Burrowed in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, in a cool spot of shade among the plane trees under the hot summer sun, is a strange new addition: a circular wooden building created to snuggly fit 110 audience members. Above the front door, a sign welcomes us to the “Wandering Hall of Possibility” and, beyond it, a small crew is working on the finishing touches.
This is the theatre and the set for A Concise Compendium of Wonder: a trilogy of shows from Adelaide’s Slingsby Theatre Company. Each work is adapted from the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde, spread out over millennia, from a medieval Europe devastated by famine to a moon colony on the last day of the year 3099. The trilogy can be watched as three standalone pieces, or together as a triptych, with the theatre transforming for each performance as the same three actors take the audience on three very different but beautifully intertwined stories.
