Dracula

★★

Black Cat Theatre. Star Theatre Two at Star Theatres. 6 Mar 2021

 

There have been numerous stagings of Bram Stoker’s Dracula since he wrote the novel in 1897, and Black Cat’s Isaac Gates has scripted his own for the 2021 Adelaide Fringe. His version seems a mash-up of the traditional story, bits of plot lines from previous incarnations – maybe even including the 2001 musical - and a tasty morsel of Brad and Janet from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. All good fun and great ideas. But it’s too unfocussed and meanders midway.

 

Director Isaac Gates no doubt was aiming for a lot of farcical silliness and we get that in spades. The unfortunate overexposure of ghoulishness detracts from the horror, and a bit of subtlety would have been a counterpoint to the humour. Gates gets it that sex sells, so no opportunity is lost, but a large chunk of the show is taken over by Minaaaaaa’s grossly exaggerated vampish behaviour, although I have to admit, her song – the only song in a show that might have had many – was a wonderful diversion (written by Hebe Sayce who plays Minaaaaaa and Cohen Feher).

 

Isaac Gates’s Dracula – in performance, accent, costume and make-up – is a wonderful invention, but surprisingly, he left the eroticism for the rest of the characters. And surprisingly, you don’t see him enough. Chiara Pepe as Lucy also gave a relatively nuanced performance. But generally, the characters and production values are cartoonish and not sustainably interesting through the length of the show, even with the elaborate costuming.

 

I’m afraid things just don’t congeal.

David Grybowski

 

When: 4 to 13 Mar

Where: Star Theatre Two at Star Theatres

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

1:1 Concerts

Adelaide Festival. Somewhere fleetingly. At different times. 5 Mar 2021

 

Of all strange places for an intimate classical music encounter - Adelaide Oval?

Other people’s reports of 1:1 Concerts have indicated leafy, romantic locations. I was expecting some place verdant.

I suppose, with the sprinklers arcing over the preened green of the playing field, one could call that finely tended Adelaide Oval lawn as verdant. In its way. But it is not what one had envisioned.

 

To attend these one-on-one Festival concerts, one is met and guided to the secret location of the day. They change, as do the musicians. No one will have quite the same experience. It is one audience member and one musician. One at a time. I am not a music critic but this piece of programming promised something irresistibly “else”. I felt privileged to get a ticket. 

 

So, my guide is an Adelaide Oval volunteer called Trevor, a charming retired headmaster of the Roseworthy school. Along the cool eaves of the eastern side of the oval, he leads me. We talk of how cricketers speak of the Cathedral End of the oval even though the Cathedral is no longer visible, while footballers call it the "northern end". As a pioneer female footy columnist, I remark that it was ever the scoreboard end.  And Trevor tells me that the grand old scoreboard, still in use, has been there since 1911.

 

And, suddenly, there we are, under that famous old Federation scoreboard. 

I am introduced to Hannah from the Festival who runs me through the 1:1 ground rules. Phone off.  This is a non-verbal encounter. You will not speak to the musician. The musician will not speak to you. No clapping, either.

And now we will go up some stairs.

 

Hannah leads me up some slightly alarming metal stairs out the back of the scoreboard. And then up some more vertiginous stairs. Suddenly, we are inside the scoreboard. It is a most interesting enclosed space into which daylight streams cautiously through cracks and a narrow slit of a window looking out onto the bright expanse of oval.

 

What a mysteriously handsome old room it is with its knotty old floorboards silken with wear over its century of use. 

Huge coloured plates bearing numbers are on the walls and on the floor. 

A young man sits with a cello in a squared space among the numbers.

Hannah indicates my seat opposite him and withdraws.

 

He gazes at me and locks eyes. He is not, not smiling. His expression is placid, inscrutable.  I let go of my big “hello” smile.  Try to find a reciprocal expression. I wonder how he is feeling about this? The idea is that he, in locking eyes with me, will somehow sense the sort of music which suits this stranger. I wonder what he sees in me. Could he discern that I adore the cello? I grew up on Pablo Casals. I love deep, mellow musical tones and retreat from shrill or strident tones of voice and instrument. I also adore Baroque music and despise atonal modern composition. As my uncle used to say, “she loves a baroque bun and a cup of rococo”.  These are my meditations as we sit there eye-to-eye. 

His face is beautiful, sensitive and intelligent. It reminds me of the young Philip Lehmann from the Barossa. 

 

We seem to be sitting there in silence for an aeon.

 

Then, he raises his bow and begins to play, oh such lovely low notes. And I can study the strings, vibrations, fingering and, oh yes, his musical intensity and expertise. This anonymous cellist is highly skilled. And, as he thrills me with some lovely baroque snippets, he starts to improvise and show me what the instrument can do, what less conventional sounds it can make, indeed, how shrill it can be if one teases it thus. As he plays with the high notes, I find that I have slipped involuntarily into a defensive posture. He does not seem to notice. He is engrossed with his instrument.  And he coaxes even more exotic sounds from it before moving into some modern score which seems familiar but I can’t identify. Finally, another bit of virtuoso strings-manship after which he puts down his bow and looks into my eyes again.  Just a nod. That’s it. Performance over.

 

I put my hands together in a motion of thanks and rise to find Hannah right behind me ready to lead me back into the daylight.

 

I am asked to fill in a form giving my impressions of the experience. My brain is a shambles of unready.

 

Hanna delivers to me a note from the cellist. His name is David Moran. My program was Bach, improvisation, Britten, improvisation. Ah. I’ve never liked Britten.

 

But I did so very much like David Moran and that weird and wonderful place.

 

So, what did I think? 

 

This 1:1 encounter has been altogether other-worldly. It has been a joy of extraordinary incongruity. My senses are soaked and unsettled by the voyage of musical history; from traditional classical to contemporary. It is a bit like the scoreboard itself, more than a century of changing styles.  

 

I wished I could have taken a photograph. What a sight it was, the cellist in the belly of the scoreboard among yesterday’s excitement of its boards of numbers.

 

But I realise that the image is indelibly committed to mind’s eye. So rare, unimaginable, and utterly unrepeatable. Mine alone. I tuck it away to treasure for ever.

 

And I bless the Festival for this extraordinary gift.

 

Samela Harris

 

When: At Different Times

Where: Somewhere fleetingly

Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au

Eugene Onegin

Adelaide Festival. Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre of Russia. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 5 Mar 2021

 

You’ve got to be quick with the Festival’s live streams of theatre – Medea and Eugene Onegin - because they’re on for only one night. This Australian exclusive event was sold out to boot, and that’s even when seating doubled due to easing of the Covid restrictions. A lively chat between our Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy and their counterparts from the Vakhtangov Company made one realise the whole concept is awesome. However, horrible delays and echoes due to technology plagued the conversation, but we were assured this would not happen during the performance itself. And it didn’t. The live transmission was flawless, and the gigantic, proscenium-filling image was of amazingly high resolution. This is the next best thing to being there and it is priced accordingly. There are two great benefits to this streamed theatre event: the showing is edited on the fly providing great close-ups, and zero carbon footprint. Before performance, the cameras were pointed on the audience, which looked remarkably like one of ours, and I’m so glad Russian theatre life wasn’t bombed into the Stone Age as a consequence of the Cold War. Their audience was sparse; there is an epidemic after all, but more pertinently, it was 11:30 am in Moscow.

 

Alexander Pushkin dates from the early 19^th Century. His Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse and considered a classic of Russian literature. Chekhov comes later and it’s clear now to see Pushkin influences in his plays. Traditional analysis labels the eponymous character as the protagonist but Lithuanian Rimas Tuminas (idea, script and staging) firmly focuses on the unrequited love of Tatyana and makes Onegin her antagonist.

 

Black – imparting gravity and seriousness - is the colour of this production. Black dominates the set, the men’s formal apparel and the distorting imperfect mirror upstage, and bleeds into the overall moodiness led by the characterisation of Onegin. The simple virginal white gowns of our heroine, her cheery sister, Olga, and of the playful chorus of womenfolk, is in thematic contrast to the menfolk. Yet the play is not without humour or whimsy. Tuminas sprinkles the theatre magic with characters that can suddenly leap a metre into the air or break into song or dance or play an instrument. Objects are animated, furniture is hefted around and a swirling snowstorm and surreal playground swings are enrapturing. Symbolism abounds in such creations as a mandolin-strumming pixie, a spell-bounding bunny, and a gruff, hard drinking, aging Hussar as a narrator. Tuminas creates scenes of enchantment beside sweeping grandeur next to intimate feelings. The breakdown of Tatyana from her multiple rejections by Onegin wonderfully ranges from a teenager’s pillow bashing to tearful dissolve followed by a return to dignity. Bravo! Another brilliant device of Tuminas is that the poem is set in flashback and we have younger historical versions side-by-side with the “present-day” major male characters. The swagger of the young Onegin who rejects Tatyana for a life of frivolity is contrasted with the older Onegin. The tableau of the broken Onegin, finally himself rejected by Tatyana, coiled in his parlour chair and ruminating on a future of loneliness, is indelible. Eugene Onegin is a morality tale and a tragedy in bringing about one’s own downfall, yet in this production, it is also a buoyant story of a young woman reclaiming her value, recovering her dignity and maturing into a person of integrity.

 

The Muscovites gave the troupe a standing ovation, yet we didn’t in Adelaide. I’m sure we would have if they were in Her Maj. Vakhtangov, wish you were here! Bravo!

 

David Grybowski

 

When: 5 Mar

Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre

Bookings: Closed

Songs of Travel and Bush Poetry

★★★ ½ Adelaide Fringe Festival. Clayton Wesley Uniting Church, Beulah Park. 5 Mar 2021

 

Presented by local production company Mopoke Theatre Productions, Songs of Travel and Bush Poetry is a staged performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams' song cycle Songs of Travel interspersed with classic Australian bush poetry. It is perfromed by Nicholas Cannon in association with collaborative pianist Andrew Georg.

 

Written about one hundred and twenty years ago, the cycle can be thought of as Vaughan Williams response to Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin (Fair maid of the Mill) and Winterreise (Winter Journey) and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). The Schubert and Mahler cycles are better known and more often performed than the Vaughan Williams, which is unfortunate because Songs of Travel is a totally delightful collection of songs, with some significant recordings available such as by Sir Bryn Terfel.

 

Nicholas Cannon has an engaging performance style with a warm baritone voice that is balanced across his range. His performance tonight of the last two songs were especially pleasing, with well-pitched leaps and fine dynamics. His gentle and well controlled vibrato adds warmth to his interpretations.

 

Cannon intersperses the songs with classic Australian bush poetry mostly by Banjo Paterson. This gives an extended narrative to the performance, and although the connections between the songs and the poetry are tenuous at times, it neither matters nor diminishes one’s enjoyment. Cannon’s operatic skills serve him well: he acts out the storylines of the songs and poems with flourish and style, and his delivery of The Geebung Polo Club leaves the audience laughing and wanting more.

 

There is an attempt to recreate a bushland setting on stage, with empathetic lighting, but it isn’t entirely effective. In fact, Cannon’s costume, singing and acting is more than sufficient.

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: 5 to 7 Mar

Where: Clayton Wesley Uniting Church, Beulah Park

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au