Theatre: It's Dark Outside

The Last Great Hunt

Created and Performed by Tim Watts, Arielle Gray and Chris Isaacs

Set construction by Anthony Watts

Music by Rachael Dease

STC Studio

The Last Great Hunt's It's Dark Outside returns for a season at the STC Studio from March 16 - April 2. This review is adapted from that of its original 2012 season.

As our lives extend, the manifestations of our long declines come from the shadows. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, memory loss, sundowning syndrome (the specific subject of this play) are fearsome, insidious blights on so many lives.   

The team of Tim Watts, Arielle Gray and Chris Isaacs tackle these demons head on in It’s Dark Outside, and the result is a rare triumph of theatrical ingenuity and human compassion.

An old man (Gray performs behind the mask) gingerly takes his seat and gropes for a mug of tea that, inexplicably, isn’t where he thought he left it. It breaks on the floor, and he tries to drink from its shards. The sun is going down, and his connection with present reality is setting with it.

In the gloom, he goes wandering, and strange and wonderful things happen. His landscape becomes the wild west of his youthful imagination, a tent becomes his horse, a cloud his dog. His steps are followed by a moon shadow, a dark shape with a butterfly net. Is it death and oblivion, or is it his memory of himself as a boy?

When he rises from the tent of his dreams on the “Zs” of sleep, while a music box tinkles Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the stars are brilliant tears. The music in his head forms into a song, the only words in the play: “I’ll be your light/ when it’s dark outside”. It’s ineffably sad, and deeply, gently, moving.

I must emphasise what a thrilling entertainment this is, because I’d hate you to be discouraged by its sombre subject matter. Watts and his colleagues play in the theatre of ideas, and they stand or fall on their inventiveness. It’s Dark Outside has a dazzling multitude of both. The cloud dog is a superbly created delight; a dance to Peggy Lee’s I Love Being Here With You so sweet and sly it drew spontaneous applause from the audience. So often, if it weren’t so sad, it would be easy to laugh at the quirky brilliance of it all.

None of this will surprise anyone who saw Watts and co’s hugely successful Adventures of Alvin Sputnik. Their ability to play with shapes, sizes, silhouettes and sound effects remains just as impressive, but It’s Dark Outside is a much more coherent and powerful piece than its predecessor. The tenderness with which the performers manipulate their puppets and the eloquence of their wordless text is simply outstanding, while Rachael Dease’s lovely music and Anthony Watts’s memorable sets and gadgetry contribute greatly to the play’s achievement.  

There’s a touch of genius about The Last Great Hunt's work, and it’s on display in this, a highlight of the Perth stage over the past decade.    

Theatre: The Irresistible (★★★★½)

Side Pony Productions and The Last Great Hunt
Written and directed by Zoe Pepper
Written and performed by Adriane Daff and Tim Watts
Composer Ash Gibson Greig
Set and costume designer Jonathon Oxlade
Lighting designer Richard Vabre
Sound designer Phil Dowling
Until June 24

The Irresistible is as singular and wholly realised a theatre experience as has been mounted in Perth, and the apogee – so far at least ­– of the intention, and work, of the writer and director Zoe Pepper, working with Tim Watts and Adriane Daff of the busy and multi-faceted company, The Last Great Hunt.

Its achievement rests on the rigour of Pepper’s creative processes and the knockout technical effects integral to it. That work ­– by the composer Ash Gibson Greig, physical designer Jonathon Oxlade, lighting designer Richard Vabre, sound designer Phil Downing and the amazing gadgeteer Anthony “Gizmo” Watts ­– is unified, complete and often purposefully disorienting.

Into the ferment of sight and sound they have created venture the performers Watts and Daff, who co-wrote with Pepper. The characters they inhabit, and the stories they tell, ricochet around age, gender and relationships with dizzying pace and a kind of narrative violence.
The vocal distortions created by Ableton Live software (the same as used in Complicite's startling The Encounter at this year's PIAF) and controlled by the performers allow them to play over a dozen distinct characters. 

Watts is as intelligent and precise as always, and Daff is ferocious, scouring her characters raw. She is highly-charged, sometimes vicious, and gives the stand-out performance of the Perth stage this year thus far.

I listened in to foyer conversations after the show, and was amazed (and a little chastened) to hear audience members discussing the characters and their activities as if this was a conventional story and they were conventionally presented characters. I simply have no idea how they untangled it.

If that sounds like a criticism of the play, it’s far from it. Sure, there’s always room in new work to hone narrative clarity and character definition, and maybe The Irresistible will be more finely chiselled as it is played, but, in truth, that’s neither here nor there.

It’s the psychology of these characters – of all of us really – that matters to Pepper, Watts and Daff; how we position ourselves, how we see the world and judge the people in it, and how wrong, how dangerous, we can be.

There’s an example playing out right now, in the real-world case of the girl texting her boyfriend to go back into his exhaust fume-laden car. In The Irresistible a similar moment plays out; a polar opposite, in some ways, but not so different in others.

This is theatre with great strength of purpose, and a technical achievement that will leave you gobsmacked.

The Irresistible is simply irresistible. You shouldn’t try to.             

Theatre: Old Love (★★★½)

By Chris Isaacs
Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Performed by Nicola Bartlett, Arielle Gray, Nick Maclaine and Tim Watts
Blue Room Theatre
Until May 2

The Last Great Hunt, Perth’s hyperactive little theatre company that can, is back with a sharp, twisted domestic comedy for, and about, all ages.
Meet cool 30-ish couple Jim (Nick Maclaine) and Gabby (Arielle Gray) – he’s a work-from-home software maven, she’s a work-the-phones property developer.
They’re having a dinner party, but there’s tension. He’s been babysitting his niece, and hasn’t tidied up the debris; she’s struggling to choose between all but identical little black dresses. He’s way too relaxed about it; she’s way too uptight.
We know these people well. Let’s see what they get up to.

Theatre: Falling Through Clouds

The Last Great Hunt
Created and Performed by Tim Watts, Arielle Gray, Adriane Daff and Chris Isaacs
Music by Ash Gibson Greig
Set design by Anthony Watts
PICA
22 September – 11 October
 
Tim Watts, Arielle Gray and Chris Isaacs are great in the dark. Put them in a black room, turn out the lights, get Tim’s amazing dad to make things with paper and scissors, cardboard boxes, a few pin lights and a Texta or two – and the result is the highly original, engaging shows that have taken them around the world.
Falling Through Clouds is the third of these small sagas (following The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik and It’s Dark Outside), and for it Watts, Gray and Isaacs are joined by Adriane Daff, one of the other members of The Last Great Hunt Theatre Company
Daff is Mary, a geneticist in a future where birds are extinct. She has a one-year contract to recreate a bird, and have it fly. Or, at least, that’s what she dreams. Watts’s idea (he’s credited as the ‘initiating artist’ here) is to her impossible dream to life.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Bruce

Weeping Spoon Productions

Created and performed by Tim Watts and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd

Music composed by Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd

The Blue Room Theatre

Until December 7

Like all modern heroes, Bruce is a complicated guy. Well, maybe not “guy” exactly. Bruce is a complicated chunk of mattress foam with eyes stuck in it, and a pair of disembodied, white-gloved, hands. Sometimes three.
Bruce only has three hands when he’s a hallucinating junkie. Not when he’s an astronaut, or a cop, a best-selling author or a newborn baby, a doting father, a tongue-tied suitor or an old man.
No matter how he’s counting his hands, though, Bruce has a problem with eyes. Not his two, but the one that his former partner, One Eyed Joe, lost when Bruce unwisely took a shot in a police raid. Joe, who grew up dreaming of being an astronaut himself.
It’s a cruel world for the one-eyed, and Joe wants revenge.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: The Wives of Hemingway and Birdboy

The best and brightest of Perth's young theatre artists are out and about in force at the Fringe and, even more than the touring acts rampaging through the festival, it's a chance for them to experiment and extend their range.
But, before you read on, remember that no matter how talented and inspired the people behind them are, not every experiment works, not every extension sticks, and that's as it should be. Just saying.

The Wives of Hemingway

Side Pony and Productions Weeping Spoon Productions

Directed by Zoe Pepper

Starring Adriane Daff, Josh Price and Tim Watts

North Perth Bowling Club

Until February 16.

Tim Watts, Josh Price and Adriane Daff

Tim Watts is the kid who wouldn't grow up, and he and his lost boys (and girls) play theatre like others play ultimate frisbee. It may not be theatre for kids, but it has many of the qualities of a game a bunch of them might play in their cubby.

Watts, director Zoe Pepper and the others have delivered some of the most justly admired and popular alternative Perth theatre in recent times (Alvin Sputnik, The Pride, It’s Dark Outside, Pollyanna) and they have earned some pretty major Get Out of Jail Free cards with their audience.

They’ll have to spend one of them this time, though. For all its audacity and smarts, Wives is seriously self-indulgent and more than a bit sloppy around its edges. They aren’t fatal flaws, by any means, and there are plenty of moments to savour, but most of the twists in the story are gratuitous, and there is no, repeat no, take away from the piece.

Link here to my complete review in The West Australian.

Birdboy

by Ian Sinclair

The Wet Weather Ensemble

Directed by Moya Thomas

With St John Cowcher, Alicia Osyka, Ian Sinclair and Moana Lutton

PICA

Until February 16

I could try to tell you what happens in Birdboy, but I have no idea whether it would represent its actual narrative or the intentions of the award-winning – and genuinely talented – collective, The Wet Weather Ensemble (The Bearskinner, Adam & Eve). You may come to an entirely different conclusion. As to any allegorical, metaphorical or cautionary purpose behind it all, your guess is as good as mine.

Birdboy is the result of an impressive development process, both here and in the US, but it feels like there’ve been too many cooks putting way too many ingredients into the broth. I’m sure the ensemble knows exactly what they are trying to prepare, but that’s not much help to us diners.

Link here to my complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: One Night Echo

The Duck House

Written by Gita Bezard

Directed by Kathryn Osborne

Performed and devised by Alissa Claessens, Brendan Ewing, Fran Middleton, Will O’Mahoney and Tyrone Robinson, with Tim Watts

PICA

November 8 - 17, 2012

Fran Middleton, Brendan Ewing and Alissa Claessens

For students of Greek mythology (and, after a quick refresher course on Wikipedia, us mere mortals), the central conceit of The Duck House’s stylish, brittle party piece at PICA is a delicious game of spot the nymphs and satyrs.

The party in question has been thrown by Theo (Will O’Mahoney), whose unrelenting narcissism gives his eponymous alter-identity away immediately. He’s hired a chick named Echo (google “Echo, Greek mythology”) to serve drinks. The guests arrive; his diffident, intelligent mate Eddie (Brendan Ewing), the magnetic, luminous Celeste (Alissa Claessens) and a lithe, shadowy young man (Tyrone Robinson) with hair swept over like horns. She is Selene, goddess of the moon; they are her lovers Endymion, the astronomer, and Pan, the goat, the god of the wild. This is no safe place for either Echo the nymph or Echo the girl, and, as in the myth, it tears her apart.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: Pollyanna

Weeping Spoon Productions

Directed by Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd and Tim Watts

Designed by Poppy Van Oorde-Grainger and Alissa Jane Claessens

Created by the cast and crew

The Treasury 

16 - 19 February, 2012

Tim Watts and crew

I don’t normally take instructions from the producers before reviewing a show, but in the case of Pollyanna, the latest project of the Tim Watts/ Arielle Gray (Alvin Sputnik) clan, it seemed the only appropriate thing to do.

So, with their permission, I can tell you that lovely Pollyanna Smith never makes it to her sixteenth birthday party. Dead. Murdered. The police come to the door with the terrible news. Then, to the horror of all and sundry, they arrest the son of Mayor Arthur Dobson and haul him away for questioning.

I went with them, because I’m a cop too. 

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian