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Theater Down Under
| Article
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19947 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1992 |
1,823 Words |
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F.E. Siegel
F.E. Siegel is a New York-based free-lance writer. |
Many Americans think of Australia as a land of endless outback, populated by exotic animals and roughrider cowboys. The image of Crocodile Dundee, a rugged, macho man brandishing a knife and virile humor in equal measure, is juxtaposed with National Geographic specials of Down Under, where emus, kangaroos, and koalas run free. The former is fantasy created in Hollywood studios; the latter is a celebration of nature's wonders. Yet neither image addresses the singularity of Australian culture. That quest is the special province of art and thus the goal of the Adelaide International Arts Festival.
For three weeks every other March, this picture-perfect coastal south Australian city invites the world to the Adelaide Festival, Australia's foremost international arts extravaganza and an opportunity to savor a taste of both Australian and global culture. Or, as this year's artistic director, Rob Brookman, explains, "to sample work that engages intellect and emotions, which provokes McLuhan's 'hot' rather than 'cool' responses. Today's audiences have lived with rock and roll," he says, "and don't distinguish what is art and what isn't. Pop culture and high culture converge at the 1992 Festival."
Judging from audience and critical reaction, Brookman is as good as his word. Modeled on the famed Edinburgh Festival, the 32-year-old Adelaide Festival staged both fringe and main festival events. Kishida Jimusho, Doppio Teatro, the Katona Jozsef, and the Reduced Shakespeare Company (theater troupes from Japan, Australia, Hungary, and Britain) were all part of this year's eclectic offerings. With a staggering 797 stage offerings of 255 performing, literary, and visual arts attractions, the 1992 festival can proudly claim to be one of the most comprehensive in its history.
The $8.6 million (Australian) festival boasted seventeen world premieres among an exhaustive array of festival and Australian firsts. In addition, the Adelaide Festival also included Writers Week, which brought together writers, critics, and publishers from around the world, and Artists Week, Australia's major visual arts forum. The New World Music Weekend and Fezbah Cabaret provided further opportunities for festival starts from twenty-seven countries--the United States' Klezmer Conservatory Band to Kenya's Mapapa Acrobats--to mix in impromptu style six nights a week.
But the cultural bonus for overseas visitors is that the Adelaide festival always provides a glimpse of many Australian, New Zealand, and Asian actors, musicians, and performance artists rarely, if ever,
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