Adelaide Fringe. Adriano Cappelletta. 25 Feb 2017
‘Cabaret gay rom-com’ is a slick, to the point, pitch line for what is indeed a great show, but it doesn’t quite encompass the depth on offer in an all-too-quick hour.
Adriano Cappelletta’s writing manages to simultaneously offer the quirky façade of a rom-com film with sharp observations about inner maturity, role models and lifestyle cliches.
Director Johann Walraven makes excellent use of Cappelletta’s clowning skills in play with a mix of live and recorded sound score and songs. The production moves with great pace as we join intelligent, affable and nerdy freelance actor Aldo, 35. He just has to find real love, the real Mr Right. Now. There’re plenty of hurdles to overcome not including the less than satisfactory online hook up scene.
Cappelletta offers the audience a wonderfully romantic wide eyed Aldo who bursts onstage from behind the audience, following three shirts he’s pitched there from the darkness. Aldo’s dance with each shirt in ‘which one’ mode reveals a sensibility far younger than 35, yet powered by a wit much older.
Meeting Felix, stylish human rights lawyer, changes everything.
Cleverly interweaved in the sharp comedy, one snarky on the money song is a line of personal awakening slowly growing beneath the surface of this snappy paced entertainment.
It’s both rewarding and deeply compelling for an audience who cannot fail but be both charmed and impressed with Cappelletta’s Aldo as he faces up to himself, and the real demands of love.
Cappelletta’s great achievement is producing a work of cabaret that sweetly entertains, and by unleashing the goodwill of laughter, uses the power of cabaret to question what is real and what is fantasy.
David O’Brien
When: 24 Feb to 5 March
Where: Royal Croquet Club, The Parlour
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
