Review: Sunstruck

Sunstruck

Concept collaboration Helen Herbertson & Ben Cobham

Season Ended

What with all the excitement I have completely neglected to write about 'Sunstruck'. In case you have missed aforementioned ruckus see here and here. Read the comments and be excited for me. This is a big deal in the life of this fledgling little venture.

So, it's late in the game, the season has ended and it sold out. Do you really want to hear about another show that you probably missed?

Years ago, when I was living in Sydney, I used to regularly catch the train to Central Station. The train would always pull up at the same platform. The platform would be on the train's left. Once, however, the train pulled up to a different platform. The platform was on the train's right. I hadn't yet noticed the anomaly. When I 'alighted' from the train I strode confidently off in the absolute wrong direction, because, you see, I was walking in the direction I was used to going in: stepping off the train, onto the platform and turning to my left.

It wasn't until I was about half way down the platform that I computed that something was wrong. I stopped. And I has this amazing dislocating sensation of the world correcting its position in my perception. Directionally, everything was opposite to what I had thought. 

That was back in the day when I still had totally unfounded confidence in my sense of direction. Is it something men are born with - not the actual sense itself - but the absolute belief in it? I only recently accepted (with the gentle prodding of my companion) that my sense of direction is terrible. I actually get lost regularly. Melbourne's grid is a blessing to someone like me, it gently supports and encourages my locational ability. But then you find yourself riding to shed 4 in Docklands. Unbelievably, I found my way there okay.

'Sunstruck' appealed immensely to my general sense of discombobulation. Space was gently created and destroyed, distance and perspective were both teased. Spacial awareness was manipulated and stimulated.

The simplicity with which 'Sunstruck' seemed to gently bend both space and time is a credit to its intelligence.

Emotionally I was somewhat devastated by this piece. It just seemed to encompass everything about men and joy and inexorable tragedy and struggle and continuation and children and inevitable loss and sadness and wisdom and compassion. It was one of the most empathetic pieces I have ever seen. 

I'm not really going to add anything that Messrs. Boyd and Born Dancin' haven't already spoken of apart from rejoicing in the skill involved in evoking so much with so little - one light. Its simplicity was its greatest tool and one which it used with unbelievable viruosity.

Emerging into the night with my tear-streaked cheeks I found I had parked my bike on a mummified squashed rat. 

And then I got lost.