Adelaide Festival. Shona Reppe. Odeon Theatre. 5 Mar 2014
This is the Best Show for Children - Theatre Awards UK in 2012. Creator, designer and performer Jona Reppe takes her place amongst a framework filled with instrumentation and devices of Victorian analogy. Dressed in a souped up lab coat, she introduces herself as scrapologist Dr Patricia Baker. And we are going on journey of discovery and investigation like a South Seas explorer through a scrapbook. This is a found object extraordinaire and we must discover its author and why the creator collected.
To the kids who don't know yet, a scrapbook is explained. Dr Baker makes this scrapbook very, very important and her forensic skills are ample. Every bit of matter is probed and sniffed to build a body of evidence. Page by page, the clues are revealed. Some are probed with magnification whose images appear on a nearby screen.
Besides her earnest enthusiasm, what I love about Dr Baker is her use of the scientific method. She is brave enough to make deductions, test them, and if they fail the test, out they go, and a new hypothesis is developed. This is a very valuable and fun lesson for the young'uns.
The mystery is solved in a heart-warming and charming conclusion. But it's no mystery why this show won Britain's top award.
David Grybowski
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Radio Adelaide. 5 Mar 2014
What a great idea. A radio show which is a theatre piece about a radio show. Or a theatre piece which is a radio show about a radio show. All of it presented inside a radio studio.
This is Zoe McDonald's offering for Fringe 2014.
Zoe, who bears a passing resemblance to Ellen DeGeneres, is a performance artist who specialises in character cameos.
In the guise of a volunteer safety warden, she greets and counts up her audience on arrival in the Radio Adelaide foyer, tagging everyone with large white stickers bearing either their name or a name of their choice. I was "Sunny" for the night; my partner was "Nevermind". I noted "Crispy" and "Fearful" among others.
As they file into the dark little studio, each audience member is equipped with headphones which they are asked to don as McDonald opens the show. Therein we meet a perky British anchor, a tough tattoo artist, a vagazzling beauty shop owner, and a South African feminist, among others. They adorn the Zoe McDonald radio show which starts with studio and phone interviews each of which showcases McDonald's alacrity at jumping from character to character and accent to accent. She does very good accent, her British absolutely hitting the spot and her South African being so gloriously clipped it could be a parody were it not so precisely so. While the vocals are highly skilled, the story line is decidedly dodgy. There's a fair bit of Lesbian innuendo, there is a hidden-behind-the-desk scene of Zoe suffering a "lady garden" waxing by her guerrilla beautician.
The strength of the script lies in the play on acronyms. Social media has evolved an obfuscatory and absurd lingo and, as McDonald demonstrates, it is language on the go. Hence, one can go past FOMO and LOL and L8R, through PLMK (Please Let Me Know) to OOMF (One Of My Friends) and YOLO (You Only Live Once) through to whatever wild extension suits the moment. She gives this subject a pithy workover.
The radio interview evolves into a strange little ‘This Is Your Life’ with Zoe's friends keen to spill the beans on her. The tattoo artist says she is outside the studio trying to come in. It is all too much for Zoe and she would seem, at last, to prefer MO to FOMO. Her escape from the studio is tragic-comic and she uses the soundproof radio studio's window exterior to very good effect as yet another performance space.
This girl is extremely talented. She is extremely likeable. There are some gems in the show. But, as an entity, it seems to craze off sideways with just a bit too much preoccupation with the pudendum and not enough with the actual idea of FOMO.
Samela Harris
When: 7 to 16 Mar
Where: Radio Adelaide
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Windmill Theatre. Space Theatre. 4 Mar 2014
Girl Asleep is the final take in Matthew Whittet's trilogy of teenage angst plays produced by Windmill Theatre and directed by Rosemary Myers. While stuffed full with relevant tweenie themes of bullying, nascent dating, cruelty, friendship, self-loathing, not understanding anything, etc, etc, the three plays are rather synoptic in their construction and production values. Each script is an entanglement of traditional fairy tales and classic stories with pop culture signatures. The characters are mainly stereotyped and overwrought. The high octane pace includes an obligatory running-on-the-spot scene. The design is always lurid and cartoonish, and the lighting and sound operators are busy with the full gamut of effects.
I loved my first viewing of the trilogy in the Festival of 2012 - School Dance. I enjoyed all these elements because of their innovative combination, yet I find the other two plays on offer this year, Fugitive and Girl Asleep, simply reprises of the technique.
Girl Asleep owes much to The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland as our heroine falls asleep during her 15th birthday party and has to get back from a fantasy world inhabited by a troll, a wicked witch-type and those composite characters we dream of combining real and imaginary persons. Of course, she is on a quest to get back but needs to find a key, and yes, it's transformational and she learns a lesson.
The beneficiary of that lesson is nice guy friend Elliot, played with sensitivity and depth by Eamon Farren. In Fugitive, this place is reserved for an angry, self-absorbed bully, and for a shy, nerdy type in School Dance. Farren does a wonderful scene dressed smartly and doubling up in the voice and manner of a suave Serge Gainsbourg. While I found the journey through our heroine's subconscious rather tedious, the trick that got to me was near the end where Greta meets her younger self. I've frequently fantasised about meeting my younger self, yet when I asked my partner if she ever thought of this, she said no. So I have something very deep in common with Matthew Whittet.
I do feel somewhat responsible for how you spend your hard-earned dough at the Festival and I advise you to see School Dance to get a grip on the Whittet ouevre and the Myers treatment, unless you are studying teenagers, or Whittet, for that matter. Or maybe if you see any one of the three for the first time, you will have the School Dance experience I had. I have to admit I am not Windmill's target audience and the house-full of high school students loved the show.
David Grybowski
When: 28 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Stone/Castro. Adelaide College of the Arts. 4 Mar 2014
Jo Stone and Paulo Castro, of Europe, have chosen the 2014 Adelaide Festival for the world premiere of Blackout. Interestingly, a favourable review by dB Magazine was already published in the Festival Program and on Stone/Castro's website, so go figure.
Imagine you are attending the world's worst wedding on a private cruise. And then things go bad. All the embarrassing miscues, doubts and uneasy couplings. The guests - self-absorbed and narcissistic - tediously rant, all terribly wounded by the past and inflicting their angst on the others. Even the waitress gets in on the act with a psychotic tale.
While part of the dance program, Blackout has an equal or even dominant narrative contribution in counterpart with the modern dance elements. The dance reflects very much the unresolved unhappiness amply evident in the text. The audience member is frequently treated to the humour inherent in a satire of the bad wedding, but is then pulled back into the black dog of longing, regret and uncertainty, usually manifested by all too realistic renditions of boring self-important wedding speeches.
Although marveling at the physical and intellectual virtuosity of the piece, I very much felt like I do at a bad wedding, so thanks a lot.
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 9 Mar
Where: Adelaide College of the Arts
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Star Theatres. Davine Interventionz. 6 Mar 2014
To say that this is the best show I have seen in a long time, would be understating the quality of this production. Producer and Director, David Gauci, Choreographer, Shenayde Wilkinson-Sarti, and Musical Director, Emma Knights have assembled a stellar cast, created a show that will define this company for years to come, and that will likely be remembered as one of the best shows of 2014. I know it’s only early March… but I was so overwhelmed by both the quality of the cast and the look of the show as a whole, that I honestly believe it will be almost impossible to top.
Gauci has cast Kate Dempsey as Clio (or Kira) and there is nothing this girl cannot do! To quote a friend in the audience on the night, “it looked like she was born in roller skates…” and that’s just the start of it. Dempsey has star quality. Her voice is pure perfection; her comic timing spot on; her accents delightful and she is stunning to watch. She is a consummate professional and hits every emotional level with impeccable skill.
But this show is not carried by one. There is not a weak link in the whole ensemble and as such, scene after scene progresses flawlessly. Sure there are glitches and hiccups, but nothing that detracts. Every player is worthy of a mention.
Lindsay Prodea plays Sonny Malone with joy. His characterisation is honest and humorous and his voice, particularly when in duet with Dempsey, is beautiful. Megan Humphries and Jenny Scarce Tolley as Melpomene and Calliope are hilarious. Individually they give powerful performances, but together are unstoppable. Brendan Cooney as Danny McGuire brings a real balance to the other characters – and has particular fun as the ‘beardy’ Zeus.
In the featured ensemble Chris Daniels and James Reed steal the show with their many varied characters (and caricatures!), both are leads in their own right, and sing their solo and chorus parts excellently. Their siblings, Holly Hodges and Roxanne Giovannucci, also have some great opportunities for solo songs and sultry characters which they deliver beautifully. All ably support the leads and are supremely talented (and often quite funny) dancers too!
Steven Lewis, Nadine Wood, Katharine Chase, Emma Russell, Brody Thomas Green, Ellen Graham, Haydee Fergusson, Lexie Dryden and Fiona Aitken round out the ensemble and really make this show complete.
Shendayde Wilkinson-Sarti has really hit the nail on the head with her choreography. The energy of each number was perfect, and the incorporation of roller skates never detracted from the dancing. The routines in the final number, ‘Xanadu’ were particularly spectacular - working with so many rolling performers in such a tight space. Bravo!
Emma Knights lead a great band comprising Aaron Nash, Susan Miceli and Reid Sampson. The sound of the whole show was one of the highlights for me, and the team at Alpro need to be recognised for their great work balancing both voice and music to give the show a very professional touch.
The costumes and sets are the icing on the cake and, whilst it would be impossible to name all the contributors, everyone involved should be mightily proud of this show. Sadly it is completely sold out. I for one will be hoping for a return season, as I would return to see it again if the chance arises.
Paul Rodda
When: 5 to 8 Mar
Where: Star Theatres
Bookings: Sell Out Season.