Monday 14 November 2022

NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVERNEVERNEVERNEVER review

Childhood can be such a fleeting moment. One second you're a teenager and the next you have responsibilities and must face the harsh realities of life. In NEVERNEVERNEVERNEV- ERNEVERNEVERNEVER, Sol Feldman and Aaron Orzech deconstruct this growth and rite of passage, and with inspiration from Peter Pan and JM Barrie, attempt to whisk its audience off to their own Neverland, one that is surrounded by an air of sadness and nostalgia.

The two figures emerge from the darkness; they are roughly twenty years apart in age. They are dressed in identical green singlet and shorts and both have long, unkempt hair. As they start to move their bodies and connecting (and disconnecting) with each other, we begin to question if they are the same person in different periods of their lives, and if so, what is going through their minds as the relationship unfolds. Unfortunately, there isn't much to help guide us through this.

Tuesday 8 November 2022

Day After Terrible Day review

I learnt a few years ago that the apparent inspiration for Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was an Australian woman buried at Sydney's Camperdown Cemetery. I'd never really given it more thought than that, but it is said that in the 1850s, Emily Eliza Donnithorne was jilted on the morning of her wedding and subsequently became a recluse. Thirty years later she died, still wearing her wedding dress.

In its latest production Day After Terrible Day, The Danger Ensemble make use of Donnithorne's story to explore the sorrow, grief and mourning that comes from falling in love and being unable to let go when the love ends. Director Mitchell Steven Wright builds a world that is macabre and disturbing from the very beginning when we are greeted by two real estate agents hoping to sell us a property. They are dressed in pink outfits with hair and make-up to the nines, but something about them doesn't look quite right. Once we enter, it is not long before we encounter one of the previous owners.