Grand Theft Theatre
Created and performed
by Claire Bird, Ava Campbell,
Williams Strom, Dominic Weintraub, Hugo Williams & David Williams. Producer Suzie Franke. Associate
Producers Dominic Weintraub &
Hugo Williams. Lighting Designer Suzie Franke. Image Wild Hardt. Latvian Hall Talava, Adelaide Festival 24. March 8-11 2024.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Pony Cam Collective has established a reputation as an experimental theatre
company with political bite drawing on the theatre traditions and conventions
of clowning, physical theatre and immersive performances At this year’s
Adelaide Festival they have devised a show that still draws on their training
in bouffon grotesque clowning, but Grand
Theft Theatre is a more personal and reflective confession on the ability
of theatre to transform and evoke the power of memory. The idea to use the
recollection of influential theatre experiences to demonstrate the role of
theatre in shaping our character and our view of the world is simple. It is an
experience that every audience member can share. It is Pony Cam’s skill in
instantly constructing a community of theatregoers and theatre lovers.
As the audience enters the Latvian Hall (Talava) they are met by one of
the performers and asked to write on a label the title of a favourite or
impressionable theatre work that they remember having an enormous impact on them.
They stick the label to their front and throughout the various short intermissions
between segments they are invited to look at other labels and talk about the
works with fellow audience members. It is a clever ploy at interaction, but
also an ingenious way of inviting audiences to be aware of how theatre can have
such a profound effect upon people’s lives and consequently the state of
society.
Each segment of the performance is interspersed with a six minute
intermission during which audience members are encouraged to mingle and share
memories or go to the bar while the cat rearrange the chairs, finally ending up
at the end of the performance with the
chairs on the stage and the actors in the hall for the final segment. Complacency
and predictability are cunningly avoided as Pony Cam introduces performances that
have had an influence on their lives. Ava Campbell introduces a scene from
Simon Stone’s shock inducing production of Thyestes. Claire Bird demonstrates her
physical theatre prowess by standing on her head for minutes and recounting the
performance art of Betty Grumble. Hugo
Williams mimics projectile vomiting in a show that drove audiences out of the
door. Dominic Weintraub graphically describes a naked performer exposing and
fingering his arse in front of an audience. Cambell and the company launch into
a feminist rendition of He had it coming
from Chicago and a swipe at injustice
with Look Down from Les Miserable. Greek tragedy, experimental
drama, popular musicals and a touch of gory Gran Guinol all build a portrait of
humanity in many guises. It is all food for an audience to ponder. It was
obvious from the reactions to the company’s Adelaide Festival 24 medley of
magic moments that this was a theatre audience aux fait with many of the
performances at this year’s festival.
Photos by Ron Van Der Vegt
