★★★
Shark Island Institute and The Artslab Kangaroo Valley. Holden Street Theatres. 17 Feb 2021
Ian Darling and Greg Fleet come from opposite sides of the tracks but were theatrically coupled at Geelong Grammar in the late ‘70s. Their bromance survived many episodes of years-long hibernation. After reconnecting early on life’s slippery slope, they thought that their lives were fascinating enough to workshop themselves into this fiesta of self-reflection and introspection. In other words, they play themselves as they recount the rips and curls of their enduring relationship in this world premiere production.
You may already know of stand-up comedian Greg Fleet and his battle with heroin addiction. He was kicked out of NIDA for such, yet nonetheless, he is a fine actor playing Greg Fleet. Ian Darling is an award-winning documentary filmmaker but probably wouldn’t have gotten through the front door at NIDA. No, wait a minute, he ‘fessed up to getting through the front door, and immediately back out again on the day of his audition, anxiously shying away from the opportunity. Decades later, he entered NIDA via the front door again – this time to help run the place as a director; one of his many board and executive positions. Fleet talks of Struggle Street as a performing art professional, while Darling - the Collins Street professional - laments not following his dream of a life in the arts with wistful regret and a hint of jealousy towards his pal. The irony is not lost.
The pair have locked themselves up in an art colony far in the bush ostensibly to make a two-hander of The Comedy of Errors, but not much happens and not much is at stake. Directors Terry Serio and Sarah Butler try to animate the script - written by Butler, Darling and Fleet - with some naff dance moves to snippets of nostalgic pop hits and random perambulations, but to no useful effect. It’s still two old friends having a chat about the past, and all so suburban - their ruminations aren’t any more interesting than mine. Darling even pondered if their play should go public. Hmm.
David Grybowski
When: 16 Feb to 21 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Holden Street Theatres & Martha Lott. Holden Street Theatres. 17 Feb 2021
The set is layered with a boy’s toy debris and an eight-year-old’s clothes lie strewn about his bedroom. With the theatrically missing walls, the whole shebang is like the aftermath of a tornado. Tornado Tom. Mum enters for an archaeological dig to find the cannot-do-without floppy monkey puppet and to pack an overnight bag for him. Tom has fallen off his perch again.
Holden Street Theatre’s artistic director, Martha Lott, has written, with developmental assistance from others, a forensically informative and emotionally wrought narrative for a single mother raising a behaviourally troubled boy and an older sister who is subject to collateral damage. From early days to the latest incident, Tom’s increasingly serious transgressions are revealed along with Mum’s search for help. And then there are the recriminations. Blame and well-meaning advice is always nearby, but help that leads to real change is elusive.
Martha Lott plays our heroic Mum with amazing verisimilitude. Lott’s Mum reaches the brink of emotional breakdown rather continuously only to pull back to get on with the job. Because there is no choice. This isn’t some alcoholic husband who cyclically abuses and apologises, whom you can leave; it’s your baby and you can’t give up. The subtext of being on your own, of the daily worry of the next phone call from school, and the effect on the daughter is excruciatingly palpable. Lott takes you right into the trenches with her and there isn’t much in the way of relief. The only hope is that the whole family has finally got individual mental health plans.
Director Yasmin Gurreeboo guides Lott to a wonderful balance of text and emotional import. It’s kind of heartbreaking, but great empathy for this family is automatic, and we should all know about this. Bravo to the creative team and to Lott’s first writing credit and performance in this world premiere!
David Grybowski
When: 16 Feb to 21 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Patrick Livesey. Holden Street Theatres. 17 Feb 2021
Producer Patrick Livesey has delivered another five-star show for the Fringe at Holden Street Theatres. His hit play in 2019, The Boy, George, was the hilariously plausible improbability of an impish Prince George plotting to save a Boris Johnson-lead government disaster from his bedroom in Buckingham Palace. Last year, his equally good Gone Girls did brisk business.
This year’s burnt offering is the world premiere of a ripper yarn penned by Melbourne playwright and perennial student of the arts, Angus Cameron. An Australian tourist in Moscow chats up one of those umbrella tour guides seen in all major cities these days, seeking the underground gay scene. In Russia, same-sex activity in private was de-criminalised in 1993 but is otherwise frowned upon to downright dangerous in a largely homophobic society. Say no more and enjoy the ride and climax, but what happens is a lot more than a gay tryst – yes, there are hidden agendas.
From ABC’s Millennials/Gen Z TV series, Why Are You Like This?, Wil King’s cherubim looks manifests his Australian’s naivety, enthusiasm, and idealism. His real-life partner and play protagonist, Patrick Livesey is a machine gun burst of the inscrutable Russian. His broken English is wonderful, and his Russian is mysterious, suspicious and tough. While I feel Russians love to complain and joke about their leaders and society, they absolutely love their heritage and are nationalistic at heart, and Livesey and Cameron nailed it. Together, the playwright and cast, aided by an edgy soundtrack, authentically invite us into a shabby and tiny Russian apartment for a few afternoon to evening drinks, followed by the drug-induced haze of a thumping nightclub. Menace is ever present, and malice seems not far behind. Stranger danger and the stakes inexorably increase with every round, yet the tense yearning for sex or at least connection is always palpable. And then there’s the stuff I haven’t told you about.
It is an edge-of-the-seat experience, wonderfully written and expertly performed. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 16 Feb to 21 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Therry Theatre. Arts Theatre. 11 Feb 2021
Emerging into the world of covid shutdown, Therry imposes strict conditions with lengthy instructions, including ordaining that no one leaves the theatre before the row-by-row exit rule has been explained. Since Therry attracts elderly audiences, this is admirable duty-of-care.
For its elderly audience, Therry’s first 2021 production proves to be a welcome chuckle in the dark.
It is Ken Ludwig’s 2004 adaptation of the 1932 Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play, Twentieth Century, a showbiz-themed comedy set on a luxury train in the glamorous 1930s. It depicts a grandiose Broadway producer’s efforts to revive his collapsing career by exploiting the stardom of his one-time protégé and lover, Lily Garland. It’s all about vanity, glitz, fakery, and gullibility on a luxury train from Chicago to New York. It is also a comedy.
In this Kerrin White production, it is not a rib-rattling, guffawing comedy but more of a cackle-fest, "The Producers" on valium, perhaps. Its set is utterly fabulous, being a series of ritzy train compartments which are shunted to and fro across the stage to reveal and expand the action as the protagonists - a stage-struck doctor and his mistress, a nutty old conman, a rival producer, railway staff, and assorted members of the great producer’s entourage - bumble about in their assorted quests. The humour is hit and miss, rising towards the climax when all hell is breaking loose.
This work has been a vehicle for the likes of John Barrymore, Frederick March, and Alec Baldwin as the pompous producer Oscar Jaffe with Carole Lombard and Gloria Swanson as the female star. Following in such luminous footsteps is a daunting challenge for any actor and, indeed, one feels for stalwart Adelaide actor Lindsay Dunn as he seeks to embody the blustering egomaniacism of the lead character. Dunn is word perfect and diligent to a tee in his portrayal, but trying as he may to achieve blustering misogyny, he can’t help being just a wee bit too nice.
Playing opposite as the brattish movie star and wearing an exquisitely clichéd blonde wig, Shelley Crooks delivers some delicious vapid vanity in a funny, edgy performance.
The supporting cast is consistently strong and well-rehearsed with some pleasing characterisations and the production definitely lifts in the second act. But it is a clumsy, oddball old play, so much a period piece that the program contains a long glossary of references. Hence, it is a goodie for the oldies but it misses the mark for teenagers.
Samela Harris
When: 11 to 20 Feb
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
David Gauci & Davine Productions. Star Theatre One. 5 Feb 2021
Producer, director and writer David Gauci relies on the now-hackneyed title of Bryan Adams’s 1984 hit single, Summer of ’69, to signal to the punters that what’s on offer is a nostalgic magic carpet ride of ‘60s hits, and they got the message. The COVID-restrained, entertainment-hungry, post-middle age chardonnay set have come in droves to turn on, tune in, and drop out for a couple of hours in this blissful trip.
Gauci is a musical stalwart of Adelaide who sang in the inaugural Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2001. His production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical – a biographical jukebox musical of King and her ground-breaking songwriting companions from 2013 – was a huge success in the 2020 Adelaide Fringe, and not surprisingly, people have remembered that and returned for more.
In the first half of the show, Gauci chronologically chronicles the main news events and hits of each year in the decade. The use of television clips is helpful, but the employment of tag team narrators is less successful. Reading from scripts and pretending not to is as awkward as the dual MCs that occasionally mar the Academy Awards. Gauci’s pop histories – perhaps rehashed from late night SBS documentaries - forestalls what people really came to enjoy – THE MUSIC. However, my American companion loved it – “I had a combi!”, “I went to San Francisco!”, “I was at Woodstock”, “I was at the Kennedy assassination!” (Just kidding about that last one.)
Musical director Peter Johns and The Hip Beats accompany a bongful of vocal talent in flawlessly rendered hits that carry you off to some associated past be it pleasant or poignant. Carly Meakin’s rendering of Aquarius is soaring and Joshua Kerr’s and Trevor Anderson’s Sounds of Silence is particularly evocative. Jordan Coulter improves on Dylan with his The Times They Are a-Changin’.
Shenayde Wilkinson-Sarti’s choreography is unchallenging and the singers’s costumes lack ‘60s authenticity – more like a dress-up party. Space for backstage and front-of-house credit in the program is used up instead by the major sponsor. Seating around tables and an open bar exude the warm and welcoming social atmosphere that we missed in the truncated 2020 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
The second half of the show is a delectable selection of what else you would want to hear. The Four Seasons’s Walk Like A Man is delightfully dispatched by women in pink suits. Maya Miller and Joshua Kerr correctly capture the playful rapport of Sony & Cher in I Got You Babe. Bravo! And still, Gauci left the best for last. Jemma McCullough reprises her role as Carole King from Beautiful… with powerfully performed interpretations of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and I Feel The Earth Move. Bravo!
After the encore and final round of applause, your table thanks Gauci for bringing back his Beautiful… singers and musicians for a much-needed night of sublime music and memory.
David Grybowski
When: Closed
Where: Star Theatre One
Bookings: www.trybooking.com