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Il Secolo XIX , 20 March 2003

(translation)

Challenge Australian style

Risk Reduction, fear as acrobatics

Can one marry in the theatre the representation of paralysing fear and stress with the most stunning performance of athletic acrobatism? Can one nod at Beckett's Act without Words II by putting on stage the extreme vitality of young bodies that soar and 'walk' upside down against the law of gravity?

Judging by the extraordinary Risk Reduction that inaugurated the Australian Festival on Tuesday at the Tosse Theatre to an enthusiastic audience reception, one would say yes. Australia is the country at the vanguard of physical theatre, that hybrid area of performance that mixes theatre and dance, clowning and mime.

The challenge of the three aerial actors, or perhaps it would be better to say acrobat-dancers who know how to act and make audiences laugh, is Risk Reduction , developed by Geoffrey Dunstan and directed by Michael Gow. In an hour they concentrate a story of ordinary alienation, routine, phobias, loneliness, desires and ancestral fears with the most refined circus techniques (trapeze, balancing acts, Herculean physical strength and lightness). The theme is the fear that governs us, perhaps today more than ever. Fear of germs, of illnesses, of thieves, of the dark, of insects, of leaving home, of mixing with people, of loving. Everything constitutes a risk.

It's true that the world out there is dangerous, but it is also very amusing and exciting, indeed 'thrilling' to say it the Australian way.