Adelaide Festival. The Hayloft Project/Belvoir. 4 Mar 2018
Ripping up the basic storyline of Seneca’s Thyestes and scrolling it in LED as the introduction to action and dialogue, scene to scene, is so far away from Ancient Greek (let alone a solid English translation). Yet, it has done more to unleash the fabled fire and fury of Ancient Greek theatre than one could possibly hope to experience in the 21st Century.
Director Simon Stone and literary collaborators Thomas Henning, Chris Ryan and Mark Winter’s evisceration of Seneca’s bloody tale of vengefulness, is a colossally mind bending theatrical achievement rendered in performance and design. It is transfigured with contemporary characterisations, language and a psychological impetus to power, lust, hate and revenge, floating on mystic prophecy.
Claude Marcos’ traverse set in white, with remote controlled curtains each side of the narrow stage, supremely accentuates the banality and terror stringing this tale together.
Stone’s cast of three - Thomas Henning, Chris Ryan and Toby Schmitz - play this fantastic new text with a supremely sophisticated, controlled sway from wondrously absurd comedy to stark deadliness, offering, scene by scene, an ever darkening view of the destructive relationship between Thyestes and Artreus; Royal brothers, exiles, competitors for power and surrender to obscene madness.
Freud let loose onstage.
The clinching mastery of the work’s construction is the scene count back, the missing links, the psychological triggers of savagery.
Thyestes is a grand, noble, powerful Australian work of extraordinary depth and genius.
David O’Brien
When: 2 to 7 March
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Heritage Arts & Traditions (HATS Inc). The Jade. 3 March 2018
This is the second Fringe in a row that a collective (with no name) of Adelaide songwriters have strummed their wares, and if you love Adelaide, you must hear this. Even if you were in attendance last year, the reprised songs are definitely worth another listen, and the new songs will only enhance the experience.
Presumably, Keith Preston (project director) and Alan Hartley (musical director) made the director's difficult cut from a much larger song canon. And each one is a delight to Adelaidean ears. We know so many famous songs about lesser cities, like New York or San Francisco, and this mob is determined to ensure that Adelaide has its own anthems. It's wonderful to have the square city's foibles and personalities eulogised, and its present condition renditioned in verse.
Keith Preston and Ivone Kirkpatrick begin the journey with jaunty verses about Colonel Light and Don Dunstan respectively. Paul Roberts laments the stolen generation in Colbrook. Alan Hartley humorously recalls the Slate Blank disaster in Timmie Marcus Clark. Paula Standing reminds us that the pandas are still firing blanks in the zoo. We are brought into the present with more new songs about the closing of Holden - Holden Boys Don't Cry by Roberts, and Kirkpatrick's rather complicated song playfully chastising Adelaide for its ranking as the world's 5th most liveable city (now slipped to 6th). Preston has a fanciful solution to SA's energy supply crisis, revealed in a Weatherill press conference. Ms Standing returns with a lament on our resource-greedy generation. Roberts pokes fun at the bar-closing wobble-walks on Hindley Street (Hindley Street Waltz) and Hartley closes the session with the song that opened last year's concert - his definitive Adelaide Anthem.
Without exception, the songs are perceptive, highly observational, charming, witty and cheeky when not serious, which isn't often. Many encourage easy sing-along on first hearing with catchy choruses. The guitar-laden songwriters had their fretwork enhanced by subtle violin (Ashley Turner), soft percussion (Satomi Ohnishi), bass (Trisha Drioli) and electric guitar (Jeremy Philips). The group uniformly donned vests - except those women who decided on dresses - giving the gig an avuncular, comfortable tone. The "memorable slides" and "amusing anecdotes" mentioned in the program have gone by the wayside, but really, they weren't terribly missed.
I simply love that a mob loves our city enough to sing about it, poke fun at it, and encourage us to laugh at ourselves, because deep down, we know we got it pretty good here. Bravo!
David Grybowski
4 stars
When: 2 to 10 Mar
Where: The Jade, 160 Flinders St
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
The Life And Music Of Eileen Joyce. Julia Hastings. The Lab, Queen’s Theatre. 4 Mar 2018
“God help me. How do I get out of this mess?” Having intoned these pitiable words, Julia Hastings slumps over the piano and her left hands starts the slow introduction to Frédéric Chopin’s painfully beautiful Berceuse. Hastings could not have chosen a more poignant musical selection to illustrate the anguish and deep sorrow that Eileen Joyce felt as she faced the inevitable decision to end her career as concert pianist and reflected on the sum of her life. The Berceuse is a lullaby, and Joyce was probably not a model parent, having sent her three-year old son to boarding school so that she could concentrate on her career as a concert pianist. But we should be careful not to judge. Exceptional people do extraordinary things.
Hastings’ show is a tribute to the life of one of Australia’s most famous pianists who had a celebrated international career from the 1930s to the 1960s. Through a series of vignettes, we are given a teasing glimpse into the life of Joyce, from her arrival in Germany as a talented student through to other key events in her life, both musical and personal. Playing Joyce, Hastings delivers a carefully constructed spoken narrative that she has researched and written herself, and underlines it with musical selections that she plays at the piano. Occasionally there are voice overs that provide the opportunity to move from soliloquy to dialogue.
Hastings becomes Joyce. She dresses and wears her hair like Joyce, and her pianism is in some respects reminiscent of Joyce’s style (when compared to some of what can be heard on the recently released Eloquence/Decca studio recordings of Joyce.). The whole event is quite delightful, and transporting. My only criticism is that it is too short, even though it does play for an hour. There is the potential for more material to be introduced and for deeper exploration of Joyce’s life.
Hastings is a talented pianist, writer, and actor. Let’s hope she reworks this show and brings it back to the next Fringe. It deserves to be seen again, and again.
Kym Clayton
4 stars
When: Closed
Where: The Lab, Queen’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed
parker and mr french. The Grand Ballroom at Hilton Adelaide. 2 Mar 2018
Stunning a packed house at the Grand Ballroom, the four handsome singers of the California Crooners Club are polished and deliver a solid performance; albeit, 20-minutes late to start.
Led by Adelaide’s home-grown star of stage and screen, Hugh Sheridan, the group at this year’s Fringe features new members TSoul and Connor Boatman – both from the United States. Returning for his third Fringe is the group’s soulful South African, Emile Welman.
Sheridan plays to his home crowd well, littering his performance with local references packed with funny quips. The entire group performs much of show from the floor, dancing and getting up and close with the audience.
With a set-list ranging from the 50s to today, the audience is treated to near flawless vocals. A highlight is the wonderful mash-up of Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York and Jay Z’s Empire State of Mind.
There are moments where the vocals sound tired, but this does not detract from the overall outstanding performance. The tight harmonies thrill the audience. In this group, Sheridan has found an incredible balance with each voice perfectly complimenting the others.
Newly minted Club members TSoul and Boatman are very impressive. Boatman, dubbed “Millennial Spice” by Sheridan, has a subtle tenor voice and provides a pleasant contrast to the heavier sounds.
Sheridan’s new song Dreamers is also a hit with the audience.
Not one moment of the performance leaves the audience wanting.
Alex Bond
4.5 stars
When: 2 to 12 Mar
Where: The Grand Ballroom at Hilton Adelaide
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
House of Sand. 2 Mar 2018
Director Charles Sanders is spot on when he describes his sister’s work as having “the logic of memory, dream and emotion.”
Pedal offers an extraordinarily striking range of contrasting images in movement and colour presenting themselves as a sort of tale peddled to the audience, as Eliza Sanders ‘cycles’ from one phrase of choreography and word song to the next.
It’s quite captivating once you surrender to it. There’s a sense this tale is one of a journey to another country, or another place within the self. Sanders is robed in a delightful multi coloured one piece costume, the set comprising a bare stage crossed by two long washing lines with pegs, suitcase and a small mirror representing water, rules the space. Sanders fills it with known contemporary moves, some highly exotic, some fabulist in construction.
Words repeated become at one with repeated actions. Beautiful songs wistfully glide aside the choreography. Moments addressed to the audience seem half an appeal to engage us directly and half to shift the direction of the piece, as if something stronger is needed to peddle the audience successfully.
A magnificent Fringe experience in the true spirit of the term.
David O’Brien
4 stars
When: 28 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Studio
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au