The Wizard of Oz
\nBy L.Frank Baum
\nWindmill
\nDunstan Playhouse, June 30. <\/p>\n
Mnemonic
\nConceived by Simon McBurney and Devised by Complicite
\nState Theatre Company of South Australia
\nIn association with Adelaide Festival Centre\u2019s inSPACE Program
\nSpace Theatre, July 2 . <\/p>\n
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
Nothing can quite match The Wizard of Oz. Ever since Judy Garland, as Dorothy, was spun from black and white Kansas into the dazzling lolly- coloured world of Oz in the 1939 MGM film version, the imaginative characters, the chirpy songs and the wise charm of the story have kept their immense appeal. So when Windmill gives this classic a new, more contemporary turn \u2013 there is anticipation and perhaps some apprehension also. <\/p>\n
In Rosemary Myers\u2019 brightly inventive production the farm in Kansas has become a caravan park, Aunt Em is a curvy blonde, the farm hands are her rather dubious admirers, and mean old Miss Gultch zips around on an invalid\u2019s scooter. But the centre of the story – Dorothy\u2019s big adventure, with faithful dog, Toto – is resolutely maintained. The three fellow travellers have changed a little \u2013 the Scarecrow is now a scatty male model from a billboard, but he\u2019s still in search of a brain, the Tin Man looks more like a samurai but is still wanting a heart, and the Lion, while possessing a Vegas Elvis jumpsuit and faux fur mane, could also use some courage.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Oxlades\u2019 appealingly illustrative stage designs, cleverly projected in Chris More\u2019s video design and delightfully lit by Geoff Cobham, give the production an energy and scale, matched by Jethro Woodward\u2019 s music – salting Harold Arlen\u2019s tunes with guitar riffs, beats, loops, and splashes of Hammond organ from co-performer Paul White. <\/p>\n
The cast – led by the marvelous Ursula Yovich, full of beans as Dorothy and extraordinary when she stops the show with her soulful reading of \u201cOver the Rainbow\u201d – is impressive. Hamish Fletcher as the long, lanky Toto, Luke Clayson as the flop-haired Scarecrow, Patrick Graham and Ezra Juanta as the Tin Man and Lion, Jude Henshall as Aunt Em ( and the ditzy Glinda) and Alirio Zavarce as the Wizard \u2013 all contribute strongly. Geoff Revell, hilarious as the prune-faced Miss Gultch and the Wicked Witch of the West (Tilda Swinton meets Rob Zombie) almost steals the show. <\/p>\n
Windmill has created a new Wizard with freshness and flair. There are aspects of the story which could be more carefully paced \u2013 the citations from the Wizard for courage, heart and brains, for instance, could be less flippantly dispatched. But, overall, this is a show which could wiggle its red shoes and travel anywhere.<\/p>\n
Mnemonic, from Simon McBurney\u2019s UK company, Complicite, is one of those Butterfly Effect narratives like Babel and Crash, and State Theatre\u2019s production from last year, Attempts on Her Life. They are fragmented \u2013 interlinking stories which make magic jumps and where coincidence is more like destiny. Such plays are intriguing, but also somewhat arbitrary, implying greater depths than they really have, and suggesting life as a wondrous chain when it might just be a series of Google clicks. <\/p>\n
Adam Cook\u2019s production does well in connecting us to this meditation on meaning \u2013 those we make in our \u201csprouting\u201d brain synapses and those mapped out over time and space. In time, we go back to the life, death and culture of a 5000 year old Ice Man, found in the Austrian alps and preserved with artifacts, clothing and stomach contents which remain ambiguous, obscure, and finally, unfathomable, to the squabbling experts trying to read these traces and entrails. <\/p>\n
Even in the present, facts can be opaque – as Alice (Lizzie Falkland) pursues, through the turbulent historical landscape of modern Europe, a father she never met, leaving Virgil (Nick Pelomis) in distraction about her own disappearance. Lives criss-cross as Alice meets the serially migrating taxi driver, Simonides (Renato Musolino) and the journalist Daniel (Roman Vaculik) The performances are well-matched and engaging, Brian Thomson\u2019s set is elegantly spare, and Stuart Day\u2019s music amiably ambient. With Mnemonic, Adam Cook has given us a suave, entertaining conundrum but perhaps it asks (and answers) rather less than we think. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Wizard of Oz By L.Frank Baum Windmill Dunstan Playhouse, June 30. Mnemonic Conceived by Simon McBurney and Devised by Complicite State Theatre Company of South Australia In association with Adelaide Festival Centre\u2019s inSPACE Program Space Theatre, July 2 . Reviewed by Murray Bramwell Nothing can quite match The Wizard of Oz. Ever since Judy Garland, as Dorothy, was spun from black and white Kansas into the dazzling lolly- coloured world of Oz in the 1939 MGM film version, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","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=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1703,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/1703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}