Oz Asia Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 5 Nov 2018
War Sum Up is billed as a contemporary opera, but that doesn’t adequately describe it. In fact, it’s almost misleading. The word opera connotes a number of things – music, quality ‘art singing’, libretto, costumes, scenery – and one has seen and heard many so-called contemporary operas. But War Sum Up stands apart and is in a remarkable world all of its own. For someone who is ‘opera-shy’, War Sum Up should not be avoided for that reason. If anything it should be embraced, because it is so different.
Visually, War Sum Up is nothing but spectacular – it’s a celebration for the eyes. The set comprises a narrow but tall two level stage that traverses the width of the Dunstan Playhouse; almost like two levels of scaffolding. A full translucent scrim is located at the front of the scaffold and another at the rear. On these scrims are projected a bewildering array of evocative Manga-esque images that enlighten one moment, confuse the next, and always enthral and disturb. The scenery is thus dynamic. The cast of twelve are located on the two levels and they strike various tableaus that evoke classical dynastic Japanese art; they are dressed accordingly. The lighting is a highlight of the production, and at times is beautifully surrealist with its strong iridescent electric colours and piercing contrasts.
And then there is the singing. Performed by members of the Latvian Radio Choir, the libretto is performed with exquisite precision and articulation. Each voice is amplified, and the sound engineering is just first-rate. Conductor Sigvards Klava has perfect control of the choir and keeps them perfectly in time with the recorded sound track that is a stylish yet eclectic blend of modern classical (whatever that means) and electronic synthesised sounds. Klava is a joy to watch.
So, what is it all about? War Sum Up is an account of warfare told through three characters. The first is a Western Soldier who returns home suffering from post-traumatic stress and struggles to assimilate back into society. He returns to war but is killed. The Manga images that illustrate his journey bear visceral. The second is an Islamic Warrior who is killed in battle and whose soul struggles to find peace. The third is a spy who is captured but escapes after she transforms herself into a super being, or maybe she just escapes into a hidden place in her mind. All this is contrasted by a civilian woman who goes about daily life amidst the carnage because she must: there is the theatre of war, and there is the theatre of normal life, which goes on as best it can despite the odds.
This is challenging theatre, and if the symbolism is at times difficult to follow, the visual and aural cornucopia makes up for it!
Kym Clayton
When: 5 & 6 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Therry Dramatic Society. Arts Theatre. 2 Nov 2018
Richard Alfieri tapped nicely into the zeitgeist of modern life when we wrote Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. Loneliness of the elderly, Christian hypocrisy, gay marriage, high-rise developments, death and the joy of dancing are some of the issues touched in this charmer of a play.
It is about a widow in Florida brightening her life by employing a private dance instructor. After an abrasive beginning, the crotchety widow and the tetchy former chorus boy form a very special bond, sharing secrets as they work through the 6-style dance program.
Pam O’Grady has gambled and won in casting Bronwen James as old Mrs Harrison. Technically, James is a couple of decades too young but she slips almost elastically into the character and delivers an engaging and deeply touching performance, complete with lots of impeccably-timed comic one-liners. The likeable Lindsay Prodea partners as Michael Minetti, the Broadway failure forced to teach dance classes. Minetti is a delicate balance for an actor, at first playing the straight guy but, once out, a flamboyant and sensitive delight. Prodea gets the progression right, along with his dance steps. Both performers are decent dancers albeit they are no competition for Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenny in this play. Who could be?
This Pam O’Grady production for Therry, on a bright and cheerful apartment set with sky colours projected large to suggest the Florida balcony sea views, is sleek and straightforward. It is fairly honest to the Alfieri original, except that he wrote it as a two-hander and this production also features Maxine Grubel as Mrs Harrison’s home help. She is actually part of the stage crew. She works the scene changes as cameo appearances with a feather duster and some gently comic shtick. It’s a clever device and it sure beats blackouts. Result: The audience applauds the scene changes.
At the final curtain, the audience also applauds resoundingly. It has been well served with a good production of a good play. Catch it while you can.
Samela Harris
When: 31 Oct to 10 Nov
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
Theatre Republic. Bakehouse Theatre. 30 Oct 2018
This is a consummate theatre work.
Within minutes of the play starting, the outside world retreats. There is just one reality: an austere barracks room occupied by four raw recruits.
Over the next 75 minutes, under a starkly effective lightscape, the daily conditioning of the young men reiterates in a ruthless rhythm.
Clothes off for bed. Clothes on for inspection. Packs on for drill. Packs off, rifles up, drill, drill, clothes off, clothes on. Discipline. One of their number, Perk, is slack and bolshy. Everyone suffers for his stuff-ups: twenty pushups; twenty more pushups. The voice of the unseen Corporal bellows orders and challenges. The soldiers bark back at the top of their lungs. They are being hammered into a fighting unit. They get it. They try to cover for the recalcitrant Perk. Small differences and abrasions, camaraderie, hopes emerge in their resting hours. Then the nightmare realisation of what it really means in what they call the “theatre” of war.
This Pamela Carter play brings the theatre of war to a theatre's stage with explosive effect. It is powerful theatre. It is a tight and feisty little play superbly mounted by Adelaide's bright new professional theatre company, Theatre Republic.
Corey McMahon’s star continues to shimmer as a thrilling talent among the city’s high-calibre directors. He hits the nail fiercely on the head here with impeccable timing from a group of expert, disciplined and fit young actors: Matt Crook, Rashidi Edward, Stuart Fong and James Smith. Artfully and strenuously they embody the diversity of characters who seek the army life.
The work is finely choreographed by Roz Hervey, the moods underscored by James Oborn’s apt sound and Chris Petridis’s dramatic lighting plot. Olivia Zanchetta’s name leaps to attention for the eloquence of the sparse, regimental set.
Between them, the production team defines Theatre Republic as a quality entity which has arrived to enrich the city’s arts world. In Lines, it provides high-impact entertainment with socio-political substance. It’s a must-see triumph.
Samela Harris
When: 27 Oct to 10 Nov
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
OzAsia Festival. Korea. Dunstan Playhouse. 25 Oct 2018
Many weird and wonderful offerings from Korea have been seen on the Adelaide stage, but perhaps none more “out there” than the Dancing Grandmothers.
It is the creation of Eun-Me Ahn, a Paris-based Korean choreographer and artistic director. This work is her paean to the women who founded modern Korea. But first, it is a half hour of intensely frenetic physicality from whom one assumes are the dancing grandchildren. They are lean and lithe and they prance around and around the stage, on and off, up and down, tumbling and dropping and cavorting and trotting and skipping, from time to time changing costumes until they work themselves into a frenetic frenzy and end up twitching and writhing on the floor like a pack of dying insects under a street lamp. This dance piece lasts for over thirty minutes and is accompanied by deafening, pulsating techno-trance music. It is not exactly fun. In fact it is a bit tedious and leaves the ears ringing. It is a case of suffering for art. One feels that Eun-Me Ahn is trying to tap into the vein of the great Pina Bausch but ending up with Pina-on-speed madness. There is relief ahead, however.
The grandmothers.
In stark contrast to the aforementioned assault of musical volume, the grandmothers are delivered in silence on a great big screen as video clips; lots of grandmothers in their Korean homes and workplaces doing dear little jiggly dances. They can hear music but we can’t. It seems they are all dancing to the same tune. The audience finds it all quite comical but in fact it is rather poignant. The worlds in which Eun-Me Ahn has filmed the grandmothers are harsh and deprived. These are predominantly poor people. They are in cramped little apartments, tiny crowded shops, street stands, building sites, farm fields, and kitchens. The whole set of dance clips is quite fascinating and very much in the classic style of YouTube's dancing-man cult which was the big meme in early internet days.
Following this, the real live dancing grandmothers arrive on the stage and perform very much the same sort of simple jiggly dancing, mainly from the arms. The grandmothers come in different sizes and attire, escorted on and off the stage by the super-fit grandchildren dancers of the troupe. They dance solo and group pieces, at first restrained but with encouragement from the young, with increasing verve. Their personalities emerge. They are appropriately adorable.
The troupe turns on some more conventional dance before the show is quite over, and with less aggressive music. It is much more fun and at all times bright and colourful. There’s some silly dance shtick with trousers and some fun with mirror balls and when the show comes to a divinely elegant ending, the audience is effusive.
The show features some splendid lighting on the wide, open stage and some very appealing costuming.
There’s some quaint jazz and Euro-crooner music and, thank heavens, a zing of the spirit of K-pop.
It’s a show full of zany ideas and it is not likely to be forgotten. It is gorgeous quirky modern Korean fare and a suitably provocative opener to the festival.
The grandmothers and the whole idea of them are welcome joys and, at show’s end when Eun-Me Ahn invites the audience onto the stage, there’s almost a stampede of enthusiasm.
Samela Harris
When: 25 to 27 Oct
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Matt Byrne Media. Holden Street Theatre. 11 Oct 2018
Here’s to you, Matt Byrne for giving audiences a fly on the wall experience of the privileged upper middle class of mid-sixties America in Matt Byrne Media’s (MBM) latest production; the Terry Johnson adaptation of Charles Webb’s novel The Graduate.
One word comes to mind, ‘Plastics’.
Not as a reflection on the production, but on the characters laid (and laid again) out before us. Just when one feels they could invest in a character, one realizes there is little to like about them and withdraws quickly from the investment.
Interestingly, for a play about the 60s, little is dated about the storyline. Rather what is presented seems to reflect much of the lost generation, ‘Kardashian’ way of life often fed to us over the airwaves. As a result the shock value of the cougar and college graduate relationship is quickly diminished in favour of trying to work out just how empty these human vessels are. If you are looking for character arcs; prepare for a long search.
All that said there are great performances in this presentation. As Benjamin Braddock, the graduate, Nathan Quadrio plays with skill and nuance. Making sense of conversations that heighten and drop at the intake of a breath takes insight into the acting conventions and styles of the mid-sixties. Quadrio has certainly done his homework.
As the ‘Delilah’ Mrs. Robinson, Niki Martin brings a complex, strong, manipulative character to the stage in what could have easily been something much shallower. Her delivery of the iconic line “Would you like me to seduce you?” gives a sickening insight into how those who prey, twist a situation to make them seem the preyed upon. There is a frightening chemistry between these two on stage even in the most bizarre post coital conversations that ensue. Interestingly, even after months of intimacy with her, the graduate still insists on calling her ‘Mrs. Robinson’ (figure that one out Freud!).
Which bring us to the elephant in the room… the sex scenes. Subtlety has never been the hall mark of an MBM show, and this production follows suit. While montage is a great way of showing time passing, there are titters from the audience as positions changed, and the dialogue of the parents during the montage is lost as we all wonder, what are they going to do next? Enough said!
There is significant nudity in the play, but Paul Tossel’s lighting design keeps these moments tasteful and the nudity less the focus than the on-stage character’s reaction to it. Costuming by Sue Winston and set design by Matt Byrne all give a true sense of the era.
A special mention to Hannah Tulip for her work in the role of Elaine Robinson, her performance is strong and honest. The rest of the cast, many of whom play multiple parts, work well in ensemble with the two leads; Tim Cousins and Heather Riley, as the graduate’s parents, and Matt Byrne as Hal Robinson all give fair performances. Some care should be taken in the more furious exchanges as words are lost in the emotion of the moment.
A significant part of the film was the sound track. Most people remember the song Mrs Robinson (originally titled Mrs Roosevelt), but one might argue that the most iconic song began and ended the story, Sounds of Silence. The MBM production makes good use of the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack in the scene changes and as the audience gathered.
Matt Byrne Media often choses to tread where others dare not. It is certain there will be a number of conversations that will spring from this production asking about the validity of presenting a play about seduction, intent, infidelity and using alcoholism as an excuse. Perhaps that is why a plays such as The Graduate do need airing, if only to keep the conversations going.
David Gauci
When: 10 to 27 Oct
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: mattbyrnemedia.com.au