[20000062] Symphony Under The Stars

Symphony Under The Stars

Elder Park

8:00pm, Sat 18 Mar 2000

Score: –

Short Review: Symphonic

We arrived at Elder Park late, just before the second half of the program commenced. There were people everywhere. Anyway, the second half started with “Slava!”, a neat piece, but something was not quite right… The second piece, Maurice Jarre’s “Building the Barn” (from the movie “Witness”) made the problem evident; the amplification system used to deliver the music to the masses seemed a bit bass heavy.

We moved from our original position (about 15 metres from the stage, to the left) and went behind the stage – and behind the speakers. Success!! The booming bass was gone, and we were able to enjoy “Finlandia” immensely. After the impressive opening to the classic “Sabre Dance”, it was time to leave… no rest for the wicked!!

(Incidentally, we were late because we stopped and had a look at the Light/House exhibition, a display of a dozen innovative house designs. This was, without putting too fine a point on it, brilliant – some of the designs presented were nothing short of astonishing. Congrats to all involved!!)

[20000061] Never Swim Alone

Never Swim Alone

Bakehouse Theatre

6:30pm, Sat 18 Mar 2000

Score: 9

Short Review: Brutal

This was one meaty show. 50 minutes of brutal male truths, starting with giggles and ending with violence. Written by Canadian Daniel MacIvor (whose also wrote House Humans), it takes a no-holds-barred look at the current state of the modern male psyche.

Two men – Bill and Frank – stand facing each other, best of friends. In unison, they greet the audience… they speak in unison for much of the night. They face each other in thirteen rounds, referreed by a ghost of their past. The initial rounds are mostly friendly, jocular boasting and laughs at the other’s expense, but as the play progresses the comments get more and more vicious, until both men get pushed too far…

This play had a lot to say about “winning”, and what success really is in these times. Bill has a successful emotional life, whereas Frank has forgone his in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and is also the more physical of the two. Who is the real winner? The thirteenth round, happily, leaves this question unanswered.

Quite simply, this was a great bit of Fringe theatre. It was fantastic to see a small, local company like Bakehouse producing quality stuff like this! Matthew Bartsch and Erin Klein are fabulous as Bill and Frank, Marlo Grocke plays her small role well, and the direction is faultless. Kudos to all concerned!!

[20000060] The Quiet Room

The Quiet Room

International Brigade (Cosmopolitan Centre)

4:00pm, Sat 18 Mar 2000

Score: 7

Short Review: Maniac!

A chronical of the mental exploits of a schizophrenic woman locked in a padded cell, The Quiet Room is a solo tour de force for Pam Levin (who both looked and sounded like a psychotic Jena Cane – Quixote, Mirette and Bellini). With just a mattress, a toothbrush and her mental hospital gown & slippers to keep her company on stage, Levin does a wonderful job with a patchy script.

Levin plays the many schizo personalities of Sissy, who has a self-acknowledged “aggression problem”. Locked in the “quiet room” for attacking staff in her hospital, she invents a duck (one of her slippers) to inhabit the room with her, and cycles through many personalities (including the duck!) to fill the audience in on her history. Along the way, she details her descent into madness, her many issues with God, and does a great Flashdance to Michael Sembello’s “Maniac”.

However, at the end of the day, the script is a little too disjointed for my liking – sure Sissy was schizo, but at times the script seemed to skate all over the place. There were some great comedic moments, though – the word association games, and the duck having a hypoglycemic attack were brilliant. And Sissy’s first steps into madness scared the shit out of me (and any other daydreamers!). If only the script were a little tighter…

[20000059] Arrogant Worms

Arrogant Worms

The Governor Hindmarsh

10:00pm, Fri 17 Mar 2000

Score: 8

Short Review: Song-a-rific!

Take a quick ride down Port Road (not too far, you might wind up in *gasp* Port Adelaide ;) and go to the Governor Hindmarsh. We did so on St Patrick’s Day, and managed to find a pub full of pissed people dressed in green. And the Arrogant Worms, another Canadian comedy export.

Quite simply, these guys were really funny. Any group that takes the piss out of Canadia (sic) and their most famous exports – Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, and Shania Twain – gets the big thumbs up from me, and their Internet love song “Log On To You” is right up there with Tripod’s Political Song. Any any song that starts “I am cow, hear me moo” is sure to win kudos from this little moobaa.

If this act had a fault, it was that they didn’t localise their content enough… most of the songs were obviously their stock Canadian stuff. Which is still cool, because it was all funny.

(An aside – it was a hot night, and the show was in the rapidly-heating-up balcony at the Gov (the butt of many jokes). After an encore, despite the fact that the Worms were obviously hot, tired and bedraggled, one particularly pissed audience member refused to let the Worms leave until they did another song – “I was just starting to like you guys”. They complied :)

[20000058] Slaughter/Guernica

Slaughter/Guernica

Proscenium Club

8:00pm, Fri 17 Mar 2000

Score: 6

Short Review: Patchy

Two plays presented by the Footlight Theatre Company (Vic, NSW) in the Proscenium. First up – I like the Proscenium as a venue; it works really well, especially for plays which can surround the audience. Second – try “Red Bull” Energy Drink. Neato.

Enough plugs. First play up was the Slaughter – Scenes from Germany, writtn by Heiner Muller. The programme notes that Muller is widely regarded as “one of the most influential and controversial writers in European theatre”. It should also add that he has penned some of the most atrocious rhyming couplets ever – the dialogue was not pretty at all. Muller (apart from having a cool surname) is no Shakespeare. But then, maybe that fits in with the whole darkness surrounding the piece… :)

Slaughter displays five tales of betrayal in different situations throughout Germany in World War II. The first was remarkable for the awkwardness of the dialogue between two brothers. The fourth betrayal received the most passionate direction of the play, with a frantic attack scene. Other than that, the most fun I had during this play was groaning inwardly at the rhymes.

The second play, Guernica, was much better. Intimidated and ineffectual, but very loving, Fanchou has had the love of his life buried underneath the rubble of their toilet during a bombing raid. The banter between the two of them is most amusing; the constant passing of planes overhead creates a sense of diminishing time, as does the faceless woman with child. The writer also provides a humorous distraction. Great stuff!

In all, one good play, one not-so-good… On the other hand, my SO’s opinions were completely the opposite of mine. So, with that in mind, you might roll up and love both. Or hate both. That’s the great thing about opinions, eh?

[20000057] Mongolmongol – My Wonderful Left Hook

Mongolmongol – My Wonderful Left Hook

Uniflex Physical Theatre

5:30pm, Fri 17 Mar 2000

Score: 5

Short Review: Indistinct

My Wonderful Left Hook by Korean company MongolMongol is part mime, part dance, part musical. Unfortunately, all the seperate pieces don’t really gel together that well to form a coherent piece of work; more a well-produced jumble.

The positives first: there’s a cello, so I’m happy from the start (references: 1 2), and the cellist also has a wonderfully haunting singing voice. So the aural aspect of the performance was great, as was the lighting and overall direction. The dancer (sorry, no names!) was also elegant; the movement of her arms was mesmerising.

Now the negatives: the miming varied from competent to pretty bloody awful. What the hell happened to the baby? I’ve got no idea, the miming was that bad… did he throw it away? drop it? kill it? make it’s head fall off? It’ll take someone with either (a) a whole lot of imagination, or (b) a script to explain it to me. The plot was outlined on a flyer presented to patrons; good thing, too.

So, a mixed-performance piece which only really satisfied the ears. A pity, really, since I think there’s a gem of an idea in amongst it. But kudos to Mongolmongol for bringing it out here – they’re all really nice people (just a shame the piece wasn’t up to scratch).

[20000056] Adam Hills – Goody Two Shoes

Adam Hills – Goody Two Shoes

Nova (Cinema 3)

10:50pm, Thu 16 Mar 2000

Score: 6

Short Review: AlmostThere

After Adam Hills’ previous show (My Own Little World), I thought I might as well hang around to see his new work. And, whilst not up to the standard shown by the older material, there were still some gems to be found.

For starters, the session of the show I went to was being “signed” for the hearing-impaired. There were many laughs to be had from this alone – Hills deliberately listing of risque cocktail names (and watching the interpreter sign Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” was cool). Again, Hills also had a large amount of musical humour in the show (not sure that would have been good for the hearing-impaired), including his brilliant construction of a boy-band from the audience.

In all, this too was an amusing show, although a little rough around the edges. It’d be nice to see the show after a year on the road, to see how well it polishes up.

[20000055] Adam Hills – My Own Little World

Adam Hills – My Own Little World

Nova (Cinema 3)

9:40pm, Thu 16 Mar 2000

Score: 7

Short Review: Flugley(!)

This’ll be short and sweet – Adam Hills let loose with a volley of jokes, some toilet humour, a lot of audience participation (getting someone to do a James Brown-style entrance), and even more singing. His songs were, on the whole, pretty amusing – not up to the standard of, say, Tripod – but his multiple renditions of many national anthems were bloody amusing.

Quick review, eh? But what’s the One-Word-Review about, then? Well, as a closer, Hills invited the audience to yank words from nowhere as substitutes to known words – hence, “love” became “flugle”. In all, a pretty good show – you could certainly do worse.

[20000054] Shock Headed Peter

Shock Headed Peter

Her Majesty’s Theatre

7:00pm, Thu 16 Mar 2000

Score: 9

Short Review: TragicallyFunny

Shock Headed Peter dwells on the horror stories parents (used to?) tell their children to keep them from doing naughty things. In bringing the story of Shock Headed Peter (a hideous child to uncaring parents, who hid the child in shame under the floorboards), those involved have created a fantastic and highly amusing story that truly is fun for all ages.

Using the story of Shock Headed Peter as a central theme, the cast (led by the wonderful Julian Bleach) perform the afore-mentioned stories to the music of the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant Tiger Lillies – Martyn Jacques constant castrato and Adrian Huge’s deadpan humour are sensational. The stories are acted – watch Harriet burn! – or subject to very clever puppeteering… my favourite story was “The Man Who Went Out With A Gun”… most amusing stuff.

Thoughout the whole show, the audience is barely given a moments’ respite from laughter – even mistakes are cleverly handled. If there is any flaw to this show, it was that it probably went a tiny bit too long – maybe only one story though. Otherwise, simply brilliant.

[20000053] Drumming

Drumming

Festival Theatre

5:00pm, Thu 16 Mar 2000

Score: 9

Short Review: Organic

The second of the dance pieces from Rosas (the first being Fase), Drumming has to be one of the most tightly choreographed, yet at the same time, most casual looking dance performances I have ever seen. And in no way is this a bad thing.

Drumming is set to a 58-minute piece of music (again by Steve Reich) which, strangely enough, is entirely percussive. Twelve dancers onstage intermittently prowl the outskirts of the stage, then leap into the fray – and I mean leap. Like anxious gazelles, the cast run, leap, twist and turn across the stage at a furious pace.

There’s a good reason why my One-Word-Review is “organic”; when involved in the action, the dancers don’t all move in mass unison, but instead in small groups or flocks of only two or three. Where my previous gazelle metaphor is pretty close to the mark, on more than one occasion did I think that there were flocks of birds skipping across the stage. The sheer beauty of the work, however, is in the choreography – different groups running (skipping, flying) at full speed intersected with others, whilst more solitary participants bubbled around in the background like some human game of Life.

In short – brilliant! It’ll be a long time before I can get the image of all those fast-moving, swarming dancers from my mind. Incredible stuff!!

[20000052] Mr Bungle – California Screaming

Mr Bungle – California Screaming

Adelaide Uni Cloisters

7:30pm, Wed 15 Mar 2000

Score: 7

Short Review: Uneventful

This is neither a Fringe nor Festival show, but I’m writing something about it so no-one thinks I took a night off :) Mr Bungle return to our fair city for a show beset by sound problems, but which was reasonably entertaining nonetheless.

Neil Hamburger came out to cop some shit from the crowd before the arrival of the Bungle boys. He was crap. ‘Nuff said.

Bungle opened up with a cover of “What The World Needs Now”, swiftly followed by “None Of Them Knew They Were Robots”, “Air Conditioned Nightmare”, “Ars Moriendi” and a rhumba-esque version of “Carry Stress In The Jaw”. The crowd was pretty placid, though, until “Travolta” kicked in, followed by “My Ass Is On Fire” – the old ones always seem to get the crowds a-jumping. Other highlights included “Desert Search For Techno Allah” and “Merry Go Bye Bye”, as the main set & encore closers, respectively.

To be quite fair, this was a pretty average show. There were sound problems a-plenty, and even when the sound was clear, the live renditions of tracks from “California” were less than inspiring. On the plus side, there was “Merry Go Bye Bye”… But no stage antics, no amazing live versions, no great covers. Just plain-jane entertainment.

[20000051] Voices

Voices

Royalty Theatre

7:00pm, Wed 15 Mar 2000

Score: 7

Short Review: CloseButNoCigar

Five people sit around a dinner table – a manager, an industrialist, a criminal, an intellectual, and a chairman-of-the-board. All are leaders, in one form or another. One man (Jeron Willems) plays the five parts, including their interactions.

Willems addresses each of the characters in turn, referring to the other characters when needed. Each character’s monologue tends to espouse a point of view towards the free-market economy, ethics, religion, and a whole host of other themes. To be honest, though, some of the monologues were a little… flat? boring? And the entire script was very… um… wordy, to the point of self-indulgence.

I wanted to love this, I really did. But it just didn’t gel. Jeron Willems does an outstanding job, and is clearly a great comic actor, but the performance and the script just didn’t work together *that* well.

[20000050] Fase

Fase

Festival Theatre

8:30pm, Tue 14 Mar 2000

Score: 9

Short Review: Industrial

Two women come onstage in the dark for the “Piano Phase”, the first of four such Phases for the performance. The lights lift. A simple pre-recorded piano melody starts playing. The two women start spinning around and around, casting their shadows onto the white backdrop such that one central shadow is formed with the superposition of the two women. The shadow takes on a life of it’s own, and you have to keep reminding yourself there’s only two dancers on stage…

So starts Fase, an incredible piece of dance from Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and the company she founded, Rosas. De Keersmaeker is joined onstage by Michele Anne De Mey, and the two look strikingly similar. The four Phases – Piano Phase, Come Out, Violin Phase, and Clapping Music, are all similar in that they all begin with simple repetitive movements which gradually become more and more complex as the piece progresses. Similarly, the music for each piece (created by Steve Reich) is constructed of small melodies or sounds, endlessly repeated, creating a mesmerising industrial feel to the performance.

Well, it might not sound like much, but I loved it. The only reason this didn’t get a big “10” is because there were a few tiny little mistakes… but, given that De Keersmaeker is doing the choreography for the other Rosas performances, I can’t wait to see them.

[20000049] La Chambre

La Chambre

The Exeter Hotel

10:00pm, Mon 13 Mar 2000

Score: 8

Short Review: Melancholy

Apparently, the turnout to La Chambre’s gig on the 12th at the Stag was so miserable (3 people!) that they decided to cancel their gig on the 13th and go home to Melbourne. Unfortunately, the Melbourne gig they had planned was cancelled, and at the last minute the guys at the Exeter asked if they’d like to do a gig there… So it was that we, paying ticket holders, were NOT notified by FringeTix of the cancellation, but still managed to catch La Chambre anyway. Note that this was not, of course, an “official” Fringe show, but what the hell – they’re my reviews, I can do what I want with them!

La Chambre, despite their name (and Fringe Guide description), were not your average chamber music ensemble; they were a more contemporary kind of band – guitar, bass, drums, cello, tokkai harp and, as a bonus for Improv Night, flute and sax. The music – well, it kind of reminded me of a cross between early Smashing Pumpkins and the more tuneful bits of Sonic Youth. Songs were very melancholy, but seemed to leap into life at intervals.

Highlights were the opener to their second set, and the final two songs of the night – both of which stretched into 10-minute improv pieces. Fabulous stuff! La Chambre showed themselves to be worthy musicians. For scoring… well, 2 points for wonderful songwriting, 1 point for Jonathan, the coolest drummer I’ve ever seen, and 5 points for having a cello (even tho it was drowned out most of the time :)

[20000048] Giulio Cesare

Giulio Cesare

The Playhouse

9:30pm, Sun 12 Mar 2000

Score: 8

Short Review: Bizarre

Robyn Archer is one brave Festival Director. I have been to several shows this Festival where I have seen several people of the “Festival Set” arch their eyebrows at what was taking place before them. This was another eyebrow-raising production, apparently based on the Shakespearean text.

The opening of the first Act, it must be said, was magnificent. The stage curtain, white, starts pulsing. The pulses get larger. The curtains part to show the battering ram creating the pulses. The curtain closes. The pulses fade. The curtains part. There sits Brutus. He inserts an endoscope through his nose, down to his vocal chords. He utters the first lines of the night, his vocal chords projected for all to see. Stunning.

The rest of the play… well… you know what it’s like when you’re watching a Lynch or Greenaway film for the first time, and you’ve no idea what’s going on? Giulio Cesare created a similar feeling in me. Don’t get me wrong, the plot was dead simple – Brutus kills Caesar, then the weapon used in the act returns unto him, with which he suicides. There you go – a one-sentence plot summary. Simple.

Ah, but if only the imagery used in the play were that easy to decipher! Some of the prop devices used to support the actors were truly amazing – a chair walking of its’ own accord, the prevalant use of a fox, a cat (complete with Exorcist-style spinning head) and even a seahorse… what was going on? Act 2 replaced the actors playing Brutus and Cassius with two scrawny women… apparently, their anorexia was meant to represent the need to empty oneself in penance.

I think I’ve used the word “apparently” a few times now – and with good reason. Some of the symbolism seemed… well, tenuous, if you catch my drift. Again, the comparison to Lynch/Greenaway comes to the fore – not only for the far-reaching symbolism, but also for the wonderful aural (I hesitate to say “musical”) score. A lot of the imagery was recurrent between the two acts, also, elaborating on the theme of the returning dagger.

So – did I like it or not? Well, here’s the thing about me – I’m much fonder of a performance that looks average, but adds depth through indecipherable imagery, than of one which looks pretty but is straightforward. It gives something to think about on the way home, no? So I rate this one pretty high.