RESPONSES

Pressed into a shallow heated space between audience and front curtain, the five performers of This Kind of Ruckus stand poised, ready for action, red crepe pom-poms quivering just slightly. ‘It’s theatre,’ they seem to say, ‘It’s a show.’ But that’s a complicated idea in the world of Version 1.0’s politically charged, verbatim theatre. Even more than in previous shows (the wheat one, the boat one), the lines between real testimony and performance text, or performer and person are decidedly grey. The subject matter here – domestic violence, sexual violence, power and control – is strangely intimate, as rage often is. In two equal halves, the ensemble examines ‘consent [a]s a grey area.’ How do we get from here to there? What separates accident and intent? Who is culpable?
I look away for just a moment and a heavy, bouncing disco has become an uneven stumble-embrace as David catches/pulls Kym and they fall to the floor. A mediated rehearsal of how-are-you-I’m-ok becomes an exercise in misunderstanding. Overhead, slow motion replays dissect the moment of embrace, a tumble, the changing pallor of rage – in extreme detail, over and again. Smeared stage blood and eye-shadowed bruises turn a game of which 12 guys would you fuck into a sinister and grotesque play of aggression.
It’s just a show. But I leave unnerved.

Justine

There are certain expectations when you’re eating an orange in public. I mean lets face it; you’re really eating the genitals of a plant. So you should do something to keep the animal side of it clean and neat. When the cast of This Kind of Ruckus draw the curtains at half time to eat orange quarters, things have already gotten sticky. Working between dating protocol, bump and grind club culture, sporting misdemeanours, lust, loneliness, the demands of desirability, endurance and cross examination, it becomes clear that there is nothing domesticated about the ubiquitous violence of our society’s standpoint on sex. Battered women and disoriented blokes fight it out on the bubble wrap chessboard behind the curtain. But this material for packing fragiles doesn’t stop anyone from getting hurt. There are a few good times, and some laughs, but really This Kind of Ruckus makes a mess and we are left to pick up the pieces. It’s not that easy after all the blows to the head, but hopefully, in the morning, we’ll see things in a new light.

Alice

Overall I found This Kind Of Ruckus to be a really good enjoyable and mostly gripping theatre experience.  The text was great, I never felt it going over my head and was able to be consumed by it.  The performances were generally really natural and believable.  I have been thinking about this for my own performance and I remember once noticing David’s ability to just be himself with some admiration. 

Two things which I couldn’t help notice, though they didnt ruin the experience:  I found it a bit sad that in a piece which deals with mass Australian culture, in particular footy culture, there wasn’t one person of colour.  Surely this is a piece which is very relevant to Islanders and Lebanese, to be quite specific.  On the contrary Frank Mainoo was quite present throughout the piece, but his role as a ‘shit kicker’ so to speak, just seemed really backward.  I couldn’t help but think of the French cinema in Inglorious Basterds where the one black film technician is asked to be hid away. 

The movement in the piece polarised me.  The football training moves could have been performed much better with a bit more work, however I’m not sure if it’s just my training background which made that stand out so much.  On the other hand the dancing was really interesting, leaving me often unsure as to whether it was parody of Aussie-footy-bloke-dance-culture.

The design was fantastic.  And the videos integration was nice throughout.  The two points above far from ruined the piece for me.  When the women were standing and pointing out who they’d like to fuck in the audience, I got a real rush of blood and felt incredibly on edge, I think that’s amazing when a theatre piece can do that.

Ahil

The opening image of bright red pom pom’s and a defiant cheerleaders stance leaves no guessing for the source of inspiration of Version 1.0’s latest invocation. This Kind of Ruckus is a pithy, intelligent, emotional investigation of the trials of sex between men and women, and the lasting effects that abuse has on its victims. The most telling message from this engaging production is that despite the lip service paid to sexual violence against women, and the horror expressed by the community after the Matthew Johns affair, in reality the same old excuses of ‘what was she wearing’ and ‘she could have prevented it’ seem to pervade the communities subconscious.  I would have liked more probing into why seemingly straight-laced men can take part into events such as these, however Version 1.0 have provided an intelligent starting point for this discussion. Dynamic acting, intense multi-media and vibrant physicality invokes the audience into questioning their own relationship to this topical issue. Version 1.0 make you proud of the Sydney performance scene.

Joanne

In the program notes for This kind of ruckus, David Williams says ‘we hope that you enjoy the show tonight, although enjoy may not be the right word..’

He is right, it isn’t. I left Carriageworks pissed off. I got home, pissed off. I woke up, pissed off.

I know that ‘70s feminist theatre did address sexual violence, and I know that for many theatre companies since, the exploration has continued. But in Ruckus, sexual violence is given the Version 1.0 treatment. Various stories of desire, frustration, loneliness,violence and sex are presented, cut up, revisited, projected onto a screen, then shown from another perspective. The presence of alcohol is never far away, neither is that sinking feeling that the notion of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour is hard to pin down. It’s obvious for a minute in the nightclub, or the bedroom, or when the performers talk to us in a familiar way, then in a flash it’s gone.

This kind of ruckus left me spellbound, outraged and needing to desperately converse with someone about what I’d just seen, and about what I see every day. The content is so confrontingly close to home, it’s standing in your backyard.

Rebecca