Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 7 Mar 2024
Perpetuum is part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express excellent mini-series, which features outstanding world-class artists in recital, and they are not your ‘usual’ recitals. There is always something out-of-the-box – they are ideal festival events – and Perpetuum is no exception.
Anthony Romaniuk is a European-based Australian keyboardist who is as comfortable with the music of modernists Philip Glass and John Adamas, as he is with Bach and Purcell and everything in between. In Perpetuum, he has assembled no less than twenty pieces that have velocity and unquenchable momentum at their very heart and has cleverly stitched them together to form a continuous and integrated whole. The collection is drawn from his latest album which also carries the name Perpetuum.
What makes the performance special is that he seamlessly moves between three instruments. On stage there is a grand piano, harpsichord and electronic keyboard (that is also capable of playing back pre-recorded sequences). Romaniuk begins the concert with a lesser-known composition by Erik Satie on the piano (En y regardeant à deux fois, from Pièces froides: Danses de travers), follows it with the Prelude form Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, and them fluidly rotates on the piano bench to face the harpsichord and play his own arrangement of the Prelude from Bach’s Suite in E major, BWV 1006a. Soon he gracefully moves to the electronic keyboard and effortlessly plays Philip Glass’ Etude No.2, preserving all of the subtlety of its myriad of rhythmic and melodic changes. Romaniuk has a superb feel for it all.
Effortlessly, Romaniuk performs diverse compositions from Stravinsky, Ligeti, Schubert, Schumann, Purcell, Shostakovich, Beethoven, and his own inspired arrangement of Toccata Arpeggiata by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger. He even plays two instruments at once – the keyboard with one hand and the piano with the other as he transitions between one of his own Improvisations and another piece by Satie.
Romaniuk is a tall and slender man, and he sits at the instruments with presence and authority. His playing is passionate – he clearly feels every note and relishes every phrase – and he has an uncanny ability to make the unexpected sound ‘normal’.
Perpetuum is truly the stuff of festivals, and Anthony Romaniuk is a musical force of nature.
Kym Clayton
When: 7 Mar
Where: Elder Hall, University of Adelaide
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Nicholas Lens and JM Coetzee. Elder Hall. 8 Mar 2024
Elizabeth Costello is a fictional character — a celebrated Australian writer, aged 66, who is famed for the feminist perspective of her early, first novel. She is devoted to writing but is distanced from her family and has difficulty when communicating her beliefs to others. It seems that her reputation doesn’t quite match who she is, or thinks she is.
Nobel and dual Booker prize-winner JM Coetzee’s novel is written in a partly documentary style and includes Costello’s CV, which confused some readers — in his introductory remarks at this concert, celebrated novelist Peter Goldsworthy told of an incident when he was asked if he had met the famous Australian writer, Elizabeth Costello. The form of Coetzee’s novel invites the reader to reconsider the nature of the novel itself.
Costello has disagreements with her family members over important moral questions, so that the novel is also an invitation to readers to consider those moral issues and their own actions.
Belgian composer Nicholas Lens has composed a full-length opera based on Coetzee’s novel, entitled Costello in Limbo (Elizabeth Costello at the Gate), the libretto for which has been devised by Coetzee. Lens has also created an excerpt from the opera, entitled Is this the gate, for performance by a chamber ensemble and a vocal soloist, and this excerpt is based on passages from the latter part of the novel when Costello has passed away. These are perhaps the most important passages of the novel, as they concern the judgement of one’s life and achievements and the question of an afterlife.
Costello is interrogated by a panel of judges (not St Peter) who demand to know her beliefs — it is on her beliefs that she is judged. This is a message not only to other novelists but to all of us. She is permitted a glimpse of the afterlife, and the text of the prologue is as follows:
Straight out of Kafka!
Straight out of Kafka!
Not the light that Dante saw in paradise.
The nature of the afterlife, or her likely afterlife, is thus characterised by reference to other writers. Implicitly, we understand the world and establish our moral and philosophical compass by reference to writers and their writing.
In the final part of Is this the gate, Costello defends herself with:
I believe what I am.
I believe that what stands before you today is I.
I am!
This absorbing performance of Is this the gate was a world premiere, and Adelaide was privileged to host it. Coetzee and Lens also made introductory remarks and spoke of how the opera was developed. The excellent ensemble comprised Judith Dodsworth, voice, Elizabeth Layton and Helen Ayres, violins, Stephen King, viola, Thomas Marlin, cello, Matthew Kneale, bassoon, and Michael Ierace, piano, and the libretto was shown on screens.
The music is generally turbulent and discordant. The composer gave detailed instructions on the performance of each section, for example, Part 8 What have I seen? is marked “Come camminare sul ghiaccio sottile – Come un rapido piccolo tifone – Di nuovo, come camminare sul ghiaccio sottile – Di nuovo, con una certa goia” (Like walking on thin ice – Like a swift little typhoon – Again, like walking on thin ice – Again, with a certain joy).
Ensemble members briefly sing at one point, and first violinist Elizabeth Layton quietly announced Costello’s death at the beginning. Soprano Judith Dodsworth was magnificent as the troubled Costello, and Elizabeth Layton and bassoonist Matthew Kneale were outstanding, with Kneale’s bassoon creating a nicely inflected parallel voice.
This tantalising taste of Lens and Coetzee’s opera was delightful, but the entire opera must be heard, and it is greatly to be hoped that it can be produced here in the near future.
Chris Reid
When: 8 Mar
Where: Elder Hall, University of Adelaide
Bookings: Closed
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. 0471 Acro Physical Theatre & Cluster Arts. The Bunker, Fool’s Paradise. 7 Mar 2024
Three performers introduce themselves to the audience by gesture, saying nothing. One woman, two men, the taller man plays at being uncoordinated in performing his forward roll. I suspect it fools no-one.
A great deal of latitude can be given to performers such as the Acro trio since their target audience is completely fixated on one thing and demand nothing else. Children from the age of 4 to 8 (or so) want to be entertained, they want fun. And they get it. The old routines reworked into new shows, the balancing acts, the feats of strength, the acrobatics, and the sinuous flexing of bodies as they contort and position. What these three do with their bodies is amazing. A pillow fight using the cushions from a sofa offer another opportunity for some audience participation, and the kids love it.
I Am The Boss paints a simple scene where the three are left at home with what appears to be strict instructions to clean house; the adults having departed in a revving of engine and squealing of tyres. This is the signal for so many things to go wrong, and the interest in cleaning cloths seems slightly absurd, but not to kids, I guess. The fact that feather dusters are offered to several children in audience participation – but only to little girls – is one of those things that irks me, an adult.
The Acro performers hail from Taiwan, and it may be some of their tropes miss the mark slightly; the fall guy, the clumsy guy is the odd-looking guy whose stock in trade expression is an open-mouthed gormless look. The slapstick is entirely slapstick and the music pantomime; for adult audiences it is nothing they haven’t seen before and overplayed. There’s the ‘I need a drink, who emptied the water bottle?’ routine, the ‘chase the mosquito’ routine, and various others from the time of Buster Keaton or The Three Stooges. And the kids love it.
The final routine involves a very large lollipop, and a young girl is brought onstage. As an idea to keep kids interested it is too drawn out, although she does get to be part of the act, spinning around the stage to everyone’s delight; when the lollipop is revealed as a prop (surprise!) with a very normal sized Chupa Chup within, the ten-year-old critic next to me opined that the little girl had been short-changed and deserved a big lollipop. Critics, eh?
As the kids filed out of The Bunker the three performers could be seen handing out lollipops to them all, so all’s well that ends well.
Alex Wheaton
When: 7 to 17 Mar
Where: The Bunker, Fool’s Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Basement. 6 Mar 2024
Virtuoso is a one-man comedic routine (it’s not really stand-up) performed by an actor who is playing the role of an actor who is auditioning for a role in a production. Simple really, and how on earth could it possibly be funny?
The performer is Melburnian Casey Filips who has had broad training as an actor including in France at the prestigious clowning school Ecole Philippe Gaulier, and it shows. As Filips struts his stuff playing Tobias Finlay-Fraser, it is clear that he is entirely comfortable on stage particularly when he is performing exaggerated caricatures, which Virtuoso is chock full of.
Tobias arrives for his audition and the audience are the casting directors, whether they want to be or not. Tobias addresses the audience directly and seeks feedback and inspiration to get him through. He is ambitious and doesn’t let any hurdle get in his way. Some of the repartee between performer and audience (casting directors) is fertile ground for improv, but some of it is allowed to gently pass through to the keeper. Improvisation is risky business, and Filips knows how to choose his marks. The two volunteers in the opening night performance proved to be excellent, with one in particular almost eclipsing Filips himself. (The mating ritual dance of the Manatees was just a virtuoso performance in mime and clowning…. but just so silly!). The nature of the show likely attracts an audience that is in tune with theatrics, so the chances of snagging showy volunteers is greatly increased.
The storyline is entirely fatuous, which is part of the appeal of the show, and gives every opportunity for Filips and his volunteers to do totally idiotic stuff, which they do, and with great humour. At times, the repartee struggles but Filips keeps the momentum of the show heading in the direction of the next laugh, which is never too far away, and the audience is constantly smiling and belly-laughing.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 to 10 Mar
Where: The Basement
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Diana Nguyen. Spiegel Zelt. 5 Mar 2024
Bodily functions (of various permutations) are easy pickings and grist to the mill for comedians and Diana Nguyen serves up a variety of them, with ovulating and snoring her primary targets.
Nguyen has an easy, unforced manner, and the audience warms to her immediately as she invites them into her life. The title of this show reflects her (or perhaps more rightly her mother’s) interest in her reproductive capacity. At 38, she is still single, and childless. We’re given a backstory on her most recent liaison, including her love of foetus duck eggs (just don’t) and how they featured in the relationship she likened to ‘Survivor’. Having successfully voted her erstwhile partner out of her life-show, she decides to recalibrate by walking 300km of the Camino de Santiago.
It is here that she describes the symphony of snoring that backgrounded her nights in Albergues along the way, sharing huge dormitories with up to 100 other pilgrims. With great aplomb, she conducted the ‘Symphony of Snore’ guiding the self-confessed snorers in the audience through a rousing rendition of Strauss’s Blue Danube. It’s an easy get but still very funny.
The upshot of Nguyen’s sabbatical (with a trip to Italy added on, replete with aging Italian would-be lovers) was that she decided to listen to her mother and her clanging body clock, and have her eggs harvested and frozen. Just in case.
Nguyen’s portrayal of her mother is hilarious and bar the Vietnamese accent, she’s just like mothers everywhere who are waiting fruitlessly (see what I did there?) for grandchildren to be produced by aging daughters. She takes us through the process of medical retrieval (she preferred the term ‘scoop’ in regard to her precious eggs) and is now just waiting for the right fertiliser to turn up.
Just in case we’ve forgotten anything, Nguyen recites a condensed version of the entire show, only this time she plays her ukulele (the cutest green Kala soprano) to the tune of Taylor Swift’s Love Song and manages to cram the whole lot in!
Diana Nguyen is a charming character, a bit crude, a bit prissy, a bit tragic and a bit joyful. And very, very funny.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 5 to 10 Mar
Where: Spiegel Zelt
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au