“I saw myself sitting in the crotch of the fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which fig to choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…” – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
In Sylvia
Plath’s only novel, Esther Greenwood is frozen by indecision. She doesn’t
know which future to choose. She sees a world of possibilities and no way to
reconcile any of them. Each and every fig she fails to choose is a path closed
off to her. The figs wrinkle, go black and drop to the ground at her feet.
One of the
most evocative moments from Storked by Myf Hocking, presented by Antipodes
Theatre, is the projection of a tree coming to life as if being illustrated
before our eyes. As the tree fades, lines from Plath’s prose poem are shown to
us. The writing is striking outside the context of the book – and it’s resonant
with the themes of Hocking’s work.
Over ninety
minutes, Hocking and their collaborators treat us to a collage of stories about
queerness and pregnancy and bodily autonomy, with a heavy dose of cynicism,
sarcasm and satire.
A man and a
woman prepare to have sex for the first time – he’s so concerned about consent;
he lists everything he wants to do to make sure she is happy first. But as they
finally get down to it, a stork appears and it’s clear that one wrong move and
she might end up pregnant.
A person with
a uterus visits their doctor to ask for a hysterectomy. The doctor is resistant,
for all the typical reasons – complications, side-effects, her concern that her patient might change their mind about having children later. The patient lists
all the things that could be removed from their body without a thought; why is
their bodily autonomy at question here?
Three queer
women gather to celebrate their friend getting “storked”, even though they have
serious concerns about her male partner. But is it jealousy? Of him? Of her?
A found
family wonder about having a child with the whole group.
Someone reminisces
about the openness of 1960s sexuality.
A performer
sits front and centre, microphone in hand, to tell the story of a nightmare
where she gave birth to a child who cut its own umbilical cord and spoke to her
in French.
A silent
movie plays, where a man and woman sit down at a restaurant, only to be served
a child on a platter. And there are no returns!
Three teenagers
try to do the maths on living in 2025 and how a child could possibly factor
into the equation for millennials and Gen Z.
The stork
shows up with three kids that he has to deliver and he acts like an underpaid
Amazon delivery guy, concerned about stairs and leaving the packages in a safe
place.
Just as
Esther struggled with making choices in The Bell Jar, so does Hocking
here. This work is a mosaic of vignettes, some of which are vital and full of
life, and others that reiterate ideas more fully explored elsewhere. Sometimes
a sense of repetition can be powerful, but as Storked progressed, the
recurring elements started to weigh things down. A collection of stories on a
theme can work on stage, but it’s important to make clear and rigorous decisions
about what adds to the whole.
Lara Gabor’s
Video & Vision Design is impeccable; striking and innovative and cheeky. In
collaboration with Jenny Hector’s lighting and Jandruze’s full-bodied score, the
design of the show is masterful. There are images from some sequences that will
remain burned in my mind for a while.
The cast collaborates
brilliantly, slipping from dramatic to comedic without hesitation. Director
Maude Davey corrals the whole enterprise wonderfully, even as the tone changes
radically from scene to scene.
Storked is filled with vital, urgent subject matter that is discussed openly and honestly. I could feel the discomfort from some audience members during the more frank and explicit moments. In this kind of work, it doesn’t matter if one sequence doesn’t work (for you); the next scene will be along in a minute.
I found a lot of this play hilarious and some of it really moving. The scenes I really liked were toward the beginning of the show. As it moved along, ruminating on the same ideas over and over didn't gather power; repetition led to diminishing returns.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Storked closes at Theatre Works tonight
Photos: Angel Leggas, 3 Fates Media
Comments