Single Asian Female

I started following Michele Law on Twitter a few weeks ago so I'm quite looking forward to tonight. Ran into Sally again. She's done a film about a boy who gets his period. Must watch it. 

Into the show! 

The set looks like all the bedrooms of my high school friends uptop and like the local Chinese restaurant down stairs. Right down to the dark 'bamboo' Tiffany chairs and red table cloths. 

Smashing dialogue. We open with Pearl singing I WILL SURVIVE on top of a table celebrating her divorce. Single in neon lights up. She's ambitious and ready to start a new life. We meet her younger daughter Mai who is struggling with being not Aussie enough along with all the other teen issues. (And her brilliant friend Katie.) Asian in neon lights up. Finally we meet Zoe an aspiring professional violinist late for an audition because of a recent tinder date. Dealing with a bitch who also wants the gig. Female in neon lights.  Act 1 unravels Pearl has a secret she is trying to tell her girls but they are so wrapt up in their own troubles she can't get it out. But she gives and gives to them. Closing the restaurant and clearing it out but still offering to throw an after formal party for Mai (though after meeting the awful Lana we all know how that will turn out). Then a toilet rises out of up stage with Zoe and a pile of tests in get hand, pregnant. Simultaneously the phone rings and she's offered the orchestra spot she needs. Three women highlighted alone. Family. 

Act two:

Well you know it's great when the audience aren't ready to give up clapping so they have to turn the lights up to get us to leave! 

Heartbreaking secret is that she's being deported thanks to her husband shady business dealings in her name. Her abusive ex husband who raped her and hurt her and made her feel less than the amazing woman she is. 

Super love Zoe who has panick attacks and copes with them just normal and noone freaks out. They  just do the things she needs. Zoe's boyfriend is so hot. And so so amazingly great at being a normal human. 

This play was  a scream out loud funny, with sobs mixed in once you loved them so much you wish never to be parted from the Wong's. I'm in Chains indeed. 

My name is Jimini

The black blank stage is bathed in black light and rythim as two Torres Straight Islanders begin their dance. The movement Hypnotic and yet simple and perfectly timed. We will meet these two later as Jimi introduces his family by drawing in sound and stunning visuals his family tree as a constellation, his brothers part of the Aunty and  uncles that are so important to griwing children up and imparting a culture that is language that is stories and music and dance. A culture that is not fully captured in any book but with technology can be shared. The show is Artful and beautiful. The two diaramoas create a sense of place and platform for story telling. The dark horror of the little girl taken by a monster, eyes gouged out, smashed and rubbed raw on a rock. The monster prevailing over the village is horrifying even though you can see the cardboard people in the diarama and the family moving the camera around. Stories of family, of culture. The impromptu tests on the knowledge we have been gaining. The invitation to join them in preserving and growing the nation and culture and knowledge. This acceptance that the old white man from Cambridge did his best and didn’t mean to harm them but was never the right tool for holding onto culture. The sharp let down as we discover that his grandfather was denied the ‘artifacts’ of his people even though he did what was wanted. Jimi welcomes us and we feel welcomed. Jimi doesn’t upbraid us but shares and we learn and in so doing spread the fire, feeding and watch it grow. 

The book! Back projection of simple filmed sequences onto gorgeously detailed drawings. The story of the boy and the crocodile. A story of pride.  

I could feel the frustration pour from Jimi when his son answered the phone. I’ve felt that. You are sharing something important but they can’t/won’t see or hear it because they are lost in their own place. Their own world. Contrived and rehearsed near to death the show still manages to feel nearly real, nearly right now but misses I think because they are not actors and so cannot be in the moment. It’s a strength in this show for sharing what they do but as I does sometimes worth Treehouse it also lets it down. It’s the only thing that does.