Adelaide Fringe. Rebecca Castaldini. 18 Feb 2017
Burlesque, traditional or neo Burlesque, succeeds on the basis of how the reveal is framed in performance. It is a delicate art of teasing and pleasing an audience in such a way that the cocktail of sensuality, lust, and a lingering tint of invigorating romance is in perfect balance.
The Redheaded Cabaret: Rated R(ed) is a smashing demonstration of Burlesque, traditional and beyond. The crew of Redheaded hotties assembled by Rebecca Castaldini give up a sensational series of solo and group fantasy scenarios presented with top notch production values from costume to staging, all grounded firmly in a ‘less is more’ approach. Spiced with superb performance technique, this was an evening to totally revel in.
From black robed, lustful, sirens seeking the heart of an audience member (featuring black crucifix nipple pasties) to Sirena del Rossi’s ardent soaking wet murder ballad in motion, the production constantly kept hearts pumping.
Providing calming levity in between numbers, MC Miss Demeanour offered delightful chatter and song.
Humour too, was abundantly on show. Numbers featuring male ensemble member L’Homme Blayze successfully played off a two for one approach; one for girls, one for the boys utilising conventions of slapstick perfectly suited to his routine.
When it comes to the ‘neo’ in Burlesque, just how brilliantly this company play it can be judged by comparing Dulce Esperanza’s spot on perfect traditional double feather fan dance, with out-off-this-world routine’s from Sirena del Rossa, Miss Harlot Rose and Laveene Du Pearl.
These redheads are definitely worth seeing anywhere, anytime.
David O’Brien
Where: Nexus Arts
When: 18 to 24 Feb
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 18 Feb 2017
It is not a pretty sight. Already people are describing it as a sight which cannot be unseen - Peter Goers in lycra.
He opens his 2017 Fringe show as one of those dreaded cyclists he so often berates on radio and paper. Complete with de rigeur Cibo coffee, he warns that now, as a cyclist, he can do whatever he likes and everyone must stay a metre away.
Audience eyes are as big as saucers, not just because there is a lot of Goers squeezed into that clinging lycra but that there is added mass, with apologies to Sir Les Patterson and then some. Tottering on his bike cleats, Goers milks the silliness before embarking upon one of the longest and most unusual costume changes in Fringe history.
So far as openers go, this is an unforgettable piece of pertinent self-parody and, as he settles down to tell stories, now clad in a pink jacket, the audience is right in the mood to laugh.
The monologue runs sweet and sour, funny and poignant. One minute one is in tears of laughter at the absurdity of life, the next one is misty-eyed at the cruelty of life.
Goers’ extensive experience in the world of South Australia’s public toilets and op shops produces some very funny yarns. Perhaps they’re topped by his adventures at the Clare show. No. The killer funny is his account of doing the Anzac Day live radio commentary at the Cenotaph.
But, of course as he proved in last year’s Fringe stand-up show, he has a large repertoire of oldies-but-goodies in the line of showbiz anecdotes and a wealth of classic jokes with the timing to get them across.
In this show he pays a rightful and wonderful tribute to Adelaide’s loved and lost Dave Flanagan aka Ted from Tennyson. He salutes the late Max Fatchen and other local identities.
It’s a jam-packed hour targeted at oldies but which, one notes, had Gen Ys in the audience equally amused.
Am I completely biased? Peter Goers is, indeed, my long-time friend. But, between you and me, if he were not funny and worth seeing, I would have kept my mouth shut.
Samela Harris
When: 18 Feb to 18 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. The Octagon at Gluttony. 17 Feb 2017
It just wouldn’t be a Fringe without a Hans spectacular.
Matt Gilbertson’s bling-blazened cabaret character is now an institution with a devoted following. This puts the pressure onto Matt to keep coming up with new content and on his mum to keep contriving yet skimpier and more absurd sequinned outfits for which Christopher Pyne invariably gets the credit.
Indeed, even with former PM Julia Gillard and SA Arts Minister Jack Snelling in the opening night audience, Hans would not tolerate a single bad word about the Member for Sturt. They have a lot in common, he declares.
He does, in this new show, have some very bad words to say about other politicians, principally the fish and chip lady and President Donald Trump. At the piano, in his Pyne green micro shorts and Tyrolean hat, he calls for strength from the might of Abba tunes and thus delivers satiric Trump lyrics which call on the audience to fill in crucial words and are capped by one which can only be seen and not heard.
Big screens present some of the best of Trump clips as Gilbertson struts his stuff in his Make America Great Again cap. The Lucky Bitches rock and vamp around him to the music of the Ungrateful Bastards and he climaxes the Trump set with the biggest tap moves ever seen on stage. Truly.
Of course Trump has particular significance in his Hans show because its theme is a rival takeover of the world by Hans. To that end, it starts with Hans in red and black spangled uniform - epaulettes and medals, work boots and fishnets. He’s doing the German thing to the Hitler hilt.
A lot of thought has gone into this new show so, while it keeps to the tried and true Hans formula of self-parody, accordion shtick, mischievous audience interaction and lots of song and dance, it feels fresh and funny.
And, let’s face it, not only is our Matt a very clever boy, he is just so darned loveable.
We don’t give him stars. He gets hearts. Lots.
Samela Harris
When: 17 Feb to 5 Mar
Where: Gluttony Octagon, Rymill Park
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Andrew Kay and Associates. Adelaide Festival Centre. Kings Head & In Your Face. 17 Feb 2017
Irvine Welsh’s seminal novel and film Trainspotting documented with vicious, celebratory vigour the intense highs and lows of youth drug culture in the Scotland of the 1980s.
Harry Gibson’s adaptation of Welsh’s creation brings it closer to the intensity of the language of the novel. In staging, the production achieves a level of visceral insight. The romance of the film, and its soundtrack, glossed over the darkness in the lives of the characters, as the once-removed relationship between a viewer and a film can do.
Entering Central Station Underground with small glow stick in hand, the audience navigates their way around dancing cast members, to seats placed in traverse stage setting. The music’s pumping; a real feel good atmosphere. Then things get full on - very quickly.
The high energy cast offer a bunch of passionate, lost, misguided young people in a state of desperation and deep confusion about life, about ‘adulting’ as it were, centred around Renton.
The audience are conscripted into their wildness and heart felt passions, given the cast invade the audience space constantly, pulling people onto stage with them. Their mistakes, dreams, desires, and sense of identity curls around the audience, challenging them to just deal with this in your face onslaught.
This a Trainspotting at the level of the finest Greek declaratory dialogue in tones of sharp edged Scottish slang. It hurts, it bleeds, it roars, and sings with bloody hearted unbearable passion. It is unashamedly filthy in multiple, revealing ways allowing those familiar with this work to see it anew, comprehend Welsh’s vision at a much a deeper level.
David O’Brien
When: 17 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Central Station 52-54, Hindley Street
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Presented by Holden Street Theatres Edinburgh Fringe Awards in association with Redback Productions and Gilded Balloon. Adelaide Fringe. 15 Feb 2017
Henry Naylor’s Echoes was one of the five-star hits of last year’s Fringe and this year’s Angel is going the same way. Naylor is emerging as one of the great playwrights of our times, not only handling very difficult political and gender issues but doing so with a very lyrical and potent pen.
Angel by Henry Naylor is a war saga largely set in Syria and telling of Rehana, a bright farm girl who is intent on a legal career when her life and aspirations are upturned by the siege on her home town of Kobane. It is the third in Naylor’s trilogy “Arabian Nightmare”.
Rehana is a character based on truth, on a law student who trained as a sniper and became something of a legend after killing about 100 members of ISIS. She was reported to have been caught and beheaded by ISIS - twice.
Naylor introduces her as a girl whose farmer father deters local Islamic lads from abusing her by showing his strength in an extraordinary act of self-harm. He subsequently keeps her from school and trains her, against her wishes, as a marksman. Then her mother takes her on a refugee flight to Turkey whence she turns tail to rescue her father who remains in embattled Kobane, hopelessly defending the family farm. It is a gutsy and frightening trip, a teen girl at the mercy of factions of fierce warring Muslim men. She is forced to desperate ends, each experience bringing a pacifist girl closer to the ruthless warrior woman she is destined to become among the amazing Kurdish women’s army whose triumphal power lies in the Islamic belief that death at the hands of a woman denies a man all the carnal luxuries of heaven.
Angel is directed by Michael Cabot on a smoky stage where lighting dark and shrill evokes the many scenes of the narrative. It is a solo show but actress Avital Lvova peoples the stage by leaping in and out of the characters Rehana the Angel encounters on her desperate mission: her stoic father, her sad mother, the Kurdish fighter who smuggles her disguised as his wife, the ISIS soldiers who imprison her, and the leader of the women’s army.
It is a dynamic, action-packed narrative delivered in a powerful performance.
Lvova is a wonder to behold. She has an exceptional ability to connect with the audience, a magical outreach which is quite compelling.
The production thus forces audiences to dip their consciousnesses into the bloody sands of the Syrian sorrows and to taste for themselves just a little of why the people are fleeing their homeland.
It is indeed the Arabian nightmare.
It also is a vivid, brilliant and important piece of theatre, one which brings young audience members to their feet to whoop and scream in approbation while the older ones are still sitting in silent respect before erupting into a thunder of applause.
Samela Harris
When: 15 Feb to 19 Mar
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au