★★★★
Leo Kearse. Adelaide Fringe Festival. The Sky Room at The Griffins Hotel. 5 March 2020.
‘Transgressive’, adj, involving a violation of moral or social boundaries.
And that is exactly what Leo Kearse does in his show Transgressive: he identifies as many boundaries as he can and then savagely puts them to the sword in rapid and ruthless succession, and tears of laughter – not of moral indignation – run down the faces of the audience by the bucket load.
Kearse is an imposing man: he is tall and strongly built, and his thick Glaswegian accent and buzzed haircut almost makes one instinctively categorise him as a ‘bovver boy’, but his stylish patterned shirt puts pay to that! Appearances are deceiving.
Kearse does ‘affront’, but that’s the job of a comedian, isn’t it? He makes light of things that are often not openly discussed, but when they are opinions often get polarised very quickly. Like any good comedian, Kearse takes an extreme position on nearly every topic he touches upon, and the comedy lies in that. But is this an act? Is Kearse merely playing a ‘character’ for the sake a performance? One gets the impression that what one sees and hears on stage is nothing but the real him, and that makes Transgressive more impactful. We take sides at what Kearse says, but we’re rarely binary, it’s never all this and none of that. As a result, the audience laughs not only at the outrageous things Kearse says but also at our own reactions, because none of us are unflawed. Kearse personalises his material: his own family is in the firing line; he is in the firing line.
Kearse was Scottish Comedian of the Year 2017/18 and it is easy to see why. In 2018 he toured no less than twenty countries and inflamed passions and protests everywhere. There have even been attempts to ban his show, and thankfully there is no such extreme censorship in the Adelaide Fringe.
It almost seems incongruous that Transgressive starts at 6.15pm and takes place on a small daylight-lit performance space in The Griffins, but this gives Kearse his first deprecatory gag of the night, and they keep coming at machine gun pace.
Recommended.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 to 15 Mar
Where: The Sky Room at The Griffins Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Karul Projects. Ngunyawayiti Space (Tandanya Theatre). 5 Mar 2020
Let’s begin this slowly… four dancers are onstage for this exploration of what it means to be Aboriginal in the present day. The man enters first, tribal, dappled light, back to the audience, and gets dressed. The women join in, one by one. T-shirts and stretch wear is the dress code. The audience, very modest in size, are lightly framed by the haze of the smoke machine and are silenced by the music; rich and textured and tonal.
Composition and choreography is by Thomas E.S. Kelly, who is also a dancer. This is, in a very real way, his story and his performance. As the dance unfolds, singular expression coalesces into ensemble work, then slides back to the individual form. The four move together, and against each other, waves of motion which beguile, occasionally set against each other in the tidal movement of the piece.
This is dance work of the highest quality; the narrative is clear and yet the simple components of the piece require some teasing out. We can follow the story without understanding each and every motion. If a rigid forefinger and cocked thumb indicate a pistol, then this becomes a dance of incursion and violence.
The music pulsates with the energy of the dancers’ physicality, sometimes too much so. This is hybrid dance, neither tribal nor western. Brolga dance steps are incorporated into a more contemporary hip-hop motif, effortlessly. It is not flawless, far from it, but it is the most assured and beautifully realised piece of contemporary dance I have seen in many years.
Kelly has cut his designs in the dance as if with a knife, paring away superfluous movement almost completely. This is assured choreography, the result reinforces the narrative, the school scene is easily deciphered. For me the signature moment came with a harsh light bisecting the stage diagonally, silhouetting three sets of bare feet, perfectly poised for a brief second or two. It made me think of footsteps being laid down upon the land for the first time.
(Mis)Conceive is simply magnificent.
Alex Wheaton
When: 5 to 14 Mar
Where: Ngunyawayiti Space (Tandanya Theatre)
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Ben Volchok. Holden Street Theatres. 4 Mar 2020
There has been a contagion of end-of-the-world reflection in the Adelaide Fringe and Festival. The Festival’s opera was a requiem for the planet, and “me” was included in the grief. There was a lot of discussion about the social damage from fascism and neoliberal economics at Writer’s Week by authors from around the world. And that’s just the arts. The real world was abuzz with unprecedented bush fires, incompetent leadership, coronavirus panic, unsustainable financial rescue packages, and tanking share markets taking people’s pensions south.
Welcome to Victor Bravo’s broadcasting studio. A lone character is surviving in a post-apocalyptic world by pretending his onions-in-a-blender drink is a banana milkshake while he reaches out via what he suspects is the last radio station in the world. You will hear echoes of Good Morning, Vietnam – a past-apocalypse.
Comedy writer Ben Volchok cut his teeth at the Melbourne University Comedy Review Board and finally comes to Adelaide with his absolutely stunning one-man play. In a cluttered and claustrophobic homemade radio studio, he brews his off-beat sense of humour with climate change anxiety to create his VB – Victor Bravo.
The play’s construct is beautifully simple and brilliant. There is a world outside the door upstage that we can only guess at with increasing anxiety while VB drip feeds us the details. He collects onions, reads notes from listeners and takes their phone calls. Everything is happening in the present as opposed to many one-person play concepts where the past is recounted, or the character needs to tell us what he/she is doing. VB is actually doing it, every minute. He uses a broadcaster’s microphone ensuring a fair hearing for the audience. It’s a shining gem of real time action.
The opening commences with a sound track of ambient noises in the dark. I forgot how powerful this stage technique is in setting mood and mystery. Indeed, the control of disturbing ambient sound overriding an eerie silence is a powerful component of the production, which unfortunately was compromised during a key moment by the tumult from a coeval show in an adjacent space. This was a disturbing intrusion that I hope the theatre management will address.
The uncertainty and loneliness of post-apocalyptic existence permeates the action, but it is foiled by admiration for VB’s resilience obtained through humour and memorabilia. The moment I finally comprehended VB’s real situation, I was overcome with empathetic sadness. Upon meeting Volchok whilst existing the theatre, I was still so choked with emotion I could barely utter my thanks for his marvelous and powerful creation. Double Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 15 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Smokescreen Productions. The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall. 4 Mar 2020.
There are many individuals from WWII who are reviled, but perhaps none more so than Dr Josef Mengele, a Nazi SS officer and physician who was also known as the Angel of Death. He is remembered for the monstrous and barbaric experiments he performed on prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp that inevitably led to horrific deaths or permanent maiming. In 1949 he fled to Argentina, and then to Paraguay and finally to Brazil. Despite international efforts, he evaded capture for thirty years. He died in 1979 after drowning after suffering a stroke while swimming at a beach. He was buried under a false name but his remains were forensically examined in 1985 and positively identified.
Mengele is set on a beach in Brazil, presumably the one at which Mengele actually died. The lights gradually come up on a figure of a man who has dragged himself from the waves. He is choking and spluttering and he notices the figure of a young woman whom he believes has rescued him. She deflects his thanks and his efforts to find out more about her. Instead, she skilfully probes him with questions and inveigles him to reveal both his identity and the vile philosophies he espouses.
He is Mengele, and she, as we subsequently learn, is Azra'il, the Jewish Angel of Death. He is erratic in responding to her questioning: he is outraged with any suggestion that what he did at Auschwitz was anything but him lawfully following orders that were ultimately for the benefit of humanity. He rationalises, justifies, and quotes philosophers that are clearly supportive of the decisions he took.
Tim Marriott plays Mengele, and he does so with unrelenting passion. He is exhausting to watch and it is emotionally draining to consider and process the text that he delivers almost with righteousness. His performance is underscored by archival footage, taken during WWII at Auschwitz, projected onto a screen at the rear of the stage.
Stefanie Rossi plays Azra'il with the requisite mystery, detachment and simmering dominance. At the climax of the play, when Azra'il well and truly has the upper hand, she uses her other worldly powers to cause Mengele to contort and scream in pain, as if she is scourging him. It is vivid and audience members grimace in sync. Marriott and Rossi combine beautifully with choreographed precision to pull this off.
This is not an easy play to watch. At times it feels as if it is overwritten and strays towards becoming ‘preachy’. Although Mengele is historical, it is also a lesson about the present and the future. If left unchecked, will those with ultra-extreme views wreak havoc with the moral fibre of societies? Of course they can, if they are allowed to, and therein lies the real message: humanity needs to remain ever vigilant, and must never forget what has happened in the past. But should we forgive?
Kym Clayton
When: 4 Mar to 13 Mar
Where: The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Le Cascadeur at The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 4 Mar 2020.
Fudnut: Glasgow slang, meaning a person who portrays themselves as being intelligent, but thick as shit. (Urban dictionary.)
Larry Dean is no ‘fudnut’. If anything, he is the polar opposite: he regales us with eye wateringly funny stories of wholly stupid things that he has done in his quest for his ideal man (yes, he’s gay), but he does this in a entirely calculated way that just stops short of provoking ‘unhelpful’ feedback from his audience. To be sure, Dean covers some very earthy material that is sure to make some wince, but if you check your moral superiority and sensitivities at the door, you find that it’s really all good fun and just a racy exposé of someone’s reality, not just Dean’s.
Dean’s material focusses on men he has known – as lovers and boyfriends (he hates the word ‘partner’) – and why they eventually broke up. After an hour we feel we have a glimpse into why. We come to know a little more about Dean: his vulnerabilities, his inclination towards being childlike at times, and his loyalty to those whom he loves (whether they be dead or alive!). Throughout, Dean is self-deprecating and he plays it as an art-form. He almost runs the risk of depressing the audience, but just in the nick of time he re-sets and does something outrageously funny with his body and his face in time to an up tempo backing song. Classy stuff.
There is of course an extended piece about accents. Dean is of course Scottish and he can be as broad as he likes, and does. But he makes fun of the Irish, and the English, and… Aussies of course. And of course Aussies enjoy laughing at themselves but not nearly as much as at those from the former ‘motherland’!
Dean’s show is over in a blink. There’s the usual crowd interaction, but not too much (one feels safe!). There is a little bit of politics, and only a smidgen of social comment, but most of it is just plain funny storytelling, about his self and others who are significant in his life. It feels authentic, and it leaves you feeling good after it is over.
Highly recommended.
Kym Clayton
When: 4 Mar to 15 Mar
Where: Le Cascadeur at The Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au