FRINGEWORLD: Sleeping Beauty (3.5 stars)

Review by Amanda Lancaster

Once upon a time… fairy tales, fables and stories were all used as cautionary tales and lessons of morality. But over time these tales began to warp and lose power, and so they had to be remade. A constant act of unmaking, adapting, mutating then beautifying and smoothing away at the rough prickly edges forcing the ideas within the pages to twist and become transposed until eventually resembling nothing of itself – it was now palatable enough for the ever changing world and its inhabitants.

This idea of fantasy and reality blurring into one an other, this idea of dream no longer being discernible from actuality is where you will find the base narrative for Sleeping Beauty.

Renee Newman and Ian Sinclair were both struck with the idea of placing a character like Sleeping Beauty – the quintessential victim and constantly distressing damsel –  into a contemporary modern day setting, to see if the story could still work in today’s socio-political life.

This is how we get to the dream motel. A sleep clinic, where the loss of control and inability to grasp reality can be reattained….by killing your dreams. Newman and Sinclair make a wonderful pairing as the two main characters both of whom are unable to disentangle themselves from dreams that feel more fulfilling and more like reality than reality does itself. Working together with minimal subtle nuances the show takes on a dream like pace in sync with the constant lullaby toned music making the audience wonder at time if perhaps they are dreaming whilst awake?

A thoroughly watchable journey exploring the modern ideas of sleep, dreams, science and the courage it takes to gain control over your own life and what you want.

When: 2 – 6 February 2016 (9:30pm)

Where: PICA Performance Space, Perth Cultural Centre, PERTH

Tickets: $17 – $25

Info: Duration 50 minutes, Suitable 15+

Links:

Fringeworld – https://fringeworld.com.au:443/program/event/c23a3171-a188-41c7-b8b6-9520bd773d51/

Blue Room – https://blueroom.org.au/events/sleeping-beauty/