Adelaide Fesival. Dunstan Playhouse. 27 Feb 2021
The great Sir Alec Guinness used to say that the secret to good acting was posture, capturing the gait of a character.
This observation springs to mind as Robyn Nevin shuffles onto the set in A German Life. Her body seems loose and lived-in. Her shoulders droop under years of sunless retirement. Her footfall is uncertain. Every movement is slow and meticulous, glasses on and glasses off, to focus on the chores of pouring water into a plastic cup, or making a cup of tea.
This German woman inhabits a bland but impeccably neat room in an aged-care home. Even the pictures on the wall are small and understated. But it is a safe place where an old woman can stay in her room and roam around in her past.
Brunhilde Polsen’s memories, recorded when she was 102 and written for the stage as a monologue by Christopher Hampton, are of an unremarkable girl who rose through her diligence with shorthand and typing to become part of the Nazi party’s inner sanctum as Goebbels’ secretary. Her pre-war Germany was peopled with Jews and her narration carefully traces the way in which these very nice people kept disappearing, not that she ever really knew what was happening to them. She knew nothing. She was just a secretary. She just typed for people. But she was there as Hitler rose to power and Nazism swept the country. Changes were going on. Perhaps she was just too stupid to clue up. She sat next to Goebbels at a dinner party, but she did not speak with him. She was part of the propaganda department and she picked up on its lies. But she just did her job. She had not chosen it. She had a Nazi boyfriend, but he never tried to convert her. She was an unimportant female, not expected to be interested in politics.
And so the account goes on, the actress delivering it in a guttural voice with the rhythmic intonations of a German accent. She is never passionate or hurried. She is often hesitant, searching for a word, losing track of what she is saying; all those mannerisms which afflict us in latter years. She admits that while she is forgetful about what she ate yesterday, there are many things from the deeper past she can never forget.
But the memory is selective and lies so easily become truths. She does not say so, but it is implicit in the Hampton script. She is a member of the crowd of Germans who were “just doing their job” in Nazi Germany. And Nevin, always a cool-headed actress, does not try to make the character likeable. She is what she was - a passive witness.
Brunhilde’s conclusion is that she cannot see such a phenomenon ever happening again. “Stupid people follow false leaders”. People are not so gullible now, she says. “People wouldn’t fall for it.” And, of course, the audience laughs nervously at the huge irony implicit in those words.
This Festival theatre centrepiece has been directed by the Festival’s co-artistic director, Neil Armfield with a keen eye on the ambivalence of retrospection and the fact that in this moment of history, its theme has new relevance. There is a compassionate insight, also, on how tiny is the world of aged-care residents, how repetitive are their dreary tasks. He does not allow colour to enter Brunhilde’s world and, indeed, the musical integration by cellist Catherine Finniss adds to the dourness of it all, the end-of-life woman alone with her recollections. Dale Ferguson’s set completes it all. It is a melancholy statement on the bleak nature of aged care accommodation, although with tall windows and long gauze drapes it looks brighter and airier than most. This is a design deceit since those white areas become screens for the projection of grim Nazi war newsreels which underscore the play’s theme.
It is not fun. It is not uplifting. It offers neither regret nor hope. Instead, in all its sleek and artful dramatic professionalism, it delivers us a meditation on whether the world will ever learn from history.
Samela Harris
When: 27 Feb to 14 Mar
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Main Theatre at Goodwood Theatre and Studios. 27 Feb 2021
Rosehill the musical is produced by the Creative Academy of Performing Arts and is being enthusiastically greeted by the families and friends of its creatives, cast and crew.
Violet, played by Tea McGuire, is a Goth-inspired teenager who is grappling with the death of her mother and having to relocate to live with her estranged father (Vincent Lee-Hewitt) in the idyllic little town of Rosehill, where “rules are the best”: respect your elders, be home by 8pm and the like. However, all is not what it seems and there is a sinister cult at work that controls the minds and lives of its inhabitants. Despite her rebellious nature, Violet eventually succumbs but is ultimately freed from the forces of control with the assistance of friends who have fought to cling to their own identities.
The show is an exploration of how adolescents struggle to find themselves and make sense of an unforgiving world that throws competing and contradictory ideas and philosophies at them. It also explores the notion that we all have the potential to thrive in the midst of strong role models and that individualism is a positive and necessary thing.
The production is set simply in drapes with minimal sets and properties, which are changed slickly from one scene to the next. The lighting plot is simple and well executed and enhances the minimalist style of the show. Probir Geoffrey Dutt’s eclectic music score is recorded onto a backing track and the cast generally handle it well, with very few cueing problems from one vocal number to the next. The vocals are uniformly strong, and the choreography is unpretentious and effective.
Director Judy Sampson has kept faith with the modest storyline and not tried to extend it beyond its dramatic capabilities. At the end of it all, Rosehill is a feel-good story that sends you off whistling a catchy tune or two.
Kym Clayton
When: 27 Feb to 6 Mar
Where: Main Theatre at Goodwood Theatre and Studios
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Samuel Dugmore. The Mill – The Breakout. 27 Feb 2021
Man-bo rams it up the old solo warrior for all its worth. Fans of the action hero genre will be wowed by how Samuel Dugmore, in his self-devised mission behind enemy lines - directed by Jessica Clough-MacRae (Shakespeare’s Globe, Bristol Old Vic) - takes the machismo to ludicrous hilarity. I can’t remember laughing so hard for so long from beginning to end.
Dugmore digs deep into his kit bag of an actor’s weaponry – on-the-run sound effects, dance-style moves to die for, pantomime, ventriloquism, vocal virtuosity, physical comedy, puppetry, and farcical facial distortions. The employment of each new talent comes as constant surprises, but of course, he trained at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris where Geoffrey Rush honed his skills some years earlier. Audience engagement starts with a few lessons in killing and dying, as these skills are needed later in a silly interactive battle with lethal swim noodles and soft plastic balls. Dugmore careens from combat to camp with barrel-chested, Russian-thumping bravado, softened with a wee bit of what’s it all about (did I detect some PTSD going on there?). He has a dog Fluffy.
Thoroughly enjoyed this locked and loaded and laugh-out-loud romp. A well-deserved Fringe Best Comedy Award for Week 1. Double bravo, MAN-BO!
PS – No audience members were killed in the making of this show, unless they died laughing.
David Grybowski
When: 19 Feb to 14 Mar
Where: The Mill – The Breakout
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Festival Theatre. 26 Feb 2021
The last thing one would have expected of an Adelaide Festival operatic centrepiece is that, amidst a wealth of top human talent and technical wizardry, a dog would steal the show.
But so it is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is director Neil Armfield’s mighty production and it is director Neil Armfield’s marvellous and mellow dog, Lock by name, and belonging, in the Shakespearean scheme of things, to the band of merry mechanicals who deliver that delicious rustic kitsch performance of Pyramus and Thisbe for the entertainment of the royal couple, Theseus and Hippolyta.
Clearly aware of Lock’s star power, Armfield has even given him his own found-in-the-woods special vignette which gives the audience a chance to cheer his stage obedience.
It has been uncommon for a live dog to play the part of dog in the Dream and one may dare to call it type casting in this time of blind casting wherein anyone can play almost anything other than what perhaps was intended in a script. For instance, in this grand production, Puck, the English woodland sprite, non-singing in the Britten variation on the Dream theme, is played by Mark Coles Smith as a rather masculine Aboriginal warrior spirit with a strong strine accent.
Indeed, director Armfield has taken all sorts of lateral inspirations to add whimsy to the Benjamin Britten Dream. The lovers Lysander and Hermia arrive onstage looking impeccably Brad and Janet 1950s as if they had just dropped in from The Rocky Horror Show.
Amid the clouds of faeries in their blonde wigs, all a lithe children’s soprano chorus from Young Adelaide Voices, the one child wearing glasses immediately reminds one of the Lost Boys of Peter Pan.
So, there’s lots of lively pastiche alternativism to spot in this latter-day take on a beloved Shakespearean classic. And, as the surtitles flow along, there is the reminder that the work also is about words and some of the sheer prettiness of Shakepeare’s Dream language hangs in the air.
Also hanging in the air is Oberon. The fairy king holds sway, most literally, over his enchanted woodland realm in a flying box. It rises and lowers as he interacts with Puck and with his beloved queen, Tytania, with whom he is squabbling about the Changeling child. This little Indian prince here is cast as African, an adorable wide-eyed wee tot, oft enveloped in Tytania's loving arms and the almost endless flow of her glorious trails of chiffon. Oberon is sung by the utterly dazzling American counter tenor, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. His voice is a dream in itself, perhaps the Manuka honey of the musical world. Armfield has done well to marry him to Rachelle Durkin’s Tytania. She is a mezzo of splendid stature as well as voice and beauty. They are a couple to capture heart and imagination, these two.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes may have a lesser role as Theseus, but this brilliant baritone has such a potent stage presence that, even from the fun and games and silliness of the Mechanicals’ play, he draws one’s awareness. They’re terrific Mechanicals: Douglas McNicol, Louis Hurley, Pelham Andrews, Norbert Hohl, and Jeremy Tatchell, with Warwick Fyfe as Bottom, albeit in an oddity of an ass’s head.
Andrew Goodwin and Sally-Anne Russell thrive as the runaway lovers, Lysander and Hermia, Russell delivering one of the productions funniest moments as she turns on the small-but-feisty tantrum. James Clayton and Leanne Kenneally are well-matched as Demetrius and Helena with Fiona Campbell gracious to a tee as the queen, Hippolyta.
And, of course, there en masse in the pit, perfectly balanced in strength and harmony, is our wonderful ASO conducted by Paul Kildea.
But, while the musicians and the singers and the general business of this production have their merit, it is Dale Ferguson who is truly the lynchpin. Ferguson is responsible not only for the romance and beauty of the costumes but also for the all-embracing, all-consuming magical woodland set, a world where massive plastic drops with exquisite vertical forest motifs softly reveal the flitting life of the fairy kingdom, a world where human and fairy activities and moods are drawn by the movements of a huge, green sheet which moves up and down over the stage and, which seems almost to breathe as it softly billows. When it comes to rest, it encloses Tytania in her dreamy bower. And all is green, so lushly, beautifully green. Enriched by Damien Cooper’s lighting, the set is a splendour, almost worth the ticket price on its own.
Samela Harris
When: 26 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. World Premiere. Slingsby/State Theatre Company of SA. Thomas Edmonds Opera Studio, Wayville Showgrounds. 25 Feb 2021
It’s as Irish as a turf fire.
There are reels of characterful Irish music and an athletic Irishman with a brogue of James Joycean intensity.
It’s a true story, so its theatre makers have thrown the cultural book at it, so to speak.
Eschewing proscenium traditions, they have sprawled it across a vast shed wherein a covid-masked audience sits cabaret-style at tables and the players move between them. Three corners of the venue contain concealed sets which open up like giant popup books. The fourth corner is a real stage, bright and lively, wherein the show’s spirited musicians dwell.
Essentially, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs is a one-man show with a glory of production values, including foot-tapping music and the utterly wonderful voice of Victoria Falconer singing the songs composed by Lisa O’Neill and Quincy Grant. Banjo, ukulele, accordion, guitar, fiddle - the band of four plays them all, at times roaming the room or perched on a central dais. They step in to people Martin’s world.
Bryan Burroughs plays the boy Martin McKenna. McKenna is a real-life character, author of the book The Boy Who Talked to Dogs, and now very much an adult, Australia-based and working as a YouTube dog trainer based in Nimbin.
His portrayal in this work is highly demanding since there’s a lot of territory to be covered as the character darts and dashes through the audience in the huge venue. Burroughs does so with really beautiful litheness, fleet-footed and athletic. All the time, he’s busily on script, with a mighty performance, narrating the tale of the Irish lad, the runty last-born of triplets who, for the miserable life of him, could not fit in with the Irish village life around him.
As conveyed in this Amy Conroy adaptation of McKenna’s book, it is a heartrending tale of a poor, quirky little boy regularly beaten by his father and never putting a foot right with his mum or school or anything very much. The only simpatico souls were the local dogs, and so the saga evolves of his ending up living with a pack of dogs because at last he had found a place where he belonged and could have respect.
The dogs are a delight of shadow illumination in what is altogether a really stunning lighting plot by Chris Petridis. Between the puppetry images and the conviction of the actor establishing his place among the dogs, those mere shadows achieve personality and a life of their own. And, with a complex and finely balanced soundscape, as well as the artful music, the tension, dramas, heartbreaks, and triumphs of Martin’s world become quite vivid.
The only shortcoming of this work is its huge scale. While the action is generally elevated, the sight-lines from one corner of the Thomas Edmonds opera shed to the other far corner are a bit of a strain and the sophistication of Wendy Todd’s fine sets can’t always be appreciated. Would that the venue were more intimate. The seating is GA but seats are allocated at the door. Perhaps ask for a central spot.
Between Andy Packer’s wonderful Slingsby and the fellowship support of State Theatre’s Mitchell Butel, with imagination and courage and good sponsorship, this is one of those Festival experiences which will steal a permanent spot in the memory.
And, if there is one indelibly beautiful line in the script of wild Irish verbosity, it is that delivered by the show’s Australian troubadour Victoria Falconer to the winter-chilled Irish boy, Martin. She tells him: “Australia is a place that is like swallowing yellow.”
And so it is, so it is.
Samela Harris
When: 25 Feb to 14 Mar
Where: Thomas Edmonds Opera Studio
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au