Picture it. A teenage girl’s bedroom in the early 2000s with the dials of colour turned way up. Fluorescent walls covered by posters celebrating pop stars and soap actors. A large white shelving unit, all cubes, filled to the brim with toys and games and all sorts of collectibles. A rack of clothes to the other side. An old-school stereo where you can play So Fresh CDs and a pile of cushions to crash in. A large plush carpet sits dead centre. A soundtrack of Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls plays.
Teenage
Olivia Muscat welcomes us to her bedroom and slumber party. Her friend, only
known as SG (sighted girl played by Zoe Boeson), is along for the ride – which will
include pass the parcel, beach ball tossing, trying on new clothes and watching
an MA15+ movie from Blockbuster. The audience is primed for a party, but there
are some house rules to observe. Olivia takes the time to explain some things
to listen out for and to observe – a clever way to make the show accessible for
blind, vision-impaired or deaf people.
This is the
kind of slumber party Olivia always dreamed about having when she was a kid.
But because Olivia is totally blind, kids didn’t invite her or parents didn’t
want the bother of having to keep an eye on her. This isn’t a play about
feeling sorry for Olivia, though. This is about being yourself and feeling good
about it. It’s also a lesson for much of the audience to think through our
prejudices about disabled people and our instinct to infantilise them or assume
they don’t know their own mind.
All of that
sounds really heavy, but Muscat’s play, Is Anyone Even Watching? is
laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end. There’s a lot of audience
participation, but no one is singled out – unless they get to unwrap a layer of
the pass-the-parcel and then ask the kind of silly question you ask at slumber
parties. Like “would you rather live in a world without music or movies” or “would
you rather sing everything you say or dance everywhere you go”.
Muscat’s
stories about her life resemble those of any kid who felt like an outsider, with
the added layer of her disability leading to ridiculous assumptions about what
she would be like. People like to ask how she perceives colour, but she finds
that question so meaningless. People assume that she must love music because if
she can’t see, her other senses must be heightened. But she rebels against that
because she hates the idea that blind people are all the same. She assures us
the blind and vision-impaired community contains multitudes. Some of them can
be assholes. She can be, too.
The production
design (by Brooke Painter and Kiara Brown) is epic in its vibrancy and
specificity. It contains touchstones and places so that Muscat can know where
she is at any time; the rug is easy for her to perceive under her socked feet. Bronwyn
Pringle’s lighting opens up the world – we are as much in Muscat’s imagination
as we’re in her bedroom. By the end of the show, we’ve left reality all
together and Pringle’s lighting transports us to a concert where
Muscat is the star.
Muscat is
not a seasoned performer, but this is her show and her story and it’s wonderful
to be in her company. The writing is knowing and clever; some of her monologues (including
the planning of some end-of-show choreography) are hilarious and other moments
are genuinely moving. Boesen is the perfect co-conspirator for these girls
wanting to have fun, but she also assists with the audience interaction and if anything
goes wrong. And when it does go wrong, Muscat assures us she’s used to dealing
with things not going quite right – handling things like a pro.
Director
Liv Satchell guides the show with her usual gentle, empathetic style – finding
smart ways to theatricalise Muscat’s story, illuminating the highs and the lows on
stage in front of our eyes. The inclusion of surtitles above the stage and an
Auslan interpreter to the side was seamless – and Muscat had fun with the audio
descriptions for blind and low-vision audience members, while reminding us how
important accessibility is.
Is Anyone Even Watching? is a lovely, intimate confessional, with Muscat being open and honest about her disability and how most of her problems don’t come from being blind, but from the world and other people not being open-minded.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The show is playing at Arts House in North Melbourne as part of Melbourne Fringe until October 12
Photo/Image: Tatiana Ross
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Image description: A colourful Y2K inspired collage featuring a young woman wearing a sparkly pink sequin jacket, a white t-shirt with a blue lace top over it, and white belt. She has dark wavy hair with blonde highlights and some bright metallic hair extensions. There are several small, plastic butterfly clips in her hair in opaque purple, blue and pink. Photographs of the woman appear multiple times across the collage in different poses: smiling, holding a hairbrush as a microphone and singing, adjusting her oversized, blue-tinted glasses, as well as looking thoughtful while holding a pen with a fluffy pink top to her chin and looking down at a fluffy pink diary. The collage is decorated with playful stickers and drawings, including dolphins, butterflies, metallic hearts, glittery stars, a smiley face, and flowers. There are also some 3D puffy heart stickers and a pink pen placed diagonally across the bottom left. The background is a mix of pastel blue and grid paper, with colourful squares and hand-drawn elements adding to the fun, teenage scrapbook vibe.
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