Something on Saturday. Emma Knights Productions. The Banquet Room. 25 Jul 2015
The Festival Centre’s Something On Saturday programme is as popular as ever. This year Emma Knights has, along with Director Curtis Shipley, brought together a team of some of Adelaide’s finest improvisational actors to present a play made up on the spot with inspiration taken directly from the suggestions of the young audience.
At an hour long, one might expect the attention of the 2 to 10 year olds to wane by half way, but it is not the case. Like an episode of playschool, the actors keep the kids constantly engaged without being condescending.
Starring Curtis Shipley, Eden Trebilco, Kirsty Wigg, Jarrad Parker, Sam Griffin and with Emma Knights on the keyboard, the group are even brave enough to improvise musical numbers with adlibbed lyrics to a randomised tune.
Whilst improv purists might pick flaws and the occasional broken rule, the kids don’t care at all. For them the hour simply flies by. The conclusion of the show doesn’t hail the end of the fun, as the kids make their way to the foyer for more creativity in the form of cutting, colouring, arts and crafts.
It might not have the highest of production values, and audiences shouldn’t expect any strong take-away themes or learnings, but it is light hearted entertainment for the little ones. A pleasant way to spend an hour on a rainy weekend.
Paul Rodda
When: Closed
Where: The Banquet Room
Bookings: Closed
Bakehouse Theatre. Adapt Productions. 25 Jul 2015
It's good to have a dose of David Williamson from time to time, just to dip into the styles and mores of yesterday's Australia. So much has changed and yet so little.
The Perfectionist retains its currency by depicting a 70s academic couple in a highly competitive marriage. They are both obsessed with their PhDs and a delusional sense of the importance of it all. They also are being very progressive, experimenting with open marriage. The play begins in Denmark where the wife, Barbara, is hiring a male babysitter for the unseen children - a charming bleeding heart leftie called Erik. Husband Stuart, a smug and unimaginative man, has a good academic post and is endlessly engaged on a PhD in which he seeks unattainable perfection. After nine years and three sons, it is still not done. Barbara thinks it's time she had a turn to get hers done. And thus, as the couple returns to Australia, are the roles reversed.
In my memory, it's a fairly sharp and pithy play about some pretty awful people, a classic old Williamson streaked with ironic wit. This revival does not quite match up with the pace and edginess of remembered productions, though it may tighten up as the run progresses at the Bakehouse.
While Cheryl Douglas holds the mood and character of the play well as Barbara, ironically it is the director Ross Vosvotekas casting himself as the male lead which is the key problem. He is not the right actor for that role and his delivery comes across rather like a reading. He loosens only in final scenes. Chris Knight makes a fair fist of Erik with a very interesting accent while Kim York and Rick Mills work well as the long-suffering, flawed old parents.
Amanda Jane Bell clearly has had fun with the 70s costumes. Stuart's flares seem to have been arduously added to modern strides. Erik's wide trews are floppy long. Barbara and Shirley have some terrific floaty outfits and clearly everyone has tried hard.
The set is another story. It starts in 70s orange. Very orange. Barbara is wearing a matching orange gown as well. Oddly, when the family moves to Sydney, they have a dramatic decline in aesthetic taste. The paintings are screamingly atrocious in this broad living room set.
By accident or by design, Adapt has presented the audience with some interesting challenges to carry them through possible lacklustre moments. One is a hanging chess game played into a head-spinningly impossible position which one can't help but keep trying to solve. Another is wondering why Barbara appears to be reading the same book for about a year. Another is pondering why the parents take their champagne from dessert dishes. Yet another is contemplating why the academic's domestic roster looks as if it has been done by a 12-year-old.
These mysteries, along with a veritable hit parade of 70s music blasted out merrily amid the myriad scene changes, give the show another strand of entertainment value. And the play itself, of course.
The Perfectionist remains an interesting and engaging play which still, with issues such as open marriage and parenting, provides substance for a pleasantly provocative winter's night out.
Samela Harris
When: 24 Jul to 8 Aug
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Leigh Warren Dance. Leigh Warren Dance Studio. 16 Jul 2015
Michel Fokine choreographed iconic Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova’s signature dance The Dying Swan on her in 1905, creating choreography filled with lithe melancholic romanticism, weighed in deep aching sadness. Pavlova’s quick, sharp pirouettes, graceful wing like arch of shoulders and arms, mournful bows and dips encapsulate a beautiful creature of nature in their dying throes.
Fokine’s inspiration finds choreographer Daniel Jaber and dancer Kialea-Nadine Williams profoundly transcending the boundaries of Fokine’s choreographic intent, realising a work as equally powerful and demanding of a dancer as Fokines’ A Dying Swan.
Jaber’s creation is uniquely original from the Russian modern classic. He redirects focus of the work choreographically from a swan like woman, to a woman like swan. Jaber and Williams remain true to the innate emotional thematic thread at the heart of Fokine’s creation, even as they completely redefine its subject.
They have transferred the agonising, inescapable slow grip of death upon a beautiful living creature of nature, to that of a woman closed off, caught in the inescapable clutch of loneliness, the barriers it throws up and inevitability of death.
What a remarkable blend of power, gentleness, enlightenment and pain is A Dying Swan. Jaber’s choreography is quite deliberate in its capacity to carefully draw out a sense of a woman both recognising and fighting barriers within her as much as around her.
Fantastically, Williams gives physical expression to the gentlest of moments holding as much raw, aggressive power as they do the softest of touches.
The swan in the woman we watch turning, pushing, running, falling in injury and clutching at mirages of solace sources an unbearable sense of private pain hard to watch.
Jaber’s blend of careful, hard edged contemporary form, delicately iced with classical references is as complex and masterful as is Jason Groves’ in the round white performance space and simple sharp lighting palette, enhancing the whole. Costumier Catherine Ziersch’s simple white dress completes the production’s emphasis on less is more.
Williams’ powers of expression are pushed, as Pavlova’s were, in an extreme test of artistic prowess. A test she surpasses so greatly, that as Fokine’s A Dying Swan was Pavlova’s signature dance of her core artistic genius and sensibility of her times, so is Jaber’s A Dying Swan Williams’ very own personal signature of her power.
David O’Brien
When: 10 to 18 July
Where: Leigh Warren Dance Studio 1st Floor Lion Arts Centre
Bookings: Sold Out
Windmill Theatre and Metro Arts. Space Theatre. 11 Jul 2015
The ‘Bear Experts’ arrive to a cabaret styled performance space, with taped cardboard boxes for tables and floor cushions for seats. We have all brought our very own bear – well at least the kids have – and everyone gets in on the performance.
This well-crafted show is splendid in its simplicity. Carrying the themes of resilience, optimism, friendship and humour, it asks us to consider the important role that our teddy bears play in our lives. “They always say exactly what needs to be said…”
The show has been created by Metro Arts and is being presented by Windmill Theatre in conjunction with the Adelaide Festival Centre.
Designed as a “playful and gentle introduction to theatre for very young audiences”, the program invites the children to participate as much or a little as they are comfortable, both outwardly and inwardly. The kids can sit quietly with their families and emulate the onstage action with the security of their parents, or they are welcome to the front to virtually join the performers on stage.
Incorporating both storytelling and song, there is a section dedicated to famous bears throughout time (Winnie the Pooh features amongst others), a game of peek-a-boo which works in a clever projection, and a funny song about bottoms!
The adults and kids alike just love it. It is engaging and entertaining.
Paul Rodda
When: 7 to 19 Jul
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Matt Byrne Media. The Arts Theatre. 3 Jul 2015
Lauren Potter arrives onstage in a flurry, adorned in a tailored green velvet coat with trademark parrot head umbrella and laced leather boots with a perfect turn-out. Potter’s Poppins is practically perfect in every way, and her arrival signals a significant lift in the show thus-far. She truly makes it.
Opening in Adelaide this week, it is Matt Byrne Media’s South Australian Premiere of Mary Poppins that has Potter landing at the Arts Theatre. The audience is unusually loaded with preadolescents, joining their parents and grandparents to witness the magical story which inspired theirs and the imaginations of thousands world-wide.
It’s a tough ask to recreate a story that means so much to so many. Potter makes it so. She is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and whenever she graces the stage the scenes are thoroughly ‘spit-spot’. Her excellent performance however is just not quite enough to save the show from desperately long scene changes, and a general lack of pace – particularly during the dialogue.
The remaining ensemble cast are consistent; solid performers with a few standouts amongst them. Megan Humphries’ scenes as Miss Andrew deliver the gusto the show is really craving. When Humphries performs opposite Potter the energy is electric. Penni Hamilton-Smith and Callum Piotr Byrne, as Mrs Brill and Roberson Ay respectively, create loveable characters that inject a little life and laughter. Chris Bussey’s Bird Woman performance and rendition of Feed The Birds is both poignant and heart-warming.
The Banks children, Michael and Jane, are well crafted by Sebastien Skubala and Shalani Wood. Whether working off each other, or individually these two youngsters perform with self-assurance beyond their years and truck loads of talent.
Brendan Cooney imbues Bert with cockney charisma; Ellonye Keniry’s Winifred Banks has some effecting moments; and James McCluskey-Garcia’s George Banks starts to shine in the second act when his characters stern veneer begins to crumble.
Byrne’s design goes some way to solving the complicated locations and changes required in the show, but it also hinders much of the flow. The lighting design (Mike Phillips and Ian Barge) was confusing and poorly executed; often washing out the projected backdrop; a mix of the wrong colours; cued late or altogether incorrect; and occasionally leaving performers in the dark.
The choreography, by Sue Pole, also feels short of the mark, not delivering the energy the show needs to get us bopping in our seats. There are some moments of production genius where all of the elements work in perfect harmony; the silhouetted chimney sweeps in tableau on the roof tops against the digital background for Step In Time, is a particular highlight. But these moments are few and far between, and any momentum is quickly lost by the following scene change. Gordon Combes’ musical direction has drawn the best out of his singers, and the orchestra are tight. Sue Winston and her costume team have smashed it out of the park; Winston ought to be in line for another award nomination.
Overall, it is frustratingly close as a production; one that has all the makings of a good show. If the run tightens up and the set and light cues are improved it will get there. Just prepare the kids for a late one.
These shows don’t often make it to Adelaide due to our reluctant local audiences. Support local theatre and do book a ticket.
Paul Rodda
When: 2 to 18 Jul and 23 Jul to 1 Aug
Where: The Arts Theatre and The Shedley Theatres
Bookings: mattbyrnemedia.com.au, 8262 4906 or bass.net.au