The temperature rose as if on cue on the
boulevard of dreams stretching from the Cultural Centre to Russel Square on Friday, and
all the auguries were good for a Fringe World that, if not quite back to its
raggedy pomp of the Naughties (500 acts this year vs 700+ before the plague), was
at least a passable imitation of its glory.
But how would the ancient Turnstiles, a
tattered coat upon a stick in no country for old men, take to the bright lights
and painted faces of this brave new world?
Sit by me, mes
enfants, and let us see what wonders are passing by…
Sensemaker★★★★
Like all of us, the Swiss performer Elsa Couvreur knows what its like to wait in a queue for someone real to answer your call. She’s turned that Herculean task into an hour of gripping, very often riotous, theatre where she doesn’t speak at all (a recorded voice does all the talking, but every movement and gesture of hers says volumes).
Sensemaker isn’t dance, although she moves brilliantly, or mime, although she creates spaces and surfaces superbly; she uses all her physical gifts to tell a story and send an unmistakable message without words.
And that message, which, ultimately, she communicates in the most graphic way a body can, is that “they” want to know everything about you, but want you to know nothing about “them”.
And the next time you find yourself dangling on the phone waiting for the right to be interrogated by a digital voice, it’s a message worth having.
Colossal ★★★★½ and Vehicle ★★★★
The rejuvenated Fringe World begins with a bang with two gigantic shows:
Patrick McPherson’s ‘Colossal’
came garlanded with plaudits and prizes, including Theatre Weekly’s “Best Show
of the Edinburgh Fringe 2022”, and is the epitome of the best fringe; hilariously,
crafty, shocking and far, far more than meets the eye.
With “Vehicle”, Sam Longley
and Shane Adamczak, two of our very best improv performers show, like modern-day Laurel and Hardys, what mischief can be made if, instead of having to craft a
story on the spot, you gave them three months to work on it.
(Read my complete review of both Colossal and Vehicle in Seesaw Magazine link here)
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| Elise Wilson (pic: Sophie Minissale) |
Horses spook me. I’ve seen two plays about them, and one – Peter Shaffer’s Equus – was the worst. Ever. With or without horses in it.
Plus, I’ve only “ridden” a horse once, and my arse, when it landed
on the hard dirt of the Darling Downs during the ensuing stampede, still hurts
whenever I think of that ride.
Now that that elephant has
left the room, I’m happy to report that All the Fraudulent Horse Girls is the
very best play about horses I’ve ever seen by the length of the straight
(okay, I haven’t seen Warhorse). And it doesn’t hurt a bit.
The story of 11-year-old
Audrey, and the ecstatic obsession with horses that gets her through the perils
and agonies of looming adolescence, is crazy and – just – believable enough, to
float, and the performances by a quartet of talented young actors (Hannah
Davidson, Courtney Henri, Elise Wilson and Lucy Wong) are wacky and energetic
enough to make you blink and miss some of the playwright Michael Louis
Kennedy’s text’s more fragile moments.
A kick in the head by a
pissed-off police horse on a wet Stirling Highway (don’t ask) sends Audrey
spiraling into the world of the American author Cormac McCarthy’s All the
Pretty Horses and her affinity with its hero, John Grady Cole.
The picaresque cowboy novel is
a cipher for Audrey’s brave outsider personality and the obstacles she faces,
and its helter-skelter story, while only roughly sketched, comes across well.
I’d have liked a little more
reflection in the characterization and text, more opportunity to sit a while
with Audrey and share her thoughts, but the director Mitchell Whelan and his
cast had a long way to ride, and not much time to do it, so it’s a missing
piece rather than a flaw.
The cast plays a parade of
characters, and all but Henri (who does a great horse) take a turn as Audrey,
passing the baton every time a horse whacks her in the head.
All of them have great
moments, and Elise Wilson’s turn as the “first” Audrey is worth the price of
the ticket alone.
Wilson has shown a phenomenal range
and presence in her nascent career since graduating from WAAPA’s remarkable
Performance Making course in 2018 (the rest of the cast are also alumni).
One moment, when a thought seemed
to make her her lose it completely, she had us in the saddle and galloping along
beside her.
A little editorial: I
should point out that All the Fraudulent Horse Girls is not part of the Fringe World Festival.
It’s one of the shows in the Summer Nights season curated by the Blue Room theatre
that runs concurrently with the fringe.
It’s
most unfortunate that the shorter Summer Nights, and the State Theatre Centre’s
curated State of Play season (which is part of Fringe World), both kicked off,
along with the rest of the Fringe on January 20th, meaning that there
is an unmanageable (for audiences) glut of interesting theatre/performance shows
in the first two weeks of the festival season and a dearth of them thereafter.
I hope the organisations behind all these programmes (don’t get me wrong, they
do a wonderful job) will bang their diaries together and rationalize these
delights in future.
Otto and Astrid Play The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Concert You've Ever Seen! ★★★★
What the world needs now is a faux-German Europunk parody sibling duo thrashing their way through songs like Burger Store Dinosaur, I Wanna Be Your Kitten (for Iggy Pop), 2nd Best Friend, Ich bin kein Roboter (I am not a robot) I’m a Lion, Trying Not To Die and Rock Bang, all of which sound like variations on My Sharon meets Kraftwerk meets Plastic Bertrand.
So why go for a pale imitation when you can have the real thing, the pride of the Berlin unter Tage. Meine Damen und Herren – Otto and Astrid, the Red Dots (or, by a happy fluke of English to German translation, Die Roten Punkte)!
Clare Bartholemew and Daniel Tobias – like Bernadette Byrne aka punk cabaret superstar Bernie Dieter, as German as Flinders St Station (what is this Melbourne/ Berlin thing? Oh, jas gut, I get it now) – have been hauling this vehicle around the world for a couple of decades, and they’ve got it down absolutely pat.
The result is hilarious, really hilarious, and way, way smarter than they pretend to be. I turned to the person sitting next to me and said “these idiots could do a fantastic kids’ show.’’ She replied,“They do’’ – and she should know.
This, I hasten to add, isn’t it.
Jamie Mykaela: Floozy ★★★½
My admiration for
Jamie Mykaela is boundless, both for her extravagant talent and presence and
for her courage and freedom as an artist.
So if I say that
her world premiere season of Floozy in the State Theatre Centre Studio is an
uncomfortable experience, that’s not to discourage you from seeing it. As
always, she’s a brilliant performer and a magnetic presence, and there’s much
to enjoy in her stories of an Armadale gal it home and abroad.
(Read my complete review of Floozy
in Seesaw Magazine link here)
What do comedy agent provocateur Tomas Ford, lawyer turned fringe-filler Josh Glanc and funnyman superstar Steve Martin have in common?
They all play instruments from the lute family? Uh huh. All three are very hairy guys? Yep. Correct. Could be bears.
I know. All three have worked out they can do anything they want – and if they do it like it’s dead funny, then it is dead funny? Si! Correcto!
So when Josh Glanc wanders around the jam-packed Gold Digger marquee selling “hot chips, potato cake, dim sim, sausage roll” the giggles begin, and by the time he sings with a parrot from the wildlife sanctuary “ between the Giant Grapefruit and the Giant Strawberry” on the Bruce Highway or evicts a guy from the tent because he’s too tall, the punters are heaving.
On and on it goes; there’s the lonely widow who takes him upstairs to show him a turtle, the woman he intercepts trying to help a baby doll escape the show, the Sam and Dave classic bowdlerised as “Small Man” by a tiny puppet. It’s silly, sappy, doesn’t have punch lines, sometimes tails off into nothing, but Glanc is so sure of it, so confident that it’s really funny that we can do nothing but obey his demand that we piss ourselves laughing.
And when he pulls off his fake moustache and obeys our demand that he take off his shirt to reveal his tangle of a chest – told you – we howl with pleasure.
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