Oscar Theatre Company's Next to Normal [*]

Next to Normal artwork (Source: Facebook). 

Oscar Theatre Company effectively brings Off-Broadway to Brisbane. When they announced in May last year that they were bringing Next to Normal to QPAC for its Queensland Premier, a lot of people were really excited for it. There's a lot of things I don't actually like about the text itself - the content of the text is sincere but its delivery in the storyline comes across as a bit pandering, and the score isn't great. But beyond all of that, Oscar's Next to Normal is a fairly good vision of the original text, with a good cast that only narrowly miss the punch of the roles.

Next to Normal is about a dysfunctional family where the mother, Diane Goodman (Alice Barbery), is suffering from an intense strand of schizophrenia which causes her to imagine her dead son Gabrielle Goodman (Matt Crowley) is still alive. Her husband (Chris Kellet) desperately tries to save their family by taking her to various doctors, hoping that a newly recommended Dr. Madden (James Gauci) holds the answer they're looking for. Meanwhile, her brilliant but neglected daughter Natalie (Siobhan Kranz) begins a self-destructive relationship with loveable stoner Henry (Tom Oliver) to distract her from her family's unusual situation.

While the cast are fair at acting and have good voices, only a few of them are exceptional in their roles. For the most part the punch is a bit lacking due to their vocal demands - Alice Barbery and Chris Kellet are great but both lack the power and energy to hit the powerhouse mark that their roles provide, and although they're both fine most of the time they often waft into using their head voices and the score looses a lot of drive and its blistering ferocity. They are better actors than singers, although the reverse can be said for Matt Crowley, who is fine in the role vocal wise but occasionally looks frigid and sort of kills the momentum at crucial moments by looking a little ridiculous so immobile. James Gauci is excellent for his combined total of 20 minutes on stage, but Tom Oliver and Siobhan Kranz are easily the standouts. Oliver becomes the most adorable character on stage, and the only thing that really detracts from Kranz's interpretation is how insufferable her character is - it's not edgy saying 'fuck' anymore, it's just irritating (and sometimes laughable). Their final scene was the only moment in the entire piece that really moved me.

I hadn't heard the score of the show before viewing it because I'm not a fan of rock musicals - while Next to Normal isn't an exception, it's still reasonably interesting. Tom Kitt's score is loud and toe-tapping but the drums come across as kitschy in a vain attempt to be edgy, and the small ensemble usually doesn't manage to have enough variation (also, apparently the violinist didn't tune their instrument before beginning the show either). I can remember one song, Super Boy and the Invisible Girl, because my friend yodelled it in the car last week. Some of Brian Yorkey's lyrics are a bit insipid, although there are a few gems and occasionally the dialogue is quite profound, which would probably are enough to warrant it's Pulitzer win. The story didn't really speak to me, and how the whole subject was handled felt a bit pandering, trying to be relevant and edgy but failing by introducing an optimistic ending which cheapened the whole experience.

The Goodman Family (Crowley, Barbery, Kellet and Kranz)
(Source: Facebook).

Timothy Wallace's set is frustrating since while it has an interesting concept its execution is a bit clumsy and much of what happens on the upper level is lost on the lower audience and the only view is of disembodied heads moving around (though I anticipate it would look better from the balcony). There is no exact definition of space either, with characters entering the house from about eighty thousand different entrances. The Cremorne Theatre is ideal for its intimacy but the small space seemed restrictive for creating and maintaing an authentic dramatic universe. The sound design was fine, some characters a little to quiet in some scenes but nothing much to complain about. As usual, Jason Glenwright's solid lighting compliments the action perfectly, occasionally being more emotive than any other aspect on stage.

A lot of people have blubbered about how they cried multiple times during Oscar Theatre Company's Next to Normal, and although I can appreciate why they love the show it's just not my thing. There is a lot to admire in this very ambitious staging of Next to Normal but absence of energy combined with my dislike of the score rendered the show a bit unremarkable for me. What is remarkable is the effort from the cast that really give it their best and only a few narrowly don't deliver. If you're a fan of the score and the show, then the majority of my criticism is irrelevant - it's an enjoyable evening and musical passionates and even casual fans will enjoy seeing this piece presented for the first time in Queensland.

Tickets for Oscar Theatre Company's Next to Normal are $39 - $58, and is showing at QPAC's Cremorne Theatre until May 4th. Duration of approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including a 20 minute intermission. Book by visiting QPAC's website.

1984 - Shake & Stir's Live Movie

I don't think I've ever been as depressed reading a book as I was with 1984, and once I finished it I remember thinking that it was not something that I'd particularly care to experience again. With that in mind, I never expected to see an adaptation for stage - but enter Shake & Stir, whose work aims to connect younger audiences with more complex texts with contemporary stagings. Shake & Stir's re-imagining of 1984 is a brilliant adaptation, and although it's still equally depressing it's compelling and engaging through its use of multi-media, brilliant technical design and wonderful acting.

Overall the adaptation is really enjoyable and very smart. The events of the book are condensed without compromising much of the plot, and certain scenes were staged exactly how I'd imagined them when reading the book.

Proberts, Parker, Balbuziente during
the '2 Minutes of Hate' (Source: Facebook).

I love that when I saw the poster, I knew which actor was going to play which character. The three main characters are perfectly cast, and overall the cast are great as an ensemble. They're led by the always worthwhile Bryan Proberts as Winston Smith, who plays the role slightly animated but sensitively subtle as a suppressed member of the silent minority. As the only woman in the cast, the role of Julia (obviously) falls to Nelle Lee, who shows a veneer of innocence but is delightful as the passionate and promiscuous rebel, and Hugh Parker is O'Neill in a way that's authoritative and eerily charismatic. Ross Balbuziente and Nick Skubij cycle a variety of supporting characters pretty well, but Skubij also pulls out a great performance with Charington (but I couldn't tell you why . . . ).

While much of the action on stage is led by the actors, multi-media plays a big part in progressing the story. The video media, provided by Optikal Bloc, is one of the most dominating features of the production. It exists as a way to communicate Winston's inner thoughts to the audience, and is instrumental in the production since without it, it'd be impossible to communicate the first half of the book. It's a smart idea and the only thing that really distracts it is that it feels like the total length of the footage feels like it's hugely dragged out, and all the internal monologue is delivered the same way (Winton speaking his thoughts directly to the audience in a shade of blue). It felt like we were sitting in the cinema watching 1984 - The Live Movie! While it gets a bit tedious, it's easily the best quality video I've seen in a live performance. Of course it also gets a lot of attention since half of the space is taken up by impressive and imposing television screens. It's gorgeously shot and processed, but there are a lot of slow motion shots zoomed into faces, and I spent a lot of time wondering if O'Brien and Winston were about to make out (actually, I think a homo-erotic subtext would have been interesting but I suppose that's a bit too much of a creative departure).

The remaining aesthetic and technical aspects of the show were brilliant. Josh McIntosh's cold and grimy set is imposing and practical, but so clever - it's magical when, in a few seconds, a corner of smoothly transforms into the intimate little room where Winston and Julia experience their temporary love story. Jason Glenwright's lighting is appropriate and varied as usual and the nondescript score, which is full of nuances and subtle rifts, perfectly captures and enhances the hopelessness of the monotonous life and is by far the best theatrical score I've heard from Guy Webster.

Proberts and Lee in McIntosh's beautiful set (Source: Facebook).

Beyond the unintentional erotic vibes, I have only two criticisms for the show, although I consider them to be pretty major faults. When Winston betrays Julia in Room 101, the event is too de-emphasized among the soundscape and lighting. Winston crying "Do it to Julia" is basically the conclusion to the show, as it shows that he has finally succumbed to the torture and has relinquished his will to think. It's pretty much a non-event since the screaming is so loud the content is inaudible and it's smothered by sound and a sudden change in lighting cue. The other criticism is the interaction between Julia and Winston at the end - it's too animated for people who have had their personal feelings annihilated (as spoken "they make it so they ruin your love"). Proberts moving a lot and trying to hold her hand implied that he still subconsciously had feelings towards her, and O'Neill makes it pretty clear he would have obliterated that. I guess it's really up to direction and interpretation, but those points really didn't get through.

While I'd heard some lacklustre reviews and people complaining about the overuse of multi-media, I really liked and enjoyed Shake & Stir's 1984. They've enjoyed a sold-out run which is well deserved and the adaptation has been handled sensibly and effectively. All the actors are great and the technical aspects are excellent, and beyond a few criticisms there isn't much not to like. Grand. I'd say the whole 'Double plus' thing, but everyone else in the industry has said that already.

Tickets for Shake & Stir's 1984 are sold out, and is showing at QPAC's Cremorne Theatre until September 1st. Duration of approximately 90 minutes.

Ignatians' The Last 5 Years at QPAC

Jamie (Tim Dashwood) and Cathy (Bethan Ellsmore) in Ignatian's The Last Five Years (Source: QPAC).

If I had to summarise Ignatians Musical Society's The Last 5 Years in one word, it would be 'ambitious.' I entered QPAC wanting to love the piece, and although it had plenty of worthwhile elements and was a decent staging, it had some flaws that really detracted from the overall experience.

Directed by Travis Dowling, The Last 5 Years is about an ill-fated romance between upcoming writing superstar Jamie Wellerstein (Tim Dashwood), and struggling actress Cathy Hyatt (Bethan Ellsmore). The progression of the story is told from two concurrent perspectives, beginning at opposite sides; Jamie's beginning with the victory of meeting the woman of his dreams, Cathy's being with her lamenting the disintegration of their marriage. The show is almost entirely sung through, and the actors only interact for a brief interlude in the middle to consummate their marriage.

Jason Robert Brown's music is varied in styles, from the cocktail faux-jazz 'A Summer in Ohio' to the klezmer flared 'Shiksa Goddess'. Some songs feel unnecessarily long winded ('Nobody Needs to Know', 'Moving Too Fast') but overall the score incorporates light motifs into its own memorable and distinct indie pop category. His lyrics are clever, occasionally crass and insipid ('A Summer in Ohio', 'I Can Do Better Than That'), but usually colourful and overall he manages to capture a narrative and storyline, and develop character. While it lacks some distinct intricacies and complexity of other modern musicals, the score exposes an intense emotional honesty and vulnerability.

I didn't particularly enjoy the performance from the two actors, both of who possessed a formidable range and belt but were excessively nasal. A really problematic feature of the production was that a good portion of the music wasn't effectively sung since the actors were busy trying to communicate FEELINGS! Being unable to deliver the emotions effectively was irritating and really compromised the enjoyability of the score. Although there is an abundance of American references and the piece is set in New York, adopting the native accent felt pretty jarring and was kitsch at best. Most regrettably, the chemistry that the text demands to create an emotionally engaging and stimulating narrative was pretty much non-existent, and subsequently the piece just felt like a sequence of catchy but loosely unified songs.



The piece definitely had some stunning moments. The actors were trying their hardest and some scenes were brought to life with great élan. Ellsmore draws the most laughs with her colourful and neurotic wails in 'Climbing Uphill' and Dashwood's 'A Miracle Would Happen' is laced with delicious cynicism. The highlight was appropriately placed at the end, with Ellsmore's dizzy and breathlessness characterisation in 'Goodbye Until Tomorrow,' which is impossibly infectious and exquisitely accompanied by the band. nder the direction of piano wizard Ben Murray, the six-piece musical ensemble was sensational. The score was tremendously vibrant and a huge and well-deserved applause was delivered to the band in the bows - special mention needs to be given to the string section, Emma Chapman, Daniel Smerdon and Ruby Rose Hunter, who blitzed out these impossibly airy and difficult rifts. I've never heard the score delivered with such vibrancy and sensitivity, and in this performance it was perfect.

There were a few microphone scuffs, which unfortunately obliterated the fragile intimacy in some places, but overall the mixing was excellent with a perfect balance on all musical parts. The set was intimate and perplexing, adorned with piles of books and uneven furniture, and the edges of the stage resembled the foundations of a house and the interrupted, incomplete and imperfect home that the couple had created. Combined with delicate and precise lighting which created a variety of spaces through lights and shadows, it was a really inspired staging of the piece. 

This staging of The Last 5 Years had a lot of potential, and while it boasts some engaging moments, accompanied by a seriously awesome live band and based in a great set, the production is pretty unfulfiling due to the character portrayals and direction they've been taken in. A really solid and ambitious effort by Ignatians under the direction of Dowling, and it is something I'd recommend people go to see, but not the most ingenious rendition of this musical and I did leave wishing that segments had been done drastically differently.

Tickets for Ignatians Musical Society's The Last 5 Years are $25-$54, and is showing at the Cremorne Theatre, QPAC until June 23rd. Duration of approximately 70 minutes. Book by visiting QTIX website.

'Fractions' by QTC

Prior to Fractions, the only exposure I'd had with Hypatia had been through glancing over her Wikipedia article, and watching Agora (both were pretty distressing). Based on the life of a female mathematician who is ostracised and later executed by zealous Christians, Marcel Dorney's new dramatisation of the life of Hypatia is magical, drawing upon historical events and recounts as inspiration to create a new telling of her final years and the fate of the Library of Alexandria. Fractions is a stunning piece created by an incredible cast and wonderful technical elements which I really recommend you make the trip to see.

The cast were all magnificent so I'm going to go ahead and write a big ol' block of text to describe them all. Jolene Anderson is mesmerising as Hypatia. She performs with an incredible mix of grace, passion and ferocity, communicating Hypatia's strong values and ethics mixed with the stubbornness that is her undoing. Hugh Parker portrays Orestes in a similar manner, firm and trusting as a paragon of order and justice that tries to resist and maintain the fragile balance of the political and the religious. I tip my non-existent hat to Jason Klaren who played Kyril, the loathsome and detestable antagonist. People around me uttered painful moans and protests whenever he appeared on stage and while he spoke something negative (which was all the time). It was lovely to see Lucus Stibbard on stage again, his characters were performed sincerely and were extremely likeable (he always carries this vibe of youthfulness and energy about him). The audience adored Eugene Gilfedder as the old Rika, the battered and candid soldier who provided some comic relief through his commentary. I was thrown a little by his crazy accent but the tenderness and genuine concern he showed for Hypatia and her obsession was a wonderful touch of humanity. This was easily the best cast I've seen in a professional production this year.

My favourite moment was when Hypatia addresses the audience and snaps that if the crowd want to talk, they can go outside. I burst out laughing and she shot the most FEROCIOUS look at me. Loved it.

This text is pretty anti-Christianity, and it's pretty obvious that the action of forcing your belief on someone is still socially unacceptable today. But some people just insist doing it.... around every ten minutes there will be at least one statement from a character which incriminates the religion as an erratic organisation that will blindly put their faith before any logic and common sense (all the plays I've seen by QTC have done this... it's pretty delightful). I initially wondered if Dorney had been influenced at all by Alejandro Amenábar's movie Agora, but upon inspection of the programme Dorney started this in late 2007. I was wondering since the political and religious discourses are pretty hard to miss in this play, although I'm not sure what the overall message of this play was unless it was just to point out Christians were in the wrong around 400CE. They are portrayed as being ignorant, incredulous and slanderous towards people with any other faith (so... pretty much not much has changed). The amount of crap they do and get away with in this play (such as harming those who don't share their faith, burning knowledge that doesn't) is sort of disgusting, but the grotesque factor is intensified since most of it did actually happen in real life. Not sure where I'm going with this paragraph, I just started writing it because it looked like I hadn't written enough for the rest of this blog.

Joleen Anderson plays 'Hypatia' in Fractions.

I did love the show but it's not without its problems - it has pacing issues during some of the lengthier speeches in Act One (I found myself wondering if you can buy sour cream that you can just pour onto food, like you see on TV with soup... like, you can get sour cream in a carton and spoon it onto food, but can you get it in a form that's similar to milk?) and I found the flow of dialogue really erratic with the fusion of random modern day words and colloquialisms. I guess I could super-analyse it and look into why the direction was picked but overall I think the choice of some words sounded a little sloppy and disrupted the flow of the piece, and also partially took away from the location of the work.

These are minor concerns though, especially seeing as most of the time I was enamoured with the set. Simone Romaniuk's and Ben Hughes' visions for their design was gorgeous. The stage is a simple set up with doors on each side and a table in the middle. Simple design, but above the actors were shelves that held hundreds of rolled scrolls of various sizes. Combined with the evocative lighting hues ranging from fragile blues to bright gold, the stage was nothing short of beautiful and the library resonated with grandeur. I was also really pleased with Brett Collery's work as sound designer and composer. The main tune of the show was played by a forlorn cello with a crap-load of reverb that evoked a bunch of different emotions at once.  The music was ample, but if anything I would have liked to have heard more of it since it added a lot. I didn't really hear a distinct motif or notice any significance in terms of the music commenting on the action, but it was paired really well and heightened emotion.

The melancholic Fractions is the best QTC piece I've seen (ever) and is definitely one of the better professional productions I've caught this year. The cast are wonderful, the music, set and lighting all compliment each other perfectly, and the text is definitely worth experiencing since we'll never know what really happened to Hypatia (except she was systematically and brutally murdered by irrational Christians).

Tickets for Queensland Theatre Company's Fractions range from $30 to $75, and is showing until December 10th. Book by visiting QPAC's website or by calling 136 246.

Pygmalion by QTC

Melanie Zanetti looks about 40 in this 'photo', but looks about 18 in real life.

If you loved the feel-good score of My Fair Lady, you'll already be familiar with the story of Pygmalion. Directed by Michael Gow, the piece is showing at QPAC's Playhouse after being delayed by the Queensland floods. Since I'd been putting off viewing the show for a few weeks, I finally got to see it last night and thought it was alright. It has a lot of weaknesses, but its cast is lead by two very good actors and experiencing the script was worthwhile.

The cast are pretty good with the stand-outs for me being the two leads. The prolific Melanie Zanetti plays Eliza Doolittle, a shrill street-rat who throughout the story is transformed into glamorous and 'proper' lady. I hated the character, but also feel that Zanetti's portrayal of the character is exactly as it should have been - really tedious to begin with before her transformation to a respectable (hilarious) woman. Robert Coleby's performance of Professor Higgins was thoroughly enjoyable, totally embodying and personifying misogyny through every minutiae of his body as a wonderfully frank and witty character. I disliked Gow's direction for the ensemble, which involved the overplaying of several minor roles. The ensemble seemed under-utilised, and when they did find a use for them it seemed inappropriate - the introduction to each scene by the chorus members were totally unnecessary and detracted from the immersion of the play. Unfortunately Shaw writes gargantuan chunks for Alfred Doolittle to speak every time he enters the stage, so anything involving Chris Betts on stage just made me want to die. I just couldn't maintain my interest in anything being said and couldn't contain my desire to eat the delicious Coles' brand coke bottle lollies in my bag. There were dozens of times where I couldn't hear lines properly because the accents were so atrocious, spoken too fast, or not enunciated properly.

Robert Coleby (Higgins) and Melanni Zanetti (Eliza).

It needs to be said that the first stage of Eliza's transformation and meeting with Mrs. Higgins was nothing short of incredible. Perfectly orchestrated, Zanetti parades around the stage awkwardly shouting "HOW DO YOU DOOO?" at the cast, and her long winded statements about the weather and how her aunt died of pneumonia had me howling with laughter - I didn't have a problem being the only one in the theatre laughing. I loved the follow up with a delightfully excited Kerith Atkinson as Clara tries to emulate her behaviour believing it to be stylish. Combined with the snide comments of Professor Higgins the scene is an absolute riot. 

What I LOVE about Pygmalion is its witty script. It's oozing with all these cracking situational comments, tongue-in-cheek remarks on society and misogynistic slander. I don't care what other people think, misogyny is funny because it's so absurd - and when people get offended by it, it's hilarious. I think the script, of Act One at least, was probably my favourite aspect of the play. It's a glorious mirror to what Victorian society was like, and to an extent Gow has directed the piece in areas to have relevant commentary on how our modern society works. My absolute favourite moment was during the fantastic scene at the end of Act One, when discussing the word 'fuck' ('bloody' in the original script) Clara remarks "Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!". I think it's genius of Shaw (and Gow) to make a teasing observation of the social hierarchy - why all this stuffy behaviour over a word? "And it's so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty." Too fucking right. Regrettably the script does seem to lag at moments in Act One, and then eventually curls up and dies at the end of Act Two. By the piece's conclusion, all around me people were yawning, sighing and examining their nails. I just wasn't invested at all, and I was just thinking about eating ice-cream (you know, those cheap, nasty ice-cream cones from Maccas for 50 cents) and imaging how hard it would be to play the keyboard part in Iris. The final scenes are exasperatingly long and it seemed like everything was just going around in circles.

Robert Coleby (Higgins) and Melanni Zanetti (Eliza).

The sound design was unbelievably boring. I'm not sure if it's the Playhouse, or QTC, or both, but the sound was just dead since it didn't go anywhere across the audience. The voices of the actors seemed to be hollow and didn't resonate (that's definitely due to acoustics), and due to the lack of the noise surrounding us in the voices and effect there was no immersion into the play. It was very obvious that the audience was watching a play rather than being drawn into another world. It's difficult to say why the choices of songs seemed inappropriate, particularly the ending song, but the over-romanticised soundtrack that was ripped from the 50s or something didn't fit into a 19th century setting. It would have been more suitable to have an instrumental soundtrack, there could have been some great musical commonality with The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba as it was mentioned in the script.

I enjoyed the set design, which was a use multiple scrim to reveal different areas and locations of the play. A clever use of the scrim was using a small follow-spot navigates around a gigantic detailed map of London to shift the action of the play without the need to move the set. While I mostly liked what was happening on the stage overall there is so much wasted space. There is a wonderful sense of Victorian lavishness in the set, but above the actor's shoulders there was nothing going on. Too much wasted space for such a witty and intimate show. I have no idea what they could have put up there, but anything would have been better than the nothing that was there.

So overall I liked Pygmalion due to the acting and the script, but there were some poor direction choices in terms of the cast, the sound is a disappointment and the set has a lot of wasted space. Since the script also lags in some areas overall there wasn't enough immersion from the production to keep an audience totally captured for the duration. Regardless, the show was enjoyable for what it was. Whatever that is. And it's worth seeing so you can live that glorious scene at the end of Act One.

Tickets for Queensland Theatre Company's Pygmalion range from $30 to $75, and is showing until November 27th. Book by visiting QPAC's website or by calling 136 246.

Brisbane Festival - Steampowered

Being a Cirque du Soleil aficionado, I thought it was about time I gave other circuses a go. I saw Circus Oz's Steampowered last night at QPAC, and I thought it was pretty decent. The very talented troupe perform a plethora of acts with their multi-disciplinary skills which are fantastic, but I couldn't get into the show because of the music, design, and the frequent comedy.

Since it's a circus, it makes the most sense to look at the acts first. The disciples on display were worldclass quality, and it was utterly inspiring to see that the troupe were so talented in handling dozens of feats. The best acts were the hola-hoops, static trapeze of two performers, a duo trapeze with two women with the emcee telling us some facts which felt like feminist propaganda, and Chinese pole which I assume represented cogs in an engine. I enjoyed most of the acts, but even the best of them had their flow interrupted too often by comedy. I can appreciate the necessity of comedy in a family-oriented show, but in some cases it was really jarring and I just wanted them to get on with it. My favourite was the static trapeze, a lovely intimate act that was accompanied by a really witty song, and had just the right balance of comedy and skill to begin with. Over the course of the act the male trapeze artist develops a ripped seam in his pants, which unfortunately led to the troupe making a huge deal out of it, stopping the act, and provoking this really inane humour to force on us. Likewise, there was a great hola-hoops act which was interrupted far to often, so the artist would look either bewildered, or offer an audience member some flowers - I thought the design was clever but the execution too way too long for the sake of comedy. She comes back in the second act and manages to spin with around 7 hoops which was great, but that was a huge buildup you have to get through to enjoy the acts. In a stroke of misfortune, plenty of the acts that were complied were among some of my least favourite (rolabola, artistic bicycle) so that didn't help much. The troupe clearly have talented but it seemed like they could have improved without so much comedy.

The comedy when not interrupting acts was really funny. The opening of the second act involved the emcee walking around the stage bemoaning how the power was gone and how we would be stuck together, but then cheerfully painted an image of a post-apocalyptic world going on outside while we were safe watching the group. That was followed by a REALLY clever acro-sport act where they portrayed the political climate in Australia. It was simply perfect. Besides the emcee there were two women, one who presented shpeels on safety and the other, 'Fantasia Fitness' a narcissistic promoter of her own material whose various mishaps end with an awkward silence followed by '...I meant to do that'. Really clever stuff.

What originally attracted me to see Circus Oz was the appeal that Steampowered had a distinct influence of steampunk, a beautiful pseudo-Victorian fantasy style which has me fascinated. Cirque have utilised steampunk in a few of their shows (Zed, Zarkana), and the result has been beautiful. Of course it's not fair for me to compare Circus Oz to Cirque du Soleil, but it's inevitable - Circus Oz had some nice features on stage, but aethestics in steampunk are everything, and I found that the design was too sporadic. I wanted the stage stuffed with clocks and gears, when in reality the backstage was occupied by a fantastic drumkit, but then grates on the wall with projections of gears. Basically I just expected too much of the design, so it's no one's fault except for mine.

Music was too loud and a bit too rhythmic, and in sucession a bit too tuneless, for me to get into. Hats off to the troupe, who also perform in the brassy overture and finale. There were a few songs which the emcee presented - she had a vibrant and commanding voice and most of the songs were pretty good, although the last one was a bit of a mindfuck when the lyrics involved such gems as 'englargening', 'penetrating', and 'expanding'. But in the end no-one cares except me.

All in all I enjoyed it, but hyped myself up for it way too much since I expected more from the design. I liked the acts but they were interrupted too often by comedy and there were a few feats that I really loathe. The comedy when not interrupting the acts was solid and genuinely funny, and the music was okay but too loud and brash for me. My friends seemed to enjoy it, and it's over 9000 times better than Ovo, which will be spreading its shit on our shores next July-ish. I'd recommend it if you're looking for something to see in the Brisbane Festival and haven't already gone to see anything, since now Rhinoceros in Love has finished. It's hard not to be impressed by the talent this troupe has.

Tickets for Circus Oz's 'Steampowered' range from $25 to $45, and is showing from 21st to 25th of September, 2011 at QPAC Playhouse. Book by visiting the Brisbane Festival Website or visiting the Circus Oz Website.