Review - Unknown Neighbours

Theatre Works and Festival of Live Art Present

UNKNOWN NEIGHBOURS

By Ranters Theatre and Creative VaQi

Created by

Beth Buchanan                 Performer

Adriano Cortese               Co-Director

Da-Huim Kim                    Performer

Kyung-Sung Lee               Co Director

Deborah Leiser-Moore   Performer

Kyung-Min Na                   Performer

Soo-Yeon Sung                  Performer

Theatre Works 12 – 18 March 2018

Site-specific work can be a bit hit and miss.  Unknown Neighbours is a hit not to be missed!  No seriously - this is a rich and rewarding collaboration between Ranters Theatre and Creative VaQi from Korea for the FOLA (Festival of Living Art).  And the season is only a few days!

As an organic cultural exchange that was first performed in Seoul, Unknown Neighbours is, and is destined to be, much more then the sum of its parts.  It is a collaboration between Theatre makers from Eastern and Western communities with differences in language, community structures, religion and styles of theatre making and an inimitable offering. 

On any single visit each audience member gets to see one main piece of the four or five unique sight-specific installations, but most significantly, acquires a rich sense of the connections and rewards of this intercultural collaboration.

On opening night I went to the house that was occupied by Beth Buchanan and her investigation into, and expression of, separation.  This intense and affecting work conjures the visceral reality of what, individuals dissolving relationships can experience.  Eventually, it, very satisfyingly, morphs into a philosophical contemplation on romantic and lasting relationships, home and aloneness.  Ms. Buchanan is beautifully in control of her material and environment and communicates with her audience with great integrity.

I can only speak for this particular experience however - as an indication of the gravitas of the work on offer any of the individual works would be worth caching.  I don’t know how the bookings are decided - it may just be the luck of the draw – ‘pot luck.’  (Check with Theatre Works on this.)

A brisk walk follows the engagement with the various housed performance installations, to a park area where all performers and audience meet amongst locals and general vibrant everyday goings on.  Here the intended focus seems more general and elicits a sense of community.   Our next stop is the wonderful atmospheric and unsettlingly enhanced environment of the very old Christ Church St Kilda - next to the once Parish Hall - Theatre Works.  Here idiosyncratically East meets West with an unearthly sense of magic as Korean bells chime in a traditional church space and we move in an unconventional way throughout the area.

Finally five performers share something of their experience of involvement with aspects of the work and we are taken on a, galvanizing, projected video of the surrounding suburb and out to the bay.

A unique and very special adventure that I can’t recommend highly enough.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - Song - Ranters Theatre

Song

By Ranters Theatre

Concept/Director - Adriano Cortese Visual Concept/Designer Laura Lima, Songwriter/Performer - James Tyson,

Image Production and Lighting Design - Stephen Hennessy, Sound Designer -

David Franzke, Perfumer - George Kara, Performers - Paul Lum and Patrick Moffatt, Text - Raimondo Cortese, Producer - Sara Austin, Adriano Cortese,

Production Management - Geordie Baker & Govin Ruben from Rubix Cube

Arts House – North Melbourne

12 April – 21 April

This ‘sense around’ experience can be enjoyed against the wall, on a stool, or, on your own piece of astroturf placed anywhere on the beautifully polished Town Hall floor.   It is a very individual experience that doubtless many participants have reveled or will revel in, in the next few days.

It is so often what frame of mind one brings to theatre, that colours the experience, and can enhance with piquancy and assist in the suspension disbelief.  Exhausted at the end of a long week I was looking forward to something immersive and magical.  And, initially, I responded to Song with as much generosity as I could muster to find myself strangely transported to my sometime, misspent youth – imbuing me with the feeling of being totally stoned and lying heavily on the grass with a heightened awareness to my natural surroundings. 

A solid and interesting starting point I thought.  But sadly not a place I was able to freely maneuver from with the limited resources at my disposal. 

Song is an intense experience that makes weighty demands on its audience as it separates out the senses.  What one has most to work with is sound (David Franzke), sounds from nature as well as songs simply sung with a guitar and then piano (James Tyson).  There are also smells (Perfumer – George Kara) and air movement and a large round white object and some falling water.    Although initial smells are light and pleasant they are almost all somehow synthetic, and, except perhaps in the early stages, do not necessarily relate to the sounds.

Overall there is little to look at, other than other audience members.  To start with this is unmediated and not particularly comfortable though as the event moves on lighting (Stephen Hennessy) states change.   I was expecting projected images.  In a world that is so dominated and informed by the image it feels strange to do without them.  And for me the strongest messages from Song are just how dependent I have become on visual stimuli and how discomforting and disconcerting it can be to separate out and isolate ones own senses.

A worthwhile adventure in theatre making and interesting journey as participant but it did seem to give me a headache.

Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)