Review: That Night Follows Day

That Night Follows Day

Created by Tim Etchells & Victoria

For a number of years now I have worked with kids (young people, really) spanning the ages of ten to twenty five. I have had the pleasure and priviledge to make performance work with them. One of the most rewarding experiences in this time was creating a work for a skate park in the area. At the time I was dismayed at the State Of Things and as a response to my preoccupation, I began to bring in articles to the workshops, anything from reports covering the Palestine / Israel trouble, some terror raids in London... We watched Van Sant's 'Elephant'. I was blown away by the young people's responses to these articles and by the wave of opinion, outrage, compassion and intelligence they displayed relating to the source material. They told me that no one asks. People assume they don't have an opinion. In my adulthood, I had always assumed that the younger generation was even more apathetic than mine, I had assumed that they (being the ultimate post modern, capitalist, digital generation) would not have a particular stand. Boy was I wrong. Throughout the process they floored me with their objective view of events. They were rarely binary in their understanding of complex issues. They approached each source story with compassion, impartiality and a great deal of humanity. They seemed to have an intuitive understanding of the fragility of it all, the shades of grey, the fallibility of human interaction. I have tried to never condescend to them again.

'That Night Follows Day' is such a profound use of the theatrical paradigm, and of working with children as collaborators. It is a stand-off, a confrontation, a turning of the tables. It is non judgmental, it is objective, it is overwhelming in what it illustrates through simply listing facts and memories. As many of these statements are in some way positive as those that suggest a negativity. 

These items, when placed together into one overwhelming whole, delivered in an entirely non-theatrical manner, suggest both the wisdom and individuality of children, the complex and fraught task of raising a child and the lies that we tell (as parents, guides, society) in order to protect them from the truth of the world and of humans. 

'That Night Follows Day' isn't a call to arms to let children be, its not a polemic dissecting and criticising our treatment of children, it just shows things the way they are. And the totally disarming thing about it is that you don't expect it from children. It is exactly the experience I had making the work for the skate park. Humbled and moved. The children are never asking for anything. They are never demanding anything. They just stand there in various sized groups telling us what we do (not who we are, or what we mean, or if its good or bad). Adults come across as being caring, ambitious, cautious, shambolic, racist, placating, encouraging, mean, uncertain, superstitious, atheist, rational, emotional, rushed, flustered, dismisive, disappointed, full of love and deeply flawed. 

And that we are, aren't we? 

As the piece concluded I was grieving the fact that we tell children "it's all going to be okay". Not only is that a lie, I realised that I am, as an adult, still coming to terms with that fact. I saw how much of my life has been guided by the belief that it's all going to be okay. It is, we believe, our right for things to all be okay. And they're not, they never will be. But that's okay, we can just get on with it. 

Children, it seems are much more able to accept the fragility, the futility, the deep flaws of humanity than we are. They haven't yet learned to try not to be human.

Review: Appetite

Appetite

Melbourne International Arts Festival

Fairfax Studio Until 25th October

Don't go. Even if you have a ticket. Even if you paid for a ticket, like I did, don't go. Your time is better spent watching babies vomit on youtube. 

What a total, abject, insulting, embarrassing mess.

Chris Boyd used the Hadron Collider as a metaphor when describing 'Sunstruck'. I would now like to borrow that metaphor and use it to describe 'Appetite', but not in the way that Mr. Boyd has. This is like people's worst fears about the particle accelerator realised. 'Appetite' took various bad, bad  elements: ordinary, ill-thought out dance and movement, really banal, jarring yet fence-sitting original songs, and a terrible, terrible script, and collided them into each other, which caused a black-hole. 

I'm not exaggerating. This was terrible.  

I honestly don't know where to start. I don't think this was a programming issue. It looked good on paper, good enough for me to book a ticket. I don't think it was down to the performers by any means all of whom are good, and two of whom were responsible for one of my favourite performances this year: 'Disagreeable Objects'. I don't know how this could go so far off the rails and deviate so thoroughly. You see, the thing is, it was bad in so many ways. Mueller doesn't strike me as the kind of writer whose words compliment dance or physical theatre, and nor does it pull strongly in the other direction (of course I see it now, in retrospect). I'm not familiar with New Buffalo, but c'mon, this was poor man's Sarah Blasko in 'Little Fish'. The songs were just ordinary, and really seemed to belong to something else. 

But, by god, the direction.

It was amateurish at best. The poor performers having to upstage each other, with such, such puerile slapstick. I felt terribly sorry for each and every performer. Everything was so obviously flagged and emoted, there was absolutely no subtlety. What's happened to Kate Denborough? 'Headlock', that Frank Woodley solo show and now this? Diminishing returns or what? I'm really glad that generally, people are calling this for what it is. I do place the blame upon Kage and Denborough for this. It just was so poorly directed that there wasn't anything redeeming. And c'mon, reading this excuse for writing would be enough for the alarm bells to be ringing. Three disparate and opposing elements working unintentionally against one another shows a lack of vision. It shows a lack of certainty and courage. 

Now, I'm a cook. I love cooking. I love cooking on stage. They had every opportunity to actually cook, they had burners, they had ingredients. There was a promising moment of pop corn, and also of flambe, but is amounted to absolutely nothing. The pinnacle of culinary sensuality was McClements cracking eggs into a bowl, adding oranges, champagne and vodka. It was just stupid. Why not actually cook? This was childish, like something from 'You Can't Do That On Television'.

This was such a disgusting waste of food, time, resources, intelligence, space, festival hours... I could go on. 

And who are these people? There were no characters, just caricatures. I'm so, so, so sick of seeing writing like this. Its like seeing a David Williamson when you're a kid. You sit there and think "Oh, so that's what its like being an adult". But I don't know anyone who lives this life. It didn't come from a truthful place at all. I've never met anyone who fits into that mould. And I used to work in advertising. I've met the bourgeoisie, I've met CUBs, but who were these people? It just made no sense. 

And is Catherine McClements being groomed to be the next Sigrid Thornton or what?

Oh god, it made me angry. I just hope I can remember both Michelle Heaven and Brian Lucas for 'Disagreeable Objects' which was at least one thousand times better. 

Oh god, I just noticed it had a dramaturge. That's ridiculous, what was he doing? 

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE STOP THEM???

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.

Review: Exercises in Happiness

Exercises in Happiness

Created and presented by Panther: Sarah Rodigari and Madeleine Hodge

Until Saturday 25th October

Both Madeleine Hodge and Sarah Rodigari are friends of mine. They, as far as I know, don't know that I write this. This happened once before after I reviewed Tom Holloway's 'Red Sky Morning', Tom read it and the jig was up. He didn't, you see, know that I was writing a blog. More correctly, I hadn't told him. Then he read it. I was embarrassed.

'Exercises in Happiness' occurs in a gallery-like space. I was there Saturday evening. It was hot and it was crowded. I found myself informally queueing in order to complete the exercises. It made me cross. 

As has been written by others this is a diverting installation / intervention, and it is quite submersive. I think this misses the point though. Or it does to me at least. 

What I got, and this really might be more revealing psychologically than I would like it to be, was the absolute flimsiness and futility of a search for happiness alone - as a means to an end. You potter about in a garden, something I usually love doing, and all I was thinking about was the drainage of a container within a gallery and how the plants really don't stand a chance. You make awkward conversation with a stranger using topics from a little glass bowl, while eating trifle and rather than begin a conversation, it halted one that I was already having with a stranger. I sat for about 20 minutes trying to tune up a left-handed electric guitar and when I finished, I had to start again because the tuning had not held. I went into the video room, pressed 'next' on the computer screen after I had recorded my first answer, nothing seemed to happen, I got impatient and clicked it again and missed the next question and had to record my response to the second question where my response to the third one should have been.  I read people's responses to 'One Thing You'd Like To Do before You Die' and got despondent because zero population growth is really not going to happen.

There was an activity (actually a couple) that I didn't get to due to aforementioned overcrowding, which I wanted to get to because it alluded to something that I like exploring. The activity was watching porn. The reason I liked its inclusion is because porn, by its very nature, is generally somewhat exploitative. And I believe that our desire for happiness, our belief that it is a birth right, comes at a cost to others, to society, to the earth, to ourselves. 

Now, and I'm going to tread carefully here, I do not believe that happiness itself comes as a cost, just the pursuit of it on its own. Happiness isn't an endpoint, its a byproduct. It doesn't come at a cost when it's achieved as a byproduct, but by god we exploit many things in order for us to happy. And in presenting that exploitation, that flimsiness, futility and emptiness, I believe, lies the success of this piece.   

Agog

I'm all aflutter at what seems to be Wendy Houstoun's response to my previous post (am I an idiot for thinking it might actually be? Could it be? Will we ever truly know?) 

Had I any inclination that she would be reading this drivel, I would:

-have written much, much better 

-have probably gotten someone else to ghost write my review

-be arrogant

I've had a couple of interesting conversations re. Beck's signage and sponsorship including one with someone who works at the Meat Market. I have every intention of following this up a little, in probably a fairly half-assed way (with delusions of 'All the President's Men' flickering away in my little brain box) when I get some more time up my sleeve. 

In the meantime though, rather than wish I had written a better review, rather than editing what I have written, in the spirit of Houstoun herself, some intentions:

1) I had intended to discuss The Fondue Set's 'No Success Like Failure' and Forced Entertainment's 'Bloody Mess' in relation to Wendy Houstoun. I just forgot and next thing you know I had kind of finished what I had written (therein is the 'craft' in what I do here - stumble about blindly until I finish). 'No Success Like Failure' has been one of my favourite theatre-going experiences this year. And I'm not just saying that. I'm not a sycophant. Promise I'm not.

2) I had intended to reflect thoroughly upon our drinking culture in this country with statistics, socio-economic break-downs and hypotheses. And to make a series of stunning insights about the manner in which our society both tacitly and not so tacitly endorses a culture determined to drink itself to death. And just how much Beck's' sponsorship of this event undercut any valid social criticism. At which point I would have tied it all up to illustrate the pervasive nature of big brewery company's advertising. 

3) I had intended to be more self-deprecating and funny. I can be. I also can, at the drop of a hat, get all high and mighty. Which is what I apparently decided to do instead.

4) I had intended to delve into the structure of both 'Desert Island Dances' and 'Happy Hour', compare, contrast and discuss. Or at the very least quantify why the structure of 'Desert Island Dances' seemed to support the performance more than the structure of 'Happy Hour' did. 

5) I had intended to be erudite.

6) I had intended for there to be more structure to what I wrote, to support the arguments that I was making.

You would have loved it.

Review: Happy Hour

Happy Hour

Created by Wendy Houstoun and Tim Etchells, Performed by Wendy Houstoun

Until 19 October

What a long way it seems Wendy Houstoun has come in the intervening years between 'Desert Island Dances' and 'Happy Hour'. Structurally, dramaturgically and stylistically, 'Desert Island Dances' is way in front. 

The subject matter of 'Happy Hour' is more profound, relevant and challenging than in 'Desert Island Dances' on the surface. What appealed, however, in 'Desert Island Dances' was its eventual universality, its transcendence of self-reflexivity and deconstructionism, to encompass something total and human.

'Happy Hour' was awkward, half-baked, somehow disingenuous and severely displaced within the Meat Market. 

It was developed as a site specific piece to be performed in bars. The Beck's Bar is a bar, no two ways about it. But it's an ad-hok kind of affair. What I really desired was for this to be performed at the Old Colonial on Brunswick Street or some such place, lurid carpet heady with the memory of indoor smoking, formica table tops, a sea of wood panelling and, perhaps most importantly, people actually going there to drink.

The Beck's Bar was full of us. Expectation writ large across our faces, positioning ourselves, craning our necks, full of anticipation and knock-about adoration for Wendy Houstoun.

It just didn't do it for me. It was such an artifice, really such a long way from being site specific. It wound up feeling totally nonspecific, could have happened anywhere. Why on earth would a 'site specific' performance be programmed within such a performance venue for three days? How is that site specific? It site specificity is not more than any live performance anywhere.

There was a part of the performance that occurred on a small rostra. This section was mostly dance and she is an incredible mover. Behind the rostra, however, were a couple of huge Beck's banners, which took my thoughts into a feedback loop of sponsorship, signage and double selling. I got really confused. 

Obviously the Beck's Bar is sponsored by Beck's. The MIAF website cites Beck's as a supporter of this performance. Now, what is the nature of this sponsorship? This must be the only performance that has such prominent sponsor signage. How was this deal struck? How did they score this kind of overt, totally unsubtle advertising? I sometimes resent what I call 'double-selling', where, usually in a glossy magazine, you find that you've paid for what has perhaps already been paid for by advertisers. Magazines pretty much full of advertising, advertising features, product reviews, you know... Newspapers rely on advertising, and its not so much of a concern to me in that context, newspapers are cheap, journalism is not. 

This is a context, however, where the lines are blurred, are they not? Festivals need sponsorship to subsidise the works they are presenting, particularly in Australia, where the costs of travel could otherwise be prohibitive to an arts festival. I'm not anti sponsorship, just one for disclosure. I am becoming increasingly perturbed at the blurring of the line and I really have not encountered it in live performance before. And it scares the whatsit out of me.

Is it not enough that the performance occurred in The Beck's Bar? That the Beck's logo appears on the web page and the program? And that Beck's was the only beer available?

I mean come on. We're not idiots. They had a captive group of people waiting eagerly for a performance, with not much else to do besides buy a beer. They didn't need to erect banners reminding us of their branding.

And this seemed a strange kind of union, between a piece that is sort of critical of drinking culture - certainly doesn't romanticise it - and a big ole liquor company, in fact, the largest brewery company in the world.

I'm really interested to hear what others make of this. It was a kind of controlling, under-handed, yet unsubtle kind of sponsorship. I imagine that anything programmed for this venue throughout the festival ends up doing some nice business for Beck's.

After I'd stewed on this I found that I'd missed a good five minutes of the performance. Oh well. 

And I have never seen a performance whose backdrop is a couple of Australia Council banners.

Review: Desert Island Dances

Desert Island Dances

Devised by Wendy Houstoun and John Avery

Performed by Wendy Houstoun

Season Ended

As I was seeping in the miasma that was fringe and stewing in my disappointment of 'An Oak Tree', 'Desert Island Dances' caressed my young, follicly blessed cheek like a cool, tropical breeze (to mix metaphors). 

Houstoun is incredible. Her presence is so disarmingly reachable and unassuming that she manages to bring so much in, without you necessarily even being conscious of it. And, bejesus, is she funny. 

In one of my favourite novels, Ondaatje's 'In the Skin of a Lion', there is a line which seared into my brain the first time I read it. I quote it often, so apologies to anyone I know who may be reading this, but its the first time in memory I have quoted it in relation to theatre.

It appears at about the midway point in the narrative, from memory, and it reaches out to you, it pulls itself through the (at that point) sticky layers of narrative and speaks clearly, honestly and humbly. It made me love Ondaatje.

Trust me. There is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.  

I've never forgotten it. Its like some of those great fourth wall breaking moments in Spike Lee's movies, or Haneke's. It has a definite point and utility, yet is done with such grace and intelligence. Startling and exhilarating in its honesty.

Houstoun's 'Desert Island Dances' is beyond what I was expecting which essentially is artful artlessness, de-constructing our notions of performance and the interface between us. The piece does somehow transcend its postmodern self-reflexive origins to encompass a whole lot. Her images are delivered. The movements are surprisingly often poignant and allowed to settle. 

And it is incredibly funny. 

The only moment that didn't do it for me was when she turned a video camera, that had been recording the audience around and watched it and charted our enjoyment. I liked the charting, I liked what she was doing - I just got hung up on the fact that she wasn't watching the video, or at least I didn't think she was. And what she was saying wasn't necessarily in regards to our image on the little screen she was looking at. I would have preferred it if it were. Or obviously not - a superfluous theatrical mechanism that fails. Like the hilarious moment of black-light with nothing glowing on stage at all (there was, however, a woman in the first row dressed entirely in white. I am strangely and prejudicially mistrusting of people who dress all in white, it doesn't seem natural) and Houstoun describing what she intended to do.

I'm going to throw in another quote here, its relevance compounded by the fact that its Tim Etchells, a frequent collaborator of Houstoun's.

Inside the theatre there are only the performers and the audience. Onstage the performers have some material items - flimsy or not so flimsy scenery, various props and costume stuff. The audience, for their part, have their coats and their handbags and the contents of their pockets. But that's all. The whole of the rest of the world - its physical locations and landscapes, its entire population, its complete set of objects and its unfolding events - is invariably outside, emphatically absent.  

Theatre then must always (?) be: the summoning of presence in the context of absence. A bringing in of the world. 

Tim Etchells - Step Off the Stage, opening polemic of the SPILL Symposium 

This is exactly what Houstoun has achieved with 'Desert Island Dances'. Something all about bringing the world in, giving context. Performing an annotated thank-you list. Its all so incredibly human. 

Magnetic Movie

So this is what happens when you are an artist in residence at a Space Sciences Laboratory. 

Incredible.

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Review: An Oak Tree

An Oak Tree

Written and Performed by Tim Crouch

Guest Actor Julia Zemiro

Melbourne International Arts Festival

Season Ended

I wanted this to work. I was open and receptive, attentive and generous. I am enamored with the power of suggestion. I am perpetually entwined with and fascinated by the neurological and psychological effects of imagination. 

The conceit had me, the mechanism fascinated me. 

Apart from its much publicised fixation with the power of suggestion, I would proffer that this is as much, if not more, an exercise in objectivity. An attempt to an achieve objective view of a character, subject, story and concept from both audience and performer. Or it could be an exercise in moral neutrality. Tim Crouch describes a "process of co-authoring that takes place between audience and performer".

Crouch has put forward 'An Oak Tree' as a rebuttal to the theatre of psychological realism. He states in the program notes that he is "frustrated by... those moments that have been carefully honed by research and rehearsal to the point where their 'liveness' has been nullified". 

I get this. I like this provocation. It was a similar provocation that drew me to Richard Maxwell's 'Good Samaritans' a few years back (see here for Theatre Notes review), which I loved. 

I did not, however, love 'An Oak Tree'. 

Where 'Good Samaritans' was all artful artlessness, 'An Oak Tree' was all artless artfulness. 

The experience was so controlled - to almost an inch of its life - by Crouch, the delivery gave no  space for silence, doubt and uncertainty. Is it not somewhat of a futile task to ask an actor onto the stage, in front of hundreds, and ask them "not to improvise" but to "remain open"? They will be vulnerable, they have their craft on display and who would not play to their strengths within that context? Who, I ask you, would not begin to interpret, to behave, to emote, to improvise?

Zemiro did, as I think anyone would, play for laughs a bit, make obvious that the words were not hers, play 'open', emote, but I can't blame her. She was being shunted around the stage, told this and that, her performance was very much being directed - it was far from a neutral delivery or direction - by Crouch. 

The central conceit here was, therefore, totally undermined. It failed spectacularly as a piece of open theatre. It was boring. So boring that I found myself self-chastising because I was losing interest. "You're not being open enough" I told myself, "You're attention span is woefully stunted, you're probably one of those people who can't even be hypnotised, who aren't 'open' to it." 

An aside: a friend of mine has a song called, I think, 'The Non-Consentual Squeeze', written about those men, (they mostly are, aren't they) who come up behind you and give you an unsolicited massage whilst saying: "you're really, very tense, you need to let go of some tension", all the while your stress mounts because you're being kind of kneaded by a looming man with one of those soft, sensitive, 'I'm a good listener', creepy voices. These men haunt community choirs, yoga classes and the theatrical arts. Trust me, I was one as a teenager.

I felt like 'An Oak Tree' was in that kind of realm. It was a passive-aggressive control-freak of a play. It nodded and smiled at you whilst pushing you away and insulting you. It gave the careful impression of granting autonomy and the power of interpretation to its audience and its guest actor whilst yielding absolutely no control. 

It is a theatrical experiment and I have some respect for it as one - but it is so far down the road. He has performed it with hundreds of people. It has become one of those "carefully honed" pieces of theatre that it was designed to reject. 

I feel ridiculous for pointing out that we have zero trouble accepting suggestion. That is what the theatre is. Absolutely. If not that, then what? Approximately 30% of my  total time in the theatre (or t.t.i.t.t.) is spent strategizing about what physical position would best allow blood flow back into my buttocks. I am never in danger of forgetting where I am. I mean, where would we be in the theatre without the power of suggestion, without the 'liveness'? This was established pretty early on in the theatre. You know, the whole massive plaster masks thing, the whole adolescent boys playing women thing. Who exactly is Tim Crouch expecting as an audience? And with what kind of previous theatrical experience?

I think he means film. Seriously. Film is what he should be playing with. Film is rife with psychological realism. Film is where 'realism' really is. 

So, Tim Crouch then, in film, I suppose would be doing what Lars Von Trier has been. Destroying the artifice and concentrating how much we will suspend our disbelief in what is ostensibly a realistic medium. 

So, then. Its been done. 

And how can we achieve objectivity, openness, moral neutrality in the theatre? We can't.

I'll leave this confusion by quoting from Atwood's marvelous 'Negotiating With the Dead'  and hoping no one sees me escape behind the smoke.

   

Was it possible, I said, to write a story with no moral implications at all? 'No,' she said. 'You can't help the moral implication, because a story has to come out one way or the other, and the reader will have opinions about the rightness or wrongness of the outcome whether you like it or not.'... It was Chekhov who famously said, and not quite truthfully, that he never judged his characters, and you will find many a critical review that tacitly endorses this sort of restraint. But the reader will judge the characters, because the reader will interpret. We all interpret every day... Language is not morally neutral because the human brain is not neutral in its desires.

Review: There

There

The Loft, Festival Hub, The Lithuanian Club

Devised and Performed by Emily Tomlins and Angus Grant

Directed by Marcel Dorney

Until the 11th September

Presented by Elbow Room

People are saying very good things about this piece and with some good reason. It is very diverting and entertaining. 

It is, however, very cute. And that is both a good and a bad thing.

At its simplest level, 'There' reminded me of an old Aardman animation I remember called 'Adam', a very well executed creation allegory. 

And that's the thing - here we go - 'There' didn't feel like anything new. Let me say (and I'm not placating here) that it is all executed very, very well. It is funny, it is extremely entertaining, and I agree with Born Dancin' that it is, perhaps better if one goes in expecting and knowing nothing. But I had heard about this and heard that it is something I shouldn't miss. 

Now, I gotta say that I expelled a sigh of exasperation upon the revelation that these two 'blank slate' characters were actors. Jesus. Does this industry (and, yes, I use the term loosely) have to be so self reflexive and insular? Is there nothing more interesting in the world to represent? I understand that it was perhaps a mechanism used to achieve a degree of self-revelation and vulnerability, but the metaphor became hackneyed as soon as that revelation was made. This is well trod ground. The stage and actors as a representation of the world and humans. Didn't someone once suggest that 'All the world's a stage'? Who was it? (Sorry, I seen to have stepped in some facetiousness). 

There were some interesting teases after this point - there were a couple of good points made about gender roles within traditional theatre, but those points were dropped pretty quickly. There was a fantastic moment in which one of the characters became a vessel for the flotsam of consumerism, spouting an advertisement as if it were the word of god. Again, though, the notion seemed to be forgotten - humans and human intelligence as a product of the vast amounts of stuff we vomit into the ether.   Much complexity, whilst briefly addressed did seem to fall by the wayside in favour of simplicity and neatness. And that's what bothered me really. God knows, now, if at any point in history, we as a society understand the cost of existence. What it costs the world, other people, ourselves. This existentialism, this struggle was barely addressed, but I have to say there was a striking and all too brief final image that redeemed the piece somewhat. I just wish they had earned it a little more, forsaken laughs, cuteness and cleverness for some further truth. Lord knows they could have gone there. The audience was in the palm of their hand, they could have taken us anywhere. The final image was resonant, and true, but way, way too quick for me. 

As an antidote to exploratory, non narrative based, non linear performance it is probably refreshing. But, my friends, I likes me my non narrative based, exploratory performance. Sure it doesn't always work, in fact it probably doesn't work more than it does, but it mostly feels new, unique and truly brave. And I didn't get that from 'There'. It felt pretty damn safe and comfy, within the realm of, say, 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'. The theatrical metaphor was overstated and at no point did I ever genuinely question what was going on. There was no point of true chaos, or loss of control. I felt the performers and the audience always remained quite, quite safe.

It is, however, very, very well performed. The actors both have obvious skill. And it is funny. It just remained to be clowning for me - never moved beyond it - and had a little too much bathos. 

If you see it you won't be bored, you'll be charmed and entertained. I promise. 

The more I see in this festival, the more I reflect fondly upon 'Scattered Tacks' and hope, in my heart of hearts, that you can get to see it, if there are still tickets. 

  

Review: War Lounge

War Lounge

Directed and Devised by Suzanne Kersten

Artists Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert and Christine Logan-Bell

Presented by t.v.

Here's a disagreement. How exciting. 'War Lounge' is something I went to see based pretty much solely upon Born Dancin's endorsement. 

I had so many problems with this piece, and not in a good, provocative, questioning things I had previously believed to be self-evident truths, kind of way. 

There are, in my humble opinion, problems with this piece on pretty much every level. 

Level One: Semantics

There is a basic semantic point I will make - not in order to be petty - because I believe it to be indicative of one of the problems of this performance. At least one-third of the piece paraphrases the experience of people who have lived in Iraq, sometimes in their own words, sometimes not. While this is, in itself, interesting, I call its relevance into question simply because the title of the performance is: 'War Lounge' and it is clearly stated that the intention was to make a piece about war. 

There is a serious argument that the occupancy of Iraq is not a war. War has never been formally declared. 

This may seem trivial but I believe it is integral. Part of the ideological problem with the US led invasion of Iraq is that it is not legal. 

This doesn't mean that it is not a good starting point for a performative exploration (on the contrary, last year's 'Gifted and Talented' was my favourite performance in the Fringe), it just illustrates a simple research problem (which I'll go into detail about later) and naivete. 

Granted - Iraq, its decimation, population and internal conflict was only one third of this piece, so I'll move on. 

Level Two: Distance From the Material

There was interest for me in the stories and opinions of Iraqis sought and collected by the performer. I would have preferred to hear them directly - recorded on video or audio - but they were presented sensitively and interestingly in the garage / store room of the performance site, which was set up as a kind of museum. 

Whilst this was pleasing it did keep all the content at an arm's length, seeming to categorise these experiences as cultural or anthropological curiosities, viewed by us at a distance, through the prism of one performer's experience and understanding. I thought there were a couple of missed opportunities to let us as an audience experience something for ourselves, such as lining us up against a concrete wall, which was done, but so gently and nicely that the experience was one of relative comfort. 

Level Three: Performance

Another way in which war was addressed in 'War Lounge' was an exploration of the life of poet Wilfred Owen and the parallels between his life and the life of one of the performers and this exploration was much more interesting to me. However, the performer of this section was somewhat stilted, stumbling over words and lacking in charisma. The content of this section was far more appropriate and relevant. And there is no doubt over the legal or semantic status of the First World War, in which, Owen took part and about which he wrote. 

The nature of some site specific performance works is an intimacy between the audience and a performer, and this particular performer seemed awkward and uncomfortable, not necessarily with the intimacy, but the intimacy made it all the more obvious. 

Level Four: Installation

The final section I will address took the form of an installation. Formally, this kind of work - art installation / intervention within the context of a site specific performance can be problematic - someone who is presumably a performer / theatre-maker producing something partly as a visual art response and partly as an intervention recording the experience and then feeding that back into the performance in the form of a projection or installation. It succeeds not as a piece of visual art installation because it is not executed with the skill and craftspersonship reflective of contemporary art practice - it still looks like a show (ie, visible cables gaffer taped to the floor). I am aware that this sounds fussy, and perhaps it is. I don't mind these things in theatre, its partly its charm, but as an installation it doesn't reflect the level of skill that art installations are executed with. And the video work was incredibly shonky. Video art has come a long way in twenty years, the bar is quite high in terms of technical achievement. The video in this was bad to the point of distraction. 

Is the video a recording of the specific intervention, or a piece of the installation itself? These things have very different purposes and therefore different demands. I think its an important distinction. 

Each audience member is given an ipod through which to listen to a soundtrack accompanying the installation. From what I understand, each soundtrack was identical, and despite being told that we could skip tracks, or even press stop, I don't think anyone did, consequently everyone was listening to the same exact thing at roughly the same time, rendering the individual ipods somewhat redundant. Unless I'm missing something. 

So I understand, broadly, how 'Balloon Diplomacy' was arrived at in response to War. To me it trivialised the subject matter somewhat in its whimsy and flippancy. That is just me though, I'm  not stating that as an error of judgement upon the performer's / creator's part, just my taste. Which is, it must be said, questionable to begin with. 

On the other end of the spectrum, as much as I disliked the distance created by the museum installation, it was executed beautifully.

Level Five: Research

My final issue was with the misappropriation of a quote. It was not an intentional misappropriation, but again, nothing some more research couldn't have addressed. 'The act of War is a failure of imagination' is a well used quote and one which has various sources attributed to it, however I don't believe the original source to be a philosopher residing in Tempelstowe, as the performer told me it was - and while he may, indeed, have quoted it, that doesn't make it his. Personally I am familiar with it through Andrew O'Hagan's excellent opening address to the 207 Sydney Writer's Festival (if you haven't read it, do, now. Don't read any more of my drivel, just go, save yourself. While you still can). Whilst he doesn't use the quote directly O'Hagan makes a point that I think the creators of 'War Lounge' could have benefited from - imagining other's loss, not just listening to it, or reading their account of it but applying it to ourselves. 

Going out and actively meeting Iraqis is probably a good thing to do. Asking them about their country, their experiences and their loss is a great thing to do. Asking them for an object that represents their country is a good, if somewhat difficult, thing to do. But to make a performance directly out of that experience and using the content gleaned assumes certain things about us as an audience. That we don't know any Iraqis, that we haven't heard their loss, their grief. It was not disingenuous, but it was condescending. And those experiences weren't the performer's to tell - she no doubt had permission - but her experience was one of asking people around Flinders Lane if they knew people from Iraq, then meeting people from Iraq. Then asking them things. Then listening to their answers. Then telling us. In a show. In South Melbourne.   

Not my cup of tea. 

So as you will have assessed by this point, I don't think this is a must see performance.

'Gifted and Talented' succeeded on so many levels. At its core, it applied a certain specific experience foreign to us to another certain specific experience familiar to us, and illustrated how closely aligned these two experiences are. One experience, an atrocity, the other, a right of passage. The show by Post was so formally daring and the darkest comedy I have seen in ages. Its point was made effortlessly, without angst or earnestness. 

But what do I know. 

 

Review: Scattered Tacks

Scattered Tacks

Performed and Devised by Skye Gellman, Terri Cat Silvertree and Alex Gellman

Festival Hub, Rehearsal Room

Until 11th October

Without wanting to unduly raise your expectations, this is magnificent. I had no expectations going into this, I saw it because a show I was supposed to be seeing was cancelled. And boy, was that fortuitous. 

From the opening I found this to be totally compelling. 

The three performers / devisers work against the performative history of circus to create something weird, silent and non-theatrical in a traditional sense. The minutia of their performances are heightened and sit in the foreground, the tricks receeding and becoming byproducts. Some moments seemed purely voyeuristic - on the one hand you're watching something that is a private moment, on the other a quite incredible trick is pulled off. But the the performer looks straight at you. Not challenging - somehow submissive. And it forces you to reassess your presence. 

And this is their feat, and it is by no means a small one. To reverse the paradigm of traditional circus, to dare you passively not to look. To emphasise the elements normally glossed over. 

Whilst the tricks are excellent, they are not what matters here. And this moves circus into a  newer, more theatrical area, I suppose in that sense it is somewhat aligned with 'Acrobat'.

The experience was that of a series of vignettes and resonant images, lit largely by the harsh, isolated light of head mounted LEDs (and you know how I love LEDs), exaggerating the performers' seemingly translucent skin and ethereal, almost over-exposed appearance. 

There are some fantastic moments of the performers forcing your attention to a tiny detail - the sound of a bowling ball that is being rolled around and balanced upon, picked up through an onstage mike held close, or their final trick, only seen by a couple of short flashes of their LEDs.

There is a convention amongst a circus audience to applaud tricks which was quite uncomfortable here. It never really took off and was always quite sparse and self-conscious. In itself, that is a credit to the show - it really is absorbing and the silence that fell on the audience was total, apart from those sporadic moments of obligatory applause. 

I understand the need to applaud, particularly if you have a vocabulary for this kind of performance and understand the degree of skill that the performers are utilising, for me though, this sat more comfortably in the world of theatre than circus. And the applause broke the tension and was too intrusive. It threatens to destroy the strange, delicate little world that these performers had done so well to create. 

This left me quite exhilarated.

Without wanting to sound presumptuous, I would probably go if I were you.