Review: Comeback Festival Week 3 at Goodwood Theatre and Studios

Review by Lisa Lanzi

Whimsy, wonder and thoughtful provocations were hallmarks of the works showing at Week 3 of The Goodwood Theatre and Studios COMEBACK Festival.

Katherine Sortini and their company Deus Ex Femina presented the most recent iteration of All the Things You Couldn’t Say featuring three phenomenal performers fresh to the project, Rob Wells, Juanita Navas-Nguyen, and Monica Patteson.  This is an original, devised theatre piece inspired by the The Unsent Project, a collection of over 5,000,000 unsent text messages to first loves submitted anonymously by people all over the world.

With a wonderful combination of live humans on stage and projected moving and still visuals on screen, this theatre work cuts deep with most people, I surmise, relating to one scenario or another.  The work is episodic in nature, sets are kept elegantly simple and moved by the actors, and it is the interactions and the messages that grab our attention.  With projected titles, chapters were named with provocative headings like: Summon,  Kinky, Viral, Betrayal, Reticence, Legacy, or Disconnect.  Each of these was peopled by solo contributions or combinations of the three performers with some rapid-fire dialogue, song, or perhaps silence punctuated by the ding of message notifications and message texts on screen.

All the Things You Couldn’t Say is laced with a variety of effects and content including brilliant lighting and strobe, sirens, loud music, haze, sexual references, trauma triggers, and colourful language.  In their inclusive and dedicated fashion, Deus Ex Femina allows space for comprehensive alerts, both on entering the venue and immediately prior to the performance.  Access needs are well considered and it is beyond pleasing that some theatre companies are taking these essentials into consideration, and in fact leading the way forward.

This work is confronting, funny, thoughtful, and sometimes demanding to experience but above all, it is a thoroughly human investigation of love and other than love, of friendship, and more.  We are indeed fortunate in Adelaide to have some fierce independent theatre companies unafraid to experiment.

The second offering was produced by Adelaide’s Dead Darling Theatre in association with Billie-Rose Russell who created and performs All Grown Up (But Not Really); this is the second season after Russell’s 5-star Adelaide Fringe run.  Like Deus ex Femina, Dead Darling Theatre is a female, queer-led company.  They are focused on inclusive and accessible storytelling and already boast a dynamic history of fascinating work from artistic team Hannah Smith and Amelia Rooney.

From their childhood bedroom, Billie-Rose gleefully escorts us on a chaotic, fun-filled return to early 2000s adventures in play and discovery while exhorting us to honour our inner child - but also get them “to wake the f**k up (again)”.  Always good advice, in my humble opinion!  Given the roaring laughter and giggles that emanate from the audience this is 60 minutes of elemental joy, silliness, and recollection.  It is a chance to relinquish reality for a time and indulge in candy-coloured homage (through text and song) to the likes of Converse, Tamagotchis, The Saddle Club, Sylvanian Families, School discos, My Little Pony, Gameboys, Wii Sport, but NO SOCIALS to steer you off course – that was a moment in time where physical and emotional play stayed grounded and face to face!

Russell is a petite powerhouse of talent, capable of disarming honesty and vivid storytelling, yet totally inclusive of their audience, making us completely comfortable and leaving us totally entertained and uplifted.  As well as an innate ‘spell’, they possess a singing voice that shines in such anthems as a ‘re-lyricized’ version of Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn – an ode to a precious but about to be (reluctantly) tossed sneaker.  Other songs also shone though the vocal levels were sometimes a little low in the mix compared to the banging soundtracks.  Without this performer’s presence, energy and skill, the production has the potential to descend into cliché. 

However, the pure joy of being immersed in seamless audience participation (including ‘pass the parcel’) alongside the ensuing frenetically paced, generous entertainment was utterly captivating.  The childlike but never childish atmosphere was peppered too with adult only content, which certainly seemed to elevate the audience’s appreciation.

Josh Rocca enters the fray as ‘Nostalgia’, the off sider to Russell’s shenanigans.  Their dying Tamagotchi was hilarious, and their balletic, champion playmate status-come-set organiser added a joyful presence.  Both are clad in stripey flannel pyjamas, where, at various times, a tutu, headpiece, or other prop was layered in, perfectly in context.  

Billie-Rose Russell, with Dead Darling Theatre’s input, presents a window into growing up with ADHD and how it can be both challenging yet enchanting, messy yet endearing.  That is not, in any way, meant to belittle the more sombre effects of being ‘different’ but it is certainly a pleasure to play in the world of this remarkable performer, if only for an hour.

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