Keith Urban playing Pink Pony Club? It’s a Monday night to remember

MUSIC
Keith Urban ★★★
Rod Laver Arena, August 25

Keith Urban takes the stage beaming at the audience, white teeth, tasteful blond highlights. He keeps the charm up and he works hard. People have come from all around for this show, and he’s going to deliver. One young woman yells she’s come from Perth. Another is from Nashville. “Me too!” says Urban.

Sort of true. Keith Urban grew up in Caboolture (though he was born in New Zealand). His Australian accent remains – until he starts singing, when the country southern twang takes over.

“This is my mission statement tonight,” he tells us. “For the next two hours, I’m gonna make sure you don’t think about your life outside the Rod Laver Arena.” This is a watertight space, outside of our ordinary lives, and Urban’s prime directive is fun, fun, fun. He’s handsome, energetic and so, so nice. He’s also a great guitarist. Are there too many solos? Your mileage may vary.

Country is slick these days. Genres have melded, edges have been sanded off. Urban’s sound is country at heart, but poured into a contemporary adult pop-rock mould. It’s driving-down-the-highway-at-80-ready, and it’s stadium-ready.

The set is massive. I count 27 songs with plenty from across his career, from mid-tempo stadium rockers to mid-tempo ballads. Some songs shine, like breakthrough 2002 hit Somebody Like You with its steel banjo, and Blue Ain’t Your Colour with its classic country lyrics. But the two-hour set can be a bit samey. Big singles like Kiss a Girl and Wasted Time go down well with the crowd but for my money it’s way more fun when the country stompers like Better Life and You Look Good In My Shirt come out. And it’s especially fun when the fiddle player Gabi Louise hits the stage — she drags the clean pop radio sound away from the mid.

Then there are the covers, from a full-bodied version of The Angels’ evergreen Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again to an acoustic Pink Pony Club and numerous little Easter eggs throughout the night. He dedicates most of the encore to a selection of solo covers too. I gotta hand it to him, for a lone man with a guitar doing a bunch of covers, he is a commanding presence.

Finally, he and his band close with a curious choice: a faithful cover of New Radicals’ 1998 hit You Get What You Give. Chosen, I think, because it’s a fun song and it’s something nice to hum in the car on the way home. He thanks us profusely for making it out on a Monday night. “You guys did frickin’ unbelievable!” he tells us. He is so nice.
Reviewed by Will Cox

CIRCUS
Corteo ★★★
Cirque du Soleil, John Cain Arena, until August 31

A clown dreams of his own funeral in this revival of a blockbuster from the juggernaut of world circus, Cirque du Soleil.

Currently on the Melbourne leg of an Australia/New Zealand tour, Corteo represents a departure from the typical big top format, though it’s hardly the company’s first rodeo when it comes to arena spectaculars. Fans might remember TORUK – the First Flight, their prequel to James Cameron’s Avatar, which recreated an immersive fantasy world in a luxe, stadium-style event.

This one is staged in traverse, giving the illusion of an antique, proscenium arch theatre for most of the show.

The overt artifice delivers the clown’s dream of demise with a full measure of pageantry and aerial display – from a Fellini-like funeral procession that sees the clown’s former lovers swinging from chandeliers to the departed buffoon cycling heavenward through skyways alongside angels, with a whole lot of life flashing before his eyes in between.

Audiences will find themselves treated to the complete Cirque du Soleil package – elite acrobatics, elaborate costumes and a great spectacle, plus a diverse soundtrack of pleasing world music, all worked into a fantasia that should light up the eyes of children and adults alike.

Almost every discipline is represented – dextrous juggling routines, synchronised Cyr Wheel, daring aerialism using the arms of fellow acrobats rather than a flying trapeze, and many more – as the piece careens between life and afterlife.

Inventive design sometimes lifts the dreamscape. Trampolining on beds, complete with pillow fights, is a nice touch, and the entire audience was enchanted by a scene in which a diminutive “clowness” strapped to helium balloons (Valentyna Paylevanyan) wafts gently around the auditorium, repeatedly launched into the air by random spectators upon whom she lands.

Sometimes, however, visual elements don’t frame the acrobatics as cleanly as they might – the sheer size of the chandeliers in one scene, say, arguably distracts from the skill of the aerialists.

The show is also long, especially the first half. It was created in 2005 – an advantage to newcomers seeking a classic Cirque du Soleil experience, and much less of a novelty for aficionados who’ve followed the flowering of contemporary circus worldwide over the past two decades.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Corteo to anyone with children, or to those who want to see Cirque du Soleil for themselves.

It’s a global phenomenon for good reason, and you can’t help but be entertained by the preternatural circus skills and high production values on display. To those who know circus well, on the other hand, the show feels a bit like a golden oldie already.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

THEATRE
Destiny ★★★★
Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre, until September 13

The year is 1976. Apartheid-era South Africa is on the precipice of the Soweto Uprising – mass protests against the imposition of the Afrikaans language on Black schoolchildren which ignited a flashpoint of police brutality.

Under Zindzi Okenyo’s direction, Kirsty Marillier’s script plunges us headfirst into a “coloured” household – a term assigned to people of mixed-race descent under apartheid – in the coastal South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, where Marillier was born.

Marillier, the beating heart of the performance, plays Della, a forthright and overprotective young woman who keeps the household running and dotes on her flamboyant 16-year-old brother, Rocky (Gaz Dutlow), in the absence of their mother. Their father, Cliff (consummate crooner Patrick Williams), is well-meaning but often misguided in his approach to parenting them, a paragon of a restrictive form of masculinity that is often at odds with his son’s.

A serendipitous encounter brings forth the suave Ezra (Barry Conrad), a former beau of Della’s who has been “conscientised” into a radical revolutionary. Taken with his particular brand of resistance (and his winning smile), Rocky follows in his lead, much to Della’s chagrin. The tension ratchets up in this fateful tale that has undertones of a Greek tragedy.

Often the source of levity, Dutlow expertly brings Rocky’s childlike petulance, killer dance moves and bursts of pathos to life. Marillier oscillates masterfully between physical comedy and bouts of righteous anger, while Conrad nails the sanctimonious conviction of a political firebrand. The chemistry between Marillier and Conrad is crackling; the theatre is in a state of pin-drop silence witnessing their push-and-pull dynamic play out.

Furnished in pale pastels, Sophie Woodward’s set resurrects the emblems of a South African home from yesteryear, cosy and inviting as a sanctuary from external forces. Perched aloft is the general store in which Della works, which morphs into a key meeting point for the characters.

Backdropped by idyllic rolling clouds, the set has a mesmeric depth as the characters’ paths criss-cross, seeking a sense of themselves as they seek out one another.

The inside-out perspective of the spaces – the broader world is only ever discernible from within these realms – speaks to the focus of Destiny, which portrays how collective fear, statewide suppression and the might of a totalitarian regime seep into our most personal spaces.

Destiny wholly leans into its ’70s aesthetic, most noticeably in the jaunty disco tunes that accompany scene transitions and Woodward’s incredibly fun costume design, replete with flares, afros and polyester shirts. The actors mostly master the lilting cadence of a South African accent, which coupled with slang words such as “howzit”, “braai” and “I’ll check you”, lend the play an unmistakeable verisimilitude.

Humour is a perennial salve in the face of state-orchestrated oppression – the play’s astute mix of physical and observational comedy attests to that – but the pursuit of a punchline occasionally detracts from the emotional potency of the play’s most heartbreaking moments.

Ending on a perfectly pitched note of defiance as it parses the politics of resistance – why we resist, how we should resist, for whom we resist – Destiny arrives at a particularly resonant point in time as we collectively search for ways to dismantle seemingly indestructible, oppressive regimes.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

MUSIC
ACO Up Close: Shostakovich, Silvestrov and Bach ★★★★
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, August 25

Fifty years after his death, it is tempting to imagine what composer Dmitri Shostakovich would make of today’s conflict between his native Russia and Ukraine. Chances are he would have some fellow feeling for exiled Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who has also suffered from political intrigues beyond his control.

Some of Silvestrov’s work helped to contextualise a rare outing of Shostakovich’s monumental Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 featuring pianist Konstantin Shamray and members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Beginning with Silvestrov’s Three Bagatelles for piano, Shamray gave freshness to their improvisatory feel with subtle colouration and beautifully soft playing. Together with violinist Satu Vänskä, the Intermezzo and Barcarole from Five Pieces for violin and piano were deftly characterised; the first with some atmospheric pizzicato, the latter with quiet romantic fervour.

Having used some as encores in their recital last year, Vänskä and Shamray returned to Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes, Op. 34 arranged by violinist Dmitri Tsiganov. A selection of six of these small musical gems possessed both wit and whimsy, from the fast A minor with its surprising final twist, to the jaunty waltz of the D flat major and the sardonic final prelude in D minor.

Joined by violinist Ilya Isakovich, violist Amanda Verner and cellist Julian Thompson, Bach’s Contrapunctus I from the Art of Fugue proved an apt entrance into the Quintet.

Relishing but respecting Shostakovich’s challenges, the players brought gravitas to the majestic prelude, clarity to the masterly, intriguing fugue and rustic energy to the rambunctious scherzo. Vänskä invested her solos in the Intermezzo with probing intensity, ensuring that the delicacy and quietude in the understated finale came as the quizzical surprise the composer intended.

Written early in World War II, the Quintet reminds us that art in times of war points to something beyond aggressive inhumanity.
Reviewed by Tony Way

DANCE
Amber McCartney x Shapednoise x MATRIA ★★★
Royal Exhibition Building, August 24

Choreographer Amber McCartney has a gift for transformation and defamiliarisation. Fascinated by artificiality, she augments the body’s architecture with prosthetics and masks, and a movement style pitched between the animal and the android.

It’s fitting, then, that her latest work should appear inside the MATRIA installation: a candy-coloured, polyethylene tribute to unnatural creation. This vast balloon, wedged into one of the great vaults of the Royal Exhibition Building, both does and does not resemble a living womb.

It is, all the same, pretty spectacular. Inside the bubble, designed by a Barcelona-based production team, the architecture presses through in cartoonish relief. It’s a familiar art-world gimmick: repackaging a well-known landmark in festive, plasticky drag.

But McCartney makes it interesting. Slumped in black at the centre of the pink dome, she establishes a focal point – a punctum – in the expanse of pink. Even before the performance begins, she transforms the space, giving it gravity, creating both a centre and a breach.

The performance itself runs just 20 minutes. McCartney works with a costume suggesting multiple bodies that cling together, heads jerking and nodding. Her rapid, twitchy jolts snag the plastic beneath her, gathering it around her and leaving a temporary imprint of her struggles.

At first, you stare hard, trying to decipher the arrangement: what’s real and what’s prosthetic? Is there really only one dancer? The trick of the work is that even once you’ve solved that puzzle, McCartney reanimates the other figures, drawing your eye back to them, making you care for them all over again.

The dance was followed by a live set from Italian experimental sound designer Nino Pedone, performing as Shapednoise. It made for an intriguing follow-up to McCartney, but the echoing hall did it no favours. Whatever complexity lay in the sound design was largely lost in the cavernous acoustics.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

THEATRE
The Machine Stops ★★
Briony Dunn, Theatre Works, until August 30

Given the profound social implications of artificial intelligence technology, it would be surprising if theatres didn’t unleash at least some dystopian sci-fi inspired by it on our stages. Briony Dunn’s The Machine Stops takes up the challenge, creating a brooding future in which a highly regulated survivor-society has subjugated itself to a seemingly benevolent superintelligence.

Humans appear to have fled deep underground, the surface of the planet having long since devolved into a toxic hellscape. Or has it?

In a Matrix-style trope, knowledge of reality has been shaped by the Machine’s influence and human dependence on it. Living an atomised existence in a featureless subterranean environment is normal. So is voluntary euthanasia, which the Machine provides as an option, should life get too depressing.

The central figure of a mother (Mary Helen Sassman) first emerges through stylised, silent, achingly slow physical theatre. Clever lighting and sound design augment the show’s dark atmospherics, reducing the human figure into a ghost in the machine through an abstract fusion of modular lighting, subliminal humming and serried poles arranged with eerie geometric regularity.

A surprise request from her son (Patrick Livesey) upends the mother’s pre-programmed existence, leading to a meeting halfway across the globe, and revelations of truths about their world – bleak, dangerous, liberating truths – previously obscured from view.

Dunn is presumably aiming for the kind of dystopian drama of ideas (and ethics) that Caryl Churchill mastered in plays such as Far Away or A Number, though neither the motherhood issues nor the world-building emerge with Churchill’s lightning clarity.

The parameters of Dunn’s thought experiment can seem thematically ill-defined. Her play probably needs to front-load the world-building a bit more to make the show feel less lopsided dramatically, and some stylised physical theatre suffers from the law of diminishing returns (the mother grimacing in silent agony, in particular) if too often repeated.

That said, Sassman does present the unsettling spectacle of the emotional devolution of a figure who has outsourced all meaning and connection in her life to an AI overlord. And when Livesey appears – in live performance and through video projection – the general gloom is lifted by a revolutionary spark.

Trouble is we don’t have a developed sense of the power dynamics being overthrown, or much chance to get invested in what might replace them.

The Machine Stops does embody a sobering vision of how being terminally online can deny human agency, and it glances at insidious ways AI might make us vulnerable.

It doesn’t entirely succeed at constructing a coherent ethical fable from the material, though, and I can’t help feeling that the story needs a finer examination of the fraught borderland between care and control to do so.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSICAL THEATRE
Ordinary Days ★★★
Adam Gwon, fortyfivedownstairs, until August 31

Indie musical theatre outfit Clovelly Fox came to public notice with a slick production of William Finn’s Elegies: A Song Cycle last year. An autobiographical work featuring a strong cast including Nadine Garner, that musical suite explored memories of love and loss from the composer’s home of New York City.

NYC itself has inspired more signature show tunes than anywhere in the world. They’re not all as brassy and extroverted as the song Frank Sinatra made his own, but they do tend in that direction, and it’s probably not a coincidence that the most successful “9/11 musical”, the uplifting Come from Away, is set very much out of town, in Newfoundland, Canada, among planes diverted on the day of the attacks.

Incorporating the grief and vulnerability of the post-9/11 era – and balancing it with the city’s mythic appeal – has been a challenge. As Elegies did, Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days (2009) plays with frustrations, eccentricities and moments of serendipitous connection in the great cosmopolitan metropolis, while gently giving the ghosts of the past their due.

The four-hander follows two New York couples. Claire (Sarah Morrison) and Jason (Bobby Fox) are moving in together after an intense courtship, though cute tiffs turn into more serious emotional conflict when Claire – still hoarding unpacked possessions she’s unwilling to let go – starts to get cold feet.

Meanwhile, Warren (Joel Granger) and Deb (Melanie Bird) are strangers who meet by chance.

Warren’s a gay artist housesitting for another artist (who’s in jail) and in a typical optimistic and open-hearted gesture, he’s been handing out flyers based on the jailed artist’s artwork to passers-by, hoping to brighten their days.

Deb is his opposite number – a neurotic, cynical, and perpetually pissed-off grad student whose personality is drawn straight from the Seinfeld playbook. The odd couple meet when Deb loses her thesis on the subway; Warren finds it and tracks her down to return it. Against all odds, they become friends.

Fox and Morrison bring understated emotional depth to the slice-of-life romance, investing these lovers and their relationship with a dynamic, smartly observed intimacy, delicate duet vocals and a resolution that feels emotionally earned.

As the Platonic comic relief, Granger and Bird get to up the Sondheim-like post-industrial comedy of manners to a major key. Both performers relish the exaggerated contrast their screwball duo represents, and Bird’s talent for frenetic, sardonic musical humour makes it easy to imagine her excelling at say, the manic bride-to-be Amy in Sondheim’s Company.

Director Tyran Parke has delivered a no-frills production, which despite a few niggling technical issues – the odd ill-blocked scene or lighting miscue – holds your attention throughout. Versatile vocals and whirling piano accompaniment highlight Gwon’s musical brilliance, and the musical opens into a hymn to friendship, and to art, as its poignant urban love story unfolds.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

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