Our Home Thoughts: Can you really grow in Adelaide?
BY ZOFIA KOLODZIEJ AND JESSICA ROWE.
Photo by Pamo Boutros.
Can you grow in Adelaide? Or is the world’s third most liveable city somewhere everyone needs to leave for a while - ‘weekends in Victor don’t count’ Home Thoughts tells us. The play showing at the Bakehouse Theatre as part of the 2022 Adelaide Fringe season asks these questions and pulls on the heartstrings in the process. Written and directed by Empire Time’s 2019 editor, Flinders graduate and award-winning playwright, James Watson.
Zofia’s review:
4 out of 5 stars
The play follows two sisters, Sarah (Krystal Cave) who has never left Adelaide and Clara (Ren Williams - Flinders 2020 Drama Centre graduate) who has just come back after studying in Melbourne. Sarah married her high school sweetheart and works in the school she attended, while Clara, a painter from the age of 2, has always wanted to leave. Both struggle with the need to figure out what kind of partners, artists, people, and Adelaidians they hope to be.
Both Cave’s and Williams’ acting, aided by Watson’s thoughtful direction, bring the sister-sister relationship to the forefront. They come together in both their sisterly antics as well as their disagreements. Williams’ performance is particularly intoxicating as she finds the perfect balance between comedy and sensibility. Clara speaks of ‘fucking Adelaide’ in the same way many do - with a not-so balanced mix of admiration and distaste.
Reggie Parker’s sound design elevates the production with an artful soundtrack, and pointed sound effects at the play’s most hard-hitting moments. Ruby Jenkins’ uncomplicated set and costume design add to the local familiarity of the play. A square white sheet at the set’s centre, the edges of which are used almost too subtly by the director to place a divide between the sisters as we see them stepping away and back towards each other as they struggle to understand one another’s circumstances. The understated set and prop design allow for the two actresses to remain on stage for most of the play as they run around the Bakehouse Theatre’s main stage in an elegant choreography.
Watson’s witty and magnetic writing makes the hour fly by. The flood of Adelaide references is just as sweet to the audience as the referenced Fruchocs (how are they not a sponsor?!), McLaren Vale wine and brunch at Bowden. With the added punch of the things we hate most: seeing people you know everywhere you go, being asked which school you went to and certain discussions being had out front the Exeter.
Why do young people leave Adelaide? Maybe it’s the dwindling degrees and the eerie quiet which sets in after Mad March. The venue for this production, Bakehouse Theatre on Angas Street, closing its doors after this year's Fringe season might just be all the explanation you need. Watson and his cast don’t claim to have an answer, and while one might find the playwright’s seeming discontent with Adelaide a little disheartening at times, the play does leave you with a sense that there is a right time to be in Adelaide for everyone.
Mine’s right now, how about you?
Jess’ home thoughts:
I’ve always found people to be a little dramatic about Adelaide. I suppose it makes a theatre production the perfect way to explore differing relationships with it. ‘Fucking Adelaide,’ the characters repeat, echoing the ABC TV show of that very title. Growing up on Kangaroo Island, I’ve always been on the outside looking in at this city. The small, simply planned metro area still feels big and complicated to me. From a child-hood where the only things ‘on’ were the footy and netty games, the city appears, to me, full of opportunities - even after 2 years of living just on the outskirts.
‘I hate going to town in Adelaide, it’s so boring’ a friend who recently moved to Melbourne once said in a room of people who still lived here. ‘I’m so glad I got out of this small town,’ is another doozie I’ve heard. Anyone who has grown up rural will understand my desire to roll my eyes. When you are from a place so homogenous, so small - ‘fucking Adelaide’ is fucking cool! The way the streets come alive at Fringe time, the game-changing food and wine (not only in the metro area, but surrounding), the nature that creates a green border around the city, the central markets and independent stores supporting local. There is culture and art everywhere, and if you say otherwise then you are contributing to the problem. Your pessimism about our creative scene is what pressures artists to move away. When I see Adelaide, I see opportunity, an opportunity to grow the scene, actually support it, nurture it, become an integral part of it, rather than complain about it and run away. Maybe I’m being a little harsh - but if people are allowed to talk smack about my city to my face, then I think I’m allowed to offer a counter-argument. Adelaide offers creatives a foot in the door, the interconnectedness of our community makes creative opportunities accessible. If Adelaide is so small, the question I would pose is; if you can’t ‘make it’ in Adelaide, what makes you think you will ‘make it’ in a larger city?
One night out at the Exeter I told another newly-Melbournian friend that I’d thought about moving to Cairns one day, ‘Cairns! But you’re creative?’ I was stunned - I was unaware that one was not able to create in Cairns. I thought, ‘I lived on a bloody island where half the people didn’t even know how to use YouTube,’ I can create anywhere. Why should the place I reside define my creative capability and career progression in this day and age? I think there’s something really special about the young creatives I have spoken to and seen here in Adelaide; we create our own opportunities. Collectives, magazines, production companies, events, exhibitions - we’re creating them ourselves, not waiting for some big fancy company, agency or gallery to knock on our door and tell us we’re in.
Maybe I will pack up my bags and ‘find myself’ overseas or interstate one day, but I think the notion that you cannot grow here is ridiculous. For KI kids like myself, moving to Adelaide is a big step, in fact - the same way that Clara returns home after Melbourne - there are many of us who don’t stay for long. The sentiment that Home Thoughts leaves us with is that there is a right time to leave and a right time to stay for everyone, I think this rings true. I worry that the pressure to leave and the snobbiness that comes with it is becoming part of our culture, and especially as a creative it is easy to internalise. So to all of you chasing your dreams here in the ‘laid - here’s to embracing the small and making it big.
Home Thoughts is showing at the Bakehouse theatre until Saturday the 5th of March, tickets can be purchased through this link: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/home-thoughts-af2022
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2022.