**Trigger warning: “Essence Unfolding” references mental health content**

We walk into the tent in the way we normally enter a performance space – we’re chatting, figuring out which seats to sit in, checking sight lines, looking around for people we know. We’ve been told there is both floor and aerial work so we settle into seats at the front. Then, my daughter prods me and points up. Ollie is hanging upside down from a trapeze bar, their knees wrapped over the bar. They are so still that for a moment, I don’t register them. When we leave a little over 40 minutes later, swiping my thumbs across my eyes, I hope that this pre-performance stillness is a metaphor for the peace that Ollie has found in making “Essence Unfolding”. 

I have to admit that I haven’t seen (or sought out) a lot of circus and, though I admire the skill and strength of the performers in the work I have been to, I have struggled to find an emotional connection to it in the way I often do with theatre. From the opening second, “Essence Unfolding” is a beautiful, moving, profound and ultimately hopeful piece of work. The narrative that is built from Ollie’s movement both in the air and on the floor is completely coherent – from the choreographed stumbles and falls that preface the fall into mental health struggles through the setbacks of recovery, to the grace and clarity of the denouement. 

“Essence Unfolding” has an emotional articulation and maturity that is almost shocking when we consider that the performer is still in their teens. In speaking with Ollie about the work, they identify how the physicality of circus has helped them to find stillness and, from that, the clarity and energy they have needed to move forward. “Essence Unfolding” is a testament to the capacity and power of art to help people to work and walk through the dark. Ollie’s bravery and generosity in sharing their journey deserves a wide audience. Hopefully it will offer help to those going through a similar journey, as well as to friends and whanau who might struggle to understand how they can support a person they love and care for going through similar experiences. 

The performance is interspersed with original poetry that Ollie has created and that was a catalyst for this work. On the way out we bought the companion book of poems, “Unfolding”. It, like Ollie’s performance, contains simple, clear and moving words and is also highly recommended.

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It’s always good to try something new.

For some time, a visit to the Factory Theatre in Onehunga Mall has been in my shame file. My fault, plenty of invites, I just never got round to it.

Tonight, I did.

Our arrival was held up by the need to manoeuvre our way past a very nasty Friday night crash and the inevitable pack of rubberneckers – it’s Tamaki Makaurau after all – but eventually we found our way to the front door of Auckland’s best kept theatrical secret. Almost invisible from the mall despite great signage, inaudible from the front door, entering, however, exposes a foyer filled with excited people, an excellent box office and bar, ample seating, and a wonderful sense of electrified anticipation.

Not your usual theatre mob, this audience was quite different. Much more a fringe theatre crowd which was surprisingly refreshing, and appropriate, since this is an Auckland Fringe show.

A few deep breaths to shake off the city and the crash and we’re in the performance space. A well-equipped technician’s box glows warmly, the seating is great, and the sight lines are magic – not a bad seat anywhere in the full house.

So begins a night filled with happy surprises. I’ve read the publicity, seen some performance shots, so I’m prepared for this to be a young person’s journey. Being a gender non-conforming person myself, that innate sense we all seem to have that keeps us safe and cares for others, was activated.

Accurately as it turns out.

The raised stage and excellent lighting expose a hoop suspended from the grid and a swing likewise attached. The young artist, Orlando ‘Ollie’ Green (they/them), is seated in the curve of the hoop, pensive, still, and silent. It’s an impressive image, filled with promise.

A recorded voice track begins the narrative, and Green works their magic on, over, around, in, and under the hoop. It’s impressive work, strong, elegant, lithe, courageous too, and eventually they hit terra firma (the stage) and phase two of the narrative begins. It’s spoken word, live, poetic, articulate, lyrical, yet it tells a story of confusion and turmoil where hope seems distant and loss imminent. The publicity warns of content that addresses suicide and mental health challenges, but this should not stop anyone from seeing the show. It’s delicately handled by Green, nuanced, subtle, we know it’s there, we know it’s embedded in Green’s own narrative, but this is ultimately a story of hope, aspiration, enlightenment, and courage.

The action moves to the swing which, unlike the hoop, becomes a window through which Green breaks the fourth wall and speaks to us directly. The poetry is lighter now, delicate but more upbeat, still it does not shy away from the darker times, and the choice of the early verses of Paul Simon’s ‘The Boxer’ is a smart way to illustrate Green’s story and to move it forward while remaining one step removed from Green and illustrative rather than slapping the audience’s collective face with some challenging stuff.

“I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told

I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles

Such are promises

All lies and jest

Still a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest”

All lies and jest? Our journeys are full of them.

Green in especially impressive when they embed a unique gymnastic flexibility in and around the dance facets of the narrative while never missing a beat of the complex poetic rhythms that anchor the performance in an intense reality.

The latter sequences in Green’s eclectic journey are drenched in the imagery of hope, of optimism, of promise, of a ladder that will never break no matter how hard the climb. Even Paul Simon is drawn into the milieu of positivity, he’s “going home”:

“And I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
Goin’ home
Where the New York winters aren’t bleeding me

Leading me
Going home.”

Going home?

Green’s narrative is redolent with hope, with confidence, with a new assurance but they’re also not all pink lenses and fluffy clouds. Green knows there will be rough times, they’ve had them already, been there, got the tee shirt, they’re aware that The Boxer, despite his desire, never actually made it home.

Sometimes we don’t.

Green also ‘carries the reminders’ of the experiences that ‘laid them down’, and there’s an incredibly strong thread of realism in the narrative that gives us hope for a bright future for our young artist regardless of the challenges ahead because there will be many, and a lot of them won’t make much sense. Choosing Joni Mitchell’s ‘Clouds’ as the final embedded clip is pure genius:

“Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say “I love you” right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way.

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day.

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions, I recall
I really don’t know life at all.”

Green, like Mitchell, leaves a space for cynicism and laughter, survival mechanisms for artists and minorities, despite the overarching themes of optimism and bliss.

Long live optimism and bliss!

We are who we are, our lives aren’t some ideological ‘choice’ despite what some of today’s politicians may preach, we are not the enemies of the state or of society, and for Green to decide to put their young life on the stage for all to share is an act of enormous courage and selflessness.

Selflessness?

Yes, because whenever we put ourselves on the stage in front of an audience, whether we’re Hamlet, Nora Helmer, Pope Joan, Tessa from ‘Prima Facie’, Roy Cohn from ‘Angels in America’, or Orlando Green in ‘Essence Unfolding’, there may well be someone sitting in the dark whose life is changed forever by our actions.

The power and the responsibility of performance.

Ollie Green certainly earned the rich applause from tonight’s full house and my everlasting admiration. I wish them all the very best for the upcoming tour north and I can see ‘Essence Unfolding’ bursting onto the international fringe festival circuit sooner rather than later.

Final night at the Factory is September 21^st.

Book now.

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