Latest Posts

• Review of The Belvoir St Theatres production of That Face (from the Royal Court)

  March, and it’s rainy.

  Last week I saw the Belvoir St Theatres production of That Face; I didn’t know much before buying the tickets, other than the seeming miracle of the plays existence.

  Polly Stenham wrote the play and then the Royal Court took it and put it on in 2007, and here we are in 2010 seeing an Australian production. Nothing really that amazing, except that Polly Stenham was 19 when she wrote this piece – and thats pretty darned remarkable, especially for the Belvoir, where I’ve seen things like Eugene Ionescos Exit The King starring Geoffrey Rush. So there’s definitely something to live up to.

  The play focuses on a broken family, with 4 characters all living alone, with their own personal struggles. All 4 are fully fleshed, and struggle to deal with their families and their own decisions, which is exactly what the play is about.

  We meet the daughter of the family first, Mia, a girl out at boarding school. She’s a troublemaker, and when she gets in trouble, she really has one person to talk to, her brother.

  The play really is about the twisted relationship between mother and son, Martha and Henry, who we see waking up, hung over, half naked, in bed. The audience is wondering. Martha is a seemingly broken woman, an alcoholic, not quite with it enough to take care of the family, but still smart enough to manipulate and twist her family around her.

  Mia just wants some sanity, clarity in her life, and tries to pull Henry around, while he, desperately, devoted, still tries to get his mother on the straight and narrow. Hugh, their father, remarried and living overseas, comes home to try and patch things up, and finds a more insane situation at home than otherwise, not realising that his family thinks he has abandoned them.

  The great thing is just how gripping the stories of all four of them are. Every one in the family is terribly flawed in their own way, and we feel for their struggles in their lives, and it’s great to see the broken interaction between mothers and sons, sisters and brothers, and the modern 21st century divorced parents. I guess the quote that comes to mind is, obviously,

  Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.—Leo Tolstoy

  .

  It’s a remarkably vivid play, very honest, with great modern dialogue. Worth watching, and I can understand why the Belvoir production is sold out. The production at the Belvoir is great, with the notable inexperience of the younger cast members showing at points, but not detracting from the overall experience. I’ll be watching out for Pollys next play.

• One of those little things I see, and I don't want to forget.

  Hot, in my apartment

  One of the local cafés near me has that whole recycled furniture things going on, Apart from being a really great café with good food. I sat in one day and picked up a book from their bookshelf.

  The book was a big italian cookbook, The Silver Spoon, which was already a bit out there for books you’d find whilst having your coffee, and the bookshelf was an old Ikea Billy bookshelf.

  I just noticed, after a while, that they had lost the little knoblets that hold an the shelves up. So, for each shelf, they broke a pencil in 4, and used them as the knobs. It looked fun, and worked. It even looked like they gave more support than the original knobs were meant to.

• A short story adaptation

  Jean Luc Godard playing in front of me.

  This is a short story adaptation from a film. I’ll change it as I go.

  A young woman, Maggie, is in love with 2 men. She’s been seeing them for about 3 or 4 months each, and loves seeing them both. Neither has found out about the other guy, mostly because she’s meticulous. Maggie starts feeling a bit lonely one night, and realises that she wants to keep the one she loves the most. She decides to put up a test. She decides to send an email to her two guys, telling them she loves them, and asking them to move in with her. The first one to respond gets to move in, and the second, well, …

  She sends her emails out to her two fellows, pretty much telilng them why she loves them, and asking them to move in to her Surry Hils studio with her. As she’s settling down to watch TV, a horrible feeling comes into her stomach; She realises that she’s sent the email she’d meant for Neil to Michael instead, and Vice versa. As quick as she can move, she puts on a pair of slippers, and runs out to Central station, realising what a mistake she’s made, and hopping on the first train to Neils place.

  She gets to his house by midnight, sweaty from the walk, waking him up from an early nights sleep; As she comes in, she tells him not to look at his email in the morning, and confesses everything. She tells him she’s been seeing another man, that she’s been unfaithful, but that he’s the one that she really loves. Without a word, Neil opens the door, and with the slightest of eye movements, shows her out of his place, closing the door quietly after her. Maggie is completely devestated, but knows that she can still save hr live with Michael.

  She catches the last train to Bondi Junction at 2am, walks over to his apartment block, and camps out there, trying not to cry as she waits through the whole night. At 7am, she goes to the nearest cafe, grabs 2 cofees, and rings Michaels bell. She asks him if he’s checked his email, says he has, and grabs his latte eagerly, kissing her and giving her a hug while waking up. She asks him if hs still loves her, and says of course. breaking down, she tells him whats happened, leaving out the small detail of having been to Neils home first. Without any words, he pushes her hand away, sheds a tear, and opens the door, while asking her to leave.

  Confused, back in her apartment, Maggie looks at her emails, opening the sent mail folders; She sees that she hadn’t messed up the destination addresses at all, and had sent the right letter to the right guy after all.

Blog Posts

• 05 Mar 2010 » Review of The Belvoir St Theatres production of That Face (from the Royal Court) – View Comments
• 28 Nov 2009 » One of those little things I see, and I don't want to forget. – View Comments
• 25 Nov 2009 » A short story adaptation – View Comments
• 22 Nov 2009 » Bad ideas for the internet, number 1. – View Comments
• 17 Nov 2009 » Writing a quick Go package, as an experience – View Comments
• 04 Nov 2009 » Happy Days by Sam Beckett At the Belvoir – View Comments
• 26 Oct 2009 » The hardest part of writing is … – View Comments
• 16 Oct 2009 » God of Carnage, the STC production – View Comments
• 27 Sep 2009 » Super Size Me, The real experimental protocol – View Comments
• 31 Aug 2009 » Gethsemane, The Belvoir upstairs production – View Comments
• 26 Aug 2009 » The Lonesome West, at the Belvoir. – View Comments
• 24 Aug 2009 » Saturns Return, my review from the 2009 Production – View Comments
• 19 Aug 2009 » Follower counts, and do they matter? – View Comments
• 14 Jul 2009 » Comment Fragmentation, the result of content aggregation – View Comments
• 13 Jul 2009 » Review of 'The Promise' at Belvoir St Theater. – View Comments
• 12 Jul 2009 » My quick review and overview of PubSubHubBub – View Comments
• 05 Jul 2009 » The Triumph of Software over everything in consumer computing.. – View Comments
• 26 Jun 2009 » Back at home in Oz – View Comments
• 24 Jun 2009 » August, Osage County At the Music Box in New York – View Comments
• 21 May 2009 » When the Rain Stops Falling At the Drama Theatre. – View Comments
• 19 May 2009 » Erlang preview, And what makes content creation so hard? – View Comments
• 17 May 2009 » Half Marathon Afterglow. – View Comments
• 16 May 2009 » Good books - whats the line? – View Comments
• 15 May 2009 » Whats the answer? – View Comments
• 14 May 2009 » Back to business – View Comments
• 28 Apr 2009 » Kafkas Metamorphosis at the Sydney Theatre (All the way from Iceland?) – View Comments
• 20 Apr 2009 » The wonderful world of Dissocia – View Comments
• 19 Apr 2009 » Kafkas Monkey - a real letter to the academy. – View Comments
• 04 Apr 2009 » Get Smart, Whats wrong with it? – View Comments
• 02 Apr 2009 » Public transport rant of the day. – View Comments
• 31 Mar 2009 » Ladybird, the 1st BSharp play in 2009 – View Comments
• 29 Mar 2009 » The Man From Mukinupin, A Belvoir Production. – View Comments
• 28 Mar 2009 » A Reservoir sampling server for erlang, written as a gen_server. – View Comments
• 26 Mar 2009 » Travesties @ The Drama Theatre – View Comments
• 24 Mar 2009 » Concussion—The Wharf Theatre. – View Comments
• 09 Mar 2009 » What do Facebook Search results do? – View Comments
• 07 Mar 2009 » Dear Discount Fruit and Vegetable Shop. – View Comments
• 03 Mar 2009 » Downtime sucks! – View Comments
• 27 Feb 2009 » Junk Mail Targeting—How much is there. – View Comments
• 23 Feb 2009 » Creative Commons for Australian Beginners – View Comments
• 19 Feb 2009 » Tuesdays with Morrie @ The Ensemble Theatre. – View Comments
• 15 Feb 2009 » The Holiday @ The Griffin Theatre. – View Comments
• 14 Feb 2009 » Hooray for Valentines day. – View Comments
• 12 Feb 2009 » The Removalists at the Wharf Theatre. – View Comments
• 11 Feb 2009 » Defining the 'Personal Pub Crawl' – View Comments
• 10 Feb 2009 » Double Checked Locking: keep it volatile & above 1.5 – View Comments
• 09 Feb 2009 » Trying something new. – View Comments
• 09 Feb 2009 » Baghdad Wedding @ Belvoir: A quick review. – View Comments