Crazing - Art and About, Sydney

Crazing

The room becomes a metaphor for women’s confinement and sanctuary, where the physical realities of the body, the imminence of birth and the stories of women across generations converge

Crazing by Karli Evans and Kerrie Simon-Lawrence, presented as part of Art & About, City of Sydney, at ESAC. Free!

A woman whose life looks perfect on paper. Aila Driscoll has a partner about to give birth, a property deal on the precipice of completion. She finds herself in a hotel room in Darlinghurst, in a building facing demolition, and the walls begin to open up. Or perhaps she does.

The room has been a refuge for the women who inhabit it: Mary Ann Moore-Bentley, a parliamentary candidate and Georgist from the early twentieth century; Molly Fink, a socialite whose unconventional marriage made her a subject of fascination in the 1910s; and Angie Sage, inspired by sex worker and activist Julie Bates, who fought for the rights and safety of sex workers in Sydney in the 1980s. Aila's own predicament draws her into their stories, creating a meeting place across generations. It is as if the work and crumbling room needs to speak to her and through her. The hotel room becomes the connective tissue of the production, a shared space linking the women's stories across time.

Aila is suffering from intermittent and crippling pain. The precise nature of Aila's physical distress remains frustratingly vague, and the Darlinghurst setting never quite comes into focus. But through that pain, the recovery of these women's stories is admirable. Their lives offer a fascinating glimpse of the women who challenged the expectations of their times, and whose contributions deserve to be better known.

In a solo performance, Karli Evans is a charismatic presence, carrying the entire production as she transforms between Aila and the three historical women. The shifts in character give the performance an impressive fluidity, allowing these very different women to emerge distinctly while remaining part of Aila's unfolding experience. Oliver Brighteon's nimble set, lighting, video and sound design create an intimate theatrical world, while director Lara Lightfoot directs with imagination and panache, making the hotel room much more than a setting. It becomes a potent metaphorical space: cramped and confining, yet also a sanctuary; a room in which the physical realities of women’s bodies, the imminence of birth and the constraints imposed by society intersect. The room holds these seemingly disparate stories together, allowing past and present to bleed into one another.

At 85 minutes, however, Crazing begins to feel its length. There is considerable repetition in the writing, with ideas about women's confinement and the restrictions imposed upon them reiterated rather than developed. The military thread, too, seems to promise more than it ultimately delivers. A tighter edit will allow the individual stories to breathe and give the larger dramatic arc greater force.

There is much to admire in Crazing: its spirited solo performance, inventive theatricality and determination to bring overlooked women back into the conversation. It is the kind of work that might send you home curious to discover more about the women who came before us. It just needs a little more trust in the power of their stories to speak for themselves.

Review by Kate Gaul

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