The Bluebird Mechanicals | Too Close To The Sun

Image: Samuel James

Typically, when we describe something as weird, we’re also implying a certain illogicality and inscrutability to proceedings. A chaotic and indeliberate experience, full of mess and expression.

And, that is not The Bluebird Mechanicals at all.

The Bluebird Mechanicals may be one of the tightest, most considered and deliberate works I’ve ever seen. There isn’t an inch of the show that doesn’t feel like it’s been refined and distilled to its purest, most impactful essence. It knows exactly what it wants to say and exactly how to say it.

But, the work’s choice of vocabulary and materials in articulating its ideas are so removed from the norm that, again, it can only easily be described as weird.

Based on old museums, the set is possessed of a musty, miasmic queasiness. The multimedia filtered throughout the show is foggy and distortive; shuddering, unpredictable ghosts lurching up from different machines to further bewilder and challenge the audience.

The sole performer, Talya Rubin of Too Close to the Sun, veers from pouring out poetic, expressive, Chekhovian eloquence to contemptuous, salesperson-like glad-handing to percussive, repetitive surrealist puppetry – stuttering and layering syllables like scratched, glitching recordings.

Hayley Forward’s sound design, meanwhile, is among some of the most unique and affective I’ve experienced in a performance work – slashing together sepia-toned needle-drops with clattering, buzzing noise textures and cinematic, droning layers of sound. It’s a work of pure craft.

All of which is why I desperately wanted to survey every audience member.

Image: Samuel James

And, it goes on. One of the work’s highlights is a pair of ancient, alien birds mourning the loss of humanity in fractured, jagged dialogues. Buried within the Chekhov characters is a subtle parable about the foolishness of following the spectres of old white male egotists into death.

But, The Bluebird Mechanicals refuses to make much of this explicit. Or, to tie it together in a logically sequenced and digestible way. Typically in works of such ambition, there are moments where the creative team ditch the ambiguity and hold the hands of the audience. Not here.

From a personal perspective, I adored that decision.

At its heart, The Bluebird Mechanicals feels like a drawn-out metatextual shriek of horror, grief and frustration. It’s an expression of the deep, complex anxiety of having to live every day in the obscure, amorphous shadow of the apocalypse. The strangeness of paying bills as we wait for death.

And, I don’t think it would work if it was explicit. One of the great struggles of this absurd era in which we find ourselves is that it prompts so many powerful, conflicting impulses. Compassion. Rage. Amusement. Resignation. Hate. Love. Children give us hope but we fear for their future.

If The Bluebird Mechanicals coalesced into a specific screed or approach (which I feel it would have to, in order to truly dumb itself down for easier consumption), it wouldn’t be so effective at embodying that sense of churning, horrified, hilarious, hateful befuddlement.

All of which is to say – if you’re looking for a straight forward recommendation, I’m not sure I can give one.

I loved The Bluebird Mechanicals. I think it’s as near to a flawless work as I’ve seen since The Danger Ensemble’s The Hamlet Apocalypse, some eight years ago.

But, you might hate it. You might have no idea what’s going on. You might think it’s really weird, silly and pointless. (Which it is, in a way.)

However, if any of the above sounds even remotely appealing, I’d encourage you to take the leap, should the opportunity present itself.

Be bold. Embrace the weirdness.

Image: Samuel James

MJ O’Neill saw The Bluebird Mechanicals on Tuesday 17th September at the Theatre Republic, as part of the 2019 Brisbane Festival. The Bluebird Mechanicals plays until Saturday 21st September.

Nadia Jade saw The Bluebird Mechanicals in 2017. You can read her thoughts on it here.

CAST AND CREATIVES

Writer, Performer, Visual Concept, Set and Object Designer | Talya Rubin

Co-devisor and Director | Nick James