A Jethro Compton production. Noel Lothian Hall, Adelaide Botanic Gardens. 13 Feb 2016
It is a dusty haze one encounters on entry to ‘The Bunker’. It takes a few moments for eyes to adjust as we find our way to bench seating. Earth grinding beneath our feet as we slide into position; the bunker slowly reveals itself as one becomes accustomed to the darkness.
The haze begins to clear…
We are boxed into an underground shelter. The walls lined with hessian and clad in timber planks. Oil lanterns hang from the ceiling providing a warm, dull glow. The sounds of no-mans-land, a desolate windy plane, can be heard sweeping above our heads.
We are at war.
Two male voices begin to harmonise, in acapella, with a performance of Silent Night. It is Christmas, and the war is on hold for a few hours while both sides take time to celebrate. It is a break earned, but short lived. A time for the soldier’s minds to travel to nicer places, to better times, to loved ones lost and left behind.
And travel they do.
In this horrible place it is all they have to keep themselves sane. They share stories from their past, of loved ones waiting, and occasionally to events imagined; dreamed; desired.
They are Arthur, Gawain, and Lancelot. Names fondly bestowed upon each other as young friends growing up together in boarding school; the knights of the round table, playing out their fantasy in the very real, very awful reality of war.
Herein lays the legend of Morgana. Literally Morgan le Fay in Arthurian legends, but also know by many other incarnations, she is a mythical enchantress, wanton and full of unrequited love. Whether she is real in the character of the Frenchwoman who falls for the soldier Gawain, or simply a figment of his imagination and desire we may never know.
The Bunker Trilogy was first performed in Adelaide in 2014 taking the Fringe award for Best Theatre. Now internationally acclaimed, the audience anticipation is palpable; expectations are high.
And we are not disappointed. The production is spectacular.
The four actors, Hayden Wood as Arthur, Jonathan Mathews as Gawain, Sam Donnelly as Lancelot, and Bebe Sanders as Morgana are spectacular to watch. Their performance is a lesson in focus, energy and restraint.
Produced and designed by Jethro Compton Productions with a vision to create “cinematic, innovative and exciting theatre”, one can say the brief has been met and exceeded.
The whole production is visceral. The penultimate scene brings a tear to the eye.
This trilogy is acclaimed with good reason, and The Bunker Trilogy’s, Morgana is a show not to be missed.
Paul Rodda
When: 13 Feb to 14 Mar
Where: Noel Lothian Hall, Adelaide Botanic Gardens
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Joanne Hartstone productions. White Queen. 12 Feb 2016
Delia Olam emerges from behind the white drapes swaggering and swigging in the character of the executioner. He is drowning his apprehension.
The audience knows already that this play will not end happily. It is the story of a martyr.
Then Olam goes behind the screen and returns as a woman, then onwards over 75 minutes depicting a series of characters. She comes and goes between torrents of dialogue. For each character change there is a change in head wear.
Olam maintains a peculiarly low-key conversational delivery, sometimes letting her voice drop dangerously in the offhandedness of her character.
But she also is the mystical singer we never see. In this tale of a 19th Century Persian poet and suffragette we are to imagine that we can hear her somewhere close but somewhere hidden.
Behind the screen, Olam plays a double bass and sings the ancient Persian poems. Her voice is lovely and one realises that the wordy storyline of the Muslim martyr is just elaborate dressing to put the music into context. Olam sings a series of songs which would do Womad proud. There are moments of immense beauty when her voice rises from behind that screen to fill the air with clear, timeless lyrical purity. Her range is superb. The audience is transported.
It is a quirky production. For a little cultural immersion, the front row audience members are served sugar lumps and rose water tea.
The show runs about 10 minutes too long but, as an entity, it is one of those eerie and original Fringe experiences which will haunt the memory.
Samela Harris
When: 12 to 14 Feb
Where: White Queen
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Gobsmacked Theatre Company. White Queen. 12 Feb 2016
There in the White Queen are two female soldiers in desert cam fatigues, holed up in a bunker draped in sandy-coloured camouflage netting. It's quite a scene, made even more dramatic when, in a great whirring burst, sleety snow gusts out of a vent.
On a hot night on the Fringe, it’s surprising how the stuff lies about on the stage.
The incongruity of the snow is one of the things one contemplates when experiencing this offbeat theatre piece by Katy Warner.
It is like Waiting for Godot meets the War in Iraq.
The two soldiers are just passing the time, stranded somewhere, nowhere in a war zone That's all there is to do. Get on with the waiting. Talk the same talk. Play an imagination game - or not. Pretend they have some vodka. Argue about what's in the rubble. Reflect on the business of killing, on rotting flesh, the survival of a baby.
They are afraid, exhausted, fatalistic, perhaps losing the battle to stay sane. They are PTSD in the making.
Adelaide actors Suzannah Kennett Lister and Sarah Cullinan are directed by David McVicar in this tight little production. They establish character and sustain tension. Despite the heat in the White Queen, the play and the good performances take ownership of the audience.
It is a relevant, meaty, interesting think piece, a credit to the Fringe.
Samela Harris
When 12 to 25 Feb
Where: White Queen
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 11 Feb 2016
Every year they sing that they're just fading away.
This year, two of their number broke out of the old theme song's chorus line, whipped up the tempo and kicked up their heels proving the refrain of the previous song, "We're just old on the outside".
The old Footlighters AKA The Royal Adelaide University Old Footlighters have become quite the Adelaide cult in reviving the lost art of revue. Their student heyday was in the 60s. Now they are in their 70s.
Despite this year's title, they show no sign of slowing the pace of song, dance and satire despite the show's 2016 subtitle, "The 6th and almost probably definitely the very, very last show ever in this current series". Clearly this heralds a new series since, without these grey grads, there would be no undergraduate humour in town.
And, let's face it, they pack out the theatre.
This year there are some new faces and new script writers. Arwed Turon, Robyn Layton, and Kay Rollison are among them, with Michael Muecke and Tish Brown chipping in. Margie Butcher is there, too, fleetingly, and oddly, legendary Footlighter Wayne Anthoney makes an appearance on film only. And there are the stalwarts, better than ever: Bob Lott - producer, director, bassist, and star; Andy Ligertwood, more dashing than ever; Kitty Peake ever peaking; Mark Coleman, medicine to any skit; Margie Hill with a spring in her step; and Michael Johnston, ever the tonic.
It remains lamentable that the young have not sustained or revived the art of uni revue.
But, Adelaide's uni olds are defiant undergrads at heart and they have become an annual arts phenomenon. They are the last word in chic retro.
And so they poke and prod at the country's array of silly politicians. They mock the system of knights and dames. They spend their kids' inheritances, rock up as jockeys, do over the Antiques Road Show and are generally fun and silly, hit and miss, song and dance, and rockin' good spirit.
They create an hilarious karaoke with the audience singing along as they ping and blow on bottles for musical accompaniment and, of course, with Rob Morrison magnificent on trumpet, Lott powering away on double bass and Damien West and Gerard Spalding among youthful add-ons, the old Uni Jazz Band soars again.
Yes, it is much of the same just as it is supposed to be. Revue is revue is revue.
The pith is polite. There are too many lawyers and judges up there to push the envelope. But it is pertinent - or utterly irrelevant. It is also snappy with a backstage crew just as seasoned as the performers on stage.
If you can get a ticket, you should. This show is in the Fringe icon department.
They're far from fading. They are on their sixth wind and they are not even puffing.
Samela Harris
****
When: 11 ro 20 Feb
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Worklight Theatre. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 10 Feb 2016
Joe Sellman-Leava is very literal about labels. He has a lot of them. He covers himself himself in big white adhesive paper labels. He gives some labels to audience members, too - 'friend' and 'enemy', for example. But the reason he is there is to make a big point about racism.
He lifts nametags of famous figures such as Idi Amin, Enoch Powell, Donald Trump, Jeremy Clarkson and even Tony Abbott. He impersonates them to repeat phrases they have uttered on the racist front. Adelaide audiences may not have heard of some of the British figures but he makes it clear that Abbott with his "send-back-the-boats" message has been classified as one of the world's headliner racists.
Sellman-Leava tells a family story in which he describes England's racism as ubiquitous. It has plagued and scarred his life. When asked where he is from, people don't want to know that he was born and lived in Devon but where did his family originate. They want to know about his skin colour. His mother is white and his father is Indian, he explains.
Sellman-Leava goes on to describe the pain of being called "Paki" and "Indian" and the discriminatory treatment experienced in the UK under those labels, experiences so troubling that his family changed the tell-tale racial label of their name and Patel became Sellman-Leava.
This UK production, written by Sellman-Leava and directed by Katarina Reinthaller, comes to Adelaide as winner of the Holden Street Edinburgh fringe Award in 2015. It has been festooned in five-star reviews from the Edinburgh festival.
It goes straight to the heart of the mighty refugee debate with Sellman-Leava using his own experiences as the strike-home bottom line. When the argument for refugees is that they are guilty only of seeking a decent life, that they are human beings with rights to an equal life on planet earth, he presents himself as an example. He does not touch on religious discord or political baggage. It's about humanity and understanding, one vulnerable person at a time.
It is also about England, so some of Sellman-Leava's issues are new to young Australians. That England's massive influx of black immigrants goes back to Britain's territorial expansions as a colonial superpower puts a different slant on the origins of the country's mixed population. He does not mention the prejudice against the Polish workers in the UK either or the myriad other forms of discrimination which abound in this world.
The issue can go on and on.
Sellman-Leava simply uses himself and the labels we use for ourselves and others to frame his personal story, made vivid by theatrical flair.
He is unashamedly didactic and often angry.
With his suitcase of props and his plethora of stark white labels, he is a travelling showman with a modern message.
For older audience members, it is not new and having to wait while the entire front row learns to fold paper planes is a bit tedious, but the student ranks who fill Holden Street for much of its brilliant program absolutely whoop with approbation at this intelligence from a first-generation English mixed blood.
His impact is helped not only by his performance skills but also by the fact that he is an extremely handsome young man. His mission is to advance the conversation on the refugee crisis, race, and the rise of the far right, and in this he is clearly succeeding.
Samela Harris
When: 12 Feb to 13 Mar
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au