Theatre Royal Hobart , Friday July 5th
Gai Anderson
I was looking forward to The Table of Knowledge at the Theatre
Royal on Friday night, as I have seen some really exciting examples of Verbatim Theatre previously interstate, but never before in
Hobart.
Verbatim Theatre is a documentary form
where the story onstage is constructed from the precise words spoken by the
people interviewed about the event in question . The
playwright or collaborators (in this case) then make choices about how to
structure that material in order to create meaning and get to the heart of the
drama.
Creating a piece of Verbatim Theatre is no
doubt a complex and challenging process, but unfortunately in this co
production, created and performed by the members
of Version 1.0 and Merrigong Theatre
Companies, it doesn’t
really work and the drama of the story is lost amidst an endless flood of words.
For me the
attraction of Verbatim Theatre as a form is that the content is real, and the
emotional journey of the characters is alive, full of passion and emotional truth .
Think Alana Valentines Run Rabbit Run ,
about the south Sydney Football Club
demise, for example. Here the words of the
both the big bosses and the Jo average supporter are all heard colloquially,
and structured together to subtly expose the drama underneath.
But in The Table of Knowledge, a story
of council corruption and a big nasty developer in Wollongong, the choice to focus on endless beaurocratic language and double
speak doesn’t allow the real characters to
appear, and so the show loses its passion from the start. Structuring the drama as a court-like question and answer
enquiry for much of the piece added another
layer to this disconnect.
The strong group of performers worked hard
and their punchy pacing did create a sense of momentum and physical energy,
particularly when cutting out of verbatim into interesting moments of
abstracted action. There were some great vignettes ,and at times the beautiful projections of animated
architect style drawings , sometimes combined with sea scapes
added an atmospheric layer. But for the most these interludes felt like bitzy
distractions with little connection to each other or the main drama, their
potential poetic possibilities underutilized, which was a shame.
Whilst there was an attempt to reconnect
with the colloquial
in the second half, where
the main victim’s real thoughts as a single mother
are finally revealed in the short lunch
room scene , its too little too late for me and I dont care about her predicament.
There were some great moments and sustained
performances in this production, but it perhaps suffered from its collaborative
nature and the lack of one clear voice.
