Adelaide Youth Theatre. Arts Theatre. 28 Apr 2016
From its small beginnings, Adelaide Youth Theatre has grown into a ginormous enterprise. Not only is it turning on regular major productions but, in the case of Aladdin, it is doing it with two whole alternating casts of principals. In other words, it has an embarrassment of riches in the youth talent department.
Aladdin opens with a very pretty, misty stage jam-packed with exquisitely-costumed children of all ages straight away impressing with how very well-choreographed and rehearsed they all are. They also seem almost all to be very well radio miked and playing to a solid orchestral soundtrack. It is all very professional.
This production has been directed by Serena Martino-Williams and Leah Harford with Emily Glew assisted by Rory Adams as musical director and Charlotte Hill and Hannah Dandie as choreographers - these all being budding theatre workers and part of the whole Emma Riggs/Kerreane Sarti ethos of cultivating young talent in all aspects of the production process.
Everyone does everything very well.
From the smallest chorus member right through to the leads, ever member of the massive cast seems utterly committed to the show. They work like beavers. They look like an exotic mass of Middle Eastern glamour with the vivid harem-pants and bejewelled bellies. They sing in tune and, although some work in American accents and some don't, they work hard at characterisations.
In this performance of this production, the star performer is Joshua Spiniello as the Genie. He has born-to-perform presence and the stage lights up when he is upon it. Taylor Tran, who plays Princess Jasmine, is another young performer with immense promise, and also Eliza Oppedisano, who plays the parrot, Iago. Notable is Liam Tomlin as the Sultan while Jack Raftopoulos as Aladdin has a lovely singing voice but seems to be constantly uncomfortable in his costumes. Other good performances come from Alyssa Tacono, Kristian Latella, Miley Vincent and the terrific pack of narrating girls.
The show is a junior version of the big musical without too many long scenes or songs. There is lots of song and dance, goodies and baddies are clearly defined, the plot is clear and the magic carpet scene is very vivid and touching. The whole thing runs for one nice, tight hour, leaving young audience members still fresh and interested.
Pity it is such a short season.
Samela Harris
When: 28 to 30 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Luckiest Productions and Tinderbox Productions. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 22 Apr 2016
It is a grey and gloomy skid row that set and costume designers, Owen Phillips and Tim Chappel give us for the first half of this revival production of The Little Shop of Horrors; and it is easily one of the most effective elements. Erth Visual and Physical Inc’s magnificent Audrey II puppet bursts forth in bold colour, encompassing everything in its wake; but it is the talented cast of all-rounders on whom the success of this show rests, and with superlative direction by Dean Bryant, simple and effective choreography from Andrew Hallsworth, and tight musical direction from Andrew Worboys, The Little Shop of Horrors leaves audiences hungry for more!
Based on the B-grade cult-hit film version of 1986, The Little Shop of Horrors finds the orphaned and solitary Seymour Krelborn working for the down-and-out Mr Mushnik in a florist on Skid Row, his colleague, and secretly beloved, Audrey shares the desperately slow workload; the shop being on the verge of closure.
When Mushnik announces that it is curtains for the trio, Audrey suggests placing one of Seymour’s queer horticultural creations in the window to draw in the punters - and so we meet Audrey II; a blood thirsty Venus flytrap-like vegetal which rockets our unlikely heroes to fame and fortune.
But at a massive cost!
Brent Hill is in fine form as Seymour Krelborn, and in a fantastical twist simultaneously provides the soulful vocalisations of the plant, demonstrating a penchant for multiple characterisations and adding a sadistic layer to Seymour and Audrey II’s relationship, perhaps revealing to us his true inner desires.
Esther Hannaford’s voice soars over well-known numbers like ‘Suddenly Seymour’ and finds new levels of emotional connection in ‘Somewhere That’s Green’. Her comic timing is first rate and has the audience regularly in stitches; even if her accent travels the gamut from Eastern European to Jewish via New York and back again.
Tyler Coppin’s Mushnik is corruptible and careless in the kindest of ways, never overplaying the comedy yet somehow likeable despite his manipulative nature. Scott Johnson garners plenty of laughs, and many from himself, in a wonderfully sadistic performance as the pain-inflicting dentist Orin Scrivello, DDS; Audrey’s boyfriend and Audrey II’s first meal.
The chorus of street women, Chiffon, Ronnette, and Crystal - played by Josie Lane, Chloe Zuel and Angelique Cassimatis respectively – are sexy and sassy. Their numbers opening both first and second acts are a bit garbled and difficult to understand, but their voices are spectacular and harmonise well together.
This production feels as though it has been lifted straight out of a comic book. Ross Graham’s lighting is evocative and brings depth and complexity to the greys as well as life and excitement to the coloured scenes. One could live without the projections on the flimsy and distracting curtain, however.
Audiences old and new will love this production for its energy, comedy and excellent characters. New life has been breathed into and old classic and it tastes good! Feed me more!
Paul Rodda
When: 20 to 30 Apr
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Photography by Jeff Busby
Unseen Theatre Company. Bakehouse Theatre. 16 Apr 2016
Cordial, stimulating, and above all funny, The Wee Free Men is a rare stage adaptation that more than lives up to the standard set by its creator, author, the late, Sir Terry Pratchett.
A radiant roller-coaster jaunt of colour, exposition and fantastical incidents, Pamela Munt’s stage version of Pratchett’s first Discworld novel to feature Tiffany Aching (Josephine Girogio), is almost as entertaining as the book. And though a lot of that comes down to the show’s intrepid direction, it’s also due to the main attractions. In this adaptation that’s not the clever and satirical dialogue, but the eccentricity of the fine ensemble and the delivery of the humorous lines.
Here’s the thing about fantasy on stage: it’s usually far superior or a good deal shoddier than real life. The action in this production is inflated; exuberant slices of satire that begins with a simple knock-knock joke and ends with sprawling whopping wedges of laugh-out-loud humour. Emotionally, though, it’s not rational, but it is as funny as it gets.
Munt devises and adapts the group’s productions, and it consistently works. She also has the knack of finding performers who seamlessly transition between multiple characters, in scenes that are by turns animated and affecting.
A not-by-chance meeting in a tent leads to a magical adventure. A teacher, Miss Tick (Alycia Rabig) - who is also an undercover witch – educates a new student, Tiffany Aching, on the meaning of witchcraft. The stuff of nightmares threatens the world, and when Miss Tick goes for help she leaves her toad familiar (Hugh O’connor) to assist Tiffany. But Tiffany isn’t helpless; she’s armed with her trusty frying pan, and aided by the Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of vicious, hard-drinking, claymore-wielding, six-inch-high blue men. When the Faerie Queen (Elaine Fardell) kidnaps Tiffany’s baby brother Wentworth (Aimee Ford), the want-to-be witch heads into fairyland to rescue her sibling. With cries of “Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!” and “They can tak' oour lives but they canna tak' oour troousers!” the Nac Mac Feegle Pictsies help their new hag, fight ferocious hounds, headless horsemen and the sinister Queen of the Elves herself.
The show is an absolute riot of comedy and resourceful staging, as Tiffany leads us through a series of set pieces in the weird locations where, one by one, the naughty Pictsies dispose of the real and imagined enemies with brute force, ignorance and comic invention.
Pretty much all of the action is a scrumptious treat – from the Benny Hill style chases to the sheep-stealing, fight scenes and an amusing death scene. It overflows with appealing performances and comic charm. It's a gorgeous little play that is beautifully executed with a story that will have you smiling throughout. Don't miss it! Or there will be a reckoning! Crivens!
Stephen Davenport
When: 16 to 30 Apr
Where: Bakehouse theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
State Theatre Company SA with Sydney Theatre Company and Flinders University. Dunstan Playhouse. 15 Apr 2016
Geordie Brookman's singular directorial gift is an ability to realise complex states of transition in the significant life moments of a character. It is done in such a way as to embrace not just the unseen minutiae of evolving emotions and reactions but equally, shifts in the specific world that the characters inhabit.
Brookman is a director who digs deep, seeking the last shreds of complex understanding to be found in a text.
Sue Smith’s Machu Picchu seems material perfectly suited to Brookman. What could be more challenging than making comprehensible the confusion, anger, pain and complete disruption following an accident resulting in paralysis, as happens to husband Paul (Darren Gilshenan) while driving with his wife Gabby (Lisa McCune)? The destruction of physical, emotional, professional and personal foundations of security and identity is an immensely overwhelming experience. What is to come from it?
The sense of disjunction between the depths of complex subconscious transition Brookman seeks to bring to life in performance - superbly utilising Jonathan Oxlade’s sparse, sterile hospital ward set and Geoff Cobham’s nuanced and symbolically evocative lighting - is disturbingly at odds with Smith’s naturalistic text; sporting humorous support characters excellently realised by Elena Carapetis, Renato Musolino, Luke Joslin and Annabel Matheson.
Smith is the renowned writer of The Leaving of Liverpool, Brides of Christ and Mabo, and her exploration of how Paul, Gabby, friends, and family deal with trauma in Machu Picchu is in itself a beautiful thing. We are taken from the present to the past and back again in a series of monologues and exchanges between Paul and Gabby in which the longings of the past and achieving them clash violently with the death-like present paralysis. Darren Gilshenan’s performance is rich in depth, matched by McCune’s.
Humour is well used in both its black and light hearted forms and while warmly embraced by the audience, problematically, what has eventuated is a reliance on formulaic storytelling, a kind of safety net in which the audience is aware of where they are being taken on this journey, yet simultaneously able to experience some sense of comfortable wonderment at Paul and Gabby’s inner transformation. Brookman’s direction redeems as much as possible this element of disappointment ensuring a production of worth is being offered. Is it in part because Smith, in drawing on her experience of being diagnosed in 2010 with cancer, has only been able to brave exposure of remembrances as inspiration for the text so far, given the still recent date of diagnosis?
Only time can answer that.
David O’Brien
When: 13 Apr to 1 May
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 14 Apr 2016
The Elephant Man's rare deformities defied 19th Century medicine and, from being a curiosity show exhibit, he was to spend his latter years charitably sequestered in a London Hospital. If he was a curiosity in his day, he remains so in our day, his fame perpetuated on stage and screen.
This Bernard Pomerance play has been drawing audiences since the 1970s, a new generation just as fascinated as the old with the strange and sad life of this cruelly-burdened young man. He was only 27 when he died.
In this beautifully-mounted production, director Megan Dansie has eschewed prosthetics but depicted the deformities of John Merrick through photographs and medical drawings projected lecture-theatre-style on the back wall. The play takes the form of a compassionate documentary and, as the doctor who took Merrick under his wing gives a clinical description of the physical phenomena which beset Merrick, actor Robert Bell clad only in undershorts, contorts his young body - first the face, screwed asymmetrical and awry, then the limbs, the left hand limp and disabled, the right holding a small cane, one shoulder lifted high, the head bent to one side, a hip raised, spine curved, a leg bent up so that only the toe touches the floor... Suddenly, he is pitiably deformed.
It is a compelling transformation.
Of course, his speech is not as terribly muffled as was that of the real Merrick but Bell achieves a sense of impediment while also projecting enough of his own beautiful actor's voice to fulfil the communications required of the play. He takes the character from desperate inarticulate victim, when first encountered at the hands of the sideshow manager who steals his money and abandons him, to the closeted man in his hospital "home" with his model-building occupation and an array of society people who offer him a hand of kindness.
It is a nicely-wrought development, logical and convincing. And, it is a superb performance all round by that outstanding young actor, Robert Bell.
Designer Robert Webb has produced a striking set with a raised and raked circular platform on one side of the stage and an office-cum-home arrangement beside it. The projected images behind complete a quite elegant effect, albeit the actors seem to struggle to and fro across the rake.
Steve Marvanek ably carries much of the dramatic weight of the play as Frederick Treves, the doctor who saves Merrick from the doom of abandonment and who becomes both his protector and his friend. Sadly, in the 1880s, there was no real understanding of Merrick's condition or anything that could be done. Even in his shelter of the hospital, he remains a curiosity. Treves, however, sees aspects of himself in Merrick and, the play asserts, everyone who meets Merrick is to find some form of mirror in his plight.
They are paraded in their Victorian glamor across the stage to meet the city's great curiosity and he is to find ever greater yearning for normality from each engagement. Thus the added pathos of the play emerges.
The two principals are well supported by Dansie's strong cast - Georgia Stockham, Tony Busch, Thorin Cupit, Philip Lineton, Sharon Malujlo, Patrick Marlin, Nicole Rutty, Jon Scholten and Jamie Wright.
In all, The Elephant Man is an intelligently-wrought and moving production, not without its moments of ironic wit.
And these six score years later, the Elephant Man still fascinates.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 23 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com