OzAsia Festival. The Space Theatre. 16 Sep 2014
The point of our magnificent OzAsia Festival is that it opens a curtain on dramatic arts and cultural expressions which perhaps are little known to the outside world. Did we know that the Chinese are passionate exponents of Ibsen? The Norwegians certainly do. The works of Heinrich Ibsen have been a force in Chinese spoken theatre for over a century and are considered the foundation of modernism on the Chinese stage.
The work, 'Ibsen in One Take', is China's cutting edge in the expression of Ibsen.
As in the extraordinary Roman Tragedies presented by the Adelaide Festival earlier this year, it is a work simultaneously performed and filmed onstage in a foreign language. Ibsen is as short as Tragedies was epic. But one could say it has a kindred spirit of sorts - certainly in the way in which it instantly carves a vivid and indelible image in mind's eye.
Ibsen in One Take is not an Ibsen play. It is a Beijing-based Norwegian playwright's impressionistic overview of Ibsen. Oda Fiskum has taken strands from plays such as The Masterbuilder and A Doll's House and woven them into a reflection on age, family and death in modern China.
Her central character is the old man who is on his death bed in hospital under the care of a fairly unsympathetic young nurse. Instantly, one is presented with the cultural parallel - the nursing home power of the young over the aged and incapacitated. Kindness is a lottery among the dependent. Pyjama-clad Tan Zongyuan fleshes out the old man, slow-moving, quiet, fatalistic, heartbreaking...
And around him on the darkened stage, the camera team quietly moving among the actors, the images of their one-take film screened aloft with the subtitles, the old man's past plays out. He is depicted as child and young man in family and work contexts. There are marital conflicts. There are tensions of father-son relationship - very strongly portrayed. There are the ambivalences of the masculine role in life alongside the emancipation of exasperated women. Shades of Nora?
There are several very moving scenes between husband and wife - and the double exposure of live performance and well-composed filmic image above serves to emphasise how accomplished are these Chinese actors.
The play is only an hour long but seems longer. It is unhurried. Director Wang Chong stretches it out both in pace and aesthetic, using every inch of the broad expanse of stage - and even beyond, to portray "the room where one doesn't go". Therein, through the camera lens, is played out a profoundly touching scene of father and son in hospital. And all the fragilities of imperfect family relationships and the impacts they have on our lives reaches forth as a human commonality.
Throughout the production, there are the tinkles and twangs of Li Yangfan's evocative score reminding us that this Ibsen is in China. And there are small special moments, encounters with cigarette, girl with umbrella, the rain from a spray bottle, keeping up appearances for the boss...
One has to pay attention, to watch the actors, to read the subtitles and to draw the associations. But it is a rewarding experience, albeit a bleak one for, in the end, as the old man reluctantly lets go, it is with the knowledge that all the efforts of understanding life are fruitless. It just is what it is.
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: CLosed
Adelaide Repertory Theatre. The Arts Theatre. 12 Sep 2014
In a thinly populated Arts Theatre, the opening act of the first night of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance went on....and on....and on. Written in 1910 - a time ripe with post-Victorian, new-fangled machines and ideas - Shaw subtitled his comedy, A Debate in One Sitting. The rather dense Shavian gabfest is set outdoors - or was it indoors? - of the grand country home of a hard-working and self-made underwear manufacturer and merchant, Mr Tarleton, and involves his family, potential in-laws, and some guests who drop in.
Generally, director Brian Knott's cast heroically struggles with making the material clear in the first act, but one can discern amusing witticisms, sarcastic remarks on the strictures of the age, and ironic takes on social life. This is not to say that any of Anna Bee, Peter Bleby, Lindsay Dunn, Simon Lancione, Mark Drury, or Julie Quick didn't do their duty, but that the exchanges of lines didn't gel into a conversation. Indeed, Julie Quick was possessed with a poise that stole every scene she was in. Lindsay Dunn was quietly madcap as the talkative Mr Tarleton. Peter Bleby's brilliantly hesitant line delivery would almost make you think he was on the brink of forgetting his lines if you didn't know better.
Just when I was checking my watch at what turned out to be near the end of the first act, Shaw parachutes two fresh characters into the play; a pair very unlike the by now stultifying existing; with a reveal twist for the audience to ponder over their two dollar coffees and teas during intermission!
The second act nearly redeemed the sins of the first. Adam Tuominen and Leah Craig were great as the nattily dressed aviating newcomers. The always good Tuominen Errol Flynned his way - cutting a swathe through the Tarleton household. I don't know if Leah Craig's accent was authentically Polish but it was amusing and it worked for me completely. Her Lina's dominatrix demeanor made every weak willed male character ask for more, as well as a few in the audience. That was amusing, too. In fact, the entire play blossomed like a rosebud in the second act thanks to the aviators helping to create a semblance of a plot, Shaw opening up the dialogue, and the cast handling it with aplomb.
Oh, I nearly forgot. There was another character in the play who suddenly intrudes and debates with Mr Tarleton on things Shaw wanted to say - this time, mostly about socialism - performed rather strangely by Leighlan Doe.
The set was a bit squashed (set design: Alex Strickland) and all the action was mundanely in a line at the stage curtain. The costumes were fantastic (wardrobe: Aubade). While Shaw covers an enormous range of topics, his insights into the relationship between parents and near adult children ring as true today as it did over a hundred years ago, so it's not just Apple and Foxtel causing the brink.
Now you may well ask, am I advising you to see this play, or what? What's the scoop? Let me put it this way. I think the whole shebang will mesh better later in the season than it did on opening night, and if you are a Shaw fan, you should see it. If you are not familiar with Shaw, you should see it.
David Grybowski
When: 11 to 20 Sept
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
Shandong Acrobatic Troupe. Ozasia Festival. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 6 Sep 2014
If watching a couple of hours of intense acrobatic work; having your ears assaulted by loud drumming; and following a sometimes obscure Chinese folk tale about a man in love with a fox spirit is not your thing, then you were not one of the near capacity audience that was part of this magical experience at South Australia’s largest proscenium arch theatre on Saturday night.
This spectacular production by the Shandong Acrobatic Troupe from China is full of amazing moments that worked on many levels, some subtle, some exploding across the stage and greeted by a never ending series of ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ and applause by the appreciative audience.
The production, in two sections, follows the story of a young man who becomes entangled in a spirit world of ghosts, foxes, immortals and demons. What develops is an epic battle between good and evil. All ends well in the end.
But it’s how the story unfolds that is the real success of this production. The story, itself is only the vehicle for an evening of world class acrobatics by a fifty strong team of very young and older acrobats. By the end of the performance there were few acrobatic elements that hadn’t been showcased: high wire trapeze work; barrel and drum rolling; metal plate twirling; and leaps through hoops that had to be seen to be believed. Even bungy jumping gets a nod. There were no safety nets, just remarkable skill and utmost ensemble co-operation.
And then the acrobatic flying! Breathtaking. Elegant. Sensuous.
As the company’s name implies, acrobatics lies at the centre of this vast production.
Another key element was the sound track. Loud. Very loud. Continuous. Starting with a single booming bell and going through the full gamut of drumming; classical Chinese rhythm; and contemporary Western beats; at times, all melding simultaneously.
A third element was the spectacular light show consisting of pure white bands of light; sudden plunges of the stage picture into blue, purple and red. At times abstract images were played across the entire stage or in one instance, a blurry back projection of figures in a meadow that echoed what was happening on stage.
The costumes, from the white furry outfits of various spirits, the metallic costumes of the demons, to the glittering multi coloured costumes of the finale were everything we, in the West, have come to imagine as ‘Chinese’ theatrical.
The set - the facade of a huge temple surrounded by frames at the edge of the wide Festival Theatre stage; intricate carved pagoda rooms glided on stage as platforms to be danced on.
The storyline moves from dream to nightmare in the second part and some awesome theatrical effects. Smoke. Wind. Snow. Dancing skeletons with fluorescent bones. A huge tree like structure emerges from the temple and at the end of the scene simply folds up and is gone.
The theatrical whole seemed effortlessly contrived to deliver a simple story about a man falling in love with a spirit being. One of those productions that you exit wondering if it had only been ten minutes since lights up and not a two hour full on production.
This was no regimented heavy handed choreographed affair. The enjoyment of the performers was evident right through to the final audience applause. One of the most spectacular nights of entertainment this reviewer has experienced at the Adelaide Festival Centre Theatre.
Martin Christmas
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Therry Dramatic Society. The Arts Theatre. 27 Aug 2014
I once had my own ‘Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll’. I had met this new girlfriend and I was telling her about my Christmases in Canada. My parents would put up a tinsel tree upstairs and a real pine one downstairs and laden them with the traditional decorations. Mum would make a huge Christmas Eve dinner of meatless Polish and Ukrainian foods, and again the next day, a Christmas turkey with all the trimmings. We would have a dozen family members around the table. Christmas morning was busy with loads of people who stayed over ripping open their presents and the radio station playing non-stop Beatles' music. I hadn't been home for Christmas for two years and I asked her to come with me and she couldn't wait.
It was awful. I did not understand the full catastrophe of my Mum's dementia, and there were no people staying over, no opening of presents in the morning, and no big dinners; the radio station didn't even play The Beatles any more. And my girlfriend wondered what the hell I was talking about.
Ray Lawler's 1955 play is of perfect construction, like Arthur Miller's ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘All My Sons’. A family - of sorts in this case - has expectations of continuing fortune, but there is a tragic flaw in the highly respected head of the household that is dramatically revealed and leads to a restructure of the relationships and unforeseen outcomes. The plays are also about memories and nostalgia and what meaning we assign to them.
Director Jude Hines does a fabulous job bringing this classic on stage. The hard yakka of manual cane cutting is brought to the fore by showing segments of the 1948 production of ‘The Cane Cutters’ between the scenes. Her evenly strong cast play up the vernacular to delight the audience. Maxine Grubel and Allison Scharber foil beautifully as the dreamer and the realist. Rodney Hutton and Glen Christie as the protagonist and his sidekick evoke the same blokey mateship as in the film of the real deal cane cutters. Christie is wonderful as the talkative and sometimes delightfully drunk persuader. Penni Hamilton-Smith was born to play Emma Leech and made the most of Leech's wisdom and ways. Eleanor Kay and Jonathan Johnston had smaller roles that you wish were bigger.
The whole shebang was presented in style by Nick Spottiswoode's set, and costumes and looks by Ian Rigney and Heather Beasley.
Yes, this reverential production made me reflect on my own "Doll" moment and is a great insight into how little we are aware of our delusions. A great play well done.
David Grybowski
When: 21 to 30 Aug
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: venuetix
Independent Theatre Company. Space Theatre. 22 Aug 2014
It's a captivating thought, a meeting between the people who inspired two of the world's great children's stories - Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.
John Logan has pondered such an encounter and extrapolated it into a philosophic fantasy piece. How big an influence on their lives has been the burden of being famous literary characters?
His narrative device comes in the form of Alice selling an original manuscript when things become tight in her latter years while Peter has become a publisher, quite interested in extracting a memoir from Alice. They meet in London and compare notes as each is about to present a literary speech and, through the magic of Logan's theatricality, their reflections on life's experience evoke both the classic book versions of themselves as well as characters pivotal to their actuality.
Fact and imagination play together upon a rather handsome set whence a bookshop back room opens out into a garden of Wonderland and Neverland. Very clever design by David Roach with lovely artwork by Brian Budgen.
Logan's play, which had its first airing in London last year, is densely conversational and, in its early phases from the fairly negative perspectives of Peter Llewelyn Davies as portrayed by Will Cox, it has a sonorous ring. Noted Adelaide actress, Pam O'Grady, plays Alice Liddell Hargreaves as an old lady but therein she brings to life not only a might of perchance overwritten dialogue but lifts the production and the enduring spirit of old Alice with the gift of sparkling eyes. For her, impecuniousness is offset by a wealth of memory. Peter's experience of inherited celebrity has been more bruising. Research by literary historians in ensuing years throws paedophilia into the mix and there are hints at this shadow in the protagonists' pasts.
Ben Francis bounces bare-footed as the fictional Peter Pan and enchanting Emma Bleby embodies the Alice in blue we all know and love. The author, Lewis Carroll, otherwise known as Rev Charles Dodgson is nicely captured by Domenic Panuccio and David Roach, as ever, gives a consummate performance, in this case as the other author, J.M. Barrie. Finally, Laurence Croft effectively fills the bill as three further characters crucial to the lives of Peter and Alice.
In the end of the day, it is a sad play.
At about 90 minutes without interval, it hits its straps towards the end when there is a little more fire in the script and in the bellies of the characters.
John Logan has researched his subject well and while everyone knows of Peter and Alice, the embellishments and complexities of their lives as non-fiction have touched us little. So the whole meditation is a nice juicy idea which needs just a spark of further pace to give it the richness it deserves.
Samela Harris
When: 21 to 30 Aug
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au