In the stairwell of North Melbourne’s Arts House, overlooking the foyer, is an art work celebrating 20 years of challenging, independent live art presented at the venue. It’s a very large banner containing the name of every show they have presented and it’s overwhelming in size and content. I don’t remember when I first went to see a show at Arts House, but “Name Drop” by Luna Tunes reminded me of some of my favourite pieces of theatre ever – and some other challenging works I’ll never forget.
For a long
time, Arts House was Melbourne Fringe’s Hub venue, which brought an array of
works good and bad into various spaces and rooms and offices over a few weeks
every year. Outside of that, year-round, the venue has programmed leading
theatre and live art practitioners from Melbourne and all over the world.
As part of
the Now or Never festival, under the theme of “I Have Seen the Future”, the
venue is presenting a new piece called Crisis Actor – a work at the
intersection of theatre, live art, and digital media. It’s a dense and challenging
piece that at moments is overwhelming because of various sensory inputs that the
audience are exposed to for over an hour.
The audience
are ushered into a dark room. We stand around a centrepiece, an arrangement of
balloons that suggest a large bouquet of flowers. Above that are screens that
tell the story of a disaster, a tragedy that we can already sense is the kind
of thing we’d be battered with for months or years, if it really happened. Our
phones are out and we’re prompted to react to the news, evoking on-the-spot
news reporters shoving microphones into bystander faces to get their immediate
reaction.
This is “the
bloomening” – when the plants rose up and attacked humans, leaving a large
section of the population devastated. And we were there. Once this story is
relayed to us, we’re ushered into another room where we’re seated in the audience
for the fifth season of a TV series called “Crisis Haus” – a game show where
two contestants face off to become spokesperson for the victims of the flower
attack.
Created and
directed by artist all-rounder Vidya Rajan, in collaboration with writer and
performance maker Andrew Sutherland, as well as new media artist Sam Mcgilp, Crisis
Actor delves into the current day phenomena of trauma-as-content and news-as-entertainment.
The audience can watch the show, pitting Jess Nyanda Moyle and Jean Bachoura
against each other, their future in our hands. We vote for the best vocal
performance, best movement and best monologue about a past personal tragedy.
And while the show goes on, we can add to an ever-scrolling chat that is in our
hands and on screen to one side of the stage.
The term “crisis
actor” was once used to describe actors who are hired to play victims in
disaster training scenarios. Now it’s been co-opted by the far right to
question real victims of performing their trauma – exaggerating what has
happened or outright lying. What this show does is put us in the position of
victim, as well as expect us to vote on how best these actors have opened up a
vein and bled themselves for us. Why do we expect minorities and artists to
expose themselves so violently for their art? Why is urgency so valued in
making new work? And how are we expected to absorb the daily news anymore?
A large
screen sits above the stage. Here we find Klaus, the digital host of the reality
game show we’re watching. He seems to be modelled after a fleshlight, the fact
of which went off in the chat. He’s master of ceremonies, asking the actors to jump
through hoops. We are expected to focus on their digital avatars rather than
the flesh and blood humans because their simulacrums will last forever.
It’s hard to know where to look.
Romanie
Harper’s production design is striking, but the work of Sam Mcgilp as the Visual and Technical Designer and that of creative technologists
Henry Lai Pyne, Ruby Quail and Quinn Franks is what is seared into my mind.
The digital creations are unreal, but the life given to them by performers
Moyle and Bachoura make them more than on-screen puppets. We’re invested in
their triumph.
Moyle tells
a story about being kicked out of a band, which led to lots of speculation about
which Perth group it might have been. Bachoura tells a story about his family’s
experience in the Armenian genocide and for a moment I don’t feel overwhelmed
by the technology, but connecting with the emotion of a real human performer.
How do we vote? How will you vote? The results will be different every night.
The
technology used in the show is seamless, not just what’s on stage but the interactivity
of the website open on our phones. Being able to “live tweet” messages of
support and utter nonsense, does put us firmly in that “second screen”
experience we’re all used to while watching TV these days. I’m mostly guilty of
it to check out an actor’s IMDB page, but sometimes what you’re watching is
just not as interesting as your Insta feed.
Crisis
Actor is a lot.
There were times where I didn’t know where to look or even how to feel. But isn’t
that true of life these days and things inundating us and people vying for our
attention, while truth and reality slip away through torrents of fake news or
buried by AI slop?
I’ve seen a
lot of work this year that has taken inspiration from the kind of runaway
information train of a news cycle we’re expected to keep up with. This feels
like the most radical version of that; a high point of digital and live
performance comingling to comment on everything we’re going through. The inundation,
of course, but also the all-too-rare moments of relief and connection.
It’s a
shame this season is so short, because I think it will get a lot of people
talking. Sometimes it felt like being in the middle of an art installation and
I had to let the experience wash over me. But in moments, when I was adding to
the chat, watching the performances and listening to peels of laughter around
the room – even though we were surrounded by screens and digital avatars, the
connection of live performance was there and it was visceral.
Crisis
Actor is on the
cutting edge. Hopefully it comes back so more people can experience its delightful
mayhem.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The show is at Arts House and closes on Sunday. There’s very few tickets left!
Photos: Gregory Lorenzutti
Comments