Adelaide Festival. Elizabeth Streb & Streb Extreme Action. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 16 Mar 2024
Time Machine is physical theatre/circus with a difference. It is not just about acrobatics and subjecting the human body to extreme manoeuvres. It is also about blurring the boundaries between apparatus and body, so that the body not only uses apparatus but also becomes it at other times. The performers at times become hinges, levers, fulcrums, surfaces, and other geometrical and physical forms, and interact with other performers who use these anthropomorphic apparatuses to bounce off (literally) and interact with.
The visionary behind the mayhem is the legendary Elizabeth Streb and her company Streb Extreme Action. She is the creative behind the human circus acts that were part of the lead up to the London 2012 summer Olympics, including abseiling the London City Hall building, and ‘inhabiting’ the spokes of the London Eye! She has been producing her brand of ‘circus theatre’ (it really defies nomenclature) for four decades, and Time Machine comprises significant excerpts from a number of her shows. In a way, it is a journey through time and her artistic output. But. this could be the Achilles heel of Time Machine – it is too episodic and lacks a narrative. Even though many of the excerpts are exciting, the whole thing becomes a ‘best of’ and invariably some acts are more impressive than others. A narrative to stitch the whole thing together would have given context to the individual excerpts and prevented unnecessary comparison between them.
There is great comedy in the show, and there are nods to the antics of the likes of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The music and sound effects that underscore the performance characterises the punishment the performers subject their bodies to. The staging is bright with stunningly fluorescent primary colours that in some ways trivialise the danger of the various machines the performers use. It looks like a child’s playground, and the audience actually has lots of children in it and they are whooping with delight (including many adults who have no qualms in exercising their inner child as well!).
Two segments stand out in this reviewer’s mind. One featured two very large sheets of wood panelling that the performers manoeuvred around the acting surface variously inhabiting every available location. Mathematicians might say the panelling was used to tesselate the surface. As the panels were positioned and then allowed to fall, the performers moved in, around and between them in a hectic choreographed routine that had pace, grace, style, and precision.
The other standout segment featured a large open box in which a solo performer was ‘trapped’ and was feverishly trying to escape. She contorted her body and levered and propelled it around the box with purpose, anguish, frustration, and beauty. The audience was willing her to escape!
Time Machine is a fabulous display of strong and agile human bodies doing things that are strangely beautiful and machine-like, almost robotic, but infused with deep feeling.
Kym Clayton
When: 14 to 17 Mar
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 16 Mar 2024
Berliners is a gentle absurdist comedy about two guys (Nick and Tom) from vastly different backgrounds and contexts who strike up a romantic relationship that was never meant to blossom. But it did, because of unlikely events, and it eventually unravelled because it was based on untruths promulgated by Nick that would never have been exposed under normal circumstances.
The time is 1989 – the time the berlin Wall came down. Nick lives in an apartment close to the wall in West Germany, and Tom lives ‘through the wall on the other side’ in his apartment in East Germany. They are introduced by accident – a letter was delivered to the wrong apartment – and they start talking to and getting to know each other. They flirt, but then down comes the wall and they meet face to face and their life together begins. Before the wall came down, Nick and Tom were both journalists of sorts: Nick a second-rate video journalist, and Tom the anchor for a communist propaganda TV show. After the wall comes down, their working lives change dramatically, and Nick’s untruths force him down a path he would rather not. Eventually Nick and Tom split, with Tom moving to the USA and Nick remaining behind in Germany. Weird political events happen as fascinating alternate history unfolds, and they are reunited but don’t re-establish their relationship.
The narrative is humorous, with numerous puns and sideswipes at world politics, ideologies, and personalities. It is all firmly tongue-in-cheek, but there’s likely too much going on. The story line becomes dense and increasingly absurdist with layers and layers of detail that flit by with great speed. (The show is around 80 minutes long, which is probably 15 minutes longer than it needs to be. There is material that could be cut, such as an instance of audience participation with a jar of sauerkraut that added little.)
Sydney-sider actor/playwrights Nick Harriott and Tom Waddell – they play characters of the same name – have perfect faces for absurdist comedy: dead pan, sincere, never smirking, but always a glint in their eye that suggests they could easily burst out laughing. Waddell frequently spoke in a conversational style and at a conversational volume across stage, which rendered him almost inaudible at times. Some members of the audience thought the play was the best thing since sliced bread was invented and whooped and shrieked but Harriott and Waddell took it in in their stride.
The set was clever: dozens and dozens of empty milk crates stacked to form the Berlin Wall, walls in their apartments, and shelves and furniture. They were easily able to be moved to simulate the Wall coming down, and when it ….. (oops, almost a spoiler!). Lighting and sound was simple but effective, indicative of thoughtful design.
This is a fun show, and Harriott and Waddell have fertile comedic minds. Hopefully their alternate takes on history will remain in the annals of fiction, but they give pause for careful thought.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 to 16 Mar
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Dance North. Space Theatre. 14 Mar 2024
Waiting in an overheated foyer for a delayed performance can dampen the spirits somewhat, but it doesn’t take long to lose the tension and go with the flow; go wayfinding. ‘Why are there white balloons on intermittent seats?’ wonders the audience as we find our way to our seats. But they’re not balloons, they’re weighty globes that quietly hum and emit the palest light. On the dimly lit stage, we can just see the shape of a figure, also holding one of these globes.
Suddenly, an explosion of light, sound and movement, and we’re off!
Wayfinder has played to Brisbane, Sydney and Perth Festivals and now it’s Adelaide’s turn. And what a turn it is. The eight dancers, dressed in myriad rainbow colours, put on a fusion of contemporary dance, hip hop and acrobatics with the most wonderful collaboration of light and sound to be seen on stage for some time. Choreographers Kyle Page and Amber Haines have not so much presented a narrative here as a series of conjoined vignettes, and their partnership with visual designer Hirome Tango (set and costumes), sound artist Byron J Scullion and lighting designer Niklas Pajanti has made for a production that is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.
It's so wonderful to see colour again; it’s like landing in Oz after the sepia tones of Kansas. And it’s not just the costumes; the frenetic and affirming opening gives way to an avalanche of coloured woven woollen threads falling from the sky, which soon form a motif for the piece, returning again and again. And when I say avalanche, I don’t use the term loosely. The bespoke inflated stage (appearing like an extremely large camping mattress) is literally covered in the brightly woven rope strands. These strands were apparently woven by a large volunteer cohort around Townsville and give a whole new perspective to the term ‘yarning’.
And the white globes? You hear the music before you realise it’s coming from your lap where you’re nestling this object. And the one next to you is making a different sound, and the harmonic chorus fills the room; the globes glow brighter and brighter, almost as bright as the smiles of the audience.
The stage becomes more inflated, and dancers bounce from corner to corner; a mesmerising ballet of percussive arms morphs into more colour, more sound and a second inflated stage cum wall (at one point what appears to be the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and oh my, smiles from the dancers! The whirling cacophony of coloured choreography seems sometimes to have faltered, to have lost focus, to be slightly out of sync; then the synergy kicks in and the tightly synced dancers are exactly where they should be, when they should be. Wayfinding indeed.
There’s no point singling out highlights from this production; this is a collaborative effort from start to finish, and everyone is a star. Wayfinder is a glutinous feast for the eyes and ears; a journey of light, colour and sound. We are the richer for being navigated here by Dance North.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 15 to 17 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Mio Rau/NT Gent & MST. Dunstan Playhouse. 15 Mar 2024
Implanting Sophocles' great tragedy of Antigone, she who some people call the first feminist, upon the modern global tragedy of the cruel displacement of the Amazonian indigenes draws a long bow.
For Swiss writer and director, Milo Rau, it completes a trilogy of ancient myths preceded by Orestes in Mosul and his Jesus play, The New Gospel.
It is as well to understand that Rau is known as a “great disrupter” in the scheme of modern theatre. He cares for shock factors and grim themes. Herein, man’s inhumanity to man is depicted in the roughshod domination of the Amazonian indigenes by the male forces of greed and ever-expansive capitalist exploitation of resources.
Like feisty Antigone, little women of an embattled Brazilian village world seek to stand up: landless workers; valiant activists; modern Davids against today’s capitalist Goliaths.
The script involves a great deal of political explanation, fairly heavy-duty didacticism with the assumption that an audience begins with no knowledge. Indeed, in Rau’s quasi Brechtian anti-theatre style, there evolve descriptions of how and why, as theatre-makers, the troupe chose its Brazilian locations. These locations which become familiar to the audience thanks to huge video screens which scroll down to bring the backdrop world to life on the stage as a documentary simulcast. This is absolutely brilliant, excellently synchronised with the action on stage, so much so that the actors sometimes seem to be a part of the projected images. They are, of course, right there in those images, insofar as the two worlds, stage and screen, are married in the narrative as the shatteringly terrible Brazilian massacre is re-enacted in your face. It is Rau ensuring that the audience is appalled by the immediacy of a far-away horror story. The story is told in Portuguese, Dutch and Tucano with English surtitles high onstage.
The arrival of the covid pandemic is included, rather cleverly describing that eerie calm we all felt in the centre of its storm. It is interesting contexualisation.
There are four performers onstage. Pablo Castella is both actor and musical accompanist and his soundscape flows through the production. Frederico Araujo is principal, an elegance of a human being who can transition from hysteria to fatalism in a trice. Janne Desmet and Joel Happel are onstage based around a table upon which sit ample supplies of bottled water and perchance assorted props. Costume and character changes are performed there.
With the ancient Greek theme prevailing, the acting style veers to anti-naturalistic, perchance at times to ham.
On occasion, performance itself is doubled when, for instance, the troupe performs Antigone on screen for the indigenes in a village pavilion in the depths of the Amazon while also performing it live onstage in Adelaide. Not always exactly the same cast members. Some are still in Brazil. The Adelaide season has the aforementioned four. The transitions of these places and themes are interesting and the documentary visit to the indigenous community makes for quite a cultural revelation.
The heartlessness of ancient Greek rules plays into the ruthlessness of contemporary land-grabbers and, onstage, the mesmerising Araujo descends into a strenuous lather of desperation upon the carpet of pseudo earth. It is among several moments of searing agony. But, there also are times when the stage action slows to a crawl of attenuated emphasis, a challenging Rau device.
Milo Rau’s Antigone in the Amazon creates a powerful night in the theatre. Not that it tells us anything new. The greatest monster on earth is man. Man’s enemy is man. The planet’s enemy is man.
So it was in ancient Greece and so it is today.
Dammit.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 17 Mar
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Australian Dance Theatre. Odeon Theatre. Choreography: Daniel Riley. 13 Mar 2024
An opening night invited set. A premiere of a new work. The 60th year of Australia’s longest running contemporary dance ensemble to be celebrated and an Arts Minister and also the company’s founder in attendance. There was much to celebrate.
As Daniel Riley explained to the full house, Marrow was conceived and delivered as a response to the ‘No’ vote against the Voice to Parliament referendum of last year. Riley is a Wiradjuri man and the title, then, suggests a deep-seated response, as in ‘I feel it in my marrow’… the welcome from Major Moogy Sumner sets a scene of great importance, and of reconciliation, but make no mistake, Marrow is a piece of dance which lays bare the pain and the rejection, a legacy of a lifetime yet just on six months ago. The wounds are fresh, the dance shot through with symbolism, a hunting motif draws a picture of a people who were tracked down and persecuted, or slaughtered.
There is an element of the furtive about the work. There is no bright sunlight of the Australian bush; there are shadows and shapes and faces hinted out as figures move and writhe. What may have been a thunderstorm reveals itself as the drumroll of gunfire. The lighting is for the most part subdued, by design (Matthew Adey) and intent, though at one moment a sharply piercing white pinspot transfixes the audience. If it were intended to be disconcerting, it succeeded. There is smoke; a great deal of smoke which seems more funerary than celebration. This is a work of darkness, and in places of foul deeds. A bolt of cloth is rolled and folded to approximate a body, trussed with cable ties, then hauled aloft. It is a striking moment, a commentary on the cruelty which continues to this day. It is not visceral, and oddly, it is less than emotional for the audience, though it’s message – writ large – is crystal clear.
My problem, then, is that there is a confusion in the contributions of dance, of lighting, and of sound, and it begins with the score, which is the most striking and leading aspect of the whole work. Broadly described as techno with an industrial bent, James Howard’s score guides the dance experience, adding flavour and style and rather dominating proceedings. Without it I would have been lost; there is a scene where the techno turns to water, the babbling of water a beautifully realised transition. But at some of the most important points it dominates what is still at heart a piece of contemporary dance. To my mind the dancers – there are six of them, Sebastian Geilings, Brianna Kell, Zachary Lopez, Karra Nam, Patrick O’Luanaigh and Zoe Wozniak – were excellent, both individually and as a corps, yet they faced a difficult task in making themselves the focal point. The stage was dim (I might say dulled) by lighting, by smoke, by surrounding drapes, and the dancers themselves dressed in what may have been sackcloth.
Only in the final scene, when the side panels of the stage are torn down to let the light flood in, do we see what – surely – was a deliberate restoring of our senses. Marrow is an important piece of work, but a watershed? Perhaps not.
Alex Wheaton
When: 13 to 17 Mar
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au