When I take off my skin... by Robyn Orlin
by Fiona Manicom
Robyn Orlin's latest production, ... when I take off my skin and touch the sky with my nose, only then can I see tiny voices amuse themselves... is easy to muse over yet impossible to define. Whilst trying to bring personal ideas that lie deep under the surface to light, Orlin deliberately makes herself, the audience and the cast vulnerable.
Trained in the visual arts, Orlin is internationally renowned for her deconstruction of contemporary dance. She describes her latest production as 'A humorous and ironical look at how Africa makes sense of first world high art/opera as seen by an African (even though she is white), or unpacking Europe, or, understanding Africa, or, things changing, or being critical of the first world by underpinning its values ...'
From the start, we are forced to suspend any ideas of what a theatrical piece featuring opera is supposed to be. In this work, audience participation is paramount to the surfacing of ideas. The figures on the bare shadowy stage are physically motionless, just moving their lips and mouths. Screens above the stage show close up images and sounds of their burping, blubbering and lip and mouth exercises. This continuous tracking and surveillance of intimacy follows the cast and the audience's reaction throughout the work.
The performance opens with a certain sense of order as the African diva, Ann Masina, begins singing extracts from well known European operas. We, the audience, are distracted from the singing, however, by the projected web cam images and sounds of suckling and nibbling from Toni Morkel and Melissa Madden Gray, flanking Masina, as they gnaw at whole loaves of white bread in what seems to be a sort of birthing metamorphosis. These figures move closer to Masina and childishly attempt to stack a tower of loaves on her head. The loaves crash to the floor and in the erupting chaos we are offered profuse excuses and apologies.
Our space is invaded as the existing cast seemingly force a man who we initially believe to be 'one of us' to become part of the performance. He is stripped and then dressed in one of the bizarre decapitated toy animal costumes that the rest of the cast wear.
We are then requested to look amongst ourselves for a suitable replacement for a member of the performance cast who apparently resigned from the production. An eager volunteer sprints onto the stage and in an excitedly childlike manner, pleads to be chosen for the part. We are left with mixed feelings of amusement and relief. The relief is, however, short-lived as, interspersed with bursts of opera and comically erotic drama, a third person is dragged from his seat. On this occasion, the man is not a member of the cast. The 'victim' is manipulated like a puppet by the voluptuous Masina before being allowed to return to his seat.
After more reassurances, the cast sprints offstage and out into the public space of the restaurant and bar where, to the bewilderment of the patrons, they strip another seemingly innocent victim and recruit him as the sixth member of the cast. These scenes are relayed to us in the auditorium by the web cam projections.
The deliberately irreverent attitude of the cast who shout out orders to Thabo (Pule), the stage manager, stop for smoke breaks, entertain themselves with gargling while observing the web cam projected images of their throats, and fling chunks of torn bread around, is outrageously apparent, but also discomforting. Nothing is treated as precious or important. One is forced to make sense of this apparent chaos, and to decide whether this is indeed visual culture on display or traditional performing arts.
I found the work loaded with subliminally suggestive ideas, from the (mis)representation of Africa in the Western Imagination as exotic, erotic and emotionally immature, to the resourcefulness of African imagination as it creates its own realities out of the confusions of first world genres such as opera. The cast at one point directly confronts the audiences with chants of 'Responde, responde, responde...'; Orlin's work demands a response. This, for me, sums up its tone and sense of conviction.
Opened: April 22.
Closed: May 1.
The Market Theatre
Jeppe Street, Newtown
Tel: (011) 832 1641
Email: lusanda@markettheatre.co.za
