Mighty Good Productions. Star Theatres. 29 Sep 2021
One steps into cutting-edge technological “now" at Star Theatres as one holds one’s phone up to a QR code to access the big, bright program for Mighty Good’s production of Cinderella.
It is virtually glossy, “virtual” being the operative word. And, of course, it is an oddly perverse reason to have one’s phone alight during performance in a darkened theatre.
This is a growing trend among theatre companies and, for those who care about collecting programs and the history of local theatre, it is an arduous print-out job or just a loss. For critics who like to scrawl their notes on programs, it is a disaster. For theatre companies, however, it is a significant dollar saving.
In the case of the Mighty Good panto, it is anachronistic mind-spin, because when the curtain comes up on Malcolm Harslett’s 2021 school holidays show, it is a huge leap back in time.
Harslett is the bravest man in Adelaide theatre today.
There is no ground-breaking experimental theatre work to rival him, so stand away Rumpus.
Down there on Sir Donald Bradman Drive, he is delivering a retro experience which is filling that darling old theatre to the brim with lots of puzzled but mostly pleased youngsters.
Little do they know that this lavish production of colourful nonsense is absolutely historic and people like Harslett who recreate it are now as rare as hen’s teeth.
It goes right against the grain of the short-grabs, Tiktok culture of the day.
It is a slow business. In this particular production, perhaps a bit too slow.
It is adorned with very old-school song and dance routines and traditional comic schtick.
Ah, but ye olde slapstick! It will never die.
Cinderella’s ugly sisters, more politically correctly described in the program as “beauty challenged”, are a riot. Their over-the-top nastiness and stupidity are a tour de force of vigorous knockabout clowning from the wonderful Richard Laidlaw and Richard Carpenter. Layered in pancake makeup and clad in outrageous mock-period hooped gowns, they are loud and fearless and super-funny. They are exquisitely contrasted by their nasty old mum who appears as a bedazzlement of period glamor in a red gown so huge at the hips that she has to enter the stage sideways.
If ever there was a show for which to exclaim “the frocks were lovely”, this is it.
Malcolm Harslett knows all about costumes and the expertise shines from the stage. Even Buttons, sweetly played by Michael Evans, has a costume of proper powder blue bellboy perfection.
Harslett not only has a lavish kingly costume for himself but also a very familiar fanciful number for his routine as Cyril The Servant in which character he turns on an age-old interactive “where’s my glasses?” routine which has the children screaming with incredulous helpfulness.
Lovely Talia Monaghan embodies Cinderella and she is adorable. While she and the multi-role Emily Jo Davidson are competent as singing pipes, Charles Herkes is heartthrob handsome and light on his feet as the Prince but not quite born to sing.
As ever, the Harslett sets are fabulous. And the touch of $5 tiaras in the foyer is lovely.
But it is his respect for the dying genre of pantomime which must be truly admired.
He is diligently wooing an instant-gratification digital generation and he might yet succeed if he cuts and sharpens the songs and knocks out the pauses. If he can’t win them, no one can.
Samela Harris
(Disclaimer…had to leave early cos child became queasy)
When: 29 Sep to 9 Oct
Where: Star Theatres
Bookings: cinderellathemusical.com.au
Her Majesty’s Theatre. 27 Sep 2021
Roll up, roll up to Her Majesty’s Theatre for this holiday romp targeted at school age children. Circus The Show takes the big top on stage for 60 minutes of clowning, dancing, magic, and acrobatics and the kids lap it up!
Leaping onto the stage our Ringmaster, Justin Williams, is a shock of ragged dreadlocks reminiscent of Tim Minchin. He is besequined in Ringmaster-red and sports a top hat and a bottomless bag of fantastic dad jokes. Doubling as the stunt act, Williams is a rubber chicken, machete juggling, chair-stack balancing whiz.
Ably supported by Simon Wright as Clown, every act is hilariously ruined with over the top slapstick antics which culminate in a giant balloon swallowing trick to rival them all – and the balloon does all the swallowing!
Chelsea Angell astonishes the kids as the whirling and twirling, dizzying and dazzling hula-hooper and aerialist, who splits, spins, flexes and contorts her body in the aerial straps. She doubles as the beautiful assistant to Sam Hume the magician, Sam the Magic Man, when he makes her mysteriously levitate. Hume’s magically appearing bunny David Hopperfield hops to it, and his quick change outfit tricks, and flame transformations impress.
Local Adelaide brother and sister act Arwen and Calin Diamond of Diamond Duo defy gravity with their acrobatic couple's dance, showcasing shoulder and hand balances, leaps and twirls. Lyndon Johnson puts on a few twirls of his own oscillating all over the stage at dizzying speeds in the Cyr Wheel and Freestyle Basketball Manipulator Bavo Delbeke spins, balances and juggles multiple basketballs with apparent ease.
With pressure from the Victorian lockdowns and border restrictions impacting cast availability, Circus the Show has filled those gaps wonderfully and given local talent a chance to shine.
It’s an hour of fun and laughter for the kids and not a bad afternoon's entertainment for the family, so get out and support the Arts this holidays with a ticket to this little-big top.
Paul Rodda
When: 27 & 28 Sep
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
The Paperboats. Goodwood Theatre and Studios. 17 Sep 2021
Guiding children onto a stage brings a mix of emotions; some bounce up the stairs quickly, eager to be part of the action, others are more diffident, concerned that they may have to participate more than they feel comfortable with. And by placing the audience upon the Goodwood Theatre and Studios stage in this way, the central thrust of Especially On Birthdays is immediately referenced, with the young audience reflecting the central theme of the different reactions children can have to the same situation.
Especially On Birthdays is the story of twins; Tanika (Katrina Lazaroff) is loud, happy and outgoing, while her brother Tim (Stephen Noonan) who is two minutes younger, is quieter, reflective and not so keen to be the centre of attention. They are about to celebrate their sixth birthday, and for the first time, they will be separated, going into different classes at school. How they deal with this within their relationship is the basis for this minimalist language production; the twins’ dilemma is shared and reflected, with some audience members invited to join in and share the experience.
That this production is almost entirely without words is of itself quite intuitive. This is the way that many children operate; what is not said, but intimated, forms a large part of their communication. For the children in this audience, it allowed them to fill in the spaces with their own experience, their own desires, their own dreams. And they were not backwards in coming forwards with their thoughts; even the shy ones managed to make their feelings known, albeit in subtle nuance. The recorded narrative was almost for the adults’ sake, just so that we could understand what was actually going on!
Directed by Dave Brown (who spent 20+ years as Artistic Director of the iconic Patch Theatre) and Roz Hervey (Force Majeure, Patch, Restless Dance Company et al), Especially On Birthdays is a work by the international partnership Paper Boats, a “platform for theatre-makers creating performances for early childhood audiences”, conceived by Brown post retirement from Patch. Brown explained, before the show, that Paper Boats seeks to create works utilising the skills and shared vision of an international community without having to carry the financial weight of formal infrastructures, utilising instead existing infrastructures of partner companies. The show has already been produced internationally; such collaborations, tapping into common experience, can only auger well for children’s theatre.
Especially On Birthdays is a result of this shared vision, developed by artistic communities from Australia, USA, Singapore and New Zealand. With an evocative music score for the Australian production from ZephyrROM (no introduction needed for the Zephyr Quartet!), this production taps into childhood fears, joys, expectations and disappointments, and ultimately confirms the bonds of shared sibling childhood. For the audience to be able to share in the experience (rolling around in mountains of paper chain was a bonus) is an acknowledgement that the growing up is hard, and sharing makes it that little bit easier. And big sisters can be a pain!
The show is featured as part of ‘Come Back’, a selection of productions playing at the Goodwood venue (now under the stewardship of industry stalwarts Chris Iley and Simone Avrimidis). This limited season deserves a return; more young audiences should be exposed to quality theatre such as this. Brava to The Paperboats from my little ones.
Arna Eyers-White
When: Closed
Where: Goodwood Theatre and Studios
Bookings: Closed
Australian Dance Theatre. Dunstan Playhouse. 18 Sep 2021
Adelaide’s Australian Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Garry Stewart is an international champion of dance. The Centenary Medalist began choreographing his own new works in 1990 and famously had six dancers abseiling down the sails of the Sydney Opera House for the billion viewers of the International Millennium Broadcast. He has led ADT since 1999 while also creating new dance abroad, and Objekt is one of them. This work was commissioned in Germany (as you might guess from the German title) in 2016 and is remounted currently by ADT’s Associate Artistic Director Sarah-Jayne Howard.
Objekt is a work with a dark outlook and if Stewart has this warning to his audience in 2016 in the wake of cruel American renditions post-9/11, it’s certainly even more appropriate today in our COVID-stressed social cesspool, and incidentally, the 20th anniversary of the former. Perhaps playfully incorporating an Australian element at the beginning, the dancers are dressed in anonymity via head-to-toe outfits bearing a pattern resembling the broad arrows borne by NSW convicts. These characters perform meaningless mechanical activity seemingly without end. In this scene and ongoing, while the compelling costumes imply androgenous forms, most of the action is masculine and some of that is troublesomely violent – all sense of feminine balance is absent. Objectification increases and empathy decreases. Street fights, beatings, and people carried about like chattel are wonderfully inventive and evocative. I can’t see how a German audience would not mistake a scene - where Stewart has dancers proudly waving banners hosting a bland symbol while several others completely dominate another few by kicking, punching and dragging them on the ground - for SS guards beating Jews and Communists in the ghetto.
Having said that, Objekt is technically masterful. Brendan Woithe’s edgy score and soundscape keeps you anxious and tense and never lets up with its deep bass and moody changes. Chris Petridis’s enveloping lighting utilises plenty of mauve perhaps signaling furtive night. Stewart’s choreography is demanding on Howard’s dancing team in its fluctuating rapidity and teamwork. The focus on precision in performance is palpable. Stewart’s use of symbolism and messaging through the dance medium – the sheer inventiveness of it – is thrilling.
Bravo!
PS - Garry Stewart is set to step down from ADT at the end of this year and it would be foolish not to see his next production - due November - with the provocatively blunt and titillating headline, "Love, Sex, Jealousy & Explosive Dance". Entitled G, the ballet Giselle, will never be the same.
David Grybowski
When: 13 to 19 Sep
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
James Watson & Paper Mouth Theatre. RUMPUS Theatre. 16 Sep 2021
The Triumph of Man is a new play written by local playwright James Watson who is honing his craft through a Masters in Writing for Performance at NIDA. In his short career he has been quite active with a number of works already under his belt that have been aired by University of Adelaide Theatre Guild and at the Adelaide Fringe. James is the recipient of a State Theatre Company of South Australia young playwrights award and has several works published on Australian Plays Transform.
The Triumph of Man is essentially a farce in two acts, with each coming in at around one hour. It is expansive in its conception and addresses a number of uncomfortable ‘truths’. The story focusses on how the fictional dictator of a fictional nation keeps his regime intact through the secretive suppression of dissenters and by spreading his propaganda through performances of a play he has written. He kidnaps two foreign actors to lead the performances, which may sound absurd but is in-fact, informed by real events surrounding South Korean filmmakers Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee who were kidnapped by Kim Jong in 1978 and forced to make propaganda movies for the North Korean regime. There are of course less dramatic examples in history of artists being used for political purposes such as Guy Sebastian being paraded by PM Morrison to help spruik the federal government’s bungled arts rescue package. Sebastian later expressed his embarrassment at being used “as a prop”.
The Triumph of Man explores how the arts and particularly the performing arts can be (and are) exploited for political purposes. This of course is not a novel idea and has been explored many times before, and this play doesn’t really add to that canon. The particular story line about the kidnapped actors is however new and fertile territory for exploration, but Watson doesn’t perhaps make as much of this as he might. The story line frequently crosses over into previously travelled territory and becomes cliché. This has the effect of reducing the potential impact of the narrative and slows it down.
Director Mary Angley identifies the absurdist aspects of the script and capitalises on the manifest abilities of the acting ensemble to milk these moments for what they are worth, but the sprawling text doesn’t easily assist in identifying reasonable bounds. Interestingly, Reggie Parker’s (mostly) excellent soundscape occasionally juxtaposes quite dark and foreboding sound sequences with lighter moments in the play. This has the effect of leaving the audience responding to questions that the music perhaps should not be asking. The lighting plot and set are simple and never distract from the play itself.
Arran Beattie is excellent as one of the kidnapped actors. His portrayal includes a carefully balanced mix of humour, fear, hesitancy, and resignation. Christian Best plays the other actor in a more naturalistic and underplayed manner, and as such demands to be listened to in a different way. Grace Boyle plays the dual roles of Ivana and Erasmus with much energy and expression, but frequently becomes ‘shouty’ as Erasmus, which is uncomfortable in the RUMPUS performance space. Ellen Graham as Axelle crafts a compelling character. We feel her rage, anguish, and pain. Poppy Mee also plays dual roles, and as Artemon she oozes authority and foreboding. Yoz Mensch also essays dual roles, and clearly delights in playing the role of the dictator giving a balanced mix of menace and unhinged mania.
The Triumph of Man is a wild ride, with twists and turns that both please and irk.
Kym Clayton
When: 14 to 26 Sep
Where: RUMPUS Theatre
Bookings: rumpustheatre.org