St Jude’s Players. St Jude’s Hall, Brighton. 15 Nov 2018
Few opportunities arise to see this musical, probably because it is a very tricky musical to produce.
St Jude’s has taken the bull by the horns, or at least the sword to the windmill, and turned on a very ambitious production indeed.
The set really is something to behold. That they can engineer such a strong two-storey structure on that little stage, not to mention a staircase lowered between the levels; fantastic. Musical director, living legend Pat Wilson, sits tucked away way up there with the keyboard. Who knows what else lurks in those dark and lofty rafters? The huge cast walks across the heights and beneath them and, mid-stage, over a very complicated tiered set-up. Then, to make the whole thing really grand-scale, the stage is expanded as well. Set designer Don Oakley has outdone himself.
Cast members come in and out of the auditorium doors and swarm effectively everywhere as they unfold the saga of Cervantes' dear demented Don Quixote chasing his delusions across the Spanish landscape, seeing nobility in rogues and beauty in squalor.
The ensemble is a wonderfully mixed bunch of actors and they work together as keen as a pack of puppies. Their energy and focus is impressive. They pull off a brilliant fight scene. Indeed, there are some spectacular and very effective group moments, not the least of them the terrible gang bang of the peasant girl, Aldonza, whom Don Quixote sees as the aristocratic Dulcinea. Billie Turner’s big voice and bright red lipstick bring this hapless soul to vivid life.
There are splendid effects such as the horse and the ass and a number of excellent cameo performances, particularly Tom Fraser as the padre and Tegan Muller as the belly-dancing gypsy girl.
Wade Shiell plays a solid Sancho Panza alongside Graham Loveday, who creates a very sincere and committed character in poor Don Quixote.
Rob Jones, Aslan Storm, Malcolm Calvett, Andrew Smith, Steven Lengyel, Gavin Lloyd-Jones, Tristan Anleu, Fiona Doroch, Berny Abberdan, Maria Davis, Bronwyn Calvett are among the glorious hordes and assorted characters who sing and dance and fight their way through this tale of the16th Century while the kettle drum rattles out insistent tempos, the trumpet sounds, and the beloved old score is delivered.
The singing is up and down but it is an extremely earnest, workmanlike production from a wonderful community company directed by Max Rayner. See it, if you can.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 24 Nov
Where: St Jude’s Hall
Bookings: stjudesplayers.asn.au
OzAsia Festival. Taiwan. Stan Lai and Performance Workshop. 9 Nov 2018
Stan Lai is the most celebrated Chinese language playwright and director in the world, touts the theatre program.
Now Adelaide knows why.
This complex theatre piece lies at the heart of why we have festivals. It is a dazzling work from another culture. It is a long-established and acclaimed piece of theatre which has shone through 30 years and arrives to the new audience of Adelaide still sparkling with ingenuity and artistry, even bearing with surtitles. It is one of those landmark theatre experiences which continue to thrill in the mind’s eye long after the troupe has left town.
The plot involves two theatre companies which have booked the same theatre on the same night. One company is presenting Secret Love, a very serious and heart-rending piece about a couple separated by the Chinese Revolution. The other company is presenting Peach Blossom Land, an outrageous piece of stylised Chinese comedy. The play opens with the couple reflecting on the changes in China and the beauty of destiny bringing them together. It is elegant, dignified, and slow, in the spirit of an old black-and-white movie, say perhaps An Affair to Remember. Once the audience is immersed, the other company arrives and the dispute begins about who is entitled to the theatre. Peach Blossom Land is a period piece complete with gongs, cymbals and lots of physical comedy. The contrast with the earlier piece could not be greater.
The hapless fisherman is dealing with a childless wife and a cunning boss’s ploys to cuckold him. Sheer, wonderful clowning abounds, particularly from Tang Tsung-sheng as Tao the fisherman. What a supreme performer. As the plays criss-cross, there are vivid and hilarious scenes, not the least of them the fishing boat on its long river journey. Finally, the fisherman finds Peach Blossom Land which is a send-up of all cornball-cliché lost paradise movies with falling peach petals and ghostly inhabitants gliding around in flowing veils of white while wielding white butterfly nets to guide home lost butterflies. Oh, so funny.
But the theatre managements are fighting and compromise is reached. The two plays must divide the stage. And so it comes to pass that our romantic hero is dying in a hospital bed pining for the woman he lost all those years ago while the fisherman cavorts among the peach blossoms. There is myriad other business going on throughout the production: issues of lost sets, and a set painter on set while the rehearsals plough on. There’s the buffoon roadie and the star-struck fan. Local references are peppered into the dialogue which give an added laugh and, come the end in the Taiwan hospital room, somehow the world stands still and the impeccability of the romantic denouement brings audience members unabashed to tears.
This is one of the world’s great theatre pieces performed by a cast of superb actors, and it has been our privilege to see it.
Samela Harris
Plus OzAsia One:
Oddly, there is one other character to review: Steve, the Door 2 Usher.
Audience enjoyment was threatened in an almost unprecedented way by the absurd number of late-comers who had to be guided to their seats in the dark requiring the usher to sprint softly and repeatedly up the stairs to gather them in batches.
When he was not doing this, he was forced to make endless interventions to the people who simply could not stop messaging or filming or gaming or whatever the hell they were doing with their beautiful big phones, so that other audience members were not distracted from stage and surtitle screens. This critic has never encountered such a stubbornly difficult audience, nor such a discreet and fleet-footed usher.
When: 9 & 10 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Red Phoenix Theatre. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 8 Nov 2018
And now for something completely different from our acclaimed new theatre company, Red Phoenix. One minute it is delivering the incestuous passions of Caligula, the next the innate innocence of a primary school nativity play. But, there is one thing these extremes have in common - quality of production.
Flint Street is probably the silliest play one may ever see. Grownups of all ages and sizes embody children of six or seven. They ham it up and go over the top betwixt and between the commands of an invisible teacher. They are in nativity play costume and, just to really confuse the audience, the actors are identified only according to the nativity role and not the child’s given name. This is problematic because the roles are not consistent. But, it all works out in the end and it never really matters. One was too busy laughing.
Playwright Tim Firth, of Kinky Boots and Calendar Girls, dips perceptively into the crossovers between fantasy play and children’s imitation of the life around them. Some of the funniest moments in the play are of children mimicking the words and actions of their parents. These formative impressions clearly are moulding the children’s characters and attitudes at this early stage in their development and, while it is rib-achingly funny, it also is saddening and disturbing. Hence the very fine alchemy of this play; silliness at its most serious or vice versa, if you will.
There are lots of terribly-sung songs and plenty of effective technical shtick to embellish the narrative. It’s a sophisticated lack of sophistication as the kids jostle for roles and class status. The bully is a cruel manipulator, knowing just what buttons to press to humiliate and ostracise another child.
As the play evolves, the audience is led to understand the whys and wherefores of these nascent citizens. If there is any doubt, it is rumbustiously clarified when the parents played by the actors who a moment ago were their children, turn up for the after-party. It is still funny, but for some audience members, there may be a tear in the eye as they recognise that for all its absurdity, life is neither kind nor easy.
Gorgeous performances abound on this stage, which is brightly decked out as a school stage-cum-schoolroom-cum-playground. Brendon Cooney steals the show in stealing the nativity limelight, Brant Eustice shows vividly that for Asperger's clever kids, there can be no higher an incarnation than asses, Lyn Wilson is goody-two-shoes on a milo high, Tim Williams is gawky willingness, bandaid holding his specs together, trying to be the responsible one. What a love. Derek Crawford, the shepherd with the beer mat headdress, is a revelatory jewel in his fierceness while Sharon Malujlo is blissfully earthy. Nick Fagin, as the thruggling thweetheart, never confuses his athpirants. Anita Zamberlan Canala taps so very nicely into the ambivalences of good honest “wogdom” while one just wants to take that sweet vulnerable victim created by Cheryl Douglas and cotton wool her from the likes of Tracey Walker’s wicked spiteful bully character.
These fine actors have plumbed the depths of naiveté and come up with an eloquence of human development. Expertly, they have used the comic tools of clowning and mime and edged them gently with pathos.
Bravo one and all, for a desperately funny voyage into the essence of our humanity. Bravo Michael Eustice for bringing them together and creating this agonisingly funny night at the theatre.
Samela Harris
When: 9 to 17 Nov
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Oz Asia Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 5 Nov 2018
War Sum Up is billed as a contemporary opera, but that doesn’t adequately describe it. In fact, it’s almost misleading. The word opera connotes a number of things – music, quality ‘art singing’, libretto, costumes, scenery – and one has seen and heard many so-called contemporary operas. But War Sum Up stands apart and is in a remarkable world all of its own. For someone who is ‘opera-shy’, War Sum Up should not be avoided for that reason. If anything it should be embraced, because it is so different.
Visually, War Sum Up is nothing but spectacular – it’s a celebration for the eyes. The set comprises a narrow but tall two level stage that traverses the width of the Dunstan Playhouse; almost like two levels of scaffolding. A full translucent scrim is located at the front of the scaffold and another at the rear. On these scrims are projected a bewildering array of evocative Manga-esque images that enlighten one moment, confuse the next, and always enthral and disturb. The scenery is thus dynamic. The cast of twelve are located on the two levels and they strike various tableaus that evoke classical dynastic Japanese art; they are dressed accordingly. The lighting is a highlight of the production, and at times is beautifully surrealist with its strong iridescent electric colours and piercing contrasts.
And then there is the singing. Performed by members of the Latvian Radio Choir, the libretto is performed with exquisite precision and articulation. Each voice is amplified, and the sound engineering is just first-rate. Conductor Sigvards Klava has perfect control of the choir and keeps them perfectly in time with the recorded sound track that is a stylish yet eclectic blend of modern classical (whatever that means) and electronic synthesised sounds. Klava is a joy to watch.
So, what is it all about? War Sum Up is an account of warfare told through three characters. The first is a Western Soldier who returns home suffering from post-traumatic stress and struggles to assimilate back into society. He returns to war but is killed. The Manga images that illustrate his journey bear visceral. The second is an Islamic Warrior who is killed in battle and whose soul struggles to find peace. The third is a spy who is captured but escapes after she transforms herself into a super being, or maybe she just escapes into a hidden place in her mind. All this is contrasted by a civilian woman who goes about daily life amidst the carnage because she must: there is the theatre of war, and there is the theatre of normal life, which goes on as best it can despite the odds.
This is challenging theatre, and if the symbolism is at times difficult to follow, the visual and aural cornucopia makes up for it!
Kym Clayton
When: 5 & 6 Nov
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Therry Dramatic Society. Arts Theatre. 2 Nov 2018
Richard Alfieri tapped nicely into the zeitgeist of modern life when we wrote Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. Loneliness of the elderly, Christian hypocrisy, gay marriage, high-rise developments, death and the joy of dancing are some of the issues touched in this charmer of a play.
It is about a widow in Florida brightening her life by employing a private dance instructor. After an abrasive beginning, the crotchety widow and the tetchy former chorus boy form a very special bond, sharing secrets as they work through the 6-style dance program.
Pam O’Grady has gambled and won in casting Bronwen James as old Mrs Harrison. Technically, James is a couple of decades too young but she slips almost elastically into the character and delivers an engaging and deeply touching performance, complete with lots of impeccably-timed comic one-liners. The likeable Lindsay Prodea partners as Michael Minetti, the Broadway failure forced to teach dance classes. Minetti is a delicate balance for an actor, at first playing the straight guy but, once out, a flamboyant and sensitive delight. Prodea gets the progression right, along with his dance steps. Both performers are decent dancers albeit they are no competition for Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenny in this play. Who could be?
This Pam O’Grady production for Therry, on a bright and cheerful apartment set with sky colours projected large to suggest the Florida balcony sea views, is sleek and straightforward. It is fairly honest to the Alfieri original, except that he wrote it as a two-hander and this production also features Maxine Grubel as Mrs Harrison’s home help. She is actually part of the stage crew. She works the scene changes as cameo appearances with a feather duster and some gently comic shtick. It’s a clever device and it sure beats blackouts. Result: The audience applauds the scene changes.
At the final curtain, the audience also applauds resoundingly. It has been well served with a good production of a good play. Catch it while you can.
Samela Harris
When: 31 Oct to 10 Nov
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com