Kate Champion’s piece NEVER DID ME ANY HARM is a depth charge exploration into the whole world of the joys, challenges and frustrations of parenthood in the year 2012.
I loved NEVER DID ME ANY HARM, it just kept coming at the audience, surprising the audience, demanding one’s attention. These are some of my snaps from the show.
Vincent Crowley as a disgruntled parent, delivering a rave that seemed to curry a lot of favour with the audience, along these lines, ‘What is wrong with kids these days?…Why can’t they be physical…get out and play…why do they sit in front of the computer all day? Why can’t they climb trees?…I swear I’m going to wear a t-shirt that says, ‘I won’t sue if my child falls and gets injured’.
Heather Mitchell as a world weary middle-aged woman, sounding off from her deckchair, who made the deliberate choice not to have children and is proud of it.
Sarah Jayne Howard’s marvelous, rigorous, confronting solo dance work that lit up the stage…
Marte Dusseldorp and Vincent Crowley trying to get it on, finally having some together, and their child, played by Kirstie McCracken, comes in, just at the wrong time, and interrupts them.
The wonderful Alan Flower, transferring himself into a special young boy who is mistreated by his friend and is driven across the stage in a shopping trolley with a bucket covering his head.
The other day I was riding on a train into the city, standing in the vestibule area. I noticed a young family who were sitting down in the carriage. They were a young wife and husband with a young son and a young daughter. Both of their kids were totally entranced by playing games on their ipads, with their parents looking on, as if mesmerised. Not a word was spoken, no communication whatsoever.
Do we really live in better, more enlightened times?!
A joint Force Majeure and Sydney Theatre Company production, NEVER DID ME ANY HARM opened at Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company on Wednesday January 11 and runs until Sunday February 12, 2012.
Tags: SYDNEY THEATRE REVIEWS- NEVER DID ME ANY HARM, Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Festival 2012, Force Majeure, Kate Champion, Geoff Cobham, Max Lyandvert, Andrew Upton, Roz Harvey, Kristina Chan, Vincent Crowley, Marta Dusseldorp, Alan Flower, Sarah Jane Howard, Kirstie McCracken, Heather Mitchell, Joshua Mu, Lisa Tomasetti.