Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 6 Apr 2017
Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s dramatisation of The Diary of Anne Frank is a solid old history play, well known in theatre circles as a long one. This should have been the clue for The Rep director Geoff Brittain to give it a thrust of energy or a bit of a cut to fully engage a modern audience. The arduous pace of this new production is just about the only thing wrong with it. Of course it could be argued that the audience needs to suffer for its art, to feel the ennui to get a taste of the long and strange time that Anne Frank describes in hiding from the Nazis from 1942 to 1944 in Amsterdam.
One hopes that, as the play runs in, the action and inflections may pep up.
Ole Weibkin has devised an extraordinarily complex and labyrinthine set to depict the office building annex in which two Jewish families plus the dentist Dussell were confined. The set reaches from the rig to the wings to the apron and back again, seemingly dark, dense and dusty and claustrophobic as well the hiding place must have been. Therein, Richard Parkill's lighting completes the mood, dull when the world is working in the offices below, bright only in the secrecy of night.
The production has been well cast and, despite the pace, there are some lovely performances. There are the seasoned skills of Nicole Rutty and Therese Hornby as sweet Mrs Frank and insufferable Mrs Van Daan, along with the strengths of Tim Williams as kind Otto Frank and Tim Taylor as the unpleasant Mr Van Daan with Chris Leech most effectively stress-inducing as the dentist Dussell.
Genevieve Venning is endearing as Anne's quiet big sister, Margot, while Ronan Banks has just the right adolescent awkwardness as Peter Van Daan. Heroic from the outside world, the protectors of the hidden Jews come and go with rations and news of the war. Stuart Pearce plays good Mr Kraler with Esther Michelsen delightfully simpatico as Miep. They appear and disappear from below, arriving each time on stage with a convincing sense of having climbed some pretty awkward stairs. But it is the young Henny Walters in a big wig of glistening black hair who charms and compels as the famous child diarist.
Henny is still at school and is a clearly a talent with a shining future.
There are some oddities to the production, not the least of them the amount of time the director has his lead with her back to the audience. One sees her close up on a screen over the blackout window now and then through the play delivering verbatim extracts from her diary. The audio-visual fades in and out are awkward, but one feels the intention to segue back into the live action. There also is the mixture of accents. The young characters are performed without accents at all. As the audience becomes consumed in the tensions of the lives depicted, the details of accents fades away - a successful gamble by the director.
The production wins in the end. Final curtain generates resounding applause.
It is not a great play but it is one of the important stories of history made all the more heart-rending by being told by a doomed young girl so full of life and hope. The first night audience was mainly Repertory subscription patrons - but this play really needs to be seen by secondary students.
Samela Harris
When: 7 to 22 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: 8212 5777 or adelaidrep.com
Brink Theatre Company in association with State Theatre Company and Adelaide Festival Centre. Space Theatre. 4 Apr 2017
The portrait on the poster says it all. Pure exhaustion after a great battle is shown in a digger's face spattered with the red mud of Vietnam and the gore of his mates. This is the story of Delta Company, 6RAR, and their ordeal on the 18th of August, 1966, when their patrol encountered an overwhelmingly superior size force of North Vietnamese readying to attack their base.
Director Chris Drummond and his creative team have forged an emotionally immersive theatrical experience. The audience is placed on the fringes of the field of fire by flanking a long traverse representing the rubber plantation where the fire fight took place (Wendy Todd - designer). It's surfaced with loose, black rubber chips that Barry Kosky left behind after his Saul production. The soldiers wallow in it, slip on it, and die clutching it, leaving behind an orange silhouette, like a detective's chalk outline.
Every audience member is supplied with headphones. Through these, composer and sound designer Luke Smiles invites you to hear the mosquitoes, and the explosions and gunfire, which are never nearly as loud as described in the testimonials of the diggers who were there. More importantly, though, the headphones allowed the actors to shift their technique to something in between film and live performance. Whispered dialogue was easily overlapped and audible, and allowed an intimacy disconcertingly coupled with disembodiment. Lighting designer Chris Petridis used lasers to paint a battlefield alive with dancing and deadly tracers.
Australian playwright Verity Laughton was arrested protesting against the war back in the day, and felt that she didn't ever properly acknowledge the humanity of the diggers. For this reconciliation, she interviewed some of the Long Tan fighters and their families - indeed, anybody that would talk to her about the afternoon battle - and transposed their testimony into a military drama. You really got to know these blokes and there was nothing more moving than Nic Krieg's character, Salveron, rising from the battlefield after being mortally shot and haunting the battlefield in its most violent moment. Laughton undertook a lengthy epilogue that detailed some of the trauma that the survivors and their loved ones endured in the days, weeks and years following. This assuaged a curiosity I'm sure I shared with other audience members. Further background material is available in the program, in photos of the actual warriors, and in numerous interviews that can be viewed in the theatre lobby (Malcolm McKinnon - AV exhibition).
However, the didactic explanation of the origin of the American War was unnecessary for the informed, and too rushed for the novices. Also, the two Vietnamese characters - most often a mother and son - were not always convincing except in an oddly satisfying flash forward scene mid-battle. You know what? I couldn't help think about my recent viewing of The Secret River during the Adelaide Festival, and relating these two instances of intrusive invaders.
The cast were a well-drilled ensemble. In the after-show discussion I attended, a question arose concerning the conveyance of fear. I would have thought to have seen people scared out of their wits, but I was somewhat persuaded that survival was attained by calculated training and men doing their jobs. I wasn't there and I'll never know, but this is a good example of one of the thousands of directorial choices Chris Drummond would have had to make in a brand new play.
This is a world premiere full of technical and performance complexities achieved with five weeks rehearsal, which is not enough time for the full virtuosity of the creative team and actors to be revealed. Yet, I left the theatre shaken and stirred and exhausted and amazed. There were no winners at Long Tan that day, but there was a lot of bravery.
David Grybowski
When: 31 Mar to 8 Apr
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Lunchbox Theatrical Productions and Stage Presence in association with David Atkins Enterprises, ABA, and Kenny Wax Limited. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 29 Mar 2017
If there were to be PhD distinction for theatrical ham, The Play That Goes Wrong would provide the all-immersive qualification.
This is a work of epic shtick.
If ever there was a piece of classic cornball silly business, it is this ridiculous production. The old British manor house set is constantly at war with the actors. Doors don’t work. Things fall off walls. Actors try to save the situation while the play goes on. Props are not where they should be. Actors improvise. Actors come to grief. Backstage crew steps in with scripts. But the show goes on.
Long looks and frozen moments. Actors reading from cues on their hands. Words they simply cannot pronounce. Every disaster compounded by yet another calamity. Every actor’s nightmare. But the show goes on.
This audience member laughed until her ribs ached. And then she laughed some more.
Not everyone was creased in hilarity. Some seemed just a bit nonplussed to have paid high ticket prices to witness bad acting and technical ineptitude on a grand scale.
But in the extremity of badness lies the supreme skill.
These actors deliver the high art not only of acting but of clowning. Come on down Jacques Lecoq, the greatest clown teacher of them all. His artistry is all over this cast. And the athleticism of circus skills. Physical comedy is heightened by danger and danger is averted only by split-second timing and precise technical planning.
There is a plot, of course. It is The Murder at Haversham Manor set in the 1920s. The audience is told that this production by Britain’s Mischief Theatre Company is actually from the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and there are comprehensive spoof program notes to underscore this assertion. Hence, the actors play actors playing roles.
It is murder most mysterious and through the rowdy chaos of mishaps, mis-cues and mistakes, somehow it is solved. Of course, by that time, no one in the audience really cares. They are weary with laughter and a sense of incredulity that levels of hysteria could be sustained for so very long.
The cast on this touring production is mainly Australian with one American and a “token Pommie”. He is James Marlow who plays Max Bennett playing Cecil Haversham. There is not a comic nuance this actor does not deliver while vaulting furniture and manhandling imaginary dogs. A sublime performance. But he’s in very good company since all the cast - Tammy Weller, Brooke Satchwell, Luke Joslin, George Kemp, Adam Dunn, Darcy Brown and Nick Simpson-Deeks - excel on the high plateau of supple-bodied melodramatic excess.
The Play That Goes Wrong was written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, and directed by Mark Bell with James Marlow as Resident Director.
The show is brought to Adelaide by Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, Stage Presence in association with David Atkins Enterprises, ABA, and Kenny Wax Limited with one-time South Australian showbiz luminary Jon Nicholls as its Executive Producer. Nicholls’s opening night cameo stage appearance apologising for the first technical fault was a wee treat for the Adelaide theatre people who remembered his heyday with the Arts Council and Promcon.
And, those of us who fall apart at entirely farcical theatrical nonsense thank them one and all for delivering this award-winning gem downunder.
Samela Harris
When: 29 Mar to 2 Apr
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Adelaide Fringe. Strut and Fret Production House. Magic Mirror Spiegeltent at The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 19 Mar 2017
Perhaps seeing all of Strut and Fret’s shows is a bad thing? Perhaps one’s expectations are harder to meet when the company has already produced so much outstanding content? Like a sequel that fails to live up to the original.
The latest offering from the Strut and Fret Production House is entitled Blanc de Blanc, and is an homage to French champagne. The show is a celebration of that bubbly beverage, and the performers all take on their characters with guts and gusto.
Every one of them is extremely talented, absolutely gorgeous; supremely fit, and specialises in their own unique brand of entertainment, be it circus, clowning, acrobatics, contortion, comedy, or burlesque. But it seems they have all been thrust into a show which lacks a solid vision; the excitement and risk that has made Strut and Fret famous, fails to materialise for very long.
There are some really great acts in this show, and one hears people speak of them in absolute awe – a gravity defying pole performance in a concierge’s luggage trolley; the spectacular antics of a hula-hooping contortionist; a graceful and sexy mid-air dance between two soap soaked acrobats suspended from The Magic Mirror Spiegeltent – but this list is exhaustive. That is all of the truly edgy acts you are likely to see (Note: this performance didn’t feature Shun Sugimoto). Like an action packed film trailer you’ve just heard all the best bits. The rest of the 2 hour production feels a lot like self-indulgent fluff and filler; a selfie-break mid-show allows the audience to take photos with the performers, most of us awkwardly sit and watch!
Loosely based on champagne, and full of little dance interludes that are more like connective tissue than acts, Blanc de Blanc doesn’t really showcase the specialist skills of anyone, other than Spencer Novich and his perfectly timed comedy genius. One finds oneself waiting for something to happen… and being disappointed when nothing does.
The show is fast paced and high energy. It has all of the expected production values of a Strut and Fret show; spectacular sound and lighting, amazing costumes, and slick stage production. It is, however, not particularly well suited for the round, with much of the action on the main stage and almost everything performed out front.
For the most part the audience get into the celebration of champagne and they seem to love it. All of the feedback seems to have been positive, so one returns to the opening of this review to ponder why we failed to be inspired.
Blanc de Blanc didn’t seem to have the dynamics of its predecessors. It does have a lot more nudity, and as exciting as that can be, the novelty quickly wears off. Despite all this it still appears to be winning the praises of audiences and critics alike.
Paul Rodda
When: 19 Mar
Where: Magic Mirror Spiegeltent at The Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: Closed. Tour continues around the country
Prima Donna A Symphonic Visual Concert, and Rufus Does Judy Highlights from the Carnegie Hall Concerts. Adelaide Festival. Rufus Wainwright. Festival Theatre. 18 Mar 2017
This one night-only show - an Australian premiere and exclusive to Adelaide - is a double bill comprising edited versions of two of Wainwright's creations. His opera, Prima Donna, opened during the Manchester International Festival in 2009, and in 2015, he converted the opera into an oratorio of its highlights, keeping the narrative and augmenting the music and libretto with a silent film directed by Francesco Vezzoli. This is called Prima Donna A Symphonic Visual Concert. Also, Wainwright recreates Judy Garland's comeback concert of June 1961 at Carnegie Hall, in 2006, and in the second half of the Adelaide show, he sings about sixteen American pop and jazz standards from his Garland show. So if you came to hear Rufus sing, he sings only in the second half and nearly all of it is channeling Garland.
There are plenty of critical words on the internet about the opera but I enjoyed it very much. His score - accused of being a pastiche of the greats - is indeed changeable but has a driving foreboding or ominous tone that invites anxiety and concern for the diva. Co-authored with Bernadette Colomine, diva Régine Saint Laurent attempts to resuscitate her career while in the grips of an interest in journalist Andre Létourneur, who will leave her coldly. Jacqueline Dark sings beautifully and has great emotional import. Andrew Goodwin shows Andre to be a perfect cad, while Eva Kong provides stunning soprano support as the diva's maid. The movie harkened to a parallel story as it features photos of Maria Callas and a very Maria Callas-looking Cindy Sherman. Of course, Callas was dumped by Aristotle Onassis when he began dating Jacqueline Kennedy.
The Judy show has punch. Honouring Garland by wearing a ruby red sequined tuxedo jacket with tails, Wainwright demonstrates a phenomenal vocal power similar to what most of us have only heard in Garland recordings. He goes through the songs pretty fast, wearing himself out, with little to enlighten us about Judy or the famous Carnegie concert, and never imitating her. He remains Rufus Wainwright, a rather amiably nice guy at the height of his career.
As Wainwright is not a frequent visitor to Adelaide, this double bill is an excellent way to sample a broad swathe of his talent and is a great night of mixed musical styles.
David Grybowski
When: 18 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed