6 hours ago
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COMEDY
Isabelle Carney | The Moment
Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Evatt Room, until October 12
Isabelle Carney performs at Trades Hall until October 12.Credit: Pat Mooney
“There’s a method to the madness” is the adage that best encapsulates Isabelle Carney’s new hour of standup. Like a calm yet chaotic pinball ricocheting off various obstacles, Carney eschews segues for non sequiturs as she bounces helter-skelter from intricately constructed analogies and pithy songs with humorous through lines to elaborate exposés, aided by audiovisual prompts and poems of varying lengths – each more uproarious than the last.
An artfully assembled, old-school television is Carney’s accomplice onstage, and blares to life at key moments to great effect, bolstered by magnificent light design. Fuelled by her impeccable comic timing, stage antics and energy that strongly calls to mind Broad City’s Ilana Wexler, Carney’s physical comedy enlivens a miscellany of bits, all of which cohere into something inexplicably cohesive.
Exceedingly weird yet somehow sharply relatable, absurd yet perennially grounded in social issues and pop culture, The Moment is an unmissable hour from one of Melbourne’s best.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair
COMEDY
Chelsea Heaney | I Swear I’m Funny
Motley Bauhaus, until October 12
When a performer opens the show sashaying down the aisle delivering an absurd burlesque-style striptease, the assurance in the title – I Swear I’m Funny – hardly seems necessary; the audience is already laughing.
Chelea Heaney performs at Motley Bauhaus until October 12.Credit: Nathan Smith
Having won over the room, Chelsea Heaney sets about examining what influences have turned her into the funny woman on stage before us. A task predominantly undertaken through standup, peppered with a skit or two, a song and some physical comedy. These interludes are pitch-perfect both in musical ability and comedic timing. No surprise then that she lists musical theatre as one of the reasons she’s funny alongside family, eavesdropping and more.
Heaney knows how to set up an anecdote for maximum laughter payoff, delivering punchlines and unexpected twists with theatre-kid aplomb. A nod should also go to her skilful audience interactions, which add charming touches to her stories. The show comes together as a satisfyingly energetic and charismatic whole.
★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton
CIRCUS
Casey Lorae | La Folie After Dark
Gasworks Theatre, until October 11
La Folie After Dark is on at Gasworks Theatre until October 11.Credit: All The Feels Photography
It begins with a warning: brace yourself for “blasphemy, BDSM and assault”. Seated in a dark, hazy room looking at a suspended hoop and chains, it’s not entirely clear what you’ve walked into. But once the first performer contorts her body, uncertainty is replaced by sheer awe. Metres in the air, she lifts and twists her body effortlessly, draping her limbs around the hoop as if she were liquid.
The power of the human body is on full display, whether on a hoop, trapeze, silks or straps. Artists freefall from ceiling-height, do the splits in midair, and lift other artists by the neck with their feet. It defies belief yet appears so sultry and seamless.
Though each individual act astounds, the production as a whole lacks cohesion. A baffling attempt to link two performances using a prop cup interrupts your stunned reverie. La Folie struggles to connect the dots, but it’s still testament to the breathtaking strength and seductiveness of the human form.
★★★
Reviewed by Nell Geraets
THEATRE
Dylan Murphy and Tom Henry Jones | In the Dark
Trades Hall, until October 12
Somewhere in a secret bunker, five comedians are waiting for electricity to be siphoned from a dystopian wasteland so they can start their humble radio show: the right hand of an authoritarian regime trying to calm rebellion via foley artistry, morality tales and theatricalised propaganda. Imagine an Orwellian Orson Welles, or The Hunger Games as an interwar broadcast. The rebels are outside, the disembodied voice of your big brother-like leader is waiting to deliver performance notes via firing squad, and there’s a piss bucket if you need it.
In the Dark performs at Trades Hall until October 12.Credit: Dylan Murphy
It’s a fantastic premise, and writers Dylan Murphy and Tom Henry Jones have assembled a stellar cast to pull it off. Hannah Camilleri transforms into a crow with the flap of a plastic tree and an uncanny squawk. Maria Angelico switches from bawdy milk maid to doe-eyed lover with ease. And Mark Mitchell’s sonorous voice is perfect as the veteran actor desperate to appeal to butter-churning women aged 16 to 25.
But too much exposition ties the script in knots. And moments of foley artistry – often the most interesting part of theatricalised radio plays – are too underdeveloped to justify why the show has been staged at all. Ultimately, this killer cast is not given enough to do, and this killer premise fails to find its feet.
★★
Reviewed by Guy Webster
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