[2014062] Miss K is… Wrong.com!

[2014062] Miss K is… Wrong.com!

Klara McMurray @ La Bohème

6:00pm, Wed 26 Feb 2014

Technology, eh? Love it. Cabaret, yeah? I can dig, I can dig. Précis promising sly digs at reality TV? Alright, you’ve won me over.

That’s pretty much the thought process that led me to LaB on this Wednesday evening (in what was becoming a hotly-contested timeslot). I’ve no idea why the half-dozen other people had elected to be there, but I suspect that there may have been a few media freebies amongst them. No-one – except for me, with my perennially optimistic smile – seemed super happy to be there… not even after being given a free copy of her Miss K’s previous CD, IL Mio Amore.

Which, now that I think about it, should’ve been a hint.

Klara McMurray’s alter-ego, Miss K, arrives in a tizzy: she’s fresh off a plane (after her “spiritual” trip to India – cue food & faecal jokes), and the batteries in her phone – her lifeline to the world – are dead. She’s desperate for a drink and – more importantly – to let others know she’s desperate for a drink… She wants to be seen. To be noticed.

To go viral.

And there’s the core of Miss K is… Wrong.com!. A handful of songs – some amusing with clever wordplay, some cringingly poor and misguided – are interspersed with some banter about her travels and travails; her problems are most certainly from the First World, however, and fretting about not being able to Instagram her lunch is as perilous as it gets.

And whilst one or two jokes about Facebook or Twitter work well, too many were contrived and hackneyed, leading to the feeling that Miss K wasn’t really as au fait with her subject matter as she’d like you to think. While Miss K’s vocals are strong enough on their own, there was also an audience singalong segment: with such a small audience, this was as awkwardly bad as could be expected. But there wasn’t not enough content here to justify the effort (or, more importantly at this time of year, the time); needless to say, I left this show a little bit sad that I hadn’t seen something else instead.

(Also: I find it quite amusing that Miss K’s Wikipedia Page still exists; I’d have expected that the Wiki Police would have ripped down that autobiographical advertising almost immediately!)

[2014061] Show us your love.

[2014061] Show us your love.

Kym Begg and Artists @ The German Club – Friedrich Jahn Room

2:00pm, Wed 26 Feb 2014

I’ve been a massive fan of (the ferociously talented) Kym Begg since seeing him perform in Rough for Theatre II; he’s subsequently invested himself in the art of direction, with which he’s also proven himself more-than-capable. So when I saw his name attached to Show us your love, I immediately prioritised the show – easy enough to do, given the number of matinées on offer.

But when I actually went to book my tickets, I was a little alarmed to discover that all-but-two of the eleven shows originally listed had been cancelled. Luckily one matinée remained, so – after some administrative duties followed by a morning ArtWalk – I found myself settling in to my seat at The German Club, chatting with Eddie and Rosemary.

The reason for the cancelled shows became apparent as Begg addressed the two-dozen-or-so in the audience: this was very much a look at a work-in-progress, he stated, and was an exploration in using dance-inspired movement to work with a narrative to tell a story (as opposed to using movement to just accent a story). And as his young cast – some trained in dance, some in theatre – performed the work they’d developed, it was easy to see that movement is far more important to this work than mere blocking… and that the spoken word has more importance to the dance aspect of the work than mere explanation.

The stories they tell are simple, but identifiable: tales of young people discovering their adult selves, each with their own trials and ascensions. The girl lured by the promise of womanhood, only to become an abused teen mother; the lonely, the bullied. Straightforward, but I could sense a deft culling of text in favour of complex physical action. And that made it a bit challenging as an audience member, because I’m used to absorbing the movement as colour to an action in a theatrical setting… it’s almost like I had to engage both my theatre brain and dance brain (as small as it is) to interpret some of the show.

The Q&A with Begg and the cast after the performance was pure gold. Questions and opinions flowed thick and fast from the audience, who were mostly creative types themselves – dancers, actors, directors. It was bloody brilliant to be able to hear the questions that were triggered in the minds of the knowledgeable, and for that I will always fondly remember Show us your love.

[2014060] Rhino Room Late Show

[2014060] Rhino Room Late Show

More comedians than you can poke a stick at @ Rhino Room – Upstairs

The Rhino Room Late Show has been a bit of a staple in recent years, with a wander past the ‘Room to check the lineup a mid-evening necessity. Having said that, one evening a week seemed to be devoted to a live recording of Eddie Ifft’s podcast, which was of no real appeal to me (though a friend who attended one such event said it was… interesting), and there’s some pressure from other (newer) late-night lineup shows… but, as with the three nights I trundled along, the Rhino Room still delivered the goods.

11:00pm, Tue 25 Feb 2014

Marc Ryan – fresh off a win in the RAW Comedy Final – hosted this evening, but died real quick at the top; all credit to him, though, as he slowly won a lot of the crowd back over the course of the evening with tales of boganity and pissing in the shower. Jason Pestell produced his familiar (for Adelaide Comedy regulars) tales of heckling, and Luke McGregor really impressed with his affable style and quirky presentation: “I’ve had sex… goodnight!”. Rob Pue (who apparently suffered poor crowds and horrible noise bleed in his Croquet Club venue) also impressed with some rapid-fire race-based material, and joined McGregor on an increasingly awkward Shortlist.

Angus Brown kicked off the second bracket with discussion of his bucket list, asking the audience for their bucket list items: “leap wildly at the Pope” yelled one punter, which impressed me with its specificity and lunacy. I’d never seen (nor heard of) Hayman Kent before, and whilst her tales of church and choir life were grinningly awkward, they didn’t really satisfy either. A great delivery style has her bookmarked for another look, though.

The final bracket was left solely to Heath Franklin… and it’s fair to say that he absolutely smashed it with his venomous mini rants about Bunnings and Subway that left him breathless and red-faced, and me gasping for air from laughing. I may feel awfully conflicted about Franklin’s Chopper persona, but there’s no doubting his power as a standup comedian in his own right.

So: my first Rhino Room Late Show for the year turned out to be pretty successful. Solid entertainment, a couple of names to watch out for, and a couple of names that went straight on The Shortlist.

11:00pm, Fri 7 Mar 2014

Steele Saunders hosted this evening, which I found a bold choice: his slow and contemplative delivery of mostly drier-than-dry material didn’t really seem like emcee-friendly stuff, but he somehow made it work. Rob Pue showed up again, and – sadly – repeated the same material that he’d done at the previous Late Show… it’s good stuff, to be sure, but it had the effect of quietly scrubbing his name off The Shortlist again. Dave Hughes showed up, and appeared to be trialling a bunch of new jokes… there were constant references to the “keepers,” and – truth be told – there was a lot worth keeping. Impressive stuff from Hughesy.

Jacques Barrett opened the second bracket, and… damn, he’s good. Cats & Dogs is a fantastic opener, and Blueberry Muffins never gets old. Adam Richards played the gay card with aplomb, with some gigglish anal sex hints: “make sure you knock before coming in.”

Adam Rozenbachs kicked off the final bracket with loose jokes culminating in a piece about Stick Figure Families; his material deserved a chuckle, but Sarah Gaul does it better (through song, no less). Finally, Lindsay Webb finished the night off in style; whilst there was a lot of repeat material – like the “Mat” versus “Matt” admonishment – from his show (which I’d seen a few days earlier), he seemed to freestyle an amazing Jesus / carpenter bit that just went on and on and on and on. He really is an incredible comic.

Great night… bloody great night. Possibly the only downside of the entire event was the fact that I’d inadvertently wound up sitting next to a guy with the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard – almost too loud, you know?

11:00pm, Tue 11 Mar 2014

After having seen Glenn Wool earlier this evening, I was delighted to see him co-hosting this Late Show with Greg Fleet; they had a fantastic rapport, bouncing oddball ideas off each other incredibly well. Their improvised “Good Cop, Weird Cop” routine was a delight, but Fleety ran a little too far with the idea… and was mocked by Wool for doing so. Great stuff.

Lindsay Webb kicked off the first bracket with more material from his current show (his gym-related gags), before Eddie Bannon produced one of the funniest bits of the entire Fringe: mouthing words without actually speaking into the microphone, constantly trying to rest his beer bottle onto a non-existent stool, and swapping the roles of the mike and bottle… it was absolutely inspired humour. Sure, it owed more to clowning than standup, but it sure was memorable… but it made me feel (temporarily) terrible for whoever had to follow him. Luckily, Pete Johansson – who I’d seen earlier in the week – was unfazed by the brilliance that had preceded him, and rattled off his glorious bee and wife-rape-fantasy material to great applause.

The second set got off to a rocky start as my friend lost her contact lens, causing some mad scrabbling under seats with torches in a vain attempt to find it; as a result, I didn’t hear all of Dilruk Jayasinha’s spot, but I did recognise him as the guy with the loud laugh (from my previous Late Show). The bits I did hear – an inadvertent quest to kiss guys whilst maintaining his straightness – seemed pretty original, though… but that laugh! Man it’s loud. Then came the previously unknown-to-me Bryan O’Gorman: starting out with a deceptively slow stoner aesthetic, he almost magically transforms his drawled words into a rapid-fire (and extremely eloquent) rant at religion. Utterly fantastic! Heath Franklin reprised his closing role from my first Late Show this year with a repeat of the same material; mini-rants ahoy!

Whilst this Late Show had a different form to the usual Rhino gig – two brackets of three acts, versus the typical three-of-two – this probably will go down as my favourite of the late-night gigs for the Fringe; Fleet and Wool’s combined weirdness, the discovery of Bryan O’Gorman, and Eddie Bannon’s amazing tomfoolery made this an almost unbelievably good show.

[2014059] WAKE

[2014059] WAKE

Cryptophasia Theatre Company @ Arcade Lane – Regent One

9:30pm, Tue 25 Feb 2014

Being a pessimistic male with very old parents and a brittle emotional support structure, the concept of “grief” terrifies me; try as I might, I can’t imagine how I’m going to react when something really emotionally tragic happens in my life. But hey – I can at least explore the concept through my art consumption, right? And with a précis that promised a “contemporary musical about loss, grief, and hope”, it seemed like WAKE was something I should see.

So – into Regent One we go. Despite it being Cheap Tuesday, the crowd of around fifteen is pretty thin… especially given the four musicians already at the back of the stage – drums, guitar, violin, and (yes!) cello. The set – a collection of chairs arranged in rows, some small tables, a smattering of ragged magazines for mindless thumbing – cleanly evoked memories of waiting rooms; I could’ve sworn I was looking at the haematology day centre at the RAH.

The house lights drop, and we meet Laura: she’s trapped in this waiting room (both physically and mentally), though why she’s there is (initially) shrouded in mystery. Her encounters with doctors (both insensitively cold and compassionately warm), as well as other people in various states of grief, permit an exploration of the intertwining nature of love and loss, grief and hope.

And this vocal exploration is performed in song. And it really works.

Though some of the interstitial dialogue feels a little clunky (serving only to move the plot sufficiently to the next song), the songs themselves are really good: lyrics are thoughtful, rarely veering into cheesy musical tropes, and manage to emotionally engage. Whilst the cast of four do a great job, especially with their harmonies, extra special mention must be made of Brittany Lewis; as the pivotal Laura, her singing voice was nothing less than stunning… and her ability to get the audience (OK, OK – me) to start (hopefully) silently weeping through song alone was impressive.

Lewis’ performance easily allowed me to gloss over some of the clunkier bits of dialogue and sketchier characters (the hypochondriac and drug addict spring to mind) and still remember WAKE fondly… but the show has one other feather in its cap: the band, and the acoustics in Regent One.

Because, from beginning to end, WAKE sounded amazing.

Sure, I could have been aurally blinded by the presence of the cello… but the way the music filled the old cinema was really, truly wonderful. It was almost as if the sound became tangible in the ether, thickening the air around me and wrapping me up in a big cuddle, comforting in a time of need. Musically, the structure of the songs matched the strength of the lyrics; they were just perfect for a piece of musical theatre.

Despite its minor flaws (which were entirely contained within the theatrical components of the show), I loved WAKE. It was an emotional and compassionate look at grief that satisfied on many levels, and demonstrated that musical theatre can come from anywhere.

[2014058] 5pound theatre’s Ubu Roi

[2014058] 5pound theatre’s Ubu Roi

5pound theatre @ Gluttony

8:00pm, Tue 25 Feb 2014

So – I’m waiting around outside Firefly for Love & Other Acts of Theft when I get a text message from a friend – 5pound had announced that they were cancelling their Wednesday night performance of Ubu Roi, to which I’d already bought a ticket. I’m faced with a decision: do I (essentially) swap the two shows in my Schedule so I can fit them both in, forfeiting my ticket-in-hand for Love, or do I miss out on Ubu?

The answer is always “see as much as you can”, so I blurted an apology to the Firefly box office and dashed across the road to Gluttony via FringeTIX, arriving just as the (capacity!) audience for Ubu Roi filed through a previously-unnoticed doorway in the back of the venue. As we were guided to our seats in a makeshift covered area – reminiscent of an open-fronted tent – the much-vaunted mud-pit of a “stage” is clearly visible; the front two rows of the audience were handed plastic sheets for protection from any mud that happened to become airborne.

Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi was only performed once in its original 1896 incarnation; it closed after the first performance after public outcry (and a riot broke out) due to the profanity of the script. 5pound’s presentation is equally profane (with the dialogue updated for a modern audience), and no less comedic; the Macbeth-pisstaking in the script remains strong, and the vulgarity is most certainly played for laughs. The relationship between Papa Ubu and Mama Ubu is delicious – vicious and biting and absurd, it’s a wonderfully performed piece of work.

In fact, all the performances (by an all-but-one female cast) are strong, albeit with pantomimic overtones… but they’re contrasted with some pretty sloppy – both figuratively and literally – direction. This is most notable in the closing stages, as the cast nod and wink their way towards the mud pit, with the expected mud-slinging match erupting more out of spectacle than script. But the tongue-in-cheek nature of the battle makes it feel… well, refreshing.

Ubu Roi could have been a juvenile exercise in resurrecting a profane script, but it manages to feel committed, honest, and fun. I’m still a little pissed they cancelled their last show, mind you, but I’m glad that I decided to catch it when I did.

[2014057] Yours the Face

[2014057] Yours the Face

Quiet Little Fox @ Tandanya – Firefly

6:30pm, Tue 25 Feb 2014

A new theatrical venue, Tandanya’s Firefly has a bit to offer a small audience; though it only seats around thirty people, most of the seating is somewhat elevated from the performance space… something rarely seen in Fringe-time. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of noise bleed from Grenfell Street and the opening night party in the Tandanya Gallery next door; thankfully, the performance was engaging enough for me to ignore the environmental distractions.

The stage is carefully backed by a collection of light diffusor umbrellas; into this space steps a lithe Roderick Cairns, who deftly flips between two characters: Peter, the renowned Australian photographer, and Emmy, the young (too young?) American supermodel. They’re both fish out of water in London – when we first meet Emmy, she’s struggling to write a postcard to her grandmother back in the US (painting in her backstory as she goes), and Peter spies her in a café before he learns that he’s supposed to work with her.

Their initial work together is stiff and awkward, though Emmy’s cool distance is eventually overcome by the flirtatious dance with Peter’s camera. As Peter and Emmy – each revered in their own way, each struggling for grounding in a life of transience – tumble into bed together, and deal with the awkward aftermath of the physicality, the connection – we sense – is doomed. But the portraits that Yours the Face paints of these two people is thick, rich, believable; there’s a hint of Lost In Translation to this relationship, but with quirky ennui replaced by a desperate, painful loneliness that eats away at the characters.

Whilst I haven’t always got along with productions bearing the Quiet Little Fox name, I’ve got oodles of time for writer Fleur Kilpatrick: she’s always willing to chat about her creations, and is nice enough to prod a nobody like me for opinions. And Yours the Face is, by far, my favourite of her works: the solo performance with two voices is an inspired decision (and possibly the most cutting – yet subtle! – comment on objectification at this year’s Fringe). And Cairns is wonderful in both roles; whilst the feminine anglings of his body when he portrays Emmy initially seem exaggerated, their consistency over the course of the performance assure me that it’s a conscious decision… or maybe that’s just how supermodels carry themselves.

But perhaps the saddest aspect of this performance was the fact that there were a mere five people in the audience this evening; Yours the Face deserved way better than that. It’s engaging and thought-provoking theatre that managed to unsettle me in the best possible way.

(Oh – and there was a significant chunk of nudity. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I distinctly remember thinking that I’ve seen way more penis this Fringe than feminine breast.)

[2014056] MONO-

[2014056] MONO-

House of Vnholy @ Plant 4 – Clipsal Factory Site

9:00pm, Mon 24 Feb 2014

Even though I often mourn the passing of the old Fringe office on Cinema Place – where you used to be able to see an expansive floor full of flyers from which to choose, rather than the measly basket outside each of the FringeTIX offices these days – there was still something amazingly eye-catching about MONO-s promo material; deep, bold RGB hues with stylish and thought-provoking monochromatic images really made their postcards stand out. Despite the long running time and awkward location, I committed to MONO- early.

Even though I had planned to walk out to the old Clipsal Factory, I wound up getting a ride there with a friend – but there was a hint of tension in the car that made the prelude to the show… well, interesting. Even more so when we arrived at the Plant 4 location and traded our tickets for teeth; I have weird memories of standing awkwardly in a growing crowd whilst running my thumb over the tooth I kept in my pocket, feeling its curious edges, whilst completely failing to absorb anything from the sheet of Director’s Notes.

The important takeaway from those Notes is that MONO- was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Berenice… though that doesn’t really figure into things until later in the piece. Initially, the audience was guided on a promenade performance through the factory space – up and down stairs, through disused offices and change-rooms and bathrooms. This piece of the work is genuinely exciting: there are moments where the audience, as a group, walks into a room that is filled with an eerie fog, stark white light creating an overwhelming visual effect. There’s an encounter with a strange character singing ethereal notes in the corner of a room. Looking out of an upper office window over the factory floor, a spotlight picks out a figure digging (what we instantly assume is) a grave, whilst three figures watch from a starkly backlit (in bright green, another nod to the coloured promo postcards) room.

Downstairs onto the plant floor, to the scene of the grave: looking back to the offices from whence we came (now flooded with red light), we see a shadowy couple flirt… then fight. Three dark sisters dance for us, before we are encouraged to sit for a more traditionally theatrical performance…

…and this is where it all went wrong for me.

Whilst the promenade was thrilling and engaging, the sit-down portion of the show was repetitive to the extreme. Despite a stark white visual aesthetic (wonderfully juxtaposed against a projected black disc which grew from a dot to envelop the space, providing a tangible sense of tension as it did so), the performance – in which one could see blunt references to Berenice – almost bored my own OCD ticks out of me, as the principal continuously processed his stack of boxes for what felt like a millennia. By the time other characters ghosted their way through the set, I’d almost completely shut off; the addition of bright-red blood (and naked bodies) towards the end of the piece lured me back somewhat (as the unexpected tooth-collection wakened me from my torpor), but the pace – or complete lack thereof – of the second half of the show was disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong – the promenade segment of MONO- was totally worth the trip, and the performance has an integrity to its visual aesthetics which is almost beyond compare, ably supported by strong physical performances. But that seated section… wow. Props to House of Vnholy for sticking to their vision, but I really could have done with something a little more lively this evening.

[2014055] The Bedroom Philosopher

[2014055] The Bedroom Philosopher

The Bedroom Philosopher @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Paradiso Spiegeltent

7:00pm, Mon 24 Feb 2014

The Bedroom Philosopher (Justin Heazlewood) is one of those acts who I always seemed to put an inquisitive “maybe” asterisk next to in the Guide whenever I see the name; but a few acquaintances have raved to me about Heazlewood’s act in the recent past, so – with his only Fringe show on an otherwise relatively quiet Monday night – I thought I’d finally see what all the fuss was about.

But here’s the thing: The Bedroom Philosopher is very much geared towards the hipster demographic: for hipsters, by a hipster.

And I’m not a hipster.

But a lot of the audience were, and they lapped up his dry and self-deprecating wit like manna from heaven. But his jangly songs only caught my musical ear when his band – The Awkwardstra – rocked it up a bit. His humour didn’t connect with me at all (his book readings less so), and the occasionally stop/start ramshackle mess of a song killed any momentum that may have been built up. And then there was the closing bracket of songs about cats… with Heazlewood dressed in a cat suit.

And I just sat there wondering whether this was supposed to be entertainment, or mere fan-service.

Look, I’ll not deny that most of the audience appeared to be having a great time at this show… but I suspect they either had a wealth of Bedroom Philosopher knowledge, or were just easily entertained. Sure, I cracked a smile a few times, but much of the content was just so unidentifiable to me that I just felt… well, lost. A fish out of water.

I should not have attended this show.

[2014054] Now We Can Talk

[2014054] Now We Can Talk

Lukus Robbins [creative producer] @ Adina Grand Treasury Adelaide

5:00pm, Mon 24 Feb 2014

The précis for Now We Can Talk promised an “[interactive] journey throughout the city”, and hinted at creative uses of theatre and technology; whispers led me to believe that there were very limited tickets – only five per show! – and, sure enough, when I went to snaffle my tickets there were only a few evenings still available. Luckily, one of them fit in perfectly with my schedule; I purchased it, and suddenly that performance was Sold Out.

Arriving a few minutes early, I sat in the sun in the Adina’s courtyard in front of a lectern featuring the show’s name; a couple sitting at a table nearby, tickets proudly on display, were analysing the Fringe Guide, loudly wondering what the précis meant. Another couple entered the courtyard, guardedly looking around; then a man in a sharp suit arrived, took our names, and handed us tiny LED torches. Then down into the tunnels beneath the Adina Grand Treasury (last visited two years ago) we went, casting our torches left and right; some of us were more comfortable with the darkness and confined spaces than others.

Soon we’re in a space: flashlights indicate it’s a small room. I cast my torchlight to the floor and discover five bodies laying their quietly; eventually, slowly, they start to move, like blind earth-dwellers sensing the light on their faces (speaking of which: why did my fellow audience members need to direct their torches directly at performers’ faces?). After a little squirming, the torches are taken away… and, to the complaints of some in the audience, we were blindfolded.

I heard the audience being separated, voices going off in different directions; I’m carefully guided through some corridors until my guide stops me and removes my blindfold. I was in a little nook, clearly (by the sloping roof) beneath the stairs; my guide, a friendly chap, sat across from me, a table stacked with old books in the corner of the nook, a tatty chair next to it. He offers me a seat; I decline, and – after a slightly awkward start – we begin chatting about… stuff. Me, mostly. His questions were gentle enough, and I’m always happy to talk about myself, and he made the mistake (big mistake) about asking me about my job. In return, he offered his own employment: he was a photographer, pursuing noble causes, and his description of his job seems to fit his appearance.

We amiably chat for awhile until, after a short pause, he bluntly asks: “Do you ever lie in your job?”

The change of tone in the conversation makes me laugh. “Ah – back on script,” I smile. There’s a hint of something in his eyes, and the conversation wraps up quickly thereafter. He gives me a book from the nearby pile, and instructs me to head back upstairs; there, the book is exchanged for a pair of headphones, an iPhone, and a map. The phone is locked, but displays a map with my location and my destination; I’m ushered out into the streets, listening to ambient street noise in the headphones. I feel like I’m being followed… and, when the voice of my previous guide comes into my ears, I suspect that he’s watching me head to my destination.

So: down the block and around the corner I go, and I’m soon at the corner of Wakefield St & Gawler Place. The voice instructs me to take a seat; there’s a bench nearby. The voice goes on to tell me that he’s sorry, but everything he told me previously was wrong: he’s a chronic fuck-up, a disappointment, a habitual liar. And as I watch people head home from work on a Monday evening, I don’t really connect with this voice at all… less so when I idly turn the iPhone over in my hand and see the word “Lier” [sic] emblazoned on tape on on the back.

The voice in my ears stops; the ambient street noise mixes with the street noise sneaking past the headphones. I walk back to the Adina and hand in my equipment to the suited chap; “that’s it?” I ask, trying desperately hard not to sound underwhelmed. He brightly replies in the affirmative and bids me a good evening; I head off for an early dinner.

I can see – or, rather, sense – what the team behind Now We Can Talk were trying to do here; the physical and emotional contrasts (tight tunnels versus wide streets, alienating bodies versus friendly conversations) seem very deliberate. But the production – or, at least, the part of the production that I experienced – failed to really do much with those contrasts, and those characters; when my Friend was revealed to be a decrepit cheat, I didn’t really care… I hadn’t formed a connection with him.

I read a few pieces online that lauded Now We Can Talk for its ability to isolate the audience, to give each member their own unique experience… and I suppose that’s a relatively accurate description. But I’ve been lucky enough to experience the works of Ontroerend Goed before… and, compared to the (amazing) Internal, this production doesn’t conjure anywhere near the same levels of intimacy.

[2014053] A Special Day

[2014053] A Special Day

Por Piedad Teatro @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

9:30pm, Sun 23 Feb 2014

It seems like every Fringe there is an absolute gem of a theatre production that, despite word-of-mouth and critical plaudits alike, just doesn’t get the audience it deserves… and I fear that A Special Day was the unlucky bearer of that cross this year. That’s not for want of trying, though: I saw actors Ana Graham and Antonio Vega everywhere during the Fringe, trying to drum up interest from the Mall to the Garden and Gluttony to the Markets… it breaks my heart to think that they slogged away to little reward.

Because they really deserved to have massive crowds in, rather than the lazy dozen that turned up this evening.

As we took our seats, Ana and Antonio wander the stage, chatting amiably with the audience – small talk, curious questions, how’s-your-day-been. They keep the conversation flowing – sometimes almost uncomfortably so, given the size of the audience (or lack thereof) – while they change into their costumes… then, with a crisp greeting, they became a flurry of movement: dragging small tables and collections of props into position, and purposefully chalking the features that define the walls of a home onto the blackboards that lined the back and sides of the stage.

We soon learn that the room is set in Rome, on a day when Hitler is visiting Mussolini in 1938. Antonietta (Graham) guides her family through their morning routine and out the door; a moment’s rest allows her the opportunity to spend some time admiring the family’s pet bird (trapped within the confines of a chalk birdcage). She opens the cage (some nifty re-sketches required), but the bird escapes; she tracks it into the home of her neighbour, Gabriel (Vega).

A scene change requires more blackboard scribbling, and suddenly we’re within Gabriel’s house… and he’s got a gun in his hand, contemplating suicide. He swallows his pain (and, one suspects, the remnants of his pride) and answers the door; reluctantly at first, with the shy stiffness of two unfamiliar neighbours, they chase the bird, then engage in conversation. And here the play develops a bit of a darker undercurrent: the fascism of the day is never really talked about directly, but there’s little doubt that Gabriel is in some danger because of his beliefs. Antonietta’s more circumspect approach to political thought frustrates him at first, but as their friendship grows – they drink coffee, hang out washing, change light bulbs (all wonderful chalk-inspired moments) – they start challenging each other’s thinking.

A Special Day was – in a word – beautiful. The visual aesthetic delivered by the simplistic (yet completely functional) blackboard drawings was a delight; the actors’ interactions with sketched windows, doorbells, and smoke was wonderful, and rarely felt gimmicky. And the performances of Ana and Antonio were gorgeous – though their accents occasionally got a little heavy, the sincerity (and charm, and pathos, and humour) of their characters was allowed to shine through. And, most of all, I left The Arch feeling like I’d been rewarded for having taken a chance on this production.

Sure, A Special Day received its share of recognition throughout the Fringe: it picked up a Weekly Award for Best Theatre in week two, and snaffled The Peace Foundation Award at the end-of-Fringe ceremonies. But for a theatrical production that was so touching, so poignant, and so beautifully executed, a better reward would have been masses of bums in seats… because the owners of those bums would have gone away very happy. A Special Day was special indeed.

[2014052] The Boat Goes Over The Mountain

[2014052] The Boat Goes Over The Mountain

Happy Dagger Theatre @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

8:00pm, Sun 23 Feb 2014

In low light, with the stage dominated by a large wooden skeletal shape that looked a bit like the structural frame of a ship, stood Andrew Hale. He explained that he was feeling listless and, despite being relatively comfortable (using a traditionally Western definition of “success”), lacking purpose. Something was missing in his life, and he didn’t know how to find it.

And I’m totally on board. Hale’s casual, identifiably Australian banter – not to mention the emotional unease he described – really connected with me… hey, I’m the King of Malaise, don’t-you-know.

With a rapid-fire series of events that seemed so reasonable at the time – and so inexplicable to my memory now – Hale found himself on a plane to Peru, signed up for a retreat in which he was to partake in a series of ayahuasca ceremonies. After losing his luggage – a nice metaphor for jettisoning his mental baggage – he then starts describing his journey.

Things don’t start well: his first encounter with the psychedelic substance (and the ritual behind its consumption) scares him, but he finds some solace in comparing his experience to the eleven others on his retreat: the trips of “T”, an athletic kick-boxer, sound far worse than Hale’s. There’s another Aussie in the group – James, who happened to live fifteen minutes from Hale – who provides companionship, but much of the text is focussed on Hale’s personal tussles with psychedelic enlightenment.

Or was is enlightenment? The subject is barely broached; in retrospect, The Boat Goes Over The Mountain feels more like a mental deconstruction that just happened to have some ayahuasca along for the ride. It represents Hale’s fight with his own notions of himself; psychedelics just game him the impetus to engage in the battle.

Hale’s storytelling delivery is beautifully weighted, with softer passages combining with the low light and odd shapes of the frame to create an almost dreamlike ambience. When he battles with the drug – or, worse, its projectile side-effects – the tension in his voice rises, the volume increasing with it… but the monologue rarely loses its poetic nature. And the supporting roles in the production are superbly managed: the wooden frame is turned and tipped to act as a ship, a climbing rig, supports for hammocks, and even percussion. Craig Williams remains onstage throughout, adding to the ambience through sticks and strings, and the performance is bookended by songs.

The Boat Goes Over The Mountain certainly was a curious and creative theatrical experience; there was a lot of enjoyment to be had, drinking in Hale’s tumultuous experiences. And whilst I readily identified with his starting point, and can certainly see the appeal of the end point, his path in-between (frankly) terrifies me; but maybe that’s the point, really. Maybe that’s why I offer myself up to these stories… looking for the adventures I wouldn’t have myself.

[2014051] Epicene Butcher

[2014051] Epicene Butcher

Third World Television @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

6:30pm, Sun 23 Feb 2014

A small audience of only a dozen-or-so assembled for this performance of Epicene Butcher, and most resisted the urging of door staff to sit down the front; not me, though, and my urging got a few other people to come up front too. As a reward, our assistant for the evening – the gorgeous Miss Chalk, wearing cheeky sunglasses and a cheekier short skirt, handed out Chupa Chups to those friendly enough to come up front – mine was Strawberry & Cream.

On the surface, this should be a pretty straightforward show: South African performer Jemma Kahn presents a series of short stories in kamishibai, a pictorial form of storytelling that originated in 12th Century Japan. But whilst kamishibai is certainly a different style of theatre than that which I’m used to, what really made this show stand out was the physical delivery of the seven stories. Kahn orates as she draws cards from a wooden frame; all eyes focus on the contents of the frame (and not her garish pink ensemble with hairy leggings that lean heavily on decora). Cards are often part-drawn, exposing a new panel while leaving much of the previous card visible; at times it felt like reading a comic book or manga, but with much better narration.

Starting out with the fable-esque Eriko and The Carp, the subject matter (and tone) veers wildly, yet never feels like too big a jump; Mario’s Lament was a poignant look at Mario’s never-ending quest to save Princess Peach from Bowser. A South African Story referenced Mandela as well as Kahn’s own travels through broken Japlish. A silent piece covering recent disasters in Japan was ruthlessly efficient at tugging the heartstrings. There’s musings on the dreams of cats. But the title piece, Epicene Butcher, was far and away the best story: a twisting erotic tale with wonderful pacing and a devilish demeanour, with more than a hint of Greenaway.

Since Kahn manually controlled the movement of her story cards in the wooden frame that acts as her stage, her ability to move around was limited; and yet the memory I have of her performance is undeniably physical in nature. Through wonderful voice control, and precise little gestures with her head and hands, she created a presence that is far, far bigger than a set of A3-ish cards. Miss Chalk’s presence is also cartoonishly larger-than-life, as she covered for Kahn’s card-changing between stories by proudly poking her gorgeous arse at us as she bent over in an exaggerated fashion whilst writing the introduction for the next story on her blackboard.

I loved this show, I really did… and that’s not just the titillation of the buttock-curves talking. Kamishibai is a fascinating style of presentation (it’s easy to see it as the ancestor to manga, comics, and even PowerPoint), and the stories (written by Kahn and Gwydion Beynon) were all genuinely entertaining. But behind the loud and gaudy costuming was an absolutely wonderful performance that completely filled The Arch… even though we spent most of our time focused on a series of cards. Jemma Kahn deserves many plaudits for presenting such an engaging performance, almost through voice alone… then again, even her silence during the piece on Fukushima was somehow made physically engaging, so I don’t know how she did it. Stage magic, I reckon.

Anyway: The Epicene Butcher and Other Stories for Consenting Adults. Absolutely worth seeing.

(Curiously, the above tweet resulted in the only comment of a negative nature that I’ve ever received via Twitter; the person concerned thought my reference to Ms Chalk’s posterior was a little over-the-top. Then he saw the show, and followed up with a message of yeah-I-get-where-you’re-coming-from… which was nice :)

[2014050] (finger)prints

[2014050] (finger)prints

Chloé Eckert [writer] @ Channel 9 Kevin Crease Studios

4:00pm, Sun 23 Feb 2014

It’s my first time out to this new Fringe space in North Adelaide; established by Alirio Zavarce, the Chapel of Love forms a fundamental part of proceedings – though (despite its apparent popularity) I’m not sure why. There’s a decent bar, food, some beer garden-esque seating, and a small stage… all to support the Chapel and the Kevin Crease Studio, which – in turn – was supported by a pretty decent crowd (for such a big room).

Kev’s Studio is a great location – even with the raked seating, it’s still a very wide and deep space, and I’m assuming that existing lighting rigs make it a little easier on production teams. And, for (finger)prints, the stage is set with the sparse belongings of a group of young adults; walls are indicated on the floor, but the rooms are more clearly defined by their furnishings… this staging seemed like a good use of the width offered by Big Kev.

Opening with an intriguing piece of dance that (unfortunately) seemed to have no real connection to the play it preceded, we’re introduced to a cluster of friends & housemates, suffering the morning after a big night. Max is clearly the worse for wear, with Ollie and Sammi playfully digging at him… but reality soon intervenes: Esther died that night, the victim of a hit-and-run by a drunk driver.

Max is convinced that he was responsible for the crash, though he has no explicit memory of the event; Ollie and Sammi support that premise to his face, but behind his back is another story. Their bickering suggest that they are covering up for their own mistakes, and the waters are muddied by a half-unrequited love triangle – Sammi loves Ollie, but he’s infatuated with the manipulative Esther. Esther herself appears both as a ghost, and in flashback scenes.

It’s a neat plot – certainly aimed at young adults, but appreciable by old fogies such as myself. But some of the dialogue comes across as if it’s pandering to that younger audience: when Max punctuated a profane soliloquy with “fuck, this is fucked,” I almost suspected that a page of Vicious Circles got interleaved with (finger)prints. And whilst Sammi’s character is played with requisite strength by Emma Kew, and Maddy Herd effectively treads the fine line between lovely and loathsome with Esther, the two males are somewhat less convincing.

After last year’s solid Sage, I committed to keeping an eye on Chloé Eckert in the future; and whilst the text of (finger)prints is mostly solid, the direction lets it down mightily. Sure, there’s some nice touches – the staging is clever, allowing conversations to take place in multiple “rooms” at once – but, then again, that just allows the opportunity for the actors to talk over each other. But, ordinariness of the delivery of the play notwithstanding, credit does have to go to the production team for the striking final moments: Esther, backlit at the back of the stage, threw long ethereal shadows out at the audience. That is what I’ll choose to remember from this play.

[2014049] Sound & Fury’s ‘Hamlet & Juliet’

[2014049] Sound & Fury’s ‘Hamlet & Juliet’

Sound & Fury @ Gluttony – The Bally

11:00am, Sun 23 Feb 2014

I’ve mentioned my bipolar attitude towards Sound & Fury’s work before; on the one hand, the lads are great to talk to, and I find the very thought of highly theatre-literate vaudevillian comics appealing. But the shows… ah man. I just don’t get along with them.

But I always find myself finding reasons to give them another chance.

And this show was, I figured, their best chance to win me over: hey, I like comedy, and I love Shakespeare, so this Fakespearean mashup of Romeo and Juliet with Hamlet should be perfect, right?

Well…

Most of the familiar Sound & Fury hooks are there: the so-bad-they’re-good puns. The slapstick physicality. The silly props (though I reckon the stunt-breasts were milked a little too hard for laughs… see?). A few asides to the surprisingly solid Sunday morning crowd.

But what was missing – and this was in no way a bad thing – were the atrociously overt “ad libs”. In their place were a series of moments in the performance where the three members of the troupe appear to try and wrong-foot each other with script deviations and unplanned responses… if they were indeed faux ad libs, then they were masterfully performed.

The merging of the two plays (in under an hour) was, as expected, a complete mess, with the characters of each play being gruffly used to further the juvenile machinations of the overarching plot. But it’d be a fib to say that I didn’t glean some enjoyment out of the show… it’s just that I think I’ve (finally? – it’s taken me long enough) come to the conclusion that I prefer the Sound & Fury guys as natural comedians, rather than as theatre performers or scripted comedians. I really should have checked out their Hot Tub Talk Show instead; next time, then…

[2014048] Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo

[2014048] Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo

Erth @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Little Big Top

10:00am, Sun 23 Feb 2014

After being impressed by both the splendid puppetry and dark themes on show in Murder (part of last year’s Festival), I was dead curious to see how Erth would present a dinosaur puppet show for children.

The human cast of Erth roam the stage in stereotypical zoo keeper khakis, with one male typically doing all the talking. And there was a surprising amount of talking upfront before the first dinosaur appearance, a small koala-sized thing swaddled in the arms of its puppeteer keeper. Fantastic movement in the eyes made it a convincing start.

From there, the dinosaurs only got bigger, with the puppetry control mechanisms becoming more and more impressive. Large horse-sized beasts roamed the stage – great movement was only let down by obvious handlers, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. A massive diplodocus-ish head and neck stretched into the Little Big Top from outside, both awe-inspiring and endearing; a large, threatening, mouth-full-of-teeth predator was “tamed” by one audience member for a head-in-mouth stunt. The only puppets that failed to win over the audience were the large mosquito-esque monsters, unconvincingly held aloft by the zoo keepers as they furiously operated the mechanism to keep their wings buzzing.

Volunteers to pat the puppets were plentiful, and always wonderful to watch; the youngest would oscillate from delighted to terrified and back again in a heartbeat, and even the older children – so brave and cocksure when approaching the stage, would quake a little from the dinosaurs (and maybe a little stage fright… hey, they were in front of around a hundred people!). But the highlight was undoubtedly the young brother/sister pair: the manner in which the older boy both encouraged, and moved to reassure, his slightly less confident sister was just adorable.

Was Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo great theatre? Well, no – but it was a great spectacle for children, and it made me realise just how much magic can still be found by young minds in a live space (even when one might suppose senses may have been dulled by computer-generated everything). And, some clever puppets notwithstanding, this proved enjoyable for me for the real stars of the show: the kids, pure of mind and heart, and willing to trust their eyes in a world of wonder.