Shandong Acrobatic Troupe. Ozasia Festival. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 6 Sep 2014
If watching a couple of hours of intense acrobatic work; having your ears assaulted by loud drumming; and following a sometimes obscure Chinese folk tale about a man in love with a fox spirit is not your thing, then you were not one of the near capacity audience that was part of this magical experience at South Australia’s largest proscenium arch theatre on Saturday night.
This spectacular production by the Shandong Acrobatic Troupe from China is full of amazing moments that worked on many levels, some subtle, some exploding across the stage and greeted by a never ending series of ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ and applause by the appreciative audience.
The production, in two sections, follows the story of a young man who becomes entangled in a spirit world of ghosts, foxes, immortals and demons. What develops is an epic battle between good and evil. All ends well in the end.
But it’s how the story unfolds that is the real success of this production. The story, itself is only the vehicle for an evening of world class acrobatics by a fifty strong team of very young and older acrobats. By the end of the performance there were few acrobatic elements that hadn’t been showcased: high wire trapeze work; barrel and drum rolling; metal plate twirling; and leaps through hoops that had to be seen to be believed. Even bungy jumping gets a nod. There were no safety nets, just remarkable skill and utmost ensemble co-operation.
And then the acrobatic flying! Breathtaking. Elegant. Sensuous.
As the company’s name implies, acrobatics lies at the centre of this vast production.
Another key element was the sound track. Loud. Very loud. Continuous. Starting with a single booming bell and going through the full gamut of drumming; classical Chinese rhythm; and contemporary Western beats; at times, all melding simultaneously.
A third element was the spectacular light show consisting of pure white bands of light; sudden plunges of the stage picture into blue, purple and red. At times abstract images were played across the entire stage or in one instance, a blurry back projection of figures in a meadow that echoed what was happening on stage.
The costumes, from the white furry outfits of various spirits, the metallic costumes of the demons, to the glittering multi coloured costumes of the finale were everything we, in the West, have come to imagine as ‘Chinese’ theatrical.
The set - the facade of a huge temple surrounded by frames at the edge of the wide Festival Theatre stage; intricate carved pagoda rooms glided on stage as platforms to be danced on.
The storyline moves from dream to nightmare in the second part and some awesome theatrical effects. Smoke. Wind. Snow. Dancing skeletons with fluorescent bones. A huge tree like structure emerges from the temple and at the end of the scene simply folds up and is gone.
The theatrical whole seemed effortlessly contrived to deliver a simple story about a man falling in love with a spirit being. One of those productions that you exit wondering if it had only been ten minutes since lights up and not a two hour full on production.
This was no regimented heavy handed choreographed affair. The enjoyment of the performers was evident right through to the final audience applause. One of the most spectacular nights of entertainment this reviewer has experienced at the Adelaide Festival Centre Theatre.
Martin Christmas
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Therry Dramatic Society. The Arts Theatre. 27 Aug 2014
I once had my own ‘Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll’. I had met this new girlfriend and I was telling her about my Christmases in Canada. My parents would put up a tinsel tree upstairs and a real pine one downstairs and laden them with the traditional decorations. Mum would make a huge Christmas Eve dinner of meatless Polish and Ukrainian foods, and again the next day, a Christmas turkey with all the trimmings. We would have a dozen family members around the table. Christmas morning was busy with loads of people who stayed over ripping open their presents and the radio station playing non-stop Beatles' music. I hadn't been home for Christmas for two years and I asked her to come with me and she couldn't wait.
It was awful. I did not understand the full catastrophe of my Mum's dementia, and there were no people staying over, no opening of presents in the morning, and no big dinners; the radio station didn't even play The Beatles any more. And my girlfriend wondered what the hell I was talking about.
Ray Lawler's 1955 play is of perfect construction, like Arthur Miller's ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘All My Sons’. A family - of sorts in this case - has expectations of continuing fortune, but there is a tragic flaw in the highly respected head of the household that is dramatically revealed and leads to a restructure of the relationships and unforeseen outcomes. The plays are also about memories and nostalgia and what meaning we assign to them.
Director Jude Hines does a fabulous job bringing this classic on stage. The hard yakka of manual cane cutting is brought to the fore by showing segments of the 1948 production of ‘The Cane Cutters’ between the scenes. Her evenly strong cast play up the vernacular to delight the audience. Maxine Grubel and Allison Scharber foil beautifully as the dreamer and the realist. Rodney Hutton and Glen Christie as the protagonist and his sidekick evoke the same blokey mateship as in the film of the real deal cane cutters. Christie is wonderful as the talkative and sometimes delightfully drunk persuader. Penni Hamilton-Smith was born to play Emma Leech and made the most of Leech's wisdom and ways. Eleanor Kay and Jonathan Johnston had smaller roles that you wish were bigger.
The whole shebang was presented in style by Nick Spottiswoode's set, and costumes and looks by Ian Rigney and Heather Beasley.
Yes, this reverential production made me reflect on my own "Doll" moment and is a great insight into how little we are aware of our delusions. A great play well done.
David Grybowski
When: 21 to 30 Aug
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: venuetix
Independent Theatre Company. Space Theatre. 22 Aug 2014
It's a captivating thought, a meeting between the people who inspired two of the world's great children's stories - Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.
John Logan has pondered such an encounter and extrapolated it into a philosophic fantasy piece. How big an influence on their lives has been the burden of being famous literary characters?
His narrative device comes in the form of Alice selling an original manuscript when things become tight in her latter years while Peter has become a publisher, quite interested in extracting a memoir from Alice. They meet in London and compare notes as each is about to present a literary speech and, through the magic of Logan's theatricality, their reflections on life's experience evoke both the classic book versions of themselves as well as characters pivotal to their actuality.
Fact and imagination play together upon a rather handsome set whence a bookshop back room opens out into a garden of Wonderland and Neverland. Very clever design by David Roach with lovely artwork by Brian Budgen.
Logan's play, which had its first airing in London last year, is densely conversational and, in its early phases from the fairly negative perspectives of Peter Llewelyn Davies as portrayed by Will Cox, it has a sonorous ring. Noted Adelaide actress, Pam O'Grady, plays Alice Liddell Hargreaves as an old lady but therein she brings to life not only a might of perchance overwritten dialogue but lifts the production and the enduring spirit of old Alice with the gift of sparkling eyes. For her, impecuniousness is offset by a wealth of memory. Peter's experience of inherited celebrity has been more bruising. Research by literary historians in ensuing years throws paedophilia into the mix and there are hints at this shadow in the protagonists' pasts.
Ben Francis bounces bare-footed as the fictional Peter Pan and enchanting Emma Bleby embodies the Alice in blue we all know and love. The author, Lewis Carroll, otherwise known as Rev Charles Dodgson is nicely captured by Domenic Panuccio and David Roach, as ever, gives a consummate performance, in this case as the other author, J.M. Barrie. Finally, Laurence Croft effectively fills the bill as three further characters crucial to the lives of Peter and Alice.
In the end of the day, it is a sad play.
At about 90 minutes without interval, it hits its straps towards the end when there is a little more fire in the script and in the bellies of the characters.
John Logan has researched his subject well and while everyone knows of Peter and Alice, the embellishments and complexities of their lives as non-fiction have touched us little. So the whole meditation is a nice juicy idea which needs just a spark of further pace to give it the richness it deserves.
Samela Harris
When: 21 to 30 Aug
Where: The Space Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Meryl Tankard. Adelaide Festival Centre. Dunstan Playhouse. 20 Aug 2014
Meryl Tankard is best known to Adelaide audiences for her works as Creative Director of the Australian Dance Theatre in the 1990s. During this time, she devised such memorable dances as Furioso, Aurora and Possessed. I still have the haunting Aurora poster of a little girl dressed in a fairy costume holding a wand hanging on my wall. Yet Adelaide was but a stop in a long, productive and awarded international career propelled by a peripatetic life as mobile as her childhood as an army brat (born in Darwin, her father was in the RAAF).
The Oracle is a love letter to Paul White and has been touring since 2009 - I suppose Tankard was in no rush to bring it to Adelaide. White has had a no less, albeit shorter, career performing, devising, choreographing and collaborating in dance, and has rubbed up against Tankard in the past. Set somewhat to Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, White is the sole performer in Tankard's version of this famous ballet and orchestral piece first performed in Paris in 1913 by the Ballets Russes and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky.
Armed as I was with only the knowledge that the original 1913 production was about - briefly, as the title suggests - the rites of passage with a sinister sacrificial dance thrown in, and that this production is entitled The Oracle, I could make no sensible interpretation of the narrative except my own imprint. And it didn't matter because...
...Paul White is a force of nature. Tankard, with her designers, Régis Lansac and Ben Hughes, chose a dark stage on which to highlight every sinew of White's impressive physique. Or as my father would say, "He's built like a brick shit house." And there was a lot on show. When he wasn't simply in his underdaks, he wore nothing whatsoever. His ample strength contributed to a gymnastic performance, his body moving fluidly over the music's complexity, athletics convolved with ballet with modern dance. Tankard often deliberately slowed the action so your eyes may feast.
She also made you wait. The show opened with a kaleidoscope moving image of Paul White's appendages set to various sounds and chords, and the audience eagerly anticipated the real thing.
The Oracle is an entrancing anatomical celebration of the body beautiful, gracefully in perpetual motion.
David Grybowski
When: 20 to 23 Aug
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Patch Theatre. The Odeon Theatre. 9 Aug 2014
"In the Jingle Jangle Jungle on a wet and windy day, Four little friends found a cosy place to play. Moose had marvellous antlers, and Lion, a golden mane. Zebra had fantastic stripes and Sheep . . . well, Sheep was plain."
Patch Theatre's 'Cranky Bear' adapts Nick Bland's much-loved children's book 'The Very Cranky Bear' to the stage. The picture book is a simple but sweet story of four friends – Moose, Lion, Zebra and Sheep – and what happens when they seek shelter in a cave of a rainy day. Each attempt to cheer up the cave's very cranky resident, but it's the quiet and thoughtful Sheep who wins him over.
The fantastic cast of Tim Overton (Zebra/Bear), Jude Henshall (Lion/Sheep) and Stephen Sheehan (Moose) do a stellar job bringing each character and their personalities to life. In particular, Sheehan and Henshall (as Sheep) are wonderfully funny and endearing. The catchy closing dance number is a lot of fun and leaves the audience on an upbeat note.
Unfortunately, the adaption isn't as impressive. The play, drawn out over 6 scenes, is based a little too loosely on the book and the story is too often side-tracked by interludes and out-of-story dialog.
Despite the poignancy of Bear and Sheep in the story, these characters feature too infrequently and the ultimate gift from Sheep to Bear feels like an afterthought rushed into the last scene. The persistent questioning of 'When is the Cranky Bear coming?' from the girl behind me summed up how we were all feeling.
The musical numbers are fun but the souped-up "cave" (equipped with neon lights and streamer curtain) felt misplaced.
The costuming for Zebra, Lion, Moose and in particular Sheep is simple but clever. Whilst this simplicity works perfectly for the four friends, the Bear, when he finally appeared, was underwhelming. This character needed to appear bigger, more imposing and generally more bear-like.
Patch Theatre Company are a wonderful company making theatre for children that delights and encourages creativity and imagination. This is a fun and professional production with a fantastic cast, but unfortunately it doesn't do the story justice.
Nicole Russo
When: 9 to 23 Aug
Where: The Odeon Theatre, Norwood
Bookings: Sold Out