Among the post-COVID phenomena in Performing Arts - which initiated an almost-complete devastation outside centralised institutions and stages (for example, performing artists losing, *gasp*, 90% of revenue Europe-wide) - there has been a noticeable surge in interesting independent production. This is partly a result of public funding (particularly the Neustart Kultur funding program) addressing the need to financially prop up a sector almost completely destroyed, and unable to practice due to social regulations. These productions do little to make up for the loss of convivial traditions, connections, and practices that occurred in 2020 and 2021. But they are interesting phenomena by themselves, and various performing artists have found ways to use the given circumstances to make visible things that would otherwise have stayed in the dusty lockers of drafts and sketches.
monstrous is an unfashionable offering from long-time theatre practitioner and environmental biotechnologist Daniela Marcozzi and dramaturg/novelist Francesca Sarah Toich, in that it pays unusual attention to theatre tradition, and bothers to involve itself in the creation of a deep and multi-layered dramatic text. The show begins with an abstract presentation of questions that will be answered later: a masked figure undertakes a carefully choreographed dance, followed by a white-masked, bird-like figure, and two pink-robed guardians. The images seem to swim and hover over the air, in a call-and-response formula that will be repeated, making propositions in the abstract that will be answered as the dystopian reality slowly unfolds.
Photo: Turlach O'Broin
Some questions are answered with the entry of (masked, of course) doctor and nurse figures, who begin to proclaim medical phenomena in direct address to the audience, although in an abrupt and absurd articulation. "I think you will be very delighted with the womb 4849, doctor!" exclaims the over-energised nurse, as the white-masked figure spreads its legs downstage in the Lithotomy position. "Where were you consummated?" asks the doctor. "Prenzlauer Berg", replies the patient. A story of giving birth to a rabbit ensues, before the patient is told that they are privileged to be giving birth to a very endangered species - the White Rhinoceros - and helpfully supplied with a description of its unique biological characteristics. This occurs among occasional pointed references to life "before the regime", and sarcastic gratitude to women for "making their wombs available for the re-population of endangered species".
