Review - Plague Dances

  
Plague Dances

Four Larks Theatre

The Tower – Malthouse Theatre

April 14–29

By Four Larks (Mat Diafos Sweeney, Sebastian Peters-Lazaro & Jesse Rasumssen) and Marcel Dorne, Direction Mat Diafos Sweeney, Jesse Rasmussen, Sebastian Peters-Lazaro (movement), Set Design Sebastian Peters-Lazaro and Ellen Strasser, Costume Design Ellen Strasser, Lighting Design Tom Willis, Music Composition and Direction Mat Diafos Sweeney, arranged in collaboration with the musicians, Lyrics Jesse Rasmussen

Performed by Matt Crosby, Karen Sibbing, Emily Tomlins, Adam Casey, Genevieve Fry, Ida Duelund Hansen, Lisa Salvo, Kevin Kiernan Malloy, Esther Hanneford, Benjamin Hoejtes

Plague Dances is a well-crafted, evocative and haunting work melded with the exquisite use of instrumentation and the singing voice.

Full marks must go to Malthouse for facilitating and nurturing the promising youthful team of theatre makers that is Four Larks.  They have built a reputation working as creative spirits in ‘found spaces’. Now based in a conventional environment with a talented team of performers have fashioned another memorable offering in Plague Dances.  Although it is a less edgy and confrontational, than I expected (having not seen their previous works), they have skillfully written, created and rendered beautiful experiential, broad themed theatre, for a small space – the Tower at Malthouse.

Plague Dances is the story of a young woman Hannelore (Esther Hannaford), a stranger, who arrives in a Medieval Village. Under the protection of the priest (Kevin Kiernan-Molloy) she is inspected by the doctor (Matt Crosby), given a clean bill of health from the Bubonic Plague and conditionally allowed to remain in the community. Hannalore is a curiosity and a marvel as she has brought the sun with her – but she is also and an independent woman and, predictably, she must be contained and controlled.

In this representative community a lack of scientific knowledge renders superstition as infectious as any virus. Throughout we witness calculation and manipulation that highlights the ruthless fight for survival in Medieval Times.

The Tower Theatre is completely transformed to into an atmospheric Medieval environment by set designers, Ellen Strasser and Sebastian Peters-Lazaro. This excellent command of space, right down to the hessian covered auditorium seats, enhances the sense of impoverishment and hardship of the era, whilst the costuming (Ellen Strasser) suggests the repression of the Salem Witch Hunts.
  
Choreographically (Sebastian Peters-Lazaro), the whole is skillfully coordinated and structured and economically staged incorporating smooth and flowing set changes that are deftly executed by a proficient ensemble of performers and musicians.  An ingenious use of soil is exquisitely managed and the ‘Danse Macabre’ is reduced to a very effective succinct contorted writhing.

The lighting by Tom Willis assists in delineating various environments and enhances the ambiance with some cleverly positioned light sources.

For me and perhaps others of my generation Plague Dances is reminiscent of Whistling In The Theatre’s work in the late 1980s – early '90s at Napier Street.

Over all, on opening night, I experienced Plague Dances as earnest, and little too introspective in its delivery by most performers.  This, I think, is because the depth of meaning in this wonderfully ambitious work had, not yet, been fully teased out.  I feel sure that with every performance, in its very short season, Plague Dances will develop and become more nuanced as the performers relax more fully into the experience and engage more strongly with their audience.

(For Stage Whispers)