Bakehouse Theatre. 10 July 2019
There on the black Bakehouse stage stands the blondewood double bass. Large and solitary. Waiting for its player, its purpose.
Or so one may assume on entering the theatre.
But then Eddie Morrison arrives in the character of the nameless double bassist of German playwright Patrick Suskind’s one-hander script. He’s a dishevelled fellow with a couple of beers in hand and he soon makes it clear that they’re just the starter drinks. He has a cocktail bar beside his record player and, as he plays snatches of classical music, he pours, mixes and consumes a daunting assortment of drinks.
He expounds comprehensively on the role of the double bass in the orchestra. There can be no orchestra without it, he avows. It is more important than the conductor. It is the cornerstone. And yet, alone, it is bereft of compositions. And it is destined to dwell at the back of the orchestra.
It is from there that this double bassist has fallen in love with Sarah, the soprano. Unrequited love. She has never noticed him. The drunker he gets, the more vehemently he laments his lack of love. What woman would want him, he moans. And, it’s a good question. He’s an histrionic loser.
Morrison takes his shortcomings on board with a passion. He descends into a wallowing mass of musical facts. He rattles off streams of composer names and snatches of biographical minutiae. Dittersdorf is a goodie. Schubert is a love. Mozart is overrated. He draws chalk diagrams on the black walls. He drinks and slumps.
Oddly, he barely plays his double bass at all. It stands there on stage, a huge pale presence. One starts to pity it. And, indeed, as the play progresses, the bassist gives one cause. Theirs is a deeply sad and dysfunctional symbiosis.
It’s a strange and surprising play, sensitively directed here by Lisa Harper Campbell with wonderful lighting and sound by Stephen Dean.
Catch it if you can.
Samela Harris
When: 10 to 20 July
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Matt Byrne Media. Arts Theatre. 9 Jul 2019
In 1992 Australian screens were graced with an unlikely multi award winning romantic comedy from film director Baz Luhrmann. Strictly Ballroom dives into the world of competitive ballroom dancing in Australia as it brings together unlikely partners Scott, the award winning open-amateur, and Fran, the beginner, to try and win the Pan Pacific Championships on their own terms.
The well-worn tale sees the duo from opposite sides of the tracks challenge the status quo, fall in love, and discover what is truly important to them – living and dancing from the heart.
In 2014, the musical version of that film premiered in Sydney.
Director/Designer Matt Byrne has cast two wonderful young performers in the lead roles of his production. Kurt Benton plays Scott Hastings and dances rings around the stage. He is a spectacular dancer and has taken to the ballroom style with ease. As his dance partner Fran, Kate Harrison is a shining light. Harrison brings an instant presence to the stage whenever she graces it. Her performance is measured and connected, and when she sings everything else fades away. Harrison and Benton’s duets are just delightful.
The film famously balances the farcical, overplayed Australian-isms with beautifully drawn, honest characters and an enduring love story. Byrne’s cast successfully captures the comedy of the piece but, despite Benton and Harrison’s hard work, the love story is thwarted by the writing.
The evolution of Scott and Fran’s relationship is virtually non-existent in this musical adaptation. Despite well-known songs like Time After Time, and Love Is In The Air tugging at the heart strings, the romantic arc for the two is underdeveloped; one minute Scott seems almost to despise Fran, the next he is confessing his love for her.
The complexity of mounting a show which requires such specialist dancing skills cannot be understated. Here Byrne and his choreography team of Tara Johnston and Thomas Coghlan have excelled. The ensemble dancers are well drilled in the ballroom dancing style and the untrained ballroom dancers easily mix it with some of South Australia’s competitive best.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mix of singers. The adaptation is already lacking in memorable numbers and unfortunately, with the exception of the leads Benton and Harrison who carry the show, the singing by the supporting cast is very hit and miss.
Musical Director Jessie Budel’s orchestra sounded a tad strained on occasion during this performance; the balance of dialogue, music, and ensemble levels was patchy and often wasn’t hitting its mark. Anne Williams has created a stunning array of costumes however, and much of the visual success of the show rests on the spectacular outfits. Byrne has designed some standout scenes in this production where all of the elements including the lighting design by Rodney Bates (operated by Mike Phillips) work perfectly together. Most notable is the rooftop dance rehearsal where Scott and Fran first sing Time After Time.
The larger-than-life cast is full of characters that will warm your heart, and take you on a pleasant trip down memory lane.
Strictly Ballroom plays at the Arts theatre until the 13th of July before moving to the Sheldey Theatre at Elizabeth from July 18 to 27.
Paul Rodda
When: 4 to 27 Jul
Where: Arts Theatre & Shedley Theatre
Bookings: mattbyrnemedia.com.au
No Strings Attached. Space Theatre. 3 Jul 2019
With one of the most interesting titles in showbiz, Alirio Zavarce’s production for No Strings Attached gently raised the roof with its Australian premiere performance at the Space Theatre.
This disability-theatre show lines up six performers with a history of memory issues under the direction of devisor and dramaturg, Zavarce, to present separately and together accounts of the frustrations and ensuing humour of diverse disabilities.
In a work about problem memory, the fluency and proficiency with often challenging sets of lines are both triumphant and ironic. The cast seems word-perfect albeit that Zavarce warns the audience that it may not remember things and, anyway, who does remember things and isn’t it strange how remembered things can change? Thus, in essence, this theatrical piece turns out to be a wonderfully complex philosophical exercise to which absolutely everyone can relate. It also is explanatory of various aspects of memory damage, from stroke to trauma. The protagonists tell things their way.
For Adelaide’s theatre community, the return to the stage of actress Michaela Cantwell to tell her story is a sensational highlight. Cantwell was a golden and beloved talent on the Australian stage before a catastrophic stroke forced her to re-learn even the most basic things in life. Here, under the tender directorship of Zavarce, she tells simply and powerfully the story of that shocking disconnection and the process of retraining her body to the most fundamental obedience. There is no self-pity in this tale, just a wise sense of fatalism. She does not know her future but it will be great, she avows. Everyone cheers because already it is great. She is here onstage again and if there is one thing adversity has not stolen from her, it is that magic thing called “stage presence”.
Kathryn Hall is an old hand with No Strings, which company is now 25 years old. She's an infectiously bubbly performer and as a primary-memory tale, she tells of the joy of cooking stuffed peppers because they remind her of her father. She also reminds the audience about the importance of noting the numbers of the bus on which one rides. Wrong number can take one anywhere. She knows.
But it is Kym Mackenzie who has the bus memories wrapped up with bus route numbers and fares and times. As he tells his public transport tale, the numbers mount up as projections on the sliding panels behind him until he is standing in front of a veritable crowd of numerals. This device of flowing memory projections on panels and backdrop big screen is fundamental to the show’s design. The No Strings tech team, affectionately known as the “creatives”, has engendered further life and zest to the show with this artful lighting, sound and image.
Cassie Litchfield’s profile presentation is heartbreaking. Standing in front of these projection panels, she shares childhood happy snaps, warm and fuzzy memories of loving days with her father, before mental illness tore their world apart and left her childhood scarred with pain.
Duncan Luke completes the cast with his account of things remembered and forgotten. He’s one for losing things: cigarettes, the remote, even his mother. His list is long and droll.
Zavarce binds together the facets of the show in a heartfelt, deeply touching existential reflection. Memory is common to us all. It is each one of us, flawed and fabulous. Everyone forgets, some more than others. Some through accident and illness. Some forget their own identity. What we must do, says Zavarce, is make sure not only to remember each other, but to remember for each other whenever we can.
He brings up the house lights so the cast and audience can look each other in the eye, imprint the experience on their memories, and share a meaningful moment.
He philosophises about the pain and beauty of memory, the associations which engender memories, the cruelties of life, and the importance of finding and offering understanding, patience and solace. It is altogether beautiful and profound, in a very significant night of theatre from an exceptional company.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 6 Jul
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Festival Theatre. 29 Jun
It is hard to dislike Mormons.
Of all the religious, they seem the most innocent and inoffensive. I love the way they help each other. I love their fascination with genealogy and spectacular architecture and now I love the way in which they have accepted one of the most comprehensive all-out Mickey-takes in history.
The Mormon leap of faith involves belief that an American prophet named Joseph Smith dug up a section of the bible in the USA and then hid it again while rallying a massive following of missionaries, all of whom were and are devoted to spreading the word of his all-American biblical history, beginning in 1823.
If people can believe this, they can believe anything.
This is pretty much the confronting message of this musical which now has been packing out theatres around the world for decades. It is written by South Park satirists Matt Stone and Trey Parker with Bobby Lopez and between them, they know just how to tap the cultural funny-bone and push the boundaries of bad taste and monstrous vernacular.
In short, they have concocted a victoriously vulgar musical about human gullibility. Not only but also, they have packed it full of bright, bubbly, foot-tapping Broadway tunes, great big catchy songs, and fabulously choreographed dances.
Nothing beats a talented chorus line of white-shirted blokes all teeth and tap shoes.
The plot follows a couple of newly-ordained missionaries dispatched to spread the word in Uganda where vicious warlords have well and truly subjugated a hapless AIDS-ravaged community. Elder Price is smug and ambitious while his mission mate, Elder Cunningham, is something of the classic loser. Blake Bowden and Nyk Bielak carry these lead roles, rich in voice and comic nuance.
The dogged ingenuousness of the missionaries meets with the incredulity of the villagers, everyone believing one risible superstition or another. A beautiful villager called Nabulungi, exquisitely sung by Tigist Strode, tries to breach the cultural chasm. There’s some juggling of values, a personality clash between the Elders, and a torrent of socio-sexual absurdities and crossed wires all around. Throw in Star Wars, donuts, devils, and The Lion King for good measure.
All of the above is adorned and elucidated by darned good Broadway musical numbers.
And now we know why The Book of Mormon has become an enduring hit.
Rounds of applause!
Samela Harris
When: 29 Jun to 18 Jul
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Scuti Productions. Holden Street Theatres. 21 Jun 2019
English writer and playwright Philip Ridley’s (born 1964) work has been compared for its similarity to the five only plays of English playwright Sarah Kane (1971-99). They both delve with unflinching ferocity into love, sexual desire, violence and metaphors of violence in conveying the wonder and meaning of love and in exploring the limits to sex and intimacy. Tender Napalm from 2011 is Ridley’s eighth adult play and twenty years after his first (the “adult” bit is required because he is also a prolific writer of children’s theatre – maybe they’re not as scary).
The oxymoron ‘tender napalm’ signs the confusion that often accompanies ardent desire, and also the metaphoric weaponry used in this play. Ridley begins near the end of his dramatic arc with a young man and woman (we learn they are 19 and 18 years of age). They are ardently coupled, and early in the piece, the man describes a mind-blowing orgasm during coitus. A grenade exploding in the woman’s love canal was conveyed as carnage and not ecstasy, and comes across with the vulgarity of a terrorist attack. While Mark Healy channels considerable and frightening energy into descriptions of fantasy adventures, and Carol Lawton jousts equally with Healy on matters of family and the past with shouty angst, Lawton and Healy – and director Rachael Williams - struggle to convey the subtext of compulsive desire, seduction and sensuality. Williams focuses more on conflict and imagery than on the sex addiction that keeps this couple together.
It’s a difficult play and the accomplishment of some tender napalm is probably why the director of the world premiere production, David Mercatali, won a couple of awards for his trouble. Ridley’s epilogue is actually the prologue where we witness the first meeting of man and woman who swoon with love at first site. It is in these scenes where Williams has the man and woman’s humanities emerge to the fore as they are not engulfed by enigmatic verbal imagery of exploding grenades, tsunamis and fields of dead monkeys; and the acting sparkles here.
Rachael Williams also designed an elaborate and striking set – a backdrop of household furniture and goods piled perhaps by a tsunami. Man and woman are shipwrecked and isolated and self-absorbed. The set was so awesome that it pulled attention from the players and they barely related to it. Moses Monro is an accomplished modern musician and contributed a magnificent, movie-like score which he controls live with every performance. Bravo!
If only the desire and sexual neediness seen at the end underscored.
David Grybowski
When: 19 to 29 Jun
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com