Postmodernist '90s themes meet '60s Dixie Land tunes in this charming operetta about the effects of amnesia that may leave audience members scratching their heads over its enjoyably odd mixture of medicinal meandering and musical sobriety.
Writer/composer/performer Cynthia Hopkins explores the triumph and malfunction of personal memory with full force, playing the role of psychogenic amnesiac Cameron Seymour. Hopkins entwines her character in a fragile labyrinth of
reconstructed suppressed childhood memories to discover her forgotten
past and the murder of her abusive father.
Broken into three acts, it begins as a
self-help lecture that offers a sceptical look at psychological theories and leads
us through various turns in Seymour's life as we accompany her back to
her hometown fraught with troubling relationships and a remedial rebirth in
Morocco.
The pseudo-medical beginning that transforms into an autobiographical
search of Hopkins' character allows the approach to be scientific, confessional
and spiritual without sentimentality or self-pity usually rife in stories
exploring unstable childhoods.
Incorporating elements
of the 1950s murder mystery style with an avant-garde multi-media approach amid
hints of absurdity and farce along the way, Hopkins' takes the audience on a
chimerical journey of how we consciously assemble our life and the lives of
those around us in a histrionic and intrepid piece of theatrical art; starkly and darkly
portrayed by Hopkins who plays a variety of roles with great inventiveness.
As the story progresses, the intercepting alternative
country songs range in tone from insouciance to pensive, delivered beautifully
by Hopkins' buttery toned honky-tonk vocals and seamlessly woven within the
plot to drive it forward.
Hopkins' has the capacity as a performer to totally enthrall
the audience and is backed up by an array of technical gadgets. Microphones,
projections and mini-cameras are imaginatively used by Jim Findley and Jeff
Sugg whose technology is relatively low-tech in today's gadget obsessed world.
Also supporting Hopkins in dance numbers, Findley and Suggs enhance the action
and deliver some great, mesmerising choreography by Jordana Che Toback.
Although the piece takes a while to truly get into its flow,
once engaged the dream-like magic is enthralling and is an experience that may
not give answers, but is enough to just witness. It's escapism that confuses and
hunts but holds your attention and dares to venture into uncultivated territory.
Times: 12-30 August (not
17, 24 Aug), 10.30pm
© Lindsay Corr, August 2009