Dolphin Theatre, Perth WA
November
To approach the University of Western Australia’s Dolphin Theatre on a beautiful, early-summer day, I walk through blissfully tranquil soft-green gardens, a high overhead canopy shading dense sub-tropical fernery. There is a pervasive hush, explained by signs which announce end-of-year examinations are in progress.
To then enter, at mid-afternoon, a dark intimate rectangular black box, with the expectation of being taken on a theatrical journey, makes for a challenge to any small performing group – all the more so when the tiny auditorium is - unsurprisingly for a matinee - only half-full.
The advance publicity for Shiver makes reference to “four strangers (who) find themselves trapped in an unknown place with no exit”. There is no connection to the play by Sartre. In fact, there is no atmosphere of entrapment onstage, either – though there could be in the auditorium, on such a lovely day.
Shiver consists of four performers, ranging in age perhaps from 14 to 49. I’m sure this is outside the actual range of the cast members’ ages – but this appears to be the range of their characters. Two men and two women participate; at times as couples, at other times alone. Because its length is reasonable at approximately one hour, this performance is an easy journey to go along with, but possibly not a rewarding one.
There is occasional sound accompaniment, but I don’t recall any music (however there is a program credit to Kinsley Reeve for his “cinematic soundscape”). I notice creator Danielle Micich states in her program notes that “most development (of the work) has taken place without the sound present”. I wonder if the sound is so well aligned that it is barely noticeable. Because the performance is so naturalistic, the absence any music that I recall isn’t perceived as a lack. In fact it facilitates our focus, especially when a performer narrates a story. The same applies to the ‘everyday’ style of apparel.
Apart from Joseph Mercurio’s onstage banks of runway lights, bordering three sides of the floor and three sides of the ‘ceiling’ space, there is minimal stage furniture. But, of the two items there are, one is an exciting and (in my experience) vastly under-utilised theatrical device: a conveyor belt! In this case it projects upwards on a low diagonal from a wing to almost mid-stage. The potential of this equipment for dance really excites me. It is best-used in this piece when Jacqui Claus pours herself off the end, supine and head-first.
Spoken text by the performers is always well delivered. Much of this comprises census-style questions, delivered from clipboards; questions which sit in the air unanswered. Towards the end of the piece, Leanne Mason relates an inconclusive personal story of a particular child’s first exposure to death: the beach drowning of a friend. It would seem, again from the advance marketing material (because the program content is not very useful) that this is essential to the work’s purpose: “an honest look at life and loss in all its unpredictable cruelty and beauty”.
While the work is easy enough to view, and the capable performers do their best with the material they have, such an overly ambitious aim is not realised. This work was five years in development, originally with a different cast. It seems possible that - despite the input of dramaturg Humphrey Bower - such a long drawn-out creation phase has diluted, rather than concentrated the director’s communicative power.
- SUSAN WHITFORD