Felix Listens to the World , devised and performed by Joseph O'Farrell,
Miles O'Neil and Glen Walton. Suitcase Royale @ Gertrudes, Fitzroy.
Gentle reader, sometimes to be a critic - even a self-appointed creature
such as I - is a question of commitment. Commitment and resolve.
Commitment, resolve and guts of even a Quixotian nature. So it was
recently, when one evening I sallied forth, via the peripatetic Melbourne
public transport system, to see Felix Listens to the World .
Picture, if you will, the said critic (me), miserable with the depradations
of a particularly vicious virus, venturing forth from her cosy fireside into
the snow and sleet - oh, all right, into the somewhat brisk breezes of
Fitzroy. Glamorously garbed in hat, scarf, gloves, coat and thick woollen
underwear, the red-nosed one shivers her way across town, pathetically
clutching cough lollies and her copy of the London Review of Books, her
major defence against unreliable timetables.
And for what? An inextinguishable curiosity? A heroic desire to bring the
word back from the Olympian heights of art? Sheer idiocy? All of the
above? For as theatre goers know, theatre is a perilous enterprise...all
this effort could have left me sulking soggily for an hour in a dark room,
wishing I was home filing my nails.
But this, reader, was not one of those occasions. (Yes, I'm getting to the
theatre now). I was to be translated out of my quotidian existence, by an
enchantment particular to theatre; and since that existence was at the time
fairly pitiable, this seemed to me an unalloyedly good thing. The sign that
greeted the audience on their way to the assortment of cushions and couches
that was the auditorium said: "Please turn off all links to the real
world". I, for one, was only too happy to oblige.
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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