Intelligent, and as emotionally reserved as its protagonist

By Rebecca Waese

Long-time collaborators writer Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee deliver Big Heart which tells the story of the Mother (Andrea Swifte) a wealthy Australian woman who adopts babies from five different continents of the world. Big Heart examines the generosity and greed of a privileged woman with a big yet cool and conditional heart. Her adoption scheme reveals imperial undertones that says more about her own needs than those of her children.

Through a series of stylized, physical vignettes, we see the growth of the adoptees from wailing babies through the hectic blur of childhood and teenager drama into young adulthood.  While Mother does much right – encourages her children to learn about the culture from their countries of origin, Viet Nam, Sudan, Bosnia, Nicaragua and Indigenous Australia, and tells them each the details of their adoption story – love seems thin at home. The children are isolated within their family collective and dysfunction between siblings grows. Mother has a particular blind spot towards her Indigenous son, Charles, played effectively by Sermsah Bin Saad, and reveals some ignorant beliefs about his culture and nature. Mother’s direct addresses to the audience establish intimacy but no revelations; the character changes little over the decades and the audience is not permitted into the inner workings of her mind. I found the convention of adults playing children a little wearisome at times but as the children developed into young adults, their desires to belong and cope with the racism of upper-class white Australia are portrayed deftly and with feeling by Daniela Farinacci, Kasia Kaczmarek, Vuyo Loko and Elmira Jurik.

Set and costume designer, Marg Worwell, creates an opulent world and dresses the children in coordinated knits like a United Colours of Benetton ad. Lighting, by Rachel Burke, and sound design, by Darius Kedros, build different worlds, including Uluru at sunset as the characters visit the symbolic heart of Australia as multicultural tourists.

With allusions to the Stolen generation and the human trafficking side of global adoption, Big Heart was smart but guarded; it made me think more than it made me feel although it may strike closer to home for those more closely connected to adoption.

Big Heart
Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St. Kilda
Season: 7 – 24 September 2017 (preview: 6 September)
Information and Bookings: www.theatreworks.org.au

Image by Pier Carthew

Outstanding

By Leeor Adar

Nightdance is the most rhythmically breathtaking performance I’ve seen this year, and potentially of all time. It’s uniquely its own thing, and you simply cannot tear your eyes away from it.

The Arts House space transforms into a nightclub that would make the most progressive amongst dancers feel the need to move towards it. A floor stretched in midnight fabric, the bodies of three dancers begin their almost alien movements towards ecstasy.

Melanie Lane directs, and her fellow dancers co-create the work. Performers Lilian Steiner, Gregory Lorenzutti and Lane herself are astonishing professionals in their craft, and Nightdance is a testament to their talent and vigour as dancers. Inspired undoubtedly from her dual base of Berlin/Melbourne, Lane offers us something refreshing and exciting.

The stamina of the performers mirrors in a short space of time those clubbers who can go all night, never tired and driven by the energy of the space. Chris Clark’s sound design and composition of electronica are deep and intense – you can really feel it in your bones, urging you to move. It’s totally cathartic and I find myself envying the appearance of their total abandon and equally contained movements.

Spanning a multitude of genres, the piece as fluid as the dancing. Once we think Nightdance is just another erotic journey to club land, we jump into cabaret, and then we return to something more alien, darker, and frighteningly futuristic. It captures optimism and the downright weird. Inspired by the clubs of Berlin, Lane’s work really captures a scene that projects the future of connection through rhythm – I think about an almost Aldous-Huxley-inspired Brave New World, where the collective reaches heightened states of consciousness through rhythm and a primal urge towards something unspoken.

Nightdance thrills us a little, and arches our brows equally. The sudden appearance of a glittering conehead is totally offbeat, and makes the audience laugh. The piece moves through the ages of time and dance, and we find ourselves about 60 minutes later into the millennium which PVC dreams are made of.

This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Ben ‘Bosco’ Shaw’s lighting design might send some attendees into hiding, but those like myself who love to be immersed in the experience of club land will find it totally exhilarating. Lane and her team have successfully produced something hyper-modern and totally memorable.

Nightdance was peformed from 24 August – 27 August. Follow Lane’s latest here: https://melanielane.info/about and Arts House’s current season here: http://www.artshouse.com.au/whats-on/

Image by Bryony Jackson