★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Shifting Lives Theatre. Lecture Gallery at MOD, University of South Australia. 24 Feb 2024
Russell Fewster’s play, Two of Them, is inspired by the artwork of renowned Adelaide artist and art teacher Christopher Orchard, and in particular the bald-headed, dark-suited male figures who have populated his virtuosic drawings for many years. Orchard’s figures represent the everyman in his search for meaning in an absurd world, and Fewster has recreated Orchard’s art as a story depicting this search.
Subtitled ‘An Existential Journey’, the play implicitly refers to the existentialist philosophies of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre et al, and to the absurdism of novelist Albert Camus.
The play opens in the foyer, where the assembled audience has been asked to wait to be ushered in. Two versions of the bald man — Abe (played by Nick Bennett) and Balt (Dominique Sweeney) — appear and measure the space with a long tape-measure, as if assaying the audience as a volume.
On entering the auditorium — the MOD lecture gallery — we see a woman holding a plumb bob, a device used in building construction and also featuring in Orchard’s 2014 drawing The Diviners, which depicts two bald men carefully studying a plumb bob. The use of the bob extends the concept of measurement or calibration of the world, perhaps reflecting the mechanical way in which we apprehend the world.
The play takes the form of an ongoing dialogue between Abe and Balt. Their personalities at times diverge and converge as if they represent the internal dialogue of one individual. Abe seems extroverted while Balt seems more of an introvert — two sides of one person, or of all people. Naturally, these characters recall Vladimir and Estragon, but rather than waiting for someone (Godot), they are reconsidering their lives. Abe is concerned with the world of work and his future employment, while Balt wants closer connection with the environment.
But writer-director Russell Fewster has added a third character, Fate (Sophie Hollingsworth), who acts sometimes as a ringmaster, a props manager, or a participant in the action — an antagonist. For example, she is a police interrogator when Balt is arrested at a protest against environmental destruction. In moving props on and off stage, she is signalling the intervention of fate and represents the external realities of life that we all unavoidably encounter.
Hollingsworth’s character may be seen as representing the three fates in Greek mythology — Clotho the spinner who weaves the threads of each person’s life, Lachesis, the allotter, and Atropos, the inevitable (death), and the play is about the desire to escape one’s destiny. The presence of this third character adds a dimension taking the work beyond Orchard’s concept.
A large video monitor is mounted on each of the four walls of the space, showing images of Orchard’s work that are especially pertinent or inspirational, and some of these images have been recreated as animations. Indeed, the play resembles a drawing in space, as the performance space is a rectangle that represents pictorial space (the audience is seated on all four sides), and the movements of the performers can be seen as pictorial animation.
The play has no central narrative, but rather an emerging theme, that of trying to launch oneself into a world beyond the confines of one’s existence in the manner of the existentialists. The dark humour of the script and action is typical of absurdist theatre, and fate is omnipresent.
Bennett, Sweeney and Hollingsworth give excellent performances. The staging is simple but highly effective, with an excellent musical score and lighting.
Audience members do not need to be familiar with Orchard’s art to appreciate this outstanding and highly original play. Two of Them stands on its own as a fine work.
Chris Reid
When: 20 Feb to 9 Mar
Where: MOD (University of South Australia)
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
NB: Readers interested in Christopher Orchard's art can see his current exhibition at BMG Art, 156 Halifax Street until 16 Mar 2024
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Umbrella Revolution, The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 22 Feb 2024
There’s a bit of a double take as the cast of Yuck strut onto stage, and I use the term ‘strut’ deliberately. Moustaches and obvious crotch bulges match the masculine posturing; that macho pelvis thrusting walk, that leer, that posturing to impress. That strut.
All the while, this acrobatic troupe of women are clambering over each other, on shoulders, on heads, on backs and fronts. And strutting.
This is a piss take of the male gender of the first order. A few blokes in the audience were already looking taken aback, recognising that the piss was being taken out of their tropes in a gentle but very funny way. For the most part, everyone else was along for the ride.
And what a ride it was. The shock and horror of the male gaze being interrupted by the sight of blood on the back of a skirt. The confessions of what women have done under the influence of alcohol, tempered by the brutal “I had half a glass of water and killed a man”.
Subverting the dominant paradigm wasn’t confined to gender roles; while we were not going to get away without arial ropes, the grace of the art form was turned back on itself as the clearly talented performer managed to become the gawky, hapless loser in the air. Brilliant. Love in a Nutella jar just has to be seen, and the hula hoops act was the closest we got to a regular performance; even then they had to give it a flip.
A highlight is the chorus line to Tom Jones She’s a Lady. No bush ballet here, rather a floral bouquet, a girl garden.
There’s more, much more. Rope skipping, nose piercing with a nail, emojis, and Abba-esque finale looking for a Man After Midnight. This is fabulous entertainment, biting satire without cruelty, but making the point ever so clearly. Beginning and ending with a bulge in the dacks, this is Fringe at its best.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 22 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Umbrella Revolution, GOUD
Tickets: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Roundhouse, Garden of Unearthly Delights. 21 Feb 2024
If you think this is just some guy lurching around off his face while the others get on with the serious work of presenting a play, you’re way off base. Sure, this is MacBeth, but not as we know it.
Right from the start it’s made clear what we’re up for. Matt introduces himself as our host and compere, but as it turns out, he’s more a wrangler come nanny, with the assistance of a few audience members.
Matt proffers the evidence before the show begins; a drinks tray bearing the detritus of a pre-show binge; beers, apple cider and the remains of a bottle of Tanqueray (no craft gin here!). And just in case there’s a sobering moment – more beer! There’s a bit of audience required here, and oddly enough it’s all too willingly offered, vom bucket and all.
Banquo is the hapless recipient of this evening’s liquor largesse, and from the opening scene he makes clear that this Banquo is not the character we’ve come to expect. Not his fault. Stabbing all the witches was a good hint, and the Ed Sheeran resemblance doesn’t help.
This is a mixture of adherence to the plot and improv, with probably more of the latter by other players than expected. There is, of course, a fart joke in the first minute, and it all goes wayward from there. Matt has to warn Banquo to stop stabbing people, or there’ll be no cast left, and it does come perilously close.
While not riffing off the jokes, the cast make a reasonable fist of the highly edited script, and shades of the ‘tragedy’ attempt to filter through. They’re rapidly trounced however, and when Sweet Caroline is summoned forth, it’s all over. By the time audience member Adam, who has been co-opted as an assassin, finally gets his man, the audience no longer cares who wrote the bloody thing, or what all that strutting and fretting is meant to signify, but is instead whooping and hollering for Macbeth’s demise.
This is an entertaining night, but in reality, no-one needed to be trashed; the cast was quite happy to trash the play itself without the added impetus of alcohol. Still, who doesn’t like a good gin, eh?
Arna Eyers-White
When: 21 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: The Roundhouse, Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Head First Acrobats. The Vault / Fools Paradise. 20 Feb 2024
One simple Fringe show and this is as good as it gets. An idea, great storyline riffing off Greek mythology and four supremely talented gymnasts. This is Godz.
Hercules, son of Zeus, joins his cousins Apollo, Dionysus and Cupid (presumably from the Roman branch of the family) at play, and the boys play up. The cousins are feeling frisky, wanting to tryst; Hercules is a little slower to respond. Gradually he seems to warm to the idea, but he takes his time and the others are less than impressed and begin teasing him.
And those Gods, they can be capricious. To a backdrop of handstands and handsprings, tumbles and acrobatic work, and feats of enormous strength, the story unfolds. Hercules is teased, cajoled, and felt up, his sexuality tested and probed, and he is seduced. His father, Zeus, is unimpressed and accompanied by the pulsating industrial score of Rammstein’s Du Hast Hercules is banished to Hell.
And yet Hell is the preserve of Hades, another of the Greek Gods, and Hercules has a great time and is lured into drug use. Poor Hercules, sent to a 1990s nightclub, given drugs, and seduced by statuesque figures clad only in linen shifts… This is all sounding suspiciously like an extended metaphor, isn’t it, kids?
Hercules is then sent to the Christian Hell as punishment: the soothing ministrations of Ave Maria ushered in three nuns and a chastised Hercules (Zeus had popped down to sort things out a bit) and a bit of aerial hanky panky on the slings. Around the time of the flying nuns it seemed things were losing their shit. It was all becoming a bit unwound; the narrative was no longer making sense and if a soundtrack featuring The Chills and Straitjacket Fits had turned up I’d have been no more surprised.
As a storyline it makes a great deal more sense, and thank goodness it does, because Godz is a superb showcase for what the Fringe could and should be. It challenges. It takes chances. It titillates and it does not take its audience for granted. This is real Fringe, real skill, beautifully honed and superbly presented.
Alex Wheaton
When: 20 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: The Vault / Fools Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Showmen Productions. The Moa, Gluttony. 19 Feb 2024
The Moa is a fabulous space; a huge tent with stage and runway, and thankfully air-conditioned. And the chairs are comfortable! The venue suits Circus The Show and sightlines are good for the smaller people in the audience.
The traditional clown opens the entertainment, albeit in a low-key manner, before the show ‘officially’ begins. Quietly but firmly, the audience is drawn to the clown's hapless cleaning skills and valiant attempts at performing tricks for the show.
As the Ringmaster bursts onto the stage, the show begins! Our clown is relegated to stage hand.
And so the acts tumble onto the stage (sometimes literally), one after the other in short bursts, interspersed by the Ringmaster’s schtick, and our clown’s continual mismanagement. Glow-in-the-dark hula hoops spin around a lithe body, basketballs are sent spinning and juggling. Shawna the aerial artist stuns with a magnificent turn on the aerial ribbon, Jessie spins around on a giant hoop and Ricardo desperado, the ‘Mexican juggler’ throws his clubs around with gay abandon.
Sam (also appearing in Justin’s Big Balloon Show) makes an appearance and delights the audience by levitating young audience volunteer Ava!
It's an action packed show and the audience is involved all the way. Enough belly laughs and wonderment for the kids, and plenty of fun to be had for adults as well.
The finale is the clown doing the giant balloon trick. Having just seen it in a previous show, it was no great surprise, but it’s still pretty darn funny. Entertaining for all the family.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: The Moa, Gluttony
Tickets: adelaidefringe.com.au