Reviewer: Kate
Herbert
Remember David
Bowie's Major Tom, "floating in a tin can, far above the world"?
Well, he has returned in Australian form, as Captain Tom Simpson, an unemployed
tram conductor who got a job through Centrelink as the first Australian
astronaut.
Planet earth is blue and there is absolutely nothing he can
do. On his ship called Icarus Orbit, his TTT computer system (Tomorrow and
Tomorrow and Tomorrow) crashed when the date clocked over from '99 to '00.
Trefor Gare is alone on stage as Captain Tom. Gare. In his
nifty NASA look-alike overall (designed by Melinda Brodie), Tom, our first
Austranaut, looks as vulnerable as a child - and he is.
Tom sends intermittent video transmissions home. They become
more disjointed as he faces a problematic re-entry. He solves his communications
system error with an old home remedy, but his navigation is another story.
Gare devised Icarus Orbit over this year. He employs an
idiosyncratic style tht integrates physicality and comic dialogue. He has
created a cute and finally poignant narrative with some very funny moments.
My favourite image is a fine theatrical device. Gare creates
an illusion that we are looking down, from on high, on a corporate table as
three space executives discuss Tom's plight. Gare shifts swiftly between the
three distinct characters. More of this clarity of character elsewhere would be
effective.
He also creates the illusion of floating in space and
provides us, within a simple set, with little magical details such as the
blue-green earth floating in space. Lightig and AV design by Jilian Judges,
enhance the other-worldliness of the piece.
There is a good deal of Kubrik's 2001, A Space Odyssey in
Icarus. Hal is replaced by some metaphysical communication through a nearby
orbiting satellite. There is also some comical interference from a Sex Chat
Room when Tom is trying to contact earth.
Gare is inclined to pull the dramatic rug out from under his
more serious moments, sometimes to the detriment of the emotional and dramatic
thread of his narrative.
Icarus Orbit is a light and effective version of space trave
Oz-style.
by Kate Herbert
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