American Song

Flying Penguin Productions. Goodwood Theatre and Studios. 30 Oct 2025

 

American Song was written nine years ago. Its relevance remains as powerful now as then.

Justice. Peace. The ‘on track’ good life. The American Dream complete.

 

Andy (Renato Musolino) presents to us, an audience in the round, as a man halfway between sure and deeply unsure about these things.

There’s a foreboding sadness as he tells his life’s tale while building a rock wall, stone by stone. Something in life went wrong. Something we’re not up to speed with. Yet.

As Andy outlines his sense of moments of life significance; the wonderful wife, the career, the wonderful son, he’s also questioning their very validity.

 

Joanna Murray-Smith’s text is as delicate as it is boisterous in exploring and celebrating the ‘American Dream’ as it is dreamed and lived. The soap opera element is there, yet it is delivered with an insightfulness that is critically aware of the cracks within American culture.

 

Quentin Grant’s careful, graceful score, with hints of bird life, banjo, and guitar underscores the true depths of Andy’s musings on the pain within Murray-Smith’s text.

Beneath it all, there’s something different. Andy and Amy’s son Robbie is a powerful force in their lives. He’s there—but are they there with him?

That’s the slow burn powering Andy’s musings, desperately trying to create a safe place within himself. Good people, good children, get killed by guns. Why?

Who is at fault? What is it that causes it? What America is this?

 

Director David Mealor’s production is a masterpiece, letting Murray-Smith’s writing live and breathe at its own, sparse, deeply introspective, gentle pace. In Renato Musolino, is an actor who can, with patient precision and gentle calm, develop and grow Andy as a character who is as charming as he is hopeful, vain, remorseful and ultimately, lost.

Andy is without anchor. He is a mass of memory, introspection and awareness seeking new roots, new ‘answers’. He is America untethered from fantastical idealism, thrust into a dark and brutal reality that is playing out now in 2025.

 

Kathryn Sproul’s set is as deceptively simple as it is powerful. Her ‘wall’ works as a profound metaphor for insecurity bolstered by hope. Nic Mollison’s lighting perfectly supports Sproul’s careful, slowly darkening projection of gathering clouds, subtly guiding the audience to the point of dramatic shock.

 

David O’Brien

 

When: 24 Oct to 2 Nov

Where: Goodwood Theatre and Studios

Bookings: Sold Out

Searching Blue

OzAsia Festival/The Human Expression (T.H.E) Dance Company. 23 Oct 2505

 

Heard the aphorism, ‘be like water.?

It perfectly sums up the delights and challenges of experiencing Director Kuik Swee Boon’s Searching Blue.

 

The work takes place throughout the spaces of Festival Plaza with a company of five dancers, a musician and Joel Manuel Fernandez’s portable amp playing much of the techno focused score.

This is a travelling piece, a guided journey, one with choices.

 

The audience arrives to a space near King William road. They find dancers in blue costume, arms, faces and legs covered with blue ochre chalk draped over benches, leaning against the building or stories poles.

 

The audience sits. Waits. Slowly, the work begins ever so gently as these dancers begin to awaken, stand, move. They’re accompanied by the sounds of solo human song and astonishing notes from a zither by Kent Lee.

 

A world within a world. One in which these dancers invite you take their hands, follow them. Walk or run. There’s a remarkable relationship unfolding between audience and dancers, indeed, an inner world is being created within the real one. That inner world directly challenges the one of sounds and people around us demanding its space,

so, like water, this moving production flows and ebbs in, around, and through the real world.

 

To take the dancers hands and follow them is to accept this new world of peace, seeking and wonderment.

The audience is constantly juggling this performance world and the real one. Perceptions of the two are extremely heightened by the fact we have accepted the dancer’s world. It’s moments of the dancers seeking something of each other, then offering their gift in warmth to us. From the King William Road corner, to Riverbannk, and across the footbridge.

 

At times, the troupe explodes into phrases of ensemble acrobatics and tableaux. The only moments they become like a conventional dance company in any sense of the term. That only makes ever more beguiling the mystery of choreography entangling audience members. It makes more profound the find and seek moments between dancers themselves.

 

Searching Blue is a remarkable waking dream experience. One that really makes you think about the realities you live in, physical, human, emotional, spiritual.

 

David O’Brien

 

When: 23 to 25 Oct

Where: Festival Plaza

Bookings: Closed

The Magic Flute

State Opera South Australia. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 30 Aug 2025

 

At last night’s performance by State Opera South Australia (SOSA) of Mozart’s much loved and much performed The Magic Flute, Dan Lam addressed the audience. Whether it’s grand opera or a grunge band, pre-show announcements from centre stage can be terrifying. They usually signal some disaster has befallen the event, such as a principal actor or singer is indisposed and won’t be performing and there will be an understudy. (Mind you, this reviewer prayed for that very thing to happen at a performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard earlier this year in the Sydney Opera House, but, dammit, Sarah Brightman soldiered on despite the fierce headwind of damning reviews.) As Lam paused for breath, we were all wondering whether he was going to announce that Sofia Troncoso (who plays the important role of Princess Tamina) was still indisposed. (Troncoso was replaced on opening night by Stacey Alleaume who was flown in at very short notice to fill in.) Or worse still, had someone else in the cast succumbed to ‘the dreaded lurgy’? Lam, announced that young Ethan Zhang, one of the child performers, was suffering from a winter illness and although he would take to the stage and act his heart out, his vocal line would be sung by a member of the State Opera Chorus from the wings. Phew!!

 

The Opera gods were smiling.

 

Lam, who is SOSA’s new Artistic Director (and the conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for this production), also asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they were at their very first opera or production by SOSA. He was taken aback that so many hands went up in the air! This bodes well for the future, but it’s also a ringing endorsement of Lam’s plans for SOSA. This is the first season he’s programmed for SOSA, and it embodies his vision of “opera without borders” and a return to the not-so-distant past when SOSA was known and celebrated internationally for its many ‘firsts’. (State Government – please take note! SOSA deservedly merits the support you provide it, and more!). This production of The Magic Flute is the first collaboration between an Australian opera company and leading Chinese partners, namely Opera Hong Kong, the Beijing Musical Festival, and China National Opera House. It is also supported by Australia’s National Foundation for Australia-China Relations.

 

This production, which premiered recently in Hong Kong, and travels to China later in the year, is directed by Chinese theatre, film and opera director Shuang Zou, and it is stunningly brilliant in every respect.

 

Zou reimagines The Magic Flute into a world and time far removed from its original. It couldn’t be any further. There is always a risk in doing this, especially with an opera that is one of the mainstays of the repertoire. There have been some classic faux pas in modernising operas – setting Strauss’ Salome in a slaughterhouse, and Verdi’s Otello on an aircraft carrier very quickly come to mind – and Zou’s setting of The Magic Flute in a busy Hong Kong subway might seem the recipe for a fall, but nothing could be further from the truth. It works. Its conception is intelligent, and almost every aspect of the original story line – the adventure, the pantomime and melodrama, and the allegory – remain evident, alive, and believable (in a strange sort of way!).

 

As the overture plays, an animé scene plays out on a gigantic projection screen that forms the upstage wall of the set. (Zou brings her training in film to the fore.) We see a young man waking up and going through his morning routine as he prepares for the day. We even observe him on his ‘porcelain throne’ which is greeted by howls of laughter from the large Her Majesty’s Theatre audience. Suddenly they know they are in for an operatic experience of an entirely different kind, and they are not disappointed. The young man eventually enters a busy subway, and the curtain rises to reveal just that: throngs of people getting on and off trains that whizz past on the screen. A young man (perhaps it could be the same one as in the animé clip) is seen in heated discussion with a young woman, who abruptly leaves him and gets on a train. It looks like they are breaking up and he is so distressed that he imagines the next train morphs into a terrifying dragon, and he collapses on the station platform. An impassioned mind can play tricks. From this point on we are in a fantasy and in the milieu of Mozart’s opera, with a prince, a princess, a wicked Queen, scheming ladies in waiting, strange animals, high and not so high priests, guards, musical instruments with magical powers. It’s a wild ride.

 

Zou essentially acknowledges that the original story line of The Magic Flute either needs to be played out ‘as written’ and as intended by librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, one of Mozart’s collaborators and an entrepreneur specialising in ‘low art’ entertainment for the masses, or it needs to be interpreted in a way that retains the integrity of the story but speaks to a modern audience. As Lam puts it in his program notes, Zou’s reimagination “…helps us listen more intently – to beauty, to each other, to deeper truths”, and he’s right. Zou’s brilliant interpretation removes the need to suspend disbelief so much that it hurts, squarely faces up to the fantastical fairy tale that the opera really is, and finds a way to expose the underlying themes without being ‘preachy’.

 

So, the scenic design is inspired and fits Zou’s vision like a well-crafted glove. Dan Potra is the set and costume designer, and it’s just dazzling without resorting to unnecessary gimmicks. Glen D’Haenens lighting design emphasises and immerses us in fantasy when necessary, and snaps us out of it when the story line is best suited to the listener having a clear mind. It’s so thoughtfully designed.

 

Dane Lam has the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra sounding exquisite. Mozart’s gorgeous score is in good hands. (The flute and (uncredited) percussion that create the sounds of the “magic flute” and “magic bells” could have been amplified a little – they get a bit lost in the pit.)

 

Anthony Hunt’s command of the State Opera Chorus has never been better. They sounded superb and sang with superb balance.

 

The cast of principals are world class. This can be a dangerous thing to say – it is easy to get caught up in the moment and direct a spray of superlatives at them – but is deserved. Australian tenor Nicholas Jones, who is currently a principal artist with the Paris Opera, sings Tamino, and the tessitura of Tamino’s arias fits Jones’ voice beautifully. He’s sung on the SOSA stage before, but this performance eclipses all before it.

 

Sofia Troncoso makes a brilliant Pamina: she gives the role sass, sadness as well as unbridled joy. Her soprano voice is truly a fine instrument, with evenness and musicality across the range.

 

David Greco sings the comic bird catcher role of Papageno and rightly stops short of making the character ridiculous. Refreshingly, Greco plays the character almost straight, which makes it all the funnier. He has timing, and his tenor voice is strong and true. His difficult duet with Jessica Dean in the cameo role of Papagena, his newly found sweetheart, is tight and very entertaining. The precision of Mozart’s challenging music and Schikaneder’s tongue-twisting text are superbly navigated by both, with the ever-watchful Lam in the pit keeping finely balanced control.

 

New Yorker Danielle Bavli plays the menacing Queen of the Night. Her costume is striking, and she uses it to style menace as well as grace. Although a little quiet, she sings beautifully and her signature aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen is a high point of the opera. It's a bit cliché, but this is the ‘pot boiler’ aria that everyone looks forward to in The Magic Flute, and Bavli sings it strikingly.

 

Teddy Tahu Rhodes sings the role of Sarastro and imbues him with wisdom and benevolence. Rhodes' bass voice is truly world class, with clarity and musicalness across even the lowest notes. His costume is an eye opener, and the symbolism built into its construction is not missed. He inhabits the costume; he doesn’t merely wear it.

 

Sopranos Helena Dix, Catriona Barr and Fiona McArdle play First, Second and Third ladies respectively – they are servants of the Queen – and they initially take to the stage by magically coming to life as they emerge from a giant airline company poster in the subway. Zou’s directorial concepts are just so imaginative! Their trios are just so much fun. Dix has a gloriously strong voice, and she makes First Lady larger than life, and lusty! Barr and McArdle build on Dix’s vamping humour, and the trio of ladies is an absolute hoot. McArdle continues to rapidly develop into a fine artist.

 

Mark Oates sings the evil Monostatos with a comfortably surety. His costume deliberately distracts from the garb that is traditionally worn by the character, who, in the original script is described as a ‘blackamoor’. Like Rhodes, Oates uses his costume as an extension of his character and manages to have the audience laugh heartily at him as he struts his stuff as a would-be seducer of women (but he is quite delusional!).

 

Pelham Andrews sings the role of Speaker, and his fine bass voice is well suited to this opera. He sings with evenness of tone and imparts humility to the role. A fine performance.

Rounding out the cast are Phillip Cheng, Ethan Zhang and Celine Yuan as the three children. They are just fabulous. They begin as triplets in a children’s pram, then become young men, then older men and finally very old men who take an almost unhealthy interest in the final romantic outcome between Tamino and Pamina. This is another of Zou’s directorial coups! The ageing of the children serves to illustrate that the The Magic Flute is as much about life’s journey as it is about the ultimate triumph of good over bad, love over hate, and compassion over animosity. Chorus members Callum McGing, Jamie Moffatt, Andrew Turner, and Nick Cannon play minor roles but do it with conviction. McGing, in particular, demonstrated the depth of musical talent that is alive in the State Opera Chorus.

 

So, there it is. State Opera South Australia’s production of The Magic Flute, under the farsighted eyes and musical baton of Dane Lam, produced in collaboration with international partners, and directed by young visionary director Shuang Zou, is a revelation. It has all the sumptuousness of grand opera and all the easy appeal of a lighter musical. It is a joy to watch, and to listen to, and there are two more performances left. It is a perfect introduction to the world of opera, that most magnificent and mysterious of all artforms. This is a show for everyone.

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: 28 Aug to 6 Sep

Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre

Bookings: ticketek.com.au

The Shock of The New in Adelaide

Flinders University Drama Centre. Matthew Flinders Theatre. 6 Aug 2025

 

This writer’s creative history is deeply embedded in the 12 excerpts of major theatre works and writers of the last 64 or so years. Works Adelaide championed as a national leader of theatre culture and history in Australia and form the body of this anthology production.

 

The Shock of The New is one the most unique innovations in theatre production in Adelaide. It is memoir, history book, creative challenge, and road map for the future, from a rich past of success and pitfalls.

 

Starting with Patrick White’s 1962 Season of Sarsparilllia by University of Adelaide Theatre Guild and concluding with Mathew Whittet’s 2014 Girl Asleep by Windmill Theatre Company and Adelaide Festival of The Arts, this work charts theatre daring to expose, challenge and celebrate Australia as it actually is. Expose and demystify taboos. Offer alternatives to how we can live and be instead of suffering under the hammer of regressive forces. Reimagining theatre form itself.

 

Director Chris Drummond and cast certainly have their work cut out for them. Creating a scene-to-scene narrative that builds an over arcing story. Giving life to the essence each play sought to express in a single scene. Dress it in a manner allowing smooth transitions.

Such challenge is brilliantly met.

 

Designer Kathryn Sproul and Lighting Designer Mark Pennington keep it simple and effective. Basic set furniture and props. Basic back wash lighting and focus spots. Transition from scene to scene, world view to world view, it is so swift you have to catch your breath. Thankfully, Drummond and cast has added inter scene dialogue setting the social and political reality of the times between blocs of scenes.

 

Drummond’s cast, Flinders Drama Centre Graduating Actors, work and achieve almost the impossible in getting to the core of each play’s truth in a two-act structure. Plays in most cases they were too young to have seen or known. Plays with roles played by actors—at the time—at the top of their game and made forever memorable. Expect to see more out there in the world from Eliza Barnes, Rohan Becker Ariel Dzino, Liam Hennessy, Alexander Karytinos, Isiah Macaspac, Abigail McDougall, Hannah McGrath, and Shardae Santos.

 

All nine actors offered work of the highest standard. Jumping from one world view to another in mere seconds and minutes. Juggling equally fast costume changes. Offering an intensity of focus in performance without loosing a single beat or line. Holding their audience with absolute authority and assuring the conceptual edge of each piece hit home. Knowing how to play the drama and humour with subtlety demanded by each text.

 

This writer’s memory was totally jogged. Was gifted a sense of lived theatre history affirming anew why they are part of the arts. Offered a new angle on considering where the future might lie.

 

Whatever life background anyone in the audience may have, they were blessed with a powerful work offering questions still relevant today from each scene’s different emphasis, An experience with unquestionably loving heart to it.

 

It would be greatly pleasing to see this remounted. More need to see it. It’s too unique to retire to a place in history yet.

 

David O’Brien

 

When: 6 to 9 August

Where: Matthew Flinders Theatre

Bookings: Closed