Presented by Oyster Creatives. Bakehouse Theatres Studio. 21 Feb 2019
There’s nothing like a couple of fine old English actors and a meaty bit of intimate theatre.
Oysters is a dense dark comedy created by Neil Salvage who also plays the principal role as the composer, Brahms. The conceit is that Brahms didn’t much like his own music and was generally a drunken curmudgeon. Hence, his response to a party held in honour of the first performance of his new violin concerto is to retreat to a back room and drink everything in sight. He then has assorted contretemps with his composer, his publisher, his friend Clara Schumann, and a powerful Viennese music critic.
Salvage says in his program notes that he found the characters and tensions contained in the play well documented as he researched his subject and, indeed, this hour-long Fringe piece has been “distilled” from his screenplay.
Onstage with him, playing three enabling characters, is Nicholas Collett, showing the qualities which have made him an award winning Royal Shakespeare Company actor. Also, stepping in from Adelaide as she has done before with challenging Fringe roles, is The Adelaide Critics Circle Emerging Actor of 2018, Stephanie Rossi, playing a very nicely nuanced Clara Schumann.
An unusual added ingredient comes in the form of Korean violinist, Ahram Min, who might symbolise the spirit of Brahms’s music or perhaps his would-be conscience. She plays quick grabs of music, sometimes for satire, sometimes for illustration. When not playing, she functions as a reactive commentary to Brahms’ behaviour; frowning, gasping, smiling. It is a difficult balance and a strange ingredient, both puzzling and interesting.
Of course, the play belongs to Salvage. It is a fierce performance and admirable.
Samela Harris
4 Stars
When: 21 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
David Gauci & Davine Productions. Theatre One at the Parks. 20 Feb 2019
Well, well, well. A modern musical with proper old-fashioned catchy tunes. How utterly refreshing.
The American team of Kooman & Dimond created this chirpy comedic confection to both satirise and celebrate the fine era of reality TV in which we live. Judge Judy in her iron-fisted court has become a television institution, now the highest paid host in TV history. She’s worth $147 million. Her success is based on the way she takes down the trailer trash-types of the US.
In this zany musical having its Australian premiere at The Parks, Judy's counterpart, Judge Jackie, finds herself in trouble with the studio executives who want to up her ratings by adding a love element to her case load. Or maybe celebrity couples.
They send in a brash and overpowering executive who could be straight out of The Producers. Meanwhile her loyal bailiff tries to keep the show on the road while Jackie juggles not only threats to her stardom and her usual succession of stereotypically hapless American lowlifes, but also the ghosts of her past marriages. Add to this plotline a string of catchy songs, a bit of dancing, and some audience participation, and there it is; a very modern and very unpretentious musical comedy about and for the proletariat.
David Gauci’s Davine Productions, which used to be Davine Intervention Productions, has prided itself on a bit of class in its productions and it pulls out all the stops here. It has top performers performing shamelessly to a very high standard.
Katie Packer displays a sensational array of growling grimaces and scowls, sneers, glowers, and frowns as grumpy old Judge Jackie. She also displays accomplishment as a soprano and is a good mover; just like Judge Judy, not. Her wonderful foil is Bailiff Henry who also is the compere of the show. He is played by the distinguished Adam Goodburn, so his characterisation is thoroughly rounded, his connection with the audience excellent, and his singing absolutely gorgeous. Oh, and he’s pretty light on his feet, too. As is Paul Rodda, former competitive dancer and now a stalwart of the musical theatre. He can be depended upon for a good American accent and he was clearly having a lot of fun being the brassy, vulgar TV executive. His Reality TV song was among the high spots of the show.
But the show needs a cast of other characters to keep the court room busy. They are embodied by all-singing and all-dancing Casmira Hambledon and Joshua Angeles paired up as plantiffs and defendants, some goofy, some ghastly, some obtuse, stupid, and even totally crackpot. They bring the house down repeatedly, these two versatile and fearless players, the high comedy of the production. Their doomsday-prepper couple really takes the cake as a slice of unique Americana.
Martin Cheney and his fine three-man band are onstage, the bare bones of the back of the piano somewhat detracting from Gauci’s slick court room set. Louise Watkins’s costumes are a hoot, the lighting’s good but, on opening night, the sound system is deafeningly over-amped and detracts from a lot of the singing, putting some audience members into defensive mode.
Then again, with the constant threat of audience participation, everyone is always on edge. It seems a particularly superfluous element of this show but it is written into the script and there are always one or two audience members who seem to respond to the threat of humiliation. Indeed, on opening night, the added chorus dancer quite upstaged the cast; not the usual outcome and very funny.
It’s a bit of a hoof to The Parks but the theatre is beautiful and the show is schmick enough to make the trip eminently rewarding.
Samela Harris
4 stars
When: 20 Feb to Mar 2
Where: The Parks Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
EDITORS NOTE: Paul Rodda is the Editor and Creative Director of the Barefoot Review.
Lion House Theatre, Joanne Hartstone, and Holden Street Theatres. Holden Street Theatres - The Manse. 20 Feb 2019
A tiny room in the old manse of Holden Street Theatres is filled with memorabilia and collectibles signifying a life well lived and souvenired. British actor and theatre creator Casey Jay Andrews makes the necessarily small audience comfortable on sofas and soft chairs. There is so much to visually comprehend; one is partly inattentive to her preamble.
Old photos, mostly of women in giveaway 70s hairdos, are gently tabled one by one and projected onto the wall above the fireplace for all to see. A catalogue of portraits and family gatherings. Casey shifts to poetic prose underlain by her score of gentle electronic music. Her narration is augmented by historical voice recordings of the principal women of the story and excerpts read from American Gelett Burgess’s 1923 manual on manners, courtesy and gratitude, Have You An Educated Heart?
The book and Casey’s story are tied by sharing the gift of life. A cancer in the family is bad enough, but what if your Mum and her three sisters were all affected by breast cancer? Casey’s art teacher has already fallen to the dreadful disease. If it doesn’t take your breathe away, maybe you stopped breathing already.
Forty minutes of poignancy, immediacy and honesty. How much time does one have left to see this show and read that book? One leaves with borrowed strength to be more grateful.
PS Cards are handed out after the show to acquaint you with the Know Your Lemons campaign that helps women identify visual symptoms of breast cancer.
PPS Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) is credited with inventing the word blurb in its meaning used today.
David Grybowski
4 stars
When: 16 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Manse
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Analog The Company. Gluttony - The Peacock. 20 Feb 2019
Wow-wee! Hailing from Berlin, Analog’s Fringe show, Finale, epitomises the energy, music and drive of the nightclub scene in their jumping city. After two world wars, a murderous Nazi regime, Allied terror bombing, division by the Communists, a blockade and subsequent reunification - all in less than 80 years – Berlin was ready to party and the party is still going today. If you aren’t going to Berlin this month, this circus show is the epitome of party!
Eight artists bear their souls in gravity-defying acts – ropes, loops, poles, balls, boxes and books all come alive in their hands. There is a sense of grudge and casualness in each member expressing strong individualism but also a unifying camaraderie binds them. Long changes of equipment for the next jaw-dropped display of dexterity and daring-do are forgotten while being entertained by Ena Wild’s imaginative vocals. The whole hour is underscored by drummer Lukas Thielecke’s pounding that mutates between edgy, dance and rock. Indeed, Wild and Thielecke compose leitmotifs with each performer providing perfect synergy of performance and sound. Expert lighting used in shadow play or colour fill is mood-altering. A bit of clowning and team tumbling finishes the show with four lucky audience members on stage in proximity to the proceedings.
A wild hour where one will feel they are right there in the circus that is Berlin on a Saturday night.
David Grybowski
4 stars
When: 16 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Gluttony - The Peacock
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Under The Microscope. nthspace Gallery. 20 Feb 2019
30,000 Notes is a touching and absorbing love story, but not your run-of-the-mill boy meets girl romance. This story is about something pure and deep: it is about that indefinable connection with someone who shows you unconditional love, and, interestingly, how that connection is strengthened and even redefined when that person is physically lost to you. That person can be a grandparent, a crush or your first real love, and gender is irrelevant. 30,000 Notes is also a coming-out story.
Written and performed by Josh Belperio, 30,000 Notes tells the story of Belperio’s personal discovery of love, and the script is pasted onto the wall of the performance space for all to see. It takes the form of hundreds and hundreds of written notes and, importantly, musical scores, because first and foremost Belperio is a classically trained composer and musician. The notes – words and musical notation – chronicle Belperio’s myriad thoughts over the years on diverse topics, but mostly on his journey in finding, receiving and giving love. Belperio moves around the performance space with choreographic style and selects and removes notes from the wall, glances at them, and builds a narrative that is funny, quirky, sad, but always uplifting. It is almost too joyous at times.
Much of the narrative is about his beloved grandmother who has passed away. As Belperio ponders how he remembers her, what role his notes have in that, and how his memories might change in the future, we hear music – his own compositions – that have been inspired by his sense of loss and love. Magna Gloria is one such piece: it is deeply affecting music and in it can be found the influences of both modern composers (such as Eric Whiteacre and Morton Lauridson), and those from the classical and baroque periods (such as Palestrina and Bach). Whatever the supposed influences may or may not be, it is Belperio’s own music and it is good. A Thousand Winds is another fine example of his compositional skills. It is Belperio’s musical response to pondering the mystery of what happens when we die: do we go somewhere? Or do we just remain in the minds of those who have a strong connection with us? The music is evocative, richly orchestrated and has numerous layers. It comes across as complex or as simple as the listener perceives it to be, just as the concept it is responding to can also be considered in simple terms or as something much deeper.
Belperio’s soundscape is scored for a string quartet and a sixteen voice standard choir (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), and it has been superbly recorded and produced by Neville Clark. The quality makes one think the musicians are actually somewhere in the performance space with us, but unseen.
Belperio is dressed in white jeans and a white T-shirt and is frequently silhouetted against the wall of notes by the impressively innovative lighting plot (Mark Oakley). As various notes are removed from the wall they are first highlighted by cleverly focussed lighting. At other times Belperio is bathed in video footage from old home movies of his childhood that have been lovingly filmed by his grandparents. It almost seems that Belperio is spectating his own life and forming a view about how he is living it. A key part of his life is his relationship with his partner Matthew Briggs, who is also the director of the production. By day, Dr Briggs is a research medical scientist, but by night he is one helluva producer!
The performance culminates in another of Belperio’s compositions – one that he has written to celebrate and express the love he feels for Matthew. The joy on Belperio’s face as he acknowledges the technicians and especially Matthew at the curtain call is joyous, and touching.
The technical aspects of this production are excellent. The lighting is an essential ingredient and is superbly designed and executed. Sound production is also of a very high quality. The walls of notes, and the skill with which they are navigated by Belperio is awesome. The ‘printed’ program comprises a cardboard wallet containing two microscope glass slides onto which the credits have been written – a unique memento that serves to remind us that the production company, which was created by Briggs and Belperio is called Under the Microscope theatre company.
There is much material in this production, and when the season is over and there is time for reflection, Belperio might consider making some judicious cuts to make the narrative tighter and ready for its next season, which it surely merits.
There is time to catch this wonderful production with performances every day from 19 February to 16 March at 9pm except on Sundays and Mondays. It is a generous 90 minutes in duration, which for the most part goes by quickly.
Highly recommended. There is nothing else quite like it in the Fringe.
Kym Clayton
When: 19 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: nthspace Gallery
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au