Adelaide Festival. Nicholas Lens and JM Coetzee. Elder Hall. 8 Mar 2024
Elizabeth Costello is a fictional character — a celebrated Australian writer, aged 66, who is famed for the feminist perspective of her early, first novel. She is devoted to writing but is distanced from her family and has difficulty when communicating her beliefs to others. It seems that her reputation doesn’t quite match who she is, or thinks she is.
Nobel and dual Booker prize-winner JM Coetzee’s novel is written in a partly documentary style and includes Costello’s CV, which confused some readers — in his introductory remarks at this concert, celebrated novelist Peter Goldsworthy told of an incident when he was asked if he had met the famous Australian writer, Elizabeth Costello. The form of Coetzee’s novel invites the reader to reconsider the nature of the novel itself.
Costello has disagreements with her family members over important moral questions, so that the novel is also an invitation to readers to consider those moral issues and their own actions.
Belgian composer Nicholas Lens has composed a full-length opera based on Coetzee’s novel, entitled Costello in Limbo (Elizabeth Costello at the Gate), the libretto for which has been devised by Coetzee. Lens has also created an excerpt from the opera, entitled Is this the gate, for performance by a chamber ensemble and a vocal soloist, and this excerpt is based on passages from the latter part of the novel when Costello has passed away. These are perhaps the most important passages of the novel, as they concern the judgement of one’s life and achievements and the question of an afterlife.
Costello is interrogated by a panel of judges (not St Peter) who demand to know her beliefs — it is on her beliefs that she is judged. This is a message not only to other novelists but to all of us. She is permitted a glimpse of the afterlife, and the text of the prologue is as follows:
Straight out of Kafka!
Straight out of Kafka!
Not the light that Dante saw in paradise.
The nature of the afterlife, or her likely afterlife, is thus characterised by reference to other writers. Implicitly, we understand the world and establish our moral and philosophical compass by reference to writers and their writing.
In the final part of Is this the gate, Costello defends herself with:
I believe what I am.
I believe that what stands before you today is I.
I am!
This absorbing performance of Is this the gate was a world premiere, and Adelaide was privileged to host it. Coetzee and Lens also made introductory remarks and spoke of how the opera was developed. The excellent ensemble comprised Judith Dodsworth, voice, Elizabeth Layton and Helen Ayres, violins, Stephen King, viola, Thomas Marlin, cello, Matthew Kneale, bassoon, and Michael Ierace, piano, and the libretto was shown on screens.
The music is generally turbulent and discordant. The composer gave detailed instructions on the performance of each section, for example, Part 8 What have I seen? is marked “Come camminare sul ghiaccio sottile – Come un rapido piccolo tifone – Di nuovo, come camminare sul ghiaccio sottile – Di nuovo, con una certa goia” (Like walking on thin ice – Like a swift little typhoon – Again, like walking on thin ice – Again, with a certain joy).
Ensemble members briefly sing at one point, and first violinist Elizabeth Layton quietly announced Costello’s death at the beginning. Soprano Judith Dodsworth was magnificent as the troubled Costello, and Elizabeth Layton and bassoonist Matthew Kneale were outstanding, with Kneale’s bassoon creating a nicely inflected parallel voice.
This tantalising taste of Lens and Coetzee’s opera was delightful, but the entire opera must be heard, and it is greatly to be hoped that it can be produced here in the near future.
Chris Reid
When: 8 Mar
Where: Elder Hall, University of Adelaide
Bookings: Closed
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. 0471 Acro Physical Theatre & Cluster Arts. The Bunker, Fool’s Paradise. 7 Mar 2024
Three performers introduce themselves to the audience by gesture, saying nothing. One woman, two men, the taller man plays at being uncoordinated in performing his forward roll. I suspect it fools no-one.
A great deal of latitude can be given to performers such as the Acro trio since their target audience is completely fixated on one thing and demand nothing else. Children from the age of 4 to 8 (or so) want to be entertained, they want fun. And they get it. The old routines reworked into new shows, the balancing acts, the feats of strength, the acrobatics, and the sinuous flexing of bodies as they contort and position. What these three do with their bodies is amazing. A pillow fight using the cushions from a sofa offer another opportunity for some audience participation, and the kids love it.
I Am The Boss paints a simple scene where the three are left at home with what appears to be strict instructions to clean house; the adults having departed in a revving of engine and squealing of tyres. This is the signal for so many things to go wrong, and the interest in cleaning cloths seems slightly absurd, but not to kids, I guess. The fact that feather dusters are offered to several children in audience participation – but only to little girls – is one of those things that irks me, an adult.
The Acro performers hail from Taiwan, and it may be some of their tropes miss the mark slightly; the fall guy, the clumsy guy is the odd-looking guy whose stock in trade expression is an open-mouthed gormless look. The slapstick is entirely slapstick and the music pantomime; for adult audiences it is nothing they haven’t seen before and overplayed. There’s the ‘I need a drink, who emptied the water bottle?’ routine, the ‘chase the mosquito’ routine, and various others from the time of Buster Keaton or The Three Stooges. And the kids love it.
The final routine involves a very large lollipop, and a young girl is brought onstage. As an idea to keep kids interested it is too drawn out, although she does get to be part of the act, spinning around the stage to everyone’s delight; when the lollipop is revealed as a prop (surprise!) with a very normal sized Chupa Chup within, the ten-year-old critic next to me opined that the little girl had been short-changed and deserved a big lollipop. Critics, eh?
As the kids filed out of The Bunker the three performers could be seen handing out lollipops to them all, so all’s well that ends well.
Alex Wheaton
When: 7 to 17 Mar
Where: The Bunker, Fool’s Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Basement. 6 Mar 2024
Virtuoso is a one-man comedic routine (it’s not really stand-up) performed by an actor who is playing the role of an actor who is auditioning for a role in a production. Simple really, and how on earth could it possibly be funny?
The performer is Melburnian Casey Filips who has had broad training as an actor including in France at the prestigious clowning school Ecole Philippe Gaulier, and it shows. As Filips struts his stuff playing Tobias Finlay-Fraser, it is clear that he is entirely comfortable on stage particularly when he is performing exaggerated caricatures, which Virtuoso is chock full of.
Tobias arrives for his audition and the audience are the casting directors, whether they want to be or not. Tobias addresses the audience directly and seeks feedback and inspiration to get him through. He is ambitious and doesn’t let any hurdle get in his way. Some of the repartee between performer and audience (casting directors) is fertile ground for improv, but some of it is allowed to gently pass through to the keeper. Improvisation is risky business, and Filips knows how to choose his marks. The two volunteers in the opening night performance proved to be excellent, with one in particular almost eclipsing Filips himself. (The mating ritual dance of the Manatees was just a virtuoso performance in mime and clowning…. but just so silly!). The nature of the show likely attracts an audience that is in tune with theatrics, so the chances of snagging showy volunteers is greatly increased.
The storyline is entirely fatuous, which is part of the appeal of the show, and gives every opportunity for Filips and his volunteers to do totally idiotic stuff, which they do, and with great humour. At times, the repartee struggles but Filips keeps the momentum of the show heading in the direction of the next laugh, which is never too far away, and the audience is constantly smiling and belly-laughing.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 to 10 Mar
Where: The Basement
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Diana Nguyen. Spiegel Zelt. 5 Mar 2024
Bodily functions (of various permutations) are easy pickings and grist to the mill for comedians and Diana Nguyen serves up a variety of them, with ovulating and snoring her primary targets.
Nguyen has an easy, unforced manner, and the audience warms to her immediately as she invites them into her life. The title of this show reflects her (or perhaps more rightly her mother’s) interest in her reproductive capacity. At 38, she is still single, and childless. We’re given a backstory on her most recent liaison, including her love of foetus duck eggs (just don’t) and how they featured in the relationship she likened to ‘Survivor’. Having successfully voted her erstwhile partner out of her life-show, she decides to recalibrate by walking 300km of the Camino de Santiago.
It is here that she describes the symphony of snoring that backgrounded her nights in Albergues along the way, sharing huge dormitories with up to 100 other pilgrims. With great aplomb, she conducted the ‘Symphony of Snore’ guiding the self-confessed snorers in the audience through a rousing rendition of Strauss’s Blue Danube. It’s an easy get but still very funny.
The upshot of Nguyen’s sabbatical (with a trip to Italy added on, replete with aging Italian would-be lovers) was that she decided to listen to her mother and her clanging body clock, and have her eggs harvested and frozen. Just in case.
Nguyen’s portrayal of her mother is hilarious and bar the Vietnamese accent, she’s just like mothers everywhere who are waiting fruitlessly (see what I did there?) for grandchildren to be produced by aging daughters. She takes us through the process of medical retrieval (she preferred the term ‘scoop’ in regard to her precious eggs) and is now just waiting for the right fertiliser to turn up.
Just in case we’ve forgotten anything, Nguyen recites a condensed version of the entire show, only this time she plays her ukulele (the cutest green Kala soprano) to the tune of Taylor Swift’s Love Song and manages to cram the whole lot in!
Diana Nguyen is a charming character, a bit crude, a bit prissy, a bit tragic and a bit joyful. And very, very funny.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 5 to 10 Mar
Where: Spiegel Zelt
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Berliner Ensemble. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 6 Mar 2024
No longer the “Wunderkind”, our one-time, oh so vivid Festival director, Barrie Kosky, is now in “Oberboss" territory and still, oh so vivid.
He shines in this production of The Threepenny Opera, the great Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill cultural-landmark anti-opera which has pleased and intrigued the arts world since 1928. Kosky’s program acknowledges also the Elisabeth Hauptmann collaboration in the original adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera on which this work is based.
Kosky has done what he does, his own thing. He has stepped far away from German cabaret cliches and set the work on a great big industrial jungle gym of a set. The actors crawl and clamber through it and pose and perform. On opening night there was a problem with the hydraulics and the audience was informed that the cast had spent the day re-blocking the production to compensate. They succeeded. The performance was a triumph. And, the production is the sort of masterpiece we always expected of Kosky who has been resident in Germany for decades now and producing ever more extraordinary works.
The Adelaide Festival opening night audience was simply purring the words “our Barrie” as it dispersed from the Her Maj foyer. Kosky was not in town, but parochial pride minded not.
The Threepenny Opera tells a grim and nasty story about London criminals, greedy businessmen, and infidelity. It is ferociously anti-capitalist, a Brechtian stance. And it is gloriously and absurdly farcical.
Kosky’s cast is sublime. One falls in love with one after another of them.
The production is in German with translation screens flanking the stage, somewhat awkwardly for those in front stalls seating.
The orchestra pit has been elevated because the orchestra's musicians are very much part of the action. This element is a part of the breaking of the fourth wall which characterises the “opera’s" style. Actors cue the orchestra and appeal directly to the audience, while musicians, from time to time, stand as patsies.
The show opens with the white and sparkle-faced head of Dennis Jankowiak as The Moon over Soho peeking through the vast drop of loose glitter curtains. He introduces the first of the of the Weill refrains in a to-die-for tenor voice. Wickedly ethereal. And a taste of the cabaret imagery into which tradition has cast The Threepenny Opera.
The main protagonist, Macheath, aka Mac the Knife, is played by lithe and limber Gabriel Schneider. He seduces not only his women but the audience also. It’s an exhaustingly vigorous and outrageous performance. His bride, Polly Peachum, is delivered by Cynthia Micas who negotiates the giant scaffolds of the set clad in terrifyingly high platform shoes and sings like an angel. Her besuited father, Jonathan Peachum, in the form of respected German actor, Tilo Nest, expounds in Brechtian sprechgesang, the dark and selfish spirit of business; capitalist bastard that he is.
It is the Browns who bring the house down. As Brown, the London Police Chief, Kathrin Wehlisch is neatly in drag-king mode and playing her character with Chaplinesque panache. It is a feast of over-the-top reactive ham exemplifying the almost slapstick flavour with which Kosky has imbued the production and it is hard to take one's eye off her, unless it is to celebrate the actress playing Brown’s daughter, Lucy Brown, another Mac amorata. In this role, Laura Balzer steals the stage in a glorious impudence of wild physicality. There are beggars and prostitutes and, significantly, stage crew who perform their chores amid the actors in another demonstration of the fallen fourth wall.
Despite sound and hydraulic issues, the effusive orchestra of Adam Benzwi, the grotesqueries of makeup and the bright lighting of Ulrich Eh with the professionalism of a creamy cast ensured that Adelaide Festival’s big Kosky opener was absolutely all right on the night.
Brava!
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 10 Mar
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au