Presented by Adelaide Festival, Cie Chaliwaté & Cie Focus
Reviewed 29 February 2020
A must-see for all families this Adelaide Festival, Dimanche is not only a humorous visual spectacle for kids, but also for adults to enjoy, combined with a strong message regarding the daunting effects of climate change.
As the audience quietens, a strong, whistling wind blows, filling the theatre with the feeling of a cold and isolated space, bare of any trees, buildings and people. Quiet music begins to play and the lights shine dimly on a miniature set of an arctic, snow-covered area with sparse pine trees. A miniature dilapidated campervan appears, making its way across the landscape. As it moves, so do the high hills of snow and mountains it traverses as they are actually made by the actor’s limbs and bodies perched over the miniature set. The audience is then transported inside the campervan as the actors pop up onto the stage, manually creating the inside of the van with working windscreen wipers, a steering wheel and an interior roof light, while Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover plays. These travellers are on a mission to capture a spectacular part of the world before it disappears. Using what little equipment they have, they aim to document Earth’s last living species.
Once the crew arrive at their isolated Arctic destination, they set themselves up and start filming upon the precarious ice sheets. Deep cracking sounds boom throughout the theatre and it appears that our protagonists are in trouble. As the screen above the stage comes alive, a projection of the cameraman’s recording feed is displayed allowing the audience to be transported directly to the white surrounds of the empty Arctic. One last crack and the audience witnesses the crew fall into the water, beginning a visual journey under the ice sheets towards a polar bear claw swiping for fish. The screen goes blank and the stage lights come up, illuminating an almost life-size, white polar bear puppet playing with its catch – the now water-logged video camera, until its young cub distracts it. The audience now focuses on the majestic creature, sparking an appreciation for the beauty of nature that we often lose in life, and may physically lose in the world (extinction) if things keep going the way they currently are.
Dimanche is made up of a range of inter-relating scenes that all add a different side to the climate change story. Alongside journeying with the diminishing documentary team, the use of miniature sets and isolated scenes of puppet animals, the play also focuses on the effects of climate change on everyday people. This is done by placing the audience within the set of a house and the couple who live inside it as they attempt to deal with the overwhelming heat from rising temperatures, the house-battering and violent effects of increasingly strong storms and the final destruction of their house via flooding due to a massive tidal wave.
Throughout the production there are almost no words spoken, and when they are it’s in a foreign language. But words aren’t necessary in Dimanche as body language, props, physical theatre, costumes, various sets, digital scenes and extraordinarily life-like puppets are all that’s needed. Perhaps the lack of words also is a reflection upon all the words that have been spoken by those wanting to prevent climate change, but that have been ignored or pushed aside in the names of profit and greed – talking doesn’t seem to work, therefore visuals showing an impending doom are utilised.
The amazingly life-like puppets of various animals that have their own documentary-like scenes within Dimanche, including polar bears, flamingos, fish and a shark, are both believable and captivating. Paired with the impressive technical puppeteering of the actors, these material objects come to life before the eyes of the audience, allowing everyone to witness animal scenes familiar to those found in a stunning David Attenborough documentary. As a flamingo delicately makes its way to its crying chicks’ nest, a tiny polar bear cub crawls adventurously over its mother’s massive body, while a shark swims through watery depths in search of food while fish scatter in fear.
Despite the humour found in Dimanche, the production does have an important and serious message regarding climate change as it projects its rather dystopic future. Hopefully it produces not only laughter, but also discussion around the topic, especially for younger audiences as a future with the terrifying effects of climate change is one we should avoid.
Reviewed by Georgina Smerd
Rating out of 5: 5
Venue: Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, King William Street, 5000
Season: 28 February – 7 March 2020
Duration: 80 mins
Tickets: $20 – $59
Bookings: https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/dimanche/
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