Material Mouth, performed and devised by Carolyn Connors. Directed by
Margaret Cameron, lighting by Gwendolyna Holmberg-Gilchrist. La Mama Theatre
until October 9.
Material Mouth, says the press release, is a "theatrical concert for solo
voice", which seems as good a description as any. Created and performed by
the remarkable Carolyn Connors, it's as hard to classify as it is to
adequately describe - a work of performance art that encompasses sound
poetry, compositions for voice and wine glass, cabaret and satire.
In Material Mouth, music, poetry (in its least semantic form) and theatre
collide in the female body. As much as anything, this work is a very
conscious performance of femininities, a subtly devastating parody of how
the politeness of the feminine is laid, like a constricting costume, over
the impolitic female body. The gap between the proper and the improper
emerges as a disturbance, in expressions of hysterical extremity clothed in
a parade of apology, which assault the audience with a discomfort that is
very close to embarrassment. The response, certainly on the night I saw it,
is a lot of laughter.
This is not to say that Connors isn't funny; she is often very funny indeed.
But there was an interestingly nervous edge to the laughter of the audience
the night I saw it; Material Mouth was as clear a demonstration of the
mechanism of laughter as a release for anxiety as any I have seen.
Carolyn Connors has been called one of the "most experimental mouths" in
Australia. A composer, keyboardist and vocalist, she has collaborated with
the sound poets Amanda Stewart and Chris Mann, and most recently she was the
"Psychokinetic Pianist" in Gotharama with Moira Finacune, star of the "new
burlesque". Here she is directed by Margaret Cameron, one of the most
innovative and distinctive theatrical talents in Australia.
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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