By Peter Maddern
HST king pin, Martha Lott’s relationship with Edinburgh Fringe increasingly brings fine theatre to Adelaide during the Fringe, with the Holden Street Theatres rightfully gaining the label of ‘the home of theatre’ during Mad March. No matter whether the subject matter agrees with you, the quality of the direction and the performers, mostly young, from the UK in particular, that she brings to town is always a treat.
Like Echoes, Labels deals with an issue of great concern to some of racism in western world. This time, author and player Joe Sellman-Leava takes us through the issues he and his family have confronted, even in racially mixed England as ones with Indian or part Indian ancestry.
His means is the imaginative use of sticky labels that he applies liberally to his black t-shirt as well as handing out to members of the audience for use on their garments. Along with various props, these emerge from his much travelled suitcase as we hear of a life story where it seems little has changed from the scenarios his father faced when he first brought the family to England and those he recalled from personal experience.
His take is that we too often revert to the use of labels to categorise people and notwithstanding the efficacy of their use in many circumstances very often these labels cause unwarranted hurt and prejudice. His use of a recreated Tinder conversation was another effective means of getting this message across though, from personal experience, anyone who takes anything said on such forums to heart ought to go back to hanging out in the real world of coffee shops.
All this was fine theatre except for the five minute or so it stopped in favour of a polemic about refugees that took over towards the conclusion of the show. If you enjoy being told you are racist by some 20 year old something blow-in (my labels to be sure) then you will find Mr Sellman-Leava’s whole show rewarding; unfortunately such pontifications without any semblance of the alternative view around public policy imperatives were to this reviewer tiresome though I am sure his target audience of The Guardian readers would have lapped it up chatting as they do with their chai lattes over lunch.
Kryztoff Rating 3.5K
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