★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Main Stage at Gaslight Tavern. 17 Feb 2020
Janis Joplin was hugely successful and, arguably, paved the way for female rockers who followed her because she trod the counterculture path that others were reluctant to go down first. Anthea Jewels “is” Janis Joplin and being in the audience at her tribute show surely feels like it must have been at the Monterey Pop Festival in the late 1960s, where Joplin cooked up a storm and forever thrust herself firmly and loudly into international consciousness.
Jewells and her talented six piece band (lead and bass guitars, tenor and baritone sax, drum kit, keyboards) brought Janis Joplin to life and sang and played their way through many of Joplin’s classic songs, including Piece of my Heart, Bobby McGee, Mercedes Benz, Cry Baby, Kozmic Blues, Ball and Chain, and more. Throughout Jewells bared her clear admiration for Joplin and knitted the songs together with a heart-felt spoken narrative that gave a glimpse into Joplin’s life and the essence that made her ‘tick’.
It was more than a concert – it was a celebration of a life that was tragically cut short in 1970, at the age of 27, by a heroin overdose. If she was still alive, Joplin would have just celebrated her seventy-seventh birthday and, unsurprisingly, a number of people in the audience were not much younger than that. But advancing years doesn’t stop them accepting Jewells’ invitation to join her on the dance floor and strut out some moves.
Jewells has a powerful voice with a wide range and tessitura that ideally suits Joplin’s songs. Jewells is as comfortable in the high notes as she is in the lower register, with no loss of musicality or strength across the range. Also, her band knows how to complement her voice, with the keyboard particularly emphasising the treble notes to overcome some of the acoustic problems in the small venue.
Jewells really looks the part; wearing nostalgic flared bejewelled tight-fitting trousers and psychedelic tops and hair accessories, to say nothing of the myriad bangles and baubles. She even distributes garish necklaces to audience members to wear – men and women alike – to help wind back the clock to the 60s.
This is warm, generous and celebratory concert. There should be a little bit of Janis in us all, so don’t miss this outfit when they next visit RADelaide!
One grizzle however, the show was billed in the Fringe Guide to start at 7pm, but no-one told the band who were emphatically under the impression that it started at 8pm (“We always start at 8pm!”)
Kym Clayton
When: 17 Feb
Where: Gaslight Tavern
Bookings: Closed
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Blackbox Theatre, Noel Lothian Hall. 16 Feb 2020
The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign is an exceptional theatre experience. It has everything: a superlative tightly written script where not a single word is wasted; a highly skilled actor who ‘word paints’ with sublime expertise; perfect costuming; close attention to authentic hair and makeup; a setting (a large skeletal ‘H’) that, in its minimalism, establishes both context and can be used by the actor (rather than it exploiting the actor); and a lighting, sound and special effects plot that has high production values not often found in Fringe theatrical events. This is classy stuff.
The action of the story centres on Evie Edwards – played with perfection by Joanne Hartstone – who has climbed the iconic Hollywood sign on Mount Lee near Los Angeles with the intention of jumping to bring her disappointing life to an end. She is a wannabe Hollywood actress but has never been given a real chance to show what she can do. The story gives every impression that Evie’s talents are at best modest – her talents are a dime-a-dozen – but that doesn’t stop her thinking that, given the opportunity, she could make it and be the next Bette Davis or Jean Harlow or Judy Garland. In fact, Evie gives us glimpses in to the lives of these icons of the silver screen, including the tragic sides that often led to their untimely and tragic ends. It is these references that allow Hartstone to show her talents as an actor. She convincingly brings these past sirens of the screen to life as she gives us a voyeuristic glimpse into their lives.
The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign is a solo performance of around seventy minutes but it flies by as you become totally absorbed in Hartstone’s consummate story-telling and stagecraft.
Evie is also a singer, and a number of songs are skilfully woven into the narrative to lay bare the parasitic and brutal environment of Hollywood. Hartstone sang these with style, and her jitterbugging was classy!
The plot draws its inspiration from the true story of Peg Entwistle, a failed aspiring Hollywood actress - who did indeed climb to the top of the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign and jump to her death in 1932.
This show is not to be missed. (There is ample parking on site, but there is a bit of a walk to the venue, so do arrive in good time.)
Kym Clayton
When: 15 to 23 Feb
Where: Blackbox Theatre, Noel Lothian Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. The Moa at Gluttony. 15 Feb 2020
The Choir of Man is a great night out, pure and simple. To bill it as a ‘feel-good’ performance that leaves you with an aching smile on your face and restless toes in your shoes that just want to keep on tapping long after the show is over, is an understatement. It would also be dismissive to describe it as a performance chock full of iconic songs sung by a looking-good and sounding-good ensemble of nine stylish, well-dressed hip young men.
The show is all of these things, but it is so much more, so long as your heart is open to having a good time and you don’t mind being jostled around by the full house of humanity that is out for a good time with you, you’ll get it in bucket loads!
So, welcome to The Jungle, a fictitious pub that is loved by its regulars who like nothing better than to rub shoulders and bond with each other in true mateship, share stories, drink – sometimes to excess – and who love to sing. Sing? Why not! It can be the stuff of an ultimate good time. It is a true bonding experience. This is enviable masculinity. Nothing toxic here.
Upon entering the venue, the audience is invited up on stage to the bar for a free beer. Yes, free beer. No kidding. With the ticket price for the show at around $40, arguably you have already paid for a frothy, so why not. But this simple device – of breaking the so-called ‘fourth wall’ between audience and performer – has the effect of establishing the vehicle for the narrative of the show: we are ‘in’ the pub as actual customers, not voyeurs looking in from the outside.
Over the next ninety minutes The Choir of Man tunefully belt out in near perfect three (sometimes four) part harmony numerous songs starting with Welcome To The Jungle by Guns n Roses, and traversing the song lists of an eclectic range of artists including, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Adele, Queen, The Proclaimers, and Australia’s very own John Farnham. Every song is delivered with style, enthusiasm, musicality, as well as with slick choreography that oozes blokes having a wholesome good time – as opposed to appearing ‘studied’ and ‘clever’. There is also some solo stylish tapping, and every one adds to the performance at various times with their own instrument (guitar, banjo, clarinet, piano, percussion, and violin) to complement the backing track. Be under no misapprehension, these guys are genuinely talented, and you really want to hang out with them.
The show is held together by a narrative that is almost an elegy for the fading pub scene. We are told that scores of pubs are closing their doors every day, and with this there is a consequential loss in the aggregate of fellowship in our increasingly commercial and depersonalised global community. The narrative gives sense to the sequence of the songs and keeps the fourth wall well and truly down.
Again, The Choir of Man is a great wholesome night out, pure and simple. It reminds you that it is great to be alive.
Highly recommended.
Kym Clayton
When: 15 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: The Moa at Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Athens Productions. Treasury 1860 – The Adina Treasury Tunnels: The Long Room. 15 Feb 2020
You Classical Greece fans out there would be familiar with Euripides’s play Medea, first produced in 431 BC. That’s about 2500 years ago, yet Wikipedia can report that the world premiere at the City Dionysia’s festival of dramatic tragedies was not well received. Times have changed, and now Medea’s filicide, in revenge against her husband, Jason - of Golden Fleece and Argonaut fame - is looked upon by feminists as a woman’s struggle to take charge of her life in a male-dominated world. Judith Anderson, Zoe Caldwell and Diana Rigg have all won Tony awards on Broadway playing the eponymous role.
In his world premiere production, Greek Cyprian refugee Loucas Loizou has written and performs a post-mortem conversation between Medea and Jason that takes place decades after the action in Euripides’s play. Loizou has a musical education from London’s Trinity College of Music, studied theatre direction at NIDA and worked at BBC radio, Cyprus TV and ABC radio. One descends into the patinaed bowels of the Treasury Hotel, and when Loizou appears in his exotic make up and dress, looking like a weathered sea captain in drag, and begins his dialogue of both characters voiced in his melodious Greek accent, one is immediately transported to ancient Greece. Loizou’s delivery is didactic, evenly tempered, near expressionless and a little monotonous. Supposed aware of this last sin, he plays on guitar a few original and contextualised songs which are rendered with exquisite virtuosity. The show is not a mini-musical as advertised, but a play with songs.
Euripides’ drama has Medea murder her two children, but the play is based on Greek mythology involving frequent divine intervention, and there are multiple versions and outcomes. So what do Jason and Medea have to talk about? Who is to blame? Did Medea really kill her children or what happened? They ask each other: Why did you do what you did? Does Jason forgive her? Does Medea forgive him? These are great questions and a compelling reason to attend. It’s an intelligent show and a respite from all the Fringe razzmatazz.
PS This Fringe, Loizou is also performing his own work in three other shows: Homer’s Odyssey – A Mini Musical, Nana Mouskouri – Life and Songs, and A Battle of Songs: Greece vs The United Kingdom.
David Grybowski
When: 14 Feb to15 Mar
Where: Treasury 1860 – The Adina Treasury Tunnels: The Long Room
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Hetzel Lecture Theatre at State Library. 15 Feb 2020
Richard Batsford is a pianist and composer living in Adelaide. He clearly has a dedicated fan base – the large Hetzel Lecture Theatre was near full to overflowing with music lovers who were full of expectation, and they were not disappointed.
Batsford is a softly spoken and slightly built man, but beneath this gentle exterior lies a passionate musician hell bent on using the power of music to inspire his listeners to practice mindfulness and deep introspection.
Batsford styles his music as contemporary classical piano music, which is perhaps a bit misleading. There is little that is ‘classical’ in his compositional style, in terms of formal musical structure and use of the instrument. It is modern, and is part of the minimalist school (think Jeroen van Veen, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and the like).
His reflective compositions foreground tuneful musical motifs that are repeated and varied. The variations are subtle but almost predictable – and there is comfort in that from the listener’s perspective – but the occasional abrupt changes of key are unexpected and serve to remind the listener to be aware and to question. His compositions strongly favour the melody being held in the right hand through broken chords, with an arpeggiated left hand accompaniment. Batsford makes a lot of use of the sustaining pedal, and the effect is to ‘smudge’ the music at times which was exacerbated by the acoustic of the Hetzel Lecture Theatre. His middle set, which he labelled Evoke, featured pieces that made less use of pedalling and stronger lyrical melody lines that were clearer through the absence of rolling chords.
The audience were generous in their applause and demanded an encore, which they got. It was moodier in style and prepared them to depart and re-join the cacophony of North Terrace.
Kym Clayton
The single concert season has ended.
When: 15 Feb
Where: Hetzel Lecture Theatre
Bookings: Closed