Sandra Long in Pancake Opus 100; Photo Mara Ripani
For over ten years Sandra Long has been one of Melbourne’s most reliable producers of original contemporary writing. In addition to being one of Australia’s most interesting new writers for theatre, Long is a seriously talented performer in her own right.
On the receiving end of a number of grants for writing she continues to produce a steady outpouring of stunningly original theatre works. Creator and solo performer of Pancake Opus 100 now showing at La Mama, Long’s newest work is delighting, entertaining and moving her audiences just as her earlier pieces have. I highly recommend this 60 minutes show that runs until this Sunday, July 5th.
Pancake Opus 100 combines the same idiosyncratic and deeply satisfying mix of text, music, dance and multi-media that have characterised her previous works.
Technically a monologue however the show feels more like a conversation as the audience performer seperation is gently and continually blurred by Long’s direct eye contact and invitation to eat. By the end of the performance Long’s confident charismatic steering of the show has transformed her audience into a bunch of children eating if not out of her hand, well at least off her plate.
The work originated last year from a piece Long performed with her son at the Village Festival at Edinburgh Gardens. Asked to be part of a cooking display, Long chose pancakes to display. She performed the making of a pancake to Shubert’s Piano Trio Opus 100 and was struck by the loneliness of the impression she made. She became determined to choreograph a piece based on a mother making pancakes for her children based on her own experience.
Pancake Opus 100 is constructed around the one hour assembly of a pancake by a woman who is being pestered by her two children to fry up the quintessential good time food. Underneath a canopy of kitchen utensils which over hangs a up-lit perspex kitchen bench, Long presents to her audience front-on like a television chef. However in this case the cosmetic team and stylists seem to have gone on holiday; Long’s character is a “normal woman” in slippers and op shop aprons, who slowly reveals her internal life, her past and her longings, in pieces of free text, movement and images projected on the back wall.
The everyday life of a mother with two children living in a suburb of Melbourne is revealed to be a rich poetic terrain full of brave attempts at transcendence from loneliness.The character reflects on her observation of aman with an ABI in a cafe, her own compulsive digital behaviours late at night on the phone, potent early childhood memories of her parents and the tragicomic image of a woman doing yoga postures, smoking a cigarette, inhaling deeply, unwinding after a long day.
“I want my work to break down stereo-types. Why? I guess to create compassion, to give people insight into areas of life they might not have access,” Long explained to me. Largely autobiographical this piece is moving because the material it contains feels so intimate and real. However self-indulgence is kept far at bay by the dry, comedic style of Long’s performing. She cites clowning as an important influence on her approach to performance and there is a degree of mastery of comic timing in her delivery.
Pancake Opus 100 ​delivers uncompromising, high quality writing performed with mature thespian prowess and great design. I highly recommend seeing this show for an evening of comic delight and poetic resonance.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars​
Written and performed by Sandra Fiona Long
Dramaturgy Suzanne Ingleton
Design Bronwyn Pringle and Emily Barrie
Lighting Bronwyn Pringle
Stage Manager and Technical Operator Sarah McKenzie
La Mama Theatre
25 June – 5 July
