After a portentous dimming of light there appears in the raised, levitating shadows musician Fiona Roake. She beats a solemn drum as a herald to the beginning of Haul Away, a devised performance illuminating one story contained within another; that of a cancer victim's final days as told by a whimsical Scottish narrator. This impish, eternally charismatic narrator arrives stage left. The large bundle she carries on her back is simultaneously a psychological burden she will relieve herself of, and, as she sets the burden down and unbuckles its clasp, the cancer victim's story about to unfold.
First though, we are presented with a tour de force of comedic performance that sits uncomfortably alongside the grief stricken conceit previously set up. The narrator informs us her name is Ms Fortune. But there is no heaviness in her heart as she completely occupies a cleverly wrought design of rostra concealing hidden trapdoors, a kitchen floor and a peeled back section of artificial grass. Meanwhile, Fiona Roake's musical adventure upon a diversity of instruments first accompanies, then attempts to counterpoint, the all dancing, joke telling Scottish narrator. But even when the cancer victim's presence is first revealed, inventively indicated by the above mentioned burden unpacked as a pink chair, Roake's emotionally charged musical presence rebounds of Ms Fortune's slick technique as a raconteur. I would have thought the first role of a storyteller is to convey to an audience the emotion embedded in a tale. Grief has a funny side, and so to does cancer. But the cusp between humor and pathos is a difficult one. Sometimes, and I believe this to be completely unintentional, Haul Away becomes a satirical tale. Consequently, the apparently disemboweling effect it had upon its audience during the show's 2006 award winning season, is by turn, disemboweled.
As Ms Fortune, Glynis Angell steps in and out of a variety of characters with consummate ease. She uses accents, sometimes Scottish and Kiwi, sometimes broad Aussie brogue, to delineate time, place and character. All situations are clear and precise; especially so when Angell uses her body to create images that illustrate the telling of the tale. The cancer victim's name is Kay. Toward the end of her troubled life Angell as Kay is prostate in her pink chair, stricken by chemotherapy and the narcotic effect of excessive amounts of the pain killer, morphine. With hands clasped into claws and her legs raised, Angell's partially opened mouth is a brilliant repose to Roake's use of a squeezebox to indicate the final short breaths of a woman subjected to the lonely delirium of death. Surrounded by loved ones when she dies, Kay does not escape the awful realisation that death will never be anything but a solitary experience. Like it or not, when we die we leave behind those who love us, and those we love the most, during an inevitable confrontation with that which must remain unknown, and this is unavoidable.
Often a lost opportunity in many independent performances because of economic constraints, vertical height finds a metaphorical use in Haul Away. Musician Roake is situated on rostra some four metres in the air. Enwrapped by transcendental shadows, while plucking at the foreboding strings of an ominous yet inviting black bass guitar, she attempts to coax from the earthbound, scurrying Angell the dying character of Kay. With death fast approaching via a funereal fugue between earth and heaven, Angell's Scottish narrator slips into an eruptive analysis of the relevance of God in his or her many guises. Islam, Christianity and Buddhism are given a solid working over and in her frantic attempt to stave off the seductive allure of an afterlife expressed via Roake's heightened lyricism, there occurs a curious impression that Kay's inevitable demise will also be the death of her mischievous Scottish mythographer. This partially explains Ms Fortune's restrained, if not cold attitude toward the subject of her story. Without a character, there can be no story to tell. Consequently, Ms Fortune appears desperate to avoid her character's departure, as this will mean the narrator's death as well. Although not explicitly stated in Haul Away's script, this may be where the performance is heading. The idea that Kay's death is also the death of her story's teller would provide Angell's charismatic narrator with an obvious and powerful reason for not wanting to let go of her central character.
As it stands, Haul Away is an impressive night in the theatre. During a brief forum post show, several members of the audience talked freely about the emotional power of the production, and the comments made in this review must be tempered by the glowing response of others. But as a matter of preference, I very much look forward to a third iteration of Haul Away; one which integrates the raw, disemboweling effect of its Green Room winning 2006 season with the cool tone of disquiet pervading this 2009 production. If a third iteration of Haul Away succeeded in an attempt at communicating gut wrenching emotion in a clear and precise manner, then its audience might very well leave the theatre having experienced a virtuoso performance.
Haul Away
Writers: Glynis Angell & Vanessa Chapple
Director: Vanessa Chapple
Performers: Glynis Angell & Fiona Roake
Music & Lyrics: Fiona Roake
Light: Richard Vabre
Set & Costume: Marg Horwell
La Mama, April 30 - May 16, Melb.
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