Nicola Gunn enters the performance space in a full-body, skin-tight, maybe-latex suit. She lathers herself up with detergent and pours a trail of water across the room. The lights go down. Gunn gets a run-up and hurls her body, sliding the width of the stage before standing and returning to her original position. She does this several more times. We are sitting in complete darkness and see none of it, but hear the sounds of her slides.
What does it all mean? Is this a kind of birthing ritual? Is she putting herself in a childlike headspace? What is this play about? Maybe it’s about working with children. But what is it saying about it? Intentionally or not, this performance prompts questions about the value and purpose of art: Is there something I’m not getting? Who is this for? Does it mean anything? Does art need to contain meaning to provide value? Can’t something just be? These are interesting questions, but there are ways to prompt conversations about the need for something without providing an example of its absence.
For the rest of the performance, the floor remains wet, and Gunn occasionally slips on this trap she laid for herself. She moves around the space in repetitive motions, which become slightly mesmeric. She holds poses and writhes around on the still-wet floor. The entire show is sound-tracked by house music which swells and recedes to highlight different moments and phrases. There are themes but they aren’t explored so much as obliquely alluded to.
The closest thing to a narrative is the story of Marten, a fictional European artist who has been tasked with creating a show in which teenagers ask adults questions about sex. Gunn returns to this story throughout the performance, interweaving it with shorter stories and tossed-off one-liners. Sometimes the performance resembles an extremely dry stand-up routine performed while doing some light yoga. People laugh, mostly when Gunn swears or looks at the audience or references something she said earlier.
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There is a thrill that comes with the sense of genuinely not knowing what will happen next. But then a let-down that comes with the sense that what happened next was confusing and inconsequential. Okay… but so what?
The whole play feels as if it’s building to something – it must be! - but the payoff never arrives. Gunn is presenting us with thoughts and objects with no explanation or apparent purpose. It’s entirely possible there are layers of meaning which remain unclear to a philistine music writer, but it’s probable they will remain unclear to all but the most seasoned theatregoers.
Melbourne Theatre Company presents Working With Children at Southbank Theatre until 29 Sep
