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Vitalstatistix' 'Crazed'.
Vitalstatistix National Women’s Theatre and Frumpus pay homage to the damsel in distress in 'Crazed'.
Highly physical performance is darkened by narration of broken film and sound scape, delivering theatre’s answer to the horror films of the '70s and '80s. In this absurd extravaganza we immediately identify with the female victims - we’ve seen them before - suffering at the hands of mysterious freaks and scary noises in the dark. But these girls are oddballs themselves. Maud Davey (Vitalstatistix Artistic Director) says that "Frumpus take the archetype of the daggiest girl at school, in all her awkward, frumpy, badly dressed unglory, and make her into a contemporary feminist icon."
Frumpus’ animation of props, costumes, eyeballs and other bizarrities amplifies the sometimes individual, sometimes collective torment. Clumsy girls anxiously seek escape from terror, fumble with keys, fail to rescue friends and battle the ‘bad guy’ (who is not a guy). They’ve done away with the routine "male attacker" and "the slow death scenes with people stabbing and punching each other that just keep going on and on.". These square pegs do it all themselves, "boxing and bashing each other up". The focus is always from the perspective of the tormented victim who fantasises about her rescue.
'Crazed' not only deals with straight-out attack but the jittery feeling that something could happen. Inner nightmares are transported out of the psyche and onto the stage, laying it out for the audience absorb, contemplate or laugh. Typical horror elements feature - the phone that rings endlessly, the monster in the cellar, the unanswered question, "Is anybody out there?"
Frumpus’ comic presentation also touches a serious note or two. Their gruesome fairytales have been achieved thanks to Vitals’ National Call initiative to develop and produce innovative new Oz work. And they’ve worked hard to get there. Created in 1994, Sydney’s Frumpus is a collective of highly skilled acrobats, clowns, movers and shakers including Cheryle Moore, Janine Garrier, Laurie Kilfoyle, Lenny Ann Low and Julie Vulcan as the victims. Clytie Smith is lighting designer and Sam James is designer and video installation artist for this Fringe world premiere.
This is a white nightie black comedy I predict to be delightfully bizarre.
Anya Machczynski
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'Crazed' plays at Eclipse (Union House), Fringehub from Sun 22 Feb.
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