Review - The Dead Twin - FLIGHT - Festival of New Writing

The Dead Twin

By Chi Vu

Director: Deborah Leiser-Moore 
 


Visual Artist: Naomi Ota 


Sound Designer: Jacques Soddell 


Costume Designer: Ross de Winter 


Performers: Deborah Leiser-Moore, Alex Pinder, Harry Tseng, Daniel Han and Davina Wright

Footscray Community Arts Centre

August 12-22

The Dead Twin is a mysterious and haunting experience that ebbs and flows into the genre of horror.  This immersive journey starts from a secret place and is quiet magically enhanced by an amazing haunting sound scape.  It is the very type of work that is satisfying for theatre literate audience with rewards coming from active engagement, remaining focused, observing nuance and piecing inference together.

The Dead Twin explores the all pervading grief of two gentle and tortured souls Barbara (Deborah Leiser Moore) and Harold (Alex Pinder) who are the well meaning parents of the remaining, also grieving, twin Steve (Harry Tseng).  Both Leiser-Moore and Pinder movingly and sensitively embody the devastating grief resulting from war related trauma.  Steve their son seems to be masking his distress by attempting to convince his parents that he is living productively in the here and now.  And yet amongst all characters attempts to put on best appearances, everybody, including the audience, are haunted by the dead twin played in an eerie and creepily ghostly manner by Daniel Han. 

As the desperation of traumatic grief turns in on the family things go more and more awry.  Ultimately the surviving twin is forced to make deals with the underworld as personified by a beautiful young sex-worker/sooth-sayer Lola portrayed by Davina April Wright.

Chi Vu’s courageous writing highlights the deep scaring of losing loved ones to violent death.  It touches on the carnage of war that somehow, over generations, as a nation, we seem to have been able to ‘sweep under the carpet’. 

This production is masterfully choreographed by Deborah Leiser-Moore, as Director, who as well as interpreting and managing the work has taken the challenge of performing in it, apparently with the aide of a body double in rehearsals.

 

The audience’s attention is being continually focused and refocused and there are surprises aplenty.  Ms Leiser-Moore’s courageous and refreshing approach to directing has moments of luminescence.  There are instances in this work when visceral poignancy pulls at ones very being as we witness the desperate rawness of grief.  And there are other moments where it depends on one’s own placement in the space as to how the work is received.  This is usually the case with, the at times unpredictable beast that is, site-specific work.

Inspiring theatre makers to keep a very close eye on.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)

Review - 10CS

METANOIA

Presents 10CS

Artists | Gorkem Acaroglu , Reverse Butcher, Dagmara Gieysztor, Shane Grant, Robert Jordan, Brienna Macnish, Zoe Meagher, Vissolela Ndenzako, Kylie Supski, Greg Ulfan, Chi Vu, Paul Irving, Aseel Tayah, and Elnaz Sheshgelani

Mechanic’s Institute – 270 Sydney Road Brunswick

June 17 – 27 2015

Metanoia’s 10CS offers a self directed, almost arbitrary, visit to ten sites exploring the Ten Commandments.   In all, it’s a very personal journey predicated on one’s personal attitudes, understandings and inclinations towards a variety of religions and faiths. 

This challenging unconventional work is compiled in a variety of mediums.  There are 10 delineated sites with various installations most are peopled and a couple of these purely electronic, a number subdued and a couple loud to the point of being brash. 

 

In the short 90minutes duration, whilst all works were being presented simultaneously, I found that I was only really able to connect with about five of the ten works.  This was a time issue but I also found I was unsure about how to move through the work particularly as it was difficult to read the program and listings in the dull light of the Mechanics Institute.  ‘Note to self’ - if I find myself in a similar situation I will quickly grab an overview and then focus more clearly on what I am drawn to.   Or perhaps get there a bit earlier and carefully read the issued material and ask attendants their ideas about how to move through the work.

There are a couple of touch stones one being the Bar where we all set off from and the haunting mobile songstress Aseel Tayah.  Also The Robber Shane Grant provides a kind of binding work in his attempts to remove valuable items from audience members prior to his performance that attracted a large audience. 

The shows I gave my time to were mixed.  I was drawn to 6^th C – Though shalt not commit adultery partly because of the live sound and music by Ren Walters  that was underpinning and interacting with the physical and vocal work of Elanaz Sheshgelani.  I found this installation to be rich and engaging and was willingly entranced and provoked.

Most impressive is the one on one performance 7^Th C -Thou shalt not kill by Miles Paras created by Chi Vu.  This is one of those very intimate challenges for an audience of one and as such not for the faint hearted.  It is a strong and moving work. 

I was unsettled by the installation 1^st C -Thou shalt have no other Gods before me (Vissolela Ndenzako) and intrigued by 9^th C - Thou shalt not bare false witness against thy neighbor (Greg Ulfan) and disconcerted by the very complex and demanding and somewhat brutal 5^th C -Honor thy father and thy mother (Kylie Supski and Reverse Butcher with sound by Chris Wenn and projections by Mikhala Hawken).

Perhaps the Artistic Direction (Gorkem Acaroglu) and Dramaturgy (Lara Thoms) could be a little more binding of the various parts. 

The eclectic combination of contributions does create a whole that is of considerable value.  You will need to see it for yourself to be able to decide if it is more than the sum of its parts.

Rich rewarding and highly recommended.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)