HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2025

 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Text by John Cameron Mitchell. Music and lyrics by Stephen Trask. Co directors Shane Anthony and Dino Dimitriadis. Musical director Victoria Falconer. Set Design Jeremy Allen. Costume design Nicol and Ford. Lighting design Geoff Cobham. Choreography Amy Campbell. Sound design Jamie Mensforth. Soundscape design Jason Sweeny. Consent and community consultant Bayley Turner. Executive producer Rob Brookman. Associate producer Jeff Burns. Technical director Will Lewis. Producers  Richelle Brookman. Torbin Brookman  Andrew Henry. GWB Entertainment, Andrew Henry and the Adelaide Festival. Queens Theatre. February 18 - March 15 2025

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Sean Miley Moore as Hedwig

Outside the temperature soars to a stifling 35 degrees. Inside the Queens Theatre the hottest show in town sends the mercury through the roof with its production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s raunchy and wild rock and roll musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The original theatre in Adelaide is ideal for the Adelaide Festival production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Hedwig, played with magnetic dynamism by Seann Miley Moore, is a queer singer, touring second rate venues across America with her companion former East German Drag queen Yitzhak ( a sensitively understated performance by Adam Noviello) and her band The Angry Inch. Like the show, the venues are rough and tawdry, concrete caverns or warehouse shells, neglected clubs, reeking with the odour of failure and rejection. For Hedwig, existing on the outskirts of social conformity, the 1961 construction of the wall, dividing her birthplace between the east and the west became a symbol of oppression and threatening negation of difference and individual sexuality. Hedwig immigrates to America on a quest for freedom and acceptance. In her attempt to discover love Hedwig experiences the cruel heartbreak of an American GI’s abuse and the betrayal of her lover Tommy Gnosis who stole her songs in his own quest for successful stardom. Hedwig is forced to survive, to battle on in a fierce assertion of identity. The raw defiance of Tear Me Down or the hope of escape from her struggles in Sugar Daddy or the botched sex change (The Angry Inch) and the possibility of overcoming the struggles in Wig in a Box all lead Hedwig on her rollercoaster search for the assertion of self.

Adam Noviello as Yitzhak, Seann Miley Moore as Hedwig

The character of Hedwig was created as a star vehicle for originator John Cameron Mitchell. The plot is simple, the themes of identity and place in the world against the forces of political oppression and regression universal in the search for acceptance. Nothing could be more relevant in a world where all attempts at the acceptance of difference are being threatened and suppressed. There is a prophetic ominousness to Cameron Mitchell and Trask’s musical about the tormented Hedwig. The role of Hedwig is crucial to our understanding of the threat to anyone who might be regarded as not conforming to some accepted “norm”. It is particularly pertinent to the current American president’s absurd pronouncement of the proclamation of only two genders. The role of Hedwig becomes a symbol of the struggle for acceptance and empathy. In this production Seann Miley Moore is a powerhouse of persuasion. His performance is ebulliently charismatic. From an explosive celebration of self to a dejected admission of insecurity and powerlessness, Moore charts the trajectory of Hedwig’s life with ricocheting emotion. When she passes on her wig to a transformed Yitzhak it is an act of love and acceptance. She has discovered the truth of being oneself. Moore leads the audience along a path of understanding. Moore’s remarkable range and power gives voice to the heights of passion and the gentle tone of introspection.

Seann Miley Moore in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

It is thirty years since the origin of Hedwig. Under Victoria Falconer’s musical direction, the performance by the band powerfully underscores the characters’ journey. Moore and Noviello, accompanied by Amy Clark as Yitzhak’s cover show that Hedwig and the Angry Inch  continues to have a connection with audiences, who, with arms held high wave from side to side in time with the music and in affirmation of their support for their shared humanity no matter what gender, no matter what difference. Raucous or raunchty, wild or gentle, defiant or compassionate, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is first class entertainment and a salutary lesson in acceptance.

The Angry Inch Musicians. Keyboards Victoria Falconer. Guitars Glenn Moorhouse. Bass Felicity Freeman. Drums Jarrad Pyne.

Photos by Shane Reid

 

 

 

 

CAMILLE O'SULLIVAN LOVELETTER ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2025

 

Loveletter  Camille O’Sullivan with collaborator and musician Feargal Murray

Her Majesty’s Theatre. Adelaide Festival. March 4-5 2025

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 No-one can deny the spellbinding talent of Camille O’Sullivan. With the vocal range and emotional intensity of a cyclone of song, O’ Sullivan is a unique and captivating artist. Her show Loveletter is a tribute to the singers who have inspired her but tragically are no longer with us. She mourns the loss of inspirations like Shane McGowan, frontman of the Pogues (A Rainy Night in Soho)), Kirsty MacColl (Fairytale in New York), the wonderful Sinead O’Connor (My Darling Child), Jacques Brel (In the Port of Amsterdam). David Bowie (Blackstar) and Leonard Cohen (Anthem). Loveletter is penned in the song of the soul. Sentimental, raunchy, fierce and introspective O’Sullivan pays tribute to her idols and makes their memory in song her own. Her rendition of Jacques Brel’s In The Port of Amsterdam is the most dynamic tearing of the heart I have ever heard or seen, a circular saw ripping through steel and shooting the sparks into the firmament. From the raunchy In These Shoes of Kirsty MacColl to the resigned wisdom of Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, O’Sullivan shows that the songs of the dead live on in the hearts and minds of the living.  Their poetry rings with the chime of the human spirit. They are the Muse, O’Sullivan their acolyte. From punk to pop and rock to jazz O’Sullivan sings her Loveletter with expressive force or gentle introspection. Her devotees sing along, a chorus of delight and adulation.

There is wisdom in the saying that less is sometimes more. O’Sullivan, on the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre was in need of a director and dramaturge. Her singing could fill a stadium. Her banter becomes drawn out, often inaudible and mostly unnecessary. Her self-effacement “I’m falling apart” diminishes the power of her performance in the songs. In the first half of the show O’Sullivan is more controlled. The quips are there, the banter still offered as a touch of standup or at times lie-down comedy, but there is discipline. In the second half of the show, the softly sung songs are interrupted by mutterings and jokes directed at the front row of the stalls.

The result is a show advertised at one hour fifty minutes including a twenty minute interval that ran for almost two and three quarter hours with encores and chat. Devotees applauded enthusiastically, grateful in their adoration.

O’Sullivan and Murray are outstanding interpreters and performers. To see Murray playing a trumpet while playing with one hand on the keyboard is a treat. To be swept away by O’Sullivan’s vocal command and emotive force is acknowledgement enough of an unique talent. This was a Loveletter that was just too long.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

BLAZE 2025

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

BLAZE I Sophia Childs, Sophie Dumaresq, Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan, Brennan O’Brien, Jessika Spencer

Canberra Contemporary I 8 February – 17 April 2025 

This exhibition is an emerging artists’ showcase. Now in its fifteenth iteration, BLAZE presents diverse voices at the beginnings of their art careers. It exhibits bold and thought-provoking artworks in several media. The artists were chosen based on contributions to the vitality of visual art in the ACT region and their exhibitions over the last eighteen months.

Sophia Childs is showing an assortment of delightful works for which she has sewn together irregular shaped pieces of fabric that she has painted on with acrylic. Most of the resultant works are spread out on the walls much as skins removed from a dead person’s or animal’s body might be. But these are not dead animal skins as the works are brightly multi-colourful and most fascinating to explore. Two of them are attached to recycled timber frames standing on cast plaster feet, further adding to their already substantial interest.

Installation view of work by Sophia Childs in BLAZE 2025 at Canberra Contemporary.
Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Sophie Dumaresq, whose works have been seen in a number of Canberra galleries recently is represented here with just one artwork, but it is rather special - a major mixed media performance piece with mechanical components. This anthropomorphic sculptural-performative shark is a major contribution to the artist’s self-appointed role as spokesperson for sympathy towards the Great White Shark. Those who have had an opportunity to watch whilst the artist is animating the shark would, no doubt, have thoroughly enjoyed the performance and, therefore, appreciated the piece and its message even more.

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax is showing eight framed prints, each having been made from scanned medium-format film. As displayed, they are separated into three groups by two piles of archival letters. Several images show us various immediate family members, including the artist herself, in differing and different poses. Roger’s head is obscured, posing a question as to why. Twins had me wondering whether or not the two figures were actually that or were the one person shown twice. Does the answer matter?

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax 'Roger' 2025, medium format film, scanned and printed on archival cotton rag, 60 x 60 cm. Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax 'Twins' 2025, medium format film, scanned and printed on archival cotton rag, 60 x 60cm Photo courtesy of the artist

Each of these high-quality images is intriguing. Two of them, respectively titled Eyes and Ring, brought me to a stop as I walked around the space, forcing me to look even more closely and think longer about what they were telling me. The letter piles immediately made me want to rifle through them, closely reading and exploring their contents to discern the relationship to the prints. This is a fine storytelling body of work.

Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan is showing a set of six neon bent glass letter sculptures. They change colour (from warm red to icy argon-mercury blue) and shape as they are viewed from different positions in the gallery. A high voltage light beam dances in the complex forms. This is a further development from her previously exhibited and prize-winning glasswork. 

Brennan O’Brien’s four fastidious paintings explore softness and fluidity. They are works to stand before and enjoy as you absorb their content. His eyes, a blue million miles, painted with acrylic on primed plywood, is particularly surreal, a powerful study to stand before, look closely into, and simply enjoy.

Brennan O'Brien, 'His eyes, a blue million miles' 2024, oil on acrylic primed plywood,160 x 120cm. Photo courtesy of the artist

Wiradjuri woman Jessika Spencer has two works. One is constructed from natural and studio dyed raffia, hair, fishing line and a timber frame; the other from kangaroo bones, raffia and coolamon assemblage. Together they are a wonderful reimagining of country, “a utopia free of the effects of colonisation, capitalism and patriarchy.”

Visitors to this excellent show should read the detailed information about each artist’s works in the room sheet as they move around the gallery exploring and enjoying every exhibited piece.

This review is also available on the author's own blog here.

MY COUSIN FRANK ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2025

 

My Cousin Frank Written and told by Rhoda Roberts AO

 Directed by Kirk Page. Associate director Julian Louis. Lighting design Karl Johnson. AV Design Mic Gruchy and Jahvis Loveday. Sound design Damian Robinson. Producer Libby Lincoln. Production Manager Karl Johnson.Stage Manager Sheridyn Dalton. AV Operator Patrick Bolliger. Rhoda Roberts dressed by Ella Lincoln. A NORPA Production. Generously supported by Sam Harvey. Space Theatre. Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Festival. March 3 – 5 2025.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

In 1964, Francis Roberts, known to all as Honest Frank was the first Aboriginal athlete to compete in an Olympic Games. In telling his story, cousin Rhoda Roberts AO weaves her family’s history through a telling account of the struggles and triumphs of the Bundjalung clan of North East New South Wales. Roberts relaxed and easy charm is instantly engaging and we are drawn into a conversation that is intimate, deeply personal and a lens through which we can learn and understand more about her people and their struggle for the preservation of culture; language and identity through kinship and resilience. It is uplifting in its account of a proud people who value kindness and humility and forthright in its condemnation of the Aboriginal Protection Board and the Lismore City Council that initiated the demolition of Honest Frank’s home on the adjacent aboriginal settlement of Cubawee. 

Rhoda Roberts AO in My Cousin Frank

 Robert’s armchair performance upholds the character and integrity of her people.. There is no overt judgement, no bitterness, no indignation or fury. Injustice speaks for itself. Our first indigenous participant in the Welterweight Division of the Boxing competition in the 1964 Olympics held no Australian citizenship and was given a British passport on which to travel. It is an act of humiliation for a man who was invited to dine with Hirohito. It was a humiliation experienced by the Aborigines who served Australia in wartime but were barred from entering the RSL when they returned. But Roberts’ story is not one of angry condemnation. That is for her audience to decide. Hers is a moving and inspiring celebration of family, of her grandfather who was a bad driver but a leading advocate for his people and a voice alongside Charlie Perkins for the 1967 referendum that finally gave the original inhabitants of the land the fundamental right of citizenship in the occupying nation’’s constitution; her great grandfather Lyle Roberts who established the Bundjalung principles of living and organized the 1938 Day of Mourning; her father who gave up boxing to become a pastor like his grandfather before him and founded the Koori Mail and long before the boxing Robertses who paved the way for cousin Frank, the “shy, good looking boy” and a revered Olympian and 2000 Olympics torchbearer.

The punching bag suspended from the ceiling and the gloves that Roberts holds in silent reverence are striking symbols of the fight for recognition, the fight for citizenship and the fight for dignity. It is the fight that may take them out of poverty. It is the fight that can fill them with pride in themselves and their people. It is the fight that echoes with the words of the Elders “Stand tall. Head high. Higher Up".

In 2011 cousin Frank died. He was awarded a state funeral with his welterweight boxing belt from the ’64 Olympics proudly displayed on his coffin. Neither the” Aboriginal Destructions Board” as it was mockingly called nor the Lismore City Council could deny Francis Roberts’ place in sporting history or his people’s welfare. Honest Frank is an inspiration to his clan and to all who uphold the values of kindness and humility. They are qualities that emanate from Roberts’ heartfelt love of country and all people. After the devastating result of the Voice referendum last year My Cousin Frank offers hope for the future, a future built on trust in the spirit of a Widjabul Wiabal and Githabul man who paved the way with a long line of Roberts’ ancestors.

My Cousin Frank is gentle storytelling without artifice or hyperbole.  It is truly honest in its telling and its spirit of hope. In her personable and easy truth telling Roberts' story helps us to believe that the wrongs of the past can give rise to the healing of the future. It is this belief in the power of the fighting spirit and inspired resilience that Rhoda Roberts’ story of My Cousin Frank is not to be missed if it comes to a theatre near you.

 

 

 

HEWA RWANDA - LETTER TO THE ABSENT ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 25

 

Hewa Rwanda  Letter to the absent

Author Dorcy Rugamba, Performers Dorcy Rugamba and Majnun, Musical creation: Majnun and Akasha. Stage manager,Jules Nionkuru. Dialogue director Judy Dennis. Production Rwanda Arts Initiative (Rwanda)/The Charge of the Rhinoceros (Belgium). Producer Ellen Dennis USA. Tour manager The Charge of the Rhinoceros (chargedurhinoceros.be) Presented by Arts Projects Australia and Adelaide Festival. Supported by Wallonie Bruxelles Internationale (WBI) and Commission Communautaire Francaise (COCOF) Belgium. Elder Hall. March 3-6 2025

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

It is impossible not to be profoundly moved at the sight of the family photo upon the large screen behind Dorcy Rugamba. It haunts me still as I sit to write this review of Hewa Rwanda --Letter to the absent. The camera captures a loving Rwandan family, neatly dressed one suspects for a special occasion. There is no premonition of the horror that is about to befall. On April 7^th 1994, during the Rwandan civil war, members of the presidential guard invaded the family’s home and slaughtered ten members of the Tutsi family. Not one person was spared. Not Rugamba’s 59 year old father, his 50 year opld mother, his brothers, his sisters or the children ranging in age from 6 years to 16. Only Dorcy Rugamba, who was away at the time escaped the violent fate of the ten members of the family. 

Dorcy Rugamba presents Hewa Rwanda. Letter to the absent

Rugamba, simply dressed in trousers and an orange shirt enters to the lectern at the front of the stage. He is accompanied by musician Majnun with his Senegalian  string instrument. What follows is a reading of a memoir so vivid and so powerfully moving that it is impossible not to be transfixed by Rugamba’s narration and Majnun’s lyrical accompaniment. Music, poetry and anecdote coalesce in what Rugamba describes as a hymn to life. This is not an account of atrocity. That is implicit in the memoir and the photo on the screen. It is thirty years since his family was stolen from him. The mourning and the heart-breaking grief remain a memory of the time. Rugamba writes his heartfelt hymn to life, a love letter to  family that lived, loved, had dreams and achievements and were more than a statistic, a number or maybe a name scratched on a wall. They were Rugamba’s family, a father he adored, a loving mother who was the bedrock of the family, a sister whose embrace he recalls so fondly. Herwa – Letter to the absent is more than a eulogistic acknowledgement of the dead. It is a celebration of the living. It is a life affirming memoir – a hymn to the living and a gift to an audience who listen to the pain of his experience, the love in his song, and the memory in the music. There is theatre in his performance and drama in his and his father’s poetry.

The photo portrays a family frozen in time. Each year Rugamba returns to the house in Kingali in Rwanda. The ivy still clings to the wall. The guava falls from the tree. He remembers the open air theatre with its dirt floor that his father created for the community. He recalls with regret the fact that he never had the opportunity to explain to his dismayed mother why he embraced the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Quran and reconcile them to his decision.

There are regrets and there are lessons to be learned. He understands why the big will lay blows on the little and the little will lay blows on the weak when they become the big. The vicious cycle of violence does not end. He understands that if you abolish hate, the pain remains to be dealt with. And finally, the only absolute is love.

The performance of Hewa Rwanda – Letter to the absent does not leave you. It remains in the intensity of Rugamba’s vocal and musical delivery. The imagery of the language envelops you. Rugamba and Majnun have created a work of profound integrity that is much more than a personal memoir. It is a lesson for the living and a resurrenction of the dead. It is, in short, brilliant theatre.   

 

 

 

 

 

CAIDI DEL CIELO (Fallen From Heaven) ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2025

 

Caida del Cielo (Fallen From Heaven)

Artistic co-direction, choreography, musical direction Rocio Molina. Artistic co-direction, dramatic art, stage space and lighting Carlos Marquerie. Composition of original music Eduardo Trassierra. Participation in the musical composition Jose Angel Carmona, Jose Manuel Ramos “oruco” and Pablo Martin Jones. Collaborator for Dance Elena Cordoba. Costume design Cecilia Molano. Costumes creation Lopez de Santos, Maty and Rafael Solis. Photography Pablo Guidali and Simone Fratini.

CAST: Dancing Rocio Molina, Guitars Oscar Lago, Singing/ electric bass Kiko Pena. Handclapping and beat, percussion Jose Manuel Ramos “Oruco” Percussion and electronics Pablo artin Jones. Technical direction Carmen Mori. Lighting Valentin Donaire. Sound Javier Alvarez. Stage management Maria Agar Martinez. Executive direction El Mandaito Producciones S.L. Her Majsty’s Theatre. Adelaide Festival. February 28 – March 3 2025

Rocio Molina  Photo Simone Fratini

 

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

A great dancer can transform her art and transport us to new ways of experiencing and understanding our humanity. Roci Molina is such a dancer. In her Adelaide Festival performance Caida del Cielo (Fallen from Heaven) Molina, accompanied by four musicians including a singer. infuses her art as a flamenco dancer with the passion and the pain, the darkness and the light and the vulnerability and the power of being a woman. We see her first in a single spot motionless in the centre of the stage. She is dressed in a  white flamenco dress  with a train that splays out across the floor. Slowly the arms move into the classic position of the flamenco dancer before she sinks to the floor. Reptilian like she communes with the earth, a fallen angel in search of her roots. It is the overture to her discovery of self and a celebration of her womanhood empowered by the fiery spirit of the flamenco and the enduring power of the spirit of duende.

 The dress is removed and she changes into the clothes of the matador, sleek, tight and stylish. It is here that she gives sway to possession by the traditional dance of the Spanish folk. It is the flamenco of the caves of Granada. Arms reach towards Heaven and the feet pound the earth with percussive rhythm. It is the dance of the people, assertive and confident, rebellious and defiant. Castanets click and Kiko Pena lets out the song of the dance like a wind sweeping across the Andalucian plains while the musicians lend fire to the pulsating rhythm of the dance. 

 Caida del Cielo is performed in four separate movements, marked by the phases of the moon and a costume change, This and a comic interlude when the members of the company come to the front of the stage to eat from their crisps packet allow Molina a pause from her powering dance and a natural transition to a new stage in a woman’s experience. At one stage, Molina responding to the harsh music of German metal band Einstuerzende Neubauten crawls across stage leaving a trail of mud behind her as she struggles to regain a sense of self. A musician kneels at her feet in symbolic gesture to remove the dirt before a final celebration of her womanhood, bedecked with flowers that she casts through the audience in triumph and joy. The journey is complete, the descent substantive in its goal of discovery of self as woman. The flamenco offers affirmation.

For more than ninety minutes Molina and her musicians transport us to a new understanding of what it means to be a woman and the nature of struggle and survival. Molina’s athleticism and artistry is extraordinary, at times heart pumping, at times awe inspiring. Molina is the doyenne of flamenco. More than that she is an inspiration to all. It is little wonder that the audience leapt to their feet in a standing ovation.