Hills Musical Company. Stirling Community Theatre. 20 Apr 2018
The story may be tragic, but the production is not.
Hills Musical Company has thrown a massive and extremely weird-looking cast upon their little Community Theatre stage. Call it freakish, for indeed that was the old buzzword and the theme of the show. The denizens of the old-school travelling side show were indeed society's oddballs and outcasts.
The conjoined Hilton twins, Daisy and Violet, were the superstars of the variety show genres of the 1900s. They were joined at the hips and, although they shared no organs, their shared blood vessels made separation very risky under the medicine of the day. So, despite being mercilessly exploited and ill-treated by family and managers through what was to become a headlining showbiz career, they vowed always to stay together by choice as well as necessity.
Hence, the one great I Will Never Leave You anthem of this musical show, devised in the 1990s around the life and times of the twins by Bill Russell and Henry Krieger.
Despite its colourful content, this tribute show is rarely performed, not only because of the difficulty of finding matching singers to play the twins but, one concludes, because the music doesn’t really hold up. It is very demanding of the singers and it is devoid of memorable tunes.
This said, the HMC’s orchestra under conductor Mark DeLaine is absolutely stunning; strings and wind sublimely balanced and a pleasure on the ear.
Indeed, with direction from Amanda Rowe, the production itself is slick and schmick with the very able cast well-rehearsed and focused. Similarly classy are the costumes which have to depict the assorted sideshow characters from lizard man to half-man-half-woman. They swarm and mass across the stage, a cast ranging beanpole tall to utterly diminutive, from dog hairy to billiard ball smooth; a vast parade of vivid diversity in a set which transforms from tent flaps to vaudevillian glamour and a few other things in between. Designer David Lampard had the crew busy moving large wooden frames into austere compositions to represent the evolving scenes as the girls’ lives progressed from cruel side show subjugation to mere showbiz exploitation. The girls might have been talented singers with defined personalities, but they were always the ingénues under the control of one or other manager or producer.
HMC scored brilliantly in casting Scott Nell as the first of these, the ruthlessly Cockney carny called Sir. In voice and characterisation, Nell gives a powerful performance. He is followed by an opportunistic song and dance talent scout called Terry who, with his gay mate, Buddy, woos the girls away from the freak show and onto the main stage where they are to become glamorous stars of the day.
Paul Rodda, something of a song and dance man in his own right, embodies Terry and does so with a professional polish which is the talk of the foyer at interval. It is a finely nuanced performance.
Meanwhile, as the sidekick Buddy, Jared Frost is exceptionally engaging in both characterisation and song.
There’s some terrific singing coming from stage, all powered by mikes so the rafters sometimes ring. A few cast members use their acting skills to cover for the challenges of the difficult musical score.
Not so the two principals, Rebecca Raymond and Fiona DeLaine as Violet and Daisy, the hapless conjoined twins. They’re superior singers, both. They move well together with their costumes joined at the hips. They harmonise exquisitely and they each assert credible and interesting characters who elicit audience sympathy.
Thus, with its torrent of complex musical numbers and some neat choreography, the show flies along at a good pace, albeit some of the songs are a bit long. There are more stand-out performances, not the least of them Ray Cullen as Houdini and others.
Wendy Rayner, Jared Gershwitz, Elle Nichelle, Alana Shepherdson, Cassidy Roberts, Shelley Crooks and, of course, Omkar Nagesh as the girls’ dear friend and protector, all merit mention and the list could go on: the dancing girls, for instance and the male ensemble in its moment.
There is a mass of life and light and bright talent in this great, big, offbeat show. It is definitely worth a night in the Hills.
Samela Harris
When: 20 Apr to 5 May
Where: Stirling Community Theatre
Bookings: hillsmusical.org.au/tickets
Editors Note: Paul Rodda, who plays Terry Connor in the show, is also the Editor of The Barefoot Review.
Windmill Theatre. Space Theatre. 14 April 2018
The Grug team are back in Adelaide after numerous successful tours locally and internationally. This gorgeous show garners rave reviews and repeat audiences where ever it goes, and with very good reason.
Combining a number of the picture books from Ted Prior's much-loved series, the piece is built around the title story 'Grug and the Rainbow'. Starting with his provenance after toppling from a Burrawang tree, we see Grug build his burrow and glimpse his first rainbow. After sadly failing to catch the rainbow, despite much effort, Grug's mission is to find a rainbow of his very own.
The plays three narrating puppeteers break through the fourth wall and excitedly decide that we should all help Grug to find the colours he needs. This fun and educational twist sees director Sam Haren weave in characters and storylines from other popular Grug books, including his adventures painting a house, visiting the beach and learning to ride a bike. The stories and the audience themselves provide the source for each new rainbow hue.
This show is a wonderful stage adaptation that breathes life into Prior's endearing and inquisitive treetop character. It is also one of the few truly brilliant theatre pieces for toddlers and preschool children.
The three performers are well cast and add much to production without upstaging the main event. Hamish Fletcher, Ezra Juanta and Astrid Pill are warm and friendly on stage and coordinate seamlessly between the numerous puppets. Juanta is a particular stand out, with his larger-than-life stage personality making him a fast favourite with the thigh-high contingent of the audience.
Jonathon Oxlade's small but delightfully intricate and versatile set is a joy to experience, and Tamara Rewse's Grug is just perfect.
This is a show for anyone, of any age, and if you've seen it before then treat yourself again. It's just as good the second time around.
Nicole Russo
When: 10 to 22 Apr 2018
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
State Theatre Company of SA. Dunstan Playhouse. 11 Apr 2018
Andrew Bovell’s first play.
Methinks the boy has a future.
After Dinner is a beautifully crafted play which falls somewhere between farce, comedy drama and tragic comedy.
Every which way, it is gorgeously funny while at the same time it is piercingly and memorably poignant.
It is a study of classic Aussie characters drawn by the playwright as stereotypical but not clichéd. The play is set in 1988 in a suburban pub or club wherein dinner is only served to tables at the back of a room where a band plays Friday night gigs. Designer Jonathon Oxlade ruthlessly creates a classically bland hospitality wasteland. Just one lacklustre quasi-Pro-Hart print relieves the big, boring wall. The room is fitted with utility tables and chairs. These were the drab venues in which singles made their desperate search for partnerships in the days before online dating. Blokes went to chase a bit of skirt. Lonely girls went in hope.
Dympie is a bit on the OCD side and she is keen to be early to secure a favoured table not too near the bar and the band. She likes to ensure that everything, including her work friend Paula, fits into her neat, tidy and judgemental comfort zone. The well-known actor, Jude Henshall, is unrecognisable within the guise of twitchy, bitchy Dympie. She is a mass of well-observed mannerisms; sour, smug and manipulative. Her friend, Paula, is a would-be free spirit who always ends up succumbing to Dympie’s passive-aggressive bullying tactics. As Paula, Ellen Steele somehow makes her eyes seem eternally startled. In itself, this is funny. Indeed, Steele shows very fine form as a physical comedienne and evokes a character one comes to cherish.
On this Friday night, the two girls have invited their recently widowed friend Monica to join them. She’s late.
At a nearby table Gordon waits alone, toying with the table setting, drinking water, reading the absurdly large menu, failing to get the waiter’s attention and killing what seems to be a lot of time. He is a very beige man. He is played immaculately by Rory Walker and as the play opens, he is positively Tati-esque in his uncomfortable relationship with his surroundings.
The characters emerge through banter and small personal outpourings. In Monica’s case, it is right over the top and into suspend-your-disbelief territory as she throws off the weeping widow image. Elena Carapetis is delicious in this wild ride of a role. Then again, under Corey McMahon’s astute direction, comic timing is right on the spot throughout the production and all cast members are bloody funny. There’s lots of physical comedy with lovely old suggestive shtick. Then there are the misunderstandings and cross purposes in which the hilarity escalates to produce rewards of rib-aching laughter.
Bovell clearly watched carefully that life of the lonely-hearts losers in the 80s. He has drawn them with a pen that is both cruel and compassionate.
Patient menu-gazing Gordon is finally joined by his mate Stephen - to which end Nathan Page, the TV heartthrob of Miss Fisher fame, bursts upon the stage all tousle-haired and louche. If all Gordon wants to talk about is his failed marriage, Stephen just wants to suck down the booze and engineer a one-night stand. Unmarried and in his 40s, such brief encounters are all he knows of relationships. Page’s performance as Stephen is sublime. He makes one love that eternal predator and, by play’s end…
Ah, let’s not give away some of the twists and turns of this beaut Aussie play.
Let’s just be glad that Bovell wrote it and sad that it is not produced more often.
Samela Harris
When: 11 to 29 Apr
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Promise Adelaide. Bakehouse Theatre. 7 Apr 2018
Ben Francis. His is a name to remember. Not only did this eighteen year-old Scotch graduate render an outstanding performance in this one-hander, one-act play, but he also produced it. Not only that, his production company, Promise Adelaide, has raised a significant amount of dough for charity and has provided a creative outlet for over a hundred young people. But wait, there's more! He is the lead vocalist of The 60 Four, and an acquaintance of mine was amazed at his crystalline falsetto applied to the personage of Frankie Valli. He's been in a Gale Edwards's musical. I think the sky is the limit for this talented hard worker with a heart in the right place.
Private Peaceful began life as a novel by Michael Morpurgo (War Horse, no less) in 2004, and was adapted for stage by Simon Reade (Pride & Prejudice, Midnight's Children) in 2008. It's a British project concerning poor Peaceful in a WWI bunker in France during a single long night. Something not good is going to happen in the morning. Poor Peaceful reflects on his short sixteen year-long life via a sequence of scenes where Francis narrates and performs Peaceful's recollections. He takes us from primary school right through to the terror of the trenches.
Francis in his youth is already a consummate actor and under director Rob Croser, the cream rises to the top. Francis performed Peaceful's bucolic innocence to perfection. There is a plethora of other characters to flesh out and these were done distinctively. He made the terror of the artillery bombing so palpable that you want to reach out and give him a reassuring hug. Director Croser had him blasting across the stage, and Croser's and David Roach's set is Spartan and evocative. Sounds of sustained explosions and machine gun fire are nerve-wracking.
I was exhausted and sad after the show. Private Peaceful represents the 306 soldiers executed by the British high command during the war (Australia did not execute deserters). This project sprung from Ben's invitation - from winning an essay-writing contest - to attend the centennial services at Gallipoli. I have been there myself and it is a profoundly moving experience like this play. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 4 to 14 April
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 5 April 2018
You would have to be brain-dead to not have seen the handmade humanoid in some media form or another. Mary Shelley wrote the short story - which became her novel - to pass the time on some dark and stormy nights in Switzerland in the company of holiday makers that included her lover, and Lord Byron.
Director Kerrin White claims to have read the novel several times and says that the play is far more true to the book than the 1931 Boris Karloff movie that most older people are familiar with. So forget the hunchback, the criminal brain conundrum and all that electricity. Also delete Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein black comedy starring Gene Wilder from 1974. English playwright Nick Dear's adaptation was first produced by the Royal National Theatre in 2011 and White is proud to never have seen that. So the design of White's production has blossomed from his theatrical brain without that encumbrance.
Dear imbues the script with a modern vernacular that is most amusing against the pre-Victorian anachronisms. The monster is abandoned by its creator rather flippantly and his journey of failed and frustrated personal growth becomes another version of one of the world's greatest stories - the son searching for the father, just like in Star Wars. Along the way, the thought-provoking questions the monster asks of the society he find himself in, and the violent reactions towards him, suggested the white/Aboriginal cultural gulf of perpetual misunderstanding, but I may have been reading too much into it.
And the star of the show is...Steve Parker! I was fortunate to see Parker's Captain Kirk in a Star Trek spoof back in 2006, where he displayed virulent audacity and comedic virtuosity. Here his corpulent monster (often asking for food, of course) is physically powerful and erratically dangerous as he tries to subdue a brutishness caused by rejection, with the liberal arts lessons received from a blind benefactor; he is manic, curious, unpredictable and bloody watchable. Bravo! Empathy for the monster fades, though, in this play where the Rep has broken new ground in nudity, sex and violence (quelle horreur!).
Patrick Clements's Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the creature, has a very complex personae populated with Asbergian agendas, that is foiled by his fiance's fetching simplicity (played with consistency by Rosie Williams). "If you want to create life, here I am!" she says. Of great interest is the psychological battle between creator/father and son, which might also be happening this very moment in your household. You would never guess the ending - every parent's nightmare.
The rather filmic style of the play presents challenges for the stage and budget, which Kerrin White's design copes with most the time, but not always. A few scene changes were off putting with all the commotion. Highlights, though, were the opening tableau (shocking!) and an ethereal vignette where young William Frankenstein (played beautifully by child actor Charlie Zorkovik) appears out of nowhere to torment Victor in a dream scene. White also utilised moving image backdrops to extend mood or interpretation.
Director Kerrin White has skillfully stitched together and breathed life into his creature. Go for the philosophical questions that are thrown up, and for the fascinating monster Parker provides.
PS White is working his way through the monster catalogue, having directed Dracula in 2014. So I guess the next monster show will be about Trump?
David Grybowski
When: 5 to 14 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com