Wednesday, 7 October 2020

Come To Where I Am Vol 1: Critical Stages & Paines Plough 7 October 2020 ***

THE RIVERLAND OF RAX By Alysha Herrmann

VIOLIN By James Elazzi, Western Sydney NSW

FIREBRAND By Peter Matheson Maclean NSW 

By Critical Stages Touring & Paines Plough UK 

Register for their Screening Room and watch online  

https://criticalstages.com.au/  

Reviewed by kate Herbert: 7 October 2020

Stars: ***

 

This is a short review of Volume 3 and is published only on this blog as a Lockdown comment and review. I'm trying to cover pieces hat are available to Australian, or more specifically Melbourne audience online. e are in a much longer Lockdown than other states. KH

 Peter Matheson

Come To Where I Am is a series of commissioned 10 minute pieces about the Covid experience around Australia. These may be theatrical or fiction or memoir or other forms of spoken word. The three pieces in Volume 1 vary in content and quality but all are in the form of short memoir read and delivered directly to camera for online viewing.

The Riverland of Rax is a short memoir about her life in Renmark and the stories from that place. Violin by James Elazzi reads a first -person account of his night with his Dad, scavenging for good finds that he can sell to help with the cost of groceries. He finds a violin and memories of wanting to play an instrument comes back and Dad scorns his find. He is flooded with memories of his Mum.

Perhaps the most compelling is Firebrand, a first-person memoir account in which Peter Matheson reminisces about his grandfather, Bert, comes, a war veteran from ambulance corps is France. ‘Mud, blood and mateship.’ He then recalls a feisty, reliable, pioneering neighbour confronting a voracious bushfire.  Matheson conjures the thick, burning acrid  burning of an Australian bushfire and the terror that accompanies it.

There are three more volumes that you can view online. (See above for link.)

Executive Producer: Chris Bendall
Series Producer: Melanie Carolan
Dramaturgs: Chris Bendall & Charlotte Bennett
Editor: Ben Pugh

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