Sheltered
 ★★★★★

Adelaide Fringe. Kathryn Hall. The Mill – The Breakout. 19 Feb 2023

Overwhelmingly, if you’re disabled no matter the form, no matter the circumstance, prime instinct is find safety, shelter.

Cover from harm intended or not, in a world out of tune with your needs no matter how well intended any outreach may be. Meaning quite often falling in between the cracks of a supposedly benevolent support system.

Performer Kathryn Hall has cerebral palsy and the cracks opened wide swallowing her up when she was a teenager; until she found true shelter.

Yet her tale despite the circumstances is not a sad one. Oh, no Hall’s production overflows with rich humour, self-effacing pathos as she details beating challenge after challenge. Her show explains where things work, and don’t work, to support disability needs.

Andi Snelling’s direction pulls out all the stops, realising a production simple in movement across the small The Breakout stage, yet artfully effective in use of projection, puppets and lighting.

Hall’s script is equally simple, but very sharply crafted and executed on stage. Her feeling for humour in less than wonderful experiences is wickedly brilliant in an unabashed larger than life performance in a production which takes into account needs of her disability to be just as integral as the script.

What a brilliant innovation ‘Disability Break’ is! It flashes up as a projection at Hall’s call when she needs a still moment. Director Snelling double calls it popping her head out from the wings. It’s delightfully comic, adding so much more to the show, prodding further reflection on the message at the show’s heart.

Sheltered is a smashing little show of the unexpected, just what the Fringe is about.

David O’Brien

When: 18 Feb to 4 Mar

Where: The Mill – The Breakout

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au