Mess – A Belco Arts Production at Belconnen Arts Centre Theatre, Canberra, October 1-2, 2020.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
Next production: intimacy October 22-23, 2020.
Tel: 02 6173 3300 www.belcoarts.com.au
Natsuko Yonezawa – Director/Performer;
Christopher Samuel Carroll – Performer/Collaborator;
Miriam Slater – Performer/Collaborator;
Marline Claudine Radice – Composer/Live Musician;
Chenoeh Miller – Producer/Assistant Director;
byrd – Set Designer;
Linda Buck – Lighting Designer (Belco Arts’ Technical Manager)
Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak – Stage Manager
Kyle Sheedy – Audio Operator
Shan Crosbie & Skye Rutherford – Marketing & Promotion
With
carefully managed Covid-19 social distancing, the brand new Belconnen
Arts Centre Theatre presented its second production to a limited
audience of 58, spaced out in three rows along each side of a long quite
narrow performing area, its floor polished to mirror reflection
quality: a symbol in its own right, reflecting a quality production.
The
shadowy dimly lit corridor waits empty of living beings except for, at
one end with her back to us, we notice a woman in sinuous red is making
slow small movements of her shoulders, arms and hands. As she fades out
of the acting space, small percussion sounds begin and she is replaced
by the composer as something like an earth-mother figure, now producing
disturbing keening woodwind whistles.
As she too fades back and a
soundscape surrounds us surruptitiously, in a kind of musique concrète
form, two figures – male and female – each in non-descript greyish loose
clothing enter from opposite ends and action begins. Like an extension
and exaggeration of the movements of the original woman in red, these
two do not speak or make any sounds throughout the whole performance.
They are clearly not in communication, perhaps not able to be in
communication with each other when they enter. We wait, watching the
detail of their movements and the feelings they apparently express, and
wonder – will this isolation reach some point of fruitful life?
Of course, it’s not my role here to be a spoiler.
For
me personally, the concentrated detailed movement work of Miriam Slater
and Christopher Samuel Carroll was fascinating and absorbing in a
special way. In my teaching days I was lucky indeed to have been taught
by Anton Witsel, one time member of the Nederlands Ballet and student
of French mime artists Jean-Louis Barrault and Jacques Lecoq. I had
also taught a Japanese exchange student at one time, stirring up my
interest in Noh drama, Kabuki and Butoh dance; and I had separately
found the teachings of Rudolph Laban especially effective in teaching
movement as the basis of drama to my students.
So to see these
performers demonstrating like a masterclass how to make elements of
movement – never quite mime, not exactly dance – into what could look
like powerfully creative improvisation, in concert with sound and light,
rather than either being in merely response to the other, was a
wonderful experience. It is so good to see work of this depth in this
new theatre. I trust that Belco Arts will keep up the good work.
And, almost by the way, I think Natsuko Yonezawa has a positive view despite the ‘mess’ of lockdown.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
