Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Shane Anthony and Critical Stages. Dunstan Playhouse. 15 Jun 2016
Marie Duplessis went from dirt poor waif to courtesan and much adored party girl of Paris in the 1800s, but died as she began life, poor and dead at 23.
How did her story begin? With a pony, an apple and a wealthy man.
Songs for The Fallen celebrates Duplessis and the era she emblazoned with her tempestuous passion, wit and guile in a fine, wild style.
Writer Sheridan Harbridge’s material is rich in playful comic intensity, perfectly suited to the production’s smooth moving blend of vaudeville, melodrama-laced burlesque, superbly balanced by Basil Hogios’ style perfect baroque pop score which would not be out of place any time after 1847 when style was high - the 1920s and 30s particularly.
Lisa Mimmocchi’s costumes and Michael Hankin’s fabulous round bed boudoir set, dotted with fantastic prop pieces work brilliantly in blessing a show stopper performance space with a sense of raffish, scrappy, decayed gentility in which Duplessis’s life ended.
Director Shane Anthony ties up all these magnificent strands with great assurance, delivering a crowd pleaser of a production.
Harbridge not only wrote the work, she is Marie Duplessis on stage. Her performance was a grand delight of high energy in song, fully charged by an electric, raw, powerfully alive characterisation. Not to be outdone, Ben Gerrard and Garth Holcombe offer equally strong performances in support in multiple roles.
Songs for The Fallen is that rare, happy mix of the musical and cabaret daring, as true cabaret should, to challenge to the way things are in the most seductive, subversive way possible.
David O’Brien
When: 15 to 16 June
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au
Adelaide Cabaret Festival with Master of Ceremonies Robyn Archer. World Premiere. Dunstan Playhouse. 13 Jun 16
The Weill File was The ‘Adelaide Cabaret Festival Gala’ for hard core cabaret aficionados of the Weimer Republic era and its great antagonist, Kurt Weill and all he inspired after him.
The heart of attraction of Weill for audiences and artists is his ability to assign brutally realist, starkly politicised lyrics concerning a genuinely brutal world with a score seemingly apposite the lyric, never failing to keep a listener hooked to it.
Fittingly, Australia’s most renowned expert on, and performer of, Cabaret from this era, Robyn Archer, was MC at an event which not only celebrated the work of Weill, but opened up the books, as it were, on the extraordinary diversity of his output from those Weimer days, right up to his Hollywood career.
Bringing such things to life on stage is a significant challenge. One acquitted superbly by a medley of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2016 artists banded together, including Eddie Perfect, Ali McGregor, Barb Jungr, Die Roten Punkte, Hew Parham and John Thorn. The six piece band accompanying them was no slouch either; Adelaide Cabaret 2016 artists’ class as well.
Given all Archer had to do was sing one and a half songs (and one would normally expect her to do the whole show, given her famous name is on the banner), what a joy that was that’s all she sang.
Hollywood glamour blended with political angst? Ali McGregor proved she could do that, Eddie Perfect too. Barb Jungr, the capable interpreter of an even later angry political era, was so totally in her element she practically stole the stage. Die Roten Punkte did things with an arrangement involving a Fender guitar with reverb Weill would have adored and Hew Parham ripped the soul of cabaret to shreds while John Thorn quietly addressed its most childlike fears.
David O’Brien
When: 13 June
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 12 Jun 2016
For the first time in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s history, the iconic Variety Gala has been expanded to include two new revues - a closing night festival affectionately entitled The Last Galah, with a focus on Australian music, and an afternoon Family Gala.
Ensuring the littlest cabaret lovers don’t miss out, the Family Gala is a child-friendly version of the opening night event, hosted by festival artistic directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect. Both have a solid pedigree in children’s entertainment; McGregor with Jazzamatazz! and Perfect on television’s Playschool, and they lead the festivities like pros.
Featuring a subset of the same performers as the Variety Gala, the family edition included Jitterbug and Peppa Pig theme song in a performance from Miss Behave’s Gameshow; rollicking rollerskating from Amy G; and plenty of opportunities for the little ones to join in – including a ball fight to close out the show!
Live theatre proponent, Ali McGregor, remarked at the Variety Gala that kids should be given every opportunity to experience live theatre – her hilarious take on Bjork’s It’s Oh So Quiet proving that she’s not afraid to put her money where her mouth is!
The Family Gala is a great opportunity for families and kids alike to sample the wares of the festival’s performers in a safe and encouraging environment. The activities surrounding the event made it all the more immersive for the little ones and a great day at the theatre.
Nicole Russo
When: 12 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Frank Woodley and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Festival Theatre. 11 Jun 2016
Maybe you weren't up at noon the day after the Cabaret Festival's opening night, but a heck of a lot of families and yours truly were, to be entertained in this oncer by one of Australia's most get-about comedians, Frank Woodley, in this Australian premiere show. Using a text by Lemony Snicket (I had to look up this bizarre appellation - it's the pen name for contemporary American novelist, Daniel Handler), "Detective" Woodley's mission was to find who murdered the composer, who was de-composing as he spoke. And Woodley had on stage with him no less than 55 musicians of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra plus conductor Brett Kelly - all suspects, and looking mighty suspicious, I might add.
Woodley questioned each section of the orchestra - first strings, second strings, violas, bass, wind, reeds, percussion, etc - and gave them each a hilarious voice and persona to answer his questions. There was a thing going on between the tuba and the harp. He weaved amongst the musos, incidentally making the kids aware of where the various parts of the orchestra are located and what they do. Brett Kelly led the ASO in fine and often rousing classical pieces relevant to and intertwined with the detective's investigations. The score has been created and assembled by contemporary American composer, Nathanial Stookey - the whole thing originally commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 2006.
This was an absolutely brilliant way to get the kids and other orchestral newbees to learn how an orchestra works, and for many it was the first time to even hear one live. Of course, the joke was that the conductor has been murdering composers for years - wherever you find a conductor, you will find a dead composer! A very funny and entertaining hour. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 11 June
Where: Festival Theatre, Festival Centre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Artspace. 11 Jun 2016
Lyricist Andrew Strano cultivates a '50s, Buddy Holly look in this world-toured show that Adelaide is finally getting a look at. Looking dapper in a blue sequin sport jacket, stretch-fit pants and complementary blue socks, Strano samples the oeuvre of songs about love that he created with composer Loclan Mackenzie-Spencer. Nothing escapes their attention in this theme - incest and self-pity are right in there with the real thing - and it stays pretty complex - musically and psychologically. Except it wasn't complex in the first overly rhymed offering, with Strano groaning with cliches, like "step at a time," and "hell of a climb." All the songs are of the contemporary musical theatre variety and while each is clever in its own way, they have an overarching stylistic similarity. You would be forgiven mistaking they had been lifted out of some Broadway show. Strano's narratives linking his songs betrayed his middle class -an addiction to social media, a rant song about Tigerair, and hoping we think about Salisbury the same way he thinks about Frankston. Pianist Robyn Womersley seemed to keep her distance while providing faultless accompaniment. Loads of the material seems to come from personal experience, and a view we would feel the same.
There was a great musical intelligence evident, but the creative team's ticker didn't talk.
David Grybowski
When: 11 June
Where: Artspace, Festival Centre
Bookings: Closed