‘Kabernette’ opens

Press, 28 June 1983, Page 8

‘Kabernette’ opens

“Kabernette” directed by Peter Falkenberg for the Free Theatre. June 27 to July 1. Running time: 8.15 p.m. to 10.45 p.m. Reviewed by Gerrit Bahlman A cast of eight performers presented a sequence of short, incomprehensive skits in the almost Free Theatre which provide a clear definition of the notion of Theatre of the Fringe. It might be thought of in this fashion. If 10 per cent of the programme is on the fringe of your ablility to understand it and the rest simply isn’t it’s “fringe theatre.” The material presented had elements of meaning, dotted here and there but they were few and far between and clearly an error on the part of the direction. Dialogue was often omit-

ted.and while at first this seemed a lack which the slow, tedious mimed action could use to enliven it, it became apparent that rocking the boat and disrupting the devil you know, to mix just two metaphors, is never a good idea. In striving to attribute meaning to the proceedings, I believe that issues such as unemployment, the sterility of social behaviour, not to mention sexual behaviour, the meaninglessness of most social language, chauvinism, anti-rugby he-manism and various other “isms,” were dealt with. The material appeared to be designed to baffle the audience and it succeeded in antagonising this element. Absurdist theatre ought to have some point if only to establish that there is no point. But the cross-threads

of attempted humour and incomprehensibility simply generated annoyance. Members of the company were Nick Frost, Kris Williams, Charles Heywood, Stuart McKenzie, Sarah Raymonde, Nancy Thompson, Nicki Phillips, and Patrick Evans. The performance was divided into two halves. The first consisted of the material discussed and the second included a dance group, The Moving Company. The Moving Company consists of five dancers who introduced a set of five modern dance pieces which was in total constrast to what had gone before. This was unfortunate in that it undermined the justified attention that this young and dynamic dance company deserved.