Category: 2012 – Adelaide Fringe Festival

[2012067] A Property of the Clan

Port Augusta Secondary School @ Star Theatres – Theatre Two

1:00pm, Thu 1 Mar 2012

There’s always a risk with school productions – the risk that the material is going to be underdone, that the production is going to be naïve. But I’ve come to appreciate such works for what they are: experience for young aspiring actors, directors, and theatricians. And, after all, Urban Myth has proven (time and time again) that age need not be an impediment to a quality theatre experience.

But I’m still interested in why a country school would pick the Fringe as an outing for its students – if only logistically, given the timespan between the nomination of the event and the performance of the show (not to mention the presentation so early in the school year). So, having turned up typically early, I took the opportunity to talk to one of the kids and an adult (teacher? parent?) who were performing ticket-tending duties.

My usual “how have the crowds been?” opener was met with a pair of grimaces, but then a perkier admission that there were a couple of pending school groups coming later in the season. Yes, the show was developed by the drama group, and it’s been a pretty tough learning curve. I put on a cheering smile and ask “sorry to hear it’s been tough… but has it been worth it?” The girl positively lit up – “oh shit yes!” she enthuses, before being admonished by her chaperone.

By the scheduled starting time, there’s only about a dozen punters assembled – most of them silver-tops, giving me the impression it’s a grandparents support matinée. No matter – Theatre Two is small, so it still felt like a decent crowd – not depressingly small, anyway. I settled back in my seat and watched the cast dicking about in the wings, occasionally peeking out at the audience from backstage… clearly professionalism wasn’t one of the lessons being taught here.

A Property of the Clan is your typical Australian coming-of-age story. It revolves around a cluster of familiar characters: core character Jared has a girlfriend, Rachel, blessed with the school-smarts that he lacks; of course, they’re separated by a socio-economical divide. Jared’s little sister Jade provides an innocent voice-of-reason; Jared and Rachel’s mothers provide a generational contrast. Jared is lead astray by meathead friend Ricko, with his conscience tugged by the doe-eyed Glen.

So – Jared and Rachel’s relationship is turbulent, what with the wealth (and intelligence) divide. Their lives are turned upside when one of Rachel’s friends is murdered during an underage end-of-year party; Jared witnesses the event, but feels honour-bound to not say anything about it. Of course, this truth eats away at him until he relents, “betraying” his friends…

But it’s incredibly difficult to care about any of the characters on display here, because… well, they’re all so unbelievable. In the central role, Oliver Petrie spends most of his time looking at the floor and dropping lines; Gabrielle Ballard’s Rachel is (thankfully) played much more convincingly, but it’s hard to imagine why she would want to spend time with Jared at all. Ricko and Jade are both monotonal and wooden, but at least Ricko looked the part. Ann Clarke’s Diane – Jared’s mother – proved to be the best performer of the group, doubling up her directing duties – but unfortunately the blocking is blunt and unimaginative, and simple lighting cues seemed to prove too much for the operators, with lights coming up too late and dropping too early.

And the thing that really annoyed me? On the table in the middle of the set was a (production?) folder with “FRINGE 2012” boldly emblazoned on the side. I wish I knew why that raised my ire so much… but hey, it’s the little things, right?

But it’s not all their fault, especially if they’ve done a straightforward adaptation of the play (and there’s no reason for me to suspect otherwise); A Property of the Clan is a clumsy affair, full of pointlessly short “scenes” that barely advance the story or provide insight. I swear that some scenes were literally two spoken lines: it took longer for the actors to plod to their stage-centre mark than it did for the content of the vignette to play out. A bit of digging reveals the play to be an educational piece (later adapted for Blackrock), “inspired” by the real-life events that surrounding the murder of Stockton girl Leigh Leigh. And it’s disappointing that, whilst addressing the concept of blind mateship, the stronger themes – feminism and equality – were left by the wayside.

I really didn’t enjoy A Property of the Clan at all: I found it an unrewarding story delivered in a stilted and utterly unconvincing manner. I didn’t even like writing about it – and usually I enjoy a rant about a bad show. In fact, the most enjoyable thing about the entire experience was the bus ride back into the city – Adelaide Metro saw fit to service Sir Donald Bradman Drive with old retro yellow school busses, the likes of which I rode in during my high school years. Now that was a teen-ism worth dwelling on.

[2012066] seven kilometres north-east

version 1.0 inc. @ Adelaide College of the Arts – Main Theatre

9:30pm, Wed 29 Feb 2012

The Year of Magical Wanking still draws significant crowds, but there’s only a scant handful of people that are in the Other Queue for the Main Theatre at AC Arts. With backdrops and screens set halfway up the stage, the steep angle of the theatre’s seating creates a very close, intimate feel for us… all the better to feel the power of seven kilometres north-east.

It’s a work that allows contemplation, even encourages it – Kym Vercoe’s (largely) solo performance has a slow, deliberate pacing, full of consideration and poignancy. And it all starts so innocently, so joyfully, as Vercoe falls in love with the Balkans, with Bosnia… and, in reading voraciously of her new love, she learns of Višegrad, a large town that her descriptions paint with a charm and beauty… until we are told of the massacres that took place there during the Bosnian War.

The bulk of the work is focussed on these massacres and their effect on Višegrad; it’s not meant to be an exposé, but more of a record of Vercoe’s experiences as she explores this beautiful world so starkly contrasted by its sickening past. As she talks to locals, to the writer of her travel bible; as she visits the scenes of atrocities; as she connects with a collection of people who were so recently slaughtered… all in the name of “ethnic cleansing”.

It’s brutal, it really is. The deceptively gentle opening makes the impact more forceful; the simple set makes every additional element significant. And Vercoe’s movements are minimal, carrying with them that sense of contemplation in which we wallow – there may not be much action, but her words paint pictures that are once beautiful, then grotesque. White walls splattered red.

There are some genuinely standout aspects of the presentation of seven kilometres north-east – using washing on a line as projection surfaces for some of Vercoe’s images, the methodical and deliberate preparation of Bosnian coffee, the spreading of the coffee grounds on the floor. But the things that really stuck with me – the things that make me sit back quietly and just think, accepting that I can’t really understand (let alone articulate) the extent of the massacre – are smaller: the occasional tremble in Vercoe’s voice. The mournful eyes of sparingly-used singer Slajana Hodžić. The sequence near the end where Kym counts the women.

Oh, god – the counting of the women.

It’s impossible for me to even clumsily attempt to put into words the lasting impact of this piece. That such a powerful piece of theatre exists is cause to celebrate… but celebrating is the last thing I felt like doing when I left the theatre. What I really wanted to do is sit quietly by myself and mull over everything I’d absorbed (and humanity in general); but what I actually did was go and see The Fastest Train To Anywhere again with a friend… something which, in retrospect, did both shows (and my friend) a disservice.

[2012065] A Joe Satriani Tribute: Surfing With The Alien

Cam Blokland @ Live on Light Square

8:00pm, Wed 29 Feb 2012

My first musical love? The Electric Light Orchestra. At eight years old, I heard the thumping beat of Don’t Bring Me Down (ironically, their first song without a string section), and I was hooked. I nabbed my brother’s new copy of Discovery on tape and, before my tenth birthday, had accumulated the entire back catalogue. Sure, I didn’t appreciate it (especially the phenomenal early album On The Third Day) until much later in life, but it still formed my musical bedrock.

My second musical love? Early eighties British pop (erring on the New Wave side of things). HoJo, Nik Kershaw, Tears For Fears, Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The instrumentation of the music didn’t really bother me that much; I was attracted by the beats and rhythms and lyrics. But I grew up in country South Australia, and a common Saturday night for teenagers at the time was to pile into someone’s car, acquire some illicit alcohol and firewood / white posts, and have a boozy bonfire on the beach with a car stereo straining to the tunes of Cold Chisel and AC/DC. And I really, really didn’t understand the fascination with those bands, and always felt musically distant from my peers as a result.

But in my final year of high school, my pop music leanings were met with quizzical (rather than hateful) scorn from one classmate; the ensuing discussion led him to reach into his schoolbag, extract a cassette, and shove it in my hand. “Try this,” he said, “If you don’t like it, you won’t like anything with guitar in it.”

I looked at the cassette cover, a cartoonish mess of primary colours featuring the Silver Surfer, and gave it little chance of providing me any education… a lesson learned.

Because when I put that cassette in my beloved stereo, the title track of Surfing With The Alien played… and it opened my ears to a whole world of music I’d previously dismissed.

That was an admittedly long preamble to explain that Surfing With The Alien (the album, but more significantly the song) holds a very special place in my heart… and so when I spied mention of it in the Guide, I was sold. I was there.

Unfortunately, not many other people were. Maybe a dozen paying punters, all of us verging on middle age, none of us likely to start thrashing around in delirium at imitations of Satriani licks. But eventually we quietly filed in, to be greeted by Cam Blokland standing onstage with his guitar, sporting rock-star authentic sunglasses-at-night. His band – there were no introductions at all, just a simple greeting and some quick chit-chat – consisted of a rhythm guitarist / keyboardist, bassist, a drummer, and the requisite laptop. A tap of the keyboard, and the crowd noise that opens the album swelled over the speakers… and we were off.

I’ve seen couple of album anniversary shows – Numan’s The Pleasure Principle, HoJo’s Human’s Lib and Dream Into Action – but despite the fact that it wasn’t Joe Satriani on the stage, this was as close a reproduction of an album as I’ve ever heard. In fact, Cam’s playing on the title track was cleaner than Satriani’s own playing during this workshop – beautiful, crisp, searing notes, played with the passion of a true fan – even if the guitar grimaces felt a little over-the-top at times. The band were as tight as a duck’s chuff, and pushed the album along with perfunctory precision.

Every track on the album was there, and it was played in order – but it’s a short album, weighing in at under forty minutes for the ten tracks, so whilst the show was exactly what was promised, it felt like the performance was over too soon. But when the only discernible difference between this show and the original material was the manner in which end-of-song fades were substituted for more clinical closures, it’s pretty hard to criticise it at all.

And the congregation of middle-aged punters? We drank it in: some peering at the technicality of Blokland’s playing, some just drinking in the familiar sounds. And, judging by the looks on their faces at the end of Echo, no-one left unhappy.

[2012064] This Is It

Team MESS @ Adelaide College of the Arts – XSpace

6:30pm, Wed 29 Feb 2012

As a result of the seemingly ambiguous Guide blurb, I know two-fifths of bugger all about This Is It before walking into the XSpace; of course, the précis turns out to be far more prescient than I ever thought possible, which acted as a friendly reminder that I really should read these things more carefully.

This Is It is pitched as a press conference and, after a tense and dramatically cut trailer for the titular movie was shown on two large screens bookending the stage-centre table, Katrina Sedgwick (ex-Fringe and Adelaide Film Festival director) came onstage to chair the panel. After she pitches the movie in ludicrously veiled terms, another four or five short trailers are shown – different snippets of eerie forests shows, creepy camera lunges at characters, first-person views spying on their prey. And then Sedgwick announces the arrival of the actors… they walk in separately, smiling for the “cameras” at this mock press conference, as strobes flash a convincing hungry-media effect (which continues intermittently throughout the rest of the performance). Once all three actors are onstage, they group together for cast shots, then pair up for more photo ops. Natalie Kate Randall and Frank B. Mainoo are always smiling, and always waving – but Malcolm Whittaker, who plays the male protagonist Jim in the movie, appears solemn and circumspect.

After four or five minutes(!) of photo ops, the cast sits at the table, and Sedgwick starts asking them a series of questions about the movie and their roles. Her initial questions promote the idea that these actors are brainless goobers, as they respond to simple questions with lofty answers that create a sense of self-importance and general cluelessness. Later questions establish a bit of mystique around director Dara Gill – he wants to appear enigmatic in his techniques, but the actors’ descriptions indicate that he’s a sexist buffoon who pisses everyone off.

Sedgwick eventually opens questions up to us, the audience – “the press” – and it’s slow and tentative going at first… everyone’s a bit shy, and their questions only prod at details already mentioned. But then someone goes completely off-script, asking about Gill’s alleged racism; others pick up on the opportunity, and before long there’s queries about the rumours that Gill was shot on set. The actors dealt with this ad libbing incredibly well, maintaining the façades of their clueless characters. Alas, after a flurry of audience questions – and with plenty of arms straining in the air for attention – the performers left the stage.

This Is It was quite an experience. Team MESS have shone a light on the culture around movie and actor worship, and created a framework with which the rest of us could perform, too. The inclusion of Katrina Sedgwick was a masterstroke, and the “Press Kit” – a glossy twenty-page booklet available on entry – is an absolute blinder; Gill’s Directors Notes are a near-impregnable load of bollocks, with Randall’s comments on the production of the movie a fantastically naïve description of the process. But the real gem is the reproduction of the short story, Forest, used as inspiration for This Is It: it’s an astonishing piece of writing, broken and pointless and just plain wrong… but it somehow makes the rest of it make sense.

[2012063] The Ring. Wagner. Animated.

More Than Opera @ Norwood Concert Hall

2:30pm, Wed 29 Feb 2012

Genealogy is an interesting thing. As I’ve written before, my father is a German migrant, and has a genuine connection to the works of Wagner; he and a fellow migrant used to trek from their country abodes to Adelaide for every production of the Ring Cycle. Good, bad, or indifferent, each and every production somehow touched him on a deep emotional level: there’s something fundamental in Wagner’s work that really connects with him.

Me, though? Not so much. Yes, The Flying Dutchman was great, but I feel like I only enjoyed that on a superficial level – distracted by sight and sound. But as I get older – and, perhaps more poignantly, Dad gets older – I feel the need to try and find that connection. To see if, somewhere deep down inside me, that core of German-ity exists.

…

Look, I know that sounds stupid, but that was my thinking when I spotted The Ring. Wagner. Animated. in the Guide: “the complete Ring Cycle in 90 minutes!” they claimed.

I arrive at the Norwood Concert Hall well ahead of time and, as is my wont, get to chatting with a lovely woman who was manning More Than Opera’s merch stall. The company only has a short run in Adelaide and, despite their relative lack of notoriety (and the placement of the show under “Film” in the Guide), they’d been reasonably happy with the crowds – they managed to pull in a respectable thirty-odd punters to the Tuesday night performance at the Big Slapple.

There were more than that present for this matinée, though. A lot more, though the frequency of silver-tops in the audience might have been a pretty good indicator as to why this particular session was so popular.

A short introduction set expectations – this was still a work-in-progress, we were informed, and the animations were still being polished. We were also encouraged to sit centrally in the room – the audio was being presented in surround sound, driven by the same laptop that provided the projected visuals. But the surround sound was completely lost on me, sitting with my Event Buddy in the front row: not only were we mere metres from the three multi-character voices (soprano Olivia Cranwell, tenor Carlos Enrique Bárcenas, and baritone Lucas de Jong), but we were virtually sitting in the “orchestra pit” – though it was but a cordoned-off area in which the largely wind musicians performed (four saxophones, a set of keys, and the delightful Joanne Cannon on the bassoon (swoon!) and quirky sarrusophone).

The animation told much of the (necessarily abbreviated) Ring Cycle, with musical accompaniment. The animation had a narration track that verbalised the story, but (perhaps because of the surround sound processing) the pre-recorded audio felt murky, and the narration often got lost. But, at key scenes, the band would kick it up a notch, and the singers would come out (in full costume – no easy feat, given the multiple characters they played) and… well, they blew the house down.

Their performances were, quite frankly, fantastic. Sure, there was a bit of the hit-your-mark-plant-your-feet-and-belt-out-your-lines stiltedness that seems to accompany most opera (or at least the opera I’ve seen), but their voices (especially Carlos Enrique Bárcenas in the role of Siegfried) were amazing.

With most productions of the Ring Cycle covering at least a dozen hours, there was obviously going to be a bit of brutal content editing – and that sometimes felt obvious in the animation sequences, where I’d occasionally feel that something significant had been skipped over in a couple of glib sentences. But – as I indicated above – I don’t have the in-depth knowledge of the Cycle to judge the appropriateness of the treatment. The one thing I do know, however, was that I was somewhat disappointed that the Cycle‘s denouement was delivered entirely in text: a flat ending to a terrific story, even for relative opera n00bs like us who never knew the appropriate time to applaud.

After the performance, there was a short Q&A session with all the performers (except de Jong, who had to fly back to Melbourne early to conduct a Welsh choir!) which failed to add any further insight, but that hardly mattered – The Ring. Wagner. Animated. was a wonderful experience, with David Ian Kram’s music direction creating a lush bed for those wonderful voices. Most of all, however, it felt respectful to the source material – that was Irene’s word, but it’s such a perfect and succinct description that I had to include it here.

[2012062] Sons & Mothers

No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability @ Queen’s Theatre 1

11:00am, Wed 29 Feb 2012

No Strings Attached had always delivered me quality theatre during Fringe-time, so Sons & Mothers was slotted in without a second thought; the matinée option was icing on the cake. And for this performance, the rough-hewn Queen’s Theatre 1 is almost at capacity with a collection of initially rowdy school groups.

But it doesn’t take long for them to be sucked into the world of Sons & Mothers and become quiet through rapture. Each of the six actors (seven, if you include writer/director Alirio Zavarce) shares stories from their maternal relationships in turn; there’s spoken, or acted, danced, or even sketched delivery by the Sons, interlaced with video footage of their Mothers. There’s some serious moments as Sons reflect on how they (or their disabilities) may have been problematic for their Mothers, and occasionally one of the Mums will describe some candid and sobering memory… but they’re always offset by answers to the constant question “when did you first meet your Son?” which yielded wonderfully diverse responses.

And the Sons themselves… they’re fantastic. Despite their disabilities, they clearly give their all in their performances; there’s evidence of concerted effort, and they way in which they support each other is just so heartwarming. And their stories… chock-full of joy and love and humour and – most of all – compassion, whether it’s Kym Mackenzie’s inspired moment of birth, or Ryan Rowland rocking out on his guitar (to his Mother’s protestations), or the sublime beauty of Ben Wishart studiously sketching out aspects of his maternal relationship, projected for all to see.

Everything about this production just works: Kathryn Sproul’s set is absolutely gorgeous, creating personal spaces for each of the actors to call their own, as well as providing surprising surfaces for projected photos and films and textures. David Gadsden’s lighting, too, is superb – light and shadow accompany tonal shifts in a way that just seems effortless. And Alirio Zavarce, whose trip to Venezuela to see his dying Mother formed the impetus for this piece, directs the other six actors from onstage. His input is rarely needed, and so subtle and gentle when required; his narration a steady, empathic constant to the performance.

Sons & Mothers was a beautiful, emotionally engaging, and – above all – uplifting experience, and it absolutely deserves all the plaudits it received (and it did very well at the Fringe Awards). Despite the occasionally sad or weighty moments, I remember leaving the Queen’s Theatre absolutely jubilant; but it’s only just now that I’ve looked at the blurb in the Guide and on flyers for the show – “six disabled men explore the most intimate relationship they may every have with a woman”… and I’ve just shed a little tear or two. There’s little bits of happiness in those tears, though, such was the joy that was brought to the stage by No Strings Attached. Bravo!

[2012061] Guilt Ridden Sociopath

Byron Bertram @ Gluttony – LoFi

10:45pm, Tue 28 Feb 2012

After having one attempt to see Byron Bertram perform stymied due to cancellation (I’d been the only pre-sale that evening, and the show had been cancelled well before starting time), I had one last timeslot in which to see Guilt Ridden Sociopath. But, despite throwing the doors open to artists, there was only a small crowd that assembled – a dozen people, tops.

Initially, it seems like Bertram is The Real Deal. He’s projecting a lot of energy and, while his jokes weren’t all hitting the mark, the speed of their delivery meant that something was going to make you laugh. The scattershot effect. There’s a lot of self-deprecation – directed at both himself and his Canadian brethren – and some familiar (to me) references to OCD traits that made me smile in painful recognition.

But then I noticed that Bertram was constantly checking his notebook and returning to material about Australian accents. And that’s a fine tactic – though hardly original – but it helps if you can make your parody funny. And then came the bitchy material about women… and I started feeling a little uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s because I’d just seen a bloody brilliant bit of theatre featuring four strong female roles, but when Bertram started trotting out hot chick / fat chick comparisons, I decided that the fine line between wry commentary and outright sexism had been crossed. The “high-five” bit – overused to the point of embarrassment for the women who sat in the front row – sealed it… and then came the borderline racism.

Look, I’m sure Bertram can entertain a crowd of drunk men with no problems, and I’m pretty sure I saw him perform a short set at a Rhino Room session one night that was a taut collection of quality gags. His raw affability is certainly enough to keep some punters happy, despite the lack of comedic payoff. This night, though? One hour of material that distinctly irked me? Really quite disappointing.

[2012060] Shadows of Angels

Jerky Cat @ Bakehouse Theatre – Studio

9:00pm, Tue 28 Feb 2012

Lured by the promise of wicked women, seductive sinners, and vicious vixens, all wrapped up in gritty noir stylings, and accented by a photo of some blood-splattered ankles, Shadows of Angels was on The Shortlist nice and early… and it proved to be an absolute winner.

There’s a bit of an odd start, with all four actors onstage as the audience entered the tight Studio; but there’s precious little interaction between their characters, as they remain motionless and mute when not active in their scenes. And, while the four scenes all interconnect to create an overarching narrative of Depression-pending Melbourne in the late 1920s, they’re all strong enough to stand on their own; through the initially squeamish black-market abortion clinic opening – Good Femme nervous and wary as she is led to The Room where Old Femme performs her work – we are thrust into this seedy netherworld, where women are constantly under attack… and (mostly) successful in their self-defence.

The tail-end of Good Femme’s story introduces Old Femme, Old leads to Man Femme (the jacket doesn’t quite hide H. Clare Callow’s hips, but she convinces in her cold male detective mannerisms), and Man’s regular brothel runs lead to Pretty Femme’s ordeal; the links between the scenes are all superbly managed, with only a moment or two of interplay between the characters during the transitions… even with short leaps in time between the scenes, it feels almost seamless.

Whilst Shadows of Angels is beginning-to-end brilliant, massive props have to go to Kara Stacey Merrin’s efforts in opening up the play: she has the most dynamic staging of the pieces, and she makes the tight confines of the Studio seem far more expansive as she roves the stage, painting evocative pictures of the clinic. Her reveal at the end of the scene is masterfully played. Erin Dewar’s tragic prostitute is also an incredibly crushing performance – from sweetness and light to broken, it may not have had me leaving the theatre in a chipper mood, but boy was I impressed.

I really, really, loved Shadow of Angels. Murky morals, strong roles, wonderful writing, and effective direction combined with four great performers to create something truly memorable.

[2012059] The Picture Box Orchestra

The Picture Box Orchestra @ Idolize

7:00pm, Tue 28 Feb 2012

The Picture Box Orchestra? Never heard of them. “Led by violinist Alies Sluiter“? Never heard of her, either.

So why was I here, then?

As always, it’s the précis that sucked me in: “combines Indian Classical techniques with Jazz, Hip-Hop and Western Classical influences,” it promised. Hey, I like those things, and it seems like an intriguing mix.

There’s a core of four players in the Picture Box Orchestra this evening – Sluiter on violin, Tim Blake on cello, Jay Dabgar on tabla, with vocals provided by a chap I’m completely unable to find a name for – which is a massive shame, because his singing (Qawwali?) was mesmerising. This contrasting core – percussion and vocals from the east, strings from the classical west – were accompanied on many tracks by keyboards, drums, and bass; Libby O’Donovan even joined them for their third track, Mr Fox, which was a wonderful mish-mash of rhythms and styles.

It’s worth mentioning that too much tabla usually annoys the hell out of me – not tonight, however. The Picture Box Orchestra trotted out a stunning mix of classical tropes, eastern vocals & percussion, and pop hooks, with all elements given their own chance to shine… when not part of some glorious master-plan, songs concocted out of a mixture of these elements that seem familiar and alien all at once.

So – Alies Sluiter? She sure knows how to build a tune. The Picture Box Orchestra? Well worth the effort. Intoxicating stuff.

[2012058] No Such Thing As Normal

Off the Wall @ Gluttony – Excess Theatre

5:45pm, Tue 28 Feb 2012

After seeing the Off the Wall troupe on my visit to the Festival Fishbowl, I was more-than-curious as to how they’d perform – especially given the fact that one of their number was on crutches. Unfortunately, that curiosity didn’t seem to be shared by the public-at-large – there would’ve only been a dozen paying punters at this show, only just doubling the number of performers (five female, one male).

It’s a gentle opening, with one of the girls playing an upbeat version of Another Brick in the Wall on the ukelele; the rest of the troupe – who are all under the age of eighteen, with many still in school – wandering onstage in their school uniforms. Thereafter comes a collection of circus vignettes tied together with short snippets of cute and enthusiastically-delivered dialogue, addressing the shyness of youth and the quest for identity within the confines of school.

And whilst the theatrics lack a little polish in their delivery, the acrobatics more than make up for it. There’s the requisite tumbles and flips and balance pieces (and even a touch of corde lisse and aerial silk), but Off the Wall create some really clever segments that use the wide space of the Excess well. There’s a sliding and tumbling act based in a classroom, using tables and chairs as surfaces and supports, and there’s a great balance act that sees the entire cast wobbling atop two ladders.

But the real surprise in No Such Thing As Normal is the choreography. As I discovered when I chatted to the kids later in the week, they created the entire show themselves, and the manner in which they move around stage really is a joy to behold: first and foremost, they’ve made sure that there’s always something dynamic, something flashy going on… even if it’s something as trivial as a comedic headphone entanglement. Your attention is not allowed time to wander.

And that’s a great thing to see. While the Off the Wall troupe may lack strength and maturity in their physicality, they possess a great eye for keeping the audience entertained… and No Such Thing As Normal certainly manages to do just that, in a cheeky, family-friendly, and engaging manner.

[2012057] The Fastest Train To Anywhere

The Flanagan Collective @ Gluttony – Carry On Theatre

10:30pm, Mon 27 Feb 2012

Sure, it’s Monday night, but it’s absolutely dead at Gluttony. There’s a dearth of people around as Joe and Veronica from The Flanagan Collective peer into the emptiness for the crowd that their show richly deserves.

But there’s basically no-one there. More accurately, there’s three paying punters. We park ourselves in the front row of the Carry On (a wide space with a creaky stage) and wait… soon a man, carrying a small suitcase and wearing a well-worn suit, quietly walks down the central aisle of the venue.

His hesitance – reluctance? – almost appears to make Him stumble as he climbs up onto the stage; He searches the space with no real sense of direction, and no sense of what He’s looking for. He looks at us blankly, but suddenly His eyes sparkle with returning memories that He begins to relay to us.

He (who is never named) is an ordinary working man. One day, on a whim, He boards a random train at King’s Cross Station without knowing the destination; He tells the Conductor that He wants to go Somewhere, but is told in return that this is the Anywhere train; it’ll take three months to get to Somewhere, but He can disembark at Leeds and wait for tomorrow’s Somewhere train.

But He sleeps through Leeds.

The resultant journey feels timeless. The train stops in Wheat Fields, where He and the shifting collection of other passengers watch giants work and play as they harvest ever-yielding fields of wheat. He decides to stay on top of the train as it speeds through snow and Atlantis, to the funeral of a Queen at Stonehenge, to a battle between Heaven and Earth, to the South Pole, to ride alongside princes on horseback in Cornwall…

But the journey is occasionally interrupted by the acknowledgement of His mobile phone. He is haunted by the connections that His phone represents: should he ring work to let them know He won’t be in? What excuse will He use? As the journey goes on, those thoughts turn more toward Home, and his Partner; the first missed call thoroughly throws Him, and leaves Him stumbling around the stage. Further missed calls eat into Him, distract Him from the fantasy that surrounds the journey.

Eventually the train drops Him off Here (or is it Somewhere? or is it Anywhere?); He is clearly distressed. His phone starts ringing; He’s terrified. It rings again… and again. He answers it…

…

Look – let’s get one thing straight. I absolutely adored this show. I was so swept up in the completely surreal experience that I forgot about everything else; Joe Hufton is utterly engrossing in his unnamed role, and Alexander Wright’s whimsical script has an almost runaway-train-like quality to it as it picks up pace, whipping the audience through more and more fantastic locations and situations before a tense finale.

But the script also feels massively abstract – I get the feeling that He was avoiding His place in the world, but there’s no concreting of that idea. In fact, most of the time I didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, and that only encouraged me to fire off a twenty-questions e-mail to the Flanagan Collective to try and figure out the tightness of the scripting, and whether there was any significance in the sole speaking passenger on the train.

…and also to apologise for the paltry audience, and offer them moral support.

But in hindsight, I feel utterly blessed to have seen this performance within a graveyard-like Gluttony that evening; the Carry On offers no noise insulation whatsoever, and when I saw the show again a few days later, the sound bleed from other Gluttonous shows (and even the Fringe Club) tempered the atmosphere somewhat.

But on this evening, though… it was magical.

[2012056] Carnally, where do we go from here…

Burn International @ Bakehouse Theatre – Main Stage

9:00pm, Mon 27 Feb 2012

Wow.

I mean, …

Wow.

Drawn to this performance by an intriguingly obtuse précis – “a surreal and visceral landscape of flesh, feathers, demons, ghosts, and Gods face-off in an explosive collision between modern life and primal being” – I left the Bakehouse after nearly an hour with a big, stupid grin on my face… and porridge for brains.

Because Carnally is a complete, unashamed, brain-fuck.

And it’s almost completely impossible to describe, other than to say that it’s physical theatre. Or, maybe, super-abstract dance.

The set is dominated by a… giant white squidy thing with spermy overtones, which sits at the back of the stage and ominously stretches forward, occasionally throbbing with colour. In front… around… inside this thing roam three performers, who move and stretch and pronounce whilst wearing costumes of colour and texture and imagination.

Now – reading the above sentence back is difficult and messy… but it makes perfect sense if you’ve seen the show.

But I digress.

The opening dialogue overlays itself, upping the confusion; initially, Rob Hughes’ ambient and organic moodscapes run a little hot over the speakers, drowning out the text somewhat. Not that it matters: when clarity returns, you’re awash in words that have the over-enthusiastic literacy of a noble thesis, but I get the feeling – and let me impress upon you that understanding is probably not an option – that the performance depicts the rise and fall of an evolutionary cycle over four distinct “chapters”, each with their own visual style and tone.

The mix of dance and spoken word is utterly intoxicating. As a stand-alone dance piece, it’s genuinely exciting – writer and director Branden Christine is absolutely stunning, commanding your attention with a sense of power and control and presence. Early on, Sam Wang and Leah Landau (who also doubles as choreographer) flank Christine with bizarre embryonic jerky actions; there’s an incredible piece later where the three performers wear masks on the sides of their faces, strutting across the stage in a way that befuddles the eye. And the red-rope sequence during the slavery bit? The manner in which the light caught the rope left no ambiguity.

I think.

Look – I have no idea what the fuck was going on here. But I don’t care – it’s a visual and aural feast, with sights and words jumbling a mind that’s all to pleased to let them in. And I’m so happy that this show exists… because sometimes that sort of confusion presents the best experiences.

And this, most certainly, was one of my best experiences of 2012.

[2012055] Road Movie

Dirk Hoult @ Adelaide Town Hall – Prince Alfred Room

7:30pm, Mon 27 Feb 2012

In hindsight, it’s a pretty bleak premise – AIDS-ridden Joel, who initially turns his back on his lover, then decides better of it and treks back across the United States in an ultimately futile attempt to reunite… the road trip for this road movie.

But Road Movie is also a commentary on AIDS in America – whilst it’s not explicitly stated (that I can remember), there’s a tangible sense that the play takes place in the mid-eighties, when AIDS was feared like a plague and the gay community were ostracised as the carriers. Joel’s encounters with other characters on his trek – in particular, the Diva in Atlanta who buried her son, and spends her nights roaming the known gay hangouts handing out condoms – seem to help paint the picture of an America divided; the sequence where Joel takes in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington (in which he imagines a similar monument for those who had fallen to AIDS) is particularly poignant.

But Godfrey Hamilton’s script isn’t perfect, by any means – at times it’s clumsy, making me feel assaulted by its intent instead of leading me to it. The characters of Dharma & Deirdre feel wasted; colour for the sake of it. And there’s an undercurrent of self-destruction to a lot of the characters that often makes it difficult to empathise.

Road Movie has garnered a lot of critical plaudits, both here and interstate; however, something didn’t quite work for me. There’s no doubting that Dirk Hoult can act – the ease with which he switches characters, adopting unique voices and mannerisms almost instantly, is impressive. But the principal character of Joel is given a very effete treatment that seems at odds with his efforts (especially given his condition); his lover Scott, on the other hand, has a much more engagingly pointed and eager delivery. And Hoult’s Atlantean Diva is fantastic.

But I just couldn’t believe in Joel. And, given that the road trip at the centre of this story surrounds him, that proved to be too big an impediment.

[2012054] My Unseen Disappearing World

Kate Swaffer @ Scots Church Adelaide – McGregor Hall

5:30pm, Mon 27 Feb 2012

As an unfortunate consequence of my own age, and the age at which they created me, my parents are pretty old. I’ve mentioned my father’s occasional physical frailty on this site before; what I haven’t talked about much (if at all) is my mother’s mental frailties.

See, Mum has Alzheimer’s. The disease’s onset was only really noticeable when I found myself having the same conversation with her multiple times over the course of a catch-up phone call; even then, it wasn’t really something that I actually thought was happening. Mum was… y’know, just forgetful.

It wasn’t until, when at home for a family Christmas gathering, I noticed the unmistakably medicinal box of sealed capsules that had “For the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease” written on the side (in soft, calculated hues) that it hit me, that I really accepted that this was happening to my Mum – the keeper of the family, the purveyor of love and sustenance, the provider of coffee-cream sponge birthday cakes.

So, as I sit in the pews within Scots Church, I know why I am here; I look amongst the assembled crowd (who would number in the fifty-or-so, I reckon), and wonder why they are here… for a moment. Then I sadly realise that most of them are probably here for the same reasons I am… which makes me a little bit sad.

Kate Swaffer arrives at the podium and introduces herself: 53 years young, a poet and writer, and suffering from early-onset dementia. She strives to manage expectations early: yes, she will be reading off notes, and yes, she may get lost in delivery (something that only happened once during this session). But it is her almost ceaseless energy and sense of creativity that creates a lasting impact from this performance.

Swaffer’s delivery is very much as a lecture, with occasional interludes from her piano accompaniment allowing her to rest up a little while the audience reflects. But it’s hardly a dry delivery – she punctuates her stories with some of her poems (Slipping Away and Stolen Dreams appear early on), and there’s oodles of topical humour to be had – from her husband’s sole wish (“Don’t call me by your ex-husband’s name”), to tales of her family’s tolerance, to the benefits of playing cards alone (she always wins!).

She covers much of her life story – growing up in a small country town, working as a nurse, and running her own small businesses all helped to shape her. She talks of her first suspicions of her disease, and of the diagnosis… and how much energy was required to hide the growing symptoms from friends.

But by accepting her diagnosis as an opportunity to explore a new way of living, Kate actually managed to take a potentially debilitating negative and turn it into something more: her dementia has allowed her to sit up and take notice… to realise that it’s all there to do. Now, driven by her mantra “live with urgency, before the emergency”, and developing her own PERMA Principles (Positive emotions / Engagement / true Relationships / Meaning / Accomplishment), she’s managed to avoid the perpetual fear of being herded into a dementia day care centre (or secure ward), and actively seeks new, fulfilling relationships. At one stage, Kate quips that her life is actually expanding because of dementia – after all, old friends are becoming new friends.

But Swaffer also covers the nitty-gritty of dementia, with both personal stories (her tale of a friend’s sudden-onset dementia – literally forgetting everyone overnight(!) – absolutely terrifies me), along with more clinical information: one researcher’s report that the onset of the disease could be slowed by increasing the patient’s levels of learning and exercise – especially running – caused the silver-tops in front of me to look incredulously at each other and chuckle. She also recommended a couple of books (The Brain That Changes Itself and The Biology of Belief), and described how much keeping a daily blogging habit has helped her (as she uses her blog like a memory bank… something that I’m also familiar with).

As she reaches the end of her monologue, Swaffer looks distinctly tired: she gets a few moments respite as she plays her short movie Dementia: My Story, and then rounds out with a closing poem, Sunshine, which seems to epitomise her positivity: “Somewhere in the distance / The sun is still shining.”

And that’s a perfect end to My Unseen Disappearing World, I reckon. Rather than “suffering” her dementia, Kate Swaffer has used it as an opportunity to discover a new way of living – one that’s as active and creative and social as she can possibly make it. Despite the potentially morose subject matter, she presents a pragmatic – and even (somehow!) uplifting – approach to the disease, and provides one massive take-away nugget for friends and family of sufferers – It’s how you say something that’s important, not what you say.

[2012053] Knock Off

Three High Acrobatics @ Gluttony – Excess Theatre

10:45pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

I like talking to other people in the audience. Not during the performance, of course – that would be stupidly rude. But in queues, at bars, whatever… I love hearing what they’ve seen and, more importantly, what they’ve enjoyed. And, on the Fringe’s opening weekend, there was one show that seemed to pop up a bit in conversation – Knock Off.

Now, I’d already circled Knock Off in the Guide, but a short run and tricky timeslots had me convinced that I might have to let the show slip by… but, after my previous show ran shorter than scheduled, I scooted down to Gluttony hoping to get there in time.

I made it. And I’m so glad that I did.

Knock Off is performed by three NICA graduates (Sam Aldham, Taka Seki, and Chris Carlos) who adopt the persona of renovation experts, instantly familiar from their television proliferation in recent years. They use the tools of the DIY set – hammers, ladders, and a crash mat decorated as a garden bed – to facilitate a high energy acrobatic set.

There’s also a thread of a love story, and a meta-demonstration of the eleven steps to creating your own contemporary circus performance.

These nested threads, ostensibly trying to justify a bunch of circus tricks, could have been overkill, a thematic mess; instead, it just totally works.

Knock Off stands out from the crowd through almost faultless direction. The pace of the show is relentless, with a brilliant flow between acts; nothing outstays its welcome, and even when I thought that they’d hit a flat spot – a trouble-laden opening to the hoops routine – the finale of that segment more than made up for it. Hammer juggling, spectacular broom spinning, Taka’s weird spinning display… it’s all spot-on the money, and absolutely compelling.

The almost-token aerial work is still a delight (helped out by the aforementioned garden-bed crash mat), there’s a frankly inexplicable boy band dance routine, and some innovative chair dancing. And through it all, there’s the persistent presence of humour (some of the “awkward pauses” were brilliantly timed), and the guys really work the crowd… not that they had to, since a fair chunk of the pretty sizeable audience were performers who cheered (and gasped!) with enthusiasm.

Look – I can’t say enough good things about Knock Off. These guys really know their circus work, but they’ve also got a great sense of the theatrical, as well; coupled with sterling direction, you wind up with a stunningly effective feel-good show that left me amazed… and grinning like a loon.