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