Playing Nicely is a clever, beautifully performed, originally designed solo show that delivers far more than the “nice” implies.

Director-designer Brigid Costello, assistant director Jeremy Downing and choreographic interns Jenna Logan and Ashley Darbyshire have produced a tight, amusing and intriguing show which aims to highlight the increasing numbers of children who suffer anxiety and mental illness. The serious subject is delivered in an entertaining, amusing, yet thought-provoking way. 

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Playing Nicely is a solo performance by Gina Andrews, choreographed, directed and designed by Brigid Costello, performed with commitment, and with high production values. It is the fourth production by Pinwheel Dance Theatre whose  desire is to create work that challenges societal perceptions of behaviour.

The work has a strong design element, with life sized lace cut-out daisy-chain female silhouettes draped around the 3 walls of the stage. Visually, the figures are flat to the wall, and all the same, their relentless conformity providing a visual reminder of a particular model of behaviour to which women are expected to aspire.

These cut-out figures on the walls, and the iconic Barbie doll which Andrews plays with, provide the source for much of the movement, which like them is largely symmetrical and relatively wooden.  The soundscore (uncredited) which accompanies and drives the movement along, is relentless and disturbingly strident, with the exception of one more-subtle section where the sound is like beads dropping on the ground.  Later sectionsof the work endeavour to depict changes in attitude to this repressive environment but need further choreographic and scenographic development to do so convincingly.

There’s a sense that the action is perhaps initially set in later childhood,  a period when  “playing nicely” with one’s peers is the norm and remains largely unquestioned.

Subsequently, Andrews  makes use of an array of objects to imply a challenge to the assumption that this will always be the way a girl’s life is. She cuts into the paper people-chains, disfiguring and eventually  beheading them; draws dots on her own  body to signify cutting lines – as a plastic surgeon might do; and inhales smoke from matches (an  evocative gesture, open to interpretation).

There are occasional subtle moments such as the delicious wiggle of her toes just before paint is applied to her body, and the gentle undulation caused by air conditioning blowing on a line of lace figures standing at the front of the stage. This subtlety of delivery and texture in the content could pervade the entire work to add multiple layers of interpretation and provide some of the intended critique.

The figures drawn across the front of the stage symbolically fence Andrews in, implying that the desired level of conformity is almost impossible to escape. The work could end here.

If Playing Nicely is to achieve a stronger critical commentary about the dangers of conforming to expected behaviours, it needs at some point to model ‘messing up’ and ‘not playing nicely’, bringing to the performance sequences of action that empower the performer and the audience in setting aside the paper cut out norms. 

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