Abandon, Opera Queensland & Dancenorth photo Bottlebrush Studios |
Abandon, though it courts an internal, emotional storm in its absence of narrative structure, has a finely honed aesthetic nonetheless. Dancenorth artistic director Raewyn Hill's trademark richness-by-understatement was further enhanced by the deceptive plainness of the box-walled set, papered floor and restrained lighting—all orderly at the outset. The exquisite Baroque symmetry of the score, comprising arias by George Frideric Händel, provided an ordered aural underpinning to the movement, even as it lifted and dropped the audience's collective heart rate. Fleeting references to mythical scenes during Abandon were distilled from the characters of the operas Tolomeo, Alcina, Orlando and Hercules and the cantata Acis, Galatea e Polifemo.
Abandon, Opera Queensland & Dancenorth photo Bottlebrush Studios |
The musicians also moved around the set, becoming involved in the action at various points, most notably when accordionist James Crabb faced off, stamping counter rhythms while continuously playing, against Bradley Chatfield's belligerent pugilist. Chatfield's angry, feisty boxer, trying to corrall the rest of the cast, provided a comic contrast to Alice Hinde's earlier heartrending solo; France Herve's remarkable partnering with her own cascade of hair, as if it were another dancer; Erynne Mulholland's fearful and imperious ten foot tall harpy; and Andrew Searle forcing the female cast into gaps which appeared in the box walls, as though playing a human Tetrus game.
Abandon, Opera Queensland & Dancenorth photo Bottlebrush Studios |
The lighting supported the changing sense of internal and external space perfectly, sometimes replicating the dramatic chiaroscuro of a Flemish painting in rare moments of relative physical and musical repose.
A journey sometimes defies explication, cannot always be recounted sequentially or logically, especially when much of it involves ephemeral sensations rapidly displacing one another, and intense connections made and lost. As if to emphasise this, in the final moments the walls are dismantled and rebuilt downstage to separate cast from audience, and we are abandoned to make of it what we will.
Abandon will be performed at the Brisbane Powerhouse, 21-23 February, 2014
Opera Queensland & Dancenorth, Abandon, co creators James Crabb, Raewyn Hill, Lindy Hume, music director James Crab, design Bruce McKinven, lighting Bosco Shaw, costumes Alistair Trung, School of Arts Theatre, Townsville, 24 July-1 Aug
RealTime issue #117 Oct-Nov 2013 pg. web
© Bernadette Ashley; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]