“Kate Gaul reinvigorates the comic operetta for an audience today, giving it a fabulous, fresh spin with her gloriously camp, glittery, cross-gender production.”
"Under director Kate Gaul’s command, Gilbert and Sullivan's classic finds new vigour as genderfuck carnival. If the class plot is unrelatable, the norm-busting use of gender scrapes off the HMS PINAFORE’s barnacles. With wit, style, and thrill, this production is relentlessly entertaining. "Love can level ranks” - and this revel ranks high.
"Poulenc's La Voix Humaine approaches both story and form in an act of avant-garde hyperfocus - taking the melodrama of opera lirica down to a single moment, a woman's last phone call with her lover. She is alone on stage and strains against her desire in the audience's unbroken gaze. Kate Gaul's adaptation (Siren Theatre Co) works to a similar forward thrust, pairing the french soprano of Poulenc's opera with an English-speaking actor, to play out the anguish in a different space, and a sympathy is built in the hybrid form - the ubiquitous frustrated response to the phone dropping, the last ditch efforts for reconciliation. On stage, we see the voice and the humanity of Poulenc's The Human Voice, distinct from one another but operating in symphony to create a new work.
Director Kate Gaul undertook a bold directorial study in the making of Its Still Her Voice at Brand X, March 2022. I found Kate's juxtaposition of the theatrical and operatic versions of Cocteau’s play to be utterly compelling and bold. Captivating performances were delivered by soprano Karina Bailey, actor Pollyanna Nowicki and accompanist Antonio Fernandez. There is immense potential in this exploration of music and drama which I hope comes to being in the future.
