This was published 5 years ago
We have the power: kids invite adults into their world in the innovative Lone
By John Bailey
Kids, skip this paragraph. It's about faces beaten to a bloody steak, howling monsters born of black bile, the annihilation of a woman at the hands of her lover. It's about the theatre of The Rabble, whose every work so far has alternated moments of transcendent imagery with scenes of such graphic abjection that even Francis Bacon would bite his knuckle.
Not children's theatre, then. And not the likeliest candidates to direct children, let alone put them in individual boxes, one-on-one, with an adult they've never met. But that's the opening premise of Lone, a collaboration between The Rabble and youth arts organisation St Martin's.
From left, Clea Carney, Lola Morgan and Thomas Taylor invite adults into their world in Lone.Credit: Simon Schluter
You might think the prospect of performing solo to an audience of one would be intimidating to your average pre-teen, but the eight-to-11-year-olds of Lone are bubbling with excitement over the forthcoming work.
"You can rely on other people if it's the school play," says 11-year-old Lola. "When it's one-on-one, if you stuff up it's not like you're on this huge stage with loads of people and audience members to cast a blind eye."
"We're the top dogs,'' says Thomas Taylor (left), with Lola Morgan and Clea Carney.Credit: Simon Schluter
"But it's kind of impossible to stuff up, because there's no real fixed script," adds 11-year-old Thomas.
"And they don't actually know what's supposed to happen," Lola admits.
Clea, 10, says it's easier to perform alone "because it's not like if you say something at the wrong time then it messes up everyone else's lines and they get confused as well and the whole show is ruined ... It's just you. You work it out."
Lone's child-adult gambit raises questions of safety, privacy, power and surveillance, but for Emma Valente – one half of The Rabble, along with Kate Davis – the provocation is a counterpoint to the forced separation of the two groups in contemporary life.
"What I'm interested in is the fact that adults and children who are strangers don't get to interact very often," she says. "As an adult you don't get to make friends with a child or be alone with a child that you don't know very often. I feel like we're missing out. I feel like it's a gift to the audience to have this precious time that is protected, where you can be alone in a space that they've designed, and can be invited into."
Each of Lone's 11 boxes will be a miniature world as dreamt up by its young occupant. After being invited in by the child, an audience member will bear witness to their invented story of loneliness, which Valente says is the real taboo with which the work grapples.
"For some reason [loneliness] is a frontier that feels difficult for people to admit to or confront because it comes with these feelings of worthlessness or pity. It's a feeling that's not talked about."
Part of the Lone experience will involve audience members spending time in isolation, alone with their thoughts – "I think that's actually the most confronting thing in the show," Valente says – before their encounters with the children open up different ways of thinking through their solitude.
"There's lonely and there's being alone," Thomas says. "Lonely is when it's not a choice you make. It's often implied by other people. Even if you're surrounded by people you can still be lonely because they'll leave you out."
Lola says the one-on-one element of the show is essential, given how private the experience of loneliness can be. "A character's sharing this aspect of their life with an audience member. It isn't something where you just say, 'Hey, I'm lonely!' to any given person. It's something they can relate to if they're lonely, they can pity you if they aren't. It's being in your own space, feeling each other's presence."
Earlier stages of the work explored themes of secrets and privacy, but Valente says the group eventually landed on loneliness "because the performers reacted just as strongly as we did to the idea of it. Loneliness is a singular emotion that the kids really understand, and they also have a notion of what it means for an adult."
Childhood is a time when loneliness and its corollaries – boredom, melancholy, yearning – can be unbearably intensified. These young performers are growing up in a time when adults have invented unprecedented methods for avoiding alone time. There will be no phones in Lone.
While forced solitude can have negative associations, Valente says Lone offers a reminder of its promise. "Everyone knows that their phone is interrupting them. But I guess it's the next thought of, what is it actually interrupting? What is it stopping? Being able to have an uninterrupted thought that wanders for 20 minutes: how rare is that?"
The internet does our daydreaming for us, but for artists such as those of The Rabble and their young collaborators, you can't outsource the idle mind.
"Part of what Kate and I do is really visualising what the show will look like," Valente says. "We've really toned those brain muscles. But it's come from a long time sitting alone with my eyes closed ... I feel like that space, whatever your art form, is a really valuable thing that if you're not careful can be completely overtaken by other things that are shorter and easier."
The Rabble's work has always been marked by inspired visual design, and even the more traditionally staged productions still feel immersive. The creative process usually involves Davis and Valente imagining a world and letting their performers inhabit it, being very open to whatever happens next. "This feels exactly the same," Valente says. "Except I feel like I'm making 11 shows instead of one."
While Valente and Davis might be driving the work, audience members will have no doubt whose world they're in once they enter their box.
"You're not exactly telling them what to do, but even if you're not controlling them, you're the one with that power," Clea says. "When you're at home, your mum's doing something and you're doing something and she's not telling you what to do, but she has the power to do that. [In the box] it's like you're the one with that power."
"Parents are the experts at parenting, but in the space we're in we're the experts at doing what we're doing," Thomas says. "They're listening to us and learning from us. They may have more experience in other areas, but in this area we're above them _ the top dogs."
Lone is at Arts House, North Melbourne, June 8 to 17.