SYDNEY FESTIVAL
As You Like It Or The Land Acknowledgement
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
January 4
Reviewed by KATE PRENDERGAST
★★★½
How wickedly satisfying it must be for Cliff Cardinal at times, looking out onto his audience. They must stand out – those expectant eggy faces that turn even paler upon realising this “provocative take on Shakespeare’s As You Like It” involves no trace of Anglo culture’s darling (except in prankster spirit).
Cliff Cardinal in As You Like it, or The Land Acknowledgment.Credit: Dahlia Katz
Sans Rosalind, sans forest romance, sans famous monologues, this no-frills one-man Sydney Festival show from Canada is instead a scorching satire of the performativity of political correctness, and the hypocrisy of rote and empty rituals of reconciliation. In other words, the land acknowledgement that will ostensibly precede the show proper is the show (im)proper – a brazen direct-to-audience performance blending stand-up with polemic, personal story with intergenerational rage, social commentary with mischief.
Presented by Crow’s Theatre, a version of this award-winning show premiered in Toronto in 2021 – the same year hundreds of Indigenous children’s bodies were found in unmarked graves on the grounds of Canada’s residential schools. Cardinal, of Cree and Lakota heritage, was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and raised between Los Angeles and Toronto.
As with our colonial nation, his country has been doing land acknowledgments for decades, evidently opening anything from “Swift concerts to Zoom meetings”. The practice began in the ’70s as a dream of protest whispered around dinner tables; Cardinal now jeers at it as little more than a self-deluding, patronising, ad nauseam parade of white leftist sloganeering.
As with his previous Sydney Festival show Huff in 2017, Cardinal takes no prisoners and holds nothing sacred. His stage style is unique: face stretched into an unnatural grin, eyes glittering between comic wit and rightful anger, he frets the proscenium of the Drama Theatre, the red curtain behind him ironically never rising. Mockery and mugging are the central spices of his delivery, paired with his own kind of oddball physical comedy. One of his defence mechanisms against colonial misappropriation, for example, turns his “I don’t care” shrug into a ninja pose.
Cardinal’s bitter relish and most productive artistic skill is to call bullshit on etiquette and bring in rare honesty through unapologetic, humour-laced discomfort. Over 80-odd minutes, with slyness and scorn, he variously takes aim at support for minorities, cultural genocide, racial stereotypes, and the grotesque neediness of settlers to make the people they’ve oppressed (historically or otherwise) in turn make them feel both superior and without sin. Even the festival and its sponsors aren’t spared.
One thing survives the tide of excoriating disdain: family. This includes his own huge extended family, in particular the women who inspire him; as well as his ancestors’ concept of humanity as family. Forget the feel-goods, he says, let’s be family.
Staged a little over a year after most Australians denied First Nations people a Voice to Parliament, As You Like It or the Land Acknowledgement is far more relevant to Sydney audiences over one of Shakespeare’s relatively frivolous works.
The Roots
Hordern Pavilion, January 2
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★★½
Even the most energetic of bands, who come bursting out the gate at a gig with a flurry of songs, need a breather from playing within the first 30 minutes. Philadelphia hip-hop outfit The Roots, however, are built different: the 10 members on stage keep energy levels peaking for a full hour before taking the briefest break, which is enough to sustain their astonishing stamina for another hour after that.
The Roots perform music as if it’s a continuous DJ mix, blending selections from their catalogue with tracks that are pivotal to hip-hop’s foundation: Apache by Incredible Bongo Band, Funky Drummer by James Brown and Main Source’s Looking at the Front Door are among the many covers.
Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter is one of the greatest rappers yet.Credit: Richard Clifford
Anyone hoping to see The Roots, led by MC Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter and drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, strictly cycle through faithful renditions of the band’s songs are likely to leave disappointed. Their “History of Hip-Hop Jukebox” approach makes sense though: most of The Roots’ songs are best experienced as part of the intricately thought-out and sequenced albums from which they hail, so combining their best tracks with party jams is an easy win.
Most would now recognise The Roots as Jimmy Fallon’s house band on The Tonight Show. In a live setting, they send a powerful reminder of their greatest strengths: they’re an incredible live band that can play anything, and they have one of the great rappers in the form of Black Thought, whose breath control while firing off rapid-fire rhymes is something to behold.
Despite the multitude of band members running around the stage, everyone gets a moment to shine, including guitarist “Captain” Kirk Douglas, who sings Erykah Badu’s parts on Roots classic You Got Me, and Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr” Bryson, who unexpectedly rocks the crowd with a sousaphone solo.
It’s a show that feels like both a sprint and a marathon, an ADHD-friendly feast for music lovers that throws in The Roots’ The Seed (2.0), Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up and Kool G Rap and DJ Polo’s Men at Work into one dizzying, dynamic climax.
It’s good to know they’re collecting that major TV network pay, but tonight is definitive proof the live arena is where The Roots masterfully and truly belong.
