Reviews

Rumbleskin is an original play by Naarm/ Melbourne based writer and theatre-maker, Ames May Nunn. Their writing style in this text is very poetic and evocative. It conjures up the kind of vast and mysterious landscapes that characterise the western genre. The choice to explore queer identity via a genre that normally indulges hyperbolic masculinity is an interesting one. Nunn sees this as part of a queer impetus to reclaim this space as transformative and full of possibilities.

Wani toaishara gave the audience the gift of his memory of events and people he holds close to his sense of self and his heart during an almost hour-long meandering monologue. He was by turn funny, alarming, sad, innocent and wise. His script is still forming and there were some awkward jumps from person to event and back again following his memories. In his opening performance he read much of the script and yet the characters he called into being were strongly drawn and compelling.

Presented by The Blue Room and Ascension Arts, Child is a multi-disciplinary piece of theatre, performed at Saraswati Mahavidyalaya, Beaufort St, North Perth, where lead artist Puvan Kumar Hari was trained and grew up, a fitting choice given the themes of his piece, which include embracing your inner child, and coming of age.

A lovely venue, which is shoe free, and which provided a foyer activation, meant that the audience felt welcomed and at home, although this was undermined somewhat by starting over twenty minutes late, without apology or explanation.

Attending as a reviewer, a critic of the theatre, at this show is somehow an inaccurate power dynamic. For me to sit in the audience preferencing my critical eye over my felt sense would be wrong. It is NAIDOC week, a time of opening up to the experiences of existing on unceded Aboriginal land. Where the urgency of storytelling is so strong that the audience must stop thinking and start feeling. The need to share in community and be listened to is an archetypal human process.