Adelaide Festival. re:group performance collective. Space Theatre 4 Mar 2026
An 11-year-old girl for whom Werner Herzog is a pinup. It’s an amazing stretch, even when the girl is a passionate amateur documentary maker with high-tech equipment supplied as a guilt gift by her father.
Played by Yuna Ahn, Bub is the daughter of a ceramic artist and a nerdy microbiologist whose marriage, we discover as the play progresses, is fraught by the cruelty of mental illness: mother Penny’s bipolar disorder.
The difficult issue of control and lack of it in childhood is upended nicely by Bub having total control of the production itself. She is provided with two adult actors to embody whatever she wishes, these actors being made very vulnerable by being unrehearsed and changed on every performance.
Opening night in Adelaide featured Hew Parham and James Smith whose bravery in undertaking an unrehearsed commission was matched by their skill at improv and sight reading. Bravo both.
Ahn has been playing the role of Bub for a while which made her clipped delivery surprising in opening scenes. However, as the action developed, this tweenager in overalls gave a performance of profound commitment and it was all very moving.
Since she is but a child, the work safety rules about children working in theatre are iterated and demonstrated and the show has a 6-minute rest break for the young actress through which a delighted audience is treated to sweet biscuits.
There is some very interesting business in the production, various devices to elicit the plot and engage the audience. The actors are on and off camera, sometimes out of sync on the screen. There is a delicious streak of fun and games on the subject of Werner Herzog. There also on opening night were lots of students who got right into it and improv was all over the place. Of course, they may have been primed. Then again, there were roars of hilarity at the description of Herzog’s famous Fitzcarraldo movie, hinting that few could have seen it.
Bub, throughout, is trying to develop her documentary about her mother’s art exhibition and to pin down her elusive mother for an interview. She writes to Herzog about her trials and receives a reply.
The two actors respectfully take direction from Bub and read lines from screens and ipads and paper scripts as they go. Bub’s camera can travel on a dolly track which dominates centre stage and is to feature in a momentary theatrical thrill.
Time hangs heavy in several scenes, perchance reminding us that nothing is easy. Inflating a huge mattress, for instance, is not lively but, in the end of the day it is highly memorable and it makes its point. Similarly, Bub’s directions to cut and repeat scenes are both annoying and effective. Perhaps one could call it “visual didacticism”.
It is a very interesting theatre concept and a very important subject for, indeed, the commonality of mental illness is a vastly underrated phenomenon and a troubling puzzle for children.
The production comes from the re:group performance collective out of NSW, written by Mark Rogers and directed by Solomon Thomas. A series of other well-known Adelaide actors is lined up to step into the unrehearsed roles of Bub’s parents. Good luck to all.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 8 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
