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NIGHTLIGHT
| the indirect Object Performances - Collaborations - Puppet Making - Workshops - Artist in Residencies Copyright © 2006-2011 'the indirect Object' all rights reserved ABN 55 263 640 956 |
“You guys did such amazing work-
everybody loved it...
I mean really loved it… A real coup!”
Aja Marneweck, Artistic Director
‘Out the Box’ Festival of Puppetry and Visual Theatre
everybody loved it...
I mean really loved it… A real coup!”
Aja Marneweck, Artistic Director
‘Out the Box’ Festival of Puppetry and Visual Theatre
... achingly beautiful, poetic style.
The acting was superb, just about faultless...
Oh, and it just so happened
that it was all done by puppets.
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Maggie Moore, Adelaide Theatre Guide
The acting was superb, just about faultless...
Oh, and it just so happened
that it was all done by puppets.
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Maggie Moore, Adelaide Theatre Guide
Winner of the 2009 Adelaide Fringe Festival Best
Puppetry Award, ‘nightlight’ was first commissioned
by the UNIMA South Africa ‘Out the Box’ festival of
puppetry and visual theatre, for performance in the
Adult Festival Program.
‘nightlight’ unfolds through a series of repetitive
scenes based around the hospital bed of Josh.
Josh is a 14 year old boy in the last stages of
terminal illness. Unable to speak or move, his
mother Sue brings Josh daily presents more suited
to the child he used to be, while the gentle care of
Nurse Vicky inspires his first feelings of love and
lust. When Josh sleeps, we enter his dream world
with him. In this realm of drug-induced fantasies his
medication dances, nausea turn his bed into a boat
tossed upon waves, Nurse Vicky appears as a
sensual temptress, he runs and plays while the
shadow of hospital life, doctors, and pain is never
far away. His dreams are simple, lacking the
sophistication of an adult man but capture the
effect of his physical state on his subconscious.
While 'nightlight' follows Josh's experience both
internally and externally, the performance is more
about his mother Sue. Alone, with no support from
family and friends. She finds it harder and harder to
visit her son. She sits in the visitors lounge. She
plays the pokies, she rambles, she eludes, she
says everything is fine. But will Sue really cope
when Josh inevitably passes?
Devised and performed by Beth McMahon and
Michael Bevitt, ‘nightlight’ explores both the whimsy
and gravity of contemporary puppet theatre for
adult audiences.
Puppetry Award, ‘nightlight’ was first commissioned
by the UNIMA South Africa ‘Out the Box’ festival of
puppetry and visual theatre, for performance in the
Adult Festival Program.
‘nightlight’ unfolds through a series of repetitive
scenes based around the hospital bed of Josh.
Josh is a 14 year old boy in the last stages of
terminal illness. Unable to speak or move, his
mother Sue brings Josh daily presents more suited
to the child he used to be, while the gentle care of
Nurse Vicky inspires his first feelings of love and
lust. When Josh sleeps, we enter his dream world
with him. In this realm of drug-induced fantasies his
medication dances, nausea turn his bed into a boat
tossed upon waves, Nurse Vicky appears as a
sensual temptress, he runs and plays while the
shadow of hospital life, doctors, and pain is never
far away. His dreams are simple, lacking the
sophistication of an adult man but capture the
effect of his physical state on his subconscious.
While 'nightlight' follows Josh's experience both
internally and externally, the performance is more
about his mother Sue. Alone, with no support from
family and friends. She finds it harder and harder to
visit her son. She sits in the visitors lounge. She
plays the pokies, she rambles, she eludes, she
says everything is fine. But will Sue really cope
when Josh inevitably passes?
Devised and performed by Beth McMahon and
Michael Bevitt, ‘nightlight’ explores both the whimsy
and gravity of contemporary puppet theatre for
adult audiences.
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