Autopsy, June 6, 1996

 Written by Julianne O’Brien

Directed by Rosemary Myers and Bruce Gladwin

By Arena Theatre, at Fairfax Studio, June 6-16, 1996

 Reviewed by Kate Herbert around June 6, 1006

Pop Art, Pop Psychology and Pop Technology collide in Autopsy, Arena Theatre's new show for young audiences. Well, perhaps not too young because it would be dead scary for anyone under teenage. In fact, for this writer who has nightmares after The X Files the lurid computer graphics of a dissected body were most unsettling.

The show is like an 80-minute video clip with substantial content and welcome irony. It opens with pounding, live rock music, unintelligible lyrics, club dancing and Star Trek lighting effects. The wildly entertaining music by The Band of Hope, which includes director Rosemary Myers, continues throughout. So do the graphics, enormous visual representations of the intimate-Internet conversations of two social isolates seeking warmth and solace in an unresponsive world.

They are surrounded by computerised fitness tests, personality tests, work-places, medical treatment and communication. No wonder they are victims of that pervasive urban angst which is so prevalent in art for youth. It is tiresome for those who have been through it but people keep suffering alienation no matter who has travelled the path before them.

Myers has kept the production swift, vivid and pumpin'. It caters to the ad-break attention span of many teenagers and their capacity to absorb masses of information with a low intellectual-high noise impact.  The extraordinary set of a cartoon-like inflatable Hydra is designed by visual artist Maria Kozic and is complemented by an exceptional and complex lighting design by Ben Cobham.

Performers are all engaging and funny (Genevieve Morris, Trevor Major, Bruce Gladwin, Myers, musician Hugh Covill) and mouth the platitudes of pop psych with an acerbic touch of irony. There are sensitive adn poignant moments when a mother and girlfriend try to deal with a young man's lapse into coma.

The script has been devised after exhaustive interviews with people of all ages about their values and was developed with the dramaturgical expertise of Julianne O'Brien.

Autopsy raises issues for teenagers about what constitutes genuine communication and what we really value in our lives. It will leave 'em thinking  - and dancing. The C.D. is available at their door.

KATE HERBERT