Photo credit: Ashley de Prazer
If able to attend this performance, in either room, it would be best not to read any reviews in advance, but to allow the drama to unfold. In the best jigsaw puzzle aspect of classic mystery narrative, the addictive qualities of piecing clues together draws the audience on through the development of each presentation to the combined closing denouement.
Bringing two great performing talents of different artforms together in Danielle Micich and Humphrey Bower, Overexposed follows the story of Marissa Evans, trying to get home to Australia. Synthesising the storylines, Marissa has been under surveillance for some time. She is detained at the airport and police officer, David Younane, confronts her with his suspicions via videolink, offering her a lighter penalty if she cooperates against her lover, whom Younane suspects of involvement in child pornography. Marissa is torn, offended, feels violated and lost, plays for time and does not believe the position she has been put in. She is given a countdown, three minutes to decide between herself and her lover, between her daughters’ safety and her own extra-marital affair. While pursuing these interrogations, Younane goes through his own voyage through guilt, marking the first anniversary of the death of his 2-year-old daughter, who drowned while he took a phone call.
From the moment the attendees arrive in the foyer, the scene is set. A security check, complete with displays of forbidden items, detains each of us as we enter, and we are allocated our doors to enter either room. The drama of Bower’s diatribe against an unseen Marissa is intense, he uses the bare stage and the lone prop of a basic chair to hold the attention of each and every person in his audience, accusing them individually. The intense reaction to the creepiness of his near demented purpose is proof that Bower takes all the space, some interesting video work, and not only holds the stage but fills it with Younane’s delusions and angsts. Micich, on the other hand, presents a dance work that is pure emotion, with only single words projected against the wall and occasional snatches of text in the sound design to carry the external narrative. Her control of her face and body’s movements takes us with her through an emotional turmoil, reacting to external forces that do not require explicit description to evoke intense responses.
Kingsley Reeve’s sound design takes us to the generic idea of an airport, then deep into Marissa’s frustration, despair and violation, and through, on again, into the resumption of real life and her onward travels. Chris Donnelly’s intelligent lighting design plays with the simple, industrial set of metal struts to create a claustrophobic atmosphere, despite the absence of walls. Ashley de Prazer’s vision design provides background surveillance work as well as insights into the despair of the grieving father.
Two very different performances that intermingle and conclude together, with a glimpse of hope and innocence after an arduous journey through the worst of human suspicion and despair, Micich pushes the limits of drama, dance and audience understanding in Overexposed, bringing a novel touch to the stage, without reducing it to a mere novelty.
Rating; 4 out of 5 stars
Overexposed
Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre
Directed by Danielle Micich
Writer/Co-Devisor: Suzie Miller
Dramaturg: Kate Champion
Foyer performers: Sarah Nelson, Ruud Hendrikx, Lewis Kilpatrick
Sound Design: Kingsley Reeve
Lighting Design: Chris Donnelly
Vision Design: Ashley de Prazer
Costume Design: Colleen Sutherland
Stage Manager: Meabh Walton
Produced by Performing Lines WA
Performed by Danielle Micich and Humphrey Bower
22 October – 1 November 2014
