★★★
Motley & Mac. Gluttony, Rymill Park. 18 Feb 2020
Motley & Mac is an Australian performing arts company created by American Tim Motley and Irishman Patrick McCullagh. Over the last six years they have hosted Prohibition, Best of Kids’ Fringe, and this revue, Best of Fringe Variety at the Adelaide Fringe.
Even with introductions but without a program or even a running sheet, it’s difficult to record who each of the entertainers are – certainly a handout would serve as a reference for attendees to look up and book those performers whom they want to see more of.
The show began with American Tymisha Harris’s channeling of black American Josephine Baker, an international cabaret superstar whose star had faded until Harris and company conceived of Josephine, on offer in the Fringe. Harris is a compelling chanteuse and her two numbers were an exciting exposition. The magician and master of ceremonies showed some wizardry with playing cards, and later he managed to pick which extended hand of an audience member held a coin - four times in a row - just like he said he would. He even tells us how he does it. I did the math – there is only a 6.25% chance of doing so. His comic and relaxed manner makes me want to see more of him. The acrobatic acts ranged from “When am I supposed to clap?” to “OMG, that’s amazing!” A balancing act involving a precariously placed dozen martini glasses took the breathe away. What goes through my mind is how much time must be spent rehearsing to earn a few shekels. High-energy hoopologist Anna Fisher passed Public Relations 101 and handed out flyers after the show for her Phat Cab Club circus cabaret in this year’s Fringe.
Best of Fringe Variety is on every night except Mondays until 15 March, and every show is different, depending on which Fringe artists want to entertain and/or promote their full-length shows, so it’s not necessarily the best, as advertised, but hopefully some of the best. And you can’t possibly have the full mix of lollies every night; the burlesque acts, comedians, illusionists, tap dancers, strong men, bubble sculptors and puppeteers cited in the blurb were absent in the show I saw on opening night. So life is like a box of chocolates.
David Grybowski
When: 19 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: Gluttony, Rymill Park
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
The Chaser Quarterly and The Shovel Present. Gluttony, Rymill Park. 18 Feb 2020
Fresh from their national tour of War on 2019 – Live!, James Schloeffel and Charles Firth team up again, this time, to lambast the anti-scientific community. Opening Tuesday night was a near-full house of hundreds of anticipating fans familiar with Schloeffel’s political satire news headline website, www.theshovel.com.au and Firth’s all-media and politically merciless hit, The Chaser. A formidable team, indeed!
First in their sights is Swisse Vitamins who recently lost energy because of their unsubstantiated and vague claims about the efficacy of their supplement products. Next was Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop.com, a veritable treasure trove of anti-science with its overpriced and useless products. The anti-vaccination movement took a direct hit. Schoeffel and Firth trade ironies and barbs in a stand-up didactic format aided by slides and some video (when are we going to get new names for these things that don’t exist anymore?) that sees the humour in the stupor. The ringleaders are the blond mopheads, Trump and Johnson, and following up the rear, PM Scomo. The Chaser is famous for faking reality and the revelation of their bogus info website and the surfers caught in their web was amazing for its audacity and extraordinary results. Even theshovel was cited as a source for news when it’s entirely a well-known set up. Go figure. The team explains the modus operandi - you sidestep the well-educated and target the most dupable with fake graphs – even obviously fake ones, and you can do some real mischief – like the relationship between sultanas and car accidents. The most hilarious segment was requests for behavioural guidance based on the Bible directed to Israel Folau, that lightning rod of religious freedom. I’m not surprised they repeated it from the War on 2019 – Live! show. Homeopathy is not unscathed.
Opening night had its drop-out moments that you probably won’t see in subsequent performances. While the dynamic duo commands the audience, the appearance of guests or a funny song would be welcome. And yet, I laughed and laughed and laughed again. The subtext is frightening, so laugh while you can.
Book soon. Friday’s and Saturday’s 8 pm shows are sold out.
David Grybowski
When: 19 to 23 Feb
Where: Gluttony – Rymill Park
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Bakehouse Theatre. 18 Feb 2020
Horrendous is written and performed by Adelaide born / Manchester based Harry Tobias. It is a poignant story of a young gay man whose life appears to be running out of control: is he a victim of the behaviour of others, or is he the maker of his own ‘horrendous’ situation? The narrative would suggest both with perhaps underlying mental health issues as an explanation for some of the young man’s behaviours and responses.
Tobias is a courageous performer and writer. At times his script is confronting, with its ‘no holds barred’ approach to describing the young man’s sexual behaviours and his turbulent attitudes to his family, friends and lover. Much of the impetus of the play is achieved through a sequence of dialogues between the young man and the people in his life, who are heard (through numerous voiceovers) but not seen. Tobias injects adequate nuance into his responses to these people, and the sections that involve rapid verbal exchanges are particularly well handled, more so than those where he reacts to extended statements from the other person (such as by the young man’s lover).
The quality of the voice overs is variable, and that of his potential employer is the most engaging. This is perhaps the high point of the performance and Tobias gives us a better glimpse into what he is capable of as an actor. Disappointingly, the text and voice over of his lover towards the end of the play lacks the emotion and gravitas that is needed. If Horrendous is to be further workshopped, and it deserves to be, this is a vital area to work on: the voiceovers – both text and execution – are crucial to the success of the whole piece. Kudos to Lucy Mitchell for her sound design and operation.
In an epilogue to the performance, Tobias suggests audience members who are confronted by the themes in the play might choose to discuss their fears and concerns with support services, such as Beyond Blue and Lifeline. However, the text of the play is not sufficiently robust or authentic to ensure that such thoughts are overwhelmingly brought to the front of one’s mind to warrant such a foreboding post script from the stage.
Tobias uses an open black box set with a few strategically placed properties, which he uses effectively and seamlessly. No clunkiness here. Stephen Dean’s sensitive lighting plot assists the mood of the production, and its execution is precise.
Kym Clayton
When: 18 to 22 Feb
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Steve Davis and Ralf Hadzic. Historian Hotel. 18 Feb 2020
The dear old Historian Hotel is tucked away in Coromandel Place which runs between Pirie Street and Grenfell Street, and yet everyone finds it hard to locate. This navigational oddity draws a goodly laugh from the audience at Steve Davis and Ralf Hadzic’s oddball Fringe show with its oddball Ken Kesey-esque title.
This is the second year this odd partnership has performed here. They seem to be good mates and they drew an opening night audience of old Adelaide celebrity stalwarts. Retro heaven. The idea of the show derives from Hadzic’s career as chauffeur and friend to the stars. He has stories to tell.
Steve Davis, who is not a chauffeur but a ground breaking podcaster and business consultant, also has stories to tell about his mate the chauffeur and the folly of following his trail of, as it turns out, rapidly vanishing stars. The two buddies pilgrimaged across the US on Hadzic’s promise of delivering celebrity interviews. Disappointingly, Kenny Rogers was sick and Margo Robbie was busy. So Davis’s grand adventure ended up in sharing a room with a man whose social media phone notifications kept him awake all night. Out of the nightmare comes a comic skit.
Davis fills the first part of the show with extremely competent comic patter about life on the road with the chauffeur. Davis has a marvellous voice, a skill in writing comedy, and the timing to deliver it.
But, it’s a multimedia show with insanely bad video work. Margo Robbie is replaced by Adelaide’s beloved queen of Logies, Anne Wills, who hops in a car James Corden style for some jolly banter with our heroes. Glenn Shorrock sits in the car for a droll chat, too. And, on the cold streets of New York City, they manage a quaintly embarrassing interview with our own Hans, AKA Matt Gilbertson.
Hadzic, an American of Islamic, Catholic, and Jewish background and a former man in the Fat-Cat suit, has more front than John Martins and he takes to the mic with high chutzpa and a few secrets of the chauffeur’s trade, mainly outrageous “rider” demands such as 55 different sorts of mineral water a day and do not speak or look at me. He’s very out-there in his golden sneakers, surprisingly ingenuous in some ways but, unfortunately, some of his gossipy shtick scrapes at the bottom of the pond of good taste.
This is the second Fringe production by Davis and Hadzic. They are chalk and cheese.
If it was three separate shows, the stars might read: Davis: four stars. Video: two stars. Chauffeur: Two stars. As one show, however, it evens out to two and three quarter stars with an added quarter because Willsy’s in it.
Samela Harris
When: 8 to 26 Feb
Where: Historian Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★1/2
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Bakehouse Theatre. 18 Feb 2020
Presented by Melbourne based theatre company First Draft, this revival production of an apparently successful 2015 run of A Butterfly Effect in the Adelaide Fringe is very underdone. Notwithstanding that the script is constructed as a semi-improvisation within a narrative framework and is therefore prone to the inherent risks associated with extemporisation. The performance is hesitant and lacking in focus and energy.
However, the concept of the play is interesting and uses the central idea of the so-called ‘butterfly effect’: a small event in one time and place can create a significant impact in a different locality. The play is essentially in two halves: an infertile couple contemplate accessing medical reproductive services and canvas options for an egg donor with certain consequences; the scenario is then played out again but this time some of the fundamentals are tweaked, although the lack of strength in the writing sometimes obscures the essence of these tweaks.
A common device used by the cast (Amanda Knights, Jessica Luu, Jillian Healy and Rhys Auteri) presumably under the direction of director Jaklene Vukasinovic, is to insert very long pauses into the dialogue, almost in the style of Harold Pinter, presumably with the intention of creating gravitas and impact. However, it has quite a different effect and creates tedium and the belief that the cast are unsure of the text.
There are some genuinely funny lines in the script which are capitalised upon much to the delight of the audience. Rhys Auteri elicited the most laughs with his portrayal of the chauvinist husband who appears to be more comfortable with his X-Box than he does with his wife and extended family.
The Studio at the Bakehouse is a very intimate space, with a compact stage area that is not conducive to seamless action in a play that is episodic and includes a significant number of cast entrances and exists.
Kym Clayton
When: 18 to 22 Feb
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au