Review: The Rapture

The Rapture
Finucane & Smith
1 July 2017
fortyfivedownstairs
to 15 July
fortyfivedownstairs.com

Moira Finucane

The Rapture is a new work by Finucane & Smith – do I need to say more – and a community of artists who continue to create space where art offers hope and audiences dance.

It’s mostly a solo work by Moira Finucane; solo that’s only possible with the support and contribution of many, including a Mama Alto, Clare St Clare, Shirley Cattunar and Miss Chief on the stage, and music by Darrin Verhagen and Ben Keene. And Jackie Smith.

In the hazy underground of fortyfivedownstairs, there’s a catwalk that rejects any thought that imperfect isn’t exquisite. Here, Moira channels every god and devil that’s ever been worshipped or dismissed as she explores the love and despair that makes humans search for more than what we think we are. Then in a blink, she’s the person maybe only seen at home when no one is looking. Never assume that the divine are more than human.

Here naked means nothing more than naked and cheap tomato sauce from the supermarket is as much art as the hand-sewn costumes and original music created from hours of frustration and joy.

Moira’s performance is uncensored – no, that’s not the right word. So much of what we see in theatre is created for others: for subscribers, critics, ticket buyers, boards, bosses and funding bodies. And if it fails to thrill, the “fors” are blamed for not getting it or daring to be bored or disconnected.

Moira’s performance is self-indulgent – that’s not it either. Self indulgence on a stage doesn’t welcome an audience and brings little more than pleasure to the self-pleasuring artist.

Self indulgence and self censorship are for self. This work is deeply personal, but if it were all for herself, it wouldn’t connect and there wouldn’t a growing community of audiences (all over the world, now) who know they are as much a part of the experience as the artists who create it.

The Rapture comes from the very personal and reaches to places that are unknown but familiar. Even if you haven’t been in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and swung between despair and ecstasy at the human capacity to grieve and to treasure, you know what it’s like to think what you’d give up if you had to. Even if you can’t see structural oppression, even if you cringe at imperfection, even if you don't love polar bears, there's a place where thought falls away and we connect – even if you have no idea why.

We know when we're struggling and we usually know why. The Rapture gives us no excuse not to hope. It doesn't get much better than that.

Review: The Flood

The Flood
Finucane & Smith and La Mama
6 December 2009
La Mama Theatre

A trip to La Mama can be a long hour where you look forward to browsing the Readings sale table and choosing a pastry at Brunetti. The Flood isn’t one of those shows. It is the best piece of new theatre I’ve seen this year.

Jackie Smith is best known for her divine direction of Finucane & Smith's The Burlesque Hour and other wonders, but she has written a script that puts many writers to shame and I’m wondering if she was hanging out with the Shelleys and their friends in Geneva in 1816.

Gothic is more than old Cure albums and spider web tattoos or even knowing when Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein. Gothic literature explores the horror within ourselves and society. It has spawned many a B grade monster, but the authentic stuff really makes your soul shudder. Finucane & Smith’s Gotharama helped me past my false conceptions of Gothic, but The Flood makes me want to start wearing copious amounts of eyeliner and abandon my habit of wearing bright colours.

Two estranged sisters and their demented mother spend a night on their family property. They are isolated, spooked and full of secrets. It’s an Australian Gothic horror that defines the genre.

The story surprises, shocks and still keeps its secrets. It lets us laugh, but never undermines the characters, who are those rare fictional beings so real you know them. They evoke love and hate in equal parts, as you want to stand up and slap them, but can’t because you understand everything they are doing.

The script is remarkable, but it shines with Laurence Strangio’s contained direction; Bronwyn Pringle’s lighting and the Sisters Hayes’s design that creates the most space ever seen in La Mama, while still making us feel cramped; and Natasha Anderson’s sound design makes you want someone brave to go outside and check the rising river.

Which leaves the cast: Shirley Cattunar, Caroline Lee and Maude Davey. I’m at a loss for words. They never let us see the acting.

The Flood will move to bigger theatres, but none will have you in the living room with them or capture the cramped and spooked atmosphere of La Mama. So see it now. It’s sad and oppressive and holds your heart in your throat as you beg to know truth, but know the truth will hurt too much to know. See it. See it. See it.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.