Beth Allen

A play by Tracy Letts

Move over True Blood: the real trailer trash are coming to town The Basement Theatre, in fact, from September 11th. Heads roll, shatter and blow in Killer Joe, the savagely funny, pitch-black comedy by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Tracy Letts, making its New Zealand debut.

The play focuses on the Smith family, a greedy, vindictive clan of trailer-trash Texans who hatch a plan to murder their estranged, naggy, alcoholic matriarch to cash in on her insurance policy. Unable to bring themselves to do the deed, they hire Killer Joe Cooper, a full-time cop, part-time contract killer. Once he steps into their trailer, their simple plan quickly spirals out of control.

Alongside them, playing their parents, are Sarah Wiseman (Mercy Peak, Outrageous Fortune) and Craig Hall (Outrageous Fortune's slippery Nicky). Wiseman and Hall are thrilled to be portraying the brazen Sharla and clueless Ansel. 'The family live on a diet of television, fast food and bad decisions,' says Wiseman. 'It is fantastic to be part of such a visceral, in-your-face theatre experience.'Colin Moy (In My Father's Den) will appear as Joe, the well-heeled contract killer who throws the family into disarray.

Black as Texan oil and funny as hell, Killer Joe will be a wild night out at the theatre. Lock up your daughters: Killer Joe is on the loose.

'Deeply Funny [it has] the addictive pull of a classic thriller'
- The New York Times

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The naturalism is in your face and mixed with an almost absurdist storyline. The characters are superbly played! I'm thinking perhaps Harold Pinter is not dead, perhaps he has moved to America and changed his name to Tracy Letts! On top of that the style is realised perfectly through every facet of the production. These guys are real theatre badasses: they even smoke on stage!
The production standards totally blew me away! A TV that goes on and off (and plays content appropriate to the situation), the lighting, the sound effects and the way it was encased in a fake ceiling made it the first show I've been to at The Basement (nee Silo, nee Jeffery James Theatre) in which one is not acutely aware of the low ceiling in that space.

The setting is the inside of a caravan, Southern USA, somewhere in Texas.  Chris (Charlie McDermott) returns to the caravan of his father Ancel (Craig Hall) after being kicked out of his mother's house. He needs cash to pay back a large debt owes to some fairly dodgy sounding characters.
Right from the get go the acting is fantastic, the accents are flawless and I feel as though I am really getting a good glimpse of a culture totally different from my own, and of a stunningly beautiful half naked woman - Chris's stepmother - Sharla (Sara Wiseman).

You get to see almost everyone at least partially in the nick and they are all super hot. The superb acting makes it a bargain at twice the ticket price!
Chris has come to discuss something of a delicate nature with his Dad - his mother's life insurance policy. We never see the unfortunate woman but it is pretty clear she's not well loved by any one in the play. The challange for Chris is to convince his Dad to inlist the help of "Killer Joe" (Colin Moy) in order to do away with "mom" and take the cash for the good of the family - including Dottie (Beth Allen) who is Ansel's simpleton daughter.

That's all I'll reveal about the story. If you want to see how it all pans out you'll have to go and see the show, and I strongly recommend you do!

It is heavily supported by a crew that it makes the overall production so slick that I think future audiences are in for a real treat! The dialogue is snappy, real and at times hillarious. When there are moments of silence we get to really appreciate them because of this.
However, there is something that bothers me and I don't know if it's the play, the interpretation or the fact that the opening night audience, it would seem, refuses to see the play any other way than as a violent absudist comedy.  Well who am I to argue with them? They certainly have had a fabulous time and lots of laughter ... but I am looking for something more sinister, there has been such promise and such a building of tension, then in a final flurry of activity it is suddenly all over!

I don't know if they are directed this way or not, but the actors break character for the curtain call before the lights have gone down on the last scene - which leaves me feeling quite disturbed and it makes the play feel a little like an acting exercise - diffusing the strength of the performances.
To be completely honest I am left feeling very alone in the room, everyone is cheering and seems over joyed, but I am feeling empty because I am, in an instant, realising that the play - while brilliantly written and performed (in terms of the characterisation and dialogue) - is ... well ... meaningless. 

Now I am not one of those people that needs to know the meaning of every moment or to have a moral point rammed down my throat at all; I am quite happy to find it in simpler things, even in character itself ... But I truly can't find anything meanful to take away with me and I'm wondering what I have missed.

On the way home it dawns on me that the characters (every one of them) are real gems for any actor, but they don't really develop throughout the story. In particular the title role "Killer Joe" has some quite massive changes to his life during the play, yet his dialogue stays cool as ever and so does Moy's performance. I'd like to have seen director (Cameron Rhodes) encourage Moy to let us in on what's going on for Joe because from what I have seen he appears to be exactly the same guy at the end as he was at the start, and I have a suspicion that his role could be the key to this play meaning something.
Reviewed by John Smythe, 12 Sep 2009

If you're good at suspending disbelief, and find threats and guns entertaining, you'll probably quite enjoy Killer Joe. When a Texan trailer park family engages a contract killer to kill their ex-wife/ mother for the insurance money, you just know they're asking for trouble.You even know what kind of trouble they're asking for; Joe ain't got his nickname for his fishing, y'all.

Cheap thrills are the goals of this show rather than believable characters or a plausible plot with a point to make. The relatively brief glimpses of nudity and violence are both voyeuristic and disturbing - a cleverly uneasy mix. They don't feel gratuitous - but the white-trash stereotypes do.

The Smith family are dumb. They beat each other up, they whore each other out, they wear a lot of denim, they offer beer as a cure-all in every crisis (makes more sense than tea, after all). Unlike the Wests in Outrageous Fortune, none of the Smiths is three-dimensional enough for the audience to care what happens to them - they're unsympathetically written by a middle-class playwright (Tracy Letts) to be laughed at by middle-class audiences.

The acting, directed by Cameron Rhodes, is mixed. Sara Wiseman has excellent stage presence and steals her scenes as the tarty second wife, Sharla, and Beth Allen does a good job as the sweet, idiot-savant daughter Dottie (displaying her innocence with a Mickey Mouse T-shirt). But Craig Hall plays the stoner dad by disappearing into the background, while Charlie McDermott's contrasting vigour as the good-for-nothing son is welcome but equally one-note.

Colin Moy looks uncomfortable and impassive as the all-important title character - Dottie says that Joe's eyes hurt her when he looks at her, but that intensity is missing. Like the characters, the accents are unconvincing - too fast for a Texan drawl. But this, coupled with the well-paced exchanges, means things roll along at a nice clip. Simon Coleman's hyper-realistic trailer home set looks like it's taken a lot of effort, and it's pleasingly busy and filthy: coathanger TV antenna, lampshade askew, broken blinds.

This is a shallow show but, hey, if you're not looking for something deep and meaningful, it would love to take you for a ride.

NZ Herald, 14th September 2009

“Mamma tried to kill me when I was little,” Beth Allen’s Dottie says casually. She’s a naïve Texan girl who lives with her trailer trash family.
 Killer Joe, by American playwright Tracy Lett, invites us into the trailer of the Smith family. The play opens with the bark of dogs, a knock at the door, and a nude Sarah Wiseman (with her beaver out for all the world) emerging from her bedroom to answer. Son Chris (Charlie McDermott, who continues to impress me as an actor) has been kicked out of home by his mother after beating her, so has come round to stay at his fathers (Craig Hall). Dottie comes out sleep-walking. The television set, forever on, is the centre of their universe. That should give a hint about the type of family we’re dealing with in this play.

Shall I give another? Chris has the idea of hiring a contract killer to off his mother so they can collect the life insurance that would go to Dottie. Enter Killer Joe (Colin Moy).

The play is entirely set in the Smith’s trailer (a grungy set, with couch, table, and noticeable grime down the oven side – such attention to detail!). It had me from the beginning. Starting with the brilliant conceit of the contract killing, the play has a number of twists and turns as the contract goes horribly wrong. Moy’s Joe is a remarkable figure – a man of few words, who conveys an ever threatening fearsome presence, but displays a real awkwardness when he attempts to woo Dottie. He has the best lines too – he considers women to be “black-hearted, evil and old.”

In the best traditions of “in-yer-face” theatre, the play contains many belly laughs, mixed in with some very disturbing scenes. One, involving a KFC chicken leg, had me almost physically sick. The ending, where everything comes out, involves the most thrilling, and realistic fight scene I have seen. It involves blood, a gun, and a refrigerator. The play is worth going to just to see these final two minutes alone. But on top of that it has a very clever script and characters you love to hate.

A Texas thrill-ride with some big laughs and even bigger shocks. Go see this one too.

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 ‘I can’t believe I’m getting married.’
‘Yeah. To the man of your dreams, you lucky bitch.’

Nicole's getting married. Elvira's organised the party. Giselle's come for the booze. Lara's up for some party pashing. Rochelle needs some attention. Caroline isn't sure what's going on. And Megan is out for revenge. Little Blonde Hen, a biting comedy, follows a group of girlfriends as their evening disintegrates into drunken debauchery. Nicole's wedding is right around the corner and although everything appears on track, deep down there's some brooding.
Abigail's Party meets The Women, Little Blonde Hen is a play about joy, despair and penis straws.

Little Blonde Hen was penned, and will be directed by, award-winning playwright, Thomas Sainsbury. In the last two years Thomas has written and produced his plays LUV, Loser, The Mall, Beast, Gas and The Feminine. He is currently residing in London where he has overseen productions of his plays "A Simple Procedure" and ". . . And then you die." Thomas’s plays The Mall and Loser have been published by Play Press. Loser and his play Main Street are currently being adapted for the screen.

Little Blonde Hen will be performed by some of New Zealand’s top acting talent. The play will also be a reunion for The Tribe stars Tori Spence, Antonia Prebble and  Beth Allen. The mousy Caroline will be performed by Serena Cotton (Insider’s Guide to Love). The kleptomaniac Giselle will be performed by Claire Van Beek (The Needies). And the lascivious Lara will be played by London resident Jessica Joy Wood (The Ferryman, A Simple Procedure). Elvira and Rochelle will be played by Outrageous Fortune beauties Antonia Prebble and Siobhan Marshall.

 Thursday, June 11^th   7:30pm 
 Friday, June 12^th   7:30pm 
 Saturday, June 13^th   5pm & 7:30pm 
 Sunday,   June 14^th    5pm & 7:30pm

The cast includes some top talent and quite a few household names… Antonia Prebble takes a break from the increasingly popular Outrageous Fortune to play the highly strung Elvira. The bride to be, Nicole, is played by The Tribe star Victoria Spence. Well known Shortland Street actor, Beth Allen plays the not so likeable Megan .The hen’s night begins at Elvira’s (Prebble) who has a strict schedule for the evening, armed with stop watch and clip-board. There are penis straws, Tequila shots, attempts at party games and plenty of gossip and giggles. Throughout the rest of the evening we become familiar with the particular problems of each of the diverse female cast.

Little Blonde Hen is a warm and witty story about women… their sometimes complex and meaningful relationships with each other and also how they choose to present themselves to the world.

The character flaws are greatly exaggerated which does not trivialise so much as create more opportunity for the intelligent humour that this play is built upon. This is a delightful journey that makes fun of the dramas we create for ourselves. Wonderfully written and directed this show is a true success in every respect; not least of all because of the very talented and strong cast of leading ladies!

By Renee Kirk

Written, directed, designed and operated by Thomas Sainsbury
Produced by Roberto Nascimento
Fingerprints and Teeth Productions

at 420 Bar, 323 K Road, Auckland
From 11 Jun 2009 to 14 Jun 2009

Have you ever been at a hen's night?  Or have you ever had a hen's night of your own?  If the answer is "yes" to either of these questions then you'll have a good idea of what to expect from Thomas Sainsbury's Little Blonde Hen...
As I enter the bar - yes, the play is performed at K Rd's 420 Bar (above the Rising Sun) - I am apprehensive about the show: A bunch of women getting drunk and behaving like idiots is it the kind of thing you can only enjoy if you are doing it too ...?

Luckily the acting is so good that I do enjoy it, very much.  But without the convincing cast and their snappy comic timing, such a play could potentially be painful. 
In Little Blonde Hen seven women gather for an evening of pre-wedding debauchery:  They start at home, they nibble on nibbles, shoot tequila and comment on each others' weight and clothes before heading to the night club - where the real butchery begins.  But this is also where some audience members might've lost interest if the acting and direction wasn't spot on. 

Maybe it's just because I'm a woman and I've been in the women's bathroom at a bar and heard it all before ... It's quite a stretch to make drunken drama into real theatre and it's the mark of good actors and a good playwright (and director) that it becomes something other people might want to watch. 
Nicole (Victoria Spence) is the bride-to-be who provides a sort of groundline for the extremity of her girl friends' characters.  Nicole's getting cold feet over the wedding, her heart is sweet, but we're just not sure if her future husband is. 
Caroline (Serena Cotton) is her future sister-in-law. She's never met Nicole's friends before and isn't pleased with what she sees:  Lara (Jessica Joy Wood) is much too wild; Elvira (Antonia Prebble), Nicole's Maid of Honour, is more into the hen's night than the bride herself;  Megan (Beth Allen) is back from overseas and has something up her sleeve; Rochelle (Siobhan Marshall) can't bear to share the spotlight, even on her friend's hen night; and Giselle (Claire Van Beek) just can't seem to stop taking things...

Little Blonde Hen takes a look at modern women, or at least modern women within the competitive context of a night on the town.  Sainsbury writes carefully within realistic parameters and the result is a voyeuristic peek into their lives. 
If what we see through the 'window' is a superficial view of seven women, that means they are not only ones to have a good time.  Their audience will have a great night as well.

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Written and directed by Tom Sainsbury
at Cross Street Studios, Auckland
From 12 Dec 2007 to 15 Dec 2007

Performed by Glen Pickering, Beth Allen, Todd Emerson, Nisha Madhan, Christabel Smith

“What’s going on? Where are all the men?”
“It’s too hard to explain.”

The Feminine, a speculative drama, is the story of a new world order.
When Adam Cooper, an English Teacher at a prestigious girl’s school, is diagnosed with testicular cancer he thinks his life is over. A new treatment, however, gives him hope and he willingly undergoes it. But there are complications.

In fifteen years he wakes from a coma.
In fifteen years the world has changed dramatically.
In fifteen years Adam’s masculinity will have him hiding for his life.

"Both Beth Allen and Christabel Smith show real versatility and depth in their variant supporting female roles as Cecelia the flirt, a blokeish cabbie and a gruff prison guard (Smith); Jenny the psycho nurse and a grouchy security guard (Allen)."

The black & white set, mostly straight lines save for the sveltely curved chairs, evokes a level of class that far outweighs the obviously meagre budget.  Lines of tape on the floor represent walls, halls and pathways.  There is no lighting board or technical sound design.  Like Sainsbury's previous work The Mall, in the same arena, The Feminine is pure theatre, relying entirely on its script and live performers to enthral its patrons.  

Glen Pickering is schoolteacher Adam Cooper, a rare profession for a man in this day and age.  His fiancé Naomi Campion (Nisha Madhan) is an ambitious politician, preoccupied with her election campaign but still loving and attentive to her partner's plight when he learns he has testicular cancer.  Whilst undergoing the new revolutionary 'hibernation therapy' complications arise, and when Adam finally reawakens the world has changed radically, against his favour.

In this futuristic ballad, created in response to what he believes is 'a current crisis of masculinity', Thomas Sainsbury has again proven his ability to write engaging and often humorous dialogue.  The future in question is politically absurdist; in a scant fifteen years society has turned entirely on it's head, war has ended and pollution is no more.  All thanks to the blanket oppression of human males, who have been rounded up into concentration camps and brainwashed. 
Pickering's Adam makes for an ironic protagonist - a genuine, gentle, intellectual fellow facing a society which believes all men are ignorant sex crazed baboons.  His character is quietly nervous against Madhan's post feminist feisty go-getter Naomi, and while the performances merge well the relationship between Adam and Naomi seems confused.

Naomi says she loves Adam, and has even spared his life to prove it, yet she keeps him in isolation and barely communicates with him.  She stands by the system which oppresses her fiancé, and with occasional moments of exception is cold and calculating, as most women of the time appear to be.  Women have righted the world from the wrongs perpetrated by males, at the ultimate expense of their own femininity and vulnerability.

Both Beth Allen and Christabel Smith show real versatility and depth in their variant supporting female roles as Cecelia the flirt, a blokeish cabbie and a gruff prison guard (Smith); Jenny the psycho nurse and a grouchy security guard (Allen).  Todd Emerson's Daniel Parker is likeable and laughable as the present-day fresh faced rookie doctor who reappears in the future a rather different man, having experienced all that Adam has slept through and subsequently learned about.

Each scene tends to segue into the next with no lighting or sound cues, which is mostly effective while presenting little problems such as in the scene where Jenny is left locked in the room on stage and Adam escapes off stage.  Jenny was not in the next scene so had to exit, breaking the illusion of her captivity which raised a chuckle in the audience.
The main premise is implausible in realistic terms, so what's the real message here?  Is this gender-reversed medieval future world a darkly comic exaggeration of a possible worst case scenario?  Or is this just pure entertainment? The Two Ronnies' 'The Worm That Turned' springs to mind.  Another angle might be that the bold claims of world peace and environmental harmony are merely Brave New World type lies, but there is no reference even to the possibility of this in the text. 

The story is in various ways a thought-provoking adventure but in the last several scenes the play loses momentum, concluding not with a bang, but rather a kind of defeated whimper.  Again I wonder, is this classic futuristic bleak cynicism, or was the author actually a bit stuck for a more stimulating climax?
Reading Mr Sainsbury's notes on the scant programme it's clear he wants us to wonder about things:  'A cautionary tale?  Or a flight of fancy?  Dystopia?  Or Utopia?  You decide.'  Although The Feminine wants further development, I can see Thomas Sainsbury fast becoming a classic playwright of his generation, and a probable future contender for the honours discussed in the forum on this site entitled "Unpublished 'classics' of the NZ stage." 

by Peter Shaffer
directed by Jesse Peach
PEACH THEATRE COMPANY
at Glen Eden Playhouse, Auckland
From 12 Apr 2007 to 21 Apr 2007

How can you treat a young boy who has blinded six horses? This will be psychiatrist Martin Dysart's most challenging case yet. As he dissects the mind of Alan Strang, Dysart learns more about himself than he ever needed to know.
Peach Theatre Company brings this worldwide revival of Equus to the Playhouse Theatre in Glen Eden, Auckland.
Equus is a chilling British Drama that has just reopened in the West End with Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe.
Starring:
Phil Adams, Ashley Hawkes, Annie Whittle, Paddy Wilson,
Elaine Vaughan, Steve Davis, Rohan Glynn, Sarah Gallagher,
Beth Allen, David Mitchell, Vasa Tasele, Russell Golding, Karlos Wrennall

Review:

We have heard of "Who Dunnits," but this is more of a "Why did he do it?"
Told about an horrific act carried out by a disturbed young man that shocked local magistrates, playwright Peter Shaffer was inspired to "...create a mental world in which the deed could be made comprehensible."
Alan Strang (Ashley Hawkes), a petulant and deluded teenager, is guilty of stabbing out the eyes of six horses and is referred to psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Phil Adams), who attempts to discover the rationale behind Alan's abnormal actions. 

It seems there is an inconsistency between preach and practice in Alan's parents. Father (Paddy Wilson), a stickler for puritanical behaviour, gets caught in a late night porn cinema by his son.  His mother (Annie Whittle), who believes she married under her class, is unaware that the Book that keeps her strong has also poisoned her son's mind.  She does, however, make it clear that she cannot be held accountable for what her son has become.
Steve Peach's set design consists of abstract wooden frames dressed with wire suggesting rural farm fencing, reinforcing a sense of entrapment felt by those admitted to mental hospitals.  The majority of the cast sit out the scenes they're not in on standard foyer chairs, creating a waiting room tableau. This convention allows quick transitions between scenes and adds mystique to the entrance of Equus (Steve Davis), a regal and beautifully sculptured stallion. 
Hawkes' portrayal of Alan Strang is masterful from go to whoa.  Jolting the audience each time he 'snaps', he convincingly brings to life the fervent psyche that meets Shaffers' goal of comprehending the crime.  Both Annie Whittle and Patrick Wilson shine as Alan's parents.  Wilson largely adds desperately needed comic relief.  Whittle's Dora, on the other hand, gives an empathetic account of a woman scrambling to maintain her dignity.

Beth Allen plays the girl who seduces Alan in the stables and sends him spinning towards the play's climax. She offsets Alan's inability to express himself by offering us a warm young woman, honest and comfortable in her sexuality.

It is a shame that so much of the play relies on Phil Adams' Dr Dysart.  Although unarguably audible, it is an uncoloured performance lacking inner journey.  He has the difficult task of portraying a highly acclaimed psychiatrist who hits crisis point when he is forced to reflect on how he values his own circumstances. Compared to his patients' exhilarating experiences he is dead inside, ultimately deducing that numbness is the norm. 

The play still triumphs. Director Jesse Peach very tastefully encompasses the homo-eroticism intrinsic to this play and his decision to set it in Cambridge New Zealand appeals to our delight in recognition. 
Steve Peach's horses spill onto the stage bare-chested and erect. They only appear in dim light and spasmodically ripple their pectorals to enhance their power ... The choreographed stamping of hooves blends with the escalating heartbeat of Alan as he revels in their glory. And the thrill of his rise to frenzy as he becomes one with Equus wins thunderous applause.   

Reviewed by Jarrod Martin, 20 Apr 2007

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