Early on in An Organised Odyssey – though the play is meticulously structured, it’s difficult to point to a moment and describe it as a scene – performer Clarisse Bonello listens to a voice over, an impossible description of the character she is transforming into. She tries her best to keep up with the rolling list of requirements, and imbue every part of herself with the weighty meaning this voice wants to ascribe to the person we are getting to know.
It made me
think of these short-hand descriptions of famous female characters that do not
do them any justice. Words on the page of the scripts where they were born.
She is
blonde (in nature as in name), pretty and very gracefully athletic…
She approaches
us, briskly walking down a long corridor. Trim, very pretty, mid-20s.
A lovely
young girl huddles in a small alcove, as the stormtroopers search through the
ship…
She is a
waitress in a coffee shop. In her early thirties, and too old to be doing this.
She is very pretty and meticulously groomed…
Lovely.
Pretty. Trim. Meticulously groomed. It’s hard to believe these are the
introductions to Buffy Summers, Clarice Starling, Princess Leia and Susan
Sarandon’s Louise from Thelma & Louise. But, I guess, in the hands
of men, should it be a surprise?
Developed
over several years by Bonello, writer Laura Collins and director Milly Cooper, An
Organised Odyssey is about creation and re-creation. It’s stretches from the
domestic to the epic, expanding and contracting as necessary to interrogate
notions of femininity, neurodiversity and the possibility of encountering sea
monsters off the coast of Calabria.
We contain
multitudes, as the character attests, and the show is about piecing together
her day – an epic journey in and of itself, as she discovers who she really is
and might become. It’s an arresting hour
of theatre.
Designer
Betty Auhl creates a criss-cross labyrinth of material that suggests ropes
lashed to a ship and a washing line, but it also becomes a maze for Bonello’s
character to climb over and through. There’s a moment late in the piece where
she is bound, frozen, unable to move. There’s too much going on in this day,
this hour, this moment. She is overwhelmed perhaps by choice, but it also
played as an effective encapsulation of depression.
Collins’ script has so clearly been developed with Bonello. She is captivating in every moment. And each moment is different to the next and the next and the next.
It’s An Actor Prepares meets
ruminations of life. It’s therapy smashed against the rocks of classic
literature. It evokes Scylla from Homer’s Odyssey, making it clear this
man-eating monster had her reasons. And the show deftly weaves from that to a
comic moment of crowd control that spills out into the real world, beyond the Testing
Ground space where the show is being performed. Created and re-created in front
of our eyes.
Director
Milly Cooper has a clear eye for creating memorable tableaux that illuminate
and energise the portrait that is being painted. Shadow puppets make a lasting
impression, but so does the silhouette of Bonello’s entire body, cast against
the wall of the space. Cooper also guides the show into small, intimate
moments, that are moving and revealing.
There is no
strong narrative here, but there is a shape to its rising and falling tensions.
This show’s mosaic of moments are satisfying because they evoke so much in the
audience. Who doesn’t love looking at pictures of someone’s dog? Who doesn’t
have a visceral response to spiders, even if they are shadow creations? Who hasn’t
felt translucent or a mere silhouette of themselves?
I was
slightly disappointed by the final moments, though. I think in a show that’s
freewheeling in its content, it’s hard to know how it might wrap up or when
that release might come. After an emotional rollercoaster, it was a shame the
show came to a dead stop. It was hard to know if it was time to applaud, even though
it was a show thoroughly worth applauding.
An Organised
Odyssey is a wonderfully
original trip – hilarious, thoughtful and so full of energy. It’s hard to
define a person or a character and this kaleidoscope of a show brings that idea
to thrilling life.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
It’s on at Testing Grounds until September 1
Photos: Andrew Signor
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