Adelaide Festival. Belarus Free Theatre. Dunstan Playhouse. 4 Mar 2023
Anarchic and dangerously accurate. How prescient was Alhierd Bacharevič to write Dogs of Europe in 2017 and for the Belarus Free Theatre to bravely premier their derivative play in the capital Minsk in 2020. In February 2021, the real shooting war began. The Russian attack on Kyiv poured across the Belarusian border. Dogs of Europe is banned in Belarus and its author lives in exile.
Dogs of Europe deals with personal accountability in a dystopian totalitarian state. In only four years, Bacharevič’s vision of an expanded Russian empire aligned with China – set in 2049 - became an immediate post-pandemic threat.
President Lukachenko since 1994 has steadily deteriorated democracy in Belarus and allowed his country to be fully captured in a Russian orbit. Director Nicolai Khalezin and co-director Natalia Kaliada have held political asylum in the UK since 2011. In 2007, the entire company was arrested in the middle of a performance. All the players and creatives cannot return to their homeland. From the stage, they ended the performance displaying a banner of support for Ukraine.
Early in the play, we see typically lackadaisical but patriotic students in 2019 inter their hopes in a time capsule, but thirty years later, a gigantic wall slashes across Europe between the League of European States and a New Reich (expanded Russia). 2049 is a world of political menace and suspicion of Orwellian dimensions.
Dogs of Europe is a complicated three-hour extravaganza charged with absurdity and theatrical symbolism like a Wagnerian opera. It is a physical and audial feast of unending surprises and ideas with an undertone of sly wink-nod humour. How about what looks like a naval officer representing the State when Belarus is land-locked, or a giant ball of books falling like a meteor out of the sky? Exaggerated expressions often break into choral solidarity from composer Sergej Newsky or communal choreography designed by Maria Sazonova. Nicolai Khalezin’s set design is inventively versatile with constant interaction between people, objects and sometimes crazy and discombobulating video imagery. To the Australian audience, even with the benefit of back screen translation, the details are no doubt difficult to follow. However, the company has mastered the visceral language of immediacy. They have conveyed in no uncertain terms how people feel in their environment of dysfunction and mistrust. The empathy is gut-wrenching, especially when one accepts this is happening – right now - in Russia, Belarus and elsewhere - too many elsewheres.
Still, it’s an unrelentingly trenchant and too long. A man runs nude in a circle for the entire intermission and one realises what a tough gig this theatre company must me. Nothing compared to self-banishment from your homeland. Ethereal, soaring, mood-altering vocals, string instruments and sound effects provided onstage by Balaklava Blues at times evoke heart-rending pity.
This is the theatre of hitting back and the company’s commitment to motivate their countrymen and notify the world of the immediate danger is brave and awesomely compelling. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 2 to 6 Mar
Where: Dunstan Playhouse – Adelaide Festival Centre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Nineteen Ten. 4 Mar 2023
007-Licence to Thrill is a sixty minute high energy show of burlesque cabaret performers strutting their stuff to iconic sound tracks from James Bond movies. It’s not a drag show – there is no lip syncing for your life – although some members of the enthusiastic and capacity audience clearly knew most of the songs and mouthed along anyway.
Presented by Skye High Burlesque, a Perth based production company and burlesque school, the antics of the performers have almost nothing to do with James Bond, except that the chosen songs provide a framework around which to choreograph their strip tease routines and for the MC to keep us plied with interesting Bond trivia. Occasionally there is considerable effort to ‘match’ the song to the dance. For example, in their performance of No Time to Die, two dancers – a guy and a girl – are engaged in an erotic and sexy fight that leads to his watery death (yes, there’s a swimming pool!), as a sort of nod to James Bond meeting his end on an old WWII island.
No Time to Die was the only routine that included a male burlesque performer. All the others featured exotically and scantily clad women who celebrated their curves and teased, thrilled, and titillated the mixed audience as they tastefully undressed.
Diamonds are Forever, sung by Shirley Bassey, was performed in a shimmering winged cape that glistened with LED lights and shimmered in sync with Bassey’s powerful tremolo. Writing’s on the Wall was performed as a high-energy fan dance with the performer dancing on the tables amongst the audience. A titanic rendition of You Know My Name from Casino Royale, was belted out live by Adelaide performer Lady Cara.
Skye High Burlesque’s owner and director Delza Skye performed You Only Live Twice and to the theme music from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
With the benefit of a water curtain, the The World is Not Enough was given an exciting wet treatment, and Goldfinger culminated in the performer pouring a gold coloured syrup all over her glistening body but stopping short of inviting audience members to lick her clean (though some clearly wanted to)!
The show finished with a fiery performance of Another Way To Die from Quantum of Solace. Dressed in bondage style leathers and sporting multiple body piercings and tattoos, the performer kept the audience on the edge of their seats as they were treated to a spirited dance routine that featured fire eating and breathing, and transferring flame over her body. Impressive. Exciting, and all close enough so that you could feel the heat in your loins, literally!
Great fun. Thrilling!
Kym Clayton
When: 4 to 5 Mar
Where: Nineteen Ten
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Adelaide Theatre Academy. Norwood Concert Hall 4 Mar 2023
Who knew that on a theatre-school budget, a company could turn on an extremely acceptable production of a blockbuster musical? Lucky old Fringe audiences. Using young student talent as an ensemble and some well-trained performers as the principals, along with lots of rehearsing and some really good talent in the workshop, it has a young people’s hit on its hands.
Yes, that serenaded car comes up trumps as the official star of the Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman musical inspired by Ian Fleming and, with the MGM film out there and lots of big budget theatre shows, it's a big call to compete. But compete the Adelaide Theatre Academy does and succeed they do, too, thanks to the skills of one Kim Wilson in creating that magical car itself.
The production’s other secret weapon is its well-chosen background video projections which not only put scenes into context but bring them to life. From the word “go”, they are classy, well-co-ordinated and effective.
As for the cast, director Georgia Brass has gathered some impressive seniors to carry the show and surrounded them with a bevy of beautifully-costumed and well-disciplined Theatre Bugs children.
Ethan Joy is a gentle charmer as Caractacus Potts, the eccentric inventor dad who builds that remarkable flying car. Amber Fibrosi, with a clear soprano voice, partners very nicely as Truly Scrumptious and Jayden Ayling is simply outstanding as the pukka granddad. Emma Palumbo and Jenna Saint ham it up a treat as the wicked clowns Boris and Goran - to the vast amusement of children in the audience. James Pearce and Vasileia Markou, along with Lachlan Anderson are among the many who merit mention in this joyfully ambitious show, never to forget the two youngies who are the catalyst for the plot. Elliot Purdie and Amelia Lees are most endearing in the roles of the Potts children.
Annoyingly summoned away, this critic did not see the end of the performance but praises it confidently in knowledge of the discipline, hard work, and expertise of the Adelaide Theatre Academy.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 19 Mar
Where: Norwood Concert Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. 3 March 2023
The School of Montserrat is associated with the Benedictine abbey Santa Maria de Montserrat and is one of the oldest musical schools in Europe with a history going back to the 13 Century – the monastery was established in 1025. Escolania is also the appellation for the boys’ choir comprised of primary school-aged students. It’s a popular day trip from Barcelona in Catalonia to visit the abbey and the surrounding national park and mountains, and to hear the midday rendition of Salve Regina or other concert events. Indeed, the fifty boys of the Escolania – aged 9 to 14 – perform 450 times a year. All the students receive three hours of musical education every day and participate in daily prayer. Numerous graduates have become composers and performers including within the Escola Musical Monserratina.
Looking a bit bewildered, the best forty boys of the Escolania march down the central aisle and onto the stage of Adelaide Town Hall for their Australian premiere. Conductor Llorenç Castelló leads the best forty boys of the Escolania through a program of devotional music followed in the second half of the hour by whimsical Catalan folk songs, sung poems and an example of the sardana, a typical Catalan dance. The boys never seem to relax – poor things – and move uncertainly to the conductor’s ample signals for rearrangements of the choir to suit the various pieces and in the good practice of accepting the copious applause of the highly appreciative audience.
Each song was a heaven to listen to. One is caressed into meditative compliance only to be alerted as if from a dream by soaring solo sopranos ascending above the chorus. The program includes familiar work like Magnificant and Ave Maria. There is the daily-sung Salve Regina, and the concert opened with a Gregorian chant as the boys made their way to the stage. The program includes compositions and arrangements by Escolania graduates. The training and hard work of the boys and their mentors are evident in the accurate intonation, timing and sensitivity. Accompanist Mercè Sanchis mastered Town Hall’s giant organ and Steinway.
I can’t believe I’ve been to Barcelona and didn’t know about this school, so I look forward to one day visiting these mountains and monastery and once again hearing the beautiful music devotion to the Virgin Mary has inspired. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 5 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Lynn Preston/Every Old Sock Meets an Old Shoe/Storytelling Beyond Words Creative Lab. Migration Museum. 3 Mar 2023
One performer. A blanket. A chair. A very bare Yurt performance space.
Performer Lynn Preston’s storytelling performance is all on her own in this very bare space, suffice simple and deft lighting changes. The story is based on South American folktale La Llorona, transposed to Bundjalung Country, Northern Rivers New South Wales.
Preston conjures the very scent, physicality, spirit, rough and calm, in a story of a boy, a cursed young girl, a woodsmen and febrile, living, breathing bush land, forests and rivers with steely, deep, disciplined control.
The Cherry Scrub is a story of belonging to a place and its tragedies. Of becoming at one with it, in spite of competing, jealousy fuelled human demands, as becomes the case for the cursed young girl and the woodsmen she initially puts her sense of trust and safety in.
The land’s power is central to the tale. It seduces, comforts and confronts the cursed girl in tandem with the growing power of a curse within her as her two children come into being.
The poetry of Preston’s writing is as formidably potent as is her performance.
Preston fills the expansive space of The Yurt with very finely crafted characterisations, delivered with precise grace eliciting silent moments of pause which of themselves say so much more deeply about the inner heart and minds of her characters.
It is a powerfully captivating, electric 70 minutes in which Preston owns your breathless attention from start to finish.
David O’Brien
When: 2 to 5 Mar
Where: Migration Museum – The Yurt
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au