Reviews

Julia Griffith and her cast of eleven have taken on the many challenges of this play with confident enthusiasm. Apart from the difficult task of manipulating the “nude" scenes for the calendar shots, there are many scenes, many props and many costume changes. At Pymble, this involves some cooperative space sharing in wings that are not easily accommodating – while still sustaining characterisation and the continuity of the play. And they manage to clear these hurdles very well.

A portmanteau (as such things used to be called) of six short plays – each a two-hander, featuring in each a secret plus a tramline or a tram ride or a tram journey (‘I came by tram’) or a tram stop.  Like, say, Tropfest, the secret and the tram connection were the restrictions placed on the Melbourne Writers’ Theatre members.  The restrictions aside, the plays, it must be said, are of varying quality as is the acting of the casts – but it should also be said that the texts of some pieces would be challenging for any actor. 

The stories, characters, and themes put forth in the writings of William Shakespeare have endured long after the man’s death – and will surely continue to endure long after the death of anyone reading this – because they dramatize human frailties and human foibles that transcend the time in which his plays were first written and performed. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s language can prove daunting to modern audiences, so communication must be priority one for any company choosing to cast their lot with the Bard.

This is a musical “ripped” off from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was very popular for its innate absurdity. I was intrigued to see how the fight would be done where one combatant is left with no arms or legs but still wishing to fight on. Now that was all part of this musical adaptation with a large cast of diverse characters of the period King Arthur and his knights of the round table.