Trans-Mute ~ anything but silent

Photograph: Shaen Vikk Wong

Well, I wanted something to take me out of myself and seeing this performance certainly did! Trans-Mute ~ Butoh/Cabaret (Union House Theatre, The University of Melbourne), directed by Yumi Umiumare, was theatre at its best. Part Butoh ~ the loud foot stomped onto the theatre floor, and part cabaret ~ the glamorous clothes and intermittent songs, Trans-Mute with its deathly white bodies, sudden screams, vacant faces with opened mouths that stared beyond the audience into the distance, evoked zombies, vampires and horror movies. At one stage a hand, fingers contorted, rises from a pit amidst an eerie white mist, the male body, thin and pale emerges onto the stage only to writhe in what appears as pain or terror as his body distorts. Many of the characters in this performances displayed symptoms we would usually associate with mental illness. A young woman obsessively-compulsively falls down between a number of plastic bags filled with air, that she has brought onto the stage ~ repeatedly sits up, takes off her socks and shoes and then puts them on again; then repeats the actions over and over again. Another girl's limp body is toyed with by a man dressed in beanie and dressing gown. Whilst she is lying on the ground, he positions her arms and legs in various poses. She eventually stands up and wanders around spontaneously yelling expletives like someone with Tourret's syndrome. She moves close to an audience member and accusingly asks: 'Are you pregnant - Fuck You'. She continues to point at the audience, intermittently saying 'Fuck you'. A young Japanese man, sitting in a chair attempts to stop his right leg from persistently moving. He forcibly restrains his leg, and foot, which stomps loudly on the ground, eventually, he gains control over both feet which break into a complex tap-dance. A young woman, dressed in black evening dress has unwanted, uncontrollable movements in her upper body. Indeed many of the characters in this production appear to have problems with body control. One attempts to dress herself, however, every ten seconds her arm moves convulsively out to the side and above her head. As I watched this production, which was loud, confronting, annoying, hilarious, sad and quite beautiful, I couldn't help but see the human condition stretched out in front of me in amazing costume. Here was humanity in its utter vulnerability ~ some characters walked around with bandaged bodies, blood on their clothes, others beautifully dressed could only play to the bright lights ~ faking smiles. Others appeared controlled from some unseen source, mostly they were crying or singing or shouting, engaging with or ignoring one another. Some followed, others lead. The corporate bodies - four young people dressed as 'suits' spoke of how they got to the top, tried to convince the audience to join their plan. One woman, impeccably dressed ~ quite the Stepford wife, told of baking muffins for her children and needing to have a block of dark chocolate in order to get through her week. A young man sings his lover a karaoke song, whilst bodies lay shattered from combat. Even though I liked the sequences in which young girls were dressed as large pink rabbits with sinister smiles, the sudden sound of balloons they would burst and the Medusa dance by the woman with huge rope like hair, it was the end of the production that I appreciated the most. The actors walked onto the stage, slowly, with purpose, ever so slowly each entered and, dressed in white garb everything was slowed down to almost a stand-still, they moved vertically and horizontally across the stage until they moved off and the only person left standing was the man who had stood for quite a while holding an umbrella - his facial expressions saying it all ~ he was confused and didn't really know what to do. He eventually returned to his seat at the left of stage where he began the performance; only this time he did not sniff and cough loudly, pick his nose and eat the contents off his finger. He simply looked inside his briefcase, saw the pink rabbit suit and walked off stage behind the curtain. Trans-Mute lacked some of the extreme facial expressions one would expect to see in a Butoh performance, however, the pathos elicited by the bodily movements and amazing acting abilities of the performers is to be commended.