Adelaide Festival. State Theatre Company South Australia and Celsus in association with Adelaide Festival present a Belvoir St Theatre Production. Scott Theatre. 28 Feb 2024
Blue is a palpable one-actor play about a young man’s loss of family following tragic events, his ensuing grief, and his inspiring resilience. The young man is Mark, and he is very capably played by Callan Purcell. It is a sad, affecting, and at times humorous story. Although the main subject material is harrowing and not new, the sequence of events in the arc of Mark’s story, written by award winning actor and writer Thomas Weatherall, is novel and its telling is fresh.
Mark is a writer, and so when he tells his story, he inevitably delves into detail and luxuriates in words. From an audience perspective, this can be quite distracting because, like Mark, we can become more interested in the detail than the events that are being described. It is interesting that Weatherall should make his character a writer and then foreground the subliminal processes that writers go through as a significant part of the play’s narrative. In some ways, it detracts from the play itself and places considerable extra demands on the actor, and the audience who must listen very carefully and apply heightened concentration. It’s not an easy theatre experience to enjoy, but perhaps this is part of Weatherall’s intention.
Because the play was performed in the Scott Theatre, with its unforgiving acoustic, Purcell’s vocal clarity was often compromised which forced the audience to listen ever so carefully, and the use of floor level microphones did little to address the problem. The text was therefore carefully scrutinised. (Adelaide so desperately needs additional quality performance spaces.)
The set design (attributed to Jacob Nash and Cris Baldwin) is evocative, empathetic, and stylised. It is one of the highlights of the production. It comprises a slightly raised semi-oval shaped stage connected seamlessly to a curving similarly shaped wall. The whole thing looks like a giant opened bivalve mollusc, and it is made of a textured material that is ashen white upon which projections of seascapes and other images can be projected. The play’s title Blue is a nod to the ocean, but also to clinical depression, both of which are of critical importance to the plot line. At one point, the actor removes floor panels to expose a shallow pool of water under the raised acting area, which he then wades into and uses to underscore crucial moments in the plot.
The success of the set is contingent on the superlative lighting design by Chloe Ogilvie. It is truly outstanding in the way it supports and moves with the narrative and Mark’s mood and state of mind. Wil Hugh’s excellent sound design also adds gravitas and lightness as the text requires.
The staging is simple, with very few stage properties in use. The focus is squarely on the actor and the story line. The play runs a full eighty minutes, and actor Callan Purcell never falters in engaging the audience and maintaining an appropriate pace. As previously mentioned, the side stepping into detail occasionally deflects the momentum and Purcell works diligently to minimise the issue. Director Deborah Brown ensures Purcell uses the full capability of the stage, including partially stepping up the rear wall (and dipping back down) that gives the impression of life and circumstances bearing down on Mark.
This is another quality presentation from State Theatre, of what is a Belvoir St Theatre production.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Scott Theatre
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Vault at Fools Paradise. 27 Feb 2024
It is the hottest day of the Fringe for this year, and we are in a plastic terrarium pretending to be a dome named – for some unknown reason – The Vault. The dim light used in The Vault (I’ve now seen 3 shows in this venue) sometimes detracts from the sheer power and athleticism of this show; two men and three women are showing virtuosity in their use of simple. Individual performance tumbles into teamwork, the groups move fluidly from one routine to another, and I find out later the cast of Apricity didn’t even get a technical rehearsal due to the heat.
Increasingly, they are playing with fire, quite literally as they work with cupped candles, then take on the metal rings for suspended acrobatic work. Perhaps for the first time the lighting is fully adequate, and the music completes the vignette, Moses Sumney’s Doomed providing an ethereal and moody aural backdrop.
As I hear this, and make note of it, an act which most nearly resembles the Whirling Dervishes routine unfolds on the stage, accompanied by one of the many versions of the absurdly catchy Yeh! Yeh!, on this occasion from los 3 sudamericanos. In some small way it made sense.
This is a show of proficiency and skill, of grace and acrobatics where the apparatus is less important than the performers’ ability to show mastery of it. It is a performance of strength and precision. It is engaging, but I’d love to be able to see more, particularly of the early part of the performance, it engages with the audience and takes them into the heart of the action but does not pander to crassness as other shows may do. It is, in all respects, outstanding.
As an aside I note that following the ravages of Covid, the Fringe has an opportunity to reclaim and reposition itself. For the first time in many years standup comedians are not in the majority, and the Fringe has become the haunt of burlesque and acrobats and of itinerant jugglers. It is much the better for this; it becomes much more the people’s festival, lively and engaged in guilty pleasures rather than allowing too many touring comics to drain the local economy.
Alex Wheaton
When: 27 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: The Vault at Fools Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Head First Acrobats. The Vault, Fool’s Paradise. 27 Feb 2024
Money, money, money. The audience is showered with the stuff – oh that it were real! Still, we’re easily distracted by other shiny things as the cowboys strut their stuff in this Railed wild west bar-room. To the sweet banjo grind of Hugo’s 99 Problems, a testosterone storm explodes on stage as the boys start drinking, carousing, fighting and producing some great acrobatic work.
This is the crew who also brought us Godz, and its ‘brother’ show does not disappoint. While Railed also features juggling, the spinning wheel and some fine acrobatics, it takes things up a notch and at the same time camps it up outrageously. There’s some very sexy horse action: an R-rated tryst with a unicorn (!) and a pommel horse exhibition that was worth the price of admission. The floor gymnastics, while a little hard to see on the raised stage, were executed with great timing, and a lot of laughs. There’s a bottles-on-the-bar routine that just has one waiting for the smashing of glass – and it doesn’t happen!
This show is knock-down drag-‘em-out funny. The slo-mo fight scene is a classic, while the card trick becomes a recurring motif between the aerial ropes, the see-saw, the chair tower and the flying knives. Yep, this has it all, including an outstandingly curated music soundtrack: Reignwolf’s Are You Satisfied; Ginuwine’s Pony and The Black Key’s Lonely Boy amongst them.
The laughs come thick and fast, but never obscure the remarkable physical talents of this cast; the combination of hilarity and skill is a killer – prepare to be slayed – or is that giving away the ending?
Arna Eyers-White
When: 27 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: The Vault, Fool’s Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Kingfisher at Gluttony. 25 Feb 2024
As the Neighbourhood Watch patroller stalks through the audience looking for a robber, then pauses to hold up a picture of his prey, one of the oldest children’s show tropes comes into play: “he’s behind you!”
And so begins Stuff. Jon and Jero wake up, find their house has been burgled and their stuff is gone. Sounding very like B1 and 2 as they express their shock and horror, they devise a plan (of sorts) to hunt down the robber and get their stuff back.
The script is based on disagreements and indecision (this way, that way?) which the young audience, to their delight, must adjudicate. Other characters pop in and out, with life-size cutouts taking Jon and Jer’s places respectively, which is entirely acceptable to all.
Amongst the physical comedy and improv, there is of course the mandatory fart joke; their butts (as opposed to their Australian bums) have been stolen, and they simply cannot fart until they get them back. Of course, when they do, all wind breaks loose.
Stuff is very interactive, and ideally suited to the <8 years old audience: it’s pitched just past playschool but with all the booger, bum and messy body innuendo beloved of that age group. They even invite some kids up to tell jokes:
“What did sushi A say to sushi B? Wasabi!”
The show could use some bedding in, as it’s still a little loose, and there are times when it treads a fine line on condescension; kids are often smarter than you think. Needless to say, the stuff is all hunted down, as is the robber because of course, “he’s behind you!”
Arna Eyers-White
When: 25 Feb to 3 March
Where: The Kingfisher at Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Future Cargo at Garden of Unearthly Delights. 21 Feb 2024
The Drivers Dog (with apologies to Bill Hayden)
A semi-trailer is idling in a grassy area at the rear of the Garden. Its cargo, a slab-sided shipping container. The driver (Tobias Manderson-Galvin) calms an unsettled dog whilst waiting to get on the highway. He’s nonplussed. Something’s not right. There’s a two-hour wait; something on the radio about a UFO is being reported nearby. He parks. He waits. Unbeknownst to him, the sides of the container roll up, and behind a backlit screen, the dancing silhouettes on the conveyor belt begin.
For this outdoor dance performance, the audience wears earphones and the audio and soundtrack is fed through a low strength transmitter. From the UK creative team of David Rosenberg and Frauke Requardt, Future Cargo examines something from what is possibly the very near future. Is this our ‘first contact’?
The dancers (Scott Elstermann, Chimene Steele-Prior and Felicity Boyd with Ruben Brown as dance captain) work to incredibly tight time margins, turning up ‘on stage’ time and again, moving in rigid and staccato fashion, then relaxed and sinuous, perhaps more human. That there were so few in the cast was a surprise; one is never waiting for an entrance. Exploring that which has stood the test of time, a sci-fi exploration of human interaction with aliens, the viewer is then left to consider whether the aliens take over and subsume humans or whether they are merely examined, mimicked and copied, then cast aside.
The piece is very well executed, and the choreography maintains the audience’s interest throughout. The headphones ensure that the experience is immersive, blocking out the noise from nearby Fringe shows and revellers. While Future Cargo is visually and aurally very satisfying, the narrative is all too familiar; there are no surprises here, and as both the dog and the truck driver are absorbed into the container, there’s a vague disappointment at the unsatisfying and cliched denouement. The performance is well delivered, but I realised later I had failed to find any real surprises.
Alex Wheaton
When: 21 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Future Cargo at Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au