The title Green Screen suggests that the action is outside of time and context, we will only be able to fully understand what is happening once someone, somewhere clicks a backdrop into place to show us where we are. It alludes to the familiar overwhelming feeling brought on by contemplation of the future of the human race; the feeling that we will never really be able to see the whole picture, to make sense of it all. We can only derive meaning from our own perspective and experience.
Nicola Gunn speaks directly to the audience, telling the story of herself and her friends, Rachel and Gwen, who together formed the Nicola Barker fan club. As she tells the story of the club, she inflates a teetering pyramid of mattresses. She concludes by explaining that the original purpose for this show is to use art to save the world. She admits she realised this is a problematic and probably unachievable end. She then climbs atop the pyramid and sits, sphinx-like and silently observing the scene which begins to play out below.
Together, Kerith Manderson-Galvin, Jonno Katz, Tom Davies and Nat Cursio create the experience of spending time with people you don’t really know. They come to life once Gunn has perched atop the pyramid, a confused committee meeting in an unknown location for an unstated purpose. There are flashes of brilliance and jaunty song and dance numbers juxtaposed with meandering day-to-day chit-chat about parking and coffees. The result is a meeting of differing perspectives with an aim that wavers in and out of view and never becomes entirely clear. Instead, they are a reflection on the power of art to facilitate fleeting human connections in the face of the overpowering problems that beset the planet.
Green Screen uses a sparse, pared-back set design that highlights actions, words and props. Every movement and word is significant in this strange limbo as the audience seeks to interpret the absurd spectacle made from everyday objects, out of what could be the contents of someone’s garage. Gunn and her collaborators take a box of plastic animals, nine blow up mattresses, a bar fridge and a feathered headdress and devise a moving protest for the end of the world.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Green Screen
By Nicola Gunn /Sans Hotel
With collaborators Gwen Holmberg-Gilchrist, Pier Carthew and Michael Fikaris.
Lawler Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, South Bank
www.mtc.com.au
Until August 3
