On Theatre Notes this week:
Out on a Limb: unsynchronised body parts , conceived, devised and performed
by by Sarah Mainwaring, in collaboration with Lloyd Jones. La Mama Theatre.
The entire emphasis of Out on a Limb , which took place over four evenings,
was on the process of expression. For Sarah Mainwaring, this has a special
urgency. When she was six years old, she was involved in a major car
accident that left her with serious brain damage. This was followed by more
than a decade of rehabilitation. Her body remains damaged by the accident:
her limbs will not immediately obey her, and tasks the able-bodied manage
without thinking are challenges that require all her will and ingenuity.
But, importantly, this performance is not about conquering the limitations
of the body, so much as about inhabiting and accepting it. Mainwaring's
invitation to the audience to witness her struggle with her own body has an
astonishing generosity and humility. That I might feel confronted by my own
desire to watch such private struggles is, I think, my own business.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
After the Rain
After the Rain by Sergi Belbel, directed by Scott Gooding, Vicious Fish
Theatre at Theatreworks until March 5.
I haven't often walked out of a theatre as baffled as I did from After the
Rain . I felt clear on only one point: I hadn't enjoyed the experience.
But mere reactive opinion is, after all, the least interesting of responses.
Why I was so bored, puzzled and frustrated is much harder to work out.
I had gone to see this production with high expectations. After the Rain is
the second part of an on-going project by Vicious Fish Theatre to present
the plays of Catalan playwright Sergi Belbel to Melbourne audiences. The
first, Caresses , was a drama rooted in a gritty urban vernacular, and
revealed a complex, poetic playwright with an intriguing formal imagination.
Moreover, After the Rain won the Molière award - the French equivalent of
the Tony - for Best Comedy in 1999.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
All the best
Alison
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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