Reviews

SPARC Theatre was created to allow people living in supported accommodation in the City of Port Phillip an artistic outlet. People living in supported accommodation are unable to support themselves, often due to mental illness, and so are among the most marginalised in the community.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and afterwards I wasn’t sure what I’d seen, but there was certainly a lot of love in the room, and a standing ovation for the performers.

American playwright Neil Simon wrote his first farce, Rumors, when his marriage was breaking up in the 1980’s. It is interesting therefore that the farce he created involved a group of married couples and the theme revolved around a wedding anniversary.

Simon’s subsequent British version of his comedy, Rumours (note the different spelling), is the one Galleon Theatre Group is now premiering in Adelaide. The popular local theatre company has developed a very fine production indeed, filled with dry humour, wit and well-drawn characters.

How would you feel if you were trapped in the lift of an old building with one or more strangers and/or old friends or colleagues? The emergency button doesn't work, there are no mobile phones and there's a fire raging outside somewhere, where, you don't know. 

This was not the setting of these two one-act plays but moreso the psychology behind the impact this kind of situation could have on relations between each character right then and there. 

With Only An Orphan Girl the Adelaide Rep have put together a lively pastiche of ye olde music hall variety shows, in which a nonsensical melodrama unfolds episodically, interspersed with snappy stand-up comedy routines, spirited singalongs of standards like “Long Way To Tipperary” and “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean”, with some simple magic tricks thrown in for good measure.