In her essay, Women and Fiction, Virginia Woolf discussed why women throughout history were so limited in achieving success in literature. The essay and the series of lectures it evolved into in 1928, remain a potent feminist examination on three areas: what women are like, women and the fiction they write, and women and the fiction written about them.
In A Room of One's Own Peta Hanrahan has taken Woolf's words and adapted them for the stage putting her 90-year-old thoughts under a compelling new light. First performed in 2016 at La Mama Theatre, Hanrahan's production returns for a second season at fortyfive downstairs with four actors expressing Woolf's thoughts and ideas as if they were an internal dialogue. Hanrahan eloquently interprets these to present an intelligent and articulate conversation on feminism while ensuring a relevance to the contemporary world we live in.
Performed at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Curiosity Experiment is a ghost story revolving around a supernatural experience that occurred at the Delamere family home many years ago. The twist however, is that for the majority of the performance, the audience are instructed to wear blindfolds so as the story unravels, they can only rely on their hearing, allowing their imagination to create the haunting visuals for them.
Created and produced by Nathan Schulz and Audrey Cadzow, the show is capped to 13 audience members, which allows for a large enough audience wherein a certain level of intimacy can still be reached. And of course the bad luck that is associated with the number subconsciously helps build the intensity of the performance.
We all know the “traditional” tale of Pinocchio: the wooden puppet who just wanted to be a real boy. Created as a grim Italian children’s novel by Collodi, and sanitised for the Disney movie, emerging theatre company A_tistic have cleverly re-imagined this story as part of the 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival in quite a different way and with some brilliant results.
A_tistic aim to tell stories that highlight the
experiences and create an understanding of autism spectrum disorders, so writer and director Tom Middleditch has adapted Pinocchio’s tale
as an allegory for a boy with autism who is attempting to become a "real
boy". Middleditch, himself on the autism spectrum, has created a
thoughtful story that not only looks at the anxieties and difficulties people with
autism can experience but also those of their parents attempting to understand
and accept their child as they are.
If you
prefer your theatrical experiences to be a bit on the creepy side, then you
won't want to miss The Curiosity Experiment during this year's Melbourne Fringe
Festival. The intimate audience of 13 - not a coincidence - are told a ghost
story on Christmas Eve about a supernatural experience had by the Delamere
family. The twist is, the entirety of the performance requires the entire
audience be blindfolded.
"The show draws on
the inspiration of old fashion radio plays, using the power of storytelling to invite the audience to listen
without the distraction of constant moving imagery and creating an almost
visceral atmosphere via the auditory route of voice and sound," producer
Nathan Schulz tells me. "Although imagery will be used it will
be minimal and designed to
enhance the story and hopefully impact the audience in such a way that
their preconceptions of reality are suspended in a fun but emotionally
provocative way."
We all know the story of Pinocchio, about a puppet who wanted to be a real boy. For this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival, emerging theatre company, A_tistic Theatre present Pinocchio Restrung, a re-imagined tale with Pinocchio's story used as an allegory of the life of an Autistic boy. Formed through Monash Uni Student Theatre (MUST) in 2014, the company aims to integrate the experience and understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) into contemporary "spectrum theatre".
"Spectrum theatre, came from a number of different influences, building one on top of the other," explains writer/director of the show, Tom Middleditch. "I was getting to the end of my Arts Degree, and wanted to put the knowledge I had gained through my study of philosophy and theatre to good and effective use. I was looking for a project to put on at MUST, and Artistic Director Yvonne Virsik suggested I look at devising something around Autism, of which I had expressed interest in the past, due to my own diagnosis on the spectrum."
I went to the theatre where theatre is theatred…and it was magical. And deadly. And Bloody. But magical. My thoughts upon exiting Post's Oedipus Schmoedipus. Using death scenes from every major play in classical literature, Zoë Coombs Marr and Mish Grigor take us on a journey of dying that pretty much covers every emotion you can think of, because that's what theatre does to people. Emotions.
It's a bloody and confronting start to the show as Post take a tongue-in-cheek approach to a myriad of gory famous literary deaths to the soundtrack of Rihanna and Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie". There are disturbingly hilarious stabbings, digestion of poison and severing of limbs, but none are more powerful than the first 30 seconds. And that is all I will say on that.
