The Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy, NYID, 22 Feb 1995

 

By Not Yet It's Difficult- part of  series

At Theatreworks Wed - Sun until Feb 26, 1995

This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 22 Feb 1995. KH

 

The Taking of Tiger Mountain by Strategy did not give us a chair. It shuffled us around the open Theatreworks space and we figured out where to sit on the floor for the best vantage point. This challenges the audience / performer relationship which needs a bit of rattling every now and then.

 

Director, David Pledger, is accessible in the space, talking to us, instructing. He is almost reading program notes at the beginning about the physical, mobile and participatory nature of the show and the Peking Opera tale which is the basis for this adaptation.  Meanwhile, the performers enact a series of exercises in Chinese mode.

 

The consciously self-conscious opening sequences give way to a more coherent and substantial dramatic form in the second half of this one-hour performance. (It is not a play.) The actors own commentaries are interpolated between fragments of the Tiger Mountain story with its Maoist propaganda.

 

Actors give a treatise on American Imperialism, the regimentation of classical ballet, gymnastic and military training, the repetitive process of which causes rigidity of thought. All these references, plus the witty representation of the Tiger Mountain battle, indirectly criticise the Maoist ideology, its violence and its propaganda machine. Taped snippets of the Chairman Mao exercises reverberate over the final scene, suggesting an insidious presence.

 

The vignettes from the deconstructed narrative are the strongest components of the production. Maud Davey, as always, is magnetic as a grieving mother, a chanting military leader, an interrogator. Kha Viet Tran's superbly controlled physicality and natural presence make him charismatic on stage. His Maoist soldier single-handedly attacking Tiger Mountain and its insurgents was a highlight.

 

Of course having no seating makes it, by force, theatre for the young, nimble and energetic. You wouldn't want to be disabled, old, sick or have a bad back - but it's only an hour.

 

KATE HERBERT