Dark humour invigorates familiar fables ; a review

THEATRE: Grimm Tales. By Carol Ann Duffy and Tim Supple. Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane. November 16. QUEENSLAND Theatre Company concludes its season with Grimm Tales, Carol Ann Duffy and Tim Supple's adaptation of classic cautionary tales as set down by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century. This programming decision is clearly designed to present fun family entertainment as Christmas approaches. In Grimm Tales, well-known stories such as Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin pack a little more punch than in your standard picture book. Duffy and Supple's play is by no means the sort of poetic, postmodern or politicised adaptation of the fairytale we see from writers such as Angela Carter, and it is not intended to be subversive or to question the social and gender assumptions that underpin the tales. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Rather, a return to the grislier original incarnations of the tales - the wicked stepsisters who lop off parts of their feet to fit the slipper and win the prince, or the hare so confused by the hedgehog's stratagem to make him think he is losing the race, he runs himself to death - has a comic effect. In this production, directed by Michael Futcher, heightened performances from some of Brisbane's best comic and physical actors, live music and an open, acknowledged relationship with the audience establish the atmosphere for the piece. While the production is a little sombre and slow to start with the first tale, Hansel and Gretel, the knowingness and almost slapstick quality with which the cast plays out the gruesome, scatological or silly moments in the other tales are well pitched to carry the comedy. The action is supported by a fantastic set by Greg Clarke of wooden planked walls, stairs and walkways which, with the help of David Walter's lighting design, is transformed into forests, ballrooms and castles as the cast moves up, over and under it. The overall highlight is probably the cast Futcher has brought together. Established QTC actors Eugene Gilfedder, Lucas Stibbard and Scott Witt, and emerging QTC actor Melanie Zanetti, join Liz Buchanan, Dan Crestani and Emma Pursey, all well known for their independent work in Brisbane but making their mainstage debut for the QTC. Every one of them metamorphoses with ease from character to character, human to animal, and central player to support. There is nothing particularly new in Grimm Tales, and it doesn't try to do anything more (or, indeed, less) than entertain, but skilful direction and a strong cast ensure it succeeds on those terms.

Contemporary take on deconstructed Medea : a review

THEATRE: The New Dead: Medea Material. By Heiner Muller. Stella Electrika in association with La Boite Theatre Company, Brisbane, November 19. THERE has been a lot of intensity in independent theatre in Brisbane during the past year, as companies, production houses and producers have begun building new programs and platforms to support an expansion of pathways within the local theatre ecology. Audiences have been exposed to works signalling the diversity of what Brisbane theatre makers want to see on stage, from productions of new local and international pieces to new devised works, and the results of residencies and development programs. La Boite Theatre Company closes its inaugural indie season with a work that places it at the contemporary, experimental end of the spectrum. The New Dead: Medea Material is emerging director Kat Henry's interpretation of Heiner Muller's 1981 text Despoiled Shore Medea Material Landscape with Argonauts. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Muller is known for his radical adaptations of historical dramas, from the Greeks to Shakespeare, and for deconstructed texts in which the characters - in this case, Medea - violently reject the familial, cultural and political roles society has laid out for them. Muller's combination of deconstructed characters, disconnected poetic language and constant references to aspects of popular culture and the Cold War politics he sought to abjure make his texts challenging to realise. The poetry entices but the density, together with the increasing distance of the Cold War politics in the texts, leaves contemporary directors with clear decisions to make about how to adapt these open texts. In The New Dead: Medea Material, Henry works with some interesting imagery and conceptual territory. Lucinda Shaw as Medea, Guy Webster as Jason and Kimie Tsukakoshi as King Creon's daughter Glauce, the woman for whom Jason forsakes his wife Medea, each reference different aspects of contemporary culture. Medea is a bitter, drunken, satin-gowned diva with bite; Jason - first seen lounging in front of the television with a beer in an image reminiscent of Sarah Kane's in-yer-face characterisation of Hippolytus in Phaedra's Love - has something of the rock star about him; and Glauce is a roller-skating, karaoke-singing, pole-dancing young temptress. The production is given a contemporary tone, dominated by Medea's twisted love and loss, rather than by any commentary on her circumstances. Its strength is the aesthetic Henry creates, supported by live electro-pop music, a band stage that stands as a metaphor for Jason's sea voyage, and multimedia that inserts images of the story unfolding beyond these characters' speeches as sorts of subconscious flashes. While Tsukakoshi is engaging throughout, there are moments when Shaw and Webster's performances - particularly in the songs - are diminished by a lack of clarity. The result is a piece that, while slightly lacking in its realisation at times, undoubtedly flags Henry's facility as an emerging director and what she wants to bring to the Brisbane theatre scene.

Fleshed out comic yarn : a review

Calendar Girls. By Tim Firth. Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, April 10. AN adaptation of the 2003 film of the same name, Calendar Girls is a light piece of entertainment. Following the death of her husband John from leukaemia, Annie and her friend Chris convince the members of their local Yorkshire Women's Institute to pose for a nude calendar to raise funds to refurbish the local hospital's run-down relatives' room. This premise -- and the opportunities for comic engagement it entails -- drives the plot of Tim Firth's stage adaptation of Calendar Girls.

Book review : Kellett, M (2010) Rethinking children and research : attitudes in contemporary society

Rethinking Children and Research characterizes Mary Kellett’s vision as campaigner and sociologist actively working for and with children for many years. The book itself is not only visionary; it is informative, thought provoking and pragmatic. From a contemporary standpoint, the manuscript presents a detailed synopsis of the shifts in thinking about research with children and provides an appraisal of the theoretical movements that have driven a participatory research agenda. A strong theoretical approach of the combined lenses of sociologies of childhood and rights discourse is introduced early in the book. From the outset, the reader receives loud and clear, the key message of the book: that children in research should and can be included as competent members who lead research in the study of their everyday lives. The argument for a more mutual research approach is shaped throughout the book using research examples and practical suggestions on how this might be achieved. Overall, the reader is left feeling compelled to adopt such an approach.

Contemporary take on Caesar a triumph of style over substance [Review]

AFTER a great deal of success with last year's "emo" adaptation of Hamlet, David Berthold begins La Boite Theatre Company's 2011 season, his second season at the helm, with an adaptation of Julius Caesar.

Review of Dr. Richard Shapcott's International Ethics : A Critical Introduction. 2010. London: Polity Press. ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-3142-4.

This work by Richard Shapcott is, as the title provides, an introduction to international ethics. By taking a quick glance at the table of contents (see Figure 1) we see that he has systematically divided this particular discourse into its normative areas of concern (in other words its major areas of argument or research). When reading, we also see that a great deal of work has gone into the publication because the narrative is flowing, the arguments continuous, and because the tone of the work maintained its critical position throughout.

Entertaining the E Word : Barrie Kosky's On Ecstasy [A Review]

A review of Barrie Kosky's essay, On Ecstasy : Most of us describe the E word as a pleasant, out of this world experience—a type of boundless, artificial joy, deliberately induced by some kind of technicoloured drug. For others, it is that “lovey dovey” feeling. A spinning ceiling. Anything Lindt. For sensualist and soup connoisseur Barrie Kosky, it is easier than this. Being On Ecstasy involves, quite simply, his grandmother's chicken specialty—something warm and golden, surrendered with vegetables and a side of transcendental bliss. “A soup that took you to the beginning and end of time itself. A dazzling, pure, clear rhapsody” (7).

Death by Drowning : Gary Bryson's Turtle [A Review]

Accused of being autobiographical, as many debut novels often are, Turtle, upon first reading and further prying, does read as a story wrenched out of Gary Bryson’s own life. In a recent interview with Mandy Sayer, however, he was quick to deny all sorts of archetypal allegations. “Any resemblance to turtles living or dead”, Bryson explained, “is entirely coincidental”. Regardless of the many parallels that align author with protagonist—both were born and raised in a grey-skied Glasgow, both grew up in self-described dysfunctional families, and both returned to the colourless city to attend their mothers’ funerals—the narrative combines bruising black comedy with moments of magic realism. The result is an unlikely but often surprising concoction of twists and turns, each of which mixes the fallibility of memory with the slippery nature of truth. This playfulness between the material world and its metaphorical counterpart raises questions, not only about the curse that poisons its characters, but about the ethical implications of blurring fact and fiction...

Once Upon a Misconception : Mark Juddery's Busted [A Review]

Forget Disney's timeless tales of rags-to-riches. Princesses are the most overrated public figures of all time. Apparently. Cinderella, after all, was 'a calculating, sinister go-getter' who murdered her step-mother at the instruction of a jealous governess (88). Sleeping Beauty was raped as she slept, woken not by the wet kiss of a handsome prince, but the kick and punch of twins stirring in her belly. Over the centuries, only the pea-detecting princess has remained herself: hedonistic, melodramatic and 'still perhaps the most pampered, precious wimp in the history of fairy tales' (88). There are, however, shards of truth to be salvaged from the fractured lives of these glassy-eyed women. After all, even Princess Mary worked in real estate.

Thelma and Disease : Susan Gilman's Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven [A Review]

In the nineteenth century, when female travel narratives of miss(adventure) were still read as excursions rather than expeditions, it was common for women travellers to preface their writing with an apology or admission of guilt—a type of disclaimer that excused the author for engaging in such inappropriate activity and bothering the reader with their trivial endeavours. Susan Gilman’s Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven offers no such thing. Instead Gilman begins her memoir with a confession about its lack of lies, half-truth and spin. ‘This is a true story,’ she writes, ‘recounted as accurate as possible and corroborated by notes I took at the time and by others who were present.’