OzAsia Festival. State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 8 Nov 2022
Playwright Michelle Law says she is surprised this Chinese-restaurant, kitchen-sink comedy is showing such longevity. Now it has opened in Adelaide, one does not share the surprise. This is a cross-cultural, racial-identity, intergenerational romp. It works very nicely in a festival celebrating Asia and cultural understanding.
It’s all about the Wong family in their Chinese restaurant, depicted onstage with a broad set of classic Chinese iconography, with metal stairway leading to upstairs rooms where the family lives.
The family is Pearl, a recently divorced tiger mum, and daughters Zoe, a talented violinist, and Mei in the throes of the last year of school. Law develops the sense of cloying Chinese domestica and racial stereotypes before expanding the plot to deal with more complex issues of the Australian male, sex and law. More stereotypes - but that is the whole point and it is thrown to the audience in a strident emotional roller coaster. Not all of the humour hits home, but the sense of intimacy and understanding of the single-mum battler family warms the old heart cockles. And there’s a bit of karaoke, therein, as well. They’re good singers and clearly relish the fun of it all. Oddly, when the actresses demonstrate that they can reach an Australia’s-Got-Talent-style high note, the theatre audience goes nuts and one ponders the nature of modern appreciation.
Indeed, there are some eloquent dramatic moments in this play far more deserving of acclaim. For instance, there’s the scene with Pete or is it Paul, when discussing who has rights to decisions over a woman’s body. Allan Lyra Chang is the only male in the cast and he has a really notable stage presence; an actor worth looking out for. The other males are played by Kristen O’Dwyer and Kathryn Adams who are doubling and tripling up from their roles as the white friends of Zoe and Mae. They are the high comic relief in the play in each context with some nice satirical characterisations. Juanita Navas-Nguyen delivers very capably the older daughter, Zoe, the girl who has had to carry family responsibility and fulfil family expectations, ever in search of where she may fit in to Australian society. Elvy-Lee Quici depicts the long-suffering young sister, Mae. It is a role which explains a lot about how it feels to be the only Asian girl in a big Aussie school.
Indeed, the play itself very explicitly exposes the underbelly of the Asian immigrant experience with Fiona Choi making a very rich and satisfying (Chinese) meal of the lead role, the brave matriarch forging the family path through the rocky road of finance, identity, and cultural tradition. One cheers for her, weeps for her, and believes in her.
The action ticks along efficiently under Nescha Jelk’s direction, with an interesting set and fun costumes from Ailsa Paterson plus nifty lighting from Chris Petridis. There is only Andrew Howard’s quirky soundscape left to ponder.
For, indeed, if there is one thing in which this play succeeds with only the odd burst of didacticism, it is in the truthful telling of the Asian cultural experience in Australia today.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 19 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: premier.ticketek.com.au
STARC Productions. Holden Street Theatres. 3 Nov 2022
A game of counterpoised views and secret needs, within a game of ‘truth’.
This fascinating dance of psychology plays out between two former jurors, Anna (Stefanie Rossi) and Mitchell (Marc Clement), two years after a hung jury murder trial. Anna’s clear, long-held, needy obsession with Mitchell is quietly disturbing. Mitchell’s uneasy acquiescence to this is equally troubling. The luxury Singapore apartment booking is his.
Their reminiscing replay of the trial runs parallel to that of their relationship during the trial.
There is a huge psychological and emotional hole these two seem desperate to fill. The outcome of the trial, for both. For Anna especially, the truth of Mitchell as a guiding light of a traumatic experience.
It starts to get messy the more evasive Mitchell gets and the more questioning Anna becomes. Something is wrong here. The verdict as they see it is at stake. They, as people to each other, is also in question.
Director Tony Knight’s production succeeds in building an almost unbearable tension in the space between the characters, but it falters in scene break blackouts which confuse, rather than double down on that tremendous undercurrent.
There are moments the equity of play between characters stiffens rather than flows. The fault is quickly rectified, but leaves a mark nonetheless.
Despite this, and a somewhat ordinary lighting design, this production does the job of attacking playwright Suzie Miller’s essential thesis. What happens when you reconsider a verdict in a life and death trial?
David O’Brien
When: 2 to 12 Nov
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
The Metropolitan Musical Theatre Co of SA. Arts Theatre. 22 Oct 2022 Matinee
For a bit of kicking-up-the-heels song and dance, The Arts Theatre has become the place. Everyone is doing musicals and rather well, considering they are all from the unfunded “theatre of love”.
Guys and Dolls, based on a sweetly corny old Damon Runyan tale with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, is about sleazy New York gamblers and the women they love. Wheeler dealer Nathan Detroit has been engaged to Adelaide for fourteen years and is still trying to get out of tying the knot. King of the wins, Sky Masterson doesn’t want a bar of skirt until Nathan bets him he can’t win a Salvation Army girl. There’s a swathe of great old familiar songs and, because Adelaide is a showgirl, some spirited hoofing by vivacious chorus girls. And, since the whole thing is set in the 50s, there are fabulous frocks in vivid fabrics.
The Met has pulled together a huge orchestra and, under musical director Jacqui Maynard, has achieved lovely sound balance between accompaniment and singers.
Director Rebecca Kemp has designed economical but very effective sets with a good smattering of bling and, in a glory of nostalgia, a simply wonderful old city newsstand - just as we once used to have in the streets of Adelaide. All the ingredients are there along with a very large and well-rehearsed cast.
The show starts a little hesitantly as the characters and plot are established in Runyonland but, by interval, it is rocking the stage and the audience is alive with amusement at the silly stereotypical characters, the hardened crims of New York and Chicago and their obsession with playing craps.
Robin Schmelzkopf, looking amazing in his black and white shoes, carries the character load as the irredeemable Nathan and his interactions with the poor, hapless Adelaide are effectively exasperating. Sadly, this fabulous singer, has only one significant song in the show, the duet Sue Me, but he is gorgeous. And so is Adelaide, played with lovely Broadway expertise by Selena Britz. The pairing of Skye, played by Daniel Fleming and Sarah, by Chloe Dunstan, comes close, but no cigar, albeit lovely Dunstan does a delicious drunk scene and a snazzy Marry the Man Today duet with Britz. The n’er do well trio of Nicely-Nicely, Benny, and Rusty steal the show in a few scenes and, embodied by Ben Todd, Thomas Sheldon, and Joel Amos, come up with terrific harmonies. Amos also shines in the Cuban dance number. Notable amid the large supporting cast is promising young actor Maxwell Wigham as Lt Brannigan. He has a fine presence and we look forward to seeing more of his work. Adam Schultz, Dermot O’Boyle, Andrew Pettigrew, and Brad Martin are marvellously mean mobsters contrasting with Barry Hill as the simpering grandad Salvo, Arvid Abernathy, while Eve McMillan shines forth as the General.
And there we have it - another burst of good natured retro at The Arts.
Samela Harris
When: 21 to 29 Oct
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: metmusicals.com.au
Red Phoenix Theatre. Holden Street Theatres. 20 Oct 2022
Jury duty is a serious business, never more so than for audiences of Terror at Holden Street Theatres.
German fighter pilot Major Lars Koch is on trial for shooting down a planeload of innocent people in order to save tens of thousands of other innocent people gathered in a football stadium for a big international match. Is he a murderer or a saviour?
It’s a classic philosophic dilemma and here, by wonderful Red Phoenix, it plays out as a courtroom drama written by controversial criminal lawyer and playwright, Ferdinand von Schirach.
Terrorists have hijacked the passenger plane and say they intend to crash it into the stadium. So, in shooting down the plane, Koch killed 164 people but saved many others. But on whose orders did he do it? Did he have the right to act on his own judgement? Was that murder? What other options may there have been? Where is the moral ground?
Audience members are ticketed with “Guilty” and “Not Guilty” tickets and must listen to the evidence and the arguments of prosecution and defence and then, using those tickets, anonymously indicate their decision.
To this end, designer Kate Prescott has created a magnificently impressive and formal set, the judge being highly elevated above the stage in a judicial box scarred by the sign of cracking. The cracking follows through onto the back wall and it is suggested that the courtroom itself is in a place of major external disruption. Defence and prosecution tables flank the towering judge and, beneath her, also a witness table and a court reporter. A sour-faced security man lurks, ready for anything, even just a new jug of water. And much water is consumed by the protagonists as the play moves loquaciously forwards. This is definitely the thinking theatre-goers’ theatre. It is a work previously unseen in this city, which is the Red Phoenix policy. It also is a work much vaunted in the rest of the world.
Red Phoenix has a pretty slick track record and this production keeps right up with it under the seasoned direction of Brant Eustice with Tracey Walker. Ostensibly simple in structure, it is a play which rests on impeccable timing and faultless focus. It is a very tough script, a daunting learning piece for the actors and extremely demanding in that they are dealing with nuances, all of which must be clearly conveyed.
As they are.
There is one witness, a fairly grumpy airforce factotum with a torrent of technical detail. Peter Davies has it all down pat and one can almost believe he really knows this stuff. Fahad Farooque plays the accused fighter pilot, and he explains his case and one sees him as a person. Kate van der Horst gives evidence as widow of a passenger. She sheds tears. It is touching. Perchance she is just there to humanise the dilemma. In terms of legal evidence, it seems a superfluous role. But the play is intense and fairly static so all added action is welcome. Heaven knows, there is little enough for Ruby Faith as the court stenographer. She keeps a stern face throughout, as does Samuel Creighton as the bailiff. Rachel Burfield, on the other hand, is superbly feisty as the prosecutor. She’s an accomplished actress and, along with Bart Csorba playing her courtroom opponent, possessed of a particularly agreeable stage voice. And, none is better than Sharon Malujlo who embodies the Presiding Judge; a consummate performance.
Hence, with this degree of professionalism, with this striking set, with good direction as well as sound and lighting, this challenging play has tension and clarity, sufficient for audience members to cast their verdicts and, perchance, go home to spend the rest of the night arguing the judgements with their partners.
Samela Harris
When: 20 to 29 Oct
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
South Coast Choral and Arts Society. Victor Harbor Town Hall. 14 Oct 2022
The old Victor Harbor Town Hall is not the greatest venue in the world. Its sightlines can be miserable and the council has decreed its lovely balcony as out of bounds. But, such limitations have never held back the regional thespians from mounting huge and wildly ambitious productions.
And here they are again: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on an ambitiously-tiered stage, a large orchestra, and even a cast promenade through the auditorium.
A very large cast it is, too. SCCAS has a mass of enthusiastic support from local theatre aspirants as well as local businesses. It is a fine example of good community spirit, along with the region’s rival producer of musicals, the not-for-profit group, Zest. They both do the Fleurieu and its citizenry proud.
Beauty and the Beast, with its Alan Menken music and Howard Ashman and Tim Rice lyrics, is a very tricky show to mount since it is based not only on a fairy tale but on the Disney cartoon version of a fairy tale. Hence, it is an offbeat spectacular with ridiculous fancy costumes and some very difficult singing. In her first voyage into stage directing, Eloise Morriss has gathered a huge team of costumiers who have done the show proud with the teapot costume of Mrs Potts and the gorgeous teacup of her boy, Chip. These are characters cursed to live as objects in the tale, just as the Prince has become a beast. There’s the living chest of drawers and, quite deliciously here, the clock and the French lamplight, known as Lumiere. There’s even call for the whole ensemble to dance as giant cutlery.
Of course, it’s a love story with villains and heroes and, in the end of the day, true love allows The Beast to be revealed as the handsome prince. In this case, among all the brilliant, detailed costumes and complex and effective set, it feels odd that The Beast, sung with gravelly emotion by Chris Stevenson, turns out to be just as hirsute as his character and the big reveal is to a long wig and a very big beard which now is neatly braided at the bottom.
The ensemble work is very strong albeit some of the soloists are uneven. The sound eventually gets the balance just right. Katie Marshall’s orchestra is very on-cue with the singers although its big entre-acte is a tough test.
While the lighting tends to dull, the talents shine through. Notable are Flynne Turley in the character part of Lumiere, along with Elise Hall as his offsider Cogsworth. Jemma Sims is a radiant Belle and she has the acting chops with immense promise in the singing. John Grear, Hope Meffle, and Sean Kelley are very good in support with Lukas Barker standing out as Kefou and also beautifully-spoken young Felix Stevenson. Molly Sutherland and Tia Stevenson get a big tick. And, well, the shrill squealing of the Silly Girls Megan Hawke, Leila Hollingworth, and Payton Stevenson makes one wish one had brought the earplugs.
The ensemble works with focus and enthusiasm and one shares in the joy they clearly feel in being onstage.
This might not be SCCAS’s greatest production, but it is great in its proportions, its good spirit, its fantastic costumes, and absolute fearlessness.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 29 Oct
Where: Victor Harbor Town Hall
Bookings: sccas.org