Category: ff2015

[2015122] Nufonia Must Fall

[2015122] Nufonia Must Fall

Kid Koala @ Dunstan Playhouse

2:00pm, Sat 7 Mar 2015

I’d first encountered Kid Koala via a Lovage collaboration (led by Dan the Automator and featuring (amongst others) Mike Patton and Jennifer Charles), but – without wanting to appear super-ignorant or disrespectful – I didn’t realise he was that big a deal… so David Sefton’s enthusiastic announcement of his involvement in Nufonia Must Fall was a bit of a surprise.

Interest piqued, I found myself at a handy weekend matinée; there was also a large contingent of children in the crowd, which looked to be equalled by their accompanying parents. Upon entry, we were handed some well drawn (and random!) pictorial bingo cards: by marking off the objects on the card as they were introduced during the performance, a prize pack (containing all manner of Nufonia Must Fall goodies) could be won.

Based on Kid Koala’s graphic novel of the same name, Nufonia Must Fall was a curious mixed-media performance: film drives a puppet narrative along, while the Afiara Quartet underscore the story from above and Kid Koala scratches and accents the audio from within a pool of electronics near the wings. The story follows a lonely robot: fired from his job after the arrival of a newer model, he finds work in a sandwich shop, and soon falls in love with a regular customer.

Their courtship was – as one might expect from a kid-friendly romance – super-innocent and sweetly realised, and a good match for the otherwise inexpressive puppets, whose blank features allowed me to fill in the blanks. But the puppetry was, somewhat surprisingly, the weakest part of the production: the puppeteers certainly worked hard, meticulously setting up complex scenes with pliable characters in modelled sets (which were then projected for the audience via moveable cameras, allowing an element of cinematography to seep into the production), but this felt more like elaborate stop-motion animation than a comprehensive puppetry performance.

Still, the emotive bittersweet tale papered over the cracks in the visual performance, and the audio production was lovely throughout. As a beautiful and family-friendly show, Nufonia Must Fall proved to be thoroughly enjoyable.

[2015121] Ronny Chieng – You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

[2015121] Ronny Chieng – You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

Ronny Chieng @ Palace Nova – ExiMax

11:00pm, Fri 6 Mar 2015

I once saw Ronny Chieng perform as a Rhino Room headliner après-Fringe, and – possibly as a result of an adult beverage or two prior to the show – I thought it was amongst the funniest sets I’d ever seen: without resorting to smut or creative profanity, his observations and short stories were so well constructed that I laughed continuously throughout the entire set.

Rushing in from my previous show, I was kinda thrilled to see a long queue of punters zigzagging around the Palace lobby… because Chieng, I reasoned, deserved a big audience. But the age of the people in the queue furrowed my brow a little, because (a) I’m an ageist snob, and (2) they were all young.

There’s very little fanfare as Chieng takes to the stage, notebook in hand, and started hammering through his material… and there were plenty of laughs to be had, even with the relentless pace of his delivery. There’s little in the way of a central thread to the show; a five-minute ramble about how “young” people (under the age of 25) should just shut up (which provided the title for the show) was the closest thing to a narrative through-line. Chieng also spent a significant chunk of time talking about his own accomplishments – especially all the awards he’d won – which I found a little self-aggrandising (to an already enthusiastic and captive audience).

And whilst I had many chortles with Chieng’s topical and well-delivered humour, he’d clearly hammered through his intended set in record time, and then engaged with the audience to inspire more material. And these interactions were ragged, resulting in the audience heckling Chieng with requests for earlier material… a disappointing end to the show.

Ronny Chieng is still an awesome comedian – he’s got a wonderful sense of humour, and his ability to frame jokes is exceptional. But the ad hoc climax to the show, and the surprising amount of self-congratulatory material, took the shine off the rest of the performance.

[2015120] Vampillia

[2015120] Vampillia

The Red Paintings, Fourteen Nights at Sea, Vampillia @ Freemasons Hall

8:00pm, Fri 6 Mar 2015

David Sefton had giggled when announcing Vampillia at the Festival Launch; he had me on-board with the words “Japanese” and “chaos orchestra”. And, even with a cunningly-acquired running sheet for the bands on the bill, there was still little else for me to do this evening… no other shows could be squeezed in. Vampillia had dominated the planning for the evening, and I was expecting great things.

First up were (half of) The Red Paintings, with Trash McSweeney (acoustic guitar) and Alix Kol (violin) delivering a handful of decent tunes in a short, twenty minute set (though, as a longtime Tears For Fears fan, their cover inspired by the inferior version of Mad World annoyed me somewhat). More curious, though, was their stage prep: for such a short set, they seemed to spend a lot of time organising their dancing Groot doll, jarred alien foetus, and (toy) hamster wheel onstage.

Then came the five-piece Fourteen Nights At Sea: two guitars, bass, keys, and drums produced an forty-minute set of power-instrumentals, generating a massive wall of noise that could conceivably be oppressive. However, I found it super-exhilarating, especially when I started marvelling at the bass player who only played five different notes in the first half of their set.

I was watching carefully. I counted. I loved it.

Now – before The Red Paintings had kicked off their set, I’d grabbed a standing spot on the fence, just off-centre. After Fourteen Nights At Sea finished, a bit more of a crowd started gathering around the fence – Freemasons Hall was nowhere near capacity, so the fence-line was only a comfortable five-or-so deep. And a slender young woman – a little taller than me (not difficult), long black hair, slinky black dress, black lipstick – had joined me on the fence. Despite her incredibly soft voice, we’d got to talking: she was a big fan of Festival music (Morricone, Zorn), and she’d asked me whether I was as big a fan of Vampillia as she was.

The fact that I’d not heard any of their music before left her bemused, but the conversation continued amiably.

But, with the opening guitar chords of Vampillia, she threw both arms forward in a proper Hook ‘Em Horns salute (that had me almost feeling claustrophobic) and started head-banging more violently than anyone I’ve ever seen, at times almost losing balance over the fence. She was, most certainly, a devotee.

And then, at the end of each song, she’d demurely retract her limbs and gently cheer with a quiet little “Yay!”, accompanied by a soft golf clap. When the next song started, the Jekyll-and-Hyde cycle would begin anew. She was quite amazing to watch.

But even more amazing was the frontman of Vampillia himself.

He’d arrived onstage via the crowd, wearing a ghillie suit and clambering over the fence as best he could. Once he’d arrived (and removed the suit)… wow. Super-impressive guttural vocals, and a presence that just demanded your attention.

He roamed the front of the stage like an animal, pausing only to bellow some unintelligible Japanese into his microphone, and then he’d leap into the crowd while the rest of Vampillia played on: the drummer was relentless with his violent drumming, the guitarists and keyboards provided bizarre textures. And then there’s the bass player: painted white and wearing only a loin cloth, he appeared to be almost ghost-like, and had a bizarre presence onstage.

On one of his frequent trips into the crowd, the vocalist had dragged a table from the back of the Hall almost up to the fence, and started singing and stomping on it while gathering the crowd around to dance. Towards the end of the show, he disappeared outside the Hall completely, returning with a couple of wheelie bins; as the rest of the band petered out of their final song, the bass player jumped into the crowd and leapt head-first into the bin.

So… yeah. Vampillia’s music was exactly what was promised: a noisy, chaotic orchestra, and visually compelling to-boot. Add onto that the brilliant set by Fourteen Nights At Sea, and I was supremely happy with my lot. And, as I was leaving, I noticed David Sefton in the crowd, a big Cheshire-Cat shit-eating grin on his face. I went up to him, told him what an awesome experience I’d just had – “Told you!” he laughed – and I stole a selfie:

[2015119] Excavate

[2015119] Excavate

Gareth Hart @ The Edments Building

7:00pm, Fri 6 Mar 2015

I’ve really enjoyed Gareth Hart’s dance performances in the past; Ellipsis was a remarkably inventive collision of movement and staging, and Symphony of Strange continued those trends with a journey through a found space that titillated all the senses. Excavate appears to pursue those ideas once again, with Hart performing another course of precision movement with unique staging.

After the small (but still sell-out) audience met at the corner of Gawler & Fisher Place, we’re guided through the elevator to the rooftop of the old Edments building. There, we’re instructed to remove our shoes – a bit of a pain in the arse if you’re a toe-shoes guy like myself – and walk upon a narrow path of dirt into the middle of the rooftop, where we were to stand, earth beneath out feet.

Hart lay prostrate on a mound of dirt near the edge of the rooftop; behind him, a row of blue panels, and behind them, a view of the city skyline into the Adelaide Hills. Between Hart’s mound and the path on which the audience stood, a few carefully-positioned mounds supported some small tablets. These synchronised tablets played Edward Willoughby’s (excellent) electronic score, and provide some visual accompaniment that was hard to discern in the evening light.

Hart’s movements were not atypical of his previous performances: there’s a lot of precision involved, both in finicky small movements and larger sweeps (catching and spreading the dirt), and I sensed that there may be some significance to his motions… but, unlike his previous works, I didn’t really feel it. Brief moments where he wallowed in the dirt made me smile, but otherwise… I felt distant from the work.

I didn’t really get on with Excavate – I couldn’t find a central thread on which to organise my perception of the rest of the performance. As a result, the language of the dance felt foreign, incoherent, and inaccessible to me… which I found a little disappointing, given my love of Hart’s earlier works. But that dirt sure felt nice underfoot.

[2015118] The Sounds of Silent

[2015118] The Sounds of Silent

The Sounds of Silent @ ComedySuperNova – Venus Room

5:00pm, Fri 6 Mar 2015

I’ve no idea where the idea of providing live scores to silent movies came from, but I’d encountered the form previously with Bird Lantern’s stellar Sound Cinema (which principally worked with Buster Keaton’s The General).

For this event, Melbourne five-piece jazz ensemble The Sounds of Silent scored Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus. It’s a predominantly wind-based score: underpinned by keys and drums, there’s a trumpet and (glorious) trombone that are heavily used, with a bit of sax or clarinet over the top (the latter used for comic effect).

There was only a modest crowd (including Beth and myself) in for this performance, but the venue (the middle cinema of the Nova – my favourite) was spot-on, the movie was full of enjoyable Chaplin antics, and the music was fun. The concept remains sound, and I’d happily see another of these events.

[2015117] Sweep Under Rug

[2015117] Sweep Under Rug

East 55 Productions @ Star Theatre Two

11:00am, Fri 6 Mar 2015

Star Theatre Two seems to be the go-to venue for school drama productions in recent years; though nominally presented by East 55 Productions (a western Adelaide youth theatre group), Sweep Under Rug appeared to be the output of Year 11 SACE drama students from Seaton High School.

It initially appears to present an interesting science-fiction dystopia, where families are expected to have a human-like Bobby Sue android in their home; Bobby Sue is there to “guide” members of the household to make socially-correct decisions. But when the human characters in Sweep Under Rug choose to make their own decisions, and attempt to subvert the guidance – and monitoring – of Bobby Sue, pressure is bought to bear by other, more “correct” members of the society.

Sweep Under Rug is very much a youth-theatre play… but it seems to be an almost embarrassingly shallow idea of near-future dystopia. Most of the young cast do well, though the pivotal Bobby Sue isn’t quite cold or distant enough to be convincing. Direction is solid, and the staging is perfunctory…

…but the mostly unremarkable production can’t elevate the lightweight script. Look – it may be a perfectly adequate play to study within school – it does present some interesting ideas. But there wasn’t enough in the delivery to make the lacklustre text compelling.

[2015116] Marcel Blanch-de Wilt: Death of a Disco Dancer

[2015116] Marcel Blanch-de Wilt: Death of a Disco Dancer

Marcel Blanch-de Wilt @ Producers Cranny

10:00pm, Thu 5 Mar 2015

Marcel Blanch-de Wilt is a really lovely bloke. He’s totes friendly, put the hard yards into running a great venue this year (Producers), and has a fun podcast on which I get the occasional shout-out… even if it’s for the wrong reasons:

Oh well – you live by the sword, you die by the sword ;)

Death of a Disco Dancer is Marcel’s first solo standup show, and it too is really lovely. He grooves his way into show with an upbeat opening, all high-fives and happy tunes; before long, we’re deep into the core of the show, with Marcel telling us the perils of being a guy who enjoys a dance. A shoe to the head should dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, but not Marcel’s.

A reasonably well-structured set takes us into Marcel’s day job (casual teaching of shithead students), and also through some of his ventures into the entertainment industry. There’s also some freestyle rapping and a bit of self-reflection, but there’s not a mean-spirited phrase in the whole show, which is a lovely change… and he’s nice enough to offer a packet of chips around the crowd.

In fact, there’s only a couple of down-sides to this show, neither of which can really be attributed to Marcel. The first is that there was a tiny audience in this evening; I think I was the only paying punter, with another artist and maybe a couple of Producers staffers rounding out the crowd… this made me sad. The other downer was that, having seen Marcel perform a fair few spots at comedy rooms après-Fringe, and having consumed all his podcast output, a lot of his material was already familiar to me.

But you know what? That doesn’t make it any less funny. And when you’ve got a likeable guy telling funny, positive jokes onstage, that’s a pretty good recipe for a Good Time. I only wish there’d been more people there to see it.

[2015115] La Merda

[2015115] La Merda

Silvia Gallerano [performer], Cristian Ceresoli [writer] @ Space Theatre

8:30pm, Thu 5 Mar 2015

In the centre of the otherwise empty black stage is a tall stool, somewhat like a lifesaver’s vantage point at the beach. On top of it sits Silvia Gallerano, microphone in hand. She’s naked, and – initially – organises her limbs demurely, garnering as much modesty as she can given the circumstances.

When she starts reciting the first of Cristian Ceresoli’s three monologues, my attention is drawn – nay, dragged – to her mouth: stark red lipstick and bold movements accompany her speech, as her heavy accent is softened by forced language. She begins softly, but firmly, announcing that she is going to be a star… but the story takes us in a seedy direction, of charlatans and corruption. The softness in her voice ebbs away, being replaced by a curiosity, a disbelief, an anger… and the pace of her delivery – and her volume – grows.

Exponentially.

Almost as if a dam is giving way to the weight of water it holds back, Gallerano is suddenly ranting – then shouting, then screaming – into the microphone. My blood starts racing, my ears start bleeding, and I cannot look away from the raw naked fury gesticulating in front of me. The torrent of words reaches a piercing crescendo, then…

Blackout.

When the lights come up again, Gallerano has re-settled. Her voice is soft again. The next story starts, builds, and then assaults us… another blackout. And then we are subjected to the attack again, only this time the acceleration seems far quicker, and we are battered for far longer. There’s an uncomfortable silence at the end of the third act, when we don’t know whether the show has finished or not… whether Gallerano will blister our ears and our sensibilities with another stream of verbal violence.

Ceresoli’s mountainous scripts – all three monologues are incredibly dense – are deliriously political: broader societal politics are laid bare, informed by the corruption in the Italian system, but there’s much more said about personal politics… and especially the patriarchy. Ceresoli’s characters are abused, but they’re not helpless… and Gallerano’s actualisation of their voices is incredible.

La Merda – The Shit – was, without a doubt, one of the most brutal full-frontal assaults I’ve ever experienced in a theatre. And I can sum up my memory of La Merda in one word: Incendiary. Gallerano’s passionate ascension felt like it was igniting my mind, and by the end of the third act I felt absolutely ablaze with disgust and revulsion and shame. It feels odd trying to associate any of my usual positive phrases to this performance… but I am so glad that I got to experience it.

[2015114] Gillian Cosgriff: Whelmed.

[2015114] Gillian Cosgriff: Whelmed.

Gillian Cosgriff @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – The Spare Room

7:00pm, Thu 5 Mar 2015

I first encountered Gillian Cosgriff at a Cabaret Festival launch event a few years back; her stage presence and hilarious piano-and-vocals comedy song had her Shortlisted immediately. But whilst her show at that Cabaret Festival showed charm and promise, it wasn’t the knock-out hit I’d expected, and I remember leaving it… well, a little disappointed. Underwhelmed, if you will. But I wasn’t too put off, and I resolved to investigate her work further, given the chance.

But I wish that My Chance didn’t involve The Spare Room, which is rapidly becoming my most hated venue ever. Damn its tiny, tightly-packed, arse-numbing seats! But after a bubbly pre-show announcement, Cosgriff enters the sweltering ‘Room and sits at her keyboard, leaping into a musical comedy act which is genuinely entertaining… but also ephemeral.

Cosgriff has no qualms talking about up her abilities in the fields of comedy, singing, and piano, but – possibly as a result of her self-described high-achiever traits – she’s also viciously self-deprecating. She labels herself a “procrastachiever” (someone who elects to become exceptionally good at their distractions), though her idea of procrastination pales in comparison to mine (hey – I’m writing about a show I saw over nine months ago)… but her derision is also directed at social media-philes that feel compelled to tell us how happy they are, and she saves a loving bit of scorn for her Mum… and the Ugliest Bag in the World. And man, is that thing fugly.

Despite her light and airy demeanour, she dips into heavier topics – there’s positive references to mental health issues – and she also seemed quite literate (the analogy associated with the title of the show being one such example). But whilst the occasional references to her own star quality amuse, and there are a ton of fun little factoids that amuse in the moment, it’s all quite disparate… nothing really seemed to stick (especially when you submit, as I do, to a nightly deluge of ideas). It’s only a handful of notes that I made whilst running to my next show that conjure up a distinct memory of Whelmed.

And that, sadly, is how I felt after my first full Gillian Cosgriff show. So, despite the presentation and delivery and chortles at the time, I’m not really left with much: just a sense of musically charming jokes of no lasting impact.

[2015113] Disney Guy

[2015113] Disney Guy

Mark Trenwith @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Cupola

6:00pm, Thu 5 Mar 2015

Sometimes, even I question how shows make it onto my Shortlist… because it’s not until I’m standing in the queue that I notice Mark Trenwith’s name on the ticket.

Not that the presence of his name is a bad thing; I quite like his comedy… in small doses. Doing a five- or ten-minute spot at an ensemble show, he’s fantastic, and his “postcards” in the yearly Eurowision events are pretty bloody awesome. But his solo shows? Not so much.

But Disney Guy provided a much more cohesive framework for Trenwith to work around, as he presents photographic evidence of his obsession with all things Disney (especially Mickey Mouse) during his childhood. And, far from being a potentially zany – and self-deprecating – subjective review of his younger years, the show actually comes across as a little therapeutic.

Trenwith paints his childhood as ostensibly lonely: through primary school, he tells us, his overt fascination with Disney branded him an outsider. But he then details how, desperate for social acceptance, he buried that love in order to up his cool-factor… and, in turn, tried to find a new identity in other schooling clichés (teacher’s pet, unruly trouble-maker, etc). But repressed personality traits have a habit of bubbling through the surface, and in the end he decides to stay true to himself and own his passion as the Disney Guy.

Because of the overriding theme of repression, Disney Guy wound up being far more downbeat than I would have imagined… there were plenty of laughs to be had, but some of them were more pitying and nervous-understanding than driven by the humour. And Trenwith’s trademark energy as he presented his material seemed almost dissonant compared to his content; having said that, the AV components of his show were perfectly balanced, and it was a genuinely enjoyable way to compare (and contemplate) my own issues (vis-à-vis my current obsession with pop music).

[2015112] Grabbin’ a piece

[2015112] Grabbin’ a piece

Mega-Choice @ Producers Warehouse

9:55pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

Over-ambitious scheduling sees me trying to get from Gluttony to Producers Hotel… in one minute. A piece of piss to run, but in my haste I wind up bumping into someone leaving Producers, with the resulting tumble smashing my pedometer.

(Yeah, I wear a pedometer. Two, actually. Wii Fit U doesn’t play itself, you know. Did you know that unlocking all the outfits requires you to walk over fifteen thousand kilometres?)

So – I enter Producers Warehouse and wait for the short-sprint sweat to start rolling off me, wanting to not sit near the front for that reason. But it’s an uncomfortably single-digit crowd, so I perch myself in the second row, but on the aisle.

Matthew Barker – oft seen performing in early Gravity Boots performances – plays the Devil, resplendent in deep red facepaint and a ferociously tight leotard. The Devil wants to make it big on Broadway, but he’s dismayed by the fact that he’s only a double-threat: his singing is great, he can act just fine, but his dancing is… well, if his stage directions don’t include movement, then he might be able to avoid an incident.

And that’s the core of Grabbin’ a piece – we’re dealing with a emotionally fragile, campily-voiced Devil who has stars in his eyes & fame on his mind, but a deep-seated insecurity… despite still yielding the power of his Lord of Darkness day-job.

Written by James Lloyd-Smith (one of the mighty Gravity Boots), Matthew Barker absolutely nails the balance between insecurity and malevolence of his Devil, and belts out the numerous songs in this mini-musical piece with gusto. It’s a bizarre, camp, and funny performance that manages to provide many genuinely eyebrow-raising WTF moments, whist still delivering a coherent storyline. The only problem: the lack of audience… a fuller house would have seen Barker’s Devil surfing a wave of laughter all the way to Broadway.

[2015111] Boris & Sergey’s Vaudevillian Adventure

[2015111] Boris & Sergey’s Vaudevillian Adventure

Flabbergast Theatre @ Gluttony – The Bally

8:45pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

Last year’s Boris & Sergey experience was a genuine eye-opener: brilliant puppetry, a hugely entertaining script, and wonderful audience interaction made it a highlight of the year. And, having seen their kids’ show earlier this year, I was well-and-truly looking forward to seeing Boris & Sergey in all their filthy-mouthed, adult-themed glory once again.

The show was, essentially, identical to last year’s: all the stock content was still in place, including the amazing chase sequence, Boris’ Wuthering Heights performance, audience face-fucking, and the meta-puppetry references. The audience participation bits (absent from the children’s version) were still there, too, and the volunteers this evening – Liz and Simon – provided perfect material for the puppeteers from Flabbergast to work with, with hazy drunken half-understandings leading to bouts of hilarity.

And that’s pretty much all there is to say. Boris and Sergey are still the best puppetry under the Fringe banner, and present some of the best comedy, too.

[2015110] Marathon

[2015110] Marathon

TJ Dawe @ Bakehouse Theatre – Main Stage

7:30pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

After the wonderful Medicine earlier this year, TJ Dawe has three-from-three in my eyes… so there was no arm-twisting required for me to slot Marathon into The Schedule.

As with his other shows, there’s no real staging to speak of: it’s just Dawe, spot-lit, standing on an empty stage. And whilst his monologues all tend to be personal, Marathon feels a little bit more intimate… because Dawe digs deep into his childhood and teenage years to investigate his own personality traits, with references to larger psychological concepts.

That sounds pretty dry… but, as usual, Dawe brings it to life in creative and unusual ways.

The central narrative thread is based around Dawe’s high school track involvement, which (in turn) yielded a humorous and astute analysis of walking as a competitive sport; the detour into steeplechase – and a formidable opponent – leads to a hilarious denouement that challenges the nice-guys-finish-last stereotype… but only for awhile.

Marathon continued TJ Dawe’s perfect hit-rate with me: it proved to be yet another wonderfully entertaining monologue. There’s literally no down-side to his performances: they’re funny, they’re thoughtful, and his blending of scientific fact and stranger-than-fiction personal stories yield brilliantly engaging theatre.

[2015109] 2 States of Lauren Bok and Bridget Fahey

[2015109] 2 States of Lauren Bok and Bridget Fahey

Lauren Bok & Bridget Fahey @ Producers Cranny

6:15pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

I’m a big fan of Lauren Bok, but I’d only seen Bridget Fahey do the odd spot at non-Fringe-season comedy nights… but Bok’s dual-headlining show with Claire Sullivan had been such a success that I had no qualms slotting this show in.

But – as was unfortunately common this year – there was a very light crowd in for this performance: Gordon Southern (who was unusually quiet), his wife, and myself. As we entered the Cranny, Bok and Fahey were scatting with big Cheshire-cat grins on their faces; they seemed utterly delighted to have this audience, which was nice.

The girls co-operatively opened the show, cracking each other up as they did so (and continued to amuse each other during the performance); after tinkering with some gigglish accents and improvised bits, we – the audience – are given the mike to introduce them before they started the show proper. Needless to say, my intro was complete shit compared to Southern’s off-the-cuff work of art.

Thereafter, Bok and Fahey alternate between solo and duo spots; Fahey’s stories included the awesome description of “coming out” as a vegetarian (her grandmother being her biggest obstacle). Bok regaled us with tales of the office life of temp workers and boyfriend dilemmas, with cheekily creative – but thinly-veiled – sex references.

The closer is an absolute belter, with a ukulele (Fahey) and kazoo (Bok) combination (plus maracas-in-the-bra) musical conglomeration, merging the works of Survivor and Journey for a messy overlapped-vocal delight.

These 2 States were lots of fun this evening… but, as usual, I find myself wondering how much better – or just different – the show would have been with a bigger crowd. As it was, Bok and Fahey worked their minuscule crowd just fine, and the three of us had a great – and very personalised – time, but I wanted much more for the girls on stage.

[2015108] SmallWaR

[2015108] SmallWaR

SKaGeN @ Space Theatre

2:00pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

After last year’s BigMouth, I was willing to commit to anything that Valentijn Dhaenens was involved in… and, on the surface, SmallWaR – conceived as a companion piece when touring BigMouth – looked to be cut from the same cloth.

Where his previous piece dealt with well-known, public-aware speeches, SmallWaR deals with a much smaller scale – it’s a much more personal narrative, dealing with two distinct entities: the nurse and the wounded. Dhaenens plays the nurse in real-time, and his portrayal of the wounded (who come in many forms, but focus on an amputee that the nurse is directly tending) is projected or screened onto multiple surfaces around the stage.

SmallWaR creates a tangible – and moving – sense of horror in the helplessness of the wounded, and the anti-war messages inferred from the characters borders on polemic. But it’s all so cold: the staging, though technically adept, seems unnecessarily complex, and there’s a lack of subtlety to the production that makes the message feel one-note.

That’s not taking anything away from the message: SmallWaR has something to say, and is able to distill that message for maximum impact. But the unwavering method of its delivery left me feeling numb by the end of the show; not from the horror, but by the constant attacks on its subject.