Adelaide Cabaret Festival with Master of Ceremonies Robyn Archer. World Premiere. Dunstan Playhouse. 13 Jun 16
The Weill File was The ‘Adelaide Cabaret Festival Gala’ for hard core cabaret aficionados of the Weimer Republic era and its great antagonist, Kurt Weill and all he inspired after him.
The heart of attraction of Weill for audiences and artists is his ability to assign brutally realist, starkly politicised lyrics concerning a genuinely brutal world with a score seemingly apposite the lyric, never failing to keep a listener hooked to it.
Fittingly, Australia’s most renowned expert on, and performer of, Cabaret from this era, Robyn Archer, was MC at an event which not only celebrated the work of Weill, but opened up the books, as it were, on the extraordinary diversity of his output from those Weimer days, right up to his Hollywood career.
Bringing such things to life on stage is a significant challenge. One acquitted superbly by a medley of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2016 artists banded together, including Eddie Perfect, Ali McGregor, Barb Jungr, Die Roten Punkte, Hew Parham and John Thorn. The six piece band accompanying them was no slouch either; Adelaide Cabaret 2016 artists’ class as well.
Given all Archer had to do was sing one and a half songs (and one would normally expect her to do the whole show, given her famous name is on the banner), what a joy that was that’s all she sang.
Hollywood glamour blended with political angst? Ali McGregor proved she could do that, Eddie Perfect too. Barb Jungr, the capable interpreter of an even later angry political era, was so totally in her element she practically stole the stage. Die Roten Punkte did things with an arrangement involving a Fender guitar with reverb Weill would have adored and Hew Parham ripped the soul of cabaret to shreds while John Thorn quietly addressed its most childlike fears.
David O’Brien
When: 13 June
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 12 Jun 2016
For the first time in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s history, the iconic Variety Gala has been expanded to include two new revues - a closing night festival affectionately entitled The Last Galah, with a focus on Australian music, and an afternoon Family Gala.
Ensuring the littlest cabaret lovers don’t miss out, the Family Gala is a child-friendly version of the opening night event, hosted by festival artistic directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect. Both have a solid pedigree in children’s entertainment; McGregor with Jazzamatazz! and Perfect on television’s Playschool, and they lead the festivities like pros.
Featuring a subset of the same performers as the Variety Gala, the family edition included Jitterbug and Peppa Pig theme song in a performance from Miss Behave’s Gameshow; rollicking rollerskating from Amy G; and plenty of opportunities for the little ones to join in – including a ball fight to close out the show!
Live theatre proponent, Ali McGregor, remarked at the Variety Gala that kids should be given every opportunity to experience live theatre – her hilarious take on Bjork’s It’s Oh So Quiet proving that she’s not afraid to put her money where her mouth is!
The Family Gala is a great opportunity for families and kids alike to sample the wares of the festival’s performers in a safe and encouraging environment. The activities surrounding the event made it all the more immersive for the little ones and a great day at the theatre.
Nicole Russo
When: 12 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Frank Woodley and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Festival Theatre. 11 Jun 2016
Maybe you weren't up at noon the day after the Cabaret Festival's opening night, but a heck of a lot of families and yours truly were, to be entertained in this oncer by one of Australia's most get-about comedians, Frank Woodley, in this Australian premiere show. Using a text by Lemony Snicket (I had to look up this bizarre appellation - it's the pen name for contemporary American novelist, Daniel Handler), "Detective" Woodley's mission was to find who murdered the composer, who was de-composing as he spoke. And Woodley had on stage with him no less than 55 musicians of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra plus conductor Brett Kelly - all suspects, and looking mighty suspicious, I might add.
Woodley questioned each section of the orchestra - first strings, second strings, violas, bass, wind, reeds, percussion, etc - and gave them each a hilarious voice and persona to answer his questions. There was a thing going on between the tuba and the harp. He weaved amongst the musos, incidentally making the kids aware of where the various parts of the orchestra are located and what they do. Brett Kelly led the ASO in fine and often rousing classical pieces relevant to and intertwined with the detective's investigations. The score has been created and assembled by contemporary American composer, Nathanial Stookey - the whole thing originally commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 2006.
This was an absolutely brilliant way to get the kids and other orchestral newbees to learn how an orchestra works, and for many it was the first time to even hear one live. Of course, the joke was that the conductor has been murdering composers for years - wherever you find a conductor, you will find a dead composer! A very funny and entertaining hour. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 11 June
Where: Festival Theatre, Festival Centre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Artspace. 11 Jun 2016
Lyricist Andrew Strano cultivates a '50s, Buddy Holly look in this world-toured show that Adelaide is finally getting a look at. Looking dapper in a blue sequin sport jacket, stretch-fit pants and complementary blue socks, Strano samples the oeuvre of songs about love that he created with composer Loclan Mackenzie-Spencer. Nothing escapes their attention in this theme - incest and self-pity are right in there with the real thing - and it stays pretty complex - musically and psychologically. Except it wasn't complex in the first overly rhymed offering, with Strano groaning with cliches, like "step at a time," and "hell of a climb." All the songs are of the contemporary musical theatre variety and while each is clever in its own way, they have an overarching stylistic similarity. You would be forgiven mistaking they had been lifted out of some Broadway show. Strano's narratives linking his songs betrayed his middle class -an addiction to social media, a rant song about Tigerair, and hoping we think about Salisbury the same way he thinks about Frankston. Pianist Robyn Womersley seemed to keep her distance while providing faultless accompaniment. Loads of the material seems to come from personal experience, and a view we would feel the same.
There was a great musical intelligence evident, but the creative team's ticker didn't talk.
David Grybowski
When: 11 June
Where: Artspace, Festival Centre
Bookings: Closed
Robyn Archer. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Space Theatre. 11 Jun 2016
What if the crumbs of history creating a trail followed backwards by historians to decisive moments resulting in major, catastrophic events where not words, books, images or crumbling pieces of architecture but the sound and rhythm of songs?
Robyn Archer does just this with Dancing on The Volcano. Archer regaled her audience with the birthing and maturing sounds and rage of cabaret sandwiched between World War I and II in such a way as to give an incredibly real sense of the impending danger about to spew like deadly hot murderous lava over the world thanks to the rise of Hitler.
Amassing the songs of Brecht, Eisler, Grosz, Tucholsky, Wedekind, Hollaender and Heine to name a few, Archer does something with these songs beyond the short introductory remarks made to contextualise them within the flow of history.
A very real sense of a musical culture in which people are in close communication with each other, openly so in spirit and action from the late 1800s, is brought to life by Archer accompanied by Michael Morley on piano and George Butrumlis on accordion. The melding of Archer’s voice and musical accompaniment from songs of this era creates an aural sense of people dancing together, singing together and very much culturally secure.
Slowly but surely, this changes.
Archer’s voice becomes much more prominent in the mix. Stridency in lyrics and expression from an angry solo voice becomes ever so much more pronounced as Archer moves the audience along into late 1920s and through the 1930s. It’s powerful, riveting stuff. It’s also clearly more of protest than accomplishment in the world, and niggles at you.
By the time the glamorous era of the tango has been reached, one can practically feel what has happened over the decades, socially and politically, on an emotional level; it is an extraordinary achievement of communication by any artist.
Robyn Archer has offered a new way to understand the lessons of history through Dancing on The Volcano, a highly effective one reaching directly to the heart as much as the mind.
David O’Brien
When: 11 to 12 June
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: Closed