★★★
Athens Productions. Treasury 1860 – The Adina Treasury Tunnels: The Long Room. 15 Feb 2020
You Classical Greece fans out there would be familiar with Euripides’s play Medea, first produced in 431 BC. That’s about 2500 years ago, yet Wikipedia can report that the world premiere at the City Dionysia’s festival of dramatic tragedies was not well received. Times have changed, and now Medea’s filicide, in revenge against her husband, Jason - of Golden Fleece and Argonaut fame - is looked upon by feminists as a woman’s struggle to take charge of her life in a male-dominated world. Judith Anderson, Zoe Caldwell and Diana Rigg have all won Tony awards on Broadway playing the eponymous role.
In his world premiere production, Greek Cyprian refugee Loucas Loizou has written and performs a post-mortem conversation between Medea and Jason that takes place decades after the action in Euripides’s play. Loizou has a musical education from London’s Trinity College of Music, studied theatre direction at NIDA and worked at BBC radio, Cyprus TV and ABC radio. One descends into the patinaed bowels of the Treasury Hotel, and when Loizou appears in his exotic make up and dress, looking like a weathered sea captain in drag, and begins his dialogue of both characters voiced in his melodious Greek accent, one is immediately transported to ancient Greece. Loizou’s delivery is didactic, evenly tempered, near expressionless and a little monotonous. Supposed aware of this last sin, he plays on guitar a few original and contextualised songs which are rendered with exquisite virtuosity. The show is not a mini-musical as advertised, but a play with songs.
Euripides’ drama has Medea murder her two children, but the play is based on Greek mythology involving frequent divine intervention, and there are multiple versions and outcomes. So what do Jason and Medea have to talk about? Who is to blame? Did Medea really kill her children or what happened? They ask each other: Why did you do what you did? Does Jason forgive her? Does Medea forgive him? These are great questions and a compelling reason to attend. It’s an intelligent show and a respite from all the Fringe razzmatazz.
PS This Fringe, Loizou is also performing his own work in three other shows: Homer’s Odyssey – A Mini Musical, Nana Mouskouri – Life and Songs, and A Battle of Songs: Greece vs The United Kingdom.
David Grybowski
When: 14 Feb to15 Mar
Where: Treasury 1860 – The Adina Treasury Tunnels: The Long Room
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Hetzel Lecture Theatre at State Library. 15 Feb 2020
Richard Batsford is a pianist and composer living in Adelaide. He clearly has a dedicated fan base – the large Hetzel Lecture Theatre was near full to overflowing with music lovers who were full of expectation, and they were not disappointed.
Batsford is a softly spoken and slightly built man, but beneath this gentle exterior lies a passionate musician hell bent on using the power of music to inspire his listeners to practice mindfulness and deep introspection.
Batsford styles his music as contemporary classical piano music, which is perhaps a bit misleading. There is little that is ‘classical’ in his compositional style, in terms of formal musical structure and use of the instrument. It is modern, and is part of the minimalist school (think Jeroen van Veen, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and the like).
His reflective compositions foreground tuneful musical motifs that are repeated and varied. The variations are subtle but almost predictable – and there is comfort in that from the listener’s perspective – but the occasional abrupt changes of key are unexpected and serve to remind the listener to be aware and to question. His compositions strongly favour the melody being held in the right hand through broken chords, with an arpeggiated left hand accompaniment. Batsford makes a lot of use of the sustaining pedal, and the effect is to ‘smudge’ the music at times which was exacerbated by the acoustic of the Hetzel Lecture Theatre. His middle set, which he labelled Evoke, featured pieces that made less use of pedalling and stronger lyrical melody lines that were clearer through the absence of rolling chords.
The audience were generous in their applause and demanded an encore, which they got. It was moodier in style and prepared them to depart and re-join the cacophony of North Terrace.
Kym Clayton
The single concert season has ended.
When: 15 Feb
Where: Hetzel Lecture Theatre
Bookings: Closed
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Holden Street Theatres. 15 Feb 2020
You can’t keep a good man down. Another Fringe means another Goers’ show - this one being the fifth show in his trilogy.
Where does he get the material?
Easy. The older one gets, the more stuff one knows. Goers, now running for a world record of 48th birthdays, has a prodigious memory and a wealth of experience.
And. Big “and”! He knows his audience. He’s tapping into the seniors demographic, the most populous demographic in the country and the least well served by the Fringe.
Once again he has delved into his life stories, his raconteur’s repertoire of classic showbiz stories, his grab bag of work-related anecdotes and a seemingly bottomless reserve of gorgeous Adelaide nostalgia.
Oh, and for very good measure, he tops up the entertainment with a song from his talented mate Robin “Smacka” Schmeltzkopf and a glittering guest appearance (or two) by Adelaide’s TV royalty, Anne “Willsy” Wills.
So, the whole show is a bit of a love-in, with the audience nodding, sighing, giggling, and nodding some more.
Goers balances his funny stories and satire with a bit of piquance and a few topical jibes, then makes everyone go misty-eyed by stepping into the character of the beloved Barry Humphries character, Sandy Stone.
And, yep, in his ice-cream suit and shimmering sneakers, the nearly-old radio legend has done it again.
Samela Harris
DISCLAIMER: This writer works with Goers as resident critic on ABC 891’s Smart Arts program on Sunday mornings. So, to compensate for her admitted bias, she has knocked half a star off the star-rating.
When: 15 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Flamingo, Gluttony. 15 Feb 2020
He describes himself as a magician but should be properly considered an illusionist. All that Matt Tarrant packs into an hour – a lot – is predicated on mind tricks and random links; a series of numbers supplied from random audience members, the numbers becoming a sequence on a lottery ticket; a bear supplied by a mind-reading boy and his sister; and finally, a very slick expose of number sequences set to music and revealed through manipulation of a couple of packs of cards.
But first, a note of caution. This opening Saturday night crowd was faced with overcrowding, poor handling and a show which started 20 minutes late. For those with other shows to attend, this is unforgivable.
If you’ve seen Tarrant before you know what to expect, for the show has evolved only a little from earlier editions. It may be ‘Evolve’ in name but that refers to the final reveal, not to the tone of the show. Tarrant is smooth and capable, the patter linking his performance to the audience members, from whom he draws often. The use of technology; big screens and hand-held video camera, close-miking and music beds all suggest there is a great deal more than meets the eye going on behind the scenes. Even so, the final reveal, a VHS tape of a baby Tarrant in the family home is great and genuinely has the audience wondering ‘How does he do that?’.
This is what Tarrant wants his audience - a packed house of over 500 for the hometown boy – to take away from the show, and he succeeds in spades. Curiously, the atmosphere was less than electric and somewhat more ‘that’s interesting’. A certain lack of energy was noted, but that is not to detract from the quality of the show.
Alex Wheaton
When: 15 Feb to 15 March
Where: The Flamingo, Gluttony Rymill Park
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Le Cascadeur, Garden Of Unearthly Delights. 14 Feb 2020
Sean Choolburra acts as MC for this fairly high-paced show, tonight before a very appreciative audience, but all four are onstage to greet us as we take our seats. Choolburra works a didgeridoo piece into the act and warms up the crowd before introducing Kev Kropinyeri.
Kropinyeri’s humour is direct; ‘bald and handsome’ he opines, and is pitched at the audience. He looks firstly at the degree of blackness required for true aboriginality, concluding there are none so black as a blue-black reservation Aborigine.
Choolburra bounds back onstage and delivers his best, a pastiche of five decades of dance, breaking the comedic thread before he introduces the next performer.
Steph Tisdel uses a self-deprecating routine, getting in her gags about body type and colour before they can be used against her it seems: ‘You may not know much about bra sizes but I’m a double J. That’s a fuckin’ long way down the alphabet.’ It’s a funny and clever routine which does a lot to temper her anger in discussing race relations. Considering a possible child with her redheaded English partner, she gets the best line of the night in thinking of a new term for their offspring. ‘Boomeranga I reckon, ‘cause when he grows up and leaves home he’ll keep coming back!’
Andy Saunders is a completely different sort of comedian. Subtle and sly, and crafty. In tackling the casual racism of colour he mentions he might be mistaken for an Indian, an idea he successfully revisits: ‘If the cops come in looking for a 6’3 Aboriginal then I can be Indian in a second, brother’. Saunders has apparently been on ‘The Block’ on TV, but when he reveals his other skills the fact that one didn’t know that becomes irrelevant. Saunders is both a mimic and vocaliser and beat-boxer of real calibre. His microphone technique is outstanding, his song to his daughter a real highlight.
Perhaps not so much Allstars as a mixed bag, but nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable.
Alex Wheaton
When: 14 Feb to 1 March
Where: Le Cascadeur, Garden Of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au