MATTERS OF LIFE & DEATH
Despite its title, Performance Space’s latest program Matters of Life and Death is anything but morbid – it is both a celebration of living and an exploration of death.
The program runs for three weeks and includes installations, live performances and workshops all dealing with some aspect of mortality and our fears surrounding it.
Performance Anxiety, a one-man show by artist Brian Lucas (pictured) in which he plays four characters – a torch singer, a war correspondent, an orator and a stand-up comedian – came from Lucas’ own experiences as a performer as well as from images in the media and popular culture.
“I didn’t want to do this general thing about the emotion of anxiety,” says Lucas.
“I wanted to find characters that had very particular stories and very particular reasons for being so anxious.”
“What I’d hope people are able to do is to see these stories and think about them and maybe be able to think about themselves a little bit more. I think it’s very entertaining, very challenging, people aren’t going to like everything they see or everything they hear but they’ll definitely be provoked by it.”
The headlining performance of Matters of Life and Death is The Last Supper, created by European theatre company Reckless Sleepers. Part interactive performance and part macabre dinner party, The Last Supper features the last words of various dead celebrities and historical figures, as well as the last meals of inmates on death row.
“Andy Warhol had to be in it because his last pieces of work were last suppers, Da Vinci because of the painting,” says Mole Wetherell, Artistic Director of Reckless Sleepers.
“I wanted a collection of people who somehow illustrated that history just seems to keep repeating itself, and then some peoples’ last words are just so brilliant they had to go in.”
When asked what he’d like people to take from the show, Wetherell replies, “I don’t want them to take the coconuts, they always do that.”
Feb 23-Mar 9, Performance Space, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh, $25-45, 8571 9111, performancespace.com.au
BY ANITA SENARATNA
