Garry Marshall & Lowell Ganz. Galleon Theatre Group Inc. Domain Theatre. 2 May 2025
Thank goodness for Community Theatre of the standard of Wrong Turn at Lungfish!
When Arts Minister Andrea Michaels seemed affronted during a recent ABC 891 Radio interview by the suggestion $80 million over a decade might not be a sufficient budget to support the Arts- all the Arts- she may have been oblivious to the dire state of professional theatre in South Australia. Dire because a city the size of Adelaide supports so few professional productions. Our dear Arts Minister needs to get out to see so called amateur work like this to appreciate the scope that exists to develop the professional space in this State!
Wrong Turn at Lungfish, showcases what lives in that space!
There’s nothing like the prospect of mortality to provoke introspection and prompt great belly laughs! Sublime writing by Gary Marshall and Lowell Ganz, somewhat reminiscent of Niel Simon in its often brusque, sharp wit, is a gift this Galleon Theatre Group ensemble does not squander
Tony Busch, Dora Stamos and Tianna Cooper are simply outstanding, while Wade Cook shows promise. But I am ahead of myself!
A bold choice for a small community theatre group, Wrong Turn at Lungfish explores the many complexities of being human and connecting with others, sometimes completely unexpectedly, when we stumble upon our shared humanity through vulnerability.
Peter Ravenswaal (Peter Busch), an embittered former Dean of a college, is highly literate, blind and struggling to come to terms with the illness that will eventually see to his demise. Young New York Italian, Anita Meredino (Dora Stamos), probably from “Hell’s Kitchen” given Stamos’ superb accent, is barely literate but gifted with intuitive intelligence by birth and street smarts by necessity. Volunteering for a reading-for-the-blind organization brings Anita into Ravenswaal’s embittered orbit weekly, while an unfortunate student Nurse (Tianna Cooper) must suffer Ravenswaal’s grief driven tantrums and tirades because no one else will. Having lost his wife but a year earlier, Ravenswaal is immersed in grief for her and his own impending mortality. Hearsay brings us to know Dora’s boyfriend Dominic (Wade Cook), something of a ne’er do well, and to suspect all is not as it seems.
Marshall and Ganz’s beautifully drawn cocktail of character dynamics is an ensemble actor’s dream, one this trio of capable actors make the most of. Ravenswaal variously cajoles, taunts, rejects and educates Anita as he demands she read Schappenhaur, Keats, and Elliot, among others, while his love for Beethoven both punctuates and underscores his intellectual and emotional acuity. Ravenswaal’s observation that humanity made a “wrong turn at Lungfish” foreshadows what is to come. Anita counters with increasingly clever wit and disarming honesty as the barriers between these unlikely, yet entirely believable, friends collapses.
Act One crackles with the energy of this battle of wits and vulnerabilities as Ravenswaal and Anita find mutual respect and fondness. Cooper is masterful in her rendition of the harried Nurse, her insights into the character reflected in the rollercoaster of her interactions with Ravenswaal.
Act Two sees the appearance of Dominic, a thug of a man for all the usual cliched reasons; somehow Marshall and Ganz’s script keeps him on the better side of stereotype. Wade Cook, a musical theatre performer tackling his first stage show, gives the character a good crack but doesn’t quite find the depth of Dominic implicit in the text. To be fair, Cook is contending with an entrance halfway through a play with a well-established rhythm and the stella performances of his cast mates. It’s a tough gig matching such energy late in the piece. However, Cook does well to convey the brutishness Dominic brings to what is more an arrangement with Dora than a relationship; unfortunately, Dora sees it as the latter. An element of the elegance of the writing is how Dora’s doubts, which Ravenswaal intuits, are laced through the fabric of the text.
T.S.Elliott’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock provides a poignantly beautiful and moving bookend to this superb production.
Set design by director Rosie Aust, Galleon Theatre President Kym Clayton, and Michael Ralph is best summarized as eminently award worthy. Trish Winfield’s Lighting Design, Warren McKenzie’s (Galleon’s VP) Sound Design and Mary Cummins great costume design each and collectively support this great production well.
A superb example of community theatre at its best, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, is yet another production I’ve reviewed featuring tertiary trained actors, something I would ask our Minister for the Arts to reflect on when spruiking Arts budgets. Where are the professional opportunities for such actors in South Australia?
Thankfully companies like Galleon, The Rep and Northern Light are providing some.
Wrong Turn at Lungfish, Go! See it!
When: 2 to 10 May
Where: Domain Theatre
Bookings: galleon.org.au
Editors Note: Kym Clayton, on set design in this production, is both Galleon Theatre Company’s President, a member of the Adelaide Critics Circle Incorporated, and a writer and critic for The Barefoot Review.
Sharr White. The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. The Arts Theatre. 1 May 2025
Dementia. The word is variously spoken in suppressed tones, with an edge of fear, with grave sympathy, or as nasty disparagement. None of us want it. Many of us have experienced it as a third party. It is the shadowy lived experience for some. Some of us may prefer death! It’s unnerving to note that, with over one hundred variants, dementia is the major cause of death of women in Australia today!
To find a non-scientific forum through which to comprehend dementia, to bear witness as it takes hold of a well-trained, brilliant mind through well-crafted theatre… Sharr White’s inventive script, first staged Off Broadway in 2011, compels us to bear witness to the unravelling life of fifty-two-year-old, brilliant neurological researcher Julia Smithton (Robyn Brookes), alongside oncologist husband, Dr Ian Smithton (Scott Nell). Herein lies a beautiful paradox that, in the hands of a lesser playwright, could descend into mawkish pathos. However, White’s cleverly structured script ensures we witness Juliana’s interactions and recollections in such a way as to never be certain as to where the truth lies; through structure we descend into the confusion of one afflicted by dementia. The scripts non-linear, often jarring narrative immerses us in that confusion.
This, sometimes-erratic, rhythm and pace, embedded in White’s precise, often witty, dialogue is capably managed by the small ensemble under the directorial guidance of veteran performer and director David Sinclair. Nuanced and attentive to the portrayal of characters invested personally or clinically in Julia’s increasingly disturbing behaviours, Sinclair dedicates this show to his sister-in-law who succumbed to this insidious disease, aged 60. His observations of a disease that “attacks the very essence of who we are and who we once were” are evident in his sensitive direction.
Robyn Brookes’ portrayal of Julia is compelling to watch. Brookes’ timing is immaculate, and her ability to pivot between apparent lucidity, narration, child-like vulnerability and the frustrated rage of diminishing comprehension is breathtaking. Scott Nell carries himself well in, arguably, the most difficult role in the play, Julia’s oncologist husband. Nell must navigate his way through the emotional roller coaster of the life partner of a dementia sufferer who also happens to be an advanced medical professional. I well recall the difficulty my own stepfather, a scientist, experienced when coming to terms with my mother’s terminal cancer when in her late forties; the response of the partner is complex and fraught, and Nell conveys this very effectively. I was impressed by Tegan Gully-Crispe as Woman, a role requiring her to play a neuropsychiatrist, Julia’s daughter Lauren, and the unsuspecting new owner of “the other place”, Julia’s family’s Cape Cod escape. Gully-Crispe is utterly convincing across these roles. Bendan Cooney as Man is similarly capable as Richard, Julia’s former research partner, and Lauren’s older lover, and Nurse. However, we must wonder whether any of the characters portrayed through Man and Woman are real, or simply dementia induced delusions.
David Sinclair’s superb minimalist set’s sharp angles emphasize a sense of entrapment, while Richard Parkhill’s lighting cleverly underscores Julia’s shifting thought patterns.
The Arts Theatre and Adelaide Rep are embarking on ambitious and exciting adventures, the former with a much-needed building program for the much-loved sixty-two-year-old building, the latter with an injection of contemporary theatre that, I hope, will find discerning audiences of all ages. With David Sinclair driving much of this, the only way is forward and up! I look forward to the upcoming musical, Come From Away, another foray into the contemporary canon.
As a side note, if you’re under forty, get off your butt, get off Netflix, and get out to see great theatre in places in Adelaide, like the Arts Theatre! The Fringe is not the only time to do this!
The Adelaide Rep’s The Other Place is an excellent production exploring a condition disturbing close to all of us.
Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 24 Apr to 3 May
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Festival Fleurieu. Butterfly Theatre. The Olives, Yankalilla. 26 Apr 2025
Rain, hail or shine, the show must go on. And so it did at The Olives for the Festival Fleurieu.
It was not hail and, indeed, it was only misty rain beneath an occasional rainbow.
But, it was suddenly cruelly cold.
Wise audience members, advised to bring chairs and picnic blankets for this outdoor performance of spirited Shakespearean snippets, swiftly rugged up in an ubiquity of puffer jackets and knee rugs and cosily watched sweet Ophelia in a flimsy nightie listing her death bouquet: “There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts…” And, all around, were living flowers amid the glory of rosebeds and herbaceous borders at The Olives; the perfect setting under imperfect weather. Damn.
The Butterfly Theatre players, however, showed no goosebumps let alone faint hearts.
They were troupers of the old theatrical tradition. Bare arms and bare feet were dressed by brave hearts and strong voices.
Their stage was a sunken lawn with some hay bales and a small marquee for the musicians with their Elizabethan stringed instruments. The audience was arrayed in “stalls” on the grass with some looking down from a geranium-lined "dress circle”.
Thence, they also could meditate upon the windbreak provided by gracious old olive trees planted in 1860. The Olives is a precious piece of South Australia’s listed heritage and its gardens are a work of art.
The Festival production, directed by Tony Knight, was something of a lyrical smorgasborg: sonnets, songs, and exerpts from the Bard’s plays. Titania was there and Bottom, Viola and Juliet, Rosaline and Kate… Shakespeare’s words of love from many sources delivered by sterling performers and musicians: Bronwyn Ruciak, Callum Logan, Leah Lowe, David Daradan, Sophie Livingston-Pearce, James Logan, Matthew Lykos, and Jamie Lynn Webster.
Many are the jokes about the indestructibility of actors and their reputation as such is not for nothing. Butterfly is fragile only in name. It shows its colours as a tough troupe one may even dub as daring plein-air professionals. Applause.
Samela Harris
When: 26 Apr
Where: The Olives
Bookings: Closed
State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 5 Apr 2025
For one who has writing about theatre and the arts in this city for sixty years and then some, The Dictionary of Lost Words carves quite a notch in theatre history.
It has been the ultimate in sell-out shows. That’s the first given.
It derived from an international best-seller book written by a local, Pip Williams. It was adapted for the stage by the distinguished theatre writer Verity Laughton. And she, just by the way, is the unassuming matriarch in a dynastic theatre family. And, the result of her dramatisation has found legs onstage through our own State Theatre Company in now two seasons for which it was beg, borrow or steal just to get a ticket. It has been the hottest ticket seller in the company’s history, and it also thrived in Sydney and Melbourne.
Extraordinarily, it is a wordy play all about words.
No song and dance and not exactly a bundle of laughs. Just a whisper of whimsy.
Furthermore, it is a period piece set in the 1800s.
And yet, here we have this amazing phenomenon which really must have a salute for the arts archives.
That it weaves in the passions of the suffragette movement, the rigidity of the old patriarchy, and the societal judgements on illegitimacy, are artful by-the-ways to the plays resounding relevance. Ah, yes. There’s an element of love, too.
This critic has seen it twice, both times as directed by Jennifer Arthur and designed by Jonathon Oxlade with costumes by Ailsa Paterson. The only ostensible difference was in the cast.
It left Adelaide with the incomparable Tilda Cobham Hervey in the lead and, incomparable she was, hence a hard act to follow by Shannen Alycen Quan. This role depicts Esme Nicholl, first seen as the wee daughter of one of the men engaged in the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary. She has found on the floor under the tables of the Scriptorium the first lost word, "bondmaiden", a word which is foundation to the feminist spirit of the play. Taking the word with her, Esme grows up as a woman determined to have a life of independence against the patriarchal environment of the times. While Esme is a fictional creation, the gruff Scotsman behind the Scriptorium lectern represents the truth upon which the story is based. He is the great Oxford lexicographer Sir James Murray in whose Oxford Garden shed was indeed the Scriptorium wherein the work of word-gathering did take place. He was impeccably embodied in the first production by Chris Pitman; another hard act to follow performance as it left Adelaide. In this new incarnation Brian Meegan develops the role with a nice simpatico streak. Meanwhile, Ksenja Logos of the original cast continues to play multiple roles beautifully. Kathryn Adams, Johnny Nasser, Arkia Ashraf, Angela Nica Sullen and James Smith also shine.
Although offstage chatter had it that there were assorted production elements which might have been honed or changed for the eastern states runs, it was not a better production which returned. It actually seemed a little less tight and spirited. It is an unapologetically long play.
A note here: I viewed the original production from classic critics’s seats in the stalls. The show’s massive popularity and my own overcrowded calendar had me seated in the back row of the gods for the second viewing. There are no bad seats; just different aspects. From the balcony, the stage is like a doll’s house. But the glory of this bi-level Oxlade set with its busy wall of pigeonholes plus its AV components remains a marvel of design and the nigh-perfect miked sound means that not a word is lost. Nuance lives.
It is glossy professionalism from end to end. Not only but also, it is an important piece of theatre - a shining achievement of ingenuity and erudition.
The universality of themes, the relevance of preserving and respecting language, yet more significant in this time of reclamation of lost languages of our own aboriginal people, should give this play a place in the repertoire of Australian classics.
Everyone should see it.
And, on that note, it is heading off and away on interstate seasons to spread the word on words. My word is “brava”.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 17 April (Adelaide) continuing till 7 Jun on tour.
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: stateheatrecompany.com.au
Brisbane: 26 Apr to 10 May – Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
Canberra: 15 May to 24 May – Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Wollongong: 29 May to 7 Jun – Merrigong Theatre Company
Northern Light Theatre Company. The Shedley Theatre. 29 Mar 2025
I find staged plays based on movies, as opposed to movies based on plays, intriguing. “Why? Why do they do it” is the question I ask. And I haven’t been out to the Shedley Theatre in the City of Playford for a long time. A very long time!
Northern Light Theatre Company’s staging of Billy Elliot, The Musical proved the adventure into both territories worthwhile! I am so glad I ventured out! This is a long review, and with good reason!
This brilliant musical adaptation with Book and Lyrics by Lee Hall, and Music by none other than Sir Elton John, captures the vibe of the 1984/1985 miners’ strike and Thatchers England so evocatively portrayed by the Universal Pictures/ Studio Canal movie, Billy Elliot made in 2000.
Growing up in the Northern pit village of Easington is challenging for twelve-year-old Billy (Aidan Salmon). Despite tough times and the strike, Billy is to follow in the coal mining footsteps- and probably lung disease prognosis- of his father, Jackie (Andrew Mair) and brother Tony (Liam Phillips). These are fiercely stoic working-class Yorkshiremen with nought but fire in their belly and honour in their hearts. They work hard and are proud of it! They are hard men. Billy is also expected to do what working class lads do - contact sport, in this case, boxing lessons, for 50 pence a week. Nowadays, it’s more likely to be boxing via finger jabs on a keyboard, but that’s not the point! Billy’s life is grim. The realities of growing up, cash strapped, in a small terrace house with his brother, widowed father and Grandma (Wendy Rayner) who slips in and out of dementia, is lightened by Billy’s best friend, Michael (Noah Magourilos).
One evening after a less than half-hearted attempt at boxing, Billy is tasked with giving the ballet teacher, the effervescent realist, Mrs Wilkison (Sarah Hamilton) the key to the community hall. Billy suddenly finds what has been missing in his life- dance. The greyness of a Northern English mining town now has a glimmer of light for Billy, but it’s a glimmer of light boys like Billy must guard from the menfolk for fear of homophobic judgement. What, after all, is the use of ballet to a boy destined to follow his forebears into the bowels of the earth? The Arts is for that lot over there, not the likes of us! For working class boys, it’s an age-old story – unless they form a rock ‘n’ roll band! Michael is the only male Billy can confide in largely because Michael has his own secret, no spoilers here!
With a miner’s strike becoming protracted and violent, Billy’s aspirations become even less relevant until Jackie unexpectedly witnesses his son expressing himself through dance in what, in this production, is a deeply moving scene. Jackie seeks Mrs Wilkinson’s guidance and sacrifices his most sacred thing as a Union man, his honour, to scrape together funds so Billy can audition in London for The Royal Ballet School. Finally, the solidarity of the working people of the age is captured beautifully by Lee Halls dialogue and lyrics and Elton John’s emotive music.
Amateur theatre is holding the line for theatre in Adelaide! While Martha Lott’s Holden Street Theatres straddles the line of pro-am and presents great theatre, and the Eustice brothers’ Red Phoenix does work of similarly excellent standard, it’s the amateur scene that is the so called second tier to State Theatre Company. More on that later. If “amateur” is taken to mean "lover of" or "enthusiast for,” this production on the Shedley Theatre stage overflows with both!
Where does one start with praise for this uniformly strong cast? Sixteen-year-old Aidan Salmon is superb as Billy. Not only can “our lad” dance, sing, and act to perfection-ay but does fair accent, too! Salmon is a stage presence to watch. If he doesn’t audition for WAAPA when he’s the right age, there’s more amiss in the world than MAGA! Similarly, Noah Magourilos possesses the comic timing of a seasoned veteran! Together, these fine young performers create the chemistry of boyhood friendship with sublime finesse- and their dance routine is to die for! This warrants timely mention of choreographer, Sarah Williams. What a talent! A show about an emerging dancer requires exceptional dancers so kudos, too, to the remarkable ensemble of dancers of all ages! And a special mention must be made for Milla Illic as Debbie Wilkinson, another young talent to watch! Sarah Hamilton and Wendy Rayner sparkle as the vibrant realist, Mrs Wilkinson and deeply sad, addled, and likable Grandma respectively. Kate Hodges manifests as Billy’s deceased Mum beautifully throughout.
Andrew Mair perfectly captures the complex inner turmoil of a simple, honest, emotionally inarticulate man, while Liam Phillips as his eldest son balances just the right amount of youthful rage with the resentment of one who, deep down, knows the cards are stacked against him. Very much to Michelle Davey’s credit these are strong leads directed well in a strong, tight, ensemble. One minor quibble lies with some of the blocking around interpersonal moments of conflict- proximity sometimes diminishes intensity.
Highlights? Too many to name! However, I was particularly moved, as were all, by The Letter, rendered with deep sincerity by Salmon, Hamilton, and Hodges, while Rayner’s Grandma’s Song conveyed the frustrations of a generation of working-class women very effectively indeed. But I’m splitting hairs - all the numbers were wonderful! While referring to music, the Musical Director, Billy James St John, clearly assembled an orchestra of superb musicians.
As mentioned earlier, amateur theatre fills a void in this State, the Festival State, the State once renowned for theatre! Premier Peter Malinauskas’ focus on infrastructure and events like the Gather Round is commendable. But let he and Minister for Arts, Andrea Michaels, not forget Winston Churchill’s observation, “The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them!” C’arn! Get behind theatre for all!
In the heartland that is Elizabeth, Northern Light Theatre Company’s production of Billy Elliot, The Musical is doing that at an extraordinary standard!
There’s nothing more to say about Billy Elliot, The Musical than… go, see it!
John Doherty
When: 28 Mar to 12 Apr
Where: Shedley Theatre
Bookings: nltc.sales.ticketsearch.com