Category: ff2015

[2015107] Joke Thieves

[2015107] Joke Thieves

Will Mars (with Luisa Omielan, Wilfredo, Vladimir McTavish, & Sarah Bennetto) @ Austral Hotel – The Bunka

10:30pm, Tue 3 Mar 2015

Like Set List, Joke Thieves is a concept that I’m surprised I’ve not seen before: it essentially pits comics against each other in a competition to see who can best tell the other person’s joke. Each comic tells their own joke, in their own style, before they swap content… and are then judged by the audience. It’s a brilliant idea, and it raises a lot of strategic questions: does the comic use the material that they know absolutely kills, and risk their opposition leveraging the same strong jokes? Or do they use less-strong material, hoping that they’ll outperform the opposition? Or do they leverage material which would be wholly unsuitable for the opposition to perform?

This evening’s Joke Thieves had plenty of opportunities for the latter option, with two female-versus-male battles. Luisa Omielan (who I’d not seen before, but had an enjoyable stage presence) kicked off the show with some reasonable jokes, but Wilfredo’s set absolutely baffled: a mumbly, clownish mess, he’s much more suited to character comedy than standup. Omielan adapted his material with apparent ease, casting her own spin on things… Wilfredo could barely remember her set. Winner: Omielan, by several lengths.

The second battle was a bit more evenly matched: Sarah Bennetto’s usual gentle story-based comedy was torn apart and rebuilt with brutal hilarity by Vladimir McTavish, whose own (weaker) material was tweaked by Bennetto (and her copious notes)… but without really changing in any way. Winner: McTavish, with extra points for the creativity of his adaptation.

Joke Thieves is a bloody interesting concept that, with the right comedians (and a carefree attitude toward their material), could produce an absolutely storming night of comedy. But with only half-a-dozen paying punters in the audience (and a handful of other comics), and some defensive play from contestants, this evening’s performance was a little more sedate. Entertaining, to be sure, but one suspects other shows may have been better (or worse!).

[2015106] The Ronin

[2015106] The Ronin

Lliam Amor @ Grace Emily Hotel

9:00pm, Tue 3 Mar 2015

In my usual bumble-around-the-Fringe semi-planned chaos, I didn’t realise that The Ronin was part of the Adelaide Improv Festival – a series of over thirty shows spread over eleven days in the middle of the Fringe. But most of the other punters here most certainly did know that, because they appeared to be improv regulars… they were well settled into the Grace Emily, and my arrival (and selection of empty seat) raised a curious eyebrow or two.

I’d previously encountered Lliam Amor (alongside Dave Bloustien) in 2011, but it’s always interesting to see how performers react in an improv situation; Amor kicked off proceedings with a few rounds of “Show Us Your Ditties,” where snippets of random tunes are used to inspire short pieces. This struck me as a pretty cool – though high-pressured way – to go about improv scene selection; Amor’s resultant pieces were entertaining enough, though they often hit a brick wall once the initial inspiration dried up.

The more traditional improv route of garnering fragments from the audience sprang a surprise… the chap in the audience (another improvver, naturally) had an uncannily familiar background: an engineer with computer science background (and currently working with 3D models), he offered up “tennis” and “monocle” as inspiration.

Lliam Amor is fine as an improv artist… but let’s be honest, here: I’m not a massive fan of the improv form. I’d much rather see something well-scripted, thankyouverymuch. But it was super interesting to see how much Amor relied on contrived (and often hilariously over-cooked) accents and ridiculous character names to set the scene; if nothing else, that was a great improv lesson for me.

As for the Adelaide Improv Festival… who knew?

[2015105] Darkle

[2015105] Darkle

Lazy Saturday Productions @ Holden Street Theatres – The Studio

7:30pm, Tue 3 Mar 2015

A nigh-on nonsensical tirade of interwoven dialogue greets the audience at the beginning of Darkle; three (presumed) teenagers are sprawled around a scruffy shared apartment when the lights come up, and their babble (in which the name of the play is dropped like a hand-grenade) is almost free-form in nature. It does, however, paint them with a blasé brush: they believe that they are invincible.

The introduction of their landlord, Mr Stringer, adds a bit of a creepy vibe to proceedings… but it’s not until the three hoodlums decide to kidnap (and, later, kill) his dog Max that things feel dark. Really dark. And, somewhat surprisingly, political.

And confusing.

The female characters show remorse over the dead dog, but undercut that tangible response with effervescent giggle fits. And the denouement of the play – with Stringer gathering the dog-murdering, landlord-torturing kids around him – is baffling: he’s adopting them as family.

And I’ve no idea why.

Very little of Darkle makes sense. The plot makes no sense. The motivations and actions of the characters make no sense. And my enjoyment of this inexplicable play makes no sense. And I certainly did enjoy it – it was performed with an impressive commitment and unflappable enthusiasm, and its content certainly commanded my attention. The only problem is that I have no idea what its intent was.

[2015104] Anna Robi and the House of Dogs

[2015104] Anna Robi and the House of Dogs

Gobsmacked Theatre Company @ Holden Street Theatres – The Studio

6:00pm, Tue 3 Mar 2015

So I’m out at Holden Street and, as usual for my first-show-of-the-day, I’m early. I pop out to the ticket office to have a chat – how have crowds been, what are the big shows, the usual thing. While I’m there, a group of women buy their tickets for Anna Robi and the House of Dogs, and as they walk away I hear one lament that they didn’t bring their kids along. “I think they’d have really liked this,” she said.

But after the ridiculously filthy, profane, and perhaps physically impossible phone sex call that played at the opening of the show, I reckon the women may have thought otherwise.

Anna is at one end of the phone line, desperately trying to build a relationship with Roger on the other… but they’ve connected via a phone sex chat line, and whilst Anna is seeking romance, Roger is masturbating furiously (to apparently great results) to her gentle platitudes.

Sharing the room with Anna is her Mother – a crude, bitter, cantankerous hoarder who refuses to allow Anna any autonomy. As Anna shares her dream of meeting a man – maybe even losing her virginity – Mother objects in the strongest (and wrongest) way possible: by demonstrating the “joy” of sex with one of her many dogs.

Yep, it’s that kind of show.

Anna builds up an idea in her mind that Roger is her White Knight… but the reality is far seedier, and made even more problematic when Mother decides that she wants a piece of Roger, too. Anna’s attempts to get Mother out of the bedroom (so that she can consummate her misguided relationship with Roger) are hilarious; Mother’s ensnaring of the joyous man offers some of the best lines in the show. Roger’s dialogue is magnificently vulgar and Australian: “I brought the frangers!” he exclaims with glee, before concerned surprise fills his voice as he observes that “Real gash looks different.”

The stage is covered in newspaper – to assist with the dog waste, of course, evidence of which is scattered throughout – and the grimy bed at its centre is surrounded by boxes of shopping catalogues… it’s a suitably squalid setting. The cast are uniformly excellent – Anna is played relatively straight by Hannah Nicholson, whereas Mother’s lines are milked for every filth-encrusted smirk by Emily Branford. The dual envisionings of Roger are wonderfully brought to life by Phil Harker-Smith.

Anna Robi and the House of Dogs is utterly vulgar… it’s sheer filth. But behind the almost overwhelming coarseness, there’s a hint of honest truth… and it is also stupidly good fun, and exactly the type of theatre that I want to see around Fringe-time: experimental, raucous, enthusiastic.

[2015103] Jenny Collier: Love in the Time of Collier

[2015103] Jenny Collier: Love in the Time of Collier

Jenny Collier @ Austral Hotel – The Bunka

10:30pm, Mon 2 Mar 2015

I didn’t really know what to expect from Jenny Collier… and not many others were keen to investigate, either. With a crowd that would have struggled to hit double-digits – two small clumps of drunken punters, plus me – Collier swishes onto the stage like a breath of fresh air.

A lot of Collier’s material is familiar ground for a female comic – relationship hassles, tales of singledom, societal pressures to have children – but it’s her delivery that sets her apart. If you only knew her act by the text of the jokes – taking away her gorgeous voice and appearance – you’d imagine that she was a filthy-mouthed school class clown. And she owns her crudity, too, as she describes how she scares men away with her unladylike speech (“Where’s the shitter?… Sorry, where’s the ladies shitter?”), and the fact that she’s usually the first person to drop the C-Bomb (…at a wedding).

There’s more laughs to be had at her Welsh heritage, the dissonance between her age and young appearance (“Is your mummy home?”), and some fantastic jokes gleaned from her work in a fertility clinic. And Collier’s methods for introducing farting into a new relationship? Fantastic.

Jenny Collier was a real surprise packet. She has a ferocious wit, a wonderfully cunning way with words, and an utterly brutal self-deprecation mechanism. And, better yet, she didn’t outstay her welcome, with a perfectly timed and weighted set.

[2015102] This Is Not A Love Song

[2015102] This Is Not A Love Song

Greg Fleet, Shane Adamczak, Tegan Mulvaney, Mick Moriarty [music] @ Tuxedo Cat – Perske Pavilion

8:30pm, Mon 2 Mar 2015

I’ve always maintained that Greg Fleet can write, but his solo standup shows have mostly been a bit patchy for me. But a piece of theatre, that has to be fleshed out and delivered as a team by a cast of differing viewpoints? That would have be ensure more consistent & balanced writing, right?

But early signs did not look good. Fleet acts as a narrator, looking back in time at a defining relationship between his younger self (Jimmy, played by Shane Adamczak) and Sophie (Tegan Mulvaney, who also directs, and sounded – in voice and text – like my Significant Other). Initially, there’s some awkward elements of Fleet’s standup on display, and the interactions between Jimmy and Sophie are stiff; there’s still some great moments (the pawing through of record collections elicits a joyful familiarity), but something still feels… not quite right.

The moment where Fleet’s narrative invades his memory – when Sophie can actually see his future self in her present – is where the show starts to truly shine. At that stage, the conflict (and love) between all three characters comes alive, and the rest of the performance is a delight.

The short excerpts of period pop songs – set to Mick Moriarty’s live guitar – were performed well by the cast… even with Fleet’s gruff vocals. Having said that, most of the snippets are short enough not to matter, meaning that the occasional off-note (and odd harmonies) didn’t impact the performance. There were some really neat bits, however: the vocal lines in Mr. Blue Sky were pretty cool.

After a bit of a clunky start, This Is Not A Love Song grew into a pearler of a relationship breakdown memoir. I was prompted by a lot of familiar moments of my own relationships akin to Jimmy & Sophie’s, leading to a personal connection to the play; if only the front end had been stronger, this would have been unmissable.

[2015101] A Four-Eyed Guide to the Galaxy

[2015101] A Four-Eyed Guide to the Galaxy

Rowena Hutson @ Tuxedo Cat – Rivers Studio

7:15pm, Mon 2 Mar 2015

Rowena Hutson’s previous show was a thoughtful, challenging affair that was unique in its whimsical presentation; this carried through to A Four-Eyed Guide to the Galaxy. Hutson plays an enthusiastic junior astronomer, dubiously named “Buzz Lightyear”; broken-hearted, she dreams of travelling to the stars with her equally-broken sausage dog, Sputnik 2. Her mode of travel: a lo-fi cardboard space ship.

Buzz appears in her spacesuit (astronomy-themed pyjamas), with Sputnik 2 strapped to her chest; as she plots and engages in her travel, she addresses the audience with beautifully lyrical poetic text. But there’s also a sweet childish naïvety to her speech, too, which adds elements of humour to proceedings; lo-fi props, in conjunction with some cheerful audience interaction, created an ethereal sense of space at a low cost.

The script is both charmingly simplistic and coherently detailed; it’s the perfect story for anyone who has ever dreamt of going to space. But the recurring themes of loneliness create a pessimistic aftertaste which contrasts the quirky humour found elsewhere in the script; Hutson somehow creates a sweet atmosphere that makes you smile one moment, and feel impossibly sad – and yet hopelessly optimistic – the next.

A Four-Eyed Guide to the Galaxy was a deceptively deep piece of lo-fi theatre. Emotionally complex, and alternating between scientific fact and implausibility, it’s another compelling production from Hutson, and firmly entrenches her on the Must-See List.

[2015100] Who Is Dani Cabs?

[2015100] Who Is Dani Cabs?

Dani Cabs @ Tuxedo Cat – Cusack Theatre

6:00pm, Mon 2 Mar 2015

The simple answer to the question posed by the title is: Dani Cabs is a first-generation Australian of Uruguayan descent, with a penchant for “orange”, a passion for making videos and slideshows, and with deep-rooted issues of acceptance within his family.

There. Glibly easy.

But Dani answers the question himself with around an hour of mixed performances: there’s some straight standup, there’s some well-intentioned audience interactions, there’s more solemn theatrical soliloquies, and there’s a plethora of pre-recorded “ads” which do nothing other than constantly reinforce Dani’s inexplicable fixation on orange – whether it be the fruit, or plastic ponchos (leading to the eyebrow-raising repetition of “poncho orange”).

Dani likes poking fun at himself, whether it be through his slideshows or his comedy – his brief exploration into the Latin American passion for football is well worth a chuckle, and he mines the pressures of masculinity for a few moments of self-deprecation – but when he starts talking about his love of making movies, and showing us some of the snippets of video that bring him joy… well, I started feeling a little lost.

Whilst he has plenty of energy onstage, and clearly wants to be honest and transparent (as befitting the title), a lot of Dani’s material feels a little half-baked and… well, indulgent. A lot of his short stories seemed utterly disconnected from any other thread in the show, and of interest only to the people who were present at the time. His audience interaction was awkward, and – far from making him appear to be the wacky guy he clearly wanted to project – he just came across as a little bit desperate… the attempts to add weight through more serious topics felt like an attempt to balance his character.

And then I’m called up onstage to act as a focal point for Dani: I’m supposed to be his brother, respond as his brother. And suddenly it doesn’t feel like undulating comical theatre any more… it feels like a therapy session. It feels like I am part of Dani’s therapy.

And that’s too much to ask of an audience member.

It was difficult to get enthused about Who Is Dani Cabs? after being onstage: I felt like I’d been part of a super-self-indulgent piece of theatre, and in no way did it feel like Dani had earned the right to be so bold. The changes in tone – from almost madcap zaniness to morbid look-at-my-problems – also killed any goodwill in the show… which is a shame, because Dani was always an awesome guy to talk to off-stage.

[2015099] Riverrun

[2015099] Riverrun

Olwen Fouéré @ Dunstan Playhouse

2:00pm, Mon 2 Mar 2015

It may surprise some people (and I really do mean “some”) that, despite all this art stuff I see, I’m actually pretty culturally illiterate. To wit: I don’t have any formal knowledge of anything to do with James Joyce. So it wasn’t (the source of) the content of Riverrun that drew me to this performance… rather, it was David Sefton’s delight at describing the content that convinced me that this would be worth a punt.

And Sefton’s enthusiasm is warranted, if only because of the weirdness of the synopsis: Olwen Fouéré writes, directs, and performs a monologue “in the voice of the river in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake“. Now, with no knowledge of the book, that sounds like a compellingly odd idea; having read a little after-the-fact about the “challenging” nature of Finnegans Wake, and the fact that the book apparently contains references to many rivers from around the world, it now seems completely nuts.

Fouéré is a striking presence as we enter the Playhouse, waiting in the inky dark in a black suit, her white shirt almost as much of a beacon as her white hair. And with the house seated, the lights drop; she very deliberately takes off her shoes, and launches into her Riverrun.

And I think I speak for at least half the audience when I say that I could not understand a word she said.

For at least the first few minutes of Fouéré’s delivery, her thick accent makes it almost impossible to discern words: once my ears adjust, I start being able to pull words and fragments of sentences out of the torrent being presented. Towards the end of the performance, I recall discerning an entire sentence, and feeling very pleased with myself.

But the physicality of Fouéré’s performance is undeniably beautiful. She roams the stage with an almost balletic elegance, and she can twist the mood in the room by standing minutely taller and changing her expression, puffing out her chest. It’s so well weighted, so well performed, that I want to laud Riverrun…

…but it’s really, really difficult to do that when you can’t engage with the text. Which, in turn, makes me contemplate whether I’d feel differently had this been presented in a completely different language.

It’s not just me who remained disengaged: a chap behind me nodded off to sleep, and I heard the gentle thudding and nestling of his slumber. And there was obviously a contingent who couldn’t wait for the performance to be over: after Fouéré removed her jacket and walked backwards, swiping the jacket across the floor, people started applauding… only to hush when she returned to stage centre for a spotlight on her face to shrink to nothing, catching her cracking a broad smile as it did so.

So: I had no idea what Riverrun was about, but I enjoyed watching it happen. Maybe some knowledge of Joyce would have helped comprehension; immersion in Irish accents would certainly have made the text more audibly legible. But maybe that would have taken away the mystery, too, and detracted from the joy I found in the physical performance.

[2015098] Smile Practice

[2015098] Smile Practice

Anith Mukherjee & Blake Mitchell @ Gluttony – Pigtails

10:50pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

It’s the final show for Smile Practice, and the final night of Clipsal – the Cold Chisel concert has wrapped up, and sun-soaked & sozzled drunks are streaming past – and through – Gluttony on their way (hopefully) home. As I walk into Pigtails, I realise that there’s only three people in the audience – two women and myself. I sit in the front row, trying to offer the artists some support, and I try to coax the women to sit a little closer to the front, too – they refuse.

Good call on their part.

On stage, Anith Mukherjee is sitting on Blake Mitchell’s shoulders; they’re covered in a cloth. The show (nominally) starts, and the man-mountain gives noisy birth to a series of plush dolls. I laugh at the absurdity of the image; the women aren’t so sure.

Mukherjee whips off the cloth, and the two men see the light audience: they run outside, and we can hear a commotion. They return, dragging wobbly and confused people in Cold Chisel t-shirts back in with them… and straight onstage. The two men they’ve abducted jump off straight away and sit in the front row, leaving two women onstage… one is somewhat lucid and scared, the other one is blind drunk and barely solid. Mukherjee and Mitchell attempt to interact with them, but – after the women can’t follow their intent – they banish them off the stage.

I’m summoned onstage, and have to read a bedtime story to the hefty Mitchell, who had donned a bonnet and pacifier. “Once upon a time I had sex with my sister and she stuck her finger up my bum and I liked it. The end.” The Cold Chisel fans were gobsmacked, and started WTF-ing amongst themselves with wide eyes. The repetitions of “Who likes chicken? I like chicken!” didn’t assuage their concerns.

Mukherjee pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and starts reading a list of petty grievances; Mitchell spots more Cold Chisel t-shirts peering into the Pigtails tent and rushes out to coerce them into sitting down inside. The rabble from the growing audience grows louder; Mukherjee grabs their attention by dropping his pants, revealing his genitals… which were covered in purple glitter.

There’s more exclamations and head shaking. The super-drunk woman climbs up onstage to talk to Mukherjee; he jumps off the stage – far too nimble for her, even with his pants around his ankles – and sits between me and one of the other men. The other man immediately shuffles away from him; the drunk woman onstage is slurring to her friends and cracking herself up. Mukherjee turns to me: “What is this show?” he asks. “Some drunk woman cackling,” I reply.

Mitchell returns to the stage, and the drunk woman starts slurring at him. At the goading of her friends, she starts drunkedly sleazing onto him; she latches onto him with a slobbery open-mouthed kiss, before calling him a “dirty fucker” and getting up to leave, wobbling dangerously as she did so.

I turned to Mukherjee, still sitting next to me: “Do you guys have liability insurance?” He looks at me, determined that I was only half-joking, and – as if to underline my question – the drunk woman slides down two steps from the stage on her arse. “We walked twenty people last night,” he proudly grinned, his nether regions still sparkling purple flashes.

Eventually Mukherjee stands up again, and Mitchell hands out party poppers. They proceed to count us in for the popping: “One, two, three… …four, five, six,” They continued all the way to a triumphant “Seventeen!” until they celebrated the end of the show; Mukherjee stood by the exit, still exposing his sparkling purple junk, with a hat, asking for donations from the freeloaders. I gave them another twenty dollars.

Smile Practice was quite spectacular in the most WTF way possible. I mean, I had one of the performers sitting naked (well, with his pants around his ankles) next to me for most of the show. His genitals were covered in purple glitter. On stage, a super-drunk freeloader was kissing the other performer before stumbling down the stairs and heckling incoherently. It was creative anarchy that could have gone terribly wrong, but – in my mind – was oh-so-right.

[2015097] Kirsty Mac – Feminazi

[2015097] Kirsty Mac – Feminazi

Kirsty Mac @ Gluttony – Pigtails

9:50pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

So I’m one of those guys who likes to think of himself as a feminist… and I’m also one of those guys that feels very nervous doing so, simply because I know I can’t experience the female perspective. So I’m always interested when someone who does have a “purer” feminist perspective comes along with something to say.

Kirsty Mac is one of those people.

Whilst she kicks off proceedings proclaiming that she’s been (perhaps inappropriately) called a “feminazi” so often that she’s decided to own the term, she soon migrates to the type of material that I’d expect from a feminist comic: calling out misogyny, gender inequality, and men’s inability to purchase tampons. But whilst a lot of her vitriol is aimed at men, women – especially the patronising mothers who decry her feminism as outlandish – cop a serve, too.

Much is made of dating pressures that are put on her due to her age (mid-thirties), with the assumption that she’s seeking a mate for procreation (which, she assures us through song, she most certainly is not). There’s also a brief wander into politics (with vicious insight into the rise and fall of Julia Gillard), and a curious (but patchy) Q&A session with the audience about feminism.

I really enjoyed Feminazi: I like Kirsty Mac’s style, and the fact that she can casually drop c-bombs with extreme precision. The fact that her material is genuinely funny – as well as being gender political – is icing on the cake.

[2015096] Icarus Falling

[2015096] Icarus Falling

Scott Wings @ Tuxedo Cat – Cusack Theatre

8:30pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

Scott Wings takes to the stage, and within seconds I know I’m going to adore Icarus Falling: he has invoked the myth of Icarus, he’s used repetition in his poetry with words that conjure white clouds of wonderment in my mind, and he’s dropped an f-bomb in the perfect spot.

And then he, as Icarus, gets the audience to watch him fall.

He demands of the crowd: “Close eyes. Open! Close. Open!” as he repeatedly jumps, and the result is that everyone generates a little flicker animation of Wings falling through the air.

It’s such a simple device that I’m amazed that I haven’t seen it before… but I was left speechless, stunned by it. Those moments of Wings suspended in the air are etched into my mind now.

But Icarus falls, and we soon move into the guts of the play: the relationship between Scott and his abusive father, through the lens of Icarus and Daedalus. And whilst Daedalus tried to warn Icarus of the dangers of his hubris, Scott’s father seems… well, rather less complimentary. Less heroic. Repeated lines like “You’re father’s an arsehole” give it away.

The poems that form the text of Icarus Falling shift rhythms and styles, get broken and interrupted by each other, as it becomes clear that Icarus – Scott – is also battling depression. Lucid thoughts and tales are cut off by suicidal thoughts, and anti-suicidal thoughts… and then She enters the play, and Wings plays with Her as Icarus plays with the sky, and his words around Her are just so beautiful… How to Bottle Lightning is an absolutely gorgeous poem.

And then there’s more depression, Daedalus harshly lectures Icarus, and a strange fixation on Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory. Bruce Willis and Michael Bay. And a tremendous Ocarina of Time reference which made my head sing, even if he blatantly explains it. And the denouement suggests that maybe the legend of Icarus is not actually about pride, or hubris, or obeying the word of your parents… maybe it’s about depression. Maybe it’s about manic depression.

It should be abundantly clear that I abso-fucking-lutely loved this show. Icarus Falling is one of those utterly amazing Fringe pieces that you just want to get everyone you know to go and see. Smart, funny, anarchic, sad, and poignant, it’s a mesmerisingly deep piece of work that just keeps giving the more you read it… and on my copy of the script, accompanied by little ninja stars and a stylised feather, Wings inscribed this:

Pete,
Fringe Master Sifu, you are not grasshopper, you are tarantula. Your skills are beyond mere mortals. You are ninja. Your nightingale floors are silent. You are stealthy and shadows. You should open an academy.

And all that – plus the script within – makes me incredibly happy.

[2015095] Marilyn Forever

[2015095] Marilyn Forever

Aventa Ensemble @ Studio 520, ABC Collinswood Centre

6:00pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

The only show in the Festival’s Gavin Bryars in Residence programme that I elected to attend, Marilyn Forever required me to take a bit of a trek out to the ABC Studios at Collinswood… a combination of the extra walking, a bit of opportunistic carb loading, and a weekend chock-full of wonderful emotions meant that – once again – I was a little bit dozy… initially.

But prior to the show, I’d wound up talking – as is my wont – to two gorgeous regular Festival-goers who come to Adelaide every year from Tasmania. I’d also investigated the seating arrangements at Studio 520 – there was the raked seating downstairs (that I’d used before during a Zephyr Quartet gig at the Studio), but I also discovered the upstairs section… and the view was a little nicer from up there.

Marilyn Forever is an opera revolving around the night of Marilyn Monroe‘s death, with Marilyn (soprano Anne Grimm) onstage throughout. Flashbacks show us earlier stages of Monroe’s life: from orphanages to her relationships, to battles with fame and inner demons. Curiously, baritone Richard Morris plays The Men in these recollections, and he morphs easily from sleazy agents to husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Staging is plain – a great blank-canvas look, but also (I suspect) an homage to that dress, which Grimm also sports – and a jazz band and mini orchestra bookend the stage.

As mentioned, I settled into Marilyn Forever in a very sated state… and promptly dozed off, repeatedly struggling to open my eyes to see Marilyn lamenting whilst sitting on the floor, mournfully singing about depression or disappointment… and whilst Grimm had a great voice, it completely lacked the breathiness that typified Monroe, and that left me unable to engage. The music, while gorgeously constructed and well performed, rarely rose in tempo, helping me drift off…

But somewhere in the middle of the performance, my brain had obviously recuperated enough: I switched on, and suddenly I was transfixed. The last half of the libretto was fantastic, with the musical backing swelling to a wonderful climax. Having experienced that, I was pretty angry at myself for dozing in the first half; who knows what joy may have been contained therein.

(…well, lots of people know, actually: the ones who didn’t sleep during the performance!)

[2015094] Who’s Your Daddy? the funny side of parenting

[2015094] Who’s Your Daddy? the funny side of parenting

Terry North, Kate Burr, Fabien Clark @ Austral Hotel – Red Room

4:00pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

Now… I’m not a parent, but I’m seeing someone who is – and I like to be somewhat prepared for any interactions with children that may occur. And what better way to prepare myself than through the medium of standup comedy?

So, after a trip to the airport to see my Significant Other off after an amazingly fun whirlwind visit, I scooted back into the city for this short-but-sweet ensemble lineup. A bit of a shame it was a light audience – maybe just touching double-figures, and certainly containing couples who had fobbed their children off for the afternoon.

Terry North kicks off proceedings, and was the nominal emcee for the show – though that seems like a bit of an overblown title when there’s only two other comedians on the bill. His style of comedy is very gentle, but he provides a couple of laughs before introducing Kate Burr.

Now – I really like Kate Burr, having seen her once at a Fringe gig, and a couple of times around town since – but I really don’t understand why I don’t see her more often. She’s a natural onstage, with a wonderfully affable style, and her rapid-fire kid-running rant at the end of her spot was a touch of genius.

Fabien Clark’s style is almost the complete opposite to Burr’s – he’s very laid-back and chilled, and – having seen him do a lot of spots around town après-Fringe, some of his material was familiar. But his frank evaluation of his three children (the eldest is soft and smart, the middle one is tough and dumb, and the youngest is raised by the other two) is solid, and yields many laughs.

Like I said, this was a short show… but pleasant enough. And it reminded me that I should seek Kate Burr out more often… her uniquely country-girl-ish take on married life in the city is an absolute treat.

[2015093] dotMaze: Get Lost!

[2015093] dotMaze: Get Lost!

dotComedy @ Royal Croquet Club

12:00pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

As the Fringe approached, I could see the construction of a large hedge-maze in Victoria Square; it didn’t look massive – maybe a square of twenty metre sides – but it certainly took a chunk out of the northern side of the Square. And when I saw dotMaze in the Fringe Guide – then discovered that tickets were selling fast – I managed to squeeze in one final Fringe event for my Significant Other… a family adventure, of which she would be more familiar than I.

We turned up about ten minutes before our allotted starting time to find a queue wrapped around the side of the maze in the baking sun. Chatting with the people around us, we discovered there was no consistency in their ticket times: some had tickets for the session before ours, others for the session after. The line only moved occasionally, and we eventually found out why: the dotMaze had a very limited capacity, so people could only be admitted once existing wanderers had escaped.

After some solid Vitamin D time, we gained entry to the maze to find that we were sharing the space with a whole bunch of people who appeared to be wandering aimlessly… that’d explain why the line was moving slowly, then. But there was also a wealth of genteel storybook characters – I spotted old friend Seb in old English explorer khakis – and there were also a handful of strange creatures wandering around, made from the same synthetic grass as the maze itself: the people inside the teacup and (functioning!) teapot must have been super uncomfortable.

The storybook characters focused most of their dialogue on the children, providing clues about where to go… and their suggested route took people back and forth to landmarks within the maze (and explained, again, why the queue outside moved so slowly). There was something super-whimsical about their presence and presentation, but they conjured a sense of mystery – and some of the more obscure parts of the maze contained some darker secrets, too (the cage was a bit… grim).

The exit to the maze was surprisingly obscure, I thought, and required an engagement with the players in the maze that doesn’t come naturally to Australian audiences (in my opinion, anyway); but dotMaze was a reasonably interesting, if uncomfortably hot and muggy, chance to explore and interact with all manner of English twee-ness. I’m certainly thankful – for myself and the performers – that it wasn’t a hotter day.