The current touring production of West Side Story, showing at Melbourne’s luxurious Regent Theatre, comes to us from the 2009 Broadway revival. Importantly, in New York it marked the first revival of this grand daddy of musical theatre in nearly 30 years.

Two things were very clear from the outset in this version of West Side Story: firstly the cast is young (too young in my opinion) and secondly, this revival certainly isn’t a replica of the 1957 original.

Musical revivals often create divided opinions among theatre folk. There are those who prefer a revival that mirrors the original version as closely as possible some years later, and then there are those who consider this an inane experience and prefer changes and alterations to help celebrate its revival and make the experience different.

I was not a huge fan of West Side Story last night. For me, this West Side Story lacked character and charm. West Side Story without a soul is a very sad tale, indeed. Flawed, it definitely was, partially saved only by the outstanding choreography from start to finish.

If ever there was a show in musical theatre where the triple threat was vital to the it’s success, then West Side Story has to be it. This version hits the nail on the head with the choreography, but sadly misses the target with the acting and singing.

Most of the music lacked the necessary punch, with the cast instead choosing to cruise through many of the numbers with lacklustre ease. Anita (Alinta Chidzey) and Rosalia’s (Jenna Baxter) rendition of “America” was strangely subdued, while Tony (Josh Piterman) and Maria (Julie Goodwin) annoyingly broke into operatic vibrato part-way through several of their songs. Beautiful voices they were, but it left one feeling they were watching an Opera Australia production of West Side Story, instead. As funny as “Gee, Officer Krupke” actually is, Houston we have a problem when this is the standout number in the show and not “Maria” or “Somewhere”. From a technical perspective, the volume of sound varied and wavered between dialogue and song, character to character and from song to song. Ten rows from the front in the stalls, I couldn’t hear some of lyrics in a number of songs. Thank God I wasn’t up the back of the dress circle.

On the whole, the acting was passable. But in a musical with so many dialogue lines, principal roles with richer characters should have been on the menu. Alinta Chidzey was the pick of the bunch as an entertaining Anita, but unfortunately Josh Piterman and Julie Goodwin failed to engage most of the audience as Tony and Maria, and West Side is their love story. Turango Merito played a very wooden Chino and his piviotal moment informing Maria of her brother’s death was so hammed up and melodramatic, it was farcical, almost cringe-worthy. There are dozens of lines of comic dialogue and lyrics in West Side Story, but most of them were lost, including all the wonderful humour in “America”.

Costume choices were interesting, to say the least. Bright purples and pinks abound in a more contemporary feel. But these costumes seemed to be lost somewhere between the original West Side Story and today, as the last time I saw men in full pastel suits was circa 1987 in an episode of Miami Vice. Unfortunately, there was no rhyme or reason in much of the costuming.

Why, oh why, do we get a projection screen at the rear of the stage with a huge black curtain in a show we paid $120 a ticket for? Was this a high school musical I slipped into last night? Lame set design of this nature is totally unacceptable when your ticket price is on par with the $16 million Mary Poppins down the road. This West Side Story certainly didn’t seem to have production values matching the $14 million Broadway version it copied. The Regent Theatre stage was simply too big for much of this show, leaving huge empty spaces centre stage between the two tall tenement housing set pieces either side. This resulted in Tony singing “Maria” so removed from the set pieces to his left and right, and with no set in the background. Many scenes were so sparsely set, the illusion of theatre was lost, altogether.

The cast of this West Side Story was unashamedly young. While every theatre practitioner and critic applauds a brave young cast tackling the toughest of stage musicals, there comes a point where this sort of gamble can leave the whole show exposed. It’s nice to see a change from the seasoned professionals (some of them are currently in Mary Poppins, methinks), but when the youth one sees on stage reveals a lack of experience in two of the three departments necessary to make this show a success, they can smile all night, but it won’t change the disappointment.

If you’ve never seen a professional version of West Side Story before, you’ll probably love this show, as many of the teenagers in the audience certainly did. It appeals to a younger, less discerning demographic who have little to compare it to. This is West Side Story for the YouTube generation, on and off the stage. Miley Cyrus would have loved it. I didn’t.

A bit of a late review here for the Melbourne Theatre Company’s current production of David Williamson’s Let The Sunshine, currently showing at The Playhouse, Arts Centre, until September 4.

Jacki Weaver & John Wood in Let The Sunshine.

Australian readers of The Drama Teacher will know that David Williamson is Australia’s most successful playwright and has been one of our most prolific over the past four decades.

The two biggest and most common criticisms over many years have been that one Williamson play is just like the last, and that his works often fail to connect with mainstream Australia, because his plays usually centre around issues affecting middle class white Australians.

On the latter, middle class white people are surely not the “average Australian” today, but it seems this demographic may well still be a large part of the average state theatre company’s patronage. If this is the case, then Williamson is still hitting the right spot with his audiences, even if his plays themselves may not be reflective of the average Australian in the wider community (anymore).

In some respects, Let The Sunshine was indeed just like many other of Williamson’s plays in recent years. But on another level, I was pleasantly surprised this work was funnier than I had expected, with some fine acting lead by seasoned actors John Wood and Jacki Weaver.

I took a big risk with this play and brought along a Year 10 class studying Unit 2 Theatre Studies and a Year 11 Drama class, because the play suited topics studied in the two different courses. While I am blessed with a very mature group of Year 10 girls (15 and 16 years old), their experience of live theatre is limited. They nevertheless had the following observations after attending Let The Sunshine:

• why is it that Broadway musical sets seem to be getting bigger and more expensive every year, while mainstream dramatic play sets seem to be getting smaller and cheaper-looking?
• how come state theatre companies seem to be “getting away with” minimalistic stage sets, with few props, and why are audiences just sitting back and accepting this?
• why did such an experienced stage director as Michael Gow deliberately allow split scenes to take place in Let The Sunshine, with characters in the “dead” scene moving quietly in full view of the audience while the “live” scene took place right next to them, only to be passed by an exiting actor from the other scene when their scene became “live”? (clumsy directing???)
• is it okay for little or no attempt to be made in “Let The Sunshine” to change the set and was it “non-naturalism”, budget constraints or just laziness that resulted in the one stage set being used for up to half a dozen locations in this play?
• Was it playwright Williamson or set designer Robert Kemp who decided to insult the audience’s intelligence by having huge canvass images of Noosa and Sydney in the rear of the set for Let The Sunshine, as the audience could clearly determine the locations by the dialogue in the play, itself.

Well, these were student observations from a very young class. Never underestimate the power of thought inside the average teenager who loves theatre!

Mary Poppins, the film, was never a childhood favourite of mine. The story and songs about this most magical of nannies are not my usual fare, either. So, waltzing along to Melbourne’s latest Broadway blockbuster at Her Majesty’s Theatre was a lesson for me. But little did I know that just over two hours later, I would walk out with a lesson in musical theatre I may never forget.

The exceptionally positive early press reviews about the Melbourne production of Mary Poppins the stage musical, a $16 million Disney extravaganza that just may be the most expensive show ever staged in Australia, are right on the money. If ever there was a musical for the whole family to enjoy, this is it. If ever there was a musical to take young (and older) girls along to see, this is it, too. If ever there was a musical with just the right mix of everything for everyone, Mary Poppins is THE show.

Apart from the magical plot and charming songs, the strength in this Mary Poppins is the fact that there is NO weak link in the chain. Co-producer, Cameron Mackintosh, said that due to Australia’s relatively small theatre industry compared to other countries, nowhere else in the world could he cast many of a nations’s leading men and women of the stage in the one show (The Age, 1 Aug., 2001).

Experience certainly adds weight when you want a musical to be “practically perfect” and Mary Poppins has its weight in gold. Understandably though, some of the characters are thinned out a little for the stage production. Marina Prior plays the role of Winifred Banks with that beautiful voice. Philip Quast is a strong and stoic George Banks. Younger audience members will delight in the skill and captivating attraction of Matt Lee who does a fabulous job playing Bert. Other notable performances include Sally-Anne Upton as the hilarious Mrs Brill, Christopher Rickerby as the caricatured Robertson Ay, Judi Connelli as the scary Miss Andrew and Debra Byrne as Bird Woman.

But the star of Melbourne’s Mary Poppins truly was relative newcomer Verity Hunt-Ballard. Surely an inspiration to all aspiring performers, Hunt-Ballard graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts seven years ago and portrayed a delightfully appealing Mary Poppins with a gorgeous voice, wonderful expressions and a not-too-shabby dance step, either. Close behind are the five sets of children playing Michael and Jane Banks. The night I attended, youngsters Victoria Borcsok and Callum Hawthorne were extraordinary illustrations of what talented children in the performing arts are really capable of.

The choreography in Mary Poppins is nothing short of delicious. The showstoppers didn’t disappoint, with the dancing in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious one of the tightest examples of choreography in a stage musical I have ever seen, while Step in Time was just fabulous.

The sets, costumes and lighting design in Mary Poppins are also fantastic. It’s been a while since I have seen so much colour in a stage musical. Younger audience members, in particular, will love these aspects of the show. If you’re thinking of bringing the children along, have no fear, there’s plenty to keep them entertained and last the distance. Bert dancing up, across (upside down) and down the other side of the picture frame of the proscenium was jaw-opening! As for Mary Poppins flying out over the stalls and dress circle, then up into a trap door inside Her Majesty’s very high ceiling, well this just has to be one of the most magical moments in musical theatre, ever!

Every single element of the Melbourne production of Mary Poppins is superb. This is first class musical theatre. Not to be missed.

Melbourne’s The Age newspaper called it “Poppins prefect, in every way”, calling the production “superior to Wicked” with “a show-stopper in almost every scene”.

It was no local secret the producers of the Melbourne show auditioned over 300 women for the main role. From all reports, Adelaide born, Melbourne resident Verity Hunt-Ballard was one hell of a star on opening night.

Enjoy some of the early reviews of the show and sneak peaks of the cast and show on stage from Melbourne news reports, below.

Can’t wait for my little visit to see Mary Poppins later this week!

The Age Review, July 30.

The Age Review, July 31.

Australian Stage Review, July 30.

Mary Poppins Slideshow, The Age.

Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre, in association with the Victorian Opera, are currently performing Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera until June 17.

Freely adapted from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, it was two centuries before the libretto was translated from its original English into German by Brecht’s mistress Elisabeth Hauptmann, in 1927.

Collaborating with opera composer Kurt Weill, Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera debuted in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, soon to become the home of his famous theatre company, The Berliner Ensemble. After a troubled rehearsal period filled with conflict, fleeing actresses and rushed re-writes, the work arguably introduced a new theatre form.

Malthouse Theatre’s The Threepenny Opera became a sellout season before opening night, largely based on the drawing power of its two stars, Eddie Perfect and Paul Capsis. Part play, part cabaret, part opera, part play with music, The Threepenny Opera is a mishmash of splendour and inconsistency.

Episodic in form, Threepenny consists of dozens of small, self-contained scenes that generally keep the pace rolling and audience entertained. But while the plot construction is far from perfect, make no doubt about it, Eddie Perfect definitely is. As the protagonist and uber-criminal Macheath, Perfect’s strong and versatile voice is well-suited to Brecht’s style of song. Perfect dazzles the audience with his declamatory, larger than life  manner, reminiscent for Australian audiences of the recent television series Underbelly, which glamourises the criminal in society. Capsis is also fabulous as Jenny the prostitute.

Set in a boxing ring, several portable stages rotate to form many locations, ranging from a wedding in a horse stable to a prison and even a strippers’ den. The sordid lowlife of the underworld is all too apparent and the costumes and character make-up are suitably garish and over the top, matching the caricatured personas of those beneath them.

Malthouse Theatre’s production plays homage to Brecht’s Epic Theatre style with placards introducing songs, direct character address to the audience, stage hands in open view, narration, and songs conveying the work’s themes and messages.

But there are also problems. Raimondo Cortese’s adaptation includes many references to Melbourne suburbs and place names. Those in the audience who live in these suburbs briefly giggle at the reference and in this sense, the work has some immediacy and relevance. But in truth, it only cheapens the text and reduces it to farce. If you’re going to talk about a whorehouse in North Bulleen, you better make sure you take out the dozen references in the plot to the upcoming coronation parade the next morning, because there ain’t no King and Queen living in 21st century Melbourne.

The cast also consists of a mixture of classically trained operatic voices, cabaret voices and lesser trained voices. While there were impressive moments where the whole company sung together, the bulk of the singing in this show is solos and duets. Threepenny Opera or not, the operatic voices in this production clashed with voices like those of Perfect and merely added to the work’s inconsistencies. Another issue saw some scenes that were fast and furious, while others were a little slow and tedious. Effective contrast or unevenness?

The Threepenny Opera is no Mother Courage, that’s for sure. Brecht had only begun embracing Marxism in 1926, so Threepenny does not contain his usual potent dose of didacticism. Hurried to the stage or not, it became Brecht’s biggest commercial success. It will likely become Malthouse Theatre’s commercial success of 2010, as well.

Let’s face it, Brecht is idolised by many and loathed by others. His works are so ‘in your face’ and often intellectual, it’s hard to sit back, relax and enjoy. While Brecht’s works are not everyone’s cup of tea, Malthouse Theatre has nevertheless produced an entertaining production of The Threepenny Opera. If you come to the theatre for Eddie Perfect’s performance alone, you will not regret it.

This production marks the final work of Malthouse Theatre’s artistic director Michael Kantor.

The 2010 Top Acts concert occurred last Friday May 28th and once again showcased inspiring and amazing talent in the performing arts. Quoting VCAA Chair, Adam Shoemaker, in his opening address, Top Acts truly represents the “very best of the best” in the previous year’s final examinations in Drama, Theatre Studies, Dance and Music solo and group performances.

Highlights in Friday’s program for me were:

• Rob Clifford (St Michael’s Grammar School) and his fabulous rendition of George Harrison’s ‘When My Guitar Gently Weeps’ on the ukulele
• Caitlyn Petrie (Avila College) and her highly sophisticated and focused drama solo performance of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov
• Che Steer (Blackburn High School) and his sumptuous music solo interpretation of Rogers and Hart’s ‘My Funny Valentine’
• Mark Yeates (Donvale Christian College) and his wickedly hilarious drama solo performance of ‘Dennis’ and his funeral home for pets
• James Dong (Camberwell Grammar School) and his disciplined and skilled violin sonata by Eugene Ysaye
• Bonnie Leigh-Dodds (St Michael’s Grammar School) and her beautifully timed drama performance of school girl Mary O’Donnell from the play ‘Bombshells’
• Josephine Grech, Georgia Wilkinson and Zoe Drummond (Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School) and their classical voice music group performance of Handel’s ‘Consolati i O Bella’
• James Hazelwood-Dale (Wesley College) and his electric bass arrangement of ‘Amazing Grace’
• Brodie King (Ballarat Grammar) and his Phythonesque rendition of Sergeant Major from the play ‘Oh What A Lovely War’

Not being any sort of dance expert, I don’t feel qualified to comment on the dance pieces in the Top Acts concert, so excuse me for omitting them from my highlights. Having said that, it feels mean to select any highlights at all, because the quality across the various disciplines and 28 performers at this year’s Top Acts was consistently strong and of a very high standard.

On a personal note, I was immensely proud to have one of my own students in the 2010 Top Acts concert. Caitlyn Petrie (Avila College), who performed the drama solo performance Anastasia, was the only female out of 1,500 students who undertook Year 12 Drama in 2009 invited to perform at Top Acts. She did a fantastic job and ‘nailed’ her solo on the big night!

Each year I attend the annual Top Acts concert with about 70 or 80 Drama and Music students from Years 10, 11 and 12 at my school, plus about a dozen staff, for a fabulous night of talent. Top Acts represents some of the best professional development a performing arts teacher can receive. Highly recommended.

★★★

Waiting For Gandalf

I’ve been trying to write this review for ten days now. When your blog is a hobby and Godot’s opening night comes to town in the middle of a school show, I remembered this blog’s title … and so The Drama Teacher put Godot aside until the storm at work settled down.

Something irks me when the purest of non-commercial theatre, Samuel Beckett’s 1953 masterpiece Waiting For Godot, creates box office records in London and goes on an international tour with Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings at its heart. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” cried Hamlet’s Marcellus. This performance has it all … the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good The cast is strong. Many ‘in the know” are disappointed the Australian and New Zealand tour of the Theatre Royal Haymarket production of Godot does not include original London cast members Simon Callow and Patrick Stewart. Nevertheless, this ensemble retains its draw card in Sir Ian McKellan as Estragon, then adds Roger Rees as Vladimir, Matthew Kelly as Pozzo and Brendan O’Hea as Lucky. The actors are uniformly consistent and very skilled. If you’re going along just to see McKellan shine, then be warned there is no star in Beckett’s Godot, nor should there be. Vladimir and Estragon equally share the stage as the play’s twin protagonists and if you want me to nit-pick, I preferred the talent of Roger Rees over Ian McKellan, anyway. For me, McKellan mumbled way too often, was difficult to both hear and understand at times, while Rees’ interpretation of Vladimir was easier to engage. Kelly’s camp, over the top portrayal of Pozzo was a comic delight.

The Bad We’ll start with the post-apocalyptic-type set, complete with crumbled wall at the rear and ruined mansion pillars downstage left and right. As with Shakespeare’s plays, Waiting For Godot demands a bare stage (in this case with the sole addition of a single tree) and any interpretation that attempts to tart it up, usually fails. It was quite acceptable on one level, but the question remains as to whether it was suitable? Adding to the “bad” was the soundscape by Paul Grothuis. Satisfactory? Yes. Necessary? No. We’ll finish with the overstated direction by Sean Mathias that resulted in several audience gags and a comic theatricality with Vladimir and Estragon that made me shudder (appropriate only for Pozzo). There is indeed a comic side to Godot clear in the text for any good director to interpret, but this was Godot for the masses. If you’re a purest, try The Gate Theatre of Dublin’s interpretation, performed at the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in October 1997. Often hailed by critics as “the definitive Godot” (if there is such as thing), you can now see this performance on DVD in the Beckett box set.

The Ugly Anything that commercialises Beckett’s Waiting For Godot falls into the “ugly” category. The $130 ticket price tag. The $40 signed lithographs of the actors. The $20 programme. Where was my Godot coffee mug, I cry? Damn, I’ve got a whole cabinet of Broadway musical mugs at home! Whoops! My slip. That’s right. This was not Broadway … or was it? We all get sucked in and yes, I bought my programme and signed lithograph of Ian McKellan. True, McKellan was known as one of Britain’s leading stage actors for decades before The Lord of the Rings trilogy opened him up to a whole new generation of audiences. It’s not his fault that much of the opening night audience were really Waiting for Gandalf, not Godot at all. But as skilled as McKellan truly is at treading the boards, one has to worry about what this production of Waiting For Godot was really about … the money or the art?

Melbourne season concludes 23 May 2010.

(This year’s exam is here, if you’re interested in understanding the task).

Once again, Top Class Drama 2010 demonstrated a high level of skill from all student performers. Imaginative choices in decision-making were scattered throughout. Character transformations are getting slicker every year at the Top Class concerts. Remembering what is onstage was an examination piece six months earlier, according to exam rules, each students must transform into other characters. It was great to see many performers avoid clunky transitions, instead transforming smoothly and seamlessly into other, secondary characters in their performance.

Even though every performer who makes it into Top Class Drama received a perfect-score A+ on their exam and then made it through an invitation-only audition process where many students missed out, there is always going to be slight variations in quality across all three concerts. Usually, 33 students perform in three concerts of 11, but in 2010 it was one less performer per concert, totaling 30. It will probably always be the case where some performers appear to have better skills than others, though one could still argue once performed at a concert, the audience views are subjective opinions, not criteria-based examination scores where the performances began months ago in an exam room.

This year I was fortunate to have two students perform in Top Class Drama and I was very proud to see both of my students perform on stage at the Melbourne Recital Centre a few weeks ago. Behind the scenes, 6 of my 14 students from 2009 were invited to audition for this year’s program … and that really threw me into a spin!

Only a select few from all the Drama, Theatre Studies, Dance and Music Season of Excellence concerts are asked to perform at a combined concert at Hamer Hall. This year’s concert will be on Friday 28 May. With a seating capacity of 2,600, performing at Hamer Hall is always a buzz for a student performer. Only three or four Drama students are asked to perform their solo performance at the final-stage Top Acts concert. One of my students performed at Top Acts a few years ago and I was thrilled, knowing that this will probably not happen again to me in my career, because the odds are stacked against you. But yesterday changed all that, with a pleasant phone message to discover one of my students from this year’s Top Class concerts has been asked to perform at Top Acts in late May. Hers is a mostly dramatic and serious performance and ranks as one of the most sophisticated student-written performances I have had the pleasure of being a part of. I’m looking forward to seeing it all again

So, if you teach VCE Drama in Melbourne or regional Victoria and have never been to a Top Class or Top Acts concerts, I can highly recommend it as great professional development. Students get so much out of seeing others of a high standard perform and knowledge gained always transfers directly into their own upcoming solo performance or monologue exams.

The Story of Slapstick covers various masters of the genre, but from a refreshing British perspective. Naturally, short video clips are in abundant supply in this documentary, something that will no doubt please those Drama students of yours hungry for the visual entertainment their generation knows all too well.

Artists/characters/comedy teams featured include Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean, Monty Python, The Goodies, Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, The Young Ones, Morcambe and Wise, Vic and Bob, and French and Saunders.

This documentary interviews several well-known British comedians, young and old, and covers many of slapstick’s vital ingredients such as violence and the innocence of the characters. The Story of Slapstick also dismisses slapstick’s stigma as being an unsophisticated form and interestingly highlights its additional success on the radio (The Goon Show) and its transition today out of formal scripted sketches into our own living rooms, with everyday slapstick caught on camera then posted on popular websites like YouTube etc.

Worth a watch.

Torrent (.avi, 60 mins, 553mb)

The question beckons … is Yasmina Reza the best-known French playwright since Samuel Beckett? She’s certainly one of the most talented since Beckett … and that’s for sure.

Having had previous successes with Art and Life X 3 among others, Reza’s latest work, God of Carnage, has just hit the Australian stage as part of the Melbourne Theatre Company’s mainstream season.

And, oh what a boom of a season it must be! The MTC has already had success a couple of months ago with the 2008 Tony winner for Best Play in August Osage County. As previously blogged here on The Drama Teacher, that play had one of the best performances of the year in Robyn Nevin’s startling portrayal of the pill-popping Violet Weston.

Now, just to add salt to the opposition’s wounds, the MTC also has the recently crowned 2009 Tony winner for Best Play, God of Carnage, in the same season.

Back to Yasmina Reza. Her cleverly written God of Carnage will particularly delight anyone who is a parent, as the plot concerns two sets of parents attempting to meet amicably to discuss Alain (Hugo Weaving) and Annette’s (Natasha Herbert) son’s “indiscretion”. Their 11-year-old boy has poked a stick at a playmate, Michel (Geoff Morrell) and Veronique’s (Pamela Rabe) son, in the process knocking out two of his teeth. That’s what young boys do, right? Not so, according to Michel and Veronique.

In true contemporary form, God of Carnage is a one act 90-minute play. The first 45-minutes sets the scene, while the last 45-minutes will reveal why you came to the theatre to see a comedy.

As the plot slowly unravels with much alcohol consumed, the play descends into a farce of delightful proportions. It’s an absolute hoot, with one laugh after another, showcasing Reza’s astute observations of the intricacies of social relationships, albeit the story of two children fighting being trivial and not exactly earth-shattering.

God of Carnage is parental warfare. Who will take sides against whom? Will we be surprised by partners taking potshots against each other? Once? Twice? Three times? This is one funny play where we discover the real children are not those in the playground, after all.

On Broadway this year, God of Carnage created history in being the only play to have the entire cast nominated for a Tony. Granted, there’s only four actors, but each of them were nominated for either Best Actor or Best Actress in a Play. While Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) missed out, Marcia Gay Harden won the Tony, as did the direction and the play itself.

The MTC cast forms a tight ensemble, something necessary in a play such as Carnage. Hugo Weaving does not disappoint as Alain, demonstrating the expressive nuances theatre and film audiences over the years have grown to appreciate him for. Pamela Rabe is outstanding as Veronique, passionately fierce one moment, hilarious the next. Natasha Herbert’s character builds slowly until the once meek Annette explodes into a tour de force, while Geoff Morrell plays Michel with skill and conviction.

God of Carnage is playing at the Playhouse, Arts Centre, until 3 October.