King of Bangor at Bella Union 29/06/11

written by Lee Gambin, Directed by Dione Joseph
starring Peter Berzanskis, Reville Smith, Nicholas Brien, Tamara Donnellan, Mim
Live score by violinist Christine Munroe
Bella Union, Wednesday 29th June 2011

I had seen and enjoyed Lee Gambin's previous work from Sissies and Sluts and also the one-off production of Oh the Horror! that ran in 2009 around Halloween.

This one is quite a bit different in that it is not a musical and played as a straight drama with an all-new cast and a new director.

Unfortunately, I had missed Lee's talk at the MQFF this year "It Came from the Closet", but it sold out and I had known of his love of the horror genre and writing for Fangoria magazine.

I am not really into the theatre scene and so had not had the chance to see any of the work of the actors before, but I thought they went well, especially Peter Berzanskis as Stephen King who has to be on stage for the whole play. I hope Mim's finger is alright as she hurt it when she smashed Peter with the sledgehammer.

I enjoyed the story and was able to follow it even though I have not really read any of Stephen King's books or seen many of the movie adaptations. Popular culture based knowledge of the author is a fine for seeing this play as he has written so much. Fans of the author will be able to get all the references in the story in more detail.

The direction and acting was fine I thought and I had been lucky enough to take the promo shots during rehearsals and the actors did well to learn all the lines in such a short time for a production that was going to be dialog-heavy from the beginning.

The music was also excellent and suited the story as I didn't notice it in some scenes and it was there to heighten the mood when needed.

I didn't see any problem with the venue, Keating! did it's first run of shows in exactly the same room in 2005 and ended up in the Sydney Opera House a couple of years later. The last performance I saw in the same room was Anna Lumb doing a ballet dance with a building on her head. The main room hosted Tracy McNeil's CD launch a couple of weeks back and had the Asylum Seeker's Resource Centre benefit with a cast of dozens and a full house.

Links:
http://kingofbangor.wordpress.com/
http://www.dionejoseph.wordpress.com