ThisSideUp Acrobatics @ The Ringbox

11:30pm, Tue 23 Feb 2010

The Ringbox is only about half-full for this show; a pretty good crowd, all things considered. After all, it’s still early in the Fringe Season, it’s late on a Tuesday night, and it was a bit chilly out. The mob that did turn up, though, didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest… in fact, they were one of the most enthusiastic crowds I’d encountered so far.

Clearly they knew something about ThisSideUp Acrobatics. I had heard bugger all about them, attracted to the show by the promise of “a laboratory of acrobatic impossibilities” and an easy-to-manage timeslot. Still, I had a fantastic seat, the stage was littered with props that gave the air of a mad scientist’s lair, and the bubbling anticipation of the crowd swept me up.

Four characters strut onstage – a professor (whose exaggerated over-acting created a comical focus) and his three minions. Progress through the four “acts” of the performance is registered on the professor’s chalkboard, but the first act – a collection of tumbling and balance routines – failed to thrill… I felt like I’d seen it all yesterday, that there was nothing new here.

The rest of the crowd, though, ate it up.

The subsequent acts did manage to impress, however. There was some breathtaking stacked-chair balancing, more tumbling, brute-strength single-handed pole balances, and a bit of teamwork in their russian bar routines. Some ring work, flips and throws, and plenty of humour.

Linked together by the peripheral premise of a series of lab experiments, Controlled Falling Project is a superbly polished and stunningly presented acrobatic event. Sometimes, though, that just isn’t enough to satisfy. Throughout the show I felt surprisingly irritated by crowd around me constantly chirped about how amazing they thought the Project was; all I wanted to do was tell them about the stunning experience I had with Freefall, but I know my limits: I wouldn’t be able to explain why a bunch of tumbling youngsters, full of enthusiasm but smattered by mistakes, managed to capture my eyes and – more importantly – my emotions.

And that’s the thing that was lacking with my Controlled Falling Project experience – the emotion. Yes, it was all very wonderful to look at – and a noticeably more professional & polished production than Freefall – but it didn’t make a connection with me in the same way that Freefall did.

However, ThisSideUp also performed as part of the Smoke & Mirrors ensemble show in the recent Cabaret Festival, and my proximity to the stage during that performance made a massive difference. Sitting in the second row of that show, I was in a position where I could watch the ThisSideUp guys strain and sweat through large amounts of the same tricks; that closeness made everything more immediate, more personal. So there’s a lesson to learn there for me, I reckon: favour the proximity over the all-encompassing view, maybe?

Sound and Fury @ Le Cascadeur

10:00pm, Tue 23 Feb 2010

An admission: Sound and Fury’s “Private Dick” was actually the first show to get bumped from The Shortlist onto the newly-created “On Second Thoughts…” section of my Scheduling Spreadsheet of Doom. Sound and Fury are great chaps – wonderfully friendly and personable – but I’ve always found their pun-laden work to be a little too… well, punny. Cheap. And the faux mistakes that seem to be in every show? Oooh, I hate them.

However, it was also the first show to get a reprieve, graduating from the “On Second Thoughts…” section thanks to awkward timeslots and a big gaping hole in the Schedule. And they are nice fellas, and I love the very idea of a Sound and Fury adventure inspired by film noir… and so, after a swift walk in from Norwood, I wind up sneaking into Le Cascadeur as the lads try to fire up the front couple of rows. I wind up sitting near the back next to another FringeFriend, Julie – it’s been awhile since I’d bumped into her (probably a whole year, I’d guesstimate).

The show opens with a cliffhanger – we’re privy to one of the closing scenes, the boys quickly backtrack to the beginning, and all the noir stereotypes are there: the drunken private-eye protagonist, the double-crossing female lead, and the lighting lends an authentic feel to the production. And, as expected, it’s incredibly pun-tacular. Here’s the thing, though: no-one seemed to mind… even (surprisingly) me. Sure, one section of the audience was almost screaming in delirium (a touch over-the-top, I thought), but – even with all the elements that usually piss me off (the constant laughing-at-themselves, for example) – this left me feeling not-annoyed. The fact that Julie and I were able to share an almost private chortle at the “Shaft” jokes (that fell flat with the rest of the audience) was an added bonus.

There’s some great singing in there (the three-part “It’s a [Man/Woman]’s World” is bloody brilliant), a great noir feel, and the audio & lighting cues were tighter than a duck’s chuff… it’s very much exactly the show I imagined when contemplating the phrase “Sound and Fury does noir”. Sure, they still do that faux mistake thing… but hey, that’s part of their raison d’être, and it keeps the audience happy. I’m just happy that it didn’t irritate the shit out of me… this time.

Seventy. Five.

Sigh.

Prediction: a brief flurry of posts, followed by a two-month lull, with another flurry around Christmas, and thirty increasingly brief recollections pumped out late January.

115. Death Conversation with Himalayan Cultural Eve
116. The Sound and the Fury

What? Just two shows? Well, there was a visit to the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition this afternoon, followed by a trip to the Format ‘Zine Fair (another $150+ spent). This evening was, of course, dominated by the Fringe Awards ceremony, which surpassed all expectations.

Free booze (for awhile) was a good start, but the ability to go around thanking the people who make this stuff you love is just priceless. Queue jumping at the bar for Geraldine Quinn? My honour. Freefall getting Best Circus act? And me being able to rave at two increasingly uncertain and shirking teenagers that I thought their show was awesome? A delight. Stevl Shefn nabbing the best comedy award? Spot on the money.

And, to cap it all off, theater simple chats at HQ, followed by the usual suspects at TuxCat: Nik Coppin, Dr Brown. Some lost Clipsal blokes who decided that a good way to impress Irene was to show her a collection of Ford t-shirts. Anniene. Talking toilet etiquette with Andrew O’Neill. An impromptu stomach-buffer stop at MaccyD’s.

And the sweetest hug I can remember.

But now, sleep. 116 shows all up, plus another three that I saw twice, plus another one in the late sixties which I saw but didn’t realise was a Fringe show. Let’s just say 120 shows – 107 Fringe, 13 Festival. Visual arts excluded, of course.

So, yeah – sleep.

111. My Name Is Rachel Corrie
112. Vital Organs Collective
113. Mahler 8: Symphony of a Thousand
114. The Sociable Plover

35. Shaggers

Just two shows left now: one Festival, one Fringe. And two parties. And two days left to drag my sleep pattern back six hours.

Fucking 5am it is.

95. This Is A Play

108. Faceless : Dead & Desirable
109. Andrew O’Neill: Occult Comedian
110. Eddie Ifft: Things I Shouldn’t Have Said

I tell you what, at about 3pm today I was seriously over all this. But a repeat viewing of the (excellent) This Is A Play, coupled with a pair of brilliant comedy acts at the Mercury, has pepped me right up again.

Of course, I’ve got another show in less than 9 hours. Tomorrow will be tricky.

102. 52 Pick Up
103. On Ego
104. Austen Found – The Undiscovered Musicals
105. Good Morning Mister Gershwin
106. Bird in the Gilded Cage
107. Carl-Einar Häckner is Big In Sweden

Tonight is (or rather, was) the night when nominations for the Fringe Awards were to be debated. I spotted two Judges scooting between city visual art venues this afternoon, quickly ascertaining their worth. A pity that half the visual art displays I went to today had already been removed.

99. Rhinoceros
100. Flight
101. The Hamlet Apocalypse

I remember the approach to my 100th show last year; I was expecting cancellations a-plenty and was on tenterhooks until that ticket stub was ripped – and then there was a tangible sense of relief. This year, Flight came and went with barely a second thought.

101 shows so far. I’ve written up 42. How shit is that?

version 1.0 inc. @ Norwood Concert Hall

8:00pm, Tue 23 Feb 2010

I arrive a fair bit early, and there’s only a few souls milling about – unsurprisingly, they’re all APAM folk. Many more arrive, seeking the artist discount available with the light-blue lanyard of the arts market. I chat with a couple of people prior to the show; comparing show notes, one chap was staggered at my current show count; it was a little like Jeremy Piven’s part in Grosse Pointe Blank – “forty-two shows, man! FORTY-TWO!”

So the arranged seating in the Concert Hall is maybe two-thirds full, the stage curtains are drawn, six (I could’ve sword there were six, though the programme only mentions five performers) seats in a row along the front of the stage. A man wanders onstage, settles in front of one of the chairs, presents some cheerleader’s pom-poms, and strikes a pose, rustling with a forced grin. Another figure comes out and does likewise, then another, and again… eventually all six chairs are fronted, and the figures collapse in them. A slackening of form, and suddenly they’re a group of friends in conversation.

One woman leads with a dangerous tale of a night out in the city, encountering the worst elements of man’s violence agains man. Assaults and chases and terror, identifying with a woman in danger and assisting her escape – before discovering that the woman is, herself, carrying a load of ice and is of considerable interest to the police… the victim is, indeed, a “bad guy”. The idea that a “bad guy” could be the focus of so much intended violence is the first conundrum that we are forced to consider; but, with the story over, the stage curtains open up.

I feel like we’re in a nightclub – but it’s more than that. There’s a woman dancing around, a guy checking her out, sizing her up, formulating a battle plan. He makes his move, dancing into her. You can feel the physical power play taking place in front of you, and it’s uncomfortable – it’s something that we’ve all probably seen before, but presented in such a stark manner (with video screens displaying the action – and responses – from many different angles) it’s deeply unnerving. More disturbing still is the woman lying on the floor at the front of the stage; there’s a man just sitting a short distance away, elbows on knees, staring at her. There’s no real menace on his face, but it’s certainly there in his presence; the forward lilt of his body makes him appear as if he’s looming over her still and slumped form. It’s ominous, and utterly creepy.

Then we’re thrust into a couples therapy situation. A guy – seemingly honest, friendly – attempting to communicate with a woman – shirking, skittish. An offstage therapist (and he’s literally offstage, sitting with us in the audience) chastises the man for his language, his physical projection… the scary thing is, I didn’t see anything wrong… at first. He corrects the language, following the directions given to him… but she still flinches at his approach.

And then we’re back in the nightclub, back into conversation, and it’s over – with Matthew Johns’ “apology” on The Footy Show playing in the background. I leave for another show, and as I strolled back into the City I remember thinking “that was all very interesting.” I make a few notes about the ominous nature of some of the pieces – that’s my key word, my memory jogger, “ominous” – and let it sit at the back of my mind.

And it’s only now, typing this up in the Norwood Library on my birthday, that I realise the latent power in the work. Because right now I’m feeling like it was a violent performance; but I don’t actually remember anything overtly violent about it. And therein lies the point, the crux of the matter; maybe there was some physical violence displayed, but I’m so blasé about it that it didn’t register as “important” to my memory. Or maybe the inference of verbalised violence has taken a fortnight to sink in?

Either way, that’s a pretty sad indictment on me – but I don’t really know whether it’s an indictment on society per se, because who can say what’s shaped me this way? And it’s only now, after feeling like I’ve been kicked in the guts by this realisation, that I remember the single most overtly vicious conversation in Ruckus – a woman tells the throng about her “bad breakup” which resulted in her… rape?

And the fact that I threw the ellipsis & question mark in that sentence indicates what kind of a performance Ruckus is. Even the other characters onstage seemed to be debating whether to use ellipsi and question marks. It’s confronting, but politely so. It’s like those Jagermeister shots that don’t taste too bad going down, but kick you in the head later.

And so here I sit, thinking about my own response to these issues, second-guessing whether I am in any way sensitive or aware of how my actions may affect others. Because I can recognise some of those “innocent” behaviours as my own – but without thinking that they could be seen as “sexually violent”. Hell, it even seems ludicrous now typing those words out in the context of the words before it, but the reality of those actions seen through the different lens that Ruckus provides leaves me head-spun and pondering.

Director David Williams’ notes in the programme make for delicious reading, in light of the above: “We hope that you enjoy the show tonight, although enjoy may not be the right word…” Christ. I actually thought I had enjoyed it, and now I find myself questioning my own behaviour, comparing myself to an offensive testosterone-inflated sexist twat… two weeks later. Two weeks: it’s the show that doesn’t stop… it’s still going on in my head.

And, a few hours after I realised and felt and wrote the above, I walked in to see Bully. Talk about an emotional double-whammy.

In the past I have had the knack of picking poor shows on my birthday, and “celebrated” in a grumpy fashion (as usually befits my birthday mood). This year, however… wow. Six amazing shows, at least two must-sees, and I got to spend time with lots and lots of lovely people (I like to name-drop, but am honestly afraid that I’ll miss someone). Awwwww – what a top day :)

93. The Snow Queen
94. Myth Understandings
95. This Is A Play
96. Weights
97. Scaramouche Jones
98. Bully

The last half of the day whizzed by in a blur; leaving the (brilliantly funny) This Is A Play at the Odeon with thirty minutes to get to Higher Ground, the closest bus goes AWOL, there’s a panicky twelve-minute cab ride with Shannon and Tess (still feeling guilty for having to borrow $5 from Tess to pay the cabbie), literally running into Weights and parking my arse just as Lynn takes to the stage, then running out of the long-running Weights and blagging my way into Scaramouche (my ticket was in the box office, not the door), then barely having time to grab a coffee and a wine before Bully – and then not being able to drink either for twenty minutes because… well, Bully is incredible. Wow… and Richard is, like, totally nice as well.

Great day. If only the rest of my 39th year could live up to that high standard!

90. Single Admissions
91. Heroin(e) for Breakfast
92. Goat Town

So I’m waiting for Single Admissions to start, and I notice some chap sitting in front of me turning around and staring at me. He nudges his wife, she peers too. I’m mystified – I’ve no idea who these people are. It turns out that they were sitting behind Tahli in How to be a Lady last night and heard us discussing various shows – “how many have you seen now?” He asked. We had a good old chat – they’re above-average Fringe-goers as well, so we swap horror stories and surprises and… well, it was just great to chat with them :)

Some decent shows today, too. Going to make for some interesting posts, too, if the notes are anything to go by… Mind you, show #90 will probably be posted in… oooh, September ;)

Tommy Dassalo @ The Tuxedo Cat – Studio

6:00pm, Tue 23 Feb 2010

This has been a bit of a weird year for me, planning-wise; I scheduled all of my Festival shows very late and, rather than booking all my Fringe shows a week in advance (as I have been wont to do in the past), I seem to be doing my scheduling two days at a time, picking up tickets in wussy batches of sevens or eights.

The Scheduling for this Tuesday was predicated around one show; everything else was at the mercy of that single, inconveniently-timed-and-placed event. Frantically squeezing in Shortlisted shows around it, I’d originally selected Dooda for the 6:00pm timeslot – only to discover, upon picking up the ticket, that it wasn’t a six o’clock show at all, but 8:30pm. Which was, like, a bit shit, and revealed some horrible inconsistencies with my Scheduling that has led to me second-guess every subsequent planning decision.

So I plucked Dassalo from the Shortlist, snaffled a ticket, and donated my Dooda ticket to the TuxCat crew for free redistribution. Hopefully someone out there was able to take advantage of it.

But enough about me! There’s Tommy Dassalo to talk about.

As his bio points out, Dassalo has written a lot of comedy for TV – and it really shows in his act. He’s got a wealth of material that he whips through, intricate jokes with massive amounts of crossover and clever callbacks. There’s an element of – well, if not surrealism, certainly oddness – to his work, as evidenced by his father’s dog-biscuit & balloon escapades, and Tommy’s whimsical toilet-paper designs… but there’s plenty of (young) experiential material in there, too, such as his Wet’n'Wild escapades and “mature” friends’ less-than-escapades.

And this all sounds great so far: decent material goes a long way, especially from someone as young and earnest as Dassalo. But there’s a teensy-weensy little problem with his delivery, with the pacing of the material; the callbacks are really close together, often only a minute or two apart, and that really lessens their potential impact. The closing joke, however, is a brilliant example of a callback done right, reaching back twenty minutes or more to invoke the tale of being spooned by an ultrasound operator during his disease-investigation exploits.

So, at the end of the day, Tommy Dassalo proved himself to be an accomplished writer, but a fledgling standup comedian – but one with a lot of potential. And, as a last-minute ring-in show, I’m pretty happy with that. Mind you, I did have to resort to begging the other half-dozen audience members for one of their ticket stubs to maintain my collection for the year, which was a bit of a bizarre experience.

Bird Lantern @ The Deli

9:00pm, Mon 22 Feb 2010

I first saw Bird Lantern perform a set at The Jade Monkey two years ago, and was mightily impressed then; spying their name in The Guide was enough to warrant a place on The Shortlist, but reading the description – “a live re-scoring of silent, black and white films” – turned Sound Cinema into a must-see for me.

As, apparently, it did for many people; prospective punters were being turned away at the door in droves – this show, and the Tuesday night performance, were both sold out, and there were but a handful of tickets remaining for the third and final show. I wander out the back of The Deli, and it’s a very relaxed atmosphere… maybe forty or fifty people sitting around on benches, lounge chairs, rugs, cushions – just chilling, leaning towards the screen onto which we were going to be treated to some old silent classics.

I find myself sitting next to the film reviewer from The ‘Tiser, an amiable chap who occasionally whips out his phone to make a few notes. Bird Lantern (Greig Thomson and Al Thumm) introduce their concept to the crowd and fire up the first movie: Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (Trip to the Moon) – a charmingly innocent film, rich in detail and – considering the fact that it’s over 100 years old now – technically impressive in its execution. The music underpinning this short (it’s a mere 8 minutes long) is laidback, some gentle grooves underpinning the frantic moon-men chase sequences punctuated by umbrella-smiting. Great stuff.

The main event, though, is Buster Keaton’s The General. It’s a really wonderful movie, though I couldn’t imagine what it would be like without the soundtrack that Bird Lantern provide – drivingly uptempo for Keaton’s brilliantly designed action sequences, dropping back to softly twee for the blank-faced romance scenes. The first plane to fly overhead seems to be perfectly timed to provide some extra oomph to the movie (and the soundtrack); unfortunately, subsequent flyovers are less considerate.

Sure, the boys had a few issues with the film restarting at a particular point (which looked like a problem with VLC to me). And Greig told me afterwards that they’d encountered a few discrepancies between their DVD copy of The General and the version they originally composed against. But it was a bloody great experience, watching these old movies reliant on their visual performances being underpinned by modern beats and loops.

(Greig also remembered me from that Jade Monkey gig two years ago, and had a couple of CDs of new creations for me to snaffle. How cool is that! :)

Di Smith @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

7:30pm, Mon 22 Feb 2010

Waaaaay back in 2000, it seemed like there was a real glut of one-woman-multiple-character shows – The Entire Contents of the Refrigerator being the one that immediately springs to mind – but I don’t recall there being much activity in that somewhat specific genre in the last few years. Sarah Quinn has, of course, excelled in one such show (and this year’s A Captive Audience looks, thankfully, like more of the same), but others have been hard to come by.

Or maybe they’re just not reaching out from The Guide, appealing to me.

Regardless, I’m back in The Arch for the third time today to see Di Smith’s display of three characters whose only common trait appears to be loneliness. The first woman, Irene, is a carny spruiker with an autistic son, constantly battling pre-conceived notions on multiple fronts: as an itinerant carny, she’s viewed suspiciously, and her son is always the first to be blamed when something goes wrong (such as the missing girl that drives most of Irene’s tale). You get the feeling that, at story’s end, Irene is almost relieved at the outcome… but her isolation, her lack of emotional support, just barely starts cracking her hardened façade.

Alison, on the other hand, seems desperate and dateless. Venturing into the duplicitous world of online dating, she fantasises about the potential for romance with her new beau – only to have her dreams shattered by a Cleveland steamer. Tragic for Alison, but bloody funny for me.

The last character, Maureen, was the one that hit home for me. Suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s (at age 51), Maureen knows she’s entering a murky twilight, with her husband doing all he can to make her life as fulfilling as possible. But she can sense that she is, essentially, leaving him behind – she’s grateful, of course, but cognisant that her condition is ruining his life. It’s certainly the best-written of the three pieces, and I sense perceptive parallels with my own parents.

Peeled lingers in my memory in some sort of strange limbo; on the one hand, all the characters are unique in their own way, with Maureen standing out the most. And Smith’s delivery is certainly convincing, both in dialogue and song (each character belts out a tune as a signature flourish). But the first two pieces didn’t really engage me at all – leaving me quite firmly on the outside looking in – and the third was a little uncomfortable, given the close-to-home nature of the characters. And so Peeled falls into that category where I’m glad I saw it, but would hardly recommend it to anyone; a shame, really, because I love this format when everything goes right.

82. Bubblewrap and Boxes
83. Missing Pieces
84. A Captive Audience
85. Dye Young / Stay Pretty
86. DeAnne Smith: Ballsy
87. Geraldine Quinn – Shut Up and Sing
88. How to be a Lady
89. The Mad Max Remix

It was great to see Tahli again – it’s been too long – and she gave me a highlight for the day when I pointed Irene out to her… “oh, she’s the one who didn’t like Death in Bowengabbie!”

Of course, Irene would like to point out that she actually very much enjoyed the end of Bowengabbie – the Titanic bit. Which is quite disturbing, really ;)