The Hold

I saw a great piece of theatre today. It was a collaboration between our museum and Lung Ha theatre company.
About a man who has collected and curated momentos of his life and is now trying to donate his collection to the museum, and to use objects to reconnect to the people that mattered to him... It brings up all kinds of questions about how and why objects become valuable...

With my theatre critic head on I really appreciated the use of space... it was a promenade piece which took place in the museum and we the audience were guided around the action... Costume and lighting was simple but effective.. Lighting units were moved around on trolleys to provide extra emphasis to each space. Also the use of a live musical score meant that even though we were in a public space, it felt like we were in a special moment. The performances were good, sometimes poignant sometimes comic... and the way we were guided around the museum was very polished.

With my human being and audience head on... I really enjoyed it the show. Ultimately it was about the universal themes of love and loss. It also got me thinking about the work I've been doing during our adoption prep, looking at 'Life story work' and the significance of objects and storytelling in building and affirming identity. The other connection was about how much I use photography to fix events and to share emotion with other people...

The only bad thing is that I did a small amount of snivelling at the end of the performance... fine if you're in a dark theatre, but in a reasonably well lit space it resulted in much surreptitious wiping of eyes.. pretending that I had an itch and that my eyeballs weren't really leaking... :-)

Overall it was great to be in the familiar surroundings of work yet to feel transported... A big shout out to Christine our Community Engagement manager who had the idea in the first place...