Jan 20 2010
Fringe Fest! Oh… deer!
At one point in Destination Trafik: Deer, the performance onstage consisted of a woman lip-synching to a male vocal `60s Italian song while shooting off with a toy pistol; another woman ferociously gnawing on her leg, which had popcorn on it; and a man wearing a kind of head mask in the shape of a deer… crocheting.
That description alone should give you an idea of what to expect from this dance-theatre piece by the Croatian group Trafik.
It’s the most “fringe” show I’ve watched so far in this festival, and looking around at fellow audience members at tonight’s performance, there were two distinct reactions.
There were those who were completely stone-faced from start to finish, and those who were constantly giggling and laughing. Needless to say, I belonged to the latter camp.
The previous show M.E., with its supposed Dadaist/Surrealist roots, have nothing on this piece which had wallpaper props “coming to life” in the form of two dancers performing slow, mesmerising poses like graceful chameleons; some very impassioned lip-synching (including the rather amusing image of a Caucasian woman acting out Cuba Gooding Jr.’s ecstatic acceptance speech for his 1996 Oscar win for Jerry Maguire); and a chair and a heater moving by themselves.
Incidentally, said heater was supposed to be the stand-in for an absentee member.
During the post-show talk, the performers said the different segments were individually conceived. The piece itself was constructed as a kind of montage, and according to Trafik was inspired by the films of Ed Wood, the photographs of Diane Arbus and a defunct boat-cum-striptease joint in Croatia that was later taken down, its metal parts turned into cannons for the Croatian civil war.
While you can definitely dig into the nitty-gritty aspects of the piece as a deconstructed form of theatrical spectacle and appropriation as performance, the visual absurdity alone should be reason enough to catch this tomorrow night.
If you want something that’s fringe-y even within the Fringe Fest’s lineup, I highly recommend this piece.
But at the same time, don’t go blaming me if your sense of humour gets stuck in… Trafik. (Cymbal crash!)
Destination Trafik: Deer’s last show is tonight (Jan 20), 8pm, at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Tickets at $27 from Sistic.
