Category: ff2010

How to be a Lady

Tessa Waters @ The Bunka

9:00pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

So – Irene and I had been having a right rollicking drinkyfest and seeing lots of shows at the TuxCat this arvo; I take my leave and wander across the road to The Bunka to see How to be a Lady. Lo and behold, they’ve got Rockford‘s Alicante Bouchet behind the bar, so I snaffle a glass of that and sit down.

A tap on my shoulder – “Hi Pete!” says Tahli’s cheery face. I’d not seen Tahli since she was last in town for Conclusions: On Ice, so it was great to have a catch-up chat and giggle… in the midst of which Irene arrives. I introduce the two women, and Tahli exclaims “oh, you’re the one who didn’t like Death in Bowengabbie!”

Which made me smile. A lot.

Anyway – I was attracted to this show because of the Guide description “a comedy about a modern girl trying to become a lady.” Now, when I read “modern,” I don’t think “stereotypical 50’s or 60’s housewife” – but that’s how Tessa Waters appears, neatly dressed for the housework she fusses over, muttering to herself all the while. And it’s a meticulous, but slow, opening… until the mail arrives.

Opening her mail, she finds a tape – it’s the eponymous instructional tape “How to be a Lady”. She plays it, attempting to act out its instructions (which act as a narration for much of the rest of the performance), and it’s – frankly – hilarious. This Lady’s Gentleman was, of course, an anthromorphically charming dildo, and Tessa receives detailed directions on how to best keep him happy – only to see him run off and have an affair with a toilet brush, enacted with crude – but gut-bustingly funny – puppetry.

Tessa Waters was witty and charming throughout, with her understated and muted dialog coming across as frustrated whimpering. Her facial expressions were an absolute joy to behold; from the shocked prudishness of encountering the underwear in the mail, to the eyes-wide-open delight of the rediscovery of her fingers, to remorse, her Lady was the result of some wonderful characterisation. Her set was gloriously lo-fi, and felt like it’d fit right in with her dress. But the direction is wonderful, and whilst there are a few flat spots in the script – I reckon ten minutes could be trimmed without adverse effect – this was still a brilliant bit of slightly-off-kilter Fringe comedy.

Geraldine Quinn – Shut Up and Sing

Geraldine Quinn @ The Tuxedo Cat – Rooftop

7:30pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

This show marked my fourth show with the Ginge Minge (her words, not mine) in four Fringes and, after the mild disappointment of last year’s effort, it was great to see Gerry back into top form.

Shut Up and Sing documents Quinn’s quest to create the perfect pop hit, casting a objective and humorous eye over all manner of song styles and cultural references. She creates a Eurovision song (in the style of Waterloo), looks at ethno-curious pop (leveraging Shakira), attempts to isolate the addictive qualities of Lady Gaga by presenting a recording of her six-year-old niece singing her lyrics, and even attempts to tap into the national psyche by evoking Gallipoli.

Throughout, Gerry’s singing and guitar-playing (and backing tracks) are faultless – and we’re also privy to some… brave costume choices. And there’s a brief sojourn into the need for a quality dance step to be associated with the perfect pop song, though Quinn’s “chicken chicken kitten-kitten chicken” moves led to the phrase “Where’s my left foot? …oh, there it is” being uttered.

As usual, Geraldine Quinn delivered a brilliantly entertaining show, chock full of great jokes and songs and singalongs (her lyrics sheet was ace). And that final costume… oh my.

DeAnne Smith: Ballsy

Winners At Life @ The Tuxedo Cat – Attic

6:15pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

Dye Young / Stay Pretty ran a little long, so by the time I’d dashed down the five (was it five or seven? I bloody well should know, because I climbed them often enough) sets of stairs and up into the Attic, DeAnne Smith had already taken to the stage. And straight away I could see the progression in her act – she was holding her ukelele, strumming gently away, verbally engaging someone at the front of a pretty full house. Just as I sat down, they reached some form of agreement, and she invoked one of the Rules of the Show, and announced she would henceforth be starting the show again.

O-kay. I was left wondering what other Rules I’d missed out on.

There were no more Rule callbacks, but there was plenty of Smith’s trademark slightly-awkward delivery. But, as the crowds I’ve seen at her shows grow, she seems to become more confident; and this performance was almost all completely new (to me, anyway) material, including a phenomenal story about being sexually assaulted by a midget. The ukelele gets trotted out to break things up, her songs are twee and delightful yet bordering on crude, and she managed to get a “moo” and “yeah” chant going. In fact, perhaps the only mis-step in proceedings was her quest for a catch-phrase; seeing a diminutive, skinny lesbian yell “tell it to my balls” whilst framing her groin is funny once, but as it is repeatedly called back the chuckles diminish real quick.

It’s a real treat when you can follow the growth of a comedian over the years and, though her growing fan-base (which, paradoxically, I hope that she builds upon) takes her away from the intimate venues that I will always associate with her, I still love DeAnne Smith; she’s a genuinely creative comic with a unique style and presentation.

Dye Young / Stay Pretty

Beth Medley @ The Tuxedo Cat – Rooftop

5:00pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

Hahahaaa – this was great fun.

For a show that was shortlisted early, Dye Young / Stay Pretty proved to be hard to squeeze into the Schedule; in the end, it was only some fortuitous Sunday arvo barely-on-time TuxCat programming that allowed me to see this show… but I’m so happy I did.

Beth Medley introduces herself as Jill, a 19-year-old girl who is obsessed with Blondie and, more importantly, Debbie Harry. Young and seemingly alone in a small English town, she aspires to move from home, to ingratiate herself into the punk and New Wave scene, and to get to New York. And the early parts of her tale are spellbinding; I loved the detail of her fish-out-of-water life, the conflicts with friends and family and boys, leading up to her escape.

But while the early parts of her story were appreciated for their believability and deft writing, the latter parts – as she takes flight, lands in New York, and miraculously stumbles her way to CBGB with the help of total strangers – kept the spell intact through their fantastic nature. Here was a girl who had every opportunity to get lost, misdirected, or worse, but everything came good for her… and when she eventually meets Debbie, as we always suspected she must? That moment was gold.

The twist in the tail – that the actress is Jill’s daughter – and a slightly sombre conclusion somehow fail to take the lustre off earlier moments of joy. As a New Wave period piece, as a history lesson, as an enthralling tale, Dye Young / Stay Pretty delivers. Medley and writer / director Adrian Berry should take a bow, because this was great entertainment.

A Captive Audience

Winners At Life @ The Tuxedo Cat – Rooftop

4:00pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

I love Sarah Quinn. I’ve been saying that for years, and I’m afraid that she’s fearful that my adoration has entered the creepy-zone. Which it hasn’t.

I hope.

A Captive Audience, as with 2009’s Other People’s Problems, is a series of short one-woman plays – this year, all five are penned by DeAnne Smith. The format was also similar to previous efforts, with the stage largely barren but for a few items – labelled with sticky notes – and Quinn’s wardrobe changes, which she wriggles in and out of between vignettes.

A couples therapy piece (from the point of view of a frustrated woman) opens the performance strongly, but the lowlight of the Problems follows it in Valedictory, which unfortunately felt a little too clichéd. The compulsive helpline caller, though, was fabulous, and more than made up for the earlier lull.

The final piece, More Love, Less Damage, sees Quinn as God, speaking only via flash cards. And the one-sided conversation that the cards conveyed made the audience uncomfortable, tossing the odd contentious – and thought-provoking – phrase (or accusation) into the mix. And with her mouth firmly shut (like she was dissolving a delicious lolly and was offering no chance for escape), most of God’s communication came from Her eyes… and I have no problems with that at all, because Her eyes are dreamy.

…wait – was that too high on the creepy-scale?

In all, A Captive Audience still satisfies, though it’s perhaps a little patchier than previous efforts; but she’s still wonderfully talented, absolutely gorgeous, and funny as fuck. And Quinn as God was quite an incredible performance – that piece, alone, was worth the price of admission.

Missing Pieces

DamShel Productions @ Star Theatres – Theatre Two

1:30pm, Sun 7 Mar 2010

Brutal.

That’s the only word that can be used to describe Missing Pieces. Emotionally brutal.

But let’s take a deep breath… and go back to the beginning.

Jackie is married to Jed, and the relationship is clearly abusive. She cowers in Jed’s presence, and his physical presence clearly intimidates her – whilst his natural charisma makes light work of winning over friends. But Jackie has a friend in Carla (met through Jed’s friendship with her husband, Brett) and, over time, Jackie and Carla become intimate.

As the two women start secretly sleeping together, and the couples become closer (under the guise of their “innocent” friendship), Jed begins to exert his dominance on everyone. When he discovers the two women are seeing each other, there is an absolutely monstrous scene – the likes of which I’ve never seen at a Fringe show before – where Jed, unable to keep his jealous in check, launches into a powerful physical assault culminating in a brutal rape.

“Brutal”. There’s that word again.

Brett Heath is absolutely stunning as Jed; you can somehow feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he is rankled, and you sense the seething violence underneath his skin even whilst he charms Brett and Carla. His sideways glance at his wife while they sat at the cricket was pure venom – those eyes! Wow – just amazingly powerful stuff. And his physical presence onstage is immense. Helen Stuart and Steve Maresca are fine as Carla and Brett; but I never could really believe in Naomi Parszos as Jackie, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s because I thought she carried herself better than I suspect someone in her position would? Or maybe that’s the point – that this violence happens to the people you least suspect.

The cramped nature of Theatre Two makes it a very intimate performance, and the direction is terrific. Shelly Wall, pulling double-duty as writer and director (and lovely to chat with during the interval), handles the progression of the play really well, building tension throughout. And the staging of That Scene… holy shit. You see nothing, but you know exactly what’s going on… and it is truly shocking.

“Warning: Strong Sexual Violence,” stated the flyer. Yep. It also mentioned the Fight Director by name… for good reason. It feels wrong to say that I loved Missing Pieces – it really shouldn’t elicit that sort of a response, especially with the torrent of tears at the end. But I certainly appreciated the opportunity to see this great bit of brutal theatre.

Bubblewrap and Boxes

Asking For Trouble @ Bosco Theater

11:00am, Sun 7 Mar 2010

I don’t just pick kids’ shows to pad out The List, you know; I genuinely want to see everything I go to. Take Bubblewrap and Boxes, for example: the Guide explains that it’s “about how to live bravely in a big world – told using acrobatics, clowning and a whole lot of cardboard boxes.” Who wouldn’t want to see something like that?

Unfortunately, when I left home that Sunday morning to wander into town, there was a persistent drizzle; despite the fact that I’d probably appreciate the show all the more without company, I was hoping that I wasn’t the only one willing to brave the rain for this 11am performance. Luckily, the skies cleared en route, and the queue was ginormous. As is my usual deal with family shows, I let everyone else go in first, then found a comfy seat by my lonesome down the back.

Asking For Trouble are a male / female duo; He is capped and geeky, a collection of surprised squeals and shrieks and exaggerated movements. She is a blonde pixie, wide-eyed and expressive, with a deliciously greedy grin. He seeks order in the boxes on the stage; she wants to play, causing chaos and mischief – but showing remorse when She upsets Him.

The titular bubblewrap doesn’t make an appearance until the very end of the show, and the boxes are little more than window-dressing (and for the backdrop of the set, allowing for a few peek-a-boo moments and some clever disembodied limb gags). But the vast majority of the enjoyment in Bubblewrap and Boxes is found in the pantomimic acting and chasing of the pair, as well as a bit of carefully deliberate gymnastic balance work thrown in.

This was, I have to say, some quality clowning. Whilst very much a family show geared towards younger children, this bigger kid really enjoyed himself. And, without a word of a lie, it was also responsible for one of my favourite moments of this Fringe: He was tiptoeing apprehensively around a small box in the middle of the stage. Great worry filled His face every time he approached it; He’d reach out to touch it, emit a little shriek in fear, then scuttle away. Funny and tension-building. But it all got a bit too much for one youngster in the audience; “it’s just a BOX!” came the exasperated cry, scaring the other kids and causing the adults to crack up. He was unshaken, however, and turned to look at the child responsible, now being softly admonished by his mother; His look was priceless, the solemn and grave shake of his head carrying weight beyond the child’s comprehension.

And the box turned out to be a Jack-in-the-box. Fantastic!

Lost in the Mouth Specific

Diane Spencer @ Adelaide Casino – The Loft

9:30pm, Sat 6 Mar 2010

The Loft, eh? For the uninitiated, The Loft is a little room upstairs from that restaurant at the side of the Casino; to get there, you have to walk through the restaurant itself (always fun with a crowd of well-dressed patrons, and me in my requisite boardies) and up a few flights of stairs. It’s a small venue – maybe thirty people, tops? – and there was a decent crowd in for tonight’s show.

Spencer is a great comic. She is also, dare I say it, a bit filthy. I think that’s awesome; I’m one of those people who think Sarah Silverman’s standup is Great, and Diane is pretty much in the same vein, delving into ideas like using UV lights for semenal fireworks. There’s a cracking tale about her trying to get a “clean” comedy gig that ends with a massive coagulant shit; recurring jokes about garbage-bag bodies, kinky sex, and her breakup with the boyfriend that dragged her to New Zealand are equal parts crude and wit.

But where Silverman will push a joke right to that point where you start questioning whether it’s safe to actually keep laughing, Spencer errs on the side of caution; but that’s OK, because that “caution” is still well within the laughter zone. And that means that a lot of her comedy comes from the dubious, from the risqué… but it’s all done in such a light-hearted manner, with that gorgeously innocent-yet-wicked smile, that it’s impossible not to laugh.

I should have been absolutely smitten with Diane Spencer, with her long red hair and pale skin and bubbly persona and cheeky pommie accent and Kiwi residency; but something (maybe thoughts of another?) stopped me. “No,” said the voice inside my head, “remain objective.” So, objectively, I can safely state that Spencer is a brilliantly filthy comic, well worth seeing. Easy.

The Event

David Calvitto @ Higher Ground – Art Base

8:00pm, Sat 6 Mar 2010

In what seems to be a growing trend this year, The Event is yet another piece of meta-theatre; a theatrical exploration of theatre itself. Here, though, we find a very literal interpretation of meta-theatre, with The Man (David Calvitto) directly addressing this performance, The Event… and all that surrounds it.

The Man speaks of his involvement in The Event, acknowledging all the other actors that make The Event possible: their camaraderie, their face-value support and back-stabbing sneers, and – most importantly – their reciprocation when it comes to free tickets to their events. The Man speaks of The Writer, who makes all these events possible. The Man speaks of the shame his family feels, their obligatory support masking resentment and disappointment. The Man speaks of us, The Audience, and accepts that there will be some of us who will fall asleep (he even offers a lullaby to help us on our way).

All this is the framework on which The Event is based.

John Clancy’s script is magnificent. Sure, it veers heavily into leftist existentialism at times, but it’s still a gloriously weighty torrent of objective realisations about theatre in general. David Calvitto’s delivery is perfect – dry enough to not disservice the material, but with enough variation to keep the crowd interested (and away from the aforementioned sleep). And his delivery of the “mistake” is impeccable – so much so that I later had to ask him whether the “mistake” was actually a mistake, or just a simple script device to be used anytime there happened to be a mistake. His answer was, deliciously, ambiguous.

The Event really resonated with me; not only for the subject matter and its delivery, but also because it reminded me of when I first started writing about all these shows back in 2000 (when I wrote the home-grown content management system predecessor to this blog, I referred to shows internally as “events”). But I really felt ashamed that this was my first visit (for a show) to Higher Ground this year; and, on the strength on this performance, it was certainly not going to be my last. Because this was solid, mature, intelligent – yet funny – theatre… just what the Fringe ordered.

Nobody Cares But You

Arielle Gray @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

6:00pm, Sat 6 Mar 2010

Arielle Gray plays three separate monologues, all written and directed by Luke Milton. The first piece, The Rise and Return of Verity Westlake, has Gray playing an actress who, in lieu of talent, hopped on the celebrity gossip bandwagon… then dies in a car accident. She’s genuinely upset to see the public lose interest in her après-life, and tries to rebuild her career… and there’s a touching moment when she discovers that her manager – the chap she treated like shit – is the only one who still truly loves her.

Lenni Lenape and the Secret Mystery of the Mysterious Secret Agent sees the ten-year-old girl scout Lenni hunting down her father, who she believes is a spy. He is, of course, nothing more than a seed-spreading low-life, and her mother doesn’t even realise that Lenni has gone missing – on her birthday.

The final piece, The Invisible Bloodbath, features a serial killer who remains unrecognised by the media; in a nice little twist, she feels that she is the victim. Eventually she hunts and captures a guy who is genuinely afraid of her… so she keeps him alive, in an oddball bit of co-dependence.

Remember when multi-character monologues were all the rage? They seem to have died off a bit in popularity the last couple of years, but there’s certainly another one – at the same venue, no less – that is easy to contrast with this performance. And whilst Di Smith’s acting in Peeled may be a bit more practised compared to Arielle Gray’s work here, Nobody Cares But You wins out – Gray performs competently, but the most important thing is that her characters all have a lot more heart. All three pieces are pretty humorous, with the antics surrounding the naïve Lenni Lenape bordering on the creepy, but they all address the desire of being appreciated in a thoughtful manner. Recommended.

The Wau Wau Sisters’ Last Supper

The Wau Wau Sisters @ Umbrella Revolution

11:59pm, Fri 5 Mar 2010

The Wau Wau Sisters represent everything I hate about the Garden-ification of the Fringe. Their show was a lascklustre collection of lame stunts and cretinous filler, buoyed by the promise of titillation and blatant crassness that still had the near-capacity drunken crowd whooping with delight. Hang on, I was pissed too – so why wasn’t I joining in?

Maybe because of the cynical nature of the show. Let’s have a stretch and strip down to our underwear. Let’s get dressed again and sing a song devoid of subtlety. Let’s perform a few balance tricks, lap up the applause, then get ordinary drunken stumblebums from the audience to perform the same “tricks” (thus diminishing the impact of their earlier efforts). To be fair, the trapeze act at the end of the show – all four minutes’ worth – was really well choreographed. But that was then followed up with the inexplicable Last Supper scene, culminating in the Sisters inexplicably running back onstage naked to have wine poured all over them.

And I honestly sat there, as I did for much of the night, thinking: What the fuck.

The rest of the drunken crowd loved this. But Irene and I just sat there in disbelief. This was so horrible, so abusive of the audience’s intelligence, that – a day after having seen the show – it still felt like The Wau Wau Sisters had taken a shit in my mouth.

You know what? Nearly a year later, I’m still mad about this. I had initially ranted to myself that this was the second worst show of the Fringe – figuring nothing could match the don’t-give-a-shit crapulence of An Awkward Seduction – but I’ve changed my mind in that regard. An Awkward Seduction could be perceived to be a poorly performed piece by people who aspire to greater things, who are learning; The Wau Wau Sisters should already be at the top of their game. The volume of audience disrespect – or is it exploitation? – flouted by the Sisters during this performance, in short, made me furious… scratch that, it still makes me furious.

Steve Hughes – Heavy Metal Comedy

Steve Hughes @ Rhino Room – Downstairs

10:15pm, Fri 5 Mar 2010

There’s a bit of rain around, and I’m a teensy bit late getting to the Rhino Room – most of the crowd’s already in, and I heard the roar as Hughes took to the stage. I open the door – and the downstairs area is packed. Absolutely chockers. Every seat is full, every bar-stool along the side- and back-wall occupied. There’s probably another twenty people crammed in, standing; there is almost no room for me. I wind leaning against the side wall, almost directly side-on to the stage; there was nowhere else to go.

But you know what? Despite the crap position and the recent rain creating a hot and humid atmosphere in the room, it was totally worth it.

Because Steve Hughes is fucking funny.

Oddly enough, he covered a lot of the same issues as my previous show – but in a completely different way. Whereas Kilstein addressed the hypocrisy, Hughes was more than willing to attack the hypocrites themselves. And the politicians, and the people who perpetuate tabloid culture, and the tabloid “celebrities” all-too-eager to feed them.

He does all this with a very laid back, but almost offensively abusive, tongue, and an eye that takes in the country of his birth objectively. He revels in the role of the outsider: as a heavy metal fan who is proudly a “sport denier”, he mocks the society that provides him with the bulk of his material, then lashes out with leftist-leaning socialist anti-capitalist sentiment of such conviction that it may just change lives.

Because if a hairy metalhead like Steve Hughes can live that dream, why can’t you?

Jamie Kilstein – Revenge of the Serfs

Jamie Kilstein @ Nova Eastend Cinema

8:15pm, Fri 5 Mar 2010

Right. So, if you’ve read more-than-a-few of my posts about comedians, you’ll have figured out that I like my comedians to be a little bit… well, aggressive. Political. Message-y. Progressive; left.

And Jamie Kilstein pretty much hits the nail on the head on all of those counts.

In front of a quiet but reasonable crowd (maybe fifty people, though the Nova made that seem diminutive), Kilstein tackled his prey with venom. Sure, there were some easy targets amongst them (Obama and Rick Warren, racism, homophobia, religion), but one can attribute that to the less-enlightened US audiences he usually contends with (oooh! nasty stereotyping!). Regardless, his slutty-girl-with-iPod bit (along with the ideology of Church of the Smiling Vagina) were just brilliant; the tale of how a reconciliatory gesture to his Dad went horribly wrong is both funny and touching.

Kilstein’s style frequently flips between conversational – where he’ll bridge into a new topic – and motor-mouthed angry ranting. I love the rants; there’s so much anger and passion, and they’re so fast and forceful that he’s frequently gasping for breath in the middle of them. And that makes it genuinely exciting as an audience member; it’s incredibly easy to get swept along by his torrent of expression.

Kilstein also co-hosts the Citizen Radio podcast (with wife Allison Kilkenny), which is a pretty good listen, too. In fact, they’ve posted something that’s awfully similar to tonight’s show here (or the original BreakThru Radio link). And, as a special bonus for you, here’s one of their best shows ever.

Now, I’m not saying that we agree on everything – veganism is not something I’ll ever consider whilst bacon is still salty-delicious, and I detect an anti-gamer sentiment within him – but I’d pay good money to see Kilstein again in a heartbeat. He ended the show with an almost apologetic “come talk to me about anything outside… oh, and I’ve got a CD. 15 bucks, or whatever you can afford”; I understand that this is where money can be made by artists, so I thought I’d snaffle a CD. When I got outside, Kilstein was in the middle of a small group of people, in earnest discussion with one chap about how he should become vegan. There was a bit of back-and-forth, all good discussion; then the chap said something along the lines of “you make some good points… but I’m a big L Liberal. And we all know climate change is a myth.”

A number of jaws dropped. Kilstein looked lost for words.

After that “debate” died down, I would up getting my CD – Kilstein didn’t have any change, so I just said “take the fifty.” He stammered, and insisted I take the CD for free; “piss off,” I said, “I know how these things work for you artists.”

And that made me feel happy. And virtuous.

True Stories of Heroism and Adventure

Co2 @ Iris Cinema

7:00pm, Fri 5 Mar 2010

I never did the whole backpacking thing; when I travel, I like to have creature comforts at the end of the day. I do, however, envy those who have done the backpacking experience; I can only imagine the camaraderie that comes from the intersecting travels of people wandering the globe, each taking their own route of discovery but still keeping in contact and bumping into each other on another continent, creating lasting friendships grounded in unusual circumstances.

And that, largely, is what True Stories is all about.

It follows Jackie, tentatively backpacking by herself after being spurned by her best friend. She meets the more experienced travel-buddies Flick and Chris, and gets dragged into their quest to get to the legendary backpacking destination of El Cargando. Along the way, there’s the expected romantic flings, a bizarre wolf segment, a fantastic visit to the anonymous, Metropolis, the death of Jackie’s brother, and a brilliant nightclub scene; and it’s all connected with a lot of compassion for – and between – the characters.

I found True Stories of Heroism and Adventure to be a lovely little piece of Fringe theatre; full of youthful excitement, the three actors (Stephanie Iredale, Emily Morrison, and Julian Dibley-Hall) all flit between different characters with ease. Sure, the acting is occasionally patchy, and the pacing of the script is a bit variable, but the enthusiasm and heart on display was more than enough to carry it through.