Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
The Bogus Woman
\nBy Kay Adshead
\nLeicester Haymarket Theatre
\nFebruary 26. Tickets $8 – $20
\nFringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 10<\/p>\n
4.48 Psychosis
\nBy Sarah Kane
\nBrink Productions
\nQueen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide
\nFebruary 26, Tickets $18 – $24
\nFringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 12<\/p>\n
Absence and Presence
\nDevised by Andrew Dawson
\nQueen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide
\nFebruary 26. Tickets $18.50 – $26.50
\nFringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 4<\/p>\n
Pluck
\nQueen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide
\nFebruary 26. Tickets $16 – $20.
\nFringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 19
\nRiverside Theatre, Parramatta, Sydney
\nMar 30 \u2013 April 2 . Bookings 02 8839 3399<\/p>\n
Borge Again
\nDevised by Rainer Hersch
\nCaos Caf\u00e9, Hindley St.
\nFebruary 25. Tickets $ 19.50 – $24
\nFringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 19<\/p>\n
Second only to Edinburgh, the Adelaide Fringe just keeps getting bigger. This year\u2019s model has more than a hundred listings in theatre alone. The first weekend has begun strongly with the Leicester Haymarket production of Sally Adshead\u2019s The Bogus Woman. An asylum seeker at Heathrow airport, known only as the Young Black Woman describes her experiences as a journalist in an unnamed African country. Her daughter and other family members have been butchered before her eyes and she alone is spared. The circumstance is abstract but the details of Adshead\u2019s harrowing monologue – compellingly performed by Sarah Niles \u2013 are not. Based, in part, on reports from privatized detention centres in the UK, the woman\u2019s descent into institutional cruelty – and the extent to which she is disbelieved – is an uncomfortable truth for Australian audiences. <\/p>\n
Another kind of lethal isolation is that of mental illness. Sarah Kane\u2019s 4.48 Psychosis, named for the dawning hour when, statistics tell us, more people die than any other time, is a play for voices describing mordantly, bitterly and, often poetically, her anguish. With audience close in on all sides, a capable quartet of actors scratch and prowl in a square of coarse sand. Although Kane\u2019s quarrel with herself and others is sometimes toxically narcissistic, director Geordie Brookman has navigated a problematic text with memorable flair. <\/p>\n
Absence and Presence, devised by director, dancer and mime artist Andrew Dawson is autobiographical in quite a different key. Describing his late father, a suburban English postman, Dawson explores the distance in the relationship, as his work as a performer takes him far from the pipe-and-slippers life of his widower parent. But re-reading old, unexpectedly tender and drily ironic letters brings new perspectives. There are echoes of Phillip Larkin in the lyric ordinariness of the father and with a haunting music score, elegant lighting and astute use of video, sculpture and movement, Dawson, thriftily and touchingly, shows how much the child is father of the man. <\/p>\n
Classical music and comedy are not often found on the same stage or in the same sentence. Rainer Hersch\u2019s Borge Again, is a delightful excursion into the life of Victor Borge, the Danish comic who became a major success in the US in the late 50s and 60s. With forays at the keyboard and channeling Borge\u2019s deadpan, shaggy dog humour, the very likeable Mr Hersch is well worth a trip to Caos. And then there is Pluck, the zany English string trio who mix slapstick with some very proficient bowing and scraping. Don\u2019t miss their very special transcription of the Overture for 1812. <\/p>\n
\u201cDetention and Disbelief\u201d The Australian, March 2, 2006. p.12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Murray Bramwell The Bogus Woman By Kay Adshead Leicester Haymarket Theatre February 26. Tickets $8 – $20 Fringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 10 4.48 Psychosis By Sarah Kane Brink Productions Queen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide February 26, Tickets $18 – $24 Fringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 12 Absence and Presence Devised by Andrew Dawson Queen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide February 26. Tickets $18.50 – $26.50 Fringe Tix 8418 8666. Until March 4 Pluck Queen\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide February 26. Tickets $16 – $20. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-fringe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","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=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":802,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}