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City Farm
City Farm is a fantastic little play about issues close to my heart, stewardship of the environment and how our actions today will influence our future. Set in a future with cities so polluted you can’t breathe the air, City Farm tells the tale of Jed, the city boy who finds himself moving to the country after he wins a farm.
Jed soon discovers that farming isn’t all about sitting under a tree (Mel the Melaleuca), but actual hard work. Between the sheep, the cows, the sowing and the harvesting Jed finds himself opting for the easier technological fix, technologies that come with problems of their own.
This play humorously and effectively sets out its message, despite being targeted at a younger audience, parents, teachers and other adult-types are well catered for. My friend and I were laughing more often than our younger fellow audience members. Jesse Butler as the computer and guitar-playing cow is particularly funny.
City Farm effectively engages not only the young but the old as well. Locally written and produced City Farm has humour, an important message and appealing characters. Complex issues are dealt with deftly, if somewhat simply, but it suits a young audience. I also like that there was an environmental scientist on hand to answer questions the audience might have after the show.
Perfect for school groups and families City Farm is a charming and entertaining show. If you have the time this weekend, take the kids and make a family outing of it.
Faraday’s Candle
Candles, how do you use them? To light a romantic dinner or tryst? To see during a black out? On a birthday cake? How often do you think about how these ubiquitous objects work? Michael Faraday, one of the great experimental scientists of his day, did, and thoroughly.
In 1860 as part of the annual Christmas Lectures for Children held by the Royal Institute of Great Britain, Faraday gave a series of six lectures entitled ‘The Chemical History of the Candle.’ It is these lectures that form the basis for the Fringe Show, Faraday’s Candle at RiAus in Australia.
Simple in its staging, Faraday’s Candle more or less takes the first lecture, adds a few modern touches and delights the audience with the same experiments and demonstrations Faraday used over 150 years ago. Despite the original lectures being aimed at children, when remodelled for the modern audience they have lost little of their original fascination. The mostly adult audience thoroughly enjoyed the demonstrations provided by Bernard Caleo as Michael Faraday.
Personally, while I found the presentation of the lectures interesting, the actual chemistry and science behind the lectures were nothing new to me and as a result I got a little distracted with the simplicity of it all. But the rest of the audience did not share my feelings, at the end, all I heard was talk of how fascinating they found the whole show and how they would never look at a candle in the same light again.
Undoubtedly if you already know the science, greater familiarity with the original lectures would have added an extra layer to Faraday’s Candle giving you more to examine and consider throughout the performance.
There is a lovely symmetry to Faraday’s Candle, given it is based on lectures presented over 150 years ago in the mother organisation to RiAus. If it is brought back to Adelaide it really ought to always be performed in this venue, considering the history of the lectures there is no better place for it.
Sepia
Sepia is one of two shows I’ve seen this Fringe that tells a local story (the other is Sons & Mothers). Locally written and produced this play is a fantastic example of what South Australia has to offer the arts.
It starts more or less in the present, with the approval of a large mining project and an associated desalination plant with the potential to decimate the Giant Australian Cuttlefish, Sepia apama. The cuttlefish are an important tourist attraction and central to Neil’s dreams as the owner of the local caravan park. Dreams that with the announcement of the desal plant he feels are shattered.
In the present day his family is sundered, split between good jobs in the city and dreams of a free and unfettered life. His wife, Emma, works for the very company responsible for the mining project, while his son, Matt, spends his days in the steel factory with the life he fought to free himself from. From this point the play moves back in time, to two distinct moments that define and explain the present situation of the family.
The script is humorous and the characters are engaging, well performed, the stories of the family draw the audience in, without realising it the hour passes unbelievably quickly. While the play’s namesake, the cuttlefish, feature in the play, what is more central is the family. The dreams, desires and squabbles every family has as it grows and changes. The cuttlefish become more a topic of conversation, a backdrop, for the family and its story.
I’ll admit the polarities of what the characters represented did annoy me a little bit, but that comes from someone who works and campaigns on environmental issues by day (at night I transform into a theatre goer). So, to a certain extent I resented the classification of the environmentally friendly character as the dreamer, obsessed with the cuttlefish and the world they inhabit.
The conversations that take place in the play, are ones I’ve had any number of times with friends who work for mining companies (there are a lot of them). So for that part, perhaps I was a little too close to the subject matter to be able to just sit back and be absorbed in the story. I clearly come into this play sitting on one side of the fence, others will sit on a different side. Sepia doesn’t offer answers or solutions, this story hasn’t finished, it’s still on going, the answers and solutions may not be known for decades if there are any.
Sepia tells the story of what falls between the cracks when big decisions are made far away from where the consequences will eventually be felt both physically and temporally. At one level it is the story of big mining versus the environment, but it predominately tells of the tensions between regional and urban Australia, between having the space to dream and being restricted by reality, between the past, present and the unknown future, and what those tensions means for a family of three.
Sepia is showing at RiAus Wednesday through Saturday for the rest of the Fringe.
The Divine Miss Bette
Well what can I say? the The Divine Miss Bette is simply divine. Catherine Alcorn uses her considerable talents to channel the legendary Bette Midler in a show that runs through some of Midler’s best-known songs.
With the aid of Trevor Jones on piano, Alcorn fills the stage, lewd, cheeky and sassy, she transports the audience to Midler’s early days. Enthralling the audience with her performance, right from the start she had us. From the first song the audience was signing along, by the time she had got to the absolute classic Wind beneath my wings she had her own chorus line.
Halfway through, one of Midler’s most famous characters, Sophie Tucker makes her presence known, with her comical songs and fabulous jokes she spices up an already saucy show, everyone was in stitches. Regardless of whether Alcorn was Midler or Midler as Tucker, she interacted seamlessly with the audience, feeding off our energy and laughter, never once breaking character.
Now I have a confession to make, I am not particularly familiar with the works of Bette Midler, however I am very happy to report that to enjoy Divine Miss Bette this is not a requirement, I had a ball. Alcorn is so adept at bringing Midler to the stage and so entertaining that whether or not you understand all the in jokes and references you are going to have an excellent and entertaining hour. For those that do understand all the references, it enriches and deepens the experience. It was clear that most of the audience were intimately acquainted with Midler, they just as clearly enjoyed themselves immensely.
From that response alone I feel safe saying that Alcorn does an excellent performance as Bette Midler. (Interestingly, the very man who gave Midler her start in the industry, Steve Ostrow, trained Alcorn in this role.)
The Divine Miss Bette is a fresh, entertaining and sassy show, it ended before I was ready to say goodbye. It also means I will spending a fair bit of time in the near future acquainting myself with this hilarious individual.
Sadly The Divine Miss Bette had a very short season in the Cabaret Fringe, if you you wish to see the show, hope that Alcorn brings it back for another season.
Now because I was allowed to tweet during the viewing, I’ve collected some tweets about the Divine Miss Bette and included them here to share with you all. View them on Storify here.
