Category: ff2004

Parrot Fever – or Lies I’ve Told in Chat Rooms

theater simple @ Little Theatre

5:30pm, Sat 28 Feb 2004

Score: 10

Short Review: Wonderfully emotive

I’m the first to admit that I tend to stay reasonably remote from any kind of art; it’s a rare piece of work that causes me to emote. Parrot Fever, on the other hand, had me weeping like a big blubbery mess… I can’t recall ever getting so emotionally sucked into a piece of theatre.

Using the premise of book research for the investigation of online relationships, Parrot Fever weaves three different sub-threads together in a gorgeous script by Keri Healey. Encountering multiple characters online, each portraying a concoction of their own personality as they deal with more personal problems, I saw many truisms from my own online life – the support networks that form about those in need being a particularly poignant example.

All the theater simpletons – Monique Kleinhans, Andrew Litzky, Llysa Holland – turned in superb performances, and Mark Fullerton’s smokey guitar provides a great background texture. Yes, there are laughs to be had at the expense of the antics of the chat-room inhabitants – but to a large extent, the humour is used as a foil for the sad, the tender, the wrenching sub-threads.

Parrot Fever is not to be missed. Simple as that, really.

The Swindler… Catch Him If You Can

Patrick McCullagh @ Margaret Murray Room

4:00pm, Sat 28 Feb 2004

Score: 6

Short Review: Intriguing

Hmmmm, interesting show, this. Patrick McCullagh treats the audience to sleight-of-hand tricks, more trick shuffling than you can pole a stick at, and… not much else.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still an interesting show. It’s just that, in retrospect, there’s not much to it. Some of his shuffling is freaky; he frequently used an up-close camera to display the true meaning of hand-is-quicker-than-the-eye; and his tips on loading the deck in poker games were… useful ;)

So I guess that’s it… if you’re at all interested in the mastery of sleight-of-hand, you could do a lot worse than to catch this show. There’s also some great audience participation (as Michael found out… down $50 soon after the show started).

Tyrannous Rex

company c NaNa @ Margaret Murray Room

11:00pm, Fri 27 Feb 2004

Score: 9

Short Review: A character-driven tour de force

After having chatted to the wonderful, quiet, polite Nicola Gunn, it was a real eye-opener to see her emerge onstage and play seven characters. Wrapped tightly in a cosy cardigan, she projects herself into the intimate Margaret Murray room so completely that it’s hard to remember that there’s only one person bringing these starkly different characters to life.

You can tell this is going to be a bit different from the outset – Gunn utterly convinces you that she’s a large cat (later confirmed to be a leopard) riding a bicycle (!). She then effortlessly sashays into Rex’s housekeeper, Winnie, and thenceforth through the rest of the characters in this simple, but effective, tale of love-come-treachery. The script is wonderful – the highlight being the appallingly good double entendres during the flirtation scenes of Rex and Irma.

But Gunn’s performance is the real star here – as I’ve mentioned before (and will continue to discuss, at length, to anyone willing to listen), her ability to create the impression of such disparate characters was incredible. One of the final scenes, as most of the central characters walk past Rex for the last time, was simply stunning. STUNNING. Yep, really, she’s that good.

I mean, Nicola Gunn makes you really believe a leopard can ride a bicycle. How good is that?

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Natland Theatre @ Worldsend Hotel

9:00pm, Fri 27 Feb 2004

Score: 9

Short Review: Intense and confronting

A hot, steamy Friday night upstairs at the Worldsend. I sit in the front row, directly in front of a battered and bleeding Renato Musolino (Danny), drown in his pain and hopelessness before the show starts. Leaning at the bar, Danika Gael-Krieg picks at her pretzels, musing aimlessly. At the back of the room, a guitarist strums. The atmosphere is gritty, smokey, textured – there is a real feeling of the underclass that these people belong to.

And then the show starts – and it is brutal. The two characters verbally and physically attack each other relentlessly, each trying to get the upper hand. This scene is draining, moving, stunningly powerful. A short intermission, and the second scene commences in another room, a bedroom scene. At first the abuse seems to have ceased, that the characters have found solace in each others company; but then the assault begins again, on a far more intimate – and damaging – level.

Make no mistake, this is not flowery theatre. It’s harsh, abrasive – “brutal” is the best fit, but I’ve probably used that a dozen times already. But this is a thoroughly excellent piece of theatre – all the performers are excellent, and Casey Van Sebille’s set design for the bedroom scene – the audience views the performers through holes cut in the walls of their enveloping box – is inspired (I often found myself using the rectangular holes as a makeshift movie-camera, framing the action as I’d like to see it on-screen).

Excellent, excellent stuff. Well worth the trip out to the Worldsend.

Morph

Fresh Track Productions @ Little Theatre

7:00pm, Fri 27 Feb 2004

Score: 6

Short Review: Globulous

Recalling Fresh Track’s previous Fringe effort (The Return, ff2002), and being intrigued by the description in the Fringe Guide, I thought I’d give Morph a bash. And I found a very uneven mish-mash of the good, the bad, and the… odd. Melanie Vallejo’s voice has certainly grown up a bit since 2002, and she roams the stage in a most assured manner as the dancer Grace. Brendan Rock’s Be begins life as a mildly intriguing character, who becomes downright annoying after “The Break”. “The Break”? Well, Morph is pretty much a tale of two halves. Grace begins as the epitome of perfection, Be the inept and indestructible; after The Break, characteristics are essentially reversed. Oooooh, clever.

The good? Some of the dialog was great – there’s not many shows that feature a line like “I want to be porked by you.” Grace’s evocative description of her dance, the culmination of her life’s work, reminded me of a few dance pieces I’ve seen. And both actors performed within the bounds of their characters well.

The bad? The short scenes in the first half designed to demonstrate the growing bond between the two; I loathed that short, flashy style. The fact that, generally, the characters weren’t convincing – harrumph. And what was up with that birth scene?

Somewhere along the line, Be said “it’s not good to go around expressing shit”. Yes, quite.

Scared Weird Little Guys 30 Minute Variety Hour

Scared Weird Little Guys @ Royalty Theatre

9:00pm, Thu 26 Feb 2004

Score: 7

Short Review: Same old Scaredies

This Fringe, the Scaredies present a show in the format of an old-style radio show, with superb backing from the SWLG Superband. Though this format offered opportunity for oodles of new material, it was pretty much the same SWLG as in ff2002.

Not that this is such a bad thing: the old songs still work on repeated listenings, the quiz segment is still fun, though Stump The Scaredies loses out somewhat due to the lack of audience participation. Ross, the voice-over guy, adds a spark of originality to proceedings; the Social Commentary segment was bloody funny; and their Enimem-inspired cover of Waltzing Matilda was inspired stuff.

In short – the Scaredies aren’t messing with the formula much. If you liked them before, you’ll like them this time too.

Waiting for Godot

FourDoors Theatre Company @ Promethean Theatre

7:00pm, Thu 26 Feb 2004

Score: 8

Short Review: Bizarre

First things first: in no way, under no stretch of the imagination, would I ever consider myself to be intimate with Godot (or, indeed, any of Beckett’s other works). So I approached this one as a virtual n00b, and was most intrigued to read in the program that the director of this production asked his actors to adapt their responses according to their impulses on the night. I’m pretty certain this approach contributed to the bizarre performance I bore witness to.

After a creatively revealing start to proceedings, the performance seemed to be completely played for laughs, and at some points became almost farcical. Vladimir and Estragon were able to procure much audience mirth from carefully weighted lulls in their dialog, and the set was cheesily elaborate. At times the humour seems a little out of place – is there really a “who farted?” joke in the original and, if not, did one really need to be added? – but, in general, the laughs come in the delivery: the deadpan “bellyfull of lamentations”, “Abel… Cain… he’s all humanity”, “people are ignorant apes”.

Pier Carthew’s Pozzo impressed, especially with his comical pleas for help. Daisy Noyes all-thinking, all-dancing Lucky was gorgeous, and Dale March’s Estragon provided a good foil for Seamus Maynard’s superbly measured, wide-eyed Vladimir. Liberties were taken, I’m sure, but the results were well worthwhile – almost good enough for me to forgive the line “Critic? The highest form of insult.” ;)

Lawrence Leung – Skeptic

Lawrence Leung @ The Trapeze Lounge

9:45pm, Wed 25 Feb 2004

Score: 8

Short Review: I’m a believer

Oooooh, this was lovely. Leung enters the tent to the strains of a rockin’ version of Ghostbusters, and launches into his sceptical soliloquay. Using his mother as a foil for his jokes, and his own experiences travelling through Scotland searching for ghosts, he delivers a well-scripted show that’s packed with observational laughs… and the odd heart-felt truism.

Leung’s visual humour was spot on; the use of the projector was superb, especially when it came to his “proofs” (of why haunted houses weren’t, and the statistical analysis of “bad luck”). His attacks on John Edward are focussed, but the end message is surprisingly positive – and the end of the show is really, really quite impressive.

(Oh, and after 15 minutes of searching around on eBay, I’ll be buggered if I can find either Lawrence’s Soul or Sense of Humour for sale. He lied to us. I hate when people do that.)

Duck Variations

the kitten factory @ Star Theatres (Theatre Two)

8:00pm, Wed 25 Feb 2004

Score: 7

Short Review: Solid

the kitten factory’s rendition of David Mamet’s “Duck Variations” was a good, solid performance. Whilst not being the touret-inspired dialog of some of Mamet’s later works, the dialog still belts along at a fair clip – covering the fourteen variations of duck-inspired existentialism in a little under 45 minutes.

Simon McCarthy and Christopher Parker don’t fail their characters, and the set is delicious – real lawn! This is certainly worth a look if you’re out that side of town.

“Better than nothing… well, a close second.” ;)

Matt vs The Music World

Matt Elsbury @ Rhino Room (Downstairs)

9:45pm, Tue 24 Feb 2004

Score: 6

Short Review: How could you not like Britney?

Matt Elsbury obviously loves his music. And, as with all appreciations of the divine, comes the disappointments of the somewhat less-than-divine. Hence, this show – a thorough venting of Matt’s music biz angst.

Preceding his arrival onstage, Matt played a wonderful animation (in the guise of a wrestling video game) portraying him beating the shit out of Britney & Justin – a nice, humorous start. His spiel covered dodgy (and inappropriate) lyrics, manufactured bands, and inexplicable utterances – the highlight being a snippet he caught of a radio phone-in competition entrant repeatedly failing to spell “AC/DC”.

The low point of the show was his own manufactured band’s song and video. Yes, it was supposed to be bad, but there’s no need to subject an audience to that much pain. Still, this was an enjoyable enough show – all the better if you’re up-to-date with current music trends.

Rod Quantock – Changing Regimes

Rod Quantock @ Nova 2

8:15pm, Tue 24 Feb 2004

Score: 8

Short Review: Quintessential Quantock

Ah, “quintessential” may be slightly misleading – bad luck, Quantock fans, there’s no blackboard (or even whiteboard) to be found. However, Australia’s favourite lefty comedian is still in fine form, depsite claiming to have done no preparation for tonight’s show, the first in his season.

Covering the problems with the Australian left (“the Left overlooks the concept of assasination”), his desire to see our Prime Minister living at the bottom of a deep hole (“we should all be digging”), Mark Latham (“he was born in a manger”), and the real reason Australia has no space program, this was a rambling show that delivered heavily on the laughs, even as Quantock was allowed to “drift from satire to vitriol”.

And, let’s face it – if I’ve seen Quantock 4 times in 4 Fringes, then surely all Q-Fans should know what to expect. If you’ve seen him before, go again; if you haven’t – and have a leftist leaning to your politics, or just don’t care – then trot along to get educated.

The ObCell

Marguerite Pepper Productions @ State Theatre Company Rehearsal Room 2 (the bowels of the Railway Station)

7:00pm, Tue 24 Feb 2004

Score: 7

Short Review: Evolutionary

After a twisted accompanied journey to the depths of the Railway Station, we view the ObCell – Observation Cell – for the first time. Initially appearing as a simple bounded space, we soon discover that the back walls are video screens, and the supporting frame is littered with small cameras – as is the performer (Ninian Donald) himself.

Intended as an exploration into the reactions of the isolated and manipulated individual, as well as the relationship between man and technology, The ObCell begins nicely, with a very industrial feel (the hum of the air-conditioning unit actually added ambience), and clever use of the overhead mounted cameras (making the projected performed appear to be “climbing” when, in reality, he was writhing on the floor). There was also some neat feedback effects used in the frame mounted cameras, but unforunately the piece quickly slipped into a movement-followed-by-shock-therapy visual monotony. Additionally, there were some technical troubles – the audience was left to watch mostly static as one of the performers cameras went incommunicado.

The last third of the piece, however, was fabulous. With Donald’s movements allowed to experiment with a perceived freedom, and some wonderful flaring visual effects, The ObCell more than redeemed itself.

The Return

Theater Company Nottle @ Eclipse

5:15pm, Tue 24 Feb 2004

Score: 9

Short Review: Bleakly comic

The first thing that struck me about this South Korean company’s production was the lighting. It was absolutely superb throughout; the use of shadow was fabulous, and it demonstrated what is possible in a makeshift venue such as Eclipse. Music was also magnificent, creating an initially bleak mood, and controlling that mood over the duration.

The performances are wonderful: from the beginning of the show, we are treated to the wandering, the dispossessed, with the five principals generating an encompassing feeling of an underclass. The sparse Korean dialogue requires most communication to be done with facial expressions – and what expressive faces! Truly wondrous acting.

In all, a great piece of physical theater. Nottle are to be applauded for bringing their company, and this show, to our shores.