Reviews

Kosher Bacon

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2018.Presented by Michael Shafar. The GC at The German Club-Cellar. Feb 27th to March 4th, 2018

1. The word kosher, literally meaning “clean” or “pure,” refers to food that has been ritually prepared or blessed so it can be eaten by religious Jews.

2kosher (informal) genuine and legitimate.

The humour begins even before the show. It takes great wit with a generous helping of ironic humour for a good Jewish boy to do a show called Kosher Bacon at The German Club and he comments on this.

The Manganiyar Seduction

By Roysten Abel. Can & Abel Theatres Production - Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), March 1 and 2, 2018; then Arts Centre Melbourne, and Botanic Park, Adelaide.

When you imagine a show called ‘spectacular’ it usually conjures a giddying, colourful array of acrobats, jugglers, plate-spinners and exotic dancers. Well, the Manganiyar Seduction is all of these things – only the visions occur in your mind’s eye – a mirage, an oasis created by the power that comes from 40 musicians performing traditional folk music together.

The Sound of Falling Stars

By Robyn Archer. Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse Theatre. Arts Centre Melbourne in association with Smartartists Productions. Feb 28 - Mar 3, 2018

It’s easy to see why writer and director Robyn Archer AO is often referred to as a national treasure. She has the most impressive bio you’ll ever read, and The Sound of Falling Stars is a worthy addition. In Cameron Goodall as the lead, Enio Pozzebon on keyboard and George Butrumlis on piano accordion, she has assembled an equally masterful ensemble to execute her expertly concocted show. This foursome knows how to entertain!

Bromance

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2018. Gallery Room of the National Wine Centre. March 1 - 9, 2018

The urban dictionary defines Bromance as ‘the complicated love and affection shared by twostraight males’.

Hollywood has made this term popular with its bromances – Paul Newman & Robert Redford, Will Smith & Tom Cruise and Owen Wilson & Ben Stiller, to name a few.

No Frills Cabaret

Adelaide Fringe 2018. Empyrean at Gluttony. 27 February - 18th March 2018

No Frills Cabaret is circus stripped bare; no set, no lighting, no MC, just a rotating banquet of some of the best circus and physical theatre performers Australia has to offer. 

The show is perfectly suited to the open roofed Empyrean, one of the many venues in the greatly expanded Gluttony. And, with a 6.50pm start time, it’s the perfect way to get in the mood for a whole night of Fringe.

Grace Jones

Adelaide Festival. Elder Park. 28th February, 2018

Adelaide’s beautiful Elder Park along the banks of the River Torrens was abuzz with excitement. We were all there to see the statuesque goddess Grace Jones perform as part of the Adelaide Festival. We were going to have to wait though. If you were to believe the rumours, then this diva was going to be fashionably late.

Bright lights and the thumping sound of the band echoed Jones’ arrival 45 minutes past official starting time. All was forgiven quickly, when the deep tones of her break-through hit “Nightclubbing” rang through the air.

In the Club

By Patricia Cornelius. State Theatre Company of South Australia. Adelaide Festival. 23 Feb - 18 Mar 2018.

One wants very much to unreservedly praise In the Club for its topicality, striking visual style, emotionally committed female performances, eagerness to challenge audiences, and refusal to offer easy answers or state the obvious about its chosen subject.

All of these aspects may well add up to a slam-dunk success for certain viewers, but this critic, though initially riveted and enthused, felt increasingly alienated by author Patricia Cornelius’ fractured storytelling, the impact of which was compounded by flawed male casting.

This is our Youth

By Kenneth Lonergan - an Underground Broadway & Between the Flags Production, Metro Arts Theatre. 28 February to 4 March 2018.

Step out on Brisbane’s lower Edward Street these days and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been beamed up on Broadway, dropped on a steamy sidewalk somewhere near the Iridium Club. There’s a new basement Jazz bar, 24/7 kebab kiosk, and late-night coffee. And it’s all staggering distance from the Metro Arts Theatre, a hub of the city’s thriving community arts scene, including Underground Broadway’s current micro-run of This is our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan.

Steel Magnolias

By Robert Harling. Villanova Players Theatre Company. Directed by Elizabeth Morris. Venue: Yeronga State High School Auditorium, Brisbane. February 24-March 11, 2018

The lights dim, the air conditioning cools, and the previews begin. But you’re not at the movies, this is Villanova Players’ first production of the year and before it even begins, the audience is captivated. Brisbane by Matthew Ryan, The Madwoman of Chaillot, High Society, the entire 2018 season has been compiled into individual trailers. All that’s missing is the popcorn.

When the lights go up on Steel Magnolias, there is already a buzz in the audience. What a way to start the year and encourage a following!

Cage

By Jordan Shea. life after productions. Old 505 Theatre, Newtown (NSW). February 27 - March 3, 2018.

Three Australian men wake up in big trouble in a jail cell somewhere in Asia after a night they can’t remember. The simple but striking set gave the production immediate credibility. The concrete floor and wall were set off against a bright yellow sun peering through the steel bars in the window. The sound scape too was effective – perhaps the only thing missing was the smell of a stinking jail hell-hole, but mercifully the audience was left only to imagine this.

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