Image: 7412 Kilometres of Relations
Impressive premier theatrical works are going on all over Melbourne all the time, but from 20-28 November, Footscray is the place to be for some of the best. Big West Festival’s theatre program is stuffed to the gills with impressive and unusual pieces, drawing on the diverse character and remarkable vitality of the inner west.
As Told By The Boys Who Fed Me Apples is the story of the only Australian horse to come back from WWI, Sandy, as he dwindles through his final days in the Maribyrnong remount depot pondering the lost. The impressively collaborative bit of voyeurism, Neighbours, concerns itself with present-day living with a guided tour around Nicholson Street. The audience will follow their leader into homes and gardens, through public and private spaces as residents perform parts of their daily lives.
Mefetehe by award-winning Ethiopian writer/director Tesfaye Gebrehana is a new work featuring a cast of emerging actors written in Amharic, and performed with English subtitles. The young actors play a group of children determined to build the best recreation facilities ever – and being forced through a bureaucratic and an emotional sieve to do so. The performance is intended for an African audience, but anyone can appreciate the story of newly arrived cultures striving for the privileges to which others feel effortlessly entitled.
Continuing this African-Australian cultural theme, The Graceful Giraffe Cannot Become a Monkey is an adaptation of Ugandan writer Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. This play explores the colonial past and ambiguous present of the African-Australian experience through dance, text, and collage.
Birdcage Thursdays follows a condition present in every neighbourhood but frequently hidden: the psychological problem of hoarding. It is a confrontational subject and the work confronts the pain of a person trapped in a cycle of acquisition and resulting torment for family members and the surrounding community. Selected performances are followed by a Q&A with Tania Read, a hoarding educator with For The Crowded House.
The Big West festival is on 20-28 November, all over Footscray. Head to their website to check out the full event list and details.
