This highly entertaining production represents the practical application of the studies of a group of post-graduate students at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. So often such endeavours are a tad precious and so avant-garde that even the creators are hard-pressed to define what they are all about. Not so with Lifted.
It’s a simple idea – what are the thoughts, activities and motivations of passengers in the lifts of a big multi-storied building such as Perth’s Bankwest Tower? Out of this premise, the three directors and their team of some half-dozen playwrights and over a dozen actors have created a one-hour entertainment that introduces us to a motley crew of lift users and some very strange goings-on. From a slimy pervert to a couple of ASIO operatives, the mixed and often mismatched characters get into inane conversations, crazy arguments and every known emotional state. They also try to cheat each other out of bunches of flowers. (Yes, OK, you’d have to see it to make sense of that statement!)
The six playwrights have individually come up with short sketches, which the directors have cleverly linked into a seamless opus that fittingly displays the talents of all concerned. The Castello tent is not the easiest of venues. It is tiny, and the performing area takes up nearly half the space, so the actors and the audience are right in each other’s faces. No fourth wall here.
The actors were very much a team and it would be unfair to name any one of them. All were outstanding, and can be proud of having participated in such a novel and exciting event. The characters they portrayed sprang into existence in that tiny tent. We felt as if we were in the lift with the characters, and as the blurb puts it, we are uplifted and inspired – to take the stairs!
By the end of the show, I felt I knew each one of those characters intimately. In fact, I now know more about slimy perverts that I really wanted to, and will be watching out in future for chaps with miniature cameras attached to their shoes.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Kitchen Sink Collective in association with Australian Institute of Theatresports presents
Lifted
Directors: Gabrielle Metcalf, Soseh Yekanians and Shane Pike
Castello, Perth Cultural Centre Northbridge
13 – 17 February
Fringe World 2013
www.fringeworld.com.au
25 January – 24 February
