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Little play packs a punch
Local actors Cat Commander
and Liam Ryan take Monogamy to
another level. Written by
young Cambridge playwright Craig Baxter,
the one-act play, Monogamy, explores a
young couple's past
relationship. Paul,
played by Subiaco actor Liam Ryan, returns
to the flat he used to share with Emma
(Cat Commander). Can he
persuade her to take him back? In a series
of intense emotional flashbacks, they
explore the making and the breaking of
their affair. "It is a
tightly-written, neat little drama where
every little thing means something," Cat
said. " When I first saw it I was so
impressed that I had become so absorbed in
the two characters in such a short time.
It is like a three-hour drama packed into
55 minutes." The two
actors performed Monogamy at the
University of WA earlier this
year. The return
season, presented by the University
Dramatic Society (UDS), will be at the
Blue Room Theatre in James Street,
Northbridge, from August 20 to 23 at
9.30pm and August 27 to 30 at
6.30pm. Bookings
can be made through the Blue Room on 9227
7005. Kids
star in musical about
kids Catherine James plays Anita
in the West Side Story. Catherine James, from City Beach, joins
the cast of young up-and-coming performers
from Prompt Corner, to present the 1950s
musical at the Subiaco Theatre Centre from
August 22. Its first critics described it as full
of "hatefulness and ugliness", but West
Side Story, based on Shakespeare's Romeo
and Juliet, has become one of the world's
most popular and enduring musicals. Like all great musicals, West Side
Story succeeds because it is both
entertaining and able to touch
humanity. Love, hate, prejudice and passion give
this musical a universality that has
allowed director Diana Waldron the
opportunity to set it in the present
day. It is on at the Subiaco Theatre Centre
from August 22 to 30 at 8pm, with 1.30pm
matinees on August 23 and 30. Tickets can
be booked through Prompt Corner on 9385
9456 or through BOCS. Show
comes with soup Newcomer Anna Kim take the
lead in a lunchtime musical
thriller. Handzon Theatre, winner of the
2000/2001 Best Cross Promotional
Sponsorship at the state arts sponsorship
scheme awards, serves a Western Power mug
of Campbell's Delish Soup, New Norcia
natural bread and fruit, courtesy of WA
Fruit Growers' Association, along with a
half-hour musical, all for $6. Suits -- The Musical was written and
composed specifically as a lunchtime
theatre piece by WAAPA graduates Lucy
Jones and Ross Mueller for a successful
Melbourne season in 1996. The story begins in a small Italian
village where tailors are sewing diamonds
into suit linings as part of a smuggling
operation. The suits are distributed in
Australia through a phoney suit shop. In Perth, Zoë has been trying to
get a job and decides to improve her image
by buying a smart, new suit. She suddenly
finds herself being followed by cops and
robbers trying to get their hands on the
most valuable suit in the world. For this show, newcomer Anna Kim, from
the WA Youth Theatre Company, joins a
multi-skilled cast of singers, actors and
musicians -- Laura Black, Michael Loney,
Kristy Mollica, Alinta Carroll and Jay
Walsh - who are directed by Ann Adlem with
musical direction by Richard John. Suits - The Musical performs twice a
day at 12.10 and 1.10pm, on Mondays and
Wednesday to Friday (no shows on Tuesdays)
from August 18 to 29 at the Perth Town
Hall. Tickets are available at the door or
through BOCS. Audience
can feel the fear Horror, pain, nostalgia, laughter and
poignancy are felt in varying degrees as
this extraordinary one-man show
unfolds. Peter Carroll revives the role he
tackled in the '70s with a performance
deeply etched with wisdom and
experience. He brings to life a 1950s Christian
Brother school master whose limited
teaching is peppered with cruelty and
violence, with words of wisdom, religious
homilies and prejudice. For some, the classroom, with its vast
blackboard, battered textbooks, squeaky
chalk, endless supplications to the Virgin
Mary and constantly ringing bells, brings
nostalgic recognition and bitter humour.
For others it is a horrifying revelation
of intolerance, self-obsession and
ill-informed fanaticism. The real power of the play, and indeed
the performance, comes from the man
himself. The Brother's sense of self, his
fear of losing faith, his regret for what
has been lost or missed and his ageing,
aching body reminding him of a life lost,
are poignant in the extreme. It closes this weekend - don't miss
it. A
thrilling denouement for
Effie's Rather than the sensational and
danger-filled thrillers of today, the two
plays in this season, Elegy For a Lady and
Some Kind of Love Story, are thrilling in
their subtlety and intrigue. The shadowy,
enigmatic calm of one is set against the
danger of lies and deceit of a shadowy
underworld in the other. In Elegy For a Lady, Marcelle Schmitz
and James Sollis match each other in
tightly controlled, underplayed
performances, setting up a delicate
balance of subtle intrigue and game
playing. In a sophisticated boutique, a man asks
for help in choosing a gift for his dying
lover. What can he give the woman he loves
but knows so little about? The
proprietress displays an uncanny empathy
for a love affair based on imagined
realities. Truth, pain, honesty and the power of
love are gently probed with an enigmatic
poignancy that brings into question the
strangers' relationship. From this delicate, understated
sophistication, the second play, Some Kind
of Love Story, moves up a gear. In a bordello-styled bedroom, a blowsy
prostitute careers from paranoid fear to
wheedling affection to artful
negotiation. Marcelle Schmitz turns in an exquisite,
skillful performance as Angela, a sweet
Munroe-like blonde who becomes overwhelmed
by other personalities as she sinks under
pressure. James Sollis plays Tom O'Toole, an
inept but tenacious investigator, unable
to let go of either the case or the
prostitute with whom he once had an
affair, and who occasionally loses the
subtlety of his investigative technique in
a fever-pitch of desperation. The skills of playwright Arthur Miller
and director Ray Omodei create subtle
complexities of illusion and reality where
nothing is as it seems. This is the last opportunity audiences
will have to see the exceptional work that
this little Northbridge theatre has
consistently produced over the years. Back
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