Happiness: how do you define it, and how do different people respond to it in varying degrees? How is it achieved? These are big questions and Shaun Parker perhaps has a few answers, based rather loosely on the ‘Enneagram’, Claudio Naranjo’s personality classification system which identifies nine types of people: the Perfectionist, the Giver, the Performer, the Tragic Romantic, the Observer, the Devil’s Advocate, the Optimist, the Boss, and the Mediator.
Originally commissioned by the Australian Major Festivals Initiative, Parker’s Happy as Larry has toured to multiple festivals, and also visited 11 cities across France and the UK (including a sold out season on London’s West End) since its Sydney Festival debut in 2010.
A sense of darkness lurks around the edges of this seemingly joyous work, which in this 2013 version begins with dancer Timothy Ohl with his back to us, drawing – on one part of a black wall stretching across the stage – a symmetrical square of stick figures, above which he then writes ‘You’ and an arrow pointing down, then a lone figure, and ‘Me’. An arc of balloons suddenly rises behind the wall, contrasting joyfully with the wall’s sombre darkness.
Ohl presses a chalk switch he has drawn and voila! the stage lights come up and the rest of the cast enter. He presses another chalk switch and Nick Wales and Bree van Reyk’s soundtrack begins. They have developed a continuously morphing electronic score which features strong use of strings, quite lyrical in parts, as well as electronic booms, beeps and whistles, and finally a most exciting ‘beat’ number.
Choreographically, Happy as Larry combines a free-flowing mix of classical ballet (its base), ordinary everyday movements, parkour, jazz, roller-skating, breakdancing, hip hop, acrobatics and highly physical contemporary dance which at times seems actually quite dangerous. The ensemble of dancers are very talented and also a diverse range of race, gender and body types, combining superb dancing and theatrical ability with a common joyous exuberance.
The co-operative feats of counter point, balance, strength and dramatic interaction are agilely performed and most impressive. Jana Castillo as ‘The Performer’, after some breezy and scintillating demonstrations of ballet technique, suddenly finds her legs crumple beneath her; a similar event occurs to the athletic Joshua Thomson, who collapses after entertaining his colleagues (and the audience) with spectacular handstands, backflips, balances and turns. Roller-skater Lewis Rankin has some somewhat alarming crashes to the floor, but later a delighted high speed circling of the stage, and some good fun on pointe.
Parker’s choreography includes a rich variety of styles, and the dancers respond with their acute rhythmic and dramatic sense, moving fluidly and easily through the work. There’s tenderness, too – in particular in a sequence where Ohl traces on the wall around the arms, head and body of Sophia Ndaba with his chalk as she entwines herself around him. And the male duets are sensational.
Lyrical exuberance, of which there’s plenty, is contrasted with subtle melancholy. For example a girl dances happily while Ohl completes a big gold star on the wall. Thrilled, she jumps up and down against it, but then on turning discovers she has smudged it all with her hair.
Pushed halfway back on the stage the double-sided revolving wall (designed by Adam Gardnir) is shifted around to change scenes, climbed up, leapt from, sat on top of, skated around, hung off and gradually filled with chalk drawings and words, graffiti like, on one side.
Lighting Designer Luiz Pampolha has devised a complex design that highlights the lyricism and tension of this energetic performance.
Joy is coagulated with fear in this work, and an ominous mood of foreboding pervades – fear of other people, fear of risks, of ageing, of revealing vulnerabilities, of being rejected. The cast sometimes struggle to relate to one another, depicting in a series of interactions and encounters the theme that the obstacle to happiness is often deep within ourselves.
There is a serious message to this work – life is not all joy. We are on Earth and are sometimes injured. Happy as Larry is serious, tense, light-hearted, playful funny and chameleon-like, and advises us to continue in life’s journey. With our friends.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Happy As Larry
Director/Choreographer Shaun Parker
Production Manager Guy Harding
Music: Nick Wales and Bree van Reyk
Dancers: Craig Barry, Jana Castillo, Toby Derrick, Josh Mu, Libby Zyrel Montilla, Sophia Ndaba, Timothy Ohl, Marnie Palomares, Lewis Rankin, Joshua Thomson
Running time: 1 hour 20 (approx) no interval
Seymour Centre, Chippendale
10-14 September
