Review - My Lovers' Bones

My Lovers’ Bones

Brown Cab Productions

Melbourne Festival

From a story by Cameron Costello

Margaret Harvey – Director/ Performer/Devisor

Kirk Page – Performer/Devisor

Alison Ross – Production Designer/Devisor

Anna Liebzeit - Composer/Sound Design

Lisa Mibus – Lighting Designer/Devisor

Alexandra Harrison – Choreography/Devisor

Ainsley Kerr – Video Design/Devisor

Footscray Community Arts Centre – 45 Moreland Street Footscray

14 – 18 October

My Lover’s Bones is a contemporary interpretation of a very old story of an Aboriginal youth trapped by his own sorry misadventure.  It is a haunting tale of a young hunter leaving the comfortable intimacy of his lover’s embrace when lured by the call of the hunt.   

 

Kirk Page by Deryk McAlpin

As a darkly fascinating reinterpretation of a retelling of a Bunyip story, by Cameron Costello a Ouandamooka man, it reverberates with the mystery of an absorbing multi-layered tale, mesmerizing, dark and rewarding.  

Throughout is an ominous sense that something is dreadfully wrong – a pervading sense of evil.   This, along with an ambiguity in some of the imagery, satisfyingly, allows for an individual interpretation.

A very skilled group or artisans have collaborated to craft this work with Production Design attributed to Alison Ross.  Much of its magic is generated through various forms of media overlapping and enriching each-other.  Projected visuals (Ainsley Kerr) are many and varied and often disjointed.  They are at times bemusing such as small projections on the body.  The use of electronic sound (Anna Liebzeit) to convincingly portray vast natural landscapes is inspired and otherworldly when permeated with the sound of a human voice.  Light (Lisa Mibus) is used to enhance, craft, express distress and create tension.  The set design is versatile though a little crowded together somehow, perhaps with a view to leaving space for the performers.

Clearly displayed is the physical skill of Dancer Kirk Page and the beautiful subtleties of emotion and feeling that he is able to express with sometimes very small movements of groups of isolated muscles.  Much of the Choreography (Alexandra Harrison) is restrained and understated often exuding with an earthy feel.

Bewitching, mysterious and mesmerizing.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)