Nikki Britton. Gluttony, The SpiegelZelt. 4 Mar 2018
She’s strident. She’s vulgar. She’s not everyone’s Grandma. In fact, she may not be anyone’s Grandma. Comedian Nikki Britton comes up with the gloriously funny concept of her character having been named “Grandma” at birth. Immediately, the imagination is sparked and one’s internal chuckles take on a life of their own.
Britton is a professional comedian and she knows her genres. There is nothing alternative or have-a-go Fringey about her act. She has a well-honed skill set and a well-conceived scenario to both amuse and inspire children.
After a bit of fairly ferocious old-fart farting around and once the world’s biggest communal fart has been wafted from a tittering tent, Grandma hits the deaf-old-lady shtick as she asks the kids their names. She pushes this routine as far as it can go and it just gets funnier. By default, she assigns names to hapless kids: Mushroom, Toiletpaper.
She engages young and old throughout the show. Most importantly, she plays on the positive theme of realising one’s hopes and dreams. To this end, she brings kids onstage whence, invisibly, she has a tech with art skills who draws career environments on the big white screen behind each kid: a veterinary room, a stage, a lawyer’s office. It is charming, clever and generous-spirited.
There’s plenty more to the show, including a messy cooking segment and a science experiment.
The kids love it all. And, when an FA/18 Hornet screams an overhead flyover, Britton shows there are no flies on her by nicely wrapping the din up into a bit of timely improv.
May Grandma never grow up but come back for more Fringes.
Samela Harris
4.5 stars
When: 4 to 12 Mar
Where: Gluttony, The SpiegelZelt
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Glassroom Theatre Company. Noel Lothian Hall. 3 Mar 2018
A new play by a new company. That is always good news. Clanstow was written by Jack Cummins and it won The State Theatre Company & Flinders University Young Playwright Award.
This does not make it a perfect piece of theatre. It is clearly juvenilia but it shines with promise.
It’s a bit of a thriller, a murder mystery in the high school world.
The production by the very nicely named Glassroom, is presented on a sensibly high stage in the compact Noel Lothian Theatre in the Botanic Gardens. A sofa and a park bench are the major set components. They are fairly noisily moved to and fro for very many scene changes. This is one of the youthful errors of the play, a cinematic concept of frequently changing scenes. It is not so easy in the theatre and makes for hard work.
The murder story revolves around a party held by a particularly ill-humoured teen called Jason. There is some interesting negotiation with parents about permissions to go out, particularly for two school peers whose olds are in a second-time-around relationship which presents the awkward threat of a blended family for the students. This makes for some surprising observations on grownups and a sense that the generation gap is alive and well. Then there are the romantic ties of the high school students and who is on with whom and who is cheating on whom.
The challenge for the audience is in keeping track of who is who among the protagonists. And then, it becomes a whodunnit. There’s a psycho in the house. But, who? The conceit of the two students who had been institutionalised for mental issues is interesting but a bit far-fetched. Then again, it weaves extra strands to unravel in the denouement.
The audience is not provided with a program which makes it hard to accord credit but there are some good performances and nice characterisations. Directed by its writer and Grace Boyle, it is given a very naturalistic style, except when it comes to the grownups, only one of whom, the mum, comes across as credible. The detective with his trench coat is inadvertently quite comical.
The cast, strong and well-rehearsed, include Jack Cummins, Zoe Taylor, Alex Whitrow, Olivia Coppick, Brad McCarthy, Henry Turczynowicz, Katherine Silbereisen, Grace Boyle, Alex Spice, Kelland Grigg, Charlotte Beavis and Eva Tudorovic.
For a first show by a new group, Clanstow is a brave and worthy effort and one looks forward to what they do next.
Samela Harris
3.5 stars
When: 3 to 12 Mar
Where: Noel Lothian Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. The Hayloft Project/Belvoir. 4 Mar 2018
Ripping up the basic storyline of Seneca’s Thyestes and scrolling it in LED as the introduction to action and dialogue, scene to scene, is so far away from Ancient Greek (let alone a solid English translation). Yet, it has done more to unleash the fabled fire and fury of Ancient Greek theatre than one could possibly hope to experience in the 21st Century.
Director Simon Stone and literary collaborators Thomas Henning, Chris Ryan and Mark Winter’s evisceration of Seneca’s bloody tale of vengefulness, is a colossally mind bending theatrical achievement rendered in performance and design. It is transfigured with contemporary characterisations, language and a psychological impetus to power, lust, hate and revenge, floating on mystic prophecy.
Claude Marcos’ traverse set in white, with remote controlled curtains each side of the narrow stage, supremely accentuates the banality and terror stringing this tale together.
Stone’s cast of three - Thomas Henning, Chris Ryan and Toby Schmitz - play this fantastic new text with a supremely sophisticated, controlled sway from wondrously absurd comedy to stark deadliness, offering, scene by scene, an ever darkening view of the destructive relationship between Thyestes and Artreus; Royal brothers, exiles, competitors for power and surrender to obscene madness.
Freud let loose onstage.
The clinching mastery of the work’s construction is the scene count back, the missing links, the psychological triggers of savagery.
Thyestes is a grand, noble, powerful Australian work of extraordinary depth and genius.
David O’Brien
When: 2 to 7 March
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Heritage Arts & Traditions (HATS Inc). The Jade. 3 March 2018
This is the second Fringe in a row that a collective (with no name) of Adelaide songwriters have strummed their wares, and if you love Adelaide, you must hear this. Even if you were in attendance last year, the reprised songs are definitely worth another listen, and the new songs will only enhance the experience.
Presumably, Keith Preston (project director) and Alan Hartley (musical director) made the director's difficult cut from a much larger song canon. And each one is a delight to Adelaidean ears. We know so many famous songs about lesser cities, like New York or San Francisco, and this mob is determined to ensure that Adelaide has its own anthems. It's wonderful to have the square city's foibles and personalities eulogised, and its present condition renditioned in verse.
Keith Preston and Ivone Kirkpatrick begin the journey with jaunty verses about Colonel Light and Don Dunstan respectively. Paul Roberts laments the stolen generation in Colbrook. Alan Hartley humorously recalls the Slate Blank disaster in Timmie Marcus Clark. Paula Standing reminds us that the pandas are still firing blanks in the zoo. We are brought into the present with more new songs about the closing of Holden - Holden Boys Don't Cry by Roberts, and Kirkpatrick's rather complicated song playfully chastising Adelaide for its ranking as the world's 5th most liveable city (now slipped to 6th). Preston has a fanciful solution to SA's energy supply crisis, revealed in a Weatherill press conference. Ms Standing returns with a lament on our resource-greedy generation. Roberts pokes fun at the bar-closing wobble-walks on Hindley Street (Hindley Street Waltz) and Hartley closes the session with the song that opened last year's concert - his definitive Adelaide Anthem.
Without exception, the songs are perceptive, highly observational, charming, witty and cheeky when not serious, which isn't often. Many encourage easy sing-along on first hearing with catchy choruses. The guitar-laden songwriters had their fretwork enhanced by subtle violin (Ashley Turner), soft percussion (Satomi Ohnishi), bass (Trisha Drioli) and electric guitar (Jeremy Philips). The group uniformly donned vests - except those women who decided on dresses - giving the gig an avuncular, comfortable tone. The "memorable slides" and "amusing anecdotes" mentioned in the program have gone by the wayside, but really, they weren't terribly missed.
I simply love that a mob loves our city enough to sing about it, poke fun at it, and encourage us to laugh at ourselves, because deep down, we know we got it pretty good here. Bravo!
David Grybowski
4 stars
When: 2 to 10 Mar
Where: The Jade, 160 Flinders St
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
The Life And Music Of Eileen Joyce. Julia Hastings. The Lab, Queen’s Theatre. 4 Mar 2018
“God help me. How do I get out of this mess?” Having intoned these pitiable words, Julia Hastings slumps over the piano and her left hands starts the slow introduction to Frédéric Chopin’s painfully beautiful Berceuse. Hastings could not have chosen a more poignant musical selection to illustrate the anguish and deep sorrow that Eileen Joyce felt as she faced the inevitable decision to end her career as concert pianist and reflected on the sum of her life. The Berceuse is a lullaby, and Joyce was probably not a model parent, having sent her three-year old son to boarding school so that she could concentrate on her career as a concert pianist. But we should be careful not to judge. Exceptional people do extraordinary things.
Hastings’ show is a tribute to the life of one of Australia’s most famous pianists who had a celebrated international career from the 1930s to the 1960s. Through a series of vignettes, we are given a teasing glimpse into the life of Joyce, from her arrival in Germany as a talented student through to other key events in her life, both musical and personal. Playing Joyce, Hastings delivers a carefully constructed spoken narrative that she has researched and written herself, and underlines it with musical selections that she plays at the piano. Occasionally there are voice overs that provide the opportunity to move from soliloquy to dialogue.
Hastings becomes Joyce. She dresses and wears her hair like Joyce, and her pianism is in some respects reminiscent of Joyce’s style (when compared to some of what can be heard on the recently released Eloquence/Decca studio recordings of Joyce.). The whole event is quite delightful, and transporting. My only criticism is that it is too short, even though it does play for an hour. There is the potential for more material to be introduced and for deeper exploration of Joyce’s life.
Hastings is a talented pianist, writer, and actor. Let’s hope she reworks this show and brings it back to the next Fringe. It deserves to be seen again, and again.
Kym Clayton
4 stars
When: Closed
Where: The Lab, Queen’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed