For A Better World

Avant-garde-retro was my initial response.

But while For A Better World felt a bit déjà vu for someone who grew up in the late 60s and early 70s, perhaps a new generation of performers and theatre-goers need the sort of avant-garde and agitprop political theatre through which the Vietnam War, conscription and other political and social issues were challenged.

This play dissects war too, current or futuristic conflicts, with a strong cross-generational allusion to Vietnam.

My university days, and boundary-pushing experimental theatre in rough experimental spaces, came readily to mind. The cutting, challenging edge of those days, though, was missing for me personally in the sands of time.

Hallmarks of the early 1970s were there – flashes of flesh, war protest and other strong social comment, abundant gooey fluids and other very messy stuff, and hallucinatory lighting – many of those features, though, are relatively commonplace in the mainstream nowadays.

Devised for radio, the impossibility of staging the play was the first attraction, according to Daisy Noyes’s Director’s Notes. She also stated that it is not a ‘well-made play.’ While that creates openings for bold artistic choices, it won’t please an audience looking for a conventional theatre experience.

In a semi-hallucinatory, nightmarish jungle war zone, bikini semi-clad female officers dominate enlisted males, there’s a possible alien invasion, metaphoric classical allusion, pop culture, and a female action movie feel, complete with phallic paint guns.

Schimelpfenig’s ambiguous text allows almost open slather for physical and visual interpretation, creating fluid options for bold directorial vision and an extreme artistic palate for Kate Davis’s scenic environment.

The intensely committed cast gave highly physical performances, though characters were secondary to theme, vision and image.

Foyer conversation indicated engaged laughter throughout the previous evening’s preview, missing on opening night. Perhaps other audiences, too, will bring a more obvious and open engagement the production. Audiences, I suspect, will love or hate this one.

Neil Litchfield

Images: (Upper) Kallista Kaval, Pier Carthew and Kade Greenland. (Lower) Pier Carthew and Alexander England in For A Better World. Photographer: Katie Pashley