[2014061] Show us your love.
Kym Begg and Artists @ The German Club – Friedrich Jahn Room
2:00pm, Wed 26 Feb 2014
I’ve been a massive fan of (the ferociously talented) Kym Begg since seeing him perform in Rough for Theatre II; he’s subsequently invested himself in the art of direction, with which he’s also proven himself more-than-capable. So when I saw his name attached to Show us your love, I immediately prioritised the show – easy enough to do, given the number of matinées on offer.
But when I actually went to book my tickets, I was a little alarmed to discover that all-but-two of the eleven shows originally listed had been cancelled. Luckily one matinée remained, so – after some administrative duties followed by a morning ArtWalk – I found myself settling in to my seat at The German Club, chatting with Eddie and Rosemary.
The reason for the cancelled shows became apparent as Begg addressed the two-dozen-or-so in the audience: this was very much a look at a work-in-progress, he stated, and was an exploration in using dance-inspired movement to work with a narrative to tell a story (as opposed to using movement to just accent a story). And as his young cast – some trained in dance, some in theatre – performed the work they’d developed, it was easy to see that movement is far more important to this work than mere blocking… and that the spoken word has more importance to the dance aspect of the work than mere explanation.
The stories they tell are simple, but identifiable: tales of young people discovering their adult selves, each with their own trials and ascensions. The girl lured by the promise of womanhood, only to become an abused teen mother; the lonely, the bullied. Straightforward, but I could sense a deft culling of text in favour of complex physical action. And that made it a bit challenging as an audience member, because I’m used to absorbing the movement as colour to an action in a theatrical setting… it’s almost like I had to engage both my theatre brain and dance brain (as small as it is) to interpret some of the show.
The Q&A with Begg and the cast after the performance was pure gold. Questions and opinions flowed thick and fast from the audience, who were mostly creative types themselves – dancers, actors, directors. It was bloody brilliant to be able to hear the questions that were triggered in the minds of the knowledgeable, and for that I will always fondly remember Show us your love.
(61) Show us your love.: Compelling tales of early adulthood assisted by physical narrative. Great Q&A session. #ff2014 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 26, 2014