Adelaide Festival. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz. Festival Theatre. 11 Mar 2025
Cafe Muller - Pina Bausch
Aatt enen tionon - Boris Charmatz
herses, duo - Boris Charmatz
The dance world tipped on its axis when Pina Bausch came on the scene. Ever since her Kontakthof and 1980 at the 1982 Adelaide Festival, our audiences have craved to see more. Bausch dance is not just dance, it is theatre of extraordinary movement. It delves into the human predicament and our emotional quandaries, interpreting them in the form of highly evocative and original mannerisms. They hit a nerve in the psyche and stay there. So, we Adelaide audiences beamed with pleasure in 1992 to see her work back in town with Palermo Palermo and yet again in 2016 when her Nelken covered the stage in carnations.
Bausch's early smoker’s death in 2009 was taken as a great blow not only to the arts internationally, but the grief reverberated through the Adelaide thousands who had so admired her work during Festival encounters.
Bausch’s impact on this city’s arts aficionados has been the stereotypical of what well-curated Adelaide Festivals do to nourish and sophisticate the arts sensibilities of the city. Since 1960, it has lain the foundation of an educated arts market.
Cafe Muller was first danced in 1978 and since has been deemed Bausch’s most iconic work. In 2025 it is impeccably reiterated with the Festival Theatre stage flanked by perspex screens and arrayed in chairs and tables. Spot-lit at the back is the revolving door which may or may not lead customers into Cafe Muller. The cafe’s principal patron is a sleepwalking woman whose path through the chairs and tables is constantly and fairly chaotically cleared by an anxious gentleman in a suit. A second dreaming woman, similarly clad in a plain slip nightie, echoes some of this woman’s obliviousness.
The scene develops with two more males, one of whom tries repeatedly to arrange the body of the sleepwalker with that of a very passive man who stood in her path. Fail after fail ensues as the woman drops repeatedly from his impassive arms to the floor, finally to seek his embrace in her own way. It is funny. It is frustrating but accompanied by Henry Purcell arias and sounds of bodies in contact with surfaces, it makes sense in the end. It is all about lost souls and the flaws of human connection. Sometimes Cafe Muller conveys a sense of the placid and sometimes high anxiety. A third woman, clad in streetwear, scuttles to and fro tracking and scrutinising the action of the others. She feels like “us”. When, at last, she sheds her coat and shoes, she expresses her confusion and hope in a piece of the beautifully idiosyncratic Bausch form of movement which thrills the soul and, indeed, has made that indelible mark on the international choreographic repertoire ever since. And the Adelaide audience sighs, because this is what it has come for: the essence of Bausch.
Cafe Muller is part of Club Amour which is a triple program. While the audience is seated in the auditorium for Cafe Muller, for the first two pieces it is either standing or sitting on the floor on the stage itself. With the stage enclosed by its curtains, it permits a novel sense of theatrical intimacy.
For this first of choreographer Boris Charmatz’s pieces, three dancers, two males and a female, appear on a tall three-tiered scaffold. They take their pants off and throw their bodies to and fro in their contained spaces, athletic and aesthetic, the soundscape largely that of their bodies hitting the floor in frequent purposeful falls but sometimes the amazing sound of a human voice sustaining an endless breath on one note. This work is a bit worrying, the incessant hard and loud falls the performers are taking feels punishing rather than enlightening.
After a short break herses, duo is performed. Two dancers, completely nude, writhe and intertwine on the floor. Such floor work reminds one of the very earliest experiences of modern dance when prone bodies were a brave new choreographic thing, back when our indomitable Elizabeth Dalman exposed Adelaide to the work of Elio Pomare. Perchance there are few of us still around with such ancient terms of reference. But, believe me, before our Liz and Elio, dancers were mainly on their feet and in conventional sightlines. Nor were they nude.
This present writhing work features two lithe and flawless bodies. One gains little sense of character and perceives mainly a sense of physical versatility. In this context, it is indeed amazingly aesthetic and inventive: beautiful, complex bodywork; a joy of skin on skin; a message on the meaning of human contact, primal and essential. Yet, while it is interesting and symbolic on the ground, ’tis not quite groundbreaking.
Charmatz is the new face of Tanztheater Wuppertal and one is very grateful that he carries that precious legacy.
Adelaide will be enthusiastic to see where next he takes it. Please come back.
Samela Harris
When: 10 to 16 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Forced Entertainment (UK). Australian Premiere. Space Theatre. 9 Mar 2025
‘Tabletop’ Shakespeare? Do follies in the name of The Bard have no end?
Well, no. Four centuries have dimmed not his light, nor our appreciation of his oeuvre.
So, be gone ye glorious schools of classical enunciation, ye men in tights.
Here one hath a tin of curry powder and a sugar shaker amid a cast of thousands from the pantry shelf.
Iambic pentameter thou art too wordy. Thine stories may compact, and still the people will acclaim.
And so they are doing at the Adelaide Festival, thriving on the serious silliness of Tabletop Shakespeare.
Epic plays in 45 minutes with nothing more than a good narrator and a cleverly potted plot.
The pots being quite literal. Sometimes they are herbs. Sometimes sauces.
’Twas a sugar-shaker which starred as generous Timon of Athens and his faithful servant Flavius was played by a boot-shaped glass spirit measure. The poet and the artist were wee pots of baking additives. Lucillus appeared to be curry powder and a tube of wasabi was utterly typecast as the misanthrope, Apermantus. A can of Edgell peas played Lucullus while white plastic cups played senators. There are a lot of characters in Timon of Athens so it took quite a shopping list.
Two pantry shelves, densely stocked with condiments, sauces, and utensils, flank the stage in The Space, the narrator sitting centre alone at a cheap utilitarian table with the chosen “players” to hand on boxes at either side.
It was actor Robin Arthur who voiced the tale of Timon, steadily bringing the grocery characters to and fro, the narrative nicely time-lined with “the next morning” and “later in the garden” to give a good sense of time and place. Arthur was not beyond a little levity here and there and a wee bit of mime. Timon’s time in the dank cave was particularly amusing, albeit, of course, the play is a tragedy.
The UK company is performing the entire works of Shakespeare in its Adelaide Festival season. This critic, however, was ticketed to only two, the second being The Two Gentemen of Verona.
’Twas always a lovely play and albeit suffering somewhat under a fierce air-conditioning flow, Claire Marshall brought it entertainingly to life amid a tabletop of what one might dare to describe as engrossing groceries. Who would have thought an audience could fall in love with a tiny nutmeg grater? Well, it did. The weeny grater embodied Crab, the dog belonging to Launce, servant of Proteus who, in turn, is best friend to the “Gentleman” Valentine. While Crab has no lines, his reactive movements under the hand of Marshall are actually rather endearing.
One should sit near the front to identify precisely all the action figures. Their labels are small. However, the narratives are crystal clear and artfully abridged so one is hearing Shakespeare as stories well told, rather than the scripts of the great master.
Thus, distilled and performed, great plays arrive as simply delicious thespian whimsy.
Just charming.
Samela Harris
When: 9 to 16 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities. 5 Mar 2025
How can an old myth thought to originate sometime around 500 BCE hold any contemporary relevance whatsoever?
The myth of Helios and his son Phaeton, as described briefly below, is often interpreted as one warning against hubris: when humans aspire to be godlike or, worse, to be greater than the gods, the Gods are unforgiving and meter brutal punishment. This is the only interpretation most have encountered.
However, Wright and Grainger’s superb reworking of the myth attributed to Euripides brings it hurtling into the present and flips it very powerfully indeed.
Helios, God of the sun, guardian of oaths, and the god of sight lived in a golden palace to the East, as far away as the edge of the world. Each dawn, Helios emerged from the palace crowned with the sun, four winged steeds drawing his chariot across the sky. Each dusk, Helios reached the furthest point West where he descended into a golden cup which, during the night, returned him to his palace via the streams of Okeanos.
Like many young men, Helios’s son, Phaeton, pestered his father to drive the chariot. In doing so, Phaeton would prove his relationship to the sun. But the young man’s ambitions exceed his abilities, his lack of skill resulting in loss of control of the steeds. The resulting chaos risks the Sun colliding with the Earth. To protect the realm of mortals, the mighty Zeus is compelled to step in and strikes Phaeton down with a bolt of lightning. Order of sorts is restored.
Wright greets his audience with endearing openness and warmth and engages in chat about the nature of the Sun and Peter Paul Rubens painting, The Fall of Phaeton. What initially appears to be light banter quickly brings into the world of Gods of time and place, local Gods where we learn about a small boy, Phaeton, residing with his mother in rural Yorkshire.
Wrights writing is crisp, richly evocative and deeply moving, although the title Helios is something of a misnomer. As Wright observes during the conversationally toned prologue, the story is really Phaeton’s.
We are drawn into the story of a young boy, much left to his own devices by a figuratively distant mother and literally distant father; Helios is cast here as a long-haul pilot while mother, Rhodda, is referred to but oddly absent.
Compliments of his mother’s extensive vinyl collection – the play is set when Walkman’s were a thing - Phaeton possesses a richly eclectic taste in music, among his favourite artists, Elton John, who is included on his various “mixed tapes”.
We become aware that Phaeton has grown up beneath an omnipresent cloud, the origins of which we find to be shocking and deeply moving. Phaeton moves awkwardly into his early teens, an adversarial relationship with the school bully, Michael, a predominant feature. There’s school bus politics and a standoff in front of everyone at a party. This leads to a dare involving a car which, when fulfilled, seals Phaeton’s place in local teen lore; it also serves as premonition for events after the boys’ reunion on Phaeton’s 18th birthday involving a gold Ford Mercury.
The Yurts intimacy lends itself well to Helios, the audience’s proximity to the storyteller ideal for Wright’s high energy, cadent, clearly articulated delivery directly to audience; there’s no fourth wall here!
Wright is the consummate storyteller, his words and energetic pace conveying the story with touching warmth and intensity. With their consent, individuals are drawn into the story as readers, a wonderful device serving to heighten the immediacy of the relationship between Phaeton and his adversarial school friend, Michael as well as observations about the nature of the Sun. The simple lighting device of several single light globes and Phil Grainger’s sound track simply serve to heighten this wonderful story. Where the Phaeton of Ancient Greek mythology serves as dire caution to avoid behaving in a way as to attract hubris, Wright and Grainger’s iteration presents us with a refreshing point of view - but that it is up to you to find out.
I was swept away by this show last year, and I found myself even more so this year!
Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 20 Feb to 23 Mar
Where: The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden. 1 to 6 Mar 2025
Louise Adler. We bless her. We curse her.
She laid on the most breathtakingly relevant Writers' Week (WW) arguably in the event’s long history.
Oh yes. There were plenty of fine and interesting authors in the tradition of WW but in this troubling time, somehow ahead of the curve, she programmed some really hot potatoes embroidering the week with attention to the deeper politics of the world around us.
’Twas an added ingredient of turbulence, creating new crowds which snaked in chatty queues out of the Drill Hall, where 700 or more people devoured the knowledge and opinions of leading intellectuals. She did it again at the Town Hall. These were ticketed events in this the world’s one and only free writers' festival. They don’t break the bank and people are seated in air-conditioned comfort, a luxury noted by anyone who, like me, has sweated in the sun because there were no shaded chairs available in the Garden.
Chagrin has it that one cannot possibly be at every event. There are too many that are too good.
And patience must accompany one to those very crowded days when lines for food and coffee are exhausting. I admit on one occasion it was quicker to duck up the hill to the Myer food court.
The Drill Hall sessions were deeply satisfying. Sarah Ferguson live interviewed David Remnick streaming on the big screen for the America, America session. Remnick, for a quarter of a century editor of The New Yorker, had a breathtaking degree of international erudition and a grim view of the Trump presidency. His experience in Russia led him to believe that Putin would be well pleased with the status quo.
Sessions analysing the state of play in the USA also took place on the open-air stages with journalists and writers; all events packed beyond capacity. WW people, not just Adelaideans for there were a lot of interstate visitors in the crowds, have a rapacious and anxious hunger for news and understanding of this very fraught time in our history.
Former NSW Premier Bob Carr was a vocal and very knowledgeable player in this territory on a number of stages. One of them was on the panel of Where’s the Centre Left in the Age of Trumpmuskovie? SA Premier Peter Malinauskas shone on this panel along with Kim Carr, John Crace, and Tom Baldwin. Bottom line was the fragile condition of democracy in 2025. And also, perhaps, the lack of understanding of civics by too many people.
The Future of the Mainstream Media was deemed pretty bloody grim from the views of former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and former ABC director Mark Scott. And just to stick a fork in it and decree mainstream-print media fated for the boneyard was Eric Beecher, Crikey owner and former ABC and News Corp editor.
Then there were the Town Hall events. Most disappointing of all WW events attended by this correspondent was Islamaphobia: What’s the Problem?, a session with Waleed Aly and his wife Susan Carland. While it was articulately prefaced by Aftab Malik, Special Envoy to Combat Islamaphobia in Australia, we had no enlightenment from the couple. Instead, it was an earnest and fairly circuitous questioning of the word “Islamaphobia” itself. Is it a thing or not? But no why or wherefores. Everyone left feeling a bit numb.
The Antisemitism session was quite the opposite. It was introduced by Peter Malinauskas giving a superlative speech (which can be read in full here) and then with Sir Simon Scharma delivering an oration of immense historical depth providing context to the worryingly growing phenomenon of antisemitism.
Overall, it was a dark and serious WW riding right on the zeitgeist of global political thought, topped up with themes of sexism, racism, corporate greed, grief, and justice.
However, it did have its lighter moments: a bit of juicy crime; a smatter of romance; a touch or two of Australiana with the likes of novelist Stephen Orr; Shaun Micallef with an anthology; Julia Zemiro with a quiz; a wee tad of poetry; and, for delicious voyage into the wonders of being an existential “me”, the wonderful Robert Dessaix.
The food and wine onsite was excellent as ever, the coffee good, the bookshop fab and, did I mention the gin bar? Aaaah.
At the end of the day, after some of those gruelling political sessions, a blood orange Prohibition gin and tonic went down a treat.
Samela Harris
When: 1 to 6 Mar
Where: Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden
Bookings: Closed
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities. 5 Mar 2025
A chicken by the name Don Murphy (Eva O’Connor), his name attributed to Dónall Ó Conaill, The Liberator, enters the Yurt and surveilles the audience, beady eyes flicking in astoundingly realistic gaze to land on bemused individuals. The Yurts “in the round” setting is a pressure cooker for both performer and audience.
Consistent, incredibly authentic chicken movements, O’Connor’s elaborate costume, red face paint and extraordinary eye make-up render our new fowl friend utterly believable- I bought into it completely!
Don crows and regales the audience members with “I’m only messin’, only windin’ you up!” before launching into the guts of the tale; Don’s is “a simple story,” but, as it is said, the “end is nigh” for all of us in “this claustrophobic place!”
What follows is the extraordinary, if somewhat convoluted, tale of a stoic rooster, who, after almost being crushed in his egg by the woman who was to become his mother, is raised by foster parents Moira and Declan as a strong Irish lad in County Kerry.
Leaving Southwest Ireland, Don experiences the travails of any aspirational actor, albeit a chicken, arriving in New York. Virtually destitute and on the edge of his newfound perch, Don befriends Paulo, a Glaswegian expat pigeon, who takes him under his wing. There are affairs with all manner of humans - Don’s “promiscuous phase”- which is an interesting and amusing narrative device. However, Don’s aspirational association with actors, directors, and producers brings him to encounter ketamine, and addiction follows. Don finds himself again at the edge of his perch, and Paulo again offers solace in the form of a visit to MOMA. There, a gorgeous performance artist, Sadie, a silkie chick from Dallas, catches Don’s eye and he, despite himself, is smitten. One thing leads to another, but it turns out Sadie is not merely a pretty performance artist; she is an activist! Spoilers are not my thing, so I’ll leave the narrative there.
A remarkable solo show, Chicken highlights a whole bunch of systemic issues we are all beset by in a very engaging, humorous way! Are there lots of “cock” jokes? Yes! Is the narrative a little obscure and left field at times? Yes! Is Chicken dull and boring? Absolutely not!
Eva O’Connor is astonishingly good in this unconventional role!
Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 20 Feb to 9 Mar
Where: The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au