July 22, 2010<\/p>\n
Adelaide
\nTheatre<\/p>\n
Superheroes
\nby Paulo Castro
\nStone\/Castro and Adelaide Festival Centre inSpace Program
\nSpace Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
\nJuly 21. Tickets\u00a0 $ 17 – 26. Bookings : BASS 131 246
\nUntil July 24.
\nMelbourne season: Arts House Melbourne, August 11- 15.<\/p>\n
Throughout time human beings have looked upwards for salvation. It is from the sky that they will come, whether they are signs and portents, angels and messiahs, the liberating jets \u2013 or superheroes. As someone says in Paulo Castro\u2019s engagingly ambitious political discourse : Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman are aliens in human form, who embody everything we wish we were.<\/p>\n
The setting for Superheroes<\/em> is a closed ward in a rehab centre and, under constant supervision, there is an evangelical Christian (Julian Crotti) who plays barrelhouse piano, a Palestinian Moslem (Paulo Castro), who has woken from a twenty year coma, an Iraq war veteran (Nick Bennett)with post-combat trauma, and a pregnant woman (Jo Stone), devoted to the works of Nietzsche and said to be a murderess. Assigned to manage this nutty microcosmic clash of civilisations is a male nurse and his nephew on work experience (Hew Parham and Lewis Rankin).<\/p>\n The distinctively inventive Stone\/Castro company brings a comic gusto to this m\u00e9lange – from the opening air guitar solo of The Star Spangled Banner<\/em> from the otherwise prim nurse, to the arrival of the mail order Superman outfits worn thereafter by several of the characters. Emboldened by their superhero status they variously prosecute their cases \u2013 for conversion to Christ\u2019s message, to the repudiation of armies and the end of war, to resisting all ideology except that of the survival of the self. Interestingly, the Palestinian is only bemused to find nothing has changed during his twenty year sleep.<\/p>\n Director Jo Stone has brought together a capable cast and a strong design team. Wendy Todd\u2019s cream and green ward with a wall of Venetian blinds opens up on a glassed area for the production\u2019s more surreal moments, while Sascha Budimski\u2019s explosive sound design and Kerry Ireland\u2019s vivid lighting energise the proceedings. Julian Crotti gives an appealing performance as the Christian zealot, Nick Bennett does well with a heavy burden as the embittered soldier, Castro makes impish superhero comedy (with assistance from a mobility scooter), and Hew Parham is deadpan droll as the nurse.<\/p>\n A memorable feature of this zany dialectic is Jo Stone\u2019s select use of dreamy choreography (often initiated by Lewis Rankin) which breaks through Paulo Castro\u2019s sometimes strident dialogue with an unexpected pathos. Of course, Superheroes<\/em> bites off more than it can chew in one hour ten, and, in reminding us of the intractable nature of global ideologies, it brings a grim message and not much X-ray vision. But, in its theatrical variety, and willingness to take on serious issues, it also creditably resists the kryptonite of indifference.<\/p>\n Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 22, 2010 Adelaide Theatre Superheroes by Paulo Castro Stone\/Castro and Adelaide Festival Centre inSpace Program Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. July 21. Tickets\u00a0 $ 17 – 26. Bookings : BASS 131 246 Until July 24. Melbourne season: Arts House Melbourne, August 11- 15. Throughout time human beings have looked upwards for salvation. It is from the sky that they will come, whether they are signs and portents, angels and messiahs, the liberating jets \u2013 or superheroes. As someone says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1679,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}