The posters are censored and that’s just the start of it in this intriguing play

THEATRE
A MIRROR
Belvoir St Theatre, February 25, until March 26
Reviewed by JOYCE MORGAN
★★★★½

Culture, like democracy, is fragile. It is easily erased.

The idea occurs on the stairs leading up to Belvoir’s main theatre, where posters of productions past have been covered in brown paper and stamped with “Censored”. The cover-up looks ominous.

Yet inside, the theatre feels celebratory, as a wedding at which we are guests is about to get under way.

Or so it seems. For nothing is as it appears in this intriguing, imaginative work by British playwright Sam Holcroft, in which she explores censorship, political and artistic compromise, shifting realities and false identities.

It’s a play of big ideas. Or, more correctly, a play within a play within a play of big ideas. It is also hilarious.

How do writers and artists resist pressure to produce what a repressive power demands? What is the price of doing so? The questions aren’t new but when free speech and artistic expression seem under threat everywhere, they are prescient.

The rug is quickly pulled from under the audience. No longer guests at a wedding, we are observing the illegal performance of play in an unnamed but vaguely eastern European, authoritarian regime where all plays must be state approved.

Celik (Yalin Ozucelik) is from the Ministry of Culture. He’s a bureaucrat in a beige suit with an enthusiasm for theatre. He presents as the state’s benign face, insisting: “I’m trying to build a Trojan horse to smuggle true art into this country.”

He’s as deluded on that count as he is in his belief that his compliant assistant Mei (Rose Riley) enjoys his company.

Celik’s job is to vet and censor, including aspiring playwright Adem (Faisal Hamza). Celik wants Adem to produce not awkward, gritty truths but propaganda plays like those penned by Adem’s mirror opposite – the state-approved poster boy Bax (Eden Falk).

Director Margaret Thanos draws out the ideas and the humour in this layered piece of meta theatre. Her clear, confident hand means there’s never any confusion about which layer is being evoked at any moment.

She has elicited fine performances from her strong cast. Ozucelik excels as the amiable yet manipulative apparatchik Celik. Hamza invests Adem with naivety and steely defiance. Falk’s Bax is well realised as the louche, cynical success who ultimately grasps that he is simply a puppet of the state.

As Mei, Riley’s perfect comic timing impressed – her drill with an umbrella was a highlight – as she transformed from meek, stiff assistant to a woman prepared to question the nature of power.

With set and costumes by Angelina Daniel, the play’s deep red walls are a stark contrast to the Ministry of Culture’s bland wooden floor, desk and chairs and the muted colours of the costumes.

Daniel Herten’s pulsing electronic sound design and Phoebe Pilcher’s swift lighting changes notch up the tension between scenes.

A late and utterly surprising twist brings the piece to a shattering conclusion.

This is an engrossing hall of mirrors. Illusion and collusion are intertwined in an engaging reflection on the nexus between art and power.

MUSIC
For one night they rocked our world

G FLIP
Hordern Pavilion, March 3. Also March 4.
Reviewed by NADIA RUSSELL

★★★★

“For one night I’ll rock your world” is a sentiment that rings true as G Flip kicks off their Dream Ride Sydney show with Disco Cowgirl.

G Flip, the non-binary Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, comes out swinging – literally, waving a massive Progress Pride flag at the start of the second song of the set, their hit Gay 4 Me, which gets a buzzing audience even more riled up for what is to come.

There are clever screens all over the place but little time is spent watching them when G Flip is commanding the stage, running up and down the runway and interacting with their band. Their charisma shines throughout the show when they interact with fans, bring on surprise guests and manage to command the quietest crowd after someone has collapsed with the use of … hand emus?

But unconventional is what makes G Flip special. No other artist is switching up instruments nearly every second song. Despite their reputation as a drummer, the first instrument to come out is an alto saxophone for I Don’t Wanna Regret.

They play the electric and acoustic guitar across the night but the drums get most attention, with an elevated set that moves the kit to the front of the stage when they play. There’s even an electrifying drum interlude where the entire band joins in between songs Good Enough and Rough.

The energy remains high throughout, even when there are slower moments or when they jump onto an instrument. Their like-a-version cover of Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer pumps up the crowd, and by the time Keli Holiday is brought out for a surprise Dancing2 performance with G Flip on sax, everyone is jumping up and down.

Though the tour is for their newest album, there is a beautiful section in the latter half of the show where they play a medley starting with their breakout single About You. They work their way through some of their older music much to the crowd’s delight, while a montage plays in the background of old videos and photos, celebrating their journey to the artist they are now.

THEATRE
The Beat goes on for these cross-dressing shepherds

Head Over Heels
Hayes Theatre, February 25, until March 22
Reviewed by HARRIET CUNNINGHAM
★★★½

Way, way back, many centuries ago, Sir Philip Sidney wrote long and winding tales of an imaginary land of shepherds and nymphs, gods and kings. A few centuries later, playwright and screenwriter Jeff Whitty, whose 2004 hit Avenue Q ran on Broadway for 16 years, decided to turn Sidney’s tale into a jukebox musical, Head Over Heels, using hits from the ’80s all-female pop-punk American band The Go-Go’s. Now, after a few false starts, Head Over Heels has made it to Sydney.

It’s a blast. King Basilius and Queen Gynecia are the benevolent rulers of Arcadia, a land that moves to the rhythm of the Beat, a mystical life force that keeps the world dancing. Their eldest daughter Pamela is being picky when it comes to marriage, and their youngest, Philoclea, is in love with the lowly peasant Musidorus. Then Basilius is summoned to meet a Delphic oracle who gives four prophecies that will upend everyone’s world. Much chaos ensues.

Director Ellen Simpson has honoured the homegrown traditions of theatre and punk, producing a show that is the gleeful antithesis of the slick spectaculars that roll in and out of town. Head Over Heels looks and feels raw: the staging (Josh McIntosh) uses trolleys, doorways, curtains and smoke to create space for imagination; the inspired (and uncredited) costumes look like they’ve been salvaged from a dressing-up box; the band (led by music director Zara Stanton) lurks at the edge of the stage, popping riffs and rhythms from the shadows.

It’s simple but it’s more than enough for this fast-moving, gender-bending comedy, which is powered by the renewable energy of love and theatre.

Jenni Little (Philoclea) and Adam Noviello (Musidorus) are the white heat at the centre of a red-hot ensemble. Little radiates a mischievous humour, while Noviello uses their rangy voice and lanky physicality to rewrite the rules of romantic comedy. Thomas Campbell, as Basilius, is an adorable straight man, while J Ridler as Gynecia makes the world disappear when they sit, alone in a pool of light, to sing This Old Feeling.

Nancy Denis takes on the job of keeping the plot moving with good humour as Dametus, while Minerva Khodabande, as Dametus’ daughter Mopsa, is a sulky delight. Meanwhile, Gaz Dutlow is a surprise star, a black-clad deus ex machina who watches approvingly as love blooms in unexpected places. That leaves Philoclea’s eldest sister, the great beauty Pamela.

On opening night Pamela was played by recent WAAPA graduate Lucy Lalor, book in hand, covering for an indisposed Shannen Alyce Quan. Lalor gave a plucky performance, defying the capricious theatre gods and hitting some spine-tingling top notes, to boot.

Sir Philip Sidney was blissfully unaware of the linguistic tangles of 21st-century gender identity when he wrote his racy tale of foolish kings, mistaken identity and cross-dressing shepherds but I sense he would have been completely on board with the riotous joy of Head Over Heels. After all, Love is love is love.

THEATRE
Naked and alone, Simone Burke bares all

THE ELOCUTION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Belvoir Downstairs Theatre, February 26
Until March 29
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★

At the risk of revealing I’m over 21, I saw Gordon Chater’s unforgettable 1976 performance as Robert O’Brien in this one-actor play’s premiere season, in those heady days that confirmed Australian plays, acting and production could be world-class.

It toured Australia, had acclaimed West End and off-Broadway seasons, and was duly revived, but hasn’t received a professional production for 24 years. Until now.

Make no mistake: this is among Australia’s greatest plays, containing one of the most enthralling characters and most challenging roles in our relatively brief theatrical history. To take it on, as Simon Burke does here, demands virtuosity of range and stage-craft as well as a preparedness to bare all.

I don’t just mean a man in his 60s being physically naked, as stipulated in the opening sequence – which requires its own courage in such a combustion chamber, with 80 people all within two metres of the stage. I mean the demands of letting us glimpse the soul of man who is an elocution teacher by day, a transvestite by night, and is wrongly confined to a psychiatric institution following accusations of child molestation.

O’Brien also has a wicked sense of humour. Did this aspect not stand the test of time, the play, itself, would not. While not all O’Brien’s quips will pass the newfangled puritanism in which we sometimes find ourselves, a diverse opening-night audience laughed at nearly all, aided by Burke’s delicious realisation of this endlessly multifaceted character, directed by Declan Greene for Griffin Theatre Company.

As well as being funny, O’Brien is intelligent, well read, hard-drinking and bawdy, and lusts after Mick Jagger, sometimes in the drag attire in which he shares dalliances with his married-with-children stockbroker friend, Bruce. He’s also warm, sincere and an expert, caring elocution teacher.

The wonder of Steve J Spears’ achievement is that he created such a complex, rounded man of 60 as a straight 23-year-old. The wonder of Burke’s achievement is making O’Brien glow with an inner warmth that jack-knifes to spitting rage. Moments of something close to acting genius (as when recreating a boorish talk-back radio discussion) alternate with moments where little cracks appear, which may well be papered over as the season advances.

Not only is it a monumental role in terms of range and density, but it’s as complex as Winnie’s in Beckett’s Happy Days in terms of the choreography of props, including bottles, smokes, a bra (which he steps into, rather than puts on), an endlessly ringing telephone and a bust of Shakespeare, which he addresses (possibly presumptuously) as his confidante.

Greene finely calibrates the gathering drama in Spears’ text, and the complexity of the play’s morality has only increased. If Burke doesn’t quite scale Chater’s heights (assuming vivid memories can be trusted), those heights are within his grasp, and others may well remember his own performance in 50 years’ time.

MUSIC
It’s a family affair for hip-hop veterans

Hilltop Hoods
Qudos Bank Arena, February 27
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★★

Hip-hop is one of the most unforgiving genres for artists, with rappers typically going from the hot new thing to being “old-school” and out of style within about 10 years. This makes it an exceptional achievement that Hilltop Hoods, the Adelaide hip-hop group formed in 1994, are just as popular 30-plus years into their career, and capable of packing out Qudos Bank Arena over two nights – something most of their contemporaries from the US would have a hard time achieving.

That comes down to an extremely loyal fan base, that loyalty perhaps chiefly earned through Hilltop Hoods honing themselves into one of the country’s most electric live acts, crafting something far beyond a couple of guys on the mic – in this case, MCs Matthew “Suffa” Lambert and Daniel “Pressure” Smith – simply barking incoherent rhymes over a backing track.

Instead, you get a performance that begins with the high energy and fanfare of an encore, complete with confetti and pyrotechnics, that maintains that high bar throughout the show. Lambert and Smith, both entertaining and technically excellent rappers, tear through hits Leave Me Lonely, Chase That Feeling and The Nosebleed Section – the one Hoods song everybody knows – with the kind of cardio-raising gusto to put performers half their age to shame.

Although the group, backed by Barry “DJ Debris” Francis, has recorded and toured with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, this night is a more stripped-back affair. Still, there’s no shortage of additional musicians, with the Hoods joined on stage by a drummer, sprightly three-piece brass section and Adelaide singer Nyassa, whose powerful voice lifts several songs, including the title track to last year’s Fall from the Light LP.

A succession of guests also keeps excitement levels raised, with surprise appearances from singers Montaigne, Marlon, Six60’s Matiu Walters and Adrian Eagle, along with rappers Illy and Trials (both of whom add verses to crowd favourite Cosby Sweater).

It’s that sense of inclusivity and everyone being invited to the party that makes this such a fun gig, with the feel-good vibes not even dampened by a pre-encore, turntables-related technical hiccup that temporarily puts a pause on proceedings. Whether it’s the love from the fans, or the Hoods and assorted guests hugging it out at the end, there’s a heartwarming sense that it’s all one big family affair.

MUSIC
Better than ever at 77. What’s Grace Jones’ secret?

GRACE JONES
Sydney Opera House Forecourt, February 28
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★½

Grace Jones would still be startling were she 37 rather than 77. I’ve seen teens with less energy and less joie de vivre, and few people of any age can hold a candle to her charisma. The other improbability is that her voice is better now than it was in her ’80s heyday. It still has lapses of pitch (Amazing Grace is a bad idea) but it has darkened and deepened, sometimes almost sounding like a male baritone.

It was charming in an a cappella exchange with the crowd after a frantic Love Is the Drug, and she used it with real commitment on Williams Blood from 2008’s Hurricane album, which remains her most recent release. (She did, however, give us a taste of a forthcoming album: a very funky song called The Key. Jones spreads her albums decades apart, these days.)

Alas, the same commitment was absent when she sang the finest song she’s ever covered, Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango, remade into I’ve Seen That Face Before. Perhaps 45 years of performing it has worn it thin but it could still steal the show if she sang it as well as she did Williams Blood. Even her fabulous band sounded like it was just going through the motions here.

Were Jones not so funny, the lengthy breaks between songs – never filled instrumentally by the band – while she swaps between outlandish costumes, would be dead weights on the show. Instead, she’s busily quipping and teasing, sometimes from the wings while being wrangled out of and into her glam hats and fabled headdresses.

During the songs the comedy continues, whether she’s inverting herself on the golden upstage throne during My Jamaican Guy, thrashing two innocent crash cymbals into submission on Demolition Man, or, during Pull Up to the Bumper, riding into the area between stage and mosh-pit on a minder’s immense shoulders, scantily clad and smiling a smile that could be a source of renewable energy.

The hula-hoop still came out for Slave to the Rhythm, ending a 95-minute show that had started predictably late with another defining classic – Iggy Pop and David Bowie’s Nightclubbing. Jones’ version was always stronger than Iggy’s, and remains so: more relentless and more sinister, with that hint of automaton to her vocals.

Somehow she manages to sustain a career heavily reliant on 45-year-old material, yet it seems more a celebration than a nostalgia exercise. That’s partly down to Jones’ infectious pleasure in being on stage and in the moment, and partly to the expertise of the eight-piece Illustrious Blacks, led by keyboardist Charles Stuart, and containing such effective contributors as stinging guitarist Louis Eliot, understated bassist Malcolm Joseph and crisp drummer Andrew McLean.

At the end she said she’d be back. Perhaps she will be. Perhaps she’s ageless. If there’s a secret, whisper it to me, Grace.