Image: tamarasaulwick.com/endings
How do you insert yourself into a story that you have no part in? How do you make peace with the death of a loved one? These are the central questions asked by Endings, and they are answered masterfully. Tamara Saulwick, along with Paddy Mann and Peter Knight, create an austere aesthetic and populate it with the disembodied voices of their characters that together transport the audience to a provocative in-between place, neither the world of the living nor of the dead.
The disembodied voices of Saulwick’s family slowly share their memories of her father’s last days in detail unfamiliar to the subject of death. They recount their personal observations and emotions as he deteriorated and though their words are entirely their own, they are woven together with a skill that makes them appear serendipitously scripted.
Saulwick and her fellow performers deliver the stories of these absent characters through vinyl records and reel to reel tape loops, complete with crackles and distortions that create a rich, low-fi sound. This soundscape strengthens the raw emotional pull of her narrators in a way that crisp, scrubbed audio never could. Delivering the story in this way is what allows the performers to embed themselves in the story without usurping the narrative role. They remain vessels for the story and fill the spaces in it with vitality that maintains the fine balance between the living who are present, and the dead who remain absent.
Within the austerity of the set, there were beautiful details that created moments of wonder and terror. Subtleties like a moose figurine casting a warped shadow as it moves in circles on one of the turn tables and the sudden escape of a hellish noise and light are powerful moments that hold you rapt. They create intriguing ebbs and flows that match the emotional peaks and troughs of the characters as they come to terms with the death they witness.
Almost everyone in that room would have their own story of a death, of a funeral, of grieving. Seeing it presented in this way allowed each of us to see that experience in totality and for all its morbidity, Endings greatest strength is that it leaves you feeling comforted, uplifted even.
Endings impressed from start to finish and is one of the most innovative and moving pieces of theatre that I have seen in a long time.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Endings
Artshouse, North Melbourne
13 – 17 May
