Not to be told what to think … how wonderfully refreshing!
It’s pure relief to see a play that doesn’t have a blatant message. It’s a burst of cool, clean air – one which the Sydney theatre scene badly needs. All too often our audiences are offered productions in which the artists have something to say, and boy are you going to hear that something good and hard.
I’m not such a nihilist that I object to a message per se. It’s just that the message is often either painfully obvious, bereft of any complexity, or simply utterly lacking originality. You don’t need to go to the theatre for this sort of thing; you could go to your local church. The performance there has every chance of being more entertaining. And, honestly, the message might be richer. And I guarantee you’ll need to throw far less into the collection plate.
Artists, if you can say it in a slogan, maybe you don’t need a story. You certainly don’t need the dramatic form, whose particular magic is multiplicity. Yes, I’m being harsh, but we really must re-explore theatre’s potential. All justice and no joy makes theatre a deathly dull and dangerous toy.
Directed by Patrick Kennedy, Richard Foreman’s Sophia = (Wisdom): The Cliffs is a wondrous gift of a piece. It playfully invites us to think: about wisdom, about theatre, about being an audience. Or perhaps it’s more tongue in cheek than that. Perhaps it’s allowing us to not think at all.
Light on both narrative and characterisation, it’s constructed from a deliciously beautiful use of space (some of the most brilliant I’ve ever seen), a glorious use of colour and costume, and an extraordinarily eclectic and evocative soundscape. All design is by Kennedy and it’s a magnificent achievement. Foreman has created a marvellously mischievous meta-theatrical template and Kennedy makes the most of its wild potential.
The cast do terrific work, inhabiting a performative world in which flat realism is almost entirely replaced by near mechanically-precise movement and vocal work. This joyfully jolts us from any risk of deadening complacency, reminding us we’re not passive witnesses and that what occurs on the far side of the fourth wall can’t (in itself alone) be Life.
And, every now and then, the lights dim and the house lights come up. We become witnesses to ourselves, and we might recall, that despite all the fabulous work on stage, it’s our response that’s crucial. We’re not mere recipients of a message. We’re co-creators of the magic.
And what magic it is!
Paul Gilchrist
Sophia = (Wisdom): The Cliffs by Richard Foreman
Produced by Patrick Kennedy Phenomenological Theatre
At New Theatre until 27 Jan
newtheatre.org.au/sophiawisdom-the-cliffs/
Image by Daniel Boud
Theatre Red 
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