DreamBIG Festival. Arena Theatre Company. Dunstan Playhouse. 30 May 2019
If being an autistic child is challenging, then so, too, is being the parents of a child on the spectrum. They not only feel the pain of their child’s battle against the odds of being different but they are burdened with the loving task of trying to find explanations and solutions for their child.
And so it goes in Robot Song.
In its DreamBig promotional material, this interesting hour-long musical creation purports to be the story of Juniper, the 11-year-old school girl who has received a spiteful hate letter from other school children telling her that she is a robot and should never have been born. While the production is delivered as Juniper’s show about her own true story, it is really, and extremely touchingly, the tale of a darling, doting dad tip-toeing his way through the emotional maelstrom of autism to find peace and confidence for his daughter. He is ever there behind her, backing off when she resists, nourishing her self-esteem and enabling her projects.
Juniper’s parents both are artists, so she comes from a free-thinking, non-conformist environment in which it is not at all peculiar to have a giant rubbish skip as a magical best friend in the back yard.
With an appealing cartoon face on its front, the big bin furnishes the stage very colourfully. When the show opens, it is mum on the keyboards and dad with a laptop and a table of paraphernalia flanking Juniper who is centre stage with a standing mike. She makes one of the great entrances as a robot blazing with lights; desk lamps and torches rigged all over her. It’s part of the dad-ingenuity world. She introduces her show in a dither of uncertainty and then, gaining confidence, lets the audience know that she is an imaginative character who loves dissecting words: there is an “us” embedded in the word music; and “eat” is in “breathe”. She tells us that she writes songs, loves robots, and knows stuff.
Performer Ashlea Pyke has a wonderful Broadway voice which gives substance to the professionalism of this beautiful theatre piece which has come from Bendigo.
It is based on the life experience of its writer and director, Jolyon James.
It is musically very strong, with its fabulous score delivered live on stage by pianist Jo Abbott in the character of Mum while Phil McInnes darts, dives, and dashes around as the devoted Dad. McInnes has a lovely stage presence and he moves with a dancer’s grace and precision.
The hour-long story evolves through added interactions with cartoon characters on a big screen, a touch of audience involvement, letters fluttering like birds, much interpretation of robots and schoolyard bullying, and a great, big spectacular denouement.
The ostracisation of the outsider is turned around with the assertion that no two people are the same, being different is not only okay, believe it or not, but it is the way of the world and is nothing less than “awesome”.
Diversity rocks. And so does parent love.
Samela Harris
When: 30 May to 1 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: dreambigfestival.com.au
DreamBIG Children’s Festival. John Bishop Room. 25 May 2019
Mary-Frances Doherty is a Belfast performer who has come here to show 12-year-olds that their joys and sorrows are pretty much the same all over the world.
She plays Katie in her nice sparkly birthday frock, hosting a party a bit half-heartedly because her best friend has gone to another school and another party and, well, she is bereft. So thanks, audience, for coming to this party for which she has piled a table with marshmallows and party poppers and blow-up toys. And thus is the performance an offbeat interactive party with audience children being asked to play Truth or Dare and do little turns or admit things. Some questions hit the right targets. One child was thrilled to expound on her sporting success. Another admitted her friends thought her too loud and “I don’t have an indoors voice”. For one very shy child, being asked to sing a song in front of all those strangers was deer-in-the-headlights hell. Talking of which, Katie has to answer the “truth” question of her most embarrassing moment which, she admits, was not getting to the loo in time. The children won’t be forgetting that little scene for a while. Pleasingly, when Katie has made a real mess of the room and starts resignedly to clean it up, little girls rise unbidden and swarm out to help her. It is a nice reflection on the nature and upbringing of our children. Despite the fact that, at the end of the 50-minute show, everyone is invited to share in the chocolate birthday cake, the children afterwards reflect that they didn’t really expect Katie and her party would be so sad. Fear of missing out and fear of being rejected by friends is common to them all.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 26 May
Where: John Bishop Room, Adelaide Festival Centre
Bookings: dreambigfestival.com.au
DreamBIG Children’s Festival. The Last Great Hunt. Space Theatre. 25 May 2019
From the Perth-based creators of The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer comes this absolute jewel of children’s theatre.
New Owner is part puppetry, part animation, part live action. Black clad puppeteers merge into black backgrounds as two little dogs have adventures in dangerous city night streets and scary scrap yards. Humans appear in scenes as life-sized characters who adopt and save or threaten the dogs. Street and skyscraper graphics fill the screen, and even a dramatic storm breaks out as the saga of little Bart, the yappy white puppy, evolves. He finds his way from the animal shelter to be companion to a lonely widow to canine love and then, move over Walt Disney, it becomes a vivid all-action against-the-odds doggy saga.
The production plays artfully with the audience’s emotions, taking them from laughter to fear to tears of joy.
As for the puppetry! It is consummate and the voicing of little Bart’s voracious enthusiasm for his food is worthy of a Tony, just on its own.
Bravo, Perth. A stunning little show.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 26 May
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: dreambigfestival.com.au
DreamBIG Children’s Festival. Odeon Theatre. 25 May 2019
Very rightly, Tutti revives this production for the Dream Big Festival. It has been a hit in its previous presentations and it is a hit again now. It is a very well-wrought and important show which brings the autism spectrum into clear and sharp relief.
Written by Emily Steel and performed by Company AT (Autistic Theatre) under the umbrella of Tutti, it tells of how a nine-year-old girl copes in an unsympathetic world of “normal” kids. They surround her with schoolyard labels and taunts, the school bully ever-ready to stick a knife in the vulnerable spots. The girl, who remains “Nameless”, has her own mass of knowledge that provides an amorphous defence. She’s passionate and encyclopaedic about astronomy. Her memory is phenomenal. Yet she wants to eat only chips and she has meltdowns in strange environments. She invents a feel-good friendship with an invisible Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Her parents know that she is different but, like the parents of so many autistic children, are riven between trying to see her as “normal” and accepting that she belongs on the “spectrum”.
Using shadowing actors to express the private thoughts of the parents, Steel has articulated this behind-the-scenes dilemma beautifully, embracing absolutely everyone. In the end of the day, most of us feel a bit “spectrumish” in a neuro-typical world. It’s a spectrum, after all, and the play’s talented cast, expertly directed by Julian Jaensch, all come from somewhere on that spectrum, delivering a snappy, clever, perspicacious piece of theatre which taps into the hearts and minds of young and old. And it is also entertaining and at times, funny. Long and far may it tour.
Samela Harris
When: 23 to 25 May
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Marie Clark Musical Theatre. The Arts Theatre. 24 May 2019
This production of Anything Goes is simply outstanding. Marie Clark Musical Theatre hits the high Cs in an exuberant, lively and flashy rendition of Cole Porter’s 1934 blockbuster musical comedy concerning the shenanigans on board a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. You’ll recognise most of the songs as some of music’s most famous: I Get A Kick Out Of You, You’re The Top, It’s De-Lovely, Blow, Gabriel, Blow and of course, Anything Goes – and be positively humming one of them whilst returning to your – no doubt – far less interesting life than the one on stage.
The production sets sail with lead Alana Shepherdson’s hot night club singer, Reno Sweeney, musing about her old pal and love desire, Billy Crocker, with I Get A Kick Out Of You. Throughout this production, Shepherdson is the epitome of the musical star – she has undeniable stage presence and flair with an attractive feminine and insouciant arc employed in her highly watchable dancing and singing. Bravo! Her vocal precision reaches its high-water mark later in the show.
Next, the rising curtain reveals the formidable foredeck of the SS American where we meet the strange parade of passengers as they board. Here Porter has fun parodying a cavalcade of miscreants and high society – a potent mix that gets blended into the plot, or plotting, such as it is. Young Wall Street wannabe Billy Crocker stows on board to win the hand of Hope Harcourt who is betrothed to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh – thus completing the double love triangle.
Director Michael Butler has the cast full steam ahead all the time, yet warp drive happens with astonishing regularity. Rosanna Commisso’s skilled choreography is hinted at in an early scene with sailors and brooms, but the big chorus numbers like the Act I finale and Blow, Gabriel, Blow in the second act are breathtaking. The deck of the American in these numbers is awash with swirling hoofers in a giddy blaze of colour and delight where time stands still but the dancers sure don’t. And leading these proceedings front and centre is the formidable Ms Shepherdson. These two large chorus dances are truly, stunningly accomplished. Bravo!
William Richards does a lovely love-struck Billy Crocker with empathy, a comic intent and sufficient voice. His duet in You’re The Top with Shepherdson’s Reno is a real treat – beautifully sung and choreographed, and joyful. Buddy Dawson is one of Adelaide’s finest musical comedy performers. He trowels on voice and physical mannerisms to satirise his gangster thug, Moonface Martin, with great success. Chris Bierton underplays his Lord Oakleigh, only to scatter his inhibitions to the winds in the third-last number of the show with a bizarre tango that is widely cheered by the audience. Bravo!
Costumes (Narelle Clark: cossie co-coordinator) are to die for, starting with Shepherdson’s two-tone gown in her opening number – indeed all her outfits fit for a queen. Bravo! Mike Phillips (lighting) often floods the stage in purples and pinks imparting a party time tint to the proceedings. Musical director Mark Stefanoff’s orchestra makes the night de-lovely and delightful, but might have benefited from another rehearsal.
A nostalgic troll through one's previous reviews of Marie Clark’ productions - Young Frankenstein, Spamalot, Calamity Jane and A Chorus Line – shows that Marie Clark is always a good bet to see stunning musical theatre.
Double bravo! A show not to be missed.
David Grybowski
When: 24 May to 1 Jun
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com