She’s Not Performing
She’s Not Performing (2010)
“Ms Somes’s wonderfully inventive use of the space and the skilfully guided and riveting rawness of the honesty of the performances she has harvested here mark her as a director to watch.”
Stage Whispers (Geoffrey Williams)
Description:
A woman, Margarite, visits a club and sees a stripper that is a mirror image of herself. Wondering if this is the daughter she adopted out as a teenager, She’s Not Performing is a journey through the psyche of a woman in search of a child she once lost.
In 2010, La Mama presented the first full length play by emerging talent Alison Mann (Winner Melbourne Dramatists’ Playwrights’ Award 2008). This bold production was an intimate, visual and visceral theatrical experience for thirty audience members. Tackling social and sexual taboos, this production immersed its audience within the seductive and confronting world of a strip club as it acknowledged the sometimes stark reality of the adoption experience for birth mothers. Whilst the play is not autobiographical, Mann drew on her own experiences as an adopted person, and delved into a subject which is often surrounded by silence and misunderstanding.
This production was proudly supported by VANISH (Victorian Adoption Network for Information and Self Help).
Performance History:
She’s Not Performing went through several development stages including an initial seeding development in 2006 through a First Draft Award from PLAYWORKS, a public rehearsed reading supported by the Emerging Writer’s Festival (in association with Full Tilt) in May 2009, a public staged reading at Tasmanian Theatre Company in August 2009, a two-day creative development in Melbourne in 2009, and a final creative development in Melbourne in early 2010. A scene from the play was also selected to open to the 2010 Emerging Writer’s Festival Gala Opening.
Creatives:
Playwright – Alison Mann
Director – Kelly Somes
Set Design – Tanja Beer
Lighting Design – Darren Kowacki & Lisa Mibus
Costume Design – Melanie Liertz
Sound Design/Composition – Jared Lewis
Puppetry/Visual Theatre – Gina Moss
Dance Choreographer – Tamara Searle
Set Design Assistants – Ashlee Hughes & Jacquie Holland
Consultant – Rinske Ginsberg
Dramaturg – Maude Davey
Production/Stage Manager – Jess Keepence
Photography – Talya Chalef
Company Publicist – Claire Jolie Dubois
Cast:
Margarite – Andrea Close
Annie – Rachel Purchase
Hamish – Christopher Bunworth
Iain – Mike McEvoy
Production stills: Deryk McAlpin
Publicity stills: Talya Chalef