Cockroach
Image: Leah Donovan. Photo: Clare Hawley
Hilarious urban-noir adventure Cockroach deals with the difficult, dark and very pertinent issues of female anger and gender violence against women. It dips into the theatrical forms of stand up, dance theatre, contemporary epic poetry and a type of live music called Grunge Cabaret. This revenge tale explores the thematic literary history of transformation as seen in Kafka and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with a view through different lenses and an infusion of lots of laughter.
Performing as part of Sydney Fringe, then moving on to Melbourne and Edinburgh, this one woman show stars award-winning actor Leah Donovan as C and features a live score by musician Benito Di Fonzo on vintage Casio, electric guitar, keys, drums and percussion. A fabulous singer as well as a talented actor, Donovan takes on the music of rock chicks like 80s phenomenon X-Ray Spex and modern girl Courtney Barnett.
Writer/director, Melita Rawson was inspired by the Me Too movement which broke in October last year.
“Cockroach gave us both a theatrical framework to open up about our own experiences and we found a pathway to talk about it, using visual poetry and music to explore it,” Rawson said.
“We use acerbic black comedy in a way that transcends the rage, shame and fear, with some redemption offered at the end so that something positive comes out of it,” she added.
The starting point of Cockroach is Kafka’s famous opening in Metamorphoses and uses the metaphors of transformation into a monstrous cockroach, in relation to what emotional and physical abuse does to women.
It’s also inspired by Ovid whose epic poem from 8AD has many myths and stories where women are raped and then transformed into various animals, insects, flowers and trees. Ovid shows how society victim blames and ejects women who’ve been abused, which are contemporary issues today.
Where Rawson’s previous award-winning Fringe hit THE GIANT WORM SHOW! was sharing a storytelling medium, Cockroach is more experimental theatre. Her play MilkMilkLemonade was the Mardi Gras hit of 2013 and also featured Donovan.
Sep 6-8. Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Cnr Cleveland Street & City Road, Chippendale. $21-$26+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.seymourcentre.com
By Mel Somerville.
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