RON BANKS - KVETCH REVIEW
Fri, 6 May 2005, 02:42 pmWalter Plinge3 posts in thread
RON BANKS - KVETCH REVIEW
Fri, 6 May 2005, 02:42 pmTHE WEST AUSTRALIAN (PAGE 10 - ARTS SECTION)
FRIDAY 06TH MAY 2005
REVIEW - RON BANKS
" An evening of unredeemed self-loathing might seem less an entertainment than an agony for audiences. BUT Steven Berkoff's Kvetch is wildly funny, brilliantly performed analysis of unfocused fear of life itself.
Frank is a textile salesman with a stay-at-home wife who suffers from the most excruciating self-doubt. At work he's know as "The Kvetch", a Yiddish term which we might call a whinger or complainer.
He's developed "Kvetching" - or complaining into an art form of the highest anxiety order. Poor Frank cannot even tell a joke without worrying about forgetting the punchline and he frets about his job, hi wife, his belching and farting mother-in-law - and about all the guilt he feels about not being a success in life.
PETER CLARK conveys the anguish, rage and self loathing of Frank with an intensity and suppressed pain that is almost visceral in its power to disturb. At the same time the performance is so funny that we can only admire the actor's energy in screwing himself up to such a pitch.
Frank's pain and self-doubt is the fixed point around which the action of this play revolves but his wife, Donna, and the business aquaintance, Hal, who's been invited to dinner, have their own rather full measures of self-doubt and low self-esteem. The timid, fearful Hal does not know how to negotiate social situations with ease and the question he fears most is what he does at night, now that his wife has left him. The answer, of course, is that he does nothing meaningful.
MATT PENNY'S degree of timidity as HAl is the counterpoint to CLARK'S inner rage as Frank, with the two men combining in the kind of encounters that make for the brilliantly funny theatre - at the same time acknowledging how appalling life is when you lackl self confidence.
SUMMER WILLIAMS' housewife Donna - battling her own lack of confidence and her husband's abuse - is another highly wrought and well-timed performance ........................
KVETCH is the cathartic kind of play that will make you feel better about yourself. The little-known Wembley Theatre Company has done a splendid job with one of Berkoff's most outrageous plays."
FRIDAY 06TH MAY 2005
REVIEW - RON BANKS
" An evening of unredeemed self-loathing might seem less an entertainment than an agony for audiences. BUT Steven Berkoff's Kvetch is wildly funny, brilliantly performed analysis of unfocused fear of life itself.
Frank is a textile salesman with a stay-at-home wife who suffers from the most excruciating self-doubt. At work he's know as "The Kvetch", a Yiddish term which we might call a whinger or complainer.
He's developed "Kvetching" - or complaining into an art form of the highest anxiety order. Poor Frank cannot even tell a joke without worrying about forgetting the punchline and he frets about his job, hi wife, his belching and farting mother-in-law - and about all the guilt he feels about not being a success in life.
PETER CLARK conveys the anguish, rage and self loathing of Frank with an intensity and suppressed pain that is almost visceral in its power to disturb. At the same time the performance is so funny that we can only admire the actor's energy in screwing himself up to such a pitch.
Frank's pain and self-doubt is the fixed point around which the action of this play revolves but his wife, Donna, and the business aquaintance, Hal, who's been invited to dinner, have their own rather full measures of self-doubt and low self-esteem. The timid, fearful Hal does not know how to negotiate social situations with ease and the question he fears most is what he does at night, now that his wife has left him. The answer, of course, is that he does nothing meaningful.
MATT PENNY'S degree of timidity as HAl is the counterpoint to CLARK'S inner rage as Frank, with the two men combining in the kind of encounters that make for the brilliantly funny theatre - at the same time acknowledging how appalling life is when you lackl self confidence.
SUMMER WILLIAMS' housewife Donna - battling her own lack of confidence and her husband's abuse - is another highly wrought and well-timed performance ........................
KVETCH is the cathartic kind of play that will make you feel better about yourself. The little-known Wembley Theatre Company has done a splendid job with one of Berkoff's most outrageous plays."
Re: RON BANKS - KVETCH REVIEW
Sat, 7 May 2005, 01:20 amWalter Plinge
Well done WTC - I sat in on the final dress of KVETCH and found the characters terrifyingly familiar. Lives of quiet desperation? Angst? Urst (Unresolved Romantic / Sexual Tension)? It's all here in the suburbs, buckets of it. And bloody funny it is too. Watching the characters shred themselves as they spasmodically dart out from behind their paper thin veneers of civility, is like seeing a car accident happen - you hate it, it's ghastly but so strangely compelling that while you might shudder, you never drop your eyes.
PETER CLARK is perfect as the overwrought underachieving Frank. It's another intense, nerve jangling dentist drill of a performance, tempered with hilarious stabs of nervous jest. MATT PENNY is Hal, and just like Hal the computer on 2001 A Space Odyssey, you may want to pull the plug on him too. Penny's spot-on protrayal of the sweaty, shambolically, pathetic 'best mate' confirms what we all know - a friend in need, is a pain in the arse.
SUMMER WILLIAMS is Donna- Frank's well meaning trophy type wife, and like all trophies, she's tall and glamourous but man, they just don't fit comfortably anywhere do they? In EAST, director Bryce Manning's last WTC Berkov production, she was outstanding. She's equally terrific here, as the one we admire 'cos she tries so hard to be just right, (despite being as dumb as a bag of hammers.)
I really liked HELEN BURGESS as the Mother In Law - low key, with a cough and spit like a hyena on 3 packs a day, she is the little voice in the background of our minds that we'd all like to choke. PETER NIBLETT, as Frank's oafish Boss, has impeccable comedic timing and he clearly relishes the physicality and slick teamwork that characterises WTC performances.
Ron Banks decribes KVETCH as 'cathartic' and he's dead right; get along, and belly laugh for all the right (and wrong) reasons. I recommend booking because once word gets around, this wee production could well be a sell out.
KVETCH - @ the Bakery / Artrage Complex
233 James Street, Northbridge
Doors open 7.30, show starts at 8 pm.
Tickets $20, Concession $16
May 11,12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21
PETER CLARK is perfect as the overwrought underachieving Frank. It's another intense, nerve jangling dentist drill of a performance, tempered with hilarious stabs of nervous jest. MATT PENNY is Hal, and just like Hal the computer on 2001 A Space Odyssey, you may want to pull the plug on him too. Penny's spot-on protrayal of the sweaty, shambolically, pathetic 'best mate' confirms what we all know - a friend in need, is a pain in the arse.
SUMMER WILLIAMS is Donna- Frank's well meaning trophy type wife, and like all trophies, she's tall and glamourous but man, they just don't fit comfortably anywhere do they? In EAST, director Bryce Manning's last WTC Berkov production, she was outstanding. She's equally terrific here, as the one we admire 'cos she tries so hard to be just right, (despite being as dumb as a bag of hammers.)
I really liked HELEN BURGESS as the Mother In Law - low key, with a cough and spit like a hyena on 3 packs a day, she is the little voice in the background of our minds that we'd all like to choke. PETER NIBLETT, as Frank's oafish Boss, has impeccable comedic timing and he clearly relishes the physicality and slick teamwork that characterises WTC performances.
Ron Banks decribes KVETCH as 'cathartic' and he's dead right; get along, and belly laugh for all the right (and wrong) reasons. I recommend booking because once word gets around, this wee production could well be a sell out.
KVETCH - @ the Bakery / Artrage Complex
233 James Street, Northbridge
Doors open 7.30, show starts at 8 pm.
Tickets $20, Concession $16
May 11,12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21