The Gordon Frost Organisation/Adelaide Festival Centre. Festival Theatre. 10 Jan 2018
As one star falls, another is born.
This is the positive side of the explosive upheaval which beset the Adelaide run of the Rocky Horror Show. With national superstar Craig McLachlan ousted amid accusations of “inappropriate conduct”, understudy Adam Rennie was abruptly thrown into the deep end.
McLachlan is famous in the industry as one of those professionals who never misses a performance so his understudies don’t get out much. Under the stressful cloud of controversy, Rennie had scant time to brush up his act but polish it he did and he brought it out to shine.
Thus did Adam Rennie bring the audience to its collective feet in deafening acclaim.
Rennie is blessed with a truly beautiful voice and a good range. Just on his second night, one could see the actor growing into the role, inhabiting the character and making it his own. With some lovely comic timing, he brings to Frank N. Furter a cheeky, lighter spirit. He is more mischievous than lascivious, even in the famous bed scene. He is lithe and acrobatic, buff without being chunky and, from the comfortable expertise with which he executes the part, it is clear he’s been assiduous in shadowing the role behind the scenes. It’s all the stuff of which show bizz success stories are made - and it happened here in Adelaide before our eyes.
Responding to audience acclaim at curtain, Rennie showed modesty, gratitude and relief. It must be an incredible experience for him.
The rest of the Rocky cast swirls around him well practised in their parts, working hard as a professional touring company must, cues sharp, choreography bright and precise, voices strong and clear, albeit there are times when dialogue is indistinct.
Not so from our own Peter Goers as The Narrator. Every syllable resounds from that familiar ABC voice, suspenseful pauses underscoring the comic expectations of Rocky Horror's outlandish sci-fi sexy storyline. Suave in the vivid smoking jackets, he prowls the stage, pointers the dance steps and uses his considerable stage presence to obscure the fact that a dancer he is not. He, too, brings the house to deafening cheers of love and acclaim.
Rocky himself as played by Brendan Irving, is all shimmering muscles and sweetly dolt-faced, and is simply adorable, Rob Mallett as Brad and Michelle Smitheram as Janet are true to form, strongly sung and courageously funny. Kristian Lavercombe’s Riff Raff, with a richly-edged voice which could cut through galvanised iron, is spectacular. No wonder he has been playing the role in 1000 plus performances through assorted productions. His offsiders, Columbine from Nadia Komazec and Magenta from Amanda Harrison, are wicked, wily and sexy with a small, tight ensemble affected by quick changes and lots of you-beaut stage effects.
The show is loud. The small orchestra is onstage, aloft and just visible behind a giant faux celluloid screen. It is right there on every cue and quite the musical powerhouse.
Altogether, it’s a big, slick professional blockbuster show and worth the ticket price. Betwixt and between them all, with cohesion and discipline, this classy working company of actors has pretty seamlessly kept the show on the road despite the calamity of complaints by former cast members.
All power to them, and three cheers for a new Australian stage star, Adam Rennie.
Samela Harris
When: 28 Dec 17 to 13 Jan 18
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: SOLD OUT
The Gordon Frost Organisation/Adelaide Festival Centre. Festival Theatre. 5 Jan 2018
‘Transformative’, ‘audience engaging’ and ‘teasing’ are key descriptors that encompass a successful The Rocky Horror Show experience. Unfortunately, compromise has resulted in a less satisfying, diluted experience.
The ripping tale of two uptight lovebirds that get stranded in a storm and fatefully shelter in a castle housing a sexy psycho scientist has been doing the rounds for over 40 years. It is therefore imperative that every new director and cast discovers ways to express the show’s delicious line-crossing sexuality, alienation, and rebellion dressed in rich, lusty sci-fi characters and libidinous rock lyrics. These elements are at the absolute core of Richard O’Brien’s book and score - one of the most influential contemporary creations of its time.
Director Christopher Luscombe has a talented cast to work with. Craig McLachlan inhabits the very skin of lusty firebrand transsexual Frank N Furter with great confidence. He’s superbly supported by Amanda Harrison as Magenta and Kristian Laverscombe as Riff Raff. Uptight semi frigid couple Rob Mallett and Michelle Smitheram as Brad Majors and Janet Weiss are wonderfully all American screwed up kids of the science fiction era.
Most promising is designer Hugh Durrant’s fantastic set, paying clear homage to the original stage production captured in a filmed run, and lighting designer Nick Richings’ perfect late-night gory picture show lighting. Musical director Dave Skelton rocks it out as best as possible above stage, but unfortunately this works against a good sound mix.
For a work which has proven it can free the body and mind with two hours of highly intelligent sauciness this production has what one might call emotional blocks to absolute fulfilment, let alone pleasure.
Why does McLachlan spend so much time engaged in Benny Hill like comic business with a microphone? Why does there always seem to be a sense of nervousness about going for it when sexiness at its hottest and cleverest is required? What is Luscombe frightened of? O’Brien’s lyrics do not forgive lesser attempts to meet their hardcore demands. They could practically ask of the cast ‘why on earth are you here?’
While the first half of the evening is off kilter and time, the second redeems the production by perfectly expressing the emotional denouement of Frank N Furter and co. The passion, the sense of loss, love requited, and identity spurned is perfection. It seemed easier to run with, which was disquieting given the performances in the first half.
Nonetheless it is an enjoyable production and does get the front rows out of their seats dancing at the conclusion. Then again, a top notch production should incite them to dance and go riot from the very start.
David O’Brien
When: 28 Dec 17 to 13 Jan 18
Where: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Promise Adelaide. Goodwood Institute. 21 Dec 2017
The stage is dark, misty, dressed by stacks of sandbags and populated by young men, most of them barely out of school.
They stand dressed in a pastiche of World War I military uniforms representing all ranks and units and several countries.
They are crisp and neat and fresh. The British speak up, one by one. They have joined up for the best or sometimes the blithest of reasons and they are going off to war in the general belief that it won’t last long and they’ll be home for Christmas.
It is, as the program says, an optimistic departure.
Unaccompanied, the men sing Will Ye Go to Flanders, Good-Bye-ee, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and, most impressively, God Save the King in the spirit of British patriotism.
But then, in a series of war songs sung a-capella, they find that war is about life in the trenches and the death of mates. The Germans are just over there, in the same predicament. Half the cast split off to don spiked helmets. Deutschlandlied is sung. Keep the Homefires burning is sung. I Want to Go Home is sung.
They don’t go home.
Christmas comes in God-forsaken Flanders fields.
And, that most famous interaction in the history of European warfare takes place, against the wishes of all military authority. The opposing soldiers reach out through song and then meet in no-man’s-land between the trenches and celebrate Christmas with spirts and gifts and football, and even the respectful burial of the dead.
All of this is depicted through traditional song and descriptions of the time spoken by assorted soldiers. They are snippets of remembrance well-picked by the show’s writer, Peter Rothstein. He has derived his content from memoirs, letters, journals, official documents and even gravestones. The message is clear and moving.
The production is emphatically choreographed by director Paul Reichstein, the men flowing about the stage to keep the show from looking too much like a concert.
But, essentially, it is a glee club concert tribute to that very special Christmas and one feels compelled to congratulate Ben Francis and the young Promise Adelaide company for perpetuating this significant piece of war history. They have done it with feeling and there are some beautiful voices on the stage.
As producer Trish Francis says in the program, they were very short of rehearsal time. It shows. Musical director Trevor Anderson could have bumped up the pace and harmonies and adjusted slightly some of the soloists.
Military history buffs in the opening night audience had a few bones to pick with costumes and staging; and particularly the depiction of individuals within the playing of The Last Post at the end.
And one must say that it is an awkward conceit to end the concert with a present-day grandfather’s narration to his grandson from his armchair by the Christmas tree.
The most important aspect of this Promise Adelaide production is, indeed, its intent.
There is a lot of commercial and religious overkill swirling about at Christmas. This wonderful vignette about the universality of man is the most significant message that can be conveyed.
Good spirit to them.
Samela Harris
When: 21 to 23 Dec
Where: Goodwood Institute
Bookings: Closed
Australian Dance Theatre. Anniversary Season 2017. 29 Nov 2017
10 years ago, the late Tanja Liedtke choreographed and unleashed on the world what was to be her last work, Construct. It arrived in Adelaide from an overseas tour two years after her death and left audiences awestruck by its power; an impact doubled by her passing.
Sufficient time has passed to reflect on past responses to the work in those difficult days. For so many, it was all too close to home. The business of working out what this was, and meant, along with the loss of Liedtke clouded much.
Original ensemble member, co-choreographer, and Remount Director, Kristina Chan along with Remount Director, Craig Barry offer a production featuring three new dancers who strongly affirm the initial sense created 10 years ago. Not only was Construct something radically new, but equally timeless in its expressed content; the human frailty which underlies how life is constructed and broken, and that ‘building’ choices can constrict or free us in life.
Kimball Wong, Jana Castillo and Marlo Benjamin manage, with fierce impassioned commitment, a work of exacting physical demands that shifts from comedy to deep emotional drama. Construct is such a purely, deeply human work at the core.
From the delightful clown like slapstick phrases featuring Wong desperately attempting to keep the stiff figures of Castillo and Benjamin from toppling over, to shy finger walking interactions between Castillo and Wong or a heartfelt samba love dance, Construct constantly explores the highs and lows of human beings building their deepest connections.
An open stage strewn with the trappings of a building site - wooden slats, electric drill, ladders and trestles - serve two purposes brilliantly; perfect props to play comic building games. They symbolise, and make clear, the broader intent of Construct in linking to the heart and soul of human successes and failings at life-construction.
It’s therefore no surprise choreographically that Construct makes brilliant, albeit demanding use of sharp angles, bends, twists and turns closely associated with the business of a building site. Liedtke’s choreography, fused with DJ Trip’s remarkably subtle capacity to shift from mechanistic to romantic ambience, manages to offer a double world. The rawness of building against the rawness of human experience.
Liedtke’s approach in Construct has, over the last decade, begun sneaking into other works and choreographic technique. Her use of simple, sharp and crystal clear vignettes, focus on uncluttered but accessible emotional narrative, and drive to present human experience as universally understood by all are significant gifts to audiences, dancers, and choreographers of the future.
David O’Brien
When: 29 Nov to 2 Dec
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
State Opera of South Australia. Adelaide Town hall. 21 Nov 2017
Opera spectaculars are a winning format for the State Opera of South Australia, and for the public. What could be better than a packed program of popular arias, overtures and choruses? Spectacular operatic singing and music, without the in-between bits! Can’t do better than that!
On this occasion the State Opera staged for two nights only a hugely successful celebration of the glorious music of Giuseppe Verdi, who is one of the pillars of the art form. Seventeen pieces in all were presented ranging across Verdi’s better known operas, including La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, A Masked Ball, Aïda and Nabucco. (He composed more than 25 operas, but not all are well-known or equally popular.)
Dr Stephen Mould, who is a senior lecturer in conducting and operatic studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has a long list of successful international and domestic conducting credits to his name, conducted the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra which was not at full strength. A number of principals were absent but it mattered not a jot. The talent of the orchestra and Adelaide’s general musical talent pool runs deep, and Mould’s decisive conducting extracted the goods. On only one occasion – in the trio Quale insolita gioia from Aïda – did Mould allow the might of the orchestra to overpower the singers, but that was only for a phrase or two. It should be noted that the singers performed with the conductor and the orchestra to their backs, but somehow the communication between Mould and the singers remained tight. (Incidentally, Quale insolita gioia was perhaps the item on the program that was the least appreciated by the generally enthusiastic audience.)
The programme began with a stirring performance of the emotive overture from La Forza del Destino. Dean Newcomb’s clarinet work was first rate. The overture was met with enthusiastic applause and the audience was put right into the mood for a rollicking good time. Mould spoke directly to the audience about each item that followed and his erudite comments were both instructive and witty. The man has a nice warm style, without a hint of gratuitous flamboyance. The audience warmed to him from the outset.
The first aria of the evening was sung by sopranao Gisele Blanchard. Dressed in a stunning red and green gown, her performance of Sempre Libera from La Traviata was effortless. The difficult staccato leaps were conquered with ease, as were the gentle and quiet leaps in Caro nome from Rigoletto.
Baritone Mario Bellanova was outstanding in every aria that he sang. His facial expression, gesture and general acting skills brought to life everything that he sang. His rich, velvety booming voice was note perfect across the full register of every aria. His Credo from Otello and Cortigiani from Rigoletto forced one to think differently about the villains he was portraying. He allowed humanity to shine through even the darkest moments.
Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Campbell again demonstrated immense acting skills and her detailed understanding of the repertoire in her layered performances of the deeply tragic Condotta ell’era in ceppi from Il Trovatore and her part in the ever popular quartet Bella figlia dell’amor from Rigoletto.
Tenor Bradley Daley and baritone Jeremy Tatchell sang the first duet of the evening – Dio, che nell’alma infondere from Don Carlos – but suffered a few pitch and timing issues. However, Tatchell was at the top of his game with Morte di Rodrigo, also from Don Carlos and Daley fared much better (with Blanchard) in a lusty performance of Brindisi from la Traviata which suited perfectly his tessitura. His La Donna e mobile from Rigoletto was a little too nasal and unemotional.
Soprano Teresa La Rocca, like Bellanova, was a highlight of the evening. Her strong and pure soprano line cut through the most difficult phrases like a hot knife through butter. Ecco l’orrido campo from Un ballo in Maschera traverses the lowest lows to near highest highs for a soprano voice, and she sang it beautifully, and effortlessly, with buckets of characterisation as she did in the trio from Aïda and the quartet from Rigoletto.
Tenor Norbert Hohl, who is often seen in the chorus, sang several principal roles and demonstrated not only his own rich talents but also demonstrated the depth of talent that lies in the chorus. Mould commented that the chorus of the State Opera is one of the best in Australia. He is of course quite correct, and one isn’t parochial either! The chorus also sang the iconic Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore (and immediately reprised it!) as well as the ever popular Va Pensiero from Nabucco. The choruses were rousing, musical and were hummed by the audience well into the night after they had left the theatre.
A great concert! Long may State Opera continue to present gala ‘spectacular’ formats. There are so many more possibilities still to explore! If you are ‘opera shy’, have no hesitation in coming to the next spectacular whenever that should be!
Kym Clayton
When: 21 and 22 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed