Adelaide Festival. Restless Dance Theatre. Space Theatre. 14 Mar 2019
All creatures, great and small, inhabit the stage of Meryl Tankard’s Festival creation, Zizanie.
From a quizzical rabbit to plagues of wasps and monstrous humans, they slowly but surely invade the stage. They come sidling, dancing, looming, and spreading forth, sometimes in fabulous animal masks, to the sound of tinkling bells and against cartoon projections upon the back wall.
Zizanie is darkness and light, new and old, serious and capricious, clever and absurd.
It draws on the classics while commenting on the current. And it is all rather good fun into the bargain.
In other words, Meryl Tankard has not lost her magic touch.
Restless Dance is the company of performers with and without disability now directed by her former dancer Michelle Ryan. Tankard has honed these dancers into her own kaleidoscope of humanity, a series of truly endearing characters, fun-loving, vulnerable, kind, smart, quick, deft, and thoroughly interesting. Everyone can relate to them.
The performances are highly disciplined and rich in the choreographic idiosyncrasies audiences have come to know and love of Tankard.
She choreographs repetitive tasks for all and spreads them around the stage under moody Chris Petridis' lighting and the photo imagery of Regis Lansac until they achieve the aesthetic of a latticework of moving humanity. There are segments with a diversity of simultaneous ball play, scenes of street games, and scenes of ghostly mystery.
The dancers are not identified in the program but they are Chris Dyke, Kathryn Evans, Jianna Georgiou, Michael Hodyl, Dana Nance, and Michael Noble.
They are exquisitely costumed by Jonathan Oxlade who also has created a thrilling graphic otherworld of a set, much of it projected as backdrop. Therein dwells the grumpy man, an everyman figure who is at odds with the world. He is all power tools and noise, eradicating insect life and mowing down nature, replacing the songs of crickets with roaring, filthy machinery. It’s a familiar picture; right now in the endlessly venal in-building of suburban Adelaide.
He builds a huge Trumpean wall and retreats, poking his head up only to disapprove of the outsiders. He is a comically sad fellow, sunbathing in dressing gown and hat, swatting at flies, all alone. The kids play in the shadow of his world, occasionally trying to befriend him. There's a sad scene in which he washes off his wall and removes the joyful graffiti of little cartoon figures. The artist can only stand and weep. Her playmates come to her one by one bringing tissues to soak up her tears. She stands in a little island of tissues. And the man finds his heart and comes to comfort her. He has a proper handkerchief. And compassion evokes love evokes joy and the world breaks out with riots of daisies and sound designer Luke Smiles throws in wild Arabic music and Oxlade throws in the spirit of Escher design on the backdrop.
And, for the explosion of happiness, the audience is invited for a singalong of If I Knew You Were Coming I’d have Baked a Cake. The grumpy man’s castle has transformed to a cake factory. He takes centre stage costumed now as a waitress, and delivers the special gift of a piece of pure classic Pina Bausch momentum, as only our Meryl Tankard can and should be able to do. This is a tribute to the choreographer who changed the face of dance and whence Tankard gained much of her training and inspiration. It is even more delicious than the cupcakes the cast is handing out into the audience.
Zizanie is a whole lot of vivid zaniness, full of good spirit, lively imagination, warm heart, and sweet hope.
Furthermore, it has the biggest, longest, most outrageous curtain call in the business.
Bravo.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 17 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Jopuka Productions. Breakout at The Mill. 14 Mar 2019
One of the joys of the Adelaide Fringe is that it brings to town some of the country’s bright new talent to risk evaluation of their work amidst a huge and discerning national and international program.
From the NSW Central Coast comes a neat little youth-theatre company called Jopuka. It brings to the fairly primitive theatre space of the artists’ collective, Breakout at The Mill, a tight little production called Because There Was Fire. It also brings home the playwright, South Australian Jamie Hornsby, whose creative light was shining before he left town and who comes back with a couple of awards under his belt.
It is a smart, hour-long work on a Bonnie and Clyde theme; a bored teenage girl from the wrong side of the tracks hooks up with a handsome rich boy and off they go in his Monaro to have a daring life of crime on the road.
Ironically, for one with a vivid way with words, Hornsby has settled on a really oblique and unattractive title for the play. Of course, it reflects the content, from BBQ fire to further fire, but it is a squib of a marquee drawcard.
The script, however, is rich. Its eloquent prose and tight dialogue underscores the description of Hornsby as one of the most promising young playwrights in the country today.
Jopuka travels complete with it its artistic director/stage manager Joshua Maxwell, a warm and hospitable presence albeit a bit scatty with the lights, and its director Danielle Brame Whiting, who would be well advised to get her leading lady to slow the delivery of her opening speech. The words are wonderful. Don’t gobble them.
That said, the rapid-fire pace of this show is its very essence. It is about fast cars, risk, flight, fear, and adrenalin rush. Its actors, Gabrielle Brooks and Beau Wilson, sustain the sense of urgency. Theirs are excellent performances. Vivid and ferocious, both. Like the playwright, they are performers of considerable promise.
Hence is this out-of-the-mainstream Fringe offering quite a shining jewel of young Australian talent.
Samela Harris
4 ½ Stars
When: 14 to 16 Mar
Where: Breakout at The Mill
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Jasfair and Holden Street Theatres. Holden Street Theatres – The Arch. 12 Mar 2019
A couch, a coffee table and a drinks stand invite you into a living room. That’s all that’s needed for early 40s empty nesters Rebecca and James of some soporific suburbia to bat away a few challenges that life has pitched to them in Jasmine Fairbairn’s first play, Undertow. The production comes direct from southeast Queensland where it’s big in its own backyard. Director Simon Denver is artistic director at the Suncoast Repertory Theatre and Clayton Storey (James) is a regular there. Comedian Jasmine Fairbairn (Rebecca) runs Knockoff Comedy at Brisbane Powerhouse and was a major player in Canada’s famous Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary - where Theatresports was invented in 1977. The play and creative team have garnered nine awards at three theatre festivals in the Brisbane region last year for best play, director, and performances. The KSP Theatre Festival thought Storey was funny (best male in a comedic role) and the Sandgate Theatre Festival thought he was more serious (best male in a dramatic role).
I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Rebecca and James are simply conventional. The banal banter and awkward body language in the first scene establishes a lack of chemistry in this worn out couple. They hit a baby bump in their complacent slide to middle age and the recriminations and blame abound. There are clichéd rants about the failed vasectomy, the boring boss, and an extravagant reflection on the energy drain of raising kids bordering on regret and selfishness. They mull over the issues, get a little angry, kiss and make up dispassionately, buy a $2000 stroller, complain about that, and so on. Scenes destined for cute are more saccharine than sugar, and tension and suspense are killed in the cradle.
The play might have been written in the ‘70s – there is nothing new. There is not much at stake as they agree to muddle through and make the best of it. And when things happen or change again - sigh, oh well. Rebecca and James finish off where they started – isolated, in a bubble, and back on track to nothing in particular. One was as enervated by the whole experience as they were.
David Grybowski
2 Stars
When: 12 to 16 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Arch
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Nice People Nice Things Nice Situations. Adelaide Fringe. Masonic - Phoenix Room at Gluttony. 13 Mar 2019
In 'Nice People Nice Things Nice Situations', Rhys Nicholson muses over his impending thirties. Turning 29 is proving to be a reality check; age, domesticity, and 10-year reunions are catching up with him. Nicholson's fur baby is gas-lighting him and opinionated new shoulder hair has appeared out of nowhere. Parenthood looms, along with the anxiety of what kind of parent he might be.
These sound like serious topics, but fear not. Nicholson delivers a set of high- and low-brow musings with dry wit and a generous sprinkling of inappropriate anecdotes. He is endearingly awkward and largely rejects the perception that he is (or should be) an upstanding role model for the gay community, preferring instead to tell it like he sees it. It's all very refreshing and funny.
Nicholson's style may not be for everyone, but I don't think he is bothered by this. Nor is this audience member, who laughs from start to finish. With just three more performances, do yourself a favour and join Nicholson in the Masonic Hall for a great night out.
Nicole Russo
When: 13 to 16 Mar
Where: Masonic - Phoenix Room @ Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Town Hall. 12 Mar 2019
In an appetite-whetting exposé of the development of the violin-piano sonata, Richard Tognetti and Erin Helyard present two sonatas by Beethoven – Violin Sonata in G, Op.30 No.3, and Violin Sonata in A, Op.47 No.9 ‘Kreutzer’ – and Sonata in B-flat, K.454 by Mozart.
In their introductory remarks delivered to a large audience in the warm acoustic of the Adelaide Town Hall, Tognetti and Helyard explain with rakish glints in their eyes that the history of the violin sonata is “…rooted in the mating rituals of the eighteenth-century middle class.” Men of refinement would play the violin while a lady who might be the object of his carnal interest would play the piano. So that she could demonstrate her accomplishments, the piano part would often be more difficult than the violin. The Mozart sonata is of that ilk, while the Beethoven sonatas are progressively leaning towards the two instruments sharing the work load more evenly.
Although knowing this little morceau of music history adds to one’s overall enjoyment of the concert, the exquisite musicianship of Tognetti and Helyard is all that ultimately matters. Together they prove that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: they feed off each other and somehow eclipse their own individual brilliance. Playing physically close to each other neither strove for dominance over the other. They perfectly understand the musical dialogue inherent in each composition, and even in the Mozart, where the piano is arguably more complex, they find a balance that seemingly disguises this. The key lies in their luminous phrasing and artful dynamic balance. Noting that Helyard is playing a fortepiano, which doesn’t produce the same volume (or overtones) as a modern (pianoforte) piano, it is critical that Tognetti doesn’t overpower the violin to the detriment of the musical balance, and neither he did.
The highlight of the concert is the Kreutzer. It is almost a pot boiler, and late last year was superbly performed by Natsuoko Yoshimoto and Konstantin Shamary at Ukaria. Tonight’s performance by Tognetti and Helyard is something different again. Features of the composition that are important when played on a modern piano become much less significant when played on a fortepiano. It is fascinating.
Helyard is a wonderfully expressive musician, and the joy he experiences at the keyboard is manifestly evident as he smiles at his instrument and at Tognetti. The communication between the two is tangible and intense, and it is uplifting to watch them both as the music unfolds. One almost senses they are discovering the music for the first time, and the audience is along for the ride.
One should not pass up a future opportunity to hear Tognetti and Helyard play together. They are indeed ‘forces of nature’.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed