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Directors – Robin Davidson and Sammy Moynihan
Music Composition and Performance – Marlené Claudine Radice
Lighting Design – Ali Clinch; Costume Design – Victoria “Fi” Hopkins
Stage Management – Dr Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak
Music Operation – Melissa Gryglewski; Photography – Joachim Ellenreider
Projection Operation – Nicole Seifert
Video Documentation – James Matthews
Cast:
Louise Ellery, Lucy Raffaele, Simone Georgia Bartram, Peter Rosini,
Joel Swadling, Grant McLindon, Kimberley Adams
Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 26
To make a drama is to make meaning from an “insubstantial pageant” – for those who perform and those who observe.
In many ways The Beauty Thief reminded me of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where Prospero speaks of the insubstantial pageant fading, and says
“…These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air.”
Rebus
describes itself as a “mixed ability company using theatre for social
change…[looking] at issues surrounding the challenges faced by people
with a Disability, Mental Illness or lived experience of any type of
marginalisation, inviting the audience to help us find the solutions.”
By
taking elements of several European traditional fairytales – a king, a
queen, their baby girl, a jealous wicked witch, a woodsman with his axe,
a wolf, a thief who would be king, a crowd of village women – as
director Robin Davidson describes of the group “We found characters,
tried out scenes and wove together a story. We never talked much about
what the story meant, only asked – what would this character do? What
is an interesting next scene? And yet we happened upon a story that
resonated, that had something to say, about beauty, about power.”
What
it said to me was that people of “mixed” abilities have their own
beauty – and aren’t we all mixed in our abilities in our different
ways? And about power, it said we all must not let jealousy and
cronyism rule our lives; but we must take responsibility for ourselves
and towards everyone else, joining together in community – and not take
the easy way out of relying totally on a leader, even if they are
genuinely empathetic.
That seems a pretty substantial achievement
in making this drama, when director Sammy Moynihan says “As directors,
Robin and I simply elevated the existing magic of the cast to shape a
performance-ready piece of theatre. This was also a beautiful
experience, floating through the chaos of it all and being guided by the
cast as much as we guided them…a testament to collaboration, fearless
expression and the joys of embracing the beautiful unknown.”
The
process is there in the product, so watching is not about following an
exciting pre-determined page-turner. You will need patience, allowing
yourself time to absorb the sounds, the colours, the movements, the
unexpected laughs, the spoken and the unspoken, while you wait with a
sense of mystery.
And in the end, there is a political message
for you to interpret in your own way: something about democracy and
leadership came to my mind, seeing our Parliament House here in Canberra
“floating through the chaos of it all” with its chorus of women
standing up for power as the play’s final text slide advises.
I think these Rebus actors’ spirits will never melt away.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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