Local act shows Aussie women are doing punk better than the blokes

Reviewed by Shamim Razavi

MUSICAL
Murder for Two ★★★★
Hayes Theatre, until September 3

There are two things we know for certain going into Murder for Two: famed novelist Arthur Whitney is dead and apparently so is the traditional book musical. The latter is a feisty proclamation from Arthur’s wife, Dahlia, the demonically camp would-be star thrust into the shadows after she married her domineering but brilliant husband. But she isn’t the only suspect: all the guests at Arthur Whitney’s birthday party have a motive. And all these guests are played with alarming clarity by just one person.

Murder for Two is a two-hander “whodunit” musical that premiered in Chicago in 2011 and opened Off-Broadway in late 2013. In this local production by Hayes Theatre Company, designer Keerthi Subramanyam breathes life into a despised wealthy white man’s mansion, replicating the cosy nooks and dimly lit library spaces of Agatha Christie novels. Priyanka Martin’s lighting transitions us to the dimly lit front porch, the multi-coloured spectacle of a showstopper and the cliche red of a murder scene with precision.

As far as mystery goes, there is little to Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian’s book that boggles the mind (it is less Knives Out and more an enthusiastic game of Cluedo in your rich friend’s living room). But thanks to the direction of Richard Carroll and the masterful acting, singing and piano-playing of stars Gabbi Bolt and Maverick Newman, there is a panache to the parody that is rollicking fun.

Bolt and Newman aren’t so much a double act as two ends of a spectrum. Where Newman is a rocketship, shedding and shifting characters as he soars towards the stratosphere, Bolt, as wannabe detective Marcus, is the steady hum of the engine, keeping him on course. They share a chaotic chemistry as they perform Blair and Kinosian’s marathon score and glide over, under and across the grand piano at centre stage. Newman in particular makes the hefty task of switching accents and contorting his body and face for each suspect look easy. In the hands of someone else, it could easily feel overwhelming to an audience, but here it is enthralling.

Murder for Two is more than a whodunit: it’s a playful take on the musical form, and on the mystery genre. Each suspect delivers their own “big number”, in which they confess to the murder or, in the case of Arthur’s bickering neighbours Murray and Barb Flandon (played in quick succession by Newman), Murray accuses his long-suffering wife. There are gaggles of self-referential jokes and jabs at well-known musical tropes. It is capital-E entertainment.

There’s no deep life lesson to take from Murder for Two; sometimes it’s just as fulfilling to have a laugh.

Reviewed by Vaanie Krishnan

THEATRE
The Weekend ★★★★½
Belvoir St Theatre, until September 10

Three women in their 70s gather to clean out the beach house of a friend who has died.

They must decide what to keep and what to throw away – but not just for Sylvie’s belongings. Her death is the catalyst to re-examine their relationships with each other, their lives and to consider how to navigate what one of them calls their “crone years”.

What unfolds is a profound and unflinching examination of long-standing friendships between women.

“It’s not a holiday,” insists uptight Jude. Actually, it is. It’s Christmas, the season of hope and joy.

But Jude doesn’t want exuberant Adele – an actor who can no longer land a role – sloping off to the beach when she could be cleaning cupboards. Nor does she want dishevelled Wendy, a feminist and public intellectual, bringing her smelly, incontinent dog into the house.

The women’s vastly different characters and the potential for friction between them are quickly established in Sue Smith’s incisive adaptation of Charlotte Wood’s 2019 novel.

It is also surprisingly funny, as the trio land some witty, acerbic lines in Sarah Goodes’ finely judged production.

With their long knowledge, the women know how to needle each other. But they can quickly segue to reminisce about shared, carefree joys from their youth. These women retain hopes and dreams.

Carole King’s It’s Too Late plays on the beach house stereo. But it’s not too late to learn about each other as dynamics shift, secrets are revealed and loyalties are tested.

Belinda Giblin is outstanding as sensuous, knowing Adele. Her joy and wonder at the world are transporting. Her rejection by an arrogant wunderkind director (Roman Delo), whom she is desperate to impress, is heartbreaking.

Toni Scanlan (Jude) and Melita Jurisic (Wendy) impress as they reveal the flaws in their characters and their pain as the ground shifts around them.

With his soulful eyes and creaky gait, Finn the old dog is magically evoked by a puppet. He’s a mysterious, ghostly presence in the novel, and with just part of his body fully realised on stage, Finn seems only half in this world. Puppeteer Keila Terencio deftly and unobtrusively operates him.

Stephen Curtis’ circular wooden set avoids naturalism. The cloth backdrop and projections suggest a permeable membrane between human and non-human worlds. This was aided by Madeleine Picard’s sound design.

This bold, layered play is unafraid to ask big questions about grief, love and mortality. It is an affirmation of deep, mature friendships that are tested but endure.

Reviewed by Joyce Morgan

OPERA
La Gioconda in Concert ★★★★★
Opera House Concert Hall, August 9

There was resplendence and relief as Jonas Kaufmann rose to the top B flat of Cielo e mar in Act II of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, concluding what had been a masterclass in coloured subtlety and exquisitely tapered phrasing.

The resplendence arose from the rare radiance and fine-grained beauty of the sound that has made him among the world’s most sought-after tenors. The relief was that his peerless musical artistry had navigated the thousand fleshy infirmities to which the human voice is heir to at different times and places with such supreme mastery.

Kaufmann paced the performance with insightful, dramatic intelligence, always vividly there when the theatrical moment required heroic intervention. As exiled hero Enzo, he was the best-known name among the six superb singers who brought this once-celebrated, now-faded jewel of the Italian operatic stage to such vivid life in the Concert Hall.

Saioa Hernandez delivered soaring vocal gestures of thrilling power and crimson passion as the “smiling lady” of the title – like Shakespeare’s Viola in Twelfth Night, she is smiling at grief. Hernandez commanded the stage, cutting through huge choral, orchestral and vocal forces with thrilling power in her upper register, and creating dark, fateful definition to low notes. For her climactic scene in Act IV, she summoned yet more reserves of strength and generous vocal excess.

As her counterpart and nemesis, French baritone Ludovic Tezier brought menacing edge and a voice of shaded roughness to Barnaba, the villainous, ungodly spy of the Inquisition. Tezier sustained Act I with unwavering stamina and returned to bring later dramatic moments to a brutal culmination.

Australian mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble made a welcome return to these shores, singing La Cieca, Gioconda’s beloved mother, with richly seasoned, pleading depth. The preferred rival for Enzo’s affections, Laura, was sung with a shining, silvered tone by mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis. Her cruel husband, Alvise, the sinister leader of the Inquisition, was taken by bass Vitalij Kowaljow, who led Act III with a roundly moulded sound, veiled in icy smoothness.

Act III also provides La Gioconda’s other well-known excerpt, the much-bowdlerised ballet Danza delle ore (Dance of the Hours), which the Opera Australia Orchestra, under conductor Pinchas Steinberg, played with compact, disciplined string sound, highlighted with bright flashes from woodwind. Singing from behind, the Opera Australia Chorus realised piety and parties with equal gusto and cohesive balance.

In addition to the individual strengths of the principal singers, it was the layered intensity of the ensembles, set out with such glistening contrapuntal clarity in the Concert Hall’s acoustics, which drew the listener into this dated drama with such gripping effect. This is a rare chance to hear Italian opera as it once was, and indeed ought to be.

La Gioconda in Concert is also at Sydney Opera House on Saturday, August 12.

Reviewed by Peter McCallum

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