UFO is WTF. Winding theatre and film. Or wrapping theatre with film.
It’s theatre, Jim, but not as we know it.
As theatre goers ran to the theatres to get away from the kitchen sing only to be confronted with a kitchen sink drama, theatre goers in the current age are going to the theatre to escape their screens only to be confronted by actors projected on screens.
Blending science fiction tropes, live cinema, filmed theatre and finely detailed miniatures of dwellings and their inhabitants, UFO is an intriguing mix of video, stop-motion animation and live theatre.
Puttering around a small town putting green, a quartet of young people have been recruited for a highly confidential, excruciatingly dull job, to maintain surveillance on a grounded UFO. The lights are on, well flashing, actually, but is anyone at home?
“Six left, six right” is the monotonous calibrations these markers make, using pencil and paper to record this mind numbing mission.
The use of paper in such a digitalised world is perplexing, a conundrum that creates the crucible for the show’s climax, as the calculations and calibrations have used up vast quantities of paper, pages that need replenishing for the reports to continue.
Add to this the arachnid with less than the requisite appendages (which could be a hand with a surfeit if digits), ducks in flight and on waddle, and you have an unpredictable plot that channels the obsessive underside of ordinary aspirations.
UFO comes from re:group performance collective, a troupe committed to pop culture mash-ups creating live cinema performances through puppetry and tech.
WRITER Kirby Medway DIRECTOR & DESIGNER Soloman Thomas SOUND DESIGNER Tom Hogan CREATIVE PRODUCER Malcom Whittaker UFO DESIGN Dylan Tonkin PUPPET DESIGN Miri Badger & Chris Howell SET REALISATION Angus Callander CREATIVE CONSULTANTS Tessa Leong, Jenni Medway, Mark Rogers PERFORMERS Matt Abotomey, James Harding, Angela Johnston, Tahlee Leeson
DATES: 18th – 29th April
PERFORMANCE TIMES: Monday to Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 1pm & 7pm
LOCATION: SBW Stables Theatre – 10 Nimrod Street, Darlinghurst
BOOKINGS: https://griffintheatre.com.au/whats-on/ufo-2/ or (02) 9361 3817