Adelaide Festival. The Space. 14 Mar 2023
What a charmer!
Quick sticks. Grab a ticket now. Staff only half-joked that they’d need a shoehorn to fit the full house into the Space for the opening night of Maureen: Harbinger of Death. Clearly that mysterious “word” had gone out. This is the 2023 Adelaide Festival “sleeper”, the show not to miss.
And such a simple offering it is. One performer seated on a chair against a voluminous backdrop of kitschy old-school velvet drapery.
Upon the chair is a Jonny Hawkins who, with Neil Ranney, has devised this confection of pure Australiana. Of all things, it is an homage to old ladies.
Maureen not only is purportedly a friend to Jonny and to all the gays of Kings Cross, she is a quintessential old gal of the Bohemian school. She is a student of the society around her, a nurturer with a sharp eye, a big heart, and an hilariously caustic tongue.
In his brief introduction, Hawkins says she is actually a composite of myriad wise and wicked nonagenarians of his acquaintance, maybe some right here in the audience. Perhaps not. Maureen is a product of Kings Cross. She is as Sydney as the harbour and all those stinky tiled front bars on The Rocks. She has “that accent” with the drawn-out vowels, an affectation which is so, so Sinny. She is both an ornament and a relic of The Cross.
She lives on the fourth floor of an old apartment block, smoking, reminiscing, and celebrating the joyful mythology awakened by people’s stories.
In lieu of the young gay male visitors she so adores, she adopts a member of the audience as her gentleman helper. A lady never lights her own cigarettes. Respectfully, he proffers the flame and helps by offering around Jatz crackers from a huge tin. If a hostess can’t offer sandwiches…
And, he shares her little black book whence, as it is passed through the audience, Maureen calls for names to be read out, each name being catalyst to sagas of people loved and lost in her life. They are funny, sweet, and sour stories. Each one arresting in its own right, together painting a vivid profile of an Australian cultural landmark in its heyday.
It is so tempting to give examples but, after meeting Maureen, one feels that she is a pearl in a special Sydney rock oyster shell which must be opened fresh and alive to each audience.
She is an experience to be savoured in person and never to be forgotten.
She is a Festival gem.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 18 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Live Witness Theatre. The Yurt, Migration Museum. 12 Mar 2023
String.
String theory (that physics theory thing).
This show is that, and more.
It’s all about the long/short reality of being a human. And that’s a lot of stuff and work to through and process - for both the audience and the performers - in an hour.
It works!!!
Seated in the round at The Yurt we are intrigued as a light box is unveiled. Strings of different sizes and thickness are taken from it. Ok. Show title, check, string.
It can and is made to do many things, including shapes defining and defying space and presence.
This play with string and the idea of string as stringing togetherness continues even though we haven’t worked it out yet.
The greatest gift of this piece of magic performance is rediscovering the sheer joy of meaning in disjointed syllables, blurted sad tales, life mistake stories, the invitation to warm remembrance. So much more is seen and experienced. It’s such a mind-awakening, socially and humanly conscious joy. Hold on to the string.
Director Keir Aitken delivers a wonderfully warm, engaging production which - in partnership with musician Max Garcia-Underwood - flows with brilliant, gentle and alive spirit. Aitken’s direction of his cast in physical work and space utilisation is utterly perfect.
This show is what you go to the Fringe for.
David O’Brien
When: 11 to 19 Mar
Where: The Yurt
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Australian Dance Theatre. Odeon Theatre. 11 Mar 2023
Words. So many words. So many words telling a story a century plus of being.
Co-Director/Choreographer Daniel Riley and Co-Director Rachael Maza, with writers Ursula Yovich and Amy Sole overloaded the plate of the creative storytelling challenge. This is not a fault per se. Far from it.
This work allows the subliminal truth of the land as a spirit, in the life story of Riley’s Great- Great-Uncle, Alec ‘Tracker’ Riley, to come through. Word and body in movement.
It is a tremendously difficult thing in performance effect. The effort is worthy. Here is a theme and moment in which words, while seemingly predominant as the vehicle of a work’s expression, need deeper subtext.
This is achieved by a trio of dancers melting in, around and through the performance space as the split role of nephew/Tracker plays out, performed by Ari Maza Long.
James Henry’s beguiling slide guitar based score and Jonathan Jones’ gentle, judiciously applied scrim bush scenes assist the work’s gentle, yet considered effect.
The story is in the fullest sense of the cliché, mind blowing.
History that has to be told.
In this one person, is a history of great gift, humanity and truth obliterated, until now.
David O’Brien
When: 10 to 18 Mar
Where: The Odeon
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Grace Emily Hotel. 9 Mar 2023
The Ukulele Death Squad is a moving feast; you can never be sure who will turn up on the night and what you’re going to get. On this night, first up were apologies for a missing player from stalwart and anchor Ben Roberts. The crowd, who mostly seemed familiar with the group, shrugged it off and got into it regardless.
UDS are a bit of a supergroup in the uke world; a few of their members now live interstate, so the gigs for the full band are few and far between, mostly at festivals such as this. Last time they played the Fringe it was at the sold out Regal Theatre in 2020, so watching them at the extremely intimate Grace Emily was quite the contrast. At that gig, the nucleus of the band was joined by ‘the gingerbread man aka Matthew Barker, and he’s now become their permanent ‘token ginger’. The new vocal lineup is completed with Alice Barker and Ash Randell, while Roberts, Julian Ferguson and Reuben Ferguson also contribute while maintaining the musical backline on tenor and baritone uke, with Ferguson blowing a very cool sax.
Straight into it with Paris on a Train and the tempo did not let up for the rest of the night. A delightful addition was Barker and Randell picking up the trumpet and trombone respectively, filling out a pretty cool brass section with Ferguson. Not the most proficient at this stage, but this will flesh out beautifully.
For the most part the UDS are on the aural attack, assaulting the senses with a fairly unrelenting barrage of up tempo songs. The slower Let’s Go to the Movies and Wayfaring allow for a catch of breath and a real exhibition of the stunning vocal lineup and we’re back into the musical melee again, with an energy reminiscent of the days of Roaring Jack.
Special mention of the song that lends itself to the title of the show. This R&B infused song is filled with addictive hooks, and had the audience grooving along (had to use that word). While the line “Daddy’s got a new body” forms part of the refrain – its title is Baby Don’t (F*** With Me) and it’s an absolute ripper. Listen to it on YouTube, recorded live at Penny’s Lane Winery.
UDS ended as they began, fast, high energy and above all, entertaining, leaving the audience almost as exhausted as the band.
This is skilled, inventive, creative and entertaining playing, and there are guitarists who would crawl over broken glass to play like this. One tires of saying that the uke is not what you think it is, but here it is again. It can be (thanks Scott) but actually, it doesn’t need to be, and in the hands of these guys, it just isn’t. Got it?
Arna Eyers-White
When: Closed
Where: Grace Emily Hotel
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Remote Theater Project. Space Theatre. 10 Mar 2023
Grey Rock is presented by US based Remote Theater Project (RTP), whose mission statement includes “… [It] develops the work of artists whose voices are not often heard in the US including international artists as well as US-based artists from other countries. We challenge artists to engage in difficult questions about their perceptions of other groups.” This statement is significant, and it underscores aspects of the context of Grey Rock. The play tells the story of Yusef who thinks that Palestine should also strive to have a presence in space – specifically, travel to the moon. He understands that Palestinians are a proud but downtrodden population, but believes they should also aspire to do great things in addition to solving their immediate and obvious problems. Understandably, Yusef meets with resistance, and his motives are misinterpreted. This resonates in contemporary Australia as well, where some opponents of The Voice think that it should be abandoned in favour of investing all effort and resources into ‘closing the gap’ between indigenous and non -indigenous populations. Many believe that both can be done, as does Yusef.
RTP commissioned Amir Nizar Zuabi, a leading theater director and playwright in the Middle East, to write and produce Grey Rock, and it received its stage debut in New York in 2019 with further productions internationally, including at the malthouse Theatre in Melbourne also in 2019.
With a plot as bizarre and unbelievable as someone wanting to build a moon rocket in their backyard, and using the minaret at their local mosque as the launch tower, it is almost redundant to say Grey Rock is a gentle comedy of sorts, but with quite dramatic moments as well. It starts as a drama, with no hint that it’s going to have any real laughs in it. We are introduced to the various characters and observe that they are dealing with diverse problems of their own: Yusef (played by Khalifa Natour), the main protagonist, is a retired TV repair man who is secretly designing the moon shot rocket, and all the time he mourns his wife who died three years before; Lila (Fidaa Zaidan), his daughter, is engaged to a Jawad (Alaa Shehada) who clearly adores her but wants to own and mould her into his own vision of the ‘perfect family’; Fadel (Luca Kamleh Chapman), a young man who is besotted with Lila, and becomes an assistant to Yusef, but mainly because that will get him closer to Lila; and the local Sheik (Motaz Malhees) who is initially alarmed by Yusef’s plans, but eventually becomes supportive because he learns to share Yusef’s big picture vision.
Natour plays Yusef superbly. Everything he does is understated and much pathos and humour emerges. Zaidan plays Lila with confidence and dignity, even when she is being derided by her fiancé. Shehada believably creates the illusion of being controlling and bullying. Chapman is earnest and youthful, and totally endearing as he goes to mush in the presence of Lila. Malhees plays the Sheik with the right blend of authority, rationality, and then counters all of that with comical unchecked enthusiasm for Yusef’s project.
Before there is any reference to the fact that the rocket’s purpose is to take Yusef to the moon, the audience has every reason to believe he may in fact be building a weapon to use against Israel. When his purpose becomes clear, the mood of the play lightens and becomes quite humorous in parts, especially in the scenes where Yusef is watching and commenting on Lila and Fadel ‘circling’ each other but not declaring their true feelings.
The stage has a full-width slatted sheer white curtain across it creating upstage and downstage acting areas. The curtain is quickly drawn upwards in sections when needed to reveal Yusef’s work area which has dozens of large blueprints of the rocket on display. There is an overhead projector on his work bench that is used on occasion to project large images across the stage on to the undrawn white curtain. The effect is stark and visually quite arresting. There are no other stage properties or set dressings, and the entire effect is one of minimalism which is supported by an evocative sparse music underscore and empathetic but simple lighting.
The play is spoken in English, but occasionally the language gets in the way of fluid performances from the actors, and there were also a few errors (such as in a technical explanation of Newton’s Law of Gravitation). Some commentators have suggested that the play might have been better performed in the original Arabic with English surtitles, but this reviewer doesn’t share that opinion, only wish that the cast spoke more clearly and loudly. The acoustic of the Space Theatre are not kind to dialogue that is hushed or not clearly articulated.
The audience clearly loved the performance, and the humour gave them welcome pause from the text’s not-so-hidden messages. This is a good play, but not a great one.
Kym Clayton
When: 10 to 12 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au