Playhouse, QPAC, 19 May
Behind Closed Doors is a ‘re-visioning' by Natalie Weir of While Others Sleep - her 2010 work for Expressions Dance Company (EDC) that used a local publication of photographs as a springboard for the exploration of voyeurism and the multi-faceted nature of the human personality, set within the anonymous confines of a hotel. Weir has discarded the original’s more intimate, cabaret styled setting at the Judith Wright Centre, for a larger main stage interpretation. She has however, retained the musical arrangements of Sean Foran, played live by the improvisational jazz trio Trichotomy. Set design is again by Greg Clarke, and the whole lit by David Walters.
Behind Closed Doors resonates with echoes of its origin, with the plaintive opening notes of the saxophone evocatively establishing the film noir style. The setting is of course different, with an L-shaped set piece, rotated manually to reveal different rooms of the hotel, stage left of centre. The musicians on acoustic bass, saxophone, drums and vocals are positioned upstage right. This unavoidably pushes some of the action and focus to one side.
The original, three-act thematic description is replaced by a more character-driven single act, where the audience, as voyeur in a series of short vignettes, is given a glimpse behind closed hotel doors, into each of the guest’s lives. A couple of crowd scenes of milling ‘businessmen’ intersect, with a dramatic through-line loosely drawn across the whole by the new role of the Maid (Alana Sargent), who interacts with some of the "guests", or with their belongings.
The EDC dancers, as always a pleasure to watch, each brought their own unique style and audacity of execution to this work. Shoes are again a focus, and the opening moments have Sargent "playing" with one stiletto left by a guest, in an inventive and amusing sequence of intricate, convoluted movement, delivered with crystalline clarity. Moments of suspension, teetering on the brink of over balancing, are saved by a dextrous segue into another phrase of movement.
A few of the original vignettes are reprised, but drawn by differently named characters. Richard Causer (the Businessman), undressing to his briefs and one stocking and glove, again showed dramatic conviction and physical agility, repeating his solo about identity crisis. The subsequent duet with Jake McLarnon (the Male Side) is intensely physical, combative and fast, and this of course is where Weir and the EDC dancers shine; the partnering work was fearless.
Elise May, who was also in the original, brought a depth and maturity to her new, bitter-sweet role of the Lonely Woman, a central figure in the work. As the Dark Man, Benjamin Chapman communicated desperation and alienation in both a poignant duet with May, and his own tormented solo, while guest dancer, Xu Yiming conveyed introversion and isolation as the Chameleon, showing a remarkably angular fluidity.
McLarnon and Michelle Barnett, as the Young Lovers, gave another display of athletic virtuosity in their duet of amorous abandonment, while Barnett’s strutting solo as the Female Side, one shoe off, had just the right amount of sass and sex-appeal; she also has the high insteps and defined calves, which were the prefect physical attribute for this flirtatious number.
Evocative vocals by Kristin Berardi add another instrument to the musical mix, which, with the magic of live performance, layers expressive aural texture onto the visual.
Weir’s desire to develop and expand on her critically successful, but modestly staged work, While Others Sleep is understandable. However, some of the disturbing intimacy and powerful impact, of what was nevertheless still a series of dramatically self-contained vignettes, so potent in the intimate setting of cabaret, was less so when re-visioned behind the fourth wall of the proscenium stage.
– Denise Richardson
Pictured top: Michelle Barnett & Jake McLarnon. Photo: Chris Herzfeld.