Lé Nør [The Rain] produced by The Last Great Hunt performed at The State Theatre Centre as a part of Perth Festival is an eccentric exploration at a small unit building and their emotional journey as they live through a climate catastrophe.
Lé Nør has a stunningly unique stagecraft, mostly presented through live camera work, employing puppetry, clever staging, and a mix of in person and projection work. It delivers the audience a sensorily indulging experience. Spoken entirely in a made up Scandinavian language and subtitled, it takes place on Sólset an also fictional island located somewhere in the North Sea. The style is reminiscent of an 80’s B Drama incorporating dream-like, snappy, and meta storytelling which effectively brings you into this nonsensical but high stakes world.
The core ensemble of six are completely committed to the farcical but bring out the emotional stakes that leave us caring for the characters and bring us down and up with them. There are two or three other people on stage, calling them stagehands feels a bit insufficient, as they so often are a central aspect as cameraworkers or assisting with the choreography of set pieces.
Unfortunately Lé Nør has now closed but it has a history of popping up here and there every couple of years and I would strongly recommend seeking it out the next time it comes up.