Chrissie Shaw: Reviews & Showlist

Elements of film noir pervade Page’s poetic narrative… but (his) ironic humour at the moment of action (“reaching down to grab the gun had seemed too far to stoop”) pens a less suspenseful tone, preferring to lend his amateur sleuth a far more comical aspect than a film noir heroine of crime detection would portray.

Director Kate Gaul imbues Page’s verse play with a dramatic metre, eliciting an excellent performance from Shaw, and evocatively underscoring the one-hour monologue with Mitchell’s hypnotic interludes on sax, recalling a shattered dream and consuming obsession.

…an evening of intriguing entertainment that is sure to please…Don’t miss this theatrical treat.

It was an enthralling, an all-absorbing tale as Chrissie Shaw told it, with haunting snippets of memory on an alto saxophone from Sylvia Mitchell.

There is an astonishing charm in THE KEEPER. Chrissie is almost childlike in the telling of her stories – sometimes she sings a snatch of song; she narrates bits of her stories to herself; she might suddenly lecture to us briefly on aspects of lighthouses, the keeping of the light, and the living conditions of the keeper and his family; and then she plays with the white pebbles and the simple objects as she continues her stories, with all the concentration of a child absorbed in a game.
It is a riveting performance – and one that should not be missed.

The Keeper, based on true accounts of lighthouse keepers’ lives and woven into a composite tale of hardship, danger, and fearful gothic imaginings, casts light upon this time, charting the lives of those who chose to live in remote outposts along the coast. Chrissie Shaw, with engaging, gentle charm, tells the story of Connie, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, and of life long ago, before the advent of automated lighthouses along the rugged, inhospitable coastline.
Director Penelope Bartlau, assisted by designer Imogen Keen, breathes unique life and atmosphere into the inanimate. Plain Babushka dolls are the sisters, a seashell, standing in the shifting crystals of sea salt upon a portentous bath-like structure, becomes Connie’s husband Bill, and a feather suggests a high society lady. Shaw, Bartlau and Keen, through their skilful illusory art, convincingly create the reality of that bygone era.
Shaw reveals herself as a captivating and unassuming storyteller, weaving narrative and instruction together to reveal the lighthouse keeper’s life. Appealing to young and old alike, The Keeper is a poignant reminder of the courage and endurance of the lighthouse pioneers. As a work imaginative educational drama, the show deserves to be picked up as a touring show to schools to bring a crucial part of this nation’s history into today’s classrooms.

Bring your own cushion and your favourite Gran’s bag’ invited the brochure for Greg Lissaman and Chrissie Shaw’s delightfully simple and gentle production of Gran’s Bag. I watched excited, curious and wide-eyed young children, clutching the hands of mothers, fathers or grandparents and hugging their favourite cushions with bags strapped to their tiny backs as they filed into the small studio of The Street Theatre. Before them, on a Persian rug stood a revolving table with a large red and mysterious carpetbag beneath a canopy of fairy lights.
‘Hellooo!’ A smiling face peered from behinds a curtain. Chrissie Shaw is the kind of Grandma that every child would wish to have. Cheerful, lively, fun-loving, slightly eccentric, alive with song and stories and able to spin her whirling cartwheels down the street. In an instant, friendly greeting turned into surprising mystery as the bag became a ‘treasure trove of secrets and small delights.’ Slowly, with all the expectant wonder of surprising sleight of hand, Shaw drew her audience, young and old alike, into her entrancing world of enchantment.
Director Lissaman lured the very young into a carefully devised and skilfully structured imaginary world. From the bag, Shaw drew “Gran’s Big Brag Book’ with colourful illustrations of her travels upon her magic carpet and souvenirs of her great adventures: a chunk of the great Wall of China, a bottle of sand from Egypt and a shell from the Torres Strait Islands. In the intimate world of the Street Theatre Studio, children and performer became as one, rapt in the mystery, wonder and surprise of Gran’s magical carpetbag.
From deep inside, other bags emerged – the little white bag with its collection of useful odds and sods such as screwdrivers, lipstick and mobile phone, which was suddenly swept away by a large truck while trying to cross the street, or the big cuddly beach bag that was left on a bus by mistake with sunglasses, hat, sun lotion and a sarong to shield Gran from the sun, and the bag of faraway China with its colourful dragon designs full of delicious ginger and salty plum snacks.
In a clever twist of personification, Gran’s bags become characters in the main story of this simple, yet ingenious tale. Lissaman and Shaw are magicians of their art. They know their audience well. Their theatre ran its fascinating course on a trajectory of expertly timed surprise, engrossing storytelling, laced with songs and a chorus for the audience to repeat.
Having introduced the transfixed audience to Grandma’s magical and surprising world from Bondi to China, and the stories of her bags, it was time to take the audience on their last intriguing and somewhat frightening adventure. It was time for a touch of the Gothic in this theatrical treat of sweet delights. Shaw had primed her audience with bewitching story and song. Now her tale could take a most unexpected turn with the gory story of the gaunt and flaming haired Baba Yaga, who devoured unfortunate bags.
Through some remarkable coincidence that can only happen in the world of fairytale, she had captured the white, the cuddly and the Chinese bag to have for her supper. Lissaman and Shaw realise the power of the traditional folk tale. It is a tale of danger, suspense, good versus evil and in the end the triumph of cunning and courage over self-interest and malevolence.
Turning themselves into threads, through Shaw’s clever sleight of hand, the bags wove themselves into a magic carpet that carried them far from the evil clutches of the wicked Baba Yaga and safely into grandma’s beautiful red carpetbag. No story would be complete without a moral, as Gran reminded her grandchild Little Snotty that ‘love is free’. The moral seemed to be tagged swiftly on the end, with scant reference throughout the travels on Gran’s magic carpet ride, but it is a moral worthy of any story. The four to seven-year-olds with their Mums and Dads and grandparents didn’t seem to need logic to justify its sudden appearance.
Gran’s Bag was a celebration of the power of the imagination, sensitively directed by Lissaman and performed with panache and charm by Shaw. Imogen Keen’s design of a bag that opened to reveal a Chinese scene or Sydney apartment block and her tasteful mood-enhancing setting created a focus for young eyes and surprising events. Hilary Talbot’s puppetry of a cartwheeling Gran and the menacing Baba Yaga, and the delightfully sewn miniatures drew one into a Lilliputian world, safe but magical, mysterious but enchanting. Gran’s Bag was a magical carpet ride into a child’s imagination and an adult’s memorable journey into the delightful world of storytelling. The production used illustrations drawn by children during research at the State Library of Queensland. Many of Gran’s adventures, songs and stories had been suggested by children. Gran’s Bag’s simplicity was appealing, its design bewitching and its performance endearing. Its future success is definitely in the bag!

DIP INTO THE BAG FOR LIVELY ENTERTAINMENT
In Gran’s Bag the subject is less “Gran” than her bag, and the elements within it. This is where the magical transformations take place. The eponymous bag is a huge contraption which spins and morphs and unfolds (even, at the end, changes its cover) to reveal itself as a house for puppets, characters, stories, and scenes.
It’s even the repository for other handbags, each of which tells itd own tale. The tidy white bag wants to help everyone out of strife; the soft baggy one wants to cuddle and comfort; the Chinese silk purse feels lost when its little girl owner (sic) emigrates to Australia.
These bags, in fact, become the “characters” in the performance. All three end up whisked away by accident or fate and find themselves in the Dark Forest, where the puppet figure of Baba Yaga (who traditionally captures and eats little boys and girls) finds them and takes them home to be cooked. The bags find their courage and devise a secret plan. They unravel themselves and become intertwined into a long thread which weaves itself into a tiny magic carpet. A wind takes them back to freedom. Baba Yaga has a long and funny tantrum when she sees she’s lost her meal.
In other transformations, handbags change size from big to small; Gran’s big bag has side flaps which set the scene for Baba Yaga’s house, and inner folds which become scenic backdrops, like chapters in a book – a palace courtyard in China becoming a block of Sydney flats. Performer Chrissie Shaw shows her ease with sleight-of-hand, puppetry and song in a gentle show full of songs and laughter, and in easy rapport with the young audience.
Shaw does not so much become the Gran who talks to everyone on the bus, or the one who does cartwheels on the lawn, as show us the possibilities of where the combination of imagination, love, bravery and the unpredictable can take us. I especially appreciate the unapologetic inclusion of a different language and culture – in this case Chinese – so easily within the performance.
An easy watch for the 4 – 7 age group, it was not too frightening for the under-fours, nor unengaging for carers in the audience. Recommended as an experience of good honest theatre that transforms everything in its path.