This is an experimental production done for the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong in 2003. The setting chosen for the play was outdoors where the actors and the audience would be exposed both to the natural environment of a park and the movement of people and traffic as one would find on any one day.
The audience was limited to around twenty people for each show in an informal arrangement that facilitated the spontaneous movement of the actors around them and thus creating the impression that the audience was a part of the performance.
Then, from the background of parkland trees, traffic movement and people passing by, Jerry emerges to engage a shy and relaxed Peter in conversation. Before long Jerry is asserting his point of view upon Peter, attacking him and making him feel decidedly uncomfortable by his intrusive and aggressive manner.
The audience too responds emotionally in the same way as Peter whom they have come to identify with as their representative and as one feeling the unwarranted harassment of Jerry’s
attacks.
For more details of the play please read the Statement made by the panel.
Cast
Jerry: Garth Hodgson
Peter: Sean McInnes
Stage Manager & Costume Designer: Stephanie Son
Front of House: Travis Hodgson
Daniel Grecco
Susannah Bishop
Jimmi Cameron Photography: John Vidler
Designed & Directed by Dhananjaya Karunarathne
Official comment report issued by the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of Wollongong on The Zoo Story Experiment directed by Dhananjaya Karunarathne
Mr. Karunarathne’s production of the Zoo Story, by Edward Albee, was well directed and presented and made the most of the chosen setting. As a director, Mr. Karunarathne made intelligent choices and was in clear command of his material. He understood the intentions of the playwright and to a large extent succeeded in manifesting them through the production. The performances of the actors were well-phrased and evenly matched, if a little controlled and lacking in spontaneity. Staging allowed his concept of the character of Peter being the audience’s representative in the piece to clearly resonate. The outdoor setting was inspired, providing a degree of exposure to both actors and audience. Being performed in daylight, with very little division between actors and audience, we were all subject to the same potential distractions as we would experience in the park setting of Albee,s work-passers by, traffic and chances in the weather. The director made good choice of the natural features of this setting- a park bench and four graceful gums framing the action, its proximity to wide path providing logic for Jerry,s arrival.Voices were never lost as nearby buildings contained and focused the sound. The performers were confident and characterisation well-developed. However, there were moments where I questioned the contact between them, transitions were made to hurriedly and without being in proportional response to the other actor. Perhaps this was due to a desire to emphasise the deliberate, ritualistic nature of Jerry,s story telling. It seemed that Peter’s line “why did you tell me all this?” informed the telling of the longest story; the battle with the landlady’s dog. I felt the enactment was not in proportion to Jerry’s desperate need for and audience, a witness, to the last furious contest of his life. Yet the climax of the play was well-phased and the tension well-sustained to the point of Jerry’s death. The violence well-staged and the fatal stabbing drew and audible gasp from the audience whose suspension of disbelief was obviously complete even in such close proximity to the players. In his stated aim of observing a profound actor-spectator relationship Mr. Karunarathne was to some extent successful. The audience members were exposed to the actors and to each other. They could be fully seen by the actors and not screened by semi-darkness, so they had, in a sense, to become responsible for their own reactions. If they were bored or fell asleep the actors could see this, for they themselves had no isolating spotlights to protect them. There was therefore a much more inclusive sense of the shard experience than is the norm in an auditorium with actors in the light and audience in the park. There was grater pressure on the actors because there was no hiding from us. But was there really a different experience beyond that? The setting, although impermanent, was formally arranged in a semi-circle, with an aisle, as in most theatres. We were expected to behave, by an large, as a conventional audience. The players did not relate directly to us, and at times we seemed to be in the way – for example, when the actor playing Jerry mad e a big circle around us and walked down the aisle between us, while seeming to be quite unaware of our experience. Had this move been related to a real desire to encircle and include us, I think it could have worked. The audience did not seem to figure in the concept of the production in anything beyond the conventional manner. We were there to watch and observe, we were not casual passer by, we had come to a pre-arranged spot to watch a performance, just as if we had entered a purpose- built theatre. The fact that we could be observed while doing so added a dimension to the experience, but I think some more choices could have been explored, particularly due to the narrative, ritualistic nature of much of the work. Actors are fundamentally story tellers, and in the case the playing needed to include the audience to a much grater extent, to act on the fact that the audience could be seen, and to make them as much living characters in the experience as the other character on stage.
Faculty of Creative Arts
University of Wollongong
28 October 2003
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