Adelaide Festival. Slingsby/As told by Edgell Juniour. 3 Mar 2023
One Flying Squad of artists, collaborating with Co-Directors Andy Packer and Clara Solly-Slade have taken Vanuatu’s Edgell Junior’ story of surviving Category 5 Cyclone Pam in 2015 and fashioned from it a significant work of community building and awareness.
The River That Ran Uphill is a simple thing of beauty evoking everyday life of Vanuatu’s culture, stories, and complex interactions with Australia and the world at large.
Great theatrical story experiences flow. Packer and Solly-Slade’s production does this superbly.
Edgell Junior is front and centre of the work. His script is alive with one on one, deep hearted conversational spirit scoping up the audience close to him in rapt attention.
Flying Squad artists Alexis West, Delia Olam, Jennifer Stefanidis, Josh Campton and Elleni Karagiannidis flow around Junior, bringing to life the world of Vanuatu fashioned so wonderfully with Set Designer Wendy Todd. Quincy Grant’s score unobtrusively, melodically washes in and out of the action like inrushing, receding waves; sheets of blue hessian as a wild sea; slats of hand held corrugated iron flowing about to construct simple buildings and illustrate destruction. From Lighting Designer Darian Tregenza, a miniature village model scrim projected with a fish tank of water illustrating flooding. Shadow puppetry.
At the heart of this intense experience is the sense of terror and stoic inevitability of dangerous circumstances the environment of Vanuatu regularly confronts its people.
Edgell Junior’s tale is a celebration as much as a plea for greater real understanding and true support for a people where the soccer field he played on as a child has in 20 years disappeared under water. So much more is threatened.
David O’Brien
When: 1 to 6 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. International Theatre of Amsterdam. Adelaide Entertainment Centre. 3 Mar 2023
No fear if one hasn’t read the celebrated Hanya Yanagihara novel. No fear if one doesn’t speak Dutch.
While recalling their Festival triumphs, Roman Tragedies and Kings of War, we have come to appreciate the International Theatre of Amsterdam because their epic sur-titled works are as comprehensible as they are comprehensive.
They also are fearless and uncompromising, most explicitly in the case of their latest offering, A Little Life.
This Ivo von Hove production is utterly gruelling and profoundly bleak. It tells of a man called Jude so damaged by the cruelty and exploitation he suffered in childhood that, despite his immense IQ, he is unable to surmount a sense of juvenile filth and defilement. Nor is he able to trust in confiding to those who care for him. Hence, his adulthood is ravaged and relentlessly self-destructive.
The audience must share in his dark humiliations, taken on a vividly harrowing four-hour voyage into a squalid world of depravity and gratuitous cruelty.
It is made all the more affecting by the presence onstage of the characters who are his friends and would-be protectors: the teacher who adopts him as an adult and the doctor who repeatedly treats the ravages on his body.
The play is delivered from a transverse stage in the Entertainment Centre Theatre whence, from bleachers on either side, there is a rare excellence of sight-lines.
In a kitchen at one end of the long stage, good and reliable Harold, impeccably portrayed by Steven Van Watermeulen, is quietly and steadily preparing and cooking meals. Homely aromas waft across the audience. The play’s characters dip into his cooked fare.
They are friends who have lived or spent time together, time being another sort of moveable feast in the play since many years are covered and not sequentially.
Andy, the doctor, played with compassionate exasperation by Bart Slegers, has his clinic at that far end of the stage.
Along the perimeter are inbuilt sofas and easy chairs wherein sweet Willem resides when he is at home. He travels a lot. He is Jude’s emotional anchor and, perchance, hope, and is given a very simpatico characterisation by Maarten Heijmans.
JB, portrayed by Majd Mardo, is a painter and another dear friend. His studio is set at the other end alongside the office of architect Malcolm played by Edwin Jonke.
These all are Jude's circle of long-time buddies, and also his present.
But his past stalks the stage in the form of the characters of Jude's godforsaken childhood.
They are sinister and deceptive and, well, just awful. Hans Kesting takes the burden of these merciless swines, depicting them with eerie charm and ruthless brutality. He is a fine actor, as are they all in this Dutch production, including as counsel and voice of reason, the one woman Marieke Heebink.
But this is Ramsey Nasr’s four hours of glory.
His portrayal of Jude St. Francis is utterly monumental. His power as a performer is supreme. His endurance is daunting. His emotional potency is devastating.
He takes the audience to the depths of self-harming perversity. Jude’s ordeals are their ordeals.
He is shamelessly contemptible while heartbreakingly naive.
It is a searingly punishing show. Man’s inhumanity towards man and the inexplicably uncompromising libidinousness of so-called men of the church are among its themes. Not all the characters are gay but it is essentially a play about homosexual men and the dark side of the secrets of some.
Above all, it is a phenomenal piece of theatre and a sensational Festival production from those genius fly-in Dutchmen.
A live string quartet sits beside the high stage in the Entertainment Centre theatre and the soundscape they produce, composed by Eric Sleichim, rides as an eloquent companion to the extraordinary action upon the stage, sometimes deeply underscoring the drama of the moment, sometimes flitting lightly in the air of the auditorium. It is a sophisticated marriage, which, doubtless, is why this composer is off to London to work on the score for an English-language version of this very Dutch production of an America-based story written by an author of Hawaiian, Korean, and Japanese descent.
And this is the stuff of our times.
Ah, but there is more for audiences at this Adelaide Festival experience.
There is a sensational high-tech denouement to this great theatrical tragedy. No spoilers, but deus ex machina isn’t in it.
And thus does the critic go “Wow”.
Thankyou Adelaide Festival of Arts.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 8 Mar
Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. South Australian Playwrights Theatre. The Lab. 2 Mar 2023
There is something magic about the unconventional performance space of The Lab: a wide V-shaped stage in the form of a catwalk merging two walls into a corner of the venue. The audience sits on the diagonal and the walls become a backdrop of wonderful artsy projections. It conveys a sense of calm and clean spaciousness.
It is fortunate for this production since its narrative is as dense and layered as the venue is pristine.
Recalibrate is a ferocious, multi-generational, life-and-death feminist work by Lucy Combe. All of its characters have agendas and few of them are likeable. Their emotional baggage is pain and guilt and then some.
Perhaps the old gal, Carmel, a university professor, draws most sympathy since she is undergoing repeated chemotherapy treatments for terminal ovarian cancer. The inimitable Jacqy Phillips embodies this role with fatalistic potency. She is depicted against the emphatic brightness of a giant projected IV drip facing not only death but the frustrations of failed feminist philosophies and obtuse academia. She rails against these fading lights while dealing with two disappointing daughters: the “good mother” and the “mad auntie”. Phillips, beautifully costumed as a faded hippie, has to convey the failure of an entire era; a tough call, which was oddly undermined by the overkill of selfies and a loud-hailer.
As Mary, the good mother, Katie O’Reilly presents a moving emotional rollercoaster of one whose life was upended by one terrible mistake while Emma Beech is the flip sister who has come home. Other characters pop in but focal interest remains on the sisters and the audience is not disappointed in the denouement. Meanwhile, there is Tessa whose intellectual acuity shines from a broken body. Her pain and disability do not detract from her promise as the hope for the future. The ever versatile Kelly Vincent portrays this character, controlling not only her mobility but a litany of text messages from her wheelchair.
There are many themes entwined in this 80-minute piece, directed by Elena Vereka: self-harm, sex, ageing, suicidal ideation, and emotional blackmail are among them, so a pretty play it is not. Aesthetic it is. And thought-provoking. Has Simon de Beauvoir’s legacy disappointed?
Samela Harris
When: 2 to 5 Mar
Where: The Lab
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Guy Masterson, Floating World Entertainment & Joanne Hartstone. 2 Mar 2023
The Marvellous Elephant Man is one marvellous musical of Proboscidean playfulness. You may have seen a reprisal of the Bernard Pomerance play which premiered in 1977 or David Lynch’s 1980 film – both highly successful and dramatically awarded. The screenplay was based on a couple of books: one from 1923 and Ashley Montagu’s The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity from 1971. That title says it all. And of course, there really was a Joseph Merrick (1862-90) whose deformities were so cruelly described. It was fortunate that the freak show was going out of fashion in Victorian England and Merrick, like in his play, his film and now his musical, is bounced from vilification and prejudice to understanding and love. The narrative arc in the musical is not Merrick’s but is masterminded for mirth without minimizing the man.
Marc Lucchesi with Jayan and Sarah Nandagopan have rewritten the ultimately redemptive story as a humourous Victorian melodrama brimming with hyper-real performances, witty lyrics, and catchy tunes. The producers quote a review thusly, “The Book of Mormon meets Beauty & The Beast” but I found it more like Rocky Horror meets Young Frankenstein.
The producer’s website shows a set encumbered by furniture, but the marvellous Spiegeltent compelled the action to be right out there and personal with the audience and scene changes were seamless. Consequently, the action was non-stop and the energy was soaring.
The villain, a mean doctor, is played so effectively by Kanen Breen he elicits boos. Ingenue-playing Annelise Hall excelled in emotional confusion. Marc Lucchesi - in a number of delectable roles he wrote for himself - took time off from leading Vaudeville Smash to satirise the Italian taste in women, score points against the English and mock the French. Hilarious! Ben Clark as John Merrick (John has always been his stage name) was an absolutely wonderful study of a human finding his place in the world after trauma. In the role with the most range, his Merrick desperately grasps at small hopes, is gracious with gratitude, is beaten by cruelty and demanding his dignity. Bravo! The chorus is kinetic, vibrant and enjoying themselves (Eden Read – choreography). The singing is wonderful. Once again, it’s Clark who steals scenes with agony and triumph expressed so beautifully in voice. The costumes – and there’s plenty of ‘em - are eye candy; a mix of the natty and naughty Victorian (Roberto Surace – set & costumes). Co-composer Sarah Nandagopan leads the musicians from the keyboards with panache. Sound designer Wayne Pashley spreads audio around just right while lighting designer Jason Bovaird masters the tricky lighting of a small round stage with colour and focus.
The Marvellous Elephant Man: The Musical is a brand new work with only one previous production, at last year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival. It’s clearly ready for the stage but maybe not Broadway. There were two possible endings before the ending that contained greater redemptive qualities. Pulling a revolver is meant to raise the stakes, but it’s a cheap trick – anybody can say, “Wait, I have a gun.” Everybody dies, like in Hamlet, but are resurrected for a happy ending. And where did that wolfman come from? A nearby production of Little Red Riding Hood?
In this original Australian production, co-directors Chris HF Mitchell and Olivier Award-winning Guy Masterson have led their team of creatives in gripping the Lucchesi/Nandagopan book and music and making theatre magic in all its glorious elements for a raunchy, fun, thoughtful and soundful night out. Double bravo!
PS Have a look at the website – www.marvellouselephantman.com - That is the handsomest and most well-dressed bunch in a clutch of program portraits I’ve ever seen!
David Grybowski
When: 21 Feb to 13 Mar
Where: Wonderland Festival Hub – Hindmarsh Square – Wonderland Spiegeltent
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Writer’s Week. Adelaide Town Hall. 1 Mar 2023
Cream rises to the top, and so has Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL HonFBA. He is an esteemed and decorated writer, and has written for film, radio, television, and the stage. It is theatre where he shines most brightly (e.g. Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, Arcadia, and most recently, Leopoldstadt).
Stoppard has quite an unordinary personal history. In brief, he was born Tomáš Sträussler in Czechoslovakia, and fled the Nazis with his family to Singapore, and thence to India with his mother and brother. Stoppard never saw his father again, who stayed behind and perished during the war. Stoppard was schooled in Darjeeling, and subsequently in England following his mother’s marriage to British army major Kenneth Stoppard, from where he derived his new surname and anglicised first name. After leaving school at age 17 – he never went to university – he became a journalist and wrote drama reviews amongst other things, which led him eventually to becoming a playwright. He has been married three times and has four children, including the stage and screen actor Ed Stoppard.
Stoppard has been influenced in his formative years by world events, and the Writer’s Week festival has also been impacted by the views some of its featured participants have about contemporary world events. The inclusion of Palestinian American Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd in the program has ignited passionate condemnation because of the preposterous views they hold, such as Abulhawa holding that Ukraine is itself responsible for the current war! There have even been calls for Louise Adler, the director of Writer’s Week, to resign for allowing such writers to have a platform to preach their vitriol.
The evening commenced with a Welcome from Premier Peter Malinauskas whose government has been dragged into the controversy. In his speech he noted that politicians should not lurch to censoring free speech thereby deciding “what is culturally appropriate”. Rather, he opined, the Festival should be about listening to diverse opinions, even unpopular ones, and then challenging them with a view to changing them. Stoppard once said: “I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.” Malinauskas and countless others would believe that the ideas and words of Abulhawa and El-Kurd are not ‘the right ones’, but others do. The fight rages on, and there is always unfinished work for word warriors.
In 2013, knowing that several writers were circling him to write his biography, Stoppard pre-empted them and invited Dame Hermione Lee to do the job. Who better? The result has been described as rigorous and affectionate.
The biography – Tom Stoppard: A Life – was published in 2020, and this is the connection to Adelaide Writer’s Week.
Louise Adler, Director of Writer’s Week, has pulled off a coup: she arranged for Dame Hermione Lee and Sir Tom Stoppard to be interviewed about the biography by Professor Glyn Davis AC, Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (who apparently is a Stoppard ‘aficionado’), and for it to be filmed. The film was shown at last night’s Writer’s Week event and was followed by a live conversation between Stoppard (appearing via livestream from London via his wife’s smartphone!), the internationally acclaimed Australian-British playwright Suzie Miller (Prima Facie – think Jodie Comer in the stunning recent London West End production), and New Zealand-Australian multi award-winning theatre director Simon Phillips, with Glyn Davis ‘in the chair’.
The filmed interview focussed on the process of the creation of the biography and was full of insights into Stoppard’s psyche. It also gave a glimpse of the inner workings of the mind of a top notch biographer. It was intriguing.
The conversation focussed on the relationship between a playwright and the director. With two top notch playwrights and a first rate director ‘on the couch’, the discussion was brimming with insightful perceptions, rib-tickling humour, and profundity. At one point Stoppard became so absorbed in responding to a probing question from Davis that he lost his way and from behind the wisping smoke from his cigarette he concluded with “But I don’t really remember the question”! The audience lapped it up.
Writer’s Week is so important (and entertaining!). Try to take in an event or two!
Kym Clayton
When: 1 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed