In the experience of sense, the question arises what happens when we dead awaken? There is; however, another question: what happens when awakening, it goes unnoticed? Lost Lear is a lament to the creeping grief witnessed by most families: dementia.
Read MoreJust before the play commences, two figures emerge to unfold a massive brown tarpaulin across the stage. A couple of buckets are strategically placed and stage left there is a large chain sling connected to a commensurately sized hook. Fitting for a large industrial farm. Yet it looms menacingly. As the lights go up, they do so only insofar as to give off a brown industrial hue. The type that predictably drains all other colour from industrial sheds. All of this, of course, is the portent of things to come.
Read MoreA man sits on a bare stage. He is preceded by a white bench…and however many days it has taken to reach this moment. As he contemplates existence, the audience contemplates him. This is how Ascension starts. The man, Dutch sailor Leendert Hasenbosch (Dan Hazelwood), has been exiled on an island as punishment for sodomy. The year is 1725. Probably. Hard to say for Ascension is uninhabited. What is certain is Leendert is dying. But he doesn’t want us to dwell on that right now. He’d first prefer for us to consider his story.
Read MoreParodying people such as Elon Musk is not a trivial task. He already seems like a cartoon. Musk says and does ridiculous things in real life. Leaning yet more in that direction demands plutonium grade material so as not to replicate the version who frequently appears in the news. Elon Musk: Lost In Space is pencil lead grade.
Read MoreI know so little of Marlene Dietrich’s life that a mere trace of information would register as a new classification in my knowledge base. So, to come away with a rounded sense of Dietrich’s life during the war years in the space of an hour is a massive tribute to the talents of writer Tjaša Ferme.
Read MorePhysical transformation might be the ultimate in ‘show, don’t tell’. The power of speech is replaced with the universality of body language. The transition between the inner and outer self is dialogically framed to arrive at a shared understanding with the audience. This is powerfully projected by writer and performer Edu Díaz as he transforms from an everyday bloke into the queen of the carnival.
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