Category: 2012 – Adelaide Fringe Festival

[2012052] Luke Escombe – Chronic

Luke Escombe @ Adelaide Town Hall – Prince Alfred Room

9:15pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

As I scurry to the Town Hall, I dwell on the fact that I know absolutely nothing about Luke Escombe. I check the Guide in the moments before being allowed into the venue… “He spent years trying to be a family-friendly acoustic folk artiste. The charade nearly killed him.”

Ah. That probably explains why this show made my shortlist.

The Prince Alfred Room is pretty small – just as well, really, since there weren’t that many people willing to come out on a Sunday evening to see a relatively unknown comedian. A dozen people, tops. As is my wont these days, I encourage as many people as possible to sit near the “stage”, on which a variety of musical instruments were scattered.

Escombe presents himself with dapper geek chic – patterned suit, matching vest and fedora – and, despite the curious physical presentation, is remarkably pleasant. Opening with Hard 2 B A Pimp (he relishes the contrast between the pimp persona and his gangly white nerdiness), he delivers much of his performance in comedy-laced songs; he tries his hardest to get the audience involved (and best succeeds during Damn Girl (poppa cap in that ass), featuring some comical falsetto), but a sober Sunday night Adelaide crowd didn’t seem to be willing to come along.

While Escombe also plays guitar and keys over the top of pre-recorded backing (or generated loops), I suspect that many of his songs would work much better with his usual band backing. And despite a decent range of styles that he brings to his music – the ragga-esque Jerk Ya Coq is a bit of a surprise – he starts to lose the audience with Too Old to do New Drugs. His personal enounters with IBS, and his work as a spokesperson for Crohn’s & Colitis Australia, is most certainly interesting… but, if anything, it pushed the crowd further away, rather than bringing them back in.

Look – no matter what the rest of the crowd thought (and their reaction as the show progressed became noticeably less enthusiastic), I reckon Luke Escombe is a perfectly genial, non-confrontational, inclusive comic. Which is nice and all… but there’s a wealth of such talent is around during Fringe-time. And, all things considered, I’d prefer someone to shock me, to challenge me, or make me think long after I’ve left the venue… while something like Golden Retriever Breeder is smirk-worthy at the moment of delivery, it isn’t going to be tickling my neurons much after-the-fact.

[2012051] An Anarchist at the Demo

Adelaide University Fringe Club @ Directors Hotel

7:30pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

I like the Directors. It’s a decently-sized space, suitably appointed, and has the perfect ambience for a Fringe venue. And, after the entertaining (but conflicted) Over My Dead Body in 2011, I was looking forward to seeing what my alma mater’s Fringe Club had to offer.

An Anarchist at the Demo is a compilation of two short plays by Australian writer Van Badham. An Anarchist at Dinner kicks things off, a very short play (twenty minutes, tops) featuring a quartet of four wealthy, ultra-conservative Sydneysiders having a rowdy drink whilst belittling the proles. They’re expecting an old friend for dinner; when Vanessa (co-director Freyja Stokes) turns up, her belligerent anarchic attitudes create bursts of enjoyable conflict… a far cry from the uncomfortable classism of the earlier conversations.

Dinner was a difficult piece to like, even with its brevity; the four conservative characters, who I suspect I’m supposed to love-to-hate, just seemed sad and hopeless. The firebrand Vanessa, on the other hand, is instantly likeable… through her contrasting politics. As a person, she’s intimidating, and it’s hard to figure out why she would choose to spend any time at all with the rich crew. There’s more questions than answers, and as a result An Anarchist at Dinner feels very conflicted and rough-around-the-edges.

The second piece, We Met at the Demo, is a far more approachable work; Peter and Fleur (as the title suggests) meet at a demonstration. Fleur is an apolitical office worker who gets struck during the protest that Peter was orchestrating; he tends to her wounds, and the two share their respective anger. She is swayed by his political ideology, and you can feel her eyes being opened and her apathy dissolving as he preaches his radical unionist agenda.

The second act, seven years later: there’s been a change in government, and Peter is a high-ranking union official whose power has led to self-absorbed conservatism. Fleur, on the other hand, has taken his ideology and run with it: tables have turned, as she now represents the radical, and he the conservative. Their chance lunch meeting – years after their physical relationship ended – is full of taut barbs, both personal and political.

The two main characters in Demo – Natalia Sledz as Fleur, and Steve Marvanek as Peter – are well realised; there’s plenty of little hooks in their characters that create a sense of believability, supporting the strong premise of the play. The supporting characters do their jobs, but the real strength is in Badham’s switchback political script.

In all, An Anarchist at the Demo was reasonably entertaining and pretty well produced. The main takeaway for me was in the political content of the pieces, not necessarily in the performances themselves; there’s not enough overt discussion like that these days, I reckon.

[2012050] Just Like the Movies

Socks and Sandals @ Paper String Plastic

6:00pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

It’s with a slightly sinking heart that I read the text on one of the beautifully-textured, coaster-sized flyers for Just Like the Movies… “remember all those great 90s road trip movies?” it asks.

It’s at that point that I realise that I’m probably not really part of the target audience. The 90s will not live on in my memory for “great road trip movies” … Easy Rider, now that’s a great road trip movie. Any early 80s movie starring Burt Reynolds… they are great road trip movies (albeit of different tone). And then there’s a real big gap until Sideways… Still, the ticket’s been bought, and there’s an infectious buzz around the audience. Jane and Eddie are there and great for a chat, as always, but the lovely Paper String Plastic is suffering a bit from the recent hot spell… there’s cooling units a-plenty being deployed, but they’re not really helped by the sticky humidity… and a full house.

Using softly rhyming patter, Josephine Were delivers an autobiographical monologue describing episodes from her travels to the US, ostensibly looking for love. From the start, you know that this is going to be chock full of misadventures – the opening tale seems incredible, as a potentially charming spooning incident on a plane takes a ludicrous turn. There’s heartfelt pieces – the old man in New Orleans, the old woman in San Francisco – as well as joyful-then-wrenching tales (as Were falls for the married guy).

Were’s delivery is utterly charming – she wears her heart on her sleeve, with wide-eyed expectation at the start of her journey through to the crestfallen disappointment of the married guy episode, followed by the oh-hang-on-there’s-still-hope feel-good ending. Matthew Gregan provides accompaniment, the clear tones of his guitar providing a gorgeous texture behind her monologue.

I left Just Like the Movies upbeat – I really enjoyed my time with Were’s search for a man-friend. It’s only later (much later) that I reflected on the piece a little longer, spotting minor flaws: yes, it’s very episodic, and yes, Were paints herself as… well, desperate.

But still… it was all presented with polish and (despite the desperation) confidence, and I did really enjoy the show in the moment. And I looked back at that coaster-sized flyer: “Remember all those great 90s road trip movies? …This is nothing like any of them.” And, of that, I am very glad.

(As usual, Jane provides an infinitely better piece than the rubbish I write!)

[2012049] Misery

The Centre for International Theatre @ Higher Ground – Main Theatre

3:00pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

I’m not the biggest fan of Stephen King: I’ve barely read any of his work, and the movies I’ve seen of his work have varied wildly in terms of quality. But Misery fared well as a movie; it’s hard to forget Kathy Bates’ Oscar-winning performance as the obsessed fangirl.

In front of a decent-sized house, this adaptation gets off to a rocky start: rather than the intended video projection over the set and cast, we’re treated to the tell-tale blue-screen of a DVD player gone wrong. Joanne Hartstone and John Maurice hold their positions, bathed in this garish blue light, for several uncomfortable moments, until their tech gives up and brings up the stage lights… but I can only assume that the visual impact of the opening was completely lost.

Thereafter comes the familiar story of Misery, albeit in a slightly truncated form… the denouement is not book-perfect, but neither does it feel incomplete. The meat of the production is still there, with all the cocksureness, then uncertainty and escalating terror, of Paul Sheldon on display, well crafted by Maurice.

I still can’t quite reconcile whether Hartstone’s portrayal of Annie Wilkes was sublime or confused. Sure, Annie is supposed to be a psychopathic, but conflicted, “fan” of Paul, but there was something almost bipolar about her presence onstage: one minute, Hartstone is kneeling forward like a giddy schoolgirl, and the next moment sees her hunched and crippled like an old, arthritic spinster. It’s great acting, for sure, but the discrepancy was so great that it dragged me out of the moment. So, too, did some of the blocking; though the various rooms on the refined set were well defined through prop placement and floor markings, there were often odd reactions by both performers that made it appear that they could see clearly through the “walls”.

But when all the pieces come together, it becomes an immensely compelling production. Though early lighting seemed clunky and simplistic, the second act contained some great touches: the flickering projector on Paul’s face, the framing of Annie in green light during one of her soliloquies. The brutal physicality of the second act was also really well done – there was a rawness to the head slams, and Hartstone’s jolt at the end, throwing Maurice back, was proper heart-in-throat stuff.

It’s just a pity that the direction (and technical problems) in the first act seemed so uneven… and that audiences still haven’t learnt that they should actually turn off their mobile phones. Nothing takes the mood out of one of the more tense expositions than a tinny version of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

[2012048] The Brothers Pitt

The Pitts Family Circus @ The Deluxe

1:30pm, Sun 26 Feb 2012

There’s a long queue running alongside the fence bordering the ‘Garden when I arrive for The Brothers Pitt; I take my place at the end of the line and, head down, start making some notes on my phone. It’s not long before clumps of people join me and, as I glanced around, I noticed that over half of the Gravity & Other Myths crew were standing behind me. Now, I’m an unashamed gibbering fan of these guys (and girls), so I leapt into conversation, showering them with quite possibly uncomfortable plaudits before we filed into The Deluxe.

Once inside, I find a seat – sometimes it’s incredibly handy to be traveling solo – and see Johnny Nasser (from Monkeyshines) sitting nearby. So he cops an earful of enthusiasm too, accepting it with a broad, friendly grin… and then the Pitts take to the stage in front of a nearly full room on a sunny Sunday.

The Brothers Pitt – Cessil (Gareth Baajland) and Stuart (Tom Flanagan, also seen in Kaput) – really know how to work a crowd, even within the confines of The Deluxe; there’s tons of tumbling and balancing tricks threaded together with familial overtones. Stu Pitt (geddit?) is played to clumsy perfection by Flanagan, with the early broken iPod incident evoking a lot of laughs (along with references to their “brother” Brad, and sister Sandy – Baajland’s real-life partner, Bronte Webster).

The pole balancing (complete with Cessil playing banjo) and a fantastic brick balance routine are genuinely spectacular, and Cessil hams it up with vaudevillian ease – a great contrast to Stu’s buffoonery. But it’s the arrival of Wee Pitt (Baajland and Webster’s son, Gwyn) that is absolutely, heart-meltingly scene-stealing: the youngster (who couldn’t be more than three or four years old) balances atop a precarious human structure with smug confidence, whips out a slapstick gag, and then trots back to his Mum in the audience.

Look – I’m not really one who gets emotionally sucked in by young ‘uns… there’s definitely no cooing over children from me. But Wee Pitt was so adorable, and so enviably comfortable onstage, that I couldn’t help but melt a little. And that, combined with some great acrobatics and stunts and vaudevillian fun and laughs, made for a fabulous show.

[2012047] A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, And A Prayer

A massive ensemble assembled by Acorn Productions @ Higher Ground

11:00am, Sun 26 Feb 2012

I’ve always been interested in spoken word performances, and in the last year I’ve started actually seeing these shows: readings, poetry jams, it’s all good. If there’s someone on a stage throwing out considered words, I’m all ears. And I’ve always wanted to attend Fringe spoken word gigs, but they always seem to get culled – too long, too chancey. But this event, however, was blessed with a conflict-free timeslot.

As I arrive there’s a pretty decent crowd assembled – OJ and nibbles (“light brunch included”) are doing the rounds, and there’s a positive buzz in the air. I scan the crowd for familiar faces – I spot Richard Fry sitting on a couch; I say hello, get a bright and cheery response, but leave him to continue reading his part of the performance. A more focused look around reveals more performers scanning their readings: studies of concentration amid the enthusiastic hubbub of the audience.

A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, And A Prayer was an event in recognition of V-Day: a global movement to stop violence against women. As such, all of the pieces presented dealt with violence or oppression of one form or another; Tammy Franks (Greens Member of the SA Legislative Council) opened proceedings with a stern but heartfelt poem, before Guy Masterson relayed a wonderfully entertaining tale in marked contrast to its predecessor. The tone of the eleven pieces of the day veered wildly between entertaining-with-a-message (Anna Thomas’ cheerfully ironic retelling of I Can’t Wait) to the blunt gender-awareness of Rescue. From the vicious societal appraisal of Eve Ensler’s Fur Is Back, to the almost alien descriptions of Cambodian brothels in Nicholas D. Kristof’s conflicted journalism (given appropriate solemnity by Dushyant Kumar). The futility of 1600 Elmwood Avenue; the inherent sadness and frustration of Carol Michèle Kaplan’s True (a perfect match for Richard Fry’s style of delivery).

But the undoubtable “highlight” – though it really feels disrespectful to the subject to call it that – was Amy Victoria Brooks’ reading of Christine House’s Blueberry Hill (which I swear I’ve heard read before… though I can’t imagine where). That chilling gang-rape scenario – with the almost jarring sense of humanity and liberation in its closing paragraphs – is a powerful piece of writing, delivered with perfect amounts of helplessness, frenzy, and phoenix-like redemption.

Co-director Tamara Bennetts wrapped up the readings with another Eve Ensler piece, Over It. Given the weighty material that preceded it, it provided a suitable ending to the event… but it’d be a stretch to say that it was an uplifting finale. Of course, it’s not meant to be… the topic is far too serious, too important, to try and glibly attach a cheery bookend. But it did manage to feel empowering… and that seems fitting enough. It’s hard to say this was an enjoyable show to witness, but I don’t regret having attended for a second.

(Footnote: I’ve just discovered that Eve Ensler assembled a book sharing this performance’s name; it’s available on Amazon, and appears to contain most (if not all) of the writings mentioned above. What you’ll miss, however, are the wonderful readings of those who took part in this performance.)

[2012046] Dr Brown Befrdfgth

Philip Burgers @ The Tuxedo Cat – Yellow Room

9:45pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

I bumped into Philip Burgers in the TuxCat foyer earlier in the evening; it’s the first time we’d chatted this year, and – after the greetings et al – he asked what I was seeing; “Telia, then you,” I said, “but please don’t pick on me this year. I want to see the show, not be in it… for once.” “Oh,” he said, wide-eyed and honest, “you should come later. I’m running on empty.”

“Running on empty?” I queried. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve got nothing,” he admitted. “It’s all improv.”

And off he dashed to prep his show.

The net result of this conversation is that I was almost giddy with anticipation, but tempered with confusion. After all, last year I thought that he was “improvising” some audience abuse, when it turned out to be a fundamental part of his (then) current show… but now he’s telling me he’s really got nothing? I was salivating at the uncertainty of seeing what he would deliver.

Into the Yellow Room… and it’s pretty much full. I’m perched in the third row, dead centre, and the crowd around me is bubbling with anticipation. Dr Brown has generated quite the reputation in the last couple of years, and most of the people here are repeat customers, comparing notes from the performances they’d previously seen. And I must admit that there’s a secret thrill listening in on other people’s descriptions knowing that there’s a pretty good chance that they will describe a show during which I was on stage.

The house lights drop, and Dr Brown appears through the red curtains at the back of the stage, wearing a black robe and headdress, only his eyes visible… but that’s expressive enough as he glares at a few premature chucklers. He drags the curtains back, exposing the junk-littered backstage area, then takes position at the far wall, some three or four metres behind the stage; he starts jogging towards the audience – two short steps – then turns and jogs back to the wall. Three steps this time, return, four steps… soon he’s running up to the front row of the audience, turning, and running back. There’s a nervous wave of laughter in the crowd now, wondering what Brown’s next move would be…

Well, it was obvious, really. He ran through the crowd, spotting the odd empty seat and leaping (or stumbling) his way to the back of the room as the audience either shuffled seats to open his path or, trapped, shrunk in place to at least allow access to their arm-rests. There’s much laughter… and then a couple of late-comers arrive. Brown gives them the glare, returns the curtains to their original position, and repeats the entire exercise again.

We’re all laughing – if it’s not the expression in his eyes, it’s the ludicrous physicality of his scrambling.

Headdress exposing his entire face now, he attempts to mime the act of nailing himself to a cross – his clowning is coming to the fore, and his actions are preposterous. He starts riding an imaginary bike; reaching for the bell, his eyes draw a response from the audience – “ring ring!” we all start yelling, and before long he’s got us well-trained with other action/noise pairs – “honk honk” we’ll blare, “hiiiii!”, “bye!”, “woah!”, and “ahhh!” all join the vocabulary, with a nice “gonggggg” to wrap up the segment.

Brown trots out a bit of a song, before offering the audience the opportunity for the audience to choose their own ending: we had to sit in a particular front-row seat and ask him to perform… well, anything, before being banished. The first few suggestions raised some incredulous eyebrows from both Brown and the audience before later requests played into Brown’s hands, allowing him to milk more laughs; with requests petering out, I took the hot-seat and made a simple request: “Take a bow.”

The resulting applause was thunderous, rapturous. I was very happy with that :)

The woman after me – the final request of the night – asked him to resurrect his “pornographic puppet” sketch (as seen last year), which – once again – brought the house down. And from the back of the room – where all previous requestors had been banished – I laughed and cheered with the rest of them.

And Burgers’ words kept echoing in my head: “I’ve got nothing.”

Here was a man who, by his own admission, had nothing to work with other than his imagination and a metric fuckton of comedic clowning talent… and still managed to keep a roomful of people delirious with laughter for an hour. I mentally made a note to myself to pencil in a later show, because I was insanely curious as to what this “nothing” would develop into… because the raw “nothing” was pretty bloody special indeed.

[2012045] Live on Air with Poet Laureate Telia Nevile

Telia Nevile @ The Tuxedo Cat – Blue Room

8:45pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

There’s no point denying that I fell completely in love with Telia Nevile last year, and to be warmly greeted by the t-shirt-(Rimbaud Built My Hotrod)-and-pyjama-bottoms-clad Nevile as I scuttled into the Blue Room was an unexpected delight.

As was the opening tune of Raise Your Hands as a “Live on Air” sign flickered with life at the side of the stage. Nevile bounds onto the stage, grabs her microphone, and drags us into her bedroom pirate radio station, which she uses to broadcast her poetry and thoughts to the world.

The poetry itself feels a lot more balanced than that in For Whom the Bell Tolls; there’s a much more consistent flow to the work. Whilst Nevile’s previous effort was charming because of the occasionally awkward reaches for a rhyme, Live on Air smooths those bumps out and replaces them with silky stanzas that constantly impress with her wordplay. The humour quotient seems to have been lifted, too – her weather report (of her soul) is a bittersweet delight, and the jazz-esque “deep” piece suitably lush.

And then she lets loose with her “grammar grindcore” bit… and I’m completely, utterly, head-over-heels-edly falling in love all over again. Her dedication to the tall blonde guy across the street, recited as she gazed longingly into the audience, was wonderfully stirring (in more ways than one), and her West Wing slash-fic that detailed – and I do mean detailed – Josh and Toby’s War Room dalliance was a work of art.

The eighties-lyrics closing piece was just icing on the cake, really – but by that stage I was already grinning from ear to ear, and was blindingly smitten yet again. I absolutely adored Live on Air: with smart poetry, a charming host, and an infectious nod-and-a-wink, what’s not to love?

[2012044] Tom Ballard – Doing Stuff

Tom Ballard @ Rhino Room – Upstairs

7:15pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

I’m waiting quietly in the downstairs Rhino Room bar, when an old classmate from an acting class I took last year came over to me. We start chatting about how much she loves the Fringe, and how – when she had media credentials one year – she went nuts and saw a massive twenty-three shows. I showed her my Media badge (acquired purely for Fringe Club fawning, I might add) and mentioned that this was my forty-fourth show this year… she laughed me off, thinking I was joking.

Some people, eh!

When we finally go upstairs, it’s a pretty full room, and I wind up sitting at the back on one of the stools chatting with a woman who was clearly gearing up for a big night out, and was laying down a pretty solid foundation of alcohol to booze on. The fun chat was interrupted when Tom Bollard stepped onstage after a very brief self-introduction.

Now, I’ve seen Bollard a couple of times before as part of the Feast Festival, and every time he impressed the hell out of me – whilst he’s relatively young, he still puts a very mature slant on his comedy with largely relationship-based material. But for this Rhino Room Fringe audience, Ballard reduces the amount of content that focusses on his own sexuality and replaces it with political banter.

And that’s a bit of a disappointment, really… because, not only is Ballard’s material devoted to his (gay celebrity) relationships bloody brilliant – and noticeable by its absence – but the political observations in their place are… well, not great. Pretty pedestrian, actually. And when he’s resorting to poking fun at the physical appearance of our politicians… well, I’m starting to think that he’s wasting his talent.

Luckily, he’s “helped” out by my aforementioned ex-classmate, who chimes in from the second row that Amanda Vanstone is pretty fat. Ballard looks at her quizzically for a moment before affirming her statement: yes, indeed, she is rather large, and what does that make her electorate – fat sympathisers? Then, en-route to his worst sex story ever (one word: stoma), he throws in a bit of work addressing the idea that political conservatives find homosexuality (and same-sex marriage) to be disgusting: consider, he proposes, the Ruddocks having sex. Or Bert and Patti Newton.

And that rapid-fire banter is pretty good, as is his wrap-up: doing stuff is important, he says, as long as the positive stuff you do outweighs the apathy towards the stuff you don’t do. And that’s a nice note to end on, but I still walked away pretty disappointed with this Ballard set; his Feast gigs have been much, much more enjoyable.

[2012043] Clown Lights Stage

Alice Mary Cooper @ The Tuxedo Cat – Cat Bowl

6:00pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

When I attempted to see Christophe’s show, I strolled (or, more accurately, scooted – I was running slightly late) into the Cat Bowl to see Christophe poking around on the tech’s desk, and Alice Mary Cooper, clad only in underwear, cleaning some dark stuff off her limbs. I found it creepily difficult to look away, if only because I wanted to know what she had smeared on herself; I assured her that Clown Lights Stage was on The Shortlist, and she promised me I’d learn the secrets to her grubbiness.

So I was a bit keen to see this show. The weirdest things can trigger interest, right?

Anyway: there’s a small (let’s call it “intimate”) crowd in for this evening’s show, and in their infinite wisdom they’ve decided to fill from the back row. Not me; straight down the front. You know, to give the Alice a friendly face in the crowd. And when Alice arrives, prim and official, she’s rushing to deliver a lecture: she’s got a series of slides on her chosen topic of… something frightfully academic-sounding already set up on the projector.

But Alice has forgotten her notes; she leaves us to go collect them. We see her scurry off, then hear the screeching of tyres, a crash – then nothing.

I turn back around to see where Alice had gone… and see Ms Felicity Clown (Alice, clad in baggy white underwear with a red clown’s nose) creeping nervously forward, carrying Alice’s bag. She explains that Alice has been hit by a blue car, and that Clown will be filling in for her… and so begins a quite bizarre lecture.

You see, Clown struggles (as do the audience) to even comprehend what Alice’s slides are about, and fumbles about in an attempt to convey her perceived meaning using the contents of Alice’s bag. It’s not long before Nutella is smeared on her arms and legs, followed by a comical attempt to lick the spread off the limbs. The slide that read “Test the limits of naturalism on stage by sitting and eating a full English breakfast” results in Clown extracting a Twinings English Breakfast teabag and eating it, before expunging the chewed up mass into Alice’s water (though I was disappointed to miss out on the tampon variation that Jane witnessed). And the quest for the lost sweeties was a bloody good laugh, too.

A lot of Clown Lights Stage reminded me of Dr Brown’s antics; absurdist explorations into everyday objects. Alice Mary Cooper has a wonderful sense of timing, and somehow manages to make Clown a character you want to barrack for; Clown’s misplaced-confidence is utterly charming, and is spiced up with a trace of whimsy.

The audience was barely into double-figures this evening, and we were unevenly split into two halves of the room: myself and another girl sitting behind me were the Noisy Side, laughing and cheering Clown on, and the Other Side, who were… ummm… frugal with their vocal approval. Which must have been tough – especially, as Alice told me later, as there were a number of reviewers in that night. And I hope they saw the Noisy Side having a good time… because we certainly did.

[2012042] Rough Trade

The Violent Romantics @ Holden Street Theatres – The Studio

4:00pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

I’d seen The Violent Romantics talk about their show at the Festival Fishbowl, and was left with conflicted expectations: the content of the show sounded really interesting, but the cast… they were so young. But the promise of staged ultra-violence – as well as a ticket already in hand – lured me into The Studio, to sit with a crowd of about twenty in front of a stage framed with cardboard boxes.

“Cool,” I thought to myself, “they must be there to cushion falls. This is going to be awesome.”

Four contestants – Stud, Tarry, Viktor, and new girl Dee – introduce themselves by holding up their “score cards”: names, level, and body count are all detailed in a perfunctory statistical layout. They’re all competing in an underground round-robin tournament that owes more than a little to Fight Club, goaded into battle by the manipulative Madam X, who films their bouts for an online audience… Tubs the cleaner adds levity to the experience.

As Madam X prods the emotional weak-spots of the contestants, accentuating conflict with fabrications – twisting Stud and Viktor’s relationship, for example, or allowing Tubs a chance to be “promoted” from cleaner to fighter (though why he would want to do so is beyond me). The fights themselves tend to appear almost as tightly choreographed dance pieces, with lifts and throws testing the performers; the rest of the performance is very shouty dialogue. The denouement – a noisy rabble of miscarriage and blood and hatred – is representative of the rest of the show…

…and I say that because it’s confused. Rough Trade can’t seem to decide whether it’s social commentary or fantasy narrative, theatrical fighting or dance; there’s all sorts of crippled characters on display, but the attempts to fill in their backstory – to create some sort of justification for why they’re at this Fight Club – feel flimsy and ill-considered. And there’s too many times when I found myself asking “why?”: the pregnant contestant. Tubs’ promotion. Madam X’s motivation. Stud’s… well, anything.

To be fair, the dancing is actually really quite dynamic and exciting – sure, it doesn’t create a realistic rendition of the violence that it represents, but nor is it supposed to. The problem is that these dances are simply too few and far between, and separated by periods of “why?” The idea of having characters softly chattering in the background needs re-visiting, too – it adds distraction, not ambience.

In all, Rough Trade reeks of an immature approach with both eyes on spectacle, with little regard for anything else… and I’m not sure that the spectacle itself is sufficient to warrant it.

[2012041] Wee Andy [FringeTIX]

Tumult in the Clouds @ Holden Street Theatres – The Studio

2:30pm, Sat 25 Feb 2012

It’s to be expected that any discussion of Wee Andy is going to occur in conjunction with Fleeto – the two are inexorably linked by the attack on (the eponymous, in this case) Wee Andy at the top of both shows. But I found the two pieces to be markedly different, despite the numerous links and crossovers between them, both in content and – most importantly – in tone.

Wee Andy, as the title would suggest, follows Wee Andy after his Glasgow Smile attack, with the action taking place in his hospital. Narrated by the Surgeon (listed in the programme as “Police Officer”) who has tended to the results of too many of these attacks, much of the performance focusses on Andy’s Mother’s shock at the attack, followed by the realisation of what her son’s life has subsequently become: visibly branded by that act of violence, his options in later life become extremely limited.

Andy’s friend Mackie – Fleeto‘s protagonist – makes a brief appearance, but Kenzie has a much more significant role in the play after he is admitted to the hospital – he’s still the same evil fuck that he was before, but the frustrated – almost animalistic crippled howls – struggle as he loses more and more of his influence is incredibly scary… and compelling.

Pauline Knowles’ performance as Andy’s Mother is magnificent – easily one of the best performances I’ve seen this year. Andy Clark again imparts a restrained weariness in his Surgeon, despite an explosive scene with Neil Leiper’s Kenzie that really turns the performance on its head. But because Mother and Surgeon form a lot of the focus of Wee Andy, the language is a lot more adult – restrained, circumspect – especially compared to Fleeto. And that, in turn, removes a lot of dynamism from the show.

It’s also a less overtly violent piece – certainly the language, being restricted to that of the Surgeon and Andy’s Mother, is nowhere near as profane or violent. The actual acts of violence are similarly handled through separated characters enacting the physical movements – an effective ploy. But the real violence in the piece is communicated by the Surgeon – detailed descriptions of the natures of the attacks upon Andy and Kenzie made me squirm in my seat. And the string used to “scar” Andy is particularly effective.

But, despite all the quality inherent in Wee Andy, it really didn’t grab me as tightly as Fleeto did. At times it seems overtly preachy, almost lecturing on society’s need to pay more attention to the underclasses… a message that was more subtly presented in Fleeto. And, after the performance, I spent the best part of twenty minutes with Holden Street staff discussing the preferred order of seeing the shows. I reckon I stumbled into them in the correct order, Fleeto then Wee Andy; I think it helps to see Mackie’s story in full before the minor role he plays in Wee Andy. And I really enjoyed seeing Kenzie suffer in this show, especially after discovering the truth behind Andy’s attack… a truly bitter twist in the tail.

But then I start wondering: how would I have felt in Fleeto if I knew all there was to learn in Wee Andy? Unfortunately, that’s something that I just cannot experience now… but it does make for deliciously deep and ponderous contemplation.

[2012040] The Snowdroppers

The Snowdroppers @ The Vagabond

11:30pm, Fri 24 Feb 2012

After leaving Tim McMillan earlier than I would’ve liked, I pushed through the seething sozzled mass in The Garden to The Vagabond. The line was, as I suspected, not yet moving; after all, it was only 11:49pm. I was expecting movement by 11:50.

Not so much.

Around midnight the queue started lurching forward. I’m now immensely irritated, because (a) I retrospectively know I could’ve hung around Tim McMillan for an extra 20 minutes, and (b) I’ve been standing behind a group of drunken fucktards, unable to escape the banal inanity they’ve been slurring to each other whilst they commandeered plastic chairs and created their own little seated area in the middle of the line. Still, they all head into the middle of The Vagabond, and I head to the back: the seating and elevated view is very welcome. I’m feeling dead-set resigned on having an awful time, and I take a moment to quieten myself down: remember, I told myself, this could be the show that changes your life. Open up a bit.

The Snowdroppers take to the stage. The crowd in the pit of The Vagabond cheer. “How the fuck ya going?” yells their pretty front-man. And they launch into a rumbling, snare-dominated, more rock than rockabilly opener. And the next song sounds pretty much the same, just with a little tempo variation. By the time they’re halfway through the first chorus of their new song, Devil’s In The Details, I’m becoming bored by its monotony.

The drums are way too hot, and that snare is so sharp that it’s starting to poke me in the eye. Guitar is well restrained lower in the mix, and alternates between some great chugalug and piercing leads. The bass is magnificent – fat and dirty and delicious. The rhythm section are pretty frugal with their movements, mostly rooted to the spot; the front-man roves the front of the stage like a wild animal, hip-thrusting through his songs and occasionally playing banjo to increase the rockabilly feel. He exercises great crowd control – not that it’d take much to herd that crowd of drunk lemmings.

But when he issues a call to arms – “let’s try and get everyone laid this evening!” – well, I feel completely out-of-place. About 25 years out, actually.

There’s a few familiar musical motifs that permeate the songs, and – truth be told – if you could drop the drums a bit, there’s some great grooves to be had from The Snowdroppers. But, as the exodus from the twenty minute mark showed, they’re not for everyone… and the blatantly sexual intent in their performance was quite off-putting for me. Still, when I read the Guide précis back now, I really should have expected that.

[2012039] The Tim McMillan Band – Axework for Space Goblins

The Tim McMillan Band @ Gluttony – Funny Pork

11:00pm, Fri 24 Feb 2012

It is absolute bedlam as I walk across town from the west-end to the east; the streets are as trashed as half the people walking them, and I see numerous people collapse into the care of their companions on the sidewalk, either from dehydration or drinking too much. My beloved city feels like a battle zone, and there’s a war of attrition taking place. I arrive at Gluttony and there’s people everywhere; luckily the Funny Pork tent is right near the entrance to the super-venue.

I’m apprehensive; Axework for Space Goblins is listed as a 45-minute show, and I’ve got tickets for an 11:30 show in The Garden. I know that one will start late – there’s been consistent complaints that Cantina and Soap, with their extensive bump times, completely stuff up the shows that follow… I’m expecting that an 11:50 arrival will be right-on-time. But as staff rush in and out of Funny Pork, the minutes tick by… and I grow more and more worried. I start mentally rearranging stuff in my head, and decide that I can see Tim McMillan tomorrow if tonight’s show doesn’t pan out.

Finally, at around 11:25, the doors – well, tent flaps – are flung open. Seats are quickly filled, and I’m clock-watching – I might just be able to pull this off. But then four men with guitars – took to the stage and sat down… Introducing themselves as Auxilla, they played through a quick four- or five-song acoustic set, constantly battling with the ambient noise coming from the Fringe Club next door. They were bloody good – wonderful polyrhythmic songs with unpredictable harmonies – but as they said their thankyous and ambled off stage, Matt Vecchio popped up to thank everyone for their patience… and that they’d just have to do a soundcheck.

My watch said 11:44. I bit my lip and scurried out, determined to return.

The next night, however, ambient noise was much lower. I scurried in about ten minutes late, catching Matt Vecchio & Emily Bettison in their Modern Looking Saucepan guise. Their songs are catchy and childishly fun and, whilst not performed precisely, are certainly not bereft of enthusiasm or application.

There’s no need for a soundcheck tonight, and McMillan and bassist Brad Lewis hop onstage without much fanfare and plunge headlong into a show that was similar to last year’s effort. Most of the songs were familiar, and the musicianship is still amazing – and the little stories that nonsensically surround songs (like the bizarre tales of growing up in Frankston, and of early experiments in metal with Reverend Pedophile) are wonderfully off-the-wall.

Tim and Brad really do deliver on all fronts – if you’re not being blown away by incredibly intricate original pieces, there’s insane mashups like “Master of Puppets / Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (featuring a whole heap of other song lyrics). Tim’s fingers still dance on his guitar, and it’s great fun watching Brad – he keeps very much his own counsel during songs, quietly nodding to himself before coming in at exactly the right time for a couple of supporting notes, then sitting back and staring serenely into the distance. There’s still the playing-each-others-guitars-while-not-missing-a-note bit, an oddball shout-out to their guitar manufacturer, and…

Look, they’re just brilliant, alright? The Tim McMillan band put on a show I will come back to again and again and again, because it is just insanely wonderful. And, when I went to buy a CD at the end of that second gig, Tim remembered me from last year, and we had a nice little chat.

Seriously: brilliant.

[2012038] The Disappearances Project

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

9:30pm, Fri 24 Feb 2012

I’ve let off a lot of steam (about audience behaviour, mainly) talking to Martin prior to the show; as all eight of us queued for Disappearances, we eyed off the fifty or sixty queued for The Year of Magical Wanking. The door guy announced the opening of the house for Wanking; a massive cheer went up from the guys in the queue. “Those are going to be some sad, desperate people in an hour’s time,” I thought.

A sparse set greets us on entrance to the wide expanses of the Main Theatre: a wide video screen, and two wooden chairs. That’s it. The house lights drop, and some very soft ambient electronica starts burbling in the background… quiet. Moody. Unsettling.

The video screens slowly come to life: they start showing houses passing by, as if we were looking out the passenger side of a car. The buildings that we see feel anonymous in what feels like early-morning light; there’s precious few people in the imagery, and when one inadvertently does appear – in the bakery, for example – it’s a surprise… they feel significant. The audio and video combine to create an incredible sense of displacement.

Two people walk onto the stage and sit on the chairs. She is white, and speaks with an distinctly Australian accent; he is black, and sounds anonymously North American. Their seats are simply lit, the lighting creating a white box at the feet of their chairs.

And, slowly… precisely… they begin telling their stories. Fragments of dialogue from people whose loved ones have simply vanished. There’s no strict narrative – each will adapt the persona of a character for a short time, alternating lines with the other actor’s character, in a very back-and-forth style; characters would change regularly, sometimes returning to expand on their experience.

These characters have all lost loved ones. And that “lost” is in the most painful sense: they’ve disappeared without a trace, with no trail to follow, no bodies found. Most stories recount the unsettling early days of the absence, followed by frustration when they report the Disappeared as missing; the blunt advice from police suggesting that maybe things weren’t good at home, or that it’s best to check back at the local station after a storm because “that’s when all the bodies float up”. Tangling with bureaucracy – trying to see whether a Medicare card has been accessed, or changing addresses – is also frequently mentioned, often accompanied by the admission that the character “felt like a pest” for continually trying to find some information – any information – about the Disappeared.

But amongst these tales of frustration and barely-contained anger are little gems of… well, not hope, because everyone is pragmatically bleak. But there are some police officers, some members of bureaucracy, that display genuine compassion towards the grieving characters. And, make no mistake, these people are suffering; they are the silent victims.

Having said that, Yana Taylor and Irving Gregory speak the characters’ dialogue with a constant, almost dispassionate monotone. And that totally works for this piece, with the effect being that we look down upon the actors as being numbed through years of pain, through years of the unknown. Rare, contemplative, and almost painful movements by the performers are accompanied by curious lighting changes: when they stand, side lighting frames them; when they sit, they become boxed in from above. And all the while, the anonymous buildings pass by in the background, while ambient noises continue to gnaw… The white-out at the end of the performance is almost cleansing, giving the audience a chance to mentally wipe the slate before emerging back into the real world.

The Disappearances Project is a very curious beast; it seems almost deliberately designed to keep the audience at arms length from the stories it tells. That, combined with the disturbing audio and video presentations, makes for a deeply unsettling experience… but one in which I’m glad I partook.

Though “glad” seems to be a completely inappropriate word to associate with the production.