On the Fly Impro. Grace Emily Hotel. 7 Mar 2015
Dashing Nick Byrne rightly brags that he was born in Adelaide. If we didn't like him before, that seals the deal. He's the quick-witted host of the On The Fly Improv Fringe presentation and he has brought it from Canberra, so to speak. It's actually pretty much home-grown since it is all about the people in the audience.
There's no picking on the audience, though. Audience members must volunteer or, at worst, be peer-pressured on stage to be a subject of In-Person-8. Therein they are thoroughly interviewed and then impersonated in a little improv drama.
There's a cast of thousands quietly screened off at the side of the tiny stage - young improv performers waiting for a cue or honing up on the mannerisms of the interviewees.
Nick brings some of them onstage to illustrate points with his subjects - one to be "painted", another to play a bike shop owner...
The audience members, however, are the stars.
It is extraordinary how well Nick eases them into being themselves. At first the women, certainly, are reticent.
Jenny, for instance, seems to have "don't know" as the answer to everything - until she is standing, confident, in the limelight giving a micro lecture on memes. We don't want her to stop. She is very interesting.
Then there is Karen, very softly spoken and shy. She has been forced up by an audience shout-out because of a slogan on her oversized t-shirt mini dress. She says she likes going to the movies. Cornered up there in the spotlight, she can't come up with the names of the movies she either likes or dislikes. But, as it happens, she, herself, has made a little Adelaide Indie movie. And suddenly she is on home ground and the audience is with her.
The blokes are showier. Shouted up by his mate Mike, Jim seems rather nonplussed. But Nick Byrne isn't letting dobber Mike off the hook, so he brings him up, too. And there we have two Fringe-going men who chummed up around the sporting prowess of their cycle-racing children. This is eked out into an hilarious exaggeration of teenage love and Olympian ambitions ending up in a take-over of the world's bike shops, made easier, Jim saying that... OK, we won't go there. But it was funny.
Last audience participant under the Nick Byrne microscope is James, who turns out to be one of the Matt Byrne musicals performers. He sings a few bars of a Mary Poppins song and plugs the show upcoming at The Arts Theatre.
Intermission consists of some Improv skits performed by the young crew, responding to audience suggestions. And then comes the denouement - the Improv play about Jenny, Karen, Jim, Mike and James.
The two actors who impersonate Jenny and Karen are stunning. They have picked up on expressions, gestures, voice intonations, laughs...They even seem to look like their subjects. The boys used broader brush strokes and ham it up beautifully. It is clear who is who, albeit the Jim impersonator completely overlooks that Jim’ has a Canadian accent.
Thus is it all a very merry hour at the Grace Emily, one fuelled perhaps by the odd vino, but most significantly, by the good nature of the audience participants and the on-the-spot skills of good Improv artistes.
Samela Harris
When: 7 and 9 Mar
Where: Grace Emily Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Eastend Cabaret. The Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Deluxe. 6 Mar 2015
What an entrance! That got the show onto a fine start. Every male in the house became very nervous about what high jinx they could be in for if vamp and temptress Bernadette singled them out for some sexual harassment. Always new to new audiences, the show harks back to post-modern experimentation exemplified by the Weimar cabaret. Irresistible in black, the Gothic Bernadette is foiled by her less statuesque comic sidekick, Victor-Victoria - a split name for a split personality dressed with a gender boundary down the middle in a bisexual bisection. To Victor-Victoria's accomplished accompaniment and asides, Bernadette sings ballads of sexual misadventures and songs of self-pleasure with frankness. They tag team the humour in a mood of subtle tension. But it's Bernadette’s sojourns amongst the smiling patrons that gives the show an added delicious risk factor and edge. It was the first time I was afraid yet internally screaming, "Pick me!" The show was so salacious you could taste it.
Eastend Cabaret won Best Cabaret at the 2012 Adelaide Fringe and the show I attended was sold out, so success continues to chase this dynamic duo. Go get titillated.
David Grybowski
When: 2 to 15 Mar
Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Deluxe
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
The Lost WWI Diary. Independent Artists. The Bakehouse Theatre. 6 Mar 2015
Damian Callinan was unknown to me and I have to admit that in my Fringe binge, I completely misjudged what this show would be like. Being a bit of a war buff, I was simply attracted to the uniform and title. How shallow is that! So I expected a serious and sad account of war horror built on the eponymous diary.
Damian is a masterful comedian with a swag of solo shows, TV and radio appearances, as well as a former career as an educator in English and drama. In this show, Damian uses his prodigious comedic capacity to link his general Australian war service interests with photo portraits of - at the time of writing - unidentified family members in uniform, and the aforementioned diary.
The first fifteen seconds of the show actually were what I expected, but that was a feint. Damian establishes we are in the present and after a magnificent circumnavigation that ties together the genesis of the narrative, he turns back the clock to 1914 and enlistment. Paddy Callinan, like Forrest Gump, is centre stage at Australia's big shows of the war, among them the ANZAC Day landing and Pozieres. The diaries reveal the larrikin spirit the WWI diggers are now famous for - pulling stunts, brothel browsing, and irreverence for authority - but eventually we get to the shooting. Damian creates Paddy and his mates, Stanza, Bluey, Mocka, Pirate, and Depot, with crystal clear clarity and separation. You feel you could have a conversation with these guys, which in fact, sometimes occurs with the front couple of rows.
If I had to go to war, I could only hope it would be with someone like Damian. He has a prodigious comedy tool kit utilising anachronism, metaphors, surrealism, post-modernism, set-ups, shelving, irony, local references, comic gestures, you name it. In a blink he can arouse pathos but soon lets you off with another crack. Or was it Paddy and his mates I wanted to be part of?
This is an exceptionally well written, well-conceived tale, born of remembrance, wonder and longing, and delivered with aplomb. A joy from start to finish.
David Grybowski
When: 2 to 14 Mar
Where: The Bakehouse Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Town Hall. 5 Mar 2015
Festival composer-in-residence and conductor Gavin Bryars was enthusiastically applauded at the conclusion of his curiously–titled composition Jesus’ Blood Never failed Me Yet. Written in 1971, it is his arrangement of a simple hymn by an unknown composer. Near-chance events led Bryars to acquiring a taped recording of an old man singing a stanza from a hymn in shaky-voice. Bryars turned this into a continuous loop and gradually overlaid it with a string and brass accompaniment.
From the Adelaide Town Hall podium, Bryars explains to the substantial audience that he found the old man’s voice deeply affecting and wanted to enhance it, and he certainly does.
Waiting for Bryar’s to beat in the orchestra, we sit in silence. Then, almost imperceptibly, we hear the faintest strains of a voice – seemingly from offstage. Initially we think it is bad stage management – someone idly humming from backstage who needs to be silenced quickly before the performance can begin – but it is anything but. It is in fact the forty-year old recording of the old man singing the hymn. The volume gradually increases and Bryars brings in the orchestra. Just a few violins at first, trying to fit in with the loose meter of the untrained voice. They settle in and almost in the fashion of Ravel’s Bolero, Bryars gradually enriches the soundscape adding additional strings, and then brass. The volume swells and fades as instruments enter and leave, and all the time the strangely affecting vocals of the old man ride gently above the waves of Bryar’s superlative orchestration.
It is long. The performance includes more than a hundred repetitions of the thirteen-bar stanza stretching over forty minutes: “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, never failed me yet. Jesus’ blood never failed me yet. There’s one thing I know, for he loves me so. Jesus’ blood never failed me yet.” The repetition becomes hypnotic, and annoying, and one’s attention moves backwards and forwards between the solo voice and the music. We hopelessly wait for a variation in the vocals that we know will never eventuate. One’s mind earnestly seeks to find a pattern in the orchestration. What is its structure? Why aren’t the musicians turning the pages of their score? Is it really repetitive like the vocal line - it doesn’t sound like it is?
It is frustrating, it is soothing. It is transcendent. It is a testimony to the spirit of man.
Although Jesus’ Blood Never failed Me Yet is the main-stay, the programme also includes other gems in the first half. Howard Skempton’s Lento is a superb example of modern serious orchestral music that takes minimalism an extra step. It concentrates on pure melody and almost abandons attempts at development. The sound washes over you and lifts you to an entirely different place. It is both uplifting and melancholic.
Bryar’s The Porazzi Fragment (which is based on a musical idea of Wagner) is also almost despondent but the gentle insertion of filigree-like violin lines engender a serene restfulness. Arvo Pärt’s If Bach Had Been A Beekeeper injected a sense of pace and inevitably moving forward, and it swept us into two arias from Bryar’s opera G.
Soprano Anna Fraser’s performance of Ennelina’s Aria is imposing. With an almost imperceptible vibrato, her voice rises over the orchestra in a display of tonal clarity.
As impressive an experience as Jesus’ Blood Never failed Me Yet is, the highlight of the evening is bass, Alex Knight singing the Epilogue from G. This young man, an Australian, has a booming voice and a stellar international career is surely in front of him. His strength and evenness of tone across the register must be the envy of basses everywhere, and all from someone who is in the very early stages of his career. At times the score take him into the tenor range and he handles that with aplomb as well. Bravo. We need to hear much more from you!
Festival Director David Sefton has pulled one out of the bag with this concert. It is such a shame it is a ‘once only’.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Davine Interventionz. Star Theatre One. 5 Mar 2015
As the title suggests, Flower Children, is a musical that tells the story of American folk rock vocal group The Mamas and the Papas. Produced by Adelaide’s own David Gauci and his company Davine Interventionz, this one off 5-show-only production could be Adelaide’s first and last chance to see the songs of this iconic ‘60s band incorporated into the musical story of their lives. Ownership of rights and a reluctance to make them available for musical reproduction being the issue.
AFI award winner and Green Room nominee, Peter Fitzpatrick, wrote the stunning story for the production, with musical interpretations by Aaron Joiner. Although Gauci’s production could do with more pace in the dialogue, Fitzpatrick’s story is absolutely the foundation and glue that hold this production together. The music is the icing on the cake.
It is a long show, but one finds oneself enthralled by the drama. The talented cast handle their characters incredibly well. There are standout acting and singing performances throughout the entire production.
Lisa Simonetti is born to play the infamous Mama Cass (Cass Elliot). In her solo number Dream A Little Dream Of Me, shivers roll down ones spine. Here she finds a powerful stillness, lacking during her dramatic dialogue; she oozes stage presence.
As the group’s make-or-break character, Mama Michelle (Michelle Phillips), Fiona DeLaine shows exactly what she is capable of. DeLaine has solid acting chops and is captivating during her later turn as the show’s narrator. She captures the subtleties of Michelle and projects them all the way to the back of the room. But then she sings, and hearts melt. Delaine’s rendition of Dedicated To The One I Love will bring a tear to your eye; a tear of joy. Her vocal quality is such that one may argue DeLaine sings it better than the original.
Her husband, John Phillips or Papa John, is superbly played by Lindsay Prodea who continues to impress with his ever growing versatility. Prodea is musically gifted such that he learned to play the guitar especially for the show. He not only pulls it off but is a dab-hand. Cuts and edits in the dialogue made Prodea’s part, in particular, difficult to navigate emotionally. Here he has some room for improvement.
David Salter makes four in the role of Papa Denny (Denny Doherty), the group’s tenor. Salter is a rare talent and again proves himself in this role, completely owning and living his character. His rendition of Monday Monday is hard not to sing along to, and does the original complete justice. Like DeLaine, Salter relishes in his narration role, completely capturing the audience with his story.
The choreography is perfectly constructed by Shenayde Wilkinson-Sarti, and musically Emma Knights keeps her small band in fine form. For the most part the lighting by Mike Phillips is wonderful, save a few scenes which are very white and far too bright. Gauci’s direction places the action simply and effectively on the stage. Set pieces are navigated, placed and struck effortlessly by the ensemble. More pace in the dialogue, as previously mentioned, would improve the longer scenes, and refraining from unnecessary entrances through the auditorium would be preferable. This odd choice continually breaks the connection.
The supporting cast of Fiona Aitken, Sam Davy, Mim Sarre, Katherine Chase, Fahad Farooque and Alana Shepherdson add the perfect 60s vibe. Their presence lifts the energy of the musical numbers and fills out the vocal harmonies wonderfully.
Alas, I understand the rest of the season is now sold; but kudos to the entire team on a wonderful production. Bravo.
Paul Rodda
When: 4 to 7 Mar
Where: Star Theatre One
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au