He was on stage with three backing vocalists, a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer. Most of the ensemble was roped into a quasi-musical theatre production of choreographed dances and vague narrative symbolism.
It was more Rock Eisteddfod than Broadway, but it was all wonderfully camp. Hayes looked comfortable in his own skin as he and Madeleine Coghlan engaged in a series of am-dram sketches that would’ve been cringe-worthy if it weren’t for the complete lack of pretension.
Hayes is on tour supporting his fifth solo LP, Homosexual, an album of queer disco bliss and identity reclamation. The record’s stylistic allegiance to 1980s disco and techno-pop, a la Donna Summer and Like a Prayer-era Madonna, prevented the half-dozen new songs from killing the mood.
But none could compete with Savage Garden’s era-defining ballads I Knew I Loved You, To the Moon & Back and Truly Madly Deeply, which got the multi-generational crowd in full voice. Hayes held his hands up in the shape of a love heart and thanked us for supporting him. “These songs are yours now,” he said.
Reviewed by Billy Burgess
MUSIC
Ilya Gringolts plays Bruch ★★★★½
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, February 4
Fuelled by irrepressible energy, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s start to 2023 offers an engrossing conversation between modernist and romantic styles facilitated by Russian-born violinist Ilya Gringolts, appearing as both guest director and soloist.
Ilya Gringolts plays Bruch with the ACO in Melbourne, February 2023.Credit: Julian Kingma
Mendelssohn’s precocious teen-aged String Symphony No.13 provides a refreshing start; its opening chromaticism and subsequent crisp counterpoint being dispatched with equal measures of elegance and verve.
Slanted, a new ACO commission by Sydney-based composer Harry Sdraulig, explores the search for “truth” in modern-day media. Sdraulig’s subtle handling of rhythmic and textural elements impresses, and his broadly modernist idiom is offset by some fervent soliloquies delivered by Gringolts and principal cello Timo-Veikko Valve.
Violinist Ilya Gringolts performs with the ACO, appearing as both guest director and soloist.Credit: Julian Kingma
This mixture of modernist and romantic elements forms an excellent prelude to the rarely heard Polyptyque by Swiss composer Frank Martin. Commissioned by violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin toward the end of Frank’s life, this 1973 work depicts six scenes from the passion of Christ, inspired by panels from a Siena altarpiece.
Gringolts brings searing intensity to this heartfelt score, particularly the solo passage evoking Gethsemane in the fourth movement, while offering hope of redemption in the finale’s Image of Glorification.
By way of contrast, Bruch’s crowd-pleasing Violin Concerto No.1 makes a splendid vehicle for Gringolts’ dazzling bravura, with the orchestra revelling in its folkloric elements and luxuriating in the lyrical Andante. While the arrangement for strings and timpani works well, the colour of the original’s wind and brass parts would add further lustre to this sparkling account.
Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra brings this generous program to an ebullient close. Among the many cameos in this latter-day Brandenburg Concerto are some beautifully rendered by principal viola Stefanie Farrands.
Hearing Gringolts and the ACO bring this heady mix of styles to life with such incredible stamina is a wonderfully energising experience.
Reviewed by Tony Way
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