After wowing audiences and critics with their smash-hit productions 'Humans 2.0', 'Carnival Of The Animals' and 'Peepshow', Brisbane-based Circa are stripping back the layers with their latest and arguably rawest production to date – 'On'.
'On By Circa', playing Redland Performing Arts Centre, follows eight strangers whose lives cross in the courtyard of an apartment block and over the course of a single night they will fight, love, laugh and find moments of beauty and transcendence.
“'On' is a very dramatic exploration of connection,” acrobat and cast member Rhiannon Cave-Walker describes. “It’s about encounters, it’s about captured moments. It’s a bit of a post-pandemic aftertaste for the integral need for connection and it’s a little bit of a different flavour that Circa usually does.
“It has much more of a theatrical vibe, whereas a lot of our past shows are more acrobatic-based. Not to say that there isn’t any acrobatics in this show. There definitely is.”
Image © Pia Johnson
Cave-Walker was drawn to the “different flavour” of the production and a challenge to be a part of something quite different to Circa’s usual repertoire. “The appeal was the challenge to do something a bit different. I’d call it a mature work and that was really appealing. A more mature work with a heavier theatrical base was really appealing, because often I just use my body and the physicality of my body to perform and to communicate, whereas here there’s added layers of performative context and theatricality.”
“It’s taken more training and it’s a little more confronting and it makes me feel more vulnerable on stage. I feel fear in acrobatics all the time, that’s kind of why I do it. I love to trust people. When you do a performative piece, you have to trust artists in another way, which is not just hurling your body at someone.”
Another challenge for the cast of 'On', which is created by visionary Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz and featuring a pulsating score from Melbourne composer Jethro Woodward, is that the production also features a very stripped-back wardrobe. Instead of the sequined lycra worn in 'Peepshow' or the stylised costumes in 'Carnival Of The Animals', Lifschitz has the cast dressed in the ordinary with jeans and everyday clothes – which brings about its own set of challenges.
Image © Pia Johnson
“You can totally see the human form in our normal costumes, but these costumes are pedestrian clothing and so I’m doing acrobatics and flips in jeans and it’s actually quite challenging,” Rhiannon says. “It’s a fun challenge and that’s the point in developing art. Even if it’s a simple challenge. There’s a little bit of restriction but it does make a huge dramatic. When you’re seeing people doing flips on stage in everyday wear it makes it weirdly more relatable.”
The stripped-back approach and everyday wear has in fact resonated with audiences so far.
“The feedback we’ve been getting, which is so wonderful, is how we make people feel coming out of it and that’s the goal. It’s to question yourself or the show and to have an emotional experience and to take you on a bit of a journey and make you reflect a bit on your own experiences and relationships, and so that’s the goal.
“It’s really to move and to make you feel. It’s definitely an intense show. We have an incredible lighting design and soundscape and it’s a full package show and sensory overload.”
'On By Circa' plays Redland Performing Arts Centre (Queensland) 27 May.
