CRASH WITH ME
Te Auaha Cinema, 65 Dixon St, Te Aro, Wellington
26/02/2021 - 28/02/2021
Production Details
Sneakyville Theatre Company
‘Freedom has no fixed address’
Crash With Me is a verbatim theatre performance centering on homelessness in women. Crash With Me divulges the other side of homelessness. The freedoms and liberation felt by a select few who embrace being homeless as a lifestyle rather than a state of poverty or desperation. The unquenchable spirit and optimism of women who make the most out of every scenario and display moving levels of resilience to overcome pitfalls and heartaches, Crash With Me recounts joyous highs and devastating lows, showing that life really is about more than having the best address money can buy.
Collaborating material from multiple sources, Crash with Me aims to illuminate rather than emulate to audiences the experiences of young, homeless women. Featuring material set in Melbourne’s own ‘Tent City’, the performance covers freedoms and limitations experienced living without a fixed address. Hurdles for standard things taken for granted by millions of Australians including welfare payments and easy access to hygiene products are addressed through verbatim accounts. The impact of dating apps on the homeless lifestyle is also explored as the resources available to homeless women evolve in a modern age.
Crash with Me is more than recounting homeless experiences of people on the street. It’s an attempt to address an uncomfortable topic via a medium built on using voices that are predominantly sidelined.
Sneakyville Theatre Company is a collective of four artists passionate about creating performances centred around verbatim material. Sneakyville has performed two shows to date, Q (2018) and Esoteric (2019) and premiered their third show, Crash with Me as part of the Hillscene Live festival (2020) before performing again at the Melbourne Fringe festival (2020). Sneakyville select their source material from marginalised demographics attempting to give voice to people who are ignored or shunned by mainstream society.
So why this work?
‘It’s the artists responsibility to bring forth the voices of the oppressed’ – Benji
‘Homelessness popped into the box of ideas and I kind of got stuck on it. Homelessness isn’t really spoken about and I want to see that change’– Lauren
‘I’ve always had a strong pull towards showing the true face of the world in all its good and bad. So often art mirrors reality because reality in itself is often so more interesting than fiction. I wanted to make something I believed would benefit someone in someway and I strongly believe that ‘Crash With Me’ does that by giving someone a voice that would not normally be able to speak.’– Dia
‘Verbatim challenges me to approach theatre through someone else’s perspective’– Damian
Praise for Esoteric:
‘The production challenges an unquestioning perception of the narratives woven into society as dictated by mainstream media.’ – Journalism Student Penelope Cannata
‘It’s far from Waiting for Godot, but Esoteric did make me think.’ – Liam Stretch, Backstage Christchurch
‘An interesting point of reference and a conceptually worthwhile use of the verbatim.’ – Austin Harrison, Art Murmurs
Crash with Me
Te Auaha
26th – 28th February 2021
5 & 7pm (30 mins)
Tickets: Koha
TO BOOK TICKETS visit fringe.co.nz
Written and devised by: Damian Hivon, Benji Wragg and Lauren Huggard
Performed by: Benji Wragg, Dia Taylor, Damian Hivon and Lauren Huggard
Crew:
Lucy Lyons – Stage manager
Andrew Speet – Livestream co-ordinator/ Tech liaison
Jack Cocking – producer/DA
Brad Cumming – FTV Lecturer
Amy Wright – ENT Lecturer
Jess Hattam – Show Liaison
Hamish Garnham-Colman – Director/Switch
Giovanni Oliva – Cam Crew
Riley Smith – Cam Crew
William Du – Cam Crew
Image by: Callum Gault, Kahlie Alexander and Benji Wragg
Verbatim , Theatre , Digital presentation ,
30 mins
Life lessons in spiritedness and resilience
Review by Margaret Austin 27th Feb 2021
“Freedom has no fixed address” is the brave subtitle to Crash with Me, Sneakyville Theatre Company’s Fringe Festival offering. It’s a 30 minute filmed performance, and shown in the Te Auaha cinema.
It has been recorded on two occasions in Australia, and also livestreamed.
Although we’re watching and listening to actors, their words are verbatim – that is, compiled from actual sources such as Tent City in Melbourne. The theme is homelessness – its realities for, and impact on, women. The cast comprises two men as well as two women, and reasons for this become clear.
All are wearing masks, as the original performance took place in Melbourne in 2020. Although pieces of cloth prevent us from fully appreciating facial expressions, and at times muffle words, these drawbacks can be seen as a fitting comment on the actors’ aim: showcasing voices that are predominantly sidelined.
The only props are four crates, used in different ways. The stage is dimly lit – which adds to the theme of darkness in these lives. We learn of the circumstances under which young women become homeless, and of the ways in which they adapt. That’s where the lessons and impact of such a lifestyle really kick in.
Bathroom products and things like sanitary towels are luxuries. Busking is a way to make money for dope.
“Do you have a spare bed or a couch for the night?” asks one. And the all-too-usual response is along the lines of, “Can I have sex with that?”
But there are highs as well as lows and a sense of community prevails. Above all, from the spiritedness and resilience we witness, we learn that life really is about more than having the best address money can buy.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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