| OT - Chronicles of the Old Testament |
| Written by Nic Velissaris |
| Sunday, 20 May 2007 06:46 |
 Knowledge
is a dangerous thing. If you have too little then you don’t fully
understand what’s happening around you, there’s no proper context, but
if you have too much then you’re likely to draw false conclusions or to
take things for granted. And it’s this knowledge that damns both
performer and viewer in Uncle Semolina and Friend’s production of OT –
Chronicles of the Old Testament.The performance takes places in a space filled with toys, costumes, microphones and sound equipment. There is cardboard on the walls and an old man (Peter Snow) sits in a chair sleeping, while four others (Amelia Best, Philip McInnes, Luke Ryan and Katherine Tonkin) try to wake him, and failing that, begin to tell each other stories from the Old Testament. We soon discover that the old man is Yahweh (God) and that the others come to represent either believers in Yahweh or those whose stories are told in the Old Testament. This simple conceit allows the performers to use the various “found” objects strewn across the stage to tell their story in the way that they choose. In the story of Abraham, Philip McInnes uses a punching glove to represent Yahweh, and as he punches the other performers, Abraham goes about fulfilling his destiny and the will of God. Job (Luke Ryan) is a stand-up comic recounting his story as a failed comedy routine, while the story of Jacob and Esau enacted by a Ken Doll and Willy (1984 Australian Mascot to the Los Angeles Olympics) and voiced by Amelia Best is re-imagined as a Play School-like fable. These stories continue to unfold, and at their best the objects the performers use, come to represent the nature of the characters within each story (e.g. Samson being represented as a T-Rex), but at their worst the objects become mere ciphers for performance ideas that don’t always translate (as in Joseph and Potiphar’s wife and that of the Levite and the concubine). OT – Chronicles of the Old Testament draws from many stories in the Old Testament, but unless you’re a Biblical scholar some of these stories won’t be familiar. This makes for an interesting experience but at times you wonder whether or not the performer’s interpretation best represents the story and the moral in question. What does become clear however is just how many authors are present within the Old Testament and it’s interesting to see how Yahweh oscillates from being a benign force to a benevolent dictator to an almost malevolent force. Although if you are in any way religious you may find Uncle Semolina and Friend’s production trivial and at worse blasphemous, though the company has deliberately chosen to present these stories in this way and (rightfully) makes no apologies for it. All of the performers give wonderful performances and are committed to ideas that they are working with it, if a little too zealously at times. However the show’s design made the audience feel too safe with the performers seeming too far away to be threatening. Though the set had a grungy lo-fi aesthetic (a staple of Uncle Semolina productions), it seemed oddly out of place within the tightly-manicured Beckett Theatre and it would have been wonderful to see this aesthetic take over the auditorium itself. The most annoying aspect was the music that squelched at you at a volume that was ear-splitting, although ironically this was not one of things that the Malthouse warned you about prior to the show (everything else was well and truly covered). The broader problem with OT – Chronicles of the Old Testament remains the burden of knowledge. The performers themselves clearly illustrate this in the ways that their characters suffer by having too little or too much knowledge. This burden is also a part of the viewer’s experience, as each viewer will come to this production with their own perceptions on how these stories should be told and will judge OT rightly or wrongly on this basis. This may mean that even for a company as accomplished as Uncle Semolina and Friend’s this subject may be (to mix a New Testament metaphor) too hard a cross to bear. Malthouse Theatre presents OT - Chronicles of the Old Testament Uncle Semolina and Friend’s Venue: Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse Season: Friday 4 May – Sunday 27 May 2007 Opening: Wednesday 9 May Performance Times: Tuesdays at 6.30pm, Wednesday – Saturdays at 7.30pm, Sundays at 5pm. Matinees – Friday 11 May, Thursday 17 & 24 May at 1.00pm; and Saturday 19 May at 2pm. Tickets: $15 - $37 + booking fee Bookings: Malthouse Box Office 9685 5111 | www.malthousetheatre.com.au
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OT: The Chronicles of the Old Testament in the CUB Malthouse - An Uncle Semolina Production - Until May 27
ODD TRASH Wolfgang Eubel While previous productions in the Malthouse - e.g. the most impressive, unforgettable "Odyssey" by Tom Wright - presented auxisis of the original text, OT goes the other direction employing meiosis. Due to the skills of the performers (Amelia Best, Phillip McInnes, Luke Ryan, Peter Snow and Katherine Tonkin) this version is at least not boring, which is about all to be said on the positive side. As an after play to the comedy festival or a product of a creative weekend workshop of a year 12 drama club it might pass, but the shallowness of the production soon makes amusement give way to disgust. Initial laughter will soon be stifled when realizing what is the ugly fundament of all this slapstick goat-acting: The term "Old Testament" already hints at the direction: the ?Old? one as opposed to the New one, the Better, the Superior. The permanent reference to the pre-christian revengeful, hating, morose, doting, bloody mountain dog, ceaselessly cruel and over-sexed is directly taken out of the 2000 year old propaganda stock of Christian anti-semitism. A bloody, not a laughing matter. Commentator has neither got a religious bone in his body nor - unfortunately - a Semitic drop of blood in this veins, but just believes in the universal laws of aesthetics and good manners: What is all this (hypocritical?) "respecting the traditional custodians of this land" about - pronounced time and again also in the Malthouse - when Uncle Sem finds it not advisable to respect the well known taboo of the traditional authors of the so called "Old Testament" but demonstratively drenching the text with the forbidden articulation of The Name? One wonders whether the factual mistakes like the wrong headline to the Shir Hashirim (what else but another porn) or Job as a pig farmer are deliberate jeers or just another symptom of the producers? incompetence. An annoying, dispensable production.
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May 21, 2007
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