Australian Dance Theatre. Dunstan Playhouse. 22 Sep 2022
Plastic white chairs. They adorn off stage proper on audience level. Then there is, largely unnoticed as the audience take their seats, the striking figure of Jada Narkle seated on stage. She’s introspectively considering the floor. Her fingers trace it. She leaves the space. She returns to it, sitting and tracing the floor with her fingers. Considering her surroundings, framed by a wall of metallic tarp stretched over a large wheeled mobile, balanced against a black circle on floor centre stage.
These eerie, unnoticed, almost lost opening moments are crucial to grasping the multilayered, intensely intelligent, profoundly frenetic, yet subtle work that Savage is.
Dean Cross’s set and costumes offer up delicately layered symbology bolstering Daniel Riley’s choreography. The earthy red ochre of Jada Narkle’s slit, sleeveless, light fabric dress against the black circle and ochre-lit stage point loudly to a core consideration of indigenous issues. These elements ground the production conceptually.
The red ochre appears in part on street clothes worn by the ensemble. Clothes denoting the underclass. People who battle. People who fight over ideas, themselves and the chairs. James Howard’s soundscape is hard edged, sonic, thrilling, abrasive then melodious techno. Perfectly suited to a production focussing on battling ideas, on holding onto a spot in the world.
How truly savage is this battle. Those chairs also dance. They are viciously hurled across the stage, stacked, sat on, throw off their occupants, claimed, climbed on, passed over and around by the dancers.
All the while, the battle is being reframed in perspective. Many a time, two large mobile mesh wire fences sweep the stage forcing dancers to move, swooping over them and changing the tableaux onstage. The ‘heroic’ becomes brutal subjugation. ‘Success’ becomes obliteration. Riley’s visual manipulation, construction of depth of field, and imagery is superb.
Stylistically, Riley’s choreography is richly rough. It is down and dirty, yet simultaneously silky smooth. Brutality blends with this smoothness of physical competition between the ensemble. Gesture is widely used to connote the lure of come hither, to push and shove and pull, to challenge. There’s no mucking around with meaning here.
Savage is a mighty fine introduction to a new ADT era under Daniel Riley. The man is a heady thinker as was his predecessor Garry Stewart. Riley’s thinking in Savage suggests an interest in exploring deeply polemical issues through dance. That is to be welcomed.
David O’Brien
When: 21 to 25 Sep
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 17 Sep 2022
Playwright Debra Oswald has described Sweet Road as a road movie on stage. And so it is.
In a beautifully mounted production directed by Eric Strauts for The Rep, it is a charming piece of Australiana which, in itself, is a fresh and nourishing thing. Contemporary Australian theatre is thin on the ground. In this case, it is literally ground - the red heart of the country: desert plains, salt lakes, remote roads, river floods, and tough little country towns.
The stage is dominated by a straight country road ramped upwards to go on into the horizon forever. It is flanked by screens on which are projected art abstracts of the great Australian nothingness or slides of outback road houses or a caravan park. Those locations are occupied by performances on two dais stages. On ground level front-of-stage, car seats are trucked on and off, a bit noisily, to show the travellers within their vehicles. The Rep has managed to source different car seats for the assorted cars - from plush 4WD to old bomb with bench seats; one of many careful design details.
Among the occupants' various stories is that of Jo, (Cheryl Douglas), a shocked and embittered wife on the run after witnessing her husband’s infidelity as she is organising their 20th wedding anniversary. She befriends an ingenuous, selfie-taking hitchhiker (Sailor Tyler), who is on a quest to find her boyfriend up on a FIFO location. Jo subsequently hooks up with poor old Michael (Damien White) who is also on the run from grief, working as an outback soft drinks deliverer.
Then there is stressed mum Carla (Gabrielle Douglas) who, with two kids and the brown dog, are accompanying her well-intentioned, hyperactive, no-hoper husband Andy (Jackson Barnard) on a trip from Coober Pedy to somewhere in the green north where he believes life will be good. Their old bomb breaks down here and there, the country copper (Ash Merriel) wants to defect it, and they end up in a caravan park where recently widowed Frank (Malcolm Walton) is listlessly trying to complete the grand road trip he had planned with his wife.
The interactions of the travellers advance what are quite interesting and at times touching and dramatic narratives. Indeed, there is wonderful Aussie grist to the story mill which is played out in cinematic-style scenes. There are some beautifully committed performances and the set is award-worthy. It has all the makings of a five-star show, but the play needs tightening by a strong dramatic screwdriver. It wallows and reiterates here and there and, for all the happenings of its many characters and their adventures, it is ironic that what it lacks is pace.
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Co-Opera. Burnside Ballroom. 17 Sep 2022
The storyline of Puccini’s short comic opera Gianni Schicchi – it comes in at around one-hour – is based on an episode from Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and this production by Co-Opera is brim full of fun and fine singing.
Gianni Schicchi follows the machinations of members of the Florentine old-money Donati family as they whip themselves into a fury upon discovering that the estate of Buoso Donati, their recently deceased wealthy relative, has been bequeathed to the church and not to them. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and very quickly Gianni Schicchi is called upon to attend the family and offer a ‘solution’. He suggests falsifying the will. This is a risky enterprise, and perpetrators will be punished by exile and amputation of the right hand if found out! Who is Schicchi? Well, he’s a brash and cunning chancer who is the father of the beautiful and virtuous Lauretta who is desperately in love with the fervent and handsome Rinuccio who is the nephew of covetous Zita who is one of Buoso’s cousins (phew!). It is Rinuccio who persuades the family to involve Schicchi hoping this will assist his fraught plans to marry Lauretta – fraught because she and her father move in an altogether different social circle to them.
Eventually it all backfires on the family and Schicchi double-crosses them out of the bulk of the estate. Needless to say, Rinuccio and Lauretta are united and Schicchi has the last say as he speaks directly to the audience and suggests that if the young couple were ever called upon to account for their involvement in the whole caper, the verdict would surely have to be ‘not guilty’!
Does it all sound delectably absurd, funny and imaginatively complicated? Well, yes it is, and arguably the whole opera draws heavily from the commedia dell'arte tradition, with Schicchi as the Harlequin, Lauretta as Columbine and the other relatives in various classic commedia roles. Director Stephanie Acraman understands this, draws it out through many fine performances, and has the audience laughing in stitches.
Gianni Schicchi isn’t a numbers piece – it is really only known for the beautiful aria O mio babbino caro sung by Lauretta, and even this emerges surprisingly (almost randomly) without a solid emotional build up. But let’s not allow that to stand in the way of the telling of a ripping yarn!
Co-Opera has assembled a terrific cast of experienced and emerging singers. In the title role, Nicholas Cannon exudes confidence, bravado, deceit and fox-like cunning, and his fine baritone-tenor voice was a highlight throughout the production. The audience reacted to him with laughter and delight as they would to the villain in a melodrama. Kudos to him and to Acraman.
Emerging artist Gianna Gutilla gives Lauretta a degree of innocence and her performance of O mio babbino caro is pleasing. Pianist Stephen van der Hoek provides a sensitive accompaniment and, importantly, gives her sufficient room to take the aria at a comfortable pace and dynamical trajectory.
Jiacheng Ding plays Rinuccio with youthful ardour. However, his final scene with Lauretta, in which they lovingly embrace, is perhaps a little overformal and lacking in the sort of passion you’d expect when two young lovers finally overcome the last hurdle. Acraman might have done well to employ the services of an intimacy director. That minor criticism aside, Ding’s tenor voice sang true and firm throughout the expanse of the venue. His performance of Avete torto! and Firenze è come un albero fiorito amply demonstrated his fine instrument and hushed the capacity audience, as did the love duet Lauretta mia, staremo sempre qui! he sings with Gutilla.
Meran Bow began a little hesitantly but quickly and firmly put her stamp on the role of Zita. The (necessarily) confined set didn’t always provide her with the room to take full flight! Bow is well experienced and understands that a role needs to be both acted and sung well. She succeeded in both.
Macintyre Howie-Reeves was excellent as Betto. He already has a fine tenor voice and it is getting better on every outing. It is easy to see him taking on more substantial roles in the future.
The cast is well rounded out with convincing performances from Brock Roberts (as Gherardo), Jessica Mills (Nella), Peter Dean (Simone), Oliver Vickers (Marco), and Bethany Eloise (La Ciesca). A special mention goes to Rachel McCall who plays three diverse roles – Gherardino, Spinelloccio and Amantio – with the latter two performed in true commedia-style!
Every performance venue provides its own challenges, and the art deco styled Burnside Ballroom is no exception. The stage is very small with no inbuilt theatrical lighting rig. Thankfully Gianni Schicchi only requires a single set in the form of a bedroom, but with a cast of eleven on stage and the trappings of a bedroom that screams wealth, space is at a premium and a little limiting at times, even with the addition of a small thrust stage. However, Acraman moves her cast efficiently around the available space and the action seems natural and unobtrusive in the main. The light is limited to a general wash with some attempts to underline the heighted emotions on stage with changes in hue, but these prove to be ineffectual.
There is no attempt to set the production in its original period Venetian setting, and costuming is generally contemporary. It works. Schicchi’s charlatan nature is heavily underlined by his grotesquely chequered blue, orange, black and white suit. It is just perfect! It screams used car salesman, and we all love to hate them!
Acraman milks the script for every laugh she can get, and the cast are up for it.
Mention was made above of Stephen van der Hoek’s excellent performance on piano. His solo performance of the entire orchestral piano reduction is a highlight of the production. Together with conductor Leanne Puttick, the cast is well served by sympathetic and competent musical accompaniment.
Gianni Schicchi is Co-Opera’s first production in two years. With the audience seated in cabaret-style enjoying bring-your-own picnic baskets at their tables, and without the bells and whistles available in grand purpose-built theatres, the recipe was not for grand opera, but it was. Co-Opera deserve our strong support!
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Burnside Ballroom
Bookings: Closed
Freefall Productions. 15 Sep 2022
Extraordinary how one can miss the memo; Wendy Harmer is a gifted playwright as well as stellar Australian stand up comedy talent.
Harmer’s script What is The Matter With Mary Jane? translating actor Sancia Robinson’s experience surviving anorexia nervosa into a one act play, is redolent with Harmer’s familiar cadences and comic pace. Yet there’s an incredible amount of room for Stefanie Rossi to work the material in a structural flow suiting her particular stage strengths and brave the challenge of a text demanding a highly attuned capacity to find dramatic nuance in dark comic moments.
Tackling a disease of the mind that finds expression as a fatal eating disorder in a comprehendible manner, without seeming maudlin, didactic or off putting is a hard ask. As much as it is not to offer it up too softly.
Harmer pushes Rossi straight into the audience’s face. She must address them directly, as herself. Herself playing out the memories, fantasies, excuses and suffering that is anorexia.
This melding of stand-up narrative monologue, peppered with sharp, biting, wit-laden imagery balanced against deep fear, insecurity, and submission to an inner demon, is spell binding. The text is peppered with lines raising many snorting shots of laughter amongst the audience.
Director Tony Knight and Lighting Designer Stephen Dean keep it simple, considering the level of deep human complexity they’re tasked with bringing to life.
Knight’s direction paces Rossi’s performance with shifts in and out of anorexia life experience and moments through the 16 to 35 year old’s life.
It allows counterbalance of comic observation, genuinely deep emotional distress and self delusion to build over the hour to the sonic climax of the production.
Rossi has a great capacity for unflinching, revelatory emotion. Comic work and timing is executed with deceptively playful abandon and sardonic finesse.
Dean’s lighting is uncomplicated but centres on creating a crisp black and white palette in which light spots rise and fall illuminating set pieces on a white tape marked stage with four narrow white bordered mirrors, a white table, toilet and black chair.
David O’Brien
When: 14 to 24 Sep
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Performing Lines Production presented by State Theatre Company of SA. Dunstan Theatre. 6 Sep 2022
Evonne Goolagong stands tall in Australian history. As a luminous tennis talent, she remains a household name. Perchance she is the most beloved of all tennis players.
Hence, she deserves the highest of laudatory plaudits and, indeed, a stage play is not a bad idea.
Andrea James has made an extremely brave attempt at pulling this off, creating a stage work set largely on a moveable tennis court and, with set and costume designer, mounting it with a secondary population of audience in traverse seating on stage as grandstand viewers. It is great fun.
A big illuminated tennis net straddles the stage and an umpire’s chair whence the child Evonne, throws lines into an invisible pond and hauls out invisible fish, while rhapsodising about rustic life in Barellan, the NSW country town in which she grew up. The family home was fortuitously beside the town’s tennis courts. Her big and rowdy family is introduced bouncing around in the family car. This is achieved largely in exaggerated mime and, with the staccato narrative line and merry soundscape, one is forgiven for thinking it is a theatre production for young people . Thereafter, a high-energy production has the audience wondering if it is a bio-play or a musical. It is a multi-genre phenomenon in which tennis training and games are choreographic operations, the cast demonstrating pretty impressive ballet skills.
There is plenty of light comedy, but the script also pauses for some rather original didacticism. A lecture on tennis rules is as novel as it is probably unnecessary. But the playwright has tried to cover all the territory: a family story, a romance, a tale of exploitation, racism, and the highs and lows of the international tennis circuit. Gail Priest’s sound design swings along with all of this, illustratively versatile. The production lacks nothing in verve and good spirits. And the cast charms, albeit Lincoln Elliot struggles to sound English as Roger Cawley. The depiction of Margaret Court as the “giant” of tennis brings a hearty laugh. Yet, despite all the triumphs of Goolagong's mighty career, there is just such sadness at the way she was parted from her family. They were different times, those triumphant years. This comes home potently.
While Ella Ferris stands tall in the role of Evonne, it is Kirk Page who steals the show in an array of characterisations: from tough coach, Mr Edwards, to a trissy gay cameo. He is an exceptionally arresting actor. Jax Compton warms the heart as mum and gives mirth in male drag as John Newcomb while Katina Olsen’s balletic beauty shows why her name is also on the choreographic credits with Vicki van Hout.
Sunshine Super Girl is light, lively theatre which weaves a very special Australian story and, let’s face it, any excuse to celebrate Evonne Goolagong is a good thing.
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 17 Sep
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: premier.ticketek.com.au