Review - Black is the Colour

Deafferent Theatre Presents:

Black is the Colour

By Daniel Keene

Director – Jessica Moody

Catherine – Anna Seymour

Irene – Hilary Fisher

Creative Producer – Jessica Moody

Auslan Master – Sherrie Beaver

Production Manager and Creative Producer – Ilana Charnelle Gelbert

Lighting Design – John Collopy

Sound Design – shannyn,art

Caption Technician – Jessica Murray

Arts House – North Melbourne Town Hall – 24 September – 1 October 2016

This is an awesome first production by Deafferent Theatre.  It is a wonderful opportunity for Deaf

and hearing friends to come together to experience dialogue and interaction in Auslan performed by two expressly engaging and consummate performers.  Their work is crisp and vibrant and clearly supported with captions. 

As a hearing person it just takes a little time to get used to looking above the actors to, as quickly as possible, read the text and then be able to check into the beauty and clarity of the signing.  And it is surprisingly satisfying to engage with a signed work that is partially buoyed with sound (shannyn.art).

Black is the Colour is about a friendship, with at times hazy boundaries, between two women where one is trying, as best she can, to support the other to leave an abusive relationship.

The choice of this sensitive, rich and current text by writer Daniel Keene is a resonant and rewarding one.   It explores the profound difficulties undergone in trying to leave a relationship that is infused with physical, and therefore, emotional and psychological violence.

A hallmark of Keene’s work the courage to look into the dark corners of social alienation and disenfranchisement.  In this instance he explores the experience of psychological instability that can be caused through enduring abuse in a relationship.

Anna Seymour is an experienced dancer, who in this work although not dancing, sensitively and explicitly, lets the audience into the quandary her character Catherine is tussling with.   Hilary Fisher as Irene communicates her characters deep concerns and persistence and also sadly - ultimate disenchantment.

As I watched I started to think how amazing it would be if, at some point, the performers could leap into dance and even just momentarily transcend the need for spoken or signed words.  But maybe that could be a twist in Deafferent’s next project?

Tickets are selling like hotcakes – so book now if you want to catch this show.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Switzerland

Switzerland

By Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Sarah Goodes

Edward – Eamon Farren

Patricia Highsmith – Sarah Peirse

Set and Costume Design – 

Michael Scott-Mitchell

Lighting Design - Nick Schlieper

Composer and Sound Designer – Steve Francis

Set in the best-selling author of The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith’s home/retreat in Switzerland this two hander opens with Highsmith attending to the not unexpected, nor particularly welcome, intrusion of a young visitor from her publisher’s office in New York.  To begin with she is an 

unyielding host to a vulnerable guest but tables turn and turn again.

Both actors are remarkable.  Sarah Peirse as Patricia Highsmith is outstanding.  Her contorted physicalisation is credible and telling.  We find ourselves watching a woman twisted and imbalanced by any number of physical and psychological aches.  Eamon Farren as Edward is wonderfully convincing in all aspects of his character’s exposition.

 

Joanna Murray-Smith’s marvelously honed often witty text moves forward with subtlety, tripping the audience up with disturbing ‘red herrings’ and offering insights into the latter years of writer Patricia Highsmith’s thorny acerbic, tortured nature.  It highlights and discusses some of the hurdles Highsmith experienced as a writer.   Through its exploration of the immersive nature of the labor of writing it also seems to offers insights into Murray-Smith’s personal experience with bewitching transparency.

Throughout there is a lurking sense of the inevitability of something very unpleasant pending.  In this way Switzerland’s atmosphere is reminiscent of the atmosphere permeated by the repugnant sense of the inescapability of the exploits of vindictive opportunist Tom Ripley, as portrayed by Matt Damon, in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley.

In this psychological thriller there are no intervals just two opportunities for the audience to release a bit of tension as darkness descends on the set and the actors leave the stage for a few minutes.   Thankfully the pressure of this clever, complex acutely engrossing thriller is not released before the somewhat ambiguous and lyrical conclusion that is encompassing like a serpent grasping its own tail.

The low ceilinged set by Michael Scott-Mitchell at times appears to be spacious and air filled and at others restricting and claustrophobic.  Lighting (Nick Schlieper) is used to maximum effect to create atmosphere and often highlights a portrait of a younger Highsmith that at times appears to be lauding it over the living like a dark shadowy over-blown ghost of fame.  And music (Steve Francis) is used sparingly to underscore and enrich flights of creative fancy.

Themes of fame, murder, deception, bigotry, agency and control, amongst others, are explored to satisfying cathartic effect.

Not to be missed.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Salvation Amy

Salvation Amy

Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub - Lithuanian Club - South Melbourne

Drawn to Salvation Amy by what is written in the publicity blurb – I was not disappointed.  It has the potential to become a burly, bawdy, darkly funny and sating Cabaret offering.   However on opening night the early parts of Amy Bodossian’s performance lacked confidence and subtlety through, what I assume were, first night nerves mixed with a sense of panic. 

As the evening drew on most of the audience was engaged with, and enjoying Ms. Bodossian’s performance.   I am confident this show will be developing and vastly enrich as I write.  I highly recommend it for its ingredients of courageous performer and writer, excellent supportive musician (David Seedsman) and insightful director (Merophie Carr).    Good recipe, stunning ingredients, what seems to be missing is just a little more time for everything to fully congeal.   

Bodossian’s suggestive, tantalizing and sometimes downright shockingly crude material is in need of a more relaxed and canny presentation.  The outrageously suggestive can be devilishly delightful but needs to be sold with atmosphere, style and confidence.  Certainly the lights were far too bright and stark to begin with - not a shadow to hide in.   If the material is going to strip the performer of social niceties - then the audience is gong to feel stripped and exposed as well.

As courageous entertainer Amy’s songs are rich and gusty and she could fill a much larger venue such as a Spiegeltent.  Her Accompanist David Seedsman fluidly and supportively does ‘beautifully underscore’ Ms. Bodossian’s lovely singing of some pretty wacky but fascinating material.

As a developing writer, poet, singer and entertainer who is able to play with the provocative it would be great if Ms. Bodossian dealt less in reinforcing conventional sexual mores, but rather responded to them with some refreshing feminism – clarify what she is trying to say and in doing so add a dash more irony – and really let it rip.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Footnote:  I am bemused that this year this is not the only show offering ‘a free ticket’ to reviewers as if it were a gift.  Also gifts are the hours spent dwelling on, thinking about and writing on shows.

Second Footnote:  Also unfortunately on the first night of this show there was a glitch at the box office that held six patrons in wait for over 10 minutes, rendering at least three of us late for the beginning of the performance.  Disappointing and disrupting for the performer, I would imagine, as two of us were reviewing.  There seem to be heaps of volunteers about but not enough cohesion.  Funnily I remember feeling much the same thing about this venue at the time of last years Fringe.