Art Smitten

*Note to listeners: content and trigger warning - the following interview discusses themes that may be distressing for listerners. These themes include, but are not limited to, suicide, self-harm and mental illness.*

Hosts Christian and Emma were joined in the studio wtih director KENDALL JANE RUNDLE from Bare Naked Theatre to discuss Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis.

4:48 Psychosis will be performed at the Metanoia Theatre 29 June - 2 July.

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Hosts Christian and Emma chatted to SHANE GRANT (Milk Bars), MATT ADEY (Spectre of Death) & LAUREN SIMMONDS (Unseen) about the upcoming season of live art at Metanoia Live Works. 

Metanoia Live Works Season: 25 June – 6 August, Mechanics Institute Brunswick, 270 Sydney Road, Melbourne

Image: Unseen by Lauren Simmonds

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The Honey Bees is a stage play written by veteran playwright Caleb Lewis and directed by Ella Caldwell, starring Eva Seymour, Christopher Brown, Rebecca Bower, Mara (Kat-Marek) Kaczmarek and Katerina Kotsonis.

It is now showing at Red Stitch Theatre on Chapel Street in St Kilda's East, and is running until the 16th of July.

Caleb Lewis' gradually and masterfully details his characters in a dexterous juggling of intersecting plotlines and overlapping relationships. His writing is enhanced by the strong direction of Caldwell, who proves to be a master of the long pause, drawing silences between characters out to a length just long enough to be painful and not tedious, creating an atmosphere of tension from the first interactions of the play.

At the centre of the drama is Joan, a bitter yet charming Polish immigrant, both bee-keeper and now elderly mother, who rules her long standing (yet struggling) apiary with an iron will.

Daryl is her estranged, middle aged son, vulnerable and ambitious, living in his dead fathers shadow.

His younger sister, Clover, remains inert in a life resigned to helping her mother with the apiary in placeof her own ambitions as an artist.

Kerry, Joan's employee and Clover's lover, is a gruff, tough farmhand who dreams of leaving the apiary - a place she perceives full of broken dreams and stagnant lives - and eloping for the city with Clover.

And finally, there is the mysterious Melissa, a teenager from Sydney who enters explosively into this already strained dynamic. She proves to be the moody and abused catalyst for change and highly charged drama.

A void at the heart of every character is left by the long dead but seemingly omnipresent spectre of Harry, Joan's husband, and the father of Daryl and Clover, who's actions in life prove to be the impetus for much of the desperate love and hate in the play

Desperate is the key word to unlocking much at the heart of the performance, and is highlighted in a quote from Clover:

Quote: ' A bee might fly over 800km in their life, and only ever produce less than a teaspoonful of Honey' End quote

To a honey bee, this might be a fine achievement, but to a human audience, this fact sounds unbearably pitiable. So much hard work produces such a meagre teaspoon of positive creation.

And indeed, like the struggling honeybee, all the characters have their own vast, lifelong journeys, riddled with resentment, abuse, sacrifice and lies, for such minuscule moments of sweet honey and happiness.

The play seems to stress that there is only a teaspoonful of sweetness to life at times, a point emphasised in a devastating fashion by the countless tragedies realised throughout the performance, which ultimately bares the ugly truths that lurk hidden within the infinitely subtle and complex relationships that human beings invariably encounter.

The set design is economic and well utilised, with strong unity between lighting and audio creating powerful atmospheres that were compelling and engaging.

Furthermore, there are strong performances by the cast all round, but the standout performance is by Marta Kaczmarek as Joan - a powerful tour de force worthy of the award winning actress.

You can get tickets to a performance of The Honey Bees at redstitch.net/honeybees. Once again, it is running until the 16th of July.

Review written by Jim Thomas

Photo credit: Jodie Hutchinson. Featuring: Eva Seymour, Marta Kaczmarek and Christopher Brown

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*Note to listeners: phone interview audio quality is a bit scratchy, but the interview itself is very interesting. Listen and find out!

Christian had the opportunity to chat to actress CASSANDRA MAGRATH about her involvement with Winterfall Theatre's production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is being performed at Blackbox Theatre, Preshil Senior Campus 21 June– 10 July: Tue-Sat, 7.30pm, Sun 2pm

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Jonathan shares his experience of what it is like to record an album with a choir. He notes that singers must adjust the way they sing according to the type of venue the choir perform in.

Jonathan is a member of CHIME, the Choral Institute of Melbourne.

Photo credit: CHIME website.

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Christian reviews the 2015 film Queen of the Desert, not to be mistaken for Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, which features actors Nicole Kidman, James Franco and Robert Pattinson.

Queen of the Desert is the true story of Gertrude Bell, a traveller, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.  The film was written and directed by Werner Herzog.

Queen of the Desert is now showing at Cinema Nova.

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Hosts Christian and Jonathan were joined on the line with actor CHRISTOPHER BROWN (playing the role of DARYL) from Red Stitch's world premiere production of The Honey Bees. 

The Honey Bees is being performed on 14 June – 16 July, Red Stitch Actors Theatre Rear 2 Chapel Street St Kilda East.

Photo credit: Jodie Hutchinson - featuring Marta Kaczmarek and Christopher Brown

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*Note to listeners: the phone audio quality is a bit scratchy

Hosts Christian and Jonathan were joined on the line with GEORGIA MOORE from Federation University. Georgia will be playing the role of WEDNESDAY in the University's production of The Addams Family. 

The Addams Family is on 17 - 25 Jun, at Theatre Works 14 Acland St, St Kilda.

Photographer credit: Jodie Hutchinson

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The Melbourne international jazz festival, now in its 18th year is Melbourne’s premier jazz festival which takes over the city for 9 days in june showcasing local and international talent in different concert halls, bars and occasionally laneways!

This year I was lucky enough to attend three completely different yet equally exiting events: Tomasz Stańko Band, Vince Jones and the astral orchestra, and Jose James.

Polish born Tomasz Stanko has been a jazz trumpeter since the 60s, touring the world time and time again and working on film scores. His performance at the Coopers Malthouse was a true testament to his experimental yet highly skilled approach to jazz. Accompanied by Alexi Tuomarila on piano, Slawomir Kurkiewics on bass and Olavi Louhivuori on drums, the four absolutely filled the space of the theatre unlike any others! Performing a total of six songs, interspersed with extensive improvisation, the band created the classic dizzying jazz atmosphere and had the entire audience bopping their heads, slapping their knees and completely entranced. The band nor Stanko virtually ever stoped throughout the performance, expect for at the beginning to introduce themselves, and seemed to be as captivated by the music they were making as the audiences were listening to that music. Over all this performance was the true epitome of jazz – dizzying and disorientating, yet completely enthralling.

In contrast, Vince Jones and the Astral Orchestra presented a much more rehearsed show as they paid tribute to the music of Van Morison. Vince Jones, who has been an Australian jazz vocalist legend for over 20 years joined forces with the seven piece Astral Orchestra, which was specially brought together for the event by musical director, Matt McMahon. Together they performed, and reimagined the songs of Van Morrison from his albums Moondance and Astral Weeks. This was a very interesting and creative evening as Jones and the Astral Band covered, and put a unique jazz spin on what is typically rock music. It was very enjoyable hearing Morrisons music in jazz form! Arguably the show did justice to both genres, and to both of the legendary artists. for those who are fans of both, or even either artists or genres and want to see rock in jazz form, or jazz with the influence or rock, then Vince Jones and the Astral Orchestra will be performing at the Recital Centre tonight as part of an extended run.

Finally, in a one-off exclusive evening, José Jones presented the music of Billie Holiday. American born, Jones is a well-regarded jazz vocalist but has also had great success in r’n’b and even hip hop, and you could really see this influence coming through in his tribute. Together with a highly skilled band, Jones played homage to the jazz legend that he considered his ‘musical mother’ in the same year that would have been her centennial. Jones did a sensational job performing what were the songs most important to him and his career, but adding his own unique, r’n’b influenced spin on them. His smooth yet powerful voice managed to completely fill the packed Hammer Hall, as he gave offered what was, for a lack of a better word, a sexy rendition of songs such as Yesterday I Had, and God Bless, interspersed with personal anecdotes about how Holiday influenced his career and the careers of his peers. Jones love and admiration of the great Lady Day was extremely evident not only in the way he sang her songs, but also in how he told her stories and the picture he painted of the blues legend. The show culminated in an encore which featured the most enthralling and unique rendition of Strange Fruit, arguably one of Holidays most famous songs, which Jones performed solo with the use of a loop pedal! Not only did this do true justice to an extremely controversial and sacred track, it was a stroke of genius and left the audience in awe.

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival ends for another year tonight! IF you still have a chance then do your self a favour and get down to experience some local or international experimental talent.

Review written by Rachel Iampolski

Review read aloud by Jonathan Calleja & Christian Tsoutsouvas

Pictured: Tomasz Stanko Band, MIJF website

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In #DearDiary, the Melbourne-based actor Andi Snelling achieves the seemingly impossible. She manages to turn 20 years worth of diaries into an entertaining, highly amusing and climatically moving piece of theatre.

#DearDiary is a one-woman show that tells the story of Andi from childhood to now, using only verbatim diary entries. Andi doesn’t speak for the first 5 minutes, but as soon as she enters the stage, your eyes are utterly transfixed by her. Such is the power of Andi’s physical presence, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given her extensive experience in physical comedy and movement.

The show is a multimedia experience – using sound, screens, song and dance to bring Andi’s diaries to life. It begins lightly – Andi mimes and sings her way through her childhood, leaving the audience hysterical in its wake. Then, we travel with her to France. Andi goes on exchange and her 15 year old self is suddenly plunged into a world of boys and awkward sexual encounters.

Never leaving you bored for a second, the show takes a strange turn midway through – we suddenly find ourselves watching a game show with Andi, now moustache-clad, as our host. Audience members ask questions – eg. what is the point of getting out of bed in the morning? – and Andi answers these questions using only (you guessed it) verbatim diary entries. It is in this section that we really get a sense of Andi’s improvisational skills – she riffs delightfully with the audience, at the end handing out a gift to a selected audience member for, as she puts it, ‘no reason whatsoever’.

Just when I started to think that the show was pure comedy, the final act came, and with it, an intimate look at the darker pages of Andi’s diaries. Andi offers us her darkest thoughts and moments, sharing her experiences of depression and family suffering through painful diary scribbles. By the end the show, Andi is crying and we have made it back to the present day.

#DearDiary is a truly wonderful piece of theatre, devised and performed by the talented Andi Snelling. It is on at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne until the 5th of June.

Review written by Beth Gibson

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