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'This riotous new play about two fiercely competitive bridge-playing grandmothers stars Virginia Gay, Nancye Hayes and Sue Jones in a charming odd-ball story that will leave you grinning.' (Production summary)
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Via Melbourne Theatre Company.
Production Details
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Presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company. Performed at Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio, 29 May - 24 June 2017.
Writer: Lally Katz.
Director: Anne-Louise Sarks.
Set & Costume Designer: Mel Page.
Lighting Designer: Matt Scott.
Composer and Sound Design: Stefan Gregory.
Cast: Virginia Gay (Rachel), Nancye Hayes (Minnie Cohen), Sue Jones (Liraz Weinberg), Rhys McConnochie (Morris Cohen), Georgina Naidu (Norma), and Peter Paltos (Ichabod Weinberg).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Minnie & Liraz (Melbourne Theatre Company)
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: ABR : Arts 2017;'With unrelenting cheerfulness, bright orange lights shine on a simple set: a row of straight-backed chairs, a tall flower display, and a painting of an elderly woman, prominently displayed. Are we about to witness a funeral? Indeed we are. Slowly, painfully, the ambulant residents of Autumn Road Retirement Village, Caulfield, edge their way on to the stage. The chairs are now occupied. From the door into the corridor appears a wheel, then a hand fumbling for the entrance, heralding the arrival of the fifth resident, who whizzes triumphantly onstage in her electric buggy. Liraz (Sue Jones) has arrived.' (Introduction)
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MTC’s ‘Minnie & Liraz’
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 27 May - 2 June 2017; ''Lally Katz is a playwright with a lot of talent and some quantity of unevenness. In the past few years we’ve seen the talent shine. In 2014, Neighbourhood Watch, starring Robyn Nevin and directed by Simon Stone, was an ambitious, not entirely co-ordinated play, but it was rich enough to allow Nevin to give one of the performances of her life: wonderfully funny and deeply moving at the same time. And Stone’s direction worked to give it constant colour and movement. You long for both Nevin and Stone in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s half-baked production of Katz’s new and very talented play Minnie & Liraz, and maybe for Miriam Margolyes as well, who did Neighbourhood Watch in Adelaide. This, though, is a bit unfair on Nancye Hayes and Sue Jones, who do all they can and more, as does Rhys McConnochie, in the face of Anne-Louise Sarks’s raw, drab and hapless production. Even the blocking stumbles so that you feel the director is way out of her depth and a promising play with a fair dash of Katz’s natural sparkle and buoyancy is being diminished by a controlling intelligence with no feeling for this kind of theatre. Everything is featureless and ugly. One of the roles is execrably performed, while another is a long way from excellent, though through all of this you feel the energy of Katz’s talent even if it’s constantly battling with her vulgarity and lapses of taste.' (Introduction)
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MTC’s ‘Minnie & Liraz’
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 27 May - 2 June 2017; ''Lally Katz is a playwright with a lot of talent and some quantity of unevenness. In the past few years we’ve seen the talent shine. In 2014, Neighbourhood Watch, starring Robyn Nevin and directed by Simon Stone, was an ambitious, not entirely co-ordinated play, but it was rich enough to allow Nevin to give one of the performances of her life: wonderfully funny and deeply moving at the same time. And Stone’s direction worked to give it constant colour and movement. You long for both Nevin and Stone in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s half-baked production of Katz’s new and very talented play Minnie & Liraz, and maybe for Miriam Margolyes as well, who did Neighbourhood Watch in Adelaide. This, though, is a bit unfair on Nancye Hayes and Sue Jones, who do all they can and more, as does Rhys McConnochie, in the face of Anne-Louise Sarks’s raw, drab and hapless production. Even the blocking stumbles so that you feel the director is way out of her depth and a promising play with a fair dash of Katz’s natural sparkle and buoyancy is being diminished by a controlling intelligence with no feeling for this kind of theatre. Everything is featureless and ugly. One of the roles is execrably performed, while another is a long way from excellent, though through all of this you feel the energy of Katz’s talent even if it’s constantly battling with her vulgarity and lapses of taste.' (Introduction) -
Minnie & Liraz (Melbourne Theatre Company)
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: ABR : Arts 2017;'With unrelenting cheerfulness, bright orange lights shine on a simple set: a row of straight-backed chairs, a tall flower display, and a painting of an elderly woman, prominently displayed. Are we about to witness a funeral? Indeed we are. Slowly, painfully, the ambulant residents of Autumn Road Retirement Village, Caulfield, edge their way on to the stage. The chairs are now occupied. From the door into the corridor appears a wheel, then a hand fumbling for the entrance, heralding the arrival of the fifth resident, who whizzes triumphantly onstage in her electric buggy. Liraz (Sue Jones) has arrived.' (Introduction)
