MORTEL

MERAK, states the downloadable program, is ‘a Serbian word that refers to the feeling of bliss and sense of oneness with the universe that comes from life’s simplest of pleasures’. So the author/compiler of this marvellous 60-minute show is officially unknown? My money’s on the stated Founder/Director, Steven Ljubovic, but who knows?

After what is likely to be a very long rehearsal period, nine performers – nine! - start their performance journey each wrapped like bugs awaiting birth. To a brilliant soundtrack of music and effects (Sound Design, Kieran Camejo) they each are born and make it to maturity.

The amount of mad running and jumping and spinning around has to be seen to be believed, and it’s all choreographed to within an inch of perfection. This show has been in the works for months.

The cast go at it with a will and wild abandon (with restless, skidding lighting by Clare Sheridan). Exceptionally fit and brilliantly focussed on their chosen route, they go about their business with an eye to complete perfection: it is very exciting to watch this troupe perform.

Constantly swapping and changing partners, they progress to exciting, pounding rhythms. Ninety minutes later they return to their sacs and lie breathing heavily. 

The audience erupt: bravo! And they are gone with nothing left behind but a very incomplete downloaded program.

Did Ljubovic really create this great show? Is it really in town for only five days? With nine performers at the top of their game? Why Mortel? Why Merak?

Still, as they say in Serbian, ‘Da, bravo!’

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Abraham de Souza