Theatre

Audience feedback

Congratulations on your new version of V.D. Really enjoyed it with plenty of laughs yesterday- beautifully written, excellently acted and directed.

- Peter Woolf

I loved the writing, I loved the acting, I loved the directing... A most engaging night at the theatre! Go see it.

- Kathryn Yuen

We went to see your monologue last night and I HAD to write to congratulate. We were super impressed by your performance. Powerful, convincing, hilarious and a very natural and talented actress. Usually I get restless, but I didn't take my eyes off you for the whole hour. Congratulations.

- Talitha Cummins, Journalist Seven Network Australia

Eliza St John’s abililty to take an inspired script from Pete Malicki and carry the show while completely transfixing the audience from start to finish was absolutely mind boggling. A brilliant, witty and timeless performance. Great entertainment.

- Sinny Truman

Amazing writing! Great performance! Good luck with the show!!! Congrats – Pete, Eliza and Lisa. A very talented trio.

- Alex Broun

E St J is amazing!

- Ben Lucas

I thought she was fantastic! The storyline was good. Kept you interested for all the performance. Music good.

- Shirly Jacobson

Absolutely amazing. A flawless and funny look into the mind of an endearing and complicated woman.

- Joel

Great writing, great directing, spectacular performance!

- Anthea

AMAZING!!! After seeing the short version of the play I wasn’t sure it could possibly be any better but it was an amazing, comical and well delivered piece of art. What a show.

Reviews

http://lisathatcher.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/v-d-pete-malicki-and-the-monologue-that-just-keeps-getting-better-theatre-review/

V.D. – PETE MALICKI AND THE MONOLOGUE THAT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER. (THEATRE REVIEW)

POSTED BY LISATHATCHER ON APRIL 14, 2014 IN THEATRE

V.D.

The Monologue Project

May 7,9 and 10.

You can buy tickets here.

He takes my hand, walks me to the car, even opening the car door for me. The date passes in a blur of nerves and I quick;y get the impression that Dan Hunsford has no intention of killing, raping, scamming or religiously converting me. He is the perfect gentleman, who drives at the speed limit, makes eye contact, listens to every word of my nervous babble and even buys me lobster. Cute, polite, charming, intelligent, funny, perfect in every way.

Naturally this makes me suspicious.

It all starts with a lamentation over the prospect of a sixteenth failed Valentines Day. Sophie, our erstwhile protagonist, receives flowers from an anonymous admirer who asks her out to dinner the next evening – Valentines Day. For a woman who buys a cat for every failed Valentines Day, and is mother to ten cats, Sophie is understandably sceptical about what might be coming her way, however when the man of her dreams turns up at the door, claiming to have had a crush on her since school days when he was a couple of years ahead of her, things seem to be going well. Until, that is, she manages to self sabotage.

V.D., a monologue written by Pete Malicki and performed by Eliza St John is one of those projects that started out as a ten minute Short and Sweet play, and has grown and developed into a hilarious and deeply entertaining hour-long monologue in which Eliza St john carries the audience in the palm of her hand, perfectly delivering Malicki’s script that gets stronger with every incarnation. I’ve seen a few of Pete Malicki’s plays now, but this is by far his strongest, the wit and confidence shining through every performed word. V.D. is a simple tale, beautifully told, but it is achingly funny, made all the more so by St John’s excellent performance. She owns the character Sophie, they have morphed into one, and the result is one of those rare moments when you get to see the right writer and the perfect performer working in a flawless harmony seasoned well through collaboration and a relentless enthusiasm for continued development of a project. I’ve seen the ten minute play version, and I can confidently say, the monologue gets stronger and funnier with each performance. The performance of V.D. I attended at The New Theatre earned St John a well deserved several minute long, standing ovation.

What is also particularly remarkable about V.D. and speaks to the brilliant collaborative relationship between Malicki and St John is the fact that Sophie is not a particularly likeable character, however her flaws are our own, making us squirm with uncomfortable recognition, and Malicki never lets Sophie get away with her unpleasantness. In its extended version, Sophie is goes on a journey to find herself, through another relationship and an overseas pilgrimage, all the stuff of contemporary pop self awareness, but served with a double dose of irony laden respect for the absolutely average human being in all their glorious flaws and weaknesses. Just as Malicki exposes Sophie’s pathos, he never judges, leaving all that to the circumstances of her fate, and Sophie herself to work out. The simplicity of this formula provides a spectacular opportunity for the audience to be entertained and to connect with Sophie transforming her into a much-loved friend by the end of her journey. The wit holds us in place and keeps us intently focussed, but the warmth and bumbling charm of Sophie’s self-awareness posited alongside her repeated mistakes bring her close to our heart.

However, in the deft hands of St John, Malicki’s clever and lovely script comes passionately alive. St John weaves her tale fast, using techniques of comedy and theatricality together so the audiences finds themselves held by the duel hands of anticipation and hook. It’s part of what makes the play such an enormous pleasure to experience, St John speaks rapidly, we race to keep up with her, the jokes firing one after the other, and yet we are also ahead of her, anticipating the results of her disastrous choices, knowing exactly where she is headed. This opens up the awareness to deeply engaging theatre, that sees an hour fly by without noticing. I was wondering how V.D., a very clever monologue with a clear punchline could be transformed into an hours length, but this is never a problem for St, John who effortlessly delivers more Sophie, which is what we didn’t know we really came to see.

V.D. has improved on an already great play in other ways also. Lisa Eismen directs in this version, fleshing the character of Sophie out through subtle costume changes, a broader movement around the stage, and mostly enhancing and deepening St John’s already fine performance. Movement is more precise now, more connected with narrative rather than the actors response to their own experience. The empty stage doesn’t feel quite so any longer, and the extended movement seems to grow Sophie’s world, so she is more and more recognisable in ourselves and in the person next to us in the street. V.D. is a lovely little piece of pleasurable theatre, with enough wit and charm to keep you glued to the performance, and enough warmth and heart to get you thinking.

http://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/v-d-full-length/

V.D. – FULL LENGTH

APRIL 19, 2014  LYNN BELVEDERE

With Pete Malicki’s V.D.- FULL LENGTH (the work was originally a multi-award winning Short and Sweet piece) be prepared to spend an amazing seventy minutes of pure comedy magic, as you experience this witty woman’s endless cringe-worthy disasters, as performed by Eliza St John.

Perhaps for some there will be moments of uncomfortable recognition from one’s own dating mistakes, and dating mistakes that one would be happy not to have made. There also some very important life lessons to be learnt, such as that fate and destiny are both of one’s own choosing.

Sophie (Eliza St John) admits to being a cat-oholic, who whenever she is single on Valentine’s Day, buys another new cat. When we first meet Sophie she is already the proud owner of ten cats. Malicki’s show take us into the world of single 35-year-old Sophie, whose lonesome life is aided by large amounts of gin, She still tries to find love in many unusual places.

Eliza St John, is one of the very few talented actresses, who uniquely are also a wonderful chameleon, who inhibits every role she performs, and makes each character, new and fresh plus passionately alive in your mind. I have seen her as a bright red devil, a serial-murdering dragon, a fast talking chess fanatic…

As Sophie, she yet again owns and inhabits the role of this character and the audience ‘buys’ that she changes moods almost as often as she does costumes.

Whilst many theatregoers might anticipate where this play is going, as each episode unfolds, there are many shocks and surprises ahead, with this extremely clever and witty monologue, delivering again and again. The play starts with the receipt of anonymously delivered flowers for Valentine’s Day, but are they from her mother, her boss, her last lover, or a mystery stalker?!

Our Sydney based Eliza has worked in the USA, Australia, UK, India, and will be performing the show to the inhabitants of Brighton England, at the end of May.

The world premiere of Pete Malicki’s reworked piece V.D.-FULL LENGTH played the New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th April. Further encore performances will take place again at the New Theatre on the 7th, 9th and 10th May at 7.30pm. Try and catch it. Highly recommended.

http://www.cootamundraherald.com.au/story/2233370/praise-for-arts-centre/?cs=36

Praise for Arts Centre April 23, 2014, 6:25 a.m.

THE recent performance of ‘VD’ at the Arts Centre was a hit with the 50 or so local residents who attended.

A 60-minute monologue, packed with laughs, VD (for Valentine’s Day) centres on the life of 35-year-old Sophie and her romantic triumphs and catastrophes.

The show, ironically penned by a male Pete Malicki with fantastic insight into the female psyche, has won a number of awards.

With more than 10,000 words to memorise and deliver flawlessly, star of the show Eliza St John does so without missing a beat.

The show was a definite winner for the Cootamundra audience and a coup for the Arts Centre with VD now being performed on both national and international stages.

It was a small crew including Pete, Eliza and producer Lisa who made their way to Cootamundra from Sydney for the performance the weekend before last.

All enjoyed their time here with Eliza, who was raised in Mudgee, particularly fond of returning to her country roots if only for a day.

“A massive thank you to the Cootamundra Arts Centre gang for a truly glorious first stop on VD’s Tour,” the trio said.

“Your magical Tin Shed Theatre is one we will never forget and cannot wait to come back and tread those boards again,” they added.

While in Cootamundra the trio were hosted by Leigh and Isabel Scott and already Pete, Eliza and Lisa have expressed an interest in returning to Cootamundra.

If their performance of VD is any indication of what these guys can do, Cootamundra audiences are sure to embrace them with the same enthusiasm as they did on their first visit.

http://performing.artshub.com.au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/vd-243635

ANN FOO

WEDNESDAY 14 MAY, 2014

If you liked Bridget Jones’s Diary, you’ll love this. Conversely, if you hated Bridget Jones’s Diary, you might still like this.

Meet Sophie, a 35-year-old single gal with a dead-end career, a penchant for gin and a knack for winding up in bizarre dating disasters. Every year that Sophie is single on Valentine’s Day, she buys a cat. We meet Sophie in the company of ten cats.

Originally staged as a ten minute monologue for the Short and Sweet festival, VD has gone from strength to strength, picking up awards for writing and performance and spawning reproductions in Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Malaysia, England, US, Scotland (Edinburgh Fringe), Philippines and India. Based on this success, VD has been extended into an hour-long, one-woman show.

You’ve got to love a play with a strong and accurate tagline because you can pretty much tell straight away if it’s going to be your cup of tea. Clearly, the target being older single ladies, I braced myself for what could have been a cringe-worthy exercise in tedium – a ten minute monologue stretched out into an hour, a single woman whining about dating life – but VD is surprisingly a crowd-pleaser. With a funny and fast paced script, an energetic and likeable performer, and not much else, it is surprisingly relatable to people from all walks of life.

This fact is due in large part to Eliza St John’s energy and likeability. It is no easy feat to sustain an entire act with little more than basic props and sporadic pop music. In this way she holds her own. If one had to pick holes I could say that the performance is on the whole a little samey and doesn’t demonstrate much range, however that’s more a limitation of character and script, which, although thoroughly entertaining, are not particularly deep.

Pete Malicki’s script is witty, funny and fast paced. It’s not hard to see why it has enjoyed so much critical success in a relatively short amount of time. The strength of this play is that it truly knows itself – knows its audience, knows its limitations, knows that this is a simple story about a simple girl with simple dreams, and that calls for a simple execution. In doing so, thanks to Lisa Eismen’s tastefully restrained direction, this play deftly avoids all the faux pas of previous explorations of the ‘feel good’ genre. It does not insult the audience by overgeneralising and it is not afraid to utilise the cliché if the cliché works for the story. As Sophie escapes to India in the pursuit of enlightenment, she is completely and comically aware that she is living the Julia Roberts cliché, and it works because she is herself a bit of a cliché.

This is a good bet for a fun, easy-going night at the theatre. If you liked Bridget Jones’s Diary, you’ll love this. Conversely, if you hated Bridget Jones’s Diary, you might be surprised at how much you like this.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars