Feminist funfest takes a laugh-out-loud swipe at superhero culture

THEATRE
Super ★★★★
Red Stitch, until July 6

Superhero culture is dangerous because it’s “essentially fascism”, according to Alan Moore. Trump once released a non-fungible token of himself as a superhero with eye lasers, let’s not forget, and the adolescent fantasy of fighting evil with superpowers looks frankly terrifying when it plays out in the world.

A production shot of Super at Red Caroline Lee, Laila Thaker and Lucy Ansell explore their powers in Super. Credit: Credit Cameron Grant - Parenthesy

Anyone who thinks seriously about the subject should be worried by the infantilising nostalgia, the power worship, and the narcissistic sense of exceptionalism that seem to have gripped the imagination of a so-called adult audience. At the same time, it’s true that satire and subversion from within – the nerdy reality-check of Kick-Ass, say, or the cynical vision of corporatised “Supes” in The Boys – can act as a kind of kryptonite to the worst tendencies of the genre.

Emilie Collyer’s new play Super gives us a fantastically silly and strange sideswipe at the superhero tropes we’ve inherited. It’s a full-throttle feminist funfest that will tickle those who love the grandiose cosplay and game-changing powers of superhero stories, while dodging hypermasculinity and ultra-violence, launching a guerrilla attack on gender inequality, and celebrating female friendship into the bargain.

Two besties – Nell (Laila Thaker) and Phoenix (Lucy Ansell) – are the only members of their superpower support group, and their special abilities are drawn from a distinctly feminine arsenal. Phoenix has a preternatural gift for suppressing her rage and can calm others against their will. Nell is, well, super-organised – a paragon of unpaid labour who can fast-track solutions to almost any problem.

When Rae (Caroline Lee) first enters their gathering, they think she’s taken a wrong turn – the AA meeting’s down the hall. But the celebrity chef has a superpower of her own. She’s so in touch with her own sorrow that if she bursts into tears, she can make anyone cry helplessly alongside her.
It comes in handy when the ageing star’s producers threaten to dump her from her TV show: Rae weeps and wails and weaponises her victimhood until they relent.

Laila Thaker as Nell – her power is being super-organised.Credit: Cameron Grant - Parenthesy 

Phoenix is suspicious of the new arrival – they’re almost opposites of each other – but all three are determined to use their powers to do good in the world, despite the prickliness, and despite their powers coming at a physical cost (nothing special power suits can’t fix, though that comes at a price, too).

Soon their charity work becomes big business. Rae uses her celebrity to start a reality TV show judging whether ordinary contestants have superpowers. Phoenix gets ripped and fights against gang and domestic violence in marginalised communities. Nell turns their enterprise into a mega-corporation fuelled by big data, drastically enhancing the good they can do …

A dystopian twist and climactic confrontation looms, as liberal aims begin to be achieved through – you guessed it – fascist means. Can they right themselves, or will they become villains and victims of their own success?

Emma Valente directs an almost painfully entertaining show, featuring exaggerated, laugh-out-loud funny performances and spectacular visual gags and costumes. The examination of power isn’t quite as fleshed out as you might hope, but the ending is radical in a way that restores perspective.

The greatest superpower, it seems, might be the ordinary human comfort of genuine friendship.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

IMMERSIVE THEATRE
The Door in Question ★★★★
Metro West Footscray, until June 29

Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are still a source of fear, confusion and stigma. Troy Rainbow’s remarkable mixed-reality immersive theatre event, The Door in Question, fights against them by opening a portal into altered perception, utilising the latest VR and interactive AI technology.

The Door In Question is an immersive theatre experience using VR. Credit: Lauren Marr

This is a solo trip into the labyrinth of the disordered mind. And if that sounds risky, the project is so sensitively realised that it feels unique in humanising (without remotely romanticising) what psychosis is like, inside and out.

It helps that the artist has skin in the game. Rainbow’s mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia – a deeply personal experience and an inspiration for the world you’ll enter.

Audiences first step into an antechamber that serves as a meditation room. A few deep breaths are needed before donning a VR headset in a Footscray shopping mall and stepping down the rabbit hole. A colourful, disturbing wonderland awaits, based on a childhood story Rainbow’s mother wrote for him.

Disorienting voices guide you through gritty urban landscapes, decrepit domestic environments, and a world based on classical mythology – statues of Medusa, fountains, ancient Greek columns – and onwards and upwards into a florid brush with divinity … or paranoid delusion.

Disorienting voices guide you through decrepit domestic environments in The Door in Question. Credit: Lauren Marr

You’re inducted into a secret history of Footscray (including its Indigenous history) as you walk the streets to a second location, and I don’t want to spoil what happens there.

The less you know, the better, though I can say it’s a full-body experience. The show will quite literally make your spine tingle, twisting the design surprises and interactive mystery of immersive theatre and escape rooms towards a higher purpose.

In fact, it almost portrays mental illness as a kind of escape room… one with no escape, and a profusion of clues everywhere you look.

Each space is engagingly designed, and there’s a haunting quality to the voice acting and the polyphonic script, some of which sounds as if taken verbatim from people with schizophrenia.
Hallucinatory audiovisual tricks keep you on edge, painfully vigilant, and one section involves a responsive AI program, as a grandiose delusion tightens its grip.

Exploring psychosis through mixed reality tech is a fabulous idea, and The Door in Question really does feel at the forefront of a brave new kind of artmaking. But it’s the human element that makes it work – the profound authenticity of lived experience, and the unflinching insight into the danger and distress, as well as the wildcard beauty – and, yes, the love – amid the deranged tangle of psychotic illness.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
ACO Unleashed, ★★★★
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Hamer Hall, June 22

Undaunted by the withdrawal of injured Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja from its current tour, the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) took the opportunity to draw soloists from its own ranks in a program confirming all its appealing strengths.

In the absence of artistic director Richard Tognetti, longstanding violinists Helena Rathbone and Satu Vanska shared direction of the orchestra. They were joined by the ACO’s newest member, Anna da Silva Chen, in a buoyant account of Bach’s Concerto for Three Violins. Clearly delighting in their collaboration, they wove the music’s contrapuntal strands into a richly detailed tapestry, abetted by the ACO’s customary rhythmic drive.

Anna da Silva Chen plays with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as part of ACO Unleashed.

Vanska brought an edgy bravura to Bernard Rofe’s arrangement of Ravel’s Tzigane to which the presence of the celesta in the accompanying forces contributed an additional exotic touch.

Exemplary ensemble and beauty of tone graced Tognetti’s arrangement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 “Serioso”. Nuanced variations of texture reinforced both the original’s urgency and intimacy.

Schubert’s Quartet Movement in C minor, D. 703 shimmered like a jewel, full of light and shade, where dramatic and lyrical elements were held in admirable balance.

Giving the Melbourne premiere of Jaakko Kuusisto’s Cello Concerto, principal cellist Timo-Veikko Valve gave a passionate tribute to the late composer, a longtime family friend and fellow Finn. Kuusisto, who died of brain cancer in 2022, aged 48, conceived this well-crafted work with Valve’s considerable technical and expressive prowess in mind.

Like Sibelius, Kuusisto often sets his emotional lyricism in sparse surroundings. Here, some percussion freshened the orchestral palette, further enticing the listener’s close attention. Empathetically supported by his fellow players, Valve’s advocacy of this score may well make it a 21st-century classic.

A welcome, if unforeseen, element of its fiftieth anniversary season, this program celebrated the abundant talent of a great chamber orchestra.
Reviewed by Tony Way