When The Rain Stops Falling (Festival page)

Brink Productions @ Scott Theatre

1:30pm, Wed 5 Mar 2008

Wednesday matinees always bring out a special kind of crowd – namely, the senior citizens and school groups. The former arrive way too early, clogging up entry to the Scott Theatre; the latter roll up just-in-time, exploding into the venue with a self-importance that is palpable. Luckily, someone has set the thermostat in the theatre to about 21 degrees, cooling off the hotheads and lulling the oldies deeper into subdued quietness.

A man comes onstage, front and centre. As transparent screens descend from the heavens to add some semblance of depth to the set, the cast drift from wing to wing behind him. Rain starts dripping in; a fish plummets to the man’s feet from above, landing with a startling thud. He picks up the fish, and we’re away – telling a familial tale spanning four generations & eighty years, from Alice Springs to The Coorong to London to Adelaide.

The storyline happily skips through the multiple timelines, returning to certain periods when it suits the unfolding story. This isn’t as disconcerting as it may sound; the plot is pretty straightforward, and certainly linear in its telling. We essentially just track the characters as their interactions beget the following generations; boy meets girl, marriage, kids, etc. There’s a few twists to the story that are gradually revealed, and interest is maintained throughout.

“But Pete,” I hear no-one but the voices in my head say, “you’re being very vague. Even vaguer than usual. What are you not telling us? Did you like it or not?”

Did I like it? Well… it was certainly engaging, and wonderfully performed; not a dud actor onstage. But – at the risk of letting loose with a rather big spoiler – there was one aspect of the story that I had massive problems with: the paedophilia. Now, I understand that it’s utterly crucial to the plot, but it still felt like a cheap emotive device – the easiest way to generate the maelstrom of emotions. Base; lazy, even. It just didn’t work for me.

Direction was also a little flawed. Most of the time the set was beautifully realised: simple tables and chairs, those lovely translucent screens separating timelines and receiving frugal titling projections. But sometimes critical moments at the rear of the stage were obscured (I had to infer the pouring away of ashes), and there was an odd total dropping of stage lights prior to the end of the performance – which brought forth loud and uncomfortable applause as the next scene was started.

But did I like it? Let’s just say I didn’t hate it; but I won’t be recommending it in any future conversations. But I’ll admit a perverse pleasure was obtained in reading the reviews for When The Rain Stops Falling that were proudly pinned up outside the theatre – because they were universally awful. Not the opinions; the actual writing. I can only assume that there’s some editors out there who are ruling with an iron fist and are above the law – but they’re making their writers look shocking.

Says I.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Festival page)

Dash Arts @ Her Majesty’s Theatre

6:30pm, Tue 4 Mar 2008

As I try to type every year (it bumps up the word count… not that anyone’s counting the words, but more words on the page looks impressive, at least), I love me a bit of Shakespeare. So, every Festival and/or Fringe, I try to squeeze in a bit of The Bard’s work; this year, the Festival presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream – as performed by an Indian / Sri Lankan cast – and I was instantly sold.

It wasn’t until a few days before the show, when I was chatting with another Festival patron, that it was revealed to me that most of the dialogue wasn’t in English.

Ummmm… shit. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me that Shakespeare could even be delivered in another tongue. But, after the initial shock, I figured it’d be fine – I have a pretty thorough knowledge of Midsummer.

Except that I mixed that up, too – every time I’d read “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, some little babelfish daemon in my brain had been substituting “Much Ado About Nothing” instead. In actual fact, I knew bugger all about Midsummer, having only seen one production and never having read it. Of course, I only realised this after I started reading the programme and noticed no familiar names in the list of characters. And being totally bewildered by the plot.

So… ummmm. Whoopsee-doodle. But off to the theatre we toddle, only to find myself sitting behind The Tallest Man in the World. No joke, he was ginormous – I was craning to see anything of the centre of the stage. I felt sorry for the chap behind me.

Initial thoughts were of worry. Already caught off-guard by the programme, I was totally thrown when the first lines of all the initial characters were in English – only to be rapidly followed by lines that were most definitely not English – and not a surtitle in sight. At that point, I gave up all hope of following the plot, biding my time until the interval.

But help was at hand – most of the female lines, and some of the male characters, were in English, and a lot of the intent was easily recognisable in the gestures and postures of the cast. Egeus’ angry rabble probably benefited from the Hindi translation, in fact -this was one of the times that the language barrier was truly transcended.

As for the rest of the performance… well, there are two real standouts. Puck was absolutely brilliantly portrayed, constantly onstage either in-character, or in the guise of a rigger – tweaking the set as the need arises. His presence was a joy, his mischievous peeks through the fourth wall – eyes full of impish knowing – were delightful. Bottom was also played purely for laughs – and he plays it damn well, with a big expressive voice and eyes that matched.

Direction was a real mixed bag. Some characters were quite clearly facing backstage when delivering lines, or deep on the stage facing the wings… and it’s clear that few of the performers have experience in large theatrical settings, because their voices (with the exception of Bottom) just didn’t carry. The set was gorgeous – a massive latticed backdrop covered with paper constituted Athens, with the fairies punching through the paper to create the forest.

But the interval left me confused… wasn’t it halfway through Act IV? This left a very lightweight and thin post-interval section, which I can only assume provided the opportunity to insert a Bollywood-style sing-along ending. And whilst that certainly raised the spirits of the audience at the end of the performance, I’m not convinced it was necessary.

Yes, it was enjoyable. But there’s still something itching away at me, suggesting that something wasn’t quite right about this production. Perhaps it was the feeling that, beneath the lavish production and cheeky idea, depth was lacking; it just didn’t feel like the quirky idea had been followed through. I have no idea why, though.

As a bonus, this performance was preceded by a half-hour Q&A session with Director Tim Supple which was really quite interesting. All the obvious questions popped up – language barriers, et al – and, in some ways, I found this little session more enjoyable than the pre-interval portion of the performance.

Children’s Cheering Carpet – Japanese Garden (Festival page)

TPO @ Space Theatre

11:00am, Tue 4 Mar 2008

As with my first Cheering Carpet (and in contrast to the second), the children in the queue for this performance were quiet and subdued heading into the performance. The raked seating that had been in The Space to support Glow had been removed overnight, leaving much more sparse seating; I took to the balcony, leaving the seats for parents & children, and offering a better view of proceedings.

The thing is, the increased physical distance from The Carpet also seemed to distance it from me emotionally, as well – I found this Japanese Garden to be far less engaging than the previous two. This may have been exacerbated by the inclusion of a more traditionally acted opening, delivered by a third performer. This opening failed to convey any significance in the overall piece, and only served to delay the time before the first audience interaction with The Carpet. But once the interactive bits started, they came thick and fast.

The visual art for the Japanese Garden was, sadly, less impressive than previous efforts; colours in the same subtle groups used together, muted, little to catch the eye. The imagination was left to feed on small iconic glyphs used to indicate walking paths, with zooming used to reasonable effect. But, overall, I found the Japanese Garden to be disappointing; the elaborate ending, with the three performers carefully laying out small small rock, glass, and sand gardens on the mat (precluding any further audience play) felt overwrought, contrived. But no matter – I’ll always hold Children’s Cheering Carpet in high regard for that glorious Kurdish rendition.

Children’s Cheering Carpet – Italian Garden (Festival page)

TPO @ Space Theatre

2:00pm, Mon 3 Mar 2008

In the queue for this, the second of the Children’s Cheering Carpet variations, I knew that it would be a substantially different show; the children were in line in principle only. More explicitly, they were jumping all over the shop. Methinks some parents decided to IV their kids pixie sticks for lunch.

Although the general concepts for this Carpet were the same, the visuals for this Italian Garden were much more organic (as compared to the abstract nature of the Kurdish Garden). Flowers and leaves were everywhere; images were much more subtle. Sadly, it also felt like there was less interaction with the audience – or opportunities to interact, anyway. One child, apparently whacked off his dial on sugar and with springs in his shoes, jumped on anything and everything at every available opportunity. That he was controlled by the dancers at all speaks volumes of their control – which, again, was a delight to watch.

In short – less interaction, more delicate visuals. Which was a bit of a shame, since I preferred the boldness of the first iteration.

Children’s Cheering Carpet – Kurdish Garden (Festival page)

TPO @ Space Theatre

11:00am, Mon 3 Mar 2008

It’s unfortunate that Children’s Cheering Carpet will inevitably be compared to Glow – after all, they share the same space (pun intended) and a similar layout. The titular Carpet is a large white dance mat onto which images are projected, and – again – there’s a level of interactivity between physical actions on the mat and the images projected onto it. This time, however, the mat itself is pressure sensitive… it would appear that the pressure pads were spaced about every two feet square.

There are three different renditions of Children’s Cheering Carpet, each with their own art and music style. This first session was the Kurdish Garden, based on the art of Rebwar, had big, bold, abstract shapes; lots of fish and rocks and sand. The two performers are certainly attractive and agile; the action is slow, with exaggerated movements of discovery as they roam the mat; stepping on projected stones triggers the next stone in the path to appear, or standing on a horizontal strip may cause it to scroll across the mat. And the gestures and movements are exaggerated for a reason; about ten minutes into the performance, the dancers start pulling children out of the audience into the Garden, onto The Carpet, onto the mat.

And this is where the performance takes a turn for the sublime, for the joyous… and on multiple levels. In managing children on and off The Carpet, the dancers show the most beautiful poise and understanding – open arms being a friendly request that’s never refused. And the children… initially shy and self-conscious, they soon discover the freedom within the rule-set they’ve been offered and begin to play. Leaping on stones, swishing fish away, following a constantly changing path… they laughed and played with joy, instinctively co-operating where necessary. One young fella was anxiously crawling onto the Carpet almost as soon as the performance began.

Like I said, I found this a joy to behold… it was like the blackness of The Space – and the brightness of The Carpet – banished all the children’s preconceptions of what it is to explore, to play. Even better was the scene on exiting the performance; the children were running amok in the little carpet amphitheatre in exactly the same way they had been playing on The Carpet, their parents desperately trying to calm them down. For some reason, I took perverse delight in that.

Sure, the technology isn’t as clever or responsive as that in Glow – but this production feels more substantial. It could be the fact that the audience gets involved, it could be the fact that the dancers feel more “connected” to the piece, it could have been the neat canopy that was dragged between the children on The Carpet and the projector (creating a fascinating cloud effect) – but mostly, I think, it’s because I loved watching the interactions between the dancers and the children. The open and friendly manner in which they managed the children was a joy, as were the responses they got in return. Delightful.

Glow (Festival page)

Chunky Move @ Space Theatre

8:00pm, Sun 2 Mar 2008

Clocking in at a refreshingly short – and honest – 28 minutes, Glow is less a dance piece than an interaction with technology. A small dance space is covered by a white mat, onto which a live video feed is projected. Infra-red sensors detect heat (as they are wont to do), allowing the position of dancers on the mat to be detected in real time; the video projection is modified on that basis.

The upshot of this is that the dancer is directly interacting with the video content. She may be surrounded by a halo of light, or emitting trickles of colour; at times, her movements are stored and delayed, creating the impression that she is being chased by her own shadow. The visuals are often startlingly effective, and I remember thinking that any performer would love to be able to interact with a system like this. After all, it provides the opportunity for the performer to project themselves in an almost infinite variety of ways.

After this performance, my companion asked me whether I thought the dancer was any good. And I honestly had to say that I didn’t know – not because of my usual “don’t know shit about dance” excuse, but because I barely noticed she was there. And the quality of her performance is largely immaterial; I’m guessing that this technology has the potential to make poor dancers look good (not that I’m saying she was bad – I simply don’t know).

And – let’s face it – when I clapped at the end of this performance, I wasn’t applauding the dancer… I was congratulating the creation of the software, the programmers and technologists. And even then, it wasn’t a hearty clap – because Glow didn’t feel like a complete performance. Sure, to the technological neophytes that make up the bulk of the Festival audiences, Glow would have appeared to be approaching magic, a new frontier; but to the savvy amongst us, it felt more like a tech demo.

Yes, it looked pretty, and yes, it was entertaining – but I would rather see the evolution of this technology, see what a wider application will bring. I want to see tomorrow, not today.

Emanuel Gat Dance Company (Festival page)

Emanuel Gat Dance Company @ The Playhouse

6:00pm, Sun 2 Mar 2008

I was really looking forward to this. No idea why, I just was. And the initial signs were good – the first piece, Winter Voyage, features Emanuel Gat and Roy Assaf strolling, running, jumping across the stage in straight lines, often intersecting each others paths and avoiding contact with a deft flick of the arm or leg. Then closer, mimicking each other’s moves, in a beautifully trance-like exploration of the space. Though set to two pieces of Schubert’s Winterreise, the music was separated on all sides by periods of silence (delightful – I love hearing the thumping of the floors and the dancer’s panting). A great start to the performance.

The second piece, however, was seven shades of self-indulgent suck. Gat – solo this time – roams fore and aft of a line of light at the front of the stage. The music – John Coltrane’s version of the titular My Favourite Things – could have been fifteen minutes of radio static for all the connection it had to the performance, and the dance didn’t engage me in the slightest. Boooooring.

The final piece, The Rite of Spring, was equal parts delight and meh. Assaf rejoins Gat onstage with three female dancers, and the periods where the women were lined up parallel to the stagefront and the men moved between them, engaging each in more intricate movements. These moments were genuinely exciting, and were repeated many times during The Rite of Spring; however, the bits inbetween were – again – intolerably dull.

Sadly, the Emanuel Gat Dance Company didn’t live up to my expectations. There was just way too much stuff that I couldn’t recognise as dance in there.