Tuesday, October 19, 2010

melbourne fringe 2010: twin tongue of the bowerbird



There may be a million stories in the big city, but there are a zillion shows in the Melbourne fringe festival. When confronted by this aesthetic onslaught, my recommendation is that the punter excise from their festival guide one thousand or more blurbs, toss the multicoloured residue into a bowler hat, then do as the Dadaists did and make four emphatic choices. Call it Reck's theory of random selection, but embarking upon four chance theatrical encounters in four separate suburbs of Melbourne, is an eminent method for eliciting from the Melbourne theatre scene a glittering insight.


testimony
Upstairs in the Rehearsal Room at the North Melbourne town hall, (away from the fringe hub and its penchant for cheap laughs), a straitjacketed figure with back turned, one further restrained by a corridor of harsh light, turns and confronts the audience. Florid abrasions of infected make-up pollute his hollowed cheeks. His ramshackle hair is a spindle-set of crazed activity, and two embryonic horns protrude from his radiating forehead. His tale begins nowhere, and everywhere, for he is either a prophetic beast borne from an ancient Greek myth, or a simple man gone mad believing he is so. It is a tale constructed from soaring, incandescent metaphor, and the guttural linguistics of malevolent despair. Accepting or otherwise, the audience is branded by his derisive accusation that it is we who must pass judgement upon his collapsed anatomy, while simultaneously having no right to do so. His self-imposed trial extends across a period of seven days, adequately defined by the redundant technology of a lurid, overhead projector. A sequence of slides embellished with the numerical title of each day demarcates the relentless passing of time, while labyrinthine patterns knifed from the same material indicate the forlorn figure's mental state, and his inability to reconcile the wilderness without, with the wilderness within. Lost inside the mountain, his poetically charged testimony provides him with transient relief, while accentuating a gradual awareness that he will forever remain condemned by the society from which he demands redemption. Testimony is ferocious writing that is performed in a restrained and articulate manner, and is pragmatically directed. It will be dismissed by many, but its impact will not be diminished.

total football 
La Mama theatre, Carlton, is quite a distance from The Barbican in London, but Total Football acknowledges a commission from both theaters in its list of credits. Two retentive British males do their best to conceal themselves behind their prescribed 'scripts', as each is overwhelmed by the arbitrary phosporesence of a society in exponential transformation. Both appear to be engaged in bureaucratic roles in relation to the forthcoming London Olympics. But both men's personae, and their cultural identities, consistently evade definition, as expressed by a clever script that shifts in character, time and place, while examining the siege mentality of the average Anglo-Saxon Brit. Infiltrated by those emigrating from the 'sub-continent', or terrorised by the global presence of al-queda, the one haven left for the traditional British male is English football. That is, the collapse of imperial Britain may be complete, but boy, Wayne Rooney can still head a ball into the back of the net. Unlike the previous play Testimony, Total Football is serious theatre at its most ridiculous. A satire upon contemporary Britain and its inability to accept cultural change, it is formally adventurous in its attempt to hybridise theatre with stand-up comedy. However, it would benefit from further refinement and subsequent articulation. A free-form script and shifts in time, place and character, place extra demands on an audience. Accompanying this awareness, the performers must pace their delivery, thereby allowing the audience to experience each transition as it occurs. In Total Football, the recorded sound of a rewinding tape will fail to communicate a return to time passed, if it is not accentuated by the subtle shifts in place and character embedded within the complexity of its script. Further refined and articulated, I anticipate Total Football and its future iteration.

the she sessions
In St. Kilda, Angela Pamic and Theatreworks do a fine job of promoting contemporary dance, both mainstream and 'off-the-wall'. The She Sessions is comprised of three short performances that are consistent in there attempt to amplify the language of dance via interdisciplinary strategies. Undone is engaging performer Trudy Radburn as the ageing Hollywood diva mentally decentralised by too much dope and an absence of idolatry. During stylised efforts to rise from a debauched sofa, Radburn articulates the destructive effect of substance abuse and its subsequent melancholia, while alluding to a similar malaise as it applies to the external world. The Pane of a Filthy Window is also characterised by an inability to overcome a prevailing impediment prompted by an oppressive domesticity. Andrew O'Grady's smooth double bass accompanies Tirese Ballard's attempt to rise from a bed that is attached to her back. Once again, the external world looms throughout, via the monstrous rear projection of a sequence of dirty windows. But too much is made of this show's one-liner; that of Ballard and her attempt to disengage herself from her bed. Clinical depression can be contextualised as humorous, but its evidenced complexities also require a thorough expose' of its debilitating pathos. The Dawning-A Retrospective, similarly grapples with a desire to rise above life and its tedious inconsistencies. Less literal and more figurative, Sally Smith sparkles as the loopy dance teacher we all love to hate. Her introductory ballet is an entertaining but scathing attack upon the potentially dangerous desire among some performing arts teachers to 'hear the colours, and see the music'. Later, when Smith is joined by a billowing black sheet, an opportunity is lost. Her face momentarily concealed by the dark material, the archetype implicit within a quest for the transcendental is alluded to, but never explored. The singular emotional dimension evoked by a sustained attention to satire can become a seductive influence easily mistaken for an excess of hubris. But Smith has much to work with here, particularly in relation to her black sheet and what it reveals, once it conceals. 

the waiting room
Out of its kennel and off the leash, The Dog Cafe in Footscray is a haven for dishlickers of a similar theatrical bent. Unlike the prescribed dramatic structures of Testimony and Total Football, The Waiting Room is an improvised event. A woman wearing a svelte evening dress tentatively enters from a rear door. She sits on one of approximately twelve chairs, each arranged in horizontal rows that occupy the stage. What follows is the entrance, and passing parade, of a sequence of male and female characters nicely differentiated by costume, and physical gesture. Among others, there is the goofy retro-guy, fearful of stepping on everyone's toes; followed by an orangutan of a woman who may be effected by Down syndrome*. Immediately discernible is the necessarily loose dramatic structure often referred to as a 'performance score', that is the foundation for most, if not all improvised work. As the performance progresses via individual and collaborative routines of tension and catharsis, I am beset by the perplexing sensation that The Waiting Room is not communicating to its full potential. The underlying score is succinct, yet flexible enough to encompass a range of immediate emotional states. The performers themselves, regard one another with benevolence and respect. Even when the show is not firing, it is clear that the cast are confident in their ability to carry the performance through to its eventual conclusion... It is only when performers Penny Baron and Kate Hunter are defined by a serving window, that two reasons for this miscommunication become apparent. Previously smudged by a general wash of fluorescent light, the performance snaps into place once Baron and Hunter are contextualised by architectural space. Second, the performance itself is overly concerned with the skimming of intense emotional states, rather than vertical descent. By definition, improvisation is a risky form. Curtailing this risk also curtails a shows impact. That said, The Waiting Room is an instantaneous night in the theatre. Combined with its three predecessors, the four shows together demonstrate the remarkable diversity that characterises Melbourne theatre. 
* Descriptive purpose only: no offence intended to performer, or those effected by D.S.
Testimony: Writer: Graham Henderson, Director: Suzanne Chaundy, Performer: Matt Crosby, Design: Viviana Frediani-Massara, Rehearsal Room, North Melbourne Town Hall, September 22 - October 10, Melbourne.
Total Football: Writer-Performers: David Woods and Jon Haynes (Ridiculusmus), Dramaturge: Rupert Jones, Sound Design: Russell Goldsmith, Set Design: Tomek and Jade, Songs: Helen Chadwick, Choreography: Luke George, Photography: Glenda Roberts and Vivian Cooper Smith, Research Assistant: Graeme Farrow, Producer: Jo Crowley, La Mama, September 22 - October 10, Melbourne.
The She Sessions: Undone: Trudy Radburn, The Pane of a Filthy Window: Tirese Ballard, Musician: Andrew, O'Grady, The Dawning-A Retrospective, Sally Smith, Theatreworks, September 29 - October 10, Melbourne.
The Waiting Room: Born in a Taxi and The Public Floor Project, Director: Penny Baron, Sound: Michael Havir, Performers: Penny Baron, Andrew Gray, Carolyn Hanna, Kate Hunter, Nick Papas and Tamara Saulwick, The Dog Theatre, September 22 - 26, Melbourne.

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