9 March, 2005
Murray Bramwell
Emily Loves to Bounce
Inspired by the books of Stephen Michael King
Patch Theatre Company
Odeon Theatre, Adelaide
9 March. Tickets $15 – $7.
Bookings BASS 131 246.
Until 19 March.
The Green Sheep
Based on the book by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek
Windmill Productions.
The Auditorium, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
9 March. Tickets $ 15 – $7
Bookings BASS 131 246.
Until 19 March.
The Come Out 2005 Australian Festival for Young People has been a biennial fixture in Adelaide since 1974 and in that time, thanks to the continuing commitment of artists, administrators, teachers and funding agencies, it not only showcases new work, it provides a much-needed focus and forum for youth arts.
It may be a platitude to say that young audiences deserve the best art but it doesn’t make it any less true. Over two weeks Come Out offers an arts festival featuring high calibre work from around the country for audiences ranging from wide-eyed pre-schoolers to world weary adolescents.
Adelaide’s Patch Theatre Company pitches its work to four to eight year olds and their latest production, Emily Loves to Bounce, is further evidence of their invention, energy and flair. Although based on the Stephen Michael King picture books (as previous Patch shows have dramatised books by Pamela Allen) their themes of friendship, creativity and exuberance are re-imagined with such simple props as white cardboard boxes, exercise balls, light cubes and shadow puppets.
The players – actors Astrid Pill and John Bode and musicians Zoe Barry and Belinda Gelhert – sing, dance, joke and surprise as boxes appear to move by themselves, white paper lanterns dance and coloured balls invade the stage like over-sized smarties. Director Dave Brown, designer Geoff Cobham and the Patch team have not only given Emily (and other King characters such as Henry and Amy ) plenty of theatrical bounce, they have artfully harmonised the production’s many elements, including, as a closing benediction, a hummed rendition of Beethoven’s Song of Joy.
With The Green Sheep, Windmill Productions director Cate Fowler reminds us of the theatre that is simple storytelling. And there is no more familiar advocate of its virtues than writer and literacy expert Mem Fox. Using Judy Horacek’s delightfully earthy and zany illustrations as large cut-outs, actors Noni Dunstone, Rick Magarey, Guy Peterson and multi-tasked musician Fleur Green narrate – to a sheep-pen full of littlies and their minders – Mem Fox’s playfully cadenced procession of blue sheep, red sheep, near sheep and far sheep – and yes, finally, in its iridescent manger, the gree-een sheep !
Come Out continues until March 19 with, among others, brand new productions from Cirkidz, Fresh Track Theatre , Denmark’s Baggard Teatret, Riverland Youth and Vitalstatistix, Restless Dance Company and the Spare Parts and Polyglot Puppet companies.
“Power in a sheep pen” The Australian, March 11, 2005, p.14.