Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Writer’s Week. Adelaide Town Hall. 1 Mar 2023
Cream rises to the top, and so has Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL HonFBA. He is an esteemed and decorated writer, and has written for film, radio, television, and the stage. It is theatre where he shines most brightly (e.g. Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, Arcadia, and most recently, Leopoldstadt).
Stoppard has quite an unordinary personal history. In brief, he was born Tomáš Sträussler in Czechoslovakia, and fled the Nazis with his family to Singapore, and thence to India with his mother and brother. Stoppard never saw his father again, who stayed behind and perished during the war. Stoppard was schooled in Darjeeling, and subsequently in England following his mother’s marriage to British army major Kenneth Stoppard, from where he derived his new surname and anglicised first name. After leaving school at age 17 – he never went to university – he became a journalist and wrote drama reviews amongst other things, which led him eventually to becoming a playwright. He has been married three times and has four children, including the stage and screen actor Ed Stoppard.
Stoppard has been influenced in his formative years by world events, and the Writer’s Week festival has also been impacted by the views some of its featured participants have about contemporary world events. The inclusion of Palestinian American Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd in the program has ignited passionate condemnation because of the preposterous views they hold, such as Abulhawa holding that Ukraine is itself responsible for the current war! There have even been calls for Louise Adler, the director of Writer’s Week, to resign for allowing such writers to have a platform to preach their vitriol.
The evening commenced with a Welcome from Premier Peter Malinauskas whose government has been dragged into the controversy. In his speech he noted that politicians should not lurch to censoring free speech thereby deciding “what is culturally appropriate”. Rather, he opined, the Festival should be about listening to diverse opinions, even unpopular ones, and then challenging them with a view to changing them. Stoppard once said: “I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.” Malinauskas and countless others would believe that the ideas and words of Abulhawa and El-Kurd are not ‘the right ones’, but others do. The fight rages on, and there is always unfinished work for word warriors.
In 2013, knowing that several writers were circling him to write his biography, Stoppard pre-empted them and invited Dame Hermione Lee to do the job. Who better? The result has been described as rigorous and affectionate.
The biography – Tom Stoppard: A Life – was published in 2020, and this is the connection to Adelaide Writer’s Week.
Louise Adler, Director of Writer’s Week, has pulled off a coup: she arranged for Dame Hermione Lee and Sir Tom Stoppard to be interviewed about the biography by Professor Glyn Davis AC, Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (who apparently is a Stoppard ‘aficionado’), and for it to be filmed. The film was shown at last night’s Writer’s Week event and was followed by a live conversation between Stoppard (appearing via livestream from London via his wife’s smartphone!), the internationally acclaimed Australian-British playwright Suzie Miller (Prima Facie – think Jodie Comer in the stunning recent London West End production), and New Zealand-Australian multi award-winning theatre director Simon Phillips, with Glyn Davis ‘in the chair’.
The filmed interview focussed on the process of the creation of the biography and was full of insights into Stoppard’s psyche. It also gave a glimpse of the inner workings of the mind of a top notch biographer. It was intriguing.
The conversation focussed on the relationship between a playwright and the director. With two top notch playwrights and a first rate director ‘on the couch’, the discussion was brimming with insightful perceptions, rib-tickling humour, and profundity. At one point Stoppard became so absorbed in responding to a probing question from Davis that he lost his way and from behind the wisping smoke from his cigarette he concluded with “But I don’t really remember the question”! The audience lapped it up.
Writer’s Week is so important (and entertaining!). Try to take in an event or two!
Kym Clayton
When: 1 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Stevprodukt & The Garage International. 1 Mar 2023
The Camino de Santiago comprises long-distance pilgrimage walks through Spain. Originally they were pilgrims’ ways to the remains of the apostle St James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, but now, invariably, they are walked by people from the world over working through their issues and seeking renewal. Middle-aged Aussie Steve Wilson is one of those and he has lovingly restored his adventures with a lively recollection and slide presentation. And like I hear from everyone else I’ve spoken to who have made tracks on the Camino, the scenery, the food, the walking, the challenge and especially the camaraderie of fellow travelers does indeed have rejuvenating powers.
Steve begins at the beginning with a few things gone haywire in his life and chooses trekking the Camino as the circuit breaker. He conveys the simple pleasures of a welcome hot coffee or a sandwich or finally finding a bunk to flop in. Dinners with new and re-met acquaintances look convivial and fun with friendship jumping out of the photos. Beach swims and rainstorms and wrong ways and blisters. Tapas and paella and glasses brimming with cheap but delicious red wine. Steve makes life-long mates. A few tips: don’t bunk next to the way to the loo, take stuff to salve your feet, and always say yes to an invitation.
Steve’s initial delivery was diminished by rehearsed excitement. He wasn’t authentic and he isn’t an actor, so who was he? But as the trail wore on, Steve easily revealed his good-natured soul, finding the best in any situation or person. The more intimate the friendship experience, the more interesting he got.
The photos are just happy snaps and each day’s travel is introduced with a plainly lettered slide stating Day 5 or whatever, the destination and kilometres. These title slides would benefit from a bit of spicing up. Plus 20 km days were typical, and two were over 50 km! I found this astonishing but Steve says you do what is right for you on the Camino. One fellow traveler had a colostomy bag and there were copious crap knees. Some took taxis over the boring bits.
Gentle Steve effectively and seductively takes you right along on the trail with him. If you’ve done the walk, you’ll love the talk. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? Steve will show you the way of St James.
David Grybowski
When: 28 Feb to 5 Mar
Where: The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★
Adelaide Fringe. Umbrella Works Inc. The Lark at Gluttony. 1 Mar 2023
As the title suggests, Pupperotica: 7 Heavenly Sins is a puppet show in which the puppets bang on (er, yes, pun intended!) about erotica, sex, and smut. They are very, very naughty and their handlers, Keren Schlink and Josh Walker, have a rugged time keeping them in check.
The show is a SA première, and the Perth-based production company –Umbrella Works Inc – is well known in Western Australia – where previous shows (such as Pupperotica: Sex-capades) have won awards at Perth’s Fringe World Festival. However, Pupperotica: 7 Heavenly Sins has a way to go before it achieves similar success here at the Adelaide Fringe.
There is no doubting the skill and passion of Schlink (who wrote the script) and Josh Walker. As puppeteers they know what they are doing and they do it well. One finds oneself ignoring them and focussing on the puppets, which is as it should be. What is in doubt is the overall quality of the script, which is like the curate’s egg – it has good bits and not-so-good bits. The good bits include a spiel about how sex in all its forms is dealt with in the Bible. Schlink’s research is impressive. She unearths numerous biblical verses about sex and sexuality and then turns them all on their heads with contradictory statements. Such fun!
Most segments in the performance are essentially monologues, with a puppet waxing eloquently about something. On a few occasions several puppets go head to head, and the dialogue and visual impact is much funnier, but for the most part the whole thing comes across as a series of mini lectures.
Puppetry is often used to tear down barriers and taboos. It can allow audiences to ponder things they wouldn’t normally talk about or laugh at in ‘polite company’. Puppets allow us to shelter behind the unreality of what’s in front of us. For this to be effective, the puppets have to have something interesting, engaging and funny to talk about, which was not always the case tonight, and they need to be vibrant, colourful, brash, and bold – which they were.
The show needs more polish.
Kym Clayton
When: 1 to 5 Mar
Where: The Lark at Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Token Events. Rhino Room – Drama Llama. 1 Mar 2023
Little Victories? It’ll take a while to understand the why, what and where Hamilton is going with this show and its title, but it’s totally worth it.
Hamilton, a man who just turned 50, in the midst of an age of intense, totally insane global and local dislocation found there’s loads to laugh about. All of it hilariously dark except, in the eyes of right wing Christian fundamentalists. Their happy place has arrived.
Hamilton regales his audience with tales great and small of his shambolic Covid pandemic and post pandemic life experiences with artful throwbacks to childhood.
We’re sucked into a cyclone of beautifully crafted, hysterically funny anecdotes and observations of just how mad 21st Century life has turned out to be (so far). The observations reverberate within us all with a universal ‘that’s me’ sentiment. We roll on with Hamilton, united as one in sympathy and cheery laughter, even at the darkest most morbid tale.
Hamilton attempts with gusto to articulate the total ‘what the actual?’ zeitgeist of this improbable age. It seems impossible. Yet he does it with tales of friendships ended over a YouTube Duck Marathon, Yoko Ono and the most stupid ordinary way Covid itself creates friendship stress.
Where are these victories the title promises?
They’re right there in our face. They are our laughter and one final punch line story summing up an hour of seemingly discombobulated madness, hiding a simple truth.
David O’Brien
When: 28 Feb to 4 Mar
Where: Rhino Room – Drama Llama
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Art Gallery of South Australia in association with Adelaide Festival. 2 Mar 2023
This is a blockbuster exhibition not to be missed! Art Gallery of South Australia’s curator Julie Robinson has spent ten years working this one out. Incredibly, AGSA has a collection of 45 Warhol photographs – all of which are on display together for the first time. Julie has augmented this with more than 200 additional photographs and their derivative artworks garnered from around the world from private and public collections.
Warhol is as quotable as Winston Churchill. “The idea is not to live forever; it is to create something that will.” Julie chronologically guides you through the Warhol oeuvre - room by room. The first gallery is lined with silver paper to replicate the 1st Factory – the Silver Factory. Silver is also emblematic of chemical photo development. In 1965, Nat Finkelstein took a snap of Warhol and Bob Dylan with the famous full-size Elvis (1963) in the background. Warhol gave the painting to Dylan who strapped it to the roof of his car.
Sometime later, he traded it with his manager for a sofa! The exhibit name plates are full of titillating minutiae and all are to be thoroughly read. Campbell soup cans (1968) aren’t far away, nor a polyptych of brightly coloured and repeated screen prints on paper - Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) (1967). Where possible, Julie establishes the creative chain – available for viewing are the photos from which the screen prints were derived.
“My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous. It’s being at the right place at the wrong time.” There are numerous galleries of photo’d celebrities. The famous wanted to rub shoulders with the famous artist. He would have film stars do “screen tests.” Warhol said if I could have another face, it would be that of Debbie Harris of Blondie fame. You will also see Sylvester Stallone, Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. He was a fantastic collaborator experimenting with new photography technology and its derivative art forms, so also on display are many photos of himself. One of his protégés was Christopher Makos, who shot the famous Altered Image portfolio (1981) of Warhol dressed in men’s shirt, tie and jeans, but sporting a gorgeous blond wig and make-up. Makos shot many portraits of Warhol hanging out with the glitterati at Studio 54 – Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and the fashion designer Halton. Makos recalls, “Andy met Salvador Dali at a restaurant in New York and he gave him a small painting. Dali reciprocated with a medium-sized, clear plastic bag full of trash from his studio, as a joke. Andy’s feelings were hurt.”
But you don’t have to just read what Christopher Makos wrote, you can ask him yourself. He’s here! Courtesy of the exhibition. You can attend, for a small charge, a conversation between Makos and Julie Robinson on 3 March.
“I think everybody should be a machine.” This quote is often associated with Warhol’s fascination of the machinery of the camera and the repeatability of screen printing and the repetitive imagery of the famous. There is a whole wall of Warhol self-portraits taken with a Polaroid camera.
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Warhol made this prediction in 1968, well before the explosion of electronic social media and digital photography, so you can posit that he thought this was going to happen anyways with just magazines, artwork and interviews. What would he think now?
There is Australian connection. Henry Gillespie was introduced to Warhol in the early 1980s and Warhol asked him to sit for a portrait. He is presented clean-cut and looking over his shoulder dressed in suit and tie. Gillespie was the Australian editor for Warhols’ Interview magazine and he paid him with his portrait. There were three others in the set which were recovered from Warhol’s studio after his death. All four are reunited in this exhibition. If you want to know more about this, you can ask Henry. He’s here, too! And for a small fee, you can hear Henry in conversation with Julie Robinson on 5 May.
The photos and artwork continue right to the end when Warhol succumbed to complications during surgery in New York on 22 February 1987. In 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million.
At the media launch, Christopher Makow offered many insights. He said both he and Warhol went to Catholic schools and that’s where they got their work ethic. Warhol wanted to make art for everybody. Mission accomplished.
This exhibition was created here in South Australia and is an Australian exclusive. Makow opined that there has never been such an extensive and intelligently curated exhibition of Warhol et al photography and its artistic derivatives. He said this is a show worthy of Paris, New York and London. An exceptional, brilliantly curated display of a fantastic collection. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 3 Mar to 14 May
Where: Art Gallery of South Australia
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au