Holden Street Theatre. 12 Feb 2014
When thinking of Albert Einstein, "funny" is not a word which comes to mind. Unless John Hinton has been playing with the great physicist.
Last time he was in Adelaide, Hinton was in the guise of Charles Darwin. He loves, it seems, to play with facts and very clever men. But, is he a teacher, an actor, a singer or a comedian? Those are the questions.
As Einstein and wearing braces and very big hair, Hinton comes across as every student's dream teacher. This show is pretty much a theoretical physics lesson embellished with partial biography and some added theoreticals about how the man may have felt about this and that.
Hinton plays with the knowledge, demonstrating theories by using living audience members as props. It is surprisingly effective. Happening upon drama students who are not a bit reluctant to go onstage was a major bonus for his first performance. They turned those audience participation segments into fairly jolly improv. Acting students should be compulsorily provided for all such shtick.
For this show, Hinton brings a charming accompanist who plays his wives as well as the keyboard. He turns theories into songs and comic routines, and even indulges in some serious contemplation. The audience gets to vote (or does it?) on who should develop the nuclear bomb and it is here that the show takes a rare slow moment, to encompass Einstein's regrets.
Hinton rolls the clock to and fro, very successfully turning the Theory of Relativity into a rap song. Here there's complete audience participation as everyone learns how to sign MC2 with their hands, rapper style.
Einstein ages via a bottle of talc, his black hair tossed with talc for the grey effect and then soused for the whiter years. With a bit of good lighting, that talc can make a few clever emphases, too.
Hinton has worked hard to make a lot of silliness out of seriousness and to impart the scientific erudition along the way. He is strong of voice, corny of accent and lithe of body.
It's all lots of clever fun.
Samela Harris
When: 15 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Studio
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Bitch Boxer - Fringe
Holden Street Theatre. 12 Feb 2014
That a performer so fresh from drama school should be delivering this sort of dramatic punch is knockout.
The scrapbook of Holly Augustine will be full of just such pieces of heavy-handed wordplay since the piece that the young actress is presenting is 'Bitch Boxer' - the portrait of a young woman determined to prove her worth by becoming one of the first women in Olympic boxing. Women were only included in Olympic boxing in 2012 so the play, written by Charlotte Josephine, is right on the knocker, so to speak.
The aspiring boxer is one Chloe, a pretty tough chick from Leytonstone in the UK. The thing that makes her different is the power of her love for her late father, a devotion heightened by raw emotions at what her mother did to her father. So, while this play is the depiction of a feisty boxer with driving ambition it also, and most potently, is a love story.
On the one hand, it is hard-hitting. On the other, it is deeply touching.
It is, simply, a beautifully conceived and crafted theatre piece.
Not surprisingly, it has been reaping awards wherever it goes - a Soho Young Writer's Award, an Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh Award and our own Holden Street Theatres' Edinburgh Award for 2013 - which is what brings it here for this Fringe.
The one mistake playwright Josephine has made is in its name. Bitch Boxer is a bitch of a name. It is unenticing to a swathe of the theatre demographic. Ironically, it seems to become a good and catchy name after the experience - for the experience is rich and intense. It earned sell-out seasons in the UK.
Staged by Snuff Box Theatre in Collaboration with Richard Jordan Productions under the direction of Bryony Shanahan, it is a play of logistical economy.
There's a camp chair, a duffle bag and a boxing square marked on the black stage in talc. This is Daniel Foxsmith's quietly apt design.
The rest is the most eloquent lighting design by Seth Rook Williams. And the power of Holly Augustine.
She knows all the moves, light and fast on her feet, convincing with the fists. She accompanies her motion with the pattern of oomphs and uhs which represent blows given and received. Head and body whip back from the assault of her invisible opponents.
Her narrative is littered with expletives. It is tough. It is tender. It is sad. It is happy.
As a performer, she is fearless, high-energy and able to swing easily through a broad gamut of human emotions. The audience is utterly engaged. At her first Adelaide performance, the applause went on and on.
Even for one who despises boxing, this is a winning work - and another feather in the Holden Street curatorial cap.
Samela Harris
When: 12 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres - The Studio
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival Theatre. 31 Dec 2013
Thanks John Frost, for giving Adelaide the pleasure of both finishing 2013 with South Pacific and beginning 2014 with it. The blockbuster's VIP opening night show linked the years with its after-party overlooking the clock-ticking general public's free Elder Park New Year's Eve Party. Those who ended the year with South Pacific now are recommending that everyone else lines up and gets to see it.
It's an old show, so tried and tested, so beloved by the public, that the big producers know that, well done, it will reap profits from which new and risky ventures may be launched. This staging goes all out to give it top gloss. It comes via Adelaide-born Frost together with Opera Australia and in association with the Adelaide Festival centre to deliver nothing less than the Lincoln Centre Theatre's Tony Award-winning production.
Of course, it has stars.
But the magic behind the magic is the depth of expertise, the eye for detail, the keenly-rehearsed synchrony. At the first strains of The Overture, it is clear the Adelaide Art Orchestra is in sweetest good note for the show and everything just shimmers along from there until the audience's moist-eyed standing ovation at the end.
The dancers are as divine as the choreography. The entrance of the male corps in high leaps over the rocks is a spectacle of sheer exuberance. The stage swarms with talent and the characters shine through with Mitchel Butel creating one of the best Luther Billises in the business and, interestingly, one Andrew Hondromatidis who just keeps stealing the eye as Stewpot - an actor gifted with "presence" and very fine movement.
The South Pacific island with its American forces base and the hilltop plantation home of Emile De Becque are smoothly and effectively presented through the sets, the backdrop sea seeming to achieve a certain lifelike texture.
This old Rogers and Hammerstein musical is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of love between cultures and the both serious and silly facets of wartime life on a foreign outpost. Poignant quotations from the Michener text are projected onto the Festival Theatre's safety curtain, neatly contextualising the presentation as well as bookending it.
Surprise of the night is Christine Anu's Bloody Mary. Perhaps the first Australian Indigene to play the Tonkinese role, she took over from Kate Ceberano in Brisbane and made Mary her own. Anu's voice is reedier than familiar embodiments and her look is strongly teeth-stained and pop-eyed. She mutes some of the coarse comicry milked by most performers and delivers a Mary of immense tragic proportions. She searches out the depth of desperation of a woman reduced to selling off her teenage daughter. It is performance from the soul.
Lisa McCune is sweet, vulnerable and altogether appealing as Ensign Nelly Forbush. She is accomplished in a broad range of stage skills and has a lovely melodic voice, albeit in the opening scene she is not only overshadowed by stature but overpowered by the volume of her fellow romantic lead, Teddy Tahu Rhodes playing Emile De Becque. Rhodes' is one great big beautiful baritone instrument. Amplification of such operatic abundance is de trops. And while Rhodes assumes a convincingly thick French accent, he is just a bit wooden as an actor.
By the end of the show, however, no one cares. Young tenor Blake Bowen has blown us away as Lieutenant Cable, Bartholomew John has strutted the stuff of navy authority, Celina Yuen has beguiled as sweet Liat, Jeremy Stanford has been handsome as Harbison, the chorines have delighted and the children have charmed.
A torrent of wonderful songs have been expertly performed
Dunstan Playhouse. 31 Dec 2013
This is how it should be done. No corners are cut in this touring production of the darling little mouse dancer's story.
Angelina Ballerina is one of the superstars of little girl world with scores of books and a rather good British television series featuring the voice of Judi Dench as Angelina's mum. But Angelina is a mouse and the temptation in delivering her live to the stage would be, and has been, to mouse her up with a big animal character head. In this show, written and directed by Miranda Larson, Angelina's mousiness extends only to tail and a dainty mouse headpiece. Thus, she truly comes alive on stage and I didn't hear a single child ask where the big mouse head was.
Larson has treated children with respect in this show. It opens with the sound of an orchestra tuning up and then there is a proper overture. The curtain rises on Angelina and her classmates at the Camembert Academy in Chipping Cheddar, England. That there are hip-hopping boys in the class lends boy cred - evidenced by the number of boys at the opening performance - and there's a bit of classic old boys-versus-girls shtick as the show rolls along.
This is a proper musical. It has wonderful, classy music composed by Barrie Bignold. It has terrific, lively and highly varied choreography devised by Matthew Cole and interesting, vibrant costumes from Isla Shaw who also designed the very versatile sets. The six performers have song and dance skills of West End standard and their rodent personalities shine through.
The Katharine Holabird narrative tells of the Camembert Academy winning a chance to appear in its pupils' favourite television program, Dancing With Mice. To this end, the mouse dancers must create their own dance production. Angelina is appointed Dance Captain and not only has she to try to devise a dance but also to manage her fellow students, all of whom have their own ideas about what should be featured in the show. This gives scope for lots of fun and games and some audience participation. The children would probably have liked a bit more of the latter.
A special highlight is the cameo appearance of a troupe of little local ballet students from Rebecca Mason's Dance Studio. They are little darlings, one of them quite tiny, two of them boys. It's another nice element in a well-devised, well-produced and well-performed touring holiday show. In its genre, it's up there in the five star department.
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Her Majesty’s Theatre. 27 Dec 2013
After the success of The Illusionists in Australia last year a new world premiere with all new magicians, manipulators and illusionists opened in Adelaide on the 27th of December.
Once again showcasing the abilities of a team of 7 performers the slightly smaller scale show used Her Majesty’s Theatre stage rather than the larger Festival Theatre. That being said it was no shorter on production values than the first instalment. Master magician, Luis De Matos of Portugal compared the evening, introducing each of the acts and demonstrating some very clever tricks of his own. The rest of the team was a sort-of ‘mixed bag’ – some outstanding and others perhaps a little less impressive.
The success of the show lies in the selection of artists from a broad range of disciplines; from sleight of hand manipulators to risk taking weapons handlers, there is bound to be something for everyone in the production. For me the best of the performers was South Korean manipulator, Yu Ho-Jin winner of multiple international illusion competitions his sleight of hand technique was so astonishing and well-rehearsed that the entire audience was spellbound.
The Unusualist, Raymond Crowe of Australia was also a highlight with his quirky sense of humour and hilarious pseudo-ventriloquism act. Adam Trent as The Futurist completed my top 3 with his blend of magic and intermediality. Fusing technology with his performance he was able to give the audience a glimpse at what illusion might look like in the future – and his timing was impeccable!
Rounding out the performers were The Warrior, Aaron Crow, who was a talented weapons artist that slightly overworked his stunts for my liking, padding them out with excessive amounts of fluff that detracted from his evident skills – particularly with a bow and arrow; The Deceptionist, James More, a contraptions artist who also overworked his routines with large dance numbers designed to distract us, but who did perform a very convincing ‘compacting man’ routine that was impressively executed; and Dr Scott Lewis as The Hypnotist, whose act failed to convince me that hypnotism even exists despite the audience volunteer's family and friends enjoying the onstage antics of their loved ones.
Overall the second instalment of The Illusionists was an improvement on the first, proving that the sequel isn’t always worse than the original. The addition of 3D video and live streaming projection was innovative and effective, but might have been better enjoyed if there were glasses available for more than half the audience. All gripes aside it is a very enjoyable night out, well worth a look, and would be a great show for the kids.
Paul Rodda
When: Closed
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed