Theatre and Physical Theatre/Clown ~ WORLD PREMIERE ~ VIC]

Car Park at ARTHUR ARTBAR @ West Village, Fri 17 Feb, 2023.

In true Fringe spirit this show lives up to its name – strange, yes, bizarre and bordering on chaos, but with touches of a clown’s simplicity. Elements from magic, circus and street performance are drawn together into a ragged narrative to create a show that threatens to erupt beyond the corner of a cavernous carpark.

Supported by two shadowy figures in overalls and masks, Mitch Jones as the main punk persona paints himself as a flamboyant exhibitionist. This becomes a pedantic parody, with lots of finger pointing and rude gestures to belabour the point.

I’m not a fan of lip-synching, but the sound was good and the lyrics clear. Several songs establish this character as an anarchist, with lines like “bad and loose”, and “I’m a savage.”. Frenetic, interpretive dance is balanced by a slow-motion section to operatic arias. This is at the expense of developing and showing us some other facets of this highly flexible person. I wondered if the finesse of fork-throwing could possibly have some vegetarian bent, but then the knives also came out.

To show his complete combination of the strong and sensitive, a comical weight-lifting feat using the most tender parts of the body. Sadly though, this was unverifiable – censored for some reason, (perhaps due to children in the audience?). We were asked to suspend our belief while he suspends the weight – look ladies, no hands.

But the sweetness of true love conquers even this rusted-on, anti-everything, black-nosed devotee of the dark arts. Despite his denial, the exquisite beauty and flawless artistic precision displayed by the other company members break through his defences. Beneath the black nose the innocent clown emerges to perform a breathtaking balancing act. This is raw, masterful skill, with no tricks and puffs of smoke required, the perfect metaphor for our lives of constant tweaking in search of the goldilocks zone.

This series of acts has some rather vague segues like a smoke-filled car, with no ready reference to the goings on before or after. The gags are sometimes over-cooked, and sometimes under-done, but maybe timing is not as traditional in order to be original.

As anyone knows who has slid down the slippery slope from self-doubt to beyond, leaving the dark side is not as easy as it sounds. He probably gets the ratio right, since we are all programmed to stay safe in our set ways. Change can be an ugly struggle, with only those moments of beauty to light the path ahead. In the end the headlights shine into the dark corners of our psyche to reveal that even the hardest of hearts can open to the power of friendship and love.