★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Sandi McMenamin. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 25 Feb 2024
Perchance it’s the gentlest show on Fringe 2024.
Sandi McMenamin, officially a living legend with an Adelaide Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award under her belt, tells of how it came to pass that she wrote that beloved paeon to our fair city, the song Adelaide, You’re a Lady.
It never occurs to most of us that composers might strike opposition when they come up with a new song but Sandi had to deal with paternal criticisms, not over her lyrics or even her tune, but the song’s tempo. Ever adaptable, she has evolved variations on the theme from waltz to rock - and she has performed the aforementioned song a zillion times now, all over the world.
This time, for her Fringe show, she has a video backdrop created by her long-term arts colleague, producer Walter Troelsen from Aarhus, Denmark.
It is a charming homage to our fair city. The audio-visual spectacle continues with vivid illustration to her The Sea Dragon Coast song which features the superb Fleurieu photography of Gary Juleff from Victor Harbor. Sandi leaves her piano for these songs and sings, standing beneath the screen. It is nicely done, with a nod of approval to Holden Street’s prodigy sound and lighting tech, Harry Ferguson.
Wearing her sparkling bling jacket and bling sneakers to match, Sandi casually narrates the stories behind her compositions taking the audience through reflections on London, Bahrain and Sweden as well as our sweet state. She demonstrates her digital dexterity with a whizzy piano medley and introduces from a musical created with the late Andrew Murrell, an exquisite musical plea for peace in our troubled world. Maybe we’ll see the whole show in a future Fringe, she hints.
She delivers a soothing hour of good spirit and unabashed love for this place she calls home.
In a 1400 show strong Fringe dominated by furious physicality, an afternoon sojourn with Sandi Mac is simply a tonic.
Samela Harris
When: 25 Feb to 10 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 23 Feb 2024
Demagogue is a satirical play about the parlous state of politics. Although it is nominally set in an Australian setting, it could be anywhere in the world. Let’s face it, politics is pretty much the same anywhere in the world, at least as far as the day-to-day machinations and ‘spinning’ are concerned.
The action follows a couple – Chris (played by Spencer Scholz) and Kate (Samantha Riley) – who are political heavyweights who want to become even heavier heavyweights, but the antics of their daughter might end up scuttling their ambitions. She has been caught out for some petty vandalism at her school, but her motives might be a little murkier than first meets the eye. Chris and Kate engage in a lengthy and tortuous fast-paced discussion in which they dissect and analyse possible motives for the vandalism, and how they should respond as politicians and as parents. It quickly emerges that theirs is a loveless marriage (of convenience?) and their successes as politician (him) and campaign manager (her) far outweigh their effectiveness as parents.
The text of the play is dense, and the brisk pace is unrelenting. There is scarcely time to think about the pithy and cutting comments the couple make before they move on to the next idea. It makes parliamentary question time look tame by comparison. Scholz is quite commanding on stage, and uses his physical presence and strong clear voice to underline Chris’ dominating nature. By comparison, Riley plays Kate in a non-demonstrative way relying on the acerbic text to do its job. This works except when her diction falters (some sentences appear to have no consonants) or when she speaks upstage without compensating for the exacting acoustics of The Studio performance space.
Who is the demagogue? Is it him, or is it her? Perhaps both? Perhaps everyone in the political process?
Demagogue is Yes Minister on steroids.
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities, The Migration Museum. 17 Feb 2024
Orpheus is a modern take on the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and it is just superb. It is written and presented by Alex Wright and Phil Grainger, who have been presenting the show around the world for several years, and they are totally at home with it.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is well known and has been retold in a range of forms, including opera. It is about Orpheus, a notable musician and poet, and his wife Eurydice who sadly passes away. Orpheus ventures to the underworld and enters into a pact with Hades, the god of the underworld, to return with his wife to the land of the living. Needless to say, it doesn’t turn out as Orpheus has hoped.
In Wright and Grainger’s retelling of the myth, Dave (i.e., Orpheus) is an ordinary bloke from Yorkshire who leads a colourless and routine life that reaches its high point each weekend when he goes to the pub with his mates where they drink, sing karaoke, and try to pick up girls. Dave’s life is turned upside down when Eurydice, a vision of loveliness dressed in blue and yellow, comes into the pub and catches Dave’s attention. Life is never the same for Dave from then on. It’s as if he is reborn. But, events transpire (no spoilers!), and… life is never the same again.
Wright is the storyteller, and he is gifted. He knows the power of the spoken word and has the audience eating out of his hand. Carefully chosen silences see the audience arch their backs in expectation of the next utterance. When he closes his eyes to underline a moment of joy and longing, the audience dare not blink as we savour the moment. His telling of Dave and Eurydice’s story is quite beautiful, and the passing of an hour seems just like a moment.
Throughout, Grainger interpolates extremely well-chosen extracts from songs to underline key points in the story. Bruce Springsteen gets quite a workout, and the audience willingly joins in. (This could go horribly wrong, but it doesn’t. Indeed, it assists the audience to invest more deeply in the narrative. Even Her Excellency the Honourable Frances Adamson AC, Governor of South Australia, who was a member of the audience, got right into it!). Grainger sings to his own guitar accompaniment, and he uses a capo a lot of the time, which allows him to play in a leaner way that does not detract from the poetry.
Orpheus is quite an eye-opener - a gently emotional but also humorous theatrical experience.
Kym Clayton
When: 17 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities, The Migration Museum.
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Shifting Lives Theatre. Lecture Gallery at MOD, University of South Australia. 24 Feb 2024
Russell Fewster’s play, Two of Them, is inspired by the artwork of renowned Adelaide artist and art teacher Christopher Orchard, and in particular the bald-headed, dark-suited male figures who have populated his virtuosic drawings for many years. Orchard’s figures represent the everyman in his search for meaning in an absurd world, and Fewster has recreated Orchard’s art as a story depicting this search.
Subtitled ‘An Existential Journey’, the play implicitly refers to the existentialist philosophies of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre et al, and to the absurdism of novelist Albert Camus.
The play opens in the foyer, where the assembled audience has been asked to wait to be ushered in. Two versions of the bald man — Abe (played by Nick Bennett) and Balt (Dominique Sweeney) — appear and measure the space with a long tape-measure, as if assaying the audience as a volume.
On entering the auditorium — the MOD lecture gallery — we see a woman holding a plumb bob, a device used in building construction and also featuring in Orchard’s 2014 drawing The Diviners, which depicts two bald men carefully studying a plumb bob. The use of the bob extends the concept of measurement or calibration of the world, perhaps reflecting the mechanical way in which we apprehend the world.
The play takes the form of an ongoing dialogue between Abe and Balt. Their personalities at times diverge and converge as if they represent the internal dialogue of one individual. Abe seems extroverted while Balt seems more of an introvert — two sides of one person, or of all people. Naturally, these characters recall Vladimir and Estragon, but rather than waiting for someone (Godot), they are reconsidering their lives. Abe is concerned with the world of work and his future employment, while Balt wants closer connection with the environment.
But writer-director Russell Fewster has added a third character, Fate (Sophie Hollingsworth), who acts sometimes as a ringmaster, a props manager, or a participant in the action — an antagonist. For example, she is a police interrogator when Balt is arrested at a protest against environmental destruction. In moving props on and off stage, she is signalling the intervention of fate and represents the external realities of life that we all unavoidably encounter.
Hollingsworth’s character may be seen as representing the three fates in Greek mythology — Clotho the spinner who weaves the threads of each person’s life, Lachesis, the allotter, and Atropos, the inevitable (death), and the play is about the desire to escape one’s destiny. The presence of this third character adds a dimension taking the work beyond Orchard’s concept.
A large video monitor is mounted on each of the four walls of the space, showing images of Orchard’s work that are especially pertinent or inspirational, and some of these images have been recreated as animations. Indeed, the play resembles a drawing in space, as the performance space is a rectangle that represents pictorial space (the audience is seated on all four sides), and the movements of the performers can be seen as pictorial animation.
The play has no central narrative, but rather an emerging theme, that of trying to launch oneself into a world beyond the confines of one’s existence in the manner of the existentialists. The dark humour of the script and action is typical of absurdist theatre, and fate is omnipresent.
Bennett, Sweeney and Hollingsworth give excellent performances. The staging is simple but highly effective, with an excellent musical score and lighting.
Audience members do not need to be familiar with Orchard’s art to appreciate this outstanding and highly original play. Two of Them stands on its own as a fine work.
Chris Reid
When: 20 Feb to 9 Mar
Where: MOD (University of South Australia)
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
NB: Readers interested in Christopher Orchard's art can see his current exhibition at BMG Art, 156 Halifax Street until 16 Mar 2024
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Umbrella Revolution, The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 22 Feb 2024
There’s a bit of a double take as the cast of Yuck strut onto stage, and I use the term ‘strut’ deliberately. Moustaches and obvious crotch bulges match the masculine posturing; that macho pelvis thrusting walk, that leer, that posturing to impress. That strut.
All the while, this acrobatic troupe of women are clambering over each other, on shoulders, on heads, on backs and fronts. And strutting.
This is a piss take of the male gender of the first order. A few blokes in the audience were already looking taken aback, recognising that the piss was being taken out of their tropes in a gentle but very funny way. For the most part, everyone else was along for the ride.
And what a ride it was. The shock and horror of the male gaze being interrupted by the sight of blood on the back of a skirt. The confessions of what women have done under the influence of alcohol, tempered by the brutal “I had half a glass of water and killed a man”.
Subverting the dominant paradigm wasn’t confined to gender roles; while we were not going to get away without arial ropes, the grace of the art form was turned back on itself as the clearly talented performer managed to become the gawky, hapless loser in the air. Brilliant. Love in a Nutella jar just has to be seen, and the hula hoops act was the closest we got to a regular performance; even then they had to give it a flip.
A highlight is the chorus line to Tom Jones She’s a Lady. No bush ballet here, rather a floral bouquet, a girl garden.
There’s more, much more. Rope skipping, nose piercing with a nail, emojis, and Abba-esque finale looking for a Man After Midnight. This is fabulous entertainment, biting satire without cruelty, but making the point ever so clearly. Beginning and ending with a bulge in the dacks, this is Fringe at its best.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 22 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Umbrella Revolution, GOUD
Tickets: adelaidefringe.com.au