Caceroleo
Vault Festival, Crescent
24th-29th January 7pm-8:30pm (matinee on Saturday 28th)
“Caceroleo examines ‘safe spaces’ in the arts from the point of voices of a young person who grew up witnessing domestic violence.”
Review by Richard Lambert, 2 Stars
I have to admit I arrived and was wondering how triggered I’d be by this show with signs warning of nudity, bereavement, domestic violence and drowning.
However, with all the context being spoken word I wasn’t triggered at all. In fact it was very hard to actually have any emotional journey watching this show. A 90 minute show with continuous video projection and many sections, including the start, of only video projection. The video content was good but unfortunately projected across the performer/writer in a technically sloppy manner.
The EQUITY Safe space statement took up a lot of showtime to read through and digest. We then see the performer in a “safe space rehearsal room” with another actor wearing a Heidi plaited wig in rehearsals, instead of a female actor, I didn’t get it. I’m really sorry, but I just didn’t. We’re shown a drama school Stage Combat class. There is then audience participation where the performer teaches a female audience member how to safely effect a choke hold. I have no idea why this was in any way relevant.
The lighting didn’t do anything much and the Sound worked for the video. No idea why the microphone was sometimes used and sometimes not – couldn’t quite find the artistic reason for when and why.
An overly-long show that has good intent but fails to land and make waves. The show has had accolades and support but I felt this typified the Emperor’s New Clothes due to the concept being virtuous.
Plenty of words and phrases repeated over and over again ad nauseum. But the phrases didn’t land for me. I can’t even remember what they were, maybe “move farther” was one of the repeated phrases?
Somehow I missed the “nudity” component we’d been warned about on the way in. I didn’t notice any nudity in the video and certainly there wasn’t any from the performer. The shirtless poster image of the performer also seemed irrelevant to the show. Perhaps this was just false advertising by the marketting department to sell tickets?
A great concept that didn’t work for this reviewer.
