1927, Salzburg Festival, Theatre de la Ville Paris and Young Vic. Festival Centre - Dunstan Playhouse. 8 Mar 2016
Why is this innovative London-based theatre company, formed in 2005 and dedicated to produce works combining performance, live music and animation, named 1927? Could it have something to do with a breakthrough in motion picture technology, because in that year, the world's first talkie feature film was screened to the world - The Jazz Singer.
For you goys out there, a golem is a mythical (at least I hope it's mythical) Yiddish creature comprised of the earth - say clay - sometimes unable to speak, yet anthropomorphic enough to do the bidding of its owner. In this uncannily creative and busy multimedia production, a golem is a sort of Trojan horse for a mysterious amalgamation of commercial and media interests with designs on your shopping choices and life style. You may have a golem near you right now - in real life it's known as a mobile phone.
The co-ordination between the live (at least I hope they were alive) actors, the animated figures and backdrop movements, chiaroscuro lighting, sound effects and live music was absolute magic. Suzanne Andrade (writer and director) and Paul Barritt (animation and design) seem to employ the cartoon styles of the early animation successes, like Sullivan and Messmer's silent screen star, Felix The Cat, which was followed by Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie in 1928, in keeping with 1927's thematic imperatives. Mickey and Minnie Mouse made history as Disney was dedicated to making the first fully synchronised sound cartoon.
There were several other reflections of style. Some of the highly stylised motions of the characters made me think of Woody Allen in 1973's The Sleeper. And Golem's uniform and an image near the end of the show were eerily familiar to costumes designed by Kazimir Malevich for the Russian futurist opera, Victory Over The Sun, in 1913. Industrial design, useless workshop labour and a sense of insignificance harks back to the German expressionistic and epic science fiction film, Metropolis, made in, guess what year? 1927.
All this great stuff is brought to bear through a painstaking and lengthy workshop process to bring you a fresh fable of a contemporary danger to all of us. The five characters of the Binary Backup Dept are dressed in prints of 1s and 0s. Every detail is thematic. Actors Esme Appleton, Lillian Henley, Rose Robinson, Shamira Turner and Will Close somehow exquisitely balance humanoid quaint and quirky movement and modulated voices with their character's humanity and a yearning for dignity as they are subsumed by the machine. They could be any one of us. Furtively, Lillian Henley and Will Close leave the set to play keyboard and percussion respectively on stage, and then return to the action.
In this Australian premiere season, Golem, no doubt, is a highlight of the 2016 Adelaide Festival. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 8 to 13 Mar
Where: Festival Centre - Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
By Martin Crimp. Stone/Castro. State Opera Studio. 8 Mar 2016
On arrival one finds a very old, virtually derelict home occupying the endless black space of the State Opera Studio. Visible through broken sections of lath and crumbling plaster, much of the interior can be seen from the outside. The hallway walls are lined with damaged millwork to the dado rail. Wallpaper peels from the disintegrating plaster. There are no doors, and indeed, many openings in the exterior walls seem to lead directly outside. A pile of firewood sits stacked against the house; deadwood and dried branches sweeping out into the peripheral. A pebble path lined with oversized river stones winds up to the door-less front door. The inside seems to seamlessly blend with the out; a timber subfloor transitions to grass.
One immediately wonders if anyone could really live in a building of this condition. Let alone with young children! But, perhaps designer David Lampard’s intent was less literal and more metaphorical; perchance a comment on the state of the relationships within this place.
We find a woman wandering the halls of this seeming empty home. She appears at odds with something or someone. It isn’t really clear. Her husband Richard appears and we learn she is Corinne. They relate to each other like a couple whose relationship has long been tested. They are antagonistic; interrogative; sarcastic; cynical.
They have moved here in pursuit of the ‘pastoral myth’; a concept perhaps less relevant to an Australian audience.
Their home is of American construction; their accents however, Australian.
He is a doctor and has brought an unconscious woman home, claiming to have found her collapsed on a track. Corinne doesn’t believe that that is the extent of their relationship and the tension is palpable. Nathan O’Keefe’s Richard is initially reticent; almost enigmatic. He begins in a composed and congenial manner, but as tension is amplified by a call from his boss, Morris, O’Keefe becomes perturbed and rueful.
Corinne attempts to pacify Richard with her sensuality, encouraging him to kiss her, but he rejects her citing a feeling of dirtiness. Jo Stone’s Corinne is brooding, and somewhat despondent to Richard’s actions. Their relationship is disputatious and Crimp writes the characters such that what is said and what is meant rarely correlate.
Listening and watching as intently as one must to the action, Lampard’s set and Director, Paulo Castro’s blocking can occasionally be frustrating – obscuring faces and eyes.
Crimp’s writing can be hard work for an audience. Full of wordplay and moral ambiguity one needs every available cue from the player’s actions and physicality to embellish the story with context.
Daniel Barber’s lighting transforms the scenes when tension and intention shift between the characters. Strobes of light punctuate heightened emotion and changes in colour swiftly shift scenes from congenial falsities to malevolent truths.
When Richard is called away to urgently attend a childbirth, the stage is set for a rude and abrupt meeting of the unconscious woman and Corinne. Now awake, she encircles the home in an attempt to gain her bearings; settling on a bench from where she can see Corinne gazing out the front door.
Her name is Rebecca, and Corinne has discovered her bag containing syringes and painkillers. We have already learned that Richard is a recovering addict.
Natalia Sledz gives Rebecca a sense of provocative indifference. When Corinne initially confronts Rebecca’s accusations of harm at Richard’s hand she attempts to vindicate him and bribe Rebecca from her accusations. But more is yet revealed and Stone quickly descends into vitriol.
Richard’s return shortly after Corinne’s departure signals another shift in Crimp’s emotional intent. The play takes on a dangerous sensuality and desperation that O’Keefe and Sledz are absolutely absorbed in. It is spine-tingling stuff.
The final scene draws the audience even further off the scent and an abrupt ending signals the start of many conversations about intent, motivation and context amongst the audience. Crimp subverts dramatic conventions and leaves us not with a clear narrative but rather a detached and often morally corrupted impression of human nature; in this case depicting middle class infidelity.
The performances and creative vision behind this production are simultaneously intriguing and stunning. Stone/Castro has done it again, and this is surely one of the highlights of the 2016 Adelaide Festival and an absolute standout production by local South Australian talent.
Paul Rodda
When: 7 to 13 Mar
Where: State Opera Studio
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
RCM & Premier Artists. Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Spiegeltent. 5 Mar 2016
Ceberano is a byword for celebration and charisma.
Her curvature is caressed by a shimmering Jean Paul Gaultier-designed kaftan-like dress, and her smile signs an unbridled joy in music and performance, and just plain living. Ceberano charms her audience before every song with flirtatious banter and lusty innuendo. Aided by guitarist James Ryan, and female musical and vocal backing, Ceberano thrills the audience with her repertoire spanning twenty-three albums.
Not only is her voice now iconic in Australian soul, jazz or pop, she was the first woman inducted into the Australian Songwriters Association Hall of Fame. She is a celebration of sensuality, and the years have not wearied her. She wonders why performers like herself - in her 50th year of life - turn their pop tunes into jazz, and "here is one I've done as well."
Always an eye on the spunky new talent, the striking singer and guitarist James Ryan performs some of his own work and complements the others. The hour is fun and spontaneous, like being present in the recording studio. New things are tried, new sounds discovered, some things even repeat after discussion - all with a sense of adventure and love of the craft - and the audience are right along with them. Her presence radiates the room.
Kate and her crew receive the most immediate, the most spontaneous, and heartfelt standing ovation I have seen, that even she seemed taken aback.
There is only one more show and you better go. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 5 and 6 Mar
Where: Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Spiegeltent
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Jessie McKinlay. The Adina Treasury Apartments. 5 Mar 16
The Isabetta Project is based on a 14th Century tale by mediaeval writer and Italian renaissance humanist Giovanni Boccaccio. While production notes don’t specify the story, the production’s content points towards Lisabetta and the Pot of Basil (1351) from his The Decameron as being the inspiration. This tale recounts the tragic love affair between Lisabetta and her lover, Lorenzo.
Choreographer Jessie McKinlay spell-binds the limited size audience with a remarkably intimate, emotionally poetic and deeply personal, rarefied experience.
The Isabetta Project takes place within the tunnels of the Adina Treasury Apartments, providing a perfect, stripped back backdrop suggesting ancient places, in which equally ancient rituals of courtship and emotion unfold. As the production unfolds the audience takes a journey through four rooms; four different stages of a relationship.
Dancers Madeline Edwards and Samuel Harnett-Welk execute choreography of rich light and dark emotion with a firm, formally expressed, tenderness. McKinlay successfully fuses elements of mediaeval dance and contemporary gesture in the long tunnel-like first room in such a way as to imitate the framing of figures in art of mediaeval times. The mood is light, joyous, and emotionally passionate. Delicate moments of piano tingle over phrases of movement.
This is continued in the next room, in which the couple dance behind two separate wreaths of basil on the floor, white hand cloths, a pot of rose petal filled water, and two glass containers of chocolates. Being close to such a personal, ceremonial moment is special. Like a marriage ceremony in which vows are spoken in motion, brought to union and sanctified by the slapping of handfuls of basil on the body, filling the air with such a clean, sweet scent of seeming holiness.
In the context of Boccaccio’s tale, this particular phrase is lucid in its beauty and a remarkable expression of the greater symbolism within it.
At the moment the relationship fractures and changes, so does the accent of the choreography. In a small dark room, floor covered with oranges, Edwards intently reaches for Harnett-Welk, his back to her, but he does not respond. She works the floor in emotional pain, her legs slash the air with concerted effort, and she sweeps in loss, until both dancers draw the audience to the final room, where the darkness of loss becomes fully real.
The Isabetta Project is a magnificent achievement from such a young choreographer. It is a richly inventive contemporary work greatly powered by deeply literate, emotionally open comprehension of the mediaeval world.
David O’Brien
When: 29 Feb to 7 March
Where: Adina Apartment Hotel Adelaide Treasury
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Animals of Distinction. The Holy Body Tattoo & Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Festival Theatre. 4 Mar 16
Take the monument from monumental, and you begin to gain some comprehension of the extraordinary achievement Holy Body Tattoo’s Monumental is as commentary on surviving life in the 21st Century.
Noam Gagnon and Dana Gingras’s choreography, remounted by Sarah Williams for the Adelaide Festival of Arts, is one which ‘fractures’ the ensemble into separate units standing on block pedestals arranged in a sophisticated depth of field as to suggest an array of living statues.
The ensemble strike motions alike to singing in the round, then in unison. The total effect is like a sharp series of stop motion film images. Fight. Pain. Weariness. Resignation. Surge forward. Repeat.
The impact is mesmerising for its stark beauty buoyed on, and further empowered by, the soaring, majestic live score played by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, sitting on a raised stage, extreme upstage.
The surround sound power of the score, with lightest nuances of percussion audible over god-thunder bass and trilling violin embellishes the performance like a 24 carat white gold lie. One senses these human ‘statues’, and their stressed, strained, anger-edged poses, are in fact not ones of oppression or fear (of course they are) but statements of glorious heroism in the face stark odds.
To take the question to a greater depth, projected text by Jenny Holzer poses some very hard and dark observations on human life and interaction, which feed directly into a choreography as physically punishing as it is emotionally razor sharp.
Monumental effectively works to strip away any sense of ‘heroic strength’, by pushing the boundaries of what’s considered ‘heroic’. The ensemble members slowly but surely find themselves pushed off the pedestals, where they stood, onto the floor; then suddenly they are at war with each other.
Are you tough enough? Are you, monumental?
David O’Brien
When: 4 & 5 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed