Events - 2011
Stevl Shefn and His Translator Fatima
Comedy
Presented by:
STEVE SHEEHAN
Winner Best Comedy Adelaide Fringe 2010 Nominee Golden Gibbo Award Melbourne Comedy Festival 2010 Winner Adelaide Critics Circle IAF Award for innovation A unique ingenious comedy duo. Stevl - an endearingly incomprehensible everyman looking for love and Fatima - the colourless translator, unknown but for her expressive eyes, intelligent and assured English translation and beautiful singing voice. The show is about what we'll do for love and is confronting, ridiculous, manic, deadpan, humane and hilarious. Yet we are ultimately uplifted by Stevl and his translator Fatima. As one shaggy dog story follows another Stevl's survival is commendable, but who is Fatima and what's her story? Media Quotes "Antidotes to pedestrian stand-up can be found across the Comedy Festival, but few are more refreshingly strange than Stevl Shefn and His Translator Fatima& The show_x0019_ s highlight is a twice-translated gag involving Shefn_x0019_ s girlfriend, a vacuum cleaner. A compellingly odd performance." Richard Watts _x0013_ The Age "Making sense of it, even via translation, is a futile affair, so it_x0019_ s best just to wallow in creator Steve Sheehan_x0019_ s unfathomable absurdism. His expressive body language brings the meaningless words to life, while trumpets, keyboards and another girlfriend, who just happens to be a vacuum cleaner, all provide more audio-visual treats& .Just let the benign weirdness wash over you, while waiting for the occasional moments of hilarious, warped brilliance to erupt." Steve Bennet - Chortle Magazine UK "Sheehan_x0019_ s clowning is loose and confident and there are many hearty laughs as well as delightfully odd moments of absurdist nonsense. There is great precision in the writing, the plotting is clever and the use of props and music is ingenious. While the initial gag is amusing, the patterns and comic rhythms make this much more substantial than a one-note show." John Wells _x0013_ Adelaide Theatre Guide "It_x0019_ s sometimes said that truly mature theatre refuses to admit of any single interpretation. If that_x0019_ s the case, then Stevl Shefn and His Translator Fatima is mature theatre. It_x0019_ s listed as comedy, but might be better pegged as satire. Is there comedy in it? Absolutely. But rarely is it the carefree chuckle. If you_x0019_ re looking for carefree, check out another show. All through Stevl you get the sense that something else is being said behind the blithe deliveries: that there_x0019_ s a darker side to all the anecdotes of frolics with animals and chasing rainbows." Ben Mylius - Buzzcuts "So hypnotised all are by this fascinating, hilarious juggling act between the two, it becomes all too easy to surrender your judgement and accept what is offered. When that comes down to interpreting what a vacuum cleaner is saying and singing, you know Steve Sheehan has you in the palm of his hand utterly. Stevl knows what he means. Fatima knows what she means. The vacuum cleaner knows what it means. Do we? Do we care at the end that we know what was said is what was said? No. That_x0019_ s the magic of this most astute, beautiful of comedies." David O_x0019_ Brien
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