MIAF: The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes
Back to Back Theatre
10 October 2019
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 20 October
www.festival.melbourne

"The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes". Back to Back Theatre

Five activists are having a meeting. It's like every meeting anyone has been to in a community space. It's like the meetings the Extinction Rebellion organisers have been having. It's like every work meeting about collecting for charity or organising a staff outing. This one is so low key that there isn't even a tray of biscuits from the supermarket.

Back to Back Theatre are extraordinary.

The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes has a short season for the festival and heads to the USA in January. Unlike previous works, there's no holy-wow design, historically/spiritually encompassing themes or unanswerable questions to offer safe distance (Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, Lady Eats Apple).

With only five chairs, a screen showing voice-recognition surtitles, some tape, a ladder and a large foam block, there's no artifice to make assumptions about the script, the company and the performers. It may even be the kind of show that some people expect when they go to show by a company whose members have intellectual disabilities.

And it's nothing like what it looks like.

Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring and Scott Price talk about things that they'd like to change in the world and their lives.

They get it wrong and make assumptions. Scott tells Sarah that she needs to be careful of paedophiles; she reminds him that she's a 36-year-old woman. The "Siri"s voice recognition makes mistakes – and there's an argument about if it should even be there. Mark Chan gets Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri mixed up. Mark Deans puts a tape line on the ground that isn't to be crossed. Siri  makes choices.

Most of the cast have been with the company for years. They've created and performed in some of the most internationally acclaimed works ever made in Australia. They are among the handful of permanently employed actors in the country. To think that they are just having a conversation about what it's like to have having an intellectual disability is as condescending as some of the things they discuss. To assume they are even talking about their own experiences dismisses the basic conceit of acting.

Director Bruce Galdwin, the cast and other members of the company have been developing this new work for about two and a half years. It's changed a lot during that time.

Somewhere towards the end of the night, the cast ask each other if "they" – the other people in meeting who are smiling politely and laughing when they think they should – get it. They know that "they don't get it". I didn't get it until then; I made many assumptions and want to see it again to try to see everything I didn't get.

The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes is unexpected and may only make complete sense in the context of Back to Back's years of work – which makes it even more extraordinary as a stand alone piece.

What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 5

While too much of the commercial theatre in Melbourne is regressive, boring and blah, there are amazing Melbourne companies and venues that make progressive, inclusive, challenging and mind-blowing theatre. Today we here from Scott Price from Back to Back theatre, Angharad Wynne-Jones from Arts House and Cameron Lukey from fortyfivedownstairs.

(Opps. In part 4  What Daniel Lammin is looking forward to didn't make it up yesterday, but it's there now.)

Scott Price
Member of the Back to Back Theatre ensemble since 2007, #autismpride

Scott Price. Photo by Jeff Busby

SP's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: Sarah Mainwaring's show Duality Ok at La Mama has actually been my favourite piece in 2016. It was just a great piece of theatre and I just enjoyed it immensely. It was great to see Sarah perform outside Back to Back. I didn’t give a standing ovation, but it was a pretty good piece of theatre. If the others did it, I would have too. Sarah was just in casual clothes, and it was just the way that she spoke about her life, I don’t know how to describe it. We went with Simon Laherty, Alice Nash and Nikki Watson and we all thought it was good.

The Rabble’s Cain and Abel was good too, pretty full on and in your face and MTC’s Straight White Men with Luke Ryan I liked too.

What SP is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: Nothing basically comes to mind just at the moment, but I haven’t quite looked into it yet, haven’t had the chance. But I really enjoy comedy shows and the Melbourne Fringe and look forward to seeing more of that stuff next year.

SM: Scott's performance of God/god in the remarkable Lady Eats Apple is one that will stay with me for a long time. As communities and societies, we make assumptions about our gods and Scott challenged every one of those assumptions.

Angharad Wynne-Jones
Artistic Director, Arts House

Angharad Wynne-Jones. Photo by Pier Carthew

AWJ's favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2016: While I love the energy and risk in the experience of a work that has come to realisation in performance, I also really enjoy seeing works in development; work in development allows you to see the issues the artist is resolving, the pathways they might go down, the edits they might make.

This year I've had the opportunity to see Lz Dunn's work Aeon (premiering in March 2017 in Dance Massive) in a number of different places as she's developed it through the support of the Mobile States consortia. As a process of collaboration and co-commissioning with colleagues across the country, facilitated by Performing Lines, this has been an incredibly rewarding and enlivening experience. Running  and walking across the meadow in Royal Park (one of the traditional meeting places of the Kulin Nations and one of my most favourite places in Melbourne) with other test audience members was one of those times (of which there are so many working with the phenomenal artists that we do) that I felt so happy and honoured to be working at Arts House, with artists who are fiercely committed, deeply talented and determinedly experimental.

What AWJ is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: Oh so much! It's liking asking a parent to pick a favourite child … impossible. So, a couple at least are two new festivals: the gargantuan Asia TOPA that will change forever how Australia’s sees itself as part of Asia and gives us at Arts House the opportunity to  present two works from Japan. We are presenting the incredible chelfitsch with a beautiful, haunting contemplation on love and loss with Time's Journey Through a Room. We also welcome Hamanaka Company with Kagerou – Study of Translating Performance, a lyrical investigation into what it is to document disaster. Both works filled with the reverberations of life in Japan of post Fukishima, which resonate deeply with our Antipodean experience of the climate change emergency. And then Yirramboi, Melbourne’s First Nations festival creatively directed by Jacob Boheme, is a chance for us to work with First Nations artist  Emily Johnson who with Shore,  a quartet of community visioning, volunteering, storytelling and performance works  models  new ways and forms of collective imaging. A necessity now more than ever.

SM: 2017 is the year I will try even harder to see everything at Arts House. Sometimes we get so caught up with complaining about the boring regressive commercial theatre in Melbourne that we forget that Arts House is doing everything wonderful with progressive, exciting, inclusive, challenging, personal theatre. My favourites this year were a night at FOLA and Nic Green's Trilogy – another bloody amazing show that didn't get a review. Here was so much work that challenged the ridiculous perfection that is expected of women's bodies; so much work that let people leave and walk around in the world feeling good about the bodies that they have – and stop those conscious and unconscious judgments we make based on appearance.

But my favourite moment was seeing the photo Angharad chose. A photo that looks like the person and lets her true amazingness be seen without makeup and the insane need to Photoshop out every "imperfection". Thank you Pier Carthew for taking photos like this. Every time I open a program and see headshots of smooth faces that make them look computer-generated and barely resemble themselves, I wonder who took the photo, who chose the photo and why the person designing the program didn't question it. There's nothing wrong with looking like yourself.

Cameron Lukey
Development Manager and Executive Producer, fortyfivedownstairs

Cameron Lukey. Photo by Sarah Walker

CL's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I went to the closing night of Daniel Lammin's show Awakening at Trades Hall. I knew it had been a labour of love, and having worked with Daniel on Master Class,  knew how much time and effort he pours into every show he works on. It was funny, charming, insightful, and ultimately, very moving. I left feeling I'd seen someone really leave a piece of themselves on the stage. We're bringing it to fortyfivedownstairs next May for a return season, which is very exciting. I think it will have a great life in our space.

From a personal perspective (and I'm completely biased) it was also a thrill to watch Paul Capsis transform himself into Quentin Crisp in Resident Alien. I had been witness to his process, but watching him in front of an audience for the first time was pretty special. I forgot I had seen it dozens of times in rehearsal because his relationship with his audience is so unique.

What CL is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: I think it would be a bit Sophie's Choice to have to choose a show at fortyfivedownstairs, so outside of fortyfive, I'm looking forward to The Testament of Mary with Pamela Rabe at the Malthouse and Cabaret, which opens at the Athenaeum in April, with Capsis as the Emcee. That just seems like dream casting for both shows.

SM: My favourite is easily reading the email Cameron sent me yesterday after I'd said in part 4 how much I wanted to see a return season of Daniel Lammin's Awakening. He told me how fortyfivedownstairs are doing that season and gently hinted that he'd sent me an email* with that very info over a week ago. And fortyfivedownstairs giving Shit another season.

The first half of next year's fortyfivedownstairs season is unmissable. Not only for Awakening (I'm so happy to see this devastatingly wonderful work get another season), but there's another season of L’amante anglaise and I'm putting I am My Own Wife and Trainspotting in my diary now.

*As I say a lot: if I don't respond, it's likely that I haven't read it because it's lost in the deluge, flagged to read later or I just didn't see it.

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
2014
2013
2012

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Lady Eats Apple

Melbourne Festival
Lady Eats Apple
Back to Back Theatre
8 October 2016
Hamer Hall
to 13 October
www.festival.melbourne

Lady Eats Apple. Melbourne Festival. Photo by Jeff Busby

I’m still thinking about Back to Back Theatre’s Lady Meets Apple. I want to talk about it, but want to hold it safe and close so that its meaning stays between the performers and me.

The Melbourne Festival world premiere – it’s heading around the world – is a much-anticipated, and well-funded, work by the Geelong-based company that continue to question how the world perceives intellectual disability and theatre.

Following from the sold-out international acclaim of Ganesh Versus the Third Reich (one of the best things I’ve seen), this work started its development with ensemble member Simon Laherty saying he wanted to make a tragedy. The six-member ensemble are the only full-time paid ensemble in Victoria

This tragedy starts with a loved creation myth and the downfall of those who were there.

In an inflated taut black cavern-cum-womb in a disconcerting space somewhere in Hamer Hall, two on-stage roadies in black t-shirts demand more of the dark empty world that they control.

As their god status becomes clear, the pissed-off and insecure young god (Scott Price) –”What if god is one of us?” – thinks that the older and more frustrated god (Brian Lipson) – “Who is like god?” – treats him like a “dumb shit” and declares his one true status by creating animals.  The creatures are named by the first man (Mark Deans) and woman (Sarah Mainwaring), who ask their god for more boundaries than merely knowing that they shouldn’t eat an apple.

When the older god collapses, the blackness disappears – there’s nothing like an audience gasping together – and time begins.

Apparently the next section is 20 minutes, but it could be moments or an eternity as the world becomes white and breathes and move as shapes appear and the music and sounds in our headphones – the whole show is heard through headphones – offer few clues. It’s hard to see if the faraway shadows are human. They look like Ewoks or monks and I think I saw a man carry a long and heavy burden on his shoulder.

Lady Eats Apple. Back to Back Theatre. Photo by Jeff Busby

It ends as the whiteness falls and the audience is faced with the enormity of the orange velvet, three-level emptiness of the concert hall. The secrets are revealed; what was so mysterious and unseeable is clear. And cleaners (Deans, Laherty, Mainwaring, Price and Romany Latham) – the people we never see when we sit in that theatre – fight about their right to take a juicy bite of all that’s on the forbidden but reachable tree.

Its dramaturgy is complex but so gentle that its truth acts more on an unconscious level and doesn’t feel clear until it circles back to its beginning and the extraordinary manifests out of the ordinary.

Under Bruce Gladwin’s direction, Lady Eats Apple confronts audiences with their own perceptions humanity and never allows a moment of ease or complicity as their audience are left to create their own meaning or struggle to understand.


This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Super Discount

Super Discount
Back to Back Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre
15 November
Merlyn Theatre, Coopers Malthouse
to 1 December
malthousetheatre.com.au

Back to Back Theatre are the superheroes of Melbourne theatre who leave us wanting to wear our undies on the outside, don a sexy cape and do something that leaves someone else feeling better every day.

 Super Discount began because ensemble member Brian Tilley is obsessed with superheroes: those outsiders who hide from society and are only admired when their difference is on display.

With director Bruce Gladwin, the company developed a show about good and evil, where they start by deciding who gets to play Mark Deans's gold-caped super hero, who mostly prefers to be quiet. With Simon Laherty, Scott Price and Sarah Mainwaring making the decision, Brian thinks it should be him because he understands superheroes and intellectual disability, but David Woods (non-company member, but regular guest) puts himself forward because he can act disabled and should therefore be equally considered – especially because he might be more convincing.

Cringing? Uncomfortable? Hell, yeah!

Formed in 1987, Back to Back is based in Geelong and is the only company in Victoria with an ensemble of full-time of actors, who are all perceived to have an intellectual disability. They've toured the world, won piles of awards and part of their artistic rationale is to "create theatre to challenge the gods".

They rock in all the great ways and continue to confront latent prejudices and assumptions about disability and heroism with theatre that bites with sharpened teeth, but only hurts because you've laughed so hard.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

MIAF review: Ganesh Versus the Third Reich

MIAF 2011
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich
Malthouse There and Melbourne Festival and Back to Back Theatre
29 September 2011
Merlyn Theatre
to 9 October

Should we only tell our stories? Is it possible to balance the line between respect and offence? With a hullaballoo playing out in the media about how this show is offending some "Melbourne taxpayers", it's probably best to see Ganesh Versus the Third Reich to make up your own mind.

When the Back to Back ensemble conceived the "great conceit" of Ganesh travelling to nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika,  they knew it was "morally fraught ... and too dangerous for a little theatre company from Geelong to appropriate Hindu gods and create a fairytale within the Holocaust."

Thankfully, they re-thought and created a story within a story that blurs reality and fiction as it confronts itself and manipulates its audience's assumptions.

Devised by Mark Deans, Marcia Ferguson, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, Kate Sulan, Brian Tilley and David Woods,  the telling takes us into the rehearsal room as the cast (Deans, Laherty, Price and Tilley) deal with a difficult director (Woods) and argue dilemmas like if it's ok to play a Jew if you're not a Jew or an Indian deity if you're not an India deity. And there's the issue of who's going to play the "good part" of Hitler.

Meanwhile, Ganesh arrives in a concentration camp in 1943, where his elephant-head draws the attention of Mengele, and he meets Levi, whose mental retardation has kept him alive.

If you're going to be offended this work, be offended by yourself as you realise that you came into the theatre with some pre-conceptions and ideas that are offensive to others.

Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is theatre that grabs us by our hearts, gives us permission to laugh, makes us cry, shakes some sense into us, then starts the process again. What an astonishing start to MIAF 2011.

Photo by Jeff Busby

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com