John Safran - Jew Detective

The Garden Of Unearthly Delights – The Factory, Wed 27 Feb.

John Safran’s Wikipedia entry describes him as radio personality, satirist, film maker and author. In Jew Detective: Sarcasm is Not a Crime he is attempting to add stand-up comedian to his list of pursuits. It’s certainly worth a shot. Many of the elements are there. Safran is a natural born trouble maker and his ability to draw satirical/sarcastic insight from the absurd situations he finds himself in should make for plenty of hilarity.

But this show may demand too much subtle thinking to be very funny. Safran pitches his show within a framework that pits the artist against the ideologue. Even assuming enough people understood the concept of ideologue, the audience found this show hard to fathom. Is he making fun of the far right? Is this Jew anti-Jew? Is he making fun of artists? Why does he mock so many people who defend causes? And of course all of these things are true. Safran treads a lonely, risky, grey area exposing the shortcomings of all the various -isms people march to defend.

He does this with sarcasm and satire, and runs the risk therefore of coming across as a smart arse. Safran says he just gets out of bed in the morning and finds himself mixed up in fights and disagreements. But this would be after taking a photo of a far right rally that he posts to Instagram with some provocative jibe and strangely enough someone at the rally challenges him! Which is exactly what he wants of course.

We’re shown lots of photographs from his past stunts, the occasional video, cuttings of amusing and threatening social media posts; there’s even a little live music. But it felt like he’s still learning the craft of the stand-up comedian. He read a lot from prepared notes, and at times it felt like he was reading one of his books out loud to us. But the certainty and conviction of his words in print or in the scripted narration of a documentary were not quite as sure in the live medium of stand up. But as Safran himself said, artists have to deal with loose ends and that he hasn’t quite mastered yet.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

A Dark Comedy about Brahms

Bakehouse Theatre – Studio, Wed 20 Feb.

In Vienna’s City Park there is a grand statue of Brahms depicting the composer as a grumpy old man. This new work by Neil Salvage reinforces that view and goes some way to explain why he became so grumpy. In what could be seen as just another tortured artist scenario, albeit from the 19^th Century, Brahms it seems was the only person in Vienna at the time who didn’t like his own music. Or so it appears at this party to celebrate the first performance of his new violin concerto.

Rather than play the gracious guest of honour Brahms spends much of his time drinking in a back room and berating all who commend him on his achievements. Cycles of praise and recrimination ensue between the composer, his publisher, violinist and musical collaborator, old friend Clara Schumann, and an influential critic. Bitter and resentful, Brahms seems intent on bringing everyone down with him to wallow in misery and self-doubt.

All these various roles are masterfully played by Salvage himself, Nicholas Collett – both eminent actors from the UK stage, and local emerging artist, Stefanie Rossi. Having excerpts of Brahms’ work played live added immediacy and context, but having the violinist overplay her silent reactions to the dialogue unfolding before her was a mistake. They need to be far more subtle.

Billed as a dark comedy, there’s not much room here for laughter. Ironic smiles perhaps as we watch Brahms himself try to reconcile being the author of the famous Lullaby with the angry person he’s become.

An entertaining play with solid acting performances, and a really good way to learn something about Brahms the person, and become (re)acquainted with his music.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)