A Quiet Language by Australian Dance TheatreCredit:Morgan Sette
When it finishes,there is a partial standing ovation while the man next to me does not applaud.A Quiet Language is raucous and joyful,yes,but it’s confronting too. By not allowing the remove that normally goes hand-in-hand with performing arts,it reminds you that even as an audience member you are an active participant in the experience. When a performer is staring you dead in the eye,you can’t pretend that the arts are something that happen in some abstract world separate from our own – it underscores that they’re created by actual people,and they’re woven into all of our daily lives.
This year’s Adelaide Festival could have been absolute chaos but,at least the slice of it I saw,didn’t seem impacted by the challenges and tumult faced in the lead-up. Artistic director Ruth Mackenzie departed abruptly after only two years in the role,leading former AD Brett Sheehy to return in an interim capacity and finish programming for the 2025 festival. Former artistic director and co-CEO of Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre,Matthew Lutton,has since been announced as Mackenzie’s successor.
The opening weekend did what a festival does best;offered up an eclectic range of arts to immerse attendees in both the familiar and the challenging.
Finnish operaInnocence opened the festival in a whirlwind of innovation and harrowing storytelling. Seann Miley Moore once again proved to be a talent to watch inHedwig and the Angry Inch,which premiered at the festival ahead of an Australian tour.Radical Textiles at the Art Gallery of South Australia takes something often overlooked – fabric,clothing,tapestry – and spotlights its social and political significance (sometimes subtly,sometimes overtly – see:Don Dunstan’s famed pink shorts framed and put on display).
Finnish opera Innocence opened the festival in a whirlwind of innovation and harrowing storytelling.Credit:Tristram Kenton
Krapp’s Last Tape performed by Stephen Rea was highly anticipated and proportionately disappointing. All the pieces were there – an interesting concept by Samuel Beckett,a cleverly designed set,an actor so passionate about the text he recorded the titular tapes years ago in the off chance he would one day play the role– but together,somehow fell flat. Was it insufficiently brought to life? Or,in a world where digital photography and social media and smart devices means that we are constantly met with snippets of our younger selves,perhaps the underlying concept – that we change over time and can be haunted by memories – has grown stale and obvious in the half century since the play was first performed.
But,it wouldn’t be a good festival if every show were easy to like or a sure thing – a program packed with tepid crowd pleasers serves no-one.