Rinsing the Princess - 5 short works about love, sexuality ... and everything else. Aberrant Genotype Productions at The Street Theatre Studio, November 29 - December 7, 8.30pm.
Just ignore the overblown title this group have given themselves: this is the only sign of unnecessary pretension in a delightful evening of theatre.
Though Artistic Director Catherine Langman seeks to follow in the footsteps of the late David Branson, these 20 minute playlets are less confronting than his Short Stabs seasons, more conventional, less polemical, more lightly humorous, yet genuinely thoughtful. It was nice to find a quote from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics used to make fun of intellectual pretension in Rosemary Fitzgerald's My Sinister Sister.
Perhaps the Medea sequence in Kate MacNamara's The Carnie Queen was the most disturbing in the Branson manner. She killed her children in this version because of Jason's physical and mental abuse. Yet by placing this and the scenes of Joan of Arc and Antigone as magic acts within a cheap circus setting, MacNamara distances us in the Brechtian sense, making women's issues stand out clearly.
Trampoline, by Mary Rachel Brown, has been seen in Sydney but here receives an original treatment by director Kelly Somes where the physical action reveals the metaphor of the poor jumping for their lives in the world of the rich.
Langman's A Stitch in Time was a much more predictable script, but with another interesting metaphor for life: grandmother's knitting does not follow a pattern, like her life, yet still things happen and seem to fall into place.
Puddle's Revenge by Adam Hadley was the most consistent script, giving Patrick Wenholz the most applause of the night. The absurdity of Puddle's life as a public servant was matched by his fantasy of becoming a Texas Lone Ranger, leaving us all wondering about love, sexuality ... and everything else.
Lighting, sound, sets, props and costumes were simple but effective thoughout. Enjoy the evening, and don't forget to discuss with your neighbours what the title Rinsing the Princess refers to. There's certainly irony there which David Branson would have appreciated.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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