Un Re(a)d
Ngapartji Multimedia Centre
7:00pm, Wed 8 Mar 2000
Score: 5
Short Review: TryHard
The Post Hoc Performing Word Company come down from the Gold Coast to inject a bit of poetry, video, and live action into the fringe. Sometimes their multimedia effort pays off; most times it doesn’t.
Being led into the Multimedia Centre by two rejects from Mad Max III (you know, the bit where Mel finds all the kids?) planted seeds of doubt into my head. The first 5 minutes of the pre-recorded video footage did not assuage these fears. Fine imagery was torn apart by lacklustre visual effects, with try-hard evocative-wannabe text skidding across the screen like a nightmarish PowerPoint presentation.
The closing 5 minutes of the piece (hereafter known as “the realist bit”) was also a contrived bit of work. In between these two pieces, though, was a reasonable section (“the city bit”) which, whilst being similarly contrived, made better use of the visual palette. And, on the plus side, the original music throughout was quite good.
On the minus side – the live performances accompanying the video had a Wank Factor of about 13 (out of 10). Overall, the writing was pretty poor too – whilst the Company seemed to have plenty to say about the garish ills of their home town (and, one would guesstimate, society in general), it all seemed to be written in a manner which seems to be desperately trying to create a powerful, evocative commentary… and failing. Still, the music and video elements of this piece seem to indicate that there is some talent in the group… somewhere.