Reviewed by:
Hi Fi Way
Review by Richard De Pizzol |
23 February 2024
I studied the Adelaide Fringe guide before the festival to find things that I would find interesting. I found this gem of a play which is called An Attempt to Lose Time and the idea of the play resonated with me. It asks whether we could live without time and therefore perceive it differently. I thought the idea intriguing for someone like me with multiple daily appointments on their iPhone. Would life be better without anything telling us what time it was, without calendars or schedules?
The creator and performer of this show is Miranda Prag. Miranda has toured this show in England and Perth WA just recently. She has also performed at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe. Miranda is a passionate actor and the story was fascinating. Sometimes her voice was a recording and during this time more often than not Miranda was moving and assembling pipes and wheels into a triple connected machine. I do not want to spoil it but there was a purpose to the contraption.
Early on in the piece, she discusses a normal morning when she gets up to get ready for work and goes into detail about how one is always aware of deadlines to avoid being late. What is funny is that everyone in the room watching the play had to do the same thing to arrive on time for the performance.
Miranda explains that during the COVID lockdowns, she went off the grid for a while via her boat and along the British canals. She decided to avoid any form of time-measuring device and would get up at dawn and go to bed at sunset. This project was to work out if someone can live without time.
This was a great show and Miranda was wonderful at sharing her surreal take on human nature and time.