Review: Missing The Bus To David Jones

Missing The Bus To David Jones
Performance Space, Carriageworks
Until 24 October
Tickets $15-30
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 9/10

As published in the Sun Herald


“He who dies with the most toys wins” was last week reported to be one of James Packer’s sayings. For the rest of us, the end of life is a little more than accumulated possessions and will most likely involve a nursing home.

These homes might be considered the unlikeliest place to find celebration or solace but in Carlos Gomes’s production, they contain the meaning to life.

Six characters enter an open space with simple furnishings, a television, a cushioned floor and soft music. Dressed in white they strip down and put on elderly clothes and take up residence. It’s just one of many beautiful moments as you witness the proximity of age and your own mortality.

Gomes has created an ensemble piece with movement, story-telling and short scenes after the group completed six months of observation and interviews in nursing homes across Sydney.

The result is one of the most celebratory pieces of theatre you will encounter. From the intricate hand movements of the performers to the sadness and humility of the stories, it will have you laugh and reflect.

John Donne said death was a slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men and this production shows why. This is a wonderful show. Take an elderly relative.

The river runs dry

As the Murray River - the natural border between New South Wales and Victoria - dries up, it seems that state borders are also breaking down. Well, in arts policy anyway.

Today in Crikey an interesting anonymous tip arrived;
Arts Victoria funding announcement is scheduled to be released this Friday. Several arts organisations that do really good work, highly respected, genuinely tick all the boxes for Australian content, developing young artists, building partnerships, have got the knife. This follows on from some severe bloodletting in the Australia Council funding announcements earlier this year. Some organisations that are rumoured to be defunded this year include Chambermade Opera, Astra, Ballet Lab, Elision (not able to be verified till after Arts Vic announcement).

Lots of disquiet and anger amongst the arts community which is waiting for the government injunction on Friday to lift following the announcement so that they start raising hell. Regarding the Australia Council, a strange Sydney focus and a big conservative lean. In Arts Vic, a sudden-death change in tune to organisations who were given assurances six months ago that all was well and now have had the plug pulled with no wind-down plan or valid explanation of why evaluations have changed. Several orgs are likely to fold, and others have dramatic staff, admin and programming cuts to face up to. A real kick in the guts to Australian culture and a worryingly cavalier attitude to sustainable art-making from the arts bodies.


There's three points to this argument that get lost amongst the general howling that goes on whenever there is some major funding changes.

Firstly, when is the arts industry going to learn to lobby governments as a united front? This constant justification for funding cloaked in terms of educational/community/social benefits instead of pushing the old fashioned we are here and we need to be funded line is extraordinarily divisive. This is not to mention the amount of back-stabbing that goes on behind closed doors whenever an organisation gets the ear of a Minister - 'they get lots of money, why don't we get some of that' type of tactic.

We must be the only industry in the country that lobbies the government like this and other industries representing anything from mining to banking to education wouldn't be caught dead playing those types of tactics.

Secondly, eventually there needs to be some clearing away of the deadwood so that emerging artists, practitioners and organisations get a turn at the funding pie (not that all the above companies are deadwood). But there needs to be a reality check from many organisations that maybe their time is up. Often a group will get funding for say ten years and what they were proposing back in 1998 hasn't really changed a decade later. And it's a funding pie that everyone seems to take for granted. I have seen on industry bulletin boards straight up whinging and moaning when a company does get funding that it is a) not enough b) too little too late or c) not the right type of funding.

And finally, surely it must be time to examine the rift that exists between the major performing arts companies (AMPAG) and the rest of the industry. This shouldn't just be couched in financial terms but also within the creative. Partnerships need to be established far more often that what they are and they must be across all platforms.

It really shouldn't be a surprise when the Australia Council, Arts NSW or Arts Victoria shake things up a bit. Shouldn't we be innovative enough to keep a bit ahead of the game?

Review: Paradise City

Review: Paradise City
Branch Nebula and Performing Lines

If you ever walk down Oxford Street towards the city at night you eventually get to the Downing Centre diagonally opposite Hyde Park and just near the corner of Elizabeth Street.

During the day, this building is a hive of activity with crims, wigs and cameras but once the sun retreats from the city, creatures of another sort take over the grand stairways and foyer of the judicial precinct.

The defendants with their ciggies and mullets give way to a hooded collective of rappers, break dancers, beat boxes and skaters, as they create a stage set against the Victorian architecture of old Mark Foy's department stores.

No one seems to mind that they take over the building. There isn't the token bored security guard to come up and pester them away and the kids are left to their own devices, entertaining themselves.

I always catch them in the corner of my eye whenever I wander down the street - usually with a flash of shadows, spinning torsos and silver Adidas jackets. And if they aren't there of an evening I feel like something is missing, that something has been lost.

It was these kids that came to mind while I was watching Branch Nebula's brilliant Paradise City over the weekend.

Paradise City is like a journey through an urban landscape where you catch snippets of the young using cement as a playground. It's a world where gravity is defied and physics turned upside down.

Directed by Lee Wilson and designed by Mirabelle Wouters, the performance brings together an urban collective of everything you might see from Bankstown to the centre of town. With a break-dancer (Anthony “Lamaroc” Lawang), BMX rider (Simon O’Brien), skateboarder (Petera Hone), acrobat (Alexandra Harrison) and dancer (Kathryn Puie) they take over what could be a skate ramp behind any building or in any back street alley.

The bodies emerge from the space like flowers sprouting through a crack in the wall and the game playing begins. There are moments of solitude where the players just do their own thing. There are other times when they taunt, play or physically heckle one another.

Striking through the middle of them all is what is described as the 'fallen diva' (Inga Liljeström) who drapes the scenes with her ephemeral vocals while prancing through the space.

It is one of the most exciting pieces of theatre on at the moment in Sydney and not just because of the energy of the piece or the unquestionable skills of the performers, but because of the unique way it captures life on the street with such verve.

Such is the excellence of the performers you often find yourself agog at their agility and skill and there isn't a weak link among them. Flying in between each other and swirling in the space, they seem at one with their urban construction just like those rappers I come across outside the court buildings.

Having already been on an extensive tour throughout Australia including a premiere season at the Sydney Opera House and an international tour to Brazil, Paradise City is testament to the strength of our physical theatre industry. And by god there needs to be more of it.




Until 7 June at Performance Space, CarriageWorks
and then 10 and 11 June at Casula Powerhouse
www.performinglines.org.au

Review: Moving Target

Moving Target by Marius Von Mayenburg
Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House and Adelaide Festival production
The Studio, Sydney Opera House


After presentations in Adelaide and Melbourne, the reputation of Benedict Andrews' Moving Target preceded its Sydney showing.

Cameron Woodhead of Melbourne's The Age said that the production takes "us to a state of shocking indifference through hilarity and disgust".

Lola MacMillan of Australian Stage found it a "self indulgent exercise in over intellectualizing theatre games".

And Alison Croggon thought it was "one of the most intriguing pieces of theatre you will see this year".

The pure contention that this production generated was enough to raise my interest and ensure a place to experience Moving Target myself.

What was interesting about the audience that piled into the theatre on opening night was the mix of practitioners and supporters that were attending - half from the traditional script based theatre crowd - the other half from the performance art and dance fraternity. It is rare that these crowds blend together at any one event.

It says a lot about where director Benedict Andrews is positioning himself - for it isn't often that a child of the script based world dives into the world of performance art with such intent. It is much more common for the performance world to neatly extract from the text based brethren.

The staging of a white blank space that acts as a cube of confinement for the performers greets the audience as it walks in. The performers are placed on stage in a formation that wouldn't be far removed from a Diesel Jeans commercial with their trendy inner city garb and sun glasses, waiting for us to settle before they can start their game.

Using each others real names we find Julie (Forsyth) sitting quietly behind a kitchen table. Alison (Bell) sits like a naughty girl in a corner gazing into the centre of the space. Rita (Kalnejas) is situated side by side with Matthew (Whittet) on a bright red lounge. Robert (Menzies) hunches up the back, watching over his companions. And Hamish (Michael) looks intently at the others looking ready to pounce or move at any moment.

And as the lights fall, so the play (and playing) begins.

The premise of having adult actors playing children role-playing adults is not new to theatre from central Europe and is useful to wash down serious and grating adult themes with a good dose of innocence.

In Moving Target, the game is hide and seek played out within a space where there is no where to hide. However the child characters on stage ask us to use our imagination, as the game is played over and over again with each character taking turns to hide and to seek.

Underneath these games a narrative starts to float out through a series of monologues that the performers deliver, often to the strains of a severely striking sound design. And the story emerges - it is one of a mysterious woman and a green parcel she leaves behind in a very public place.

The characters on stage act almost like the Famous Five, as they watch the woman, follow the woman and share intrigue as to what is in the green parcel.

It is a long show (one hour and fifty minutes) but is carried by a beautiful text that has endless opportunities and it makes Marius Von Mayenburg one of the most exciting playwrights around. The delivery of the piece however, left me cold.

Central to the problems suffered by the staging is that often there was very little reason for what the characters did on stage. From the sticky tape to the painting, it felt more like a text based piece trying to be performance art rather than just being performance art in its delivery.

The result was that it left the piece with a distinct lack of intrigue, and by about half way through this reviewer had had enough.

In one way, the set design is extremely clever and unique, but it also creates certain problems. This was especially highlighted when Whittet breaks a convention established from the very beginning of the show - no one is to leave this space and nothing from the outside can come in. And yet, three-quarters of the way through he reaches out from the iron curtain fourth wall, under the stage and grabs a whole pile of paints, brushes and paper for the 'kids' to draw.

In one way it is a simple thing, but on a much larger level, it showed that the world of the games was not created. The end result is that it left very little room for any elements of surprise - a vital element whenever you deal with either innocence or children.

Review: Imperial Panda Festival

When you have the ex-Head of Arts, Entertainment and Comedy at ABC TV Courtney Gibson being turned away at the door to a show, you know you must be onto a good thing.

The newly created Imperial Panda Festival, a collective of six shows shown over two weeks has been a huge success in terms of audience numbers and in its creative pursuit.

Filling small gallery spaces through the precinct of Surry Hills and Redfern, organisers Eddie Sharp and Rosie Fisher battled with the rainy and muggy Sydney weather to create a festival which could be the future of showcasing the best and freshest theatre and performance art.

The first week showcased Gifted and Talented from the Post Theatre group (top right). It explores the world of mothers whose lives revolve around their daughters dance classes. A comical piece that pulls the essence out of Kath and Kym type characters it takes a deeper and darker look at what happens when social structures fall away from middle class families.

The three performer/creators Mish Grigor, Nat Rose and Zoe Coombs Mar beautifully blend hyper real mother characters, make them gorge on sausage rolls and Solo all while they chain smoke and pass judgement at their kids dance eisteddfod. (And woe be tide if one of the girls comes home with that 'bloody highly commended prize').

This was followed by Melbourne group Suitcase Royale (middle right), who performed the brand new work The Ghost of Ricketts Hill, an improvised act that is more slapstick and comedy rather than traditional theatre. It was, unfortunately, the most disappointing show of the first week, undermined by an obvious lack of preparation.

On Sunday, a literary delight was discovered with readings of original Erotic Fan Fiction. Presented by Jay Katz, it was a darkly hilarious afternoon that was a crowd favourite. The highlight was Brendan Cowell’s piece revolving around Ricky Ponting, monkey hallucinations, spiced up Indian yoghurt drinks and the entire Australian cricket team. Need I say more?

During the second week another theatrical gem was discovered in Pig Island’s hilarious production of Parties 4 Eva. Centred around a stereotypical British aristocrat trying to have a white tie event, it is an absurd piece that is as ridiculous as a Monty Python sketch and as charming as Noel Coward song. The writing is swift, quick and sublime. This is a comedy group to watch.

The weekend then finished off with Cab Sav, a very hit and miss collection of small variety style pieces. Despite a fantastically vibrant atmosphere with a full house, the shows were under developed in their concepts and their delivery. You could see the potential of each of the groups who are clearly talented, but relying on supporters in an audience rarely guarantees a more broad appeal. This was all the more highlighted with the clear professionalism of Martin del Amo (right) who performed a beautifully raw and delicate piece that was enchanting.

The Imperial Panda Festival is a name you should look out for soon. I believe they intend to produce small two week festivals every six months or so. And if this first collection is anything to go by, it will be one of the most popular and successful arts events on the circuit.

PM calls on best and brightest?

It's all over the front page of The Australian today:

"The Prime Minister announced yesterday that 1000 of the nation's 'best and brightest' would be picked to attend a two-day summit in Canberra to articulate radical solutions to the 10 most pressing problems facing the nation over the next decade."

And to my general shock and amazement The Arts gets a guernsey, coming in at number 8 (just after Indigenous Australia and just before Democracy).

It does have to share a place with film and design, but I suppose that if The Arts are considered more important than democracy we shouldn't complain too much.

To be held in April, the weekend forum will aim to propose long term options for the development of Australia towards 2020. Rudd's press release goes on to explain that "this Steering Committee will select up to 100 participants in each of the Summit areas who will attend in a voluntary capacity. The participants will be drawn from business, academia, community and industrial organisations, the media and include a number of individual eminent Australians."

This is where you, dear reader, come in. The last thing we need is for the usual suspects to be lining up and representing 'the arts'. Can you imagine anything worse than a continuation of the status quo? It's enough to make you shudder.

It's very important that a 'real' cross section of the industry needs to be represented at this event in April, not just the institutionalised individuals at the top of the pecking order. You need your James Strong representatives in their bow-ties and jaguars, but you also need your fringe theatre artists. You need your Cate Blanchetts with their business sponsorship deals but you also need your regional arts organisation and their struggling relationship with state governments.

Unfortunately state premiers will be in attendance, so you can look forward to Premier Iemma of New South Wales having a chat with you about the merits of rugby league over opera. So the two day ideas-fest will spend at least one of the days discussing terms of reference.

Unless of course you convince Premier Iemma not to come, explaining to him that there isn't a sport category up for discussion. In fact, maybe he can just stay in Sydney that weekend and check out the footy. Doesn't the rugby league kick off that weekend?

I think there are a number key areas that must be addressed by the two day forum. The first is, of course, the funding structure of the arts with a greater integration of federal, state and local funding. The situation in New South Wales where funding keeps get cut and cut and cut, will soon enough spread to other states and territories. How can greater integration stop this from happening?

A new and fresh vision for the Australia Council must be discussed. The grant application procedures are at times ridiculous and anti-creative and the whole idea around 'peer review' needs to re-evaluated.

One of the other things that could be discussed would be an equivalent of the Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG). Maybe we could call it the Australian Minor Performing Arts Group (AmPAG), representing artists outside the gates of Troy.

The third area of importance is the state of arts education. This is an area that needs critical attention not only at a school level, but more urgently at a tertiary level. Arts faculties across the country have shrunk and a stream of subjects have disappeared at every institution.

And don't even start me on the National Art School which each year struggles to stay afloat. Just fund the damn thing.

The fourth area of importance is arts reportage. Is the standard offered by our media outlets (I'm looking at you Mr Fairfax and you Ms Rural Press and also you Mr Murdoch) really that good enough and how does it need to be renewed with vigour. And how do we stop the arts section from being just a pit stop for cadet journalists to practice their prose?

The fifth area of importance is greater integration of multicultural arts and collaboration on an international scale. Why is the AsiaLink programme so under utilised for cross-cultural collaboration? What does the Federal Government plan to do about expanding the touring programme for artists and arts organisations? What will be our vision for cultural exports?

There are more and you will be able to make your submissions online, when a website is created for the summit. So don't be silent and don't rely on those that are currently in the ears of government. It does make a difference.


Story UPDATED HERE.

Allocation Exhausted

UPDATE: For the latest in Sydney Festival news please CLICK HERE for my live blog.


Just hours after launching the Sydney Festival 2008 programme, the headline act Bjork has already sold out. Is this a sign of things to come for the ever popular Sydney Festival?

This, Fergus Linehan's third year at the helm, looks to be the most successful festival programme yet and is an exhilarating foray into a musical wonderland and a spectacle of dance.

Breaking with the tradition of exclusivity, Linehan has dispensed with the conga-lines of security buffoons and invited the entire city to the opening night festivities. There'll be no door list for this event.

Kids will be invited into the central plaza of Martin Place for festivities as they write down their 'hopes and dreams for Sydney in the year ahead'. These hopes and dreams will then be broadcast on massive projections throughout the night, reminding us all of our inner innocence, our inner faith. The Place will then transform into a massive outdoor dance venue to the beat of DJ's and local and international musical acts.

The evening will crack along as Brian Wilson and Paul Kelly stage a huge free concert in the Domain. This will be coupled by live bands pumping out salsa, tango, jive under the trees in Hyde Park. Macquarie Street will upstage St Mary's cathedral as three couples from a Sunday Telegraph competition will walk up a red carpet aisle with 20,000 onlookers.

Now, that's an opening night. "Welcome, welcome, welcome."

The programme for this year's festival is really a salute to two distinct areas, Australian Dance and Indigenous Arts which are both represented proudly and with attitude.

For the last couple of years there have been grumble-grumblings from the local community about the lack of Australian content. This year makes amends and Linehan has programmed a thorough series of events that appropriately showcase what many consider to be the real export of Australia's performing arts.

At the apex of the dance programme is the About an Hour series, which returns once again to the Sydney Opera House. It will include the new work from Chunky Move, a contemporary story from Stephen Page, Lucy Guerin's Aether, Kate Champion's The Age I'm In, Shaun Parker's This Show Is About People and the last choreographic work from Tanja Liedtke Construct.

Coupled with three works from Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza who last came to the Sydney Festival in 2001, this should be a treat of a festival for those who like a bit of toe-tapping.

On the Indigenous front, Linehan has brought together a beautiful programme that cuts across the artistic boundaries of classic Australian musical ballads, urban rock, physical theatre and South Australian story-telling.

For many the Kev Carmody retrospective concert at the State Theatre will be an event not to be missed. Especially when you have a line-up of singers such as Paul Kelly, Dan Kelly, Tex Perkins, Clare Bowditch, The Drones, Missy Higgins, Steve Kilbey and Sara Storer all singing the classic anthems from Carmody's prolific and beautiful career.

The Black Arm Band will also burst out onto the Indigenous stage, but this time at the Opera House with a concert that will feature the stunning vocals of Ursula Yovich (I saw her pick up the microphone late into the night at a party a few months ago, and I implore you to believe the hype... she is awesome), Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Emma Donovan, Ruby Hunter, Dan Sultan and again Kev Carmody.

In association with Company B, the festival will also be presenting BIG hART's Ngapartji Ngapartji which when translated from the local South Australian dialect means "I give you something, you give me something." Central to what is billed as a beautiful theatrical journey is the belief that this country must do more to protect and promote local indigenous languages. So watch as the theatrical journey then becomes one of shared cultures and a beautiful candle for honest reconciliation.

The central focus of this year's festival is well and truly music. You are already too late for Bjork, but don't despair because there is also Beach Boy musical visionary Brian Wilson, Sufjan Stevens, Fourplay, Martin Craft, Mice Parade, Joanna Newsom performing with the Sydney Symphony, The Triffids, slam poetry and afro-pop acts from South Africa, the Finnish Iiro Rantala Trio, Pink Martini, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Meow Meow, and my pick of the musical genre - accordion-playing revolutionary Kimmo Pohjonen.

Then of course the is the usual crazy fiesta at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum and the Beck's Festival Bar with acts such as De La Soul, Mudhoney, Amp Fiddler and Spank Rock.

Hyde Park will also be transformed into a Festival Garden with Sydney Arts Journo's favourite summer watering hole the Famous Spiegeltent making a welcome return bringing acts like La Clique with it. Next door in the garden will be the Cirque Ici Tent where Johann Le Guillerm will perform mad circus performance nightly with two electro-acoustic live musicians.

For the theatre set, this is not really the festival for you. Previous years have delivered a feast of the text based magic, but apparently Linehan couldn't find appropriate acts for this years festival. Despite this, there are two shows coming from the National Theatre of Scotland - Black Watch, which tells the story of Scotland's iconic 300-year old Black Watch Regiment and how it has a head on collision with the new 'war on terror'.

The NTS will also present at CarriageWorks, Aalst, a show developed with the Belgian theatre company Victoria. Based on a true story, it is a domestic theatrical journey which follows the trial and conviction of a husband and wife who murder their infant daughter and young son.

My favourite theatrical rebels and theatre-event convention breakers, Urban Theatre Projects present another show this year The Last Highway. Performed in a service station in Bankstown the show will centre itself on the characters that come in and out of the station - sex workers, taxi drivers, shift workers and no doubt your token hoon in his pumped up noise machine.

The stunning and magical James Thieree, nephew of Charlie Chaplin, also makes a very exciting return for the third year in a row with Au Revoi Parapluie. If his previous two shows are any guide, this will be a theatrical delight.

The rest of the festival is made up of all the usual free outdoor events, domain concerts and quirky events made to get everyone in Sydney at least touched by this beautiful event. The pick of them for me is Haircuts by children, where local ten year olds will offer free haircuts at salons in Parramatta and Darlinghurst. The bill says 'after a team of children participate in a series of training workshops with local professional stylists, everyone is invited to get a free haircut.

But, if I was you, I'd get in early. This festival is going to capture a city and send ripples of creativity into a state of mass fiesta... and without a doubt the ticketek website will be in a constant state of 'Allocation Exhausted'.


Sydney Arts Journo Festival Picks

Theatre
Black Watch - National theatre of Scotland
James Thieree - Au Revoir Parapluie
National Theatre of Scotland - Aalst
Ngapartji Ngapartji at Belvoir St
Urban Theatre Projects - The Last Highway

Dance and Performance
Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza
Lucy Guerin - Aether
Cirque Ici
La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent
Tanja Liedtke - Construct

Music
Sufjan Stevens
House of the Holy Afro - Third World Bunfight
Pink Martini
Chromeo
Kimmo Pohjonen

Review: Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue

Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue by version 1.0
Carriage Works & Performance Space
Friday 24 August 2007

As published in The Daily Telegraph.

Remember that little scandal at the beginning of last year involving wheat? Something about a Wheat Board monopoly, a lot of money, Saddam Hussein, a military invasion and a trucking company?

The Wheat for Weapons scandal is the latest subject of version 1.0’s production Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue.

It sounds dry, but this production is nothing short of an exhilarating and superbly didactic piece of political theatre that shines a theatrical magnifying glass on what happened during the scandal.

Version 1.0 is renowned for its use of public inquiry and politics to mastermind theatrical pieces and has previously covered the Iraq War and the Children Overboard affair.

In this production performers (Stephen Klinder, David Williams, Jane Phegan, Yana Taylor and Kym Vercoe) take on a wide range of characters, including the Prime Minister, Alexander Downer, Mark Vaile, Australian Wheat Board executives, Commissioner Cole and others involved in the inquiry.

With video projection, "live" hook-ups and moving footage (brilliantly co-ordinated by Sean Bacon), the group plays out the events leading up to and including the Cole Inquiry that investigated how the AWB filtered $290 million dollars of kickbacks to Hussein’s regime.

They whisk the audience on a theatrical journey from the wheat fields of the Outback to the commission, to Hussein’s palaces and to the press conferences held by politicians.

By effectively utilising the large theatre at Carriage Works, the group has created its finest piece of theatre yet. Not only are the facts around the affair clearly stated but the theatrical elements employed are inventive, physical and sophisticated.

It would be easy to get bogged down in the subject matter but this group has developed a deft grasp of political theatre in this country.

Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue is a very important production that holds a lucid mirror up to our democratic processes.

Image: David Williams and Kym Vercoe in Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue.

Review: Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief by Stephen Sewell & Legs on the Wall
CarriageWorks centre for Conemporary Arts
31 July 2007

As published in today's The Daily Telegraph

From the directors notes, the origins of this physical theatre performance was inspired to ‘create something outside the religious conservatism that increasingly seeks to dominate our society in so many ways’. The end result is a performance that highlights the age-old themes of innocence and youth.

Three performers slowly enter a playground like space to the sounds of a distorted recording of children and we start with a world where the young are discovering the art of 'play'.

As the childlike characters explore the physical world around them, they find themselves playing games: word games with letters on a lightbox, hide and seek with torches in the dark, rope games and playing house with planks of wood.

Interspersed with the games are short pieces of text written by Stephen Sewell that attempt to give a violent narrative on to the innocence of the piece.

It’s an interesting idea that has a flicker of beauty but overall this performance by Legs on the Wall is one of the most disappointing that I have seen from this usually talented group.

The three performers (Alan Clarke, Alexandra Harrison & Kate Sherman) are all accomplished in their fields. This show dwarfs them, however, as they struggle with a text that verges on cliché (‘first the chicken, first the egg, first the chicken, first the egg’) and they get lost on a giant set and are forced to move in mundane and artistically simplistic ways.

Legs on the Wall have attempted to break from their usual practice of gravity defying physicality and move into a realm of story-telling narrative. The result is under-whelming and what is presented is a show that not only lacks depth but seems unfinished.

Aside from an excellent sound design by Carl Polke, most design elements appear to have been patched together with little consideration for the unique spatial qualities CarriageWorks provides.

Sadly, the talent of the performers is smothered by their being forced through a series of merely basic physical movements.

Beyond Belief is a poor cousin to other plays and productions that have explored these themes of life and death.