Destroy, She Said

Destroy, She Said is part of the new Duras: Desire & Destruction season at La Mama. Four guests in an isolated hotel in the midst of a forest; a tennis game is heard but never seen, a strange card game that is somewhat foreboding. Is there madness looming? Or is this a gathering of post- holocaust  German Jews seeking rebirth?

Laurence Strangio is no stranger to the Duras oeuvre. He has been working with her texts for over thirty years. He offers a refreshing Australian-esque exegesis successfully interpreting innovative new meanings without straying from the essential ideas and themes of this Eurocentric novel.

The casting of an older Elizabeth (Laura Lattuada), a convalescent wife who is recovering from a difficult childbirth, captivates the imaginative prowess of Professor Thor (Dean Cartmel), who loves Alyss (Annie Thorold), who loves Stein (Rupert Burns), who loves Alyss, and all love Elizabeth. Thor and Stein are writers or are they not? Thor claims to teach the history of the future, so he says nothing and his students sleep a lot. Stein watches through an open window while Thor and Alyss make love every night.

The performers are equally reticent, subtle and swift evoking a strained mood, delivering stylized dialogue with probing sexual personas and logical fallacies and indirect confrontations.

The audience are inactive guests, sit comfortably with the performers who are diffused with amber lighting and design mocking a hotel lobby. The actors exude aesthetic elegance and directional poise as they tackle their own affairs across the floor. This is a subversive text; as philosophical questions arise they are conquered and destroyed. It is all so complex and, though provoking, yet irreverent and humourous.

I highly recommend you all experience the controversial sensibilities of this show.

Flora Georgiou

Photography/image credit: Laurence Strangio/Felix Strangio