Sun Rising. Space Theatre. 11 Jun 2015
Don't you think the theatre on the cover of the Cabaret Festival program - at a glance, when you are walking past it in a display stand - looks like a full whiskey bottle? Subliminally? No? Just me?
I could just imagine B. Humphries scouting out Sun Rising in some smoke machine-generated smoky honky tonk in Melbourne, marveling at this band's awesome respect for the colour conversion of blues from black to white, and the birth of rock & roll, in Sam Phillips's Memphis recording studio, where he pressed the black plastic with the Sun Records label for some of the biz's biggest names in their nascent condition in the mid-1950s. I felt the same love, especially from band leader David Cosma's renditions, without imitation, of some of Elvis's first recordings. He looked so proud. But a little miffed when slightly upstaged by Adrian Whyte's fulsome Folsom Prison as a youthful Johnny Cash poltergeist.
David Cosma is keen you get the story right, presenting Phillips and his stable of stars story chronologically, and introducing the songs with a wealth of appreciated information. Helping David with his dream is the fabulous Damon Smith. Smith rips the ivory off the 88s with terrifying slides, yet tickles his way through solos - he is both slap and tickle. His gravelly voice was absolutely spot on for Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.
The band is further motivated by Adam Coad and Trent McKenzie on drums, and bass and double bass respectively. I loved the way McKenzie pounded and slapped the double bass strings like someone's soft bottom. When the aforementioned Whyte's not Cash, he's encouraging the electric lead guitar to weep and cry.
The crowd comprised mainly age types who were teens in the 50s or just after, and they loved the music made before the day the music died (slight homage to Don McLean's American Pie). They were enthralled with Sun Rising's catalogue of Presley, Orbison, Howlin' Wolf, BB King, Perkins, Cash, Lewis and also to learn how it all began. The only thing missing was the dance floor.
David Grybowski
When: 11 to 13 Jun
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 8 Jun 2015
And thus is born a new Australian musical, a labor of love from the pen of talented medico cum composer and vocalist Lane Hinchcliffe.
At the conclusion of today’s world première performance, the near capacity Dunstan Playhouse audience rose to its feet and offered a heartfelt, appreciative and noisy standing ovation. To a person the (parochial?) audience sensed they had witnessed the beginning of something special.
The Front is a new addition to the canon of musicals about war and its lasting effects. It centers on the recent discovery of the remains of Australian soldiers (and other nationalities) at the site of the Battle of Fromelles in 1916 and their re-interment into official war graves. The story follows the pilgrimage of an old man, Arthur, played with consummate style and dignity by Paul Blackwell, as he journeys to the site of the battlefield to find the grave of Frank, a lost relative whom he never knew. It culminates with Arthur reading aloud at the gravesite from a letter written by an enemy soldier who was rescued by Frank as his last act of humanity. Along the way there are flashbacks to 1916 where we meet Frank and his fellow troopers, but because much of the play is set in the war, it is more appropriate to say there are flash-forwards to ‘now’ rather than flashbacks to ‘then’. In this lies a fundamental flaw in the show's structure. The final scene - Arthur reading at the grave site supported by his own sons - is so beautifully poignant and so succinct as an anti-war statement that it somehow needs to feature more prominently throughout the entire play and be carefully built up towards the tear jerking conclusion.
The show is performed as a concert and does away with elaborate settings: just a bare stage shared with an excellent musical ensemble and the cast sitting around on bentwood chairs in their excellent period costumes. All cast members carry scripts and occasionally refer to them, but the performance is not a moved reading. The show is largely sung-through (22 songs) with significantly less dialogue. Hinchcliffe gives us tantalising glimpses into the personalities of his characters but we want to know them better. Too often what they say is declamatory and fleeting, and this too is a flaw in the show, with many of the characters needing deeper development. A clear and spectacular exception is that of young Willy, the baby of the troop, beautifully played by Nicholas Winter. Hinchcliffe’s rendering of this character is superb, and Winter’s portrayal of Willy’s brutal and lonely death is chillingly remarkable.
Martin Crewes lead role performance of Frank is very satisfying. He carefully draws out Frank’s humanity, sense of duty, compassion and inevitable fear. His vocal performance of the closing number to Act 1, The Front – probably the finest musical number in the show – is a high point.
Michael Whalley is excellent as Keith (from Keith!) – the knock-around, fun loving, irreverent larrikin who is eventually totally destroyed when the war leaves him blinded. Josh Rowe’s fine baritone voice and imposing presence give him authority as Bluey, the sergeant. Matt Crook skillfully moves between the dual roles of an idealistic junior serving on the front, and the anti-war son of Arthur. Cameron MacDonald imbues the role of Bert, a digger of Germanic descent, with great humility. Catherine Campbell and Emily Morris give strong performances as Miriam and Gertie, two nurses who befriended and tender to Frank and his troopers. Rosanne Hosking plays Nellie, the grief stricken but dignified wife to Frank. Her performance of I’ve Seen It All Before is also a highlight.
Hinchcliffe’s music is very satisfying and neo-romantic. There are sweeping melodic lines that evoke adventure, grief, danger and compassion. Hinchcliffe, who also plays Ken, one of Arthur’s sons, is also a singer of considerable talent, and his rendition of Fromelles attests to that. He clearly knows how to write for voice: no clumsy intervals, phrases of comfortable duration to allow for physicality, and emotions set in appropriate registers. Matthew Carey’s musical direction is tight, although the woodwind at times compete a little too insistently with the singers. Director Andy Packer has produced a creditable concert version of a show that has the potential to really become something.
The Front deserves further development, and a future. It deserves your support. Google it.
P.S. Unusual fare for a Cabaret Festival, but who cares!
Kym Clayton
When: 8 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. 7 Jun 2015
Meow Meow crowd surfed her way on the upraised arms of an adoring Adelaide cabaret audience, out of the Dunstan Playhouse, five years ago.
Her return, again from the wings of Dunstan Playhouse, found her garbed in a gold diamantine glittered strap dress, one side ripped exposing her black bra.
Meow Meow dragged from a lock around her ankle a long, heavy chain, attached to an offstage trolley. Fussing with it she sat, then dragged it bit by bit into full view. On it, an assortment of cases and odd bric-a-brac; baggage of life, instruments of a vagabond songstress’s trade.
His Master's Choice finds Meow Meow indulging eagerly in songs of savage hurt coated lavishly in melodrama, excited expressions of spite and darkly contemptuous satire. Be it revelling in the savagery of romantic or familial rejection or the sickly sweet poeticism of a child’s fairy tale like death wish, Meow Meow treats all as a delicious feast of dark feeling to be desired.
The choice to be crushed, reviled, seek oblivion and be used is delivered with a blend of coaxing and pleading expressed nothing like the sound and feel of a weakened vessel begging.
Meow Meow insinuates pleasure and strength in downtrodden states. Delight ever palpable. The choice of sung language ups the ante considerably on this point, most particularly if it’s German.
The audience are playthings; be it seducing one person to gladly supply their glass of wine whenever requested or, especially in the case of one gentleman, coaxed to hold her microphone. The gentleman’s arm tucked under Meow Meow’s armpit; elbow and arm operating as microphone stand. Assured he was well tucked in behind her, Meow Meow worked her way through a sheaf of sheet music for voice, articulating aural phases of sexual congress and post coital bathroom etiquette.
Meow Meow’s voice strutted and prowled about her audience seductively, offering short bursts of romantically tinged vibrato alike to the sudden appearance of a warming sun in winter.
Winter it certainly seemed to be, as a light shower of black charred paper descended from the rig as she exited.
It was as if the reality of so many dark emotions had finally caught her.
David O’Brien
When: Closed
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Anna Goldsworthy. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Space Theatre. 7 Jun 2015
Festival Artistic Director Barrie Humphries trumpets that as far as cabaret is concerned “there are no rules”, and Piano Lessons attests to that. Whatever cabaret is, Piano Lessons is not that. It is cerebral high art; it is sophisticated comedy; it is beautiful music making; it is deeply affecting and immensely satisfying. It is a play about the special relationship between a gifted piano student and her inspiring teacher, and it is underscored with superb piano artistry.
Piano Lessons is the stage adaptation of Anna Goldsworthy’s successful memoir of the same name published in 2009, in which she recounts her musical ‘growing up’ and metamorphosis into an internationally acclaimed concert pianist under the expert tutelage and critical eye of renowned Russian-born teacher Eleonora Sivan who resides in Adelaide.
For more than two hours Goldsworthy holds us spellbound in her hands as she traces her musical journey from the age of nine through to early adulthood. We witness her fumbling efforts as a child who can play the notes but lacks the soul and understanding to bring the music to life. How hard it must have been for Goldsworthy to wind the years back and actually play badly! Always looking over her shoulder or lurking in the shadows is Sivan, who was perceptively played by professional actor Helen Howard.
The written memoir struck a chord with many, but the stage version has brought the writing to life in quite unexpected ways. Not only is the music mentioned in the book brought to life, we are given a glimpse into the psyche of the composer and into the world of the teacher whose job it is to assist the student to make the music their own and to live it, rather than just play it.
Goldsworthy interpolates finely balanced wit and humor into her role as she plays herself. We see her as concert pianist and as a competent actress. We see her as an awkward girl, and as a confident artist who has ‘arrived’. Goldsworthy’s rapport with Howard is tangible – they are student and teacher. The staging and the lighting were well designed, and Michael Futcher’s dramaturgy and direction allowed Goldsworthy and Howard to make excellent use of the performance space and to convincingly portray both time and locations. Howard’s voice-overs of Goldsworthy’s family members also injected a bit of spice, it tarted the performance up somewhat and kept the audience grounded.
Goldsworthy played just enough ‘near-complete’ extracts from the music of Mozart, Bach, Liszt and Chopin to keep the audience spell-bound and believing they were in the concert hall and not at a cabaret.
Great stuff!
Kym Clayton
When: 6 to 8 Jun
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Cabaret Fringe Festival. Kevin Crease Studios (Channel 9). Hannah Bennett. 5 Jun 2015
Grand psychological dramas, exemplified by Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet, tend to be foundations upon which emotive understandings of mental break down or dysfunction, and cultural cues for expressing such understanding, is based.
Early 21st century society is gripped by intense focus on mental health issues and services as numbers suffering depression and associated mental conditions rise.
There is nothing grand about the gradual inability to get out of bed. Self-esteem pushed constantly into the ground; pushing one’s self to exhaustion searching for approval and success in fighting this ‘thing’; the fear of social interaction tackled with self-worth raising exercises that lead nowhere - or becoming one way tickets to addiction, insolvency or both – all different parts of many varied experiences and consequences of depression.
Hannah Bennett’s Myriad is her personal experience; trustingly handed to Director/Writer Suzannah Kennett Lister that she might write a work so that Bennett could offer her experience through performance and song to an audience in a manner comfortably understood, even identifiable with.
A trust Lister has honoured. The script’s blend of anecdote and song is simple, personable and direct without holding back from expressing dark things, nor giving full vent to truly bright moments. While Lister’s sea metaphor on which much of the work is based is somewhat laboured, Designer Ben Roberts’ use of pine single bed with white sheeting, encircled by sand with concentric grooves and Alexander Ramsay’s sparse but atmospheric lighting provide a perfect space in which struggling to get up, get on, and get out of this trap is played out.
Lister’s direction is crisp. Truly beautiful in the manner she utilises every element of the production to eke out, directly and metaphorically as much meaning and context from Bennett’s performance as possible. Accompanist Carol Young’s deft and gentle piano perfectly pairs Bennett’s range, most particularly with songs Sounds of Silence and an upbeat rendition of Tricky.
Bennett’s relaxed physicality onstage and smooth transition from anecdote to song successfully belies much of the real darkness being spoken of, because Bennett is able to use Roberts’ minimal in-the-round set to establish comfortable, loving intimacy with her audience.
Importantly, as Bennett says “it’s all in your head. Well that may be, but that doesn’t make it go away,” and proceeds to make the point one’s head is a real thing, as many thoughts and emotions it contains; it’s something we all share.
Just as every audience and individual perceives a production differently, so will those who have had some experience alike to Bennett’s. For some, this might be too much. For others, a moment of recognition how far they’ve travelled. For all, realisation that, that moment we don’t want to get out of bed can lead everyone somewhere they didn’t want to go.
David O’Brien
When: 5 to 20 Jun
Where: Kevin Crease Studios, Channel 9
Bookings: cabaretfringefestival.com