[/caption]As a part of the Melbourne Fringe program, Grit Theatre's POND sees a man and a woman engaged in slow, deliberate co-habitation, and can be seen as a reflection on technology's role in shared space and time.
The set the two performers share is essentially sparse, the illusion of a ceiling provided by netting and plantlife built over the couple's bed. Framed by approximations of an office and a kitchen, the bed is the site of much of the performance's action. Any remaining space on the stage seems filled with electronic detritus - computer monitors, leads, devices and cardboard boxes are stacked at least as tall as the performers themselves. The set, devised by Madeleine Worthington, can be seen as an application of the same themes and strategies as the paintings of Dane Lovett - a kind of contemporary vanitas composed of flora and superseded technology.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Dane Lovett: Double Feature, 2010, Acrylic on aluminium composite panel"]
[/caption]The sound design leaves very little space for reflection, as does much of the physical action. Most interesting for this writer were the moments where the dialogue took on layered potential - could the woman's skin condition reveal something about the motives for the couples' isolation, or the state of the world outside? Is the wheat grass an emergency salve, or a fashionable dietary supplement? This kind of friction between readings was, for this writer, far more engaging than the physical action toward the end of the performance, which seemed to be an acting out of a crisis which already seemed understood.
This duality, however, proved to be paper-thin. The woman and man call for supplies, listing numbers over the phone. The numbers could mean anything - vitamins, chemicals - and at times for this writer evoked the pallid future proposed by Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. However the illusion quickly vanishes when the man appends his order with "two serves of naan bread," planting the performance firmly in the domestic rather than fantastic.
If POND sites itself in the domestic space, it makes startlingly few proposals for how that space can be shared. At one point in the action, seemingly as an illustration of the schism between the two, competing soundtracks are played - it would seem that the man is listening to Elliot Smith while the woman listens to Earth, Wind and Fire's System of Survival. The significance of these individually is unclear - The 'System' proposed by Earth, Wind and Fire is dancing as an emotional outlet, and the shared domestic space is the ground where Smith lost his final battle. As an illustration of a closed system POND sees the partnership expending as little energy as possible, storing entropy to maximum efficiency. Consuming energy drinks and a boiled egg, it seems that the taxonomy of needs for this couple has been shortened to include only the most pragmatic. Unfortunately the arrow of time lands sharply at the end of POND - the success or failure of these strategies is rendered moot as the performance accelerates toward apocalypse.
POND
Devised by: Thomas Browne, Laura Hughes and Clare Phillips
Performed by: Thomas Browne and Laura Hughes
Set design:Madeleine Worthington
Lighting design:Liam O’Keefe
Sound design: Playwrite
23 September - 8 October | The Warehouse @ Fringe Hub, North Melbourne Town Hall
grittheatre.com
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