Sunday Arts Magazine

9 Oct 2016

Joanna Murray-Smith, Robin Fox & MESS, The Wedding Singer musical

Arts, Comedy, Literature, Music, Performing Arts, Technology, TV & Film

Another exciting show today with Joanna Murray-Smith discussing her latest play Switzerland; A-V artist Robin Fox with a new spectacular; and a production of the musical–The Wedding singer.  First up Brendan reviews The Girl on the Train starring Emily Blunt — the film version of the very successful book–2 stars!

Special Guests today are:

11:10 to 38:04 mins–Audio-Visual and Laser artist Robin Fox is most famous for his shows where, via A-V and lasers, he connects sound and light electrical signals at the same time, thus artificially producing Synaesthesia in the audience. Robin’s mother had Synaesthesia which fed her avantegarde computer music in the early 1980s.  Robin went a different path, trying law and other music, but went full circle and ended up being taught experimental music by his mother at LaTrobe Uni! Robin is co-founder (with Byron J.Scullin) of a non-profit organisation giving access to the public, of a whole history of electronic musical instruments called The Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (MESS). He is here to discuss this and his double-bill show Robbie Thomson: XFRMR / MESS: Live on at the Melbourne Festival at the Substation in Newport on 13 & 14 October. Robbie uses a Tesla Coil with spectacular effect and MESS use a heap of analogue-Synthesisers to create amazing sounds.  Apart from this show, Robin also wrote the score for Lucy Guerin’s show The Dark Chorus at the Festival as well as doing the Skylight laser show for the Fringe.

38:45 to 1:12:11 mins–Legendary Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith is here to talk about her MTC play Switzerland on at The Sumner, within Southbank Theatre, until 29 October. Joanna tells of her background and her journey to writing success where emotionally there was a vulnerability/openness, self-belief and a compulsion to write despite set-backs.  Switzerland is about the famous US crime-writer Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr Ripley, Strangers on a Train) who had a great understanding of the dark side of the human psyche and wrote it brilliantly. This brilliance was more recognised in Europe than in her homeland and she lived there, in exile, most of her life. Despite her brilliance and wit, she was also a horrible person in many. In Switzerland, Patricia is dying and a young man from her publishing company comes to visit her, over 3 days, to persuade her to write one more Ripley. The power-plays change over their time together based on the premise ‘if you put 2 people in a room and allow their true selves to emerge, only 1 will make it out alive’.  Joanna gives insights about rehearsals, re-writing and her writing process.  She also gives an overview of her new play in the MTC program next year called Three Little words.

1:12:53 to 1:28:11–Director Monica Cioccia and actor Danny Nercessian are here to talk about their musical The Wedding Singer on at Theatreworks at 14 Acland St , St Kilda from 14 to 23 October.  Monica studied and then worked in community theatre background for a long time where she acted, wrote and created cabarets, put on musicals etc.  With this experience and the additional degree in drama and contemporary dance, her directing skills evolved. Danny studied Musical Theatre at NIDA, graduating in 2012 and doing cabaret, burlesque and classical theatre since then. This is his first musical and he plays George–the main character’s friend, who dresses like Boy George.  Set in the 1980s, The Wedding Singer was made into a musical about 10 years ago and Monica surmises the funniest bits from the 1998 film are on the stage—but magnified. The songs are original but, amazingly, sound like 1980s songs.  The musical is different from the movie in that it focuses more on characters rather than moving rapidly from person to person.

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