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Left - Katherine Tonkin and Brian Lipson. Cover - Luke Mullins and Brian Lipson. Photos - Paul Dunn

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Spring seems to not yet have sprung in Melbourne – at least, not enough to leave the scarf at home – but the extended period of light in the evenings provides all the more incentive to make ones way into the city to catch a show or two at this year’s Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Seeing through its first Melbourne Festival, and providing another first-rate venue for a couple of the festival shows, is the new MTC Theatre. Its smaller theatre, the Lawler Studio, is currently showing the premiere of Lally Katz’s Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, three works put together by Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre. The star of the work is a walking, talking, human-sized teddy bear. But, like the bear, the relationships and the realities of the characters in this production are not what they seem. Before long it becomes clear that for these characters there is little sign of comfort or good times to come.

The Apocalypse Bear himself, played brilliantly by co-director Brian Lipson, has featured in several of Katz’s works in recent years, both in short films and plays. In an interview with The Australian’s Alison Croggon late last month, Katz explains that she has been “hanging out with the Apocalypse Bear for about three years” in which time the Bear has travelled on trams with her, sat next to her on benches and waited for her to come home from work.

At the beginning of these works, the Bear seems to embody this imaginary friend persona. He is a rather cheeky, omniscient advisor and listener, and on the surface, an apparent protector of the lost souls whom he visits. In the first work, The Fag From Zagreb, spoilt schoolboy Jeremy (played by co-director Luke Mullins) arrives home from school to be greeted by the Bear. He seems not to think this overly unusual and the two rather casually discuss among other things, what the Bear should prepare him for his afternoon snack. In Back To The Cafeteria the Bear sits with loner Sonya (Katherine Tonkin) in, of course, the school cafeteria. They swap lunches and mull over the importance of popularity and being “good looking” at school.

Although the lives of the characters that the Bear visit are instantly recognisable, they reveal themselves to be darker than we might think. As time goes on these characters find it more and more difficult to connect with each other on anything resembling an intimate level, be it physically or emotionally, and this manifests, via prompting from the Bear, in a visiting of that which normally goes unspoken and unresolved in everyday suburban and domestic life. Amongst them is the prospect of murder, rape, and paedophilia and finally in At Last, a visit to the mysterious and barren woods which the characters fear most. Unlike the first two works, At Last resembles not the dream of a child, but rather the nightmare of an adult. The adults in this work have got to the point where they are happy to talk but they don’t have anything to say.

The standout performance is that of Lipson but then the Bear is by far the most interesting character. Lipson’s deep, British voice gives the Bear that extra bit of whimsy and his dexterity in his bear suit is quite something. Tonkin shows versatility and a sensibility in both her roles but unfortunately Mullins presents a rather irritating character in Jeremy, which is no less irritating in its adult form.

A great deal of the meaning and humour in this work comes from the dialogue and mannerisms of the Bear and designer Mel Page has very cleverly kept the set to a minimum in all three works so the focus can remain on the performers. In the first two works, the scene is set largely by the projection of images, designed by Martyn Coutts. First is Jeremy’s kitchen, then the cafeteria. Jethro Woodward’s sound is an effective combination of the quirky and the dramatic and, as with Richard Vabre’s lighting, it is at its best in At Last when the set is wheeled away and the space is transformed from the bedroom into that of the sparse and threatening woods.

The Apocalypse Bear Trilogy has some wickedly funny moments and is original in its very design and concept. If anything lets it down slightly it is the final work, which could be cut by at least half. It also hints at being directly linked to the other two works but this feels rather strained. That said, there is much in this work – time, place, reality and dream – that escape definition and on the whole it makes this production all the more intriguing. Most ponderable is what the Bear actually represents. In the final scenes in the bedroom and then the woods, the characters are at their darkest and yet the Bear is present only for a moment. It seems then, rather frighteningly, that the characters have found their own way into the depths of the woods and the doom that seems to follow the Bear may in fact be a doom that the characters have brought upon themselves.


Melbourne Theatre Company in association with the Melbourne International Arts Festival presents
Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company
Apocalypse Bear Trilogy
by Lally Katz

Directors Luke Mullins & Brian Lipson

Venue: MTC Theatre, Lawler Studio
Dates: 8 Oct to 24 Oct 2009
Opening Night: Friday 9 October at 7.30pm
Tickets: $30 - $35 (Under 30’s $20)
Bookings: MTC Theatre Box Office 03 8688 0800 | mtc.com.au