In the wake of the Adelaide Fringe 2000...

Reviews of Aviva's show
"This is a War Zone, Baby -- Improvise!"

At the Adelaide Fringe 2000 Festival
March 2000 at Nexus Cabaret,
Adelaide, South Australia


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Festival Fringe time in Adelaide the streets awash with the flotsam and jetsam of society.
High heels and tiaras elbow to elbow with gothic girls, feminazis, burb-babes, the going too fast people, the going too slow people, the going nowhere people and the homy-gals and the mob from the big end of town slumming it... and they all went to the wrong show...the action was with Aviva... The night was an ambush; the quarry was the cultural silences of the Vietnam war; the weapons were truth and memory.

Confronting, In your face, raw, we heard it described many ways but this was just Aviva's tale. The Vietnamese musician, the grainy slides,the exuberance of "No See Dolly" (son Leslie's band) and the monologue left the punter no escape from a trip to Vietnam thirty years in the past.
The Veterans in the audience squinted and surveyed trying to I.D. other Vets and reactions began betraying the masks but when Leslie's band began mimicking the Vietnam jungle F... Off lizard there was nowhere for the vets to hide ... I missed the next bit of the show because my eyes were watering and I had a really severe pain in my gut from laughing.

Icons and Images of the war were uncomfortable but necessary. The major sadness was the realisation of how the war machine had treated a very young seventeen year old in a very "Adult" environment and it became obvious that some of the shoulder rank people she met didn't get issued the officer and gentleman handbook in training. The tragedy is not as powerful as the triumph and surviving the war and its warriors is the testimony that shows the resilience of youth and the forging of a lifeforce.

for atmosphere and character
   "Brief Lives" with Roy Dotrice
for energy and emotion
   "Death of a Salesman" with Russel Starkey
for homegrown theatre
   "Kiss me Kate" Mirabooka players

for this quality in one night
   "This is a War Zone Baby -- Improvise" with Aviva Sheb'a
-- Ian Campbell

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© Aviva Sheb'a 1999 - 2008