Absurdist plays by Sydney trio

Press, 13 March 1984, Page 9

Absurdist plays by Sydney trio

A dancing clown called Tina, who is actually a man, and a funereal couple called Axel and Gladys Comet — these three Australian performers certainly live up to their billing as absurdist theatre.

Kaye Tucker and Ewen McDonald are the Comets; Peter Mcßae is Tina. The three are members of Grotesqui’s Monkey Choir from Sydney, an umbrella organisation of up to a dozen performers who appear together or individually. The Comets performed their show, “Habits,” in the Great Hall of the Arts Centre last evening and will perform again tomorrow evening. Tina’s show, “Danse Fantasie,” will be performed this evening and on Thursday evening. Both shows will make up a double bill on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings as part of the Christchurch Festival.

Ewen McDonald describes “Habits” as the disintegration of a relationship. The action opens with the Comets, garbed in Uriah Heep-black, sitting at opposite ends of a long table. He slumps at one end, she sits bolt upright at the other. A mechanical teddy bear sits on the table. The characters did not communicate, said Mr McDonald. There were songs and snatches of music but the relationship of the two characters was well and truly dead. The only props were the table, candles and a piano. For the two performers the performance was openended. Often, said Mr McDonald, the audience got more from the show in memories and images than the performers. The show was abstract, which the performers preferred.

It’s a play on the struc-

tures of opera. It’s really just two people in a room,” said Kaye Tucker. Dressing in a bright red dress is all in a day’s work for Peter Mcßae, since he adopted the character of Tina in 1980. Tina is a dancing clown — not your average circus clown at all.

“Danse Fantasie” tells a dance hall story of Tina as a wallflower, waiting with an empty dance card in an old-time dance hall, Tina at the seamy carbaret and, finally, Tina as a stripper. Peter Mcßae said: “It is a statement of a man’s experience of what a woman must feel like as a stripper.”

Tina’s act also features flags and a drum. The flags were inspired by the Italian flag throwers who have appeared at festivals in Melbourne, where Mr Mcßae now lives. The drum is an inevitable prop for a clown who loves moving and dance. A suggestion to the Coldsteam Guards Band, which was at the Adelaide Festival at the same time as Tina, that the clown become the drummer in the band was turned down — “They didn’t think a drummer in a dress would be right.” The three performers will be joined in street shows during this week by Lynne Ellis-Mcßae, who will give a two-day workshop on Saturday and Sunday. The workshop was to have run this week on five days, featuring actors’ exercises, physical training for performance and dance, impulse and abstraction work, out it will now be condensed into two days with a sampling of each activity. The performances of “Habits” and “Danse Fantasie” will begin at 10.30 p.m. except for the double bills whiijh start at 8 p.m.