Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 15 Apr 2015
Four ageing opera singers are seeing out their last years in a retirement home for musicians.
The days pass slowly as their inflated theatrical egos sashay around, dodging each other, occasionally clashing, oftentimes hitting the realisation that their days of fame are gone.
They tell tales of great stars of yore, they bicker, they gossip, they reminisce - until they decide that the birthday of Giuseppe Verdi is cause for musical celebration and for a come-back at the rest home’s annual concert. They gird their loins, rehearse like crazy, rustle up some old costumes and, for a glorious sojourn, are a focused ensemble, albeit with the burdens of their age.
Playwright Ronald Harwood balances the pathos and bathos of ageing with some pithy humour so it makes a lovely, meaty vehicle for older actors. Director Sue Wylie with her assistant, Ian Rigney, have gathered a wonderful foursome to perform in this Quartet. They are a joy to watch.
Brian Knott delivers baritone Wilf Bond as a loud, rumbustious, and ever the fresh guy grieving for the futility of his advances. He seems in better physical fettle than the others despite the stick he carries.
Soprano Jean Horton, played by Jean Walker, is a snobbish old thing, overdue for a hip replacement. Walker gives a lovely balance as Jean’s soft side finds release from her brittle defensive shell. Meanwhile, Julie Quick moves the audience to its core as she develops mezzo Cissy Robson, from fey trouper to a poor dear soul coping with the onset of dementia. It is a glorious and vivid performance which, in the final scene, brings the house down. Last but absolutely not least is Russell Starke in a very welcome return to the Adelaide stage after too long a hiatus. He plays Reginald Paget, the old tenor on the edge of his own form of dementia. In stark contrast to Knott, Starke underplays this role and does so with masterful restraint. There’s an edge of hesitance against manic little rages and a character emerges whose spirit, the audience feels, has always risen in the face of life’s disappointments. It is a delicate and sweet character - and another memorable performance by Starke.
Director Wylie seems to have brought out the best in the actors but not in the set. And that’s a strange thing. Most of the action takes place on the rest home’s terrace. This is a row of chairs with loose cushions placed down stage with a wall and doors behind. But the row of chairs is incongruous - not a bit like a relaxing terrace. There is no table, no aspidistra, nothing else. This leaves the actors just moving around a row of chairs. It feels limited and awkward. The set screams for a table or a wicker settee.
The good set lies in wait. In act 2, the wall comes down and a fabulous music room is revealed. The actors have lots more to do physically and the pace lifts.
Quartet is not only a terrific vehicle for mature actors but also a charming diversion for old and young audiences. It is not a great play. It is a fun play - and a very nice night’s entertainment, as Dame Edna might opine.
Samela Harris
When: 9 to 18 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
The Other Ones. Bakehouse Theatre. 10 April 2015
The buzz of anticipation in the Bakehouse foyer held a special current of thrill on the opening night of The Good Son.
This was no ordinary play. It was a long-awaited new play by a rising Adelaide playwright who is also a popular and respected professional actress. Her steady determination to enter that hardest-of-all writing genres has rallied support from some of the country's top talent - and funding through Pozible. So, there were many threads of interest gathered there in that cosy foyer with, it felt, not just hope that the finished work would be good but trust that it would.
The trust was well-placed, as it turned out. What Elena Carapetis has written is latter-day kitchen sink realism which seems to nod in the direction of the great Eugene O'Neill whose renown Long Day's Journey Into Night has just finished playing under the banner of Independent Theatre. While The Good Son is but 80 minutes long and is about a Greek-Australian family, its likeness to Long Day's Journey is that it is an extremely intense and emotional journey in a day in the life of a dysfunctional family. Perhaps one may find thematic nods to Osborne and others. But the play stands on its own merit. It is a topical tragedy. It is powerful, pertinent and Australian.
Its characters are well-wrought and Carapetis shows her nous in the carefully-measured way in which they develop - building skilfully towards the play's passionate and poignant denouement.
The central character is Meda, the Greek matriarch whose pokies problem has been a long and divisive family issue. Despite this, she has retained manipulative power over the son who has stayed at home to support her. She's a devious old vixen and yet generous and loving in her suffocating way. As embodied by Eugenia Fragos, she is a veritable kaleidoscope of moods, snapping in a trice from charming to vulnerable to vengeful. Fragos's performance is nothing less than riveting.
Renato Musolino plays Frank, the hapless son who craves nothing more than a life of his own. Expecting his mother to be out, he has smuggled a new girlfriend into the house overnight and is trying to give her coffee in bed when Mum appears. This scenario provides a deliciously amusing opening to the play while also laying ground for ensuing tensions. The play is not without wit and irony as well as fire and ire.
Musolino plays comedically passionate and furtive and then displays a wealth of hurts and perplexities as the truths and deceits of Frank's situation evolve. Musolino is an accomplished actor and he was right at home in a nice, juicy role. Less seen on the Adelaide stage is Dimitrios Sirilas who appears as Jimmy, the close family friend who is almost a second son to Meda. Sirilas, with his little bob of pony tail, plays the wide boy with disconcerting ease. Meanwhile, there is Ana, the could-be/would-be girlfriend, played by Adriana Bonacurso. At first, she seems to be the play's minor character but all is not quite what it seems. Bonacurso gives a mighty performance.
One of the reasons the play sits well is that these four characters are not only believable but they also are, in their way, likeable. They feel real.
This is a very well-prepared production under the perceptive direction of Corey McMahon. He is supported by the knowing hand of producer Joanna Hartstone with an all-star backstage line-up of composer Jason Sweeney and lighting designer Ben Flett with creative associates Olivia Zanchetta and Alexander Ramsay. Most significantly, also, is Manda Webber with a domestic set the likes of which never has been seen in The Bakehouse. Made entirely of recycled materials, it even has its own walk-in kitchen as well as the true look of Greek-Australian domesticity: the patterned wallpaper; the lace curtains; the plastic tablecloth cover; and the lovingly-tended floral sofa.
And thus, with talent and diligence, with industry support and enthusiasm, does Elena Carapetis arrive fully-fledged as a new Australian playwright. And one may look forward to her future output.
Samela Harris
When: 10 to 25 Apr
When: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Independent Theatre Company. The Goodwood Institute. 25 Mar 2015
Eugene O'Neill is a giant of American playwriting history. He is credited with shifting this medium from bland and mannered entertainment to a poignant search for truth in American life. Long Day's Journey Into Night was one of the last of his fifty plays. The Tyrone family, who inhabit this long and sad day that bleeds into the wee hours of the next, is a stand-in for O'Neill's own father, mother and brother, and himself, complete with their conflicts and addictions. Some biographers say that all his other plays led to this masterwork, even though he had already won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936, five years before this play. Although his wish was that it not be performed for twenty-five years, it won O'Neill his fourth Pulitzer Prize in 1957, four years after his death from pneumonia. His greatness is manifest in his antecedents. In this play alone, you will see the avatars of Arthur Miller's Hap and Biff, and Tennessee Williams's Blanche du Bois.
The first thing to note in this production is the magnificent re-creation of an early 1900s American east coast cottage interior (set design: Rob Croser and David Roach, and constructed with acute attention to detail by a team led by David Roach). Bravo! The after-breakfast chatter signaling hopefulness for a fresh start at the beginning of a summer day near the ocean soon manifests with the tremors that signal subsequent earthquakes. This family has more baggage than the train to Chattanooga and two things are going to happen today to bring out the worst, and sometimes the best, in everybody.
The vicious cycle of a hazardous remark, received with hurt arising from insecurity, followed by recrimination and blame, and finally ending in a temporary truce - although belying the love these family members have for each other - is numbing. And it's a three hour production. The day's situation is left unresolved and you can't help but feel, like in 'Groundhog Day', the Tyrones will do it all over again the next day, like they did it the day before. It becomes suffocating. O'Neill's followers must have sensed this themselves as they employed significant external characters to provide foil and relief to family dysfunctionality - the gentleman caller in The Glass Menagerie, the neighbour and Uncle Ben in Death of a Salesman and the young academic couple in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? are offered as examples.
Bronwyn Ruciak does a great job as the addled mother, floating gracefully between lies and morphine. Angus Henderson has his Jamie Tyrone disguise his loafing and dissipated youth with an exuberant charm that elicited forgiveness. Benji Riggs plays the younger brother as a congenial young man and victim, with snippets of real flare. David Roach (who else?) in the male lead of the father roars and declaims most of his lines and misses opportunities for nuance. Rob Croser once again displays his directorial virtuosity in using the entire stage and getting his actors into fetching and amplifying physicalities.
Long Day's Journey Into Night contains four of the most trapped and unhappiest family characters in literature, and is the important precursor for later American dramatists standing on the shoulders of a giant, and learning from him. A must see for those who honour this transition.
David Grybowski
When: 19 to 28 March
Where: The Goodwood Institute
Bookings: trybooking.com
Therry Dramatic Society. Arts Theatre. 18 Mar2015
It's hard to go wrong with an Alan Ayckbourn comedy. He's the master of cross-purposes.
Hence, with seasoned director Norm Caddick behind the scenes, Therry's production of Relatively Speaking does all the things it is supposed to do.
It sets the scene with the young lover suspicious of his girlfriend's fidelity when he finds slippers under the bed. Setting off to seek her father's approval to marry her, he blunders merrily in to the wrong country house wherein his pitches are misunderstood by the hapless householder as a quest for the hand of his own wife. Of course it's all frightfully English and everyone is fearfully polite, proper and hospitable. Hence, the young man is well entrenched with the strangers when the girlfriend turns up looking to terminate an affair she has been having with her boss.
Of course, nobody is on the same page, as they say in the classics.
Mayhems of misunderstanding ensue and audience members are forced to hold their sides as they crease up with laughter.
Peter Davies is a very solid Adelaide actor and this role as Philip, the English businessman in his lovely country home, may be his very finest to date. He has all the upper middle class crusty mannerisms and inflections down so precisely that one might almost identify his models.
He has the posture, the gait and even the unassailable sense of entitlement, all of which heightens and absurdity of his position. He steals the play - which is no mean feat when Rhonda Grill is on stage beside him. Grill depicts the gracious woman of the house, the stoic and hospitable wife, flawless in her good manners. Grill plays it to a tee, her comic timing impeccable. Lee Cook embodies Greg, the young romantic seeking out his future family. He's a strong player who establishes a convincing character and a nice presence. Rachel Horbelt is not a perfect piece of casting for the role of Ginny but she works diligently to give the guilty girl lots of reactive innuendo.
The Scene 1 set of the little London flat is pretty dire - but that would seem to be the general idea. Moving to the country, the facade of a darling old brick house dominates the stage, trellis with roses, park bench and patio table and chairs with the garden shed and the rest of the garden implicit on prompt. It is there that Philip retreats in his endless and futile quests for his missing hoe. Lovely soil in that part of the country, you know.
Vincent Eustice with Caddick has done well with this latter set. One could almost move in.
It's clear there has been good team work in this Therry production and, despite seeing it on preview night, it was tickety-boo in all departments - especially the funny bone.
The show should run in very nicely and, for those who like a good laugh, it is just the post Fringe ticket.
Samela Harris
When: 19 to 28 Mar
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Columbia Artists Management, LLC - Tim Fox and Alison Ahart Williams, Kraft-Engel Management - Richard Kraft and Laura Engel. Entertainment Centre. 14 Mar 2015
There is a huge and expectant crowd at the Entertainment Centre for this Festival once-off and Australian premiere, exclusive to Adelaide. It is a night to remember.
Unless you have been living in Woop Woop for the last quarter century, you must have seen at least one Tim Burton film. I had visited the Tim Burton retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and you may have sojourned to Melbourne a few years ago to see the same at Federation Square. Burton is a product of a mundane suburban LA upbringing filled with movie dreaming. The exhibition was chock full of his sketches, ink drawings and water colourings of exotic and macabre characters that became manifest in his movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Mars Attacks! and Beetlejuice. His gothic and ghoulish designs muscled up the superhero genre in two Batman movies, and re-defined Alice in Wonderland. He has made millions and millions of sketches (bet you thought I was going to say millions and millions of $$).
Film-wise, composer Danny Elfman has been right there with him since Pee-wee's Big Adventure for a total of sixteen blockbuster Hollywood movies over twenty-five years - one of the most productive, creative and successful partnerships in show business history. Elfman's haunting, loud, strange and unrelenting compositions are combustible standalone and explosive with Burton's visualisations.
On the night, a gigantic Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri is backed up by the Adelaide Festival Chorus. Overhead is an enormous screen. The format in the first half sees a film announced on the screen, then a few minutes of Burton's illustrations, followed by a few more minutes of film outtakes. Then a screen saver comes on that looks like it was designed by an Aboriginal artist from Utopia though probably was also by Burton. At this point, the music obtains a fresh vibrancy as one's attention is no longer diverted by the visuals. All the same, one longs for some actual synced footage instead of the moving montage.
The second half of the show is more interesting, thanks in part to favourite movies like Batman and Edward Scissorhands, but principally because of guest soloists Bertie Blackman, Sandy Cameron and Charlie Wells. Cameron, dressed provocatively in a leather strapped outfit, burns her violin strings with some awesome stroking, and the nine year old Charlie Wells presumably got the gig because no castrato had the balls to do it.
Oh, gosh, I nearly forgot. Danny Elfman his very self is there in red hair and a purple suit. With theatrical gusto, he reprises some songs he voiced in the Christmas-Hallowe'en mix-up Nightmare Before Christmas. His energy and effervescence is breathtaking. It's sort of like meeting an animated Beethoven, and you wonder - How did you create all this music?
After two standing ovations for our magnificent orchestra and this smorgasbord of compositions, Elfman apologises for not getting to Australia sooner. Maybe there is the making of a new movie there - The Ghost of Don Dunstan! Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 14 Mar
Where: Entertainment Centre
Bookings: Closed