Presented by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild
Reviewed Wednesday 1st September 2010
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/theatreguild/current/first/
Venue: Little Theatre, University of Adelaide
Season: 7:30pm to Sat 4th September
Duration: 70min
Tickets: $15
Bookings: Theatre Guild on 8303 5999 or via web site, phone credit card bookings on 8303 5999 ($3 fee applies, per booking not per ticket). Tickets are also available for purchase at the theatre on the night of the performance subject to availability (cash sales only).
The Guild’s latest offering is a collection of fifteen pieces by thirteen writers, some from the Creative Writing course but also some from other faculties, given voice by twelve young actors working collaboratively under the fine direction of Michael Allen, assisted by Bart Csorba.
The writing is not limited to theatrical scripts, per se, but includes prose and poetry, all sequenced into a continuous performance. Ying Xuan’s Silence–Paranoia began the evening with the full ensemble passing the dialogue around from one to another creating a feeling of both movement and an unsettling sense of disorientation due to the constantly changing source of the dialogue, a sensation befitting the title of the piece.
This moved into Joshua Coldwell’s whimsical piece, Objects, a work that was divided into three parts, the third part being the final section of the performance. Again, part 1 was for the full ensemble with various ‘objects’ introducing and speaking briefly about themselves, from traffic lights, to a tree, to a glass and more, with part 2 concerning bricks, reminiscent of the “I am wall” speech from the play within a play in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We next meet a shy harpist in Simone Corletto’s humorous love story, Theme and Variation. Not all was light and humorous, though, as Andrew Barker’s Fishing Boat took us on a dark and dangerous voyage in the hands of Nikki Allen, Kirsty Haigh & Karen Burns. Philipp Kouzoubov gave us a comically unsettling view of a marketing based future society in Planet Astroturf and the lure of chocolate was explored, tongue in cheek, by Kristin Tee in Secrets Over Chocolate. There was certainly plenty of variety in this production.
Being an experimental evening of work by new and inexperienced writers, with performances by actors with a range of skill levels, there were some sections that worked better than others. Overall, however, this was a worthwhile and interesting performance, allowing new writers a chance to have their work presented by an established company under the direction of very experienced people.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor Glam Adelaide.
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