I’ve been waiting for this day for two-and-a-half-weeks.
I’m finally up-to-date with all my reviews / memes.
And now I’m off to more shows / fall behind again… ;)
[20040088] Comedy Gala
Guy Masterson/Theatre Tours International @ Scott Theatre
11:00pm, Fri 12 Mar 2004
Score: 8
Short Review: Improv fun
This Gala evening featured four of the actors from 12 Angry Men – Steve Frost (Juror 03 & MC for the evening), Andy Smart (Juror 11), Dave Johns (Juror 06) and Ian Coppinger (Juror 02). All four presented some stand-up comedy – which, at worst, was still amusing – but the real fun started when they performed some improvisational theatre using audience suggestions.
A lazy half-dozen improv games were used, all of them bloody funny… I mean, where else do you hear phrases akin to “gurgling like Camilla’s vagina”? Still, this was improv, so anything could have happened – it just so happened that these four guys made it happen in a most amusing manner on the night.
[20040087] Ballet Nacional de Espa
[20040086] Pandora 88
fabrik Company @ AIT Arts (Main Theatre)
6:30pm, Fri 12 Mar 2004
Score: 6
Short Review: Great idea, but dull
A wonderful feeling of claustrophobia is generated with the sound of heavy breathing in the pitch dark at the start of Pandora 88; then the two East German dancers that comprise fabrik appear. Their accents as they toy with the concept of hide and seek over an ominous music score almost creates a sinister effect.
And then they’re trapped within the real star of the show, The Box. Initially using a plane of light at the front of the box for some very unique effects, the piece soon turns into an exercise into what can be achieved in such a confined space. The two men play hide and seek within the box, suspend themselves and each other horizontally, create the convincing effect of looking down on them from above, and use the depth of The Box to create some interesting effects.
The two performers are obviously talented – and strong – and the lighting within the box is great, creating all manner of different moods. But, in the end, I just found this piece to be dull. Lots of other people loved it, though, so take your chances.
(Oh, and it loses big marks for repeatedly using a ringing noise at the exact frequency that freaks my tinnitus out. Grrrrrr)
[20040085] Plug Into Serotonin
Neo @ Weimar Room
11:00pm, Thu 11 Mar 2004
Score: 9
Short Review: Funkalicious!
NT band Neo presented a fun bit of cabaret and music at the Weimar room. The theatrical component was a bit naff, but earnest and honestly performed; but it’s when the band start pounding out the tunes that this show really takes off.
Tight funk, with a bit of rock thrown in. And when I say “tight”, I mean it – these guys know their stuff backwards, and they have a lot of fun doing it. The occasional use of harmonica or flute adds interest, but in general there’s plenty of bass, wah-wah and chuggy guitar backing to keep this band moving along with their bright, punchy, and grooving songs.
They really deserve huge crowds during their short stay. Neo’s remaining appearances are:
- 13 Mar, 10pm: Crown & Sceptre (gig only – no theatrical stuff)
- 14 Mar, 8pm: The full Plug Into Serotonin musical experience at the Weimar Room
And they’ve got double CDs available for $20, too – ace :)
[20040084] I Bought a Spade at Ikea to Dig My Own Grave
I Bought a Spade at Ikea to Dig My Own Grave
La Carniceria Teatro @ The Space
9:00pm, Thu 11 Mar 2004
Score: 7
Short Review: Food-mangling anti-consumerism avant garde performance art theatre
Spanish company La Carniceria Teatro (“The Butchery of Theatre”) present a, quite frankly, messy statement on modern life with Ikea. Spanish dialouge is translated onto a screen behind the stage for the duration of the performance, and occasionally short video clips are also displayed there too.
Opening with a list of common societal grievances, confronting the audience with a controversial list of Top 40 All-Time Motherfuckers (Lennon & Ghandi?), and closing with performer Juan Loriente shaving using a wreath-decorated mirror, Ikea was a bleak and absurd rant that, almost inexplicably, used the mangling of food at almost every turn. Cornflakes and milk served with a huge knife? Drowning a boy in gravy?
Creator Rodrigo Garcia’s anti-Argentinian (why?) message is given a good airing, too. There’s a disturbing role-reversal paedophile scene, a movie that literally gave societal icons the finger (especially death), and a great “masking tape logo” scene.
Sure, there was a general overwhelming feeling of anti-consumerism, but was there any finer point to it all? Was the spewing of unfrozen lasagna a comment on the gluttony that pervades our society? Why were exactly six bottles of sauce and mustard emptied onto hotdogs held by a near-naked man? Was Christmas really that bad that they had to explode both a tree and a turkey? Was there any significant social comment behind shoving food up their own arses?
In short, was there any more subtle meaning to this? More questions were asked than answered in Ikea, though this may not have been the intention of La Carniceria Teatro.
[20040083] Downward Dog
Typically Red Productions @ Rumours
7:30pm, Thu 11 Mar 2004
Score: 6
Short Review: Yoga-filled chick fli-… erm, play
It’s an hour long. It’s three women talking about yoga. It uses a yoga class as a central theme for the trials and tribulations of their lives. The cast are fine (they all sing really well), there’s a twee plot, there’s cheesey songs, there’s jokes about yogarobics, masturbation, and fanny farts.
And that’s Downward Dog in a nutshell. It’s entertaining, it’s funny, it’s probably worth $15 – it’s just not compelling.
[20040082] The Baudrillard Brothers
The International Men Of Leisure @ Exeter Hotel
6:00pm, Thu 11 Mar 2004
Score: 8
Short Review: Curiouser and curiouser…
Taking their name from French social theorist (and author of “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place”) Jean Baudrillard, the Baudrillard Brothers pose the question: how do we really know whether their comedy has made us laugh? Running weeknightly at the Exeter for the last two weeks of the Fringe, they present a different theme and content every night.
Today was Tangential Thursday: themes were introduced, discussed briefly, then used as a tangential basis for the next topic of conversation. This worked bloody well, leading to a rapid-fire display of wit – but also meant that flat spots were all the more obvious. However, the boys were quick enough to go off on another tangent quickly when needed.
Really, I’m a bit pissed that I only discovered this show now, and that my schedule precluded just the one Baudrillard Brothers experience. Despite their overt geekiness (Simpsons and Matrix references, too much Moebius), at least they didn’t mention Star Trek ;)
Bloody good laughs all ’round – even if they did rubbish Hudson Hawk.
(I’ve just spent a few minutes scooting over the Brothers’ show plans on their website. Now I’m really pissed off I didn’t see any other shows).
[20040081] Ross Noble – Unrealtime
Ross Noble @ Scott Theatre
11:00pm, Wed 10 Mar 2004
Score: 8
Short Review: Manically funny… but…
Having seen Ross Noble at ff2002 (I could’ve sworn it was in Nova 1), I figured his surreal, rambling, improvised comedy would go down a treat this Fringe too. And, again, his intro is quite bizarre: a short cartoon by the Information Slug. Erm… yeah.
And then Noble bounds onstage, rapidly launches into banter involving Yetis and lecturns, then proceeds to try and disassemble the Scott Theatre in order to create a makeshift lecturn. He discovers a remnant from either Back To The Future or Short Circuit, expertly milks the laughs, then finds his audience mark for the night.
An occupational therapy student. Noble invents the OT Interpretive Dance (which makes several encores throughout the night), links in Ghost and huge pottery, goes shopping with his wife, scoots across via monkey-love to Stephen Hawking, throws in the time-honoured Aussies-swear-lots material, and then he’s gone.
It’s like watching a comedy whirlwind with long black hair. Ideas flit through his head quicker than you can say “hey, that’d be funny”; some are common threads for the evening (pig killing, that’s another one), some pass by as quickly as they were conceived. It’s fair to say that Noble is an improvisational genius.
…and yet, I don’t think the bigger stage at the Scott Theatre suits him. It seems less intimate, less immediate – more like an impersonal performance than an interaction, you know what I mean? Still, if you’ve got tickets to one of his remaining sold-out shows, you won’t be disappointed.
[20040080] First Night
Forced Entertainment @ Royalty Theatre
8:00pm, Wed 10 Mar 2004
Score: 9
Short Review: Brutal
Brutal. There’s no other word for this piece from UK-based Forced Entertainment. A lot of the audience around me tended to use words such as “boring” and “shit”, but I’ve never experienced anything so confronting, so harsh… so brutal.
Initially, it seemed like First Night may be a comedy – eight characters appear onstage with forced grins and heavy makeup, bidding welcome. Slowly, the grins wear off, only to return suddenly. A breast appears. Characters drift offstage, returning wearing blindfolds. They start trying to read the audience’s minds.
And this is where it gets nasty, where the true confrontational nature of the performance is shown. The performers start pointing at various people in the audience and telling them how they’ll die. Initial prognostications have an amusing quality about them, the audience giggling; then one of the characters points at a woman and says, quietly, “a lump in your breast”. The room goes cold; she continues, pointing to other members in the stalls: “cancer… of the bowel. A car accident. Drowning.” Every so often, there’s a nervous (or stress-relieving) titter from a pocket of the crowd – but it is soon muted.
This goes on for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes of introspection. Tough.
Later pieces continue to focus on the morbid, whilst the characters demand that we do not think about it. “Don’t think about war, don’t think about death, don’t think about the death of your parents, don’t think about the death of your children.” Most of the performance is going on inside your own head; Forced Entertainment are just directing.
Indeed, the lightest moment of the performance was the performance of the Balloon Bimbo (inexplicably joined onstage by a blindfolded man with a saw) – her seedy languidity seemed both surreal and superior. But, for the most part, this performance felt like the cast were pointing their finger at you and laughing. Sad, pitiful laughter perhaps, but the joke was on you – you were the performer. Occasionally, the performers would have some fun at each other’s expense – the various levels of boredom during the “mystery?/illusion” sketch were quite amusing – but all the while, the dialog is still depressingly morbid.
Of course, not everyone likes to have the words “You’re shit, and you know you are” sung to them for a couple of minutes, and so this performance may not appeal to everyone. Or anyone. Except me. Challenging? – hell yes.
[20040079] Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down
Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down
Aquarius Productions @ Uni Cinema
5:30pm, Wed 10 Mar 2004
Score: 7
Short Review: Lacking consistent power
Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down tells the story of three women in a small town. Essentially three solo pieces (the characters don’t meet until the final few minutes of the play), the characters of Jodie, Lynette and Ruby share the stage, the “inactive” characters mute whilst the active character addresses the audience. The only commonality between the women: the brutal, misogynistic, overbearing bully, Royce. Murderer, husband, lover to the women, his actions eventually draw the three together.
The first act sees 10-year-old Jodie witnessing her boyfriend die due to Royce’s bullying. Four years her senior, Lynette recounts how her father was responsible for a similar act. 18-year-old Ruby is pregnant with Royce’s child. Act two, set eight years later, sees situations change: Lynette has stumbled into marriage with Royce, Ruby has a string of broken relationships and a 7-year-old child, and Jodie has blocked the death of her boyfriend from her mind. Slowly, through Lynette, Royce’s brutality becomes more apparent – and the play tumbles towards a somewhat predictable climax.
Jodie is played with a sheer youthful exuberance, and the frail Lynette is played to perfection. But the show didn’t gel into something decent for me until the final fade-out – the furtive, scared glances between the three women speaks greater volumes than the previous hour.
[20040078] Daniel Kitson
Daniel Kitson @ Nova 2
9:45pm, Tue 9 Mar 2004
Score: 9
Short Review: A kindred spirit
Kitson comes onstage with no fanfare. Whatsoever. The crowd hasn’t been worked into a frenzy, so the opening is a bit flat. With delusions of melancholy, he improvises himself into a corner – behind the side screens, anyway. And then he reappears, utters the immortal words “this room’s shit, and you’re a bunch of cunts” – and he means it. And he’s won a friend for life in me.
Let it not be said that Kitson doesn’t have a dislike of popular society. His aim of whittling down his audience to a core group of twelve would be a lot easier, however, if he weren’t so bloody funny. Recounting a tale of his worst-ever radio interview, he described his comedy as “a fat dog raping a cake” – and he’s right. Picture that, and you’ve got Daniel Kitson.
Hell, anyone who takes the piss out of The Advertiser’s reviews is fine by me. Kitson’s abrasive take on modern life is something that’s been sorely missed since the sad loss of Bill Hicks; a style that many comedians have tried to emulate, but failed to succeed. Kitson makes this style his own, and does it bloody well.
“Clumsy, but valid”: oh yes. “All filler, and not an ounce of killer”? I think not.
[20040077] Blood on the Floor
Absolute Ensemble / Adelaide Symphony Orchestra @ Adelaide Town Hall
8:00pm, Tue 9 Mar 2004
Score: 7
Short Review: Punchy
It’s easy to tell the members of the ASO and the Absolute Ensemble apart – the former turn up to work in their standard black presentation garb, the latter wear whatever they feel like… which creates an interesting dress aesthetic onstage.
Not that it detracts from the music, oh no. Blood on the Floor is a moody, punchy piece of music – the Prologue was a particularly brutal, stabbing introduction, Shout was exploded into an aggressive piece, and Sweet & Decay was everything it claimed to be. The closing piece, Dispelling the Fears, was ominous; and throughout, Absolute’s Kristjan Jarvi conducted with aplomb.
The problem I had with Blood on the Floor is that the string section was inactive for about half the performance – indeed, Needles seemed to be more oriented towards a jazz/funk fusion band than an orchestra. ASO equals strings to me, so this was a bit of a bummer. Still, the oomph provided by the decorative ends to each piece were compensation enough.
[20040076] Craig Egan’s Summer of Rock Tour
Craig Egan’s Summer of Rock Tour
Craig Egan @ Rhino Room
6:00pm, Tue 9 Mar 2004
Score: 5
Short Review: AOR
Craig Egan’s show is named after the month he spent indulging in three Big Day Outs, two Pearl Jam concerts, as well as seeing his idol Dave Grohl with the Foo Fighters. 6 gigs in a month, eh? Lightweight ;)
Egan started well, given the audience of 13; he managed to get 100% audience participation in the “let’s ROCK!” chant at the top of the show, and the what-makes-a-rock-star slide show was well prepped. There were a few dead spots later on, however, when he could have benefited from having a larger quantity of material to draw from. Egan did make one very valid point, however – great rock heroes (and great rock moments) are everywhere.
His theories on Quentin were ace, however, as was his admission of his love for the aforementioned Mr Grohl. And the story about the heckler he gave the mike to – for 75 minutes – was a good closer. But would you take lessons in rock from a man whose biggest rock moment is the only time he crowd-surfed?
[20040075] Absolute Zappa
Absolute Ensemble @ Adelaide Town Hall
9:00pm, Mon 8 Mar 2004
Score: 8
Short Review: Blusteringly gutsy
The Absolute Ensemble, based in New York City and led by Kristjan Jarvi, presented two hours of interpretations of Frank Zappa tunes. The audience was an eclectic mix – classic Arts patrons, old-school Zappa deadheads, and Zappa aficionados.
Jarvi conducts like an excitable loon – he grins manically at his ensemble, drifts off to chat with them during solos, and is the personification of the mad young conductor stereotype. The wonderful thing was watching the musicians get into the music – there was almost more head-bobbing Zappa-digging onstage than there was in the audience. Most of the songs covered were arranged by Charles Coleman and the Ensemble’s Gene Pritsker, who wielded a guitar onstage.
If anything, the problem with this show is that it started too well – “Filthy Habits” was an astonishingly good opener, thumping the audience right in the third eye, and was almost impossible to better. “G-Spot Tornado” challenged it, with a surging, dynamic orchestration; likewise, “Packard Goose” had a stupendous crescendo; “Teenage Prostitute” raced along brilliantly; and “Muffin Man” was a great closer. Bowing to audience demand, Absolute encored “Dirty Love”, complete with a rap by Pritsker.
The only other issue was that the string section of the ensemble sounded a little overwhelmed early on; still, the arrangements of the chosen songs were fantastic: closing your eyes and trying to disassemble the collusion in your mind was magical. A truly unique experience.