Venue: Bondi Pavilion Theatre (Bondi NSW), Jul 16 – 20, 2019
Devised by: Adriane Daff, Claudia Osborne, Eliza Scott, Mikala Westall
Directors: Claudia Osborne, Mikala Westall
Cast: Eliza Scott, Adriane Daff
Images by Phil Erbacher
Theatre review
There is a lady behind one door, and a tiger behind another, and it is pure luck should the accused make the right choice. Using Frank R. Stockton’s 1882 short story of the same name as departure point, The Lady Or The Tiger is inspired by the aforementioned’s device of unresolved storytelling, to create an experimental theatre that takes pleasure in a notion of disrupted narratives. The tiger says to the lady early in the piece, “did you skip a bit?” as though to prepare us for its intentionally fractured plot structure. Little episodes emerge from nowhere, and go nowhere. We can try to formulate cohesive meanings, or to simply stay in the moment, and luxuriate in the pure theatricality of the experience.
A spatial reversal sees the audience contained in a small nook of a room, as we watch the actors take on their roles on the expansive outside. Thomas Houghton’s lights bring glorious enhancement to an already breathtaking sight, not quite palatial but infinitely more grand than any small theatre is usually capable of providing. Sound by Angus Mills does exceptionally well, to help us hear every word of dialogue spoken in the open space, along with music that gently cradles the action taking place.
Performer Eliza Scott’s comedy is based on a charming vulnerability, that she harnesses with confidence and scintillating wit. Adriane Daff is an exacting and vivacious co-star, with a keen sense of comic timing that endears her to all. The pair is amusing, entertaining and inspiring. Even when we fail to make conventional sense of their shenanigans, there is much to indulge in these idiosyncratic presentations.
Directors Claudia Osborne and Mikala Westall assemble a fantastical range of ideas, full of whimsy and mischief, for a version of The Lady Or The Tiger that will appeal to the adventurous and sophisticated. They make a theatre that is anything but ordinary, shifting the emphasis away from “the moral of the story”, to an exploration of the means and purposes of communication. We have to connect in new ways, if the old is broken. We sit here each with our independent interpretations of the show, but a joyful harmony descends upon us, as though a kind of consensus has been reached.
www.kleinefeinheiten.com | www.bondifeast.com.au
Suzy Goes See 