Tone List and Sage J Harlow have brought to life an original and jarring re-telling of the ancient story Orpheus & Eurydice in O,D,E. With a chamber orchestra of 6 musicians (not including the vocal instruments), the piece was composed with a text score. This style of composition involves creating music from words rather than traditional sheet music. Such a methodology eradicates the barriers to music for the instrumentalists, giving them a freedom that infects the audience.
As you walk into the theatre room, the Bluey stage opens up to seating on the back and side walls. As you cross the second threshold, you find instrumentalists flanking the walls next to you. The stage is laid out with seating on the back and side walls in a U-shape, with O and E kneeling on the floor in the middle of the stage you cross to get to your seat. The story starts with a stretch of silence which makes you susceptible to falling into the meditative state the actors seem to be held in; as if they’re pulling you into their reality. The silence is broken with a romantic scene with the genderless characters. From the first movement, Charis Postmus stirs the room with her rambunctious portrayal of E in what can only be described as an operatic clown.
O,D,E. Photography by Josh Wells.
The sounds that follow between the breaks of silence play out a novel conversation between the vocalists and the instrumentalists. There are times where it feels like the actors’ movement and voices are controlling the instrumentalists, and times when it feels like the opposite. When you go to this show and are offered earplugs at the lobby, I suggest you take them. As the sounds permeated through the air in the first act it felt like they nudged the walls and made them wobbly. Perhaps that was reality of the world outside fading.
When D, often known as Death, enters the scene she brings a haunting presence. I wasn’t entirely sure that her feet touched the ground despite what physics tells me. Michael Banting’s characterisation was the most terrifying portrayal of Death I’ve ever seen. Their presence felt like doom but delicate. A gentle flit of fear in the air.
O,D,E. Photography by Josh Wells.
The costumes by Tia Tokić were dense with absorption of the lighting and mood in the room, yet also light and receptive to movement when needed. D’s costume in particular looks like the work of an inverse lighting designer, intentionally casting shadows in the folds and crevices of the metallic taupe robe. The clothing elevated the cult-ish vibes of the story.
This experimental opera serves as evidence that you can never run out of ways to re-tell the same story.
O,D,E is presented by Sage J Harlow & Tone List and is on at The Blue Room Theatre from Aug 26 – Sept 6.