★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Octagon, Gluttony. 22 Feb 2023
Described as a “dark fusion of contemporary dance, ballet, burlesque…” Mansion tells the story of a family recently bereaved, who move into a haunted house. Well, that’s the bare bones of it, anyway, but this is a performance with technical values far, far above most Fringe shows, and the performances are strong and powerful.
Things started off perhaps a little shakily as the storyline slid into the farcically obvious territory of vamps and ghouls and a central character, the widow Mel Walker (who could do a more than passable turn as Courtney Love should she so choose) beset by the ghost of her departed husband. So much I understand, and there is much I do not, partly because the pre-recorded narrator and the voiceovers were weak links, verging in places on the risible. The script and the recordings need reworking.
Ah, but the show! Mansion is a muscular and robust piece of work, timing at nearly an hour and a quarter, and really with not a minute wasted. The cast of a dozen or so push what is possible within the realm of dance theatre, incorporating elements of circus rope and swing work into a show which keeps the surprises coming.
The highlight for me is that most difficult to describe: A zombie acrobat suspended in a gibbet awash with ultraviolet lighting to a soundtrack of industrial grade reworking of the Rolling Stones number Paint It Black. A note; the costumes and make up and latex masks are top notch… as I mentioned, the production values are exemplary. The show and the performers are sexy, vampish, zombified, repellent and curiously compelling.
Mansion is powerfully interesting and contemporary in its appeal. Is it perfect? No. There is the problem with the pre-recorded narration (it has no gravitas and no presence) and the ending is one of the lamest and least appealing conclusions I have ever seen. The intoned ‘thank you for coming to our mansion’ is a massive letdown since the scene might have ended on a pulsating highpoint about three minutes earlier. And don’t sit in the front row of the stalls – for some reason that doesn’t become clear, a row of people are seated around the edge of the stage on benches, and their heads successfully block quite a bit of the floor action.
Nonetheless, if you going to one big top experience, this should be the one.
Alex Wheaton
When: 22 Feb to 12 Mar
Where: The Octagon, Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Goodwood Theatre. 19 Feb 2023
Watson: The Final Problem is a stage adaptation in the form of a substantial monologue of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, especially ‘The Final Problem’. Sherlock Holmes finally has it out with his nemesis Professor Moriarty and meets his end (or does he?). Wanting the put the record straight – what did actually happen to Sherlock Holmes? – the story is told by Dr Watson who recounts aspects of his own early life (as a commissioned officer in the British army) through to how he and Holmes first meet, and finally to their last adventure trying to catch and outsmart Moriarty.
If one has read the Sherlock Holmes stories, particularly ‘The Final Problem’, one knows how it is all going to turn out unless the playwright has taken liberties with the Conan Doyle’ original. As it turns out, the text follows the original and so there are no surprises. So, what’s the point of difference? A quality theatrical performance relies on an interesting plot, characters that are distinctive and about which you care, text that is attention-grabbing and comes to life when spoken, creation and resolution of tension, and on-stage spectacle and physicality that holds your imagination. Watson: The Final Problem has most of these elements to varying degrees, which makes it quality theatre, but this reviewer found the brooding tension to be largely unvaried which held the show back from being great.
Not only is Tim Marriott the co-writer of the script (with Bert Coules), he also performs it. Coming in at sixty minutes this is no mean feat for a single actor, and it takes someone of Marriott’s skill and expertise to pull it off. He plays a resolute Dr Watson with a quintessential English manner, and it’s an object lesson in stagecraft. Marriott’s approach and body language is well chosen for the aged war veteran Watson, and his diction is flawless. His physicality is impressive, as he throws himself about the stage in sync with a masterful sound underscore as Watson recalls brutal aspects of the Anglo-Afghanistan War in which he served. Mariott’s vocal skills are polished: his clarity and articulation is first-rate. He moves around the set with purpose, which is tastefully decorated in the style of befitting a gentleman in Victorian England.
Marriott is a masterful story teller, and a superb actor, and Watson: The Final Problem is worth seeing for that reason alone. It’ll have you constantly sitting on the edge of your seat.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Feb to 18 Mar
Where: Multiple Venues
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Kathryn Hall. The Mill – The Breakout. 19 Feb 2023
Overwhelmingly, if you’re disabled no matter the form, no matter the circumstance, prime instinct is find safety, shelter.
Cover from harm intended or not, in a world out of tune with your needs no matter how well intended any outreach may be. Meaning quite often falling in between the cracks of a supposedly benevolent support system.
Performer Kathryn Hall has cerebral palsy and the cracks opened wide swallowing her up when she was a teenager; until she found true shelter.
Yet her tale despite the circumstances is not a sad one. Oh, no Hall’s production overflows with rich humour, self-effacing pathos as she details beating challenge after challenge. Her show explains where things work, and don’t work, to support disability needs.
Andi Snelling’s direction pulls out all the stops, realising a production simple in movement across the small The Breakout stage, yet artfully effective in use of projection, puppets and lighting.
Hall’s script is equally simple, but very sharply crafted and executed on stage. Her feeling for humour in less than wonderful experiences is wickedly brilliant in an unabashed larger than life performance in a production which takes into account needs of her disability to be just as integral as the script.
What a brilliant innovation ‘Disability Break’ is! It flashes up as a projection at Hall’s call when she needs a still moment. Director Snelling double calls it popping her head out from the wings. It’s delightfully comic, adding so much more to the show, prodding further reflection on the message at the show’s heart.
Sheltered is a smashing little show of the unexpected, just what the Fringe is about.
David O’Brien
When: 18 Feb to 4 Mar
Where: The Mill – The Breakout
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Tom Corradini Teatro, Fisico Festival & The Garage International. 20 Feb 2023
A chair, a violin, a cap on a music stand and a portrait of a woman on a table. Mussolini enters from stage right with a black tie sitting askew on a black shirt, unbuttoned pocket buttons and ee-gads(!) plastic men’s long boots with pants wrinkled above them. Now I would have thought Il Duce would dress to impress, so this is either faulty costuming or part of the satire, but the latter is not strong enough to be fully distinguishable from a mistake.
Sole performer and playwright Italian Tom Corradini operates his eponymous comic and educational theatre near Turin and has had this show on the road since at least 2015, the year he won the Best Performance Award in the Prague Fringe. Fascism is supposed to be dead in Italy but the recent elections showed Il Duce needs to be put back in his box. After the applause, Corradini explained that most of the script is stuff Mussolini actually said, which was augmented with audial snippets of his time, but mainly focusing on World War II. It’s clearly a well-researched show that is regularly performed for schools.
Corradini fortunately has the physiognomy of the dictator – that’s a great advantage. The famously photographed down-pointing mouth and fisted hands on hips is copiously copied. Corradini brooks no admiration for the war leader, and employs techniques historically developed in Italy of commedia dell’arte – exaggeration, clown faces and absurdity - to make the man a mockery. Still, it doesn’t seem strong enough – Mussolini draws a curious fascination and one craves an explanation of his magnetism. The physical satire is so mixed with Corradini’s verisimilitude to the man to the extent the counterpoint punches seem pulled.
Corradini brings in several languages – his use of Italian to an English-speaking audience is great colour, but the wavering English accents are sometimes confusing, and going too fast didn’t help. Hitler and Mussolini had quite a mutual admiration going on. The Hitler puppet was brilliant and puppets of his Jewish mistress and pen pal Churchill would have been useful. The show reveals much of Mussolini – his philosophy for persuasion, views on power and even family life - and behind the bluff was not a monster but a man with five kids and a mother, who was astonished at his early success.
Probably not your cup of cappuccino if Mussolini isn’t on your reading list, but a great fantasy of being in the room with Il Duce.
David Grybowski
When: 17 to 25 Feb
Where: The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Peacock @ Gluttony. 19 Feb 2023
If you can get a fart comment into the first few minutes of a kid’s show, you’ve started on the right note. And so it is with Circus: the Show; the kids snigger and look at their parents just to make sure this is okay. And if course it is.
Circus has managed, for the most part, to balance its offerings of acrobatics , magic and clowning with the short attention span of most children, and invites just enough interactivity to keep them entertained as participants.
We (pre)open with the inevitable clown, who does all the clowny things one expects - equipment malfunction, missed cues, balloon mishaps – but let’s be honest, you can’t fail with these. They’re still funny, and kids still love seeing hapless grown ups, even if they are wearing silly big shoes.
Ringmaster Magnus Danger Magnus (also of The Greatest Magic Show) guides the proceedings with a practiced hand, geeing up the crowd and introducing each performer with superlatives aplenty. Shaunah Johnson brings on the de rigeur hula hoops; kids wriggle in their seats as they imagine they too can perform with the same style and grace, and later on, two of them get the chance to take the stage and do just that.
Local artists the Diamond Duo perform a dance/acrobatics duet, with lovely aerial performance on the ring. Acrobatic skills are a staple of the circus repertoire and it forms the majority of this circus program, with aerial ropes (fabric) and floor hoops also featuring.
Sam Sam The Magic man put in some good turns, including levitating young audience member Marianne, who simply could not explain how she managed to hover above the stage with seemingly no support!
A bit of juggling would have been entertaining as it’s always a favourite, but the final act certainly made up for it. The clown is given permission to end the show, and does so with a giant balloon prop that had even the adults in stitches. It’s a brilliant end and sends the audience out on a high.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 18 Feb to 19 Mar
Where: Peacock @ Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au