I went and saw a show at Theatreworks today called 'Memorandum'. I got to see it for free because I won a bunch of free tickets last year at the Rabble/Schlusser fund raiser. I actually haven't used any up until now, because most of the programme this year seems to be gaycentric. I don't have any issues with that, it is just not of particular interest to me.
This show does not fall into that category. It is a piece created as an outcome for doctorate research by performance maker Kate Hunter. Her research centred around memory, it's malleability and inaccuracy. I was quite excited about it both conceptually and as a VU student. I was disappointed.
It started out with a forrest sound scape and smoke in the space. Nothing original there, but they did manage to shape the smoke in really fascinating ways. That was about as excited as I got. We first see Kate doing slow ten across the back of the stage. I am sorry, but I do not buy into the idea that watching someone walk across the stage is, by itself, an interesting thing. To me it's like watching grass grow, or paint dry.
Kate then started speaking, but her radio mic was really loud, and the speakers in Theatreworks are really high up in the grid, so the sound was completely dislocated from the performer. This made me unable to connect her to the dialogue the whole way through the show. And that is when I started to not care. Then came the tedium. It turns out, the whole 50 min show is her recounting a memory listing her primary school friends, a memory of a cow being killed on a road, and a 'visitation' by her mother after she is cremated. Written in this form it sounds like it could be interesting. The problem is that each story only has maybe 1 page of dialogue each, and it is just repeated and fragmented in not very interesting ways for the entire time. I guess you could say it is dadaesque, but it really isn't that interesting at all. Whilst she is repeating these lines, she basically just crosses the stage in diagonals the whole time, with a light on a boom pointing into her face. Tedious.
It turned out there was a Q&A afterwards and I stayed for that. It, too, was disappointing. Kate hadn't even considered the effect of the dislocated sound on the audience, and she admitted she is one of those artist who don't ever bother considering the audiences' experience. I truly do not understand that perspective and I get angry every time I hear an actor or performance maker say that. If you don't care about the audience, then just do your work in a private room. Don't waste our time and money, don't waste performance resources, and don't waste funding opportunities for others!
Anyway, that is my rant for today.
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