Luminato Festival and others. Dunstan Playhouse. 4 Mar 2015
The title sounds ominous, like somebody or something must fail. But it's nothing like that at all. It's a love story - a gentle, heartfelt, sweet narrative of falling in love. There are no actors. There are puppeteers, live-screening their beer bottle-high creations performing in tiny sets under dim lights right there on stage - not too visible, but projected onto the big screen to a filmic effect. The Afiara String Quartet pries open your heart with compelling compositions; think of Yo-Yo Ma. But it's Kid Koala of Montreal at the keyboard, and making the necessary strange sound effects, who is pulling the strings - his creation and his musical score.
The lead puppet reminds me of Scott Adams's office-inhabiting cartoon engineer, Dilbert. What spell have they cast that this puppet of a robot, yearning for a fine looking lady puppet, should make me sigh? There is enchantment when he teaches himself to play a heart-shaped ukulele to woo his girl. There is magic in the air as we see them walk city streets in new lovers' rapture or sad disappointment. How quaint that a woman could fall for a robot with spider eyes, who could erase his memory by snipping the magnetic tape in his chest, and who lives in a flat furnished like it's the 1950s.
I had a lump in my throat the whole time, and I cannot be the only one, what with the standing ovation at the Australian premiere of this exclusive-to-Adelaide production. I still don't understand how I could feel so alive. How did they capture something so utterly human with such blatant make believe?
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 7 March
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Gareth Hart. The Edments Building. 3 March 2015
One of the things I love about the Fringe is novel venues. This one is a zinger. The audience meets front-of-house staff in Fisher Place. This back lane would be at home in New York. We are led to the front of The Edments Building, are ushered into the elevator and subsequently debouched onto the rooftop. Here we faced east and the final reflections of the setting sun decorated the hills for the forty minutes of dance performance. The audience removed shoes and followed a thin line of dirty mulch to form a semi-circle round the dancer who was lying on a large mound of mulch resembling a turkey nest.
Edward Willoughby's haunting soundtrack of samples, sounds and chords would be at home in a horror movie and turned out to be the most pleasurable aspect of the production. Gareth Hart's choreography and performance did not live up to the "Superb" comment in the Fringe guide - which I suspect was applied to one of Hart's previous creations - or even to the accompanying picture.
Hart's dance motif reminded me of a chicken, scratching away the mulch for grubs and worms. Angular movements and tableaus repeated in variation without respite, change of pace, or progression for the entire show. His objective "to acknowledge, dredge up and pay attention to the past" was incoherent and not realised. Instead of conjuring up some semblance of human experience, I saw an alien in unsuitable shorts.
The irony of having a show called 'Excavate' on a rooftop was not lost. Your hard-earned Fringe dough is better spent elsewhere.
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 7 Mar
Where: The Edments Building
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Skagen, Richard Jordan Productions and Theatre Royal Plymouth. Space Theatre. 2 Mar 2015
Valentijn Dhaenens's 'Bigmouth' - in which he re-created a number of history's most stirring addresses - was a hit of last year's Festival. He's back with an ultra-personal look at the consequences of some of those exhortations - the tragedies of war's aftermath.
Dhaenens grew up in the Belgian killing fields of World War I and long had a fascination with that conflict and its aftermath. The battles continue, long after the shooting stops, in the hospitals, and later, in repatriation centres. Here are men, some without limbs, who are an embarrassing reminder of the awful sacrifices asked by their leaders.
Dhaenens has collated the stories of soldiers, nurses, orderlies and doctors from throughout the ages, but with an emphasis on The Great War, and conjoins them in this gentle, sympathetic and humanistic production. Dhaenens began as a hospital orderly, weary and world-wise from seeing a parade of carnage that ends in body bags, eternal care, or a forgotten fading away. She tends to an image of the actor as an amputee who dreams of being whole again by cloning into multiple ghostly images. These other survivors are a damaged lot representing a sad array of psychological and physical disability.
There have been millions of small wars like these after the big ones. It's going on today. The beauty and simplicity of the narrative belies the technical virtuosity in the seamless interaction of the digital imagery with Dhaenens's orderly, and in the conjoining of the original testimonies. The result is an incredibly moving and intimate production. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 2 to 4 March
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Lazy Saturday Productions. Holden Street Theatres – The Studio. 2 Mar 2015
There is a carefree attitude on stage as the lights come up. Sprawled across one another on cushions and beanbags, Cal, Holly and Brian appear to be carefree 20-somethings with too much time on their hands. But something more sinister is lurking beneath the surface.
The key theme in Darkle is said to be fantasy. It explores the consequences of relinquishing responsibly to live a life of fantasy alone. The playwright, Bill Gallagher, suggests that when we refuse to take responsibility we become vulnerable to fascism. It’s a stretch for any audience and an incredibly difficult sell in only 60 minutes.
It won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award in 1989 but perchance playwriting changed a bit since then. The audience's credulity is challenged by the characters undertaking very radical actions quite early in the play. The reason given in the production notes: boredom and fantasy. But what about motivation? What motivates three relatively carefree, yet gainfully employed, adolescents to carry out heinous acts with the justification of mere annoyance and stupidity on the part of the victim?
Cal, Holly and Brian make a conscious decision to torment and torture their landlord, Stringer, to teach him a lesson for being ‘stupid’. The inexplicable events that follow beggar belief and blur the lines of acceptable reality.
At the play’s denouement we descend into a nonsense of make-believe families that is intended to paint a picture of ‘patriarchal despotism‘ but instead feels perplexing and disjointed from everything that came before. Safe to say most of the audience will question what they have just seen and wonder, simply, why?
The performances are a different matter entirely. In the role of Stringer, David Macgillivray is a force to behold. His emotional energy is second to none on stage; a standout performance of an incredibly anxious and borderline neurotic character. Closely matched are Emma Bargery as Holly and Kat Jade as Cal. Bargery is particularly affecting when she discovers that fantasy has just become reality, and Jade is well balanced throughout as she manipulates the others to participate in the fantasy. Tom Russell rounds out the cast with his impressive CV of film appearances. Russell has solid acting chops but occasionally falls short of the energy required to maintain the intensity of his character’s ever fluctuating emotions.
The set is indicative of a rent-share apartment, and fits the action. It is not attractive, though. The lighting is also quite harsh throughout the production, and a fade to spot in the final scene is a welcome relief; more variation might have been utilised earlier for mood setting or transitions of time.
Darkle is an entertaining production. One is moved by the performances: from anxiety, to laughter, to sweating, to disgust. It is supremely enjoyable to watch.
I can’t say I buy what the playwright is selling. Each to his or her own.
Paul Rodda
When: 1 to 8 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Studio
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Note: This review was modified at the request of the production company to remove a plot point and maintain the element of surprise for future audiences. 4/3/15
Dawson Nichols. Bakehouse Theatre – Main Stage. 2 Mar 2015
Dawson Nichols, playwright and performer, is a keen observer of the myriad fragments that make up an individual’s life. Like a gifted painter who can distinguish the finer details of light, shade, and colour that define a subject, Nichols perceives the smallest of things that comprise a life event, and he then exercises the even rarer ability of putting it into words in a way that leaves the reader in no doubt what is intended.
Nichols is a wonderful storyteller, and the magic of his stories lie not so much in the plot but in the telling. In fact, his plots are often quite confusing.
To tell the truth, one was not always clear what Stop Start was about, and I suspect I was not alone. When the playwright himself advises the audience at the conclusion of the performance that reading a copy of the script, which is available for purchase in the foyer, will help clarify any nagging doubts, you know that you have been immersed in something quite cerebral (or should that be obscure?).
But this is Nichols’ allure. He is unafraid of tackling challenging (and sometimes quite confronting) narratives and developing them into enthralling pieces of theatre that leave you astonished at his skill as a writer as well as performer.
Clearly Nichols knows his text – he wrote it so that goes without saying – but a lesser actor and director would make a mess of it. From the first moment that the lights bring him into focus sitting alone on a chair on an empty black stage, Nichols’ every movement and gesture, coupled with his uber expressive voice and incredibly clear diction, make for compelling theatre. He slowly and inextricably draws you into the substance abused lives of two estranged brothers – both played by himself – as they lay bare memories of their lives. But it’s not all bleak. There are frequent moments of comedy as the brothers’ recount some of their more awkward experiences, such as the loss of virginity (well, sort of!).
The flow of events is confusing at times. The plot bends time and it is not always immediately clear which character is speaking, but that is part of the pull of the show – having to wrestle with one’s own (relatively) clear mind and give over to one that is the antithesis, one that is addicted to multiple substances and to the idea of rushing towards the end of one’s life because normality is just a state of being insufficiently drugged!
This is wonderful theatre. It is difficult theatre, but it should not be missed. Nichols is a rare talent indeed.
Kym Clayton
When: 14 Feb to 6 Mar
Where: Bakehouse Theatre – Main Stage
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au