SIREN SONG

Lesley Reed previews a cabaret Double Feature coming up in Adelaide, incorporating a Maury Yeston song cycle and a new local work.

Love and its loss, self-discovery and empowerment are themes that in many ways walk hand in hand. Often, self-discovery and empowerment don’t come until life deals painful blows. It is fitting, then, that Adelaide’s Growling Grin Productions is staging December Songs, a performance about love and its loss and Swan, one about self-discovery and empowerment, together under one banner, as SIREN SONG.

SIREN SONG’s double feature will be performed for a limited season at one of Adelaide’s premier cabaret venues, La Boheme, and promises to be a hauntingly beautiful and often amusing blend of cabaret styles.

Maury Yeston's critically acclaimed song cycle December Songs forms the first half of SIREN SONG, with South Australian singer/actress Olivia Jane Parker giving it fine voice, accompanied by Margaret Lambert on piano. The musical arrangements were overseen by Lambert’s daughter, Adelaide’s well-known jazz diva, Catherine Lambert.

Written for piano and voice, December Songs is a series of songs told from the point of view of a woman reeling from the breakup of a long-term relationship, as she reflects on the various loves and losses of her life. She attempts to put the pieces back together in her mind, as she walks through the beautiful snow-strewn landscape of New York's Central Park in December.

Those familiar with Schubert's suite Die Winterreise (aka A Winter’s Journey), which told the story of a young man wandering through the Vienna woods and thinking about his thwarted love, will recognise Maury Yeston’s December Songs as a modern update, written with a cabaret sensibility. However, whereas Schubert’s leading man descended into madness, after much soul searching Yeston’s heroine finds the strength to recover from her grief and embark upon a new life.

Writer Maury Yeston, best known for composing the music for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musicals Nine and Titanic, said of December Songs, “Die Winterreise is the greatest song cycle ever written. It has a contemporaneity that never goes away, and what I hope to do is to create a modern equivalent, to paraphrase the ethos of Die Winterreise, with its ambivalence, its major/minor duality, and its natural images that are metaphors of the character's internal state."

“It is an honour to be showcasing Maury Yeston’s December Songs at La Boheme,” said the show’s songstress and partner in Growling Grin Productions, Olivia Jane Parker. “I’m exceedingly happy to be accompanied by Margaret Lambert and Catherine Lambert has shown me what is required to make the cycle of songs my own. Likewise, Benjamin Orchard has been an encouraging force. This, for me, is a dream come true.”

Director of December Songs and Parker’s partner at Growling Grin Productions, Benjamin Orchard, said of Parker, “Olivia is a natural fit for this material. Some previous recordings of this cycle I’ve heard by classically trained singers approach the material with clinical precision, as an exercise in showing off technical finesse. Olivia approaches Maury’s songs with not only a singer’s discipline, but an actor’s depth of emotional empathy, and an intimate venue like La Boheme is the ideal showcase for the emotive power of both singer and songwriter.”

Orchard has conceived the company’s interpretation of Yeston’s work as a multimedia event, incorporating projected imagery and sound effects evocative of the winter wonderland that is New York in winter.

The world premiere of Swan forms the second half of the SIREN SONG program and focuses on similar themes to December Songs, but presented in a more humorous style. It is written, performed and directed by well-known Adelaide chanteuse Jennifer DeGrassi.

Through song and poetry, Swan tells the tale of a young woman searching for her voice, learning to stay true and evolving the idea of leaving legacy.

Swan features the work of twentieth century revolutionary artists, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and celebrated poet, Maya Angelou who died in May this year.

Supported by a three piece jazz band, DeGrassi’s powerful yet intimate vocals and her absorbing storytelling transport the audience into one woman’s journey of self-discovery, empowerment and self-actualisation.

“I have wanted to feature the music of Nina Simone for years,” said Jennifer DeGrassi. “She was an incredibly passionate artist and very involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Joni Mitchell, likewise, a woman of tremendous and insightful artistic and personal weight. Add to this the poetry of Maya Angelou, with such works as I Know why the Caged Bird Sings and Phenomenal Woman, and it’s a very rich mix.”

Jennifer DeGrassi trained in jazz and classical music at the Conservatorium of Music and in performing arts at Flinders University, Adelaide. As well as writing, directing and performing Swan, she has written and produced several sell out shows for Adelaide Fringe Festivals, the Cabaret Fringe Festival, States of Desire (CD recorded live at The Promethean), Cirque Brise (featuring her self-penned song, Poetry in Motion) and The Scandalous Lillian Lushlife, a show for her alter ego. Her film credits include The Boys are Back (Scott Hicks) and Oranges and Sunshine (Jim Loach).

"The main aim in all my performances is engagement and true connection between performer and audience,” said DeGrassi. “To be courageous and daring, this is my sole purpose, this is why I do what I do."    

Growling Grin Productions was established in 2013 with the aim of producing theatrical, film and performance-based entertainment that is new to Adelaide, be it original work, or revivals of lesser-known pieces that have not been staged in South Australia before.  Their first production was the Australian Premiere of Closet Land, a play based upon the 1991 cult film of the same name and adapted for the stage by Radha Bharadwaj, the writer/director of the original film. Bharadwaj collaborated with Growling Grin for the production.

Adelaide audiences are encouraged to head along to SIREN SONG to see for themselves what Growling Grin Productions is all about. To move from a challenging psychological thriller to the equally brave endeavor of staging a Cabaret double-bill demonstrates the energy, talent and versatility of this independent performance company.

Benjamin Orchard is also a theatre and cabaret reviewer for Stage Whispers.

WHEN: July 31, 8pm; August 1, 8pm; August 2, 7pm.

VENUE: La Boheme, Grote Street, Adelaide:

July 31 and August 2 in main room, August 1 in upstairs room.

TICKETS: Available from Monday June 30, at $25 and $20 concession.

BOOKINGS: http://labohemebar.com.au/shows-tickets/

Images: (from top) Olivia Jane Parker (photographer Lucie Bauer), Maury Yeston, Catherine Lambert and Jennifer DeGrassi.