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The Lost Babylon Hartley Playhouse Mon 6 March 'The Lost Babylon' is a Japanese-Australian co-production of renowned Japanese dramaturgist Takeshi Kawamura's cutting, atmospheric 1999 play. It involves a filmmaker and his screenwriter trying to construct a screenplay in the midst of a theme park where the disturbed wealthy and those in need of some 'Clockwork Orange' type therapy go to vent their sadistic desires and abscond reality by killing virtually. The director cynically finds the place alluring, it being an actualisation of the sorts of ultra-violent, escapist films he likes to make, but his screenwriter is less impressed. The script she is writing gradually reveals itself in their reality, the integrity of which is in the meantime being challenged by increasingly ambiguous distinction between the real and the virtual. Reality is reversed and live ammunition is introduced as the park's employed victims rebel. The play is technically quite rich, as expected in a piece largely concerned with analysing technology as a medium for voyeuristic violence. Gunshots are especially effectively evoked, with the raw sounds (being actual recordings) revealing their respective weapons as ugly, bestial machine. Visual projection abounds, allowing alternative views on the space and at other times providing space, as in the fascinating visualisation of the park as a never ending city. The play suffers a little from some pockets of rough dialogue, an almost unavoidable problem when translating from Japanese to English. Also, atmosphere does not quite develop strength consistent enough to really envelop the viewer physically or emotionally. But there is enough to be intrigued by to make this a very worthwhile theatrical experience.  |
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