Aug 12

THEATRE – 42nd Street – Scotch College

By Peter Maddern

Harry Warren and Al Dublin’s 1980 stage hit, based on a 1930’s film and set in that period, is a good fun musical of the old school – that is (thankfully) with many great songs and lively banter. The students and staff at Scotch College have ambitiously taken on 42nd Street and deliver a fine evening of singing and dancing, with the tap sequences perhaps the highlight.

Both Paris Anderson as the aging diva Dorothy Brock and Tayla Coad as the interloping Peggy Sawyer delight, with Anderson particularly carrying her extra (stage) years with maturity and aplomb. Jordan Tomljenovic I suspect has no problems getting dates for the school formal as his Billy Lawlor is full of flair and poise aided by a smashing smile and abundant charisma. While in playing impresario Julian Marsh, Lachlan Williams is somewhat straight jacketed in a scowl, fortunately the second half gives his obvious talents more freedom culminating in a terrific solo as the finale. His chiselled facial looks will no doubt hold him in good stead as a leading man for stage and screen in years to come. Lewis Shilvock as Marsh’s right hand man, Andy Lee, also possesses great talent capturing the audience in the show’s opening dance and clearly he knows how to make his shoes produce magic, while Katie Luscombe’s performance as Maggie Jones is also one to enjoy.

However, amongst a range of singing talent, were they Sebastien Skubala’s few bars at the opening of the second half that suggested he has the best vocals of them all?

Director Adam Goodburn and his team deserve much credit for the quality of the performance, no doubt requiring enormous reserves of skill, commitment and patience to get a show like this together as they compete for the students’ time among many other obligations. But Linda Williams’s choreography amply satisfied her audience as well as pushing the limits of what her dancers could deliver, with all the big dance scenes well-rehearsed, especially noted in the final dance routines for which timing needed to be spot on and it was. Anthony Hubmayer’s musical direction was also excellent with no risk of his charges ever dragging on the required pace for the performers on the floor boards above them.

Well done also to the school administration for backing a venture like this. Students may forever kick footballs and memorise maths tables but few of those involved in this production are ever likely to forget the experience.

Aug 10

THEATRE – The Crucible – UATG – Little Theatre – 3.5K

By Peter Maddern

Arthur Miller’s classic takes us back to Salem in the late 17th century. The devil is working his evil through witches, women unable to repel his wicked spirits. Ironically, confessing one’s status as a witch saves one’s neck, but to deny it once accused is to invite the noose.

It’s a sad and gruelling affair as Abigail Williams (Zoe Dibb), used, abused and discarded seeks revenge on those who have put her where she is, notably John Proctor (Kim Clark) and his wife, Elizabeth (Cheryl Douglas.) But there are plenty of others caught up in the bizarre logic and desperate search for the perpetrators by the ruling elite of judges and priests.

Clark shines in his demanding role, scaling a number of arcs of character and plot especially as he comes to face that terrible choice between truth and life. Ben Todd as the self-righteous, meddling sticky beak Revered John Hale is also excellent while Steve Marvanek’s Deputy Governor Danforth is a force of nature which would have benefitted from a healthy dose of accompanying nuance. Zoe Muller as Mary Warren, battered from pillar to post by those around her, also gives a most convincing display.

Marks must also be given to design crew of the straw laden stage with the low hanging cross beam on the door a nice touch.

As already alluded to, director Geoff Brittain would have done well to develop more subtlety and alternate approaches in some of his players’ performances – Danforth too brusque, Abigail somewhat unconvincing as to her scheming, the girls too loud in their displays of the Devil’s possession. Thank goodness for John Sabine’s asides as Giles Corey that shone through as welcome relief from the sadness and madness around him.

The Crucible was drafted at the time that odious Wisconsin Senator Eugene McCarthy was destroying livelihoods and lives on his Un-American Activities Commission. The play’s program makes note that these lessons are still for the learning today, though the immediate parallels are not clear – today freedom of speech is repressed where then and in Salem speaking out about anyone one didn’t much like was, it seems, good sport. Still no one is the worse for having the light shone on the perils of the path Miller refers to.

Kryztoff Rating 3.5K

Aug 08

THEATRE – The Matchmaker – Independent Theatre Co. – Goodwood Institute – 5K

By Peter Maddern

In making the observation that “there comes a moment in everybody’s life when he must decide whether he’ll live among human beings or not – a fool among fools or a fool alone” Dolly Levi (Bronwyn Ruciak) encapsulates the essence of the wonderful farce that is The Matchmaker. Should Horace Vandergelder (David Roach), rich but lonely, controlling yet yearning for a fling remain the dead weight he is in the lives of all around him in Yonkers or be the source of spreading the loot (“like manure”) for the benefit of all? None are more oppressed than his two clerks, 25 year old Cornelius Hackl (Will Cox) and his sidekick the late teenager Barnaby Tucker (Kylie Hall) for whom the kiss of a woman is nothing but a dream as they work seven days a week in the servitude of a man they despise.

Fortunately, Dolly has other ideas and no desire to remain without the means to live life to its fullest and her tide of scheming raises the levels of opportunity for all others in her aura, including Horace’s preferred wife to be, the milliner Irene Malloy (Georgia Penglis) and Horace’s sweet niece Ermengarde (Emma Bleby), frustrated in her desires by Horace for the “worthless’’ artist Ambrose Kemper (Stephen Schofield.)

This is the finest production I have witnessed by Rob Croser’s Independent Theatre team. It sparkles with wit and warmth right from the opening. Bronwyn Ruciak’s Dolly is her finest performance, a fulsome force of female nature, equally adept at scorn and scheme, her upbeat exuberance is nicely matched by her garb, an outfit to make even a theatrical rival in Lady Bracknell think twice about leaving home.

Will Cox brilliantly buzzes almost incessantly as his Cornelius throws what little he has in pursuit of an adventure, dragging along his friend Barnaby who, in Kyle Hall, Croser has yet again unearthed a terrific young talent. Their moments of unbridled effervescence when the prospects of their “pudding” adventure start to emerge make the most excitable puppy look struck down by Mogadon. Indeed, one could go on singing the praises of the cast who to use cricket parlance “bats down to eleven.”

With Roach as the grumpy fish out of water, director Rob Croser gets his team to make every funny line sparkle and the various asides to the audience intimate, revealing; the wall collapsed in favour of what seems like a brief fire side chat.

Even with months ahead of us, it is hard to see how The Matchmaker isn’t Adelaide’s best production of the year. A comic delight resplendent with touch and a message as relevant in even these freewheeling days as those past.

Kryztoff Rating   5K

Aug 04

THEATRE – The Red Cross Letters – 3.5K

red cross lettersBy Peter Maddern

If nothing else, The Red Cross Letters – readings from correspondence between anxious South Australian parents about their sons with war offices on both sides of the equator – highlights the massive change in the perception about what life is all about 100 years on.

The recitation of the standard language used by officials in dealing with the most personal and emotional requests (most skilfully worked by Rory Walker) remarkably reflects the restrained, polite and composed words of their correspondents (led by both Elizabeth Hay and Lizzy Falkland), only highlighting in their equivalence the reservoirs of pain and worry that must have been behind penning their letters in the first place.

Nowhere in the delays, misinformation or lack of full disclosure do we sense the presence of the likes of Senator Xenophon, Get Up! Or Change.org – the standard players of this generation – agitating in public concert for the ‘truth’. The wait and loneliness must have been awful and in their tales – boys killed by their own side’s bombs, shell shocked soldiers sent back to the front, three brothers lost and a fourth injured to name a few – we suffer our own intimate dread about the agony of both parent and patriot.

While The Red Cross Letters is very much anti-war, it is no polemic to that end. Its poignancy just serves to highlight the immense sadness amidst the great madness and the combination of players, Matthew Gregan’s music and most particularly Chris Petridis’s video conspire under Andy Packer’s direction to extract the most of Verity Laughton’s distillation of these treasures from the State Library.

As uncheerful as The Red Cross Letters is, it is nonetheless another important work in the on-going commemorations of the Great War that all Australians – young and old, whether or not with ancestors of the time – ought to experience.

Kryztoff Rating   3.5K

Jul 19

FILM – Embrace – 3.5K

embrace-movieBy Peter Maddern

When Taryn Brumfitt posted a before and after selfie on Facebook two years ago, the image went viral and attracted views in the millions. What was different about the image was that it was not your standard diet or exercise miracle but one of her pre and post child birth, with the latter being, how does one say it, more fulsome than the former.

The reaction Brumfitt received came from mainly women around the world and inspired her to crowd fund a documentary on this topic of how women can present themselves, living as we do in the digital world. Her premise is that the fashion industry, most notably represented in women’s magazines (and particularly on their covers) perpetuates a fiction, where even the models presented, thanks to Photoshop, don’t match how they are in the flesh, so to speak. And if that is their case, what hope the rest of the world?

At the core of film, Taryn Brumfitt, a bundle of infectious enthusiasm if ever there was one, heads off for a world tour to meet various people who contacted her at that time and others she lined up; from the engaging, such as the German actor who finds the fascinations of the paparazzi tedious to a particularly creepy New York plastic surgeon. Add in two ladies who had suffered accidents – one the loss of a facial nerve during surgery, the other burns when caught in a bush fire and the message gets hammered home that who you are matters much more than matching some magazine’s statement of how you should look.

To be sure this a film by a woman about women for women – of all ages – but perhaps in that it sustains a superficiality, drifting over the issue of what is it biologically in our evolution that has got us to that point – that is, what is about the opposite sex (if anything) that drives this craze and societal curse?

Embrace has struck a hurdle with a MA classification due to a short segment that focuses on women’s vaginas – ‘Vulvagate’ as one compere put it – but that classification should not deter mothers taking their daughters to see this documentary especially given pressures on younger people to fit in have never been greater given the impact of social media, the one and the same that got this project going at the outset.

Kryztoff Rating  3.5K

Jul 12

THEATRE PREVIEW – The Matchmaker – Independent Theatre – Goodwood Institute From 5-13 August

Matchmaker handbill frontHaving started the year with a hugely successful production of that most famous of plays “Hamlet”– Independent Theatre is now turning its sights on one of the American theatre’s best-loved comedies – Thornton Wilder’s 1954 Edinburgh Festival hit –

THE MATCHMAKER.

This classic comedy was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival and Theatre Royal Haymarket in London’s West End, before opening on Broadway in 1955 at the Royale Theatre, completing its run of 486 performances.

The wild success of the play led to two film adaptations, most notably Hello, Dolly! with Barbra Streisand in the lead role.

However the play itself is still regarded as a far richer and funnier experience and Independent Theatre is proud to bring it the stage once again.

“Money – if you’ll pardon my expression – is like manure.  It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread about, encouraging young things to grow.”  Dolly Levi

New York, 1886.  The Statue of Liberty has just been unveiled.

Widow Dolly Levi is a woman who “arranges things”.  She also likes liberating things – especially stifled people and idle wealth!  She is hired by the rich, pompous merchant, Horace Vandergelder, to prevent his niece from eloping with “an artist”, and also to find Horace a new wife.

However, Dolly has other ideas.  She has set her own sights on Horace, and embarks on a scheme to get him to propose.  Her machinations include Horace’s two young clerks, whom she encourages to head into New York for a day “on the razzle”, and a pretty, widowed milliner and her assistant.

After a series of hilariously farcical situations involving exploding tomato cans, cross-dressing, hiding in wardrobes, and secret rendezvous at a New York restaurant, everyone finds themselves paired with their perfect match.

Along the way, Dolly and her friends have surprisingly topical things to say about the aspirations of the young, and the equitable distribution of wealth.

Thornton Wilder’s classic comedy was turned into the hit musical “Hello Dolly”, but is, itself, far richer and funnier than the musical.

Stars Bronwyn Ruciak as Dolly Levi and David Roach as Horace Vandergelder.

Jul 11

THEATRE – Price Check the Musical – 4K

By Peter Maddern

Who would have thought as we sustain another drudge through the colour-hyped up aisles of our local supermarkets that there too lie the environment for all the horrid things that haunt us elsewhere in our lives. Things like mean spirited managers, burning ambitions and unfound love.

Cerise de Gelder and Sean Weatherly’s Price Check the Musical takes us there in a spirited and amusing romp through the lives of three staff members, Zayeeb (Fahad Farooque), the dedicated fruit and veg manager, Narelle (Catherine Campbell), the frustrated check out chick and David (Weatherly himself) as the loyal but ambitious store manager in waiting.

They come against their store owner Mr Butler (Rory Walker) and the aged and infuriating customer Mrs Zimmerman (Jacqy Phillips) without whom life would be probably be working okay.

Supported by four attractive and ever smiling ensemble members, the events on the floor and in the coffee room play themselves out with Walker particularly good as the almost maniacal and mean owner for whom all produce represents a profit and every day is just one more in the countdown to Christmas that starts in October.

The songs and lyrics are for the most part excellent and while patrons will hear the influences of the likes of Sondheim and Irving Berlin, they retain a proudly Australian feel with plenty use of the local vernacular. A rollicking good overture at the outset may well have also added to the mood.

Price Check refreshingly also eschews most concerns for political correctness, with Farooque playing with great joy his role as the new Australian, keeping the locals off balance as to what he gets and doesn’t about the local language and ways.

New musicals are tough ventures and Sean Weatherly and Cerise de Gelder’s dedication to the task over ten years is commendable. One can only hope it finds further supporters for future productions. Price Check makes shopping more fun than it has ever been before. Check it out.

Kryztoff Rating  4K

Jul 06

THEATRE – Straight While Men – The Space – 4K

Chris Pitman, Lucas Stibbard, Hugh Parker in Straight White Men ©Kate Pardey

Chris Pitman, Lucas Stibbard, Hugh Parker in Straight White Men ©Kate Pardey

By Peter Maddern

In this play, acclaimed New York writer Young Jean Lee asks her audience ‘what should straight white men do in a world that rewards diversity?’ In the present world of straight white men rebellion as seen through Brexit votes and Donald Trump, it’s a very pertinent question to ask.

An American family gathers for Christmas at the well-appointed home of their recently widowed father Ed (Roger Newcombe). The sons are in their thirties, Jake (Chris Pitman) the divorced banker, Drew (Lucas Stibbard) the expert in telling everyone else how to live their lives but who is still unmarried and Matt (Hugh Parker), back living at home after failing at most things and laden with tuition debts.

The play eventually focuses on Matt and the reasons for his unhappiness but to get there Lee expertly creates a myriad of interactions that will resonate with members of white straight families in the audience – the child like rompsing, the petty jealousies and plays for supremacy amongst the siblings, the  family ‘traditions’ of Christmas, the generational gap between how careers are made and that deep undercurrent that all extended family Christmases tend to have; that once a year is more than enough for such gatherings.

It’s a sad and almost troubling tale even if the play’s resolution probably goes too far. But getting there is often great fun with the skill of the writer very much in the ascendancy as the strain between narrative and character development is skilfully balanced and expertly played by Jelk’s team.

Kryztoff Rating  4K

Jun 27

CABARET FESTIVAL – Yana Alana – 4K

cabaretlogoBy Peter Maddern

It may well be regarded as typically Adelaide that Yana Alana needed to dress for her show but nothing she wore distracted from the strength of her performance; big, ballsy and brilliant in equal measures.

Backed by her two piece supporting band, the Paranas, the title of her show, Covered, alluded to not only the dress code imposed upon her but also the show’s content – a series of song covers and lyric quotes that supported her various on stage pyrotechnics and costume changes.

At times perched upon Table 26, others high above the stage, Yana Alana uses irascible wit in the style of Meow Meow and a seeming desire for self-combustion to delight her audience; an approach that seemed destined to break her stage orders, especially during her homage to the joys of shopping at Dotti.

Great fun amidst the foul language, Alana is a force of nature and a certain joy that seemed undiminished by her rare display of on-stage modesty.

Kryztoff Rating   4K

Jun 26

THEATRE – Noble Cause & Boiled Cabbage by Tony Moore – HST – 3K

By Peter Maddern

Tony Moore has penned two interesting short one act plays and then pinned them together in one show at the Holden Street Theatres.

The first, Noble Cause, probes the currently vexed issues of whether freedom of speech gives the power to say anything and does dedication to a noble cause allow any action to further that cause. This debate plays itself out when a certain Mr Smith (Stephane Avril), a government agent worried about issues of security, arrives unannounced in the office of left leaning history professor Bruce Linden (Brian Godfrey) to discuss his new book now in the hands of its proposed publishers.

While Moore is at pains in his program notes to say the play attempts to take neither side, it is Smith who is possessed of the better and more cogent arguments, a task that Avril delivers with sharp edged precision and confidence. Still, such an impression may come from a somewhat one dimensional and under prepared performance by Brain Godfrey who seemed simply out of his depth in the verbal fisticuffs he is embroiled in. Whatever, given most modern theatre’s current trend of using the stage as a stump for a rousing polemic, Moore’s take on this debate was nothing other than refreshing.

The second work, Boiled Cabbage, is an absurdist piece that traces the rapid evolution of women’s roles (if not rights) in English society arising from the passage of the Second World War. From subjugated and suffocated under Victorian norms of behaviour, Boiled Cabbage allows us to see how circumstances permitted the blooming of female life through, first, a need to undertake factory work, to nursing, mixed families and then tertiary education, all within the space of a decade or so.

Shannon Gray is excellent as Janet, the bright as a button teenage girl who throws herself into the fray of opportunity and revels in each and every advance the War and immediate aftermath opened up, reporting back home every so often on how life is changing.

Boiled Cabbage also deals with the evolution of language, away from clichés about race in particular, advances eventually embraced by the dutiful ever positive Mum (Joanna Webb) and soldier son John (Jabez Retallick) while Dad (Brian Godfrey) remains a relic of the way things were and as he would like them to be.

The script here is not as assured as for Noble Cause (not that comedy is ever an easy undertaking) but the basis of an engaging farce exists with all the cast up and about with the exception again of Godfrey who labours along, providing little sparkle to compliment his fellow players, his evolution from history professor seeming no more than adopting some sort of working class English accent.

All up, Moore’s work deserves attention; it is bright, challenging and entertaining, presenting some different views from the norm, which, with some better casting, may produce rich rewards for its audience in iterations ahead.

Kryztoff Rating  3K