Lost In Translation. Holden Street Theatres. 16 September 2016
Although A Steady Rain was only Adelaide's Nick Fagan's second theatrical production, the two-hander earned the annual Best Ensemble award from the Adelaide Theatre Guide, as well as a nomination for Best Show Drama. Fagan decided to reprise his 2016 Fringe offering this weekend at Holden Street Theatres for those unfortunates who missed it first time around.
Former medical journalist Keith Huff wrote this film noir play in his spare time. How could he know it would later be produced on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, or that he would be a major contributor to the initial run of House Of Cards?
But maybe one could have foretold Huff had a budding career in televised drama because this cop story packs enough egotistical, sociopathic, paranoiac, prejudiced, maniacal, angry and just plain bad behaviour and bad luck to fill a few series of viewing. Perhaps reviving the direction of Ben Todd, the actors begin by sipping hot coffee sitting in office chairs widely spaced on the stage. Nick Fagan starts off the action as bad cop Denny. Dressed for undercover ops in Chicago, his jackhammer delivery takes a bit of getting used to at first. This story of the tragedy of Denny - a man incapable of introspection, in perpetual war with the underworld while becoming part of it, blindly justifying it all as he supports his family while dragging them into the danger. Fagan's Denny reminded me of Arthur Miller's Eddy in A View From The Bridge. Fagan travels a consistent arc to Denny's oblivion with ample opportunity to distress the audience. Joey is the not-so-bad cop who holds a mirror of reality up to Denny, who tragically cannot see his reflection. Dressed in a suit for contrast, Rohan Watts's Joey couldn't be more different than his squad car partner. Watts was very effective making Joey a gentle giant, soft spoken and patient, sensible and very worried about his friend. A great strength of this production is how plausible their love is for each other after stripping away all the macho bullshit. Fagan's Denny and Watts's Joey are shown to be fragile and worthy of our attention and sympathy, as well as authentically from the mean streets.
The characters narrate the recent events in turn with relatively much less interaction and dialogue. They vividly refer to a panoply of characters that you could swear there was more than two in the cast. Can't wait to see the Steven Spielberg movie.
David Grybowski
When: 15-17 September
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Marie Clark Musical Theatre. The Goodwood Institute. 31 Aug 2016
The all-too-rarely performed Rent has only graced South Australian stages twice in the last 10 years; it is a relatively young musical only officially opening Off Broadway in 1996. It is a wonderful show full of challenging human emotional conflicts, poignant political perspectives, and a sexy score comprising both little and well-known numbers; Seasons Of Love being amongst the most well-known.
It is, however, exceptionally complicated and incredibly demanding - perhaps why so few companies have the courage to mount a performance.
Marie Clark Musical Theatre’s production is, for the most part, an enjoyable night of theatre. On arrival one is impressed by the look and feel of the set. Director/Set Designer, Mark Stefanoff, has laid out both an attractive and a functional space that easily serves as multiple locations without cumbersome set changes. To the uninitiated those locations won’t be altogether clear and this may lead to confusion about what’s going on. But the pace cannot be faulted and for Rent aficionados the ‘feeling’ is just right.
Matt Ralph has designed striking, complimentary lighting to Stefanoff’s set. The featured LEDs, strip lights and fairy lights communicate time and place effectively. A few scenes are overly flushed with white and the follow spot is underutilised, but the overall look is very attractive. The sound design by Rodney Bates, however, is odd and very patchy. The excessive and altogether random use of echo effects makes it seem like parts of the show are sung in a bathroom. Adding to the frustration are poorly set and inconsistent volume levels. When it does all work together the production values are stunning - moments like Seasons of Love, La Vie Boheme, and Will I - but unfortunately these issues are prevalent and unforgivable.
Each and every player gives their all and shows complete commitment to the story. Sadly, few seem to really plum the emotional depths of their characters’ plight leaving one feeling shallow and empty. Vocally they are generally excellent. Ben Stefanoff is Musical Director and he steers a tight ship, his tiny band produces a big sound.
Of the leads the notable performances come from Damien Quick as Mark, Fiona DeLaine as Maureen, and Sarah Whiteley as Joanne. Quick imbues the often underappreciated role of Mark with real sense of solemn insecurity. DeLaine and Whiteley are at their absolute best when they toil as two headstrong lovers in Take Me Or Leave Me. Director Mark Stefanoff takes up the part of Angel and does a beautiful job of a very tough role (in even higher heels!); one questions the decision to go so big with the drag queen persona at the expense of a more genuine transgender* offering though.
Jennifer Trijo’s Mimi is a vocal powerhouse when she stands and sings Out Tonight and Anton Schrama seemed to find the right amount of melancholy in Roger, despite not quite having all the rock notes in his vocal bag of tricks. Sadly though their couple’s chemistry is lacking and one is not captivated by their burgeoning romance and tumultuous relationship. Angus Birdseye does some nice work as Tom Collins, and he and Mark Stefanoff achieve a beautifully believable relationship. Ron Abelita completes the cast of leads as the defector, Benny.
The show is completely stolen at one point by two ensemble members in Sophie Guidolin and Jordan Tomljenovic who dance a gorgeously distracting contemporary routine to the sombre sounds of Santa Fe. From that moment on, every time they grace the stage, one’s eyes are drawn to them. Choreography throughout by Nina Richards is excellent – in particular both the routine and execution of Tango Maureen.
It is a bitter sweet production of Rent that Marie Clark has produced. It looks amazing, and often sounds even better – until it doesn’t... The cast are committed, but the acting is forced… The energy and passion is abundant, but the emotional integrity is missing… the harmonies and voices are spine-tingling, and yet the tissues stay in the box.
I love Rent. It is a love-it or hate-it kind of show. This production is almost entirely sold out, and as well it should be, as it is so rarely mounted. If you’ve already got your ticket, you’re probably a love-it type like me so, vive la vie bohème!
Paul Rodda
When: 31 Aug to 3 Sep
Where: Goodwood Institute
Bookings: marieclark.asn.au
*It has never been made explicitly clear whether that character of Angel Dumott Schunard is a drag queen, transexual, or transgender. For the purposes of this review, and to avoid any offence, the term transgender has been selected under the assumptions that Angel is outwardly gay, identifies as a woman, and choses to be referred to in this manner by her friends, and is less likely to have undergone any gender reassignment at the time of this show's writing.
Red Phoenix Theatre. Holden Street Theatres. 20 Aug 2016
Shakespeare invented this thing the world’s gone mad for on subscription TV we call Game of Thrones. Every single one of his history plays and that grand tragedy King Lear, is an exemplar of cut and thrust, blood and guts, gaming for power.
What makes Director Michael Eustice’s production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus worthy of such direct allusion to the biggest thing on the box these last years?
It becomes increasingly obvious in performance, to the experienced ear and eye of a Shakespeare devotee/scholar, that Titus Andronicus is a work which dispenses with the deeper exploration of moral psychology for a much sharper, piercing play on a raw wielding of psychological power as a force of inner terror in gaining power and holding it, with the added gravitas of brutal violence. The text is blood and guts.
Rereading a play has its rewards as in the case of this production. It’s enabled a capacity to see ever more the skill with which Director Michael Eustice has discovered and built up on the rounding circles of desire, intimidation and greed between two families, one conquered, one ruling, with a middle playing family as the emblem of righteousness. Family Andronicus, led by its most august warrior, Titus (Brant Eustice.)
Michael Eustice offers a fluid set design of nothing more than portable set blocks in black against the black floor and walls of the space. In marriage with Richard Parkhill’s deftly careful lighting and Isabelle Zengerer’s exquisitely clean cut and styled costuming, the performance flows with a rich and easy rhythm of emotionally, politically charged gut wrenching drama.
Oh how it rips, as Titus, seeming secure under the sinecure of newly crowned Emperor Saturninus (Matt Houston), happily powers on and his sister Lavinia (Anna Bampton) equally steps forward into a happier life, as their enemies, including Tamora ((Rachel Burfield) are humiliated. That’s until Saturninus gets other ideas down the track, and the gaming starts.
Herein lies the beauty of this production. Each thread line of influence, down from the moment Saturninus takes Tamora for himself, is played with exquisite self-serving logic. From Lavinia and her husband all the way down. Except Titus.
It’s Shakespearian existentialism, as it might be considered.
So much power in beautiful performances, especially by Brant Eustice as the towering Titus, alongside Bampton’s profoundly rich and level Lavinia, Burfield’s richly multilayered, cunning Tamora and Houston’s deftly comic, yet louche Saturninus.
See it. Better than a game of thrones.
David O’Brien
When: 18 to 27 August
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Ian, John Frost and The Really Useful Group. Festival Theatre. 12 Aug 2016
The Adelaide Hills are alive with the sound of music. You're going to see it, aren't you? Your favourite musical of all time? You've known every song by heart since grade school? Live professional production? Well, what are you waiting for?
The Sound Of Music has always been everyone's favourite. Falling in love with the hired help is not an uncommon theme. Captain von Trapp falls for Maria; in fact, proposes to her in the very same scene as the fiancé walks out the door over a small matter, like supporting Hitler's Anschluss. The King of Siam has a placebo-affair with Anna the school teacher in The King And I. But those two parings weren't sordid like when my married cousin had it off with his housekeeper.
The story is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp (the governess played by Julie Andrews in the flick). The West Germans milked it for a couple of films before it was conceived as a musical vehicle for Mary Martin, who played Maria, when it opened on Broadway in 1959. Rogers and Hammerstein II's masterpiece snared five Tony awards, including best musical. Hollywood got its hooks into it for a 1965 release which won five Academy awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and a swag of other awards. It's the fifth highest grossing movie of all time. The Sound of Music soundtrack album was the biggest-selling album in the UK for three years, and the second biggest-selling of the 1960s.
That was the movie, but there's nothing like the magic of live theatre and orchestra, and this outstanding production is picture, pitch and posture perfect. What's not to like? The actors come with long resumes. Amy Lehpamer recently played in High Society and as Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her Maria is madcap comic business and sweet naivety; a person imbued with music, and searching for purpose until she latches onto Captain von Trapp's stoic integrity and his lovable children. With a joyful voice, her Maria is bursting with love and laughter and fun. Double Bravo!
Cameron Daddo as Captain Georg von Trapp is an impressive Austrian aristocrat looking impossibly impeccable in tailored suits. Funnily, his singing is as tiny as he is tall. David James as the politically aware impressario clowns through his schemes. The role of the Baroness Elsa Schräder does not stretch Marina Prior who plays her suitably corporate, and is a great foil of Maria.
Opera singer Jacqueline Dark nearly brings the house down with Climb Ev'ry Mountain and is a sympathetic Mother Abbess. One enjoys John Hannan's butler for his satirical take, and everybody else is great, too. It is a bit spooky at the Kaltzberg Festival when the Nazi stormtroopers with their rifles, swastikas and black uniforms surround the stage.
Oh, yes, the kids! Well, aren't they good! The six youngest are all home grown and they all have resumes, too. I saw Oscar (Award) Bridges only in June in Therry's Big Fish; he's a feisty talent, but so are the rest.
Everything seems to go flawlessly - musical director Luke Hunter's orchestra, complex set piece movements, lighting and great sound. The real Maria von Trapp wrote her memoir to promote the family's singing after the death of Georg in 1947. But she sold the rights to the West Germans, who onsold to the Americans. Oh, well, that's show business!
Double bravo director Jeremy Sams and the lot of it!
David Grybowski
When: 9 August to 4 September
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 6 Aug 2016
Director Geoff Brittain has exorcised a devilishly intelligent, tense and driven production from Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Miller wrote the play in 1953 in response to the activities of the US Congress spearheaded by Senator Joe McCarthy in their hunt for Communists. Miller thought it must have been life imitating art imitating life when he himself appeared in front of the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956. In short, it's a witch hunt, which actually sort of happened as presented in the play, in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. The Crucible is also one of the great four of Arthur Miller - the others being A View From The Bridge, All My Sons, and of course, Death Of A Salesman.
Brittain sets the action in what could pass as a manger - a plausible metaphor copasetic with the religious background of the play and Miller's penchant for grand language. I got all that from some straw on the floor and a wooden door. The action starts juicily enough with some girls undergoing wild gyrations in a psychedelic romp led by a Barbados slave (played with exotic abandon by Rhoda Sylvester). One thing leads to another, and before you know it, the girls are accused of flying, etc., and are egged on by the elders to name which good townspeople are doing the bewitching. Miller creates thrilling predicaments of moral hazards which are excellently dramatised by this wondrous cast of character actors.
It's not easy to pretend you're in 17th Century Salem using Miller's turn of phrase, but the vernacular was music to my ears. Trudi Williams' costumes and Richard Parkhill's lighting were a huge help, as were some projected period woodcuts of Satan's mischief, but the absence of a crucifix on the wall or around a reverend's neck was noted.
The young girls, led by Zoe Dibb as Abigail, were quite spooky at times. There was terrific eccentricity on offer from the likes of David Haviland, John R. Sabine, Esther Michelsen, Philip Lineton, Jean Walker, and Deborah Walsh playing the elderly local yokels. You could imagine the beads of sweat appear on Steve Marvanek's brow as his Deputy Governor Danforth (chief prosecutor) exquisitely felt the pressure of condemning to death as the witchery unraveled. Ben Todd was the weirdest Reverend Hale I have witnessed and it kinda worked. The protagonist farmer John Proctor as played by Kim Clark was wonderfully understated and contrasted nicely with others who were less cool and shouted a bit too much. Cheryl Douglas as John's wife, Elizabeth, also rendered a beautifully measured performance. Notwithstanding the above, there was some drama left on the table by these two and Danforth in the climactic scenes at dawn in the dungeon.
This is a very real and exciting Crucible indeed. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 6 to 20 August
Where: Little Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com