Hypnotising theatre
This play
has one actor who plays the Hypnotist (John Leary) and has rehearsed
it for several weeks with the director (Tanya Goldberg) "This
actor wears Walkman/iPod headphones connected to a wireless receiver--this
enables the Hypnotist to speak to and instruct a second actor
through a microphone without the audience hearing." In performance
there is a second actor who plays Father. "The actor playing
Father can be either male or female and of any adult age. This
actor is completely unrehearsed in their role and walks on stage
at the beginning with no knowledge of the play they are about
to be in." On the performance I attended Wayne Blair was
the actor.
The body of the play deals with a car accident which
results in the characters in the play dealing from many points
of view with the aftermath--the consequences. However this play
uses this as a means to do more than tell a story to an audience.
This play examines the consent and the imagination that we all
give to the act of creativity when we buy a ticket, enter and
sit down in a theatre space - waiting for a story to be told.
The
Hypnotist gives the audience a set of rules: to paraphrase, "we
are in an RSL club off Oxford Street" and we are. Or to be
sure I was! Later I am in the Sydney Opera House! I know as well
that I was beside the road of a car accident. I also know that
I saw an Oak Tree become a girl. I also saw the Hypnotist give
instructions to the actor playing the Father: What I believe I
see. But, I also watched John Leary who was playing the Hypnotist
manipulate the performance. I also saw Wayne Blair re-live the
action of hugging a tree. I also saw a Father grieving at a roadside
near a tree. I also remember empathising with Wayne Blair for
his vulnerability and courage in even doing this improvised, in
the moment, performance.
I was dazzlingly in both an objective and subjective
state of creativity. I was both an active participant and an enthralled
observer. I was in and out of it. I, in one moment, was laughing
at a hoary vaudeville joke then gasping with emotion and a real
feeling of grief. I was at the places of the events of the play
and I was in the theatre and I was conscious of it. But not only
that I was also personalising moments in the play and I was conscious
of doing it while doing it. I was touching on past and recent
experiences in my own life to understand what was happening in
front of me. The taking of the dirt near the accident to cover
the tree trunk took me back to a book I had just finished that
talked of the bible story of Noah’s flood as not a destruction
of the known human world but rather as a dissolving. Since we
are dust, when you add water we dissolve into mud which, in the
action of the play, you rub onto the tree trunk so that the trunk
becomes person. The oak tree becomes the girl. This all flashed
through my mind while watching the two actors say and do what
they had to AND I was involved and conscious also of my thought
structure and realising its origins etc. The experiential layering
of what was happening to me was mighty.
OH MY GOD did I have a good time! I was stimulated
in the brief hour of the performance way beyond what was being
shown to me and BOY was I also conscious of it. Totally exciting!
(This is a totally subjective exclamation.) I only hope you are
too when you see it.
The "Creatives": Xanthe Heubel (Designer),
Lighting (Verity Hampson) and Composer/Sound Designer (Michael
Toisuta) make wonderful contributions. The Sound especially provocative
to the imagination. (The passing traffic on the road especially
evocative.) (I do wonder if the set design is just too literal
and fixed.)
John Leary was terrific and Wayne Blair marvellous.
This performance has a different actor playing the
Father every performance. It is happening as if for the first
time (at least, the Father’s role and the affect on the
Hypnotist IS.). Wouldn’t it be fascinating to watch them
all? What about when a woman plays the Father, as Leah Purcell,
Jackie Weaver and Robin McLeavey have done? How fascinating it
would be to see the writer, Tim Crouch, play the role as he will
as part of the Melbourne International ARTS Festival later in
October. Layers on layers.
Last year I saw Tanya Goldberg’s direction
of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and was struck by
two things. Firstly about the quality of thought that went into
her reading of this contemporaneously notoriously difficult text.
Secondarily the gift she had in elucidating very clean and clear
performances from all her actors. A Director who understands and
nurtures the actor as artists, not puppets. (I have observed that
it is a rare gift.) I believe Ms Golberg is worth encouraging.
Here is a quote from the printed text of the play
that I think is worth considering when watching An Oak Tree
(or, as I have after): "The distinction between fact and
fiction is a late acquisition of rational thought—unknown
to the unconscious, and largely ignored by the emotions."
Arthur Koestler.
When I and others stumbled out into the foyer much
excited conversation with relative strangers occurred.
Kevin Jackson
To read more of Kevin Jackson's theatre reviews,
check out his blog at
Kevin Jackson's Theatre Reviews.
