Psychoknot Theatrics’ there was smoke in the sky “he said” is an unnerving, yet exciting experience unlike any other. You do not watch it play out in front of you, but are rather an integral part of it, as you are challenged both physically and mentally.
Taking place in the Nicholas Building on Swanston Street, people are sent one at a time up the elevator to Level 3, where you are ordered to remain silent by a mute bell-hop and directed to a spot around the elevator shaft. There is a radio in a cupboard playing the sound of someone breathing slowly. If you turn around to look, you are reprimanded by the bell-hop with a blow from a loud whistle. You then traverse the beautifully old-fashioned building in search of “the show” by a girl with loose-fitting clothes (the director Nana Biluš Abaffy) as we meet more characters along the way in many strange ways. What can be distinguished as the main “show” is a pitch-black room depicting a spiritual confrontation between several physical manifestations, one being a man in a flowing dress named Edna.
The show is an adventure which confronts the audience’s idea of art from the very beginning, but it is also a show about lost love, anger, commercialism, suffering, sexuality and the consequences of seeking pleasure. However, beyond this, it is constantly challenging as to what the audience should be doing or where they should be looking. Therefore, beyond the carefully choreographed actions of the performers, the show leaves an indelible mark on the audience for the hours following. One looks at others and themselves as just constructs of the live performance of the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The idea of the physical or real confronting the mental is invoked throughout as you are ordered to follow, stay still and look at a certain thing. Yet, there is always this desire to rebel and do something other than the prescribed way. It is this constant fight between your desire to have fun and the structured nature of the performance which makes it unlike any other piece of art.
The fact that the stage is a real building inhabited by normal citizens just enhance the magic behind the show and the thrill of being part of the group of ‘weirdos’ is a very strange feeling. There is something very dream-like about the building with its industrial exposed wiring and over-bright fluorescent lights, which just adds to the idea that the performance is more of a physical manifestation of spiritual beings. However, unlike a normal play where your attention is naturally drawn towards who ever is talking on the stage, your attention is constantly being pulled in several directions by visual, aural and other mental stimulants.
Admittedly, this show will not be for everyone and epitomises the idea behind the Fringe festival of showing the weird and wonderful of the art world. Indeed, only a very select group of people will consider this worth their time or money. However, this does not diminish the show’s undeniable power, both in physical force between the performers and the abstract ways in which it confronts modern living. While there are moments which are just ‘weird for the sake of being weird’, it is more about the experience than finding any distinct meaning from it. That feeling of being a part of something, rather than just being a passive observer is something so refreshing when compared to everything else, that it is impossible not to appreciate.
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