Mammalien - the Descent of Man
Thu, 11 Dec 2008, 08:55 amGordon the Optom1 post in thread
Mammalien - the Descent of Man
Thu, 11 Dec 2008, 08:55 am‘Mammalien – the Descent of Man’ has its Premier at the Camelot Theatre, 16 Lochee Street, Mosman Park. This is Renegade Production’s end of year, 90-minute performance, is showing nightly at 8.00 pm until 21st December.
Devised and written by Joe Lui and Demelza Rogers (known to many, as being part of the editorial team for the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Magazine).
The touring Cabaret Show, which we experienced 12 months ago, was based during the World War 2 years in Berlin. It is now the late 1940’s and the circus has now moved east to Romania / Poland. TB is sweeping the continent and one of the show’s stars Ada (Talitha Rogers) is afflicted.
Having seen the degradation of the Nazis’ behaviour and the general descent of man, the show’s Ringmaster Guten (Paul Grabovac) asks us to ‘Come in, sit down, if you dare’ and with the help of his team, led by compere Zero (Mikala Westall) and stage manager Matteo (Matthew Marino) we are shown just how imperfect man is. We slowly have our flaws demonstrated to us. Our hidden monsters and nightmares are laid before us by Valerie (Steve Roth) and Eliza (Hannah Featherstone), as ‘they reach with their gnarled and clutching fingers at our ankles, at our souls, and down we go’ and ‘that aberration, that weakness, latched to you by its dripping jaws, that pestilent harbinger of this epidemic.’
The script of this strange show is beautifully written, with an almost poetic style. The foibles of our nature are demonstrated by the use of many genres, from magical tricks (Kitty Hawkins) to the vampire’s gymnastics (Lauren Rochelle), dark humour to pathos. The happenings in the dressing rooms of this saucy burlesque-style show are intriguing.
The cast are totally committed and seem happy to stretch themselves, by trying new and complicated methods of acting. A huge amount of physical and mental work has gone into the production.
Director, Joe Lui, has put together a fascinating, no-punches-pulled show. The majority of it worked well, other parts required a thinning of the dialogue. The Camelot Theatre (this is the indoor one, not the outdoor cinema) had sound problems and the cast seemed to do better without the microphones. This venue did not have the intimacy of last year’s wonderful show, but if you loved the first Cabaret then you will enjoy this bizarre show too.
Devised and written by Joe Lui and Demelza Rogers (known to many, as being part of the editorial team for the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Magazine).
The touring Cabaret Show, which we experienced 12 months ago, was based during the World War 2 years in Berlin. It is now the late 1940’s and the circus has now moved east to Romania / Poland. TB is sweeping the continent and one of the show’s stars Ada (Talitha Rogers) is afflicted.
Having seen the degradation of the Nazis’ behaviour and the general descent of man, the show’s Ringmaster Guten (Paul Grabovac) asks us to ‘Come in, sit down, if you dare’ and with the help of his team, led by compere Zero (Mikala Westall) and stage manager Matteo (Matthew Marino) we are shown just how imperfect man is. We slowly have our flaws demonstrated to us. Our hidden monsters and nightmares are laid before us by Valerie (Steve Roth) and Eliza (Hannah Featherstone), as ‘they reach with their gnarled and clutching fingers at our ankles, at our souls, and down we go’ and ‘that aberration, that weakness, latched to you by its dripping jaws, that pestilent harbinger of this epidemic.’
The script of this strange show is beautifully written, with an almost poetic style. The foibles of our nature are demonstrated by the use of many genres, from magical tricks (Kitty Hawkins) to the vampire’s gymnastics (Lauren Rochelle), dark humour to pathos. The happenings in the dressing rooms of this saucy burlesque-style show are intriguing.
The cast are totally committed and seem happy to stretch themselves, by trying new and complicated methods of acting. A huge amount of physical and mental work has gone into the production.
Director, Joe Lui, has put together a fascinating, no-punches-pulled show. The majority of it worked well, other parts required a thinning of the dialogue. The Camelot Theatre (this is the indoor one, not the outdoor cinema) had sound problems and the cast seemed to do better without the microphones. This venue did not have the intimacy of last year’s wonderful show, but if you loved the first Cabaret then you will enjoy this bizarre show too.