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Review: Imaginarium by Melbourne Playback Theatre

As a piece of community building, the format invites the audience to share in a safe way without fear of intimidation
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Melbourne Playback Theatre displayed its great prowess and talent at The Northcote Town Hall last weekend in two forms. The first was Imaginarium – Family Shows, a one-hour performance, performed during the day, designed for young children to come and share their experiences and feelings and have them acted back to them by the four members of the company. The second show was called Love is Love, an evening show designed to process the challenges and rewards of the 2017 marriage rights postal vote.

I attended a morning performance of Imaginarium accompanied by an eager seven-year old, a 14-year old and a 16-year old plus their grandmother, all of whom enjoyed the show from start to finish. The performance opened with a bare stage on which sat four adult actors dressed in black, sitting on milk crates looking at the audience. They were flanked by a single violin player on the right of the stage and a standing actor on the left, who spoke directly to the audience as a sort of mediator between the actors and spectators.

Asked how they felt, the children slowly put up their hands at first. ‘I feel annoyed because I wanted to go to soccer practice,’ called out one small boy. The actors were asked to translate that into a scene, and with breathtaking ease, a humorous tableau appeared causing all to break into laughter. Quickly the children were keen to see their own feelings similarly translated and more and more children called out. Laughter resounded as the actors improvised emotional states, full of funny comments and expert physical comedy, from the teasingly small revelations the children shouted out.

Within a few minutes the children were asked to share their stories. Arms stretched up the roof eager to be heard and reenacted. One child said ‘garden shop’ when he was asked about his story. He was invited to come up onto the stage to elaborate. The four-year old explained how when he attends kindergarten he ‘plays garden shop’ and gathers items for it in preparation from his home. After a moment of mumbled private consultation the actors burst forth to stage an hilarious rendering of a plant shop, drawing members of the audience up to be flowers in pots and others to be customers.

By the end of the show the whole audience was smiling and had laughed with the company in a way that revealed the contiunuing pertinence of the Playback approach to creating moving and relevant theatre. As their website states, ‘Building on 30 years experience as a leading interactive theatre company, Melbourne Playback continues to refine and investigate the practice of storytelling’. Each show is a unique experience devised from the outpouring of the audience. As a piece of community building, the format invites the audience to share in a safe and too rare way without fear of intimidation. The outcome of Imaginarium was the opportunity to laugh whilst providing a rare insight into what children hold dear and to honour their perspectives both with humour but also immense respect and tenderness. 

★★★★★

Imaginarium
Melbourne Playback Theatre
Northcote Town Hall, Northcote
Sunday 18 March

Amelia Swan
About the Author
Melbourne-based art writer and historian.