A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Adelaide Festival. Festival Theatre. 26 Feb 2021

The last thing one would have expected of an Adelaide Festival operatic centrepiece is that, amidst a wealth of top human talent and technical wizardry, a dog would steal the show.

But so it is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is director Neil Armfield’s mighty production and it is director Neil Armfield’s marvellous and mellow dog, Lock by name, and belonging, in the Shakespearean scheme of things, to the band of merry mechanicals who deliver that delicious rustic kitsch performance of Pyramus and Thisbe for the entertainment of the royal couple, Theseus and Hippolyta.

Clearly aware of Lock’s star power, Armfield has even given him his own found-in-the-woods special vignette which gives the audience a chance to cheer his stage obedience.

It has been uncommon for a live dog to play the part of dog in the Dream and one may dare to call it type casting in this time of blind casting wherein anyone can play almost anything other than what perhaps was intended in a script. For instance, in this grand production, Puck, the English woodland sprite, non-singing in the Britten variation on the Dream theme, is played by Mark Coles Smith as a rather masculine Aboriginal warrior spirit with a strong strine accent. 

Indeed, director Armfield has taken all sorts of lateral inspirations to add whimsy to the Benjamin Britten Dream. The lovers Lysander and Hermia arrive onstage looking impeccably Brad and Janet 1950s as if they had just dropped in from The Rocky Horror Show. 

Amid the clouds of faeries in their blonde wigs, all a lithe children’s soprano chorus from Young Adelaide Voices, the one child wearing glasses immediately reminds one of the Lost Boys of Peter Pan.

So, there’s lots of lively pastiche alternativism to spot in this latter-day take on a beloved Shakespearean classic. And, as the surtitles flow along, there is the reminder that the work also is about words and some of the sheer prettiness of Shakepeare’s Dream language hangs in the air.

Also hanging in the air is Oberon. The fairy king holds sway, most literally, over his enchanted woodland realm in a flying box. It rises and lowers as he interacts with Puck and with his beloved queen, Tytania, with whom he is squabbling about the Changeling child. This little Indian prince here is cast as African, an adorable wide-eyed wee tot, oft enveloped in Tytania's loving arms and the almost endless flow of her glorious trails of chiffon. Oberon is sung by the utterly dazzling American counter tenor, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. His voice is a dream in itself, perhaps the Manuka honey of the musical world. Armfield has done well to marry him to Rachelle Durkin’s Tytania. She is a mezzo of splendid stature as well as voice and beauty. They are a couple to capture heart and imagination, these two. 

Teddy Tahu Rhodes may have a lesser role as Theseus, but this brilliant baritone has such a potent stage presence that, even from the fun and games and silliness of the Mechanicals’ play, he draws one’s awareness.  They’re terrific Mechanicals: Douglas McNicol, Louis Hurley, Pelham Andrews, Norbert Hohl, and Jeremy Tatchell, with Warwick Fyfe as Bottom, albeit in an oddity of an ass’s head.

Andrew Goodwin and Sally-Anne Russell thrive as the runaway lovers, Lysander and Hermia, Russell delivering one of the productions funniest moments as she turns on the small-but-feisty tantrum. James Clayton and Leanne Kenneally are well-matched as Demetrius and Helena with Fiona Campbell gracious to a tee as the queen, Hippolyta.

And, of course, there en masse in the pit, perfectly balanced in strength and harmony, is our wonderful ASO conducted by Paul Kildea. 

But, while the musicians and the singers and the general business of this production have their merit, it is Dale Ferguson who is truly the lynchpin. Ferguson is responsible not only for the romance and beauty of the costumes but also for the all-embracing, all-consuming magical woodland set, a world where massive plastic drops with exquisite vertical forest motifs softly reveal the flitting life of the fairy kingdom, a world where human and fairy activities and moods are drawn by the movements of a huge, green sheet which moves up and down over the stage and, which seems almost to breathe as it softly billows. When it comes to rest, it encloses Tytania in her dreamy bower.  And all is green, so lushly, beautifully green.  Enriched by Damien Cooper’s lighting, the set is a splendour, almost worth the ticket price on its own.

Samela Harris

When: 26 Feb to 3 Mar

Where: Festival Theatre

Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au

The Boy Who Talked to Dogs

Adelaide Festival. World Premiere. Slingsby/State Theatre Company of SA. Thomas Edmonds Opera Studio, Wayville Showgrounds. 25 Feb 2021

It’s as Irish as a turf fire.

There are reels of characterful Irish music and an athletic Irishman with a brogue of James Joycean intensity.

It’s a true story, so its theatre makers have thrown the cultural book at it, so to speak.

Eschewing proscenium traditions, they have sprawled it across a vast shed wherein a covid-masked audience sits cabaret-style at tables and the players move between them. Three corners of the venue contain concealed sets which open up like giant popup books. The fourth corner is a real stage, bright and lively, wherein the show’s spirited musicians dwell. 

Essentially, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs is a one-man show with a glory of production values, including foot-tapping music and the utterly wonderful voice of Victoria Falconer singing the songs composed by Lisa O’Neill and Quincy Grant. Banjo, ukulele, accordion, guitar, fiddle - the band of four plays them all, at times roaming the room or perched on a central dais. They step in to people Martin’s world.

Bryan Burroughs plays the boy Martin McKenna. McKenna is a real-life character, author of the book The Boy Who Talked to Dogs, and now very much an adult, Australia-based and working as a YouTube dog trainer based in Nimbin.

His portrayal in this work is highly demanding since there’s a lot of territory to be covered as the character darts and dashes through the audience in the huge venue. Burroughs does so with really beautiful litheness, fleet-footed and athletic. All the time, he’s busily on script, with a mighty performance, narrating the tale of the Irish lad, the runty last-born of triplets who, for the miserable life of him, could not fit in with the Irish village life around him. 

As conveyed in this Amy Conroy adaptation of McKenna’s book, it is a heartrending tale of a poor, quirky little boy regularly beaten by his father and never putting a foot right with his mum or school or anything very much. The only simpatico souls were the local dogs, and so the saga evolves of his ending up living with a pack of dogs because at last he had found a place where he belonged and could have respect. 

The dogs are a delight of shadow illumination in what is altogether a really stunning lighting plot by Chris Petridis. Between the puppetry images and the conviction of the actor establishing his place among the dogs, those mere shadows achieve personality and a life of their own. And, with a complex and finely balanced soundscape, as well as the artful music, the tension, dramas, heartbreaks, and triumphs of Martin’s world become quite vivid.

The only shortcoming of this work is its huge scale.  While the action is generally elevated, the sight-lines from one corner of the Thomas Edmonds opera shed to the other far corner are a bit of a strain and the sophistication of Wendy Todd’s fine sets can’t always be appreciated. Would that the venue were more intimate. The seating is GA but seats are allocated at the door. Perhaps ask for a central spot.

Between Andy Packer’s wonderful Slingsby and the fellowship support of State Theatre’s Mitchell Butel, with imagination and courage and good sponsorship, this is one of those Festival experiences which will steal a permanent spot in the memory.  

And, if there is one indelibly beautiful line in the script of wild Irish verbosity, it is that delivered by the show’s Australian troubadour Victoria Falconer to the winter-chilled Irish boy, Martin. She tells him: “Australia is a place that is like swallowing yellow.”

And so it is, so it is.

Samela Harris

When: 25 Feb to 14 Mar

Where: Thomas Edmonds Opera Studio

Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au

Myrth + Music = Mayhem

★★

Denzo, Ron-Diggity Dawg and Eric Tinker. The Jade. 24 Feb 2021

The Jade is a great venue. Cheap beers, an uncluttered wine list, and curries are available to sip and savour on the old-school parlour furniture in the sitting room of the former manse. The venue, accessed by an adjacent door, is spacious with cabaret sitting under the chandeliers and stools all-around next to the walls. There is ample outdoor seating for pre- and apres show under the fairy lights - all right in the heart of the city.

On offer is a night of three comic acts. The show opened with a weak introduction for the trio and then straight into a threesome act led by Eric Tinker and his few chords. The generational gap was the theme - Tinker and Denzo could remember dialing a phone and R-DD never saw one. The Boomers vs Millennials song written by Tinker is quite good in comparing the lingo. Totally under-rehearsed, the song was re-formatted into a competition that didn’t quite work as the other two comics floundered trying to cheerlead the audience. The Boomers took two direct hits. Tinker fumbled a bit about a missing page of the song, and then a Boomer in the audience had no idea that his phone was running on with an audible podcast until another audience member pointed it out. It took him two goes to turn it off. It was right on cue.

Ron-Diggity Dawg – identifying as a woman I should let you know, and there was no doubt about that – fell on some sharp quartz with her act. While lewd and overt sexual references probably play very well after 11 o’clock on a Friday night at the Roxby Downs Tavern, the small Wednesday night crowd didn’t have enough alcohol or too much inhibition for R-DD to get the ball rolling, and she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Nonetheless, it was an education and I’ll never again take oral sex for granite. (PS – she’s a geologist when not going on about her wet lettuce.)

Eric Tinker - or Derek Ticker as the MC introduced him, or Eric Tickner as Denzo called him - had more success. Just the fact that there is a guitar involved gets your attention. Tinker is whacky and so unabashed that when things go wrong or even a bit not good, he just keeps on keeping on and it all seems part of the show. Perhaps simply being a trier and just out there is the secret. Whatever, he is his own man with novel ideas, like the pros and cons of mermaids and reversed mermaids and the ramifications of husbandry in Amy Married A Horse. He twice demonstrated that the opening chords of Smoke On The Water are very difficult.

Denzo called COVID the Boomer Remover, but it hasn’t got to him, yet. His schtick is very much about a Senior Card Holder’s life – living alone, RSL meals, and pension day delights. His idea of safe sex is having a defibrillator next to the bed. Denzo’s got something there, but he’s running out of time to get it right. Back to the Sunshine Coast’s retirement homes to research more material.

The show ended with another tinker by Tinker which put a pleasant end to it. Maybe on subsequent nights it will be 3 Stars.

David Grybowski

When: 24 Feb to 3 Mar

Where: The Jade

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

Still Alive (and kicking)

★★★★★

Adelaide Fringe Festival. Gill Hicks. Black Box Theatre. 24 Feb 2021

If there is one thing worth doing this Fringe, it is spending an hour in a darkened room with Gill Hicks.

Hers is no average theatre performance. It is an experience, a life-enhancing and endorsing experience.

It is a narrative of unutterable darkness told with exquisite lightness.

Gill Hicks is she of the 2005 London underground suicide bombing, the Adelaide woman pulled legless and nigh-lifeless from the wreckage of that doomed commuter carriage. There is no way such a tale should be funny, but Hicks is one of those charmed souls who can find a bright edge against the odds.

And, she can sing.

Hence, she has turned her gruelling tale of survival into a very engaging and well-structured performance piece. 

Hicks sits on a stool onstage, her big black tutu a glory of tulle which exposes, quite perfectly, her prosthetic ankles and the delicate bare feet she has had created with the idea of being “earthed". 

An expanse of screen behind her reveals not only background images but, importantly, the footage of the beauties of life, images which drew her away from the arms of death: champagne, sunflowers, the sea, pasta, glamour, city pavements. It is a serene and soothing sequence, uplifting and meditative. Rather like Hicks herself, as it turns out.

Flanking the stage, she has two musicians, Dylan Paul on double bass and Julian Ferraretto on violin and, of all wondrous and unexpected things, the hand saw. Oh, what exquisite sounds he elicits from that common tool. 

Together, the musicians provide the cool jazz beats to which Hicks adds her soft and airy alto voice. She interposes reflective songs such as Bye Bye Blackbird, Staying Alive, and Summertime, sung gently and slowly before rising to powerful crescendos which belie the fact that she also lost a lung in the bombing.

Her speaking voice is also easy on the ear and, ever understated, and with a sense of celebratory wonderment at the glorious absurdity of human existence, she relates her story of coming to what she calls “Gill’s second life”. Love reigns high in her monologue and, indeed, in her world. She has felt the love of strangers as few people ever will. She survived because of the loving care of police, paramedics, and medical professionals. She carries this love within her and seems to breathe it from the stage.

And her audience leaves feeling enriched by a rare encounter.

Samela Harris

When: 24 Feb to 14 Mar

Where: Black Box Theatre

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au