In The Arms of The Ocean

wow.

that florence and her machine sure know how to put on a good show.

Even though I mostly reserve Florence's epic songs for car singing, belting it out at the lights and receiving impressed (read: scared) looks from fellow drivers, She made it impossible to sit still and just watch. I was up on my feet jumping up and down and singing away. Even Mum had a little mosh, Florence has that affect on people. I just wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home, and she would fit, she's a tiny slip of a thing! And boy does she love a good twirl about the stage. So adorable.
The set was amazing, 40's art deco inspired and had some beautiful patterns and colours projected onto it throughout the gig. We had seated tickets and even though our seats were on the side rather than front on, we still had a pretty excellent view. That is until the most unlikely fan ever took up residence right infront of me. She had spent the previous song yelling "play seven devils! play seven devils!", and when they did she went off her nut. I managed to snap a couple of photos of her hilarious dancing before security returned her to her seat. It was such a good show, Florence's voice is even more amazing in real life, I felt like I was being wrapped up in the arms of the ocean, as if her voice was giving each one of us a great big hug!

The Glass Menagerie

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Tennessee Williams

State Theatre Company of South Australia

Saturday 12th May 2012

It's exciting to see a play you have studied in great detail brought to life on the stage. To see the complexities of the text and the playwright's intention alive right infront of you is very inspiring. But it gives me and equal rush to see a text I know nothing about on the stage where everything is fresh and unexpected. The Glass Menagerie was one such play. I was familiar with the work of Tennessee Williams through A Streetcar Named Desire but knew very little about his other plays so I was excited to see The State Theatre Company's production of The Glass Menagerie to experience something new.

This was also the first time the boyfriend had been to the theatre, don't ask me why it took me so long to get him there! He was familiar with the text from high school english studies and it was weird that he knew more about a play than me! But it was interesting to see the different experiences we had with our different knowledge of the text.

The Glas Menagerie is a 'memory play', the memory of Tom Wingfield, (Andrew Gooley) our narrator, of the family's experiences in 1937. As he enters the space the set appears almost magically from the floor and ceiling as if he is remembering each tiny detail of the apartment as it appears. Victoria Lamb's set design created the perfect intimate setting to contain this trapped and suffocating family.

The play is achingly sad and powerful. Seeing Tom and his sister Laura (Kate Cheel) under the suffocating embrace of their mother Amanda (Deidre Rubenstein) and their inability to escape is almost painful to watch. Amanda is a classic Williams character, the fading southern belle wrapped up in the past dreaming of her former beauty and elegant life. Rubenstien is perfect as the overbearing Amanda, her fierce desire for Laura to receive a gentleman caller is maddening to watch but also intensely heartbreaking.

Though a powerfully sad play it also has moments of humour. Tom's sarcasm and Amanda's quick wit  make for a fantastically funny interchange between the two near the end of the first act. As Tom, Andrew Gooley's sarcastic quips perfectly capture his exasperation and inner struggle with his responsibility to the family. It is the juxtaposition between his humour and struggle that make the sad moments so agonizingly beautiful.  

In the second act we meet Laura's gentleman caller Jim O'Connor (Nic English). The candlelit scene between the two is incredibly moving. The gentle strength of their performances created a world in which only they existed, we forgot about Tom and Amanda, we finally were able to see Laura without her overbaring mother. Cheel's Laura was wonderfully fragile and it was beautiful to see her noticeably gain courage and hope from her gentleman caller. 

Though painfully sad to watch in parts, Williams himself said that The Glass Menagerie was the saddest play he had ever written, The Glass Menagerie also combines humour and wit to create a play that is beautifully poignant and moving. The State Theatre Company has done a fantastic job of telling this powerful American classic.

"for nowadays the world is lit by lightning"

bitches love rocket ship cakes.

It was the fella's 21st birthday a couple of weeks ago, and because im basically the best girlfriend/person ever, not only did I get him the most amazing gift ever in the form of a genuine personalised NASA flight suit (yeah he's a space nerd), I also volunteered to make the cake. 

A rocket ship cake.

Seriously, that boy is going to spend eternity trying to top my awesome birthday gift giving skillz.

The final result
Complete with cupcakes as the planets and stars

I thought I might give a little baking demonstration today, 

because honestly who wouldn't want to make this bad boy for themselves!

I must give some of the credit for this creation to my Mum, whose cooking knowledge and common sense saved me from making a horrible mess of this! Even though she winged a bit that I had roped her into an impossible task, I know she secretly was loving it.

We used two lots of chocolate cake baked in loaf tins and stood them on end and joined them with plain icing and toothpicks to prevent it from falling over while we worked. The nose of the rocket is a large cupcake baked in a ramekin pot and then a smaller cupcake was placed on top of that. 

Then the carving began. Using a knife we delicately scraped off the sides of the chocolate loaf to round the edges slightly so that it looked more rocket like and less brick like. 

You might notice the trusty Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book in the above photo. I'm pretty sure i've had almost every cake in the book over the years, and it served as inspiration throughout this cooking experiment.

The wings are make from a smaller thinner loaf tin and then cut in half on an angle.

At this point I couldn't believe it actually looked somewhat like a rocket! The next issue was how to put the icing on without getting all the crumbs from the shaven cake all mixed up in it. The good old internet pulled through and we did whats called a crumb coat where you mix some of the icing with a little water and spread that thinly over the cake, leave it to set a little and then put on a thicker coat of icing.

It's the finer details that really count.

Ta-dah! Shuttle!

 For all you non space enthusiasts "STS- 21" referes to the Space Shuttle program. 

STS stands for 'Space Transportation System' and the number alludes to the mission number. 

I thought it was amusing to have this shuttle STS-21, get it? He's turning 21, so mission 21? 

Anyway I laughed for ages when I thought of it, but he didn't get it and I had to explain it. 

Honestly, sometimes I think I know more about the manned space program than he does!

I was particularly pleased with my Saturn

 I then reveled in decorating the little planet and star cupcakes.

The planets are gobstoppers and the little stars are a marzipan type cut outs. They are all decorated with silver and gold edible glitter!!
The icing was supposed to be black but after using the entire bottle of food colouring it stayed grey, which is probably better as people might be put of by black icing. 

I got the glitter, stars and the food colouring (which is a gel colour that produces a more vibrant colour) from Complete Cake Decorating Supplies in Panorama, South Australia. It's an awesome little shop that stocks all kinds of cake decorating supplies that you thought you didn't need but once you see them you must have!

So there you have it, a horrible instruction on how to actually make a rocket cake (really I just wanted to show off). But perhaps you were inspired to take your next birthday cake to the next level and make it out of this world! The sky's the limit!

*space based puns intended.

The pleased as punch birthday boy in his flight suit,
which he wore all night.

Mission Completion.

The Caretaker

THE CARETAKER

Harold Pinter

Friday 23rd March 2012

Im going to start by saying I'm a massive fan of the work of Harold Pinter. I was introduced to his work in year 10 on an excursion with our drama class to see The Birthday Party. It was and still is, my favourite play to date. I remember clearly reenacting a scene from The Birthday Party with my drama freak friends infront of our class. It was intense. I dont mean to brag but we left the class speechless and I think a little scared of us. It's the highlight of my acting career, probably not for Lauren and Casey though, who went onto study acting at respectable acting schools (just quietly, they are both amazing actors and you should keep and close eye on the two of them. But thats another post altogether!).

Then in year 12 we studied The Caretaker and enjoyed it a little too much...

My friends, Casey and Phil, and I enjoyed studying the text so much that we made a recording of the play for our English teacher as a retirement gift, with ourselves in the starring roles. 

Yeah, we were the cool kids in the class.

At times I had no idea what was going on in the play and found myself yelling

"maybe it dosent mean anything! maybe there is a Buddha on the stove just because!!!"

*I will never know or understand why that Buddha was there...

Nevertheless it was a great play to study and became a great source of inside jokes between Phil and Casey and myself that will forever ingrained into my mind.

SIDCUP!

So Casey, Phil and I jumped at the chance to see The Caretaker at the Adelaide Festival to see if West End powerhouse Jonathan Pryce could do a better job of playing Davies than Phil could in our poor quality recording. 

And wow, could he ever! 

After I got over having a giggle after it dawning on me that Pryce played Governor Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I was able to enjoy the powerful performance of not only Pryce but also Alan Cox and Alex Hassell, Aston and Mick respectively. 

After only reading the play and having no visual and only our own voices to interpret the text it was interesting to see how the characters would come to life and if they would be anything like we had imagined.

The character of Aston was completely different to what I had envisaged in my mind. He was dressed a lot more dapper than I expected and he carried himself a little too confidently I thought for the character who had supposedly been in and institution. It was a little weird to see him so different after we had constructed such strong characters in our own minds back in high school. It goes to show how a text like The Caretaker can be interpreted in so many different ways.   

Jonathan Pryce was of course fantastic, his annoying tramp Davies was perfect. Just the right amount of  annoying and vulnerable. You just wanted him to get his shoes so he could just get out and get his papers!!

Even though you sometimes didn't really know what was going on, as is the nature of Pinter's work, I really enjoyed seeing a text I was so familiar with come to life. Even though I will never quite understand the importance of the Buddha or who in fact was in charge of the place (Aston or Mick?) the play was still compelling and powerful with plenty of tension and hints of comedy that left you shocked, anxious, amused, confused, annoyed, sad and happy all at once and always wanting more. Wanting to ask,

"What's your name!!?"

So now if you excuse me I must get back to fixing that electric plug.

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/the_caretaker

A Streetcar

A STREETCAR

Krzysztof Warlikowski

Wednesday 14th March 2012

If you were wise you would not ask me what I thought of A Streetcar, friends of mine were not so wise and were forced to listen unwillingly to me rant and rave for ages about the ordeal that was A Streetcar.  

My strong feelings about the performance had somewhat dissipated over the last month. For time it was all I could talk about, unfortunately it was to tell everybody what a painful experience it was, but then that is the role of theatre, to get people talking and debating.

Lets talk about probably the biggest problem with A Streetcar, the subtitles.
The performance was presented in French with English subtitles (a fact I forgot to tell Mum when I bought the tickets, the slightly alarmed look on her face was rather amusing). But you pretty much only had a choice of either watching the performance or reading the subtitles. They were up way to high for you to be able to both, which could have been a blessing because they just didn't match what the actors were saying. The audience would either be two thoughts ahead or three thoughts behind. It was very confusing and I ended up just watching the actors move about the stage piecing together what was going on from my knowledge of the original text. It would have been impossible for those with no knowledge of the story to follow what was going on.

And then singing happened. In French. For no apparent reason.
I thought to myself, 

"ok that was unnecessary and jarring to the performance, I hope she dosent do it again" 

She did. 

This time in English. And then she spoke to the audience, again im not really sure what we all gained from that other than feeling very awkward, but as long as she doesn't sing again i'll be happy.

Not only did she sing again but this time it went on for half an hour.

At this point i'd like to point out that the duration of the performance was

TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG

oh, and with

NO INTERVAL

This unnecessary singing marathon came towards the end of the performance and it is fair to say it began to feel like some kind of torture. Oh, I have forgotten to mention that he song was accompanied by giant text scrolling up over the stage like the credits at the end of a movie. Who knows what the text said, it was too fast to read and the fact that it was back projected meant that a good chunk of the audience had a light the brightness of the sun shining right into their eyes for half an hour. 

Its pretty clear that I did not enjoy the musical portions of the performance.

And then nudity happened. Full frontal nudity. Again, for no apparent reason.

I literally have no idea who the character was supposed to be.

Was it Mitch? Who knows!?

I sure don't.

 This is probably part of the review (tirade) where I would comment on the performance of the actors. 

But I honestly didn't concentrate much on their performance, my brain was tied up in wondering what the hell was going on.

Famed French film actress Isabelle Huppert played the part of Blanche. I guess she played Blanche well because I couldn't stand her. In the opening scene Huppert was eating bread and delivering the lines so quickly that I thought she was going to choke, it was repulsive to watch and listen to.

I did't really believe the character of Stanley, played by Andrzej Chyra. He wasn't powerful enough it made no sense to me why Stella would keep going back to him. 

Ok this is getting to be a novel.

I will say that the set was amazing for this production. It looked like a bowling alley and had a glass corridor going from left to right that served as the bathroom and other rooms that slid forwards and backwards throughout the performance. It was used very effectively and gave the stage some life.

My favourite part was the use of live video stream. There were three cameras at different points in the theatre that were able to deliver different angles of the actors, some that the audience would not usually be privy to. It helped with the intensity of the performance and delivered strength in the actors words when the subtitles failed. 

When people ask me what I thought of A Streetcar my immediate reaction is to say "it was awful, actually awful". But thats not really fair, there were some great parts its just that the really bad parts brought the whole things down. 

I mean they did put on a performance for two and a half hours without an interval they have to be given props for that.

And if nothing else it got the audience talking.

Or screaming, whichever you prefer.

STELLAAAAAAAAAH!

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/a_streetcar

Raoul

RAOUL 

James Thiérrée 

Friday 2nd March 2012

Raoul was a show that I had not heard much about, a one man show that would knock you socks off was pretty much all I had to go on when I was given a free ticket at the end of my volunteer shift. At first I was keen to give the ticket away to any passerby as I was meeting some friends for drinks at another happening festival hot spot. I am soooo happy now that all the people I offered it to already had tickets or just had no idea what I was trying to palm off to them because my goodness does James Thiérrée know how to put on a good show!


I was first struck by the sheer scale of the set, giant billowing sheets of fabric made it feel as if we were looking into a world among the clouds or among the waves. It was then amazing to see these sheets effortlessly unfold and glide into place creating a patchwork backdrop and revealing what appeared to be a  ramshackle homemade hut. 


As soon as that fabric had revealed the stage the magic began. 
Thiérrée's Raoul is a mixture of acrobatics, slapstick, music and dance. The seamless way Raoul tumbles through different encounters and fantasies is almost unbelievable. Thiérrée is able to move his body in such streamlined and fluid movements that he had me on the edge of my seat, mouth open, almost turning the the woman next to me and exclaiming "how is he doing that!!!"


My mind was well and truly blown when Raoul was swirling around with a giant mirror, one moment he was on the stage looking at himself in the mirror, the mirror then obstructed his face from our view and then there he was running through the stalls towards the stage! In the split second that he was near the wings he swapped with his body double and went into the audience. I still dont really understand how it happened, it was so smooth! The talent and accuracy that this show required was really just astounding.


My favourite aspect was how completely foreign the world of Raoul was, what with a giant ghost like elephant, a huge jellyfish, a pretty persistant shellfish roaming about and a house that talks back, but at the same time it is a world that is familiar and instantly recognisable. There is a moment when Raoul struggles to get comfortable in his armchair to read a book, it is a situation that is familiar to so many of us. The fact that Thiérrée can take these ordinary human experiences and make them so beautiful amazes me, I'm sure I resemble more of a fish out of water when getting cozy, but it was reasuring to see that im not the only one who thinks that maybe upside down with my feet in the air might actually be a more comfortable way to sit.


Raoul took my breath away and left me at the edge of my seat from start to finish. 
On leaving the theatre I instantly told all my friends about Raoul, that if they saw one thing at the festival it had to be this. Raoul was the standout performance of the festival.


My selling line to them:

I clapped my hands to bloody stumps.

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/raoul

mad march

So I worked it out, it's going to take me approximately the rest of my life to blog about the America trip. And besides you dont want to hear about stuff I did in another country many moons ago, not when so many mazing things are going on right here little old Adelaide!

So forget America, rAdelaide is where its at ya'll

During the season that locals like to call "MAD MARCH" Adelaide plays host to a bajillion (accurate number) of festivals and events that transform the city into a hub of activity, art, culture and fun times!

Over March Adelaide is host to:
Adelaide Fringe Festival

Adelaide Festival of the Arts

WOMADelaide

Writers Week (as part of the Adelaide Festival)

Clipsal 500 (but we dont like to talk about that one)

I got right into the spirit of the festival season this year by signing up to volunteer at both the Fringe Festival and the Adelaide Festival. I was keen to get amongst all the festival atmosphere as much as possible, and I wont say no the volunteer benefits ;)

While I did do some dud jobs, which included spending several days folding letters (no papercuts though!), there were also some really cool jobs that I was lucky enough to get.
Working the traditional Fringe Opening Parade was an interesting experience to say the least. Along with other volunteers my job was to crowd control and ensure people kept on the correct side of the road. This was tough job as the parade was to go down the west side of King William rd and spectators were to stay on the eastern side. But people being people this did not go as smoothly as probably desired. But it was a great experience in working on the logistical side of putting on an event of this magnitude which helped cement my desire to work in the production/planning/organisational side of arts events.

Cue crappy phone photos of the parade:

For the Adelaide Festival of the Arts my role was primarily helping out at Writers Week, being a source of information for patrons and helping in the bookstore with crowd control.

Held in the beautiful Women's Pioneer Memorial Gardens, Writers Week was a great success. It was great to see so many people of so many different ages to come down and hear some really fantastic writers speak about such a wide range of topics. I really enjoyed my time spent in the info booth sitting under the trees, listening to writers talk and giving out the occasional program. Seeing so many people truly excited about the written word inspired me to get into reading again. I used to be a massive bookworm when I was younger, but then life got in the way and Harry Potter became the only books in my life! But im currently reading Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave, so im moving up in the world. 

I also did a shift at the Festival Centre, or as us artsy people lovingly call it, the Fezzi Centre. The shift was in the info booth and just required me to give people information and directions. It was great to see so many people in and around the Festival Centre excited to see some form of theatre, dance or music. This is exactly the reason I love this time of year in Adelaide. The Fringe and Adelaide Festival gets people excited about the arts, which sadly is not as popular, at least with younger audiences, later in the year. The shift at the info booth was also great because Betty who I was working with got given a free ticket to Ennio Morricone and I was given a free ticket to Raoul. With tickets costing anywhere up to $150 we both won big time that day!

Lastly, I dont mean to brag but the benefits of volunteering at these festivals are pretty great. My fringe pass got me into the Fringe Club or Artist Bar where we all the artists go to chill out. My Adelaide Festival pass allowed me express entry into Barrio, the pop up festival bar (more on that later). The festival pass also entitled me to discount rush tix for festival shows. I got tickets for myself and Mum to A Streetcar and later this week im going to see The Caretaker with friends.

The festival season is officially over now and Adelaide is slowly turning back into its sleepy old self, but the memories of Mad March will not be forgotten by those like myself who cannot stop talking about the amazing shows and the amazing fun they had and who are already looking forward to next years festivities!

Keep your eyes peeled for my reviews on Fringe and Adelaide Festival shows.
(assuming i dont download any more saturday night live episodes...)