Okay. So I've been thinking about Manna on and off all day.
And this is the thing.
I liked it so very very much.
Enough that whatever got in the way of my understanding became a source of extreme frustration.
It was the first preview. And Max Lyandvert made it very clear that this will be a production in evolution. He warned us about technical issues, that they've had to stop the play during dress rehearsals and that if something happened that night, they may have to stop the play and that our patience and love --- *snort* --- would be greatly appreciated. I loved the fact that he was at the mixing desk right in front of the entire audience. And oh yes, there were some points where I watched him and his laptop instead of the actual stage. Except I always got distracted back to the stage.
Distraction. That's what frustrated me so much. Not from audience members coughing behind me. But from the stage itself. Because I adored how it was set up like this sort of radio studio with so many angled mikes and the padded back wall and that we saw the actors make sound effects with rice and metal, and play instruments. Hybridised with that lovely iron bed to one side and the dismantled piano to the other.
Oh dear god, I loved the exposed piano. It took me forever to figure out what it was I found fascinating about it and then was this wonderful thrill to realise I could see the innards of strings and hammers going up and down. Oh god, so cool! I'm totally stealing that for the novel. Not stealing, borrowing, zeitgeisting, whatever.
There was a lot to look at and certainly an abundance of props for the actors. A lot for them to actually do. Which worked beautifully at some points --- the metal things clattering onto the tray, the washing of the feet, the pouring of the tea --- and damned near ruined it at other points. Well, threatened to ruin my experience, anyway, particularly towards the end of the play.
Because that last monologue about touch was so incredible and almost flawlessly delivered. Sheer gorgeosity of sound and syllable and intellect, the word pictures Boris Brkic painted alive in the dark air. And the visual of him in the chair behind the panels of fluttering lace, all golden and nostalgic and dying with loss, was a breathtaking beautiful complement. Which is why I was damned near grinding my teeth at all the action going on behind him, the toing and froing of actors in the dimness, taking props here and there, a constant annoying itch that kept holding me away from complete immersion.
*sigh*
Perhaps that was the point. I wouldn't know.
Certainly there were several moments during the play where I let my eyes close halfway just so the visual didn't dominate, just so I could fully absorb the texture of music and vocal and clatter. Dear god, Max Lyandvert. I love how he goes from the tiniest of sounds to this great grinding roar of sound that shakes the floor. It's so viscerally satisfying and hell, just makes me grin.
But then on the flipside, I found myself wishing hard it was just a radio play, that I could just immerse myself in the incredible tapestry of sounds the actors were building onstage. Case in point being the autopsy bit. Those were absolutely marvellous sounds with the scraping and the crunching of the celery and the squelching of the melon. Incredibly disturbing visceral sounds, very effective, and I loved them enough to wish I didn't have to be distracted by the visuals of each actor stopping to turn a microphone towards their mouth when they had to say a line. My kingdom for an entirely black stage with just a dim diffused light on the young girl's corpse and then a sudden spot blaze on that hysterically horror movie end to the scene. Yes, I did a silent laugh, was slightly appalled at myself and then figured maybe I was meant to. Isn't that a wonderful cop-out?
I loved the way Gertraud Ingeborg shuffled on with that measured step, all bent over with the tiny transistor held before her, and how wonderfully the opera that had been filling the air since before the audience came in suddenly reduced itself to out of that tiny radio speaker. It was a definite challenge to go from that to Jamal Alrekabi singing. And, really it took me far too long to realise that barely a week ago I'd been reading up on Arabian music theory. I resisted, then gave myself up to the aural experience. Which I know would have been exactly the point. Curious how an act of theatre can be a battle of inclinations. I never could master the 'go with no expectations' philosophy. How can you? Honestly?
I did wish for a bit more structure. As much as I knew it would be about sound and language and the communication of grief, it took me forever to remember the fragment of information from
Dan's essay about each little story. And frankly, I wish just that little bit had been put into the program. Because it gave context which was something I found sorely lacking and struggled with at each shift from piece to piece, trying to figure out what exactly this particular instance of grief would be. Just three lines in the program could have solved that. So then I wouldn't have missed all the verbal minutiae I probably did because I was trying to work out what the hell was going on.
Admittedly, that got me prodding in the back of my head at the nature of accessibility and artistry and where exactly do you draw the line at giving the audience enough information for a way into your text, into your story. I mean, I can be as opaque a writer as the next person --- hell, I used to be! --- but that doesn't necessarily make me an effective writer. Fine line to tread, I know.
The vignette of the female soldier was incredible. Perfect from the words to the acting to the stunning visual of a girl with shaggy blonde hair in combat boots to the absolutely marvellous mirrored washing of the feet. I was quite weirdly chilled and delighted to hear the way she said 'soldier' instead of using 'I'. Did she even say 'he'? I don't think so. I think it was always 'soldier did this' and 'soldier did that'. And Jayne Tuttle acted it wonderfully, the prowl, the reaction, the bowing down under the grief of humanity destroyed, and the gorgeous gorgeous messianic ritual of the washing of the feet going from the older soldier to one side to this thin young girl with a mass of loose fragile hair. How beautifully that went from the soldier as god concept in her monologue to the actual ritual so heavy with significance.
Mind you, I thought the making of tea didn't quite work. Maybe they were too crowded together at the table, maybe the lighting wasn't quite as dramatic as it could have been. It just lacked impact. Certainly nothing like the washing. I almost wish that bit had ended then. Hmm.
That did startle me about this production. Coming from the gorgeosity of Salome with that wonderful use of colour and space and the perfect perfect lighting, I was a bit disappointed with the peculiar flatness of this aesthetic. Maybe they just didn't have the luxury of space like in the Carriageworks so each section couldn't be its own set piece floating in whiteness.
I do love Emma Valente's use of fluorescents and strobes. Never misplaced, never overdone, and so deliciously contemporary it makes me shiver with delight. And oh god, the sudden red floods was fabulous! As was that great staggered bit where the stage blacked out then lit up with the actors taking another step or a different position. Now, see, that visual has completely superceded the aural because I have no memory of what they said, I only know how arrested I was by the pattern of light and dark.
And oh, the moments when the entire cast would stop and the lights would blaze onto the audience in a complete dissolution of the fourth wall and they'd scrutinise us in silence. Man, it wouldn't have been even three years ago when that very thing would have terrified the daylights out of me. As it was, colour me completely unfazed and mildly amused. By the second time, I was so caught up in analysis that I think I glared right back at poor Jayne Tuttle, and probably quite fiercely too. Was it twice? Or more? And just in case we missed the point, they wheeled the huge mirror back and forth a few times to reflect the entire audience. Ha.
The costumes fascinated me. Well, one in particular. Gertraud's gown of ivory underdress and black satin panels of an overskirt that looked so quaint and archaic, especially with the very Empire neckline, but now I'm wondering if it's particularly ethnic. The ruffles that she, Dana Miltins and Boris wore for the very opening looked so familiar but I just couldn't nail the reference. Argh. Dana's outfit was curiously awkward, rather effective in that it did make her look gawkish and somewhat unformed. And I utterly adored Jayne's costume changes between the youthful acolyte sort of outfit to that long lovely ivory gown half undone and falling off her shoulders. Curious that the men were given far less significant outfits, even if Boris did half undress and put his clothes back on again at point. But then perhaps I just didn't pay them enough attention.
Didn't much care for the electric guitar part with Jayne going from one parent (?) to the other, back and forth and back and forth until she imploded with whatever. If that was a comment on divorce and/or the grief of a child for its parents, it was quite heavyhanded and ludicrous. The music was brilliant at that part, though. Jamal had this fabulous percussion thing going. And ooh, there was this other wonderful part earlier (I think) in the play when a piano was playing but his hands were perfectly still on the keys. SO awesome!
What struck me quite deeply was the recurring theme of illness, that wonderful line Gertraud had of "I mistrust my body" and how the physical goes from sickness to the missing of a lover's body "the exact shape of your clavicle" to the alienation of one person from another "the boxes were a rehearsal". Really, really loved the development and exploration of that theme, how it went from the visual/aural horrific extreme of the autopsy to the other beautiful fragility extreme of the girl under the tulle.
The language was, as expected, excellent. Absolutely wonderful use of metaphors that had me smiling in the dark. Phrases like "the architecture of your dying voice. It was my house." That even when the monologue was at its most soppy poignant, there was an intelligence to it. Like in the last one, when Boris says "Mine" something something "world building, ranged in all your utterances like industry." He paused there and I quirked a brow. He continued with "fills a city" and it was again with the beaming in the dark. Damned satisfying blend of emotion and intellect in that last monologue and I'm sure in no small measure due to Boris' delivery.
Except for one moment early in the play.
"The lone shoe grimaces."
The lone shoe WHAT?!
I went absolutely rigid with horror, practically had an apoplectic fit of "Oh god, no no no no. NO! Dan, you did NOT write that phrase I just heard! DEAR GOD in heaven!" I hope I was the only person in the audience who reacted that way because argh, if that phrase was in a story I had to critique, it would have been blue scribbles and suggestions all the way down the margins. *facepalms* Do a poll. I bet everyone else loved it. I could have yanked Dan out of the prompting booth and thwacked him one and then been lynched by the mob of angry fangirls. And boys, I suppose.
But, you know, one phrase in a play of some ninety minutes. Minuscule. And this is what I mean about wanting to see it again because it was only this morning that I realised the first bit may in effect have been a prologue with those few lines repeated later in the play, "aeroplanes watch me in the backyard" that sort of thing. Jayne had a wonderful monologue on the bed with the mirror in that sleek undone gown, "shake, lover" that I couldn't hear as well as I wanted because of other shit going on at the same time. And as much as I hated the phrase, there was this whole shoe motif thing going on that makes my writer antennae twitch. My kingdom for a pause button, pen and paper, man. It was just so complex you couldn't absorb it all on one go.
Which, ooh, reminds me! When I went to pick up my ticket from the box office, they had playscripts available for The Great and The Serpent's Teeth for only fifteen bucks! I eyed the latter for several minutes while I waited my turn, then remembered just how much I loathed the second half of that play. *shudders* Nooooo, thank you. I adore you, Daniel Keene, but another time and another play.
But dear god, the ending visual of Manna was inexpressibly beautiful. but i'm going to try anyway, aren't i? That with all the props cleared away to the side, there was just the examining table and Jayne undressed to a bodystocking and she lay back, one leg dangling off the side, so Dana could draw over her this whisper thin drape of translucent material. I was already quite broken by Boris' touch monologue so this image shook me even deeper. So much so I can barely remember what was said. Argh. *racks brain* And then to see the four of them turn to walk towards the back, and that fluoroscent tube overhead flicker but wink out. Oh god. So freaking awesome an ending.
It was equal parts a caught breath and wondering if it was really over that had the silence extend, I think. Until Max began to clap and us audience took it up.
So there were no great mishaps. Jayne miscalculated the height of the transistor she had to step back over but that was tiny and she recovered well. I did wonder when the shower of shoes came down if one bounced off the trolley edge and hit her or Boris but there was no visible damage or reaction. So no stops as Max had warned.
Mind you, a few people did leave. About ten or fifteen minutes into it, an older couple from down the front got up and walked out. I think the rest of us were all quite startled, mine wasn't the only head that turned. I had a row of four guys behind me, all of which had scored tickets from fBi Radio, two of whom developed a cough and left about two thirds of the way through. The remaining two sniggered a bit towards the end then shut up.
There was only one bow. I thought the applause began quite enthusiastically and the actors looked mostly relieved. And I loved that Max clapped specifically towards them. The clapping seemed to fade with a slight bewilderment but maybe I projected. And I was freezing plus dying to go to the loo so exited as fast as possible. Did see Dan make his very discreet way down and around to the wings but I had forgiven him by then so you'll be happy to know the boy escaped unscathed. For various reasons.
Oddly enough, I didn't react quite as emotionally as I could have. It was far more an intellectual experience, reacting far more to the words and visuals and aurals than the sentiment. And I can't say I'm too disappointed by that, seeing as how the last two grief experiences onstage have alienated then irritated the fuck out of me. Does make me wonder though if I would react with more emotion if I felt I understood it better. Of course I'd wonder that.
Essentially, I went from getting it to really really getting it to being utterly lost to getting it and then really really getting it again. How's that for a review in twenty-five words or less?
I wonder how well it'll do. I was quite startled at how empty the theatre was. I was in seat 9 and the entire row on my right was empty. But then I suppose people may prefer not to attend previews? I'm not sure. It's a very short run, closes 12 July.
We'll see, I suppose.
SMH interview.