matilda's waltz: non narrative grunge

It's fair to say that in the theatre, an audience expects to be told a particular type of story. Usually, the story being told has some consistent and recognisable features. Characters are drawn from so called real life and reside within a defined psychological framework. The story itself is comprised of a sequence of events that have a logical progression through time, or a beginning, middle and end. And so it goes... We come to the theatre, we watch a story unfold, we experience its resolution, and then we go home. Matilda's Waltz mounts a direct challenge to this conventional interpretation of a what a story should be. In doing so, the performance locates itself within a wider grouping of recently formed ensembles who, raised on a diet of advertising, celebrity stardom, collective amnesia, and utter bewilderment, view live performance as an opportunity to give voice to what has essentially become a media saturated awareness. Like Matilda, if I am driving home one night in a borrowed car and accidentally kill a pedestrian, then is the shock-effect of such an incident powerful enough to wake me from my media induced slumber ? Apparently not, for in this shared household there lives upstairs either a spiritual manifestation of deceased grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, or a young man who believes himself to be that person. Why should anyone care about events occurring in the actual world when, faced with death, here we all are now, nothing more than 'Entertainers' ?

In spite of a script that lacks a little faith in the strength of its own convictions, there are some wonderful moments in Matilda's Waltz. A middle aged woman arrives at the house and for some unknown reason, advertises the virtues of a vacuum cleaner. The previously mentioned Kurt Cobain, whether impostor or ghost, descends the stairs and espouses the gospel according to grunge. Most interesting about these incidents is that each prevents the script from concentrating upon that which it initially set out to explore. That is, the consequences of a hit and run road accident. In fact, the more in which the script tries to pull itself back toward its plot, the more it only succeeds in becoming fixated with strange banalities. Most enjoyable is the tussle between these two elements, and how this manifests in performance. Consequently, Matilda's Waltz is forever undermining its own intentions. Desperate to tell the story of a road accident, the play becomes a car crash of the soul. Utterly bewildered by the circumstances each character finds themselves immersed within, all that can be achieved is an expression of this bewilderment. This, I would argue, is an essential tenet of the theatre; making Matlida's Waltz a sometimes shaky, but altogether interesting theatrical experience.

Matilda's Waltz

Writer: Bryan Davidson Blue

Director: Paul Bourke

Performers: Emily Goddard,

Nick Bendall, Giuliano Ferla,

Francesca Waters & Patrick Mays

Set & Costume: Eleanor Lindberg

Light: Angela Cole

Stage Management: Emma Lyhne

Photography: Chris Garbacz

August 5 - 23, La Mama, Melb.