peteg's blog - noise - theatre - 2017 12 06 NIDA DirectorsDesignersProductions

NIDA: Directors' and Designers' Productions 2017.

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Booked 2017-11-21, $32 + $5.95 Ticketek tax = $37.95 for three of the six on offer; I couldn't make the rest on the next night as I was going to Brisbane. I took the X94 express bus to Kingsford from the ASX, which skipped the first few stops in what I thought was "Kingsford"; nevertheless it seemed faster than taking an all-stops. Dinner at Pinocchio Sushi.

First up: UBU by Andrew McInnes, after Alfred Jarry, designed by Heather Middleton, in the NIDA Studio. Some kind of inventive clowny absurdism with some very effective physical comedy. The actors mutter in threatening and vaguely obscene ways, and a few scenes drag through needless repetition. Still quite short at 30 minutes. Totally packed. Quite fun.

The main draw was the second piece: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde, adapted and directed by Alanah Guiry, designed by Gabrielle Rowe, in the NIDA Space (which I hadn't been to before). Mostly dance with some of the poem recited over music that often drowned it out. I struggled to understand what they were getting at, apart from the final sequence where the Wildean central character gets stripped. Again it ran for a bare 30 minutes.

Finally: The Bacchae by Euripides, adapted and directed by Shannan Ely, designed by Clare Staunton. I had hoped for something flighty and powerful, like the Medeas I saw in Chicago. The whole thing got derailed by extended rants on the present-day sexual predation finger pointing; I remember the Greeks knowing that power corrupts everyone (just take a look at Medea for instance). The last movement had the young lady performers lined up at the front of the stage insisting that those in the audience who identified as male move to the rear of the stage and face backwards; we were allowed to hear but not see the conclusion.