[2015043] mix juice
Makoto Inoue @ Gluttony – The Bally
10:00pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015
There’s one person waiting inside The Bally as I rush in at the last possible minute: he’s sitting in the second row from the back, but I – in trying to support the artist – sat in the second row from the front. I turned around and beckoned the stranger forward; it was only when he reluctantly sat across the aisle from me that I noticed he was a Honey Pot delegate.
Great – I was the only paying punter at the show. Again.
We got to talking, and it turns out that he’s the Artistic Director for the Hi Seoul Festival, so we rambled about Seoul and swapped notes about other shows. It was a really lovely chat, and he gave me his business card; later in the week, we ran into each other at another show, and he gave me the Hi Seoul programme… and another life goal.
The house lights dropped, and a pre-recorded backing track sprang to life: a spotlight picks out Makoto Inoue as he mimes his way onstage in the form of a robot. His moves are good – sharp and crisp – and the convergence of the mime and sound effects works well… until the sound abruptly shifted from a mechanised beat to the gurgles, screams, and cries of a baby.
Inoue’s mime loses its stiffness as he creates the impression of a baby suckling at a giant teat. How weird! I thought… How Japanese! But the scene kept going and going and going and more suckling and more crying and more suckling and this is getting awkward now nope let’s keep grabbing that giant imaginary breast and keep going on and on and on…
Inoue suckled at that mimed breast for what felt like an hour. It was painful to watch. I glanced across at my new Honey Pot friend, only to discover that he’d already moved back to his original seat at the back of the venue. I glanced at my phone – the show had been only been going ten minutes.
The suckling eventually (thankfully!) stopped, and we return to the robot; it’s being improved, it’s now a warrior, and the Terminator 2 theme accompanies the robot’s deployment to the battlefield… cue another painful hour (or perhaps five minutes) of protracted gunfight sequences, sound garish and mime convincing.
And then the robot finds a baby on the battlefield. A baby. A crying, screaming, anxious-to-suckle baby.
…and at that point, I couldn’t wait for mix juice to end.
Regardless, I tried to support the man onstage, miming his heart out in this story that was acoustically assembled and competently performed. When he reached his audience interaction bits, I did what I could. And when the show was over, I offered him polite applause… and then looked around for my Korean friend. He had already left. I was the only audience member left (apart from the bored-looking tech).
Inoue came up to me and shook my hand. “I’m sorry you didn’t have more people,” I offered noncommittally; he smiled, and still holding my hand, pulled me closer to him: “I need word of mouth!” he said in a practised phrase that was more-than-coloured by desperation.
I’ve never felt more pressured in my life. And I didn’t like that at all. And my lingering memories of mix juice will be a lovely Korean man, a sweaty Japanese mime desperately telling me to shill for him, and that fucking mewling baby character.
And I started musing about all disputes between Japan and Korea, and wondered whether I’d inadvertently seen that played out this evening.
(43) mix juice: Quirky mime set to sound fx that occasionally drowns in awkward whimsy. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 18, 2015