Hello My Name Is . . .
Smock Alley
***
With a sunny outlook, a scattering of amusements and an array of activities, Nicola Gunn's fetching and arch solo performance knows the difference between a warm invitation and an icy threat. It's a crucial distinction when it comes to audience participation, and the disarming Gunn involves everyone so deftly with the promise of knitting, board games, karaoke, table tennis or – gosh! – free tea and coffee that it actually takes a moment before you realise you're already in a dance class.
Set in a community centre (remarkably well played by Smock Alley Theatre's banquet hall), this wry piece from Melbourne's Sans Hotel is about the assembly of community, something that the signing of a detailed contract/indemnification agreement and the foreboding strains of O Fortuna afford a shiver of dread. Yet for all its wicked good humour, this is as much a reflection on atomisation, isolation and even masochism. "They're succulents," Gunn calls out during a throwaway gardening illustration, "they thrive on neglect." Gunn's volunteer team leader and her audience might be getting on like a house on fire, but how long before someone gets burned?
Conducting a workshop entitled “How to Change the World Through Social Transformation”, Gunn’s performance may seem breezily ironic, addressing us as a collective, for instance, while delivering something closer to a personal confession, or turning a (very) brisk walk beyond the venue into a mock manifesto on the deprivations of being an artist.
Her deadpan humour makes everything plausibly deniable, yet it’s surprising how much she chooses to reveal: stories become nakedly personal, mining relationships, betrayal and consequence, while wondering how much an artist should expose.
For all its sense of involvement, Hello my name is . . . never loses focus: its participation is used to stealthily invigorate our perspective, and when an aggrieved Nicola is told, "It's not you, it's me", that also serves to remind us of our role.
That may leave the show's aspiration to forge deeper connections just beyond its reach, but the idea is still cheering. Every relationship begins with an awareness of each other, we are told early, with laughably wide-eyed naiveté. By the end, though, you admire this charming piece for making our introduction. Until Oct 5
