Sic Transit Gloria Seami

THEATRE
All scat and no logic

King Turd the Great
Collingwood Arts Park

No stars

In short: You can't polish a King Turd.

THERE is nothing -- nothing -- redeeming about this play. Even calling it a play suggests it has a plot or a point, when this sorry mess is devoid of either.

From the opening fart joke -- yes, the first soliloquy belongs to a bottom -- it's fairly obvious the team behind this quasi-contemporary rehash of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi -- itself a satire of Macbeth -- has worked tirelessly to discard any semblance of coherence or value present in the original texts.

What is left is an orgy of self-indulgence with the same artistic merit as a bunch of screaming two-year-olds fighting for the fairy bread at a birthday party.

While it is usual for a review to briefly summarise the plot, that is almost impossible with this work. Much like Macbeth, Pa Ubu kills a king and becomes King Turd.

What follows is a directionless, infantile monstrosity with delusions of scathing political commentary.

Pieces like this give theatre a bad name and reinforce any argument about slashing arts funding. Any government faced with the possibility of accidentally paying for something like this would rightly refuse to hand over another cent.

Most devastatingly, this cast is not entirely without talent. If they had put a fraction of the energy they did creating their characters into questioning the material they were asked to work with, nonsense like this would never make it past being a doodled sketch in a boring lecture.


Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
September 9, 2007
Author: KATE ROSE

Edition: 1 - FIRST
Section: IE
Page: E19
Copyright, 2007, Nationwide News Pty Limited
Record Number: SHS_T-20070909-1-E19-57000
7

King Turd was great.

No it really was, I'm pretty stoked with the whole thing in the end. I think that, ultimately, we nailed it. Not an easy piece to come to grips with, but I think the decisions that Paul (and to a much lesser extent I) made worked well. In all honesty if you'd asked me about 4 weeks ago what I thought of the show, I would have probably ummed and ahhhed a lot, avoided the question and thrown myself out of the nearest window to escape..... But something clicked, and it just started to make a lot of sense.....

Apparently the Herald Sun violently disagrees, I haven't seen the review and I can't find it anywhere to link to. Fortunately this has only impressed Paul. I look forward to reading it myself.

The Program (AKA my mate Wendy) seemed to like it. Cover that off with everyone who's opinion I respect giving good feedback, and some nice words (albeit unpublished) from Cam Woodhead at The Age, and I'm happy. I also haven't read his stuff yet, but I'm sure we'll get it soon.

So yes, one play ends another begins.

STAY TUNED THE BACCHAE IS COMING!!!!!!!

With the exception of the incident on arrival back at Chris' post show, last night was great. It was lovely. Today I've called in sick to celebrate (and in an attempt to shake this quasi cold that's been haunting me....)

So yay! At home....

Thank Christ I don't have to work too hard today.....

And Thank christ for the holy trinity of Lemon, Honey and Tea.....

Show was good. As hard as it is to be objective about these things, I think we did a grand old job.

While it's off to a good start, it's going to get better. I'm very tired. But work is very slow (in case you can't tell....)

Yay! Long live.... welll.... me :).