tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/adelaide-festival-2017-35350/articles
Adelaide Festival 2017 – The Conversation
2017-03-06T03:37:17Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74058
2017-03-06T03:37:17Z
2017-03-06T03:37:17Z
Betroffenheit, when the mind and body get stuck
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159480/original/image-20170306-933-1qar105.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> Betroffenheit: an exploration of the suffering that is part of life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shane Reid</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens when words fail us, when we are in that depthless black void where action, non-action, and all forms of interpersonal communication fail us? The state where the loss is so unbearable, so unspeakable, that we are stopped dead in our tracks, as if locked in a grimy room from which we cannot escape?</p>
<p>In German, when we meet (“treffen”) but are stopped by what we meet, we are “betroffen,” falling into the state of <em>betroffenheit</em>. This place of pain and emptiness is familiar to those who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. </p>
<p>To go to such a place in and through live performance would seem to go well beyond what our ancient Greek philosopher friend Aristotle had in mind when he suggested in his famous essay, <a href="http://www.booktopia.com.au/poetics-aristotle/prod9780140446364.html?source=pla&gclid=COqYvKjCwNICFYFjvAodpfgNPg">The Poetics</a>, that tragedy’s chief function was to evoke emotions of pity and fear on the part of the audience, which would serve as a kind of social corrective through the collective experience of catharsis.</p>
<p>With their brilliant and searing work Betroffenheit, Canadian artists Crystal Pite and Jonathan Young take the audience on a journey that parallels that of Young himself when, in 2009, he lost his only daughter, along with two of her young cousins, in a tragic cabin fire. </p>
<p>Choreographer Pite has the ability to make dancers appear to fly in and through space as if their hands and feet were suction cups capable of attaching and releasing onto any surface entirely through their own internal impulses. Her choreography here is brilliantly paired with the work of writer/performer Young.</p>
<p>In this collaboration between his Electric Theatre Company and Kidd Pivot, a dance theatre company with which Pite has created a dynamic body of contemporary work, Young himself moves through the emotionally stunted landscape in which he found himself trapped following his daughter’s death. </p>
<p>The place of entrapment is given the physical form of a room with filthy institutional green walls. It is indeterminately inside and outside, backstage and frontstage, a place from which there appears to be no escape, only doors that fly open and throw dancers onto the stage as if shooting out from a volcano.</p>
<p>Initially, these dancerly intrusions into Young’s world are pleasant distractions from pain. One of the first is a staggeringly feathery and pink Carnival routine that seems to have wandered in from a favela in Rio de Janiero, slightly askew after dancers had consumed perhaps too many mojitos. </p>
<p>Another one, reminiscent of the Bob Fosse choreography in Cabaret with its so-called “jazz hands” reaching out to the audience, at first delights, but turns to menace, as the furious tap-dancing devolves into the marching steps of an army, one that invades not just countries, but bodies.</p>
<p>Throughout the first half of the two-hour long work, Young is onstage almost continually, remaining within the room even as he returns to his former job as the high-octane host of what appears to be a kind of deranged, coked-up, television variety show. Here he meets himself in the form and body of one of the dancers, variously transferring himself between bodies and into a tiny mini-me puppet manipulated by the dancers.</p>
<p>It is only at the start of the second act, following an interval, that the internal logic of the work becomes apparent. Now the horror of the event itself unfolds before us, not a literal fire, but dancers moving through the light and darkness of a closed room filled with thick smoke that appears to have the density of raindrops.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159481/original/image-20170306-905-ro43nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Escape is not possible for the spectators either.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shane Reid</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The genius and integrated artistic vision of the design and sound team create an environment for this distinctively non-cathartic place of entrapment. At this point, spectators are themselves trapped in this state of <em>betroffenheit</em> and escape is no longer possible.</p>
<p>One of the many successful features of this collaboration is the way in which movement and text work as co-activators. Instead of dancers speaking text — a trend which hopefully has peaked — all of the words seem to have been uttered by Young, referred to only as “Him” in the work. </p>
<p>“He” speaks to himself from outside of himself as a pre-recorded disembodied voice; speaks with his own voice, and ventriloquises his speech through the bodies of others. The collective impact of this is to bring us inside his head, one that is just as claustrophobic as the room in which he appears to be trapped.</p>
<p>As the walls fly out and at one point almost literally devour him, Young is left to argue with himself in a kind of Abbott and Costello routine. But rather than a comic foil of the other, it is as if each voice is answering back to itself.</p>
<p>One such exchange argues, “I’m not the victim, it’s the others, who need help.” The response, “It’s you who’s the disaster waiting to happen,” points to what we now know to be true: that those who perished, while they will not go away, cannot be helped, and that anyone trapped in the state of <em>betroffenheit</em> is dangerous to themselves and others.</p>
<p>There is of course no heroic ending to this work, no catharsis in the Aristotelian sense. There will be no walking out into the bright light of day. The mystery is perhaps why human beings gather to witness such pain and why a performer such as Young would endlessly relive it onstage. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s because we need to collectively experience the suffering that is part of life so that we can live with it, and continue to live the best possible lives we can, in spite of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Peterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Canadian artists Crystal Pite and Jonathan Young take the audience on a searing journey through the emotionally stunted landscape of a grieving father.
William Peterson, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74055
2017-03-06T00:19:12Z
2017-03-06T00:19:12Z
Barrie Kosky’s Saul: a masterpiece of operatic staging
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159458/original/image-20170305-29034-9jglwz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saul at the Adelaide Festival: the early scenes feel like hallucinatory dreamscapes unanchored in space.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Lewis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that Handel’s Saul would be the centrepiece of this year’s Adelaide Festival provoked a rush of anticipation – not only was opera returning to the festival, but Barrie Kosky was the director. </p>
<p>Kosky won the prestigious Opernwelt 2016 Opera Director of the Year award and is in high demand in Europe and the US, but his operatic work has not been seen in Australia for years. Naturally, tickets sold out early for this rare opportunity to see one of the world’s great opera directors in his home country.</p>
<p>That anticipation was more than justified. Saul has a director who transforms an intelligent engagement with the score into gripping drama; a design and lighting team (Katrin Lea Tag and Joachim Klein) whose stage pictures – including a stunning baroque-like Still Life with Israelites and Severed Head – will remain in the memory, and a central performance of searing physical and emotional intensity from Christopher Purves in the title role. Add to this the sensitively detailed playing of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Erin Helyard and the result is a masterpiece of operatic staging.</p>
<p>We open with a dimly lit stage, empty apart from a severed head, oversized but otherwise realistic. The shepherd boy David (counter-tenor Christopher Lowrey in marvellous voice) has just killed the giant Goliath. Saul then charts the emotional upheavals that occur when King Saul brings David into the bosom of his family and his subsequent descent into madness once his admiration for David turns to envy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159456/original/image-20170305-29032-d2w078.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Bevan as Merab (left), Adrian Strooper (Jonathan) and that severed head.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Lewis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Family relationships become complex when two of Saul’s children – his younger daughter Michal and his son Jonathan - fall in love with David. </p>
<p>While Taryn Fiebig’s Michal effervesces, Jonathan and David’s relationship is handled with restraint. The bible tells us (1 Samuel 20.41) that they kissed, and Kosky does not push the physical expression of their love beyond this.</p>
<p>Instead, the libretto’s declarations of love speak for themselves. Adrian Strooper gives a delicately nuanced portrait of Jonathan’s inner conflict when faced with incompatible loyalties to Saul and to David. His efforts at self-control in gestures and looks are an effective contrast to Saul’s explosive inability to control his own mental turmoil.</p>
<p>Saul, oblivious to his children’s feelings, offers David his older daughter, Merab. Merab’s haughty disdain for David’s lowly birth and her scorn for her brother’s devotion to a man so far beneath him (“in rank a prince, in mind a slave”) showcase Mary Bevan’s vocal fireworks, while later more contemplative and mournful arias display her acting range. </p>
<h2>Not just a tale of love and envy</h2>
<p>But Saul isn’t just a story of love and envy. It’s also a ghost story, as Saul has the Witch of Endor raise the spirit of the prophet Samuel, a genuinely disturbing scene. While Saul seeks the advice of Samuel, his former mentor, on how to win in battle, the ghost instead predicts Saul’s downfall. </p>
<p>With its themes of family dysfunction, love, death, madness and the supernatural, this Old Testament story seems ready-made for opera. But Saul wasn’t originally an opera at all – it was written as an oratorio, to be sung in concert rather than staged. Freed from baroque opera conventions, Saul’s arias are shorter and more varied than audiences familiar with Handel’s operas might expect.</p>
<p>Kosky puts this variety to brilliant effect. In his stagings of Saul’s musical numbers, the reactions of non-singing characters bear as much dramatic weight as the singers’ emotions. Musical solos for the concert hall thus become beautifully directed and acted performance duets, trios or quartets on stage, while choral numbers become complex character studies for a singing chorus and silent principals.</p>
<p>This approach brings to vivid life apparently insignificant corners of a score that’s often severely cut in concert. Crucially, Klein’s sensitive lighting ensures these reactions form a counterpoint to the singing, deepening its impact rather than stealing its focus. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159453/original/image-20170305-29017-156v59r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: Taryn Fiebig, Christopher Lowrey, Adrian Strooper and Christopher Purves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Lewis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unable to rely on visual scene-setting for his take on Old Testament history, Handel created a weirdly specific sound-world, augmenting his usual orchestra with the outdated (trombones, then so old-fashioned that they’d died out in London and players had to be hired in), the new-fangled (a sort of keyed glockenspiel, specially commissioned for Saul), the biblically symbolic (an extended harp solo) and the ostentatiously British (kettledrums famously borrowed from the Tower of London).</p>
<p>Kosky and team complement this eclectic approach to world-building in their visuals, mixing Georgian and modern high fashion in costumes, wigs and make-up, and combining graceful 18th-century dance forms with playful 21st-century angularity in Otto Pichler’s choreography. </p>
<p>The early scenes feel like hallucinatory dreamscapes unanchored in space. Under Klein’s lighting, the riot of texture and colour in costume and stage furniture stands out in hyper-focused detail against the darkness of the surrounding space. After a magical candlelit post-interval opening, the tragedy unfolds in bleak, barren greyness.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159463/original/image-20170306-29046-69luo3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christopher Purves as Saul.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Lewis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kosky turns Handel’s static oratorio into a tightly effective stage drama by creating a series of parallels, doublings and mergings, a technique that makes the Witch of Endor scene genuinely uncanny. Here Saul appears to give birth to his elderly hermaphrodite double (Kanen Breen). The ghost of Samuel then speaks through Saul’s body, Purves differentiating between Saul’s and Samuel’s voices through shifts in register, while the Witch mouths the same words.</p>
<p>The elderly Witch suckling the old man who just gave birth to her, a deeply uncomfortable scene of the maternal gone awry, is just one of a series of scenes of cradlings in the opera, which structure the drama and deliver powerful emotional payoffs. </p>
<p>Kosky further tightens the drama by appearing to combine three small roles into one fool-like figure, reinforcing the libretto’s King Lear resonances. With stifling ruff, freakishly long purple fingernails and swirling hand gestures, Stuart Jackson’s sinister presence is made even more grotesque by the incongruous precision and beauty of his singing.</p>
<p>The State Opera of South Australia’s chorus is a triple-threat delight. Here Kosky’s years of directing chorus-heavy operettas and musicals in Berlin pay off, his skills in extracting disciplined, high-energy group performances resulting in complex moving stage pictures. </p>
<p>Singing Handel’s glorious, complex set pieces while moving around energetically isn’t easy – Handel wrote for a static choir singing from sheet music. But despite the physical activity, ensemble diction remained super-crisp, matching the crispness of their dance gestures. Chorus Master Brett Weymark deserves praise.</p>
<p>By opening their first Adelaide Festival with such an outstanding production, Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy have set an excitingly high bar for future ones.</p>
<p><em>Saul will be performed again on <a href="http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2017/saul">March 7 and 9</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Severn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With its themes of family dysfunction, love, death, madness and the supernatural, this Old Testament story is ready-made for opera.
John Severn, Macquarie University Research Fellow, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/71979
2017-01-27T03:31:42Z
2017-01-27T03:31:42Z
Sex, death and del kathryn barton
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154509/original/image-20170127-30394-s0hfiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cate Blanchett disappears into her role as the Mother in RED: sweating and furious with the fundamental compulsion to mate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© del kathryn barton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A two-time Archibald prizewinner, del kathryn barton continues her fascination with the complex psychology of relationships, sex and fertility in her work RED (now at the <a href="http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/">Art Gallery of South Australia</a>). This transition into film is as energetic, tumultuous, detailed and beautifully unsettling as her figurative paintings. Perhaps more so.</p>
<p>RED was three years in the making and it’s hard not to marvel at the coincidence of its premiere this week, when female power and outrage has <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-marching-worldwide-revive-a-long-sought-dream-global-feminism-71777">reverberated across the world</a>. RED is a slick and strident feminist work. Although it was not made with deliberate political intent, it has the potential to resonate loud and unapologetic, like a lightening rod for our times.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BLTmuK_5mv0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>RED celebrates female creative energy, reaching back to the primordial, evolutionary origins of procreation. Starting out as a modest short piece, it was developed with additional support from the <a href="http://www.aftrs.edu.au">Australian Film, Television and Radio School</a> and the Art Gallery of South Australia. barton says that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>RED has evolved into what I now consider to be an uncompromising celebration of female power. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>barton draws on the natural sciences to advance her exploration of the complex psychology of relationships. With RED, she examines mating rituals and the imperative to reproduce as evidenced in redback spiders (<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-housemates-the-australian-redback-spider-55570">Latrodectus hasselti</a></em>). </p>
<p>Shiver-inducing close ups of this common and poisonous Australian creature are interspersed with human characterisations that produce shudders of a deeper variety. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154504/original/image-20170127-30416-r7q42j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RED is peppered with shiver-inducing shots of redback spiders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© del kathryn barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>RED is produced and crewed by some of the leaders in <a href="http://www.aquariusfilms.com.au/red/">Australian film and theatre</a>. Cate Blanchett stars as the protagonist, The Mother. </p>
<p>Choosing to structure the sequence as a set of narrative beats, rather than a traditional script, barton overlays the visuals with a tense and thumping soundtrack. These deep beats pulse through the sequence of jump cuts from intensive macro shots of spiders to the Mother and other human characterisations.</p>
<p>The Mother is at first still and brooding, crouched on a board table floating in a heaving sea, her features stark but for a totemic gash of red lipstick. She wears a classic tuxedo suit, contained and androgynous. And that’s when you notice the scissors. </p>
<p>Those bass beats drum out her fever as she slashes, stabs and sheers through the suit, tearing the fabric from her legs, crotch and torso to reveal a very taut female form beneath, encased in nets. She keeps her patent red shoes on. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154508/original/image-20170127-30404-17hr7qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cate Blanchett is a furious force.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© del kathryn barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here, as in all her roles, Blanchett totally disappears into her character of the untamed Mother in heat; contorted, sweating and furious with the fundamental compulsion to mate. Pulsing with longing and demand, she signals to her mate with a commanding howl that would have blown Whitman’s “<a href="http://digitalis.nwp.org/collection/learning-sound-one%E2%80%99s-barbaric-yawp">barbaric yawp</a>” out of the water. She is unleashed.</p>
<p>Interspersed between shots of the actors are close ups of redback spiders in the act. The species is known for <a href="https://www.aepma.com.au/PestDetail/64/Redback%20Spider">sexual cannibalism</a>. In most cases, the female begins to eat her mate during or just after copulation. At some point in their evolution, this strategy was found to improve the chances of fertilisation and ensure the survival of the mother and offspring. </p>
<p>The climax is the pinnacle of the male’s existence. If he is selected by the female, he has one shot and that’s it. He has fulfilled his end of the deal and has no future role in parenting. Instead, he volunteers himself as a resource to be consumed by the female for the benefit of the next generation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154507/original/image-20170127-30407-1fbhtml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cate Blanchett and Alex Russell as the Mother and Father.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© del kathryn barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>barton admits that it is a challenge not to anthropomorphise the behaviours of the spiders. In nature and throughout evolutionary history, these actions are a way of life, the unconscious rationale as to why these creatures exist in those forms and behave as they do. Survival of the fittest is not about strength to hunt and feed; it is about fitness to reproduce and <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Sexual_Selection.html">pass on genes</a> .</p>
<p>barton characterises the behaviour and physical interactions of the Mother and Father with brutal force. However, the liaison is not totally devoid of tenderness. There is a sense of recognition for the Father’s willing sacrifice, for the brutality of the deal he’s consummated, in the Mother’s longing to prolong not just the act itself but their physical intimacy. She drinks him in. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154505/original/image-20170127-30413-5j3act.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cate Blanchett and Alex Russell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© del kathryn barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may be some time before she requires another mate: the female redback can store sperm for up to two years, enabling her dead partner to sire more than one litter of spiderlings to the exclusion of other males. </p>
<p>Following the violence of intercourse, barton leads us through the conception and birth of the next generation. The sequence of fertilisation, gestation and awareness is comprised of animated and live shots and presents life as a journey, a road trip to the foot of the Mother. </p>
<p>The Mother guides her Daughter (Arella Plater) through the growing awareness of her power, the danger and beauty of her existence, to a point of self-actualisation. She grapples with the conflict between the longing for her father and her own growing hunger. Her innocent cry for “Daddy?” is laden with both sadness and fear – he is a part of her yet she would not exist without his destruction. So the cycle continues.</p>
<p>We can read this work from a number of viewpoints; both Freudian and feminist scholars will have a field day. To discuss the intensity of such a chaotic and powerful work, born from a strong feminine sensibility, is a challenge. </p>
<p>Blanchett’s recent work <em><a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/235.2013/">Manifesto</a></em> (2015-2015) is an interesting contrast to RED: one intellectual and scholarly in its content, the other wild, unscripted and unbound. </p>
<p>Female creative power is an undeniable and vital force of nature. As such it is usually misunderstood, traditionally feared and difficult to restrain. Like barton’s RED, however, it demands respect and deserves to be celebrated. </p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="visit%20artgallery.sa.gov.au">RED</a> runs from Thursday 26 January to Sunday 30 April at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Admission is free. del kathryn barton will be in conversation with Art Gallery Director, Nick Mitzevich on Friday 3 March at 6pm.</em> </p>
<p><em>Presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors and supported by Adelaide Festival.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather L. Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cate Blanchett howls and contorts in RED, del kathryn barton’s ferocious exploration of female power.
Heather L. Robinson, Research Associate & PhD Candidate, School of Humanities and Creative Arts, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.