Sometimes, when I pull up and see my neighbour lingering in his front yard, I pretend I have to find a Very Important Item in the glovebox and by the time I have located this Very Important Item he has gone inside. Ha! I think. I have cunningly avoided small talk and weather-related conversation once again! But then one time, I didn’t see him and we got chatting and he said his mother just died and now when we wave I think ‘Nice man. Good mother’.
Glimpse, the debut performance by Melbourne’s Kin Collective, is like that. Eight stranger’s lives connect through a series of shared moments. Vulnerable moments. Moments when, instead of feigning a sudden interest in the ingredients on a box of muesli – Does it have cranberries? It has cranberries! And almond flakes! – or a speckle of paint, you say ‘Sixteen years ago I told the father of my son I miscarried; I lied’. Or ‘I’m married, my husband is sick and I am considering having an affair with a movie star’.
It’s a strong and engaging story, delivered by a strong and engaging cast. In fact, it’s hard to pick a stand out. Maybe it’s Co-Director Laura Maitland, whose adopted brother can’t face their mother’s death. Maybe it’s Dan Hamill as a junkie. Maybe it’s Mark Diaco as a different junkie. Maybe it’s Marg Downey. Maybe I should just list everyone. Maybe that would become tedious, I don’t know. In any case, Glimpse is absorbing, insightful and thought provoking; a great debut.
Oh, and even the set design is good because they got cartoonist Jason Chatfield (who did Ginger Meggs) to do the backdrops. Nice.
Venue: fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Season: 14 Nov – 2 December 2012
Times: Tuesday to Saturday 8.00pm, Sunday 6 pm
Admission: $35 Full, $24 Concession/Group +6
Bookings: 9662 9966 or online (via www.fortyfivedownstairs.com)
Image credits: Jason Chatfield
