It's been a slightly bumpy start to this year's Adelaide Festival, marred by a line-up controversy that led to the withdrawal of writers and the loss of a major sponsor, and the arrest of an international artist ahead of his opening weekend performances.
The festival's vital signs were otherwise good: Ahead of opening weekend, it had met 91 per cent of its box office target — the biggest target to date — and 25 per cent of ticket sales were accounted for by interstate visitors.
Even so, as incoming artistic director Ruth Mackenzie was spruiking the line-up (curated by her predecessors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy) ahead of the festival's opening last Friday, she was being called on to defend the decision to back the inclusion in Writers' Week of two Palestinian authors accused of having made historical and recent anti-Semitic statements on Twitter.
The festival stuck to its guns, with Mackenzie telling ABC RN Breakfast's Patricia Karvelas: "I would argue, along with Louise Adler, our director of Writers' Week, that it is entirely acceptable to have a calm, civilised debate about [Israel's] government policies, and about the consequences of those policies, without that turning into a slanging match about anti-Semitism."
The line-up ruckus was a reminder of the high stakes, even in cultural arenas, of engaging in the fray of contemporary discourse: You will occasionally cop flak.
It won't stop artists engaging with sensitive issues, or festivals from programming those artists.
This year's Adelaide Festival showed its colours early on: The free opening night concert in Elder Park was headlined by the all-women Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth choir Marliya performing their Spinifex Gum song cycle, which addresses Indigenous deaths in custody and youth incarceration, among other urgent issues.
Ahead of the performance, ensemble member Stephanie Paul told ABC News: "Lots of the songs we sing about are quite heavy topics — about Indigenous issues, and social and political issues too.
"It's great for us to have a platform, through music, where it's enjoyable to come and see people perform, but to also send people away with messages.
"[We're] using music as a platform to share those stories."
Urgent stories
A seam of raw, political theatre about urgent and topical issues runs through this year's festival, in shows from Australia, Palestine and Europe.
Nowhere was this more keenly felt than in opening weekend headliner Dogs of Europe, an absurdist fantasy cum political thriller set in a future Europe divided between an expanded, imperialist Russian "reich" on one hand, and a loose coalition of the 'West' on the other.
Dogs of Europe was adapted by Belarus Free Theatre, an ensemble of artists living in exile from their homeland, from the doorstopper dystopian novel of the same name by fellow political exile Alhierd Baсharevič. (The book, published in 2017, is banned in Belarus).
The show, like the novel, traverses different times and plot lines, some fantastical and others grimly realistic. One narrative strand is set in a future Belarus that has been colonised by Russia, where neighbours report on each other to the secret police, and where speaking any language other than Russian is dangerous.
Another storyline is set in a time when books are obsolete 'curiosities', most destined for a scrap heap — or bonfire.
Cumulatively, the show is dreamlike, even hallucinatory. What emerges is a sense of individuals struggling to find meaning and their own moral code in a society where both are in short supply; and a reminder that authoritarian regimes rely on surveillance, and the best surveillance coopts every individual into its dynamic.
But Dogs of Europe truly pinions the viewer with its beauty — its potent imagery and haunting music (composed and performed live on stage by Mark and Marichka Marczyk of Balaklava Blues) — and the raw energy of the performers, particularly in choreographed sequences of dance and physical theatre.
"It's our chance to sing, to dance, be able to immerse everyone and ourselves into self-irony — and laugh in the face of dictators," Belarus Free Theatre's co-founder, Natalia Kaliada, told ABC TV's Art Works.
"It's luck that we're here on stage — because otherwise, another option for each member of this ensemble [is] to be in jail, to be tortured, to be killed."
The simultaneous exhaustion and endurance of long-term ensemble member Pavel Haradnitski as he ran countless laps around the stage, in a scene bookending the show's intermission, was palpable and moving.
On opening night, Kaliada interrupted the curtain-call applause to address the audience, reminding us that just over a year ago Russia invaded Ukraine. Before that it was Syria, and before that Georgia, she told us.
"Did the world pay attention to it? No."
She pointed out that members of the ensemble, and their families, had fought — and some had been killed — in Ukraine.
"It feels [like] you are far away and you are safe. But you are not. Today, Putin continues conversation with China in order to secure weapons for Russia to fight Ukraine. It's nearby."
International headliners
Dogs of Europe was one of several large-scale international works programmed for Adelaide Festival's opening week, signalling a return to 'business as usual' — albeit, not quite to pre-pandemic levels (the festival drew artists from 56 countries in 2019 and 39 in 2020, compared to just 18 this year).
Festival regulars, many of whom travel from interstate for the festival's international program, were not disappointed: Ballett Zürich's Messa da Requiem, filling the annual 'opera centrepiece' slot, set a new standard for spectacle, with its cast of more than 200; and Belgian director Ivo Van Hove, behind previous Adelaide Festival hits Roman Tragedies (2014) and Kings of War (2018), returned with his adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 bestseller A Little Life.
Classical music lovers were charmed by the wholesome (if worryingly earnest) boys' choir Escolania de Montserrat, making their Australian debut with a program of sacred and folk songs performed by 36 members aged between 10 and 14.
All these works were reminders of the unique power of many bodies together on stage. Works of scale can transport us, immerse us in imaginative realms; make us feel part of something bigger; or simply overwhelm our senses.
In the case of A Little Life, the chance to be transported came with a caveat — or rather, a list of trigger warnings, including self-harm, rape and suicide.
Anyone who read Yanigahara's novel would be unsurprised: Set in New York amongst a tight-knit group of four men, it is an epic saga that zeroes in on the trials and tribulations of the appropriately named Jude St Francis, across years of chronic pain, self-loathing and self-mutilation.
Van Hove, who won a Tony for his 2015 production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, is known for his use of screens on stage, and for "endurance theatre" (Roman Tragedies ran for six hours, though audiences were able to come and go as they pleased; Kings of War ran for four hours).
A Little Life, presented in traverse (with the audience on either side of the stage) at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, features a stage bookended by large screens with eerie slow-motion footage, in which the camera's perspective takes us through endless empty streetscapes with flashing shopfront windows, blurring the line between dream and reality.
The show runs for four hours, which is no small feat of distillation when you consider the heft of the novel (more than 700 pages) — though that is small consolation when you're trapped with someone's almost-unrelenting pain. (As has been noted, there is some reprieve in the novel version of the tale, which can be put down, that is lost in the live performance).
And God help anyone squeamish about blood.
Yanigahara's book was a worldwide bestseller, but received mixed reviews; some of the critics invoked the notion of the "trauma plot" and how it reduces human complexity to a list of afflictions.
Van Hove's adaptation has also had a mixed reception — though that didn't stop it selling out its Adelaide Festival season.
Explaining the appeal of Yanigahara’s novel on ABC RN’s The Stage Show, the director acknowledged it is “a cruel book”, but explained:
“It's not only a story of abuse, it's also a story of the greatest friendship on the earth…[and] the most extreme goodness you can imagine”.
Whatever you think of the material, the performances are excellent.
Van Hove's work with actors is distinctive: He tends to work with the same ensemble across years, and consequently develops a working relationship and level of trust with each actor (and them with each other) that enables them to go to places and depths that might defy others.
Hans Kesting, who has been performing with the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam ensemble (formerly Toneelgroep Amsterdam, which Van Hove has been director of since 2001) since 1987, gave a masterclass in commitment to, and embodiment of, character, playing every deeply objectionable bad guy in the piece. Marieke Heebink, playing Ana (a social worker in the novel, whose role is expanded on stage to function as a kind of 'angel', looking over Jude), is effortlessly compelling.
This month, Van Hove will premiere an English-language version of his production, with a British cast, on the West End; but the opportunity to see his original Dutch ensemble at Adelaide Festival was, for many theatre lovers, one worth seizing.
Local heroes
Adelaide Festival has a reputation for programming international works of scale — and within Armfield and Healy's seven-year tenure, there's been a particular focus on European work.
But the festival has also consistently championed local companies.
This year's opening weekend showcased two of Australia's premier, internationally acclaimed purveyors of theatre for young people and families, both homegrown in Adelaide: Slingsby and Windmill Theatre Company.
Both companies have longstanding relationships with Adelaide Festival, and Windmill's incoming artistic director, Clare Watson, says the benefits go beyond the usual list: prestige, financial investment and opportunity to snag new audiences.
"The context of a major international festival demonstrates to children and their families that they are of importance," she says.
Neither Windmill nor Slingsby call themselves children's theatre — and the success of their productions is partly due to their ability to pitch to a broad audience. They don't 'talk down' to anyone.
Both are known for ambitious, imaginative stagings, too.
For Adelaide Festival, Windmill premiered its latest fairytale adaptation: Hans and Gret, written by Los Angeles-based Australian expat Lally Katz (Neighbourhood Watch; Smashed). By opening weekend, the run of shows had sold out.
Staged in the laneway-hemmed, warehouse-style Queen's Theatre, the production's first delightful surprise is its slick, futuristic and neon-trimmed set (by Windmill mainstay Jonathon Oxlade), which has the feeling of a spaceship that has landed in a 19th-century factory.
Then there's the whopping cast of 11 (rare on most stages in Australia, outside musical theatre), which is harnessed to a surreal anti-capitalist fairytale with a dark edge, and body horror that the Brothers Grimm would no doubt approve of.
In Katz's tale, Hans and Gret are teens living with their self-involved but well-meaning yuppie parents in a gated community. Gret (Temeka Lawlor), the play's MVP, is a rebel marching to the beat of her own drum; when her girlfriend Sim goes missing in the lead-up to the school formal, she enlists her brother Hans and then her parents to try and find her, embarking on a circuitous trail that leads to a Very Expensive Therapist cum motivational speaker — who is actually a youth-sucking witch (played by Gareth Davies, born for the role).
Windmill ratchetted up their typical level of ambition by collaborating with Adelaide-based "creative technology company" Sandpit on this show, taking the story in an interactive direction.
Each audience member wears a set of "bone conduction" headphones, attached to a smartphone-type device hosting a simple Q&A survey that you fill out before the show commences. Depending on your answers, different lines of audio are fed to you through the show (not everyone experiences quite the same narrative).
Bone conduction technology allows you to hear in-ear as well as in-room audio, meaning everyone gets the same overall sound design — including all the live-spoken dialogue.
But the 'choose your own adventure' format means that certain scenes had to be left open-ended, or more ambiguous. It gives a dreamlike — or more accurately, nightmare-like — quality to the narrative.
It's occasionally confusing, and the overall coherence and impact of the narrative probably suffers a little (tech issues at the first Saturday performance were also a factor).
It's a minor quibble; this is a big, fun, weird, dark show, with great comic performances and a palpable sense of teen angst.
Also, as Watson (who has a teenage daughter) points out: "Kids can manage bonkers. They're so used to the scroll … they can consume multiple streams of information, and they're so culturally literate — so you can actually play with that in a theatre work, in a way that tickles the brain delightfully."
Raw theatre
At the opposite end of the scale to Hans and Gret is Slingsby's small, lo-fi show The River That Ran Uphill, created by its inaugural Flying Squad ensemble: six artists employed for two years (using money from the federal RISE Fund and the Government of South Australia's Arts Recovery Fund), with a specific mission of making shows for regional touring and presentation in schools.
Slingsby are known for coming-of-age tales that utilise shadow play, storytelling, live music and song, and miniatures (the company's hits include The Boy Who Talked to Dogs and The Young King).
With its additional constraints of being ready-to-tour (including a small stage footprint, and automated sound and lighting cues) The River That Ran Uphill is pared back to a cracking yarn told by all the ensemble members, led by Edgell Junior, a gifted storyteller whose personal story was the basis for the script.
Edgell Junior is a Ni-Vanuatu man originally from Pentecost Island but now living in Adelaide, with a background in making lo-fi, community-oriented theatre with Port Vila-based NGO Wan Smolbag Theatre.
In 2015, when Cyclone Pam tore through Vanuatu, he had a strange experience that fundamentally shifted his perspective: As he and a friend sheltered from the winds, they saw a small girl walking towards them as if impervious to the storm.
"She said, 'I'm looking for my mum and dad.' I asked, 'Where did you come from?' She said: 'I was asleep and someone woke me up, took me by the hand and led me here."
It later emerged, when Edgell Junior reunited her with her parents, that this little girl had been asleep in their house when the river washed it away. Her parents thought she must have died, and were stunned to find she had survived.
This is one episode in the story of the cyclone that Edgell Junior tells on stage, aided by his Flying Squad colleagues. We get a sense of his family and daily life, the devastation wrought by the cyclone, and the bigger picture of how rising sea levels and extreme weather events are changing life on the islands of Vanuatu.
The show also offers a brief, slightly caustic commentary on the influx of foreign aid workers who turned up in the aftermath of Pam, bringing with them a transactional mentality (and cameras to record their own good deeds).
Edgell Junior knows the power of theatre, even in its rawest form. Working with Wan Smolbag, he was making scrappy shows with community impact front of mind; before each government election, for example, he and his colleagues would make a "little play" and tour it around the islands, "just to remind the communities that there's an election coming up, [so they should be] careful".
"Because back home, not all of the people have access to internet, mobile phones, radio — so that makes it easy for the political people to manipulate [them]," he explains.
Slingsby's shows are a world away from those shows, he says ("It's a whole different side of my brain!"), but he's still using theatre to remind people what's important.
Deep listening
One of the most magical moments of Adelaide Festival's opening weekend happened about 40 kilometres (or 40 minutes drive) outside of the city centre, on the lands of the Peramangk, now called the Adelaide Hills.
At the top of Mount Barker, surrounded by gardens, sits UKARIA Cultural Centre, a unique music venue: It is small, purpose-built to hold intimate musical performances, and overlooks the natural landscape.
On Saturday evening, as the sun set over the summit and adjacent hills, around 200 people sat in the concert hall watching moths flutter upwards from the bushes and birds swoop downwards from the gums, all of us listening to Yorta Yorta Dja Dja Wurrung songwoman Dr Lou Bennett's exquisite song cycle wurukur djuanduk balag — Ancestors are Calling.
Bennett is still best known for her folk and acoustic work with Tiddas (which she co-founded in the 90s with Amy Saunders and Sally Dastey) and the Black Arm Band ensemble (of which she was artistic director). But that is changing, as she forges her path into the world of contemporary "classical" music.
wurukur djuanduk balag was commissioned by Rising festival and premiered in the 2022 edition; it was inspired by time Bennett spent sitting with "what we refer to as the old people: the artefacts that sit within the collection of Melbourne Museum," she tells me.
Her song cycle has been arranged for, and is performed by, Silo string quartet, with Bennett and Yorta Yorta winyarr (woman) Allara Briggs Pattison (her niece) on vocals, singing in Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and Kuku Yalanji language, as well as English.
Bennett has been passionate about language "rematriation", as she now calls it, since she was 14, and is a key proponent of the use of singing (in 2015 she was awarded a PhD for her work on this subject).
In this context, listening to her sing takes on extra resonance.
She and her niece also operate computer stations during the performance of wurukur djuanduk balag, weaving a soundscape of electronic music and organic sounds, including birdsong, the bush, the voices of elders and community members, and the ambient noise inside the museum.
Listening is a special skill of Bennett's; for her, it is connected to the Aboriginal concept of "deep listening", which she has described as "closing your eyes, hearing your own breath, in and out, and being aware of all the sounds that are around you, man-made or naturally made".
Speaking to ABC Arts about her composition process, she says: "I like to walk country and listen; listen to the birds, listen to the breeze. I hear a lot of melodies in country, and country gives me those melodies — I do feel like a conduit in a way. And I take them and interpret them my way."
The excursion into electronic music is new for Bennett (even more so than working in the classical sphere), but she says she felt compelled to try something different.
"I've done a little bit of work over the years with theatre projects, and I really enjoy sound design," she says.
"I often find myself closing my eyes at a theatre show and listening … And in a way, that's what I felt when I was in the room [at Melbourne Museum] with the collections: It was like a soundscape. There were voices coming, there were sounds coming — and I wanted to emulate that."
At UKARIA, sitting in the auditorium with the glorious view of nature and listening to the rich soundscape of strings, vocals, country and electronics, you could almost feel your mind slowing down, or tuning in to a lower frequency. It was like a meditation.
Being at a festival, surrounded by spectacle and story and big ideas, is a wonderful thing. The quieter moments, when you pause, slow down, and pay gentle attention, are equally special.
Adelaide Festival runs until March 19.
The writer travelled to Adelaide as a guest of the festival.
