Fred Smith. Prospect Town Hall. 30 Sep 2022
It’s only a year and a bit since the Taliban waltzed back into Kabul on the back of the ill-conceived, thinly veiled surrender by the US. Fred Smith was an officer with DFAT in the embassy in Kabul from 2020 until he was evacuated in May 2021 as the Taliban raced through the provincial capitals. An interim virtual embassy was then established in Doha. By the 15th of August, the Taliban controlled all but the Kabul International Airport (KIA) and Fred and a select few Aussies went back in on the 17th to return remaining Aussies and rescue as many Afghani collaborators and their families as possible. Perhaps you recall from your television viewing the heaving throngs in the withering sun behind the razor wire, or the young men clinging to an enormous American air transport whilst taxiing on the tarmac. Eventually, the US medical facility at the airport ceased operations, and consequently on the morning of the 26th, the Australian mission was evacuated. That very evening, an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated at the airport gate where the Australians had been working. 200 people were killed including 13 US Marines.
Fred was no stranger to Afghanistan. He was assigned with the diggers in the province of Uruzgan intermittently from 2009 to 2013. And that’s not the half of Fred. Besides a comfortable Canberran life with a wife and a kid and a career, Fred has an uncanny capability to diarise and entertain by performing his own music. While the US was busy spending US$2.6 trillion on Afghanistan, Fred has recorded thirteen albums of original songs based on his empathetic reaction to the cornucopia of human conditions he encountered on the job in Afghanistan, PNG, Bougainville, the US and at home. The Dust of Uruzgan is the title of both a book and a CD on the diggers, the Dutch and the doings during the ADF’s warfare in that Afghan province during his watch. Fred was the subject of an Australian Story episode in 2013 entitled, A Sapper’s Lullaby, a lamentation of the losses of ADF engineers charged with finding and defusing the deadly IEDs. Former ACT Australian of the Year, ABC presenter Virginia Haussegger, AM, called him a “Canberra treasure,” selling him far too short.
Sparrows of Kabul is a concert with a five-piece band, a slide show, and an insightful analysis of the Afghani story from the post-9/11 American invasion to the fall of Kabul – 21 years of hope, corruption, brutal conflict, and heartfelt encounters. With a backdrop of fetching still photos and moving images of war machinery, camaraderie, and the tension of patrols outside the wire, our guitar-toting diplomat is shown disarming his Afghani hosts and entertaining the troops with his bonhomie and heart-rending ballads, and he did so to us.
From the lines of a 17th Century poem shown on stage, Fred began the concert with his evocative and haunting song entitled, 1000 Splendid Suns, referring to Kabul’s womanhood hidden behind the endless compound walls. Jen Lush’s accompanying ethereal voice was transcendental. The first half of the show focusses on the Dust of Uruzgan years. Fred crafts beautiful songs garnered from his personal experiences of those he encountered. No doubt he yearns for the hit he deserves, like John Schumann’s I Was Only 19 - Schumann even attended out of respect for the passport stamping-singer-songwriter. Fred’s style wavers from trad folk to electric folk to rockabilly – all with memorable melodies and haunting lyrics.
After intermission, the concert with pictures focusses on the days of the evacuation one year ago. The Gates of KIA is an apology to his daughter for PTSD. Even a year later, Smith still gets messages via WhatsApp; cries for help from inside Afghanistan. There is a tender song for the people he couldn’t get out. Yet 4100 Afghanis were evacuated by the Australians and Fred was their angel. It’s not all beer and skittles – Fred reflects on the Brereton Report on potential unlawful killings. Sparrows of Kabul is also a hefty poem by Fred that he recited to remind us of the importance of poetry to the Afghanis. The insouciant birds flit amongst the debris only days after the bomb blasts. The concert was bookended with exquisite accompaniment by Jen Lush in Trembling Sky.
Fred’s band comprises the aforementioned heavenly vocalist, Jen Lush, Paul Angus on drums and keyboard, Mark Seddon on bass, and stimulating electric guitar work from Stevie Pederson, but he draws on local talent from wherever he plays.
Fred is also very active assisting the Afghani diaspora of refugees and its new citizens of Australia. The concert was opened with a message of thanks from the Afghani ambassador in Canberra read by Fahim Hashimy, a film maker and the artistic director of the upcoming 7th Ghan International Film Festival Adelaide – an event born in Adelaide and expanded to Sydney and Melbourne (29-30 October at the soon-to-be-closed-unless-you-do-something-about-it Mercury Cinema). Note: the ambassador is not Taliban - he represents the government-in-exile. Australia does not recognise the Taliban regime. Many members of the Afghan community were present including persons that Fred himself had processed and even worked with in Kabul.
Fred’s disarming style and dry humour, his musical and song-writing ability, and most of all, his unabashed openness to bog in, dance a jig, play the fool and give anything a go makes friends everywhere - he easily busts down the barrier of language, because music and fun are universal. While the concert is a high-quality musical event in its own right, the context Fred provides makes it a beautiful and poignant night of learning and reflecting. Nations do what they do, yet “the whiff of adrenaline,” as Fred phrases it, compels young men on all sides of conflict to take extraordinary risks and do regretful things. And still, behind the walls, are 1000 splendid suns. Double bravo!
PS Fred will reprise Sparrows of Kabul for the 2023 Adelaide Fringe 17-19 February at Star Theatre 2 on Sir Donald Bradman Drive, Hilton. Not to be missed!
David Grybowski
When: 29 to 30 Sep
Where: Prospect Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Gilbert & Sullivan Society of SA. Arts Theatre. 24 Sep 22. Matinee
Shake off the winter blues and get thee to the theatre. Now.
For affordable ticket prices, there is a stunning, slick production of one of the great Sondheim spectaculars: Into the Woods.
G&S has long been a force to be admired and it seems only to grow more and more so with the way in which it rounds up impeccable talent.
It is hard to pick a hole in this Gordon Combes-directed production.
Into The Woods arrived on Broadway in 1987 and, with its book by James Lapine and the artistry of Sondheim’s music and lyrics, it swept into the canon of popular musicals, dissecting, as it does, the fairy tales on which we were all brought up, hypothesising on their pschyo-pathologies, and switching their fates around. Its operatic nature makes it glorious grit for the styles of the G&S Society and, as access to technological marvels has improved, its big-budget Broadway production values can be effectively emulated; superbly, as is the case in this production.
A diligent and detail-conscious team is behind this show. Gordon Combes with Anne Humphries are responsible for a panoply of terrific costumes with Vanessa Le Shirley on wigs and, of course, the tight discipline of musical director Jillian Gulliver delivering the goods from the pit. Combes also has achieved impressive effects with his set design, a series of screens illuminating views and the glory of birds which are key to much of the magic of one of the old fairy tales.
The production is tight. It is a long show, the first act veritably a show in itself, but Combes keeps it as taut as a tick with Celeste Barone enabling the snappy choreography. And the performers, in their own merit, keep the audience engaged with their characters and their destinies.
It is a large cast, too many to mention.
Some are new faces and one can’t wait to see more of them. Sam Mannix shines forth playing both Red Riding Hood’s Big Bad Wolf and Cinderella’s handsome Prince. Not only is he possessed of a wonderful voice but also the most delicious comedic skill. The simple flicking of his princely hair is enough to bring the house down. All his entrances and exits are funny. Indeed, he is funny just standing there in character. New also to G&S is Liliana Carletti, another comic talent with a great voice. Her first scene as Little Red Riding Hood evoked spontaneous cheers from the audience.
Megan Humphries is anything but a newcomer. She’s an oft-commended veteran whose considerable vocal skills are truly exercised between melodic singing and the strident cackles and screams demanded of her as The Witch. Jared Frost, playing The Baker, remains entirely appealing and an asset to the stage with Catherine Breugelmans impeccable as his wife. Then there are Emily Morris as Cinderella and Buddy Munro-Dawson valiantly embodying the juvenile Jack, both splendid, as are Danielle Greaves, Deborah Caddy, Nadine Wood, Alleysha Nicholls, Dominic Hodges, James McClusky-Garcia, and indeed, one and all. Such a strong cast. Such a great show.
Understandably, the good word is out and the G&S is packing ‘em in - so don’t delay.
Samela Harris
When: 24 Sep to 1 Oct
Where: Arts Theatre
Book: gandssa.com.au
Australian Dance Theatre. Dunstan Playhouse. 22 Sep 2022
Plastic white chairs. They adorn off stage proper on audience level. Then there is, largely unnoticed as the audience take their seats, the striking figure of Jada Narkle seated on stage. She’s introspectively considering the floor. Her fingers trace it. She leaves the space. She returns to it, sitting and tracing the floor with her fingers. Considering her surroundings, framed by a wall of metallic tarp stretched over a large wheeled mobile, balanced against a black circle on floor centre stage.
These eerie, unnoticed, almost lost opening moments are crucial to grasping the multilayered, intensely intelligent, profoundly frenetic, yet subtle work that Savage is.
Dean Cross’s set and costumes offer up delicately layered symbology bolstering Daniel Riley’s choreography. The earthy red ochre of Jada Narkle’s slit, sleeveless, light fabric dress against the black circle and ochre-lit stage point loudly to a core consideration of indigenous issues. These elements ground the production conceptually.
The red ochre appears in part on street clothes worn by the ensemble. Clothes denoting the underclass. People who battle. People who fight over ideas, themselves and the chairs. James Howard’s soundscape is hard edged, sonic, thrilling, abrasive then melodious techno. Perfectly suited to a production focussing on battling ideas, on holding onto a spot in the world.
How truly savage is this battle. Those chairs also dance. They are viciously hurled across the stage, stacked, sat on, throw off their occupants, claimed, climbed on, passed over and around by the dancers.
All the while, the battle is being reframed in perspective. Many a time, two large mobile mesh wire fences sweep the stage forcing dancers to move, swooping over them and changing the tableaux onstage. The ‘heroic’ becomes brutal subjugation. ‘Success’ becomes obliteration. Riley’s visual manipulation, construction of depth of field, and imagery is superb.
Stylistically, Riley’s choreography is richly rough. It is down and dirty, yet simultaneously silky smooth. Brutality blends with this smoothness of physical competition between the ensemble. Gesture is widely used to connote the lure of come hither, to push and shove and pull, to challenge. There’s no mucking around with meaning here.
Savage is a mighty fine introduction to a new ADT era under Daniel Riley. The man is a heady thinker as was his predecessor Garry Stewart. Riley’s thinking in Savage suggests an interest in exploring deeply polemical issues through dance. That is to be welcomed.
David O’Brien
When: 21 to 25 Sep
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 17 Sep 2022
Playwright Debra Oswald has described Sweet Road as a road movie on stage. And so it is.
In a beautifully mounted production directed by Eric Strauts for The Rep, it is a charming piece of Australiana which, in itself, is a fresh and nourishing thing. Contemporary Australian theatre is thin on the ground. In this case, it is literally ground - the red heart of the country: desert plains, salt lakes, remote roads, river floods, and tough little country towns.
The stage is dominated by a straight country road ramped upwards to go on into the horizon forever. It is flanked by screens on which are projected art abstracts of the great Australian nothingness or slides of outback road houses or a caravan park. Those locations are occupied by performances on two dais stages. On ground level front-of-stage, car seats are trucked on and off, a bit noisily, to show the travellers within their vehicles. The Rep has managed to source different car seats for the assorted cars - from plush 4WD to old bomb with bench seats; one of many careful design details.
Among the occupants' various stories is that of Jo, (Cheryl Douglas), a shocked and embittered wife on the run after witnessing her husband’s infidelity as she is organising their 20th wedding anniversary. She befriends an ingenuous, selfie-taking hitchhiker (Sailor Tyler), who is on a quest to find her boyfriend up on a FIFO location. Jo subsequently hooks up with poor old Michael (Damien White) who is also on the run from grief, working as an outback soft drinks deliverer.
Then there is stressed mum Carla (Gabrielle Douglas) who, with two kids and the brown dog, are accompanying her well-intentioned, hyperactive, no-hoper husband Andy (Jackson Barnard) on a trip from Coober Pedy to somewhere in the green north where he believes life will be good. Their old bomb breaks down here and there, the country copper (Ash Merriel) wants to defect it, and they end up in a caravan park where recently widowed Frank (Malcolm Walton) is listlessly trying to complete the grand road trip he had planned with his wife.
The interactions of the travellers advance what are quite interesting and at times touching and dramatic narratives. Indeed, there is wonderful Aussie grist to the story mill which is played out in cinematic-style scenes. There are some beautifully committed performances and the set is award-worthy. It has all the makings of a five-star show, but the play needs tightening by a strong dramatic screwdriver. It wallows and reiterates here and there and, for all the happenings of its many characters and their adventures, it is ironic that what it lacks is pace.
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Co-Opera. Burnside Ballroom. 17 Sep 2022
The storyline of Puccini’s short comic opera Gianni Schicchi – it comes in at around one-hour – is based on an episode from Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and this production by Co-Opera is brim full of fun and fine singing.
Gianni Schicchi follows the machinations of members of the Florentine old-money Donati family as they whip themselves into a fury upon discovering that the estate of Buoso Donati, their recently deceased wealthy relative, has been bequeathed to the church and not to them. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and very quickly Gianni Schicchi is called upon to attend the family and offer a ‘solution’. He suggests falsifying the will. This is a risky enterprise, and perpetrators will be punished by exile and amputation of the right hand if found out! Who is Schicchi? Well, he’s a brash and cunning chancer who is the father of the beautiful and virtuous Lauretta who is desperately in love with the fervent and handsome Rinuccio who is the nephew of covetous Zita who is one of Buoso’s cousins (phew!). It is Rinuccio who persuades the family to involve Schicchi hoping this will assist his fraught plans to marry Lauretta – fraught because she and her father move in an altogether different social circle to them.
Eventually it all backfires on the family and Schicchi double-crosses them out of the bulk of the estate. Needless to say, Rinuccio and Lauretta are united and Schicchi has the last say as he speaks directly to the audience and suggests that if the young couple were ever called upon to account for their involvement in the whole caper, the verdict would surely have to be ‘not guilty’!
Does it all sound delectably absurd, funny and imaginatively complicated? Well, yes it is, and arguably the whole opera draws heavily from the commedia dell'arte tradition, with Schicchi as the Harlequin, Lauretta as Columbine and the other relatives in various classic commedia roles. Director Stephanie Acraman understands this, draws it out through many fine performances, and has the audience laughing in stitches.
Gianni Schicchi isn’t a numbers piece – it is really only known for the beautiful aria O mio babbino caro sung by Lauretta, and even this emerges surprisingly (almost randomly) without a solid emotional build up. But let’s not allow that to stand in the way of the telling of a ripping yarn!
Co-Opera has assembled a terrific cast of experienced and emerging singers. In the title role, Nicholas Cannon exudes confidence, bravado, deceit and fox-like cunning, and his fine baritone-tenor voice was a highlight throughout the production. The audience reacted to him with laughter and delight as they would to the villain in a melodrama. Kudos to him and to Acraman.
Emerging artist Gianna Gutilla gives Lauretta a degree of innocence and her performance of O mio babbino caro is pleasing. Pianist Stephen van der Hoek provides a sensitive accompaniment and, importantly, gives her sufficient room to take the aria at a comfortable pace and dynamical trajectory.
Jiacheng Ding plays Rinuccio with youthful ardour. However, his final scene with Lauretta, in which they lovingly embrace, is perhaps a little overformal and lacking in the sort of passion you’d expect when two young lovers finally overcome the last hurdle. Acraman might have done well to employ the services of an intimacy director. That minor criticism aside, Ding’s tenor voice sang true and firm throughout the expanse of the venue. His performance of Avete torto! and Firenze è come un albero fiorito amply demonstrated his fine instrument and hushed the capacity audience, as did the love duet Lauretta mia, staremo sempre qui! he sings with Gutilla.
Meran Bow began a little hesitantly but quickly and firmly put her stamp on the role of Zita. The (necessarily) confined set didn’t always provide her with the room to take full flight! Bow is well experienced and understands that a role needs to be both acted and sung well. She succeeded in both.
Macintyre Howie-Reeves was excellent as Betto. He already has a fine tenor voice and it is getting better on every outing. It is easy to see him taking on more substantial roles in the future.
The cast is well rounded out with convincing performances from Brock Roberts (as Gherardo), Jessica Mills (Nella), Peter Dean (Simone), Oliver Vickers (Marco), and Bethany Eloise (La Ciesca). A special mention goes to Rachel McCall who plays three diverse roles – Gherardino, Spinelloccio and Amantio – with the latter two performed in true commedia-style!
Every performance venue provides its own challenges, and the art deco styled Burnside Ballroom is no exception. The stage is very small with no inbuilt theatrical lighting rig. Thankfully Gianni Schicchi only requires a single set in the form of a bedroom, but with a cast of eleven on stage and the trappings of a bedroom that screams wealth, space is at a premium and a little limiting at times, even with the addition of a small thrust stage. However, Acraman moves her cast efficiently around the available space and the action seems natural and unobtrusive in the main. The light is limited to a general wash with some attempts to underline the heighted emotions on stage with changes in hue, but these prove to be ineffectual.
There is no attempt to set the production in its original period Venetian setting, and costuming is generally contemporary. It works. Schicchi’s charlatan nature is heavily underlined by his grotesquely chequered blue, orange, black and white suit. It is just perfect! It screams used car salesman, and we all love to hate them!
Acraman milks the script for every laugh she can get, and the cast are up for it.
Mention was made above of Stephen van der Hoek’s excellent performance on piano. His solo performance of the entire orchestral piano reduction is a highlight of the production. Together with conductor Leanne Puttick, the cast is well served by sympathetic and competent musical accompaniment.
Gianni Schicchi is Co-Opera’s first production in two years. With the audience seated in cabaret-style enjoying bring-your-own picnic baskets at their tables, and without the bells and whistles available in grand purpose-built theatres, the recipe was not for grand opera, but it was. Co-Opera deserve our strong support!
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Burnside Ballroom
Bookings: Closed