1997: Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams - Splinters Theatre of Spectacle

Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams.  Director, Patrick Troy.  Choreographer, Cheryl Heazlewood.  Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, Festival of Contemporary Arts, Gorman House. October 14 to 18, 1997.

    Splinters have departed from the simply spectacular and arrived at a soundscape with meaning.  Autogeddon is "a tone poem and photographic essay" which presents Williams' apocalyptic view of a world in which an alien would see cars as the dominant lifeform.

    Patrick Troy, a founder of the radical visual arts / drama combo company when Splinters began in the mid-1980's, and recently an associate director with the Sydney Theatre Company, has used Williams' work as the core of a series of images in sound and mimetic enactments.  "This is a drive through installation, drive in live theatre spectacular, drive out spiritually cleansed event."

    Audience participation is quite safe in this production - though it is a good idea to be upwind of the firefighters' hose when the stage is covered in foam, a dramatic effect which seemed to me to represent the horror of a nuclear winter.  The final scene is strongly focussed as blackened, barely dressed figures slowly form a holocaust image - the ultimate destruction of humanity by our own technology.

    Ironically the most successful devices in this production use modern technology.  You buy your ticket at Gorman House, drive to the secret car park location (be in the first 30 cars to get the best positions), and tune your car radio to FM 107.9 - radio splinters.  You watch most of the sequences from inside your car, hearing the main dialogue on your radio against the background technobeat and huge sound effects amplified outside across the stage: the reverse of the techno booner drive-by experience in Civic on Friday night.

    When you leave your car to watch an intimate scene between a girl dancer and a radio-controlled toy racing car, take a large woolly jumper.  The actors seemed to cope with the reality of a cold Canberra wind much more easily than I did, probably the result of Heazlewood's butoh training.

    I thought the show promised more than it delivered, but it comes together well in the end.  It's a fitting piece in a Festival of this kind and should not be missed.

© Frank McKone, Canberra