State Opera South Australia. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 29 Aug 2024
State Opera South Australia has a hit on its hands with this sparkling production of Mozart’s Così fan Tutte (which translates as So do they all) As the ebullient opening night audience was filing back into the auditorium of Her Majesty’s Theatre after the interval, one patron was overheard to say, “I’d forgotten how much fun this opera can be!”, and he was absolutely spot on. In the wrong hands, Così can be anything but fun and instead become wearying, but director Patrick Nolan, conductor Dane Lam, designers Elizabeth Gadsby and Bernie Tan-Hayes, together with the excellent cast (more on them later) all collaborate superbly to elevate the work to an entirely new level.
This is one of State Opera South Australia’s best productions in years and it eclipses the recent production of Candide.
The success of Così fan Tutte turns on the skills of the principal cast of six. Not just singing skills, but also acting skills. The two are needed in at least equal measure, and if the ability of the principals to create believable (albeit exaggerated) characters is not highly polished, then it all comes tumbling down and the nearly three hours playing time really puts the comfort of the theatre’s seats to the test! The principals in this production – Sky Ingram (as Fiordiligi), Anna Dowsley (Dorabella), Adrian Strooper (Ferrando), Nicholas Lester (Guglielmo), Christopher Hillier (Don Alfonso) and Jessica Dean (Despina) – all come up trumps. They do! All of them!
Così fan Tutte is a comedic opera and centres around around two military officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, who boast long and hard about the virtues of their fiancées, sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi. The boys’ friend, Don Alfonso, doubts the two girls would remain faithful to the boys given the right circumstances, and he makes a bet they will ‘stray’ like all other women. The bet is accepted, and so commences the unfolding of an elaborate set of circumstances, misinterpretations, masquerades, and intended and unintended seduction! Although the fundamental premise smacks of misogyny, the boys don’t emerge from the mess smelling of roses!
The original libretto sets the play in Naples at a time well in the past, but Nolan places this production in the here and now. Unlike many attempts to ‘update’ operas, this one really works. Even the language used in the surtitles is just a little bit hip, especially in Act 1, and the audience lap it up. The spice, humour, and inherent naughtiness of the whole opera is amplified. One can easily imagine that Mozart, who, from all accounts had a very earthy sense of humour and a bit of a ‘potty mouth’, would heartily approve of the surtitles!
The action takes place in various locations and the set, which evokes the look and feel of an upmarket mediterranean beach resort decorated in the style of a lush classical Italian villa, is adapted to all locales. Tan-Hayes’ excellent lighting makes it more convincing. In Act 2, the set is impressively deconstructed and reduced to a stark setting with all the stage lights and scaffolding in plain view on both flanks. This is initially puzzling (and perhaps a bit tawdry) – it stands in stark contrast to the colour and opulence of Act 1 – but as the space becomes increasingly cluttered and chaotic with various items, it gradually makes sense, as the disorder and turmoil that the sisters and their lovers have unleashed on themselves takes a firm grip on their lives. At the end of the opera, with its ‘they all live happily ever after’ ending despite all the shenanigans, the set partially re-constructs itself and becomes a metaphor for a return to normality, of sorts!
But it’s not all froth and bubble. Lurking not too far beneath the surface of all the frivolity, there are serious themes being explored, and some arias need to be sung with that in mind. For example, the highlight aria is Fiordiligi’s Come scoglio (I am like a rock), and Ingram sings it with great authority. One easily believes that Fiordiligi is tempted to be unfaithful to Guglielmo but ultimately, she is rock solid in her constancy, and the music mirrors these polar opposites, with lots of challenging leaps. The way the aria is staged is also illuminating!
There are of course numerous other solo arias and ensembles, and the principals are all very, very good. Anna Dowsley is superb as the flirtier Dorabella, with a touch of The Taming of the Shrew in her characterisation. Totally enjoyable acting and singing. Nick Lester and Adrian Strooper borrow some gaits from Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks, and draw a fine line between farce and comedy, but with seriously good vocals. Christopher Hillier exudes cynicism, but in a most beguiling manner, and sings up a storm with his warmly rounded tenor voice. Jessica Dean is almost a scene stealer as Despina (and a host of other characters), and she most definitely has the acting chops to meet Patrick Nolan’s vision. This is possibly her finest role with State Opera.
It would be remiss not to point out that Adrian Strooper stood in at short notice in place of Kyle Stegall who became indisposed. Strooper came down from Cairns (!) and fitted in superbly. Indeed, one would not even know that he was brand new to the cast unless one was told. He has sung the role of Ferrando elsewhere in famous opera houses, and so knows the role inside out, but it is still a tall order to ‘fit in’ with almost no rehearsal and be expected to act in the required style, be in the right place at the right time on stage, as well as sing superbly. One cannot sing his praises too much. The only obvious sign of his freshness to the production was a little misstep in the curtain call, which was greeted by much laughter and smiles from his fellow cast members and the audience.
Dane Lam was busy in the orchestra pit. Not only did he vigorously conduct, but he also played the fortepiano at times. His direction of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was excellent. The orchestra is important in opera, but it’s not the principal focus, and in lighter operas such as Così, the right balance between orchestra and on-stage vocalists is crucial. Lam preserves the essential playfulness of Mozart’s score and produced gravitas when required. Importantly, the vocalists are never ‘washed out’ and are not treated as unthinking slaves to the baton. Wonderful control.
This production of Così fan Tutte is a winner. It has everything: colour, superb costumes and sets, great humour and drama, wonderful music, great acting, and even greater singing. Just wonderful. Do see it.
Kym Clayton
When: 29 Aug to 7 Sep
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
Goodwood Theatres. 23 Aug 2024
Danielle Lim is Malaysian Australian and/or Australian Malaysian. This is the dilemma the young theatre maker asks in her solo show which, after a successful season on the Fringe, was revived for one night only at the Goodwood Theatre.
Needless to say, it drew a full house.
Lim performed in front of a backdrop of two white sheets stretched to make a double projection screen. Thereupon were video projections of her two worlds, Malaysia and Australia - or, to be precise, Ipoh and Adelaide.
Lim’s family brought her here as a child. From speaking several Asian languages, she soon discovered that English was the way to get on at school. School unlocked her new world, and she represented it with a padlock, one of a series of items she had placed in the auditorium to be discovered by audience members. Each one she reclaimed, expounding upon their significance as landmark symbols in her life. Her old Sim card was another. It depicted old friends and the much-needed discarding of a boyfriend.
She took the audience from Chinese family domestica in Ipoh through cultural journeys in Australia, ever with the question of the identity of our cross cultural Asian young. She demonstrated how, gradually and often sadly, the years loosen the ties and Australian self-perception moves in.
Lim has carved a successful career in the arts, one which enables exactly this nature of valuable cultural sharing. Many young Asian Aussies do not have such an outlet but their stories doubtless are in many ways aligned and it is valuable that their Australian contemporaries can take this understanding onboard. To that end, this Flinders Drama Centre graduate and OzAsia participant has been supported by Helpmann Academy, Carclew, the City of Adelaide and the Fringe. She’s also involved with ActNow Theatre.
Here, she showed her cred and, interacting with a recorded inner-voice, gave deeper dimensions to her entertainment, alleviating it from the fate of being yet another monologue.
It was a lovely clear-headed, generous-spirited presentation from a very promising young multi-disciplinary theatre maker. Her tomorrows will be bright.
Samela Harris
When: 23 Aug
Where: Goodwood Theatres
Bookings: Closed
University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 22 Aug 2024
A nice night’s entertainment it never was. It’s nasty.
Because of the political frailties and the dangerous madness of current US politics, one feels all the more disturbed, indignant, and incredulous at the grotesque follies of King Lear. His smug regal vanity pits his daughters against each other with an ensuing torrent of violence and hatred which, showing people at their worst, is Shakespeare at his tragedian best.
To make it all the more gruelling, this AUTG production directed by Brant Eustice is set in a quasi-industrial, post-apocalyptic world, its Kate Prescott set looking like an abandoned construction site and its Lisa Lanzi costumes like Mad Max remnants dragged from the recycle bin. So puzzling are the costumes, with bottle cap adornments and beer can pull-tab jewellery, that they quite draw the attention from the high drama enacted by their wearers. Edmund’s off-the-shoulder number almost one-upped the extremely fine performance of Sean Flierl. And what a fine voice he has.
Of course, it is Michael Eustice’s voice which rules the stage. Clad in grubby, ill-fitting rags, he delivers the might, majesty, and epic madness of the King. If his vocal delivery is masterful, the expressions in his eyes through every nuance of every scene are spellbinding. He “inhabits’ the role. It is a magnificent, deeply satisfying performance.
King Lear, with its complexity of rival royals and riven loyalties, accommodates a large and needfully accomplished cast, the likes of which we can see less and less in these economically fraught times. It is from the diligence of AUTG and the other unpaid theatricals that we may expose our young to major classical works such as this. Director Brant Eustice has rallied some fine performers and wrapped this long and torrid drama in snappy timing and lovely character work. Eustice himself, standing in for a sick cast member, is among them, heartbreaking as poor blinded Gloucester and, beside him as his son Edgar, Robert Baulderstone in an eminently creditable and consistent performance. He doubles nicely as the King of France. Rebecca Kemp, shines once more in the role of Lear’s venomous daughter, Regan. Her Shakespearean articulation is perfect. Georgia Stockham playing her evil sister, Goneril, is also articulate but oh, my, the Widow Twankey has nothing on the hapless overkill of her hair and costume. As Cordelia, the king's youngest and favourite daughter, Rhoda Sylvester enchants from her excellent opening scene but is a little lost subsequently. Then there’s the incomparable Geoff Revell. He makes a tasty meal of The Fool, nimble of tongue and toe. The much-respected Sharon Malujlo is oddly miscast as Kent. Not so Tracey Walker as Albany and Tom Tassone as Cornwall. Then there’s Tony Sampson, grinning, mad as Oswald with, in myriad roles, Harry Passehl, Lizzie Zeuner, Mike Leach and Imogen Deller-Evans. It is a strong, hardworking cast, exhausting to watch, and the sword fighting is genuinely scary.
Michael Green’s score is quite arresting. It is gently industrial, softly clamorous, original and befitting. Then there’s the storm, perhaps not as overwhelming as in other productions, but the Little Theatre is an intimate space and, as director, Brant Eustice has manipulated the action in such a way that the audience feels truly enveloped. Hence, when it comes to a night of unrelenting Shakespearean cruelty, sorrow, death, and insanity, it is perversely enjoyable.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 25 Aug
Where: The Little Theatre
Bookings: Sold Out
Editor’s Note: King Lear has unfortunately closed early due to a illness.
Sydney Theatre Company and Canberra Theatre Centre presented by State Theatre Company South Australia in Association with the University of Adelaide. Dunstan Playhouse. 20 Aug 2024
Julia Gillard is less remembered as the country’s first female Prime Minister than as the woman who told the patriarchy exactly where to go.
Her great misogyny speech is so celebrated that it has become a performance piece in itself.
Hence, at the almost one-hander play written by that brilliant Melbourne playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith, it is unsurprising that the audience is braced with expectation.
It is not disappointed, of course.
There is no pretence that a play simply called Julia is a critical analysis of the Gillard years. It is, in fact, a paeon. It is beautifully written and theatrically crafted. It is a 100-minute love song underscored by the hypothesis of the subject’s thought processes.
All of the above is very artfully enabled by the dramatic finesse of Justine Clarke. Gillard expresses her inner life through the refined voice of the actress. Only now and then at pivotal moments does that unmistakable and oft-parodied ’Strine tone of the politician herself jolt through the dialogue and it does so with startlingly astute mimicry. It is an extremely clever auditory balancing act for, indeed, 100 minutes of strident vocal verite might be tough going and would definitely undermine some of the pensive lyricism of the script.
There’s an irony that the play is called Julia insofar as the Julia in the play makes a vehement point of the fact that she felt the political and public world’s reference to her by her Christian name was disrespectful. Other Prime Ministers were mentioned more formally in the third person by surnames.
In which contemplation one realised that during her PM era, one had not seen things from her perspective at all. Such familiarity one had taken for yon easy-going Aussie affection.
But the play looks at Gillard’s inner life.
There is no doubt that Parliament was and, indeed, is, a place of unremittingly savage and boorish behaviour. Certain politicians were not and are not figures of culture and refinement and even those who have been, such as Keating, used their erudition only for a more colourful abusive eloquence.
Our first woman PM had a thorny path and, while her lack of marital status and as a woman “barren” of children were quietly understood by many women, they definitely did not align to the haúsefrau expectations of the narrow old conservatives. Nothing much has changed. One just has to watch the American right wing’s constant carping against childless Kamala Harris. Which, of course, has been drowned by a wonderful tsunami of cats.
Murray-Smith avoids mentioning Gillard’s atheism but creates a very earnest thinkscape of our historic 27th Prime Minister and, under Sarah Goodes’ sensitive direction, Clarke delivers a serious, reflective woman devoid of physical vanity but with a core of polished steel. She is softened by the relationship with her Welsh father and origins among the diligence of a mining community.
There are a few treasured moments of levity and the audience laughs readily. There also are moments of personal and professional regret, very carefully bracketed for balance. While Gillard’s administration delivered a motherlode of legislation, 570 Bills passed, there were some extremely lamentable failures; single parent pensions as refugees among them.
But there are no shortcomings for Justine Clarke. For the actress, it is a tour de force. She commands the stage with a spirit of soft determination. Even when Julia is telling the world where to get off, she gives it a lightness. She’s casually costumed, accompanied on stage by Jessica Bentley as the young woman and dresser. Hers is a very benign presence, with shadowy entrances and exits at symbolic moments. This well-lit presence also serves to lift the production from the visual limits of a one-hander. Renee Mulder’s set alleviates this impression, too. It is an excellent set, mirrored on two sides to give depth and interest and also to align with AV projections. For Julia, there is a carpeted quadrangle centre stage but only a chair and a pot plant in the way of sets and props. Minimalist it is indeed. But, the production values - light, sound, and design - are nigh flawless.
Monologues have become a major “thing” in these years of slender theatrical budgets and hungry audiences have been forgiving.
In this case, however, there are two big names, Murray-Smith and Gillard. In Australia 2024, they're an irresistible drawcard.
The theatre is packed out.
The audience is well rewarded, and it stands in acclaim. It recognises that this monologue, the studied hypothetical contemplations of the first female Australian Prime Minister, is as good as it gets.
Samela Harris
When: 20 to 31 Aug
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
Therry Theatre. Arts Theatre. 10 Aug 2024
It has happened again.
An unfunded local company has turned on a five-star production with the sort of flourishing finesse one may expect of the big professionals.
It is hard to comprehend how Therry could assemble so many excellent singers and generate such a disciplined and committed musical cast, including orchestral musicians, to present such an extremely demanding jukebox musical.
This critic attended the production as organiser of a group booking of decidedly discerning theatre goers. A certain amount of responsibility is accorded to this role, and an embarrassing backlash if group members are disappointed. To make this predicament more absurdly compromising, the director of this show, Jude Hines, is a very fond friend. Perchance the critic was more nervous than the director.
Of course, it is no-win. It would have been hard to pan a bad show by a friend but it also is tricky to write a rave about a friend. Anyway, here it is. Jude made it easy.
Jersey Boys is a triumph.
Don’t take my word for it. Dash down to The Arts Theatre and spend a couple of hours in foot-tapping enjoyment.
As the program explains, Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons with a book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice, music by Bob Gaudio and Lyrics by Bob Crew.
Full of sixties hit songs, it has been a very well-received musical since its 2004 premiere at La Jolla in California. It ran for 12 years on Broadway, toured, turned up everywhere and, smothered in awards, enjoyed a 2021 West End revival.
All it needs is a snappy director and a fabulous cast.
So, here it is, on the old Therry shoestring budget, looking a million dollars in endless costume changes, a simple scaffolding set with myriad set pieces trucking softly in on the quietest casters in history through the no less than fifty scenes. Set designer Gary Anderson may henceforth answer to the sobriquet “Mr Casters Oil.”
From lighting plots to orchestral cues, this musical just sings.
Lindsay Prodea has always looked good on stage but here, easily accommodating the falsetto reaches of Frankie Valli, he excels both in song and character delivery. It’s a taxing role and a bravura performance. Trevor Anderson plays the key part as Tommy DeVito, the New Jersey wheeler dealer who brings the group both together and apart through the years. He is vocally a treat and immensely appealing onstage. Sam Davy stepped in to rescue the show after an injury to the performer playing Nick Masai. Lucky break for Therry. He was still fresh after playing the role for Northern Light in 2022 and he does the production proud. Then there’s Phillippe Quaziz as Bob Gaudio, the fourth of the Four Seasons. He always looks too old but he can charm and sing a house down. And, with pretty flawless sound from the excellent techs, the four harmonised and delivered all those great old hits: Walk Like a Man, Sherry, My Eyes Adored You, Let’s Hang On, Rag Doll, and more.
If Leanne Savill’s musical direction is right on the ball (nice horn section, too), choreographer Linda Lawson has the dancers looking excellent in cleverly accessible moves. Ditto the singing principals.
Supporting cast lives up to the all-over high standards with ease and, bar one, the American accents.
Sam Wiseman just eats the stage in his cameo as Gyp. Nikki Gaertner Eaton takes Frankie’s wife, Mary Delgado, from bombshell to heartbreak very elegantly and Tom Adams is a winning scene stealer as the great Bob Crewe.
The supporting cast smoothly undertakes myriad multi roles making the show seem bigger than it really is. Nice work all round. Particularly from my mate Jude Hines as director.
I tips me cap.
Samela Harris
When: 9 to 17 Aug
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings therry.org.au