PICA 4 Touring Shows

2 Dimensional Life of Her production by Fleur Elsie Noble is a multimedia production performed at the PICA Westend Gallery which tells of a world in disarray that is peopled by filmed 21st century generic puppets and a woman.

The chaotic, papered space complete with projected lounge room and chair unfolds throughout the 40 minute production with images of puppets etching their faces on paper, the woman in washer woman like style sweeping the images away with them in moments to be torn down by the puppets to reveal worlds and interplays up ladders and amidst the paper debris.

There are satiric moments when other gathered puppet filmgoers discover they are being watched as well. The disconnection of this section and the boat sequence make for a very disjointed and uncomfortable viewing. Is Noble make a comment on art, chaos in society, isolation of the individual as she is the only real life performer in the piece and that is silent and concealed.

I have to be excused as I am not schooled in visual arts but more theatre and found this exploration into ‘drawing as a transitory process than as a finished product’ different and cleverly conceived performance art and it was engaging to a point but as to what it was saying about that transitory process of the artist’s craft of drawing and whether it was truly entertaining I would be in the doubters position. A piece for visual artists it was and a worthwhile stretch in the theatre for theatre goers.

Fraudulent Behaviour by Rosie Dennis and saxophonist accompaniment by Simon Ferenci is at PICA’s Performance Space and is a minimalist theatre production exploring the Nietzsche's assertion 'We need lies in order to live...'. Complete with imaginary friend Elvira, a decoy duck, a oasis that is built up exploring nirvana, we are engaged by Dennis’ excellent skill as a conversationalist using the spoken language at times hilariously which trippingly and softly lilts and plays with ideas about people being ‘strangers to themselves’, love and loneliness.

This melding of dance, language used poetically, and a microcosmic world unfolding we are entertained and prodded into considering the human faults and follies we all fall victim to. Tom Waites ‘I’m Big In Japan’ is a emblematic choice for Dennis to step out to as is ‘Hold On’ which, as the serious undercurrents of this production take hold, we are thoroughly engaged with this erudite performer’s interplay with Emily Dickinson’s assertion that truth telling is the real answer.

The Bougainville Photoplay Project sees writer, academic and performer Paul Dwyer retraces three journeys made by his father Dr Allan Dwyer, a world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon, to Bougainville (PNG) during the 1960s, in which he healed dozens of crippled children.

By using slide projections, photographs, hospital case papers, Dwyer takes the audience on a journey to PNG and through the sometimes harrowing rigours that he and his father faced when dealing with the prelude and the aftermath of the opening of the giant Panguna copper mine, environmental devastation, a brutal civil war funded by Australia that cost the lives of up to 20,000 people, and finally, the post-war reconciliation process.

Dwyer is a champion in bringing this personal and political story to audiences that is normally left to documentary filmmakers and he uses the medium of theatre well with the political angle to his father and his journies. Important theatre that is informative, yet entertaining and he is an intelligent, likeable performer.

The Tent is in the main gallery space of the PICA precinct and it is just that a tent: a transitory place that 25 people are invited into to wait for Brett the bush philosopher to return as Michael dishes out beef stew and begins the story of how they met. Hand built by the artists out of scrap metal and old oil-stained canvas, The Tent sits at the crossroads of installation art, puppetry, and performance. It tells of Michael’s chance meeting of Brett as he was stranded down a hole and how Brett took him in and taught him how to fish, and about the fraility of human existence through exposure. It is visceral theatre about gatherings such as the audience is in and the importance of self-sufficiency and discarding of protracted adolescence. Brett does arrive and he is an edgy, pre-occupied bushman with a hang-up about univerisities but more importantly a mission statement for the growth of the earth and how we are only a small part of the larger picture that we are taken to discover with entertaining results.

The Tent is written, designed and produced by Matt Prest, Clare Britton, Danny Egger & Eddie Sharp, and performed by Matt Prest & Tony Osborne; Sound by Jack Prest.

PICA 4 Touring Shows

DURATION:
40 mins (no interval)