Oct 02

THEATRE – Ladybird Superstars – Bonython Park – 2.5K

1532_300_175_80By Peter Maddern

There is probably no more courageous a form of performing than strutting as a lady boy – celebrating one’s hormone, chemical and surgical transformation from one gender to another. And one does not need faulty eyesight to feel convinced that what you are seeing is what you thought you were seeing.

However, courage alone does not make for entertainment and unfortunately The Thailand Labyboy Superstars came up somewhat short on that score. Beyond the first half being marred by an inadequate sound system, the show lacked imagination and at times rehearsal. Lip synching is a dangerous approach at the best of times but when poorly done it somewhat detracts from the rest of the show no matter how many feathers, veils and fancy hats you have on.

Where well known stars are mimicked either one is out for parody or beyond the original channelling. Whether it was of Beyonce, La Belle, Tina Turner or Whitney Houston the Ladyboy caricatures kind of went nowhere.

While the second half was better than the first, unless transgender is your stuff, there are better cabaret shows that come through town.

Kryztoff Rating 2.5K

Oct 02

OzAsia – superposition – 5K

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Fusing science and art in itself is an art form. Has Ryoji Ikeda, internationally renowned artist from Japan who lives in Paris, mastered this with ‘superposition’? Consisting of screens, sounds, graphs, screens, sounds, graphs, screens, sounds, graphs and two live performers Stephane Garin and Amelie Grould. A series of information and graphs are mixed with live action on the screens set to sounds, not music, sounds.

Described as inspired by the mathematical ideas and notions of quantum fields that deals with this particular characteristic of nature: one cannot fully describe the behavior of a single particle, but in terms of probabilities. To describe a particle, one must list all possible states a particle can be found in alongside probability of the particle being in that state.

This certainly mesmerising experience, that one could not really describe as simply th eatre or music may be the pinnacle of fusing concepts, science, sound, understanding, questioning into an art project, then again it may simply be a hypnotic experience of flashes on screens set to rhythmic sounds to entrance the audience. And maybe that in itself is achieving the pinnacle of art.

Kryztoff Rating   5K

 

 

 

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Oct 01

THEATRE – Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker / Rebirth – OzAsia – Rehearsal Space – 4.5K

media-miss-idol-rb-2By Peter Maddern

Describing your experience as an audience member of Miss Revolutionary is not easy. For those so inclined it is something akin to surviving Bay 13 at the MCG on Grand Final Day – with food and liquid and other objects raining down on you throughout – and Sydney’s Bridge Climb where you strip down and put on provided garments for the ride.

After an interminable amount of Japanese jabber when you arrive, once the show gets started Miss Revolutionary provides 40 minutes or so of intense sensorial overload. Albeit the rehearsal room is not large but it seems there are as many performers as audience members, yelling, singing, dancing, climbing through the chairs – they are everywhere doing stuff. We are warned we will get wet and covered with seaweed but having a pair of girls knickers plonk down on my head was not only a bonus but not something that has happened to this reviewer for a while – another star on the rating for that. If nudity had broken out, then I think we were truly on for an all in orgy.

247743_home_heroJust what the story of the production is all about was not clear as well. Life, living but just why it seemed to stop at marriage was confounding. But as director and creator Toco Nikaido states – how we interpret it all is pretty much up to us. But the drive to present how the 20 something generation receive and generate their media – chaotically, piecemeal and yet resulting in some synthesised cohesion – is very strong.

As OzAsia director Joe Mitchell’s show piece of his contemporary festival it was a stunner but spare a thought for those charged with cleaning it all up.

Complete with total immersion and enthusiasm from the cast, even after you have left the performance space; but well beyond and after you have dried off, this is a show that will stay with you.

Kryztoff Rating 4.5K

Sep 28

DANCE – Cry Jailolo – OzAsia Festival – 3.5K

media-cry-jailolo-4By Peter Maddern

This performance choreographed by Eko Supriyanto and performed by seven young men from Jailolo, an Indonesian diving mecca under threat of environmental degradation, thrives on its inching graduations of light and movement. The opening of the first movement is both tantalising and haunting – a single dancer creates a sound using just the sole of his right foot and the heel of his left as he advances from the rear of the stage slowly and methodically as low light amps up with his progress.

He is joined by six others, all also in just knee length red pants, creating together a sound like a distant chopper as their concentration and patience develops a hypnotic effect on the audience.

247743_home_heroThe commencement of the second movement makes an asset out of motionless silence before taking us into the subterranean depths with flowing movements maybe of giant seaweeds being swayed by the currents as focus turns heavenly towards the life giving sun. It ends somewhat in parallel with the first with just one dancer unwinding in circular rotations as he and the light recesses and fades.

There is a seeming simplicity to the work that should not distract from the dexterity of the movement which holds your imagination long after you have left the theatre; the story of the dancers and their home adding poignancy to a delightful performance.
Kryztoff Rating 3.5K

Sep 25

THEATRE – Lord of the Dance – Dangerous Games – 4K

p.txtBy Peter Maddern

The latest manifestation of Michael Flatley’s hugely successful Lord of the Dance franchise arrived in Adelaide last night and there is nothing about the show that can disappoint.

A huge ensemble – by my count at least 20 – commits the first half to show pieces. The second half develops a fairly basic plot about good and evil after the Lord of the Dance’s (Morgan Comer) belt is stolen by apocalyptic warriors, led by the Dark Lord (Zoltan Papp) making the hour a kind of Game of Thrones done in a jig.

Still the luscious visual backdrops, the foot tapping melodies – enhanced by pipe and fiddle solos (by Giada Costenaro Cunningham and Eimear Reilly), some unashamed sex appeal as the male dancers strip to the waist and even a few pyrotechnic spurts make this two hours of Irish step dancing something of a joy.

But beyond the visual stimulation and eye candy, the dancing is consummate, rhythmical and pulsating with its exponents clearly not poster boys for the obesity industry. No step is missed and hardly a pant is observed and yet holding a torso strong and head up while flicking one’s feet in hard shoes is no trivial pursuit.

Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance – Dangerous Games is, well, flat out terrific entertainment.

Kryztoff Rating   4K

Sep 25

THEATRE – The Streets – OzAsia Festival – 4K

media-the-streets-2By Peter Maddern

Festival director Joseph Mitchell identified early on with his appointment that his imprint on the OzAsia Festival would centre around contemporary work. On cue, show 1, night 1 and Teater Garasi has taken us to the streets of modern day Jakarta.

As patrons arrive the vibe starts to embrace you. There are singers, whores, police and rowdy announcers roaming. And whereas western audiences may seek out the comfy chairs to view the passing parade, here we are made one with the performance; sitting on cushions or leaning back on the walls, adjusting our vantage spots as scene changes require, all the while keeping our focus varied as activity comes and goes along the road.

247743_home_heroIt’s messy, everything is in a hurry as the players take us through elements of street life for the vast majority of Indonesians – from capricious property dispossession and the impact of the whims of world markets for food to unconsummated weddings and street badminton. There is corrugated iron, in fact lots of corrugated iron, lady boys and pair of bare feet and shins wrapped up in a mattress.

The Streets path the way for this year’s OzAsia Festival so head for them. But make sure to allow enough time to feast up at the Noodle markets across the plaza as you arrive.

Kryztoff Rating   4K

Sep 24

THEATRE – The Audition – Bakehouse – 3.5K

By Peter Maddern

Movie and theatre patrons alike are quick to distinguish great from poor acting performances without ever much realising what goes into the preparation required, both long term as well as for the particular part involved.

James Johnson’s The Audition explores that preparation and training through the hoops and humiliations that would be actor Lauren (Clare Mansfield) is put through by director Stella (Krystal Brock) during their audition alone together.

At the end, it seems we need to recognise that superior performance comes from supplanting one’s own individuality and soul with that required to be the puppet of the character and the director. What is hard is getting there.

Both ladies give great performances; Brock is forever at her candidate manipulating and infusing her with discomfort with an evil, bloody minded disposition. She braces the dual personality as controller and failure with aplomb. Mansfield writhes from the self-realising and independent young woman she arrived as to the dependent and feeble one she at times is reduced to. Her twists on the director’s knife are convincing and compelling.

Yet for all that is worthy of this production, there is something that doesn’t quite hold it together. It is probably the issue that the play, especially early, keeps returning to but not adequately answering – why would anyone put themselves through such an audition; what exactly is the carrot that makes this part so much the focus of such psychological brutality? Perhaps by eschewing that question, playwright Johnson ensures we keep focused on the internal rather than extrinsic motivations of actors and directors. It’s a call that may also test you when you see it.

Kryztoff Rating 3.5K

Sep 22

OzAsia Festival Preview Interview with Joe Mitchell

The OzAsia Festival kicks off this Thursday.

In this interview, Festival Director, Joseph Mitchell speaks about his vision for the festival, the revamp of the Moon Lantern Festival, the must see shows and the Indonesian connection.

https://youtu.be/e9xljvTsjkU

www.ozasiafestival.com.au

Sep 04

THEATRE – The Great Gatsby – The Space – 4.5K

By Peter Maddern

Jay Gatsby lived for five years harbouring a massive dream. In conceiving The Great Gatsby for the stage, Rob Croser’s Independent Theatre Company has embarked on realising a dream of seemingly similar dimensions. The difference between them is that Croser’s has been realised superbly.

I’m unsure whether this production of Gatsby has commercial potential (I think I counted 17 cast members during the encores) but it successfully challenges an albeit small novel that nonetheless is packed with action, twists, turns and meaty sub plots and, of course, its wall to wall luminous language. In the wake of the Baz Lurhmann’s mega production of a few years back, adapting such an iconic story for the stage is ambitious requiring skill both on the page and the stage. In this Croser’s own efforts have been complimented by a consummate performance by Will Cox as Nick Carraway.

Cox as a player and our narrator spends the entire near three hours on stage sustaining his New York accent as well as his conviction as the audience’s conscious and a command of Fitzgerald’s prose that is simply a delight. Again Independent Theatre has unearthed another top flight talent. I hope those smarties who award those annual theatre prizes see Will Cox in action.

Of course, such efforts could fail without the man himself measuring up and in Lindsay Prodea Gatsby’s enigmatic self; that mix of the suave and the smarmy, is ideally captured. Like Carraway, the audience is left by Prodea’s Gatsby totally unsure about the merits of the man.

In keeping with the production’s ambitions, IT has developed a sumptuous stage; a creamy white blazing tribute to art deco in which the white tuxedo jackets and dissy girls look very much at home. In such a setting Madeleine Herd’s Daisy Buchanan shines, a beauty for the beautiful people as she convincingly depicts her character’s delicate heart being pulled apart by two men of possessive motives and the sad dead weight that is the effluxion of time.

But no production of Gatsby could stand without a sufficient infusion of jazz – it was after all Fitzgerald himself who coined the term ‘the Jazz Age’ – and in Ben Francis we get our fix. When singing, Francis is in the all-white colours of the era, atop Gatsby’s stairs serenading and enchanting in his luscious tones. With his blond hair and youthful looks, Francis’ jazz singer seems to represent the joys of life the others he sings to have sold themselves out on.

One could go on but better to see it for yourself. Let this be that green light that lures you to a pearl from Adelaide’s amateur theatre scene that, unlike Gatsby’s own, won’t disappoint.

Kryztoff Rating   4.5K

Aug 27

SHORT FILM – Dale – 4K

1979603_817667491604110_5994370703006219653_nBy Peter Maddern

In an era where heroes are increasingly sought, (I see even Arnold Schwarzenegger is having another crack at being one), perhaps what in truth we really need is a true anti-hero and in Dale (Nathan Porteus) we have a prime candidate.

In the fictitious SA town of Spoole Dale exists as maybe the world’s only living Zombie, a creature much loved by the locals; part pet, part tourist attraction, a thing seemingly benign or is it just all out clumsy and a danger more to himself than others.

For Dale, the film, Tom Cornwell and Hjalmar Svenna have parked their greasepaint and successfully taken up a life for the first time as writers and directors of this engaging mockumentary which premiered last night at The Mercury. Just exactly what drives the current zombie phenomenon I expect only an expert sociologist could explain but the Cornwall / Svenna take on it all is perhaps best captured in the opening scene which is somewhat of a peach.

From there a host of local characters (actors Eddie Morrsion, Rick Mills and Lisa Waite amongst them) give their take on the creature including mounting their own fightback against those who dare to rail against it. Dale is light, nicely shot around McLaren Vale and sure to amuse. Perhaps, something longer can be conceived out of it but short film lovers should be sure to search Dale out when it hits the festival scene in the months ahead.

But whenever, be sure to Hail the Dale – he’s really not that scary at all.

www.facebook.com/SpooleLovesDale

Kryztoff Rating    4K