At a time when I’m struggling to separate the content of Fringe productions from last Friday’s atrocity (even though they were all conceived and well-formed long before), a show without meaning, on purpose, is welcome.  

The publicity image – a still from the Cab Calloway Saint James Infirmary Blues Betty Boop Version – recalls a time when exploring the form of animation was the end rather than the means.

The Cartoonaroony creator/ performers – Grace Bentley, Frankie Berge, Ella Gilbert and Chris Jannides – are simply and delightfully exploring a style of performance they’ve decided to call ‘cartoon theatre’. They want to know if there is anything interesting in exploring “an animated chaotic elasticity of body and thought produced by the warping and distorting of imagination.” (Short answer, yes – see Only Bones 1.0)

To the list of traditions their programme notes they are playing with and drawing on – mime, theatre, vaudeville, clown, dance, butoh, theatre of the absurd – I would add Dada. And yes, it’s a ‘hot mess’ mash-up.

As we find our seats in the basement space at Te Whaea, the four performers, clad in the sort of mismatched flimsy and raggedy clothes one might drag from a dress-up box, are each hugging a large concrete pillar, while their guest Roonie, Peter Zazzali, formally dressed from the waist up, stands centre stage listening intently to the earbuds that connect him to the smartphone he holds.

Having warmed up his face, Peter welcomes us with a promise of something from the opera Carmen, as performed at the Bubble Gum Factory, and offers a speedy rundown of the plot – producing groans from the slowly animating performers, who either have the plague or are very hung over.

A sonic blast of Bizet from Spike Jones and his City Slickers inspires Grace to try tooting a fanfare on a road cone .,. Frankie and Chris fancy Ella would make a good mute …

The images created by stretching panty hose and manifesting a very tall white-headed and black-horned beast from found objects are simultaneously strange and familiar. Their armless ‘dance of the sleeves’ is crazy yet very relatable. 

A dance I perceive as one of would-be social sophistication produces a woman whose recurring attempts to tell someone, anyone, about her son and daughter both lampoons the type and captures a poignant tone. And a man with a stretching toy between his legs is very pleased with himself.

The women do extraordinary things, tethered to each other with pantyhose plaits. The announcement of a “dance of meaningless movement” makes us wonder if we were supposed to find meaning in what has led up to it. Their random, manic, individualistic dancing is contrasted with just enough sudden synchronicity to prove they are really very good dancers.

And all the while, the apparent chaos on stage if offset by Peter at an ironing board upstage centre, quietly pressing his trousers. A psuedo-interval allows them to take stock of how they are doing so far …

Chris’s bald head becomes, by virtue of some judiciously applied dots, a face from which dialogue pours … The isolate ironer is isolated no more … Clothes racks become frames for moving figures … Something bloody happens to someone’s mouth – or does she just have a plum in it …?

A clucky chicken song gets rude and offensive in an amusing way.

Coming in at 35 minutes Cartoonaroony avoids crossing into the time zone where we might want more structure and meaning; more identifiable ‘characters’ with emotional arcs; a whole that’s more than the sum of its parts …

As an exploration of form, it’s a riot. And – responding to a question raised in the programme note, it does have the potential to comment on “human life and its complexities, celebrations, insights or issues.” I look forward to what develops.

In conclusion, and in light of how I opened this review, it feels appropriate to end on this from the Cartoonaroonies:

A NOTE ON HUMOUR  
The attraction and inclusion of humour in this work comes from how it is being valued. Laughter, joy and humour are seen as gifts from a higher realm, and as valuable antidotes to all the ills inflicted on and by humans. Humour is a healing nutrient for the body, spirit and soul. It isn’t cheap, although it can appear to be. 

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