Love and Information @ Subiaco Arts Centre
Thursday, July 18, 2019
The minimalist, naturalistic form of Hand in Hand’s latest offering was an excellent, well thought out rendering of Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information. Inspired by Sydney Theatre Company’s production four years ago, director Claire Mosel-Crossley decided it was time to produce her own adaptation of the piece.
Caryl Churchill’s innovative script leaves generous space for creative teams to develop their own interpretation. Churchill gives little stage direction to influence the action, no allocated characters or genders, and very little punctuation. In a sense, the script acts as a road map, allowing the driver to take any given route towards the destination. Mosel-Crossley drove the audience to a place of thoughtful consideration on the impact of how we communicate, particularly, our use of technology to communicate. Unfortunately, we experienced the downside of “smart” technology when from the side of stage one of the actor’s phones remarked, “Your destination is on the left.” The actors didn’t appear to be distracted by the slight humour of the incident.
The Subiaco Arts Centre studio space was the perfect blank canvas for the bare-bones production. Minimalist sets, props and costumes, and music and lighting transitions supported the action well in this play needing no embellishment. The black-outs between scenes were fast and flawless. Each of the eight actors devised over 100 characters with strength and warmth. The actors had such great chemistry in their interaction with one another, despite having to create a new character every time they stepped on stage. It was clear they had put great effort into crafting every personality and each vignette was well-rehearsed and perfected. The deliberate use of pause and silence were well utilised, as was the use of swift line delivery. Caitlin Wainwright crafted an impressive amount of choreography – a mix of urban dance and contemporary ballet, which felt consistent with the theme of modern communication. Cast member Nashy M showed versatility in performing the dance transitions as well as acting in the play.
While each actor did a superb job coming up with multiple personas, there were moments where some seemed to lack a full commitment to their roles. The great challenge of delivering this particular work is authentically connecting with every character and relationship enabling the audience to authentically connect as well.
Hand and Hand have delivered a high-quality performance of Love and Information. Highly recommended for a great night out.
JEMMA KUCHEL
