Song for a Weary Throat

What happens after overwhelming catastrophe: a nuclear blast, carpet bombing, house to house street warfare?  A motely group of survivors gather in an empty, ravaged dance hall.  The explosions that put them there are shocking, deafening, dazzling, frightening.  Now these survivors look around, look inward, look at each other and find ways to realise that, yes, they are alive.  Now what? 

This sprawling group-devised performance piece is a matter of constantly changing movement, configurations, groupings, tableaux vivants if you will, in which a highly imaginative and insightful variety of responses and means of survival are dramatised.  But there are almost no words – there are perhaps ten in the entire piece, three of which are, ‘Dance with me’.  Nevertheless, the meaning and intention of all we see is always clear. 

There is completely demoralised despair; there is crazy denial; there is panic; there is conflict and suspicion.  There are attempts to build something out of the rubble and debris.  Relationships form – and break apart.  There are those who help others.  And there are those who coldly observe.  There are factions at cross purposes.  There is aspiration: to reach up, to escape, to change.  And there is Art.  The urge to dance, despite everything.  One of the most moving moments has one of the Invenio Singers, Josh Kyle, dragged to a microphone downstage and made to sing – as if to say, ‘You are a singer – in the face of all this horror and destruction, sing!’  Another man grips his hand – and the singer sings – wordlessly, painfully, dragging the notes out of himself.  Later, exhausted by his efforts, he’ll be violently dislodged and thump onto the floor.  So much for Art!

As the program lists only the members of the Rawcus Ensemble (Clement Baade, Hannah Bradsworth, Michael Buxton, Harriet Devlin, Rachel Edward, Nilgun Guven, Joshua Lynzaat, Paul Matley, Mike McEvoy, Ryan New, Kerryn Poke, Leisa Prowd, Louise Riisik, Prue Stevenson, Danielle van der Borch) I cannot comment on any individual performer’s work by name.  The performances are perhaps uneven, but some stand out – the LP blonde is riveting; a woman in a maroon dress affects wonderful transformations; a man in a tracksuit can be self-contained and then warmly interacting; a woman in a full skirt who does an exhausting exercise routine downstage and has the whole audience with her…  Yet the ensemble as a whole is cohesive.  Some can dance; some can’t.  It doesn’t matter because it’s an ensemble made up of such disparate individuals of all shapes, sizes and ages. 

Jethro Woodward’s and Gian Slater’s sound and music maintain a continuing threat, and the Invenio Singers (Mr Kyle, Ms Slater and Louisa Rankin) sing a cappella, keeping up a constant accompaniment of sounds natural and unnatural, often lamenting, sometimes gleeful, creating emotions that thread through the action. 

Director Kate Sulan has had the enormous task of bringing together and coordinating the many contributions of her performers and her achievement is highly impressive.  Perhaps, as is sometimes the case with a group-devised show, there are repetitions and maybe the show goes a few beats too long.

Throughout we can’t help expecting another blast – because why should there not be another?  The amazing light effects were conceived by Richard Vabre and realised here by Rachel Burke – and, when it comes, for a second, we are blinded again.  The theatre shakes, and the audience too is shaken.  But our survivors get up, look around, look at each other.  The throat is weary, but there is still a song.  This is a tremendously affirmative work.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Paul Dunn