The 1920s, and all that dissonance

MEOW MEOW

The 1920s, and all that dissonance

Ah, the 1920s. Some think Gatsby, but I’m inclined to think Weill.

A period that inspired many current-day flapper parties, but fundamentally tested an array of structures, very notably in music. It’s almost too good: Meow Meow and the MSO coming together again (remember Pandemonium?) to jostle a comfortable audience’s senses with tales of tragedy and temptation.

Meow Meow is joined onstage by the incredible Aura Go on piano and Christopher Moore conducting and on violin. They take us on a long (and I do mean, long) journey through the 1920s with Hindemith, Walton and Stravinsky. Amidst these pillars of discord, we are also treated to Picabia’s La Nourrice Américaine (The American Nurse), Schwitters’ Cigarren, and Weill, of course.

Meow Meow keeps things light to begin with, adding her own unique schtick that elicits chuckles from the audience. Once the back is suitably exposed, and we’re all smiling, she does a fine job of introducing the audience to the 1920s and what it meant politically, socially, and importantly, musically. Parallels are made to our current end of days, and we nod understandingly.

The first pillar of discord of the evening is Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 2 for Piano and 12 solo instruments. Composed in 1924, the piece is structured across four movements, with the piano at the centre. Go is absolutely in element here, showcasing her versatility as a performer and every bit the virtuoso. Hindemith’s piece essentially takes chamber music and thrusts it into a storm, all the notes carrying off the ground and ascending to a place beyond the period and spouting it back out with vigour and contempt. It’s an uneasy ride, but it’s perfectly well suited to the commencement of the pieces this evening.

It’s time for more chuckles with Cigarren by Kurt Schwitters, an obscure piece of disassembled language that only a Dada could love. It curls and purrs out of Meow Meow’s mouth like it was written for her. Meow Meow also gives us a delicious rendition of Brecht/Weill’s classic, Pirate Jenny. The shrill cruelty of Pirate Jenny’s words sounds as it should in German, and it’s quite titillating despite only three audience members speaking a lick of the language (Meow Meow checked). It’s okay, we, the bourgeoise audience all universally understand the welling hatred of those who look down upon us.

It’s all cruelty, with another Brecht/Weill ballad, in The Ballad of the Drowned Girl, until we fall headlong into William Walton’s poetic universe in selections of Façade. The morbid state of the evening ascends briefly in Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. The tale is compellingly narrated by Meow Meow, and the devil in disguise is elegantly portrayed by Moore, who’s silhouette as he conducts and plays along, is a ghoulish projection upon the Melbourne Recital Centre’s curtains. And just as I too am about to abandon all hope, the lighting saturates a deep red, the drums crescendo, and the soldier makes his choice in the face of the beckoning devil.

Ah yes, the 1920s as we like to remember, where temptation wins.

First published on 25 October 2022 for Theatre Press

The Kransky Sisters Present A VERY KRANSKY CHRISTMAS

The Kransky Sisters are the kookiest cabaret act gracing Australia, and really, they’ve become cultural icons in their own right including memorable TV appearances on programs on Spicks and Specks and Adam Hills Tonight. I doubt many pictured backwater Australia as three sheltered sisters as a comic-cabaret gothic triad, but nonetheless here they are in all their kooky mod-squad glory.

The Kranskys are touring pre-holidays to offer some quirky Christmas cheer to Australians everywhere. Appearing at the relatively new kid on the block, the Alex Theatre, the sisters Mourne, Eve and Dawn (Annie Lee, Christine Johnston andCarolyn Johns) bring the house down with their hilarious songs, revamped versions of club hits, and strange stories from their fictional lives.

For those who don’t know the Kranskys’ origin tale, it starts out like most caravan dreams: Mourne and Eve’s mother runs off with their uncle, leaving them with their half-sister Dawn, the tuba-playing and long-suffering member of the pack. They live in Esk in small-town Queensland, and ever dressed alike, conduct their everyday Aussie lives whilst enabling each other’s sheltered world-views – with marvelously funny results.

To get everyone in the mood for their fabulously off-beat humour, a slideshow shared highlights of the sisters’ travels over the past year. It’s particularly funny to those who like the odd and unsettling – which is pretty much everyone in the audience – because we didn’t come for a Barbie sideshow, and the wonderful seriousness of their vibe only heightens the absurdity.

Mourne (clearly the dominant sibling), tells stories from their childhood and adult lives, and Eve nods in agreement and chimes in, whereupon they’re often completing each other’s sentencesas Dawn eyeballs them. Songs intersperse their histories, from singing Thriller to an unsuspecting Swedish backpacker, to taking same backpacker to a nightclub only to regale the night through song to us – we really get a solid dose of Kransky Does Pop: Sia, Daft Punk etc. etc. and it’s an absolute hoot as the sexual undertones of the music are utterly lost on them. Brandishing the tuba, and an oddball collection of other instruments, they give us a new vantage point to confection music by injecting their gloomy-folk magic to it.

The Kransky Sisters are a highly talented performance trio, and their style, music and unique way of storytelling gives them the enduring creative edge to attract audiences for years to come. I know that I will happily attend their next Christmas shindig if they will have me.

If you want to catch the kooky Kranskys, you may need swallow your pride for some audience participation – but boy will it make for some fun! You’ll find them touring Melbourne until the 26 November, and then on to NSW, QLD, SA and ACT.

Robyn Archer in QUE RESTE T’IL (WHAT REMAINS?)

Australian luminary and chanteuse Robyn Archer takes her Melbourne audience through a journey of harsh cityscapes and loving sentiments in Que reste t’il (What Remains?). I suspect the ‘What Remains?’ of her performance is an ode to the love affair we have with French music and how ingrained it has become within our popular culture.

What is so enthralling about Archer’s performance is her engagement with her audience. When an awkward twenty-something seated beside her relatively conservative mother can both burst into song along with the crowd, you know that the conductor of such an experience is of the gifted kind. The crowd is filled with those who have supported Archer for decades, and she certainly knows how to command them with her voice and wit.

Accompanied by Michael Morley on piano, and Paul Butrumlison accordion, Archer’s music sails through the turbulent times of Paris from the late nineteenth century and as far as the 1970s – even stopping to deliver an outsider’s perspective of the city of lights in Cole Porter’s You Don’t Know Paree. Archer interspersed her songs with stories of the era – a charming education on the history of live performance, with decadent and tragic stories ranged from lesser-known artists to the crowded halls of the Dadaist movement. It is apparent in ‘What Remains?’ that Parisian cabaret was not afraid to regurgitate the city’s own horrors and grime, juxtaposed with the songs concerning quaint longings of love that perch in a higher place above the cityscape.

I found Archer’s ability to weave history through French songs a marvellous form of escapism. My eyes even misted over during a rendition of Marie-Louise Damien’s Pluie: Damien, as Archer explains, was a chanteuse of the Parisian cabaret lesser known than Édith Piaf, but her music was exquisite, as Archer showcases. From Jacques Brel (who’s music dominates the night), Archer takes on some comic short rides with Aristide Bruant’s It Takes Cash, the kitsch delight The Singing Nun’s Dominique and the steamy Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot’s Je t’aime. ‘What Remains?’ is such a tasty and eclectic mix of tragi-ballads and humour, where nothing musical of the French variety is left unturned.

The night came to a roaring close with two comic renditions – Alouette where everyone chimed in, and a bastardisation of Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien. Archer and her team exited the stage with thundering applause behind them – we really wanted more than an encore.

Francophiles found themselves in a comforting terrain in ‘What Remains?’, and for those remaining, find themselves delightfully haunted by the songs that have pervaded their lives through various mediums over the years.