THE West Australian desert is our economic progenitor and subconscious backyard, but as Renee Newman-Storen’s Virgie reminds us, its history and culture can still be a wild and woolly thing.

Remarkable but often unremembered lives have swept in and out of its dustbowl towns, making temporal dents before moving on. Newman-Storen’s one-hour, one-woman show is an attempt to poach from this recess the story of one plucky life: pioneer of Shakespearean performance in the 1890s bush, Ms. Virgie Vivienne.

The show makes lucid use of the staples of documentary theatre. Facts, dates and the occasional projection of historical scene punctuate Virgie’s monologue. The evening is however, foremost, a creative flight. Armed with just a suitcase, wireline, sheets and a lamp, Newman-Storen makes and remakes scenes with ease, until the blue room space is coaxed into the shape of a fluid, remembered life.

The non- linear structure of the show supports this effort. We meet Virgie at several recurring ages and moments – as child, as devastated widow, on the road to Kalgoorlie as a young, ambitious woman. These shifts expose a changing personality, with one constant: Virgie is an actress, wedded to the luxuriance of words, the excitement of the stage and compelled to feistily throw herself into difficult circumstance.

You begin to suspect that Newton-Storen might share these qualities with her chosen subject when she sets herself the task of playing a carousel of other characters. However, it is in transforming herself into the people marching through Virgie’s life, that she, and the show, truly shines.

There’s an exaggerated air to Newton-Storen’s portrayals, designed to accentuate the eccentric colour of her characters. The net effect is a conflation of a light humour with genuine glimpses of human struggle. Virgie’s encounter with a Kalgoorlie ‘lady of the night’ and her Hamlet quoting, syphilis ridden fiancé are good examples of this balancing act. The scenes are funny, vibrant and appropriately sad and grotesque.

In fact, you might wish for more such moments, or rather, that these glimpses were extended to meatier scenes. Virgie is a fascinating character in her own right, but there is psychological grit to the play that is only seen in these fleeting interactions, and deserves more attention. As a result, the play culminates in a feeling that is somewhat less moving than it could be.

This is no way a deterrent to a viewing. Newman-Storen’s technical skill is itself a major draw, and Virgie’s impressionistic tone beautifully encapsulates the sweeping and strange nature of a west australian life at the turn of the last century. I wouldn’t be surprised if the show evolves to outlive its Fringe World life.

FringeNYC Festival Review
Aimee Todoroff · August 13, 2011

Pictured: Mark Storen and Oda Aunan in Killing Nellie (photo © Susannah Day)

The show Killing Nellie, performed by the duo Killin Nellie, is a cross between an open mic and a comedy cabaret routine. The stage is mostly bare, with only two microphones and a guitar set against a black wall. A small, stuffed sheep is dangling from one of the mics. Why is it hanging? Why a sheep? It’s an intriguing image, and one that makes you hope to hear the story behind it.

The lights come up and Rupert, played by Mark Storen, picks up his guitar and takes the stage. Rupert is an Australian folk-blues guitarist whose style leans towards rock. He is dressed hipster-casual in a t-shirt, black glasses and hat, and is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his partner, who has not shown up yet. After a few genuinely funny false starts and technical glitches, Rupert has stalled for as long as he can and, with a angry strum of the guitar and yelling “Fuck it!,” Rupert starts to play. At just this moment, his truant partner appears at the back of the house, and the glamorous Embla, a Norwegian torch singer, flounces up to the stage. Embla, played by Oda Aunan, is all glitz, sequins and toothy smiles, her vamp a clear mismatch to Rupert’s angst.

This odd couple are not only partners, they are married and unhappily so. Embla only communicates in Norwegian, though is seems she can speak English if she wants to. Rupert can understand Embla’s Norwegian, but doesn’t speak it. Over the course of the next 45 minutes, we watch Rupert and Embla literally and figuratively speak different languages, failing completely to ever really reach each other. They perform almost a dozen songs together, each revealing another layer of the dysfunction in their abusive relationship.

The repetitive nature of their songs underscores the vicious cycle of distrust, anger and violence the pair has been living and playing out on the stage. This dynamic works well with the pairing of a song called “Mr. McGee,” in which Embla gleefully recounts a steamy sexual encounter with the titular man, while Rupert harmonizes daydreams of shooting his unfaithful wife’s lover. The humor turns dark, and the couple is clearly disturbed by what they’ve said and done to each other. They then transition to a song called “That’s What Happens When the Train Goes Wrong,” a deceptively simple but frantic tune that, like almost everything else in their relationship, quickly becomes cruel. That dangling sheep from the top of the show? The cutesy stuffed toy is just another way for Rupert to passive-aggressively torture Embla in revenge for her constant, grating emasculation.

Oda Aunan’s deft physical portrayal of Embla is clever and engaging. She has the audience’s attention through the entire play—a difficult task when only speaking Norwegian. Mark Storen is an endearing performer and a very talented musician. Both are charming actors and incredibly likable, but they are playing incredibly unlikable characters. There are hints that Rupert and Embla have a long and detailed history which would have been fascinating to have explored, and each character is drawn with great detail. Watching Killing Nellie is a bit like seeing part 5 of a 7-part series: you know something interesting has happened before the part you’re seeing, and you know it’s leading somewhere satisfying, but you’re only getting a middle slice of the story without much context. There seems to have been fun there once, but the audience is only presented with the dark, cruel and seemingly unredeemable, as if we missed the first 4 episodes where these people liked each other and we’d have to see a few more episodes before we’d get a resolution.

Opened: August 13, 2011
Closes: August 27, 2011

Artists Involved

Director: Oda Aunan & Mark Storen
Producer: theMOXYcollective
Written and Performed By: Oda Aunan & Mark Storen
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If a battlin’, folk-punk husband/wife duo having its marital disagreements unfold before you via music and lunacy is your cup of vinegar, then check out Oda Aunan and Mark Storen’s Killing Nellie. Played out as a faux mini-concert, the pair plays Rupert and Embla, he the guitar playing, henpecked husband and she the diabolical co-vocalist that mostly sings in what sounds like discombobulated Norwegian. They really don’t get along but are able to somewhat mask their differences in this cracking 60 minuter, that is until all hell breaks loose and the two end up in full-on fisticuffs and a little voodoo. The songs are great and hearing the duo work through truly memorable numbers such as Oh Shit, Swim Goldfish Swim, the cheating saga Mr. McGee and I Tried To Kill Nellie To Get Some Peace are worth the price of admission alone. Aunan’s facial expressions and body language and Storen’s slowly burning fuse makes this a laugh-a-minute winner. –– Jeff Monk

Details

Company Name: theMOXYcollective
Origin: Australia/Norway
Venue: 9 – Shaw Performing Arts Centre (MTYP)
Genre: Comedy
Links

Official Website »
Performance times »
Review

Two key ingredients for any successful show are talent and originality. That’s all Killing Nellie has, but it’s all it needs.

This is pure Fringe, with Oda Aunan and Mark Storen starring as a feuding, folk-singing couple. For 60 minutes, they banter, bicker, scrap and pout. In between, Storen strums on his guitar while Aunan toots a plastic kazoo. Nothing and everything happens at the same time – just like so many real-life relationship dramas.

Near the end of Killing Nellie, there’s some unnecessary action and a flat video. But it still doesn’t take away from the fact that there’s more charisma and personality in Aunan’s blood-red fingertips and Storen’s black-rimmed glasses than many plays at this festival.

Killing Nellie would be even better in a licensed venue. Make it happen: Sneak in a beer.

http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/fringefestival/mobile/touch/fringe/2011/07/15/killing-nellie/

Renée has been involved in the linking of Sustainability and the Creative Arts for several years both at Murdoch University and Curtin University. She has taught over 100 graduate and postgraduate students the unique collaboration between the practice and philosophy of Sustainability and the innate lateral and innovative characteristics of Creativity.

While Mark is involved in performing, creating and directing work for the public and private corporate sectors Renée has most recently been involved in an education program with Parsons Brinkerhoff, one of the world’s leading world’s leading planning, environment and infrastructure firms.

In 2010 we were commissioned by John Curtin College of the Arts to write and direct a work on the life of John Curtin to mark the 65th anniversary of his death. Titled Bringing Home The Boss the performance on the 5th July 2010 was attended by over four hundred people including members of John Curtin’s family and noted guests such as the Federal member for Fremantle Melissa Parke MP. This piece will be performed again in 2011.

We currently have three projects in development.

In this unusual performance, Australian writer-performer- musician Mark Storen examines the intersection of love and violence through original songs and anecdotes inspired by true news stories from around the world. Though the subject matter verges on the macabre, Storen manages to put a hilarious spin on hot-blooded murder; his bizarre expressions and spastic movements are as oddly fascinating as the ruthless tales he tells—lust-induced patricide, possessive fits of strangling—in front of a heart-shaped projection screen. (At one point, he drafts the audience into a sing-along of an amusing ditty called “Stab U”—dedicated to his wife. How sweet!) This multimedia performance is robust enough that you forget it’s a one-man show, and Storen’s charming Aussie accent tempers the frequent lewd bits (even if it causes a few things to get lost in translation). The topics may be deep and dark, but this is a lovely and lighthearted fling.

**** [FOUR STARS]

reviewed by Peter Schuyler nytheatre.com

Aug 15, 2009

“I want to love you, cut you into pieces, take you to the zookeeper and turn you into animal food. Am I being rude?” Crude, blasphemous, sophomoric, and nowhere near politically correct, Mark Storen’s A Drunken Cabaret is a hilarious hour-long musing on the dark, violent side of love. Written, acted, and directed by Storen (a native of Perth, Australia), the show is less an examination of the why behind the madness, but more a celebration of it. It’s a very specific type of humor, and it wasn’t for everyone in the audience. I certainly enjoyed it. The songs (all original) are clever and pithy, and Storen infuses real fun and soul into the evening. It’s not everyday you encounter a man who can write a ballad about bestiality and actually make it touching. It’s not just the songs that entertain, there are poetry recitations, some very aggressive dance, and, in the quieter moments, some very disturbing poems by Robert Browning and John Donne. Storen is a gifted ringmaster and keeps the audience engaged throughout, encouraging sing-along and never missing a beat, even when a few patrons left the theatre. It was their loss. They missed the ballad.

He makes the reconfigured Flamboyan Theatre (which has been morphed into a cozy cabaret space) very much his own. A large paper heart serves as the backdrop and projection screen for the show, framing the action and adding depth to the piece. The lighting is very impressive, especially considering the FringeNYC’s quick turnover. Really the only thing missing to complete the atmosphere was someone serving drinks. It should be noted there is a bar in the lobby.

As I said before, this kind of humor isn’t for everyone, but it certainly was for me. If you enjoy ribald tales of love gone horribly, horribly wrong, then you should definitely head down to the Flamboyan, have a drink, and spend an hour with Mark.

Producer: The Moxy Collective
Author: Mark Storen

Review: Stephen Bevis/The West Australian

If Martyn Jacques ever pulled the pin from the Tiger Lillies, his two confreres could do a lot worse than give Mark Storen a call to replace him as the frontman of the outrageous Brechtian cabaret rock trio. A Talented Theatrical all-rounder, Storen has created a seductively grotesque character in the Ringmaster to guide the audience through this engagingly perverse tour of what can go wrong when obsessive love turns bad.

Storen presents a carnivalesque of unlovely love and murder inspired by actual events from around the globe in this provocative 60- minute drunken romp driven by his characterisations and self penned songs.

In between transformative swigs of booze, his knowing buffoon Ringmaster summons up the spirits of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Nick Cave and even Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron of World War 1, who led to one of the highlights of the show.

Said to be a distant relative of the Red Baron himself, Brazilian woman Suzanne von Richthofen was jailed for 40 years for killing her parents with the help of her boyfriend. Storen’s cock-rock murder ballad in her honour, Killer Suzanne, was thrilling and poignant.

Another tale about a lonely organ grinder and his pet monkey added complexity to the shock factor as well.

Storen first performed  A Drunken Cabaret at The Wild West Comedy Festival last year and has since taken it to the Melbourne and Adelaide fringe festivals.

It would be best appreciated in a legitimately seedy cabaret venue, where his disarmingly confrontational style would work to best effect.

He had to work extra hard to generate any atmosphere in Fremantle’s old Port Cinema but was ably supported by Shane Adamczak, who operated the lights and controls for the pre-recorded instrumental and vocal backing that at times gave the music a full ensemble effect.