Adelaide Festival. Berliner Ensemble. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 6 Mar 2024
No longer the “Wunderkind”, our one-time, oh so vivid Festival director, Barrie Kosky, is now in “Oberboss" territory and still, oh so vivid.
He shines in this production of The Threepenny Opera, the great Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill cultural-landmark anti-opera which has pleased and intrigued the arts world since 1928. Kosky’s program acknowledges also the Elisabeth Hauptmann collaboration in the original adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera on which this work is based.
Kosky has done what he does, his own thing. He has stepped far away from German cabaret cliches and set the work on a great big industrial jungle gym of a set. The actors crawl and clamber through it and pose and perform. On opening night there was a problem with the hydraulics and the audience was informed that the cast had spent the day re-blocking the production to compensate. They succeeded. The performance was a triumph. And, the production is the sort of masterpiece we always expected of Kosky who has been resident in Germany for decades now and producing ever more extraordinary works.
The Adelaide Festival opening night audience was simply purring the words “our Barrie” as it dispersed from the Her Maj foyer. Kosky was not in town, but parochial pride minded not.
The Threepenny Opera tells a grim and nasty story about London criminals, greedy businessmen, and infidelity. It is ferociously anti-capitalist, a Brechtian stance. And it is gloriously and absurdly farcical.
Kosky’s cast is sublime. One falls in love with one after another of them.
The production is in German with translation screens flanking the stage, somewhat awkwardly for those in front stalls seating.
The orchestra pit has been elevated because the orchestra's musicians are very much part of the action. This element is a part of the breaking of the fourth wall which characterises the “opera’s" style. Actors cue the orchestra and appeal directly to the audience, while musicians, from time to time, stand as patsies.
The show opens with the white and sparkle-faced head of Dennis Jankowiak as The Moon over Soho peeking through the vast drop of loose glitter curtains. He introduces the first of the of the Weill refrains in a to-die-for tenor voice. Wickedly ethereal. And a taste of the cabaret imagery into which tradition has cast The Threepenny Opera.
The main protagonist, Macheath, aka Mac the Knife, is played by lithe and limber Gabriel Schneider. He seduces not only his women but the audience also. It’s an exhaustingly vigorous and outrageous performance. His bride, Polly Peachum, is delivered by Cynthia Micas who negotiates the giant scaffolds of the set clad in terrifyingly high platform shoes and sings like an angel. Her besuited father, Jonathan Peachum, in the form of respected German actor, Tilo Nest, expounds in Brechtian sprechgesang, the dark and selfish spirit of business; capitalist bastard that he is.
It is the Browns who bring the house down. As Brown, the London Police Chief, Kathrin Wehlisch is neatly in drag-king mode and playing her character with Chaplinesque panache. It is a feast of over-the-top reactive ham exemplifying the almost slapstick flavour with which Kosky has imbued the production and it is hard to take one's eye off her, unless it is to celebrate the actress playing Brown’s daughter, Lucy Brown, another Mac amorata. In this role, Laura Balzer steals the stage in a glorious impudence of wild physicality. There are beggars and prostitutes and, significantly, stage crew who perform their chores amid the actors in another demonstration of the fallen fourth wall.
Despite sound and hydraulic issues, the effusive orchestra of Adam Benzwi, the grotesqueries of makeup and the bright lighting of Ulrich Eh with the professionalism of a creamy cast ensured that Adelaide Festival’s big Kosky opener was absolutely all right on the night.
Brava!
Samela Harris
When: 6 to 10 Mar
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Marcel Cole. Star Theatres. 5 Mar 2024
In his heyday, the music and antics of George Formby made him the highest paid entertainer in the UK. He did world tours (including Australia) made movies and performed in countless concert halls and radio shows and was awarded an OBE post his gruelling WW2 entertainment tours for the troops.
There is such a rich history here, and Marcel Cole does well to tell us as much of the story as he does. Born George Booth in Wigan, Lancashire in 1904, his father, under the stage name George Formby, was one of the great music hall performers of the day. Charlie Chaplin even borrowed the costume and cane look for his character of The Tramp.
Young George was dissuaded from the theatre and became a jockey, but after the death of his father (at 45, of tuberculosis), he took on his father’s stage name and followed him onto the boards.
Cole, in the character of George, narrates the rise, fall, and rise of Formby, in the most delicious of Lancashire accents, accompanied by Kate at the piano. There’s no fourth wall here, he invites the audience in, chatting away about his life as a performer, and as a man. It’s riveting stuff; as I said, the history is rich and Cole has done an amazing job with this production.
While Formby initially used his father’s act with the same songs, jokes, and characters, it was his meeting and marrying Beryl Ingham that changed his life and his act. She had him dress formally and introduced the ukulele. While the marriage was very successful for his career, it was not personally satisfying, and George takes us through his relationship with Beryl, with her stage character taken on by accompanist Kate (who also, with quick wig changes, becomes a BBC newsreader and his mother).
Cole is no slouch when it comes to the music. Formby had quite an appetite for innuendo and songs like When I’m Cleaning Windows (initially banned by the BBC) showcases this beautifully. Formby’s play on words is quite remarkable when one considers that he was almost illiterate (which explains some of Beryl). Playing a Goldtone banjolele (a copy of the original Gibson that George played) and a Kala Jazz tenor uke, we were treated to songs such as It Serves You Right, I’m Shy and Standing At The Corner Of The Street, accompanied by Kate at various times on U-bass, violin and piano. There is so much gold to be mined here, but Cole keeps it concise and entertaining from start to finish (including some fine tap-dancing in-between).
This is a polished, professional, and highly enjoyable production. Marcus Cole is a stunner, and when he finishes with the audience singalong Leaning On A Lamp Post and introduces Kate as his mother, well, that’s just icing on the cake. Don’t miss this.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: Star Theatre Two
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival / Adelaide Writers Week. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart with Sarah Ferguson. Adelaide Town Hall. 3 Mar 2024.
The Town Hall was packed and quivering with middle-aged anticipation at this live presentation of the insanely popular British podcast The Rest is Politics. An early ‘show of hands’ poll revealed a hearty percentage of the audience were familiar with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s show; they both eased into the presentation with confidence and charm.
For those unfamiliar with the podcast and its protagonists, The Rest is Politics brings together a leftie and a tory with a view to “disagreeing agreeably”. Campbell - erudite, opinionated, and forceful - is a former journalist and the head of political communications in Tony Blair’s Labour government. Rory Stewart was a Conservative MP after serving in the British Army and living and working in Afghanistan and the Middle East, ending up unsuccessfully challenging Boris Johnson in the pre-Brexit prime ministerial race. (Anyone listening to the podcast cannot escape the conclusion that these men were brought together by a mutual unquenchable loathing of Johnson.) They work beautifully together – sparring, chafing, and arguing, but frequently agreeing and accepting each other’s opposing viewpoints. They share a common desire for nuance beyond political slogans and hope for more seriousness in politics.
This was not a performance per se, but a Writers Weeks event writ large in a big venue: an engaging and fascinating conversation peppered with charismatic and gentle jousting, but necessarily without any in-depth discussions or insights. The topics covered international politics broadly, with an unsurprising focus on British issues; the discussions traversed populism, Brexit, the short-term focus of all political parties, the strange machinations of the UK Tories (in particular, the disastrous premierships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss) and the way political messaging has overtaken politics. The most interesting reflections involved the Iraq war and Blair’s involvement and potential culpability in that campaign.
It was slightly disappointing that Stewart appeared on a large video screen, which robbed the show of a measure of immediacy. That said, both Campbell and Stewart were articulate, quick-witted, funny, and illuminating. They are both powerful and inspiring communicators. The presentation was impressively moderated by the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson, whose questions and prompting expertly allowed the conversation to flow.
This evening was a perfect entrée into the world of The Rest is Politics.
John Wells
When: 3 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. In recital with Michael Ierace. Daylight Express. Elder Hall. 4 Mar 2024
I was not previously aware of Meredith Arwady as an artist, although I had previously heard her sing in the Grammy Award Winning recording of John Adam’s contemporary opera Doctor Atomic performed by the Metropolitan Opera. So, her recital with collaborative pianist Michel Ierace (Elder Conservatorium) in the Elder Hall as part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express series was a real eye (and ear) opener!
From the very first word of His Eye is on the Sparrow by Charles Gabriel, under which you can hear gasps of admiration from the audience, it is clear that you are in the presence of vocal greatness. Meredith Arwady is surely one of the world’s best contraltos, and she deserves every single one of her accolades, and more. Every song presented in her eclectic program references a bird, and she sings them all with passion, animation (voice and body – she is actress!), musicality, empathy, and acute understanding of the text. The joy and thirst for life she breathes into the songs stands in contrast to her bravura role in the Festival’s centrepiece production The Nightingale and Other Fables in which she plays Death!
Arwady’s program traverses a wide range of styles ranging from art songs, hymns, musical theatre, satire, folk songs, and spirituals, and she sings them with verve and confidence as she makes the stage her own. Of the fifteen songs she sang, perhaps only Somewhere Over The Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) was not entirely suited to the majestic resonance of her voice, but the large audience greeted her performance with a roar of appreciation.
Michael Ierace accompanied Arwady in all but one song, she sang the delightfully tongue-in-cheek American folk song The Leather-Winged Bat unaccompanied. Ierace is a fine pianist indeed and has the art of accompaniment well and truly at his command.
Meredith Arwady is a vocal force of nature. Don’t pass up an opportunity to hear her sing. Just don’t.
Kym Clayton
When: 4 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Insite Arts & Adelaide Festival. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 2 Mar 2024
Here is a landmark piece of First Nations theatre.
As a major Adelaide Festival Commissioned work, it reaches for the stars - and it almost catches them.
It certainly puts the name of its artistic director, writer, and choreographer, Jacob Boehme, up there in lights.
This Narungga Kaurna man has delivered choreographic ingenuity which steps lightly back into the integrity of Aboriginal traditional dance. He has extracted an essence, a timeless physical beauty and whimsy which draws not only on that delicious humour of our First Nations people but also their innate skill at mimicry. Like basket reeds of the river Murray, it is woven into the many and varied dance compositions of this complex work.
The program notes reveal that Guuranda is a telling of the Yorke-Peninsula, Narungga Country, origin stories.
To read this program, one must go online. It prints out in ten pages, and one wonders, with a Festival theatre production of such immense significance and doubtless, cost, why skimp on this essential piece of cultural communication? There is also a splendid art-illustrated song book downloadable. While the production is a large-scale spectacle with video and song and dance and puppetry and overall technical brilliance, the Dreamtime stories, which ever were inscrutable to European minds, are as esoteric in narrative as they are dramatic to behold.
The production is largely sung in language with monumental video images of songman Warren Milera and songwoman Sonya Rankine flanking the stage. Superb.
Over and over again, the drama and beauty elicited by the lighting of this show takes the breath away. Ten out of ten to lighting designer Jenny Hector.
There’s a huge family choir which comes, most literally, to light on the stage; women holding bubs, kids sitting at their feet. As the dancers move in front of them, the difference in scale reveals that they are illusory, a very clever video presence. And they sing and sing their “Narungga buggi buggilu” chorus about the beginning of Narungga Dreaming.
The music composed by James Henry is very strong with voices often in dirge, and sometimes with dramatic instrumental adornment. Recurring percussive expressions are quite profound. There’s a constant echo of sorrow and anger.
The raison d’etre of the piece is best explained by the Elders who are present in voice and video, filmed chatting around cups of tea perhaps at Point Pierce. They talk about the beloved Narungga landscape noting how farming can impede access to some sacred places.
These Elders, Uncle Rex Angie, Aunty Deanna Newchurch, Uncle Eddie Newchurch and Aunty Ninni - are integral to the creation of the show and the stories they have told have come through the oral tellings of generations to showcase in this Festival.
Among them is Buthera, a Narungga giant who left marks all over Guuranda’s landscape and Gadli, a boy who was cursed to become a dingo for telling lies.
The dancers swirl and undulate their timeless landscape. This insightful choreography, Boeme explains in the program notes, is based on the Memory in Movement ethos of Philipe Genty and Mary Underwood. There are some sensational dancers in the troupe. And the costumes are exciting, fascinating, and strikingly elegant under the design of Kathryn Sproul.
Indeed, there is much for admiration and wonderment. As for the puppets! The production has sourced right from the top. Philip Millar, formerly of Polyglot Theatre, has created vivid and characterful giant dogs, never to be forgotten. Dancers control them wiggling their bottoms to wag their doggy tails. And as for the massive emu…!
These gorgeous creatures mime storylines, each one offering a message of some kind. Good and evil. War and creation.
More tales are shown via interesting cartoon windows, big white portholes aloft on the stage, wherein shadow figures enact violent scenes with commentary in willy-wagtail song. These seem less successful, breaking cultural authority with cartoon-sound words. The schools’ groups in the audience relate to this, however, and at a moment of suspense, break out with their own sound effect. A welcome funny moment...
The production values of this show are ace. Kylie O’Loughlin’s artwork is ace. The technology is ace. The choreographer is close to genius.
There’s a lot of love on the stage and in the room.
But there could be more easily accessible explanation.
Samela Harris
When: 2 to 3 Mar
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au