Destinations - Belle Chen

 

Her Majesty’s Theatre, Thu 21 Oct, 2021.

We have entered a world where one person, with the aid of musical technology, can sound like an ensemble. A solo performer, playing the role of technician as much as musician, can manipulate loops and sampled sounds of multiple different instruments with buttons, sliders and dials to create layers of sound of almost infinite variety.

In this work from Belle Chen, what looks like a grand piano – and occasionally sounds like one – but also functions as a synthesiser, organ, bell ringer, Theremin, and bass guitar. Add a layer of various sounds from nature (birds, water) and you have a luscious soundscape with many guises – soft and delicate, loud and dramatic, ambient and meditative – that feels very much like an exploration into the inner workings of the artist’s consciousness as they lead us through an unchartered path.

Chen’s touch on the piano is gorgeous. Her classical background was often in evidence but when her left hand keeps playing a gentle rhythm on the keys while the right hand adjusts the volume or unleashes the next effect that’s another thing altogether. At times she leans over the keys to hammer or pluck the strings under the lid, or uses the African kalimba to generate melodies and percussive patterns.

Projections that are displayed from floor to ceiling canvases either side of the artist and offer clues to Chen’s Destinations. Many of the images are abstract and allow the audience to build their own connections between image and sound, but other images of the natural world are intriguing and sometimes sadly poignant. I’d suggest that the visual impact of the projections may have been more impressive towards the back of the theatre.

Destinations is a performance of many textures; on offer was a multi-modal experience of contemplation and reflection; a celebration of the creative powers of an accomplished artist. Or one could just as easily close your eyes and simply listen to a bold composition that dares to be exploratory and expose the vulnerability of the artist and the creative process.

(This review also published in The Clothesline.)

The Laramie Project - Review

The Laramie Project

Holden Street Theatres, Fri 22 Oct

Long term Adelaide residents will immediately recognise the eerie similarity between the Laramie Project and our own equivalent moment of shame when Adelaide University Law Lecturer George Duncan was drowned in the Torrens in 1972. In 1998 a young gay man was brutally bashed and left to die outside the town of Laramie, Wyoming. “The skies are so blue here.” “It’s such a great community.”  “People are happy to live here.” “Here we let people live and let live.” “We don’t raise our children like that around here.” The people of Laramie struggled to accept that one of their own could be responsible for this appalling crime.

The Laramie Project is based on material gathered by a New York based Theatre group from 200 interviews with the people of Laramie. It’s an ingenious way to gather the raw material for a play and it works brilliantly. Each member of the wonderful cast takes on multiple roles of the townspeople: friends, barman, parents, staff and students from the local university, church figures, police, and doctors in a fast-moving parade of opinions and facts that essentially casts the audience in the role of jurors.

The first act does an excellent job of helping us get to know the victim, Matthew Shepard, and gives the audience an opportunity to establish their own personal connection with him. We learn that Matthew was a good guy and was universally liked throughout the town. The second act deals with the crime itself and the town’s subsequent shock and disbelief. A media circus invades the town and contributes to a shift in attitude in some of the locals. Sympathy gives way to cynicism and confusion: so we’re the centre of mass media attention because Matthew was gay? Was his life more important than that of a local cop who died around the same time?

Laramie clerics start using Matthew’s story to instruct their parishes. The Catholic priest wonders if the town should be grateful to Matthew for helping the town realise that hate and intolerance exist in Laramie and need to be addressed. The Baptist Pastor, Fred Phelps, took to campaigning against homosexuality. Invoking the authority of the Bible he insinuates that Matthew’s gay lifestyle had brought this upon himself. The final act deals with the court hearings, the ever-increasing debate around hate crimes and the rise of the Angel Action protest movement to counter the rantings of the likes of Fred Phelps. The courtroom apology of one of the perpetrators to Matthew’s parents was really moving, and the electronic candlelight vigil was a nice touch.

This is really fine theatre. The first-hand accounts of the townspeople lend authenticity and the cast really do a great job at managing multiple roles and costume changes and for once the American accents ALL sounded authentic – to my Australian ear anyway! I found the tendency to perhaps eke out more emotion from the situation than was warranted in the way that American dramas are wont to do a little bothersome but that’s the way the play is written, and not the fault of the cast.

George Duncan’s death here in 1972 led to South Australia becoming the first state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality. Despite the worldwide media attention, sadly not one piece of legislation has ever been passed in Wyoming to address the kind of prejudicial hatred that resulted in the death of Matthew Shepard.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)