THEATRE WORKS
this distraktit globe was first performed at La Mama, Melbourne, in October 2000
what if He
(the great figure-head
of our cultural, constructed meaning)
should re-appear to tell us the truth?
(the great figure-head
of our cultural, constructed meaning)
should re-appear to tell us the truth?
Some time in the relatively near future, our society has suffered what could be described as a 'cultural catastrophe'. History, literature, philosophy, community - all that we use to make meaning of the world and our place in it - lies buried in the ruins of a civilization past.
storyline
In a world in which history has lost its meaning, three traveling players, inspired by hearsay of an age of meaning and culture, travel from town to town to perform their mystery drama - a sacred theatrical performance which attempts to make sense of how the world came to be in this shattered state, and to salvage some meaning from the world as it has come to be. Using the shards and remnants of a passed-down oral tradition, they entertain and educate their audience with a story which, they have been told, was once a defining piece of culture - Hamleth.
Upon this particular day, they stumble upon the ruins of The Globe theatre and meet the mysterious grave-digger, who engages them with enigmatic riddles. The players play out their scene, only to uncover amongst the rubble a being very like Hamleth, the hero of their tale - it is, indeed, Hamlet himself. He is keen to join in their presentation of his story and they ecstatic to have him. However, it becomes apparent that the story and character of Hamleth, as the genuine Hamlet enacts it, is at variance with the players' 'script-chars' and their understanding of the moral and meaning of that story. The players eventually come to realise that their audience is in danger of being misled about the received truth - that Hamleth is a tale of purging the world of the evil state it is in, through revenge and the destruction of evil - by Hamlet himself. Hamlet is loathe to act out his part; and when Hamlet causes Ofelia and her 'innersense' to die, and afterwards kills Poloninose contrary to tradition, the players resentment towards him boils over.
this distraktit globe explores one of the mysteries of the complicity of theatre : how is it that the pretending of reality on stage can somehow sometimes be more 'real' than my 'real' life?
stylistic and performative languages
this
distraktit globe utilizes a created language, a poetic, deformed quasi-
Elizabethan language which serves to slow the audiences intellectual
processes, allowing them to enter a more perceptual state, in
which elements, character - and indeed meaning -
can be
experienced more deeply.
a meta-theatre reading of Hamlet, this production engages all of the languages of theatre in an attempt to salvage and create a sense of meaning for the culture in which we find ourselves : our quest in this, then, is just that of the characters in the narrative.
a meta-theatre reading of Hamlet, this production engages all of the languages of theatre in an attempt to salvage and create a sense of meaning for the culture in which we find ourselves : our quest in this, then, is just that of the characters in the narrative.