tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200658218238769688.post190185501125314616..comments2024-01-20T16:46:43.636+11:00Comments on Kevin Jackson's Theatre Diary: CagelingGeorge Khuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10220918958933755405noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200658218238769688.post-60686277553622130062010-07-24T01:44:26.310+10:002010-07-24T01:44:26.310+10:00Kevin, I am obviously considerably belated in my c...Kevin, I am obviously considerably belated in my comments in your piece on Cageling which I now saw over a month ago. The YouTube clip you have inserted at the top of your piece should give potential viewers/participants in the Rabble "experience" more than enough warning of what they are about to see. Obviously your interstate artist friends were also generally it seems not entirely prepared for it. I am sure that the Rabble experience will certainly divide audiences with likely the majority, other than the "beardy wierdies" so to speak, likely to be saying that it was a complete w*nk and WTF was all that about?! For the first 15 or 20 minutes I also thought I was being made to endure some kind of Melbourne High Art Experience which will exhaust/bore you but somehow make you culturally "stronger". What with five "women" all dressed in black, two of whom were blokes, one with a shaved head, the other with a black beard, just to start the alienation off. But gradually I was swept along by the sound and concept of the performance such that I finally decided that it was so deeply unusual that I would likely almost certainly go and see any future performances by the Rabble. If only because the experience that they bring you is so completely out there and different from anything else on the Sydney stage I have seen in ages. It certainly takes you back to the glory days of that rather flexible space on Cleveland Street called the Performance Space in which I saw so many interesting things in the 1980s and later. Unlike you I had absolutely no knowledge of the Lorca on which this is apparently based and that may/not have been a good thing it seems. The whole piece is almost so structured as to alienate the audience/viewers -- what with the perspex sheeting at the front of the cage effectively forming a semi-muffling sound block unless the actors were speaking into the microphone in the space. The sonic environment was a vital contributor to the "go with the flow" (or die trying) of the piece. Definitely High Concept Art which requires something of the viewer -- perhaps not entirely sure what! -- but completely novel enough in concept and execution to consider enduring it again next time they visit.Mr Minknoreply@blogger.com