Mini review: Orphanage of the Animals

Orphanage of the Animals
La Mama
9 March 2014
La Mama Theatre
to 16 March

I found Orphanage of the Animals an alienating experience and I know that my reaction is far from what the creators intended.

It started because I don't read programs before seeing a show. If a show needs to explain itself to its audience, it's not working on the stage. Orphanage is an exploration of style that's more emotional dreamscape than narrative, and it made more sense after I read the program.

It's about child abuse in different forms and uses older adult actors to play the ghosts of the abused children who jump from scene to scene, from memory to memory, and retreat into animal personas when the memories are too intense and painful.

The writer/director, Karen Corbett (co-directed by Catherine Samsury), says that she combined "Australian Expressionism and political Magic Realist theatre of Latin America" and is inspired by the Holocaust research of Bracha Ettinger. I don't know about Ettinger's work (Google tells me she's a visual artists concerned with gender and psychoanalysis) and can see the influence of Magic Realism and Expression (Australian or not) but, as a whole, it remains a work 'influenced by' rather than something of its own.

There are moments of fascinating beauty – especially those with the onstage chorus of three, music composed by Nela Trifkovic, who control the mood and tension – and all the performances (Corbett, Jasper Bagg, Susan Bracewell, Russell Walsh and Francesca Waters) are heartfelt and honest, but it felt so concerned with creating a style that it didn't fully consider what the work feels like from the outside looking in.

I love shows where the audience have to work to find their own meaning and resonance, but we need clues. Audiences first look for story, for connections and relationships, and how all the pieces on the stage fit together to make a whole. Orphanage of the Animals makes complete sense to its creators, but the rules of the world aren't shared with the audience, which leaves it a frustrating experience if you don't know what's going on before the going into the theatre.

If you're seeing it this weekend, read the program and don't try to find a bigger story for the five people on the stage; knowing this might make it a very different experience from mine.

What Melbourne loved in 2012, part 8

A week ago, I messaged some artists to see if they had anything to share about theatre this year.

Every day another three or more memories has turned up in my email, without too much prodding. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has contributed; those who are friends and those who I've passed in a foyer. It's been a joy.

Today, Telia Nevile explains why her heart nearly burst, Narrelle Harris found more vampires in Melbourne, and I'm glad that James Adler wasn't arrested for walking up and down a plane aisle talking about a b-o-m-b.

Telia Nevile
poet laureate

Not Molly Ringwald

TELIA: My favourite moment was standing backstage at the Last Tuesday Society Xmas Office Party. We were waiting to go on to do the rock eisteddford and were all really excited and buzzy. Gaby was dressed as a sheep and Jodee was a cow; Jof made a very handsome and understated Joseph and Miles was trying on the donkey head which was drooping down over his torso; Matt's rainbow, sparkly loin-cloth was being pinned in place by Bron, who was dressed as Mary; and Vachel was rubbing glitter into his beard and trying not to accidentally inhale it. I stood there looking around and thinking I am so incredibly lucky to be here, to know these people, to be doing this. We went on and performed, the crowd was amazing, the music was pumping, and when the glitter dropped at the end I thought my whole heart was going to burst.

And, the theatricality of the Rally exhibition at the NGV right now really excites me. It's immersive and playful and political but without being didactic; it's persuasive. The current Thomas Demand show also fills me with a special kind of joy. The humour and light and colour that emmanate, and the playlist he has going through the toilets, extending the show out past the traditional space and enhancing the visitor's experience.

SM: No one who saw the Xmas dance will ever forget it and to know how much the performers were enjoying it, makes it even better. Telia's work always makes me grin like a loon and I love using her photos. Then there's delights like her "I'm not Molly Ringwald" series of self portraits, and the Poet Laureate let me write my favourite review of the year.

Narrelle Harris
writer, vampire specialist

NARRELLE: I've been trying to remember the theatre I saw this year! I must say, I just loved the idea of a vampire living in Edinburgh Gardens, which is why I went to see MKA's Triangle, and it was brilliant. I especially loved the bored housewife revelling in the spectacular violence of finally DOING SOMETHING, who confronts (an imaginary) Vince Colossimo in the bloodbath at Piedemontes and ended up with his head being torn off, with the additional comment "he's such a nice man". That was a perfect commentary on middle class existential ennui and the act of making choices, even if they're terrible ones, rather than remain stuck in resentment and inaction.

Narelle's review

SM: Narrelle is another writer from Stage Left who realised early on that the internet is a terrific place for reviews, and she still occasionally reviews on her own blog, Mortal words, when she isn't writing books (like The Opposite of Life: about a nerdy vampire in Melbourne)  or speaking about writing or making awesome apps (like Melbourne Literary: a booky, readery, writery guide to our city of literature).

James Adler
actor, director, writer, producer and anything else he needs to be

JAMES: The strangest and most wonderful ironic creative experience was on the plane on the way to Amsterdam.

As well as touring Charles Dickens performs 'A Christmas Carol', Nela Trifkovic and I have been given the opportunity to tour An Actor Prepares (another review, another). This play is a musical monologue for two or more players about a suicide bomber.

Now Nela and I have been extremely time poor leading up to the tour and so we found ourselves learning lines and rehearsing on the plane. You cannot even begin to imagine how terrifying and how beautiful it was wandering up and down the aisles muttering away at my lines while people stared.

In their gaze I could, of course, sense them saying "what the FUK is this nutter doing"; if only they knew the words being muttered. Language, context and imagination are powerful creatures and this moment will remain my inspiration for our performances in this tour.

SM: I miss too much of James's work because he's always doing something with his company Eagle's Nest Theatre and I don't have enough free nights. Right now they're giving Europe a good Dickens and I so wish I could have been on that plane, but my favourite moment this year was realising that I didn't care and it didn't matter that I couldn't speak German as I watched Thomas Dentler perform. (The company had been collaborating with Theater in der Westentasche from Ulm in Germany.)

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

part 7
part 9
part 10
part 11

Review: An Actor Prepares

An Actor Prepares: The Songs of Love and Grief
Eagle's Nest Theatre
21 August 2011
Broken Mirror Studio
27 and 28 August

Nela Trifkovic has created a musical adaption of Eagles Nest's An Actor Prepares. Now subtitled The Songs of Love and Grief, the adapted work is an emotional reflection of the original that discovers new depths of sorrow and grief and more moments of lightness and humour.

Nela Trifkovic has performed the piece with its writer James Adler. She also performed it by herself in New York and has now made a musical adaption of the work, which Adler wrote in 2001 as a very personal response to Australia's sending of troupes to Afghanistan. Adler has freely let go of his script to direct this fascinating new version.

With the familiar white costumes and empty stage of previous versions, the new text uses poems by Garcia Lorca and Trifkovic's own challenging, haunting and ultimately beautiful compositions. The actor preparing is now a musician, Trifkovic, who is joined by singer David Howell.  His soft falsetto and gentle stillness and her guttural depths and striking kaberet-style bitter humour contrast so vividly that the unusual combination of voices and styles becomes so much more exciting than any predictable and blandly safe harmony.

With images like "children with guns doing what a child cannot do" to thoughts contemplating "the presence of god in pirate movies", it hypnotically takes the audiences to unexpected emotional extremes which creates diverse individual responses. While the original scripted version is about sharing in the actor/bomber's horror, this one lets the audience find their own personal journey in the music.

Although ultimately reminding us that people use bombs to be heard, The Songs of Love and Grief leaves us images of love that rouse our hearts and a sense of hope that we must be more than a world that's "painting nightmares in our children's dreams".

There are two more performances of An Actor Prepares: The Songs of Love and Grief this weekend. If you liked any of the previous versions, this is something so different that you really should compare, and if you didn't like the previous versions (Samela Harris, I'm talking to you), this may change your mind.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Discussion: Artists & Criticism (2008)

Reading the current blogasphere hoo hah about critics (I'll think about saddling up my high horse about it once I've written about the shows I saw last night and watched the Grand Final sequel) reminded me of this discussion from 2008. It's a look at how an artist deals with reviews.

An Actor Prepares is Eagles Nest Theatre 2008 Melbourne Fringe production. This work was last performed at the 2008 Adelaide Fringe, where it received a scathing review from The Advertiser.  James Adler talks about his reaction to a half-star rating.

Fringe festivals encourage an abundance of people wanting to see unique and courageous productions - but there are almost too many shows for this limited audience to choose from, which leaves many using reviews as their selection guide.

AussieTheatre’s Christina Cass reviewed an earlier version of An Actor Prepares. Her review praised the performances as courageous and said, “The imagery and essence of this play are stunning:  simple and heartbreaking. They challenge the audience to trust their senses.” Chris Boyd from The Herald Sun said, "Word for word it is a mighty script: Poetic, slippery and dramatic.  Deceptively simple and devastatingly effective. "

However, in Adelaide, An Actor Prepares received half a star, out of six, from Samela Harris, one of South Australia’s most respected and experienced reviewers. She opened with: “One can't have a good Fringe without some bad shows. This is the little gem of them all. It is so bad it could almost become a cult. It is almost impossible to tell what it is about.” She concluded by expressing her relief that it is quite short.

I asked Adler how he felt about the review. “In some ways you feel offended and hurt, but your artist’s skin also has to be thinker than that…I have no issue with someone not liking our work - for god’s sake that’s what the arts is all about - but the job of a reviewer is to attempt to engage with a work as well as provide an opinion about it's quality.

“What was offensive... is that she never really made any attempt to review it at all. It seems to me that her desire was to judge the piece as good or bad and to make sure that she, as reviewer, came out looking slick.”

It may be lacking in tact, but what is clear from Harris’s review is that she didn’t understand the intent or even the premise of the piece.

Adler tells me that An Actor Prepares is about “believing and then loosing faith”. This is a universal and powerful theme. He started writing the piece in 2001, on the day “we (Australia) started bombing Afghanistan.”  

 “I wanted to explode. . . go to Canberra and yell and protest. . . (but) my opinon as an individual would be drowned out.” From his personal reaction, Adler developed the metaphor of a bomb and wrote a monologue that interweaves the thoughts and actions of a suicide bomber with the stories of others who find themselves in violent, impossible or voiceless situations.

Musician, composer and director Nela Trifkovic says she came to work because ” for the first time in long time there was a story that I wanted to be part of - even if it was an angry story.” Nela describes herself as a survivor from the war in Yugoslavia. Coming to Australia and going to primary school in Perth, her mixed-religion, mixed-cultural upbringing was met with confusing mix of good intentioned ignorance. She said “a teacher yelled at me for using the term Yugoslavia… an Australian social worker told me you couldn't speak Serbo-Croatian. I try to listen to everybody and that's precisely why it's painful always being told what to.”

Trifkovic’s music adds dimension, perspective and counterpoint to Adler’s monologue. “I decided to offer my music for it does not tell one what to do, but hopefully leaves one on a bitter-sweet chord of self decision.”

An Actor Prepares is a piece that actively forces the audience to make their own decisions about meaning.

Adler finishes by saying, “I am not sure what the value of review is if the reviewer doesn’t try to understand where the work is coming from - and so in the end her (Harris) critique doesn't really seem worthy to be taken into account.”

This is a healthy attitude to criticism, but I wonder if Adler should try to understand where Harris’s criticism came from.

If a show totally fails to connect with an audience member, perhaps there are elements of the work that could be re-thought. Cass understood and admired the work, but she also said the “very personal work needs an outside eye to help take the next step toward a mature piece of theatre.”

I’ve also seen An Actor Prepares. It isn’t a piece that is easy to immediately engage with, as it lacks a traditional narrative, and adopts a more fluid approach to time, space and character. This does make it difficult to understand, but Adler and Trifkovic’s passion for their work is striking and they express an authentic belief, opinion and experience.

Fringe festivals encourage artists to take risks and experiment, offering an opportunity for artists to create the work they really want to make. An Actor Prepares is an ongoing experiment with form that was created with the intent to question and provoke. If it had been created merely to please, the result would be far less interesting, far less passionate and would never have resulted in such extreme and mixed opinions.

This originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

An Actor Prepares

An Actor Prepares

Eagles Nest Theatre

La Mama Theatre

18 October 2007

Review by Christina Cass

Walking into and through the set of An Actor Prepares by James Adler, is a trip through time.  With the ferryman (in this case ferrywoman) musically guiding the audience’s urban raft.  Where you are, you don’t exactly know, but the set by Magdalena Romanuik is heartbreakingly simple and heavy with memory.  Burning sage scenting the air immediately transports the viewer to a mystical time:  hanging Druidic runes; shorn tree stumps; and a white-robed and bearded Mr. Adler all summon up a mystical, religious experience.  I couldn’t help but feel witchcraft – in all its earth-honesty – hanging in the air.  What would Jesus (whom Mr. Adler bears a striking resemblance to) be doing in the middle of a wiccan warren?  Where ancient primal music composed and performed by Nela Trifkovic resonates through the space.

We soon understand the subtitle, “When Does Peace Mean War?” of this new Eagle’s Nest Theatre production at La Mama, has on one level much to do with a struggle against the terrorism of creativity but I came out with more of a, ‘Heck, when does anything mean anything?’  feeling. The imagery and essence of this play are stunning:  simple and heartbreaking. They challenge the audience to trust their senses. Do I see floating runes or shrapnel hanging in the air? Is it a trumpet, a musical instrument of joy (and reveille) or a carefully deconstructed machine gun?  A cradle or a deathbed?  These images beg timeless questions of who are we if we are not what we seem.  None of us are.

That said, the script makes much more sense than in a stand alone context.  It is intentionally fractured, weaving tales through time and, as a work in progress, the performances by Ms. Trifkovic and Mr. Adler are courageous.

They really have something very special, very personal and still accessible here and I hope they take this further because I do think that very personal work needs an outside eye to help take the next step toward a mature piece of theatre.

It’ll be hard to find a director as sensitive and absorbing as Ms. Trifkovic and trust him or her with this piece, but they must to get to the next level.  Once relieved of wearing two hats, I am quite sure that the talent in the room will leap up and continue to punt through these deep waters of the story without fear.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com