The Human Voice
Periscope Productions and Choral Edge
Periscope Productions and Choral Edge
4 March 2020
Meat Market Stables
to 13 March
Meat Market Stables
to 13 March
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| The writers of 'The Human Voice'. Photo by Sarah Walker Jean Tong, Georgia Symons, Thomas De Angelis, Lewis Treston, Ang Collins, Fiona Spitzkowsky |
Periscope Productions developed the idea of a multi-writer production based around the theme of telephone conversations before 2020. So, while The Human Voice's relevance of using technology to communicate rings loud and clear, the work never loses its initial intent or feels like a reaction to lockdown.
The company, who began at Melbourne University student theatre in 2012, were inspired by a 1930 play by Jean Cocteatu and wanted to explore how we talk to each other on telephones. Voice-to-voice; intimacy without without video or emojis. Are we more honest when all we have are our voices or does it make it easier to hide what we should say or want to say?
Director Benjamin Sheen invited six of Australia's most-exciting emerging writers – Ang Collins, Fiona Spitzkowsky, Georgia Symons, Jean Tong, Lewis Treston and Thomas De Angelis – to write around the theme.
The six works are performed by an ensemble of equally-as-exciting performers – Amarachi Okorom, Alex Hines, Chris Wallace, Felicity Steel, Cait Spiker, Mason Phoumirath, Ross Dwyer, Senuri Wagaarachchi – and supported by a live choir – Choral Edge (musical director and composer: Juliana Kay; composer David Keefe; movement director Jessica Dick, who also directed two of the pieces).
Its disparate elements could feel mismatched, but its unexpected synergy is invigorating, engaging and exciting.
The audience are initially split into two groups who are divided by a curtain. It's clear that there is a stage and performers on each side. The first short works are phone conversions. Everyone can can hear both sides of the conversation, but can only see one side, as the speaker eye rolls, chair stretches or goes on doing the dishes. As there are laughs from the audience watching the other person, it's easy to imagine that their actions might also not mesh with their words.
Each has written a work that could easily stand alone but is supported by and made stronger by those surrounding it. There's the awkward and comfortable love of talking to family, the "are they really?" of phone sex, the "what-if?" ease that not being physically seen, the freedom of confessing to a stranger, the jealousy of someone calling your person too often, to a sci-fi tension-filled thriller with tins and strings, and the inevitable questions of what happens when people are in the same space again.
Themes of communication easily connect the works, but the theatricality of having a live choir brings more layers of connection. At first the choie can only be heard, but the gut-felt power of humans singing together builds as they get closer and are eventually an integral part of the performance.
Hearing human voices can get us through the worst of times and make life feel normal, but being in the same room as other people is how we make theatre. The Human Voice incorporates many independent theatre voices and by exploring one way that we communicate, it finds many ways to connect with all the humans who see it.
