Festival - Whats The Show

Adelaide Fringe – The Sun and The Hermit

2 March 2024 Alby T Grace

There is, undoubtedly, a preponderance of clowns in The Fringe these days. It’s a form that has grown increasingly popular among performers, with every third Fringe show and their dog having studied at Gaulier last year. Due to this, finding a really interesting, unique and funny clown show is becoming increasingly rare.

Not so with The Sun and The Hermit. Belinda Anderson-Hunt takes the stage from the entrance door after some kooky house music makes us pause for a moment. The house music, like everything else in this show, is a choice – and after Belinda has made a series of really unusual, off-kilter, but fantastic choices, we’re left convinced by the skill and complexity of this performer.

The “plot”, such as it is, involves Belinda’s neutral character entering the stage, revealing a variety of old, dusty props and costumes, then taking on various characters. Most are barely verbal, and many appear cartoonish. The initial opening sequence is explosive and hilarious, making us all lean forward to discover what Belinda will do next.

I shouldn’t spoil anything much about the show – partly because I don’t want to ruin any surprises, and partly because I have no idea if it will happen again when you see it – but there are moments, especially in the first fifteen minutes, you have to see to believe. If you can see, through your crying laughter.

As the piece settles, it sufferers a little from becoming a bit same-same, but that’s ok – Belinda is such an open, raw and clever performer that we will go anywhere with her. While the core of the Sun and The Hermit is humour, and it is very, very funny, lurking around the edges are some dark, disturbing, and strange happenings. Shades of Beckett’s Footfalls strike me momentarily; later, I wonder whether I’m meeting a new character from Lynch’s Eraserhead.

Sitting with Belinda as she journeys through these various iterations, we are left to think about motherhood and growing old, the transformative power of honesty, and the unbearable honesty of being a child.

Any criticisms I have are mild and probably irrelevant on a second viewing – as Belinda tells us, at the completion, the show is different every night, and we may have witnessed one of the most bizarre incarnations.

Overall, it’s fantastic. Belinda is a deeply charismatic and authentic performer, and we don’t feel a moment of artifice as she hurls herself headlong into each new iteration. The spirit of Fringe is here in the room with us, Frank Ford looking down on the stage and smiling – this is the edge-of-your-seat, don’t-know-what’s-going-to-happen-next sort of stuff we’re begging to see.

The Sun and the Hermit is only on for TWO MORE NIGHTS! Book your tickets and head to the Migration Museum at 9.50 pm on Saturday and Sunday to experience the hilarious madness. It’s a trip well worth taking.

This review also appears on It’s On The House, and check out more reviews at Dark Stories Theatre to see what else is on in your town.

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O.M.A.G.E.E. (The Optimal Mind Association for Getting Everything Excellent)

26 February 2024 Alby T Grace

O.M.A.G.E.E., featuring Jessica Zerlina Leave, is a one-woman show portrayed by a very competent performer who shifts between three different characters.

Each displays a certain aspect of apparently different cults – Linda, who helms the cult LifeLife (perhaps a sort of N.X.I.V.M. amalgam); Taylor, who starts out in an all-vegan Egyptian worshipping cult and then forms her own (the titular O.M.A.G.E.E.) and Lilly, a ten-year-old girl in a sort of school-cult situation.

If you’re confused by this explanation, you’re not the only one. The play looks at various aspects of cultishness – shades of Warren Jeffers, shades of Scientology, shades of Exclusive Brethren – and most of the show is presented with a tongue-in-cheek, humorous style. It does this with these three separate characters, but the narratives don’t seem to interweave – the cults seem to be separate, and that’s a little baffling.

Jessica Zerlina Leafe, the performer and writer, does a good job portraying the different characters, although it took me some moments to realise Lilly was different to Taylor. The show is a comedy, but unfortunately, most of the jokes didn’t land for me. Having said that, there were some good chuckles in the audience and a few punters who laughed all the way through.

It’s a very difficult subject matter to make light of, and that was where the play could have worked better. An early scene where Lilly, the ten-year-old, has some strange things done to her by a senior man is played for laughs but doesn’t really come across as funny to me. The intention is clear but read in a certain way; it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

The text could do with a trim-down – because the characters are all brainwashed in various ways, often they are spouting a kind of word salad. Sometimes, this text is nicely written and clever, but it takes effort to focus at other times.

The beginning was the most promising aspect of the show, and I want to see further development of the Linda character and a more interactive audience experience. It would be interesting to see Linda gradually convince the whole audience to join her cult – but unfortunately, Linda wasn’t super present in the latter parts of the show.

The venue is lovely and spacious, but the sound bleed from the bar next to the stage must be very difficult to perform with, so massive props to Jessica for pushing through that and staying on course.

Overall, the show has a lot of promise, and Jessica is a strong performer and a funny, unique writer. I’d suggest another round of development and performance to seek out what’s working and throw away what isn’t.

This review also appears on It’s On The House, and check out more reviews at Dark Stories Theatre to see what else is on in your town.

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Adelaide Fringe – A Solo Commedia dell’ Arte Show

26 February 2024 Alby T Grace

From the moment Andrew Crupi took the tiny but beautiful stage in the Yurt at the Migration Museum, you know you are in exceptionally good hands.

The show begins quietly; Andrew opens a suitcase and takes out a crown, a club, a note, and then, reverently, several gorgeous, hand-made leather masks. Each prop is given a quality, and each mask has a gag attached in its reveal – these little touches immediately imbue character into the mundane.

The opening is almost ritualistic; it gives us space to settle into the world Andrew created for us. And what a world it is. In the end, Andrew tells the audience some of his bonafide. He has trained as an actor and teacher, then specified in Commedia dell’ arte over the last eleven years, training under the master Antonio Fava.

As the show unfolds and the mellifluous score by Jake Morrison swells, it’s abundantly clear that we are in the hands of an exceptional performer. Channelling the physicality of Charlie Chaplin, the facial expressions of Rowan Atkinson, and vocal qualities and accents too many to name, Andrew is an unbelievably versatile performer.

The story itself is deceptively simple – we travel with a romantic farm boy, Flavio, as he attempts to woo the heart of the Princess in the tower. To do this, he must journey into the fearsome dark forest – but other hunters are going there too to claim the Princess’s heart as a prize if they can bring the club of the giant back.

Flavio is presented without a mask, and the other characters – Pantalone, Capitano, Zanni, etc are presented with unique masks that utterly transform Andrew as he deftly shifts between roles. The reveal of the giant in the dark forest is one of the funniest and most spectacular moments of the show.

Like a wizard in this magical space, Andrew takes us on a journey back in time. It’s a show which pays deep homage to this 500-year-old art form yet is bristlingly contemporary. It’s a show that is in debt to the comedy history and reflects on Andrew’s heritage as an Italian-Australian.

Andrew is a master craftsman, and seeing this style, which is often attempted but rarely executed well, achieved so expertly is a true delight. “A Solo Commedia dell’ Arte Show” is unlike anything else in the Fringe. Additionally, it works for any age – so bring your family.

In a festival where there are sometimes too many half-baked, thrown-together pieces of work, it’s refreshing and exhilarating to witness a work where every moment is considered.

Andrew’s detail, specificity, comic timing and stage presence are inspiring. At the culmination, we are reminded of storytelling’s power and the importance of laughing together.

A Solo Commedia Del Arte Show is at the Yurt Migration Museum on the 2nd and 3rd of March at 2.00 pm and Comida in Hahndorf on the 10th of March at 2.00 pm.

This review also appears on It’s On The House, and check out more reviews at Dark Stories Theatre to see what else is on in your town.

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Adelaide Fringe – Have Sex With Me Please

25 February 2024 Alby T Grace

Hallelujah! The two biggest nincompoops in Adelaide Theatre are back, and we must heap praise on the alpha chads who have shepherded them every step of the way.

After several season launches last year, leading to no-shows, one might have wondered whether Muse of Fire would ever present a full production. Well – they have – and it is buckets of fun.

Nate “The Prince of Science” Troisi and Eddie “Total Virgin” Morrison make up the bad-boy theatre collective and bring to the tiny stage years of acting and comedy experience – which is immediately evident with the opening banger explaining the premise.

The setting is intimate, and the small crowd were absolutely raucous throughout – yelling, hollering, and completely involved in every moment of this surprisingly magnificent piece of rough comedy.

So – you’re probably asking – what is “Have Sex With Me Please”? From the marketing, you could be forgiven for thinking they want you to have sex with them, and this might be a very expensive way to try and get laid.

Eddie and Nate are both virgins, but don’t worry, only Eddie is seeking a sexual partner – Nate despises all forms of human contact. So the premise is set – will anyone in the audience be willing to take poor Eddie’s virginity?

Eddie tells us Nate has been deep in academic research about sexual habits in preparation for the show – but has he? No – it was really hard, so Nate has to fumble his way through, making Eddie more desirable.

Nate takes Eddie through various, increasingly absurd steps to make him more alpha and confident. The advice, purportedly from Professors, is from some questionable YouTube personalities. So Eddie is gradually transformed into a sort of sex-Frankenstein, becoming more and more ridiculous and pathetic at every moment, and the best friends (they have a medal to prove it) gradually unravel.

That brings us to the surprisingly gooey core of the piece. Both performers are perfectly pitched, absolutely at ease, and impossible not to laugh at and fall in love with. Seeing Eddie in an inflatable neckbrace actually made me proud. This is what Fringe should be – two total idiots making people cry with laughter for fifty minutes and then, somehow, miraculously, touching our stupid hearts.

Don’t miss your chance to have sex with Eddie.

Have Sex With Me Please runs at Prompt Creative Centre, Thursday 29th, March 1st and 2nd, all at 10:30 pm.

This review also appears on It’s On The House, and check out more reviews at Dark Stories Theatre to see what else is on in your town.

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Spread the word on your favourite platform!

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