So, here is a Brisbane Festival show about the very thing we spend our days trying not to think of. Death. There. I said it. As a dedicated sufferer of thanatophobia, I do not want to have some upstart performing arts company from the Gold Coast rub my nose in my own mortality.
Because when it comes to death, I’m with Woody Allen – “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens”. Boom boom.
I had precious little to go on before attending The Farm’s No-One Gets Out of Here Alive at the Talbot Theatre in the Thomas Dixon Centre at West End. I had no press release, no program and even thought at first that it might be a show about Jim Morrison of The Doors, because I read a biography of him called No One Gets Out Alive. He didn’t, that is for sure.
But no, this is not about Jim, who died so young. Although, in a strange way, maybe it is.
The Brisbane Festival website says it is a show “for everyone who’s going to die.” Surely, they don’t mean me?
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“Created by The Farm – known for bold physicality, emotional directness and irreverent theatricality – No One Gets Out of Here Alive confronts mortality into a deeply visceral experience that takes us beyond words into the nature of dying.
“Death is a taboo subject, something Western culture doesn’t like to contemplate. Where velvet curtains are draped over coffins, the dead are painted to look living, and almost anything is done to disguise the ephemeral nature of existence. But this isn’t just about the big D. It’s also about the little d’s – the quiet, everyday endings that shape our lives: the death of dreams, of past selves, even of a single act of theatre.”
The Farm’s dancers or collaborators, as I think they prefer it, weave together dance, voice, music and humour in this visceral, deeply cathartic work. It aims to create a communal space to grieve – for us, our loved ones, and our planet. Deep.
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“By connecting with death, we remember we are alive. This is a work for all those who will die, but it doesn’t need to be a funeral.”
But it actually is. In fact, it starts with a coffin on stage, which is something that might traditionally be more likely to come at the end.
The opening funeral parlour scene is funny and this piece, which was created by the company’s core creative team – Kate Harman, Gavin Webber, Grayson Millwood and Chloe Ogilvie – began with Webber taking the stage to tell us one of the performers was ill (not dead) and they were thinking of cancelling but decided to go ahead. I’m sure Brisbane Festival artistic director Ebony Bott, who was in the audience, was pleased about that.
Funny way to start a show but there you have it. Never mind. We didn’t notice anything missing because we wouldn’t have known if it was anyway.
What followed was 75 minutes of quite compelling theatre, all a little avant-garde at times and, of course, as often happens in this sort of show there’s a point where someone gets their kit off. Had to happen.
I enjoyed the anarchic nature of it all and appreciated the Stevie Wonder song dance party bit. If you prefer more traditional forms, you will probably find this all a tad pretentious, but suspend disbelief, go with it and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Such shows are often impenetrable and difficult to understand but at least this is about something and there’s no doubt what that is. And if you don’t mind watching people in their death throes for 75 minutes you might find it enjoyable. Of course, the title tells you what is going to happen in the end and when the Grim Reaper turns up that becomes even clearer.
We were all invited to hang around afterwards to meditate on the subject or chat with the company folk in the foyer, but we didn’t stay because, like Woody Allen, when it comes to death, “I am strongly against it”.
No One Gets Out of Here Alive is on in the Talbot Theatre at the Thomas Dixon Centre, 406 Montague Rd, West End until September 12.
brisbanefestival.com.au/events/no-one-gets-out-of-here-alive
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